Writer Cat Fight

(I guess I'll redact this post, since the one it was in response to was deleted.)

 

Earlier, you said Jones had a messianic complex.

Perhaps you need to get clear whether you don't like Jones' blog because you find him arrogant, or you don't like Jones because he's not arrogant enough to eschew a blog.

 

Geshundheit. 8)

 

Sorry. I grew up in a family where people used "somnambulant" and "abrogate" in dinner table conversations. </crossthread>

 

Did you eschew your food carefully?

 

Co-signed.

And if nothing else, even if people disagree with Jones, that blog has sparked some pretty good conversations about - gasp! - writing. That alone makes it worthwhile.

 

And this thread has inspired some pretty good writing in its own right. This one was worth popping the popcorn for.

 

The thing I don't get is how so many people think he finished the story, hit send and popped the cork on his 1995 Dom Perignon. He didn't. He wrote the story and even though he says he was afraid of the response, he was probably very self-satisfied. I know I am when I write a story that sings.

But then time went on, and he read other magazines, and he thought about his own, and he probably said, 'Hey, if I send this in, I could win." Anyone who has responded to his opinion negatively, yet sent in their own award application, is a hypocrite. We all think we can win, or else we wouldn't send it in.

This thread has been a real eye-opener to me, though, because when powerful, strong writers come together, it's like a burst of light. I know that this site has seen some tough times because the business has had some tough times. But this is why I keep coming back. Thanks to all of you who've shared.

 

I don't know if I'd go that far. I enter awards contests because my boss makes me do it. Otherwise, I wouldn't. I've told him I really don't care about winning awards. He does, he's the boss, so I acquiesce.

I've won some awards. It's nice, but not anything that motivates me.

That said, if you take the word "award" out of this equation and just replace it with the notion that everyone knows when they've done something better than their usual standard, then I don't see what the problem is. Every writer feels that way.

However, I don't have good recall of what I wrote, especially over the typical 12-month award period for newspapers. I'm sure there's shit I wrote back in October that might have been award-worthy, but I'll be damned if I can remember it (and our newspaper search engine is beyond awful, which doesn't help). That doesn't help my award-motivation cause. The task of mining your own trove for treasure is just tedious to me.

Combine that with the total randomness by which awards are judged (and I've judged them), and I just don't put any stock in any part of the process as a means of validation.

 

That's just amazingly wrong. As said already, right after your post and before it and now again, the choice to enter certain competitions is not really a choice. Read. Think.

 

Truly rich coming from the same poster who abhors Whitlock and worships every falsely modest, phony awards-chaser in the business. You helping the bearded outdoorsman work on his house today? Or are you assisting the bearded outdoorsman attack college girls who realize his shallowness leads to dishonesty in his work?

 

This is a great example of something I mentioned in another thread. You'll be in here for the next several days responding in this fashion, simply because people disagree with the opinion of your buddy, and I assume you're one of the clique who can do that.

Weak stuff there.