For those of you just stopping by the blog on a random Wednesday… haven’t you heard? It’s writer appreciation week!
As I’m sure you know, being a writer can be very difficult. Particularly with the amount of rejection writers have to face, whether they’re passes from agents or editors or receive one of those truly mean Amazon reviews written by those evil people who write truly mean Amazon reviews.
So. While this business can be rife with negativity, I would like to request that we forget all that tough slogging for a moment and share the love. Let’s say something nice about one or more fellow writers.
I’ll start. I’d like to thank my clients for being the most talented, professional, and hardworking group of writers I’ve ever met. I truly feel lucky to be working with you.
Oh, and Roald Dahl, wherever you are, you were my favorite writer when I was a kid and I know I wrote that fan letter to you in fifth grade and then you died that very same week, and I’d like to think that you read the letter before you passed, or, at the very least, that my letter wasn’t somehow responsible. It was a little traumatizing. You probably would have appreciated that.
Your turn!
Agatha Christie for being my first favorite author. Edgar Allen Poe for showing me how to look at things differently. J.R.R.Tolkien for giving us a world so vast it never grows old.
All my writer friends who write Tolkien fanfiction – it's a shame it can't be published for sale.
Writers I've come to know since deciding to make it in the world of original writing. I've been surprised at how helpful folks are.
Ah, would have to start off with J.R.R. Tolkien as he started my love for reading.
Next is my wife Lauri Shaw, laurishaw.com, who has shown me just how much effort goes into writing anything worth reading. I know from standing on the sidelines just how difficult a business publishing has become.
Neal Asher for guilty pleasures, and Carl Hiaasen for the belly laughs.
I want to thank all the writers out there who have changed my life with the words they have written.
You have made me a better person, changed my perspectives at times, and shown me a view of the world I would otherwise have never seen.
Thank you for the tears, the laughter, and the many, many sleepless nights. It was all worth it.
Cynthia Voigt, a recent informal discussion on Verla Kay's revealed that you are a major inspiration for many of us in our 20s-40s who are now writing YA. Many of us cite your books, most notably HOMECOMING and JACKAROO, as ones we read and loved when we were teens ourselves.
Thanks Nathan, for hosting such a detailed and interesting blog!
And Roald Dahl, yay!
I'd like to shout out to all the writers and readers on the Compuserve Books and Writers Forum!
And to all the YA authors out there, past and present, who made my childhood a little bit more magical…
There are a few that I would like to say something nice about:
Sarah Prineas (sarah-prineas.com): the brilliant author of the MG series The Magic Thief. She's a lovely human being, and always supportive of her fellow writers.
Cathy Clamp (www.ciecatrunpubs.com): the co-author of the Sazi and Thrall series (can't put these down!). She helped me avoid a terrible mistake with a bad agent back when I was just starting out. She offers advice and support to budding authors, and is a wonderful person!
George R.R. Martin (https://www.georgerrmartin.com) – Despite his busy schedule, he still takes the time to respond to emails. The Song of Ice and Fire series is incredible and helped to mold my own writing.
Margaret Weis (https://www.margaretweis.com/wp/) – She has been a huge influence on me as a writer. She's a warm and wonderful (and down-to-earth) human being, and her work in the Deathgate Cycle is, in my eyes, some of the best writing ever.
Robert J. Sawyer (https://www.sfwriter.com/) – He's always supportive of other writers, offers sound advice, responds kindly to emails, and his Neanderthal Parallax and WWW series are superb!
I'd like to thank Nathan for his wonderful blogs! And Buttonman88 for making me LOL with his "This is Roald. Woo-Woo…" comment.
Kahlil Gibran "THE PROPHET" was my first real inspiration and love. I didn't need to write him a letter because I knew I was his reincarnation. We shared the same birthday.
My random tastes in reading have lead me to Dean Koonz, James Patterson, Garrison Keillor, Tim O'Brien, and on and on.
Writers are a funny bunch.
I want to thank my writing soul mates, Sam and Lisa for inspiring me and always gently pushing me to be a better writer with each word. Their questions, critiques and advice have shaped me and I don't think I could ever thank them enough!
First, to Kirk Munroe for "The Flamingo Feather" which I read as a child while learning what storytelling was all about.
Second, to Michael Shaara, gone too soon, but never forgotten.
Third, to Diana Gabaldon for always being there on the CompuServe books and writers forum (and its predecessors).
Fourth, to my high school English teachers who thought that with my attitude about the way English was taught, I'd never amount to anything. I'm happy to say they were right because I became a writer.
Malcolm
I'm just catching up…and I was right there with you with the Roald Dahl fan letter! My fifth grade teacher loved him and our whole class sent fan letters. Shortly after Roald Dahl died, we received his response letter (um, presumably written before he died…). My teacher just bawled and bawled when it came.
Thanks for Author Appreciation Week…this should be a national holiday (where we not only show the love, but also get to stay home from our day jobs and write!).
I think this was about saying something nice about a WRITER…and I'm pretty sure Nathan doesn't qualify. Hey, I love this blog as much as anyone else, but geez people! Enough of the sycophantic pandering!
Keep up the good work Nathan!
I really enjoy reading Jim Butcher's Dresden File Series. It makes me laugh when I've had a bad day. He's an amazing writer.
Toni Morrison – you blew me away my freshman year of college with "Beloved" and reawakened the reader in me. I haven't stopped since. Thank you!!!
Thank you to the magical Mary Stewart. Your suspense novels kept me up until 2:00 a.m. on many, many occasions. They made my life seem boring, but they inspired the first novel I ever wrote (then re-wrote entirely).
Nathan, you're a helluva writer in your own right, and though you're not "published" in the sense, your insights into this biz draws images in our minds the way Charles M. Schulz used his "Peanuts" strip and Linus Van Pelt to educate us. Your influences, however indirect, shine through in your posts, making you as much a writer as we are, like "Peanuts" did for Schulz. You're awesome! Thanks for doing all you do.
Big props to my amazing crit group posse: Hope, Sharon, Nicole, Barrie, Ashley, Marisol, Jake, Dave, Bob, Benjamin, Melinda, Joan, Tim, Cheryl, Stephen, Raven, Chris, Gilbert, Kristen, my blog followers and Robin. You guys never stop inspiring me to push past what's easy.
C.S. Lewis, who proved intelligent writing doesn't mean a limited imagination.
Paula Danziger, who left this world much too young and still have many well-moving stories to tell another generation of kids.
Beverly Cleary, who made me think a mouse can actually drive a motorcycle and being a pest has its crazy reasons–even after I should've long stop reading those books :).
Roald Dahl, who gave me permission to stretch my imagination and never stop pushing the boundaries of dreams. Hey, if a kid can travel to NYC via peach, anything can happen anywhere.
Bruce Hale, who makes me laugh with his screwy takes on Chandler novels.
Piers Anthony, who created the first (I think) magical realism genre in Xanth and gave its people some of the most stupid–and amazing–talents ever known. 🙂
S.E. Hinton, who made it okay for a girl to write form a dude's POV.
John D. Fitzgerald, who put a charm, kibosh and let smart-ass run amok–to be reined in or used later from his sneaky older brother, Tom D., in his GREAT BRAIN novels.
Dr. Seuss. He just threw convention out the window and it works!
Maurice Sendak. I never get tired of seeing how wild things can get.
Donald E. Westlake, for making me laugh and think in HELP, I'M BEING HELD PRISONER.
Mark Twain, who never gave a damn what people thought of what he wrote, and so used his characters' voices to say what decorum prevented him in saying. And he lent his voice to get his characters deeper than who they were (much to Tom and Huck's dismay).
And lastly, since this is long enough and I've got just so much time on this Oscar stage:
**cueing music**
Kudos to George Carlin, who wrote 20 pages per day to win a Twain Award for Humor posthumously in 2008, had some 14 HBO specials, three books, 23 albums, winning a Grammy with one, 130 visits on "The Tonight Show" and still had more unpublished material before he left this life.
Now that there, kids, is persistence. And appreciation for the craft, since you never fully arrive. You just keep getting better :).
~Missye
Pat Bertram, who has had some books published with a small relatively new publisher Second Wind Publishing.
To date she has been my biggest source of encouragement. She is ever helpful and quick to answer questions, give helpful advice, and give encouragement and even a cyber pat on the back now and then.
Tess Gerritsen is a brilliant writer and a wonderful human being. Both she and Pamela Morsi were kind enough to give me an endorsement for my first book — even though it was self-published. I cut my reading teeth on Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. Roald Dahl was fun. Read Piers Anthony a lot when younger. Illusion by Paula Volsky was a coming-of-age story for me. Current faves:
J.K. Rowling
Neil Gaiman
Ntozake Shange
Sophie Kinsella
Tess Gerritsen
Terry Pratchett
John Grisham
Pamela Morsi
Alice Walker
Nick Hornby
The author of the Sookie Stackhouse series is really good, I just hate vampires. . . and, well, many, many more. Maybe even, in the near future, some of this blog's posters.
My college creative writing instructor who also was a fine playwrite, Thomas Erhard at New Mexico State University for believing in me and my writing. And also for another of my creative writing instructors there, Mark Medoff (playwright of Children of a Lesser God) who told me if I was willing to work hard enough I could make it as a writer.
Very late this, but I want to thank Oscar-nominated sreenwriter William Nicholson for reading, liking and supplying a cover quote for my second fantasy novel "CloudWorld At War" after I was dropped by my publisher. I've heard of published writers and unpublished (or even pre-published) writers, but is there such a thing as a de-published writer? If so, I'm it.
I'd like to thank E.M. Forster for having written the following sentence, which he wrote in a communication sent to a friend while working on A PASSAGE TO INDIA.
I might be paraphrasing here, because I can't remember the quotation specifically, but this sentence has gotten me through a few tough times as a writer.
"I am so tired, not of writing, but of not writing, of thinking the novel bad, and so not writing, and of not writing, and so thinking it bad – that viscous circle."
Wow, what a sentence: well written, and true. That one would've made even Shakey whistle.