Creative Differences

I've been reading a book called REINVENTING THE REST OF OUR LIVES: WOMEN IN SECOND ADULTHOOD by Suzanne Braun Levine. I doubt I'll finish it -- it seems very much aimed at busy career women of a certain socio-economic bracket. In other words, not me.

Also, I don't have to be told to examine my life. I do that all the time. I think it comes with the territory. As I try to figure out my characters' motivations, I often think about my own.

And I keep remembering something I once heard about boomer women and childbirth: "You'd think nobody'd had kids until they came along."

Despite my quibbles, this book does have some interesting parts, and I can relate to elements of it. There was one part that really stood out for me. The author has been an editor of a number of magazines. She lost her job and:

"OK, I thought, I'll become a writer instead.... What I didn't understand then is that, although the elements -- words -- are the same for an editor and a writer, the practice is diametrically opposite. The difference lies in whose words they are. Running a magazine is primarily reactive -- issuing assignments and decisions in response to the need of the publication and the staff, making other people's words work, and talking, talking, talking. Writing is internal: pushing the brain to find new questions and to answer them in compelling ways. And any conversation that takes place is inside your own head. It is profoundly assertive, aggressive work, more active than anything I had done before."

Whoo, Nelly! Assertive? Aggressive? What the --?

But you know, I think she's on to something.

I think it is pretty assertive and yes, aggressive, to say, "I'm going to tell story and I believe I'll do it well enough that people will want to read it."

Romance writer as Amazon.

Yep, I like it!