Rereading Sandman, as a writer

I reread Sandman over the last two weeks, off and on.

Meanwhile, I had to retrench financially, which both meant making some money sacrifices and making time sacrifices, so I am writing less fiction.  I also put together my ebook “How to Fail and Keep on Writing,” which I found as much of a kick in the pants editing as I did writing it.  I faced up to the fact that my current writing method wasn’t working (I need to drift back to more plotting).  I’m watching other people’s ebook numbers go up and up…while mine crawl along.

So I stopped writing new fiction for a week to give myself time to think (I can’t think critically and write fiction at the same time).  I edited.  I wrote non-fiction.

And I read Sandman, because it seemed like time.

Ahhhhh, it was painful.

Not because I can see flaws in it now (where I couldn’t before), but because it hits so much closer to home.

The death of a Dream.  Even as a creative type, there are worse things that could happen, but not many.  Your family is killed…that’s about it.

Every time I retrench, every time I have to rethink what I’m doing, I have to wonder, “Have I killed it?  Have I screwed up so badly that I can no longer be a writer?”  And there are days when I’m tempted to quit and the only thing keeping me from doing so is knowing that I’ll be back.  I’ve tried to be apathetic about writing many times; it never works out for me.  I wonder what I’m giving up, in order to do this, and knowing that I probably won’t know, until years after it’s too late to make a conscious decision about it.

A dream dies, and you get a kinder, gentler dream.  I think not.  It’s a trick.

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