Here's how I break it down:if you go in for the whole oh-how-I-suffer-for-my-art kind of thing, then fine. But do that whilst you're writng. During the process of writing the story belongs to you, it's an extremely personal experience, so don't show it to anybody.
But when it's finished -
- it's no longer yours.
It becomes a product you have to improve and sell. Post a fragment and get folks to knock it over and kick it around. Revise it - coldly. Its a product, it's got faults, it ain't fit for public comsumption. Rub it out and draw it back in again. You get the idea.
Then send your product out and absolutely and totally and completely forget about it.
Next get back to creating art. Lose yourself in a story, roll in it and love it and have just the bestest fun in the world and stroke your ego by telling yourself that it's the greatest thing anyone's ever written. This is your moment: be selfish.
Then start the whole process all over again: you finish it, it's no longer yours, it's a product concept that you hand over to the rest of your colleagues who tell you what works, what doesn't and what needs to be done in order to make it a sellable product. It's not personal any longer, it's business.
Just remember that: after the story's written it becomes business.
[This message has been edited by Paul-girtbooks (edited September 25, 2005).]