The Confabulator Cafe

Tag: writer’s life

  • The Redwood Retreat

    Once upon a time, in the fabled woods of the writing life, a quaint cottage nestled in the trunk of a giant redwood.  A magic garden provided food for its inhabitant(s) with just the tiniest bit of foraging; a fresh stream ran through the kitchen.  Inside the cottage stood a desk and many shelves of books, lovely novels that teased the imagination into ever-expanding realms. Endless stacks of paper remained perfectly aligned there by an array of fountain pens with all possible colors of ink and the smoothest tips.  Only the music of birds disturbed the air in that writer’s paradise, and the bold weaver of worlds woke up well-rested each morning, wrote several thousand words of brilliance before noon, and polished the previous day’s already-sparkling prose to greater clarity, humor, and communicative power in the afternoon.

    Ah, to live there.  Ah, to have no obstacles to writing–no time management problems, no distractions, no depression or cynicism, no other job, no basic human urges to satisfy, no human relationships tempting us away from the paper and pencil, no headache-inducing stress that makes you watch television mindlessly for hours rather than writing.

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  • What is your goal as a writer?

    Goals are tricky things, like New Year’s Resolutions in a way. They are things that everyone has in their minds. Sights that are set, whether realistic or not, as plateaus to be attained. Writers are dreamers – in general – and sometimes those goals are lofty indeed. This week, the Confabulators are challenged to tell us what their goals are. Setting things like this down in stone (really pixels but who’s quibbling?) are tough for us to do, too.

    So check out what we have to say on the subject of what we want to do or what we want our writing to be. This’ll be interesting for sure.

    Ted Boone

    Tangible goal: receive a publishing offer from a legitimate publishing house. Ephemeral goal: write stories that entertain my audience.

    Larry Jenkins

    Is it shallow if I say I’m really looking forward to groupies?  Oh, wait . . . do we have literary groupies?  Are they hot?  Shit!  That does sound shallow.  Just say peace.  Yeah, peace.  I’m looking forward to my writing bringing about world peace.  Suck on that, haters!

    R. L. Naquin

    I’m very fortunate right now that I have two novels contracted. Realistically, I know that’s not going to be enough to bring in a living wage. My goal is to write and sell enough books to build up a backlist and have a steady income from it. I figure, oh, I don’t know, a gazillion should do it. Maybe two gazillion. The economy is a little rough.

    Kevin Wohler

    I have three goals for my writing. I want to have someone publish my 1) novel, 2) short story collection, and 3) book of poetry. If I can accomplish these things before I die, I will consider myself a successful writer — even if they don’t sell a single copy.

    Jack Campbell, Jr.

    My goal would be to make a living writing full-time, but I am a bit of a realist. I would be happy with making enough of an income out of writing that I could actually say it contributed to my yearly income in a meaningful way. I would like to publish a novel, a short story collection, and have a screenplay produced. I would also like to write academic papers and teach literature or writing. I’ve also thought about starting a small press in retirement, editing a literary journal and publishing small regional titles. My goals are pretty vast, but sometimes those are the best ones to have.

    Jason Arnett

    Consulting my crystal ball (the oracle is on vacation, stoned on a beach somewhere) I can honestly say that I’ve got some pretty high-falutin’ goals: getting a novel published by a Name House and parlaying that opportunity into a full-time writing career. It’s not likely, but it’s possible. I can see just the barest pinpoint of light on the horizon. Maybe that’s a star. Or torches and pitchforks. I don’t know, but I have to go now. Time to start walking that direction and see what I can see.