I’ve been reading Chuck Wendig’s blog with some interest the past few days as he’s been talking about publishing, the quality of stories, and how that all plays with the self-indie-whatever publishing crowd. It’s good stuff (though the standard rule of thumb seems to be that I should give you the “vulgar language enclosed warning–not sure why, yes, it’s language, and yes, it’s used well).
Against that backdrop … I was jotting some notes about some story things yesterday, really just kind of free-writing in that open-minded way you do sometimes, when out came this thing:
It has to be good, right?
Yes, but no.
What is good, after all? What’s good to you is not good to me. What is good to me is probably at best irrelevant to you.
What it has to be is important–to me, anyway. And even moreso, it has to be important to me today, right now. Not yesterday, or in the future. The me of the past is gone, so he doesn’t matter. The me of tomorrow is undefined–who knows what the me of tomorrow will think. He’ll probably be different than I am now. I hope he will. So just do the work that’s important to me now and that’s good. Good enough? Shrug. What does the word “enough” have to say in that sentence. If it’s good, it’s good.
I admit I like it. Oddly, the phrase I like the most is the nearly invisible segment of “So, just do the work…” and one of the reasons I think I like that segment is that it relates directly to what Chuck Wendig is exhorting independent writers to do, that being to raise their … uh … freaking game. Or at least to pay attention to the big picture of what it means to be an independent publisher. Do the work. Pay attention to the details.
Right about now, I can hear my beloved Lisa snorting out loud–as if I can actually pay attention to details. Sheesh. But, seriously. Do your best. Respect readers. Pay attention to the business. But mostly, do all of that and write something that means something to you.