Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Some thoughts on the current state of affairs in publishing

I meant to post something last night, but I got distracted by the Packers/ Bears game which lead me to make the following observations:
1. The Bears were beyond lucky to win.
2. Aaron Rodgers cannot catch a break.
3. I would never ever ever ever sit outside anywhere to watch a game if the weather was as bad as it was in Chicago last night.

Okay. Now that I've got THAT out of my system, I want to talk about the World of Publishing Today--which is kind of depressing, actually. As you probably know, a number of big publishers have cut jobs recently. All of us who write (or edit) feel shaken by these developments. Where are we all headed? And the answer is that I don't know. I'm not sure anyone does. So how does that affect what I write?

I've given this a lot of thought and in the end I just keep on coming back to what I've always maintained--a person should write the thing he or she wants to write. Fantasy in a post-Harry Potter world is still hot, hot, hot. Does that mean you should write fantasy? Only if that's what you really want to do. Life is too short and writing is too hard to take on a project you don't love.

Anyway. Just a thought or two . . .

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