A quarter-million words is what you get if you’re writing four sentences a day for eight years. The total might feel like the accomplishment of your life. A quarter-mil can also haunt you and taunt you, depending on how close you get to revisions.
We need authors to tell their stories of success and their struggles. While listening closely, I try aligning my circumstances and experiences with the author’s. What sort of life did they launch from, in order to attain the orbit of their career? I hear about education, mentoring and family help, their alliances with other artists. It’s all too easy to add these elements to a pile I can call privilege. Private prep school, colleges whose student body is well-off, parents already in the arts and creative careers.
This adding up rarely motivates me, although it could light a fire under all of us.