Paperback Writer had an interesting post the other day on productivity. That's such an issue with writers. We don't even need someone else to question us, we do it ourselves constantly. Am I writing enough? Am I writing too much, and possibly going to burnout. What's enough? You don't even have to be 'new' to ask these questions and many more all the time of yourself. Even writers who have written for years and years, have been published several times, and have a reasonable feel for what is right for them ask the same questions. Being a writer we're all subject to the opinions of those beyond our control. Editors, publishers, even the reading public, and what one thinks, or feels isn't necessarily what another thinks and feels about a piece, or a writer in general so you never really know what to think, and of course, very few of us are quite egotistical enough to let our own beliefs and egos carry us through times of questioning. I'm pretty sure that's even true of those who've reached rather stellar heights of popular best selling lists from what I've read fairly recently. So what's a writer to do? I don't think there will ever be an answer to those questions. I think writers will ask those very same questions of themselves until time eternal, just as they have been since the dark ages. Maybe those questions are what keeps us fueled and producing. Maybe those questions stop those that can't handle the pressures--either that or causes them to drink.
Where's my glass again?
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