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Post by Faye on Jan 12, 2007 5:18:05 GMT 10
Recently, I fell into conversation with the friend of a groom at a wedding. When he asked what I did, I told him I was an author. He looked skyward. "Ah yes," he said. "An author. Well, we all have a book in us, don't we?" I had to tell him that the book was not in me any more; it was in lorries on its way to Waterstone's.(Kate Williams, author of England's Mistress, a biography of Lady Emma Hamilton, writing in Mslexia magazine) That quote has had me thinking all day about the crass remarks writers have thrown at them, and so I decided to open the floor in my public blog and compile a list of writers' most hated remarks. It can be found here: blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=144423417&blogID=216200015&MyToken=648e3165-2c56-442c-80a8-cf28b483a96e , so please comment either on that entry or this one if you have any to add - I'll edit them into the list.
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dawn
Neophyte
Posts: 6
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Post by dawn on Jan 13, 2007 4:35:14 GMT 10
Well said, Scaerie Faerie. I would have pushed him headfirst into the wedding cake! ;D How about a 'Did they give you money?' with a look of such disbelieve on the woman's face as if she was totally unable to believe that anything I wrote could be of any interest to anyone.
This is an attitude, rather than a quote, but so many people do not consider writing a 'real' activity. Writng should be stopped at a moment's notice to sit and drink endless cups of coffee and chat about things that we discussed the day before! As if deadlines in publishing don't count.
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Post by Faye on Jan 15, 2007 6:08:09 GMT 10
Yes, I think I'll be borrowing that retort for future use myself! I think if I were to be faced with that old chestnut about everyone having a book in them, I'd be tempted to say "Well come on, let's see it". Either they'd be spurred into actually doing something instead of just moaning about it, or they'd realise that it isn't as easy as they might have thought. I definitely agree about the notion of writing being one long teabreak - I keep meaning to ask people who are self-employed in other areas if they have the same problem; I'd imagine that they do.
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Post by Peter Muir on Jul 24, 2007 22:42:09 GMT 10
I'm an actor and I find a similar attitude. I'm currently in my second year of an Acting BA, and the looks I get when after people ask me what I’m studying. One comment i recieved was, "Why would you study for three years to learn to say, 'Would you like fries with that?' huh?"
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