Noveling

I’ve always had a certain sense of [very possibly misplaced] pride in being a hobby artist. The kind of pride that says, much like my previous post, I’d rather be hungry and creative than wealthy and employed at Doldrums.

I’ve become kind of a fan of Brandon Sanderson ever since meeting him at MiniCon. I’m about the worst fan in the world being as I haven’t read any of his books yet, but his first, Elantris, is slated for my literary consumption later this year. Sanderson is well known for writing 13 novels before finally publishing his first, but even he admits this was probably because, rather than editing current projects, he would quickly move on to the next, determined to fix the issues in the next book.

While speaking of this and of writing as an art at MiniCon, he pointed out how new writers frequently differ from other types of artists in their approach to the sale of their first work – no painter finishes their first painting and rushes off to the gallery, hoping to sell it for hundreds of thousands of dollars. Writers… sometimes do. And while the comparison isn’t entirely even (it doesn’t normally take a painter several years to finish their first painting), Sanderson’s comment about the need to refine your art form doesn’t vanish once a writer sets out to pen large manuscripts.

Noveling is an art form entirely separate from writing, and while many writers possess the talent necessary to write the quality of text needed for a novel, fewer have the gumption and perseverance [should that be reckless stupidity?] to complete a novel... and even fewer have the blind belief in themselves necessary to write more than one.