Angst

 

From time to time I surf over to the Absolute Write forum, just to get a taste for what writers are talking about. It occurred to me that writers are some of the most neurotic people on earth. They agonize over debunked theories and now-forgotten issues like Covid. Do writers need their neuroses in order to write? 

Maybe that's why I'm unsuccessful. I'm too firmly planted in the real world. I'm not an obsessive. Where's a little angst when you need it?

Most of the threads have zero connection to writing. It's like the "writing community" on Twitter. Posters are far more likely to talk about what they had for dinner than about what they're writing. Meanwhile, I suppose, actual writers are busy writing. 

AW does give me a chuckle with its compulsive focus on not pissing off agents. Agents don't care enough about your query to carry out a vendetta against you because you inserted a comma rather than a semi-colon, or because you submitted your manuscript to multiple agents at the same agency, even though their guidelines allow it. Most likely they (or their assistant) scanned the first line of your query and then dropped it in the trash. Agents don't care who you are and they have no interest in caring. 

I only scan the AW forum out of boredom. I'm not querying, have no intention of ever querying, and talk of Covid or what Trump is doing makes me want to scratch out my eyeballs. 

Come to think of it, a thread about dinner entrees sounds kind of exciting at this point.