Writing Forum

I think that's most of it, from the author's point of view.

I imagine one could say confidence instead, if one were concerned about being perjorative, but that isn't really it. Confidence despite all evidence to the contrary seems to be necessary to ram your head through the wall that guards the mythical land of the published. Arrogance to charge into a group, virtually, and say here's a story that you simply must hear. Thick skinned. Dense. Stubborn. Mad. I think all these things have a place in the tool kit character of the published author. (looking at it from the outside.)

The train of thought that leads to this comes to me through the works of Orson Scott Card and George RR Martin which I've recently consumed. I name it arrogance, oh wonderful arrogance, to believe your own telling so completely to catch up another (and so many others) into a world of nothing but your own imagining. I am awed by them (not a bad thing perhaps) and daunted by it (unfortunate I think) and yet this is not outside my own capacity to do (I would hope if that were not so passive as to make arrogance a virtue.)

So how do you write what you are not?

LSO