John McIntyre, the assistant managing editor for the copy desk at The Baltimore Sun, and writes You Don't Say, gave everyone the heads-up for a new blog called Words to the Wise, which is written by Kathy Schneck of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel here in Milwaukee.

It's nice to have people close to home. I feel a little isolated at times way out here in the Midwest, even though we're so close to Chicago. There aren't all that many fiction editors or agents in the Milwaukee area, and it'll be nice to read some thoughts from someone like Kathy, who works for a newspaper like The Journal.

I shall eagerly revisit and comment on it. Though I will say that there seems to be a lot of Journal-reader-based commenting going on, so I suppose that means I shall have to work more diligently on pouring over the paper every morning before work.

This article came across my desk today (which has been packed with more than I knew what to do with lately - hence the delay in posts).

It's a good article, for the most part, and I really only wanted to comment on the fact that it's interesting that it's found a site completely unrelated to writing at all. As a process, creative writing is taxing at best and harrowing at worst. It's a job that I love, but sometimes I wish I'd gone with something a little more profitable.

There are a few things in the article that I did want to respond to.

First,

...In the end, there’s no such thing as the “perfect size” for writing. Short isn’t bad, and neither is long. That is, unless either size is forced...

A lot of people seem to think that this is true. A lot of publishers want you to think this is true. The bigger the book is, the less likely it is to sell in today's market because people have shorter attention spans, on average, when it comes to reading. Ironically, though, no one seems to be publishing novellas, which would be a much more marketable reading portion for the average reader.

Second,

If you don’t know what to write about, write fantasy: it’s the easiest to work with...Everything takes work.

Nothing could be more true. I've had relatively vehement discussions (for literature geeks, I mean) about the "validity" of fantasy fiction - or any genre fiction, really. Most people have the misconception that "escapist" literature (and I despise that term) is an easy way out when you're stuck for what to write. You can certainly make up whatever you want a lot of the time, but you always have to be consistent with what you make up, and that's what hangs people up when they start to write it.

Lastly,

...critics have written many papers explaining just why there is no more for literature to truly achieve.

While their arguments make sense, given enough arguing back and forth, never assume that everything has been done. There is always some sort of new grounds to explore...

The greatest achievement as a writer isn't to write something new, it's to write something fresh. If you can write something that can catch your readers attention in a way they've never experienced, then that's an accomplishment. It doesn't matter if it's a story that has been written before, it hasn't been written the way you wrote it - and that's the challenge.