Wednesday, October 21, 2009

We Authors Have it Pretty Easy

As I was sitting in the dentist's chair this morning, listening to the soft rock station piping through the building, I was struck by a thought.

These songwriters and musicians are telling us a story. They're trying to get us to think, to feel, maybe to laugh or cry. And many times, they are successful. They have to do this in about 4 minutes, using maybe 100 words. We authors get about 80,000 words and hours of our reader's time. Sure, we don't get to use instruments (unless we publish an audio book and then, um...you could probably try setting your work to music but that seems like a lot of trouble).

So really, we have it easy. Tons of words to grab our reader, lots of time to establish a relationship with them. So don't you feel better about things? You're welcome.

3 comments:

  1. Yes!

    I often marvel at the effectiveness of songs. The words that create such vivid images and evoke such strong emotions. Of course, the music helps, but they definitely have much to say with precious few words to spare. You are so right.

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  2. Oh! You have an award over on my blog, BTW. I can't remember if I already told you.

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  3. Yes, I love my award, thank you very much!!! :)

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