A hard thing working on more Bea Wolf is remembering that it really was this hard the first time! The killer thing with poetry is you gotta spend a chapter's worth of time on a single stanza.
Weirdly I keep having this "oh god nobody's gonna read this" feeling even though the first book did fine. It's just so frickin weird I always feel like everyone's just putting me on.
@ZachWeinersmith If you can get your army of daily SMBC readers to read through long-winded esoteric philosophical arguments with a twist, people will buy and read your books. You and Kelly are super talented and write great books. You got this.
With both A City on Mars and Bea Wolf, I had this funny experience where like, as a writer you fantasize about doing something really different from the pack. But then when you actually, by accident in both cases, end up actually doing it, it just feels anxious and blargh.
@ZachWeinersmith I really enjoyed Bea Wolf and I'm anxiously waiting for my copy of A City on Mars! I'm not sure what others think, but I think they're great and am excited to see what you do in the future! Keep 'em coming please!
@ZachWeinersmith With A City on Mars and Bea Wolf, you’re setting yourself up for your next book to start with a “C” sound, and committing to writing 24 more books.
@ZachWeinersmith I am thrilled to read that you are working on more Bea Wolf!
Also I find it strangely comforting that people whose work I respect struggle with these same feelings I have. Everybody at work tells me I am pretty good at my job, but I still feel like I’m pretty bad at my job.
@faraiwe I have more impostor syndrome with the science stuff, mostly because when you're trying to synthesize a big picture you're inevitably weaker than an expert on every specific topic. With Bea Wolf, I feel like I have the ability, but it's so fucking weird it's just very easy to doubt that any of it will hit. Plus you wanna stretch the words as far as they'll go without breaking, which is also tricky. But I have a 9-year-old to test on, so...
It's so stupidly common., impostor syndrome, it's about the biggest source of anxiety (besides funding, but that's another talk) among people who suff... erm... undergo grad school
@ZachWeinersmith As a gamedev, this feels very familiar. You spend years of effort working on a product, and then you put it out there and have maybe a month to figure out if all that time was worthwhile. That kind of situation is just going to cause anxiety, there's no avoiding it!
@byobattleship While back I read a guy who was a lifelong political consultant and then wrote a memoir. He said the memoir was much much worse because you do this thing where you've spilled your life into a book and then someone will walk up, flip through it, put it down, go elsewhere.
@ZachWeinersmith I must confess... I did not read it yet, the two copies I offered, I did not have a chance to go further than the first few pages before the children took them away :D
I guess I need a third one for myself :)
@ZachWeinersmith Extremely correct. I've been working on translating Bea into Dutch for my kids, and it is insanely difficult (since both I and they have a critical ear for meter, plus I want to keep as many references intact as possible)
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