A Quote by Jeff Lindsay
The first rejection that 'Dexter' got, I was like, 'OK. This hasn't worked. Let's try something else. I'll go get a teaching job or something.'
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Probably my first couple years in the league, I started paying more attention to what I was wearing. Once I got a few bucks in my pocket and I could afford some nice things, and you get to go, 'OK, let's try some of these things.' And once you try something you like, you probably don't change it much.
You want to be a writer? A writer is someone who writes every day, so start writing. You don't have a job? Get one. Any job. Don't sit at home waiting for the magical opportunity. Who are you? Prince William? No. Get a job. Go to work. Do something until you can do something else.
I'm like, 'Man, if I'm going to have this idle time, I might as well be in school, do something positive where I'm not just wasting my prime years and not getting something else in return.' If I'm in school and training, that's OK. I did that in college. It worked.
When I'm curious about something, I do it full on and take it as far as I go, but when I feel like I've really explored it, I'm OK with putting it aside and going on to something else.
If the idea is you're working at a job solely to pay the bills because you have ambitions to do something else, if you're not actively trying to do that other thing, you've gotta make sure you're doing that. Sometimes you've gotta take away your own safety net. But if you feel miserable in a day job, in any job, get out of that. Look for something else. Stay in that job until you have the other thing set up, and then go to that other thing. But sometimes you've just got to jump out with a parachute and trust that you're going to land someplace safe.
What is rejection? Rejection is something that you try and you don't get.
I look at all my opponents, and they could be something else. They could go out and get a normal, regular job. I look at myself and I can't do that. I have a strike on my back. I can't have a normal job. So, I've got to fight for everything I've got.
Every time someone puts an objection to me, I want to say: 'OK, OK, let's go on to something else.' Objections have never contributed anything.
I got involved as an activist when I was in high school, around the Iraq war. That's how I got involved. It seemed like, OK, we're going to go to war. It doesn't seem like a good idea. Someone should do something. I'm looking around and, like, I am someone, and I might not be able to do everything, but I can do something.
Writing novels is largely about endurance and patience. I take a lot of breaks, hit walls, and go do something else while I think things through. But I do it every day, and I try to treat it as a job, something that is not dictated by whimsy or muses.
The very first practice we [Woody Weatherman, Mike Dean & myself ] did it was like, "Oh ok, I get it." We were jamming on some crazy ass, out of the box, weird time signature riffs and I got it, whereas anyone else who was playing with them recently would have been like, "What? What are you doing?" So I think there's something unspoken between the three of us that makes us Corrosion of Conformity.
Writing is like everything else: the more you do it the better you get. Don't try to perfect as you go along, just get to the end of the damn thing. Accept imperfections. Get it finished and then you can go back. If you try to polish every sentence there's a chance you'll never get past the first chapter.
I’ve always had this idea that if you’re going to try something, if you’re going to expend that first big block of effort and energy to participate - whether it’s riding the Tour de France or applying for a new job or coaching your daughter’s soccer team - you might as well go ahead and give whatever else it takes to win, I mean, I’m going to be there no matter what, right? Why not go ahead and get the victory?
And don't get hurt,' [Dexter] added. 'There's no one to help you up there. And don't go stirring up a lot of trouble for us. This case isn't ripe yet. Until it is, our policy with Mr Big is 'live and let live'.' Bond looked quizzically at Captain Dexter In my job,' he said, 'when I come up against a man like this one, I have another motto. It's 'live and let die'.
It's a shame publishers send rejection slips. Writers should get something more substantial than a slip that amounts to a pile of confetti. Publishers should send something heavier. Editors should send out rejection bricks, so at the end of a lot of years, you would have something to show besides a wheelbarrow of rejection slips. Instead you could have enough bricks to build a house.
My father, OK, when we first got old enough to hunt, this was his rule: If you shoot it, you come home and eat it. Otherwise you do not shoot it, OK? You don't just kill something for the sake of killing it, OK? If you kill it, you gotta grill it, so to speak.
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