Tuesday, October 10, 2006

Turning Down Work

I got asked to do an essay on Thomas Harris for a book coming out on his work and ended up saying no. There was a time not so long ago when I would have said yes. But I've been doing so much non-fiction lately, and have been really aching to get back to fiction. If I keep agreeing to do articles, even though the pay is pretty decent, I'll write my life away without getting to some of the stories I really want to tell. To do justice to the Harris article would take a lot more than the writing time, too, of course. I've read all of Harris's books but have made no systematic study of them. Research time is more than half the battle for such a piece.

After turning down the essay opportunity, the editor asked if I'd be willing to do an "afterword" instead and I'm considering it. That would take much less time and research and might be kind of fun. I'm thinking it would be more opinion and verbal fireworks than it would facts, and I've got plenty of opinion. I guess we'll see.

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