Thoughts on accomplishment
Nov. 3rd, 2008 08:19 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
valarltdOkay, take this for what it's worth, since I'm a liberal who "hates real Americans who work hard and achieve."
I've been thinking a lot about achievement and accomplishment and taking credit. (Mudd's been reading Ayn Rand)
I realize that none of my accomplishments are at all mine.
Consider, Naomi and I have a book coming out in a few months, Glad Hands.
Some would say that's a huge achievement and aren't we lucky to live in a country where you can pull yourself up from nothing liked that!
Thing is, I didn't pull myself up. I had a LOT of help.
Yes, Naomi and I plunked our butts in the chairs and wrote the darn thing.
But, the following people get credit too.
Without any one of them, I wouldn't have been able to write it.
1) Mrs. Beatty for teaching me to write.
2) My mother and grandmother for teaching me to type.
3-4) Mr. Brannan and Prof. Doty for teaching to write better.
5) Laurie for inspiring me to write stories.
6) Mudd, for making sure I always have a working computer and word processor
7) The people at Roadmaster for teaching me to drive a truck.
8) The people at Falcon for taking a chance on me and hiring me.
9-10) Dan and Dave for living with me for five weeks and teaching me all the stuff the school didn't.
11) Rob Knight for taking a chance on me with the Monsters anthology. I'd be writing fanfic w/o that.
12) Torquere Press, for keeping on publishing and editing me.
13) The person from MidSouthCon who saw that I had a pro-piece and put me in for the Darrell
14) The Darrell Jury which got me to the finals with "Prey" and thus allowed me to go to MidSouth as a guest. Without that, I'd never have met the next person.
15) Elizabeth Donald who told me about Ellora's Cave and encouraged me to submit.
16) Brianna, my editor, who took a big chance with me.
17)![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
trollprincess for starting Fandom High
18)nbrooks, whom I met in that game, and without whom the story would have never been written
19) The NaNoWriMo crew, because it was a Nano novel.
20+) A dozen or so drivers I asked about what they saw as the future of trucks and trucking.
That's well over 20 people DIRECTLY involved.
That's not counting the people who built the trucks I drive, the people who built the roads I use, the people who buy the cars and repair the cars whose parts I haul, the people who created the Internet, and AIM (where most of the novel was plotted), and Word Perfect, the people who built my computer (and desk and chair). Nor influences that led me to write what I did, including the Known World Handbook, The Handmaid's Tale, Friday, the mockumentary CSA, Ronnie Milsap's "Prisoner of the Highway," the Rigrocker and Hammerdown Radio, and Convoy (the movie).
Had any one of those people not been in that place at that time, I wouldn't be looking at a novel with my name on it. So much for the idea of "individual achievement." From the list, it looks like most of the country helped me write this thing!
I've been thinking a lot about achievement and accomplishment and taking credit. (Mudd's been reading Ayn Rand)
I realize that none of my accomplishments are at all mine.
Consider, Naomi and I have a book coming out in a few months, Glad Hands.
Some would say that's a huge achievement and aren't we lucky to live in a country where you can pull yourself up from nothing liked that!
Thing is, I didn't pull myself up. I had a LOT of help.
Yes, Naomi and I plunked our butts in the chairs and wrote the darn thing.
But, the following people get credit too.
Without any one of them, I wouldn't have been able to write it.
1) Mrs. Beatty for teaching me to write.
2) My mother and grandmother for teaching me to type.
3-4) Mr. Brannan and Prof. Doty for teaching to write better.
5) Laurie for inspiring me to write stories.
6) Mudd, for making sure I always have a working computer and word processor
7) The people at Roadmaster for teaching me to drive a truck.
8) The people at Falcon for taking a chance on me and hiring me.
9-10) Dan and Dave for living with me for five weeks and teaching me all the stuff the school didn't.
11) Rob Knight for taking a chance on me with the Monsters anthology. I'd be writing fanfic w/o that.
12) Torquere Press, for keeping on publishing and editing me.
13) The person from MidSouthCon who saw that I had a pro-piece and put me in for the Darrell
14) The Darrell Jury which got me to the finals with "Prey" and thus allowed me to go to MidSouth as a guest. Without that, I'd never have met the next person.
15) Elizabeth Donald who told me about Ellora's Cave and encouraged me to submit.
16) Brianna, my editor, who took a big chance with me.
17)
trollprincess for starting Fandom High18)
nbrooks, whom I met in that game, and without whom the story would have never been written19) The NaNoWriMo crew, because it was a Nano novel.
20+) A dozen or so drivers I asked about what they saw as the future of trucks and trucking.
That's well over 20 people DIRECTLY involved.
That's not counting the people who built the trucks I drive, the people who built the roads I use, the people who buy the cars and repair the cars whose parts I haul, the people who created the Internet, and AIM (where most of the novel was plotted), and Word Perfect, the people who built my computer (and desk and chair). Nor influences that led me to write what I did, including the Known World Handbook, The Handmaid's Tale, Friday, the mockumentary CSA, Ronnie Milsap's "Prisoner of the Highway," the Rigrocker and Hammerdown Radio, and Convoy (the movie).
Had any one of those people not been in that place at that time, I wouldn't be looking at a novel with my name on it. So much for the idea of "individual achievement." From the list, it looks like most of the country helped me write this thing!
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Horray for lazy liberals who don't work hard!
Date: 2008-11-03 04:24 pm (UTC)I'm so proud of you, honey.
no subject
Date: 2008-11-03 05:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-03 07:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-03 08:10 pm (UTC)Yes, I plunked my butt down and wrote 50000 words of prose from endless AIM transcripts. But without all of them...and all those who will buy the book...there would be no book, nor the ability to make it.
no subject
Date: 2008-11-03 09:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-04 01:01 am (UTC)We're all in it together.