"This is terrible, when a writer is bored by his own work, but it was a real bomb and had reached the point where I couldn't even stand to look at it any more"
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Creative failure isn’t framed here as tragedy or “writer’s block” mystique; it’s framed as disgust, the kind that creeps in when a draft stops feeling like possibility and starts feeling like dead weight. Eddings’s bluntness matters. “Terrible” names the sin plainly: if the author is bored, the reader doesn’t stand a chance. It’s not self-pity, it’s a professional diagnosis, almost moral in its certainty.
Calling the work “a real bomb” borrows the language of public flop, even if the manuscript never left his desk. That’s the subtext: writers don’t just fear being ignored, they fear producing something that actively repels attention, including their own. “Had reached the point” hints at a slow degradation, a project that didn’t fail all at once but soured through accumulation: too many compromises, too many lifeless scenes, too much scaffolding with no building.
The line “couldn’t even stand to look at it” turns aesthetic judgment into a physical reaction. Eddings describes craft as embodied labor; the page becomes something you avert your eyes from, like clutter you’ve been pretending not to see. Contextually, it fits a prolific genre novelist’s work ethic: productivity isn’t romantic, it’s iterative, and part of the job is recognizing when persistence becomes sunk-cost theater. The intent isn’t confession for its own sake; it’s permission. Sometimes the brave move is to stop polishing the bomb.
Calling the work “a real bomb” borrows the language of public flop, even if the manuscript never left his desk. That’s the subtext: writers don’t just fear being ignored, they fear producing something that actively repels attention, including their own. “Had reached the point” hints at a slow degradation, a project that didn’t fail all at once but soured through accumulation: too many compromises, too many lifeless scenes, too much scaffolding with no building.
The line “couldn’t even stand to look at it” turns aesthetic judgment into a physical reaction. Eddings describes craft as embodied labor; the page becomes something you avert your eyes from, like clutter you’ve been pretending not to see. Contextually, it fits a prolific genre novelist’s work ethic: productivity isn’t romantic, it’s iterative, and part of the job is recognizing when persistence becomes sunk-cost theater. The intent isn’t confession for its own sake; it’s permission. Sometimes the brave move is to stop polishing the bomb.
Quote Details
| Topic | Writing |
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