My editor is an evil, soul-crushing, ego-smashing succubus; but I love her anyway.
My publishing company is comprised of hoards of blood sucking vampires; but I wouldn't be where I am without them.
My agent should be named Renfield, because it seems that most of the time he secretly is working for my publishing company and trying to find ways to allow them to feast off of me. But I desperately need him, and trust him (most of the time...
) completely.
My fans are wonderful, life affirming, saintly beings who will surely spend eternity in the heavens of their choice; until they start criticizing what I do; or think we're best friends, or think that they "know me".
My critics are mind numbing, inbred, talent-less fuckwads who deserve nothing less than slow painful torture for the rest of their miserable and pathetic lives.
My brain is constantly generating a million ideas, most of which are utterly boring, dreadful, and worthless.
The amount of discipline it takes to do what I do each day is enormous. As it would just be so much easier to surf the web all day and hang out at places like, I dunno...dreamtheaterforums.org.
I can't control when the "good idea's" happen, so I may write all day and get nothing done, and then get an idea at midnight, that takes me all night to get out. Although the older I get the more I'm disciplined, but it still happens.
Despite the fact that I write what I want now, when I want, and my publisher is okay with that; there is enormous pressure to write great stories all of the time.
Imagine if you can that everything you do is compared to every other thing you have ever done. You pour your heart and soul into something, and then have people write comments online, in publications, or via mail about it like, ''It was okay, but not as good as his last book."; or "He has really slipped with his character development from his previous efforts."; or "The author ruined this book for me."; or "I really tried to like this, but it was too long and convoluted."; or "I'm not a critical person at all, ever; but this book was ....". Then if you got 1,000 people who loved what you did, for every 1 who hated it, having your boss (my publisher) throw up the one bad review of your work when it came time to, for example, renegotiate your salary .
Besides all of that, it's peachy!