Thoughts On Writing # 2

Today, I've managed to write a sparse 600 words before 4:00om and I plan on doing more before the day is through. The 600 I have brings me to a proud 88,400 words. I've been trying to prepare myself for what should be a long haul and a difficult fight into the Writing World. I near the end of my first novel and I grit my teeth at the idea of editing it. The idea of writing a synopsis is just horrifying and I'm harassing random writer friends to do it for me. So far, no luck. I just want it to be like in the 70's and 80's where you could just show up with a manuscript worth of little more than tiolet paper and get it published with little issue. As it stands today, with word processers and the internet, there are millions of little authors writing millions of manuscripts and to break through, you have to write something worth reading. I didn't sign up for that. When I first read Hemingway, I thought writing was just about drinking and hanging out with F. Scott Fitzgerald. Hemingway didn't have to set up a website or go to writer's conventions. Hemingway didn't have to join a writer's group or research Editors and read Publishers Lunch. He just wrote the book, took a shot, shot something and everyone loved him.
But his work, in a lot of cases, is only amazing the first time you read it. I'd rather be the best every time. Also, I wonder what it felt like back then for a first time novelist. Writing in a leather bound notebook on a sun washed hillside, your lovely thoughts bleeding out onto the page and having no reason to hope you would be successful. The research is a comfort in that respect. The act of reading about an agent, an editor, a publisher makes me feel that I am somehow apart of this world. I'm not seeing money from it, (neither did Hemingway in the begining)but I'm hearing about the players, I know what my genre is, I know who to contact and I feel I'm better off compared to some of my writing brothers fighting to get in.