My drug of choice is writing––writing, art, reading, inspiration, books, creativity, process, craft, blogging, grammar, linguistics, and did I mention writing?
The poll is ready for the BEST Novel in the Horror Genre.
The poll itself is at the bottom of the left hand "widgets" (the menus, ads, share buttons, and such that run down the left side of the screen). Everyone gets two (2) votes.
This is a slightly smaller poll than we normally run here at W.A.W. Because it was either that or a much, much larger poll. A lot of books got one nomination and one "second." If I had taken all of them, I would have ended up with a poll of over 15, and that starts to not really fit on the page. Picking some of them and not others would have been arbitrary, so be fair to all of them, I only took the books that more than one "second."
On the one hand, it was cool that we got so much response to the write in polls. I usually have to include everything including nominations with no seconds, and it leads to an incredibly long poll or lots of quarter and semi final rounds. This time, enough people wrote in (both with their own suggestions and to second the previous nominations of others) that we were able to pull a poll from the input without breaking fifteen last-place ties.
Please get everyone you know to vote.
The poll will stay up through Halloween, making even this blog a little extra spooky for the holidays.
15 things you might be doing to make writers hate your stinking guts Part 1 (1-5)
1. You ask them for their publisher/agent (or ask them to promote you).
2. You brag about how you don’t pay for books.
3. You give them unsolicited advice.
4. You tell them you’re going to write a book/be a writer...someday.
5. You delight in their every grammatical failure, or conversely, constantly tell them how bad you are at grammar.
Part 2 (6-10)
6. You use the phrase “free exposure” in their presence.
You know who says this phrase to writers? Well, really, you know who says this phrase to any artist? People who are ripping them off, people who want to rip them off and get them to go along with it, or people who already have ripped them off and need a rationalization to help them feel better about it.
Whether it’s someone trying to get freelance writing for free (which is not why it's called freelance bee tee dubs–please goatse yourselves now) or someone downloading a book through Torrent instead of paying for it, the words “free exposure” are the kiss of death for artists trying to pay a bill or eat something other than Ramen. They are words that cross their lips of thieves in a world where slavery and shoplifting are frowned upon but unpaid labor and free art have chic, socially acceptable faces. It is the sweet little lie that helps pirates sleep at night once all the rum is gone.
You don’t tell your roofer that they’ll be getting great exposure by doing your roof for free. You don’t tell a janitor that if they clean the lobby of your sky scraper for free they’re getting in on the ground floor of a big opportunity (even though that would be like a rocking good pun). You don’t stuff books you haven’t paid for into your pockets at Barnes and Noble and head for the door because if you like it you’ll put out the good word for the author on your blog.
Yes, it is an unfortunate reality of the digital age that writers have to learn new ways to make money being writers, but if you admit to being one of the reasons why, they’re not likely to cozy up to you. And while there are possibly situations in which "free exposure" might not be uttered with impetus intended to screw over a writer, it's a bit like going into Burger King headquarters and saying "I'm lovin' it" about everything.
It's just not going to go over well.
"If you're such a writer, why don't you have any books
in Powell's?"
7. You hector them about success.
“So when are you going to be published?”
If you could say something that feels more like nails on a chalkboard to the soul of a writer it would probably have to involve explicit carnal knowledge of their mother. Writers all move at their own pace, and most are not serious enough about their hobby to EVER be published. But those who are serious about writing (and also those whose fantasies for success greatly outstrip their willingness to work) are absolutely, positively aware--in almost every moment of every day--how far they are from achieving their dreams.
You're being a used enema nozzle to keep reminding them.
Unless you're one of those people who thinks it would be awesome for someone to constantly ask you when you’re going to get that promotion you’ve been hoping for for the last five years, you can pretty much assume that the fact that they are a writer won't prevent them from hating you. If you are one of those people who thinks that would be awesome, you probably have no friends, and the fact that writers avoid you is just kind of par for the course.
It is possible for this to land as a sincere compliment (“When am I going to see that wonderful manuscript I read picked up by some publisher who knows what a gem it is?”) but usually it’s comes across as a way of pointing out that the writer isn’t “real" or that they haven't achieved some external bellwether of validation.
8. You treat them like their work is no big deal.
For some reason people can imagine that walking up to a welder and saying “I could have welded that better than you,” a manager and saying, “I could have managed that project without as much trouble,” or an advertising executive who lands an account after a year and saying, "that's not such a big deal," is kind of obnoxious.
Seems pretty obvious, right? You would think so.
However, for some reason when it comes to telling a writer “I could do that,” or "That's no big deal," people think it’s totally okay, and even that writers kind of want to hear such things.
You are being a flaming turd enough by claiming that nothing they did is outside your vast skill. (Because writing published work is so easy, right?) But to presume that you would have had the tenacity, the discipline, and the patience to see a major writing project through makes it so much worse--to say nothing of the mental fortitude required not to have a nervous breakdown through these steps. If you are unimpressed by the Herculean effort required to see a book through to publication, you probably want to just keep your mouth shut around writers. Oh and avoid any transparent facial expressions.
For example....
Maybe you could have done it. Maybe.
But you didn't.
And rather than explain this distinction to you, most writers would prefer to just hate you from afar.
9. You start right in on what you didn’t like about something they wrote, especially if you don’t even introduce yourself or say hi first.
A writer has to be receptive to feedback. And far too many writers are sensitive little desert flowers about being told they're not geniuses.
As awesome as this is,
I'll probably just avoid you from now on.
But damn it, we’re just people. There's a time and a place. Imagine someone walking up to you when you’re off work and telling you all the stuff you did wrong at your job last week. (“Hey Bob, welcome to my housewarming. Have a hotdog. By the way, those stitches you put on the DeLaney kid were a little loose! What were you thinking?”) That’s basically what you’re doing to a writer. There is a time and a place, even for a writer who can stoically endure the most scathing criticism, but sometimes they just want to do jello shots and fairly compensate the sex workers of their prefered gender for their hard and legitimate work.
Now imagine you've never even met this person. They don't say hi. They don't tell you who they are. They just start in on you. You'd probably look for the door and do your level best to avoid the shit out of that person. For the rest of ever. And a writer will do the same to you.
You may get a cheap thrill from thinking you’re taking a writer down a peg or two. And you may imagine that you elevate your own station by tearing into someone with some level of notoriety higher than your own, but really you’re just being a tall tumbler glass full of anal seepage.
You know what they say:
"art is 50% inspiration, and no perspiration."
10. You try to get them to buy your idea for 50% of the money.
You’d be surprised how many people try to sell you their great idea for half of the profits.
Unless you're a writer, that is. Then you wouldn’t be surprised at all. Mostly because there is about a 33% chance that anyone who finds out your a writer will make you this offer...and think they're doing you a big favor to do so.
Imagine this in any other business and you realize how stupid it is. (“I have an idea for a game. I will tell you my idea. You do all the design, programming, marketing, distribution, and then give me half the money for doing nothing when the checks start rolling in.” Yeah....no.) But for the same reasons that people think books write themselves, fairies do revision, and publication is child's play. Really, all you need is a good idea.
Ideas are cheap. People think a good idea is the money shot in art, but it really isn’t. Ideas are a dime a dozen. Everyone has a great idea or three for a book/movie/video game. The work and effort to realize an idea is what makes an artist. The will to see an idea realized is the real money shot. Claiming an idea alone is half the effort, shits on what a writer does and all the real work that is involved. Keep it up, and the writer will surely begin to hate you, or at least do their very best to avoid the crap out of you.
On my totally awesome Facebook page that you should totally check out and "Like" I get a little fast and loose with the images I post. Star Wars Puns, Ryan Gosling "Hey Girl" memes, old comics that are ubiquitous online; they're all fair game. I'll leave a comic or image alone if it has clear "Keep Away" messages on the page where I find it (or if it's right there on the image). However the way these things get bounced around on Tumblr, Facebook, Pinterest, G+ and more, it's basically impossible not to step on someone's toes, and you mostly just have to be ready to take something down if someone tells you it's theres.
Here I'm more cautious. This is a commercial blog. I make money. And even if I didn't think it were totally an ass move to make money off of the hard work of someone else (which I do), I wouldn't want to open myself up to a lawsuit. So I can't share with you a potpourri of every image I find on Facebook, but the ones with no clear origin, no clearly copyrighted characters, and no obvious watermark, I am willing to put here. And of those, these are the best.
Please understand that these are viral memes of indeterminate origin. If I have inadvertently posted your image, please just message me at chris.brecheen@gmail.com with some kind of proof (original URL, picture of you holding the original, or even just impassioned plea) and I will try to fix the problem however you want--give you credit, link the image to your website, take it down, write a post about how cool you are, whatever.
To be fair, I understand Myers has prehensile toes.
This last offering is an hour long interview with Stephen King talking to a group of English majors about how he gets inspired. I say it's an hour because I want you to know what you're getting into, but it is very very worth the watch.
[Do you want to be featured in potpourri along with a few words from me about how awesome you are? Do you know a great writing link that I should share? Please send it to me at chris.brecheen@gmail.com, and I will post it along with a shout out singing your praises (unless, of course, you don't want one). There are four caveats to this. Please read them before you send me stuff. If I've posted anything that you feel is "yours" (or "your client's" --eeep!) please just ask and I will take it down if you wish or preferably give you credit and a link back to its source. Most everything here is some kind of meme, so it would be quite difficult for me to do proper attribution.]
Nominate the best horror novels, and seconds to the existing nominations to determine which books will end up on our "Best Horror Novel" poll.
Only a few days left of accepting nominations for the best novel from the horror genre.
The RULES-- Please please please please please for the love of god please, go back to the original entry to leave a comment nominating a book or seconding an existing nomination. If you post here, I will take it, but I'll treat it like it's a G+ or Facebook comment for the purposes of breaking ties.
You may nominate TWO (2) books at the most. Obviously the fifteen books you love can't all be the best you've ever read. Really I should be accepting only one "best ever," but I find that makes prolific readers have aneurisms in their brains.
You may "second" as many of the existing nominations as you wish. (Yes I know that it's not really a "second" if a book has three or four of them, but you get the idea.) So check back to see what's being nominated. The number of seconds will largely determine what will go on the poll.
Only the best three (3) books from a single author will go onto the poll. (I don't want this to be a "Which Stephen King Book is the Best" poll.) Most people don't read a lot of horror, and I find their experience to be limited to just a couple of authors. I want to get at least a few different authors on this poll. I explain on the original article how I will break ties if they should happen. Usually it's pretty clear cut which books are going to be on the poll and which aren't. I haven't tallied all the nominations and seconds up yet, but my general impression is that we have: 1) Way more nominations that will fit in a single poll, so some of them will have to go. 2) Many titles with a single nomination, but no seconds. Several titles with one nomination and one second. Lots of ties to be broken. 3) Four or five Stephen King titles--only three of which get to make it onto the poll. So there is LOTS of influence a commenter can have on what goes on to the poll--even those of you who have already dropped your two nominations.
I'm having trouble just sitting and staring at the screen. Also, will you post more fiction?
[Remember, keep sending in your questions to chris.brecheen@gmail.com with the subject line "W.A.W. Mailbox" and I will answer each Friday. I will use your first name ONLY unless you tell me explicitly that you'd like me to use your full name or you would prefer to remain anonymous. My comment policy also may mean one of your comments ends up in the mailbox. Also don't forget the F.A.Q. covers a lot of questions.] Sophia writes:
My problem isn't sitting down every day. I do that for three hours religiously. My problem is that I just sit there and stare at the screen. Sometimes for the whole three hours. I have story ideas in my head, but when I go to write them, they're gone. I know you say you've never had writer's block, so please tell me your secret. If I can ask two questions, I'd really like to ask you to post more fiction. I loved Falling From Orbit and The Look, and I can't wait for the next part of the Demon's Rubicon.[Author's note: I added the text links to Sophia's question.]
My reply:
So there's bad news and there's good news, Sophia, and then there's also kind of hard to believe news but potentially more good, if you can swallow your pride and believe the last news, news. I'll try to break it down.
First I have to tell you the story of the Karate Kid. Actually, I have a lot of housework I need to get to today, so I'm just going to link this Youtube.
I'm a child of the eighties, so this is the old version with Pat Morita and the crane kick that we actually saw Daniel practicing, instead of the triple flip downaxe kick what ever-the-hell-thing Jayden Smith did and whereandwhenthehelldidhelearnTHAT moment at the end of the Jackie Chan version.
Now hang tight if the analogy I'm about to make about writing is escaping you. I know it's pretty hard to decode.
Bad news- This is a pitfall that most writers experience.
You're in good company, Sophia. In fact, almost every writer experiences a blank page they can't fill at some point in their lives. They taunt us more than French people in castles.
And while this is more common among starting writers, it often happens to experienced writers after they've had a measure of success and are worried about repeating it. It comes from the deep seated worry that what we write will not be good, so we sit trying to come up with the best words ever. You read a billion memes a day about first drafts being shit, but if you don't feel it in your soul, they're just words.
Empty, hollow, mocking words.
Writer's block is a real thing, but it doesn't have to be the end of the road. As a matter of factoid, there is a fairly consistent consensus among the most successful writers that what you do (or don't do) at the point the words are no longer doing the driving has a lot to do with what separates serious writers from casual hobbyists. If you walk away, blame your muse, give up, and begin a strict regimen of talking about how writing without inspiration feels like a chore or forcing yourself to write makes it feel like work you will probably always be a casual writer. Good news- For most people, most of the time, there is a way out.
Actually, there are two ways out. You can wait for inspiration--it will eventually return (probably). You will have an idea and then you can go write about it. But it will do so on its own sweet fucking time. (The bastage.) It may take weeks, months, even years, but it will probably eventually happen. The downside of being at your muses whim like that is 1) you may not have enough mojo to see you through a whole project, and 2) even if you do finish something, once you are done, you are back to not writing. You will find that your artistic well tends to dry out every time writing starts to feel like work you're the muse's buttmonkey,.
Though this does have the benefit of allow you to feel even more justified in getting cranky at advice to write every day. But on the down side, this path may lead to a lot of frustration if you're hoping to be a professional writer or a working novelist or something.
Fortunately there is another path for those who are serious. You can screw your determination to the sticking place and be like Joe Swanson from Family Guy facing down your problems with a cry of "BRING IT ON!"
A giant mutated rat will be playing the part of Writer's Block in our scenario.
Hard to believe news- I will show you how to fix it.
The kind of writer's block that you're describing comes from some pretty predictable places, and it's actually pretty easy to overcome for almost everyone. That's easy as in simple, not easy as in effortless. If it were effortless, you'd probably see a lot more people who express grandiloquent love of writing actually doing a lot more of it instead of just filling up a Pinterest "Writing" board and following every writing Tumblr they can.
But here's why I started with The Karate Kid. You have to do the exercises I recommend, and you have to do them in good faith....possibly for a few months. If you don't do them, you can't scratch your head when it doesn't work.
As Mr. Miyagi might say: "You either writing do YES or you writing do NO. Otherwise, sooner or later.... ~squeerk~ Get the squish."
Just like a grape baby. Just like a grape.
This is where I lose most people. I tell them to write every day and they think "fuck that." I tell them to do free writing and they're too good for it. I explain how the muse, creative flow, inspiration, unconscious, subconscious, brain, whatever struggles against even the pleasure of artistic creation the minute it starts to feel like work, and they think "Not MY brain." They know better. (You know because of all the books they published and money they've made.) They're too good for plebeian exercises because they are artistes. Artistes must be inspired, not do drudgery work. And a few years later when I check in on them, they're usually still struggling.
The potentially more good, if you can swallow your pride and believe the last news, news- If you take these steps, and you do them faithfully, the chances are in about two or three months we get to have whatever analogous writing equivalent there would be to this scene (maybe you like writing a lot while I make grunting noises or something):
So are you ready to do what I say, no matter how weird you think it is and how much you might feel like it is sucking the joy out of something you love or making it feel like a chore, and no matter how much you think you know better? No matter how much you feel like maybe I might--JUST SHUT THE FUCK UP AND DO WHAT I TELL YOU!!!!
Okay? Here we go: 1- Follow all the links below. The text links below are all to superfly shit that is exactly what you're asking about. I go into more detail about something that I've written an entire article about previously. Morning writing. The Floating Half Hour. Free writing. They are all their own articles, and it's GOOD information. Yes, it's a lot of reading, but some of this information doesn't bullet point well. If you want to know, for example, why you do "morning writing" right when you wake up, it's in that article. This article would become too long to include all that information. It's worth it. Trust your uncle Chris.
2- Get your hands on Becoming a Writer by Dorothea Brande. This is the best process book you could ever possibly have. It is so amazeballs that I changed my product review so that it could go up to eleven. Many of the other suggestions on this list will be coming from that book. There is nothing in this book about how to write. No grammar rules. No craft suggestions. Brande doesn't care what your prose looks like (yet). It's all about how to be a writer. When to write. How long to write. How to read.
This isn't easy reading either. It's not motivational speaker positivism crap. Dorothea is not kind--she is like the mean physical trainer at the gym who won't let you get away with saying that you're tired. In fact, she very clearly tells writers at a couple of points that if they can't do an exercise, their internal desire not to write is clearly greater than their desire TO write, and they should give up.
Ouch, right? Yeah. Dorothea isn't fucking around, and neither is this book.
Becoming a Writer is off copyright, so there are a lot of ways to get it for free if you're budget is in a pinch. The PDF URL tends to move, but if you Google it, I'm sure you can find a copy.
3- Do the morning writing exercise that I've written about. The benefits and reasoning is all there. Find a way and make it happen. Don't be too good for it. Don't figure you can do it whenever. Don't write your fiction. Even if you have to write about how you don't have any ideas for what to write, do not stop moving your fingers no matter what. Free writing has a valid neurological reason that it will work.
4- When you achieve success at the morning writing (which you will know by reading that article) move on to The Floating Half Hour of Writing. It may take you a month to get here and a month to successfully do this exercise. It may take you three months to get here and a month to do this exercise...or vice versa. It may take you three months each.
Stick with it. It won't be easy. The floating half hour causes even more people to give up (or to think they're too good for it) but it is really where the magic happens. If you really sit down when you say you will (instead of "a little later") you are learning to make your muse YOUR buttmonkey. [Don't tell Cathamel I said that.] If you pull this off, you may never have writer's block again.
5- When you are not working on these exercises, and you are working on your fiction, attempt to write the worst fiction you can. Seriously. Make it the most self-induldgent, train wreck filled pile of steaming crap you can. Set out to make it suck.
A lot of that frozen-in-front-of-your-screen (or paper) stuff comes from feeling like you have to write something good. People sort of intellectually know that they get multiple drafts, but they don't REALLY respect the process. They still think "No, that's no good..." If you undermine that anxiety by literally trying to be the worst you can, you may find that within minutes you're writing fluidly. You need to be revising (a lot). You can fix it then.
6- Read more. I don't know how much you're reading, Sophia, but I do know that not reading can lead to having stories in your head that you can't get onto paper. Unless you are reading three or four hours a day, it sounds like you could benefit from reading more. That's because you have ideas and maybe images in there, and you want to have words. Writers deal in words. Cultivate that relationship you have with language. You may even literally find that after reading a rich description of something in a story that you feel ready to run to the paper and do some of your own writing.
7- Write every day and at the same time every day. Don't confuse this with morning writing. Morning writing is just an exercise. You HAVE to write anything that comes into your head in the morning, so you shouldn't be working on fiction. But when you do work on fiction, sit down at the same time each day--and do it every day.
You may take ONE day off each week....but if you do, try to notice how the next day on feels a little stiff.
If you do this after the morning writing, that's okay, but it will be best if you take a little break in between to mentally separate the two. Try not to skip days (except the one) no matter how badly you want to or what comes up. Make this time sacred.
Pretty soon (between a couple of weeks and a couple of months) you're going to find that you are starting to become creative thirty minutes to an hour before your writing time. Ideas will be gushing. Sentences will be springing fully-written into your head. You may even find your fingers starting to ghost type.
8- Shut off anything that you might be doing during your writing time that isn't writing. Facebook. Email. Livejournal. Youtube. Kittiessmokinghashpipes/tumblr. Whatever it is, close the window. Turn off the wireless if it's too tempting, and go somewhere without signal if that's too tempting. If you sit there and really stare at the screen, the first seven steps will probably help you. However, if "staring at the screen" really means letting yourself get so fucking distracted that you can't hear your own thoughts, you'll never escape the block.
Epilogue- If you literally cannot write after all these steps, try this: This will jump start your engine, but it's not going to help if you haven't done the other steps. Take out a book you like, written in a style close to your own (or what you wish was your own), and just start typing what you see on the page. After a few minutes your brain will be "out ahead" of the typing. Then let your own thoughts edge into your writing. This is a trick that will break a "RIGHT NOW" block, but like a car that has to be jump started, eventually you have to do the real servicing.
That's it. Do those things for a few months and I can almost promise you--unless you have certain linguistic learning disabilities or a very strong will not to work (which I don't think you have, Sophia, since you sit for three hours)--that you will be writing easily and fluidly every time you sit down.
The trouble is most people won't do these things. They find excuses not to do morning writing. They believe they "can handle" having Facebook open while they write. The legions who think they don't need to write every day send me hate mail nearly weekly. And for some, they can find other roads to unlocking the flow of words (though many continue to scratch their heads about why the creative flow is so sporadic.) But these are tried, tested, and approved methods, so if you stick with them, it should go well.
Let me know how it turns out!
As for your second set of questions, most of it is addressed in the F.A.Q. here.
I am leaning in my probable intentions toward the less-traditional routes. The success of "Creepy Guy" has given me quite a lot of optimism about blogging as a means of monetization. And traditional publishing has some serious problems with being about white men.
15 Things you might be doing to make writers hate your stinking guts (1-5) [Ima here. Good to be back on the guest blog circuit. I'm glad that Cedric's newfound love for this Dor person has helped him find the motivation to make Chris get this place back in order.]
Though most of my wonderful lists are for writers, today’s list goes out to people who aren’t writers, but interact with them. Or perhaps for writers to share passive aggressively with their friends who do one or more of these things (“Hey Harry. Just thought you might get a kick out of this. No reason. No, seriously, read it. -Cheers.”)
Are you basically a nice person, but you seem to turn writers off? Have you ever gotten a sour look from a writer, even though they seemed endlessly fascinated by person next to you talking about weaponizing carbuncles, and you wondered what you could have possibly done to offend them? Have your writer friends stopped coming around even though you offer only the finest boxed wine? Do writers cross to the other side of the street when they see you coming, or maybe pause before getting onto elevators with you, weakly smiling and saying: “Maybe I’ll get the next one"?
It’s probably you.
For all your innocent fun jestitude, good intentions, and even well-meaning curiosity, you may be doing things that make writers hate you more than Orson Scott Card hates passing the Bechdel test. Most of us writers aren’t particularly strange creatures--we like to be fed good food, we enjoy cool drinks on hot days and hot drinks on brisk evenings, we get a little stupid w hen the back of our neck is touched, and we’ll probably go catatonic during a good massage, and many of us have an almost unhealthy obsession with threesomes. We like stimulating conversation--especially about good books. Most of us just want to be loved, and while we might be awkward about our ability to form or carry on social connections, few of us eschew them without cause, and most of us hold tight our dear friends who love us despite our writerly foibles.
However, the fecund jungle of a writer's brain is not without it's strange Rambo-esque traps. One misstep and you can wreck a rapport faster than texting on the freeway can wreck your chances of being on Dancing With the Stars.
Here are a list of some of the most common perils.
1. You ask them for their publisher/agent (or ask them to promote you).
The development of (genuine) professional contacts takes a lot of time and effort and much, much, much more good old fashioned hard work than marketing savvy. (The names you typically get from rubbing elbows instead of writing quality material are about what you'd expect from hobnobbing. They are contacts who are out rubbing elbows with "not really" writers. Basically, they KIND of deserve each other.) You are essentially telling the writer that you want them to do that part of the work for you. That email or phone number that you think is “no big deal” took them years to earn, and you don't want to wait years.
Not only are you asking the writer basically if they will help you shortcut the work they had to do, but you are also asking them to vouch for you and the quality of your writing. They're sticking their neck out.
Now I know you--in all your narcissistic glory--think you are totally worth it, but try imagine how they feel. You’re putting them on the spot, and that writer may really really not want to tell you that you probably have a couple of years more practice before you’re ready to be published, or that you should start by farming out short stories because your novel was nine hundred and fifty excruciating pages of self-indulgent, Star Wars rip-off bullshit in which you were so obviously the main character it was painful every time they turned the page.
The same goes for asking a self published writer who has taken the years to build up their audience to promote you. They've worked for years for what you're asking them to hand you. It's like skipping the queue for a Mega Roller Coaster on opening day.
At least do them a huge favor first if you're going to ask for something like this.
2. You brag about how you don't pay for books.
Imagine someone telling a plumber that they really like to scam plumbers. How do you think that will go over? Or how about telling a cab driver that they like to jump out of cabs at the end of the trip and run off without paying, or telling a server that they like to dine and dash and never, ever leave a tip.
Not paying people for their hard work makes them like you.
Right?
This is exactly what you’re doing to a writer if you tell them you download books illegally or otherwise don't pay for them when you should, and it is why they hate you. Fiction authors don’t make very much money unless they are ridonkulously famous. Most have day jobs, rich spouses, live in their parents' basements, or are really struggling.
Compound the white hot hate filled fury of a supernova the writer feels toward you by a factor of ten if you brag to them that you stole/didn’t pay for THEIR book. (And yes...this actually happens.) This isn’t a lot different than proudly telling someone you stole their jewelry last week, sold it, and spent everything on bacon cheeseburgers.
Also, most people don't realize this, but a writer doesn't make any money if you buy their book used. (It's not hard to realize if you think about why, but most people never stop to consider it.) Writers love books--oh sweet Jesus they just LOVE them--so most will understand if you can’t resist the sweet siren call of Half Priced Books, or if you tend to take a chance on new authors from the USED aisle because they do the same thing, but if you never ever ever ever buy a book new (or check it out from a library...which buys it new) you might want to keep that to yourself. At least don't brag about it TO them.
3. You give them unsolicited advice.
Writers get a lot of advice. The problem is most of it they don’t really need or want. And while you may be the most well intentioned Helpy McHeplerson who just wants to helpfully help, by the time you show up with your well intentioned suggestion that the writer write “the next Fifty Shades of Grey,” the chances are that your every word is like taking an enthusiastic, full-mouth chomp on a sheet of tinfoil.
Gosh, why didn't I think of that.
Gee. We've totally, like, never heard that advice before.
If you’ve ever tried to lose some weight or had a cold...ever, you probably know how annoying it is for someone to start barking orders at you about how to live your life before you’ve even asked. It’s even worse for writers because most people start by assuming what it is that writers actually want to get out of their writing. (With a cold, it’s probably correct to assume that the person wants to feel better, so your unsolicited advice of sitting in a small room of echinacea oil diffusion and zinc injections may be unwelcome, unwanted, and impractical, but it at least you’re on the right track.) But with writers, the chances are that you don’t actually even know what they want, never mind which paths they feel comfortable using to get there.
Do you know if this writer has even the slightest interest in traditional publishing? Epublishing? Self-publishing? Blogging? Are they even ready to be moving into publication/business end of writing? (Most writers aren’t, and they know it.) Do they have a written work ready for the sort of action you’re proposing. Have they possibly tried what you’re about to suggest before? Do you know anything about them?
But even more than that....do you actually have the slightest fucking clue what you are talking about? Are you an agent? Are you a published author? (If you are, you are probably being sought out for advice more than you find comfortable.) Have you been keeping up with industry trends? Do you really think you know more than than the writer who’s trying to get into the industry? Do you know about craft and process? Do you know which venues are good for which genres? Or did you just hear something once that worked for your cousin Verpisubul, and you assume it will work for everyone?
And if you are so fucking good at knowing how to give great advice to writers, why aren’t you selling that advice for oodles of money already? Fleecing wanna be writers is a hundred million dollar industry. People who want to be writers will pay for books, camps, seminars, classes, workshops, computer programs, and pretty much anything that promises it might raise their chances of getting published. If you have the One True Advice, you should be rich beyond your wildest dreams of avarice.
No?
4. You tell them you’re going to write a book/be a writer...someday.
There are a few variations of this: “I’m going to publish my memoirs after I retire,” or “One of these days I’m going to write a bestseller,” and the outlandish but actually uttered in my presence, “I’ve got a trilogy that is going to be big. I just need to wait until I have enough vacation time to finish it.” They all basically presume that publishing a novel is the easiest shit in the world.
Obviously! That’s why writers spend absolutely NO time or effort trying to put out their first book.
"My first book was child's play to publish!" said no author ever.
(Carrie was rejected THIRTY times before being picked up, and
King had been submitting short stories everywhere he could for over a decade.)
You might have the tenacity to sit down and write a book through its denouement--though statistics are not in your favor--but getting that bad boy to the point where it’s publishable involves a years-long cultivation of a writing skill set.
Not--I repeat not--just a little bit of free time.
Statistically speaking, there are more people in the United States who *want to be writers* than who actually read. (No...not who write. Who read.) More to the point, the energy required to publish a novel is not something a person dashes out when they're not playing golf in the Hamptons. It is career-caliber effort. Writers struggle their whole lives and don’t get a book published. It is as reasonable for a writer to say that after they retire from writing, they are going to go become a science teacher at the local junior college or that they are going to design the next New York skyscraper.
Imagine how you would feel if someone treated your career like a retired dilettante could easily do it in the spare time they had between canasta tournaments. That's why you're making that writer hate you.
5. You delight in their every grammatical failure, or conversely, constantly tell them how bad you are at grammar.
I know!
Let's make a meme out of the mistakes you make at YOUR job!
Few are the writers who want the wrong you’re/your to go out into the world within something they've written, so you really are doing them a solid if you kindly point out a flaw in their grammar. However, if you take it as a point of pride that you "called out a writer," it’s not going to be long before they start avoiding you like you have a “gym sock odor” problem. Writers are human. They make mistakes. Imagine how obnoxious it would for someone to gleefully point out every mistake at your job. (“You didn’t bill properly for that invoice. And you call yourself a billing director.” “That student didn’t learn the concept you were teaching. And you call yourself a teacher.” "You told the truth to your constituents. And you call yourself a politician.")
Similarly if you talk to writers at length about how you aren’t very good with grammar you may find they begin to avoid you. They’re hating you for a subtly different, but related reason. It’s not that they can’t appreciate someone who is bad at the basics (and most writers are less likely to judge you for that than others, ironically), but that’s all grammar is--the basics. This is like telling a member of the London Philharmonic, at length, about how you can’t read music. It’s not that they can’t appreciate that, and at first they're probably going to be sympathetic, but if you keep at it, it starts to come across as if anyone who CAN read music could easily be in the London Philharmonic--that reading music is all there is to being a great musician--you are inadvertently insulting everything they’ve done beyond just learning to read music. A physicist is more than just "good at math." A world renowned chef knows more than "a lot of recipes." Grammar is important to a writer (though they will make some mistakes) but there is more--so, so much more--to writing than just grammar.
This has gone "live" on my update schedule page, and is probably what you all can expect from me...at least for the next few months. My "learning moment' for this semester has been to either sign up to teach day classes or night classes, but that doing both kind of disrupts my daily routine and sleep patterns in a way that isn't good for my writing.
The bad news is that my "15 Things Not to Do to Writers" article won't be done until tomorrow. The good news is that is because it's fleshing out pretty well to be one of the better articles I've written (I think--I'm really a terrible judge of these things).
UPDATE SCHEDULE Mon- Some kind of personal update on the goings on in my life--as boring as they may be. Writing About Writing observes bank holidays and takes every three day weekend it possibly can. Mostly because I'm lazy, but also I don't want to pay the staff overtime. Tues- Supportive and Unsupportive Girlfriend both claim Tuesdays as date day (often tag teaming me all day long--and not in the good way). If I have a guest blogger to present (and I LOVE guest bloggers) I'll post them on Tuesday. Or if I'm running a poll, I may try to encourage people to get voting. Otherwise I have a Mai Tai and put my feet up on a sun-kissed beach, which might look to the layman like getting cat litter from Costco, but don't be fooled. Oh no. Don't. Be. Fooled. Wed- The "main" article of the week will land on Wednesdays (usually). I alternate between the illustrious guest bloggers we have on staff here at W.A.W. and my own offerings. Thurs- Shorter posts find their home on Thursdays--or the main post that should have come in on Wednesday might end up here since it's my first day of the week off from teaching. A regular Thursday update might just be a link with commentary, a poll or call to vote in a poll, a writing prompt, or a quick update on what's happening around the W.A.W. compound. Friday- On Fridays I answer questions you send in for The Mailbox. You too can have your very own question answered by a not-even-slightly famous writer. Just send your questions to chris.brecheen@gmail.com with the subject line "W.A.W. Mailbox." I will also respond to comments--even anonymous ones from time to time. Saturdays- I usually take weekends off. But I might find an image or a link It may be a link with commentary or a quick observation. It kind of depends on how motivated I'm feeling, so if you're really excited about seeing something on the weekend, writing an e-mail on Thursday about how much you love W.A.W. would work. A groupie threesome on Friday night would work even better. Just sayin...
Unless there's been a threesome.
I really can't underscore enough how well that would work.
Sundays- I really, honestly try to take Sunday's off. Or Saturdays. Or at least one day. Sometimes. The problem is that content means traffic, so a day where I don't do anything sees half or less the traffic of a day where I post anything--even if it's just five links with a sentence each of commentary on them. Even the cheesiest entry represents at least 200-300 page views, and as small as my number are right now, that can make a big difference. So if you're ever wondering why I seem to complain about never getting a day off, it's because I'm an unmitigated pageview whore.
The poll is ready for the BEST Novel in the Horror Genre.
