Tuesday, November 14, 2006

101 Reasons to Stop Writing

http://101reasonstostopwriting.blogspot.com/

This guy is brilliant.

There are far too many people on this planet who have no business picking up a pen. Or a keyboard. They wouldn't, if they had to pick up a pen to do it. They spew their drivel over the pages like so much vomit, and then are Hurt and Amazed when the rest of the world thinks it's utter crap. These are the people who get their mommies to sent hate mail to agents who reject them, who send hate mail to agents who reject them, who refuse to do edits, or who finally turn to POD when no one else will take it. Or, God forbid, the Christopher Paolinis of the world, with rich enough parents to convince people to buy their book. Those are the worst. They've been told, wrongly, that they can write.

Here's the thing. Write your story. Go for it! I'm a hearty proponent of the NaNoWriMo experience. Writing is fun. I've done it for most of my life. But just because you've written something doesn't mean it deserves to be published.

Don't get your panties in a wad when people not related to you or who aren't your friends aren't interested.

Writing and publishing is a tough business. If you aren't willing to accept the realities and hardships involved, then this isn't the business for you. I expect it will take me years to break in, if at all. I'm realistic about my odds. But you can be damn sure I'll never burn my bridges because someone else thinks my deathless prose blows chunks (After all, they might be right!). I think I write better than Anne Rice ever has. But she has something I don't: a fan base.

One day, maybe. But I swear, in front of God and everyone who reads this blog (all three of you) that I will never, ever, EVER be too damn good for an editor.

And you can quote me on that.

6 comments:

Sal said...

Found your blog via Nano, and enjoyed reading it. Well done on getting to 50k! I'm way off, but its not quite impossible to get there - just almost impossible!

Good luck on the getting published thing. That's what I'm after too

Heather Dudley said...

You can manage it, Sal. :) Impossible is just a state of mind.

Rashenbo said...

Hehhee, 101 writing linked your post and I popped over to read. Good article :)

Heather Dudley said...

Thank you, rashenbo. :)

Anonymous said...

You really hate Anne Rice, don't you?

Heather Dudley said...

Hate is too strong a word. I'm irrationally jealous of her success. ;)