OUTSIDE OF NARCISSISM, IMPATIENCE AND BAD ADVICE ARE A WRITER'S WORST ENEMIES . If you ever attend writer events, you will never cease to hear utterances of bad writing advice, the popular kind that circulate like ruinous viral memes through the nervous systems of America's aborning novel writers. And each time you are exposed, you either chuckle or swear, depending on your mood and the circumstance. You might make a daring attempt to kill the meme in its tracks before it can infect someone else, or you might just stare at the writer with a dumbfounded look and ask, "Where the hell did you hear that?" Yes, the primal question: WHERE THE HELL DID YOU HEAR THAT? Inevitably, many will point to their writer's group . Ahhhh, of course , you think. Why just recently at an Algonkian event , one of my faculty (a former senior editor at Random House) and I were faced with an individual who adamantly asserted to us both that using only one point of view to write a n...

Awesome... Simply awesome.
ReplyDeleteWow, this was inspiring. I'm going to start my best seller today!
ReplyDeleteMitch Kaplan
I am trying my best to attend Meetup and writers groups. This video shows how I feel when 99% of them start speaking. Makes me friggin' crazy.
ReplyDeleteToo close to home, I have a gun in my car...click
ReplyDelete"Minus 13". hahahahaha. That needs to be the slogan for the upcoming workshop. Thanks for posting this. I'm guilty of some of the shortcomings (e.g., I don't read as much as I should), but I definitely do not harbor the mythic perspective illustrated here. And if I do, please slap it out of me!
ReplyDeleteA gem, a friggin' gem.
ReplyDeleteExcellent. This should be shown at the beginning of all writing workshops and conferences...Hysterical ....
ReplyDeleteHa ha, you got me...I'm laughing at myself.
ReplyDeleteWow! Love this!
ReplyDeleteDo many aspiring writers really think like this? I mean, all in one? I could see someone thinking they could directly approach a publisher or not being aware that so many people approach agents. But do many people think that you can just bang out a bestseller without effort and without some passion for reading, at least in that genre?
ReplyDeleteI had the same thought while watching this. All of my hesitation for trying to become a novelist is because I am acutely aware of the inherent difficulties... but then again, if you get your hands on enough self-pubbed novels... this seems like it might be hauntingly accurate.
DeleteOh...I was on a six month book tour and attended four book club salons. Torture. I was unable to repress my frustration at one of them. I "went Philly" on one woman.
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