101 Reasons to Stop Writing

New York — At the end of a week filled with news of layoffs at some of America’s biggest publishing houses, editors and literary agents are reporting a dramatic increase in the volume of unsolicited manuscripts and query submissions — many of which are considered “unpublishable, even unreadable”. Editors and agents interviewed for this story claim that their slushpiles have more than doubled since the 1st of December, a pattern that has been repeating and escalating for the last ten years, and no-one is sure what is causing the increase.

“Some [submissions] are only just over 50,000 words, and one was exactly 50,000. Another had ‘done for the day’ every 1,600-1,700 words.”

“I don’t know where all this is coming from,” said one editor who wished to remain anonymous and employed. “By Wednesday, my email Inbox looked like I’d somehow subscribed to a live submission feed from BookSurge or Lulu. By Friday, the mail was stacked up floor to ceiling in the hallway outside the company offices. With the financial crisis, we can’t even afford to feed our interns, so I’m stuck going through the slush. And all of it seems so … unpolished, like a first draft, like they’d just finished writing it the day before. Who’s writing all this stuff, and why are they sending it to me, and why now? Why does the end of November always mean a deluge of crap?”

An anonymous literary agent agreed: “Most of the submissions I’ve received this this week are too short to be contemporary novels. Some are only just over 50,000 words, and one I got via email was exactly 50,000, cutting off mid-sentence. Another one had ‘done for the day’ or something about going to bed every 1,600 to 1,700 words or so. It’s a lucky standout that even has an introductory paragraph before the opening. Tell you what, though: judging by the subject matter of these submissions, poor is the new cancer.”

Barry Lyndon, editor of poetry journal The Contented Dodo, reported that he received over a thousand submissions during the week. “We usually get seven or eight. Twelve is a busy week, and that includes responses to funding requests. I think we might have opened the floodgates by amending our submission criteria to include ‘prose poems’, but really, none of the submissions I glanced at even mentioned dodos, and each issue of TCD only runs about 5,000 words. Someone would’ve had to write the Divine Comedy of dodo poems for us to dedicate ten issues to it.”

One literary professional interviewed was upbeat about the situation: Edwin Drood, editor of online literary journal The Unconscious Novella, said: “This spike in submissions is wonderful. We have enough material to publish a randomly chosen novella every day for the next decade. We can’t pay contributors, of course, but you can tell these submissions weren’t written with real publication in mind.”

Stephen Jayson Harris covered the publishing industry for What Fish is That? magazine until he was laid off in September. He now works as a bouncer at a Starbucks establishment, and is writing a book about the upcoming death of publishing.

The phenomenal success of National Novel Writing Month (the annual word-accumulation festival where participants dilute the very concept of “writer” down to its most simplistic sense) has spawned a number of similar Internet-based community challenges, each with its own arbitrary goal and Pyrrhic sense of achievement. Let’s look at the most popular:

• NaProMo
  National Procrastination Month is by far the largest community challenge project, with participants throughout the world (though most participants don’t even bother signing up). All you have to do is put off whatever you can put off, until at least the beginning of December. It’s also the oldest community challenge, predating NaNoWriMo by millennia. In fact, recorded history began when an ancient participant failed the challenge.
• NaMoGroMo
  National Moustache Growing Month, otherwise known as Movember, challenges participants to let the mo gro. Women are encouraged to participate.
• NaNoMoMo
  National No Moustache Month challenges the partners of NaMoGroMo participants to convince them to shave the mo.
• NaNaGaMo
  National Navel Gazing Month invites participants to ponder, mull, ruminate or philosophise over an existential, theoretical or theological question, for the entire month. Extra points are given if the participant:
  • Achieves nothing else in the month, except basic maintenance of their earthly vessel
  • Is able to convince someone else to take care of the basic maintenance of their earthly vessel
  • Frequently refers to the work of an earlier philosopher they’ve read
  • Frequently refers to the work of an earlier philosopher they haven’t read
  • Spends the month arguing the same point with the same person, to no conclusion
  • Ends the month with exactly the same opinion
• NaPerMeMo
  National Perpetuate a Meme Month invites participants to spread Internet memes, via blogs, emails, IMs, and particularly by describing them to others in person. Extra points are given if:
  • The meme is more than a year old
  • The participant doesn’t check other sources to see if the meme is pure bullshit
  • The participant creates their own derivative example of an existing meme (such as their own Lolcatz photo, or Demotivator)
• NaTeYoFriYoPlaMo
  National Tell Your Friends Your Plans Month is very popular amongst young people, especially college students. Participants are encouraged to tell their friends what they plan to achieve in in the short and long term. Extra points are awarded if the plans require extraordinary serendipity, divine intervention, or a suspension of the fundamental laws of the universe. Bonus points are awarded for returning participants if they haven’t achieved any of their plans from the previous year, and if they have all new plans this year.
• NaWhiAboDePubMo
  National Whine About the Death of Publishing Month encourages participants to engage in lengthy discussions about how publishing is going to hell in a handbasket, and to make predictions about when the industry will collapse and society will abandon reading altogether. Now in its 400th year! Extra points are given if the participant:
  • Uses the example of a bestselling book they think is bad as evidence that human civilisation is on the verge of self-destruction
  • Uses their own failure as a writer as evidence that the publishing industry doesn’t know literature from a pile of manure wrapped in a tabloid
  • Fails to see the irony in their refusal to buy any more books until the industry lifts its game
• InIOToLiAmAgMo
  International It’s Ok To Like Americans Again Month launched only this year – November 4, to be exact – and already it has millions of signups worldwide. Participants are encouraged to openly discuss American politics without shaking their heads in disbelief, to see American movies, read American books and listen to American music without feeling ashamed, and to give American tourists the opportunity to prove themselves to be boorish assholes, instead of simply assuming it.
• NaNaNaNa-NaNa-NaMo
  National Sing Along Without Knowing the Words Month – If you get through an entire song without anyone noticing, you win. You’ve been participating for years.
• NaIDoThiThaFuMo
  National I Don’t Think That’s Funny Month challenges participants to write to so-called satirists and comedians, and explain exactly why their brand of humour is wrong, illogical, unacceptable, dangerous to children and generally devoid of value or place in civilised society. Extra points are given if the participant:
  • demonstrates a complete misunderstanding of the concept of satire or comedy
  • reacts as if the piece was intended seriously, and refuses to back down when they discover it wasn’t
  • insists that the benchmark for publication should be whether the participant thinks it’s funny
  • insists that satire is only clever or funny when it’s obvious or clearly labelled that it’s satire
  • insists that anyone who finds humour in the piece must be just as mentally retarded as the author
  • gives examples of other satirists or comedians they do understand in order to prove that the author isn’t funny
  • attempts to give their own examples of what satire or comedy really is in order to prove that the author isn’t funny
  • uses the word “sorry” sarcastically
  • claims to support the right to free speech while insisting that the author must voluntarily relinquish this right
  • threatens an organised boycott amongst the seven people they know
  • threatens physical violence upon the author, should they happen to wander into the participant’s basement
  • Complains anonymously, especially if doing so in a blog or forum the author will surely never read

Some of the challenges that didn’t make the Top Ten:

• NaBuSewMo — National Button Sewing Month
• NaCroSoMo — National Crossword Solving Month
• NaSoKniMo — National Sock Knitting Month
• NaRhiNoMo — National Rhinoceros Month (If you see a rhino, you win. Very popular in Africa.)
• NaQuiPoOnYoBloMo — National Quit Posting On Your Blog Month
• NaCompAboBroIncoMo – National Complain About Browser Incompatibilities Month
• NaFaSoLaTiDohMo — National Scales Singing Month

November is also NaCreYoOwNaNoJoMo — National Create Your Own NaNoWriMo Joke Month. Please feel free to post your own contributions in the comments below. Extra points if your entry is vaguely pronounceable.

Ah, National NOvel Writing Month, that magical time of the year where over a hundred thousand confused misanthropes sequester themselves from their daily miseries to join a massively multiplayer online game where every character is a writer, and when you amass 50,000 points you Win! It’s just like World of Warcraft, but with no graphics, sound, or incremental reward system. Remember, folks, the first month is free, but an ongoing subscription requires talent.

(This year, I’m going undercover as a NaNo participant, to see what havoc I can wreak upon the enterprise from within. If you want to help, sign up to NaNo then post a random number as your daily wordcount. Even better, keep posting zero! With your help, we can achieve our goal of reducing their average wordcount by a digit.)

To counter the unbelievable surge in temporary motivation that NaNo causes, November needs 2 new Demotivators:

NaNoWriMo
Almost as challenging as solving 500 crosswords,
and almost as rewarding.

click for larger version (widescreen)

Photo by Jane Sawyer, of MorgueFile.

NaNoWriMo
It’s all fun and games until you expect someone else to read it.

click for larger version (widescreen)

Photo by Andrea Church, of MorgueFile.

And if that’s not enough to dissuade you, check out last year’s 2 November Demotivators as well.

A pessimist would say that the 21st Century began on September 11, 2001. I remember looking at my 12-day-old second child that day and thinking that the world had changed, irrevocably, and that she would never know what it was like to live without the omnipresent threat of global terrorism.

An optimist would say that the 21st Century began on November 4, 2008, when the United States of America finally said No to the politics of Old White Men. I have four children now, the youngest about 20 months old, and by the time she is old enough to understand such things, she will probably not believe there was a time when people thought America “wasn’t ready” for a President who wasn’t an Old White Man.

The war in Iraq will end, eventually, and the spectre we call Al Qaeda will fade and be replaced by another shadowy fear. But we will never return to the old 20th Century mindset, of passive racism justified by resignation.

Hopefully this will also see the long-overdue mainstreaming of “black” literature, and mark the end of the Magic Negro cliche in fiction.

Note: The LA Times’ David Ehrenstein argued, back in March 2007, that Barack Obama is America’s Magic Negro. It’s depressing to think he may be right, but after the first four years of his presidency it won’t matter.

Of course, a technophile might suggest that the 21st Century began on December 15, 1994, when Netscape Navigator 1.0 was released and the promise of the Internet began to be realised. And there is bound to be a nitwit with no poetry in their soul who claims that the 21st Century began on January 1, 2000 (and a truly pedantic nitwit still clinging to the mathematically correct notion that it started on January 1, 2001).

It is my sincere, but faint, hope that between now and his Inauguration, Barack Obama takes the time to visit Saturday Night Live, and give this speech:

BEGINNING
The last chance the reader has to put your book down,
before they start to hate you for wasting their time and money.

click for larger version (widescreen)

Photo by Stephanie, of MorgueFile.