![[Logo]](/images/101ReasonsLogo.png "101 Reasons to Stop Writing")
Anonymous comments are fine.
Anonymous comments which criticise 101 Reasons are fine, provided:
Anonymous comments which abuse the author of 101 Reasons are fine, provided:
Anonymous comments which fail these criteria will be publicly excoriated.
Like this one:
Hahaha your gay ass blog just makes me want to even write more. When I write the next bestseller I’ll include it in my credits.
Although this would continue the noble tradition of acknowledging the influence of gay ass blogs on the modern bestseller, I’m not sure I want to be given credit for making this guy “want to even write more”. I think he’s missed the window to write the next bestseller, anyway.
Or this one, which robbed me of my anonymous abuse virginity (it’s long, you can skim it):
You’re a fracking loser! You, Mr. Blog Owner, need to pull your head out of your a@@! If you spent more time NOT WRITING and less time being a dickhead you’d waste a lot less of your sorry excuse of a life and other people’s time. I think this is a deplorable attempt at discouraing [sic] young writers, who don’t always write well. It takes time and practice to craft a good story and hone skills. Yes there is a lot of formulaic crap out there and novelists who should STOP. But it doesn’t mean that there aren’t a lot of people who SHOULD be writing and if they listen to you, I feel for them. PEACE!
Couldn’t even be bothered to glance at my name. And, apparently agrees with me.
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If a gay ass-blog makes him want to write even more, I gather he’s already following the rule of “when you can’t think of anything else to write, add a sex scene”…
ur so gay that you sucks
Oh crap, I forgot to be anonymous.
*wails*
Oh the agony.
Wow, haven’t you made Stephen King and JK Rowling bitter?
If only their published works were this anonymous. Or this well written….
Why is “dickhead” okay, but “ass” gets the at sign?
What a fracking loser.
I suspect he’s afraid of the ass, but doesn’t mind a dick.
Hi first time visit to this site. slow work day. Long time writer. And yes an unpublished one.
I think J.K. Rowling made an interesting comment regarding this stuff. she said something like, if you spend a complete day writing and if you throw every single sentence away, rework everything back to maybe just one idea… then it maybe if you do this enough, you will get, maybe, one single idea that is remotely workable and usable in a larger context. If you’re lucky. which rules out most people.
I write for the love of it and have done for 16 years. I don’t bother to approach publishers and agents because its gotta be good to stand out from the slush and when I started, I only had an idea. And no idea how to write. 16 years later, I now have a slightly better idea and still no idea how to write. Do this for long enough. Throw out enough words to fill an encyclopaedia 10 times and you may just have enough words left to make a half decent read; which will likely never be read or appreciated by anybody not you.
And I am a motivated, persistent writer with something to say; who realises that it has already been said.
I’ve written over a million words and cut over a million words from my story. I now have a 150000 words still in the story; but I’ll find a way to cut them yet. Just about everything you can imagine is bad about them, exists in them. Poor structure. Verb tense. Inconsistent point of views. Inaccurate descriptions. And I’m only talking about the first paragraph at this point.
Do it for the love of it and don’t expect it to be good. Or lovable. And for the sake of those poor editors and publishers, don’t bother them. Chances are you’ll spend thousands and if you made it by some stroke of luck, you’ll never make back what you’ve spent on it. If i was paid a cent for every hour spent working on it, I’d be Bill Gates.
Until every single ounce of your life, your blood, your perspiration is positively dripping from it… until you have spent thousands and thousands of dollars looking for other people to tell you what you already know… its crap… and until you’ve addressed and improved everything about it, so that all those who called it crap change their minds and called it good and not your dear mama, don’t send it to an editor, agent or publisher. At least not without a $1000 bonus cheque to reimburse them for reading the first page.
And until you’re willing to give all of yourself and gain nothing back, choose another career. Anything.
If you can be talked out, then please do something else.
I can’t be talked out of it. I’m one of those sad few for whom I would gladly die to keep writing. I have lost a marriage over it. Given up any thought of children. If writing does not mean that much to you, go somewhere else!
If you want to spend money on anything but quality line and structural editing opinions… workshops, continual conventions, courses… do something else.
- Justin Wallace