101 Reasons to Stop Writing

Paul T. Riddell had given up writing. For five years, he wrote nothing but paleontological research papers and the occasional blog post about paleontological research - which can hardly be considered writing, in the sense that he ever expected someone to read it. He had come to accept that his writing talents were moderate, his sense of humour was transient, his chosen genre (SF) was already hopelessly overpopulated with moderate talents, and his chances of building a successful career out of contributor’s copies was non-existent. Five years later, even finding examples of his columns, from the fossilised traces of long-extinct SF rags, is an exercise in digital archaeology. Until he found 101 Reasons, whereupon he felt compelled to dust off his academically-atrophied sarcasm and write, again. Ye Gods, I’ve actually inspired someone to write.

It’s an unrelenting fantasy, along the lines of the Chicago Cubs winning the World Series or George W. Bush demonstrating competence at anything other than turning water into urine. Whenever the economy goes sour, and companies demonstrate the main concerns of their management by laying off everyone within the organization who doesn’t have an MBA, the willing victims of one of the most pervasive alternative employment scams get hit with the delusion: “Well, now that I don’t have anything else to do with my time besides watching television, now I have the time to become a freelance science fiction writer!”

“In the end, if the wannabe actually gets something completed, Publish America and XLibris will be glad to assist with filling in the blanks on ‘A (blank) and his (blank) soon are (blank).’”

A lot of people benefit from that delusion, but not usually the wannabe writer. The dream usually lasts about six months, until the unemployment benefits run out, the savings run out, and “any day now, the checks will be pouring in” won’t keep the landlord or the bank from releasing the dogs. In the meantime, Writer’s Digest has a big chunk of cash from sales of magazine subscriptions and those godawful guides on “how to write science fiction”. The people who sell “story wheels” and other gadgets purporting to instill creativity into the hopeless have their money, as do any venues promising to sell accurate and methodical lists of open markets and those other wannabes who got caught in early layoffs who now teach “success in writing” night classes.

In the end, if the wannabe actually gets something completed, Publish America and XLibris will be glad to assist with filling in the blanks on “A (blank) and his (blank) soon are (blank).” Oh, and the post office gets its own “render unto Caesar” cut. The only people who lose out are the editors and slush pile readers at any publishing concern with a public address, because eight hours of reading unsolicited Absolutely Fabulous/Farscape crossover slashfic would leave anybody with the urge to relax that evening after work by grabbing a sniper rifle and shooting at school buses.

That’s not to say that the enterprising wannabe can’t set himself up for a career of incredible bitterness or unrelenting fantasy in freelance writing. The problem here is the timing.

See, at about the time most of the newly unemployed figure that they’d be much happier sitting at home writing instead of jobhunting or asking their parents “Have you already rented out my old room?”, it’s already too late. Magazine editors already have a nice fat pile of contacts for willing and dependable writers, and they’re already bombarded by requests for favors from old college chums who can pay for heroin or rent but not both. Book editors are already switching over from paying someone to haul the slushpile to the dump to using the waste paper in the furnace to heat the offices. The only affiliations that will get a wannabe’s foot in the door are purely tribal, and plastering the words “Member, SFWA” all over a manuscript will only guarantee that International Slushpile Bonfire Day comes early.

The trick here is to start writing when things start getting good, because that’s about the only chance for the mediocre to break in without college connections or serious bribes.

“In the science fiction field, good times in employment means that more computer programmers decide to take the disposable income normally assigned to action figure acquisition and use it to start a convention.”

Here’s the concept. Instead of waiting until the hammer of unemployment forces you into accepting that giving two-dollar blow jobs on a street corner is preferable to the humiliations inflicted by editors at Wired, wait until the economy starts looking up. That’s when you start seeing unemployable writers with delusions of making an evolutionary leap start setting up publications of their own. The Cat Piss Man with fifteen years of desktop publishing experience and just as many years of story rejections has an income tax refund check burning a hole in his pocket, and it’s just enough to publish one issue. The fratboy who put together a neighborhood zine when he was eight realizes that he’s getting far too old to continue with the title “trust fund brat”, so he starts a weekly newspaper. The crank writer who constantly bitches about the state of science fiction gets a job that pays marginally more than his old insurance company mail room slot, and he figures that now’s the time to edit an anthology “to show them all”.

All of them need content, and since real writers are now getting work at real publications, they’ll take anything they can get.

Waiting until things are good also works for promotion and presentation, too. In the science fiction field, good times in employment means that more computer programmers decide to take the disposable income normally assigned to action figure acquisition and use it to start a convention, and certain family-run organizations seeking a way to, erm, launder certain income streams are more than willing to chip into obvious losing propositions if they distract certain tax collection services. Either way, while nobody actually accomplishes a damn thing at a convention other than recycling beer, having spare fundage from a real job gives leverage that the otherwise penniless hordes of wannabes don’t have. Whether it’s financing a party with an aftermath cleanup that would have horrified Hunter S. Thompson, or buying a dress with a neckline so plunging that everyone can see your clitoral piercing, the idea is to get the front cover of Locus without actually having to write anything. That’ll come later.

Okay, so let’s recap. Bad times means more writing competition. Bad times means Mom will yell at you if you spend your days writing instead of jobhunting. “Good times” means more venues, more resources, and more opportunities. “More opportunities” means that you’ll have a nice fat list of stories and/or articles to show off to editors when the economy goes to hell again in the future. Unfortunately for you, “good times” means more employment opportunities, and Mom will kick you out of the house if you don’t have a job by the time you turn 50. Does that mean that you’ll be back to working 60-hour weeks and you won’t have time to write? Well, sucks to be you.

Don’t encourage him. He’ll just keep writing.