![[Logo]](/images/101ReasonsLogo.png "101 Reasons to Stop Writing")
Judging by the dodgy statistics available to me, around fifty people read 101 Reasons on an average day (after two months of lazy marketing and word-of-blog). Which is cool, because it shows that amongst the Internet’s swelling population of self-important poseurs, intellectual cowards and me-too hacks, there are writers willing to share a laugh at themselves this ridiculous hobby. This is the kind of site I would read, if anyone else had been clever enough to think of it, and your continuing readership indicates to me that you wish you’d thought of it too. I respect you for being able to admit that.
Part of the amusement of writing 101 Reasons is the fascinating responses it draws from people – particularly those who only invest a cursory glance through a telescope from their moral high ground.
I expected from the beginning that some readers would “get it”, some would think they get it, and some would grab their pitchforks. What I didn’t expect was for some to take an each-way bet, taking umbrage at the notion that the site was perfectly serious, while also decrying the “poor taste” of the humour. It’s said that criticism says more about the critic than the subject – in this case, it shows how they don’t trust their own ability to detect sarcasm.
I was expecting some name-calling, of course – if you can’t handle the idea of some random stranger saying nasty things about you for reasons unknown (or known), stop writing – but I also wasn’t expecting for some folks to call me a [random expletive] while admitting that for the most part, they agree. That just seems, well, [random expletive] of them.
Still, it’s all PageRank to me, as long as they get the link right.
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if you can’t handle the idea of some random stranger saying nasty things about you for reasons unknown (or known), stop writing
I rarely comment on most blogs, but this one…well…I am glad I had swallowed my drink before I read it because it may be the truest thing I’ve seen in print in days. (It would be weeks or maybe months, but I read Miss Snark, so I get a dose of truth pretty regularly.)
Wait a second. Is this about me? I thought I got it, but now I’m not sure at all. But, then again…
This blog rocks! A writer needs to be able to snicker at him/herself from time to time. I hope you *never* run out of things to write about this “hobby” (which does indeed border on an illness at times, at least for this wannabe)!
God, Sean, you random fucking expletive, you. I’ve only read every nineteenth word on this blog and I’m sick to death of the seriousness of your hilarious tasting of the poor….
Does anyone else find it hilarious that a blog about not writing gets more readers over the course of a month than 99% of all the fiction ezines out there?
Lee, of course it’s going to get more readership than 99 percent of the E-zines out there. Most E-zines are nothing more than Interweb versions of the old APA zines of the Seventies and Eighties: twenty contributors send in twenty copies of their article/story/tirade to the “editor”, who staples each copy into a collection and then mails it back to the contributors. Nobody’s going to read a damn thing other than their own stories anyway, so why waste time on getting additional readers?
Of course, I’m also not surprised at the readership, considering that the majority are probably people who shoehorned themselves into SFWA during the Pulphouse and Tomorrow SF days and who have nothing else going for them. They won’t comment, though, other than to nerk “I don’t think that’s funny at all.”
What I think is funny is that so many of those selfsame readers take inspiration to KEEP writing from your blog.
It’s not working man.
You couldn’t even get Meika to stop writing, and if there was ever a soul who needed to back away from the keyboard….