101 Reasons to Stop Writing

(Because I wasn’t busy enough this week, we moved house. I’m stealing someone else’s bandwidth to post this, via an unsecured wireless network. Suckers.)

I like Miss Snark. Not because she’s a good agent (though she probably is), not because she dispenses useful, mythbusting advice to emerging writers (leave them to their myths, I say), but because underneath that snarkasm, there simmers a rage to scream “Stop writing!” to the seemingly endless procession of nitwits who beg her to tell them it’s ok to ignore the submission guidelines.

At least, I imagine her saying “Stop writing”. I picture her slamming a red Stop Writing stamp on the worst submissions, while reducing the sample pages to ash and frosting the SASE in Yapp shit. But alas, it’s just a fantasy, one that’s doubly perverse because a) she’s only ever written “stop writing” preceded by the frustrating qualifier “don’t ever”, and b) she’s a pseudonymous avatar, invented to prevent failed writers from submitting their revised “stalker thriller” manuscripts in person.

That said, sometimes her advice is deeply flawed (perhaps only from my perspective, though). Recent cases in point:

• Hiring entertainment lawyers instead of agents - She thinks this is the mother of all bad advice. I think all new writers should hire lawyers. They will quickly learn the value of time, and who really makes money from writing.
• You don’t need publishing credits - Not true! You need publishing credits before anyone in publishing will look at your submission. The publishing industry is predicated on the notion that people will only buy your work if someone else has deemed it readable. You need publishing credits in order to get publishing credits. Cut your teeth at Podunk Monthly, and earn your stripes in New Cat Fiction before you think of mailing something to New York.
• Don’t link to a bad promo website - How about “Don’t even create a promo website,” Miss S.? WTF use is a promo website for an unpublished, unrepresented book?

She does claim to be a “fan of Satan“, so I suspect that her efforts to encourage writers irrespective of talent or potential is part of a greater scheme to populate His lowest levels.

Of course, there are other blogging literary agents (remember life pre-Internet, when calling someone “blogging” would’ve earned you a punch in the mouth?). But like Miss Snark, they stop maddeningly short of telling bad writers that their skills may be more suited to scrapbooking. Except The Rejecter, who for services to the cause will be nominated for the Stop Writing Hall of Fame, when I build one. (Suggest host cities in the comments.)

Agent Nathan Bransford, who’s up for Rookie Agent Blogger of the Year, writes a really bad query letter, for science.

The inaugural Weekend Update Stop Writing if You Need This Advice Award nominees:

• Agent Kristin suggests that next time you find yourself writing a frustrated, abusive response to a rejection, stay your hand before you send it. I say send away. It’s probably the best writing you’ll ever do.
• John Scalzi discusses how to say No to authors begging for a blurb. You’d think a writer who reaches the stage of asking for blurbs would’ve heard No a few times already.
• Daniel Hatadi discusses the seriousness of blogging for authors who want to be taken seriously.
• Agent Kristin recommends that you put her (and agents in general) on your Do Not Call list.
• James Winter discusses the importance of revision. That’s “re-reading your work over and over, cutting the parts that suck the most and changing the rest until it sucks as little as possible” to you.

And … the recently disemployed Bookseller Chick explains, after a fashion, why market research about book-buying habits doesn’t work.