101 Reasons to Stop Writing

1669: Renowned diarist Samuel Pepys had the good sense to stop writing when his eyesight failed, unlike many other famous writers who kept on pushing the pen long after the cancer ate their talent. He wrote about one of the early Slushpile Bonfire Days that got out of control.

1790: The United States signs the first “Fsck You Fanficcers!” bill into law, forcing homobsessed hacks to wait 14 years before peddling their derivative smut. Unless the work was first published outside the US. In the first knockoff edition of Oliver Twist, “Fagin” was a verb.

1977: Legendary schockmeister William Castle finally stopped making terrible movies, and marketing them with spectacularly awful gimmick campaigns like “Illusion-O” and the “Fright Break”.

2000: International Slushpile Bonfire Day staves off criticism about pollution by trading carbon credits with World No Tobacco Day. 

2005: Former FBI Deputy Director W. Mark Felt ruins a perfectly good mystery by admitting he was “Deep Throat” in the Watergate scandal.