101 Reasons to Stop Writing

In 1933, Mahatma Gandhi began a 21-day fast to protest the first recorded use of the “Ma Hat Ma Coat” gag, and the unethical treatment of animals in the year’s blockbuster hit King Kong.

In 1937, Thomas Pynchon, second only to J.D. Salinger in the popularising of not writing for years at a time, was born. True to form, he didn’t publish anything for the first 26 years, his next best effort the 17 years between Gravity’s Rainbow (1973) and Vineland (1990). Literary scientists have observed a correlation between the financial success of each of his novels, the length of time until publication of the next novel, and the average street price of LSD and green origami paper. They predict that his next novel will be published in 2018. If you want him to write faster, buy all the green origami paper you can. Although he rarely publishes under his own name, he has diligently maintained his J.D. Salinger fansite on Angelfire since 1996.

In 1984, Reader’s Digest founder Lila Bell Wallace finally stopped publishing those execrable “Condensed Books” (which sold unusually well in Florida, where time is both precious and intolerable).

In 1985, Theodore Sturgeon terminated the experiment to test his theory that 90% of life is crap. Sturgeon’s tactic of defending the endemic awfulness of science fiction by saying that everything else was just as proportionately awful has given comfort to the 90% of science fiction writers who have only heard of Theodore Sturgeon because he coined the 90% rule. (I’m in the top 10%, who also know that he allegedly overheard L. Ron Hubbard say that the way to make a million dollars was to start your own religion, but never publicly confirmed it.)

In 1988, Robert Heinlein conclusively proved that time travel is not (and will not be) possible, by fsckin’ dying. He was part of the “Golden Triangle” of science fiction writers with Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke. Asimov and Clarke continued on as the “Golden Line” until 1992, when Asimov gave up waiting for people to build cool robots. Clarke survives as the “Golden Point”, watching his predictive science fiction writing become increasingly inaccurate.