101 Reasons to Stop Writing

… in 2002, Paul Riddell stopped writing.

Apart from a few partial lapses that threatened to lure him back to the Futile Pursuit, he hasn’t written professionally since. (For the irritating pedants out there: no, he didn’t completely abandon placing words in order to communicate meaning in a tangible, non-vocal form. If you’re one of the irritating pedants who instinctively wanted to argue over this definition, stop writing. You can take that literally.)

And honest to Elvis, he’s happy about it. He’s healthier, wealthier, better adjusted and better looking. He has a loving wife, spare time, disposable income and the kind of hobbies that don’t result in RSI, empty bank accounts, a shattered ego and a garage full of mouldy contributor’s copies from defunct magazines even the editors didn’t bother to collect.

And like me, he genuinely wants to help you get your life back.

Since stumbling on 101 Reasons, he’s become a kind of unofficial Contributing Editor, providing informed commentary and a series of articles on the evils of writing, as only a man who has walked on the dark side of the street could.

Why should you care? Because Paul lived the writer’s life, and lived to tell the tale. His example should serve as a warning to you all.

It’s not like he was a failure as a writer. He had the kind of freelance career that many writers aspire to. Editors paid him to write. Editors begged him to contribute. Some still do, defying (or more likely, not bothering to read) the warning on his blog that he will only accept commissions on the condition of “the right to punch the editor AND publisher in the mouth for a solid hour.” Old friends and even relatives continue to pester him to return to writing, despite his repeated warnings that he would rather evacuate the contents of his skull with a large-calibre projectile weapon than than ever sit around waiting for a small-press editor to pull a contracted payment out from under all the werewolf porn.

If you’ve read his writings, then you know the man has talent. The only real weakness I’ve noticed in his writing is a tendency to fall back on a set of all-purpose gags. When I pointed this out to him, he observed, “They may be cliches, but they’re my cliches, dammit.” It’s more like a trademark, really. When you read his work, you’re secretly hoping he’ll work in a reference to Hunter S. Thompson or black tar heroin, the same way you secretly hope that Steve Martin will sing “King Tut” one more time.

The fact that a decade and a half pursuing a writing career left him miserable and broken is testament to two important truths, that 101 Reasons will elaborate on in the future:

1. Talent is not enough.
2. People who say “you should be a writer” have no idea what they’re saying, unless they have a cheque made out to you in their hand.

If you don’t learn these lessons now, you are doomed to eventually find yourself sitting on a barstool at a writing/genre convention, crying into your domestic beer that absolutely everyone you’ve spent the weekend asskissing has already fscked you over at least once. (And that’s if you have talent.)

This Friday, Paul’s throwing a party to celebrate the fifth anniversary of quitting writing. Wherever you are in the world, raise a glass to the guy and promise yourself that you’ll learn from his example. It could save you years.