101 Reasons to Stop Writing

Today, October 15, is Blog Action Day, when thousands of bloggers will burn thousands of tons of coal to blog about the environment. Apparently it doesn’t matter whether you’re for or against it.

Personally, I’m for the environment. From my loungeroom window I can see a huge pile of it. I really feel for the plight of New York publishing professionals, who on a clear day can see New Jersey, and have to take a cab twenty-four blocks just to buy a picture of the environment.

Writers are a scourge on the environment, consuming incalculable resources that could be better used building a monorail around the Tropic of Cancer. But maybe I can convince you to make a difference, just for one day. How?

• Don’t print anything. Do you really need to print out an entire draft, just to jot down notes to yourself like “great scene!”, “love that transition”, “what a powerful theme” and “I could fall in love with this character” in your beta reader’s handwriting?
• Don’t mail anything. Save paper, save postage, reduce the postal system’s transport costs, and spare the slush reader at the other end the matches and lighter fluid.
• Don’t go to your critique group. All that smoke you’re blowing up each other’s asses is sucking the oxygen out of the Amazon, not to mention giving you ass cancer.
• Don’t blog anything. All those packets of data whizzing back and forth around the world, just so you can share your me-too’s on the latest pointless “this calls for immediate discussion” meme (it’s a unit of information, a wave and a particle, a floor wax and a dessert topping). It’s all liberals back-slapping other liberals on how enviro-literate they are — because conservatives would rather lock puppies in a garage with a running Hummer than read your opinions on recycling toner cartridges.
• Just switch off your computer. Go outside and read a book. You can blog about it tomorrow.