![[Logo]](/images/101ReasonsLogo.png "101 Reasons to Stop Writing")
Just for today.
CHRISTMAS
Stop writing and take the day off.
Go kiss somebody.
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Photo by Jane Sawyer, via MorgueFile.
If you get books or writing-related presents this year, please share in the comments. A family member who doesn’t know about this blog gave me a self-published Harry Potter knockoff by a local writer. There’s a quote from a rejection letter on the back cover.
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I got something writing-related. A whole new harddrive. Now I ‘ve got 320 gigs to fill up with crap.
Nearly all my presents were writing related. Pens, highlighters, a ‘writing fiction guide’ special magazine, the book ‘The Artist’s Way’ and a fantasy writer’s reference guide book.
Heather, resist.
JM, how can you have a ‘reference’ guide to writing fantasy? Does it have “Dungeons & Dragons” somewhere on the cover?
A biography of comic legend Dave Allen for me, as well as a Face of Boe action figure. Okay, so that’s not strictly writing related, but look, you can make his mouth move!
No actual presents (every year I express a desire not to get any, as I have everything already and don’t have room for more), and this time the friends and family actually came through. Nothing at all! Joy!
Well, except for something charitably described as a “Masterpiece Fundraising Braided Bread Apple”, which I thought might be sort of okay from the way the gifter described it as she chiseled it out of the deepfreeze, but proved massively disappointing once I got it out of the box and tasted one end of it. Some of the “apple” filling had extruded onto the faux gold interior and corroded it, and I couldn’t bring myself to squeeze out the packet of “frosting” to alleviate the strangely chemical blandness, because it reminded me too much of those little toiletry/condiment packets in downmarket hotels and restaurants.
It’s the same feeling of letdown and revulsion I had after reading my very last, ever, Dune book. I thought Chapterhouse was excruciating, but the not-even-worthy-of-fanfic efforts by Kevin/Brian even make ol’ Frank’s worst potboilers almost bearable. Today the only science fiction I read (or write — anonymously of course) is software documentation.
What was the quote?
“What was the quote?”
Pleasantries about how the editor liked the style, etc., leaving out the word “unfortunately” and everything that followed it. It wasn’t published by that company, which is a subtle clue.
Technically it wasn’t a Christmas gift because I bought it for myself in November, but I called it a Christmas gift as an excuse - it is an Asus EEE PC. Weighs 2 pounds and is as small as a hard cover, so I can carry this laptop anywhere for writing. Oh, and I also bought myself a new external hard drive, so like Heather, I can fill it up with crap. The crap I wrote on my new laptop! It all comes together.
On a side note, I received my 101 Reasons calendar for 2008 and it looks terrific. The only problem is it seems to have the opposite effect for me. I’m inspired instead of discouraged. Well, I do write horror so I always have been somewhat twisted…
The closest I got to a writing-related present was a set of gift cards to the local Half Price Books stores. Not only do I get entertainment by purchasing books I might want to read, but I also get further entertainment by viewing the multitude of science fiction and fantasy novels in huge remainder piles by the front door. (Considering that I should have joined in with Back Issue Bonfire Day by donating my issues of Sci-Fi Universeand SCI FI — a grand ebay total of $4 and $23 in postage to mail off the whole mess — I can at least get some joy out of watching the more hubristic of my former writing brethren as their chrestomathies rot on the Half Price shelves.)
I received a shiny new 2008 edition of Writer’s Market. Now, I can get more rejections than Quasimodo at the Miss Universe pageant.
Rebecca,
I’m so jealous. I really want one of those!
cerebralmum, the Stop Writing 2008 calendars are still available at the 101 Reasons Store.
My children gave me three sets of beautiful new bath towels for Christmas, but they made me promise not to write on them this time.
Happy New Year, Sean.
Here’s a real gem:
Last year, my mother bought me a book by a certain author, in hardcover.
This year, she bought me a paperback copy of the EXACT SAME BOOK. When I pointed it out to her, she said, “Well, there was a sign up that said it was new, so I thought you didn’t have it.”
Three guesses who the author was.
Can I guess for more guesses?
My wife bought me the script book for last year’s Beowulf movie. Perhaps she thinks if she encourages me I’ll become wildly successful - or just better looking..?
L, I’ll bite… was it Stephen King’s On Writing?
He, he, I didn’t get writing related presents, but lots of books. My family knows me! But I bought myself the demotivators calendar for 2008, just for fun.
BTW, French writer André Gide seems to have had more or less the same idea than Sean when he wrote in a letter to an aspirant writer who was asking for advice: “Young man, if you *can* stop writing, do it at once!”
Wow, no one got it right! It was a highly repetitive female author, who remains my guilty pleasure for some reason. I think it has to do with the prevalence of fire.