An optimist would say that the 21st Century began on November 4, 2008, when the United States of America finally said No to the politics of Old White Men. I have four children now, the youngest about 20 months old, and by the time she is old enough to understand such things, she will probably not believe there was a time when people thought America “wasn’t ready” for a President who wasn’t an Old White Man.

The war in Iraq will end, eventually, and the spectre we call Al Qaeda will fade and be replaced by another shadowy fear. But we will never return to the old 20th Century mindset, of passive racism justified by resignation.

Hopefully this will also see the long-overdue mainstreaming of “black” literature, and mark the end of the Magic Negro cliche in fiction.

Note: The LA Times’ David Ehrenstein argued, back in March 2007, that Barack Obama is America’s Magic Negro. It’s depressing to think he may be right, but after the first four years of his presidency it won’t matter.

Of course, a technophile might suggest that the 21st Century began on December 15, 1994, when Netscape Navigator 1.0 was released and the promise of the Internet began to be realised. And there is bound to be a nitwit with no poetry in their soul who claims that the 21st Century began on January 1, 2000 (and a truly pedantic nitwit still clinging to the mathematically correct notion that it started on January 1, 2001).

It is my sincere, but faint, hope that between now and his Inauguration, Barack Obama takes the time to visit Saturday Night Live, and give this speech:

Before 101 Reasons went dark (so I could gussy it up for the move) we were discussing clichés, and pondering which cliché might be the most despised of all. Well, I was pondering it, and if you weren’t, it’s only because you know you can only pretend to be a writer of original fiction if you pretend that no-one has ever written any fiction before.

Let’s face it. All the clichés on this poll are bad. The plot clichés are enough to sink your novel just on the summary. The writing clichés demonstrate a laziness that will make critics and fickle readers put your book down unfinished. We’re not looking for clichés that bother you — vote for the cliché that you want expunged from the fictional landscape for as long as you have eyes to read it.

Then Ms. Reasons gave me an extraordinarily thoughtful, exquisite, and (although she ordered it a week ago) perfectly timed gift.

It’s nearly 4AM. It’s snowing outside. And I’m here writing this blog.

If that doesn’t shave a sentence off your output today, I might have to break your Shift key. Assuming you ever use it.

But I forgot to take heed of a few other Reasons, specifically #22: You Think ‘Deadline’ Means ‘Whenever You’re Ready’, #84: You’re Completely Preoccupied With Daily Routine, and #46: You Couldn’t Plan to Fall Down if You Fell Off a Building.

I love writing blogging 101 Reasons, but I love my wife and children a hell of a lot more, and when one gets in the way of the other, it’s a (somewhat) frustrating but obvious choice. If you feel the same way, then you’re going to be a failure as a writer, but you might make a pretty good human being.

I don’t want to sit on the unfinished articles for eleven months until next year’s slush party. So, until further notice, it’s May 31 on this blog, and the bonfires are still burning.

I’ve added instructions on using the image as a desktop background, which will do wonders in dissuading you from writing, at least until next month’s Demotivator.

I use RSS feeds to speed up the process, but I’m now tracking over eighty blogs, many of which post several times a day. At the moment each Update is compiled from an average of over 400 posts/articles, most of which I read thoroughly before coming up with some pithy comment to swing the context in my favour (which is more work than simply pasting “Not right for us” into a reply email).

Most of it is basically irrelevant, of course (you would not believe how many reporters, esp. sports writers, tell themselves in print to “stop writing” about some hobby horse they’ve been hyping to death), but it’s not always obvious from the first paragraph. Much of it is blog-blather from people who mix business with self-pleasure. Some of it is rah-rah you-can-do-it from people who haven’t done it. A small proportion is thoughtful, well written, and simply cannot be made funny, even by me. A sliver of it is concrete, helpful writing advice that I bookmark, and don’t tell you about.

So I’m getting a crash course in what agents experience — thankfully without the cold-calling, begging, whining, name-calling and spite that agents have to put up with. (Cue begging, whining, name-calling and spite in the comments section. Be funny.)

Since I’m now one week behind, I thought I’d start using my twitter account to keep you informed of just how far behind I am. At the bottom of the column at left, you may notice an Instead of Writing box, which lists my recent updates. I’ll post numbers there every day or so. The number will represent the current backlog.

Presently there are 879 unread items in my queue, dating back to May 1. Yeah, I’m that bad. Whenever I get through a week’s worth, I’ll post a Weekend Update. Or, if the queue hits 3,000, I’ll sell.

Note to writing bloggers, or blogging writers, or bloggers of or about writing:

If I’ve never linked to you in a Weekend Update, there are a number of possible explanations:

1. I’ve never heard of your blog
2. You don’t actually blog about writing
3. You’re too damn cheerful and upbeat, it makes me want to become an agent just so I can reject you
4. You spend too much time writing about your fsckin’ cat
5. Your opinions are one of the many flavours of useless
6. You don’t have an RSS feed (I don’t open my browser for nobody)
7. You don’t have a full-text RSS feed — I’m talking to you, Galleycat
8. You just suck

Here’s a few interesting things I learned about my readers:

• The vast majority of them are still pikers — hundreds of people read that thread. Hundreds. Can’t even comment on a blog, yet you think you can sell a 500,000 word historical romance about the fall of Rome from the POV of a Vandal afflicted with pillage angst.
• Majority of commenters are American. No surprise there. Most of those listed their state when I clearly said “country”, which to people who live outside the USA, is no surprise either.
• Popular locations: (somewhere in) Texas (USA), Melbourne and Perth (Australia). Perth’s a bit of a cheat, though, as I used to live there, and have eaten nachos with 2 of the 3 commenters. I have never eaten nachos in either Melbourne or (anywhere in) Texas.
• Countries other than USA/Australia: France, UK and Ireland with 2, and Spain with 1. Some of the world’s best writers came from those countries. They’re all dead now, though, so they didn’t leave comments.

Wow, hard demographic data like that will make heads explode at the Banner Ad division of Shredders R’Us. They’re trying to break into the lucrative bad writer market. (Check out this beauty, it can even shred your backups!)

A couple of points to clear up, from questions/assumptions made in the thread:

• No, blogless_troll, there was no domestic dispute. Ms Reasons’ only objection to this blog is the high Time Invested : Money Earned ratio (there are a couple of readers who could help solve that problem, but they’re shy). It really was the eighth anniversary of the day we met. Advice for the lovelorn: if you’re going to spend 57 hours on a bus to meet the love of your life, find out ahead of time if the destination terminal has a shower.
• Bethanie, I do not use fsck instead of f*ck because of Unix-nerdiness (I wasn’t aware of its etymology, thanks Mike). Studies have shown that fsck is 35% funnier than f*ck, which itself is 23% funnier than fuck (depending on how you give one).

The Open Thread is still open, by the way, and will remain so. If your country (or state)  is not represented, you know what to do.

Maybe I’ll tell you that story sometime. But for now, I’d like to ask a favour.

Introduce yourself.

In the last four months, this labour of gloom has attracted several thousand readers, from over sixty countries, on every continent. It’s truly humbling, to discover just how widespread this writing disease is, and how many of you are subconsciously yearning for the right reason to pack it all in.

Just for today, let yourself be known. Leave a comment. Be anonymous if you wish.

Say something. Tell me what you see from your window. What’s on your desk, or on your mind. Tell me why on earth you’d want to read a blog about stopping writing.

Just a few conditions:

• Tell me what city/country you’re in. I mean it.
• Give yourself no more than a hundred words or so, so the thread is readable.
• No flame wars. We’re all trying to quit together.
• If you’ve read this far, you have to comment. I don’t care what work you’re supposed to be doing, or if this thread is years old when you read it.

As a far better writer than you once wrote, “Come, your answer in broken music; for thy voice is music, and thy English broken.”

This may be the only time in your entire life that someone asks you to write something.

(If enough people comment, I might start posting Reasons again.)

If you’re a member of Writing.com, please email or comment here to let me know what the fsck they’re saying about me. Good or bad, I need to know, but not enough to email tech support and beg for access.

But, if you’ve been reading this blog for more than a month or so, you’ve probably noticed a downturn in, umm, let’s say frequency of content. (If you’ve been reading for less than a month, you might think this is as good as it gets! I am ashamed.)

There has been a reason behind this downturn. Reason #24: You Have Kids.

Reason #24, as you may remember (which is unlikely, because it hasn’t been written, because of this downturn), pointed out that:

Writing output is inversely proportional to how much you love your kids.

Which leads me to the subject of this personal interlude.

Little Reasons the Fourth was born on Thursday at 2:31am (which was probably still Wednesday in your ass-dragging time zone). Little Reasons is doing well, Mrs Reasons is doing well, the other Little Reasons are happy, I’m stressing like a one-legged poet with a two-thousand-page manuscript on the last day of a writer’s conference. 

So, umm, posts may continue to be sporadic for a few more weeks, until the oh-my-god-isn’t-she-beautiful wears off, the fact that I Have Four Kids sinks in, and I barricade myself in the junk room and install a doorbell that chimes “Fsck off, Daddy’s working”.

You know, I wasn’t planning to demonstrate any of the Reasons …