Cognitive Recalibration

AKA "I hit you really hard in the head."

So Dr. Dina has been very busy this year. The majority of my posts have been recycled material when I remember it's my day to post (I've been averaging one post a month, and that will not do), and that's not really fair to you, the readers.

It does, however, make for good material for this blog.

I'm going to rant a little on a subject that's been discussed on my own blog, our Bitchstress Dreamkiller's blog, this blog, and countless others. It's been discussed many times in many different ways, but I'm going to bring it up again because it's still an issue.

In case you're new around here, the Evil League of Evil Writers' form of motivational speaking/inspiration involves pointy or blunt objects, depending on the poster's preference. (I prefer pointy, but blunt has its uses.) Today I'm going to go with a baseball bat, because some of you writers out there need a good beating.

"What is it?!" you cry as you run clumsily away from the serial-killer-stalkery of Dina-with-a-clue-bat, looking over your shoulder to see if I'm getting closer despite your running and my walking. (Hint: I am, because that's how the Serial Killer Stalk works – you run, I walk, I get ahead of you and bludgeon the shit out of you. Seriously. Watch any of the Friday the 13th films.)

Today's "it" is having time to write.

I hear it all the time (and it sends me into orbit) –

"I'd love to write, but I don't have time!"

"I have so much to do, I can't waste time writing!"

"You're so lucky! You have so much time to write!"

"It must be so nice to have time to write!" (This one is my favorite because it's said passive-aggressively in a "Wow, you have so much free time to sit on your ass! Some of us have actual lives and can't devote time to cute leisure activities!" way.)

Excuse. The Fuck. Out of you. Asshole.

Listen to me very, very carefully:

NO ONE "HAS TIME" TO WRITE.

NO ONE.

NO, NOT EVEN THEM.

Everyone, from unpublished writers to bestselling authors, has lives. Laundry. Dishes. Kids. Health issues. Financial issues. Family issues. Issues in general.

"Yes, but Big Name Author has a housekeeper/assistant/ *insert excuse here* and I'm just little me! I can't-"

STOP.

Stop right there.

You see what you did there? See that? Look at that sentence again. What's the word at the end there? Come on…you're a writer! You know words!

"Can't."

See that? That word? There's your problem, right there.

It's not that you "can't." The problem is you "won't."

Think about that for a minute. Go on. I'll wait.

*knits a row on her latest project*

Finished?

Did you understand the sentence? Really understand it? Because that's really what this whole thing is about.

You can write. You probably have. I don't care if it's three words on a napkin at lunch, or fifteen pages at 3AM before you shower for your 5AM shift.

You "want to write?" Fuck you. You don't "want to" write. You either write or you don't. You make time, you don't find it. Time isn't hiding behind the couch, waiting for you to find it. And again-

NO ONE "HAS TIME" TO WRITE.

They write. Period. Whether that's before the kids get up from school or after they're in bed at night, between loads of laundry, on your lunch break, on your smoke break, ten minutes while dinner is cooking…they're writing.

I hear you over there. "Dina, that just doesn't work for me! If I can't have a chunk of quiet time in which to write, I'm just not able to do it!"

Well then, it sucks to be you. I refer you to the above statement about "can't" versus "won't." You can adapt. You can make it work. You can change your attitude and learn to work with what you've got, if you really want to. The problem is you. You're not willing to change your behavior, make the time, make the adjustments, then shut the fuck up about how you "want to write" because you clearly don't want it badly enough.

As I said, everyone has lives, and everyone has issues. The difference between "wanting to write" and being a writer is making with the words.

So go make them. You can. You just have to make it happen. Get up ten minutes earlier. Go to bed twenty minutes later. And this applies to everything in your life, from unfucking your habitat to starting that exercise thing you said you were going to do this year. You can do it. Whether you will do it is up to you, and that's really it.

It's all about what you want and how badly you want it.

More than that, it's about your attitude. That old 80s movie The Last Starfighter says it perfectly:

Main Character Alex: "Come on, Centauri, I'm just a kid from a trailer park-"

Centauri: *points at him, punctuating each word with a gesture* "If that's what you think, then that's all you'll ever be!"

And that's really it. If you think you don't have time for writing, then you don't, and you never will. It's total bullshit, but that's what it comes down to. There will never be time. It will never be "the right time." You'll never have time when you're inspired to write, and inspiration will never come to you when you finally decide you have the time.

You fucking write. That's it. That is it, and that is all.

Adjust your attitude. Change your perspective.

Run faster.

How's that for motivation?

Retro Evil - A Reintroduction

Here we are...six months into 2014. It's been a wild ride already! The whole month of April we here at the ELEW were raising funds to help our dear Senior Pie Coordinator and Clubhouse Keeper, Julie Butcher, with the monumental medical bills incurred while her husband took on a chainsaw-wielding grizzly bear. And you know what, evildoers?

We did it.

WE FUCKING DID IT!

May was spent making sure all the perks were going out, and so on and so forth. There have been other posts on this blog detailing exactly what we've done, so I won't rehash. The ELEW is often up to no good...it's part of what makes us evil. Our efforts have garnered us a few new followers curious about who we are and what the Evil League of Evil Writers is.

Today's post is going to be about that very thing - what makes a writer evil? What's interesting about this entry is that it is a reprint of my very first post for this blog...over three years ago! The ELEW was founded April 1, 2011 by me (Dina) and our lovely Bitchstress Dreamkiller, Skyla Dawn Cameron. Though we are the founders, this organization could not function without our members. It takes a special type of person to be an evil writer, and membership in our esteemed organization is something we take very seriously.

Let me explain.

(Previously published April 2011 on the old ELEW site. It has been resurrected for today.)

Evil is not to be confused with "mean." There is a vast difference between being mean and being evil. For example, being mean is setting people up to fail just to amuse you. Being evil is taking pleasure in their failure when they've set themselves up to fail despite your repeated warnings/attempts at educating them.

The Germans have a word for this concept – "schadenfreude."

I am not mean. I am evil. Mostly.

Why am I an evil writer? Because I have no patience, tolerance, or compassion. I have absolutely NO sympathy for self-inflicted wounds.

Note that. Self-inflicted wounds.

Being a writer is torture. It's hard on the writer, it's hard on the reader, and it's devastation to the characters and worlds involved. Not everyone is cut out to handle the kind of collateral damage that a writer endures - physical, mental, and emotional. It's a rough life, and like anything that isn't easy, there are always people who want to claim the achievement without having to endure the hard work.

These people take shortcuts, generally make asses of themselves to everyone, everywhere, shove their "hard work/success" in the faces of those they've longed to impress, do the "I told you so" dance…

…then whine because not only is their work not selling, they're not accepted by the writing community as either a professional or a writer.

I have no sympathy for these people.

There's an icon someone created (I have it credited as made by the LJ user tuuli-chan) that I sometimes use(d) on my Livejournal that says "easy reading is damned hard writing." (ETA: I have now become aware that this is a Maya Angelou quote.)

That says it all. Writing is hard. It's not just "put words on the page." There's a bit more to it than that.

Why do I bring this up?

Because I'm about to rip the whiners a new orifice. Those sitting in the first five rows would do well to raise their plastic sheeting about now.

As stated above, I have no sympathy for self-inflicted wounds. I have absolutely NO PATIENCE for people who whine about how they were ripped off by this "publishing company"*, or about how hard writing is, or how they're suffering from writer's block, or they want to write but don't have time, or about the bad review of their work they read, or about how no one but their mom believes in them, or they don't have a support group, or whatever.

Shut. The fuck. Up.

If you want to be a writer – a PROFESSIONAL writer – then you're going to have to learn to take a hit. Like a boxer, you're going to have to work hard and train and hurt and bleed and then train some more WHILE you're hurting and bleeding. There is no training montage song provided. You have to come up with that on your own, and it's going to take a little more than two minutes of "You're The Best Around" or "Eye of the Tiger" to make you into a professional.

You want to get in the ring, you're going to get hit, and I've got no sympathy for you if you're going to whine about it when you do. You were warned. There's a lot of absolutely free information out there from people who know what they're talking about. Author blogs, agent blogs, writer's resources – it's all there if anyone bothers to look.

Real, professional writers do their research, and they don't whine about it.

Writer's block? Here: http://www.lilithsaintcrow.com/journal/writers-block/ (updated link as the old one was eaten by trolls)

And that's just one example. Fear of rejection? Covered. How to deal with rejection? Check. What to do once you've finished a manuscript? Also covered. Finding time to write? Plenty of info out there on that one. Tempting your Muse with chocolate?

I'd be careful with that one. You'll probably end up on a porn site.

Actually, you'll probably end up on a porn site regardless of what you search for, so please use your brain and remember that if anyone anywhere on the internet asks you for your money/credit card before you can access anything, LOOK ELSEWHERE.

Now that we've got that established, let's continue.

Any question you have can be answered by the ALMIGHTY GOOGLE, so I'm not about to sympathize with any excuse as to why you can't act like the professional you're claiming to be (or trying to be). Somewhere, someone has had the same question as you, and they cope just fine.

Which brings me to another point. My fellow ELEW member, Bitchstress Dreamkiller Skyla Dawn Cameron, said it best: "Writers these days really have no excuse to be ignorant."

I have no sympathy for those writers who could have known better with a FIVE MINUTE GOOGLE SEARCH on whether or not what they were doing was appropriate.

I also have no sympathy for people who behave badly, in person or online, especially writers.

If you're trying to be a professional anything, it's probably a good idea to learn how the professionals got to be that way and…I don't know…emulate them?

Now, we've all made mistakes. We've all been n00bs at some point and we all start somewhere. We've all made blunders. If you don't learn from those mistakes, or aren't embarrassed by them once you learn you've made it (and apologize for it if appropriate), then you shouldn't be trying to attain a level of professionalism you're never going to make.

My point here is, I have no patience or sympathy for those who don't bother to learn the game they're trying to play.

I certainly have no sympathy for those who whine about something they've CHOSEN to do being "too hard," or they want to write and don't have time,** or that their shortcut didn't work out the way they thought it would. Many writers would argue that writing isn't a "choice," but rather who they are, and they would be correct.

But becoming a professional is a choice. You want to write? Fine. Write. Write away. Be fruitful and multiply and all that.

You want to be a professional writer?

Learn to write well.

There are no shortcuts. You want to be a professional writer, you work hard, and you don't whine about how hard it is. There's a reason my alter ego on Twitter is #gunnyjames; an R. Lee Ermey-style encouragement-via-humiliation-and-degradation motivator. (ETA: I haven't done #gunnyjames in awhile, but she's still out there...beware....)

If you act like an ass, I'll treat you like an ass. If you act like a professional, I'll treat you like a professional.

If you act like a candy-assed, cotton-wrapped, sheltered little wannabe writer whiner, I'll simply point you back to the hole you crawled out of, because you don't belong here with the rest of us. I will also bitch-slap you if you deign to compare your whiny ass to me. I've worked hard and know what I'm talking about. You don't.

That's what makes me an evil writer. I know the rules, I know how to play, and I'll kick your ass up one side and down the other if you try and take me on with your unprofessional bullshit.

I'm also evil because I enjoy making people cry.

Are you crying?

Yes?

My work here is done.

No?

Come here for a second….

* Hi, yeah, that was a vanity press, if you'd bothered to research them like, I don't know, I TOLD YOU TO DO, maybe that wouldn't have happened.

** This one seriously annoys the fuck out of me – you either want to write or you don't. If you really wanted to write, you'd make the time, not excuses.

Writer's Block is Bullshit

Happy New Year, Evil Readers!

Aren't you glad we're back? Well, strap in…I'm kicking off 2014 with one hell of a rant for you. (Don't worry, I plan on resuming the Ask Dr. Dina series soon, but I needed to get this off my chest.)

Today's rant is brought to you by this thing. Some of you may have seen this post running around Tumblr. Others may have read Maureen Johnson's reply to this post. No matter which, now you know the inspiration behind today's rant.

Might want to put in the earplugs, kids. The screeching might get a wee bit loud 'round these parts here in a minute.... You see….

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS WRITER'S BLOCK.

Need me to say it again? Okay, I will.

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS WRITER'S BLOCK.

You need it once more? All right, fine.

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS WRITER'S BLOCK.

I hear you now. "But Dina…"

No. Don't "but Dina" me. It doesn't exist. Do you hear me? Fucking no. You want to be a writer, you write, damn it. Period. End of sentence.

"But Dina-"

WHAT DID I JUST SAY? Don't "but Dina" me! Listen to me very, very carefully:

EVERYONE HAS ISSUES.

Everyone.

No one is okay.

And just to blow your stupid little petty whiny bullshit out of the water, let me hammer a few things home for you:

1 – Jean Auel, bestselling author of the Earth's Children series, mega-uber author extraordinaire, had five children and a full time job while she was writing her first novel.

2 – J.K. Rowling, bestselling author of the Harry Potter series, started out on welfare with a young child, lost her mother to multiple sclerosis, suffered depression and domestic violence, got divorced, then got re-married and had two more children while writing the other books.

I could go on and on listing bestselling authors and their respective issues, but I'll stop with just those two. Do you see my point here? If you don't, I'll make it clear – those authors didn't give up. They didn't put the pen down. They didn't whine about "not having time to write" or "writer's block" or "I'm too busy" or "I'm unwell" or "I'm pregnant" or "I'm on medication" or "I have a kid to raise" or any other excuse you can think of.

THEY FUCKING WROTE. Through everything. No matter what else was going on in their life, they wrote.

Do you understand me?

Everyone has issues. EVERYONE. Yes, even that author. You are not special. You are not an exception.

If you want to be a writer, you fucking write. That's it. "Writer's block" is bullshit. It's nothing but laziness, fear, or other excuses. No one "has time" to write. You MAKE TIME to write. I know some writers who get up at the ass-crack of dawn to get some quiet time to write before the kids wake up and their day starts. I know writers who wait until everyone is in bed before they write. I know writers who keep notebooks handy so they can jot their words down on their lunch break at work.

If you want to write, YOU FUCKING WRITE. You don't just sit around and talk about this great and wonderful world you have in your head. Characters you have. You actually write them down. As the article I linked above says, "Nobody's going to buy the book you've got stored in your head."

People who only talk about their writing annoy the ever-living fuck out of me and I don't have patience for them. People who whine about "I wish I could write but I don't have time" just make me want to punch them in the face. What? You think I have time to write? That there is a room of absolute quiet that I retire to so that I may listen to Beethoven and struggle to create?

Fuck you! I don't have "time to write" either. I'm a writer, so that's what I fucking do, asshole! Just because that's my job doesn't mean it's easy or that I don't have to make time to do it. I have issues and laundry and a dirty house and errands to run and everything else that gets in in the way of my writing just like you do. The difference between me and you is that I get shit done. I'm a writer, whereas you're just a wannabe. You don't even get to claim the dubious title of "aspiring writer." You're just a whiny little pretender.

I don't want to hear your excuses. Why? Because they are ALL BULLSHIT. All of it. Everything you can come up with as an excuse not to write, I will refute.

No, not even if you're dead. Because that's what Ouija boards and mediums are for, you lazy ass ghost. (See? Story idea, right there. Someone get on that. Wait, that's MY idea…hands off!)

Wherein Mama Bitchstress Puts You in the Corner and Makes You Think About What You've Done

I traumatized a few people on Twitter last night because I ran into something horrific and had to share the pain.

It was a book on Kindle (of course), self-published (of course), in which the author was arguing with negative reviews. The book in question--fiction, and romance (or possibly erotic romance at that)--was written in all caps.

All caps.

Yes, THOSE ALL CAPS.

Also, it was riddled with spelling errors (like "eys" for "eyes"), wrong word usage ("bare" for "bear"), had almost no paragraph breaks, and...did I mention it was IN ALL CAPS?

The author's defense of this is that a) she is a new author, b) these books are "in progress", c) they're written purely for enjoyment (although she is charging $2.99 a pop for them), d) she works at a pantry kitchen and some of the money made will be going to feed the homeless.

No. No. No. Annndddd...no.

Listen to Loki. He only wants what's best for you.

I bring this up because this is not an isolated incident. Talk to anyone and you'll hear stories of books being sold on Kindle that flat out say "this book is a draft/work in progress" and "I can't afford an editor" in the description.

Come. Come sit at my feet as I have something very important to tell you. Lean in close. I want you to remember this.

YOU DO NOT PUBLISH BOOKS THAT ARE NOT READY TO BE SOLD.

Readers should not be paying for the "privilege" to be your betas or your editors. "Writers" who do this are the reason we can't have nice things.

If I go to a restaurant and pay money for food, I don't expect to be given a plate of lumpy mashed potatoes and still-frozen vegetables with someone's spit in a glass in place of water because the chef is "still learning." If I pay money for a meal, I expect it to be, you know, COOKED and well-prepared.

If I pick up a movie I've paid money for, I don't expect to see the actors fubbing their lines, mics in the scene, and the director walking in the background, with everything over a blue screen and no special effects added. If I see a movie, I expect it to be, you know, FINISHED.

When you ask someone to shell out money for your product, you damn well need to be sure it's the best fucking product and worthy of that money. There are hundreds of thousands of books out there--readers have a lot of options. They pay our bills, they support this industry, and they deserve the very best.

KDP is not where you put something "purely for enjoyment". You put shit up on your website or blog if that's what it's for and don't charge money for it. KDP is not where you go to find beta readers. You go to online writer groups and try to find crit partners. KDP is not where you go to find an editor. You find online resources for self-publishers and hire someone.

"But Mama Bitchstress, I can't afford--"

Stop it.

If you CHOOSE to self-publish--and it is a choice, no one is holding a fucking gun to your head--then you spend the money to have someone edit the work and put out a decent cover (not slap some Papyrus text on a poorly sized stock photo you threw into MS Paint). If you're charging readers money for something, you damn well better give them something WORTHY of that money. If you cannot afford an editor, then don't self-publish. Period. Full stop. The end. We all know normal typos happen, especially in longer works, but three or four of those is a far cry from BOOKS WRITTEN IN ALL CAPS WITH NO PARAGRAPH BREAKS OMG SOMEONE SHOOT ME.

If Mama Bitchstress catches you pulling this kind of shit, I am going to come in to your house and take your keyboard away and I won't give it back until you've had time to think about what you've done. If you argue, I am going to beat you to death with that keyboard, pull out a Ouija board, call your spirit up from hell--where people who self-publish without an editor go, and they have to read SLUSH, 24/7--to yell at you some more.

This isn't just about readers, though.

This is about you.

Presumably you want a career, yes? You want to be around ten years from now? Do you really want people to associate you with a book written in all caps?

Let me tell you, you will be judged on what you've written regardless of what stage you were at when you wrote it. I am. All the time. And I'm not even talking about something as absurd as I've mentioned above--I'm talking about books that aren't terribly written, and have been edited, and are still young. They're not as I'd write them now but I don't get to go back in time and alter scenes I wrote when I was a twenty-one-year-old kid. And neither will you.

Respect yourself. Respect readers. Don't be in such a fucking rush.

Also, readers, please stop buying books that admit to only being drafts or works in progress. Because even if you one-star and return it later, you're only encouraging these people.

@skyladawn Any book description that admits to being a draft.... should be like a trap. Anyone who buys it gets their Kindle taken away.
— Wendy Sparrow (@WendySparrow) November 11, 2013

Shop Talk

There's a reason people tend to socialize with folks who do the same thing they do. Writers, like other artists, have their collectives, their guilds and groups, their gaggles and congregations. A lot of people will claim that we gather for practical purposes. We are advised to "network" and to build a creative circle for many business reasons.

Actually, this is good advice, but I'm feeling humorous today, and I want to talk about an even more important reason to have a group of authors with whom you can socialize. So let's put aside all those valuable and valid reasons to seek out a writing circle and talk about something else: the safety and well-being of your friends and family.

By this I mean that you need people who "get" you...at least I do. I need someone that will give me the correct responses to my complaints and cheers, my bitching and whining, and who will appreciate any hard-won celebrations. For instance, when I tell my husband that I have to write a one page synopsis of my 300 page book and he says, "shouldn't be too hard" or "that sounds like fun," I need to be able to NOT beat him to death with our toaster. Having someone who I know will say, "ah shit," and then throw chocolate at me goes a long way toward keeping HIS forehead toaster free.

You get what I'm saying, I'm sure. But just for fun, here are a few more.

Writer: I think I may be stuck on this book. I haven't written in three days.
Well-meaning family member: You should take a break. Take some time off and give it a rest.
Writing Buddy: Oh, is the poor author feeling lazy today? Books don't write themselves, you weenie, get back to work.

Writer: I'm thinking of making the villain a robot monkey.
Mom: I never get tired of those.
Writing Buddy: Another monkey? Why not, right? I mean, you wouldn't want to actually put something original in this one.

Writer: I just got a partial request from an agent.
Family Member: When they make the movie, can you get me a part in it?
Author friend: Here, have this big ol' glass of tequila.

Your author friends will mock you when necessary, encourage you when it's absolutely mandatory, and understand your insane babbling about plot arcs and motivation without needing an interpreter.

Just remember that your family is trying their best, and that you probably don't get the responses to their comments right either. Because I've seen the toaster look in his eyes too, and I can only hope he has someone he can tell about lures and flies and the difference between hatchery raised and wild salmon who will give him the right reaction. My forehead hurts just thinking about it.

Play safe. :)
Frances

Full of it

I'm not so much Sarah as I am Snuffleupagus. My dad visited and left me a loverly head cold as a parting gift. I have done nothing this week but curl up on the couch and watch Dexter on Netflix. (Cool show, btw)

So because my head is fuzzed out, I offer you this video instead. Listen, learn, live.

It's Not Personal, It's Business

Dina here.

I'm going to expand on my previous post and talk about rejection.

It happens to EVERY WRITER. Every single writer gets a rejection letter for something at some point. Your favorite author? Rejected. Someone you know whose work is utterly brilliant and you can't in a million years see how they could ever be rejected? Yep, them too.

Even people who are already repped get rejections for some of their new ideas, so don't go thinking that once you're accepted by an agent everything is going to be fine and dandy and you'll never have to deal with rejection again. From bestselling novelists to not-yet-pubbed writers, rejection happens to everyone.

And you know what? To paraphrase The Godfather, "it's not personal, it's business."

The vast majority (and I'm talking like 99.8% here) of rejection letters aren't personal. Again, if you've made a complete ass out of yourself or are known to be a complete stalker jerkwad, there might be a bit of "personal" thrown into your rejection, but that's on you. You earned that. The rest of the time, though?

Strictly business. (We're not going to talk here about shit that should have been rejected outright/never have seen the light of day and was accepted instead of your shit. That's a blog post for another time.)

It's hard not to take it personally. Believe me, I know the feeling well. It's hard not to get discouraged. But take a long, hard look at your letter(s). If they're anything like "thank you but it's not right for me/my catalogue/etc." or "I don't believe I'm the best person to represent this" or "I didn't fall in love with this" or "I have to be very careful about the projects I take on and this just doesn't fit," here's a hint. These are FORM REJECTIONS.

Now, if your letter says something specific like, "I couldn't connect with the main character" or "I didn't understand _______" or "I love your voice and your concept but _______," these are generally personalized rejections. Now, "personalized" does not mean the rejection is personal. It means it was written specifically FOR you, not ABOUT you. That's the difference here.

A rejection letter is rejecting your WORK, not you as a person, and that's really what you have to keep in mind. I've read several blog posts lately from wannabe writers crying (angrily in some cases!) about how they've been rejected so many times and no one loves them and and and….

As I said before, if you've gotten more than 10 rejections, you might want to look to a few things. You don't just keep querying with your work thinking all is well. READ your rejections carefully. Form rejection? Okay. Suck, but okay. Try someone else until you hit double-digits. Once you hit double-digits, try revamping things. Your query letter, your work, your choice of agent…there's lots of things you can tinker with. Quick refresher from my previous post:

a)      the letter itself – it may not be effectively communicating your premise

b)     the project  - it may not be suitable for the house/agent you're querying

c)      your approach – there are reasons for submission guidelines. Follow them.

If it's a personalized rejection, PAY ATTENTION to what they say. If they say your voice needs work, study up and revise. If they say your pacing is slow, revise. If they say your concept is played out, revise (or trunk, or resub to someone else).

Upon rejection, allow yourself a day to mourn. It's a traumatic experience, form rejection or no. Do NOT post an angry rant NAMING THE AGENT on your blog. Do NOT upload your opus angrily to Createspace in an effort to "show them" (hint: they're not going to notice or care, I promise you).

Notice the part about anger up there. Yeah, rejection sucks. It always hurts no matter how gently it's done, and it's hard not to be angry about that. But SUCK IT UP and TRY HARDER. Try again.

Or don't. I mean, the less you try, the bigger chance someone else has to be accepted.

NaNo: No whining--Just get 'er done

With NaNo starting, there’s a great wail of “OMG WHAT IF I CAN’T DO THIS?!” rising from the trenches. I mean, seriously.

You have work, kids, a spouse, a dog—none of those things are going to magically disappear just because you’ve set this goal for yourself. Writing would be so much easier if we could just hide away for the time it took to bust out a first draft. Guess what? Life isn’t like that. Life knows EXACTLY what you’re trying to accomplish and has no problems kicking you in the teeth to add something special to everything you’re juggling.

 At some point during this month, there will come a point where you just want to wring your hands at the heavens and scream, “I can’t do this! Why did I think I can do this? I’m a sad, sad excuse for a writer. WOE!” And there will be much gnashing of the teeth and tears.

Want to know a secret? The writers who finish their books are the ones who shove that little bitch of a voice in a box and light it on fire. Doubts go with the territory. No matter how many books you write, you’re always going to have that harpy in the back of your mind saying, “You can’t do this! Think of all the cupcakes you could be making right now if you weren’t slaving away over your computer! CUPCAKES, DAMN YOU!”

What’s the point of this rambling post? DO NOT QUIT. No, it’s not easy. If it was, everyone would do it. But you make it a priority, sit down and get those 1,600-odd words a day, and you can do this. So get ‘er done, darlings!

Go To Your Room

Dina here. (Warning: Ah, screw it. If you're reading this post, you already know this blog is NSFW.)

I've been reading the most…well, let's just say "interesting"…blog posts lately, and they all pretty much boil down to one particular sentiment:

"WAAAAAAA! NOBUDDY WUVS ME!"

I'm going to say this once, so listen very carefully:

GROW. THE FUCK. UP.

Let's break this down, shall we? We'll go with Writer S and Writer T, because Writers X and Y are such prima donnas and I've given them enough attention on this blog. (Also, those may be their actual initials, which totally serve my purpose without actually giving them any of the attention they so desperately want. Onward!)

Writer S has had enough. Writer S is tired of being rejected over and over. They've been rejected so many times by so many people that it's just depressing. Literally. Writer S was so butt-hurt about their repeated rejections that they fell into a soul-deep crushing lethargy about their writing and announced a ragequit hiatus so they could visit their physician (who said the same thing I would have, which was "stop whining, up your fucking dose and cope" – though I'm pretty sure the doc said it in a nicer way than I would have) and search their innermost self for the Reason They Want To Write.

When they came back a week or so later, they made the announcement that they really want to write because they want someone outside their friends and family to read their work.

I'll pause here so you can reread that and let it sink in.

I discussed this issue with a friend of mine. He said, and I quote (with permission as I asked first if I may quote him), "It's more important for [them] to feel as if [they are] heard than to be paid for it."

All right. Fair enough. I can totally understand the need to feel like your work isn't in vain, and "Is Anybody Out There?" syndrome. I get it. Been there, done that, and personally, I don't think that's a valid reason to want to write/be published.

I'm sure wanting someone to read your work is a valid reason to Writer S, but I'm going to need a little more than "I just want to be heard" if you want to cross the line from "hobbyist" to "professional."

It's one thing to love your craft. It's another to bitch because the people outside your friends and family that you've given your work to all say the same thing.

I'll pause again to let that sink in.

If you're constantly getting rejections (which, by the way, is part of the game) from industry professionals that say the same thing, the problem isn't them.

The problem is you.

Which brings me to Writer T.

Writer T thinks that the purpose of a query letter is to prove that you can jump through hoops and has nothing to do with the book.

Again, I'll pause to let that sink in.

Note: If your query letter has nothing to do with the book, you're DOING IT WRONG. Just sayin'.

Writer T has (apparently, according to them) submitted to various people and places over 500 times, only to be rejected over 500 times and have their work read only three times out of that 500.

Note: If you've been rejected over TEN times with the same project using the same query letter and get the same standard "thank you but no" rejection letter, you might want to revamp one or all of the following:

a)      the letter itself – it may not be effectively communicating your premise

b)     the project  - it may not be suitable for the house/agent you're querying

c)      your approach – there are reasons for submission guidelines. Follow them.

Writer T also thinks that editors/agents/publishing houses are only interested in your "marketing plan."

Now, I don't know which of the above Writer T is querying, but not one of the above has ever asked me or anyone I know for a "marketing plan" before a query. I honestly have no clue whom Writer T is supposedly querying/submitting to, but whomever they may be, I seriously doubt they're legitimate publishing professionals.

Reading Writer T's…eloquent screed on the horrific state (and apparently inevitable collapse and death) of the "traditional publishing" (hint: the term is "commercial publishing") industry, I can't help but wonder if they did any research whatsoever on how to actually publish. There are so many obvious errors in both fact and judgment. [Example – an erroneous statement that a popular YA series was rejected "dozens of times" before the manuscript was ever read. Fact: Popular YA series was rejected thirteen times. Thirteen rejections =/= "dozens." And I'm willing to bet that Popular YA Author was asked for their full or partial manuscript at least five of those times, because that's the process.] There are also several paragraphs of complete and utter ignorance of how the legitimate commercial publishing industry works.

Both Writer S and Writer T have the same complaint. "The nature of the industry." It's "the industry" keeping them down/out/marginalized. It's "the industry" squelching their genius. It's "the industry" overlooking their brilliance and making them take matters into their own hands and self-publish, either for free on their own blogs or on a large internet for-pay publishing site.

Uh, no, it isn't. It's not the industry, it's the writers themselves. You don't get to blame other people because you can't deal with rejection.

Writing is hard. Writing professionally is even harder. Just like any other job (because professional writing is a job, just like being a secretary, doctor, lawyer, accountant, fry cook or game warden), there are rules of conduct, structure, balance, hierarchy and a standard of quality that one must meet in order to be considered for the job.

If you don't meet those standards, you're not going to get the job. Period.

I'll tell you right now that the vast majority of rejections are not personal. They simply aren't. I can give you link after link to professional industry blogs that illustrate this very fact. Rejections aren't personal. They're business and you didn't pass muster. That simple. (Of course, if you make a constant ass out of yourself, threaten, harass, stalk, or libel the people you're attempting to involve yourself with, there might be a bit of "personal" in your rejection, but that's on you, not on them.)

The solution to being consistently rejected is not to present yourself to someone else who tells you the same thing over and over again. The solution is to go back, spit and polish, then present yourself.

If you're still not getting the job, go back, polish up again and try again.

What both of the above examples have in common is their desire for results. For legitimacy and recognition. Fine. Those are fine things to want. But you have to work to earn them, and usually for a hell of a lot longer than either of the above have been at it. The average first novel takes ten years to get out. The majority of people publishing now have been at writing for a long, long time. (I'm not talking here about sensational examples of people found on fan-fiction sites and given publishing contracts in order to make the house a buck. Those are exceptions, not the rule, and generally done by one house in particular whose practices I find unpleasant.) They've all been rejected and they've all had their share of ups and downs.

Also, everyone has problems.

Everyone.

You are not the only one with medical issues, mental health issues, child care issues, money issues, emotional issues, citizenship issues, physical issues, marital issues, personal issues, job issues, social issues, or any other issues.

EVERYONE HAS ISSUES. Yours are not justification for your whiny-assed bullshit. No one gives a crap about your issues anyway! If you write as a way to deal with your issues, stick to writing emo poetry in your journal and don't bother trying to inflict it on the rest of the world, then get pissed when no one besides your mom thinks it's genius.

If you write for any of the following reasons, you're doing it wrong:

1)     For the money. (HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!)

2)     For the fame. (BWAH-HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!)

3)     To be able to say "I'm a writer" when people ask what you do. (People either ask you to help them/refer them to your agent/want you to write "this great idea I have but I can't write," or what your "real job" is, and your mother will never accept that your writing IS a "real job.")

4)     Because you have shit to say and want a captive audience. (This is what blogs are for.)

5)     Because you're a creative soul and writing is art. (Fuck you. Go to your room and write emo poetry in your journal.)

You want to play with the big kids, you need to grow the fuck up first. Stop whining that you have sand in your panties and get your crying ass out of the fucking sandbox.