Before I got published, I believed that things had to be in a certain format to get published. No, I’m not talking about not written with crayon on butcher paper. I’m not talking paragraphed. I thought my name had to be on the left corner of the front page, my word count on the right corner front page. I believed my header had to say “hoyt/name of story/page.” Mind you, I still do it that way for short stories, it’s habit. BUT I thought if it wasn’t like that it would be rejected.
I also believed, after reading an out of date book on non-fiction writing, that stories had to end with “30” instead of the end, and this would mark me out as a true professional.
Now I wonder what editors thought if (in those days possibly rare) they read all the way to the end and came across that lovely 30. “Thirty what? did she miscount the pages? Uh?”
There’s miles and miles of twerpitude you have to go through, not just to become a grown up but to learn ANY profession.
30
According To Hoyt 
You say that like writing in crayon is a bad thing (grin). But all those pretty colors!
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… thinking about the idea that sprang to mind last night which I filed away for later consideration. Just a few sentence-fragments, dutifully topped with a header that says “Simmons / silly idea / #” …
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Well, that’s better than the writers who think scene dividers with dancing chili peppers will make their manuscript stand out. What’s scary are the number of people with the skill to make it work on their machine, who don’t realize that it turns to grey goo on other peoples’ computers.
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“There’s miles and miles of twerpitude you have to go through, not just to become a grown up but to learn ANY profession.”
that is soooooo true. And I say that as a greybeard in a segment of the trucking industry which is DOMINATED by greybeards… (average age is way past double nickle)
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