Ten Ways To Ensure You Never Have A Writing Career

I was going to write this seriously and reassure those of my fledglings who are of a nervous disposition that they really, really, really didn’t ruin their chances of a future writing career by — say – sending a submission to Analog with the address printed upside down on the SASE (stop laughing. Yes, I’ve had one fledgling in a tizzy over that. And that’s not the most puerile thing my “writing children” have chosen to be scared over.)

So, instead, I decided to write a guide on how to ruin your chances of a writing career. Mind you, all of them but the first fail to be foolproof, so you’ll probably have to use all ten if you really want to ensure all your chances at making a living from writing are THOROUGHLY dead. After all, I did at least half of them. (I’m not telling you which half.) And even if you use nine of them (the first is almost fool proof, unless you hit a psychic editor who sends you a check for something you’re only planning on writing. This only happens to my husband, so you’re fairly safe) if you have extraordinary talent it might not work. So, mind you, if you have extraordinary talent, come up with some new ways to put the knife through the beating heart of your career.

1- Never write anything. Talk about writing. Make poses as a tormented writer. Let everyone know that you could have been the best of the best if only. (We call this the Lady Catherine de Bourgh method, after the character in Pride and Prejudice. “And if I had ever learned to play, I’d have been a true virtuoso.”) If your name is not Dan Hoyt, you’re safe. (And even Dan Hoyt only got the call from the editor wishing to pay him for something not yet written or even planned, after he published a dozen pro short stories.)

2 – Write furiously, but never send anything out. This strategy is a little more risky than #1. I employed it myself with success for some seven years, but eventually you’ll want to send them out just because there’s no more room under the bed and even though you keep breaking the sofa legs, you don’t need any more manuscripts to prop them out. Also, you should make sure that no prying relatives or friends find the manuscripts and send them out. Remember Gone With The Wind.

3 – Write on butcher paper with crayon and illustrate the material with your hand-drawings of the characters. Make sure you’re not better than a first grade kid. Be careful to employ this with strategy #2, though. If you send it in, you might have the misfortune of stumbling on the one editor who finds it charming or refreshing and find yourself with a giant advance check, particularly if the book is of a disgusting nature and about the life of people whom the NY establishment imagines hold up their pants with bits of string and copulate with their own sisters. There was an author who tried this strategy in the early eighties and succeed became – briefly – a bestseller by dint of pushing.

4 – Violate every rule of spelling and grammar you can think of. Beware this is not a foolproof strategy. Some of the stories I sold on first try seem to have been reverse-copyedited before I sent them out. (What can I say, I have a tendency to “read” what I meant to write.) More carefully spell checked ones take longer to sell. Not sure why. Perhaps editors took pity on me? DO NOT combine with #3 which will only guarantee you’re considered more quaintly interesting. DO NOT employ this strategy in Portugal, particularly while carrying a communist party card. It will get you a Nobel prize, and then you’ll never kill that career.

5 – Be loud, obnoxious and boastful at cons. Before you publish a single line, tell everyone ad-nauseam how great you are and how you dwarf all the greats of the past. Be VERY aware this can backfire. You see, science fiction nerds don’t have much self esteem, and if you come across as self confident enough, they might take you at your word, and give you extremely large advance checks.

6 – Hold political opinions held in disdain by anyone who knows history and whose proponents are responsible for the death of millions of people. Expound on them at length both in public and private and in your published works as well. Please keep in mind this works if your views are those that once flourished in Germany. Not so much with any others. In fact, wearing a Mao shirt to cons might result in your having to build new shelves for all your Hugos and Nebulas.

7- Get in a huge hissy fit argument with your editor over nothing. Not a foolproof strategy. Laurell Hamilton tells everyone she did this with her first bought work. No, it was never published, but she sold the Anita Blake ones a few years later.

8 – Make fun of all the greats of the field in public. Tell everyone you never read them. Be careful, though, unless these people are living “greats” of the field, you might simply be echoing what most bestsellers say. This will just ensure you become a bestseller.

9 – A variation on #8 – gore all the sacred cows. Be careful though to be up to date on sacred cows. The real sacred cows are the ones that are never mentioned. The ones continuously mentioned stopped being sacred cows somewhere in the sixties. If you gore THOSE you’ll just find yourself building additional shelves for awards AND possibly considered literary. Think of the banquets you’d be invited to and the weight you’d gain. No, you must be very careful to gore LIVING sacred cows. Like, say, the idea that sex is some sort of universal panacea and there’s no virtue ever in abstinence. That one by itself should ensure your career is dead aborning. There are, of course, several other shibboleths you can mock. Investigate for yourself.

10 – Completely lose it and hold an editor (or more) hostage while you force them to read your stories. This comes with several caveats: Make sure said editor isn’t drunk, in which case he/she might find the escapade funny and/or get amorous; make sure editor understands he/she/it is being held hostage, not merely besieged; make sure the work you show him/her has no spark of talent, imagination or craft. At least one well known (mainstream) writer actually did this and ended up a bestseller. We still don’t recommend this strategy under any circumstances. It’s more likely to land you in jail. And then someone will buy your prison memoirs.