If you ever needed a good reason to stay away from a lot of modern-day highly-political writing organizations, this is it. Mercedes Lackey, on the exact same day that she received the SFWA Grand Master award for lifetime achievement, they decided to kick her out of an online Nebula conference because she said a “bad word”.
Cephus' Corner
A Place for my Geeky Side
Category Archives: Writing
Stop Congratulating Everyone!
Here’s another thing that is really starting to wear thin. Whenever an author does something, anything at all, everyone huddles around them and congratulates them for a job well done.
Guys, enough! It’s like saying “I managed to get out of bed this morning”, followed by a round of applause. Writers write. It’s what we do. Stop acting like managing to do something that you’re supposed to be doing anyhow is somehow magical!
Is All Writing Political?
George Orwell, who write 1984 and Animal Farm, among others, once said:
“Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon… And looking back through my work, I see that it is invariably where I lacked a political purpose that I wrote lifeless books and was betrayed into purple passages, sentences without meaning, decorative adjectives and humbug generally.”
Therefore, the question was asked, are all good stories inherently political? I don’t think that’s remotely true.
You Just Can’t Win Part… Whatever
I was having a talk with a moderator of one of the writing forums I’m on and part of this was a laugh but mostly, it was just sad. This is just more evidence that these people are really, really pathetic. Not the mod, we’re friends, but the rank amateurs who care more about their feelings than they do about reality.
So let’s talk about it.
Hard Truths for Lazy People
So, someone posted this on a writing forum and while I did respond there about some of the aspects brought up, some of it I thought would be best served responding here because a lot of these places get mad when you start to talk about reality unfiltered.
I hope it helps because it’s really sad how many people can’t comprehend the real world.
Couldn’t Ask for a Better Example
I have complained on numerous occasions about the ridiculous things that I see constantly on writing forums. It’s just not that often that I see a perfect example of why I have a problem with it.
Until now. Read on to see just how absurd some people can be and why I desperately want to get away from it.
Amateurs Just Don’t Get It
Earlier today, I found myself in a discussion with a professional author friend of mine, someone who is part of my writing critique group. It isn’t like we get to talk a lot, in fact, I don’t think I’ve seen him face-to-face in a couple of years. However, we got to talking and the conversation rolled around to dealing with amateur writers and I was rather surprised at the response, because he seems to think pretty much like I do.
Here I was thinking I was alone.
The Fear of the Amateur
Now that I’m sort of kicking around Facebook again, and trust me, I’m doubting that decision every single day, I’m starting to see different perspectives and different ideas and, at least some of the time, it’s starting to look very similar to what I’ve faced before.
Take this as an example, something that’s going on right now. It’s really one of the problems that writers face and why so many people never actually go anywhere.
The Search for Smart People Continues
So I finally gave up and created another personal Facebook account, thinking that it had to be better than Reddit, at least if I stuck to the more “professional” sounding groups and yeah, it really isn’t.
What the hell is wrong with people to day? Here’s yet another story.
2021 Writing Recap
So we’re finally at the point where I know my exact numbers for 2021, after all of the books have been written and all of them have been edited, at least through the beta-stage and I have a good handle on what I actually accomplished last year.
Let’s go over it and I’ll let you in on a couple of things that are going on for 2022, for anyone who is interested.
