(NOTE: I have not been feeling very verbose in recent days, so much of my blogging activity has consisted of quoting extensively from other people’s work. This post will be no different.)
Via ethanham.com
Emily Conyngham has an excellent post at Open Salon entitled “Seven Steps to Becoming a Superior Writer.” Note that she did not say a good writer, or even a successful one, but a superior writer. Presumably, the sort of writer who always wears turtlenecks and emits self-importance that way that some of us emit perspiration. But I digress—she might be as big of a smartass as me, if not bigger. Here are a few enjoyable highlights:
1. If at all possible, arrange to be born in a small town, raised with traditional values, which you can laud as building your backbone. The insular environment can be reworked to other purposes; you escaped in the nick of time, with only your wits and a battered hand-me-down suitcase, as soon as you could save bus fare from your job shoveling pig swill. It does not hurt to have been poor, or at least poorer than your stupid neighbors. You can mock those gomers later, when you’re a degreed city dweller.
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3. Hold grudges. These are precious fuel. Hopefully, you were tormented by the other children for being different. You should Never, Ever forget their cruelty, especially that of Homer Finkelheimer, who will don a different disguise and appear in Every Single Thing you write. Your repeated mutilations of his sorry carcass will become the art for which you will be famed. To be a “Finkelheimer” will become part of the common lexicon, synonomous with the nether regions of the male anatomy.
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7. Heartbreak is a bonus. Do not bury dead loves, but allow them to roam like recurring themes in your wistful pieces. You must not fully resurrect these zombies with soft lips and charming quirks, or your stories will end up in the $1 cart at Goodwill. Squandering the best thing that ever happened to you is the best policy, if you are to be taken seriously as a writer.
She concludes her seven-item list with an eighth item, because writers are hardcore like that, yo, with some advice on how to handle the next generation of wannabes:
Once you achieve the stature you have spent a lifetime cultivating, that of Superior Writer, you will find younger writers looking to you for guidance. It is important not to encourage them for a couple of reasons. First, your own mojo will diminish if you let go of your resentments – it is best if you transfer these to all ongoing relationships, so you can keep filling your creative coffers. Slicing the outstretched wrists of witless admirers will reveal the vermillion detail for which you have become famous. The New York Times Book Review’s blurb of your book will read, “expertly filets humans, like a cold-eyed fishmonger during Lent.”
Anyway, it goes on, but I’m not going to steal the whole dang thing.
Photo credit: ethanham.com.
