Blogflog!

[sharkbytes.livejournal.com]

I just love it when Darla posts a blog! It warms the cockles of my tiny black heart, and so naturally I couldn't resist giving it a flog. It seems while the cat's been away, the mice got to blogging, and now Darla has a bit of explaining to do.


URL: http://blog.laurellkhamilton.org/2008/03/writing-help-response.html
Darla/the LKH blog in bold
Me in disbelief, er, regular font 

Writing Help Response

Been fielding a bit of critisim over the writing help blog I put up. So please let me clear up a few things.

 I imagine most of the criticism stems from the fact that you wrote a blog entitled "writing help" and yet managed to spell "criticism" incorrectly. I have a feeling that the first step towards reaching the goal of becoming a published writer involves being able to locate the spell-check feature.

 

First, Laurell didn't post that, I did, Darla.  

You don't say! Well, I'm glad that's been straightened out. The handy signature at the bottom that clearly read "Darla" was my first clue, although I admit I was a bit confused as to why Darla, of all people, had posted a blog about writing advice. Given that she's....not a writer. She's a glorified assistant, who landed a plum job because of her overwhelming fangirl devotion. In other words, Darla putting up a blog about writing advice is about as useful as Renfield's Thoughts On Being a Vampire. And just as Dracula's a bit more qualified to dispense the latter advice, so is LKH as regards the former. 
 

We seem to have a larger than usual number of requests about being a writer and the steps to take. Laurell does have a piece I usually send to folks about Being A Beginning Writer.

And now it starts to get interesting. Because the only thing worse than writing advice from Darla would be writing advice from LKH. That might not make sense at first glance, but think about it for a moment.

It was simply offered as a resource for those who wish to use it. I wasn't implying anyone was not a writer because they don't submit to a publisher or just never get published. If that was what I wanted to say, I would have stated it as such.

I understand that her post was meant to be a kind gesture, a way of giving aspiring writers a hand in educating themselves. Naturally this caused a flood of emails, and I'll take a stab at the real reason why people are bombarding Darla with messages:

Writers are, for the most part, very solitary creatures. It can be an exhausting process, a constant battle between the thoughts in your head and the way they translate on the page. For most, putting your heart and soul down in black and white feels an awful lot like standing naked in public. There isn't anything to hide behind once you've taken the plunge and allowed someone to read your work. And the only people who truly understand how it feels are other writers.  Which is why some of these people wrote to LKH in the first place.  No matter how well-intentioned, Darla just doesn't get it.   In my opinion, neither does LKH, but that's neither here nor there.

Second, people who emailed are not satisfied with writing for their own pleasure. Are those who write for themselves and no one else writers? Yes. But they do not want to be published. Not being published does not make one less of a writer. But it is the difference between a hobby and a profession. Most folks do hobbies for the simple enjoyment of doing it. If that is you, then go for it. But then again hobbyist don't write in asking about how to find an agent, how to submit to an editor, heck how to locate an editor to submit to! It is not info they want or need.

At the risk of repeating myself, these people were writing in for advice from LKH. Not Darla. It doesn't matter if LKH would have delegated the task to her anyway. I feel like this is a real-life Working Girl scenario. Tess McGill is just pretending to be the big-time author while Katherine Parker is off on a ski-slope with Micah. 


I just had a very sobering thought:  Darla, fanfic writer?  It's possible, guys.  All the signs are there!  Anyone want to take bets on what fandom? 

 

Comments

[dwg.livejournal.com]

I will never get tired of having Darla post. I mean, c'mon! DARLA! GIVING US WRITERLY HELP ADVICE! DARLA!!!

And it doesn't fail to amuse me that people are all, "omg, LKH advice?" on, y'know, her official blog, and not realising that it's her assistant that took it over...while LKH is on vacation and has blogged as much.

I know there are a few articles out there that LKH wrote with advice for writers, and yet...she didn't link to any of them. *pets Darla* She's just so precious!

[sharkbytes.livejournal.com]

Isn't she just? I really do love when she puts on the big-girl shoes and blogs for LKH. I think almost every single post has had to have a follow-up post explaining what she really meant. Because she's just so terriff at getting her point across, lol. She might as well have titled it, "My Thoughts on Yaoi Writing."

I almost wish I could have seen her face when she checked the email and had 5000 rabid LKH fans demanding an explanation for her "writerly help." It must have been PRICELESS.

[dwg.livejournal.com]

I find it hilarious that there is that follow-up post to explain what she really meant. There's a huge fault right there if you have to keep explaining (and thus making things worse) what you meant in the first place. Succinct really isn't Team LKH's forte, but that's why we love them so.

[notadoor.livejournal.com]

What makes the entire thing even more WTF is that the text of the original entry was very ... non-inflammatory. Boring, even. It's basically the same thing that every author says in response to this question, except instead of going on to explain what personally worked for them, she gives links instead.

One of the things we seem to be getting a lot of lately, is requests on how to make your dream of being a writer come true. There is no magic formula for getting published. It isn’t like assembling a piece of furniture. There are no directions written out that will guarantee you success if you follow it exactly. What works for one author will not necessarily work for another. And each author seems to have their own ways of doing things. It’s another one of those pesky, what is right for one person isn’t right for everyone things that so often crop up in life. Still, if it is your dream then here is some places to look for help.

There are lots of books available at your library or bookstore and how-to’s on the Internet. Here are some good links to check out.

Especially check out the SFWA (Science Fiction Writers Of America), has a very good section on scams to watch out for. No one should have their dreams stolen by unscrupulous people.

David Brin: http://www.kithrup.com/brin/advicearticle.html

Lots of advice from a variety of authors http://www.eyeonbooks.com/craft.html

Learn your craft with others! http://sff.onlinewritingworkshop.com/

Lots of very useful info on the publishing industry: http://www.sfwa.org/beware/

http://blog.laurellkhamilton.org/2008/03/writing-help.html


I don't see *anything* in that post that would trigger the sorts of emails (about hobbyist vs professional) that Darla feels the need to respond to.

Either the people reading this blog are slightly delusional (and seeing insults that aren't there) or Darla is. Bets, anyone?

[ex-naomi-ja.livejournal.com]

My theory: LKH saw a flood of emails entitled "questions about writing" and was like: OMFG, Darla, they is attacking my mad riting skillz somehow and being haterz and jelus! Stop them!" Next blog: something from Laurell herself about breaking away from the herd and how her husband lets her read books about serial killers and how reading about darkity darkness makes one a real writer.

[vmisery.livejournal.com]

Darla putting up a blog about writing advice is about as useful as Renfield's Thoughts On Being a Vampire

I lol'ed. Here, have an internet cookie.

[ladymuttly1.livejournal.com]

I would be terrified to read LKH's suggestions to people trying to be professional writers:

1. Grammar doesn't count.
2. Neither does spelling
3. Write yourself into the story

[mystickiwi.livejournal.com]

"Darla, fanfic writer? It's possible, guys. All the signs are there! Anyone want to take bets on what fandom? "

Anita Blake fanfiction. Totally. She would, and she'd let Laurell read it and coo over how much Darla totally has the characters nailed! Unlike those other nasty fanfic writers who use stupid things like plot and characterization!

[othellia.livejournal.com]

Really? I would have guessed "NAURTO." After all, if LKH reads it...

[othellia.livejournal.com]

Whoops... I meant *watches it. I'm not even sure that she knows the manga exists...

[beth-ann.livejournal.com]

An I shall pray to all the deities that it stays that way an the diety never starts to read it.

Though so much of her recent writing reminds of all the worst of the hentai stereotypes.

[sharkbytes.livejournal.com]

I can totally buy that, lol. How funny would it be if she were actually on aff or something equally horrid? With all kinds of "don't like, don't read" disclaimers, and "omg no flamezzzz plz"

[missamii.livejournal.com]

Since Darla had a hand in giving the world Talia Gryphon, she shouldn't be saying anything about writings because she obviously doesn't know a good manuscript from a bad one if it bit her on the bum. Seriously! Gryphon managed to break every rule in those How To Write books within ten pages, the same book she thanked the woman in for editing it. Darla's got to be the worst editor in the history of mankind to let that book go the presses in the condition that it did!

[ex-naomi-ja.livejournal.com]

The first paragraph of that so-called book is one of the worst I've ever read. Gryphon may as well have scrapped that and written "My name is Mary Sue and this is a tale about all the men who love me, also my mad fighting skillz." She could have cut a good half of the book out that way.

[sharkbytes.livejournal.com]

I haven't actually seen Talia Gryphon's book, but now I'm dying to know how terrible it is! If it's at the bookstore, I'll flip through the first couple of pages, cause I have a feeling if Darla was the editor, it's certain to be a lolfest.

[x-trickster-x.livejournal.com]

http://ebooks.palm.com/servlet/mw?t=book_excerpt&bookid=48525&si=60

Here's a link to the first chapter- or, for people with better things to do:

GILLIAN Key, United States Marine Corps Captain, Special Forces Operative, former flower child, wiseass extraordinaire, also legitimately known as Dr. Gillian Key, Paramortal psychologist, was at the moment…lost. Swearing, she pulled her little rented Opal off to the side of the narrow road to study her map by the overhead light.

[tsubaki-ny.livejournal.com]

This makes me upset. (I clicked the link.) Usually, this sort of thing makes me giggle, or shake my head indulgently, but every so often it's an unexpected zing. I have no idea why I'm oversensitive today, but it's like, if I could just infodump like this, why am I bothering to try and tweak an intro for three months to make it, I dunno, interesting? Supppose I am the one doing the wrong thing here?

I do know why I'm oversensitive today -- I edit this sort of thing all the time, and this morning I just started reading a National! Best! Seller! that does the same damn infodumpish thing.

Bah. I'm going for ice cream. Vanilla. With Baileys. Then I will reread a chapter of Kit Whitfield. When I return I shall be calm and disinterested once more.

[missamii.livejournal.com]

It's terrible...like...a really special terrible. The kind of terrible that only comes along when when the planets align on the night of a full moon. My dog frequently deposits things in my back yard, wet stinky things, that are more pleasant to look at than Gryphon's literary travesty.

[rfienneslover.livejournal.com]

Everytime Darla makes an appearance I can't help but remember that poem Alfalfa recited in the Little Rascals movie that came out in the '90s. "Dear Darla, I hate your stinking guts. You make me vomit. You are scum between my toes."

[ex-naomi-ja.livejournal.com]

Oh, be fair, guys. I'm sure that in her capacity as line-editor to Talia Gryphon and Keeper of the Ivory Tower for LKH, Darla has amassed a wealth of knowledge and writing experience. She probably has a list of golden rules somewhere:

1. Use commas frequently and without regard for sentence structure.
2. He's not a real man if he doesn't come with ankle-length rainbow hair and a lifetime guarantee of utter devotion.
3. Other women just irritate the reader. Nobody wants to know about other women.
4. It's totally okay to call an Opel an Opal. Nobody will care about little things like accuracy as long as your heroine has at least two lovers on the go.
5. If Laurell said it, it must be true.
6. Don't hate, you narrow-minded, under-sexed bitches.

[christraven.livejournal.com]

You left something out for #2: "and/or a wang that can knock over a rack stereo system when erect."

[icecreamempress.livejournal.com]

2. He's not a real man if he doesn't come with ankle-length rainbow hair and a lifetime guarantee of utter devotion.

I think you've pinpointed what's wrong with LKH's male characters--they're all My Little Pony with a penis!

Straying from the point...

[harlette.livejournal.com]

Completely off topic, but I once read an article about how the writer is obligated to know grammar and it reminded me of LKH/Darla.

"Chances are, however, that your manuscript will be read by a lousy editor. Such an editor might accept badly written material simply because he doesn't know any better.

If that happens, you can be certain that nobody will end up correcting it. The mistakes will be over the heads of the publishers, just as they were over yours. Your book will be published in all its pathetic glory.

...

[Writers] have a responsibility to use the language better than anyone else.

A writer submitting a careless, error-inflicted manuscript is like a police officer robbing a bank. It just shouldn't happen. It should never be tolerated. It's a perversion of Nature."

LKH sucks at grammar, so she relies on Darla to fix stuff for her. However, Darla herself sucks at grammar and thus LKH's books get published in all its "pathetic glory".

It's a vicious cycle.

Re: Straying from the point...

[sharkbytes.livejournal.com]

That is an excellent quote! I'm actually copy-pasting it for future use, because it really sums up my feeling exactly!

Re: Straying from the point...

[tsubaki-ny.livejournal.com]

Oh my god -- who wrote that?? I must know! I must know so I can send them money and as-yet unborn children.

That is NOT straying from the point, that is essential like lifeblood.

*copies and distributes*

*PAPERS THE TOWN*

[dinsedaledarby.livejournal.com]

I <3 your snark. It brightens my day.
Giving writing advice is a fishy enough business without LKH getting involved.

[sharkbytes.livejournal.com]

XD thankyou!

[watersheerie.livejournal.com]

I can't imagine seeking writing advice from LKH or Darla. It's like ask a random guy on the street to perform a breast exam...a potentially explosive situation that could be mildly hilarious at the same time.
Golden Rule #7: Thinly veiled Mary Sues make the best main characters.
#8: Use the same phrases over and over again for every sex scene.
#9 Make sure that the phrases use the words 'member' and 'throbbing' at least eight times.
#9: As well as 'tight.'
#10: Plot is not as important as numerous and redundant sex scenes.

[gothgoddessrhia.livejournal.com]

11. Use the word "spill" to describe everything and anything.

[jeza-red.livejournal.com]

12. Don't forget about "tight" and "wet" ! Never!