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

[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.