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

[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!