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Seriously. I thought it would be hilarious to read over my first novel and giggle over how adorably incompetent I was. Let’s just say there was nothing cute about it whatsoever. It was blisteringly, depressingly, horrifyingly bad, and to be honest if I’d read a freshman work of this quality by a teen today, I’d be tempted to say “this person has no future in writing.” Happily, even the most embarrassingly awful writers can become accomplished novelists if they practice (and, as always, if they keep reading). I’m living proof. I think.

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Oh, being the annoying guy who nags me wasn’t what you had in mind? Sorry! Art imitates life!

I promise, I have enough ideas without you volunteering.

This is kinda based on an obnoxious conversation with a co-worker in which he asked me whether I had already based a character on him “yet.”

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I think we writers may have a sort of twisted idea of happiness. Why do we do this to ourselves again? OBVIOUSLY WE LOVE IT.

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They always ask “what’s it about?” but if I actually tell them, they’re usually sorry they asked.

Long issue because this is Issue 20! The drawings representing the fictional projects are of course real examples from my work, as follows:

1. The “dream guy” story is Finding Mulligan. Frame 3 features Cassie, her other self Dia, and Mulligan, the dream guy. Frame 4 features Cassie trying to choose between Jamie the artist and Terrell the musician.

2. The “kid taking pictures of roadkill” story is Joint Custody (an incomplete MG book). Frame 5 features Bay doing his thing. Frame 6 features Marz taking pictures of Bay while Bay is taking pictures of roadkill. He is perplexed.

3. The “science fiction romance” story is Stupid Questions. Frame 7 features Nick trying to grab Summer before she flies away.

4. The “precocious fairy girl” story is Bad Fairy. Frame 8 features Delia studying.

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Now you’re catching on!  Hilarious when people think writers are actually controlling how their stories turn out, huh?

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“Editing” doesn’t necessarily mean “trimming,” I know, but every time I set out to make the dang thing shorter it seems to laugh in my face. . . .

Don’t ask me how I managed to get such drastically different word counts while keeping the same page count.   That’s an actual screen capture.

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After all, isn’t the stock market just as made up as anything in a book?

I probably really would ask you to leave my house if you suggested that talking about writing was pointless.

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Happily I’ve never had a person actually turn around and tell me I’m not capable of doing something I’ve clearly just done, but I’ve heard this “write what you know” nonsense both ways.  If I did it awesomely, it must be MY experience I’m writing!  And if I haven’t had this experience, there’s no way I could write it well!  Right?

Noooooope.

News flash: Figuring out how to speak and think as a different person—to present perspectives and experiences that are not our own—is pretty much WHAT WRITERS DO.  Unless we are writing our autobiographies, the things we write about can’t be assumed to be representative of what we think and what we know, and we can’t be expected to restrict our writing to presenting only points of view or experiences that are copied verbatim from our own heads.

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Don’t ask if you don’t want to know!

This conversation didn’t actually happen, but I did actually have to search for images of church roofs for the reason discussed above so I could include relevant description.  The novel in question was Stupid Questions.