A LIST JUST BECAUSE

I was recently praised on my “other” blog for my ability to create lists out of seemingly nowhere. I found that amusing not because this particular reader was in awe but because the lists are things I generally create when I have nothing else to write about.

They’ve always come easy to me. In fact, I enjoy writing them most of the time. The irony of codifying and categorizing human behavior is enjoyable to me because I don’t believe it can be done in any significant way. However, this blog is different. Since it isn’t based on random acts of chaos, any lists presented here need to have some literary merit to them.

I am always challenging myself although I don’t always accept. This time I did and the list is presented below:

- Not everyone has a story to tell and not everyone has the talent to tell it.
- Stop thinking every book would make a good movie.
- You are not a writer because you took a creative writing course.
- Criticism is an occupational hazard; if you can’t handle it, you have no business writing.
- The book is not always better than the movie. Repeat: The book is not always better than the movie.
- Never rely exclusively on self-editing.
- It is okay to write what you don’t know as long as you have researched it well enough to sound like someone who knows.
- Those short stories & novels on your hard drive or in your closet are not going to publish themselves no matter how hard you pray.
- Using your writing talent to take cheap shots at people you know is reprehensible & should only be done by me.
- If you go through life thinking all your ideas are original and afraid that others will “steal them,” you are and always will be an amateur.


If you enjoyed these, I can pull more from the dark confines of mine arse. They came so easily that I am reasonably certain I can summon more should the need arise. In the meantime, discuss, dissect, dismember~