How to anoy

 Advice promised so get a coke and sit down!

As we all now know you cannot wait to get dug into my works and as you
seem to see me as a kind of "sarco guru" I decided to help you with
your writing and maybe help myself understand the simple things in life
(i.e. you)

You probably already know all the tips I'm about to give you, and
feel free to point out their absence in paid published work you could
have written better by banging your ass spastically on the keyboard of
your woefully obsolete computer.

Unfortunately, you rarely if ever follow these tips in your own
writing, because you sense it's already wonderful. That's a
mistake, in more ways than one! Why not print out this list of tips,
tape it to the blunt end of a lawn dart (PRINTED SIDE FACING THE
POINT!) and drive it into your forehead, metaphorically speaking! It
will make your material suck less, unless you don't know what
'metaphorical' means, in which case if the blinding pain doesn't
keep you from writing, the blood flowing into your eyes will!

1.) VARY YOUR SENTENCE LENGTH (AND STRUCTURE)!
When you write, try to vary the length of your sentences. Some should
be short. Others should be long. Not like that last one. That was short
too.
So was that one.
And that one.
See how bored you are already?

You need long sentences, too. No, longer. Crap, that was even shorter.

I can feel your attention wandering and I haven't even gotten to the
part about structure, a far more complicated matter than mere length,
which is after all only the word count between a capital letter and a
period, but you've already left before reading this gem, I've
already blown it with all those fucking short sentences.

Oh, by the way, this tip is also good for sex, but start with the long
sentences. The ladies will thank you. By the time I figured that out I
couldn't do a long 'sentence' without popping Viagra like Pez.

2.) WRITE HONESTLY!
At the end of the day, only you know if you are lying. Everyone else
just assumes it.
I mean, come on. It's one thing when I write about a life lived so
far out on the edge it's like a wet leather sack full of booze,
pills, women and 'pimped out rides' being dangled out a Penthouse
window by someone with weak, trembling arms, but you?

If you wrote a book on philately I'd be hard pressed to believe a
single word. 'Philately'. Philately! Stamp collecting, okay? Jesus,
you don't even know the proper name for it, so what are you doing
writing about it? No one wants to read your sad, pathetic,
self-aggrandizing lies about stamp collecting. Write what you know, for
God's sake!

3.) WRITE WHAT YOU KNOW!
That's what I meant when I said 'Write Honestly' in #2. It's
the same thing, really, but here's the rub. Are you itching to run
out and pick up a novel about taking 'time off' from college,
living with your folks, surfing for porn so hollow, generic and pro
forma you start crying before your lonely self-induced orgasm is even
over, periodically taking miserable little stabs at writing something
while ignoring guidelines even you know so well they could be stuck to
your head with a lawn dart?

No? Then don't follow #3. No one does. No one published anyway.
Especially people who write 'how to' books. Fuckers. I'll tell
you what all, if I ever find the guy that wrote 'How To Design and
Install Your Own Patio" I will carve him a new fucking blow hole,
because that was one fella who did NOT know how to design and create a
Patio.

4.) SEX
Put in a sex scene. If I were you I'd get straight to it, I've read
your stuff and honestly you better have something for me before the end
of the first page or the whole thing is going in the 'circular
file', know what I'm saying? The 'circular file'? There should
probably be more than one woman in it, and somebody ought to be
reluctant about the whole scene.

Oh, and young! One of them ought to be really, really young.

Don't say how young though, that can put you in a dicey legal
situation, didn't I learn that the hard way. Look, I'll give you a
pound, or in your case a dollar a page, my own stuff doesn't do it
for me anymore, no matter what I do I can see it coming a friggin'
mile away. 'Now that you're handcuffed, I'm a cop, here's my
badge.' Yeah, like I didn't know that was gonna happen.

5.) BE ORIGINAL!!!
If I wanted to read Harry Potter Fan Fiction, I can check any one of a
very large number of web sites, and many of them are sexier than
anything you write. Ditto your science fiction piece where the
'Baptain' of the 'Benterprise' beams down to a planet full of
'Bazis' with is 'Bulcan Bience Bofficer Bock.' Changing most of
the first letters in someone else idea into 'B's' will never
replace an idea that is truly your own.

6.) DO NOT OVERUSE EXCLAMATION POINTS!
What are you, a twelve-year-old girl? Should I just email you a font
where all the 'i's are dotted with hearts and call it a day?

7.) WRITE WHAT YOU WANT TO READ!
Is 'Sports' the first section of the paper you read? That's a
tough one; because there are lots and lots of really good sports
writers out there already. That is some serious competition.

What else do you like to read? Political thrillers? Can't help you
there, I think that entire genre just sucks so much hose I can't even
tell you, but listen, do what you- Science Fiction? No. No. No. No. Do
not. N-O-T not. You publish one thing, one damn thing in science
fiction or fantasy or any of that shit and you will NEVER be allowed to
publish anything anywhere else EVER.
Science fiction is a fucking literary lobster trap, it's a roach
motel, you can check in, you got me? Plus it's for cream puffs.
Seriously. Macramé? Seriously? Macramé? Who the fuck wants to read
about Macramé?

8.) A WRITER WRITES!
Quick, without thinking, what do you spend the most time doing each
day? HAH! You said TV didn't you! But you spend the most time a day
sleeping! Wait. Wait.
A day is twenty-four hours; you sleep eight, that's no most. Okay, so
TV is right. A writer, my friend, writes. If you were a violinist and
you watched TV all the fucking time instead of practicing the violin,
you'd play a shitty violin, everyone knows that! So why doesn't
writing have the same respect!

You know what I'm doing right now, Chumly? WRITING! Well, not now.
Maybe I am. I have no way of knowing. But I was when I typed this,
that's for sure. If you are not BY YOURSELF, ALONE, working on your
damn craft, FUCK YOU!

You want a life, Mr. Social Guy? BE A PLUMBER!

Word on the street is plumbers work three hours a day and screw teenage
girls the rest of the time unless they're doing coke! I'll pee out
the damn window before I pay some asshole £175.00 an hour to show me
his crack!

9.) LIVE LIFE!
Okay, what I said about writing all the time? Don't do that. Because
if you do all you'll have to write about is writing and if I have to
read one more book about a writer writing I swear to god I will eat the
barrel of the nearest handgun. For God's sake, get out of your
parents converted red room and do something, anything, so you have
something to write about. Climb a mountain, Paint a masterpiece, break
into a zoo and bone a polar bear, it's not up to me to live your life
for you, but get out there and BE A MAN!

Unless you are, you know, like, a woman. In which case please get in
touch with me. I'm not particular.

10.) THINK FOR YOURSELF!
The last thing anyone wants to read is the trembling scrawl of some
pooper who couldn't find his own ass without a map, a shovel and a
Sherpa guide.

Why are you coming to me for advice? Do you know me? For all you know
this may be the only thing I've ever written! Get out of here! Take a
hike! Barp Bactor Bix, Bief Bengineer Bottt! Stop reading this! I said
stop! STOP!

You're still reading this aren't you? God damn it.