No, I will not read your f#@king script

[pbray]

Stolen from everyone, professional screenwriter Josh Olson hits the nail on the head.

The newest version of the trend is the folks I've never met who think I have nothing better to do than to read their self-published or micropress book and then give them a review blurb. Often helpfully sent to me as an attachment, which luckily 9 times out of 10 will land their email in the spam bucket, never to be seen again.

Comments

[antonstrout.livejournal.com]

I just sent you six scripts I'm toying with.. read them NOW NOW NOW!!!!

[pbray.livejournal.com]

Right after you blurb my 1M word steampunk alternate history set in an Imperial Russia ruled by a vampire Catherine the Great written without punctuation of any kind in order to create the breathtaking feeling that this is all happening right now

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

I know the feeling. I'm the reviews' editor for a small magazine and I dread the arrival of yet another self-published opus. In the nearly two years I've been doing this, there's been one good one: the rest, not so much.

[mizkit.livejournal.com]

My favorite line:

It rarely takes more than a page to recognize that you're in the presence of someone who can write, but it only takes a sentence to know you're dealing with someone who can't.

(By the way, here's a simple way to find out if you're a writer. If you disagree with that statement, you're not a writer. Because, you see, writers are also readers.)

[sylvia-rachel.livejournal.com]

That is SO TRUE.

I am editing an article right now by two people who can't write. (It's painful. That's why I'm on LJ ... BAD little office worker!!) I edit a lot of such material -- in fact, it's what I mostly do. And sometimes I don't even have to read the first sentence to know the author(s) can't write, because the article title gives it away.

[sylvia-rachel.livejournal.com]

Wow. There are some really seriously clueless and inconsiderate people out there.

And, see, this sort of thing is why, when someone actually offers to read something of mine (like a query letter or a synopsis), my reaction is always something like "OMG really? You mean it? Seriously? That would be SO AWESOME!!!!" Which is probably also annoying (because why would someone offer if they didn't mean it?), but I know how much of a problem unsolicited o-hai-read-my-stuff-pls-be-honest-but-not-rly approaches are for many writers, so I still kind of can't believe it when they actually volunteer :D

[sylvia-rachel.livejournal.com]

I'll blurb that for you, right after you blurb my 4-volume zombie werewolf apocalypse epic set on a desert island in the Bermuda Triangle in 2049 written entirely in lolspeak (the universal language of 40 years from now).

[jemck.livejournal.com]

Yep, this article is a winner, isn't it?

Coupled with that Scott Lynch masterpiece, it seems to be The Week The Writers Strike Back!

If I wasn't knee deep in these revisions, I might even compile a post to that effect.

Now, lessee, that half of Ch.19 is now Ch.15 and the rest will reappear in Ch.20. What was Ch.15 is now Ch.18 and Ch.14 is currently being divided into Chs.16 and 17, with the help of a whole bunch of new words...

Me too

[zornhau.livejournal.com]

I just copied that line and was about to paste it into a comment.

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

Now, lessee, that half of Ch.19 is now Ch.15 and the rest will reappear in Ch.20. What was Ch.15 is now Ch.18 and Ch.14 is currently being divided into Chs.16 and 17, with the help of a whole bunch of new words...

I need to be doing what you're doing.

It's supposed to be a lovely weekend here in northern Illinois, 70s (F) and sunny. I intend to spend it out on the deck, laptop in lap. No or minimal yardwork. No cooking extravaganzas. Need to think.

[jjschwabach.livejournal.com]

Once approached at a con by a guy who handed me his *illustrated* masterpiece, then retreated before I could hand it back. Actually attempted to read a chapter. Um. Suggested gently it wasn't quite there, and that your POV character *never* thinks of herself as, "the tiny child," even if she *is* a six-year-old girl. Anyone who's ever been one (and most people who haven't) knows that a six-year-old is a Big Girl.

It gets worse. More than once, third parties have told people that I am a real, published writer and can read their opus. It's one thing to say no when someone asks you. Much harder when someone asks you because someone else has *told* them that you would. (It's happened to me at least twice. Both times... well, you know...)

[vespican.livejournal.com]

As much as I might want an established writer to read and comment on my work, I would not dream of asking, or worse, insisting. On the other hand, should that writer WANT to read it... But that I think would mean a bit more of an established relationship between that author and me.
Dave

[pbray.livejournal.com]

but do you have the macros (illustrations) already in the manuscript? or are we still interviewing digital artists?

[pbray.livejournal.com]

And then we're stuck in the position of being the bad guys--either we ignore the request and we're elitist prigs, or we tell them the awful truth and then we're jerks.

[pbray.livejournal.com]

Back when I was volunteering with RWA, I was amazed at the major name authors who would still volunteer to judge contest entries from unpubs, a seriously thankless task. Writers like Mary Jo Putney, Mary Balogh, Jo Beverly, etc, still took time to be gracious.

Though I wonder now with the explosion of the internet and authors being universally reachable via myspace, facebook, websites, email, blogs, etc, if the proliferation of these requests makes pubbed authors burn out on this stuff even faster than they used to.

[pbray.livejournal.com]

It's an amazing imposition that immediately puts you in the no win category, because however you behave you will be seen as rude.

I want a handler or manager, so I can just refer all requests to them, and let them take the heat for the "Nos". Though I suspect that wouldn't stop some people.

[pbray.livejournal.com]

Right, it's one thing if I know someone, have met them at a con or workshop, or have some other connection, and then I may offer to read a query letter, proposal or sample chapters. Though this can get dicey depending on the quality of their work, and how they react to a critique.

But it's another when people automatically assume that I have nothing better to do than read their work, as if my time had no value....

Re: Me too

[pbray.livejournal.com]

Great minds think alike!

[jjschwabach.livejournal.com]

Exactly.

It would be wonderful to have someone who could run interference for you. But no, it wouldn't stop some people. Like the guy I knew who insisted that if his MS was brilliant enough, it wouldn't *matter* that it was hand-written. Because, you know, many of the best-known books were submitted hand-written. I told him not in about 100 years, because, see, there was this invention...

[jjschwabach.livejournal.com]

One pro I know said she "never (beta)reads friends' work," because of that very issue of delicately having to say, "Terrance, this is stupid stuff/You eat your victuals fast enough..."

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

Yep. Catch 22.

[vespican.livejournal.com]

It certainly makes much more sense for an unpublished aspiring writer to have his/her work read and critiqued by his peers and those whose business it is to read material from unpublished authors. Then once his or her work is published, it would be nice to hear that an established author has read it, not because the "Newbie" has insisted, but because the "big name" author found it on the shelf and bought it.
Dave

[sylvia-rachel.livejournal.com]

oh, the macros are in there. all the photos were taken by my seven-year-old ;)

[sylvia-rachel.livejournal.com]

I would guess that burnout does happen faster now, just as publishers' and agents' slush piles have grown deeper. It takes a lot less time and effort now to send your entire poorly-formatted MS to someone you don't know, which must lead an awful lot of people who in a previous generation wouldn't have bothered to say Hey, why not? It can't hurt, right? Actually reading and critting the said MS, though, still takes every bit as long as it ever did ...