Jeff VanderMeer

Some useful advice for writers

• Change your underwear, at least once a week (whether you need to or don’t).
• Drink beer.
• Never refer to a writing group as a “circle jerk”, in public.
• If you think cocaine is the drug of choice for writers, then you have unrealistic expectations of financial returns.
• Never drink wine at a book launch.
• Open your own fan page on Facebook and invite everyone to become your fan. Do not be offended if they all think you’re a jerk.
• If you really have nothing to say, write an article on the tools you use as a writer. When discussing anonymous proxies, make sure to stress you use them due to civil rights issues, not to look at porn.
• When writing hard SF, make sure to use the terms “post-human”, “singularity” and “quantum”. Write an awkward sex scene. Wait for fame and fortune to come your way.
• You are too good to be nominated for awards.
• Write with the door closed, to keep out the bailiffs. Re-write with the door open, to keep an eye on them coming back.
• Never refer to your “shitty four room apartment.” Some of us would kill for that much space.
• Never play cards with a man named Doc. Never eat at a place called Mom’s. Donuts are bad for you. Coffee is good.
• Drink lots of coffee.
• When people ask what you do, never, ever say “writer”, unless you want people’s eyes to glaze over. Say “Sanitation Engineer”, which is both more interesting and a more accurate way to describe what you really do.
• If you’re just starting out, remember publishing is a global conspiracy designed to keep you out.
• If you’re in mid-career, make sure to complain on your blog about the lack of suitable advice for mid-career writers.
• If you’re Dan Brown make sure to complain about the vintage of Champaign not being expensive enough and ruining your bath.
• If you’re in America, make sure to go to conventions. The best way to “break in” is to corner an editor at the bar and telling them how great you are.
• Never buy an editor a drink. That’s what they have those huge expense accounts for.
• Run for political office, but for someone like the socialists or the libertarians, to make sure you don’t get in. It would make you look interesting.
• Complain about paper submissions.
• Get an agent. It will give you something to complain about.
• Make sure to eat at least once a day, whether you can afford to or not.
• They don’t send people to Australia any more for stealing bread.
• If you really have nothing to say, guest-blog.
• Finally, repeat the following procedure to become a successful writer:
• 10 Write
• 20 Coffee
• 30 Write
• 40 Beer
• 50 GOTO 10
• Trust me on the underwear.

Thank you.

Lavie Tidhar is the author of The Bookman (Angry Robot Books) and follow-ups Camera Obscura and Night Music, both forthcoming from the same publisher. His latest book, novella Cloud Permutations, is just out from PS Publishing in the UK.