wotiwrote

A few posts ago I reported Jenny Colgan's insight into the general standard of manuscripts submitted to publishers. Further evidence of the gap between talent and ambition, if you need it, is provided in Mat Coward's book "Success ....and how to avoid it".

The book itself is a relatively short, well-written, and wry look at the perils of being a freelance writer. For some people it may well be laugh out loud funny (as suggested by one reviwer quoted on the cover) but the humour is too close to the bone. Too familiar. Anyway.

Here's the bit I wanted to share:

I ran a fanzine for a while, and this was at a time when various social and technological factors were conspiring to wobblify the boundaries between fanzines and small press and prozines, so I sent the magazine's details to the writers' mags, inviting writers to send for my contributor's guidelines.

The idea, obviously, was that people would buy my fanzine in order to find out how to write for it. And they did, so in that respect I was farsighted and wise. What I hadn't worked out was that if you give your address to a lot of would-be writers, you will soon be knee-deep in loony crap.

Loony, loony, loony crap.

He also tells a story of having to judge a writing competition, which serves further to convince him of the weight of bad writing on offer. This section finishes with a twist, however, which has the potential to remove any smirk, vestige of complacency, or downright smugness.

But just think, next time you enter a short-story competition and don't win a prize: your story must have been really, really bad if it didn't even come in the top three. Really bad.