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| Seven Reasons Why Being a Writer Makes You Want to Shoot Yourself in the Fucking Stomach |
Thought Catalog is putting up a good fight for the WORST WEB-SITE ON THE INTERNET crown. This piece today Things You Should Know Before You Date a Writer might be the most Thought Catalogy piece I've ever read: 1) it adds nothing of substance to any discussion of anything, and 2) it's so solipsistic that it not only sucks its own dick, it swallows its own load, then bites its own dick off and eats it, digests it, forms it into a compact little dick-shaped turd, then eats the turd. Forever. Ouroboros of shit.
“I’m a writer, editor, poetess and photojournalist, who runs one of the top 100 LGBT blogs in the world" -- I mean, come on, I kind of want to give this person the benefit of the doubt that this is satire, but I just don't think it is. Also: the word poetess. I have the same reaction to that word that most people do for the words "moist panties." And for what it's worth, I'm the poetess in chief at one of the top 47 moist panties-themed Pinterest boards in New England, so now you can understand why so many people want to bang me.
Let's take a closer look at the worst description of what it's like to be a writer I've ever read:
We have no money.
We writers pour our hearts into soul-sucking work for next to nothing. That means we’re always going Dutch.
Being a writer doesn't equal being poor. Maybe you're just not good enough that anyone wants to pay you for the thing you want to tell people your job is? Maybe you should do what I did and get a second job to help yourself through the lean times as a freelancer? Maybe you should do a sailor dive off your balcony? Just a couple options to consider.
We can’t help it.
I’ve always been a storyteller. As a child, I wrote plays for each holiday and made my sister act them out with me, each year dusting off the script from the year before and editing it to perfection. My sister and I also played radio, putting on flamboyant personalities, coming up with catchphrases and interviewing each other on a tape recorder in between taping songs off the radio. I even created a family newspaper when my parents bought a computer, toying with fonts and adding photos to my stories, forcing my mom and dad to write me letters to the editor. I’ve always had a compulsion for communication. I just can’t turn it off.
I've always been this way you guys. Even when I was a kid I did twee, adorkable things. Look, anyone who has the balls to tell you that they have a passion for what they do, or have no other choice but to express themselves this way is either a liar, an actor, a genius, or someone who didn't get punched in the beak enough times growing up. Pretty sure it's not genius we're dealing with here. Or ever. Sometimes feel like there should be more bullying in the world when I read stuff like this.
You’ll probably see yourself reflected in the work.
If you’re dating a writer and they don’t write about you — whether it’s good or bad — then they don’t love you. They just don’t. Writers fall in love with the people we find inspiring. If you don’t set my pen on fire, how are you going to set my bed on fire?
Sorry I haven't managed to work my wife into more of my reviews of rock bands and restaurants and cultural trend pieces. What's that old journalism addage, if you can't make it about yourself, then it's not news? "Need more of the first person in here," my editors are always saying.
You can find out more than you’ve ever wanted to know about us on the Internet.
Seriously. Google me.
No.
Writers are crazy.
And I don’t mean crazy in the way people throw the word at anyone we disagree with, I actually mean insane. We’re often misunderstood and deeply troubled. We have to be at least a little bit mentally unstable, or we wouldn’t be any good at what we do. Really, who wants to read something a boring sane person wrote, anyway? Not me.
I really feel you on that last part. And I know what you mean here, because I suffer for my art too. I'm not just a pompous pain in the ass, I'm genetically disposed to be this way, so I get a free pass on my bullshit, just writing-about all writerly all the time over here. Write write write.
We’re actually not cool at all.
I know, it may seem cool to earn money from writing, but it’s not. It’s just what we do. I do not lead a glamorous life. Writing is mentally taxing labor — albeit conducted while in sweatpants on my couch and surrounded by cats — but labor just the same. And we almost never see the sun. Seriously. Take us on a midday stroll or something. We probably need a break from staring at those two paragraphs we were working on all morning.
I can't even do this anymore.
The worst part about it this whole thing is the SPECIAL SNOWFLAKE presumption of it, which describes 90% of the pieces on Thought Catalog. It's the "love me for who I am, flaws and all" attitude that you see crop up so frequently in top 40 radio and 20 year old Asian college girls' tweets.
Being a writer isn't a total thing you guys, and it's not easily compressed into a listicle, but if there's one thing I can say from my decade or so of experience making words with my hands and brain that people then go onto read with their eyes and brain is that no one is proud of being a writer. In fact most of the ones I know from my generation are embarrassed by what they do. I never even like to answer what it is that I do for work when someone asks me. Writer sounds pompous. Journalist sounds way too important, and to me implies someone working on hard news that actually has an effect on the world. You should be ashamed, is all I'm saying to this writer. Not just about this awful piece, but in general. We all should.
The point is, writing is like fucking, to use a hoary old cliche. Do it however you need to do it to get the job done, just please don't talk to me about your methods.
The point is, writing is like fucking, to use a hoary old cliche. Do it however you need to do it to get the job done, just please don't talk to me about your methods.
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18 comments:
2000 people shared that on Facebook compared to the 20 or so this will get, so what the fuck do I know I guess?
Where is this place where bylines make boys melt?
Same thing where everything described on Thought Catalog happens: some nerd in Brooklyn's spank bank.
Richard Bouchard "But when they ask me what I do with my time and I reply with, 'I’m a writer, editor, poetess and photojournalist, who runs one of the top 100 LGBT blogs in the world,' they melt."
No, they don't. They run away. The fact is, she's never answered a question like this and been asked a followup.
Luke O'Neil Maybe she meant their faces melt via Raiders of the Lost Ark?
I can't read Thought Catalog anymore. There are a handful of decent articles there, but they're absolutely buried by this kind of navel-gazing bullshit. It's like About.com re-imagined by art school dropouts.
ha, pretty accurate description.
ALSO ALCOHOL BECUZ IT'S ALL TOO MUCH.
#ALLCAPSDAY
lol i need a drink now too all of you guys
This is kind of funny, but the take down of an idiot's writing is itself a cliched subgenre, and the tone here is not far from cracked.com.
While I enjoyed this piece immensely, I can't help but think that if "no one is proud of being a writer" then those of us who spend our days hounding said writers to be writerly about the writerly stuff we want them to write about must be lower than dirt.
Which sounds about right.
@igc Jesus dude, "kind of funny" I can take, "cliche" too,but comparing me to Cracked is just too far. Not cool.
@heath at least youh guys get paper
Also, not to refute your hypothesis, but THIS is actually the most Thought Catalogy piece ever: http://thoughtcatalog.com/2011/if-we-could-be-boring/
Came on recommendation from Mobutu Sese Seko.
Oh word? Respek to MSS.
I think you should be proud of being a writer. It takes brains and talent to be a good one. Not many people can do it. It has to beat doing shift work at the gawtdamn Gillette factory, eh O'Neil? Make some bank, have a bit of variety, and be your own boss. Or be the numbnut who only reads and runs the pumper on the shit wagon. Oh well, Mom says I'm the bestest waste technician in all of New Mexico.
omg from what I know it's so much better than any other job I've ever had,which are few. Restaurants, construction work when I was young, eh...that's about it. Worked in a couple of offices in publishing world as an editor or editorial assistant, both of which blew. The key to happiness is working from home, and not having to go to some stupid place every day and sit there looking like you're doing something.
I don't mean to say I don't take pride in what I do well within the reasonable bounds of how much one should be proud of being an enterainment writer/humorous blogger, but I'm not PROUD OF IT, you know what I mean?
Ha yeah I see what you mean. Still jelly tho. That freedom is the key to happiness.
it is, and for that i am lucky
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