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Avocado ([info]white_serpent) wrote in [info]otf_wank,
@ 2009-04-17 16:05:00


Previous Entry  Add to memories!  Tell a Friend!  Next Entry
Entry tags:authorwank, elitism, publishing, special snowflake syndrome

But why isn't your book selling?
It's all the fault of literary agents, who are single-handedly destroying literature everywhere!

Excerpt:

The substantial and nearly unassailable wall that separates you from us has been under construction for decades. You can find the names of its architects and gatekeepers on your telephone-callers list, and in your email in-box. They are the literary agents—that league of intellectual-property purveyors who bring you every new manuscript you ever see, those men and women who are so anxious to gain access to the caverns of treasure they believe you sit upon like some great golden goose that they would likely hack one another’s heads off were they not united by one self-serving mission: to ensure that quality fiction never hits your desk.

Just a tiny bit of entitlement, elitism, and self-delusion.

And some responses...


(Read comments) - (Post a new comment)


nam_jai
2009-04-18 04:05 am UTC (link)
(I *think* I used that semi-colon correctly. Smack me with the editorial pen if not.)

Heh. Semicolon looks okay to me!* Of course, I have coworkers who are militantly anti-semicolon under almost any circumstance, which just goes to show -- again -- that you can't please everyone.

Plus, my opinion on semicolons may rate even lower than an agent's, since I'm just a lowly section editor for a small newspaper, not one of these exalted book editors who are so cruelly being deprived of great literature. Woe.

*Except for how I'll take that hyphen out.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]kosaginolegion
2009-04-18 04:22 am UTC (link)
Hyphen? *is puzzled* Do you mean the and/or? I can see that being considered fairly informal. Or perhaps you meant your own hyphens? I don't see anything wrong with that, myself, but then I think they have a place in writing.

I've been told by some that semi-colons aren't all that useful or acceptable anymore. Personally I can take or leave them for the most part, having only just learned to use them at all. (Interestingly, I found the sentence became much more efficient this time.)

I edit* a fanzine and spend quite a bit of time reminding my writers that you should stay in the same tense. We won't even discuss misused punctuation and incorrect spelling.

*For varying definitions of edit. I'm better at over all sense of story than catching line-edit type problems. Captious critics would point out that I'm also slower than molasses in January.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


nam_jai
2009-04-18 04:44 am UTC (link)
Hyphen? *is puzzled*

I only meant to poke fun at my own compulsion to change the spelling of semi-colon to semicolon in my reply, because my dictionary told me to. I missed the mark on that one, oh well!

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]kosaginolegion
2009-04-18 01:02 pm UTC (link)
*blinks*

Oh.... OH!

Interestingly, Firefox's dictionary isn't zapping me for that one. Now I get it. I'm also not certain why I put the hyphen in there, as I don't think I've seen it spelled with one most of the time.

*sigh* I claim cold in the head brain.

(Reply to this)(Parent)


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