WHAT IS THIS BLOG AND WHO IS IT FOR?

This is a hybrid blog of a) writing advice and b) my completely unasked-for thoughts and opinions about how shit it tends to be. I intend it for other writers who want to make art that's weird, unconventional, and outsider, who like me are left unsatisfied by a lot of other writing advice on the internet. That’s not to say I’ve never been helped by any of it, just that it’s repetitive and narrow and clearly geared for certain types of story more than others. And when it comes down to it, many of the ‘don’t’s of mainstream writing advice have nothing to stand on, but vague warnings of “readers will get bored and hate that” and “it’s cliche”. I’m a punk and a proponent of doing whatever the fuck you want.

So why are you giving out advice?

Because neocities hosting is free and barely moderated. How are you going to stop me?

My actual serious answer to this question is that yeah, from the outside I can see this looking like a paradox: I say that nobody should tell you what to do.. and then I give you advice on how to do that. If you think about it, it's really not complicated: even when you're self-taught and working outside typical conventions, especially then, you'll run into roadblocks. A lot of the time, artists straight up don't know all the "rules" they've been taught can easily be broken, and to good effect! The few artists held up as ~rule breakers~ are some shriveled up old men (who probably ripped off their ideas from women in the first place) who get held up as gods. As Valerie Solanas put it:

The vast majority of people, particularly the “educated” ones, lacking faith in their own judgment, humble, respectful of authority (“Daddy knows best” is translated into adult language as “Critic knows best”, “Writer knows best”, “Ph.D knows best”), are easily conned into believing that obscurity, evasiveness, incomprehensibility, indirectness, ambiguity and boredom are marks of depth and brilliance... We know that “Great Art” is great because male authorities have told us so, and we can’t claim otherwise, as only those with exquisite sensitivities far superior to ours can perceive and appreciate the greatness, the proof of their superior sensitivity being that they appreciate the siop that they appreciate.

I want to provide guidance without any overbearing authority or ignorance of what lies outside: the weird, the unpublishable. I want to treat art and literature as open-ended as they are and give a wider range of opinions and options for your work, without any shoulds and shouldn'ts. It is a bit of a challenge but I try nonetheless.

WHO IS THIS BLOG NOT FOR?

God, I love being an exclusionary witch. So naturally, all of my opinions and merry-making has to come at someone’s expense.

This blog's not for straightforward, one-size-fits-all artistic advice. That stuff is out there on a hundred other blogs. My site is highly personal both in the way I write and the way it should be read. All art is subjective, there is no drag-and-drop creation of it. If I was a programming help blog, it would be completely permissible for me to dole out snippets of code for you to stick onto your website. But adding a sparkly mouse trail on your page doesn't work the same way as removing all the 'suddenly's from your draft. I expect you to read this not to find out what to do, but to find what you want in the first place.

This blog isn’t really for people who write with the strong intention of being traditionally published. Not that my advice then becomes bad, but I orient my work towards self publishing or not publishing at all. That is, I don’t want to advertise any of this advice as making your work More Publishable. The publishing industry, like any intersection we find with art and commerce, works on sales patterns and adherence to convention. Even the most boutique and quaint of indie publishing houses needs to put profits above creative mastery or uniqueness, because it’s a business that’s being run.

I believe writing solely to publish (or placing a large amount of weight on it as an eventuality) is a detriment to the mindset of an artist. To place your own creative curiosities first and let your work grow into something truly new is my artistic priority. Much of my advice stems from that wish to break out of convention and create something different. Perhaps unmarketable. I still encourage you to go through my blog, but keep in mind my priorities probably differ from yours.