My friend Ray — who writes an awesome blog about beer, writing, and other things of importance — sent me the link to Laura Miller’s anti-NaNoWriMo essay, “Better Yet, Don’t Write That Novel.” It inspired me to start a new department here: the annals of bad writing.
This general topic has been on my mind for a while. I get angry — yes, angry — when I see bad writing from people who are paid to write. Why? Because the media industry is a mess right now. Smart people are losing jobs or are grossly underpaid, getting the same word rate they received ten years ago. Though many big media executives talk about how “content is king,” they are comically unable to turn a modicum of profit in this time of pervasive content consumption. I mean, come on — the Wired iPad app? Did the editors and Adobe staffers who worked on it actually believe that this mediocre app was actually groundbreaking? Have they drunk that much of their own Kool-Aid.
I can’t change the industry, but I can call out some of the poorly written articles.
Title: “Better Yet, Don’t Write That Novel”
Author: Laura Miller, senior writer and cofounder, Salon.com
Publication: Salon.com
Word Count: 1300 words
Ray described Miller as sounding like “an elitist Chicken Little” in this piece. I would add that her writing is poor, with her arguments ping-ponging wildly: Rough drafts are good! Rough drafts are bad! Writers are narcissists! I’m a writer! The publishing industry is just trying to milk writers for money! Support the publishing industry by reading a novel a month! Consumption is more laudable than creation! By the way, you can buy and read MY book, a reader’s guide to other books!
Buried beneath what feels like sour-grapes kvetching (in case you missed it in her bio, she’s written two books — have you bought them?) is a good point: you’re a better writer if you also read. But did she have to take 1300 words to not even get to that point? It sounds like she does share something in common with many NaNoWriMo writers — she, too, could use a better editor before she subjected others to her writing. This could have been a good 500-word piece, if she actually stated her thesis somewhere.