Words of Wisdom On Being A Hack - Lilith Says It Best

This is one of my all time favorite blog posts by Lilith Saintcrow. The original is here. Thought I'd share:

Good morning. I hope you’re comfortable? Good, good. Have a cuppa, settle in.

This last week I was informed that my writing advice was utter crap and nobody wanted to hear it because I am a hack.

As my friend Neutronjockey pointed out:

I believe the word “hack” is derived from the horseworld. A hack being a reliable, trustworthy, hardworking — I believe it was specifically referring to a horse used for work rather than pleasure.

While I won’t deny you pleasure-use … there is certainly nothing wrong with being a hack.

Damn skippy. There is nothing wrong with being a hack. And to that end, dear Reader, here is my Hack Manifesto.

My advice on writing is geared pretty specifically toward people who want to make a living at it. It’s also geared to people who love language and want to tell a ripping good story. It is not for Artistes or for fragile speshul flowers who want only squeeful strokes for their delicate, heart-shattering, mindstopping genius. Go read Annie Dillard or Natalie Goldberg if you want to hear how haaaaard writing is on the Delicate Flower. Here in my writing world, we work, and we work hard. We get our hands dirty. We take our goddamn rejection like adults, we buckle our belts tighter, and we get on with producing the best manuscript possible on several fronts.

That’s what being a hack is–taking pride in your craft, taking pride in producing something people can use and love. This is the heart of hackdom–creating things people can enjoy.

You can write utter crap and get away with it. But that’s not what the true hack does. Writing fiction that is supposed to show how smart you are or how you’re treading the path of High Litrachur is a fool’s game–literature disappearing up its own asshole, so to speak. The hack’s purpose is twofold:

1. To produce the best writing possible; clear, vigorous, and working prose that is easy for the reader to understand. And capable of carrying hundreds of pounds of theme, symbolism, plot, characterization, and all the workings of a good story effortlessly–WITHOUT BORING THE READER BY HOW F!CKING SMART YOU THINK YOU ARE.

This is very important. The best writing is not hard to understand. It is deceptively simple. We are in this business of writing to communicate. That’s what writing is, communication. Your communication is dead on the vine if you’re not looking to be clear and reasonably concise.

There is a fair degree of art in being reasonably concise and as clear as possible. Clarity is not just using the appropriate word–it is using the appropriate sentence length, giving enough detail to build the scene but not enough detail to choke the unwary reader in a morass, pacing appropriately, and pruning away all that lovely writing you’ve perpetrated without a clear idea of what it’s for.

There’s another aspect to this: consistently producing what a reader will enjoy reading. Now, I’m not saying you have to stick to hackneyed trends because that’s what Everyone Else Who Has Succeeded In The Genre has done. I’m saying you need to understand why a genre is the way it is, why myths and fairytales work, the rules of the form you’re working in. You have to know HOW the engine works before you can go tinkering with it to make it work better. You can’t just slap crap on the page and expect people to worship you. If your business is to tell stories, you need to know how stories work so you can pick the appropriate parts to jam in their engines to make them run without sticking and backfiring.

2. The second purpose of the hack is to have fun.

Yes. Fun.

Look, if you’re not enjoying writing, or not enjoying WHAT you write, what the hell are you going to do it for? This is not a line of work where it’s possible to dink around and make a living. Precious few writers, even hacks, do this for the money. IF you want to make a living doing this, you MUST enjoy some part of it or you’re going to end up with a serious ulcer and bitter, bitter nastiness in your soul.

Plus, there is that indefinable quality of joy in some work. If I’m not having fun on the page, how the hell can I expect the Reader to? And I don’t just mean the shallow fun of explosions and titties, nice as those are. I mean the soul-deep joy of creating something that’s as good as I can make it. I mean a ripping good yarn, a story that the Reader gets emotionally involved in. I don’t care if the Reader laughs OR cries OR gets angry OR suffers with the characters OR gets angry at the characters. I’ll take ANY of those, or ANY other strong emotional reaction. If the Reader has that emotional reaction, that kick from the story, I have done my job and created something useful.

That, my dears, is my idea of FUN.

The hack understands that people are not going to consistently fork over their hard-earned cash to read mental wanking that doesn’t work for them. The hack wants to create something people will use. If it’s a romance novel that makes a Reader sigh, if it’s a Western that makes a young girl smell gunsmoke, if it’s a doorstop of fantasy that makes a fanboi happy inside, if it’s a novelization that draws a Reader back into the world of a movie or a telly series they loved so much–all of these are noble, worthy pursuits. These are things worth doing well for the Reader’s sake. Without the Reader, a writer is just shouting into the wind–and while a certain degree of shouting into the wind is good exercise, there comes a point (sooner than you think) when that shouting is just sound and fury signifying nothing but an overblown ego.

Part of being a hack is being professional. A hack comes in on or under deadline, understands that an editor really just wants to make a story better, knows that critical reviews (even the ones that are just sour grapes from a jackass who chooses to review instead of writing his* own crud) are valuable in their own way, and is constantly looking to make their work better. A hack understands the fine balance between obeying the conventions of a genre and slipping a hand under genre’s skirt to tweak ever so gently at those conventions–all to provide an enjoyable experience. (*snickers gently*)

A hack can engage in stunt-writing, as long as s/he has a clear idea of why/how to break the rules. But a hack will not expect others to bow down to their Deathless Genius. A hack takes pride in the work. A hack does not take pride in the size and firm plumpness of his or her ego.

And here’s another statement some people are going to take issue with. I firmly believe that each and every artist who deserves the name is a hack. An artist has a hack’s work ethic and a hack’s understanding of the form they’re working in. Those without the work ethic, those who do not expend the effort, are artistes, dabblers, dilettantes.

There is nothing wrong with artistes, dabblers, and dilettantes. They’re just fine, they’re okay, and there is nothing pejorative in those terms as far as I’m concerned. I simply save my admiration for the hacks because I understand how hard they work. And I am proud to be called a hack–the same way I’m proud to be called a bitch. A bitch works hard and takes no crap from anyone, is assertive, and has self-esteem. So does a hack. (Which, tongue-in-cheek, beggars the question of whether I’m a bitch hack. *snerk*)

Dickens was a hack. So was Dumas. So was Shakespeare–his funky butt got PAID for the work he produced, and he understood WHY the plays worked. (He still gave off some stinkers, but given the political climate he was working in, no wonder.) Zane Grey is just as valid as Jane Smiley, and I think they’re both hacks because they both figured out something that worked and kept/keep refining, reinventing, and and making it work still further. Louis L’Amour? Edgar Rice Burroughs? Alice Hoffman? Edgar Allen Poe? Barbara Kingsolver? Anthony Trollope? Jack Kerouac (even in his more nutty stimulant-laced moments)? Stephen King? Others too numerous to list?

Hacks. Proud hacks. Hacks I’m proud to read. The quirk that considers some of them “fine litrachur” and others “damn hackdom” is merely an accident of media taste. Or the taste of some hoity-toity reviewers.

So. Yes, I’m a hack. A hack is dependable, responsible, faithful, hardworking. A hack is in love with language and determined to produce the best story they can. A hack is enjoying herself to the hilt while churning out good prose. So, goddamn hell yeah, I’m a hack.

And I really would not want it any other way. Now excuse me. I’ve got writing to do. Tune in next week for my rant about how genre is just as good as highfalutin’ litrachur. I expect to wax just as rhapsodically bitchy about THAT, too…

Funny Bumper Sticker Quotes

- Cleverly Disguised As A Responsible Adult
- Consciousness: that annoying time between naps.
- Condoms are easier to change than diapers!
- BOMB SQUAD: If you see me running you better catch up!
- Blondes Tease....Brunettes Please....
- Boys Lie!
- Ax Me About Ebonics
- Be nice society already sucks.
- According to my best recollection, I don't remember.
- Abandon the search for Truth; settle for a good fantasy.
- Adults are just kids with money.
- Adrenalin is my drug of choice.
- According to my calculations, the problem doesn't exist.
- Air Pollution Is A Mist-Demeaner
- They didn't let me out, they just gave me a day pass!
- IF THIS STICKER IS GETTING SMALLER, THE LIGHT IS PROBABLY GREEN
- Friends help you move; real friends help you move the body.
- We're not old people we're recycled teenagers!
- A bartender is just a pharmacist with a limited inventory.
- A clean car is a sign if sick mind.
- Very funny Scotty; now beam down my clothes
- He who laughs last thinks slowest.
- 3 kinds of people: Those who can count and those who can't.
- A day without sunshine is like, night.
- BAD COP! - NO DONUT!!!
- Could You Drive Any Better If I Shoved That Cell Phone Up Your Ass?
- Confidence is the feeling you have before you understand the situation.
- Keep honking, I am reloading!
- You’re Just Jealous Because The Voices Only Speak To Me
- You Have The Right To Remain Silent. Anything You Say Will Be Misquoted And Used Against You
- You know your getting older when Happy Hour is a nap.
- Your Child May Be An Honor Student, But You’re Still An Asshole
- WHAT WOULD SCOOBY DO!
- This Would Be Really Funny If It Weren't Happening To Me
- Unless You're A Hemorrhoid, STAY OFF MY ASS!
- When I die, I want to go peacefully in my sleep like Grandpa. Not Screaming And Yelling Like The Passengers In His Car

Warning to Newbie Writers

Joe Konrath posted this on his blog yesterday. If you're a newbie writer and are considering taking Penguin up on this offer. Don't. Please don't do it. This is a complete rip-off.

Penguin charging $549.00 to format your ebook and upload it to retailers is insane. They say you can format your own ebook and they'll upload it to retailers for $299.00. This is also a rip off. But that's not even the end of this scam. They want 30% royalties after you've paid them to do something you can learn to do on your own.

Joe has a list of people in his blog entry who you can hire to format, edit and do cover art for you. They are much more reasonable than Penguin is, and they won't take a cut in your royalties.

This is highway robbery in my view. Penguin is playing on the desperation of writers who want so badly to be published, they are willing to pay large amounts of money to have a BIG publisher upload it to retailers for them.

Please don't do it.

Friday Fly-by

Wow. November. Can you believe it? Totally snuck up on me. This year, though, I'm starting holiday shopping early. I've already gotten my little guy several of the Cars Series cars and a Thomas the Train set with a track and train station included. If I get shopping done a little at a time it won't be so stressful.

The writing on the current work in progress has been strange. I get sleepy after writing one scene. I hope this has more to do with the emotional impact the writing has on me and not a reflection of my writing itself ;)

It has been slower going, because I'm mostly writing on the weekends only. But what I am writing I'm happy with. Another character has introduced himself to me. Interesting fella. A teenager with green spiked out hair. He has a very intriguing and dangerous ability, as well, which delighted me when he revealed it to me. Pretty cool.

Has anyone been watching American Horror Story? Wow. Very creepy and very cool. I'm liking it.

Okay, back to work for me.