"I'd love to buy you lunch and pick your brain."
Can't tell you how often I hear that. It's normally the follow up to a few emails in which new writers ask me to take a look at their works and give them a few pointers.
Tips, they're usually called. You know what tips are. Those succinct little tidbits that will solve writers' career dilemmas: no one wants to publish their stuff.
Sorry. No royal road to it. You put in a few million words and then yeah, you'll be able to make use of a few pointers. You'll have reached the level of conscious incompetence.
What most folks mean by tips is this: teach me to write well. After all, it's just a bunch of words and we all started mastering that at around age 2 or so, right? How hard can it be?
If you'd like me to teach you to write, take one of the classes. Or hire me to do it. Because honestly, while I love lunch out with friends, there are a few problems with the whole lunch and brain picking scenario.
- It's worth more than lunch
- It takes longer than lunch.
- Ruins the meal to talk about bad writing and teach at the same time.
- Until you've put in the time in front of the keyboard, it won't help.
It's like law. Just because it's in English, don't assume you understand it.
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