Unwritten Rules

There's been some talk around the SFnal blogosphere this week about mid-career writing advice in blogs. The gist is that once a writer is mid-career, there are less truisms about writing out there. I obviously have no advice to a mid-career writer other than they should talk to rarelylynne about archiving. There was something mentioned by sartorias, though, that made me think about an unwritten rule that every aspiring writer should know. sartorias said this about the posts by Jay Lake and Tobias Buckell:

Both guys point out that "advice" is actually pretty hard to give, outside of some insider specifics about which houses to avoid if you can, which agents are hot and which are not, royalty and foreign sales difficulties, problems with copy-editors, and so forth. Mentioning some of this in public can get a writer into trouble if it's "interesting" (i.e. rants, or outing facts that are supposed to stay behind closed doors) and they are boring to non-writers if they aren't.

So where are these closed-door discussions? Some happen in emails and private Internet groups. Many of these discussions, though, happen at the bar during conventions. Writers are a solitary group of introverts. Bring them together and add liquor, however, and you will see authors, editors, and agents transform into the town ladies of River City singing ""Pick-a-Little, Talk-a-Little." The gossip flows like cheap gin. If you're an aspiring writer at a con, there's a decent chance you will overhear conversations about which small press is run by incompetent crooks, which editor will take a thousand years to edit a manuscript, and which agent has sex with sheep in Scottish castle moats during his or her vacations.

Here's the BIG unwritten rule for aspiring writers:
Keep your fucking mouth shut.

If you want to have a happy career, don't repeat what you hear on the Internet. Things said in the bar stay in the bar. Writers need this safe space to vent. They might say awful things about a press one year, and publish with it the next. This is a small community. If you spread the gossip on Twitter or in your blog, it will get traced back to you.

This unwritten rule applies to other aspects of a writers' life. An early-career writer recently wrote a public blog about a bad critique session they had at a prominent writers' workshop. The details of their manuscript were fairly upsetting, but that wasn't why some other writers were pissed off about the blog post. This writer had broken the unwritten rule. Like the bar, a critique session is supposed to be a safe place. What happens in the conference room needs to stay there. The privacy of a critique session leads to more risk taking and honesty. If people start blogging about how awful so-and-so's story was or how this person is a fool who doesn't understand genius writing, that will be the end of productive workshops.

If you need to gossip, develop friendships with people you can trust. Then you can send an email or pick up a phone. Otherwise, keep it to yourself.