Lemony Snicket is my hero

Nanowrimo continues to provide good things even to those people, like me, who utterly failed at the whole “write a whole new book in November” thing.  (To be fair to me, my goal was only “finish a novel in November” and I’ve succeeded in that one.)

However you slice it, though, I’m glad I did it this year if only because I got to read Lemony Snicket’s pep talk.  Out of all the pep talks from all the famous writers that I’ve read, this is the only one that not only made me laugh, convinced me that maybe there is some point to my carrying on writing, but also made me wonder how does he know about the things in the cupboards?

The next time you find yourself in a group of people, stop and think to yourself, probably no one here is writing a novel. This is why everyone is so content, here at this bus stop or in line at the supermarket or standing around this baggage carousel or sitting around in this doctor’s waiting room or in seventh grade or in Johannesburg. Give up your novel, and join the crowd. Think of all the things you could do with your time instead of participating in a noble and storied art form. There are things in your cupboards that likely need to be moved around.

I can’t find a link for this on the NaNo boards, but I did find a repost of the whole thing here

Novel Thoughts Blog

If you’re a writer at all, whether or not you do NaNo, this is probably worth printing out and framing.

Lemony Snicket is the author of A Series of Unfortunate Events. He has a deeply unpleasant website here.  On no account go to visit it, if you value your sanity or shelf space.