Also known as: Every other person alive.

I cognitively know that most people think writing is easy, but I continue to be amused by people who don’t read and think they can write.

That would explain a lot of what is out there, though.
I worked in independent bookshops for twelve years and lots of people would come in and talk about the book they’d written/wanted to write/had a sliver of a fart of an idea about writing. The last few years they’d come in with the book they’d written and then vanity pressed into existence. Darlings, that’s not a book. (For those interested in a rant about these “authors” see a previous post of mine.)

People who think they’re writers are easy to spot. First, they don’t read very much because they “don’t want to influence” their own writing. With what? Decent grammar? A knowledge of what’s out there so you don’t repeat what someone else has already done? Heaven forfend.

Then, they can’t wait to talk to you about what they’re going to write–they usually haven’t actually written anything…yet. Which means they probably never will. In Pat Walsh’s excellent book 78 Reasons Why Your Book May Never Be Published and 14 Reasons Why it Just Might the first rule is: Your book will never be published because you haven’t written it yet.

I said that to a recent in-his-dreams writer I was cornered by and he said, “Yeah, you have to write at least a couple hundred words before a publisher will look at it.”

Dude.

This person was going to be soon, in the near future, going to be writing a book about his childhood and he obviously knew nothing about the publishing industry. Or reality. You-wish writers are very often not very familiar with reality. They are also quite impressed with their non-existent book. Usually because they don’t read enough to know 8,942 other people have already written the book they may, possibly begin at some point. Perhaps.

The thing that most annoys the holy pete moss out of me is the smugness with which they talk about their fictional fiction. The most recent time this happened, the not-ever-in-a-million-years guy was hinting about his book–trying to get me to ask questions and treat him like an actual author (I suppose so he could practise for his session on Oprah). All before he’d written word one.

I know that there’s far too much emphasis on the marketing of books but when your mack is polished before you’ve figured out the plot of your novel things have got out of hand.