You're Not Fooling Anyone When You Take Your Laptop to a Coffee Shop : Scalzi on Writing

by Scalzi, John

• ISBN13: 9781596060630
• ISBN10: 1596060638
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2007-01-28
• Publisher: Subterranean

Summary

Coffee Shop shows the writing life as it is, from the perspective of novelist and writer John Scalzi, who in 15 years as a professional writer has written just about everything: critically acclaimed novels, best-selling humor books, nationally syndicated newspaper columns, magazine cover stories... and ad copy, corporate brochures and Web site headlines, too. His wide range of experience informs this collection of essays on writing and the writing life, taken from his popular personal Web site, The Whatever. Whether providing practical advice, discussing writing and writers or observing the state of the writing world, Scalzi lays it out in a sharp, no-nonsense way that assumes you want the lay of the land, without all the huggy-squeezy hand-holding. Notes on the writing life, unvarnished views of writers and books and (yes) even some practical advice: It's all here.

Table of Contents

Writing Advice, or Avoiding Real Work The John Scalzi Way	p. 15
John Scalzi's Utterly Useless Writing Advice	p. 17
Even More Long-Winded (But Practical) Writing Advice	p. 45
Ten Things I've Learned About Writing In Ten Years of Doing It	p. 55
Ten Things About Literary Rejection	p. 63
What Publishing Is	p. 67
What Online Writing is Good For, 2005 Edition	p. 73
Writing Tips for Non-Writers Who Don't Want to Work at Writing	p. 79
Yo Ho, Yo Ho, A Writer's Life For Me	p. 87
The Money Entry	p. 89
15 Things About Me and Books	p. 97
15 Things About Me and Writing	p. 101
Wanting to be a Writer	p. 105
Expired Contracts	p. 111
Criticism	p. 115
Get Me Rewrite	p. 121
The Gripes of the Unpublished	p. 129
Real World Book Descriptions	p. 135
Why a Shitty Deal is a Shitty Deal	p. 139
Novelist Money	p. 147
The Money Involved	p. 151
Creative Commons and Fanfic	p. 157
The Stupidity of Worrying About Piracy	p. 165
Selling Books Now	p. 171
Writing in the Age of Piracy	p. 177
There Is Always Another Way	p. 183
The Schadenfreude Needle is Buried Deep into the Red: On Writers	p. 189
Bob Greene Gets Canned	p. 191
Bob Greene Redux	p. 197
Attack of the Monkeyfishers	p. 201
Stinky Cheese	p. 207
Being an E-Author	p. 211
The Stupidest Criticism of a Clinton, This Week	p. 215
Envy	p. 219
Workshop Fracas	p. 223
Authors Whining	p. 231
Cover Letters	p. 235
A Little Libel	p. 241
I, Hollywood	p. 247
Celebrity Books	p. 251
Sympathy for the Publicist	p. 255
Writers On Writing, and It's Not What You Think	p. 259
What Passes for an Online Literary Feud These Days	p. 263
How Not to Plagiarize	p. 267
January is Literary Fraud Month!	p. 271
Science Fiction, or, Don't Skip This Chapter, You Damned Writing Snobs	p. 275
The Cynical Writer	p. 279
Science Fiction Outreach	p. 287
Revenge of the Science Fiction Writers!	p. 293
PublishAmerica Douses Self in Kerosene, Lights Match	p. 297
The Politics of SF	p. 301
Who the Hell Cares What's Wrong With American SF?	p. 305
The Myth of the Science Fiction Monoculture	p. 309
Asimov and the Cleti	p. 315
Acknowledgements	p. 319
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