I was looking at the Learn Writing with Uncle Jim message forum on ezboard, when I ran across this humorous post made by him:
There are twenty-five simple steps to becoming a published author.
Here are the steps:
1. Black ink on white paper.
2. Place your name and address in the top left-hand corner of the first page.
3. Place the title and byline, centered, half-way down the first page.
4. Put a running head (your name, the title, and a page number) in the top right hand corner of every page.
5. Your pages should have one-inch margins.
6. Doublespace your text.
7. Use Courier 10 or Courier 12 only.
8. Type on one side of the paper only.
9. Continue until you reach "The End."
10. Rewrite.
11. Rewrite.
12.....21. Revise
22. Obtain the guidelines for a market that accepts material similar to what you have finished.
23. Follow the guidelines scrupulously when you submit your material.
24. While you are waiting for your rejection slip, start again back at step 1 for your next work.
25. When the rejection slip arrives, send the manuscript to the next market on your list, that same day.
Watt-Evans' Law: There is no idea so brilliant that a sufficiently ham-handed writer can't make an unreadable story out of it.
Feist's Corollary to Watt-Evans' Law: There is no idea so stupid that a sufficiently talented writer can't make a readable story out of it.
Yog's Law: Money flows toward the writer
Watt-Evans refers to Lawrence Watt-Evans, who wrote a series of short stories collected in "Crosstime Traffic", and the Ethshar series of Fantasy Books for young teens. I'm not quite sure which story has such a brilliant idea that has been made unreadable by him, as I rather enjoyed the stories within Crosstime Traffic. But then again, I probably read Crosstime Traffic 15 years ago, when I didn't take a very critical look at what I was reading.
Feist is Raymond Feist, who wrote the Krondor books. I haven't read Feist, so I can't make any critical judgments on either claim. One of my roommates used to really like Fantasy books and Feist (as well as Robert Jordan).
I think Yog is a reference to Cthulu lore, but I'm not positive.
And if I was cool, I'd know how to use the MTAmazon plugin to generate links referring to their works.
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