How to Write a Book: Advice for Our Moment

 How to write a book:

 1–don’t use too many words

2–don’t use too many big words

3–don’t write about something new or original

4–don’t write about something that requires your audience to read other books

5–don’t write about something that presumes your audience has read other books

6–try to say something people already know

7–try to say it in such a way that pleasantly gratifies your readers’ preconceived notions

8–lower your expectations

9–remember that marketability is not the same as creativity

10–be aware that marketability is, by it’s nature, anti-creative

11–be aware that marketability is also anti-intellectual

12–consider that high-end marketability even to self-conceived sophisticated people is basically the low end of middlebrow

13–try not to get too down about it all

14–during revisions, remember that 13 is an unlucky number and consider revising it out

15–act grateful and assured when friends tell you to ignore reviews

16–act optimistic when friends tell you it’s common not to be reviewed at all

17–be aware that judges for awards probably don’t read the full text of anything

18–be aware that full-text reading is rare

19–be aware that even judges of literary contests, however hip their black and white publicity photos, are actually just normal readers who have succeeded in the market

20–recognize that even judges for literary contests are on the low end of middlebrow

21–expect to be called entitled, petulant, privileged, or whiny for being honest about these kinds of things

22–do not pick a subject you care about

23–consider that success depends on topics that seem important

24–remember that “seeming important” is just a layperson’s way of saying “topical”

25–do not forget #2 above

26–definitely avoid writing about a gay topic in a field deeply entrenched in white patriarchy and heteronormativity from a perspective meant also to challenge the banal but deeply popular opinion that same-sex desire is irrelevant unless the subject is contemporary marriage or opaquely queer

27–do not give away your author copies

28–lower expectations more than you already have

29–practice smiling and speaking with natural warmth when your friends drone on about their children and show pictures or give you updates on their home improvement projects or extoll their plans for marvelous vacations and fancy dinners at chic restaurants highlighting fusion menus under the trendy and fashionable auspices of a highly marketable name

30–every month or so take one of your author copies down and read a paragraph or two at random wherever the page falls open

31–read some insincere self-help quotes in your Facebook timeline

32–fewer words, fewer words

33–never respond in any way to anyone who ever says, “I’d like to write a book one day”

34–avoid detail-oriented conversation with anyone who generally responds, “wow, it’s so cool you wrote a book”

35–plan ahead to de-friend the kind of people who respond to the book only by pointing out the one typo you never corrected in the 140,000 words you spent more than a decade trying to perfect

36–in job interviews remember to talk mostly about your “next project”

37–don’t bring up your book around colleagues

38–generally avoid talking about it with friends

39–for your upcoming birthday, find a bar somewhere where no one knows you and craft a fake identity that does not involve writing books

40–read a sonnet by Milton; the first few cantos of Dante

41–don’t assume anyone understands allusions that require reading other books

42–regret joining social media to “market” the book you’ve written

43–the next time an idea crosses your mind that you’d like to write about, resist.

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**I tend to recycle models, and of late I've been using Michael Lassell's "How to Watch Your Brother Die," a deeply moving AIDS poem, because the idea of a second-person "instructional" has been a useful rhetorical tool to explore some ideas.