The following is a quote from my new fave’s Blog, “The Rejectionist.” (See link in prior post.)
“If you say some things that make most people dislike you you will not succeed, but if you say most things some people dislike you will not succeed. If you say most things most people like while some people dislike you you will not succeed. If all things said by you are not all things to most people some of the time you will not succeed, but you may succeed if you avoid ruffling most feathers of some people or some feathers of most people, but don’t have opinions, or if you have opinions most people should share them some of the time.”
I’m not sure what this is parodying, but I feel that it is a parody of something and I like it. It comes from a post called “We’re here to help.” The teaching is aimed at making a better blog, and the context is the blog that will help you sell your writing. Of course, as with many of these advice to writers with blogs sites, one item in the list that the above gem is culled from warns against talking about writing (or not writing) on a blog. So I assume the parody is of some of these advice posts.
To decode it a bit, since it is clearly heavily encoded, I would propose the reduction of the first three sentences to this: “If you want to succeed, don’t say things that will make people dislike you.” Fair enough. I’m not sure what we are trying to succeed at, but I assume it’s the selling of writing. The next part offers no guarantees, but suggests that if you line yourself up with opinions that most people share, you may succeed.
Don’t offend; be in the pocket.
This is followed by:
“Don’t write about writing. Don’t write about not writing. Don’t say bad things about other people’s writing. Make friends. Love everyone. Even if you don’t love them: say you love them. No one will love you if you don’t say you love them. Be patient but don’t think things will happen for you if you just sit there, jesus, what’s wrong with you, anyway.”
I like this too, though with reservations. I reserve the right to ignore it. I see that the Rejectionist does occasionally ignore it. She writes about writing fairly often. She also writes about not writing. She does a fair amount of creative writing on this blog. If she stopped being disagreeable, she’d be boring. Note that she tells you to love everyone while she disagreeably tells asks you, peevishly, “what’s wrong with you?”
I like this person. I might even love her. Despite her injunctions not to, she also writes about her cat.
Lola Pants.