So We All Want To Write

But nobody wants to listen

THE EDITOR IS IN

I said I was going to do this and as I’m reading stories all day and can’t turn my editor’s brain off I have to find somewhere to put this nervous energy. Low key editing a story while you’re reading it is fucking exhausting.

This week is short notice.

From when this post hits to 6pm CST US I would love if anyone who is so inclined and would like some free feedback on ANYTHING would send me five pages of fiction. Short story, a scene, whatever. Friday I’ll post an analysis and autopsy with commentary.

MOVING FORWARD

This slot for sending a piece of writing will be moved to when a post drops every Monday morning until 6pm CST US. Autopsy will drop on Friday.

WHY?

NewYear/NewFlesh

Feed me words and I’ll pay you with the accumulated knowledge of 20 years of obsessing about literature and the craft of prose. Minimalist, maximalist, genre, I do not care. I care about good writing. I care about people writing to the level of their abilities because they often don’t. I care about fiction, and I care about sharing my knowledge and experience, because it isn’t doing any good sitting up in my fuckin’ head doing nothing 24 hours a day.

If you want your name redacted just ask. Send me your best or your worst or something you’re stuck on or just don’t vibe with. Send me something one click off. Send me something you love or something you hate. Just don’t send me something that you don’t care about or aren’t serious about.

From when this post hits until 6pm CST US, please send up to five pages of fiction to:

EmilOttoman@gmail.com

Everyone will get a read and a response. One piece a week will get a full breakdown just like I give paying clients.

Why?

Because I see amazing writing on this platform every day, and I read it, and some of it would be ready for pub if not for ONE thing that marks it. One tell. One fatal flaw. One flat eared sentence. And I see it from writers who should and I expect and hope WILL be emerging as the next generation of the independent scene, the successful self publishers, the voices to carry forward instead of crumbling under the wish for recognition from a Big Five publisher who wants flat dead prose pumped out by the MFA industrial complex.

Bret Ellis wrote American Psycho. He’s considered one of the headline writers of his generation. He still has two books that haven’t earned out their advances.

The indies and micropublishers have been subverting and bypassing the “prestige” of the Big Five for YEARS now. Self publishing no longer marks you as the lunatic fringe or a vain crockpot. Why get a 15k advance on a novel that will linger in the new paperback fiction section for three weeks before half the print run gets pulped and you don’t GET another shot with ECCO or Anchor or FSG, and if you do, you take a pay cut, when you can have a shot at working with a publisher that will at least give your work a fair organic push, be able to keep it in print because of lean models of distribution, pay you for books sold instead of a theoretical number on the front end that’s not going to pay the bills because advances don’t all come at once, meanwhile you’re fucked and headed back to whatever day job you can get.

OK, off that soapbox.

Anyway.

The Editor is in.

I look forward to reading your work.