But enough about me. Let's talk about what you can do for me.

With National Novel Writing Month coming up, various friends and LJ-friends of mine are gearing up to write novels. This disturbs me greatly. Please stop. Eighteen months ago, I somehow stumbled and tumbled into a paying gig as a full-time novelist, and let me tell you, it's a damn cushy job - but it's also fraught with risk. If I don't sell books, I'll be back out on the street, or worse yet, in the office. And the competition is killing me. Every time someone walks into a bookstore, I'm already fighting for their attention with Margaret Atwood, Dan Brown, John Le Carre, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Haruki Murakami, J.K. Rowling, Salman Rushdie, the list goes on forever. You think I want that list any longer? You think I want more competition? No freakin' way.

There's this perception of the publishing business as a walled garden, protected by moats and spiky walls, whose denizens are for the most part actively hostile to wannabe writers and their attempts to break in. This perception is one thousand per cent correct. And now that I'm inside the garden, dammit, I want y'all to stay out where you belong. But the walls are far from impregnable, and if you all keep writing, there's a real danger that you'll come in and push me out. There's only room for so many. So please, allow me to humbly suggest a few rules for you all to follow so's I can stay here in the pink of my largely undeserved and very jammy existence.

Of course they don't apply to everyone. There are exceptions; there are always exceptions; there's always Harper Lee. But if everyone follows these rules carefully, I should be able to continue bathing in caviar for the rest of my days. Please help.

( Advice for the Competition )