Things you'd rather shoot yourself in the foot than write

I once ghost wrote a semi-pornographic story for another writer friend who was going to miss her deadline. It was for some kind of local men's magazine, the kind with ads for strips clubs and massage parlors. Classy, eh?

I let her have all the credit for that one.

If I ever have to write another essay about Turing machines, I'll scratch my eyeballs out.

Good luck! Maybe you can encrypt naughty words in to the article. That'd be more fun

The Lonely One said:

About as riveting as a county commissioner's meeting.

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You've obviously never had to be in a eight-hour meeting with mechanical engineers on a building projects. It makes a county commissioner's meeting seem like a Hollywood premiere. Endless discussions about pipe runs and HVAC zones.

Vampires that sparkle.

ChristineR said:

Vampires that sparkle.

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Or zombies.

Cancer or sibling rivalry.

I'm not going to be objective about either of these.

The Lonely One said:

It's like nails on a chalkboard writing this kind of stuff. About as riveting as a county commissioner's meeting.

I need to finish this but it's so painful. Plucking quotes, pretending I care whether or not Lee County burns to the ground...

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You should write it as a comedy piece, then after you're done make a copy and change all the stupid things back to what's expected.

You could have a quotes from the local used cars dealer ("I only sell late model, low mileage vehicles -- they just happened to have been driven by Iraqi cab drivers . . "), the cheap junk furniture store owner ("Goes with any decor, as long as the decor is done in orange and lime green"), the over-priced shoe store owner ("A slimy green alien wouldn't be caught dead in them"), the restaurant owner ("We clean most of the dirt off the food we drop on the floor"), the fluffy-headed teen who works at the sunglasses boutique in the mall ("Like, well, it's like your eyes are, like, shut almost when you wear these outside").

I can think of a lot of things. I won't even speak of them here. But the puddy-tat's parody-first idea is a goodie

A romance or fantasy story that is cliche to the point of tears. Actually, writing anything cliche makes me want to vomit.

Anything that doesn't matter. Strictly speaking, adventure story that is just an adventure, horror that's just horror, romance that's just romance, action that's just action. Basically, writing anything just for the sake of writing it. If I'm going to write something, it has to be more than just words.

Plus erotica--from my point of view, utterly pointless.

EDIT: Women's Lit was well...I couldn't imagine writing something that I wouldn't want a variety of people to read. Writing for just a single demographic...nah, not for me.

Autobiography or Memoir.

caw

The Lonely One said:

Agree wholeheartedly. No offense to those types, but that's a different kind of beast, one I don't understand and am not motivated to pursue.

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For me, it's mainly that my life is about as interesting as boiled tofu.

caw

I'd like to write a memoir...perhaps some point later in my life. Ditto what blacbird said; need do go through something interesting enough to write about.

blacbird said:

Autobiography or Memoir.

caw

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Agreed. I think there's at least a bit of arrogance involved in writing an Autobiography, whether the writing realizes it or not. Because in the end, it requires the person to say "I'm important enough that someone wants to read about my life."

Anything by Augusten Burroughs is the exception to this rule.

Daytime Television.

Slutty romance novel; half melodrama and half random sex scenes. Seen them in the hands of a few people, took one look and was like "someone actually wrote that?"

I then said some offensive things about the author's mothers, and what the author's should do with a quart of vodka, some rope, and a moment alone in their kitchen.

Haha, just kidding. But really, that whole genre is really a blight...

Yes! I abhor most every form of melodrama, and random anything in a story, especially sex, makes my skin crawl. Lazy, lazy writing.

Romance. Vampires--actually, fantasy in general.

How about an Outline?
Or a main character named "Kat" "Cat" "Kitty" or anything else like that.

There really isn't a subject I wouldn't write about. I could do Erotica, but I would totally suck at it. And I may open myself to do Vampires and Werewolves in a few decades when the fad dies down.

On second thought...probably not.

A detective solving a crime. Don't mind reading it, but writing it? No way. In my subplot dabbles, I very briefly added a crime in my book. It was like pulling teeth to write the new chapter and never went past that. Shortest record for a subplot in my book before it was deleted.

Gratitutious violence. I changed genres so I could avoid this.

The Lonely One said:

What are the topics you'd rather inflict bodily harm on yourself than write about?

This topic comes up, of course, because I'm three days past deadline for a "meet the merchants" special section to run with our shopper guide here in sunny Southwest Florida.

What am I writing about? Oh. Very kind of you to ask.

How shopping locally effects (or is it affects?) the economy here in good ol' dead-end Lee County.

fluffluffluffluffetc.

It's like nails on a chalkboard writing this kind of stuff. About as riveting as a county commissioner's meeting.

I need to finish this but it's so painful. Plucking quotes, pretending I care whether or not Lee County burns to the ground...

But enough about me. How about you?

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I stopped writing for a careers magazine because I didn't give a shit. I wanted to take an electric drill and poke it around inside my head to relieve the pain. The last career I profiled did it for me...I just could not even feign interest. After that I said, 'I'm writing for pleasure. These assignments are not giving me pleasure. They are giving me the exact opposite of pleasure.' I gave it up and moved on to something I could find an interest in. It's just not worth it to me to write about things that don't interest me. That's not why I got into freelancing.

Anything involving talking animals unless the animals talk only because the character listening to them is insane

And I write fantasy...