Bad spelling!
I can understand this being used to show an illiterate character but that’s all it should be used for and should only be part of the story/novel. If authors can’t spell or be grammatical why should anyone else bother? Writers ought to set a good example here, giving we claim to love the written word! And texting is an abomination of the English language. We’ve got vowels for a reason! We need them!
Celebrity “writers”.
I’ve nothing against ghost writing in itself (I prefer to see ghosts properly credited as it is an art form stepping into someone else’s life convincingly in print) but the “writer” really should be writing something as a contribution to the work and not just their name on the contract!! There are enough luvvies in the acting world. Do we really need them in the publishing one?
The difficulties of finding publishers and agents!
Being told you can’t have one without the other when you’ve tried very hard, and professionally, to get one of them! Whilst I’m getting short stories out, which is great, I still want to get my novels out. The fact there are charlatans about complicates things. And when people claim they self published and you recognize the name of the publisher as a vanity company! Those authors will have paid thousands for the privilege of being published and lost their rights. Self publishing means you keep the latter!
Authors generally being under-appreciated.
Yes we fiction writers make it up but it is hard work doing so in such a way the making it up works. Okay the work is good fun but so many people dismiss writing as something they’d do if only they had the time. This is why it’s great going to a writers’ conference such as the one at Winchester. You know you’ve got a sympathetic audience there! Oh and never having enough time to do as much writing as I’d like!
American spellings! Though they’ve given us wonderful words like sidewalk (sounds warmer than pavement, the latter sounds “pedestrian”!!!!!), why do the Yanks never use double letters in anything? Are they trying to save the ink?! And what has the 21st letter of the alphabet ever done to them that they so casually discard it? Color I ask you! Every time I see it I want to get the red editing pen out and forcibly insert the letter “u”. And I do think Britain has a right to say how English should be spelt. Am I being racist? Definitely not! But the country that gave the world Shakespeare and Dickins ought to have first say when it comes to English spellings!
I don’t believe in writer’s block. Sure, there are times when the words don’t come easily and it’s a struggle to get anything down but I take that as a normal part of a normal writing life. Writers exercise the imaginative muscles. There are bound to be days when, especially following vigorous imaginative exercise, there’s a reaction and your writing slows down. I think writers need to accept that and on days when there’s nothing coming for your story or novel to do something else. Have a brainstorming session. Write nonsense. It wakes the imaginative muscles up again. There’s a lot of pretentiousness around writer’s block. No profession has a block (bar builders I suppose!!) so why should writers?