Healthy, justified, constructive arrogance is a virtue. Arrogance is the fuel, the armour that defends us against the rest of the world and our own niggling sense of inadequacy. When you, as a writer, start to feel down, withdrawn, incompetent or like the world doesn’t really want to be reading your stuff, then do this:

Stop.
Breathe.
Flick your eyes up to your wall, where you’ve got something to this effect printed out and Blu-Tacked up:

I stopped feeling bad about my arrogance when I realised that I’m superior. I learned to stop listening to you when I realised that your opinions are formed in envy and hatred. I stopped apologising when it became clear that I am a superlative writer.

I will produce despite your trenchant criticisms because that is my function. I’m more creative, productive, educated, competent and engaging than you. You can complain about me, hate me, adore me, but you can’t ignore me.

You know Paul Atredies’ “Fear is the mindkiller..” mantra? This can be yours. Shape it if you want. This is something you need to stick in your head, though. You are better than whatever force is trying to make you not-write. You are better than your critics. You’re better than your own sense of self-doubt.

Arrogance is a virtue because it is the supreme confidence in yourself that lets you sit down and go “I’m going to create something that the world needs to have in it.”

Revel in that knowledge.

Arrogance makes you write. Knowing, intimately, your skill and talent gives you a logical reason to write. If you hold, in the core of your being, that you’re a superlative writer, then not writing is illogical and morally wrong.

A painter who fails to paint through their own self-criticisms is doing themselves and the world a disservice. A surgeon who refuses to perform surgery is doing the same. Don’t let that extend to you as a writer.

Arrogance makes you share. Knowing that you have talent is one thing. Producing work is another. Sharing that work with the world – an article, a poem, a conversation, a novel – is the moral obligation that comes from creating something of value. The Internet is the greatest vessel for sharing creations that this world has ever seen. Put something online, now, and you can give it away for free to millions of people with a trifling moment’s effort.

I’m not going to tell you whether to charge for your work.

I am telling you that if you’re good enough to write – and you are – then you need to be showing off to the rest of the world.

To fail to do so is reprehensible.

Arrogance makes you interact. There’s no worse waste than the unread novel sitting in a desk drawer. There are no conversations less wholesome than those left unsaid. If you see a blog post you like, or don’t like, and stay silent, then who gains from your silence? You will be left regretting not engaging with someone. The author misses out on feedback. It doesn’t matter if you agree or disagree. Comment. Create dialogue. Get inspired. Feed back. Link. Share. Talk. Argue.

If you see something and say to yourself, “I could do better”, then that’s the virtue of your arrogance coming out right there and demanding that you create a work of value. Don’t ignore those feelings.

Arrogance forces you to interact with your community. Arrogance is realising that your contribution is important, valuable, and makes you want to share it with the world. Do so. You’ll enrich your lives and the lives of others.

Arrogance makes you defend yourself. Without the unshakeable faith in your own superiority, you might get hurt by negative feedback. If you show a story to a friend or a family member and they shrug it off, then you might withdraw from your writing, hurting only yourself.

Arrogance lets you see through what might otherwise be painful and lets you cut to the chase of the issue. Is there a specific issue with the piece of work? Are your critics right? Do they have a point? By exercising the virtue of your arrogance, you can hold yourself together and engage in a dialogue about what might need improving.

If the criticism is valid, take it on board and re-work your piece towards perfection. If the criticism is wrong, shallow, ill-conceived or stems from laziness or moronicity, then shrug it off as the irrelevancy it is and continue with your work.

Arrogance forces momentum and repetition. Deeply knowing that you are a superlative writer commits you to continuing your projects, deep beyond the point where less confident writers would collapse.

Of all the thousands of novels out there, there are hundreds of thousands that were never completed. How many of them were abandoned because the writer wasn’t confident enough to stick with their idea? Their setting? Their characters?

How many were abandoned because the writer thought they weren’t writing well enough, and rather than push through that feeling and finishing a messy, incoherent first draft, abandoned their project entirely?

Your writing deserves to be read.
You are good enough to have your work read.
Therefore, it is an imperative that you finish your work.

When arrogance is not useful.
Unshakeable confidence in your abilities is a powerful tool in your arsenal. However, don’t get confused between confidence in your abilities – and the arrogance to say to the world, “what I produce is worth reading – and a blind-headed inability to develop as a writer.

Constructive arrogance is not ignoring all feedback.
Constructive arrogance is not demanding unreasonable things of agents.
Or publishers
Or readers.

Constructive arrogance is not constantly striving to improve yourself as a writer.

All writers, all successful writers, all of them, have some level of arrogance about them. And all of the best ones will happily admit that, despite their skills, honed from years of refinement and labour, are still growing.

Yours are too. By giving into the conceit of arrogance, you’re pulling a double-blind on yourself. Conceited arrogance is a cop-out, a washed-out self-blinkering destructive pattern. Conceited arrogance lets you wallow in a mire of your own making, refusing to see how your works need improvement and wondering why you’re unrewarded for your efforts.

Strive for arrogance in your writing.
Develop a deep-nested sense of arrogance in your own approach to writing. Feel the Universe’s gratefulness as you sit down to write.

“Ah!”, it cries, “At last! These words have found their channel, the Muse has her paramour, and look what’s being born…
Right.
Now.”

Go write.

It’s early on a Friday evening, and I’m trying to decide whether I’m going to go out or not. I have a few hours before the social scene really kicks off, though, so my immediate imperative is to find a good book and kick my feet up for a few hours.

Innocently enough, I wander over to my bookshelf and try to find something I want to read.

Nothing.

I own thousands of books, and have read them all dozens of times. My favourites, I’m word-perfect on. I don’t bother reading Neal Stephenson or Dave Duncan any more, instead I sit down and think my way through them.

My budget’s stretched to the max, so I can’t make a late-night dash to a boosktore and pick up something new to read. This is where an e-book reader would be handy – I’d jump onto Project Gutenberg and download some Sherlock Holmes.

This state of affairs depressed me for about twenty minutes, during which time I wandered around the house, accomplished absolutely nothing at all, and then realised:

Huh.
This is the perfect time to do some writing.
Instantly, the world became an easier place to be in. It goes to show – with a mental wrench, a sideways jerk from apathy to excitement, pushing all the bubbled-down thoughts of the day to the forefront of one’s brain and letting them rip – you can instil your world with colour and energy.

So, what am I going to do?

Go write!

P.S. Patrick Rothfuss totally posted a blog about Books for Boobs, which wins the Things Pip Likes About The World Award for April 23, 2010.

We’re all enthusiastic writers, right? Is it possible to write too much?
Science says yes! But how can you tell when do cross the line and write too much?
Luckily, symptoms of this deliriously delicious disease are just below. There’s space down the bottom for your contributions, too, so if you aren’t a terminal case of Ultra-Scrittura, then please let me know what other ways you can identify when you’re writing too much.

Now, the list!

1.Your pre-leaving-house check goes keys, wallet, notebook, pen…..
2….spare notebook, spare pen, mobile…
3.You carry scrap paper in your wallet in case the notebooks fill up.
4.You get your friends to carry notebooks with them.
5.You buy stationery wholesale.
6.You have Officeworks on speed-dial.
7.You have iPhone applications for a thesaurus and dictionary on the home screen.
8.You downloaded Wikipedia so you have a reference system for when you’re offline.
9.Your friends have to coax you out of your house with proof copies.
10.When planning your day, you mentally divide it into chapters.
11.You get a new USB keyboard every Christmas, having worn the last one out.
12.Your ‘writing chair’ has its own personalised butt-groove.
13.You have an index file of unused romantic poetry to woo cute guys/girls with.
14.You’ve published correspondence from old relationships
15.You have a toilet-notebook.
16.You have a bathtub-notebook.
17.You have a camera full of photos of your shower screen where you’ve scribbled thoughts.
18.Your desktop is shots from Library Porn.
19.You haven’t given a present you didn’t write yourself in years…
20.And people like getting stories from you.
21.You’ve bribed your agent.
22.You’ve had coffee with your editor.
23.You’ve got drunk with your editor.
24.You’ve slept with your editor.
25.Your writing hand got carpal tunnel…
26.So you learnt to write with your off hand.
27.Your off hand got carpal tunnel…
28.So you bought a pair of +1 Gauntlets and kept writing….
29.Your Gauntlets wore out….
30.So you learn to write with your toes.
31.Your toes now have Carpal Tunnel.
32.You’ve started to get a tan from writing on your arm too much.
33.You can brush your teeth and write at the same time.
34.You can floss and write at the same time.
35.You use the ‘random page’ function in Wikipedia for story topics.
36.You go to a random page… And you’ve already written about it.
37.You’re an editor for Project Gutenberg.
38.You keep track of mundane conversations you have during the day to refer to later.
39.You transcribe mundane conversations you have during the day to refer to later.
40.You’ve busked reading your own work aloud
41.You’ve made money busking.
42.You’ve scored a book contract whilst busking.
43.You spend all your non-writing time researching things to write about.
44.To write with more accurately…
45.You travel to another city.
46.You travel to another country.
47.You take up smoking.
48.You learn another language.
49.You learn how to fence.
50.You learn how to shoot.
51.You learn how to fly a helicopter.
52.You become a secret agent.
53.You investigate a murder.
54.You develop superpowers.
55.You fulfil a prophecy.
56.You’ve had someone email you about your writing…
57.And it wasn’t your mum..
58.You’ve had a hundred fan emails.
59.You have unanswered fan mail.
60.You’ve had someone accuse you of stealing their idea.
61.You’ve had someone suggest a plot for you to write about.
62.You’ve turned them down, because you’ve already written about it.
63.You get a shelf of your own in a bookstore.
64.You’ve been recognised on the street from your author pic.
65.Someone introduces you to a stranger at a party as ‘a writer’.
66.Someone introduces you to a stranger at a party as ‘the writer’.
67.The person you get introduced to asks you to sign their book.
68.You’ve had a baby named after one of your characters.
69.You’ve had someone change their name to one of your characters.
70.A band has done a concept album based on your work…
71.And you’re not a member.
72.Your work has had fan-fics written.
73.Your work has had erotic fan-fics written.
74.You’ve read it.
75.It’s good.
76.Pirated copies of your books can be found on street stalls.
77.Your work has been published as an audiobook…
78.Tony Robinson narrates it.
79.Your vocabulary is full of words you’ve never pronounced.
80.You put your characters in unusual situations specifically to use those words.
81.You have a list of words to sneak into your books to enrage pedants.
82.You write responses to your rejection letters….
83.That don’t have dirty words in them.
84.Your responses to rejection letters have footnotes and a bibliography.
85.The response you wrote to your rejection letter gets published instead of the original manuscript.
86.You require more than the maximum allowed characters for every Facebook status update.
87.You’re the reason Twitter posts have a maximum length.
88.The settings of your books have a Wiki.
89.People have gone to conventions dressed as your characters.
90.People trade rumours about when your next book is coming out.
91.You can spot a rejection letter in its envelope from 20 paces.
92.You have scars from a desperate combination of inspiration, a handy knife, and a dearth of writing implements.
93.You have a writing soundtrack…
94.That your neighbours can sing along to.
95.You’ve experimented with polyphasic sleep to try and fit more writing in.
96.You lose track of how many writing projects you have going.
97.You lose track of how many stories you’ve had published.
98.You lose track of how many writing awards you’ve won.
99.You’ve sent a reviewer chocolates.
100.You’ve sent a reviewer death threats.
101.You’ve punched a reviewer….
102.Before the reviewer saw your book.
103.And you still got a good review.
104.www.write-thing.com is your home page.

Writing for fun is overlooked and underappreciated. Writing is portrayed as a serious subject. Writers whinge and whine about the torment of their profession. It’s purveyed as a mystical process where writers wrack their hearts and souls for each precious word.

Visions of dark, lonely towers, bleary eyes and endless cups of coffee abound. Authors talk of their years struggling, alone, with snow blowing from cracked windowpanes onto their keyboards, nobody else in the world understanding their turmoil, pounding away until bolts of genius strike and a perfectly-formed story springs into existence.

This image makes sense. I’m sure you’ve experienced frustration when you’ve been trying to get a piece finished. Or polished. Or even started. Writing can be hard. Challenging. Frustrating. Because writing can be so difficult – analogies to labour are common – the presumption arises that this is the way it is meant to be. And, without a countervailing voice, that presumption becomes the status quo. Beginning writers walk into this field of shared expectations, and believe that writing is going to be difficult, arduous and draining.

Bullshit.

Writing can be fun, damnit!
Writing can, and should be, fun. Think about it. You’re condensing story from the vapours of imagination. You’re creating people, which normally takes a lot of sweaty, sticky mess and a nine-month wait. You’re creating entire worlds, universes even, where every single event and dread purpose is malleable to your whims. You have all the joy of creation waiting inside your delightful gooey little brain and all you have to do is let it run out, rampant, over your pages, and delight in the messes you can make.

Who said that writing has to be unpleasant and grimy? That you have to, to quote the wonderful Walter Smith, “sit down at a typewriter and open a vein”? Please, when you have the time, point out the Ultimate Arbiter Of Writing Authority. When I see it scored into a clay tablet, passed down from On High… I’ll give my atheism some serious revision, but continue to enjoy writing anyway.

Think about your attitude to writing. Do you see it as a painful but noble calling? Do you have to drag yourself to your writing desk? Does the act of writing leave you feeling drained and spent? Why is it like this?

You’ve either forgotten how to have fun while you write, or didn’t know how in the first place. If you catch yourself muttering “Bah, Humbug!” under your breath as you scribble madly across the page, it’s time to deliberately inject some fun into your life.
Abandoning fun through neglect.

A sense of fun, carefully cultivated, is one of the finest strengths you can have as a writer. Your sense of fun, like other behavioural habits you’ve developed, is malleable. If you neglect to consciously cultivate times and attitudes of deliberate fun, you’ll find that over time it withers away.

What causes this neglecting of fun? Instinctively, people blame societal pressure for their lack of fun. When you consider that most of our jobs are soulless and boring, it’s easy to see why. This is true to an extent. The people and atmosphere you choose to surround yourself with will have an impact on how much fun is easily accessible. Recognition of this fact doesn’t give us a constructive way to solve, the problem, though.

The only person capable of fixing this situation of funlessness is you. It’s nobody else’s task to make your life fun. The only way to get out of a situation that you don’t like is to accept 100% responsibility for it, and then work on it as best you can.

Here’s an experiment. Try saying to yourself, right now, out loud, “I have enough fun in my life”. What happens when you do? Do you feel uncomfortable, squirm a little? Do the words sound hollow? What causes that reaction inside you? Feelings of ridiculousness might pop up. They could be stemming from your fear at facing the truth: that you’re probably not having as much fun as you could be.
Crafting moments of fun.

Real, genuine, honest fun seems increasingly scarce in the world. This might be because we’re taught to look for it in things, rather than finding it in actions. Remember, fun is a verb.

Now, you might be concerned that I’m about to lecture you on how to have good, healthsome fun. And I’ll admit, the temptation is there. It would be easy, too, to slip into one of those fix-your-life-in-500-words Cosmopolitan articles. Generic advice is both predictable and banal. So, to save you $7.95 and a trip to the newsagent, let’s guess what the standard advice would be…

• Take a walk on a beach with your boyfriend / girlfriend / pet ferret
• Kick a soccer ball around
• Enjoy a sunset or sunrise on your own
• Join a yoga / gym / knitting class

Eurgh. Enjoyable enough for cardboard cut-outs with matching personalities. Real life fun is far messier and more indulgent. Here are some of the things I like to do for fun:

• Explore food markets I’ve never been to
• Retreating into a corner of my favourite cafe, drinking endless chocolate milkshakes and reading trashy novels
• Laughing at episodes of Mr Bean
• Farting in the bath

Take some time to carefully think about what you can do for fun. If you can’t think of anything, cast your memory back to highlights of past experiences. What do you reminisce about? I can guarantee you that things you used to enjoy haven’t worsened over time.

You’ll notice that lots of suggestions for fun things to do often involve some physical activity. This is for a good reason – getting up and moving about makes you feel more alive. Now, as a writer, I prefer to spend the vast majority of my life hunched over a keyboard, Black Books playing in the background and Facebook running in the background. It’s good to get some variety in there, though, even if outside is a scary place full of new and unusual people.

Interestingly, you can approach having fun in a serious fashion. Block some time out of your schedule for fun. Make a date with a friend to have some fun. Plan something you’ll know you enjoy. Reward yourself with fun things to do. I have an ‘unread books’ pile at home in my library. Whenever I finish a big task or project, I reward myself with an afternoon of slobbing and reading. Be open to spontaneous opportunities, but don’t leave having fun entirely to chance.

Once you start deliberately seeking out fun, you’ll find that it’s more prevalent than you’d have thought. Tasks can be turned into games. People you talk with will suddenly show a sense of humour and warmth. Mundane tasks will take on a effervescent glow, and before you know it people will be breaking out into spontaneous Bollywood song and dance routines.

Confusing fun and hard work.
Hard work. Ick! What an unpleasant combination of words. I associate it with overtime and wasted evenings. It’s a subject that you want to skip over. But.
Unfortunately, I’m going to have to take a moral stance with this subject, though. Yes, here it comes:
Hard work is good for you.
There. Even to me, that statement is abhorrent. How could I possibly justify such a calamity?

Because, I think, the vast majority of us associate hard work withunpleasant work. I’ll readily concede that most hard work is unpleasant. That’s why it’s hard. There are counter-examples, though.

Think of a job that you’ve completed where you took intense satisfaction in having completed it. It might have been an essay, a recital, learning a piece of music, preparing a report, teaching your kid how to tie their shoelaces. Now, think about how much effort you put into it. I’ll bet you that it was at least a reasonable amount, right?

This makes perfect sense. When we put effort into a task, even an onerous one, and complete it to a decent standard, then naturally we’ll feel satisfied. The mistake that is easy to make is to confuse hard work with unpleasant work. It is entirely possible to work hard at something, to throw yourself wholeheartedly into it, and enjoy yourself in the process.

Think about the last time you stayed up late trying to beat a boss in a video game. The hours you spent practising your backhand so you could play a better game of tennis. The countless sketches you dashed off when designing a new layout for your website.
These examples might not strike you as hard work. If you look dispassionately at the hours and energy you expended, though, you’ll agree that it is entirely possible to work very hard at something that you enjoy.

It’s not only possible, it’s entirely natural. As intelligent, passionate beings, we want to spend our time being productively engaged in activities we enjoy. Why do you think sex is such a common recreational pursuit?

Destroying fun with perfectionism.
One quick and easy way to kill your enjoyment of writing is through perfectionism. Sneaky and insidious, perfectionism wrecks your writing by making you constantly judge your work. Never being happy with your produce is a sure-fire way to diminish your enjoyment of writing it. Do you write something through a background of disparaging remarks and complaints? “This is rubbish! We can’t show this to anyone! It has to be better!” Blah, blah, blah. Yeurch.

One problem with perfectionism is its sneakiness. It worms in sideways at you, starting off gently with thoughts like “I didn’t do that bit well enough”. These thoughts are perfectly normal to have. In fact, they’re vital to good writing. Identifying weak parts in your story lets you re-write them and enjoy a stronger result.

Where perfectionism starts to creep in, though, is when your enjoyable re-working and revision becomes a duty. I’m telling you right now that revision can, and should, be enjoyable. Why wouldn’t it be? Picking out the least-awesome bits of your story and awesomeifying them – what could be better?

If you feel like your work needs to be gone over and over, that even a first draft needs to be grammaticaly perfect and properly punctuated, then you’re in trouble. Perfectionists get caught up in a feelings of ‘this is never going to be good enough’. Holding themselves to some ideal that says all of their work has to be perfect, they don’t let themselves grow by trial, error, and refinement.

Perfectionists compare their roughest first drafts to their favourite author’s finished pieces. Intellectually, they might be aware that everyone’s first draft is terrible, but they aren’t able to process that into letting themselves relax over their own work.
Perfectionism is one of those faults that people seem proud to admit to. Is this scenario familiar?

A: Oh, hey!
B: Hi! I haven’t seen you in months!
*Inconsequential nattering*
A: So, how’s the novella/script/screenplay/comic/painting going? Finished it yet?
B: No, I’m still working on it.
A: Oh, OK. How’s it going?
B: Slowly. I’m barely past the first chapter/scene/pencil sketch.
A: Really? Why?
*B tosses hair*
B: Oh, I guess I’m just a perfectionist.

Ah-ha! Trapped!Look at what’s trying to sneak past here. This is a two-pronged assault on our collective fun-dom. First, B is not achieving their potential as a writer, because they are letting their perfectionism get in the way of actually finishing pieces of work. While rewriting and editing has its place, part of how we grow as writers is by expanding, trying new things, and making mistakes and learning from them. You can only grow so much from one piece of writing before you need to try something new.

Second, they’re implying that perfectionism is a decent reason for not finishing their work, because they want it to be good. This is insidious thinking. It implies that being creatively stuck, unable to move forward with a piece, is a natural thing. Some perfectionists like to insinuate that if you aren’t as panicked and struggling as they are, then you aren’t treating your stories with the attention they deserve.

Rubbish these suggestions with the scorn they deserve. Refuse to get caught up in the powerlessness that perfectionism brings. The way to grow as a writer is like performing your own caesarian as an infant. It’s messy, scary, confusing and uncomfortable, and to get anywhere good you have to keep on pushing.

Consciously having fun writing.
So where are we now? We’ve established that it’s not necessary to think of writing as a burden, or something that has to be painful by nature. We’ve cleared up the confusion between hard work and unpleasant work, and we know that our creative writing is the former. And we’re aware of the dangers of perfectionism, and how easy it can kill our sense of fun and enjoyment.

Once your awareness of deliberately enjoying writing is raised, you can consciously apply it to whatever writing practises you have in place presently. Apply your willpower and say to yourself, “OK, today I’m going to write for an hour and really let myself enjoy it. I’m going to work on my craft, and take pleasure in weaving stories together in a way that makes me happy.” Run with that for a while, and see what happens.

If you want some more specific exercises, though, I’ve listed a few of my favourites. So let’s take our new-found sense and appreciation of fun, and turn it to one of life’s most rewarding pursuits.

Fun writing exercises!
What more introduction do you need? Below, I’ve listed a few different ways you can deliberately go about having fun writing. You don’t have to try the exercises. If you’re all fired up to go write, then by all means do so. You know that I don’t want you reading my articles longer than you need to be – I’d much rather you were staring at a word processor, typing away!

But if you have the time, or want some more direction, then read on. I’m going to get you to do stuff that’s a little odd, so be warned.
Not scared? Good. Ok, now, go on, try one of these. They’re all fast – you’ll burn through each one before you know it – and nobody apart from you needs to know how much fun you’re having. Try and keep your giggles to a dull roar.

Super Awesome Writing Fun Exerises

1.Dumb it down.
Take a piece of writing you have and reduce the age of the audience by five-sixths. Take your philosophical ramble and aim it at teenagers. Take your spy thriller and make it readable by 5-year-olds. Take your genre fantasy and make it a bed-time story. Shorten it correspondingly. Your language should get simpler, ideas easier to understand, and the pace will increase. With a story already in place to work with, you could re-engineer your story in less than half an hour.
2.Smart it up.
Make your story more complicated. Add in extra characters. Make everyone betray everyone else. Have people investigate leads that are a string of red herrings. Make everything part of a Xanatos Gambit. Thicken your dialogue with technical references and obscure quotes. Go into detail about everything. Ignore the rules of brevity and conciseness. Take Spot goes to the seaside and turn it into a thriller.
3.Remake something crap.
Take a book that’s absurdly, stunningly bad. If you’re stuck for source material, try the $1 bin at a second-hand bookstore. If the cover’s unappealing, the blurb sports middling reviews from magazines you’ve never heard of, and you’ve never heard of the author… It’s perfect. Take as much as you can stomach, and re-work every sentence, every paragraph, into something readable. Warp the plot if you have to. Pick it to pieces, and reconstruct a failure of a book into something glorious.
4.Revel in the terrible.
Take an idea you’ve been holding onto for a while. If you don’t have one, think something up now. A plot. A character. A nuggetty gem of an idea. Write it down at the top of a page. Now, below that, jot down some rules of good writing. It doesn’t matter what they are, pick the ones that comes quickly to you. If your ideas sound like you’re breaching The Elements of Style’s copyright, that’s fine for the purposes of this exercise. Stop when you run out of ideas.

Now, start writing. It doesn’t have to be long, maybe one or two thousand words worth. I want you to deliberately break all of the rules you wrote down. Actively worsen your writing. Litter your work with adverbs, clichés, and stilted dialogue. Put plot twists in so predictable that three-year-olds would laugh scornfully at them. Make all your characters two-dimensional. Make the protagonist one-dimensional.

Revise your work. Then print it and stick it up on your wall. Laugh at it often. You can only go up from here!

Rinse and repeat these exercises at your leisure. Make sure to give each one a go, and come back to them if you feel your enjoyment of writing start to slip.

Where to next?
Hopefully, I’ve convinced you that writing, while not an easy craft, can be an enjoyable one if you work at having conscious fun. Writing
Do you know anyone else stuck in the suffering-writer paradigm? Maybe it’s time to go on a rescue mission. Throw a bucket of water over their paralysed ego, then hand them a copy of this article. You may then want to run.

If you’re fired up, sated, inspired, terrified, bored, or simply want to have some fun, then I suggest you turn to the universal panacea…

Go write!

Introduction
Writing a resignation letter is a liberating experience. It ends the torment of decision making and commits you to action.
Whatever your reason for leaving, it’s good to firmly set the process of moving on in place. A well-written letter, whether delivered with a sense of anticipation or shame, will get your new life and career started in a strong fashion.
This article will show you why ‘normal’ resignation letters are a terrible mistake to use. It will offer some advice on how to give yours a bit of spice. And, for the rushed, we’ve even prepared a sample for you to use.

Traditional resignation letters
Traditional resignation letters follow a fairly generic formula. They mouth some empty platitudes about your time in the company. Perhaps one or two semi-personalized nothings about the ‘good times’. A scribbled signature later, and you’re off planning how to spend the payout of your unused leave and benefits.

What’s wrong with this picture?

One of the most fundamentally important things to do in your professional life is to leave an impression. Building a reputation is important, even if you’re switching fields. Being forgotten by the people you worked for can have far-reaching consequences.

Proof of above outrageous statement
One of my friends quit from his large, somewhat impersonal company, wanting to go traveling with his girlfriend. They had planned a 9 month jaunt around the world. His company, unbeknownst to my mate, had a policy of not re-hiring people who had quit within the last 12 months.

Unfortunately, the travel plans didn’t work out. My friend and his girlfriend broke up quite bitterly at the start of the journey† and he returned to his home town a mere fortnight after he’d left. His old position was being advertised, and so he applied. He made it through to the third round of interviews before the personnel department’s paperwork caught up with him and he was rejected.

His old manager had been one of the interviewers in the first round. Now, to be fair to the manager, looking after countless gremlins in a call center would tax one’s memory for faces and names. But I tell this story not to belittle incompetent managers – that’s another article in itself – but to point out that my friend suffered considerable frustration and heartache by being forgotten by his organization the instant he left.

This wouldn’t have happened if he’d made an impression.

You might not be a spectacular worker. You might not hog the limelight in meetings like Jerry from Accounting. However, it clearly behooves you to make sure you’re remembered in some light.

The incorrect option
Clearly, traditional resignation letters are the worst way to formally resign. They are bland, boring, make you look like a prat, and about as memorable as your twentieth tissue of a bad head cold.

In all likelihood, your letter will be read, some dates punched into a keyboard, and then it’ll be filed away and never thought of again. Is that how you want are effectively your last words to be treated?

If you insist, though, here’s a sample.

Terrible Generic Resignation Letter

Personnel Division
Internal Address

To whom it may concern;
I wish to advise of my resignation from the position of Call Center Monkey from WTF Industries effectively 19th December, 2009.
I have accepted a position with another company which will enable me to develop my professional skills and interests.
I have enjoyed my time at WTF and would like to take this opportunity to thank you for providing me with such a variety of meaningful, satisfying work.

Warmest regards
T Chumplington.

Writing a superior resignation letter
Making a better resignation letter than that is not going to be a challenge. Put aside an hour to write out something with a little meaning to it. You’re going to be quitting anyway, so don’t feel guilty. Here are some things you can do to improve the quality of your resignation letter:

• Address the letter properly. Get the title and full name of the person who’s going to be handling your resignation. Giving them the dignity of a personal address will endear you to them. Remember, this person will more than likely be responsible for helping you exit the company smoothly and painlessly. Be kind to this corporate laxative.
• Compliments are like bribes, but cheaper. Don’t be shy in lavishing praise where it’s due. If there was anyone in the organization who deserves your praise, let rip in the letter. Forward copies to them. Was there a janitor you traded ribald jokes with? A mail-room guy who’d chat about the football while he delivered your post? A manager who managed to keep meetings on schedule? Single them out for praise.
• Blast the incompetent. ‘Professional’ conduct is for idiots. Managers know that a person leaving a company is the most honest source of feedback around. No longer burdened with having to play office politics and pander to the manic whims of superiors, your resignation letter is the perfect forum to blow off a little steam. Have fun and get creative. Forward copies to your targets.
• CC is your friend. If you leave it to the organization, news of your regrettable departure will be spread ineffectually if at all. Let the world know, loud and proud, that you’re leaving. If you’re resigning by email, copy everyone you know in. Suppliers and clients will be shocked and saddened that the only non-idiot is leaving the organization, and you might be able to poach a few clients this way.
• Include a few anecdotes. Nothing keeps you fresh in peoples minds than recounting a few of your more memorable times in the office. Embellish as you go. Make a great sale? Quadruple the profits. Sneak a few gropes at the Christmas function? Make it sound like a full-blown orgy. Responsible for organizing the Softball League? Refer to yourself, in third person, as Head Coach in every paragraph.
• Keep it informal. Human Resources deal in formalities all day. They’re human beings, too.            Well.            Most of them. Look, the important thing is they like being treated like human beings. So feel free to take relaxed, human approach to resignation.

Sample of a superior resignation letter

Mrs Sheila McGuffin
Personnel Department
WTF Industries

Hi Sheila;
Yup! Those scurrilous rumors floating around the water cooler are true. I’m resigning, immediately after the paid Christmas leave we all get. It’s going to be tough leaving a company with such wonderful HR staff (See how SNEAKY we’re being?). But I’ve got to do it. For my children. (Emphasizing your paternal instincts is often a killer blow.)
If it’s any consolation, the only thing that could tear me away from my job as a Call Center Monkey is something like the new job I’ve been offered. For years, I’ve been a committed team player, eager to do my bit to try and translate the Neanderthalic gruntings of my superiors.
Now, I know that working two to three unpaid hours of overtime, every day, as well as the regular heapings of abuse we get from clients makes a pretty unique workplace. The senseless bureaucracy, interminable and constantly shifting rules and lack of feedback mechanisms are a refreshing and stimulating challenge to a devoted employee.
Nevertheless, when OMG Technology personally headhunted me for their Secretarial Bra Fitter position, I had to seize my chance with both hands. I promise I’ll use some of my vacation time – which I’ll actually be allowed to take – to come and visit you and the other lovely ladies (in HR Just in case Sheila’s sick or has to delegate). It never hurts to spread the love around..
Speaking of leave, I’m going to have to ask you a favor. You know James Springheimer? What a champion. I know he was too modest to say anything, but a friend in the Fire Department told me he was only late to work last Monday because he stopped to help rescue a stranded, escaped baby Panda out of a tree. OK, so maybe it was a kitten. And maybe it wasn’t a tree. It might have been the front tires of his car. And, well, maybe by ‘rescue’, I mean ‘scrape’. Anyway, I know that without James’ help in punching me in and out during the odd Mental Health Break, I’d have suffered my stress-related heart attack much sooner.
Anyhow, James is having a little difficulty convincing Adrian Smelter, his manager, to let him have some time off to attend the birth of his first child. I’m sure you’ve bumped into Adrian around the place. It’s hard not to – the man hulks like an unsociable troll. Have you heard the theory that incompetence is promoted to a level where it can’t do any harm? Well, Adrian was promoted to that level and then demoted for being too incompetent. His only achievement in ten years’ ‘service’ was losing the coalface worker’s ‘Worst Manager’ award last year (for the first time!) to Ted Sprugent, who’d died unnoticed at his desk in September.
Now, clearly a rational person would appreciate that James can’t control when his wife’s due. That the tiny, helpless baby, who desperately needs its father during those first formative weeks, is due to be born right on Superbowl weekend is a cruel twist of nature. Yet Adrian seems to have a vendetta against the poor man. I know he’s a little upset by the death of his cat, but this is still no way to manage your employees. Can you see what you can do to help out?
If I could squeeze one other favor out of your impossibly generous heart, I’d be eternally grateful. I have a sinking feeling that some ‘happy snaps’ of my exploits at last year’s Company Outings might have made it into my permanent record. If you could possibly take responsibility for shredding them once I’ve gone? I’m sure the time for company-based blackmail is past.
Thanks for all your help!

Cheers;
Ted Chumplington

Backup plans
Now, even with the prompting above, I know that some of you are going to have difficulty getting your letter together. That’s OK. Not all of us are writers, and you probably have other things on your mind – planning your vacation / revenge / how to swipe a photocopier in your last week. These important considerations can easily take priority in your final days.
If it gets to the last minute, you really need to resign today, and you suddenly realize that you haven’t been able to get your letter drafted… Don’t worry.

Write Thing.com is proud to present…
The Super Best Amazing Retirement Letter of Excellence
Simply load the page, print out the resignation letter, and pass on to your HR department. No fuss, no mess!

Conclusion
Now that Write Thing has shown you how to resign from your job, all you need to do is go out and get a new, better one!
Make sure your new employment leaves you with more spare time to write. Or, failing that, try and get an inattentive boss. When you’re unobserved, fire up a word processor and…

Go write!

† It all exploded upon arrival at their first tropical destination. Unpacking luggage led to the discovery that despite mutual promises and reminders, neither person had brought the sunblock. The ensuing barrage of insults and recrimination proved too much strain for the relationship to bear.