Lucas Klauss

My eight tips for aspiring writers

This month I finally achieved my long-held dream of becoming a published author. And I have to say, it’s been pretty sweet so far. Seeing my book in stores, hearing from fans, setting out on a national tour that took me everywhere from Brooklyn to Atlanta to Brooklyn—these experiences are the incredible realization of what, for years and years, seemed a far-fetched ambition. I truly am grateful for them.  

One thing, though, has been worrying me: aspiring writers. Actually, that’s many things. Thousands and thousands of things, with gnawed fingernails and fashionable glasses, aspiring away, the incessant clickity-clacking of their keyboards waking me, sweat-drenched and shouting, from sleep. For what is now new and debut-y is soon old and sophomorically slumping. I worked years for this, damnit, and now these yearning little punks are going to supercede me with their fresh talents and fancy 2014 release dates? Hell, no!

Ahem. I realize I’m being irrational. Authors are not—should not be—in competition with one another. (Even though some of us were here first.) So, in an effort to demonstrate my grace to all the aspiring writers out there and in my nightmares, I’ve put together some writing tips that every one of you should observe VERY closely. Otherwise, you will never be successful.

1. Tell, don’t show. Revealing dialogue, striking details, subtle expressions of character—all of these things are stupid wastes of time. Get to the point! Immediately explain to your reader why your protagonist is intriguing, preferably using adjectives like “intriguing,” “super attractive,” and “very mutated” to describe him or her. Save space by comparing your characters to other, more popular characters, such as Jesus Christ and Satan; then use that extra space for all those long expository paragraphs every good yarn requires. And remember: if we haven’t found out within the first page what your protagonist does for a living, what childhood trauma she suffered, and how she got her mutant powers, consider your story terrible and throw it away forever.

2. Write to the market. Vampires, dystopia, zombies … what’s next? I know what it is but I’m not telling. And you better find out quick because 1. I am already writing my next book and 2. your book is only worthwhile insofar as it creates a trend or trendlet. (Okay, I’ll give you a hint: cars who are sexy aliens.) 

3. Don’t write very often. Writing isn’t something you can get better at. Like a third nipple, a talent for writing is something you’re just born with, and I am lucky enough to have both. Plus, it’s hard, you know? (The writing.) Why spend hours every day doing something hard if it’s more like a supernumerary nipple than a pottery class? I came up with that evocative simile in no time at all!  

4. Don’t read very much. Professional writers publish books only to distract and discourage you. They are devious, scheming creatures who will do anything to hold onto or improve their tenuous position in the publishing marketplace. Trust me, don’t listen to their siren songs!

5. Always have easy, immediate access to the Internet while you write. How else are you supposed to get inspired? 

6. Never revise. Every good writer gets it exactly right on the first tryy.

That double-y? Intentional and avant garde.

7. Rejection happens to everyone (who is a bad writer). I’ve never had a piece of writing rejected from anywhere. Neither did Shakespeare nor any other writer you’ve ever heard of. Because once you get that first rejection, you’re not allowed to write anymore. That’s just how it works and INTERPOL strictly enforces it. Sorry! So keep writing until somebody tells you that your piece isn’t a good fit for their publication, then quit for the rest of your life. (Or risk arrest and a trial at the Hague).

8. Always give up. This is probably the single best piece of advice I could give you, you aspiring little twerp.

And there you have them: the eight guidelines every aspiring twerp of a writer must follow if he or she wishes to have any success at all. Now, you won’t find these tips in most magazines or books on writing. That’s because, as I said, all other writers want you to fail, especially Stephen King. I alone among authors am rooting for you, so follow my advice and occasionally reach for the stars! 

But don’t throw your back out.

The Sasquatch’s social circle

The Basquatch (good friend)

The Jasquatch (pretty good friend)

The Trasquatch (mentor, hunting buddy)

The Masquatch (beloved wife)

The Kelsquatch Sasquatch-Masquatch (cherished daughter)

Devin the Fox (fox)

The Prasquatch (jackass brother)

The Kalkasquatch (emotionally distant sister)

The Yarsquatch (boisterous, drunkard father)

The Ostersquatch (deceased, uncaring mother)

The Jeptersquatch (badass cousin)

Carlyle the Goose (goose)

The Yeppisquatch (captain in the Army of Squatch, anti-human attack force)

The Falfalfasquatch (explosives expert)

Kyle the Human (human, sympathizer)

Janie the Human (human, sympathizer)

Beck (musician, sympathizer)

The Godsquatch (deity and deliverer of Squatchkind, who has chosen the Sasquatch to lead his fellow Squatches to victory)

Murphy the Friendly Beaver (friendly beaver)

I had one (1) metric ton of fun sitting down for a conversation on Ramsey Ess and Adam Maid’s podcast, Wonderful, Thanks. Click here to listen to us talk about why I became the Milkfuls guy in high school, why Downton Abbey is suddenly so damn popular, urinary-tract-invading robots, English teachers, catchphrases, and, of course, the apocalypse. There are one or two curse words.

John Galt apologizes

For years, you have been asking: Who is John Galt?

And where the hell did he and his bastard friends go?

Well, this is John Galt speaking. Again. I’m really sorry for taking over the airwaves. Again. But I owe you, the surviving American public, an apology and a follow-up explanation—at the very least. And this time there won’t be any melodramatic diction or pseudo-Nietszche crap, I swear. I just…

[Heavy sigh into the microphone.]

Goddamnit.

This isn’t going how I envisioned it. I’m such a screw-up.

Look. I know the last time you heard from me was under pretty bad circumstances. Essentially, I and my then girlfriend Dagny Taggart, along with a bunch of other egotistical jagoffs, colluded to collapse not only the entire American economy but her societal and moral underpinnings as well. The plan was an unbelievable success and we escaped to a beautiful, secret valley in Colorado called Galt’s Gulch that, obviously, I named after myself.

So. I completely understand if you want to kill me. It wouldn’t be an overstatement to say that I ruined all of your lives. On purpose.

But think about it: all of that guilt is popping a squat directly on my conscience, okay? I’m like Atlas, crushed under the weight of the horrible, burned up world I set on fire and then tried to shrug off. So if you find me and kill me, I won’t suffer as long. Right? Do I sound desperate right now?

Because I am. Pathetic and desperate.

[Sound of ice cubes tinkling.]

Not to mention slightly tipsy.

But if it’s any comfort to you guys, the last few years of my life have been utter hell. I mean, not necessarily the widespread starvation, rampant disease, and brutal civil war that you experienced after we left. But still pretty bad.

Of course, before it was pretty bad, it was pretty good. I had mountains. My own personal mountains! And Dagny and I were in love. She used to do this thing where she would trace a dollar sign on the back of my neck as she denounced the evils of self-sacrifice…

And I had friends. Rich friends, beautiful friends, friends who adored me, not for the incredible static-electricity-harnessing motors I invented, but for my unparalleled callousness and egotism. They liked me for me!

I had all the friends a massively misanthropic conspiracy could buy.

And then the New Strike started.

[A long, slurpy sip.]

As you may recall, when I and my rich, powerful friends convinced ourselves that we were the ones being exploited and we ran away while the country fell apart—we said we were going “on strike.” Awful, right?

So there we were, the most self-satisfied, oblivious assholes in the world, locked up together in a valley. As you can imagine, once the euphoria of victory began to fade, things got pretty tense. We had some very shouty years. Then people started disappearing, one by one, just like in the first Strike.

Well, Johnathan Galt had played that game before. He invented that game. So it didn’t take me too long to discover that there was a whole übermenschian cave society built into the mountains. My fucking mountains! And it was my former friend steel tycoon Hank Rearden in charge of it all!

Rearden’s Retreat, he called it. Ha!

[Eight-second-long coughing jag.]

Ugh. Goddamn cigarettes. But what I was saying was, I confronted the son of a bitch in his sprawling, intra-mountain apartment. Art Deco everywhere—the furniture, the moldings, the stalactites. It was tacky as hell.

He said I’d become “weak.” And yes, during my State of the Gulch speech, I’d expressed a few misgivings about what we’d done. But “weak”? Well, I was about to show him who’s Galt. All of the sudden, though, Ragnar freaking Danneskjöld comes swooping in on a rope.

And that, folks, is when I realized there was something wrong with our lives. See, I’d known Ragnar back in college, when he was Ragnar the Party Pirate. A total goofball, but solid, y’know? Then, like me, he got way into the egoism stuff. Unlike me, he stayed way into the pirate thing. To the point where he became an actual pirate. With that whole reverse Robin Hood shtick? You remember.  

So I saw myself standing there at swordpoint, being usurped by a buccaneer and a metallurgist for simply expressing the idea that we might want to donate some canned goods to the starving hordes we’d left behind … and I finally got it.

[Sip.]

“Stop being such a dick.”

I said it out loud. I meant it as a revelation, a cri de couer.

But, in retrospect, yeah, it sounded a lot like an insult. Long story short: I had to shoot both of them in the leg.

Then I escaped back to the Gulch. Dagny and I had been fighting a lot, but I figured this was our chance to revive the passion of those heady days, when it was just us against the poor people. Except this time we’d rally our remaining allies to our new cause of not being such dicks all the time.

Unfortunately, when I got home, she was busy demonstrating her firm opposition to that cause by cuckolding me with international playboy Francisco d’Anconia, right on the chaise lounge in the den.

[Extended silence.]

Y’know, when I walked in? I just laughed. It felt so good to just laugh. And I said, “You want to screw my wife in my Gulch? You know what? To each according to his needs, motherfucker.”

Or I wish I had. Anyway, I jumped in my plane and flew to New York. Since then I’ve just been hanging at my buddy Craig’s place. Thinking. Drinking. Inventing a device that would allow me to hijack the nation’s airwaves again.

So this is John Galt saying, “My bad.” My really, really bad. And as a token of my hopes that you don’t murder me, I’m releasing the blueprints for my static-electricity-harnessing motor to the public domain. Free, easy electricity for the entire world, guys, okay? I know it’s just a start, and you’re already doing great with all the rebuilding and stuff, but…

[Loud slamming noises, shouts, and the click of a gun’s hammer.]

Dagny. Wait. Don’t do this.

[A woman’s voice.] You have no authority over my actions, John. Have you forgotten that already? In just two weeks back in the world of the second-handers? This society of moral mediocrities—

[Sound of a frying pan hitting a human skull.]

[Galt’s voice.] Jesus. Thanks, Craig.

These people can’t do anything without delivering a fucking monologue.

The Pew Speculation Center was founded in 1991 (probably) with three (maybe four) purposes: 1. to identify stuff that American citizens want to know but don’t care enough to actually find out, 2. to think up things that explain the aforementioned stuff, and 3. present those things in the form of data. The other reason had something to do with the year 2000, we think.

Today we are proud to present our annual report on What That Guy’s Problem Is. Our most comprehensive such report, except possibly the 2005 one, this year’s WTGPI data may very well settle the question once and for all of what That Guy’s problem is. Or it might not. It’s tough to say. But one thing we do know for sure is that no other speculation group has so extensively explored this mildly interesting question.*

*With the potential exception of the RAND Conjecture Corporation.

From the report, some striking figures on the nature of That Guy’s problem:

• The percentage of Pew speculators who believe That Guy “has a stick up his butt” increased dramatically this past year, from 33% to 56%.
• Fewer than ever (or since a while ago, at least) believe That Guy is “just having a bad day.”
• A rising minority of speculators (approximately 1 in 10) thinks That Guy “might have, you know, something; like a condition or something?”
• A small holdout contingent (4%), located mostly in the southern corner of the office, continue to insist that That Guy “doesn’t even have a problem.” 

And for the first time, as far as we can tell without actually getting up and finding the file, the 2012 WTFPI Report includes extensive hunch data about Just Who That Guy Is, Anyway:

• “Probably had a s**tty childhood,” said Ron K. and 39% of other Pew Speculators agreed with him.
• Approximately 2 in 10 speculators agreed with the statement: “Pretty sure that’s the dude I see at the CVS all the time, just standing in the magazine aisle.”
• “I think he makes money, though. Look at his watch next time.” This was a popular speculation but we forgot to tabulate it. Say about half?
• The smallest data point on this matter occurred when Kyle Z. said one day to absolute silence, “I think That Guy’s my dad.”  

Also, just for fun, our Pew speculators made guesses as to How That Guy Will Die:

• An overwhelming majority (67% or so?) said, “Heart attack,” almost simultaneously.
• A significant population (we stopped really tallying at this point) said, “House fire.”
• One person, Diane J., said he would “never die; he would simply ascend to heaven.” We fired her because that’s not speculation, that’s make-believe, but we include the data point in the report regardless.

Please purchase the full, 560-page report online in pdf form for just $74.99. Our guess? You won’t do that. But if I had to take a shot in the dark, I’d say we’ve been proven wrong before. 

The most nonexistent states in the United States of America

Joshifornia

Washongton

West West Wesssst Virginia

New Gas Station

The Freshest Territories

Underneath Delaware

The State Where Puppies Run a State

Joshylvania

Puerto Rico

Fake Canada

Internet Oklahoma

The State Where Everything’s Only 99¢

A Hopeless Place

Richard Scarry’s Supposed Birthstate 

Hair-o-land

The State ONLY for Barbaras and Barbs NO EXCEPTIONS

Australia

Naked Motherf*$kin’ Texas

Josh Hawaii

Maine

As an author, I am a witty, charming, observant, and kind person who is wise beyond his years. However, as an only recently published and mostly unknown author, not enough people are aware of all that. They simply haven’t bothered to find out.

So, until the day I receive my due notoriety and praise, I will have to settle for answering questions that have been posed to other, more famous authors, in this feature: Author Q&A.

Today’s interview was originally conducted by Scotcampus (“Scotland’s biggest and oldest independent student publication”) with George R. R. Martin, world-famous author primarily known for his A Song of Ice and Fire fantasy series and its HBO television adaptation, Game of Thrones.

First things first, how’s the second season of Game of Thrones coming along?

Well … I haven’t actually watched the show yet, though I’m a big fan of the books. Are they on the second season already? Anyway, sorry, I know you’re just trying to break the ice. I do sometimes watch Real Housewives of Atlanta, if you’ve seen that. (laughs)

You must be pretty pleased with the production though? Everything seems to be in pretty safe hands and true to the source material.

(laughs loudly) Right, I’m sure Andy Cohen goes to great pains to present everything accurately and without melodrama. (pause) Oh, wait. You mean … Game of Thrones? I mean, like I said, I haven’t seen it. But I hear great things.

You’ve written the episode which features the Battle of Blackwater, a pretty major event in the second book. How has that been?

(long pause) You know my name is Lucas Klauss, right? I wrote Everything You Need to Survive the Apocalypse. It’s a YA novel?

Ok let’s get back to the books, because that’s what we’re really keen to talk to you about.

Oh! Yeah. Sounds great. (takes sip of water)

Did you ever envisage them being so successful when you first finished Game of Thrones?

(seems to choke on water, then recovers) You mean when I read the first book in high school? Are we going to talk about Song of Ice and Fire the whole time? (pause) I mean, I do like those books. It’s just … you know, never mind. Sorry. I kind of like the idea of an interview that’s not entirely about me. Is that sort of a college thing? Or a Scottish thing?

Anyway, to answer your question, when I read A Game of Thrones when I was, like, fifteen or something, no, I didn’t know that I would have any success as a writer at all.

I think one of the reasons your books are so popular is that you have so many rich and interesting characters involved in the plotline.

Wow. Thank you. I mean, I don’t know if I’d describe my book as “popular,” but—

Even thinking back to the last book the addition of someone like Wyman Manderly comes to mind…

Um. Yeah. I don’t totally remember who that is.

Dance with Dragons seemed to push together a lot of the stray plotlines though.

Sort of, yeah. (long pause) Listen, I guess I would like to talk about my book a little more? I mean, just to give readers an idea of what it’s about.

So I take it it’ll be some point next year before you start working on the next book?

Okay, or we can talk about my next book. But, no, I already started it a while ago. It’s going along pretty well, I think.

Looking at the books there still seem to be a few characters such as Howland Reed who we’ve heard about but not yet met. Do you think readers are likely to see these characters and will you be revisiting say Ned Stark’s past?

(stands up)(sits down)(stands back up) I’m sorry. I have to … I have to go. There’s a train to Edinburgh. Sorry. Bye. Thank you!

So. I guess the earth didn’t explode? I mean, I’m looking around and everything seems to still be in place, more or less. No explosions at all, really. I imagine you’re having a similar experience.

Well. Okay. Good! I guess I just miscalculated? Let me just go back real quick and check…

Ohhhhhh. Yeah. Totally miscalculated. The earth isn’t exploding for another 5,837 years. Ugh, so embarrassing.

Jeez. I’m really sorry about all that stuff, then, about the world blowing up today. Especially if you had to cancel plans or something.

But! How about you take this as a free day? Just do whatever you want! Celebrate life and the earth! And my book coming out! We have a future! Wherein humanity and the world and my novel still exist! Hooray! Hooray! Hooray!

LIVE YOUR LIFE!