TikiMeerkat
Well-known member
Adam arguing that he rejected his proofreader’s Oxford comma suggestions on the grounds that Oxford commas are too confusing for dyslexics is ABSOLUTELY SENDING ME TO THE MOON.
This entire self-publishing process is a train wreck and I can’t look away. He is so sure of himself, so confident behind the pretense of false humility, and yet so deeply and utterly clueless about how ignorant he comes across. Does he understand that editing and copyediting are two different processes? Did he actually have anyone help him with major structural edits and rewrites, or did he really pay hundreds of pounds just to have someone to argue with about commas?
The letter to his younger self in place of an author’s note is really telling. I can understand that writing this book may have been therapeutic or cathartic for him, but in the same way the whole world doesn’t need to read your diary, the whole world also doesn’t need to read your thinly-veiled self-insert teenage redo, especially if you haven’t done any of the work to give it any literary value. And I don’t mean that in a pretentious way — novels are supposed to be entertaining, they can be fluffy and silly and light. But even the most unserious novels — even for a YA audience — need SOMETHING to ground them if they’re going to be any good, and that work comes down to the author. The author’s job is to use symbolism, metaphor, figurative language, etc. to make the story bigger than the sum of its parts. I think Adam has no idea how to do any of that, and is relying way too much on his own personal life experiences being so profound that all he has to do is write them down and then they will do the heavy lifting.
I know this is a lot to say before even reading the book, but the way he has spoken about this entire process, I’d be shocked if I was wrong about any of this.
And not for nothing, but you simply cannot be a good writer if you’re not also a reader. Does Adam read? Has he ever talked about reading? Thinking you can write a novel when you never (or hardly ever) read them yourself is such infuriating arrogance.
This entire self-publishing process is a train wreck and I can’t look away. He is so sure of himself, so confident behind the pretense of false humility, and yet so deeply and utterly clueless about how ignorant he comes across. Does he understand that editing and copyediting are two different processes? Did he actually have anyone help him with major structural edits and rewrites, or did he really pay hundreds of pounds just to have someone to argue with about commas?
The letter to his younger self in place of an author’s note is really telling. I can understand that writing this book may have been therapeutic or cathartic for him, but in the same way the whole world doesn’t need to read your diary, the whole world also doesn’t need to read your thinly-veiled self-insert teenage redo, especially if you haven’t done any of the work to give it any literary value. And I don’t mean that in a pretentious way — novels are supposed to be entertaining, they can be fluffy and silly and light. But even the most unserious novels — even for a YA audience — need SOMETHING to ground them if they’re going to be any good, and that work comes down to the author. The author’s job is to use symbolism, metaphor, figurative language, etc. to make the story bigger than the sum of its parts. I think Adam has no idea how to do any of that, and is relying way too much on his own personal life experiences being so profound that all he has to do is write them down and then they will do the heavy lifting.
I know this is a lot to say before even reading the book, but the way he has spoken about this entire process, I’d be shocked if I was wrong about any of this.
And not for nothing, but you simply cannot be a good writer if you’re not also a reader. Does Adam read? Has he ever talked about reading? Thinking you can write a novel when you never (or hardly ever) read them yourself is such infuriating arrogance.
tbf, the stans probably wouldn't give a shit if Gary did sign them
