What a perfect book to start off my year! This collection of essays (or short blog entries) is an accumulation of John Scalzi’s most popular and best writing on his blog over a decade (2008-2018). I was very intrigued by the title Don’t Live for Your Obituary—even though the entry with this particular title is quite short, it encapsulates Scalzi’s main message to young aspiring writers, and to readers alike: do what you love, live for now, don’t focus on posterity. This message comes across clearly through different topics. For instance, Scalzi discusses finances, writing as a professional, self-publishing versus established publishing houses, ebooks versus physical books (taking a quick stab at Jonathan Franzen on the way), etc. In each topic Scalzi emphasizes just how important it is to write for fun because you enjoy it in your present moment, for people to discuss and enjoy now. Here are some lines that stayed with me:
“Relieve yourself of the illusion that you’re writing for the ages…you don’t get a vote…[you won’t know] the values and interests or views of the world that people might have a century from now.”
“Be relevant now”
“writers want to write rather than have to write”
“Either you want to write or you don’t, and thinking that you want to write really doesn’t mean anything.”
“Being a writer isn’t some grand, mystical state of being, it just means you put words together to amuse people, most of all yourself.”
“Writing is an act of setting down in words the things about which you have a concern”
(Regarding writers being assholes as portrayed in mainstream media):
“it’s correlation, not causation”
Scalzi is a good writer, and a successful one. As he gives examples for each topic and/or argument he uses his most popular works and explores why they were successful (with the privilege of hindsight) often referencing The Old Man’s War, and Redshirts. Again, topics range from finances, to digital platforms, to posterity, MFA programs, inspirational authors, making fun of some successful authors in good spirit, to even showing how one can still be a writer while being a stay-at-home dad (or mom). I particularly enjoyed his portion breaking down what it means to have 1000 devoted fans, and how authors like Dan Brown and E.L. James don’t do a disservice to authors as a whole, because they don’t take away from other authors, rather, they bring more readers in. This book is filled with wisdom for this day and age. I found it so much fun to read, and I feel like it caught me up on 10 years of Scalzi. What I loved most about it was that even though it was filled with advice from an experienced person it maintained a light sense of humor. I think this book is perfect for anyone who struggles with getting started, has anxiety because they live only in the future, or for those who are fans of Scalzi’s science fiction and want to hear his opinions. Reading this felt like I was sitting with Scalzi over a cup of coffee and he was just answering all my questions.
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