Last night, my partner introduced me to Gordon Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmares, starting with the infamous Amy’s Baking Company episode where shit hits the fan, then working our way back to the UK editions of the show which involve marginally less schadenfreude.
There’s a joke when I make in writing classes about writers being reluctant to embrace the business side of their craft, basing their expectations off a handful of outliers, which is kind of like trying to invest a million dollars into a restaurant because you’re a big fan of Jamie Oliver.
It wasn’t until the second or third episode of Kitchen Nightmares that I realised how many people actually do that, and how reluctant they are to take on board the suggestion that they, maybe, should try learning a little about how things actually work in established, successful restaurants.
It makes me oddly comforted to think writers are not alone in this particular behaviour.
I’ve ended up taking a short, unscheduled break from writing newsletters over the last fourteen days. Regular GenrePunk Ninja transmissions will resume
Like many of you, I have good weeks and bad weeks on the writing front. This week has been rocky, and if
Welcome to GenrePunk Ninja supplemental, where I occasionally post foundational essays written before I launched the GenrePunk Ninja newsletter, especially if they’re
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For me, the flip-side of this is the contestants on Idol/Voice-style shows who are convinced they sound like angels yet sound so like a toad with laryngitis being strangled by a chainsaw that the judges turn a whiter shade pale. As the contestant gets rejected but declares as they go, “It’s your loss. The world hasn’t heard the last of me…”, I always contemplate my conviction that I can write well enough that it’s worth trying and think, “Oh, God. What if that’s me?”