Found a whole thread of folks complaining about being “kept out” of Fango, cliques, cool kids, etc. No one in the thread has ever once sent me a pitch, and they all unfollowed me at some point. Intriguing strategy!

Confidence and talent - and the barest scrap of professional courtesy - will set you free.

I’m grouchy because anytime I see people ironically presuming they know how it all works while crying about being boxed out are incapable of seeing a bigger picture - mine or theirs. They’ve got it all figured out. But there are no secret meetings. There’s no riddle.

Any job I’ve ever had, from delivering pizzas on up, here was the secret: The second you can present yourself as a solution instead of a problem, people will pay you for it. Everyone needs a solution. No one needs another problem.

And the fixation is skewed as hell. No one goes apeshit about how EW or the Atlantic or BOP! isn’t publishing them 18 months after they decided to start writing. Everyone wants it immediately. No patience.

(On that note, respect to @ryanlarson and @tyliston and crew for just making their own thing. It’s gonna take years to build it into a thriving, profitable endeavor and they rolled up their sleeves and did it anyway. That kind of commitment should be the starting point for all.)

I ultimately don’t mean any of this as negativity! I want you all to be thriving. I want every pitch to come from someone who’s so passionate that they’ve honed their writing or art to a place where I can’t possibly say no.

If it’s not there yet and you throw in the towel because of a rejection - or NEVER PITCH BECAUSE YOU DECIDED BEFOREHAND THAT THE GAME IS RIGGED - then your writing won’t ever get there and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. That’s a shame.

I’m gonna delete all this! Have a great night, all.

Wait, let’s end on a positive - one time we helped sell Girl Scout cookies by trading purchases for a plug on Fango socials. @gorycoryhorror, all of 17 years old, immediately seized the opportunity to promote her work, and in the process made a great first impression.

Her site, https://www.gorycory.net , shows more ambition and commitment than any of the folks lazily subtweeting Fango. By the time she’s old enough to buy beer, her writing will be on par with any of ours, and I hope it’s in Fango. Follow her; we’ll all be working for her one day.