Got gifts?

Warning: this post is kind of snarky.

Earlier this month I was thinking about gifts for writers. I did what alot of my students do when they have important questions about life; I turned to about.com. 

I don’t know anything about the writers at about.com. Well, that’s not true anymore because now I know that they have an excellent sense of humor. The gift suggestions are darkly hilarious.

Among them:

A magazine subscription.

Like our desks aren’t *already* piled with words (ours and other people’s) we don’t have time to read.

Books on writing.

Don’t writers only turn to those in times of horrible desperation? When they are convinced that they only wrote something decent by accident and they will never, ever, write anything good again? They turn to the how to write books in the hope that they might find a tiny something that will help them fake their way through whatever terrible, terrible manuscript they are currently ruining with their bad, bad writing.  

Tickets to see an admired writer.

One, aren’t these things supposed to be free? Two, good God, is there anything worse than hearing someone else talk about their huge writing success? Especially when you, the gifted writer, is facing the guilt from the magazines and journals you have not read and the shame of sneeking in dark corners to discover whatever secret will enable you to keep fooling everyone that you are a writer to be admired?

Next gift suggestion: A journal filled with blank pages.

Oh yeah. That is exactly what every writer wants. A crap ton of more blank pages to fill.  ‘Nuf said.

Alright, I admit the whole list wasn’t ironically funny. The fifth item: a massage.

This sounds awesome. Especially if the masseuse  doesn’t speak English. That way they won’t ask what you do for a living, and make you remember why you need the massage so badly in the first place.