How To Become A Successful Writer: The 50 Year Plan
By: Pam Gaslow
Tags: Sarcasm, Writing, Humor, Advice, Writing Tips

Photo: Author

Birth — Age 4

As soon as you’re old enough to hold a writing instrument, start scribbling on your bedroom walls. This is your early-stage stream of consciousness, so don’t let your parents tell you it’s “wrong” or a “mess.” Eat a crayon.

Age 5–9

Advance to writing on yourself — not the alphabet per se, but some kind of secret code. This is another stepping stone towards greatness, and also good practice for a fallback career as a tattoo artist. If you don’t want to write on yourself, write on your sibling. If you don’t have a sibling, write on a friend. If you don’t have a friend, try an imaginary one. If you don’t have an imagination, I hope you’re at least cute or have nice hair because you’re limited to a life of nonfiction or current events.

Age 10–15

Start a secret diary. Complain that no one understands you and that life isn’t fair. This will be the most embarrassing writing of your life and you will most likely burn it before your 18th birthday. Start drinking.

Age 16–20

Keep more detailed, big girl diaries. Chronicle your depression, anxiety, medications, and all obsessive, toxic relationships. Refuse to notice a repetitive pattern in your dysfunctional behaviors. Use alcohol and drugs to numb yourself and avoid reality. Write while you’re drunk and/or high and insist it’s some of your best work. Do not listen to anyone who tells you you’re an alcoholic. Do not seek professional help. There is nothing wrong with you — you’re a brilliant, tortured artist and it’s sexy as fuck.

Age 21

Start calling your diary a journal. You’re an adult now.

Age 22

Start writing complaint letters. Complaining is a cathartic art form and as a struggling writer, you need to get your frustration and anger out somewhere. For example, you might send something like this to your building manager: Hey Maria. Quick question — why the fucking fuck is all I hear are fucking dogs barking? And also, who the fuck lives in apartment 607 because I hear her having sex all the time. This sucks. Thanks.

Age 23

Research your favorite authors, like Marquis de Sade or Kafka, and study their paths to success. If they committed suicide or died a drunk or OD’d, that means they were really good and you have really good taste in writers. Glamorize the lifestyle. Predict your own untimely demise and subsequent posthumous fame.

Age 24

Join a pretentious writing group and immediately start to complain about everyone in it. Realize you hate people and their opinions. Declare Charles Bukowski your idol.

Age 25

Start sending out fan mail to authors you admire. By authors, I mean anyone who has written anything, anywhere, or who is particularly cute. A model I follow on Instagram wrote a poem on a t-shirt and I slid into his DMs. Pro tip: Do not wait for a response.

Age 26

Finish your first “novel” about your descent into insanity via inebriated adventures gallivanting around New York as the outrageous daughter of one of the city's most well-known criminal attorneys. Enjoy hundreds of rejection letters, and a few agents hitting on you. Rewrite the novel three times, only to still be rejected and further tortured and confused. Remember that tons of famous authors were rejected at the beginning. Put novel on the back burner for 10 years. Start a new career making t-shirts for kids because kids need clothes and no one needs your writing.

Age 30–34

Self publish a short humor book called “Girls Are Weird,” that is only understood by introverted freaks. Make $475 and get a stalker who followed you home after a reading you did at a shithole on the Bowery.

Age 35

Write your second novel about how your suicidal alcoholic homeless lover saved your life. Get an agent. Get rejected by publishers. Get dropped by your agent.

Age 40–49

Do some freelance writing. Write perverse stories about the inappropriate men you’re sleeping with and publish them under a pseudonym because you’re not stupid and you know your family thinks you’re a joke and will disinherit you. Simultaneously start a blog called “Depressed Hot Girl,” even though it’s been at least twenty years since you were a girl, despite the fact that you’re still hot and somewhat depressed. Dodge calls from your family asking you to take the blog down after seeing half-naked pictures of you with a fake flamingo on your head. Leave the blog up for 5 years but never update it.

Age 49.5

Take blog down because you’re really not a girl anymore; by this point it’s indisputable.

Age 50

Experience your first pandemic. During the nationwide lockdown, come to the realization that the only thing to do is write. People need you now. Submit to Medium. Make $12 on your first piece. Submit again. Make $3. Take a depression break. A month later write a story about turning 50. Watch it go viral. Tell everyone. Rest on your laurels. You deserve it.