No One Told Me There Was A Secret Handshake
I stumbled across a website for the Longridge Writers Group. Never heard of ‘em. Can’t tell you if this Group is legitimate or not, but I have a theory.
There is a link for instructors. Not exactly household names. The photos appear to be circa 1979. There are claims, all written in bold, of this Group producing "thousands of published writers" which might be an embellishment. Surely if there were a miracle cure out there someone would have said something before now. The Group makes the following claim, again in big bold letters: You will complete at least two manuscripts suitable for submission to an editor by the time you finish the course.
This made me a tad skeptical. My first book - the one where I changed the heroine’s first name by accident somewhere around page 812, right after I inadvertently killed off the hero in Chapter 42 - was technically "suitable for submission" in that it wasn’t written in crayon and had margins and page numbers. It looked manuscript-ish, so long as you didn’t actually, you know, read it. Being suitable for submission is far different from being suitable for publication, at least that’s what everyone keeps saying.
The site also contains an online aptitude test. This is usually a bad sign. This test is meant to separate "qualified" people (that’s their word, not mine) from those who, I suppose, are somehow unqualified (disqualified maybe) to write a book. Included in the test is a section called "Think Like A Writer." The goal is to have the potential qualified person write a 30-50 word paragraph on one of three topics:
1. A person in a long supermarket line with an inept clerk at the checkout counter [Since I haven't been in a grocery store since I got married in 1998, I probably can't do this one.]
2. A member of your family trying to deal with a cantankerous relative [Are there people who could do this using only 30-50 words?]
3. A person telling his/her spouse about a promotion [ For me, this one goes something like, "Honey, I got the promotion. Now we can afford to eat." All of 11 words.]
To be helpful, the Group gives an example of writing by a qualified being: Bundled in a hairy overcoat, the man drummed his fingers on a box of oatmeal, tapped his feet, rolled his eyes and set his lips in a thin straight line. Finally, he shrugged. Muttering something inaudible, he stomped off, abandoning his crammed shopping cart.
Hairy overcoat? Yeah, I’m exhausted just reading the example paragraph. The good news? You can earn college credits for this program and deduct the tuition as a business expense. Uh-huh. I’m convinced.
