I have people ask me to “read their stuff” all the time. And I get asked to “please pass it along to your agent” just as often. That’s cool, though. Writers very often “break in” through the contacts of other writers and for sure, I am the kind of person who likes to help others. And encourage others. And inspire others.

Yet, this is all-too-frequently a version of the letter I have to send after after agreeing to read another author’s work. (NOTE: I only agree after a few ground rules have been set on the table. Of course, the other side of the table really has no choice in the matter; if they don’t agree, I don’t read, but still… I can’t just read EVERYBODY’s first half of their forthcoming 900 page novel… as written in Sanskrit with a post-classical structure superimposed over a a neo-Joycian attempt at no using punctuation.)

Hi Smith, (I am making this up)

I finally got to Smith’s Story. Sorry for the delay but the way things have been for me as of late, getting back to you in under 3 weeks is actually pretty speedy.

I am going to go unfiltered here – gonna shoot straight. There are a few reasons for this.

First, I admire anyone who gives writing a go. And by all means, Smith, you show you have some chops and I encourage you to continue writing. One gets better as a writer by writing. Also, I really don’t know squat. My opinion is just an opinion. This could be the next Harper Lee novel you have sent to me and I might not recognize it so “grain of salt” is the rule of the day from here on in.

In my opinion, there are strengths but there are also problems. (At this juncture I will go into whatever I feel the issues are which are impeding me from passing on this book to my agent. As you will see below, 97% of the books I read do not get passed on.)

Might I suggest you, Smith, watch this piece of You Tube advice… it comes from Vonnegut. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VyQ1wEBx1V0

There are not many rules that KV offers – it’s only 90 seconds – but Smith, you have violated a few of them right out of the gate and I think it puts the reader off.

Why should I care? What has made me care? Where am I vested in this story? All of these got me to a point where I realized I have other things I need to do tonight. As a writer, by page 15 I gotta be like, “My GOD… I have 30 other things I need to do tonight but there isn’t one of them that is more important than finding out THIS! I am gonna read til midnight!” That emotional feeling in me is absent. And without it, Smith, you are doomed. James Patterson I trust. Smith… not so much. (And btw, James Patterson never does this to a reader anyway. Pick up any book he writes… by page 15 there’s a deep hook. As there is with many, many authors. Amy Tan, John Grisham, Wally Lamb, Dean Koontz… I could go on and on.)

In short, I don’t want to be mean or cutting but professionals who blow smoke up a new writer’s butt do them a disservice in my opinion. This needs work. Smith, you need to better evolve your craft and while it certainly is possible that I might be blasting the next Pulitzer winner (cuz really, what the heck do I know anyway?) I don’t feel it’s ready to be submitted to an agent. I mean people ask me all the time to submit stuff to my agent for them and 97% of the time I have to pass cause the goods simply aren’t – in my opinion – ready.

Now, how will Smith respond to this? Well, that’s the question which will determine if he/she makes it as a writer. I spent years and years and years being rejected and after my initial hurt and anger and frustration I realized that hey, ya know what… maybe there is something to be learned from this sort of feedback.

Maybe I am not yet ready for the big time? And what did I eventually do? I kept learning my craft and getting better at my craft until I broke down the door to the being published.

I gave Smith’s piece a shot – and I spent a long time writing this reply to Smith – but the cold truth is that I just wasn’t feeling it and so, my “to do list” awaits.

Too bad… cause all of us readers are always hoping that the next book we read is a book that keeps us up until midnight.

Darn you writer… and now back to my “to do list”.

I will never be not published again.

That may seem obvious to people reading this right now because I am on the doorstep of having my 11th and 12th publishing project hit the shelves in 2011 and the truth is, my publishing wares have never been more popular.

As an author, that’s everything you hope for. (A line pointing upwards, that is.)

But the thing that is remarkable to me about my opening sentence is that I spent 14 years trying to make it as a professional writer being rejected, cutting my teeth, learning my craft, being forced to improve my work, and so on. Clearly, that made me a better writer. (Reluctant as I may have been to admit it back in the day, my skills still needed work before they were fit for making the grade.)

However, with the advent of ePublishing and eReading upon us, there are no more barriers to entry in a way and thus curation – via agents, editors, copy-editors, acquisition teams and so on – is a bar being lowered… if not downright removed.

To me that means that lower quality writing is certainly on its way into our eReading devices.When it’s too easy to do something and too many people are attempting to do it, an overload of crap ensues. (Doubt me? Think expansion in Major League Baseball.)

Becoming known for quality should, theoretically, become a leg up in an upcoming onslaught of wordy white noise and publishing sludge.

To the aspiring writer I’d would offer caution. Why? Because first impressions, once created, are really hard to shake.

Just because you can publish something doesn’t mean you always should. From half-naked photos of doing tequila shots on Facebook to poorly constructed, non-edited novels that ramble, have thin characterization and holes the size of craters in the plot, remember, the internet has a long, deep memory and a bad review of your work will hunt your writing like a shadow for years and years and years.

Interesting times, these are. And some people are clearly going to be given enough rope to hang themselves.

Always remember, quality counts.

There’s an entire industry out there promising to “teach you how to write”. And you know what? None of them can deliver.

Now sure, they can help. How much? Whose to say? But can they “teach you how to write”? Nah.

Of course, I learned this through firsthand experience. I have spent lots of time, effort and energy exploring all sorts of stuff. (And money, too — let’s not forget that.)

From writing retreats to college classes to books on the craft of writing to writer’s groups and on and on, I’ve spent years and years and years as a student of writing.

And the only person that has taught me “how to write” is… drumroll please… me.

Don’t believe the hype. (Or the advertisements in the back of Writer Magazine for MFA’s and the such.) Only you can fashion yourself into a writer.

This is because writing, in a way, is a lot like cave diving (a.k.a. spelunking). Until you get down in there and start exploring, you have no idea what you are going to discover about both the cave and about yourself.

People can describe it to you. People can sell you the gear. People can offer guidance, insight, inspiration, tools and maps but until you’ve strapped it up and spelunked you are not a spelunker. And once you become a splelunker, it’s natural to want to help others spelunk… but in your heart you know that until they actually do spelunk they will not be a spelunker.

And as we all know, you can’t make anyone spelunk.

(Gosh, what a fun word!)

Of course, by taking the classes, reading the books, surfing the websites, attending the conferences and wearing the special glittery underwear essential to the craft (hey, whatever works, right?) I’ve picked up critical bits and pieces all along the way.

And it’s the accumulation of all those bits and pieces that make for the writer’s education. But they don’t come from any one source and they certainly don’t exist in any “buy this one fantastic product now” type of package.

So yes, buy the books, take the classes, subscribe to the RSS feeds and sport the hot pink, lace writing thong… but also know that you will never be able to buy the act of being a spelunker.

I adore Obama and feel that he is spot on in so many ways when it comes to moving education forward in America to better meet the demands of the next generation.

However, I keep hearing him say “we need to do a better job of rewarding talented teachers” but I don’t believe that the key to national success and achieving our educational aims preeminently lies in figuring out a way to pay good teachers more money. In fact, I believe that we can make our biggest and best strides by simply better empowering our nation’s best educators. What we want are tools, resources, some personal freedom to use our own professional discretion as to how and when to apply our craft and not to have the penultimate evaluation of our school or our own individual competence as educators be determined by preposterous bubble tests.

Do I want more money? Of course I do. But if that was my sole driving force I never would have entered into this field. (I’d have become a Wall Street investment banker — soulless, rapaciously greedy, ridiculously over-compensated and self-righteous enough to believe that I deserve to make in one year what it takes the average American teacher, firefighter, nurse, or cop to make in 25 years).

Will better compensation help? Yes. I think the answer is self-evident. Right now our best and brightest aren’t choosing to go into the field of schooling after college and low pay is certainly a factor in this decision making. However, I never hear anybody voice the opinion, “Ya know, if my school district paid me more, I’d work harder.” What I do hear is people griping about how they are handcuffed by this overwhelmingly silly mandate to utilize one-size-fits-all materials (can ya hear me textbooks and scripted curriculums?!) and how they pretty much hate the bubble tests, finding them to be a waste of time, of little or no authentic assessment use for improving true, meaningful achievement with real, individual kids, and how they’d love to have some really good professional development that assisted them in improving their craft.

We want to get better. There are ways to get better. But, as all teachers know, the only way to get better is through more schooling and if there is one truism about all good teachers it’s that they understand the value of perpetually being a learner. We never know it all.

Empower us, Mr. Obama. And don’t let merit pay become a red herring.