Neil Kleid's column

Neil Kleid's latest column is good reading. While the column doesn't provide very much "new and shiny" advice for aspiring writers, it does present the information with style. Also, Brian Wood and Antony Johnston have good things to say, too. But, here's some Kleid:

The lengths one has to go to in order to focus on twenty-two pages of script or one hundred and twenty pages of screenplay? Months ago, I had the pleasure of being interviewed by some comic book websites and each asked me the same question: what's the hardest obstacle to overcome in order to become a working writer? Many would-be writers would jump up here, arms waving like know-it-all fifth-graders in remedial English and say that the toughest thing is getting noticed, standing out, finding time, getting connections or, if in comics, finding a dependable artist to work with.

I call bullshit to all of that. There are ways around all of those things so quit your bitching. Because if you're at that point in your evolution as a writer - if you've let yourself be sucker punched and are making excuses - then you'll never understand that all of those can be solved after tackling the ultimate obstacle:

Discipline. It's as simple as Point A to Point B. To master writing you must first master yourself.

I guess it would be too much to hope that the more people talk about this kind of thing, the less "The Man is keeping me down because he won't accept my pitch" posts we'll see around the internet. Also, it's nice to see on-line advice from creator-types that isn't:

• 90% self-promotion
• full of really poor writing (specifically, style and grammar errors)
• adopting a persona to appear "cool" or "interesting (often punctuated by tales of drinking prowess)

Also, it reminds me that I still haven't bought Julius, and that I'm stupid.