Eileen Gunn - Questionable Practices

All for a perfectly understandable fee.

Sincerely,

Michael Swanwick

Chief Creative Officer

Guilt Eaters of Philadelphia

Dear Mr. Swanwick:

This sounds like my ordinary workday. I do not see how your service could add to my productivity.

The lost kids, the dead pet… this is my life in a nutshell. And my mother’s disapproval? I obsess about it, of course, like everyone else, but it does not drive me to work on the fantasy dekology one single minute.

How did you know about the dekology? It has such a lovely synopsis: elves, mirrors, electric trains, trees that extend into the stratosphere and rain gold on those below, and Dick Cheney’s evil twin. NYT Bestseller? Fowler and Lethem can eat their hearts out. But I do not work on it.

Does your service offer anything else?

Curiously,

Eileen Gunn

Dear Ms Gunn:

We are in receipt of your heartbreaking missive, in which you ask, “ Does your service offer anything else? ”

The answer to which is, of course, You Bet Your Sweet Patootie! Hold on to your hat, because Guilt Eaters of Philadelphia is prepared to DOUBLE YOUR PRODUCTIVITY OVERNIGHT!!!

Sound incredible? It is! But true. And there’s more! We are prepared to do this at absolutely no cost to you!

Here’s how it works: You provide the idea and parameters for that story you want to write but for whatever reason can’t. Our downtrodden and overworked staff will labor into the wee hours of the night to produce ten pages of crisply polished prose, all of which is guaranteed to be of final draft quality! You will then, driven by a combination of guilt, admiration, and ambition, produce an equal number of pages of (it goes without saying) superior literary value. And so it will go, turn on turn, until in less time than you ever imagined possible the story is complete.

And what do we demand in exchange for this incredible service? Only the pleasure of being of service, and three-quarters the take when the story is sold! Yes… we are taking more than our fair share. But consider this: It is more than our fair share of a book which otherwise would not exist. Everybody wins!

So don’t delay — ACT TODAY!

Sincerely,

Michael Swanwick

Chief Creative Officer

Guilt Eaters of Philadelphia

Dear Mr. Swanwick

I can tell you’ve worked hard devising this service, and that you believe in it. But could I see some hard evidence of its efficacy? Testimonials, maybe?

Skeptically,

Eileen Gunn

Dear Ms. Gunn:

You certainly are a tough nut to crack. Not that we think you are a nut. Absolutely not! Yet crack you we shall.

You asked for testimonials? Testimonials you shall have!

A Former Schoolteacher in Maine says:

I was trapped in a dead-end job, living in a trailer, and writing at night. My total production was something like five words a week — and I wasn’t working on haikus but novels! Then GEoP taught me to produce, produce, produce! Now it’s a sorry month that doesn’t see a new novel from me. I write so much that I have to use pseudonyms to keep from flooding the market. So now I am a happy man. The pay is pretty damn good too, but so what? All I ever wanted was to be a human fountain of words, and, as the old joke goes, Now I Are One!

— S. K.

A British YA Author gushes:

As a single mother, I spent seven years working on a short story about a woman sitting in a cheap café trying to write. It was depressing and going nowhere. Heck, I was depressing and going nowhere. Then GEoP showed me how to open the sluice-gates of my soul! Now I’m a billionaire, world-famous, and married to the kind of man my ex-husband only wishes he could be. Thanks, GEoP!

— J. K. R.

A Noted Dead British Fantasist writes:

When I was alive, I was the slowest writer imaginable. It took me an entire lifetime — and it was not a short one! — to pen a single children’s book, a trilogy, and a handful of short works and fragments. After my demise, I decided that enough was enough, and linked my fortunes to GEoP’s star. Now I’ve written so many books I can’t keep track of them! If only I’d discovered GEoP earlier, I could have wrapped up my career and retired to Miami at age thirty!

— J. R. R. T.

And there are many, many more such unsolicited testimonials on file! Shouldn’t yours be among them?

Sincerely,

Michael Swanwick

Chief Creative Officer

Guilt Eaters of Philadelphia

Dear Mr. Swanwick:

It all sounds very good, but I just don’t understand how you can do it. How on earth can your staff turn out such remarkable volumes of work, when it’s all I can do to finish a single page?

Can you possibly clear up my confusion?

Uncertainly,

Eileen Gunn

Dear Ms. Gunn:

Clear up your confusion we shall! As you know by now, we here at Guilt Eaters of Philadelphia are strong believers in the motivational power of guilt. Not just your standard guilt, mind you, but crushing, soul-destroying guilt. The kind of guilt that through our secret proprietary process we remove from thousands of clients every day.

What do we do with this guilt once we’ve piped it into our holding vats? Do we release it into the environment? Certainly not! Rather, we inject it directly into the bloodstreams of our suffering staff writers. Who, feeling responsible for every vile and petty thing that happens in the world, lose themselves in compulsive and desperate scribbling.

It is their misery that has raised many a despairing ink-stained wretch out of the Slough of Writerly Despond and into the Glorious Light of Fiscal Solvency. Let us do the same for you!

Sincerely,

Michael Swanwick

Chief Creative Officer

Guilt Eaters of Philadelphia

Dear Mr. Swanwick:

I am beginning to have my doubts about the entire enterprise. Am I supposed to benefit from the misery of others? I was not brought up to be like that.

Perhaps we should simply drop the matter.

Firmly,

Eileen Gunn

Dear Ms. Gunn:

I must confess that everybody here at Guilt Eaters of Philadelphia, from myself down to the most wretched staff writer, finds your reluctance to sign up with the firm that turned a humorless and unproductive nobody into Terry Pratchett absolutely baffling. Let me speak to you like a Dutch uncle. You must seize control of your own destiny!

Ask yourself this: What is it that you really want? Fame? Money? Literary immortality? To be a New York Times bestseller? Invitations to gala Hollywood parties? The love of millions of readers? To write so many books that by carefully stacking one of each, you can build the walls of a new addition to your house? All these things are attainable! Simply tell us your goals and Guilt Eaters of Philadelphia will make them real for you.

But we can’t do it alone. We need your active cooperation.

What will it take to get you to sign up today? Our operators are standing by!

Sincerely,

Michael Swanwick

Chief Creative Officer

Guilt Eaters of Philadelphia

Dear Mr. Swanwick:

I don’t believe your organization can help me after all. Seeing your list of goals made me realize that I don’t want any of them. Not the fame, not the money, and certainly not the gala Hollywood parties. All I really want is to be able to write. It may not make sense to you, but if only I could write prolifically and be left alone, that would be enough for me. I wouldn’t even have to be happy.

But I don’t suppose that you, or anyone else for that matter, can provide a service that will do that.

Realistically,

Eileen Gunn

Dear Ms. Gunn:

You underestimate us here at Guilt Eaters of Philadelphia! We are expertly qualified to analyze your situation and devise a satisfactory means of resolving all your emotional and psychological problems in a manner that will satisfy you. Now that we completely understand your situation, it is the simplest of matters to devise a custom situation, based on a close reading of your letters and our long association with litterateurs of all stripes, which has given us enormous insight into the writerly mentality.