Perhaps I'm typical in that I became a writer because I don't feel like dealing with you. I certainly don't feel like doing what you say. Well, not you, but You. You know what I mean, don't You?

Am I alone in my sense that writing for a living is partly about enjoying the act of writing, and partly about and inability (unwillingness?) to tether your efforts to the larger efforts of larger interests -- The Agency, The Firm, the Glossy Magazine -- for which you will not get credit? Unless you get a byline. In which case, you do it for the clip. But you do so grudgingly, if you are like most people who write; we (I hate to presume, but in this case I can) tend to play best alone.

Sure, there are other writers and editors, and your agent and your publicist who are, thankfully, "people people." And I think I speak for a lot of people who write when I say, nothing personal, but that's enough.

And so a recent article in the New Yorker about Alloy Entertainment nearly made me choke on my Skittles. These people are ruining the lives of extremely-non-bestselling authors