“My wings are like a shield of steel ….” Batfink, buts, and the inner excusinator

“Your bullets can not harm me, my wings are like a shield of steel.”

The immortal words of Batfink – cartoon superhero circa late 60s who spent his time saving the world from countless evil villians. It was a spoof on Batman. I loved this cartoon as a child, and as an adult I can’t find any of my peers who remember it. So much so, that I was beginning to think it didn’t exist – until I Googled it of course (nothing exists if it isn’t on Google ;-j). Turns out that he got his powers from being born in an abandoned plutonium mine and that he'd lost his natural wings as a child while saving his mother's life after escaped convicts blew up their mountaintop cave – don’t ya hate when that happens?

I was reminded of my super hero and his motto when I read the guest post on Nathan Bransford’s blog yesterday. If you are a writer and haven’t heard of Nathan Bransford then say Hi! to the Sasquatch as you leave your cave, because clearly you are living with the elusive mythical beast in a remote mountain cave and eschewing all human contact.

Nathan is one of my favourite agent bloggers. He has nearly 3000 followers and offers a wealth of information about the publishing industry (no matter what genre you write) and he’s funny.

The guest blog post Is your 'But' too big? was written by Jon Gibbs. It is about writers who have a whole string of ‘buts’ (excuses as to why they aren’t writing) and who suffer from excusitis (I think we all do from time to time).

I prefer to think of it as the inner excusinator and when it pops up you need to bludgeon it the same way Batfink’s sidekick Karate would dispatch with criminals.

If you’re inner excusinator is acting up and you feel your ‘buts’ are getting too big, just remember the other immortal words of Batfink: “My supersonic sonar radar can help me.”

And get back to writng … and do your homework about the publishing industry and learn what agents are looking for by reading Nathan’s blog.