Category: The Ramble (page 431 of 448)

Yammerings and Babblings

April 27, 2011 / 58 Comments

Your Earthly “Carbs” Sicken My Alien Body

This year, winter came, and I packed on some extra poundage.

Enough where I felt like a bear who was hibernating in a dead whale, ensconced then not only in his wintery fat but also in an exoskeleton of pure blubber.

Now, as you may know, I am a writer (*spit-take* *ptoo* “No way!” you cry, your jaw unhinging from shock, your tongue lolling out, your eyes bugging). Writers lead lives that… well, to call them “sedentary” is a bit of an understatement. The other day, a tree sloth and his snail buddies came into my office and were all like, “You should really get up and do something. You’ve probably got diabetes.”

Thing is, I’ve actually been trying to purge the weight from forth my penmonkey frame. We had been going to the gym, but with a pregnant wife that became less of an option so we bailed on the gym membership and instead went for an elliptical and a Kinect. I was working out and burning scads of calories and I was tracking calories and eating far below my caloric range and still the pudge remained.

So, I said, fuck it, and decided to kick carbs to the curb. (Though, uh, not the exercise.)

Within a week, I lost five pounds. After a month, I’ve lost ten.

The body seems once more capable of losing weight, which is a good thing. And I’m not psycho about the carb thing — during the week, I say “no,” and on the weekends I say, “well, okay, maybe a little.”

Mostly, it’s working out. I mean, I’m a sucker for meat and veggies. Love me some nuts. (Shut up.) You don’t get the spreading warm comfort of pasta or bread, but of course whenever I’d eat those I’d end up mentally foggy, wandering down the driveway with one shoe on and underpants full of dead leaves. I’m no good on bread. Any writing I do after I eat a big bowl of pasta just ends up being a bunch of ellipses and onomatopoeia: “Guh… … bbuh… zing. Yarrr… whuh… wuzza… wooza… fnnnn… … … GNUUUUUUHGHRBLEFRBLERRRRrrrr. Then Neo became Tron Solo. The End.”

The other big issue is one of variety. Dinners aren’t so bad, but it’s becoming increasingly difficult coming up with creative breakfasts and lunches (OH JESUS CHRIST MORE EGGS).

And thus I pivot my hips and sashay over to you, my glittery bedazzled hive-mind.

Anybody out there eating low-carb?

Hell, even if you’re not, I could use some ideas for recipes. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks, whatever. (For the record, I don’t eat much processed food, which means no faux-sugars. I like stevia well enough, but the aftertaste makes me think I’ve been licking a battery coated in pulverized aspirin.)

If you’d be so kind as to ease your body into the comments below and give me some tips, I’d appreciate it.

Big ups. Danke-danke. Grassy-ass.

April 26, 2011 / 139 Comments

25 Things Every Writer Should Know

An alternate title for this post might be, “Things I Think About Writing,” which is to say, these are random snidbits (snippets + tidbits) of beliefs I hold about what it takes to be a writer. I hesitate to say that any of this is exactly Zen (oh how often we as a culture misuse the term “Zen” — like, “Whoa, that tapestry is so cool, it’s really Zen“), but it certainly favors a sharper, shorter style than the blathering wordsplosions I tend to rely on in my day-to-day writing posts.

Anyway. Peruse these. Absorb them into your body. Let your colonic flora digest them and feed them through your bloodstream to the little goblin-man that pilots you.

Feel free to disagree with any of these; these are not immutable laws. I don’t believe these things the way the religious believe in their moral or spiritual tenets. This is all just food for thought. (Mmm. Food. Thoughtfood. ZOMBIE BRAIN HUNGER ASCENDANT NOM NOM NOM.) Also, don’t hesitate to drop into comments and add your own Things You Think About Writing.

Buckle up. Let’s Zen this motherfucker right in the eye!

1. You Are Legion

The Internet is 55% porn, and 45% writers. You are not alone, and that’s a thing both good and bad. It’s bad because you can never be the glittery little glass pony you want to be. It’s bad because the competition out there is as thick as an ungroomed 1970s pubic tangle. It’s good because, if you choose to embrace it, you can find a community. A community of people who will share their neuroses and their drink recipes. And their, ahem, “fictional” methods for disposing of bodies.

2. You Better Put The “Fun” In “Fundamentals”

A lot of writers try to skip over the basics and leap fully-formed out of their own head-wombs. Bzzt. Wrongo. Learn your basics. Mix up lose/loose? They’re/their/there? Don’t know where to plop that comma, or how to use those quotation marks? That’s like trying to be a world-class chef but you don’t know how to cook a goddamn egg. Writing is a mechanical act first and foremost. It is the process of putting words after other words in a way that doesn’t sound or look like inane gibberish.

3. Skill Over Talent

Some writers do what they do and are who they are because they were born with some magical storytelling gland that they can flex like their pubococcygeus, ejaculating brilliant storytelling and powerful linguistic voodoo with but a twitch of their taint. This is a small minority of all writers, which means you’re probably not that. The good news is, even talent dies without skill. You can practice what you do. You practice it by writing, by reading, by living a life worth writing about. You must always be learning, gaining, improving.

4. Nobody Cares About Your Creative Writing Degree

I have been writing professionally for a lucky-despite-the-number 13 years. Not once — seriously, not once ever — has anyone ever asked me where I got my writing degree. Or if I even have one. Nobody gives two rats fucking in a filth-caked gym-sock whether or not you have a degree, be it a writing degree or a degree in waste management. The only thing that matters is, “Can you write well?”

5. Speaking Of Luck

Luck matters. It just does. But you can maximize luck. You won’t get struck by lightning if you don’t wander out into the field covered in tinfoil and old TV antennae.

6. This Is A Slow Process

Nobody becomes a writer overnight. Well, I’m sure somebody did, but that person’s head probably went all asplodey from paroxysms of joy, fear, paranoia, guilt and uncertainty. Celebrities can be born overnight. Writers can’t. Writers are made — forged, really, in a kiln of their own madness and insecurities — over the course of many, many moons. The writer you are when you begin is not the same writer you become.

7. Nobody “Gets In” The Same Way

Your journey to becoming a writer is all your own. You own it for good and bad. Part of it is all that goofy shit that forms the building blocks of your very persona — mean Daddy, ugly dog, smelly house, pink hair, doting mother, bagger at the local Scoot-N-Shop. The other part is the industry part, the part where you dig your own tunnel through the earth and detonate it behind you. No two writers will sit down and tell the exact same story of their emergence from the wordmonkey cocoon. You aren’t a beautiful and unique snowflake, except when you are.

8. Writing Feels Like — But Isn’t — Magic

Yours is the power of gods: you say, “let there be light,” and Sweet Maggie McGillicutty, here comes some light. Writing is the act of creation. Put words on page. Words to sentences, sentences to paragraphs, paragraphs to 7-book epic fantasy cycles with books so heavy you could choke a hippo. But don’t give writing too much power, either. A wizard controls his magic; it doesn’t control him. Push aside lofty notions and embrace the workmanlike aesthetic. Hammers above magic wands; nails above eye-of-newt. The magic will return when you’re done. The magic is in what you did, not in what you’re doing.

9. Storytelling Is Serious Business

Treat it with respect and a little bit of reverence. Storytelling is what makes the world go around. Even math is a kind of story (though, let’s be honest, a story with too few space donkeys or dragon marines). Don’t let writing and storytelling be some throwaway thing. Don’t piss it away. It’s really cool stuff. Stories have the power to make people feel. To give a shit. To change their opinions. To change the world.

10. Your Writing Has Whatever Value You Give It

Value is a tricky word. Loaded down with a lot of baggage. It speaks to dollar amounts. It speaks to self-esteem. It speaks to moral and spiritual significance. The value of your wordmonkeying has a chameleonic (not a word, shut up) component: whatever value you give it, that’s what value it will have. You give your work away, that’s what it’s worth. You hate your work, that’s what it’s worth. Put more plainly: what you do has value, so claim value for what you do. Put even more plainly: don’t work for free.

11. You Are Your Own Worst Enemy

It’s not the gatekeepers. Not the audience. Not the reviewers. Not your wife, your mother, your baby, your dog. Not your work schedule, your sleep schedule, your rampant masturbation schedule. If you’re not succeeding at writing, you’ve nobody to blame for yourself. You’re the one who needs to super-glue her booty to the chair. You’re the one who needs to pound away at his keyboard until the words come out. It’s like Michael Jackson sang: “I took my baby on a Saturday bang.” … no, wait, that’s not it. “I’m talkin’ ’bout the man in the mirror.” Yeah. Yes. That’s the one. Shamon.

12. Your Voice Is Your Own

Write like you write, like you can’t help but write, and your voice will become yours and yours alone. It’ll take time but it’ll happen as long as you let it. Own your voice, for your voice is your own. Once you know where your voice lives, you no longer have to worry so much about being derivative.

13. Cultivate Calluses

Put differently, harden the fuck up, soldier. (And beard the fuck on, while we’re at it.) The writing life is a tough one. Edits can be hard to get. Rejections, even worse. Not everybody respects what you do. Hell, a lot of people don’t even care. Build up that layer of blubber. Form a mighty exoskeleton. Expect to be pelted in the face with metaphorical (er, hopefully metaphorical) ice-balls. It’s a gauntlet. Still gotta walk it, though.

14. Stones Are Polished By Agitation

Even the roughest stone is made smooth by agitation, motion, erosion. Yeah, the writing life can be tough, but it needs to be. Edits are good. Rejections are, too. Write with a partner. Submit yourself to criticism. Creative agitation can serve you well. Embrace it. Look into that dark hole for answers, not fear. Gaze into the narrative vagina, and find the story-baby crowning there. … okay, too far? Too far. Yeah.

15. Act Like An Asshole, You’ll Get Treated Like An Asshole

Agitation is good. Being an agitator, not so much. Be an asshole to agents and editors, editors and agents will treat you like an asshole. Be an asshole to other writers, they’ll bash you over the head with a typewriter, or shiv you with an iPad in the shower. Be an asshole to your audience, they’ll do a thing worse than all of that: they’ll just ignore you. So, for real, don’t be an asshole.

16. Writing Is Never About Just Writing

Writing is the priority. Write the best work you can write. That’s true. But it’s not all of it, either. Writing is ever an uncountable multitude. We wish writing were just about writing. The writer is editor, marketer, blogger, reader, thinker, designer, publisher, public speaker, budget-maker, contract reader, trouble-shooter, coffee-hound, liver-pickler, shame-farmer, god, devil, gibbering protozoa.

17. This Is An Industry Of People

They say it’s “who you know,” which is true to a point but it doesn’t really get to the heart of it. That sounds like everybody’s the equivalent to Soylent Green — just use ’em up for your own hungry purpose. That’s not it. You want to make friends. It means to be a part of the community. People aren’t step-stools. Connect with people in your respective industry. Do not use and abuse them.

18. The Worst Thing Your Work Can Be Is Boring

You’ve got all the words in the world at your disposal, and an infinite number of arrangements in which to use them. So don’t be boring. Who wants to read work that’s as dull as a bar of soap?

19. No, Wait, The Worst Thing Your Work Can Be Is Unclear

Clarity is king. Say what you mean. You’re telling a story, be it in a book, a film, a game, an article, a diner table placemat. Don’t make the reader stagger woozily through a mire just to grasp what you’re saying.

20. Writing Is About Words, Storytelling Is About Life

Everybody tells you that to be a writer, you have to read and write a lot. That’s true. But it’s not all of it. That’ll get you to understand the technical side. It’ll help you grasp the way a story is built. But that doesn’t put meat on the bones you arrange. For that, you need everything but reading and writing. Go live. Travel. Ride a bike. Eat weird food. Experience things. Otherwise, what the fuck are you going to talk about?

21. Everything Can Be Fixed In Post

Stop stressing out. You get the one thing few others get: a constant array of do-overs. Writing is rewriting. Edit till she’s pretty. Rewrite until it doesn’t suck. You have an endless supply of blowtorches, hacksaws, scalpels, chainsaws, M80s, and orbital lasers to constantly destroy and rebuild. Of course, you can get caught in that cycle, too. You have to know when to stop the fiddling. You have to know when to get off the ride.

22. Quit Quitting

It’s all too easy to start something and not finish it. Remember when I said you were legion? It’s true, but if you want to be separated from 90% of the other writers (or “writers” depending on how pedantic you choose to be) out there, then just finish the shit that you started. Stop abandoning your children. You wouldn’t call yourself a runner if you quit every race your ran halfway through. Finishing is a good start. Stop looking for the escape hatch; pretend your work in progress just plain doesn’t have one.

23. No Such Thing As Bad Writing Advice

There’s only: advice that works for you, and advice that doesn’t. It’s like going to Home Depot and trying to point out the “bad tools.” Rather, some tools work for the job. Most don’t. Be confident enough to know when a tool feels right in your hand, and when it might instead put out your eye.

24. Though, Nobody Really Knows Shit About Shit

We’re all just squawking into the wind and nobody really has the answers. Except you, and those answers are only for you. Everybody else is just guessing. Sometimes they’re right. A lot of times they’re wrong. That’s not to say such pontification isn’t valuable. You just gotta know what weight to give it.

25. Hope Will Save You

The hard boot is better than the tickling feather when it comes time to talk about the realities of writing, but at the end of the day, the thing that gets you through it all is hope and optimism. You have to stay positive. Writers are given over to a kind of moribund gloom. Can’t let the penmonkey blues get you down. Be positive. Stay sane. The only way through is with wide-open eyes and a rigor mortis grin. Don’t be one of those writers who isn’t having any fun. Don’t let writing be the albatross around your neck. Misery is too easy to come by, so don’t invite it. If writing doesn’t make you happy, you maybe shouldn’t be a writer. It’s a lot of work, but you need to let it be a lot of play, too. Otherwise, what’s the fucking point? Right? Go push a broom, sell a car, paint a barn. If you’re a writer, then write. And be happy you can do so.

April 25, 2011 / 36 Comments

Stupid Writer Tricks

The writer’s mind is an unruly chimp.

He steals your beer. He throws your Sports Illustrated football phone through the glass patio door. He defecates in your blender and makes a monkey dung smoothie. He mauls you and eats your extremities.

Like I said: unruly.

The only way Mister Tinkles is going to stop making your life a living hell is if you get down to some hardcore chimpanzee training techniques. You’ve got to fool that monkey into primate compliance. For the record, none of that is meant to be a euphemism for engaging the chimp in sexual activities. That is not what Darwin had in mind. I’m just saying, you need to tame the monkey. Non-sexually.

Same goes with taming your writer brain. Your mileage may forever vary, but me? I’m constantly my own worst enemy in terms of Getting The Work Done, and that’s just not good eats. You need to start tricking yourself, giving a leg-up here and there to get you where you need to be day in and day out. And so I give unto you: STUPID WRITER TRICKS.

These are little tips, tricks and techniques that bear minimal relation to one another except for the common bond that each are geared toward Finishing The Shit You Done Started, Wordmongers.

Let us open the cabinet of curiosities.

The Mini Tiny Itty Bitty Micro Outline

Two words: trail of breadcrumbs. (Wuzza? That’s three words? Shit. See, this is why I’m an ink-slinger and not a sorcerer of numberology.) Writing any big project, be it a novel or a screenplay or a giant epic game doc, an outline provides a way through the madness, looking both forward and backward. But, some folks don’t dig on the outline proper, and that’s okay: whatever gets the shit done.

That said, do consider the option of the micro-outline.

Here’s how it works: when you stop your writing for the day, take five or ten minutes to write a quick slapdash paragraph of what you plan on accomplishing during your next day’s worth of writing. “Jimbo slays the Humbaba. Mary-Ellen becomes queen of the vampires. Jojo eats some bad eggs.” You’re leaving a trail of breadcrumbs not to look back, but to make your way forward.

It helps me because my thinking organ is riddled with so many holes you’d think termites live there. So, when I open the document the next day and there’s a paragraph — I highlight it yellow because, mmm, yellow is the color of caution and crazy people — telling me what I wanted to do, I feel relieved. “Oh, right, I forgot that I wanted to have Gerry meet the dolphin in this scene. Nice. Thank you, Me From The Past! A little nipple squeeze from me to you, bro. Tweak!”

Maintaining Your Word Boner

The same thing that gets readers through reading your book should be the same thing that gets the author (erm, you) through writing the damn thing. The reader must have sustained excitement.

And so too must the writer.

So, you know how a cliffhanger creates suspense? Leaves the reader’s mouth and other orifices juicy with narrative need? This is that. End your writing day in the middle of something. As penmonkeys we are often trained to finish things, not leave them hanging, but here as a course of action leaving your writing for the day a bit open-ended can help you complete the project in the long term.

The goal of this is to get you excited for the next day of writing. Sometimes starting a new chapter or scene can cause you to suffer some of that same sluggy and uncertain ennui you might have felt at the beginning of the project when all you had was the ceaseless snowy expanse of the white page to taunt you, so ending in the midst keeps your mind champing at the bit (word-nerd trivia: not chomping at the bit) to get back and complete the scene. Leave yourself room for excitement. End with the need to go back and keep working.

Behold The Fanciful Power Of The Newfangled “Inter-Net”

You may be saying, “Whaaaaat? What’s that? What’s an… Inter…net?” And to that I respond: “You’re soaking in it!” And then we all share a laugh and do lines of blow off this dead hooker coffee table.

Still, you’re probably saying, “Your big writer trick here is to… tell us to use the Internet? Yeah, that’s great, Wendig. Should we also, I dunno, use our words to tell stories? Because, wow, revolutionary.”

Shut up, you. The Internet is soggy with snark these days, innit? Anyway. The Internet is home to resources you may not at present be considering in terms of your day-to-day storytelling. First, if you’re writing about a world that is not a fantasy realm or some weird sci-fi future and you need to know what Main Street in Duluth looks like, or you want to check to see what’s on the corner of Numbered Ave and So-and-So Street in New York City, ta-da: Jesus invented Google Street View just for you.

Second, Flickr. Flickr is a great resource for finding all kinds of inspiration. Looking for some descriptive meat? Or a location? Or an animal? Go to Flickr, search for the term. You’ll get an unholy host of images, many of them quite beautiful, and many of them beautiful in a way that might stir a new layer of metaphor and description that you’ve been looking for.

Third, social media hive-mind. Get on Facebook, Twitter, or whatever hot new social media tool is out there by the time you read this article (“I use Circlehole!” “Won’t you become my companion on Flurg?”), and you can ask folks questions that Google can’t quite grok.

Embrace Your Inner 12-Year-Old Girl

Make a collage.

No, yeah, I get it. You’re an adult human being. What’s next? Shoebox dioramas? (Don’t be ludicrous. That’s reserved for a later post.) “Collages?” you stammer. Yes. That’s right. Collages.

Wait, sorry — collages, motherfucker.

I’m working on a personal project right now and I wanted to get my head into a certain space with it, so I whipped out a sack of National Geographics and went to down on those sumbitches with a pair of scissors (safety scissors, as the government mandates I not be allowed the real deal — also, if you ever see me with an uncorked fork, run for the fucking hills because somebody is gonna bleed). Next thing I know, I’ve got a wall full of cool images and neat quotes about all manner of awesome shit. I go over to that collage, meditate on it for a couple-few, and my head neatly aligns with the story and the world. Snap-tight.

Next week: training bras, and how they can help your creativity blossom!

Make Out With Marginalia

Marginalia: scribbled notes in the margins of a book.

A delightful practice, and I love to see it in books I pick up, whether I take them out from the library or steal them from a frozen hobo. “Oh, on page 5,462 of James Joyce’s Ulysses, this person has written, And Molly Bloom represents Penelope out of the myth. On page 5,463, someone else has drawn a lobster with a giant human penis. And hey, look! Oh page 8,922, bloodstains!”

Sometimes, you’re chugging along on your own manuscript and you start to get bogged down in something — maybe you’re not sure about a name or don’t really know the word you want to use but damn sure know that “semen-shellacked” isn’t it. Instead of slamming on the brakes and cutting your rhythm in twain, jot a quick note in the margins and move on.

Most word processing programs have some kind of note or comment function — so, use that. Highlight the word, paragraph, or bloodstain, drop a quick comment into the margins, and sally forth.

Do The Editmonkey Shuffle

Hemingway reportedly said, “Write drunk, edit sober.” I would amend this to, “Write without pants, but drunk; edit with pants, but maybe also still drunk if you want to, because, y’know, mmm, drunk.”

Whatever the case, the takeaway from that isn’t so much that you should write whilst pickled on bourbon and edit whilst clear of head. For me, the takeaway is more about the change in state.

When editing, shift as much as you can away from the way you wrote, which is to say, edit differently than you wrote. I don’t know why this is, but by shifting certain elements, it becomes easier to view the edit more objectively. What kinds of state changes are we talking about here? You’ve got multiple options, and surely you’ll come up with your own, but here are a few:

Change the font size. Change the font. Print it out instead of editing on the screen. Edit in a different word processor. Edit on a different computer (desktop -> laptop, for instance). Put two pages on screen at a given time instead of one. Edit naked and covered in bacon grease. Whatever it takes to view the work in progress differently so as to more easily catch those things you need to catch.

Oh, also?

Track all changes when editing.

And read the work aloud.

I don’t consider many pieces of writing advice inviolable, but for me, this one comes close: reading your work aloud is the best way to catch mistakes and sense problems in rhythm.

If you don’t read your own work aloud, you make Story Jesus foul his diaper.

That’s gospel.

Spreadsheets Suck Unicorn

(Remember: if something sucks unicorn, then it is awesome.)

I sometimes see a sentiment that puts forth the notion that using a spreadsheet during the writing or editing of Your Big Writing Project will kill the creativity necessary to complete that thing. To this I say, if your creativity is killed by a mere spreadsheet, it must have been a weak and wormy thing, like the sad wang of a mangy anorexic possum. Be careful, because exposure to any of the banalities of life (checkbooks, mailmen, bowel movements) could easily destroy your papier-mache “creativity.”

Seriously, spreadsheets are the bee’s boobies. (That’s a thing, right? “The bee’s boobies?” I always feel behind all the hot new slang.) You can use a spreadsheet to do any of the following:

Track word count. Track deadlines. Determine character arcs. Do outlining (light to robust). Figure out plot tentpoles and the rough word count for those tentpoles. Figure out (and rearrange) plots and sub-plots. Track freelance payments. See how often a character shows up. Track critical beats like those from Blake Snyder’s SAVE THE CAT. Track days without pants. Chart your descent into madness. And so forth.

Your Turn

You writer-types out there. Surely you’ve got your own weird little bucket of tricks. Whip one out, dangle it in front of our dewy eyes and tell us all about it. Share and share alike. Join the hive-mind.

April 22, 2011 / 66 Comments

Flash Fiction Challenge: The Three-Sentence Story

Before we begin: last week’s challenge will be tallied up throughout the day, so go check that sucker out: “Five Random Words” awaits your seeking eyes. Now, onto this week’s challenge…

Hey! It’s my birthday.

SO THAT MEANS YOU’RE GOING TO DANCE FOR ME, LITTLE MONKEYS.

Oh. Ahem. Sorry. That was a tad… aggro.

Still, I’m making this challenge easy to execute, perhaps difficult to execute well.

Here’s the deal:

You have three sentences to tell a story.

It can be about anything and anyone. It can take place anywhere, at any time.

But it must be three sentences only.

Further, it must — must — not be a mere vignette. Each of the three sentences should roughly correspond with Beginning / Middle / End. The goal of storytelling is to show some kind of movement through a tale, a movement that could comprise a changing character, an escalating conflict, a timeless challenge.

A good tale doesn’t merely hang on and linger like a gassy dog but, rather, finds a conclusion of some ilk.

And that’s what you must do with your three sentences.

Easy to do. Not so easy to do right.

So, that’s that. You think you’re up for the challenge?

You can, as always, post to your blog and share the link. That said, if you’re so inclined, you’re free to drop the three-sentence-story into the comments below if that’s easier. (As such, I won’t be tallying these this week, I’ll just leave the comments to speak for themselves.)

You’ve got one week. This ends next Friday, April 29th.

Three sentences.

One complete story.

Beard the fuck on, penmonkeys. BTFO.

April 21, 2011 / 44 Comments

Search Term Bingo Don’t Give A Shit

Man, it’s been a while since I did me up a Search Term Bingo. You know why? Because, I gotta be honest, the search terms coming in to this site have been… disappointing, at best. It’s either people searching for content about writing advice (booooo-riiiiing) or really trite searches for pornography — big dick, donkey dick, goat porn, and so on. One supposes I brought this upon myself. After all, here in this bloggery-space I speak frequently about writing, doling out dubious advice to any who will listen, and further, I do so with great sticky gobs of pornographic language.

Still. Given a long enough period of time, some truly absurd search terms still have managed to float into my analytics page, and thus I give them to you for your abemusement (not a word).

Please to enjoy another incarnation of Search Term Bingo.

pictures of bingo tattoo on ass

This — this — is forethought. See, my biggest concern about getting a tattoo (besides the fact my father once told me and my friends that you never get a tattoo because if you ever have to kill somebody that’s how “they” will find you) is that, man, when you get old, that shit might look nasty. I get an anchor on my arm, by the time I’m 80 years old that thing’ll look like it was made of chocolate and got left in the sun long enough to a) melt and b) get skin cancer. It’s worse you get a tat in less, erm, public places. That tramp stamp of a thorny vine now looks like a tangled briar full of skin tags. That tasteful butterfly on your boob starts to resemble something out of a Salvador Dali painting (“is it dripping? Am I on mescaline again?”).

I mean, how do you explain that to your Grandkids? Last week, and this is for real, I went to baby class with a dude who had a kick-ass almost full-arm ink-job of the Predator. Except then I’m thinking, geez, when this guy’s like, 79, what’s he going to tell all the grandkids? “That scary motherfucker is Predator! Predator gonna hunt you! He’s invisible! Eat your Wheaties! Stop stealing my teeth!”

After that, all the kids are just like, “Dude, Grandpaw has lost his shit. And he smells like pee.”

But, you getcherself a bingo tattoo — bingo board, chips, etc.– suddenly you’re hot shit at the Old Folks Home. “Didja hear? Old Lady McGee has a bingo card tramp stamp. That Debbie McGee is a cup of tea!”

cooking light magazine screams at you

Do magazines scream at you? Really? Like, actually yell? “Hey! HEY! HEY HEY HEY! Raaaar!” Right from the magazine rack? You might wanna check your meds there, hoss.

And, frankly, even if magazines did scream, I don’t know that I ever imagined Cooking Light to be the type. I kind of envision Cooking Light to be a fairly polite magazine. A light clearing of the throat, a soft and gentle entreaty to buy, perhaps a golf-clap should you decide to procure.

What the hell does it yell? YOU! YEAH YOU! BUY MY SHIT! YOU’RE A FAT TUB OF FUCK YOU FUCK! YOU NEED SOME LOW CAL VITTLES, YOU TUMESCENT TURD-BOX. WHAT DO YOU JUST EAT HOT DOGS AND BIRD SUET ALL DAY? YOU SMELL LIKE SAUSAGE! YOU BETTER COOK LIGHT OR YOUR HEART’S GONNA POP LIKE A ZIT! PBBBT!

I guess if you ever walk by a magazine rack and you see someone just weeping next to a copy of Cooking Light, now you know why. A very rude magazine, that Cooking Light.

boozing out my wife

My favorite thing about weirdo search terms is how often they’re poorly or oddly phrased. I don’t know if it’s a translational issue or people are, I dunno, just dumb as a sack of kickballs, but “boozing out my wife?” What does that mean? You fill your wife with tequila, spring a hole in her with a crochet needle, then drink the booze that squirts from the puncture wound? She’s not a balloon. I mean, unless she is? Weirdo.

book about judge who can suck the spirit

That’s my favorite book. It’s the latest from Stephen King and John Grisham: HABEUS CORPSEUS: ADVENTURES OF THE SOUL JUDGE, BOOK ONE. It’s not even out yet, and it’s still my favorite book.

masturbation with beef tongue

See, I just didn’t need that image. And neither did any of you. But that’s just how I roll. When bad shit gets into my brain, the only way I can feel better is if I shake my head like a dog with an ear infection and get a little on you. Now you have to live with the image and it’s your curse to either keep it to yourself and go cuh-razy, or share with others. It’s like an Internet meme version of THE RING.

college sucks unicorn

Is “sucks unicorn” part of the new lingo? “Man, that new movie sucks unicorn!” “Mom, this Beef Stew is so bad, it sucks unicorn!” Except maybe it’s like, the opposite — so, if something sucks, it’s bad, but if something sucks unicorn, it’s really awesome. Because college was great. College was all booze and orgies and reasonable grade-point-averages. College totally sucked unicorn.

You heard it here first. If something sucks unicorn, then it is actually really rad.

when your family won’t read your novel

“When?” Heh. Hah. Yeah. Your family won’t read your novel. At least, not if you’re me.

“Mom, I wrote this hyper-violent book about vampires and zombies.”

“That’s nice, muffin.”

“Mom, you never call me muffin. What’s up?”

“THAT’S BECAUSE I’M THE SOUL JUDGE, MOTHERFUCKER! RAAAOOOOWR! READ COOKING LIGHT MAGAZINE!”

energy drink enema

That will fucking kill you. It’ll just — I mean, seriously, don’t do that. If you’re shoving a can of Four Loko up your keister and doing hand-stands to get a fast buzz, just go buy some meth. I’m not condoning meth use. I am, however, condoning meth use over jacking up your colon with a ice-cold flush of Red Bull. Neither’s a good choice, but at least with the meth you’ll get a lot of vacuuming done.

what sexual favor would you do for money

Uhh, hello, I’d do them all.

You didn’t specify the amount of money, did you? High enough dollar value, I’ll do whatever crazy sex monkey maneuver you got on the books. The Omaha Steam Vent? The Crispy Parrot? The Albanian Goat Herder? The Garden Weasel? The Filthy McGlinchey? The Winking Narwhal? The Anal Robot? The Eisenhower Lemon? The Cadbury Egg? The “Speak Into The Microphone, Mister Mayor?” The Panna Cotta Di Vida? The Eddie Munster Goes To Church? The Bishop’s Asterisk? The Stinky Ampersand? The Sad Donkey Meets The Happy Rabbit And Together They Destroy Democracy? The Brown Note?

I’ll do ’em all for the right amount of cashola.

Hell, for ten bucks I’ll do ’em all twice.

what does goose poop look like

It’s amazing, because the only way I can answer this is by saying, “like goose poop.” Because it’s true. Goose poop looks like nothing else, ever, except goose poop. Goose poop is self-defining.

hunch hunch, what what, buh bo

And seriously, why are you not watching ARCHER?

porn on my milk in my cup of tea porn

I like the symmetry of beginning and ending your weird little poem with “porn.” How artful.

artful sphincter

Well, not that artful, no. The “Artful Sphincter” is the name of my movie review column where I critically destroy pretentious foreign films with words like “poop” and “sack-licker.” Because, y’know, artful.

im in the water and what the fuck is that

IT’S THE SOUL JUDGE.

No, I dunno what it is, c’mon. For reals, I too believe in the power of Google. If I need a recipe, I go to Google. If I need to know when the next SOUL JUDGE book is coming out, I Google that shit. If I’m looking for a step-by-step explanation of how to do the famed sex move, The Elephant Leg Trashcan? Google.

All that being said, if you’re in the water with — well, something, be that something a shark, a gator, a sharkogator, a pugranha, the Pope — then what you need to be doing first in your order of operations is get your stupid ass out of the water. Then — then — Google your little question. If you’re on your smartphone and Googling that while still in the water, you’re totally going to get eaten. Or your orifices are going to be home to the offspring of some kind of mutant catfish. You’re in a horror movie, is what I’m saying, where you’re the dumb guy who gets dead. Google can’t save you now.

buckingham mountain ghost goat stare

Ahh, the fearsome “ghost goat stare.” I remember it so well.

Wait, what? I used to live on Buckingham Mountain (grew up there, and it’s not a mountain but rather, a very large hill), and while I remember ghosts, I do not in fact recall any of them being goats. Especially goats who stare. There was, however, a living goat on Buckingham Mountain. He hung out with a donkey. This isn’t a sexual move, by the way, but rather, an entirely true story. Why is it that donkeys and goats get along? I’ve seen that pairing many times in my travels. And by “travels,” I mean, when I drink Windex and stroke out on my kitchen floor for a couple hours.

books and tits

I smell a new blog name.

Forget “terribleminds.”

This blog is now called “Books And Tits.”

fat guy pink pony

I smell a new sitcom. Or maybe a new sexual move.

beard the fuck on

I want to marry this search term. This is a great exclamation to say to your friends to encourage them.

“John, I’m going to ramp my Vespa over a seven coffins full of bees. Then, when I land, I’m going to speed-write SOUL JUDGE, BOOK 4: MAGUS OPERANDI while hatching a falcon egg in my mouth.”

“You know what I say to that, Steve? I say, beard the fuck on, sir. BEARD THE FUCK ON.”

Yeah.

Beard the fuck on, faithful readers.

Beard the fuck on.

April 20, 2011 / 58 Comments

Another Round Of YAIA: You Ask, I Answer

Sometimes, I go to write a blog post and all I find in my skull is a hollowed-out cavern bereft of even the meagerest crystal or the squirmiest eyeless centipede. It’s all just echoes and dripping water; nothing to see here, quite literally nothing at all. It doesn’t help that today — the day before you’ll actually read this post, as I tend to prep my posts one or several days in advance now — my bowels feel like they’re filled with chewing rats. Rats with ebola. Microwaved ebola. And the rats all have sharp fingers and mining helmets and by god, they’re building a warren.

What I’m saying is, got a small gutty-bug working it in my meat-plumbing. It’s not as bad as the last time I had a gut-bug, because then I was horking up valuable tracts of intestinal real estate and actually pulling neck muscles I was puking so hard.

This is probably very exciting reading for you, isn’t it? Me describing violent regurgitations?

Some might say that’s all this blog is. Violent regurgitations.

Anywho.

What I’m saying is, I got nothing for a new blog post today, but I’m going to be that some of you have something. Thus I introduce the old standby, YAIA: You Ask, I Answer.

Spelunk into the comments. Deposit a question into the dark chasm.

And I’ll answer it. If it’s too long for me to answer in a comment, I’ll take it and turn it into a blog post. Sound reasonable? You can ask me anything. Obviously, writing is a hot topic roundabout these parts, but don’t feel constrained by the chains of that subject, either. Ask me about anything. Favorite Easter candy. Porn. Portal 2. Movies. Twitter. Food politics. My dogs. Whatever.

I don’t know that I’m all that interesting, but I’m happy to have people pick my brain.

My dark, dripping cavern of a brain.

Ready? Let’s do it. Fire when ready.

YAIA!