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April 13, 2011 / 46 Comments

The iPad For Writers

Multitasking is for assholes.

No, no, I know, multitasking is the aegis of the modern man. “I’m walking. I’m talking. I’m chewing bubble gum with my mouth and… well, a couple other orifices. I’ve got a laptop strapped to my chest so I can: hammer out a spreadsheet, listen to Merle Haggard, watch the fuckthousandth version of Rebecca Black’s ‘Friday,’ read about the mating habits of the Vancouver Island stoat, play a little Bejeweled, and masturbate to animatronic animals like those found in Disney’s ‘Country Bear Jamboree.’ Ooh! And I’m on my way to kill a man in Reno just to watch him die. I’m a multitasker, motherfuckers.”

To repeat: multitasking is for assholes.

This is doubly triply quadruply true for we crazy creatures known as “writers.” Writing is a thing of focus. Imagine, if you will, that the train of thought is a very real vehicle, and once you’re on board, it’s best to stay on board. You go hopping on and off that damn thing like some kind of itinerant hobo, you’re going to, well, as the saying goes, lose your train of thought. You watch your mental caboose disappearing down the track. And then what happens? You get eaten by coyotes, that’s what happens.

This is of course why we have a new series of programmatic efforts to shut out distractions and keep you, the writer who has been trained that multitasking is the best thing since Jesus invented the jet-ski, focused. Write Or Die. Freedom. OmmWriter. And so on, and so forth.

Thus I give you: the iPad.

Apple’s iPad is a marvelous device for writers. I didn’t honestly know if it would be when I got mine. Writing is so often driven by a tactile feel: the clack-chack-zing of a typewriter translates to the PC keyboard, and here comes the iPad, which is really just a rectangle of glass. Do you really want to write a novel on a window pane?

Could be, rabbit, could be.

Here, then, are my thoughts on the iPad as a writer’s device. This is not meant to be the end-all be-all: this is just my set-up and why I diggit. If you’re a writer and have an iPad? Please do chime in.

It Is About Separation And Precision

The iPad allows you to easily take your little writer’s window (the device itself) and wander away from your desk. It takes you away from distraction, then gives you the precise tools you need to get the work done.

You might be saying, “But, dumbass, one’s iPad likely hosts an unholy array of distractions,” to which I would agree. I’ve got endless amusements: email, Twitter, World of Goo, Infinity Blade, Words With Friends, Netflix, recipe programs, Flipboard, blah blah blah. Here’s the difference, for me. Right now, my PC has 18 browser tabs open, and 12 programs open on the taskbar. Sometimes, I find myself flitting from tab to tab with no certainty why I’m doing so. It’s like, I have to click them just because they’re there. This is bad when writing, of course — “Did I just end a paragraph in the middle so I could go check a weather report I’ve already checked seven times this morning?” It’s like I have a disease.

The iPad, while still technically a “multitasking device,” does so, but in a reduced and less efficient way. And that lack of efficiency is a good thing, because really, the lack of efficient multitasking creates more efficient uni-tasking. Each app feels like an island, which is just what the doctor ordered.

The Setup

Here, then, how the iPad sits on my desk:

The iPad sits to the right of my computer. “Just another distraction,” you think, and yes, that can be true — but it’s very easy to grab it and walk out of my office. This is key. It also helps me shut down peripheral programs on my own PC and segue them to the iPad: while writing, I shut down everything on my PC but the work, then use the iPad to check Twitter periodically. It’s a trick, I know — but writers are loons, our brains like undisciplined terriers. Sometimes, you need Stupid Writer Tricks.

It rests on a 12 South Compass stand, which in a pinch will also serve as a baton to fight off ninjas or highjackers. Actually, no joke: possession of this device in your carry-on luggage will get you stopped every time, and they will ask you to take it out, and guards will show up to watch your movements as you reveal… ta-da, it’s just an iPad stand, not a Jihadist Infidel Cudgel.

The iPad sits in an Otterbox Commuter case, which is ruggedized to deal with a fall. I do this because I am easily as clumsy as a drunken baboon with a degenerative hip. Easily.

The most important part of my writerly iPad digs is the USB adapter… oh, I’m sorry, I mean, “camera adapter.” This device says it’s only good for connecting cameras to your iPad to download photos and videos. *poop noise* Not true! Not true at all. This little fucker is a straight-up cold-gangsta USB adapter. (“Cold-gangsta?” Shut up.) What this means is: that’s right, you can plug a ~~sexual simulation device~~ USB keyboard into the tablet. It’s funny, because even when you plug in the keyboard, the iPad tells you: “Oh, uhh, yeah, that device is totally unsupported. Just unplug it now. Don’t even try to type on it. You’ll fail. You’re doomed. Seriously, wait –” And then you try it and, oops, yeah, it works fine.

Typing on the capacitive screen isn’t terrible, but to get heavy-duty writing done, you’re gonna want a keyboard. And this lets you have that.

(Oh, and I have the Wi-Fi only iPad. This lends itself further toward the “minimal distraction” thing, because the inability to find a 3G signal is great: again, minimum multitasking leads to maximum output.)

The Apps

Of course, it’s all about the apps, baby.

Here, then, are the apps that inform my writer’s existence. In no particular order…

Dropbox: If you do not know and love the Dropbox, then I must wonder exactly when you suffered traumatic head injury. Dropbox lets you backup your wordmonkeying. Not iPad-specific, which means you can access it on whatever device you choose. Free.

PlainText: This is my word processor of choice on Ye Jolly Olde iPadde. It’s minimalist. It syncs to Dropbox. It counts your words. Great place to take notes or even write whole chapters. Doesn’t hurt that it’s totally free.

Kindle: Duh. Kindle. Books. iBooks is good, but has few books available. Free.

Netflix: You’re saying, “Another distraction, Wendig. I’m on to you, you sonofabitch. Trying to justify your bad behavior.” No, seriously, Netflix instant streaming is intensely useful as a writer. Great documentary work on there plus shows from History Channel and National Geographic. Good research material. See also: TED talks, which has an app. Free.

GoodReader: Read and annotate PDFs? Yes, please. I think it’s only a buck.

NoteTaker HD: Cool program that lets you use your finger (or a stylus, I guess) to take notes. But here’s where it really shines for me: writers get a lot of contracts, especially when freelance, and this lets you take a PDF and scrawl on it with your finger-pen. Which means you can sign PDF contracts, save ’em, and send those suckers right back to the client. No need to fuck around with printers and the post office. Five bucks.

Index Card: Great visual outlining tool that simulates the look of index cards on a corkboard. Great for hitting the beats or tentpoles in a planned fiction project. Can also turn into a line-item outline without the visuals, too, which is handy. Index Card is a writer’s best buddy. Oh! Syncs with Dropbox. Five bucks.

SketchBook Pro: I got this on sale for a couple bucks, but normally I think it runs about eight. I wouldn’t call this an essential in terms of writing-related apps since its straight-up visual, still, it’s nice to have some doodle space that is a little prettier than what you get with Note Taker.

Popplet: On the iPhone, I use SimpleMind, but only recently did SimpleMind get a native iPad app which will then cost me an additional seven bucks to buy — unfortunately, even though it appears universal, it’s not universal. Doesn’t much matter because in the meantime I got hooked into Popplet, which actually has greater functionality in some ways: drag-and-drop mind-maps can also include little doodles and images. This is, by the way, what the corkboard simulator Corkulous is missing — the ability to connect pieces together to create a kind of narrative flow. Five bucks.

2Do: Confession: I actually hate all of the iPhone/iPad “to-do” lists. I want items that I can schedule but also snooze, and so far, that just doesn’t seem to exist. This is the best I could find, but to be honest, most of my to-do stuff has segued to a whiteboard in my office.

What’s Missing?

I tried Scrivener for the PC and I just didn’t get my head around it. That said, I was busy on deadlines (when am I not?) and didn’t have time to dick around with new software. Even still, I could sense the potential, and think that on the iPad something like Scrivener would really rock. But I don’t know that an iPad version is planned? I remember reading it was, but now I can’t find the info. Hrm.

As yet, Final Draft is not on the device, though it is coming.

I wish for a greater web-clipping service, something that allows me to easily clip webby bits and incorporate them immediately and easily into my workflow (Index Card, Popplet, etc).

Speaking Of Workflow

Generally speaking, I do not write large swathes of story on the iPad. I use the PC for that, but I can believe that the days of the desktop write-machine will draw to a close over the next couple years. At present, the iPad is a super-capable organizational device. I keep the iPad handy to take notes, to arrange materials, to do some “on-screen thinking out-loud,” and, yes, to play some motherfucking Words With Friends. It is an elegant supplement to the writer’s life, and actually does a lot of what I want to do, except mysteriously it does it better than the PC, which often can barely do the things I want it to do in the first damn place. Good mind-map? Not on the PC. Index card outlining? Not on the PC. Sign contracts with the magic of my middle finger? Not on the PC. The iPad is this weird little happy box, this wonderful magic window.

In the end, the iPad is like a little helper monkey.

A penmonkey for the penmonkey, perhaps.

Should you rush out and buy one if you’re a writer? Well. That’s on you. It’ll help, but it’s also not a necessary device. Still, note that it is tax deductible if you’re a working writer and, further, is a suitable notebook/laptop replacement (in my opinion), and manages to be a helluva lot cheaper, to boot. So, YMMV and all that, but the iPad will supplement your writing life in a meaningful way.

Plus: PORTABLE ANIMATRONIC BEAR PORN.

I mean, uhhh.

*smoke bomb*

April 12, 2011 / 39 Comments

How Not To Bug The Fuck Out When Writing A Novel

“I watched a snail crawl along the edge of a straight razor. That’s my dream; that’s my nightmare. Crawling, slithering, along the edge of a straight razor… and surviving.”

— Kurtz, APOCALYPSE NOW

There comes a point during the writing of a novel when, in the thick of it, some 30 or 40,000 words deep, you look down and wonder, how did you get naked, exactly? Where are your clothes? Why are you covered in grass-stains, your flesh marked by thorn-scratches? Why in your hair do you smell boar’s blood and the mating fluids of forest nymphs? Time is lost in clips and stretches. You feel disconnected from your body. You see a fly on the window batting its wings and you’re like, “I could eat you. I could sustain myself forever on you. Or I could shrink myself teeny-tiny-itty-bitty and ride you into battle against my foes.”

It’s time then to realize you have, as they say, bugged the fuck out.

I just finished a novel, and I had moments where I rubbed elbows with a crazier version of myself, a version of myself with blood in his beard and the flesh of the imaginary pterodactyl ‘neath my fingertips. But somehow, I kept it together. I dared not lose my shit because, Sweet Molly McGibbons, I was on deadline. You fuck with a deadline, you get fucked by the deadline. That’s freelancer law.

I figured that it might be worth it to try to figure out exactly how I stopped myself from going off the reservation to live in the mud and the leaves, and here’s what I came up with.

Together, we shall stave off this indefatigable novel-born madness.

Lay Down Breadcrumbs

Writing a novel is just freaking weird, man. Feels like you’re wandering through a dark forest with a lantern whose meager light is cast by a flock of disgruntled and unpredictable fireflies. It’s like a Miyazaki film up in this bitch. It’s hazy and dizzy and dreary and giddy and did I mention weird? Weird. Weird, weird, weird. It is exodus, epiphany, and egress all rolled into one.

So, it helps to have a plan. Further, it helps to track your plan as you go. Now, that doesn’t mean having an outline if you don’t want it — though, an outline is certainly one way to do this. But even if you just figure out how much you need to write per day to get the novel done by so-and-so deadline, you’re already a little bit ahead. Word count matters. Your schedule matters. Track that shit on a spreadsheet — no, no, I hear you, a spreadsheet will burn the tender fingertips of the creative writer the way an angel’s lusty secretions will blind a demon by cooking his eyeballs in his fool demon head. Still, I’ve learned to love the spreadsheet, just so I know where I’m at on my word journey.

You have all manner of plan at your disposal: spreadsheets, mind-maps, outlines, treatments, beat sheets, notebooks filled with your lunatic scrawls and inked in your own tears and urine, etc.

Use them. It’ll help put a boot on the neck of your sanity as it squirms and screams and tries to escape your house through the cat door. Anything to keep yourself on target and not ape-bat insane.

Sprint Now, And Thank Me Later

What I’m trying to say is, “Get a little bit ahead.” It’s like investment banking: save up some extra word count early in the process and that shit will pay in dividends later on. Because inevitably you’re going to have a day where it’s like, “Oh, the dishwasher exploded? And it took out the stove? And now the kitchen is filled with both soapy floodwater and jetting fire? What’s that, you say? Goblins have colonized the attic? I’m not going to get any writing done today, am I?” And then, voila, you whip out that banked word count and you’re like, “Magic! I did my writing for today, I just happened to bank it last Tuesday.”

You’ll feel like a mad genius, you will. You might even go back in time to thank yourself.

ASAFPMF*

* As Soon As Fucking Possible, Motherfucker.

Don’t wait. Write as early in the day as you can. Get it out. Exorcise the word demons. On an average day, even the best of us build up bad energy the way boat hulls collect barnacles, and with that scummy aggregation you start to lose intellectual energy. Mornings tend to be when your brain is at its lemon-scented freshest, so hop on pop and get moving. This also means you’re giving fate a reduced opportunity to saddlebag you later in the day — 4pm rolls around and suddenly it’s all, “I forgot that I left my children at the reptile house at the Zoo. Or was it the primate house? Ooooh. Uh-oh.” There goes your daily word count as you battle howler monkeys and hooded cobras in a battle for your children’s allegiance.

Stop Shoveling Garbage Into Your Lumpy Writer’s Body

That diet of caffeinated Fritos and nougat-filled pork rinds is not the breakfast of champions. It is, in fact, the brunch of the insane. What you put in your body during the time of novel-writing genuinely matters. What you eat affects your mental state, and if you’re too sluggardly or cracked-out, your writing for that day is going to be a) not completed or b) as incomprehensible as the chitterings of a distempered raccoon.

Here’s what I did. I drank a cup of coffee first thing in the morning and then, mid-morning, a cup of green tea. Green tea is nice because it keeps you awake and alert but dulls the edge of that morning’s coffee. Then, I ate protein. Eggs first thing (eggs are brain food, or so I’m told). Then until lunch, some light snacking: almonds, cottage cheese, some dried fruit or veggies. No carbs, and especially no sugar. Carbs are for when you need to burn energy. Sitting your pudding-laden bottom in a chair and writing is not the way you expend energy. Finally, Scotch or Bourbon at night. To clear the head.

I actually lost weight during the writing of the novel, which surprised me.

Maybe I have a tapeworm?

Mmm. Tapeworms.

The Only Thing Left To Do Is Dance

Oh, also, a little exercise goes a long way. I mean, you don’t have to actually dance. Unless the spirit moves you. In which case, move that booty, rump-shaker. Move it like they just made rump-shaking illegal.

Pre-Program Your Brain Like A VCR, Before VCRs Went Extinct Like The Dodo

Seriously, you ever try to find a VCR for sale anymore? You’d have better luck finding an undisturbed Yeti print in your backyard. What was I talking about? Ah. Right. Your brain.

On a day where I have serious word count to attack, I sometimes awaken that morning with deep and freakish anxiety as if I am — well, I don’t even know how to describe it. It’s equal parts, “I’m not worthy of the task that has been placed in my hand” and “OH MY GOD MY BOWELS ARE FULL OF SCORPIONS.” Oh! Oh. You know what it’s like? Waking up the day of a test at school, a test about which you forgot, a test for which you are woefully under-prepared. A test you will be forced to take in the nude. With a dunce cap on your head. A dunce cap full of stinky bowel-scorpions.

Thing is, I find that if I preset my brain like some kind of storytelling slow-cooker, I can wake up without that fear threatening to suck my heart outta my nether-holes. It’s like this: before bed, I take a handful of moments to think about the next day’s work — where are the characters, what do they need to do, where do I need the story to be — then I can go to sleep and let my unconscious thoughtmachine chew on it.

Zero real effort on my part, and it helps to provide focus come morning.

Shit Happens, But Shit Comes Out In The Wash

I said it the other day on Twitter, but it perhaps bears repeating:

Writing is when you make the words.

Editing is when you make the words not shitty.

Writing the novel is the long slog through a deep mire, but it’s not a one-and-done deal. This is just the first voyage West — provided your wagons don’t break down and you don’t murder all your characters and consume their flesh like the icy Wendigo, you’re going to do fine. Once you’ve got the route planned, it’s time for editing. And editing is refinement. It’s all hatchet-and-scalpel.

Writing is art. Editing is science. All of it together is craft.

Calm down about the first draft.

Your story is truly formed during the editing process.

Calm Down, You’re Not Curing Cancer

I don’t know why, but it feels like writing a novel is some weighty responsibility, some cross made of aurum borne upon your sagging penmonkey shoulders.

Yeah, listen. Storytelling is genuinely some epic, mythic, fucked-up magical business. It’s important. It really is. The world is build on the bones of stories. Stories have the power to change lives.

But even still, you’re not curing cancer. You’re not powering up the Large Hadron Collider. A house is not burning down with a basket of kittens inside that only you can save.

Vent a little of the pressure off yourself. Not enough to go slack and stop writing (if you do that, I will hunt you down and beat you with your own swollen indolence), but enough to not feel like you’re carrying the world on your shoulders. Writing is a little bit like sex: there’s a very real “mental game” component going on upstairs. You get too choked up under pressure, you’re not going to finish. Not the sex, not the novel.

How else you gonna reach the mighty endjaculation? After all, “climax” is apropos to both fiction writing and sweet-sweet love-monkeying.

How about you, word-herders and ink-thinkers? How do you get through the writing process from start to finish, be it a novel, a screenplay, a memoir, an endless manifesto of rage-fueled anarchy?

“In some inland post feel the savagery, the utter savagery, had closed round him — all that mysterious life of the wilderness that stirs in the forest, in the jungles, in the hearts of wild men. There’s no initiation either into such mysteries. He has to live in the midst of the incomprehensible, which is detestable. And it has a fascination, too, which goes to work upon him. The fascination of the abomination — you know. Imagine the growing regrets, the longing to escape, the powerless disgust, the surrender, the hate.”

— Joseph Conrad, HEART OF DARKNESS

April 11, 2011 / 22 Comments

Go Ahead, Shoot The Baby

Good news: I finished the novel. Better news: I still have to do some editing, so I’m reserving a portion of this week for that purpose. Best news: that means you still get some guest posts from some awesome human beings. First up this week is Stephen Blackmoore, an all around awesome dude and great urban fantasy writer. His first book, CITY OF THE LOST, drops next year, and the follow-up, DEAD THINGS, not long after. In fact, I just had the pleasure of reading DEAD THINGS, and it was one of the most gripping books I read all of last year. So. Here’s Stephen, then. Don’t forget to check out his website, LA NOIR, and follow the man on Der Twittermachine: @sblackmoore.

I’ve been watching a lot of film noir from the forties and fifties over at Noir City, the noir film festival going on this month at The Egyptian Theater in Hollywood, and I’ve noticed something that’s been bothering me.

There are a lot of happy endings.

Sure, people die. There’s betrayal, shattered dreams, physical and psychological torture. But come on, you don’t have that you don’t have film noir. But with few exceptions the protagonists not only survive, they fall in love and live happily ever after.

Seriously, what the fuck?

Take the film THE HUNTED (**spoilers ahead, but that’s okay because chances are you’ll never see this movie**) with Preston Foster and Belita, who’s got to have one of the weirdest careers in film noir history. It’s about a cop who sent his lover up the river for robbery four years before and she might not have done it. Now she’s out on parole after vowing (cue dramatic chord) vengeance.

There’s a creepy factor, Foster was 48 when he made this movie and Belita’s character is 20, which means his character was banging her when she was sixteen, so that’s nicely disturbing. But that one scene where everything is supposed to climax in a hail of bullets and they kill each other before discovering she’s been cleared of the robbery and a subsequent murder?

Doesn’t happen. He gets shot in the shoulder. Shrugs it off. Her Electra complex is in full swing so she forgives him for railroading her into Tehachapi for four years. They jet off to Paris.

This is film noir cock block at its worst. Instead of walloping you with the haymaker you’re waiting for it taps you on the cheek in a pissy little slapfight. An otherwise interesting little film gets ruined because it pussies out at the last minute.

And that’s the writer lesson for today. Don’t pull your punches.

Everybody’s got a line they don’t want to cross. Ideas they’re not comfortable with. And those lines tend to extend into the things they like to read. I’m not saying it’s a one to one. Most of us, well, most of you, don’t really want to murder people.

But we’re just fine watching it on teevee. At least until we run into one of our lines.

There’s this thing in publishing I keep hearing about how if you hurt animals or children in your book you’ll alienate readers and get hate mail. Everything else is fair game.

Go ahead, eat the dismembered corpse of your antagonist. Lop off his head and ram it onto a stick. Just don’t shoot the baby.

You know what? Fuck that. Shoot the baby.

Your readers’ boundaries are there to be used. Violence, sex, torture, whatever. Those lines they don’t want you to cross, beat on them with a baseball bat. They’re chinks in their emotional armor. They’re exploitable. And whether you like the idea or not, as a writer you’re a dirty, lying manipulator.

Case in point, the novel BOULEVARD by Stephen Jay Schwartz. It’s about an LAPD vice cop who’s a sex addict. So, you know, it’s got sex. Lots of sex. Oooooh. Sex. Sex sex sex.

And it makes your skin crawl.

Schwartz has got sex scenes in this book that make you want to bathe in turpentine. It’s awkward, uncomfortable, explicit. There’s nothing erotic in it. It’s like watching an alcoholic go on a weekend bender.

He doesn’t pull his punches and instead of titillating, it’s tragic. And when it clicks just how fucked up this guy’s life is Schwartz owns you.

Now there is one thing about this I will say you can’t, must not, never, ever, ever do. Really.

DO NOT FUCKING WASTE IT.

It’s like that Bugs Bunny / Daffy Duck cartoon where they’re competing for the best vaudeville act and Daffy wins by blowing himself up. The audience cheers and Bugs tells him they love the act. His response?

“I know, I know, but I can only do it once.”

You got one shot at this. Do not fuck it up. The only thing worse than pulling your punches is swinging and missing.

You see it all the time. A killing that’s just there because the writer is trying to be edgy. There’s no emotional impact. It’s not there for the story, it’s there so the writer can jump up and down and go, “Look at me! I’m one of the cool kids! Watch me swing my dick around! It does tricks!”

That right there is what we mean by gratuitous. Don’t be gratuitous.

Unless you’re showing nudity. Then be as gratuitous as you like.

I mean, come on, that shit sells.

April 8, 2011 / 42 Comments

Like Gas On A Fire

Been quite a week. Saw the last ultrasound of my son before he’ll be born (poor boy, he looks like me). Finished a script, which is now off into the wilds, trying to gather financing like a big Hollywood Katamari ball. Started early development on another film project. Sent off two novel synopses. Wrote like a mad motherfucker and finished the novel, Double Dead, topping out at ~90,000 words.

And then last night I get home from “baby class” — where we were injected with deep panic regarding car seats — to discover that Writer’s Digest has named this blog one of the 101 Best Websites For Writers.

First, I must extend a sincere thank you to the folks at Writer’s Digest. I don’t know who was responsible, exactly, but they should know that I appreciate it. A wonderful surprise.

That said, I must also extend with that a sincere warning, as well.

You have made a terrible error. A grievous error. (Man, “grievous” is a great word.)

You know how sometimes you have an out-of-control toddler or a dog with bad habits, and someone inevitably rewards the child or dog and then someone has to step in to say, “Don’t encourage him?”

Mm-hmm. This is like that.

Good heavens, why would you encourage me? It’s like pouring gas on a fire. No, not even that. It’s like giving meth to a grizzly bear. Then giving the grizzly bear a jetpack and a Turkish scimitar. No good is going to come of that. Sure, you want to see what the grizzly is going to do. But it’s just not safe. It’s not even sane.

That scenario has no positive outcome.

The only result of putting this site on such an estimable list confirms that you’ve filled my head with the airy delusions of legitimacy. It’s like you’ve handed me a license from the government, and printed on this license are the benefits of said licensing, and those benefits listed include:

“The right to make up writing advice and claim legitimacy despite only threadbare authority;”

“The right to fustigate readers about the head and neck with false bravado and eye-watering profanity;”

“The right to use words like ‘fustigate;'”

“The right to guzzle a pony’s weight in liquor while doing all of the above.”

You’ve not only unlocked the cage door. You’ve thrown the key into a dark and endless abyss. This will have terrible repercussions. Twenty years from now, I’m going to be telling my then-20-year-old-son something and he’s going to say, “Dad, I don’t know if that’s right, I don’t think anybody actually found the Humbaba from the Epic of Gilgamesh in Lake Erie. You’re just making that up.” And I’m going to whip out my copy of Writer’s Digest and point to the 101 Best Websites For Writers, and I’m going to just tap #43 gently and clear my throat obnoxiously, thus indicating my false expertise in everything everywhere ever always. And then my son is going to ask me, “Dude, what’s a website?” And I’ll answer, “It’s like a dinosaur, except with more pornography. And don’t call me ‘dude,’ I’m your father.”

Then he’ll ask me, “What’s a writer?”

And I’ll just cry and remind him that writers all went extinct in 2013 when the price of e-books hovered roughly around “one possum tail and a handful of dried leaves.”

So, haters who think I’m gonna shut up? Oooh. Yeah, sorry. Like I said, gas on a fire. Conflagration, whoosh. Now I’ve a whole head full of illusion, my ego like a fatted calf.

Those who continue to dig on this site, well, buckle up, penmonkeys. The ride is only just getting going. Turns out, terribleminds ain’t going nowhere.

Thank you again to Writer’s Digest.

Now —

RELEASE THE METH-GRIZZLY!

*raaaaaar*

April 8, 2011 / 55 Comments

Flash Fiction Challenge: The Cocktail

First and foremost:

Last week’s flash fiction challenge is here — The Unexplained Must Be Explained. Stories may be coming in throughout the day, so feel free to check back over yonder.

Second:

Welcome back. It’s time, again, to play with flash fiction the way a cat plays with a dead mouse. Batting it back and forth. Bringing it to your owners to show off. Making little Prada handbags out of it.

Today’s challenge: choose a cocktail, and name your story after it. The great thing is, you have a lot of leeway here: the cocktails that exist in this world are nigh-endless. From the common (Dirty Martini, Tom Collins, Whiskey Sour) to the WTF (Satan’s Whiskers, Electric Smurf, Monkey Gland). The story doesn’t need to incorporate the cocktail, though you’re certainly welcome to do that.

Also: bonus points if you give the cocktail recipe after the story. Because, fuck it, we’re all lushes here, right? Right. High-five, those whose livers look like beach-balls or peach-pits.

Here’s the tweak:

You only have 500 words this go around.

And, the goal is still to use those 500 words to tell a full story, not just a vignette. Remember, flash fiction ideally has a beginning, middle, and an end; they’re just trimmed, sharpened, heightened.

Standard rules apply. Post at your blog. Link back here if you’d like. Then post a link (don’t rely on the trackback) in the comments in this post. Any questions, shoot ’em my way.

I think I will once more begin aggregating the links because, frankly, I think it made it easier to view the links. I’m going to try to keep on it as they come in, through, for ease of attack.

Get thee to writing, you ink-stained drunken baboons!

[EDIT: Doh, I didn’t make clear: You’ve got one week, till the close of next Friday, 4/15.]

The Stories

Lindsay Mawson, “A.S.S. On Flames”

Josin McQuein, “Flaming Moe”

Anthony Laffan, “Satan’s Whiskers”

Quinn Slater, “Camel Piss”

McDroll, “The Smokey Carburetor”

Madison Morris, “Sex With Captain Or Babymomma”

Aiwevanya, “Bloody Mary”

Anthony Schiavino, “Jack Rose”

Dan O’Shea, “Bloody Mary”

AB, “The Corpse Reviver”

Shauna Granger, “Irish Gold”

Stephanie Belser, “Zombie”

Sparky, “Rattlesnake”

Eck, “Tee Many Martini”

Neliza Drew, “Paradise”

Tim Kelley, “Primal Scream”

Bob Bois, “Lucy On The Floor”

KD James, “Tom Collins”

Pia Newman, “Swimming Pool”

Angie Arcangioli, “Negroni Splash”

Carolyn E. Bentley, “Mugging In Moscow”

Tara Tyler, “J Is For Jello Shooter”

Marlan, “Mad Cow Special”

Seth, “Moscow Mule”

Paul Vogt, “Snake In The Grass”

Dan Wright, “Gin And Sin”

Tribid, “G&T”

Joseph McGee, “A Murder Of Crows”

C.M. Stewart, “Tom Cullen”

April 7, 2011 / 28 Comments

The Mighty Endjaculation

I love ending a story.

Here’s why:

Because eventually you reach a space where it’s the point of no return. You’ve been building. And building. Climbing the hill. Worrying at the bone with your teeth. And suddenly it’s all there. You can only go down. It all comes together how it has to come together and —

Well, use whatever metaphor you like.

Roller coaster cresting a hill.

Throwing up and purging after a long night of feeling like shit.

The climactic ejaculation — the blog-titular “mighty endjaculation.”

You either get there or you don’t. If you get there, you know it adds up. Maybe it’s not good, but sweet fuck, it adds up. And it happens fast, too. You have momentum. You use gravity. That’s the best part about writing an ending, or even a whole third act. No more confusion. Only a kind of weird eerie purity. The way is clear. Run, fuck, kill, or die. You’ve already jumped off the bridge. Now all you gotta do is fall.

It happened when I finished Blackbirds. I hit the last act and it all just burped out of me.

It happened when I finished the script for HiM. We knew where it needed to go and how it was going to happen and when the time came to bang it out, those last days of writing I was hitting 10, 15 pages a day.

It happened just now, 20 minutes ago, when I finished Double Dead.

Wrote 4k day before yesterday. Wrote 4k yesterday. Today? 7k.

Double Dead is double done.

And by “double done” I mean “not actually done at all.” This is just the first draft. I gotta do a pass. Editor’s gotta do a pass. Writing is rewriting, after all. But I will say, it feels good. I’m happy. For today, at least. And I’m going to run with that. Run with it all the way home, cackling, giggling, doing cartwheels. Metaphorical carthwheels. If I tried to do the real thing, I’d break my fool neck.

For now, I breathe a big giant exhalation of air.

Who wants some whisky?

*clink*