Tag: hahaha (page 6 of 6)

Funny Shit

January 20, 2011 / 130 Comments

No, Seriously, I’m Not Fucking Around, You Really Don’t Want To Be A Writer

You don’t want to be a writer.

No, no, I know. You think it’s all kittens and rainbows. It’s one big wordgasm, an ejaculation of unbridled creativity. It’s nougat-filled. It’s pillows, marshmallows, parades. It’s a unicorn in a jaunty hat.

Oh, how sweet the illusion. My job, though, is to put my foot through your dreams with a high karate kick.

Consider this your reality check. You’ll note that I do this periodically: I’m here, standing at the edge of the broken bridge in the pouring rain, waving you off — it’s too late for me. My car’s already gone over the edge. I’ve already bought the magic beans. I’ve already bought into the fairy’s lie. I tried to pet the unicorn in its jaunty hat and it ran me through with its corkscrew horn, and now I am impaled.

See my hands? They’re shaking. They won’t stop. I’m like Tom Hanks in Shaving Ryan’s Privates.

I am too far gone.

You, on the other hand, may yet be saved. I see a lot of you out there. An army of writers. Glistening eyes. Lips dewy with the froth of hope. You’re all so fresh. So innocent. Unmolested by the truth.

And so it is time for my annual “Holy Crap The New Year Is Here And Now You Should Reevaluate Your Shit And Realize You’d Be Much Happier As An Accountant Or Botanist Or Some Fucking Thing” post.

More reasons you do not — awooga, awooga, caution, cuidado, verboten — want to be a writer:

It’s The Goddamned Publipocalypse And Now We’re All Doomed

The meteors are coming. Tides of fire are washing up on beaches. Writers are running scared. The publishing industry has heard the seven trumpets and it wails and gibbers.

It’s bad out there.

You know how many books you have to sell to get on the New York Times Bestseller List? Four. You sell four print copies of a book, whoo, dang, you’re like the next Stephen King. Heck, some authors are selling negative numbers. “How many books did you sell this week?” “Negative seven.” “I don’t understand.” “My books are like gremlins. You spill water on them and they multiply. And then pirates steal them and give them away for free. Hey, do you have a gun, because I’d like to eat it.”

Borders pissed the bed. Editors are out of work. Fewer authors are being signed and for less money up front. Jesus, you have a better shot of getting eaten by a bear and a shark at the same time.

And e-books. Pshhh. Don’t even get me started on e-books. Did you know that they eat real books? They eat them right up. That’s what the “e” stands for. “Eat Books.” I’m not messing with you, I have seen it happen. Plus, every time an e-book is born, a literary agent gets a tapeworm. True fact.

I’m cold and frightened. The rest of us writers, we’re going to build a bunker and hole up in it. Maybe form some kind of self-publishing cult and wait out the Pubpocalypse in our vault. We’ll all break down into weird little genre-specific tribes. Horror slashers, elf-fuckers, steampunk iron men, and space whores. But it’ll be the poets who will win. The poets with their brevity and their stanzas. And their bloody claws.

Eventually Editors And Agents Are All Going To Snap (And It’ll Be Our Fault)

It’s easier now than ever to submit to an agent or an editor. Used to be you had to jump through some hoops, maybe print some shit out, pay some cash to ship your big ol’ book out into the world. Now any diaper-rash with a copy of Wordperfect, an e-mail address and a dream can send his 10-book fantasy epic to a thousand agents with the push of a button.

Click! “Here, please consume this sewage as if it were a meal!”

This is your competition. Sure, you might be a real gem, a right jolly ol’ corker of a writer with skills and art and craft and a sexy smug author photo. But these wild-eyed crazy-heads are your competition.

Don’t think so? Peep this scenario:

Your manuscript arrives in the inbox of an agent with 450 unread messages just from that morning. At least 445 of those unread mails comprise a festering heap of word-dung, and that agent has to get through these and write some kind of “No, I don’t want to rep your book about a chosen one Messiah space pilot hermaphrodite ring-bearer wombat-trainer blacksmith” rejection letter. And she has to do it again and again. And again. And again. Times 400. Let’s be honest, by Piece Of Crap #225, that agent has basically lost her mind. Her brain is a treacly, yogurt-like substance that smells faintly of coffee and disappointment.

So, when she gets to your manuscript (#451), it’s late in the day. Sure, she might read it and be cowed by your brilliance — “Holy crap, it’s not crap!” — but realistically, she can’t even see straight. She hates everything. She wants to punch the life out of baby animals. Her madness and anger have been honed. It is a machete one could use to strike down God and prune his limbs.

That agent’s on a hair trigger.

Once she gets to yours, she reads that first sentence and doesn’t like that one comma and blammo, she’s firing off a rejection letter. And before too long she’ll be out on the ledge firing off a high-powered rifle.

You don’t want that kind of guilt on your head, do you?

Evidently, Society Still Requires “Money” To Procure Goods And Services

Few writers make enough money to earn a so-called “living wage.”

What is a living wage, you ask? It’s an annual wage that allows you to not perish. It allows you to not freeze to death, or not live in a dumpster where your extremities are eaten by opossum, or not die of starvation under an underpass. I mean, let’s be clear: most writers earn less than your average hobo. A hobo, he might earn ten bucks an hour. Sure, it goes toward booze or toward his raging Magic: The Gathering habit, but still, it’s more than you get paid to be a wordmonkey.

Okay, yeah, I earn a living wage, but you know how hard I have to work? I have to write like, 10,000 words per day. Backwards. While I provide sexual favors to industry insiders with my left hand (the sinister hand is the only hand appropriate for the tasks I give it to perform, be assured).

Since society still demands that we pay it money — and not, say, wampum or words or sexy dances — then trust me, it is not worth it being a writer. A writer, you’re basically just a homeless troglodyte.

Your Soul Remains Uncrushed, Your Mind Is Intact, And Your Orifices Unviolated

First comes the ceaseless parade of rejection. (Probably because you’re just not that good, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t sting, right?) You’re punched in the pink parts over and over again. It’d be comical if it were happening to anybody else, but it’s not. It’s happening to you.

Then, should you have the good fortune of getting published, you are now going to be dragged through a house of possible horrors. Seriously, you should hear the horror stories.

“My contract requires me to tithe a cup of blood every Tuesday morning. A man in a dark hat and a wine-colored cardigan shows up at my door, gives me a plastic cup, and then I have to blood-let into the cup. I don’t know what this has to do with my book, but I think it has something to do with my soul.”

“I found a stipulation in my contract that, should they be able to prove that I used a Barnes & Noble restroom, they could force me to pay back my advance. Also, they stole my shoes.”

“I did not get to approve my own cover art, and for some reason the cover of my paranormal thriller features an orangutan peeing into his own mouth. At least he’s wearing a monocle.”

“I must’ve mis-read. Here I thought they owed me 17% royalty on every e-book sold. Actually, I owe them a 17% royalty on every e-book sold. Mea culpa. Time to pay the piper. Literally. They sent a piper to my house and his pan-pipes play a discordant tune that drives cats mad.”

“Someone spent my marketing budget on cake and whores.”

After all that’s said and done, you have to go through it again with your second book. Which probably nobody will publish. Because they hate you.

Because The Fucking Snooki Book, That’s Why

At first I was like, “Eh, so what, Snooki got a book. Blah blah blah. We’ve seen trash celebrity books for years. Publisher’s gotta eat. Who cares? It’s not the end of the world.”

No, no, it’s definitely the end of the world.

Snooki shouldn’t even be allowed outside and amongst the public without a handler. She’s like a shapeshifting gonorrhea monster. That girl has more brain in her hair than she does in her actual head. And yet I know talented writers who are struggling, but Snooki — some kind of orange monkey-goblin — gets paid enough money to buy a house full of solid gold tanning beds. And, her book is apparently tanking. And, the Today Show chose to put her on instead of a literary icon like Jane Yolen.

That’s what it is to be a writer these days.

Snooki, who is by all reports the equivalent to a drunken, self-aware slime mold, is way, way higher up on the food chain than Jane Yolen. And Jane Yolen is way, way higher up on the food chain than you. Think about that. Think about just how screwed that makes you. It’s like a crazy house. It’s like an asylum where they let that guy who paints leprechaun porn in his own waste run the joint. And there are you and Jane Yolen, holed up in Room 313, the only sane ones in the whole zip code while an army of Snooki Zombies (their book deals flailing in their rotten, epileptic grip) tries to kill you. Or have sex with you.

*shudder*

You don’t want to be a writer.

Turn back now. Save yourself.

While you still can.

January 6, 2011 / 28 Comments

Why Are Dead Birds Falling From The Sky? (Hint: It’s Totally My Fault)

Dear Publishers Of Books:

You may have noticed that, around the world, birds are dropping out of the sky like frozen poop from an airplane bathroom. These dead birds are found all over the map — Arkansas, Kentucky, Georgia, Italy, Sweden — and many suspect these instances will increase as the coming Hellpocalypse of Cthulhu’s awakening draws closer. You will note, of course, that the first birds to go were several thousand (also calculated as “one fuck-ton”) of dead red-wing blackbirds in Arkansas, and days later, more blackbirds took a free-falling dirt-nap in Louisiana. Further, in Sweden, you will see that the birds that perished there were jackdaws — which sounds like a totally made-up bird, but I assure you, is no more made up than the titmouse, boobie, or nuthatch. Jackdaws are in fact a type of crow. Or they are at least “crow-flavored.”

Let’s switch gears for a moment.

You may have also noticed that I am a penmonkey (equal parts “game designer,” “screenwriter,” “alcoholic,” and “novelist”), and it is the latter identifier that should ring a bell, as my novel BLACKBIRDS is out on submission with you fine, friendly folks, and has been for a number of months, now. You may gaze upon a mock cover I did for this novel below:

This novel deals with a cranky, profane psychic character, Miriam Black, who has a very curious way of solving murders before they happen. It is a book very much about death and how we deal with it. It is also funny and contains both sex and blood, and who doesn’t like that? Communists, that’s who.

I have, over the course of many moons, received a cascading series of glowing rejections from your wonderful industry. Editors love the book! They assure me that they would not change a thing. “Huzzah!” I thought, “What good news!” But then I got to the part of the letter where it also says something like, “We love the book and it’s perfect as it is and yet, somehow, mysteriously, we could not convince the army of terminators our sales board that this was a book that would sell more than seven copies. They remain in fact unconvinced that even your mother would buy a copy. Trust us. We called her. We asked her. She shrugged and gave a half-committal ennh, then said something about how you write rude books about rude people and why don’t you write a nice book about a girl who buys a pony? She also reminds you to call her. As we feel that you are a bad son and a wonderful but unsellable author, we have decided to not publish your truly spectacular standout don’t-change-a-thing novel, BLACKBIRDS.”

This is of course a shame, because I feel I am a prime catch. First: I’m dead sexy. (I look hot dressed up as a Barnes and Noble book display.) Second: I am nothing if not loud and irritating, so you can be assured I will market this novel until my fingers are worked to bloody nubs and my tongue explodes. Third: I have that mythical “writer’s platform” thing covered. Fourth: I think I wrote a pretty snazzy book with a flawed-but-lovable murder-solvin’ psychic-havin’ sexy-bein’ character that people seem to really enjoy reading.

You may at this point be asking, “Wasn’t this asshole supposed to answer the mystery of the dead birds?”

I am, and will.

You see, it is not coincidental that the name of my book is BLACKBIRDS and that many of the dead birds are also blackbirds (or, at least, birds that happen to be black of feather). It is also not coincidental that my book is about death and solving murders, and this mystery of the birds also orbits the cheerful, charming subject of death, doom, and gloom. Why is that, you ask?

I’m totally the guy killing all those birds.

Whew. I’m really glad to have that off my chest.

It’s been so hard! Seriously. Go ahead — you try to kill a metric fuck-ton of birds by yourself in order to pimp out your unsold novel. It’s really tough stuff! I have had to shoot fireworks into flocks of grackles, I’ve had to rig up supervillain-esque contraptions that hoses blackbirds down with water before blasting them with the coruscating energy from a secret Nikola Tesla device, I’ve had to break into secret government labs and release toxic Phosgene into the atmosphere. Heck, I’ve even had to pilot an ultra light plane amongst the birds while (with a free-hand) clubbing them all to death with a croquet mallet.

I am, frankly, exhausted.

Unfortunately, the bird deaths will continue as long as my novel remains unsold. This is, of course, regrettable, but I see no other course of action beyond these Blofeld-like tactics.

For every day that my novel goes unsold, I will continue punching, scalding, exploding, electrocuting, poisoning, and tickling birds to death. I have already begun to expand my purview beyond blackbirds and crows — you may have read about the thousands of dead doves in Italy? Yup. That was me. My only regret there was that I could not also manage to spraypaint them all black, y’know, to keep in theme.

Oh well. Next time!

So, while I am pleased to announce that the bird deaths are not in fact a sign of the Apocalypse, they are however the acts of a disgruntled novelist who just wants his book to find a home with a lovely publisher.

Please buy my novel. If not for the awesomeness of the book itself, do it to save the birds of the world. Because I’m totally going to keep killing birds until someone buys this goddamn book.

Thank you for your time. I appreciate any efforts on my behalf. The birds thank you, too.

BLACKBIRDS is represented by super-agent Stacia Decker of the Donald Maass Literary Agency. You may contact her to request that the bird deaths cease make a wonderful offer on my book.

Regards,

Chuck Wendig

P.S. I also have a non-fiction book on pitch called CONFESSIONS OF A FREELANCE PENMONKEY. Please don’t make me kill any monkeys or writers. Unless you want me to kill a few writers? Call me.

P.P.S. Oh, the fish aren’t my fault. It’s possible that you have another grumpy novelist out there who wrote a book called FISHHEADS or some shit, but if you ask me, all the dead fish are a sign of the fucking Apocalypse, so you should probably start praying to your God and building bunkers and what-not.

January 3, 2011 / 11 Comments

Auld Lang Search Term Bingo

It’s the New Year. Which feels like a good time to revisit my favorite past-time: SEARCH TERM BINGO.

If you don’t know how this works, here it is: people discover this website via some of the strangest search terms one could imagine. I pluck these search terms out of obscurity and dissect them for gits and shiggles.

This is distinctly NSFW.

Please to enjoy.

how writers deal with angry wives

Two words: Bear mace. You heard it here first. Wife comes in. She’s all cranky. She’s like, “Caw caw caw, you forgot to feed the children! You pooped in the sink! All you do is write write write! You never tend to my needs!” And then you fumigate her with a stream of bear mace. FOOM. And then she divorces you and probably calls the police and she also takes half of everything, which because you’re a writer means she gets 16 dry lentils, half a chewed-up pen, a ferret, and a bucket full of brothel tokens.

Alternate theory: maybe if you weren’t such a dipshit she wouldn’t be angry. Assface.

making my own Frankenstein

Okay, technically Frankenstein was the doctor. You know, the dude who made the monster. I don’t recommend making him. Frankly, that guy was kind of a dick. Total God complex.

One assumes, however, that you’re making the monster. To which I say: good for you, and if you need body parts, I got ’em cheap. I have some real off-the-rack stuff, too. Like a duodenum.

Who has two thumbs and a spare duodenum? This guy.

Actually, come to think of it, I have more than two thumbs. I have a whole tray of the damn things. They’re just rolling around like loose marbles. They’re starting to smell, so you can have ’em cheap.

By the way, don’t think you need lightning or anything. This is the year 2010 2011. This is the future. These days, you just need a couple car batteries and a cattleprod to get that sumbitch up and walking around. I have like, three Frankenstein monsters toddling around my woods right now. They mostly just bump into shit and bite each other, but it’s still pretty fun. You know, for the kids.

gussy squart

Ahh, good ol’ Gussy Squart — Wild West six-shootin’ bank robbin’ cake bakin’ prostitute outlaw! Cantankerous! With a mouth that tastes of scorpion venom and one eye that always winks. She’s got garters made of sand vipers and an old noose still around her neck. You best watch out for Gussy Squart. She’ll shoot you dead between your eyes and steal your penis to sell to the Devil, she will.

No, I don’t know what the hell I’m talking about.

there’s a cold going around

I love this phrase. You hear it in winter. “There’s a cold going around.” Yeah. No kidding. It’s fucking wintertime. I’ll make a risky bet and say that I suspect there’s more than one cold going. Maybe two, even three! It creates this weird false sense of solidarity. You’ll be at a family gathering, you’ll cough, and Uncle Morty says, “Oh, you got that cold? I had that a few months ago.” Well, fuck you, Doctor Morty. Thanks for being Ground Zero for my lung plague. I’m going to invent a time machine and go back in time to destroy you, thus ensuring that I never get that one cold going around. You jerk.

oh fuck no

Oh fuck yes.

balloon-juice

I don’t know what this means. I only know that it has some vaguely grotesque sexual connotation that I cannot for the life of me pinpoint. I cannot help but picture some sweaty late 40s sleazeball who smells like hoagie oil and cider vinegar, and he’s all like, “Heh heh heh, you want a little balloon-juice?”

And then? You hit him with bear mace. FOOSH.

i got my husband a beard head

And I’m sure he appreciates it. What… ever it is.

lagunitas cappuccino stout gives me gas

So that’s you I’m smelling over here. I’m all like, “So what smells like someone took a beer shit in a Starbucks latte?” and it’s you. Well done. By the way, here’s a tip: just don’t drink that stout anymore.

some people are afraid of clits

And some people are fucking crazy. The clit is nothing to fear. The clit is wonderful! The clit is like a little weeble wobble. The clit is a cute little mouse poking her head out of the wall. The clit is equal parts “magic jellybean” and “button that, when pressed, brings a rain of candy that falls on the heads of the just and unjust alike.” What the hell are you afraid of? It’s not going to bite. It’s not a goddamn Moray Eel. Calm down. Learn to love the clitoris. The clitoris is your friend, not your enemy.

dipshit husbands

Guilty as charged.

i just beard-raped you

Wow. Holy shit. Uhh. Okay. I think we need to break this down a little.

First, no you didn’t. I’m sure I’d know it if you did.

Second, what does that even mean? Like, you stuck your dick in somebody’s beard? Or you stuck your beard in somebody’s dick? I just don’t understand. Maybe it’s a colloquial term like, you held down your roommate and gave him a beard-burn on his tummy? Which, for the record, is really weird.

Third and also for the record, rape is maaaaybe just a little overused as a colloquialism, don’t you think? “Our team got raped today on the field.” One assumes this is not true, given that they were not sexually assaulted against their will. Of course, were you to say, “Our team got murdered today on the field,” somehow that doesn’t feel as wrong. Wonder why that is? I blame that cold that’s going around.

special forces beard growth secret

What’s awesome about beards is that they can never be kept secret. You cannot hide the beard. The beard is self-evident. It’s literally in your face. Special Forces, special as they may be, can’t keep that kind of secret. I don’t know why they’d want to keep it hidden, either. You want to terrorize your enemies, you do it with your SPECIAL FORCES BEARD OF DEATH. Braid bullets into the hair. Paint it with the blood of your enemies. Stick leaves in it and use it as camouflage.

too much active voice in fiction writing

True that. You know what else? Too many awesome, active characters in fiction. Frankly, you ask me, there’s just too much good writing going around. Me? I say, more passive voice. And characters that we hate. And books that are written by Snooki. Welcome to the publishing trends of 2011. Boo-yay.

sphincter won’t open

Did you try a crowbar? A speculum? A ferret?

Give me a call. I know a guy. A little WD-40 and some C4 and he’ll have that sphincter open in no time.

goosebumps thrill pussy

I love their music. I particularly love their new song:

laser jane fuck hard

I smell another t-shirt. Not coincidentally, I also smell jet engine lubricant and a piquant erminey odor.

I don’t know who Laser Jane is, by the way. One wonders if she’s a G.I. Joe character.

where do they use the bathroom in ghost adventures

Really? This is what you’re wondering about that show? Not, “Is it real?” Not, “What’s the creepiest thing they caught on camera?” Not, “How does Zak Bagans manage to keep that emo kewpie haircut in place?”

It’s a TV show. They probably use a bathroom. Christ, they probably have a buffet table set up by craft services just outside the lockdown. They don’t just defecate on the floor like dogs. It’s not like you see Zak carrying around a thermos and he’s just whizzing in it all night long.

Actually, I can kind of see that.

Or maybe they just wear diapers. Black leather GHOST ADVENTURES diapers. With sterling silver skull pins holding it together. Makes sense, given how often it looks like they’re voiding their bowels in fear.

aaron from ghost adventures is a pussy

Wow, that’s kinda harsh, don’t you think? I mean, it’s probably true, but harsh. Aaron, that poor bastard. Aaron is actually my favorite of the bunch. They always stick that sad sumbitch in the worst places by himself. “Dude. Bro. This is the floor where the Satan worshippers cut off the heads of 60 children, and now every night the demon-ghosts of those 60 children rise up out of the floorboards and rip off the ears of anybody standing there. Aaron, you’re going to be here all night by yourself.”

words we no longer use

“Flangtrop.” “Snargometer.” “Rimpleteat.”

ducky fat eyes

HEY. Who said you could call me that? Nobody’s called me that since Martha Stewart Craft Camp. “Har har har, Ducky Fat Eyes doesn’t know how to macrame,” they’d say, and then my eyes would ooze duck confit and the room would smell like goose grease and they’d all stab at my face with their crocheting needles and lick them. Those were hard years for me. Hard years. Ducky Fat Eyes. You animal.