Tag: terribleminds (page 4 of 4)

Terribleminds-Related Shiznit

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*

March 15, 2011 / 48 Comments

The “Push Like You’re Pooping” Guest Blog-A-Palooza

So, it’s like this: I’m writing that book above for Abaddon Press. “A vampire in zombieland,” you might call it. It is going along according to plan and according to schedule. Hey! Huzzah! Woo! *does an embarrassing dance that causes all who gaze upon it to throw putrid food products at my gamboling choromaniac body*

Still, though. Book’s due mid-April, and I want to leave myself some room to breathe — a little cushion for my pushin’ — at the fore of that month just to let me give the book a final kick in the ass and one solid edit before sending it off. And blogging, while fun and wonderful, saps some of the writing time out of my week. I generally write about 4-5k per day, but that includes a blog post in that mix. If I eradicate the blog post — even for one week — then a little more of that sweet sweet word count comes flowing back into the book.

But, I don’t want to take time off from this space, either. I’ve been diligently keeping this site updated every day, and I’d like to maintain the illusion, however precious, that such effort matters. (Don’t spoil it by telling me it doesn’t matter and I’m allowed to take a week off. Imagine my ego as a crinkly glass snowflake beneath your boot which is poised indelicately above it.)

So, that means:

Guest blog time again!

I want to solicit you, my crazy-ass ever-awesome readers, to contribute some blog content for the week of April 4th (Monday) to April 8th (Friday). That means I need five blog posts from five different peeps.

Interested?

Okay, here’s the deal.

I can’t pay you in money. I can, however, pay in sexual favors. … uhh. I mean, in reciprocal blog posts. You write me a post, I can contribute a post to your blog in the near-future. I don’t believe that “exposure” is an entirely meaningful metric, but these days, this site does get a fair number of looky-loos (this month, averaging ~5,000 per day). Which means you can and should pimp and/or cross-post to your own blog, and if you also have a book or a game or some Etsy store selling alpaca-yarn cock-sweaters to pimp, hey, pimp it good. In fact, if you have a book out or something and want to write a post about how you wrote that book and why people should buy it, that’ll totally work as a blog idea. Throw it into the mix!

If you want in, hit the comments below and throw your hat into the ring with your topic and, if possible, a brief description of the post. I’ll pick the five posters tomorrow morning (Wednesday 3/16) and will list them here. Then I’ll need the posts in my inbox (chuckwendig [at] terribleminds [dot] com) by Friday, April 1st. Er, no, that’s not an April Fool’s Joke. Posts should be somewhere between 500 – 1000 words.

Posts can be on any topic near and dear to you. Topics near and dear to terribleminds are writing, games, food, and what-not, but you are by no means limited to what I would talk about.

You are free to be as mouthy and profane as you like.

So, if you’re in — hey, I appreciate it. Hit the comments below. I can only pick five, really, but don’t worry, I’ll probably need to do this again once the Tiny Human Hurricane is born in June, upending all aspects of my life, throwing them around the room like a goddamn poltergeist.

Again, my ~~sexual favors~~ thanks.

EDIT:

THE FIGHTERS FOR THUNDERDOME — er, I mean, the guest-blog-a-palooza — HAVE BEEN CHOSEN.

*banging of a drum which are actually the skulls of fallen bloggers*

Marko Kloos: Writing While Parenting Small Chilluns

James Melzer: Muse Whore!

Rick Carroll: The Box

Dan O’Shea: Doctor Dan’s Parenting Advice

Lee Robson: Writerly Egos

Stephen Blackmoore: Pushing Boundaries

Fred Hicks: In Which Fred Answers A Question Of His Choice

Austin Wulf: The DIY Writer Punk

Lisa Killian: Voice Before Quota

Karina Cooper: How Not To Be A Dickface While Writing

There you go.

You’ll note some redundancies — these are on-purpose as I kind of want to see certain topics handled from different viewpoints.

I will say very clearly that this was a stupidly difficult choice because, hot damn you all brought your A-game. These were just the ones I responded to personally. I mean, after all, this blog is all about me, for I am a solipsistic cock-waffle.

You will note that I have chosen 10 instead of five. Five will go up that week, and the other five will go up either the following week (if I still need the time to polish the ‘script) or during the Birth of Der Wendigspawn, which will be late May/early June.

Thank you all for throwing your hats in the ring.

Next time I do this, I may take @Amy’s idea and choose a single topic and five folks who will talk about said topic.

January 29, 2011 / 38 Comments

Blog Needs Blog Juice!

Blog.

Blog.

BLOG.

Man, I hate that word.

Blog blog blog bloggity blog. It’s an awful-sounding word. At least, “tweet” is cute. But blog? Uck. I say that word, I forever envision some kind of fat-bellied toad-creature, some slick-bellied beast sitting in a pile of effluence, and sometimes the beast opens its greasy maw and crassly belches forth a noxious cloud, a cloud that smells like someone filled a balloon with diarrhea and then threw it into a campfire.

So, basically, I envision Snooki.

Still, this is irrelevant to the discussion. It is irregardless, if you care to use words that are made up.

I need blog squeezin’s.

What I’m saying is, this is a one dude operation over here at terribleminds. It’s just me here in my subterranean bunker. I’ve got my lava moat, my hungry CHUD army, my many levers and switches. But all of it is just a hollow exercise if I don’t have something to talk to you fine, fine people about.

My peeps. My tweeps. My tmeeps.

Point being, Daddy needs some topics over here. I’ve got some coming up, yes — I want to talk more about Minecraft, I have a Search Term Bingo ready to roll, I definitely want to do a few more posts about self-publishing. I’ve got the ready-steady writing advice locked and loaded, with next month talking all about the art and craft of whup-ass storytelling.

But even still — my torches, they sputter. The flames, they gutter. And so I drop my drawbridge across my lava moat (beware the lava-sharks, the magma-pus, and the volcano-gator), and I invite you into my creepy bunker to have some scones and orange pekoe tea. By which I really mean, Ritz crackers and rye whiskey.

I invite you in and I ask you:

What else do you want me to talk about here at Ye Olde Terryblemynds? Throw some topics at my head. Help me refill my blog tanks with blog juice. I can’t promise I’ll write about everything everybody wants — if you write a comment that asks me to discuss the subversive nature of the Wienerschnitzel in German history, then I got nothing. I mean, except, “Heh, wiener, or weiner, or whatever. Heh.”

But still.

Throw me a bone here.

I’m begging you. I’m just a lonely fool lurking beneath a volcano.

So, blog topics you want me to talk about? Questions you want me to answer?

Anything at all. Pitch it at my head, we’ll see if it strikes brain.

(This is, for the record, an excellent time for lurkers to delurk.)

January 1, 2011 / 7 Comments