I thought this was a cool take on the theme of one of my favorite video games:
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Sunday, November 11, 2007
Criminals of the Writing World Unleashed
Every student unleashes the writer in their own writing that sucks from time to time. It's that writer that we've spent years tying up and gagging and locking away in a forgotten corner of our mind. Often more than one must be captured. They try to corrupt us with their mediocrity and platitudes, yet we resist and round them back into their cells.
As time passes our guard goes down, or perhaps was never on duty to begin with, and the prisoners run amuck and infect our poetry or our prose. In an effort to subdue them, we have to be vigilant and know what they look like.
I give you, the ten writers that suck:
1. The Egoist: This writer's motto is: I write for myself. This lexical masturbator never realizes that writing is communication, a method of conveyance. Without an audience, there is no point, and writing becomes a complete waste of time.The Egoist never gets that his time would be better spent doing something else. Grammar is oppressive and rules don't apply to me. He never learns to first communicate, but instead is only interested in emptying his own thoughts on paper regardless if anyone else can understand them.Rules are often avoided to such an extreme that he needs to create new rules to make sure he avoids the establishment's. Reading the Egoist's work is like listening to a speech given by someone without any lips.
2. The Grammar Nazi: She believes in a perfect grammar, and will go out of her way to destroy those she feels are imperfect. Or she may only believe in one grammar and may not even realize that many exist. Her bigotry is ruthless and often makes her work rigid and stoic. Her words are cold, distant, and sterile; and she will eventually have to resort to writing instruction manuals to supplement her income.
3. The Transcendentalist: He can be identified by his lifetime commitment to his masterpiece, even though a good year's honest hard work would have produced better results. For him, writing is art (said with an ethereal voice). But he never goes on to define art. The Transcendentalist can never exactly tell you where words come from, because he is a conduit, an empty vessel. At least his head is. The Transcendentalist waits around for something to happen and invented the superstition of writer's block.
4. The Artist: She's more interested in being a writer than actually doing any writing. She talks a good talk, but put a pencil in her hand and all she can do is break the lead.The Artist is more fun at parties than a real writer because she frequents them so much she never gets anything done. The only downside of her writing career is that she cannot tolerate those hours where she must be alone with herself and write.
5. The Expositionist: He starts, interludes, and ends by describing every minute detail in his work. Most of what he writes has little to no relevance to the story or the theme, but he judges quality by detail. He's the guy at the party nobody wants to talk to because he has a talent for saying so little with a great many words.
6. The Diarrhetic Writer: Sister to the Expositionist, she is a mindless spout of diarrhetic verbosity. While the Expositionist is compelled by detail, the Diarrhetic Writer is compelled only by words. Her parents call her prolific, but her writing is inane and nonsensical and delivered in mass quantity. She's the author of the never-ending story.
7. The Premature Ejaculator: This over-eager author finishes too quick. Perhaps the polar opposite of the Expositionist, he lacks any setup whatsoever. The audience gets a finish, but no satisfaction. If his problem stems from ignorance, then his conclusion lacks motive. If his problem stems from delusion, then his conclusion is a gimmick. In either case the reader feels cheated.
8. The Moralist: She has lots of time to write because nobody invites her to parties. She writes with a mission and only tells one side of the story. She makes the improbable probable in order to support her sermon. She's often the most important character in her stories.
9. What's-His-Name: He loves pronouns and hates antecedents. He calls his abstractness post-modern rather than admit it's lazy, vague, and tedious. His reader must often invent the parts he leaves out.
10. The Writer with Tourette's: If she's lucky, then her words are plagued with profanity. Overly indulgent fuck's, pussy's, and cocksucker's can sometimes pass off as in vogue. The most damning are the banal really's, so's, and there's; the words that don't even insult.
As time passes our guard goes down, or perhaps was never on duty to begin with, and the prisoners run amuck and infect our poetry or our prose. In an effort to subdue them, we have to be vigilant and know what they look like.
I give you, the ten writers that suck:
1. The Egoist: This writer's motto is: I write for myself. This lexical masturbator never realizes that writing is communication, a method of conveyance. Without an audience, there is no point, and writing becomes a complete waste of time.The Egoist never gets that his time would be better spent doing something else. Grammar is oppressive and rules don't apply to me. He never learns to first communicate, but instead is only interested in emptying his own thoughts on paper regardless if anyone else can understand them.Rules are often avoided to such an extreme that he needs to create new rules to make sure he avoids the establishment's. Reading the Egoist's work is like listening to a speech given by someone without any lips.
2. The Grammar Nazi: She believes in a perfect grammar, and will go out of her way to destroy those she feels are imperfect. Or she may only believe in one grammar and may not even realize that many exist. Her bigotry is ruthless and often makes her work rigid and stoic. Her words are cold, distant, and sterile; and she will eventually have to resort to writing instruction manuals to supplement her income.
3. The Transcendentalist: He can be identified by his lifetime commitment to his masterpiece, even though a good year's honest hard work would have produced better results. For him, writing is art (said with an ethereal voice). But he never goes on to define art. The Transcendentalist can never exactly tell you where words come from, because he is a conduit, an empty vessel. At least his head is. The Transcendentalist waits around for something to happen and invented the superstition of writer's block.
4. The Artist: She's more interested in being a writer than actually doing any writing. She talks a good talk, but put a pencil in her hand and all she can do is break the lead.The Artist is more fun at parties than a real writer because she frequents them so much she never gets anything done. The only downside of her writing career is that she cannot tolerate those hours where she must be alone with herself and write.
5. The Expositionist: He starts, interludes, and ends by describing every minute detail in his work. Most of what he writes has little to no relevance to the story or the theme, but he judges quality by detail. He's the guy at the party nobody wants to talk to because he has a talent for saying so little with a great many words.
6. The Diarrhetic Writer: Sister to the Expositionist, she is a mindless spout of diarrhetic verbosity. While the Expositionist is compelled by detail, the Diarrhetic Writer is compelled only by words. Her parents call her prolific, but her writing is inane and nonsensical and delivered in mass quantity. She's the author of the never-ending story.
7. The Premature Ejaculator: This over-eager author finishes too quick. Perhaps the polar opposite of the Expositionist, he lacks any setup whatsoever. The audience gets a finish, but no satisfaction. If his problem stems from ignorance, then his conclusion lacks motive. If his problem stems from delusion, then his conclusion is a gimmick. In either case the reader feels cheated.
8. The Moralist: She has lots of time to write because nobody invites her to parties. She writes with a mission and only tells one side of the story. She makes the improbable probable in order to support her sermon. She's often the most important character in her stories.
9. What's-His-Name: He loves pronouns and hates antecedents. He calls his abstractness post-modern rather than admit it's lazy, vague, and tedious. His reader must often invent the parts he leaves out.
10. The Writer with Tourette's: If she's lucky, then her words are plagued with profanity. Overly indulgent fuck's, pussy's, and cocksucker's can sometimes pass off as in vogue. The most damning are the banal really's, so's, and there's; the words that don't even insult.
Thursday, November 8, 2007
Getting High on Life
I've been thinking a lot about Kierkegaard and Kafka these last few weeks (think philosophy)and that, among other more troublesome things, has gotten me distracted from typing away on this blog. You'll find that I'm like that sometimes. A thing crawls into my brain, not something tangible, but the intangible, and it plants a seed and starts to grow. It takes hold of me, screwing with me a while before becoming a part of me... or is it that I become a part of it?
Most of us out here in Americaland are Platonic, with the obvious exception of me of course (when am I ever normal?). So you all believe in something big. You think that there are right answers and there are wrong answers. This might not apply to all of you, but it does to most of you. And that's what separates you from people in other cool places like Europe. They tend to be Kierkegaardian in nature - Existential is the word. They, like I, like B-ridget Harman, wake up each morning and discover we have become big giant bugs.
While all you Platonists are "finding yourselves", discovering what you already know, all the rest of us are discovering we are something new each day, something different... which is kind of where I've been lately. I've become a bigger bug than usual and have been getting to know me again. It's like waking up and trying to figure out where you are, only you know exactly where you are, you just have to figure out who you are.
But oddly enough, there's a liking part that comes with it - you actually kind of like being the bug. You realize that you are something new. You are different than you were yesterday, than last year, than you were as a child. There's a high that come with this sort of feeling, a freedom, a power. So I've been riding that high. And it just so happens that this is keeping me just intrigued enough, even if only momentarily, to keep my mind from falling victim to insanity.
Most of us out here in Americaland are Platonic, with the obvious exception of me of course (when am I ever normal?). So you all believe in something big. You think that there are right answers and there are wrong answers. This might not apply to all of you, but it does to most of you. And that's what separates you from people in other cool places like Europe. They tend to be Kierkegaardian in nature - Existential is the word. They, like I, like B-ridget Harman, wake up each morning and discover we have become big giant bugs.
While all you Platonists are "finding yourselves", discovering what you already know, all the rest of us are discovering we are something new each day, something different... which is kind of where I've been lately. I've become a bigger bug than usual and have been getting to know me again. It's like waking up and trying to figure out where you are, only you know exactly where you are, you just have to figure out who you are.
But oddly enough, there's a liking part that comes with it - you actually kind of like being the bug. You realize that you are something new. You are different than you were yesterday, than last year, than you were as a child. There's a high that come with this sort of feeling, a freedom, a power. So I've been riding that high. And it just so happens that this is keeping me just intrigued enough, even if only momentarily, to keep my mind from falling victim to insanity.
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