Forget learning how to write (well, not really but for the sake of this post, just let it go).  It’s imperative you learn how NOT to write.  Many people learn by doing, learn by example and any other myriad of ways that one can learn something.  But everyone needs to learn how not to do something from those that are doing it now.  The size of their royalty statements be damned.  There are just some things a writer shouldn’t do in their writing.  Of course, those elements are outlined in the Turkey City Lexicon (also posted in my links list in the sidebar for extra emphasis) compiled by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.

“Well what if I don’t write science fiction or fantasy?” you may ask, to which I answer, “just read the damn thing.”  You don’t have to write science fiction or fantasy to learn that excessive use of thesaurus-wielding dialogue tags is bad and that Deus ex Machina is the bane of the literary world.  90% of that article spans all genres, if not more.  You don’t even have to read science fiction or fantasy to recognize what these guys are talking about.  Such errors are prevalent.

Most of them can be remedied by simply not being a lazy writer.  A cohesive plot, a world that makes sense and characters that have more than one dimension are all things that writers should strive for.  If you’re not willing to work to make your writing good, put the pen down now and step away from the computer.  Don’t make the rest of us look bad by association because you don’t feel like putting more than a half an ass into your work.

This, of course, is pertaining to works seeking traditional publication.  Granted, even if you’re not, you should still put your all into your writing, especially when others are going to see it (posting on the internet, for example) but I’m guilty of writing some lazy fanfiction that’s equivalent to a first draft of anything I write.  Then again, I think fanfiction is in its own spectrum entirely but even then, a modicum of effort and logic wouldn’t hurt 98% of the stuff that’s out there.

Writing for fun is one thing but even then there are different levels to the word.  Fun with the intention of improving yourself even though you have no desire to seek anything but your own satisfaction.  Fun with the intention to just write, everyone else be damned.  Fun with the intention of becoming popular on the internet.  I could go on.  I would like to think that anyone who writes anything, be it for themselves or for other eyes to see, would want to improve on their craft.  Even with nonliterary hobbies, would you want to stay at one level forever?  Say you build boats in jars.  Do you want to stick to dinghies until the end up time or would you like to eventually work your way up to tall ships?  It’s a completely self-fulfilling hobby but discontent will arise if one remains at the same stage of their craft for too long.

Everyone at every stage of writing has something to learn.  Even the best of the best (regardless of their chagrinning  that they already know it all) have room to fit in a little more information.  Unfortunately, what fuels the bastard cycle of lackluster prose is enduring praise of its fans.  Fanfiction is notorious for this.  Many, many, many times over a god awful piece of work will get stunglorious praise, goading the author to keep writing as is.  God forbid you correct sentence structure or point out illogical contrivances in the plot lest you get lumped into the flamer category and get pounced upon with ‘lyk omg y cant u gust red teh stori wat dus it matr teh stories gud gust red it.’  It’s a vicious, backwards turning cycle.

It’s even worse in the publishing world (albeit more grammatically correct) because if a pile of contrived crap can rake in the bucks, that sets the bar for all the other writers writing in that same genre.  No, the masses aren’t concerned with sentence structure or even redundant descriptions but they’re not stupid either.  They can spot the difference between entertainment and good writing.  I’ve come across many people, for example, that were entertained by The DaVinci Code but readily admitted it left something to be desired in the writing category.  Many will say write literary if you want to get praised for how well you can write.  If you want mainstream, write something that will sell.

Unfortunately that is a very true statement but that’s also not to say a salable book can’t be well-written either.  Not all books are written by lobotomized monkeys sat at typewriters but they’re not all written for the guys with suede elbows swilling brandy either.  Just.  Write.  Well.

You can hone your writing as a craft until you’re blue in the face.  You can take classes until your eyes explode and your brain is on the verge of rupturing but if you’re not willing to take what you’ve learn and, instead of writing by numbers, writing by your own fashioned voice, you’re not willing to be a writer.  A book put together formulaically like a puzzle is just as bad as writing your detective just like Dick Tracy.

Like what’s been reiterated time and time again by so many writers, you need a middle ground between what you’ve learned from the classes and what you’ve learned from yourself.  You need to learn that, as a writer, you must give it your all.  Nothing less will do, regardless of the sales of the “hacks” that many are convinced are littering bookshelves across the world.  Show pride in your work.  Read everything you can in the genre you write in.  You’ll be able to pick up on overused plots, mundane characters and what actually works within the genre, what kind of characters people like to read about and just what you can do with them to make them better.

Reading improves your work not only to help you get a feel for what kind of writing sells or what kind of stories are popular, it improves how you look at others’ work and gets your brain running as to how to improve upon it.  You’ll come across a character that you love but he does something that leaves you going WTF?  You then use that to fashion your own character, make his actions more believable, more steadfast, his consequences more reasonable.  Read to learn what you do and don’t like about your genre.  Read to learn how to write and how not to write.  Listen to your gut on that and make sure your eyes are open.  The do’s and do not’s are much more visible when you’re paying attention.

And get critiqued.  The best advice in that arena is to ban your friends from doing it unless they swear upon an oath of blood to give you an honest report of how your story is.  No ego-boosting or talent-stroking allowed, especially if the work isn’t rendered.  Your best bet is to go to a critique group where you don’t know anyone but they know the genre you write in.  They’ll be your best friends and dissect your work to help you make it better.  Bring the armor, though.  If you’re not used to honest, constructive criticism, the force of it might hurt until you get used to it.

So the posts are slightly sporadic and a bit far apart but at least I’m continuing it.  That’s what counts.  To see the deal with this, check out this post.  Actually, a good excuse for the sporadic game would be that I had fewer mutated words than I thought and the ones I do have are buried in the writing.  I’m not much of a note-taker as I write so anything reoccurring, or vocabulary, gets lost in the mix until the edit.  That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

The word this time around is–

Previ (plural Previes, short ‘e,’ long ‘i’)

These kind-of-dead-but-not-really beings exist in a mirror set in the Mountain of Past.  They’re the ones that bestow the gifts to the Giver when the changing comes.  They’re the original founders of the Kingdom of Raydin and had their individual powers in life.

So, what’s the root?  If N-Laigh could be guessed, this one’s ten times easier than that.  I’ll give you a hint.  I wanted to deviate from a commonly word used meaning the same thing.  I also didn’t want to insinuate they were blood drinkers of any sort.

I don’t think I could have said it better myself with this article from SlushPile.net. It’s like they were channeling me. Now, if you don’t get past the title of the article and come back to me and start griping about how much of a snot I am, go back and read the flippin’ thing. Believe it or not, it makes the same point I’ve been trying to make with self-publishing.

I will admit, when I first came across the term “self-publishing,” I went ‘WTF? What’s the point? If you want to get published, do it like the rest of us. It’s not the same.’ After much discussion and research, I have come to realize the validity of self-publication, why people do it and just what the point is. Really, I do like it. I think it’s a great concept if you have something to share with a niche of people, be they just your family or a set of online readers. If done right, self-publishing can be lucrative, as I’ve seen people discuss. It takes a hell of a lot more work going that route to be a nominal success, but if you’re willing to do it, then kudos to you.

What hasn’t changed, though, is that it’s still not the same as standard publication. Most of the people I know that do self-publish are fully aware of this although I have seen some of them succumb to the “published author” syndrome.

One, traditional publishing. When you go the traditional route and query, you are selected among hundreds of other queriers in the slush pile for representation by an agent. That agent said, “This is good. I can sell this.” You went, *thud*. Chances are said agent will have some suggestions. You take them if you know what’s good for you. Once finished, that story is then shopped around to editors at major publishing houses. An editor comes back to said agent and says, “Yes, I agree. This is good. Let me talk to my boss.” (Many editors don’t have the authority to scoop up stories as soon as they land on their desks. There are meetings involved.) Said editor comes back and says, “I’ll pre-empt for $100,000. We want that book.” You go *thud* and then regain consciousness long enough to sign the contract that your agent negotiated in your favor. Then you take suggestions from the editor if you know what’s good for you. Then you send the book back in it’s pretty, final stage look. Now comes the polishing, the professional cover designers creating the cover to suit your story, the promotion campaigns, the guest spot on Oprah and so on and so forth. Publication date is set in the interim. You continue writing in order to appease your three book deal. Book releases. You go on a book tour and collect the royalties because your book paid out the advance and then some. Rinse and repeat. Warning, this could quite possibly be dramatized in order to humorl my dreams.

Two, self publishing. You write a novel. You may or may not have other eyes look at it (depending on how you feel about critiquing or how adamant your online readers are in picking up errors). You have someone, probably a friend, design a cover for you, copyright infringement free, of course. You upload your work to Lulu.com (or your POD of choice), reformat to fit their pages and click ‘Done.’ Your book is now ready for purchase.

Do you see the difference? Please tell me you do. One is certainly not the same as two, if for nothing else than one vital element–an objective third party. You didn’t have to get chosen to publish your book when you self-publish. It’d take the “self” out of it. No one confirmed your suspicions that your book is the best thing on this planet before you sent it to print. In many cases, no one edited it! Self-publishing, in many cases, is glorified photocopying. You don’t need permission to do it. You don’t need to be accepted. Everybody wins in self-publishing, even those that couldn’t hit the ball if it were the size of a honey dew melon.

And to those of you that are sneering because you purchased an ISBN number to go along with your Lulu book, therefore you’re “really” published; I can purchase a Duchess title off the internet. It still doesn’t officially make me one. Anyone can purchase ISBN numbers for anything. I can write ‘I haz it’ 47 times in royal blue crayon on the kindergarten lined paper and tie a string around it and attach an ISBN to it. Same goes for copyright. I can copyright that same ‘I haz it’ tome. It doesn’t make it published, not how you want it to be considered.

You are not published. Not like Stephen King or Anne Rice or John Grisham. What makes you a published author is that someone other than yourself decided that your words were worthy of mass market distribution and you can go down to your local book store and purchase your book. You can also fly out to a nonlocal bookstore and buy it there too. Self-published books don’t appear in the catalogues sent to book stores so the buyers can decide what they’re going to acquire. You’ll have to push to be on one of their shelves and if you can manage it, you’ll get a 10 mile radius if you’re lucky. 25 if you’re determined.

And don’t think for a second that hacks like PublishAmerica count. If they’ll take on Atlanta Nights, it’s proper to assume that their selection process isn’t, well, existent.

My understanding is that successful self-publishers are so because of internet advertising and buyers. That’s not to say there isn’t any foot pounding involved, but they can obviously reach the widest number of people via the internet. Many of those people are also very business savvy and know what they’re doing when it comes to marketing. They have strategies. They have plans. They have interest beyond their internet friends.

Now, I’m sure this all sounds extraordinarily cynical but it’s really focused at a much smaller number of self-publishers than you’d think. Like I said, many have their heads firmly planted on their shoulders. It’s the stooges that walk around introducing themselves as “published authors” while telling their tales of traditional publication conspiracy that really sour it for the rest of them, simply because their voices are louder and more people take notice when a guy with his head up his butt walks into a room than they do when a normal person does. It’s the nature of the beast.

Self-publishing is not bad, by any means. I actually have a few online novels that I plan on buying in their self-published forms because I want to support the authors and I want to have a hard copy of the work for myself. Not to mention I’ve already read the material and I know what I’m getting. I also plan on self-publishing a story of mine, should it ever come out of it’s stilted shell, simply because I haven’t a clue who’d I’d market it to nor do I know if it’s even salable. That particular story was meant to be self-published. I have at least 4 other WIPs that were meant for traditional publication and that’s the route they’ll travel.

I don’t look down on self-publishing. I snort in the general direction of those that taint the word for the rest of them. In an upcoming post I’ll have some excerpts from another blog that showcases just what can be found in self-published novels and the quality of the content you could be getting. Oye!

The lesson is self-publish to your heart’s content but just remember where you stand on the publishing ladder. Self-publishing is not the same as traditional publishing. Never will be.

For anyone that’s paying attention, I’ve just had a significant (for me anyway) jump in the word count for Diamond Crier (over in the sidebar, scroll a little . . . right there). I can write the books. Oh yes I can. But my payment for this talent is the manual labor involved. Ok, so I don’t break a sweat but it was heinously muggy yesterday if that counts for anything.

Writing pen to paper, while very freeing, is a bit hampering when it comes to actually typing the work into the computer, especially when I do this only once a month. Why only once a month? Because that’s pretty much when I feel like doing it. I wouldn’t want to do it every week and I like not knowing how much I wrote until the month’s end. I like the surprise, even though the number is far less than what it felt like to type, nor looked like page-wise in the notebook.

Why do I write pen to paper when writing directly to the laptop would save so much time and finger numbing? There’s a post here under the Coney Island Psyhic category where I say why. I just can’t type straight into a laptop. My brain freezes and the story suffers because of it. I’ll do what I need to do in order for the story to not read like a piece of crap and if that means writing it out, so be it. Now I just have to work on my penmanship because I came across some words yesterday that I needed a decoder ring to decipher.

And when I say I spent all day typing, I literally spent all day typing this section in. I broke for some snacks in the middle of the day and then dinner, starting the whole deal sometime around 2. I finished around 11 last night. Oye. On top of that I still have a fanfiction chapter to type in. In my insanity I contemplated doing it last night. Then the dementia waned and I went nope. So I’ll do that this morning. Much less in this typing but my fingers aren’t big fans of the keyboard at the moment.

But I finagled the numbers and it turns out I’m averaging over 1,000 words a day for writing. Not too shabby. I do believe I can have this one written by the end of the summer at this point and I’m more than 1/3 of the way to my 80,000 word goal on this. I’m just glad my editing skills are still working properly because as I typed it up, I noticed things that needed to be edited (neverending sentences, redundancies, bland description, telling, not showing, etc). I’m just thrilled that I’m recognizing it all now so I know what to attack when I do go to edit this piece. As it stands right now, I’ll probably have to hack at the word count since I believe 75,000 is a pretty maximum number for YA. But we’ll see when the time comes.

I just need to get some self-editing books before I actually set to it. And is it weird that I want to edit my fanfiction story (which will be novel length by the time it’s done) as a practice piece? I’ve never edited a novel before and for whatever reason I feel more comfortable working out the kinks of what it’s like to edit a novel on something that’ll never see the light of publishing day than tumble through it with a viable WIP. Plus, believe it or not, I do want to attach my fanfiction to my pen name eventually but no dice until it’s not sucky. The readers don’t think it’s sucky but what’s up now is a first draft. Eek, I know!

So that’s where I stand with Diamond Crier at the moment. My fingers are boycotting but they’re just going to have to deal. We’ll just go through the process again at the end of July and I’m hoping for higher numbers. I think I can hear them screaming already.

If you’re an interneter like I am, I’m sure you’ve come across the wonders of anonymity and the mornonism that runs rampant on the internet. People don’t have to face up to any consequences. They sign on to a website with a handle that’s obviously not their name, whirl feces at the rotating device and run out and are fulling capable of functioning as if what they did didn’t just happen. No effect for the cause because the internet allows for such infantile behavior. It makes me wonder just what’s going through the head of the person on the other side of the screen, or should I say what’s not going through their head. Really, is a hobby that dastardly a thought? A game of pick-up at the school yard really that much effort to detach from the computer desk for an hour?

It’s one thing to have the internet loser flame at you for some random thing you post on some random message board. People flit in and out of those at their leisure. It’s another thing to have your writing up and people flame you for it. It happens. Why I have no idea. More than likely too much time on their hands. This happens a lot in fanfiction (although those fanfic authors are wont to distinguish flames from constructive criticism but that’s another post entirely). Frankly, though, a lot of fanfiction makes me want to say just what those flammers are saying but I leave it to them to look like an ass. I just shudder, scrub my brain and move on.

Then there’s the serial fiction. For whatever reason people can just be spiteful and leave tepid reviews simply for the sake of it. For them I recommend knitting. Or perhaps something that doesn’t involve small, pointy spears. Suction cup art. It just makes you wonder, what the hell’s the point? It’s usually obvious when a reviewer is being nasty for the sake of being nasty, especially considering they couldn’t motif their way out of a forest. They’re the ones that leave the reviews that you look at and go, “why bother?” Alas, to truly understand the motives of the anonymous interneter, one must shut off their brain entirely.

It gets to the *headdesk* point when it comes to reviews on actual books. I’ve pulled yet another link from the Snarkives that points to a compilation of one-star reviews from Amazon.com on some of the 100 best novels from the last century, as so named by the Times. Really, you can’t help but have your ears bleed a little.

A review for the Catcher in the Rye–

So many other good books…don’t waste your time on this one. J.D. Salinger went into hiding because he was embarrassed.

For Gravity’s Rainbow–

When one contrasts Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five with this book, it’s like comparing an Olympic sprinter with an obese man running for the bus with a hot dog in one hand and a soda in the other.

For Lord of the Rings–

The book is not readable because of the overuse of adverbs.

For Mrs. Dalloway–

The only good thing to say about this “literary” drivel is that the person responsible, Virginia Woolf, has been dead for quite some time now. Let us pray to God she stays that way.

Hurts, doesn’t it?  Hurt some more by reading the rest of the list here.  Whether they’re trying to sound intelligent and obviously failing or just being schmucks, you have to wonder where their brains are and whether they read a word that was in front of them.  Remember, if you want to leave a review: 1) Use your name.  That way people can mock you when you think One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest is about insanity. 2) Read the book.  It helps.  3) Make sure you get it beforehand.  If you don’t get it, don’t leave a review because those that do get it won’t get you. 4) Think your review through.  It doesn’t bode well when you call the author a moron and spell it ‘mormon.’ 5) Don’t type anything you wouldn’t say to their face.  If everyone using the internet abided by that rule, the intarweb would be much quieter and much more civil.

I wish I had found this article when the whole “novel in a year” came about and was able to take part in it. It seemed like a really neat idea and I wish the links were still working so I could look over what was done. I’m sure I would have learned a lot. Now I’m just learning things at my own pace and that’s working just as well.

But my pointing this article out isn’t for the novel in a year program that the author did. It’s what she said about writing and what it means to be a writer. There are many, many people out there claiming themselves to be writers. When asked what they’ve published, many say nothing. I’m in that pile. Actually, technically I have been published and recognized. However, aside from the humor award, in nothing really worth noting on a query letter. Anyway, not many people are thwarted about that. An unpublished writer is hardly rare. But when asked what have they written, therein lies the dark horse. A couple of short stories ten years ago. A poem here and there. And they’ll get to the novel “when they feel like it.”

I’m calling shenanigans on those people (how I love that term). Writing does not mean you write a few thousand words every few years and you get to call yourself a writer. Why would those who didn’t write want this title anyway? Is there some prestige attached to it that I don’t know about? Do we get decoder rings? No. Writing involves blood, sweat and homework for the rest of your life. A real writer will find any means to write, will write anywhere, under any conditions when the urge calls for it. The want to write, to tell a story, is constantly there. You don’t have to write tomes a year in order to call yourself a writer but writing something consistently with some kind of goal in mind, be it publication or just to get a story on paper, can certainly render yourself one.

You have to write in order to be a writer. Period. You can’t scribble a few words on paper and set it aside and think you can call yourself a writer. You’re a person that scribbled a few words onto a piece of paper and set it aside. Then there’s the definition of what a writer is. For me, it’s someone who writes constantly and strives to tell their own stories. Who pore over the semantics because they want their work perfect, because they want the story just right. And most importantly because they want other people to read their work, in whatever fashion that may be. Of course, this definition varies.

On top of the non-writing writers we have the smug amateurs who know everything and have no need to learn anything else. A notion that’s reiterated in that article is that we all have something to learn. No one stops learning, regardless of who they are or what they do. Your craft can always be improved. So it makes me wonder why people so high and mighty on their own work take writing classes. More than likely to make themselves feel better by lashing out at everyone else around them for how terrible their writing is. The amateurs whose noses are held highest are usually not only the worst writers but those that lack common sense to realize that.

What makes a writer good is being able to recognize your own flaws, see where your writing can be improved and work on it to make it the best it can possibly be. A writer strives towards perfection, is constantly seeking not reassurance but honest criticism of their work in case they missed anything in the 12 rewrites they’ve already done. A writer bleeds on the page and doesn’t ebb the flow until everything’s told in their mind’s eye. Writers realize that their novels aren’t perfect the second their pen touches paper or fingers start pressing keys. They realize that not everyone is going to like it. They know not to curl up in a fetal position and weep over the massacre of their work after a critique even though, sometimes, that’s exactly what they feel like doing. They realize all these things and they take it in stride and strive towards creating a work that they are not only pleased with, but pleases many others as well.

Lastly, there just is no easy way to do it. There isn’t a get published quick scheme out there if your aim is traditional publication. Of course the literary world it ripe with scams and self publishing (not necessarily in the same path) but there isn’t anything else you can do to get your book published other than writing a good book. Write your own, write it well and it’ll get noticed. That’s what everything above helps us do. We don’t damn the man if we get rejected. We don’t think everyone’s out to get us nor do we think the 17 agents we queried just don’t understand our masterpiece. We see the signs. We know them, we read them and we interpret them to make ourselves better.

People approach novel writing as if it’s something that can be done in an afternoon, that they’ll write it when they can get to it. Yes, there are people out there that can pump out novels in a matter of months. Others it takes years. But all revolve around the same effort. Oh how nice it would be to be independently wealthy and be able to focus entirely on writing. Unfortunately reality slaps me in the face every time I think of that. I have a day job and I write what I can, when I can. My goal is to have book number 1 written by the end of the summer. Completely written, first draft. That’s feasible but that’s not including rewrites and editing, of which I’m much more meticulous. I am never satisfied with just one draft. Originally I was looking at two years from start to finish (as in query-ready finish) but I may be looking at a year and a half. The writing’s going well enough that shaving 6 months off is feasible.

But writing on a whim is not, not for those that don’t know what the implications of writing entail. It’s more than just putting words on paper. A cohesive plot that isn’t hackneyed or overdone, characters that are relatable, logical situations and believable worlds are all mandatory in writing. As if those that brush writing off so easily are wont to forget, or just don’t know. Or, more likely, don’t realize how much work it takes to write 100,000 words and not just any old words. Something good. Something publishable. I challenge them and then I’ll stand by and wait for the rude awakening.

I never became a writer. Writing overcame me and told me this was what I was supposed to do. I don’t believe people actually choose to write. It’s too masochistic of a world to just opt into on a whim. It’s something that has to be part of your soul, that you can’t live without. There is no end to it and it will always be a part of you. You can feel it in your brain, all those stories, not just ideas but stories, rumbling around in your head just waiting to come out. Everyone has ideas but writers make something of them.

There is no short cut and there is no easy road in writing. There’s just the one filled with pot holes and ditches, grid lock and road rage that we all travel down, striving to just get to the end.

And now it’s back to your regularly scheduled blogging.  I had to get those posted though.  I liked them too much to just delete them.

Anyway, you may have noticed that I’ve added a bunch of pictures to the sidebar there, aptly titled as being from Coney Island.  You’d think that since I’ve lived in New York City, I’ve been to the area I don’t know how many times, that I would have gotten down to Coney before now.  Nope.  Memorial Day weekend was my first visit.  I also didn’t think the sun would be all that strong that day.  My arms were so burnt they were purple.  Wasn’t I wrong?

As you know one of my WIPs is set in and around Coney Island.  Now, if I didn’t live so close, I’d probably research the hell out of the location, Google Earth, Mapquest and all those handy dandy tools.  But since I do and it gives me a great excuse to go into the city (not that I need one), I went in.  And I have to say, for having never been there, I was pretty close on the layout of it all.  I have to say I had images of something, um, nicer in my head but now I realize that I wasn’t thinking of Coney Island with those.  Remember the movie Big?  At the end where him and the woman are walking along a boardwalk?  That’s what I had.  That’s not Coney.  I don’t know where that is but I’m sure the end credits say something about it.

I have to say, I love boardwalks.  They just have this pulsing aura about them.  I’m not sure what it is but it’s almost like there could be a whole subculture living underneath every one of them.  Granted I’ve only been to two (Coney and Santa Cruz) but I plan on going to more (especially since a series I’m outlining will center on a boardwalk).

Now, going to Coney answered a couple of questions for me.  Yes, it’s entirely possible for my MC to have a psychic shop on Coney Island.  There are store fronts up against the amusement parks and even though they’re not directly on the water, it’s still very possible.  And two, it is just as freaky as I had thought.  Not freaky scary (at least not in broad daylight, anyway) but freaky as in people-wise.  Many different types of characters down there and it’s ripe for my story’s setting.  Absolutely perfect.  Coney is filled with small crevices and alleys that all sorts of creatures could hide in.  And lets not forget about Shoot the Freak.  What red-blooded American wouldn’t want to shoot at a human target?  I guess I’m not red-blooded.

There’s a lot of history on Coney Island.  During its heyday, it was absolutely gorgeous.  Spectacular, grand, even opulent.  It was a place not only for the wealthier people to converge, but a vacation destination far enough outside of the city that those who couldn’t afford to go anywhere else had someplace to go.  There are still remnants of Coney Island at it’s peak.  The Parachute Jump which has been in Brooklyn since the 30s still stands tall even though it’s no longer operational.  The notion of Steeplechase Park remains, even though it’s nothing more than a sign and a small sports field.  The thought is there.  Child’s Restaurant, the place to eat on Coney Island in the 20s has been left behind.  Well, at least the shell has.  While doing my research it looked like there were plans to restore the building and open the restaurant back up as of last year.  When I was down there at the end of May, I saw no such signs that had been on the building the previous year.  Maybe the plans fell through, or they just came down.  I don’t know.  But it was just a building with really neat architecture on it.

The boardwalk itself is old.  You could get a ride on it without paying any money.  Just be on the down end of a loose board when someone twice your weight walks on the other.  Wheeeeeee!  And yes, the boardwalk is actually made of wood.  My first boardwalk was in Santa Cruz and, much to my chagrin, it’s not a traditional boardwalk.  The entire thing is actually sat on cement slabs.  I guess that’s a bit wiser considering the earthquake zone and all.  The pier’s wood.  Just not to boardwalk.  At Coney, it’s all wood.  While the rides themselves are just off the boardwalk and sat on the pavement, the wooden boardwalk itself spans the southern end of the island, running all the way to Brighton Beach.  Ripe for stories.

It has that New York feel.  If you’ve never been to the city, it might be hard to comprehend.  It carries with it a sort of dirty, grimy, stranger feel to it but at the same time it’s homely and despite the fact it’s New York, it’s welcoming.  The latter part probably has to do with the fact that it’s in Brooklyn and the tension and verve of New York is left an the last stop before crossing the East River.  In other words, it’s perfect for my piece.

Now, if you’re writing about a real place, and it’s possible to do it, I’d recommend taking a visit.  You can research a place all you want but really, until you go there, you’re not going to fully understand what it’s like to be there.  You can get close and I’m sure it can be written convincingly enough but the things you’ll discover when you’re there that no map or website can tell you can be detrimental to your writing.

For instance, while on the elevated in Brooklyn, I came upon this cemetery.  Not the big one whose name escapes me but just a cemetery.  The thing with this one, though, it was probably . . . no, scratch that.  It IS the most densely populated cemetery I’ve ever seen.  It’s maybe a square city block and a half with headstones so unbelievably close together that the only way they could possibly fit that many people into that cemetery is to bury them vertically.  Imagine the issues for the vampire rising from the dead for the first time!  On top of that, it’s roughly 20 feet from a school and a community recreation area.  Here is a picture of the cemetery itself.  Look towards the back of it and you’ll see what I mean.  Next time I go, which will probably be sometime next month (when I get a decent base tan built), I’m going to stop there and do some pictures.  I just can’t pass that up again!

But it’s things like that, the much needed local aspects that’ll be back on page 57 of the Google search that you’d probably never get to that would add another inch of depth to your story that it didn’t have before.  If it’s not feasible, like you’re writing a setting in another country or, obviously, fantasy, you’re going to have to depend on massive research and the generosity of the internet (or your own imagination).  But even then, if you can afford to go to your muse country, do it.  Even if you’re writing something historical, you can go to the place of the battle or the castle you’re writing about and only then will you be able to replicate the feel of the place accurately in your writing.  You can guess, you can imagine and I’m sure you’d come close but once you know how the place feels, only then can you portray it with 100% accuracy.

If you can, go to your locale.  It’ll be worth whatever money you spend.  And no.  I didn’t only take 10 pictures at Coney.  WordPress’s Flickr widget doesn’t rotate pictures so I just chose 10 that I liked the most and finagled them.  Hopefully the .org version will have something a little more versatile.

We’ve come upon the last post from the Boddie blog that I’ll be moving over here.  For all you recluses and antisocials out there, this product is for you.

What better way to keep those annoying trespassers off of your freshly seeded grass than a carnivorous plant that kills it’s prey with it’s own slimy spit? While these Venuses are still only large enough to maim your ordinary house fly, I’m sure, with science and their wily ways, they’ll take a break from their attempt to bring dinosaurs back to life and mutate these Alien cousins into six-foot tall guard plants that hawk loogies of doom. Screw ADT. When these puppies come out, all you’ll need is a giant pot and a fresh stock of medium-sized mammals and you’re good to go.

How does this wonder-spit work? Well, pretty much just like quick sand. The more you struggle to get out of it, the faster you die. The give all to end all, double one of these plants with a pit of quick sand in your front yard. Perhaps not the most attractive thing but it’ll certainly save you the hassle of 6 a.m. Jehovah’s Witnesses calling every Saturday and put a quick end to those hooligans that like to leave flaming bags of poo on your doorstep. A new boom for “Beware of Plant” signs would spark the sign-making industry although home security companies and guard dog providers could potentially feel the heat from such a replacement. What a sight it would be to come home to a slime-covered burglar asphyxiated on your doorstep with his lower half missing. Hey, the plant got hungry. You should have fed him something a little more substantial then a ferret before you went out.

Now all science has to do is create a Whomping Willow of Harry Potter fame and you can sit back and watch as any trespassers get flicked off your property by a tree with anger management issues. Consider Whompy the first responder. Should anyone make it past him, and are dumb enough to continue on, Planty will be there to take care of the rest. Not only do these products rid your home of pesky undesirables, they give back to the environment. You know, photosynthesis and all. Just don’t plant Whompy too close to your driveway. He might be the cause of your sky-rocketing insurance rates.

Just a fair warning, should science succeed at playing god and reanimate the ancestral chickens, having a Velociraptor as a “guard dog” would not be the wisest of things, especially considering it can jump on your roof and run faster than you can drive your car. The makers of the invisible fence haven’t created a product stable enough to hold an electric current that strong. Besides, how would you feel if you got the short straw and had to affix the collar onto Toothy?

How I love Absolute Write.  A bunch of us farted around in the humor section and one of the mods came up with an alternate movie title thread, humorous, obviously.  We all proved why we’re not in the marketing departments of any major movie house.  But, yet again, I tickled not only myself but many others with my alternate movie titles (I wasn’t the only one doing the tickling, mind you).  Originally posted on the Boddie blog, read on to see titles that were scrapped probably immediately.  If you can, try to guess the movie before you get to the parentheses.

The Fat Man’s Half-Drunk Brother That Needs An Eye Lift (Fred Claus)

OMG, Robert DeNiro Is A Gay Cross-Dresser! (Stardust)

Jackass . . . oh wait . . .

Yeah, It Sinks So You Might As Well Save Your Own Ass But Not Before You Take My Virginity (Titanic)

The Life And Times Of Keith Richards (Pirates of the Caribbean)

Subpar Elvis Impersonator Runs Amok In The Mid-Atlantic States Searching For Shiny Things (National Treasure)

Oh My Gawd, Like Totally Awesome Valley Girl That Totally Likes to Stab Things With A Gnarly Older Man (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)

Backstreet Boys With Thermal Events On Their Backs (Ghostbusters)

Oh My God, Inanimate Objects Can Talk! (Cars)

Been Done Before (See Also: Heathers) (Mean Girls)

Deep Impact . . . wait . . .

Overly Veneered Teeth Take Over The World! (Armageddon)

A Desperate Attempt to Make A God-Awful Movie Funny By Throwing In Ashton Kutcher (Dude, Where’s My Car?)

Intergalactic Nookie aka Imagine The Oral Sex (Aliens vs. Predator, for those that don’t get it, there’s an insinuated Predator/human “interest” in this one, ick)

Lets Milk That Cash Cow Dry! (Halloween: H2O)

Will Someone Please Tell Neve Campbell To Open Her Eyes? (Scream)

I Stab You Now, Then Hump Your Dying Body (Zorro)

Where’s My Air Conditioner? (Towering Inferno)

Yet Another Movie With Flat Acting (Dances with Wolves)

You Want Me To Drink My Pee? (Waterworld)

Your Heart’s Bleeding On My Shoes (Interview with the Vampire)

How The Glory Hole Came To Be (Porky’s)

Talentless or We’ll Pay You To Watch This (Crossroads)

A Bald Man Who Employs Michael Jackson’s Plastic Surgeon Pursues Risk of Injury To A Minor on Multiple Occasions (Harry Potter and the . . .)

Didn’t We Already See This? (Reference: Fame) (High School Musical)

An Eerily Accurate Portrayal Of Cerebral Wastelands (Spinal Tapp)

Paris Hilton + Ice Pick of Doom = Box Office Draw (House of Wax)

Avoid Mullets (The Lost Boys)

Hollywood Creativity Has Died (Saw 4)

A Modern Day Case Study Of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (Bill and Ted’s . . .)

The Quadruped’s After The Bitch In The Closet (The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe)

Lessons In Talking With A Cotton-Stuffed Mouth (The Godfather)

The Menstrual Cycle Of Doom aka Seek Gynecological Help (Ginger Snaps)

Lets All Go To The Death Party (300)

3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197169399375105820974944592307816406286208998628034825342117067982148086513282306647093844609550582231725359408128481117450284102701938521105559644622948954930381964428810975665933446128475648233786783165271201909145648566923460348610454326648213393607260249141273724587006606315588174881520920962829254091715364367892590360011330530548820466521384146951941511609… (Pi)

Visit Your Mini Cooper Dealer Today! (The Italian Job remake)

Meandering Through A Teenager’s Delusional Psychosis (Labyrinth)

My Baritone Voice Makes Your Clothes Fall Off (XXX)

The Jews Did It (The Passion of the Christ)

Why The Hell Are There Trenches in 42nd Street? (The Muppets Take Manhattan)

Fool-Proof Cure For Insomnia (How To Make An American Quilt)

This is probably one of my favorite blog spots that I’ve ever written.  Again, I wrote this originally for the Boddie blog but I just couldn’t let it get sucked into the internet void.  I’d like to think it humbles a certain major league fan base but, like them, I’m filled with delusional thoughts.  In fact, it does just the opposite.  *le sigh*  And just FYI, this was posted maybe a week after the Series last year, hence the beginning language.

Unless you have been living under a rock or boycotting modern technology, you’ll know that the Boston Red Sox have won yet another World Series, bringing their total up to…6 (7 if you count them playing as the Boston Americans in the first Series)…in 104 years of the Series existence and 102 Series played (two of the 104 there were strikes). Pardon me while I get mathematical here…so that’s winning 6.9% of all World Series played (102), averaging 1 Series win every 15 years (just under, actually, going at the 104 Series that have been played, hey, not my fault they went on strike 2 of those 104 years, that’s 2 lost years that the Red Sox might have won, although I highly doubt it). In other terms, roughly 1 win per generation, 1 win per major war or 14 out of 15 “almosts.”

Now lets take a look at the Yankees. They have 26 World Series wins out of 102 Series years or roughly 26% of all Series won, averaging 1 Series win every 4 years (playing fair, that’s at the same 104 years of the Series existence). In other terms, who will the Yankees play in the Series this year?

At the average years stated above for the Red Sox and the Yankees, it’ll take the Sox 300 years from this point to catch up to the Yankees’ Series record, assuming that the Yankees will never win another World Series (and then the pixies fly out of my backside and Steinbrenner rises from the dead to wreak revenge on the futuristic manager). If these statistics remain stagnant, the Sox will never catch up. Considering, statistically, the Yankees win three Series for every one the Sox do, it would be like trying to catch a car traveling three times as fast as yours. Unless the Yankees blow a flat, their driver gets launched out of the windshield and the vehicle catches fire, it’s safe to say the BoSox will forever be behind. The sooner the Sox fans come to terms with this fact, the less instances of aneurysms the Boston metropolitan area emergency rooms will see.

For even more impressing numbers, if we take the most recent wins for the Sox, that’s 2 in the last 89 years, at that glorious rate it’ll take them 1,157 years to catch up to the Yankees’ Series wins, again presuming that the Yankees never win one again which would never happen because it would elicit zombieism in Steinbrenner. Is that the man you want eating your brains? But, either way, your great-great-great-great-great-great grandkids (at the minimum) are going to be holding seances in your name in order to inform you that the Sox have finally caught up to the Yankees 26 wins. More numbers for you; in another 300 years the Yankess will have an added 75 Series wins and in 1,157, tack on 289, statistically speaking, of course.

So, keep rooting, you foraging Red Sox fans. No matter your insults, your vehicle flips or your obnoxious, nonsensical fallacies, the numbers speak for themselves. Revel in your puny wins and leave the dynasties up to the big boys. Lord knows Bean Town would probably combust if the Sox were ever to receive such a title. Two games in 89 years is not a roll, it’s not on anyone’s way and you’re not “at” anything. They’re 2 wins in 89 years. Start winning some consecutive Series, say 4 or 5, and then you might be able to claim some semblance of a roll other than Pillsbury. The Yankees may be the Mafia’s company softball team but don’t hold that against them. Doesn’t make them any worse, just makes your Green-Eyed Giant Monster a little more envious.

Perhaps all these years at the top have made the Yankees a little, how do you say, snot-nosed, maybe just a touch arrogant but if you, dear Sox, held such numbers, you probably would be too although I’m sure you’ll only be able to reach those stats in your dreams. So keep on keepin‘ on. It’s the only way that flicker of hope you keep grasping so desperately on to will stay lit. Don’t knock the Yankees because they’re good. It’s not like they’re faking it…well…steroids exempt, it’s not like they’re faking it. They were good long before Juice was even an option. Unless you count hot dogs and whores as performance-enhancing drugs…

And please remember, all you rabid sports fans, you are not a member of the sports team you are rooting for. You did not win anything. “We” won nothing. The Red Sox won the Series, the Colts won the Super Bowl, et cetera and so on. Unless you are a number-carrying teammate or other member of management, keep your projection issues to yourself and stop talking in the second person*. Just because your mom wouldn’t sign the permission slip in high school doesn’t mean you belong to a team by proxy because you smear your face in war paint.

Red Sox fans. So adamant, romantic, persistent, downright delusional but loyal nonetheless.

(stats courtesy of http://www.baseball-almanac.com/)

*The only exemption would be residents of Green Bay, Wisconsin.  Considering the Green Bay Packers are a cooperative team paid for by ticket sales and tax dollars, Green Baysians are fully entitled to say “we” when referencing the Packers.  They each own a portion of the team.  Of course they can say “we.”