Tag Archives: funny

May 16 2018
Leave a comment
Great Musings of the Twenty-First Century

Great Musings of the Twenty-First Century – #151 – 175

And now, Bookshelf Q. Battler, one of the greatest minds of the Twenty-First Century (but hey, the century is still young) will share his great musings…

man-3391887_1280

#151 – A dollar doesn’t buy much anymore.

#152 – Alcatraz was a formidable prison.  Why’d they close it down?

#153 – Reece’s Pieces are like M and M’s, except the candy shell covers peanut butter instead of chocolate or a chocolate covered nut.

#154 – No one ever screams for ice cream anymore.

#155 – Ferret is an oft underutilized meat source.

#156 – English is a language that is easily understood by those who speak it well.

#157 – I’d rather not contract syphilis if I can avoid it.

#158 – Barbie has so many jobs.  Where does that bitch find the time?

#159 – Somewhere on another planet, there is a guy writing on a blog as poorly read as this one.

#160 – Television is fun to watch.

#161 – A hat is the best thing to wear when your head is cold.

#162 – See #161 but replace “hat” with “gloves” and “head” with “hands.”

#163 – I’ve never thought much about mitochondrial DNA.  The subject is over my head.

#164 – A stranger is just a person who may or may not lock you up in a secret room they have hidden between two walls in their creepy old house.

#165 – I use an alarm clock to wake up in the morning, but I’d prefer a soldier playing “Reveille” on a trumpet.

#166 – Whenever you want to smoke, you never have a lighter.  Isn’t that always the way?

#167 – Humans are shaved apes.  Apes are furry humans.

#168 – Whenever my house is dirty, I clean it.

#169 – Nobody says, “Talk to the hand” anymore.

#170 – Neon colors aren’t used enough.

#171 – I like to start my day with a big bowl of oatmeal with some raisins mixed in.

#172 – If I could travel through time, I’d go back to two seconds ago, and rewrite this musing.

#173 – All animals should be required to wear pants.

#174 – There goes Don Quixote, tilting at windmills again.

#175 – It must be hard to be crazy.

Tagged , , , ,
May 13 2018
Leave a comment
Great Musings of the Twenty-First Century

Great Musings of the Twenty-First Century – #76-100

And now, Bookshelf Q. Battler, one of the greatest minds of the Twenty-First Century (but hey, the century is still young) will share his great musings…

man-3391887_1280

#76 – When my garbage bag is full, the best thing to do is to take it out to the curb.

#77 – It’s always a good idea to carry a roll of quarters in your pocket.  You never know when you might need to do some laundry or pay a toll.  Twenty years ago, I would have added that you might need to make a call from a pay phone, but they don’t have those anymore.

#78 – All those male Smurfs must have run a train on Smurfette.

#79 – Lifting weights can make you stronger.

#80 – “The Wolf” in “Pulp Fiction” didn’t provide much help at all.  Think about it.  He’s built up as this big fixer that can use his ingenuity to make the worst problems go away, but then all he does is show up and tell Vincent and Jules to clean up the car with household cleaning products.  Shit.  I’ve never shot a guy in my car but if I did, I would, as a novice, think of the fact that I should probably spray some Windex on the blood in the hopes that it will go way.

#81 – Nobody knows what it’s like to be a sad man…except other sad men.

#82 – Shorts keep your legs cool in the summer.

#83 – No one makes VHS tapes anymore.

#84 – Is it possible to suck and blow at the same time?

#85 – Were Groucho Marx and Richard Marx related?

#86 – Plants must be watered.

#87 – “Ransack” is an interesting word.

#88 – Bell and Biv were carrying Devoe.

#89 – It’s hard to eat many foods without a fork.

#90 – Do ghosts fuck?  How does that work?

#91 – The average person inhales 4,582 spiders a night.

#92 – Cars have four wheels for a reason.

#93 – What’s black and white and read all over?

#94 – Paris is lovely this time of year.

#95 – I once discovered the meaning of life, but I forgot it.

#96 – Low hanging fruit is the best kind of fruit.

#97 – I’ve never gone Commando, on the battlefield or in my pants.

#98 – Swans are just fancy ducks.

#99 – Waffles are delicious.

#100 – The big ball drops on New Year’s Eve, but my balls drop a little lower every Tuesday.

Tagged , , , ,
May 13 2018
Leave a comment
Great Musings of the Twenty-First Century

Great Musings of the Twenty-First Century – #51-75

And now, Bookshelf Q. Battler, one of the greatest minds of the Twenty-First Century (although hey, it’s still young) will share his great musings…

man-3391887_1280

#51 – Call me old fashioned, but soda pop tastes better when it’s cold.

#52 – Men will always like big breasts.

#53 – Does the Pope ever wear a derby when he’s alone?

#54 – If you have vision problems, glasses will help you see better.

#55 – A hot take is the worst possible take.

#56 – Why are hamburgers called “ham-burgers?”  I’ve never asked for pig meat on my cow patty in my entire life and I’m not about to start now.

#57 – Middle aged white soccer moms who practice yoga are engaging in cultural appropriation.

#58 – Cookies are fun to eat.

#59 – Cancer is the worst drag of all.

#60 – Licking a sidewalk can’t be fun or healthy.  I don’t advise it.

#61 – Ever since my doctor told me I was sterile, I’ve wondered if the 9,832 hot pockets I cooked in the microwave throughout the course of my life were worth it.

#62 – Board games should be called “bored games” because they are boring.

#63 – Always bring exact change to a strip club.  I’ve never met a stripper who can break a twenty dollar bill.

#64 – Cinnamon goes good with everything.

#65 – Canada is America’s whiney little brother, the one that Mom makes us hold hands with on the way to school even though we really don’t want to.

#66 – Pancakes are neither pans nor cakes.  Discuss.

#67 – If Capt. Kirk and company are able to beam their way to a distant location, then why don’t they beam their star ship to Barbados every time the Klingons come onto the scene, looking to start some shit?

#68 – Whenever I have a stain on my shirt, I find the best course of action is to get it laundered.

#69 – Do cockroaches fuck?  I mean, they have to, right?  Because like, where else would all those cockroaches come from?  Damn it, I wonder what cockroach fucking looks like.

#70 – I don’t like to eat pizza crust.  I would prefer it if my local pizza parlor would simply attach wooden handles to my pizza, as well as a self-addressed, stamped envelope I can use to mail the wooden handles back to the pizza parlor when I am done using them to hold the various and sundry slices of my pizza.

#71 – Whenever someone asks me what is the one item I would wish for if I were left alone on a deserted island, I inevitably ask for a power drill…because how else are you going to fuck a coconut?

#72 – Words are the building blocks of sentences.

#73 – People who are lonely should seek the company of other people.

#74 – Candy is delicious, though not very nutritious.

#75 – An apple a day might keep the doctor away for awhile…until the day comes when you cut off your hand with a miter saw and then, well, I don’t give a shit how many apples you ate that day, the doctor is still going to want to examine that shit.

Tagged , ,
May 13 2018
Leave a comment
Great Musings of the Twenty-First Century

Great Musings of the Twenty-First Century – #25 – 50

And now, Bookshelf Q. Battler, one of the greatest minds of the Twenty-First Century (although hey, it’s still young) will share his great musings…

man-3391887_1280

#26 – If an after life does indeed exist, you can be assured to a mathematical certainty of one-hundred and fifty-eight percent that one of your deceased relatives has gazed down upon you from the heavens to check in on how you are doing only to be repulsed upon seeing you engaged in a full scale, no holds barred, down and dirty masturbation session.

#27 – Time is a construct and we need to construct more of it.  A lot more.

#28 – If I could do it all again, I’d be a farmer.

#29 – Genes decide if your butt looks good in jeans.  Jeans, on the other hand, decide nothing about your genes.  On an unrelated note, my Cousin Gene owes me thirty-seven dollars and a carton of menthols.

#30 – Did Samurais eat rye bread?

#31 – The first best way to get a free book is to go to your local library and get a library card.  The second best way to get a free book is to politely ask a friend who happens to be getting rid of a book if you can have the book.  The third best way to get a free book is to jam a Glock into a bookworm’s ribs and shout, “Give me your copy of Wuthering Heights right now or you’ll eat lead, motherfucker!”  For legal and/or moral purposes, I do not advise the latter.

#32 – The show, “Saturday Night Live” should be called, “One Half-Hour of Saturday Night and One Hour of Sunday Morning Live.”  I hate to be a stickler, but facts matter.

#33 – String is good for tying things up.

#34 – No one has any cash anymore.

#35 – Do Chinese people call their food, “food?”

#36 – I’ve tried and failed several weight loss programs over the years.  I’ve found the only regimen that works is to be locked in a cage like a werewolf on a full moon and to be zapped in the nut sack with a cattle prod whenever I ask for pizza.  For legal and moral purposes, I don’t advise this.

#37 – If your parents die at age 80 when you are age 50, will that make you an orphan?

#38 – Chips go good with dip.

#39 – I’ve never understood people who put ketchup AND mustard on one hot dog.  It’s an either/or decision, jackass.  Make a choice and live with the consequences.

#40 – The first caveman who saw a lobster and decided it looked delicious must have been a bonafide asshole.

#41 – Croutons are like speed bumps for salad.

#42 – Couples who want to have a baby should do so before age 35.  It’s a scientific fact that after age 36, the inside of a woman’s uterus bears a striking resemblance to the knight’s tomb in “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade,” complete with spiders, cobwebs, bats and the bones of unlucky explorers from long gone ancient civilizations.

#43 – Polish makes objects shiny.

#44 – How does the guy who writes “YOU ARE HERE” on the giant, oversized maps at various public attractions always know where I am?  Stalk much?

#45 – I’m against gay marriage, not because I have anything against gay people, it’s just that I think they’ve been through enough already.

#46 – Am I the only one who goes to a baseball game and wonders why 50,000 people are watching a bunch of dummies throw a ball around?

#47 – You may laugh at the idea of bidets, but I’ve never met a Frenchman with hemorrhoids.

#48 – Nobody writes letters anymore.

#49 – Toaster ovens are the microwaves of yesteryear.

#50 – Winter is the best time of year to wear your heavy coat.  If you wait until August to put it on, it will be too hot.

Tagged , , , ,
May 02 2018
3 Comments
Tomfoolery

BQB and the Search for Culturally Appropriate Food – A Short Story of One Man’s Search for Elusive Woke-ness

meltypizza

Can’t prove you’re from the boot?  Don’t even think about it.

I was hungry tonight, 3.5 readers.  I should have skipped dinner because I’m fat but screw it.  My tummy wanted foody, yum yum.

I went to a strip mall, where there was a pizza joint and a Chinese restaurant.  Normally, I would enter one or the other place, order, stuff my face and leave fatter than ever and none the wiser that I had committed a hate crime that made me worse than Hitler, namely, that I ate food that did not hail from my culture.

You see, I’m not Chinese.  Of that, we can be certain.  And even though that nice Chinese couple who moved to town and spent their savings to open up a business in which they would utilize their skill in cooking and serving their native dishes to anyone willing to pay, I knew better than they did.

Up until yesterday, I didn’t know better.  I thought it was OK for me to stuff orange chicken and pork fried rice and beef teriyaki and won ton soup and crab rangoons and moo goo gai pan and chow mein into my pie hole with reckless abandon.

But then, yesterday, I read about that girl who wore a Chinese dress to her prom even though she was not Chinese and I realized that I was a monster for eating Chinese food all of this time without being Chinese.

So I stuck my head in the doorway (I didn’t think I deserved to even enter a restaurant that was decorated in a Chinese style because again, I’m not Chinese) and I told the nice couple that I would not be able to purchase their food again because I am not Chinese.  They looked at me and smiled and then when I tried to explain further, the wife grabbed a broom and whacked me in the ass and told me, “Get lost, hipster scum!”

Anyway, so the other place at the strip mall was a pizza joint.  I go there often.  They have good pizza.  However, it dawned on me that I am not Italian.

I thought about it for a moment.  Although I am not Italian, I am of English, Scandanavian and German ancestry.  As you might be aware (you probably aren’t because you attended public schools), there was a time when Europe was conquered by the Roman Empire.

So…I guess you could make the argument that I am the descendant of subjects who were under the rule of Ancient Italians.

But then I thought, “Well…I can’t really prove that.  Maybe my ancestors were aware they were subjects of Ancient Italians, or maybe they were tree people who just danced around in the forest and had no idea about what was going on.  Further, I can’t draw a map of what the Roman Empire looked at during any one point in time, let alone during various times as it lasted a long time, and don’t even get me started on the Holy Roman Empire…”

Oh well.  I decided not to chance.  I got in my car.  By the way, my car is American made, so I think I’m OK, but I’m going to put a call into the manufacturer tomorrow to ask if I share the same heritage as the people who assembled the car on the manufacturing line.  I mean, if the car was made by a man who isn’t English, Scandanavian, or German, then I’d be culturally appropriating this individual’s work and that would be wrong.

I drove for hours until I found a Norwegian Restaurant.  It was called “The Viking’s Helmet.”  Finally, I would be able to dine without it being a hate crime because, remember, I’m part-Scandanavian.

Once inside, I was greeted by a waiter dressed in full Viking battle regalia, horny helmet, battle axe, long beard and all.

“By Odin’s taint, I’m Uncle Sven and I’ll be your server,” said he.

“Glad to be here,” I said.  “I’m a descendant of the Ancient Viking peoples and I just learned it’s cultural appropriation to eat any food that my ancestors didn’t eat.”

Sven and I got to talking and found we were pissed off about the same offenses to our culture.  We were pissed that Marvel was making bank off of cartoonizing our deity, Thor, for he is the God of Thunder and to turn him into a superhero is apparently fine to everyone, yet everyone would shit solid gold bricks if Stan Lee were to churn out a series of comic books called, “The Stupendous Jesus!”  See Jesus cure the lepers in a single bound!

Further, we were pissed that there was an NFL team in the current year called the “Vikings” even though the Ancient Scandanavian heritage of any of the players had not been verified.  The Vikings were a proud lot of warriors who beat the shit out of their slaves to get them to row their long ships faster so they could get to foreign lands and steal their shit, pillage their villages, set their huts on fire, and abscond with their women so…unless you did all that and still looked good in a horny helmet, I’ll thank you to not refer to yourself as a “Viking.”

Soon enough, Thor brought me a steaming hot plate of salted codfish gonads, which surprised me because a) I didn’t know Vikings ate those and b) I didn’t know fish had gonads.  I mean, I guess I knew that but I didn’t know they were anything you could make a meal of, or that anyone would want to.

“Our ancient kinsman would spend many a night looking at their plundered booty and enjoying a plate of salted codfish gonads,” Uncle Sven said.

“Yeah,” I replied.  “It’s just that…well…up until now I was more of a pizza and/or beef teriyaki kind of guy.”

“That’s crazy talk, you un-woke, bigoted, unmitigated pile of whale shit!”  Uncle Sven said.  “You’re not Chinese OR Italian!!!”

“I know,” I replied.  “And had I know it was a hate crime to have eaten anything other than the salted codfish gonads that my Viking ancestors consumed while they burnt the villages of their enemies to the ground and defiled the women folk to prove their manliness, then I never would have developed a penchant for pepperoni and spare ribs.”

“Oh well,” Uncle Sven said.  “At least now you know you were a disgusting monster and now you can change.  What part of Scandanavia did your people hail from?”

“Beats me,” I said.

Uncle Sven gasped.  I explained that my family always told me we were part Scandanavian, but never specified which country.  Uncle Sven told me the specific country matters, for this was a Norwegian restaurant and Norwegians always cooked and salted their codfish gonads.  Meanwhile, the Swedes prefered unsalted codfish gonads and the Finns liked to mix their codfish gonads with a jelly-like substance made out of crushed radishes and the excised tumors of pickled herrings.

Thus, since I couldn’t prove I was a bonafide Norwegian, Uncle Sven could not risk taking part in cultural appropriation, because for all he knew, I could have been the descendant of Finns and he was fresh out of cancer laden pickled herrings.

I told Uncle Sven there were no hard feelings and set off for a German restaurant.  I am, part German, after all.  I found a restaurant called “Haus of Der Wunder Schnitzel.”

There I met a waiter in leiderhosen named Herr Gunter, who told me he would happy to serve me a delicious, hot pretzel, a frothy stein of German beer, bratwurst, as many weiner schnitzels I could eat, all doused with a heaping helping of sauerkraut.

I told Herr Gunter that all sounded delicious and I could eat all of this guilt free because I’m part German.  Alas, Herr Gunter gasped and cried, “Only part?!”

Yes.  I asked if “only part German” was good enough and said it wasn’t.  You see, at this time, there doesn’t exist a process that would allow a doctor to determine which percentage of my stomach was German so there was no way to know how much food my stomach would be able to carry until it filled up the German part and overflowed into the English and Scandanavian parts.  The idea of German food mixing around in a stomach that shared ancestry with non-Germans was morally abhorrent and a definite act of cultural appropriation.

I thanked Herr Gunter for his time and left.  I had a similar exchange at Sir Nigel’s Kidney Pie Factory.  Sir Nigel was willing to sell me a kidney pie until I explained that I could not explain which part of my stomach was English, and then he told me I was banned from eating pies made out of the organs that eliminate toxins from the bodies of farm animals because, hey, that’s better than pizza I guess.

I asked Sir Nigel if he knew what a man of mixed heritage like me could do, because I was hungry and hadn’t eaten all day.  The kind man handed me a box of crackers, which he explained, had been invented by the Brits, for like the British, they are dry, tasteless, and have a history of invading your mouth and leaving crumbs in areas where they didn’t belong.  Hence, why my people would always be known as “Crackers.”

The catch was that I had to promise to eat only one cracker every four hours.  Thus, I’d be able to ensure the cracker would only stay in the English part of my stomach and not mix with the German and Scandanavian parts.

I agreed.  Sir Nigel also gave me a jug of water.  It was ok for me to drink water, the Brit noted, because all cultures have enjoyed water since the dawn of time.

I returned home, where I sat on the front steps to my house.  I ate a cracker, then checked my watch.  I took a sip of water.

A few minutes later, an angry, blue haired feminist wearing a Che Guevara t-shirt slapped the cracker box out of my hand, then seized the water bottle from my other hand and dumped it all over the sidewalk.

“Hey!”  I cried.

“Cultural appropriating scum!”  the angry feminist said.

“I’m not!”  I said.  “I researched this thoroughly!  I can eat crackers because I am a British cracker and also I have agreed to only eat one cracker every four hours so as to not allow the cracker to inter mingle with the non-British parts of my stomach.”

With a triumphant grin, the SJW pointed my direction to the bottom of the cracker box, which was prominently stamped, “Made in Taiwan.”

I looked to the heavens and, much as Capt. Kirk screamed the name of his nemesis, Khan, so too did I cry, “Damn you, Pacific Trade Partnership!!!”

I composed myself.  “But why did you dump out my water?  All cultures enjoy water.”

“Yeah,” the SJW said.  “But uh…hello?  Most anthropologists are in agreement that the first humans were born in Africa and so they were the first people to discover water so unless you’ve got a Ugandan passport on you…”

I sighed.  I told her I didn’t have such a passport and laid down on the stoop.  As the SJW walked away, I lost all hope.  The hours passed, the night went by, and in the morning, my throat was so dry.

As the time rolled on, various helpful social justice warriors stopped by to inform me that my hat, belt, shirt, pants, shoes, socks, and underwear had all been manufactured in other countries, none of which I could claim kinship with.  They were nice enough to take all of my clothing, throw them into a dumpster, pour gas on them and set my duds ablaze.

I returned to my front steps, where I laid their naked…until one of the women who complained about the origin of my clothing accused me of exercising male privilege and/or engaging in Harvey Weinstein-esque activity and so, she called the police.

Not wanting to go to jail, I found a sharp object and was about to stab myself to death when another SJW pointed out that if I were to do so, I would be committing a form of the ancient art of hare kare, i.e. the Ancient Japanese tradition of killing yourself in order to preserve your honor when you have engaged in an epic fail.

So, I wrapped myself in a burlap sack.  I felt bad because I could not figure out which country had invented burlap, but it was my only option.  I headed South, all the way to Antarctica, where I found peace…

…until the world’s only talking penguin accused me of appropriating penguin culture by trying to catch a fish with my mouth.

The End.

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Apr 12 2018
Leave a comment
Music

Awkwafina’s “My Vag”

Hey 3.5 readers.

Are you down?  Do you need a laugh?  Please drop what you are doing and watch this girl rap about how much better her vag is than yours.

It’s pretty catchy.  “My vag won best vag, your vag won best supporting vag…”

This is probably one of those things that the kids knew about for years and I’m just learning about it right?

“My vag is Godfather 1 and your vag is Godfather 3.” Ouch.

Tagged , ,
Mar 27 2018
Leave a comment
Daily Discussion with BQB

Daily Discussion with BQB – Choose Your Super Power

If you were able to be magically granted one of the following super powers, which would you choose and why?  Choose only one and discuss in the comments:

  • Ability to fart fire.  (You knew that was coming.)
  • X-Ray vision but it only allows you to see senior citizens naked.  You can look through anything else but like, when you look at hot chicks they’ll still have their clothes on.  Bogus.
  • Vivid, highly detailed memory of anything that ever happened on any Wednesday in your life.
  • Perfect parallel parking.
  • Perfect grammar.
  • Exceptional mathematical computation abilities at a high speed.
  • Mind reading capabilities but you can’t read the mind of anyone named Steve.  Thus, anyone named Steve will be your arch-enemy.
  • Super fast bicycle pedaling ability.
  • Karaoke master.
  • Ability to make others think you look hot even though you are very ugly.
  • Flying skills – you can fly, but you have to make, “put, put, put” noises like a poorly maintained engine is moving you, which makes it way less cool and impressive to the ladies.  Still, you can fly, but if you ever stop making the “put, put” sounds, you’ll fall.
  • Perfect comedic timing.
  • Accurate restaurant bill tip calculation skills.
  • Super fast speed with the exception that in New Jersey, your power is reversed and you are only able to move in slow motion.
  • Sonic masturbation.
  • Always the guy who brings the pizza to any party.  That’s it.  Show up to any party.  Pizza is mysteriously delivered.  Pizza delivery guy announces it’s from you, makes it look like you paid for it but you never have to pay for it.
  • Drink unlimited booze without getting drunk.  In theory, cool.  In reality, why?  It’s just like drinking a shit ton of old, expired soda.
  • Ability to travel great distances by being shot out of a cannon.
  • You’re the greatest painter in the world, but you can only paint pictures of Chester A. Arthur arm wrestling infamous 1960s bedazzled piano man, Liberace.  Still, your paintings of these two are superb and sell for millions.
  • Ability to separate all recyclable materials out of your trash by snapping your fingers.
  • Extreme foresight – ability to tell exactly how all your decisions will work out in the future.
  • Extreme hindsight – constantly reminded of how your bad decisions in the past got you to today’s intensely shitty present.
  • Eternal life, but you must play a kazoo while a Filipino hunchback named Raul beats you in the face with a smelly fish for five minutes, every hour on the hour, forever or else you’ll die.
  • Ability to stay in the lines when coloring in coloring books with crayons.
  • Unlimited money.
  • Unlimited sex (consensual, of course, you freak.)
  • Unlimited Arby’s coupons.
  • You can predict whenever any convenience store within a 50 mile radius is about to be robbed of all it’s slushee machine syrup by a man with athlete’s foot.
Tagged , , , ,
Mar 24 2018
Leave a comment
Fridays with BQB

#FridaysWithBQB – Interview #6- Sydney Everson – Young Adult Novels, Children’s Books and Sweet Romance

2886710_orig

Author Website

Hey 3.5 readers. Your old pal Bookshelf Q. Battler here. Today’s guest on #FridayswithBQB is Sydney Everson, a writer of children’s books, young adult novels and sweet romance. She’s also a recovering lawyer who ditched the old rat race to focus on the more important things of life, namely, raising her son and concentrating on writing.

Seriously, readers. Take your elbows off the tables and suck in your guts, there’s a respectable lady present.

BOLD=BQB; ITALICS=SYDNEY

QUESTION #1 – Sydney, welcome to my blog. My apologies. It’s a mess around here. I’d pick up, but honestly, I don’t want to. You seem too good of a person, much better than the usual pack of vagrants who hang out around here, so I’ll try to get you on your way as quickly as possible.

We first virtually met on Twitter when we had a quick little chat about concentrating on one writing topic. I don’t recall what exactly was said, but generally, we were talking about how it’s not the best idea to deviate from one idea to another. A certain amount of stick-to-itiveness is required to get the job done, even when you’ve been working on an idea a long time and feel the need for a break.  It may seem satisfying to scratch that itch of a new project, but you’ll never get your old project done if you do.

You’ve completed several projects. What keeps you sticking to it?

ANSWER – I know the temptation well – you’re working on your baby, this book idea you’ve fully developed and thrown yourself into writing, but now you’re editing, you’re on draft two or three, and it’s starting to become a slog. Out of the blue, a bright, shiny new idea comes along to tempt you. It’s so fresh and exciting and you want to start on it right away. For me, I know if I chase the “shiny” I’ll never come back and finish the current project, I just won’t have the motivation anymore. But I do want to keep this nascent, fragile spark of an idea alive for when I can work on it, so I make notes. I start a new file where I jot down the ideas that come to me for the next book – plot, scenes, characters, anything that comes to mind, I jot it down and save it. Meanwhile, I keep plugging away at the current project and when it’s done, I’m ready to start on the “shiny” and already have some headway made.

QUESTION #2 – On your website, you mention you’re a member of a writer’s group in your community. Personally, I despise most people and prefer to live the life of a hermit rather than converse or share my thoughts and/or feelings with anyone. Also, I just feel I am a genius who is so intelligent that people with lesser brains could never possibly tell me anything I don’t already know, and I say that with all humility.

But, for all the normals out there, would you recommend joining a writer’s group as a means to share ideas, get feedback, stay motivated, that sort of thing?

ANSWER – Absolutely, but it may take a bit of “shopping around” to find one that’s the right fit for you. If you go to one and aren’t feeling it, don’t force yourself to keep going, but don’t give up either. Try to find another, or start your own! I’ve been to meetings of a few where I knew those just weren’t for me. Whether it was the writers’ personalities, differing goals, or even just different ideas about what the group’s purpose was, they weren’t a fit, but I’m currently in two that I love. In one group, the writers have become very good friends and are a wonderful source of support and advice. The other is a critique group which I find very helpful. Sometimes the advice is good, and sometimes it’s not, but the main thing is, by writing for it once a month, I’m forcing myself to step out of my current project for just a moment and knock out something short, quick, and creative. I find that really helps reset me sometimes and get the creative juices flowing again, especially when I’m in editing mode on one of my projects. So I guess the short answer is yes, they can help you stay creative and they can support an author’s journey to publication, but you have to find the right group for you and your goals.

QUESTION #3 – Let’s talk about young adult fiction. I don’t care for that genre myself. I mean, seriously, all these kids running around with zero life experience yet somehow they manage to save the day in the end, while leaving time for blossoming romance? Seems unrealistic to me as these kids aren’t worried about paying mortgages or credit card bills or finding the cheapest yet most effective brand of hemorrhoid medication. Don’t even get me started on what it takes to get a good life insurance policy these days.

Oh, wait a minute. I think I figured out why I don’t like young adult fiction. It’s because I’m an old adult and after a lifetime of seeing every dream I ever had flushed down the crapper, the idea of a happy ending seems like fiction to me.

You seem like a better adult than I am but still, is it hard for an adult to turn off that “adult” switch in order to put him or herself into the shoes of young characters? How do you do it?

ANSWER – I think there are a number of reasons adults enjoy young adult literature, both reading and writing it. The themes in YA lit are often ones we “adults” still struggle with, like figuring ourselves out and why we’re here, what we’re meant to be doing with our lives. I’m [censored]-ty years old and yet in some ways, I’m still trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up. Even as adults, we’re not stagnant. We change, adapt, and evolve based on our experiences and the people we meet in life. The heroes and heroines of YA lit are doing the same. The things they struggle with are not exclusive to teenagers – acceptance of self and others, expressions of our individuality, issues with our families or friends, how we handle crises, etc. Those aren’t just kids’ issues, adults wrestle with them too.

Also, I think there’s an element to youth we as adults want to experience again through literature, and that is this sense of possibility. Do you remember getting in a car with your friends when you were seventeen or eighteen years old on a weekend evening and feeling like literally anything was possible –adventure, love, who knows what, but the whole world was out there and anything could happen? It’s an amazing feeling and one adults get to relive through books. Let’s face it, at my age, if I go out for an evening my friends, I know will have a glass of wine, be home in sweats by 9:30, and wake up tomorrow with a wine hangover from that one glass of chardonnay. Through YA lit, I get to relive that magical sense of open-ended possibility.

BQB EDITORIAL NOTE: I prefer to eat a bag of Chips Ahoy alone while watching old re-runs of “The Golden Girls.”  Blanche is such a card.  I’d invite friends over but then I’d have to share my cookies and I don’t want to.  I’m at an age where I value cookies over friends.  Also, I have no friends.

QUESTION #4 – You also write children’s picture books. What advice do you have for a writer who wants to get into that genre?

ANSWER – This is one I’m still trying to figure out. A lot of people think knocking out a quick picture book is easy because it’s so short, but it’s actually incredibly difficult. You have to get an entire story across in very few words and do so with heart, humor, whimsy, and, oh yeah, you might need to write the whole thing in verse. That’s insane. I’d suggest doing some research first. Publishers create picture books in fairly rigid formats, so your words and pictures may need to fit a predesigned layout of, for example, thirty-two pages. It’s a good idea to create a “dummy” layout and see how your wording fits.

QUESTION #5 – Suppose you want to write a children’s book but you have zero artistic skill. You’ve got the words planned out, but how do you go about getting the artwork? Collaborate with a designer? Are there resources out there for writers who need some illustrations for their picture books?

ANSWER – Many picture book publishers want to have the flexibility to choose the illustrator to go with the manuscript they like, so I’d say if you aren’t an author-illustrator, which I’m definitely not, you probably don’t need to worry about finding an illustrator and pairing up before you submit to a publisher as the publisher may want to choose their own illustrator. If you do want to team up with an illustrator though, a great place to start is the Society of Children’s Books Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI). They are a wonderful resource.

QUESTION #6, Part 1 – I’m toying with the idea of writing a children’s picture book called “Get a Job and Stop Being a Terrible Financial Burden on Your Parents.”

Page 1 = Mommy and Daddy fighting over bills.
Page 2 = Kid gets a job as a bus station janitor.
Page 3 = Kid gets a job as a short order fry cook.
Page 4 = Kid gets a job as a bus driver. How he got a license I don’t know.
Page 5 = Kid gives his hard earned money to his parents who don’t have to worry about bills anymore.

The End.

Do you think I’d make a mint with that book or should I not quit my day job

ANSWER – Haha, sounds good to me! You never know what will find the right market and appeal to people. I mean, Adam Mansbach and Ricardo Cortés’s book, “Go the F*** to Sleep” was a huge hit, so who knows?

QUESTION 6, Part 2 – OK. There was actually a method to my above madness. You probably have to have a special source of optimism to be a children’s book writer, right? I assume you have to think positive thoughts and bottle up joy and happiness and distill that onto the page? Cynical schmucks like me shouldn’t apply, but how do you do it? How do you beam so much positive reinforcement out there into the world?

ANSWER – I’m a big fan of escapism. The real world can be a hard, depressing, difficult place to live sometimes, in fact, rather often, so escaping into a book either through writing or reading, is a wonderful thing. I love creating worlds people can escape into and feel love and joy, and while there’s usually some peril, I always deliver a happy ending. We don’t get enough of those in real life.

QUESTION #7 – Let’s talk about your foray into the genre of sweet romance. Personally, I’ve never experienced a romance that didn’t end with a woman spending zero amount of her time with me while she spends one hundred percent of her time with fifty-percent of my stuff. I should have hired you to be my lawyer. You could have talked those women down to forty-five percent of my stuff easy.

But I digress. For those of us who are romantically challenged, please explain what the sweet romance genre is. Bonus points if you tell us what inspired you to get into it as a writer.

ANSWER – Sounds like you may need a little of that escapism into a sweet romance too! Sweet romance is basically just a love story without things getting steamy. (Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with steamy, I have several good friends that write awesome love stories with plenty of heat). For me though, sweet romance is kind of like the Disney version of love stories, where in the end, the characters realize they are in love and seal it with a kiss. I think the fun is in the falling. I love stories that bring characters close, but then pull them apart until they finally come together in the end. I jotted down ideas for romances for a while, but never wrote them out until I learned that Hallmark was starting to publish sweet romances in the vein of their Hallmark Channel movies. I’m a not-so-closeted addict of Hallmark Channel’s movies so I decided I had to give it a try! Whether ultimately Hallmark likes my sweet romance manuscripts, or another publisher does, or I self-publish remains to be seen, but I definitely enjoy writing them.

QUESTION #8 – I notice on your website you mention you are querying many of your projects. How’s that process going and what advice do you have for anyone out there trying to do the same?

AMAZON – Well, the website implies I’m continuously querying when really it’s more in fits and starts unfortunately. I tend to finish a project, send out a handful of queries, and then follow that “shiny” I talked about earlier. In my eagerness to work on the next project, I tend to neglect querying a bit so if I give advice here, it’ll be something I need to learn to take myself. Writing is so much more than writing, it’s plotting, outlining, editing, querying or self-publishing, and marketing and every author knows how difficult it is to find time for all of that.

Nevertheless, it’s important to make time to get your work out there if you want to be traditionally published. No one’s going to publish your book if you don’t ask. So ask, and keep asking. Rejections are a part of the process. I would be shocked if there is any published author out there who hasn’t been rejected at least once, most get rejected many times. But it just takes one – one agent or editor who believes in your story and will champion it so that it gets into readers’ hands. I’d recommend researching successful query letters, find a format that works for you, and research agents, making sure they are a good fit for your story. Manuscript Wish List is a great site for finding agents who are looking for books like yours. Then keep at it! (I’m talking to myself here too).

QUESTION #9 – Have you ever thought about self-publishing? Ever since I made a whopping 12 cents off of a book I self-published, I have become a self-appointed ambassador for the self-publishing industry, trying turn as many converts as I can. Come on over, the water’s fine and Jeff Bezos is passing out entire cents like candy! “One of us! One of us! Gooble, gobble, one of us!”

AMAZON – Definitely. I have quite a few author friends in the self-publishing world. I’m watching what they do very closely to try to learn what works and what doesn’t as far as marketing. My goal right now is traditional publishing, but self-publishing offers a lot of perks so I am definitely not ruling that option out.

BQB EDITORIAL NOTE: Since conducting this interview, I made another staggering, astounding, earth shattering 35 cents!  So many cents!

QUESTION #10 – Sadly, every author who submits to an interview on this poor excuse for a blog must explain how he/she would escape a scenario of doom using three unlikely items. Don’t worry, one day you’ll have an entourage who will keep you away from such nonsense. Until then, here’s your scenario:

You’re riding a train to wine country because, who wouldn’t? Wine country is fabulous this time of year. Suddenly, the lights flicker off. When they’re turned back on, you learn that everyone who had been sitting in your general vicinity was a werewolf the entire time, and they’re looking at you like you’re a fresh bowl of kibble.

You reach under your seat, hoping to find a weapon but alas, you find a) a half-full can of spray-on silly string b) a rolled up poster featuring the grim visage of Vegas crooner Wayne Newton and c) a tin of Altoid mints.

How will you use these items to extract yourself from this fury feeding frenzy?

ANSWER – I’m on a train full of wine-loving party animals headed to wine county. This isn’t as dire as it may seem. First, I’ve been noticing two of the passengers, now revealed to be werewolves, eyeing each other throughout the trip so far, so I give the mints to one and suggest he make his move. I do enjoy a good love story after all. That takes care of two of them. Then I spray silly string on my jaw like mutton chops and hold up the Wayne Newton poster to indicate that I’m clearly one of them. I mean, with those sideburns, was there really ever any doubt about Wayne? They’re warming up to me, but not yet convinced, so I offer to pay for their wine tastings which puts them in a cheerful mood and then I distract them with a heated debate over which is better, oaked or steel-casked chardonnay? They take the bait, follow the “shiny,” and before the day’s out, we’re all half wine-drunk, best of friends, and invited to the wedding of the cute were-couple on the train. See, aren’t happy endings great?

BQB EDITORIAL NOTE: I’ve run this answer through my supercomputer and it has determined a 94.8% chance of success, so well done.  Werewolves love wine country and Wayne Newton is a werewolf.  Surely, that explains his longevity.  You heard it here first.

Fun fact, this is the second time an interviewee on this blog has escaped a doom scenario using a sticky novelty substance and a celebrity photo.  Readers may remember Robert Bevan used spray cheese to paste a photo of Bea Arthur to his face in order to scare away a cavern full of monsters.  Read more about that tried and true sticky situation extraction trick here.

Thank you for stopping by, Sydney, and 3.5 readers, if you enjoyed this interview which, frankly, if you twist my arm and ask me to brag about my interviewing skills then I’ll tell you this puts anything Barbara Walters ever did to shame, then be sure to give our guest a shout out on Twitter.  “One of us, one of us…”

Tagged , , , , , , , , , ,
Feb 19 2018
Leave a comment
top ten lists

You’re Dating a Hipster!

Ladies, were you dating hipsters before it was cool?

Have you dated hipsters before but you doubt we would have heard of them?

Consult this handy BQB Top Ten List to find out if you have dated a hipster.

Tagged , ,
Feb 15 2018
Leave a comment
Fantasy Fights, Uncategorized

Fantasy Fights #3

Place your bets on the following:

Uma Thurman vs. Ethel Merman

The Winner of the Above Fight vs. an Actual Merman

A Merman vs. Merlin

Walker, Texas Ranger vs. Hermione Granger

Sally Jesse Raphael vs. Raphael the Ninja Turtle

Apple vs. PCP

A Person Who Ate an Apple vs. A Person Who Ate PCP

Patty Hearst vs. Patty Mayonnaise

Al Pacino vs. a Guy in Chinos

The King of Clubs vs. a Club Sandwich

The Earl of Sandwich vs. a Damn Witch

Tagged ,
← Older posts
Newer posts →