“It’s none of their business that you have to learn how to write. Let them think you were born that way.”
– Ernest Hemingway
No commentary necessary. This one speaks for itself.
“It’s none of their business that you have to learn how to write. Let them think you were born that way.”
– Ernest Hemingway
No commentary necessary. This one speaks for itself.
Blogger/Author Tommy Muncie posed this comment, so finely crafted, that I felt it merited an entire post:
Respect to you for doing this…I couldn’t write a short post if I tried (you’ve probably noticed) and trying one per day would probably give me an aneurysm. On that note, I reckon you’ll achieve the goal but I’m wondering how you’ll get past the day you get sick, as in the kind of sick where you’re bedridden and narcoleptic and running the kind of temperature the Sahara Dessert would be jealous of and thinking ‘Must…get…to….wordpress!’ and then your body knocks you out when you try. I read your random questions post tonight as well, so here’s a question: could you get past a day like that and still post?
– Tommy Muncie
ANSWER – I’ve been scheduling posts in advance, in the hopes of avoiding this very scenario. However, should I fall violently ill, I will use my last bit of energy to make a post. It won’t be anything fancy or spectacular, it will just be “post” or I’ll just bang on the keys and click “post” just to meet the once a day requirement.
Further, if, say, I am hit by a bus or otherwise left incapacitated, I have engaged a team of individuals to post in my stead, mimicking my subtle nuances and character, so that you will not even notice I am gone.
Actually, I haven’t done that, but now that I’m worried about illnesses and bus attacks on my person, I will have to do so.
Thanks a lot, Muncie!
Now that I’ve answered that question, here some others I anticipate you, my audience of three readers, may have:
QUESTION: Suppose you are cornered by a team of robot ninjas who stand between you and your computer, preventing you from making a post? Will you yield on your promise to us, the readers, to make one post a day?
ANSWER: Absolutely not. I scoff in the face of danger. Few are aware of this, but I was trained in the martial arts by Chuck Norris. I payed it forward by training Steven Seagal, teaching him all the moves he displayed in his movies from the 1980’s and 90’s, though I take no credit from his later films where he got fat and teamed up with Tom Arnold.
QUESTION: An asteroid is careening towards Earth. You have one minute to save the world and you have not yet posted on this particular day. What do you do?
ANSWER: I make a quick post, then I frighten the asteroid back into space with a glare so fearsome that it clearly communicates to the asteroid my disapproval of its tiresome behavior.
QUESTION: A grizzly bear demands to fist fight you in a steel cage UFC championship bout. The prize? Your computer. If you win, you get to post. If you loose, the bear eats your computer.
ANSWER: My post will be a selfie of me wearing the bear’s oily hide as a coat.
QUESTION: Aliens invade. They detonate an electromagnetic pulse that renders all electronic equipment useless.
ANSWER: It’s fine. I scheduled an advance post.
QUESTION: You didn’t. You were too busy watching Game of Thrones, that show that Tommy Muncie is not impressed with. Blasphemy, I say.
ANSWER: I did post.
QUESTION: You didn’t.
ANSWER: Well, if your computer is taken out too, then how can you be sure I didn’t?
QUESTION: Well played, sir. Well played.
QUESTION: You are kidnapped by Russians, who want your blog down because it is too awesome. They throw you, your computer, and a parachute out of a plane, but separately, not together.
ANSWER: I dive myself to the computer, post, then put on the parachute. Note that my first instinct was to post, not to save myself.
QUESTION: Katy Perry and Katee Sackhoff, two of your favorite Katies in the entire world, barge into your domicile, each wearing their customary garb. Perry is in her California Girls video costume, while Sackhoff is in her Battlestar Galactica pilot gear. They offer to have their way with you, but the price? You must not post for one day.
ANSWER: Define “have their way with me.” I understand the classical connotation, but it is an open ended term that can be taken a variety of ways. Thus far, in my experience, a woman “having her way with me” means she sucks up all my money, provides me with a longwinded speech about how we should just be friends, and then said friendship inevitably requires that I console her while she, with a cat in one hand and a pint of ice cream in the other, whines to me about how the men she wants to be more than friends with aren’t nice to her. I feel such a situation would not be worth sacrificing the respect of my three readers for.
QUESTION: The classical connotation.
ANSWER: Ah. Wow. That is a tough one. They won’t even allow me to post just so I can brag about it?
QUESTION: No.
ANSWER: Well, I made a promise to all three of my fans, so I would invite the Katies in for a rousing game of Parcheesi, perhaps build a few jigsaw puzzles with them, then send them on their way in time to make a post. That’s just what a selfless man who has made a commitment does.
QUESTION: Would you resent us forever for it?
ANSWER: Yes.
Do you have questions about what I would do in a potential scenario that would make it difficult for me to post? Ask away in the comments.
Your writing voice is the deepest possible reflection of who you are. The job of your voice is not to seduce or flatter or make well-shaped sentences. In your voice, your readers should be able to hear the contents of your mind, your heart, your soul.
– Meg Rosoff, Novelist, Author of How I Live Now
True or false? Discuss.
I’m going to have a special announcement.
Will it be…
a) So big that it will take people’s attention away from the big sporting contest I hear will be taking place?
b) that all of my readers will get free Kindle fires? Even my Aunt Gertie?
c) that the dawning of the Age of Aquarius is finally here?
d) that I have acquired a guest spot on Game of Thrones, in which I inspire everyone with my near victory, only to be murdered in a gruesome and unexpected manner?
e) None of the above?
Whoa nelly, such suspense! Stop by tomorrow to find out!
You get a month off. No one will bother you. Everyone you care about has expressed support…nay, demanded that you do nothing but write and all will be fine without you until you return. You have a cabin in the woods, or a beach house, or a hotel in Hawaii…ok wherever you want. And all you have to do for the next month is write.
In fact, let’s up the ante. You are locked in the room. You have all the food, sustenance, drinks, water, bathroom, really all the things you need in life. And there’s no distractions. You get like one hour a day for a TV watching break. After that, the TV magically stops until the next day’s one hour break.
Also, you only get to use the Internet in so far as you are conducting novel research. Once you start looking up youtube videos about cats engaging in hilarious activities, the Internet shuts down until you conduct serious research again.
You’re free of all distractions. You have all that you need.
QUESTION – Given this situation, what would you write?