Can you believe it has been five whole weeks of Toilet Gator Sundays, 3.5 readers? Now that’s commitment!
Bookshelf Battle
The only site where new bestsellers are forced to do battle for space on a nerd's bookshelf.
Tag Archives: writing
Third Year Anniversary for Bookshelf Battle
Hey 3.5 readers.
Bookshelf Q. Battler here.
Yup. Three years ago this month, while I was stuffing a burrito into my face hole in a Taco Bell parking lot, the idea to create this amazing blog was born.
In its first year, there was an attempt to be semi-serious and focus on literary discussions.
In year two, it went off the wall with revelations about my magic bookshelf, my hatred of yetis, my best friend Alien Jones, my better half Video Game Rack Fighter, and all the other assorted weirdoes that traipse through BQB HQ on a regular basis.
In year three, I focused on novel production. I did get a rough draft of a novel finished but I made it so epic in scale that I feel like it will be a lot of work to get it ready and perhaps two more novels could be added that would come before it.
Alas, they’re on the shelf right now (I swear I’ll return to them) and as we enter year four, I have developed a book cover purchasing addiction. Don’t worry, it is under control, but I feel like it just makes good fiscal sense to write and publish BQB’s Writing Prompts, Zom Fu, Toilet Gator and Zomcation first.
Believe it or not, there’s actually light at the end of the tunnel for BQB’s Writing Prompts. It’s definite that will get published this year. As for the rest, I’ll work as hard as I can, but alas, I’m not in my twenty year old days where I could just drink a Red Bull and go 24 hours on a project and wake up the next day fresh as a daisy.
In conclusion, I’d like to share a little song I wrote for you:
Thank you for being a friend, 3.5 readers. You’ve traveled down the road and back again. Your hearts are true. You are my pals and my confidants. And if you threw a party and invited everyone you knew, you would see the biggest gift would be from me and the card attached would say, “Thank you for being a friend.”
Oh wait. My attorney informs me I did not write that. That is, in fact, the theme to the Golden Girls.
Oh well. Thank you for being my 3.5 friends anyway.
Toilet Gator – Chapter 3
Sitwell Community College
Sitwell, Florida
10 p.m.
Sitwell Community College wasn’t known for academic accomplishment, or successful alumni, or even for getting basic knowledge into the heads of its students. It was, however, known for raging keggers, provided courtesy of Lambda Pi Delta, the fraternity that owned the rowdiest off-campus party house.
For the past decade, those soirees had been carried out by perpetual student Chad Becker, a long, flaxen haired hunk who never bothered to wear anything other than a loosely tied bathrobe and worn, leather sandals.
While Chad addressed the crowd of drunken degenerates, his frat brother Paul, a young, gangly looking dweeb, inserted a plastic tube into a funnel.
“Fellow Deltas,” Chad said. “I dedicate this next chug to the good people of Syria. May those vile Dakotans stop trying to build a pipeline through their lands once and for all so that Bernie Sanders can focus on his bid to become the president of Afghanistan.”
“You really need to pay more attention to the news, Chad,” Paul said as he cracked open a forty ounce tall boy.
Chad burped, then with slurred speech, stammered out a weak reply. “You really need to pay attention to your face. Because it’s ugly.”
Britney, a fake blond with one inch black roots, stumbled through the crowd on high heels that she was not comfortable walking on in any way whatsoever. Her press on nails may have been fake, but her concern was genuine.
“Chad,” Britney said. “You need to stop.”
“No,” Chad said. “You are the one who needs to stop.”
“Babe,” Britney said. “How much have you had to drink tonight?”
“College is for drinking, sugar tits,” Chad said before releasing a loud belch.
“This is just his sixth one,” Paul said as he picked up a tall boy.
Britney snatched the giant can out of the geek’s hand. “Spazenbrau? Are you shitting me, Paul? You let him drink six of these?”
Somewhere in the back of the frat house, a DJ got on his mic. “Lambda Pi Delta! Are you having a good time?”
The DJ’s question was met with a deafening chorus of “yeaah!” and “yoo!”
“I can’t hear you!” the DJ said.
The hoots and hollers grew louder.
“My main man Chad Becker is in the back chugging brews in the name of various social causes so you’re going to want to check that out. When the hell are you going to graduate, Chad? You’ve been going to a two-year community college since the Bush administration!”
“Never!” Chad shouted. “Party time for Chad forever! Woo!”
“Now it’s time to get down with a little Stank Daddy,” the DJ said. “Y’all need to get your dance on for Stank’s new single, Smack a Bitch.”
Britney persisted in shouting questions to Paul, who just shrugged his shoulders because he couldn’t hear anything over the blaring rap music lyrics:
Stank Daddy in Da House Gonna Smack a Bitch,
Bust Her Head with a Tire Iron, Leave her ass in a ditch.
Stank Daddy on the scene gonna make some greens.
Gonna smack a bitch until her ass starts to scream.
Gretchen and Eleanor, the two most notorious feminists on campus, sauntered past Chad, Paul and Britney and found a spot on the dance floor to boogie down.
“Should we be dancing to this?” Martha shouted. “It seems awfully chauvinistic.”
“No!” Gretchen shouted back. “Stank Daddy isn’t using the word ‘bitch’ to describe a woman, but rather as an insult to all of the various societal forces that are trying to keep him down.”
The rap continued…
Talkin ‘bout them phat ass bitches with them big ass titties.
Stank Daddy gonna chop ‘em up and bury ‘em under seven different cities.
Smack a bitch yo, smack a bitch yo, if you is a bitch you don’t pass go.
Britney got right up in Paul’s ear and screamed. “Why did you let him drink six of those?”
“He only drank five!” Paul shouted back.
“It doesn’t matter!” Britney cried. “Each can is a forty ounce! A regular beer is like twelve ounces so you basically let him drink sixteen beers!”
“Oh Jesus Christ, Britney,” Paul cried. “You take one math class and you think you know everything!”
Britney carried on. “And it’s a beer slash energy drink. So now you’ve got him drunk out of his mind and all cranked up at the same time!”
“Chaddy wants his drinky poo!” Chad shouted. “Paul, you son of a bitch, you beer me right now!”
Paul stuck the other end of the plastic tube in Chad’s mouth.
“Don’t you do it,” Britney hollered as she wagged a finger in Paul’s face.
“I’m powerless, here!” Paul yelled. “I’m the frat’s Beer Meister. If a brother asks for beer, he gets beer.”
“Cut him off!” Britney shouted.
“I’m sorry,” Paul cried as he cracked open the tall boy. “But I can’t allow anything to interfere with my sacred duty! I took an oath!”
Elsewhere on the dance floor, Gretchen and Eleanor were getting their groove on.
“I’m still not so sure about this song,” Gretchen shouted.
“Will you relax?” Eleanor shouted back. “This song has nothing to do with misogyny. Try to stay woke, babe.”
Stank Daddy’s lyrics filled the room:
Aw yeah I’m talkin’ ‘bout smackin’ up a bitch with a big ass vagina.
Knock her out with a baseball bat, nothin’ could be fine-ah.
Eleanor put her arms around Gretchen’s waist and the pair began to sway back and forth together.
“You know what we should do?!” Eleanor shouted.
“What?!” Gretchen yelled.
“We should totally go back to the sorority house and scissor the crap out of each other as a big F-U to the patriarchy,” Eleanor hollered.
“But will the patriarchy even now?” Gretchen screamed.
“The patriarchy knows everything,” Eleanor yelled as she took Gretchen’s hand and led her off the dance floor.
“OK,” Gretchen shouted. “But I have to tinkle first!”
Meanwhile, a group of looky lous assembled to watch Chad destroy his body. Stank Daddy’s jam died down and the DJ brought the music to a normal volume.
“Chug, chug, chug!!!” the crowd cried as Paul poured the Spazenbrau down the funnel and into Chad’s hatch.
Thirty seconds later, Paul crushed the beer can in his hand. “Empty!”
“Wooo!” cried the onlookers.
Chad stood up, surveyed his adoring fans, then released a giant burp.
“One more for the Chadinator!” Chad shouted to uproarious applause.
“Holy shit baby,” Britney said. “Are you ok?”
“Of course, foxy mama,” Chad said. “I’ve never felt…”
Slam! Chad collapsed to the ground.
“Oh my God!” Britney screamed as she dropped to her knees and slapped Chad in the face. “Baby! Babe, wake up!”
And Now a Word From My Spokesperson…
Hey 3.5 readers. Your old pal BQB here.
You know, this March will mark the third year anniversary of this fine blog, and though I love you all, I must admit that in all of this time I have been sitting back and wondering when one of you readers would get off your shiftless, lazy hides and record a video testimonial of my greatness.
Seeing no such incoming video testimonials, I turned to Fiverr and found this delightful spokesperson, who was happy to educate the masses of my astounding brilliance.
In conclusion, this was the best five dollars I have ever spent and had I known it was possible to get women to say nice things about me by paying them I would have started doing it a long time ago.
Thank you, spokesperson. That was an awesome testimonial. In all humility, I truly deserved all of those wonderful compliments.
Meanwhile, this was my first time using Fiverr and I recommend it. There are all sorts of talented folks waiting there to help you do awesome things with your website, blog, business, etc. so check out Fiverr.com
And finally, my spokesperson did such a fantastic job that I’ll give her a plug. If you have a gig you’d like to throw her way, you can check out Stayingvintage on Fiverr.com
Toilet Gator Sundays (Or, BQB’s Production Schedule)
Hello. My name is Bookshelf Q. Battler and I am a Book Cover Design Contest addict.
So here’s the deal. I have finally reached the point where I can’t afford to buy any more book covers without publishing a book and getting some kind of return on investment, even if it is just enough to pay for the cost of the book cover.
So this will be my last book cover design contest for awhile. Also, I hereby pledge to all 3.5 of you readers that I will not, not, not, start a new idea until all my previously started ideas are published. I have to have some discipline or else nothing will ever make it to market.
Bookshelf Q. Battler’s Big Book of Badass Writing Prompts is almost there. A pro is actually going over it and everything so there is light at the end of that tunnel.
I hereby declare my production schedule as follows:
- BQB’s Writing Prompts – should be out well, I don’t know when, but I feel like April at the latest. Could be sooner. Doubt it will be later.
- Zom Fu – Novel I am currently working on.
- Toilet Gator – The idea popped in my head and I laughed and laughed and laughed. Then I started a design cover contest and laughed and laughed and laughed. Then I wrote the first chapter and laughed and laughed and laughed. I’m going to have fun with this, but I don’t want it getting in the way of Zom Fu. So, from now on, look forward to Toilet Gator Sundays. Every Sunday, a new installment of Toilet Gator. If I limit Toilet Gator to Sundays, then I still can find time to work on Zom Fu during the week.
- Zomcation is half-written. I just need to find the time to finish it.
- Zombie Westerns – those will come next.
So there you have it. Writing Prompts. Zom Fu. Toilet Gator. Zomcation. Zombie Westerns. And then if I’m still kicking, my other ideas will see the light of day.
I’d love it if Prompts, Fu, Gator, and Zomcation could be done this year, and then next year is solely a Zombie Western year, and then 2019 I bring forth new ideas, but I realize things don’t always go to schedule.
At any rate, I must complete the books I have bought covers for before moving on. I won’t buy covers for unfinished books in the future, but I had to do it this time around as I was losing faith and the seeing book covers made this all seem real.
Anyway, thanks for being my 3.5 readers.
Do You Want to Write a BQB Writing Prompt?
Hey 3.5 readers.
BQB here.
I’m in the home stretch of BQB’s 101 Writing Prompts book.
In the book, I invite readers to write stories based on the prompts and publish them on their blogs and Tweet me the links.
If anyone is interested, I’d love it if anyone wants to choose a prompt and blog their response. Maybe the first week the book is out I could put your prompt based writings right here on this fine blog.
Anyone who wants to partake of my prompts, let me know.
Zomcation Cover
Another cover for another book I have yet to finish writing.
“Oh hey, did you hear about BQB? He ended up in the poorhouse, spent all his dough on book covers for books he never finished writing. What an asshole.”
Oh well, what say you 3.5 readers?
State of the Bookshelf – BQB’s Production Schedule
Hey 3.5 readers.
So, I’ve developed a bad habit. Whenever I feel down, I commission a book cover.
It’s ok. I’m gone to be done at three for awhile.
The other day I went back, looked at Zomcation, and realized that yeah, it’s pretty funny. It’s also 50,000 words I rattled off in a month, leaving me to realize if the plot takes place in the present, there isn’t much to research, and it’s just a goofy project, the words come faster.
So I turned the 99 Design artists loose again. Here’s my latest poll, please vote.
Here’s where my mind is:
THIS YEAR – Finish and publish BQB’s Writing Prompts, Zom Fu and Zomcation.
NEXT YEAR – Finish and publish three of my Zombie Western Books.
YEAR THREE – Depends how the books are doing but I would like to work on some of my mysteries. We’ll see if anyone is clamoring for sequels.
At any rate, I’m not going to start anything that hasn’t already been started. Whatever has started so far will be finished before a new idea is worked on and this is difficult because, believe me, I have so many ideas.
It’s time I’m getting short on. It’s do or die time and I need to start churning out books if I’m ever going to have some time to enjoy being a self-publisher.
Plus, I need to throw my NWA style pool party. Also, I have to save the world with my writing in order to stave off the Mighty Potentate’s invasion.
Thank you for listening, 3.5 readers. Let me know if you have any advice or if you think any of my half written works deserves to be moved up in the production schedule.
Happy Monday 3.5 Readers
I got nothing, so just wishing all 3.5 of you a happy day.
BQB Writing Prompts Book Progress
Well, 3.5 readers. It finally happened.
I got a draft of a book finished that I felt was worthy enough to print out:
I know. Very exciting. But this is big. I believe it will get done and sooner rather than later.
Bookshelf Battle 