Thing a Week 7: Almost Late is Still on Time

Before I begin this post in earnest, I would like to make an apology. Last weeks post said some less than kind things about amateur fiction writers, and I would like to make a partial retraction on it. To be fair, many amateur writers do come out with some good stuff, and I've enjoyed the scribblings of fellow students of the pen before. But I gotta say: a lot is just as bad as I said before. In the spirit of this new kinder, gentler me, I have decided to embrace the oft neglected art form of badly thought out fiction in the form of a blatantly less than kind parody. It is with with great pride, humility, hubris, and self contradiction that I present:

Master of the Lycanthromancersaurs
Part I in the thrilling Throne of the Darkenkingdom Series, already being described by critics as "absolutely... worth reading" (Wall Street Journal)

There are legends told by some, of places which are more legendary than the place where the person telling the legend is. And one of the most famous of these legendary myths is the Legend of the Dark Elfborg Drix'Makl'Akl'Hi, he who was Spawnsimmilated by the Makl'hy'Nie'hy'Nie'Hogh clan on the crags of Dread Mount Karg'klz'xix, home of the Dark Trollsguids of Karg'klz'xix, he who clave the Crystal of Glax'Hlp'mi'M'Tchoxing with the Blade of the Morning, Lyiythr'Ryll. Yea, even he who was Master Of The Lycanthromancersaurs. This Is The Legend This Story Is About.


Once I stop crying the tears of joy created by the Glory of this masterpiece, I'll get started on the next installment of my Magnum Opus. You know you want to keep reading.

Thing a Week 6: Captions are hard to come up with

I have a confession to make: I am terrified of writing non-humorous prose. The thought of making things which don't have the potential to make some future reader laugh so hard they accidentally snort the tortoise they trying to feed into their nose and then they have to go to the doctor to surgically remove it, and the doctor snickers at them and leers suggestively while asking how they managed to achieve THAT little physiological miracle (I hate when that happens, don't you?), and they they sue me for damages... the thought of not writing that kind of stuff scares the heebie-willies out of me. There are couple of reasons why: in the first place, serious writers aren't supposed to use the paragraph long run-on sentences and logical fallacies that I eat like chocolate. Second, i have tried to read some of the fiction produced by my friends and acquaintances. It is like what you would get if you exhumed the corpse J.R.R. Tolkien, then stitched it together with the mangled remnants of C.S. Lewis, Christopher Paolini, and every other fiction writer that has convinced my fellow abusers of the keyboard that they could TOTALLY write like that, no really, they could do that! You know what you get when you stitch together corpses? You get a really big corpse with an unhealthy amount of thread going through it. For those of you who are unclear about these things, that is... bad. And I know in my heart of hearts that if i sat down to make a well thought out piece of serious storytelling, it will start out bad, go to tortured, and then degrade into conversations about how the Great War of the Sutherlings and the Elder Ones of Dal'Gahl'E'Rath began when the Farmlings slaughtered the Fra'as with their own Kryptoses, and no one wants that to happen.

Thing a Week 5: This is not the content you were looking for... BUT IT IS NOW.

So, I was going to put up a short bit of yarning about out of work mercenaries, something humorous, with bits and snatches of jollity laced throughout it. Turns out that my mental blocks are alive and well, and that piece of sunshine is still in it's larval stage, possibly to stay that way. Instead, I present the audience, whoever that person is, with something else. something different. Something, in short, that rhymes. It's true! I do write poetry. I mostly write it, as in this particular case, when I'm tired, and my neurons stop operating at more than subsistence level. BUT I DO WRITE IT.

The Snarglebone:

The Snarglebone,
a squamous beast,
is flat as dinner plate.
It sniffs at everything it sees,
and all that it sniffs
it eats.
It's slavering jaw
and ravening maw
do work in harmony,
so it moves as it eats
and eats as it moves
...ah, nature's a beautiful thing.

By the way, squamous is an actual word. it means flat.

Thing a Week 4: Words are Awesome

I am bad at opening statements. This is my opening statement, and it is irrelevant to the rest of what I'm writing about. Furthermore, it references itself, just for kicks. THIS IS BAD FORM. Anyway, this week I'm talking about words, because they're awesome. English is the lovechild of most languages, immensely complex in it's intricacies, and often self contradictory. In addition, most of the words in it are synonyms for other words, which more economically convey the point of a sentence. In other words, what's not to love? This is actually the root of my problem with most swearwords and insults. If you want to verbally abuse me, you can (and most peole who aren't related to me will) simply say something along the lines of: **** you (fill in the words with the expletive of your choice). Or maybe "You're a ****er/ing
So I ran out of clever thoughts in the middle of writing this, and I can't think if a way to finish it.
Instead, I will speak of cake. Specifically, Birthday cake. Specificallyer, the birthday cakes of my youth. When I was nought but a wee tiny lad, my family used to make me the rad birthday cakes ever. I remember once my aunt made a cake that was a battlefield, with army men and a tank. This was when I learned that feasting on the corpses of ones foes is much tastier when they are made of cake. And then there another one that was a castle, with gummi bears fighting each other, climbing the walls and suff. That one stands out in my mind particulalry, because my siblings made it and they wouldn't let me come home unti lit was finished. as I recall, i was furious at them for making something so awesome without letting me help. There was also a cake that a surfing theme, but I think that one was for my brothers birhtday. Anyway, I'm out of things to alk about, and this is the most horrible piece of writing I've ever done. I think next week will be a story, or maybe monologue. For The Variety!

Thing a Week 3: Superpowers? Yes Please.

So, today it snowed again. And by "snow", I mean "six inches of why do I have to shovel this cursed blanket of malice". This has naturally led to the further development of my hunched and aching back, and to fantasies of superpowers. Unfortunately(?), I have never lived as another person, so I can only assume that my thoughts are par for the course for the rest of humanity. And my thoughts tend to gravitate consistently towards how radically kick-awesome it would be if I had superpowers. And I haven't been one of those people who idly think it might be cool if they could fly or something. Oh no, I've thought it through fully. I HAVE GOT THE ANGLES COVERED. The best superpower, of course, would be manipulation of matter, done properly. This doesn't mean that you can make a book float, or light a candle WITH YOUR MIND. Full control means... just about every superpower, really. Once you control matter at a subatomic level, you can will your body into flight, agitate molecules to flame, turn stuff to gold, manipulate peoples minds, the whole nine yards. You could adjust reality so it was the whole ten yards, if you wanted to. This is, in essence, the most twinkerifically cheatery power EVAR. Second place would selective control of a gravitational field. This means you could alter the gravity of a rock, so it falls into the side of someones head, or make a tail spinning airplane fall up if you wanted to engage in a more helpful activity. You could even make a waterfall a waterlift The possibilities are endless! Third place is spatial portals. Anyone with sense should rank this high, because it is awesome. It just is! If you've played the game, you know this. If you haven't, you should. If you don't know the game I'm talking about, get out. Now. Why are you reading this sentence, you should be packing your bags to leave on the first plane, car, train, dogsled, UFO, or velociraptor that you see. I don't even CARE if the velociraptor looks angry, I want you to GET HENCE! Also, in the off chance that anyone has read all the way this point, I have decided that the alternative title for this post will be: Paragraphs? we Don't need no stinking PARAGRAPHS!

Thing a Week 2: I fail.

I think this post will successfully set the tone for my thing a week project, being published (and written) a day after the second week. Anyway, yesterday I found out that I'm an uncle. Again. For the twenty seventh time. For those of you who don't know these things, that is a lot of nieces and nephews. Now don't get me wrong, I love my siblings children. But I have limits! I am an absentminded person, and if the reproductive patterns of my family continue at this rate, soon I'll just have to love everyone in the whole world, on the assumption that all of them are related to me. Ah well.

Thing a Week Experiment.

I've decided I want to write more, so it's my intention to start doing a thing a week challenge, inspired by Mr. Jonathan Coulton's experiment. My goal is to release one blog post per week for as long as I can keep it up, and I'm hoping to last at least a full 6 months. I haven't really thought this through (at all, as a matter of fact), so I will prolly be adding further qualifiers later on.
To kick things off, I'm going to talk about disease. Apparently, shoveling snow every day for eternity has not been good for my system, and it has responded by gifting me with something I like to call "why does the right side of my face feel like it's going to explode?" Apparently, what started out as a simple inflamed throat decided to kick it up a notch, and so now my swollen glands make it look like I have some kind of tumor going on. Sub zero temperatures for the win!