It's Always Something.

Hadda seriously overhaul a story to make it end right. I been letting it marinate forever, and it weren't going nowhere, so I chopped bout 1/3rd of it, and its moving. Got it submitted. 800 words.
 
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Worked on a 8500 word story. Its historical fiction with nonconsent sex. A woman is robbed by her best friend and sent to a wilderness prison farm after she makes a complaint about the theft. Its based on a true story circa 1890 in Florida. Back then plenty of people went to prison without trial if they made trouble for the wrong folks. Or if the right folks liked you you went to a prison camp instead of the gallows. Most felons were hanged. And plenty of killers did a year or two of hard labor and left.

In this tale the Devil pays her a visit with an offer to trade her soul for a pardon. She refuses the trade, and her fun begins.
 
Re-wrote and edited the 8500 word tale down to 8100 words. The dialogue is certain to piss-off the Usual Suspects as some of its slave vernacular and cracker vernacular. Sho nuff. But the ending is much better, and the heroine comes across as empowered. I invested a ton of research to get the details right.

Where to put it! Could be erotic horror or could be non-consent but there is no sex to speak of tho the heroine gets naked on one occasion, and reports an encounter that was still-born.
 
BLOCKHEADS and IMPOSTERS is what Charles Dickens called teachers. H.L.Mencken used pretty much the same terms, and added: WOMEN and 3rd RATE MEN.

Sampled one more F. Scott Fitzgerald story then deleted the file from my Kindle. But he did capture the stereotypes of bored, rich, young people of every era.

Fitzgerald has his foibles, but, for my money, The Great Gatsby is, with its modest length, the most richly packed novel in American Literature.
 
Seeing this seems to be a random thread I'll toss something in.

I am a fan of F. Paul Wilson who has a series featuring a character called Repairman Jack.

They started out great, but I think he's up to 7 and three books ago I noticed they are totally formulaic. Jack runs into someone who is in trouble. That trouble somehow ties in with an ancient enemy who wants Jack dead.

Each book features either a family member or old friend of Jack's showing up to get involved then dies at the end.

The ancient enemy makes a cameo appearance shakes his fist and says "I'll get you next time" and on to the next book.

It amazes me that people will buy the same thing over and over again and that an author won;t even make an effort to be different, but I guess if the peeps are paying....

I actually believe the majority of people really want the same book over and over. Each writer becomes a genre unto herself. It's comforting, familiar, and, when everything is all finished, satisfying in a way that not only fills a need but echoes with the ring of previous fulfillment. I think that this desire for predetermined appeasement is the number one reason for the rise and domination of the commercial writer, hell, the commercial everything. In a full-tilt world where entertainment is not only a goal but a given right and a way of life, most want serotonin in written from, not provocation and discomfort--hallmarks of literary fiction.
 
I actually believe the majority of people really want the same book over and over. Each writer becomes a genre unto herself. It's comforting, familiar, and, when everything is all finished, satisfying in a way that not only fills a need but echoes with the ring of previous fulfillment. I think that this desire for predetermined appeasement is the number one reason for the rise and domination of the commercial writer, hell, the commercial everything. In a full-tilt world where entertainment is not only a goal but a given right and a way of life, most want serotonin in written from, not provocation and discomfort--hallmarks of literary fiction.

G.K.Chesterton said that every real writer aims to write the same thing again, and write it better, and Dickens was the only writer able to do it.
 
Almost to the end of THE BEST AND THE BRIGHTEST by David Halberstam.

The book presents two facts of life well: One, Harvard Brainiacs impress the shit outta everyone but they aint usually the smartest guys in the room; and Two, you cant tell a Harvard Brainiac shit, and when their schemes turn to crap they fight like hell to do more of the same.

A CHELSEA CLINTON

A noun is born.

The Clintons never read THE PETER PRINCIPLE: People rise to their level of incompetence. In a just world Chelsea would be a teacher's aide in a kindergarten class. But she's making serious money at a major MSM company interviewing cartoon characters like the GEICO gecko. She reminds me of Clara Copperfield under the thumbs of Ed and Jane Murdstone.
 
Red Potatoes 10 Pounds Today
 

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Jury duty this week. Got my fingers crossed for a jury or feral Democrat to hang. If I'm foiled maybe I'll get an opportunity to fuck-over a parasite looking for a free meal from the insurance teat...in most cases killing her old man was a public service.
 
CHELSEA CLINTON NEWS

The word is she's infertile and plans to punt by adopting an African bush-baby a la Madonna.
 
They turned me down for jury duty.

It was a dum case. Momma's boyfriend grabbed her kid by the arm, and the kid screamed POE LEECE! So the question was: CAN YOU CONVICT THIS MAN FOR BATTERY IF THERE WERE NO MARKS? And I say FUCK NO. I WANNA SEE BLOOD AND INNARDS AND BRAINS LEAKING OUT THE NOSE!
 
They turned me down for jury duty.

It was a dum case. Momma's boyfriend grabbed her kid by the arm, and the kid screamed POE LEECE! So the question was: CAN YOU CONVICT THIS MAN FOR BATTERY IF THERE WERE NO MARKS? And I say FUCK NO. I WANNA SEE BLOOD AND INNARDS AND BRAINS LEAKING OUT THE NOSE!

I can't imagine why the defense attorney wouldn't want you in the box. :D

I was on a jury back in my late teens. A woman at a grocery store slipped and fell, breaking one of her toes. She wanted 50k for medical expenses, suffering, and lost time at work. She was out of work for a week. The case was ridiculous, with the attorney going on and on about the "correct" way to sweep and clean the floors in the supermarket.

We gave her 5k for her time. The medical bills were about half that, so we figured we were being generous.
 
I can't imagine why the defense attorney wouldn't want you in the box. :D

I was on a jury back in my late teens. A woman at a grocery store slipped and fell, breaking one of her toes. She wanted 50k for medical expenses, suffering, and lost time at work. She was out of work for a week. The case was ridiculous, with the attorney going on and on about the "correct" way to sweep and clean the floors in the supermarket.

We gave her 5k for her time. The medical bills were about half that, so we figured we were being generous.

I was a guaranteed vote for acquittal! But the prosecutor was pretty and had great legs, and I got to see enough of them that she coulda changed my mind. I may be a bigot but my attitude isn't set in concrete.
 
I was a guaranteed vote for acquittal! But the prosecutor was pretty and had great legs, and I got to see enough of them that she coulda changed my mind. I may be a bigot but my attitude isn't set in concrete.

In other words, you admit you sometimes think with your dick. ;)
 
I was a guaranteed vote for acquittal! But the prosecutor was pretty and had great legs, and I got to see enough of them that she coulda changed my mind. I may be a bigot but my attitude isn't set in concrete.

Acquittal? Prosecutor? That's a criminal trial. Damages are given at a civil trial. Pretty fishy story now, JBJ.
 
Almost done reading the G.K.Chesterton literary criticism of Charles Dickens. Its an excellent 'how to write' aid as Chesterton dissects Dickens books for their merits. What I learned is how Dickens nudged his characters' bigotry from normal to absurd.

A century ago BIGOT had a different meaning than it does now. In the 1910s a bigot was a person who possessed a box of Crayolas with 8 or 16 or 24 or 64 or 128 crayons, and made do with whatever size box they had. Plus they were contented with their 8 or 128 crayon pallet. Dickens characters are forced to use what they have, to create absurdity. So bigots were folks out of their depth, striving for incompetence.
 
Then, as I posted, the jury wasn't awarding any monetary damages. You just made up that part?

It coulda been one or the other as both kinds get tried, don't they?

Sometimes you twist yourself into a pretzel to try and appear straight.
 
In other words, you admit you sometimes think with your dick. ;)

She coulda put me in handcuffs too, I think.

She had that rare female talent for making a man think more about whats not showing than is.
 
Came across an interesting book about Tesla that features some interesting factoids about intelligence.

I think that high IQs don't correlate well with performance. Above, say 130, effort and enthusiasm count more than IQ points. Not to forget LUCK and wealth and who you know. IQ points by themselves are as useless as pounds over your optimal body weight. The book says the same thing. It also talks about the 10,000 hour rule.

Invest 10,000 hours to some purpose, and you'll become expert at it. That's 4 hours per day for 7 years.
 
Argh the tomatoes were thick with cutworms until I slaughtered them this morning. They devour leaves and fruit and blossoms in no time at all.

The cukes are swelling.
 
Added a Key Lime to my orchard.

I got caught by surprise at the difference in views for various story categories. 10,000 views vs 500.

Bought a DVD of KILLING THEM SOFTLY with Brad Pitt. Its the film version of COGAN'S TRADE by George V. Higgins.
 
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