Troll World.

But should it be, JBJ? This is an amateur site for the most part. You don't expect major league talent in a minor league game, do you?

(No offense to any writers out here. I'm not implying that everyone here is minor league. Many of us are, though, and comparing us to the Babe Ruth's of the writing world doesn't recognize that.)

Of course, JBJ often makes some very good points about writing, carefully covering them in venom to make you work to see them...or at least forcing you to think in order to uncover them.

My grandson plays AAU baseball. His coaches are retired MLB, and all have World Series rings. Guys like Derek Jeter come out to watch the boys practice. Its amateur, too, yet no one tolerates the dilettante attitude about the game. Even the bitches take 2nd place, and the bleachers are fulla bitches.
 
My grandson plays AAU baseball. His coaches are retired MLB, and all have World Series rings. Guys like Derek Jeter come out to watch the boys practice. Its amateur, too, yet no one tolerates the dilettante attitude about the game. Even the bitches take 2nd place, and the bleachers are fulla bitches.
There's a difference between a dilettante attitude and someone developing their skills.

I can remember playing left field as a kid, maybe 10 or 11 years old, and my father watching me try to track down a fly ball hit straight at me (the toughest to track, because you can't see the arc of the ball). He kept on giving me shit that I misjudged the ball, as if I was supposed to be Mickey Mantle at that age. He could never apply perspective to his criticism, nor did he ever make useful suggestions about how to improve.

I think most authors that post more than a story or two here quickly get that people expect an attempt at some writing standards. I posted an entire series before realizing that people actually gave a shit about quotation marks here. Now I just want to go back and delete my old work, or at least clean it up.

If those kids playing AAU ball were fully seasoned, they'd be playing MLB instead. The goal is to get them there. I don't know that you do that telling a kid he sucks compared to Derek Jeter.
 
There's a difference between a dilettante attitude and someone developing their skills.

I can remember playing left field as a kid, maybe 10 or 11 years old, and my father watching me try to track down a fly ball hit straight at me (the toughest to track, because you can't see the arc of the ball). He kept on giving me shit that I misjudged the ball, as if I was supposed to be Mickey Mantle at that age. He could never apply perspective to his criticism, nor did he ever make useful suggestions about how to improve.

I think most authors that post more than a story or two here quickly get that people expect an attempt at some writing standards. I posted an entire series before realizing that people actually gave a shit about quotation marks here. Now I just want to go back and delete my old work, or at least clean it up.

If those kids playing AAU ball were fully seasoned, they'd be playing MLB instead. The goal is to get them there. I don't know that you do that telling a kid he sucks compared to Derek Jeter.

But he does suck compared to Derek Jeter. Somewhere along the way we all learn we suck compared to Derek Jeter. The sooner you learn it the sooner you suck less.
 
Agreed. And I'm sure he knows it, as he is still developing. Compare him to his peers in terms of development, though. Derek Jeter wasn't yet "Derek Jeter" when he was a kid. The games he played in when he was sixteen had entertainment value, and were part of his development.

The stories out here can be viewed the same way. They can still be entertaining as a writer develops skills. And as with many ball players, most will remain mired in the minor leagues, but can still provide some entertainment.

I mean, getting a good blowjob is better than none at all. Not every blowjob received will be the best. I understand your point, but I do believe context is important too.
 
But he does suck compared to Derek Jeter. Somewhere along the way we all learn we suck compared to Derek Jeter. The sooner you learn it the sooner you suck less.

My writing did suck. Then I started taking vitamin R. Now, every story is a home run. Thanks professional baseball analogies!
 
My writing did suck. Then I started taking vitamin R. Now, every story is a home run. Thanks professional baseball analogies!

Motivational speeches are my forte.

You know, a hack is all I'll ever be, but I don't hafta settle for Hack 4th Class. In college, when 20 citations were good enough, I found 200.
 
LIVE AND LET DIE by Ian Fleming (1954)

James Bond comes to America to investigate the sudden flood of old gold coins onto the rare coin market, and the coins are redeemed in Harlem pawn shops of all places. Bond reasons that a Haitian nigger gangster called MR.BIG is behind the coin redemptions. NIGGER GANGSTER is the least offensive of many racial insults in the book.

Mr.BIG is an operative for world communism, and the cash he accrues from the coins funds communist activities in America. All want him stopped, but here's the catch: From the White House down all oppose every effort to stop Mr.BIG, because he owns every official and pol that matters.

First Bond shoots up Harlem until the FBI forces him to leave town, then Bond comes to St.Petersburg where he pisses in Mr.BIGs punch some more, and the FBI runs him outta the USA altogether. Then Bond goes to Jamaica.

The film is much different from the book. In the movie it looks like Bond goes to war with Swiss toy makers. The book is about violent nigger gangsters. Black skin is much too thin for the book version. It didn't hurt Henry Fonda's career to shoot women and children, or Paul Newman's. But blacks are tender and fragile dears.

The book started out seriously sucking, but improved soon after chapter one. At one point Bond was dining on meatloaf, canned green beans, scalloped potatoes, and jello. He even breakfasted at a greasy spoon. And used a disgusting nasty restroom at a train station.

But the real puzzle is, Bond is such a klutz, captured in almost every chapter. Like Twain said of Cooper, WHEN SILENCE IS WORTH TEN DOLLARS A SECOND COOPER'S CHARACTERS MAKE ENOUGH NOISE TO ALARM EVERY INDIAN EAST OF ST.LOUIS. And Bond never gets any pussy. She lets him grope and finger and feel but then the train explodes.
 
Yes, James, you're "oh my goshing" over a book written sixty years ago. There are soooo many elements of "you just don't get it" in this.
 
Yes, James, you're "oh my goshing" over a book written sixty years ago. There are soooo many elements of "you just don't get it" in this.

True, but the consolation that keeps me from hanging myself is, I AINT PILOT.
 
Yes, James, you're "oh my goshing" over a book written sixty years ago. There are soooo many elements of "you just don't get it" in this.

So people can't just "discover" a book?

Isn't that what makes a classic? Continued readership?

Guess I shouldn't have raved over Paradise Lost when I read it because it was so old:rolleyes:
 
So people can't just "discover" a book?

Isn't that what makes a classic? Continued readership?

Guess I shouldn't have raved over Paradise Lost when I read it because it was so old:rolleyes:

God knows what he'll do when he sees THE TEMPEST thread. Its 400 years old. His old eyes will spin like a teddy bear in a dryer.
 
God knows what he'll do when he sees THE TEMPEST thread. Its 400 years old. His old eyes will spin like a teddy bear in a dryer.

In know, WTF with these people still talking about old books.

Don't they know Pilot uploaded three new(previously written) stories this week?
 
Read two chapters of MOONRAKER by Ian Fleming.

Some says its Flemings masterpiece. I don't know, but two chapters in the writing and story are excellent, and significantly improved over CASINO ROYALE and LIVE AND LET DIE.
 
You certainly can read classics (and the two of you can be as stupid as you want). But if you apply "oh my gosh current standards" to them, as JBJ did (and expect others to be "oh my gosh" as well at your "revelation," you're just being naïve and silly (which, of course, you both are).
 
Read two chapters of MOONRAKER by Ian Fleming.

Some says its Flemings masterpiece. I don't know, but two chapters in the writing and story are excellent, and significantly improved over CASINO ROYALE and LIVE AND LET DIE.

I read Moonraker not too fond of it.

The whole Bond thing escaped me anyway. Obviously I am in the minority as he is pretty iconic.

I think I liked my heroes less perfect and more violent. The books showed more about Bond, but in the movies he is little more than a cardboard cut out who can't keep it in his pants.
 
I read Moonraker not too fond of it.

The whole Bond thing escaped me anyway. Obviously I am in the minority as he is pretty iconic.

I think I liked my heroes less perfect and more violent. The books showed more about Bond, but in the movies he is little more than a cardboard cut out who can't keep it in his pants.

Youre right.

In the 60s Bond was a teen magnet, and all of us devoutly believed Bond and Hugh Hefner were the models for men. But the book Bond isn't a playboy, and reminds me of a devout Jesuit.

MOONRAKER is different from CASINO ROYALE and LIVE AND LET DIE. Its sophisticated and solid, and features teamwork and male bonding.
 
MOONRAKER by Ian Fleming 1955

Its well written but too lethargic and sedate for my taste. Bond wins a fortune from a card cheat tycoon who isn't the man people think he is. That is, he's a Nazi imposter tho the war is long over. I didn't stick around for the end.
 
Ordered an anthology of negro noir. Some of it is excellent.

Submitted anuther episode of THE PRIESTS STRANGE SINS. 3RD episode half done. The email feedback is flattering, the AH trolls are beating me with their alts, of course.
 
Back
Top