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Archive for the ‘Lifestyle’ Category

Happy New Year!

First of all, I am in a contest for the latest piece I wrote. If you like my poem “I Sail On” then feel free to head over and vote for it in the contest poll. It is truly appreciated!

Moving on.

It’s my first year as a writer, and am I any better?
I think I am probably exponentially better.
Do I think that is any good?
No, not even a little.

Let’s take a look at the past year in writing. Everything written on my dA has been written in the past year, in fact, all in the second half of the year. I would consider about 16 of those pieces to be deemable as actual writing, and not just drivel. Some of it was just a smattering of meandering ideas and rough drafts that went nowhere. Still trying to find my voice I suppose. I think just writing far more often has given me a ton of ideas that I didn’t even know I possess. Now that I have truly decided to be a writer, everything in life falls into that context. I am beginning to view the world through the lens of a writer, and it has been really exciting so far. My brain thinks at a mile a minute, so now that it has something to think about, it has been a lot more focused, and in turn made me a lot more relaxed.

I’ve read that writing is a very introspective art form, which has very much been the case. Writing down things that I am completely unsure anyone will like, and just putting it there with honesty is ridiculously tough for a person as private as I am. It’s another obstacle in the way of my writing becoming minutely better though, so my introverted attitude towards emotions is now another dragon to be slayed on the road towards a career in writing.

At least I still get to be cynical about everything. That is a great part about writing. Also getting drunk.

Anyway, before I go off on a tangent, let’s discuss my writing specifically.

My year of writing actually started about halfway through the year with uploading things to dA in June. Nothing much at all happened immediately after joining dA either. I chalk it up to being just another of the thousands of faceless people here, not to mention that writing is a more time consuming process for a casual observer than a pretty picture is, meaning less people are inclined to read a lengthy short story instead of looking at a nice photo of a sunset. That is my plight though, so I joined a few writing groups and began to enter a few contests here and there. I did this for two reasons. I learned writing is not fun unless someone reads it, and I want people to read, and enjoy my writing. The other reason is that I want to compare my talents against other writers, and obviously contests and tournaments are the best way to do so.

Just in the past week or so I won my first contest. A small poetry contest that only had 12 entrants, so I can’t get too excited, but it was certainly a nice feeling to win. You can see the final entrants for that contest through here. Shortly after that I got a DailyLitDeviation from, well, from DailyLitDeviation on dA which you can see here. That was pretty cool. It didn’t get a ton of hits or anything, but it garnered some attention, and for one of the works I am most proud of on dA too. I was really glad to get any kind of feedback for that story, since I uploaded it a good long while ago, and it just silently fell away without any interest. Finally, another short story I wrote came in second place for a Halloween contest about our worst fears. This contest was out of about 30 entries, so the competition was a little more fierce I assume. You can see the final tally through this link. This all happened in the very last month of the year, so I suppose my writing ended on a high note. I do wish I would have entered more contests though. I need to really sort that out this year, since I had actually planned to enter more, but ended up writing other things, or just not writing at all.

Of course, there was NaNoWriMo. I wrote an entire book. I might actually still be recovering from that fact, since December was not nearly as productive as November. I have more time this January though, which is why I am beginning to step things up again and getting this journal out.

I actually printed up a copy of my own, unedited, rough draft of my NaNoWriMo book. I have not read or heard or talked about it through all of December, so going back and reading it now should be very interesting. I plan to read it once all the way through, then start again, making notes and edits and such. I printed it out because I am much better at catching mistakes that way, especially on such a long book. (By the way, the book is 130 pages in 10pt font and 1.5 spacing.)

I handwrote 3 1/2 notebooks this year. When I began my wrists were brittle little things that hurt after one page of writing. That is now a thing of the past. I can now write with disregard for a good amount of pages. I have an antiquated sense of what it is to be a writer, so in my mind, a writer should be able to handwrite quickly and without fatigue. Like a 1920s reporter with a pencil and notepad. I am finishing up the fourth notebook now, and should be done by the end of the week. I hope to fill out a minimum of twelve through this year. Hopefully more though, since I know I can write a lot of pages every day if I just focus.

The notebooks have been indispensible in my life now. Far less often do I have an idea or story without my notebook nearby to jot things down in. A ton of ideas for stories, essays, and jokes have come out of these little things. Not to mention it is far more relaxing to write in the notebook on my couch or in bed rather than sitting at the computer all day long.

I saw someone use the verb ‘murderously’ once this year. I was as offended as I was amazed. What could you even do murderously?

I think just murder.

Anyway, if you know me in real life, expect me to use the word “murderously” as a descriptor of each and every one of my activities for some time.

So that was last year. What is on the agenda this year?

1. Learn how to edit, and revise. Learn that it is a normal part of writing, even though I hate it so much.

I hate editing, I am far more happy writing a story the first time. Unfortunately all my writing is terrible the first time through, so I need to take revision far more seriously if I plan to be at least moderately better at this whole thing.

2. Take criticism better. Stupid criticism that doesn’t help at all, you stupid idiots.

Ahem. I mean, critique is very important to me being a better writer. I know that, but some annoying reflex in my mind always gets offended before I calm down and think about what they actually said, instead of my first reaction of thinking that they think they are better than me and are looking for a fight.

3. Take writing more seriously.

Sometimes I only do the minimum amount of writing per day, and waste a lot of time lying around doing nothing particularly amazing. I need to begin buckling down again and getting more work done. This especially means finishing more stories instead of a bunch of half finished ideas.

4. Go outside more.

A big part of writing is simply experiencing life I believe. When they tell you to write what you know, to me that means, you should know a lot of stuff. You should also know as much of that stuff first hand as possible. So my hermetic ways have to come to an end at least slightly, and I have to go outside and do my best to be a normal human being. They could make a sitcom about it.

So those are my goals this year. I believe they are easily obtainable as long as I remain focused and serious about this. Of course, I am quite serious all the time, so no problem.

Well I have hated SnorgTees for a long time. Like many, I ran across their advertisements on myspace, back when myspace was a thing people logged into. Just like the advertisements for auto insurance rates and finding old classmates, I simply ignored the ads and went about stalking people and not returning comments. That was it for many years.

Now we are in the present day, and this year (maybe last year, what kind of person would keep track of this?) Cracked.com began running advertisements by SnorgTees. I don’t blame Cracked, since they can do no wrong, but the ads themselves can cause a great pain in the comedy receptors of my brain.

Four of the five shirts I blindly clicked on at random from their front page, and will be posting my thoughts accordingly. The first one though I have specifically singled out. It is one that specifically appears on the Cracked ads, and is at the very heart of my anger.

1

I don’t sell shirts. I don’t design shirts. I might not even wear shirts correctly, but I know words. Words are a pretty simple concept, so I won’t go into details about them right now. Just read the shirt out loud. It’s a pun! A pun based on something no one brought up. Puns are terrible even in the most called for situations, but bringing one up out of nowhere creates very dangerous particles of antihilarity which scientists claim don’t even exist.

Now, bringing up a time when you thought of a totally good pun, but like, you just had to be there, so you tell your friends, causing them to groan, roll their eyes, and reassess how much your friendship is worth can be time consuming hard work. Wouldn’t it be much simpler to put that pun, along with the definition of the pun, onto a shirt? This way your friends will all know how terrible your sense of humor is, as well as ward off potential future friends who might have otherwise assumed you weren’t funny, rather than knowing that. Now these people have knowledge of your failings. They have learned from you and your shirt, and learning is important. Feel free to stroke your beard while you contemplate the power of knowledge.

Now, the more important part is, how is this new word of any use to any person ever? I think I have said the word elephant less than 5 times this year. One of those times I confused ‘elephant’ with ‘allopath’ creating unnecessary tension between my physician and I. No one talks about elephants. Unless Snorg is looking to corner the market for people who…

A. Work at wildlife preserves in Africa

B. Clean elephant waste at the zoo/circus

C. Train and ride elephants into battle to destroy their enemies

Pictured: Not 'irrelephant'

Then this shirt finds itself with a very limited audience. Presumably one in which they feel elephants are relevant on the world stage.

Am I relevant yet?

2

There are several problems here that I do not know whether to pin on the photographer, the model, the shirt, or society at large. The simplest explanation is that it is a dumb shirt, and she can’t hear for different, yet obvious reasons.

Perhaps the photographer thought this was a clever way to convey sound. The words of the shirt transcending the bounds of the fabric and becoming part of our collective reality.

Maybe the model was listening to her favorite band, and they just got to that part in the song that totally reminds her of her boyfriend.

Maybe the shirt is a warning to people that the wearer is legally deaf, and wanted to relay this information to people in the douchiest way possible. I think the designer had a dream, to make even the deaf look like assholes.

Though all this could be some terrible misunderstanding. In my haste to condemn these people, maybe I misunderstood something very important about humanity. The girl in this picture does seem to be satisfied with the high decibels of her epicness, but perhaps it wasn’t always the case. Perhaps this girl has dealt with a lot of folks who have put her down over the years. She was almost ready to give up on herself until she found a path out of her depression. That’s right, the shirt is actually part of a self help program. Whenever someone tells you that you made a poor decision buying that shirt, and that it is just one in an endless series of terrible mistakes you have made since dropping out of college and deciding to be a model, you can simply hum a short tune, and point to your shirt. No one will get you down today, because you are epic, and you can’t even hear them. Oh, and the headphones? The Secret on audiobook.

3

If joke shirts like the ones above don’t do it for you, well you are still in luck my friend. For folks who don’t have a sense of humor, Snorg has a wide and utterly unfunny line of shirts that are simply references to other things. If there are things, and you like some of the stuff in those things, then why not wear a shirt about some of that stuff in those things that the stuff you like is from? Show off your preference in movie/show/music while also letting people know what useless knowledge you fill your head with. The intricacies of the current economic crisis? Not when I know all the dialogue to Shaun of the Dead!

What is saddest of all is that the market for folks who simply like turtles is now awash in a sea of zombie movie fans. Many of which probably have nothing more than ambivalence for our reptile friends.

Now this guy likes turtles.

4

I just need to get something out of the way first. Where is this guy? In his parent’s backyard? Was the park not allowing photography that day or was your car broken down again? Why guns? Couldn’t even bother to pretend holding a lightsaber? Moving on…

So, too funny for the reference shirts? Too knowledgeable for the joke shirts? Well one, you aren’t so great. Two, Snorg has got you covered.  Combine your know-it-allism of pop culture and your useless science knowledge (because you don’t need to know Newtonian laws of motion to design your new blog) into one shirt. Now both your college classmates and the dude at the comic book store will look up to you in awe, at least before they begin to tell you that the force in star wars is not the same as a physical force, or that the equation for force is usually more complicated than that.

5

It’s just a dude with a satchel. No worries right? I mean, satchels are lame, and even the word satchel sounds dirty when I say it out loud, but I can’t blame someone for poor fashion sense. Wait a minute though, something seems odd…

What the hell Snorg? It’s like you aren’t even trying anymore, although that would imply you were trying beforehand. This isn’t even a joke, or a reference. It is just a fact. This is just one step above having a tuxedo shirt that says “James Bond wears a tuxedo.” This shirt is a lie wrapped in a confusing mess of pop culture misinterpretations. Did your art team watch Indiana Jones on mute? Is someone in the office still bitter that his SnorgSatchels idea never took off? The several steps this shirt had to take from concept to product are baffling at every step. It’s like a child who draws muscles on his shirt to look tough, except unlike growing muscles, owning a satchel takes nothing more than a trip to the mall and less money than it took to buy this truly stupid shirt.

If a person wanted to be a bit more like Indiana Jones, this is not the direction I would expect them to gravitate towards. It doesn’t take much to look like an archeology teacher. What if you wear this with a real satchel, what kind of chaos would be wrought on the world? I have said satchel so many times that the word has lost all meaning. They didn’t even use an Indiana Jones font on this one. Snorg couldn’t even be bothered to go all the way through with it and have the fake strap reach all the way around the shirt.

If one person has bought this shirt and then actually worn it, then I weep for humanity.