This is Temporary

Usually when a blogger disappears for an extended period of time, the blogger’s return post is all about “Hey sorry, I haven’t posted in a while, but I had been trapped under a heavy piano.”

So let’s just assume that’s where I’ve been and get to it.

I’ve always said I wanted to write a novel.

I usually say this after binge-watching TV. Then I continue my streak of writing nothing and go to sleep because tomorrow, obviously tomorrow will be the day I start writing. No more procrastination on “Magic Tomorrow Day!”

Magic tomorrow day arrives and passes uneventfully. I learn that Lifetime is making a behind-the-scenes Saved by the Bell movie so it’s not a complete loss. I’m so excited. I’m so excited. I’m so. . . scared.

Did I write anything?

No, but *insert famous Scarlett O’Hara quote*

I will definitely start writing once I lose 10 pounds. Once I remove that extra fat in my head, it will clear up the brain juice, rev up the electrons of smart and words will magically appear in sentences that sound more good.

I failed biology.

There is the laundry. Always the laundry. Where does it all come from? Seriously, I own two pairs of jeans and yet my machine looks like a denim emporium. Could this be the subject of my soon-to-be written novel? The protagonist is a plucky vampire-fighter who falls in love with a zombie preacher, but can’t commit because of the laundry and BRAIINNNNNSSSSS.

Shit, that sucks.

There’s people that write and stuff. I’ve seen it. I’ve even reviewed it. Not to blow my own crumpled party horn, but I review children’s books for a librarararaarain publication. I just reviewed one. It was nearly 300 pages about a sock monkey.

That is not hyperbole.

There were a bunch of sock monkeys actually. They couldn’t really do anything, just had thinking thoughts and that’s the story for nearly 300 pages.

My review was only two words: “shit sandwich.”

But, hey, it’s being published. At least this person committed to writing something–albeit something incomprehensible–and completed the task.

I will write, by gum and never use the words “by gum” again. I swear, by gum.

I keep getting tripped up, that’s the problem. I went away on a “vacation”. A vacation is time to rejuvenate the mind and body, but a “vacation” is when one wishes to be killed by a Chuck E Cheese automaton because how much fucking longer are we going to spend in this skeeball prison? My “vacation” was with my parents and preschool-age son. On my “vacation”, my son told me to “go away” an average of 54 times a nanosecond so if you do the math it’s:  x + go away/chuck e cheese – sanity + endless strip mall = no novel.

Today was the day I was going to start writing. It is July 1st and mercury is in the seventh house of cards or game of thrones, however astronony works. I stared at the computer screen for 15 minutes then watched The Leftovers on HBO on Demand. *spoiler alert: way too much dog-shooting.

I had just about given up when I saw this picture on a friend’s Facebook wall:

I take solace in that sign. Procrastination is temporary. So is writer’s block. So is being trapped under a heavy piano.

While I may not write the greatest sock monkey/zombie erotica tale every told today, I may tomorrow.

Or Thursday. Definitely Thursday.

You Love My Lady Blumps

I’m in a bit of a blog slump.

I’m calling it a “blump.”

As you can tell I have quite a way with. . . um. . .you know, those things? Those things that fall from people’s mouths, but you can’t see them? You hear them. Those things or as I call them. . . um. . . invisible mouth falls. I am an invisible mouth falls-smith.

So the writing isn’t the toaster at all. Quite the contrary, it is quite fishsticks.

The problem is one of motivation.

I am totally crushing it in other facets of my life. For instance, my pizza shop is doing extremely well in Webkinz world.

And just yesterday, I took off the pair of sweatpants I had worn for three consecutive days in a row and put on another pair of sweatpants.

But I’m just feeling, as the French say, ma voiture est jaune.

I am not alone in this malaise. Becky of the unbelievable Becky Says Things blames the polar vortex and Nicki of the amazing Nicki Daniels Interview blames the cabin fever one succumbs to when one lives in the polar vortex.

They may be on to something.

It might have something to do with this book I’m reading. It’s called The Sixth Extinction and it’s about our role in the extinction of countless species which may ultimately lead to our own extinction. To put it simply: we are fucked. Royally.

I just finished the chapter on frogs. Frogs are the cockroaches of animals. They can live anywhere except for Antarctica because SMART! They have been around longer than dinosaurs. And now they are dying and becoming extinct. Likely when I just typed this sentence, another frog species bit the dust.

So everything is awful and the world is ending, and this might be why I don’t want to write about Lindsay Lohan’s new reality show at OWN. What am I saying? Of course I will be writing about that.

There still is some pffttt happening. And the pffttt could be because some people have gotten a woody in the pants from the polar vortex. As if extreme cold is normal and not something to freak the fuck out about.

So there.

Blumpsville.

At least I know how to end a blog post appro

The End

We have finally crossed the NaBloWriMo finish line! Doesn’t it feel great?

No, not really. I kind of feel like one of those marathon runners who can’t control their legs or bowels and collapses into a fecal-covered mess at the end.

According to my stats, the most popular post of the month was Deep Thoughts With Hugo. Typical.

My least popular post was If the Bra Fits which was about my chest and how I could not find a bra to fit it properly.

Thanks, Hugo.

I was curious to examine my writing this month so I stuck a bunch of passages into Wordle to create a word cloud. If you are unfamiliar with Wordle, the more you use a word, the bigger it will appear in your word cloud. I seem to be a big user of “just” and “fuck”

Since it is The End, I would be remiss if I didn’t thank my dear friend Jen of Sips of Jen and Tonic for agreeing to engage in this exercise of despair and masochism. I also like to thank rarasaur for organizing the Nano Poblano Team, a team of bloggers that I may now have the time to actually visit their blogs, BlogHer and YeahWrite.

And in conclusion, just fuck celebrity side butt.

 

 

 

The Famous Ride of Rush Revere

Great news, everybody!

America’s favorite anal fissure is writing books for children.

Rush was inspired to write the book “to correct the historical record as it’s been distorted in the public school system.”

I get where Rush is coming from. I can imagine it’s very difficult to be a rich, white, heterosexual man in America–never seeing yourself reflected in the top leadership positions, never having your story heard in the history books, feeling marginalized by a lack of opportunities.

It is time for the real history to be heard and who better to tell it than the man who said “when women got the right to vote is when it all went downhill”?

Preach!

The basic premise of the book is Rush plays some heroic middle school substitute teacher who can go back in time with the help of oxycontin a talking horse. Of course, Rush would be a substitute rather than a souless public school teaching leech latched onto the public teat and beholden to the Evil Union Overlords.

Along the way, he attempts to score various opiates and boner-drugs from those time periods–oh and celebrate America’s exceptionalism.

The book was already Amazon bestseller before it was even released, prompting Rush to write more tomes for the kiddies.

Seeing how Rush views a big portion of the population–women, gays, African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, all minorities, progressive thinkers, non-Dittoheads–I’m sure his view of history is likely the correct one, like when he said the NAACP “should have riot rehearsal. They should get a liquor store and practice robberies.”

Amazingly enough, I was able to obtain some galleys from his upcoming books.

Rush Revere Visits the Founding Fathers

Rush Revere Visits the Slave Plantation

Rush Revere Visits Women Suffragists

Rush Revere Visits Ronald Reagan

Nearly there, nearly there. Only a few days left in this hellish landscape known as NaBloWriMo. Speaker7 continues to plug away as a member of The Nano Poblano Team.

Why I Don’t Participate in NaNoWriMo

For starters, I just went through the local shopping circular to find daily post ideas. Did you know that laundromat on Main Street offers free Tide on Tuesdays and Thursdays? Holy fuck that’s a good deal.

I tried NaNoWriMo once a long time ago when I was a wee lass filled with big dreams and hope. I lasted two days. I just don’t have the stamina for novel writing. I start strong, but  peter out, kind of like a Rand Paul speech before he lifts full paragraphs from Wikipedia and Ayn Rand’s LiveJournal.

I do have awesome book ideas so maybe you, one of my faithful readers, can take one of my ideas and make something out of it.

1. Fifty Shades of Twilight

Bellana Swansteele is a virginal factory worker in a silver bullet factory. Edwarstian Cullgrey is a wealthy werewolf. Bellana is inexplicably drawn to Edwarstian when he pisses a circle of urine around her.  They become lovers the night Edwarstian humps her leg vigorously, but will their love survive? Edwarstain can’t seem to stay off the furniture and eats the newspaper. Bellana has mousy brown hair, an inner goddess and a super vagina. She knows Edwarstian is dangerous because he sheds and claws up her couch. She believes her super vagina can change him for the better or at least train him to use the litter box. Holy cowshit!

2. The Next Gone Girl

I don’t really have anything more to add to this. I just figured any book that outright said it was the next Gone Girl  in the title would be an instant bestseller. Shit, you could probably make it about that laundromat offering free Tide on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Then have the Tide replaced by Gain to give it a twist.

3. The Bob Ross Code

Symbologist Tom Hanks discovers a murdered body by a velvet clown painting at the Antique Roadshow and thus uncovers a battle between the Scions of Elmo and the Muppets of Grover over the possibility that Snuffleupagus was really the son of Gordon. The velvet painting bears the inscription “happy little trees” which Hanks sees as a clue to solving the puzzle of Snuffleupagus’ paternity.

4. The Fat Games

This distopyian novel is set in the distant United States where obese people are put on display and subject to ridicule by a short, toned, shrieking thing called The Jillian. The Jillian forces the obese subjects to do push-ups on camera and strip down to their skivvies for the weekly weigh-in. She tortures them with platitudes like “Unless you puke, faint or die, keep going.” Will this boring nightmare ever end?

5. Men Are From Sportsland and Women Are From Menstruationland

Men and women are so different–it’s like they’re from other lands or planets even!?! Men like to hunt and rape bears while women like to sew and bathe in chocolate. Men eat batteries. Women drink buckets of orphan tears. Men like to dangle their dingles off bridges while women like to get paid less for the same job. Will these two genders ever see boob to eye?

So get writing….you just have to promise me 50% of the profits.

Speaker 7 is not writing a novel but is writing a post every day as part of the Nano Poblano Team. This may make a good novel idea….or not.

Ghosts of Writing Past

My WordPress draft folder is a minefield of missed opportunities.

Missed Opportunity #1:

What did I mean when I created a post titled “The State of Florida Loves Me” and then wrote nothing else?

I guess we’ll never know since I have no recollection of even creating this post. 

Missed Opportunity #2

I thought I had come up with a pretty good idea with this title:

Attention-grabbing, yes? I came up with that snazzy title a few days before last year’s NaBloWriMo.

And what were my fantastic ideas?

This:

Pretty compelling, although I think I could really win if I ran on that platform given what passes for politicians these days (Mr. Speaker7 excluded).

Missed Opportunity #3

I could have joined Des on her journey toward finding fabricated marketing synergy on the latest incarnation of The Bachelorette. Instead I have a draft post filled with random notes taken during the premiere episode.  I’m 98 percent sure I was a bit intoxicated when I typed these:

• People are saying words that follow the basic construct of sentences, but there is little to no meaning.
• “Does your fairytale have a happy ending?” Chris Harrison opines. Are these people unfamiliar with fairytales? They’re bloody as shit, the real ones anyway. People eating children, fathers lopping off sons’ heads.
• drilling fluid engineer is a naked coffee drinker…now I can die
• dental student states: “I’m a Renaissance man”
• wow it’s so surreal and boring and mouskatools.
• guy brings a dead bird bone
• hashtag dork
• inside, the men circle jerk
• creepy banker nicknames her Venus. I come up with a nickname “Pathetic loser” Nailed it.
• date rapist sent home early for trying to date rape Des all night

Sorry, no rose for you, gentle reader

Missed Opportunity #4

This had no title. I’m guessing I wanted to write something about lapses in judgment, but could only churn out this:

This was a lapse in judgment. This can happen some time.

For instance, someone in the employ of Huffington Post created this news banner:

Just what is “sex news” anyways? **Breaking SEX NEWS: Sir Mix-A-Lot Still Prefers Big Butts**

I think a “Sex News” post has to happen in the future.

Missed Opportunity #5

My son said this to me: “You’re sick in the mouth.”

I’m not quite sure what he meant, but I thought I could piece together a post about “Things My Son Tells Me”…but then I got sick in the mouth and abandoned it.

Missed Opportunity #6

This title came after seeing a picture of a Facebook “friend” in black face and other “friends” liking and commenting.

And only this simple missive:

What drafts do you have lingering about?

Speaker7 has a couple drafts of this post, but this one turned out to be the best. Sorry. Speaker7 continues to slog through this hellish long month of November as a member of the Nano Poblano team.

Speaker7’s Writing Process

Someone recently asked me:

Speaker7, how are you able to be so beautiful with that scorching case of herpes on your face?

No, I’m remembering that wrong. I believe someone asked how I went about writing during this scorching herpes infestation known as NaBloWriMo. This reader wondered if I planned ahead or drank until I made Nicholas Cage’s character in Leaving Las Vegas look like a baby chipmunk in comparison.

That is a great question and by no means a straw man I created in order to have something to write about today because jesus christ what else is there? I did just eat Reese Peanut Butter cups for dinner. . . is that something I should write indepth about?

So this is what happens:

I get home from work and realize I have exactly 60 minutes over the course of the next four hours to think of a post, write a post and schedule it

Sometimes I find it helpful just to start typing to get into the “flow.” The “flow” is that sweet spot where the whole world dissolves and the writer is completely caught up in the moment.

It usually doesn’t work for me so I take a break.

I go into a quiet place and think about the big issues affecting our world. I wonder what I have to say about these big issues.

Two minutes later, my son will come into the room and announce that a snail is after him and we have to hide in the dining room curtains for the next 20 minutes.

We will do this for the next hour. Then it’s back to the writing process.

I decide to engage in activities that will stimulate the creative juices. I remember that exercise is key to a healthy mind.

I remember reading how the 18th century poet Friedrich Schiller kept decaying fruit in his writing space because he believed it stimulated his creativity. I do not have fruit apart from a pouch of Halloween Fruit Snacks™ I unearth from my son’s trick-or-treat bag. I realize that grapes are fruit and that wine is made from grapes so I decide to crack a bottle. Now I’m gaining some perspective.

I am in the zone. Things are cooking!

Is it possible that I could get away with another post complaining about the difficulties of writing a post every day? That’s what I’ve been getting away with 99.95% of the time now. Yes, I think my readers will be pleased.

I know! I’ll do some more gifs!

In case you were unaware, Speaker7 is writing a post every day this month as part of Nano Poblano Team. This is her last post with gifs…maybe. Check back tomorrow.

Me Write Good

Now that I’m writing daily, I figured this was an opportune time to analyze who I am as a writer.

I am not doing this because I’m desperately looking for something to write about only three days into NaBloWriMo, but because….um…yeah, I can’t even finish this sentence.

Analyzing takes a lot of work and takes away from the time I should be watching my son while he sticks legos into the garbage disposal. Luckily there is a website that does it for me: I Write Like.

You likely have heard of this site because it became super popular three years ago–this is why this blog is on the cutting edge, according to a search I performed in AltaVista.

The basic premise is you paste some of your stuff into a comment box and presto! you are told you write like a great artist such as a Norman Mailer or Nicole Polizzi.

As an aside, to get a Normal Mailer reading, you just have to write hateful things about women. To get Nicole Polizzi, you take a dump right on your screen.

It seems to pretty spot-on. For instance, I typed in this chestnut:

And it spit back this analysis:

I doth agree!

But how am I writing right now? It seems less William Shakespeare and more:

Let’s put it to the test shall we…

And the results:

Twas a brillig observation.

Speaker7, aka William Shakespeare, will be writing a daily post this month as part of the Nano Pablona Team. But soft, what light through yonder window breaks? It is the East and Hugo is the sun. 

How To Write a Daily Post

So you’ve done something moronic, like made some blood oath about writing a daily post. At this point you’re likely thinking:

What the fucking shitballs did I just sign up for??!??

Easy, friend. We can get through this, if we follow these steps:

1. Quantity not quality is key. You’re not sculpting the Mona Lisa, which means you have little to no time to actually research anything or write with authority. Studies show that writing the word “boobs” a zillion times will attract a frat house. How do I know that? I just fucking made it up because I’m a moron who made some blood oath to write every day.

2. Revisit a post from the past. Unless you’re a writing god who was blessed with being Freshly Pressed on your first try, no one except your mom and maybe that dude you have locked in your prison dungeon read your first post. Nothing wrong with retreading on old ground. Nothing wrong with featuring this gem again:

3. Publish a single post as a trilogy. Have your read Fifty Shades of Grey? That trilogy has one plot point–two imbeciles boinking and murmuring at each other–and E.L. James stretched that shit out for 1,500,000 pages. There’s no reason you can’t do the same: For example:

4. Post pretty pictures and make up some platitude to go with it. This is what comprises 95 percent of my Facebook newsfeed.

5. Be resigned to letting everything else in your life go into the toilet. Jobs and family are overrated compared to the glory and fame one can receive as an unpaid blogger. They will all still be there in December (maybe).

6. Use filler. Let’s be honest–no one’s really reading this whole thing, right? So why can’t you just stick in some gobbily-gook that they use in brochure templates to pad it out? Dolor aliquam mauris mauris lobortis dolorem convallis mauris. Euismod urna elit adipiscing pharetra nullam elit.

Speaker7 is part of the Nano Pablona Team, the team that will be taking over the world. . . She’s just been informed that the team is only supporting each other’s efforts in writing a daily post this month. Dolor aliquam mauris mauris lobortis dolorem convallis mauris. 

NaNoFaLaTiDo

I am foolishly participating in this thingy where I write a post every day this month. I think it should go well because I used the word “thingy” in the previous sentence and this shows my creative juices are thingy.

I did this last year with Jen of the illustrious Sips of Jen and Tonic, the most hilarious blog on the nets of Inter. I had thought the endeavor would be a tad easier than NaNoWriMo, the national novel writing month, but it turned out writing a daily post was about as fun as trying to come up with an analogy for this sentence. A lemon juice enema? A Miley Cyrus tongue bath? A Miley Cyrus tongue enema?

I still got it.

I believe I’ve conned Jen into doing NaBloWriMo because we have a beautiful masochistic relationship.

There are many reasons why I will fail and you will likely not see another post after this one:

1. Now that it gets dark so early, I feel it completely unnecessary to be awake past 6 p.m.
2. My husband is running for local office and the last time I saw him was on a campaign flyer asking for my vote.
3. There is a small person who demands most of my time. His name is Hugo. I also have a three-year-old son.

4. Obamacare

5. They have come out with an Angus Beef version of Hot Pockets

Jen had asked me what I planned to write about and I replied “Hot pockets.”

I still got it.