THOUGHTS OF AN IGNORED BUT UTTERLY FANTASTICALLY GIFTED GENUIS WRITER GAL

 

from Texas Wildlife Control.

I must write something sluggishly wonderful to live up to that title.

So I posted a plea over on Acebookfay. If you read Pig Latin, you know I mean Facebook. Okay. It was a plea for ‘friends’ to go ‘like’ my author page. As the two people who regularly read my blog once in a while, you well know I am TERRIBLE AT SELF-PROMOTION.

Or I’m repulsive and lack charm.

Or I’m a terrible writer and everyone’s too afraid of me or ‘too kind’ to let me know I should slip over into customer service rep, complaints department, for adult diapers. Or maybe Dead Animal Removal Engineer for the Oregon Highways Cleanup Wing.

I honestly think I just have to hold my breath, overcome my near total lifetime of conditioning not to draw attention to myself and JUST FUCKING GO FOR IT. Like. Ovaries out, grinning, trying to sell every last used car [book, story, play, etc] on my writer-lot. Be that aggressive, rhino-skinned used car-esque, religious preacher selling salvation and snake oil, smiling grinner. Always Be Closing.

from Udemy

Which is not me.

But me is not pushing the Ann Wuehler line of products that well.

I need a spokesmodel, I need a new, brash face of the Ann Wuehler factory line of novels and plays! I need a Shamwow gal with no sense of shame or vocal volume. I can’t do the sales pitch without sounding like a sarcastic monster. It’s not in my wheelhouse. I’d have to take several years of acting classes to pull that off and even then…I’d come across as a sarcastic monster with some acting classes under my belt. And yet, I know very well that’s EXACTLY WHAT I NEED TO DO.

Be a pushy annoying rhino-skinned saleswoman pushing against all the other pushy annoying rhino-skinned sorts selling their snake oil. Whee. Oh goody. Yay.

It’s the doing it that…makes me sick. Actually sick, as in nausea and tears.

Hey, buy my books. I worked hard on em. They’re nice.

Does the above work for any of you?? Yeah. I need to work on this area of schmoozing and sales. I do. It’s my Moby Dick. [A giant whale that slaps me with its tail or something. I never read Moby Dick. Should I admit that at all?]

from Etsy

So, my goal is to make myself start being the aggressive pusher of my own stuff. To crow about WHAT A FANTASTICALLY WONDERFUL WRITER GAL I AM. That people need to part with their pennies for my stuff! PART WITH YOUR PENNIES FOR MY STUFF, IT’S WONDERFUL.

I need rum and cigarettes if I’m going to actually tackle this side of writing…the push it until your sanity snaps side. And then someone else can write a biography of my attempts to sell my own writing, become a best-selling New York Times darling and get a movie deal, with that movie winning all the Oscars ever invented…ugh a bug.

The Disaster Artist, anyone? Anyone? It didn’t win blah blah blah, but that’s what sprang to mind for an actual real-world example.

I might also need to pick up some forms for Dead Animal Scraping, part-time intern with no benefits or pay check expected, too. Just in case. It’s outside, you bring your own shovel and you’re outside. You work with animals, too. That’s a big plus right there.

Yes, that’s an actual thought in my head. If I do dead animal removal, I’ll be outside. Uh huh. Yep.

Actual photo taken under the local tiny bridge over the Malheur River. There is no hope for humanity or sales, is there? 

11,000 Plus Words

Mr. July. From the Oxford Mail. It’s amazing what you can find when you type in ‘naked farmers’. Amazing.

I have somehow managed to actually compose eleven thousand plus words for the Naked Farmers of the Apocalypse.

I am also channeling my inner Judy Blume apparently, which is fine. Sometimes one needs their inner Blume and she’s sold how many books so far? A LOT. You might have even read a few of them, dear darlings.

Before I step too far into pseudo-smarmy land, let me say it’s raining today and snow might be coming. Which makes me cheerful as a mouse in a wall. Perhaps as cheerful and industrious as the mouse in my wall this morning. I went from page fifteen or so to page twenty something. I’ll write more later today or not.

My tale is crafting itself.

I step out of its way and it kindly meanders as it wills for right now. I have no finale or overall theme planned at this time.

The rich rotting earth of American politics undermines my Judy Blume-ish wafflings. Hey, to ignore politics is to ignore the nose on your face, after all. No matter what ‘side’ you’re on.

FUCKING DEMOCRATS, PULL IT TOGETHER. Okay, done. Whee. Back now. If you’re not Americans, that means nothing to you or maybe it does. Maybe you’re breathlessly following America’s leap into the abyss. [Yeah, I said it. Someone had to.]

Back to Naked Farmers of the Apocalypse.

I invented a pop band of that name that Our Heroine, Candle Santiago, adores. Bands do, on occasion, have silly names only the kiddies can love. Death Cab for Cutie. The Clits. The Butthole Surfers. Puddle of Mudd. Bumsnogger. Aborted Hitler Cock. [I did not make that up, sadly.] Evil Edna’s Horror Toilet.  The Child Molesters. [An actual band. I know. It’s okay. Go to your safe place. It’s okay.] 

Everyone back now? 

I bet you’re a fan of silly-named musicians either truly bubble gum lite or so serious they poop save the world slogans instead of actual poop. [Poop is natural, pooping out slogans is not…was my labored point here.]

Anyway, where was I…

Ah yes. So! I also invented an anime show, called Piko’s Planet, with a hot anime dude that the tweens go squee for…and will no doubt ‘disguise’ current political, entertainment and other wise famous or not figures for my own fun and hardly any profit. Because, let’s face the music and dance, it’s fun.

And isn’t writing, other than being about changing the very warp and weft of society itself, supposed to be fun? Yes. Yes, it is, in case you were not sure.

An excerpt?? Not yet. I’ll tease you all a bit and wait until the end of November. I’ll copy and paste something near the end of this jam-packed and turkey-flavored month, where I’ll, no doubt and is that not a silly name for a band, hello…where I’ll no doubt delve into the journey my heroine has had to take.

So, I’m not only tapping into my inner Blume, I’m scraping the hero’s journey barrel. I have many inner rooms, apparently. What a cheerful realization.

 

from Pinterest

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

my broken blog poem

 

my broken blog spoken poem

I think this one is broken/Or I should/ give in to my dark side and go write romance novels that/ end with everyone getting a chainsaw up/

their cooters.

Should we vote on this? vote vote/vote for nothing that matters that’s/ amazing and amazeballs

The next time I get some cold, hard cash/ I’m going to/ buy some vodka. Some cheap/ vodka/ And some cheap mixer. And some smokes. And then cut off /all my hair and glue it to the wall/ Because art, baby.

You are not welcome to join me/go get your own strychnine

and we’ll die in different rooms

totally

happy/that we’re drunk

and poisoned/watching cat videos

where the cat

dies.

Amen

 

 

 

 

 

A BAD DAY FOR THE DEVIL

 

 

 

First Part: Texas Preacher inspires a blog post

A Texas preacher was wailin’ and waxin’ large on how this is going to be a bad day for the devil. And naturally, on hearing this shouted from the next room, during the early hours… I had a thought of– is any day a bad day for the devil? It seems the devil gets a lot of shit done. Wars to petty little malicious gossip fun. Everyone’s getting devoured by that devil walkin’ around. The devil takes a stroll and checks things off her list.

What?? Her list??

Have I lost my gol-durn mind? Yes, I have, but that’s a whole other hysterical and barely readable blog post.

Part Two: Gender Politics

I have always wondered this. Why is the devil male? Other than patriarchal absolute control over everything from religion to nail polish choices, of course. Positions of power must always be filled with male figures! Even in legends, mythology, religion and tall tales. Women with power tend to be evil queens, evil stepmothers and witches. Or a combo thereof– an evil stepmother queen witch, such as Snow White’s dad’s second wife. Yep! There are ‘good’ witches but…they’re still suspect, because they have vaginas under those pretty princess-esque ensembles. And could go rogue at any time! We don’t get many tales of queens without there being some sort of ‘love’ story involved where she ends up secondary in her own story as a kingly sort steps up and ‘saves’ her from having to rule and make decisions or she falls into disgrace and gets tricked or…I’ll stop there. Ahem.

Other than that…why is the devil always portrayed as a male figure? We have witches, of course. But. They’re subservient and doing the will of their master…yeah. Witches went from powerful independent sorts to cringing, tricked, lied to servants of Satan. They went from enjoying their power and their relative sexual freedom to being puppets who just endured the cold sexual caresses of Hell’s Landlord. [Because why not strip even sexual enjoyment out of witchcraft, can I get an amen??] See Malleus Malificarum.

Women and power, it’s makes people uncomfortable. I get it. There’s reams written here. The powerful woman getting reduced to evil crone who licks the devil’s bottom during ceremonies held beneath the full moon. Read all that stuff. Read about the witch craze and how midwives were suspect and…yeah. But.

Part Three: A Tale of Love Gone Wrong

That rebellious beautiful angel who went against God. That reads more like a love story gone horribly wrong than some servant acting up and getting spanked, big time, for all eternity. Actually, that fallen angel gets rewarded, by being made the Big Baddie who gets to pretend to go against God. [And here, you can start screaming I don’t know anything about religion, the devil, God or blah dee blurg. That my years in the Lutheran church apparently did nothing more than give me a curious case of soul rash.] After all, does it not say, in Revelation, that God wins?

It’s right there. That’s bad storytelling. You don’t invent this great villain and then say, baldly, that that villain is going to lose. We know the villain loses, we want to pretend some actual surprise. There has to be a moment when we think the Joker is going to squash Batman and yank his wings off. That’s just how good stories trot along. We want, maybe, to even believe, for a bit, that the villain, the Big Bad, will win the day and destroy the planet, kill the tied up girlfriend/love interest/wife/some random girl; uh, get that death ray to work, etc, etc. You don’t state that so and so will win while presenting some Big Bad as the ‘villain’. Unless you plan on springing a surprise on us. Like some super-villain in the wings. Maybe her name is Mary who wraps her holy thighs around the devil and God and devours them both with her girl parts and comes out the winner of it all.

I would so watch that movie. I would even buy the over-priced gold-plated popcorn to munch as I watched that movie.

You cannot announce that you’re the winner ahead of time. It’s insulting. Why do you need an adversary? Especially one that seems on the payroll? Why is he needed at all? Oh…because the devil has a case of bitter grapes and seeks to take down as many as he can before THE END OF IT ALL. [No, seriously, that’s the answer I’ve seen to this one. The devil wants to have a game of freeze tag before the End. Yep.] Cue evil laughter, ala Vinny Price.

PART FOUR: MORE GENDER POLITICS AND EVEN MORE LOVE GONE WRONG MUSINGS

How bitter do you have to be to infect as many humans as you can before God yanks the curtains closed?? That’s female territory…that’s spurned lover territory. That’s…yeah. I’m marching out some rather tired female tropes here— the woman scorned, the bitter woman who wants to repay her ex in spades, the nasty woman who will do anything to smear her ex, etc. Entire industries chug along on that crap alone. There’s also the crazy ex who stalks the current Pretty Young Thang and there’s a catfight where boobies bounce a lot. That’s both a movie plot go-to and the newest ad campaign for Chanel Number Five. Petty revenge against a force that’s all-powerful and who announces they’re going to win no matter what happens…doesn’t seem like male on male catfighting. [Can men have catfights?? Mmm. Maybe tomcat fights? Because tomcats are both slinky and possess testicles? MMMM!]

PART FIVE: WHAT SORT OF DAY DOES THE DEVIL HAVE?

But anyway. The devil, in my opinion, always has a good day. The list of sins is long and people are stupid. You can’t even have naughty thoughts without making God’s I Saw That! list. You can’t lust in your head, your thoughts are on trial. God is literally the thought police. The devil wants you to run that hardcore dungeon daddy fantasy involving a Viking era cowboy-ish muscled up pretty boy who puts you through your paces with a small whip and a large donkey. The devil is saying, hey, baby, go for it. You say, okay! Good day for the devil. Or maybe, hey, you’re in charge of an entire country. And you’ve got pretty bombs and tanks at your disposal. Why not use them on something? Like Chicago?? Yeah, the devil doesn’t even have to do more than shrug and go, hey, baby, go for it. That whisper of permission to give in to your darkest or most silly little vices. Instead of living with your knees crossed and your mind full of amens and hallulujahs and notions that the world is burning alive.

So it makes sense, to me, to make the nemesis of the desert God who stalked about in the lands of Canaan and Judea and so forth…a girl.

And hey, if we keep the devil a boy, well…kettle of very LGTBQ fish, can I get a high five and a clobber verse, amen? [There are six, by the way, six. That’s it. There’s about six maybe references in the entire Bible about this issue. Uh huh.]  You can’t have women with power, after all and you can’t even entertain the notion of God and the also-male devil being exes…because how soon before we’re making bestiality and incest legal and letting people marry their own houseplants?? Hello!

A seductive temptress whispering, go for it, baby, as she picks your pocket and paints a target on your back. That, after all, is what women are…we’re either whores or good girls. That Madonna/Whore dichotomy. One fall from grace and we’re forever branded a sin-filled whorebeast, we gals. There’s no forgiveness for us if we tumble a bit or a lot or at all… We have to be kept covered and controlled and in our place otherwise…chaos. That’s the central core message of pretty much any major or minor religion…women are suspect. Big time. Beware. You give women any sort of freedom and they turn to the devil and become witches and try to become men and want to vote and shit. Gol durn it, not on my watch!

PART SIX: WHERE I FINALLY MENTION SOME WRITING PROJECTS OF MINE!! YAY!

Which leads me to…yes, my piddles in this area, writing-wise. Gotcha!! I wove a pretty web, I offered some sweet blasphemy and oh, viola…here we arrive at some stark PR for my products. Oh my!

Being a writer chick, I invented a character. It’s kinda what I do on occasion. She drives around in an old Caddy, seeking whom she may devour. I didn’t give her a name, other than ‘devil’. She’s a black woman riding the roads of America, offering deals. I was writing along in Alice in Oregonlandia and went, as you do, hey…what if the devil shows up.

What if the devil shows up.

And, sometimes, my mind-worms poop out some useful smeary images. One of those 50’s monstrosity cars with fins that get about three miles per gallon because gas was cheap back then. Flames painted on the black doors. An engine that can heard miles away, one of those big powerful V-8 take on all comers engines. And a woman at the wheel, a powerful woman, a woman to be feared, a woman of sadness and fierce laughter, the devil. With dark skin , a body that’s hers and hers alone, a confidence that her road trip isn’t gonna end any time soon. She suggests sins, doesn’t tell you to actively commit them. She knows you and maybe even loves you a little, but still wants to turn you inside out to watch you strangle in your own guts.

She also turns up in my third book, Saint Lysette and Bloody Alice. Which I’ve let ‘rest’ for a week, as other writing urges hooked me like a fly fisherman hooks one of those trout in a river in Montana. Must write this now! I’m mulling ideas for that third book, deciding just who and what Mr. Blue, Bong Bong and Mr. Peepers are. [If you have no idea who those characters are, it’s okay. I forgive you. Go in peace.] I’m inventing the mythology and reality of this world Alice, and her mother, Nancy, exist in. What happens if there’s devils within devils within devils? What happens if. It’s what writers do, after all. I’m not thinking Overall Literary Theme. I thinking, what if the devil is trying to fix her mistakes? What will Alice do when she finds out what Lysette is? What does Aaron know? I am thinking in terms of what comes next, not Man’s Inhumanity to Man.

The devil, after all, is in the details.

PART SEVEN: BWHA HA HA

Bwha ha ha.

The devil always has a good day. She likes to keep busy and she’s a multi-tasker, as women have been since the time they lived out in the open scavenging lion kills. God will snap His fingers and the devil might very well not even notice. She’s bent over whispering into a susceptible ear to some sexually confused young Christian man to look up three-way twink and bear porn [if you have no idea what this is, boy, are you gonna have some fun with Google today] over on porn hub [a real site, in case you thought I made that up, my innocent sweeties]…whispering in that ear to go for it, baby. God will be saying, hey, I’m ending the game. The devil will look up, from whispering sweet nothings into various ears. You do that, baby, if you think that’s best.

And God will swell up and stomp back to heaven, with a hearty string of expletives for his Ex and the devil will smile. It’s always a good day for the devil.

 

Ideal

 

from TV Tropes. Calvin and Hobbes.

 

I’m going to lower the lights a bit and muse in the land of somewhat serious.

PART ONE: Mad Obstacle Course

I have a friend. Who is painfully idealistic. Who believes the world will magically become smart about, oh, everything, and clean itself up and that people will learn lessons. And not repeat history as hard and fast as they can. Who, right now, thrums with enough anger and grief over everything he sees, reads, and experiences to fuel a Smith’s ten-CD greatest hits collection. The bitter muddy waters of the world right now have turned the inner fishin’ hole that exists in his head into a stinking drying up slick, full of those mutated creatures caused by leaking nuclear waste and farm chemicals that get into the ground water. I fear for him, that he has no armor against the monsters and indifferent nobodies that foul the planet he loves so dearly. Why can’t they see? Why can’t they understand? Why can’t they know what’s going on? The cries of those battering themselves against the giant light bulb; those human moths dying, dying as they try to deliver their earnest sermons of save the earth, people matter, be kind to one another…

Now, this person does try. Casey [I’ll make up a name to protect myself first of all] attends local town meetings and interacts with others of his ilk, trying to get something started or get something said. That takes guts, in Velveeta Twitler land. Casey is artistic in a place where the arts are regarded as something invented by Satan for lazy slackers who are commie fags on welfare stealing the hard-earned tax money of True Paytriots to get free abortions, free marijuana and free phones. The neighbors threaten Casey because he’s not of their political party. Over which he has gone to the local sheriff, just in case. Just in case. A more harmless, gentle soul than Casey I’ve yet to meet. Who wants the best for those around him and tries to find his way in the stinking darkness and mad obstacle course called life.

PART TWO: Dead Christmas Trees

Now, I won’t delve further into the clinical case of this friend. It’s unfair and Casey isn’t here to defend…it’s just my few hard words, arriving from a place of dead Christmas trees shoved into a garbage cans. Where no light shines because I cannot lift my head and find the sun anymore. I am finding other idealists, who believe so gently and completely in democracy and human decency and human intelligence…equally bruised, dripping blood from their beat up souls [I know, how precious is that image???], exhausted by the utter indifference or laughing mockery they encounter, instead of applause and head nods and agreement that ‘something needs to be done’. They tread water that has already viciously drowned them several years ago. Ghosts whispering against the bulldozing of the universe.

Part Three: Just A Cycle

Some say our current times are just a cycle. We go though periods of great darkness, great and utter stupidity, a meanness toward others, a savage hatred of those outside our tribes, little groups and tiny clans. And then something lets go. That great dark time dissipates and reason comes back to the world. Light returns. People surge forward like mighty tides and get shit done. Great books are written, new ideas seep out and infect societies, good ideas, bad ideas, ideas ideas ideas; they swirl slowly in the human collection, stretching the collective minds. We will not be like that again, the new guardians scream as they examine an age just passed.

We will stand watch against such things. We will not kill over a religion, over a skin color, over a bit of land, over an ideal. We will accept all into the brotherhood of man, no exceptions this time. Except that one group, that one…they’re still suspect.

And the balance comes back, perhaps, for a bit.

Until it all tips again and it all starts over, the darkness happy as a toxic clam and the new guardians elderly bewildered broken bits wondering how it all came to this. Why did people not see? Why did people not study their history and see? Why did people ignore? Why did people not figure out in time? Why? Why? Why?

And then the light creeping back, the balance, the fiery cries of ‘Different this time!’, the great novels written by important new voices, the energy of new invention, the linking of hands across aisles. I don’t understand how they let that happen! I would never do such things! I would stand up and say something! I would…oh.

Part Four: Shoes and Vases

Patterns of destruction and creation. A great myth being told over and over with new characters. A new Cinderella slipping a foot into whatever slipper needs to be worn at certain time and place. Until the one time the darkness cannot be beaten back with a bit of light because there is nothing left of us. That, too, is part of our human mythology, our human destroy and rebuild mantras. The shoe falls apart. [To stick with the Cinderella riff, tee hee tee ha]

The clay wears out and cannot be reformed into the lumpy vase where a generation or two will stick their sad flowers, the flowers dying slowly, the vase leaking, the clay trying to return to dust so it can rest. Yes, I’ve reduced human endeavor into a child’s art project, dragged home in the bottom of a backpack, to be set on a shelf or not even looked at or broken before it can be saved from the interior of that child’s bag. And then just thrown away as the child shrugs or weeps– ‘fix it, fix it!’.

We try and try again. That is our best human quality. And the best instinct of idealists. They keep making those lumpy vases. And do not understand how much easier it is to crush those little vases than to construct them…which is rather simplistic. But the world, now, is rather simplistic and it’s not fashionable to be too much of a smartie pants. Smart people are viewed in much the same way people view rattlesnakes– something highly poisonous that will kill you without a second thought. We don’t need no book learnin’– could very well be the actual battle cry of Velveeta Twitler’s entire campaign. I jest, a bit, because if I don’t, I’ll smash my lumpy little vase and then shove it up the nearest endangered pygmy rabbit’s ass to show those libtards a thing or two. Snowflakes, lol!

Now, I started off with ‘Casey’ so I should end there, as well. Casey will swim toward the land of his familiars and huddle in the dim cool caves of those just like him. He has to, he’s on survival mode right now. That balance swinging back will probably not swing back in his lifetime…At least there’s chocolate. And coffee. And butterflies. Always Be Positive, because otherwise, people won’t like your social media posts.