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[littlefallsmets]

Basically, as I am... between workings and basically unable to remedy this until probably a few weeks after the holidays... I am exploring new avenues of writing.

I am still working on the novel that I talk way too much about, of course, but... as I am definitely Depressed As Hell over how this work-change went down, I am letting myself put that stuff on a brief hold... just because it ain't the right kind of bad juju for writing that particular project.

Bad juju often helps the creative process but you need to match the proper bad juju to the right kind of creative process. Heartbreak is great for writing emo music, not feeling that people know how smart you think you are is great for writing a novel, feeling like you'd really like a whole lot of money for a relatively small amount of writing and being pissed about it is great for screenwriting and so on.

Sprawling alternate history allegory and lay-off blues don't go well together, you see.

So I am seeing what it is like to be a syndicated columnist in my blogjournalabob... except... instead of giving love advice or family advice or financial advice, I am giving opinions. Opinions on anything. I am calling it "Ask Mr. Opinion" and...

Pretty much, you give him an idea or statement or concept and he'll give you an opinion on it. An overblown ill-informed snap opinion, yes, but a heartfelt overwrought and strident opinion nonetheless. If Mr. Opinion has never heard of the concept, he reads the Wikipedia about it and judges it off of that.

Seems like the character I was born to play, right?

Anyway, if y'all wanna get involved... you gotta be part of OD to note directly on there but if any of y'all want opinions, pass 'em along to me and I'll pass 'em along to Mr. Opinion and you'll get a strong opinion on it even if he only heard about it at that moment.

Start here if you like: http://www.opendiary.com/entryview.asp?authorcode=A758067&entry=20855&mode=

And keep readin' 'em, maybe get a feel of what you'd like to ask him and ask me here.

Or, y'know, don't.

But you have to admit... I'm really really good at manufacturing strong opinions outta fuckin' nowhere.

[jaydub]

Somehow I think if we ever got together with some other people in the room, we'd bury them in bullshit.  My workmates high-five each other when they can get me to say "I don't know." 

[AugustWest]

You know what opinions are like?

Of course you do.

Pretend I don't already know and respect you.  Why should I pay attention to yours?

[littlefallsmets]

...because they're generally funny or so far-out that they're interesting is what I'm generally going for.That's why opinions on Large Important issues are kind of antithetical to the concept.

Nearly everyone has a position on abortion or war or whatever. But not everyone has gone at length about how there are too many kinds of peanut butter and how many of these types are probably actually just rip-offs from internet memes that do not really exist.

And then posit that that peanut-butter-and-jelly-in-one-brand that is vaguely remembered was Hitler branded and called Adolf Schekelgoober.

The value of my opinions would have nothing to do with my actual life, hence the adoption of an alternate persona, and everything to do with coming up with really strange opinions that still hold together enough to be somewhat believable at first.

That's the rough idea, anyway.

[Limmo]

Fuck that shit.  Get back to work on your novel.  Now.

"Produce, produce, produce!  For I tell you, the night is coming!"  -- Matthew Arnold

[Doc]

"Mr. Opinion, what is your opinion of slack arse authors who tease us with sci-fi americana and then start some random project, should they considered terrorists and sent to guantanamo with only a typewriter?"

[Limmo]

Exactly!

Don't throw your time and effort away on some candy-ass interweb bullshit.  Use it to create something that you can hold in your hand when you're done. 

And if you're going through some kind of shit, LFM ( and who isn't on this fuck*ng board these days - or in our entire geographical area, while we're at it ), channel the emotions into the work.  Who knows - you may end of feeling a sense of accomplishment that will lift you out of said shit. 

[littlefallsmets]

Good point, ladies and gents.

I will not continue this project at the loss of the book, I assure you.

If I gotta choose one, the book comes first.

[wombat]

Well, but, to play devil's advocate here... Books are a thing of the past and the internet is the thing of the future.  Have you read those depressing statistics lately about how few people read books?

[Limmo]

Well, but, to play devil's advocate here... Books are a thing of the past and the internet is the thing of the future.  Have you read those depressing statistics lately about how few people read books?

Oh, please.

To give a single example, the shared global Harry Potter phenomenon was not sparked by a series of movies.  It was a set of those things of the past that people fell in love with.

And who gives a shit about statistics?  It's not like America was this shining bastion of literacy that suddenly lost interest in books.   There are readers and then there's everybody else, and the first group was never larger than the second. 

People are going to want to read long-form writing, and they're not going to do it on their computers. 

[linnea]

Oh, please.

To give a single example, the shared global Harry Potter phenomenon was not sparked by a series of movies.  It was a set of those things of the past that people fell in love with.

And who gives a shit about statistics?  It's not like America was this shining bastion of literacy that suddenly lost interest in books.   There are readers and then there's everybody else, and the first group was never larger than the second. 

People are going to want to read long-form writing, and they're not going to do it on their computers. 

Exactly. There will always be a market for fuck*ng off and taking a book to read along with you. There will always be the allure of a real, honest to god, dead tree book. It just occurred to me that I spent 10 hours in front of my CADD workstation today, then came home and have spent nearly three hours at my home computer. I should fuck off and go read a book. AFK, you guys.

[littlefallsmets]

To be fair, you can't read a print novel with such a plethora of pornography, nested in behind it, only one click way.

At best, you could hold a Playboy behind it and occasionally sneak a peek at one static image of one relatively-artsily airbrushed pu$$y... usually not even a pu$$y, you know, usually just the bush to suggest it.

[theinevitable]

dude, there is porn that is one hell of a lot more explicit than Playboy in dead-tree form.

I see it on shelves in stores, and laugh. And then return to the cornucopia of warm fallopia that is the internet (I cannot take credit for that rhyme. Also, I know that those are on the inside, it is just a good line. be serious.)

[littlefallsmets]

Yes but the point is that you cannot casually flip.

Playboy was just an example. You can only have one pornography behind a book.

You can have infinite pornography behind a text file or whatever.

[theinevitable]

one could argue that you could also have... an actual naked woman behind a book.

Having her behind a computer, maybe. Behind a text-file... well then you get into all kinds of weird things where "is being behind the screen the same as being behind the file," etc.