Apparently, coming up with a list of fifty thoughts on writing wasn't enough for the teeming bag of plague-carrying bats that is my brain, because I have continued to ponder each of the points...

...thus leading to what looks very likely to be a series of fifty posts on and about writing. There are days when I look at my brain and truly wonder whether it is, in fact, a suicidal glob of fat and neurons, devoted to driving me insane and thus allowing it the sweet oblivion of death. But no matter! For the moment, there is pondering to be done, and a pseudo essay to be written. Today's topic, inspiring as it may or may not be:

Thoughts on Writing #1: You're Going To Suck.

Aren't we kind around these parts? The original thought:

You're going to suck when you start. Sucking when you start is okay. Every new project, no matter how brilliant the idea at the heart of it happens to be, is going to start by sucking. Just deal with it, and soldier through. Every sentence is a learning experience.

Ready?

Let's begin.

( My thoughts are not your thoughts; my process is not your process; my ideas are not your ideas; my method is not your method. All these things are totally right for me, and may be just as totally wrong for you. So please don't stress if the things I'm saying don't apply to you -- I promise, there is no One True Way. This way for my thoughts on sucking.Collapse )

I've been editing Feed for the past several days. It is thus, perhaps unsurprising that my Gmail's targeted advertising currently thinks it should be trying to sell me zombies. That being said?

I am not in a very good mindset to have the news box at the top of my email announce 'WARNING: ZOMBIE OUTBREAK' when I load my inbox.

I'm just saying, maybe the people who do this targeted advertising stuff should pause and consider whether telling their system to go ahead and pick up on certain key words will cause the recipients of those targeted ads to start scrambling for their emergency zombie survival kits and scaring the folks around them. And that maybe, they should further consider that if those recipients were to, say, take a machete to someone who happened to be walking a little funny, they might try launching a frivolous lawsuit. 'But Officer, Gmail swore that there were zombies!'

Maybe.

In other news, I have resumed breathing.