Category Archives: Thoughts with a Sharp Tongue

General commentary, not related with anything in particular.

Big Update for the New Year

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It has been awhile, but it was all worth it.

The holidays…oh boy. You know how those go, so I’m not going to bore any of you with that shit. Instead, I am going to describe the new steps that I have started on Geneslave, and my new book. As you may have deduced, I don’t have a cover for my book, Geneslave. I dabble in art, and my wife suggested that I draw one. I am not a professional artist, but I do like to do abstract shit. So that’s what I am going to do. Also, I am not chickening out on publishing my book. I’ve re-adjusted my strategy.

My wife has good connections. Period. I don’t have shit. Honestly, I’ve never liked networking. I feel as though a business relationship can’t be forced, it must come naturally. Me being skeptical, judgmental, and jaded, I don’t always give a fair chance where a fair chance is due. My wife, however, does. And through he connections and astounding personality, she has some ideas that I may, or may not go with.

I love her cover idea. I am all over that. But she has some other ideas that she wants to pitch to me that I would be very open to. She is…very smart in a way that I can’t understand. That makes her invaluable as a life partner, and in marketing. Anyway, enough about my awesome wife.

The bottom line is I have a habit of getting SO excited about something, I rush it. I looked closely at Geneslave, and I love the piece too much to rush it. I am going to make sure this fuckin’ thing is as perfect as it can get before I put it out on the market. Hopefully, my impatience won’t get the better of me. I haven’t given up, I  haven’t become lax about the blog. I am still here, still writing, and still moving forward. Speaking of which…

I am 40 pages into writing my new book. This is the largest endeavor I have ever undertaken from a writer’s point of view. I have literally fabricated a world out of thin air by changing the one I already live on. Very soon, I will have a SHIT TON of concept art for you to look at, and I will talk more about my creative process and what works for me as a writer.

Don’t think I left. There is no way in Hell that I’m givin’ up now, and neither should you. Are you writing something? Wrote something? Lemmie know, let’s talk a little about it. What how much you reveal, though. I don’t want your ideas getting stolen by some tool lookin’ to make a quick buck.

The Wrong Cover Letter

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       Here’s a bit of humor for ya. This is the cover letter I wish I had the guts to send somewhere when I was in college. It’s good for a laugh. Enjoy:

 

Dear Sir or Fucking Madam:

 I am writing for inquisition of my piece Fuck Your Mother (word count: 559,006.334) for submission in the literary journal, We’ll Never Take yer Shit.

I am aware that the acceptance rate for new authors is negative 10 percent, and I am also aware that if I have some kind of shiny badge or award, I will be accepted into your shitty anus of a journal, so I would just like to say that I ain’t got shit for awards, and this letter will fall on deaf ears.

Fuck Your Mother is a literary non-fiction psychological romance thriller that begs the question: Why are literary magazines filled to the brim with shit? It answers by saying that no matter how much I write, I will need some kind of acceptance or award in order to be submitted into other literary journals, and I will need a whole godamn PILE of literary awards  in order to get an agent for my novel, Suck my Metaphorical Dick.

            It’s funny that I noticed this trend of crap and how it smells up my life with ridiculous reasons and austere and pompous attitudes. Just because my work isn’t accepted into fucking Glimmertrain or The Black Warrior Review, doesn’t mean my work is bad.

            It just means that it doesn’t have a shiny award.

            This goes for millions of other writers out there, some who get so fucking discouraged that they stop writing, and decide to get some shit job working late in order to finish their play which will never been seen by anyone.

            Also, I will have a college degree very soon, but will wind up working in a fucking Wal-Mart because let’s face it- if you got a degree in English, you basically have a degree in poverty.

            So, I’ve essentially wasted my money which is my fault, and I am wasting my time, which is your fault because I know damn well that this will be overlooked and scrapped because “I am an emerging writer fresh out of college and I am hungry to learn about the business of writing”, blah blah FUCKING blah.

            Thank you for your time (not really) and consideration (rejection) for my piece Fuck your Mother. It has been an anal-retentive joy to write this shitrag, and I hope you all burn in Hell for what you do to young, good writers and their drive to EXSIST!

 

Blow me,

 TheDisfigured

 

     When I wrote this, I’d about had it with the publishing industry and its bullshit. I laughed my shlong off when I went back to read it, but when I wrote it? It was liberating. Try it one day. Write a cover letter that totally expresses your frustrations and anger. Share it here, I’d love to read it.

The Kindle Approach

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     Gathering all my energy, I have prepared myself for what lies ahead.

     Backwards Epiphany is ready to go. Now, I begin the process of getting the full body of work into a document that Kindle accepts, as well as a format. This is a confusing process at first. I must say, I hate this aspect of the business. I’d rather just write and let someone else take care of the details, but I’m doing this on my own steam. Nothing is going to stop me, least of all myself. Sometimes, that’s the biggest obstacle, I swear to God.

     Anyway, I did some research on uploading to Kindle. Here’s a handy link I found: https://kdp.amazon.com/self-publishing/signin. I’m excited. Antsy. Scared. I’ve never published a novel before. I’ve been published once, and I even won a contest with a short story of mine, but this is something…different. It’s genuinely frightening, but with that fear comes a wave of excitement. I’m not quite sure which beats which.

     There are some familiar pieces that I noted, like special document extensions, or formats, but I love how do it yourself it is. Some literary agents and publishing houses won’t even look at your manuscript if there is a minor error. I’m not talkin’ about submitting a manuscript in Comic Sans and in different colors. I’m talkin’ about the wrong fuckin’ margins. I digress, nevermind. I don’t mind adhering to format as long as there is room for error. Whatever, I screwed myself up.

     Formatting, files, royalties, agreements. It’s all screaming around in my head, bumping into the sides of my skull and back again. In the chaos of a fragmented mind like mine, it becomes a din of noise. Noise that only I can hear. Songs, lyrics, commercials, ideas, worries, pains, voices, phrases. It’s a mishmosh of madness, but I am learning to focus, and to drown out the ambiance and focus on what’s important.

     Forgive my rant. I’m just really excited and anxious, and I want others to share that feeling with me. Ever publish something? How did you feel? Have you ever published through Kindle? Let me know, I’d like to get a discussion going.

Getting Discouraged

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     Authors would tell me all the time that I’m in the wrong profession, and that I should give it up. I even went to a writer’s conference in New York City at Marymount Manhattan College where a panel of published, “successful” authors said that “if you can do anything else other than writing, you should.” Also, some stupid fuckin’ twat on the panel quoted some godamn author about some shit no motherfucker on the planet ever heard of to sound smart. This was before I really got my teeth, so I stayed silent. But if I could go back…whooooo. She’d fuckin’ get it. They’d all get it.

     Complaining? Probably. But this had a point, and here it is. Lemmie tell you some shit, okay? Talent is nothing more than a desire to do something so much that you become really good at it. That’s all talent is. I can’t be anything but a writer. I can’t not be verbose. I can’t not describe, scream, tell stories. It’s who I am, and it should be who you are too.

     Now, I’m not saying that writing a full length novel is for everyone. It’s not. Hell, you may only want to write poetry or short stories, and that’s great! I’m not better than any other writer because I’ve written novels. It all comes down to who wants to do this more. That’s where quality comes in, much to the contrary opinion. The literary industry is failing, and I’m glad. Books are going digital. Right now, the publishing and literary industries are feeling the fire for letting the shit that Laurell K. Hamilton, J.K. Rowling, Stephane Meyer, and a whole shitfuck load of others get churned out (I’m not being sexist, don’t even go there. Those are just some off the top of my head).

     Let them burn. Literary agents too.

     Authors are looking to make it under their own steam, which is terrific. The ones that are in it for just the money, or have a disposable fanbase will lose interest and decay. The real authors, the ones that stand in the fire of endless rejection letters will shine, and if they’re work is shit? They’ll be lost, leaving only the strong survive. Darwin didn’t see that shit, lemmie tell you.

     I even had a fuckin’ food critic tell me that I would never make a living on being an author. A food critic. You’re not a godamn author. Not a writer. You’re a joke. You tell people what’s good and bad after stuffing your chaw. Don’t tell me what the industry is like. You don’t know shit.

     Don’t ever let anyone EVER tell you that you shouldn’t be an author. A writer. Don’t let anyone, no matter how much they “know” about the industry to make you shrink back into the darkness of undiscovered talent. Writer until you can’t write anymore, and fuck anyone that tells you different. I don’t care if they’ve been writing for a thousand years. Refine your skills and prove them all wrong.

     We’ll prove them all wrong. And we’ll see who’s left standing in the ashes unscathed.

 

 

What I’m Trying To Do

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What the fuck is this guy trying to do?

Oh, this question is a familiar one. This blog, my body of work, myself, my actions. They’ve all been subject to consideration and even at times confusion, but there has always been one thing that constantly stands out about me. I don’t like rules. Never did. I feel…confined by them, constricted, claustrophobic. Rules. A lot of good they’ve done me in the writing industry. A lot of good they did thousands of would be authors. I don’t like their rules, the publishers, the literary magazines, the agents. Their rules piss me off.

I’ve been trying to get published for…eight years now. Eight fuckin’ years. And I know it takes a long time. And I know I have the talent. But things just don’t pan out. A sob story? Hardly. A cautionary tale? Completely.

I got tired of authors telling me to pick a new profession. I got tired of literary agents telling me to stuff my manuscript up my ass because it wouldn’t make them enough money to buy that golden dildo they’ve always wanted. I got tired of publishing houses NEVER even telling my they didn’t want my shit. I have had enough, and I’ve decided to make my own rules.

That’s what this blog is all about. I will deliver personal musings and shit like that, but I will show you what one author goes through to write a book from start to finish. My ideas, my drawings, my struggles, my triumphs, my joy, my pain. I’ll jab a fucking pen into my neck and bleed all of my darkest ideas and inner thoughts on a webpage for all of you to read. I will describe books that I write and proofread in detail, and show you what it’s like to write a book from idea, to published work. That’s where I’m different. That’s where I break the rules.

A lot of authors are private, whimpy little fucks that need specific conditions to write, and want to be hidden from the eyes of society. No, not me. I write books for the beasts inside us all, and if I hide  my own monsters from you as I write, what the fuck am I but a pathetic hypocrite, suckling curdled milk from the tired tit called the internet. No, I’ll write like I fuck. Like I fight. Like I bleed. I’ll show you what a book is from the inside out, and you’ll love every second of it.

So. Read this blog, if you will, and you will find out what it is like to feel joy and rage in the same day as you force yourself to kill a character you developed in your head. Give birth to a novel, and tear it to shreds before you begin. You will see me in my purest form- when I’m writing, and you will watch with delight as I suffer, or thrive. Get ready, you motherfuckers.

This is unlike anything you have ever seen before.