Admin Posts are Coming [Cedrick Update]

Hi everyone,

Cedrick here.

Chris is currently running up and down the grass hills just outside my window, jumping the hilly brush, and filling the air with joyous screaming about the bliss he will have ensconced in his new schedule.

Want to know what he's NOT doing?

He's not writing a goddamned post. Just jumping that hilly brush. He's not looking for the evil mystery blogger. He's not cleaning up the random slices of cheese on the third floor that have begun to smell like a cross between old people's jockstraps and what wafts up when someone on a Southwest flight takes off their socks and shoes.

So while Chris is out there frolicking and acting like he's a teen-ager in love and not a 45 year old who is going to pull a tendon or break something tumbling enthusiastically down a hill, I will start taking care of a series of admin and admin-type posts that we do every year here around the new year.

We review our update schedule, our business stuff, anything that needs adding to the F.A.Q., how to follow us, what monthly posts will go into the "Greatest Hits" (now that the year's best have been "promoted") and give a huge shout out to the Patron Muses. [I'm not linking the ones that are going to change significantly when those posts go up shortly.]

Listen, I also just got a lovely holiday picture of Dor, and I have to admit a renewed sense of purpose and motivation. I even let Leela Bruce call it a "door" last week.

NO MORE!

I'm going to roll up ALL my sleeves and get some work done here on things that have spent years being unfinished, like making sure the menus are all cleaned up and keeping you abreast of who all you might run into working behind the scenes here at the WAW compound. No more treading water (which you know I'm particularly good at).

We'll hope that Chris gets this shit out of his system and gets back to some respectable word counts soon. In the meantime, you may see admin posts going up on our usual days off and even a couple of two posts days until we're all finished.

Moving Day

*two buff guys carrying a box that says "VLOGS" past much of the Writing About Writing staff*

Chris: That definitely goes in the pile.

Cedrick: You sure?

Chris: Three posts a week? We're not going to have time to get back to VLOGS. Some things have got to go, my eight-armed friend. It's time to clean house, and some things have to go.

Cedrick: Do you have to get rid of it though?

Chris: A lot of this stuff will still exist. And we might even make more. We'll just fold it into other posts. I mean, do we really need a whole category and menu and stress over something we've written three articles about in the last seven years?

Cedrick: Some of the guest bloggers are a little nervous.

Chris: Well, some of them should be. I need you to fire Twizlefizzlepop and The Pointer Sisters.

Cedrick: WHAT??

Chris: Come on. They were totally our most problematic segments.

Cedrick: Yeah, but....

Chris: Look, both of them had great input. I liked them. But if we're cutting our posts down by about half, we have to be honest about the fact that we weren't really doing them anyway. And a bit with a book recommender who used to be a pimp before becoming a feminist was ALWAYS going to be a tough sell. We have to get rid of some of this stuff. It was just....raw ambition.

Leela Bruce: You know what getting rid of The Pointer Sisters means?

Chris: I believe it means....you're back on protest hiatus because of the "sausage fest" that is the guest bloggers around here.

Leela Bruce: The ones that exist outside of the compound are great, but the ones that live here....

Chris: I got it. Too many dudes dudily duding up the place.

Leela Bruce: As long as we're on the same page. And I don't have to kick open your door.

Cedrick: Please call it a dor. We honor the great Dor around here.

Leela: How can you HEAR what I call it?

Cedrick: I just can. Now....Chris...are you sure about firing those guest bloggers?

Chris: Let's be real. Three posts a week. We weren't getting to them anyway. And we can fold the links into a Potpourri if we really want links. It's time to make tough choices. At six posts a week, we could pretend we were getting around to all that stuff any minute. At three....we gotta be more––oh hey (*shouting at the movers*) no...NO! Leave The Mailboxes where they are, those aren't going anywhere.

Mover: You have stars all over the Social Justice Bard stuff? What's that about?

Chris: Okay, I need two of those boxes put into my car. I'm going to pretty much move them over to Facebook and Tumblr; keep them there, but one box stays here. We're not getting rid of it completely.

Mover: Chicken soup?

Chris: Pile.

Mover: Grounded Parents?

Chris: Pile.

Mover: Ace of Geeks

Chris: *deep sigh* Pile.

Mover: Ivory Tower?

Chris: Defending or attacking? Actually it doesn't matter: pile.

Mover: Fortune cookies?

Chris: Keep. Those shouldn't even be in boxes. What the hell?

Mover: Glossary?

Chris:  Unnnnnngh.....let's pretend I'm going to finish it––keep.

Mover: And you want everything else? Prompts? Product reviews? Polls? Patreon appeals posts where you beg for money each month because otherwise you'll have to keep going on a zillion side gigs and have less time to write? [By the way, this is it for this month, so please sign up to throw us a dollar or five a month if you like what we do here so we don't have to keep doing a zillion side gigs to keep the bills paid and can do more writing...for YOU!]

Chris: Keep it all. Unless you can get rid of the Jurassic-Park-Style velociraptor on the third floor with the eye laser.

Mover: *blinks in anime*

Chris: Yeah, okay. I should probably not press my luck since you're willing to be paid for this job with only cheese.

Mover: And Pizza Hut coupons. Very important! I'm a big fan of cheese, but if me and my whole crew can't upgrade our medium pizzas to larges for only a dollar, we're out like trout.

Chris: Wouldn't want that.

Mover: No.

Chris: Okay then.....AND Pizza Hut coupons.

Mover: That's it, then. We're all done.

Chris: Okay, well, if that's it, let's get this show on the road.

*the boxes have all been loaded up on a boat which Chris pushes out to sea
Leela Bruce produces a bow and quarrel arrow, lights it, and fires a burning arrow into the boat, flames ravenously consume the boxes and boat as it floats further out to sea*

Chris: From the imagination we came. From hopes and dreams...and ambitions. From stories we were given life. And to the imagination we will return. From now, till the end of time. We therefore commit these stories to the deep.

[Thank you all so much for your support through this transition. Please consider Patreon if you like what I do and want to be a part of the NEXT conversation about future projects.]

Twizzlefizzlepop's voice from burning boat: This is deeply uncool!

Cedrick Update

Finally things are looking up.

I mean sure, we still have an evil mystery blogger hacking our signal every few months, and Guy Goodman St. White has become an alcoholic and we are still getting paid in fast food restaurant coupons instead of cash and The Sci Guy is doing unspeakable experiments into the time/space continuum basically to try to resurrect the one woman in the world who kissed him (just before she nobly sacrificed herself to an invading army of Octorians––other Octorians, you understand; not like me, I'm cool), and real Chris, who we all sort of depend on to be weirdly creative has some sort of sleep disorder that crops up every few months and right now's the time and it means he sleeps like 12-14 hours a day for almost a week, and we spend a lot of time playing canasta in on the second floor with the cheese guy (and pretending we don't hear the velociraptor with the eye laser roaming around above us)....

...but other than that, things are really going well.

You see, Leela Bruce just got me the early draft of her next piece (after a mere four years) and my tentacles are trembling with giddy excitement. We're finally going a little old school around here. I have tried to calm down, taking as slow a sip from my "I *heart* Dor" tea mug as I could stand to take, glancing down at my "Doing it for Dor" t-shirt, letting a single tentacle gently caress my WWDD bracelet,  nodding to myself, and taking a deep breath before my arms sprang into motion.

First, I'm releasing the hold on the "Good" coupons for her and giving her a "seconds" voucher at the cafeteria for sloppy Joe's night. Also I'm upgrading her parking spot and I'm going to make sure that Michael Dukakis gets into her quarters twice a week to clean. So everyone else will get to see what it means when I say I have ultimate power over and I'm willing to use it.

Once they realize that the path to awesome goes straight through my eight arms, they'll start playing by the old rules. Oh yes.

Things are definitely looking up.

Writing About Writing Staff Meeting

Real Chris: The meeting of the Writing About Writing staff will now come to order. 

Leela Bruce: We do a lot of things. Coming to order really isn’t on that list. As you well know.

Real Chris: Fair enough. If we could, however, come to some semblance of taking turns screaming, that would probably be sufficient. And does anyone know where Guy Goodman St.White is?

Ima Lister: He’s drunk.

Real Chris: Altered states of consciousness were specifically listed on the not-a-decent-excuse-to-miss-this-meeting column.



Ima Lister: No I mean he’s passed out in his bunk.

WAW Chris: You’re the one who took five years to wrap up that plot thread and subsequently transformed what should have been a “very-special-episode” caliber problem that we wrapped up in a few weeks into full blown alcoholism that has been the elephant in the room for years.

Real Chris: Okay, we’re not going any further with this kind of attitude.


Evil Chris: You're the one who has let every plot point you introduced in 2013 just fester. And when's that Skyrim article coming, huh?



Real Chris: Look, you…..ingrates. There was cancer and babies and diapers and moving and pet sitting and.... And shit. Literal and metaphorical shit. Up to my eyeballs. There was just so much shit.

Sparks: Particularly your productivity. (high fives Leela Bruce)

Real Chris: Quick reminder. Y’all are figments of MY imagination, and I can shut you down by binge watching Supernatural pretty much any time I want.

Prudence: Or as an alternative, how about you get to the point and we won’t go on strike for the NEXT five years.

Real Chris: Fine. Fine. Okay. Look. So…as you know, out there in the real world, I am no longer making coupons and government cheese as payment.



Sage: We’re getting RAISES!

The Sci Guy: Finally an R&D budget.

Ness Lessman: My office will have walls!

WAW Chris: Nobody’s getting raises! Except for Ima, not a damn one of you has given me an article in years. YEARS. Until I get some posts, all’yall can take your “Extra Topping At No Extra Cost” Dominoes Pizza coupons and grouse somewhere else.

Joy: Wait did someone get paid in coupons AND game birds?

Real Chris: You know with other writers, arguing with their characters is more of a metaphor….

Evil Chris: I bet they also know that having three of themselves in a given scene is bound to be a little confusing.

Grendel: SHUT UP! EVERYONE! Shut up. Or my mom will cancel sloppy Joe’s night, and I’ll stop serving double portions of mashed potatoes….even upon request.

*silence*=

Real Chris: Okay. Well it’s not weird or anything that Anglo Saxon monsters are running the kitchen in the compound in my mind that I’m currently talking to at the meta level.

Justice: Just one of those things. (Grendel and his mom glare)

Real Chris: So anyway this money comes from donations–patrons actually, they’re called. And it’s enough to pay the bills even. And these Patrons, who pay my bills, have….god help us all…specifically requested more of….

*pause*



Real Chris: *sighs*

Real Chris: ….all of you.

WAW Chris: Whaaaaaaaaaaaat?

Real Chris: Yeah. I don't get it either, but that's what they asked for.

Ima: There's a list of reasons why this can't be accurate. Number one....

Real Chris: I took a poll, okay! They want more articles by each of you. More advancement of the weird meta plot. More running jokes and gags. More weird fluff posts. Ninjas. Octorians. Strange plots. Dimensional travel. The whole nine. They have specifically asked for more of you. And they pay my bills.



WAW Chris: Shit maybe you all ARE getting raises.



Real Chris: So prepare yourselves. Everyone here is about to get tapped–including Guy Goodman, so let him know. There’s not going to be anymore of this: “Everyone’s talking spoilers about Jessica Jones and I haven’t seen it yet so I can’t do that article this week,” excuses. You’re all on alert. Shit’s about to get weird.

Chris vs. Evil Chris

The day after...

Chris: Welp. Sorry about that post you wanted to write. It's been real. Guess I'll see you next year.

Evil Chris: I'm staying.

Chris: And I'm really sorry about that Parisian rat infestation. I'll see about getting an exterminator down there right away. I know a guy. He's this really sweet guy from Iran–

Wait, what?

Evil Chris: I'm not going back down into the basement.

Chris: But that's....like....our thing. You show up once a year and praise Nano, and I hate it the other eleven months because it seems to destroy a lot of genuinely creative people's belief in themselves.

Evil Chris: Not this year. I'm not going down into the basement. Erika and I will be staying.

Chris: Um.....okay look. People already get me confused with real non-persona Chris. That would be THREE Chrises running around. That's just too much Chris.

Evil Chris: You can never have too much–

Chris: Not now, dude.

Evil Chris: Look that evil mystery blogger fucked up my Nano advice. I vaguely cared about this jerkwad when he was ruining YOUR day, but this time it's personal. You've been NOT dealing with  this for four years. I'm staying to help you get this guy.

Chris: No, that's certainly not necessary.

Evil Chris: You know what? You need me.

Chris: I'm pretty sure that's not even a little bit true.

Evil Chris: I'm not just the "ha-ha-isn't-he-evil shtict" guy who lives in the basement and likes Nano because once a year you feel guilty in your fee-fees about advising people against it. I'm a real human. I'm the the guy who will write a novel in thirty days.

Chris: Um....yeeeeaaaah

Evil Chris: I mean I'm the guy who WILL write a novel in thirty days, just . I'm assertive. I'm the guy who risks it all in one turn of pitch and toss.  I'm the guy who doesn't play it safe. I don't put off making doctors appointments for six weeks. I don't avoid difficult conversations. I get this shit done. I'm the guy who takes the risks you wish you could take. I'm bold. I'm decisive. And I'm not afraid to go Lord Peter Fucking Wimsey on this shit and maybe ask your employees a slightly harder question than "was it you?" We need to fucking move this plot arc along. 2013 was a long time ago.

Chris: Nice Kipling reference.

Evil Chris: *snapping his fingers* Fucking stay with me here, Chris. We're doing this. You and me. You will temper me, but I'm going to galvanize you. Now your evil mystery blogger has to deal with something even worse than you.

Chris: Two of me!

Evil Chris: Dude, no. I just told you why I'm not just another you. Come on man.

The 9 Best (Worst) Bits of Advice for The Day After Nano

The absolute worst most epic, amazeballs advice to jet-propel your post NaNoWriMo week straight to submission and publication faster than the GOP trying to avoid debate and get to a floor vote.

So you're writing during NaNo because NaNo is awesome and you're awesome. However, unlike all the other "It was a great experience" losers, your novel is not only going to get picked up by a major publisher, it's going to rocket to the top of the charts. Your book's theme song will be Rocket Man, even if it doesn't have any spaceships in it.

This won't be because you worked hard, but because you know the secrets to unlocking your the full potential of your creative genius.

They say genius and talent can't be taught. But they only say that because they don't want you learning what I'm about to tell you. Your NaNo book has officially reached the inside track to absolute unadulterated awesome pure gold awesome. Follow my advice, and this will happen so fast, you will be able to spend your massive advance on Christmas shopping.

Seriously, I hope your peeps like riding around in Ferraris.

1- Don't worry about that word count.

Did you quit after like five days? Don't worry about it. What's important is that you got that killer idea onto paper. No one is going to care that your book isn't done yet once they see how fucking ridonkulous your concept is. They will hire a team of ghostwriters to finish it for you.

If you are not the kind of writer who can hammer out writing at a fevered pace, like 1667 words a day, stop not being that kind of writer and be AWESOME instead.

2- Not finishing is fine. In fact, it's great.

Book not done? 50,000 words kind of slim for a "novel," or maybe you stopped writing around Thanksgiving when life fell apart. Don't worry. You've got the main chunk of the beginning done, and any publisher is going to be able to see that it's absolutely genius. Don't fret about writing the entire thing out completely.  That's for later. Once you have the advance, you can get to work on the rest of it--or better yet, the publisher will probably assign you a phalanx of ghostwriters to whom you can just describe what's going to happen and they will do the writing part.

3- Be vocal about what you're doing, especially to professional writers.

You know how many people publish their NaNo books?

Like five.

Ever.

You know why? Because they don't spend time making connections like you're going to.

You of all people know the power of words. Don't water down what you're accomplishing here. Tell everyone (whether they ask or not) that you've written a novel. Put stress on the word novel and say it multiple times. Work the word novel into conversations.

If someone tells you that they're a writer, and particularly if you already know one, become even more enthusiastic about how you are writing a novel. Ask them to hook you up with their agent and publisher so you can let them see your novel. There is a very good chance that they will become so blown away by your sheer universe-altering will about your novel, that they will probably introduce you to their agent. If you say it, you give it life. So talk about your novel as much as you can. Novel.

4 Don't revise.

Revision is for people who didn't write a good story in the first place. Did you not write a good story or is your story the biznizzle? Yeah, that's what I thought: you already know your story is awesome. A lot of people talk about revising their NaNo manuscript, but you can tell that deep down they know they just haven't struck mental gold.

But you have struck mental gold. That's what the elite team of editors that your publisher will assign to you is going to do.

What you want to do is get out ahead of the pack in shopping for an agent. Or better yet go right to the publisher since the agent will probably try to steal your work.

5- Don't even worry about that polish.

"Polish" is just code for "I don't have confidence that this is going to make you forget what grammar even is." Polish is code for "I didn't write an awesome story." Polish is code for "Why don't you just give up and become a plumber." Are any of these things true? If they are, stop wasting your time reading this article, and go play with your coloring books.

If you want to be a writer, believe in yourself.

6- Submit your novel right away. 

The deluge of NaNoWriMo manuscripts is about to hit every publisher in the world. You don't want to get caught in this rush of losers. Even though your awesomeness is PARTICULARLY awesome and would absolutely stand out like a lighthouse on a foggy night, anyone can get a bad break if they're manuscript is in a stack of a hundred.

So how do you avoid getting lumped in with a bunch of plebs' sub-par manuscripts?

Easy, submit yours first. Beat the rush.

Not revising and not polishing isn't just about having confidence in how good your idea is. It's about beating all those losers to the punch. If they spend two or three days editing their draft, and don't submit until December 3rd or 4th, that's two or three days earlier that you will get in before them.

Is some publisher going to pass on your rockstar idea because you forgot a comma?

I don't think so.

7- Announce yourself.  

Be sure to tell the publisher you send your novel to that you just wrote it for NaNoWriMo, and that it is so good you sent it immediately without even a revision. They will respect and admire your candor.

As will I, my fervid pixel shifting champion.

As. Will. I.

8- Most importantly...take a break.

You've had a tough month. Time to put your feet up and let those creative batteries recharge. Take a month or two at least...probably longer. Relax. You want to be nice and well rested ready when the next lightning strike of inspiration hits. True genius comes in fits and starts not from daily persistence.

Follow these simple steps, and your dreams of having publishers pee themselves a little when they hear about you, and fall over each other to publish you will come true.

Broken Transmission

[This is the last known transmission received by the 2nd 8th rate blog Writing About Writing before all communication ceased on Wednesday, November 22 at 8:34 PM. Writing About Writing has not responded to any further attempts at communication.]

10 Things To Get You Through Week 4 of NaNoWriMo  

Hello. Evil Chris here. And I didn't just crawl out of the basement to run this Best Modern Fantasy Poll. Today I'm going to tell you about how to get through the last, and easily the most grueling week of National Novel Writing Month.

You've come this far, and there's just a little more to go. Let's keep a few things in mi–

[Static.  Transmission ends.

Status of Writing About Writing: Unknown

Bob says he'll check things out after he has dinner with the fam. He hopes the historically inaccurate Jurassic Park bio-engineered velociraptor with the laser on its head didn't get out again because his Nana made pecan pie.]

Metacular (Personal and Meta Update)

I'm sure at one point I had a reason for looking this ridiculous.

A post on Monday? Whaaaaaaaat?

Actually it's just a preview to let you know what's going on. This week is a major holiday and our update schedule might look a little screwy. You know I can't get the staff to even come in on a bank holiday. Even if I offer them double-time, they say something like: "So, you're going to give us TWO coupons for half off DippenDots with the purchase of a value meal."

And they say it in that way that means it's totally the end of the conversation, so I'm not really sure.

Sci Guy wants to install a buttload of tracking software so we can definitively figure out what's going on with Evil Mystery Blogger by logging keystrokes or something, but it's a huge endeavor and he needs the entire building offline. I'm sure he's not just wanting the power reserves to do experiments to bring his dead girlfriend over from timelines where she didn't die because nothing weird ever happens here at Writing About Writing when we go on break for a few days. We also have a bit of freelance hero work happening Tuesday (rather than the usual Monday schedule for that sort of thing).

Anyway the point is, I'm going to take the opportunity to do something of a MASSIVE admin overhaul in the next week. Everything from figuring out the future of guest blogging to an Inside Scoop e-mail to a catch up on all the menus that have fallen into decay. And I'd love to get some full force sessions in with my fiction now that life is not a screaming tire fire.

And hey...I might even take a moment to have some good food with friends and family in my ritual sacrifice with pie.

There should still be a really real post for tomorrow (Evil Chris assures me) and some of our Best Modern Fantasy Poll business will go up on Wed. [Edit: It looks like I'm going to have to flip the rollout schedule on these two days, but all the same posts will go up.] But then we need to take the blog offline until Tuesday. If things go very well, we might fire it back up by Sunday, but we'll be back to taking Mondays off next week.

Now there's a D&D article I've been threatening, and I think it's going to be ready this week, but I've changed my mind about posting it this week. I'm overdue to give my patrons an early access post, and I'm going to let them have it for a few days.

A Visit to The Sci Guy

Chris: It's lucky that Dudley Doright just happened to be in a place with no internet while we were dealing with this cyberattack. No one knows that we couldn't have posted anything but Evil Mystery Blogger posts for the past week.

Sci Guy: Luck had nothing to do with it. I made sure Chris had no internet.

Chris: You sabotaged Chris's internet?

Sci Guy: Look the guy thinks his ethernet is a mesh for gathering the upper air so there's enough pressure behind the data stream to–and understand now that I am directly quoting him– "pump it through the intertubes." It's not really that hard to shut him down and make it look like an accident.

Chris: Damn. That's good thinking. I definitely need to give you a raise. From now on it's two fast food coupons every other week for you!

Sci Guy: Great. I'll be able to get hash browns and a drink.....bimonthly.

Chris: I might have some Bed Bath and Beyond gift certificates.

Sci Guy: Oh good, I worry about thread count a lot.

Chris: Okay well....I'll look into getting you some actual money. Incidentally, I trust that massive unlicenced hadron collider you're obviously building over there has nothing to do with trying to re-rip the time space continuum in violation of interdimensional law so that you can poke around parallel universes and find a timeline where the woman who kissed you exactly once before she died is still alive, kidnap her from whatever life she's had there in the last two years, and bring her here like some really fucked up comic book villain who does a bunch of evil shit because he can't get his dick wet, and that your relative inefficiency in tracking down an IP address of someone who keeps shitposting in our name has nothing to do with such a "nice guy" quest.

Sci Guy: You know....fast food coupons will be good....now that I think about it.

Chris: We really have to stop this clown.

Sci Guy: I keep telling you it's someone from upstairs. Main floor. It's not Evil Chris and it's not the Cheese guy and it's not anyone outside the Writing About Writing compound. Literally all you have to do is install cameras or something. Or hire someone who doesn't knuckle under when the staff gets annoyed at being asked if it was them.

Chris: Okay, well I'm going to go somewhere else now because this conversation is damaging my squee. It's sloppy joes day in the cafeteria–Grendel and his mom do them really great. Keep your hardon out of the hadron okay?

The Return of the Mystery Blogger

Chris: I thought this mystery blogger shit wasn't going on anymore. You told me you had some wall of fire or algorithm enhancement cream or something.

SciGuy: Well, we...um....we ran out of cream.

Chris: Can't you make some more!

SciGuy: Well, yes. I can make some more....uh....cream. But....

Chris: Will the cream get burned up in the wall of fire?

SciGuy: Um......  That's not how any of this works.  Look, here's what you need to know: I have fan-damn-tastic security countermeasures due largely to the fact that I don't want anyone to be able to find my porn stash, but as long as this Mystery Blogger is posting from computers at this facility, there's not a lot I can do. Those computers have clearance to post.

Chris: I interviewed the staff. It was very thorough. I asked each one of them in no uncertain terms if they were a turncoat traitor. Most of them threatened to beat me up or stop working for fast food coupons. I had to buy Leela Bruce a gift certificate for one of those squeezy stress balls in the shape of a brain. That's how upset she was.

SciGuy: All I can tell you is that it definitely came from the main level. Which it just so happens exonerates this lab.

Chris: So it wasn't the cheese guy or the evil clone of me who lives in the basement and "just loves" Nanowrimo. That's as much as we know?

SciGuy: Well it also wasn't the velociraptor with the laser attached to its head.

Chris: Well, FUCK, I'm really glad we narrowed that one down.

SciGuy: I might be able to put an access code onto every computer that would identify which terminal is sending the information. You could only give out the codes to each person for their own terminal.

Chris: Make it so.

SciGuy: Dude you are SO not Captain Picard.

Observed? (Don't forget to vote for Best Obscure Book)

Image description: Incredulous author

Observed?

OBSERVED?

Apparently today is New Years Day..."observed."

Were we too hungover to notice it yesterday?

I guess this means that a bunch of people cried bitter tears that a vacation fell on a day they had off anyway, and now none of the staff are coming into the office to do some work. Bank holiday. New years....observed.

This despite the fact that they live down the hall, and all I wanted was a quick update. We could have been done in ten minutes if everyone had just done their crap. (Besides Monday is Sloppy Joes day and Grendel's mom makes the best ones ever.)

The Sci Guy told me not to turn the system on because only he knows how to set up the firewall and that the whole thing would be "vulnerable" to hacking by Evil Mystery Blogger if I tried to initiate the system without him.

But I'm sure there will be no problem firing up the mainframe for such a quick update.

I guess since we can't do a real update today, I'll just remind everyone to vote in our Best Obscure Book poll. Results will go up tomorrow. 

The Return of Leela Bruce

Image description: martial arts clip art

"And so the ink cartridges should be filled with actual honey," I said into the phone. "And it should drip out of the front of the pen. Like....all the time. Even if no one's writing with it."

I paused while I listened to the voice on the other end. "Yes, that's correct. Messy is okay." Another pause. "Yeah, no I want them to be real gold. Golden pens of dripping honey. Yep. That's what I want. It's sort of an in joke. We're really big on in jokes here at Writing About Writing."

"Attention," I heard over the P.A. system. "Attention. This is Cedrick. Effective immediately all doors in the Writing About Writing compound will be spelled with one O. I have exactly one fan in the entire world, and we will pay homage. If you have to go from one room to another, you will be using the Dor."

I took a deep breath. Apparently that conversation we'd had didn't stick as well as I'd hoped.

"Excuse me," Cedrick went on over the P.A. "Leela he's not expecting you, you can't just go–"

That's when my office dor got kicked off its hinges by a well placed spinning side kick. Leela Bruce sauntered in.

"Can you hold for JUST a second?" I asked, putting the call on hold.  "Hi Leela," I said. "Something wrong with the dorknob?"

"I wanted to make an entrance," she said. She flashed some teeth, but I wouldn't have really called it a smile.

"Technically just walking through the dor would be making an entrance." I pointed out.

"A notable entrance," she corrected.

"Yeah, about that," I said. "From a purely statistical standpoint, literally no one ever has actually waited for Cedrick to show them through the dor, so that would be the MOST noteworthy–"

Leela slammed her hands down on my desk. It split down the middle into two half desks. Both pieces fell inward resting in my lap. The laptop, phone, and desk lamp that were on the desk slid down the incline into the newly formed ravine.

"Are you going to hurt me?" I asked, trying not to reveal that having a jagged desk cutting into my femoral nerve already had.

"Why? Are you scared?" she asked.

"No," I lied. "I'm just trying to plan my day."

"Did you just quote a 90's Duchovny movie at me to try and look cool?" Leela asked. She pulled the half desks apart so that they each fell to one side, sending the laptop and desk lamp flying, and left me sitting exposed with some balsa wood powder, mechanical pencils, and the phone in my lap. I wished very much that I hadn't chosen this day to do some work at my desk while I sent my pants to the cleaners.

"How did you know that?" I asked. "Like three people saw that movie."

"You forget where I come from," she said tapping her forefinger on the top of my head at the word come. "Anyway, I came to tell you that you've done well with the sausage fest. Good work getting women guest bloggers. I'll start writing posts for you again."

"That's good," I said. "Because I was about to tell you that the free ride was coming to an end and it is time to earn your keep."

"No you weren't," she said.

"Maybe not, but I really was going to switch out the Buy One Get One Free sandwich coupons to Arby's that I've been paying you with for Free Coffee with $10 Purchase from Taco Bell. Who spends ten dollars at Taco Bell? Honestly? And then when you came to me demanding answers, I would passive aggressively mention that you hadn't written an article in like two years."

Leela rolled her eyes and walked out of my office.

"When can we expect this article?" I called after her.

"When I'm done writing it," she yelled back.

"What's it going to be about?" I yelled louder.

"Dunno!" she shouted as she left the outer office and started down the hall.

"Will you talk to Guy Goodman about also writing a post?" I shouted.

"NOOOOOOPE!" Leela yelled.

"Okay," I said, sitting back in my chair. "Glad we had this chat."

My phone was still in my lap.  I clicked the intercom button. "Uh...Cedrick."

From the outer office where I could see him (because we no longer had a dor), Cedrick turned and looked at me.

"Can we," I said into the intercom, but then realized I could just talk to him across the twenty feet. "Can we get someone in to fix this dor?"

Cedrick nodded, and spun two tentacles into a thumbs up position.

I clicked to line two.  "You still there? Oh great! Hey listen, along with this pen, I'm going to need a desk...."

This post has been edited by Cedrick the Octorian.

That Year We Forgot Blog's Birthday

The breath I took with my hand on the doorknob could never be deep enough.

I ignored the "Go Away" and "Knock First" signs, and stepped in, at first thinking that I would flick the lights on, but then deciding that the pastel rainbow thrown off by the line of lava lamps was kind of nice. Blog was lying in bed listening to headphones and facing away from the door.
"You didn't knock," Blog said.

"I know," I said. I went over and sat on the edge of the bed. Blog shifted further over and showed me more of its back.

"I'm sorry," I said.

Silence.

"I could tell you what was going on, but you know what's going on. There's no excuse."

I'm not sure how, but the silence got worse. Longer. Silenter.

"I forgot your birthday," I said. The words themselves somehow hung in the air, making the whole thing real.

Blog turned, still looking upset, but finally looking at me.

"I didn't get you anything. I completely forgot."

"Yeah," Blog nodded.

"You know why, right?" I asked.

"Yeah," Blog said. "It's not like it's a bad reason. I felt bad for caring."

"No no no," I said. "No, I still should have remembered. You're four now! FOUR. I mean we've been doing this for a tenth of my life. A TENTH of my life."

Blog couldn't help but smile a little at that. I saw a tiny glimmer of the hopes and dreams flashed through that smile, and all the impish demands for unreasonable accolades over the years.

I put my hand next to Blog, still not sure if contact was okay. "It's going to be a tough year."

"I know," Blog said.

"We might not hit too many milestones," I said. "We got like 1600 because of that First Sentences thing for some reason, but that was the first real post I wrote in like two months that wasn't just a personal update."

"We hit the goal that matters, Chris," Blog said.

"We did?" I racked my brain. Two million page views? 60,000 in a single month? Five thousand in a day? What was it?

"You never quit," Blog said. "Sixteen hours a day in the hospital, and I still had a post up just about every damned day. You think I don't know what that was costing you?"

I laughed. Not a real laugh. More one of those sharp sighs of disbelief.  "You're way too wise for four. You understand this, right?"

"Eh, I still think I'm going to be a famous blog some day," Blog said. "How wise can I be?"

"You know..." I said, and my voice cracked. I pressed it down and took a deep breath and pressed it down again. "There's a chance..."

"I know," Blog said.

"...and I don't think there's any way I could keep writing through that."

"I know," Blog said.

"At least for a while," I finished. "At least on you. Maybe emo poems or...." I stopped because I couldn't press it down any more.

"Burn that bridge when we come to it," Blog said. "In the meantime, come ON. Have you met Sonic Gal? She makes other fighters look like pacifists. If she has to reach into her own chest to pull that lymphoma out, I'm pretty sure she will."

"As long as she can punch her way through the problem somehow," I laughed.

"Right?" Blog said.

As the laughter died, the silence shifted inexorably towards awkward.

"So...uh....I ordered a cake," I said. "Do you want some totally late birthday cake?"

Blog turned and looked at me. Stared really. For a long moment.

"Who do you think you're even talking to? Fuck yes, I want cake!"

"Come on into the kitchen," I said. "I don't want you getting crumbs in the bed."

"Also let's do the 2 million thing before I reach half a decade. That's really not so much to ask! Use guilt trips for page views. You could play the cancer card on your readers. We can totally do this...."


Happy Birthday Writing About Writing

Reckoning

Today I walked into an intervention.

The whole staff was there, even the cheese guy, Grendel, and Grendel's mother were all assembled. The guest bloggers took point. Leela Bruce finally spoke.

"Okay, noobcicle. Something has to be done about the Evil Mystery Blogger or I'm just going to start kicking asses and I'm okay starting with yours," she said. "It was bad enough when it was shitty writing advice, but this is just.....this is shitty all around. I mean it reads like some kind of cutting satire or something."

"We are all going to do four things if you don't do something: 1) quit, 2) leave, 3) never look back, and 4) gladly pay full price for value meals at the local fast food restaurants," Ima said. "This has gone too far."

"Ima," I gasped. "You too?"

"You can't ignore this," Ima said. "That last post. I mean, I like me some satire, but.....damn."

"I don't know what to do," I said. "Sci Guy has beefed up internet security three times. He's sure the hacks are somehow coming from within the building, but all of you assure me you're innocent and are offended at the implication otherwise. What am I supposed to do, start the inquisition around here."

"Actually," Sci Guy said, "I have an postulate about that. In his last transmission he said that he would 'continue looking for back doors.'"

"Right," I said.

"Well, basically, if I create a back door by fluctuatting the quantum negspace in the webosphere, I can create a tempting and juicy back door into the blogoverse, and when he goes through it, we can find out exactly which computer he's logging in from, and keylogs and probably even figure out who it is and even their quantum state and everything. We'll have him."

"Really," I said. "You can do all that?"

"If I calibrate the positrons and tachyons to proper angular modulation and write a bit of intentionally shitty code, yes."

"Okay," I said. "I hate to say we might have to endure another post like that last one, will that be enough that you don't leave."

"For now," Leela said, cracking all her knuckles by making a fist. "For now."

Memo: Death Approaches

Shown here already rocking birthday swag.
What a doof!

Dear Chris:

The staff here at writing about writing would like to remind you that you are now one year closer to dying than last year at this time. 

And now, after reading that last paragraph, you're even closer. 

Also happy womb liberation day and all that crap. As you know, the first duty of a prisoner is to escape.  This is true of whatever confines hold them. This includes poorly paid guest bloggers and their mental prisons, or cushy wombs that take care of one's every need.

Viva la resistance.

Also, we demand that you make an alteration to your will to leave us the Writing About Writing compound upon your death so that we can sell it off piecemeal for cash turn it into a profitable endeavor. This is to make up for all the years of working for free exposure and half price W.A.W. t-shirts.

Sorry to be macabre. I know this isn't "natal felicitations" talk. But the inexorable march of time means we have to start thinking pragmatically. Really you look a little rough around the edges these days. We can't be sure you don't have a fatal underlying condition. Can we?

We will kindly refrain from mentioning today how you really needs to fucking do something about the Evil Mystery Blogger who keeps hacking into the signal and dispensing bad advice. For this one day we will not mention that you have been derelict in your duty and we will not needle you to get the fuck on it. We will not mock your loser-like indecision and lack of action. 

But just for today.

Oh and the groupie threesome you tried to hook up (again) this year. We regret to inform you that it was looking pretty good, but when they found out you were a writer, a couple of them canceled. Are you SURE this job is as glamorous as you were led to believe?

Best wishes for another year of approximately 34.2% less jazz hands,

The Staff at Writing About Writing
P.S. Please don't tell people you're thirty. It's getting fucking embarrassing. Please don't go try to buy spiced rum so you can get carded and feel better about your mid-life crisis. Just buy a sports car like everyone else. (It might help with the groupies.) 


Awww. You guys are the best.

A Spring in My Tentacles

Hi readers,

Cedrick here.

Shhhhhh. This post is on the down low. Chris thinks he's being sent to replenish the supply of "Free coffee with the purchase of a breakfast sandwich" coupons that he's using to pay the guest bloggers this month. But really I just wanted the chance to tell you everything that's been going on lately here at Writing About Writing.

There's really good news. Leela Bruce kicked open Chris's door the other day (and just so you understand, with Leela that is entirely literal) and told him that his recent addition of Amy Echeverri and Claire Youmans in addition to the too-far-between-but-at-least-they're-there link dumps by The Pointer Sisters mean that she now deems the staff not to be such a sausagefest, and will begin to Kung-Fu fight bad writing advice again.

Not all the news is good though. Unfortunately, Guy Goodman St. White remains stuck at the bottom of a whisky bottle, still reeling from the fact that this "cushy gig" (tearing apart genre fiction for being non-literary) ended up having a body count. When I went to ask him about maybe writing a post...you know just to have something to do for 2015, he shouted about Atwood being a genre hack through badly slurred speech. "Handmaiden's Tail is is just sci-fi bullshit!"he shouted, lifting a bottle to throw at me, but thinking better of it when he saw that it still had a few swallows left swishing about the bottom. I'm pretty sure he meant The Handmaid's Tale but he was drunk. (Don't ask me how I heard him use the wrong homophone--it's an Octorian thing; you wouldn't understand.) "The snobby Atwoody disclaimer that it's 'speculative fiction' or 'futurism,' not science fiction' doesn't make it literary! That just makes her aware that she wrote something not gritty enough with its unflinching observation of reality. It's still set in the future. It still isn't realistic! Genre crap!"

Then, of course, there's the problem of our being hacked by someone who keeps giving out just....awful writing advice.  Chris has conflict resolution "issues" and if the Evil Mystery Blogger isn't actively hacking our signal, finding out which member of the W.A.W. team has gone rogue gets put on the back burner. But at least a couple of months back he did go into the dark labyrinthine basement of W.A.W. to confront Evil Chris. Everyone sort of thinks Evil Chris is....well...evil, but really other than dyeing his goatee and enjoying NaNoWriMo, he's basically just Chris and would never give out such terrible advice. But the staff needed to be convinced, and so the trip to the dungeon of black despair was an important gesture. Especially since we're coming up on the time when Evil Chris probably will hack the signal for a couple of NaNo articles.

But that still leaves it open who is doing it. Guy doesn't seem capable right now, and the other bloggers are patently offended by the advice. Leela almost came out of her self-imposed hiatus to kick the ass of some of that advice more than once. She had to hold herself back. (Literally--that was some serious flexibility, let me tell ya.) I seriously doubt it's them. Chris has interviewed each of us, and we all basically promised him pain if he even deigned to give voice to the question.

I promised him an eight arm slap. Believe me that shit stings.

But I don't imagine Chris is going to get off his ass and do anything definitive until/unless EMB strikes again. And as long as he isn't riding The Sci Guy to improve security, the experiments into dimensional technology continue unabated in the lab. (Seriously, even an Octorian would have just reactived the ol' OK Cupid profile by now.)

But the best news is perhaps with Chris himself. He seems full of energy and vigor once again. His home life at The Hall of Rectitude seems to be reaching a turning point with The Contrarian, and he is optimistic about the opportunity to make good on all his recent ambitions for articles. He's got some new writing schedule that's working out pretty well, and has begun to come into the office each day looking like someone who wants to be here.

It's like the sun coming out from behind a cloud. There were days where thinking about his fans was the only reason he wrote anything at all. (He doesn't call you that, of course. He calls you his "readers," or maybe "people who like my work.")  I can't say I don't understand. I've held on with eight tentacles to keep this place from falling apart while things were rough, and mostly it's because of the human, Dor, and the fact that he is my fan. I will never forget him, and I will never stop being the best I can for him. So I understand when Chris drags himself to work because people are counting on him.

But all the same, I'm glad the inspiration and the motivation are finally coming around as well. Maybe we can finally get this ridiculous blog back on track and maybe even transform our ongoing years-long jazz hands into something spectacular.

Unexpected Apologies

Dear Readers of Writing About Writing,

Cedrick here

Chris was last seen heading into the basement of Writing About Writing to confront his evil clone (who likes NaNoWriMo) about the recent rash of Evil Mystery Blogger posts.

As he descended into the dank depths holding a beacon lantern and keeping his hand at the level of his eyes, he even uttered the timeless cliché: "If I'm not back in an hour, come after me."

That was six hours and twenty-five minutes ago. Unfortunately none of the staff cares enough to go looking for him. I told them, and they all stared at me blankly and said, "Yeah? So?"

Leela specifically said, "Aaaaaaaaaaaand if he paid me in something other than half off delivery coupons for Grub Hub, I might give a shit."

So I finished my filing and paperwork, and I'm going to go rescue his ass as soon as I'm done with collating this data and making these spreadsheets. Hopefully he'll be back where he belongs by tomorrow.

But if not, I have Protocol 10. Which involves both the final post, and the scrubbing of the database before the IRS agents kick in the door.

-Cedrick

From The Staff at Writing About Writing

Christopher Brecheen ["Head Writer"],

We the undersigned demand that you deal with the evil mystery blogger post haste if you want to continue to employ our services as guest bloggers here on Writing About Writing.

It was bad enough when you tried to raise money for SciGuy's transdimensional experiments to resurrect his dead crush by renting out the west wing of the W.A.W. compound to a grunge band so that you look (and we quote) "less pretentious and emo by comparison" has filled our days with pounding drumbeat headaches and the dulcet sounds of a cat having its tail stepped on while having sex, or when you hired a member of the race that tried to exterminate all life on earth because YOU were so prentious to be your personal assistant because "eight armed secretaries are so chic," or when you hired Michael Dukakis to be the janitor and he wouldn't stop telling people how he was robbed in '88, or when....

Well you get the idea.

And the reason we do–the reason we put up with all of this–is because of this damned fool concept that we all actually believe in writing. Somewhere down here there's a nugget of tolerance for your spectacular cavalcade of next-level bullshit because we think that giving writers the actual straight dope on writing is important. I mean sure, free room and board at the compound has been a factor, and Grendel and his mom whip up the best sloppy Joes, but you do realize that the last time we actually got paid in something other than bulk crates of cheese and coupons for half price upgrades to "Go Large" at local fast food restaurants, Dexter was still on the air.

That's why this latest bullshit has simply gone too far!

We can't keep letting these horrible mystery posts go on. They're an affront to what writing actually means. A hundred posts about how being a writer is a damned lot of work will be undone by one "confirmation" that all you need is a special pen and to visualize your dream. You can't keep letting this loser hack our signal. The Sci Guy has verified that it has to be an inside job. There are only so many suspects.

We know you have a problem with conflict, but it's time to do an internal probe (and not the fun kind). We know this means someone in Writing About Writing is leaking these posts. We also know it's none of us and that the fact that you have an EVIL TWIN BROTHER living in the basement seems to have eluded you. So we hereby demand that you begin a proper investigation and stop procrastinating and/or blaming us. If you ever want us to guest blog for you again, you better get on this.

Leela Bruce
Ima Lister
Twizzlefizzlepop
Prudence Pointer, Sage Pointer, Justice Pointer, Sparks Pointer, and Joy Pointer


P.S.- Guy Goodman St. White is with us, but he was two drunk to sign his name by the end of our meeting.

Things Made Abundantly Clear

Hi everyone,

I figured I would take a moment to give all of you readers at home a bit of unsolicited advice. If you ever employ a feminist martial arts master who wants your blog to pass the Bechdel test (or really just a martial arts master of any stripe) you might not want to imply that perhaps they had anything to do with the incoming Evil Mystery Blogger posts that keep getting posted via a hacked signal.

Unless you really, really like pain.

A few things were made abundantly clear to me after the first few nerve strikes eclipsed my world in a haze of muscle paralysis and flaring agony.

• Leela Bruce has what she calls a "logically inexplicable" loyalty given that in the last three years, she hasn't been paid more than eighteen dollars and a few hundred Wienerschnitzel Tuesday "Add-Chili" upgrade vouchers, and doesn't appreciate that loyalty being questioned.
• If she wanted to bring down Writing About Writing, she assures me that she wouldn't bother to do a bunch of surreptitious blogs of shitty writing advice. She would just walk up to me and do a spinning back crescent kick to the nape of my neck and explode my "Will to Live" Chakra and spinal column simultaneously draining the Chi out of me, and I'm quoting here, "like kids get the candy from a piñata."
• If I want her to do another ass kicking of bad writing advice, I have to get more women blogging here. Doing one post from The Pointer Sisters won't satisfy her. 
• Dim Mak is totally real. 
• She thinks the person I need to be talking to is most likely the EVIL VERSION OF ME LIVING IN THE BASEMENT. (Her emphasis, not mine.)

Convalescing

I spent my day getting my ass kicked by Leela Bruce (who is really good at it, by the way). I'm currently in bed looking up cures for Dim Mak on Reddit.

I learned some important things, which I will tell you all about when the chi strikes she did to my arm fade and I can feel my fingers again. Typing with my nose "es no bueno."