Welcome

My drug of choice is writing––writing, art, reading, inspiration, books, creativity, process, craft, blogging, grammar, linguistics, and did I mention writing?

Friday, June 29, 2018

MOAR QUESTIONS NEEDED!!!

Hi folks,

As I recover from this week and try to get you some posts that aren't totally jazz hands, here is a reminder that I need your questions to help me do the "20 Questions" posts (which there will be more of). They are a great way during these six weeks (four left) of my impossible schedule. 

Themes remaining are Process, Craft, Blogging, Publishing, Basics, Social Media (FB!), Reading/Books, "My Philosophy of Writing," Grammar, and Social Justice Bard. Though I may do one or two Personal or Meta questions as filling if you still have those.

Now I'm off to do some power sleeping and then write like the wind this weekend.

Thursday, June 28, 2018

Reminder: Nominations Needed (Best horror not by a cis het white man)

What is the very best horror book (or possibly series?) written by a woman or POC or member of the LGBTQ+ community? 


This poll is from our Year of Diverse Polls. Please check this page out if you have questions about the narrowed focus.

If it doesn't get nominated and seconded (and maybe thirded) it won't end up on our poll. Please go to the original post for rules and to drop your nomination. Come nominate your faves.

Twenty Questions (Personal/Meta)

Personal- 

1-2) Mark asks: You're always talking about your other jobs and you mentioned you have FIVE? (Holy shit.) What are they, and why do you need so many? 

Shit, Mark, technically it's six.

1- Writing
2- Pet Sitting
3-Caregiver to The Contrarian (and housework helper)
4- Teaching during summer school
5- A property management opportunity in its initial stages
6- Freelance/editing work

Five and six are pretty sporadic, and four only happens for six weeks a year (that's what's going on right now). So it's usually only three, though that's more than enough for me to clock in the occasional 80+ hour week and almost never get by under 60. Good thing somewhere between 30-50 of it is writing and I love that part to bits.

Why? To survive capitalism baby. Because there's no universal basic income. Because no rich people hand artists a shit ton of money (or even a shit ounce of money) anymore to just make the world more beautiful. Because artists and entertainers struggle to find a market that will consume their creative efforts in exchange for money, not always with perfect success. If the next five weeks of "pledge drive" for my Patreon go well, I may be able to phase out more of my pet sitting and add in more writing hours.  If not, it'll be another year of writing from weird houses in Freemont while Fido's parents are in Barbados.

3) Erika asks: If you are paying the bills with writing, why do you have all these side gigs.

"Paying the bills with writing" is sort of a linguistic stretch for bragging rights. ("Hey check me out. I pay the bills with this shit? Right that's pretty awesome. You want to get a cup of coffee later and...hey where are you going?") There is no glamour in this at gig all and certainly not what I was promised with the idea of groupies on the French Rivera, so I have to embellish or I'll fall asleep crying every night.

I technically WOULDN'T DIE if I were stripped of all income but writing income. Rent. Store brand peanut butter and bread. Health insurance (at least at its current price and subsidy under Obamacare). It doesn't account for cell phones, car insurance, gas, vegetable medleys, shwarmas, or the occasional book spending spree. On the other hand, having all these side gigs means that once in a while I can buy things like a cool leather pouch carrying case to replace my jacket with the hella deep pockets (that is too hot to wear in the summer) for holding all my shit. I can buy it and not have to auction off a lobe of my liver on the black market. That's a plus in my book.

I like my liver.



Don't think it hasn't crossed my mind that there are places in this country (or other countries) where I could already afford my own small place and all the bills from the income I make writing. But I've got a few reasons I'm fettered to this place and here life is a little spendier. Hopefully in a year or three I can start to phase out some of the side gigs.

4) Hélène asks: Not being from the US and not even having English as my native language (and I’ve noticed that I’m not the only one here): how is your surname pronounced? break, brek, bre, other? sheen, shin, tcheen, tchin, keen, kin, other? what syllable is stressed? Please oh please don’t use phonetic alphabet in your answer.

It's bruh, like you are talking to your bro, but deliberately trying to be even more casual, and KEEN with the accent like the thing that a banshee does when it sees the living. I'm told it is a Gaelic name that is short for some big long thing that means "son of the judge" and to say it Gaelic-ly, the CH has to be a Khuuuu sound in the back of one's throat.

But I learned it as a K sound.





5) Susan Wells Johnson asks: Where do you sit when you write? What kind of table, chair, etc. do you use?

I got a few questions like this and I made a very deliberate choice to put them under personal instead of process because they are a very PERSONAL decision. Every writer should do what works best for them when it comes to chairs and stuff like that.

Most of my work happens at my desk (the L shaped one named BEKANT from Ikea [though not the version with the motorized height adjuster]), although a close second would be the local library desk. I spent some "real*" money on one of those ergonomic chairs a couple of years ago. Sometimes I write at a couch with a laptop lap cushion thing. Sometimes I write with my back against a wall and my laptop battery slowly burning my left thigh into a mild numbness that is affectionately called "toasted skin syndrome."  Sometimes I'm at a coffee shop. Sometimes I'm in the car with a sleeping kiddo in the back seat. Sometimes I stand up and use a counter or a washer or dryer (or surface of a similar height) because there's no place to sit. I've worked hard to be able write anywhere (at any time) and one of the benefits of that effort is that while I can definitely have places where I'm more comfortable, I can pretty much start working anywhere.

*For values of "real" that include the higher end one that Costco was carrying that day.


6) Alec Gramarye asks: Does depression hit you like a ton of bricks and make it hard to even do simple necessary things like wash yourself? Uh, because I would of course know nothing about that, I’m asking for...a friend. An imaginary one. Who’s dead.

It doesn't, Alec. And I'm sorry that it does for you your friend.

One of the reasons, even in my gloomiest storm cloud moments, that I steer clear of the D word is that I haven't been diagnosed and I see other people struggling a whole hell of a lot harder than I do. I'm a few days of meh and maybe have some trouble posting a proper schedule. But I've never had executive dysfunction reach things like hygiene or eating, and I've never seen it last more than a week or two, even when there was bad situational depression like my parents divorcing or my marriage falling apart.

7) Shayna Allen asks: What's your ritual for writing?

I don't have one.

I know! I know! I'm supposed to have one. What the fuck kind of writer am I if I don't sit at a shrine to Stephen King and light a stick of incense every morning or something?

I don't.

There seem to be two ways that writers shift the power dynamics with their muses (if you'll forgive the conceit of that personification). Most muses are capricious and check out the instant something starts to feel like work, and so most writers are at their muse's beck and call. (Which is why they can only write when they're feeling inspired.)

Way one is the way most writers seem to do it. Stephen King. JK Rowling. Truman Capote. They establish a ritual. They go to write at the same time every day. Their creativity bursts forth ten to fifteen minutes before they start. They write a certain number of pages or a certain amount of time or a word count. They maybe even sharpen six pencils before starting and sit at a special desk. Or maybe they wear a football helmet and listen to Gregorian chants. And while I'm a big fan of everyone finding the magic that works for them, I have had to wrestle my muse into submission through the more-difficult second path.

Ritual works. Sitting down at the same time every day works. Your muse is like the fox in The Little Prince. If you show up every day to feed it at the same time, it'll be tamed. And all those strange affectations like the special desk and pencils operate as a sort of personal magic/placebo. And for millions of writers this is how they do. But not everyone has a schedule that yields a few hours at the same time every day or is always near their football helmet and jello shots.

The second path is a little more front loaded with effort, but then the pay off is being less fettered to ritual later on. I started with Morning Writing and I did this for years (and do it again any time I start to slip up and fall behind on daily writing). Then I would do The Floating Half Hour, in which (no shit) overcoming my own excuses was the single hardest thing I've ever done as a writer. After that I developed the ability to just sit and write. Virtually any time and any place I can just pull out a laptop and begin to write prodigiously.

I work a little better at night (the wee'er the hour, the better) when I'm doing creative stuff like first drafts, and a little better early morning when I'm editing. I work a little better sitting up straight than reclined, and I work a little better with music that doesn't have lyrics I can understand, but toddlers, day jobs, yappy dogs, ambient music, posts that have to be done right now, and all manner of obstacles have forced me to better deal with imperfect circumstances.

8) Lyra asks: I write a blog about women, many of whom are really successful in what they do, and manage to do a LOT. So I will ask you what I like asking them: How on Earth do you manage? I mean, you post fairly often and quite long articles too, you manage this fb page and also post a lot, swing the banhammer like a pro, you work 3 jobs, write a book, and from what I gather from your personal profile, you have a social life among all that too... Teach me your secrets, Master!

Six jobs, but who's counting?

Yeah, about that social life..... It's about once a week, maybe twice. And while I could maybe squeeze in a third thing if someone showed up AT MY DOOR with a pizza and wanted to watch a couple of hours of Netflix (chill optional depending on the relationship), I sure do skip and/or turn down a lot of plans because I'm writing, working, or exhausted from one or the other. I can barely drag my ass to a four hour D&D game that meets every other week these days.

I think mostly, besides writing just taking up the "Day Job™" and "Fave Hobby™" and often "Social Life™" slots in my time management, I also am willing to back burner things some really huge things other people aren't in order to keep going. You know I'm well over 3*cough* years old and I don't have a family. I live with three roommates (one who gets high and steals my food). I drive an economy car and try not to eat out too much. I'm not the poorest person I know by a long shot, but when other people have the chance to sort of upgrade some facet of their lives, I tend to write more.

I have de-prioritized a lot of things and made writing my primary action item. And looking back I don't have REGRETS per se, but things like not having kids stings a little.

9-10) Chasity Black: Do u write on a computer or do u use paper to bring it all together and then type it? I'm the type that has to have paper and go from there. And also, I am interested in what time of the day u think is best for writing?

Occasionally I journal on paper. Hand writing is even slower than typing so free writing longhand allows for greater and deeper introspection. Almost everything I'd ever publish is typed though––even as a rough draft. You should see how many started articles I have in the cloud....

The best time of day for writing is the time of day that you write the best. For me there are two answers. One is late at night. But the real answer in praxis is whenever I have the damned time. That's the best time. When I can grab between four and six uninterrupted hours, and if that's eight in the morning, I guess I'm not sleeping in. And if it's ten at night, I'm grabbing a five hour energy shot. I try to carve out a work schedule where I am writing and nary a phone will I answer, but any given week it gets cratered into a lunar-like landscape by the meteors of life, well-meaning though some are.

11) Kara asks: What type of brainstorming do you use?

I will occasionally jot down an idea or take a few notes if I've reached the pre-writing stage, but a lot of the brainstorming I do is to just think about things and trust that the good ideas will come back to me. Once I've been turning over a story in my head for a year or two, it's probably percolated enough and it's ready to be written.

12) A asks: Have you ever gotten involved with a fan?

Kind of? But not really.

I've had two relationships start with fans approaching me because of my work. In both cases I tried to sort of get to know the person first so that we had a relationship that wasn't only based on sort of a starstruck power differential. That can get into some murky ethics, and I'm not really here for it.  Not sure they could have been called a fan (or JUST a fan) after that getting-to-know-you process. But that's how it started.

One of them burned me pretty good though, and it had a lot to do with having a relationship that was never fully reticulated with me as a human with feelings that could be hurt. (The other was lovely and we're still close friends.) I've kind of further insulated myself since then. It would probably take even longer before I'd trust a fan to be a friend...with or without benefits...and longer than THAT before I'd trust them enough to open up to bigger fee-fees.


14) Angela asks: Do you ever Google yourself?

All the time.

I'm going to pretend that it's because I take a very active role in what shows up from a Google search for me as a writer, that (after all) being a third of my Mission Statement.

It's totally not because I think having a Wikipedia page that exists about myself would be wicked awesome, and I periodically go to check and see if that's coming along. Nope.


Meta-

15) Michelle Baker asks: What is the best piece of writing advice you DIDN'T take?

You mean the one I should have?

"Put this in a drawer and move on. You've learned some valuable lessons. Keep writing. Stop trying to get this published."

The manuscript I wrote in high school will almost certainly never be published. If something that is loosely based upon it is ever published, it will only happen after a tremendous amount of revision to the point that is essentially NOT the same story. I mean it was the 90's and I was a 17 white dude from a conservative suburb of L.A. I can't even explain the PREMISE without it being problematic.

But man, I didn't give up on that thing for way too long. I just kept hacking away at it--draft after draft--handing it to different people, and getting mad that they returned it with weak, sympathetic smiles. It took me a long time to realize that I was basically kind of a shitty writer and that what I needed was to humbly enroll in a writing program and suck the marrow from its bones.


16) Rocco asks: Do you have anything to say about being a story teller vs being a writer?

There's this guy I know who can entrance a room when he tells a story about...pretty much anything. He held thirty people captivated for nearly an hour with a story of a cat on a C-130. Seriously we were ensorcelled. He's a pretty good writer too, and even writes creatively after a fashion. But he never really combines the stories and the writing into pure fiction. I always think of him when someone talks about story telling. That and the role playing game meaning of "storytelling."

I think, for the most part, if you're talking about fiction and not some other kind of writing, you have a relationship that is very analogous to rectangles and squares. You can have a storyteller who can't write, but it would be much stranger to have a writer (a fiction author, you understand I'm talking here; not some other kind of writer), who had zero able to tell stories. There are some things like pacing, dramatic tension, or character arcs that would be very difficult to write fiction if one had no sense of them. I'm not sold that this sense is somehow innate or "talent" (a lot of people who watch a lot of TV and film are wonderful storytellers–though not always writers), but it definitely needs to be there.

17) Kara asks: How do you prevent...absorbing (?) aspects of characters into yourself, or are those aspects already there, and just projected through characters?

One of my weirdest experiences, consistently, as a writer has been to hear OTHER PEOPLE react to things in my head. Of course these are characters, so in a way they are me, but it's still a bit trippy having a voice I recognize as distinctly NOT ME start prattling on in my brain like it's perfectly normal.

I think, for me, this question comes at character from the wrong side. I don't create characters and then absorb them or not absorb them. It's more like I tease them out of myself and then set about making them distinct from me. I create them from aspects of myself and empathy and possibly some research. One of the reasons I think creative writers and artists tend to be such a compassionate lot is that they don't deny aspects of themselves in the way it seems like society encourages others to do, but rather they are keenly aware that they are drawing from the full and robust range of the human experience within us all. I'm not an angry or violent person, but I don't deny those things are in me. I can tap those feelings to create an angry and violent character.

And maybe that helps me make peace with such things.

18) Kara asks How do you reconcile/approach writing a character antithetical to your personal beliefs/values? Do you write those characters as villains, as anti-heroes, or just...not write them?

Well...I'm sensitive to a literary tradition that has been very empathetic with monsters, and so there are some things I'm just not going to write. I'm not going to write a story wondering what if The South won the Civil War and treat all the slavers as sympathetic complex characters. There's been enough of that shit.

There are ways to avoid making antithetical characters (in my case bigots, abusers, and maybe toxically violent types) be "wrong" within the contextual frame of the fictional universe without necessarily making them villains or anti-heroes. They can be handled with nuance and empathy but the work itself is going to kind of show that they are in the wrong, either by having some kind of comeuppance or having the sympathetic focalizer character disagree with them or just unabashedly exploring the consequences of their behavior. There's always a "tell," which is why so many authors who themselves have shitty beliefs but who try to hide behind the imperfection of their characters usually can't. Their world...their other characters...their unconscious tone...their larger body of works...these things "out" them.

The same is true in reverse.

19) Hélène asks: What do you call ‘jazz hands’ posts and why? I’ve read them from the ‘Jazz Hands’ listing on the blog page, but I don’t get it.

Jazz hands is what I call it when I'm posting something that's very easy for me to write and not very time consuming instead of a full article. Personal updates that only take me a half hour to write. The little plot posts. Things like "fortune cookie wisdom" (which usually involves finding some pull quotes from the last month of posts and just retooling them a little). Revisions of old articles, which take an hour (rather than the 6+ it would take to write a new one). These are all posts I consider high form and little substance. They are not so much me actually dancing as shaking my hands back and forth to give you the impression that I am.




20) Anon asks: When are you going to finish all those unfinished posts like the glossary and blogging advice?

Depends on the post, honestly. I've got some fiction half way written and one story that just needs a polish. Those might be this weekend if I eat my Wheaties. Things like the glossary, I just need to be writing from home for a solid stretch instead of pet sitting away from my OWN books. Blogging advice is just a matter of clearing through a small queue of articles I want to do first...which, honestly could take a while. The Skyrim article? Jesus I have to find time to play the game (and probably start over from the beginning). That's no small feat and might be a while.

Bonus Personal Question) Reynaldo asks: Dude, did that creepy guy thing actually happen?

Yes.

If you want to ask one a question on 20 questions in the next few weeks, drop me a line at chris.brecheen@gmail.com The themes remaining are: Process, Craft, Blogging, Publishing, Basics, Social Media (FB!), Reading/Books, "My Philosophy of Writing," Grammar, and Social Justice Bard.

Tuesday, June 26, 2018

Yep!

Totally behind. Totally off schedule. Totally flying by the seat of my pants.

Sometimes this happens, particularly when the perfect storm of side gigs does the one-two (three-four-five) punch on me.  Summers are particularly bad.

If you want to know what's going on and when to expect a return to our regularly scheduled programs, I'm afraid it will cost you at least a dollar a month (just $12/year) over here at Patreon. I don't hide much content behind paywalls, but they're kind of like my 150 bosses and they're the ones I tell what's going on.

Sunday, June 24, 2018

Best Horror not Written by a Cis Het White Man

What is the very best horror book (or possibly series?) written by a woman or POC or member of the LGBTQ+ community?

This poll is from our Year of Diverse Polls. Please check this page out if you have questions about the narrowed focus.

The world of horror has a lot more voices than Lovecraft, Koontz, Barker, and Stephen King. Today it's time to celebrate the lesser sung crafters of some of the scariest stories around.

The Rules:

  1. Please note the diversity requirements above.
  2. As always, I leave the niggling over "Horror" to your best judgement because I'd rather be inclusive. If you feel like Frankenstein is horror rather than science fiction, I'm not going to argue. (Though you might need to "show your work" to get anyone to second your nomination.) I'll only throw them out if they get super ridiculous. 
  3. You may nominate two (2) books or series. If you nominate three or more my eyes narrow like Fry in Futurama. But more importantly for you, I will NOT take any nominations beyond the second that you suggest. (I will consider a long list to be "seconds" if someone else nominates them as well.)
  4. You may (and absolutely should) second as many nominations of others as you wish. So stop back in and see if anyone has put up something you want to see go onto the poll.
  5. Please put your nominations here. I will take nominations only as comments on this post. (No comments on FB posts or G+.) If you can't comment here send me a PM as I am not likely to see a comment.
  6. You are nominating WRITTEN HORROR, not their movie portrayals. And while in most cases with horror books are ALWAYS better because showing the monster always kind of ruins it a little, if you think The Haunting of Hill House was scary because The Haunting had those little CGI cherub heads, leave that out of this poll.
  7. No more endless elimination rounds. I will take somewhere between 8-20 best performing titles and at MOST run a single semifinal round. So second the titles you want even if they already have one. (Yes, I guess that would make them thirds, fourths, etc...)

Friday, June 22, 2018

FAQ for our Facebook Page


FAQ for Writing About Writing's Facebook Page but also Tumblr and any other social media sites. 


What's with this blog you post to every day.

That's the whole reason this social media outreach is here at all: to get a few extra eyeballs (and maybe the occasional fan) on that blog....er....this blog. If it weren't for this blog, and the traffic that FB brings this blog, I would hang up all these puns and memes and go enjoy an extra ten or fifteen hours a week doing almost anything else. Fortunately if I can build an audience of a million, a few will click the links I post and maybe I can scrape out a few bucks a month.

"I'd like to become a patron/give you a donation? How can I do that?"

SHWEEEEEEEET!

If you want to be a monthly contributor and get in on a number of reward tiers, please consider becoming a patron of Writing About Writing. Even a dollar a month is enormously helpful and will get you in on the "backchannels" of questions about my work, polls only patrons can respond to about upcoming projects, and solicitations for feedback.

One time donations are of course welcome as well. The conspicuously placed tip jar is over to the top left, or you can use Venmo. My e-mail is chris.brecheen@gmail.com

Technically I can also provide you a P.O. Box if you need one.

And honestly, thank you. I've got rent to pay just like anyone. Financial support helps me keep writing (and running this page) instead of patchworking together pet sitting side gigs to keep the lights on.

"Wait, you want money just for shitposting on some Facebook page?"

Nope, that's not all I do by a long shot. The memes and the puns are just the tip of the iceberg. This blog (the one you're on right now) takes me about thirty to forty hours a week to maintain. I also write fiction–both short and long term projects–and it all goes here for free. Just because you never click on the blog links doesn't mean FB is the only thing I'm doing.

And just so you know, I spend about six or seven hours a week most weeks running this page, so it's kind of a dillhole move to deliberately take time out of your busy schedule to sneer at the idea of someone who is entertaining you asking for maybe a dollar a month from a few generous folks.

Please don't post about politics./Why are you posting about politics?

Writing About Writing has never been apolitical. It never will be apolitical. If you can't cope with that, you might want to find another page to service your "You should be writing" meme and terribad pun needs.

For starters, let's make sure we understand that what you're calling "politics" might split down left and right, but it is really about social issues. I'm not plugging a tax plan or endorsing a candidate or even a party. (I do that on my own FB wall [see below] a BIT more, but I usually still consider that sort of binary thinking a rabbit hole.) But even when I get my polemics on, I'm usually pointing out that a writer has the power to tell stories, that narrative works to create villains out of nuance and desensitize entire cultures to genocide, that media affects culture, that representation matters, that language is used to obfuscate bigotry and oppression, that people get to tell their own stories, and that leaving out whole parts of the story is a pretty good way to control who is seen as angels and who is seen as demons without ever misstating a "fact." I find telling my own story more meaningful than making explicitly didactic demands.

Writing About Writing
 has always considered the link between social issues, narrative, and language to be valuable to explore for writers and storytellers alike, and won't be stopping this intellectual rigor any time soon–certainly not because some people want their stream of quotes and inspiration porn to never be tainted by an uncomfortable thought of the social consequence that comes with literally aspiring to master both narratives and language.

Further, it isn't really possible for a writer to be completely apolitical. The personal is political and those who find politics sequestered from anything that affects them personally usually have a lot of social advantages. Aggressively avoiding social issues in one's writing belies a strong endorsement of the status quo. There are many writing pages that will stick to making fun of people's grammar in racist and classist ways and post the same hundred quotes over and over. I'm more interested in considering how we can all be vicegerents of the awesome power that comes with being a writer.

And also if you demand that I stop posting about politics obnoxiously enough, I may show you the door. (Since clearly you don't want what I'm cooking.)

Why are you doing transcriptions of the posts?/Why do you often ask for transcriptions?
 

We're creeping up on a million followers and I've been asked if it might be possible to level up our disability access so more people can enjoy. Many macros and memes are pictures of text or text ON pictures. (Things like screen grabs of Tumblr or Twitter, but even just macros.) This means they can't be read and transcribed with text reading software for folks who are visually impaired. A FEW of the better ones can read very plain fonts, but without the picture for context, even this could be meaningless.

Personally I am not going to have time to transcribe some of the longer ones into text and/or I am often posting from my phone or posting from work where transcribing would be very impractical. So if I put "Transcribe?" (or some variation) with an image, it means that if anyone would be willing to do that, I'll cut and paste that text along with my sincere thanks and a shout out and add it to the text.

You can also send it to me through PM if you'd prefer no attribution and the transcription to be anonymous. I'll probably just use the first transcription I see that does a halfway decent description of the picture and text, so no need to keep going if you see someone else has. I'm not trying to slight anyone if I don't use theirs.

Is the free labor of people doing your transcriptions exploitative?

1) Facebook pages don't actually make money. And the FB throttling algorithm was designed by greedy shitgibbons who literally fiddled with the knobs until they found the sweet spot between "That's a lovely outreach you have there. Be shame if something happened to it." and "Fuck it. I'll use G+ and Tumblr!" While I technically might make some Patron money via people from this page, most of them are donating money because they like my blog and my writing, not because I maintain a page that posts memes. (In fact, I often literally say when I post my Patreon something like: "If you're just here for the memes, don't worry about this, but if you like the blog I link to.....") While there is a symbiotic relationship and this page helps me promote my work, there isn't really a mechanic by which this page ITSELF makes me any money.

2) The particulars of transcribed posts are done for the accessibility benefits of folks who use assistive technology. For years there were no such transcriptions. I have been asked to do this, and I WANT to do so, but doing it all myself would be a tremendous addition of labor to what is already several hours a week on top of three jobs I already have. I tried to come up with a compromise to saying "No. I'm sorry. I just can't do that."

3) I'm more than capable of transcribing posts, and often do so (usually over half the time). However when I am flinging up a post quickly on my way to work or posting from my phone with its little stylus, I can't describe some involved four panel comic or essentially type out 250 words. I could just leave it without a transcription–possibly for hours–until I can get to it, but that seems to defeat the purpose, and the alternative is blowing some off.....and not in the good way.

4) I'm not promising people exposure or ground floor opportunities or some slick ass bullshit to folks who help out. (I'm certainly not approaching professional transcribers and guilting them.) If folks help, I assume it is because they want our page to be accessible, not because they think it will benefit them in some way. Everyone is free to help or not help. Sometimes no one steps up and the post just goes un-transcribed until I can get to it. It's not like anyone is being leaned on.

5) If I were making a lot of money, I probably WOULD think about employees rather than volunteers. I pay my guest bloggers, editors, and others who help me unless they insist that their work is a donation, even if it's just a few dollars. However, perhaps the fact that I need three other jobs besides writing will be indicative that I'm maybe not making as much off this page as people seem to think.

The community seems pretty supportive, but please let me know if you'd like me to revisit the question.

Why didn't you respond to my comment?

I am only able to read a fraction (a small fraction) of the comments from a page with over half a million followers. Chances are that I didn't even see it. I occasionally look at the top replies or make sure people are playing nice on a post I know is going to be a tire fire.

I can respond to even fewer. If I tried to stay active in the comments of such a large page, I would quickly find my writing time completely gone.

PM me if it's important or if something is happening for which I may need to wield the banhammer. A good question or thoughtful comment may even go into the blog.

"Will you promote [my thing]?"

If your "thing" is exactly (and I mean EXACTLY) the sort of content I'm usually posting (memes, macros, "you should be writing," quotes, and the occasional really good article about writing, maybe some book love, or a really funny miswritten sign), I might post it if–big if–I like it. I tend to avoid the posts some typical writing pages share a lot of, like ableist inspiration porn or classist (and often racist) prescriptivism. [I'm all for giggling about a misplaced comma, but only so long as we're giggling about what the sign says instead of AT the person who did it. But if you send me something you made that is our usual fare, especially if it's "doin' me a laff,"  I'll consider putting it up along with a link to a page if you want.]

If it's not the normal stuff, but is at least tangentially related to writing, and if you send me a PM asking nicely first I will let you post on our "Guest Posts."  (For the record, Dave M, the following is not acceptable: "Hey bro, you're not going to get your panties in a twist that I posted this on your wall, are ya?") I'll probably say yes. Be advised: web content filler slapped up there usually gets about the three or four clicks it deserves, but I've noticed that the response to quality posts is decent.

Will I do a trade promotion with you? If our pages are comparable, sure. If our pages are wildly differing in terms of traffic, you're basically asking me for free advertising. While I'm down with sidestepping unbridled capitalism (you don't have to pay me money) let's find some other way to make it worth it on my end.

If it is wildly not about writing or it is your own creative writing, or (AND LISTEN CLOSE TO THIS ONE) if it is a publication opportunity that requires payment [whether in the form of a "contest" that requires an entry fee or whatever], the answer will be no.

I have a regular post where you can share your own writing. And if you think a page called Writing About Writing is a good spot for your car detailing business commercial, I don't know what to say.




BTW: If you don't ask and just slap up your self-promotional link into the guest posts, I just remove it, even if it's totally about writing. And if I recognize your name from having pulled the same thing before, I'll ban you.

I'll be really honest with you about my one of my many failings as a flawed human being. I've spent years now building this page up. Don't even get me started on the first year when I was posting to 95% my own friends and like four other people. Or the June in the middle of year two when I whooped inside a Kinkos because I'd passed 1000 followers. This page takes a lot of effort, and even though it's led a few more people to my blog and maybe been responsible for a few donations, it's mostly thankless, unpaid labor where most folks only ever chime in to complain.

I have birthed a tiny little petty in these last few years. I've fed it cottage cheese and bile, taught it the dark side of The Force, and watched it grow up big and strong and it knows force lightning. I cheered it when it force choked the better angels of my nature. I kind of hate how people are crawling out of the woodwork–NOW–and trying to ride my coattails without a thought about reciprocity or so much as a peep asking if it's okay. I really quite enjoy being able to point at something one of my friends did (or someone whose work I've been following with interest) and send lots of eyeballs their way. But I feel really used when people act entitled to it.

If your stuff is self-promotional, I'm going to be harder on it–especially if you don't ask. Darth Petty demands no less.

"Will you read/critique my creative writing?"

I can't. I'm sorry.

There are nearly half a million of you, and this page grows by a thousand followers on a slow day. I'm getting a couple of requests a day to read things--everything from a ten line poem to a short story to a full novel manuscript for content editing. I know you've poured your soul into it and it's dear to your heart. I also know that because you've poured your soul into it and it's dear to your heart, that even for that ten line poem which I could read in a few seconds, you probably want more feedback than just "Nice poem" or something. I know how serious that request is for you and how important it is to you and even how much you may have psyched yourself up before sending it to me.

("Fortune favors the brave, Milton. FORTUNE FAVORS THE BRAVE. LET'S DO THIS THING!!! LEEEEEEROOOOOOOOOY JEEEEEEENKIIIIIIIIINS!!!!!")

But still...as much as I admire your moxie, there's only one of me. A good week for me clocks in around 70 hours between all my jobs. I barely even have time to read and give feedback to my good friends and the folks with whom I have a relationship and rapport.

Of course, if you want to hire me, that's another story (see below).

And then of course you could also do the long con where you get to know me, we develop a relationship. Maybe go out a few times. Have a deep and meaningful relationship. Move in. Experiment with all manner of wildly fulfilling group sex. Get married. Have kids. Join the Columbia Record Club. Start planning for our multi-continent retirement. Then you look at me and say.... "Chris, actually, I really just wanted you to read my stuff."

Will I tutor/edit/do some writing for you?


Sure. My freelance rate is $50 USD/hour. ($75 if you want me to drop everything I'm doing and give you all my writing time right this second). I will need you to pay for your first hour up front, and we'll figure out over e-mail or chat what you need. I can give you a billable hours estimate and a rough timeline for completion, and then I will work whatever is left of our hour, and you can see if my time is worth your money. After that, I'll ask you to pay me for every couple of hours for the first 10 hours or so. As we work longer and longer and build up professional trust, I can give you bigger chunks of time between payments. I'm much better at developmental editing than copy editing

Oh...did you mean for free?



I am interested in buying your page/running ads on your page? Will you sell it/give me admin controls?


Sure! Deposit $50,000 into an account I designate (that's a little less than ten cents per follower--the price may go up if the page grows) and after the money has been verified I will relinquish admin controls. (That's after I walk into my bank, asked for a manager, and made sure that there is no possible way that I'm being scammed and the funds will not disappear.) That's about what it would be worth to me to go build an audience from scratch on another page and might just cover the costs for the time it takes to do so.

I know the bitter, cruel irony here is that no one who sends me these fucking messages will ever read this FAQ. But at least that felt good to write.

Will you sit my pet?
 

If you're in the SF/Bay Area feel free to check out my pricing structure and send me an email (chris.brecheen@gmail.com) to inquire about a date.

If you want me to come to some remote location in the woods to a cabin where you use axes in all of your decorating, I'm sorry. I'm busy that week. Theoretically, I am willing to travel if all of my travel expenses are paid for (including lost income from the other job), but only for people I know. And why anyone would pay so much to have their pets watched is beyond me.

Where can I get some advice about writing.

I need to be on The Office so I can look at the camera.

Here. Here would be a great place to start for advice about writing. Try here. This blog. The whole thing. HERE.

RIGHT HERE!!


Yes, this is actually the "question" I get sent.
Very, very frequently.

I'm not sure how people could send a page admin a thumb up accidentally so I suspect what is going on here is people messing with the fact that if I don't reply to every message, FB takes away my "responds frequently" (or whatever the fuck) badge and I have to wander through the wasteland of my own social media feces screaming to the heavens "Why have you forsaken me?" because what even is the world coming to without page admins struggling to be judged by Facebook as "very responsive."

So people send me a thumb up (or "Hi" or "Hey" or "Sup") just because they think I'll reply instantly to keep my "responsive" cred. When FB sends me a $500 check each month that I earn "very responsive," I'll start replying to a message that is just a thumb. Until then, I'll just ignore them.

Hello./Hey there./Hi there./Ho there./What's up?/Can I ask you a question?

I appreciate your decorum if that's what you were going for, but whatever it is get to it in your opening message rather than waiting for a reply. There are way too many many of these interactions, and about 99% of them are actually hacked accounts fishing to see who will reply.

Just say whatever it is you want to say (hopefully after having read this FAQ), and I will respond appropriately.

Sending a question to my personal FB mailbox instead of the page's FB mailbox.

It's all just me. You're not going to get your answer any faster or get any better of a response by doing that. Your message will end up in "Filtered Message Requests" which means I won't see it right away. And using that route to be combative sort of feels like showing up to a coworker's house to have an argument about last Tuesday. So maybe keep that in mind if you were hoping to get an answer.

I'm particularly fond of the "Thanks for banning me asshole" versions. I might have to make them a blog post. 


GIANT UNWIELDY WALL OF TEXT

I know we're all writers, but I'm I typically describe my free time in terms of negative numbers. I get 50+ messages a day and unless I want my job to be Message Responder, I am not able to sit and read the ones that demand 5-10 minutes of my time just to read. Particularly by those who conflate loquacious with eloquent. Please get to the point and/or open with one GREAT FUCKING hook because trust that when I see unfathomable huge blocks of mammothian paragraphs, I just assume that it's self important bloviation, with huge tangents about Bukowski or some shit, and delete it unread.

Where can I get that t-shirt/mug/thing I really liked?

Whenever I find something still attached to its original commercial source, I will put it in the OP. If someone knows the source and puts that in the comments, I will edit the OP. But if I don't know and no one out there knows, the only thing I would do is try a reverse image search on Google and start digging through the results, same as anyone else. I'd suggest giving that a try.

Messages sent to me in obvious altered states of consciousness.

Sober up first please.


Okay these aren't exactly questions but they are all too frequent.


Nudes, marriage proposals, raging screeds, strange claims of supernatural forces in my life that only converting to your religion can save me from. I'm not even going to dignify them with a response.


But for FUCK'S sake, when you sober up, the message you should be sending me is "I'm sorry," not "Hey, why didn't you reply to this?"

I was too impersonal.

So this is another one that isn't a question so much as a reaction that has happened a few times. And even though it's "a few times" out of hundreds (maybe thousands), and I should probably trust that the law of large numbers applies, and that it's more about them than me, I worry about this shit.

I know for some people starting a PM is like reaching out personally and it might feel brusque of me to simply reply politely but briefly to the business at hand. Please remember that I'm getting 50+ messages a day I'm trying to be a writer not an email answerer, so I get through my admin stuff as quickly as I can. That means, while I try to be friendly and polite, my responses might be quick and to the point.

If you were hoping to become virtual pen pals, exchange warm replies back and forth for days, maybe buy me a drink the next time you're in the SF Bay area, and perhaps even end up riding Medusa at Discovery Kingdom with our pinkies locked, you should open with that.

WILL I marry you?

I'm pretty sure this was probably meant to be this flattering joke, but just so you know, I've actually hit that point of internet "fame" (or whatever the hell) where I've had some online stalking and some creepy obsessive behavior, so I'm going to be glancing nervously at my block button. Maybe joke about buying me dinner and getting to know me as a person for the effect you were probably going for.

Oh great. I see that you've seen my message but you won't reply. Thanks a whole lot you jerkwad. What is wrong with you?


I hate that people can tell when I've "seen" their chats. I hate it with the white hot fury of a billion supernovas. Because not everything is urgent. And sometimes I triage that shit. And sometimes I triage it right into the ignore pile. And it is a universal constant that the people who send the most ignorable messages are also the ones who think they are absolutely the most important people in the universe and get bent out of shape if I don't reply.

Sorry random person. There was a time when I could give thoughtful responses to everybody who sent me a private message. That time was about 400,000 followers ago. Now I'm writing an FAQ instead of a regular post so that I can reply with this to generic questions I get a zillion of.

But go ahead and ask again. I can cut and paste the URL of this snazzy new FAQ to you.


Hey you posted my thing/my friend's thing/a thing I know the source of/a webcomic I want to see succeed. Can you make an attribution/repost with credit/give me a shout out?

Yes. Thank you. Crediting artists is important to me since I am one. There are half a million of you and one of me and the internet is a big place where reverse image searches don't always work (or are directly deceived), people steal images and add their own watermark, and where it's impossible to know who is happy to go viral with mere watermark credit, who wants a shout out, who wants a URL link, and who will be upset if their page isn't shared from directly.

I appreciate the help.

I will add one caveat to this. The world is full of people who are so desperate to promote themselves that they might try to take credit for something they didn't actually create. Or more likely they will post something (gotten from elsenet) and then assume that I (having also got it from elsenet) MUST have gotten it from their site. If you are the original creator of something, I absolutely want you to have credit, but send me a link to the original image. I tend to err on the side of trust, but if you send me a link to your tumblr (or whatever) and it's full of thousands of memes you've just reposted over the years, I'm probably going to be skeptical.


You should just make sure you know where something is from!

Like all the other pages and Tumblrs and Pinterests, right?

Look, I do my best. I always hit "share" if the source page matches the author. However, some of the stuff I'm posting has been image grabbed and reposted thousands of times. Some of it has been taken credit for by five or six different sources. Some of it would take some serious detective work to track down. Doing more would change the time I take to find an image from a minute or two to as many as 15-20. And that's PER post.  That would add hours a day to my schedule, and that would add a level of difficulty I'm just not able to do. I would abandon the effort altogether.

Since there's one of me and 3/4 of a million of you, maybe if you see something you want credited, you could just let me know where it's from, and I'll edit the OP right away.

And I know people's hearts are in the right place but even so, super shitty sanctimonious comments drift into the territory of my commenting policy.


I would like to volunteer.

That is so sweet!

Currently, I don't have a lot of volunteer opportunities. You can keep your eyes open for the posts where I'm hoping to get a transcription. And if you see a typo and want to give me a shout out, that wouldn't be unwelcome. And if you have the chops to write a guest post, but then don't take the money when I try to pay you, that could technically be volunteering.

But here's the thing. I don't want to take advantage of this. I  pay my editors, guest bloggers, and website designers, and come up with some kind of trade in trade with anyone else unless they insist they don't want that money. So please only do this if you really really really want to volunteer.

I answered your question/told you where something was from/mentioned a problem in one of your posts, but you didn't react.

Did you do that in the comments? Because like I said up above, I can't really read the comments. If it's important, send me a PM. I check back when I can, but that's really only a glance at the top comments of the most recent posts.


Can I get an autograph?

Um...sure?

This is all very new to me and weird and I've got huge imposter syndrome and I still think people who want my autograph are trying to trick me somehow, but this question keeps coming up, so I better answer it.

If you let me know you'd like to send me physical correspondence, I will give you a P.O. Box address that I check regularly.

Send me something I can sign (I don't have a book I've authored or anything yet) with a self addressed stamped envelope, and I will sign it and send it back. Please cover all the postage both ways.

Or just give me your address and I'll send you a postcard.

I won't turn down a donation, but there is no "charge."


I can't believe you're okay with what's going on in the comments on that one post.

I CAN'T READ ALL THE COMMENTS.

Writing About Writing maxes out its 100 notifications badge in less that four or five minutes. I don't know how many comments I get every day, but it's way too many for me to have read them. Some posts get threads that are thousands long. I've seen posts that are six months old still having people basically chatting in the comments on them. It's not that I didn't care. It's most likely that I didn't even know.

If something has gone past your ability to handle, and you need me to step in as an admin, link me to the post and tell me what the problem is.


Here's a poem I wrote, and have sent you, unsolicited.

That's amazing! It's identical to a poem I just deleted unread.


If you're so overwhelmed, why don't you get admins?

Well, aside from the occasional Social Justice Bard post or maybe a macro that suggests that bigotry isn't awesome just because people who don't suffer systematic forms of it have decided that a particular expression is no big deal or something horrifying to Status Quo Defenders like the idea that representation matters, I don't really get the kind of comments off of grammar jokes and "You should be writing" memes that require roving bands of admins. I can swing through posts like the ones above, clean up the worst offenders, and trust that most of my followers are adults who will message me if they need me to step in. [Please include the link as well as telling me what's going on. Sometimes the comments rage for DAYS and I won't be able to just figure out which post you're talking about.]

And even though admins can reply to messages, having them handle "Can you post my thing?" or "Will you read my story?" isn't really what I think anyone would want to do. The last one whose job it was to answer my inbox left me for a beluga whale named Percival.

Basically, it's the wrong kind of "overwhelmed" for farming out the work. Hopefully this FAQ helps–or at least helps me to feel better about ignoring some of the questions that are answered here.


Hello from my sock puppet account that I made specifically to message you. We meet again, Mr Brecheen! Why did you ban my main account? Is it because you hate the founding principles of democracy like free speech? And can I get reinstated because I've suddenly realized that shitting on that post means now I don't get all the rest of your awesome content?

(Okay, maybe this exact phrasing isn't, strictly speaking, FREQUENT)

Why did this happen? Probably because you violated the commenting policy. I didn't write that just to hear myself speak. Or um...read myself write. (That does not work nearly as well.) I don't have time for warnings and explanations and the inevitable back and forth arguments that come from them. Pretty much every place you ever go has rules and a code of conduct whether it's to keep your shoes and shirt on or to keep your voice down if you don't want the librarian to shush and glare. And if you blithely ignore them, they show you the door. It has nothing to do with fucking democracy.

And if you message my personal account and I don't see "I'm sorry" in the first couple of lines, I just delete the shit unread. Hope you spent HOURS on it boyo.

I might be willing to unban someone if they apologize, but I'm not going to do so on a timetable that would allow them to jump right back into whatever argument got them banned in the first place. So you will have to hang in the penalty box for a while either way.


For a page about writing....

I'm going to stop you right there, boss.

Is what you're about to say kind of elitist, snotty, shitty, jerkwaddy, fucknozzly? Are you about to complain about the proper use of subjunctive in a FB post. Is this going to be a comment where you sneer down your nose because my text to speech picked a homophone and I was too Driving on the Freeway to fix it right away? Are you about to laugh at my non-academic use of punctuation. Do you have something to say about "climbing down" ladders, "making" money, splitting infinitives, ending sentences in prepositions, or beginning them with coordinating conjunctions.

A) Fuck off.

B) Go teach high school if you want to be that person. The adults are trying to have a conversation.

C) I get paid....professionally....with like actual money to basically make fun of assholes. Are you sure you want this to be your play?

D) If insist on saying it anyway, you the ONLY thing keeping you from getting banned might be how long it's been since I've gotten well and truly laid. Be warned.


Did you delete my comment?

Yeah maybe.

More likely just set it so that only you and your friends could see it. There are reasons I do that ranging from it being just a little too acerbic to something problematic that I don't want to have a thirty comment fight with people saying "Well *I* didn't see a problem with it," to my personal pet peeve of people who answer mailbox questions without reading the article, or projectile word vomit like five or six hefty paragraphs in response to a title clearly without having actually read the article.

Comments are moderated on this page and you should read the commenting policy if you don't know exactly how and why.

I don't erase comments that disagree with me. You can see that easily from a casual glance at any post that is even moderately controversial. I erase comments that are buckets of anal sphincters.


But that means you're biased in favor of liberals and progressive values! You let liberals get away with more. What about conservatives? What about libertarians? You are where FREEZE PEACH goes to die!!! What about folks on 'the other side.'

What about them? I'm not running the goddamned debate club here, and no one is entitled to feed my posts through their ideological filters and then comment without consequence. I do a thing. If you don't like that thing AND can't scroll past that thing AND have to comment AND can't comport yourself in any way other than an edge-lord shithead, my page is not for you anyway.  If you want to take umbrage or a shot, fucking play nice. I'm not going to excuse bigotry because some people believe it exists on a political spectrum they're entitled to discuss anywhere and everywhere they want to and that white nationalists and nazis and racists and misogynists deserve to be able to drop whatever dehumanizing festering shit turd of a comment they can pinch out in the name of free speech whether they agree with it or just haven't grown out of their basic edgelord immaturity long enough to realize people's lives are at stake. I'm not here to host the bullshit idea that reacting to oppression with angry internet words is "just as bad" as the oppression itself.

If you can't just keep that scroll wheel turning and you simply HAVE to disagree with my politics, there are a million ways to do so that won't get you banned. (I've got that artists' weakness for nuance and humanization, so seriously all you have to actually do is not be a fucknoodle.) And while there is a complicated point to be made about power differentials and privilege, if it helps you feel better to just imagine that I am unfairly meaner to anyone who isn't a liberal, knock yourself out.


Can we be Facebook friends?

[Okay, people don't really ask me this, per se; they just send me friends requests.]

Yes, you may, but let me make a few disclaimers:
  • This is my public account: Chris Brecheen (Public) If you've stumbled upon my private account, the answer will be no. That account is for friends, family, and people I've known online either for a very long time or have developed a rapport with. It's not the VIP room or anything, but it's an essential aspect of a private life as my online persona becomes very public. I need to trust those people aren't just with me for the show.
  • You might want to follow for a while and decide IF you want to send me a friend request. I'm definitely not everyone's cup of tea with the geekery and the social justice stuff. 99.9% of my posts are public, so you really wouldn't be missing anything except the ability to comment.
  • If you don't care for my (very) occasional social issues post on the Writing About Writing Facebook Page, you will like my profile even less. I write about that stuff almost daily.
  • I can be a bit much for people. I post a lot. 
  • I have 1 "Note" that is a Commenting Policy for this profile. You should read it before charging in. ESPECIALLY before charging into a contentious post.
  • Send me a PM with your request. (Don't worry, I check my "Message Requests" at least once a day.) That account gets around 200-500 friend requests a week. I reject most of them because I don't know if they're there to sell me sunglasses, phish my info from a pr0n site, or just pick a fight in the comments. So send me a message along with the request.
More to come....

Writing A̶b̶o̶u̶t̶ With Machine Learning by Lauren Avjean Parzanese


Writing About With Machine Learning

by Lauren Avjean Parzanese

How many science fiction tales have there been that caution against the threat of robots taking over the world? What about more recent criticism against the automation of labor and its effect on human jobs? Too many to count, spanning the course of decades. Though we are likely a long enough way away from the technological singularity, there are a number of jobs and tasks that run the risk of being replaced by automation. So far, we have automated phone services, self driving cars, drone delivery, a plethora of labor types, and it is becoming increasingly apparent that automation poses the threat of doing anything and everything a human can - only better.

Everything except creativity, right? Surely the human mind is necessary to accomplish any of the arts: music, fine art, photography, writing?

On the vein of creative works, one of the major premises in the XBox game “The Turing Test” is that an AI entity requires the help of a human (the protagonist) to solve a number of puzzles in order to gain access to its computer mainframe - puzzles that were designed so that only the creativity of a human mind could solve them. But how true is it that computers lack the capability to achieve this sort of creativity on its own?

A few years back, the Deep Dream Generator was making the rounds on various social media platforms where you could upload an image of your choosing, and the Deep Neural Network would “sleep on it,” or “dream,” and develop its own interpretation of the image provided. The results tended to be the stuff of nightmares instead of Deep Dreams. While it embellished upon already established art - it was not actually creating its own, indicating that we had a long way to go before computers could take over the visual spectrum of the arts.

In 2010, Iamus, which was “the first fragment of professional contemporary classical music ever composed by a computer in its own style, rather than attempting to emulate the style of existing composers as was previously done.” (source: "Computer composer honours Turing's centenary". New Scientist. 5 July 2012.) Its first full, original composition was titled “Hello World!” and was generated by Iamus in 2011, and then subsequently performed by human musicians. Iamus also has a self titled album that was performed by the London Symphony Orchestra, and features it (along with more information) at its very own webpage.

But what does any of this have to do with writing? Well, writing also has its own competitor(s) when it comes to the written word. The most recently praised neural network specializes in predictive text and goes by the name “Botnik”. Botnik had already been gaining traction in a number of online circles, but made its big break into the pop culture arena when it came up with its own chapter of Harry Potter - titled “Harry Potter and the Portrait of What Looked Like a Large Pile of Ashes."

After “Harry Potter and the Portrait of What Looked Like a Large Pile of Ashes,” people began feeding Botnik (alongside a number of other online bots) anything and everything in order to create a new and interesting Deep Dream take on pop culture. Content ranging from Game of Thrones to Olive Garden Commercials to Inspirational quotes and everything in between.

But how far can Botnik go? Could it write a blog? Let’s invite a Guest Guest Blogger, “Chris Bot-cheen” to shed some light on the subject:

[image: portrait of Chris Bot-cheen*]
Chris Bot-cheen’s Writing About Botnik**

The first place for introspection is not only inaccurate about the culture, but it muddies the water of a sanctimonious narrative.  I've been a writer and that means that you never give up on anything that antifa has done.  So today I want to change that frame of the people who espouse these atrocities and they wonder about the source material of their birth. Sometimes people indiscriminately want to be a microcosm of white nationalists, but they definitely perpetuate the power dynamic of these atrocities.

If you want to write every day and hope someone listens to the margins of our society, but somehow only ever do it a little bit, you are going to be used to sidestep conversations about guns. That someone who hates regulations and hates bipartisan cooperation isn't only a shitty insult, but also causes a lot of people unique vigor for their own acumen. When people tell the story of mental health treatment in this country and culture are rooted in white supremacy and genocide, they also ignore anyone who points out the sexism in their world.  Sometimes it's an expression of the hate we are taught every day.  Sometimes it's the same thing over and over.

Because we liked the media, our faves have created some of the most fundamental tenets of a representative democracy– so many people think they need to practice daily.  Don't always be too busy to do any actual work on listening to them and build a bridge to their interpretation of their own lives.  The things that make us monsters are not always bits working incorrectly. Sometimes it is the enculturation of an indoctrinating force of how impossibly we treat refugees. You will come up with new and interesting perspectives of the people who espouse terrible things, and that we desperately want the capacity of the last word. Some mathematicians start to watch these shows over the writer's past, and they become experts in the methodology of proving a claim.

Meaningful wisdom and even more rarely predictable tenacity, anticipate their most common questions about concepts of social equality and the slightest psychological accuracy of people. Sometimes it's the same thing about feminism that he as a cis het white male is a lot of people know, but when you hit that point where you realize you have to do cognitive dissonance and even more subdued behavior to be vulnerable. However unoriginal that racism is, it is actually a problem. That's a moment before we go on with the inimical finger pointing and our grisly postmortem narratives that blame some particular brand of liberals.

Terrifying wisdom and the slightest psychological accuracy ( the actual number is around 60 % ) are Asgard rejects, of course. What does that even mean?

"A sentinel is a lot of people who have definitively stood up to their own lives." - Lethal Deescalation

That a presidential nominee who bragged during nationally televised debates about scamming freelance workers and spent twenty degrees of "this" excuse for discrimination is a new wave of white supremacy. Each side went away from the most common bastions of advice: write every day, you improve remarkably in a relatively short time, and that we desperately want the capacity to do so while passionately being a good feminist. It is more like the art/artist fusionification of people. Especially when it is mentioned early and often.

[Image description: long line to the "comforting lies booth"]

The narrative we might escape is a lot of work to write creatively and the slightest oversight would be a little better than merely another disturbed fire. You will come up with new and interesting perspectives of people who have definitively stood up for their families without flinching. They are constantly grasping for meaningful justice asgardians who will demand academic rigor in order to accept a claim. Because when you are hiring an editor who fits your style, you are going to eventually have to apply your ass to the chair.

Bloggers who are layered and complicated with rich back stories have been conspicuously silent about the shocking uptick in their own sexuality. What does something like this idea weave at? Maybe not....

Today I have a list for everyone who wants to be a writer:

  1. [Image description: music and inspiration]
  2. you can expect meticulous attention to detail
  3. if you want to write something strange, there are also possible markets for poetry
  4. these projects of people are going to convince the world math is important
  5. " search and destroy any who would challenge her vision. " - mail list of things
  6. the things that make us hope that the skurges of our society will sit quietly into the bowels of incoherent vapidity will be human error
  7. basically ignore how often those same writers emphasize how important it is to dress up your procrastination with worry
  8. [Image description: tire fire gif]
  9. poems of the people that get the reader's attention will be drafted in their head
  10. that is not designed for anything they can get their little fingers on


If you want to write any work, that is how to make it at all. You will delight in the subtle differences between art and artists.


*The featured image was originally taken from Chris Brecheen’s Writing About Writing Facebook page, and then run through the previously mentioned Deep Dream Generator to create the Chris Bot-cheen persona and portrait 

**The featured blog post was written by “Chris Bot-cheen” using the Botnik Predictive Text app, based off of Chris Brecheen’s “Best of W.A.W.” articles and content



Hilarious as the “Chris Bot-cheen” predictive text blog post is/was, you can undeniably identify the W.A.W. literary characteristics it builds from to generate its choices in language. Using a selection from the “Best of W.A.W.” articles alone, Botnik was able to identify, pinpoint, and create its own text that was a clear reflection of iconic content that can be found throughout the real Chris’ blog. Snippets of social justice commentary, politics, and quality writing advice - sprinkled with a dash of pop culture - are easily identified as things that appear throughout the W.A.W. site… even if Botnik took it upon itself to create its own hilarious take on the language choice(s) - whether that was done deliberately or not.

Perhaps we have a little further to go before deep neural networks, especially predictive text generators, could takeover a blog like Writing about Writing. That said, the recognizable sophistication that is already present is both promising and terrifying at the same time. How long until well established bloggers or authors become indistinguishable from their digital “counterbots?” What level of complexity would it take for such a deep neural network to become interchangeable with these writers, and even other artists?

I do not claim to know the intricacies of the wide variety/ies of programming languages, nor the exact level of sophistication it would take to accomplish such an endeavor, but in my opinion we will see it happen within our lifetime(s).

For the foreseeable future, I would not plan on quitting writing in order to allow a neural network take over my writing - however neural networks such as Botnik and its digital brethren promise to provide valuable input, commentary, and a wide variety of unbiased interpretations of our own written work. While we wait for the much debated and previously mentioned technological singularity, an aspiring or established writer could plug in their existing work(s) to a literary bot and see: what sort of words they use too often, what signature phrases turn up more than they expect, or simply for their own personal entertainment. The possibilities are endless, infinitely useful, and cost nothing more than time and effort.

Give it a try with your own writing and see what you come up with!

"Lauren Avjean Parzanese is an east coast transplant who relocated to sunny California back in 2009. She has a background in finance, escrow, is a commissioned California Notary, and lifelong super geek. After well over a decade of RPG and LARP writing experience, Lauren left her day job at the beginning of 2018 and has finally begun to taste the exquisite freedom of diving into other creative mediums full time - including the occasional guest blog. Other personal and creative outlets include (but are not limited to) painting, burlesque, PC gaming (*cough* Blizzard *cough*), reading, long distance running, scifi/fantasy writing, extreme flower smelling, circus and aerial arts, and endeavoring to raise a strong, independent daughter. She is currently in the process of writing her first novel, which should be completed by the end of 2018 or early 2019."


If you would like to guest blog for Writing About Writing we would love to have an excuse to take a day off a wonderful diaspora of voices. Take a look at our guest post guidelines, and drop me a line at chris.brecheen@gmail.com.

Wednesday, June 20, 2018

The Future of Writing About Writing

Hi everyone.

Today marks the first of six Wednesdays where I'm going to try to do something a little like a pledge drive. (You know like those two weeks where NPR spends a few minutes between each show trying to convince you to become a monthly donor in exchange for an earthquake survival bucket and some water bottles? Yep, just like that....except six weeks.........and only on Wednesdays.) Since I'm unable to maintain my current posting schedule because of teaching summer school, I thought that this would be a good time to do a sustained reminder that my ability to keep on writing about writing (and occasionally some writing) largely depends on all of you.

Here are a couple of screen shots from MY PATREON.

83% of the way to medical benefits. That's.......very.....2018.

It's been a shitty summer.



I'm currently 83% to my fourth goal, which will hopefully help to pay for the private health insurance I have to buy as a freelancer as well as a bump in my taxes from not being able to write off things like my office space or computer.

So good news: we're already 83% to the new goal.


But I'm also down $56.50 in pledges from May. That's a little less rejoicerific.

What I can tell you is that most of that happened when one big donor had to cut back. And it is the reason that I assure you that even a dollar or two a month can make a big difference. While of course I love big donors, a thriving "ecosystem" of smaller donors will help me absorb more easily the loss of those big donors when they can't do as much heavy lifting. And that lets me predict my income with a lot more stability.

Since this blog's inception, BECAUSE OF DONORS, I have been able to quit teaching during the regular year, write more, bring you more content, and up the number of high quality posts each week. (And not to put too fine a point on it, but we've been able to keep bringing you content through what would otherwise have been some completely devastating life transitions that would have put most bloggers on hiatus.) Writing About Writing has been able to go from five posts a week to six. (There was a brief flirtation with seven, but we're going to need to phase out more of these side gigs.) And we've been able to take far fewer random days off.

Here are some things I'd like to add if we continue to get more support as I phase out pet sitting and dependence on side gig hours:

  • Even more posts, and more high-quality posts (less jazz hands)
  • A seventh post each week
  • A greater number of carefully (perhaps even professionally) edited and revised posts
  • More fiction
  • Always free longer fiction (books)
  • An always, forever, ad free experience on Writing About Writing


This goal is pretty arbitrary. My side gigs WILL get me the money I'm looking to make, but I am trying to phase them out and focus on writing. I may have to return to hosting ads on Writing About Writing and I may have to consider other ways to monetize my work. It's not something I want to do, and it will actually limit the range of certain kinds of content I can post, but I have an amount I need to make and eventually I will have to shore up that amount somewhere.
Remember just twelve dollars a year–just ONE DOLLAR a month–gets you in on backchannel conversations with other patrons, polls, what's going on with my life, and conversations about future projects including sometimes even me trying to get your input. But perhaps, most importantly, you'll be supporting an artist who works completely off of donations to continue making art that will always be free for everyone to enjoy.

So if you like what I do and want to see me do more of it, not do less of it, and continue to do it without ads and for free, please consider a small pledge.

Again here is that link:  https://www.patreon.com/chrisbrecheen

And of course if committing to a monthly amount isn't feasible, you can always make a one-time donation through my Paypal (at the top left of the screen).

[Note: I'll add to the bells and the whistles and the jazz hands to this appeal post each week as this six weeks of summer school goes on.]

Thank you all so much for your support.