Tag Archives: literature

How to Gain Readers, Followers, and Likers at Platitude Press — I mean, WordPress.com

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1.   Platitude your attitude!

•   Publish tepid, smarmy truisms and utterly bland but encouraging words of wisdom, such as:

“Be true to yourself and follow your heart and look on the bright side and remember that real wealth cannot be stored in a cash register or a bank.”

10,000 people like this.

•   Avoid edgy, original, creative writing that puts average people out of their mediocre comfort zone.

“We frequently forgive those who bore us, but cannot forgive those whom we bore–” 

0 people like this.

–written by a famous French dude from the 17th Century

Oh, well in that case, 10,000 people like this.

2.   Follow blogs whose bloggers follow your blog even you think their blog is boring and/or stupid.

Because you can always un-follow them later and WordPress won’t let them know!

3.   Similarly, “like” blog-posts whose bloggers like your blog-posts even if you don’t really like their blog-posts.

Let’s create a giant, virtual, self-affirming circle-jerk!

4.   Be a young woman with an attractive profile picture.

After all, following an attractive woman’s blog and “liking” her insipid blather will increase your odds of getting some play by 0.00001 %

5.   Pay WordPress.com some money.

Get the Deluxe Version for $18.99 and they will feature your platitudinous mush on their “New & Noteworthy” cover page (or whatever they call it–I never read that shit.)

6.   Pay WordPress.com some money.

This advice is so nice I had to say it twice. And besides, what’s the harm in saying things that have been said a million times before? That’s the best way to get mediocre people to “like” you.

Solution to Your Writer’s Block: Shut the Fuck Up!

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“When I have nothing to say, my lips are sealed…[because]… I don’t have to prove that I am creative.”
–The Talking Heads (David Byrne) from the songs Psycho Killer and Artists Only

A fan of this blog sent a note saying they were glad that I am “writing again.”

Thanks Mom, but in fact, I am not “writing again.”  If you don’t see anything posted here, it’s because I have nothing to say–period.

And I refuse to force it–no muse, no news.  Why force uninspired verbiage on a world drowning in wasted words?

The biggest mistake is to think of yourself “as a writer” because that inevitably leads to the mistaken notion that “Shit, I’m a writer–I need to write something.”

Wrong!

Rather, there are people with something to say some of the time, and there are people who never have anything to say publicly, and the former is not any better than the latter, and no one–no one!–ever has something worth publicizing all the time.

If you have to force yourself to write something, imagine how excruciating it’s going to be for us to have to read it!  And think of all the genuinely inspired writing that you could be drowning out by forcing your uninspired verbiage upon us.

So think of writer’s block as a muse of its own, a muse that inspires us to shut the fuck up.

An Artist-Writer Dilemma

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If you could write the world’s greatest literature (or create the world’s greatest art) on the condition that no one would ever know about it, OR you could write/create the world’s 50th greatest art-lit and everyone would know about it, which would you choose?

My hunch is that most art-litters would take the 50th best spot.

Meaning we’re all just a bunch of publicity whores and no one’s a true artist.

God the truth is so painful!

But here’s where Anthropology [trumpets] can save you yet again:

Anthro-Geek:    “All this proves is the communicative nature of culture, not any deficiency of character on the part of artists and writers, or of humanity in general.”

God the truth is so boring!

Damn you Anthro-Geek, I had a good blanket condemnation going on!  Do you realize what people will give for a good blanket condemnation of other people? Now all I have is this mushy-but-obviously-correct sense of tolerance and understanding.

And that’s got no fucking edge at all! None!

Anthro-Geek:    “As progress is made in the social sciences and filtered out into general society it is natural that new aesthetic standards will arise which require less reliance on the stereotypes, pejoratives, and biases that have been previously debunked by the social sciences.”

All I know is that we’re bleeding readers every time you speak.

Alpha Scholars Say Suck My Theory!

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It is unfortunate when academic debates in the social sciences devolve into thinly-veiled personal references, even when those debates are held at unrelated conventions:
 
Professor A. Nuss: My theory is bigger–it encompasses more case examples.
Professor B. Stiality: My theory is harder, more robust–it requires fewer exceptions and special circumstances for it to work
Professor C. Menn: Oh yeah, my theory lasts longer–it covers a much greater period of time!
Professor D. Ildo: You’re all douchebags–my theory delivers a bigger cognitive payload right in the readers’ face where they love it.
Professor A: Look–all the chicks love my theory.
Professor B: Your Mama doesn’t count!
Professor A: My Mama was a great social scientist, so suck my theory!”
Professor C: No, suck my theory!
Professor D: Gargle my data and swallow my hypotheses!
Professor A: Choke on my conclusions, one at a time!
Professor B: You don’t have conclusions, you just have reconfigured jargon.
Professor A: (hurt) “Reconfigured jargon,” eh?… Wow, that’s kinda personal, kinda hurts…(recomposed) ahh peer-review this, schol-liar!
Professor C: Just suck the theory, get it over with, pretend it never happened, and I won’t remind you until I develop a new one–in about ten hours ah-hah!…
 
Warren Peace: My book’s the biggest, so suck my novel!…
Professors A, B, C & D: (puzzled)…. What are you doing here?
Warren Peace: I thought this was a convention for Victims of the Signature Effect (ViSE).
Professors: It is, but this is the non-fiction and academic section–you want down the hall. Look for Alison Wonderland, Belle Jar, Lord O’Flies, Onda Waterfront, Anne M. L. Farm–
Warrren: Yes, yes, thank you, I think I can make my way there now–
Professor A: Now you might also look for Tequila Mockingbird, she was our keynote speaker for the ViSE convention last year–
Warren: –Yes, yes, thank you, I’ll just–
Professor B: Now if you run into Sergeant Pepper or Colonel Ingus, then you’ve walked too far and gone into the military section–
Warren: –Yes, thank you, yes–
Professor C: And if you see Sy Lent Knight, then you’re obviously in–
Warren: –the Christmas Carol section, right, so I’ll just be–
Professor D: ViSE people don’t call them “carols”–you know, sensitivity and stuff–but yes, that would be the Christmas Song section of the ViSE convention–
Warren: –to which I am late to my subcommittee meeting for people inadvertantly named after great novels they’ve never finished reading, thank you gentlemen and ladies–
Professors A, B, C & D: See ya at the closing ceremonies. Pat McGroin will be speaking!
Warren: …I thought it was the attorney David Boies who was to speak.
Professor A. Nuss:  Not since he changed his middle name and got rid of “Lykes”–
Professor B. Stiality:  –He’s a coward ’round here. ‘Not welcome at ViSE no more.
 
(c) 2012, Alan Brech