Hi, hi.

would you shop at urban outfitters and buy a mug with a kitten on it, wearing thick reading glasses you don't need?

I'm Straight Edge.

No but I'd totally buy a teeshirt with a kitten on it wearing thick glasses that it doesn't need.

perfect.

So you're not going to fight me for this bump?

me? or Z. quote button is friend to all.

welcome anyway.

i don't know, whoever i have to watch out for more.

Definitely watch out for Levi. He's a cut-throat bitch if ever there was one.

Etc.

and so on. i guess i'm a fish now.

Welcome PMW,

Your priorities are off in your screen name, though. Money first.

-TK

Hello, I just want to welcome you here... to a place that I really don't understand. I am what you call a lurker, I am always around just reading what others post mainly because I find what others say humorous. I am a tool... Anyways for whatever it means... I welcome you here to the cult.

Cocaine is a helluva drug.

Tabitha,

On my reading list:

"kiss me, judas"; Will Christopher Baer (think noir)
"Palm Latitudes"; Kate Braverman (has a protagonist named La Puta de la Luna)
"The Unnamed"; Joshua Ferris...which opens:

It was the cruelest winter. The winds were rabid off the rivers. Ice came down like poisoned darts. Four blizzards in January alone, and the snowbanks froze into gray barricades as grim and impenetrable as anything in war. Tombstones were buried across the cemetery fields and cars parked curbside were swallowed undigested...

You gotta love that, Rich

I've always thought starting a story with the weather was pretty weak writing.

It was a dark and stormy night...

Like most anything, it's hackneyed unless you're AWESOME at it. Most people are not Hemingway, unfortunately.

Let's start with a circle, in fact, let's call it a tomato. The tomato represents all the things that could be written. Now let's start to hack and carve the tomato, taking out chunks for every rule of writing, every contradictory and conflicting rule you've ever learned about how to write. Let me know if there's anything left of the tomato when you're done following every rule of writing -- maybe just a squirt of tomato juice, if that.

When you write, do you think about all the rules of what you shouldn't do? This would lead me to stop writing and to start drinking.

Like Hemingway!!!

Read the excerpt that I posted. Did it effectively set the mood of the piece? Did it pique your interest to read more? Did it serve to ground the piece? That's my rule -- if it works, it's ok.

Rewrite the rules, dammit.

You should always keep the rules in mind when you write, even if you don't necessarily follow them. Kind of like how you should keep the rules of driving in mind when you encounter a stop sign.

Yeah, otherwise you might get in a crash and end up time travelling.

Writing isn't a tomato. Writing is a restaurant and you're the chef and you're cooking the same old shit if you're talking about the weather, shit's been cooked before by the best of chefs and people are hungry for something that isn't so meat and potatoes, even if they would eat it at a gourmet restaurant.

Writing is an apple. You've got the core, and in the core are seeds that will allow you to continue the art and move it forward. You've got the flesh, the sweet, juicy goodness that everyone is interested in. You've got the skin, which holds it all together in a coherent shape and protects the juicy goodness from leaking all over the place in a mess. You've got the stem that once connected it to the tree, created by a seed from another apple. Whether it's a seed you planted or one planted by someone else doesn't really matter. But once it matures and comes to "fruition," it drops off and is it's own piece of goodness ready to be consumed.

Writing is a banana. You need to peel its skin off before you can eat it, and it's yellow, like urine.

No .... Writing is like playing Jenga™, a game by Parker Brothers, a division of Hasbro Toys, makers of family games for over two hundred years; you stack and maneuver each piece, reaching higher while maintaining the integrity of your Jenga™ tower. Except, every now and then, instead of stacking in the usual expected manner, you place a block-on-end, or you balance a marble in the middle, or a piece of broccoli, then build around it, and continue upwards. When your tower is a continuous layer a single block wide, n-blocks high, you have your story; stable, harmonic, deadly in its unyielding Jengocity®.

Krazy-Glue™ can help you achieve your goal, but results in Jenga™ towers like Angels & Demons a novel by Dan Brown.

Point taken. There are stop signs, and then there are "stopionals". What a weird world it would be if everyone stopped at stopionals.

I like to think of it as, you always stop at a stop sign unless you KNOW you can get away with running it. You have to be alert and aware and know what you're doing is, technically, wrong.

Anyway, we've raped enough metaphors for one day.

Welcome. I totally thought you were going to be some assclown, middle-class, 15 year old white boy, trying to fit in to today's current hip-hop inspired climate (speaking of weather). How refreshing to see that you can remove the penis from the above assumption, insert a vagina, then BAM....you've fooled us all!

no really, welcome. I shall deem you, "The Ladybag"

A metaphor is like a grape, once you have one you have to have a whole bunch.

A metaphor is like a grape. Don't give me one with the goddamn seeds.

Your user name is really stupid, Pussy Money Weed.

Insightful is the word you're looking for.

Writing is a like a beautiful, beautiful woman. You need to peel its skin off before you can eat it, and it's yellow, like urine.

Also, Similes are like metaphors except they use "like" and "as."

Hi, you say you are a hipster, but do you have a hipster puppy? I don't like hipsters, really, but what I wouldn't give for one of them puppies...

Your username is Hilla-rat. My first choice for user name was sluttysharks, is that better?

WTF

It's the best one ever.

PUSSY MONEY WEED YOU ARE MY USERNAME HERO

Whoa. It was funny but c'mon.

I didn't say it was THE funniest thing ever said. Just the funniest thing HE ever said.

This nigga^

Who me?

You motherfucker!

I don't fuck mothers (except that Italian guy's), nor am I racist. This is the internet.

Furthermore, I don't want to fight with you unless we can have make-up sex.

And if you think that's the funniest thing Tony's ever said, you've not been around long enough. Or you have bad taste.

Yes! Save the Pussy Money Weed for Lil Wayne.