What your mother never told you about writing

If you're a freelance writer and aren't used to being ignored, neglected, and generally given short shrift, you must not have been in the business very long.

Poppy Z. Brite 


Coleridge was a drug addict. Poe was an alcoholic. Marlowe was killed by a man whom he was treacherously trying to stab. Pope took money to keep a woman's name out of a satire then wrote a piece so that she could still be recognized anyhow. Chatterton killed himself. Byron was accused of incest. Do you still want to a writer - and if so, why?

Bennett Cerf

The work never matches the dream of perfection the artist has to start with. 

William Faulkner

I am irritated by my own writing. I am like a violinist whose ear is true, but whose fingers refuse to reproduce precisely the sound he hears within.

Gustave Flaubert


Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of, but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards.

Robert A. Heinlein 

It's tougher than Himalayan yak jerky in January.

Richard Krzemien 

Writing is not a genteel profession. It's quite nasty and tough and kind of dirty.

Rosemary Mahoney 

A person who publishes a book wilfully appears before the populace with his pants down.

Edna St. Vincent Millay


Follow the path of your aroused thought, and you will soon meet this infernal inscription: There is nothing so beautiful as that which does not exist.

Paul Valery 

Writing is so difficult that I feel that writers, having had their hell on earth, will escape all punishment hereafter.

Jessamyn West


I was working on the proof of one of my poems all the morning, and took out a comma. In the afternoon I put it back again. 

Oscar Wilde 

If writing seems hard, it’s because it is hard. It’s one of the hardest things people do.William Zinsser 


Easy reading is damned hard writing.

Anonymous

http://margaretgunnng.blogspot.ca/2013/04/the-glass-character-synopsis.html

http://members.shaw.ca/margaret_gunning/betterthanlife.htm

Sex and cigarettes

How is it that when certain movies come on TV, you drop what you're doing and watch them even if you don't like them very much? Or, at least, when said movies are seriously flawed.

This happens with Now, Voyager - EVERY time. Though I know it's nothing more than a semi-intelligent soaper with pretensions of a Heroic Journey (circa 1942), there's just something about Miz Charlotte and her travail (tra-Vale?) that sucks me in every time.

Speaking of suck. From the beginning of this thing, even before Charlotte Vale the sad little rich girl metamorphoses into Charlotte Vale the sad little rich WOMAN (having been screwed  in the tropics by Gerry, the biggest asshole to come down the turnpike since Jimmy Cagney shoved the grapefruit in Mae Clarke's face), there is smoking. Lots and lots of smoking. Charlotte the repressed spinster smokes in her room, and it's a wonder she doesn't set the whole place on fire by being so secretive with her butts.

Suck, suck, suck. Just picture all those cancer cells forming deep down in the lungs. Yet in that era, sex and seduction were all intertwined with cigarettes. In this movie, smoking is more ritualized than in any other I can think of. Gerry (a carnivorous bastard happily juggling two women, neither of which can actually have him) has a charming habit of shoving two cigarettes in his face, lighting them both in a great livid explosion, then handing one of them to Charlotte like she's being granted her last wish before being executed.

Ah, those smoldering looks. He can afford to smolder because he has no goddamn responsibilities whatsoever. This is one of several things that bother the hell out me about this movie - that, and the way he is portrayed as some sort of saint when he's really just busy cattin' around from woman to woman  and blowing lots of smoke. The other thing that sets my teeth on edge is that daughter of his, Tina, a whiny, clingy sort of lamprey whom Charlotte fastens on to as a DEVICE (no less) to force Gerry to stay in her life and not chase the next piece of tail that comes down the turnpike.

Ahhhh! Gerry in that tent or wherever-the-fuck they are! Out somewhere. Anyway, they're all bundled up talking (smoking, too, I think) and there's this big fire in the fireplace, and then the fire burns down real low and the camera pans back to them and it looks like she's wearing his pajamas. This means they must have had sex. Charlotte keeps referring to it over and over again in the most coy manner possible, i. e. telling her fiance (whom she rejects, maybe because he's too nice or doesn't smoke enough) that she "must sound depraved", which she does. But when you think about it, screwing around with a married man IS a form of moral turpitude and can't really be defended, even if Charlotte takes on the noble, selfless role of Tina's quasi-mother to save Gerry's family/keep him on the string. 

But ya gotta wonder. . . are these guys smokin', or tokin'?

http://margaretgunnng.blogspot.ca/2013/04/the-glass-character-synopsis.html

http://members.shaw.ca/margaret_gunning/betterthanlife.htm

Pretty poison

Maybe I should title this post "nasty behaviour from nice people". Or at least, people who truly believe they are nice, and who have convinced everyone around them that they're nice.

But what's that smell?

I'll tell you. They exude just a trace of toxic fumes, just enough to unsettle those with a good enough olfactory sense to pick it up. This is confusing because it doesn't match up with their social gloss.

Sociopaths? Of course not. This could be your Aunt Edna - in fact, it probably is your Aunt Edna.. Do these people even know they are taking people by the nose and twisting it as hard as they can?

Probably not. Their self-awareness is close to zero, whereas their ability to size up and minutely analyze their prey is astonishing.

The better to eat them with.

The first example, which is often quite subtle and usually happens over the phone, is one I call "and how is". This person incessantly asks after others. Your husband, your brother, your children, your gynecologist, your garage mechanic. You sort of go along with it, feeling increasingly squirmy and not knowing why.

I WILL TELL YOU WHY.

When a person incessantly "asks after" people, it makes them look super-polite and interested in other people, which is always a good thing, isn't it? Admirable, isn't it? Then why does the person posing all the questions never actually SAY anything? And why, when you finally hang up after 90 minutes of "and how is", do you feel like you could drop dead in your tracks?

Because they have siphoned you, that's why. Pretty Poison people are emotional vampires, and they know all sorts of subtle ways to suck your vital energy so that it becomes their own. "And how is" means they never have to say anything, so YOU have to do all the talking (read: self-revealing). After a while you realize you can't get out of this. You are forced to tell, tell, tell, until eventually you're telling them things you never intended to reveal to anyone.

Meantime, the person on the other end remains in a secure and invulnerable fortress, completely safe from any kind of probing. He/she has just laid the other person open, even gutted them, while remaining completely defended and protected. Genius, isn't it.

Oh God, we're just starting here! I'll never get them all in, but I'll try. Turning it around. This was a favorite ploy in my family of origin. I knew I had been emotionally abused as a child, and my sister even acknowledged it years ago. But when I stated it a little more firmly in a letter, there was a huge outcry that I was being horribly abusive. How could I even think of accusing anyone in this family of anything except loving kindness? My Dad's alcoholism, which my sister had clearly acknowledged on paper, was suddenly sucked back and no longer existed. The wagons went in a circle and I was shut out. Later I discovered that when my mother died, my name was casually left out of the obituary as if I had never existed. The record had been wiped clean.

That's what you get for messing with such "nice" people.

I'll make this one short, but it's especially awful: a thin girl says, "oh, I'm so FAT" in front of a girl who truly is fat. I don't need to add more to this one, as it happens all the time, with adults as well as children.

"You're too sensitive." (Corollary, kicking it up a notch: "You're crazy.") This too-sensitive amateur diagnosis means the other person has license to treat you like shit stuck to somebody's shoe. If you react at all, you're obviously fucked up. Another nice way of abdicating responsibility and making the injured party the source of the problem.

There's one I call "vague-ing". Pretending not to remember things, commitments, messages, etc. and claiming these things either never happened, or were so insignificant as to not even register. Often these are related to having your basic needs met in the relationship (chief among them acknowledgement that you exist). This involves ignoring, consistently losing or "misplacing" important things: "oh, did you send me something? It's just that I get SO many emails, maybe yours just got lost."  But if you call them on all this toxic swill, suddenly YOU are being unkind and hypercritical. "Why are you picking on ME for something so petty? I really think you need to work on your abandonment issues." (Assuming the role of "healer" when you're hopelessly fucked-up yourself deserves a post of its own.)

Dumptruck Syndrome. This occurs especially after a breakup. The phone calls gradually escalate and become more and more one-sided, but it is impossible to get away without just hanging up. Winding it up is agonizing, and the call "ends" about fifteen times before another freshet of self-pity cascades down and washes your vitality down the drain. These can also come by email, usually from the person who completely ignored your messages because they "just get so many emails, they can't keep track of them all" (see above). And yet, strangely enough, they suddenly tell you that "you're the only person in the world who understands me" (often accompanied by vague threats of suicide). So how can you fail to support them in their hour of need? What's the matter with you - how heartless can a person be?

A related syndrome is Human Vacuum Cleaner. Often you don't even know you're being sucked. This is usually an especially nice, compassionate person who is essentially alone except for her cats. Every time you try to have a conversation with her, it immediately slides into "drone mode" - endless chains of boring drivel about her Grade 10 biology teacher and the color of tie he wore to school, or the symbolic dream she had last night about her cats standing up on two legs and walking around, or New Age crap books you wouldn't touch with a 10-foot pole. (Later she will press one of them into your hands, leaving you with the uncomfortable feeling that you "owe" her, and ask you incessantly "how much you liked it".) You start to feel an actual, physical sucking sensation, being drawn into her astonishingly dull orbit, and on the phone it's so bad you disappear into the receiver and can't be found. She never states outright that you are her only friend, but one day she unleashes a torrent of dark childhood memories and recounts all the gruesome forms of self-mutilation she has never told anyone else about. This is just before referring to her cat as her "spouse".

If one of these parasites saw this article, they would probably say, look, you'd better read this one, it sounds exactly like you.

Jesus! It sucks.

http://margaretgunnng.blogspot.ca/2013/04/the-glass-character-synopsis.html

http://members.shaw.ca/margaret_gunning/betterthanlife.htm

Ducks blown off their feet by the wind

Magic

Bigfoot ROCKS! (or: you can hardly see the zipper)

http://margaretgunnng.blogspot.ca/2013/04/the-glass-character-synopsis.html

http://members.shaw.ca/margaret_gunning/betterthanlife.htm

Harold, mon amour

In the clutches of a nightmare

My gif-making hobby appears to have hit a new low. For years I told my children about a bizarre cartoon series called The Adventures of Clutch Cargo (with his pals, Spinner and Paddlefoot). They not only doubted me, they thought I was totally loony.

This series had absolutely no animation in it whatsoever. In an evil process called Syncrovox, a real person's mouth was superimposed on a still picture of what might be a face.

The characters were basically cardboard cutouts mounted on a stick, and were moved along realistically by some poor sod in behind that bush-looking thing.

No one can quite guess the identity of this odd jungle-dwelling creature with the W. C. Fields nose and top hat. The horn-rims do look a mite familiar.

I used to wonder why you never saw their feet. Now I realize they had no feet. They had STICKS.

And now comes the uncomfortable issue of the relationship between Clutch Cargo and Spinner. Clutch isn't Spinner's uncle or Dad or anything, just some guy who wants an eight-year-old boy with him when he goes on his adventures. His name, too, is problematic. Just what does it mean? And why is Paddlefoot a dachschund instead of, say, a black lab or a Doberman pinscher? The mysteries just multiply with time. 

Clutch Cargo DID pass on a certain legacy. One of the strangest feats of animation I've ever seen is The Annoying Orange YouTube series, featuring a throng of loquacious fruits and vegetables (with the odd marshmallow thrown in). Obviously it uses the same Syncrovox technique, only with more prominent teeth (and the addition of eyes, even creepier than the mouth). As with Clutch and the gang, these characters can't walk and have no feet, though I suppose they can be thrown. With great force.

http://margaretgunnng.blogspot.ca/2013/04/the-glass-character-synopsis.html

http://members.shaw.ca/margaret_gunning/betterthanlife.htm

This one doesn't move (but I wish it would)

From Margaret's Studio of Unoriginal but Well-Intentioned Photoshop Art.

Should I go gay?

. . . because that's what I think of doing when I see these incredible photos of Liz Taylor in her prime.

The headgear impresses me especially. Kind of like balancing an entire set of encyclopedias on your head.

She always gave off a sense that something almost unbearably exciting was about to happen.

Such as. . . 

http://margaretgunnng.blogspot.ca/2013/04/the-glass-character-synopsis.html

http://members.shaw.ca/margaret_gunning/betterthanlife.htm

New and improved!

From the trailer for the Blu-ray re-release of Safety Last! For a gif, this is a revelation. You can see every little car down there.

The sugar daddy ambush

Do you know what I shit-hate these days?

Stupid people. Or maybe I always have.

We had a nice time at the Canada Day celebrations yesterday at Coquitlam Town Centre Park. Yes, a very nice time looking at displays, sampling food, listening to multicultural music, watching kids on climbing walls, and all those Canada-day-type things.

Then as we were walking along, just walking along in complete innocence, a woman, low to the ground and of indeterminate age, literally ran at us and pressed a booklet into my hands.

“This is a book that’s very helpful for seniors with issues,” she chirped.

I stopped in my tracks.

“Give it to him,” I said, pointing to my very grey, very-much-older husband.

“Oh, that’s what they all say,” she twittered. “I won’t admit to my age either, sweetie.”

My mouth opened and Bill tugged me onwards, sensing a coming storm. “Thanks a LOT,” I yelled back at her as we walked away. “Oh, don’t mention it,” the woman tweeted, obviously delighted she had snagged another victim.

I mean, Jesus!

She RUNS up to people whom she has decided are “old”. Old enough to qualify as “seniors”. This includes women. Last time I checked, most women are not thrilled and delighted to state their age if they’re, say, over 50. Not that it’s a bad thing, but let’s not jump the gun.

We all sort of hope we look at least a few years younger than our chronological age. I thought this was nearly universal. Isn’t it? If not, when did it change? (If you think this is the first time seniors' propaganda has been pressed on me, guess again.)

And to have someone RUN at you because you look like a suitable pigeon for a book on “seniors' issues” is atrocious. “Oh, look, some fossils walking along! I’d better catch them before they fall over.”

My husband thought I was overreacting and said (as I dumped the goddamned ripped-up booklet into the garbage: I glanced at it and it said, among other things, “Where to meet seniors”, so it was probably publicity for a disguised escort service), “It was because of me.”

Well, maybe it WAS because of him. He’s greyer than me, mostly because I color my hair. But please, no running after prey, especially not older prey! They might not be too thrilled to be recruited for the ranks of the over-65, particularly if they are a good many years younger.

And don’t tell me, as I am always condescendingly told, “Oh, don't feel bad. 'Senior' begins at 40”. That’s a load of bullshit and you know it. Would a 40-year-old woman, still deluding herself that she can have another baby like all those Hollywood stars, welcome a booklet on how to pick up a doddering old sugar daddy?

Oh, and. This is even worse. It’s those people who miss irony, and think YOU’RE dumb.

I had a recent attack of this on Facebook. Somebody named a scientific principle, one often quoted on The Big Bang Theory (which is my religion), and I riffed on it in an ironic manner.  The person posted a “now, now, now, that’s not what it means at all” sort of reply, telling me exactly what the principle was and why I had gone so wrong in misinterpreting it.

Why are people so thick? Why do they always turn it around so that ***I*** am the stupid and/or ignorant one, and that I need to be immediately set straight? Whoever these people are, and most of them wear penises to work every day, they do not “get” irony, have perhaps never heard of it, and take absolutely everything literally.

In other words. . . they are men.

It’s not too nice when a joke falls flat, but when the other person has no idea it IS a joke and corrects you for your misinformation, it’s worse than annoying and leaves you with an insulted, put-down, even pitied feeling. Meantime you know you are skating rings around this dullard in wordplay skills and subtlety, not to mention basic intelligence.

But who wins in the ignoramus sweepstakes? Who comes out looking far more clever and erudite?  Could it be me? Are you out of your freaking MIND? Never mind that I’m invariably right, because being right has nothing to do with it. It's all about power and putting so-called "ignorant" people (usually women, assumed to be about as smart as Kha Kha Kardashian - oops, her name is Khloe - I'm so sorry - I got it wrong!) in their place.

Do I think I am smarter than other people (a sin worse than murder)? I don’t just think it, I KNOW it, and Facebook proves it to me every blessed, persecuted day of my life. (Oh, and. This deserves a post of its own, but I will mention it here. Someone will refer to something atrocious, destructive, and categorically WRONG. Then someone else will say, "Oh, it's always been like that." Some people, fancying themselves to be historians because they watch the History Channel, will say, "People have done that since the Etruscans in the year 14 billion B. C." The fact that "we've been doing this for a long time" is supposed to end the discussion. Suddenly, now the most heinous behaviour is OK and acceptable because we've been doing it forever! Make sense? 

Add to this one another ludicrous fallacy. I call it "men do this too!". Anything men do automatically justifies whatever negative, weak or shameful thing women are doing. It renders their sins more acceptable, though only a small percentage of this filters through to women. But at least they aren't seen as the snivelling bitches they were before. . . because after all, "men cry at the movies too".)

(I have to confess something really awful. I think that picture is really Khim Kardashian - or is that Kim - oh, will someone please set me straight here? And my much smarter boy friend just told me that the Etruscans didn't really live in 14 billion B. C. because the theme song of The Big Bang Theory says that that was when the universe was created. Why do I bother keeping a blog at all? I'm just a silly little girl.)

  Visit Margaret's Amazon Author Page!

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001K7NGDA