Fifty Shades of...Station Wagons?

I haven't said much about 50 Shades of Grey since I haven't read it all (oh wait, I think I said it was shit. Never mind). Someone recently sent me a link to a tumblr thing (I am not sure what tumblr is, if it is a site or what) with quotes taken directly from the books.

While there is some incredibly awkward writing, my favorite quote so far has the main character referring to her boyfriend's (master's? Whatever) Audi SUV as a 'beast of a car'.

This makes me think E.L. James, the author, has never actually seen an Audi SUV. Here is a picture of one. In America, we call these 'station wagons'.

Also in these quotes this Grey guy is continuously referred to as a 'Dark Knight', which makes me think he sounds like Christian Bale's dopey gravelly Batman voice. Not like Michael Keaton's Batman voice. His is too good.

ERMAHGERD

I don't usually get too into memes (like everyone else on the planet I loved LOLcats until they kind of took over the Internet, now I am sort of 'meh'). But for some reason "Ermahgerd" cracks me up (if you haven't seen it, type 'ermahgerd' into Google- the meme just has pictures, with the caption "Ermahgerd >something<" but written like the Swedish Chef from The Muppet Show talks).

So I made a couple of my own.

I love cyptozoology. And like most crytozoology buffs I have a special soft spot for the thylacine, probably because its extinction (supposed extinction!) wasn't due to climate change or destruction of its habitat, but was caused by pure, simple human selfishness.

So:

 

And another, showing my devotion to the Highlander universe (well, I actually like the series better but it is surprisingly difficult to find a picture of Adrian Paul making a funny face).

So now you know the truth about why I am such a slow writer- it's not due to my having to write longhand, or my busy life...it's because I can't stop looking at and contributing to stupid Internet memes.

I hate myself.

How to Handle a Bad Review

I recently came across this blog post about an author who received a middling review on Amazon from another author, then announced his intention on his own blog to go and give her a bad review as revenge, then did so.

What a moron.

In the incriminating blog post, the author, Phil Torcivia, declares that by forgiving 'bad behavior', we are encouraging it, and so he has a God-given duty to punish those whom he believes to be misbehaving. Because writing your honest opinion of a book is somehow misbehaving.

Let's look at some other people who feel it is their right to punish people who, by their standards, behave badly:

1. Hannibal Lector.

In the film Red Dragon, Lector says that he kills people who are rude. I also dislike rude people, but I have neither the inclination nor the energy to kill them.

2. The Punisher.

Frank Castle has a good reason to be pissed. But he's spent the last 30 years or so killing naughty guys. Look where it got him: alone, covered in scar tissue, and full of bitterness. I love me some Punisher comics (movies, not so much) but no one really wants to end up where he is.

Poor Phil. Instead of manning up and swallowing this 'bad' review- because the proper way to respond to any bad review is TO DO NOTHING (if the review was somehow maliciously motivated- LIKE HIS WAS-, it always is obvious in the review itself). Instead, he is wasting valuable time when he could be writing to play silly Internet games.

To summarize:

Everyone has a right to their opinion.

When you put your work out there, you will receive their opinions.

Not everyone will love you and give you five stars, except maybe your mommy.

When someone criticizes your work, shut the fuck up and smile and nod. Whether you think it is warranted or not.

Otherwise you will end up in a Plexiglass cell in the basement of a prison, or miserable and alone in a series of shitty apartments in New York.

And no one wants that.

No Peeing in Fiction

I think one of the reasons that fiction is fiction, is because in fiction no one ever goes to the bathroom.

One of the things that struck me about Curt Benjamin's Seven Brothers trilogy (which in the way of fantasy trilogies is actually four books) is that every couple chapters, the main character would wake up in a tent somewhere and have to pee. Which he did. It was a just a sentence or two, but it added a touch of reality to a fantasy story.

Unfortunately, it was kind of boring. I mean, the reason that very few people in fiction ever have to pee is that it's not very interesting. You go in, do your business, and that's it. Even devoting a couple sentences to peeing or whatever can slip a tad of doubt into the reader's mind- "Really? We're interrupting saving the world to take a piss? I just assume every once in a while the characters go behind a tree or something."

I'm not particularly grossed out by bodily functions- I'm in the middle of potty training a toddler, so nothing icks me out anymore-, it's just that while they're important in real life, they're not really in fiction. Unless you're writing erotica, in which case there are a couple bodily functions that could be important to your story. Maybe if you were writing about a pregnant woman, peeing and vomiting would be important because you have to do it constantly when you are pregnant, but that's about it.

So no, people in my stories don't pee. I hope you can live with that.