This journal is "Friends Only." I will usually add anyone who adds me if we have interests in common.

I POST A LOT. If you add me, my posts will probably take over your entire friends page. You have been warned.

MCR friends: Remember that guy who said Gerard (Garry) had plagiarized something from one of his comic books, although he couldn't say exactly what or from where? And he posted a public rant in his LJ about how all he wanted was for Gerard to stop denying having worked for him? And then everyone went and ranted back at him? And the whole thing was pointless in the first place because Gerard never DID deny working for him? It was back in... like... I don't even remember, but there was snow on the ground, so at least a few months ago.

Anyway, I must have posted some reply to his rant as well. I don't remember what. I remember I thought he was trying to cash in on Gerard's fame, so I probably said something like that.

So today he comes to one of my public posts (was public; I just flocked it), which is about gardening, of all things, and posts this reply:

Subject: Tell all of the kids who hate I have an opportunity for them...
AMERICAN HORRORS WANTS YOU!
Hart D. Fisher Seeks Horror Features, Shorts, and Music Videos For Broadcast on New European Television Network

International Horror Legend Hart D. Fisher, through his company Crime Pays Inc., has announced that he is seeking independent full-length horror films, shorts, and music videos to feature on his new show, American Horrors, for European television. He is seeking films that have solid characterization, fresh ideas, new villains, and adhere more to the sustained suspense of classic shockers from the past such as The Shining, The Omen, Wait Until Dark, The Howling, John Carpenters The Thing and The Exorcist.

( blah blah blah )

***

I didn't remember who he was. I figured someone was just spamming everyone who had "My Chemical Romance" listed in their interests, because I sure don't have horror, comics, or film making in my interests. I replied, "I'm reporting this as spam," and then I did. He sent me this message:

You posted hate on my page, I gave you a gift...

You posted hate on my page.

I gave you an opportunity to share with talented people.

That is not spamming. It is called turning the other cheek.

You've only shown what you're really about.

Hating.

Ohhhh, I see, he wasn't just spamming everyone he's ever met, he's being generous and altruistic. My mistake. I replied that whatever I said on his LJ, I'm pretty sure it had to do with his actual post and was not an advertizement.

ETA: I found my hate! It was back in February. Here's what I said in my original "hate" comment to him:

I haven't read Umbrella Academy and or anything, and for all I know everything you say could be true, but the whole tone of this post makes me think you're really just trying to garner attention for your own company.

Or maybe the book Gerard did for you really sucked and he's embarrassed about it.

I had to read eight anti-Gerard rants before I found the one I commented on. Gah. Here they are for your reading enjoyment. I'm not sure this is all of them.

http://bonedaddy777.livejournal.com/295471.html
http://bonedaddy777.livejournal.com/295868.html
http://bonedaddy777.livejournal.com/296824.html
http://bonedaddy777.livejournal.com/297611.html
http://bonedaddy777.livejournal.com/297902.html
http://bonedaddy777.livejournal.com/298572.html
http://bonedaddy777.livejournal.com/298769.html
http://bonedaddy777.livejournal.com/300146.html
http://bonedaddy777.livejournal.com/303115.html

I came very close to actually liking my brother in law when he said "I'm gonna go marry a dude just because I CAN." And he's like, hetero and protestant and stuff. Oh, and already married to my sister.

I'm not sure what my parents think about homosexuality. They didn't raise me with any particular beliefs about it. I know that my dad was a great fan of Virginia Woolf, and my mother was a fag hag who didn't like lesbians until she was forced to take a road trip with one and realized they're just as screwed up as the rest of us. But they're also really really REALLY Catholic, and I'm just not sure. But in any case, they definitely don't think that gay people getting married is any threat to them, and if a couple of 70-year-old Catholic heteros in freaking IDAHO don't feel threatened by it, how can anyone else?

And let's talk about marriage in general. I'm not a great fan of it, but I don't have strong feelings about it. Basically I think its main purpose is to provide a safety net for the children: If one parent can't take care of the kids, the other one is legally obligated to. (I know its roots are in property ownership, but those laws are no longer applicable.) And gay people can't have children together. But they can RAISE children, and I don't see the difference.

Should they be allowed to raise children? Well, statistics say that the offspring of gay parents, biological or adopted, are about 10%-20% likely to be gay... exactly the same as the rest of the population. So, assuming you think being gay is bad and wrong, letting them raise kids STILL isn't hurting anyone. It makes no difference.

The argument about how it demeans traditional marriage: If you think your marriage is demeaned by other peoples' marriages, you need to rethink the whole thing because WHUT.

Where I'm coming from: When I was about 11 I asked my mom what "gay" meant and she said it was when a man only fell in love with other men. I didn't see the problem. When I was 12 I went to Girl Scout camp, where 38 of the 40 counsellors were lesbians. One of my friends asked me what I thought of that and it hadn't really occurred to me to have an opinion because at 12 I wasn't aware of the stigma against it.

I continued to be unaware of it until my senior year of high school, when this popular, good-looking boy came out of the closet and suddenly everybody hated him. There were other gay people in school but nobody cared - the just hated THIS guy. I think it was because the other gay kids were really open about it, so the homophobes simply avoided them and it never came up. Or, if they did rag on them, they didn't do it around me because I was friends with them and they didn't want to start an argument or something. Or they just thought they "out" kids were less threatening. I don't know. For whatever reason, I never saw homophobia in action until I was 18, and by then I already knew gay people were just like the rest of us. Or rather, I never even thought about it because I had NO IDEA it was an issue.

That's why it appals me that any politician would say that gay people shouldn't have the same civil rights as everyone else.

I live in Minnesota. In the 1990s we briefly had "domestic partnerships" for gay people (or straight people, even!) but it was later overturned. I think something similar happened in Hawaii. That was a decade ago. Any politician who now supports domestic partnerships for gay people but not marriage is proposing a step backwards, not forwards. We have gay marriage in two states now. Nothing less than that should be acceptable.

That's why it appals me that any politician now, in 2008, would support civil unions but not marriage for gays and still say they're for progress.

For a lot of the 18th and 19th centuries, the census would count black people as 2/3 of a person. I fail to see how this is ANY different.

There was a time when only property owners could vote, and women couldn't own property. Then there was a period where women could own property but not vote. Now we think that's insane. Gay people can own property and vote and are counted as whole people in a census. But they can't be married, a right so basic that even women and black people have ALWAYS been allowed to do it, even when they were considered less than human.

ETA: I sent abbreviated versions of this rant to both McCain and Obama. In case you were wondering.

My meds make my memory a little fuzzy sometimes, which maybe is partly why I've been posting on LJ so much more since I started them - instinctively trying to help myself remember things. I'm completely dependent on LJ for writing my Xmas letters; I wouldn't have been able to put 2006 or 2007 in order at all if it hadn't been for my blog.

Anyway, someone removed me from her f-list without saying why. (Usually when I get removed the person posts one of those "f-list purge" notices explaining that they deleted people they never really talk to or who post too much or whatever.) The weird thing is, I think I did know why, only I can't remember! I remember a couple of days ago seeing something in her lj that made me think, "Oh, she'll probably un-friend me now," but for the LIFE of me I can't remember what it was! I can't even remember if it was political, personal, fandom-related, LJ-related, or what.

Speaking of f-list purges, I did one several months ago where I deleted anyone who I thought wasn't really reading my LJ. I kind assumed that no one I deleted would care, but a handful did want to be added back. So here's another chance: If you were deleted and you want to be back on my f-list, comment and I'll add you back.

(ETA: I don't mind that this person deleted me, I mind that I can't remember why!)

My hobby is bad!fic. I discovered fan fiction while bored at work, and discovered bad!fic minutes later. I left feedback. People started me asking questions like "Why do I have to put a comma there?" and "Why can't I call Draco 'the blonde Slytherin'?" So I started looking for web pages that could explain things better than I can.

These are my favorites. First general writing tips, then fiction, then everyone's favorite, Mary Sue!


General:

Commonly confused words

"Lay" versus "lie"
That's my own, but feel free to link to it whenever you want.

Ten Guidelines for Stronger Sentences

Elements of Style by Strunk and White
The full text of the original 1918 version. It's in its fourth edition now, but surprisingly little has changed in 90 years.

Fiction

Epithets
Includes a long list of examples, what's wrong with using them, and when you should use them.

How to punctuate and capitalize dialogue

Making Dialogue Tags Pull Their Weight

Avoid Creative Dialogue Tag Syndrome

Multiple Points of View

Mary Sue:

Wikipedia actually has the most exhaustive explanation of Mary Sue I've seen.

Silly Novels by Lady Novelists by George Eliot, 1856
The earliest known Mary Sue rant.

Essays on Mary Sue:

Who is Mary Sue?
150 Years of Mary Sue
Shameless Setteis and Mary Sues
Whatever Happened to Mary Sue?
A Historical Perspective on Mary Sue Issues and Trends

See Teresa Nielsen Hayden's famous essay, Namarie Sue, for even more links!

But don't get the idea that you're safe from Mary Sue just because you're not reading/writing fan fiction. She lurks everywhere.

(ETA: I had this MCR-filtered, but unlocked it by request.)

I posted this in fuckyou_mcr last night, and people seem to have found it very helpful - but I don't think most of my MCR flist is in that community, so...

How to write MCR slash: A short guide for those who may be thinking of dabbling in it.

Mandatory:

1. Mikey must be raped.
2. Include at least two of the following: Bert McCracken, Pete Wentz, Adam Lazarra, Brendon Urie, Jared Leto.
3. Gerard is the fairest in the land. Under no circumstances may anyone be more beautiful than Gerard.
4. Crying. Lots and lots of crying.
5. At least one suicide attempt or accidental overdose.

Strongly encouraged:

1. Frank in a coma.
2. Fatal disease.
3. Deafness or blindness.
4. Mary Sue.
5. Tour bus breakdown.

Optional:

1. Bob Bryar.
2. Any references to music.
3. Spell check.
4. Completing the story.
5. LJ-cut.

Plots you can choose from:

1. Lab partners Gerard and Frank fall in love.
2. Teacher Gerard/Frank/Ray and student Gerard/Mikey/Ray fall in love.
3. Gerard is a vampire and turns Frank.
4. Gerard or Frank is addicted to something and the other one helps him overcome it.
5. Mikey/Frank/Gerard is being abused; Ray/Frank/Gerard rescues him.

I didn't know this until now, but at weather.com you can sign up to have severe weather alerts sent to your phone. Of course, usually if there's severe weather you can just look out the window, but tornadoes can seem to spring up out of nowhere, and I for one can't always hear the sirens over the wind. Sign up here.

Okay, here's my idea: I pick 20 or so of the best lines in Hamlet (my choice) and people have to write a fic based on one of them. It could be any fandom, or original fic. But if it's fandom it can't be AU.

I would create a multi-fandom fic challenge community. Or maybe it would be a prompt community; I don't think I'd get enough entries in any one fandom to actually vote on.

Poll #1170952 Hamlet challenge
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

Should I do this?

My new CafePress stores:

Two Wrongs Don't Make a Right
Comments: This isn't my favorite painting but it worked REALLY WELL In the CafePress formats.

You'll Wish You'd Bought It When I'm Famous
Comments: Inspired by Pete Wentz and Fall Out Boy.

Hysteria
Comments: I'm afraid the colors on this one might not be true, but it looks nice anyway.

A Major
Comments: Surreptitious MCR fan art.

December, Lake Street
Comments: I think this one will look absolutely awesome as a poster.

All my other shops (not including "two wrongs" because for some reason it won't include the shop you linked there from.)

I just issued a crackfic challenge!



<a href="http://community.livejournal.com/mcr_crack_fic/31337.html"><img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v97/Crossbow/Macros/Promos/aprilpromo.jpg"></a>

Pat sent me the small .JPG files of my paintings. A bazillion times better than the ones I took, of course. Some are a little off kilter. I asked if that could be fixed. Probably not, since I think it's from warps in the actual frames of the canvasses.

( let me show you them )

Figured more people would read this if I spiced it up with some sex internet pop culture.

How to punctuate and capitalize dialogue, stolen from here.

1. Sarah said, "I'm fucking Matt Damon."

2. "She's fucking Matt Damon," said Matt Damon.

3. Jimmy said, "I'm fucking Ben Affleck," then sat down.

4. "Excuse me," said the delivery man, "is someone here fucking Ben Affleck?"

So, we went to the the Museum of Russian Art and it was really cool. The main current show is "Russian Impressionism: On the Edge of Soviet Art." T

They had a lot of work by Alexander Gerasimov, who was famous for doing things like this an as the head of the USSR Union of Artists was responsible for making all the other artists do the same. However, he was secretly painting things like this, which were completely decadent, did not support the government or industrialism, and were therefore not allowed to be shown. He kept it hidden under his carpet.

I really want that painting. I wish I could find a better picture of it to show y'all.

There was also a brilliant one of his daughter dressed as a schoolgirl. She had Down's Syndrome, and not only couldn't go to school but could have been either institutionalized or euthanized. He painted her without any signs of Down's.

There is also an exhibit on underground Estonian print making, but I'm sure you know all about that.

The play was Third by Wendy Wasserstein.

A timely and funny play, Third tells the story of college professor Laurie Jameson (Sally Wingert), whose seemingly well-ordered life as wife, mother and daughter is thrown into disarray when she accuses a student, an outwardly stereotypical jock nicknamed 'Third,' of plagiarism.

In challenging the student, she is forced to question her aggressively feminist ideology, standards and family relationships, bringing the play's central theme -- the danger of becoming that very thing you have been battling against -- full circle.

It was really good. It's a great play and the whole cast was good. (All five of them.)

I decided what the world of fiction (fan fic and original, amateur and professional) REALLY needs is a list of rules for writing that anyone can follow. Like, more meta than lay versus lie, improper dialogue tags, and when you can use a preposition to end a sentence with.

Suggestions?

So far...

1. Have something to say. *glares at Marion Zimmer Bradley*
1.5. When you've said it, stop.
2. If you're not writing in your native language, use a proof reader.
2.5. Use a proof reader anyway. *glares at Anne Rice*
3. Know how to read.
4. Read.

I can't believe how many really awful things I've seen by "authors" who will tell you, if you ask, that they hate reading. A couple of times I've even seen them put it in their profiles. It was especially obvious when I was really active on Deleterius, and people would comment on really bad LotR or HP fan fic with "Read the books!" and every time the author would come back with "I hate reading."

5. Don't write about things you don't understand.
6. Don't write about things you don't understand.
7. Do. Not. Write. About. Things. You. Don't. Understand.

Yes, that had to be repeated twice. I'm looking at you, MCR fandom.

8. Do not use words you don't grok in fullness.

Corollary to 5,6,7, and 8: If you don't know, look it up!

And yes, I know Marion Zimmer Bradley is dead. She died from me glaring at her so hard.

Someone asked me to do a post on punctuation, but it's such a HUGE topic, and there is so much room for creative differences. I love punctuation. It's like when you do a painting and it's all kind of muddy, but then you can go in with a few brushstrokes of a contrasting color and the structure you're going for becomes more clear...

That probably didn't help anyone.

Okay, we'll do the most common mistake first. People have a lot of trouble knowing whether to end dialogue with a period or a comma.

But first: Do you put commas and periods inside or outside the quotation marks? If you're American, it's easy: Always inside. No exceptions. With exclamation points and question marks, they must go inside the quotation marks if they are dialogue. Otherwise they go outside. In British English, the same goes for commas and periods. I don't know what countries use British English rules, but I think it's more or less everyone except the U.S.

The problem I see the most is people putting periods in the dialogue when they should be commas. I'm really not sure where to start with an explanation because I'm not really sure what the confusion is. It's one of those things I learned just from reading a lot and never had formally explained to me. So, I'll just start with an example, and people can tell me if they have specific questions. This is from one of my Mary Sue parodies:

Molly Weasley bustled Serena out of the kitchen and up the stairs. Complete sentence; ends with a period. “You'll be sharing a room with Hermione and Ginny, Comma to reflect natural pause in dialogue. if that’s all right; Semi-colon, because an explanation is about to follow we haven’t finished cleaning out all the bedrooms yet,” Comma, because it's only the end of the dialogue, not the end of the sentence. whispered Molly as they passed some family portraits. End of sentence.

Argue with crossbow1 here instead of in communities.

ETA: Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.

I've posted this about three times now, but never as a public post. Making this one public.

This is like, my biggest pet peeve, not just in fan fic, not even just in fiction, but in ALL ENGLISH WRITING.

"Lay" is a transitive verb. It must have an object. You can lay down sod, you can lay down your burden, you can lay down your head, you can lay your boyfriend. You can NOT lay down on a bed.

"Lie" is an intransitive verb. It can not have an object. You can lie down, you can lie WITH your boyfriend.

( Need more? )

Last night I thought of an even easier way to remember: "Lie like a rug." If it's just sitting there, not carrying out an action on an object, then it's lying.

Easier still, for those with not even two brain cells to rub together: Just use "lie." It's probably what you mean anyway.

Link: Picasso and American Art

The Picasso exhibit was interesting. Not all that much really good art, except for his. The had all these things by Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollack, and Jasper Johns that were copying Picasso, and it was all the kind of exercises they have art students do as assignments – if I were a known artist, I would never want that stuff up in a museum. Oh, and a HECK of a lot of Roy Lichtenstein, whom I've never liked, but it was sort of interesting to see him copying Picasso.

The actual Picassos were really good, though. Nothing like putting the originals next to a bunch of copies to make them look good. Unfortunately, my favorite was one that has no repros available and is in someone's private collection. It was called The Minotaur Moving, although I've also seen it called The Minotaur Moving His House. It's this minotaur (purple with grey testicles and a human face) hauling a cart full of stuff, including a ladder, a dead horse, and what appears to be a huge painting of a rainbow. Except for the minotaur, it's all in blues. It's whimsical yet creepy.

(ETA: Found a small image of it.)

On any given wall of paintings, I was always drawn directly to the Picassos. I was wondering if they really were better, or if it was just that he's familiar to me and we're always attracted to what is familiar. But then Rob and Cynthia said that they were having the same reaction, and they didn't know Picasso from shinola. They were just attracted to the color or form or structure or something they didn't understand.

Unfortunately, we arrived at the same time as a busload of people from Richfield.

OK, Richfield sounds like a joke, and is in fact the butt of a lot of jokes, but it's only a first tier suburb. It's only like a 15 minute drive from the middle of Richfield to downtown Minneapolis. So I was kind of, “What's with the charter bus?” Then a bunch of middle-aged people – well, probably senior citizens, since that's the only reason I can think of for them to be chartering a bus, but none really looked over 65 – got out and wandered into the gallery like so many confused chickens. A few of the women made so much noise laughing at the first gallery (pure abstract) that the teenage guard-type-person had to ask them to keep it down.

Then I passed a gaggle of them standing by a Warhol, and one of the men was saying “Waaar... hol? What is this? How is this art?” and they all started yakking about how it was just a bunch of boxes and they didn't understand. I almost died.

I don't like Warhol. But how can you not understand Warhol? How can you have lived in the 20th century and not know all about him and what he did? How could you miss that whole entire thing? And a whole group of people. In Richfield. I grew up in fucking Boise, Idaho and I knew about Warhol.

Exchange of the day:
Rob: “You know, modern art just doesn't give me a boner.”
Me: “It would be kind of embarrassing if it did.”

So once in one of the "WTF?" communities, someone linked to an LJ where the poster, claiming to be a 15-year-old girl, posted explicit photos of "herself" having sex with three other people, whose ages weren't given. I was like "You can't do that!" and reported it to LJ abuse, and you know what they told me? They said they couldn't be SURE the girl was really 15 just because she CLAIMED to be 15.

Then someone tracked down the real girl who had originally posted the photos (in her *public* journal), where they had been stolen by this troll who reposted them. (She didn't give her age.) She complained that the pictures were being used without permission, and THEN the troll was suspended, not for posting pictures of an underage girl having sex but for using photos without permission.

What. The. Fuck.

And now everyone is all hopped up that LJ is deleting child porn communities. Guess what - it's about damn time. They should never have allowed this kind of thing in the first place, because it's a felony.

I have no sympathy for people crying "cencorship" on this issue. I am not signing your petitions or joining your letter writing campaigns. If you really can't live without 13-year-old Hogwarts students having graphic sex with their teachers or fathers or brothers, you have bigger problems than a suspended LJ account.

I started off looking for a scene generator like The Drabble-Matic only with sex. Didn’t find one because I got side-tracked reading all these other articles on writing. I did find this Automatic Plot Generator, but I can’t actually see it because my firewalls block it. Anyway, here are the best articles I’ve found so far…

Pet Peeves and Priceless Gems
Writers' peeves versus reader's peeves.

Top Ten Plotting Problems
Self-explanatory.

Multiple Points of View
Discusses problems with this technique that I’ve never seen in published fiction, but shows up ALL THE TIME in fan fic, so I know there are a lot of amateurs out there messing with it.

Deep POV Means…
“Deep” 3rd person POV versus 1st person. Very interesting.


Ten Guidelines for Strong Sentences
Really good stuff. Everyone should read this. Assuming you can’t be arsed to actually read Strunk & White, of course.


Make Dialogue Tags Pull Their Weight
How to avoid using “said” over and over without getting purple.

Yes, I am one of those people who thinks Strunk & White's Elements of Style is the best book ever written in any language. I know other people who think it's overrated. If you're one of them I will ignore your comments to that effect because clearly I am right and you are wrong. I think every person should read this book even if all you ever write is a txt msg. In fact, ESPECIALLY if that's all you ever write. Think of how much easier everyone's lives would be if everyone could write in complete, clear sentences.

Here's the entire 1918 text. Go. Read it. Love it. Memorize it. Internalize it.

I just went off on this topic because I was looking for a link to a review of the book or a description or something to show someone else. I didn't know the whole thing was out there. I think it's in it's 4th edition now, so the 1918 may be a little dated, but I looked through some bits and it sure looked current to me.