Let's Try That Again (468 hits)
Category: UberMadness! EntryRating: 2 on 4 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by K.M (View user info) at 2004-04-05 22:28:23 EDT
This post was an official UberMadness! entry. Click here to view the original matchup.
Focus.
These people want entertainment. Think entertaining.
People find all sorts of average things entertaining. Pick one of those things, and write about it for a couple hundred words, and then submit it.
Ok?
Now, let's try and figure this out. Start thinking, move forward. You have to get this done.
* * *
I have an Idea. You'll love this. It's a decent gimmick.
This is the internet. Give them everything. What is more entertaining than somebody telling secrets? People just gorge themselves on that sort of thing. That's why those gossip magazines sell millions of copies a day. This culture breeds millions of textual gluttons, feeding on the taboo, the disgusting. Living vicariously through the pretty, the famous people, and nourishing themselves with their squalid exploits. Millions of people, they supplement their mind's diet with Printed Sin.
Wait... you are only Average, mundane, even. Nobody really wants to hear it.
You could always tell them about that time that you went to that bar, and it turned out to be a transgender paradise, and you and your friends were really embarrassed.
But those stories are always bullshit, anyway.
Don't sigh, and light up a cigarette.
Just try again.
* * *
Before you start, it's probably best to lay down some guidelines. Where you want to go with this, and all that. Pick a specific style, and concentrate on a particular theme. Research suggests that it's probably best to start with something ominous, and spiral downwards into something shocking, maybe something depressing. Something incredibly intriguing, something dazzling and descriptive. Or a piece of text so filled with random hilarity, it would be impossible to vote otherwise.
Speaking of funny, The Punch Line Effect seems to get a decent response.
Let's try that again.
And it's probably best to make sure that they read it, so try to keep it entertaining throughout. But make sure they don't get a chance to read too -Deeply-. Most Average writing, that is, Your kind of writing, it falls apart under any sort of close scrutiny. So let them enjoy it, but not ask questions. Hypnotize them with commas, mesmerize them with periods. That way, they won't see what they really stand for.
One period, one dot, that's when you gave up on writing for a while and took a shit. In the transition from one sentence to the next; that's when you went and jacked off, maybe went to sleep for 5 hours. They, the reader, they can't know that you do these things.
It's supposed to be an omnipotent message; you're supposed to be an omnipresent voice. It really detracts from any kind of significance, when you quit halfway through it to take a nap.
Hack.
Now, let's try that again, and this time, I want to see results.
* * *
Remember what Vonnegut said? In that novel, Slaughter- House Five?
About how every moment of your life exists forever, and how it's only an illusion how one moment of our life seems to come after the one previous to it? He said, when you die, that only means that your body is in particularly bad shape at the moment--- it's perfectly fine in plenty of others. Every moment of your life is a separate cell, insulated against all others, each thought it contains is unique in its own.
And still, nothing comes to you. Hey, it has only been five days. Relax.
That's only 120 hours worth of separate, fruitless moments, sealed in eternity.
But don't worry, that doesn't mean anything besides that you have a terrible imagination. And be sure to remember, that it is absolutely key that you have a solid outline of what you want this to look like, already in your head, before you type a single letter. That way it doesn't come across as ambiguous, totally jumbled, or even disorganized. That way it won't confuse your audience. Write in one dimension, because abstract prose has a tendency to force the reader to tune out, and skip to the other post before reading half of yours.
And while you are lost in thought, reflecting on your inability to make this an entertaining short story, don't ever think about what your opponent might be writing, at this very second. That's when you're fucked, for sure.
Because that's the toss up of this whole predicament; inspiration is arbitrary.
Title assignment is a game of Russian Roulette, really.
"Let's try that again". Spin the chambers.
Click. Blank. Click. Writer's block. Click. Nothing. Click. Click.
Bang. You know, this title surely ignited an electrical synapse in your opponent's brain. You know it opened up dimensions in his mind that had previously been nothing more than vacant waves in conscious ether. Let's see his submission saturated with the most pregnant plot imaginable, the most delectable dialogue ever conceived in literary history. Let him spin an epic tale, with twists, turns, and surprises. Let the crowds hang on his every word. Let it appeal to every facet of our very being.
Because that bullet, that inspiration, it has to go somewhere, and it sure isn't in you. Not in your mind. Not on your page.
Because you're going in circles, and you have nothing to show for it.
Because it's been 5 days, and you're still staring at a white screen.
So, let's try that again.
User Reviews
Submitted by mystiamoon (user info) at 2004-05-23 19:00:08 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by polyamorousaj (user info) at 2004-05-16 23:35:47 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Beat by a tie... that's a bitch of a way to lose.
Submitted by Fabish (user info) at 2004-05-16 17:00:51 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
This post still kicks my ass, K.M
Submitted by someone (user info) at 2004-05-16 12:29:53 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
This is a very unique approach to a post. Awesome as always K.M., well done.