Unutterably Silly If you were an Author ........

[nekokami]

I don't know what kind of writer I am. You tell me....

I unlocked the door with a quick rake of the pins, narrowly missed being knocked back down the stairs by a ginger-colored blur. Dodging the cat, I set my groceries down on the counter and dialed eleven digits from memory as I set out food for Quantum, who immediately re-materialized, protesting the delay in his supper. The receiver picked up after the third ring.

"Hello?" The voice on the other end was coming from the West Coast... a little faint, but clear.

"Bobbi! It's Beck. I just saw your flick! It was great! Did you do all the effects?”

"Beck! Good to hear from you again! Yeah, most of them....”

"I'm amazed there aren't union rules against acting and working the effects in the same movie....”

We talked about the film for a few minutes. Live version of a popular Japanese animation... the lead part, a beautiful female agent with a taste for explosives, might have been created for Bobbi. It had done pretty well locally, not hurt by the notices I'd put up in the bookshop and the free plug in ShadowRag. I had reports back from around the Net, too. Anime fans and SF fans had both picked it up... it was developing something of a cult following.

"I doubt I'll get any Oscars, though," she complained, jokingly.

"Nah, Hollywood's still too stiff for that sort of thing." There was a knock at the door.
"Hold on a sec, will you Bobbi? Gotta get the door." I set the phone on the counter, peered through the peephole. It was UPS. Maybe it was that back-ordered shipment of graphic novels....

I opened the door, nodded to the delivery guy. Not Fred—he must be on vacation this week. "Sign here," he told me, handing me the digitizer. I leaned over to check the label. Addressed to me, but not the graphic novels... oh well. I signed, looked up, about to say "So, Fred on vacation?”

There was a pop... and I looked down to see a boxy looking gun in the man's hand.
"Goddamn it, Bobbi, I've been shot!" I tried to slam the door, but already my reactions were slowing. The phony pushed his way in, shut the door himself. I staggered a little, recovered. Some kind of paralysis... I felt the sting, finally saw the dart sticking out of my shoulder. "Drugs... Oh, you son of a bitch. You'll pay for that." And thankful that Bobbi had made me take those classes, made me stick with it, I aimed a snap-kick at the bastard's groin—connected.

Spectacular. He shrieked, actually beat me to the floor by maybe a half-second. Out cold, by the look of it, and I was headed there myself.... I heard Bobbi shouting through the receiver, heard myself muttering a steady stream of Yiddish curses I had forgotten I remembered... felt everything wobble. Something else in the dart besides muscle relaxant—an instant's panic, until I remembered the computer was turned off... in the distance I heard sirens....

Cyberpath (unpublished)

[vivaldirules]

Originally Posted by DixieGal

...... But lo! My muse awakes and inspires me to use the mounds of paper and a roll of duct tape to cover the fuschia walls. Heedless of my rental deposit agreement and landlord, I began toiling to cover the offending walls, toiling and taping, perspiring and papering. At last my muse releases me and I gaze in wonder at my new black and white walls, black printing blurring from a distance into a smudgy pattern that was simple yet pleasing to the eye.

Tis then I chanced to glance into the hallway, and again my mind reeled and raled against the fuschia wallpaper. All of one's soul was reviled and melancholy ensued. "By gawd's bladder, I have it!", I exclaimed to myself, "I can print more papers and tape them onto the hallway walls, in much the same manner that I covered the bedroom walls." And thus it was made so.

Whereupon, I remembered the mauve walls in the middle bedroom. Not wishing to be caught undecorated, I knew.......

The anguish of that realization sent my mind reeling again. Fuschia, mauve, olive, beige - it didn't matter. They all inflicted unbearable pain on the folds of my brain. I could hardly withstand the variations in the greys of December - the filthy grey streets spewing from the mouths of offending buildings cloaked by grey skies. That was pain enough. But it could be withstood if life itself needed to be withstood. It's the augmentation of things detected with the unnecessary and vulgar sensations of texture and color that caused me the greatest pain. The sharp contrast of black and white created by the floor tiles at the train station was particularly cruel - it cut like a knife at every glance. But color - god forbid - color brought pain that was simply intolerable. All my synapses choked with the offending information. Eyeing the mauve walls in the middle bedroom was like being strangled with a garotte. I was a prostitute in the hands of Jack the Ripper and prayed for the end to come quickly.

[radioflyertoo]

To Vivalidirules from Insultasarous - You have colored my world with (shivver) a noxious reek causing severe brain pain.

To NekoKami from Insultasarous - You should have entered the Story Game.......

[vivaldirules]

Originally Posted by radioflyertoo

To Vivalidirules from Insultasarous - You have colored my world with (shivver) a noxious reek causing severe brain pain.

Thank you, Insultasarous, I think that would be the uniform response of readers, provided that they actually survived and did not slit their own throats half way through the paragraph. As an prospective author, I'm struggling with the next paragraph and whether it is even necessary. Perhaps it could be read at the reader's funeral service?

[montsnmags]

Originally Posted by vivaldirules

...Something like an as-yet-to-be-published montsnmags enterprises novel but infinitely less understandable, less humorous, and less sane (and without the gibbons).
...

He rolls back into the Oortwhale-skin Easyboy ("It's the office chair of champions!"), green smoke slithering upwards from where he'd be curling an upper lip if he had one, tongue twisting salaciously 'round the the lusty end of his hookah ("That's "hookah" with an "aych", child, and you'll do well to keep your mind out the gutter....for now, anyways"), and runs an eye over the "novelist" cringing 'fore him.

Adrian liked his job, screening "artists" for publishability. Oh, sure, on rare occasions he'd have to pass something half-decent through to Editing and Marketing, to give them something to eviscerate and repaint and masturbate over so that the three book chains still in existence (two owned by Montsnmags Enterprises, and the other merely a front for the mostly harmless Illuminati) would be able to fill the "New Release" cardboard towers of babble blocking the entrances to their stores. Mostly though, it was the rejection process - he just liked the jarfull-of-strawberry-jam noise they made when they hit the road from fifth floor, post-defenestration.

He sighed. The "artist" sat humbly (Adrian hated that) in front of him. He buzzed his assistant-laddy - "Lad, bring us some doughnuts...and a coupla Zanys". Slugs of green smoke leached towards his eyes, to be sucked backed by flaring nostrils.

He sighed again.

"So...VR...what would seem to be the problem?"

He liked VR. I mean, once you got past him being a dog and all, without any innate ability to swing from trees, he was not a bad fella.

"Well..."

Cutting him short, cutting him LOUD, "Did I ask you a question, VR?!"

"Well..."

"SHUT IT! I'll ask the questions!"

VR's tail was so far between his legs he was sneezing on its tickle.

"No gibbons...again, hey? I thought we had discussed this. Why are there no gibbons in it?"

"Well...", was shot down quicker than a pig flying over an efficiently run government building.

"VR, I've been in this business a long time. In that three years, I think I've come to know quite well what the people will want. The people will want gibbons. More gibbons. Everywhere gibbons. The High Gibbonate didn't subjugate this planet for its cocktail-mixing abilities, that's for sure..." and the tall glass of Zany Carter exploded in a diamante-glitter of exploding mauve against the departing assistant-laddy's head, "...because they taste like someone crapped in a pan of vegemite-fried rollmops! He subjugated this planet to enable their undivided attention to see the truth of the Church of Gibbonacy! That truth is "Gibbonz REWL!"

He did like VR though. It didn't do for Adrian to scare the little puppy dog. The Old Gods knew that if you bit the dogs that fed you their hearts and souls, those dogs would remember their teeth soon enough. VR knew that. He knew to play the cowed little puppy dog too. He also knew the High Gibbonate personally. Adrian couldn't argue with that - once you'd sat at the Infinite Table at one of the High Gibbonate's parties...well, let's just say it was good to have the Gods on-side (most of them, anyway).

"Was that necessary, Adrian?" said VR, and, of course, it wasn't. The assistant-laddy had brought in another round, his frown framed by his still-dripping, scaled neck-frill, and Adrian threw him one of his froody towels.

"Yes, of course it was VR. A story requires a little action and I'm afraid to say its current author doesn't have a clue what he's doing at the moment. I needed to throw in some action, and, frankly, the whole defenestration thing...? It wouldn't have brought me back a couple more Zany Carters, would it?".

[Ed.:Also, there are llamas in this story somewhere - maybe just the one - and another Party described in intricate detail. There's a Fairy that you don't want to mess with; a queenly trapeze artist in green jetboots; a robot that won't let anyone else describe him, including the author; a pshrynk (who may or may not be real or may or may not be a figment from a different part of the author's imagination); Oortwhales...lovely, graceful, vacuum loving, sun-fearing, gargantuan, tasty Oortwhales; and gibbons. Lots and lots of gibbons. You can never have too many gibbons, VR]

Cheers
The Author Formerly Known As "Fnord"

[Slite]

Originally Posted by montsnmags

He rolls back into the Oortwhale-skin Easyboy ("It's the office chair of champions!"), green smoke slithering upwards from where he'd be curling an upper lip if he had one, tongue twisting salaciously 'round the the lusty end of his hookah ("That's "hookah" with an "aych", child, and you'll do well to keep your mind out the gutter....for now, anyways"), and runs an eye over the "novelist" cringing 'fore him.

Adrian liked his job, screening "artists" for publishability. Oh, sure, on rare occasions he'd have to pass something half-decent through to Editing and Marketing, to give them something to eviscerate and repaint and masturbate over so that the three book chains still in existence (two owned by Montsnmags Enterprises, and the other merely a front for the mostly harmless Illuminati) would be able to fill the "New Release" cardboard towers of babble blocking the entrances to their stores. Mostly though, it was the rejection process - he just liked the jarfull-of-strawberry-jam noise they made when they hit the road from fifth floor, post-defenestration.

He sighed. The "artist" sat humbly (Adrian hated that) in front of him. He buzzed his assistant-laddy - "Lad, bring us some doughnuts...and a coupla Zanys". Slugs of green smoke leached towards his eyes, to be sucked backed by flaring nostrils.

He sighed again.

"So...VR...what would seem to be the problem?"

He liked VR. I mean, once you got past him being a dog and all, without any innate ability to swing from trees, he was not a bad fella.

"Well..."

Cutting him short, cutting him LOUD, "Did I ask you a question, VR?!"

"Well..."

"SHUT IT! I'll ask the questions!"

VR's tail was so far between his legs he was sneezing on its tickle.

"No gibbons...again, hey? I thought we had discussed this. Why are there no gibbons in it?"

"Well...", was shot down quicker than a pig flying over an efficiently run government building.

"VR, I've been in this business a long time. In that three years, I think I've come to know quite well what the people will want. The people will want gibbons. More gibbons. Everywhere gibbons. The High Gibbonate didn't subjugate this planet for its cocktail-mixing abilities, that's for sure..." and the tall glass of Zany Carter exploded in a diamante-glitter of exploding mauve against the departing assistant-laddy's head, "...because they taste like someone crapped in a pan of vegemite-fried rollmops! He subjugated this planet to enable their undivided attention to see the truth of the Church of Gibbonacy! That truth is "Gibbonz REWL!"

He did like VR though. It didn't do for Adrian to scare the little puppy dog. The Old Gods new that if you bit the dogs that fed you their hearts and souls, those dogs would remember their teeth soon enough. VR knew that. He knew to play the cowed little puppy dog too. He also knew the High Gibbonate personally. Adrian couldn't argue with that - once you'd sat at the Infinite Table at one of the High Gibbonate's parties...well, let's just say it was good to have the Gods on-side (most of them, anyway).

"Was that necessary, Adrian?" said VR, and, of course, it wasn't. The assistant-laddy had brought in another round, his frown framed by his still-dripping, scaled neck-frill, and Adrian threw him one of his froody towels.

"Yes, of course it was VR. A story requires a little action and I'm afraid to say its current author doesn't have a clue what he's doing at the moment. I needed to throw in some action, and, frankly, the whole defenestration thing...? It wouldn't have brought me back a couple more Zany Carters, would it?".

[Ed.:Also, there are llamas in this story somewhere - maybe just the one - and another Party described in intricate detail. There's a Fairy that you don't want to mess with; a queenly trapeze artist in green jetboots; a robot that won't let anyone else describe him, including the author; a pshrynk (who may or may not be real or may or may not be a figment from a different part of the author's imagination); Oortwhales...lovely, graceful, vacuum loving, sun-fearing, gargantuan, tasty Oortwhales; and gibbons. Lots and lots of gibbons. You can never have too many gibbons, VR]

Cheers
The Author Formerly Known As "Fnord"

Zelda.... you got any spare spleens? Think I just ruptured mine...

[HappyMartin]

No idea what type of writer I would be but I do know I would need an industrial or even military grade spell checker.

[Sparrow]

Originally Posted by HappyMartin

No idea what type of writer I would be but I do know I would need an industrial or even military grade spell checker.

Spool chuckers aren't infallible!

[vivaldirules]

Originally Posted by HappyMartin

No idea what type of writer I would be but I do know I would need an industrial or even military grade spell checker.

Industry and the military do not need spell checkers. That's because they mostly use acronyms. What few actual words are used come from a short look-up table of about 200 words and phrases: "going forward", "leverage", "I need you to action this", "securitize", etc. Only ture wrighters kant spele.

[radioflyertoo]

montsnmags the Insultasarous says - your writing is so fertile it could be used as mushroom soil.

[pshrynk]

Originally Posted by vivaldirules

Industry and the military do not need spell checkers. That's because they mostly use acronyms. What few actual words are used come from a short look-up table of about 200 words and phrases: "going forward", "leverage", "I need you to actionize this", "securitize", etc. Only ture wrighters kant spele.

Fixed it for ya!

[DixieGal]

Marc, that was true genius! Now expand it another 365 pages and you have a great book!


..... Meanwhile, back at the story, he contemplated the mauve walls and realized that although the duct tape and dot matrix print redecorating that he had done to the bedroom and hall had been sufficient, and that in order to do the mauve bedroom, he would need to make a run to Staples in order to get more printer papers with little guide holes on both sides to go through the elderly dot matrix printer. Such a journey would require reliable transportation and coin, neither of which were forthcoming. Nor were clean underwear. Mother always said to wear clean underwear in case he was in an accident.

After closing his eyes against the riotous pinks of the house, he retrieved an only slightly soiled pair of underwear and ventured down his blurry black and white hallway. Upon recovering from unconsciousness from his tumble down the stairway, he reached up and rubbed his noggin.

"Odds bodkins, what's this?", he wondered as his sprained fingers explored his cranium, "It feels like a healing surgical wound." And PLINK, he worked loose a surgical staple that sprang back with a tiny metallic plink.

"Owch!", he cried, because as everyone knows, surgical patients should not try to remove their own staples.

Despite the throbbing in his head and fingers, he was hungry. Something smelled delicious! Having briefly lost his florid speech pattern while falling down the stairs, swearing being florid enough already, the fall had done nothing to allay his appetite. Crawling and dragging himself along the floor, passing the dining room, he struggled to pull himself into the kitchen.

"By Gerty's Garters! What's this?", he thought, upon seeing a drunken gibbon standing at the stove.

"Breakfast is nearly ready," it said, "So haul your sorry a$$ up off the floor and wash your paws. We are having fried llama and grits.", and fixed him with an evil stare.

"Is it palatable?", he dared to ask the terrifying monkey.

"You'll eat it, even if I have to cram it in from the opposite direction," the vociferous ape threatened.

Ten minutes later, after having eaten a meal of llama, grits, and squirrel nut butter, the monkey vanished and he prepared to go to Staples. Using a Victorian-style newsboy cap to cover his head staples, he left his pinkish house and turned on the sidewalk toward Staples. Luckily, Staples was downhill, because it would probably have torn out his head staples if he had needed to go uphill, seeing as how he was in poor condition and terribly out of shape. Uh, that is to say floridly, his constitution was lacking in everything.

About a block from Staples, he spied out the corner of his eye, a gibbon driving past in a transdimensional luxury sportscar. The gibbon glanced at him, lifted its middle finger in his direction, and threw a handful of defenestration at him....

[radioflyertoo]

The Insultasarous must warn you, this writer has dust bunnies for writing skills or maybe for brains.


The Adventure of Billy and Joan (never to be published)

Joan Tittlewink's was wearing her pekinese dress for a first date with Billy Haverherinsack thinking this was an Ozzie and Harriet and not a fumble fest.
Billy arrived at Joan's in his Gibbonater Mark III coupe with the transmigrater option.

Billy strode upto the door and knocked. Joan open said door and noticed Billy's button down shirt and perfect fit genes, while Billy silently gasped over her very tight thin sweater and then took a peak at her knees and higher. They were both in treed.

They both wondered what the night would bring.
That, however could wait - first stop was diner for a filibuster but the counterproductive was stulified over the mesa on the tableland. Eventually the counterproductive managed to clean the tableland and got menus.

After studying the menu Joan said to the counterproductive "I'll have the Llama stew with a sideorder of whisleberries and vegimite salad. Also bring me a pinkerton fizz with lime."
"You gots it" said the counterproductive.
Billy still sorta gasping said " I'll have roasted squirrel with crankberries, a side order of green potatoe lionase and vegimite salad. To drink, I want a pint of Bloaters Burpie beer.
"Yiper" said the counterproductive.

Dinner did not go well. The Devil's Sinisters at the next table were whoopsing it up and generally being undisgestive.

Bill said to Joan "Ignore them they act like oxymorons after to much winesap".

After an inorderly period their meal came and it was disgustabutt. The stew was congealed, fur cover the whisleberries, the crispy critter was the squirrel and the vegimite salad spotted. The drinks, however, were good. Billy commented "the Barcode is good"
Joan agreed.

Stomach revolting, eyes a bulging they did not eat, just finished drink, payedout and left.

Outside Sinisters were eying the Gibbonate Mark III with lecherous eyes. Billy not wanting trouble hit the remote and transmigrated Joan and himself right into the car and sped away.

Joan asked Billy "Can we go to the Drive In." Obviously Billy not believing his luck said "Yes but of course" not realizing the main feature was Lassie does Rin Tin Tin.
Joan knew.

Billy when they got to the drivein started to get nervous when he saw what was playing. Joan just smiled and said, "Lets go in"

So in they go.

Seeing the sweat on Billy's face, she new he was a nativity and smiled again. Thinking this might be fun little did she realize her fondue would end in discombobulation.

The movie started and boy was Lassie good, Rin Tin Tin didn't have a chance (and you thought this was going someplace else didn't you?) Lassie saved the day.

But Joan being a tense put her hand on Billy's genes causing his biddle'd'bopper to rise. Billy then put his arm around Joan to start the fondue but when he bent over he gave her a slobbery blunderbuss -not exactly what she expected.

Now we get to the good part ................................