Rants – Page 2 of 4 – Rasmenian detritus

Writer Rant: Writing Advice

January 17, 2012November 23, 2020 by Rasmenia Comment Closed

“They're fancy talkers about themselves, writers. If I had to give young writers advice, I would say don't listen to writers talking about writing or themselves.” --Lillian Hellman“Know when to tune out, if you listen to too much advice you may wind up making other peoples mistakes.” --Ann Landers“I always advise people never to give advice.” --P.G. Wodehouse * * * I have a lot of pet peeves. Probably more than a reasonable amount. It's a rare thing when I can watch TV, leave the house, or hop on the Internet without bitching, mocking, making fun of or simply pointing out something that I find annoying or idiotic. (Unless you're reading this blog for the very first time, you already know this.)Often, what I have to do is, I have to stop paying attention to whatever it is that bugs the shit out of me. I must ignore it completely. This isn't always possible. Try ignoring the human race. It's tough. Betcha...

Displaced & Disconnected

June 23, 2011November 23, 2020 by Rasmenia Comment Closed

We had it all planned out: look at the houses, choose one, buy it, then move into it. Easy enough. Sort of. Olivier & I had both been through the bullshit & hassles of home buying before, though this was the first time we'd be trudging through the muck together.Finding the house took a couple of months of searching. We got up early every weekend to drive an hour away & wandered through some very cold, damp & creepy houses. Oh... & there was that incident involving my urine. Then, some time during the month of February, we found our house.So, we started making plans: we'd sign the papers closing the sale of the house on May 27th. We'd move in on May 30th, since there was a family scheduled to move into our apartment on the 31st."Damn," I said. "That's cutting it awfully close."Hell, of course it was too fucking close. You know what they say about how the...

French Haters: Your Ignorance is Showing

July 8, 2010January 27, 2014 by Rasmenia Comment Closed

So... a Frenchman walks into a bar. No, wait... how many Frenchmen does it take to... wait, no. Have you heard the one about the French guy who -Seriously... shut the fuck up.It's no secret that I've got a lot of pet peeves. People are constantly grating on my nerves. I simply do not have a lot of patience where people are concerned. Usually, the stupid things they say & do are mildly irritating, easily ignored. Some may piss me off... then there are the other acts of stupidity & running off at the mouth that I absolutely cannot abide.Racist & sexist jokes are a good example.I'm not talking about politically incorrect humor. I'm not referring to friendly jabs & charicatures. I'm talking about cruel & malicious jokes that are not even intended to be funny. Ignorant & historically inaccurate babble designed to be rude & bigoted without even trace amounts of humor.What's worse is to tell these asinine "jokes"...

I’m Calling Bullshit on Your “Writer’s Block”

April 8, 2010November 23, 2020 by Rasmenia Comment Closed

"Writer's block? I've heard of this. This is when a writer cannot write, yes? Then that person isn't a writer anymore. I'm sorry, but the job is getting up in the fucking morning and writing for a living." — Warren Ellis "There's no such thing as writer's block. That was invented by people in California who couldn't write." — Terry Pratchett * Here's the thing about writer's block: it's bullshit. If someone says to me, "I have writer's block," then what I hear is: "I'm not writing".So many people believe that writer's block is real. Some even believe that it's a disease. A disease. Sorry, you don't have a disease. Cancer is a disease. Scurvy is a disease. Your blank page is not a symptom of a medical condition. You do not have a disease. You have laziness. You have fear or insecurity. Perhaps you're out of ideas. Or, maybe you just can't write. Maybe, deep down, you don't really want to...

Pride and Profanity

February 26, 2010November 30, 2020 by Rasmenia Comment Closed

"I'm not gonna say anything inspirational; I'm just gonna fucking swear a lot." ~ Billie Joe Armstrong * If you're easily offended, turn back now. I'm giving you this warning not because I care about your feelings, but because I don't want to deal with your pissing and moaning regarding your wounded sensibilities. I'm giving you this warning because I say what I want to and find the whining of those who feel it is their duty to police others' language to be petty and irritating. That being said, if you're going to lose your shit over a few F-Bombs, close your browser now, or forever shut the hell up about it. I've had it brought to my attention in the fairly recent past that I use a lot of profanity in my writing. While this has come from a few different places and didn't really surprise me much, it was pointless to tell me about it. I'm well aware of the fact that this blog...

Why I Didn’t Read Your Email

December 2, 2009November 24, 2020 by Rasmenia Comment Closed

I used to like receiving email. Back in the day when I had an email account on AOL & the chipper robot voice would exclaim, "You've got mail!", it was a happy occasion. Now, here it is more than a decade later, I've got email accounts on Yahoo!, Google & some other shitty site that I never remember to check more than once a month. I've got widgets on my desktop to notify me of new mail - they're more silent than the robot voice. (He really got annoying after a while, didn't he?) Of course, I only bother to take a gander at those widgets after I've taken the time to respond to my Facebook messages & Twitter responses. I think I've still got a Myspace account floating around out there & I respond to the comments on this blog via email, too. When I finally do take a look at my inbox, I might have anywhere between 5 - 50 emails. Of...