No Holds Blogged Report Card

So anyway, I have been asking my friends for feedback, well I guess even strangers too, though I doubt anyone is just stumbling on to this randomly. Now, I'm going to just take a quick minute to apologize to all those that I bug the crap out of to read this. But I suppose this is really just a "bad boyfriend" apology because I have no intention of completely stopping. Just maybe cooling it for a week or so until you forget and then doing it again. I'm pretty proud of how this blog is coming along and I'm not use to this pride thing that everyone was talking about. But anyway, thanks to everyone who has stopped in to read my things! I appreciate the feedback and, by all means, keep it up. My first couple of blogs I'll admit it right now, I was testing the waters; seeing if some of the things that people didn't like in my books were things they didn't like on here. But so far nobody has said anything, but please do drop me a line if you think anything is offensive, seems creepy, overly preachy, pretty much anything that makes you stop or want to stop reading. I mean I can't make everyone happy all the time, but please do let me know if there is something you don't like (preferably not in one of the comments, maybe on Facebook or something). I usually go through and edit it like 5-6 times a day so likely it will be changed before you get to me but, I really don't pay attention to the shit I say sometimes. As far as beaming positive feedback, which I have gotten some pretty good feedback, I never get tired of that so definitely, don't be shy!

Some of the negative things I was told to kind of fix, is of course the language... I will definitely trim it down but not cut it out. Maybe not with this blog thing, but in my other writing, I personally abstain from reading too many books of the same author. And that is only partly because I'm lazy, but for the most part it's because I need to preserve my own voice and all of the colloquialisms therein. For instance if I read too much Edgar Allen Poe, I start to write like Edgar Allen Poe. Now... you're really going to have to take a ride with me on this one, but in order to be the voice of a generation, you need to be the generation. For me that's Generation Y and so if I start writing like Hunter S. Thompson or J.D. Salinger then I am just being the next Hunter S. Thompson. For instance, I say "like" a lot and it's kind of upsetting to people even slightly older than me, but if you grew up where I did, they don't always seem to notice as much. That's just the way I talk, I tried stopping, but hell, I can't really like even tell when I'm like doing it. Another thing that was brought up to me is that they are too long. I actually agree, and while I'm not going to trim down any posts I've already made I will try to be less wordy in the future.

Something that I didn't really count on but seems to be happening a lot is, not people missing the point, but zeroing in on things I didn't expect. These to me are "happy accidents" and it really is good to hear from people, because then I kind of know what people are interested in. When I give someone a 30 page 7-chapter excerpt from my books and they say, "it's good" or "it's funny" I just don't really know what is funny. Sometimes people actually highlight what they think is funny and I am sometimes surprised that something that I really didn't put much thought into and just pen-to-paper is funny to some people. Every once in a while, I get asked, "What do you look for in a girl" and I say, "Boobs" (ha, just kidding) I really say, "a similar sense of humor to mine" because some people say "good sense of humor" but I really think that some people have a perfectly fine sense of humor but they don't understand my jokes. It is also both a blessing and a curse that I'm a pretty even split of intentionally and unintentionally funny.

I really sound like a pretentious D-Bag in that last paragraph, "people miss the point of my art" "people don't understand my complex humor" "I am funny in multiple ways, in pretty much every way we've discovered so far." That's not what I was intending but, I can't really think how to fix it so whatever. But, I am serious when I say I didn't mean for it to be read that way. In fact I have kind of a bone to pick with Kevin Smith for doing this. Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge fan, but something he said really stuck in my craw (I have been meaning to use that phrase for years). He was commenting about his animated Clerks show (see I am a fan, because I saw that) and he said something like how he had to tell his animators to redraw Jay several times because he looked too evil. His character is supposed to be that of a trouble-making kid in an adult body, or something to that effect. But to me, it's the artist's job to convey things like that and you can't fault the viewer/patron/consumer/etc. for reading your message a different way, you set the stage and we see what we are shown. Okay yes, I did say that me making this crappy blog makes me an artist, and yes that was Leo Tolstoy rolling over in his grave. But the point is, I will never say that I know what people will think is funny or meaningful in anything I write. Okay, time to pop a cork in the cheddar because I'm digging a "self-adulation" hole for myself. But if you simply cannot find something funny about anything I say, remember this: I am a lot funnier when you're drunk! *Drink responsibly... or don't, I guess I don't have to put that up until I'm court-ordered to.