An Explanation.

Sooo, you might be noticing that I didn’t post anything last fortnight. Most of you probably didn’t notice, or even particularly care. For those of you who did, I feel I owe you an explanation.

I did, in fact, write something last fortnight. Something that I fully intended to post. Then, at the last minute, I decided not to. I deleted the draft, scrapped the text document and the backup and pretended it never happened.

Why? Well, it was kind of personal – extremely so in fact. It was something I thought I was ready to share, but I balked at the last minute.  The idea of putting something like this up for the whole world to see, even knowing that the whole world cared not one bit about me and my crap – well, I guess it was just too much.

One day I might come back to The Post That Wasn’t –or, then again, perhaps not. This week though, have a gander at a post about some jerk I met on the internet, which is below.

In other news (and while I have you), I’m hoping to have the next chapter of Were The World Theirs up soon for anyone interested. Plus, since I’m sick of spamming my facebook feed begging people to read me every fortnight, I’m thinking of starting a Facebook page for the blog so people can get info, updates and probably the occasional link I find interesting or relevant. I’d like your opinions though: is a facebook page a good idea, or unnecessary for a blog this small? Leave a comment and let me know.

Protip: Hard Thing Is Hard.

AKA, No This Post Isn’t About Penises.

Soooo, it’s probably not going to be much of a surprise to anyone here that I’m kind of the sort of guy who sees himself being a writer one day. If it is, hello! Welcome to the blog: get comfy, make yourself at home, and if a figure feasting on flesh and sin confronts you from the corner of your eye, just make the Sign of Three and he’ll leave. Don’t mind him, he’s just a big old softy at heart.

Now, the interesting thing about writing is that from what I understand it’s a quite a bit like playing the guitar: everyone kind of has this idea floating around their head that they could do it if they wanted to, and a not-insignificant amount of people will even take that vague inkling of supposed skill far enough to give it a shot. But, at the end of the day, there are far more guitars gathering dust in a cupboard then there are guitarists.

They're both also way less useful for picking up chicks than you might think.

"Yeah, so?" I hear you thinking, having yet to abandon this joke. "And?" Well, firstly, "and" isn't really a question. If it was, the answer would be rather simple: something happened the other day that left me kinda annoyed. Long story short, I met a jerk on the internet and decided to spend 900 words telling him to go get stuffed.

Short story long (it’s an expression, shut up): a few days ago I got an email from a fellow blogger. He (or she, though I suspect it’s a guy) had come across my blog and thought that it was pretty neato indeed, apparently. This isn’t what annoyed me, obviously: in fact, at the time it made my day. It didn’t even annoy me when he asked me to look at his blog and, in his own words, “give some tips to a fellow writer” (he actually said wordsmith, a phrase so douchey I refuse to acknowledge it) because for someone like me, having a fellow wannabe ask for some help is a massive vote of confidence.

Now, maybe I’m naïve. Maybe I got what was coming to me. But when someone asks me to give them some tips, I’m going to take a look at what they’ve done, have a good long think, and then give them some goddamn tips. And with nine tenths of everything being crap, those tips aren’t necessarily going to be pleasant. And yes, it sucks: I’d know. I spent a year writing my (terrible) first book – a full year, writing six hours a day, seven days a week. When it was completed, I sent it out to my closest friends and family, and the response was so overwhelmingly negative and apathetic that I didn’t write a word for three years. But the criticism I received allowed me to become much better.

The trick is to take things in the spirit they're given: accept that you’re not perfect and try to improve. Pull out the guitar and practice. Unfortunately, this guy didn’t seem to get the memo. I tried to be gentle, but the response I got was foul-mouthed and hateful, deriding me for “not understanding” his style, for “failing to get” his humour and his references. It was an email as petty as it was misspelled.

 “So what?” I hear you think. “You met a jerk on the internet: big whoop. Wanna go home and get your big-boy pants on?”

First off, this is the internet: nobody wears pants here.

Behold!

Secondly, this probably wouldn’t have bugged me so much if it was the first time it’d happened.

But it isn’t.

Every so often, you meet someone who wants to be a writer, except not really. They’re the people who leave their guitar in their lounge room hoping you’ll ask them about it; the ones who can’t really play, but chalk up every missed note or unpleasant twang to a bad string or needing to warm up. And it’s not just writing: these guys are everywhere. They’re the “artists” with half-finished, thoroughly-shoddy paintings prominently displayed on easels throughout the house: the wannabe poet who just happened to be reciting one of his newest verses as you came by: for the more academically inclined, the guy who constantly spews laughably-outdated pop-science into every conversation he has without really understanding any of it.

Also known as the Dan Brown method of conversation.

In other words, they’re the kind of people who don’t really want to play the guitar – they just want to be guitarists, ‘cause guitarists got mad swag yo. Which, whatever, fine, go nuts. But if you happen to come across someone who actually gives two fucks about what you’re pretending to, do us all a favour and shut up. You won’t die from being quiet for two seconds, I promise.

And though I sincerely doubt he’s still reading this, Random Internet Guy take my advice. If you actually do want to do any kind of writing, get over yourself. You are not the new Oscar Wilde, blithely snapping off satirical quips to the slack-jawed massed: you posted three times about your dinner for god’s sake. Even someone as amateur as me knows that this industry is brutal. Rejection is par for the course, and if you can’t hack it, you don’t belong here.

And if you don’t particularly care about writing – if, in fact, you’re just in it for the “prestige” of making bad jokes on the internet, or to be someone’s “cool writer friend” (and I promise you, neither of these are things), then kindly piss off: the internet is full enough without the likes of you clogging it up.

Hold On To Your Butts, People.

Cause s**t's about to go doooooooown.

No, seriously though, I'm really excited to be unveiling to you guys (all four of you) something that I've been working on for the past couple of weeks.
Now, as you're probably aware, I fancy myself as being something of a writer. One day, I even hope to make a living writing and as improbably as such a dream is, it's one that's been with me for quite a while now. Writing, to make use of a few cliches, is my dream: my passion. The urge to tell stories and entertain has been with me since I penned my first ever tale at age six, a charming story written for Father's Day about a lovely, friendly robot who gets smashed to pieces by some villagers (it's okay though, it's a magical robot: it puts itself back together at the end).
But hand in hand with the urge to write, is the urge to share. And with that in mind, I am with equal parts excitement, trepidation and sheer, pants-soiling terror, sharing with you my first ever public work: Were the World Theirs.

Yaaaaay, fireworks!

"Oh, woo," I hear you thinking, sarcastically. "That title means so much to me, I've literally wet myself with excitement. Also, I'm not entirely sure what 'literally' means."
Firstly, wow. So rude. Secondly, if you'd just shut up for a second, Mr Totally-Not-An-Externalisation-Of-My-Own-Self-Doubt, I'd get to explain.
Were the World Theirs is a serialised dark-fantasy novel set after the end of the world. Written in the vein of Robopocalypse or World War Z , the story is framed as a series of first-hand accounts chronicling the near-extermination of the human race at the hands of the enigmatic Cold Ones and their thralls.
The entirety of the story has been plotted, with a definite ending already established, so this isn't some Lost-style "Hey, let's keep it going forever and raise a bunch of questions we'll never answer!" type of deal. The story will be updating in addition to my regularly scheduled posts, rather than instead of, and its content is currently living in a separate tab up the top there: anyone not interested in reading can simply ignore it entirely. So saying, for this fortnight, I'll be uploading one of my older posts from my previous blog in the morning, since this has been a fair bit of work already.
The story posts will be updated as completed, rather than on a fixed schedule: I'd much rather it be a high-quality story delivered slowly than a "Crap it's update day, give 'em the draft" affair. So saying, a positive response will ensure faster updates, so don't be afraid to comment if you like it!
For realsies though, I'm crazy-excited to be doing this: it's a risk (especially since the first time I shared my stuff the response was so underwhelming I didn't write for three years), but I'm hoping that everyone here is kind enough to take pity on a first time writer testing the waters.
See you all after the end...

...hopefully.

Twas The Apocalypse Before Christmas

This post is a little shorter than usual for two reasons: the first is that it was Christmas and I was busy doing Christmas stuff. The second reason is that I’m planning a little something special for you guys for next post that I hope you’ll like and it's taking up a little time.

Also, I’ve had one or two people ask me why I’m not updating every week like I said I would, which is unusual, because I said that I’d be updating every second week back in my first post. But just to clear up any confusion: posting is every second Thursday, with the chance of special updates when and if something happens. Anyway, onwards.

Soooo, if you’re reading this, chances are that you’re still alive. If you’re reading this and you’re not alive, then thanks for reading. And, you know – sorry for whatever you did to deserve this.

He sends some readers my way.

Damned souls aside, all of you have now suffered through the crass consumerism, stilted conversation with little-seen relatives, and glorious, artery-rending binge-feast that is Christmas. Now, there are plenty of people who love to complain about Christmas, harrumphing as they pick fleas out of their green fur and steal all the Whatsits in Whoville. This is especially true here on the internet, where your standing is derived mostly from how jaded you can act and the number of tits you require to stay your demands to GTFO. Not me though: I normally really like Christmas. The food, the family, getting neat stuff (this year’s haul includes both an Xbox and a wicked scale-model kit of the Ecto-1); it's all normally really good.

Normally.

Not this year though. This year, I was embarrassed, humiliated, and severely let down by a certain someone. Someone who really should have known better: someone who I am very, very disappointed with. I think you all know who I'm referring to.

That's right: the Mayans.

Warning: Personal Post Ahead.

So, I realise that this post is pretty significantly late. And there’s a reason for that: to be honest, I wasn’t really sure if I wanted to publish this at all. A lot has been said about the issue of people oversharing on the internet: as a medium it tends to be unedited, unregulated, and undefended from all the bile and savagery online anonymity engenders. This post also felt a tiny bit too self-indulgent for my tastes: a little too “poor me, boo hoo hoo.”

At the same time, many amateur bloggers (like myself, natch) consider their writings to be a window into their brains, at least on some level. Whether those windows open onto anything worth seeing, or the internet equivalent of a urine-soaked brick wall covered in misspelled graffiti, is irrelevant: blogging, almost by definition, tends towards the intimate.

With that in mind, I decided to share what I’d written, but with the following warning.

Hold onto your butts, people – shit’s about to get all personal up in here.

Now, with all that hype, you’re probably wondering what I’m about to be going on about. “Is it a sex thing?” I hear you thinking, reading the minds of imaginary readers kind of being my thing. “I bet it’s a sex thing.”

In which case, I’m sorry to disappoint, ‘cause what I’m about to talk about is nearly as far away from sex as you can get: writing.

Long and hard, but still nothing to do with sex.

Boring Travel Post, Woo!

I have a riddle for you: what has two thumbs and was recently chilling more than a thousand kilometres from his house.

This guy

Having never in my life travelled further away than the coast before, it proved to be a strange, exciting and utterly exhausting week -- impressions hardly helped by the necessity of dragging an infant from one end of Melbourne to the other. And though my experiences are anything but unique, I am at heart a blogger, and that means I'm still going to tell you all about it whether you like it or not. I mean, what are you going to do: stop reading?
...
Actually, please don't do that.
...Hello?
Guys...?

Well, nuts to you jerks, I'm going ahead anyway.

No Boys Allowed

By this point, it's probably pretty clear that I'm a father. And with parenthood comes a whole host of new and exciting experiences, most of which revolve around the excretion and subsequent removal of several fairly disgusting bodily fluids. Despite living in a civilised society, babies frequently refuse to hold off on such excretion until they can find a toilet, and will gladly urinate all over the floor if you let them. This is because babies are disgusting, and you should be ashamed of having ever been one.

Truly, truly disgusting.