I looked up "hot mess" in the dictionary and it linked me back to that article. Then I looked up "pretentious over-politicizing bs" and the definition was "see hot mess."
My writing process is too new for me to do much in the way of deliberately forming a story around any of my personal issues, unless I am attempting non-fiction and even then I'm just trying to tell the tale with as few writing mistakes as possible. When the aim is fiction it's not so much about creating something as much as being pulverized by an idea that hits the page in front of me -- SPLAT! It's exciting, but also terrifying. Where do these stories come from? Sometimes what I write is so far out there away from me that I am astounded. For instance the story I wrote about the women in prison--where in the blinkering blazes did that come from?! I rarely do more than a couple of drafts, and only a few times have I started out with one idea and switched to another. Still, I'm sure as alien as it feels there has to be something of me and my beliefs and personal politics in what I write. There has to be, right? It may be a subconscious thing, but it's got to be there, somewhere. But to be perfectly honest, I'm not someone who
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Wow, that article. And now I've tumbled down a bad, bad rabbit hole. I am slightly perplexed - do you think she's taking the piss? Because nothing, and I mean NOTHING, about that essay, or her website, or her fiction has me thinking of her as an intellectual powerhouse penning a 21st Century War & Peace and finding it rejected by agents/publishers who are looking for...exactly what she's writing. I'm confused by this tirade
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The problems with this article are legion, beginning with the author's name: Kitten Holiday. Since when do kittens take a holiday on the internet? They're in every feed of every social media site I visit, mewing, purring, sleeping, eating, pawing some unsuspecting other animal, or getting pawed, or getting wet or getting someone else wet by avoiding getting wet
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OK, I read that horrible word salad and got the political message fairly quickly.
Then I asked myself, WTF? If you [the article writer] pull apart every single piece of postmodern literature for its political message, you're looking for a fight, not an intelligent discussion on "why postmodern literature sucks today". It almost sounds like sour grapes in the "Waah, why is X published and not MEEEEEEEE?"
I've never looked at anything I've read as making a political statement unless, of course, the story involves something political. I want a good story. Teach me something. Tell me something weird that's actually happened. Make me care about your characters, what they're saying, doing. I want to be able to sit there so enthralled that I won't put it down until I'm done. THAT, IMO, is what writing is about.
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I have to admit that she knows how to toss a masterful word salad.
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Then I asked myself, WTF? If you [the article writer] pull apart every single piece of postmodern literature for its political message, you're looking for a fight, not an intelligent discussion on "why postmodern literature sucks today". It almost sounds like sour grapes in the "Waah, why is X published and not MEEEEEEEE?"
I've never looked at anything I've read as making a political statement unless, of course, the story involves something political. I want a good story. Teach me something. Tell me something weird that's actually happened. Make me care about your characters, what they're saying, doing. I want to be able to sit there so enthralled that I won't put it down until I'm done. THAT, IMO, is what writing is about.
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