Fighting with Crap
Londoners. They are insane. I promise.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/apr/24/espresso-book-machine-launches

I haven’t updated for a while, and in fact, I haven’t read or written much either. Too many exams, too little time, too little sleep, too much head-banging.
But!
With Obama’s fantastic decision to eliminate Guantanamo Bay, America needs a new torture device in three different varieties! It will make you want to be sick.
I really want to do a post on Maradonia and the Seven Bridges! It’s one of those crappy fantasy things written by an immature pre-pubescent girl on an ego-trip. I know that by mentioning its name, I am giving it yet more publicity, but to be honest, it’s just so funny!
I mean, it’s not meant to be; however… yeah. XD I’ve been writing a script for a video piss-take with my friend at school (he did most, in fact next to all, to be honest).
I’ll try and find the link for you–the first forty pages on the author’s “website”. (she puts random things in quotation marks). Now, you see, I like to help writers. Heck, on the Young Writers Society I do a lot of reviewing, and I try to improve their writing skills. I asked her to check out YWS for self-improvement, so that she wouldn’t have to self-publish it, and that she might one day improve. I meant it in genuine promise.
So far, she has only sworn grotesquely at me and claimed to be a best-seller and a better writer than me. I’m no Orwell, but she’s not better than me. Honestly. And I’m not trying to sound vain, or big myself up, because I’m still very bad and have a long time to go before publishing. I bet even you, reading this, are better than her. I cannot explain to you these atrocities without showing them to you. LOLLOLOLOL. She also believes she is the world’s youngest novelist.
(It seems she has removed the excerpt. I cannot find it through site-mapping. But nonetheless, it is of no disconcerting fact, as I have it stored on my computer in foreshadowing this wise move of hers, perhaps the first.)
Anyway. Before I get too caught up, I’ll direct you to some sporks already floating around the internet. I didn’t do them, obviously: respect to their rightful writers.
They spork it much better than I. xD
I should be writing, shouldn’t I? Actually, I thought I’d post something or other. Little Redbreast. I’m quite pleased with it. *nods* Not far in, though. Here’s a little bitty:
A spectre in the sun’s glow. It shivers. A grey, unrelenting perversion upon the forest’s canopies. Birds begin to sing. Soft, treacle-glazed lullabies drift in their tunes; a chorus of voices lift the light in the sky. But still he sits in the shadow. Colours flourish under the golden sun but Robin’s breast is still dull. It does not glow. The world is moving on without him.
A choir of robins is scattered out there, somewhere. And he cannot see them. He shifts about in the dark. Robin is hidden. He wants to stretch out his wings, and his throat trembles with the urge to sing. But his beak will not open and the dark has bound him in. There is no room.
Notes flounder through the fields of spring and bubbles rise to the sky—
a flash of red—
the orange flails—
Little Redbreast floats ahead and stares at him. Two stars painted with black gloss watch him and the beak that does not sing protrudes ever so gently from the feathers. And then it is gone.
The sun is an eye. A big orange eye. It’s coming to get him. He knows this because the sun is an eye. The eye is staring. The sun is coming. Because the sun glowers. Scowling—scowling at its food. Hunger. Starvation. It’s coming.
‘Come here, little Robin,’ it says.
Robin screams and his tongue stammers into life. His heart squeals and the midday snatches him out of the shadow. The sun is watching. There are no clouds. Noises all around him. Monsters with wings fill the day with chants, ritualistic commands drilling into his skull. Pounding, pounding, the world shimmies in his eyes. More, more, chiselling in.
Cracking. His skull. Cracked.
Dizzy, dizzy, whining the skyline. Nests podded. Whistling at him. And then the spring awakens and the skin of green peels away and the red burns and there is no peace. Pounding, pounding, dressing the grass in fire.
His wings they reach first. Blowing such a blast upon his feathers that they tear from his skin and burst asunder and drizzle down upon the flame and they see him, so many eyes, so many birds, so many worms and all the king’s horses and all the king’s men—
Robin rocks in the hole. Back, back and forth.
He cannot go outside. The shadows mumble to him, cradling Robin as a mother in the alleys of nature. Hugging. The mother says nothing. The trees creak against the still air. He must eat. He must eat.
OMG vanity all the way. It’s not that good, but good for me. Just smile, dammit.
Best,
Mark

Her, a best seller? Maybe in her po dunk Florida down but everywhere else she’s a nobody. When are we going to see that video spork of her book?
That’s the paradox of publishing isn’t it? You don’t necessarily have to be a good writer to be published or even a best seller. If she was a bestseller I’m sure she would know that though. Anne Lamott had a good chapter on that in Bird by Bird. ; the one on jealousy I think (not intended as a poke at you btw).
“The sun is an eye. A big orange eye. It’s coming to get him. He knows this because the sun is an eye. The eye is staring. The sun is coming. Because the sun glowers. Scowling—scowling at its food. Hunger. Starvation. It’s coming.
‘Come here, little Robin,’ it says.”
Love this bit here. Really get the feeling of a sort of terrified, animalistic observation/perspective.
Don’t think that kind of pacing/sentence structure really works as well when it’s from the narrator’s (maybe more correctly it’d be the descriptive passages as opposed to the action? The first paragraph and the bit about the sun illustrate my point) perspective though; it starts to feel a too much like poetry rather than prose imo. Course I guess whether that works or not depends upon your intended audience and the general direction you’re trying to go with.
Personally, I think differentiating the narrator in pacing and sentence structure (particularly the use of frequent short sentences) would help give the robin a stronger feeling of character.
Anywho just my two cents, take them as you wish.
Went and looked around the interweb about [the book whose name I shall never type again]. Geebus that cover art is horrendous. I’d gouge my eyes out, but I need them for finals.
Even for a self published work there’s no excuse for that at all. Even I draw a hell of a lot better than that. Hell, even if I couldn’t, I could still commission a random person from deviantart to do something better for $10-25 o,o;;
I mean come on, even Paolini got some decent cover art.
The common factor being that their family did the cover art on both occasions. Hmph.
Thanks the advice. I really don’t mean to go all descriptive in those extremes. It just sort of happens, and I need someone to hit in the face to make me stop. But I don’t know. I’ll see where it takes me…
Not very far.
Lol they probably took it off the refrigerator XD
She has a livejournal:
http://maradonia.livejournal.com/
Now she’s just being ridiculous.
A look on the books website shows that the mother did the cover art. A look at some of other art makes me wonder how she managed to poop out that horrible cover. Then again I couldn’t find any figure art of hers so I’d guess it has something to do with that.
Oh and:
http://www.worldcat.org/search?qt=worldcat_org_bks&q=Maradonia+and+the+Seven+Bridges
All those best sellers that don’t come show up on worldcat >.>
http://activerain.com/businesswritingink
company profile of the woman who wrote the “review” on her blog. Makes me wonder if she paid for it <.<
Rocky – But… why? A while ago, I managed to gain access to her old blog and post some things into it, as a joke, but instead of simply changing the permissions she created a new blog? lol
Pisthetairos – To be honest, I think she’s a good artist, but it’s the horrible way she represents a horrible book. I am interested to see the relevance of the weird two-face thing. But the cover’s just… ugh. Self-published Tesch written all over it.
… literally.
Well yeah. That’s why I’m wondering how she managed to paint something like that. The technical skill applied in that pic isn’t bad per se , but the presentation is just ugly.