Category: Community

So I google myself tonight and I find my DocuDharma entry second only to my Cliffs Notes.

Not only that, but the two top image results are from What’s for Dinner.

Impact is funny sometimes.

What is famous?

Now frankly, I don’t often think of myself as famous.

buhdy is much more popular than I am and while he admires my writing on certain technical levels (or at least has said so).  I don’t like any of it except for particular turns of phrase.

Cheap theatrics I can teach anyone.

Fortunately good writing is the least of your problems if you want to be famous.

Persistence and Regularity

Whatever success I have is entirely due to persistence and regularity.

Well, isn’t that what you expect a writer to say?  It’s as big a cliche as thanking Touchdown Jesus.

Eat some fucking bran if you want to be regular.

Establishing a reputation

C’mon, let’s all take the Poet’s Pledge-

I, [the Poet’s name], do hereby solemnly pledge:

To be peculiar in the most unusual way I can cook up

To write excellently, or more especially to be known to write excellently

To master bards of old and bards anew, or at least never give on that I haven’t

To advance in gestures of my own and not in the stirrings of a majority, except where money is at stake

To be perceived as morally suspect, no matter what the truth

To sniff at adulation and pooh-pooh honors no matter how much I crave them

To obey whim and eschew duty, or at least appear to

To rove ruffian-like across continents of poems with ease, or at least make them think so

To engage in ridiculous arguments, all hot and sweaty for my own position

To be judicious only in the judging of my own merits and mean about the others

To die young, or if I linger, to be ignored and abused well

To write tons of crap for every good poem I do write, and obfuscate the difference with rhetoric

To suck up to important editors with honeyed words, and cuff the assistant editors often

To bemoan the sorry state of poetry in my country and do not one damn thing about it

To speak so incoherently that everyone thinks I am a genius

Oh-

That was my thirteenth diary, not that you should be jealous because like a cesspool only the biggest pieces of crap rise to the surface.

Did I mention that only my Cliffs Notes are more famous than I?

Hornbeck’s character is static. He is as opinionated and iconoclastic, attacking institutions and firmly held beliefs, and he does not change throughout the course of the play. His character is also shallow and one-dimensional.

How do you survive?

Well if people had only understood how much I inhabit my character they would surely have strangled me in my cradle because I can’t dance nearly as well as Gene Kelly.

But stories?  I bang on the keyboard every day.  I average 40+ comments and 4.5 recs per (when I keep track of such things which I never do).

Attempts to silence me fail on the sheer volume of my record.

It also has this additional benefit which is not to be despised-

People know me and are interested.

On becoming the Paris Hilton of the inter tubz

Have you met my dog Frenchy?

Alas he has passed to a 72 coke bottle fucking paradise.

You can try Pooty Pics.

The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense. ~Tom Clancy

I want to try something different today. And I should mention I will be here intermittently as I have some errands and adventures to attend to. (Did I mention I’m on vacation? 😉

Your RR challenge today, if you should decide to accept it, is to craft-write something from the prompts below. It can be a story or a poem or song lyrics or whatever. Or you can jumpstart a Round Robin with one, if you want (make sure you tell us if that’s what it is).

Shall we begin?

We be jammin’ now, dharmanuts. Are you having fun yet? I am. This is my vacation. I know, I should Get A Life, but… heh. Okay.

I’ll maintain this Essay as a “Mothership”, meaning, I’ll add with UPDATES all day today, as Essays arrive. Links to DD Writers Jam Fest essays from Day One (yesterday) are below.

DD Writers Jam Fest… a five days Docudharma exclusive (!) Writer’s… uhm … focus group? no… er, Workshop? well, sorta, maybe. Free For All? hmmm, yah.

DATES: Wednesday through Sunday, August 12 – 16th, 2009

WHERE: Here, mostly, but also in your Brain, CPU or Journal

WHO: You. Everybody. Dharmanoids. Whoever wants in, jump in (as long as you play nice). You don’t have to be a “Writer”, no ID card or credentials art the door required. No Registration Fees either

HOSTED BY: moi but it’s a community thing

REWARDS? PRIZES? MEGA BONUSES? Er, no. Free ponies though!

Basically, the idea here is twofold:

ONE is… just write. Put “DD Writers Jam Fest” in your tags. You can also plop the Jam Fest image Banner into the body of your Essay if you like. Creative writing, or Instructional Essay or Op-Ed or whatever seems suitable to you. Have at it.

NOTE: Please drop a comment here to alert me if/when you publish a Jam Essay so I can link to it here.

TWO is the Round Robin.  The very first Round Robin is going on now! I’ll post a new RR for today in.a.bit…. this afternoon.

UPDATE: OKay so I spazzed out yesterday and didn’t post one. The All New and Improved Round Robin for today is now up. Come on over and jump in. You know you want to.

Here’s the links to the previous brainstorming, which might give you a little of background of how this Jam Fest came about: Part One and Part Two.

I’d like to add that Docudharma has some ongoing Series for writers (and readers) here … in particular, Robyn posts Muse in the Morning every morning. Robyn celebrates the Muses and encourages everyone to contribute their talent there anytime.  

Deliver me from writers who say the way they live doesn’t matter. I’m not sure a bad person can write a good book. If art doesn’t make us better, then what on earth is it for?

~Alice Walker