Hor·ri·fic Po·et·ics

So I went and started a new blog. This one over at Tumblr. While I occasionally post poetry on here (and will continue to do so) I decided I wanted a virtual space dedicated to posting poetry, specifically that stuff I sometimes write with a darker edge to it.

Thus horrificpoetics.com was born.

I wanted something with a clean interface where I can just let the words speak for themselves, so you’ll find no fancy graphics or flashy images, nor any long-winded descriptions or endless explanations. Just poems (along with previous publication acknowledgments, if they exist).

I have installed the Disqus platform so I do encourage comments and/or questions, and I’d be happy to delve into conversations about each work or whatever thoughts or fears they may bring to mind.

Currently, there are only three poems up on the site, but I do plan on posting regularly, hopefully weekly. At least in the beginning, the content will primarily be previously published material, but I may sneak in some new stuff as well. If you don’t see a publication acknowledgment at the end of the post, it is previously unpublished and likely still a work in progress.

So head on over to Hor·ri·fic Po·et·ics, check it out and let me know what you think. Feel free to leave a comment over there and if you see something you like, share it with a friend!

Thanks for reading!

2014: The Year thus Far

I’ve been away from the blog for a while, away from writing in general in fact. After “winning” NaNoWriMo last year, I decided to take a little break in December, which inadvertently turned into an extended hiatus from writing altogether. I had managed to hit the 50K word goal during the month while working full time, meeting various other obligations, and still spending time with my family, but by the end of it, I was tired, perhaps even burned out. So I decided to take a step back during the holidays, with a plan to return in January. My aim then was to finish the first draft of my Nano novel which, though it stood at 50,000 plus words on December 1, wasn’t (and still isn’t) even close to being a completed anything. I’d left the story dangling somewhere in the hazy middle, in the middle of a terrible and laborious storm if I recall correctly, and that is precisely where it stands today.

Now with the summer months nearly gone, I stand facing September as it screeches near, and I’m wondering where the hell the year went. I don’t want to make excuses for not writing and so I’m not going to dwell on the time lost. I just know this: it is time to get back to The Work. Okay, so not that work exactly. Not the half-completed nonsense novel thus far left by the wayside. Don’t get me wrong, I will finish that sloppy “zero” draft. I will eventually revise, rewrite, mold and sculpt it into something that hopefully won’t make your eyes bleed. But first I just need to get moving again, and I’ve got other projects that have been on the shelf which I feel I owe my obligations to at present.

Also, with another Nano approaching, I don’t think it’s too early to start planning the work to be done during this year’s madness. Yes, that’s right. I am crazy enough to do this thing again. This time however, I’d like to set a personal goal beyond the 50k word count. Hopefully, with a bit of planning and some time to conjure up a decent outline, I’d like to actually complete an entire draft during the month, so as to not end up with fifty thousand words of incoherent garbage that might one day resemble roughly half of a completed novel. My personal goal then will be to end up with fifty thousand words of incoherent garbage that might one day resemble an entire novel.

So I’ve had a wee little break but now I’ve got work to do. In the coming weeks I’ll be plotting and outlining the new novel as well as working to finish up another novel and a chapbook which have both been in the works for far too long. I’ll be making an effort to post more regularly to the blog, if for nothing else than to pop in and say “hi” and tell you what I had for dinner. No. I won’t really do that. No one really cares about that. But I do have a few ideas to expand upon the current content and make it reflect additional topics outside of writing. Perhaps that will liven the place up, make it more fun, like some sort of futuristic cyborg monkey disco. Wouldn’t that be cool? Anyway, I believe I also promised some posts on the NaNoWriMo experience, so as we draw closer to this year’s event in November, I’ll try to post a summary on my thoughts from the chaos of 2013. So until next time, be cool, be safe, and just write!

#Howto #Write #a #Viral #Blog #Post

I’ve been blogging for almost a month now and this post will be my 16th I believe, so I’d say I’m pretty much an expert. Now it’s time for me to pass the buck as they say, and impart my infinite wisdom on to the little folks out there. (That doesn’t sound condescending at all does it? Oh good. I don’t want it to sound condescending.) So here are seven things you might need to know to make your blog posts sound important and look really snazzy:

1.) You need to pick  a topic. I know this sounds like boring work or school stuff, but trust me. Preferably pick something that is currently popular and trending. Don’t know what’s trending? No worries. That’s what we have Twitter for. And that magic little # doo-hickey you keep seeing everywhere is there for a reason: it lets us know the stuff we are supposed to care about. So let’s head on over to Twitter and see what we can write about. Ok. Here’s our topic: #inappropriatefuneralsongs. Awesome!

2.) Don’t worry if you don’t know anything at all about the topic at hand. And I mean ANYthing at all. Trust me. You don’t even have to discuss the topic in your post! That’s the beauty of it. Just randomly insert the trend word or phrase a few times,  #inappropriatefuneralsongs sprinkle in some other words arranged in a reasonably coherent fashion, then break them up into, oh I’d say about 3 or 4 paragraphs (Whoa! easy there partner, don’t make them too big, you don’t want to scare away your readership with all those intimidating blocks of text!)

3.) Use lots of biggish sounding words. Your word processor’s thesaurus thingy will help you with that. Again, trust me here, this is no boondoggle! #inappropriatefuneralsongs This technique works to mask the fact that you have no idea what the hell you’re talking about. Most people won’t bother to look them up and will therefore mistake you for being smart, making them all the more likely to share your post to their friends, hence making them appear brainy by proxy. Besides, all that variegated vernacular will make you seem quite sagacious .

4.) #Hashtag. #Hashtag. #Hashtag. Use them in your title. #For #Every #Single #Word. Honestly, you have no idea which words in your title will be trending #inappropriatefuneralsongs by the time you publish, so it’s good to cover your bases, thereby increasing the likelihood you’ll strike the jackpot.

5.) Next, and this is perhaps the most vital aspect, find a SUPER COOL image to go along with your post. Kittens are always a good choice.  Recently Stumble Upon a bunch of cute kittens swarming over an apathetic gorilla? Oh you are sooo golden!

6.) Tag your post with just about every possible thing you can think of. #Every #Possible #Thing. I can’t stress this enough. Seriously, you simply can NOT have too many tags on your post! Get the encyclopedia out if you have trouble with this one.

7.) Wait before you publish! Now that your post is all finished, check your topic/trend word one more time. It’s not too late to change it because what was trending three minutes ago when you started this epic quest might not be trending any longer. Swap out those #trendwords as fast as you can and then click the publish button.

With any luck you’ve just published a super cool and trendy blog post that will go epidemically viral in seconds flat and launch you into #World #Wide #Web #Super #Stardom.

Well that’s it for me. I’m bored now. Besides, blogging isn’t nearly as cool as it was when I started writing this. I think I’ll go see what’s happening on Google+.