Tag Archives: humour

“Jerks & Irks” III: No Need to Buy Your Book Now, Thanks

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So let us recap: The first Jerks & Irks was about Coming of Age novels and last week’s edition touched on stupidly short book descriptions coupled with an over-abundance of quotes of praise for the author. (These recaps are gonna get lengthy after awhile, huh? Hmm…)

This week’s rant was inspired by fellow blogger karmicangel, over at a Portia Adams Adventure (click either link, they both whisk you away to her fantabulousness), who commented that she wished there were a happy medium to what I was describing and the long-winded-leave nothing-to-the-imagination descriptions that look something like this:

“Susan met a guy named Brian at a bookstore in Connecticut when they both reached for the same copy of ‘Pride and Prejudice.’ They hit it off and got married after a brief courtship. But he was hiding a deadly secret. Don’t worry (*Oh I wasn’t worried, I was just gonna read the book*), the secret was that he was on the lam from killing his previous wife (*Not a secret anymore*). Her name was Jessica. She was from Wisconsin, but he killed her in Kansas during a tornado. At first it looked like an accident, but eventually the police figured it out and came looking for Brian. Will the police catch up with Brian and will Susan find out about his dark past? (*Gasp*) Well, yes and no. (*Oh goodie, I was afraid I was going to have to read the book*) The police eventually find out that Brian is now in Connecticut, but to everyone’s surprise (*except mine because I read this desription*), Susan stands up for her new husband and they concoct a daring plan to evade the police and live happily ever after in a non-extradition country. (*I was wondering how it ends, but thank you. Now I have nothing to look forward to*)”

A bit much, but you get my drift. So here’s to the jerks who write descriptions like these and wonder why their books sales are abysmal. Cheers Jerks!!!

 

Bores & Snores from A-Z

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As I’m beginning to follow more and more writers in the blogosphere, I’m seeing more and more of the Prompt Phenomenon. People are doing 30 Days of Prompts, 365 Days of Prompts, and the exceedingly fun Prompts from A-Z challenge thingy. Me, personally, I’m afraid to partake in such an activity. I’m new to writing and I’m terrified that my brain will run out of creativity just witing my novel. Then I went and added a blog to the mix, so I really feel like my creative capacity is stretched a little thin at the moment. But I enjoy reading the prompt posts from other writers, so you guys continue to rock out.

But the other night (Monday night/Tuesday morning, to be exact), I was awake at 4am. I didn’t need to be awake at 4am. I didn’t want to be awake at 4am. But there I was. And as my mind was wandering around thinking all kinds of random tangential thoughts, such as:

“Easter is soon.” “Mmm, chocolate bunnies.” “When was the last time I had a chocolate bunny?” “Sometimes chocolate bunnies taste funny.” ”Haha, bunny rhymes with funny!” “My grandma use to refer to the comics section of the newspaper as the funnies.” “I miss grandma”

…you get the idea. Anyway, somewhere in there I started thinking about prompts and how I wish I had a pen and paper and a list of purposely boring prompts on my nightstand to help me fall back asleep. I didn’t exactly go from A-Z, but here’s what I remember coming up with:

  • Abacus – You know, those ancient counting thingies with the beads. There couldn’t possibly be an interesting story there.
  • Barley – Ever talk to a Vegetarian? I rest my case.
  • Cellulose – Take my word for it, anything having to do with organic chemistry is boring. I should know, it took me three tries to pass it in college.
  • Foreign Policy – Snore! How childish of me, I know. But if I were president, meetings with other nations would go something like, “Do you wanna blow us up? No? Well I don’t wanna blow you up either. Let’s all go and get some FroYo. You do have FroYo here, right?”
  • Golf – Handicaps, par, birdies, eagles, sparrows, whatever. Shut up unless you’re going to explain to me the golf world’s obsession with birds.
  • Politics – Again, I know this is very irresponsible of me, but politicians are boring. That’s why no one pays attention. If they made it more interesting, more people would get involved. Hell, if they made it more comprehensive, more people would get involved. But they keep it boring on purpose so they can pull the wool over our collective rolling eyes. Curse you politicians!
  • Taxes - its Tax Season, which has got to be the most boring “season” of all. I can’t imagine that there is a single Tax Specialist out there that is also an insomniac
  •  Yarn – Not knitting. Stuff a person knitted themselves can be interesting. Especially if they are knitting me a pillow case to be used after I try to write something fun about yarn.
  • Zucchini? -  I dunno. Words that start with Z are pretty fun. Might I suggest writing stuff using only prompts that begin with the letter Z? I think I’ll try that after my book is finished…

Speaking of my book, I finished Chapter 14 Monday night. I was pleasantly surprised that when I went to open up the document to revise and edit the chapter, it didn’t really need much tweaking. I want to being working on Chapter 15 today, but first I have to ask my Mother-in-law how to kill people. Don’t ask, I’m saving that for another post. But in the meantime, Happy Prompting!

Oh, and since I recently surpassed 1,000 site views, I created a Jordanna East Facebook Page and Twitter Account. Check them both out, but try not to judge too harshly when you find them both pretty bare. I literally just created them. Right now they’re in that newborn-baby-horse-fawn-trying-to-stand-on-its-own phase. But everyone loves a baby horse, right?