Showing posts with label Dolph Ziggler. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dolph Ziggler. Show all posts
Friday, January 2, 2026
Friday, December 4, 2015
Anybody Can Lose One Time
***ANYBODY CAN LOSE ONE TIME***
The title of this journal is a line ripped from the movie “Million Dollar Baby”. The line is used by Morgan Freeman’s character to comfort a welterweight boxer who was thinking of quitting the sport after losing a bitter fight. It took a while, but the boxer eventually came around and continued his career under Morgan Freeman’s tutelage. It’s true for every aspect of life: anybody can lose one time.
To think you can go undefeated in whatever you’re doing for the rest of your life is unrealistic. Without failure, there is no success. Some failures hit harder than others, but none of them are incentives to quit. Failure comes in many forms and is a universal trait among any profession. Here are some examples:
Ronda Rousey was the most touted fighter in the UFC, not just as a female, not just as a bantamweight, but as a fighter in general. She was undefeated with twelve victories, many post-fight bonuses, and two championships under her belt. With the exception of her second bout with bitter rival Miesha Tate, all of her twelve victories were achieved in the first round, mostly by arm bar submission. And then came a feared striker named Holly Holm who kicked Ronda in the head and punched her repeatedly until she lost consciousness. That would mark the end of Ronda’s championship reign and the first loss of her career. Anybody can lose one time.
Rusev was the most dominant wrecking machine the WWE had ever seen in the year 2014. He went through the entire year without suffering a single pin fall or submission loss. In December of that year, he defeated Sheamus on the WWE Network for his first major championship: the United States Title. The Wrestling Observer Newsletter showed lots of love for Rusev in 2014 by giving him the Most Improved and Best Gimmick (Russian nationalist) awards. And then Rusev had to defend his championship against John Cena at Wrestlemania 31 in 2015. He lost. Badly. Rusev then went on to be part of a humiliating love square storyline that involved his manager Lana, Dolph Ziggler, and Summer Rae. Don’t feel too badly for him, though. He’s now part of a four-man international team of wrestlers called The League of Nations, which also includes Alberto Del Rio (Mexico), King Barrett (England), and Sheamus (Ireland). Anybody can lose one time.
I’m not going to bore you all with another sob story about how I got two-star ratings on Occupy Wrestling and American Darkness. I’d like to go further back in time than that. Before I became the accomplished independent author that I am today, I had to learn about the art of writing and the importance of reading at Western Washington University. I’ve had teachers at Olympic College beforehand praise my writing as the best they’d ever seen. Not the case at WWU. I thought I could blitz through all of my English classes with A’s and B’s forever. Well, by the time I graduated from that school, I did get a lot of A’s and B’s. But I also accumulated four C’s. C’s might not seem like a big deal to most people, but those four C’s hurt me badly and left me angry. My ego had taken a Holly Holm kick to the skull. Though I still get seen as a C student by my peers in today’s world, I know that my hard work will get me to the top one day. Anybody can lose one time.
But sometimes one loss isn’t enough. Sometimes you have to have five losses. Six. Seven. Twenty. Fifty. A hundred. Life is not about if you lose the big one; it’s about when. And when that time happens, what will you do? Will you continue to wallow in your sadness or will you pick yourself off the ground, dust yourself off, lock and load, and storm the gates of hell? In the end, it doesn’t matter how hard your failures hit or how close to the end of your life it feels. Your journey doesn’t end until you say it does. Don’t give up. Pick up your battleaxe and swing like a motherfucker. We’ve got ears, say cheers!
***POISON TONGUE TALES***
I just submitted a story called “Mastodon”, which marks the 49th story in the Poison Tongue Tales catalogue. If my math is correct, which it usually is, that means I have one more story to write before I hit my fifty story quota, thus ending the series and getting it ready for Marie Krepps’ lovely eyes and switchblade tongue. The 50th and final story will be called “Shadow-Pie”, an animal fantasy dedicated to the memory of an elderly black Australian Shepherd dog I used to have back in the mid-2000’s. Here’s the synopsis for that story:
CHARACTERS:
Lance Bradley, Pawl Bearer
Shadow, Elderly Dog Shaman
PROMPT CONFORMITY: N/A
SYNOPSIS: Lance takes the ashes of his dead father to Shadow in hopes she will spread them across the desert. In the middle of the ritual, the spirit of Lance’s father possesses Shadow’s mind and causes the dog to attack the forlorn son.
***DARK FANTASY WARRIORS***
The short story “Zombie” has certainly seen its fair share of gory goodness and foul language. What it needs now is some drawings of the main characters. Gail Reinhold already has a picture drawn since she used to be part of a novel called “Fireball Nightmare” and a videogame idea called “Final Fantasy Hardcore”. I’m not even going to bother with Deacon Simms since he’s too normal to be a Dark Fantasy Warrior. That just leaves one more character: combat drug zombie Mattie Dent, who used to be part of a longer short story called “Garden of Evil”. Mattie is muscular, defiant, rude, and butt ugly. Most importantly, she’s going to be a lot of fun to draw.
***POLITICAL QUOTE OF THE DAY***
“It is no more okay to ask a transgender person about their genitals than it is to ask Jimmy Carter if he’s circumcised, which by the way he is. Smooth as a boiled carrot!”
-John Oliver-
The title of this journal is a line ripped from the movie “Million Dollar Baby”. The line is used by Morgan Freeman’s character to comfort a welterweight boxer who was thinking of quitting the sport after losing a bitter fight. It took a while, but the boxer eventually came around and continued his career under Morgan Freeman’s tutelage. It’s true for every aspect of life: anybody can lose one time.
To think you can go undefeated in whatever you’re doing for the rest of your life is unrealistic. Without failure, there is no success. Some failures hit harder than others, but none of them are incentives to quit. Failure comes in many forms and is a universal trait among any profession. Here are some examples:
Ronda Rousey was the most touted fighter in the UFC, not just as a female, not just as a bantamweight, but as a fighter in general. She was undefeated with twelve victories, many post-fight bonuses, and two championships under her belt. With the exception of her second bout with bitter rival Miesha Tate, all of her twelve victories were achieved in the first round, mostly by arm bar submission. And then came a feared striker named Holly Holm who kicked Ronda in the head and punched her repeatedly until she lost consciousness. That would mark the end of Ronda’s championship reign and the first loss of her career. Anybody can lose one time.
Rusev was the most dominant wrecking machine the WWE had ever seen in the year 2014. He went through the entire year without suffering a single pin fall or submission loss. In December of that year, he defeated Sheamus on the WWE Network for his first major championship: the United States Title. The Wrestling Observer Newsletter showed lots of love for Rusev in 2014 by giving him the Most Improved and Best Gimmick (Russian nationalist) awards. And then Rusev had to defend his championship against John Cena at Wrestlemania 31 in 2015. He lost. Badly. Rusev then went on to be part of a humiliating love square storyline that involved his manager Lana, Dolph Ziggler, and Summer Rae. Don’t feel too badly for him, though. He’s now part of a four-man international team of wrestlers called The League of Nations, which also includes Alberto Del Rio (Mexico), King Barrett (England), and Sheamus (Ireland). Anybody can lose one time.
I’m not going to bore you all with another sob story about how I got two-star ratings on Occupy Wrestling and American Darkness. I’d like to go further back in time than that. Before I became the accomplished independent author that I am today, I had to learn about the art of writing and the importance of reading at Western Washington University. I’ve had teachers at Olympic College beforehand praise my writing as the best they’d ever seen. Not the case at WWU. I thought I could blitz through all of my English classes with A’s and B’s forever. Well, by the time I graduated from that school, I did get a lot of A’s and B’s. But I also accumulated four C’s. C’s might not seem like a big deal to most people, but those four C’s hurt me badly and left me angry. My ego had taken a Holly Holm kick to the skull. Though I still get seen as a C student by my peers in today’s world, I know that my hard work will get me to the top one day. Anybody can lose one time.
But sometimes one loss isn’t enough. Sometimes you have to have five losses. Six. Seven. Twenty. Fifty. A hundred. Life is not about if you lose the big one; it’s about when. And when that time happens, what will you do? Will you continue to wallow in your sadness or will you pick yourself off the ground, dust yourself off, lock and load, and storm the gates of hell? In the end, it doesn’t matter how hard your failures hit or how close to the end of your life it feels. Your journey doesn’t end until you say it does. Don’t give up. Pick up your battleaxe and swing like a motherfucker. We’ve got ears, say cheers!
***POISON TONGUE TALES***
I just submitted a story called “Mastodon”, which marks the 49th story in the Poison Tongue Tales catalogue. If my math is correct, which it usually is, that means I have one more story to write before I hit my fifty story quota, thus ending the series and getting it ready for Marie Krepps’ lovely eyes and switchblade tongue. The 50th and final story will be called “Shadow-Pie”, an animal fantasy dedicated to the memory of an elderly black Australian Shepherd dog I used to have back in the mid-2000’s. Here’s the synopsis for that story:
CHARACTERS:
Lance Bradley, Pawl Bearer
Shadow, Elderly Dog Shaman
PROMPT CONFORMITY: N/A
SYNOPSIS: Lance takes the ashes of his dead father to Shadow in hopes she will spread them across the desert. In the middle of the ritual, the spirit of Lance’s father possesses Shadow’s mind and causes the dog to attack the forlorn son.
***DARK FANTASY WARRIORS***
The short story “Zombie” has certainly seen its fair share of gory goodness and foul language. What it needs now is some drawings of the main characters. Gail Reinhold already has a picture drawn since she used to be part of a novel called “Fireball Nightmare” and a videogame idea called “Final Fantasy Hardcore”. I’m not even going to bother with Deacon Simms since he’s too normal to be a Dark Fantasy Warrior. That just leaves one more character: combat drug zombie Mattie Dent, who used to be part of a longer short story called “Garden of Evil”. Mattie is muscular, defiant, rude, and butt ugly. Most importantly, she’s going to be a lot of fun to draw.
***POLITICAL QUOTE OF THE DAY***
“It is no more okay to ask a transgender person about their genitals than it is to ask Jimmy Carter if he’s circumcised, which by the way he is. Smooth as a boiled carrot!”
-John Oliver-
Monday, November 23, 2015
WWE Survivor Series: Roman Reigns vs. Dean Ambrose
MATCH: Roman Reigns vs. Dean Ambrose for the vacated WWE World Heavyweight Championship
PROMOTION: World Wrestling Entertainment
EVENT: Survivor Series
YEAR: 2015
RATING: TV-PG for violence
GRADE: Pass
When Roman Reigns and Dean Ambrose burst onto the scene in WWE, they were aligned with Seth Rollins as part of the most dominant trio the promotion has ever seen, The Shield. As members of this powerful alliance, Reigns and Rollins went on to become Tag Team of the Year and WWE Tag Team Champions while Dean Ambrose became the United States Champion. Every three-man team assembled to go against The Shield was destroyed and defeated with no absence of malice from The Wyatt Family to Team Hell No & Randy Orton to Evolution.
Just when The Shield was on top of the world, Seth Rollins got greedy and laid out Dean Ambrose and Roman Reigns with chair shots as a way of accepting Triple H’s offer to join The Authority. Ever since stabbing his brothers in the back, Seth went on to become Mr. Money in the Bank and would eventually cash in the contract at Wrestlemania 31 to become WWE World Heavyweight Champion for the first time in his career. He also defeated John Cena at Summer Slam to become United States Champion in addition to being World Champion.
Despite having Roman Reigns and Dean Ambrose (who were still best friends despite the end of The Shield) breathing down his neck, Seth Rollins would have gone on to hold the WWE World Heavyweight Championship forever if he hadn’t been for a debilitating knee injury he suffered during a live show in Ireland. Rollins would be forced to vacate the championship, undergo surgery, and rehabilitate for six to nine months.
In order to determine a new WWE Champion, Triple H put together a 16-man tournament which would culminate at the 2015 Survivor Series pay-per-view. In order to get to the finals, Dean Ambrose had to defeat NXT upstart Tyler Breeze, former World Champion Dolph Ziggler, and reigning Intercontinental Champion Kevin Owens. Roman Reigns’ road to the finals wasn’t any less challenging since he had to beat “The World’s Largest Athlete” The Big Show, “The Swiss Superman” Cesaro, and the reigning United States Champion Alberto Del Rio.
Up until Survivor Series, Ambrose and Reigns had each other’s backs throughout their various rivalries. When that opening bell rung, friendship and brotherhood went out the window. The two ring warriors went through too many screw jobs and too many beatings to just let each other have the WWE World Title handed to them. They were going to fight and they were going to brutalize each other in the process.
The instant the bell rang, Roman Reigns and Dean Ambrose rushed to the center of the ring and started throwing rapid-fire punches to the face to dictate the match’s pace as being gunshot-fast. Dean Ambrose would perform multiple dives through the ropes and sacrifice his own health just to flatten Reigns. Reigns threw many Superman Punches and jacked the jaw of his best friend. They threw each other against the ring apron, audience barricade, and announce tables. They clotheslined, body slammed, suplexed, and even hit each other with their respective finishing moves, Roman Reigns using the Spear Tackle and Dean Ambrose using Dirty Deeds (double arm underhook DDT).
These two fighters beat each other so badly that they could do nothing but sit next to each other in frustration in order to figure out their next moves. They sat there pie-facing each other. Then they punched each other in the face. They got up and punched each other some more. Then they kicked each other. And then more hard-hitting haymakers and clotheslines were in the works. And then they were bouncing each other’s bodies off the canvass like hand grenades ready to explode from mind-blowing pain. Somewhere in this shuffle of fast-paced brawling, Roman Reigns found himself leaning against the turnbuckles with Dean Ambrose charging for him like a raging lunatic bull.
How did Roman Reigns respond? With a second (or third) Spear Tackle and a 1-2-3 pinning combination. The leader of the Roman Empire had finally done it after three years of WWE’s most hard-hitting challenges. Hernia surgeries, bruises, blood drops, broken bones, mind games, and fan hatred all tried to keep him down at the bottom of the grave. And then he rose to the surface and conquered the mountain for the first time in his career. Roman Reigns was so exhausted from his match with Dean Ambrose that he had the equilibrium of a drunkard.
This celebration was going to last forever in time: confetti, cheers, boos, and shaking hands with Dean Ambrose, that was what the top of the WWE mountain felt like for Roman Reigns. And then once Ambrose left, Sheamus appeared with his Money in the Bank briefcase and played the role of spoiler. A Money in the Bank contract guarantees the holder a WWE Championship match ANY time he wants one, even after a grueling match with The Lunatic Fringe himself. Two bicycle kicks later, Sheamus wins his less-than-a-minute match with Roman Reigns and becomes the new champion, much to the delight of Authority leader Triple H. The only thing left on Roman’s body to break and bruise was his heart and now it’s in a million pieces.
The buildup to this match was months in the making, Rollins’ injury aside. The eagerness tensed up within the fans to see this kick-ass match and it finally happened. The match itself was exciting, fast-paced, hard-hitting, and between two badass wrestlers who personify toughness and brutality. The fans adore Dean Ambrose and hate Roman Reigns, the latter of which I can’t understand since he’s an awesome performer despite his lack of experience. There were no losers in this deadly brawl. There were no winners either, only survivors and shattered soldiers.
The one aspect of this match I could have done without was Sheamus’ cowardly cash-in. Yes, I know cashing in Money in the Bank is something even my favorite wrestlers like Daniel Bryan, CM Punk, and Seth Rollins have done, but even so, this pay-per-view victory was supposed to be Roman Reigns and Dean Ambrose’s moment to shine. It was supposed to shatter the glass ceiling and make it snow all over the Phillips Arena in Atlanta, Georgia. Sheamus, who held multiple World Titles in the past already, shit all over our hopes and dreams much like Randy Orton did in 2013 when he cashed in on a vulnerable Daniel Bryan. If it wasn’t for the fight being so damned entertaining and the buildup being so exciting, this match would have a received a mixed grade at best. But let the record books show that despite only holding it for a few minutes, Roman Reigns is a one-time WWE World Heavyweight Champion, a title he earned through three years of boots, blood, and barbarism.
PROMOTION: World Wrestling Entertainment
EVENT: Survivor Series
YEAR: 2015
RATING: TV-PG for violence
GRADE: Pass
When Roman Reigns and Dean Ambrose burst onto the scene in WWE, they were aligned with Seth Rollins as part of the most dominant trio the promotion has ever seen, The Shield. As members of this powerful alliance, Reigns and Rollins went on to become Tag Team of the Year and WWE Tag Team Champions while Dean Ambrose became the United States Champion. Every three-man team assembled to go against The Shield was destroyed and defeated with no absence of malice from The Wyatt Family to Team Hell No & Randy Orton to Evolution.
Just when The Shield was on top of the world, Seth Rollins got greedy and laid out Dean Ambrose and Roman Reigns with chair shots as a way of accepting Triple H’s offer to join The Authority. Ever since stabbing his brothers in the back, Seth went on to become Mr. Money in the Bank and would eventually cash in the contract at Wrestlemania 31 to become WWE World Heavyweight Champion for the first time in his career. He also defeated John Cena at Summer Slam to become United States Champion in addition to being World Champion.
Despite having Roman Reigns and Dean Ambrose (who were still best friends despite the end of The Shield) breathing down his neck, Seth Rollins would have gone on to hold the WWE World Heavyweight Championship forever if he hadn’t been for a debilitating knee injury he suffered during a live show in Ireland. Rollins would be forced to vacate the championship, undergo surgery, and rehabilitate for six to nine months.
In order to determine a new WWE Champion, Triple H put together a 16-man tournament which would culminate at the 2015 Survivor Series pay-per-view. In order to get to the finals, Dean Ambrose had to defeat NXT upstart Tyler Breeze, former World Champion Dolph Ziggler, and reigning Intercontinental Champion Kevin Owens. Roman Reigns’ road to the finals wasn’t any less challenging since he had to beat “The World’s Largest Athlete” The Big Show, “The Swiss Superman” Cesaro, and the reigning United States Champion Alberto Del Rio.
Up until Survivor Series, Ambrose and Reigns had each other’s backs throughout their various rivalries. When that opening bell rung, friendship and brotherhood went out the window. The two ring warriors went through too many screw jobs and too many beatings to just let each other have the WWE World Title handed to them. They were going to fight and they were going to brutalize each other in the process.
The instant the bell rang, Roman Reigns and Dean Ambrose rushed to the center of the ring and started throwing rapid-fire punches to the face to dictate the match’s pace as being gunshot-fast. Dean Ambrose would perform multiple dives through the ropes and sacrifice his own health just to flatten Reigns. Reigns threw many Superman Punches and jacked the jaw of his best friend. They threw each other against the ring apron, audience barricade, and announce tables. They clotheslined, body slammed, suplexed, and even hit each other with their respective finishing moves, Roman Reigns using the Spear Tackle and Dean Ambrose using Dirty Deeds (double arm underhook DDT).
These two fighters beat each other so badly that they could do nothing but sit next to each other in frustration in order to figure out their next moves. They sat there pie-facing each other. Then they punched each other in the face. They got up and punched each other some more. Then they kicked each other. And then more hard-hitting haymakers and clotheslines were in the works. And then they were bouncing each other’s bodies off the canvass like hand grenades ready to explode from mind-blowing pain. Somewhere in this shuffle of fast-paced brawling, Roman Reigns found himself leaning against the turnbuckles with Dean Ambrose charging for him like a raging lunatic bull.
How did Roman Reigns respond? With a second (or third) Spear Tackle and a 1-2-3 pinning combination. The leader of the Roman Empire had finally done it after three years of WWE’s most hard-hitting challenges. Hernia surgeries, bruises, blood drops, broken bones, mind games, and fan hatred all tried to keep him down at the bottom of the grave. And then he rose to the surface and conquered the mountain for the first time in his career. Roman Reigns was so exhausted from his match with Dean Ambrose that he had the equilibrium of a drunkard.
This celebration was going to last forever in time: confetti, cheers, boos, and shaking hands with Dean Ambrose, that was what the top of the WWE mountain felt like for Roman Reigns. And then once Ambrose left, Sheamus appeared with his Money in the Bank briefcase and played the role of spoiler. A Money in the Bank contract guarantees the holder a WWE Championship match ANY time he wants one, even after a grueling match with The Lunatic Fringe himself. Two bicycle kicks later, Sheamus wins his less-than-a-minute match with Roman Reigns and becomes the new champion, much to the delight of Authority leader Triple H. The only thing left on Roman’s body to break and bruise was his heart and now it’s in a million pieces.
The buildup to this match was months in the making, Rollins’ injury aside. The eagerness tensed up within the fans to see this kick-ass match and it finally happened. The match itself was exciting, fast-paced, hard-hitting, and between two badass wrestlers who personify toughness and brutality. The fans adore Dean Ambrose and hate Roman Reigns, the latter of which I can’t understand since he’s an awesome performer despite his lack of experience. There were no losers in this deadly brawl. There were no winners either, only survivors and shattered soldiers.
The one aspect of this match I could have done without was Sheamus’ cowardly cash-in. Yes, I know cashing in Money in the Bank is something even my favorite wrestlers like Daniel Bryan, CM Punk, and Seth Rollins have done, but even so, this pay-per-view victory was supposed to be Roman Reigns and Dean Ambrose’s moment to shine. It was supposed to shatter the glass ceiling and make it snow all over the Phillips Arena in Atlanta, Georgia. Sheamus, who held multiple World Titles in the past already, shit all over our hopes and dreams much like Randy Orton did in 2013 when he cashed in on a vulnerable Daniel Bryan. If it wasn’t for the fight being so damned entertaining and the buildup being so exciting, this match would have a received a mixed grade at best. But let the record books show that despite only holding it for a few minutes, Roman Reigns is a one-time WWE World Heavyweight Champion, a title he earned through three years of boots, blood, and barbarism.
Wednesday, May 29, 2013
Synopses
Before I get started with the body of this blog, I just want to take a moment and read to you the synopsis for “Cody’s Army”, which I am currently 72 pages into. It goes like this…
“The sequence was familiar: Another jet hijacked to Lebannon. Once again America held hostage by fanatic rebels. And just to prove they meant business the terrorists dragged two innocent passengers out on the tarmac and shot them in cold blood. That’s when John Cody and his mone got on the scene. Their mission was to free the hostages. But Cody wasn’t going to stop there. This time he had to make sure it didn’t happen again. And there was only one way to do that. The hard way. The bloody way.”
If that doesn’t get you excited about reading a high-octane military thriller, I don’t know what does. Just from that synopsis alone, you can expect John Cody to be a literary version of Rambo. The reason I reposted that text verbatim is to make a point: it may be wrong to judge a book by its cover, but it’s nowhere near immoral to judge one by its synopsis. If you’re a potential author and you want people to be at least vaguely interested in your book, you have to hit them with something hard long before they delve into the first page. It’s called hooking them in and it’s not a new thing. Movies that don’t hook in their audience by the first five minutes are going to lose a lot of patrons. And when you write your synopsis, don’t worry about overselling your product. It’s much more practical to oversell something than to undersell it. If you’re advertising a dog turd to someone dying of hunger, you’re going to want to oversell it as tasting like a Butterfinger candy bar. Otherwise, there won’t be a sale. If you want an example that’s closer to my heart, let’s use a WWE example, particularly one starring Dolph Ziggler. When he gets thrown around the ring, he doesn’t just flop over like most guys do. He spins around and flies like a birdie just to make that hip toss look painful. Dolph Ziggler can wrestle a broomstick and make the broomstick look good. If you’re an author looking to get people excited about your book, be a literary Dolph Ziggler and oversell your product. Talk about the bloody and painful moments early on. People love blood and pain. Now if only I could take my own advice when it came to selling “Red Blood, White Knuckles, Blue Heart”. If you’re wondering why I keep mentioning my self-published book in my posts, it’s because I haven’t sold a single copy as of today. It’s pathetic, I know. One day, I’ll shut up about it forever. I promise.
***WRESTLING QUOTE OF THE DAY***
“CM Punk could burn an orphanage to the ground and he would still be popular with the fans.”
-Me-
“The sequence was familiar: Another jet hijacked to Lebannon. Once again America held hostage by fanatic rebels. And just to prove they meant business the terrorists dragged two innocent passengers out on the tarmac and shot them in cold blood. That’s when John Cody and his mone got on the scene. Their mission was to free the hostages. But Cody wasn’t going to stop there. This time he had to make sure it didn’t happen again. And there was only one way to do that. The hard way. The bloody way.”
If that doesn’t get you excited about reading a high-octane military thriller, I don’t know what does. Just from that synopsis alone, you can expect John Cody to be a literary version of Rambo. The reason I reposted that text verbatim is to make a point: it may be wrong to judge a book by its cover, but it’s nowhere near immoral to judge one by its synopsis. If you’re a potential author and you want people to be at least vaguely interested in your book, you have to hit them with something hard long before they delve into the first page. It’s called hooking them in and it’s not a new thing. Movies that don’t hook in their audience by the first five minutes are going to lose a lot of patrons. And when you write your synopsis, don’t worry about overselling your product. It’s much more practical to oversell something than to undersell it. If you’re advertising a dog turd to someone dying of hunger, you’re going to want to oversell it as tasting like a Butterfinger candy bar. Otherwise, there won’t be a sale. If you want an example that’s closer to my heart, let’s use a WWE example, particularly one starring Dolph Ziggler. When he gets thrown around the ring, he doesn’t just flop over like most guys do. He spins around and flies like a birdie just to make that hip toss look painful. Dolph Ziggler can wrestle a broomstick and make the broomstick look good. If you’re an author looking to get people excited about your book, be a literary Dolph Ziggler and oversell your product. Talk about the bloody and painful moments early on. People love blood and pain. Now if only I could take my own advice when it came to selling “Red Blood, White Knuckles, Blue Heart”. If you’re wondering why I keep mentioning my self-published book in my posts, it’s because I haven’t sold a single copy as of today. It’s pathetic, I know. One day, I’ll shut up about it forever. I promise.
***WRESTLING QUOTE OF THE DAY***
“CM Punk could burn an orphanage to the ground and he would still be popular with the fans.”
-Me-
Friday, October 12, 2012
"I Can Make Out With Any Girl Here" by Ryan Nemeth
I’ll be the first to say that “I Can Make Out With Any Girl Here” by Ryan Nemeth isn’t the most technically sound book when it comes to writing style. Instead of a traditional novel format, this story is told through journal entries, emails, text messages, phone calls, etc. This particular way of doing things doesn’t allow much wiggle room for showing instead of telling. But even with all of these things working against the Generation Y member known as Ryan Nemeth, his book is still entertaining from beginning to end. He takes a college freshman known as Donny Blake and puts him through a humorous journey through his schooling which involves promiscuous sex, pranks involving pig fetuses, going on spending sprees, and flirting with his French teacher. Donny’s stereotypically chaotic behavior lands him in hot water with the college administration and he’s looking at a punishment somewhere between being expelled from school and being thrown in jail. What exactly could Donny Blake have done in order to deserve such a brutal punishment? That’s for you to find out when you eventually go to Amazon.com and purchase a copy of this fast-paced giggle fest. Speaking of Amazon, that’s really the only place I know of that has a copy of the book. I haven’t seen it in places like Fred Meyer or Barnes & Noble. Then again, it’s easy to get lost in those places worse than a child at Disneyland. It’s probably for the best that the only way to find this book is via search engine. And when you eventually do your internet searches for Ryan Nemeth, you’ll find out that he is the real-life brother of WWE superstar Dolph Ziggler. Truth be told, if I didn’t know that Dolph Ziggler had a brother, I would have never found out about this book. In any event, I’m very thankful that I did find out about it. Despite its unorthodox writing style, it is a fun book to read. You may even get through it in one whole day like I did. Expect nothing less than a giggling riot when you read this book that was, and I’m not making this up, published by a company called Yellow Snow Press. You sure as shit won’t find this book under the Harlequin or Del Rey banner, unless of course you consider Donny Blake boinking a girl called Ugly Jen to be romantic or if you consider pig fetuses to be a part of some sci-fi conspiracy theory.
***WRESTLING QUOTE OF THE DAY***
“For a minute there, I thought Daniel Bryan was just an old guy in his underwear.”
-Dolph Ziggler-
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