Ratings and Book Buys

TV producers and authors have one thing in common: they need people to see their work. TV producers need ratings and authors need book buys. The difference between the two occupations is just how far they’re willing to go in order to get attention. In all the books I’ve read over the years, the authors seem to have a humble game plan. Be suspenseful, be mysterious, be on the attack, but don’t over-stimulate. You see this in works such as The Hunger Games, The Cleaner, and pretty much every Carl Hiaasen book on the market. If you’re a TV producer, the rules and limits become slightly more flexible. For example, let’s say you’re a wrestling promoter and you need your audience to be interested in a rivalry that’s going on between two superstars. The two wrestlers have called each other every name in the book and discredited each other’s fighting abilities in every way possible. There’s only one way to draw more attention to this rivalry: get edgy. Such was the game plan in the 2013 feud between WWE superstars CM Punk and The Undertaker. The latter’s manager and father figure Paul Bearer died a few days before the feud began. CM Punk comes out and makes death jokes about Paul Bearer in order to annoy The Undertaker and get him to make a mistake in the ring. Because of the blatant exploitation of death, people are interested in this match and desperately want to see CM Punk get his ass kicked. There’s just one problem: those who were deeply affected by Paul Bearer’s death (his family and friends) are horrified by the insult to his memory. Because of the distasteful way in which Paul Bearer’s death was used, the Wrestling Observer Newsletter will probably give an award to the WWE for Most Disgusting Promotional Tactic. The lesson of the day is, if you’re an author looking to draw people into your story, it’s okay to be edgy and maybe a little offensive, but if you go too far over the edge, there’s no coming back. So please, potential authors, refrain from having a character in your story who’s a serial killer of cute kittens. Refrain from having a storyline where ragtime music is played during a rape scene. Keep said rapist from grinding an axe into the woman’s vagina so that he can “share the pleasure”. These horrifying tropes won’t get people interested in your book, but rather make them turn away in shock. Everything in moderation, people. Everything in moderation.

　

***WRESTLING QUOTE OF THE DAY***

“Undertaker, I just want to say that I’m sorry for your loss…at Wrestlemania!”

-CM Punk-

National Novel Writing Month

There comes a time in every writer’s life, preferably every November, that he has to ask himself if he’s going to participate in National Novel Writing Month. It’s not an official contest, it’s just a challenge for all authors to pump out a novel before the end of November. You want to know my answer to this riddle? Not only no, but hell no. NaNoWriMo requires its participants to create on the fly. No preparation, no pre-writing, no planning of any kind, just straight up improvisation. I don’t operate that way. If I wanted to improvise so badly, I’d join the cast of Whose Line Is It Anyway? Or Second City, one of those groups. If I was to just drop everything I’m doing right now and write random shit I think of at the top of my head, not only might I get stuck in the middle of it, but my novel will suck. Call me a perfectionist, but I want my first drafts to be at least tolerable so that I don’t have much work to do when it comes time to edit. That’s why whenever I come up with ideas for novels, I have to do it far in advance so that everything’s planned out and nothing sucks. I’m currently writing a three-part novel called Brawl-Mart and it was planned out from beginning to end. I’ve finished parts one and two (Occupy Wrestling and Filter Feeder respectively) and all I have left of part three (Debt of Pain) is eight chapters of action. I would have completed the whole novel a lot sooner than anticipated, but lately I’ve been slowing down my writing schedule due to mental exhaustion and being bogged down by other projects. That’s another reason why I don’t participate in NaNoWriMo, because I can’t energize my mind long enough to get anything done in a timely fashion. It may take the entire month, it may take a whole fucking year. Either way, it may come out forced and therefore, it might suck, which is as I’ve stated before not what I want when writing a first draft. If anything, November will be dedicated to finishing those remaining eight chapters of Brawl Mart Pt. 3: Debt of Pain. And then after that, who knows where I’ll go from there. I have two ideas for novels sitting in my reserve folder as of now: Gangster’s Paradise (memoir of an anti-gang serial killer) and a nonfiction memoir of my life in middle school, high school, and college which I’m still debating the title of. I may develop more ideas beyond these and if I do, you all will be the first ones to know. Until then, I’m going to spend November doing essentially the same thing as everyone else: stuffing my face full of mashed potatoes and turkey. I won’t be watching any football since football is a boring sport with annoyingly loud fans. I’ll just stick to UFC and WWE for my athletic fix.

　

***MIXED-MARTIAL ARTS QUOTE OF THE DAY***

“The judges are giving out 10-8’s like it’s fucking Christmas.”

-Dana White on an episode of “The Ultimate Fighter: Team Nelson vs. Team Carwin”-