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If you read more great writers, and actually made an effort to understand why the ones you don't immediately connect with are considered great, you'd be a better writer.

If you think mockery of your inept prose is going to extend to Vladimir Nabokov, just because you are both ESL, you are mistaken.

It's a defense mechanism. We're talking about Koobie here, a man whose idea of an effective writing exercise is to literally copy, by hand, verbatim, another person's work. If you even tried to help him through a close reading you would be met with a lolling head, a blank stare, a rivulet of drool oozing out of his cracked mouth, pooling on the notebook page he is slumped over, blank except for the words "TYRO VOGLE AEG 26"

You're right. I try to read as widely as I can.

My ex-wife's thesis was The Psychological Portraits of Characters in Crime and Punishment and it made me fed up with him for years (I'm the one who suggested the topic, heh). Reading time is very limited. Time is limited. Thanks for chipping in. Cheerio.

"I try to read anything on the SF&F shelf at B&N, but time is short so I mostly stick to the porny ones with hot chicks on the cover. Oh hey, there's a new Mercy Thompson book"

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Puff puff pass, Reid.

Hmm well that's v

[QUOTE=The effects of adolescent cannabis use on educational attainment: a review (Lynskey and Hall)]
Cross-sectional and longitudinal research indicates that young people who use cannabis are at increased risk of poor school performance and reduced educational attainment. The evidence from longitudinal studies suggests that some component of these associations arises because the risk factors that predispose young people to cannabis use overlap with those factors that independently predict poor educational attainment. However, not all of the association between early cannabis use and reduced educational attainment can be explained by the effects of common or correlated risk factors. In particular, there is evidence that early cannabis use independently increases the risks of early school leaving.[/QUOTE]

lol dongs, 4/20 smoke poor academic performance every day, Harlan Ellison dropped out of university and that completely justifies Koobie's drug-boosted terror of book-learning, even though Ellison and practically every other celebrated author has studied and contributed to literary crit, a bar that even ****ing Stephenie Meyer passes but Koobie doesn't feel is worthy of even the barest of thoughts.

I couldn't ask for another!

WE BOMB THE CIRCUS

ROFL, sometimes I forget this is a secret Mensa discussion forum and not a just a community of Star Wars geeks.

I'm elitist, but definitely not elitist enough to suggest that Koobie needs to get a better education in order to post here. There are just a few personality 'quirks' that really set me off, and the big one is arguing with someone when you literally do not even understand the words they are using. It is beyond arrogant; it is a stupid, infantile thing to do, and I cannot even begin to imagine the kind of accident of upbringing that might produce a person who believes - genuinely believes - that they'll be able to fool the person they are talking to.

The most generous term I can use to describe Koobie's intellect is lazy. He's a lazy nonce who skips over the words he doesn't understand as though they meaningless embellishment. I very rarely suggest that a deep study of literary criticism is a life-changing experience, but in Koobie's case it would break him of a lot of bad habits that make him a genuinely annoying, stupid, terrible person.

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MASSASSI INTELLECTUAL ELITE!

So you gonna ruin this, just like you guys ruined my plans to vacation in Mexico with SF_Gold. Dammit Massassi.

j/k

Fixed!

That too, especially crap, especially when you can get better works for free almost anywhere.

If only you spent so much time proofreading your stories.

>>That too, especially crap, especially when you can get better works for free almost anywhere.

I urge you to recommend me a free collection of well-written SF stories, and I'll download it! Thanks!

That actually serves to highlight his point, because you apparently think you "got" him by pointing out a word he accidentally missed, which is nothing but irrelevant to what he was saying.

In every college math class there's a guy. That guy. The guy who raises his hand and says things like "Um excuse me professor you wrote X here but on the last board you wrote X prime. I think you meant to write X prime". Then everybody in the lecture sighs and rolls their eyes, and depending on his temperament and tenure the professor will either give insincere thanks and fix the error, or subject the student to a brief lecture along these lines: "We are all adults here. Our purpose is to share ideas, not notation. Unless this mistake means you don't understand the idea, you are wasting everyone's time."

People like that guy don't usually last long. Not because of social reasons, but because they never in their whole life learned how to comprehend ideas as more than a collection of details.

>>That too, especially crap, especially when you can get better works for free almost anywhere.

I urge you to recommend me a free collection of well-written SF stories, and I'll download it! Thanks!

The collected works of Jules Verne are on Project Gutenberg, if that's your speed. Many collections of other short stories written by prominent, real-deal sci fi authors out there too, but I'm on my phone and not especially interested in doing google searches for someone too stupid and high to do anything for himself.

Of course I don't really have to, since I've seen better stories in 4chan green text and the occasional foray into literotica. Pretty sure there's better stuff on fanfiction.net too. It's a very low bar to beat your writing.

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Thanks Reid, nice links.

I had to have Cool matty re-set my email so I could log in and post this, and I debated doing so because the drama spewing from this thread is incredibly popcorn worthy.

That being said, I read through the punk girl story, and if this is indicative of the writing that you are releasing for a fee, I think i'd pass myself. it's not "Bad" per se, but it's not that great either.

the quote below is the biggest gripe I have with your writing style.



I'm no professional writer, nor a critic, but the way that sentence sounded compared to the rest of the writing style felt out of place, you do well at describing the settings, I had a picture in my minds eye of the character, and the surroundings, but the dialogue didn't feel right, and even though it's a short story, I didn't really connect with any of the characters because they felt kind of flat, the conflict didn't make me excited, the going through the alley ways didn't feel dangerous, it felt like it was suppose to be dangerous, but didn't give me a sense of foreboding for the main character.

her sudden realization of where she belongs, and what she needs to do with her life and the return home and her mothers reaction, I don't know how to describe it... I guess since I didn't really connect with the main character, her epiphany didn't really feel that special.

some of the descriptions of your stories sounded interesting, but literally the next day, I don't remember a single one and couldn't tell you which one sounded neat to read. I think one had something to do with robots?

I can't really say I enjoyed the punk girl story, I didn't hate it either, I just didn't care for it and if that sample is anything like the other stories, people will read them, get their enjoyment and promptly forget them.

That being said, don't give up on your craft, and keep writing, maybe one day you'll have something that grabs my attention more then whats been posted here.

Hi Grant,

Thank you for taking the time to read and comment.

>>That being said, I read through the punk girl story, and if this is indicative of the writing that you are releasing for a fee, I think i'd pass myself. it's not "Bad" per se, but it's not that great either.

It is indicative of something I released for free, rather. The story behind this story was that I was going to a club near a university to sit down and write the cyberpunk book I was working on at the time (I get too distracted by Jon'C when I'm writing from home, lulz), and saw a young, very pretty girl sitting in a metro underpass under a blanket surrounded by punks. I'd considered getting her a warm cup of chocolate or a coffee from the local Burger King, and had I been a few years younger, I probably would have, but I didn't want the hassle of talking to all her loser "friends" and just went on to write a story about her instead.

I was stoned like hell and didn't edit it once (because it was an "accidental" story), but thought it was sort of cool how I managed to frame it into the Russian "3 laws of prison" (don't trust, don't be afraid, do not ask). Posted it here for Reid because it's the first "literary" story of mine that came to mind in the course of this "SF IS FOR LITTLE CHILDREN" discussion. Heh.

Here's a story I'm really proud of if you're interested (unlike the punk girl story, this one's included in the Double Five collection): http://goo.gl/SYCM87

Thanks for your time.

Peace & love.

I don't know that I want to be part of a dogpile, but since you asked--


Your writing is not very good, certainly not good enough to charge money for, I think. I see you making a lot of excuses for why one story or another is bad--you were high, you weren't really trying on that one, this one was a rush job, etc--but you keep on making the same stylistic and grammatical errors. WHAT AM I TO THINK

I'm not making excuses, Thrawn[numbaz], certainly not for the story I'd linked to. Just saying it like it is.

That's the free market's job.

Speaking of which, what was the purpose of this thread again? Face value it seems like market research, but then you spent the entire thread arguing with people in your core demographic who aren't interested, instead of asking questions and taking notes.

I guess this was just some more of your shameless self-promotion. And a great job at it, too, since you've managed to move exactly 1 copy on a forum of 18-35 male active sci fi/fantasy readers and he isn't even going to read it himself.

>>Speaking of which, what was the purpose of this thread again? Face value it seems like market research

Massassi, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Mas-sas-si.

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http://rahll.deviantart.com/art/Fearless-93389321

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To be fair, I am going to read it to determine if the content is acceptable to gift to others who might appreciate it. Who knows maybe I'll even enjoy it.

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Know what else I totally just noticed? He linked it under his subdomain even though he didn't draw it. In fact, basically his entire social media presence is aggregating drawings by other people and attaching his poems and short stories to them without permission.

Rad.