So, who among you will win first place for your purple prose?
I hereby proclaim today as “give me your worst writing day”. This is one of the nifty things about having your own blog, the power to make such momentous, world-changing declarations. * Feel my power, people *
Anyway, about bad writing: Sometimes I do it on accident.
Sometimes, I pretend it’s on purpose.
Here’s mine “on purpose” from Monday November 1st, regarding Nanowrimo. On that day, I had left my purse beneath a park bench after a picnic lunch with my husband Eric, and I wanted to tell the ubiquitous Heidi Dorey about it [I have no idea what the word "ubiquitous" means, but Heidi likes big words, so I'm using it to impress her].
I couldn’t just do it “straight up”, though.
As a writer with a lot of writer-y friends, we read and critique each others work. We learn a lot about each other’s style, strengths, and “challenge areas”, and our friends teach us about ours, sometimes painfully so. That leads to a gentle ritual known as MOCKERY. Heidi engaged in this tradition recently when she took my lovely book, Leaving Annalise, and renamed it Lube & Anal Beads. (For more on this, click here) See the art in her “tribute”? She’s a genius, y’all.
So, I took my purse experience, and I wrote the most awful tripe I could, but pretending to write as HER writing AWFUL. 
Gets confusing, doesn’t it? But, if you keep Lube & Anal Beads in mind, I think you’ll get it. She wrote that to be an awful version of me. Trust me, the woman has a gift for alliteration — she once strung six P words together in one sentence that had only ten words. And didn’t realize it. You’ve read her work, though (if not, click here), and it is clear she writes twisted shit beautifully. I want to be her when I grow up.
Here’s the a piece I sent to Heidi skewering her lovely manuscript The Mourning Cloak, which I hereby nominate for participation in my self-designated, “give me your worst writing” day:
Pamela realized belatedly that she had left her purple purse poised beneath the park bench in front of the reflecting ponds at Hermann Park. Idiot. You’re too stupid to live. You’re so stupid they can’t even use your brain for scientific research when you die. Unless it is for research on stupid people who don’t deserve to live. If there is even such a thing. Which you don’t know, do you, because you’re so stupid. Bereft, Pamela beat her breast and berated herself volubly, greatly belittling herself. She pointed her startlingly bright hot pink bike at the Park and pedaled as precipitately as she could, which was less than she desiderated, because she’d never exercised a day in her life — worthless — and she nullified her mundane, pitiful, ineffectual efforts almost as soon as she inaugurated them.
So there’s my entry into the crappy writing hall of fame. Do you dare enter yours in the comments below? Do you? Do you? Feel free to skewer me (or Heidi) if you want, while doing so.
Pamelot
p.s. OF COURSE I know what ubiquitous means. It means Heidi gets around. And not like *that*, people, it means she is all over my flippin’ blog lately. Someday soon she will conquer larger spaces. Go, Heidi!
p.p.s. Heidi and I took a stab at this ourselves last week in the comments to A Motivational Speech to My Procrastinating Fellow Nano. Don’t expect us to do all the work for you this time. Post something hideous, people.
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there are plenty of examples of hideousness on my blog, particularly in the early years. But that doesn’t mean it’s limited to the early years. LOL.
And I loved the banter between you two in the comments last week—HILARIOUS!!!
erin margolin recently posted..Red Writing Hood- Let Go
I’m thinking about putting some bad poems up in the comments, myself.
And I haven’t found any bad writing on your blog, but I only got back to early 2010…say it isn’t so!
Pamela recently posted..When bad writing happens to good people
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Oh man, I could totally add to the bad poetry.
I’m super at that.
Have at it, my friend. Amaze us with offal.
You’ve already read one of them.
Melancholy Tractor Pull…how could you forget?
Post it, baby. I remember its brilliance, but you need to SHARE it.
Dude (did I, a 44 year old woman just call you that? really? really?), my entire blog is an exercise in bad writing. Go ahead, pick an entry. What is worse, when my friends read it they say ‘wow Adena, when I read your blog I can ‘hear’ you saying the words exactly like that’. So not only does my writing suck, I talke funny too. I am also aware that I am grammatically challenged but further to my ‘American Beauty’ blog entry, I don’t care anymore. If I had been paying attention I would have written ‘I don’t give a care’. See, I’m regressing but I love you and all your writing!!!
LOL
DUDE
I like your blog
You make me smile
Well I don’t like to think my Crap is crap, but in the spirit of this blog and this theme of “When bad writing happens to good people”, I humbly submit an excerpt from what I consider to be the very best of my worst, which ain’t saying a whole lot. Please be kind, as I am old and feeble (cough cough) and live in a state of confusion most of the time. Wine does help, but it’s also the reason for the blog titled “The Good, The Bad and the In-N-Out”, dated Nov 12th. Honestly, I thought my writing had improved over the past few months, but looking at this, I just don’t know. Here ya go:
“So…I ask…to the Bad me and the Good me, what’s a woman who obviously cannot control her “Bads” and “Goods” (ha ha, that was sorta funny…..not my usual, but I AM HUNGRY, for cryin-out-loud) supposed to do on Friday night when nothing else will do but the real thing? (We are still talking about burgers, right?) BAD TERRI remains silent, sporting a big evil grin and drooling over the visuals (of what, I am totally not sure). And at this, Good Terri rolls her eyes, throws her hands up in the air and surrenders. (Yessss, we…..and by we, I mean me and Bad Terri…..needed to get rid of that bitch…..such a buzz-kill) I like BAD TERRI because she is a LOT more fun! She’ll be a lot fatter if she keeps getting her way…….hey, who said that? Good Terri, go to bed! You don’t belong here on a Friday night. Come back Sunday when I’ll need to do some confessing, I’m quite sure. So Bad Terri, about that DD? Where the hell did I put my car keys?”
In my defense, pitiful as it may sound, I was intentionally trying to sound crazy. Oh geez, never mind. Just remember what a good sport I was for putting my crap out there.
Terri
Yay Terri! I actually think this is funny. This is the very battle good and bad Pamela wage over food all the time. And it cracks me up that you drink (a lot) of wine while you type. I’m going to have to start trying to guess which posts you write sober and which you write “less sober”. It’s a damn good thing I didn’t have a blog before I quit drinking.
OK DOREY, PLANT ONE ON US. i know you’re lurking around, not wanting to go first, but the time has come. Terri has laid down the frickin GAUNTLET.
Okay, here’s some very bad poetry.
Dim the lights…
Residue
by Heidi Dorey
There was a gecko on the wall
But I chased him down.
No, I wasn’t on the wall.
But he was.
I thought he would
climb into my shoe.
Instead he ran under the dishwasher.
What a pity.
I wanted to hold his spatula hand.
Now that’s MY kind of poetry!
That’s the Heidi I know and love!
ROFL!!!!
But I like gekkos she said
as she stared pointedly at Heidi’s head
as she leaned it up against the wall
causing gekko now to fall.
Guess there’ll be an opening at Geico
LBDDiaries recently posted..A Laugh From the Past
Whoa
Nice one on the Geico!
Bad poem to wonderful wife on her birthday.
I asked my sweetie to show me the way
To find the right gift for her special day
I offered a big hug from her wonderful prince
But she opted for a rug costing many dollars and cents
My feelings were bruised and I hurt to the core
But she didn’t mind, she went right to the store
So a cow in Brazil was ceremoniously killed
That her wooden office floor could now be filled
With what she knew would bring zest and decorum galore
But now provides our dog a place to lie down and snore
Of course this ol gal just aint anyone’s dummy
Even though what she did may seem kind of crummy
For in the end she got the whole enchilada
Both hugs and a rug, which is lots more than nada
Time to close this sonnet so just let me say
I love you I love you and- Happy birthday
You are the master of the love sonnet, Pops. Now everyone can see where I get my talent and aspirations!
Go Dad!
ugh embarressing moment…
Written as a 15 year old rock star wannabe for the garage band I was in.
Some lyrics from the never famous “Are you ready for Rock n Roll”
Playin ain’t easy
nothing comes to you free
it ain’t like the say
spending all our time
tryin to please you
sometimes get turned away
after the show is done
standing all alone
holding my guitar
thinkin of good times
thinkin of memories (ugh)
how have we come this far
Man that made me cringe just to type it.
GOOOO SUMMIT
OMG, honey. I would totally have been your groupie. I guess I would have been, what, like ELEVEN? But still…a poet … a rock GOD
*snort*
I’m proud of you for a) going for it at that age and b) sharing it now. And, Summit does rock, all of you guys are awesome, to this very day!!
Care to share “I sold my dog for rock ‘n’ roll” or “Baby earthling?”
Hmm? Hmmm?
Hey, that wasn’t cringe worthy.
I kinda like it!
Whew, thank god for dictionary.com.
I would have NEVER understood what that paragraph meant without that site!
I’m not that clever. I enjoy reading everyone elses wittiness!
Confession: I got online and found synonyms for my 2 syllable words, and replace them with 4 syllable words. I didn’t know them either. I still couldn’t use desiderate in a sentence to save my life!
I picked the two best stanza’s the rest is a lot worse.
Oh man “baby earthling”, fortunately that was an instrumental.
There are others though…
And Pamela I bet you would have been awfully cute
OH! We’re still doing ‘mo bad writing!!! cool!
Years ago, the office flirt asked me to write him a poem – so I did – I was so brilliant back then in my 20 year old mind!!
In and out you go each day
Words of love – to me you say
Your phoney smile’s so full of life
But deep inside – you love your wife
LBDDiaries recently posted..Accentuate the Positive!
Oh man, that’s…crappy
Love it, thank you!
*Sigh* ‘Tis true – ’tis total crapola (and I wrote TONS of it back then) – and the guy was NOT amused – then again, cheating spouses rarely are when called on their doo-doo!!
LBDDiaries recently posted..Accentuate the Positive!
I love it!
I think LBD’s was awesome
Me too. She’s awesome in general, though. Speaking of awesome, do we get the chorus to your lyrics????
You better watch out Mr. Eric – I have more, way way more of that awesome crapola!! Where is the chorus to your lyrics??? Hmmm? If I can put it all out there, blaming my YOUTH, you can too!
LBDDiaries recently posted..Accentuate the Positive!