[stop right there]

On Thursday I handed in my dissertation. We were given a word limit of 10,000 words - me? I don't do so well with limits so it ended up being an extra 7,000 words. I didn't see any warnings about going over your word limit. I'm sure I wasn't suppose to go over THAT much, but alas I rather write more than less, if you get what I mean.

Which moves me into my next BLOG point. No naming authors because I do not want to get hit up on Google Alerts or hurting any authors sensibilities. However, there are some (alright many) authors who write a lot and publish a lot. All well and good, you got the creative juices going, you're getting the contracts, good on you. On the other hand, I never rate an author much by releasing millions of short stories. I believe if you can write a compelling short story it shows me more what a great author you are, compared to your novel length. Why? Well it's easy I believe in a creative format (fiction) less sometimes can mean more, and when you provide a short story that seems like a novel story in response to emotion, prose, imagery and whatever the hell cool-literary folks like to use when they critique, then you're outstanding in my eyes.

It may seem like I am contradicting myself. I don't rate authors on short stories, but short stories in essence if written "right" can be perfect? It's true. Now you release a short story every month and it's shite. Yes you unnamed author whom will stay unnamed because I am nice like that. You release the most shittastic stories it is beyond me anyone pays for that crap. You release so much dung, I just wonder why don't you just release a novel story and actually work on it. Now, this may sound mean but none of your short stories read like you actually work on them. They don't, it seems like you knew you had a deadline and a word count and that was your motivation. All well when you're trying to get an essay in before the deadline, but not for a creative piece which is suppose to interest a customer.

I have to say adding all your short stories together, you'd still not make what I consider (and MLR Press, bless them) a novel-length book. Short stories are great, and if you're Jamie Samms or L.F. Blake (Torquere Press) you can write them all you want, because in my eyes most authors are not as talented as them in the writing department, and the author I am talking about? You're hardly talented at all.

Random note: BDSM - please stop, yes? I mean cannot I not read a book anymore where the heroes NEED to be tied down, chained, slapped, cuffed, collared to need to have a satisfying sex life. I just want a "normal" sex scene without there being some sort of need for drama or control in the bedroom, or a random ass-slap ala porn-style to get the juices flowing. I am no prude, but I miss the insert-dick-and-come-now-please line. I am so done with that let-me-tie-you-up-baby-so-you-can-come. I sort of figured a dick could do the job as well.