Ethical Bullshit

In case the subtitle of this blog didn't cue you in, I'm a Liar. But I'm a Good Liar, in that all of my lies are clearly labelled. I engage in Storytelling. I'm a proud purveyor of bullshit, and every day I'm getting better and better at making it delicious. To give the phenomenon a more interesting name, let's call it Ethical Bullshit.

Let's face it, there are only a few areas of life where Absolute Truth is necessary (or even advisable). In most ordinary situations, a lie is almost always better for everybody concerned. There are several general reasons for this, in order of importance to Writing:

A lie is more interesting than the truth. - Would you rather a comedian tell you the truth, or a story about the truth?

A lie is more clear than the truth. - You're drinking in a bar with your buddies. One of them talks for a long time about a sexual encounter with a girl, carefully revealing the dates and times, backtracking to give little dossiers of every character in the story. The other tells a great story about how he banged a girl. Stripped of all the distractions (i.e. unnecessary facts) the lie gets to the damn point and has a better impact.

A lie illustrates the truth better than the truth itself. - Listen to someone bullshit, and you'll learn more about his personality than if he were giving an honest deposition at a trial. Human interaction isn't about facts, it's about emotions.With the exception of STI's. Do the right thing, guys!

A lie gets the job done. - Bullshit is just another word for thinking out loud. Listen to somebody bullshit, and you'll discover what they want to do. If it's a good idea, it stops being bullshit as soon as it works. To answer the classic ethical question: "Would you lie to Nazis to protect Jews hiding in your attic?": "Yes, and repeatedly." Screw you, Kant.

A lie requires much more thought, and is thus much better quality than the truth. - Any idiot can tell the truth, as long as he has a good memory and the ability to string a few sentences together in response to competent questions. A liar has got to have Craft. Read the great political and moral speeches and documents. They are a tissue of outright lies and bullshit, every single one of them. But they're so much better than the Absolute Truth, which is this:

Take any abstract noun: Love, Hope, Freedom, Faith, Money, Loyalty, Happiness, Democracy, Morality, all of them. Look for it in the natural state of the universe. You won't find it. The strength of these abstracts is entirely dependent on the belief of human beings in the bullshit of other human beings. We tell a lie, then make it true.

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Where'd you get that fez that sits on your mantle? Well, I'll tell you:

Things were looking pretty bad for us until I realized that shooting slightly outside the picture was less effective than shooting at all those guys with swords. Also Ms. Laid's frantic screams of terror attracted a mummy to help me defeat my foes. It's a well-known fact that mummies are enraged but intrigued by the color red.

And that's how I made the Sphinx eat his words.

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250 words? Yes
Book "The True Autobiography of a Liar"
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Reading - ?

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Controversy!

Say it the British way: conTrahversy!

"Drugs are Legal, People Ain't" is my first brush with controversy in my writing. Damn, that's a good thing. I was getting worried.

Here's the deal: a Writer should be controversial, but not because of who he is. That is to say, he should be controversial because of who his characters are. The writer is an entirely separate entity who undoubtedly has his own opinion, but (aside from the mere mundane politics of camera placement) is entirely uninvolved in the debate. That is to say, a Writer should write such that if he ever writes a satire it will be clearly labeled as such without his direct declaration.

In other words, write a story, give the viewpoint opposite yours the strongest argument and see if 'your side' can keep up. If they can't, why the heck are they your side again? Either take over or make your own side, with blackjack and hookers. Well, Fair Trade hookers.

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I'm speaking as someone who has a very competent secretary.

I've always been attracted to competence, and there's a certain point at which extreme competence becomes extremely sexy. I'm saying that somebody who can manage the minutiae of a busy executive's life while he wallows in the clouds of Business must have some other skill besides filling out an A-line skirt in a most admirable manner.

She's amazing, and I'm not just writing this because she's looking over my shoulder while tapping her watch-hand for me to take her out on our date.

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250 words? Yes
Project "Untitled"
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Reading - "Aztec" (Gary Jennings)

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Book Pilots

Every short story I write is a book pilot, but only for me. I'm not pretending I don't care about what my "audience" (a purely theoretical entity) thinks, but I prefer to jump clean into the cold waters of an idea before I commit myself to testing the waters with a prudent toe.

A short story is, to me, the perfect length. It gets a whole thought to the page with a minimum of active scheming, and is pre-packaged for my attention span. I can keep an entire book in my mind, and have, but it requires almost all of my mental resources, whereas while writing a short story I can operate on about ten percent and then that piece can conveniently serve as a shorthand for the book that follows if I'm pleased with the results.

Furthermore, I can write a short story in three hours. If it sucks, I can then discard it. I can write a book in a month. I do not yet trust myself to discard a book if it sucks, but I do trust my 'editor voice', and it says "David, your books suck."

I hold myself to high standards. There will be no filler in my books, there will be no meaningless scenes. My target is 60,000 words of pure awesome, and for pure awesome you need a good idea and good characters.

My two most likely candidates are "Timpani the Ostrich Rancher" and "Drugs are Legal, People Ain't".

Hey, bonus: a short clip from "Drugs are Legal, People Ain't"

062 - Drugs are Legal, People Ain't 1

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On the magazine front, Ben Godby figured we should call it Flash Fiction Orgy since that's a cool title containing both "orgy" and "flash". The content wouldn't be restricted to Flash Fiction, of course, but it'd be a good medium for what are essentially wordsmith craft samples that are really difficult to sell on their own anyways.

Current Creative total: 2
Writers - 2

As you can see from my placeholder cover art over there (a pastiche of a movie poster, a textbook cover, and some Bad Art), we desperately need an Artist. If you or anyone you know has such skills and want to be involved in a cool project, this is your time. Click on the cover for a direct link to the post page.

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Listen, here's how it's going to be: You're going to leave me alone while I drink myself into a stupor, and then you're going to nurse me back to health and I promise, then, that we will have a long talk about our relationship. Really, lady, is a drunken stupor every once in a while altogether too much to ask?

Is it just my isolation from the joys of middle class American society or is that TV screen way too large? ...I want one.

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250 words? Yes
Project "Untitled"
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Reading - ?

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