Oh this fills me with confidence.

You know how Nero (allegedly) fiddled while Rome burned?
I kind of get that vibe from president Obama right now.
Anyway that's just a preview for what we're reading today:
ONTD!
I just can't get enough of this tripe.

Brad Pitt's Mom Invited to Jennifer Aniston's Wedding

SHOCK!
HORROR!
DEBAUCHERY!

Of course, Jane recently made headlines herself after writing an anti-marriage-equality letter urging Christians to vote for Mitt Romney after Barack Obama came out in favor of gay marriage this year. Brad made it very clear that he doesn't share his mother's views, saying, "Gay marriage is inevitable. The next generation, they get it. It is just a matter of time before it becomes a reality."

Uh-oh.
ONTD, being mostly women, fucking loves weddings and looking pretty but they also fucking love fags so how is this going to go down?
I know that sounds sexist but I didn't actually say anything sexist.
I just described what will invariably be the reality of the comments.

anti-gay marriage, pro-romney and team jen...look at your life, look at your choices

Yes.
"Team" Jen.
Because that's a side you can take.
People have vested interest in this. I want you to remember that.

Aaron Carter Has An Opinion About Justin Bieber's New Music Video 'Beauty And A Beat'

Wooooooooooow.
This headline really makes me want to read the story.

CHICAGO — Teen readers across the country chose _______ as their favorite book in the annual Teens’ Top Ten vote, sponsored by the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA), a division of the American Library Association (ALA). Teens voted online between Aug. 15 and Sept. 15, with the official list announcement during Teen Read Week™, Oct. 14-20.

Yes I need to be up to date on this crap because I'm invariably going to be quizzed at some point in the near future.
Look, kid, one of my favorite books is Neuromancer.
You haven't even heard of it I'm sure but suffice it to say we read different things.
And that's fine. You're a 14 year old girl and I'm a grown ass man but don't be surprised when I'm not that familiar with Hunger Games.
Ton of crap I don't know--
Great.
Divergent by Veronica Roth.
This looks fucking stupid.

Also, the amount of pink in that B&N photo in the post is pissing me off. In an unrelated note, I just had an argument with a friend about Bill Maher being a misogynist. She said that since he has female panelists, he's not sexist. lol. I CAN'T TODAY. 

Well, you know, it is ONTD so we can't go 5 posts without whining about sexism.
Even if it's 100% unrelated to fucking anything.

Too little, too late? Tom Cruise could be set to leave Church of Scientology in bid to win back Katie Holmes
He's one of the most high profile supporters of controversial religion Scientology, but A-lister Tom Cruise could be leaving the church in a bid to win back his ex-wife.

Oh shit son. But you're like a Super Saiyan in that religion!

'He lost Nicole and now his wife and daughter. He has always used the Scientology techniques but he has now realised they don't work in marriage,' said the source.

They don't work.
Period.

Adele's 'Someone Like You' might have been an international chart success, but it's now entered at number 22 of the funeral music chart.

If I die and any of you cocksuckers play that shit at my funeral I'm coming back and haunting you.

The study also found that a quarter of funeral homes refused to play a track on the grounds of taste – usually because the clergy disagreed with the choice – for example John Lennon's 'Imagine', with the lyrics "imagine there's no Heaven."

Well, Christer, I'm pretty sure it's my fucking funeral and not yours so you play whatever the fuck I tell you to.
Asshole.

Figures show that pop music has replaced traditional hymns at two-thirds of British funerals. In 2005, hymns accounted for 41 per cent of funeral music requests, but in the past 12 months the figure has fallen to 30 per cent. Only 4 per cent of mourners requested classical music.

So I guess if the tame "Imagine" isn't getting funeral play on the grounds it's "tasteless" Hells Bells by AC/DC is really out.

1. Frank Sinatra – 'My Way'
2. Sarah Brightman/Andrea Bocelli – 'Time To Say Goodbye'
3. Bette Midler – 'Wind Beneath My Wings'
4. Eva Cassidy – 'Over The Rainbow'
5. Robbie Williams – 'Angels'
6. Westlife – 'You Raise Me Up'
7. Gerry & The Pacemakers – 'You’ll Never Walk Alone'

Well I guess it's time to fall back on my second choice, then.
Al Green.

18. Righteous Brothers (and various) – 'Unchained Melody'

What about Al Green singing Unchained Melody?

In a powerful and moving ad released by the Obama campaign, hip-hop mogul Jay-Z pays tribute to the nation's Commander-in-Chief Barack Obama and the historical impact he made as the first US African-American president.

If Al Green endorsed Obama I'd vote for him.

Clearly taking the huge success of E.L. James’ Fifty Shades of Grey into consideration, Penguin Books’ Berkley imprint has signed a big deal with an unknown author of two Twilight fan-fictions.

Welp.

Gabriel’s Inferno and Gabriel’s Rapture are presently available in e-book format after initially debuting on fan-fiction sites. Paperback editions are due out in the next few months with an initial run of 500,000 copies.

Oh good.
I was worried Dante's Inferno had been lost on the fanfiction audience.
Glad to see nothing is safe.

According to GoodReads (where the book scores a 4.06 out of 5 stars), “Professor Gabriel Emerson [the lead character] is a well respected Dante specialist by day, but by night he devotes himself to an uninhibited life of pleasure. He uses his notorious good looks and sophisticated charm to gratify his every whim, but is secretly tortured by his dark past and consumed by the profound belief that he is beyond all hope of redemption.

Sounds like garbage.

When the sweet and innocent Julia Mitchell enrolls as his graduate student, his attraction and mysterious connection to her not only jeopardizes his career, but sends him on a journey in which his past and his present collide.”

Whoaaaaaa.
You fucking idiots will read anything Jesus Christ you might as well just watch TV if this is the kind of trash you shovel into your brains.

if you write dumb erotica stories you can sell them for like 2.99 a pop on amazon and barnes & noble and make a moderate amount of bank. i mean it's still one in a million to get some kind of big book deal but people are making money off self-publishing. read this thread and EDUCATE YOURSELVES http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3503700

Oh Christ.
Yeah, link a Something Awful article.
Now I feel well prepared for the dangers ahead.
I don't even know where to start with this.
You can write erotica and sell it on Amazon.
I'm willing to accept this as a legitimate market but what I'm unwilling to do is accept Something Awful has a grip on it.

Not gonna lie, I bought a couple (non-fanfic) dumb erotica stories just so I could understand the difference between erotica and "regular" romance (sex is the plot vs sex in the plot). Erotica isn't my thing but those amazon self-published authors got my money regardless... though I used a gift card ;)

Wow that's a flimsy fucking excuse if I've ever heard one.
I DON'T LIKE EROTICA I JUST BOUGHT SOME TO PROVE TO MYSELF HOW MUCH I DON'T LIKE EROTICA.

So many goonettes gettin' rich off erotica. Ah, if only I had the chops to write erotica.

Goonettes.
I'm a little uncomfortable with ONTD crossbreeding with SA. Where are assholes like me going to go?

I didn't mind Inferno but Rapture was fucking unbearable! WHY ARE ALL THE LEAD FEMALES IN THESE BOOKS ALL THE SAME!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

162 pages into my novel I'm writing with my aunt... fuck this shit

Every book I've read with a female lead has either been really whiny and I wished it was focused on any other character but the main one or she was cool kind of in spite of being female.
Like that's something to overcome.
I think a non-hack writer (me) is going to have to write a character who is cool and incidentally female.
Stand back, plebeians. I'm about to unleash writing skills that have been dead for 400 years.
I'd explain my writing technique to you but--
remember in Dragon Ball Z when Goku went Super Saiyan 3 and it was a "holy shit I can't even comprehend how awesome this is let alone figure out how he got that powerful" moment for all the characters?
That's me and writing.

=o

What's it about?

I have two screenplays and a novel to write. Fuck me.

Nervous detachment from a post-civil war 2 American rump state and an increasing disillusionment with society as a whole.
I think.
I just decided that should be the thesis on a whim from 3 seconds ago.

The book I'm writing with my aunt? It's about a woman who has her shit together despite a fucked up and abusive upbringing, she's a big wig for a local professional hockey team and left all her baggage across the country. She meets a guy who is a genuinely good guy in a "meet tragic" situation sparks fly and real life drama ensues.

We're trying to write a "real life" relationship... not billionaire dom meets virginal innocent sub and enter into a fucked up relationship lol.

I'm obviously bad at summing things up...

I think it should feature a war veteran.
How do you create a badass war veteran?
Let's see--
robot arm, robot eye--
Personality like, huh--
well let's do like the guy who wrote Fist of the North Star did: I'm combining John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, James Arness and Bruce Lee into one dude.
I wasn't kidding. Stand the fuck back. 
And what's his problem?
Mobsters.
Russian mobsters.
Holy shit this is the best idea ever.

WHY ARE ALL THE LEAD FEMALES IN THESE BOOKS ALL THE SAME


because they're all based off of bella swan

Oh right. Female lead.
Oh boy.
This is hard.
Okay so this isn't hard. I just have to abstract it out--
Bella Swan is a shitty character so I'll just create the opposite of her.
So instead of high school she'll be a grown adult--
and instead of deriving meaning from her otherwise parasitic existence from fucking some sparkling asshole I think she should instead be striving for her own life goals--
maybe she could be the child of a crime boss but she wants to start her own mob?
And she could be from Hong Kong because--
fuck you I said so, that's why.
And there could be some sort of sexual tension with the main character but he doesn't want to get his legs broken by the Triads so he can't hit it and quit it--
man this is genius.
See how easy it is to write good stories?
All you have to do is have talent.

You know what? I'm kind of over being pissed about this. All writers have to start somewhere, and it's not a crime to be inspired by someone else's work.

I'm heavily inspired by cyberpunk but I'm not calling my story Neurosorcerer. 

if they wanted to option out some original stories from fic writers, it's w/e. but they're just straight up publishing fanfiction and they aren't even hiding the fact that it's fanfiction cause they know it has a built-in fanbase. it's so cheap and lazy. i think either these publishers are idiots, or they think we're idiots (or both)...either way, i'm offended haha

The beauty of writing a good story is you don't even need to come up with a plot. I just gotta spend about another week on these two characters and it almost doesn't matter what they do and it'll be interesting.
Think about the movie Pulp Fiction. Practically nothing happens in that movie and it's still great.
And I can't actually find the post I was referring to in the opening.
Well Obama weighed in on the Mariah Carey/Nicki Minaj feud.
So, you know, the hard hitting issues.
ECONOMY IS IN SHAMBLES WITH NO HOPE OF RECOVERY IN THE NEAR FUTURE BUT NICKI MINAJ IS FIGHTING MARIAH CAREY?
SURE I HAVE A MINUTE TO TELL YOU MY THOUGHTS.
I'm a fucking substitute teacher and I manage to have more important things to do than know they're feuding.
You're the fucking president, man. Have some dignity or something.
OR SOMETHING.
I'm going fuck this noise.