Quis Leget Haec Crapus?

While skimming the Emmys the other day, really only in order to see if Jon Stewart or Steven Colbert won, I wondered what it would be like to stand up in front of a lot of people and say thanks to the people that got you there. Since it is unlikely I will ever win an Emmy unless they make a category for Awesome People Who Are Awesome But Don't Act, I wondered if I could do an Emmy speech as a shout out to those who've helped me become a better writer.

"Wow. I didn't think I'd win. I don't even have a speech prepared!" And then I take out a long paper.

"I'd like to thank my mom--HI MOM!--for always buying me books and introducing me to the worlds of Narnia and Dune and Xanth and dozens of others.

I'd like to thank my dad for always saying 'Um, you still doing that writing thing?'

To my grandfather who always told me 'Use your head for something besides a hat rack and an ornament.'

To my Grandma Margaret who was a storyteller at heart, a gossip, and a history buff, many times all rolled into one.

To my Grandma Anne who once told me that I'd make something of myself if I didn't get pregnant and went to college.

To my sister, who was forced through the bonds of love to read my earliest, crappiest drafts when I first started writing in high school, and who now refuses to read anything of mine for fear of reading crap again.

To my college roomies, who read my shit, gave honest critique, let me bounce ideas off of them, and managed most times to leave me alone when I was writing.

To all those bad critique partners in college, who didn't really understand any genre except the literary one. Thanks for totally trashing my beloved genre of speculative fiction. You helped me get angry enough to do better.

To all the Forward Motion people. I've learned the most from you crazy, crazy bunch. It's good to know the writing insanity doesn't have to happen alone.

Thanks. Peace out!"

Lately, I've decided that in order to get more writing done, I should take my laptop and write during my lunch period. Now, usually I go somewhere else during my lunch period, because staying in the breakroom while one of my co-workers blasts NPR drives me nutso (I can't listen to speech type stuff as I write). But over the past couple of weeks, we've been busy, and I've cut my lunch short in order to finish things faster.

But that means I have to write in the breakroom.

The amount of heckling I've received is annoying. Granted, it's only a few people teasing me endlessly, but it's still...not cool. At first, I found it amusing that people were actually intrigued by what I was doing, if maybe a little embarassed at their enthusiastic interest. But now, not so much. How can I write when some people are quoting "Family Guy" at me? You know the scene where Stewie teases Brian about the novel he's been working on for three years?(Again, funny at first, but it got old after about the fourth time. And the fifth or sixth times. And the seventh through tenth times. I'm not kidding. And on Monday, probably the eleventh through upteenth times).

Not to mention, that after one co-worker dug more info out of me on what it was about, he basically said it was a blatant rip off of a show. I don't know what it is about non-readers/writers, but they always seem to think story ideas are exactly like [insert lame movie or show here], and thus you must've stolen your ideas. You're obviously a hack! You STOLE IT! How dare you try when you're ripping it all off of [lame show]! Their laughter screams FAILURE!

You can find common threads among anything if you look hard enough. Plus, everyone uses an idea that's been done to death and sets a spin on it. The basic idea always sounds lame and cliche.

But I have to remind myself I'm not writing this for those naysayers, all of which are professed non-readers. If there was one thing my Rhetoric teacher pounded into my head from Aristotle, whose book made me drool on myself after falling into a near coma of boredom, it is to KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE.

And these people ain't it.

Shut up and let me write.