offkilter123: Blog

1. Taking shots at celebrities

I like to poke fun at celebrities and politicians and will occasionally use real-world events in my stories. An example is my story, A Hollywood Story. Gennifer Planter and her lifestyle blog Spluge! is of course a thinly veiled swipe at Gwyneth Paltrow and her Goop blog. Goop is notorious for selling products such as vagina-scented candles and advocating for vagina steaming. Gennifer’s daughter is named Mango and her ex-husband is the leader of the British band HotRox.

Gwyneth's ex-husband is Chris Martin of the British band Coldplay. Gennifer’s daughter is Mango, and Gwyneth’s daughter is named Apple.

The Millionaire Murderer mini-series in the story is based on the T. Cullen Davis murder trial. Fort Worth millionaire Davis was tried for killing his ex-wife’s twelve-year-old daughter and the -ex’s boyfriend, TCU basketball standout, Stan Farr. Cullen’s attorney was Richard “Racehorse” Haynes. After a change of venue, an Amarillo jury found Davis not guilty. No other suspect was pursued because the Fort Worth police knew that Davis was the killer. As of the writing of this story, Davis is still alive and living in Fort Worth, Texas. After losing most of his fortune, he became a "born-again" Christian.

The 1995 mini-series “Texas Justice” starred actors Peter Strauss as Davis and Heather Locklear as Davis’ ex-wife Patricia.

The story "The Politician's Husband is even more blatant. I did get comments over on Literotica reminding me that not every reader is from the USA and is interested in American politics. That's true and for my next story, I may very well take on the royal family. My wife is an Anglophile while I am a fan of Cherie Blair's attitude towards the monarchy. I hate to use the word republican because of what that connotes in the USA.

2. BTB's

It had been pointed out to me, that The Teacher's Husband has a particularly nasty main character. Yes, it does. I would even go so far as to call him a real dick. I think all my stories have so far had a BTB element, but that was the worst. That's why it may surprise people to learn that I actually prefer a good reconciliation story more than a BTB story.

The problem is, that most recon (I don't like the term RAAC) stories don't work. IMO, a successful recon story has remorse, contrition, and a redemptive act. You very seldom (if ever) see all three of those in either real life or fiction.

There may be regret; regret at getting caught or regret for cheating, but actual remorse? No. Because remorse requires putting the healing needs of your spouse above your own needs. Cheating by its nature is an abusive, narcissistic action. The kind of person that is capable of doing that to someone they love is generally not the kind of person to be remorseful. They are most likely not going to place the needs of their spouse above their own. So, if this most basic requirement cannot be met, how can the other two requirements be met?

If there is no remorse, how can there be contrition?

If remote and contrition are not evident, then you can forget about a redemptive act. Not going to happen.

That's why there is so little true reconciliation in real life. There's rug sweeping. There's the betrayed partner learning to white-knuckle through life. There's the betrayed partner learning to eat their feelings and swallow their anger.

But true reconciliation? It exists, but it's rare. I am working on a reconciliation story that I hope to finish in the next couple of months. It features remorse and contrition. And a redemptive act? Oh boy, does it ever. I feel bad about what I am putting that poor woman through.

I received a surprising amount of comments to my blog post soliciting feedback on the importance of accuracy. I am very grateful to everyone who commented. There were a lot of thoughtful and insightful comments.

The consensus seems to be that accuracy is important for the reader if it is a topic of which they have knowledge. Since the author has no idea what knowledge the reader has or does not have then it seems that accuracy is in fact, very important.

It was also noted that errors could be overlooked in a well written, engaging story. In the story that I had used as an example, the author had placed a marine gunny sergeant in the army rangers. The fact that the story was unreadable due to spelling, punctuation, and grammatical errors made forgiving the author for the initial military mistake impossible.

In my stories, I will continue to make them as accurate as I can. I am sure I will make mistakes but I am trying not to rely on my memory and actually look things up. I am currently writing a story in which I wrote that the MC enlisted to become a 96C, Field Interrogator. That was the designation when I was assigned to the United States Army Intelligence Center and School (USAICS) at Fort Huachuca about a hundred years ago. Googling this, I discovered that at some point the 96C MOS was changed to 97E and has been changed once again to 35M Human Intelligence Collector. Presumably because Human Intelligence Collector sounds so much kindler and gentler than Field Interrogator.

I have had a couple of people reach out to me about some of the comments my stories have received; particularly the comments on The Other Site (TOS.) They are brutal and I read every one. When I posted my first story, I stated that I will never turn off or delete comments and that still holds true. Do the comments bother me? I don't want to get all religious on you, but as Jesus said in the parable of the Anonymous Asshat and the Humble Scribe, "Behold, the land upon which I grow my Fucks. Lay thine eyes upon it and see that it is barren."

I've been a member on TOS since 2010 and SOL since 2013. Until a few weeks ago, I had never submitted a story for publication. I have wanted to submit something for a long time because something on TOS was beginning to bother me. If you are a member of that site then you know that in addition to the site contests and challenges, there are also author organized events which are either "Open" or "Invitational." In the Open events, anyone can participate. You write a story that meets the event guidelines, put the name of the event into the subject field and and long as it is received by the due date, your story becomes part of the event. Very egalitarian. I'm a big fan of egalitarian.

I was hoping to publish my first story last year as part of an Open event, but one thing after another came up and then as Mother Teresa was fond of saying, "Shit got real" and I was not able to start, much less finish my story. So this year, I thought I would get my feet wet by publishing a few stories as preparation for this year's Open on TOS. The cutoff date is July 31, so hopefully this time I will have a story ready to publish.

I mentioned earlier that they also have Invitationals. The invitationals are what was bothering me about TOS. Don't get me wrong, I love TOS. The LW section is the amateur writer version of being tested in combat. But there is an individual over there that I will call the ORGANIZER. Once a twice a year, the ORGANIZER will organize an event. These events are always invitational and the participants are always chosen by the ORGANIZER.

I mentioned earlier that I am a big fan of egalitarianism. I like it as much as I despise elitism and cliques. For some reason, it galls me that the invitations are decided by the ORGANIZER based on nothing but their own whims and preferences. The criteria cannot be merit based because some of the authors the ORGANIZER invites are not very good at all. There are much better writers that do not get an invitation. Again, the invitations are based on no criteria other than the ORGANIZER'S whims and favorites. The ORGANIZER's appalling arrogance in answering questions about her choices are very off-putting as well.

The ORGANIZER also has a group of lapdog-like acolytes that frolic about her feet like love-starved little puppies. One in particular, who we'll call "Brooksie" is a particularly odious little chihuahua always yapping and dancing around on his hind legs trying to stick his snout into the crotch of the ORGANIZER and get her attention. The reason I call Brooksie odious, is because Brooksie will comment on an authors post in the most negative, unhelpful way imaginable. Brooksie will also comment anonymously on occasion when he wants get nastier than usual. Brooksie will also cull through comments on their own stories and delete anything remotely negative. The ORGANIZER also boasts about deleting negative comments on their own stories. One thing you will hear me say time and again; If you are going to believe the good stuff people say about you, you have to believe the bad stuff as well. I cannot imagine anything more pathetic than being so emotionally fragile that I have to hover over my keyboard obsessively deleting comments from someone calling themselves omahacuckfan because they think I suck as a writer.

Perhaps It's because I have a healthy self-esteem and self-image; perhaps it's because I'm not easily triggered; or perhaps it's something else. Let me show you my field.

Today I started reading a story on another site. In the first sentence, the author placed a gunny sergeant in the rangers. For those that are not familiar, a gunny sergeant is a US Marine. Rangers are US Army. The marines have their own special forces named Force Recon. It's a small thing, but I stopped reading after the first sentence because of it.

At one time, research was a pain in the ass. Thirty years ago, for a novella for a creative writing course in college, I spent hours on the microfiche machine in the university library culling through and reading New York Times articles about killer, Albert Fish. Today, I would just go to Wikipedia. So research is infinitely easier than it once was and yet some writers cannot be bothered. But details matter; at least to me.

In one of the stories that I am working on, the main character was once assigned to the 504th Military Intelligence XXXX. The reason I use XXXX is because I was unsure of what to use. A hundred or so years ago, I was assigned to this unit. I could swear that back then it was called the 504th Military Intelligence Group, III Army Corp. I did a quick Google search for the sake of accuracy and only found references to 504th MI Brigade. So was I mis-remembering things? I then went to Wikipedia (because, duh) and found that for seven years, the unit was in fact designated as the 504th MI Group. I was assigned to the unit during those seven years.

It did not affect the story either way, and both Group and Brigade were correct, but I made the decision to use Brigade since the time frame for the story was after the designation had changed to Brigade.

So, my question to the one or two people that might stumble upon this blog, does accuracy in stories matter to you?

I knew what I was getting into when I started posting in the Loving Wives section over on Literotica, but damn...It's a good thing that at a young age I learned how to take a punch. Thanks mom!

Some commenters took my statement that I would never delete comments as a "hold my beer" type challenge. Other commenters went a little further. To the Lit commenter who told me that he was going to rape my mother: well that's just ridiculous. Even if you could get past the guards and the warden at Mountain View Unit, Gatesville, you couldn't get past my mother's cell mate/life partner, Big Bernice. That crazy bitch would break you open like a shotgun and have you squealing like Ned Beatty in "Deliverance."

According to the comments, my story TGW was either too long or too short. I either know nothing about Texas or I have a deep understanding about Texas. I know nothing about the military while simultaneously have obviously spent a lot of time in the military. It's a good thing that at a young age I learned how to deal with stinging criticism, barbed comments and harsh invective. Thanks mom!

I have reached out for assistance with editing and beta reading, but I have not had any luck as of yet. One person that I reached out to about doing a beta reading of an upcoming story told me that they would rather drive roofing nails into their eyes than read any bullshit that I might write. Thanks mom!