SF&F's Famous Flounders [sic]

Years ago, in a galaxy far far away...

No!

Stop me before I puke out literary wastage!

Once upon a time...before there was the insidious notion of "genre," people used to write stuff...some of it was good stuff and some of it was crap stuff. But it was writing -- and they didn't know into what "genre" it fit. That's because they know about this extra crispy confection of a term.

Oh, sure! Today....when we write stuff, if we're lucky, if we love what we're doing, and if we don't bother reading literary critics, we don't pay any attention to this "stuff-classification" either -- we just write!

Think about it: if you were asked to come up with some writers that you really liked, writers that you enjoyed, writers that you thought were good [No...wait...forget about this last thing! If you think they are "good" you've stopped enjoying them. They may be good -- but that's totally beside the point.], I bet "genre" is not even a teeny tiny itsy bitsy consideration.

Here's a few of mine: Ambrose Bierce, Mark Twain, Bram Stoker, John Steinbeck, Leon Uris, Kurt Vonnegut, Susan Sontag and Gore Vidal.

I write alternate history/time travel/first contact stuff....!?

Go figure!

Bizarre Topics Bazaar

We're all list-keepers, right?

I thought so.

Well, one list of mine concerns potential topics for future writings -- either the long or the short of it. Number one on my list is the undisputed fact concerning the demise of one of my favorite writers: Ambrose Bierce.

I'm sure you all know about this, but for the one or two of you that may have missed the news [it was in all the papers], here it is in a nutshell:

In his seventies, after visiting various Civil War battlefields familiar to him from back in his day, he crossed over into Revolution-Torn Mexico...and was never heard from since....

His last written words were:

"As to me, I leave here tomorrow for an unknown destination." (December 26, 1913)

Ah yes...."Bitter Bierce" [as he was known] -- the stuff of imaginative flights of fancy.....

How about YOU?

What's on your list of "things to write about"??