Ode to the Wordcount

Postby **uc pseudonym** » Fri Oct 03, 2003 9:34 am

Newest entry in the Cynicism folder. I think my target in this little poem is rather obvious. Anyone who has been on fanfiction.net will know exactly what I'm talking about. Authors especially will enjoy this.

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Ode to the Word Count

"Yes!" cries the gentleman, as he writes his letter,
"I've written a lot, because bigger is better!
This is truly a masterpiece!"
Ode to the word count.

"We write more than authors, than those published lest,
We write more than they, so we must be the best!
I think I'll get published!"
Ode to the word count.

"We have enough ideas to last a few pages,
Ideas thought up in the dark of our cages,
300K ought to do it."
Ode to the word count.

"Everything we write has been done before,
Which means we're as good as the writers of yore.
What do you mean, novel?"
Ode to the word count.

"Overall plot?" they cry. "That's a stupid idea!
Let's stuff things together in a writing Pangea!
It gets us the pages!"
Ode to the word count.

"Have you run out of plots? Just do another!
Or add a Mary Sue with your younger brother!
Only space matters!"
Ode to the word count.

"Oh dear!" one yelps. "Of villains I'm lacking!"
"Never fear," they respond, "just get old ones packing.
Bring a few back."
Ode to the word count.

"Get about a billion main characters, give them all time.
Spend a few thousand putting each in sublime.
The more the merrier!"
Ode to the word count.

"Have them argue for pages, about slices of toast,
Pointless conversations will get you the most!
Learn from the experts."
Ode to the word count.

"El cuento?" they cry. "What do you mean?
It is toward gigantic stories we lean.
Novels are best."
Ode to the word count.

If you haven't got a hundred thousand, to post on your LAN,
Then you simply cannot, cannot, be a real man:
Measure by quantity.
Ode to the word count.

Why should a story be smaller than Gone With The Wind?
Anything less, you've undoubtably sinned.
Things can't be too lengthy.
Ode to the word count.

"Hah! Do you even have ten thousand, you fool?
Leave the writing to pros and stay in school!
We have more so we're better than you."
Ode to the word count.

And how many words makes this poem heavy weight?
Well, as for us, we have about 388.
But was that ever the point?
Ode to the word count.

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I'll post this on fictionpress in a few days. Meanwhile, if anyone has ideas for other verses, I'd be happy to add them. What do you all think?

Postby **Heaven's Cloud** » Fri Oct 03, 2003 12:54 pm

Interesting. I think the idea of it all is just a little out there, but nevertheless great. Though I am sure you've heard "A little goes a long way," as they seem to say. I think it is good, and very in depth. The rhyming that you use is nice and smooth, and interesting. A novel bigger than Gone With the Wind? That would take a long time!

Postby **uc pseudonym** » Fri Oct 03, 2003 4:48 pm

Heaven's Cloud wrote:I think the idea of it all is just a little out there, but nevertheless great.

I'm curious: what do you mean by that?

Postby **Heaven's Cloud** » Fri Oct 03, 2003 4:51 pm

Well, not saying it's weird or anything, the idea is nothing out of the ordinary. Something I like. Hope that clears if up, I should've been a little more specific. Counting the number of words in the letter/writing is not something I have ever done. Though, when I pick up a book, and read cover to cover, and it has a lot of pages, I agree I do feel good. Just as good as it would be to write such a long letter/story.

Postby **uc pseudonym** » Fri Oct 03, 2003 4:53 pm

Unfortunately, you didn't help. What, specifically, were you saying was out there? And you do realize the satirical nature of this, right?

Postby **Heaven's Cloud** » Fri Oct 03, 2003 4:55 pm

What I ment when I said out there that it wasn't something you would read everyday, for me atleast. I enjoyed it, and I thought it was a great idea. The plot was nice, I really enjoyed it. And yes, I do understand it, the feeling is good when you achieve that.

Postby **uc pseudonym** » Fri Oct 03, 2003 4:57 pm

Ah, I understand. Very good. That makes complete sense. Now I wonder if anyone else has anything to say.

Postby **Mimichan** » Fri Oct 03, 2003 8:36 pm

*fidgets*...What are you trying to say? :eyebrow:

*skulks off mumbling*...so much for my epic Mary Sue novel.....

Postby **uc pseudonym** » Sat Oct 04, 2003 9:22 am

This one is trusting there was sarcasm involved.

Postby **Mimichan** » Sat Oct 04, 2003 9:53 am

*nods* I was only joking. Its a good poem. But now that I think about it...hmmm..Epic Mary Sue...*considers the idea*....

Postby **Technomancer** » Sat Oct 04, 2003 7:30 pm

Not bad. It should be familiar to anyone who's had to write lots of essays.

Postby **uc pseudonym** » Sat Oct 04, 2003 8:21 pm

Heh, you sound so much like me it's barely funny.

Well, it could definitely be interpreted that way. Actually, the intended target is stories that deserve perhaps 5K that are extended by poor authors to over 100K. Ridiculous.

Postby **Bobtheduck** » Sat Oct 04, 2003 11:03 pm

moving to it's own thread "In defense of mary sues: Don't kill me!"

Postby **uc pseudonym** » Thu Mar 30, 2006 4:47 pm

The irony of making this particular post in this thread is not lost on me.

Postby **meboeck** » Thu Mar 30, 2006 5:00 pm

LOL! I love your sense of humor. That applies to both the poem and your 10,001st post. I want to get to 10,000 posts as fast as I can! I mean... nevermind.

Postby **uc pseudonym** » Thu Mar 30, 2006 5:14 pm

I'm glad you both found it funny. I did, when I was thinking about what I should do for the 10,000th post (because this was that one, I've just been posting since). I hope all my posts accomplish something, of course, but I especially like those that make people's days a little bit better.

It looks like no one is going to make any noise about the arbitrary number my post count has reached. That makes me happy; I've been saying it doesn't matter for ages and my mind hasn't changed.

Postby **Raiden no Kishi** » Thu Mar 30, 2006 6:59 pm

I blow this poem a KISS.

: : hopes someone (ideally UC) gets his attempt at humor : :

.rai//

Postby **Ingemar** » Thu Mar 30, 2006 9:47 pm

This is quite good; but if you wish to make a greater effect, perhaps the poem ITSELF should be ungodly long; that would be the greatest irony ever--irony itself being the greatest humorous device ever--and would garner many readers: some supportive, some defensive, other insolent, as they either agree, defend, or attack you--yet never learning from their mistakes in the same way Charles Dickens or your typical German philosopher never learns to make a short (less than one page) sentence, because they are so short sighted: but you, UC, are above such quasi-writers; that is, sundry fanfiction writers, not Dickens or philosophers, who despite their faults are taught across the world in universities, for their insights if not their sentence struture, which gets quite annoying sometimes but deserves a second read to get the full meaning of the passage--whereas those amateurs who tend to always split their infinitives and themselves abuse reflexive prounouns, do so without even making an interesting story; this is very frustrating indeed, when someone makes a 100,000 word story without a single paragraph break and is apparently unfamiliar with concept of punctuation, nor proper verse and meter when it comes to poetry, which we can blame on all the free verse poets but I digress; good job UC.

Postby **Mave** » Fri Mar 31, 2006 5:24 am

Technomancer wrote:Not bad. It should be familiar to anyone who's had to write lots of essays.

You can't help it when you've had to deal with academic papers/research proposal/thesis as well. I had quite some fun with this one, UC. ^^

On an unrelated note, I cannot believe you've hit the 10K mark. Good griefy.

Postby **Sammy Boy** » Fri Mar 31, 2006 5:31 am

Heheh, it was an interesting read.

It reminded me of a quote I read at a colleague's desk:

"The less we know, the longer the explanation. Be brief."

Postby **uc pseudonym** » Fri Mar 31, 2006 8:22 am

General thanks to all of you.

anonymous wrote:^__^]
Yeah, I know. I'm intentionally not posting in it.

anonymous wrote:where exactly is your 10000th post anyways, if that was #10001?

No, the gravedigging post was my 10,000th. I just posted immediately after it elsewhere.

Raiden no Kishi wrote:I blow this poem a KISS.

: : hopes someone (ideally UC) gets his attempt at humor : :

I think I do, unless you had something really complicated in mind.

Moving on, thank you for your compliments Ingemar]but if you wish to make a greater effect, perhaps the poem ITSELF should be ungodly long

I considered that, but ran out of ideas at about the number of verses you see here. Of course, I could probably lengthen it now. One person on Fictionpress actually made a similar comment, noting the irony that this poem was longer than the majority on Fictionpress.

Mave wrote:On an unrelated note, I cannot believe you've hit the 10K mark. Good griefy.

Indeed. The internet has not been present long enough for us to determine long-term trends, but I wonder. If someone participated semi-regularly in a single forum for 20+ years, they'd accumulate a massive number of posts. As of yet, I have never seen anyone reach a post count of six digits, even on the most massive forums, but one would assume it is inevitable.

Postby **Zarn Ishtare** » Fri Mar 31, 2006 5:19 pm

Ingemar must be weeping, seeing as the irony of his post has gone unnoticed. Very well. I notice you, Sensei, and your wonderful attempt at Irony.

UC, whenever I read your writings, I imagine Ben Stein reciting in Epic Verse form, frilly lace doublet and all.

Ode to the Wordcount

Ode to the Wordcount

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