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I Solemnly Promise Not to Write...
1. An epic drama inspired by the works of Weird Al Yankovic.
2. A love story featuring a male lead name "Earl" or, Heaven forbid, "Jim Bob."
3. Anything JK Rowlings or the Tolkien estate could confiscate my life's savings for.
4. Anything in which I am the main character. (Note that friends are an exception to this rule-- see my sig)
5. Catcher in the Pumpernickel
6. Anything which could be made into a movie where the main character is played by The Rock.
7. Or Adam Sandler, for that matter.
8. Any female characters of royal blood who are perfectly built rocket scientists with PhD's in home economics and exotic dancing, but who are somehow inexplicably drawn to the 98-pound nerd.
9. Anything with the word "Blood" in the title.
10. Any main characters whose names give away their function within the plot, i.e. "Major Dirk Stone" or "Constance Goodbody."
11. Any science fiction concepts that violate the laws of physics more than three times.
12. Make that five times, just to be safe.
13. Anything in which the main characters have gratuitous sex with more than one partner.
14. At a time.
15. Anything which translates the works of Shakespeare into an inappropriate context-- I.E., Hamlet as a french fry cook. (Which is a shame, 'cause I really do have lots of good ideas along those lines...)
16. My TV nozelization idea "Welcome Back Again, Kotter: The Continuing Adventures of Barbarino."
17. A novel in which the same obscure word appears ubiqituously, in such a darn ubiquitous manner that after 100 or so ubiquitous pages, the ubiquitous reader wants to beat the ubiquitous snot out of the ubiquitous author.
18. Anything which will require me to cram more than 6 months worth of research into the 30-day period.
19. "Yugbuz, the Troll Who Saved Christmas."
20. Anything in which elves appear at all, unless of course they are baking cookies from a house in a tree.
21. Any fantasy land with a backstory so complicated that I have to write a whole 'nother book just to explain it all. (I'm looking at you, Silmarillion!)
22. Any work in which the characters are but thinly despised ciphers spouting the author's scientific or philosophical theories. (I'm looking at you, Mr. Crichton!)
23. Any book where the title starts with the letter "X." In the dog-eat-dog world of bookstores, alphabetizion counts!
24. Anything involving the little-known fifth Musketeer...
25. This also goes for the eighth dwarf, the tenth reindeer (after Rudolph), or any previously unknown member of any royal family.
25. Anything with a main character so angst-ridden that it takes the reader less than 50 pages to want to beat themselves to death with a hardcover copy to escape the sheer pointlessness of it all.
26. "The Michelangelo Code, Which Really And Sincerely Has Nothing to Do With the Totally Unrelated Code You May Have Read About in That Other BooK!"
27. Any work in which the beautiful heroine spends more than 60 percent of the pages unclothed, unless it's for clearly demonstrable plot-related reasons such as she has a cotton allergy...
28. Anything written in the second person.
29. Aything written in the first person, if the viewpoint character in question is a complete yutz!
30. Anything written in the third person, if I do not understand the concept of the "limited third-person perspective." Because being in all the characters' heads at once isn't technically an error, it's just irritating.
31. Anything written in the fourth person, because it doesn't exist.
32. Anything set in the South with a main character who even vaguely resembles Scarlett O'Hara.
33. Rhett Butler's okay, because he's just that cool, but there must be at least an attempt to disguise him.
34. The same word 50,000 times.
35. The same ten words 5,000 times.
36. The same 500 words one hundred times.
37. Anything with more than one Nefarious Plot by the Forces of Darkness occuring simultaneoulsy.
37. Anything that appears to be heading for an upbeat conclusion until the final chapter, in which everybody dies.
38. Any murder mystery in which the butler did it.
39. Any work in which "science fiction" is reclassified as "near-future thriller" to sell more copies.
40. Anything in which my main character is promoted more than three levels within his field, or to a level higher than Vice-President of the United States. (I'm looking at you, Mr. Clancy!)
41. A hard-edged crime thriller in which the killer's MO involves noodles.
42. A main character whose name is an anagram of anything significant.
43. A comedy where my own [mother/best friend/significant other] doesn't laugh out loud at least once per page.
44. Anything purporting to reveal the Meaning of Life.
45. Or, for that matter, the True Origins of Count Dracula.
46. "Love Among the Cosines: A Story of Longing, Angst, and Higher Mathematics."
47. And character named "Aloysius," "Ermingard," or "Ferdinand."
48. Any historical fiction in which I twist the motivations of the historical figures I don't really like to make the one I obsessively do like look better.
49. Any paragraph longer than half a page.
50. Any sentence containing more than one semicolon.
51. Any character who gratuitously uses the words (!*!&, *@8@&!, or especially &*(!&(!&(!&@!
52. Anything written in Pig Latin.
53. "Survivor: Fiction edition."
54. Anything that cannot be turned into a best-selling series of at least 15 books, should the opportunity arise.
55. Anything where the characters speak long passages in a language which I do not personally speak without running it past a bilingual editor first. (I've violated this rule too often in the past.)
56. Any novel requiring me to make up more than ten words of an imaginary language, or more than three grammatical rules for said language. (I'm looking at you again, J.R.R.!)
57. Any children's book in which a beloved mythological character-- i.e. the Easter Bunny-- opens a can of whoop-ass.
58. Any work in which any Native American character older than fifty-five spouts mumbo jumbo for more than two consecutive paragraphs.
59. This also goes for old Oriental characters.
60. Any work in which characters discuss their innermost personal feelings immediately before cranking up the chainsaw...
61. "War and Peace but Mostly War, Because Peace is Boring"
62. Any work in which the terrorists have a nuclear anything.
63. This applies to biological weapons only if the effects are particularly icky.
64. Any damsel so chronically in distress that readers actively wonder how the poor lass manages to feed herself.
65. Any male character so chronically in distress that readers actively wonder if he is a damsel.
66. Any book in which pirates do not appear, because a book without pirates is like a day without sunshine.
67. Any character who is shot more than twice and does not die.
68. Any character who performs surgery on his or herself.
69. If the character must perform surgery on his or herself, anesthetic is not optional.
70. Any character performing illegal operations with a computer that I do not, personally, know to be possible. (Note to Self: Might have to fudge this one...)
71. Any relationship containing slashy undertones that I do not consciously intend to be there.
72. Since the preceding is not possible, given the workings of fannish minds, at least have someone particularly dirty-minded proofread to minimize #71...
73. "The Secret Life of Badgers, Mushrooms, and SNAAAAAKES!"
74. Anything so existential as to give the reader reason to doubt whether he is actually in the room, reading this actual book, in any sense that matters to the Universe at large.
75. Any character whose eclectic hobbies include bear-skinning, macrame, or fish-mongering.
76. Any Civil War novel in which Robert E. Lee is elevated to a status higher than demigod.
77. This goes double for Stonewall.
78. Any romance in which one of the parties dies within a seventy-two-hour window of the wedding.
79. Any book in which the dog dies for any reason.
80. "The Secret Transvesite Diaries of Richard Nixon."
81. Any character who speaks in a dialect I do not fully understand. Are you "down" with that, yo, "holmes?"
82. Any work requiring me to write songs, especially if my idea of a good rhyme would be "Texas" with "facts is"...
83. Any historical fiction chronicaling more than five generations of one family. Because at some point, really, the family tree just needs to die.
84. Any fictional races so alien that we cannot understand their POV, therefore they can be pointlessly agressive with no hint of remorse. (I'm looking at you, ID4!)
85. Any events that are "based on a true story, even though the govenment officially denies they ever happened *wink-wink-nudge-nudge*"
86. "Barney Goes to the Tar Pits"
87. Any character so diabolical that he is just way smarter than the author himself... unless you think you can really pull that off, in which case go for it.
88. Anything based in a small, quiet New England town that is secretly creepy, unless you are going for a "documentary" feel.
89. Any character who talks in rhyme. At all.
90. Any character with a non-standard tongue.
91. Any character whose eyes are a non-standard color or habitually burn like anything other than basic sight organs, unless of course their face is on fire.
92. Anything in the style of Mark Twain, Ernest Hemingway, Charles Dickins, or anybody else who is just way better than me.
93. "The Canterbury Snails"
94. Any characters inspired by people both mean-spirited and litigious.
95. Anything Ayn Rand would have liked.
96. Any legal drama, unless I have spent at least ten hours watching "Court TV" to get the basic procedures down.
97. Any scene where a newscaster reports on something no news station would care about, giving detail no news report would bother with, solely for the purpose of imparting information to a main character.
98. Any book purporting to reveal the true identity of Jack the Ripper, the Lizzie Borden killer, or the actual location of Jimmy Hoffa.
99. "The Fuzzy Wuzzy Bunnies Go to the Zoo" by Ghengis Hitler.
100. Anything requiring a plot. At 1,667 words per day, we're all about volume...
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You have no idea how good that makes me feel. (To give you an idea, it seems the people who planned my education thought that reading/seeing the movie of Where the Red Fern Grows in every single grade from 1st through 7th was a good idea)
