A Blog Full of Schlock

(image via wikimedia)

Most of my writing is schlock.  I admit it.  That isn’t an insult to me or my writing.  A lot of mainstream writing that I see today is schlock too.

Most recent novels are really light and have major flaws that could have been fixed with more time and effort.  Major periodicals and click-bait websites have misspellings in their headlines and content that is poorly written.  Most television shows and movies have bad dialogue and plot devices that don’t make any sense, but hardly anybody cares.

Schlock is a mediocre product that can get churned out in high quantities.  Readers and viewers might not think of it as the word schlock, but they won’t care if you call it that.

James Patterson can write a bunch of schlock (or hire a bunch of writers to write it for him) because everybody knows he writes schlock.  They might not call it schlock, but they know Patterson doesn’t write the highest quality of fiction out there.  Nobody has ever gotten angry at me for criticizing James Patterson.  Even his fans know he deserves it.

Fans of the show  Game of Thrones, however, were furious with the writers after the final season because they, viewers, had high expectations.   Game of Thrones wasn’t considered schlock, but the writers treated the final few seasons disrespectfully.  You can treat schlock with a little disrespect, but not Game of Thrones.  Once readers or viewers have high expectations for you, though, you’d better deliver.

The thing is, I like schlock.   Life is easier if you like schlock because there’s always something to read or watch.  When your expectations are too high, then you can’t enjoy much.  But schlock, you can enjoy it, even if you know it’s not technically good.  I might criticize schlock, I might not finish reading it, but I’m glad it’s out there.  I’d rather have a glut of schlock than no schlock at all.

Even though I treat my writing with respect, and I put effort into it, I know most of it is schlock.    I’m glad people like schlock.  If people didn’t read schlock, then who else would read my writing?

Even though I’ve written a lot of schlock on my blog over the last few years, nobody has written as much schlock as James Patterson.  Speaking of James Patterson…

MY DAUGHTER PUNCHED OUT JAMES PATTERSON!!

(image via wikimedia)

My daughter didn’t really punch out James Patterson.  She punched out a life-sized cardboard figure of James Patterson.  The James Patterson had been placed near the entrance of B&M Booksellers next to a table with several of Patterson’s new books (I don’t remember which books they were because he has so many of them at any given moment).

Even if my daughter doesn’t like James Patterson, it wasn’t her life-sized cardboard figure to punch out.  It was the book store’s.  And that’s what caused the problem (Read more here).