Hunting the Red Pen

I looked around the office, clearing my throat. My writing supplies went silent, not a long journey for most of them. The computer could be noisy, the rest were a quiet bunch unless I was throwing them around in a rage.

“I’m not going to lie. 2015 was a disappointing year. We didn’t really hit our goals. We could blame the Writer’s of the Future contest for eating so much time and never paying dividends. We could also blame the Writer’s Digest Prompts for distracting us. Let’s be honest though, the fault lies not in them, not in us, but in other people I will shortly blame at random. Those mentioned have actually helped improve our art and focus. So with no further ado let us discuss the real enemies and how we will deal with them. We now have a higher purpose, that’s right, revenge.

“I did not find a job that supported my writing. Laptop, this is where you come in. I will be throwing you through the front window of all the businesses which rejected me or did not respond. You tend to run hot so I would appreciate you setting those buildings on fire.

“So in all the harassing of the artist I did not finish the year of comic stories. Stapler, we’re going to blame him entirely instead of taking any. You and I are going to pierce his forehead a couple of times.

“We finished the edits on the novel but due to rejections from agents and publishers we had to self publish it again. Pens, I am going to poke holes in you and send one of you with a page of the manuscript to each person that rejected in hopes you will leak on them.

“I didn’t get in many artists dates. That is due to the enemy in our midst, books. We will have a Bradbury inspired BBQ after the speech to fix that.

“When it comes to procrastinating, well I still do it. I think we all know who is to blame. The internet. Three hole punch, so you have a useful purpose this decade once laptop has done its work in the name of the cause I will use you to beat it to death.

“There is some good news. I did self publish the two short story books, and two additional novels. Fingers crossed for sales.

“I stopped fearing success and started dreading obscurity, so that’s progress.

“We stuck to our goal of making more and deeper comments on the forum. We’ll count that as a win and ignore how we alienated everyone and not discuss the suicide. Some people are too sensitive.

“Lastly, I got more political on social media and wow did the followers come in. Who knew so many porn sites and dating services used twitter?

“Anyway, those are all the good points. Now let’s get to bloody revenge for everything that went wrong. We all know who is to blame, everyone but me.”

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