One Whipped Mother

The Write Club Rules

#1) Candidates must possess the ability to pull random words out of his or her ass, string them together in a coherent manner, and form works of merit, be it fiction, nonfiction, creative nonfiction, screenplays, scripts, plays or poetry.

#2) Candidates must be inventors of words or phrases, e.g., "Mary clangified the audience with her moving poetry reading."

#3) Candidates must be lacking in all pretense, without fear of appearing foolish.

#4) Candidates must love dictionaries, thesauruses and encyclopedias, and shall prove their obsession to Committee by producing a picture displaying self as a child fondling, sniffing, reading any or all of the above. Candidates may, if they so choose, prove obsession by licking the pages of either Merriam-Webster’s Manual for Writers & Editors or The American Heritage College Dictionary. If candidate climaxes during book-licking, candidate will immediately be promoted to top-tier level membership, thus bypassing subsequent hazing rituals.

#5) Candidates must be able to quote, on demand, at least ten consecutive lines from E.A. Poe’s The Raven.

#6) Candidates shall carry police baton on their person at all times.

#7) Candidates shall use said baton to beat any monkeys caught in a typing pool of over one hundred, and will continue beating monkeys until they are pronounced dead by Club doctor. Candidates are encouraged to use especially brutal and swift blows should they happen upon Paris Hilton.

#8) Candidates will, at the whim of Committee, perform humiliating acts, including but not limited to, reading aloud particularly offensive rejections or reviews to Committee with pants around candidates’ ankles and/or eating pages of fucked-up published work without shedding one tear. If candidate is observed to be crying, gagging or wincing, candidate will immediately be cast into the Dungeon of Shame for a period of, but not exceeding, three days.

#9) Candidates will be required to slap any persons across the face with brown leather glove should candidate be asked this question: “Do you know Stephen King?” If person still persists in asking asshole questions despite stinging slap, questions such as “Have I ever heard of you?” and “Have you published in the New Yorker?” candidate will then use baton to crack person’s face in two.

#10) Candidates will honor all Write Club rules until the day they die. If candidate should betray the Club or stray from the rules at any given time, for any reason whatsoever, including medical disability, candidate will be beaten by candidate’s own baton by an individual of Committee’s choosing. In addition, candidate may, at the discretion of Committee, be banished from Club and forced into a life of self-publishing and for-the-love markets that don't even provide a contributor's copy.

posted by Ms. Lori @ 11:32 AM