CLASSIC POST

Well, I went down to the military entrance processing station the other day for the Marines. I was poked, prodded, deprived of sleep and made to eat something masquerading as sausage gravy. But it was a good time, overall.

As you can imagine, that's shaking up the homefront a little, but, overall, everything benefits from a little creative stress. Just ask a lab monkey.

Speaking of which, I'm sick and tired of striving for this honorary "literary" title with my writing. Let me explain - you are either a genre writer, or you are a literary writer.

If you are a genre writer, you are doomed to popular appeal, movie deals, huge bonus checks and worldwide admiration. If you are a literary writer, you are guaranteed critical rejection, meals made entirely of sausage gravy, grinding poverty and a heinously early death involving your favorite firearm(s). I cite Stephen King and Ernest Hemingway as illustrative examples.

Not to mention, literary fiction requires your work to be both painful to write and painful to read. If it's entertaining and uplifting, it's obviously hack work. And don't bother writing in any genre other than "mainstream," a gray word if I've ever seen one. After all, Slaughterhouse 5, Stranger in a Strange Land and Frankenstein didn't need some campy sci-fi crutch to succeed...oh wait...yeah they did.

So, I've made a pact with my roommate to make my next story as non-literary as possible. We're talking fun, genre-oriented and lacking in any moral or message whatsoever. My roommate - let's call him "Ben," because it's shorter than "my roommate" - is thinking about banging out an RPG-style fantasy story. I think I'm going to try my hand at a Western.

My hope is that someday, some hack critic at Princeton or Yale sits down to craft a thesis on the "Johnstownian literary sub-genre," and he explores the "overly macho or, perhaps, desperately critical and subversive male characters, as well as the cleverly used misogyny and over-the-top villains with psychological parameters reflecting the authors' troubled interpersonal relations and unique world outlook."

Not to mention the heavy parallels to Star Wars. I guess those will be the student papers.