Andrew Shaffer's Blog, page 13
August 4, 2013
Edward Snowden Fanfic
Someone asked this weekend what I've been working on lately, and when my next book will be out. While that's all top secret (sorry), here's a little erotic Edward Snowden fanfic I wrote recently....
CHAPTER 1
“That’s it, baby…that’s it…cum for me, baby.”
Eddie wiped the sweat off his forehead and glanced nervously around the office. Still no one else in the building. It would be at least another hour before the other FDA workers and contractors began filing in. He’d specifically chosen six in the morning on a Monday to make his move, because it seemed less suspicious than doing the deed in the middle of the night.
He turned his attention back to the progress bar, watching its slow crawl across his screen. “C’mon, baby,” he muttered under his breath, though he knew that no amount of sweet talk would make the data transfer any faster: an aging laptop transferring files to a thumb drive over an outdated USB 1.0 protocol would finish when it damn well wanted to. But he had little choice. If he left the drive unattended and was found out by a passing coworker, all his months of planning would be for naught. He opened his browser to surf the net and kill the time, temporarily covering the transfer progress bar.
“I never figured you for an early riser.”
His eyes darted from the screen to the petite woman hanging on the edge of his cubicle partition. “Glinda,” Eddie said. “I thought I’d get an early jump on the week. Lot of work.”
“It’s like the post office,” Glinda said. “You can’t get a break, because people keep sending mail. Look at the bright side, though: as long as people keep making phone calls and sending e-mails, we’ll always have a job.”
“That’s reassuring,” Eddie said.
There was an awkward pause in their conversation. Eddie smiled, trying to put an end to his coworker’s inquiries without appearing too out of the ordinary, as the file transfer continued to lurch on the laptop.
“Why are you smiling like that?” Glinda asked.
“Like what?”
“Like you’re trying to get rid of me.”
Eddie gulped loudly. “That’s absurd.”
“You didn’t come in early to work,” Glinda said, peering at his open laptop. “You came in early to play around with GISM.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Eddie said.
“Oh, please,” Glinda said. “GISM stores a record of every food and drug ever ingested by Americans. You feel powerful when you fire it up and just browse through people’s personal lives — and power is the greatest aphrodisiac known to man. Admit it: you were planning to take the six AM to Spanktown.”
“You think I was…masturbating? To Americans’ private information? That violates just about every ethical guideline imaginable.” He paused. “Of course that’s what I was doing.”
Now it was Glinda’s turn to smile. “I knew you were into some freaky shit, Snowden. Behind those cute little glasses and hazel eyes, I knew there was a dark side to you.”
“Yep, you’ve found me out,” he said.
“But you don’t need to jack off, you know,” Glinda said. “At least not by yourself. That’s what the ten AM meetings are for. A great big FDA circle jerk. We draw the shades, project a real-time map of Americans’ private eating habits up on the screen, drop our pants, and start jerking off. We hadn’t invited you because we didn’t know if you could be trusted.”
“I can’t wait,” Eddie said. I can’t wait to get the hell out of this madhouse.
“Why wait?” Glinda said, entering Eddie's cubicle and standing between his spread legs.
“Um,” was all Eddie could say.
Glinda bent down, running his hands over his chest. She rested on her knees between his spread legs.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“What does it look like I’m doing?” Glinda said, staring up at him with big green eyes as she snapped the button on his jeans.
“What if someone sees us?”
Glinda laughed. “You work for a government agency, and you’re worried about someone watching? Someone is always watching.”
“No, I mean, what if someone catches us. Shouldn’t we go somewhere…private?”
“Privacy is an illusion,” she said. “Besides, I’m the first one in the office at seven every morning. Trust me when I say that no one arrives until quarter til eight.”
Glinda winked at him and began unzipping him slowly. They had at least an hour to themselves, apparently. As her fingers brushed against his cock, Eddie felt himself get hard in spite of his misgivings. His hardon begged to be let loose. What choice did he have? If he rebuffed Glinda’s advances, there was a chance she could turn his attention back to the laptop on the desk — and the thumb drive sticking out the side. Also, it wasn’t like he had anything better to do. What better way to pass the time than with getting his whistle blown?
“Let me help you out,” Eddie said, wriggling out of his jeans just enough to give Glinda better access to his burgeoning manhood.
Glinda toyed with his cock through his briefs. “I see someone’s an early riser after all.”
“I guess so,” he said, lifting his ass off the chair and letting Glinda peel his briefs down. His erection sprang free like a labrador puppy let off its leash in a dog park. As his coworker took him inside her mouth, Eddie leaned back. A wave of relaxation overcame him as he thought about finally blowing the whistle on the FDA’s massive GISM surveillance program. Once Americans saw that everything they put in their mouths was being tracked, things would change. He was sure of it. They would have to, because now he was literally putting his dick on the line for the country he so dearly loved.
Surely his girlfriend would understand.
CHAPTER 2
For some reason, his girlfriend did not understand.
Was it his unique brand of patriotism, Eddie wondered? Or was she pissed about the whole blowjob thing? Either way, it wouldn't affect his plans. He had the USB drive in his pocket and a month's supply of gray oxfords in his suitcase. It was time to flee the United States for a less repressive regime. Next stop: The People's Republic of China.
To be continued....
March 19, 2013
Did Hemingway Really "Write Drunk, Edit Sober"?
Via WFPL.org:
Ernest Hemingway famously said his secret was to “write drunk, edit sober.”
Or did he? Lexington humor writer Andrew Shaffer (he published the popular "Fifty Shames of Earl Grey" parody last year) respectfully debunks this attribution in his new book, "Literary Rogues: A Scandalous History of Wayward Authors," which takes a closer look the myths behind Papa Hemingway and his fellow artists who lived lives as large as their texts.
"He actually didn’t say that quote. In fact, he never drank when he was writing," says Shaffer. "He put in his words every morning and drank the rest of the day, as soon as he was finished with his word quota. He’s supposed to be the image of the macho drunk writer, and then you find out that, well, he really didn’t. But he kept up this aura about himself and perpetuated the myth."
Aspiring authors, take note.
The misattributed quote appears all over the 'Net, however, so it's doubtful the record is going to get set straight anytime soon (if ever). For more on the origins of "write drunk, edit sober," see http://mattwie.be
March 18, 2013
Mark Coker on Ebook Exclusivity
Amazon's "Kindle Select" lending program requires authors to offer their ebooks exclusively through Amazon to receive benefits of the program, such as being in the Kindle lending library and offering free ebooks once every three months. That exclusivity comes with a price, however:
"Almost like clockwork at KindleBoards, it seems like every other month or so, there's a thread of authors decrying their drop in sales at Amazon, and then the speculation ensues about why their sales dried up. Did Amazon change their algorithms? Maybe, maybe not. It doesn't really matter. Algorithm changes or not, there's a lot of randomness in this game at every retailer. Sales go up, sales go down, often without reason. When someone's getting 90 or 100% of their sales from a single retailer, and that retailer rolls over in their sleep and accidentally crushes them, there's not a lot of recourse."
— Smashwords' Mark Coker on the problems with ebook exclusivity
A New Toy For Your Collection
This is pretty exciting: Disney has created an action figure of James Franco, America's favorite poet and short story writer.
(And, in case you're wondering, the toy is listed as being 11 inches.)
March 15, 2013
Just Because You Can...
"Just because you can wear Crocs, doesn't mean you should."
- literary agent Carrie Howland, interviewed at Akashic Books
I Read the Book...or Did I?
I recently picked up Bret Easton Ellis’s American Psycho to re-read it. Or at least that’s what I thought I was doing. Instead of that sense of comfortable déjà vu you get from re-reading an old favorite, I felt like I was experiencing it for the first time.
When I was a quarter of the way through re-reading American Psycho, however, I realized I was actually reading it for the first time. The reason the movie had seemed so different, so alien, to me was that I’d never read the book it was based on. Apparently, the book had been on my shelf for so long that at some point I just assumed I’d read it.
Maybe I’d read a few pages; maybe I’d even read a few chapters. But one thing was distressingly clear: I had never read the entire book.
