Ransomology Weekly Newsletter No.3
February 2, 2015

Hello Cherished Readers!

You will recall no doubt that the hot topic of last week’s newsletter was:
The Ransomology About page stinks – I need to make it not stink.

But I begin to despair this may not be possible. Anyone who read my latest post Confessions of an Art School Douche Bag, will know that I have made a SHOCKING discovery – I am apparently NOT an artisan of language, and so not an artist capable of making great art with my words.

I am Distressed! Nay, DESTROYED, by this news. But, as long as the buttresses of my denial remain strong, I will continue to practise my craft, in the hope that my innate talent will BURST forth!, enabling me to architect characters, scene and story with the brilliance and finesse of the great and true word artists.

To this end, I will from now on be writing in a much more flowery and verbose style, employing increasingly more obscure and complex metaphors while simultaneously allowing all the boring rigidity of correct grammar and punctuation to fall away:

The Ransomology About page continues to shuffle about in my head; a zombie, arms half raised and periodically wailing, wailing, wailing, so mournfully wailing: “Braaaains…” “Braaains?”

The Ransomology About page continues to wallow in the shallows of my intellect…
Wait, wait, wait…

The Ransomology About page continues to flounder on the vast oceans of my intellect; drowning in the colossal waves of my confusion, sprayed by the froth of my vicissitudes, bobbing, gasping for air, intermittently visible and then gone again… like an… intermittently visible and then gone again thing… a duck! a little helpless duck, so delicate, paddling with its tiny webbed feet against the towering, crushing…

I was going to take a minimalist approach to the About page and go with:
Stephen Ransom – Artisan of Language
A True and Great Artist Unleashes His Words,
until someone told me it was too short…and that I’d come off like a total wanker – but now I’m really confused, because I thought that was the whole idea!

After finally grasping the depth of the struggles and intellectual tumult that haunt the great and true word artists, the agony that confronts them each and every time they face the screen, I can’t help the feeling that I would have had this thing done on day two if only I had a business blog. Say for example my blog were about cat breeding:

I am a cat breeder of extraordinary skill. I can mate a very small cat with a very big cat to produce medium-sized cats (provided that one is a boy and the other is not, and they fancy each other a bit). I can, using nothing but two moderately ugly cats, produce a whole litter of truly grotesque kittens, and you can buy these at very reasonable prices to impress all your nutty, cat obsessed friends. I reveal all of my catty secrets on my blog: http://www.loopycatwoman.com

See what I did there? I stuck to the tried and true formula – I made it all about them; I kept it short and on point; and I told them how I meet their needs. Once word got out, I’m sure my blog would be awash with bat shit crazy lap-cat types, clamouring for my words.

Were it only so simple Cherished Readers! Alas, the struggle continues…