My Screeds
I think that certain people have the urge to let complete strangers know something about how they feel. I believe that some people write more than enough on certain topics and want others to read their thoughts which, they are convinced, are the most important, influential, or somehow revolutionary thoughts on a topic.
I am one of those
people. I hope YOU are too.
I write. I worry, I wonder, I foment, and eventually, I write, and I realized that for a reasonably low fee, I could put what I write somewhere. Enough with rejection letters, journals and editors, and enough with blogs. By the way, did I mention my blog? Too often I have seen that a “My Turn” column in some newspaper or magazine is no deeper than one of my insights, or no better written than something I, in a fit of pique, jotted down. The difference is that that column got “published” and mine sits in a notebook in a drawer. Well no longer. I have this site now and I believe that this should be a venue for rants, diatribes, manifestos and screeds of all shapes, sizes and flavors.
Read mine or someone else’s – write your own and send it in.
Here are the guidelines:
1. No personal attacks. Yes, you
can mention people but nothing that is slanderous or actionable, and no
threats. I take no responsibility for bad things you say. Unless I take credit,
these are your words, not mine. If
someone else complains about content, the decision to remove or not is mine and
mine alone. I may contact the author, I may not. If I don’t want to, I
won’t post your content – I am not bound to publish everything or
anything I get.
2. By submitting a screed to me,
you allow me to read it, judge it and even change it (not for meaning) if some
aspect of it bugs me [this includes attacks, grammar or anything else I feel
like it contains]. I paid for this site. If you don’t like it, make your
own site.
3. You retain copyrights. Once I
post it, it stays yours. I’m not shilling for you, though –
don’t send me links and things you want posted up here if they
aren’t screeds.
4. You allow me to tell my
friends, enemies and casual acquaintances about this site and your screed on
it, even quoting from your screed, as long as I give proper credit. I can even
use quotes (with credit) when I try to tell people whom I don’t know
about this site, and why they should send me lots of money.
5. If you don’t like how I
present your screed, you can tell me so, but I am not bound to change anything.
Tough noogies. Also, this is
not a fancy site. I’m lazy and ignorant. Anything I present as my own is
simply my musings. Not law or anything intended as scholarship. Lighten up
Francis.
6. No money exchanges hands on
this site. I post what I want. I take down what I want, and no one gets paid
anything. No ads, no gimmicks. I can discontinue any of this at any time.
7. If someone decides to buy
this site, I hand it over along with the content, but will request that as a
condition of sale, the new owner contacts you through whatever contact info you
provide, to tell you of any new terms of service and give you the chance to
delete your content.
8. I ask that any screed
includes your contact info (a handle/name/nick name, and an email address). For
the email, post it as “name <at> server.com” without the
quotes so that the address can’t be mined and exploited. If someone
famous or not wants to find you to talk to you about your screed, that contact
is based solely on information YOU provide. I will not keep a list of
“real” authors’ names. If you don’t provide a contact
name then I will put you on the list as the email from which I received the
file.
9. This is not a blog site.
Start a blog it you want to post your musings. This is for longer rants and
exposés about institutions and systems. I get to decide what counts and
what doesn’t.
10. I can add, delete or change
the rules whenever I want. Yay me.
If you want to submit a screed to be considered for publishing, just send me a word processing document (.doc, .rtf or even .htm) and I’ll read it and I may host it as is. If I want to. Nyah. Send it to the following email address
Rosends <at> myscreeds.com
And if you
don’t know what a screed is, look it up.
The Screeds:
My screed on “Illiteracy” within Jewish Education
My earliest manifesto on stealing music
My screed on the nature of evil
My rambling about the nature of early Christianity