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:
A screed in progress about
causality
A series of thoughts about the
idea of knowledge
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
My thoughts about why we
aren’t the same