You know, I’ve known of OMGJeremy and his happy little webpage of unbelievable, soul-sucking doom for some time now. At first, it was used as a little slice of inter-pie where he stored all of his barely literate, debatably humorous “articles,” or “rants.” Then it started shaping itself into whatever it is now. What is it now? Well, I hardly know. It’s like it is his website, but he seems to write about one quarter of all new material. Some time ago, he enlisted some of the chumps he’s made into “friends” to help him out whenever he needed a hand with fulfilling some insane quota he made up for himself. Eventually he needed help every week and the Staff of Writers was born. Lucky us.

This is where I’ve decided the new paragraph needs to be. Around this very desperate time (July 2002 – present time), Jeremy began using Guest Writers. Guest Writers are basically kids who like his site deciding that they want to amaze their friends by getting e-published by the ever-esteemed omgjeremy.com. To put it tactfully, many of these “articles” submitted to him were, and still are, complete and utter rubbish. We were horrified. Well, I was horrified, being the sometime-editor. And I said to him, I said, “Now Jeremy, you be a good boy and make a little area on your site that has some Writers’ Guidelines. Then you won’t have to avoid these people when they ask about the progress of their rotting submissions. You’ll only have to point to the Guidelines, and look the other way, causing an uncomfortable silence. They’ll understand.” I really said all of that.

This is the guy who doesn’t care what I write.

Ages later, there is still no Page of Guidelines and the horrid submissions keep rolling in. That is why I am valiantly writing this article tonight! I’m going to do what Jeremy should have done all along! I’m going to kill multiple Metaphor Birds with an enormously mighty Metaphor Stone! I will write the Writers’ Guidelines and disguise them as a simple and poorly-written article. I will fool you all, especially you, Jeremy.

Good. Now Class, Let’s Begin.

Now, I’m no professional when it comes to writing proper articles. Really, I should be, because I took a huge course on it a few summers back. But I never applied myself, and then when I started writing for this place, I’d already forgotten most of what I was taught. And the stuff I did remember, I didn’t want to use. What does this tell you? To start from scratch, people. We don’t require good grammar exactly. I mean this isn’t some sort of formal essay writing kind of place. My god, these blinking buttons in my taskbar are distracting. But we do like good spelling. And, a good strong, meat-eating vocabulary. God damn, hold on for a second. I must attend to this blinking!

My favorite part was when I started getting violenty ill at 7am, yet still finished this article.

Right. Where was I? Ah, yes. The first step to writing an article is to figure out your topic. Pretty basic. And it applies to all article writing for all the websites of the world. Well, all the good websites that want articles, and not journal entries. You can even use this part of the lesson to aide you in writing articles for other, almost mythical sounding mediums such as magazines and newspapers. Those jerks actually pay you, though, so the competition is pretty high. I warn against it.

The Topic Is Important, But Not As Important As They Want You to Think

There is a gnat flying around my monitor screen. I’m expecting it to fling itself into my eyes at any moment now, so forgive me if I seem a little tense. I’m waiting for the Inevitable Temporary Blinding and Subsequent Pain and Colorful Swears. The topic can take on many shapes. Make sure the shapes are pretty or interesting to look at. That really is key. Wait, no it isn’t. Because you can take an otherwise boring topic, like hentai, and use interesting words to make it seem like it’s interesting. Jeremy seems to do that fairly regularly and yet people seem to read those articles. The mind boggles at such a flagrant sham!

Welcome to the darkest moment of my artistic career.

So, it isn’t the topic that even needs to seem neat, it’s just the way you talk about it. Or, in this case, write about it. For this omgjeremy place, at least, you don’t even need to do anything more than ramble humorously. Sadly, it’s the humorously part that is hard to tell you all about, because I may not have it figured out myself. You could write something you think is funny, your friends and mom might tell you that it is very funny, but we, your staunch and cruel judges, may think that it is pathetic. Then again, we might think it is quite funny indeed and Jeremy will put you on the People Page and your life will dramatically improve! There’s really no way of knowing until we read it and sneer or read it and smile pleasantly.

Thousands of Words Placed In A Coherent Fashion? You’ve Got To Be Kidding!

There are word limits. Or are they word restrictions? Word… Things. Where you are not supposed to make articles under a certain word count. Is it word count? Do I need to remind you that we value a good large vocabulary? Keep that in mind, maybe buy a thesaurus. They are good for you.

The word count… suggestion/recommendation thing… for an average article is anywhere between 1000 and 2000 words, I believe. The closer to 2000 you get, the better. You can go a little over, actually you could go a lot of over and Jeremy would probably give you his right kidney. I regularly pump out articles of about two thousand words. This amazes me every time, because I rarely know what I’m writing about, even as I am writing it. There is a very simple reason as to why I can write so much. I am in tune with the almost-lost art of Rambling Out Tons of Filler.

But fleshing out an article with filler really isn’t as easy as you might think. You need to do it in a manner that doesn’t really seem like you are doing it intentionally. It’s got to have the Flow! It has to seem natural! Scan those first few paragraphs I wrote. Why, I’ll bet that about 80% of those words are extraneous, inessential, or maybe even downright unnecessary to the supposed topic at hand. But if I stuck to the topic, I’d probably be lucky if I managed a two hundred word article. Sometimes, if you aren’t feeling sloppy, somewhere between your lists of synonyms and random anecdotes, you can sometimes conclude little snippets of thought from earlier in the article. It makes it seem like there’s some good line of thought, or something. Also it gives the concerned reader something called “closure.” It gives the reader with the short attention span a moment of confusion as he or she tries to figure out why the author just said that. By the way, that gnat died in my cup of water and I have to refill. I’ll see you at the next section.

The migratory habits of the common earth gnat.

If Pictures Are Worth A Thousand Words, Why Can’t My Article Just Be Two Pictures?

Naturally, the images included in an article are by far and away the most important part. They really bring an article together, give it a sense of continuity. The pictures do best if they are relevant to what you’re writing about, but we’ve proven time and again that it isn’t really required. Many times we raid Google Image Search for appropriate pictures, or sometimes we draw the pictures ourselves. We even use our clunky old digital cameras if we need pictures that include us, or if we just can’t find a good representation of what we want.

Funny comments are what we strive for. But they are elusive.

What all of the pictures have in common, of course, is the appearance of a funny, funny witty comment beneath them. Or, as is more often the case, not. (I just had Déjà vu) It’s actually the most difficult part of writing an article for omgjeremy.com, and we often fail at succeeding with them. Hey, can you tell that I’ve gotten extremely tired within the past few paragraphs? I’m actually sounding like I’m actually trying to help out around here in this thing. And I keep using the same words. Like actually. And thing. And variations of thing. And my sentences are becoming gnarled and hideously hard to understand. LOL!

Please pause while I turn on a movie, please.

Whatever You Do, Don’t Get Distracted!

Concentration is what you need to have. Concentration is what I need to have and yet I never seem to have it. I tell you, I can’t have it! It’s like some sort of wicked doom conspiracy that keeps me from being able to concentrate. Concentration makes for Good Articles. You don’t wind up forgetting things, as I do. Then you have concise paragraphs explaining what exactly it is you want to say. Then you don’t have to do what I’m about to do: back-track with a random set of parenthesis to do my bidding. (Don’t forget, with the images that you want to insert, is that you can know what they are going to be while you write your article, or you can wait until later, and add them afterward… Which is what I usually do. OMG Aren’t you glad I told you?!) Yes, I am so sorry about that.

Back to the distraction thing. Keep your work area nice and clean. That way, an errant piece of pipe cleaner and gum eraser won’t keep your attention for at least twenty minutes while you should be writing.

It’s ART!

You may want to close all chat clients you may have on your computer, so you aren’t available to have the most amazingly entertaining conversations of your life. It is a scientific fact that normally all of your friends are boring fucks. But as soon as you have something else to do, they are magically fascinating and great conversationalists. So, when you know you want to write something, disappear! Don’t tell your friends where you are or what you are doing! They don’t need to know your business anyway. What kind of friends do you have, that they need to keep tabs on you at all times? Not good friends! You’re better off without them, kids.

It is probably a good idea to not have a movie on while you’re trying to write. It can easily eat up thousands of minutes of your time. The only way I’d recommend watching a movie while you’ve got your write on is if you can work while television is showing you moving images. I’m not a person who can do that easily, especially when the movie is a fine one. Sigh. No. Never write while a movie is playing in the same room. You just wind up using the dialogue you hear on there. One false move and I’m yours. I love you. I love you anyhow. In fact, I suggest you do all of your writing in a plain white windowless room, at whatever time of day you feel you are at your most concentrated. And don’t go to sleep. Dreams are pretty distracting, too.

My bed symbolizes my life. What a mess.

Oh, and while I’m thinking about it, some people find that making outlines for the content of their pieces is a fine idea. I personally never touch the things, as I think they are the work of devil witches. But, if you are into that kind of thing, you can easily scribble a rudimentary outline on your caveman wall, or you can make a complicated and fully functional outline. The kind your English teacher wished you would make. With those Roman numerals and pretty capital and lower case letters. Honestly, if you made outlines like that for an article you intend to write for here… Never tell us about it. Never tell anyone. Ever.

I Hope I Covered Everything, Because I’m So Close To Leaving

I’ve consulted my word count feature. I have over two thousand words on this dubious topic. This is my cue to leave. When I have reached my word limit, I have very little incentive to stick around, so for all of our sakes, I hope I covered the things I meant to mention. If not, I guess you’ll never know, eh?

Anyhow, it is nearly four in the morning and I must get up somewhat early tomorrow. And I need to finish watching this movie. It’s very important that I do. What else? Oh, I do hope that you found this Guidelines For OMGWriters article to be very informative and stimulating. None of you have any excuse for submitting any articles that are worse in quality and content than mine! This is really not a high standard, sadly, so I expect it to be met. Happy writing, suckers.