So you want to write essays, do you?
First let me offer you my heartfelt congratulations on your choosing this pursuit. Essay-writing is not a dangerous or particularly noble pursuit, but it is a pursuit all the same. So, again for emphasis if it wasn’t already clear, congratulations!
Moving on.
There is no one way to write an essay. What follows is merely the way I’ve managed most effectively in getting essay-writing done. It’s possible you are already aware of this, and you are coming to me because the other models of essay-writing have failed you. That’s fine. You should not begrudge my sibling essayists for this failure, they know not what they do. Neither, for that matter, do I; but I will forget I ever said that so that we may carry on in perfect innocence.
Pause for additional instructions: To better maximize reader forgetfulness, the post-digital prose-writer has a most agile weapon in the strikethrough function.
For while that kind of lacerating introspection is not unique to and does not foster essayists, choosing to disregard that introspection when it proves inconvenient is and does.
The mark of any good essayist is to develop a sense of abandonment, out of which you may fashion an operatic yet healthy chasm between you and the non-essayists that constitute the majority of society. Take me. I was abandoned by my parents at a very early age and my chasm is so wide that its boundaries seem more epic than essayistic. This will be news to my parents, both of whom I see almost daily. But preventing the breeding of essayists is a different how-to guide altogether.
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Once you have established your abandonment, you must then proceed to your rebirth, so as to repair some, but not all, of the psychic tears detachment tends to incur.
The process of rebirthing is a matter of no small controversy among many people and may encourage wariness. This wariness is overcome by reminding yourself that many people, even essayists, are spectacularly stupid.
Pause for additional instructions: Many people with mixed motives will remind you that these are serious times. A fraction of the more honest ones will add that these are also lazy times. For those who get by better with lists—and you seem to be legion—please advise: Gass, De Quincey, Hardwick, Zadie Smith, your grandma’s sourdough bread recipe, a Barbie doll melting over a barbecue grill, the Volvo 850 estate user’s manual (Modern Library translation, preferably).
After completing that step, there are a few methods through which to rebirth yourself. The method that works best for me is the jello bed. It is accomplished as follows:
Step 1: Buy enough jello mix to fill a backyard kiddie pool, pick whichever flavor you wish.
Step 2: Fill that kiddie pool with the mix.
Step 3: Lie prostrate in the pool as the jello takes form; this must preferably be done in a colder season, otherwise this will take weeks and the jello will become slimy.
Step 4: After a passage of time you deem most sufficient, break free from the jello, arise amidst the flabby wreckage, and howl skyward. Doing this part at night, and especially when the moon is full and clearly visible, is not necessary but is encouraged for maximum results.
Now if you do not have access to or space for a backyard kiddie pool, a bathtub will suffice. If you do not have a bathtub, then dipping your head in the kitchen sink is a decent last resort. If on the off-chance you drown while carrying out this method, do not feel embarrassed or ashamed. You have not failed.
Pause for additional instructions: When it comes to essaying-while-gendered, the current rule of thumb is that “good” and “bad” things are more alike than not, you braindead bimbo.
Pause this pause for added clarification: I know what the fuck I’m doing. Dril can’t sue me. This is how you put a BA in English lit to practical use.
But that might not be so easy for everyone, so here is a helpful truism: male essayists deflect away; female essayists work around. Easy-peasy!
Death, like liposuction or rectal intercourse, may be painful, costly, pointless, and rife with long-term hazards, but is still a valid form of rebirth.
Once you’ve been reborn, you probably think you’re ready to write your first of surely countless essays. But hold your horses, cowboy! We’re just getting started. Things are only going to get trickier from here on in, let me tell you. It is imperative that you replicate my subsequent rules with military precision. If you fail to do so you risk bein
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GOBLIN’S EDITOR’S NOTE: We regret to inform you that this guide to essay-writing was unable to be completed by the author, who in the process of composing it was beaten to death by one or more irate circus clowns. A full investigation will be underway to apprehend the clown(s), who are definitely human and subject to the laws of human society, just as soon as the investigators assigned to the case take care of some other stuff. The perpetrator(s) look approximately thus:
There will be no refunds for this tutorial seeing as how no one paid a fee. If you see the author on the street, despite what we’ve literally just told you, be advised not to approach him abruptly, like you know him or something. Do not be alarmed by the seemingly larger-than-average incisors and canines should they be unconcealed. They are completely normal for his needs. However let it be noted, totally apropos of nothing, that considerable technical and ethical strides have been made in the surgical field of facial reattachment in the last decade or so. Thank you for your understanding.
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