Writer's block, brunch indecision, or both?
Blue Maggot Towel is a writing conglomerate. What is a writing conglomerate? Well, we're not really sure, but it sounds better than "a bunch of idiots who write", and by registering a company name, we are free to open sweatshops in Cambodia. If we wanted to.
Actually, there are a number of reasons we exist. Probably one of the biggest advantages of having a number of peers around is someone is that there is always someone available to tell you how much your current solo writing piece sucks, ie critiques. Being around each other for such a long time, we have long since passed worrying about silly things such as "feelings". But writers can go to a number of places to find critics... so what else does Blue Maggot Towel do?
A huge portion of our times is dedicated to involvement in group writing projects. Writing is a fairly solitary endeavor, and despite the socially backwards attitude of most writers, working in a group can bring about some interesting ideas. Sometimes, those are internally developed ones (like the LJ Project), and other times, we get involved with a number of outside groups that are interested in exploiting the creative energy that only seven people who are constantly at each other's throats can bring to the table.
We also have a core philosophy. It is, in fact, written about formally in our equivalent of a new employee manual: The Sucker Handbook: So You've Been Hired By Blue Maggot Towel. Despite its long length (it's just over 72 pages, and yes that's all philosophy, not any office etiquette stuff), we can distill it down to the three lines listed above.
The first point is probably the most important; the BMT writers are heavily coffee dependent. While espresso tastes good, we all know you can get much more of the "benefits" of our friend the coffee bean with non-espresso grounds, hence our coffee maker is used much more than the espresso machine. We are also extremely picky about coffee types, so labeling the coffee pots are very important! If it's Peet's Major Dickason's Blend, make sure we don't think it's Intelligentsia Accidental/Occidental Blend! WE CANNOT STRESS THIS ENOUGH.
The second point is important, but not nearly as important as the first one. Here at BMT, you will never be at the center of of a throng of rabid fans, nor will anyone ever recognize your name as a result of your time here; this is because way back when this whole thing started, we decided to ghostwrite everything. Yes, everything. Why? In a nutshell: it keeps us from getting big heads. There have been a few complaints in the past (mostly having to do with the inability to brag at a bar and score points - yeah right), but by and far, we have all learned to really enjoy it. Our egos stay in check, and we keep our focus on writing.
Finally, the third point is as equally important as the second. Most of us find BMT to be the most insane group to be involved with... but it's a good kind of insane, not the kind of insane that brought something like this movie to production (and yes, while we can enjoy this movie on a camp level, it's doubtful that was the intention). I mean what is there to complain about? You get an office in an old warehouse and a white-board to scribble all over in a neighborhood that cool people want to live in. That is TRENDY TO THE MAX!
Seriously; the projects we get involved with and the ones we develop on our own can range from overly complex and involved, to simple, group rewrites for the local open mic. It's fun, though not always relaxed, especially when the critiques are being passed around. But hey, we get paid, we get the grants, and in the end, stuff like this was part of the reason you wanted to be a writer, right?
To sum it all up, here's a quote from a conversation we all heard one day at a local café, where an Art Institute grad student was trying to bag a cute undergrad: "Keep your nose to the table and your middle finger in the air."
It took a lot of effort to keep a set of straight faces.