There are the snobs that refuse to acknowledge the power of writing outside the written, bound and canonized form. TV and film are not worthy of our attention or our appreciation. Graphic novels are merely excuses for artists to create fantastical and unrealistic worlds, none of which deserve our approval and admiration.

But this is inherently full of shite. Consider the remarkable and revolutionary Joss Whedon, a writer who matters.

Over TV masterpieces like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel and Firefly, graphic novel continuations of Buffy and X-Men episodes, and even Internet serials-phenomena like Dr. Horrible, Whedon puts on a hell of an entertaining show. But there’s more to it. He breaks all the rules by creating entire mythologies that are separate from our own reality, yet are infused with our faults and greatest gifts. He imbues women with extraordinary power to tell stories that transcend gender, genre and more. He makes the flighty worthwhile, powerful and unforgettable.

That’s his quiet rebellion. The flash is in creating a world where vampires and demons run amok, or a future society in the stars, or a blog where an evil villain spills his secrets and turns hilarity into fear. More importantly, he picks mundane human details and makes them important. In Buffy, he makes the very normal and typically forgettable aspects of adolescence critical not just to his characters, but to the entire fate of the world. His villains are pretty terrifying, but are merely manifestations and reflections of very human faults and emotions. The worst attacks in this fantastical realm are betrayals by friends and lovers.

A Whedon creation is a dizzying, hilarious, violent, erotic and horrifying experience. Just like the “real” world can be.

A few choice examples from the Whedon realm:

• Buffy the Vampire Slayer. A teenage girl kills vampires. Um…yeah. But here’s the thing. Buffy is the powerful puppet of an f’ed up system, run by men and won by the attrition of young nubile females. She just wants to be a normal girl, but falls in love with the world’s (two) biggest badass vampire(s), dies twice, and otherwise saves an oblivious and unthankful world. With the addition of Willow, Xander, Anya, Oz, Spike and Giles, the laughs are morbid and many, and the drama is unbearably dark and tense.
• Angel. Buffy’s love spins off as a vampire PI. What could have been a one-note procedural with a twist turned into an operatic, rich, and hugely addictive quest to find and keep humanity in a world that denies it.
• Firefly. A western in space! Sounds like another wacked-out winner! But it works in a typically ludicrous and compelling way. Captain Mal and his crew scour the galaxy for work while a totalitarian government seeks to recapture and manipulate his stowaway. Legalized prostitution! Randy engineers! Class warfare! Hot pants! In addition to Joss’ writing prowess, he also has the uncanny ability to find the best people to breathe life into his characters, and does so with aplomb in this cancelled-too-soon delight.
• Buffy, Season 8. The story of the completed show continues in Whedon’s graphic novel serialization. So far Buffy has run up against a skinless Warren, hordes of zombies, her nemesis Faith, and more. The novels bring the same mix of hilarity, weirdness and high drama, but with a much more expansive budget than TV would allow.
• Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. Barney/Doogie as an inept evil villain? Who sings? Holy schnikes, this is glorious. Shown free for one week, the three-part series broke the interwebs with record downloads, and plans are to release a fully-jacked DVD that features extravagant goodies. The best part – Whedon brought full-on gravitas to a silly little caper with a surprising, abrupt and damn dark end. Just like we’ve come to expect.
• Dollhouse. And speaking of expectations, they’re running high for Joss’ new series set to premiere in early 2009. I’ll simply let the preview speak for itself.

Got a Joss favorite? Tell us about it in the comments!

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Literature is filled with dudes that wax poetic about other dudes as they travel the harsh terrain of life in a singular and lonely way. Some are hailed as geniuses; most don’t do much for me.

But from this tradition of dudery comes Cormac McCarthy. He’s a writer who matters.

Over 40+ years and 10 novels, McCarthy has moved from ultraviolent yet flowery and verbose works to stripped down and utterly heartrending pieces of fiction. He’s a natural rebel as he breaks common writing structure rules: Witness the complete absence of dialogue tags or even punctuation. Ride along with his run-on sentences, followed by fragments, completed with entire thoughts expressed in a word. Just try to follow the time and space jumping, and keep pace with narrator and perspective changes.

But McCarthy’s quiet rebellion goes further, and establishes a truly genre-bending and exciting canon. A good majority of his work, especially the most well known books, revolve around a Southwest of the past or the present. Westerns of book and film could once be said to be the domain of pride and (male) code and rah-rah country sentiment. They were traditional, with a firm sense of morality, of who was right and who was wrong. McCarthy completely upends that tradition, narrating with characters that make questionable actions, that are pushed by confused and degraded driving forces. They’re often the bad guys. Even in the rare cases when his characters are acting from a sense of right and protecting others, their inherent selfishness is still carefully displayed.

The world is messy and violent and dangerous. McCarthy shows that to extremes, but also makes the tales seem natural, inevitable, even necessary. It’s exhilarating, and truly frightening. That’s the power of good writing, and it comes from McCarthy.

A few choice examples from the McCarthy realm:

• Outer Dark. A man and a woman search for each other in a desperately poor landscape haunted by nightmarish figures. Incest! Cannibals! Wandering! A dark little tale that’s often overlooked in his canon, but one that sticks with you.
• Blood Meridian. A band of men “patrol” and hunt the lands of Texas and Mexico. The book is dominated by two words: The Judge. One of the creepiest, most hilarious nightmare figures in literature. An ultraviolent and dirty book steeped in historical accuracy, one currently being translated to film, which could be transcendent or just sick and wrong.



• Border Trilogy. Three novels placed on the border of territory and myth, with men done in by their loves, their lusts and their loneliness. All the Pretty Horses and Cities of the Plain are the bookends that garner most attention, but for a simultaneously amazing and infuriating read go for the middle chapter, The Crossing.
• No Country for Old Men. A good old boy takes a stash of cash left behind from a drug deal gone bad. A chase ensues. Seen the movie? It’s terrific and terrifically faithful to the source, with some amazing performances. But you get more from the book. It’s sweeping and focused at the same time, with yet another creepy, funny and just wrong villain in Chigurh.
• The Road. After an unnamed apocalypse, all hell breaks loose. But McCarthy keeps his vision of this nightmare almost exclusively pointed at a father and son traveling together. The fear is palpable, and the despair inescapable, and when we finally see a little bit of what’s to fear, it’s shocking. Just as shocking is the capacity for real emotion and love in its presence.

Got a McCarthy favorite? Tell us about it in the comments!

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And…we’re back.

QRW is now returning to its regularly scheduled program, but with a few enhancements, improvements and otherwise niftiness! Check out our new design and features. Read about Quiet Rebel Writer and what this whole hubbub is about. View some greatest hits. And get ready for more righteous, rockin’ rebellion on our way to being the best damn writers and creatives ever. Ever, I say!

Wondering what’s coming up? Oh my dears. Here’s just a taste:

Monday: One way to inspire, impress and otherwise push us to keep writing is by looking at the masters. They are Writers that Matter, and they should be on your bookshelves. Today we’ll look at Cormac McCarthy, he of the “Quotation marks? I defy thee!” philosophy, as well as the “Blood? Check. Cannibals? Check. Heartbreaking emotion? Damn effing right, check” game.

Tuesday: Freelance writing is awesome. But it can also blow goats. If you want to learn how to make it really, really blow goats and ewes and rams, then our weekly Freelance Reality Dose is for you. This week: “How to Be a Freelancer and Hate Every Minute of It.”

Wednesday: Writing is tricky. It’s hard. That’s why it’s the craft that occupies fifteen shelves of resource books at your bookstore. What’s worth your time and money? For Resource Review, we figure it out. Today we look at one gem from another rebel, The Renegade Writer.

Thursday: Another way to inspire, impress and otherwise push us to keep writing? Learning about living, breathing, and eating freelancers like you and me, folks that have made their own paths, effed up and learned from it, and are making it happen. They’re our peers, our office buddies without offices, and our daily encouragement. Today we talk with Elizabeth McQuern, blogger, writer, and comedy producer in Chicago.

Friday: And how about that writing? To end the week we turn to Creative Life&Links, where we look at the best kickass examples of writing in the “famous” world, in the bloggy world, and here in the QRW empire.

But oh – there’s more my friends! QRW now has sister blogs, and you simply must check them out. First up is a little concept you might recognize, now given its very own individual home in the interwebs: Word Porn. This week, we discover weird words and stories for yokels, violent dissolution of empires, hatred, and those powerful benies that make us whore ourselves out. Don’t want to miss a day? Subscribe for your daily dose!

And coming very soon is a place to recognize and celebrate those rebellious lasses that we find in history, in books, in popular culture, and in our everyday world. What Would Octavia Do? presents females and feminist heroes that break rules and make our world better because of it.

Exciting stuff. And you’re a part of it. These blogs are where you need to be.