I wrote something tonight which I'm going to work into a piece of literary criticism/music criticism for my independent contract. It's one sentence but it sums up a lot, serving as both a guide to life, a guide to writing, and an explanation for why I will never send my mom a short story of mine to read, despite the fact that such a gesture would mean a lot to her, regardless of the storie's content. (Another reason is that just the gesture would mean a lot to her, regardless of the story's content, so her judgements would mean nothing.) It's also a big key to an essay about Lifter Puller and The Hold Steady:

The trinity of debauchery of sex, drugs, and rock and roll that boring people like to think makes them interesting is but a poor substitute for the combo of sex, death, and blasphemy that's necessary for a story to even kind of matter.

If anyone can think of any exceptions to that rule, I'd like to hear them. I write this all the time but no one ever takes me up on it. And granted, I don't have a comments section, but I'm easy enough to get in contact with. I guess people might just think I'm being smug, but no, seriously: If there are flaws to my broad sweeping statement, point them out. The key is to define "blasphemy" really broadly, but I think that's fair, as it's a catch-all term.