Shalanna's Scribbles

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We are mostly invisible and no one knows it
A bit of 3 AM philosophy.

Most of me is invisible. Most of you is invisible.

I'm not talking about your internal organs or what's covered by clothing. I mean that the essence of a person is someting that can be sensed but never seen. Our thoughts, feelings, knowledge base, intentions, and dreams form an invisible self in which we live, and that's what defines us--far more than our physical presences in the experiential world. You can talk about someone's aura, the personality, the soul, the energy presence, and so forth, and you're talking about the invisible person. This is reality--not that consensus reality that we move through every day as if it were a virtual projection. Can we trust the input of our senses? Are we ignoring a couple of important senses?

People who have forgotten how to have any imagination and who deny themselves a creative outlet ("I've never been creative") still have invisible selves, but they're smaller. They can't see or sense the invisible world. They've never believed in magic, or perhaps over time they've come to accept the Rational Knowledge of the parents that there is no magic, there is nothing but what can be seen and measured . . . or at least nothing IMPORTANT. They may project all their hopes onto someone else who has come to represent perfection or whom they think will fulfill their dreams, and pin everything on what this person does or promises to do (this explains the mass hysteria over a rock star, famous writer, or political candidate--but it's also a form of the child's worship of the all-powerful parent.) They lose sight of the essential reliance we must have on ourselves and on whatever guides us spiritually (internally) (a moral compass, if you like).

In this society, everything's measured by material things and popular success (indicated by how many toys you have, how much "designer" stuff you have, how high you are on the rockstar ladder or the business bodypile, and so forth.) Little notice is taken of spiritual depth or artistic fullness . . . well, perhaps an isolated flash here and there, but mostly what you see talked about on the news and around the water cooler is the concrete stuff. Who won "American Graven Image," who's ahead in the polls, who's gonna get a Slammy award, who's the most popular girl in the class, who's the richest person in the world, which oil company has the most derricks. That kind of rot. Certainly the creature comforts have their appeal, but they have nothing at all to do with what's really important.

What is your passion? What are your true talents? Are you hiding them under a bushel? Are you letting them shine and getting mocked and kicked to the curb because of it? (If you draw cartoons and everyone else thinks they're terrible, that doesn't mean they ARE terrible.) Does it matter? Do you matter? Everyone is necessary. Everyone is important.

Everyone has a mission in life. You will not leave this world without accomplishing your mission in life (this is an important message that is found in a book by the same person who wrote _What Color Is Your Parachute?_, and can be a reassuring one or a confusing one.)

Magic and art deal directly with the invisible world. Art can work a type of magic. Magic is afoot for any artist--a writer, a musician, a cartoonist.

Take off the blindfold. See. Hear. Feel the essence of the invisible. Learn to understand the secret, hidden language of the insects, the birds, your own subconscious mind. Access the collective subconscious and understand the world through its archetypes. Pull back the curtain on the theater of the inner world. Don't throw yourself away chasing the things of this world only. Be small. Be large. Store up your treasures where it really counts. Make your way through the unmapped territories. Don't be so immersed in the here-and-now that you miss the small moments that actually constitute living.

What's it like being you and experiencing this very moment through your own filters? Write about it. (It's why people read, for vicarious experience as well as for information, guidance, and inspiration.) Put us into your mind through your prose. You have many hidden facets. You are more than a cog in a larger wheel. You are a pilgrim.

John Wayne: "What is it now, pilgrim... your conscience?"
"Well, don't fret about that, pilgrim."
"Whoa, take'er easy there, pilgrim."
(all quotations from "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance")

Pilgrimage: your sojourn through earthly life as distinguished from the life hereafter.
Pilgrim: one who travels; especially one who heads towards a holy place or shrine as a devotee. One who has a quest, an objective, a holy and significant thing to accomplish (such as self-expression or illumination of some aspect of the eternal human condition through art or crafts)
Pilgrim sign: a symbol or badge a pilgrim carries, such as the palm leaf, Catherine wheel, Canterbury bell; generally indicates the shrine sought. Thought to preserve a pilgrim against interference. A badge of honor. Wear it proudly.

What is your pilgrim sign? What is your pilgrimage about?

It doesn't matter what it is, as long as you know what it is--and you do have one. Find your purpose and fulfill your higher destiny.

And leave behind a written record to illuminate the path for those who follow.

Happy Mother's Day!
Hop into that bubble bath and don't wait on anyone today. It's your day of rest and relief!

Never knew it WAS "anime"

When I was in fifth grade, my teacher Ms. Bolton arranged for our class to have a pen-pal letter exchange with a class of sixth-grade (or the equivalent) girls in Japan. This was supposed to foster understanding between countries to help us hate world wars (which worked well back in those hippie 1970s days--my teacher wore her hair in two pigtails or ratted up in the Brigitte Bardot manner and always wore cool patterned mini A-line shifts and white go-go boots or sandals) and understand other cultures.

We exchanged postcards, cheapie souvenirs from Sun Rexall Drugs, and various recipes along with our letters. Most of the class just fooled with it because they had to for a grade. Most of them were slackers and didn't have any reason to do this, so they just blew it off. But I was captivated.

I continued writing to my "match" after the class had forgotten about it all. My pen-pal was Noriko Kurashiki, called "Noko," and she had a great talent for pen-and-ink drawings. We wrote to one another (using the University of Minnesota's World Pen Pals guidelines--I'm sure that is SO out of date now that you'd laugh) for several YEARS, until she finally wrote to me that she would stop writing and she wished me well. After that I never got another answer. I have often wondered what happened to her. Maybe she got interested in boys (we were by then entering high school); maybe she went into an arranged marriage; perhaps she became a geisha. (They still did stuff like that back then. I hope that didn't happen.) I have always hoped she ended up with her best life (and that our break-off was merely because I was such a boring clod who talked all the time about rock groups, boys, and school activities.)

At any rate, what I was gonna tell you is that she always did little sketches in her letters. They were written in fountain pen (Parker "Startling Blue" ink with a metal nib) on that onionskin "Air Mail" paper that we used to have in the Olden Days. But they were illustrated with sketches that I would now have to call proto-Anime.

I sketched back to her, but my stuff was more silly or weird, and I didn't have that artistic talent for capturing the wistfulness the way she always did. Mine were cartoony, with cartoony subjects.

Still, it was a neat way to correspond. I did mail art for a while a few years back. That's the closest I've come to doing the pen-pal thing again. AND THEN I FOUND FidoNet and CompuServe and GEnie and the Internet!

I had several pen-pals through the U of M organization over my junior high school years. For me, pen-palling was a way to have someone to write to who wouldn't think of me as "that girl whose mother dresses her funny" or have any other preconceived notions. I had people all over the world there for a while. I lost track of them all eventually as they quit writing for one reason or other. I particularly remember (and wish I could find):

Melodie Smith from Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada
Ingeborg Kretzinger from Germany--Wasserburg on the Inn

Inge and I wrote despite the language barrier. She was pretty good at writing in English. She often used those airmail letter things that folded up out of one piece of flimsy paper . . . they were cheaper to send. But she always had interesting things to say. She sent me a tiny Steiff bear that was made out of pipe cleaner stuff (it seemed) from a sample shop, which I put into my dollhouse--it even had an ear tag with the Steiff authentic logo. I sent a charm bracelet from the State Fair of Texas that had goldtone letters spelling "Dallas, Texas," sans comma, and little armadillos, oil rigs, and Texas flags. That cost a lot to send, and my dad grumbled (but we sent it, and I got back a similar charm bracelet with shield-shaped enameled German town flag decorations!)

Melodie and I had no language barrier. I think she just got interested in dating and school activities, and I was turning into the weirdo I am now, so she just kind of trailed off.

I know they have different last names now and have forgotten about me, but anyhow, I hope they have fond memories of their days writing to their Dallas pencil-pal.

The Great Carnac Answers
Here are the answers. What are the questions?

1. Antietam.
2. John Lennon.
3. The hoo-hoo.
4. Mostly ambidextrous.
5. The Grapes of Roth.
6. Sis-boom-bah.

Teaser Tuesday
I'm probably not even authorized to do a Teaser Tuesday entry, as I'm still part of the Great Unwashed whom agents fear and editors scorn, but I'm going to post something anyway. The problem is, what have y'all not seen already? I suspect everyone here hates my fiction anyway. (You were hoping that the writing folders got eaten by the crash, but we never did have a crash, and the bad blocks were over there in the folder where I was saving .jpgs and so forth. The Muses were watching over me.) Still, I'm a glutton for punishment, so I shall punish you hence with this. It's farther into that romantic comedy/techno-mystery. Think "Foul Play," sort of.

If you click through, let me know whether you hate the "groaner" pun or feel it shows Whit's quirkiness. Since both characters enjoy wordplay/puns, that may be a big turnoff for readers who hate puns. *grin* It's certainly not a common character quirk in most novels, you gotta gimme that.
( In The Pundit's Corner )
The Publishing Powers have announced (via the agent blogs and PW articles) that there will henceforth be Fewer Books but Bigger Books. That has been the trend for a while, and it hasn't worked as well as they'd hoped, IMHO. But last year 40,000 [EDIT: No!! Actually, 400,000! Thanks to Nick Mamatas for pointing out my heinous typo that missed by a factor of TEN] books were published. Whew! Some of those WERE dreck, for sure. But the problem in publishing lies elsewhere. Our only hope is that when this recession gets worse (if it does), people will need escape and will turn to fiction and buy books or see films instead of going out to dance on the table at a bar. They'll still be able to afford a six-pack and a paperback and still pay $75 to fill the tank for going back and forth to work.

We hope.

BOOK REPORT
"What I Hope to Do On My Summer Vacation"

That would be a fun post.

Meanwhile, I wanted to say that I was trying to toss a few paperbacks into the giveaway pile yesterday and ended up re-reading Sharyn McCrumb's _Bimbos of the Death Sun_. This time around, I had a hard time enjoying it. This time around, the author's* hate and contempt for fat women and all fat people just bashed me over the head continuously. The hate for "oddballs" and guys who don't have the kind of "social skills" that the author thinks people should have just kept hitting me in the head.

* [Yes, it really REALLY came across as not just a belief shared by characters, but as the author's at-core belief, partly because most POV characters shared her beliefs, even the "fat girl" who gets a couple of scenes of her own--she's portrayed as fairly pathetic and self-hating. Aack!]

Seriously . . . it's apparent that the snarky tone the author takes was funny to me as a young adult because I had been conditioned and "socialized" to believe a lot of the things that this book's lead female character says about "fatties" and "fandom" and so forth, and was giving the gallows laugh to all of it. Now, I'm more enlightened and it bugs me a lot more when people just take for granted that "all of us think you fat women are pathetic losers" and "all of us think you people who go to cons and are passionate about gaming or whatever are outcasts." **SIGH** It's kinda like the way somebody on my f-list reacted to re-watching some old movies with his daughter and felt awful when he saw them through her eyes without the baggage and the context he'd had for them when he originally saw them . . . I was disappointed that my experience of the book was so different this time, when I expected to be laughing out loud.

But anyway, now I understand better why most of fandom spits at the very mention of this book. And some of them spit at the mention of this AUTHOR. *GRIN* She reportedly isn't outstandingly friendly/nice when she makes author appearances, and she says her books are NOT nasty dirty old MYSTERIES but LitRaChoor (as reported on Dorothy-L, anyway.) Hmph. And it's obvious (at least to ME during this re-reading time) that the attitudes of the characters are actually the author's--this book is her bully pulpit, and it doesn't paint a very flatterng portrait. I mean, who is SHE to set herself up to judge an entire group of people? Why does SHE think she is so bee-y00-tee-ful that she can criticize people with oily hair or pimples or whatnot? To hell with that. That kind of person needs a good thump on the head that leaves a mark, and then we all need to go mock her for having a mark on her head. No, that probably wouldn't teach her a thing, and it would lower us down to her level. Phooey! (Oops, my rant reflex kicked in. But it just bothers me . . . I try not to let my books have this kind of attitude, though sometimes I fail.)

Of course, maybe she isn't that way at all. Maybe I'm reading all this into it. Or maybe she isn't that way any more. But it just really BUGGED me this time.

Maybe I'm overreacting. I suppose I should re-read my little rant about "the author is not her characters, and the agenda of the book is not the author's secret little agenda." Except that in this case I get the strong impression that these ARE one and the same. I mean . . . it's as if somebody said, with a curled lip, "some of my best friends are those oily-haired, loudmouthed fans." *cringe* Ugh! Spare me!

Oh, well. It just means that I don't enjoy the book as much any more. I still "got" all the inside jokes and funny lines, but they were tainted by the snarky attitude towards everyone who was running the con. Of course, It Could Just Be Me.

I'll bet there is another book out there set at a fantasy/SF con that y'all can recommend as an antidote. I mean one that is generally nice to the con people, although it can poke gentle fun. Donna Andrews does this kind of thing very well. Anyone have a book in mind like this? I need a "cleansing."

In other news, I have a Neuros MPEG-4 Recorder that I bought sometime last year for hubby, and he doesn't have any interest in it. The box is covered with dust and still sitting on top of his computer desk. I wonder if any of you know what this is and might like to buy it? It's the size of a paperback (or smaller) and is a video recorder with real-time MPEG-4 capturing from any analog video source. You can record directly to CompactFlash or SD cards at around 512MB of storage per hour, so you can use it to transfer video content to mobile devices for watching later. It also plays back MPEG-4 and other audio formats) from SD cards. The beauty of it is that you don't waste a bunch of time waiting for a file to convert--you record in real time, which was the attraction of this gadget. I intended it for him to use to get TiVoed episodes of his shows off the TiVo and carry them around to watch when he was bored or something. He just isn't interested. Maybe I was a bit misguided in buying the thing. Anyone want one? I also have a Neuros MP3 player (with hard disk) with various capabilities (and full of "my" music on the hard disk, and with all manuals and such), and I'd be willing to make a package deal. Wonder if this would sell on eBay for more than a dime? Hate to see them just sitting here. We have so MANY gadgets that just didn't turn out to be useful to us.

The iPod is useful, but iTunes really makes me mad in many ways. . . .

We're Back! (I Think!)
*whew*

AT LAST I think I can actually use some applications again now. I really took that "stay offline for 24 hours" thing to heart.

Do you have any idea how long it takes to back up all the personal/MP3 files on a large hard drive to a portable, switch out the drive, format it (raw format!), install WinXP and Office, discover that it thinks it's drive G and has a few other problems, do another format (QuickFormat), install WinXP and Office again, jump through hoops to reinstall Eudora and several other essentials . . . and then figure out how to fix my screen back again? (My "theme" and resolution were known, but there were some other tweaks we had to do to get large fonts and non-blocky fonts and non-hideous colors back.) I'll just bet you DO know how long it takes. Phooey!! But we're back up, I think. iTunes has forgotten where a few files are and has to be re-taught or have that folder re-imported, which is a pain either way (and I can't find any trace of two or three songs I bought a while ago either from iTunes or from eMusic, which is odd, but they're not essential.)

WHY doesn't iTunes have some way for the user to say, "I want to re-import this CD" (at a higher bitrate, or for whatever reason) "and I want you to recognize the tracks and delete the old copies you have of those tracks." That should be easy! But it isn't! It just goes out and makes another copy. You can see which is your new one by looking at the date it was imported, but you still have to manually delete the old ones. Software is supposed to be smarter than that. Also, when you have a bunch of files that have been moved (accidentally), it ought to tell you that you've moved an entire folder and give you the option to move it back before you start doing all that manual fixing. You lose any editing you've done in "Get Info" if you just delete the track, too. It's complicated, but so's life, I guess. Still! Software is supposed to be smarter than we are!

It turned out that my iTunes has that bug that makes it impossible to burn the data CDs. There's a lot of talk about this on the 'net and no solution so far. What happens is that you ask it to burn a data disc of all the stuff in your library, and it does the first disc OK, but then about a minute into the second it says, "Cancelling burn . . . this may take a minute or two." Then it proceeds to leave the burner's light on for over an hour. That's when I started trying to eject manually and through the OS. The phone rang and took me away from the room for a good forty-five minutes, and when I got back, the burner was still spinning with that same message. I rebooted. That frisbee (which is what the CD was by that time) was too hot to touch, as if it were out of the microwave! I worried about having ruined the CD burner, but it seems to still work for just writing a music CD. If I put the blank disc in before opening iTunes and just burn audio CDs, it does work very slowly, but it works OK. Weird! For my backup, I ended up dragging the music folders to the external drive, which worked, but I'd still like to have CD backups. Too tired of it all to fool with that for the next few days, though.

Since I reinstalled WinXP from my original CD, it has been doing a lot of "Windows Updates." It's wild, because I used to get tons of updates all the time. It has only popped up the "Updating" deal about six times or so, though. Maybe it's doing a bunch each time. It needs to get me back to wherever I was. (I won't be upgrading to Vista. Yuck!)

On the other hand, I got rid of all that mess that I had downloaded, tried out a couple of times, and then never used again. Got a shiny new registry and a cool new drive. My eyes are adjusting to the new graphics driver (there was an upgrade online for my video card, and things just LOOK different . . . it wouldn't bother people who don't have any visual infirmities, but my eyes have to adjust to new screen stuff. This may not be so bad once I get used to it.) So . . . it's cool.

Most of the news I missed while offline was crappy news. La la la, I can't hear you! Let's start over and say it didn't happen! Pretend we're floating down the Comal River in a free innertube. Ah, that's better.

Happy May Day/Beltane!
A little late for me to be actually posting this (and I meant to do it earlier, really!), but I had my computer doing a chkdsk thing for my other two drives and the external drive ALL DAY. That took NINE HOURS. Whew! But there aren't any bad sectors on the other drives. There were a few problems here and there that it says it fixed.

Next is to back up the iTunes library the way SABRA (MY NEW HEROINE) said to. Apple's website says that I should burn data CDs with the songs instead of relying on a restore from iPod, which is pretty much what she said. Wow . . . swapping CDs all night.

What fun!!

And I cleaned house (sort of) (mostly) for those nine computer-free hours.

*feels smug*

Computer mess, indeed
Have you ever seen this error message?

"The driver has detected that device \Device\Harddisk0\DR0 has predicted that it will fail. Immediately back up your data and replace your hard disk drive. A failure may be imminent." *OK*

Well, it wasn't OK at all, but I had to click to close the dialog box. Then it said:

"The device, \Device\Harddisk0\D, has a bad block." *OK*

Where is the *HELL NO IT AIN'T OK* button?!

There were a number of those bad-block messages.

*sigh* This explains so much. (And I just thought it was the Beltane gremlin welcoming the holiday.)

The other day the system couldn't do a delayed write to my external drive and it showed a bunch of empty folders (no files in there), and then a "flush of buffer" failed, so I suspected something was going on. Actually, I panicked. Shut down and came back up to find that the external drive files were there--it was just this computer that had lost the directory info. Glad it couldn't write it! (Why would it try to write the directory file when I hadn't changed any files?) Last week when I tried to save a Notepad file it told me that the file naming utility had failed to allocate a filename and it couldn't save. Eudora has crashed with illegal access errors. Explorer would freeze up. And now when I click on certain files, they're corrupt and can't be shown in IrfanView (mostly they're picture files, so far, except for ONE text file that I already restored from backup twice and it got corrupt right away, implying that it was saved in the same bad sector spot. Or maybe the computer just doesn't like the title "Appolonian VS Dionysian.")

Anyway, I started dragging my stuff to be backed up on the external hard disk. Hooray for those! And I backed up to the iPod (synced the iPod).

But! If/when the inevitable happens (and I just can't relax and enjoy it--I have to sit here until Hubster has the weekend free to replace this drive with the one that was too big to work in the TiVo, but yay that we already own it), will my iTunes library come back when I restore from iPod? I know I'll have to reinstall from this CD titled "iTunes and iPod," and then I'll have to wait 200 years while Apple Update goes and gets a new version and installs it. But then I can sync my iPod and recover all those music files, can't I? (Another 300 years.) Because if NOT, let me know unless you hate me, and I can drag them to other drives. I have a LOT of stuff I bought from iTunes (shame), Amazon MP3s, eMusic, and even the evil, wicked, eeevil Rhapsody Music (who had to finally be dissuaded from charging my credit card account via a three-way convo with a Wells Fargo Bank rep--they followed me to the new card number even after it was closed! Incredible! And all for $12 or so a month!) I guess I could start writing CDs from iTunes.

I finally found out how to see the CHKDSK results and all the error/warning messages the system generates. (The nerd/IT support/system programmer's wife who is also a software weenie is of course the last to know about this useful tool.) Open the Control Panel and run Event Viewer (under Administrative Tools.) Yikes! There will be a lot of stuff that doesn't really matter, but if you see those "the driver has predicted this disk will fail imminently" things, go get a drive.

I don't understand why bit-by-bit mirror copying wouldn't work if it skipped the bad sectors . . . and then I could avoid reinstalling Windows XP, Office, iTunes, and everything else, and configuring it again (I use large fonts and make a few other accommodations.) Stabbity-stab! Do not want! *siiigh* However, this sure beats the Old Way. In the olden days of early personal computing, you just heard a sickening grinding noise one fine morning, and then your data all went bye-bye. Or the magic smoke came out of the motherboard and the disk controller was part of that board, so you couldn't recover your data. Bad stuff like that. It is painful to recall.

*So* you should go look at that event viewer from time to time just to see what's happening. Very illuminating.

*aarghh* I hate reinstalling stuff. Hate hatey hate.

However, it WILL get rid of all that junk I've accumulated over the years. I don't really use all the stuff I tried out. Basically, I only use the OS and various accessories (including some shareware antivirus thing that works pretty well), MS-Office, IE, iTunes (and occasionally other media players like WinAmp and QuickTime and that FLV player and so on), IrfanView (which I just discovered--it's great for looking at images), and Cute FTP. I occasionally use that utility to extract text from PDF files, but I can't remember what it was called or find it in the Start menu, so whatever. I don't really need all those things I tried out. NoteWorthy Composer was a lot of work just to notate a couple of lines. All those other utilities, meh.

Here's what I have the most trouble remembering: when I edit or create a file, I have to do it to the "stick." (I unplugged the external hard drive after copying stuff over, as those "delayed write failed" messages kept popping up, and I couldn't risk having the crazy system overwrite the good stuff on the drive.) Don't want to create any new content on the failing drive. I'm saving e-mail off to a special mailbox that I'll copy to the stick when I take a break. Whew! Hassle! But glad these options are available. In those dark days of yore, one simply sat and sobbed in antici . . . (SAY IT) . . . pation of the impending crash. (Unless one had a tape backup system, but that was pretty slow and might still not get the data in time. Diskettes and swapping them in and out was a hopeless and futile effort, for the most part. Yikes, how did we ever cope?!)

If anyone knows about that iPod/iTunes library thing, let me know. . . .

COLORBOX--crayons!
CRAYOLA CRAYONS!

Remember the smell? Remember the brightness? Remember the joy of popping open a new box of 64 BRILLIANT COLORS on the first day of school (or whenever you wangled one)?

No?

Well, OK, then. But some of us still feel drawn to it all. (One of the arts, all of the arts.) (Ars gratia artis.)

Here, go look at all the crayon names. Some of them have changed since we Ancient Ones were pups. They've added a few and renamed others, I'm pretty sure, and some have have gone the way of all flesh. But anyhow, we've got colors.

And we're gonna play.

Shakespeare's 444th, Mama's 78th BIRTHDAY
Went to Black-Eyed Pea restaurant for Mama's birthday. She decided on take-out so we could sit in the park and sneeze under the native elms and watch three little kids fight over the swings. How restful! But we also dropped by the mall to pay Sears for that lovely dishwasher and Macy's for all those skirts that are too tight across my a** to wear at the moment *sob*. To make up for it, I picked up a white stretch denim skirt one size larger *bawl* that covers said anatomical feature properly, but which Mama said increased its apparent size by around double. *wah* Don't care . . . will wear with tunics not-tucked-in for the moment. Back to Sekrit Starvation Plan #3 ASAP. Mama tried on 17 pairs of shoes, all of which didn't fit. *wail* Most of them were on sale, too. The ones at WallyWorld the other day were too wide for her and gaped open, so she wouldn't get those, either. So I got her two lottery tickets instead.

I wish one of our neighbors would go on vacation for a while so I could watch their house and see if I can kick in the pool. The physical therapy man always said I should try to do a bit in the pool *if* I could get in and out of it, and now that I can walk up and down stairs somewhat (surely those pool steps would be OK), I want to try. Maybe we can go to a motel and stay overnight so I can try out the pool. It's plenty warm enough on many days, but too early for any public pools to be open. O'course the water's gonna be *COLD*!

On the agent/submissions front: no news is good news.
Silence is golden.

Hope the feast was peaceful and inspirational--and here's some prose
For those who celebrated Passover (Pesach) last night, peace from our house to yours. We hope it was peaceful and inspirational. I had a mind to do a form of the feast for us here at home, in a way, but the plans went bye-bye for a number of reasons.

Hubby had a problem on Friday at cardiac rehab and had to call me to come get him, so our Friday was spent worrying (but he just seems to have a cold and serious sinus impaction, which caused the vertigo and stumbling-dizziness; they monitored him at the hospital where he has rehab for about an hour and said his vitals were fine, although he started out on the bicycle at level 5 instead of 4 as he's supposed to and his BP went up over 230 . . . they think maybe that is what started him getting dizzy!) Then yesterday my aunt went to the hospital in Sherman briefly to be checked out for a similar dizzy spell (but SHE has an artificial heart valve and a pacemaker-like cardiac device that is out of whack and can't be re-synched until two weeks from now, because they have to schedule her in . . . aarghh!) and we worked in the yard, but my HEART was with those who were at a Seder. I never have believed that Christ told us to abandon all the ancient feasts! But let's not get into that with all its arguing . . . let's just do it next year. And maybe make up a good one, like Shal's Un-Birthday, and have that around midsummer with an orgy a feast and Maypole dancing. 'kay.

AND NOW TO THE MEME

Via

sartorias, doing

beth_bernobich's meme of posting an evocative favorite paragraph or two from my go-to books.

This is cool, but especially point-ful (that's not even a word, but you know what I mean) today because yesterday I wandered two bookstores in the late evening and mourned that I didn't seem to like ANYthing I picked up and just didn't want to read any more. This is alarming, as it has been part of my basic "is" and "be" ever since I can remember. (I was precocious and one of those early readers. An only child back then was not only lonely, but without the Internet and computer games and videogames and other pursuits that keep you from being so singular. I used to play Monopoly and other board games with my stuffed animals. Was tough to do strategy for both me and Pooh. Many hours were spent fantasizing a life for the stuffed animals, as well as for Dream-House-And-Convertible-Owning Barbie, Midge, and those little rugrat cousins of hers . . . Skipper and Toody, or whatever the little-bitty one was named.) As I backed out of the parking place at the last bookstore, I mused that I couldn't think of one thing I'd like to read . . . except maybe I could re-read Gatsby again, or To Kill a Mockingbird, or The Secret History, or The Boyfriend School (which has, over the years, revealed a few flaws, but is still a guilty pleasure), or Hamlet, or Macbeth. I pulled out Asimov's Guide to Shakespeare and his Guide to the Bible as well, and browsed for a while until I felt better.

From Gatsby (also in my icon):

And as I sat there brooding on the old, unknown world, I thought of Gatsby's wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy's dock. He had come a long way to this blue lawn, and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night.

Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter — tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther... And one fine morning —

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

(Do you know TGG only has NINE chapters? Wow.)

From Tale of Two Cities (also the ending):

(Sydney Carton, as he is about to be executed while posing as Charles Darnay)
But somebody will weep for me now. And that knowledge redeems a worthless life. Worthless but for this final moment, which makes it all worthwhile. It is a far, far better thing I do, than I have ever done. It is a far, far better rest I go to, than I have ever known.

From Hamlet (the dirty part):

Hamlet: Lady, shall I lie in your lap? [Lying down at Ophelia's feet.]
Ophelia: No, my lord.
Hamlet: I mean, my head upon your lap?
Ophelia: Aye, my lord. [then blushing]
Hamlet: Do you think I meant country matters?
Ophelia: I think nothing, my lord.
Hamlet: That's a fair thought, to lie between maids' legs.
(Hamlet, Act III, Scene ii)

Polonius: What do you read, my lord?
Hamlet: Words, words, words.
(Hamlet, Act II, Scene ii)

From To Kill a Mockingbird

Atticus Finch: "I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do."

Calpurnia (their housekeeper/cook): "Don't matter who they are, anybody sets foot in this house, they are company and don't let me catch you remarking on their ways like you were so high and mighty."

*heh*

"That boy is your company. And if he wants to eat up that tablecloth, you let him, you hear? And if you can't act fit to eat like folks, you can just set here and eat in the kitchen."

Sounds like MY grandma.

Fractured Fairy Tales "does" Hansel and Gretel
I'll bet Jay Ward *did* make "Hansel and Gretel" as a Fractured Fairy Tale. I'll bet I even saw it as a kid! Wish they were still running "Bullwinkle." But they aren't, at least not on the evil empire of Time Warner cable, so I had to make up my own version. Blame my early exposure to "Rocky and Bullwinkle" and to Steve Allen's _Bop Fables_ as read aloud by Allen Ginsberg. Or was that Louis Nye? Don Knotts??

As it turned out, my absurdist version (which I wrote in a day and polished over the next day or so, so don't get too carried away with expectations, although it IS an ABSURDIST TALE) did NOT in fact get sent to the author/judge who's writing the counterpoint story . . . I got a rejection from the editor, Sonya, the day she sent the stories over. So I didn't get a personalized rejection from

jimhines after all. Heck!! And of course this story is so ridiculous/absurdist that it wouldn't sell anywhere. Dennis suggested I send it to Seth MacFarlane at "Family Guy" and get him to make it into one of those crazy mini-flashback segments starring Chris and Meg (the kids in the series) as H. and G., and of course the dad as the Wicked Witch! That would be hilarious, but anyhow, I don't even know where you'd send it, and they probably wouldn't use it. So what do I do with this?

Inflict it on my poor, innocent readership.

Of course, I'll put most of it behind an LJ-cut. But unless you page down IMMEDIATELY, you'll accidentally see part of it as your eyes sweep the page. Watch out! Here it comes. . . .

THE TRUTH ABOUT HANSEL AND GRETEL (WHO NOW GOES BY "HEATHER")
AND THAT CRAZY WITCH

A Bop-Be Fable
Retold by Shalanna Collins

So, like, everyone has this story totally wrong, and I want to set the record straight.

Yes, once upon a time there actually were these creepy little twins named Hansel and Gretel--you know they're wack when you hear THOSE names, dog, because normal names are like Typhani and Eethan--and they lived way out in the woods of Tennessee somewhere, or Appalachia, or wherever (what am I, a map?) Anyhow, it was some grotty place where nobody had any shoes and they all married their sisters or cousins and had outhouses and no Wii gaming systems, if you can believe that.

So out there where there was practically no civilization, there's this widowed woodchopper with two kids who remarries some crazy woman so he can get a little now and then, if you know what I mean, but things weren't working out too well. For one thing, there was a recession going on and the Fed had just chopped the prime rate like the lumberjacks can split a log, but it hadn't done any good. And the new wife just had a gastric bypass and she's starving but she couldn't eat and she wouldn't keep any food in the house except protein powder. Her hormones were in quite a state, as you might imagine.

One morning the kids woke up to the sound of chaos and shrieking downstairs in their cabin.
( Food! Food! )
So that's the REAL skinny, and don't say I didn't tell you straight.

HONORABLE MENTION for LR over at BookEnds contest!
_LITTLE RITUALS_ is one of agent Jessica Faust's honorable mentions in the BookEnds agency blog opening-lines contest!

I think this might mean I could send her a "requested" query. Of course that one is already sitting with dream agent/angel Holly Root (pray! In a positive sense, I mean--you know God doesn't approve of or listen to prayers that someone be hurt or zapped, and I know this from childhood experiences of praying that type of thing; it only leads to the Universe spanking YOU, so just ignore this if you hate me.) Wow!

Hate to be such a fangirl. But if all those pubbed types can talk about their sales and their editors, then I can talk about this and send you over there. Want to see? They didn't carry on about it, but the lady did say she likes the voice. Of course the book isn't ABOUT OCD at all--that's just a part of Daphne's mind--but it is kind of what sets her and it apart. It really used to set the book apart, as it was originally written about six years ago, before "Monk" was on TV. (The fact that the book was written before "Monk" can be confirmed by Holly Root, in fact, as she remembers reading it back in 2004 when she worked for Trident Media.) Maybe "Monk" was groundbreaking in getting people to accept a character with a neurosis or a "disorder" that people look down upon, though, so I thank them for that. I should really watch an episode of that sometime.

BUT _Little Rituals_ is really not about that. It's about Daphne's journey towards worthiness (in her mind, as it starts out), her changing from someone who blames fate and luck for everything that can possibly go wrong to someone who accepts that she can't control everything, but that she must change the things she can. (That sound like a familiar life theme to you? *hee*) She's more of a control freak than an OCD-ist at all. But if they request more than the first 100 words, they'll discover that. Anyhow, it's good encouragement.

LR book has been very patient as far as being LIKED. As far as getting NOTICED, some readers of this journal will remember that editor Chris Keeslar called to tell me he laughed out loud at many of the lines in the partial he got, but that he wanted to see something impossible happen in the first ten pages to highlight the type of story it is (not about shoes and shopping, which is what he said the voice and tone of the book implied it was going to be, which is wrong), and so I made the dwarf disappear . . . and I have him to thank for this improvement in the book. A year before it made it to Mr. Keeslar, lovely agent Dan Lazar said that he liked the voice but couldn't spend 400 pages with someone as nasty as Daphne (she needed to Save The Cat, and indeed in the version he read, she had lots more snarky thoughts that really didn't suit her and that were modified--so I have him to thank for THAT!) Writer (and former editor) Melissa Senate suggested that I move the Patrick-zaps-Daph scene up front (that was also great help) and dream agent Natasha Kern emphasized that I must show Daphne moving towards her heart's desire (when she said in e-mail that she saw great potential and that she ALMOST decided to take me/it on, but wanted me to rethink Daphne's inner journey before I rewrote and re-sent . . . that was way back, at least six years ago.) So all of you who are thinking you should be able to crank out a book in a year and sell it . . . *grin* good luck with that, seriously. It CAN happen. But, as you can see, a book can make a life's journey with many "mentors by the side of the road who don't even realize they're helping you that much by their offhand remarks," just as a person can. ("And we never knew they were angels.")

You can see the BookEnds blog with mention of my book at http://bookendslitagency.blogspot.com/2008/04/womens-fiction-honorable-mentions.html.

Maybe Daphne finally found that magic, after all. (This is an allusion to the last line of LR, the novel, as Dennis knows.)

*BUT I probably shouldn't even post this, as it might jinx it. Oh, well, too late*

Overtaxed!
Whoa! Long time no post! I didn't mean to cause concern about my continued all-right-ness. Just had to take care of a snowball of paperwork. Whew.

I just found out that some of my cousins are reading me (hi, Sabra and Jason!), so now I can't say those awful things about my family any more. If I slip, y'all e-mail me right quick so I can take it down before they see it. *grin*

I don't have time to do that novelists meme right now, but I probably will. And I *am* going to post about the conference.

I just saw that the Robert Benchley Society contest entries are up! The judging will take place sometime in May, so they'll probably be up for perusal between now and then. There are around 69 of them. Mine is E044. It's fun to have an entry up.

More on this when I come up for air. (It was too cold to go swimming today. And I was going to see whether my knee would let me kick in the water!)
# # #
I am, after all, an internet construct partly of your own making.--

cathschaffstump

CON REPORT: Didn't Dream It--Dallas is Delightful RWA
LONG POST WARNING--I DIDN'T WANNA DO AN LJ CUT, THOUGH * JUST THIS ONCE

I survived the RWA "Dreamin' in Dallas" 2008 Writers' Convention! Man, I must be really out of shape. Running through the hallways recognizing people and going across the ENTIRE HOTEL trying to find a working Diet Coke vending machine took it out of me. But I emerged with good news.

Agents panel: Candy Havens (author, moderator), Pam Strickland (agent), Holly Root (agent), Liz Trupin-Pulli (agent), Elaine English (agent). Beautiful!

Agent Holly Root is allowing me to send partials of the Marfa Lights mystery *and* of _Little Rituals_. Perhaps she was simply overwhelmed by my fast-talking sales pitch. It must have been like being overcome by a perky Amway distributor! *grin* But I took a different tactic with my pitch this time--talking about what makes my mystery different and how I set my scenes in interesting places so that it wasn't all "she gets a cell phone call, she drives to so-and-so, she interviews suspect X" as I had seen so many times in various books (and had done before in my earliest tries at mysteries!)--and I think I got the essence of the book across MUCH better. I told you I'd let you know how my new approach went, and I have to say that it made me FAR more relaxed than trying to describe the plot and making the book sound like just more birdcage liner.

Of course, now the book has to live up to all my hype! I think it *does*, but of course we'll have to keep our fingers crossed.

The real surprise came in the last couple of minutes of our eight-minute interview (only eight minutes! Good grief!), when I mentioned that I also have _Little Rituals_, my magical chicklitty literary novel. I had prepared a short blurb-like synopsis on paper, and when I handed it to her, she said, "Oh! I remember liking this when I read it before when I worked for Jenny."

**BOGGLE**

Whoa! I knew that I recognized her name, but I hadn't realized it was from my stack of lovely "no thanks" anti-acceptance letters. My brain flew around the room as she confirmed that yes, indeed, she used to work with Jenny Bent at Trident (that was not in my Googled-up information--it only mentioned Trident), and that she recalled _Little Rituals_ from the time it was being considered by Jenny. *squeee* This was a couple of years ago, and that agency went so far as to request that I fax in a waiver that they required at that time (I dunno whether they still do) saying that I held them blameless if something I wrote caused the end of the world as we know it, etc. But after my fax buzzed down the wires, chick lit cratered, and the agency pretty much decided to refuse all chicklitty stuff. At the time, I was billing Daphne's story as chick lit because of the voice, although it is actually a literary novel (in my opinion) or commercial women's fiction. So it came winging back with a standard rejection attached, and I had a good cry. And then a mad fit where I lay on the floor kicking around in a circle and beating my fists on the buffed hardwood. But! BUT! And again, BUT!!

Isn't that awesome, that she remembered my story all this time, when she reads 100 manuscripts a week? (Or thereabouts.) *glee* I am really excited, because I have done revisions since then in response to Chris Keeslar's suggestions during his rejection-phonecall (I have had several of those, which is pretty wild in itself) and to a couple of other people's comments on the book. It's the new-and-improved Daphne's life on steroids.

I learned SO much from the workshops I attended. It would've been so nice to be able to attend some of the others that were scheduled against the ones I sat in on, because one was about how to set your book at the CIA (!), another about the new direction in paranormals, and a third about profiling criminals and bad guys. Over the next few days, I'll report on the pattern that agent Pam Strickland recommends your query letter should follow (she has preferences that are NOT the same as those of the Agents Who Blog, for the most part, about how you open your query!), what various houses are looking for, how to make your men sound different from your women (LOL), and what Lori Foster's Secret Word is.

(Okay, there's no Secret Word. But I have pulled a U-turn in my beliefs about Lori Foster. Previously, I was completely jealous-hate-O-rama towards her because during that critique phone call I won from editor Kate Duffy last year, I kept hearing, "Read Lori Foster and see how I like things done!" I picked up one of her books and it just didn't send me (wrong genre--too much explicit sex), so I said, "Phooey! *jealous fit* Not for me!" So then I'm sitting at the keynote luncheon wondering what she'll say, and . . . she said things that clicked totally with me! She said things like, "Don't talk out your book--write it first. Have a special friend or two to brainstorm with and then WRITE IT. I'm a seat-of-pants writer who doesn't know how to analyze and can't tell you how to write a book, so if you don't outline in detail, GOOD. Don't revise for an agent unless you are signed with that agent--and don't get locked into a contract; always have it book-by-book or have that thirty-day bailout clause, as relationships can change. Don't listen to the negativity that's on the 'net--spend your time working, not carrying on about how some woman plagiarized stuff about a ferret. If critiquers want you to change your essential voice, hang up the phone. I don't think crit groups where you bring 10 pages every two weeks and everybody picks over the little details but has forgotten what they read last time are so great--you need people who'll read over the entire book after it's finished." [I PARAPHRASE HERE, but that's the general drift of her remarks.] She was so charming and down-to-earth. *Bad, wicked me* for having had the green-eyed monster. I ended up totally in love with her and EVEN IF I don't buy ALL of her books right away, I am now a fan and will check out her new dark urban fantasy line, written under the name "L. L. Foster." All is forgiven! **GRIN**)

Much more to come as I transcribe my conference notes over the next week or so. And from now on, I promise, it'll be under an LJ-cut so the non-writers among you don't have to read all that woo and see the pictures.

No, really.

A ten-foot poll . . . watch out for toes
I'm concerned about how seriously people are taking my opinions or musings that I post here or on others' journal threads. What I say isn't meant to be taken as gospel, and not all the advice I give may be good for you (although it's meant well and I always intend for it to be good for you). I don't want to mislead aspiring authors (or anyone else): when I state that I believe that X is more likely to be a good strategy for getting published or writing a readable story or whatnot, that's all it is--what I believe, or at least it's to the best of my knowledge at this time. I might figure out something different later on and change my mind as new info comes in, and so should you. Don't go by what just one person says. Often, you have to discover your own truths. But you knew that.

Anyhow, I'm wondering. I know that my experience of a story or a novel or even your blogpost will be a synthesis of what you said and what I read into it, because of what I brought to the work. This also applies to things people may say here. But I generally give people the benefit of the doubt and don't assume that they're trying to be nasty whenever they make comparisons--they're just the comparisons that seemed illuminating at the time. For example: If I write that I think it's harder to bake well than to cook well because baking is really chemistry and takes more precision and cooking on the stove will usually turn out pretty well even if you fudge on the amounts a little, does that insult good cooks? It shouldn't. It's just someone's opinion. We can agree to disagree.

Let's say that I claim to be a baker (though I don't). Does that put my sample (fake) opinion above in a more sinister light? I mean, would you then say, "Aha, you think baking is tougher because you're a baker and you always think that what YOU do is harder than what others do, and you're once again proven an arrogant twit/twat?" Surely not, but I am seriously wondering how many people see it this way, and don't call me Shirley. At least not in public.

Poll #1165586 Play Ball, or Play Misty for Me
Open to: All, results viewable to: All

Which is harder?

View Answers

Playing music with a band (amateur)
1 (9.1%)

Playing softball or amateur team sport
1 (9.1%)

They're equal
1 (9.1%)

They're not comparable
8 (72.7%)

*yawn*
0 (0.0%)

Does saying that one is "harder" or requires more ability bash those who do the other thing?

View Answers

No, because it doesn't matter which is harder, just that you do the one you like best
2 (18.2%)

Yes, because we have to always be careful not to say anyone's better at anything than anyone else
0 (0.0%)

To say X is good does not mean Y is not good, too
9 (81.8%)

*faint*
0 (0.0%)

Is it arrogant if a person says she thinks it's tougher to bake cookies than to fold laundry? I mean, can we hold opinions, or is that out of style now?

View Answers

No matter what YOU say, it's arrogant because you are
0 (0.0%)

You can have opinions. People shouldn't take everything so seriously.
7 (58.3%)

Try not to think so much. It always gets you into trouble.
2 (16.7%)

Someone's gonna try to read something into anything you say, so just agree to disagree
2 (16.7%)

I don't know . . . isn't this the Qwik Mart?
1 (8.3%)

# # #
From a mythology book earlier, speaking of the Norse myths: "The power of good is shown not by triumphantly conquering evil, but by continuing to resist evil while facing certain defeat." *thought-provoking truth*

"Power always thinks it has a great soul and vast views beyond the comprehension of the weak; and that it is doing God's service when it is violating all his laws."
--John Adams

"Verba volant, scripta manent" ("Words fly away, writings remain")

"It's so nice when people humiliate themselves. Saves me some work.;-)"--

sosoclever

Don't take life so seriously.--Kilroy

NO more ADVANCES from HarperCollins?
Danger! Warning! Help-murder-police! We may be seeing a shift in traditional publishing that could hurt all authors.

This article was in the Wall Street Journal Online Edition today. {Thanks to Anonymous 3:16 for the rest of the text!]

"HarperCollins Unit to Pay Little or No Author Advances
By Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg
In a radical departure from traditional book-publishing practices, News Corp.'s HarperCollins Publishers is launching a new business that won't accept returns from retailers. In addition, the new entity intends to pay little or nothing in the way of advances to its authors.
Instead, the unit, which hasn't yet been named, will share its profits with writers and focus much of its sales efforts on the Internet. In recent years, Amazon.com Inc., the nation's largest online book retailer by sales, has gained market share from bricks-and-mortar stores. News Corp. owns Dow Jones & Co., which publishes The Wall Street Journal.
The move by HarperCollins comes at a time when the book publishing and book retailing industries are battling to generate new sales and attract more readers."

Eep!

Now, it DOES say that this applies only to this new business they're launching. But these ideas can be contagious.

Does anyone have access to the full article?

Does this scare anyone else?

I suspect the "no returns" policy, although I have been expecting that for YEARS (it doesn't make sense that you can order and then RETURN merchandise or just the COVERS of the books, and hasn't for a while), will create a change in the way that bookstores order copies of novels just coming out that are not from the Big Names or famous people. Eek.

I never did think advances were THAT important, but then again I never tried to live on them. Remember, I gots this sugar daddy (hubby) who seems to enjoy working for The Man and who can do the magic juju that they need done on their telephone switch software and hardware and on other computerly entities so that baby can have a new pair of goggles. Thank goodness! Still, we *should* squall and bawl at the removal of advances, shouldn't we? Tiny as they are?

Speaking of hubster, he went for his follow-up sonogram and echogram stress test this morning. It really wrung him out to run on the treadmill this time, but he stayed on for ten minutes, going pretty fast and at an increasing incline! The cardiologist looked at the echogram they did before he started running and then watched the test. "You pass," he said. "Heart looks strong. See me for another test in three months--and we'll do an echo of your carotids then, as I've found that patients who needed these stents also have blockages there. Ciao!"

So . . . my brain had rejoiced at the "You pass," but then it got agitated by the "need another test." However, it's good news! We had planned to go off to the big mall in Frisco for lunch and wandering, but as we approached the car, he said, "My legs have turned to jelly and I'm so exhausted!" And he came home and took to his bed for the afternoon. Poop! But anyhow I have that convention coming up, so I *will* get out of the house.

Tomorrow!

PITCHING/BLURBS: Goin' to the conference and we're/Gonna get harried
I've worked up two versions of the written "pitch" that I'm going to print out for my agent appointment at the Dallas RWA conference this weekend. It's interesting how these two have come into being . . . neither one is the verbal pitch. But anyhow, I thought it might be fun to take a look at both pitches and then at the proposed conversation I'll be having with the agent, behind an LJ-cut. The suggestion I got from one of the conference organizers is that I might print out the written pitch (whichever one I decide on) on letterhead and staple a business card to it. Then, after we've chatted, I can say, "Here's a summary of the book we've been chatting about, in case you'd like to look at it further." That way, they can toss it or hang on to it while awaiting a partial in the mail.

( The two pitches and dialogue )

SUMMARY for those who don't click on cuts: I'm planning to pitch the Marfa Lights mystery to agent Holly Root. I will also have in my back pocket pitches for _Little Rituals_ and _Miranda's Rights_, because she loves and represents AND READS the Shanna Swendson and Candy Havens chick lit/witch books. There's an editor coming to the conference, and it's possible that I'll get to pitch to her _ad hoc_. This should be interesting. The most important thing I'm going to concentrate on this time is selling myself. I'm going to dress like a success and have a lot of confidence. This is what the sales types I've been consulting with think will work best. I suspect they're right.

And if you are going to the convention, let me know! We can meet in the bar or in some corner between panels to dish on where we met various agents or editors. I'm working the registration table on Friday afternoon just so I can meet-and-greet a lot of people, and I'm hoping I can find something cool to hand out. Maybe I'll make bookmarks for my nonexistent books . . . or maybe I'll get some wrapped candy and sugar-free gum . . . or a sticker that says, "Honorary Texan." I'd just like to meet some people and make a few connections, even if only for the moment. If I get to see some agents and editors, that would be even better (although I think they get escorts and won't be showing up at the table!)

CRITIQUES: Ouch, but necessary
I must love playing "Kick Me."

However, if one gets no feedback at all, one cannot improve. That's what I say when I get constructive criticism *sob* *WAIL*. Anyway, is there anyone out there who'd like to take a look at my entry in this year's Robert Benchley Essay Contest? I've already sent it in, but there's no harm in getting suggestions.

If you've never read Benchley, Dave Barry, James Thurber, or even Erma Bombeck, this whimsical "dotty person nattering" style may not be your cuppa. But if you HAVE read and enjoyed these authors, I'd love to hear what you think of this. Oh, and the final judge is Bob Newhart, which sort of explains the last couple of paragraphs.

( HOW TO START YOUR OWN BAND in 500 words or fewer )

I've already had some good feedback from Dennis. But my mother and husband both just shrugged and said, basically, "I don't get it." (They always have to be forced to read my work at seltzer-bottle-point, and are never enthusiastic about what they see, so that's kind of what I expected.) They suggested I write about something FUNNY. Since they couldn't think of anything, I decided to stick with this. It can't be as bad as all that . . . maybe.

Read the 2007 winning entries and the 2006 winning entries at the Robert Benchley Society's website.