Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in Shalanna's LiveJournal:

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Friday, December 11th, 2009
3:54 am	Petition to save Heard Wildlife Preserve in North Texas I can't believe these SOB-idiots are planning to destroy one of the oldest and most revered wildlife preserves in this area by running SEWAGE through the middle of the preserve and the wetlands! They're insane! They can't be allowed to get away with it. Please go read about this and sign the petition online if you agree that the idiots should GO AROUND the preserve! I remember visiting this place in elementary school and thinking how it should be preserved for the later generations. http://www.heardmuseum.org/theheard/petition.asp *GRUMP* (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Tuesday, December 8th, 2009
6:17 pm	I feel like a criminal--but we didn't steal a thing Hope your shopping season is going better than mine. Of the last three gifts I bought, I have returned two. I hear the credit card companies and the stores are keeping track of that these days. It was easy enough to return one $100 item to Bed-Bath-Beyond, but when it came to returning this stupid mattress pad to Penneys, you would have thought the clerk was James Cash Penney in the flesh. What does she care if they take the item back? I had the receipt, and she had been the one to sell the thing to hubby and me two evenings ago, so what was her problem? Well. . . . This was a "comfort memory foam" topper for a king-size mattress. It was two inches thick and weighed the same as two elephants in a Hummer. It was rolled up and compressed into a box not quite the size of a washing machine. I do not know what possessed me to convince Hubster to buy it in the first place. "We might be able to fix the mattress with this," I had argued. Our mattress is worn out and I have started actually falling out of bed some nights because the sides slope so badly (the dog holds on with his claws, and sleeps in the exact center on the "hump"), but a king mattre$$ is hideou$ly expen$ive everywhere. I also had some idea that memory foam would be nice. Wrong! When we opened the box at home, the monster popped loose and expanded like one of those inflatable rafts. And it STUNK. I don't mean it just "had a noticeable odor." I mean my two asthma patients started coughing, and we had to open the windows. A little card fell out of the box. It read, "Thank you for choosing RancidPee Comfort Foam! You may notice a slight odor. Before using the product, allow it to outgas for at least 48 hours in a well-ventilated area." Hubby was already dragging the behemoth down the bedroom hall (having knocked down at least one bookcase on the way through the den) when I got the card and read it. He argued that we could just sleep without breathing in the stink, but I made him drag the thing out to the garage and drape it across the bicycles and such to outgas. The garage became unlivable. Shoo! The smell was still there last night, when I decided to surf the 'net to see if any mattresses might be available. You see, this dang foam pad was originally $470, but had been reduced to $280, and with my coupon it became more like $259. If it had been $30 total, I would have just donated it to charity along with the stuff I set out on the patio this morning, but $260 was simply unreasonable. Especially since I found a Sealy mattress (no box springs--mattress only, but I already have nice box springs) on clearance for $450, delivery $60 with haul-away of the old one. So I bought the mattress online and set up delivery, and when hubby got home, I made him help me get the monster back into the box. Well! God never intended that this beast go back into the box. I always knew this fat would come in handy for something, but I'd never dreamed it would be used to force air out of a contrary sea of foam membrane that was busy clinging to the carpet and picking up every speck of dust. I stretched out full-length on it to compress it enough to fold it, and both of us had to lie on it as we rolled it like a log and then folded THAT into fourths. We must've looked as if we were trying to execute some esoteric tantric-sex foreplay thing, rolling around on that pad fully clothed in the front hall. It was a wonder that we could get the evil roll compressed enough to get the box sort-of closed. We hauled it out to the van and put the dog's stroller on top of it so it wouldn't break through the tape before morning. The box was so heavy that I had to get a guy from package pick-up to take it into the store for me. As we approached the counter, the Russian lady we'd bought the mess from said, "What wrong? You not bringing this back!" Well . . . yes. "This damage! Nobody gonna buy it." It wasn't damaged. We did take it out and put it back, but we never used it. "Damage. It damage." She shook her head. "Well, here's my receipt and here's the JCPenney return policy." They have that written on the wall behind the counter. "Why you not keep?" "It smells too bad, even after we aired it." "They all do. All do. Always smell." She stared me down. Just because the products ALL stink, that doesn't mean I am required to keep this one, so I stared back. She finally took my receipt and let me swipe the card. She was very cranky about it. Heck, how much stock in Penneys must she have? The item will just go back to Lenexa (or the nearest warehouse) and will be sold as an open-box clearance. And I'm sorry about that, but I can't help it. I made a boo-boo buying it. I'll be sure to buy some cashmere sweaters there next week to make up for the lost revenue. She must lose Princess Points for having to take that back. Moral of the story: don't buy things without smelling them first. Or just don't buy things, period. I am having terrible judgment as Santa this year. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
6:09 pm	CRAFT: Good prof and bad prof When I was in an MFA program many years ago (and that's "Master of Fine Arts," not whatever you were pretending to think), I had a Genius Prof and a Mediocre Prof. I learned a lot from both of them. The Mediocre Prof was a bit off in some of her "rules." She hated first person, for example. She'd always say to me, "Why do you want to spend your time beating your head against a brick wall? No one publishes first person." At that time, I could only point to some litfic and some mysteries that were first person, but since then I have seen a LOT of first person fiction. She was also wrong about being able to just change the tense and have everything be hunkypoo, too; sometimes a character will clam up and refuse to live on the page if I take away her first-person-ness. She hated semicolons and we finally had to declare a truce, saying that one semicolon every three pages or so was not a barrier to literate folk. But! She had two interesting pieces of advice that I still use. The first was: use unusual settings as much as you can, and minimize phone calls. What she pointed out was that many readers (at least in the Olden Days) like to live vicariously through fiction and experience things they never have and probably never will in real life. That's one reason there was such a "rich people's lives" phase in the 1980s, I think. ANYhow, she said that if you could set a scene in a hot-air balloon, on the factory floor at Crayola Crayons, in the Guggenheim, on a battlefield in the Civil War, on a riverboat, on horseback in the old West, or at some other offbeat event, it would add a lot to your scene. I saw her point to some extent, as we had been reading an awfully large number of scenes set in boring old classrooms (!), cubicle farms, driver's seats of minivans, interchangeable restaurants, hotel rooms, and the like. Of course what this led to was a spate of novels that whirled their poor protagonists from unlikely venue to absurd venue like a picaresque from Hell, but these scenes were a lot more fun to read and critique than all those things set in shabby dorm rooms or smoky dives/bars. So I have always tried to figure out how I could set a goodly number of scenes in an interesting place that most readers would think is fun or where they haven't been. That takes some research, but if you can make it work, it does add to your book. Her other piece of advice was about revision. She said that the first time we see someone's first draft, we should not try to polish up every sentence and make the prose sing. She pointed out that many times we recommend that the writer trash the scene in toto ("Arf!"--he objects) or completely rework it, which means all that polishing time and energy goes into the deletia file or the trash. I've found that useful advice, because on my first re-read of a draft, I have to make myself NOT over-polish until I know I'm going to keep the scene. Often I post something here and people get all concerned about this word or that word, or about a phrase that seems awkward, and that kind of thing, when what I really needed to know was whether the characters are believable and acting in rational manner, or whether the plot is plausible, and so forth. Sometimes you're just trying to see whether this story will make a book, and whether people will go for the character. (I can't count the happy rejections that say, "I loved the story and its premise, but I couldn't connect strongly enough with Miranda," or whatever--probably because my characters are not Mary Sues but actually like ME, making them TOO flawed to appeal to anyone. It's a tightrope walk at best.) The genius prof and I were way, WAY too much alike. He had not yet been published in novel form himself, although he had the New Yorker short story formula down pat; several of his grad students had used the formula to write impenetrable little tales that got published in litmags or better, but he said he didn't want to waste his time doing that parlor trick because it wasn't work he could be PROUD of. (That's also why he didn't want to write category romance or genre SF, BTW, but he really didn't mean that in a nasty sense . . . I think.) His current novel (back when I was his student) was holding at 600 pages and he was in the middle of a revision. It began with a concrete angel statue in a cemetery that spoke to a man who was working part-time as a groundskeeper while he waited for a job offer, and went weirder from there. I still haven't seen that one, or anything I recognize as its derivative, hit the shelves. He tended to love long digressions, as long as they were eloquent and philosophical, and he could read pages of internal monologue or backstory as long as it was interesting and held his attention. These were the bad (practically speaking) qualities that we shared. But his advice was also useful. I had the notion that I needed to make my waitress novel "multicultural," with characters who were not all white-bread native Texans and who weren't all alike. "Sc*e* that," he said during our first novel conference. "You need the characters you need. The ones you know. Gram is the moral compass, and you don't need to show tolerance and diversity and brotherly love with others--she will show them the way!" He was right, of course. "You're going to write the story that is in you, produced by your life experiences. If you try to write something that will sell, you're sc*e**d. If you never get this published, you will still have accomplished much. You will have the novel you intended to write. You will have something to be proud of." There's a lot of merit in that, too. Still, I wouldn't mind having something that will SELL. Genius and I placed a lot of faith in cadenced prose and lovely evocative metaphors and style and voice and such. Today's bestsellers have gone beyond the Grisham no-style style and entered the Clunk-Clunk flat-tire style that hurts my mind's ear, but that means the market is used to it and also that writing well means very little in today's market, as far as I can tell. The storyline appears to be everything. Or that's what they THINK. Have you noticed that nobody ever raves about _Twilight_ for its plot, but they fall in love with one or another of the CHARACTERS? It's the characters they walk away thinking about. Fan fiction is about the characters (and sometimes the milieu, to some degree). That's why it mystifies me so to hear that character-driven stories are not of interest to readers, when it seems to me that readers remember and fantasize about the characters, not the incidents of plot. * * * "It is only with the heart that one can see rightly: what is essential is invisible to the eye." ~ Antoine de Saint-Exupery (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009
4:09 pm	That "what I want/need" list thing There's a meme goin' around that has people posting what their wish list is--what they want or wish they could have--so that others might fulfill it, if they so desire and have unwanted cash floating around. (You know, unwanted cash, like "scrap gold"--I hate those commercials SO MUCH because "gold" and "scrap" do not mesh. At all.) I haven't yet seen anyone ask for something I have or could easily get, but I still might. I'm not doing the meme because I don't really want anything (although I suspect Santa might sneak an iPod Touch into the ol' stocking next to the coal and the snowman poop), but perhaps you know someone who would like and could use some of the things that I have sitting around here. _Per exemple._ I have a Neuros MP3 player with removable "backpack" (that's the hard drive). And a Neuros MPEG-4 video recorder with software upgrades. And various other electronics that are "obsolete" or not the latest thing. I know that if I donate them to one of the charities or put them on the Angel Tree, they won't reach someone who even knows what they are, let alone someone who'd put them to use. I paid full price for these silly things (around $200 or $250 back when they first came out--that video recorder is only three or four years old, I think), and I offered them on eBay some time ago, but I could only get around $50 and $25. That was a dealer, and I decided to just keep them and see if I could find someone who wanted them for the cost of postage and hassle. I also have a box of new and semi-new art rubber stamps (to make greeting cards or ATCs, use in your visual/art diary, or whatever) and foam stamps (for decorating your wall or whatnot) that I would send off to anyone who'd go the postage (I think it'd all fit in a smallish priority mail box). Any takers on those? I figured I'd ask. What the heck. I don't really want anything myself this year, other than continued survival and good (non-crisis-mode) health for the family and the dog. Well . . . perhaps that's not QUITE accurate. But you all know what I want. It's the same old thing I've been obsessed with forever. Sure, I'd love to be standing there tonight when they light the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree, the way we were last year . . . the tree's prettier this year than it was last year, IMHO, from what I can tell (we saw it on the TeeVee while Mama was channel-surfing in my kitchen) . . . and I still plan to get back out to Carmel/Pacific Grove in the spring if at all possible. It would be a blast to attend the writers' workshop taking place in March (I think) at the Henry Miller Library in Big Sur! Of course the problem is always with travel and whether I can leave my charges for that long (they can't stay alone--neither my mother or my aunt, or my dog, for that matter.) But those are things that I'll get to do again eventually. The big thing that I want y'all cannot provide, of course. I probably won't ever get it. Fifteen years ago or so, I might have been able to do it, but not now. I don't know why I can't let go of the dream. I learned to accept and live with the fact that I'll never be a TV/film actress or singer; I learned to accept that not everyone is going to like me, and that in fact most people don't have anything much in common with me to talk about anyway (they want to show you photos of their kids and grandkids, and they want to talk about football, and they want to talk about local politics . . . these topics are fine, but I don't bring anything to the discussion.) So why can't I just LET GO of this thing? Maybe that's the wish that should be granted me. A release from this silly desire to be published by a legitimate and revered New York house. Speaking of all that, my Kindle books have sold a few copies, and considering that I haven't done any promotion yet, that's neat. I've even sold a couple of copies of each through Smashwords. I'd love to know who bought them, especially the Marfa Lights mystery. But no one has reviewed anything yet. That can be another wish! (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, December 1st, 2009
7:11 pm	Teaser Tuesday Nyaah-nyaah-nyah-nyah-nyaaaaa!! Oh . . . not that kind of teasing? OK, then, how about a bit of novel. ( Song From the Heart ) I wonder . . . if an editor is on LinkedIn, and you have access to the e-mail service there and could e-mail that editor because you're linked one link away, would it be outrageous to send her a query via that e-mail (because Penguin doesn't allow unagented queries and doesn't publish their e-mail addresses)? Yeah, it probably would. I need to go through an agent. And of course agents don't like SONG FROM THE HEART or music from any other orifice (which is strange--some fruits are quite musical! And I don't mean only beans.) There aren't any zombies. And nothing blows up in the first scene. What am I *thinking*? I saw REAR WINDOW (the Hitchcock film starring James Stewart--you know, the one that's acknowledged as a masterpiece?) last night once again, and this time I noted that today's audiences would scream because of the long setup. You could start the flick about thirty minutes in, the second visit from the nurse when they see suspicious stuff done by Raymond Burr, and probably the audience could catch on to the stuff about the Park Avenue girlfriend who wants to get married and all that jazz. But I also acknowledged that the setup doesn't bother me; I'm always anticipating what these events may mean in the later minutes of the flick, not saying, "Boring! Boring! Show me explosions NOW!" Does this mean I shouldn't watch old movies for fear of becoming even WORSE about this? Well . . . tough. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
12:37 am	Gift Ideas--Magazines (what, glossy paper??) It occurred to me while I was folding laundry that some of you might like to think about giving magazine subscriptions for Christmas--but only to a couple of special buddies or family members, because that IS an expensive gift sometimes. There are very few mags I subscribe to, but they might interest some of you, as they're kind of offbeat. HOGAN'S ALLEY is all about cartooning, cartoonists, comics of the past, comic books and strips of the past, and related stuff. It's really interesting, and you won't find the material anywhere else. Check out their website, where they have web-only extras. They also have a gift shoppe (natch). RUBBERSTAMPMADNESS might sound kind of weird, and it is. It's a lot less weird than it used to be, alas, but anyway. It is devoted to art rubber stamping, scenic stamping, and decorative stamping in a way that the craft and papercraft mags are not. I can't stand scrapbooking (sorry--but it just takes me back to second grade and paste and cutting out pictures from magazines and all that mess) or most of the stamping/scrapping craft mags out there, because, frankly, who wants that junk? (Again, sorry if you are way into paper crafts . . . but really, after elementary school the awesomeness of making pop-up cards should be fading. Maybe SOME of that stuff could be nice, but lots of it just looks like your kid made it in summer camp. And it takes a lot of time to make the stuff!) However, RSM will show you lots of interesting images and lots of cartoon stamping or scenic stamping. They also address mail art and artist trading cards. You could start with just one stamp pad or set of markers and a couple of neat little Christmas stamps, or a return-address stamp, or postoids to decorate your outgoing snailmail. . . . It's tough to describe what I am talking about. Check out their website or visit a stamping store that carries the mag to take a look at an issue. 2600 is the telephone/computer hacker quarterly. It always has interesting articles, even if I wouldn't try most of the stuff they talk about. Enough said. [NSFW!!] Another mag--actually, a zine--that's not for everyone is FAT! SO? (link NotSafeForWork), all about people who don't apologize for their size and don't feel that it should be the first or only aspect of themselves that people notice and remember. It's sort of militant and anti-diet. Which I'm not. But it is pretty refreshing, after a month's exposure to all the media and people who say that fat people (and the definition gets more rigid every day) are bad, to see fat people who seem to be getting along perfectly reasonably, despite this huge character flaw (ha! Irony alert ON.) I really prefer not to make fat such an issue all the time, as I believe some people simply have a much harder time with their size/weight than others, even though the ones who tend towards "normalcy" don't want to believe it. Be careful who you send this one to, in other words. LUCKY is the magazine about shopping! No, really! It is ALL advertising (IMHO, because the products featured are given to the editors free, and I imagine a lot of pay-for-play goes on, including product positioning and so forth) and very little editorial. Still, it fascinates me like a shiny thing. You can wait for the issue to appear on the grocery store racks, or you can subscribe and get it a week later. (grin) It's kind of mind-blowing how much these editors believe I will spend on one purse, one pair of shoes, one coat, etc. I mean, I think my coat is the most expensive item I wear, and it was under $200 for a wool overcoat. I don't know why I don't want to buy a $300 skirt or a $1200 dress. Maybe we're poor. (Don't tell the dog! He thinks we live in the catbird seat.) We still get Better Homes and Gardens, but technically that's Mama's. I'm sure there's a Hello Kitty magazine somewhere, but even *I* wouldn't be THAT wack. $ $ $ Mama and her friend Pinky, chatting (friend just got out of hospital and they hadn't seen one another since Mama got out of the hospital in Sept/Oct): MAMA (observing friend's circular driveway from window): "I see you have leftover company." ("Left over" from Thanksgiving, she means.) PINKY: "That's one way of putting it. They got here Tuesday and by now they're getting kinda rank." $ $ $ "Whom the gods would destroy they first call promising." P. S. Love that little symbol "Clean" on the iTunes tracks I just bought . . . Dean Martin, from "Make Love With Dean Martin." [Yes! If only we still could!] Okay, I guess I can see why their system would want to reassure people . . . sorta. *giggle* The very thought of Dino doing a non-clean track . . . boggle. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, November 30th, 2009
9:49 am	Christmas shopping tip Don't buy these wacko toys. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/27/15-toys-not-to-buy-your-k_n_351369.html Get a Sugar Daddy Ken instead! http://abcnews.go.com/Business/barbies-sugar-daddy-ken-doll-raises-eyebrows/story?id=8952641 (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Thursday, November 26th, 2009
11:07 pm	Happy Thanksgiving! Hope yours was happy. What am I going to DO with all this leftover squash?! *dragging out cookbooks--the new Rachael Ray ones are rehashes of the old ones, so skip those, but there's a Nathalie Dupree and a couple of church cookbooks. The church cookbooks are SUCH a hoot because they're old and the recipes were typed in all different fonts and styles and the phrasings can be totally hilarious and confusing. Also, many recettes begin with, "Melt a stick of butter." Woo!* (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, November 22nd, 2009
1:12 pm	Ranty McRant on the OhNoes for today "Miss America will no longer pole-dance using her formal title. While reigning as the symbol of purity, she will be Miss America; while dancing, she will use the name Fifi La Boom-Boom. Catch her at the Boom-Boom Room, twice nightly! She's here all month!" Ahem. Also, last week Harlequin opened a vanity press branch called Harlequin Harlots or something like that--but after a huge hoo-hah* about it that threw everyone from the RWA to the MWA and SFWA into a complete tizzy and caused tantrums on Smart B*ches and Dear Author and Making Light and other writers' hangouts, they realized the error of their ways. They'll be changing the name of the new press to not have the magic word Arlecchino, I mean "Harlequin," on it. Better? Oh, and they'll still be sending the info about how to publish with Harlots to every author they reject. It's just the smart business decision. * [Don't get on me about "hoo-hah," because it means a big kerfuffle and much ado. It doesn't mean what you THINK it means. That's "hoo-hoo."] Now . . . most of us reading this blog already know that self-publishing, POD publishing, vanity presses, or whatever you want to call these enterprises (if a smeep leaps like a bunny, twitches its nose like a bunny, and makes those hard little catfood poopies like a bunny. . . .) costs an awful lot these days (even XLibris of Philly was ruined years ago and is now under the control of the Evil Masters, so Lulu is about the only sane option remaining) and isn't going to give your book the best chance. So I'm not too worried about that. I don't believe tons of people can be scammed with this, because MOST people do some research before ever subbing to Harlequin, and lots of them join RWA first for the crit groups and contests. Still, it's kind of ridiculous. But you've gotta admit it's a sharp business idea. The new CEO of Torstar, the parent company of Harlequin, probably came up with this one day after a visit from the vanity press people ("Make even MORE money on the ones you reject through our kickbacks!" or some such line) and thought it would be really cool. He probably isn't a descendant of a publishing family of olde and doesn't realize all the side issues here, such as dilution of the Harlequin brand and profiting from the people you reject and so forth. Still . . . should our watchwords be, "What's moral is whatever you can get away with" and "It may be considered Right Action if you don't get caught"? I don't know. *IF* these books would come up whenever a search on Amazon for "Harlequin" was done, it would be worth the $500 and up, because there are people my own mother knows who will order all five of the books coming out of whatever Harlequin line every month . . . or who will just order whatever strikes her fancy out of the Harlequin lineup for that month. You would have that book sitting on many night tables across America. BUT . . . they've admitted that this will not happen. Even more NOT so since they've taken the Harlequin name off of it to try to appease the existing Harlequin authorbase and RWA (it didn't, much, but they made a show of it all.) I think for the moment we should just write without worrying about selling the stuff (which is really tough for me). We need to see how the e-book thing shakes out. I still believe it is going to sneak up on us all of a sudden, and take traditional publishing for a ride. (Although people tell me they aren't at ALL worried.) Right now, I don't think it's worthwhile for an unpubbed unwashed like me to even query around. For one thing, many agencies are closed until the end of January and are clearing out the existing stack of queries (Rappaport Agency is one), and several have just plain come out and said you cannot submit a query if you are unpubbed (Ashley Grayson Agency is one) unless you are being referred by an existing client of the agency . . . you know the drill if you've been submitting. Kristin Nelson of Pub Rants (that's "Publishing" rants, not drinkin' bar rants, dear) said in a recent blog post that she had rejected a book that she knew was really good, but that she didn't think she could sell--and that this wasn't the first or the only time, either. I'm sure this is going on at every agency. And because the agents are the primary gatekeepers, editors won't be seeing and buying our work for a while. An acquaintance of mine received a somewhat surprising reply to a query yesterday: "Thanks so much for querying us, but we are unsure that this premise would work in this tight market. All said, we would encourage you to do what many of our clients have done and self-publish with a reputable, and recommended, publisher. This is a new age in publishing, and as evidenced time and time again, neither The New York Times bestsellers [sic] list nor major booksellers discriminate against the self[-] published. Oftentimes, authors choose to get proactive in order to build a sales record and boost their chances of being picked up. I would like your permission to pass along your information to someone who can help you get started on your path towards [sic] getting published." [It goes on.] Um, no. Already know how to do that through Lulu and Smashwords and Amazon Kindle submissions and so forth. Don't want to go to the guy who's giving you a kickback, thanks anyway. So now most of the queries I've sent out for my (new) manuscripts have been answered with rejections that say, with a vague hand-wave, "I enjoyed reading your pages, and it's obvious you are very talented. However, I {didn't love it enough/am not the right agent for your work/find that in this market, I am limiting my offers of representation so I can take care of existing clients/hoohoohoo whatever}." They usually end with, "Prove me wrong! I'm sure someone else will pick this up." Which is vaguely insulting, in a way. "It's not you--it's me--I don't want to marry you, but someone else will want to! Okay, bye!" (grin) I'm hearing similar tales on others' blogs, as well. Here's my question. (I always use this weird thing called "logic" and "reasoning," so bear with me.) Where is the crystal ball that tells them, "What you are seeing now is not something that will sell to readers two years from now"? How does anyone know that a particular book cannot POSSIBLY hit big? Who would have predicted that "Twilight" could even get published, let alone become the gold standard? What if coming-of-age novels make a big comeback? (It COULD happen!) I believe that the market can change quickly, and it usually does. There's a difference between what publishers think they can sell to readers right now (which dictates what agents believe they can sell to editors) and what they really WILL be able to sell eighteen months from now, when the books hit the shelves. Will vampires lead to zombies? Who knows? Chick lit was the steamroller of all time, but it suddenly snapped when the market got flooded with stuff that wasn't really very good. (Hmm, how many vampire series are out at the moment? And how much longer will people be out getting "Twilight" tattoos before the Next Big Thing hits? Fickle finger of fate, you swivel without warning.) No one is interested in publishing 15 midlist novels that are well written and that might end up being long-term sales (you know, the kind of book that stays in print rather than selling well for a while and then having cartons and cartons of it remaindered for $1.) They want ONE BIG SELLER that will get the advance all of the 15 novels should have gotten, and if it fails, oh well. Everyone's looking for this magical squee-worthy Next Big Thing, but of course nobody knows what that is. People have told me, "Just write a better book." But how is "better" defined, specifically? I suspect it's NOT about the quality of the prose. Even if your prose is polished and eloquent, your book will be rejected if the STORY won't sell. The public doesn't appear to have any appreciation for cadenced prose or even for non-clunky prose, as long as the story grabs them a certain way. Simply being a great prose stylist with a new and appealing voice doesn't mean anything. What is the essential appeal of the BIG BOOKS that publishers are looking for? Commercial potential, right, but how do you know what that is? Crash-boom-flameout, unbelievably huge conflict where the WORLD WILL END if the person who has just realized she is the ANOINTED SAVIOR OF THE WORLD doesn't do X by time Y--while having lots of exciting humps? So many of the pitches that I have been reading on the various contest blogs (yes, many editors/agents have been holding contests on their blogs in which authors post a pitch and first sentence as a comment, and then there are "winners" who get to send in their pages, amen) have been outlandish, and the opening paragraphs are too abrupt (IMHO). But this may only be confirmation that I'm not right for this post-postmodern world. Whenever publishing pros blog about why they take on a book, they assure people it's all about the writing, EXCEPT they also have to LOVE IT SO MUCH and believe that they can sell it, meaning they need to know an editor who likes this sort of thing (they think) and who has an open slot. How many slots are open? Not too many, I should imagine. So perhaps I should stick to my vow of Query Silence until after the first of the year. It'd be less frustrating. I'm waiting to see how the e-books perform over the holiday buying season. But please, all of publishing, just keep cranking out all those vampire and werewolf clone books. We neeeed them as stocking stuffers! Or possibly kindling, should the home fires die down during a snowstorm. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, November 18th, 2009
12:53 pm	CONTEST OPPORTUNITY: Why do you write? Do you know why you write? Can you put it into words? Will that make a compelling essay? Do you ever enter contests? Well . . . if you just yelped "Yes!" four times, come join me in entering the essay contest that Smashwords and Maria Schneider are sponsoring. It might be interesting to see all the reasons people give for writing. I'm working on an entry in the background, behind the NaNo writing and the "getting the heater fixed" real-life activity. http://editorunleashed.com/forum/showthread.php?t=2865 I used to be able to win contests all the time. Heck, sometimes I still can--I became a finalist in the Scotch Brand Most Gifted Wrapper Contest last year on the strength of my essay. But the judges are getting younger, and their worldview is different, and they value different things when reading. So who knows? I'll still have an interesting essay when I'm done. Speaking of the Scotch Brand contest--a finalist in this year's contest sought me out to see if I had any suggestions for her! I thought it was so cool and flattering that she found me on the Web. There are still several articles online (archived) on the Dallas News and Denton newspaper sites that feature my little foray up into Yankeeland, and there's a cute mention on the D Magazine site (an admirer says he agrees with my evaluation of NYC as "it's like Texas-OU weekend if both sides lost and they ran out of beer.") I had some advice for her, though I don't know how much it helped. Mostly, my advice is to consider the trip your prize, and anything else gravy. The experience is the prize here. "The journey is the reward." She's a professional gift wrapper, so she has a real chance! Would it not be COOL if she won?! I would sort of feel as if I won along with her! (Irrational as that may seem.) She has published a book and puts out a video all about wrapping. We both like to make packages look like something else. How weird is that? Pretty dang weird, as is the contest itself. People always did double-takes when I explained why we were in NYC or why we had gone. "A contest for wrapping presents?" Well, why not? I was a bit concerned that 3M wouldn't want to sponsor it again this year. But yay! They did! Wish I could be there. Y'know . . . there's nothin' like the place. God help me, I love New York. *ducking tomatoes* Yes, yes, I still love California best, and Texas as well. And the top of Lookout Mountain, Tennessee. But the roar of the greasepaint and the smell of the crowd on Broadway--it's magical. Especially around Christmastime. Did you realize they've changed the route of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade this year? I'll bet they're already working on setting up the floats. I would LOVE to be there looking down on the preparation from a hotel window. Man! (Comment on this)
Monday, November 16th, 2009
11:04 am	NaNo: Dialect and characters' speaking differences I've often pondered the way that my characters seem to speak differently from one another. When I started out (at age eight or thereabouts) to write my first serious story, intended for a Real Audience, all my characters sounded like me. Eventually I realized this wasn't perfect, and I graduated to having some sound like my dad and his professor friends. This still wasn't enough to distinguish them in readers' minds, though. By the time I was in my late teens and writing a Bildungsroman of juvenilia, I'd figured out that some form of "talking tic" or even an accent/dialect was a good way to single out a character. Nowadays, I'm not so sure it's good, because the politically correct crowd would probably jump on anything you did to let readers know that this character is from Russia/ Jawja/ Joizee (especially if you used eye dialect, about which more in a moment.) Dialect. Does it help you or hurt you? Obviously, we're not talking about the Mark Twain-Br'er Rabbit school of dialect. Many readers can hardly stand to look at those collections of characters on the page without grimacing, and often you can't hope to know what was meant until you pronounce it aloud. "Ah'm a-goin' thar drecktly, but Ah dunno if'n I'll git anythin' a-tall outa dem." HUH?! In my first serious fantasy tome, PALADIN SPELLBOUND, written around age twenty, my dwarves spoke in a mildly eye-spelled dialect that is reminiscent of a Tennessee farmer of the 1930s. In the prologue to PALADIN, I wrote something like: The dwarf continued. "Oncet we git the ransom, thur's no need for more finaglin', is thur, now? Fiddlin' around with them boys jus' too dang'rus for us, y'see." His thick, lumpy fingers caressed the dented pewter tankard. "Besides, oncet she's saf'ly home, I'll warrant they'll be out to kill ever' dwarf in th' Kingdom, just t'be sure they git us." I know you will not believe that DAW asked to see the full back in 1986. But they did. Unfortunately, I had made other beginner mistakes, so this story (which should have been three books) never saw print. However . . . the dialect was a bit heavy, like two inches of peanut butter on a poor little quarter-inch slice of banana bread. I did tone it down greatly before I sent the book out again, which wasn't until 1989. I think it worked better the newer way. The dwarf continued "Once we get the ransom, there's no need for more finaglin', is there, now? Fiddlin' around with them boys 'ud be too dangerous for us, y'see." His thick, lumpy fingers caressed the dented pewter tankard. "Besides, once she's safely home, I'll warrant they'll be out to kill ever' dwarf in the Kingdom, just t'be sure they get us." Whether you have a character who is from New Orleans (N'Awlins) or New Earth (T'Zillon), you will eventually have to deal with dialect or an accent. Usually, you'll want this characteristic to belong to a minor character, rather than one of your main characters. The reader is "in" the mind of the POV character, so he or she is understood to "hear" that stuff as the baseline-normal voice. Dialect will tag some of your more colorful and beloved character actors, and can do it well. You've heard that the greatest fiction is that in which you can tell which character is speaking with no dialogue tag. Well . . . sometimes that's true. (grin) But sometimes we can overdo it. MIRANDA'S RIGHTS has that Russian Gypsy/Rom character whose origins are purposely kept sketchy (she tells people she is Rom, but she has an Eastern European/Russian accent, which would make sense, but no one really KNOWS) with the funny way of talking. I don't know whether that is hampering its chances, but you can tell when Tatyana is talking, and sometimes she will get an idiom wrong in a humorous fashion. That's with contemporary novels, non-fantasy. Since ALL the conversation in a fantasy novel is not-English, but is assumed to be translated for our understanding, sometimes it is convenient to have several languages in the world. You might want to occasionally [ADVERB ALERT--no, I'm not taking it out] have private conversations between characters wherein they go into dialects or languages: "[s]he said in Wrennish," or "They spoke in their common language, Ailorre," and/or even the occasional "he said in the Western dialect." That saves the reader's translation gland a lot of trouble. Or tell the conclusions you want the listener to draw (although that's supposedly a big no-no, it would take pages and pages to "show" it, and they really aren't needed): "Her accent had the polish of an educated city-dweller." "He had the slow cadence and colorful imagery typical of country folk, and so she surmised he had never been to university--or at least that he had not let urban life ruin him for country-lawyering." "The thieves' cant susurrated all around them in the tavern. Alyx took a step back. Perhaps she shouldn't have come into this place alone. . . ." The one thing you probably *shouldn't do* is "do it like the movies and TV." They are NOT good examples. Worst thing in the world is to have your MS look like a recycled set of Babble-On Five outtakes. "Would somebody tell me what in the Sardinian flapk is going on here?" Readers can be annoyed by "eye dialect," even with single words, such as having a character say "gulls" or "wimmin." If you want them to catch on, you'll have to repeat the way they mispronounce the word in the next sentence, instead of respelling it inside the sentence. "All them barren women." _Wimmin._ A little also goes a long way; dialect tends to wear on the reader's inner ear quickly [*ADVERB ALARM SHRIEKS*], unless done very lightly and skillfully [ALARM BREAKS DOWN CRYING]. If the book is set in the contemporary U. S., it's better to have everybody speak standard American than to load up the cast with Aussies and Scots (as in a book I just read) for no reason other than to have them talk funny. I've seen this when judging romance manuscripts, and it's kind of . . . weird. Whatever you do, DON'T try to reproduce dialect syllable by syllable, or even word by word. Don't try to reproduce pronunciation, unless there is some key element that ties into it. What happens is this: your reader (henceforth known as "he") sees the first clues to the way your character("she") speaks, and thereafter will imagine that accent. So if you have constant strange spellings and "reminders" of the accent, the reader might hear a more and more exaggerated accent, and the whole thing will become ridiculous, no matter how accurately you portray the dialect. If you indicate just enough to suggest to the reader that the character is, say, a ringing Southern belle, he will hear a normal accent, particularly if the character's grammar or word order or slang reminds him. The same question three different ways: "Do you want me to do it?" "Would you prefer that I do it instead?" "You want I should do it, G-d forbid you should break down and ask?" You just "saw" three different characters, right? Suggest an accent through the occasional respelling of a word after the dialogue, or, in the narrative accompanying the character's quotation, add some descriptive comments. "Let me have one of them mint juleps." _Mi-yunt jewlips_. Mocking Alanna's accent, the customer winked at her date. Alanna shifted, feeling her bunions ache. "Where at?" He'd never stop adding the unnecessary preposition, mostly because he knew it bothered her. If he wanted to say "whurrat?" like a hick, fine. Didn't mean she had to talk that way when she knew better. Or one character can make fun of the way another talks, so we know the pronunciation is supposed to be exaggerated. "Oh, you are in the space muh-reeens_? When are you come-EEN back Planetside?" The main character in one of my novels has a 100% Latino/Hispanic mother, and I occasionally have the mother speak a few words in Spanish. The rest of the time she speaks English, with a few un-idiomatic phrases here or there that might show she isn't native-born. As such a character speaks, she will use phrases or words or syntax in a way that reminds the reader she's not a native speaker (not EVERYONE who's Latino will--this CHARACTER will). If you have a long bit of dialogue, she can speak standard English, but do something with flavor to keep your character's voice in the ear of the reader. I don't want to have people taking offense and saying I'm stereotyping, but in reality people DO this, so I'm kind of between Scylla and Charybdis [*Classical allusion alarm screams*]. You don't necessarily need French words, though, to suggest a French accent. The way a character answers questions can be telling. One French visitor we had when I worked at Alcatel Lucent started many answers with "mais oui" or "mais non" or "eh bien" (which is like "uh"); in English, the idiom would translate as in Grey Poupon's ad--"But of course!" "But no!" "But yes!" "That is not the French way, _ma cherie (mon cher)_!" Don't go too Maurice Chevalier, though. I had an Arabian character once, and I suggested his broken and accented English by having his grammar slightly fractured, like the cartoon 7-11 clerk. This turned out to be an error. I still don't know how to "do" that so it's right without being hurtful to people. Careful--don't let it drop into parody. Also, a steady stream of poor grammar out of characters' mouths grates on the reader like sandpaper. A little goes a long way to suggest what you mean. It doesn't take much irregular diction to get the idea across. Believable dialect comes, for the most part, out of using a collection of key phrases and eccentricities as the character's verbal idiosyncrasies. Many moons ago, an acting teacher (Mrs. Margaret Robison--rest her soul) told me that if a character has a certain trait--a stutter, a limp, whatever--an actor should display it to good effect during the first few lines of her first entrance. After that, just hint at it, without exaggeration or emphasis. Subtlety is the watchword. "A nuanced performance" rather than "she chewed up the wallpaper." I think the same method works well in fiction. After all, you are all the actors as well as the playwright and director here. You can also have a character drop into his/her "down-home" way of conversing in response to certain situations (STRESS) or when talking to certain people (THE BOSS INTIMIDATES HIM). It is a subtlety indicating the character's comfort level. Similarly, you can have her "unconsciously" or deliberately drop into the dialect of another "social class" (for want of a better descriptor) when talking to him. (She starts talking all uppity, and it sounds wrong.) These are mere suggestions to take into consideration as you do NaNo. I don't have the answers, as you know. Hope some of this applies to your dialogue problems (or non-problems.) A hawk just flew over our side yard outside our kitchen window. NO, REALLY. (I know the painting above is of an owl, but it's a similar vibe.) (7 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, November 14th, 2009
9:31 am	What does this SAY? A serious question! I was soooo proud of this necklace. Bought it on Etsy and thought it was just the bee's knees. But when I wore it a few weeks ago, Hubby started to laugh and made remarks. So what I need to know is: What is this word, to YOU? At first glance? I dunno . . . what he said (and the true mirth on his face) made me really ashamed of having even thought of wearing it. But the way I write cursive, the word IS what I originally said it was and what the maker said it was. That's the way I make the first "e" if I'm coming off a letter that ends up near the mid-margin or whatever they called it in handwriting class years ago, and the second "e" starts at the bottom line. But if others are going to gasp and point and throw fits, I can't have that. That has to remain the bailiwick of my other body parts. I *was* looking for earrings with little sparrows or other birdies in silver, to go along with, but now . . . eh. *sigh* I am sooo stooopid. I thought I was being so original and junk, and . . . well, y'know. I'm not the world's fashion plate, anyway. Amazing how something can come across so differently to different peole. And how upsetting it is to realize that what YOU read is not what others read. . . . (But that's part of the writer's eternal problem, isn't it?) P. S. I also got this jacket. Yes, I see that it makes the model look fat. This is also the case with anyone else who wears it. Too bad, as I like the fabric and the little buttons. . . . (13 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, November 13th, 2009
11:46 am	Happy Friday the 13th! I'm not sure whether I should stay in bed today. Fellow triskaidekaphobes (or, more properly, _Friggatriskaidekaphobes_)? What are you doing to ward off the badness today? (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, November 12th, 2009
3:48 pm	Kindle and Nook (and PDF) editions available! Well, I decided to do it. I've made Kindle editions of three of my novels available through Amazon.com at a price of $1.99 (if you paid less than a dollar, admit it, you'd think of it as a throwaway!), even though I realize I've blown myself out of the water as far as New York publishing is concerned. I feel so strongly about there being an audience for these works that I wanted to put them forward now, in time for Christmas. You can read a sample for free, and you don't even need a Kindle . . . if you have software that'll read the Kindle format (.mobi), you can read it on your PC. I've also gone to Smashwords with these three novels so that users of the new B&N Nook as well as people who use other e-readers or PDAs can try them out. Smashwords formats include .PDF, .EPUB, .LRF (Sony Reader), Palm Doc, and even .MOBI (for those who don't want to mess with registering their e-reader on Amazon--you can use various public domain software to read that format). Smashwords gives away a sample that's 40% of the novel, which I think is pretty generous! Or you can download the rest of the book, if you like the sample. The price is still $1.99 at Smashwords. I would give the books away free, but (again) people tend to instinctively sense that something gotten for free isn't worth what they paid. *grin* I suppose each person will have to decide for herself or himself, there. (Yes, the Smashwords crew told me to make my own arrangements with Amazon, as they feed B&N. They're cool with this. I haven't decided yet whether to pound the final nail into my career by making Lulu print versions.) I published the urban fantasy as Shalanna Collins, but used my birth middle name and married name for the mainstream books. It probably won't hurt that there is now a famous soul singer named Denise Weeks, and I'm constantly getting her referrals in searches. I'll take any accidental publicity I can get. (grin) AMAZON Little Rituals by Denise Weeks; literary women's fiction or OCD-flavored chick lit with a paranormal twist SMASHWORDS Little Rituals (more formats) AMAZON Murder by the Marfa Lights, an Ariadne French mystery by Denise Weeks. Cozy/traditional, Snoop Sisters-flavored, and with a supernatural tinge SMASHWORDS Murder by the Marfa Lights (more formats) AMAZON Camille's Travels by Shalanna Collins; a dark urban fantasy that may or may not be truly YA SMASHWORDS Camille's Travels (more formats) I thought long and hard about doing this, but in the final analysis I decided that the facade of traditional publishing is crumbling, and that the economic downturn is going to dictate changes in the way books are delivered to readers. If I want to be read . . . well, I can't wait forever; we don't HAVE forever, alas. I feel very strongly that e-books are the future of the market. Personally, I still prefer paperbacks and hardcovers, but that's partly because of my visual infirmities and partly because I'm old-school; I know that the younger generation is accustomed to reading text on screens, and I want to find my audience. (I do believe my audience is out there; I've had good reviews all over the 'net from teens who've found _Dulcinea_, and although it's not for everybody, no book really is one-size-fits-all.) I'm still sending my newer work to various New York houses. They may well Google these works up and decide I'm loser scum, which will mean the queries lead to nothing. That's their privilege, of course. The solution might be to file a DBA ("doing business as") in this county under a new pen name and use that name for the newer work, but I suspect they'd see that as deceptive. It is what it is. I yam what I yam. So it goes. Poo-tee-weet? ANYway. I hope that if anyone here does download a sample, you'll feel free to e-mail me with your thoughts about the book(s) or to post a comment here. It would be nice to have some reviews, but I'm not twisting any arms. Remember that not all books fit all audiences; I don't care for the Twilight series or even very much for the Harry Potter series, and look at the size of their audiences. I think Nora Roberts is just phoning it in, and that Dan Brown writes clunky prose, but all that means is--I'm not in their audience. So if you aren't in my audience, no hard feelings. If you are, though, please do let me know. It's always a serendipitous discovery! (BTW, Dennis Havens has also published with Smashwords. You can find his novel COLOR RADIO on their site, as well--and probably more will come.) I seriously do think this is where things are leading: most publishing taking place through authors handling their own work, while only the lucky few (celebrities and established authors) will get print editions and contracts from the large houses (because the large houses will have to do fewer and fewer books--it's just an economic fact--which means that more of us will be orphaned.) I'm sorry that readers will have to dig through lots and lots of typical not-ready-for-prime-time slush in order to find things they enjoy reading, but I'm not sorry that the gatekeepers are no longer the One True Way In. It's time that readers had more choices. Someone compared it to cable television, which opened up the market with hundreds of channels and provided many specialty shows and a great variety of things that the four major networks hadn't been offering to the viewing public--but which also meant that a lot of the time, despite all the choices, you wouldn't be able to find anything that you liked at that moment, and that a lot of things that might not be "worthy" would have a chance. Hey, something might turn out to be a hidden gem that YOU love. Or it might not. So it goes. Poo-tee-weet? It's similar to what happened with recorded music within my lifetime. In my adolescence, the only bands taken seriously were the ones that got signed by a major label, and the local yokels could strive all they liked, but still had very little exposure and success. Then indie music really came into its own in the late '90s, when the MP3 arrived on the scene. Now just about anyone can record a beautiful track and upload it to one of the providers, and the entire world then has a chance to sample it. Now there's no one singer that EVERYONE listens to--no Cher, no Andy Williams, no Doris Day, you get the idea--but there's also a much smaller fan base for most bands/singers. It does mean that you can find exactly the type of music you love to listen to, instead of having only "the top forty" to choose from. I think that's a fair trade-off, myself. Have fun out there! (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, November 11th, 2009
8:55 pm	Armistice Day! (Veterans Day/Remembrance Day Canada) It used to be known as Armistice Day. That's the WWI armistice they're talking about. I didn't want it to pass without thanking the soldiers everywhere who believed they were on the side of right and sacrificed (sometimes everything) for the cause of justice. As the poet said, they step straight into Heaven, because they've done their time in Hell. This would also have been my mother-in-law's 73rd birthday or thereabouts. She always liked my work, even when it wasn't really ready for prime time back about twenty years ago. "Why don't you have this published?" she'd ask plaintively. Finally some of the explanations got through, and she'd call me to say, "I just got my Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine and read it last night, and I'm telling you, those stories weren't even as good as the one you sent me. Why don't they publish yours?" Well, not because I wasn't sending them. Anyway, it was nice to have someone who was an advocate for my work (and was seemingly sincere about it, as far as I could tell), especially considering that I couldn't get Mama or my Aunt Jean to come around *at all* to being willing to read more than a page or two "of that silly time-wasting trash") until about five years ago with the first Jacquidon mystery. (They liked it, with reservations, but couldn't say what they'd like changed except "no big words," even in the corporate spelling bee scene. Then they allowed that LITTLE RITUALS might not be a complete loss for people who liked that kind of book. I didn't entirely win them over until MURDER BY THE MARFA LIGHTS. When that one didn't win the St. Martin's contest, they shook their heads and pronounced traditional publishing Wrong. Now they're advocates for SONG FROM THE HEART and the new Jacquidon mystery about the tree-trimming contest.) So today was . . . challenging. I *can* talk loudly enough to be heard on the phone, though. And when I was clicking to test some of the tracks in iTunes, I even sang a little. (*cringe*) I got all the stacks and piles of laundry done (do we run a free laundry drop-off out back??) and decluttered part of the bedroom. And that was exhausting. With many breaks for lying in the floor panting. Still, it's all a step forward. Mama felt much better, and her steroids are working to clear up those bronchi. Wish she'd been willing to start the pred on Friday instead of waiting until Monday "to see if it wouldn't clear up on its own," but anyway. *eyeroll* (That's like eggroll, but more sarcastic.) I hope I can get strong enough to go to Audra Mae's concert in Deep Ellum, which is coming up in a very few days. That's Dennis Havens' granddaughter, mind, and also Judy Garland's great-niece! Her CD is coming out, and tracks may be found on iTunes. She's going to be the Next Big Thing. I can feel it. I know these things. (Comment on this)
11:15 am	Writer's Block: Play it again, Sam If you could only listen to one CD for the rest of your life, what would you choose and why? Submitted By lexxyloser View 1928 Answers Well, this is a crazy question nowadays, because I would just make a custom mix CD. ( Playlist ) But in the Olden Days, there really was a limit on listeners. Cassette tape and even reel-to-reel that was anything short of the Ampex units they used in recording studios were not very high-fidelity, and vinyl records were fragile and only held about 22 minutes of music on a side. If you had to do the desert-island thing THEN, you'd be stuck with only ONE RECORD. Aieee! But should it be. . . A CHARLIE BROWN CHRISTMAS with Vince Guaraldi? That one is pretty much on rotation all year with me. or should it be. . . ABBEY ROAD or REVOLVER by the Beatles? or must it be. . . BEST OF THE MONKEES (combining my favorite tracks from HEADQUARTERS and PISCES, AQUARIUS, CAPRICORN, and JONES, LTD.)? That leaves out too much. It omits Bobby Darin, Frank Sinatra, Hugo Montenegro and the "Come Spy With Me" crime jazz, Jack Jones, Vic Damone, R. E. M., Three Dog Night, Weird Al, Herman's Hermits, my one-hit wonders, and so forth. No Emperor Concerto. No Mozart Piano Concerto #21. No "exotic bongos." No belly dance music. No psychedelia. No show tunes. No soul. Aieeee! No wonder the rate of schizophrenia on desert islands is far higher than that in metropolitan areas with wi-fi and free soup kitchens with doughnuts (sprinkles extra). . . . At the moment I am restoring my iTunes library. When I "upgraded" *snort* to Win7 by means of having my old computer's mamaboard short out, allowing the magic smoke to escape and the genie to leave, cackling in evil mirth, I tried to migrate my iTunes library. But-of-course they've changed the path of the My Documents/My Music folder to Users/Whatever/Aaack, and I had so much stuff that had been imported from all over the disk. So I only had SOME of my stuff, including none of the Amazon MP3s or the eMusic stuff. Hubby was fiddling with his new iPod Touch (and believe me, the rosin on that bow is really postmodern) and bought a copy of a program that'll restore your iPod to your computer directly so you can import it back into iTunes complete with ratings, so that's what's going on in the background. We Shall See. I've always had problems with the dang tracks staying authorized (I have two iTunes Store accounts on account of the ISP changing our email addys some time ago, back when I was too iggernunt to realize how to change the email addy on my existing account.) I always buy iTunes Plus so I have very little DRM, but what I do got is "cherce." How I wish my daddy were still alive. How he would love seeing all the technological advances! He built our stereo "hi-fi" units all my life, was an audiophile with Ampex reel-to-reel decks and Garrard turntables and Jensen speakers and Harmon/Kardon tuners and amps back when the name really meant something . . . tube units, natch . . . and was a radio amateur, private pilot (light planes), electronics bug, and rocket scientist (no kidding--worked at NASA Houston Mission Control during Gemini and Apollo projects, 1959-1967!) I'd love to see his face when I handed him a laptop, cell phone, and iPod. Heck, when he saw the dirt roads all paved and the freeways and metroplex that came up and devoured our little enclave, he'd go wild. Sheesh! If I wrote him a letter about that, he'd think I was making it all up. I hope they can look down from Heaven and appreciate everything that's going on down here, as well as pulling for us from the Other Side. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, November 10th, 2009
11:14 pm	For Texans and Rednecks Only QuestionsView Results Courtesy Nashville Tennessean. Not a Scientific Poll (10 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, November 9th, 2009
8:27 pm	The cupcakes are totally frosted It's not the flu. Everyone in our household has SOMETHING, but it's not the flu, says the doctor's office. "I think it is two viruses," Dr. Genius said, "and you've each had some deeply ingrained infections, which is why the antibiotic made you feel better. Probably an old sinus infection, in your case. But that's a viral laryngitis." He pointed at me. Ulp. "And I think that bronchial infection has been there a long time," he said, pointing at my mother. (He doesn't see hubby until Friday, but it's the same stuff, just not quite as far along.) "So how long does viral laryngitis last?" I said. It came out like, "Squeal crack-growl long does squeeeeak squealitis last?" He merely laughed. "As long as it wants to." Then he cackled. He is a very mean person. "That's a big plus, though, because you two can't bicker. Must be tough." He continued to laugh at my dilemma (that my mother constantly babbles and blathers and asks constant questions that I am supposed to answer, and it's an effort to squeak out what little I can get out, and it makes my throat hurt, and I'm not supposed to smack her with a tuna or anything harder than a wet noodle) as he wandered out of the examining room. Stinker. But he did send us for lung X-rays to be sure it wasn't walking pneumonia (sort of like waltzing Matilda, but with more coughing.) The X-ray people didn't call, so I assume we don't have that. Poor little Pomeranian coughed last night and had drops of water bubbling out of his little nose and was just miserable. I think he caught one of the viruses or some of the bacteria from staying right next to us as we lay around on the various sofas and chairs all weekend, suffering. He didn't cough today, but I said I was going to take him for a checkup anyhow as soon as I felt strong enough, so he'll have to go tomorrow and get the anal probe (temperature taken) and be checked over, just in case. "I'm tired of being sick," I announced in the waiting room as we waited for Mama to be called in for her breathing test. "I want to be in New York instead. And I want a pizza." Everyone kept their eyes assiduously glued to the teevee or newspaper, which makes it tough to watch/read (how can you scan for letters if your eyes are glued?), and no sympathy was extended. Instead, the lady behind the counter asked us to wear these little face masks that make you feel you are in the Middle East or in an Old West bank robbery. Those things make me cough worse because of the re-breathed hot air, so pretty soon we were alone in the corner of the waiting room. I did get a pizza, though. On the way home, I drove through the Taco Bell/Pizza Hut to get a small personal pan pizza. It didn't taste right because my taste buds are screwed up. But the dog enjoyed a piece or two of the crust. And now that the computer is fixed (I actually had to get a whole new one--what a pain--and upgrade from Flintstones XP to Win 7 as well; it made iTunes and Picasa crazy because "Documents and Settings/My Documents" no longer is the pathname, and there wasn't any way to MAKE it the pathname without screwing other things up, so I had to do a lot of copying of albums and so forth and STILL suffered broken links, but oh well), I am making my word count on NaNo. It's an interesting little story. I'm waiting to see how the girls (my characters) get out of THIS one. (The Girls in the Attic are working on it.) It'll be an "I Love Lucy" escape from this escapade, for sure. (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, November 6th, 2009
1:17 am	Oy . . . stop the world--got to GET OFF . . . *falls down* So this morning I woke up with an awful sore throat and humming ears, not to mention a post-nasal drip thing involving a sort of glue gel that they probably sell on TV infomercials. (TMI!) And what woke me was a phone call from a person at a "portfolio management company" who wants to talk to hubby, but our portfolios are with Vanguard and some other famous one, not with this place, so I finally just hung up on the guy. (Probably shouldn't have.) Mama had similar symptoms with the ouch and the feeling lousy. I suppose we should have gone to Dr. Genius to see if we have some kind of flu or cold. We may go tomorrow, sigh. My aunt was discharged and sent home today--yay!--but if she has any trouble at all, she will have to move to a rehab facility until she gets back on her feet. They've arranged for home health care, which is a visiting nurse who comes in the mornings, and for a physical therapist who comes in the afternoon. My uncle is worried about his co-payments for all of this. But anyhow, things may be looking up a little bit. She needed this PT and a wake-up call for taking care of herself. You see, she has had a mild form of multiple sclerosis for many years that didn't progress quickly, and when she wasn't having an acute attack she kind of ignored it and pretended it didn't exist. Now she can't pretend. She has to be good and use that walker and the cane. We'll see if she realizes that now she has to take better care of herself. Aaaand when I came in here to check e-mail around noon, I found that the motherboard on Old Blue had shorted out and the power wouldn't come on. Hubby got home around 7 PM and managed to get the power supply to come back on briefly, and I quickly backed up as many files as I could. We zipped over to MicroCenter to see about getting a new power supply, but the dang computer is so old (Windows XP, Office 97) that you can't get one. Ended up getting a new computer! But you know what THAT MEANS!! Yes . . . re-installing EVERYTHING. It's Windows 7. I hate the look and feel. Mostly, I've had trouble getting the display to be right, because with my old system, I had the style set up so that the fonts were large, icons were labeled with black text, background was a medium gray, and other stuff that helped my eyes. I'm still fine-tuning this thing. But . . . *wah* I hate wasting writing time on setting stuff up again! Eudora, Picasa, FileZilla, iTunes (!! iTunes!!), the web browser, and all that mess. It's all still on the old hard drive, but Picasa and iTunes want files to be in the same path as before, and the pathname to My Documents is different now, and. . . . Sheesh. But anyway, I'm going to do my NaNo chapter right now. I've got to get over to the site and post my progress and get a progress meter and so forth. I posted a pep talk for the readers at Making Light who were bemoaning the "dreck" that they were turning out, and scolded them because nothing that comes out of your creative muse is ever "dreck." I don't know if I pepped them up at all, but at least I tried. The days just fly by! 4609 / 50000 words. 9% done! (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009
2:21 pm	Wizz--dumb of me, pt. XVIII Santa Claus believers belong to a Cargo Cult. ! ! ! asphalt: unfortunate birth defect rebuttal: a fanny transplant ? ? ? I'm WAY past "out of control" and into "evil," well on my way to "irredeemably depraved." Got milquetoast? * * * Rectum? Dang near kilt 'em. Compiler? I don't even KNOW 'er ? ? ? Never write, "She thought to herself" unless the alternative (in your futuristic techno-dystopia) is, "She thought, by means of broadcasting the electromagnetic waves via the two-meter amateur radio band on the frequency 147.24 and hitting the repeater 35 miles away in order that the 'thoughts' could be retransmitted on her personal wavelength, propagated by line-of-sight for the most part, and so that they might be received by the antenna implanted in her skull by the aliens from Krakjob galaxy." ! ! ! The world, according to Mayan legend, ends on my sister-in-law's birthday, Dec. 22, Winter Solstice, 2012, so please redeem all WallyWorld gift cards by the end of November 2012 to allow one month for end-of-world processing. Thank you for shopping at WallyWorld! @.@ @.@ @.@ Life is a one-way journey. Glance in the rear view mirror if you will, but keep in mind that it's only for reference, not for a do-over. (3 Comments |Comment on this)