gaze upon the awesome power that is me

No, I refuse to believe it's all coincidental: Twice in the last few months, I've change the course of the publisher.

Right after one of my books came out, they basically discontinued the line.

Right after I made a lot of fuss and bother (well, mostly just snickered) they changed the way they do covers.

They are sick and tired of authors complaining the cover doesn't reflect the story. . .Hmmm I didn't have that complaint. And really, they didn't say that--they do professional communication. I'm reading between the lines the official statements.

They just said something along the lines of nope, sorry. We are now making covers that we think will sell the book. The covers don't necessarily have to reflect the actual characters.

I hope they won't start putting tall leggy blondes on stories featuring midget brunettes. Since we're talking hot contents, at least the covers won't be entirely Kilgore Trout.

hubris

I want to post Halloween pictures of aya and tom, but I can't because I don't have any. I need my pix of butterflies and h1n1.


Here's Alex from a gazillion years ago. My boy:


VERY SAD BABY




Pretty happy teenager.



I don't get it but I'll take it, thanks. I realize the reason we're doing well here is that we're incredibly lucky with the kids, the health, the ability to laugh at the same stupid crap etc. The basics are better than anyone could hope for. That means any whining? Details and blips.

I should probably knock wood 24/7 ....spit over my left shoulder . . .light candles of gratitude to the gods . . . maybe clean the place up a little? Some recognition of the bounty. Maybe I'll whine creatively just to disguise the situation so the eye of chaos won't fall upon this house.

not too much of a good thing

There are some authors one should only read a book then take a break. No glomming for them. Right now I'm letting myself listen to my every-couple-of-months Carl Hiassen.

His basic characters and his plots are repeats but I love them so much, I don't mind. I did the mistake of reading a couple in a row and getting annoyed by the repetition factor.

But after a while I want to go back. I love the nasty pasty city villains, the crazy bad guys--especially the ones that are redeemed. And the crazies who're hanging around the everglades. In the familiar mix there is always something new and interesting--and usually something so funny I'll laugh enough to wake up the dog.

never mind race, let's talk food

as in what yummy foods match your characters' skins? I think it's a fun question that could really bring some hunger and creativity into the writing process. I take a kitchen tour at erotic muses.

But golly, I can't read that Dear Author thread any more. It's just too familiar. Too much BTDT, hear the rants already. The passions and dismissals and the angers and the stunned hurt. Yup.

Good news! Diane Farr will have another book out
Bad news**! It'll be in March.

**because I don't like waiting.

Scenes from the life of the Overcommitted Teenager

Repeat daily for at least a week. Add dramatic symptoms of cold when needed.


me: Go to bed, it's midnight
kid: I can't. I have to finish this essay.

**

me: Go to bed, it's 1 am.
kid: I can't. I have to study for the test tomorrow.

**

me: Bed. It's 3. BED!
kid: All right, all right. Jeez.

**

**

me: Wake up, it's 6 am
kid: brrboidfhwl'sjghls

**

me: Wake up, it's 6:30 am
kid: zzzzzzzzzzzzzz

**

me: Wake up, it's 7. You missed the bus. I'll give you a ride to school. WAKE UP.
kid: All right, all right. Jeez.

me: Don't you mean thanks for the ride, mom?

kid: brrboidfhwl'sjghls ::hack::hack::

me: That's a nasty cough. Maybe you should stay home.
kid: I have two tests today ::hack:: ::hack:: and rehearsal and the play's next week ::hack:: ::hack:: I already missed most of a day and I can't miss any more. And I don't have a fever. ::hack:: ::hack::::choke:: gack::

visitors galore

Every now and again I need to a new, more creative way to avoid work. When facebook or twitter fails to amuse, I check my stat thingy, see how many people are visiting this blog and why. And erg, dang, look the numbers are up. Erg, dang because I figure it's because of Irrational Arousal's major reaming over at SBTB (Just the thought of it makes me want to lunge for more chocolate. Shit. We're out of cookies.)

Sure, sure some of you are coming from over there**. But listen, it's not all linked to that. I found another link to another bloggy thing as well, and I like this one.

* * *

It's Monday, which means SBD which I'll do later, I think. Except it's kind of a "I didn't like this book at all" report and it's too Mary Sunshine around here for that.....

Yah, and with increased traffic, I really should put up a Best Of This Blog note. Except I'm too lazy and what do I know from the good posts.

Hey, any of you doing NaNoWriMo? That thing is practically corporate--I drove across the river and met my ML last night.

"Municipal Leader." Sounds Soviet.

___________________

**Hi, hi, hello, and if you email me, I might send you a copy of Irrational Arousal. One of you anyway. Come on, YOU know you're curious. Is it really that bad? Here's your chance to find out.

Nothing is free in this life and you will pay a penalty: I'll put you on my mailing list which I only use when I have new releases. And which you will be able to escape....eventually.

working

I've been doing exercises for scene setting lately, just because enough with the talking heads. Scene! Setting!

So for this exercise I draw on memories of specific spots and listing the sensory details from my memories.

So far I've got: tropical beach at night (St Barts mmmm), outside the Washington Cathedral on a Wednesday evening listening to the bagpipes, sitting on a porch at a lake, walking up a steep hill, driving on the NJ Turnpike, drinking tea in the garden of Dairy Cottage. Just a list of the words of what I saw, felt, smelled, yada yada....

and here's what I'm learning.

--Memories established alone are more powerful. Apparently when someone else is there, I don't do much in the way of observation.

--Memories evoke far too much emotion to be entirely useful. I get sucked into the regrets and the sense of loss instead of What Was Happening. Every one of them has sorrow attached which is kind of ....odd. After all, I got to live through pleasant experiences. That should be enough for anyone. But it stops being about that time and all about how I'll never see those places again. Which is useless.

--I'm apparently much clearer on the sensory details of the memories from when I was a teenager than the more recent stuff.

IN other words, I'm sucking at this exercise. Maybe I'll go outside and write the details of what I'm feeling, seeing, smelling, tasting in the front yard. My guess is "Wet" will be emphasized in the description.

A couple of entries back? when I said think of the bunnies? There are two at the local pet store and I suddenly Want a Rabbit.

I had one for a while -- a mentally negligible number (named Bertie of course). It didn't require much to keep it entertained and happy, and its nose action alone was worth the price of bunny chunks.

The husband has announced that a kitten is out. And no puppies. He stamped his little foot about it.

But more furry things in this house would be good. The mice that are moving in for the winter don't count because I rarely spot them.

feel free to comment about what an awesome, damn fine rioter I am

I'm going to go find another cookie and really, stack that firewood. And wait for inspiration to strike.

ooommmm

advice to self after a SBTB DNF review

1. go find chocolate
2. reread my previous advice, and gaze upon the happy hippos (mostly because it's a cool picture)
3. think of the bunnies.
4. hope there are lots of comments, because it's good to get a lot of comments
5. for fuck's sake do NOT go read the comments.
6. get to work.
7. or stack firewood.
8. chocolate
9. bunnies.
10 reread this nice review of the same book a few times.
11, remind myself that just because SBTB is an incredibly popular site, and I happen to lurve Ms. Sarah. ..umm....just because. Wait, how is this number 11 going to help again?

it helps that if I'm clever or creative enough I might get some real work.

It also helps that I don't agree with a lot of what she wrote--the very worst reviews, the ones that stick around like a bad crabcake, are the negative ones that make you go Oh. Shit. She's right.

* * *

on an unrelated topic, those ads from Cancer Centers of America give me the willies. I think it's the whole Marriotization of cancer treatment. Ergh.

Also the ads against taxing soda.

Revenge of the spammers

Well, hell.
So do NOT OPEN ANY EMAIL FROM MY COMCAST ACCOUNT WITH THE SUBJECT LINE "hi"

IT will take over your account and cause much wailing and gnashing of teeth and lots of spam going out. You don't have to open the thing for it to cause trouble. I didn't open attachments and BAM there I am, a spammer.
Sorry

poetry

the spam box collection...various lines lifted from about 200 letters

1.

I brush my hair
Have you brushed your hair this morning?
I thought about you
Important that you reply
I googled you today....
trouble
viewing this email?
Urgent news!
I'm sorry I'm late again.
We have not received your reply Billy was not satisfied.
Your wife will not be satisfied.
You will be satisfied.
She will love you more
Urgent
News!


2
Replica Rolex
Cheers. Sheaf Wizard
Over the dying summer I have known. Now....
Replica they'll never know isn't real
I was excluded
I was excluded from parties and celebrations.
Never satisfied with your tool.
Bigger better tool
Never satisfied.
You will be glad.

Universal decision for men who want to stay men
It's easy. For you.
We have not received your reply
Trouble
Viewing this email?
Can you say timely
I miss you

3.
We have not received your reply
We are awaiting your reply
wistful

hey! I forgot to load up this nice review! Look. They like the book!

SBD sort of

For a moment I thought, OmG, I haven't read a book this week? Really?
AND I've never gone so long without reading a book.....

.... except yeah, I did read one. It was a PG Wodehouse first published in 1921. Not nearly as sappy as some of those early wodehouses. It did feature the brave young heroine. It was missing a lot of the comic bits and the voice isn't there yet.

On the other hand, it had schticks he might have cut in a later novel-- or maybe skipped over lightly. He tended to abbreviate scenes once he got more polished.

There's a longish bit where the heroine shows up as a penniless wretch at her dreary penny-pinching uncle's dreary house on Long Island. She starts out an honored guest and once the family figures out she has no money, she's gradually given jobs to do. The scenes where she and her dreary little cousin exchange looks as they're dragooned into jobs is pretty great.

Oh, and the theater language is fantastic. Silly, of course, and sappy. But fun.

I'd go look up the title but this SBD is hardly worth the effort. I'm glad I read the book. I'm glad it was free. I won't erase it from my Kindle because it's just the thing for the middle of the night again. Also. It has turn of the century New Yawk and I haven't given up on that place yet.

yikes, I don't think I've gone so long without blogging before. Maybe because I've been digging up excerpts and posting them on a loop and I've had more than enough of me.

I'd say I haven't written because I have nothing to say but that hasn't stopped me for how freaking long? I've been blogging for years and years and years. I passed ancient and am a fossil in the blogosphere.

I've stopped reading a lot of blogs too. The quicky check in with facebook and twitter means I can tell if anything BIG is going on. BIG as in a book sale, an illness, a birth, an argument, a divorce.

I'm such a girl. (Mike just read Gene Weingarten to me and....... yeah, so?)

There's a sea change coming.

I love that phrase even if I don't know WT exact F it means***. I'm just waiting to find out what it is exactly. No one's told me, but I can feel it in the air. For all I know, it could be the inspiration to finally clean the basement hits.
______
*** now I do. Bless you internet and double bless you Willie. and yeah, I got the gist right all these years.