Writtenwyrdd

Symbolism and color

Original Wavelength blog has a great article on colors and symbolism in Chinese culture here.

Given the American tendency to be oblivious, by and large, toward other cultural references, I'm not surprised that many WASPy types aren't aware of basic color symbolism of the Chinese.  I grew up in an area where many of my friends were some flavor of Asian or other--Phillippino, Chinese, Japanese, Islander, etc.--so I knew that white is the color of mourning in China, red for celebration and luck.  But I haven't made a big study of such things and didn't know much of what is mentioned in this article.

Probably most of us, rather humanity in general, is, in every culture everywhere, suffering from culturally-adapted blindness where we tend to see and interpret things based on our cultural set points.  It takes active self-examination of one's assumptions to weed out what you know from what you interpreted.  And, as frequently happens, even when you ask for an explanation you don't quite get it right.  Our cultural assumptions are based on "how things are supposed to work" which is absorbed along with mother's milk in our infancy and early years.  things like what is right and what is wrong, or cultural roles, the understood meanings of facial expressions and gestures, and etc..

In terms of creating a story milieu, you need to make your world seem different, yet you likely need some kind of starting point.  (In certain respects, we generally, 99"% of the time, only write what we know, even when we are making stuff up!)  What this means is that most readers will recognize the culture you use as the starting point, be it Asian, Western or whatever--and, if you aren't careful, readers may blame you for any perceived flaws, especially if the culture is of a different primary religion or ethnicity than the author.  It may be your birth culture, or one that you think suits the story's intended shape and feel. 

If the latter is the case, and, say, you decided that Imperial China is where you want to start, and you aren't familiar with it... Well, you need to consider their cultural assumptions and things like the implied/understood symbolism of color, and cultural issues.  If you get it wrong in the sense that your base assumptions make a bunch of readers think you are stupid, or some controversy is raised, it might shoot you in the foot, though.  (An example being Jar-Jar Binks of Star Wars movie fame.  A big outroar about LucasArts 'portraying a 'minority' as stupid--even though the character was a fictional alien.')

Despite the care you might want to take, however, using an existing culture as a starting point for a story world can be really useful. 

Have a plan.

"You always hear that “Drama is conflict”, but when you think about it – what the hell does that mean, practically?  It’s actually much more true, and specific, to say that drama is the constant clashing of a hero/ine’s PLAN and an antagonist’s, or several antagonist’s, PLANS."  Alexandra Sokoloff

What she calls a plan is what I've always thought of as the goal, as the thing the character wants to accomplish.  But put the way Ms. Sokoloff does, I can see that the basic pattern of a novel or movie is for the character to have a series of different plans, or approaches, to achieving the goal (or the alternate goal, if the goal changes.)

So, what I take from this article is the observation that the plan changes due to obstacles, but there should always be a plan to reach the goal of the moment.  If you don't show that, you are probably experiencing a plot hole or lack of clarity in that regard.

Excellent article.  Go read and learn, young padawan. :)

 

Launch party for Bernita Harris' "Dark & Disorderly"

Cribbed from Bernita's blog:

 

You are invited to attend a launch party at Bitten by Books this Monday, June 28th, to celebrate the release of Dark and Disorderly. 

 

No champagne, but there are prizes of gift certificates and silver jewellery to be won.

 

I'm sorry to be late in announcing this but I wasn't absolutely sure of the date or the event because of emails and confirmations that wandered like sheep. I'll be guest blogging about the popularity of the parnormal genre.

 

Tomorrow (Sunday), I'll be answering questions at fellow Carina author, Leah Braemel's (Texas Tangle, etc.) site.

 

Also, on Monday, I'll be guest bloggging with Dawn Jackson at Para-fanatics about why I write.

 

On Tuesday, my darling Stacia (Kane/ Personal Demons, etc.,Unholy Ghosts, etc.) has invited me to visit. I'll be discussing D&D sex.

To The Straight Guy At The Party Last Night

Oh, this is a wonderful response.  Check it out at Truth Wins Out.  Link courtesy of Angie.

There's only so much time in the day

Well, yesterday was a total wash as far as getting anything useful done.  I had it off, sort of, as I had to drive 2 hours each direction to Bangor for a doctor appt.  I did a metabolic test at the nutritionist, and my base metabolism burns about 1200 calories per day if I do nothing but sit on my butt.  I am supposed to lose weight between 1200 and 1550 calories, and yet I haven't lost any weight in nearly 2 months while generally adhering to that window.  Sigh.  I have to exercise most every day over the long haul just to keep from gaining!  Because my metabolism is, indeed, that slow.  Still.  Also, they tell me (now, after all this time) that one's intestine can take over the food absorption ability of the upper intestine that was cut off.  Sigh again.  It is likely that is what is happening in my case.  This is a good thing from the perspective of evolution; I'd be capable of getting the most out of everything I ate.  But in the case of long-term weight loss and keeping it off, this is a pain in the butt. 

In any case, I need to walk a lot just to keep my back from getting crankier and stiffer.  It's generally always stiff and cranky, but no need to let it get really out of whack.  So I should be able to manage the long-term weight loss. 

I also spent a lot of money yesterday buying bulk items at Sam's Club and getting things that I found at Big Lots and a few other stores of that ilk in Bangor.  And I had to hunt for braided rawhide dog bones.  Hard to believe they are that difficult to find.  3 petstores later...finally found them.  Not quite big enough for the Pug to use (he needs big dog chews that are short, because Pugs have the Jaws of, well, Jaws) but they'll do.

I hope to get some writing done, too, but I have this big scanning project I'm working on.  I just got a load of at least 750 more images to copy and distribute to the locals and the archaeologists who are surveying the small town where my office is located.  It's not even something I really care about in particular; I just hate seeing all the local history literally die off as people die.  Their families don't know what the pictures are and they often throw them out or just box them and forget them.  At least if they are annotated and scanned the information can be readily shared and not disappear.

I have to say I encourage people to do this sort of thing, especially if they are interested in geneology.  You'd be amazed what sorts of links old family photos and the notes in family bibles and other documents can provide for others!

When is *-punk a punk?

"I think of cyberpunk as the books that are out looking for a fight, ready to cut those unprepared with what they have to say."  Andrew Liptak, found via SF Signal repost

Good point in the linked article:  Is it still 'punk' when it's not the cutting edge, first-out-there of a genre?  Cyberpunk, steampunk-- you strip the genre of punkish impact when it's become mainstream.

Interesting thoughts on the naming of subgenre and spec fic categorization in general:

"...[T]here seems to be a tendency for new genres to be bestowed with the '-punk' suffix to differentiate various groups of works by content and theme to perfectly define its own little sub-genre and capture a specific audience."

"...[T]he idea of the word 'punk' being used as a label, especially a label right out of the gate, goes against all of the rebellion and fire that the term really should hold for that which it describes. Steampunk is a subgenre that is really beginning to grow a bit more, but doesn't feel new or edgy as far as its content goes: much of what you can see in the stories has long roots in the genre: the stories of Jules Verne and H.G. Wells, for example, could easily fall well within the common definitions of Steampunk, and they did it when the concepts were really new and punkish in their own right....Thus, a lot of this current steampunk fad is a retread over old ground, with stories that tell drastically different things this time around. Cherie Prist's latest book, for example, isn't so much about technology as it is about character inter-relations in a steampunk-styled environment, one that I'd really label as alternate history over Steampunk. The same goes for recent books by K.J Parker with Devices and Desires, Christopher Priest's The Prestige and Ekaterina Sedia's The Alchemy of Stone. I've long believed that the term science fiction, fantasy and speculative fiction in general really transcends the content and goes far more towards the themes, plotline and characters of each work."

And, I think most thought provoking:

"Ultimately, speculative fiction as a whole is done a disservice by the constant subgenres, which separates out everything into minuscule categories that are ultimately meaningless, governed and sold based upon their superficial elements, but not the central themes that ultimately make a story worth reading. Punking a genre seems to be the epitome of posing, especially if the term is simply applied to a brand of stories for the simple purpose of finding a market for them."

So, what would you call these?  I'm not against using the extant subgenre names, because alternate history instead of steampunk, or science fiction instead of cyberpunk isn't as descriptive in some ways due to current expectations.  But, as Mr. Liptak notes, the names don't mean what they used to mean!  And I also feel that, ultimately, so many subgenre labels are more confusing than helpful.  Sure, you get the yadayada about 'subgenres are excellent marketing tools' and this is true, to an extent.  But in the long run, the categories are confusion-making.

Perhaps what we really need is a subgenre Dewie Decimal System of a sort!  Anyone up for that?  Don't look at me she says, backing away from the crazy woman...

For yucks and grins, a comparison

Just because I haven't got anything better to post about, here's the modification of yesterday's snippet (and a bit more, too.)  Tell me if I scribbled the life out of it or made it better.

The airship juddered, engines roaring in protest.  Sparks spat from the ship's skin, air thundering as loud as the straining engines.  Tossed against the back of her seat, Meida's protections flared, crackling and raising the hair on her nape and arms with static charge.  She craned her head to look out the window, anticipating either an attack or flaming gas bladders and impending crash.   Cattle and goats glanced up from marshy fields and rice paddies, workers from tall ladders in the mango groves.  Apparently they weren't worried a fireball was about to explode over their heads despite the corona of flame surrounding the airship. 

Then she saw the winding, sixty-foot levee passing below: They'd reached Athlinar's outer wards. 

She leaned back against the velvet upholstery, twitching her enveloping chadri out of her way in order to dig her belt pouch out of her kidney.  It figured the arrogant magi of Athlinar wouldn't care if they scared their passengers into heart failure by an unannounced and needlessly rough crossing through the perimeter of the city state's defenses.

The craft dropped again, shoved her stomach into her throat.  A glance showed the marshy fields changing into jungle and the rising spires of drowned Mumbai in the distance, gleaming ruddy in the sunset, clouds of mothras drifting among them, golden, tentacled bubbles.  The place was still deadly despite the mothras; retexophage constructs gobbled the ambient radiation, but nothing could slow half-life, not even the Angelaeic biotech and magic that had spawned the tekmagick revolution.  A human still wouldn't survive a ten minute exposure in the vast towers, remnants of the Assonance Event and the nuclear firestorm of the resulting panic. And, she thought, as a dark brush painted a swath of mothras black and they exploded like negatives of light to cascade on the waters and she caught a glimpse of something tentacled, something of Lovecraftian horror whipping back into its den high on an indestructible tower, a human who was smart wouldn't want to visit Mumbai, not without an army behind them. 

A moment later, quiet pierced her ears.  The shaking ended, sparks faded. 

Meida relaxed with a deep breath.  They were through the city-state's defenses without going up in a fireball.  First hurdle crossed.

Which was when Athlinar's ambient power rushed into the vacuum, burning laval and agonizing along the gold-traced circuitry embedded in Meida's flesh.   Rubies at chakra and resistor points burned with ruddy light through flesh and clothing as her control wards handled the influx of magickal energy. 

So, whaddayous think?

Getting back in the saddle, I hope.

Got a bit of writing done this morning.  Here's the new(est) opening paragraph of Magus of Athlinar. 

The airship juddered, engines roaring in protest.  Sparks spat from the ship's skin, air roaring as loud as the straining engines. Tossed against the back of her seat, Meida craned her head to look out the window, anticipating either an attack or flaming gas bladders and impending crash.  The winding, sixty-foot levee was passing below, explaining the sudden turbulence:  They'd reached Athlinar's outer wards.  Cattle and goats glanced up from marshy fields and rice paddies, workers from tall ladders in the mango groves.  Apparently they weren't worried a fireball was about to explode over their heads despite the corona of sparks surrounding the airship.

She leaned back against the velvet upholstery, twitching her enveloping chadri out of her way as she dug into her belt pouch.  Figures the arrogant magi of Athlinar wouldn't care if they scared their passengers into heart failure by an unannounced and needlessly rough crossing through the perimeter of the city state's defenses.

The craft dropped again, shoved her stomach into her throat.  A glance showed the marshy fields changing into jungle and the rising spires of drowned Mumbai in the distance, gleaming ruddy in the sunset, clouds of mothras drifting among them, golden, tentacled bubbles.  The place was still deadly despite the mothras; retexophage constructs gobbled the ambient radiation, but nothing could slow radioactive half-life, not even Angelaeic biotech and magic that had spawned the tekmagick revolution.  A human still wouldn't survive a ten minute exposure in the vast towers, remnants of the Assonance Event and the nuclear firestorm of the resulting panic.

It's still rough as I just wrote it; but I'm trying to show a far-distant future in a world where tekmagick rules and our physical laws have combined with those of another universe.  Hopefully, this is working to show the story is science fantasy (tech and magic combined being the clue), a bit about where Meida is heading, and a bit about the attitude of the place where she is heading, Athlinar, hotbed of magi.  The second para is supposed to give a bit of historic background and establish the location somewhat, as well as hint that climate changes and worldwide devastation (including nuclear strikes) have occurred in the past.

Reframing things to create your characters

Another idea for a character play comes from reading the news online.  Today it was the Washington Post, my mostly favorite choice for news.  Two items, a review of the movie Cyrus and an article on sperm donor kids have combined to make me ask: In what ways can you have your characters screwed up that isn't typical or which pushes the envelope...without making the issue a gimmick?

Cyrus the movie involves an oedipally fixated mother and son, and the son's attempts to break up his mother from her new love.  And the sperm donor children are profoundly affected by how they are sired, but the article doesn't offer anything new in that realm, just the mention that it's not always all right.  Just like it isn't always alright when a kid finds out they are adopted.  It's not just little girls fantasizing about being secret princesses; it's also about the family dynamic and whether it's functional, dysfunctional, and how those aspects affect the people involved.

So, let me ask you: do you have things in your own life that sting but which could be used?  Perhaps you can indulge in a vague bit of self help by taking painful things or events or feelings and switching it up, approaching the ideas as if it were you who did the things you dislike?  That way, you can see it with fresh eyes and mine the stuff in ways you likely never allowed yourself to do before.

It can also provide some really cool nourishment for your character development. 

It's called reframing and it might be useful in your writerly toolbox. 

Now, don't get me wrong, you don't want to write a negative-toned Mary Sue all about your actual life issues; but from looking at anything from a different angle, you can dredge up some new takes on outlooks, instincts, attitudes, what have you.  You can break stale thinking about what is and isn't true so that your characters aren't inadvertant copies of your world view.  (There's nothing wrong with that, but you should strive for variation, IMO.)

Happy Solstice!

Happy Summer Solstice to you all.  We are having lovely sunny 80s weather with 40s nights that cool things off nicely.  I'm loving this Spring and Summer weather here in Northern Maine.  The farmers think it's a tad dry, but the sunshine and warmth for days at a time hasn't been happening for the last seven or eight summers, and I really have missed that.  The one thing about California that I miss is the sunny days in high summer.  Well, I love the Indian Summer in September/October, too.  But in New England, it's very green and very lush and of course that requires rain--which I also like, just not All The Time, lol. :)

Enjoy the day, people.  And do some writing. 

  Image courtesy of the NASA Solar Dynamics Observatorysite.

Know any unpublished UK writers with "counterfactual" novels?

A good blog to follow if you want to know what's happening in the speculative fiction world is Science Fiction Awards Watch.  And they recently mentioned a contest for first-time novelists, the Terry Pratchett Prize.  A counterfactual novel (sometimes called alternate history) is something akin to what Mr. Pratchett does in his Discworld novels--history is other than factual.  Of course, if you have read any of his novels, you understand that counterfactual covers Pratchett's sort of story better! 

Anywhere but here, anywhen but now. Which means we are after stories set on Earth, although it may be an Earth that might have been, or might yet be, one that has gone down a different leg of the famous trousers of time (see the illustration in almost every book about quantum theory).

We will be looking for books set at any time, perhaps today, perhaps in the Rome of today but in a world where 2000 years ago the crowd shouted for Jesus Christ to be spared, or where in 1962, John F Kennedy's game of chicken with the Russians went horribly wrong. It might be one day in the life of an ordinary person. It could be a love story, an old story, a war story, a story set in a world where Leonardo da Vinci turned out to be a lot better at Aeronautics. But it won't be a story about being in an alternate Earth because the people in an alternate Earth don't know that they are; after all, you don't.

But this might just be the start. The wonderful Peter Dickinson once wrote a book that could convince you that flying dragons might have existed on Earth. Perhaps in the seething mass of alternate worlds humanity didn't survive, or never evolved -- but other things did, and they would have seen the world in a different way. The possibilities are literally endless, but remember, it's all on Earth. Maybe the continents will be different and the climate unfamiliar, but the physics will be the same as ours. What goes up must come down, ants are ant-sized because if they were any bigger their legs wouldn't carry them. In short, the story must be theoretically possible on some version of the past, present or future of a planet Earth.

Further details at the link, but the deadline is December 31st, 2010. 

Okay, so I'm having a mental vacation

Or something of that ilk.  I just haven't cared a flip about blogging lately.  Back problems did make sitting at a desk difficult for the better part of a week, but, honestly, we all can see that I've been laggardly about the blogging thing for longer than that.  Or maybe it's due to six weeks with only three days off for a bad back (one of the scheduled days off, drat it) and now two more to follow.  Or perhaps it's that my brain is fried.  Dunno, I have just not cared to blog or read blogs or read much of anything lately.

I managed to write a few posts for the next week, though.  I mean, four years blogging is a lot of posts, when you get them in there pretty much daily.  Or more than. 

Anyhow, see you on the flip side.  We have thundershowers and are likely due to lose the net shortly. 

Happy Father's Day!

Hope all you dads and dad-appreciators out there have a wonderful day.  Moi?  I'll be working.  I did write for a bit last night, though.

I hear you, I know you...sort of

In the animal kingdom, a male's vocalizations are sometimes are tied to actual physical strength. Human men turn out to fit that phenomenon perfectly.  Article, ontd science blog

Well, there you have it: men tell it all when the talk.  And women are still mysterious.

Seriously, this is fascinating.  Not sure yet how it can apply to a novel, but it's one of those little factoids that I can picture my gritty urban fantasy heroine considering when she's listening to a conversation, trying to assess her soon-to-be opponents.  Then, when she pops out to fight, turns out one of them is a scrawny dude with the killer voice and the one with the Tyson dilemma voice is the bruiser. 

Or something like that.  

Found this via  a mention on Facebook...Lilith Saintcrow, I think.  Anyhow, go read it, it's short and interesting.

Scuze me while I recuperate

Sorry for the lack of presence on the blahg of late. Been distracted and had my time sucked up by other things, and now I'e managed--through my own stupidity--wracked my back up and am unable to sit at my desk for long. This happens every year or so and goes away again. It's just one of those things. So I'll write some more posts soon, just not right now!

Additionally, I want to recommend Stacia Kane's "Unholy Ghosts," a terrific urban fantasy. And I don't say that just because she's my friend; it's truly well written and imaginative world building with an unforgettably complicated protagonist and a gripping thrill ride of a problem to solve. I don't think I'm wrong in saying this deserves a nomination for an award.

This will be one I reread. :)

Cool site: Daily Squee

Of course, Cute Overload is the best site for cuteness evahr...but the Daily Squee is pretty amusing as well.

On a personal note, No, I haven't been writing lately.  Shame on me, I know.  I'm presently working six weeks with only one day off in there (happens to be next Saturday) so I'm sort of occupied with getting the summer house and yard stuff accomplished when I get home from work.  And knitting.  I'm finding knitting is making me happy at the moment, more so than reading or writing.  But I have a lengthy to-do list: major things like sealing basement concrete, rewiring the basement, organizing the basement, putting together the flower bed in back (for which I have several plants in pots, sod to dig up, mulch and edging to put in), making my drafting table/art center in the office, general yard work and house upkeep, and doing a 'spring cleaning' of the mudroom and tool room.  And if I'm feeling really energetic, I plan to put in a bunch of landscaping ties and make a bed along the base of the bank that edges my property as well as dig up the sod for a patio behind the house.  (I'm nothing if not overly ambitious.)

On the nose dialog and other issues

"One criticism that is sometimes directed at my stories is that they are too "on the nose." Today, I investigated what that means. 'On the nose,' it turns out, is a screenwriting term for dialog in which the person says exactly what she or he means." Shauna Roberts, from her blog

Have you ever read dialog like that?  Too clear?  Or the dialog just strikes you as unrealistic or stilted, but you don't quite know why that is so.  Here are my thoughts on the most common issues in dialog.

Too clear, e.g. "on the nose."  You miss an opportunity to strengthen your characterization when you have people say exactly what they mean.  And it isn't at all realistic.  People all have limits, places where they are uncomfortable or not forthcoming.  They may be lying to themselves or delibertately lying to the person they are speaking with.  You need to consider the situation and have the character say what is appropriate for them in that situation, with that person(s).  If they are on truth drugs--as Arnold is in True Lies when he tells the torturer he's going to die and by what method--that's the only time when you have the character be 'on the nose!' 

Too spare.  Dialog can also fall short in the area of clarity by not having enough said.  The writer may attempt to be spare and streamline the dialog too much, thus leaving out information that the reader needs for clarity.  And if you don't want the character to say much, the other character may need to call the speaker on it.

The awkward info dump, also known as "As you know, Bob" dialog.  The character is essentially and obviously being used by the author to provide some information to the reader, and the manner in which this is done is too obvious, essentially an awkward info dump masking as speech.  A sample would be something along the lines of, "As you know, Bob, I have a black belt in Karate, so I can easily overcome this villian." 

Dialog tags are there for clarity.  Omitted dialog tags can leave the speaker's identity unclear.  (This is particularly bad when there are three or more people in the conversation.) Sure, you shouldn't have a string of "he said" down the pages, but they are there to keep the conversation clear.  Kudos to the writers who can make it clear who is speaking without frequent tags, but every writer uses this tool when appropriate.

Speech must sound natural--even when it isn't.  Don't make the mistake of thinking that an actual quote of what people say would be good dialog writing.  If you taped a conversation between two people and listened back to it, you would find a lot of non sequitirs, false starts, random thinking sounds or filler words such as 'like,' 'you know,' and 'um.'  The literal transcript, if written down, would be simply awful to read.  In short, your dialog needs to have the feel of real speech but cannot be real speech. 

Pace.  Dialog also reflect the pace of what's going on.  Just as you pick words whose sound and shape--as well as meaning--fits the exchange, you write the dialog to reflect the emotions and action of the scene where it occurs.  Rapid-fire dialog without much in the way of dialog tags or description lends itself to tense or fast-paced scenes.  A more leisurely style of writing lends itself to more cosy scenes. 

Punctuation.  Avoid complex punctuation in dialog, and avoid exclamation points and elipses.  I am a big fan of using all the grammar and punctuation tools available; but it's my firm belief that, generally speaking, the  writer is far better using them in narrative than in speech.  I don't think most dialog looks or feels realistic with elipses, dashes (unless indicating an interruption), semicolons or colons.  Yes, these tools can sometimes work; but unusual punctuation in speech tends to call too much attention to itself, so it's better to avoid that sort of thing if you can. 

Make the dialog do more.  Then there's the most useful thing of all:  Can you make the dialog do double or even triple duty?  Can you make it give background information, stage direction info, characterization, or other useful information to the reader and still sound natural to the readers?  Check out your passages and see if you can remove dialog tags by adding a bit of stage business instead--which both serves to identify the character and give some imagery to the reader (e.g. avoiding the White Room.) Or you can have them comment on something else, say something snarky about the waiter or cuss out another driver and go right back to the main conversation.  The point being to see if there are ways to give the dialog deeper impact.

Hamster wheels

"The world seems to be made up of millions of hamster wheels of all different sizes, and INTERN is deathly afraid of spending her life on the wrong one, or spending it on the little hamster wheels instead of the big ones. Then again, a hamster wheel is still a hamster wheel."  The Intern

I know that feeling.  Especially in my eary 30s, when I was still trying to figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up and life still confused the heck out of me (and before I came to terms with that confusion) I always felt that sense of 'what if I pick the wrong path?'  Now it just is what it is. 

Not sure that's a good thing, though.  A bit of the shiny and wonder has rubbed off of life once I lost the option to pick another path. 

And the winner of "Mind Games" is...

Randomnumber.org provided the number 6, so the winner is ROBERT BABLAK, who didn't leave an email addy.  Robert, please contact me (writtenwyrdd AT live DOT com) with your address and I'll snail mail the book on my next day off, which is (hopefully) still going to be Saturday the 12th. 

Contest deadline is tonight!!!

If you want a chance to win Carolyn Crane's Mind Games, please remember to comment in this post.  Deadline is midnight tonight, or (being realistic) whenever I do the random number generator to pick the lucky person.

Parody of evil?

From my brother, who, if he cared to, could likely write better than I can.

I was poking around the tvtropes.org site (fun to see people make cynical fun of the things you like in a really hilarious way) and I considered this one: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AlwaysChaoticEvil 

It's like, why are the bad guys always 'chaotic evil', even an entire race of evil like Uruk-hai  from LOTR.

In any case, from the guise of sick and twisted humor, I imagined a race of chaotically evil beings who, among other things, speak in a language that is so guttural that they frequently have to spit and occasionally upchuck through their noses when pronouncing certain vowel combinations. Horking up a green one would be like using an exclamation point.

Now, I don't fancy writing parody--and I doubt I could do it well, if at all-- but that is a funny idea.  It reminds me of Bored of the Rings, the Harvard Lampoon parody of The Hobbit.

NSFW - tortise and the...shoe?

Seriously, NOT safe for work.  A hilarious video of a turtle and his new paramour, a shoe.  Crocs, to be specific. Thanks to Betsy Dornbusch (sex scenes at starbucks) for the mention. 

CONTEST!!!

Due to a 'clerical error' on my part*, I have a second copy of Carolyn Crane's Mind Games.  This is a terrific read, which I mentioned briefly in this post. 

To enter, please comment on this post.  I'd appreciate it if you linked to this announcement on Facebook, your blog or elsewhere, but it is NOT a condition for entry.  (I really dislike link-to-me or follow-me requirements.)

Contest closes on Friday night, but I'll take any entries that arrive before I pull a random number from the Random Number Generator on Saturday morning. 

Disclaimer:  The shipping of the prize will take a bit, seeing as I do not have a day off for another couple of weeks and may lose that single day in the kerfluffle of work-related biz that generally eats most of my time in the Summer.

*I double-ordered the book from Amazon, something I manage to do a couple of times per year no matter how careful I think I am.

This'll make you tear up, guaranteed.

Memorial Day commercial. Best thank you to the troops I've seen for Memorial Day, ever. Thanks to Daisy Dexter Dobbs for linking to this.

Scads of joy and a great read!

"I was standing there naked when a dead man sauntered into my bathroom."  Opening line for  Dark & Disorderly, by Bernita Harris.

Due to her kindness, I have scored an advance copy of Dark & Disorderly, Bernita Harris' soon-to-be-released ebook.  Above is the first line, which you have to admit is a brilliant hook.  The whole book is a great read, and what really amazes me is how the nearly-final draft I read some while back is still the same basic writing--but now so smooth that I don't have my brain hitch up on any rocks of distraction.  And, while beta readers and editors provide useful insight and suggestions, it's the author who takes that advice and incorporates it.  So, good work, Bernita! 

Go forth and buy this book, people, so we enourage Bernita to write more.