Writtenwyrdd

"Honest Scrap" meme

Over on her blog, Lynnette Labelle had a meme recently, the Honest Scrap Award. "To receive this gem, I have to tell you ten things about myself and pass it along." 

I thought I'd play this one too, just for yucks and grins.  It's nice to share a little bit sometimes.

1. I'm basically lazy.  Which is probably why I like cats so much.
2. I've never met a "girl hobby" that I didn't like or want to try.  And I'm usually at least competent at them.  On the other hand, I'm fairly competent in household repairs, and I even know how to change the oil in my car, change a tire, and basic maintenance.
3. Re the above, I find that as I've gotten older I have less patience to do tedious hobbies or car maintenance tasks.  And if that's not the case, my eyesight requires more light than a lamp can possibly provide, so they get difficult to do!
4. My favorite food is macaroni and cheese.  Or pizza.  Maybe macaroni pizza?
5. Sometimes, my brother and I are the same age.  But we aren't twins.  (We're 9.5 months apart.)
6. I had a gastric bypass in September.  Most of you know this already as I've overshared tremendously.
7. Re the bypass, I stopped losing weight when I went back on solid food.  They can't explain why. After several weeks, I'm losing again.  Go figure.
8. My favorite color seems to be black.  And I'm not depressed.  But I like pastel greens an awful lot, too.  My least favorite color is pink, and always has been.  I loathe pink anything.
9. My co-worker (who's a motorhead) and I are planning to build me a souped up 70s Pinto.  No kidding.  Mostly for the humor and silliness of it.  Besides, it'll have a 302 engine, jacked up rear end with wide tires, custom interior, cool limeyellow paint and all the racing crap (like roll bar, racing anti-sway bars, etc.)  It'll be hawt!  But don't look for pictures for several years: This little baby's gonna cost! (Yet light car + bigger engine = excellent gas mileage.  So I can commute to work in the summers with it.)
10. My mom is one of my best friends.  (I hear the chorus of "Aaaahs" from here.) :)

And if you feel like playing, let me know or drop a link in the comments!

Book habits meme

Cribbed from Charles Gramlich:

Do you snack while you read? If so, favorite reading snack:
I don't have a favorite snack, but I love to eat while I read (or drink fluids, especially coffee.)  But I have to be cautious lest I get food fingerprints on my pages.  I have done that so many times to so many books (except library books, of which I am very careful).  I've gotten them wet from turning pages while in the tub, stained with red sauce from Italian or Chinese, greasy fingerprints from chips or cheeseburgers...the gamut has visited my pages over the years.  So I've tried to improve my performance by not getting food on books any more.

Do you tend to mark your books as you read, or does the idea of writing in books horrify you?
If it's a reference book, I will make notes and fold page corners.  Unless it is pretty precious like my Encyclopedia of Arms and Armor or my vast collection of mythology (some of which cost as much as a college textbook because that's generally why people buy them.)  Those are kept away from food always and never creased or abused.  They cost too much!

How do you keep your place while reading a book? Bookmark? Dog-ears? Laying the book flat open?
I never fold pages!  Ever!  (With the stated exception of books I actually deface with notes.)  If I have to, I'll occasionally leave them face down briefly (for example to answer the phone or a call from nature--unless  that risks the spine breaking, like with an older mass market paperback).  What I use most of the time are bookmarks.  The best bookmarks are FREE:  Paint chips from your local paint store, hardware store, or Wal*Mart or Target.  Free!  Colorful!  So I have wads of them in rubberbands all over the house.  In the kitchen junk drawer, in my desk, at work...

Fiction, nonfiction, or both?
These days, 99% fiction--99% of that 99% being speculative fiction.  Urban fantasy seems to be the top read of the moment, too, although I'm segueing into classic horror and some classic sf I've missed along the way.  I used to read a lot of spiritual stuff and some non fictiony self-help reads alongside of the regular reading, but I have so many books in the TBR pile that I'm focusing on the fiction.

Are you a person who tends to read to the end of a chapter, or can you stop anywhere?
I can stop anywhere...if I can stop at all.  Which is why I absolutely do NOT read in bed unless I'm willing to go to work with less than four hours of sleep!

If you come across an unfamiliar word, do you stop and look it up right away?
Occasionally.  Depends upon 1) is there a dictionary handy at the moment; 2) if I'm feeling lazy; and 3) can I get the gist pretty much from context. 

What are you currently reading?
I have a good dozen-or-three books which I've started and abandoned for finishing later, but what I am working on right now are "Chasing the Dragon," by Justina Robson; "Intertwined," by Gena Showalter; "Retribution," (an Anna Strong novel) by Jeanne C. Stein; and "Storm Glass," by Maria Snyder.  There are a few more, but those are the ones I'm dragging around with me at the moment.

What is the last book you bought?
Um, dare I confess I just bought about twenty books via Amazon?  See, I was buying Christmas presents and there were all these books I wanted, too...  But the absolute last one on the order list is "Crash Deluxe," Book 3 of the Paris Plessis series by Marianne de Pierres, which I ordered used as it's out of print. 

Are you the type of person that reads one book at a time, or can you read more than one?
As you can see above, I jump about somewhat.  The newest and shiniest arrivals derail me from books that aren't feeding the particular reading need of the moment.  I do get back to them...eventually...but I reserve the right to read whatever takes my fancy.

Do you have a favorite time/place to read?
I read all the time, anyplace.  But I like to be comfortable.  Which  means being warm and seated so my back and arthritic hip and knees don't hurt.  Providing a lap for a huge lapwarming cat is also a plus!  Another favorite reading moment is when I'm driving someplace.  I developed this odd love of sitting in my car and reading.  I used to do it on lunch hours when I lived and worked in the SF Bay Area, and I'd buy a coffee or soda and sit in my car and read for my lunch break.  And it still gives me a sense of peace that's pretty funny, when you think about it!

Do you prefer series books or stand alones?
I like a good standalone ("Sunshine," by Robin McKinley is a prime example) but the good ones always leave me hankering for seconds.  So, yes, series do make me happy.  At least they do until it becomes overworked and tired.  I think Laurel K.  Hamilton's Anita Blake series hit that overwrought stage, but yet Robert Jordan's massive Wheel of Time series, Simon Green's Nightside series, and Jim Butcher's Dresden Files are all still going strong.  

Is there a specific book or author you find yourself recommending over and over?
I always have good things to say about Gene Wolfe's Urth of the New Sun series, as well as Michelle Sagara West's Elantra Chronicles.  There are others, of course, that are classics like the Earthsea books, the Narnia series, the Dune series, etc.  But those are the sorts of reads that are rather synonymous with the genre and don't need me to tout them here!

How do you organize your books?(by genre, title, author’s last name, etc.)
I am a very eclectic organizer.  First, I like my favs for rereading close to hand and easy to find.  Second, I keep the rest of the spec fic all together, and separate mysteries, romances and reference books of whatever flavor into their own respective categories (as much as shelving limitations allow).  Then I try to organize by size.  I am odd in that I cannot stand to have trade paperbacks shelved with mass market paperbacks...it's just messy!  But it's okay to have hardbacks with either if they are of near or equal size.  (So it naturally irks the heck out of me when I buy a used book online and discover it's a hardback or a different format than the books I already own in a series!)  But I only alphabetize by author name in the speculative fiction shelving.  There are so many in that category I have to alpabetize or I cannot find anything when I want it.  For the rest of the stuff, I either organize by author or type of book.  Poetry, for example, is small enough I can org by author and not worry about alphabetizing. Same with my mythology texts.  And the mysteries and romances are sort of catch-as-catch can in their group-by-topi-then-author ghettos.  Well, except for Georgette Heyer.  She stands alone.  And I have all her books.

Are you well enough read?

A few days ago, Charles Gramlich shared a meme: a list of books that the BBC believes everyone should read but which perhaps the average person has only read six. 

You can play along in the comments or repost. 

1) Look at the list and put an ‘X’ after those you have read.
2) Tally your total at the bottom.
3) Tag a few people you think would enjoy sharing similar information about their book interests.


I'm not going to tag anyone, but play along if you want to.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen X
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien X
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte X
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling X
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible X (bits...in college)
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte X (truly an awful book)
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell X
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman X
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens X (several times)
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott X
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy (I think so?)
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller X (One of the funniest books ever written)
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare X (most of them)
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier (not sure)
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien X
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger  (attempted it and quit)
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot (not sure, maybe in college)
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald X
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams X
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky X (being forced to read this was a crime and punishment!)
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck X
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll X
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame X
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens X
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis X (many, many rereads)
34 Emma - Jane Austen  X
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen  X
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis X
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini X (in the tbr pile)
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne X
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell X
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown X (bleh.)
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood (been meaning to ever since the movie came out)
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding X (this is the reason I hate Survivor and similar shows.)
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel  X (I quit in the middle, this was unreadable to me)
52 Dune - Frank Herbert X
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen X
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens X
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley X
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon X (A wonderful book!)
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck X
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov (I think so, but I'm not sure)
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold X (another great book)
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy X (I think I read this one, anyhow.)
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville X (the first book I ever checked out of the library...at five)
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens X
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker X
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett X
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce (tried and quit)
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens X
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchel
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert (not sure, I think I read it in college, though)
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White X
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom (in the tbr pile)
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle X (Some of them)
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery X
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams X
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas X
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare X
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl X
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo (I quit early on.  This is almost as bad as attempting War & Peace.)

I've read 47 of these 100 books with a couple more in the to-be-read pile and a couple more that I started and quit reading because I loathed them.  In fact, some of the half-read books are the reason for my distaste for classic literature. 

Fabulous Four meme

Charles Gramlich has a "four play" meme on his blog (posted Wednesday) and I, feeling bored, decided today I'd waste some time oversharing with you all.  Please consider yourself tagged if you want to be.

Four Movies You Can See Over and Over
Mama Mia
My Name Is Nobody
Star Wars
Young Frankenstein

Four Places You Have Lived
San Francisco, CA
Salt Lake City, UT
Greenfield, MA
Schofield Barracks, Oahu, HI
(In total, I've lived in ten states:  CA, HI, UT, NH, ME, VT, MA, WA, TX & AR.) 

Four TV Shows You Love to Watch
Dead Like Me
Dexter
X Files
American Idol

Four Places You Have Been on a Vacation
London, UK
Paris, France
New Orleans, LA
Sedona, AZ
(Several road trips across the US have taken me to a number of tourist spots over the years.  I've visited innumerable houses of kitch and things like the World's Largest Axe, which is an hour drive from my house in New Brunswick.)

Four of your favorite foods
Really good artisan bread, particularly if there are garlic and olives baked in;
Pad Thai
Carne Asada burritos from La Cumbre's in San Francisco
Red beans and rice, properly seasoned.

Four Websites You Visit Daily
ditto: everyone on my Google Reader who post every day. You know who you are.
Cute Overload
Wunderground (for the weather)
My own blog, to check the comments.  (Is that narcissistic or what?)

Four Places You Would Rather Be
Sedona, AZ
San Francisco, CA
New Orleans, LA
In a secluded cabin near a lake here in Maine

Four Things You Hope to Do Before You Die
Publish four best sellers, of course!

Four Novels You Wish You Were Reading for the First Time
There are so many good ones!  I think I'd have to say 2001 A Space Odyssey and Moon of Three Rings, because those two books were seminal in making me a science fiction hound; and for a followup pair probably the Deed of Paksinarrion by Elizabeth Moon (all 3 volumes), and Patricia McKillip's Riddle of Stars trilogy.  But there are so many good books!  Hundreds that gave me that feeling of wow! and me not wanting to leave that world, ever.

*blushes*

From Aerin at In Search of Giants, an award.  Thank you, Aerin, I am sincerely flattered.  Sometimes when you blather on about a topic enough you begin to wonder if you are just spouting off like the pontificating wind bag that you know yourself to be.  (I am decidedly a windbag; I recognize this with a perverse lack of humility.)  But it's nice to discover that you can actually be interesting, too...at least some of the time!

The rules are

1) Add the logo of the award to your blog
2) Add a link to the person who awarded it to you
3) Nominate at least 7 other blogs
4) Add links to those blogs on your blog
5) Leave a message for your nominees on their blogs!

So, in the interest of sharing the lurv, I nominate

• Charles Gramlich (for many great posts on writing, good books and life in general),
• Bernita Harris (for being Bernita.  I hope you come back to blogging soon lady),
• Whirlochre (you wacky feller),
• Kiersten (our Left Coast Whirl),
• Ellen Oh (for enthusiasm and saying hard things about racism),
• Bevie James (for several cool blogs and the wacky idea to start and play ringleader for the League of On-Line Superheroes),
• Betsy (I'd say it was for the blog title that got banned by my work filters but it's really because she writes awesome posts about writing.  Plus I like to hear about her kick ass snowboarding adventures.  Sorry about the knee.)
• And an eighth one for all the rest of you on my sidebar link list.  You wouldn't be there if I didn't love ya! 

80s photo

Robin S. Posted a photo from the 80s.  I thought it was hilarious (our clothing taste was so bad in the 80s, worse than the 70s in some ways, although the prints weren't nearly as hideous) so here's me and Then Hubs.  That blouse! Scarf-for-a-collar AND Leg-o-mutton sleeves!  Yoikes!

Post something of yourself should you have a notion.  Really.  I promise I won't laugh.  Much.

Kreativ Blogger

Sherri of Sherri Blossoms has passed on to me an award along with an accompanying meme.  Thanks, ma'am!  *blushes*  It is nice to get kudos, isn't it?  There's a lovely little graphic to go with the award, but I'm unable to get it to post at the moment.  You can get it at Sherri's blog via the above link, however.  (I'll try to get it up later on.)

The commandments are to 1) pass this award along to 7 creative bloggers; 2) list six things that inspire your creativity; 3) link to the person who provided the award; and 4) comment on the blog of the folks you awarded the Kreativ Blogger Award to let them know--because, presumably, they are not psychic. 

So, 6 things that inspire my creativity:

Reading.  I have to list that first, because it is so much an inspiration for me.  Whether it's a good or a flawed read, I can usually feel awesome inspiration from the reading process.  I suppose it's because I'm reading both as a reader and a writer, and when reading as a writer, it inspires me with ideas.  And then there's reading non-fiction, such as scientific rags.  Those provide me with endless idea fodder.  You see the results in my ideas posts.

Music--with headphones.  The right mood music can inspire me with a mood I want to create.  Or just distract me from the exterior world.  But the headphones are required or I can't zone out with music.

Critiquing.  By belonging to a critique group, I keep my eye focused on deadlines (e.g. I need to post my own offerings on a regular basis) and I keep learning about the writing craft.  Sites like Evil Editor's also are really valuable for that, as well.

Office Space.  Having a space that's set aside for writing helps, so long as I make myself go there and apply the butt in chair method.

Writing and blogging buddies.  Seeing other's thoughts on writing keeps me thinking about writing.  But I have to watch it lest I let the blogging feel like the writing, and not let blogging satisfy the urge to write and create.

Creative activities of any sort.  Whether it be sewing, painting, beading, cleaning the house or one of my endless home projects, any sort of creative activity inspires the general urge to create.  And that's a good thing.

And, without checking to see if these folks are already tagged, I shall nominate (in no particular order) the following as Kreativ Bloggers:

Whirlochre, for his very akilter view of the world.  Plus a remarkable pair of legs in a kilt. And a plummy speaking voice.
Bernita Harris, for her lyrical voice and gentle wisdom.  I do not expect her to respond to this, being as her life is in disorder at the moment; but she truly deserves it.
Charles Gramlich, a prolific writer and blogger and all around interesting guy. 
December Quinn/Stacia Kane for her great tips on getting published
Sex Scenes at Starbucks aka Betsy Dornbusch (see sidebar for link) for her entertaining and informative posts;
William Hammett for his three entertaining blogs, particularly Publexicon

And, yes, that's only six.  I don't want to totally exclude all of you I follow, because I love you all; so award yourselves this Kreativ Blogger award if you want it. ;)

Random wierd factoids

Someone (I think laughingwolf) tagged me again for the six things about me meme.  As I have done it before, I didn't think I have anything wierd to add.  So I decided to mention some true things that no one would believe, but which I personally know to be true. 

1. My mother tested one of the first computer mice.  Not sure where exactly they were in the development process, but she had a job at Fairchild (I believe that was the company) in the drafting department, where she used this drafting tool called a mouse to draw out schematics for the silicon chips they were developing.  Because she was pretty good with that, they had her try out this mouse thingy that was in development for a computer system.  She says she sucked at it, lol!
2. Missing time.  I've had an episode once that I know of.  I wasn't alone, and we met up with the people we were meeting for supper about an hour late--and both of our watches were off by that exact amount of time.  We only remembered our car sliding on ice and nearly going over a cliff, then getting back on the road to head to the restaurant. 
3. I have a third nipple.  Just kidding.  I do have three piercings in one ear and one in the other though.  Some form of 90s earring imbalance fetish struck my brain, I think.  It seemed like a good idea at the time. 
4. I have an invisible tatoo.  Okay, it's visible if you see me naked.  But since no one but my doctor ever does, it's invisible 99.9% of the time, lol.  It's a tantric symbol on a chakra point at the base of my spine.  Another 90s inspiration.  Blame the New Age movement.  It hurt.  A lot.  [But did you know you can get an invisible or 'blush' tatoo?  Yep.  They use white ink, and, if you're caucasian, it's basically undetectable unless you are tanned or blush.]
5. I almost died from hives once.  Ever seen photos of elephantitus?  I looked exactly like that except for the 1/4" raised rash like a map with really ugly pinky-red continents.  Some sort of reaction to my own changing hormones as a pre-teen, they figured.

And that's all you get because that's all I can think of!  Hope it satisfies any curiosity you may have left about me.  Unless it's prurient; that'll be dealt with in another post.  Not.

Where were you when?

Let's start another photo meme.   Post a grade school picture. 

Me in 4th grade:

And on the house front, I'm getting more broke by the second...  Cleared my sheds (mostly) into a storage unit today.  Supposed to get 3 inches of snow.  Just in freaking time. 

Six Random Things

Naughty freddie tagged me for this meme.  I am avoiding writing at the moment so I shall respond.

1. I will never give up coffee even if it kills me.  Past experience with an ulcer being proof.
2. I'm allergic to cypress tree pollen.  That seems to translate to cedar pollen up here in the Great White North.
3. I have huge feet.  Not just for my height (which used to be 5'8" before age shrinkage) but for any woman.  I have size 10-1/2 wide feet. That's a men's 9-1/2 shoe usually, just so you know. I've always wanted smaller feet.
4. I don't have a favorite food, I have a favorite texture.  I like chewy, squishy foods like bagels, brownies, mac & cheese, pizza, a good burger, even chewing gum.   
5. Nearly all my dreams have running water in them.  (Might have something to do with the gallon of water daily, but as I never need to get up to go in the middle of the night, who knows?)
6. The only bones I've broken are my tailbone (Slipped in a jr. high shower.  8 weeks of horrid, near black out pain every time I sat or stood up) and my ankle from being dislocated, because you don't really dislocate an ankle, it has to break to turn your foot pointing backwards.  (A horrible sight).  UPDATE:  I just realized I lied. I forgot (silly me) about fracturing on of the vertebrae in my back while making a rock wall.  It didn't hurt so much as it worsened my arthritis. 

Page 56 - a meme

Yes, another meme, this one via Mom-in-Scrubs from Travis.  The original idea was to open the current read and take 2-5 lines from page 56.  However, in my meme challenge, I say take 2-5 lines from the first project you've written with 56 or more pages in it. 

For your reading pleasure, here's something from the old trunk novel, Ellie and the Vampire (and, yes, it's more than 2-5 lines):

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Tacky of them," Jack replied, coming to the window and squinting at the too-bright day.  Their slightly cooler body temperatures gave away several of their watchers, positioned to observe both the suite's windows and the two hotel entrances.  These would be Piccoli halflings, mostly, those that could stand the daylight best.  How many others were like Jack, streghezze with a "normal" temperature, mostly indifferent to sunlight, was impossible to know.  Barrista had its share of those who had not received the Rites yet, some fostered, some a product of their aggressive search for brood stock among the human population.

Jack looked to his guardian.  "Of course, I had not anticipated that Marissa or her people would have been spying on us last night, or I would have behaved differently."

"Then you were not thinking.  You know her agenda."

"When she is finally Capo, she will give that up."

"She will never be made Capo.  The Council has rejected her suit, you know this.  The woman could be a monster of power, not just a streghezze child, and they would not consider her claim to Barrista.  She's a woman."

Jack nodded.  "Almost I wish the Capi would give it to her so she would leave me alone.  There's no doubt she wants to maneuver herself into power behind the throne now."

Carlo turned from the window, looked at Jack like a stupid child over the rims of the sunglasses.  "And what makes you think that marriage to you is her only reason to pursue you?  Jack, she bedded you before, and had your child.  Of all the fertile streghezze, you are the most powerful.  She knows the potential is there for a son to be her father's heir so long as your cock still works." Carlo made the crude fist-upward gesture that came from the Old Country.  "That would be more her style, don't you think?"

Jack pursed his lips, but refused to quite smile.  He sucked in a breath and shook his head, blew it back out.  I am not sighing, he decided.  And he was not in complete agreement with his knowledgeable uncle, either.  There was also the probability that Marissa, aiming for high, would have an alternate plan… As his Sire had mentioned, she was Rothschild's disciple. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So, you want to take the challenge?  I am going to tag Whirlochre (for revenge), Kiersten, Charles Gramlich, and whomever else wants to play.  Or, you can do the meme as originally proposed.

I have no spine, apparently

Memesville via Whirlochre.  (Why do I succumb to such things?  Must be that I was that kid who never fit in.  Now you know my deepest secret:  I will do practically anything to belong to the "in" group!  Nah.  Not really.  Although I really was the kid picked last and picked on.)

1.  What do you do before bedtime?
Brush my teeth and program the television so I don't end up being programmed by infomercials all night.

2.  What is  your favorite sound?
I'm rather fond of the liquid sounds of jazz music.  It's great background noise. I hear too much in quiet, clicks and hums and the tones in my ears and they are very distracting when I'm trying to write!  I also like white noise.  I sleep to that (and the tv) every night because of the CPAP machine I have to use for sleep apnea.

3.  What were your childhood fears?
Oddly, I can't think of any long lived fears.  I used to wake and think that any shadows were really monsters, but got over that when I was about seven.

4.  What place have you visited that you can't forget and want to go back?
I spent a week holed up in the Samoset Resort in Rockport Maine a couple of years ago, and I want to go back and do it again.  A solid week of nothing but writing, long walks on the beach, and solitude.  (So sue me, I'm a loner.)

5.  What has made you unhappy these days?
Office politics, specifically management are a bunch of headless chickens and idiot yes men.  Pretty much the rest of my life is good.

6.  What websites do you visit daily?
Evil Editor for sure.  I try to get to everybody in my Places I Like To Visit sidebar regularly.

7.  What kind of person do you think the person who tagged you is?
Whirlochre has a unique mind that looks at the world from an odd angle.  And he's funny. 

8.  What's the last song that got stuck in your head?
You know, that one that goes dum-da-boop-dum, it was what's-their-names' anthem in the 80s...or was it the 70s?  (Jeez, expect me to remember?  I'm always humming snatches of song that pop into my head.)

9.   What is your favorite item of clothing? 
My Crocs, which are convenient and comfy even if they look like warty rhino 'tocks.  I don't think about clothes much because I have a work uniform and I don't get out much except in tees and jeans. 

10. What is your dream for the future?
Retirement with lots of money so I can write full time and maybe finish some of the novels I've started.

So now you all know.

Let the embarrasment begin! (A meme)

I threatened some while back to share some of my childhood scribbling.  I dug out my journal from 1977.

And I tag ALL OF YOU to share at least a few hundred words of something you wrote when you were a kid.  Anything, so long as you do NOT edit!

Okay, here goes, about 330 words of pure drivel.  It's--ta da!--my oldest science fiction story, never (thankfully) finished.  I recycled the character and the general idea into something else, though.

Kanda too felt the heat, even in the shade before Ali Benhana's Exotic Emporium.  She rattled her wrist chains, feeling them slip against the sweaty flesh beneath, thinking of the several methods she could use to rid herself of them.  Pointless, since a slave was conspicuous on Witchblood.  Unless there was a way to get some clothing the synmu couldn't walk across the square without being accosted.  Nude exotic females in the central square were slaves, and exotics were always valuable enough for a reward at their return...

Human nature often had a way of irritating Kanda, especially when it worked against her; she kicked the dirt in pique, jerking the chain linking her ankles.  The sound and movement caught the attention fo the guard, sitting on a stool against the 'dobe wall of the shop, wide-angle paralysis rifle suddenly trained on her.  The fat, turbaned Ali Benhana, the synmu's erstwhile [ed. ack! I didn't know what this word meant back then, obviously! I thought it meant 'supposed'!] also looked up from his game of cherkha, an almost pained expression on his sweat-polished face.

The girl read the reactions from face and b ody, carefully avoiding the use of esper as she quieted down again.  Things would be worse if that talent was known, too.  As it was, the girl had already exposed her self-sufficiency and the slight consolation she allowed herself at the other's fear and worry was little.  She had not planned on being taken to the slave market when on the pirate ship Shennanigan; Kanda had only wanted to escape the physical violations of rape.  Now, however, she was a known fighter , a troublemaker; hobbled and even a little humbled because of her stupidity, Kanda was now on Witchblood. She should have expected it, for this synmu body was technically that of an exotic mutant, and hence highly prized and valuable, not to mention noticeable.

This was why Kanda was angered by human nature; she hadn't included greed as a factor until too late.

Truly mortifying stuff, this.  You may now laugh.  But I did eventually learn to write somewhat better than this.  So much to blush at:  The smeerp of cherkha (checkers derivative); the goofy names of Witchblood, Ali Benhana (I was picturing some Arabic style open market, thus it had to be an Arabic name, so stupid); and later on you learn the money is Italian-derivative fiorinetti, which is from florins.  *eye roll*  Such a paucity of elegance, such stilted speech, such overdependence upon multisyllabic verbiage!  I could cringe, but I'm laughing instead.  When I wrote it, I thought this was good!  ROFL!  Still, the synmu idea is pretty good and I've reused it.

Meme: About the writer

This meme's been floating about the blogosphere, and I figured why not?  Nothing more entertaining on a dull Saturday afternoon of writing avoidance than to contemplate my navel lint and answer a few questions about my writing and reading.  Feel free to comment or to post your own answers.  Consider yourself tagged if you want to be.

Your genre(s)?  Speculative fiction, but primarily dark fantasy. 

 

How many books are you working on now?  I have three that I am presently wasting time on focusing on, but actually have a dozen serious contenders for bookdom in the works.  One erotic paranormal, two dark fantasies, two epic fantasies from a five book arc, a mythic fantasy, a vampire romance, three sf novels, a chick-littish paranormal romance, and a science fantasy.  (And I actually do jump around from one to another according to mood--until I get another new idea.)  You can see my problem...

 

Are you a linear or chunk writer?  Chunky monkey all the way.  Although I will pause after I discover the story and draft out a vague outline.

 

The POV you’re partial to?  First person is my fav, followed closely by third person with a close-in perspective.

 

The theme that keeps cropping up in your books?  Hard to say…I think it seems to be self-sacrifice, in a sense.  But the sweeping I-must-do-this-or-bad-things-will-happen variety of self-sacrifice, that potential for great individual loss with the greater reward of saving something the character deems worth saving.  That winning isn’t everything, but trying for something important is a valuable effort.  So, yeah, it’s basically self-sacrifice.

 

How many days a week do you write?  Lately, not a whole lot.  Been busy with exterior world stuff.  But when I’m in full-on writing mode, I tend to write in big gulps of time to the exclusion of all else.  Most of the time I can write a few hours a couple times a week.

 

What time of day do you get your best writing done?  Usually early, early morning hours—and it doesn’t seem to matter from which end I approach ‘em.  Either stay up late and get started (after an appropriate nap is helpful); or get up before the crack o’ dawn and write in the early morning quiet. 

 

Who are your mentors?  I don’t feel I’ve had any mentors per se, with the exception of my high school English teacher, Barbara G., who is still mad at me for not becoming an English teacher, too.  She actually paid for an English AP test for me to prove that I could pass it cold without the AP class.  I did. 

 

My favorite authors to read?  That varies according to mood and fashion, lol.  Seriously, some things I read a half dozen times make me nauseous now (Elizabeth Moon, Jo Clayton, the Narnia books).  General favorites include Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman, Frank Herbert, Ursula K. LeGuin, Gene Wolfe, Katie McAlister, Lois McMaster Bujold, Laurel K. Hamilton (until about five years ago, anyhow), Patricia Briggs, Patricia McKillip, Guy Gavriel Kay, Judith Tarr, Anne McCaffer, Larry Niven, Poul Anderson, Roger Zelazny, Robin McKinley…and a cast of thousands.  Okay, hundreds.  Seriously.

Specific favorites (I added this one)
Humor:  Terry Pratchett.  
Style in general:  Gene Wolfe for fantasy, Frank Herbert for sf.  Leguin for plot.  McKinley for just plain damn ability to cross genre in her writing (no two projects of hers are alike!)
Mythic: Charles deLindt in general, or Ursula K. Leguin’s Earthsea.
Paranormal romance: the Aisling Grey series by Katie McAlister.  
Science fantasy: McCaffery’s Pern series.
Fantasy:  P.C. Hodgell's Kencraith books, The Elantra Chronicles by Michelle Sagara, Patricia McKillip's Riddlemaster of Hed, Fionavar Tapestry by Guy Gavriel Kay,  Avaryan Rising series by Judith Tarr,  and ALL Robin McKinley's books. 
SF:  The Wes’har series by Karen Traviss, Frank Herbert's books. 
Military SF:  The Honor Harrington series, Bujold’s Vorkosigan series (also for humor).
Vampires, Werewolves & Things That Go Bump In The Night:  Anne Rice, Patricia Briggs’ Mercy Thompson series.

Wyrdd's desk

There's a new meme going around, and Sex Scenes At Starbucks has aimed at me and a few others.  The challenge? A photo of your desk. 

What the hell, I say.  I'm not up for really writing anything pithy today, seeing as I have to get all the yard work done that is yet unfinished.  (That would be the weed whacking with the trimmer, digging a walkway from the side porch, laying mulch on the beds I've just weeded, and finishing the last bit of edging.  Order of necessity listed in reverse for some reason.)

Anyhow.  This is my desk.  See how neat and clean it is?  That's because I usually don't work here.  It's in my bedroom.  The coffee pot is too far away!  Notice the signature picture of the California Poppies?  My brother has the original so all I have is a photo I took of it a few years ago. 
 












And this is my most-of-the-time workspace, otherwise known as the kitchen table.  I did clean it up for you guys, seeing as the table was loaded with all my work gear at the time and I must keep my secret identity for no particular reason, lol.  Visible to the left, the unfinished wainscoting project begun a year ago last January.  I'm finishing that this June during vacation. 

Such excitement.  Now you know all about me, even my desktop on the laptop on the workspace in the cluttered house... (It does begin to sound like a children's book, doesn't it?)

I shall Meme thee...

"I think a lot of people writing first novels are telling stories that they need to tell themselves," she says. "It's a personal, cathartic, therapeutic endeavor that they're embarked on, making sense of the chaos inside them by organizing it on these pages. But that's not what a novel is. ... You have to be somewhat removed."  Lisa Lerner, author of Just Like Beauty

I've been tagged for a meme.  Thanks, blogless.  So much.

The meme and the rules.
1. The rules of the game get posted at the beginning.
2. Each player answers the questions about themselves.
3. At the end of the post, the player then tags 5-6 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read the player’s blog.
4. Let the person who tagged you know when you’ve posted your answer.

The Qs.
What were you doing ten years ago?
Quitting my job and moving across country to New England from San Francisco with my two cats and all my worldly belongings in my sedan.  My only plans were that I would be staying with my best friend in Western Mass. until I got settled.  I got a job I'd been hoping for in Maine and the rest is history.

What are five things on your to-do list for today?
Finish a short story, write a couple blog posts, finish reading Katie MacAlister’s Playing With Fire, get to work and get home again without hitting that crazy yearling moose that keeps leaping in front of the SUV.

What are some snacks you enjoy?
Cheese, anything but American cheese/Velveeta/Cheeze Whiz gook.  Pastries.  Chocolate.  Chocolate.  Chocolate.  Chocolate.  And coffee with cream and possibly chocolate flavoring.

What would you do if you were a billionaire?
Immediately quit my job and travel around the world.  In the meantime, my house would be gutted and redone, foundation up.  Then I’d start on the landscaping.  My writing would likely suffer greatly for a while as I goofed off, then I’d get my head back together and get back to writing.

What are three of your bad habits?
Say the wrong thing and piss people off unintentionally.  Eat too much.  Complain loudly and long to anyone within earshot when I've got a bug up my ass.

What are five places where you have lived?
Oahu, Hawaii; San Francisco, California; Salt Lake City, Utah; San Antonio, Texas; Durham, New Hampshire.  Currently, I reside in Maine, location undisclosed to protect the guilty.

What are five jobs you have had?
In no particular order:  I was an MP dog handler (in the Army), a janitor (college work-study), an HR/Personnel manager, a burger flipper at Burger King (my first job), and law enforcement.  I am looking forward to retirement as my favorite job, which is unfortunately far in the future so I can only speculate. My present job I shall keep quiet about.

What were the last five books you read?
Playing With Fire by Katie MacAllister; Tempting Danger and Mortal Danger by Eileen Wilkes (both rereads), Magic Bites (reread) and Magic Burns by Kate Daniels; and about fifteen other books which I’ve started in the past few weeks and not finished, including King Rat by China Melville.

What’s playing on your iPod right now?
Hah!  I’ll probably never own one!  But I do have over 250 CDs on the laptop…

What five people do you want to tag?
I won’t share the pain.  But if you want to answer the questions, tell us in the comments, either adding a link or just answering them here. 

And I'm adding a question:  What are your five favorite alcoholic (or bad for you) beverages by order of preference?
I love Irish Coffees, Corona with lime on a hot summer day, Iced coffee, rum & Diet Coke, and Club Soda.  And I prefer most drinks room temperature/without ice unless it's over ninety outside.

And now you all know more about me than you ever needed to!

Semi-narcissistic photo challenge: A Meme, dammit!

Don't forget my challenge, gang.  Post a picture of yourself from your youth.  Or a while back.  Or grade school.  Or just when you looked damn hot.  It'll be fun.  And you guys can look at each other's pictures and think we all look like those young hotties still.  Maybe some of y'all do.  But we'll keep to the mystery.  If you prefer, send me a link or post one in the comments.  I can even add a page with pictures, something like, "bloggers then and now" or whatnot.

UPDATE (part deux):  First, I'm pulling my photos from this post because it's too long (and feels a bit too narcissistic to post 'em twice!).  go see them at the original post here.  But you can have these (2 yrs and several months) instead:

Paca has photos of himself here (LOTS of cute kid pictures) and Bernita has one of herself in days gone by, showing that the lovely lady in her headshot looks exactly freaking the same now as when she was a youngster--except with silvery hair.  And Jaye Wells has her kid picture here (and also at League of Reluctant Adults blog.)

And the rest of you (especially Charles) I dare ya:  A baby photo. High school graduation.  You with a bag photoshopped over your head.

A few random thoughts...

• What if you were randomly dropped into an alternate reality-- be it past, future, alternate Earth, or alien??  There is no going back.  Ever.  How do you carve a new place for yourself?
• A talking cat/alien looking like a cat is an old trope.  But my cats always did seem like demons in fur jackets to me.  What if they are??
• Robert Anton Wilson managed to explain and tie together pretty much every current conspiracy theory (and create new ones, too) in his Illuminatus Trilogy.  He even tied Nazis, the Loch Ness Monster and (if memory serves) Captain Nemo.  What elements of currently popular conspiracy theories (Bigfoot, Creation Science, Chupacabra, lizardmen who along with Jews are taking over the world [a la the really out-there David Icke]) can you cobble together into a story?
• Science fiction technology that wouldn't work.  Fodder for spoof.
• What if matter had sentience, and every planet has its own personality?
• What if the act of entering another universe changes the traveller?  An unpredictable combination of two universes' physical laws...and sometimes unpredictably new results.  Can you say...superpowers?  Godhood?
• Every little child imagines, at one time or another, that he/she is really someone else, someone more special (like a princess or a superhero).  What if that turns out to be true?  (We've seen this one so often, but it is sooo evocative...)

Take the time out to list some what ifs for yourself.  It's interesting.  And be sure to practice asking these sorts of questions as you write.  That's where it's really beneficial.