What women want
A random memory of an odd little woman made me realize something about my work in progress: I’ve never once asked myself what my heroine wants from a relationship. Guess I’d better think about that, eh?
I’ll return to Lori (my heroine) in a moment. Here’s the odd little woman:
She was in the College of Chemistry with us at Berkeley. Hong Kong Chinese, upper class British accent, tinier even than my wife, and skinnier, too. If you’d passed her on the street, you would assume she was a sixth- or seventh-grader. Not that any of that is relevant, but it did make her a memorable character. But what really stuck in my mind was a conversation I had with her during one of our chem labs.
Now available as cover model for were-hobbit romance
The Bitches have posted the amateur entries for their cover art contest. I’m in awe of the talent here — my own attempts at snarky (and arachnophilic) cover art seem so lame by comparison. (Still . . . I think Sex at Seven, Dinner at Eight rates as Best Spider Romance Title worldwide.)
Gurta Belle McWanker’s Stalking the Savage Were-Hobbit would have won my vote, were it not for the male cover model’s obvious non-hobbitiness. Gurta, call me. My rates are reasonable. And Ms. Pussi McSavage? Any time you need a cover model in goofy glasses who’s up for a nipple massage, I’m your man. I’ll even shave my chest.
But there may be a scheduling problem, since the hair has to stay on for my were-hobbit photo sessions.
D.
The things you learn . . .
While googling “insomnia cure,” I found this IMDB page on a movie entitled, “The Cure for Insomnia”:
This film is basically an experiment designed to reprogram biological clocks for insomniacs so they can sleep again. L.D. Groban reads his own poem during the span of about four days, which is interspliced with stock footage of heavy-metal videos and x-rated footage.
You read that correctly. About four days. Lest there be no misunderstanding,
This is the longest movie ever made at a total running time of 87 hours. It premiered in its entirety at The School Of The Art Institute in Chicago, Illinois from 31 January to 3 February 1987 in one continuous showing.
One viewer’s thumbs-up vote:
check it out next time u have 85 hours to your self
I think I’ll sleep well tonight, but I can never be sure until ten or fifteen minutes after lights-out. That’s when the fatigue of the day either takes hold or mysteriously vanishes. As I mentioned in a previous post, drugs help (my usual cocktail: melatonin plus half a benadryl). Exercise helps. Sex helps. Nothing works 100% of the time.
What works for you?
D.
Dish from an insider
Over at DailyKos, Swordsmith dishes on publishing. Who’s that, you ask?
A bit of background: I’m the author of nine published books and a former NYC editor, who still does a fair amount of work for various publishing firms. I teach writing and book publishing at the university level, and remain tied into the publishing world (particularly science fiction and fantasy) on various levels. I’ve written and edited both fiction and nonfiction, and I’ll talk about both in this series.
The series thus far:
Part 1 – Why bad things happen to good books.
Part 2 – Avoiding publishing scams.
Part 3 – Literary Conventions (with an emphasis of SF Conventions)
Part 4 – Book Packagers.
Good stuff.
D.
Two quick questions
What’s your favorite and/or the best eBook reader?
Can I load a pdf onto an eBook reader?
Thanks!
D.
Our Basket Case winner is . . .
jmc, if you want Basket Case, please email me (azureus at harborside dot com) with your snail mail addie, and I’ll take care of it tomorrow. If you don’t want it, let me know in the comments, and I’ll choose a different winner.
In honor of jmc, I’m gonna do her meme.
Prevailing wisdom
I’ve decided the only way to ensure a windless day at the beach is to bring a kite.
Yes, we had another warm, clear weekend, so I convinced the boy that he needed to get some sunshine. Off with the shoes and socks, off with the tee shirts (we don’t get to do that very often around here), and into the water — knee-deep, anyway.
Here’s my flickr image for the week. The magic number is 4416:
My kind of gal
Did you ever get the feeling your priorities were all wrong?
Girl swallows three-foot balloon.
If any of my current readers thought that feeding tube scene was over the top, check out this video.
On a completely different note, if you’re in the mood for something wholly different, rather depressing, and surprisingly good, listen to George W. Bush sing Sunday, Bloody Sunday.
D.
World of Warcraft ate my family
World of Warcraft is the biggest MMORPG on the planet (MMORPG = massive multiplayer online roleplaying game). When we first bought into WoW, they had a population of one million. Eighteen months later, six million people participate in WoW.
We’re three of them.
I was the first addict, but after a while I realized I could either write a novel or spend half my life in a fantasy world. I put WoW aside, but soon after that, my son took up the battle. He became distracted by Warcraft’s other attractions — Warcraft Online, in particular — but this summer, he’s back in action with his undead warlock, Khufu.
I never thought Karen would go for this stuff. She hasn’t gamed since Civilization I; most computer games give her motion sickness. But now, she’s up to level 30 or 31 with her elf hunter Mygale. (Mygale = the genus name for one of her tarantulas, if I remember correctly.)
If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. With these sleepless nights I’ve been having, there’s nothing much to do but take my troll rogue SheWitch around the Arathi Highlands, killing raptors, fleshstalkers, and a variety of elementals. I’m up to level 39 and I’m one mean bitch with a poisoned dagger.
WoW has spilled over into the real world, and vice versa. Search You Tube for “World of Warcraft” and you’ll find a wealth of videos (4,340) based on WoW’s pre-packaged animation* — WoW’s version of Too Sexy, for example, or the infamous show tune, The Internet is for Porn. In China, WoW is a big enough sensation that Coca Cola references it in their commercials. Folks have had their wedding ceremonies in WoW, and the WoW creators have honored the deaths of famous gamers with in-game tombs. Recently, an in-game funeral (for a guy who died in real life — just so we’re on the same page here) was raided by a rival faction, creating quite a controversy, since funeral attendees were all unarmed.
Like all good addicts, the three of us believe we are in control of our addiction. I’ll only play when I’m too tired to do anything else. Jake and Karen only play when our high speed internet connection is working and the house power isn’t out. We have limits.
Enough BS’ing. Time for me to do some real writing.
D.
*It’s considered a novel film genre, an emergent property of gaming known as “machinima“. Here, for example, is a machinima version of the famous courtroom scene from A Few Good Men. I think the Half Life 2 version of Tom Cruise is a better actor than the real thing, but that’s just me.
oh, the irony
I wrote a post about sleep deprivation and its ill effects on language skills in particular and mentation in general. Then I screwed up while posting (my fault, not WordPress) and lost everything.
More tomorrow, assuming this isn’t the beginning of Fatal Familial Insomnia.
D.