Let's do the time warp again...

Every Halloween in University, I always watched The Rocky Horror Picture Show. It's been a while since I've seen it, and since I've felt a pelvic thrust that really drives you insa-yay-yay-yay-yane. And for some reason, this year I'm missing it. Maybe it was watching it featured on Freddie, (yeah, I'm their one viewer. It's a guilty pleasure. I think the chemistry between Freddie Prinze Jr. and Brian Austin Green is great. Or maybe it's just Tim Curry in a black teddy. But I've decided this year, I need to see it again.

And sure, I have it on VHS (man, since DVD and PVR, I haven't watched anything on my VCR in months and months...), and I could very well just pop it in, but I want the experience. I want to throw toast and yell at the screen and dress in a maid's costume (yeah, I don't need to do anything to my hair. I'm Magenta already :) ).

There has to be a theatre in Toronto that's still playing it. And I plan on being there.

Disappearing text

Help... Ok, I admit it. I'm kind of a dummy when it comes to programming computers. And I can't for the life of me figure out why every time I post a picture on this blog, my text disappears. I don't know if it's just my computers, or if it affects everyone, but it's ticking me off.

And finally the good news...

I have a new job!!

Yes, as of next Friday, November 4th, I will no longer be making the trek across the entire Greater Toronto Area to get to work, but instead will be making the trek across... my hallway. *grin*

The job will allow me to work from home. (and yes, it's for a real company. No stuffing envelopes or making jewellery or anything odd like that...) Besides the money I'll save on gas and eating in the gross cafeteria, I'll be able to actually make use of my gym membership, and I'll have more time to spend with Mr. Pink, which I'm really looking forward to. (especially since I've been afraid he was going to dump me for being such a bitch all the time when I get home from work *grin*)

Better, I'll also have two freelance gigs - editor for the online e-publisher, and still doing some writing for *the store I work for*. Just at home.

I must say, this is a huge sigh of relief for me. First, there's the disrespect for the writers here (anyone who looks at the proofs feels it's ok to screw with my work, because, after all, it's just words), which I find seriously unprofessional. Add in the dirty washrooms and gross cafeteria, and the 4' x 4' working space, and well, it was definitely time.

So I'll be able to listen to the radio as loud as I want, get up when I want to, work when I want to, and no driving. Woohoo. And if I get too lonely without the whole office politics thang, maybe I'll get a dog. *grin*

And some really crappy news

So, Friday, I was living on the high of the good, exciting news I can't quite share yet cuz it's not official. And meanwhile, the whole time, there it was, sitting innocently in my mailbox, waiting for me.

The thing I've been dreading since February.

The envelope with my name on it in my own handwriting. The one holding the letter that says, you suck. never burn my eyes with your crap ever again.

Only it didn't say exactly that. It said I had a clean style. and engaging dialogue. But then it said I had a whole lotta not that good stuff, so thanks but no thanks. And the ubiquitous, I'd like to see more of your work.

And I'm left devastated.

I spent a summer writing those letters. Knowing that I was crushing someone's hopes with my words, trying to say as much as I could in a few lines, confident in my just graduated know-it-all-ness. And now, sitting here on the other side of the fence and it sucks. And I don't know what is meant by the few precious words that are there. I know the four levels of "rejection letter". The curt, form please don't send us crap again. the form, well, it didn't burn our eyes out, but it sucked and you have to improve a whole helluva lot before we want to look at anything else of yours. The it was meh, but it didn't suck and you have potential, so improve and we'll consider you and the not quite right, but fix these problems, and we'll definitely consider it.

So I made the third level. There was no form to my letter, but no revisions or offers to fix and reconsider either. Which, when you think about it, is pretty good for the first piece of work I sent out into the publishing world. But oh, it hurts. And I wanted to just give it all up and say, fuck it. I don't need to do this.

And yet today, my plan is to keep writing. Finish something else. Work on the areas that she said needed work. And keep sending stuff out.

Your shoes are supposed to match your what?

Ok, girlie moment here...

So this morning I put on a top that I bought over the summer. This is the first time I've worn it. Now, I know I've gained a wee tad of weight (or all of my pants shrunk in the wash *grin*), but the top was pretty comfy. Or so I thought, Until I got to work and bent over my desk and realized I could see all the way down.

What's funny about the whole thing, besides the fact that you get to see a whole lotta boobie pretty much every time I bend over, is that I wore all black today except for my bright red shoes... and it turns out, my bright red bra.

Yep. I'm so coordinated, I matched my shoes to my bra.

*shakes head* man, I'm a dork.

On a happier note, I have unofficial good news that I can't share til it's official. but it's good. really.

De-Nied!

So, a long, long time ago, I somehow managed to get VIP passes to this big soap opera convention held at the Sky Dome, er, uh Rogers Centre, (sorry! don't sue me! *grin*)

Anyway, most of the soap stars who were there were the older, lesser known people, attractive mostly to the lonely housewives. Except for one tiny little cutie who was 'bout my age. And when I say cutie, woo hoo, was I right. And look what that l'il cutie growed all up to:



The thing is, Paul Walker broke my heart that day. I summoned up my little fat girl self, and asked that l'il cutie on a date. He turned me down.

And that's my brush with fame.

It's just words... update

So, turns out BossLady overheard the "it's just words" comment. In the *store I work for* spirit, she went to nasty graphic artist's boss. He wasn't impressed either. I was given the opportunity to pursue this and get this chickie in trouble, but as I'm still smarting from the a**hole coworker's brutal slaying of my work and the final "he was just doing his job, stop being a whiny baby" result (actually, if memory serves, I ended up getting shit for my "attitude" out of the whole thing) and the other stories I've heard about this woman, I don't really see the point.

Besides, I prefer, if you have a problem with me, just tell me straight up and let's talk it out. Get it dealt with and move on. I told the bitch that was a pretty rude thing to say to a writer. I know she's a twit. I'm done with the whole thing. Makes life much happier that way, then just running behind a person's back trying to figure out what they meant and bitching about them to everybody but them (yup, ex-critique group, I'm looking at you.) Yes, in a way I'm doing that about the twit, but I *did* tell her how I felt. This is just a re-cap *grin*.

I'm feeling rather blah today. Have been for a long while. Between the commute that's gotten so much worse now that summer's over, the continuous rejection of me with respect to a new job and the writing babies I put out into the world (STILL no word on Caught. *sigh*), and Mr. Pink's new medication that leaves him sleeping for close to 18 hours a day, I just feel kinda me against the world and I'm losing. Badly.

Perhaps I need a new hobby or friends that are more than usernames and blogs.

It's just words...

She said with disdain.

This from the graphic artist who created a red and purple jewellery catalogue..

You know, as much as I think our flyers are really pretty um, well, cluttered and drab and rather unexciting, I manage to keep my mouth shut rather than crapping on one of my team members' work. (what's said here and at home to Mr. Pink notwithstanding... *Grin*)

But for non-writers to write an offensive tagline and then get pissed when I say, hey, that's gonna piss people off, um.. seriously? Get a life.

I'm a fat chick. Yes despite the Stop eating fries and gravy for lunch diet, still a fat chick. And yes, I may be overly sensitive, but it seems to me that emphasizing "Sweater Event FOR ALL SIZES" right under the fat lady clothes, kinda rude... y'know, yes, pat, pat, you're fat but we can cover your big ass anyway.

(and let's ignore the grammatically crap implications of the heading...)

People here have no respect for what I do. I have a Mac Artist who cares so little for what I write, that half the time she ignores it and writes her own stuff (all of which doesn't conform with the advertising rules imposed by the government) leaving me with tons of extra work to fix it.... and now to basically be told it's just words implying that it doesn't really matter, no one reads it anyway and who cares.

Tell me again why I bother?

Because Mr. Pink won't shut up about it.

This is Sean Patrick Flanery. He's in a movie called The Boondock Saints, where he plays an Irish guy. Mr. Pink seems to connect with the Irish guys, being an Irish Catholic and all that.




I don't care much either way, except he's kinda hot. Especially with that shirt open like that. Just don't tell Mr. Pink I feel asleep during the movie... :)

Why do you have to lie to me??

So, I got my first proofreading assignment for the new publishing company last week, and spent almost all of yesterday working on it. The problem is, the author committed what I've always said is the worst sin a writer can commit... she put herself in the hero's POV and lied to me.

Who sits down and thinks about themselves and lies about what they have or haven't done? No one. So if I can't trust that you're telling me the truth, how can I trust that anything else I read is real? Or why should I waste my time reading your stuff, if you can't even utilize a simply literary technique like foreshadowing, or developing internal conflict? I can understand wanting to keep stuff from your reader. Whodunnit, if you're writing a mystery, the big, deep, dark secret that is going to play an integral role to your black moment... sure, some of that stuff you don't want to splat out there in chapter one. But come on... don't tell me all along that *this* didn't happen.... and then at the very end, have Dark Helmet jump out and say "Fooled You!". I'm not gonna be impressed by you fooling me, I'm gonna be damn pissed off that you wasted my time. There are other ways to get around this, without having to lie...

And I guess what's really making me mad about the whole thing, is editors are buying books and letting authors get away with this. It's not right.

So, let's look at some examples where the author kept me completely confused until the very end, WITHOUT lying... Two books I read recently, Larry Brooks' Serpent's Dance and Holly Lisle's Midnight Rain did this very, very well. Both of these books had romantic elements, were in various POVs and had a mystery running throughout that kept me guessing. Not only did it keep me guessing, but it had me reading frantically, challenged, intrigued as to how things were going to turn out.

In Midnight Rain, there were a couple of ways Holly could have gone... with the paranormal, or with a rational explanantion, that no one, not the police, not the FBI, not the hero or heroine, er, well, except me *grin*, but I'm annoying that way, was able to think of. What she didn't do, was put me in the villain's POV and lie to me about who he was and what he was doing. No, she dropped clues, she dropped red herrings, and it kept. me. reading. Which, really, is kinda the point of a book... And by the end, when the villain had done what I thought he had done, tho not exactly how I thought he'd done it... I was satisfied. I closed the book and sent a mental thank you to Holly for keeping me amused and intrigued for several days.

Now, in Serpent's Dance, the characters Paul and Damian are the same person, although for the first pile of chapters, you see both of their POVs. (Don't worry, I'm not spoiling anything, you find this out pretty early on...) What Larry *didn't* do, however, was put me in Paul's POV and tell me he absosmurfly wasn't Damian. Nope, not at all, except, oh yeah, I am. So there. No... he showed me both, showed me other characters and had me thinking, hey, I wonder if that Paul guy is really Damian... nah, I'm wrong, but maybe... hey, i was right! (er, sorry, maybe I did spoil that...) But by showing me what he wanted me to know when he wanted me to know it, and leaving out what he didn't, I was engrossed, enthralled and I kept reading, waiting to find out who was screwing who (both figuratively and literally :) ). And again, at the end, when all was explained, I was happy and fulfilled.

You see? It can be done, if you do it right.

But, if you're lazy, you can create a mystery lover who appears only in the dark and then you can show me the POV of the character I know is really the mystery lover, and you can lie to me and tell me it's not, and then at the end tell me he really was and all that crap when I said he wasn't? yeah, too bad, so sad.

The thing is... the whole mystery lover thing could have made a great internal conflict.... "Hey crap, turns out I'm a in-the-dark-only mystery lover to the woman I love, only she's not too happy with me in real life. Now how do I tell her I love her and that I've been lying to her about dinging her in the dark the whole time. Man, she's gonna be pissed. Well, a fine kettle of fish I've gotten myself into... dumbass!" Now *that* would have kept me reading. *That* would have been interesting...

But no, yet one more writer chose lazy over literary. I'm not impressed.

Le Sigh

So, the winner of Simon & Shuster's Downtown Press Author search was supposed to have been notified October 1st. I'm guessing, today being the tenth of October, that it wasn't me.

:(

Well, considering how quickly I wrote the darn story (About last night), I probably didn't deserve to win. But I've already found a new target for the story. It just needs to be expanded a wee bit (i.e. improving the sex scenes.) So I'm gonna be doing that over the next few weeks.

But it still sucks to lose.

So Pretty

I know he's supposed to be the bad boy scary leader of a biker gang, but one look at those eyelashes and all I can think about is how darn pretty he is...



This is Francis Capra, and he plays Weevil on Veronica Mars. Now go watch it, I need someone to talk to about it.

The Girl with Kaleidascope Eyes

Dear Migraine Fairy,

You're a bitch. Like the one that's been building all fricken' week wasn't bad enough, you had to give me an occular one not ten minutes after I got to work this morning, turning my eyes into kaleidascopes while dealing with the headache from hell. You couldn't have given it to me before I left for work, so I wouldn't have had to waste the entire day trying to get all the "one last thing" shit that had to be done before I left. Cuz now it's half an hour past go-home time and the 401 is a mess and I can't even get home, so I have to stay here and waste time under these bright lights that are making things worse.

I curse you with a moustache, chin hair and frizzy split ends.

So there.

See how you like it.

Pink

What Lit?

So, I found this kinda interesting. On her blog a few days ago, Michelle Rowen confessed that she'd never read a "chick lit". Only, I just finished reading an ARC of her first novel Bitten & Smitten, which, while very much a paranormal and definitely a comedy, I would also say is a chick lit. (Oh, and I loved it. It was better than cats. I'm going to read it again and again. *grin* Just kidding, i'll write a gushing review later this week...)

So, then, what exactly is a chick lit? I checked and even the Chick Lit Writers of the World don't really define what it is. And it seems "chick lit" has grown now to include Mom lit and Hen lit and all sorts of other lits. So I guess that would make B&S Vamp Lit?

To me, chick lit is a tone. It's usually first person, usually with lots and lots of humour and the story is more about life changing the heroine and less about the romance, although there's usually a pile of romance in there. Definitely more character-driven than plot driven. And it's all about how the heroine tells her story.

But that's just me. Thoughts?