Will this convince you...

To watch Slings and Arrows now? :O

forget half-nekkid. that looks full on nekkid to me :)



Don't remember? go back to this post. Then go watch the show.

And I'm liking Thursdays so much more now that it's Half-Nekkid Hot Guy Day. *Grin*

Surrealer and surrealer

So, I just got a second job. Because, I don't have enough going on right now. *grin*

It was sort of an accident, I'd actually applied to this company a few months ago, and just mentioned in passing that I was still available, and a day later, boom. I'm hired. If only this job paid enough to let me quit my day job. Sadly, not so much. But it'll be great experience. (Ok. I'm freaking out. It's editor for one of the romance E-Publishers!) And it'll be fun. And I'm really looking forward to it. Ok. I lied. Woohoo! *grin*

And several people at the day job have been trying to convince me to apply for a job that just opened up in our department - Production Coordinator. In theory, it probably would be good for my career - exposure in the company with the people who matter, coordinator/managing experience, blah, blah, blah. But here's the thing. It's the same pay. It's longer hours. It's more work. And it would still be 64 km away from my house. And I'm stressed enough as it is. Adding stress may just kill me. And, well, I want to get a book published before I die. Preferably more than one.
So it's probably not a good idea. Even if getting it would mean beating the a**hole co-worker, who's also applying. And that would be fun. But in the long run, probably not so fun for me.

I dunno. To heck with all of it. Veronica Mars is on.

Aw crap

So a few posts ago, I was writing about the Prada Bag Princess and how it was based on the Robert Munsch story (which, if you haven't read it yet, get to a book store and buy it. Right now. I'll wait.) And I was a little worried that I might run into copyright issues. I decided not to just sit and worry, and I just sent a note to the editor over at Torrid. Turns out, she has the same concerns I had. Which means the story is pretty much heading into the filing cabinet unfinished.

The thing is, the new direction I wanted to take the story, well, it was kinda cool. I just have to figure out how to change it up so it's no longer recognizable as a "based on". Cuz I'm pretty sure dragon-princess sex is probably not going to be popping up in any versions of the RM versions.

But still. Dammit.

A few thoughts

Dear Candace Bushnell,

I was a big fan of Sex and the City. Saw every episode, see myself as Miranda with a whole lotta Charlotte on the side. I even tolerated your snotty little self in that annoying show Wickedly Perfect. And when I came across your book Trading Up, while I was right in the middle of a giant reading slump, I thought this would be the thing to get me out of it.
Ha.
I finished your book and promptly chucked it against the wall. Then I played a little kick ball with it. And later tonight, and probably every night for the next few weeks, when I dance around the kitchen, I'll be doing it on top of Trading Up.

Most importantly, you broke the two most cardinal rules of writing.
1. NEVER lie to your reader. The heroine can lie to whoever she wants in the story, but don't put me in the character's head and have her think something that isn't true, just to "fool" me. That's what foreshadowing is for. Oh, you haven't heard of foreshadowing? It's a literary technique in which the author alludes to something she isn't ready to reveal to the reader just yet. It's a literary technique that keeps the reader reading to find out what's going to happen. Lying to the reader just pisses them off when they find out the truth. Yep. I'm pissed off.
I still have the odd game of kickball with Suzanne Forester's Morning After, which I still maintain set the romance industry back thirty years, for the same thing. (Oh, and the heroine that, after the hero drugs her, rapes her when she's a virgin, forces her into marriage while she's unconcious, impregnates her, kidnaps her and uses her for a potentially fatal operation to steal her amniotic fluid, says "it's okay, because I luuuuuuuve him". YECH.)
2. Show. Don't tell. I know I was supposed to feel sorry for Janey. I was supposed to feel sorry for her when she pimped herself out on the Arab's yacht. And when she dealt with her mother (for that whole three lines). The thing is, I never did. Not even once. You know why? Because you never once showed me why I should, you just told me that I had to. Guess what? I don't usually do stuff just cuz someone tells me I have to.
If I'd actually *seen* the relationship between Janey and her mom, I may have had some sympathy for her. If I'd understood why she did what she did to get to where she was, I may have been able to build an emotional relationship with her. But you didn't. So I didn't.
Which leads me to another pile of issues.
3. Make your heroine sympathetic. Janey was a social climbing bitch. Fine, that's her character. But she didn't have a single redeeming quality. Not a single one. And I just couldn't care less about her (yes, couldn't care less. Despite the rampant use of could care less... well, that means a whole lot less of caring, which kinda negates your whole point there... duh.). And if I couldn't care less about her, well, why should I care about her story? Worse, NONE of your characters had a redeeming quality. Oy.
4. Finish your subplots. Sure it was supposed to be very interesting to read about all of these "friends" Janey made, but don't tell me half their story, leave them facing a major dilemma and then not even bother to tell me what happened. That's just wrong.
5. Um. Every scene is supposed to move the story forward. Riddling almost 600 pages with boring crap that isn't relevant to the story, well, let's just say you didn't exactly endear me to your book.
6. Plausability. Your last chapter? What the hell was that?? I didn't buy a single word of it. Not one. It was so ridiculous. It didn't have anything to do with the rest of the story. It was like you got bored with the book before the ending and paid someone else to write the last chapter, and they didn't bother to read what came first before they did.

In closing, Candace, sweetie, go put on a pair of Manolos and walk away from the laptop. Faaaarrrr away.

Thank you.

Pink


Dear Toy Buyer,

People hate our company already. People set up websites and petitions and giant political battles because they hate us so much. So putting a doll in one of our flyers with copy that says "also available in afro-american" ummm, not exactly gonna endear us to the rest of the world.

Just saying.

Pink



Dear Bum,

Stop being so lazy.

Thanks.

Pink

More Fun with Quizzes

Your Outrageous Name is:

Enorma Sass

Bwahhaha!



Hmmmm....

Your Personality Profile

You are pure, moral, and adaptable. You tend to blend into your surroundings. Shy on the outside, you're outspoken to your friends. You believe that you live a virtuous life... And you tend to judge others with a harsh eye. As a result, people tend to crave your approval.

But this is my favourite:

Your Hidden Talent

You are both very knowledgeable and creative. You tend to be full of new ideas and potential - big potential. Ideas like yours could change the world, if you build them. As long as you don't stop working on your dreams, you'll get there.

And finally, some of these are scary wrong, and then they're just scary right:

Your Personality Is

Rational (NT) You are both logical and creative. You are full of ideas. You are so rational that you analyze everything. This drives people a little crazy! Intelligence is important to you. You always like to be around smart people. In fact, you're often a little short with people who don't impress you mentally. You seem distant to some - but it's usually because you're deep in thought. Those who understand you best are fellow Rationals. In love, you tend to approach things with logic. You seek a compatible mate - who is also very intelligent. At work, you tend to gravitate toward idea building careers - like programming, medicine, or academia. With others, you are very honest and direct. People often can't take your criticism well. As far as your looks go, you're coasting on what you were born with. You think fashion is silly. On weekends, you spend most of your time thinking, experimenting with new ideas, or learning new things.

Mmmmm. Hot half-nekkid guy.

Ok, there's no particular reason for picking Hugh Jackman for this week's entry, except, well, look at him. Yummmy. And I promised Michelle.



I haven't exactly figured out what he's holding, tho, I suspect it's a golf club. Whatever it is, I wish it had knocked off that towel. *grin*

How do I waste time...

Let me count the ways.

So today I started my fast draft challenge. Total pages written: 6.5. Goal: 10. I suppose I should be positive and say I'll catch up tomorrow, or on the weekend. And I really hope I do.

The problem is, I find myself drifting mentally when I start writing. I'm an editor. It's what I do. And, worse, I'm a huge perfectionist with ginormously high expectations, especially of myself. So to "write crap" or put something down on paper that is not grammatically correct, or well written, just won't happen. I can't do it. I won't let myself do it. So while I'm trying to free write, and turn off the editor (and a certain Editing Instructor internal editor is fortunately and thankfully on vacation.), I find myself wandering... I look away from the computer, I craft what is going to happen next in my head, plan it out, figure out how I'm going to word it, massage it and perfect it in my head before I'll let myself put pen to paper (or rather finger to keyboard.) And as I'm looking away, I find other pretty things to distract me. Floating lint? Cool. let's watch. Call my answering machine at home to see if I've gotten any messages in the past 3.2 minutes? Hey-hey! Check statcounter? oooh. people like me, they really like me! And on it goes.

And it's driving me crazy. I don't know how to just let myself write. To sit there and let the muse overtake me and just splurt it out.

And the best advice I've ever gotten was to just "sit down and do it" Well I've tried that. I've tried that over and over and It. Doesn't. Work.

And you see, now I'm disappointed in myself for not achieving my goal, despite spending probably close to six hours on Prada-Bag Princess. And what I did accomplish? Actually not bad. I basically trashed the beginning I'd already written and started over and I think this version is going to work much better.

*sigh* maybe it will be better tomorrow.

And now, I'd like to ask my 2.5 readers a question. I'm targetting PBP at Whiskey Creek Press Torrid's Twisted Tales, which is a sexy take on a fairy tale. The thing is, I picked a fairy tale that is a farily new. i.e. published in the last fifteen years. So, while I've taken the bare bones of the story (and if you look at my title it shouldn't be too hard to figure out which story), and certainly changed things around (I can pretty much guarantee that human/dragon sex scenes don't happen in the original story *grin*) I'm worried about copyright infringement issues. WIll the author get mad that I've done this? Do I need to change the story completely to make it completely different from the original? I know you can't copyright an idea, and I haven't used any of the author's original words (except the characters' first names, which I'm also very hesitant about), so I think legally I should be ok, but I'm worried. I like this story idea and where it's going and I don't want to trash it, but if my opportunities for publication are non existant because of this, there's not really any point. right?

Opinions?

Thanks :)

Fun with Quizzes

You Are a Tulip

You have a wild, experimental side that craves change. You often switch jobs and men, always looking for something better. But deep down, you're also very well grounded and content. And you will come to know that the life you live is already ideal.

It's actually scary how true that is. Wild.

Your Nail Polish Color is Purple

How you're unique: You are artistic and expressive Why your style rocks: You pay special attention to color and fabrics What this color says about you: "I'm creative and know how to take care of myself"

The Fast Draft Challenge

Over on the Romance Divas website, Candace Havens is running an Author of the Month workshop on the Fast Draft. Ideally, with her plan, you'll be able to write a 280 page novel in two weeks. Which is pretty darn cool, and certainly better than the months and months it's been taking me. At first, I didn't really think I could do it. I mean, hell, I'm the one who still has the evil editing instructor whispering in my ear "You're not even a good enough writer to work at Harlequin" (which, ironically, to her was the worst of the worst. *sigh*, you know what they say, those who can do, those who can't, crap all over people who can.)

But then, I thought, well, duh, Pink, didn't you just write a 30-page short story in a day and a half not two months ago? Yes, I did. So I *can* do this.

I'm gonna start small... My goal is to finish The Prada-Bag Princess, which I'm targetting to be about 100 pages. So, 10 pages over the next ten days, startng tomorrow, and by the end, I'll have a finished first draft. I'll be posting my page counts every day, and I'll let you, my 2.5 readers, be my conscience. And my PVR (canadian Tivo) is already set to catch the start of the new tv season, so I am not gonna let that be my distraction. Except for Wednesday. I've been waiting too long to see Lost. :)

Go Me.

If I finish? My present to me is that I get to go out and buy Candace's book Charmed & Dangerous. Cuz it looks good.

PS. Anyone have room for an aging, nasty, wacko Editing Instructor in their heads? Cuz she's movin' the hell outta mine. *Grin*

I didn't forget...

My computer at work sucks and I can't post images from there. But never fear, despite the not enough half-nekkid, we still have very much hot guy Thursday:

Bradley Cooper



Watch for him in a new show, Kitchen Confidential, starting on Monday! (tho, I'm still hoping for him to come home to Alias)

Too funny not to share

Ok, a few posts ago I talked about some of the crazy letters we get for our corporate newsletter about "employees done good." Today, we got one that had all of us on the floor. A customer went to buy a can of pop out of a vending machine and realized she was a dime short. An employee walked by, found a dime on the floor and gave it to the customer. The customer was so grateful, she came back a few days later to pay back the dime. The dime that was found on the floor.

I'm sorry, I can't say any more. It just speaks for itself.

Blog Reading

I spent most of the day feeling crappy from Kaboom, so I really did end up spending most of the day on my computer. I didn't mean to be, but I found myself caught up in someone's blog. This woman just found out she's pregnant with her married lover's baby, and I just got sucked in to her world of how and why this happened and what's been happening since it started...

And it seems that she's had a lot of comments on her blog from people judging her decisions and saying rude and cruel things. First, I'm not sure I understand people who will read a blog, which in its essence is someone's personal thoughts, and, once they disagree/dislike what they read, not only keep reading, but have the nerve to condemn the writer for being themselves...

And, while I don't think that infidelity is right, and I certainly wouldn't stand for it from Mr. Pink (or vice versa), what's right for me isn't necessarily right for anyone else, and I would never dream of writing nasty comments on somoene else's blog trying to force my beliefs on them.

But beyond the subject matter, this blogger was really well-written and quite captivating, and i confess that I've been sitting here for several hours reading about her life.

And that's what I want for me... not necessarily this blog (although it would be kinda cool to build up a worldwide blogaudience :) ) but my writing in general.
Right now, the most gripping thing I'm writing is that the store I work for is having a clearance on our athletic shoes in October. They're gonna be really cheap.

I need to get my creativity back. My motivation to write. I think about my stories, my characters, what I want to say and my dreams about being published, but when it comes to sitting down and typing, my mind goes blank.

I wish I knew how to fix that.

I'm no Domestic Goddess

So, Mr. Pink's not feeling well, so he decided not to come up this weekend.
(Please don't get me started on why he isn't living here yet, already. Five days from our Four-year anniversary, and still a) no ring and b) we still live in different cities. I'm not impressed.)

I decided to tackled the upstairs bathroom, which while not exactly "dirty", is still pretty messy. I bought this toilet bowl cleaner which is supposed to magically foam up to the top of the toilet and clean it like that,
thus eliminating the need for scrubbing with the brush and sticking your face into the toilet and getting splashed on with gross toilet water.


Only:

1. It doesn't and I still had to stick my face in the toilet to scrub with my very short-handled brush
2. It's a bottle full of a very fine powder that you're supposed to pour into the cap to one of the very faint lines, without a)spilling or b) breathing in the fumes. Um. yeah. not so much. Ten minutes later, I can't really breathe and my throat is burning.

Worse... every phone number I could find for poison control - out of service. Um. yeah, that's safe. Finally, I called Telehealth Ontario, which, I will admit is a great service. They finally connected me to poison control, who told me to hang out outside for 20 minutes to get some fresh air.

Two hours later, I'm still feeling a burn in my throat and my chest is tight. And my bathroom still needs cleaning.

I should have just said screw it and spent the day on the computer.

Ok, so I'm a copycat

I've been reading other people's blogs and they all have such cool stuff on there, pictures of hot guys, advice columns, neat stuff they did that day, and me I'm just hangin' here bein' me.

But because I am a huge copycat and I want to play with the cool people, I've decided to combine Hot Guy *Day with Half-Nekkid Thursday and start my very own Half-Nekkid Hot Guy Thursday.

Our first inductee into the Half-Nekkid Hot Guy Thursday:



MiG Ayesa

Living in the Sea of Meh.

I've been feeling very meh lately. Haven't read a book that inspired me, seen a movie that captivated me (tho I do admit to laughing my ass off at Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle *grin*), even tv is leaving me a little, for lack of a better word, blah.

And sure, the new tv season is starting soon and that's new shows to look forward to (although, it's my already seen favourites that are drawing my attention), but it just doesn't feel like enough.

And then, over the past few days, I found something that enraptured me. Yes, it's tv, and Canadian tv at that, but I watched a show that did it all... I laughed, I cried, I was moved to say "fucking awesome." The show? Slings and Arrows.

The first season had a lot of inside jokes, which as an alum of Theatre@York, I actually got... digs against the Canadian government, the Canadian theatre industry as a whole, even Keanu Reeves doing Hamlet in Winnipeg in the early '90s. (Ironically, this is while I was at York, and right around the time that *we* did Hamlet... it was pretty funny to watch all the pretention of how much better we were than he could possibly be. Esp. when he came to one of our performances...) Funnier still, now that I know Mr. Pink's brother went to school with Keanu and I've heard all sorts of stories about his "hockey career" and his, uh, stoner tendencies *grin*. And it was where I first discovered Rachel McAdams, who is one of my new favourite actors, and tons of other Canadian talent (too many to list here).

But the second season, which if you subscribe to TMN in Canada, is still available on the TMN on demand channel, is just such an incredible study of Shakespeare, of character, of people, of the creative process, that it had me gripped throughout.

I'm almost ashamed to admit it, but I've actually never read the Scottish Play (Sorry, the superstition is still there... can't bring myself to write the name :) ). But I can't wait to read it after watching this show. Watching Geoffrey (Paul Gross) try to understand who the title character was, and how he should be portrayed, was captivating. Watching Geraint Wyn Davies do "Maccers" brought me to tears. Fucking brilliant.

And I got a huge kick, working as I do now in marketing, at Colm Feore's attempt at an advertising campaign.

If only to understand how a director discovers who his characters are, and to watch Paul Gross' descent into and out of madnesss... watch this show.

Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale...

We'll miss you little buddy.

Bob Denver
1935 - 2005

The Double Finger!

Ok. the absolute funniest moment on tv happened tonight.

Now, I'm a big sexy Rexy fan on Canadian Idol, but when he killed my favourite BNL song "Call and Answer", well, I'm sorry, I'll vote for ya, but I don't think you're gonna make it to next week...

But when Zack, the Canadian Simon Cowell, dissed Aaron Walpole, who I haven't been much of a fan of until tonight... the camera panned to BNL, sitting in the audience, and Tyler Stewart gave him the double finger. Not just one, but two. Totally awesome. let's just say the camera moved away really really really fast. Hee.

You just gotta love a band who, in the early '90s, dubbed themselves "just 5 fat guys from Scarborough." (And, really, you just gotta love the band.)