In September, I had a friend pass away. I would mention his name, but his family has requested it to be kept private. It is someone I’ve mentioned on the blog a few times. Not Puff or any of the regular gang.

I went out of town for a wedding the same week as the funeral. I have a list of random shit overheard and I’ll be getting that posted shortly.

Then in mid-October, I went camping and the bottom dropped out of my personal life and I’m done crying for the day so I’m not going to talk about that. I’m dealing with it. How well is yet to be determined. I do have a list and once the rawness of the situation heals a bit, I’ll post it.

Now, let’s get to the past week. My mother went into the hospital for an elective surgery, got home and by midnight was in ICU. She spent six days in ICU then a little bit of time in a monitored room. She’s home now and doing all right. I won’t say she’s doing well. She’ll live, but life has changed.

( Read more... )

All writers have crutches. Editors help us see those crutches and provide us with tools to stand on our own 100k words. “As” is a common crutch and one that I have. Although I’m not as bad as some, I want to get rid of it. If you’re a writer or an aspiring writer (or a hobbyist or whatever word you use to describe yourself), I recommend you play along at home. To help you find common crutch words, use the find and replace option in your word processor. Find the word “as” (or any other word) and replace it with a highlighted version of the word.
Today, I’m going to take sample sentences and rework them to eliminate the “as”. After the first sample, I’ll be using sentences from Full Circle. I’ll be focusing on pages with more than one “as”.

Special thanks to Marci Baun Marci Baunfor being a wonderful editor.

Sample: Stephanie’s mouth fell open as she stared at the size of his hands.

Changed: Stephanie’s mouth fell open. They’re huge. Her hands. Huge. The word huge repeated itself in her head over and over again. Before her eyes, they ballooned. Morphed into a roll of baloney with five fat sausages. What the hell was in her soda?

( Read more... )

Here's a fetish I never saw coming. O.o

http://www.urlesque.com/2008/06/11/were-stuck-on-sticky-sweetie-latest-net-fetish-sensation/

I'll never view a grown man chewing bubble gum with the same eyes again.

(Safe for work unless a woman in a short skirt standing in a gum filled bathtub will get ya fired. If so...whoa...that's one seriously strict workplace.)

Found a nice piece of WTFery.

(For those of you who don't follow me on twitter, this is short as I broke up a cat fight and got my left hand nicely bitten. Hurts like crazy. Hard to type. So, I'm doing a nice cut and paste entry to share this WTFery. When ya can't type, work, or game...ya surf a lot of the web.)

It's not a real Next Generation pad without Wil Wheaton chained to a chair.

That quote is full of WTFliciousness.

http://blogs.laweekly.com/style_council/interior-decor/star-trek-bachelor-pad-tony-al/

Disclaimer: I'm a ST fan from back in the day. I've even done the convention thing. I still classify this as WTFery.

I laughed. Oh dear God did I laugh.

It didn't embed correctly. Here's the link.

http://www.funlol.com/13894/British_animals.html

Holy crap where I find full eppys of this?

'The lime, whom I assume to be the gentleman in this coupling, has a particularly lurid expression on his face.'


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1209383/Fathers-outrage-pornographic-Haribo-MAOAM-sweet-wrappers.html#ixzz0Pcyp5URH


(Hopefully I'll have a moment to address comments to entries tomorrow.)

I apologize for the break, but I couldn’t feel half my hand. I needed to rest it and had to keep my typing down to a bare minimum. I’m still a bit tingly, but I’ll be OK.

First, I’d like to direct everyone’s attention to djjq’s comment in Selling Out 2.0

I would think that "selling out" would mean you did something more degrading for money. […]so like I said, selling out (to me) means something more unbecoming. it's about integrity and being true to your personal core values. […] but if you don't like the characters your publishers have made you create, and you sell it anyway, that's when you and everyone who's important in your life KNOWS you sold out. I kinda think that if you do something (an action) that shows that you have little integrity, that's when people can say "you're selling out".

And that is priceless. I think I’ve changed my definition of “selling out”. It’s not related to commercial value—directly. It’s an incongruity between the work and the integrity of the creator.

Nice. I spent a day pondering that. (Yes, a whole day. Yes, my editor wants to kill me.) I mulled that over in my head and with each passing it rang with more truth.

In this wonderful discussion, we’ve been looking at people who needed to produce something in order to survive. The Starving Artist seems like a Hollywood cliché until you’re the child of such a person or your stomach is the one feeling the hunger pangs.

Let’s take that idea out of the “need to eat” category and look at successful musicians, artists, and writers. I’m not going to name names. (You can if you want.) I don’t feel that it would be professional of me to point fingers at Jane Doe. End disclosure.
( Read more... )

This is awesome! I’d hoped to engage a few people in conversation and that’s exactly what I got. ^_^ I love you guys.

ginnyvos brought an interesting perspective to the discussion—the daughter of a “failed artist”(her words). You need money to survive and if the costumer doesn't like the product, they won't pay.

That’s very true. There are real world concerns that artists must face every day. ginnyvos, how do you define “selling out”? It seems to me that you’ve linked “commercially viable” with “selling out.” Have I understood you correctly? If so, why?

I think work can be commercially viable without selling out. When I first wrote Full Circle, many pubs cringed at the thought of another vamp story. Vamps were tired, old, and over done. The hot topic at the moment was cowboys. Cowboys don’t do much for me. After seeing a rodeo in person for the first time, I have vague plotbunnies involving cowboys, but nothing solid. I feel that if I would have taken Full Circle and ripped it away from vamps and hammered it into cowboys, I would have sold out. I still want Full Circle to commercially viable though.

Additionally, I write m/m stories. I’ve been asked many, many times why I don’t change my stories to be heterosexual stories. There are more pubs and larger pubs that handle m/f stories than m/m stories. The market is becoming more accepting of m/m erotic romance, but there’s still a long way to go. I probably would make more money writing m/f than I do m/m, but I write the stories as they are in my head. I don’t sit down and think, “I’m going to write a bit of m/m fiction.” I sit and think, “Who is this character in my head? What are they doing? Why are they dressed that way?”

If I were to take Full Circle and change Byron into Belinda, then that would be selling out. Maybe one day I’ll “see” a story that’s m/f. Maybe I won’t.

( Read more... )

Warning: this blog post might come across as snobbish or elitist. It might enrage or offend.

When I learn about things like Playing for Change, I’m reminded of what art is supposed to be. Writers aren’t supposed to crank out drivel to make a buck. Visual artists shouldn’t slap just any crap on a canvas. Musicians shouldn’t belt out soulless sounds.

I think that’s why “selling out” hurts so much. Art is a gift to the world. Even if it doesn’t suit someone’s personal tastes, it’s still a present. A little treasure that should move people. It should “strike a chord” inside the audience.

( Read more... )

So fucking funny.

I want an MP3 to this and I'd totally blast it in my car!



Edit: Favorite line 49-53 seconds. "We'll fuck, we wait up. We kip. We meet up."

(Had to edit this post five times. Need more coffee.)

This post is will not be about the controversy surrounding the last years of his life. This post will not be about his eccentric ways. This post will be about the musical genius Michael Jackson.

Specifically in regards to his Thriller, Bad, and Dangerously albums Michael Jackson, in my opinion, was a master at percussion. The use of percussion and the variety of percussion in his matured sound is phenomenal. It’s a sound that I’ve not yet heard duplicated. In Michael Jackson’s work, percussion wasn’t merely the bass line. He used it to not only set the timing of the piece, but to manipulate the timing and manipulate how the audience followed the timing.

When an artist creates, their work is not their own. I don’t mean in a “collaborative effort” sense, but in a larger sense. When an artist, musician, or writer places their work in the heart and soul of the audience, the work takes on a new life. The audience member now has the responsibility to receive, interpret, and place their own world view upon it.

Michael Jackson’s use of percussion was a direct line to the audience--an unbroken connection between artist and art. A primal heartbeat underlined, permeated, and accented his work.

( Read more... )

Amazon has deranked a title I was involved with.

Coming Together: With Pride is still for sale on Amazon, but you will NOT find it with a general search as it has been deranked. You have to specifically look for it with a book search. At least the 5-star review is still up. The reviews of this book have been so very good. ^_^

Go. Buy it. Support the charity.

(Yes, I suck at plugging things.)

I've been following him around like some kind of feline Inspector Gadget and, other than looking at me strangely, he's been drinking water (apparently he's taken a liking to stale water when he use to like fresh), eating, and using the litterbox.

I guess he's just getting old. I'm still watching him for dehydration though. Thank you all for the concern and suggestions. *hugs*

Have I shared this on my LJ? It's a music video Bat For Lashes "What's a Girl to Do?"

Great song, but just a little bit creepy. The video is full of WTF moments and "whoa...did I just see that?" and "Wait...did they change masks?" moments.

Rascal, 16 years old, has been a bit dehydrated the past few days. I'm keeping a close eye on it. Anyone know a way to encourage a cat to drink more? I'm about to get some kind of syringe and push it down his throat.

>.>

But he's neurotic enough already. Don't want to add kitty waterboarding to the list. (Ok, was that joke tasteless? Yeah, it was tasteless. Just like water. OH DEAR GOD someone stop me before I cause a problem.)

Friend: Isn't that assonance?

Cup: No, that's meter.

Friend: Oh you just taught me this. Don't tell me I already screwed it up.

Cup: Lovely light loafter-- alliteration. Cat sat on the mat -- assonance. Assonance: Identity or similarity of internal vowel sounds among neighboring words.

Friend: Shut up, Cup.

Cup: THAT'S assonance!

>.> Sometimes these LJ posts are meant to just amuse me.

LOL!