NSFW, but...

Kind of rude (NSFW), but kind of funny... at least from this side of the washed out bridge: "No, seriously, I'm not f*cking around, you really don't want to be a writer."

Updatery

It's Thursday, which is my busy day. I just finished the dishes, and pretty soon I'll have to tackle the fish tanks. Then, it will be off to Mason's school to volunteer. After that, if I have any energy, I hope to go work out, as I've had to miss kuk sool wan one night this week. Ah, the glamorous life of a writer, eh?

Speaking of writing work, I finished going through the page proofs for RESURRECTION CODE over the weekend, and I should probably look through ALMOST FINAL CURTAIN before the deadline. Sometimes I have a really hard time looking at my own writing, especially after it's all typeset for printing. There's something so permanent that makes it sort of scary, you know? There's really not a lot you can do at the page proof stage either. There are plenty of opportunities for major change prior to that, but by the time you see page proofs, the publisher really only wants to you to scan for typos.

So, I've been dragging my heels a bit on the last one. RESURRECTION CODE was more fun, actually. There are some scenes in that book that I'm actually quite proud of and are fun to re-read. Even though enjoying my own work also makes me feel weird, but in a completely different way.

Contest Info

***** Permission to Forward Granted and Encouraged ******

Horizontal tango.

Roll in the hay.

Gild the lily.

Hanky panky.

Hippity dippity.

Knock boots.

Mattress mambo.

Nookie.

Whatever you call it, we’ll judge it.

Enter the Greater Detroit RWA’s 2011 Between the Sheets contest to see if your 10-page love scene explodes like a rocket or leaves the judges unsatisfied.

Rules, forms and final round judges are at www.gdrwa.org/contests.html. Entry fee is $25Deadline is February 14, 2011.

New Generation of Fan

A couple of nights ago, and I don't quite remember how it started, I ended up telling Mason about an incredibly charming character that my friend and fellow writer Eleanor Arnason created for her Lydia Duluth short story series named "Three Hoots." Alas, the story "Three Hoots" appears in hasn't been published yet, but Mason has been at the coffee shop with Eleanor when she was struggling with the plot of that exact story. Anyway, it's been marvelous to hear Mason running around the house shouting, "Fierce! Fierce! Many bodies in the shadows, ready to defend!" (which is a paraphrase, but close to some of the dialogue in the story.) At any rate, I knew I had some Lydia stories arounds, so he read all of "Tomb of the Fathers" and pronounced it, "nearly as cool as Harry Potter." So, I spend a few minutes this morning searching my house of the rest of the series. I found Asimov issues that contained "Cloud Man," "Lifeline" and "Moby Quilt," but couldn't locate my copy of "Stellar Harvest" to save my soul! Hopefully, Eleanor will have an extra copy she can loan us. Mason is quite determined to read the Lydia ouevre. I'm sure he could read the other stories out of order, but he's kind of stuck on reading "Stellar Harvest" first. I couldn't find a non-pirated version of "Stellar Harvest" on-line. Am I an idiot? If you know where one is, please send me the link.

Can I say, too, how amazing it is that I can share stories with Mason that, if he has some question about, he can just ask the author? It's super-cool amazing. I don't know if he realizes *just* how super-cool amazing that is. I mean, he's growing up in a house where his ima is a published writer, so I'm sure he kind of expects that anyone can be.

But it is one of those things I always remind my students. If someone as dorky as me can get published, there's a pretty good chance you can too. Not that it's an easy road, mind. Just that it's possible.