Chicks-n-Scratching

Archive for the ‘humor’ Category

I, uhm, forgot it was Wednesday and have spent all day writing. I fail. Sorry. I will do better next time.

On the upside, my new guy Bram is yummy!!

I love the Dead Milkmen. I do. They have some of the most fantastic politically and socially satirical lyrics in the universe. Truly fantastic.

Why am I telling you this?

Because I recently began a little thingamajig on Twitter (#eroticsatireOMG) wherein we (by we I mean whoever the heck wants to, but mainly a core group of about five of us) endeavor to parody really awful erotic romance. And we’ve been having a lot of fun with it. How can you not have fun when your hero (a billionaire Greek vampire) is named Shaftos? And he has a dread vampire plague. That can only be cured by the love-juice of a virgin vampire slayer. Come on. That’s comic gold right there. You’re laughing, aren’t you?

So, to the point of this little exercise. I started calling it satire, but satire implies political or social purpose that isn’t extant in this fun little romp. It’s a parody, the joyous poking of fun and lampooning of a genre. But over the course of the discussion, it’s pointed up some interesting stereotypes in romance writing.  The persistence of some tropes is truly astonishing (we’re trying to figure out how to manage a secret baby even if she’s a virgin. we’ll figure it out eventually….). And it’s been interesting what we don’t think we can do. How there are lines that just don’t want to be crossed. Things that make the characters too far from human to be pallatable, I suppose.

How far can you let your imagination take you in your writing? Have you written things and then gone “Oh, hell, no, I can’t use that. That’s just going to far.”? I don’t think I have. But I think that’s more because I censor it before it hits the page. I have this idea – an idea that keeps popping up – that is so far beyond the pale that I simply cannot commit it to the screen. But I think one day I’ll give in and write it. Then what will I do?

Today is my spring cleaning day.

(I am deluding myself and pretending I can get it all done in one day, but join, me, it’s fun!)

I leave you with these choice quotations.

This house is protected by killer dust bunnies.  ~Author Unknown

My second favorite household chore is ironing.  My first being hitting my head on the top bunk bed until I faint.  ~Erma Bombeck

Nature abhors a vacuum.  And so do I.  ~Anne Gibbons

Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing is like shoveling the walk before it stops snowing.  ~Phyllis Diller, Phyllis Diller’s Housekeeping Hints, 1966

Housework is something you do that nobody notices until you don’t do it.  ~Author Unknown

Our house is clean enough to be healthy, and dirty enough to be happy.  ~Author Unknown

Don’t cook.  Don’t clean.  No man will ever make love to a woman because she waxed the linoleum – “My God, the floor’s immaculate.  Lie down, you hot bitch.”  ~Joan Rivers

The Rose Bowl is the only bowl I’ve ever seen that I didn’t have to clean.  ~Erma Bombeck

I think housework is the reason most women go to the office.  ~Heloise Cruse

I’m not going to vacuum until Sears makes one you can ride on.  ~Roseanne Barr

My idea of housework is to sweep the room with a glance.  ~Author Unknown

My theory on housework is, if the item doesn’t multiply, smell, catch fire, or block the refrigerator door, let it be.  No one else cares.  Why should you?  ~Erma Bombeck

A clean house is the sign of a boring person.  ~Author Unknown

If the shelves are dusty and the pots don’t shine,
it’s because I have better things to do with my time.
~Author Unknown

Okay, face it. Writers, we’re nuts. Every single one of us, batty as a bell tower, just in very specific, very controlled ways.

We hear voices no one else can hear yet, we take no medication for this. In fact, we grumble when the voices DON’T talk to us.

Our entire writing day is filled with us, staring at the screen and interacting with imaginary friend. We like those people more than most real-life people, too.

A two dimension being of our creation can surprise us and leave us gawking at the screen going “Say what? Where did that come from?”

There are files and compartments in our brains that scientist would love to study. Each one hold some random idea, quirk or thought that one day will grow into 80-100K words.

We rely on strange substances, like chocolate, caffeine, cheesey chips and occasionally alcohol and call this necessary. Every writer has one quirk food choice, some just hide it better.

Getting out of a warm bed at 3AM because inspiration struck is not unheard of. Many many tales have been completed in the wee hours of the morning by some writer in their pajamas, hair all askew. Those people them suddenly look up at the bright morning sky and are stunned to find out morning has come, their day job awaits and they have had 2 hours sleep.

Our spouses have, at least once, been in the mood, looked at our fingers flying over the keyboard and gone to sleep without while we have an intimate relationship with an invisible man.

If offered the choice between an enema and edits, 95% of writers would choose enema.

Children look toward a weekend as a break from school, other adults look forward to it as a time of leisure. Writers lust for them for more work hours they might never get paid for.

Want to see a writer freeze? Offer simultaneous discussions with an  editor or a dream agent. The writer’s eyes glaze over like a deer in a headlight and all brain function ceases except for the loop of OMG OMG OMG OMG DOES NOT COMPUTE MELTDOWN

Even better (or more evil) offer them a choice between a 4 book deal and winning the lottery. Actually, these are the same thing, right?

There is but one climax per story yet there can be many orgasms. hmmm

Yes, one word can take a half hour and 100 words can take five minutes.

Working out an action scene requires movement and if you catch an author at the right moment, you may find them brandishing a celery stick sword at an invisible foe. Carry your camera.

Listen to a convo between two writers:

W1: I wanted to smack my MC. I mean, why would he do that? It means I have to go back and re-arc him sooner. And why won’t he go deep POV so I can uncover what his problem is?

W2:He’s holding out for a reveal. Just watch your middle hump and trust him.

W1:Trust him? He just pulled a hidden ex-wife who poisoned his mother out of no where and you want me to trust him?

W2: Don’t you?

W1: Yeah, I just want to delete his butt half the time.

NOT NORMAL!

God, I love this crazy job!!

Yeah, this is me.

First, let me explain since Jodie (Who is AWOL at UNI) dwells in a land down under and had never heard of this American Expression.

To eat crow means ‘to suffer humiliation’, and specifically ‘to be forced to admit to having made an error, as by retracting an emphatic statement’. An example from the mystery writer “Ellery Queen” in 1930: “I should merely be making an ass of myself if I accused someone and then had to eat crow.”

Crows are notoriously disagreeable birds, in every respect. Scavengers, they are not suitable for eating. An old joke among outdoorsmen holds that if you get lost in the woods without any food and manage to catch a crow, you should put it in a pot with one of your boots, boil it for a week, and then eat the boot. Eating crow, therefore, is an especially unpleasant and humiliating thing to have to do.  The Maven’s Word of the day

See, once upon a time, like a year ago, I swore to many people I was different. As a writer, I needed focus and could not fathom writing more than one story at a time. Other writers amazed me with their four, eight or even ten on-going and CURRENT stories. How could they get in the right mindset? Keeping literally dozens of characters individuals and with distinct personalities took devotion and dedication. I love my heroes and could not comprehend the mere thought of *gasp* cheating on them with another hero.

Multiple projects? Me? Never happen.

Pass that salt, will ya?

Things I have worked on in the past week:

ML – in revisions

Cop a Kiss Freebie Series – one done, two started

Anthology – working

Final Edits done on Myla by Moonlight

two other unnamed projects

I think this bird needs a bit of garlic and maybe some onion.

Why the switch? Obligations and deadlines for one. I have promised certain things to certain people and must deliver if I want this career to actually, I dunno, WORK!

Secondly, It has been a rough week in the Oh-gawd-I-have-a personal-life forum, so Comedy was not always that free flowing. Angst however flowed like a river. Grab what mindset you have and milk it like a cow!

Thirdly and probably most importantly, I grew. (This is the part of the bird hardest to choke down, you know, admitting that you are not perfect. Hand me that BBQ sauce.) Where once I had to funnel my brainpower into one book, now I find myself funneling in a few directions and know what? It is working! No, I am not pouring out the word count I did when possessed by one story but now, the roughs are cleaner, the editing less and the content stronger. I spend less time staring at a blank screen and less time going WHAT IF? I still don’t plot as such but yeah, I know where the train is heading and where the scenic overlooks are.

More projects but my time used more efficiently. Who woulda thunk it??  Not me.

So here I sit, eating crow and happy about it. Makes me wonder just what else I can learn about this journey…and will this bird taste any different if it is poached in a red wine sauce.

This is me. well, I think this is most writers at some point in time. 2008 was the year of word spillage. I poured out four complete manuscripts, started a few others, finished a couple short things and got most of them edited. I also lost nearly half of one when my flash drive gave up the ghost. Of those four MS, two have sold to Samhain and two are in NY making rounds.

And I wait.

On covers
on feedback
on BETA reads
on Final line edits
on first round edits
on my agent
on publishers’ decisions
on the laundry fairy (Hey, I can dream)

wait wait wait wait

I am not a good waiter. i think the microwaves is too slow.

The incredible push to get a story done is still there and of course, I am still writing but…hello, closure?? I guess I will get that first with JINXED in June but until then, I wait.
Will Monster Love make it in NY? Will WITCHMARK? What will Myla by Moonlight’s cover end up looking like? Did the revision I implemented make the story better or more convoluted? CAN JUNE JUST HURRY UP ALREADY?!?!

I have promo chats schedule,waiting on them. I have an idea file bursting at the seams, waiting to see which direction is a better use of my time. I have an anthology piece I am working on plus a few freebies for my series written. Waiting on the right time periods to put them out there.

I hate waiting.

My mother says I need a hobby. Writing is my hobby so, yeah, not working there. maybe i need to learn how to knit or something.

I loved 911. I really did but got majorly burnt out at the end. My job now has stresses of a different kind but the perks are good.

~I rarely wear a bra.
~Most days I go to work in my pajamas.
~I can take 3 hours for lunch if I want.
~I’m always available if the school calls and my kids are sick
~I can leave without asking permission.
~I wash dishes on my breaks.
~Staring into space is normal
~Fantasizing about sex is required
~I commit murder on paper
~Online discussions on the length of sex acts is totally appropriate.
~I start dinner whenever I feel like it
~I have conference calls and telephone interviews while folding socks
~Surfing is encouraged
~Words I use daily include hero, muscles and orgasm
~In the coming weeks, I have face to face meeting scheduled with a radio station manager(I will guest DJ for an hour too!), a school for the blind, a rabbi and a nudist camp. And this is all research!

The downside is:
~I can go a week or more with seeing another adult
~It is all me. No one else can do it.Fail, Succeed or mediocre, all me
~grammar and punctuation make me feel stupid
~deadlines are real and go by in a blink
~No school means kids in my ‘office’ all day long (summer is going to kill me)
~people assume you are doing nothing
~I can spend an hour thinking of synonyms for HOT
~Promo is all me.
~Ideas don’t grow on trees
~I haven’t earned a dollar yet
~Carpal Tunnel
~I am dependent on the opinions of strangers
~I have zero authority over what any cover may look like.
~I can spend months researching, writing and polishing a story and it can sit. There is no guarantee that anyone will buy it

All in all, I love it.
No one is going to die if I decide to pee between adjectives.
No one is going to call and call me a flaming cunt rag because they got a speeding ticket.
No one is depending on me to correctly read a map to find a lost child.
I have yet to have a character pass gas in a closed radio room.

My job rocks!

A friend suggested this and OH MY GOD does it sometimes feel good to get crap off your chest and tell your troubles to just fuck off.

So, here are a few of mine! Feel free to join me in F-U Friday!!

F you, taxes.

F you eyes for failing when I need you most.

F child of mine who must have gotten those genes from your father’s side, get over the drama queen shit already!

F you Big G, if you are using my laptop, turn the damn thing off properly. If I lose one more damn file because you are too lazy to hit TURN OFF, you won’t know what hit you but it will hurt like a beeotch.

F you waiting game. I despise you like a festering boil.

Yep, me.

Since like October, I have kicked Writing’s ass so many time she has bruises. I abused her cousin Edit. Then I molested her distant cousin Brainstorm in a bad, bad way. Some people suffer from hangovers, I worked through those and now have meltdown. A rough estimate of about 200,000 words from October until last week. That is insane.

Now, I am taking a word sabbatical, save for any edits than come my way from the powers that sign checks.

I have no idea how long it will last(a week or two at least). I have no desire or intention of staying offline. I am going to play, read and clean my house. I know my next project and need to be in top form for it. I am not at this time, so, sabbatical, refuel, rest my head.

I went to the library and got seven new to me books. I still have like a dozen others, ebooks and hard copies, that I bought. I might even *gasp* watch TV. I may piddle with the occasional verb cluster, but not with any intent. I just need a vacay for the brain.

And guilt can bite my (_!_)

“What it boils down to is deadlines.” –Jeff Blake

Deadline : A Deadline is a specific date or due date by a which time a project must be completed or debt paid. The term also refers to a time limit or specific length of time by the end of which the project or debt must be finished. Failure to meet a deadline usually results in negative consequences.

Although this term usually refers to work and finances, it also describes a line that prisoners cannot cross without deadly risk of being shot. The word originated from war camps in the Civil War.

Yeah, I am under a deadline. Three actually and theyall end in the next week. So

THIS IS THE BLOG ENTRY!!! ISN’T IT PUUUUUUUUUUUUUUURDY?

Wish me well, that is all.