Professionalism and Social Media
Every Wednesday I post in Adventures in Writing.
Today I talk about professionalism and social media, and how that relates to your social network.
New Post in Adventures in Writing
Every Wednesday I post in Adventures in Writing.
Today I walk you through a visualization exercise to come up with a book blurb that works.
Rant
I swear to God, if I start reading one more book with a female protagonist who:
- Has an IQ of 36D (or)
- Is a raving sociopath because, clearly, violence = empowerment (NOT)
I am going to take that book, drive to the God Damn rifle range, hang it from the 200 yard berm beam and shoot it full of 155 grain hollow-points at over 2,750 feet per second.
Then I will post the picture here on my blog.
Not that this will change anything, but boy-howdy, will I feel a lot better.
Maybe I should just give up on urban fantasy. Although I did like Toni Andrew’s Mercy book, so the genre can’t be a total wash.
I don’t get it. These books are written by women, with women agents, with women editors. Yet they are some of the most glaring anti-women books around.
Sigh.
New Post at Adventures in Writing: Poll Recap
Every Wednesday I post in Adventures in Writing.
Today I went over the results from last week’s poll.
Dinner Excitement in the Year 21
Dinner in the Toulouse poly marriage can be exciting.
Everyone at dinner thinks Papa moving in is a great idea.
Mainly because, sometimes, I am a medical mess.
Except Katie. To her, this is beyond a good idea. She looks so happy she is about to burst.
“What?” It is easy to think that Katie is a dumb blonde, rather than one of the smartest scientists ever to walk the Earth, the bio-equivalent of Albert Einstein.
Minus the crazy part. Right now, she looks like a bubblehead with a goofy grin.
“My twenty-five-ish year old evil plan is coming to a close!” She actually claps her hands.
I sigh.
“What?” asks Cazandra, looking confused.
“Babies! Milo would make a great grandfather. It’s what he wants, really, really bad,” says Kate, although it is blazingly obvious who wants the babies.
“I need to relearn how to just be a normal woman first,” I say.
“Oh! Oh! She didn’t say no!”
I roll my eyes, but then I look at everyone. “Yes. I would like to have a baby someday. Not anytime soon.” I give Kate a big grin. “Just warn me before you stick an egg up there.”
She startles as if I poked her with a shock baton. Oh my God!
“Sharon Kaitlin Toulouse! You were not planning on putting an egg in me for fertilization without me knowing about it, were you?”
“Yeeeeee…no. No, of course not.”
I reach across the table, grab her wrist and twist.
“Ow! Ow! Let go!”
“If I suddenly find myself pregnant without planning, I swear to God I will chop your hand off at this wrist and feed it to the beagle!”
“Okay! I’ll be good!”
“Swear!”
“I swear,” she says with hesitation in her voice.
I twist and pull. Her place setting crashes to the ground as she comes partially out of her seat. Everyone is looking at me with wide eyes.
“Ow! I swear I won’t impregnate you without you knowing about it first. I promise!”
I yank her all the way onto the table. Dishes and food go everywhere. I pin her hand to the table with one hand and with the other, I grab my steak knife and make a cut on her palm.
“Ahhhh!”
I stand on my chair and put a knee on her arm, and I let go. I then cut my own palm, and hiss in pain.
I grab her bloody hand and with my bloody hand, then remove my knee. I squeeze her hand tight until she cries out again.
I let go.
“There. Your promise is a blood oath. We are now blood sisters by honor and deed. The vow is set.”
Kaitlin is lying on the table, smeared with food, drink and blood soaking her clothing, and crying.
I turn to Caz.
“So, what’s for dessert?” I ask, dripping blood on the floor.
“Aaaaand that’s why you don’t fuck with the LT,” says Vash.
She’s Like the Wind
Rest in Peace, Patrick Swayze.
Dirty Dancing did something to my hormone drenched brain when it came out. What, I don’t know. But forevermore, I had a fondness for Jennifer Grey.
*insert Jennifer Grey picture here that would make Kiersten blush*
We Interrupt My Man Cold
to congratulate Carrie Harris on selling her book! Check out her blog post.
I must confess, Carrie is another person I started following on Twitter, but how (or why or when) I have no idea. Her Twilight parodies have been cracking me up, so I look forward to reading her book.
Where would a book deal be with out SPARKLE HAPPY PSYCHO CAT!?
Man Cold Part II
Six months ago, I got a cold, and here I am again. Last time I was the last person in my Twitter feed to get a cold.
Now it looks like I am the first. I am the TREND SETTER!
So after reading this blog post, be sure to use Purell!
You Are the First Responder
On this day in the Year 2001, a group of Americans, when faced with the horror of the morning unfold, sought to do what Americans were born to do. They fought back, by themselves, against evil and tyranny of the worse sort, and they sacrificed their lives to do the right thing, even when it was the hard thing.
In this age of double-talk and other tomfoolery, in which the very language we hold dear is used to debase the individual and the righteous, there comes a time when Goodly Men and Women must take a stand against those who would use labels to define us.
Those who fought back shook off more than the enemy. At their moment of truth, these brave Americans were first responders.
You are a first responder.
If you think otherwise—your very thoughts besmirch the honor of those brave people and for you they died in vain.
For the rest of us, we remember them as we should remember them—they made the attempt and succeeded, they set a standard for which we judge all like men and women.
There comes a time where, in the midst of blood and death, we can take action and prevail.
You are a first responder. If another labels you as something different, this is where you take your first stand.
New Post in Adventures in Writing
Every Wednesday I post in Adventures in Writing.
Today is poll time!
A Certain Chill Ascending
Fall.
I have concluded it is my favorite season. The air has a certain bite to it in the morning and evening, and when one stands in the shade, you naturally want to migrate to the sunlight. I feel alive, in the chill.
It is, more than spring, the season of change. In the winter, you can look out at the landscape and imagine the lushness added to the ever-present evergreens.
In the fall, it looks like approaching death. The death of green, the riot of color hallmarking the flood of broadleaves, the days growing shorter: these things are celebration of the cycle eternal, the promise that all good things end, but the end, like the beginning, is transitory.
In the fall, when there is a sunny day, suddenly that day seems precious. Plans change. We happily walk the dog, the park beckons and we avoid the shade. We eschew the dim, because soon, we will have no choice but to live under cloudy skies under the damp and cold of winter.
Fall is the herald and the messenger, but in the rush of to and fro before winter sets in, fall gives you a certain perspective. I love it.
PAX
I’m going to PAX with Thing One. This will be our third year.
Reports may vary. Last year I was worn down trying to keep up with him. That little squirt can MOVE when there are cool video games to be seen. Can’t he move that fast when I ask him to pick up his room?
Might even bring the camera.
Join the Joss Love Fest!
Every Wednesday I post in Adventures in Writing.
Wow!
If ever there was a indication that hard work and persistence pays off, check out Natalie Whipple’s post. I follow Natalie on Twitter (why I started to, I have no idea, Twitter is like that), and BOOM, she has an agent. Not just any agent, but Gentleman Extraordinaire, Nathan Bransford. Her post on how she got there brought a big smile to my face.
Congratulations Natalie! For you hard work and dedication, I give you SPARKLE HAPPY PSYCHO CAT!
