Serifs

And it might just amount to something after all.

the implants are finished! i went to the dentist today and he cemented in the replacement numbers 19 and 20. it is awesome to have occlusion again! i am going to have to re-learn how to chew on the left side.

thank you for your support through this torturous process. two implants to go.

In the process of reading through a story on back-end marketing to patients, I realized that it was going to be extremely short for the allotted space.

Perhaps I can find some sort of extra material to insert as asidebar.

So off I go to Google. Type in "Back-End Marketing." First two results look promising.

Promising to the point where Author *cut and pasted them word-for-word* to make his article.

I just ... O_o

Okay, I've become incredibly obsessed with the brilliant website Television Tropes and Idioms. I'm pretty sure I could spend MONTHS perusing the sight and still not get enough. I have to admit I'm using it to help my writing, embracing the ones I love, lampshading the ones that need it or rejecting the tropes I loathe. Well, I've decided to add a new bit to this blog...my trope of the day...it won't turn into a daily thing really, but when I come across one I want to discuss, I'm going to do it...today's? The Award Bait Song.

I LOVE this one. It appeals to the Broadway musical loving side of my personality. I love a big number over my credits that's also a motif in the movie's score. These are the songs that get heavy rotation while I'm writing. I'd done a poll a while back about something similar to this that I can't find right now. Among my favorites? "All For Love" by Bryan Adams, Sting and Rod Stewart, "(Everything I Do) I Do It For You" by Bryan Adams and, of course, the queen mother of all Award Bait Songs: "My Heart Will Go On" by Celine Dion. (I am a fan...seriously...on the iPod I'll hear "Enter Sandman" followed by "I Drove All Night") It's these melodramatic, over-the-top songs that help mold my mind into a more "theatric" tone when I'm writing, like I'm trying to imagine the book as a movie already.

If I had my choice, all time, I'd lean towards Celine or Bryan Adams to sing one for one of my novels turned into a movie, though I'd also consider Beyonce or Jennifer Hudson. It'd have to be a powerful ballad, though I don't think that there's a place in Winter for a song like this, but maybe there'd be one in Sisters of Khoda.

What about you? Are there ones you like? Loathe? Who would you choose? Why?

If you are in San Francisco, be sure to come by only cafe attached to a Science Fiction book store in the United States:  Borderlands Cafe:  Opening Today.

Birdhunter and I haven't made it out much in pursuit of birds, but I've still managed to take 450 photos since U.S. Thanksgiving. I am grooving on the food photo settings, which made it easy to get this shot despite somewhat challenging light:



Pomegranates are sexy and photogenic, and I'm quite pleased with this shot.

The Boy struts into the kitchen all lord of the manor.

Boy: Get this – I got a step two today!

Me: Did you? What happened?

Boy: You know how C likes to go around saying he’s Jesus? And telling people he’s going to turn them into lepers and stuff?

Me: …let’s say I do.

Boy: I was laughing and saying I was going to narc on him to the Romans, and Mrs. Teacher put us both on step one.

Me: *khtpththphth* Okay.

Boy: And then Mrs. Teacher told C, “In this classroom, we don’t take the lord’s name in vain.”

Me: Oh really?

Boy: So I said, “I didn’t know this classroom was run according to the Ten Commandments.” And Mrs. Teacher said, “That’s a step two.”

He’s standing there all proud of himself, not the least bit upset.

Me: So…is this something I should get involved with?

Boy: No. I hope it happens again. I want to ask her, “Are you promoting a certain worldview in the public schools, Mrs. Teacher?” I hope she puts me on steps for it. It’s gonna be great. I’m gonna do it every day.

Me: Are you going to learn anything in this class this year?

Boy: I already am.

Me: ...

Me: Right then. Keep me posted.

Right now, this is hi-larious. Let’s hope it stays that way. But I’m not going to intervene until I need to. It’s being handled in a most interesting way.

Most of my writing these days is scientific, and in scientific writing, and academic writing generally, we try to be as detached as possible. Scientists themselves are anything but detached -- we're not Frankenstein, neither are we Spock -- but that's the way the journal game is played. And this is probably a good thing.

I'm also an occasional writer of fiction, and there of course the rules are different. A good fiction writer doesn't try to load every word with emotion, since "purple prose" is not a compliment, but the emotion is there. A story that doesn't make the reader feel something is a lousy story. I'd go so far as to say that a journal article that doesn't make the reader feel something is a lousy article, too; the author just has to be very careful about how those emotions are evoked. In my academic writing, I try to bring my skills as a novelist to bear, but in a muted way.

All of which boils down to this: I spend a lot of time thinking about words. Not just the definitions of words, but their meanings, which encompasses what you'll find in the dictionary and a whole lot else. What we mean when we use a word is more than the sum of its parts.

( Read more... )

Someone typoed "cospels" for "gospels" on racs, which led racs regular wkharrisjr to ask "'Cospels'? Is that something to do with cosplay? ;)".

I could totally see gospel cosplay. I could also see it going horribly, horribly wrong.

Remember Kevin W. Reardon?

Have a follow-up.

We are all familiar with large dollar (or Euro, Yen, rubble, etc.) figures attached to missions for their costs. Rarely do we see a break down of where mission dollars go.

The breakdown for this particular mission is

( Read more... )

What author hasn't been tempted to make what Patrick and Teresa Nielsen Hayden call, quite rightly, The Author's Big Mistake--i.e., responding to a negative review?

You can't, of course--not without making yourself look bad. At the very best, you look thinskinned, like you can't take the heat and you ought to get out of the kitchen. If you write, you've had this lecture in some form, to wit: the brickbats come with the territory, you have to learn not to take things to heart, big pros don't cry, whatever.

But everybody's had a moment, when some...bozo...says something made of such perfectly unadulturated and juvenile Fail that you want to do something equally juvenile to them. If they walked past you, you'd trip them, or throw a tomato at them, or hit them in the face with a pie.

Not, I remind you, because it's thoughtful criticism but because it's stupidity.

Which makes it twice as important not to respond to it. Having a slapfight with Mr or Ms Stupid doesn't make you look more intelligent.

And just so you know I'm not indulging myself in a round of I'm-So-Wise-and-Virtuous, I succumbed to temptation once. Yeah, I know, I know--didn't I just say so? Sometimes, the temptation is 'way too strong and you just can't help yourself. Don't ask me about it. All I'm going to say is, I'm not going to do it again.:)

Woke up this morning to find the internet down up here in Colebrook. I called the support number, and got a recording saying they were working to repair it “as soon as possible.” Which at least sufficed to reassure me that the problem was on their end, not ours. Meanwhile, wah!

Also, it is still expletive-deleted cold. Furthermore, one of the pipes under the sink has a crack in it somewhere, because after I left the cold water on the drip last night so that the pipe there wouldn’t freeze (which it does otherwise, without fail, every time the temperature goes below zero), there was a little frozen puddle this morning. Oh, well. My current theory is that pvc pipes, which these are, have a finite extreme-cold lifespan.

Later: and now the internet is back. The delay was probably caused by how long it took for somebody from Manchester or Concord to drive up here and go to the local switching station and kick the server or reboot the router or do whatever else it was that needed to be done.

Apparently, we Southwest Virginians are supposed to be buried alive under a bajillion tons of snow today and tomorrow. I'll believe it when I see it.

I finished Heat Wave, the tie in novel to the TV show Castle last night.  For a novel tie in, it was not bad.  There were some purple patches, but I'm pretty sure that the writer was trying to re-create the style of  the tears in the rain death scene From Castle's season 1 reading. 

From a marketing standpoint, the book is handled amazingly well. 

Everything mentioned in the show appears in the book, and there are quite a few places where you can see that the book is rooted in Castle's "Research." 

Some of the reporter character's 'sources,' mirror Rick Castle's  sources. The secondary detective characters have conversations that mirror those that Castle has heard around the precinct while doing his research.   The tv show mentions a steamy scene that appears on a page and in the book the steamy scene appears on that page.  The cover and the dedication are the same.

This is good marketing both for a book tie in, and TV show promotion.  Some fans enjoy doing things that make them feel like they're part of a book or TV show's universe.  Or at least touching it, like it's the universe in the apartment next door and they can ring the bell and run down the hall giggling so that they can watch behind the potted ficus when it answers in it's bathrobe with the confused expression on its' face and the adorable bed hair.

And buying a book is more approachable than getting a hunter's tattoo like the ones Sam and Dean have on Supernatural.

Having the actual book from the show by the "actual author," following him on twitter or facebook all make the show feel just that much more real.  Rick Castle may not be real, but you can still buy his book and see him on TV and  follow him on twitter just like Wil Wheaton.  Which in the grand scheme of things, may make him more real than Carolyne Keene or Ellery Queen.   (Or possibly more real than me, even.)


On a side note, don't forget that there is still time to participate in the Bride of Tranquility/Yard Dog Press Holiday Promotion.  Order my book and get stuff!

 

( Friday Fiction below the cut )

vonandmoggy, you are days overdue for your annual birthday spanking so come on down and assume the position for the Sparkly Paddle of Birthday Wonderfulness!

Hope your day was tremendously yet hugely splendiferous, and the coming year has already begun to give you all the most of the most, all thrillah and no fillah, all wow and no ow, with whipped cream, sparkles, and extra kittens! And that the worst thing that happens to you is my being late with your birthday spanking!


And hey--this is mandatory!--don't forget to live forever!

As others on LJ have noted, we're likely to have a major snowstorm out here, over the weekend.  When I first moved here, 23 years ago, we had huge snowstorms every couple of years, but there hasn't been a real one in ages.  (I blame it on my stopping practicing law.  When I was a lawyer, I had to get into the office, even when there were inches of snow on the ground, because my clients were situated all over the world.  When I became a librarian, and I could actually take snow days, we stopped having major snowstorms.  Yes.  I do think the universe revolves around me.  Why do you ask?)

In any case, we're expecting major snow.  Mark and I have theater tickets for tonight, but the theater is on the Metro, so we won't have a problem getting there (or, more likely to be problematic, getting home.)  My massage, scheduled for tomorrow, has been canceled (a decision I greatly favored, because I didn't want the massage therapist to be waiting for me if/when I'm not able to get out of our never-plowed street.)  I have a party with my writer's group scheduled for Sunday afternoon, and I'll see if I can make that.

So - nothing major on the horizon, that will be ruined by snow.  And the very exciting chance to snuggle in bed, to enjoy pots of hot tea, to read, to retreat from the world at large.

Of course, my husband, who works in a conventional office job downtown, had unprintable things to say about the timing of this storm.  He should at least get a day off work, right?

Mindy, giddy as a schoolgirl

So, I won free tickets to see Avatar 3D, the midnight showing last night. Here's the obligatory review.

First, the good stuff: the special effects and cinematography. This was a spectacular movie in this respect. The special effects for the world--and when I say the world, I mean the world--were stunning. This had nothing to do with the 3D aspects at all. You can tell that the team that created this world spent a TON of time on it, going into every little detail and making all of those little details work together to create an actual, realistic-feeling other world. And I mean it: the world felt completely and utterly real to me, to the point where when something from out world came on set it felt like an intrusion (which was the point) and made it seem like anything related to us as humans was out of place (also the point). In fact, it made it seem as if anything related to us WASN'T REAL, that we were the special effect in the movie, not the world that served as the setting for the entire movie. It was literally stunning--beautiful and engaging and above all believable in nearly every respect. Sure there were a few "glossed over" explanations, such as how the mountains actually float (they just called it the "flux" or something), but that glossing could be ignored. And as I said, I don't believe this had anything to do with the 3D aspects of this.

One of the nice things about the creation of the world is that the special effects were NOT the central point of the movie. The world was there, and it served as a setting, but it was not the entirety of the movie. Same for the 3D aspects. There were no scenes where the entire "point" was the play with the 3D aspects to make the audience go "wow." Sure there were some "wow" scenes, but they weren't there JUST for that reason, except for when the newbies were seeing something spectacular for the first time, in which case the "wow" WAS the point, but for the character (not the audience). And these scenes were kept suitably short in my opinion. Same for the world in general: nothing was put into the movie for the sole purpose of the audience; it was there for the characters or for the plot. Too many SF and fantasy movie use the special effects just for the audience and don't let it serve exclusively for the plot or the characterization and the story. There were a few moments here and there where I thought a 3D effect went too far (such as one point where I wondered why we needed the ass shot and why it needed to be sticking out so far), but they were few and far between.

Of those characters, strangely enough, the one that I loved and followed and connected to the most was the main female alien (whose name I don't recall). I was not as drawn to the main character, Jake, much. Sigourney Weaver was great, but mostly served as a side character and in the end didn't have a huge role (a significant role, but not a huge one). The fact that I connected better with the aliens than the humans should make the creative team feel great, but shouldn't I be connecting to both, especially the hero of the story? I'm not sure if this was because Jake was just not a character that I could sympathize with, or if it was because the acting wasn't great, or simply that he just wasn't interesting, even though he was the character with the most significant character change from beginning to end. But in the end, I loved the female lead alien more, so kudos to that actress for her role.

So, some really good stuff going on in this movie: great worldbuilding, some good characterizations, especially of the aliens, and special effects used like they should be used in an SF movie.

Now some of the not so good things: the plot. It wasn't that the plot was bad--there were some really good emotionally jarring and gut-twisting moments in here--but the plot wasn't . . . new. This is the standard "humans find new land with indigenous species but with a resource we desperately need, so we try to take what we want and the locals fight back" story. The main thread is "human wins trust of locals, becomes one with them, betrays his own people and fights with them to take back the human-ravaged land." James Cameron could have used this theme to make some serious, heavy-duty commentary about some of the hideous things humans have done against humans in this vein in the past, pretty much all over the world, but he didn't need to. That point is hammered home without him needing to thrust it in our faces here. He sticks to the characters and how they are affected, and that is the most effective thing about this movie. It's what draws you in and makes your heart ache when the plot begins to take hold and get serious. But in the end, James Cameron didn't do anything really original with the plot. The only difference between this and movies with similar themes is that this is an SF movie. It's basically "Dances with Wolves" in space, as my movie companion said.

Another minor flaw is that the initial sequence--when we arrive on planet and the main character, Jake, is being introduced to the locals and slowly becoming an accepted part of their society--is a little too long. This section is extremely important to the movie: we get characterization, we get introduced to the world through Jake, we get a love interest, we get some very cool setup for events that happen later on in the plot. All of that was necessary and was there . . . but it still went on just a touch too long. At one point, the writer in me kicked in and said, "If he doesn't start the main plot sequence in the next 5 minutes, this movie is going to suck wind." I'd reached my limit of setup and worldbuilding and character building by that point. The fact that it pulled me out of the movie so much the writer kicked in DURING THE MOVIE is bad. So Cameron needed to find some small ways to cut that part of the movie back a little. I don't think it would have taken much--maybe cut 10 minutes overall from that section--and I wouldn't have had that writer moment. It would have made those scenes that much more effective in the end.

This is a minor quibble as well, but I wished Cameron has spent just a touch more time on Jake's character and how much he is emotionally affected by the fact that in his real life he can't use his legs, but through the avatar he can run, walk, jump, etc. Cameron spends some time on this, but not enough by far. I think this is why I ended up not connecting so much to Jake, and yet why I did connect so much with the main female lead. We get her side of the story and her emotions at nearly every stage in the movie. Cameron starts doing that with Jake at the beginning, but then Jake's own personal motivations and emotions get set aside. I wish they hadn't. Jake had great potential as a character of extreme interest and emotional turmoil. It just wasn't used.

So, in the end, what did I think? I loved the movie, even seeing it at midnight after a long day that started at 5:30am. I did not get sleepy at all during the showing (although my movie companion dozed out for a while *ahem*), so it completely engaged me. The worldbuilding was spectacular, but was not the point of the movie. Most of the characters were interesting and drew me in, although there were some lost opportunities with a few of the characters, namely Jake. There were some emotionally riveting and gut-wrenching parts. But the story fell a little flat simply because there wasn't anything new done with it. We've seen this type of story before (or read this type of story before) and it needed something else, some twist besides it being set on another planet, to take it up a level. That twist could have been drawing us in more to Jake's turmoil, driving home his desire to get his legs back and the choices he has--getting back his original legs by siding with the humans, or getting them back using the avatar--but Cameron didn't focus in on that enough. But it was still a good movie. In many aspects a spectacular movie.