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HOLIDAYS AND DEADLINES [Nov. 11th, 2009|10:00 am]
romancingblog

http://www.romancingtheblog.com/blog/2009/11/11/holidays-and-deadlines/

http://www.romancingtheblog.com/blog/?p=3161

Lisa Jackson Icon

EVERY year I swear to myself and my family that “next year” I’m going to take December off. I’ll be caught up and I can trim the Christmas tree with the family, go shopping and stroll through the malls, bake Christmas cookies . . . well, you get it the idea. (No, I won’t be signing Christmas Carols, I’ve got a serious tin ear.) The point is, I had plan to be ahead of the game. And every year, I’m behind, a deadline looms, copy edits are due, I’m working on a new idea or whatever. The job takes precedent. Everyone understands. But another year passes and everyone gets older.

This year I thought I was good to go. I was already doing some shopping in August. (Talk about a head of the game!) And last year I did put up tons of outdoor lights, so I had the right strands; I could start right after Halloween. Even though the ancient willow tree had fallen down in a storm. If not the bare branches of the willow, I can light up the fence, right? As for my fall deadline, it would be long over . . .

Yeah, right.

What I hadn’t anticipated was the frailty of health. My family went through some serious issues that kept me from staying ahead of the game work wise. So, once again, I find myself racing to catch up for the holidays. As I write this my mind is on revisions that are due this week. Once they’re finished, the copy edited manuscript will return here and then the page proofs. Maybe not all before the New Year, but potential enough to keep me from doing too much fa-la-la-la-la-ing. And isn’t Thanksgiving in what, a week or two? I’ve already seen a kabillion Christmas ads on TV. Seems like the retailers would really like my money again this year. I’m so far behind, I don’t know what the new “it” item is. Do I have to stand in line for a WII, or XBox, or Cabbage Patch doll this year? Please, someone, clue me in!

My solution for being behind is being ahead. (Really far ahead–like 11 months worth!) I’m keeping my Halloween decorations up! That’s right, I’ve got the creepy plastic tree on the shelf, two skulls, purple and orange candles and a string of weird cat lights strung over my kitchen window. There’s also the Haunted Hotel sign near the front door and another one inside announcing in flashing neon that “The Witch Is In.” I even picked up a poster for a quarter at the grocery store and got a really good deal on some “Boo” napkins. Since I missed Halloween because of some of those same old health issues, I figure Thanksgiving is fair game. I’ve never been a fan pinecone turkeys or dried corn or paper Pilgrim hats anyway. The skulls stay!

I’ll cook the traditional meal, of course, but we might just have tiny Snickers bars for dessert instead of pumpkin pie. Sound good? I think so. Finally maybe, I’ll be caught up enough to celebrate Christmas on December 25th. Fa-la-la-la-la!

Lisa Jackson
http://www.lisajackson.com
http://www.twitter.com/readlisajackson

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2009-11-11: Sinfest [Nov. 11th, 2009|01:00 pm]
sinfestfeed

http://www.cartoonlabs.com/comics/index.php?date=2009-11-11&show=sinfest

Sinfest
Tatsuya Ishida

by Tatsuya Ishida

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REVIEW: Redline Lover by Charlene Teglia [Nov. 11th, 2009|10:00 am]
dear_author_rwa

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/dearauthor/~3/HXpz3mOgqgo/

http://dearauthor.com/wordpress/?p=15203

Dear Ms. Teglia:

1258Thank you for sending this novella to me for review. I know, having read erotic romance* for several years, that here is a real skill in delivering believable and sexy consummation scenes. You have that skill and I appreciated the delivery of that content. The overall construct, perhaps because of the length, was problematic.

Maggie Parker and Adam Richards were a couple until Maggie up and left one day, leaving Adam sleeping and a post it note breaking up with him.  She moved to Chicago to take a job with a magazine.  When Maggie’s sister gives birth to a son alone and abandoned by her husband, Maggie returns to her hometown near Washington, D.C..  Of course, that puts her back into proximity with Adam.

Adam feels like there was unfinished business between them and proposes that Maggie have sex with him until she leaves for Chicago again.  Adam wants to sex Maggie out of his system.  Maggie is given a remote assignment to come up with a story about Adam, race car driver who leaves it all behind to start a mechanic shop.

I wasn’t sure why Adam and Maggie started dating in the first place and I never got a sense of where their relationship was when she left.  They obviously had communication issues. Maggie never explained to him that she was searching for jobs outside the D.C. area and Adam never explained why he gave up competitive racing.  Some of the conversations they had was if they had never dated before.   Adam really didn’t see Maggie’s departure coming.  He was curiously even keeled about Maggie leaving him.  He was more frustrated and wondering if his strong desire for her had driven her away.

There are great little touches here and there that convey a lot of emotion and provide great setting but the coherency of the story lost me from time to time.  I was confused about how Maggie could maintain any journalistic integrity by sleeping with Adam and I was confused about Adam’s desire to both push Maggie away and sex them both into exhaustion.  For example, Adam swung back and forth after their first sexual encounter.  First he leaves her on the bed, wanting more and hoping that she is gone when he is done with his shower.   When she comes in to the bathroom to say goodbye, he draws her into the shower and they proceed to satisfy each other. I needed something to signal his own internal conflict if that is what you wanted me to read into this. If he wanted to fuck her out of his system, why did he engage in delayed gratification to heighten sensory satisfaction?

I did love the explanation of what the redline was and I wish that this were teased out even more. I thought it was an interesting concept that was brought up but never fully integrated.

There was a nice circling of around for Maggie, from running away to staying and deciding to risk Adam’s rejection in order to find out if they could be together.  As I said in my opening, your sex scenes are always well done and this book is no different.  I wished that there was more cohesiveness in the character motivations.  C

Best regards,

Jane

This book can be purchased at Samhain in DRM Free multiformat.

* I’m not sure I would tag this an erotic romance. I didn’t find the scenes to be any more erotic than in a Blaze.

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From Twitter 11-10-2009 [Nov. 11th, 2009|03:01 am]

e_moon60


Tweets copied by twittinesis.com

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From Twitter 11-10-2009 [Nov. 11th, 2009|03:01 am]

kristine_smith

  • 18:25:47: Missing tweets, FB posts, LJ, everything. Someday I'll catch up...

Tweets copied by twittinesis.com

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Wednesday November 11, 2009 [Nov. 11th, 2009|03:00 am]
fbofw_rss

http://www.fborfw.com/strip_fix/archives/004117.php

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Mafia Wars CEO Brags About Scamming Users From Day One [Nov. 11th, 2009|01:51 am]

alfreda89
[Tags|]
[Current Location |Box Central]
[mood | irritated]

I knew I hated these guys....

http://ow.ly/Bb8T
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Features: Savage Love:November 11, 2009 [Nov. 11th, 2009|12:00 am]
savagelove

http://www.avclub.com/articles/november-11-2009,35160/?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=feeds&utm_source=type_savage-love

I am a 30-year-old woman, married for five years to a man eight years my senior. Lately I have become more aware that I am turned on by the idea of bondage, specifically men locked up in chastity devices. I am ashamed of myself, because it seems, well, pretty perverse and disturbed.
My husband is a pretty dominant alpha-male type. I am a relatively dominant personality, but I’m a bit submissive around him in order to keep the peace, as he will not tolerate any disagreement in certain situations. So I am wondering: Is this new fetish springing from ...
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John Gebhardt [Nov. 11th, 2009|03:00 pm]
snopes_dot_com

http://www.snopes.com/photos/military/gebhardt.asp

Photograph shows a U.S. airman comforting an injured Iraqi child.
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Wednesday, November 11, 2009 [Nov. 11th, 2009|07:22 am]
doonesburyfeed

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/uclick/doonesbury/~3/FFdSn0jr670/459402

Doonesbury for Wednesday, November 11, 2009


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Girl Genius for Wednesday, November 11, 2009 [Nov. 11th, 2009|05:00 am]
girlgenius_feed

http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20091111

The Girl Genius comic for Wednesday, November 11, 2009 has been posted.
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11/11 [Nov. 11th, 2009|01:29 am]

james_nicoll

Poppy

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Mid-week NaNoPost [Nov. 11th, 2009|12:00 am]
pbw_feed

http://pbackwriter.blogspot.com/2009/11/mid-week-nanopost_10.html

It's a little more than a third of the way toward the NaNoWriMo deadline of November 30th, and if life hasn't interfered in some fashion, I imagine most of you have kept at it. You've probably encountered a few bumps over the last ten days, so it may not feel as exciting or fun as it did when you started out, but you're also learning from it. Success is a lovely thing, but adversity is a better teacher.

Some of the lessons you may have encountered since our last NaNoCheck:

Characters: Your cast seems to have turned into a collection of giant sloths who only want to stand or sit around talking to each other.

Details: You can't remember her exact hair color, his exact eye color, or you're afraid you switched them and she now has green hair and he has red eyes.

Dialogue: You're sick of using said, so you're trying to mix up the dialogue tags. But you don't want to use anything else but said. But you're tired of said. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Jumping the Gun: Three more words: Premature sex scene.

Modifiers: -ly adverbs keep coming out of nowhere like barnacles to latch onto your verbs.

Repetition: The eye references are multiplying like tribbles.

Ugh Factors: Your protagonist is starting to remind you of that bitchy unmarried relation you avoid at all the family reunions, and the antagonist is beginning to behave exactly like your ex right before you started looking at rentals and stowing away money for the lawyer.

Wishy-Washy Watercolor Memories: You never used to write like this.

Work? Who knew it was going to be work, hard work, very hard work, and why didn't anyone tell you in advance?

Youch: They should call it National Novelist Torture Month.

There are ways to cope. You can skip along, you can trudge on, you can start over (50K/19 days = 2631.5 words per day), you can quit or you can pick it up from here.

Characters: To handle any slothlike creatures populating your story, think through your next scene before you write it. Use the situation and the setting actively to engage the characters in accompanying, scene-appropriate action during any conversation.

Details: When in hair, eye, or skin color doubt, check your character worksheet. Or stop describing what color they are.

Dialogue: Make peace with said. Employ it frugally. Obsessing over varying dialogue tags can and will suck the joy out of your scene. And when possible, resist the retorteds, reproveds, reiterateds and any other dialogue tag that has not been in active use since the eighteenth century.

Jumping the Gun: Think of sex scenes like sword fighting scenes. They should take place at logical and justifiable moments.

Modifiers: -ly adverbs are not the enemy. Nor are they your friend. Allow yourself one or two per page maximum, and instead use action to modify dialogue.

Repetition: Your characters have many other interesting body parts; don't ignore them all for the peepers.

Ugh Factors: Protags and Antags who start to morph into family or ex-family members are getting away from you. Go back to your outline or character worksheets and renew your acquaintance with the original characters before you write them into a scene.

Wishy-Washy Watercolor Memories: What you wrote in the past was then, what you write now is now. Stop thinking about how well or poorly you're writing and just write. You can edit brilliantly later.

Work!: Writing is work, or they wouldn't pay for it. You're earning your future keep.

Youch: I have it on good authority that National Novel Torture Month will be next July, or whenever Alison Kent gets tired of making Sven sweat, whichever comes first.

The phase of writing you're moving into demands three P's from the writer: patience, perseverance, and problem-solving. It's where we as storytellers pay our dues so we can make it to the home stretch. Don't beat yourself up over what you haven't done or what you won't do, focus on what you're doing. Write today, in this day, and let the rest fall away (don't worry, it'll be waiting there to jump you next time.)
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Two-Party System [Nov. 11th, 2009|05:00 am]
xkcd_rss

http://xkcd.com/661/

I favor approval voting or IRV chiefly because they mean we might get to bring back The Bull Moose party.
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Why, O Why? [Nov. 10th, 2009|11:45 pm]

blackhanddpants
Somebody please tell me why I had to be nearly four decades into this business before I figured out what a marvelous invention drop-in toilet bowl cleaners are?

I can't figure that one out.
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(no subject) [Nov. 10th, 2009|11:32 pm]

matociquala
[Tags|]
[mood | embarrassed]

I decided to hurl myself off overhangs today, on the theory that if I not getting lighter, I had bloody better well start getting stronger. So, two attempts at a 5.8 on the 45-foot wall (second time I made about 30 feet of it, but you know, the damned thing is so overhung that when you come off you don't get back on) and then I sent an overhung 5.7 I've done before. As a reward, I decided I was going to do something I had never tried, which I thought was probably too hard for me. A 5.8 in the front corner, with a little roof over it.

Reader, I sent it.

I expected it to be brutal and crimpy and awful at the bottom, but really it was lovely--all balance and technique, and moving your feet around, and your hands are mostly just there to give you things to balance on. Apparently, I climb better than I realized, because I just floated up it.

I fell off scads trying to get over the roof, though. Don't worry. *g*

Going back tomorrow. We'll see if I have any juice.
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(no subject) [Nov. 10th, 2009|11:03 pm]

joii

  • 07:30 At ORD waiting to board to Ottawa... Hates airports, precious. #

Automatically shipped by LoudTwitter
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Sadly, not theoretical [Nov. 10th, 2009|10:44 pm]

james_nicoll
Poll #1483748
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 46

Which is worse to be ear-wormed by?

View Answers

Die Gedanken sind frei
1 (2.2%)

99 Luft Balloons
9 (19.6%)

Both, switching back and forth
3 (6.5%)

Both at the same time, in some kind of lovecraftian mash-up
11 (23.9%)

You think those are bad, try (see comments)
14 (30.4%)

I would like to complain about this poll
8 (17.4%)



I may have to break out I Don't Like Mondays or, god help me, Joe Hill.
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(no subject) [Nov. 10th, 2009|10:45 pm]

matociquala
[Tags|, ]
[mood | radioactive]

While I was melting butter for the muffins (Chaz's blueberry muffin recipe, modified for orange-cranberry-walnut whole wheat muffins (1) (2)) the microwave attempted to immolate itself.

This is not a tragedy, as said microwave was left behind by the last inhabitants of this residence, and it's old enough that it has rotary dials and wood-grain.

But I am glad I didn't bother cleaning it today.


(1)If it's good with orange extract, it will be REALLY good with orange extract, Cointreau, orange juice, and bitter orange peel. Right?

(2) Yuppie wand blender is good for pulverising the cranberries into the yogurt. I thought they would be a bit much, whole.
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Peepshow Preview [Nov. 10th, 2009|09:57 pm]

spiziks
[Tags|]

I've posted a Peepshow preview on my web site.  Go have a look at the Peepshow creation process!
 
 
We're setting up the show in the library tomorrow (Wednesday), and the judging is on Thursday, with winners announced on Friday.  The OAKLAND PRESS sent two photographers in--a videographer and a still photographer.  The still photographer took photos for the paper, and the videographer is making a short video to put up on the paper's web site to supplement the article.  I'll post a link once it becomes available.
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