Monthly Archives
November 2006
I now have a personal referent for the phrase “horrified fascination”. It’s the inability to stop watching this unfold.
The latest developments:
Haha, I’m partying with Paris and you’re not.
Boo hoo. Nobody likes me, everybody hates me, guess I’m gonna go eat worms. (Noises off: “Yes, you’re right, we all hate you, just STFU.”) Also: Im sorry, I luv u, pls tk me bak…
No way. What do I need you for? I’m so important I can show everybody my crotch. Repeatedly. And I’m gonna have a big important show in Las Vegas. And I’m gonna go there for New Year’s and be the star of a big party in the club where you recorded your last flop, and you’re so not invited. AND I’m gonna be the hostess of the Billboard awards with Paris. NYAH NYAH!
(However: inferred but not yet confirmed — Britney gets wind of something that Paris has supposedly said about her. And immediately thereafter:)
And I thought you were my friend! So I’m not doing the Billboards, and you can just stand there and be host all by yourself and everybody’ll know why, you traitor. Take that!
(Paris Update: Well, I’m not doing them either. I didn’t like the jokes they wrote for me. Which were probably about you.)
(headclutch) Dear Goddess, it’s like watching a train wreck. It just keeps… on… going… It can’t get worse than this, really it can’t.
(waits in a resigned manner for the world to prove her wrong)
[tags]K-Fed, britney, spears, federline, paris, hilton, train wreck, gossip[/tags]
…just for its name.
Sitting in front of a veteran agent’s desk are two cases of Red Car Syrah …
(Well, I’d hope it was also a nice wine.) …But working on The Big Meow has brought me a much extended appreciation of what the Red Car system was, and where it went, and how important it was to LA. And the affection in which it’s still held in some quarters is surprising…
Lester Dent’s Pulp Paper Master Fiction Plot
(…The challenge now being to adapt it for novel use, and to find out whether it works. Certainly a lot of the advice seems sound…)
The business of building stories seems not much different from the business of building anything else.
It sometimes saves embarrassment to know nearly as much about the locale as the editor, or enough to fool him.
DON’T TELL ABOUT IT! Show how the thing looked. This is one of the secrets of writing; never tell the reader–show him. (He trembles, roving eyes, slackened jaw, and such.) MAKE THE READER SEE HIM.
Shovel the difficulties more thickly upon the hero.
THE SECRET OF ALL WRITING IS TO MAKE EVERY WORD COUNT.
And equally useful for a writer spending some time in the 1940’s:
Twists, Slugs and Roscoes (A useful dictionary of ’40’s detective slang)
Why get in a car when you can hop in a boiler? Why tell someone to shut up when you can tell them to close their head? Why threaten to discharge a firearm when you can say, “Dust, pal, or I pump lead!”
Why indeed…
[tags]Doc Savage, writing, pulp, 1940s[/tags]
I swear, it’s like watching high-stakes poker on TV. But high-stakes poker played by six-year-olds.
Oh yeah? I want a lot of money or I’m taking the kids because you’re a bad mom.
No I’m not and no you’re not. Read the prenup again and buzz off.
Oh yeah? Well I have a sooper sekrit sex tape and I’m gonna sell it for a gazillion dollars.
No you won’t, I’ll leak it to the filesharers first and nobody’ll pay you for what they can get for free. And I’m selling the house and buying a loads bigger one that you’ll never have been inside of. Nyah nyah.
Oh yeah? Well there is no tape. Hahahahahaha. And I’m going to write a book about you anyway and tell everybody all your secrets.
…(sigh) Okay, what’s the next card down on the table?
(Update: And now we know.)
Haha, I’m partying with Paris and you’re not.
Boo hoo. Nobody likes me, everybody hates me, guess I’m gonna go eat worms. (Noises off: “Yes, you’re right, we all hate you, just STFU.”) Also: Im sorry, I luv u, pls tk me bak…
No way. What do I need you for? I’m so important I can show everybody my crotch. Repeatedly. And I’m gonna have a big important show in Las Vegas. And I’m gonna go there for New Year’s and be the star of a big party in the club where you recorded your last flop, and you’re so not invited. AND I’m gonna be the hostess of the Billboard awards with Paris. NYAH NYAH!
(However: inferred but not yet confirmed — Britney gets wind of something that Paris has supposedly said about her. And immediately thereafter:)
And I thought you were my friend! So I’m not doing the Billboards, and you can just stand there and be host all by yourself and everybody’ll know why, you traitor. Take that!
(headclutch) Dear Goddess, it’s like watching a train wreck. It just keeps… on… going… It can’t get worse than this, really it can’t.
(waits in a resigned manner for the world to prove her wrong)
[tags] Britney, K-Fed, Fed-Ex, prenup, sex tape, did didn’t did didn’t did didn’t did so did not did so did not neener neiner niener[/tags]
Or at least the one involving the most people. Five simultaneous operations…and the whole thing triggered by one person willing to give one of her kidneys to anybody who needed it.
So cool. And logistically, what a challenge to set up! My head spins just thinking about it.
[tags]domino, kidney, transplant[/tags]
…is showing in this column by a writer who previously worked with OJ Simpson’s editor…
The editor who propelled Rush Limbaugh into the national spotlight, who claimed to have rewritten Howard Stern’s autobiography during one marathon weekend in his guesthouse, was offering me the key to the bestseller list if only I would listen and learn. I wouldn’t, so she kicked me over to a freelance editor and publishing obscurity. I could not have been more relieved.
I have never met anyone like Regan, before or since. The phrase “force of nature” could have been invented to describe her, although other phrases have been used, including “foul-mouthed tyrant” and “enfant terrible of American publishing.” She might be the most successful editor in history, if profits are the measure. Until now, everything she has touched has turned to gold, from Jose Canseco’s “Juiced” to Jenna Jameson’s “How to Make Love Like a Porn Star.”
This time, Regan’s instinct for the lowest common denominator failed her. She aimed too low.
Innnnnnteresting…
[tags] OJ, O. J., Simpson, Regan, Murdoch[/tags]
I came across this comment about me a little bit ago, and it started me thinking:
Next you’ll be telling me she’s not really a libertarian.
This made me go look up “libertarian”, as I wasn’t sure that the world presently meant by the term what I think I mean by it. (For me, the word instantly brought up an image of Thomas Jefferson, along with accompanying images of Monticello, and of the vegetables and various European soft fruits that TJ imported to the US for his garden to experiment with and get commerce started in them.)
The Wikipedia entry has all kinds of too-damn-fascinating crossreferences hooked into it…including a link to the page on paleolibertarianism, which I had never heard of before and which immediately conjured up images of some kind of Free the Dinosaurs movement. (I’m sorry, but these weird sideways associational flashes happen to me constantly, all day, every day. In the psychiatric community they would often be categorized as either “looseness of association” or “flight of ideas”, depending on how fast they happened and how logical the connection of the secondary material to the primary material that seemed to be associated with it. But for this writer, at least, they’re an invaluable tool of the trade.)
Anyway, I read through the article, thought a bit, and found that the following phrases pretty much described my attitude toward what seem to be the primary issues in question:
(1) I prefer just enough government to protect me from having other political entities fall on my neighborhood with fire and sword.
(2) I prefer a government that does not behave in such a way as to cause other political entities to want to fall on my neighborhood with fire and sword.
(3) I prefer a government that does not fall on other political entities with fire and sword unless they (a) are falling on mine with fire and sword or (b) can clearly be shown to be in the process of doing so.
(4) Anybody falls on my neighborhood with fire and sword, they’re going to find that they’ve got my sword to deal with. (And a lot of Peter’s.) And I know exactly where to insert that sword to best advantage. (This being one of the things that having been a nurse is good for.)
(5) (That’s enough formulating for one day. Ed.)
Do those make me a libertarian? Then guilty as charged, I guess. But there were a lot of things on the shopping list of necessary opinions and traits that I wouldn’t necessarily hold with. (From the Wikipedia entry, and this essay, the term “minarchist” would seem to be a closer match to what goes on inside my head. And even in the description of that term, there would be things I’d have to argue with, or would reject.)
So probably the simplest way to find out whether I’m a libertarian or not would be to name me Queen of the World, and see what I did. If I really am a libertarian, I’ll abdicate, right? Q.E.D.
Then again, I might just keep the title for a few years to see how it worked out. And as regarded everything else in the definition, like any other good psychiatric nurse or responsible sf/fantasy writer, I would have to handle each issue that came up on a case-by-case basis. This being the case, when I am Queen of the World, I foresee a lot of long days spent in the adjudicating chair, sorting out all the messy details like free trade (suddenly I hear Jed Bartlett’s voice saying, “Unless a war breaks out, I’ll be spending the rest of my day talking about bananas…”) and the minimum wage (needs raising just about everywhere, if you ask me. And if you made me Queen of the World, then you did).
But generally, I would suggest that you really don’t want to see me being Queen of the World, as even my considerable patience does have limits, and when events take me past those, my management style will most closely approach that of Mrs. Oscar Gordon (“This problem will clear up if you take that man — you, what’s your name? with the goatee? — take him out and shoot him. Do it now.”), though without either (a) the accumulated wisdom of the Egg of the Phoenix or (b) the PMS. …I do, however, promise in advance to boost funding to every sensible space program, as it strikes me as a good way to give the fire-and-sword types something to occupy their time. And of course I get to decide what’s “sensible.” What good would being the Queen of the World be otherwise?…
…But no…I’m sure the world will work better if I stay right where I am and continue to exercise benevolent tyranny over the houseplants and the cats. And attempt to exercise it over the computers. (Hah.) And vote.
(…Though the thought of running for the European Parliament [obviously, as an independent] has occasionally crossed my mind. Wow, just think, the opportunity to eat out in Brussels every night…
Naaaaaaaahhh. I need to lose ten pounds, and with Le Cirio just around the corner and Den Dijver just down the road, it’d never happen.
(snort) Back to work. I’ve got worlds where I’m queen already, and they’re calling.
Ron Moore is going to be writing the screenplay for the new version of The Thing. (via Variety and various other sources)
Go Ron!!
(And something from the Variety article that seems to have slipped under the radar: “Moore, who’s repped by CAA, just scripted an “I, Robot” sequel for Fox.”)
[tags]Ronald D. Moore, Ron Moore, Battlestar Galactica, BSG, The Thing, John Carpenter[/tags]
(sigh) After dealing with an incredible amount of local crap (which I’m not going to bore you with at the moment, but will, a little later, on the weblog and elsewhere), this is just to let everyone know that Chapter 5 is now available for “The Big Meow”‘s subscribers. And my apologies for the long delay. (The chapter will go up for public consumption a week for today.)
Profound apologies also to those who emailed me about the long delay in chapter posting, and didn’t get a response: the mail is just one more thing that’s been very screwed up lately. I am working to fix that, as well as many other things. More of this shortly. (Briefly, I want to finish the book up before the end of December, and am about to set up a new pub schedule. We’ll also be revamping the website so as to make it simpler to do updates and stay in touch with everybody in a timely manner. When everything’s set up, I’ll see if this weblog can be imported / incorporated directly into the website structure.)
Subscribers are being mailed information about the file locations right now. (Briefly: it’s where chapters 3 and 4 were on their limited release, and the same usernames / passwords will work for accessing the new material. If you’re a subscriber and you’ve lost the location information or the passwords, mail me at diane.duane@gmail.com and I’ll mail you the passwords straight back. Please put the word PICARESQUE in your subject line so I can make sure Gmail notices your messages properly.)
Once again, all possible apologies for the great lateness…but I’m now on track to getting this thing done, pronto. Thanks again to all of you who’ve been bearing with me so patiently.
[tags]The Big Meow, feline, wizards, wizardry[/tags]