I was thinking about the movie Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure tonight. No, I have no idea why. But this scene in particular has been in my head:
Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure clip
That was my fave saying for at least three months after I saw that movie for the first time. “Strange things are afoot at the Circle K.”
Classic.
So, go. Be randomly goofy with me.
Happy Friday.
Hi, kids–
So how is everyone feeling about Halloween? I know some parts of the country are going to get some snow this weekend (holy crap–I’m so not ready for this…), so that might put a damper on your festivities (I hope not), but why not dress up ANYWAY? Just cuz? It’s not every day, after all, that you get to put on something gory/goofy/freaky/totally off the wall and wear it around town and nobody bats an eye.
I’m not suggesting you go supah mac daddy like THESE folks (but those are pretty awesome), just that you put a little Halloween in you and get into the spirit. It’s a festival with a long tradition embedded in the shift in seasons from fall to winter, and the mystical aspects about that. Ancient Celts believed that on the night of Samhain, the boundary between worlds was at its most transparent, and the shift in seasons mimicked the cycles of life, death, and rebirth. Samhain celebrations were often marked by bonfires, and that tradition still continues in areas of the British Isles.
And if that’s not quite up your alley, then perhaps indulge in MY favorite holiday, Día/s de los Muertos.
source: destination 360
That holiday’s roots come from indigenous cultures of Latin America, and for all its macabre iconography, it’s actually a celebration of life — when the living acknowledge their ancestors and people who have died before them, some family and friends, others not. They celebrate the lives of those people, and reflect on life in general. It’s a little wink at death, which claims us all, and a recognition that life, and the people in it, can be absurd. I like those juxtapositions.
So have yourself some fun n’ games!
Happy Friday!
Don’t worry! I’ll be back probably around Friday. In the meantime, here. Revel in this awesome photo montage thingie of the American West. It’s slow to load, but it is so amazingly gorgeous that it’s worth the wait:
Peace.
Hey, kids–
I caught this story today (I’m a little late to the party) and all I could think was “FUBAR.” For those not in the know about what the means, here.
Anyway, the National Book Award is a pretty prestigious deal. So when the nominees were announced last week, the authors and publishers no doubt got way excited and danced around, threw confetti, did fist pumps, and probably called tons of people with the news. However, one of those nominees wasn’t actually a nominee. Whoever put the short lists together got the wrong book, wrong author.
Yeah. The book award people announced Lauren Myracle’s Shine as a short list nominee instead of Franny Billingsley’s Chime. Both books are geared toward young adults.
Soon after the announcement, the book awards people added Chime to the list, stating that there would be six nominees instead of five in that category this year. Okay, seems fair enough, though it was a pretty big screw-up.
Today, however, Myracle has withdrawn her title from the shortlist, citing pressure from the National Book Foundation, which oversees the award. Myracle said that she was asked to withdraw her book in order to “preserve the integrity of the award and the judges’ work.” She agreed to do so, and she graciously gave props to the other authors nominated in the category.
Guess it was just too hard to have six books instead of five in contention. Although, if I were a conspiracy-monger (and who isn’t every now and again) or deeply, heinously cynical (and again, who isn’t now and again), I might wonder a little bit about that. Myracle’s book is about discrimination against gay youth in schools. Fortunately, I’m not necessarily a conspiracy-monger, and the National Book Foundation did agree to donate $5,000 to the Matthew Shepard Foundation, an organization geared toward helping LGBTQ youth.
Regardless, the Tweet-o-sphere has a “supportShine” hashtag going, and there are lots of people out there who are not happy about this decision. And yes, it was a pretty big screw-up on the part of the NBF. I’m interested to see how it plays out over the next few days.
In the meantime, happy reading, happy writing!
Hey, kids. I’m a huge fan of author Chuck Wendig for his spot-on blogs about writing and the life of a writer.
His latest is no exception: “What It’s Like Being a Writer”
It’s true. Every last bit of it. That’s what it’s like.
I get a lot of questions about “work.” That is, what writers “do” when they “work.”
There’s no real mystery to it. I sit down (or stand — I alternate, because the bane of backs everywhere is sitting for long stretches), I open a file onscreen, I go through a couple of chapters to pick up the mood and flavor, and start writing where I left off. I also go back and tweak, edit, obsess, re-do, tighten, and check. I have the interwebs open so I can fact-check (when I’m working on a mystery), and sometimes I stop everything and contact an expert to make sure that I have details right. For me, thus, writing is like putting together a research paper. There’s an internal organization and structure, a way that things unfold, and I have to do some research for a lot of my work.
Having said that, I don’t ever really know how my stories or novels are going to play out or end until I’m practically there. I’m one of those “organic” kinds of writers. I’ll have an idea and I’ll mull it for a while and then sit down and just start writing. I don’t do outlines (unless I’m working on a nonfiction piece), though I do keep notes.
Most writers will tell you that to keep fresh as a writer, you need to do at least a thousand a words a day. And not Tweeting or interwebbing or Facebooking. A thousand words on your project(s) each and every day. Every writer has a different approach to doing those thousand words. I tend to hammer out 2,000-3,000 in a session, which can be an hour or two. On weekends, I might get in 5,000-7,000 words, if I don’t have anything else going on. And yes, I have a day job. I treat my writing like a workout. I do it almost every day. And when I’m not doing that, I’m dealing with publishers, cover designers, and marketing/promotion. Writing is not just about the act of writing. It’s about the entire business that surrounds it. And when I’m not doing that, I’m trying to figure out how to make my writing better, which involves workshops, reading other writers, and engaging in discussions about craft.
But I also have a day here and there where I don’t write. That’s fine. It works for me, because I’ve found that for me, if I force myself to write too much all the time, I stop liking the story, and that’s when I know I have to take a break. But I don’t ever stop thinking about stories. And everything I do during a day has the potential to turn into a story or to be part of a story.
So yes, writing is work. Is it brutally physical labor? Hell, no and I would never presume to compare it to things like, say, firefighting or law enforcement. But it requires a level of engagement with a subject sustained over long periods of time. It can be a lonely, frustrating pursuit with little monetary reward. And no, I don’t know why writers write. Everybody’s got their own reasons. I do it because I love it and it provides an outlet for me that I think (for unknown reasons), keeps me grounded and sane, in a weird way, though I know that lots of writers are rumored to be other than that.
Oh, and writers constantly tell wannabe writers things like this. Because it’s a crazy freakin’ life, and honestly, not everyone should be a writer, just as not everybody should be a firefighter or a police officer. For those of us who are writers, it’s obviously because some strange alien creature invaded our brain fogs like the Borg and now we’re doomed.
So there you go.
Happy reading, happy writing!
Hey, kids–
OMG it’s “Shark Week” on the Discovery Channel. And good gracious, there are some seriously nasty stories revealed. That is, seriously grim, macabre, and tragic. So I’ve been sort of thinking about sharks, and interestingly, so have other people.
For example, Anderson Cooper went to South Africa to check out this dude who dives with sharks WITHOUT A CAGE. WTF? The dude has decided to “get to know” sharks better, and find out more about them. Well, okay, that sounds like a decent wildlife biologist thing to do (except the dude isn’t a wildlife biologist), but please remember that sharks are PREDATORS. That’s what they do, that’s what they do best. Remember the guy who lived with grizzlies? Yeah, that didn’t turn out so well, either.
Don’t get me wrong. I admire people who go out and try to figure out how the wild things are so we can figure out as another species how to live with them and respect them. I don’t think hanging out in shark-infested waters without a cage and trying to play with sharks is a good idea, just like I thought living in the midst of a bunch of grizzlies wasn’t a good idea, either.
Outside Magazine has a recent article on those sharks off the coast of South Africa, and how shark attacks are up because people are trying to get tourists to go on shark tours. How do they do it? Throwing lots of chum (blood and fish) into the water to lure them. Maybe not the best idea, as this article demonstrates (and perhaps Anderson Cooper should take note).
And in a related vein, how about this Outside Mag piece on an orca attack on its trainer (she died)? Or this piece they did, “Blood in the Water,” about other confined orca attacks?
The point is, predators are predators. Humans are also predators, and many of us remain that way in spite of all the human-made laws and alleged effects of “civilization.” What happens when you mess with non-human predators that don’t have “civilizing” influences? Well…
Happy (I guess) “Shark Week” and happy Friday!
Hi, kids!
I’m taking a few days to get caught up on things, so don’t freak out when you don’t hear from me ’til mid next week! Sometimes, you’ve just got to make sure everything’s on the same page. Or at least in the same chapter.
So have yourself a groovy few days and catch you soon!
Hi, all–
A couple of quick things today. First, if you’re looking for a slightly different take on a zombie tale, try Gina Ranalli’s Praise the Dead (2010).
source
Gina’s a bizarro/horror writer who injects her work with sly little winks and quirks. In “Praise,” you’ll meet Andrew, a kid who discovers he has the power to bring things back from the dead. The problem is, they’re not quite right when that happens. But Andrew’s ability leads him on a scary power trip and a showdown with a group of people who have to stop him. For more info about Gina, you can find her here, at her website.
And the other thing I was thinking about has to do with overall health of not only you, but the nation, especially if you want to be fighting zombies effectively. Overall health of the nation is something that concerns me personally.
New stats were just released, and as usual, the American South is the unhealthiest and most obese region in the country, but it’s not the only unhealthy part. America, as a whole, is unhealthy. Mississippi is considered the worst off; almost 34 percent of residents there are obese. Almost 32 percent of the residents of the state of Alabama are considered obese. That’s A THIRD. 9 of the 10 fattest states in the country are in the South.
There are also racial, ethnic, and class disparities at play here, and access to foods that are beneficial rather than damaging. Here are some of the other issues that a fat and unhealthy nation contributes to.
Click on to see.
Hi, kids–
Well, there’s been a major freak-out over the Casey Anthony verdict (as I knew there would be), but I’m also hearing some really hateful and ignorant things being tossed around about the case and the jurors. Just a little reminder about manners, friends. Sure, disagree with someone. And sure, disagree strongly. But threats? Really? Behaving like that doesn’t make your case hold up that well, either. Just a friendly tip from the etiquette gallery.
That said, I write a character who is an Albuquerque homicide detective named Chris Gutierrez, and in her first book, State of Denial, she has to solve a murder. A suspect presents early, but Chris — like any good detective knows — must prove the case. That is, she must find the evidence that clearly demonstrates a link (hopefully, more than one link) from the dead person to the suspect, and between what happened to the dead person to the suspect. She has her suspicions, but she also knows what happens in court is contingent on the quality of the evidence she collects and the procedures she employed to collect it. There must be little, if any doubt, that the evidence clearly links a suspect to the victim. As a writer of mysteries and police procedurals, I have to get this stuff as accurate as I can. I’m trying to write a convincing detective who does a good job. In order to do that, I have to educate myself about police procedure and criminalistics.
I want to be very clear about something here. I noticed that many of the “polls” circulating on the Interwebs ask the following question: “Do you believe Casey Anthony is guilty?” I think that’s the wrong question to ask about this case. It is my belief that clearly, something happened in the Anthony household (which has been called “dysfunctional” in the trial, with accusations that Ms. Anthony was abused by her father) that led to the death of Caylee Anthony. The question remains as to what specifically that was. The question, I think, that should be asked is whether you think there was enough concrete evidence to convict Ms. Anthony on a charge of 1st degree murder.
To prove 1st degree murder, you have to prove that a suspect planned out a murder with malice ahead of time, and then acted out that plan. I don’t think the prosecution had that concrete evidence, and the jury had to assess whether or not the evidence the prosecution provided was strong enough to lead them to conclude that Ms. Anthony plotted her daughter’s murder, carried it out, then disposed of her body.
So let’s chat about this a bit more, yes?
with some groovy tees from my webstore, Funk Munkee Junction!
You’ve read my mysteries. Why not wear ’em? Here’s a sample:
Huh? Huh? SEXY, right? You’ll also find the designs for State of Denial and The Ties that Bind over there, too. And you’ll find some cool-ish designs that promo Funk Munkee Junction, an outlier of Andi Land. 8)
Heads up–the book covers and photo work best on cups and tees, and stick to lighter colors on the tees. The ringer tees look pretty cool, too.
And there’s also some personal artwork from a previous life available. This photo of Chimayó, New Mexico, looks pretty cool, I think:
I’m working on getting some images for my sci fi ready, too. But in the mean time, maybe you’ll find something you like.
Happy reading, happy writing, happy dressing!
Andi Marquette 