Oregon Film student Samantha Stendal had been following the Steubenville rape case and decided she could not stay silent any longer. This is her A Needed Response to the case.

Well done, Miss Stendal!

I thought this account from one of the survivors of the Titanic sinking was interesting. It's an old BBC recording from 1970's.

There's a link to the audio recording in the short article.

http://onthisdayinfashion.com/?p=12824

cathellisen  has a great post on the writing process, specifically, revisions, revision, revision to smooth the ugly into a readable thing. Have a read for yourself. 

What a great headline.

All 33 miners survived being trapped down in a collapsed mine for 69 days.

Welcome back to the surface and the sunshine, may you all live long and prosper.

:-)

I have been experiencing a major disappointment and even dislike of a lot of the current batch of female characters in books and TV. sartorias  explained a good portion of my dissatisfaction over here. My comment/rant grew too long and too ranty to inflict on someone else's post so...

Rant/
Sartorias says that she'd tired of  "boring women being either stereotypes or reactive or targets".
This hits a lot of what  has been bugging me with female characters in TV and in fantasy books but she left out the increase of sexually objectifying the female characters as well.

I've noticed that that the female characters are more often supporting characters than the main character even when they are supposed to be the main character. She always seems to fade into the background as soon and the male lead comes in and then she rides on his coat tails to support him.

Or she is mistakenly portrayed as strong by being a bitch, bitch does not equal strong.  This is a completely different rant.

And the whole motherhood issue with female characters annoys the heck out of me. It's like the whole motherhood thing is there to use as a weapon to manipulate the woman because she's supposed to be solely motivated by her 'drive' to protect her children at all costs and that's the only trick the writers/author have when it comes to female characters with kids.

The next huge thing I've noticed is a return of females as sex objects. I haven't seen anything this blatant (it never truly goes away) since the 70's. I watched one show where the camera follows the woman upstairs and it is closely focused up the girl's butt the whole way. Then, when she gets upstairs to the bosses' office the camera shifts off her butt to settle on her side boob profile in the foreground with the boss in focus in the background.
There is also the obligatory strip club setting complete with background where some chickie pie slimes up and down a pole and shakes her scantily clad self for the camera.

And why are the females ALWAYS depicted in tight, skimpy clothes while the men are covered loosely from chin to feet?

Why are all  the females in TV skinny with big boobs but the men are now mostly not handsome, fat or both?

What the heck is up with the female cops/detectives running around with 3" spike heels? I can't take the girl seriously if she's wearing stupid shoes.

These things are meant to appeal to the male audience. Well, I'm not male and I'm not interested. In fact, I feel excluded. Why is it that TV shows in particular are aimed solely at men unless it is a show about babies, motherhood or female victims geared toward causing impotent emotional rage?

I want to watch stuff like CSI without having the camera slime all over some scantily clad girlie. I want to watch programs and read books where the female isn't there to drop back behind the guy and play support, be mommy, be nursie, be rescued, be the prize, or prove his heterosexuality. I want a strong female lead, who is not a bitch, a man with boobs or who loses her self as soon a she gets a man or has a baby. I want her to be smart, without being a smart-mouth (I'm sick of that one now), I want her to be self-sufficient and I want her to be competent.   And I want her to be wearing clothing that does not draw focus to her boobs or ass.

A few tightly focused 'package' shots on men wouldn't hurt either, fair is fair after all.

/Rant

I was reading my local Craigs list and saw an ad titled "Fake Books For Home Decorating" and I thought, "Fake books? Why would anyone want fake books when one has so many REAL books?!"

Yesterday, I finished reading Lorna Freeman's Shadows Past, the long awaited third book in her Borderlands series. Now THAT's the kind of fantasy series that made me fall in love with the genre in the first place.

Shadows Past was as enjoyable a read as the first two books.  I like the multiple species she has, the magic, world building and the military setting. Her plots are complex and far reaching (I adore that) and her characters are likeable and, at times,  funny.  It was chewy without being grim and overly angsty and it had a sense of fun. *happy sigh*

The Borderlands series:
Covenants
The King's Own
Shadows Past

She's working on the next book even now! Woo Hoo!

I want to be able to find and use sharp and pointy tools and utensils again. I hate that these things are made "Safe and Sane"  presumably to protect the helpless, other people's untended or dull (pun intended) offspring. For crying out loud those of us over 40 survived a world FULL of sharp and pointy things and we all lived! I know, it's hard to believe isn't it, but we did survive without losing fingers, eyes or other parts.

Some tools and utensils require sharp and pointy to be any kind of useful and it is a vicious lie that dull and blunt are safer. See, you have to work harder to use dull and blunt thus courting serious injury where using a  sharp pointy thing will not require so much force to penetrate.

Here is a small list of things that should ALWAYS be sharp and pointy:
Knives - a shape knife will cut through a vegetable will ease and requires no force whereas a dull knife requires lots of force and then will slide off your tomato and cut your hand off.
Tweezers - need a fine pointy end so one can remove tiny slivers from one's flesh, a blunt pair of tweezers will only gum the sliver without ever catching it and is not capable of tweezing said painful sliver so the sliver will stay in your flesh and fester.
Scissors - see knives above.
Sewing pins - these NEED to be sharp and pointy at the end so they can be pushed thorough fabric, you know, their purpose. Dull pins not only tear up your expensive fabric but the force necessary to push them though the fabric is tremendous and often results in vicious punctures and blood spatter on said expensive fabric.
Safety pins - see Sewing pins above.

Feel free to add your own items.


In short, like my patience, safe and sane sucks rocks and the people who insist upon it and ruin the utility of tools and utensils that ought to be sharp and pointy deserve to be bludgeoned to death by your own safe and sane tools and utensils.

No love,
The Dragon (who has lots of sharp and pointy teeth and claws and LIKES them that way).

If you haven't seen this over on sartorias ' lj, here's something nice, sweet  and adorable for you. Look over here

Earlier, I was just getting out of the shower when I had a great idea that explained why the two factions in Desolation were at odds. It was great! It answered that tricky question of motivation and a whole bunch of actions and consequences in the back story leading up to when Desolation takes place.  A big break through, much excitement and I needed to write it down before I could forget a single detail.
I keep a clipboard with notebook paper and a pen in my bedroom for just such emergencies. I got dried off enough and hurried into the bedroom for the paper and pen. I started to write down my ideas and  I got a few paragraphs down when the pan dried up. Argh! I scribbled frantically on the margins trying to get the ink flowing again. No luck. I reached for the spare pen I keep in an old mug on my nightstand and it wouldn't work either! I ran into the spare room and dug out the box of new pens, this was serious,  and snatched up two of them to be safe. I could feel the details of the great ideas starting to fade from my brain. I ran and jumped on my bed and frantically tried to get the ink flowing in the new pen. It wouldn't work. I threw it to Nin the hair chewing, toilet paper unraveling, pen chasing demon Ninja kitten (and this was all while I was getting out of the shower and trying to write the ideas down) and tried the second new pen. Nooooo! I ran back in to the spare room and dug through the antique secretary for my trusty Pentel RSVP pen, they never let me down. Succsess! I managed to get almost everything down on paper even with Nin chewing on my wet hair and chasing the carcass of the dead pen I tossed to her.

Whew! I DESERVE that cup of coffee I'm going to be drinking in a minute.

I hear everyone talk about various cons but they don't always provide the details like the when and the where and the focus. I would like to make a Con list providing the name, location, approx date and what the focus is of these cons. Reading my flist this morning I see that DragonCon is this coming weekend but where is it and what kind of con is it? The poster doesn't say. Instead of having to search out the details of each con individually it would be nice to have in one place.
What are some of the major conventions you know about?   SF/F cons, writing cons, anime/manga cons, comic cons...

Norwescon - Seattle, WA, USA - Apr 1-4, 2010 (Easter weekend) - Norwescon is one of the largest regional Science Fiction conventions in the United States. While maintaining a primarily literary focus, Norwescon is large enough to provide a venue for many of the other aspects of Science Fiction and the interests of its fans such as anime, costuming, art, and much, much more.
http://www.norwescon.org/default.htm

( Read more...Collapse )

What else?

Ever go through a whole pile of books and run across the same names over and over? It's like there's a popular name book or name web site with a small collection of names that everybody draws from. Here is my list of over used names that I'd like to stop seeing:

Female:
Abby, Kate, Sara(h), Jane, Betsy, Lucy

Male:
Max, Sam, Stephen, Jack, Ben

The guy names have been especially bad because they are not names I associate with the hunky, young stud characters they are attached to, these names are nerdy or old man names to me, not Mr. Hottie McEmo-boy.

Anyone else have names they're sick of seeing or that don't fit the character?

ETA: I left out Zoe. I'm tired of seeing the name Zoe too.

I have two Dreamwidth invite codes to give away.
I have one Dreamwidth invite code to give away. Let me know if you would like it.

In case you haven't seen this yet (I saw it on difrancis ' lj)

I just found out that my local Daiso store (Japanese dollar store) is closing forever at the close of business today. Boo hoo! I helped them make money today. ;-)

Whilst in the shower this morning, I worked out a bunch more plot, background and motivation on the Urban Fantasy I didn't know I'd ever be writing. No new was forthcoming on the current WIP, however. Dumb brain.

Local to Qwest and Comcast folks only, please: If you had a choice between Qwest DSL and Comcast internet, which would you choose and why? I'm thinking about switching from Qwest DSL (cause it's slow as molasses) to Comcast (which I think is a demon spawn company but...).

I switched (mostly) to Firefox from Opera so I can do more of my banking and bill paying on-line(take THAT Post Office) and that stuff doens't work with Opera. Anyway, fiddling around with Firefox, do any of you use the Simple Mail add-on? Do you  like it?

We had the fisrt sunny day in weeks today. It was chilly and lovely to be outside in the sunshine.

It's winter and I have been craving fresh greens and fruits. Last night I made a big ol' salad with green leaf lettuce, iceberg lettuce, mixed greens leafy mix, baby spinach, cauliflower, radishes, celery and English cucumbers (I forgot the cabbage). It was fresh, green, crunchy, cool and delicious! It hit the spot.

 I assembled the gingerbread house, finally.  I took pictures of it and I will begin eating the gingerbread house in a day or two.

Chilly temps make the kitties snuggly.

 I have a new stack of books from the library to read. 

As I was finishing my shower this morning a plot bunny got me.  Yes, I know, the shower is one of the most common places for plot bunny attacks (and I get them there all the time) but the weird part was what kind of plot bunny stole into my head.  I got an idea for an urban fantasy. Yep, urban fantasy. I don't even like UF all that much and I certainly never dreamed I'd be roughing out an idea for one.  I took notes, of course. I'm going to blame this freakish plot bunny on having been ill for the last two weeks. Yep, that's my story and I'm sticking to it. Me! An Urban Fantasy! Who'da thunk it?   
 
Dear UF Story Idea,
You're going to have to wait for the end of the current WIP and then we'll see, there are several other things I have been wanting to work on before you came along.

By now you've probably heard about the major layoff of LJ staff. This has created a ripple of worry up and down my Reading List (flist) that LJ may decline or shut down completely. A lot of folks are recommending backing up your journals and communities and I''ve done that too via: http://sourceforge.net/projects/ljarchive/ .

I'm sure the a lot of us want to keep our LJ Reading Lists/Friends Lists as intact as possible and do not want to have to chase individual blogs all over  the internet. So, the big question is, if worse comes to worst, where will everyone go?  

I've looked around Vox but I don't care for it much, same with Great Journal.
I've used Insane Journal and it has the look and feel of the old Live Journal (before 6 apart came in to the picture) and there is not much change to get used to there.
Some of the pro author blogs I read are talking about going over to Wordpress, See Diana Pharaoh Francis' blog entry:  http://difrancis.livejournal.com/243562.html.

If LJ does go belly up, where would you go or where do you have your alternate blog set up?

I'm aeriedraconia on Insane Journal and at Wordpress.

 

A Poll! 

Dear FList,

I need your collective advice in response to a post in a community I maintain  that someone is being published by Author House and that they recommend going the self publishing route  if the regular publishers were too elusive. 

 In good conscience I thought I'd point to writer_beware for starters.  What would you say to the people possibly considering self publishing? 


ETA: I'm unlocking this post.

queenoftheskies  has been hit with a whacking great car repair bill.  The car is the only car in her family and they do not live close to work/school so the buses are significantly inconvenient and her car will be out of commission for a month until she can pay the bill in full.

If you would like to help get her and her family back on the road sooner, she  has a paypal address set up to take donations toward her car repair bill and she will be able to begin paying back the donors in Nov.

Her entry is here: 
http://queenoftheskies.livejournal.com/1006198.html?view=5097846&style=mine#t5097846

Even $5-10 will help.

I ran across a post on my reading list this morning about an offer for a free copy of a writing software program called Liquid Story Binder. It is a word processing program with a lot of features to help with organization and it's FREE for a limited time (about 15 hours from the time of this post).

You can download the program here: http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/liquid-story-binder-xe-291/

HOWEVER! You MUST also be able to install it before the deadline of the giveaway or it will not work.

It is a fully functional program but you will not be able to get free tech support or upgrades.

Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with Give away of the Day dot com or Liquid Story Binder nor have I used Liquid Story Binder.

NOTE: This IS a Limited time offer.

ETA: Windows XP/Vista only. Sorry, MAC folks.

Here are three classically trained young cellists playing something a little unexpected. Not your mamma's classical or heavy metal music. ;-)

Apocalyptica



And the song Bittersweet. Lovely.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRtmkNuQ7h8&feature=related
Thanks to prettyarbitrary for the link.

~~~~~~

And how about the tribal celtic sounds of the Wicked Tinkers?
(note: if you don't like bagpipes you'll hate this.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CE00kFRUJqc&NR=1

ETA: Hey, dragonmyst, do you still have the links to those gorgeous Japanese music videos you posted a while ago, the ones with the really lavish fantasy type sets and costumes?

Some things to look for when you edit your own work or beta read for someone else.

Source: cammykitty’s blog (reposted with her permission), (her sources are listed at the bottom) and some things were my own additions.

This is not the end all, be all list but a tool to help in the editing process.

( Editing Questions (very long)Collapse )
Is there anything you would add or change?

I was just having a discussion over in cooking about the cost of food and how much the cost of food has risen lately. This month I've had to make changes in my food buying habits, like not buying boneless skinless chicken breasts because the darned things were $10-12 a package for regular old chicken (not organic). They were $4-7 not so long ago.




Did you hear about the cost of rice going up significantly and that it is already being rationed in some places in the US due to shortages?

Heaing about the food shortages and food riots in some of the poorer nations overseas, are you concerned about the availability of food in your country and locally in the future?

For those of you who are interested in food and cooking or are anime/manga crack addicts, check out bentolunch.

It's a comm dedicated to Japanese bento box lunches/meals and they have a lot of images and ideas for Japanese style foods, non-Japanese style foods, packing a lunch, meals for traveling, compact food and food that is just pretty to look at.

It IS a busy community, you have been warned.

ETA: No, this isn't my community, I just thought it was neat.

Can a character have one goal/want at the start of the story and then have that goal change as the story progresses? Would or could this be part of character growth? Or should the goal be fixed throughout the story?

ETA: I'd just started reading Plot and Structure by James Scott Bell and he was talking about character objectives and that the MC has one solid objective which made me wonder, "But what if the objective changes?" because that is what is happening to my MC.

Villains: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

The villain is a very important character or force and can make or break a good story. What makes a good villain and what just doesn't work for you?

1. What makes a villain villainous?
2. As a writer, how would you show your villain is villainous? (Try to think beyond the typical and easy nutbar, rapist and or child molester)(yeah, those are my pet peeves with villains).
3. What do think makes an interesting and believable villain and what are the things you like best in a villain?
4. What do you think makes a lame/crummy villain, what things drive you crazy in a villain and what are some of your most hated stereotype villain characteristics?
5. Why are so many villains surrounded by stupid henchmen/women? How can a villain operate successfully with stupid Henchmen/women?
6. Who are your favorite villains? What did you like about them?
7. Who are some of your least favorite villains? Why do they not work for you?

Cross posted to writers_loft

Gary Gygax, the co-creator of Dungeons and Dragons, has died. (Thanks, prettyarbitrary, for the link).

http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/03/04/obit.gygax.ap/index.html

I was first introduced to Dungeons and Dragons (Advanced Dungeons and Dragons to be specific) when I was a freshman in high school. I loved it right from the start. It was sort of a total immersion in fantasy complete with creating and assuming the identity of a hero and experiencing fantastic adventures, the stuff of legends. It let me escape a difficult period in my life and let my imagination take me away to all sorts of far off places and accomplish fantastic feats. It cured teen aged boredom and allowed all the nerdy kids the opportunity to socialize and be accepted not to mention getting to have a lot of fun doing it. Gary Gygax's nerdy little game system is what got me through my horrible teen years and high school.

To Gary Gygax: Thank you so much for all the years of fun you made possible for me. Playing Advanced Dungeons and Dragons made a huge impression on me and changed me forever. What a wonderful experience. Thanks.

You will be missed.

An old nerdy gamer chick