I finally did it!

Despite resurging waves of self-doubt, debilitating insecurity and just plain ol' terror, I finally applied yesterday to the Vancouver Film School for their Writing for Film, TV & Interactive Media program. I should hear from them in a few weeks or so. My parents are sure I'll get in, but I'm not - they only take ninety students a year (three a classes a year with 30 students each) for their writing programs, and they're pretty elite so they get loads of applicants. I mean, KEVIN SMITH went there - yes, he dropped out to make Clerks, but STILL!

I'm still terrified - right now I keep thinking I know nothing about nothing. If I want to write a screenplay about someone who works in an office, I'm paralysed by the thought, "I know nothing about offices, I have no idea where to start researching offices, what do businessmen do again? What's a merger? What's a conglomerate? What stupid idiot doesn't know WHAT A MERGER IS??!!" And that's when my idea kind of dies.

And then there's that whole part about me having to finally get a full-time job, and keep it, for a year and half in order to make enough money for the tuition and living and travel expenses. I've never had a full-time job - I've had jobs that have come close to full-time hours, but I've never managed five eight-hour shifts in a row. Seriously. I'm a pampered upper-middle-class suburb princess and I have no idea how to live my life. I feel like I'm not really good at anything except writing.

And after the terrors of working scour through my mind, I have to deal with the horrors of living on my own for the first time ever in a city I've never been to. And I'll have to learn how to budget my meagre full-time earnings so that I don't starve halfway through the school year. And my parents won't be able to help unless it's an emergency because they have big plans of their own. So yeah, I'm scared. So even if I get accepted, that gives me two huge years of stress. And THEN there's the whole what-do-I-now problem once I graduate - if I don't get an internship, so I have to go back to my hometown or do I try to get a job in LA?

But I need to keep at this - I have no idea what else I would want to do with my life. I mean, I've considered other options - I've wanted to be a teacher, a librarian, a fantasy/romance novelist -- but I've realized that even if I became the best teacher, librarian, novelist in the world, I'd still come home from work to make up movies in my head while listening to music for hours on end. And I've done this for pretty much my entire life. At least if I'm a screenwriter, those movies have some chance of getting MADE, and of me getting PAID for them.

So, in between actual schoolwork (which I've been neglecting of late), I'm trying to keep myself psyched about screenwriting so I don't flip out and have a nervous breakdown before 2009 rolls around. Which means subscribing to screenwriter blogs and reading scripts from Drew's Script-O-Rama and trying to live independently (or at least pretend to) while still living in my parents' house. It's pretty hard right now - a large part of me doesn't want to get accepted to Vancouver Film School. But twenty years from now, I'll probably appreciate the stuff I learned.

Submitted: "House Hunting"

...to Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show. I may not have time to write anything creative this semester, but it doesn't take that much time to send e-mails or like stamps so I should still try submitting the stuff I've already finished. So I've submitted "House Hunting" again - I still feel it's my best story, although on my 150th reading of it today I discovered an egregious typo that made me feel really embarassed. I got rid of it before I sent in it, though. And today I REALLY have to finish getting my materials together for the Vancouver Film School, because I pre-applied a month ago and I'm still not done!

The Hot Men Of Fall

Okay, Comparative Literature Class today is boring, so I thought I'd take the time to write an entry in my much-neglected blog. I've had a lot of work to do, but so far I've managed to stay enough ahead that I can still keep up with the new fall TV. And wow, is there a lot of good new Fall TV. I've found I've divided the days in the week not only by the shows I am now watching, but by the incredibly good-looking guys that are part of each shows cast. What is it about 2007 that made all these new hot guys just bubble like rich cream to the top of the the Casting Pile? Really? I've had to renovate my crush-du-jour stable to make room! So, I thought I would provide my loyal readers with a helpful day-by-day calendar for the Best Shows (and guys) to Watch.

Sunday
The Dude:
Nathan Fillion
The Show: Desperate Housewives
The Word: Haven't been watching too much of this show, to be honest - I gave it up for the last couple of seasons since the stinker of season 2 so it's hard to pick it up again, but I will for Nathan Fillion - especially if he plays a husband with a paaaast.

Monday
The Dudes:
Adrian Pasdar, Milo Ventimiglia, Zachary Quinto, and Zachary Levi
The Shows: Heroes (Pasdar, Ventimiglia, Quinto), and Chuck (Levi).
The Word: Monday? How 'bout Manday. Seriously - who can hate starting the school/work week when you know you're going home to a feast of eye candy like these folks? Heroes is an already established show, but already its second season is full of mysteries (how did Peter lose his shirt--er, I mean memory? When will Sylar get his powers back?). And as for Chuck, about a sexy nerd (Levi) who's recruited into the spylife after he accidently downloads America's secrets into his brain, it has all the action of Alias with the humour of Office Space. And did I mention Levi is adorable? Even when he freaking out? Especially when he's freaking out?

Tuesday
The Dudes:
Lee Pace and Bret Harrison
The Shows: Pushing Daisies and Reaper
The Word: Pushing Daisies is currently the best-reviewed and the best-watched show of the Fall season, and while the detractors have called it over-precious and over cute, I'm of the opinion that the show itself (about a guy who can bring people back from the dead with a touch, and kill them again with a second touch) can't possibly be cuter than its lead, the chipmunk-cheeked Lee Pace. And as for Reaper, yes, Ray Wise is badass as the Devil, but Bret Harrison (who also auditioned for Chuck) isn't bad lookin' as the 21-year-old slacker forced into being a bounty hunter for Satan after his parents sold his soul to the Devil before he was born. He could have made his character a total loser, but instead, his charms makes his character only a partial loser, because after all, he is a bounty hunter now, and to quote the Wise's smarmy, paternal Lucifer, "that's cool, right?"

Wednesday
The Dude:
Damien Lewis
The Show: Life
The Word: Smooth Brit Lewis (who looks like a sexier, younger, red-headed version of Hugh Laurie) plays a cop who was wrongly imprisoned for 12 years for a triple murder he didn't commit. Having relied on Zen teachings while in the slammer to maintain his sanity, once freed (and returned to the force with a 50 million dollar cheque as a settlement), he applies this form of thought to the crimes that he solves, while at the same time trying to figure out who set him up in the first place. This means that he can be at turns menacing (pulling a knife on an aggressive suspect) and hilariously goofy (his failure to apply Zen-like detachment to his new sports car: "I am not attached to this car....I am not attached to this car....I am somewhat attached to this car..."). Most cop shows these days have to apply some sort of gimmick to a cop's personality to make it work, but I have to say, I think the idea of a Zen-convict-Cop could have longterm potential.

Thursday
The Dudes:
Alec Baldwin and Steve Carell
The Shows: 30 Rock and The Office
The Word: I didn't expect to watch 30 Rock - I thought I'd be more of a Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip fan, and while that was a good show, this one lasted more than a season. It's weird tuning in on the sophomore season, but I'm glad I did. Love Alec Baldwin on SNL? Imagine you can have that once a week, along with Tina Fey, and a Tracy Morgan who's actually funny! Seriously, this show is hilarious, and is a nice, fluffy 30-minute alternative to the heavier hour-long drama fare. And should I even mention The Office? I've been watching it since season one, and in every single episode I want to give Carell's Michael Scott a hug and tell him he is loved. He'll be this ignorant, stupid, despairing, albeit hilarious ass for most of the episode, but he'll have one minute, maybe even only thirty seconds, of sad-eyed humanity that makes the whole episode worth it. Michael Scott needs a hug, but since I can't give him one (on account of him being fictional) I'll just have to show my empathy by watching the show.

Friday
The Dude:
Alex O'Loughlin
The Show: Moonlight
The Word: Seriously - watch this show. WATCH IT. Don't listen to the (unfortunately numerous) negative reviews of the pilot. This show was seriously hampered by a shoddy pilot (the result of a near-complete cast overhaul and harried reshoots), but the following episodes have shown such an increase in writing and quality that have made this my Friday must-watch. The story? Criminally-hot Australian Alex O'Loughlin plays Mick St. John, a vampire who solves crimes with the help of a cute blonde reporter (Sophia Myles). What? You need a plot? Moonlight has turned out to be an incredibly watchable paranormal romance with a procedural element, and while it remains a little short on, well, logic - it's an excellent, soapy, romantic way to relax on a Friday. Hot vampires! Hot vampires solving crimes! Jason Dohring as a billionaire vampire playboy!

Saturday
The Dude:
Bill Hader
The Show: Saturday Night Live
The Word: I will be the first to admit that SNL has a crappy couple of seasons recently. With the help of pitch-perfect impressionist Hader and Andy Samburg's Digital Shorts, though, SNL is slowly (but surely) starting a comedic upswing. It has a stellar cast this season (along with Hader, there's Will Forte, Kristen Wiig, Fred Armisen, and Samburg, who have all been constant contributors to the funny of the show) - and with better writing, SNL could easily return to greatness.

And that's my TV week! Enjoy!

Submission and Rejection

I got a form rejection from Realms of Fantasy for "House Hunting" and a rejection from Heliotrope for "Whiff." I haven't had time this school year for much creative writing, but when I saw a poster for the Comparative Literature department's journal calling for stories, I thought "what the hell" and submitted "Parasite: A Love Story." What's one more rejection for "PALS"?

Concentration time!

As you've probably noticed, I've taken down my "Reading" and "To Be Read" lists. It seems only natural, as I'm now reading so many texts and books at once for University that there's no point in listing them all.

I'll be probably be posting less, too, as my fourth year is rapidly starting to materialize as my most difficult, and there are very few distractions which I can afford, and most of them have to do with my club work.

So feel free to peek in from time to time, but don't expect many new posts for a while.

First day of school! Whoo!

Which means heavy, heavy reading for me! Not only am I having to power through Samuel Richardson's Clarissa (1500+ pages!), but about a pile of other ones, too. Not that I'm complaining - but I'm already starting to stress about the papers I have to write and the assignments that will be due.

Not to mention as Lieutenant-Commander of the university's Science-Fiction Club, I'm planning on arranging fund-raisers for a new couch and new pizza-and-video-game parties and such.

But it's not all hard work and slog - my classes either end at noon or start at noon, so I have lots more free time than I had before. And one of my best friends throughout my entire University experience is in my Women's Lit class! Hurrah!

News, Shopping, Incurable addictions...

Keep writing. That's always been everybody's motto on how to be a writer - keep writing. Sometimes, though, it's been hard. Really hard. Like, you're writing this story (*cough* "The Middle Child" *cough*), and you absolutely know it's heading in this awful, sticky, amateurish direction ("quirky college romance??!"). And you don't want to keep writing, because the more you write the farther you go into the awful direction ("does the boy like her? Will her sisters understand?!") and the longer and less structured the story gets. So you'd quit, right? Or at least, you'd want to - but then you'd imagine that all the literary greats emerging out of the pages of your University-assigned bookpile and pointing fingers of contempt in your direction.

You're not a writer! You're quitting a story! Any shmuck can start a story, a real writer can finish it! etc, etc.

But of course, all those people are right about keeping writing - because, as in my case, eventually in the course of writing I finally got a whiz-bang idea that made me delete/burn all of the previous pages and start afresh on the same story but in a whole new direction. See, they tell you to keep writing.

They never said anything about keeping what you write.

So I've got a whole new idea for "The Middle Child" (and it'll probably get a new title, soon, too) and it's been like I've been possessed. It's got a killer opening line, and it's cynical and adult and wacky and bizarre and SO MUCH BETTER than the previous incarnation which was "three-headed girl meets one-headed guy. Can their teenage love survive??" So yeah, I'm happy.

In the "bad me, BAD ME!" *wrist slap* department, after I deep-cleaned my room (partly to make room for books) I sold a bunch of my old, unwanted books at this second-hand place. Due to luck, or maybe my obsessively-well-kept condition of my books, the employee took nearly all of them and gave me $70 bucks back. The problem? I spent $25 of that on 5 second-hand romance novels, $30 of that on three new books (one fantasy, one romance, one sequel to PC Cast's excellent-you-have-to-read-it Divine By Accident; Divine by Choice), and then my prizes from the Smart Bitches' LOLurve Contest came in the mail - so now I have, like, 10 new books on top of all the other books on TOP OF my new University Books which have yet to be read. Gee, darn....*lol*

I spent the rest on two pairs of new dangly earrings and a ticket to see Stardust (with modest concessions). I'll be reviewing the movie for Green Man Review pretty soon.

So yeah - I still have my book-buying problem. There are worse addictions, definitely - books don't make me fat for reading too many (they can even make me thin if I read them while exercising, which I do), I'm not allergic to them, no one thinks you're a fat cow if you sit in a public place reading all alone, they're addictive as hell but the worst physical effects they give you are headaches...I'm not doing too badly.

Also, I'm a redhead now - no, for real this time. My done-in-a-box colour was fading, and for a last-year-in-University present, my parents paid for me to have it done professionally - so now it's a deep, shiny ruby red with gold highlights. It's actually very lovely on my complexion, and it'll probably last a lot longer.

Chao for now, I have to keep digging at my To Be Read pile, writing my stories/novels, and getting ready for school

Submitted: "House Hunting"

To Realms of Fantasy magazine. I actually did it with real paper and envelopes and International Reply Coupons - it's weird, because I've gone such a long time without sending actual, physical manuscripts. So many of the magazines take electronic submissions.

So I spent about seven bucks on postage. Oh well.

Sorry I haven't updated much - I went to Animethon (which was great - check out Ouran High School Host Club - seriously, it's great!), then I had two ten-hour workdays (five hours at one job, five at the Disney job) which leaves me very little time for anything productive. And today I went ahead and deep-cleaned my room. I'm relatively tidy - I mean, you can always find a clear view of the carpet when you come into my room (which isn't always the case with Sister #2), but I tend to be a severe packrat, and a lazy packrat, too. I don't just run out of room for all my things, but I put them back in the wrong places because I'm too tired to look for the proper ones.
So today was the day I went in and cleaned everything up. I filled FOUR black garbage bags with broken knapsacks, old receipts, first drafts of forgotten novels, old shoes, dusty adapters and extension cords....Sure, I could have saved some of that stuff, but that's the thing, if I say I'm going to save it, it'll be stuck there collecting dust for another year so I just went ahead and threw a lot of it out. As a result I found:

-several pairs of lost earrings

-several pairs of (hopefully clean, not brave enough to check) underwear that were not put away

-a twenty dollar bill in one of my forgotten purses (I spent some on dessert and a movie for me and my sibs today, and I think I'll spend the rest on a novel).

I also got a wack of old books piled up to sent to the second-hand bookshop with my parents on Friday. We try to go every year. We're real big on books in my family, so every year we end up having to "cull" some. I'm the only major contributor among my sibs - I always wonder what Sisters 1 and 2 do with only two shelves of ratty YA novels apiece. And then I'll spend that culling money on a ticket to see Stardust, and maybe on the Jack Skellington hooding I've been eying in the Disney Store.

A Question of Medium

I've found something out recently - because I haven't been home much to do my writing on my laptop, I've been resorting to the old-fashioned notebooks-and-pens method. Ever since I got my laptop, the writer's callous on my right middle finger's shrunk, because I've been typing more of my stories because I've always felt it's been faster.

But I've come to realize that I just might write more if I write it first on paper, and then on laptop. Who'da thunk, right? Well, the largest piece I ever wrote - my terribly cheesy first novel The Shining Empress - started out as a huge binder of scribbled looseleaf before I took it over and translated it onto my laptop. I always thought that writing on the laptop was faster, so I think I started to limit my writing to my laptop.

For instance, if I was on the bus and had an idea, I wouldn't write it down - I'd save it for the laptop. Same if I was at work or at school. I also didn't write if the laptop wasn't working, or if it was too much trouble for my lazy sensibilities to carry it up from the basement or down from my bedroom, or if I just couldn't be bothered to wait the two minutes it takes for it to fully boot-up. I had no idea how much it hampered my writing.

Plus, I come up with more when I write in a notebook. When I write on the laptop, I'm writing a story on a machine that's carrying dozens of my old stories at the touch of my fingertips, so I'm always tempted to stop writing and re-read, or stop my current writing and re-read what I've written. And then I discover I've spent an hour writing only a few paragraphs. That's not so bad when I write in a notebook, because I have to turn so many pages I don't bother.

And yes, while I write slower when I'm physically penning words, I think it helps my writing. When I'm on my laptop, I write at about 80 words per minute - and it's almost too fast for my ideas to catch up, so I'll write about a paragraph and just go blank for a minute or two while I scramble to think about something else to write. When I'm writing in a notebook, I have lovely, curving handwriting, so it's fun and my ideas come to me naturally so I don't have to pause nearly so often.

Since I've started writing in my notebook, I've written much more regularly than before. So I guess that's how I learn. I'll write in my notebook, and then translate it onto my computer. Plus - it's much more secure. If I drop my laptop off a cliff, there are at least five stories that were born on that machine and have no backups except on disks, but my novel and my screenplay and my short story "The Middle Child" are all in books.

Rejection, Times Two: But With a New Hope

Sorry I haven't been blogging lately - I had to work a thirty-hour week in the space of three days, so I've had precious little time to myself.

As it is, I received rejection letters for "Parasite: A Love Story" from Clarkesworld and "House Hunting" from Strange Horizons, but there were pretty thick silver linings on both of those clouds.

For the Clarkesworld rejection, I got a personalized rejection from the editor about why my story wasn't accepted - he didn't like the beginning scene with the whiskey because he felt it didn't do much other than introduce people to the world, and he also said they ran a similar aliens-take-over-humans story in their previous issue. But, on the plus side, he made the (increasingly frequent) comment that my writing "wasn't bad." So I still have potential.

The rejection from Strange Horizons was a lot better. The editor wrote back to say she really liked "House Hunting," thought it was a charming and engaging story, but her other editors weren't as charmed by it and they had to make some tough calls, so it didn't make the cut. But still - a professional editor, if she'd been alone, would have accepted "House Hunting"! She liked it! I can't wait to send it somewhere else - I have to say, I do think "House Hunting" is one of my best stories, because while I sometimes get an "eeeh" feeling when I reread some of my old ones that makes me nervous about their quality, everytime I've read "House Hunting" I still have that "hot damn, I'm good" feeling.

I'm pretty sure I'd like to send it to Realms of Fantasy. I haven't sent anything their way since "My Brother's Own Words" because their rejection (at least, I'm assuming it was a rejection) got lost in the mail. Seriously. I received my Self-Addressed Stamped Envelope and not only did it not have any returning address on it, but it was open, and empty. But I think I'll try again with "House Hunting" - the rejection from Strange Horizons really makes me believe it has serious potential.

Also, I'm reading Margo Lanahan's Black Juice, and it's really prodding me to be more faithful to my short stories, especially the first draft I'm working on, "The Middle Child" which is proceeding very stubbornly. It keeps trying to turn itself into a young romance, but I want it to be significant and artistic, y'all. Stop flirting with cute guys and start thinking about the effects of having three heads, main character!

"The Raven Prince" by Elizabeth Hoyt

The Chick: Anna Wren, a mousy widow who hires herself out as a secretary to keep herself, her kindly mother-in-law, and her maid in stockings and sewing needles. As hard as she tries to keep herself as proper as a widow should be, she's frankly tired of seeing men frequent whorehouses and remain blameless.

Shady Past: Her late husband cheated on her with the village belle, and Anna blames her barrenness for his infidelity.

The Dude: Edward de Raaf, the Earl of Swartingham, a brooding, temperamental, pox-scarred nobleman who returns to his ancestral home to spruce it up for his intentions to find a bride. Despite his attractions for Anna, he's afraid his scars repulse normal women and turns to whores instead.

Shady Past: He lost his entire family to the smallpox that scarred him, and his first wife died in childbirth cursing his ugliness.

The Plot:

Edward: I need a secretary!

Anna: I can write!

Edward: You're hired! Wait - you're a woman? I'll just use my patented remedy for unwanted attractions to proper widows - one visit to a whorehouse, on the double!

Anna: Grrr...NO FAIR. *disguised as whore* Hey, baby.

Edward: Hurrah!

*Masked Georgian Bordello Sex!*

Edward: I'm cured! Wait a minute...no I'm not.

Anna: Here are those papers you asked for.

Edward: *recognizes!*

Anna: *recognized!*

Edward: Slut!

Anna: Whoremonger!

Edward: I'm ugly and you're lustful!

Anna: You're sexy and I'm in love with you!

Edward: Yeah, I like your version better. Marry me!

Anna: Not for another 100 pages!

Edward: DAMMIT!

Romantic Convention Checklist:

1 horny widow

1 scarred, brooding dark hero
1 hooker with heart-of-gold

1 proper wife who actually is a slut, sans heart of gold

2 Romantically Lackluster Exes

1 Misunderstanding

The Word: I actually enjoyed this, for the most part. I particularly emphathetized with Anna. While yes, she did go beyond the social strictures for Georgian widows, she was aware she was doing so, and she had believable and relatable reasons to be exhasperated with social norms. Edward managed to be the stereotypical overbearing, arrogant, dark, broody, beast hero and still seem completely new and layered. The sex scenes I skimmed- I do with most romances I find, nowadays. Graphic sex scenes make me uncomfortable and bored so I skim to make sure I'm not missing any crucial character development and go on to the parts that matter - the dialogue and description. Whoo damn, great dialogue! I loved Anna and Edward's repartee. Edward's first lines - muttering obscenities at a horse - grabbed me and really clued me in to his character. I found the epilogue to be a little convenient - *kinda spoiler* I mean, it's nice Anna found out she could have kids but this development was just out of the blue and seemed too easy. Other than that, though, a great story. A - (yeah, I'm getting rid of the Crush du Jour Rating - I was tired of uploading images all the time. So sue me.)

"Anyone But You" by Jennifer Crusie

The Chick: Nina Askew, a woman new to her 40s who buys an ugly, smelly dog to emotionally recover from her recent divorce.

Shady Past: In her previous marriage, her husband was the absent breadwinner and she was the dependent housewife - so now she's on her own.

The Dude: Alex Moore, a hot ER doctor just into his 30s who lives below Nina. He's content to remain an ER doc, but a family full of "something-ologists" is pressuring him to choose a specialty.

Shady Past: His father's a drunk, and it's looking like his older brother is going down that path, too.

The Plot:

Alex: You're hot!

Nina: You're a child!

Alex: I'm a hot piece of man-child!

Nina: Despite the fact you're a doctor, I'm pretty sure you'll be totally disgusted and probably mentally scarred if you expose your tender 30-year-old senses to my 40-year-old naked body!

Alex: And I'm so afraid you think I'm a feckless youth that I'm going to ignore everything you say and start turning myself into your ex-husband!

Fred (the aforementioned ugly, smelly dog): *WOOF!*

Nina and Alex: Problem solved! *kissyface humpysex*

Romantic Convention Checklist:

1 Relationship-aiding pet

2 Sexually-experienced, meddling best friends

1 Romantically Lackluster Ex

1 Very Bad Parent

The Word: I enjoyed Crusie's Bet Me - but this is like Bet Me - Lite, all the plot, none of the emotional depth. It could be because this book is only about half the length of Bet Me, so that all the characters seem compressed, but it's basically the same story. Woman with body issues but no plan to have kids leaves man who doesn't understand her (and wants her to have kids) and meets a man who loves her for who she is and has to repeatedly tell her so. The writing and dialogue have Jennifer Crusie's trademark zing, but if Bet Me's within easy reach, this book is definitely skippable.

Crush du Jour Rating:

Hugh Laurie says: "What are you waiting around for? Get Bet Me instead." B-

"Sins of Midnight," by Kimberly Logan

The Chick: Lady Jillian Daventry, the curvy, ebony-haired, scandal-courting eldest daughter of a Marquis. Of course, her scandals have nothing to do with actual scandal, but instead in her secret investigative partnership with the Bow Street Runners.
Shady Past: Four years prior, her mother was murdered and her killer apparently committed suicide - but Jillian believes the real criminal is still out there.

The Dude: Connor Monroe - a wealthy trademan, who sports auburn hair, "aqua eyes," and a sculpted bod, natch. Someone out there with an insane grudge is murdering his closest friends and confidantes, and he'd like to find out who.
Shady Past: Grew up in the London Streets with an evil stepfather while protecting his vulnerable brother Brennan.

The Plot (in dialogue):
Connor: My friends are dying! I need a Bow Street Runner!

Jillian: I'm no Runner, but my daddy studied criminology! Lookee! *findsclues*

Connor: Alright...

Jillian: But we have to keep our partnership a secret!

Connor: Why?

Jillian's Family: STOP REMINDING THE TON OF YOUR SLUTTY MOM AND BE A GOOD LITTLE GIRL!

Connor: I see. Well, how 'bout I reminisce about my past and blame myself for everything that's ever gone wrong, ever, while you proceed to do all the work and disobey everything I say, ever, while remaining obsessed over your dead mom?

Jillian: As long as we can squeeze some kissyface humpysex in somewhere.

Connor: How 'bout now?

Jillian: Okay! *kissyface humpysex*

Insane Grudgeholder: Nyaa-hahaha! *kills again*

Romance Convention Checklist:1 Interclass Romance
1 Bout of Convenient Amnesia
1 Anachronistically Independant Female
1 Evil Twin
1 Romantically Lackluster Ex
1 Dirty Dancing reference ("He didn't do it officer - I was with him all night. ALL NIGHT.")
1 Obvious Sequel Setup (Gabriel Sutcliffe + Jillian's li'l sis Maura)

The Word: M'eh. The mystery's kinda obvious - cat's outta the bag once Connor says, "Oh, I should tell Jillian everything - except anything to do with Brennan. Yeah. Cause he's dead. Totally dead. Didn't find his body, but he's got to be dead." Jillian and Connor are alright - but neither has any defining characteristics that I could root for or empathize with. As for the romance - they spent more time telling themselves why they couldn't do it, than actually doing anything. While I think a certain amount of internal monologue is necessary - the story should take place more out of the characters' heads than in.

Crush du Jour Rating:

Alan Rickman says: "Stop thinking and make out already!" C

I have been elevated!

Huzzah! Today is a fabulous day! A week ago, I entered a contest over at Smart Bitches Who Love Trashy Novels, a contest in which one has to make a LOLcat into a romance cover, and provide an acceptance/refusal letter from a publisher. Here was my entry:








And today I found out that I won! I won prizes! First off - I'm getting an unabridged CD audiobook of Susan Elizabeth Phillip's Match Me If You Can, then a $10 Amazon Gift Certificate (which I've put towards Loretta Chase's Not Quite a Lady), and then, most lovely of all - the thing that no money can buy - a Smart Bitch Title!

Basically, it's an aristocratic title that reads like something convoluted and probably French - that read out loud sounds like something vaguely dirty (for instance, I know a previous contest winner who was dubbed Marchionesse Manne-Sausse). Well, now I am a member of the Smart Bitch Peerage:







*LOL!* I'm so pleased! And to express that, I'm just about to provide you with a long-awaited book review of Sins of Midnight, a.k.a. the romance novel I picked out at random. I haven't been doing book reviews of late, because a lot of my reading lately has left me apathetic - the experience has been pleasurable, but I haven't been able to come up with anything to write about in my review. Maybe Sins of Midnight will kick-start a few dusty reviews (like for Anyone But You or The Raven Prince).

I've changed my template!

Yup, I was getting tired of the same old grey and pink - so I switched it around. I've also got a new book on my "To Be Read" list - Sins of Midnight by Kimberly Logan. Heard of her? I haven't - I was waiting for my sister at the library, and I was looking over the shelf of paperback romances, and I literally closed my eyes, waved my arms, and pointed - and checked out the first book I saw, which was this one. I'll see if I can review it once I'm done.

Submitted - "Whiff"

...to Heliotrope Magazine. The guidelines say I should wait at least a week after being rejected before submitting something else - since they were prompt enough to reject "Golden Opportunity" way back at the start of July, I submitted "Whiff," which is aimed at an older audience, to them to see what they thought of it.

Huh - should I be flattered?

All of a sudden, I have to word-verify my blog posts, because for some reason, "Blogger's spam-prevention robots have detected that [my] blog has characteristics of a spam blog."

According to Blogger's definition, a spam blog "can be recognized by their irrelevant, repetitive, or nonsensical text."

Um...well gee, that makes me feel just great, Blogger.

Rejected - FINALLY!

After SEVERAL months, I finally got a rejection from On Spec for my re-write of "Whiff." They said it was better, but that one of the plot points was still a little too convenient. I don't think so, so I'll try again with a few other magazines before I think of rewriting it.

Weird Al Yankovic! LIVE!

Yup - I heard only a few weeks ago that 'Weird Al' Yankovic, a musician and satirist of whom I've been a fan since that one time he sang about patterns on Sesame Street, was going to be performing live at the Exhibition, and that the price of going there and seeing him was only to pay the gate admission (read: $10!).

My first thought, of course, was HELL YEAH!

I got there about an hour early, and went right to the front (or at least five rows from the front - standing room only there) and talked with some random shirtless guys until the concert started. Everytime a roadie came on to arrange the instruments before the show, we all cheered anyway. And then the concert began.

He started with his latest Polka from his CD Straight Outta Lynnwood, and he rocked that accordion as only a true accordian player can. There was a video screen on the stage, and while he sang it showed the sped-up music videos of the songs he was polka-ing to, which made it pretty awesome. He played a lot of his classic songs, and condensed some of his cooler, newer ones into a medleys, and while he and his crew made costume changes the TV screen showed some of his old music videos and his AlTV spots, where he takes celebrity interview footage and changes the questions so that the answers are taken out of context. Some of the highlights:

-the song "Bob," which I'd never heard before - it's comprised entirely of palindrome lyrics - strange as they are ("Do geese see God?"), they still sound like Bob Dylan lyrics!

-during the song "Do I Creep You Out?" (a spoof of Taylor Hicks' "Do I Make You Proud"), Al took off his hood to reveal a Taylor Hicks' grey wig.

-during the song "You're Pitiful" (spoof of James Blunt's "Your Beautiful"), Al took off a succession of T-shirts - one of which says "Atlantic Records Sucks!" (they're the reason Al couldn't put the song on his record - James Blunt didn't mind the spoof at all!). By the end of the song, he's stripped down to a Spongebob T-shirt, his boxers, and a pink tutu.

-Weird Al to Kevin Federline: "What does it feel like to have a closetful of wifebeaters, but no wife?"

-Again, Weird Al to Kevin Federline: "How old were you when you discovered that you had absolutely no talent? ... Too soon?"

-Weird Al wearing a "fat suit" while singing "Fat" and the other musicians jolting upwards as Weird Al jumped up and down.

-Weird Al, during a fake interview with Michael Stipe from REM, asks him to write a lyric on the spot - Stipe says, "We all use cellphones, so c'mon, let's get real" - a song Weird Al uses as part of his encore, while the videoscreen shows the audience members waving their cellphones. It looked like a sea of little glowing squares, it was cool.

Basically, it was fantastic, I had a great time, and I'm definitely going to see him again if he ever comes back to Edmonton.

A catchy theme to listen to while reading the seventh book!

Enjoy.