I don’t usually bother watching the Oscars, but I watched to see if what I hoped would happen, would happen.
And it did.
Eleven Oscars to “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.” A clean sweep.
That ties it for the record with “Ben Hur.” (According to official website policy, we are ignoring another film.)
Beginning of a weird little story. No idea where it’s going.
“Pardon me, sir, but I should like to talk to you about the weather.”
I dipped my Daily Herald low enough that I could peer over the top at the speaker, who turned out to be a short, completely bald gentleman in an expensive-looking black double-breasted suit. It was the suit that decided me
Being somewhat excited about my first fiction sale, I found it hard to focus on writing 13 lines, so I just took a subject from a little program I have called Musings, which has a whole bunch of writing exercises. This one was to write some dialoge with a denial.
“You are a spy sent by the CIA to steal our secrets, yes?”
Claire shook her head as she tried to worm one of her hands out of the rope that bound them. “I’m an author. I write romance novels, and I’m planning to set my next novel in your country. I’m just here doing research.”
Her interrogator raised an eyebrow in disbelief. “If you are an author, how many books have you published?”
“Six.” Thank goodness her cover story would hold under a cursory examination. There were even copies of “her” work for sale on Amazon.com, ghostwritten by someone from the Repair Shop. Claire had meant to read them, but this assignment had been put together too quickly. At least she could remember the titles. Maybe.
“Ding” is the written equivalent of the sound made in the online game EverQuest when one reaches a new level.
I received a contract today from the Writers of the Future contest, which means they have decided to include my story “In Memory” in their anthology. This is my first sale, and I’m very excited about it.
I guess I’m a level one professional author.
For those to whom I’ve given a username and password, Chapter 15 of my novel is available here.
My sister Angie sent an e-mail to our family the other day, saying that she wouldn’t want to die to the song “Brown Girl in the Ring” by
She then linked to this story about a pair of mountain-climbers, one of whom “. . . was so dehydrated and his leg was causing him such pain that he began hallucinating, eventually unable to get a song by Boney M., “Brown Girl in the Ring,” out of his head (his terror at that moment, he recalls, was that he was going to die to that song).” (Go read the article, it’s very interesting.)
I replied that “Rivers of Babylon” was a better Boney M. song to die to, and my brother Michael countered with their song “Rasputin.” (Oh, those Russians!)
Naturally, since Boney M. is not the only musical artist in the world (and most of you are probably saying, “Who in tarnation is Boney M.?”), there must be songs by other artists that would be good (or bad) to die to.
For example, the mix of “Tubular Bells/Pretty Boys and Pretty Girls” by Book of Love on the
So, any other nominations for good (or bad) songs to die to?
For those to whom I’ve given a username and password, Chapter 14 of my novel is available here.
A little bit of fiction for class:
We were down 15-3 at halftime, and it was our own fault. We’d beaten East High 63-7 only three weeks ago, and their only TD had come during the final quarter, when we’d cleared the bench giving everyone a chance to play.
Our team was the best in the state
