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greygirlbeastStill very white Outside. There was a little new snow last night.
No day off yesterday. Instead, I wrote 1,025 words on The Drowning Girl: A Memoir. Today, I mean to make a great push and try to reach the end of Chapter 4, though it's at least 2,000 words ahead. I panicked a little yesterday, mostly because I realized Part One of the novel will be six chapters long, after all. Which means I don't have seven chapters remaining, but eight. So, there you go.
Lots of email answered yesterday. Lately, it seems I'm saying no more often than yes. When people ask me to write a short story or a foreword or whatever. There's just so little time. It all comes down to time, and how much of it I do not have.
Yesterday, I discovered how foolish it was not to have cleaned the snow off the van right after the storm. I measured about eight inches on top of the car. Anyway, while Spooky dug out around the wheels, I scraped at the windshield. Well, mostly I dug and pried small boulders of ice loose. There were patches of ice below the snow, stuck fast to the windshield, that were the exact color of old Coca-Cola bottles. Pretty, but a bitch to get off. She went to the market. I stayed home and wrote. This is the usual way of things.
---
Something that amused me a great deal, Charles Stross has compiled a collection of Amazon reader "reviews" of classics. The "reviews" are predictably wretched. But sort of funny, in a gut-wrenching way, when it's not one of my books the idiots in question are on about. For instance, from a review of The Lord of the Rings:
I can't stand this book! These fantasy things are really getting to me! I don't see how someone could read such un-true and so unbelievebly weird stuff!
Or, from a review of Catch 22: I personally don't read that many books, but this is one of the worst books I ever read. First, they're are too many characters. This book has too many characters that I can't remember even one of them in my head. They include many minor characters that nobody cares so you get confused about it. Second, it has too many mini-stories. It has lots of short stories that doesn't relate to any of the other stories and they are usually pretty boring. Third this is none sense. It doesn't have a major theme or anything and it's just talking about air force men being board of the war and just being crazy.
This is the future, and each and every moron has been given a public forum.
---
Last night we had hot dogs and a halfhearted attempt at Kindernacht. We streamed four episodes of MonsterQuest, which is actually a lot worse than I'd expected. Which is probably like being disappointed by a MacDonalds' cheeseburger or a Taco Bell "chalupa."
Later, Spooky read me Kelly's Link's "Most Of My Friends Are Two-Thirds Water," which was very, very good.
Please have a look at the current eBay auctions. Thank you. Now, the words must flow.
Yours in Bafflement,
Aunt Beast
No day off yesterday. Instead, I wrote 1,025 words on The Drowning Girl: A Memoir. Today, I mean to make a great push and try to reach the end of Chapter 4, though it's at least 2,000 words ahead. I panicked a little yesterday, mostly because I realized Part One of the novel will be six chapters long, after all. Which means I don't have seven chapters remaining, but eight. So, there you go.
Lots of email answered yesterday. Lately, it seems I'm saying no more often than yes. When people ask me to write a short story or a foreword or whatever. There's just so little time. It all comes down to time, and how much of it I do not have.
Yesterday, I discovered how foolish it was not to have cleaned the snow off the van right after the storm. I measured about eight inches on top of the car. Anyway, while Spooky dug out around the wheels, I scraped at the windshield. Well, mostly I dug and pried small boulders of ice loose. There were patches of ice below the snow, stuck fast to the windshield, that were the exact color of old Coca-Cola bottles. Pretty, but a bitch to get off. She went to the market. I stayed home and wrote. This is the usual way of things.
---
Something that amused me a great deal, Charles Stross has compiled a collection of Amazon reader "reviews" of classics. The "reviews" are predictably wretched. But sort of funny, in a gut-wrenching way, when it's not one of my books the idiots in question are on about. For instance, from a review of The Lord of the Rings:
I can't stand this book! These fantasy things are really getting to me! I don't see how someone could read such un-true and so unbelievebly weird stuff!
Or, from a review of Catch 22: I personally don't read that many books, but this is one of the worst books I ever read. First, they're are too many characters. This book has too many characters that I can't remember even one of them in my head. They include many minor characters that nobody cares so you get confused about it. Second, it has too many mini-stories. It has lots of short stories that doesn't relate to any of the other stories and they are usually pretty boring. Third this is none sense. It doesn't have a major theme or anything and it's just talking about air force men being board of the war and just being crazy.
This is the future, and each and every moron has been given a public forum.
---
Last night we had hot dogs and a halfhearted attempt at Kindernacht. We streamed four episodes of MonsterQuest, which is actually a lot worse than I'd expected. Which is probably like being disappointed by a MacDonalds' cheeseburger or a Taco Bell "chalupa."
Later, Spooky read me Kelly's Link's "Most Of My Friends Are Two-Thirds Water," which was very, very good.
Please have a look at the current eBay auctions. Thank you. Now, the words must flow.
Yours in Bafflement,
Aunt Beast
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no subject
Date: 2011-01-16 05:49 pm (UTC)Amazon "Reviews"
Date: 2011-01-16 05:50 pm (UTC)"Even the cd cover says "JAZZ MASTERPIECE -- Perhaps the most influential & best-selling jazz record ever made". But now that I think about it, I guess that's not necessarily false advertising, since they didn't actually say it was GOOD.
I love many types of jazz. Vince Guaraldi jazz trio style is fantastic. Tommy Emmanuel style smooth jazz is very cool. Jobim style bossa-nova jazz has fantastic chords and movement. I'll even enjoy some Kenny G on occasion..."
I think that they reference Kenny G in a Miles Davis review says it all.
Re: Amazon "Reviews"
Date: 2011-01-16 05:52 pm (UTC)I think that they reference Kenny G in a Miles Davis review says it all.
Yep.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-16 06:21 pm (UTC)Tolkien should have been using his time some other way...? *head spins*
no subject
Date: 2011-01-16 06:55 pm (UTC)Tolkien should have been using his time some other way...?
Yeah. Sheer brilliance.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-16 07:46 pm (UTC)Spotted "Pretty Monsters" in the horror section of Waterstones today. I was bemused
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Date: 2011-01-16 09:39 pm (UTC)I scanned the replies to CS's post. Oh so sensitive people clutch their puppies and cry: "but it's not nice to mock those reviewers..." OKKKK.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-16 11:25 pm (UTC)People are strange creatures.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-17 04:17 pm (UTC)When I was much younger if I threw a book across the room it was a damn good sign it was going to be a favorite.
I'm curious whether or not you mean this literally, that you literally threw the book, or if it's only a turn of phrase. I hear lots of people say that a book made them angry enough that they threw it. Which seems odd, especially if it's such a common reaction. I've never thrown a book, for any reason.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-17 04:19 pm (UTC)"but it's not nice to mock those reviewers..." OKKKK.
To quote Spooky, "Fuck the shit sayers." If the books are fair game, so are all reviews and "reviews."
no subject
Date: 2011-01-16 11:47 pm (UTC)I had trouble with getting through Tolkien myself too, but since then I've read more classics and have developed the skills to read longer, more detailed books. The second "review" of Frankenstein made me laugh because according to what I wrote when I read it, I found it engaging, especially when you compare it to how pop culture normally sees Frankenstein's monster.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-17 04:22 pm (UTC)The reviews are hilarious and just reminds me of how so many people no longer bother to learn the skills to read older books or try to understand that this was the style people wrote in and read before all of our fancy technology.
On the one hand, yeah. It helps a lot of be capable of reading a book within the context of the time it was written. Books, like people, are of a time (even when they are said to be timeless). But on the other hand, I'm pretty sure the world has always been plagued with semi-literate readers. It's just that "all our fancy technology" has given this a soapbox.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-17 05:02 am (UTC)I do like Monster Quest but I wish that they would spend more time on the history and folklore since the "quests" don't usually turn up much/any evidence. Some of the remote camera rigs are pretty cool - they mounted one on an RC helicopter, which was neat. Did you watch the vampires episode? They talk about Mercy Brown quite a bit.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-17 04:24 pm (UTC)Did you watch the vampires episode? They talk about Mercy Brown quite a bit.
I haven't. But I fear it would only annoy me. I know to much about RI "vampires," and I'm sure whoever made the episode "knows" too little.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-17 06:40 am (UTC)"In the end, I would recommend this book only to the person who likes to read about stupid people sleeping with each other just to seem important. Or as a cure for insomnia (sp?)"
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Date: 2011-01-17 04:24 pm (UTC)"In the end, I would recommend this book only to the person who likes to read about stupid people sleeping with each other just to seem important."
Sigh.
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Date: 2011-01-17 04:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-17 04:28 pm (UTC)Charlie's scavenger game.
You lost me.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-17 09:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-17 09:46 pm (UTC)