Now, to start you off, here’s a post that I wrote about my review of Auralia’s Colors by Jeffrey Overstreet.  The link to the actual review is in that post, but the post contains a bit of overspill that I couldn’t put directly into the actual review. This is one of the most creative and well written fantasy novels that I’ve ever read. Period.

Anyway, so, the interview that I heard is with my favorite irreverent Reverend (former reverend, actually) Steve Brown. He interviewed Jeffrey Overstreet for his (J.O.’s) first book, Through A Screen Darkly- which is a non-fic about movies. See, his day job is being a movie critic. Fiction is what he does in his off hours.

Anyway, they get into some pretty interesting discussions, and, to Steve Brown Etc‘s producer’s incredible joy, brought up Empire Strikes Back. Seriously, the producer guy is a little disturbing in his devotion to Star Wars. Anyway, for those of you who enjoy talk radio, you might find the interview interesting, though my favorite parts are probably the “movie trailers” they interrupt the interview with. Such as “Nuns. With Guns.” and the touching story of a cross dressing lesbian trapped in a man’s body, and his struggle to understand why he prefers to wear men’s clothes and is attracted to women.

Now, I love that because of the interview with one of my favorite authors (it’s about 40 minutes long and about 30-35 minutes is the interview). However, Steve Brown had Jeffrey Overstreet back to discuss The Golden Compass back when the movie was still out and people actually gave a crap. Whether you care about the G.C. or not, if you’re into fantasy, it’s still pretty interesting to hear his take on it- being a fantasy novelist AND a movie critic. Really interesting combo for this type of topic. To be honest, this might have been the interview where they discussed Empire Strikes Back. It was yesterday that I listened to them, so it’s all getting a little jumbled now.

And, just because it’s easier to drop links here than to actually try to find mom’s email address and then convince her to actually read the email, I wanted mom to hear this interview with the author of What’s a Christian To Do With Harry Potter? and The Gospel According to Harry Potter. Since I’m an HP geek from way back and used to listen to MuggleNet’s weekly podcasts ALL THE TIME, I was totally into this interview and got shivers several times when Connie Neal made points that I’d totally missed in my own reading. I’d always focused on Harry as the savior figure rather than as the saved. Some of her insight totally blew me away, and made me just want to hook her up with the MuggleNet peeps just so I could hear it!

First, my brother and sister in law didn’t get their dogs fixed in time, and so there were 3 adorable 2 week old puppies in the house. Second, my sister in law’s entire family (almost) came- her niece, her parents, her brother and his wife and their son, her aunt, two cousins, and the cousins’ nephew and niece, and her brother brought his two dogs (so there were 4 adult lap dogs and 3 puppies whose eyes haven’t opened yet) (this is in addition to their 3 kids and my parents). Her family is awesome and fun, but what really, really made my day was watching one of her cousins playing with my 5 year old playa nephew. Please note that he’s 5 years old and has a 6 year old girlfriend. And makes a point of introducing himself to every pretty girl no matter her age.

Now, my SIL’s very pretty cousin who is probably around my age seems to be as taken with my nephew as he is with her. They danced together, she listened to his philosophy on life, and even took the time to figure out what on earth a “white thunder suit” is (turns out they’re police car themed shoes with blinky lights on the front). In fact, at one point, he had my SIL’s SIL packing his vitamins in a ziploc bag, and when we asked him why, he said “Because I have to take my vitamins every day, and I’m going with her.” as he pointed at SIL’s cousin.

So, at the end of the evening, I’m sitting and chatting with my brother as my nephew continued to woo a woman approximately 5-6 times his age… I forget what he did or said, but my brother laughed at him and said “You’re incorrigible.” My nephew paused for a moment, then said “No, I’m lucky!”.

I hope everyone had a Thanksgiving as good as mine.

So, I was talking to a friend via Skype and I started pestering about Bakugan. My nephew is totally into this, and since I have no idea what it’s about I had to do some research. Since I had to do the research anyway, I decided to take advantage of it and build a lens on it.

So, I’m chatting away about Bakugan board games, 700g Bakugan (seriously, I have no idea what this means, I think it’s a power thing?), and my friend asks me what Bakugan is. So, in a case of the blind leading the blind, I tell him it’s a cross between Transformers and Pokemon. Then I tell him that I’m too young for Transformers and too old for Pokemon. He asks how old I am, I say 29 turning 30 in like 12 days, and he says he’s 27 and HE’s not too young for Transformers, and I said “Yeah, but I’m a girl.”. So his response is “My Little Ponies?”, and mine is an embarrassed yes.

Next thing you know, he posts a link to this video.

If you don’t know who Rammstein is, they’re an awesome German band that apparently writes songs about incest, which is sick. But it’s in German, so no one really knows if that’s a rumor or truth unless they actually speak German and then you have to work on the basis that they’re not lying. Their Du Hast was insanely popular a few years back, and I still love it.

Update: I just found Spongebob singing Rammstein’s Du Hast. So had to include this.

hysteria
A mythical emotional disorder ascribed only to women for about 2,500 years. In ancient Greece, it was ascribed to not being pregnant often enough. In Roman times, it was ascribed to not having enough sex.  In Medieval times, and colonial times in North America, it was ascribed to not having enough or sufficient orgasms. In Victorian times and during the early 20^th century, it was also ascribed to too much intellectual stimulation and became an excuse for denying education and voting rights to women. At the beginning of the 20^th century, U.S. doctors invented the vibrator to treat hysteria. They brought women to orgasm with vibrators, which would supposedly calm them down and keep them from becoming hysterical. See “wandering uterus.”

Wow. That’s the last time I tell someone they’re being hysterical or referring to something as hysterical. Seriously.  Though you girls can use this to give your men hints. And it was developed by doctors? For medical treatment? Yeesh. Ya learn new things every day!

wandering uterus
A mythical emotional disorder first described in ancient Athens by Hippocrates, who is considered the “father of medicine.” Hippocrates taught that, unless a woman was pregnant often enough, her uterus would wander around inside her body looking for a fetus to inhabit it. As the uterus rose inside her, she would become hysterical. If she did not have sex with a man and become pregnant, the uterus would rise into her throat and strangle her. See “hysteria.”

Bwahahahahaha! I’m sorry, I just think this is hilarious. Granted, this is me with all our modern medical knowledge and all, but… seriously! And notice how it was always men that came up with these theories?

merkin
A wig for the genitals, used from the 16^th to the 18^th centuries by people who had lost their pubic hair due to small pox or scarlet fever. Now used to describe decorative patches worn over the genitals.

I so, so, so badly want to write a historical now, just so that I can use this! I also need to find a searchable database of Shakespeare’s works because I’m certain I’ve seen him use the term “merkin” in an insult before.

normophilia ­
Sexual preferences that are considered common or “normal” according to social norms.

Really? Really? Apparently because every possible deviant sexual behavior and preference is so widely accepted now, we actually have to define and name non-deviant behavior. Uhhhhh….

Yeah, I thought you’d like that….

I’m not sure what’s been going on for the past few days, but lately I’ve been meeting more and more publishing industry pros and aspiring novelists on Twitter. And along with that comes the influx of linkage.

Ok, so the single most important website for an aspiring novelist is Miss Snark. That’s a given. If you’ve never read this viciously wonderful agent, you need to. Go back to the very first post and read all the way up to her last (she’s hung up her stilettos for good) post. Take notes. Bookmark the Crapometer for when you’re getting ready to query. Read through it again. Take more notes. Follow all instructions and consider all advice. Just do it. Besides, it’s fun!

Now, Miss Snark I’ve known about for years, and have read almost every post on her site. However, #QueryFail is brand new. And it’s not a site; it’s a hashtag. In other words, it’s a stream of tweets from Twitter that are all on one subject, specially marked out using a hashtag. You don’t need to be a member of Twitter to read #QueryFail, but you do need an account if you want to respond to any of them.

What QueryFail is, is a day set aside by agent Colleen Lindsay for all Twitter savvy agents and editors to vent their query frustrations in the form of a 140 character tweet. Many of the tweets are actual lines from queries that the agent/editor rejected such as “Like my protagonist, I definitely could be described as overachiever, and I naturally have hair like Lady Godiva.”, “My book is about a friendship based upon mutual vomiting practices in high school.”, and my favorite- “This book is The Notebook meets The Lord of the Rings.”

You’ll need to scroll through several days of tweets about #queryfail if you choose to follow the above link to access it, but there’s a downloadable file of the actual QueryFail tweets from the actual day at that link.  The agents are planning to make this a regular thing, but no schedule has been set. And by the way? #QueryFail even got attention from The Guardian. No joke! There’s also a #novelfail, but I haven’t had much time to check into that.

And the third page that you may want to consider, is a 25 point list of why your fiction is being passed over, courtesy of Andromeda Spaceways. It’s funny, but not hilarious. Dirty, but not filthy. But all in all, a pretty good list.

What I believe they’re doing is, someone picks a book, reviews it, and sends it out to a fellow blogger. That person reviews it, links to the person who sent it, and then sends it out to another blogger, and on and on it goes (and when the reviews go up, so do the links to the person they sent the book to).

That sounds like fun to me! I don’t actually have a book in mind, but I’m thinking a debut author of some sort. Someone who could use the publicity.

So, is anyone interested? And if so, anyone have suggestions?  I’m thinking of a historical romance novella that I’m reviewing for Christian book reviews site.  It’s a pretty good historical romance, non-offensive without being preachy (wide appeal, perhaps?), and is only around 150 pages- so it won’t take up much time as it makes the rounds.  Only problem is that it’s not a debut author.

A good friend of mine lost his home, and nearly everything in it (except his laptop, camera, Christmas platter, and his wife’s contacts) due to a fire. He caught the fire while it was still in one room, but his fire extinguisher malfunctioned, and may not have been enough anyway.

His children weren’t at home at the time, and the smoke alarm woke him and his wife in time that they were able to get out safely- but the house burned totally.

They’ve received clothes, and offers of furniture and bedding, but are currently staying at her parents’, and a friend of theirs is preparing a rental home for them to move into.

While they have the technical necessaries (a roof, clothes, vehicle, etc), they’ve lost so much that it’s hard to adjust. And as he’s a writer, the loss of several recently written chapters was included in the list.

If you would  like to help, visit this brilliant writer‘s blog for his address and requests, or go here to donate directly to a fund set up specifically to help them rebuild their home, or build a new one.

There are many worthy causes in the world, but we all care about our friends. And this is one of mine.

more animals

That right there just explains so much about me, doesn’t it? I like squirrels so much that I own the domain NuttySquirrelBottom.com. Disturbed yet?

Btw- I’m going to be doing a series of posts with my affiliate links in them for easy reference for my mother and friends who want to give me a kick back with their purchases. So, if you see posts with normal titles like “Food and Drink”- go ahead and read through, but don’t feel pressured.