(no subject)

[quill-shadow.livejournal.com]

My first ever blogflog. It doesn't look like anyone else has done this one yet, so here I go.

Entry: Work Stoppage
Link: http://blog.laurellkhamilton.org/2008/07/work-stoppage.html
Spoilers: Don't we wish there was a plot to spoil.

I’ve been sitting here for awhile typing away, and not doing myself much good.
Nor us.

Yes, I’m past deadline, but Merry takes more out of me than Anita,
An image I never needed to have. Merry - the writing succubus! And while you write about her, she drains your energy... Actually, that's a lot better than traditional succubi, come to think of it. (I will not picture Laurita writing about an actual succubus. I won't, I won't, I won't...)

and this book has been low page count.
Can anyone figure out what that part of the sentence even means? I can't tell if she's saying that she hasn't managed much of the book so far, or that the book is going to have less pages than the Merry Gentry books normally do, or something else entirely.

I did ten pages this morning. I should be celebrating.
Except that celebrating is not darkity-dark enough for our diety of writing!

Instead I’m beating myself up because my muse and I are done for the day.
Told you so.

We are stick a fork in us, honey, done.
Someone's been roasting the goddess of bad darkity-writing! And her muse! Why wasn't I invited to the barbeque? [pouts]

I feel like a dried up pool,
How is a dried up pool going to help her write more?

and if I keep trying to get water out of the mud, come tomorrow morning it’s just going to be dry dirt.
Oh, lousy metaphor. Again. I should recognise these by now.

So, I’ve tested my understanding with Jon, and had my ephinay.
What is an ephinay? Send all answers on a postcard to the Robert Cawdrey - he wrote the first dictionary, and I'm sure he'd be thrilled to learn about this whole new word. I wish she'd had an epiphany instead - like the epiphany that, hey! There's a reason quite a few people are not impressed by her mad writing skillz!

I’m done for the day.
Done writing bad porn, or done whining about how hard it is to write bad porn?

Ten pages is great, especially for the rhythm of this book.
The rhythm of this book: in, out, in, out, shake it all about. You whine about your life and then you run away from the nasty criticism.
Okay, the last part doesn't scan, but it is accurate.

So, I’m off to do something else. I’m off to see if I can find things to put some water back in that dry pool.
I was just about to say, 'Try a hosepipe'. And then I remembered who's writing this. She probably has tried Jon's hosepipe. Several times.

Writing is so different from other jobs.
No having to show up at your workplace by a certain time at least five days a week. No worrying about whether your bosses will decide to downsize the company. No one else sucking up to your boss to get the promotion you deserve. Oh, the agony! I am not suggesting that writers have it easy. Just that whining that she has it tougher than everyone else is ridiculous.

It really is about filling up that well of ideas and energy.
Really? And here I thought it was about drawing on that well. No wonder I've never been published!

Right now, I’m shoveling from the bottom, and I need a fill up.
First of all, shovelling should have two 'l's in it. (Just looked it up, and that is an acceptable spelling. Will wonders never cease?) Second, I don't think that shovelling is a good way of moving liquids, which are what wells traditionally hold. Third, if the well gets filled while you're 'shoveling from the bottom', you will probably drown.

Given what her 'well of ideas and energy' seems to be filled with, that would be a truly horrible death.

So, we’re going to get me out of the house for awhile and see if I can relearn how to take a deep breath.
Talking about yourself in the third person is creepy. The image I get is of a disembodied spirit trying to help Jonboi and Darla shepherd her empty body out of the house.
Also, if you've forgotten how to breathe, you have much more serious problems than just the deadline of your latest book.

Comments

[deadsong.livejournal.com]

She probably has tried Jon's hosepipe. Several times.

That killed me with laughter, resurrected me, then killed me again from sheer horror at the mental image. My corpse demands brain bleach.

[sharkbytes.livejournal.com]

I find it endlessly amusing that she's indirectly admitted that most of her ideas are born by shoveling crap from the bottom of a cesspool. To hear her talk, she thinks she's a literary archeologist, breaking new ground and publishing landmark treatises on the supernatural. Not even politicians have that kind of self-delusion!!

Great job on the flog, there :)

[gehayi.livejournal.com]

I hate it because she doesn't know how to spell "epiphany."

[michael-b-lee.livejournal.com]

...and this book has been low page count.

Can anyone figure out what that part of the sentence even means?

She's trying (and failing) to say that the book is low on page count. So the story is even shorter than previous MG books, continuing the trend of the Amazing Shrinking Stories she's been churning out over the years.

[red-rose-remix.livejournal.com]

X3 More like she got confused and was thinking of the term "low sperm count" and just bastardized it to fit writing purposes, adding poor grammar in the process. I wonder what was wrong with just saying "This book is turning out to be shorter"?

[darkese.livejournal.com]

And with the amazing growing margins and font sizes the books will soon be 7 words per page. Each page will still contain the word spill, eat, glow, moonlight or hair.

[gehayi.livejournal.com]

I think that she means that her production of pages per day has been consistently low. The book hasn't been published yet, so it's hard to tell whether the actual page count will drop.

[icecreamempress.livejournal.com]

She had an ephinay. Perhaps by using the Sopochlean method of self-interrogation?

Her "inner editor" has turned her office into a non-stop toga party, complete with hookers and blow.

[snipervalentine.livejournal.com]

You forgot 'tight' and 'wet'. Now it's seven. ;-)

[siedhr.livejournal.com]

Whu? What about tight and wet? "sad"

[siedhr.livejournal.com]

I can actually imagine her writing this entry and reading it out loud with her whiny little voice (like those people who cannot read without mouthing the words). We cannot understand her suffering: she wants to be this dark figure, but as soon as she opens her mouth this whiny voice comes out. Phone-sex operator? Maybe for an underage line.

[siedhr.livejournal.com]

Haha, I thought of the same thing.

[slayra.livejournal.com]

And because her characters don't have enough brains to have epiphanies...:p

[slayra.livejournal.com]

Does that mean the action takes place in... half an hour this time??? So will it be a 30-minute sex-fest and/or orgy with magical powerzzzz and unicorns and rainbows and pwetty flowers apearing all around?

... that doesn't sound so difficult to write... O___o

[pastygothchick.livejournal.com]

That does explain why there is dirt at the bottom of her pool. I mean most of the ones I know are concrete lined unless she means a plastic kiddie pool. The only ones who have dirt or soil at the bottom aren't well maintained.

[darkese.livejournal.com]

I can't remember but I thought the tight and wet line was more Anita then Merry. Merry was the one who gets eaten from the mouth down and looks like she swallowed the moon (filled with moonlight)

[slayra.livejournal.com]

I don't know if that is accurate yet. I thought it was users who submitted information... I think. Still, in LKH's case less pages is actually good. :p

[slayra.livejournal.com]

R...Really??? Ugh.

[artemis-rex.livejournal.com]

Now if we could only get her to write less bad porn.

[snipervalentine.livejournal.com]

O.O

Maybe if her Mary Sues characters weren't so alike, then I wouldn't be so confused.

And really, will someone please report the woman to The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Commas? Seriously.

[snipervalentine.livejournal.com]

I did ten pages this morning. I should be celebrating.

Just as an aside, and to put this into perspective, when a writer who is publishing with a major house like Penguin (of which Berserkly Publishing is a division) a "page" is not a printed page such as you see in the book. It's an exact number of words. In publishing parlance, when a writer reports how many pages he/she has completed, a "page" equals 250 words. No more, no less.

Thus, ten pages = 2500 words. I don't know that a professional, full-time writer should be uncorking the bubbly for that. Not to mention that if that was an exceptionally good daily page number for her, no wonder she's forewarning people now about how short this book is going to be. Or how late.


and this book has been low page count.

Additionally, as soon as I read this nearly incomprehensible phrase, "I can has cheeseburger" popped immediately into my head.

[atypia.livejournal.com]

What gets to me is that EVERYONE, in ANY job, gets burnt out and needs to destress and recharge. FFS, computer programmers use their creativity to create as well.

More standard "I AM A SPECIAL UNIQUE SNOWFLAKE OMG" LKH crap.

[brightlotusmoon.livejournal.com]

"Ephinay" sounds like it could be Trinity's middle name.

[longtail.livejournal.com]

So, I’ve tested my understanding with Jon, and had my ephinay. I’m done for the day.

Lemme test my understanding...you had to test your understanding with your sex slave hubby and have a sudden, deep, powerful, spiritual realization that you needed to stop working?

...

I think I've seen flat worms with higher brain function than this woman. I've seen infants who were better able to care for themselves than she does. I've seen emo teenagers on LJ who couldn't reach this level of melodrama. Lemmings have more common sense than she does. Buddha on a biscuit, she's hit new levels of pathetic! She'd simply dry up and die if JonBoi or Darla ever dissapeared.

[brightlotusmoon.livejournal.com]

With all the men who have spooged freely in Anita's crotch, this doesn't surprise me. I can just imagine the filling. The horrible, horrible filling.

[atypia.livejournal.com]

I hate, We are stick a fork in us, honey, done. and that whole "It just flat out does it for me".

OMG I HATE IT SO MUCH.

(and "nifty". I HATE NIFTY)

[daphne-gateau.livejournal.com]

We had 'test my understanding' and 'relearn how to breathe' in the same blog. Then she goes on to whine about now hard it is to be creative. Oh, the lolz.

Great first flog! :)

[orthent.livejournal.com]

What gets to me is that EVERYONE, in ANY job, gets burnt out and needs to destress and recharge. FFS, computer programmers use their creativity to create as well.

More standard "I AM A SPECIAL UNIQUE SNOWFLAKE OMG" LKH crap.

Yes, so much agreement. I really hate it when some professions--writing, art, music, acting, some of the fine crafts--are privileged as "creative," as if there were no creativity in other kinds of work. (Julia Cameron, I'm looking at you.) Anyone who uses their ingenuity to solve a problem or produce something that wasn't there before is creative. Lots of people in the trades are terrifically creative in finding ways to make things work. As far as I know, the only profession in which creativity is not a virtue is accounting.

As a matter of fact, "filling the well" sounds like a phrase snagged from Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way, a book that does a lot to encourage artists in special-snowflake-ism. LKH's attitude toward her family--they're responsible for taking care of all that mundane stuff so she can write--is very much the kind of attitude Cameron seems to foster.

[easol.livejournal.com]

Next blog:

"I was wet and tight, and his body flat out did it for me, but I could taste fear on my tongue, and it spilled down like evil chocolate ruining your ice cream."

[atypia.livejournal.com]

As far as I know, the only profession in which creativity is not a virtue is accounting.

LMAO :D

[viridian5.livejournal.com]

Some firms use a lot of creative accounting! At least until they get busted for it.

[viridian5.livejournal.com]

We are stick a fork in us, honey, done.

...this is a published writer. ::facepalm::

[slayra.livejournal.com]

Oh, I didn't know that. I thought it was users because I submitted some info to Amazon.co.uk on a book once.

384, hardback and with double spacing??? Yeah, let's all pay 20 dollars for another novella! She isn't even writing full books anymore... GAH

[slayra.livejournal.com]

Gosh NOOOES! My brain! *goes watch Bleach*

[slayra.livejournal.com]

Yeah, we all wonder why she is a published writer... really, some people's standards are too low. :p

[slayra.livejournal.com]

LKH has creativity?? If so, why are her books all the same??? O___o

[slayra.livejournal.com]

Well... dreams are nice. :p

[atypia.livejournal.com]

I just can't believe I said "use their creativity to create."

As opposed to their elbows.

*headdesk*

[easol.livejournal.com]

I have so much fun imagining Anita's horror if she encountered those characters. "Ew! Chad isn't WHITE-BREAD! Ew! Shunsui has BODY HAIR! Ew! Ikkaku is TOTALLY BALD! Ew! Ichigo has short hair, weedy body and a backbone!..." ad nauseam

[easol.livejournal.com]

Users sometimes adjust it if the final product isn't what the stats say it is.

In this case, I suspect the publishers are just putting an estimate up, since obviously LKH is nowhere near finished with the final product. So probably it will be even SHORTER.

[easol.livejournal.com]

Dammit, has she never heard of a spellchecker?

Oh wait, silly me. She's a raving technophobe ARTEESTE who cannot click "enter" without Jonboi's assistance. I can only imagine the fun and hijinks that ensue when printing is called for!

[gehayi.livejournal.com]

Well, you know, there ARE these revolutionary low-tech things for Luddites called "dictionaries." They come in print, and all you have to do is open it and look for the spelling of the word you want to check!

[slayra.livejournal.com]

Oh I see. But LKH seems to think her new MG book will be like 600 pages. I read it somewhere on that latest blog entry.

Quote: "We’re looking at six hundred as the next hundred page mark. It’ll be under, but I’m no longer sure how much under."

This many pages seems... awful and trauma inducing. :p Let's hope the published result has less pages.

[slayra.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm still more shocked that LKH thinks she is creative. :p

[slayra.livejournal.com]

Hmmm, yeah, lol...

Anita: AUGH! That chick [Orihime] has bigger boobs than mine!! And the bishounen don't care about me! One of them [Byakuya] looked at me like I was trash! And another one [Yumichika] said he only dated girls who were as good looking as him! Not even the nerdy one [Ishida] wanted anything to do with me!!! He said he liked his girls with a brain! I couldn't even score with the plushie bear!!!! NOOOOOES... my succubus power... I'm finished! *Anita tries to eat Hollow*;
Hollow: NOOOES *runs in horror* You, the shinigami with orange hair... please KILL me!!! NOOOES!
Ichigo: Who was that crazy chick again?
Rukia: Not sure. Anyway, ignore her. We have a situation.
Anita: Ignore... me? *dies*

[easol.livejournal.com]

Hee hee, that is just so perfect! Kon might grope her boobs, but he's the only one who would!

Anita reminds me of Hiyori anyway -- short, bitchy, whiny, loud, abusive, childish, and homicidally hateful towards any woman who is sexier/prettier than her.

[caudebac.livejournal.com]

Ditto. The most creative and ingenious people I've ever met were mainly computer science majors and one judaic studies major.

Although, really, the last field probably doesn't call for much creativity.