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Laughter is the Best Medicine

January 29, 2008 by A Slice of Orange in category Archives tagged as Herding Words

I haven’t written a word towards my WIP since January 12th. That’s an eternity for me. My day job has once again taken over and by the time I arrive home only a couple of neurons are still willing to fire.

When I don’t have much brain power left I can always find a cartoon that will brighten my mood. Cartoons are my intellectual M&Ms and my hips won’t be chastising me later.

One of my favorite cartoonists is Debbie Ridpath Ohi over at Inkygirl.com and willwriteforchocolate.com. Those of you who participate in NANORIMO (National Novel Writing Month) may recognize her work.

I especially liked this one. It reminded me of the first time I actually shared the plot of my WIP out loud.

So, what cartoon strips make you laugh?

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What Inspires You

The Wedding Picture

by Lori Pyne

Be they in magazines, newspapers or photo albums; be they of friends and family, people I know of or strangers; be they black and white images of a yesteryears long gone or colorful digital shots capturing a moments ago, I love to look at them. The bride in her finery, the groom so proud, wedding pictures speak to hopeful, romantic side of my soul.

Some of the images remain in my memory long after I view the portrait. Beyond the memory of cherished friendsâ€™ and close familyâ€™s special days, and world events such as Princess Diane and Prince Charlesâ€™ wedding, a strangerâ€™s newspaper wedding announcement has remained with me years after I first saw the picture.

At first glance, I barely looked at the groom, a Marine, in his distinct blue dress uniform. The bride, her face shining with joy as she gazed up at her groom, caught and held my attention. She looked so young in years, tiny in stature and radiantly in love. I remember worrying about what the future would hold for such a young girl.

I slide my attention to her groom. He stared straight at the camera. My gaze traveled down the short cropped hair towards his square jaw. I jarred to a stop midway down his face. He had no ear. What I had thought to be a shadow on the side of his face, I realized was scar tissue. He had been terribly burned.

This warrior in his twenties has survived his journey through one of the lower levels of hell and had returned to marry the girl who loved him fiercely.

While I know that a marriage is more than a wedding day, each time their faces float to the top of my memory, I pray that they build a strong life together created on the foundation of her joyous love and his proud, strong spirit.

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Lori Pyne is a member of OCC, and a multi-tasking volunteer. She is currently serving as one of our Online Class Moderators, Guest Reception Coordinator and Coordinator for the Book Buyers’ Best Contest for published authors. She is married with one son, and works full time for an entertainment law firm.

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A Fantasy Life – Part 5

January 28, 2008 by A Slice of Orange in category A Fantasy Life by Janet Cornelow tagged as Janet Cornelow, Janet Quinn

By Janet Quinn Cornelow

Alternate life forms living within our bodies that cause gallstones. MRIâ€™s that can tell what we are thinking. A gay gene. Footprint casts of Big Foot.

Fantasy? Reality?

Sometimes itâ€™s hard to tell anymore. As writers we have to be careful abut writing certain things because they wonâ€™t be believable â€“ unless weâ€™re writing fantasy.

Iâ€™m getting ready to start on my fourth set of Augeas stories set in a fantasy world filled with magic. Dyna, the picture for the month, is a young Ancient One with the power to see what is happening around her in her mind. I talking about seeing things outside on the street when there are no windows or on the next block over. Her power saved her grandmother, Carissa, and several other Ancient Ones from Dorjanâ€™s thundering hoards.

When I wrote the first stories, I was in a hurry to finish them. A story of 8,000 words seems like not such a big undertaking. After all, it isnâ€™t a 100,000 word manuscript. Wrong. Short stories arenâ€™t as easy as they seem. I came up with an idea and hurriedly built the world of Augeas and the Ancient Ones. I came up with the name Ancient Ones because they lived to be several hundred years old. However, thatâ€™s really not a good reason. There were a few other things I had to change with the second set because I hadnâ€™t planned ahead.

So why are they called Ancient Ones? They arenâ€™t all old. They have to start as babies because they donâ€™t get to come into the world full grown. They are all magical, but that doesnâ€™t make the name fit.

As I start on the fourth set of stories, I decided it might be time to explain why they are called Ancient Ones. Just as soon as I figure it out. Are they an ancient culture that the humans started calling Ancient Ones? One story mentioned they came from the mountains, except Gideon comes from the mountains and heâ€™s a human. Are they aliens who came from another planet? Did they come from an alternate universe? Why did they come from either? Were they explorers who couldnâ€™t get home? Were they outcasts running for they lives? Or, were they an ancient civilization around Augeas before the humans who had to leave the area because of war or pestilence and have now returned to help the humans? And who knows the answers?

When starting these stories, I probably should have figured this out before I started. Itâ€™s harder to build in things once certain parameters have been established. I know who knows the answers. A very ancient Ancient One who is the keeper of the stories. He hasnâ€™t told me what the stories are yet, so Iâ€™m not sure why they are called the Ancient Ones.

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Everybody Votes

January 26, 2008 by A Slice of Orange in category Archives tagged as Pop Culture

by Sara Black

Here’s how it works. There’s a question with two possible answers. You vote on your own opinion, then you vote on how you think the general population will vote. A few weeks later the results are in, and you get to see how many people voted the same as you, and whether you were right about popular opinion. You also get to see breakdowns in percentages, how the sexes, states and countries differed.

Welcome to “Everybody Votes” a surprisingly fun part of the Nintendo Wii experience that involves dropping a miniature version of yourself onto a pie graph. There is no real game play here, just the amusement of trying to predict how other people (well, other Wii owners) think in comparison to yourself.

A few random picks:

National Poll: What do you think of sushi? Delicious or Uncooked fish?
Delicious: 45.3%
Uncooked Fish: 54.7%
Men: 46.0% said Delicious
Women: 43.9% said Delicious
Unsurprisingly the states with the most “delicious” votes were on the Pacific (California, Oregon, Washington and Hawaii). While the rest of the country was anti-raw-fish, the sushi lovers in Colorado and Delaware surprised me.

National Poll: Which is luckier? Four-leaf clover or Horseshoe?
Four-leaf clover: 86.4%
Horseshoe: 13.6%
Men: 87.0% said Four Leaf Clover
Women: 85.2% said Four Leaf Clover

Worldwide Poll: Do you have a cell/mobile phone?
Yes: 77.7%
No: 22.3%
Men: 77.1% had cells
Women: 78.7% had cells
Finland, home of Nokia, had the most cell phone owners. What caught my attention though, was that Canada, Japan and USA had the least. I imagine a group of kids hip enough to own the latest video game technology, but not old enough to sign binding contracts.

For more results check out this blog.

Sara Black has a degree in Cinema/Television from USC. She watches far too much television, eats way too much sushi and is always writing a romance novel. This is the ninth in a series of posts on Pop Culture.

She is about 300 meters away from popular opinion, and thinks that sushi is delicious.

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e-maginings: Me and My Kindle

January 24, 2008 by A Slice of Orange in category Archives tagged as Amazon, e-books, e-maginings, Kindle, Linda McLaughlin, Lyndi Lamont

My primary Christmas present is an Amazon Kindle e-book reader, and I love it. In fact, my Kindle and I are pretty much inseparable these days.

Those of you who know me, know I’m an avid e-book reader, and some of you may wonder why. I like the portability of the reader. Instead of an armload of books, I can carry my Kindle, which currently has 40+ books on it, plus assorted personal files, magazine issues, blogs and MP3 files. And 30% of the memory is still unused.

E-books help to unclutter your life: Since the books are stored on the hard drive of your computer until youâ€™re ready to read them, storage is less of a problem than with print books.

With my aging eyes, I also like the fact that you can change the font size on an e-book reader. No more squinting to read the small print.

I’ve been an avid e-book reader for some years now. I’ve read e-books on my laptop, my RCA Germstar 1100, a PDA and a Pocket PC. I’ve enjoyed most of my readers (with the notable exception of the now-defunct Franklin eBookman), but the Kindle is rapidly becoming my favorite.

I’m amazed at how lightweight it is, much less than the comparably-sized RCA Gemstar 1100. The wireless is fast, unbelievably fast, so it’s really easy to buy from the Kindle store or download updates to magazine or blog subscription. I like being able to download a sample to read before deciding to buy a book, too. That’s a very nice feature. If you leave the wireless off most of the time, the battery life is excellent, and the device charges back up very quickly.

I thought I might miss the backlighting, and at times I do, but it’s also nice to be able to read in sunlight, particularly when traveling in the car. (Not when I’m driving, of course!)

I’m glad I waited for the Kindle instead of buying the Sony Reader because, for me, the Kindle is more useful and versatile. I already had a lot of books in unprotected Mobipocket format which can be read on the Kindle without any conversion. It’s easy to transfer files from your computer to the device using the USB cable.

The only real frustration I’ve had with it so far is that, while it will play MP3 music, it won’t play my MP3 podcasts. I can’t understand what the difference is beyond the fact that the podcasts in question are so much longer, about 45 minutes. They’re all MP3 files, so what the hey? Oh, well.

A common complaint of the Kindle is that it’s easy to hit the next page or previous page buttons by accident, but I figure once I get used to the device, that won’t happen so much any more.

Is this the “killer device” the e-book community has been waiting for?

Probably not, but the wireless connectivity alone makes it a huge step forward. The real problem remains the lack plethora of formats, so that’s a software problem that can’t be solved by new hardware. Chances for real standardization range from a best case scenario of years to a worst case scenario of never.

The only other downside is the $399.00 list price and the fact that the device is only available in the US. The price may eventually come down, but probably not anytime soon, since the Kindle has been “temporarily out of stock” almost since it was released. I ordered mine at the end of November and had to wait about two weeks to get. It may take even longer now. The fact that demand appears to be steady is a good sign for the future of the Kindle and e-books. 😀

If anyone has any questions about the Kindle, I’ll try to answer them.

Linda Mac / Lyndi Lamont

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