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Huh. Who would have thunk THIS:
You Are 26 Years Old |
26
Under 12: You are a kid at heart. You still have an optimistic life view – and you look at the world with awe.
13-19: You are a teenager at heart. You question authority and are still trying to find your place in this world.
20-29: You are a twentysomething at heart. You feel excited about what’s to come… love, work, and new experiences.
30-39: You are a thirtysomething at heart. You’ve had a taste of success and true love, but you want more!
40+: You are a mature adult. You’ve been through most of the ups and downs of life already. Now you get to sit back and relax.
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Well, as of next Thursday, at least…
Today I have been playing around with an article sent to me by Theresa of Blue Moon Communications about using numerology. Sure it’s meant for your character’s names, but supposedly it also works with your name or pseudonym. Using the technique, you get a number for your motivation, self image and external image.
So I added up my name and found that my motivation is: 2 = HELPER: The quintessential power behind the throne. The one who knows how to get things done. Characteristics best described as detail oriented, interested in organization and the details of everything. Can be a busy-body.
My self image is: 6 = NURTURER: The number closest connected to family and all the harmonious, group associations a happy family can bring. Seeks to foster community spirit and cooperation and encourages others.
And my external image is: 8 = MATERIAL POWER: If ever there was a number that attracted wealth in all its forms, this is it. New car, no problem. World trips, can do. Appreciates nice things. This number also possess the greatest vitality and life force and exudes POWER. Everything you can associate with power in the material world is personified by this number.
Don’t know if I’m sure about that second one. The others seem nice. Unfortunately, I’m probably going to have to take a pseudonym. I crunched the numbers of a bunch of different pseudonyms I’ve been playing around with. According to Theresa, it’s often a good thing to have the same second and third numbers, so that there’s no disparity between how you see yourself and how others sees you. But if I’m picking a pseudonym, one with a lot of 8s, or 1s for leadership, seem like a good way to go about it.
The name I’ve been liking the best has this set-up for motivation: 4 = BUILDER: The embodiment of patience and persistence. Like a brick-layer, this person can build a wall if they do it methodically one brick at a time. While results may be slow, this person can achieve them. Characteristics best described as possessing diligent effort.
For self-image: 5 = SENSUAL FREEDOM:The person who wants to experience everything! They can be perceived as restless or ambitious in their need to go places, do things, explore and expand every horizon. Doesn’t want to be tied down and prefers no restraints, wants to do and experience the very essence of life in all its glory.
And for external: 9 = HUMANITARIAN: The number of completion. The one who wants to benefit and help the whole world. Can sometimes be personified by the phrase, “I love humanity, its people I can’t stand.” Sees the larger purpose behind his/her actions and works for the greater good. Chooses to do things that will benefit people as a whole rather than as individuals. At the extreme can become a martyr.
Martyr, huh? hmmmm….
How about this one? Motivation: 3 = COMMUNICATOR:The creative number. This individual is the life of the party and can see similarities in diverse information. Primarily right-brained and tends to be unconventional.
Self image is: 1 = LEADER: The top, the best. A person who is comfortable with taking charge in everything. A natural born leader. Characteristics best described as being in control, wanting to be first, competitive nature.
And external image is 4 = BUILDER.
Or this one? Motivation is 9 = HUMANITARIAN, while self-image and external image is 4 = BUILDER. That way, I have the benefit of everyone else thinking I’m just as diligent as I think myself, but really be working to benefit humanity.
Ideally, I think I’d want to be a 411 or a 488, or a 988, or a 911 (like Nora Roberts is).
But the name thing is tough, especially if I want to use Diana, which I do. Diana alone gives 11 in vowels and 9 in consonants, but can result in wildly different numbers depending on the addition, considering that it gets me well into double digits both times. But I also want to use a last name that “means” something to me, and that’s as difficult to find as anything else. none of my family’s names works well, and there are few other names that mean something to me.
~Diana
I’ve been officially up for several hours now, but awake for even longer. I can’t sleep. I have an idea. A really amazing, mind-numbing incredible idea (aren’t they all at first?) My muse is doing this on purpose, to get me to finish these freaking books! I’ve already spent my Amazon Xmas certificate on research items. Now there are only 100 pages keeping me from my prize of STARTING SOMETHING NEW!!!!!
I received seven entries. I’ve read two. One was decent, one was pretty damn good.
After going over 192 judged partials for the Stiletto contest, I became something of an expert in the kind of comments received by manuscripts. I saw the same comments over and over and over again,and in fact have written an article about it for my chapter’s newsletter. I’ve only judged four contests in my life, but with all of the coordinating I’ve done, I’ve seen an incredible amount of contest entries. I consider myself a good judge. (Ironically, though my boss thinks i have “Paula Abdul syndrome” when it comes time to hand out Planet ratings, I’m a decently strict judge.) I don’t judge on bullshit like typos, though if the contest presents the opportunity (unlike the GH) I make comments in the margins about errors in usage. If there are enough grammar problems to severly hinder understanding, I might take points off, but I don’t stress about it. I don’t give a shit if the person italicizes or underlines, or if the margins are 0.9879 inches instead of the full 1, or if they indent the first line five spaces or three. I don’t care if the chapter ends in the heroine’s head, or if there are more than four secondary characters, or their chapters are 22 pages instead of 20, or whatever. I only ever invoke “the rules” (which are more like guidelines) if I think that perhaps paying more attention to that PARTICULAR rule might help the author with a problem. For instance, if the story requires 20 secondary characters, then party on. But if the author is using all these vibrant secondaries to avoid dealing with the main storyline, then maybe they need to cut back. However, I phrase the comments like htat — not “you have too many secondary characters,” which the entrant is sure to dismiss as a judge hell bent on imaginary rules, but with a “I felt like the secondaries are overshadowing the heroine/main storyline, etc.”
I could give these GH entrants advice — but I’m not allowed to. I’m not allowed to give them anything more than a number. I’m not allowed to say “You can make the reader believe anything if you only explain it and motivate well.” I’m not allowed to say, “For every unbelievable thing you include in your story, everythign else has to be that much MORE believable.” I want to tell them this. The “no comments” thing make the GH just a bid for finalling, nothing more.
Number One New Year’s Resolution:
Do NOT get involved in the silly, dramatic, lunatic ravings of people who have nothing better to do with their time than send out nasty emails, and try to provoke folks into dialogues about nothing.
Blech.
I *did* get GH entries. Paranormal. Everyone put their name on. No one I know.
Off to read.
The tsunami has created an interesting market for puff pieces. Take this incredibly offensive little story in the St. Petersburg Times:
The Hand of God?
I want to thank the following people for their realtively reasoned and patient responses (some of course, were more helpful than others) to the absolutely LUDICROUS question of “Why did God let this happen?”
Rao Davuluri, manager of Hindu Temple of Florida, Carrollwood
The Rev. Robert Schneider, pastor of Espiritu Santo Catholic Church, Safety Harbor
Eric Yasin, assistant imam of St. Petersburg Islamic Center
The Rev. Frederick Ohsiek, pastor of Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Citrus County
The Rev. Kokkavita Wipulasara, Florida Buddhist Vihara, Tampa
The Rev. Abhi Janamanchi, Unitarian Universalists of Clearwater
Dr. Mohan Singh, high priest, Sikh Gurdwara, Thonotosassa
And to the following people, shame, shame shame on you!
The Rev. Bernard Smith, Greene Chapel AME Church, Largo, for makign the appalling and DISGUSTING statment that the tsunami drowned “disbelievers” like Hindus, Muslims and “movie stars and models.” Your ignorance and bigotry is phenomenal, and truly hateful in the face of the tragedy undergone by so many thousands of people on this planet. I dearly hope you read the article and listen very carefully to the words spoken by your spirtual brothers, Schneider and Ohsiek (for I know it will be far beyond you to heed the advice of Yasin, who claims the devastation affects all humanity). As a Christian, it is your duty to come to the aid of your human neighbors, not tell them they deserved what they got! I wish I could feel more anger for you, but truly, I primarily feel sadness and pity, for you as well as those whom you shepherd.
Ed Golly, chairman of Atheists of Florida, Tampa, for daring to suggest that the offhand comment that someone made about “a disaster of biblical proportions” was a cause for you to deny the existence of God based on a denouncement of fundamentalist Christianity. As one can easily see from the variety and breadth of responses in the article, there is no one way to see the workings of God. Not everyone’s deity is the God of Noah, and of those who do follow that system of belief, not all of them ascribe to biblical fundamentalism. Natural phenomenons that were once used to PROVE the existence of God do not disprove it now, buddy boy, and you sound a little bit whiny about the whole situation, since you expect God to be loving and compassionate. You make a pretty poor atheist, my boy, since you aimed your stings against Judeo-Christian fundamentalism and not the idea of god, and thence made no headway for your case, and came off sounding like a whiny little boy who is angry at his parent for not always making the right choice.
I leave you with these comments from the brilliant wit of the late, great Douglas Adams.
“I will not prove that I exist,” says God, “because truth denies faith, and without faith I am nothing.”
“But,” says man, “The Babel Fish is a dead giveway. Nothing so perfect and useful could have evolved purely by chance. It *proves* you exist, and so, by your own argument, you don’t.”
“Oh,” says God, “I never thought of that.” And he disappears in a puff of logic.
I hate this article. I hate that such venomous beings are allowed to spew their filth over my morning tea. DAMN YOU, FIRST AMENDMENT! On the flip side, it got me thinking about the spiritual consequences of the whole situation. In this world, humans can’t think of anything better to do than kill one another. This is becoming more obvious every day. Wouldn’t it be nice if we were reminded that although we have the power to destroy our planet, it can deliver some pretty hefty wallops itself? Wouldn’t it be nice if such horrific disasters made us see that there are evils we can’t control, adn there are evils we can, and we’d all be so much better off if we did so and presented a united front against the perils of nature, life and an angry God? Sorry for the maudlin philosophy. I can’t stand opportunists, bigots and emotional vampires who make a bad situation worse.
To quote my man Yasim up there: “We should respond to the charities. Give money. Give blood. It’s not a Christian thing, a Jewish thing, a Muslim thing. It’s about humanity.”
Amen to that!
After all the crap with the CLW contest, I swore I wouldn’t be one of those complaining contest entrants, because I know how personally the judges take every comment.
HOWEVER:
I’ve gotten incredibly mixed scores in contests. People have hated my work, work which, in other contests, have earned me finalist placement. People have INCORRECTLY corrected my grammar (see my News page from this spring). But genereally, after a little while away fro the work, I am able to look at it critically and take SOMETHING from the comments, even if I disagree with the overall score. For instance, a manuscript of mine that has been a finalist in other contests, near a finalist in some, and has received several requests as well as offers from published authors to pitch it to their editors was recently trounced by someone that I know from experience as a contest coordinator to be a ridiculously lenient judge. And yet, I found merit in her critique and used her comments in revising said manuscript for the Golden heart this winter.
Yet I can’t find a single point of merit in my Emily package. I received them two days ago, and quickly scanned the scores, which were mystifying in themselves. I had three scoresheets, and one was marked “third judge”. Obviously, a discrepancy. The first two were graded (out of 155) 151 (pubbed), and 97 (PRO). The third judge scored 131. According to the Emily rules, a score discrepancy of 20 points where at least one score was 85% of total merited discrepancy. Theoretically, even my discrepancy scoring deserved discrepancy! (See, this is why you have a decent percentage decide discrepancy scoring, as in the TARA and Stiletto contest. there is going to be vairance. If we ended up with a double discrepancy in any of my contests, we scored again).
After a cool down period, I read my Emily scoresheets this evening. The 151 made one comment throughout the entire scoresheet: she thought my Em dashes should look like two hyphens rather than one long dash. Perosnally, I don’t like the way they look like that. I find them difficult to read and more likely to cause mid line hyphenations. However, if a publisher wants me to change them, so be it. I can’t quibble with her opinion. (However, yet ANOTHER entry into the “why the hell should we have formatting questions on contest scoresheets? If it’s blatant and damaging, then take it off, if not, don’t get huffy).
The 131 made no comments, which pisses me off to know end, mostly because I spent the last 3 months of my life begging judges daily to make comments).
The 97 drenched the freakin’ thing in comments, and by page eight (on the third attempt) I gave up trying to make heads or tails of them. I make it very very clear that the characters have a history, and yet in every situation where the heroine thinks something about the hero, the judge commented that she can’t possibly know that. I’ve never quite had that comment before. The heroine comments on the fact that the hero is driving her to do things she’s not wont to do, and the judge said that the heroine would have to do it more often for it to be believable. For what to be believable? That it’s something she doesn’t do???? The clueless comments go on an on (well, up until page eight, at least).
I *want* to get something out of a crit by a person who hated the story. there have been plenty who have. Abby Z isn’t such a huge fan, but I found her comments to be incredibly enlightening, useful and, at once entirely unlike Madame 97. Unfortunately, I think I caught this chick on a bad day. She didn’t get it. Not just “didn’t get it” the way we talk about people who aren’t into our style of story… but really. Didn’t. Get. It. Didn’t understand the text. Didn’t follow the prose. Couldn’t comprehend the sentences. Maybe she was on cold medicine. Maybe she was trying to read while cooking a souffle. Maybe it was the season finale of America’s Next Top Model. I usually get better advice from the people who don’t like it than the people who do (obviously, the people who do aren’t as interested in me making changes) but this one was basically useless. Which is a shame. Especially a shame because last year, my CP won this contest. Not finalled, not won her category, but won the grand prize, the top award, the whole kit and caboodle and manuscript critique from the editor, won won won.
And if she’s not a GH finalist for it this year I’m going on a rampage for sure.
I don’t like to rant about contests. I’ve done it before (see above), and it always comes across as sour grapes. Sour when you’ve lost, and even more sour when you’ve won and you are still complaining. I’ve gotten bad judges before. I’ve dealt with bad judges extensively. I’ve probably even been a bad judge a time or two, though I hope to God not! Am I little more indignant because this manuscript was so wholly mishandled? Perhaps. Unfortunately I’ve heard really good things about this contest — AND I’M NEVER ENTERING AGAIN.
I’m not doing regional contests this year, but if I were, I’d only enter these: TARA, Launching a STAR, Molly, Maggie and Jasmine. I’ve ALWAYS received excellent feedback from these contests, on finalling and non-finalling entries. That’s my rec, take it for what you will.
In other news, it appears I was NOT chosen as a GH judge. Um…. okay. More writing time for me, then.
Okay, back to getting my requests out.
And drunken Star Wars Monopoly.
No Diversions to report. In fact, I had a little mini-breakdown on the job yesterday. There I was, minding my own business between the salad and the entree courses, and I burst into tears. The waiter, already tired from a weekend of holiday revelers, didn’t know quite what to make of me. So much for keeping a low profile, Miss Food Critic!
Naturally, I’m completely humiliated, but as I’d spent the last six hours trying without success to wrestle my characters into bed, I felt justified at the time.
What’s wrong with me? I used to write sex all the time. (It’s one of those pesky erotica requirements, you know). Twenty page sex scenes? No problem. Just point me to the keyboard. Yet it was like pulling teeth to get them to do so much as take each other’s clothes off. Arrrrrrgggghhh. I tried reading my old stuff. I tried reading my favorite authors sexiest novellas. I participated in a brainstorming session. Okay… what if she goes down on him and then…. [Note to self: Never brainstorm sex.] Nothing worked. I was so depressed, and depressed, of course, is not the mood in which you wish to write sex.
Thus the restaurant crying jag. Really, I should try to keep my careers separate. No point in scaring waiters by disccusing sexual pacts.
The meal was ruined (fortunately, I don’t think it colored my review, though it certainly wrecked Sailor Boy’s evening). On the way out to the car, I paused. Now, this restaurant was located in a very twee neighborhood. Yuppie townhouses, “Main St. America” brick walkways and streetlights, upscale bistros — you know the type. And there, next to my parked car, in a well lit section of street, not out of the sightlines of all the folks dining alfresco at the restaurant, was a very shiny, very upscale Honda sedan with two naked people humping in the backseat.
And they were really going at it, too. Not the beep of my car’s locking system, nor my stifled giggles nor Sailor Boy’s obvious rubbernecking would stop them in their pursuit of orgasm.
We laughed the whole way home. That’s what I was missing from my sex scene, I decided. The gotta-have-it-now, don’t-care-who-sees sort of urgency.
Come on, folks, I know you two have it in you! Screw already.
I *love* Casablanca. I love it, I love it, I love it. I worship at the altar of Rick’s Cafe Americain. I think it’s a decidedly perfect movie in every respect. Romance, adventure, friendship, it’s got it all. If I could write a novel like Casablanca, I’d be the happiest camper on earth.
It was on TCM last ngiht (lucky, lucky me). So I took a break from hard core revision to get swept up in teh trials and travails of Ilsa, Rick, Victor, Cpt. Renault et al…. Sailor Boy looked on begrudgingly as I sighed and swooned through each scene of movie magic,a nd I tortured him with Casablanca factoids.
Did you know that Ingrid Bergman didn’t want to do the picture? She thought it was a silly little wartime flick.
Did you know that the audience watching would have recognized the dates in the film (a few days before Pearl Harbor) as being a pretty direct reference to American Isoloationism and that Rick’s character shift was seen as a symbol of American’s getting involved?
Did you know that the man who played Gen. Strasser was the highest paid actor in the film?
Did you know that Warner chose the German march (same tune as my alma mater, sadly) rather than the real Nazi fighting song because they didn’t want to have to pay the Nazis royalties for it’s use? Did you know that the tears in the actors’ eyes when they counter with the French song are real, since most of them were German Jewish refugees?
Did you know that Ingrid Bergman did not know how the film was going to end, and when she asked the director who Ilsa was in love with, he said to play it in between?
I love love love Casablanca. Oddly enough, though I love the main characters and their triangle, my favorite part of the story, the part that truly gives it color, is the amazing job done with secondary characters. Every single one of them has an incredible story, from Ferrari to the Hungarian maitre’d Carl to Renault to that darling Bulgarian couple…. I cry at *their* story every single time. ‘Oh, it’s very bad there, Misseur. The Germans have the people by the throat.” Slays me.
I have an idea for a sort of “wide sargasso sea” type of story — though without all the postcolonial literary nonsense. Maybe more like “Wicked?” Anyway, one secondary speaks to me so strongly, I feel it’s a story that must be told one day.
Sigh. Casablanca, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways….
(I wonder if Notorious is on tonight?)
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