Writing Memed

HAPPY FRIDAY THE 13th! You'd think I'd come up with some kind of meme to honor the day.

There you go. Some days you're the victim, some days, you're the one wielding the bloody knife. I believe that at the moment, I am the one wearing the mask and repeatedly stabbing hapless victims. Because next meme:

 

Relax. Talking about the bad guy in the latest WIP. You know. The book that was supposed to be draft complete on 10/31 of last year? The same day Dad had that first heart attack? Yeah. This leads us to the second meme in this morning's 'Writing Experience as Meme'.

ON TO EDITS! And submissions. And . . .

A Meme of My Muses

So, this week the theme is to make a meme about your writing experiences.  And since, for me, it's just going on at a breakneck pace, with my mind being almost overrun by different ideas and the different stories I want to tell.

And then I found an old picture of me that seemed perfect for what I was thinking...

This feels like an accurate portrayal of what my relationship with my muses is.

Memes

This one is not mine, but it always makes me laugh, and it sets the right tone...

These two I made, so....

Not ALL of them. SimpLY not!

 Annnnnnd....

Because I spent years honing my craft to act on my own ideas,

and not to be insulted by someone's thoughtless notion that:

a.) I don't have my own creativity

b.) the idea is the 'hard part' of writing 

and it is worth half

c.) if their great idea isn't worth 

their own time effort, why should 

they presume it is worth mine?

That said, I always encourage folks who approach me about this
(usually at signings) to write it themselves because
what they will learn about writing
and about themselves
in the process
is worth their time and effort.

Best and Worst Author Moment: Reviews

Man, I loves me some reviewers...even when the reviews aren't great.

I love it when a plan comes together

I have never generated a meme before now, but i knew what I wanted to say. This meme brought to you by Jeffe's hard work. I just followed her suggestions.

And here are a few that have been created based on my sterling personality and sunny disposition.

Baby's First Meme

It's Make a Meme week at the SFF Seven!

That's right. The topic is to make a meme of your favorite or least favorite thing about being an author.

Danu stacks the challenges deep, indeed.

For those who don't know, a "meme" is defined by Merriam-Webster (who has one of the best Twitter feeds going right now), as "an idea, behavior, style, or usage that spreads from person to person within a culture." I was interested to learn that the term was coined by Richard Dawkins in 1976 in his groundbreaking book, The Selfish Gene, to discuss genetic inheritance. Had no idea that the "meme" I knew in genetics is the same. In these days of social media, a meme is likely to be some image paired with a caption or tags, to convey a feeling or experience. That's the Jeffe Definition (TM). M-W adds a second definition of "an amusing or interesting picture, video, etc., that is spread widely through the Internet," which I think comes pretty damn close to mine.

Of course, this meant I had to learn how to make a decent meme. Stretching boundaries and all, eh, Veronica Scott? (For the rest of you, I had the best success with https://memegenerator.net/)

I don't often do "least-favorite" or pet-peeve kinds of things, but this one captures my feels this morning.

Can I Surprise You With A Book?

Probably not. Here we are, one week into the New Year and Saturday SFF7 (me) has to be contrary on the assigned topic already. We're supposed to share what book that we  love, that would surprise you because it would seem an odd choice for us to make.

Hey, I believe life is short, too short to read things I'm not naturally drawn to. If someone I respect gives me a good recommendation for a book outside my usual reads, I'll try it but I'm not hesitant to do the Did Not Finish (DNF) pivot and abandon anything fairly quickly that isn't lighting my fire.

I could give you a book or two that I read and enjoyed, to my own surprise, but LOVED? Uh, no. Read once, said "huh, that was good," and moved on. Not a candidate for rereading. Burn Down the Night by M. O'Keefe is a motorcycle club romance and I never read those, but someone recommended it to me. I gave it a try, found myself drawn in by the characters and indeed read the entire book with enjoyment. Once. It's not something I'll ever reread, nor did I go on to buy more in the series. (Sorry!).

I could perhaps mention some of the hard core, gritty military nonfiction that I've read, memoirs of snipers and medical corpsmen and Special Forces guys...but they wouldn't surprise you, if you know the heroes in my scifi romances are Special Forces soldiers of the future. Do I love any of the books and reread them? Not usually. I appreciate the glimpses into what it takes to defend our country and the sacrifices made by good men and women, and their families. Reading true accounts helps me get the tone and atmosphere right in my own novels. But I'm not curling up with those books on a cold rainy night when I want a comfort read with all the feels I'm craving.

It would be easier to tell you about movies that I've watched that wouldn't seem like 'me' but I loved and rewatch periodically. (Hmm, I'd better make sure that isn't a topic of the future before I share any juicy details here.)

Happy Reading!

Literary Infamy

EDITED to make actual sense after I appear to have missed the fact that a cat went keyboard surfing and messed up my post. Many thanks to Jeffe for alerting me!

Have you ever made someone else cry with your reading choices? I have that distinction. It was a holiday party and the idea was to bring your favorite book already wrapped. We then did a blind exchange. All the wrapped books were put under the tree, we drew lots and went around picking books. The gal who got mine opened a copy of Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond - a book I still love for world building. She started to cry. They were not happy tears. To be fair, she's a teacher. Getting a nonfiction book was a little more than she could handle. So yeah. I still feel guilty about that one. Fortunately, someone else wanted the book and offered to trade a historical romance with her. Happy ending.

That's actually my only real brush with literary infamy. My reading tastes are wide ranging and not all that controversial. I'm probably more interesting (or demented) based on the books everyone else likes that I dislike. However. That's another day's navel gaze.

The book(s) that I enjoy that might surprise you are those written by Mr. Chuck Tingle. Oh yes. Space Raptors Butt Invasion. Hugo nominated!

I love Chuck for so many reasons. I mean. What's not to like about a man who so effortlessly and gleefully trolled the ever-living hell out of the Rabid Puppies when they did their damnedest to game the Hugos? So much admiration.

And what's not to love about a mentally ill man finally finding his niche and his joy in writing unlikely homo-erotic and occasionally politically on-point porn shorts?

The stories are fun. They're filled with lovely, unambiguously consenting, enthusiastic sex partners. Perceptions get twisted - in one story a dude falls in love with a handsome building. For several pages of that story, I had to consciously tell my logical brain to shut the hell up - because in my own weird mental world, all inanimate objects have a spirit, which would make them not so inanimate anymore, right? Where do I get off saying it's impossible for a guy to fall in love with a roadside diner and then spend pages having hot sex with it? I like that I have to shove my assumptions about what's possible aside in order to consume the candy this man writes. Besides. There are worse slogans in the world than his: Love is real.