This Much is True

I must say, I am impressed with some of the comments I’ve been getting on this blog. And, surprisingly, these comments are not just on recent posts. No, people are commenting on posts that go back months and even years. And they are all so positive. They also seem to be translated from other languages, using some pretty awful translation software. Okay, most of them mention other, perhaps seedy, websites and many of them discuss how to buy various pharmaceuticals or knock-off watches online. But that doesn’t mean that these are not people who genuinely love my blog. Allow me to share some examples.
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(Perhaps) the first in a series of conversations with myself.

Myself: I heard a story on the radio this morning of a person being arrested for impaired driving last night. Sam guy was arrested for impaired driving twice in one day last month.That’s scary.

Me: “How is this kind of horrific stupidity allowed to occur?

Myself: What? How can you say that? You know that this man obviously has a serious problem with alcohol and, as someone who worked in addictions for quite a while, you should know better than to call him ’stupid’. He’s ill. He needs help.

I: No, she meant the horrific stupidity of a legal system that lets impaired people, and their vehicles, go free so then impaired drivers can have another shot at it. The man does need help and protection. From himself. Read the rest of this entry »

Golden Globe red carpet summary: Lots of pale colours; pretty much everyone looked great; Angelina looked like a walking, talking Barbie doll; Madonna looked like someone had given her a new face and sounded like she’d been given a new accent; Kelly Osbourne had old lady blue hair, seemingly on purpose; and some woman actually bragged about the “laser-cut swans” in her dress. Now, let’s let Ricky Gervais go at them all!

Seriously, how fabulous is Ricky Gervais?

Christopher Plummer has been married for 43 years. That’s like 764 in Hollywood years.

The eyes of that woman on the screen are saying, “get your greasy paws off me, Jeremy Irons”.

Looked like Elton John gave Madonna the stinkeye. I bet he was thinking, “she took my award AND my accent”.

Loved Felicity Huffman and William Macy doing harmony to sing the intro to the award they were presenting.

Tina Fey and Jane Lynch: two of the funniest women on TV making the funny perfectly.

I’m missing something important on the Golden Globes. Can’t quite place it. Wait, oh yes, the host! Rickygervais where are you?

Morgan Freeman is so awesome. I still always think of him as the guy from The Electric Company, though. Now, that’s dating myself.

My, these awards, given out to by The Foreign Press Association, sure end up going to a lot of people who aren’t American. And Meryl Streep and George Clooney, of course.

More of what I’d like to see in 2012

Less Plastic Surgery and More Wrinkles
Seriously, there are so many actors and actresses now that make me cringe when I look at them because of their altered faces. Not just facelifts that make them look like they’ve been in a cartoon windstorm and their face stayed that way, but Botox where nothing moves and eye jobs where eyes start to look more like the eyes I draw when I create portraits (AKA stick figures)–just holes in a face with no actual eye shape. Lips that are permanently puckered, like they’re always waiting for the kiss that never comes. They actually call them ‘bee-stung lips’ and they get them sometimes by injecting fat from their thighs or stomachs. I guess for people who inject botulism into their skin, lips that emulate being attacked by an insect is a great idea.

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These are some of the things I want to see in 2012:

The new season of Republic of Doyle

If you’re not a Newfoundlander, Republic of Doyle is a great television show filled with action, humour and thrills about a PI named Jake Doyle and the mysteries he solves with his father. If you are from Newfoundland, Doyle is all that, a bag of chips, and loaded with inside humour that make it just a teensy bit more enjoyable for us than the rest of the world. We love Doyle.

Republic of Doyle is so much a part of our pride and culture that it Read the rest of this entry »

I have let this poor little blog down. It used to feel loved, attended to, even nurtured. It used to be the place I dropped my thoughts, rants, pictures, a link to video, some humour, or a bit of advice. Now, let’s face it, I use twitter and facebook for those things. But it’s not the blog’s fault. It’s been a perfectly good little blog to me. So I need to change for it. Everyone knows that when you get into the habit of doing something, you do it more often so I must get back into the habit of blogging. For me, that means a realistic goal.

My goal could just be more blogging but look through this blog and you’ll see such empty promises scattered amongst the posts. No, I need something more concrete but also realistic. So, I’ll say once a week at least. And that’s really no good for a blogging slackard like me so I need something more  regular. Let’s say….every Tuesday. Yeah, a new blog post every Tuesday, at the very least. I can do that. I resolve to post every Tuesday, at least.

There. I already posted one this year. And it’s not even Tuesday yet! I’m getting better already. See you on Tuesday. Or with a really good excuse on Wednesday.

I like to think that I ask people to read my manuscript because I want to make it better. Of course, the part of me that loves the book, wants them to love it too and to just say, “oh, but it’s perfect the way it is”. That’s the part you have to let go of because your manuscript is not perfect. It is not perfect and you want to make it better. You have to remind yourself of that. Read the rest of this entry »

Besides your first reader, you also need other trusted readers to look at your work. At least that’s what works for me. First reader then two (or more) other people who have become trusted readers for me. Maybe you want to have them all do it at once or maybe you think your first reader is enough. That’s great. For me, like I said in part 1, my first reader is also my cheerleader. My other trusted readers are too and I trust that they want to help me make my book better. They are writers who I trust and whose opinions matter a lot to me. They are more critical and I am, quite frankly, more scared of them because they throw the book at me. Figuratively, of course. They look for details writers should notice like point of view or tense problems, plot holes, fake sounding dialogue, description problems, and character motivation and consistency.
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Stephen King and I have a couple of things in common. Unfortunately my books don’t immediately (or ever, so far) hit the bestsellers list but we do both have thick glasses and our spouses are the first ones to read our books once we’ve finished writing them. Stephen’s wife, Tabitha, is the person he always looks to for that important first opinion and so it is with me and my husband. You don’t need a spouse to be a first reader but you do need someone you trust to be that first reader. And not someone who will just say he or she loves it because they love you. A first reader needs to be honest as well as critical.

Like I said, my husband is always my first reader. I pass him a manuscript when  Read the rest of this entry »

Okay, let’s face it, we’re all pretty tired of facebook changing things and making it hard to keep the things we post private but this last round of changes has really taken the cake. With this new ticker feature scrolling on the side of the screen all the time, I can see things about people I don’t even know about. From my facebook ticker, I can see things like “X commented on Y’s Post on Z’s Wall:” and I only know X. Not a clue who Y and Z are but somehow I’ve been dragged into a conversation between them because X chose to make a comment and facebook’s algorithm thinks I should know it. FYI, I do not care!

Now, I know that this won’t matter a bit in most cases, but there are cases where it could. Maybe I don’t want to know that my Aunt Fanny commented “ooh, love those hot buns” on some woman’s photo of a Chippendale dancer. And I sure don’t want my boss to know that I Liked the candidate his friend is running against in the next election. Ensuring our privacy on facebook can be pretty important. So, how to do it?

First, set your default privacy to Friends. Not friends of friends because you don’t know who they are, do ya?

Go to the upper right corner in facebook, next to your name and the word, Home and click on the arrow. Then Privacy Settings.

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