Bits and Pieces for a Friday

It's Friday morning, and I'm once more not ready with a well-organized, deeply thought out topic. I have ideas, mind you, but I don't have as much time during the week as I used to so it all kind of gets put off and we end up with this sort of loose collection of nonsense. Here goes.

-Well, it finally happened. The spammers, the bots, the spam-bots--they've gotten to be too much. This week alone, 8 Anonymous spam-bots tried to leave comments on the blog. They go in blogger's built-in spam filter, but they also come straight to my e-mail. I decided against 'no moderation' for a reason--I hate when I can't see the comments other people have made on a blog while I'm leaving my own--and I allowed anonymous posts for a reason, but no more. I suspect once the bots realize they can't leave their little self-promotions for virus inducing websites here, they'll go away, and the recent boom in visitation will come back down to normal levels. I hope the change doesn't cause any issues; if it does, leave a comment (hah hah!). Actually, if you want to leave a comment on this or other blog posts but can't, check my profile, my e-mail is there, and send me a nasty-gram that way.

Hoochie mama, that's a lot of spam!

-Interesting posts this week from Chuck Wendig and Stacy McKitrick on reviews this week. Now, if you've read this before from me, feel free to skip to the next block--maybe there's something new there. Everyone is free to make their own choice about whether to review or not, and how and what they review. It bothers me quite a bit, however, that people who do review feel like they can't always be honest in what they're saying. If you don't like a book, there should be no fear whatsoever that the author or their legion of fans is going to come after you, or launch a smear campaign against your own book when it comes out. As I said there, it's outrageous that people get outraged when their books (or their favorite books by their favorite authors) get less than four or five stars.

I find myself thinking of a routine I saw done years and years ago by comedian David Brenner. He was talking about mosquitoes, and how horrible it is to wake up in the middle of the night with that nasty little, whiny buzz in your ear, the sound that a mosquito is closing in for a bite. But, noted Brenner, it's the male mosquito that buzzes, to attract a mate. Male mosquitoes don't bite. "So," said Brenner, "if you wake up and you hear it--bzzzzzzzzz--just turn over, go back to sleep, it's nothing to worry about. But," he said, and paused. "If you hear nothing...."

I think you can figure out the implication of that.

-Jonathan Franzen made the news for a 5600-word rant against e-books, Apple, Amazon, and Jennifer Weiner in the Guardian this week. Ironic, considering his new book is available as an e-book from Amazon. See Porter Anderson for a great round-up on this.

-And for my own technology rant: yesterday I made a phone call for work, reached my target, introduced myself and why I was calling (the guy I reached is no stranger to my organization). He let me get through this spiel, then said, in a very impatient, snippy way, "I'll have to call you back. I'm in a meeting." This last was said in a way that made it sound like I had a lot of nerve, bothering him while he was in a meeting. I was properly apologetic and professional (I strive to be like Mr. Pink, if you know what I mean) and hung up without taking more of his time, but after I did, all I could was, "If you're in a meeting, why the f*** did you answer the phone?"

-I'm beta reading for a friend, and loving it. Not just the story, not just the fact that it's out of my genre (and, truth be told, I still struggle a bit to figure out what it is I'm writing), but the fact that I see things that will help me. Word choices, sentence and paragraph structure, pacing--once more I say, if you haven't beta read, you should. Help others while helping yourself.

-More on the writing front, I'm working on a short for the next anthology from Elephant's Bookshelf (and here's a great interview Matt Sinclair did with Richard Pieters, author of one of the stories in Summer's Double Edge), and, slowly but surely, I've been cracking into BARTON'S WOMEN.

That's it for me, how's it all going for you? Have a great weekend!


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