Don't Applaud, Just Throw Money

Ah, critiques! 'Tis stage 6 in the getting-published process.

The Getting Published Process

1. Get idea

1b. Ha ha I'm so clever!

2. Write book

3. Self-edit book

3b. Laugh at own jokes again

4. Give book to mother

5. Mother horrified


6. Give book to critique partners

7. Await praise!


8. Read critiques

9. Bash morons who do not understand Your Vision

9b. YOUR VISION!!!

9c. Admit maybe these morons have some valid points, do some editing/ rewrites

10. ???

11. Get published, make "Fuck You" money*

* "Fuck You" money is defined as such a great amount of money that you are able to quit your job with a "Fuck You", light cigars with your cast-off hundred dollar bills, and hire Lady GaGa to sing to you at home while you watch Ashlee Simpson dust your gold-plated nick-knacks.

So, Fellatia and I are embroiled somewhere in-between numbers 9 (bash morons) and 10 (???) for Love's Bountiful Bulge.

Actually, I kid, I kid.

Yes, the word "moron" may have passed our lips more than once (ha ha kidding!!), but we are, gasp, enjoying this part of the process!

First, we wrote a lot of this book by ourselves, sending one another passages that we later put together into a narrative. Going through the crits together over the phone has been 100% awesome. We like each other and keep laughing at our own jokes (step 3b above, repeat as needed). Second, we are taking suggestions from our crit partners and are having long, touching heart to hearts about the difference between laving and lathing a nipple or which terrible man-member euphemism to use in this or that scene.

The suggestions we are getting are great, and several funny bits have been added to the book on crit suggestions alone. We're making lemonade from lemons! and what-not.

There are several parts we shall go back and examine to do small re-writes here and there. That doesn't make me sad, since I have missed our silly characters and am happy to go back and play with them. Especially the sexy, muscle-bound ones. Rowr!


And when your crit partners are saying to you... "when do I get the next part already?"

That is 900% awesome.

Monday Morning Barnyard Antics:It's Not That Kind of Film With Goats

We just had this conversation about Ewan MmmmmmmmmcGregor and his shameless and wonderful penchant for nudity.

Turns, out, Ewan does it for the women, for the Feminism! He explains it to Craig Ferguson below.

Ewan, I hereby welcome you into the Feminists. Here's your Membership Card:


We Feminists hereby encourage your nudity on our behalf. We hope you swell with pride and become engorged on the happiness that female freedom brings you.

Oh, and you can totes use that card for a free caramel macchiato at participating Starbucks, or for an "I Hate Men" bumper sticker.

Lucy's Roundup O' the Week

...Date Ending November 6

Number of words written for NaNoOhNo: 7,536

Number of words I was supposed to have written: 10,000

Number of other manuscripts I am editing for future bestsellerness, so it's totally OK that my NaNoOhNo numbers are low: 1. Also: SEE THERE? I'M NOT LAZY!

Number of trips to the gym: Several. Yay!

Number of Trips to the Chiro: 1

Lucy: Oh, Count Chiropractorington, help me. You're my only hope.

Count Chiropractorington: Hi, Lucy. Please lie down on the table. How do you feel?

Lucy: Well, when I turn my head, it sounds like a zipper. Is that bad?

Count Chiropractorington: Um. Let's just take a look.

Lucy: Yes! Oh, yeah. Right in there. Ow ow ow!

Count Chiropractorington: [Digs elbow into Lucy's butt.]

Lucy: Oh, holy Batman, that hurts!

Count Chiropractorington: You were overdue.

Lucy: More! Bend me, crack me, push me, pull me!

Count Chiropractorington: Um.

Lucy: Pretzel me, Count Chiropractorington!

Count Chiropractorington: You're... making me feel uncomfortable.

Lucy: Can I come back tomorrow?

Count Chiropractorington: No.

Number of Restraining Orders from Count Chiropractorington: 0. So far.

Number of Dishwashers Broken: 1

Number of New Dishwashers: 1, her name is Lucy.

Number of Disgruntled Dishwashers: See above.

Number of High-Strung Meltdowns: 0. Whoopee!

Number of Happy Husbands: 1. See above.

It's a Chart!

I'm not getting too caught up in NaNoWriMo's "50,000 or bust!" mentality. For example, I will go back and read and edit just a touch before I move on. Most NaNoers seem to think self-reflection evil this month; I feel it is a necessary one.

But I must admit, I like the little charts they have.


Look at me! I'm ahead of the game!

Wow - it feels nice to type that.

Usually my daily chart looks something like this:

Monday Morning Miscellaneous Mischief:P-P-P-Poker Face

Christopher Walken gives a dramatic reading of Lady GaGa's "Poker Face". You're welcome.

Only 46K and Change to Go!

NaNoWriMo Day 1:

3116 words for today! And about 75 of them a poem that rhymes and everything! You have to have poems in Fantasy novels. You just have to.

3116 until my butt went numb.

Maybe I'll write more tonight, but now my bathtub beckons, for to de-sleep my bottom.


This is exactly what I look like.

XO

That's One Way to Start I Guess

So one day before NaNo (ahem, Oct 31 - the devil made me do it) I have completely changed the book I plan to write. That's normal, yes?

I have suddenly been kicked in the head by Inspiration, and her good friend, Silly. Instead of paranormal, I have chosen to dive into the high world of Fantasy! Elves, satyrs, humans, and UNICORNS!

My fantasy was hastily entitled...


Finally! A reason to use Papyrus, the Ugliest Font in the World!

Wish me luck!

Thou Shalt Not Suffer a Witch to Live

Happy Halloween!

For your witchy pleasure, the beautiful Clara Bow.

Halloween: A Lament

I sew. Very well.

I do not get embarrassed in public, no matter how stupid I look.

I love candy.

Halloween should be the happiest night of the year!

But, alas.

My husband doesn't like Halloween.



"What?" you cry. "How can that be? How could you have married a man who doesn't like to dress up and get a sugar high?"

Well, friends. He's hella cute, you see. And terribly clever and terribly funny. But he doesn't like Halloween.

I'd make him any costume he wanted! He could be Sue Sylvester! He could be Evil Gumby! He could be any character he wanted from Futurama!

Sigh.

Our conversation from this evening:

Lucy: Why do you hate Halloween?

Ricky: Why?

Lucy: I'm blogging about it to express my deep and sorrowful sorrow over the lack of Hallow--

Ricky: [mutters] Stupid...

Lucy: It's stupid or I'm stupid?

Ricky: Both.

Do you see?

I live in an apartment, so I do not even have an excuse like children coming 'round demanding high fructose corn syrup to dress up. Either none of my friends are having Halloween parties, or none of them have invited me. I'd look so cute, too...


(Is that some sort of leopard print shark fin on her head? Is she a Sharpard? A Leoark?)

So go, GO! Enjoy Halloween for Lucy! Dress up in imaginative ways (DO NOT engage in Slutoween, ladies!) Pass out candy! Play pranks!

TOILET PAPER SOMEONE'S HOUSE FOR GOD'S SAKE!

Only Hope Can Keep Me Together

To Whoever Finds This:

Whoever? Whomever? Oh, shit -- I'm adrift and can't look up the difference!!

Halp! Am drowning in sea of corporate rigmarole! Am assisting too many people, and am running out of ability to smile in the face of bullshit. Also, almost gave an opinion today. Can't... last... much... longer.

Please send cupcakes, rum, rum cupcakes, and, possibly, a life size cut-out of James McAvoy, STAT!

(OK, maybe make James a liiiiitle taller, and real.)

Definitely real.

Glub glub glub (this is the universal sound for brain dead.)

Halp! Halp!

Yours Truly,

DRONE FORMERLY NAMED LUCY, NOW NAMED DRONE.

Happy Hottie Hump Day:Mmmmmmmmmmcgregor Edition

God bless Ewan Mcgregor. He's a real humanitarian, appearing, as he does, an inordinate amount of the time in movies buck nekkid.


I bless Ewan... he blesses me back!


I'd tilt at red windmills for you, Ewan.


FYI: Googling "Ewan Mcgregor naked" yields VERY DISAPPOINTING RESULTS.


I mean, the above is very nice and all, but I want the whole enchilada.

Heh heh... I said "enchilada".

What the World Needs Now,Is Mutants, Sweet Mutants

It’s NaNoWriMo!
NaNoWriMo!

Like BiMoSciFiCon!
BiMoSciFiCon!

Except, not.*

Anyway…

I have decided to amuse myself with NaNoWriMo. With Love’s Bountiful Bulge being sent to our illustrious critique partners, I have time on my hands and I need a new toy. If you’re doing NaNoWriMo, too, find me over there. As you may expect, I go by lucywoodhull.

I’m thinking… paranormal. I enjoy worldbuilding, because it means I can make up any rules I want. I have longed to explore the silly side of all these UBER-SERIOUS werethings, vampires, shifters, mutants and zombies for a while, and now, NOW is the time I say! Might as well write a book with all of them in it. In for a penny, in for a quarter pounder with cheese.

These paranormals are so dark. Surely a werething needs a laugh now and then. Vampires can’t be all, “Oh, woe is me, I long to drink delicious, nutritious blood, but I’m so so so so so so so so so conflicted, and oh, look! A hot chick with a long neck!” all the time, right? And zombies totally need new dialogue. I mean, “Brrraaaaaiiiinnnnssss,” gets old after a while.

Something like this perhaps...


Lucy Woodhull: Read Her With Someone You Hate

Has a nice ring. I am here to fill the void no one thinks is there. Heh heh… I said “fill the void.”

*My apologies to you people who do not watch The Simpsons, for many of my references must seem like gibberish. The solution? Get thee to a rerun on Fox, STAT!

Monday Morning Monty Python:Mile High & Clubbed Edition

In honor of this fuckery, I present the below Monty Python.

You know, for people like me, who only get on a plane after a good bit of Xanax and/or alcohol, stories like the above are not helpful.

I have to wonder what the flight attendants were thinking as the time for landing came and went, and an hour passed. Something like this...?

Flight Attendant 1: Would you look at that... we should have landed an hour ago.

Flight Attendant 2: Oh, my. That is strange. What do you have going on tonight?

Flight Attendant 1: Meh. Date with this guy Gary. He sells flanges and thinks that it makes fascinating dinner conversation.

Flight Attendant 2: I have a date with my cat to watch Bridget Jones 2.

Flight Attendant 1: That one is not half as good as the first.

Flight Attendant 2: No.

Flight Attendant 1: I'm not all that anxious to get to Minneapolis.

Flight Attendant 2: Me neither.

Flight Attendant 1: Let's take this Cosmo quiz instead. "How to tell if your guy likes you or like-likes you".

Flight Attendant 2: I hate my life.

Flight Attendant 1: Here, have some vodka. I've been drunk since South Dakota.

Writer's Tale

Please go read this wonderful article entitled "How Plagiarism Software Found a New Shakespeare Play".

Go ahead. Go read it. I'll wait here and look at Katharine.


Done?

# 1: NEW SHAKESPEARE? Squee! You have to love anyone who could do dirty so subtly.

B: I love this bit:

Among Shakespeare's recycled bits of phrases: "come in person hither," "pale queene of night," "thou art thy selfe," "author of my blood" and even the whole phrase "lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds."

Does this make any other writers feel a hell of a lot better? Even ol' Shaksie repeated phrases! Of course, his are a lot better than my repeats, which include bits about melons as euphemisms for boobs, and cheese puns. But, still. As Willy himself said, "If I chance to talk a little wild, forgive me."

By The Twitching of My Thumbs, Something Hairy This Way Comes

I have rejoined the masses of taut Los Angeles-folk at the gym, after several sedentary months on my ever-growing behind.

I am not yet taut. I am probably a 5 on the taut scale, as in I'm not "OMG SHAMU!", but I am not yet "Bounce Brick Off Butt".

Ya'll, the gym stinks. Literally. The damn gym stinks. I pass those guys who almost knock me the fuck out with their odor and I really wonder why no one in their inner circle mentions the Eau de Dead Thing which wafts off their sweaty carcass.

Recently I was lunching with lovely writer friends (I do so have friends!) and one of them mentioned that, in the book we were reading, she was glad the hero's BUFF BUFF body was justified by the home gym he had.

In historical romance novels, the hero is always BUFF BUFF, but with no visible means of having attained such status. They are rich, of course, and don't work, of course, so how do they come by such rippling muscles, the better to seduce the heroine?

Does Lord Squeezemypec hoist prostitutes for exercise? Does his fine port weigh fifty pounds, so that he may attain lonesome drunkenness whilst building his muscles? Perhaps the heavy weight of his numerous titles spontaneously created a six pack?

Where am I going with this? Hell if I know.

Oh, yeah. Now that I am going to the (smelly) gym again, I decided something. After seeing the third or fourth man of indeterminate age, but 90% body hair coverage, lolling about in short shorts, I can never have the heroine meet the hero at the gym. Because: ew. And also: ick.

Perhaps it's better that the heroes of old have magically muscly bodies. I don't want to associate the sights, sounds and odors of the gym with my romances. Because: barf. And also: vom.

Monday Morning Mel Brooks: Tra La, It's Spring!

It's not really. It's fall. But "Fall for Hitler" would mean something else entirely.

Lucy's Roundup O' the Week

...Date Ending Oct 16

Pro: Didn't hit self in face with hammer.

Con: Hammer is uncomfortably close to lady parts. Perhaps hammer can be cajoled into submission with chocolate?


Pro: Went to gym for the first time in a while.

Con: Gym just as stinky as always. Ladies as obnoxiously fastidious as Lucy should probably just sell their book already, make some scratch, and set up lovely home gym, complete with Buff Trainer Who Resembles James McAvoy.


Pro: Have job.

Con: Job full of WTFery. Like, for real. People, the food order should not cause anyone's heart to race and face to clench up. Really. It's chicken soup, not nuclear war.


Pro: Edited Love's Bountiful Bulge for egregious misuse of "then" - and found not-too-many bad uses! Huzzah! Also worked on query and synopsis.

Con: Nothing new this week, but query & synopsis are tres important, too.


Pro: Finally gave in and ordered Cuter Than a Bug's Ear Riding Boots.


Con: None! They are so damn cute!

Note: They better fit.


Pro: Have amazingly good friends.

Con: Wish they were closer.


Pro: Celebrated wedding anniversary this week.

Con: None. Ricky is even better than a sack full of Buff Trainers Who Resemble James McAvoy. He is even better than Real James McAvoy. Waaaaay better.


Total: Ricky puts the week over the top and into Damn I'm a Lucky Girl! realm. Here's hoping your week was just as good!

They May Take My Life, But They Will Never Take My Gerunds!

We have company coming into town this weekend, so my week has been like this.



So while I am busy "cleaning the house" and serving football snax to the Man and his Compatriots, contemplate the wisdom that is writer Anne Mini's blog.

Regulars here will know that I hate with the force of a thousand farts the "rules" of writing which are continually bandied about, but Anne is an exception. She has lots of helpful how-tos re: writing, but always explains why they are they way they are, instead of just declaring nouns verboten for no good reason.

You can't have my nouns! No, not even the gerunds!

Monday Morning Mel Brooks: Look Out, Sin!

Oh, the agony! Oy, the shame!

I wish he would just go ahead and make a History of the World Part II. For the children.

I Love Junie B. Jones

As I have mentioned before, Fellatia slaves for her local library in Fancy Suburb, USA. She has a love for clever children's books, so she bought me one of her favorites, Junie B. Jones Loves Handsome Warren by Barbara Park. It is #7 in her Junie B. Jones series.


Before I go too much further, let me please say:

HOLY CRAP I LOVE JUNIE B. JONES!

Hmm. It is probably a bad thing to say "holy crap" in relation to a book intended for ages 4-8. Oh, well.

A sample from this fantastic, funny, lovely book, which my future children will own, whether they like it or not:

After that, I stayed in my chair very good. And I did my work.
I did my spelling.
And my arithmetic.
And my printing.
Also, I drew a sausage patty on my arm.
Only that wasn't even an assignment.
That is called working on your own.

Actually, that is called funny as hell.

Junie is a nutball, and Handsome Warren makes the cuckoo sign at her. I really sympathized with the character, for my own husband, Handsome Ricky, makes the cuckoo sign at me all the time. That is called marriage. Junie probably thinks she will grow out of her nutballiness (nutballity?) but alas, I find that I get more nutballier as the years fly by, because I have ceased to care if other people think I am a nutball. That is called giving up.

Anyhoo, as an aspiring comedy writer, I salute you, Barbara Park. This oldster (ahem.) shall be buying all of the Junie B. Jones books for her own amusement. I'm not sure what that says about me, but I think it says your books are awesome.