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The life and times of ToddleFly
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| She's a tricky thing, faith. |
[Nov. 7th, 2009|09:13 pm] |
| [ | music |
| | I Can't Give You Anything But Love - Rufus Wainwright | ] |
Y'all, I stopped being Catholic* more than a decade ago, and one of the characters in Summerton - Sione - is Roman Catholic, and let me tell you, it is hard to write about his faith sometimes.
Since becoming an atheist, I've written several practicing religious characters - one of the minor characters in Guardian is a Sunni Muslim, and the main character in a short story I might actually fiddle with again sometime is Free Methodist. But Sione is my first major fictional Catholic, and it's hitting a little too close to home.
For me, part of writing a character respectfully and truthfully involves, at least for the time that I am writing them, empathy for their beliefs and points of view. I don't believe, but Sione does, and his belief has to be sincere if he's to read true. So he prays, and feels the presence of God, and looks for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. And since I miss believing that, it's hard.
But hey, I never thought this gig would be easy all the time. I can dig in. I can do this.
*Technically, and this is one of the things I object to, I keep being Catholic, since I was baptised and confirmed. As closely as I can work out, I am an excommunicant by virtue of being an apostate, but according to the Church, I don't get to choose not to be Catholic anymore. I find that very annoying, since according to me, I totally do. |
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| There will always be women in rubber flirting with me! |
[Nov. 7th, 2009|10:47 am] |
| [ | music |
| | It Takes All Kinds - Aimee Mann | ] |
A few people left comments indicating ignorance of who Maureen and Joanne were in the poll. I could tell you, but they could do that themselves.
Through song!
Maureen Johnson is a free-spirited and somewhat promiscuous performance artist who has trouble paying the rent (rent rent rent!). Joanne Jefferson is an Ivy League educated public interest lawyer.
In the Rent! stage show, they break up while planning a protest, but in the movie, which is where that video's from, they break up at their engagement party. |
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| It's more fun if you don't know who. |
[Nov. 6th, 2009|05:02 pm] |
I'm procrastinating.
HOW HARD ARE YOU PROCRASTINATING?
So hard that in a minute I'm actually going to stick rollers in my hair!
But before that, a poll:
Poll #1481514
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 49I am a: I am a: I am a: I am an: I am a: I am a: |
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| How To Ensure Publication. |
[Nov. 5th, 2009|02:17 pm] |
| [ | music |
| | The Best Ever Death Metal Band In Denton - The Mountain Goats | ] |
Sometimes people will tell you that it's hard to get a book published, that it takes effort and years of learning technique and craft to write a good and publishable book - and then more time to research the business of publishing. They might suggest reading agent blogs. They might suggest query letter workshops, or attending conferences and listening to agent panels.
They might even suggest that there IS no big secret, no surefire success strategy other than hard work, persistence, and talent. That no amount of quirky presentation or brilliant marketing schemes could make up for a weak book.
Don't listen to those people. They're trying to keep you down!
Razzle-dazzle 'em, as the inestimable Billy Flynn says, and they'll make you a star. And you can trust Billy Flynn. He's a lawyer!
You can also trust me, dear readers. I'm a debut author, and so I know everything there is to know about publishing. And I can exclusively reveal to you the following PERFECT, NO-LOSE submission, as composed via Twitter by author and YA expert Lili Wilkinson, Random House editor Zoe Walton, Allen and Unwin editor Susannah Chambers, author Penni Russon, and myself.
( The Secret of Sucess, Revealed at LAST! ) |
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| When I stopped giggling, I expressed a preference for munter. |
[Nov. 4th, 2009|10:58 pm] |
| [ | music |
| | Eye In The Sky - The Alan Parsons Project | ] |
There are two holidays my culture doesn't celebrate that I sort of wish it did - Holi and Thanksgiving.
I love the idea of the first because a holiday revolving around dancing, singing, the triumph of good over evil, and making life more colourful is just awesome. The second is of course more problematic, because Thanksgiving pretty much exemplifies colonialist rewriting narratives of theft and genocide. So I don't actually want Thanksgiving as such. But I do like the idea of a holiday devoted to gratitude.
Today I am grateful that my Australian editor, who is currently de-Americanising the Guardian manuscript and shifting back to the New Zealand vernacular, sent me an email querying a word choice. The subject header was "dick versus munter".
I am also grateful for this poem: We manage most when we manage small.
ETA: Oh, ew, I just googled munter out of curiousity, and apparently in British slang it refers to "an ugly woman". In NZ, it refers to- well, obvs it's vaguely equivalent to dick. Also a verb. For ex, you can say of a broken arm, as I currently do in Summerton, "It's totally munted." |
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| Revelations! (With special bonus) |
[Nov. 2nd, 2009|04:54 pm] |
You may have heard about last year's YA Zombie/Unicorn battles, which could only be amicably settled by the creation of an anthology that I am very eager to read.
However, inspired by ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) catherinehaines' picture of all her books that deal with faeries, I thought I might take stock of my shelves. With pictures!
Two things to note preparatory to this SHOCKING EXPOSE:
1) These aren't by any means all the books I have read on these various topics; just the ones in my shelf right now.
2) Except for all my Laurell K. Hamilton, Terry Pratchett, and Robert Jordan titles (ETA: and Steven Brust!), which would certainly expand the vampire and magician piles, because I totally forgot about them.
( The Truth Reveal'd! )
In other, even more riveting news, Adele at Persnickety Snark got me watching Friday Night Lights through her FNL week posts and guest posts. You guys! No one told me there were cheerleaders! |
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| The 2009 Vendetta Marathon Mixtape Tracklist. |
[Nov. 1st, 2009|06:57 pm] |
The 2009 Vendetta Marathon Mix-Mixed by Skeeter.
1) Wurlitzer Intro
2) Superfly TNT-Radio Spot
3) The Hell Raisers-(“Something Weird”Theme)
4) The Last Dragon
5) Children of Dune-Summon the Worms
6) They Live-Coming to L.A
7) Love Gun-KISS-(From “Role Models”)
8) Nurses For Sale-Radio Spot
9) Grindhouse-Main Theme
10) Come What May (Remix)-(From “Moulin Rouge”)
11) The Black Gestapo-Main Titles
12) Hell Up in Harlem-Radio Spot
13) Speed-Main Titles
14) Still in Hollywood-(From “The Hidden”)
15) Intermission
16) Transformers-Autobots
17) Underground-(From “Labyrinth”)
18) Hang ‘em High-Main Titles
19) 1408-Waking Up in L.A
20) We Live to Rock (Let’s Tune Our Weapons)-(From “Rock & Roll Nightmare”)
21) The Holy Mountain-Eye of the Beholder
22) The Green Slime-Main Theme
23) Hot Shots!-Main Titles
24) The Crawling Thing/Creature of Evil-Radio Spot
25) Mad Max 2-End Titles
26) Togther in Electric Dreams-(From “Electric Dreams”)
27) Requiem For a Dream-Theme (Remix) |
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