The Girdle of Melian

The book ban is officially over! As soon as I mail off my cheque to Folio , that is. Unfortunately, this does not mean I'm going to rush out and buy piles of books tomorrow. The Folio books were a one-off deal to keep my membership in, and until I make a serious dent in the Books By the Bedside pile, I'm going to try my darndest not to buy new ones. That being said, this week is Banned Books Week - go out and buy/read a copy of Little Black Sambo or anything by Lois Lowry , Robert Cormier , Mark Twain , etc. Meanwhile, I've had an interesting summer of not buying books - I've gotten free books instead! Let's see... I picked up both The Far Side Gallery 3 and Britannia Mews from those "free books" boxes people put on their lawns, I got a Peter Hoeg book that I haven't read yet from my uncle and a Robin Pilcher (son of Rosamunde Pilcher ) and a Maeve Binchy from friends at work. And of course I've been relying on Google Books a lot. However,...

Helene's new book is coming out! And to celebrate, she's gaving a star-studded contest on her blog , and on facebook. Enter every week and if you linked to the contest through this blog, please mention it!

Courtesy Jim Delaney, from the wonderful Omnificent English Dictionary In Limerick Form : Copy Editor All my craft isn't mine: I devote it To my fellows. A good (kindly note it) Copy editor knows How to fix up the prose So the author might think that he wrote it.

Sort of. Monday and Tuesday I was up at 5 and got masses of revision done before leaving for work. But it's really hard to get up that early on only 6 hours of sleep! I couldn't do it this morning, especially since I was having a really interesting dream about... something that involved paper anyway :-) So now, with about 50 manuscript pages left to go, I'm stuck again. And the number of unfinished scenes is much higher than I thought and keeps growing. Without abrogating my previous goals (especially that of having a complete, final MS by the end of November), I am facing a dilemma: Do I keep plugging away at revisions or do I stop and return to creation mode and write up all the scenes that are missing? The quote in the title, by the way, comes from Basil Fawlty :-)

Got this from Jen : Word Count: 77000, but that's including some notes here and there. Scenes: Scenes? Each Chapter is almost one scene, so about 35. Characters On The Chopping Block: Haven't cut anyone yet. No one's died either. Hmmm... Scenes On The Chopping Block: Not entire scenes (or maybe I can't remember) but definitely lots of commentary and strange reactions and people who don't belong in certain places... Total word count loss? Not sure... it averages, you see. I cut two paragraphs, but then I add in a missing scene... Scenes Left To Write: Too many. About ten. Scenes Left To Revise: About 15 Chapters. Then I have to re-read the entire MS *again*. My Next Move: Finish this week's edits, i.e. the 15 Chapters. Then print the MS and deal with all the highlighted bits (research to check, words to tweak, etc.), then type in (i.e. create) all the missing scenes, then print the MS and read it ALL! Estimated Time of Delivery (to Betas): My original goal (from ...

Susan over at the Books and Writers Community posted a short poem using the words "baited breath" in an ingenious fashion; she got the poem from the World Wide Words site, which has a page devoted to weird words. My uncle at Snail's Tales , when I forwarded the list to him, replied: Here is a challenge: write as long a sentence as you can using as many words as you can from this list. I took him up on it right away - oh the joy of playing with words! - and herewith please find my sentence (I didn't use any Q, U or X words, and used only those words with which I was familair on sight, and did not need to run to the dictionary for. There were quite a few words that seemed familiar, but which I wasn't really sure how to use. All the words from the list have an initial capital): Abigail and her Attercop Absquatulated with my Bezoar, the Blackguards, and it was utter Balderdash because they were Bankrupt so I couldn’t Blackmail them, the Blatherskites, and I was so ...

I used to need one to complete my catalogue of books, but I finally got that done myself (see bottom of the blog). I had no idea that Elance existed! I found out about it on this great blog . Tasks I still need an intern for: Type up all of the scraps and scribbles where I've written my dreams Add the 200+ books I've gotten since I finished the catalogue Create a filing cabinet with organized lables for all the articles/webpages/clippings/brochures/etc. I've collected over the years Go through all the piles of "saved stuff" and extract every Folio catalogue, then make a comprehensive list of all the Folio books I want Create a database to store every piece of advice/recipe/good idea/remember to look up/song quotes/poetry quotes/etc. I've ever collected Make a master list of Books/Albums/Singles/DVDs I want Find a use for all the 10-inch bits of wool I have left Once I choose photos to be printed, have the photos printed, have some enlarged, and frame everyth...