Sorry for the delay!

To all my blog-buddies: I'm sorry to have ignored you for so long. As an apology present, the least I can do is give you a few interesting links to look at.

First, a few words from Winston Churchill, who, amongst all his other gigs, was also a writer:




You can find more here; the main site is interesting in general, actually.

Next, something that both made me grin and made me feel like weeping: a superhero grandma. Make sure you read the story!

Third, an interesting case study in the human compulsion to attach meaning to what are essentially random (and therefore most likely meaningless) events: The Always Amusing Euphemism Generator (keep refreshing/reloading the screen for an endless supply of euphemisms). Fans of Umberto Eco's Foucault's Pendulum will already have gleefully explored this compulsion; so, too, will devotees of pareidolia. For others, I invite you to consider just how much of what we are certain we know is actually due to our need to make sense of things, whether or not they actually do. Make sense, that is. Because maybe they just...plain...don't. (EDIT! Thanks to Jason Fischer for the link!)

And finally, not another link, but a reflection: as the year starts to lurch and careen to a close (it never does seem to move smoothly to the curb, where a skilled and subtle chauffeur/chauffeuse opens the door and courteously invites one to alight, does it?), I am drawn to consider my 2010 goals. I have achieved a few; I haven't achieved a significant number more (although the year is not yet entirely over). For 2011, I am going to experiment with a different approach: not goals as such, but plans. I will devise month-by-month, step-by-step plans for the areas in my life that are really important to me. Each area will have an overall objective, toward which I will need to convince myself that each step leads if I am to include it in my plan. Ideally, this will help me focus on activities that contribute to larger, more lasting accomplishments, rather than just coming up with a bunch of random "nice things I'd like to maybe do" (aka the merit-badge approach). If it works, I'll certainly let y'all know in about a year from now.

Meanwhile, I hope you all have a terrific summer/winter and holiday season whatever the weather where you are. If you write, keep writing! If you study, keep studying! If you cook or make things or program computers or take care of families or play music or heal people or help people find information or keep governments working well or pursue justice and fairness — keep doing these things! For the world needs you all!

Wish me luck....

(Image courtesy of Piled Higher and Deeper)

I'm officially enrolled as a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Western Australia, studying creative writing.

As my husband's mentor, the late Dr. Donald Erb, used to say, "Bite off more than you can chew. And then chew like hell."

The one-stop Mary Sue litmus test

It occurred to me that there exists one foolproof question for testing your character's attributes and determining whether you've got a dreaded Mary Sue (or Gary Stu): Why does my character have this attribute? If the answer is "Because it's cool!", your character is a Mary Sue.

Why does my character have red hair? Because I think red hair is so cool! MARY SUE.

Why does my character have a cool nickname like "Wizard" or "Ace"? Because it's cool! MARY SUE.

Why is my character strong and self-assured, entirely free of self-doubt or error? Because it's cool (and I sure wish I were like that)! MARY SUE.

BONUS CLINCHER QUESTION: Would it change the story at all if I did not specify that my character has these attributes? No. MARY SUE.

Don't thank me. Just don't write Mary Sues and Gary Stus. That will be thanks enough.

Halloween

Say what you will, you Aussie wowsers, Halloween is fun. I did a very modest setup by American standards, but the Aussie kids were bowled over. "Is that a real pumpkin?" many of them asked. (And, indeed, it was, but only because the price at the supermarket had come down from $25 to $10 the day before.) The flame pot was particularly fun to make, as I'd figured out how by seeing a similar thing at, of all things, a State Emergency Service dinner. (No irony is involved: the SES does not fight fires. It's just that it's a whimsical sort of thing, and the SES is not really known for whimsy.)

We gave out a fairly large amount of candy; I told each kid to take two "fun-size" candy bars, as they weren't likely to get the kind of massive haul an American kid can expect. Sadly, what the kids could expect was verbal abuse from a few jingoistic Australians and (allegedly) the threat of hosing from one neighbor, out on her lawn with the hose going (ostensibly, and, I must say, plausibly, for watering her lawn). Every year as more kids have fun with Halloween, more grownups get grumpy and bigoted about it. Yeah, pal, so give up your Japanese electronics and your Indian food and your Christmas trees -- in fact, all you Anglo-Australians, who are the ones complaining the loudest, go back to Great Britain.

But I'm getting myself all riled up again, when what I should be doing is showing you the Halloween setup at our place this year. (What you can't tell from the photos is that I was also playing Halloween oldies and spooky sound effects from my computer.)







And here's the flame pot: