Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    

Thanks, Neil.
Ordinarily, I'd try to do that kind of research myself, but do you have any
idea what kinds of things turn up when you web search for "crow craps the
earth"?
Actually, I turned up a Counting Crows FAQ. Which was so close and yet so
far, in a way, if you look at the This Desert Life cover.
  

    
I'm glad Holly wants to be part of the present-opening thing.  She still
feels entitlement about you!--it's so cute now she's getting so grown up.
  

    
Neil~
Re: pseud, see #476 & #477, I think I'm still mildly blinded....

Re: your eye color, I thought they were hazel until late Saturday
night at MadCon, when I saw them distinctly a deep turquoise that I've
never seen as eye color before...
set in bloodshot and three sets of baggage.
  

    
>>504 - Mike -- would that be an anthology where we don't write
>>anything, but get so sleep in the time we would have spent writing
>>the stories instead?

    There's an interesting thought.  Make prorating the royalties
-very- interesting.  "The Percocets were -prescribed,- okay?"

Had an odd story idea today which (without recounting the specific
thought, which is Bad) would also make another thene antho -- stories
about the community of immortals who live among the rest of us, but
nobody notices as such because they don't do anything to attract
attention, "as, in my experience -- which is, I might add, considerable
-- such acts are usually followed by a large crowd of people with
torches and farm implements.  Up to and including, in one instance, a
five-thousand-horsepower Massey-Ferguson tractor hauling a disc
harrow."

Writing's a great profession.  Now if there were just money in it.
  

    
Mary - arf back at ya! Yes, I'm in Chicago.  Sadly, I didn't notice
anyone handing out Chinese yo-yos.... maybe next time.
  

    
Mike said "Writing's a great profession.  Now if there were just money
in it."

You're expecting money?
Seems more like a money-suck to me...
A compulsive twitch, maybe.
Or a vast humanitarian effort to edumacate the populace, or a
playgroup whose mutual goal is undefining reality... 
  

    
Mary: and selling your bullets.

Neil: my ex-roommates and I sing "Joxer the Mighty" instead of "Happy
Birthday" on those occasions where people get more old. It's because we
love you so much that you were spared.

Mike: writing seems to have pots of money in it if you're Anne Rice.
Let's go find our her secret, shall we? I think it has something to do
with not being edited...
  

    
Martha - yup. She's so cool.

JaNell - got it. As I once said to Peter David (who was commenting on
me being on the cover of the book) "Well, I may be on the cover, but
you're the show-stopper."

Mike -- I've always assumed that was how it worked anyway. Just as
I've assumed that weird looking guy I saw one night on the London
Underground really *was* Neanderthal.
  

    
Neil~you know that I think you're gorgeous but the reverse might have
been just as traumatic...
maybe a Delirium dolly over the naughty bits? 
  

    
I'm pretty sure that would be equally traumatic, JaNell,...  ;-) (And
I'm so strongly resisting the urge to unleash my sex educator based
rant on slang for sex organs,.. down girl down!)

I wish there was more money in being artsy, since that's what it seems
like I'm going to try, instead of computers,... thus proving I have no
business sense, I suspect.  :-)

-Kelly, 
  

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The above is hidden for Kelly.
  

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The above hidden for JaNell. *grins* I can't believe you made me
blush! Do you know how hard that is?!

-Kelly
  

    
Well, I'm no Harlan, but I try...

Seriously, though, the phrase "naughty bits" works there, because the
act of covering one's genitals with a comic book, or a charactor doll
from one's story, is pretty coy and silly, as is the phrase "naughty
bits". When I'm speaking factually, I use semantically unloaded terms;
in conversation or writing, though, I try to choose the words that say,
hopefully on many levels, what I mean...
Unless I'm mad and them all bets are off.
  

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Hidden for Kelly.
  

    
Not to distract from the gentials discussion, but my friend Yahtzee
just passed this along, and I felt the need to share:

http://www.rain-street.org/fightcrime.htm

It's a great example of why Javascript should only be used for Good,
and not Evil.

And it made me laugh so hard I almost peed.
  

    
*ahem*

make that the "genitals" discussion.

For Christmas, I want Santa to bring me the ability to touch type.
  

    
And I checked and everything. (please note that I am kidding there)
ok,....I'm not hiding this because I seriously don;t think this is a
bad question.
This brings me to a point I've actually been longing to bring up
somewhere. In one of Heinlein's books, "Number of the Beast" there is a
discussion of the usage of the word teat pronounced tit. For some
reason this has stuck in my head for the last 18 years. Breasts are
both male and female, teats produce milk. I am not an English major by
any means and every dictionary I've seen has a different story. Does
anyone know the actuality of this?


Neil~ :slow grinding sound of gears and a faint smell of smoke:
Ummm,.......oh. No biggie.

Jinxie who told Mrs. Grundy to jump in a lake a long time ago

"Freedom begins when you tell Mrs. Grundy to go fly a kite."
  

    
Mike stated that writing is a great profession if only writers would
get paid.  And prior to this, I thought the whole point of writing and
getting published was to reach a wide audience, not necessarily just
for fame and fortune, but to share one's art with the world. 

I've been holding back from asking about this for awhile, but realized
this is probably the best place to find out what a community of
writers think about the controversy Jonathan Franzen, author of "The
Corrections," created when he objected to being selected by Oprah's
Book Club.  

Mr. Franzen thinks we should differentiate between "high brow" and
"low brow" readers which seems to reflect his particular prejudice
against Oprah's audience.  However, that book club has opened up a
world of opportunity for many good writers who might not have had that
kind of exposure, and it has certainly helped to promote reading in
general.   

Besides commenting on the controversy, are any of you ever conflicted
about who reads your stuff, or is it that once you've given birth, it's
out there and belongs to the world? 
  

    
Jinx - Teats belong on bottles and cows...tits belong on
women..accompanied by a *slap* from a large trout.  ;)

Here are three definitions:

1. A nipple of the mammary gland; a mamilla.
[Old French origin]


2. (a) The protuberance through which milk is drawn from the udder or
breast of a mammal; a nipple; a pap; a mammilla; a dug; a tit.

(b)A small protuberance or nozzle resembling the teat of an animal. 

3. The small projection of a mammary gland.

How did this all start again?
  

    
Rocky, it all started with a book of course.
  

    
Jinx- maybe it's just me, but I've *never* considered breasts male. 
To me, male's don't have breasts.  They have nipples, sure, but they're
like the portholes on a Buick, and mainly there for decoration, it
seems (or as a thermometer, I guess).  The definitive answer to the
"Are you a breast man or an ass man?", for me, has always been; "Why
would I be an ass man?  I've *got* an ass."  But, then, that might
quite possibly all just be me.  Wouldn't be a bit surprised.

I like 'naughty bits' used playfully, because there's something
decidedly not so fun and playful about most of the anatomically correct
way to refer to genitals.  (genitals.  Yes, very arousing, that word
is).  Most of the words we have for them are just so *not fun*,
especially when considering things like; the clitoris is the only human
organ that exists solely for pleasure.  It has *no other function*. 
Maybe if what we called it *reflected* that....

Rocky (and Mike)- Your question, and Mike's comment about money,
reminded me of a quote about writing that I love.  I can't remember who
said it (yes, I even picked up my W.O.W.; Writers on Writing book and
just can't find it), but it was along the lines of; "If you want to
make any significant amount by writing, you have to write for people
who move their lips when they read."
In terms of audience, well, does it really work if you're not writing
something you want to read yourself?
In terms of audience, I haven't read *Corrections*, and I don't know
that I want to if ole' Johnny only wants it to be read by high-brow
readers.  I'm not high-brow.  Ain't never been high-brow.  And, really,
anyone who wants to restrict their audience to 'high-brow' readers is
too pretentious to *have* readers (and should be shot, but that's
neither here nor there).
I really don't understand how you can look at it in any other way than
wanting to be read by as many people as possible.  There is not a
single person in this world that I wouldn't want to read something I've
written.  There's no qualifications, whatever.  Come to that, if you
start putting restrictions on it, like this can only be read by these
people, isn't it failing (and that's besides being Ludicrous, and all
[and, yeah, Capital 'L' there, because it deserved one]).
Erm.  Sorry.  Went off there.
  

    

JaNell and Kelly - please take personal communication to e-mail, instead
of putting them in hidden posts in the topic.  I would have sent e-mail
about this instead of posting in public for everyone to see, but JaNell
has conveniently made that impossible.