Pet Word Hate of the Day

Indeed.

No, really, I hate the word ‘indeed’. Every time I hit it in a book, I shudder.

WHY? you ask.

Oh, come on, now you want solid, logical reasoning? *snort* Well, you won’t get it here.

Every time I see the word ‘indeed’, I hear it too, in a male, very snobby, English drawl. Somehow, I associate it with the stereotype of a sexist, classist, racist, Eton-and-Cambridge-educated utter bastard. And ancient English literature which bored me to tears. So I sniff in disgust, and usually restrain the urge to throw the book across the room, but only just.

A slightly more logical reason for disliking ‘indeed’ is that it’s almost always extraneous in narration. It’s entirely possible that someone, somewhere, has used ‘indeed’ to great effect in their narrative – but I’ve never read whatever book it’s in.

So there you go. You’ll never use the word again, right? 😀

PS. Yes, I know I’ve been quiet far too long. The short explanation is – “my internetz is dead, dude”. The longer explanation is that I’m struggling to balance paid work, parenting, heart problems, marriage and fiction writing, and I haven’t had energy left over for talking about it, especially since I do all internet-related stuff at work and need to be careful to not neglect what I’m getting paid to do. I know it’s a pain in the rear, and hopefully I’ll be hooked up and ranting regularly again soon! 🙂

Conversation With A Taxi Driver

(Important point: I’ve been living in Ipswich a couple of years now, I’m known to most of the cabbies by now – a lot of them at least attempt to remember where I live)

Me: Evening!

Driver: Hi there!

Me: Oh, Madness!

Driver: *worried look*

Me: On the radio!

Driver: Ah. OK. *visibly relaxing* So, is it Charlie St?

Me: Nope, House of Fun.

Driver: *another worried look*

Me: Oh! No, NOT the House of Fun, wherever that is! That’s the name of the song on the radio. <home address> please.

Driver: Hard day, then?

Updates and Stuff

So, I haven’t exactly been sharing much here lately.

Frankly, I’ve been working far too much and relaxing far too little… my weekdays recently have consisted of:

– get up
– drink coffee
– go to work
– work
– go home
– grump at hubby
– go to bed

And then my weekends have been dedicated to recovering from work. *sigh*

So, now that the projects (yes, multiple projects, cos I’m so special I can work on two projects at a time and, apparently, keep an eye on general quality being produced by the whole team at the same time) have wound down, and there are just bits of bugginess to fix up and small imperfections to carefully ignore lest they drive me mad, and the next two projects haven’t started yet… I’m in *cough* relaxation mode. Or, more realistically, slightly sane life mode.

*deep breath*

Where was I?

Oh yeah, explaining that life will get back to somewhat normal soon, and I’ll be picking up the balls I dropped, like this blog, and my twitter accounts, and stuff. I’m taking my time because I don’t want to end up in a shredded ball of stressiness, but @onlinefiction and @openebooks will be back online soon. And look, I’m actually writing a blog post instead of just posting some ridiculous lolcat or ranting at various government departments!

Thanks for the patience, anyone who’s still reading.

MWAH!

New Fave Quote

Those who can laugh without cause have either found the true meaning of happiness or have gone stark raving mad.

Norm Papernick

Coffee

Some day, I’ll find the time and energy to actually write posts.

Until then, it’s pretty much lolcats and ranting. And occasional boasting.

Speaking of boasting! My blurb for DEAD(ish) got the thumbs up over at the e-Fiction Book Club. They’re talking about blurbs – that paragraph or two which, on a paper book, would be on the back cover – and what to put in one.

I Want This On Tshirt

Just a Short Rant, I Promise!

I’m grumpy.

Not that I’m THAT keen to actually sell (as opposed to give away) DEAD(ish), since I honestly don’t think my writing’s at the stage where it’s worth paying for… but FFS, what’s with the American-centric attitudes in the companies out there? Amazon is US-authors-only. Scribd is free for anyone, but if you want to sell stuff? You guessed it, US-authors-only. Although to give Scribd credit, they’re only in beta.

This is really a whine, as opposed to anything vaguely useful. I’m proudly Aussie, my writing is proudly Aussie (although not lousy with kangaroos and koalas and “G’day mate”s), right down to the odd spelling and weird names for stuff. I don’t wanna be American. I’m sick of companies wanting to be ‘global’ and yet demanding I be American to get involved. Stick it up ya pipes!

Blahhhhh

This describes me perfectly today:

Weird. Just Weird.

My spam queue for this site is down to zero. Huh. There’s the answer to spamming issues – just post in lolcats. You know, pretty much anything can be said in lolcats. I’m waiting for the first lolcatnovel to come out. Oh wait, that’d be a badly-spelt picture book.

C KITTEH RUN.

RUN, KITTEH, RUUUUN!!

Meh. What a dumb idea.

(why do I get a horrible feeling that I’m Bill Gates saying, “the internet is a dead-end path!” or whatever the hell short-sighted thing he said?)

Damn. I know I had a point around here somewhere.

Oh yeah. I think it was to do with the fact that I haven’t been posting much on this blog lately. Not, I hasten to add, because I’ve run out of rants, odd lolcats, and maundering monologues on the nature of writing. Nah, it’s because I have no internet access at home, plus work’s been busy, plus I’ve been obsessing over DEAD(ish) just a tad.

It’s odd having a book, however wide the definition has to be to fit it in, out in the world by itself. I keep checking up on it, to make sure that it’s doing OK, is making new friends, is going to the friendship groups I recommended, etc. Yeah, I’m all mother-hennish. Which is kinda scary, because with people I’m still motherly, but more in the duck mode. Ducks mean well, but they’re absent-minded, and they’re kinda tough. If a hen’s chicks go near a body of water, she’ll tend to cluck anxiously and herd them away. If a duck’s ducklings go near water, she’s likely to kick them in and yell, “Swim or die, sucker!!”. So yeah, me clucking over something, even a book… kinda weird.

As it happens, though, me watching over DEAD(ish) so carefully has provided me with some interesting stats. Heartening stats! Like, around 500 people loaded the original DEAD(ish) pdf, either to have a gander or to read it. So I put it up on Smashwords in a new edition, and to date, over 250 people have downloaded it. This is my favourite statistic in many ways, because if a person downloads an ebook from Smashwords, it’s generally with the specific intent of reading it. Hence, around 250 people have liked the look of DEAD(ish) enough to take a chance on it. Even if it’s not much of a chance, given that the thing’s FREE, it’s still enough to raise a w00t! or two 🙂

Also, DEAD(ish) is the Weekender ebook picked by the e-Fiction Book Club to be read this coming weekend. W000000oo000t! 😀 Part of the reason I’m so stoked about this is that it’s made up of dedicated readers who may kinda know me, but haven’t really had dealings with me and (as far as I know) aren’t being publicised by my @onlinefiction twitter account, so they’re likely to give me honest, unbiased reviews and criticism. Oh, and a bit of publicity, which never hurts.

Sadly, my brain’s turned back to mush, kinda like the scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz (and yup, there’s pins n needles in my feet), so I’m going to stop rambling disjointedly, watch some Buffy, and post this not-quite-a-post-more-a-garden-path-without-the-flowers thingy tomorrow morning, when internetz and I are reunited at work.

MWAH.

Time to Make My Feelings Known

It does, you know.