Veenie Vacation

Veenie Babies are on vacation. Too much fun and joy to be sitting at computer. Thus short sentences. Went to Grand Rapids Children's Museum yesterday. Here are pictures and video. -- Turns out Veenie Daddy is a moron. I thought we were going to an actual museum.

Children's museums are more like massive indoor playgrounds.

Sorry Chantze and Hailie.

"I am my sister's keeper"

"Maybe we should have had a smaller lunch."
(curved mirror + horizontal stripes = illusion of obesity)

Please help your lame writing friend

I'm about to write this scene where two cousins are playing some rough basketball and trash-talking and whatnot, but it turns out I'm like fifteen percent too lame to do this scene with any authority. So I did what all homely, frightened little writers do when they write about things they're too timid to experience. I researched it.

According to Wikipedia:

Trash-talk is a form of boast or insult commonly heard in competitive situations (such as sports events). It is often used to intimidate the opposition, but can also be used in a humorous spirit. Trash-talk is often characterized by hyperbolic, figurative language, e.g., "Your team can't run! You run like honey on ice!" Puns and other wordplay are commonly used.

"Ah," I said to myself, "hyperbole -- an effective literary device. . . and yet, I'm not all that keen on the hip vernacular the kids are using these days."

So then I researched examples of trash-talking.

I'm posting some of the highlights here, but please be aware -- these are not simply for entertainment purposes. I'm also wanting to know if any of these insults are overused or cliche' or even just plain not as funny as I think they are. So read on, and if you have any good (and fairly original) insults to add, pass them along. As always, I will steal them and hog all credit.


"You're so ugly, your birth certificate is an apology letter."

"Let's play horse -- I'll be the front end, you be yourself."

"You're so dumb, they fired you from the M&M factory for throwing out all the 'W's."

"You're so dirty, whenever you take a shower you lose weight."

"All that hot air pouring out of your face is causing global warming."

"Could you breathe the other way? You're bleaching my hair."

Watch as I slowly flake out

By show of hands, who else besides me is a big fat quitter?

I'm talking about unfinished manuscripts, and not the kind where you only write ten or twelve pages, then realize you're not really all that crazy about the idea. I'm talking about significant portions of novels that you've utterly abandoned to the dark and cold basement of your hard drive. Anybody got more than a couple of those?

Cuz yeah -- my Dreamkin story just wasn't doing it for me.

I can't really say what wasn't working, but for the last couple weeks, even when I've done significant writing on it, I haven't wanted to think about Dreamkin. Weird right? I don't know about you, but when I've got a good story going, my spare thoughts are always swirling in and out of it like, um, fog through swiss cheese. (Or something). Instead, my mind has been continuously fixated on this other story idea. The new story idea. The one with all the castle sculptures.

Like these:

Ultimately I couldn't force myself to work on a story that I just wasn't excited about and so I moved on. Despite having written 165 pages on Dreamkin. Maybe I'll come back to it someday, maybe I won't. Either way, the sad truth remains, the little guy's headed to a basement that suffers from over-crowding:

Gameworld Talonshale -- 173 pages
Pipe and Drum -- 115 pages
Hyperkind/Silverwing -- 80-ish pages
Solhades*
Thundergate Tower*
Bagabog*
Rustang*

(*average maybe thirty pages each)

My finished novels still outnumber my unfinished novels, so that makes me feel just a tiny bit better, but still. . . geez. . . am I a flake or what? Any of you folks got anything encouraging to say about that?

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Today's blog post bonus:

(purty, no?)

Links for the very brave.

I do not recommend clicking on these links. I've only posted them because I want you to be able to clearly identify what NOT to click on. These are two things I've happened across recently, both are terrifying to behold, yet utterly fascinating in that 'dear-God-it's-so-hideous-I-can't-stop-looking' kind of way.

This warning is completely serious. If you click on either of these links, your life may be irrevocably changed -- and not in a good way.

Proceed at your own risk.

This may make you stop writing altogether.

This may plunge you into cardiac arrest.

Veenie Baby stuff

Above: the twins wanted me to judge their big coloring contest, but I was so delighted and amazed and enthusiastic over both entries, -- I couldn't possibly make up my mind.

Then I thought, "Hey, my blog buddies are a perceptive and decisive bunch -- surely they'll have the courage to decide which of my daughters should be proud and excited, and which should run to her bed and hide under her covers and cry." --- Incidentally, my girly girls love when I blog about them, so they'll most likely be reading any responses posted here.

Below: The Cat-Eater learns a marketable skill for a change. (Because despite what they say, playing video games does NOT give you a real world advantage by improving hand-eye coordination. -- I know this because I used to put it on my resume. And. . . yeah. . .)

One last one. A "bonus video" if you will:

Blog post sans poetry.

So you might have noticed that I've been really active on the blogs and Facebook and whatnot over the last week. You know what that means, right? I haven't been writing. You wanna know why?

*I haven't been smoking.*

Yeah. Attempt number four-hundred and four. I'm doing it without any kind of assistance, cuz that always seems to work best for me (at least when I'm really wanting to quit and not doing it out of guilt). At midnight tonight, it will be one week, with zero indiscretion.

I'm not posting to whine or complain about how hard it is or anything like that; I only bring it up because it has direct bearing on our special time together -- Quit for a week. Doing good. Playtime's over. Back to work on Dreamkin.

But never you fear, for I shall remain close by. Watching and reading. By cover of dark and shadows. My unwavering gaze sees all. . .

Side question: anybody ever work on a book they're just not all that thrilled about?