A Race Against Time

In several previous posts, I've made reference to "bug" stories I have written: "Tarantulas On Leashes" and, fairly recently, "Running With The Beetles."

I've been wondering what to do with them. Submit them to a magazine? Compile several and make a $0.99 e-book to sell on Amazon?

Then, the other day, I came across the Pill Hill Press call for submission BUGS.

They populate our world. There are over a million known species and they represent over half of all living organisms alive today. If you include both bug and bug-like species, they can be found in every environment from the bottom of the sea to the high stratosphere. They populate our nightmares. Bugs literally get under our skin, they invade our bodies, have poisonous bites and carry disease. The most common phobia in the world is the fear of spiders. 

I'm looking for stories between the 4,000 to 10,000 word range that involves bugs in some form or another for an anthology of imaginative tales.

The only problem is the word count. (My obsession.) "Tarantulas" is 2,600. "Beetles" is not complete, but I know it will come nowhere near that.

But in my back pocket, I have "Worm Herding."

    It's a dirty job, but someone's got to do it. That's just a little joke between me and the boys, though Beanpole thinks I say it too much, that it's getting old. I don't care. I think it's funny. And out here, when you're not working, there's not much else to do, other than crack jokes, talk about long-lost loves, sing old cowboy songs off key, and look at the stars. I don't mind Beanpole giving me some lip. He's a good man. I'm lucky. All my boys, my crew, are solid fellows. Besides Beanpole, there's Skinny Pete, Lean Gene, and Tiny. We used to have a guy named Honest Abe. But he took a job splitting rails, or something like that.
    I rely on these fellas to help me do a tough job. It takes a special kind of man to do this work. You need stamina. You need to be quick and accurate with your six shooter. And you need really good eyesight. These critters depend on us to keep them safe. And if we slip up and lose our focus for just one second, then ZOOM! Out of the sky comes a robin, and one of them is gone.
    We're worm herders.

I started it around the same time as the other ones. But I didn't know where to "take it." However, thanks to this latest opportunity, I found inspiration.

The submission deadline is 1/31...next Tuesday. I'm up to 5,000 words, and the words are still coming. In fact, much like the experience I related in the post that can be accessed by clicking on "My obsession" (above), yesterday I sat down to work on a conversation, and 1,200 words came out of nowhere.

Will I make it? Stay tuned.

Castle: "An Embarrassment of Bitches"

After last week's dark episode, this week's entry was much a much lighter welcome relief. (If you can use the terms  "lighter" and "relief" to describe a show which always has at least one murder.)

Of course, it's hard to be serious about dog shows. (Unless you're a dog shower, I suppose.) Just ask Christopher Guest.

Beckett even laughed three or four times, which may be a new record.

Nothing sums up the attitude of this episode better than the fact that no one batted an eyelash when introduced to "Dr. Barker," the dog psychologist. Come on, normally Castle would be all over that.

I spent a lot of time trying to guess "who done it." In hindsight, the reality star's boyfriend should have been the obvious choice, especially when we learned that she had been a visitor at the home of the drug cartel family; he set up her whole life, so of course he would have arranged that. (For the record, I figured it out when they showed the footage of her spritzing her new scent in his general direction. At least I got it before Castle did his rewind and review.)
 
But, this show was all about "the looks." There were so many, I lost count. A few that I recall:

- Castle, when talking to Alexis and his Mom at the beginning. Of course, those conversations always confuse, confound, or amuse him.
- Castle, when the photographer said, "Hey, that's not Jason Bateman."
- Esposito, when Ryan said, "a real underdog."
- Kay Cappuccio, after Beckett glared at her when she said, "I can't go anywhere without a million people taking my picture."
- And Esposito again, when she kissed him.

And let us not forget the "moment:" the way Beckett looked, and then looked at Castle, when he took her hand and massaged it. But I loved his recovery, as he beat a hasty retreat and said, "Don't miss me too much. The dog, not you."

Next week's, which appears to be in the style of 1940s film noir, looks promising.

Feel free to share your thoughts.

Mayhem!

What's old is new again. What comes around goes around. These time-honored cliches aptly apply to the Imelda May CD Mayhem, which could have been subtitled "Stray Kitten Strut." ("Better late than never" also would be apropos; the record was released in 2010, but I only recently discovered it.) It's a raucous, rocking, rollicking good time, and more than slightly reminiscent of the boys from Long Island.

In fact, two of the songs -- "All For You" and "Bury My Troubles" specifically -- prompted me to check the credits to see whether Brian Setzer was a guest artist. He wasn't, but May's guitarist (and husband) Darrel Higham must have borrowed Mr. Setzer's guitar, amp, and effects pedal. In fact, I challenge you to listen to the guitar solo of "All For You" and NOT hear "Stray Cat Strut."

Clearly in the rockabilly camp, Mayhem still manages to veer off into other genres to keep the disk from being an exercise in pure retro. There is the country twang of "Eternity" and "Proud And Humble." If you're blue and need some commiserating, you can wallow in the dirge-like "Too Sad To Cry." And if you're so inclined, then dance along with "Kentish Town Waltz," which recalls the Pogues, minus the drunken slur.

But uptempto is the order of the day, and the band's toe-tapping tempos are a perfect complement to May's bouncy vocal, the most roly-poly delivery this side of Gwen Stafani. In fact, when I first heard "Inside Out," I was sure that it was a new release from Mrs. Rossdale.

All good.

But it is the title track which grabs, demands, and holds your attention. As if the beat and riffs were not enough to pull you in, lyrics such as

Ten pints and then he starts a fight and he lands himself a night
In a cell wearing grey pants and bruises
Twelves mates bangin' on the door, oh the back up vans galore
Never saw such a street full of losers

are impossible to NOT like.

No matter how stable or crazy your life may be, you should make a little room for some Mayhem.

100 More Words; Dragon, Part 2

In previous posts, I've made reference to literary agent Janet Reid, and her blog-based writing contests. The mission: to create a short story of 100 words, using five key words. This time, they were:

Red
Fold
Chaos
Bent
Chasm

I decided to try dictating it. What Dragon "heard" was:

My leg was bent at a 45° angle, and I was staring at a red chasm where my normally linear femur was. I'm sure the pain was excruciating. But in the ensuing chaos that enveloped me it was swallowed up. I attacked sequencing just begun and my fellow patrons were suffering similar fates. First there was 3-D. Then there was some elevation. But I think the cinematic experience pain over, it's not going to catch on. And to think I paid an extra 10 bucks for this.

What I said was:

My leg was bent at a 45° angle, and I was staring at a red chasm where my normally linear femur was. I'm sure the pain was excruciating. But in the ensuing chaos that enveloped me it was swallowed up. The attack sequence had just begun and my fellow patrons were suffering similar fates. First there was 3-D. Then there was Smell-O-Vision. But I think the cinematic experience Pain-O-Rama is not going to catch on. And to think I paid an extra 10 bucks for this.

Not bad. I would call that better than 90%, especially if you factor out Smell-O-Vision and Pain-O-Rama. (And I'll bet that if I had said "smell (pause) oh (pause) vision" the program would have gotten it right.)

The final version turned out to be

My left leg was bent at a 45° angle, and I was staring at a red chasm where my normally linear femur usually was. My right leg was completely folded beneath me. I'm sure the pain was excruciating. But it was lost in the ensuing chaos which had swallowed us all up. The attack sequence had begun, and my fellow patrons were suffering similar fates. First, there was 3-D. Then there was Smell-O-Vision. But I predict that this latest cinematic “experience,” Pain-O-Rama, is not going to catch on.

And to think I paid an extra 10 bucks for this.

In summary, I'm very pleased.

Alas, I didn't win the contest.

This time!

I'm Walking' Yes Indeed And I'm Talkin'

In several previous posts, I've mentioned that I like to compose while walking on the treadmill. The problem, I had noted, is trying to cache several hundred words until I have an opportunity later to commit them to disk. In one of those posts, I opined (or pined) that it would be nice to have the Dragon speech recognition software, so that I could speak into a portable recorder (or the PC itself, I suppose) and have the recorder and the program do the rest of the work.

My wife, lovely soul that she is, read my blog and got me the software for Christmas. I installed it on my PC, and "taught" it about my voice the other day. Friday night, I decided to try it out.

Over the course of 15 minutes, I recorded just over four minutes. Saturday, after setting up Dragon to accept input from the recorder, I plugged it in (it's got a built-in USB port), copied the file over, and hit "Transcribe the recording."

The (often humorous) results are below. A few things I want to point out:

1. This is first draft. So go easy on me.
2. Without the context of the rest of the story, this snippet won't make much sense. But I'll give you a hint: the story is called "Running With The Beetles," and it's a take on the famous Pamplona event with a similar name.
3. When I'm writing, I frequently employ what I call "digital post-its." If I can't think of the right word, so as to not lose momentum I just type SOMETHING and keep going. So the capital SOMETHING you see in the cleaned-up version is an example of that. 
4. At one point I say "10 to 12, maybe even 16, but definitely not 18." Earlier in the day, I had looked up the duodecuple, tredecuple, sexdecuple, and octodecuple. While walking, I couldn't remember those exact words, which are the equivalent of saying "duplicate" or "triplicate," but for 12, 13, 16, and 18, respectively. And I didn't want to make Dragon's head explode. So I just said the numbers.
5.  In listening to the recording, a lot of the miscues were due to my breathy tone. And in one case, I doubled back. I can't "be mad" at the program for that.

So without further ado...

Training paid off I found I was leaving the panic both of men and arthropods as and when I looked down I was distracted for the insects talking to him except unfortunately my glasses when skidding off my face planted on him and him very blind without them I quickly saw the room for the Flickr find him because I heard the sound of approaching feet of my fellow racers as well as the first person I had to get out of the way I know, devices that could involve looking for something we had to move through the unfocused cause I thought I could see an alleyway sounded to us in a way and not a curve in the racecourse defeats the footage of getting closer I had to try for chromatin and continued calling until the sound of the race something to later approved the five released separately the right choice I was safe in her the sound of things was like a long crop duster plane flying into this mess but got louder soon was doing but other self clicking chirping things in the house thousands of tiny feet, walking toward me what was going on for set up stillborn Elizabeth. She something for nothing just a something Hayes seven louder and then stop after perhaps a minute of uncomfortable silence experienced fornication which is a great 11 letter word for the sensation of doing it on your skin. Apply for shipwreck on my left ankle it was nothing to jam scarcely more noticeable the slight splinter from picks open the social worker project offender to dismiss it completely when I had to Lucy suddenly my face was on the ground and the like without him when I awoke my vision problems worsen for. Not only for times 10 to 12 and 60 Atlantic Coast definitely not able to see anything for something was wrong and wasn't sure what it is definitely something that was not right-my wife I had the effect of the hotel ACC insider swear herself with a person becomes a dozen needles so she decided to stay at the hotel and sleep for socialist you would worry about me to be there I had to get to pick myself up and brushed off my legs and began going in the direction of the hotel even though my subdivision was definitely out of whack for a pretty good idea of where to find the hotel I made a mental map has had left the course several times over the previous few days I
had to massage my wife used for Lavender skin cream effective salivary distinctly

What it is supposed to say is

My training paid off. I found I was leading the pack, both of men and arthropods.

(exiting text will be added here)

When I looked down, I was distracted. By the side I saw insects (existing text)

I tripped. Unfortunately, my glasses went skidding off my face when I hit the ground. And I'm very blind without them.  I quickly felt around for them. I couldn't find them. But then I heard the sound of approaching feet, both of my fellow racers as well as the pursuers. I had to get out of the way. I know the common advice is to curl up in a ball and let them pass. But something told me I had to move. Through the unfocused fuzz, I thought I could see an alleyway.  I hoped it was an alleyway, and not a curve in the racecourse. The footsteps were getting closer. I had to try. I crawled in and continued crawling until the sound of the race grew fainter and fainter. I breathed a sig of relief.  Apparently, I had made the right choice. I was safe. And then I heard a sound: a faint buzz, like a long crop duster plane flying in the distance. Soon it was joined by other sounds. Clicking, chirping, and the sound of perhaps thousands of tiny feet, walking toward me. I wondered what was going on. I stood up, still blind as a bat, hoping I could see something. But there was nothing. Just a SOMETHING haze. The sound grew louder and then stopped. After perhaps a minute of uncomfortable silence, I experienced formication, which is a great 11-letter word for the sensation of tingling on your skin. It was followed by a sharp prick on my left ankle. It was not a painful jab, scarcely more noticeable the slight splinter that one picks up in a simple woodworking project. I was prepared to dismiss it completely, when my head felt woozy. Suddenly my face was on the ground, and the lights went out. When I awoke, my vision problems were worse than before. They had not only times 10 to 12, maybe even 16, but definitely not 18. I was definitely not able to see anything. Something was wrong. I wasn't sure what. But there was something definitely that was not right.

I had to find my wife. I had to get back to the hotel. My wife, you see, had decided to spare herself the pain of seeing me trampled by a dozen beetles, so she decided to stay at the hotel and sleep so that she wouldn't worry about me. She would be there. I had to get to her. I picked myself up and brushed off my hind legs, and began going in the direction of the hotel. Even though my sense of vision was definitely out of whack, I had a pretty good idea of where to find the hotel. I had made a mental map as I had walked the course several times over the previous few days. I knew which was to head. And besides, my wife used a lavender skin cream, and I could smell it very distinctly. 

Overall, I'm pretty pleased. I did learn a few lessons:

- I need to remember to say "period" and "new line" to (no surprise) end a sentence and start a new line.
- As I said in one of the previous posts, I seem to be better at writing dialog on the treadmill. This clearly was not dialog, and I really did find the actual creation process to be harder.
- Speaking of harder, I'm surprised I found it so hard to dictate while walking. Sure I was going 4.3 miles per hour on an incline of 4.0.  But I'm in pretty good shape.

Based on the latter, I may have to work my way up to walking and talking for 25 minutes (my usual treadmill time). Of course, folding laundry isn't nearly so aerobically challenging. So that's another option.

In fact, if I may whet your appetite for tomorrow's post, I tried a record / transcribe session today, with much better results.

So until tomorrow...

I Got The Best Form Letter Today

No, really. I did.

I gave my wife an iPhone for Christmas. Today, one of the oh-so-friendly computers at AT&T sent me the following:

.

It's too bad that they didn't include one of those self-addressed, pre-paid envelopes to send something back. If they had, I would have sent them this:

 

Dear AT&T --

Thank you so much for your recent letter! I really am pleased with my 1403DRYNNNONETOUCH 00010001OK. I gave it to my wife for Christmas, and was she ever surprised. I think her exact words were, "Oh my god! You gave me a 1403DDYNNNONETOUCH 00010001OK. I've always wanted a 1403DRYNNNONETOUCH 00010001OK!" (Technically she didn't always want one, as they haven't always existed. But you get the point.)

To be honest, I had wondered whether I should get her the 1403DRYNNNONETOUCH 00010001OK or the 1403DRYNNNONETOUCH 00010002OK. The 1403DRYNNNONETOUCH 00010001OK has a lot of functionality, but the 1403DRYNNNONETOUCH 00010002OK has very nice lines. Consumer Reports gave good reviews to both. But I spoke with some friends, and those who have the 1403DRYNNNONETOUCH 00010002OK said it tends to have technical issues. So we settled on the 1403DRYNNNONETOUCH 00010001OK.

I have to say, I'm really looking forward to the release of the 1403DRYNNNONETOUCH 00010003OK. I hear it's a "game changer." But for now, we are enjoying our 1403DRYNNNONETOUCH 00010001OK.

Sincerely,

A satisfied 1403DRYNNNONETOUCH 00010001OK Customer

If only...

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Castle: "Dial M For Mayor"

What an intense episode! It was dark, moody, and featured a little more tension than usual between Castle and Beckett. I thought that they very effectively heightened the mood with several tight shots--as in, the camera was so close that it lopped off the top of the actors' heads--at key points: when Beckett, Esposito, and Ryan were discussing the evidence against the Mayor, and later when they were interrogating Jordan.

They also employed good lighting, specifically, the use of shadows when Castle met with his "Deepthroat." Obviously, Deepthroat would want to be in the shadows, to obscure his face. But in a real-world scenario, he would have wanted to have Castle standing in bright sunlight. However, the director chose to have them both partially lit. I'm not complaining; I'm just commenting on the effect.

The plot was clever. I, along with the characters, really did wonder why Laura would give up her good job and (ostensibly) comfortable lifestyle for a walk on the seedy side. I thought the reason they provided was believable. It was a really cool "a-ha" moment. (Note to my wife: Don't worry honey, I'm not planning any similar exercises in "method writing.")

I liked the fact that they didn't solve the murder and give us the comfort of closure, like they did before in the episode 3XK. As was the case with that one, this plot line probably will rear its head again in the future. Whether or not they resolve it...

I thought that having Castle and the Mayor shoot the breeze over whiskey at the end was a nice touch. It reminded me of the falling action scene of every episode of Boston Legal, with James Spader and William Shatner sitting on the balcony, drinking and smoking cigars, and recounting their day, or discussing life in general. (I must say, I was glad that Castle didn't look at the Mayor and say, "Sleepover?") As I've said in previous posts, while the interplay between Castle and Beckett is what drives the show, it's nice to let each character have some "me" time. I don't recall seeing any instances of Castle's famous-author poker night this season. So this one-on-one was a good break.

I caught three movie references: Good Will Hunting, An Officer And A Gentleman, and (of course) the title.

And finally, no review of Castle would be complete without my comment about "the looks." The best, hands down, had to be Beckett's expression when, at Dial-A-Goddess, she heard the grandma moaning, "Oh yeah, oh yeah."

Until next week...

Feel free to share your thoughts.

Bedzilla: Done...Well, Almost

First there was "Moby Deck." And now...

The challenge: three kids and two bedrooms. The problem is exacerbated by the fact that the twins--a boy and a girl--share a room now, but won't be able to in the future. On the plus side, our oldest likes sleeping in their room on occasion.

The solution: Bedzilla, a three-level bunk bed. We began work the Monday after Christmas, a week off from work for both of us. The construction process itself wasn't so bad. But some little amenities added time. For example, my wife wanted a really nice "ceiling" for the two lower beds, so she painted clouds.

During the week, of course, we have no spare time. So after that first week, we were relegated to working Saturday and Sunday, often laboring solo so that one of us could spend time with the kids, lest they watch TV for eight hours while we constructed it.

It was a slow go.

But it's done. We still have a few odds & ends to take care of. We'll paint it in the summer. And we want to build little cubbies to let them store stuff inside. And we need a real set of steps to the middle platform, and a real ladder to the top. But the general work is finis!

Here is the corner of the twin's room before we started. 

This is the first platform in place.

This is the second platform in place.

And this is the finished project.

 

There were no major headaches, except for the fact that while bolting the frame to a wall stud, I managed to perfect bisect a wire that happened to be running through that particular 2x4, at the exact height that I needed to attach the platform. What are the odds? That little side adventure in re-wiring added about two hours.

But nobody died, or even sustained any major injuries. So I call that a victory.

On a tangential note, I really did sing "Godzilla" by Blue Oyster Cult while working on this. Something I never understood. A portion of the lyrics are:

     Helpless people on subway trains
     Scream, bug-eyed, as he looks in on them 

If the people are on a SUBway, how can he look in on them?.

Flash! Of Inspiration!

Sorry if this seems redundant, talking about word counts again. But sometimes, I just amaze myself...not in the sense of "I'm so good," but more in the sense of "Wow! I didn't think I had it in me."

The other day I had about two sentences of description and two lines of dialogue in my head. I had planned on spending about five minutes quickly committing to disk the former, and then actually working through the latter.

Thirty minutes later, I had 700 words. Back to the "amaze" part, when I started, I had no idea these words were "in there," and waiting to come out. 

As I said, I'm not boasting. My hope is that my other writer friends read this and say, "Maybe I should commit myself to some writing every day." Because sometimes, wondrous things just happen.

Castle: "Til Death Do Us Part"

Monday's show (which we actually watched within one day) was a good, keep-you-guessing episode.

They even pulled a little "fast one" right at the beginning. Knowing the episode was about a lothario, I assumed that the "pineapple guy" chatting up the girl in the first scene was soon to be the victim. But then a body falls out of the sky. Surprise!

The plot reminded me of a previous episode, "A Deadly Game." Castle starts speculating that the victim was a spy. Beckett doesn't buy it. But as the evidence mounts, she is forced to admit that it's a possibility. Then, we learn he's a pick-up artist, rather than an international man of mystery. But by the end -- whoops! -- he is a spy, of sorts.

In many episodes, the murderer turns about to be someone who had been called in for questioning, dismissed, and then later nabbed after a critical piece of information comes to light. But in this case, the killer wasn't even a suspect until the very end. (Which also is what happened in "A Deadly Game.") And, they managed to hook me by having Whatever-Her-First-Name-Was Franklin (the red-haired lawyer) look really worried as they walked in to bust the blonde.

Also, though they didn't really build up a lot of tension about Ryan finding out about Jenny's past, you knew it would somehow come out. But rather than having it blow up (as Beckett, Castle, and Esposito thought it would) Ryan de-fused that bomb. Interesting.

I loved the scene where the victim's two womanizing buddies were brought in for questioning. The split conversation -- in which they seemed to finish each other's answers -- was terrific. And I couldn't help but smile at the terms they tossed out from their pick-up dictionary. "Slip her the butter" and "Wax her car" (Or whatever.)

And of course, there were lots of "looks." Especially notable were the looks all around the table when Ryan announced that Lanie would be bringing a date and, later, the look on Ryan's face the first time Esposito was talking to him and waving a doughnut.

Feel free to share your thoughts on this episode.

Random "Nightmares"

If I may openly borrow an idea from fellow writer and blogger Josin McQuein...

I put the page count of Nightmares into a random number generator, took the result (124), went to that page, and copied it to here.

Enjoy.

    "OK, one last time. You get me inside. You come back to the car. Make sure the car is facing south. Engine off, but key in ignition. No texting, no surfing. No sleeping. No nothing. Windows open. Got it."
    "Sure. Why south?"
    "I left him downtown. So he'll be coming that way. When he does, I want us to go the opposite way."
    "Makes sense." He put the car in park. "You sure about this?"
    "Nope. Let's go."
    “You know, it’s night. Do you really need the shades?”
    “Their presence on my face helps remind me to keep my eyes closed.”
    “OK.”
    He led me down the sidewalk, up the walk, and around the back.
    “Something I’ve been thinking about...” Gordon said.
    “Yeah?” I said, hoping for some sort of revelation.
    “There’s that expression, ‘Rip your head clean off.’ Why ‘clean’ off? It would be anything but clean, with all that blood gushing and spinal cord flapping.”
    “You think of the worst things at the worst time”
    “Oh, excuse me for not realizing that you’re the only one who can have deep, important thoughts.”
    He stopped.
    "Uh-oh," he said.
    "What? What's wrong?"
    "There's police tape."
    "Sounds formidable."
    "And plywood on the door."
    "Is it screwed on, or bolted on?"
    "Um, screwed."
    “Flat or Phillips screws”
    “Phillips.”
    I fished in my bag and hit him in the chest with my cordless drill, the proper screwdriver bit already locked and loaded.
    "Hey, neat. Good thinking."
    "Thanks. Get to work."
    He revved it a few times. "OK, I'm on it."
    I hit him in the chest with a pair of gloves.
    "What are these for? Splinters?"
    "Fingerprints."
    "Oh yeah. Good thinking."
    "Thanks." After a few minutes of drill sound, he announced, "Batter up!"
    "OK. Go back to the car and wait."
    "Yeah, but listen. If I hear or see anything, I’m going to lay on the horn. If you hear it, get out."

Castle: "Cuffed"

We finally got around to watching the December 5 episode of "Castle." Such is the burden of the holidays.

I thought this was a good one. One thing I really appreciated was how they told the story: the first segment (before the first commercial) started in the present (with Castle and Beckett waking up, handcuffed) and then was brought to that point through a series of flashbacks, as they tried to remember how they got there. After the break, they picked up in the present, and then moved forward. Very clever.

(Speaking of moving forward, as an aside, the DVR remote wasn't working. The buttons on the front of the DVR itself allowed us to start the episode, but not fast forward through the commercials. I felt so 20th century.)

I liked the secondary plot regarding Esposito and Lanie; it offered some comic relief and (as I have mentioned in a previous post) engages other characters to keep them involved and fresh, which allows the show to be about more than the principals.

With regard to the crime...OK, they got me. Even before Castle and Beckett heard their captors talking, and they started trying to communicate with the "person" on the other side of the wall, I was thinking "human trafficking." So when a tiger starts coming at Castle, I thought, "That was unexpected!"

A few picky things:

Admittedly, I'm not expert on jungle cats. But if I were locked in a room with a lot of knives, and a tiger started chewing / pawing through a flimsy wall, I'm going to get the biggest blade and start poking and slashing its paws and face. I said this aloud as we were watching it. My wife said, "You'd probably just piss him off." That may be so. But I would take my chances that the tiger would basically think, "Ouch! That thing has sharper claws than I do. I'm backing away."

My final criticism: the bad guys had no qualms about killing the driver. Why did they let Castle and Beckett live?

Overall, though, I had very few complaints.

Oh, and kudos to me, modestly. When Castle lifted Beckett up, trying to reach the trap door, he commented on her boots. "How do you run in these things?" he asked. I've already asked the same question.

I'm looking forward to next Monday's episode. "When a lothario is killed, Castle and Beckett suspect that the victim's mysterious double life holds the key to his murder. Their investigation leads to a shocking twist that threatens to disrupt Ryan's wedding with Jenny." Sounds intriguing.

What did you think?

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And The Geek Shall Inherit The Earth ...

For those of you who don't know me well, I used to be a computer programmer. As I used to say (boast), "I tell my computer what to do. Not vice versa." A nice little skill that I developed was macro creation, specifically for applications in the Microsoft Office suite.

If you're a writer, you probably face the same quandary I face: keeping track of your submissions. Who you queried, what their instructions are ("We respond to all queries" or "If you don't hear back, assume we're not interested."), and when to follow up. The problem grows exponentially if you're submitting different works to different agents and/or publishers.

So I developed a handy-dandy spreadsheet to keep track of my correspondence.

If you have no desire to learn about my system, go ahead and bow out now. But if you want to see my spreadsheet "in action," keep reading.

As background, this actually was based on an Access database that I developed a few years back for the same purpose. That one got a bit cumbersome, as I found that in some cases I needed a way to have a "many-to-one" and/or a "one-to-many" relationship (to use the geek terms) between a work and a correspondence with someone. To clarify, if I'm sending a query letter to an agent, that's one-to-one. But in many cases, a poetry publisher or magazine asks for five poems. So that's many works in one email. But also, if I'm querying an agent (as mentioned, one-to-one) and he or she writes back and says, "Send more," now I have one work, but many emails.

Clear as mud? I used to be a tech writer, so I hope I can still convey things like this.

So I came up with this spreadsheet. I'm sure this first image will be hard to see, so after it, I'll describe what's there.

(Please note, I use OpenOffice, which is an open-source -- meaning free -- app that works like the MS Office suite; Excel will look a little different, but functions basically the same way.)

This is the header row. 

The columns are Key (I'll explain later), Date, Follow Up Date, Response, Sent What?, Via, Email, To What?, Name, Who, Genre, Work, Details.

I tried to set it up so you can simply read it, left to right. So that would be (the column headers are in ALL CAPS)...

"On this 12/20/11 (DATE), I sent a query (SENT WHAT?) VIA email to an agent (TO WHAT?) at company NAME, and this person specifically (WHO). I sent my novella (GENRE) named Udopia (WORK). Addtional DETAILs are ...

So a real-world example would be:

And it reads, "On 12/15/11, I submitted, using an online form to an anthology named Best Fiction. The recipient was not named. I sent a short story, "Tarantulas On Leashes."

Now to explain a few things...

You'll notice there is a "Key" field. In the above example, for both lines, it is 46. This was done to solve that one-to-many problem that I referenced earlier. Every entry should have at least two lines with the same key. The date you sent it, and the date that they say you will get a response by. Bear in mind, as I mentioned above, some say "If you don't hear back in six weeks, assume no." Fine. I can still put a date that is six weeks out in the Follow Up Date field, and copy that comment into the Response field. The beauty of this key field is that if I am sending multiple works to a single entity, there is one line for each work, plus the follow-up line, all sharing the same key. As you can see here:

key 45 represents five works submitted to one anthology, plus there is the follow-up line.

If you use Excel a lot, this should be obvious, but you don't need to "do math" to get the follow-up date. The "Key 45" entity did not state a follow-up date, so I am assuming six weeks. Cell C14 is actually a formula which reads "=B45 + 42"  Seven days times six weeks = 42, naturally. Oh, and once I get a response, I delete the value from the "Follow Up Date" field, and put the date I heard back in the "Date" field. You can do whatever you want; you could leave it there. This just works for me.

You will notice that I have highlighted in red text to-do items. Likewise, if someone has said "no," I color the text gray, to fade it out.

The Email column contains a hyperlink to where the actual email lives on my hard drive. Having it here allows me to call it up at will. Please note that I use an email program (Thunderbird) which brings emails down to my PC, as opposed to something like GMail, which keeps them on Google's servers. Of course, since the field holds a hyperlink, you might be able to store the link to a webmail message. Hmmm.

Bear with me. There are only two things left to point out ...

 

In order to keep things clean, I use the "group" function of my spreadsheet. In the previous images, I intentionally omitted the left-most portion of the screen. It actually looks like this:

You will notice a little box, with a minus sign in it. What that says is that I have "grouped" rows 2 and 3, as well as rows 4 and 5.

Once 2 and 3 are grouped, I can click on the minus sign to collapse or hide row 3, like thus:

I just think it's neater to hide the details, once an entry is "closed."

Please note that there is one weird quirk about both Excel and the OpenOffice spreadsheet. Logically, I would expect that I need to highlight everything I want in a group, and then choose the "group" command. But the reality is, you highlight ALL BUT the first. So in the example immediately above, I highlighted only row 3. Going up a bit to my "Key 45" example, I highlighted rows 10 - 14 (but NOT row 9) before hitting the "group" button.

And finally, you can use filters (native to both Excel and the OpenOffice version) to create "mini-reports," if you will. Do you want to know to which agents you've sent a given work? Filter on the book's (or article's) name in column L, "Work." Do you want to know which works you've sent to a certain agent? Filter on his or her name in column J.

Had enough?

If you are a writer (or an agent) and would like a blank version, please leave a comment. I'd be more than happy to send you one. I'll even throw in free "tech support," though bear in mind, you get what you pay for.

Just kidding. 

PS: I do realize that I didn't mention macros after talking about them up top. This spreadsheet has no macros...yet!

New Year's Resolutions

This year, I resolve to:

1. Eat more fatty foods

2. Exercise less, and 

3. Be meaner to others. 

That way, I won't feel bad when I break them!

What are your resolutions? Share them in a comment.