The No News is No News Purgatory Thread, Vol. 7

[Dragonstar]

I cannot remember the last time i saw a bug inside my house and it was last summer when I saw two very dead ones on my carport. I love living here in the desert where there are no fleas, ticks, etc and if you spray you can control the rest of them. Even out hiking I have not seen very many bugs for which I'm thankful or I'd be running screaming down the trail. I got a lizard in my house one year and had to call my housekeeper to come over to deal with it. She is very good at stuffs I do not like to do.

I grew up in FL. I remember always having to shake out clothes and shoes before I put them on. There is not enough money on the planet to induce me to live there again. Not that my arthritis would deal with all that humidity very well anyway.

Getting ready for Episode 2, trying to figure out how to word the contest rules and such. The contest will be for people to tell us what they think "mythB3h@ving" means. I'm thinking of a 25 words or less or slogan or something that we will included in the podcast for the winner, in addition to 8 books from 4 writers, with 3 of them author signed. if anyone has any ideas, please feel free to put them out there!

OK that's all I got and I'm going back to the sofa to continue my feeling icky there. I'm getting reading done, though.

 

[JoNightshade]

Good luck on coming out, Rick.

Bugs: I am okay with most of them. Then we discovered that these weird looking bugs we kept seeing in our house are COCKROACHES. OMG. I had no idea, because they are a different type than what you usually see on TV - they're smaller and not so flat. DIE DIE DIE!

Is it centipedes or millipedes that are big and thick and round, kind of like big pencils? At Thanksgiving one of my young relatives found a nearly-dead one in my parents' pond and spent like an hour putting it on different people and handling the poor thing until it officially kicked the bucket.

It turns out the problem with having real-world friends is that they have lots of parties. SO MANY PARTIES. Auuugh. Someone just organized a "big sister party." This is like a hybrid baby shower plus playdate since two of our moms are about to give birth to children #2. Which means now we will have to do this for EVERY mom who gives birth. I was really hoping to avoid this sort of thing. Sigh.

 

[chan]

Caleb, congrats! That's so sweet!

Xiao, I wouldn't think it's a problem. It's your world, your head, even if you did sell the story. That said...what do I know? What prompted the move to adult?

I have serious revision fatigue. I completed MY revisions today and am trying to gear up to receive the comments from the freelance editor tomorrow after which they'll be a call. I'll probably only have the weekend to make any changes, so here's hoping they are mainly line edits at this point! Then, it's off. The only way through is through, I suppose. Trying to keep my head down and finish this baby.

 

[xiaotien]

chan, i've always straddled the
line. i wrote debut as adult and due to
boom in YA and my story and voice,
it sold as YA. but my sequel was more
adult than SP and this novel even more
so again.

i didnt think to consider but all three
of my betas thought it would fit in
adult even before i went on sub.
i think it could swing either way, but
it is a quieter a story, reads more
literary and has a focus on relationships
rather than as plot driven, like my debut.

but again, WHO KNOWS? ha

 

[xiaotien]

jo, sorry for party fatigue.
i feel you.

 

[JennW]

I can't believe you people. Seriously. Can't. Believe.

It's David Bowie's birthday! Where's the junk pictures? Huh? Huh?

Haha. I thought the same thing. As soon as I heard it was his birthday I came to purgy cringing. LOL

May -- You win. Centipedes ARE the worst. For some reason, the little hairs all over their body really gross me out. To say nothing of all the legs.

Yes. The long hairs are the worst. *shudders*

is this a problem? if other than that, stories and characters are unrelated?
hmm.

I don't understand why it would be a problem at all. {{{hugs}}}

When I was in high school, I remember seeing a waterbug on my bedroom ceiling while I was getting ready for school. I didn't have bug spray handy, so I shot him with my rave aerosol. The little f*%ker let go and flipped over and FLEW straight at me. I get freaked at the memory 20 years later. GAH! Die, bugs, DIE!

Great minds think alike. I once killed a mosquito with an ENTIRE BOTTLE of Rave hairspray. He was very stuck to the wall, LOL. But dead.

 

[JoNightshade]

jo, sorry for party fatigue.
i feel you.

First world problems, right? I also just realized that they'd all cut me out of the party planning and just now decided to invite me since I'm pregnant again. I'm not mad - they were being considerate.

Great minds think alike. I once killed a mosquito with an ENTIRE BOTTLE of Rave hairspray. He was very stuck to the wall, LOL. But dead.

LOL! I have to tell you how we're killing the cockroaches. We got some of those "Roach Motel" things, which are like little boxes with two open ends where they can crawl in and then get stuck on the sticky paper. Well, they don't seem to be particularly attracted to them. But occasionally I'll spot one hanging out on a wall, so I'll grab the roach motel and just put the open end over the bugger so it's got nowhere to go but inside. Then I wait. After a second he'll go inside the box, and I can feel it because the whole thing goes SNAP SNAP SNAP as he sticks to it and tries to free himself. It's horrific and I feel like a monster. But in a wonderfully satisfying way.

Then I put the box back on the ground and hope he's screaming bloody murder in some super-sonic roach hearing range so all of his buddies flee.

 

[vfury]

Evening, Purgies!

Came in today to learn I was having my annual review fifteen minutes after my shift started. That was fun, but for the best as there was no time to panic.

But it went well! Manager is pleased with me, and I'm on the right track, long-term, apparently. I celebrated with a co-worker after work by going for burgers.

I get to sleep past 8am tomorrow. JOY.

Then I put the box back on the ground and hope he's screaming bloody murder in some super-sonic roach hearing range so all of his buddies flee.

(But yet so true!)

 

[xiaotien]

i remember my dad killed a roach
in our house when i was a teen and
squeezed out its egg sac.

YUMMY YUMMO YUMM!

 

[Leanan-Sidhe]

Rick, have a safe trip!

Maryn, glad your kitchen cabinet is stable. Here's hoping this is the end of all the stress it's been giving you.

lwalker, yay for the good review!

Caleb, yay for you and second girl wonder!

On the subject of bugs, Japan has a horrifying alien centipede called a mukade which I will not link a picture of. (Google it if you're brave.) They're ridiculously hard to kill, and they travel in couples, so if you manage to successfully smash one, the other one smells it somehow and comes for revenge. The recommended way to kill them is via drowning. Oh, and they're venomous.

 

[xiaotien]

shudders!!!!

 

[K. Taylor]

Eep!

Snappy, still with the bed bugs?

Caleb, awww.

LW, congrats.

 

[JoNightshade]

:scratches Japan off list of places to visit::

 

[JennW]

OMG THESE STORIES ARE GONNA GIVE ME NIGHTMARES!!!

 

[Little1]

Good evening all
PLZ NO MORE BUGGGIE STORYS
Caleb yay for editing mojo
I am glad your travels thus far have been safe Rick.

 

[Calla Lily]

Sigh.

Last year, a coworker's college-age daughter asked me to read her WIP. It was a hot mess. But hey, we all have to start somewhere.

Yesterday, she asked me to read her new WIP, which she said was in its beginning stages. (She goes back to college next week.) It's... a hot mess.

She's sweet and eager and might have a knack for it but she was zero grasp of the basics of punctuation, sentence structure, dialogue, scene-setting... just about everything. So I channeled Lily the Meatspace Crit Group Leader from back in 2005-8, when I mentored a group of the most timid writers known to man. I worte down 5 books for her to read and stuck with general comments like, "We need character descriptions by this time (page 5)." "We need to know what century this is set in." "We need to know if this is a mystery, paranormal, litfic, romance..."

Poor thing. She's going to have to do a lot of work if she wants this.

 

[Little1]

OH boy Lil, sounds like you helped her as best you could

Para, how did dinner with Ms. Coffee go???

 

[Trinza]

i remember my dad killed a roach
in our house when i was a teen and
squeezed out its egg sac.

YUMMY YUMMO YUMM!

I could have gone my whole entire life without ever having read this post.

It would have been a better life. UUUUGH!

Lily, yikes! I don't envy you having to do that, but it sounds like you handled it really, really well. I know those are the kind of tips I'd have liked to have gotten when I was just starting: firm, to the point, instruction.

On the plus side, I guess after seeing the notes she'll find out pretty quickly how badly she wants to do this!

 

[Calla Lily]

I certainly didn't go into "professional copyeditor" mode on her. Some people aren't ready for that.

Short story has been re-subbed to a new market. Query and Conquer!

 

[raburrell]

*will be back when the bug stories stop*

Auuuuuuuughhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!

 

[JoNightshade]

My husband and my mother doing politics on facebook. Someone shoot me.

Also, I need salad. NOW.

 

[JennW]

Lily - sounds like you handled it well. Never easy!

 

[Calla Lily]

Thanks, gang.

 

[timp67]

Egg sack.

 

[phoenix]

OMG WHY DID I GOOGLE MUKADE? WHY?

The levels to which I will take procrastination while writing...