tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33654199706878457852024-03-12T20:41:48.928-05:00Evanston ShopNotesDebbie Fligelmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14253257712266950976noreply@blogger.comBlogger72125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3365419970687845785.post-16032757027997875742012-06-09T20:29:00.000-05:002012-06-10T10:09:17.208-05:00Social Media: 5 Things You Can Do To Support EWW<br />
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1. Share quotes on
Facebook, or other content. <o:p></o:p></div>
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In Facebook, when you see a post you like, there are three
options: like, comment, and share. “Like” allow you to click a button and tell
the person you appreciate their post.
“Comment” lets you say something to the poster about it. “Share” takes that post, and let s you post
it on your own “timeline,” the list of things you say and share. You can say something with it or not, as you
like. This extends the reach of the post
because it’s now seen by people not necessarily in the audience of the original
post.<o:p></o:p></div>
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2. Comment and
interact with posts on Facebook, Twitter, and the ShopNotes blog.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The “social” in “social media” means that it’s about
interaction. Gone are the days of the
static website, which was essentially just a poster on a wall or a magazine
that people could read, but not talk with.
Now, the conversation is expected.<o:p></o:p></div>
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3. Ask your Facebook
and Twitter followers to “like” the EWW page.
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You’ve probably seen this done before, and it can be
anywhere from annoying to polite. I tend
to err on the side of “If you’re willing, please consider liking,” rather than
the ubiquitous “like my stuff” requests.
I find that has a better success rate.<o:p></o:p></div>
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4. Share tips on
writing or writing prompts that you like.
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Twitter has a 160 character limit, so it disciplines you to
be brief; but if you just have to say something in more words then post to
Facebook.<o:p></o:p></div>
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5. A picture’s worth
a thousand words. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Share pictures you take of writing events, cool gadgets, or
things you see during your daily round.
We have a global audience. What
is “everyday and pedestrian” to you is exotic to someone living in a different
place and culture.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Above all, join the conversation! We’re writers and communicators by nature;
let’s have fun together!</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3365419970687845785.post-26007046569040566512012-05-05T00:00:00.000-05:002012-05-05T00:00:03.348-05:00The Giant Metal ChickenSeriously, folks. A Giant Metal Chicken.<br />
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Check it out:<br />
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"<a href="http://thebloggess.com/2011/06/and-thats-why-you-should-learn-to-pick-your-battles/" target="_blank">And That's Why You Should Learn To Pick Your Battles</a>"<br />
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(Thank you to author Dayna Hart for brining this to our attention.)Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3365419970687845785.post-34775746448814677612012-04-28T00:00:00.000-05:002012-04-28T00:00:02.111-05:00Silly Saturday - by Mark Hudson - "The Texan"<div class="tr_bq">
This piece needs a little introduction. At a recent Prompt Group meeting, we played with a prompt from Ursula K. LeGuin called "No Punctuation." The objective was to write a piece with absolutely no punctuation, from start to finish, as an exercise in understanding the role of grammar in our writing. Her recommendation, if you can't think of something to write for the prompt, is to pick something with action such as the beginning of a battle or the first day of a large sale.</div>
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Mark Hudson, one of our regulars, read this poetic piece of alliteration and we roared by the end of it. As you read it, try reading it out loud: it'll make a real difference. He added a few periods and commas, but we'll let him get away with it - you'll understand when you read it. Awesome job, Mark!<br />
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I hope you enjoy! -A. Catherine Noon<br />
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<blockquote>
"The Texan"<br />by Mark Hudson<br /><br />The landlord told me that I had to get out the Texans were taking over the country and turning America into a giant Texas Tex the Texan was textin’ while I was reading a textbook, telling me to turn in the keys to his totalitarian tyrannical trickery I located the landlady and lavished a loud rant AND rave revolving around rent, reporting resentment about relocation referring to repulsive ricocheting ranch hands robbing me of my remaining rights. I tore up the lease and responded that my lawyer would love to list my loft locally, leaving limited love for the lone star local, letting a lobotomy loom literally left of the line between the legally loony and lost in limbo. Tex took a taxi to town to tolerate a timetable to tell me to take off to Timbuktu, and take my towels, tubs of books, toiletries, tapes and cds, turntable and toys, and try and take the turnpike to temporarily turn off and don’t trick or treat on the way to Tor’s techno-thriller table-top tournament. Slowly I turned, inch by inch, step by step, inch by inch, step by step, and told Tex to take his ZZ Top looking self back home.</blockquote>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3365419970687845785.post-7079269422369697612012-04-07T00:00:00.000-05:002012-04-07T00:00:07.535-05:00Up In The AirWhile the C-5 was turning over its engines, a female crewman gave the G.I.'s on board the usual information regarding seat belts, emergency exits, etc.<br />
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Finally, she said, "Now sit back and enjoy your trip while your captain, Judith Campbell, and crew take you safely to Afghanistan."<br />
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An old Master Sergeant sitting in the eighth row thought to himself, "Did I hear her right? Is the captain a woman?"<br />
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When the attendant came by he said, "Did I understand you right? Is the captain a woman?"<br />
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"Yes," said the attendant, "in fact, this entire crew is female."<br />
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"My God," he said, "I wish I had two double scotch and sodas. I don't know what to think with only women up there in the cockpit."<br />
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"That's another thing, Sergeant," said the crew member, "we no longer call it the Cockpit. It's The Box Office."Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3365419970687845785.post-83139514035331664662012-03-31T08:09:00.000-05:002012-03-31T08:09:00.681-05:00I knew it!<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgC6iCcGRxio-rlnQvaIC16Cdig8Be9orHtVk2GlirczMqeu8FmdgGZQHDDAjFsCsm_AJKLdYaoSiZba0tICtjq8TMGUN3AcdrdX8ENhVQPLNeGsy7WsT9JdT3HnyIpU-8u9fu_JXANCMc/s1600/lolcatsdotcomrlz2isi4xipy19ob.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 250px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgC6iCcGRxio-rlnQvaIC16Cdig8Be9orHtVk2GlirczMqeu8FmdgGZQHDDAjFsCsm_AJKLdYaoSiZba0tICtjq8TMGUN3AcdrdX8ENhVQPLNeGsy7WsT9JdT3HnyIpU-8u9fu_JXANCMc/s320/lolcatsdotcomrlz2isi4xipy19ob.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5724625640257868786" border="0" /></a>Debbie Fligelmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14253257712266950976noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3365419970687845785.post-89608308896282124342012-01-21T22:08:00.001-06:002012-01-21T22:08:57.858-06:00EDGE Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing, Inc. Seeking Anthology Submissions<h3>
<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">NOW OPEN FOR SUBMISSIONS</span></b></h3>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">EDGE Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing is delighted to announce that the <b><i>Professor Challenger Anthology</i></b>, is now open for submissions.</span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Submissions close May 31, 2012.</span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">EDITORS</span></b></h3>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><b>J.R. Campbell and Charles Prepolec</b>.</span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">WHAT WE'RE AFTER</span></b></h3>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">A broad range of new and original stories built around Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's LOST WORLD character Professor George Edward Challenger. Stories derived from the aftermath of events in the Lost World are welcome however simply revisiting or rehashing the Lost World without good cause is not. Challenger is a man of science first and foremost, not an explorer. Mash-ups or crossovers with public domain literary characters are welcome.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">For inspiration think X-files, Quartermass, DR. Who, cryptozoology, aliens among us, supernatural occurrences, science gone awry in a Dr. Moreau, Invisible Man, Dr Jekyll vein, nature run amuck, monsters large and small, world threatening cataclysm, Lovecraft mythos, think H.G. Wells, Jules Verne, E.R. Burroghs, John Wyndham, Nigel Kneale, alternate history, new lost places, steampunk, whatever -- Be creative.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Mine the potential for all it's worth! Push it out there, get weird, play, have fun!</span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">SUBMISSION DETAILS:</span></b> </h3>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The anthology is part invitation and part open submission. Priority will be given to invited authors but an invitation to submit is not a guarantee of acceptance. A minimum of two slots will be held for open submissions. Acceptance is based entirely on suitability of story and quality of writing. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The maximum length for stories is 10,000 words, with shorter works preferred. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><b>Deadline: May 31, 2012 - midnight).</b> </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Do not query before submitting. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Email submissions to: <b><a href="mailto:%20Charles@bakerstreetdozen.com">mailto:%20Charles@bakerstreetdozen.com</a></b> </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Emails <b>MUST</b> contain the word "submission" in the subject line, or they will be deleted automatically by the server. Please also include the story title in the subject line. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Submissions <b>MUST</b> come in an attachment: Rich Text Format (.rtf) or Microsoft Word (.doc) are the only acceptable formats. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Emails <b>MUST</b> contain a cover letter in the body of the email; for security reasons, email attachments with no cover letter will be deleted unread and unanswered. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Cover letter: include your name, the title of your story, your full contact information (address, phone, email), and a brief bio. Do not describe or summarize the story. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Reprints (stories having previously appeared in English in any format, print or electronic, including but not limited to any form of web publication) will NOT be considered. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Submission format: no strange formatting, colour fonts, changing fonts, borders, backgrounds, etc. Leave italics in italics, NOT underlined. Put your full contact information on the first page (name, address, email address, phone). No headers, no footers, no page numbering. DO NOT leave a blank line between paragraphs. Indent paragraphs. ALWAYS put a # to indicate scene breaks (a blank line is NOT enough). </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><b>ALWAYS</b> include your full contact information (name/address/email/phone number) on the first page of the attached submission. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">This is a professional market paying up to 5 cents per word plus a single copy of the book. Full rate to 7,500 words, half rate for balance to 10,000 words. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Rights: for original fiction, first World English publication, with a two-month exclusive from publication date; for all, non-exclusive anthology rights; all other rights remain with the author. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Spelling: the editors will consider stories using British, Canadian and American spellings. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Response time: initial responses (no / rewrite request / hold for further consideration) will be prompt, usually within fifteen days. Please query if you've not heard back within 30 days. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">We do not advise that you submit more than one story. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Simultaneous submissions are not encouraged but are acceptable. Should you receive a "rewrite request" or "hold for further consideration" response, please indicate immediately whether your story is under consideration anywhere else.</span> </li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><b>Publication date: TBA (trade paperback & e-Book).</b> </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Email submissions to: <b><a href="mailto:Charles@bakerstreetdozen.com">Charles@bakerstreetdozen.com</a></b> </span></li>
</ul>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Additional information can be found at </span><a href="http://www.edgewebsite.com/books/professorchallenger/pch-guidelines.html"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">http://www.edgewebsite.com/books/professorchallenger/pch-guidelines.html</span></a><br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3365419970687845785.post-39218029957031416562012-01-17T23:24:00.000-06:002012-01-17T23:24:36.132-06:00Interview Studio - Jannifer Hoffman<span style="color: windowtext;"></span><br />
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<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em>Please join me in welcoming Jannifer Hoffman to the Interview Studio. Jannifer writes Romance for Resplendence Publishing was born in North Dakota and currently resides in Minnesota. Welcome Jannifer!</em></span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="color: windowtext;"><em><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">For your Douglas Family Series at Resplendence, What have you enjoyed most about writing a series and what has been the most challenging?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></em></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="color: windowtext;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I loved bringing back characters that I had grown attached to. Most challenging was the last one’ Random Fire. I wanted to bring together Virgil (the oldest Douglas brother) and Katie (from Rough Edges) I had many request to do both so I thought, okay why not do them both at the same time. To make it interesting I had to dig deep into Virgil’s past find his problems. These are like real people to me. LOL </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="color: windowtext;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em>You write for both Resplendence and Treble Heart.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Do you find any particular challenge in writing for multiple publishers?</em> </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="color: windowtext;"></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">No. Treble Heart was my first sale. I wasn’t happy with them so I wanted a change. My dream is still to find a mass market publisher.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="color: windowtext;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em>What was the inspiration for your recent book, Bittersweet Memories? What gave you the idea for the title?</em> </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I wanted to do a tormented woman I guess. It’s the only one I actually sat at the computer sobbing as I did the ending. I could readily relate to Joan Wilder in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Romancing the Stone</i>. (Smile) <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For the title my editor and I brainstormed. She didn’t like my original title (Twisted Memories) so she made suggestion and I worked them over to come up with Bittersweet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not the first time we did it either. Edge of Daybreak was even worse. I didn’t have a title at all until she helped. Again we brainstormed. By the way, I always check prospective titles on Amazon to find something that hasn’t been used. Not easy! </span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="color: windowtext;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em>Do you have any writing rituals that you follow on a regular basis?</em> </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="color: windowtext;"></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I wish. I’m almost always writing under a deadline. I envy writers who can start with an outline.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="color: windowtext;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em>What are your must-have writing tools?</em> </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="color: windowtext;"></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">It might be a given for most people but<span style="color: windowtext;"> </span>since I started writing on an old black Remington upright I would definitely say my computer. One could really understand that if I they knew how bad my typing skills are. Also I use Sandra Brown books like dictionaries. I think she knows more words. LOL</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em>Where do you get your ideas?</em></span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="color: #c00000;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: #c00000;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: black;">I read, read, read. It only takes a tiny seed for me to work it into a story. I start typing and it just comes to me. When I get a</span><span style="color: black;"> block, I lose a lot of sleep.</span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em>Dark or milk chocolate?</em> <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #c00000;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Dark, only because it's healthier.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em>Coffee or tea?</em><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #c00000;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Definitely tea, preferably iced tea. I’ve never drank coffee.</span></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3365419970687845785.post-15599295557323247832012-01-08T00:27:00.000-06:002012-01-08T00:27:01.225-06:00Sunday Dinner with Medallion Press<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em><strong>In the spirit of the New Year we chose to spotlight some editors who publish YA. We hope you will join us every Sunday as someone from the business of Writing joins us. Today we welcome Medallion Press</strong></em></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em><strong><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Q:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Tell us a little bit about Medallion Press and what you are looking for in YA.</span></strong></em></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-family: Times;">Founded in June of 2003 by Helen Rosburg, Medallion Press publishes fiction and nonfiction in hardcover, trade paperback, e-book, and interactive e-book formats, and we have national distribution on many levels. Every book Medallion produces is considered a work of art. From concept to cover, it is nurtured each step of the way. Our goal is to have readers find the treasure they expect in every one of our books. This dedication to quality is what drives our dedicated and talented staff. For YA, we’re looking for engaging voices and well-crafted, compelling, unique stories. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em><strong>Q: I’d like to know whether you think there are certain tones of voice that fit certain subgenres better.</strong></em></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The appropriate tone is dependent on the goal of each book. Certainly, readers have some expectations when they approach a genre, but we all know when we find a voice that can successfully turn that expectation on its head, pull us in, and keep us turning the pages.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">In YA, what’s hot in 2012 are zombies, vampires, contemporary fiction, speculative fiction, and interactive e-books. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em><strong>Q:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was wondering if you could give a quick overview/calendar of a book being published by Medallion from initial submission to publication date.</strong></em></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Approximately twelve to eighteen months before the release:</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> The book is acquired. The author fills in an info sheet for our marketing and art teams so they can market the book and design the cover. <b>Approximately six months before the release: </b>Our marketing team contacts the author to coordinate marketing efforts. Our editors have line edited and copyedited the manuscript and send it to the author, who then reviews and revises the manuscript. Our editors proofread the manuscript and send it to the art team to be formatted. <b>Approximately four months before the release: </b>Our marketing team begins receiving and sharing reviews for the book. Our editors and the author proofread the formatted manuscript. <b>Approximately three months before the release:</b> the book goes to the printer and/or e-book conversion. The author's local news outlets are contacted. <b>One month before the release date: </b>Ads are placed in selected venues. <b>Release: </b>Time to celebrate the release, congratulate the author, and share the title through all of our online media.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em><strong>Q:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Do you consider whether a story is a stand alone versus being a series when buying from an author?</strong></em></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Whether a book is a single title or a part of a series, we require that the book be able to stand as a satisfying read on its own. We are most concerned with the quality of each manuscript on its own.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em><strong>Q: From blog tours to book trailers--what have you seen lately that really pays off for an author in terms of garnering reader interest? And what has worked for some of the Medallion authors to get readers to click & buy? How involved is Medallion in author promotion?</strong></em></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">The most successful promotions we’ve seen are from authors who actively participate in communities of writers and fans of their genre. They actively blog, Tweet, and do blog tours. On Twitter, they promote not only their own work but others’, and they connect intentionally with their fans. In other words, they build relationships. What we’ve found to be extremely successful is limited-time reduced-price or free e-book promotions through booksellers. Medallion Press is highly involved in promotion, marketing in <i>Student Library Journal</i>, <i>Publishers Weekly</i>, <i>Booklist</i>, <i>PW Daily</i>, targeted media outlets, consumer outlets Facebook ads and mentions, and Twitter. </span><span style="font-family: Times;">Our motto is that publishing is a partnership, and w</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">e make a concerted effort to assist our authors with self-promotion as well. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em><strong>Q: Are all contracts standard or do you negotiate depending on author experience (published etc.) word count, sub-genre?</strong></em></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-family: Times;">Our contracts are standard in the industry, and our royalties are competitive. The terms of each are confidential.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em><strong><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Q: I was wondering what percentage of your authors are new, previously unpublished</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; line-height: 150%;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">authors?</span></strong></em></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">About one-third of our authors are new, previously unpublished authors. Particularly with YA and fiction, we care more about the quality of the manuscript than about the author's marketing platform and we do our very best to coordinate marketing efforts to help every author build his/her audience.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em><strong>Q:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Where can writers and readers learn more about Medallion Press?</strong></em></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The best place to learn more about us is at medallionpress.com. We hope to hear from your members</span><a href="" name="_GoBack"></a><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"> soon!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Thank you for this opportunity to connect with the writers in Evanston Writers Group. From all of us at Medallion Press, we wish you a fantastic New Year.</span></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3365419970687845785.post-71923488457117085742011-12-31T00:00:00.000-06:002011-12-31T00:00:07.248-06:00Silly Saturday - The Shelter Pet Project Ads<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">And for a good cause too. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The Shelter Pet Project has a group of these on YouTube and they are all so funny. The cat ones are my favorite.</span> <br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">If you'd like to submit a post for Silly Saturdays, please e-mail </span><a href="mailto:tina@evanstonwritersworkshop.org"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">tina@evanstonwritersworkshop.org</span></a><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">.</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3365419970687845785.post-29762095105859090552011-12-24T00:00:00.000-06:002011-12-24T00:00:09.027-06:00Silly Saturday - All I want for Christmas!<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I wanted to share this video, which I'm sure many of you have already seen.</span> <br />
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Tina</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3365419970687845785.post-60158231224628068792011-12-20T00:00:00.000-06:002011-12-20T00:00:08.399-06:00And the Winner for Bad Sex is...<span style="font-size: small;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><b>"David Guterson</b> has won the 19th annual <i>Literary Review</i> Bad Sex in Fiction Award, for <i>Ed King</i> (Bloomsbury). The prize was presented to a representative of his publishers by <b>Barbara Windsor</b>, star of the <i>Carry On</i> films and <i>Eastenders</i>.</span><br />
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<table align="centre" class="image" hspace="10" vspace="10"><caption align="bottom"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: small;"><i>Alexander Waugh and Barbara Windsor (© Alan Davidson/The Picture Library Ltd)</i></span></caption><tbody>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">David Guterson lives in America and was unable to accept the prize in person. 'Oedipus practically invented bad sex, so I'm not in the least bit surprised,' he said in response to his fifth novel winning the award. His bestselling debut, <i>Snow Falling on Cedars</i>, won the 1995 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><i>Ed King</i> is a re-imagining of the Oedipus myth in the second half of the twentieth century. The winning scene is introduced in the book as 'the part where a mother has sex with her son'. The judges were swayed by the following paragraphs:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">These sorts of gyrations and five-sense choreographies, with variations on Ed's main themes, played out episodically between 10 p.m. and 10 a.m., when Diane said, "Let's shower."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">In the shower, Ed stood with his hands at the back of his head, like someone just arrested, while she abused him with a bar of soap. After a while he shut his eyes, and Diane, wielding her fingernails now and staring at his face, helped him out with two practiced hands, one squeezing the family jewels, the other vigorous with the soap-and-warm-water treatment. It didn't take long for the beautiful and perfect Ed King to ejaculate for the fifth time in twelve hours, while looking like Roman public-bath statuary. Then they rinsed, dried, dressed, and went to an expensive restaurant for lunch.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Guterson narrowly edged out strong competition from Haruki Murakami's <i>1Q84</i> ('<i>A freshly made ear and a freshly made vagina look very much alike</i>, Tengo thought'), Chris Adrian's <i>The Great Night</i> (featuring an 'impossibly stiff, impossibly eloquent cock' that 'poked her now from the front and now from the back and now from the side'), and Lee Child's </i>The Affair</i> ('Then it was time. We started tenderly. Long and slow, long and slow. Deep and easy. She flushed and gasped. So did I. Long and slow').</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The shortlist also included: </span><br />
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<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><i>On Canaan's Side</i> by Sebastian Barry </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><i>The Final Testament of the Holy Bible</i> by James Frey </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><i>Parallel Stories</i> by Péter Nádas </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><i>11.22.63</i> by Stephen King </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><i>The Land of Painted Caves</i> by Jean M Auel </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><i>Dead Europe</i> by Christos Tsiolkas </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><i>Outside the Ordinary World</i> by Dori Ostermiller </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><i>Everything Beautiful Began After</i> by Simon Van Booy </span></li>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Last year the prize was won by Rowan Somerville for <i>The Shape of Her</i> published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson..."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The Original article may be found below</span><br />
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<a href="http://www.literaryreview.co.uk/badsex2011.php"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">http://www.literaryreview.co.uk/badsex2011.php</span></a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3365419970687845785.post-31186381712264576712011-11-08T22:56:00.000-06:002011-11-08T22:56:00.912-06:00The Walking Dead - My new obsession.Okay, Let me begin this premise by stating I love most paranormal shows. There are a few of those that take place in Space that I've not be able to get into. <br />
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I was recently watching Nightline, right before Halloween and they were saying it was the year of the Zombie and they referenced a show on AMC called "The Walking Dead". And I thought "Who would watch a show about Zombies?" In saying this I was trying to wrap my head around how you could have an ongoing show, it seemed very unlikely you could sustain this week after week. <br />
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So one day I googled it, okay it was probably at three in the morning when I didn't want to sleep. Anyway AMCTV.com had put up Season 2, Episode 1. So I thought what the heck - I'll watch it. I was 10 minutes into it when I began to believe in a Zombie apocolypse and rushed upstairs to wake DH (Dear Husband) and force him to watch it with me because I was scared. <br />
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I was never one of those people who liked being scared. I don't like slasher movies or movies with alot of gore, but I do love a good mystery. <br />
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Anyway DH diligently watched with me and at the end he said, "I kind of like it."<br />
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Me too. So much so I became one of those people who goes to Walmart in their pajamas - but that's another post. <br />
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I ran out and bought the first season of The Walking Dead because I found the premise so entrancing and I'm wondering how are these people going to get out of this.<br />
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A few notes about the show: <br />
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The main character is Rick Grimes who wakes up from a coma to go searching for his family. The show is based on a comic series which I'm suspecting is why it got a second season. The zombies are slow moving zombies - not like the ones from "Resident Evil" or "Zo<br />
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1) It is bloody<br />
2) People and animals are disemboweled.<br />
3) There is swearing -quiet a bit at times <br />
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Minus the F-Bomb being thrown around. I don't find the gore to be any worse than something you'd see on CSI or any other crime show. Except well the walking dead are eating. <br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3365419970687845785.post-45097125084300713592011-11-05T00:01:00.002-05:002011-11-05T00:01:00.880-05:00Silly Saturday: "Lessons from Crochet" (or "The Fable of the Old Woman and the Crocheted Dolls")A man and woman had been married for more than 60 years.<br />
<br />
They had shared everything. They had talked about everything. They had kept no secrets from each other except that the little old woman had a shoe box in the top of her closet that she had cautioned her husband never to open or ask her about.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-cJ-tEVgEnXY/TrFfNhGU7LI/AAAAAAAACqE/HNTNiT1Pe8M/s1600/2011-11-02%2BShoebox.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="214" width="255" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-cJ-tEVgEnXY/TrFfNhGU7LI/AAAAAAAACqE/HNTNiT1Pe8M/s320/2011-11-02%2BShoebox.jpg" /></a></div><br />
For all of these years, he had never thought about the box, but one day the little old woman got very sick and the doctor said she would not recover.<br />
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In trying to sort out their affairs, the little old man took down the shoe box and took it to his wife's bedside. She agreed that it was time that he should know what was in the box.<br />
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When he opened it, he found two crocheted dolls and a stack of money totaling $95,000. He asked her about the contents.<br />
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"When we were to be married," she said, "my grandmother told me the secret of a happy marriage was to never argue. She told me that if I ever got angry with you, I should just keep quiet and crochet a doll."<br />
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The little old man was so moved; he had to fight back tears. Only two precious dolls were in the box. He thought she had only been angry with him twice in all those years of living and loving.<br />
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He almost burst with happiness. "Honey," he said, "that explains the dolls, but what about all of this money? Where did it come from?"<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-GjJWHqeOYfY/TrFfmhONfeI/AAAAAAAACqQ/p9aQeuJgnFc/s1600/2011-11-02%2BOld%2BWoman.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="320" width="230" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-GjJWHqeOYfY/TrFfmhONfeI/AAAAAAAACqQ/p9aQeuJgnFc/s320/2011-11-02%2BOld%2BWoman.jpg" /></a></div><br />
"Oh," she said, "that's what I made from selling the dolls."<br />
<br />
A Prayer...<br />
<br />
Dear Lord, I pray for Wisdom to understand my man;<br />
Love to forgive him;<br />
And Patience for his moods;<br />
Because Lord, if I pray for Strength,<br />
I'll beat the daylights out of him, because I don't know how to crochet.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3365419970687845785.post-28895154648457033802011-11-03T10:22:00.000-05:002011-11-03T10:22:53.129-05:0013 Reasons to Come to the EWW Holiday Party!Happy Thursday! In honor of today, I figured I would do a list of 13 reasons why you should come to the third annual EWW Holiday Party. It's a not-to-be-missed event, sure to finish off the year in style!<br />
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1. It's the Third Annual Evanston Writers Workshop Holiday Party! You've seen the rest, now come to the best! We are the one and only, doing battle for writers since 2007! <br />
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2. You can party with all your writer friends, who don't look at you funny when you want to discuss past participles in public.<br />
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3. It's a Murder Mystery! You've heard about them, and now you get to come to one! Put on your Sherlock Holmes hat and follow those clues!<br />
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4. Debbie and I will cry if you don't come.<br />
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5. No, really. :)<br />
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6. You'll be able to have an old war story about the party when it's all said and done!<br />
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7. You get to find out what's in the goody bags!<br />
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8. We'll have some really good food for everyone!<br />
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9. We'll even do an awards ceremony for all EWW folks who come. Come find out what award YOU will be given! (Best Punster, Best Mustache, Best Puzzler...)<br />
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10. For all you NaNoWriters out there, come and de-stress after the full month of writing your a** off!<br />
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11. Generate fodder for your next superstar story. Even better if you write creative non-fiction - after all, truth is stranger than fiction!<br />
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12. You can say, "I was there!"<br />
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13. And the best reason of all for coming to the holiday party? TO HAVE A GREAT TIME, EWW-STYLE!!!<br />
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<a href="http://www.meetup.com/evanstonwriters/events/36027732/" target="_blank">Register</a> today!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3365419970687845785.post-65943657690593529862011-10-27T23:21:00.000-05:002011-10-27T23:21:00.355-05:00Thursday 13 Shows I love to watch.<ol>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Castle ( ABC) - I think Nathan Fillon is awesome and I believe Richard Castle is an ancestor of Malcolm Reynolds. The humor is similar between the characters</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Body of Proof (ABC) -I'm not sure why I love this show but I seem to be on a crime spree lately - showwise that is.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Unforgettable (CBS) - This is about a detective with </span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/wiki/Hyperthymesia" title="Hyperthymesia"><span style="color: #0645ad; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">hyperthymesia</span></a><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">, also called Superior Autobiographical Memory. Mary Lou Henner has this ability and is listed in the credits. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">CSI ( CBS) - I'm really enjoying Ted Danson this season.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The Secret Circle (Thursdays CW) - I'm not sure what drew me to this teen focused paranormal show but so far I like it. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The Mentalist (CBS) - I was really hoping Red John was dead.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Supernatural (CW) - I was a late starter into this show and began watching the third season. I started buying the DVD's and am pretty much in it for the life of the show. I was really hoping there was be a Wild West Spin-off giving the history of the relics, hunters, etc. but alas no. :(</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Amazing Race (CBS)- One of my favorite reality shows. I love the weekly locales and places they visit. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Sons of Anarchy (FX) - Once again I began watching this series in it's third season on Hulu. Got the husband addicted to it. Went back and bought seasons 1&2. Looks like Hulu won't be airing any more FX episodes though. I guess I'll have to wait for season 4 on DVD. Ugh!</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Swamp People (History Channel) - The Alligator Hunting season is over but this one is an addiction at my house. The whole family roots for their swampers.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Ax Men (History Channel) - My husband got me into this one in the Swamp People off-season. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Psych (TBS) - I checked out seasons 1&2 from the library and now I'm hooked. This comedic version of the Metalist reminds me of '80's style TV mysteries (Murder she wrote, Matlock, etc.). I love looking for the pineapples (or references) in the episodes.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Grimm (NBC) - okay it's not out yet (October 28th) but I'm so looking forward to this show, I just know I'll love it.</span></li>
</ol>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3365419970687845785.post-89216680204058491382011-10-24T00:00:00.002-05:002011-10-24T00:00:08.120-05:00Editing for Passive Voice<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><strong>Editing for Passive Voice by Ross Martinek</strong></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Use the table below to find passive voice in your work. If you do this exercise for ten chapters, you will find yourself spotting and eliminating passive voice as you write. The instructions are for MS Word 2011 (2010 on Windows, IIRC), but should be similar in earlier versions. I use this and it works. I wrote scientific works for over forty years, where passive voice is nearly required, rather than tolerated.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The definition of passive voice (from grammardivas.com, an excellent grammar reference site):</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">“A passive voice sentence will always have:</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">1. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>a form of “to be” + past participle for the verb (was called, will be thrown)</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">2. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>subject of the sentence receives action rather than doing the action</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">3. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>doer of action (if stated) is in a prepositional phrase beginning with by (or to).”</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Memorizing this will help, but the instructions below work better.</span></span></div><br />
<table border="1" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="MsoNormalTable" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-collapse: collapse; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-insideh: .5pt solid windowtext; mso-border-insidev: .5pt solid windowtext; mso-padding-alt: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-table-layout-alt: fixed; mso-yfti-tbllook: 1184;"><tbody>
<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 0;"><td rowspan="2" style="background-color: transparent; border-bottom: windowtext 1pt solid; border-left: windowtext 1pt solid; border-right: windowtext 1pt solid; border-top: windowtext 1pt solid; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding-bottom: 0in; padding-left: 5.4pt; padding-right: 5.4pt; padding-top: 0in; width: 279.9pt;" width="373"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Target words for passive voice</span></span></div></td><td colspan="10" style="background-color: transparent; border-bottom: windowtext 1pt solid; border-left: #f0f0f0; border-right: windowtext 1pt solid; border-top: windowtext 1pt solid; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding-bottom: 0in; padding-left: 5.4pt; padding-right: 5.4pt; padding-top: 0in; width: 189pt;" valign="top" width="252"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Chapter</span></span></div></td></tr>
<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 1;"><td style="background-color: transparent; border-bottom: windowtext 1pt solid; border-left: #f0f0f0; border-right: windowtext 1pt solid; border-top: #f0f0f0; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding-bottom: 0in; padding-left: 5.4pt; padding-right: 5.4pt; padding-top: 0in; width: 0.25in;" valign="top" width="24"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">11</span></span></div></td><td style="background-color: transparent; border-bottom: windowtext 1pt solid; border-left: #f0f0f0; border-right: windowtext 1pt solid; border-top: #f0f0f0; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding-bottom: 0in; padding-left: 5.4pt; padding-right: 5.4pt; padding-top: 0in; width: 0.25in;" valign="top" width="24"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">22</span></span></div></td><td style="background-color: transparent; border-bottom: windowtext 1pt solid; border-left: #f0f0f0; border-right: windowtext 1pt solid; border-top: #f0f0f0; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding-bottom: 0in; padding-left: 5.4pt; padding-right: 5.4pt; padding-top: 0in; width: 0.25in;" valign="top" width="24"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">33</span></span></div></td><td style="background-color: transparent; border-bottom: windowtext 1pt solid; border-left: #f0f0f0; border-right: windowtext 1pt solid; border-top: #f0f0f0; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding-bottom: 0in; padding-left: 5.4pt; padding-right: 5.4pt; padding-top: 0in; width: 0.25in;" valign="top" width="24"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">44</span></span></div></td><td style="background-color: transparent; border-bottom: windowtext 1pt solid; border-left: #f0f0f0; border-right: windowtext 1pt solid; border-top: #f0f0f0; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding-bottom: 0in; padding-left: 5.4pt; padding-right: 5.4pt; padding-top: 0in; width: 0.25in;" valign="top" width="24"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">55</span></span></div></td><td style="background-color: transparent; border-bottom: windowtext 1pt solid; border-left: #f0f0f0; border-right: windowtext 1pt solid; border-top: #f0f0f0; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding-bottom: 0in; padding-left: 5.4pt; padding-right: 5.4pt; padding-top: 0in; width: 0.25in;" valign="top" width="24"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">66</span></span></div></td><td style="background-color: transparent; border-bottom: windowtext 1pt solid; border-left: #f0f0f0; border-right: windowtext 1pt solid; border-top: #f0f0f0; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding-bottom: 0in; padding-left: 5.4pt; padding-right: 5.4pt; padding-top: 0in; width: 0.25in;" valign="top" width="24"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">77</span></span></div></td><td style="background-color: transparent; border-bottom: windowtext 1pt solid; border-left: #f0f0f0; border-right: windowtext 1pt solid; border-top: #f0f0f0; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding-bottom: 0in; padding-left: 5.4pt; padding-right: 5.4pt; padding-top: 0in; width: 0.25in;" valign="top" width="24"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">88</span></span></div></td><td style="background-color: transparent; border-bottom: windowtext 1pt solid; border-left: #f0f0f0; border-right: windowtext 1pt solid; border-top: #f0f0f0; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding-bottom: 0in; padding-left: 5.4pt; padding-right: 5.4pt; padding-top: 0in; width: 0.25in;" valign="top" width="24"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">99</span></span></div></td><td style="background-color: transparent; border-bottom: windowtext 1pt solid; border-left: #f0f0f0; border-right: windowtext 1pt solid; border-top: #f0f0f0; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding-bottom: 0in; padding-left: 5.4pt; padding-right: 5.4pt; padding-top: 0in; width: 27pt;" valign="top" width="36"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">110</span></span></div></td></tr>
<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 2; mso-yfti-lastrow: yes;"><td style="background-color: transparent; border-bottom: windowtext 1pt solid; border-left: windowtext 1pt solid; border-right: windowtext 1pt solid; border-top: #f0f0f0; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding-bottom: 0in; padding-left: 5.4pt; padding-right: 5.4pt; padding-top: 0in; width: 279.9pt;" valign="top" width="373"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">had/have/was/ were/been/be/by/to /could/would/should/</span></span></div></td><td style="background-color: transparent; border-bottom: windowtext 1pt solid; border-left: #f0f0f0; border-right: windowtext 1pt solid; border-top: #f0f0f0; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding-bottom: 0in; padding-left: 5.4pt; padding-right: 5.4pt; padding-top: 0in; width: 0.25in;" valign="top" width="24"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt;"><br />
</div></td><td style="background-color: transparent; border-bottom: windowtext 1pt solid; border-left: #f0f0f0; border-right: windowtext 1pt solid; border-top: #f0f0f0; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding-bottom: 0in; padding-left: 5.4pt; padding-right: 5.4pt; padding-top: 0in; width: 0.25in;" valign="top" width="24"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt;"><br />
</div></td><td style="background-color: transparent; border-bottom: windowtext 1pt solid; border-left: #f0f0f0; border-right: windowtext 1pt solid; border-top: #f0f0f0; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding-bottom: 0in; padding-left: 5.4pt; padding-right: 5.4pt; padding-top: 0in; width: 0.25in;" valign="top" width="24"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt;"><br />
</div></td><td style="background-color: transparent; border-bottom: windowtext 1pt solid; border-left: #f0f0f0; border-right: windowtext 1pt solid; border-top: #f0f0f0; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding-bottom: 0in; padding-left: 5.4pt; padding-right: 5.4pt; padding-top: 0in; width: 0.25in;" valign="top" width="24"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt;"><br />
</div></td><td style="background-color: transparent; border-bottom: windowtext 1pt solid; border-left: #f0f0f0; border-right: windowtext 1pt solid; border-top: #f0f0f0; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding-bottom: 0in; padding-left: 5.4pt; padding-right: 5.4pt; padding-top: 0in; width: 0.25in;" valign="top" width="24"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt;"><br />
</div></td><td style="background-color: transparent; border-bottom: windowtext 1pt solid; border-left: #f0f0f0; border-right: windowtext 1pt solid; border-top: #f0f0f0; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding-bottom: 0in; padding-left: 5.4pt; padding-right: 5.4pt; padding-top: 0in; width: 0.25in;" valign="top" width="24"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt;"><br />
</div></td><td style="background-color: transparent; border-bottom: windowtext 1pt solid; border-left: #f0f0f0; border-right: windowtext 1pt solid; border-top: #f0f0f0; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding-bottom: 0in; padding-left: 5.4pt; padding-right: 5.4pt; padding-top: 0in; width: 0.25in;" valign="top" width="24"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt;"><br />
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</tbody></table><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Turn off Track Changes</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Open Advanced Find</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Type target word (one at a time) in search box</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Select “Find whole words”</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Select “Highlight all items”</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Click Find</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Click Title Bar of document.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Click highlight color (something you can read through)</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Repeat as desired.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Turn on Track Changes</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Edit and review</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Turn off Track Changes</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Advanced Find: Clear find box and any other search criteria check boxes</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Select Highlight under the Format drop down</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Select Highlight all items</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Click find</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Click Title Bar of Document</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Select None in the highlight color dropdown menu.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">*The MS Word grammar checker is essentially useless except for three things: passive voice, cliché, and colloquialisms. After you think you’ve found all the passive voice in your document, try the following.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Open Word Preferences.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Click on Spelling and Grammar</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">In the Grammar section, clear all check boxes except “Show readability statistics.”</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">In the Grammar section, click on the pull down for Writing style and select “Custom.”</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Click the “Settings…” button next to that pull down.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Clear all check boxes except “Passive sentences,” “Clichés,” “Colloquialisms,” and “Sentence length.”</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Click the “Okay” button to close the dialog.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">NOTE: If you have previously checked either grammar or spelling, you must click the “Recheck Document” button or Word will ignore everything you want it to find! You must do this every time you want to check the document for these things.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Click the “Okay” button to close the preferences window.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Turn on “Track changes” and have at it.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Remember that not all passive sentences are bad. Sometimes they are necessary. More often, they are not.</span></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3365419970687845785.post-10720179210530135582011-10-18T00:01:00.001-05:002011-10-18T14:32:57.814-05:00Tuesday Review: RingerSarah Michelle Gellar’s new project, <i><a href="http://www.cwtv.com/shows/ringer" target="_blank">Ringer</a></i>, has been picked up by the CW network for a full season. I’m sure fans of Sarah’s are overjoyed, because she’s an excellent actress - smart, pretty, and fun.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/7SCaB09ER9I?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><br />
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I saw the series opener and was disappointed. I felt little sympathy for the main character, a former addict with six months’ sobriety. She visits her twin sister to make amends as part of her journey to sobriety, and the sister seems to forgive her. They go out on her sister’s boat and our main character falls asleep.<br />
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That’s when it gets weird.<br />
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When she wakes up, there’s a bottle of sleeping pills with only her sister’s wedding ring inside. The sister is gone, presumably having committed suicide over the side of the boat. Our main character then goes back to shore and does what any good Samaritan would do:<br />
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She assumes her twin’s identity.<br />
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See, that’s where I have trouble with it. I know we’re supposed to be sympathetic to her, because she’s kind to the husband and nice to the friend, breaks up with the man her sister had an affair with, etc. etc. But I just can’t get over the idea that someone would blithely take over their sibling’s life, live in their marriage bed and continue their friendships, with nary a twinge of ethical remorse.<br />
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I might watch a couple more episodes, because a good series sometimes takes awhile to find its footing. But for right now, I say two thumbs down.<br />
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Have you seen it? What do you think? Tell us, in comments!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3365419970687845785.post-68006029386162081382011-10-06T11:46:00.002-05:002011-10-06T13:16:39.648-05:00Thursday 13 October 6, 2011 - Why I shouldn't be at work today<ol><li>I need to write. My WIP is staring at me unforgivingly as if to say, "I'm more important than eating or health insurance"</li><li>My Physical health. Now which is healthier, sitting behind a computer under flourescent lighting or doing laps in the swimming pool? Need I say more?</li><li>My Mental health. I pet my computer today!</li><li>We are having unusually beautiful weather in Chicago for October and I'm hermetically sealed 17 stories up with no windows.</li><li>I need to be planning my fun and festive halloween party.</li><li>Nothing fun for lunch today.</li><li>Have a list at home of at least 12 phone calls I need to make.</li><li>I could be tweeting.I have 30 followers yay!</li><li>I am mourning the loss of Steve Jobs.</li><li>I need toothpicks to keep my eyes open. </li><li>My doggies are at home missing me.</li><li>There are people in the office hacking and sneezing and I can feel the germs trying to get in.</li><li>I'm at work writing my Thursday 13 instead of actually working</li></ol>Debbie Fligelmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14253257712266950976noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3365419970687845785.post-373413806590596312011-10-05T00:30:00.004-05:002011-10-05T00:30:01.868-05:00Interview with an Evie Winner - Renee Yates<em><span style="color: #6aa84f; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Welcome to the first interview with one of our 2011 Evie Winners - Renee Yates who won in the Fiction Category. Renee pitched at the Evanston Writer's Workshop Conference and received a contract. Please join me in welcoming Renee Yates!</span></em><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><em><span style="color: #6aa84f;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Renee, I want to first congratulate you on your contract with Whispers Publishing!</span></span></em></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><em><span style="color: #6aa84f; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Can you tell us a little bit about the book contracted ?</span></em></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"></span><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The title of the book is The White Nightgown.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is a story about a thirty-six-year-old African-American woman, Michelle, who marries a Jewish man, David, and their difficult relationships with his mother.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I'm told that it is scheduled to be released early next year (2012), perhaps February.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But that's tentative right now.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><em><span style="color: #6aa84f;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Did your publisher say what they liked about your piece?</span></span></em></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Yes, Jessica Damien, my editor at Whispers Publishing put it this way:</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">"The White Nightgown grips the heart in a tear-jerking squeeze as the reader delves into the pathos, depression, and the despairing emotions of the characters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The gritty, down-to-earth reality of the story begs the hope of a happy ending, and one can't put down the book until the end.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">This is the sort of story a lot of publishers seem afraid to publish, but it fits in well with Whispers' new search for a broader range of plot devices.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are looking forward to extending our readership with stories like this, which bravely go beyond the typical."</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><em><span style="color: #6aa84f;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">You won the Evanston Writers Contest with a different story.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What was your inspiration for the Evie winning short story, “The Easter Outfit.”</span></span></em></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">"The Easter Outfit" was inspired by memories of how exciting it was for me to get a new outfit every year for Easter when I was a child; and a disturbing experience I had with a neighbor around age eight or nine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even though the story was inspired by personal, unconnected events, it is pure fiction.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em><span style="color: #6aa84f;">Do you have any writing rituals that you follow on a regular basis?</span></em> </span></span></div><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Not really.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even though I actually began writing in the late 1980s, I still think of myself as a new writer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m still trying to figure out what type of rituals or schedule will work for me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Right now, I just write when characters speak to me or when ideas occur to me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That can happen at any moment because the people and events that occur throughout my daily activities often inspire ideas and character thoughts. However, lately, I found that regular meditation and Yoga helps to keep my mind open to ideas.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">My Macbook and a smart phone with a Notes application and a voice recorder.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em><span style="color: #6aa84f;">If you could only answer one question, what would it be, and how would you answer?</span></em> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The question:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What is the key to true happiness?</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The answer:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mindfulness</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><em><span style="color: #6aa84f;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Dark or milk chocolate?</span></span></em></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Both.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><em><span style="color: #6aa84f;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Coffee or tea?</span></span></em></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Both.</span></span></div><em><span style="color: #6aa84f; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Thanks Renee for taking the time to interview with ShopNotes. Keep us posted on your career as we'd love to hear how things are going for one of our first Evie winners. </span></em><br />
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<em><span style="color: #6aa84f;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">If you would like to interview for ShopNotes please contact me at </span><a href="mailto:tina@evanstonwritersworkshop.org"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">tina@evanstonwritersworkshop.org</span></a><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">.</span></span></em><br />
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<em><span style="color: #6aa84f; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Tina</span></em><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em><span style="color: #6aa84f;">Editor in Chief</span></em> </span></span><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em><span style="color: #6aa84f;">What are your must-have writing tools?</span></em> </span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3365419970687845785.post-51783546720711585832011-10-03T00:30:00.000-05:002011-10-02T15:47:01.326-05:00Spine Chilling: Mass-market retailing changed publishing before the e-book<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Interesting article published by the Economist: </span><br />
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<a href="http://www.economist.com/node/21528641"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">http://www.economist.com/node/21528641</span></a><br />
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TinaUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3365419970687845785.post-77741243198910800882011-10-01T00:01:00.002-05:002011-10-07T11:03:41.318-05:00Silly Saturday!Here are<a href="http://www.cracked.com/blog/8-words-internet-loves-to-confuse-with-other-words/"> </a><a href="http://www.cracked.com/blog/8-words-internet-loves-to-confuse-with-other-words/">8 words that the internet loves to confuse</a>. (Just don't be drinking anything while you're reading, or you'll risk choking.) <br /><br />Enjoy!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3365419970687845785.post-60480450033890041472011-09-24T00:04:00.004-05:002011-09-24T00:04:00.939-05:00Silly Saturday!<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I ran across this video recently and liked the premise...okay I admit it. I love Seth Green and he tweeted about it. :)</span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><object width="320" height="266" class="BLOGGER-youtube-video" classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0" data-thumbnail-src="http://1.gvt0.com/vi/_eJmYKN_1QE/0.jpg"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/_eJmYKN_1QE&fs=1&source=uds" /><param name="bgcolor" value="#FFFFFF" /><embed width="320" height="266" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/_eJmYKN_1QE&fs=1&source=uds" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"></embed></object></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Remember, if you have anything you'd like to post for Silly Saturday send it to <a href="mailto:tina@evanstonwritersworkshop.org">tina@evanstonwritersworkshop.org</a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Tina</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="http://www.tinaholland.com/">http://www.tinaholland.com/</a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3365419970687845785.post-83799523476307368422011-09-17T00:00:00.004-05:002011-09-17T00:00:06.368-05:00Silly Saturday!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/w0ffwDYo00Q?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Another great video I found on YouTube, anyone with cats can probably relate to this.</span> <br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Please feel free to send in your silly letters, videos, etc for silly saturday by e-mailing me at </span><a href="mailto:tina@evanstonwritersworkshop.org"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">tina@evanstonwritersworkshop.org</span></a><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"> and I'll gladly put them in the queue.</span> <br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Tina</span><br />
<a href="http://www.tinaholland.com/"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">www.tinaholland.com</span></a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3365419970687845785.post-34678333447547205302011-09-16T11:21:00.000-05:002011-09-16T11:21:04.287-05:00Friday Flash Focus - "Dr. Ho, The Hawaiian Dr. Who" by Mark HudsonOur offering this week for our Friday Flash Focus series is by author Mark Hudson, who is becoming a regular contributor to our series. We're pleased to bring him back this week with a Science Fiction themed piece entitled "Dr. Ho, The Hawaiian Dr. Who." We hope you enjoy!<br />
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Dr. Robert Ho had just got back from a luau in 15th century Hawaii with his granddaughter, Lindsay Ho. He traveled with his time machine, a palm tree. He was just in time to try and stop Aloha Technology, the evil robotics company that was taking over the Hawaiian Islands, from coming to fruition. The company had been inherited by a bratty 8-year old kid, who showed up to work in a suit and tie, but made the corporation show up to work in their pajamas.<br />
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Dr. Ho showed up incognito as one of the cooks. He planned to spy on little Kaopele Mahiki, the 8-year old boy who was part Hawaiian boy, and part Irish boy. And rumor had it that they’d been doing mechanical surgery so that he’d become a robot. But nobody could quite figure that out either. We join Dr. Ho As he lingers in the kitchen, preparing a bowl of Captain Crunch cereal to bring to His Highness.<br />
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Dr. Ho walked to Kaopele Mahiki and presented the kid with the cereal. “Not sugary enough,” the boy stated.<a name='more'></a><br />
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“You are so spoiled,” stated Dr. Ho, giving the boy a kick in the butt in a true W.C Fields fashion.<br />
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“Guards…Take this cook away. To the dungeons with him!” <br />
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Dr. Ho was led to a dungeon beneath the mansion. Meanwhile, upstairs, the boy was about to start his corporate meeting. <br />
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A man spoke. “Sir, what shall we do about the Snake problem in Hawaii?<br />
<br />
“What problem?” the boy president said, munching on a candy bar. “If people want to have pet snakes, let them have pet snakes.”<br />
<br />
“But aren’t they ruining our ecosystem?”<br />
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“So? For that, you get a pay cut. Don’t disrupt my plans for Hawaii. Meeting dismissed.”<br />
<br />
The crowd began to disperse. “Oh, Jenkins. I’d like to have a word with you. Would you like to do some putting over the weekend?”<br />
<br />
“Pouting?”<br />
<br />
“No, putting on a golf course, you idiot! Just for that, you are fired. You’ve got twenty minutes to leave.”<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, down in the dungeon, Dr. Ho had installed a secret labyrinth of extra powerful tape recorders and video equipment to catch the boy in continuing his father’s evil practices, dating back to the 1500’s when they sacrificed virgins to the volcano gods. Dr. Ho knew this young whippersnapper was going to have to give up the company, and Dr. Ho could prevent Hawaii from disintegrating.<br />
<br />
Just as Dr. Ho, thought his plan was going to work, a giant deadly boa constrictor slithered through a hole in the wall, preparing to bite Dr. Ho. Could this be the end of Dr. Ho? Tune in next time!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3365419970687845785.post-71222919750981219642011-09-12T02:24:00.001-05:002011-09-12T02:24:00.375-05:00Don't Mess with Texas<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Apparently Texas is suing an author over the title of her book. I'm very interested to see how this lawsuit will play out as it refers to registered trademarks and will effect many of us should we reference a character drinking a can of Coke. Oops I think I did that. :) </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Here's a link to the original article:</span><br />
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<a href="http://blogs.houstonpress.com/hairballs/2011/08/txdot_romance_novel_porn.php"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">http://blogs.houstonpress.com/hairballs/2011/08/txdot_romance_novel_porn.php</span></a><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Thoughts?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Tina</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><a href="http://www.tinaholland.com/">http://www.tinaholland.com/</a></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0