Written Right: a writer's guide to more than writing

Post moved:
http://averagegirl.rainbowofwords.com/2007/02/18/hot-wax/

This has got to be the oddest proposal that has come across my desk. And, to top it all off, it has all the senior editors excited. Everyone seems to think this is going to be THE article to get our serious magazine the recognition it deserves.

Who do they think they're kidding? If we want to stand tall alongside Weekly World News, then go for it. But I'm thinking, "not so much."

A very respected journalist submitted this proposal. It would be an in-depth series profiling Satanists in high-powered jobs with the Fortune 500.

All together now. Are they serious?

I did it. Despite all the seemingly great dates I've been on lately, I'm fed up with the pool of men directly available to me on a daily basis. So, I started looking for dates online. I found a couple of the sites that you see advertised on TV all the time and even paid for one of them. You know what? You still have to wade through all the usual suspects.

So, when I found a new free dating site I jumped at it. It's the same people who are signed up on the pay sites and I didn't have to dust off my credit card! I've actually explored one or two other free dating sites, but Just Say Hi has more features and a cool interface.

Post moved:
http://averagegirl.rainbowofwords.com/2007/02/17/cnns-rick-sanchez-is-a-hack-journalist/

I'm ok. Just some minor brusing to my bunky, ... and my ego.

Libraries have always been a sensual place for me. Each book unleashes a hidden world of history, suspense, prose and verse. I get misty just thinking about it. In highschool I would steal away to learn about the birds and the bees in the human sexuality section. In college I would steal away with my favorite basketball player for a little human sexuality session. College led me to greater depths of knowledge amongst the Chemistry Today and the Natural History periodicals.

My last rip to the library to look for my favorite "Elizabethan play" was a trip to remember. Of course, the book I needed was on the top of a twelve-foot shelf. Just like me to wear my pretty mini skirt and my high heels to climb the ladder of success.

Climb,Climb,Climb

Reach, Reach, Reach

Stretch, Stretch, Stretch

Can you guess what happened next? Yep, that hot actor from my building. Standing just below my ladder. Looking up. My face red. Knees shaking.

I fell. Yes, you heard me. I fell right off the ladder. In front of said hot guy.

I'm not sure my self-esteem will ever be the same. I have been trying to find a way to meet this guy, but crashing into him from above, whacking him in the haed with a dusty book and ending the whole thing with a call to 911 was not what I had planned.

Stay tuned for the rest of the stroy.

Would you even believe that I have not sent out my Christmas cards yet? I ordered them and have stamps and my list, but someohe they just escaped me and I have yet to send them.

So, is it just not even worth sending them now? Do I call it a wash and ditch the custom cards I had made. Would I look the fool to send them now? Help. I need some input.

Would you believe that I put off reading this book until just last week. I have also never seen the movie. A co-worker finally talked me into reading it for a good gafaw.

Highly entertainly. Nicely paced. And, completely unrealistic. That would have had to have been the most extreme of cases. My office, which is still be remain unnamed, is really nothing quite like that.

Of course, my magazine is not about fashion. Thank God. We're a lot more newsworthy and sadly, not so blessed with swag and samples. *sigh*

You know the one. The boy I've had a crush on off and on since elementary school? I kissed that beautiful boy. Sure wish he were going to be in town longer. He has some potetial job situations here and maybe -- just maybe -- I can get him to forget about the West Coast and start anew here. ;)

I should have taken the time to post this earlier. I watched Liev Schreiber on CSI Thursday on CBS. He was brilliant. I love his character. He is bringing some shadow and intrigue to the show.

I looked on the discussion forums CBS put up and a lot of diehard fans are all up in arms. First of all, most had no idea whatsoever that William Petersen was only leaving for a short break to do some theater. They thought Grissom was gone for good and it was as if someone had called for a mass suicide and the lemmings came running. Wow. What nutjobs.

You can bet I'll keep watching. Not only did Liev look HOT, but he was wry and sly. I love that combo in a man.

I've been watching CBS's The Class and I really do like the minor character of Perry Pearl played by Sam Harris. He seemed so familiar and all of the sudden it just popped back into my head that he's the guy that made the massice splash back in the 80s on Star Search. He sang his version of Somewhere Over the Rainbow over and over, episode after episode. I remember being totally into his performance and so was the rest of my family.

Holy cow. I guess I thought he had just dropped off the face of the earth. I looked at his website and was happy to see that he's not only still alive, but kicking in a big way. He's been busy performing.

Some of the sheer tripe that makes it through a publishing house's filters is amazing. If you know someone, or someone who knows someone, then you are going to get read. If you are just flat out talented, but unrepresented and unconnected, you can pretty much forget ever really making it as an author. It's all a giant game of politics and bum-patting. Seriously. I WORK in publishing and see it first hand. I work for a very large, very important house. None the less, I see all around me how it is less about finding talent than netting the next big paycheck or social coup.

You want to know something that I’ve come to realize lately? In the past month it has occurred to me that I spend so much time trying to be aloof. I plan it, I ponder it. I actually put effort into it. Aloof is not one of my natural talents. I’m really no good at it when left to my own instincts. I have to put such forethought into it. This whole cool exterior thing is just not me. I’m thinking of giving it up for a late New Year’s resolution or something. Let me know what you think.

Spring is in the air. At least in my apartment. When I typed that I was actually singing the tune from the Target commercial, or Old Navy or whateverthehell that commercial is with the lime green colors and super-smiley teens.

Anywho...I am feeling lovely all around. It's kind of like the way you start to feel when the first breath of Spring hits the air. It's still winter here, of course, but we've had some pretty stupendous weather and I honestly feel happier, lighter, and more full of ambition when the days are like this and and the air becomes fragrant. Now, granted, the air near my apartment building is not all that great. It's nothing like my cousin's porch down in Florida which is probably bursting with fresh jasmine blossoms right about now. In fact, the best thing about the air near my building is when the scent of dryer sheets wafts of the vents from the basement. Eau de Snuggle.

But, I digress.

Somewhere along the line, somewhere between logging onto my blog and actually beginning this entry, I lost my focus. What's new with that, you ask?

I have no idea.

None the less, what I really came in to write about is the date I am getting ready to go on this very minute. Yes, a date. Me, Lin, on a date. It took a while, but I finally broke one of my new little promises. I'm dating again. And, oh the glory of it all!

Sometime last week I received an interesting e-mail. It was from an old school friend I had known since 3rd grade...all the way up to graduation from High School. Now, I am not going to reveal to you how many years it has been since my graduation from HS, because I would so very spoil the myth many of you may nurture in your minds about how old I am and what I might really be like in my world.

So, this e-mail was basically one of those, "hey Lin! How have you been? Is this really you? I stumbled on your blog today and I just KNOW this is you? Let's catch up."

I was thrilled, to say the least. This guys is lovely lovely lovely. I have no idea why I never got more aggressive about him in school. I dated all sorts of other guys, but never him. I had a *feeling* that this contact had been made with a motive in mind and I was more than willing to feed the motive for all it was worth.

Long story short, he lives on the other coast, but he is in town for a meeting or two and we are having dinner tonight. Will I kiss on the first date? You bet your favorite pair of argyle socks I'm kissing this beautiful boy, I'm kissing him good!

Off to find the right shoes. I'll fill you in later.

I know I'm just wondering the same thing most other people are wondering. Is it that there is an actual sudden, dramitic increase in women teachers having sex with their male students, or is it just coming into the light and being talked about and reported on more often now?

In fact, you hear more about female teachers sleeping with male students than you do about male teachers and female students lately. Another case in the news:
http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/10731375/detail.html?subid=22100484&qs=1;bp=t

This woman is very newly divorced. Maybe some threads of logic might be woven into a reasonable excuse for why she would sleep with a 17-year-old student. He's almost legal, you know? BUT, you have to remember that she slept with said student while physically in the same hotel room as her sleeping babysitter and her two children. ICK. Ick. ick. ICK! No logic in that move, sister. She is suffering from something mental, something off-kilter and most certainly firmly in the realm of EW!

I'm sure her recent divorce has put her into a state of mind that only another divorced woman can understand. She is a single-mom now. She is frightened, lonely and questioning her self-worth. But a student!? And, in the same room as her kids?

I'm taking bets that the Daddy will get full custody. And soon. I'm not sure I really fall in with the concept that the male student (at 17) was sexually abused. I feel confident in saying that the kid is old enough to make his own sexual decisions and his actions were his own when he snuck out of the hotel he and his football team mates were staying in and went to find the hotel room of his English teacher. BUT, her two children are 4 and 8. I'd even have reservations about a married couple having sex in the same hotel room as their own children if they were on vacation. She chose to bring a non-related male into the room and have sexual relations with him while her children were sleeping a mere few feet away.

And think about children who are 4 and 8. Do you really think they actually slept through it? Most 17-year-old boys don't have the slef-control to surpress a fart, little less gross teenage-boy sex noises.

OK, I have to go shower. I feel unclean now.

I wanted to draw some attention the upcoming Vagina Festival http://www.vaginafestival.com/

The Vagina Festival is all about raising awareness about violence against women. As stated on the website, "at least one out of every three women around the world has been beaten, coerced into sex, or otherwise abused in her lifetime — with the abuser usually someone known to her."

They'll have speakers, dancers, musicians, singers, performance art, and more. A presentation of VAGINA MONOLOGUES is also planned.

If you are anywhere that is even halfway reasonably close to NYC, please particiapte.

FEB, 16-18, 2007
at
AGNI GALLERY
170 EAST 2ND STREET, NYC 10009
between Avenue A & BNearest subway: F, V at Houston

One of my very most favorite City dwellers is the actor Liev Schreiber. I have seen him is oh-so-many stage performances, run into him on several occasions and enjoy his films. I have been anxiously awaiting the arrival of his new character, Mike Keppler, on CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. His episodes begin this month. Yay!

There has been a flurry of press about his upcoming role, but for some reason when a very small blurb hit the press where Liev is quoted talking about having had sex in public, the mob scene goes ballistic! "News" outlets who have uttered his name in the past are hot to pass on this bit of timely gossip.

Ick. Who cares? Why is this more news-worthy to most people than his upcoming CSI role or the soon-to-open "Talk Radio" on Broadway, ...in which he stars? Seems that more people are all agog to speculate if said sexy romp was with lovely girlfriend Naomi Watts. If it was, then isn;t that kinda sorta a little bit private? If it's not Naomi of which he speaks, does she really nned to open her morning paper to have to read about that fateful day on the Staten Island Ferry?

http://www.lievschreiber.org

I have been made full editor!

I am dancing around as I type this! I am going to be full editor of my department. I'll keep that department name secret, so as to make sure my identity is not rooted out. I know there seems to be a sport in the City where bloggers try to root out fellow bloggers, expose them to the world and get them in a pickle when they reveal too much juicy info.

Too good to be true. Yes, Indeed. Much too good. I can hardly breath!

I missed this Winter Soltice party my co-worker was begging me to attend. I think I skipped out because the cute guy in the apartment upstairs walked by my door that night and heard the moody/sexy/pitiful music I was playing and lingered next to my cracked-open front door and felt compelled to come inside and find me sitting oh-so-seductively in my college-sweatshirt and thermal long underwear. I dunno. Maybe I made that up and really just forgot to go and only realized after I had spent a night sitting home alone eating onions and old cheese on seeded-rye while watching the special edition Pretty In Pink DVD.

Anyway, I heard they are planning another party for February.
Shadowlands
http://www.myspace.com/nycdarkevents

Uh, yep. They handed out the pinkslips today as easily as Wanda, the department receptionist, handed out her leftover candycanes. As predicted by yours truely, I'm sitting pretty in my current position and three levels of boss-folk are packing their offices into sad, little filing boxes. You'd think they would have had their ears to the vine and thought ahead enough to have their packing doen before the holidays. You know, avoid all the red-faced antics and not have to go around pretending they don't know we're all watching their every mood with morbid curiosity. It's the parade of the Prada-clad walking dead. Pretty icky if you ask me.

My next adventure is learning to who I will now report to on a daily basis. Stay tuned. It HAS to get more interesting from here on out.