When Bad Movies Happen to Good People

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Meryl Streep is the gold standard. If you describe Pamela Anderson’s performance in Blonde and Blonder, and point out that “she’s no Meryl Streep,” everyone knows exactly what you mean.

And while Pierce Brosnan is no Meryl Streep either, he can certainly hold his head up when walking down Hollywood Boulevard.

So what happened when they both signed on the dotted line for Mamma Mia? Did Meryl decide that with enough emoting, it didn’t matter that she was 20 years too old for the part? Did Pierce resolve that even if he sounded off-key in the shower, when he hit the big screen, suddenly he’d be Pavarotti?

In fact, the elements were all there for a fantastic movie: a stage show that’s been seen by more than 30 million people worldwide, a cast of phenomenal actors, fun music, gorgeous locale …so what went wrong?

Rick McCallum, legendary producer of the Star Wars movies, once said, “the truth is, nobody ever sits down at a table and says ‘hey let’s make a bad movie’. No producer, director, writer says ‘God I’ve got a really great idea for a sh***y film’. It doesn’t work that way. But something in the process, something about the compromises, the timing, the studio, the phenomenal pressure that artists have to go through, causes something to go really wrong.”

That happens with books too. How often have you read a book from a favorite author and the magic is gone, the story is flat, or you don’t recognize the characters you’ve grown to love?

On the other hand… Maybe somebody (or in the case of a movie, several somebodies) just had a bad day. Ty Cobb has the highest lifetime batting average (.366), but that means that he got a hit only three out of every ten times he was at bat. Babe Ruth struck out more than 1300 times in his career.

Are we too demanding? If a good-faith effort is made is that enough? Or for $10.50, plus the cost of buttered popcorn, are we entitled to better? Or was I just too hot and tired to fully appreciate the joy of ABBA music, even if sung off-key?

What do you think?

Evelyn David

In Training

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So, after all my protestations, excuses, crying, whining, and the like, I just had my second training session with my friend, S., the personal trainer. You remember her—the one who told me that in order to lose those extra five (ten?) pounds that I’ve been wailing about incessantly, I should cut out the Chardonnay, some carbs, most of the sugar, and a host of life’s other delights. After which I banned her from my house. We have since made up (how could we not? She is without a doubt one of the kindest, most generous people I’ve ever met) and began training last week.

And now for the most surprising part: I like it.

I am as surprised as you are. Because let’s face it: I would rather sit at my desk and write , talk on the phone, and surf the Web all day than go outside to pick up the mail. I would rather have root canal, really. Talk about taking me on a two mile walk or leading me in a spirited session of a hundred crunches and I’m heading for the hills.

But all this stuff that I previously thought was gobbedly-gook like the “high” you get from exercising and the “sense of satisfaction” is all true, by golly. S., the most enthusiastic and invigorating of personal trainers, has gotten me moving again and it feels good. She checks in periodically after our work outs to find out how I’m feeling. The truth? After yesterday’s session in which she had me making sweet love to a five-pound medicine ball, I couldn’t raise my arms to cut my son’s ham sandwich. But, in her inimitably positive way, she assured me that that was “GOOD!” Because everything S. says when it comes to training is in ALL CAPS and delivered with much enthusiasm. Why? Because she has about ten training sessions per week, so she is on a constant high from all those endorphins flowing through her veins. And you can bounce a quarter off of her abdominal muscles; who wouldn’t be happy about that?

She called to check on me again this morning. I was still feeling pretty good—actually, pretty smug—about my state of being. But the muscle soreness has increased in the last several hours. Some of these muscles haven’t been worked since we played the fake Olympics in my childhood home’s backyard in 1976, so I can see why they’re protesting. But all of that soreness means that in three months time, if I keep S. in my life as a trainer and not just as a friend, those muscles may make a reappearance. And I may just look a little bit more like S. and a little less like Ernest Borgnine in “Marty.” And that is all good.

I don’t think I would have begun this training regimen had I not been bombarded with constant images of Michelle Obama in sleeveless dresses and blouses waving at the adoring voters who visit her husband’s rallies. Because the difference between me and Michelle Obama—besides the fact that my husband is not a Presidential candidate and I’m not a five foot ten gorgeous lawyer—is that when I stop waving, my arms don’t. There is a little bushel of fat right in the underarm area that says “But wait! We’re not done waving yet!” That doesn’t happen to Michelle Obama. When she stops waving, she just stops waving. Everything ceases moving. And that’s my goal.

S. is an amazing cheerleader. Yesterday, our session seemed to last ten minutes when in actuality, it was an hour. We exercised while talking about our sons (who are very good friends), our weekend, our week to come, and our love of Target. All the while, S. was telling me that I could do it, I was doing a great job, and that I only had another fifty crunches to go. (I know! If anyone makes me laugh or god forbid I have to sneeze, I’ll have to take a pain killer. And change my underwear.)

I don’t want any more junk in the trunk, I don’t want fries with my “shake,” I don’t want a “muffin top” to spill out over the waistband of my jeans. I don’t delude myself that my nearly 45-year-old body will resemble the one that I had twenty years ago but I think there’s still time to make some minor adjustments, a couple of improvements. If S. and her killer abs are any indication of what awaits me, I’m in.

Stay tuned. I might still be on that endorphin high.

Autism and Writing

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I’m not sure how many people are aware of the number of children who have been diagnosed with autism. My first introduction to autistic children was years ago when I taught in a school for child development for pre-schoolers with various developmental disabilities. We didn’t know much about autism at the time, but it was amazing how much they changed as we worked with them. No, not miraculous cures, but they tolerated us more and more and actually started to do the tasks we introduced to them.

One of my great-granddaughters had autistic tendencies and started school in special classes. Now at age 11, she’s in regular classes, does wonderfully well in mathematics, in fact, likes to solve math problems for fun. (Certainly didn’t take after me.) Only once in awhile does anything she does have an autistic quality. Here’s one: She loves track and is doing well. At one of the meets she told her dad, “I’m going to try for third.” Her dad said, “Why don’t you try for first?” “No, I’m going for third.” She is a most loving child, likes to hug and be close, something some autistic kids can’t tolerate.

We had a young teenager who attended our church from time to time who was diagnosed as autistic. He was more difficult, didn’t communicate, and some people were scared of him. There was no need to be scared–he just didn’t want to be bothered. He is now in a group home that specializes in autistic young men and doing quite well.

I helped at Vacation Bible School all week and one of the children who came was a beautiful nine-year-old girl with autism. She loved the songs and dancing that went along with them, sometimes would go on stage with the rest of her class, at other times preferred to remain in the pew. She told me she was a mermaid and then asked, “Do you believe in mermaids?” And of course I told her yes.

Now I’m going to bring this all around to writing. In one of the classes, the kids were supposed to fold paper to make a canoe, she said, “I don’t want to. Can I have a pen?” She was given a pen and wrote a story. It was a darling story about a little girl who was a mermaid–she gave her a name–and a little girl who was autistic–she gave her a name too, but it wasn’t her own. These two girls went on vacation with the family. The story ended like this, “They spent a lot of time in the bathtub.” I asked her why, and she said, “Because one of the girls was a mermaid.”

We talked about writing stories and I told her I was an author and wrote books. She was fascinated. Every time she saw me after that she said, “You’re an author, aren’t you?” “I told her she was one too.”

This child fascinated me and in particular the fact that she could write so well and had such a great imagination. I hope I’ll get to see her again some time.

If you’d like to watch a video taken when I was at the Hanford Library talking about my books, here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYf11ShLhKo I had an extremely runny nose that evening.

Marilyn
http://fictionforyou.com

Ghost Hunting

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What’s your favorite ghost story? Was it a movie? A book? A short story? A tv series? I confess I love ghost stories, especially haunted house stories. I like the creepy ones best.

Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House continues to be one of the scariest things I’ve ever read. Steven King’s The Shining comes in a close second. The television series Dark Shadows and The Night Stalker gave me rich fodder for my childhood nightmares. Movies that pulled a scream from me? These are some that I remember the best: Poltergeist, Session 9, The Sixth Sense, The Ring, The Amityville Horror, Burnt Offerings, and White Noise.

White Noise was a movie about ghosts communicating though the static “white noise” of radios and televisions that are tuned to empty stations. The movie introduced me to the concept of Electronic Voice Phenomenon (EVP). Apparently if you want to communicate with ghosts, one way is to use a tape recorder. You might not hear the ghosts talking to you, but the tape recorder will. You’ll hear them later when the tape is played back slowly and at an increased volume. I’m using the term “tape recorder” but of course everyone uses a digital recorder. Apparently ghosts don’t have a preference.

Watch Ghost Hunters on the SciFi channel and you’ll see the investigators go into a darkened room, turn on their tape recorder, and then try to provoke ghosts to answer questions they pose aloud. Usually they ask something like, “Do you want to talk to us? Do you want us to go away?” Something that only requires a short answer. You don’t want to overtax ghosts.

I enjoy watching the Ghost Hunter episodes although I have doubts that ghosts always cooperate with the show’s production schedule. They set up elaborate cameras and recording devices in an alleged ghost-filled location, spend a couple of hours, and then pack it up. I want to see someone set up camp in a haunted house for about six months with all the cameras and recorders going 24/7. That would be a great reality show.

Okay, so why am I talking ghosts today? Because I’m going to be spending tonight and tomorrow night in a haunted hotel; one of the places where Ghost Hunters filmed an episode during their second season. I’ve got reservations for the Crescent Hotel in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. My brother is going with me (another fan of the Ghost Hunter show). We’re going to take the evening Ghost Tour and learn a little more about the history of the structure built in 1886, then spend two nights watching for ghosts.

Half joking, I told my brother to bring his digital camera so we could get shots of orbs and other physical manifestations if the ghosts show up while we’re there. He agreed, but informed me that they would probably drain the camera’s batteries before we could get a shot.

“Drain the batteries?” I asked. He didn’t seem to be joking.

He gave me a knowing look.

Okay, so maybe I don’t watch the show that closely. Or take it that seriously. Maybe I just have it on while I write, glancing over at the screen when the screaming starts. I actually did watch the entire episode about the Crescent Hotel though. The scariest part wasn’t the sounds or the shadows the investigators managed to catch on their monitoring equipment. It was when an investigator’s laptop computer was moved, through means unknown, from the top of the hotel bed to a position leaning against the exterior door. That really creeped me out.

Nobody, ghost or human, touches my laptop.

Check back later in the week for updates to this blog.

Update: 4:00 P.M. Central – 7/21/08

Arrived at hotel and got checked in. About 100 degrees F. outside. Rooms were on the fourth floor and very hot until I got the window units going. There is wireless internet in the hotel but it’s very, very slow. So far the only odd thing is that I had to put new batteries in my wireless keyboard. But it might have just needed new batteries – it’s been about 2 months since I used it.

Plan to participate in the ghost tour tonight at 8:00 P.M. Central.

So far my first impression is that old buildings are great to tour but maybe not so great to stay overnight in. Nothing special about the room that I’m in – just old.

Evelyn

Ned Rust, Undercover

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Ned Rust lives with his family in Croton, NY, and works in the publishing industry. His writing has appeared in Rolling Stone, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, The Rocket, and The Stranger.

I work in the book-publishing industry. I can’t really say much about it in public like this because I happen to work in a somewhat high-stakes area, and, as you would have soon guessed from my nervous, backwards-scrambling sentence-structure, I’m deeply paranoid.

I don’t quite blame the industry for making me this way. I’ve only been working in the field for 5 years and there were signs I was given to an inflated sense of self-worth (i.e., people MUST be interested in finding out more about me) and over-caution from before. Like how I compost any piece of mail that has my name printed on it. Yep. Right in there with the coffee grounds and the watermelon rinds. I have a theory that the identity thieves will find my fly-infested compost bin as malodorous and generally daunting as my spouse and children do.

Except when companies use non-biodegradable stickers—“Affix this to your mail-in coupon for a free bonus subscription to Yachting for Kids!”— everything works out pretty good. In fact, the years have proven that promotional offers—and letters from my parents I can’t bear to look at—nicely balance the “wet” compost of kitchen scraps. With time and stirring, you’ll have a lovely loamy—and, importantly, informationally secure—mix within six months.

But there are things within the publishing industry, as you may have discovered yourself, that could begin to make even a well-balanced person paranoid.

I could go on and on, but this is my first ever blog entry and prudence tells me I should maybe start with just one topic. Beyond composting, I mean, which I don’t expect is what Maggie and Evelyn were expecting from me.

So let me touch on one topic that’s near the beginning of the publishing alphabet and never fails to make me look over my shoulder—agents . . . literary agents.

I mean why do they even call them agents? Who else is an agent? Insurance people (creepy). Internal Revenue Service folks (creepy). Operators in the MI5, ATF, CIA, OSS and FBI (I rest my case).

And what do they do? You don’t go to school for it. You don’t need a license. There isn’t even an accreditation or support organization for them—like lawyers have the Bar Association—at least so far as I’ve heard. I mean have you ever seen a news story about a literary agent getting defrocked by her or his peers?

Maybe part of the problem is they don’t seem to do anything they might even have to bother putting on a frock to accomplish.

So far as I can tell—and I should confess I don’t have a lot of direct dealings with them and that I know one or two who seem lovely in person—agents need 2 principal things to make a living:

1) Enough paralegal-level savvy to hoard and be conversant with the appropriate legal forms and contracts to make writers promise to give them a hefty portion of any money they might make and to understand that the generally guile-less publishing houses aren’t taking any legal advantage.

2) The ability—through experience, charm and, or, connections—to get calls & emails answered by the people who acquire manuscripts and sometimes by those who market the finished books at the publishing houses.

The rest of it—recognizing good writing, answering the telephone occasionally, light xeroxing, brushing one’s teeth before going out in public—most of us regular folk have down.

But somehow they keep on doing their thing. Even now, in the 21st century, they’re taking often double-digit percentages out of author’s and publisher’s hands.

I mean, isn’t that a weird system? And there’s like, no transparency whatsoever. So you never know if like Agent Y is brother-in-law to Publisher X.

And you never really know if Agent K really does have your best interest at heart and thinks you could be BIG, or whether he’s just treating you like a mineral claim that may or may not prove to contain valuable gems but the land’s so dang cheap, why not just go ahead and put a binding deed on it so nobody else can do anything with it?

Oh well. I don’t really have anything specific to point at, but the whole scene just makes me nervous. Speaking of which, I think I hear somebody out at the composter.

Bye

Ned Rust

Where Everybody Knows Your Name

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Sometimes you want to go
Where everybody knows your name,
and they’re always glad you came.
You wanna be where you can see,
our troubles are all the same
You wanna be where everybody knows
Your name.

In the basement of a row house, around the corner from where I grew up, was a tiny grocery store, run by Mrs. Bass. My mother didn’t drive and my father traveled during the week, so it was no big deal for Mom, the original Evelyn, to tell me to run to Mrs. Bass for some bologna (my favorite), or a can of peas (nobody’s favorite), or just a pack of Pall Mall cigarettes (unfortunately, my mother’s favorite).

But the point is, no one thought it unusual to send a little girl of six around the corner, nor did I have to take any money with me, because I could just tell Mrs. Bass to charge it and head for home.

In contrast, I was walking my daughter to her elementary school, which is all of a block and half away, until she was 10 years old. Even if we concede that I’m a worrywart, just about everyone in the world agrees that life ain’t what it used to be. Today we all think we need to watch our kids a lot closer than those days years ago when your mom opened the door at 8 in the morning and she didn’t see you again until suppertime. I’m not totally convinced that it was really a more innocent time, but we certainly believed that bad things couldn’t happen on Coldspring Lane.

In any case, that sense of familiarity, of a place where everyone knows your name, seems to have gone the way of rotary dial phones. The grownups on Coldspring Lane knew all the kids and would have certainly reported any serious misbehavior to the parents of an errant child. Today, I know my neighbors on either side of my house, but I only have a nodding acquaintance with the people across the street. Maybe it’s because I live in a metropolitan area where people move in and out faster than, as we say in these parts, a New York minute?

Sometimes I really miss that sense of familiarity. Other times, and maybe it’s because as I grow older I also grow more crotchety, I don’t want everyone to know my business anymore. There is an interesting variation on the neighborhood concept — one we couldn’t have forseen all those summer days ago. While I may not know everyone in my town, thanks to the Internet, I now have friends and can keep in close touch with people around the world. Writing Murder Off the Books helped me move into a new part of a virtual town. I may kvetch about all the promotion necessary to market a new book, but in truth, I treasure the opportunities I’ve had to meet new people, sometimes in person, often online. My neighborhood has grown exponentially larger. And while not everyone knows my name, Evelyn David, we’re working on it. I remember with great fondness the old friends on Coldspring Lane; but this new neighborhood is pretty swell.

Evelyn David

To Breed or Not to Breed…

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I have a confession to make.

I bought my dog from a breeder.

I know. It’s not the most socially responsible thing to do. I have heard it time and again and I walk the streets of my little village with my West Highland Terrier, Bonnie. “Is that a purebred?” I’m asked, sometimes with just vaguest hint of disdain.

“Yes, yes!” I want to cry. “I’m sorry! But I’m allergic and this breed is supposed to be hypo-allergenic.” (They’re not…at least to me who has superhero-sized allergies.) I want to continue, “They are supposed to be great with kids and easy to have around.” (All true.) And as I look at Fido, on the leash of the person I’m talking to, staring back at me with his golden retriever face with his dachshund-shaped body, I know the answer to the question I inevitably ask. “What’s your dog?”

“Oh, just a mutt. I rescued him.”

And then I feel bad about myself. (As if I need another reason.)

Five years ago, I got the hankering for a dog. I knew it would be a lot of work and that our collective lifestyle would have to change but the kids promised that they would help. Isn’t that great? (And a big, fat lie?) Anyway, here we sit, years later, with Bonnie, our beautiful and devoted West Highland Terrier who just might be the best dog ever. We adore her. And the kids do help with her, which from what I hear from my other friends with pets, is a miracle.

But since I’ve been out and about with her, I am mostly encountering rescued dogs and their owners. In the past several weeks alone, no fewer than three of my friends adopted dogs and the situation has been nothing but positive on all accounts. My best friend from college used to work at Animal Planet and feels very strongly that animals should be rescued not bought, although she has bonded with Bonnie the Westie . Her adamant opinion on rescue resulted in the adoption of Riley by mutual friends of ours, on whom the jury is still out. (Riley, that is, not our mutual friends.) Riley is an adorable beagle who was inexplicably abandoned and rescued by my friends. Riley seems to be smiling all the time, but according to my friend, it is the smile of the devil. Riley has yet to adapt to behavior in polite society, but still, we hope.

Another friend just adopted a poodle/Jack Russell Terrier mix named Pedro. Pedro is three, fully housebroken, and has adapted to life with my friend, her husband, and their four daughters like a fish to water. He now resides in a beautiful home on two acres and much to my surprise, sleeps between my normally-fastidious friend and her husband IN THEIR BED. (My dog sleeps on a pillow NEXT to my bed and yes, there is a difference.) No comment. Pedro is a very lucky dog and on the day I met him, conveyed his enthusiasm for his new living situation by attempting to give me a tour of his new digs as if to say, “Can you believe how good I’ve got it?!”

Yet another friend adopted a Great Dane/St. Bernard mix to add to their family of four dogs. When I showed my son a picture of Bruno, the new pup, he looked at me and said incredulously, “Do they have FIVE dogs now? And do you see the size of his paws?” Yes to both, son. And they love each and every one equally. Bruno was a dog that had been sent to a shelter where at the tender age of ten weeks, surely would have met his maker. He had been rescued from a flood-ravaged region of the United States with his sister and his brother, who I’m happy to report, have also been rescued by East Coast families. He’s fitting in quite well with the rest of the brood, with only one of his brothers exhibiting the least bit of jealousy at the new arrival. (He’ll get over it—like humans, everyone adjusts to a new family member. Eventually.)

And yet another friend has rescued two greyhounds. Greyhounds, you say? Me, too. They’ve never been a breed that has interested in me, and the aforementioned Pedro family had one whose breath stunk to high heaven. And then I met my other friend’s two dogs and fell in love with both of them, although the female and I appeared to have developed a deeper bond. They are gentle, loving, quiet, and good natured, which in my book are all of the qualities you would want in a dog (and a spouse, obviously).

The time may come when I’m ready for another dog—actually that time has already come but I’m not sure everyone is on board with the plan—and I think I will go the rescue route. We had a purebred Golden Retriever—the pick of the litter, no less—when I was growing up who unfortunately succumbed to a genetic disorder before his second birthday. The mutts, from what I hear, are heartier and healthier than the pure breeds, another thing to recommend them. My poor dog, Bonnie, suffers from skin allergies and a sensitive stomach and I do wonder if she had a more colorful genetic makeup if she’d suffer less. It’s anyone’s guess. But when Pedro’s new owner described the animal shelter to me and the number of animals there needing homes, it gave me pause. I’m able to control my allergies to my dog with consistent hand washing and vacuuming, so what would another supposedly hypo-allergenic dog (like Pedro) bring to the mix in terms of discomfort? Probably not a lot.

So, a show of hands please: is it time to give Bonnie a rescued playmate?

Maggie Barbieri

Alas, No Ghostly Visitation

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Hubby and I chose to stay in Room 17 of the Bella Maggiore Bed and Breakfast in Ventura CA because the room is supposed to be haunted. We did not have a ghostly visitor. My daughter looked up the ghost and said it was because the ghost, a prostitute in her former life, only visited men who stayed in the room by themselves. Guess I ruined it.

However, we did have a rather intimate romantic encounter with a real live young man. Room 17 opens on a balcony shared with another larger room. There are no windows in these rooms, only doors that open to the balcony with no screen door and a transom. We were sitting in our room with the door open, when this darling young man popped in to inform us he was having a surprise party for his girlfriend’s birthday at 10 p.m. on our shared balcony complete with music, a Spanish harp and guitar along with a singer. We were invited.

Both of us were tired, but assured our visitor we’d enjoy the music. Of course we had to shut the door and the drapes in order to go to bed, because the chairs and table were only a few feet from our room. At 10 p.m. the music began. It was lovely and very romantic. It was over by 11.

The next day, after we’d had our wonderful breakfast and hubby was transporting our bags to the car, I was sitting on the bed with door open and in pops the young lover. He wanted to know if we’d enjoyed the music, I assured I’m had. I said, “I hope your fiancee appreciates you, not many men are as romantic.” She came out and I met her (cute young thing) and told her that her boyfriend was definitely a keeper. He said, “Thank you.”

From there we went to the Premiere Author event at the Crowne Plaza hotel. Though it was nice, we didn’t have much traffic. The talks about writing and poetry reading were scheduled back-to-back with no time in-between for the attendees to step into the book room. I sold two books and I don’t think anyone else sold more than one. Of course, the organizers realized they’d made a mistake. But it was wonderful to see and smell the ocean air.

From there, we headed to the Bank of Books (bookstore in a former bank) and set up for a talk about mystery writing. This was planned spur of the moment, so didn’t expect much of a turn-out and I was right. Three people came to hear me and we all had fun. We will plan another event, with a bigger lead-in time for the fall.

No matter what, we had a good time. We spent Saturday night in our youngest daughter’s new home, beautiful and huge. Five bathrooms! Can’t imagine having to clean them all. Of course she says my grandchildren are responsible for their own. (They’re grown or nearly grown, so it is possible this might happen.)

After a great breakfast, we left the cool temperatures by the ocean and headed back to the hot temperatures of the San Joaquin Valley.

This week I’m helping out at Vacation Bible School. Actually had fun with the fifth and sixth graders that I had to keep track of.

Marilyn

Captcha Tyranny

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You would think that a mystery writer would like word puzzles. And I do, but not the kind currently being used on the internet to sort out humans from machines in the no-holds-barred war against SPAM (unwanted, unsolicited emails or messages sent in bulk by electronic means).

A Captcha is defined on Wikipedia as a “Completely Automated Public Turing Test.” What’s a Turing Test? A test to see if a computer can respond like a human. Captchas are sort of a reverse Turing Test. A computer tries to determine if it’s interacting with a human or another computer.

More and more often you will be required to answer a Captcha before posting a blog, sending an email, or even sending a “friend” request on social networking sites (MySpace, Facebook, etc.) The Captcha is a series of letters and sometimes numbers that are distorted, stacked on top of one another or otherwise obscured by background images. You are required to decipher the Captcha and type it correctly into a box underneath the image. You don’t have to worry with whether or not the letters are upper or lower case. You just have to figure out what the letters are. And it’s not that easy.

Maybe it’s just me, but I have a hard time convincing computers that I’m human. On an average it takes me four or five wrong answers, before the computer accepts my solution. The following are actual Captchas I’ve been confronted with in the last few days.

If you look at this Captcha it’s not too hard to solve. My eyes tell me it’s one of two possible strings – IMGIFM or IMGIFRN.

This second Captcha is solvable – CSSQCNE – assuming that you remember what a cursive Q looks like.

But look at the Captcha below. Is the first character an F? Or is that just a line in the Captcha to obscure the other letters? FHJTSXY maybe. Is there just one large T or two smashed together?

Okay – what’s the answer for the Captcha below? DUOHZK? Or DUDVZK or DUCLVZK or DUCHZK? Could be any of them. What a headache!

There is usually an option to ask for another Captcha to solve or a “handicap” symbol to click if you get stuck. Theoretically, if you click on the handicap symbol you are supposed to get an audible recitation of the Captcha and then you just type what you hear. I tried that a few times. Usually the audio file would not play correctly on my computer – think soft, quick mumbles of sounds. Nothing I could identify.

Sometimes I just let the computer win. Often I decide that whatever I’m trying to post or whoever’s group I’m trying to join is just not worth the effort.

Remember “Hal” from the 1968 movie “2001 – A Space Odyssey”? Hal was a computer on a space ship who took control away from the astronauts on board. Hal would love Captchas. I don’t.

Evelyn

Testing the Market

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Pat Browning is a refugee from California, where she was a travel agent, legal secretary and award-winning reporter, but not all at once. Now retired and dodging tornadoes in her native Oklahoma, she’s writing her second mystery starring – surprise! – a small-town reporter.

Blogs, podcasts, book trailers, Web sites, talk radio – so many shiny toys to keep a writer from writing. Promotion, who needs it? Every author, that’s who. If you’ve written a book, crank up the promotion wagon and get the show on the road.

With my first mystery, Full Circle, I did it the traditional way and learned everything the hard way. Now I’m at it again, only this time I’m promoting a mystery that isn’t finished. It’s called test marketing.

At a workshop in Northern California a few years ago, literary agents Michael Larsen and Elizabeth Pomada critiqued first-page submissions. One of their handouts was titled “15 Ways to Test-Market Your Book to Guarantee Its Success.” I didn’t have a book to test market at the time but I kept that handout and I’m ready to give it a try.

The 15 ways are much too detailed for a blog, but I’m looking at No. 6.

You can test-market the manuscript for a novel or a proposal for a nonfiction book. Once you finish your proposal, use the Chicken-Soup-for-the-Soul recipe for making sure your work is 100%: Send it to 40 readers. Have them grade your humor, your anecdotes and your work as a whole on a scale of one to ten. The more specific you are in the feedback you want, the more helpful your readers will be.

Get feedback from your networks before submitting or publishing your book. If you are a speaker, make every audience a focus group for your book. Whether you’ve sold your book to a publisher or not, as soon as you integrate your initial feedback into your finished manuscript, print it single spaced, back to back and have it bound in small quantities. Call it “A Special Limited Edition.”

Sell copies at your talks and offer those who give you feedback on it an autographed book and an acknowledgment in the published edition. Keep adding changes before you reprint, and keep reprinting until your audiences run out of suggestions. The primary object of this edition isn’t to make money but to get feedback on the manuscript. After you’ve received all of the feedback you can get, reread the manuscript to see if you can find changes worth making. Then integrate the changes into the manuscript.

I’m starting small, and on the Internet. By the time you read this I’ll have a do-it-yourself Web site up and walking, with the first three chapters of my work-in-progress, a mystery I’m calling Solstice. I’m soliciting comments and suggestions. The URL is www.prairiegal.net.

Warning: It’s a cozy or amateur sleuth mystery — no steamy sex scenes, very little blood on the floor. Constructive criticism will be welcome. Destructive comments – do I need to tell you what will happen to those?

And moving right along … I’ve hit a small pothole on my road to Web site building, but at the very least, Chapter 1 will be there, with an e-mail link back to me so you can tell how why you really, really love it, or hate it. With luck, all three chapters will be up. If not, I hope you’ll keep checking back.

Meantime, take a look at the Larsen-Pomada Web site at www.larsen-pomada.com. You’ll find a lot of good tips for writers, including the famous 15 Ways to Test-market Your Book to Guarantee Its Success.

Bowing out now, with a big THANK YOU to Evelyn David for inviting me to the party.

Pat Browning