« August 2003 | Main | October 2003 »
September 29, 2003
My Primary Objective with Secret Messages
For a year now I've been drawing pictures in my weblog calendar, little messages for the sharp of eye. It gave me a writing schedule, a higher purpose, a secret delight. In the beginning the calendar picture was the only thing to seek, but as the year progressed I added more—hidden messages, humble gifts.
I love that some people have sought and found them. It's like we're sharing a secret and exchanging knowing looks. Except... now I feel like my secret's not so secret any more, so I'm changing my tactic, starting this month.
I just hope someone figures it out. I need a few people with whom I can exchange knowing looks.
Posted by April at 06:36 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 23, 2003
Seek, and You Shall Find
My computer was held hostage over the weekend. It spent 24 hours rendering, and at the end of those hellish hours, I was supposed to hand over a thousand words, 6000 pixels wide and 4800 pixels high, with absolutely no cops involved. If I didn't, then I was never to see my computer again. What a harrowing experience.
Anyway, I got my computer back, but the kidnappers were never found. After I post this, I will search for them on Google.
On the bright side, right after all the therapy I put my computer through, it rediscovered its hobby of digital fauxtography and managed to capture a candid shot of the alien rave I just attended. Broch was the DJ, and he was great! See if you can spot me.
But back to the topic of searching on Google—I'm a little bit dismayed about the search requests people use to find me. I'm only slightly more disturbed (and impressed) by the keyword searches people make within my log itself.
Exhibit A: People look for terrorists and fake-boobed celebrities (neither of which can be found here); they also ask thought-provoking questions, which I answer correctly; but mostly, you will find lots of hair.
Exhibit B: People like to write long notes in the search field, not even addressed to me.
Exhibit C: My readers know a great word or two.
Exhibit D: Uh... this one you'd have to see. I can't figure out if it's an elaborate and subtle joke designed to make me giggle, or if the person looking for a certain word actually suffers from it, most especially while typing. Either way, the irony isn't lost on me.
By the way, have you spotted me yet? If not, you might want to participate in Heather's Badge Swap. I sent her a toon of me, and if you're unlucky enough to get the badge with my design, send me a photo of you wearing it—I'll send you a print if you do.
Posted by April at 07:52 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 19, 2003
A Short Dialogue About a Long Book
Tweedle Dee exits the bathroom, A Tale of Two Cities in hand.
TWEEDLE DEE: I can't believe I waited so long to read this. It's sooo good.
TWEEDLE DUM: Dickens?
TWEEDLE DEE: Yeah. I just finished it. Sydney Carton is the best! He gave up his life for Darnay.
TWEEDLE DUM: Oh, yes. Sydney Carton. He became a big hero, and children all over the world wore his portrait around their necks. It was the first time a Carton appeared on the backs of children.
TWEEDLE DEE: ...
Tweedle Dum smirks.
TWEEDLE DEE: That's not very nice. Here you are making jokes, and I was so moved by the ending.
TWEEDLE DUM: I know. I heard you "moving" in the bathroom.
Tweedle Dee groans and buries face in both hands.
Exit stage left.
Posted by April at 09:06 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 17, 2003
The Work Week
I had a longer weekend than usual. I added a few of my vacation days to the normal two-day weekend for a much needed break, and I've come to this conclusion:
Every week should consist of two work days and five days of weekend. Swear to God. The world would be such a happy, wonderful place if that were so. People could actually get things done and have some fun—imagine that!
Just yesterday, I managed to sell my books, watch a movie at the dome, visit the largest municipal park in the nation, clutch my seat in fear as H.E. drove along narrow, winding, hilly roads of expensive Hollywood neighborhoods like a maniac, and have some wonderful Japanese dinner at a place where everyone, servers and diners alike, actually spoke Japanese.
Now, if I'd had just the usual two-day weekend, I would not have been able to do any of the above yesterday. I would have been sitting at my computer at work, putting images up on the web instead.
How tragic is that?
This is why I need five- and six-day weekends every week. Every week, mind you. Even if I didn't do a darn thing on the weekends, the work week is just too long. It's all backwards, I tell you.
The work week is all wrong.
Posted by April at 08:41 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 13, 2003
I've Been Keeping Busy
Two projects down, six more projects to go. I'm on a roll. Send the work my way! Now I want to do science fiction and children's book covers.
Posted by April at 10:12 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 11, 2003
So Much To Say
Some days I just have so much to say, to share, and I just can't for the life of me let it out. It's like having a conversation with a non-stop talker, and even though you have the perfect story to add to the conversation, so relevant, so on point and so appropriate for the situation, a little bit poignant and a little bit humorous, you just can't get a word in edgewise. Yeah. Like that—only, in this case, there's no one talking and you're completely free to speak. Everyone's ready and waiting to listen and hear something so relevant, so on point, and so appropriate for the situation; there they sit, expectant, their butts on the edge of their seats and their eyes in that mildly interested and curious expression to show that they care about what you have to say, but—
How do you begin? What do you say? Will it matter in the end? And you wait, you ponder all these questions and wonder if it's even worth it, and you say to yourself, yes, yes it does and it's so effing brilliant that you have to share, until you've managed to build it up so much in your head that you've lost the momentum for it anyway. There's no way, just no way that I can say it well enough to justify all that pointless thinking and rethinking of the subject. There's no way I can meet my own blown-up expectations. I will tire myself out if I even try, so why try?
Well, that—that's what I'm going through. That's the busy little train going around in circles in my head, and I can't make it stop. I can't make it go straight to some destination, or at least around and around some specific topic. I have so much to say, and all of it requires energy that I just don't have because I've been wasting my time thinking and rethinking about it, trying to decide which of them all is most worthy.
I don't even know how I've managed to write this little bit, these few paragraphs, such as they are, these words that mean nothing.
Oh, God.
No, wait. There is no way I can post this. This should not even see the light of day. I have to rethink it. I have to trash it and start over again. I have to nail down a topic and—
Screw it. Why bother? I just have too much to say, so much that needs to be said because it's so relevant, so on point, so appropriate for the situation, and here I am...
I haven't said a word of it.
Posted by April at 11:47 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 07, 2003
Deadly Wordplay #1: Me, Myself, and I
My writing is far from perfect. I make mistakes all the time. The typos I generate—the grammatical errors, the misspellings, the malapropisms, all of it—could fill a whole wall of shelves if they were printed up and bound.
My one saving grace is that if I catch a mistake, or if someone points one out to me, I will usually correct it. If I find a better way to say something, I go ahead and revise. It's a throwback to my college years when I seriously studied literature and writing; every now and then the editor in me comes out.
Well, the teacher in me decided long ago that the editor in me has more than a few things to share with everyone, writers especially, which explains forum postings like Minimizing the Redundancy of He from a year and a half ago... and this post today.
Which is correct?
Susi took Jeff and me to lunch.
or
Susi took Jeff and I to lunch.
Take your time and think a bit. A lot of people get this wrong, even some really good writers, writers you and I read online and off, writers you and I like a lot, writers with actual books in print, and writers who sell many of those books. Yes, those writers. They get this wrong, too.
If you chose the first one you are awesome, and I love you. That is the proper way to write.
If you chose the second one, you're forgetting one of the most basic lessons in grammar—the difference between a subject pronoun and an object pronoun. It may sound right, but it isn't, and here's why....
A subject pronoun is any one of the following: I, you, he, she, it, we, and they. These words usually—not always—happen in the beginning of a sentence. They make the action happen; they act out the verb.
An object pronoun, on the other hand, is acted upon by the subject. These are words like me, you, him, her, it, us, and them. They never do things; things happen to them. Or, more cleverly put:
They make things happen, but things happen to them.
Now, what makes "Susi took Jeff and I to lunch" incorrect? Easy. Remove the other person, Jeff, from the equation, and what do you have?
Susi took I to lunch.
See why it's wrong?
Susi took me to lunch.
Susi took Jeff and me to lunch.
The same goes with sentences that use words like with, from, about, etc. It might sound good to say:
With Eve and I insisting that he try it, Adam bit into the apple.
You can win ten million dollars from Dick and I.
Juliet already knew about Romeo and I having an affair.
But they're wrong. Wrong, I tell you! Remove the other person, and the I sounds totally out of place. You can win ten million dollars from I? Not likely. Never, in fact. I just don't have that kind of money; me neither, come to think of it. Try these instead:
With me insisting that he try it, Adam bit into the apple.
With Eve and me insisting that he try it, Adam bit into the apple and broke his damn teeth on the optical mouse.
You can win ten million dollars from me.
You can win ten million dollars from Dick and me. -Ed McMahon
(Read that one aloud. It sounds dirty.)
Juliet already knew about me having an affair.
Juliet already knew about Romeo and me having an affair; hell, that's why she killed herself.
So that's your lesson of the day in Deadly Wordplay. Now I'll go take myself to the bed with the cat and me because, myself and I, we have a headache that won't go away.
Heck. Me, too.
Posted by April at 05:37 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 05, 2003
My Body's in a Whirlwind of Motion this Month
September is turning out to be rowdier than August. August was lazy, hot, slow, and whiny—never wanting to do anything, go anwhere, see anyone. Always wanting to put things off. September, on the other hand, is a workaholic with ADD and a sugar high.
I've been putting in some overtime at work for the deadlines, and I've got more than a few projects lined up for my evening hours—a couple of caricatures, a couple of editing gigs, a couple of cover art commissions, etc. I should have my head examined for taking on so much in such a short time, but I'm actually enjoying the busy-ness. Compared to how I felt in August, I feel so alive.
There are, however, a couple of drawbacks to this whirlwind activity. For one, my body is as jumpy and as tense as a taut rubberband.
Last night, as I was winding my alarm clock for the next morning, the pesky thing jumped out of my hand and flew in an arc towards the nightstand. I thought for sure that it would bounce off it and onto my bare feet, so—like a startled cat—I leapt backwards onto the bottom corner of the bed, the momentum carrying me further past the foot's edge and scrambling over it, down onto my hips, butt and back on the carpeted floor. The soundtrack went a little bit like: Whoosh! Aah! Ding! Whump-squeak! Whoa! Aah! Thud! Thump! Ohh... sigh. Then it was followed by H.E.'s uproarious laughter.
That same night, while I must have been dreaming up new maneuvers for gymnasts and trapeze artists, I was woken by an extremely painful muscle cramp in my left calf.
The most annoying thing about a middle-of-the-night muscle cramp is that it seems to come out of nowhere. There you are, sleeping soundly, peacefully, minding your own business and supposedly completely relaxed, when all of a sudden—BAM! Mind numbing pain wakes you up and makes you cry out "mommy."
And the only cure for that is a complete relaxation of the muscle, which may mean massaging it while consciously trying to relax, but believe you me, it isn't easy. I get these cramps as far away from my hands as possible. When I danced a lot, I'd get them in my feet. I would stretch in my sleep, maybe slightly arch my foot a little, and BAM! my foot gets stuck in that position as I wake up with a rebel yell in the midnight hour. Try forcing yourself to relax in that state while reaching down to massage your foot. The pain only makes you more tense, which increases the pain, which makes you more tense, which increases the pain. Trying to warm and massage your foot with your far-away hands is practically a mission impossible.
Having the pain in my left calf didn't make it much better. Even as I write this, my muscle still hurts from the cramping, and all day today, I walked with a slight limp.
Truly, no pun intended: I'm so lame.
My body hates me.
Posted by April at 09:34 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 03, 2003
My Cat Needs Braces
I had to rearrange what little furniture I had so that my cat would stop sleeping on the 6'3" bookshelf. Not that I have a problem with her sleeping there; I just have a problem with her falling off the damn thing.
She tends to have really violent cat dreams. I know because she's slept on my chest quite a few times and twitched like crazy during the cat version of REM (what the hell is she dreaming, anyway?). Suffice it to say, she's a danger to herself when she sleeps in high areas. She twitches her way to the edge and falls right over.
She has fallen off at least five times, and the cute little idiot keeps climbing back up the bookshelf to do it all over again.
During one of her falls, she bit herself in the mouth. I had no idea she even had an overbite, but there it was, her bottom fangs pierced her upper lip on both sides. The punctures are rather deep, but (thank God) they don't bleed. Still, ever since she bit her lip, it sometimes gets stuck on her fangs, and if I don't pull her lip back out, she looks like one of those inbred hillbilly types. I keep expecting her to meow in fluent Private Gomer Pyle, "Well, go-oh-olly!"
Wasn't it bad enough that she can't keep her tongue in her mouth? I swear, she's starting to look as dumb as she is.
So I've moved the furniture around to keep her from going back up there and giving me heart attacks in the dead of the night when she crashes. There is not much that I can do about her bit lip, though, except maybe wait for it to heal.
Or I could just get her some orthodontic braces to cure that silly overbite.
Posted by April at 11:47 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 02, 2003
Zilpha Keatley Snyder
20 years ago, Zilpha introduced me to the science-fiction and fantasy genre. She wrote for children and young adults, but she never wrote down to her audience. I always felt a little more grown up while reading her stories, and at the end I was always so moved and enlightened.
Yesterday, I decided to look up her Green Sky trilogy and found that they were no longer in print. I couldn't believe it. How could they not be in print?
Green Sky is a world of giant trees, and telepathic people live among the treetops, the branches like roads, with ladders leading up to houses and temples nestled among the foliage. People traveled either by climbing up the ladders or gliding from branch to branch, wearing wing-like gliders attached to their arms and legs. Aside from all the wonder I experienced, these three books gave me another view of our own society and a very subtle message about how we treat people of other races, beliefs, and ways of life. Green Sky affected me that much.
So late last night, I wrote Zilpha an e-mail:
Dearest Zilpha Keatley Snyder,
I discovered your Green Sky series when I was about 11 or 12. I had the computer game "Below the Root" for my Apple IIc and liked the world of Green Sky so much that I searched for your books at the library. I was hooked by the first book, and after reading the last book in the trilogy I resorted to reading your other books, most notably Changeling, which in turn changed me.
Tonight, I discovered that I'd actually been reading you even earlier than that; I saw among your list of works that you also wrote Black and Blue Magic, which though it's been at least 20 years since I've read that book still stands out in my mind.
So I searched for your books on Amazon, wanting so much to see the fantastic cover illustrations I remembered, and I found that they didn't have art on some of your books and that, in fact, many of your books are no longer even in print. Not in print!
Now, why is that?! Why?
All of the reviews on Amazon are glowing. Anyone who has ever read your books loved them, and having given it some thought, I'm convinced that you're even worlds better than J.K. Rowling—and you were around long before she was. You should be selling as many books as she is. I can't be the only one who feels this way.
If you would let me, I'd like to contact a few publishers about getting your books back in print. Would that interest you? I'd really love for others to discover anew what I discovered years ago.
Always a fan,
April Martinez
Earlier today, I received an e-mail reply from Zilpha herself. I was both stunned and thrilled. So quick! So personal! I love her even more!
She liked my note and gave me the contact information of the publisher who still owns the rights to the Green Sky trilogy. As soon as I can grab the time this week, I will definitely write a note to the person in charge and ask that they print another edition of the series so other Green Sky fans and I can have copies of them on our bookshelves. I can see it now; either Keith Parkinson or Michael Whelan could do the cover art. [I've never even owned a Zilpha Keatley Snyder book, come to think of it; I always borrowed from the library.]
If anyone else out there loves Zilpha Keatley Snyder's work, here is the info she gave me:
Chip Gibson
Random House Books for Children
1745 Broadway
New York City NY 10019
Please send a letter to Mr. Gibson, too. I doubt he will listen to just little ol' me.
Posted by April at 08:47 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack