My alter-ego has an alter-ego. Should I be worried?

Sophie has her own MySpace. And already she has more friends than me. Whoever said being yourself was a good idea, hmm?

Bragging time

Never Leave Me just got awarded Romance Reviews Today's Perfect 10 award! That makes it eligible for the Best Book of 2006 in its category.

This isn't the best part. The best part is... this is my second Perfect 10 from them: Almost Human got it, too!

Well, actually the best bit is everyone at Changeling making a fuss of me. But, you know.

Brag brag brag brag...

Wimbledon

As always, a helluva day. There aren't many things I'll get up at 4am for. In fact, there's nothing else, apart from a holiday, and even then I'd rather get a later flight.

One of the best things about Wimbledon is how fan-friendly it is. There aren't many other sporting events--and certainly no other grandslams--where tickets are available on the day for anyone to buy. You do, of course, have to queue for them. Ground capacity is 35,000 and at least half of those people--probably up to three quarters--will have queued outside for them. And when I say queue, I mean it's miles long. Get there at 6am (as we usually do) and you get a ground pass. If you want to get on Centre or No.1 Court, you need to be there overnight. The pavement on Church Street is basically a camp ground. Just to give you some idea, my queue card was numbered 972. We got there just after 6am. Play starts at 12. And when we left at 6pm, the queue was at least as far back as it had been when we joined it: and then, people were gaining entry on a one-in-one-out basis. Madness.

Still. Glorious weather and some fantastic tennis. And inside the grounds, it's really fan-friendly, since you can go and watch the players warming up on the practice courts, where I spotted Roger Federer and Justine Henin-Hardenne, or on the outer courts, where Rafael Nadal and Andre Agassi were on adjacent courts. The players walk from the players' areas to the courts using the same walkways as everyone else (apart from on Centre Court, where they use the same walkways as the Queen), so you can see them just wandering around. Which is how I spotted Maria Sharapova and Agassi's old coach, Nick Bollettieri.

Andre Agassi--his last day at Wimbledon--he later lost to Rafel Nadal. This is his last season on the pro tennis circuit.

Nick Bollettierri (centre), Agassi's old coach and the founder of a pretty phenomenal tennis academy.
Justine Henin-Hardenne and Roger Federer--earlier, my brother the tennis player named these two as the most exciting players on the circuit. We spotted them both warming up on adjacent courts. Federer's partner was a rather hot blond guy; Henin-Hardenne's was a really gay-loking guy in skintight orange. I later found out he was her husband.
Maria Sharapova, fresh from victory on Court No.2: formerly known as the Graveyard of Champions. Didn't seem to do her any harm.

Rafael Nadal: just 20 and taking the tennis world by storm. This kid knocked out Agassi, and he's not even much of a grass-court player. Yeah, he looks like a Spanish cartoon character, but he's seriously amazing.

Caption competition

It's a carrier bag. You can just see the shopping list under her tail. Cats...bags...it's all too obvious!

Ordinance survey maps are stupid

So there's this village fun run thing going on at the weekend, and our neighbour is organising it. My dad, possibly while drunk, agreed to be a marshal, you know, one of those people in day-glo jackets who point out which way you're supposed to go. The course is 10k (about 6 miles) across fields and stuff. Mum and I decided to walk the course a little way to see where my dad was supposed to stand...and got lost.

We were okay for the first part. Village, hill, farm... then a load of farm tracks. Map terrifically unclear. Marked out things like Netherhills Plantation (v useful when all around you are identical fields), pit (disused) and FB. What's an FB? I could think of a few things, but none of them likely to appear on a map (and no, when we got to where FB was on the map--finally--there was nothing but more fields and trees there. Map did not, however, mark such things as bridges. So when we came to a bit that was supposed to be a straight footpath to the road, and found a left-right-bridge-right-left-field combo instead, we figured we were lost.

Flashbacks to Year 8 'orienteering' around Hatfield Forest using a 10-yr-old map that didn't take into account several years nettle growth.

Anyway. Figure we walked about five miles. Downed several pints of Coke on return (best thing in the world when you're really thirsty! Water, pah).

Have no idea what the point of this post actually was. My dad is fine now, thanks for asking Emma, and we're going to Wimbledon on Thursday (probably) since yesterday was a washout (forecast was dire and indeed they had 45 mins of play, total all day). Will miss Federer (unless he gets rained off tomorrow, but the weather is supposed to be fine), but on the plus side, hopefully Timmy won't be playing, so the queues will be shorter.

ETA: Two things. One, linking to the new (more accurate) map useless. Two: FB means foot bridge. Actually I've re-christened it: fucking bridge. What happened to the little bridge symbol they used to have? And why was the FB on the map miles from actual FB? Bah. Bah, I say.

Thought for the day:

Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons... for you are crunchy, and good with ketchup.

This sounds like something Joss Whedon would write, but I read it as a bumper-sticker on Kendra's blog, and am assured Sherrilyn Kenyon has used it in a book. Funny, anyway. And true.

I could kill you with my thumb.

It's the most wonderful time of the year

Wimbledon fortnight, of course. I don't really do tennis, otherwise. To be perfectly honest, I have absolutely no idea what the rules are. I don't care. I can spend hours at Wimbledon just watching the line judges and ball boys--all those protocols, it's like a military operation!

So, I'm off there tomorrow. Well, weather willing, anyway. Not that rain ruins the whole thing, but if it rains solidly from 12-6 then there's not a lot of play. And if it rains solidly from 6-12, in the morning that is, then you've got a very damp queuing experience.

Fuck me gently with a chainsaw

I don't feel like being polite today. Or like making a coherent point. I'm just following a global blogging trend and letting my inner bitch burst forth to feast upon the carcasses of the innocent.

I'm in a bad mood, people. Bad week, PMS, whatever. My dad is okay, thanks for asking. The docs reckon it was probably an infection or something, but being trained medical professionals, they're not really sure if it might also be appendicitis, gallstone, or an alien about to burst forth.

Snarking the Snarky made me cheer five minutes ago. All this backbiting and bitching masquerading as opinion. It's bullying, plain and simple. Run along.

I get really irritated when people react instantly online. Just because you have an opinion, doesn't mean you need to vent it. I mean, it's my opinion that all those people who go around shit-stirring need to be shot--but I don't go around saying it. Oh crap, I just did.

I'm also intensely irritated by that double standard that says you can bitch at my hard work, but if I bitch back at you, or even respond calmly and rationally, then I'm a stupid unprofessional cow. Authors don't have feelings, you know. We're not entitled to opinions. That's why we only get less than 10% of the print sales from a book we've written the whole of.

The customer is not always right. Having worked in shops and on an airport check-in desk, I can tell you that the customer is usually a flaming imbecile. But if you tell them so--exercising your right to opinion--then they won't buy anything from you, and you'll go bankrupt.

But then maybe the flaming imbeciles don't deserve your product. Why should a bully be entertained? I'm with dear old Lucy Diver. "I love my life, and if God don't like me then I don't like him either, and I don't want to go to heaven." Of course, Lucy Diver got hanged five minutes later.

Figures.

My dad

...has just rushed--or been rushed--off to hospital with what seems to be appendicitis. That's what the doctor thinks, anyway. Am kind of relieved, because that's pretty treatable, and not anything scary like the C word. Hopefully, there'll be no complications, and he'll be all right.

So, I'm feeling kind of odd. Snarking will resume later.

Marjorie Jones's daughter--update

Crisis over, Staci is on her way home, alive and well. Thanks to anyone who passed the message on.

Here is a stick

Please, don't take the wrong end.

I just came back from a walk to the next village to post a letter. It's hot, my jeans were too heavy and my makeup melted in.

Please, don't get offended by this. I have to walk to the next village because the letter is going abroad, so needs a stamp I don't usually carry, and my local post office closed down a while ago because people kept robbing it. But I'm not blaming those people. Or the Post Office, for closing it. Or for deciding that it's more expensive to send a letter to Finland than to somewhere in my own country. Nor am I boasting, or complaining, that I know someone in Finland.

I'm also not bitching about the fact I was walking. It's only a couple of miles, an hour and a half round trip, and I thought I could use the exercise. This is not because I'm moaning about my weight, because I don't think I'm a horribly fat cow. Nor am I saying there's anything wrong with being fat. I mean, plus-sized.

Now the weather. It was 26C when I left the house. I know not everyone uses metric measures and that there are advantages and disadvantages to both systems, so I'll explain that 26C is about 79F. Please understand, also, that to consider 26C to be hot is my own personal opinion. I know there are much hotter places in the world, and that people have to do much harder things in them than just go for a walk. And, of course, I could have driven there, with the airconditioning on. But to drive there would be to disregard the environmental and political associations of burning fossil fuels.

Jeans. Should I have continued to wear them? Is it unfair of me to complain about them being too hot when I was already aware of the outside temperature? I didn't get changed, because my shorter, capri-length jeans are in the wash and my linen capris are too pale and would show the underwear I was wearing. I could have changed my underwear, but then I'd be wasting water, washing an extra item, which would be thoughtless. Also, wearing something shorter would display my legs which are pale and need to be shaved. Of course, pale legs are not a bad thing. Suntanning is, of course, dangerous and thoughtless, and I should always be aware of the implications of complaining about being white. I'm not racist. Also, there are the feminist concerns over shaving my legs. Is it pure vanity to do this? Who am I shaving them for? Isn't it unnatural to do so? I didn't want to offend someone with the unsightly hairs on my legs, but then I didn't want to offend someone who was against leg-shaving, either. I know some people are traumatised by beards--again, that's not a personal judgement, I have nothing against beards, or the lack of, it's okay if you can't grow one--so maybe hairy legs might be traumatic to some people, too?

I could have worn shorts, but I don't feel my legs look very attractive in shorts. This is concerning, however, as I know that looks aren't important compared to the personality underneath, and that even the largest person has a valid right to wear whatever they like. As long as it's not in an inappropriate place, where showing too much skin might be considered offensive to a religious group's beliefs.

And the makeup. Once again, it's vanity and my own ego. I wear makeup to cover the adult acne on my face because I feel insecure about it. As someone younger than my peers in my chosen profession, I find it hard to be taken seriously and being afflicted with a condition more common to teenagers exacerbates that. I also just don't like the sight of it. It's extremely shallow of me to cover up my acne, because there are a lot of teenagers out there who don't and are very self-conscious about it. Often they feel they can't wear makeup because they're male, but that's gender stereotyping and I don't wish to be seen as sexist, because I believe that it doesn't matter which sex you are. Also, that it's unfair to dismiss acne as unattractive because it has no bearing on the personality of the person who has it. Except for in a psychological sense, because it can boost insecurities as it is perceived as unattractive.

I was going to add that I'm driving to a friend's house to join her at her local pub to watch the football because the barman there is hot, but I've already written seven paragraphs about my walk, and there's just no way I can explain my evening without offending anyone's beliefs or sensibilities, maligning any individuals, groups, majorities or minorities, races, countries or personality types, or implying something I have no intention of.

I hope no one was offended by this blog, and that if I inadvertently expressed an opinion which you may find in opposition to your own beliefs, that you will explain to me why, in detail, I am wrong and you are right. If my response isn't to your satisfaction, I believe it is your right and duty to post details on your own blog, and henceforth refuse to ever visit here again. In addition, it is also expected that you will boycott all my books, publishers, and books written by other authors linked on this blog, and other books published by their publishers, in the event that they contain opinions which may also be offensive to you, whether or not you have already purchased, or intended to purchase, the books in the first place.

Thank you.

Catfight!

Yesterday, Karen Scott forwarded on the Changeling missive that we're not going out of business (no, we don't know where the rumour came from, either) and added her own two penn'orth on why she hasn't been to the Changeling site for a while: because she doesn't like the covers.

Now. My covers are all displayed here on the left, and I think they're all pretty fine. But then, I'm really specific with cover art requests, even down to providing sketches of what I want. Actually, I have my own copy of Poser so I can mess around and find out what's possible with cover art. So maybe my covers suck, but I like them. But I will admit that there are some Changeling covers I don't like. There are always problems with CG art, but on the whole I think they come up better than some of the photographic covers you get (amount of times I've seen those things portray not the slightest bit of accuracy with regards to a character's appearance. Demure brunette librarian in the book, fiery redheaded dominatrix on the cover. Yeah).

But anyway. Comments were posted, and then defensive comments were posted back... and as always when anyone expresses anything remotely resembling an opinion in cyberworld, a thousand people poured in to argue against it. And then people argued against them. And then...

God, I'm bored with it already. It's amusing for the first ten minutes, but then it just gets silly. Next, please.

Amber alert

Marjorie is an eXstasy author, and I'm assured this is genuine. It's been more than 12 hours now--a day and a half, I think. Just putting this out to see if anyone can help. The link below has more information.

-----Forwarded Message-----
From: Marjorie Jones
Subject: URGENT MESSAGE : PLEASE FORWARD

This is NO hoax... this is MY daughter. Many of you know me and the
lists I've sent this to are the only ones I could think of. I am on
my way to the sheriff's office so they can dissect my computer and
maybe crack her yahoo codes and see who she's been chatting with and such.

MY DAUGHTER IS MISSING



PLEASE FORWARD TO THIS TO ANYONE YOU CAN! OTHER LISTS, FRIENDS,
FAMILY. SHE'S BEEN GONE FOR MORE THAN 12 HOURS AND SHE COULD BE IN
DANGER! PLEASE PASS THIS ON!