Monthly Archives: July 2009

Other

Adventures in Promotion By Irene Peterson

Being a published author has weird requirements. A blog is one. Another is having a glamour photo, so you look all sexy and interesting and intelligent or hot or something. I didn’t want to have one, but I was almost forced to get one.

Elder daughter and I went to the mall and just wanted to find out how it was done and how much it would cost. The youngsters were all dressed in black, supposedly hip and cool or whatever the word is for hip, cool people who are supposed to take sow’s ears and turn them into silk purses.

They “had a sudden opening” and could take me right away. Here I was looking like rat’s butt with no make-up and a t-shirt and jeans and messed up hair and they wanted to make my portrait. They even had clothes for me to change into.

Yatch. The thought of wearing somebody else’s clothes was so gross. Most of the photos were taken in my own black shirt, but they convinced me to wear this really low-cut vee shirt with decoration around the vee.

Some high school age chick with some metal in her beautiful face made me up by shoveling a ton of grease and paint on me. My face felt as if it would crack if I smiled.

I was posed like some 40s movie star and this kid so fresh he smelled of green kept telling me how great it was and had I ever modeled.

That in itself is hysterically funny, but I tried, I really tried.

Daughter #1 was laughing her butt off watching me.

Full body shots were a real eye-opener. I am a lot to love…let’s just leave it at that.

So, in the end, I had something like 20 shots to look at and choose the one I wanted. See, you have to own the image and that costs a hundred bucks. The other crap costs about three more hundred, but because they were so bloody bored, they only charged me $340, which I had to pay immediately. See, you get to choose that one picture that they will doctor up and let you buy even though it is your own face, but you own the photo so you can use it. They can’t. Why they’d want to use my face, I will never, ever know. But now they can’t and I can because it’s MINE.

Okay. I have the glamour pose and they erased all the dots and marks and lots of lines and a couple of “beauty marks” and the line that was the top of my nose. I ended up looking sort of like Odo on Deep Space Nine without a definite end to my nose on my face.

It has been used for promotion. Everybody says it looks so good and it doesn’t look like me now (which is great, since I really do have a nose and it ends, unlike Odo’s) and my kid is still laughing and daughter #2 refuses to put it up on my website.

She’s right. I don’t look like the glamour shot, but then, who does?

The first time I ever met some of the most famous authors in romance and women’s fiction, I couldn’t believe they were who they said they were. Glamour shots aside, every single one I’ve ever met was more beautiful than her photos, anyway, but her hair was thinner, she didn’t have raccoon eyes, she wore regular clothes like bluejeans or skirts and blouses. None ever carried around a feather boa and absolutely no one was without a wrinkle or two, but they were sort of laugh lines, not ugly hag lines.

Glamour. It means a trick, a fake, a spell cast to disguise. Yeah. Right.

I paid $340 for one print, a CD with the one photo on it and a contact sheet of all the ugly, stupid pictures I didn’t want. Two days later I took the one 8×10 to a copy shop and had 4 more copies made, lighter and actually a better skin tone, for seventy five cents apiece.

I kicked myself all the way home.

Other

Word Wednesday – Evanescent By Chris Redding

evanescent \ev-uh-NES-unt\, adjective:
Liable to vanish or pass away like vapor; fleeting.

This word does not mean what I thought it was going to mean.
Sounds like some thing bubbly. Like effervescent. Ginger ale. Champagne

No one knew their pensions were evanescent. Or their jobs for that matter.
It sounds more upbeat than the word really is. It’s a fleeting thought that you can’t get back. Not something you pop open to celebrate.
It’s not a word that springs easily off my tongue. It isn’t a word I use at all so it was new to me when I saw it in my inbox.
And I can see how powerful it could be. But for me it now has negtive connotations.
But things that are fleeting can be negative. In the sense that you’d like them to last longer.
Can you use it in a sentence?

Chris Redding
The Corpse Whisperer August 2007
www.chrisreddingauthor.com
http://chrisredddingauthor.blogspot.com/

Other

Perserverance By Joanna Aislinn

I love tennis. I fell in love with it by total accident,  during a sopping, rain-drenched fourth-of-July weekend  at the shore. The streets flooded so badly, the water was thigh-high on my five-foot frame. We were stuck indoors at a bed-and-breakfast with no cable and only Wimbledon to watch on NBC.

My friend’s soon to be husband had played on the satellite pro circuit, so she knew the game and explained it to me. (Having Stefan Edberg to watch didn’t hurt, nor did David Wheaton lack in the  ‘hot’ department of that semi-final.) Years later, she likes it–I get obsessed during the Grand Slams and have been known to suffer some serious sleep deprivation during the US and recently, the Australian Opens. I’m up to guessing my favorite players’ zodiac signs and nailed Nadal as a Gemini and Federer as a Leo 🙂 I can see the Aquarian in Venus, but Serena–a Libra?

Of course, I was home for ‘Breakfast at Wimbledon’ this past Sunday–drove home from PA right after the BBQ at my cottage community on Saturday to insure I’d be in front of my TV in time for that first serve. Andy Roddick played the no-words-left-to-describe-the-phenom Roger Federer, who, as John McEnroe so aptly put it, “makes the rest of …the undisputed greatest players of the Open era…look average.”

Don’t get me wrong, I love watching Roger’s artistry in motion, but I rooted for Roddick. I had to. I don’t even count Andy among my favorite players, but in the past few tournaments I’ve seen a young guy who has transformed himself out on that court. And I’ve watched him persevere right into his first five-set match against the ‘greatest player of all time’ and hold his own up to that last–and only–devastating break of serve that cost him the match. Yes, losing that second set tiebreaker didn’t help, but in the past, Andy might have given up and ‘gone away’ as tennis commentators tend to say. But he didn’t. He got right back up and held on for three more sets, only to have what could have been the most meaningful win of his life become his most significant tennis  loss, I’m sure.

Yet, if Andy wants to claim another Grand Slam title, he needs to persevere. He needs to take a hard, honest look at his match–go over what worked and be willing to change what didn’t. And he’s got to dig the deepest he ever has if he plans on walking onto tennis’ biggest stage again, let go of the past, and persevere another three, four, most likely five sets.

As writers, teachers, parents, people–don’t we need to do the same?

Other

Word Wednesday – Proponent By Chris Redding

proponent \pruh-POH-nuhnt\, noun:
One who argues in support of something; an advocate; a supporter

I am a proponent of:

Four day work weeks.
Healthcare for the poorest.
Realizing that the uber-rich and the just wealthy are two different animals.
Every child should have some kind of pet.
Someone else cleaning my house. (Not that I get to experience that.)
Sleeping 9 hours each night.
Term limits for congressmen/women.
We should be good to the evironment, but not at the expense of our economy.
Wine with dinner.
Full day kindergarten.
Sleeping in on Saturdays.
Working out at least 30 minutes a day.
Teaching your child about how the world is and how you’d like to change it.
Some people should not have children.
People should realize that celebrities are not normal.
That I’m done now. Have a good week.
What are you a proponent of?

Chris Redding
The Corpse Whisperer August 2007
www.chrisreddingauthor.com
http://chrisredddingauthor.blogspot.com/