Try some; it's good.
Wherein I ramble about books, movies,
music, TV shows, my life, and occasionally, hot emo boys.
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Current WiP
My ValentineGuide sequel = DONE
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Monday, January 29, 2007
SBD - feet of clay, stupid shit and other bitching
I've noticed something about myself, something I need to work on. You see, I get crushes on blog sites. Like I think they're so funny and so cool and I have to read every day. Because they agree with me, I think they must be the smartest people on earth. But one day (and it always happens) these blog sites I used to love, well, I fall out of love with them. Feet of clay, I'm telling you.
Sometimes it's because they post some opinion so heinous that I'm shocked out of my love fest. It's happened lately, too. The shine doesn't rub off gradually; it's just knocked the fuck off. And sometimes I just sort of fall out of love with the site. It doesn't come up with as much interesting content, the updates are slow, the jokes begin to seem stale. I'm not gonna name names or anything, but I know it's really over when I start looking hard at my blogrolling list and thinking, "You know you never go there anymore, time to take that link off."
That may seem a little anal but I do actually remove links from blogrolling because if I put em on there, it's an endorsement. You will find something worth seeing if I decided it was worth adding. I imagine these blog "exes" sending me emails like real exes "We noticed you took our link off, I thought we had something. If you could just tell us why it's over, we thought everything was fine..." And then I giggle a little and remind myself nobody else gives a shit. Don't worry, babies, if your link is still up there, I still love you.
Moving on.
Let's talk about stupid shit in books that will make me hurl it, close it, or not even buy it in the first place. Topping the list is "destined mate" and "meant to be" stories. I'm so fucking sick of those that I want to put a spoon through my eye socket everytime I see another one. They're just all over the place. Haven't these authors ever heard of free will? I personally think it's a hell of a lot more romantic for a couple to fall in love and choose to be together forever. I mean, if I were science minded I could invent a device that would brainwash some hottie into being my sex slave, but would it mean anything? Fuck no.
Writers, please stop telling this tired tale. Please stop writing about fated lovers. That ship has sailed. Take up paint by numbers. Knit a hat. But please, please, stop inflicting this tired shit on me. I read a lot, I read almost anything, but I will NOT read this crap ANYMORE.
Along those same tired lines, I am sick to death of the prophecy device, always used in conjunction with vampires. "According to an ancient prophecy, Elmindreda will marry the King of the Vampires, for she is the reincarnation of Lucien's lost bride." Bitches, please. You are not Bram Stoker and Mina Harker wants a new bag. Please stop writing this. Please. Why is there a vampire king? Who elected him? If you must write about vampires (which is deader than dead), give it a new spin. No more prophecies, fated lovers, or reincarnated brides. Please. I'm begging here. I'd like to go another step and beg for no more vampires, but I know that's pushing it. Ya'll just love your undead humpers, don't you? Why, I have no idea. But then I hit the curve way early, back in my college days when I was all Goth wannabe and playing White Wolf The Masquerade with dorks who thought I wrote the book on hawt. There's a benefit to rolling dice with dweebs. The ego boost is worth its weight in gold.
And I'm spent. Feel free to chime in, you know where.
Sometimes it's because they post some opinion so heinous that I'm shocked out of my love fest. It's happened lately, too. The shine doesn't rub off gradually; it's just knocked the fuck off. And sometimes I just sort of fall out of love with the site. It doesn't come up with as much interesting content, the updates are slow, the jokes begin to seem stale. I'm not gonna name names or anything, but I know it's really over when I start looking hard at my blogrolling list and thinking, "You know you never go there anymore, time to take that link off."
That may seem a little anal but I do actually remove links from blogrolling because if I put em on there, it's an endorsement. You will find something worth seeing if I decided it was worth adding. I imagine these blog "exes" sending me emails like real exes "We noticed you took our link off, I thought we had something. If you could just tell us why it's over, we thought everything was fine..." And then I giggle a little and remind myself nobody else gives a shit. Don't worry, babies, if your link is still up there, I still love you.
Moving on.
Let's talk about stupid shit in books that will make me hurl it, close it, or not even buy it in the first place. Topping the list is "destined mate" and "meant to be" stories. I'm so fucking sick of those that I want to put a spoon through my eye socket everytime I see another one. They're just all over the place. Haven't these authors ever heard of free will? I personally think it's a hell of a lot more romantic for a couple to fall in love and choose to be together forever. I mean, if I were science minded I could invent a device that would brainwash some hottie into being my sex slave, but would it mean anything? Fuck no.
Writers, please stop telling this tired tale. Please stop writing about fated lovers. That ship has sailed. Take up paint by numbers. Knit a hat. But please, please, stop inflicting this tired shit on me. I read a lot, I read almost anything, but I will NOT read this crap ANYMORE.
Along those same tired lines, I am sick to death of the prophecy device, always used in conjunction with vampires. "According to an ancient prophecy, Elmindreda will marry the King of the Vampires, for she is the reincarnation of Lucien's lost bride." Bitches, please. You are not Bram Stoker and Mina Harker wants a new bag. Please stop writing this. Please. Why is there a vampire king? Who elected him? If you must write about vampires (which is deader than dead), give it a new spin. No more prophecies, fated lovers, or reincarnated brides. Please. I'm begging here. I'd like to go another step and beg for no more vampires, but I know that's pushing it. Ya'll just love your undead humpers, don't you? Why, I have no idea. But then I hit the curve way early, back in my college days when I was all Goth wannabe and playing White Wolf The Masquerade with dorks who thought I wrote the book on hawt. There's a benefit to rolling dice with dweebs. The ego boost is worth its weight in gold.
And I'm spent. Feel free to chime in, you know where.
Labels: SBD
Holy shit, that was me too. My best friend/roommate and I would braid each other's hair in the coffee shops and smoke thin cigars. The dork fest guys were all over us. I miss that. What an ego trip.
'Crashing into Destiny' Commitment-phobe collides with...blah blah blah. I won't go any further. I can already hear you gagging.
Agreed. Done to death. When you start snickering about your own stuff, its not time to put it to bed, the bitch needs to go UNDER the bed. Hopefully she'll be in good company with all those strong silent cowboys, secret babies and, yes, vampires.
btw, if you remove my link (yeah, I know, I suck at updating. What can I say? I'm technically challenged) just drop me a dear john letter, you know, "its not you...."
I promise I won't send you a "...but we were meant to be together...please, I know I can change..." email! ;-)
I noticed I'm not on yours, Michele. It's said "More coming later" for like two months. I see how you are. You don't call, you don't write... I thought we had something special...
Moon Madness sounds really interesting. I love a twist.
Lainey, I don't remove friends (and I consider ya'll my blogging buddies) as much as I do sites, which are a group effort and ought to be interesting regularly. I don't delete my friends for being boring, I just said, "Dude, you're putting me to sleep here, can we change it up? No more of your auntie's gall bladder woes, k?"
I was thinking about this.
Why does nobody ever write about a vampire janitor? He's always the Prince of Detroit or the King of Swaziland, or some bigshot in the vampire hierarchy. How come they don't write about Joe-Ted Willoughby, the vampire janitor? Cos that would totally rock and it's a job quite suited to a vampire. Cleaning buildings at night? He could have all sorts of wacky redneck adventures. Maybe even some shenanigans.
Shit, I might do it, much as I hate vampires because not all vampires are princes named Lucien.
Wouldn't that make a GREAT hook?
Because not all vampires are princes named Lucien...
"I personally think it's a hell of a lot more romantic for a couple to fall in love and choose to be together forever."
Yes! Yes! Thank you! It seems like such a shortcut -- that the author doesn't have to show us the couple falling in love because they're destined to be together!! Argh. It's a device that is far too overused now -- and only a couple of authors I've read have managed to use it *and* pull it off with a convincing love story, so that when I put down the book I thought: yep, they would have been together even if they hadn't been 'mated'.
Yup, totally agree on the shortcut aspect. Often I feel shortchanged as a reader too. I feel like the story could've been wicked good, if they just didn't go the lazy way. Of course, I often feel that way about stories where the hero and heroine have a long history together too because I don't get to SEE it. To date, only Liz Carlyle has played that violin just right for me.
Lainey, don't sweat your secret babies and silent cowboys, darlin'. My first completed romance, published in 2002, had itself a VIRGIN WIDOW. (Please don't hurt me, ya'll, I didn't know any better). Fool thing was nominated for the RT Best Small Press Romance award too.