Sick and Smattering (Um, Not Together)

Fate often has a funny sense of humor.  Yesterday was a long and kind of stressful day at the EDJ, and it left me thinking “I want a day off.”  That did NOT include waking up vomiting with the stomach plague this morning.  So not cool.  There’s stuff going around.  I’m home.  Hoping for stomach to behave enough to finish the scene I’m working on (What?  You thought I’d be sleeping?).  And if I have some time after that, I’d really like to get a chunk read of Cassandra Clare’s City of Bones, which I’ve been totally sucked into from page 1.

So in lieu of an awesome post from me, I’m going to pass on some stuff I’ve read lately that I thought was interesting.

Tess Gerritsen made a post the other day about the top 10 most pirated books of 2009:

1. Kama Sutra
2. Photoshop Secrets
3. The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Amazing Sex
4. The Lost Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci
5. Solar House: A Guide for the Solar Designer
6. Before Pornography: Erotic Writing In Early Modern England
7. Twilight: Complete Series
8. How To Get Anyone To Say YES: The Science Of Influence
9. Nude Photography: The Art And The Craft
10. Fix It: How To Do All Those Little Repair Jobs Around The Home

The scientist in me is rather fascinated by this list.  With the exception of the Twilight series, it seems like a list that is very male skewed.  Not that women aren’t into sex, but …

C. J. Redwine, in her awesomeness, is holding a contest about cupcakes.  Yes, you heard right.  Cupcakes.  She’s going to make some based on whichever character wins.  Right now the were-platypus is in the lead with Jack Sparrow coming in behind.  My poor Chuck Norris is lagging.  Go vote for your favorite!

Larry Brooks made a really interesting post about What We Can Learn from Episodic TV, using the oh so awesome Burn Notice as an example.  I heart Michael and Fiona.  The post does a great job of talking about the difference between foreground and background plot (and differentiates it from backstory and subplot).  A must read for anybody writing (or thinking about writing) series.

Now if only he’d do the story structure anatomy of a contemporary romance.  I’d love to see story structure mapped out when there’s not a clear bad guy/antagonist/murderer involved.  Hint hint Larry.

Stomach is behaving at the moment, so going to take the time to throw together some kind of crock pot soup while I still can.  See y’all on the flip side.

Recipe of the day: Chicken and rice, people style.