My new motto

I picked up the sticker pictured below last week at The Bookworm of Edwards, off I-70 in Edwards, Colorado. I think it’s fabulous — especially the skull-dude in the dashing hat. The question is: Where should I display it for maximum effect? On my computer? On the back of a leather jacket? Stuck to the hood of my car?

Now THAT’s good science

This one’s for the scientists who are begging Hollywood to break the laws of physics only once per movie.

From the annals of idiot parenting, part II

Woman accused of sending daughter to steal purse.

INDIANAPOLIS – An Indianapolis woman faces a theft charge for allegedly coaxing her 5-year-old daughter into stealing a woman’s purse at a restaurant. According to a probable cause affidavit, a 24-year-old woman admitted asking her daughter to steal the purse Feb. 14 at a Chuck E. Cheese restaurant.

“The woman allegedly told officers she pointed out the purse she wanted her daughter to take and urged her to ‘Do it for Mommy’ when the victim wasn’t looking.”

From the annals of idiot parenting, part I

Drunk mom runs through school with sword.

MEMPHIS, Tenn. – Police said the mother of an elementary school student drank a 40 ounce bottle of malt liquor before brandishing a sword in her child’s school. The woman, 32, apparently intended to confront the parents of another child who had been in a spitting match with her child the previous day.

Hopeless cause of the week: scientific (semi) accuracy in movies

“Scientists to Hollywood: Please Break Only 1 Law of Physics Per Movie.”

Perkowitz, a member of the Science and Entertainment Exchange set up to advise Hollywood, singled out the giant space bugs in the film Starship Troopers for special scrutiny. He pointed out that if a real bug was scaled up to the size of the on-screen insects, it would collapse under its own weight. Perkowitz has come up with a set of scientific guidelines for Hollywood, and also encourages filmmakers to fact-check their scripts in a more deliberate manner so that audiences don’t dismiss a movie as absurd and stay away from the box office.

Angels and Demons gets an F, as does The Core, whose science is “out to lunch.” To which I must answer: But that’s what makes the movie so awesome. Stupidly, squee-inducingly, laugh-so-hard-I-nearly-faint awesome.

In Oklahoma: anti-aircraft ammo, magic ‘shrooms, and the world’s worst hairdo

News from my home state.

“Ammo, drugs recovered in metro raid.”

WARR ACRES, Okla. — A bomb squad removed military-styled bullets and enough weapons to blow up a city block during a raid Tuesday morning, Warr Acres police said.

Officers said John Francis Wallace had been dealing drugs from his home. Neighbors said they had their eyes on the house and have had their suspicions lately on what happens behind closed doors.

“We’ve known he’s been selling drugs and crap like that for a long time,” said neighbor John Edwards.

“‘We also found a large amount of military ordinance [sic] — larger shells,’ said Warr Acres Police Maj. Hugh Osborn. Investigators said one of the shells was a piece of World War II-era anti-aircraft ammunition.”

Perhaps the suspect needed heavy ammunition to keep fashion commentators from sneering at his Nadia Comaneci coiffure.

(Via my cousin Matt, who notes, “This guy’s going to be REAL popular in jail.”)

How to report the news

Why, yes — in my next novel there does happen to be a character who’s a television journalist. How could you guess?

(NSFW. Yes, Americans; even though it’s from the BBC.)

(Via 3 Quarks Daily.)

What do readers want from writers?

A reader advises writers on how to write better books.

Much of the time, I’m sampling brand-new novels that aren’t great — that frequently aren’t even very good — each one written by someone sincerely hoping to make his or her mark. I can tell you why I keep reading, and why I don’t, why I recommend one book to my fellow readers, but not another. I’ve also listened to a lot of other readers explain why they gave up on a book, as well as why they liked it. Here are my five recommendations for the flailing novice.

Her advice boils down to:

1. Make your main character want something.
2. Make your main character do something.
3. The components of a novel that readers care about most are, in order: story, characters, theme, atmosphere/setting.
4. Remember that nobody agrees on what a beautiful prose style is and most readers either can’t recognize “good writing” or don’t value it that much.
5. A sense of humor couldn’t hurt. ( “American writers in particular are often anxious to be perceived as ‘serious,’ which they tend to equate with a mournful solemnity.”)

How about everybody else?

Do you want your kidnapping with or without the blindfold?

I don’t know whether to blog about this, write a novel based on the premise, or sign up for the deluxe “helicopter chase” package.

Adrenaline addicts seek designer thrills.

PARIS (Reuters) – Thrill-seekers in France tired of the usual array of white-knuckle sports are turning to a bizarre new service to get their adrenaline rush — designer abduction.

For 900 euros ($1,226), clients of Ultime Realite (“Ultimate Reality”), a firm in eastern France, can buy a basic kidnap package where they’re bundled away, bound and gagged, and kept incarcerated for four hours.

Alternatively, they can opt for a more elaborate tailor-made psychodrama, involving an escape or helicopter chase for example, where costs can quickly escalate.

On second thought, I think I’ll stick to blogging.

Meanwhile, on the gnome front

Gnome poster removed before Medvedev visit.

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Theatre posters proclaiming “We await you, merry gnome” were taken down from a Russian town shortly before a visit by the country’s diminutive President Dmitry Medvedev, a local website reported on Friday.

“The advertisements were for a children’s theatre show, but were removed from a street that the president’s convoy was due to use on his visit to Omsk.”

I wonder if the creepy Argentine sidling gnome will seek revenge.

For those interested in writing

Because I’m so jetlagged that my head is humming like an air conditioner, here are some links to keep you entertained. If you’re interested in writing:

Ten rules for writing fiction. A variety of writers offer their lists, including AL Kennedy ( “Write. No amount of self-inflicted misery, altered states, black pullovers or being publicly obnoxious will ever add up to your being a writer. Writers write. On you go”), Roddy Doyle ( “Do not place a photograph of your ­favourite author on your desk, especially if the author is one of the famous ones who committed suicide”), and of course Elmore Leonard ( “Keep your exclamation points ­under control. You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose.”)

Via David Hewson, news of the infuriating “Not-Invented-Anywhere-Syndrome”:

A teenage literary sensation who lifted large parts of her debut hit novel from the Web, without giving credit, says she’s justified because “there’s no such thing as originality”.

For good measure, Helene Hegemann said the plagiarism was justified, because copyright holders had it coming.

17-year old Hegemann’s Axolotl Roadkill, a bildungsroman, was published to critical and commercial acclaim last month. But large chunks of the book were lifted, without credit, from a novel published by a pseudonymous blogger called Airen, whose novel Strobo is also a hedonistic coming of age novel.

Hegemann said she had freely mixed from various sources. “There’s no such thing as originality anyway, just authenticity,” she said in a statement.

To which I say: brat.

And over at Petrona, Maxine writes with her customary thoughtfulness about getting online social networks right and (very) wrong, and about Horror in crime fiction — a topic that has interested me ever since a reader confronted me at a conference to insist that my writing had gone off the rails and slipped forever from crime into horror… but that’s a story for another day, when the cool hum in my head has subsided and I can relate it without slipping into the metaphors of spooky subgenres.

Road trip: UK

All I can say about the drive to the Denver airport today is: Thank you, Mr. Plough. Getting over the Vail Pass would have been even hairier without you driving 50 yards ahead.

Time to board. Back later.

Question Time: Smartassery on the Rocks

Eddie writes:

Because smartassery makes everything better (or is that bitter?):

1) Boxers or briefs?
2) Are you still beating your husband?
3) Do you want fries with that?
4) Why?
5) How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll Pop?
6) Why?
7) How much wood could a woodchuck chuck, if a woodchuck could chuck wood?

And now for a serious moment or two:
What are you reading now?
Have you read Under The Dome, and if so, did you catch the shout out to Lee Child?

Okay, Smartass: Questions 1-7 receive no reply from me, because you forgot the most basic question on any such list: Are we there yet?

As for your serious moment or two:

I’m reading The Hero With A Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell and Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane. Under the Dome is on my to-be-read list, and I’ll certainly keep my eyes peeled for a Lee Child shout-out.

Question Time: Deploy the Grammar Geeks Unit!

Susan writes:

Oh my gosh, did I hear right? I just heard the Olympic anthem.

“….I believe in the power of you and I.”

Meg, as the Supreme Commander of Grammar Geeks Unit, what do you intend to do about that? Or are you already on it? Is Vancouver your secret destination? Should we all meet you there?

Susan, I cannot divulge my GPS coordinates. But from my vantage point, here in the deep woods, disguised as a Douglas fir, I can see the Olympic flame and am prepared to launch an attack, wielding all the “me”s I can throw. Meet me for a commando raid and hot chocolate afterward?