lying for a living

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A Kentucky lawmaker has filed a bill to make anonymous online posting illegal.

The bill would require anyone who contributes to a website to register their real name, address and e-mail address with that site.

Their full name would be used anytime a comment is posted.

If the bill becomes law, the website operator would have to pay if someone was allowed to post anonymously on their site. The fine would be five-hundred dollars for a first offense and one-thousand dollars for each offense after that.

The jerk. This would mean I could no longer post as Meg O’Death, or Evan Delaney. And we’d lose all you Lone Rangers, you masked commenters who drop by here to make me laugh with your comments. Makes me want to go rent V for Vendetta.

Says the Husband: “Eastern Kentucky? They have electricity there?”

But he’s from West Virginia. Of course he’d say that.

And under the proposed bill, calling him the Husband would be illegal. Not only does this stupid, stupid idea almost certainly violate the First Amendment, but how would Kentucky enforce it? Extradite the Husband the next time he’s in Charleston? Send state troopers to my house to impose the fine?

Online anonymity can lead commenters to be rude, cruel, and vulgar. We all know websites with comments sections that are sewers. But this law is a tyrannical, Big Brotherish response to online bullying. Let me handle my own comments section, thank you very much.

And now I would like to thank all of you who contribute to this blog for your incredibly good manners. The comments section here is among the most civil on the net.

(Via Andrew Sullivan.)

Today: writers’ group meeting, parent-teacher conference, reading the page proofs for Mission Canyon, reviewing the copyedited manuscript of Crosscut, feeding and chauffeuring two high school boys we’re (unexpectedly) housing during a rugby tournament, and attending a lecture in London. Also: writing 2,000 words of the new novel.

Later, y’all.

This is an experiment. Not just for me, but for television. It’s the premiere of the BBC reality miniseries “Murder Most Famous,” which, the TV guide tells me, is “an ambitious writing competition in which six famous faces compete to have their first work of fiction published under the watchful eye of author, Minette Walters.”

I’ve been looking forward to this show for weeks. And early this morning I saw one of the contestants, tabloid columnist Kelvin MacKenzie, on the BBC’s breakfast news. MacKenzie was so breathtakingly snide — about the show, the other contestants, and Minette Walters — that I’m now giddy with anticipation. Maybe his rivals, or Madame Judge, will kill him live on network TV. Let’s watch!

1:30 pm. Bad start. The show is on, but I’m at my son’s school. Fortunately, I’m recording it. This post should now be called “the delayed-blog.” But I’m lying for a living, so we’ll stick with “live.” Here we go.

2:30 pm. The contestants are going to be pushed to the edge “physically, mentally and emotionally.” We see a woman in tears. At the end of each episode the celebrity with the least potential will “be silenced for good” - eliminated. Angela Griffin, Matt Allwright, Brendan Cole, Kelvin MacKenzie, Sherrie Hewson, Diarmuid Gavin. I’ve already had to stop and rewind nineteen times to get all six names. Who are these people? “Six aspiring authors” who are going to spend 15 days immersed in the world of murder mystery. On a fabulous English country estate, followed by a camera crew. Oh, so it’s just like my life, then.

2:35 pm. They’re about to meet Minette Walters, who will be their “mentor and their judge.” She’s waiting in the Library, with a candlestick. No, not really. It’s a fountain pen. She’ll be looking for “great writing, ingenious plotting, and strong characterization.” Please channel Simon Cowell, Ms. Walters. Please, please, please.

2:45 pm. This liveblogging is harder than it looks. The dog doesn’t understand that I’m trying to do this in real time. He wants out.

Back. Aha - the aspiring writers are “celebrities.” That’s why I couldn’t place them! A garden designer, an actress, the snide tabloid columnist, a ballroom dancer, a television journalist, and another actress who says straight off, “I don’t have the writing skills…”

And next week, I join the cast of “Suitcase Nuke: disarm it!” I don’t have the skills, so I figure I’d be perfect.

2:50 pm. Voiceover: “The world of crime fiction writing is notoriously cutthroat. Which of our hopefuls will have what it takes to write the others out of the competition?” I’d laugh, but I’m busy wiring up the argon laser that I’m going to use to wipe out my rivals at the next Crime Writers’ Association meeting.

2:55 pm. Rule 1: Devise a credible murder. But first, a research task. Investigate a murder scene! A gruesome scene, re-enacted by experts in the field. The contestants are variously excited and nervous. They go out with scenes of crime officers to investigate - to look for clues. The actresses are having a hard time keeping their beautiful hair fully tucked under the forensic caps. It just wants to break free and blow gloriously and attractively in the wind, all over the crime scene.

3:05 pm. The celebrities sit in a darkened room with ominous music playing, coming up with theories as to how the crime scene victims died. When do we get to the writing?

3:06 pm. One of the women shouts, “Drug deal gone wrong!” Is that a theory, or some kind of personal confession? Now they have two days to write a 500 word description of a murder.

3:10 pm. The celebrities talk about writing. Diarmuid Gavin says he’s a garden designer, and the world of garden design is just like the world of murder. Ballroom dancer Brendan Cole says he doesn’t read books. He doesn’t enjoy it. He reads five pages and his brain switches off.

Did I mention that the winner of this competition gets a publishing contract? The episode is half over and we haven’t heard one word that anybody has written.

3:15 pm. Minette sends the contestants to a hospital. Sherrie Hewson figures it’s to see bandages. Angela Griffin figures they’re either going to see “the corpses and the morgue” or “they might even open someone up and we’ll see their insides.” And yes, they’re going to a morgue. Because Minette’s second rule of crime writing is “Do your research.” Everybody looks very, very pale. They’re gowned and gloved, but Sherrie Hewson might want to stop sucking on her thumb once they start the autopsy.

3:20 pm. Hahaha - the corpse is only a dummy! All six celebrities stop vomiting, grab bone saws, and hack the forensic pathologist to death.

Sadly, no. And they don’t even get to do a real autopsy, which they were so, so hoping to do, as were the police, I’m sure.

3:21 pm. My husband walks through the room. Sees the celebs examining the “corpse.” Shouts, “My God, he’s got three testicles!”

I think he’s talking about the rubber dead man. But I don’t know for sure.

3:28 pm. Writing! Finally, the point of the competition! We’re going to hear the opening scenes all the contestants have written. Or not. We get snippets, a sentence or two. A severed head in a soccer goal. Yobs. Smart-ass jokes. Minette does not look threatened by what she’s seen so far. Sherrie: “I know it’s not well-written. I know I’m not a writer.” Excuse me a moment. THEN WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE? “But I have passion.” She gets applause when she reads. Minette notes that she has “trouble with punctuation, and with tenses.” Sherrie sucks her finger.

3:38 pm. Minette picks Angela as her strongest pupil. And as for who must go home…

She hasn’t decided. She sends them outside. Cheater!

3:41 pm. “Little do the contestants realize that one of them will be silenced forever.” Truly? Didn’t anybody tell them the rules of this gig?

Snide Kelvin is safe. Sweet “maybe we’ll see their insides” Angela is safe. So is Sherrie, who has passion but no punctuation. Matt is safe. Brendan and Diarmuid are the only ones left. And Brendan is out! Or maybe dead. We never see him again. Just a body bag being slid into a cold storage locker with a bright cheerful toe-tag that says “Brendan Cole.”

Maybe poor Brendan tried to read it, and his brain switched off. For good.

And that’s it. Until tomorrow. And now back to work.

Andy Greig, my webmaster and eyewitness to the earthquake, has just been diagnosed with cancer. He’s getting ready to start chemotherapy, and he’s blogging about his experience at Grumpy Old Git (a misnomer of a blog title if there ever was one).

Send him your good vibes, helpful thoughts, prayers, and mojo. Everything good should go his way.

What a wonderful surprise to learn that the Guardian’s Maxim Jakubowski likes this blog. I must comment, however, on his remark that my writing here “skewers pretensions while keeping you abreast of her writing, promotional touring and unconventional family activities.”

Unconventional? I don’t know how many times I have to say it, but that goat was chained to the pentagram in my basement for research. And I know it looked scary when my children hurled ninja throwing stars at the man reading the gas meter, but the kids are deadly accurate, and didn’t come within an inch of hitting him.

I’ve given the blog a change of clothing. Just for fun. Let me know if you love it, or hate it, or if you’re too busy doing something vitally important - such as curing dread diseases or doing the dishes - to have noticed.

I’m still playing around with the header, so it might pull a few switches in the next couple of days as well.

Shamelessly posting a photo of my cat on this blog wasn’t enough for me, so I submitted a photo of my dog to Media Bistro’s GalleyCat blog. And now Duke’s a star, baby.

My previous post notes that my cat is thinking of killing me. Patti writes: “That’s because of the 3 hours you spent arranging its limbs to frame the ‘22′ so beautifully…. Is there an ‘after’ photo of you?”

No.

But there is this “ten days to delivery of the manuscript” photo.

Today is the first birthday of lying for a living. When I launched it last year, with a post about fact versus fiction, I had no idea what a pain in the ass, and how much fun, this whole blog thang would be. It’s a pain, because once you start blogging, you can’t stop. You become Indiana Jones running downhill ahead of that huge boulder - if you slow down, you get flattened. Your blog will die. And I couldn’t let that happen, because it’s such amazing fun. And that’s thanks to all of you.

If a blog works right, it isn’t an online journal, it’s a conversation. And the people who come here to talk are some of the most civilized, perceptive and hilarious folks around. Thanks for all your insights. And thanks for your support; it’s been great to get to know some of you on the blog, via email, and especially to get to meet some of you in person.

And thank you:

For reading my books.

For the Grammar Geeks Unit. For Semana Snarka, and for trying - heroically, demonically - to make me snark during Lent.

For the 243 verb names.

For the bestseller lists. You’re the ones who let me know I had an Amazon number one bestseller.

For the laughs, the photos, the links to snark-worthy articles, the discussions of evil garden gnomes, dueling hillbillies, and psycho astronauts; the comments in Middle English; and your attempts to uncover my true identity.

Don’t stop.