Facebook Thinks I'm Using Abusive Language

I just tried to post this comment on the Facebook page of a young friend, who's having a hard time (high school and boys and mother and all that stuff):

You know I'm going to keep nagging, er commenting. Like a buzzing mosquito ... When I'm miserable, here's what I try (a) go for a walk and cry (b) get something good to eat (c) have some hot tea (d) take a hot bath (e) write down horrible things about everyone who has hurt me and everyone I am angry with or (f) watch a favorite movie. Do as many on the list as I need to do, and then repeat.

But Facebook says: Warning: This Message Contains Blocked Content - Some content in this message has been reported as abusive by Facebook users. 

I know, it must be the hot tea.

Seriously, I tried leaving out miserable and horrible and hurt me, and Facebook still blocked me. It won't give me a clue which words are the troublesome ones. Angry? cry?

Okay, I finally figured it out, from trial and error. It was nagging. Facebook considers the word nagging to be abusive.

You, Madam, Are No Nerd

Google Reader suggested this blog for me, and I finally gave in: Fashion for Nerds. Although I'm still perplexed and miffed that Google thinks it appropriate for me.

I'm hooked. I'm astounded. This woman puts together amazing outfits every work day, and then poses in them for our benefit. Me, when I discover I look great in stretchy black Gap T-shirts, I buy 5 of them.

But sorry, no one who looks like this is a nerd. Never mind that she's a biologist. That alone does not qualify one for nerd-dom.

Although the fact that she knows where she bought each outfit, can lay her hands on whatever garment or accessory she wants, and knows what goes with what - quite probably does qualify her for geek status.

How to Survive 5 Hours in Subaru Waiting Room

Upon arrival: Reiterate reason for appointment: oil change, tire rotation, and flat tire. State that tire is losing 10-15 pounds of pressure every day. Point out the cigarette-lighter-powered pump you are carrying around with you to make clear this is not an imaginary tire-losing-air issue invented by a vague frittery female. It is a tire that is seriously losing huge amounts of pressure. Every day.

Hour 1, 7.30-8.30 am: Find deserted waiting area, turn off television, get coffee, and happily work. Send a bemused Twitter: Why are car service places surprised you're staying with your car while it's being fixed? Do most people have a spare car or driver?

Hour 2, 8.31-9.30 am: Work more, and begin to wonder when car might be done. Drink more coffee. Send email you try to make cheerful: shld hv brought computer cord, full picnic lunch and 2 library books - I'll learn - got good bit of work done, but computer going dead shortly - who knew it could take this long!?!

Hour 3, 9:31-10.30 am: Read some of the book you brought. Eat snack you brought. Work more. Realize computer battery is running low. Get jittery from too much coffee. Repair guy comes and tells you new tire must be sent over and will be another 90 minutes. Send testy email to SO: If they had looked at the tire when I FIRST brought it in and ordered it THEN, would have been out of here a few hours earlier.
I have learned
(1) take tons of food, drink, charger, books with me to car appts
(2) stop expecting people to do things in a logical manner, i.e., Gee, she has a flat tire, she might need a new one SO LET'S LOOK AT THE TIRE BEFORE WE DO THE OIL CHANGE AND OTHER STUFF!!

Hour 4, 10.31-11.30 am: Get frustrated. Think about crying. Consider who might willing to drive to downtown Nashville to rescue you. Look at display tent with sleeping bag and wonder what the salesman in this essentially deserted car dealership would do if you crawled in and went to sleep. Consider going out to buy food but it's 85 degrees and you're feeling like crap from heat, too much coffee, and lack of sustenance. Finish the book, which you don't like as much as you'd hoped. Look at table covered in reading material. Twitter: Table in Nashville Subaru waiting room is filled with magazines: Guns & Ammo, Car & Driver, Sports Illustrated, and Handgun. No kidding.

Hour 5, 11.31 am-12.30 pm: Resolve to make the best of it. Twitter: What I will bring on next car repair shop visit: computer charge cord, spare cell battery, two books, full picnic lunch, thermos of iced tea. Find the break room, discover Diet Coke is sold out, get ice water, study items in vending machine, almost all of which contain flour that you cannot eat, and finally buy popcorn and pop it. Pick up The City Paper and read about a local bigwig deliberately knocking a pedestrian unconscious and building a private dam despite EPA rulings, as you happily eat your greasy popcorn and sip ice water. And finally, guy comes to tell you your car is done. And now you get to battle lunch hour traffic to get out of town.

And then you really, really wonder what is wrong with Subaru that it takes 5 hours to effect a simple repair that was scheduled well in advance - when you specifically said What day and time is good for you? - and even arrived early.

Maybe upon arrival you should have let all the air out of the tire you pumped up to make the trip here. The visual impact of the flat tire might have translated to Gee, we need to see what's wrong with this tire.

I Am Not an Elephant - or a Whale

My writer friend Jamie Ford has been gently nagging me to send out my manuscript, probably thinking I'm over-editing. He tells a friend

It's like she's been pregnant for 18 months - time to start pushing.

I find this funny - very funny, and of course it makes me think of an elephant, which requires 18 months or more for gestation. SO is somewhat surprised (although I can't imagine why) that I know this. Whales, however, I have to look up.

So the elephant (or whale) is about to give birth.

Here's hoping for a painless delivery.

Why I Love My Beta Readers

Beta reader #1, on her way from California to Philly to attend a banquet where her husband is receiving an award, apparently read the manuscript on the plane. She sends responses to the tongue-in-cheek potential responses I listed:

Beta reader #2 reads it between geo-caching (whatever that is) in the rain and kayaking with his wife. He's wonderfully detailed-oriented, and besides catching all the typos that slipped through, makes great comments like

• She just used her cell phone to take a call from X. Why did she use a pay phone to call Y? (Because in the original draft, she didn't have a cell phone!)
• If you’re strapped on a backboard properly, you can’t sit up! You’d be strapped to the backboard – standard procedure for trauma – and placed on the stretcher and loaded in the ambulance. (Don't remember this from my ambulance trips, back in my very hard-riding days, before I learned that discretion is sometimes the better part of valor.)

I also learn from my beta readers all kinds of useful things: several means different things to different people and if you describe someone with thinning hair, most readers assume that person is old. And that men tend to love detailed descriptions of bicycles and computers, and most women, not so much.

And primarily, I think, I've learned the incredible power of words - that one single word can change how an entire page affects a reader.

Thank you, beta readers.

A Nearly Perfect Writer's Day

• Feed dogs. Have first breakfast. Play Shaheen's video for inspiration. Have brief conversation with SO.
• Review eight pivotal chapters of partial.
• Learn from EW.com that the nasty character got ousted from Survivor this week, and watch DVRed episode, with glee.
• Have second breakfast.
• Do on-screen review of last 20,000 words of your novel. Print it for line editing.

• Treat yourself to a few chapters of Val McDermid's THE GRAVE TATTOO during late lunch. Nap outside on a blanket in the sun, with dogs. Talk to SO.
• Line edit novel pages. Feed dogs. Eat leftover stew and limp lettuce while working.
• Discover via Twitter a video review of one of your favorite books, by one of your favorite vloggers, and post it on the author's writer's forum for all to view. Talk to SO.
  
• Facebook message your first-line beta reader that rest of novel is arriving tonight. List potential responses: LOVE IT / HATE IT / WTF? / WOW / YAWN / UGH
• Type in line edits. Email chapters to beta reader.
• Sleep.

Jackson Pearce Vlogs AS King's DUST OF 100 DOGS

Jackson, I cannot believe you dressed your cat up as a pirate. Love the cutlass.

Public at large: Go buy this book now, if you haven't already. Buy several copies and give them to your friends. No, I don't get a commission. I just love the book.

On Not Giving Up, Take 3

So take six minutes of your life today, and watch this clip.

What is it with those Brits? Superb storytelling, and a superb story to tell. I've got goosebumps. You've just watched the start of Shaheen Jafargholi's career.

Now This is a True Friend

Tuesday I notice that my writing friend Jamie Ford has a book signing that evening in the Chicago area for his HOTEL ON THE CORNER OF BITTER AND SWEET and so I email my friend Pinecone about it. Turns out her daughter has four pals over that evening to work on a homework assignment, but Pinecone does some research and finds out that Jamie has another appearance the next day in Winnetka. She arranges her schedule, convinces her ex- to give up his regularly scheduled Wednesday night with their daughter so she can take her along, and off they go.

They get there early and buy the book, meet Jamie (and most assuredly tell him funny and potentially embarrassing stories about me) and love the reading.

So this morning I'm thinking I'm a pretty lucky person to have friends like Pinecone. And for that matter, Jamie.

Why You Should Never Give Up, Take 2

Recently I stumbled across this book description in one of my greedy forays across the Internet trolling for contests where I could win books:

In the late 17th century, famed pirate Emer Morrisey was on the cusp of escaping pirate life with her one true love and unfathomable riches when she was slain and cursed with the dust of 100 dogs, dooming her to one hundred lives as a dog before returning to a human body—with her memories intact. Now she's a contemporary American teenager, and all she needs is a shovel and a ride to Jamaica.

I was instantly hooked. I waited three days to see if I won the contest (I didn't) and then ordered the book, DUST OF 100 DOGS. I made the grave error of starting it at 10.30 PM - and could not put it down. Loved it. Absolutely loved it. Remember that feeling you got as a kid when you devoured The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe or whatever book excited you? That's the feeling I got from this book.

This morning I learn from that author A.S. King endured dozens of rejections for this book, including an excoriating bashing from one agent. She says

There are about 80-100 agents who turned down D100D--but it wasn't in great shape when I sent it to most of them. Janet [Reid] rejected one of my literary novels, too, but again--while it was not in great shape, which means she was ultimately right. (Of course she was right all along.)

But there was one agent I will never forget, who ripped the entire concept of D100D to pieces for about 30 minutes at a conference banquet, and told me 1000 different reasons why D100D "would never sell." One was that any animals in books "never work." ("Kiss of death," she said.) One was that "no one wants to read about pirates" and another was "reincarnation is pretty dumb." The list was long, and she said all of this without reading one word! After 30 minutes, I excused myself, went to the hotel bar and bummed a cigarette off a complete stranger. I hadn't smoked in 3 months. One day, I will thank that agent for the favor she did me. She taught me that nobody, no matter how much of a so-called expert they claim to be, really knows what's "in" or "out" or what any of us should write. - lifted with A.S. King's approval from her comment in The Flux Blog, in response to this Janet Reid posting

Yet another reason why we should never, ever give up.

(A.S. King tells me that DUST OF 100 DOGS is now in its third printing, and she's just sold a second book. I've love to ask this particular agent what she thought of THE ART OF RACING IN THE RAIN, which involved a dog and reincarnation - and parents-in-law in lieu of pirates).

Note to Pinecone: Don't buy this; I'll send you a copy as a thank-you.You can flog it to your book club.

Review: Giancarlo Esposito's "Gospel Hill"

Near the end of Gospel Hill is a very short scene involving the retired town sheriff and an angry young man - a bit of nearly perfect movie-making that turns the Southern class/racial/generational issues genre on its head and pulls the movie together in a way I'm still savoring.

Parts of the movie did remind me of a long and sluggish episode of the TV version of In the Heat of the Night - but the slow pacing was deliberate, and largely essential.



Warning: This clips gives up much of the movie, so I'd advise just watching a few minutes.

At times this movie seems a Southern Peyton Place: the son of X is sleeping with the wife of Y, and Z, the other son of X is dating the Yankee girl A, who is working with B, who is married to C, whose father was killed when X was the sheriff, and Y and A are fighting over a proposed business development.

But with few exceptions, the filmmakers have nailed the portrayal of a sleepy Southern town and avoided cliches. Every white character is not a bigot; every black character is not angry and disadvantaged.

Tom Herrod does the best job of playing a conflicted and biased white man I've seen since, well, Rod Steiger in In the Heat of the Night (the movie version). Angela Bassett is feisty, Giancarlo Esposito (who also directed) is conflicted, Danny Glover is crippled by grief. Adam Baldwin is a wily character flipping stereotypes, and Taylor Kitsch is, well, charming.

Where the movie fails is the Julia Stiles character, who has the burden of trying to carry off the worst white Yankee girl dialogue imaginable. No one, absolutely no one, on a first or second date with a cute guy would say So tell me why your father was never able to solve the murder of that black man. Ditto her stilted dialogue with her fellow teacher's husband. A flighty nitwit might say those things, but a flighty nitwit wouldn't have researched civil rights history.

And the Danny Glover character would not wear brand-new overalls to work on his truck. Never. He'd wear his old ones, and keep the new ones for nice.

Any Southerner could tell you that.

I'd Rather See a Truly Awful Movie ...

... than a mediocre one.

If you're gonna fail, fail stupendously. In that regard, Adam Resurrected succeeded admirably. It's hammy, meandering, perverse, outrageous, nonsensical, and illogical all in one 106-minute package - and cloaks itself with invulnerability by involving the Holocaust and a mentally disturbed boy.


But there is some pleasure in seeing a truly awful movie (and dissecting it afterward) - while a movie that's a near-miss or just boringly mediocre is plain frustrating.

I saw two other movies the same day, both astoundingly good: Empress Hotel and Invisible Girlfriend. I'll try to post reviews of those soon.

And now I'm off to squeeze in two more movies between editing my manuscript.

How to Get Yourself Published - via David Pogue

David Pogue of the New York Times is compiling a book from Twitter responses to a series of questions he's posting, beginning tonight, including

• What’s your greatest regret?
• Sum up your life story in six words.
• Tell us about your wedding proposal.
• What’s the best toast you ever heard?
• What’s the best Internet joke you ever got emailed?
• Anyone seen any good bumper stickers lately?
• Tell us about a Brush with Greatness (a celebrity encounter).
• What was the most embarrassing thing that ever happened to you?
• Write a haiku about your childhood.
• Send me your best anagram of a current famous person’s name.

So you can start composing your best no-more-than-140-character responses.

If your Twitter posts are selected for the book, you get a personally signed copy - and your Twitter name will be included, so you may get a zillion new followers. Which ain't bad if you're trying to promote something.

Just follow Pogue on Twitter to respond: His Twitter name is Pogue. And if you haven't signed up for Twitter, it is painless.

Note: I'm an unabashed David Pogue fan - or, as he says, his first groupie - but I don't think this is the best collection of questions, and am hoping he revises them as he goes.

What Catapults You from Bed at 5:53 AM

The sound of a dog throwing up.

I've been known to awaken from a sound sleep, fling myself out of bed, scoop up a magazine en route, and slide it under a dog's mouth just as regurgitation takes place. And hoping the whole time that it was a magazine I was finished with.

This morning Bridget considerately went into her plastic crate to rid herself of what was troubling her.

Turned out it was a piece of my used chewing gum, which she had apparently pilfered from wherever I had parked it.

And after the necessary cleanup, since I was awake I started working.

Thank you, Bridget. Now at mid-day, I'm gonna have to find some caffeine.

Why, Oh, Why Did I Eat That?

Apparently I ate some wheat yesterday at the film festival. Usually I'm careful, and the evening Whole Foods chef, Angela, knows I have celiac disease and can tell me exactly what I can eat and what I cannot.

But this was afternoon, and I was hungry - and it was a taco, which is theory is okay because they're usually made of corn, but even as I picked up it a little voice was saying This seems too flaky for a corn taco shell and as I spooned the meat sauce into it that little voice said This could have wheat mixed in, you know - but I ate it anyway, in some obscure way thinking, Oh, I can handle it and Even if it does, it won't bother me too much.

This is similiar to what I used to call my Three Doughnut Rule. Back in the days when I could eat wheat, I loved small cake doughnuts. And I knew I could eat two and feel fine, and that if I ate three I always felt a little sick. But every so often I had to see if just this one time I could eat three doughnuts and get away with it.

I never could.

So today I'm paying for eating that taco, which almost certainly had some wheat. I'm not virulently ill - just feverish and stuffy and lethargic and want to do nothing but sleep - what in the South we call feeling like molasses in January. This, of course, on a day with 5,000 crucial things scheduled.

So maybe this is one of those lessons I have to keep learning over and over. But I'm hoping this time it sticks with me.

Can Anyone Read This?

Occasionally I do a Google blog search for my name (always good to see where it pops up) and tonight I find this:

Sara J. HENRY tarafından hazırlanan bu kitap hakkında ayrıntılı bilgi vermeden önce açıklık getirilmesi gereken bir konu var ki o da yayın okunurken karşımızdakinin kesinlikle bir doktor yada şifa kitabı olarak görülmemesi gerektiğidir.
Kitapta Romatizma hastalığı hakkında güncel olan tüm ayrıntılar verilirken kişiye bu hastalık konusunda detaylı bir genel kültür birikimi, dolayısıyla konu ile ilgili daha bilinçli bir şekilde ilgilenme imkanı sağlanıyor. Bu nedenle, kitap okunurken yada okunduktan sonra kesinlikle “ vay be! Bende romatizma varmış.” Yada “Tanrım, ne yapacağım şimdi ? “ şeklinde yargılara kapılmayın.

I have no idea what it says - or what language it's in. If anyone has any idea, please let me know, and I can run it through a translation program.

And hope I haven't just posted something obscene.

Update: A fellow Backspace member identified the language for me - it's Turkish - so I plugged it into a online translation program and discovered it's a book review of a book I did years ago, Arthritis: What You Need to Know. The review ends thusly:
As a result, the best part of the book, giving advice that put a stop to three gold I would like. These in fact were discussed in terms of health but I'd recommend it for every stage of life:
Return 1.Sabahları the development of the bed. Spend most of the good 2.Hayatınızın Select the items (especially your seat) With timing and the right way 3.Doğru exit. Your body will not be tired in vain.
I love "Your body will not be tired in vain."

Review: William Shatner, I've Misjudged You

I didn't manage to get into the premiere of William Shatner's Gonzo Ballet at the Nashville Film Festival (not then knowing how to get tickets to sold-out events) so didn't get to hear Shatner speak. But I went to the next showing, without having any idea what to expect. A ballet about Shatner's writings, set to music? It sounded bizarre.



I loved it. Absolutely loved it. And d**ned if I haven't underestimated William Shatner.

How can I review this without sounding sappy? Ben Folds, whom Shatner calls a genius, did a phenomenal job of setting Shatner's words to music in an album called Has Been, which in turn was incorporated into a bright, mesmerizing ballet by Margo Sappington. Shatner is funny, self-effacing, sensitive, devoted to his wife, Elizabeth, and yes, incredibly talented. How did we miss this? Why did he become a Priceline joke? "I'm a little sore at being poked fun at," he says in this documentary. His poetry/writing is beautiful - "It hasn't happened yet," he says at the end of one piece, in a richly timbred voice I didn't know he possessed - I'll admit to wiping away a tear.

Aw, heck - I can't do this justice. Watch the clip. Buy the album. Go see the movie, if it's released near you.

And please don't laugh at William Shatner again. Ever.

Wherein I Meet a Woman Named Tarantula

I am at the party following the screening of Giancarlo Esposito's movie Gospel Hill and chatting with a woman and her daughter, mostly about the odd selection of food at this buffet and how to most efficaciously eat grits out of a green pepper with a minuscule fork (I hold it close to my chin and resort to a shoveling technique, and eventually bite the green pepper, which puts grits in dangerously close proximity to my not-short nose.)

Somehow I start talking with the daughter about writing, and she confesses she's trying to write but gets blocked and I tell her my quick version of ways to break through and get inspired and keep going, and tell her it's never too late, and mention the reasons that can keep one from having the time/energy/confidence to write and market a book, starting with those grim moments of childhood - having a father who took apart an airplane engine on the dining room table and home-cut hair and wearing ugly clothes, yadda yadda yadda, and she stops me dead when she says, Hello? What do you think it was like being named Tarantula?

This is indeed her name (her mother is standing right there) and I ask about siblings, picturing a brother named Scorpion, perhaps, and she says, no, her brother was named after her father.

And later I think about this, and why a woman would name her only daughter after a spider. Perhaps her reasoning was like in the Johnny Cash song written by Shel Silverstein, A Boy Named Sue:

Son, this world is rough
And if a man's gonna make it, he's gotta be tough
And I knew I wouldn't be there to help ya along.
So I give ya that name and I said goodbye
I knew you'd have to get tough or die
And it's the name that helped to make you strong.

I give Tarantula my email address and tell her about Backspace, the online writers group, and I hope I hear from her again. And I will perhaps encourage her to shorten her name to Taran for novels - but know her memoir should be called My Name is Tarantula - or A Girl Named Tarantula.

The Black Vest Is Still Working

I wore the vest to the film festival again yesterday - hey, I have limited wardrobe while visiting in Nashville. And there I was, standing idly outside the entry doors looking down in the alley, well way from the red carpet and the security and fans craning their necks to see famous folks, when a man comes up the out-of-the-way side stairs near the alley and stops and introduces himself to me and shakes my hand, and we chat about the weather and where he is from and where I am from and he teases me about the Tennessee-isms that have crept back into my speech this week.

It's Giancarlo Esposito, he of Homicide, and director and one of the stars in the sold-out movie I've just finagled a ticket for, Gospel Hill, and I walk him toward the movie as he doesn't know which theater it's in.

The magic vest has done its job once again.

How to Look Important Without Really Trying

Somehow I was getting a lot of attention at the mystery convention Bouchercon last fall. It's my magic vest, I told my friends there. This black, suede-like, open zip, high collar vest is so cool it transforms me, I decide (credit goes to SO for plucking it off a crowded rack in a store for me). And then I discovered that all those people greeting me so effusively thought I was the popular blogger and book reviewer Sarah Weinman.

But last night I wore the vest to the Nashville Film Festival, and damned if the same thing doesn't happen again. People smile at me, chat with me, introduce themselves, give me their cards. I meet Vincent D'Onofrio and Jay O. Sanders; I am within spitting distance of William Shatner and Sheryl Crow. And then I discuss this curious phenomenon with someone I've met here.

They think you're a producer, he said. You have an East Coast look.

Which explains why, generally, in Nashville I am invisible. He referred to my blend of casual and not-casual attire as wearing Prada pants with K-Mart sneakers. He may not have said K-Mart - and in fact they are brand-new Teva sneakers, and the sleek pants are Ibex wool - but you get the drift.

But personally, I think it's the magic vest.

Note: I'll post reviews of D'Onofrio's and Sanders's movies, "The Narrows" and "Poundcake" on my other blog soon.

Why I Was Late to the Movie

Because I've apparently have gotten myself addicted to this wonderful stuff called coffee I've recently discovered, but while house-sitting in my former Nashville neighborhood didn't think to make any until caffeine withdrawal kicked in, knocking me flat for several hours with nausea and a nasty headache.

Because while recuperating from said pounding headache, neighbor 1 called and asked me to go over and put her cat in the house, yes, the fat one Stephen Baldwin likes, because she is out of town and her spouse won't be home until late, and on the way there I see neighbor 2 and stop to chat with her about my phone call to them last night and pet her neurotic dog that I discover is on Prozac, and while searching for the cat outside neighbor 1's house her weekend guest house renters mention that she promised them a portable crib and I search the house until I find it and carry it out to them. And then by then I have exactly 30 minutes to run up a steep driveway, change clothes, drive to the movie, find parking, and pick up my film festival pass.

I get there spot on at 7.00, which would make me late, but because there's a long line of people waiting to get in, the movie, 500 Days of Summer, with Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, is delayed. So I don't miss even a minute. And it was well worth it.

My Floor Mats Have Resurfaced

The snow has melted - most of it anyway. And what comes to the surface are the things you lost in snowstorms during the winter. Like the formerly pristine car floor mats you in desperation used for traction the December night you got stuck halfway up your driveway after Monty escaped during a heavy snowfall. And because SO is there when the snow first melts and you are not, he finds the first of the missing mats. And you get this via email:

Obviously, the renegade mat is rather worse for wear. It was across the street from my driveway, curled on top of a melting snow bank. The next week, back in Vermont myself, I saw the other missing mat nestled among the stones in my creek, handily being washed quite clean.

And no, I don't recommend using your floor mats for traction. Nor do I recommend getting a giant dog from the shelter who loves to escape and run. But if those things are part of your life, it helps to have an SO with a wicked sense of humor.

Why You Should Never Give Up On Your Dreams

This is the most inspirational video clip I've ever seen - take a short break out of your day and watch it.

More on Susan Boyle here. And here.

Update 4/16: A good commentary in The Guardian on our "ugly" reaction.

Why Sara's Blog is Dark

Because she is editing. And rewriting. And polishing. And polishing more. And along the way fixing all those tiny bits in a manuscript that either don't mesh quite right or are presented in the wrong order, and weaving in the details that inexplicably got left out.

Which pretty much takes up all her brain power and time.