Photo Mysteries: A Writers' Game

Remember The Mysteries of Harris Burdick, the Chris Van Allsburg book with one illustration, a title, and one line of a story?  It was haunting, fabulous, intriguing -- and it inspired hundreds of readers to create their own stories.
I have the sudden urge to try something like that -- but I can't draw.
Fine, so I'm going to use photographs.

Here's how we'll play this little writers' game:
I'm going to give you a photo, a title, and a line.  Then, if you care to play the game, you'll add your title and your single line from your own story that might go with the photo (in the comments section).  If even five or six of my regular readers will try this, we could have a fun little list of the shortest flash fiction ever!
Wanna try?

Okay, here's the photo:

Title: "The Accidental Time-Tourist"
"If Great-Grandfather Alonzo could just translate the letter, Max knew he'd be able to put it into binary code, tap it out on the telegraph, and program the steam engine to take him home....."

Okay, your turn.  If you want to play along, create a title and one line for YOUR story for this photo.

What Kind Of Reader Are You?

What Kind of Reader Are You? Your Result: Obsessive-Compulsive Bookworm You're probably in the final stages of a Ph.D. or otherwise finding a way to make your living out of reading. You are one of the literati. Other people's grammatical mistakes make you insane.
Dedicated Reader
Literate Good Citizen
Book Snob
Non-Reader
Fad Reader
What Kind of Reader Are You? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

I saw this quiz on muchedlovedbook and couldn't resist taking it.  :)

Yeah, that about sums things up, I think.

The Exciting Life Of An English Teacher

Between academic team and grading papers, I've been short on sleep -- as usual -- this week.  But this afternoon I got caught up on all the "quick" grading at school (grammar assignments and vocab tests that don't require much effort to grade, as opposed to essays and projects, which do), and I'd promised myself a few hours to type up the changes to Half-Vampire so I could submit the PDF for the third proof (sigh).
But by chapter nine, my eyes were stinging and I couldn't think straight to make difficult decisions on cuts anymore.  I knew it was very late and I'd better get to bed.  I checked the time: 7:19.
Oh yeah.
Another wild and crazy Friday night for me.
Sigh.

A Day That Will Live In Infamy

Monday my ninth graders were copying down their latest vocabulary list, and one of the words was "infamous."  One boy, as he copied, recited FDR's famous declaration about December 7 -- and, yes, the boy knew what the day was.
Seventy years ago this week, my mother sat in her high school class and heard their principal announce over the PA system that the US was going to war against Japan.  She can't recall what she was doing 20 years later when JFK was shot, but the moment of that announcement about what we now call World War II is burned forever in her mind.  By the time she graduated from high  school, only two boys were left to walk with the class; the others had been snatched up as soon as they turned 18 and shipped off to basic training, not even being allowed to finish high school.  Two of her classmates lied about their ages, dropped out of high school, and joined the army at 16.  Both were killed at Iwo Jima before the day they would have graduated if there had been no war.
Dad has no strong memory of Pearl Harbor Day.  But he was already in basic training within some 6 months of the event.  As he told me Monday evening, the main reason he survived fighting the Japanese in Bouganville and in Manilla (Dad was part of the group that liberated the prisoners in the last Japanese stronghold at the University.) was because he was a farm boy.  He shot second best out of 3000 new recruits and -- thanks to hours shoveling manure -- he could dig a foxhole mighty fast.
And thanks to Dad and lots of his buddies, that ninth-grade boy in my class is free to learn about infamy and many other things -- even Japanese,  if he chooses -- in freedom.
My parents' generation truly was "the greatest generation."
Dad plans to put on his WWII vet baseball cap and walk down the street today -- because he still can.
Know a WWII Allied vet?  Give him a hug today.  The world's a better place because of what he risked.

The Typo Gremlins Have Been At Work Again

Sigh.
I really thought I'd have the Half-Vampire POD ready for sale this week.  Our librarian is pressuring me to release it, as he wants to buy a bunch for contests at school.  And I have several people who want to buy them as Christmas presents.  Not to mention the fact that my seventh-graders are actually whining about how long it's taking me to get it for sale.
But I keep finding more and more typos.  I swear they weren't there before!  I think the typo cybergremlins are sneaking in and messing things up for me, not at all unlike the gremlins who attacked aircraft in WWII.
And so I am reading my own book for what must be the tenth time since last June.  I'm heartily sick of it by now, so I hope I'm not overlooking things still, or else I'll have to do this yet again and have not just a 3rd proof copy but also a 4th.  (Perish the thought!)  By sneaking in a little reading time in between grading tons and tons of tests this weekend, I managed to reach chapter 10.  I hope to have it finished and to order a proof #3 by next weekend.
Fingers crossed.

Sophie Tucker Just Made A New Fan

If she hadn't died decades before normal folks had ever heard of the internet, I'd be bookmarking her blog right now.  Sophie Tucker, I've just discovered, was quite a gal.
Brain-fried on grading essays (mid-terms are due Monday.  Bleck.) and too tired to make a decision as to whether or not I can live with the remaining small irritations in Half-Vampire, I was working on a scene for my WIP, The (Dis)Appearance of Nerissa MacKay, which needs some 1920s music.  I had a ton of Eddie Cantor and a few Josephine Baker and Fanny Brice hits on my iTunes, but not much else from that decade, so I did a yahoo search for popular singers of the 1920s.  Sophie Tucker's name appeared, and, not knowing anything about her, I began searching through amazon's mp3 download page.
Oh my goodness.  What hits.  What a delightful, refreshing person!
She seemed to have a really good grasp of a woman's reality in this world, as is evidenced by the following quote (and by the song lyrics below), "From birth to age eighteen, a girl needs good parents. From eighteen to thirty-five she needs good looks. From thirty-five to fifty-five, she needs a good personality. From fifty-five on, she needs good cash."


Songs I'll be buying soon include:
"Middle Age Mambo"
"Hello, My Baby"
"Red Hot Mama"
"You Can't Deep Freeze A Red Hot Mama"
"Sophie Tucker School For Red Hot Mamas"
"I'm Living Alone And I Like It"
And this hilariously true little ditty "Nobody Loves A Fat Girl"

Nobody loves a fat girl

But oh how a fat girl can love

Nobody seems to want me

I'm just a truck upon the highway of love

I'm all alone inside of my form

When ev'ry ounce of me is dyin' to keep somebody warm

Nobody loves a fat girl

But oh how a fat girl can love

[ Lyrics from: http://www.lyricsfreak.com/j/jim+croce/nobody+loves+a+fat+girl_20269080.html ]

Nobody loves a fat girl

But oh how a fat girl can love

Nobody seems to want me

I'm just a truck upon the highway of love

The only game I can get the boys to play

Is to have them sit around and try to guess how much I weigh

Nobody loves a fat girl

But oh how a fat girl can love, pretty mama

Oh how a fat girl can love

I am SO going to be a fan forever now.  What a discovery!
Does anyone else have singers/groups from the early days of recording on their iPods?


UPDATE 12/4: I bought the songs and have been happily listening to them while I grade papers.  :)

Proof Number Two Came Today

So I now have my second proof copy of Confession of an Average Half-Vampire.  If I can EVER get all the essays graded and mid-terms done this week (I am SWAMPED!!!), I'll proofread this one.  If it's workable, I can approve it on create space and then the physical book will FINALLY be for sale.