This and That

Is life not a hundred times too short for us to stifle ourselves? ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

Saw this at Tori's place, and I thought I'd share: 50 ways to help your author (without buying her book).

A writing friend has been following Miss Snark's hook cropometer and boiled down the bones of a good hook to this:

Remember the basic ingredients of the hook souffle: the main character is; s/he has a problem that is; s/he must do something to solve it that will: the consequences of solving it create a different problem which is. Fill in the blanks.

I figured that was a good recipe and it's going into my "keeper" file!

I wrote like a maniac yesterday. It was wonderful. I keep thinking maybe I can finish 40,000 words in ten days so I can enter the Harlequin Great American Romance contest. Okay, so maybe I should have finished the novel just a little bit earlier... If they just didn't want a pesky synopsis, I could send the beginning and finish it while they judged that. But, n-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o...

I tried to post the Zokutu word meter on the blog sidebar, but it was all fragmented. Don't know if it's just me, but I tried and tried and it was still all messed up. Anyone have another word count meter I could borrow?

Does anyone find it odd that nine tenths of the search hits I've gotten over the past week were "make me an elf"? I elfed myself sometime back and I'm getting hammered with hits about it. Geez.

Done with your Christmas shopping yet?