Gender Genie

I love cool Internet toys!

And okay, the online test I took a few weeks ago did declare me a uber-geek, but still. This Gender Genie online toy is freaking cool!

What you do is paste 500 or more words into the box and it looks at the words and decides if the author is male or female. So, I took a 644 word section out of the middle of my last blog entry and pasted it in. The result: male. Female score was 1004 and the male score was 1054. I’m a boy?

Then I tried a section out of my chick lit story and guess what? I’m a girl! Okay, Allie is a girl. Out of 1082 words, the female score was 1287 and the male score was 1105. This was a section with both male and female dialogue but from a female point of view.

On a more female note, I tried putting in 613 words of dialogue between the two girl friends chatting about guys and ta-da. They are still girls with a female score of 839 and a male score of 680.

Even more interesting, I pulled a quick 96 words of dialogue belonging to a stiff-as-a-board-I-have-no-famale-sensitivity male character out of that same story and put it into the Gender Genie form. And guess what? He’s a boy! (Yes!) Male score was 175 and the female score was 4. It is hard to say if the score would be that slanted if I used 500 words, but either way, it is good to hear that I am making my males sound like males–although maybe a bit too much?

If you are curious about how they come up with male or female, here is some background from BookBlog’s site (which also contains a useful tip for writers):
“In the most basic terms, the computational linguists behind the algorithm, Koppel and Argamon, took a bunch of fiction and looked for trends based on gender. Using complicated formulas, they determined that male writers tended to write more about specific things like an apple, a book, or the car. In contrast, female writers wrote about connections to things like my apple, your book, or our car. The nouns themselves (apple, book, car) didn’t matter much but the preceding qualifier, whether an article (a, an, the) or possessive (my, your, our), did.”

 Try it out, it’s Fun with a capital ‘f’.

Freedom to Bear Arms: Las Vegas

Being Canadian, I’m not really into firearms. And yes, I have fired various rifles and have even been handed down a BB gun. But I’m not into guns and I certainly do not travel with them. I am aware that Americans take their right to bear arms quite seriously, yet I couldn’t help but feel twinges of culture shock in Las Vegas upon some of the various gun-related sights. For example, check out this mini-van cab:

And I always thought mini-vans were family vehicles. Maybe ‘try one’ is an experience for the whole family in the United States?

Then again, maybe guns and travel go together:

Or…maybe not.

Even Penn and Teller involved guns in their show, which may have (and strangely enough) resulted in this poster–hopefully is tongue in cheek:

And lastly, this sign worried me a bit (I mean, if they have to put up a sign because they AREN’T allowed here, they must have a problem with people bringing them in…which leads me to question…where exactly ARE they allowed to hang with their firearms?):

Flesh For Sale: Las Vegas

One thing that really surprised me about Las Vegas was not necessarily how they have bastardized every significant monument in the world, but rather it was the blatant flesh for sale. Vegas, essentially, is a theme park for the seven deadly sins and an interesting sociological study.

We’ve all heard the adage: what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, but I had no idea that some folks actually take it quite seriously and that casino owners are embracing it. The weekend folk seems to be there to prove the adeage is true and were a bit more wild than the weekday folk. During the weekend there were lots of young people looking for action. Girls wearing barely there dresses that could cause you to confuse them with hookers. Guys strolling around on the prowl, trying to catch the attention of passing gaggles of girls. Shops with slutty outfits in the windows. Hotels with topless pools, oh sorry, I mean, with an ‘European Experience’. Sculptures based around nudity. The weekend seemed to emphasise the Vegas flesh experience.

And that’s is to be expected. Vegas is where a sexual whack-job can go to be free. However, what was a bit startling were the lines of Hispanic men wearing bright t-shirts boasting: “GIRLS, GIRLS, GIRLS. Delivered to your door in 20 minutes.” Wow, it’s like pizza. If it’s takes longer than 20 minutes, does that mean they’re free? But not only are the men wearing the shirts advertising the phone number, they have a stack of coloured business cards with photos of half dressed or nude (white) women (where is the diversity?) and a phone number. All hours of the day there are lines of these guys up and down the strip, and particularly in areas where people have to squeeze by them as there is no other way around. Every hand that went by, they would try to slip a card to them–even though I never saw anyone other than loud drunk young men take a card–one group was collecting them like sports cards. But it was the flicking that really got to me. Whenever you walk by, even if you are holding the hand of a large man, they flick their cards with a thumb making a ‘flicking’ noise and try to slip a card into your hand. By the end of the trip, I was ready to grab one of those stupid cards and shove it up a nostril (not my own nostril in case you were wondering). Isn’t it obvious that I prefer men and am not looking for ‘company’?

So although the flicking nuddy cards were annoying, it was the discarded cards scattered on the sidewalks that really annoyed me. It is rather disconcerting for someone who likes to walk briskly and often checks where they are walking to have their attention always being caught by cards underfoot. Always walking, always walking on a half-dressed or naked woman cast down like garbage upon the ground. Littering the sidewalks in compromising positions, slowly being ground into the cement. Bothersome. It affects one’s psyche.

But that’s not all. Newspaper boxes that line the sidewalks don’t hold newspapers, they hold call girl catalogues, the yellow pages has 100 pages of ‘entertainers’–yes I counted. Everywhere you look, flesh is for sale. You look out into traffic and there is a moving billboard with a scantily clad woman with a phone number and the words, “Hot Babes. Delivered to your door in 20 minutes.” Is there some central warehouse? How big is Las Vegas anyway? It takes me 20 minutes just to get through my hotel/casino and up to my room! So, up and down the strip these billboards drive, sucking up fossil fuels, rubbing super-sized breasts in your face.

Oh, and I forgot about the showgirls. What would Las Vegas be without showgirls? Of course the casinos have waitresses wearing barely-cover-your-bum outfits and sport dancers and large posters of buttocks and ads for showgirl performances. Our ‘do not disturb’ sign for our hotel room door had showgirls on them. Even scultptures in Vegas are naked.

Sadly, Vegas has even turned Toni Braxton into a ‘showgirl’ and alluded to that her singing show may be a nuddy show by calling it ‘Toni Braxton Revealed’. Check out the side of the hotel where she plays:

It’s no wonder that after awhile you feel the urge to start dressing like a slut. Okay, no. But I could see how someone might if they were one of those who enjoyed walking the strip with their alcohol in hand–which also appears to be legal–and likes the experience of grinding with another woman on top of the bar at Coyote Ugly and taking their top off at the pool.

Where Are We?: Las Vegas

Have you ever walked into a place and thought, “Where the hell am I?” or “What the hell am I doing here?”

I had one of those moments last week. My husband and I went to Las Vegas for a few days. In the dead of the night (well, okay, dead anywhere else except Vegas which had traffic jams) we arrived at our hotel–after spending an incredible amount on cab fare. We walked into the shiny, glamorous entry of the hotel, our backpacks slung over our shoulders only to be met by a gaggle of Howie Mandel’s girls from ‘Let’s Make a Deal’. Okay, okay, not really. But they could have been stand-ins judging by the way they were done up. Or maybe they were call girls. Really, how can a country bumpkin like me tell? 

So, after weaving through the look at me giggles flicking their blown out fancy hair, we found ourselves in a sparkling, shiny casino. Huh? All I could think was, “Where the hell are we? And cigarette smoke?” The stale booze smell wasn’t nearly as shocking as the stunning cigarette smoke. It is incredible how quickly you get used to public spaces being free of cigarette smoke. (It is banned where I live, but not in Vegas casinos!) After my husband dazedly turned a circle, he discovered the check in desk behind us and off to the side. Whew.

The next stunner was customer service. They immediately began upgrading us and I of course, began panicking. But all for naught. Evidently upgrades are free. And thank goodness the room was said to be smoke free as I could already practically feel my lungs seizing up. So, off through the jangling casino we strolled, feeling self-conscious with our luggage slung over our shoulders. Finally, we arrive at the elevators. In case you are curious, no 13th floor. Up to our room which of course, smells like stale cigarette smoke. <Sigh.>

The next day, after a HUGE (and pricey–$3.50 for a beverage) breakfast we headed out to check out the strip. This in itself was an adventure as after walking for approximately forever, we discovered all sorts of things that were not in fact the strip (flamingos, a topless pool, people still drunk from the night before, a grocery store that advertised guns and booze, and some homeless people). And then at last, the strip. Wow, are Casinos really hard to get out of! We soon discovered that it usually took two of us to navigate through their wily keep-you-inside schemes. (In one Casino, we walked for over a km before finding our way out at the other end. Those things are mammoth!)

But we found the strip. Unfortunately, we wanted to cross the street. But it was blocked! Tricky, tricky. Eventually, we discovered that the escalators we had been avoiding were actually a way up to the fancy pedestrian bridges that we had previously not noticed. These pedestrian bridges were tricky too because they would often dump you into a casino. Sometimes, there would be stairs back down to the street–often set back so if you weren’t paying attention you would land in the casino. All the tricks to get you to spend all your money!

Here is a photo to show an amazing walkway which will spit you into a casino:

But soon, we were experts on making our way around the strip and put over 35km on our poor little legs in 3 1/2 days and found that the strangest things became entertaining rather than brain puzzles.

Character Core Worksheet

So, this week in the world of Jean has consisted of an awful lot of crossing things off my ‘procrastination list’. This even includes vacuuming under the beds and changing the alternator in my car. And man, have the prices of alternators gone up! It is really quite astounding.

Anyway, what have I been doing this week to progress my writing? Well, the usual Agent Query Connect banter and whatnot that goes on over there. Lots of wishing I had more time to write (but life is good nevertheless). A bit of blog reading. I also asked Meg Cabotif she would be so kind as to send me one of her extra copies of ‘She Went All The Way’. I even tried to be witty and have my email stand out among the undoubted thousands of emails she got from the world’s free book grubbers, like myself, begging to be chosen. Anyway, I never win anything, so probably no book for me. Although, I got a nice autoreply from her email account. It is sort of cool to see an email in your inbox from a famous author.

Oh right, what have I been doing to actually IMPROVE my writing? Well, a little brainstorming. And since I was making a brainstorming worksheet for myself, I decided once again to share it. It, like the other one I have created, is based on content in Linda Seger’s book “Creating Unforgettable Characters”. This has been a fun exercise. Basically, you brainstorm core characteristics of your characters. For example, someone into fashion, may also know something about interior design, etc, etc. You pick a core characteristic and just keep going out and out from that one characteristic as well as any ideosyncrasies that might pop up in such a character. If you are curious, or what to learn a bit more about it, go over to my favourites online and at the bottom of the page are the worksheets I’ve created. Open one up and enjoy!

Have fun, I’m off to ensure that my cookie levels don’t dip into the red (low) zone.

Adventure Land

Oh man, moving from one computer to another is a pain in the A-double dollar sign.

Don’t get me started on why it is a ‘bother’. You don’t realise how many different software programs you use until they aren’t there and you have to download them. Or even better, until you discover that they don’t work on Vista. And you have Vista. Of course. Or the ‘new and improved’ version is different enough that you can’t find the effin print button or do the things the manual says it should. Not that printing is a possibility since our network is in various states of disarray and I’d have to download drivers anyway…

So I went out for coffee with a friend today and since we went to this really cool little cafe that I like, I did my adventure in coffee land thing that I usually do. Today, I forked over $3.25 for a Green Tea Latte. I looooove their Chai Tea Latte, so why not green tea? I go through enough of it at home. So how was it? Well, let’s put it this way…I drank it because I paid $3.25 for it. So what did it taste like you ask? Well, seaweed actually. I know! Seaweed! “Hello? Yes, my green tea latte tastes like seaweed. Um, I know you don’t have to be a mermaid to like seaweed, but um, well, I don’t really care for seaweed in hot milk.” Oh well. Those are the risks you take in coffee adventure land.

Over in blog adventure land, there is this one IP address that keep spamming my blog. At first, I’d get the email saying there was a comment awaiting moderation and my stomach would do that little excited hiccup–you know what I’m talking about, right?–anyway, then I’d open the email and find it was this annoying site again. I’ve gone through the menus trying to see if I can block a URL or IP address. So far, no luck. But there has to be a way! There has to. And I will find a way. Oh yes, I will. I mean, I got spammed 9 times in the past 12 hours. 9! Yes, NINE! By the same site. Honestly, I’d like to march over there and tell them to ‘f**k right off.’ That is if they were within marching distance, which I am pretty sure they are not. So, I will get to the bottom of this even if I have to march electronically. My inner geek has some wicked inner resolve. (It’s the whole ‘inner’ thing twice, which means you’ve gone one ‘inner’ too deep and you’d better seatbelt up honey, cause you’ve gone too deep.)

The Value of Critiques

Isn’t it amazing how many different viewpoints there are in the world?

Isn’t the diversity amazing?

Aren’t the many, many different styles incredible?

In writing, all of the wonderful diversity of human life is there on paper. Ta-da. This is even more so if you include electronic stuff like blogs that don’t have to make their way past an editor or have to prove ‘saleable’ to get out and reach people. Speaking of saleable, how do you make your work more saleable or at least more palatable so you can get an agent or publisher to pull it out of the huge stacks of ‘this is the next great thing’ pile they have clogging up their workspace? How do you make use of all the different styles, opinions, viewpoints and experiences that are out there when you are doing something like writing? How do you use them to your advantage? Well, my answer is, you find some poor sucker to critique your work.

Now, getting someone to critique your work, I must warn, is not for the faint hearted. First of all, you have to be ready. You have to believe in yourself and you have to believe in your work. You have to be strong enough and have been writing long enough that someone else’s harsh words won’t leave you a trembling mess in the corner, afraid to pick up the pen or type another adverb ever again. You have to be ready to straighten your back, don your helmet, stick out your chest and announce, “Bring it on!” When you put your work out there, you can’t assume that everyone is going to be nice. You are asking them to pick apart your words–a part of you. And if they are any good, they are going to do just that.

Second, when you feel you are ready to go looking for a critique partner, you have to find someone you can work with who hopefully has some experience and is trustworthy. These people, ideally know something about your genre and what you are aiming to accomplish. They also have to be willing to take the time out of their day to think about your work and to give you constructive criticism–which means you might not really have the opportunity to be choosy. It can be difficult finding someone who is trustworthy, will protect your work, won’t charge you money, will be helpful and not rewrite your entire work using their voice/style/opinion on how it should all play out.

Third, you have go to be patient and you have to listen. When you get your feedback, read it. Then go away. Think about what they have said in the back of your mind. Ignore the good stuff (after you have gloated around the house for a few minutes) and focus on the poor stuff. See if you can incorporate their improvements/suggestions. It might hurt, sure. But it might hurt because they are right and they have just caused you hours more work on a product you expected to have handed back with a nice red note saying, ‘Ready to go. You are the next best thing.’ In fact, if you get a note like that, you know that they are not being honest. And if they are not being honest, they are not being helpful. The point of a critique is to improve your work. And ideally, you will have two or more people critiquing your work so you can compare what each party thought was good and what needed improvement and make your own final verdict. At the end of the day remember: it is your work, it is your voice, it is your project.

I have two people currently looking over one of my pieces and at times, they find the same flaws and other times, they do not. I take every comment they make into account and ponder it. If I think their ideas will make improvements, I make changes. Sometimes, I tell them, wait and see; the next chapter will answer your questions. And sometimes I write back and ask them for further clarification. Other times, I figure that they haven’t a clue. And sometimes I slap myself up side the head and go, well, yes, that is rather obvious to me now. I must go fix that. But if it is a major suggestion/fix that they bring up, then I sit back and think about it for quite a long time before I make a move–causing the process, at times, to feel agonizingly slow!

Either way, a critique can be an invaluable favour that you receive from someone else–and if you can return the favour–go for it. In the end, I want to be the best writer that I can be, and I can’t do that alone, thus my undying appreciation for my critique partners.

Praise for an Effective Writing Site

Back at the end of December, I joined the online community, Agent Query Connect. This has been fabulous for me. First of all, I don’t really know any local writers or aspiring writers. Second of all, I am not particularly close to any major centres where I can hang out with other writers or even join in on the events hosted by the writers guild I am a member of. Third, I am a little shy about the idea of talking about my writing face to face with ‘real’ people–although I am getting better. And fourth, I squeeze my writing in around my life–ideal for online communities, but not so much for real life communities that get upset if you bring your children along or arrive late or leave early.

Aside from these personal reasons, there are a zillion of professional reasons on why this community is awesome. First of all, there are a pile of people with diverse ideas, diverse backgrounds and a variety of helpfulness. Second, you can pop by as often as you can or desire. Third, you can ask any question and it is likely that someone has an answer. Fourth, you can get a pile of feedback on your own writing. Fifth, it is inspiring. Sixth, it allows you to make contact with other writers and eases the lonliness or isolation of many writers. Seventh, you may even meet an agent over there. Eighth, you can hear all sorts of good stuff before it is published (and possibly encourage the next BIG thing). Ninth, resources of all sorts! Tenth, there are some good laughs.

Are you getting the picture that this site is the best thing I’ve ever stumbled upon? I can’t believe how much this site has helped me grow in the past few months. I feel more confident in my writing, I’ve met other writers, I’ve got some critiques going and I’m finding all sorts of resources all the time. It’s great!

So then the other day I was editing an essay for my husband who was writing a paper on organisational behaviour within the teaching profession and I came across this description of an effective group’s features and it made me think of Agent Query Connect. Here’s the list:

No clear experts, problems are solved as group by dividing tasks among members
Members learn from each other and are willing to share their expertise with the group
Combined experience of the group is leveraged in a given situation
Tendency to make riskier or more creative and innovative decisions
Ability to overcome organisational weaknesses, especially in the area of professional development through helping each other to acquire new skills and expertise
Helpful for newcomers to the organisation
(Hunt, Osborn and Schermerhorn, 2005. Organisational Behaviour.)

The amazing thing is that all of these points describe what I have experienced over at Aqent Query Connect.
So, after reading this and you want to join, it is free–and better than most things you pay for–so go on over and join up. See you there!