Is Your Stuff Bestseller Material?

Here’s an easy way to find out if your writing is bestseller material. Pop over to The Bestseller Code and pop in some of your work and click on the closest genre and see what happens.

Using math it’ll figure out if your sentence structures lend your work to bestsellerdom. The opening of Caviar and Lemon Drops gets a 20/20, however when things start hitting the fan later in the story and my sentences get shorter, I hit 8.3/20. So there you go. Take what you will from this thing, but it’s fun to play with!

How Many Words Do You Know?

Curious?

Yeah, I was too. So, I did a multiple choice 10 question ‘test’ over on Word Dynamo by Dictionary.com to see. Apparently it figures I know 42,059 words. Not 42,060 or 42,048. 42,059. Intriguing.

I went to take the test again (I got two wrong the first time) just to see if I’d get the same again, but I found I didn’t have the patience to do the whole test again. (What does that say about me? Nothing good, I’m sure.) But mostly I didn’t have the patience because the first word that came up was one I didn’t know. Oh well. I’ll take my 42,059 and move on.

Want to try it? Here’s the linky-poo.

Happy Father’s Day!

Just a friendly ‘writerly’ reminder on Father’s Day…

A Cat’s War Journal

Our cat, Yuna, hasn’t sold the dog on eBay (probably because we don’t have a dog), but she does have some other interesting methods up her sleeve (if, say, she had sleeves) on how to annoy and pester her owners. Here are some snippets from her diary… or should I say, her war journal.

1. At all opportunities, particularly those involving delayed journeys to the basement to feed you, attempt to take out humans by rocketing underfoot as they make their way downstairs. Note: If you move fast enough, you can send them plummeting (they will learn the consequences of making you wait for your breakfast and supper) while you barely feel a thing.

2. Ignore the person who takes you to the vet even if they are the one who adopted you from the shelter, buys your food and gives you treats and catnip. The person with the worst allergies really does want your love the most. They just don’t know it yet.

3. Anytime you are on the wrong side of a closed door scratch the hell out of it, or better yet, grip the bottom of the door with your paws of steel and rattle it incessantly. Humans have very little patience for this type of behaviour and will open the door quite promptly. (While they may think they are ‘punishing’ you for not exiting the laundry room when they call by locking you in, really you are getting your way.)

4.When humans momentarily turn their eyes from the open outside door rocket through it like a bullet shot out of a high powered rifle. If you find yourself locked out in less than optimal cat weather, do not meow, see #3.

5. If you try hard enough, you can open a Rubbermaid bin that contains your food. Same goes for less challenging containers. The best time for this is when the humans are asleep. They hate to get out of bed. Plus, if they do wake up, they erroneously figure that the few kibbles you do manage to dig out are merely replacing the calories you’ve burned in obtaining them. (Real cats do not diet.)

6. When sprayed with water for doing something the humans don’t want you to do, pretend it doesn’t particularly bother you. The humans won’t have a clue what to do.

7. Never leave a task like eating a plant, hanging out on the kitchen counter, breaking into your food, or beating up the smaller, older, and much more submissive cat unless the humans are within striking distance.

8. If humans decide they don’t want your beautiful fur all over their new couch and cover it with a blanket, find the one corner not covered and sleep there. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

9. If there is furniture (or counters) you are not allowed upon make sure you leap up on them when the humans are in some way indisposed and unable to get to you, but can see you. Saunter and act like you do this all the time. They will go crazy.

10. Find the busiest area of the house. Stretch out across the narrowest part of the passageway, forcing people to repeatedly step over you. If they act like the are going to step on you in order to teach you that this is not a good place to stretch out, curl up around their foot and attack it. Gently. But let them gather a hint of how serious you are about them disturbing you.

11. Just when they are ready to give you away, be the sweetest, cutest, most irresistible, wonderful and loving creature there ever was.

So, in closing I will say… if I don’t blog for awhile, it is either because I am in a body cast (see #1), in an insane asylum (see #9), or simply too busy cuddling my cute widdle puddytat (see #11).

Friday Funny!

It’s Friday. It’s February. It’s time for some fun.
Do you like animals? Do you like animals that talk? Well, then, stick with me kid. I have a little something for you. (Sorry, I couldn’t embed it.)

BBC Wildside (Thanks to Wimp.com and Tom Bradley over at AgentQueryConnect.com)

Be Car full…

Check it Out: If God Was One of Us (A Writer)

Over on AgentQuery Connect, Robb Grindstaff (wonderful, talent, and humourous Robb–who is definitely going to make it as a published novelist) has posted a little scenario of what it might look like if God were a writer trying to get published. It’s a fun little something to make you laugh on a lovely Sunday morning. Here’s the link.

Enjoy!

Writer Rock Video: Eye of the Agent

Today, I was going to write something deep, profound, and inspiring for all you writers out there… but then I watched a video made by writer Jenny Martin and realized I could just rest on her heels today. She’s put all that deep, profound, and inspiring stuff in a fun rock video set to the music of Eye of the Tiger.

Eye of the Tiger was my favourite song as a kid. My brother dubbed it over and over and over again on my little red Lady and the Tramp cassette. So much for the We Siamese song or reading along with the book. It’s was all Eye of the Tiger, all the time.

Oh, the things us writers do to procrastinate.

Now, go forth and view this rock video. Now.