Sunday Puzzle

It's Sunday again, and you know what that means—time for me to rip off the puzzle segment from NPR's Weekend Edition Sunday!

Mustachioed enigmatologist

extraordinaire, Will Shortz

If you're a newcomer, each week on Weekend Edition Sunday, Will Shortz (the hardcore crossword puzzlers' almighty God) comes on the radio to do three things: share the solution to the previous week's puzzle, invite a winner who entered the correct answer to play another puzzle (usually word-related) on the air for word-nerdy prizes, and present everyone with the next week's puzzle (answers due in by Thursday afternoon via the WES website if you want a chance to play on the air).

Note: I never post the solutions on this blog…at least not before the submission deadline. I see lots of keyword traffic coming from people looking for the answers, which is at best impatient, and at worst, cheating. For shame.

Now without further ado, here's this week's new puzzle [the WES website is slow to update this week, but this I what I jotted down]:

Think of a two-word phrase that means a time long ago. Move the third, fourth and fifth letters to the end of the phrase, without rearranging those three letters, to get a new two-word phrase that means the beginning. What phrases are these?

Click here to see the original puzzle posting [once it's up], check the answer to last week's challenge, listen to the segment, or find the link to enter your answer.

I Cheat for Jogglers

Right when Meager March began, I admitted that I would be cheating. Abstaining from frivolous purchases for myself alone isn't too hard, but denying myself activities with my manfriend or family or friends feels like a false economy. I also promised I'd fess up when I did cheat, which is what brings me to this post.

Today my manfriend and I went to a showing at the Salem Film Fest. I bravely resisted the concessions, so with the ticket price, my non-sanctioned frivolous purchases currently total:

$10.00

But it was completely worth it. We saw a screening of Breaking and Entering, a joyful and eccentric documentary about Guinness World Record chasers and breakers. The director, Benjamin Fingerhut, was there, so we got to enjoy a Q&A with him afterward as well. It's a charming and hilarious film that features perhaps a dozen people—a handful of them in-depth—as they pursue their record-setting dreams, battle their rivals, and go for the glory.

My favorite story within the film was the rivalry between the two world champion jogglers (they run marathons while juggling three balls), Michal Kapral and Zach Warren. It should be amazing enough to finish a national marathon in thirteenth place overall, let alone to do so while juggling. I also enjoyed the various pursuits of Ashrita Furman, the man who currently holds the Guinness World Record for holding the most Guinness World Records (108; among them, running while balancing a milk bottle on his head, slicing the most apples in mid-air with a Samurai sword, and hula-ing the largest hula hoop). An awesome doco, and surprisingly emotional.

I can't recommend this movie enough. If you have a chance to watch it, do so! For now, check out its charming trailer:

Twips for Tweeps

I'm the editor for my RWA chapter's newsletter, and this month I came across the following article by writer Lisa Hughey. Since I'm a proponent of sanity and self-restraint in social networking, I promptly followed her (@lisahughey), and she kindly gave me permission to share her words of wisdom here.

TEN DOs and DON'Ts
for using Twitter as a promotional tool

Twitter has grown from a little networking site to over 200 million users. There are many varied, creative uses for the social networking site. If you aren’t just using Twitter to connect with friends, shadow your favorite celebrities, or follow a particular cause or political party, but also to interact with your audience (readers) as a promotional tool, here are some general reminders of what you should and shouldn’t do.

1. Don’t openly diss agents, editors or other writers. No matter how much you think they have wronged you, an open forum like Twitter is not the place to voice your discontent. All you will do is torpedo your career.

2. Do retweet. If your friend, colleague, favorite author has good news, retweet. Share the love. Good news should be celebrated by everyone.

3. Do promote current blog posts. If you guest post on a website, let your followers know. If you’ve posted a new recipe on your own blog, let your followers know! Twitter is a promotional tool. Use it.

4. Don’t rant. If someone cuts you off in traffic, please don’t give followers a three or four tweet rant on it. If someone gives you a bad review or doesn’t choose your workshop to be included in a conference, don’t complain about it to your Twitter followers. Vent to your friends or vent to yourself but don’t, don’t vent to your readers.

5. Do share interesting articles or research tidbits. Especially if they relate to the business of publishing or promote your agent, publisher, or friends. Or if you find out some really fascinating information about how violets grow and your story is about a Violet Hunter, then share.

6. Don’t talk about religion or politics. Just as it holds true at dinner parties, your position on religion and your political affiliation are going to be controversial for someone. Discussing either subject leaves you open to arguments and rants from someone who follows you. Conversely, if you follow someone and they post something you feel is incendiary...unfollow them but don’t argue with them!

7. Do network with publishing professionals you don’t personally know. It’s okay to post responses to an author whose work you admire. It’s such a small business. You may even know some of the same people. But don’t DM them requesting they buy your book. You also want to follow people in the publishing industry. There are editors, publishing houses, and agents all on Twitter who sometimes run impromptu Tweet Chats. Lots of great information about what the editors/agents do and don’t want to see is available. But you need to follow them.

8. Do use organizational software. If the number of people you are following has gotten crazy large, use organizational software. Use TweetDeck, HootSuite, Echofon. There are many software tools out there to help you create group filters. Maybe you need separate filters for actors you follow, publishing industry professionals, chapter members, critique group members, close friends. Create filters for them all, that way you can get your tweets organized for more efficient reading.

9. Don’t over-share. No one needs to know that you are sick of your husband leaving his underwear on the bathroom floor, or that your son has the stomach flu and puked all over his bedroom. Instead, post something that alludes to your problems without going into specific agonizing detail. Make it clever, make it cute, make it suggestive, but don’t be graphic!

10. Do be professional. Twitter is a promotional platform. Every tweet puts you and your author brand out into the Twitterverse. Don’t post indiscriminately. Pause for three seconds and think...is this something you want associated with your name? Then press send or delete the tweet.

Happy Tweeting!

P.S. One last personal Don’t: don’t post your children’s names (mine have nicknames which I use when I’m proud of them or want to strangle them) online. It’s just a good safety precaution.

Lisa Hughey is an avid romance reader and aspiring author. She has several projects under submission with publishers and spends her time on the web at www.pensfatales.com and on Twitter @lisahughey. Come visit!

Thrusty Thursday: Christian Bale

In honor of his recent (and much deserved) Oscar win for Best Supporting Actor, I'm encouraging everyone to thrust against Christian Bale this week!

I watched The Fighter not long ago at our little local theater, knowing I'd love it in advance. Set in working-class Massachusetts and centered around boxing and dysfunctional families, it couldn't help but make me swoon. Bonus—while I watched I pretended that it was the inaccurate film adaptation of one of my erotica-writing alter ego's 2010 novellas. "The Fighter: Cara McKenna's Willing Victim (without all the shady bedroom role-playing) now a major motion picture starring Mark Wahlberg!"

Starring Mark Wahlberg—who did an amazing job as boxer Mickey Ward—but Bale really stole the show. He plays Micky's older brother Dicky, a former fighter turned crack addict, and his performance is just brilliant. If you like down-and-out romance and family life, boxing, comebacks and long-shots, or simply the dulcet tones of a Massachusetts accent, do see it.

The film doesn't showcase Bale at his foxiest, but here's the trailer anyhow, since I have such a mad crush on the movie:

That's My Name, Don't Wear It Out

I've been thinking about a book I have coming out soon, The Reluctant Nude. At the final stage of proofing, my [brilliant and attractive] editor from Samhain sent me a PDF of the "finished" e-book. Just like the real deal you'd upload to your e-reader, it featured an excerpt from another romance to entice you at the end. Oddly enough, though, the hero in the excerpt had the same name as my wackadoo French hero from The Reluctant Nude—Max. I mean, how often do we really meet Maxes in our lives, ones who weren't born in the last five to ten years? Granted mine is a Maxence, but still. This happens a lot in romance.

Cornelius?

Contemporary romance character names are a pet peeve of mine. Don't worry, this isn't another rant-post about soap opera monickers like Rock and Stone and Lucian. What I want is for character names merely to be period realistic—period in this case meaning the seventies, when most heroes in current books would have been born. I have a sneaking suspicion that authors are choosing names from current baby name books. Have you really ever met a man in his thirties named Cayden or Brayden or Jaden or Jace? I promise I'm not picking on any author specifically—I've seen all of those multiple times. The worst is Aiden (Aidan, Aden). I'm sure someone will contradict me, but aside from Aidan Quinn, are there really all that many American men born before 1998 with that name? I blame Sex and the City.

Aside: while I was in art school in the late nineties and early oughts, I worked at a kids' furniture store, where I spent my days inhaling enamel paint fumes and decorating toy boxes and such with designs. We personalized just about everything with the kids' names, and since I worked there for four years, I got a first-hand education in the then-current baby naming trends and patterns. Hands-down, Aiden was the most overused boys' name. No wonder I get so irked by it now. Also popular: Jackson, Madeline, Cole, Sophie, and yes, Max. And all the Caydens and Braydens and Jadens. Properly posh names. Names people simply weren't given in the decades our heroes were born. Names aren't static—they're as fickle as fashion. Hugh is now a popular boys' name in the States, thanks largely to Hugh Jackman, I suspect. You may know a few babies named Hugh, but really, did you go to an American high school with any? (Actually I did, but he was the III.)

When I'm naming a character (bear in mind I write contemporary) the first thing I do is head to this website, which lists the 1,000 most popular American baby names by decade. Please note, Aiden's not even in the top thousand in the 1970s. Ditto Cayden, Jayden, and Jace. "Braden" comes 917th, right between "Dereck" and "Lon". There are other sites out there that even offer a year-specific list. Some readers are history buffs and can't stand when the place settings or the petticoats are wrong. Well that's me with names. I know, I know—it's fiction, authors can use whatever name they want, it's their right. Well it's my right to roll my eyes.

Doris?

When creating my own characters, I usually limit myself to the top 200 from that aforementioned site and try to pick the one that resonates best. It means my heroes typically end up with names like Michael and Russ and Brian, instead of Colter or Avery or Chase, but I sort of like that. All of this goes for heroines as well. No heroines born in the late seventies christened Madison or Kaylee, please. I mean, you wouldn't likely name her Gertrude, since it's period inappropriate, right? That instinct should go for the too-trendy as well as the too-old-timey. I think only one of my female leads has an odd name, and that's Fallon from The Reluctant Nude. I stole her name from a twenty-something character on The Archers BBC radio soap opera, because dammit, it just fit her.

I guess what I'd like to say in closing is this: authors, your characters are already special. Don't name them as you would your baby, from fear of saddling them with a boring, forgettable name, and making them boring, forgettable characters. You don't dress them in fluorescent clothes to make them stand out, do you? Let them stand out in their words and actions. Think about who their mother was, and what she would name them, in what year. I honestly won't read another romance starring a hero named Aiden…unless perhaps it's historical (I'm a history know-nothing, so I'm not fussy about naming accuracy) or possibly set in the UK. For those exceptions, I might quit my huffing and come along for the ride. Otherwise, trust me. Save the posh baby names for your hero and heroine's firstborn.

Andy Whitfield with a beard…a free public service!

I noticed recently just how frequently this blog gets keyword traffic from people with good taste searching for "Andy Whitfield with a beard" and "Andy Whitfield with long hair". I'm afraid I've been luring those folks to my Thrusty Thursday post about the foxy Welsh / Australian Spartacus actor under false pretenses…but I'm now going to remedy that! And so I present, as a much-needed public service, screen grabs of Andy Whitfield with a beard and long hair! Get your sexy-Jesus kink on:

Meager March

Guess who's wearing mascara! After four weeks without makeup, I must say, putting a little on this morning felt like a chore, especially now that I realize nobody actually notices if I'm wearing it or not. Still, the fast has been broken. And it did feel good to smudge some concealer under my eyes.

Well, it's now officially Meager March, the third month of Discipline Year! I wish I'd begun ruminating on the rules for this challenge earlier than, say, this morning in the shower. But the basic idea is, I'm not allowed to make any frivolous purchases for the next few weeks—makeup, clothes, drinks and meals out, movie tickets, iTunes downloads, etc.

I was so cocky to think this month would be an easy one. It's not like I go shoe-shopping for sport or have my highlights done every two weeks. But after giving the concept a mere twenty minutes' thought, I realized there are a lot of things I'm going to be tempted by. All of them involve other people. I'm going to feel like a drip if my manfriend wants to go to the bar and maybe watch the Celtics play, and I have to cram a peanut butter sandwich in my face to stave off hunger and chug a glass of wine before leaving the house, then sit there while he enjoys a couple beers and an appetizer. I'll feel like a lame-o if any of my cousins want to meet up for a movie or lunch and I have to decline. And I'll most definitely be cheating in a week when my good friend (and faithful beta reader) is in town, orchestrating a small reunion from my old office. Men will be discussed, and wine will be consumed as a natural consequence.

There are some other expenses I'm yet undecided about—train fare to go in to the city for anything short of a doctor's appointment, gas and tolls to drive to Maine to visit my folks, cards or gifts for forgotten birthdays, postage for care packages, charitable donations… I'm going to be making a lot of this up as I go along. And fudging.

Luckily I bought hair dye ahead of time, so no moral panic there. I mentioned yesterday I also slipped a bottle of champagne in as a techniciality…if I make a new book sale I will be enjoying that frivolous pleasure in March, even if I made the actual purchase on the last day of February. So I suppose I'm confessing now: I'll do my best. And I will cheat. But when I do cheat, I'll fess up. That said, you should probably expect a lot of posts this month…