‘Tis the Crazy Duck Lady’s turn to blog over at All Day, All Night Writing Divas.  This time I’m giving out the 411 on a new study that indicates love is all about geography. 

Boogle on over to the Divas site and give my piece a read.  THERE’S A HUNKY GUY IN AN AMERICAN FLAG THAT MAKES THE CLICK WORTHWHILE ALL ON HIS YUMMY OWN. 

After you spend some quality time drooling over flag guy, be sure and leave a comment!

This is the 19th Year that London’s Literary Review has handed out a prize known as the Bad Sex Award.  Basically, it honors the “worst sex scene of the year.”     The prize was established in 1993 to highlight and discourage the “crude, tasteless, and often perfunctory use of redundant passages of sexual description in contemporary novels”. The award itself is a plaster foot “which is supposed to represent something to do with sex, though no one seems sure what”.   

It’s not a list you’d expect to see Stephen King, James Frey and Lee Child on – now is it?  But they were just 3 of the nominated authors.  The full list includes:  

• 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami
• On Canaan’s Side by Sebastian Barry
• The Final Testament of the Holy Bible by James Frey
• Parallel Stories by Péter Nádas
• 11.22.63 by Stephen King
• Ed King by David Guterson
• The Land of Painted Caves by Jean M Auel
• The Affair by Lee Child
• Dead Europe by Christos Tsiolkas
• Outside the Ordinary World by Dori Ostermiller
• Everything Beautiful Began After by Simon Van Booy
• The Great Night by Chris Adrian.

This year’s prize was won by David Guterson for “Ed King,” which is described as a “reimagining of Oedipus Rex”.    With that book, should Mr. Guterson have been surprised to win the tongue-in-cheek honor?  One thinks —– not.  The author wasn’t surprised, as it turns out.  “Mr. Guterson sent a message: “Oedipus practically invented bad sex, so I’m not in the least bit surprised.”

In the ceremony where the award was presented to Guterson – or someone on behalf of his publisher, Bloomsbury,  the judges said Guterson’s sex scene won because of its  “uncertain register, euphemism and ineffective irony,” particularly in the part where “she abused him with a bar of soap.”  Parts of the entry that snagged Guterson the prize can be read here.    I haven’t read Guterson’s book, but the description of the “no man’s land” between a woman’s “front parlor” and “back door” made me want to scream at the author to remind him that even if a book isn’t a romance, a sex scene should always carry some emotion for the love of all ducks in the universe.  It shouldn’t ever read like confusing directions from the guy at the gas station.  Romance has truly gone by the wayside when a character in the middle of a sex scene makes observations like  “a freshly made ear and a freshly made vagina look very much alike”.  That one’s from Murakami’s 1Q84, by the way. 

One of the authors nominated this year had the dubious honor of having been nominated before.  Christos Tsiolkas, whose “Dead Europe” was nominated this year, responded last year to his prior nomination for “The Slap” by speculating that the judges had “weird formative sex experiences at Eton”.     As Tsiolkas’ comment was mentioned at this year’s ceremony at London’s In and Out Club, a member of the audience noted that the author’s theory sounded “completely reasonable.” 

The books’ highly sexed leading characters are compared to ”wakening beasts, lightning rods, outrageous sea creatures and “the midnight train.” Quotes from this year’s nominees include:

“In the shower, Ed stood with his hands at the back of his head, like someone just arrested, while she abused him with a bar of soap.” (Ed King/Guterson)

“She was wearing jeans. The fabric whispered under my palm. She leaned back and her head bonked on the door. ‘Ouch!’ I said. ‘Are you all right?’” (11.22.63/King)

“[Her breasts] seemed to be virtually uninfluenced by the force of gravity, the nipples turned beautifully upward, like a vine’s new tendrils seeking sunlight.” (1Q84/Murakami)

“Faster, harder, faster, harder. The room began to shake. Just faintly at first, like a mild constant tremor, like the edge of a far distant earthquake. The French door trembled in its frame. A glass rattled on the bathroom shelf. The floor quivered. The hall door creaked and shuttered. My shoes hopped and moved. The bedhead hammered against the wall. The floor shook hard. The walls boomed. Coins in my abandoned pocket tinkled.” (The Affair/Child)

None of my books has made the list yet. I think that’s because I can’t write a sex scene without remembering that romance isn’t about sex – sex is about romance.  Likely, my books also haven’t made the list because the judges haven’t heard of me — yet.  But you never know – my books on Amazon are selling quite well in the UK so next year might be my year. 

If next year’s my year I’ll begin my acceptance speech by commenting on the trophy and suggesting where they might put their foot….

While the Crazy Duck Woman works on some pressing things, I, the Angry Old Fat Dude, will feature one of a few comedy pieces I did for the now-defunct FlavaCountry.com back on Christmas Eve of 2001. I hope you enjoy it. If not, tough s*** I hate you anyway you Grinch-lookin’ bastard.

The Best Kept Secret About Christmas in Dixie.
No, Not That, You Pervert, Maybe Later After Some Eggnog

Oh yeah, Christmas time. I’ve seen a lot “bah humbug” on the Interweb this year, what with the economic situation being in a slump and all.

Even though we may not be able to purchase a lot of things this season, we know we can at least see a good Christmas light presentation at the malls. The “Twelve Days of Christmas”, “Winter Wonderland”, and other such various secular, non-offensive Christmas carols provide themes to base a huge, yet tasteful, set of mall Christmas decorations upon.

However, if you’ve lived down here in the South for any substantial length of time, you should know one of the best kept Yuletide secrets we have here in the heart of Dixie. We rednecks don’t go to the malls to see the best displays of Christmas lights in town. Oh no.

We go to the trailer parks.

Or “manufactured home villages”, if you prefer the politically correct nomenclature. I and my extended family don’t care for the sugarcoating; “trailer park” is an accurate term to describe where most of us live, and by God, we’d rather own a piece of s*** than rent the Taj Mahal. I can get into the origins of this philosophy at a later date, but not now. Now we’re talking about CHRISTMAS.

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Huffpo published a piece about romance novel covers that proved the article’s writer hadn’t paid the first bit of attention to the linked video advertised in the headline.  No matter. 

The video is a Kensington romance novel covershoot and includes some great comments from industry pros at the publishing house.  About the second or third time you watch it, you might be able to pay attention to the comments.  Don’t even try to take in the dialogue the first time around. The first time is a feast for the eyes and spirits of all who find returning to work after a holiday a real downer.

And like the headline says:  You’re Welcome.

It’s been a week full of way too many “sewius” things. Like work. My day job. A lawyer’s work is many things but fun is rarely one of them.

Too often, my job is way too SEWIUS. So, without further quacking, I bring you a song sure to make you smile.

In the course of my internet boogling this week, I ran across a link to this list of the 20 Most Prolific Authors And Writers In Literary History.  As I perused it my brain came to a screeching halt – okay that’s not so unusual.  But this list is of some darned unusual folks. And keep in mind that it’s the duck lady calling someone strange. 

The info is doubtless dated a bit by now, but even if some other folks have managed the mind-bending feat of scampering onto this list, it in no way diminishes the “wow” factor of the achievement of these authors.  By all the faeries on the Isle of Skye, take a look at the numbers.

The most prolific author remains a lady who passed away in 1973 – Mary Faulkner of South Africa.  I’m guessing that between 1903 and 1973 there must not have been a lot of TV in South Africa.  No, I know what it was.  The internet wasn’t sapping everyone’s attention.  Then again, people were still writing on typewriters.  Hmm.  However she managed it, Mrs. Faulkner wrote 904 books.  Yes. You read that right – 904 books.

She wrote under a bunch of pen names including Kathleen Lindsay. Her romances include “There is No Tomorrow,” “Wind of Desire,” and “Harvest of Deceit.”  I’m wondering if I checked one of hers out from my local library as a teenager.  I found a book there that I flat out adored and it was shelved near Johanna Lindsay’s work.  Years later, before I’d ever written a word, I was looking for that book and emailed Ms. Johanna Lindsay because I thought it was one of hers.  She replied and said that based on my description it sounded very interesting but that it wasn’t hers.  She  suggested that I write it myself. 

Some years later I proceeded to write a number of books – but I haven’t made 20 yet so Ms. Faulkner’s record sure looks safe from me.  But I’ve never written one based on my faint memories of that earlier book by someone that I’m sure I read somewhere.  Of course, by the time I emailed Ms. Johanna Lindsay I’d read more romance novels that you could shake a stick at and I’d already started mulling over how I’d write one of my own. So Johanna was right on track to suggest that I write it myself – she likely suspected that the plot I recited didn’t belong to anyone else.

Now, I’m wondering if my mystery book might have been one of Ms. Faulkner’s. They don’t seem to be widely available a’tall.  And the truly aggravating part is that when I see them sold somewhere, the stores don’t include a description of the book. Why on earth wouldn’t they describe the book? I’m not buying a pig from anyone’s poke – including the most prolific writer in history.

A man named Lauran (Paine) wrote 850 books. Another, Prentiss Ingram, wrote over 600 books, mostly dime novels.  He wrote a bunch of Buffalo Bill stuff and sometimes wrote a 35,000 word book overnight.  Okay, 35K is a darned short book, even in today’s ebook age, but it’s still a heck of an achievement.

There’s no way on God’s little green planet that I’d even touch the last author on the list – L.T.  Meade who wrote 258 children’s books.  I could give it a shot, but I’m not sure that there’s enough coffee in the galaxy to fuel the effort, and I’m positive the Graham budget wouldn’t stretch to funding bionic fingers.

But I’m surely quacking full of admiration for all of the authors who were energetic enough and imaginative enough to make this list.      

……maybe if I mainlined the coffee…….

The Fat Man here. Let me tell you something that’s pretty awesome.

That’s taking an idea, typing some things on your computer keyboard, moving and clicking your mouse around, turning that idea into a bunch of electrons and photons, then sending those electrons and photons to a place where those infinitesimal little particles (that originated from an even more immeasurable set of things) are transformed into a solid, tangible, molecular thing.

My fat hand holding ideas which have taken on a material form.

Behold such a thing. Mary Anne’s latest work, The Duke of Eden, is now available in paperback. She and I (mostly she) finished up work on it a month or so ago. Her ideas became words, then became text, then became electronic signals and magnetic spots on a hard disk.

I listened to her ideas, found some collections of photons recorded by other nice people, took some ideas of my own and manipulated the photons into a form I found to be pleasing. I created magnetic spots on my hard disk from the photons, then sent an electron stream that was a copy of Mary Anne’s magnetic spots and my magnetic spots over to CreateSpace. There, they decoded the electron stream, put ink and other chemicals on various thicknesses of paper as indicated by the stream, then cut the papers, glued them together, and sent us back their product, which was really our product in a solid, material form.

My fat hand holding incarnated thoughts, rear view.

That’s pretty damned awesome in my opinion. I would say dare say it was verging on magic. All things considered, the 21st Century hasn’t delivered everything that was promised to us a few decades ago, but I’m still impressed with what it has delivered. I guess I can wait on the flying cars and jet packs a little bit longer.

Now that the paperback is out and the e-book is available via a few other distribution channels, pick up our ideas incarnated today, mmkay? You’ll be glad you did.

Hey guys, it’s been awhile since you’ve heard from the Angry Old Fat Man Mid-Week Update (AOFM-MWU), so I decided to talk some nerd-talk for y’all. That doesn’t mean you should expect more from me, though, got it? I’m not the big-shot writer here with all them thar fancy deegrees and money-makin’ books and whatnot, aight?

So the big talk in nerd circles is THE CLOUD. Whoopty-damn-do, THE CLOUD. Microsoft started talking about it first, with their stupid advertisements making it look like THE CLOUD was some kinda Bat Cave that could turn you into a multitasking genius with godlike superpowers.

Yeah, right. This is the same Microsoft that decided the best way to get everybody to buy their crappy Vista operating system was to pay Jerry Seinfeld several dumptrucks full of money to goof around on camera with Bill Gates.

But now some real tech companies (read: Apple) are starting to talk about THE CLOUD, and people of course are taking notice and asking really tough questions, like…

WHAT THE %@$# IS THE CLOUD?

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A pair of women – a Mormon psychologist and a Wall Street Analyst turned author -  desperately wanted to sell their non-romance books in a romance novel world. Clearly, they’d do better if all those darned women would just stop buying romance. How to accomplish that?  Well, they came up with a bizarre theory – romance novels can be as addictive as pornography. 

Yes, all of us deviant romance readers have been silently suffering under the weight of a horrific and dangerous addiction – reading romance novels.  The diabolically deluded duo say that reading romance promotes dissatisfaction with your real life relationships and may even lead to an affair.  But fear not, say the diabolically deluded duo – they have a plan.   What is it, you ask?

To overcome addiction to romance, you should READ BOOKS OF A DIFFERENT GENRE.   And again, what do the ladies who came up with the theory do?  They write books.  And what kind of books?  Not romance novels.  Yes, Virginia, these authors really did think women were stupid enough to fall for that load of self-serving swill. 

Did anybody fall for it?  Not so much.  However, lots of folks had a really good time with the whole idea that romance is as addictive as porn. One of the best places to express pithy punditry these days is Twitter.  The fiasco spawned its own hashtag, #romancekills.  Below are some of my favorite tweets from that hashtag. I’m listing the author of the tweet as best I can tell – I’ve told y’all before (on the Marianne’s Blog) that Twitter is the “Bing” commercial, on steroids.  It can be hard to follow. If I’ve misquoted or incorrectly attributed anything, it wasn’t out of malice. It was Bing-Bong Syndrome. 

Check out these tweets and if you have a Twitter account (and you should) after you follow me, you should definitely follow every one of these folks!   Now, without further ado – because I’ve a-done enough already – here are my personal favorite tweets from #romancekills. Enjoy!!

@ChristinaDodd: Every time a woman reads a romance novel, her lover dies…slowly, and with great pleasure.

@JoJosBook Corner: Woot Our she-army of oversexed females shall conquer the Earth. Men shall fear (and desire) us.

@TessaDare: Every time a bodice rips, a kitten cries.

@LimeCello: Know why Thomas Hardy wrote the original cliff hanger? He was reading a romance novel & couldn’t be bothered to finish writing

@CourtneyMilan: Romance novels killed the radio store, and blamed it on video.

@LimeCello: You want to know why Atlantis is no more? Romance novels. Sorry archaeologists & historians

@PamelaCayne: For $19.95 I will cast out the romance reading demons from your soul, banishing the bodice ripping monkey on your back forever

@TallStoriesBook: “The Titanic hit that iceberg because the lookouts were too busy reading romance novels,” – Amy Boggs

@TallStoriesBook: Jason Pinter : “the destruction of Alderaan was due to Darth Vader reading too many romance novels”