The Versatile Blogger Award

Hmmm, my very first blogger award nomination. What a pleasant surprise as I wasn’t aware something like this even existed. I’d like to thank Lara S. Chase over at In Progress: A New Author Navigates the World of Publishing for nominating me. It’s an honor to know that she not only occasionally enjoys my posts but also took the time to nominate my blog.

According to the rules:

Well, I’ve thanked Lara, so that’s sorted (check out her blog, it really is an interesting ride). Now I have to name:

My Nominees for The Versatile Blogger Award

  1. http://chriskokoski.wordpress.com/
  2. http://cicampbellblog.wordpress.com/
  3. http://shareyourarticles.wordpress.com/
  4. http://damyantiwrites.wordpress.com/
  5. http://ellisnelson.com/
  6. http://www.moneyequalslifestyle.com/
  7. http://impossiblewords.wordpress.com/
  8. http://writingsofamrs.wordpress.com/
  9. http://insearchofmymuse.wordpress.com/
  10. http://macabrebutsweet.wordpress.com/
  11. http://khaulanazir.wordpress.com/
  12. http://letmereach.com/
  13. http://khmazzola.wordpress.com/
  14. http://lachlancathy.com/
  15. http://leonardostories.wordpress.com/

And finally:

Seven Things About Myself

  1. Although I love to read, watch and write horror, I do not, even in the tiniest sense, believe in the paranormal, supernatural, or the occult. I do, however, believe in loonies, cultists and serial killers, so that should give me some sort of horror street cred.
  2. I once owned a tom cat named Buster Crabbe Unit Active Missile Warhead, who met his untimely end doing battle with a boxer (the dog-type, not the Balboa-type, though that would’ve made for a better movie than Rocky V).
  3. A former anime junkie, now I am tragically addicted to UK telly and in severe need of an intervention. I even watch Big Brother UK and the addiction has spread to Big Brother Australia. Don’t judge me!
  4. I absolutely despise the use of CGI in movies, especially when used to animate humans in a live action setting.
  5. Although the internet has made things digitally easier, I miss swapping videotaped TV programs with my friends, especially episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000.
  6. I was once contacted by a man who claimed to own the licensing rights to Sybil Danning (an Austrian actress who starred in a lot of ’80s cult, science fiction, and action B movies) and he tried to rope me into a 5 year comic book deal (I was a comic book publisher at the time).
  7. I firmly believe that despite how intelligent we are as a species, we are not clever enough to know our origins, nor that of the planet or the universe.

Neil Gaiman on Writing: From The Nerdist Podcast

Neil Gaiman chats with the nerds about American Gods, describes scenes that were cut from his Doctor Who episode, The Doctor’s Wife and doles out phenomenal advice for aspiring writers.

If you’re interested in listening to the entire interview:

Nerdist Podcast: Neil Gaiman

Sally forth and be writeful.

— Rhyan Scorpio-Rhys

Popular Made Up and Misused Words That Need to be Given Their Walking Papers

17 Misused And Made Up Words That Make You Rage

Irregardless isn’t a word. The one you’re looking for is regardless.

17 Misused And Made Up Words That Make You Rage

So not a word. Supposedly is, though.

17 Misused And Made Up Words That Make You Rage

The only way this exists is if flustered and frustrated had a baby. And they didn’t.

17 Misused And Made Up Words That Make You Rage

Can we conversate a moment about the proper usage of the word converse?

17 Misused And Made Up Words That Make You Rage

Random doesn’t mean weird or goofy. It means, “without definite aim, direction, rule, or method.”

17 Misused And Made Up Words That Make You Rage

It’s sherbet.

17 Misused And Made Up Words That Make You Rage

So that means you do care a little bit? Perhaps you mean you couldn’t care less?

17 Misused And Made Up Words That Make You Rage

Intents. And. Purposes.

17 Misused And Made Up Words That Make You Rage

Please enunciate when you make up words. Or even annunciate. Certainly don’t announciate.

17 Misused And Made Up Words That Make You Rage

It’s foliage. FO-LEE-IDGE.

17 Misused And Made Up Words That Make You Rage

There’s no X in espresso, ma’am.

17 Misused And Made Up Words That Make You Rage

Nauseous means to cause nausea. If you’re sick, you’re nauseated.

17 Misused And Made Up Words That Make You Rage

C’mon, no Z sound!

17 Misused And Made Up Words That Make You Rage

Misestimate or underestimate. You can’t have both. Don’t be greedy. Misunderestimate is a charming Bushism that should be left in the past.

17 Misused And Made Up Words That Make You Rage

The correct phrase is simply vice versa.

17 Misused And Made Up Words That Make You Rage

Nother is nonstandard. Just say another or whole other.

Sally forth and be correctly speakful.

— Rhyan Scorpio-Rhys

No Such Creature As A Bad Analogy (only funny ones)

“Analogies prove nothing, that is true, but they can make one feel more at home.” —–  Sigmund Freud

Normally I shy away from passing on emails and memes, but this one struck me as funny, so I decided to share it. As I’m sure you’re all aware, an analogy is a comparison between two things, typically on the basis of their structure, as a bridge between familiar situations and new ones.

The following list of analogies was allegedly collected by real high school English teachers from their students’ writings.

  1. Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two sides gently compressed by a ThighMaster.
  2. His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.
  3. He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.
  4. She grew on him like she was a colony of E. Coli, and he was room-temperature Canadian beef.
  5. She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up.
  6. Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.
  7. He was as tall as a six-foot, three-inch tree.
  8. The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated because of his wife’s infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a formerly surcharge-free ATM machine.
  9. The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn’t.
  10. McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag filled with vegetable soup.
  11. From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you’re on vacation in another city and Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 p.m. instead of 7:30.
  12. Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze.
  13. The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease.
  14. Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.
  15. They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan’s teeth.
  16. John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.
  17. He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant, and she was the East River.
  18. Even in his last years, Granddad had a mind like a steel trap, only one that had been left out so long it had rusted shut.
  19. Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do.
  20. The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work.
  21. The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while.
  22. He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, either, but a real duck that was actually lame, maybe from stepping on a land mine or something.
  23. The ballerina rose gracefully en Pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.
  24. It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with power tools.
  25. He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up.

Sally forth and be writeful.

— Rhyan Scorpio-Rhys

One-Sided Conversations With The Author

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You can always tell when winter’s officially dead in New York. The city streets are suddenly chock-a-block with flea markets. Seriously, they begin springing up like daisies. People peddling the useless and discardable bits of their lives to folks looking to fill the holes and empty spaces in their own. I’m no exception. I’ve been on both sides of the table.

Yesterday, while meandering through one of the vacant lot bazaars, I ran into an old  fraintance (less than a friend, more than an acquaintance) who was carrying a box of ratty old hardcover books that she acquired on the cheap. We get to talking and I’m surprised at how well the conversation is going (the memories of why we didn’t get along in the end hadn’t hit my expired warranty brain yet). She struggled a bit with the box so I offered to carry it for her and suggested grabbing a bite at a nearby greasy spoon.

Over a meal, we inspected the books. Titles I’d never heard of, in such a shoddy shape as to rob them of any resale value. But we both noticed writing in the margins of several of the books. Pages and pages of it. Questions. Annotations. Comparisons to real life events. Supportive statements.

My fraintance automatically assumed they were the notes of some poor person who used to be a book editor that somehow couldn’t reconcile the fact that their profession was a long dead thing buried in the occupational heyday of youth.

To me, the neatly stacked margin sentences seemed more like thoughts that refused to remain locked within a curious and fully engaged mind and instead tried to open a discussion, share opinions and points of view, enter into an intellectual debate over the content of paragraphs and dialogue. It read like a one-side conversation with the author. Chatting with a literary ghost.

I was actually intrigued by this notion and tried to borrow one of the books to examine at my leisure, but she was having none of it, calling my view a load of romantic nonsense. By this time, the memories of why I hadn’t gotten along with the fraintance in the first place began leaking into the cracks of our conversation and flooding the space between us.

She knew I saw a story in there. Knew that I’d end up borrowing the books one by one in an attempt to piece together a backstory and motivation for the margin writer. Perhaps I still will one day, I just wish I had access to the original reference materials.

Sally forth and be readful.

— Rhyan Scorpio-Rhys

To Sow, Perchance To Reap

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The world is full of folks who appreciate nature and the great outdoors to the point of creating a mental happy place of some idyllic green pasture. That ain’t me. City boy born and bred. Concrete, glass and steel is my Garden of Eden. Yet, despite not being blessed with a green thumb, I planted something today.

An idea.

Okay, “idea” is a bit of a stretch. It’s more like a plot germ. As it stands, it’s a weak and feeble thing prematurely delivered into the world that requires incubation, so I decided to commit it to the ground at the tail end of my mind and ignore it until it has the strength to claw its way out of the grave.

But don’t feel too sorry for it, though. It’s not alone. It’s planted beside random bits of cool dialogue that I’ll never be able to work into a real world conversation, and nebulous set pieces that don’t quite fit into any of my existing stories. They’re all tucked away in my own personal mental pet cemetery.

“The soil of a man’s mind is stonier; a man grows what he can imagine and scribes it.”

Apologies for the bastardization of your quote, Stephen.

And no, I won’t tell you what the plot germ is. Not out of fear of it being stolen (what, thieves on the interwebz? Nope, I won’t believe it) but simply because 1) you wouldn’t understand it in its present form, and 2) I’m not superstitious but I firmly believe in the dreaded jinx. If I tell you what it is, it’ll never grow.

So, I will go about my business and occupy my mind with trivialities—like the numerous problems with Star Trek Into Darkness and why show writers create interested premises for Doctor Who episodes only to abandon all logic and rush the stories to unsatisfying climaxes—and allow my subconscious to absently weed my preemie idea seed. I’ll wait until it breaks free of its chrysalis as a brain soil stained vision with roots that encircle the heart of a story that I cannot wait to write. Until then, I’ll follow the sage advice of Mssr. Ron Popeil and, “Set it and forget it.”

Sally forth and sow, perchance to reap.

— Rhyan Scorpio-Rhys

A Field Guide to Procrastinators

Yeah, I know, this has been around for a couple of weeks, but in true procrastination fashion, I put off sharing it until now because I’m 90% The Watcher, 5% The List Maker, 3% The Internet Researcher, and 2% The Napper. Which kind of procrastinator are you?

A Field Guide to Procrastinators - 12 Types of Procrastinators - Find the procrastinator in you