So, yesterday I had one of my finest day’s ever and it wasn’t because I won the lottery, or wrote 10K words of perfection — none of those things happened, they never do in my life. It was merely a collection of small bits and pieces that added up to bliss.

It all started with Thomas Friedman on Meet the Press. I love Thomas Friedman. I think he’s very smart and has an approachable way of explaining problems and solutions and even though the whole premise of Hot, Flat, and Crowded has been busted up because the global economy went kaboom, it’s still a very enlightening book, and I think the world should listen to Thomas Friedman.

After Thomas Friedman, there is very few people that can make me happier than a rambunctious morning on Meet the Press, but one of them is Daniel Craig. I have always loved James Bond movies, but they were Krispy Kreme donuts. Good for the moment, light and airy and great fun while you’re consuming them. And then there was Casino Royale. They combined Bond with a very good love story, an alpha hero that is vulnerable, Judi Dench, and understated wit. It SO worked for me as a movie and I had arguments with my friends over the best Bend. Connery or Craig. (Brosnan used to be my fav; I was never a Sean Connery fan-girl until he started playing crotchety old men). Anyway, so the family loaded up and saw Bond (we are a family of Bond-fans).

In the end, there was much disagreement about the movie. I didn’t like it as much as Casino Royale. It lost some of the character-touches that were there in the first movie, but it was a great action movie, and I (contrary to some of the critics) liked the dichotomy between the poor country and people and the scenes with Bond and the girl in evening dress. It was visually interesting, like something you’d see in the NYT Times Style Magazine. Lots of fun.

And the day got better. We went to Barnes & Noble, and I got Alphabet Juice by Roy Blount Jr (currently not available on the Kindle. Hello!!). I love word books. I adore funny word books. I love books that make me laugh and learn at the same time, which is truly sneaky. This is that book. Blount is a panelist on NPR’s Wait, Wait… Don’t Tell Me! and also a member of the American Heritage Dictionary Usage Panel and he has a great way of playing with words. The book is organized like a Dictionary, by letter, with interesting bits about words, mixing comedy, history, trivia, and etymology.

So far, I’ve done A and B. One of my favorites so far is under “blurbs”. According to Blount, he is renowned for writing great blurbs, and this is his quote: “…I hope I will get some credit for the fact that books with my blurbs on them almost invariably sell much better than my books.”

There is a lot of phonic insight into his book. He surmises that the long ‘a’ sound is a happy sound. Aye, Yay, hooray, play, May, etc… B is a very primitive sound. We use it for babies, and boobs, and Boo, and Bummer. He explains the deliciousness of the mmm sound. Yummy, milk, manna, me, and mellifluous, and how the sound is made by mimicking the way nursing babies move their lips.

I’ve known about the well-renowned onomatopoeia, but I’ve never thought about the emotions that particular sounds create, but they do. Sit there, and say, mmmm, and you get all sorts of food, sexy thoughts. Sit there and say ‘kay-kay-kay-kay’ and it’s like machine gun fire. “Rrrr” to me feels aggressive. It’s a hard sound, not quite as diabolical as K, though. “s” is a slinky sound. Full of mischief, and potential bad deeds. The ultimate procrastination technique would be to sit in my chair and go through the alphabet, saying the sounds aloud, and cataloging my emotional response for each one. I’m almost tempted.

Anyway, I’m sure you’ll be hearing reports as I trudge onward through the phonetic wilderness. It’s been a lot of fun, and I highly recommend this one, even though I’m only 1/13 through the alphabet.

I’m off to write (and possibly play with sounds).

TTFN.

November 17th, 2008 Kathleen O'Reilly Posted in Cool People, Funnies | 2 Comments »

Okay, I was actually like uber-productive yesterday, so I didn’t do my wrap-up, but I’m doing it today.  I HAD A BLAST!!  The one important thing is that the taping is done the same day as the show is aired, so this episode aired on Wednesday, when the guest was T. Boone Pickens.

We went down to line up around 3:45pm, and you wait in this long, long, long, long, long-ass line that kept getting longer.  The show’s interns-slash-security are all about ten, and very cute (in a small child, not hunky manner), but they all seemed to have beefy shoulders and earnest faces.  In about ten years, you could see them being bouncers in a bar or something.  It was an interesting phenomenon .  They have a ton of rules for a comedy show.  I had no idea comedy was so…  fascist, but it is.  They don’t like ‘hostile’ audience members, no yelling out, for instance, “Lori Borrill” at the top of your lungs, or you will be politely escorted out by the young men with earnest faces and beefy shoulders.

Around five, we all started filing into the studio, and they pass you through a metal detector and search your bag.  Now please note, I can make the TSA smile, but these guys were serious.  Osama Bin Laden is NOT making it onto the daily show to cause mayhem and yell “Death to America” at the top of his lungs.

The studio is smaller than I anticipated.  Capacity is 236 people according to the sign on the wall, and I have to say, everybody in the audience seemed very cool.  They have a warm-up comedian, Paul Mecurio, who is very, very funny.  He was riffing on some the audience members (we had a Time-Warner exec which begat a hysterical five-minute rant on the evils of Time-Warner cable and the problems Paul had in his home system.  I never realized how cathartic it would be to vent at a cable exec, but I could see Paul did it).  After the warm-up dude, John Stewart came out and answered questions.  He was funny as well, choosing to riff on Austin, TX (my previous hometown), which I thought was very uncool, because there is zero places cooler than Austin.  Honestly.  People lump in Austin with the rest of Texas, but Austin is the black-sheep, the red-headed step-child, the funny, eccentric Aunt Agnes, who you always suspected was secretly gay and went to exotic lands and brought back odd souvenirs and alcohol that you couldn’t drink because you were seven.  That is Austin, my friends.  But, in spite of the riff, John Stewart still made me laugh.  I think you could hear me laugh on the show, because I was rolling in many places.

So, the fun part, the taping begins.  First of all, Dick Cheney has found a new job, and it’s the security guy who stands right next to John Stewart’s desk.  Honestly, they could be twins.  I nearly asked if it was Cheney, but I was afraid that might be considered ‘hostile’ so I opted to wonder in silence.  The first newsy segment had a moment on the Supreme Court obscenity case, where Stewart gave rather graphic voices to the Supreme Court justices that Kathryn Lye (my ed) would never approve of, and that was a howler.  There was a dig at Palin, a dig at McCain, no digs at Obama, which I was curious if it was because there was no material, or if they decided to veer off Obama.  Don’t know.  Will have to watch more and note.

T. Boone Pickens was the guest, and he was fascinating.  He has a great talk on energy and his plan for energy, and how we can fix the cars in the country, by turning them all hybrids, but apparently trucks are a large part of the problem (the huge 18-wheelers, that’s a big 10-4, goodbuddy), and they use a ton of gas, and you can’t have a hybrid 18-wheeler, so the only option for them is natural gas.  If we did go natural gas, we’d have a TON of infrastructure changes to do, all those NG stations are expensive assuming I remember my facts right (this is Kathleen talking now, not T. Boone).  Still, it was a great talk, and it’s the first real energy ‘plan’ I’ve heard from anyone, and obviously he’s put a lot of thought into it.  For those of you who have never heard of Pickens, he made his money in Oil, and hails from OK and TX and talks a lot like it, saying who-ee at various intervals during the night and sounding just like my Dad, who is also a very smart man, but says who-ee as well.

There wasn’t much after that.  Had great Greek food at Molyvo’s, highly recommended if you ever dine in NY and like Greek (actually, I don’t even like Greek and I like Molyvo’s).

And now, I’m off to write and hopefully make enough money for dinner.  STILL have not received Tyvek, but got a number from Agent #2, which is a decent number, and makes me smile, but not grin.  My children will have food, I cannot complain.

Lori,

Hotels are a petri-dish of bad things happening.  I have never seen a person die in a hotel, but I think it could be easily possible.  Also, you could have a convention of funeral home owners.  My best friend in college had a father who owned a funeral home, and he was the life of the party, and prone to burst into Broadway show tunes at a moment’s notice.  You’d be surprised at how lively that business is.  You could have a misplaced reservation, a bag that gets shuffled around the hotel (did you see “What’s Up Doc?”  “What are you doing with Howard Bannister’s rocks?”  I love that movie).  A customer who has the cleaning lady charge up thousands of dollars of long-distance to a customer’s room (happened to my DH — true).  A cleaning lady discovers a dead body, and they’re only filming Law & Order, or a cleaning lady discovers a dead body, and they’re really filming Law & Order, it’s real.  A marriage that’s breaking up in the lobby because the wife found the husband cheating with his mistress, and security wants them to pipe down, but the wife keeps thumping the husband with her purse, or a fire alarm that keeps going off and annoying everyone, or a Mary Kay convention which is the only convention worse than an RWA convention.  “Excuse me, dear, but I notice you’re not wearing eye-shadow.  Have you ever considered a deep, smoky purple with your blue eyes?”   Okay, I’m now officially out of ideas.  Must go write.  Hopefully you got over the hump, if not, I’m sure you will, or KL will get angry.

TTFN.

November 14th, 2008 Kathleen O'Reilly Posted in New York State of Mind, On Writing Miseries | 8 Comments »

So, I’m working on a new book, and I’m really, really, really happy with Chapter 1.  Chapter 2?  Aghhhh, the agony.  Diane has inspired me.  A friend with a thousand deadlines looming has inspired me.  My goal was to put down the words and zoom through this book.

The book refused to cooperate.

Do you ever have those days?

My pre-epihinous Chapter 2 was funny, full of great characters, but they weren’t doing anything for the story, no, they were sitting, chatting, drinking too much wine, and complaining about men.  I have now wrestled the beginnings of Chapter 2 into something that is decent and good, but it’s a tenuous start, a tiny thread that could break at any moment.

I will try and do some blogging from the Daily Show.  I don’t have a connection, but I’m going to be writing and reporting in…. Sadly, tonight’s guest is T. Boone Pickens, who I do admire, but you know, couldn’t it be, like Daniel Craig or something?  Last night was Thomas Friedman, who I think is the smartest man in America.  Tomorrow night is Bill O’Reilly, who is shelved next to me in fiction, and I would love to meet.  Tonight, we’re going to talk about wind.    Sigh.

And in, oh, my God, news.  There’s a bit in the Guardian saying that Madonna (not the painting) had ordered her ex to read to her young son from her English Roses series.  OM- pink-bedecked-rosebud-flocked-G.   Madonna, honey, that is not the way to grow a fan base.  It’s a way to grow Augusten Burroughs, and I don’t mean that in a happy way.

November 12th, 2008 Kathleen O'Reilly Posted in Funnies, New York State of Mind, On Writing Miseries | 3 Comments »

Today’s post is a collecion of miscellanea… without a consistent theme, because it’s gloomy and rainy and Friday, and I’m suffering from post-election malaise.

First up, the election is over. On November 5th, I woke up, immediately jumped to www.realclearpolitics.com, and realized that I had nothing I wanted to read. There were no more polls; oh, yes, there was commentary on why Obama won, why McCain lost, but it’s like post-football-game commentary after the game is over. We know how it turned out, so is all that necessary? Apparently not for me. I did get teary eyed at 11pm on election night, but what was interesting is that it was the sight of Jesse Jackson crying that did me in. It’s not that I’m a huge Jesse Jackson fan, but looking into his face and seeing the peace in his eyes, I finally got what a huge turning point this was for this country, especially the African-American community. I started tearing up then, because I realize I didn’t know how this country was going to change because of Obama, but I knew that somewhere over the last ten years it already had, and it made me happy.
The next bit of thought: are racial jokes the new black? I read an article yesterday on whether the Daily Show could survive an Obama presidency, and last night, we watched John Stewart, and I noticed the plethora of black jokes, and I found them a little funnier than I would have on November 3rd, but it still made me uncomfortable. There’s been a lot of discussion about how commedians can make fun of Obama, race being one, and I do enjoy a good dead baby joke which are pretty much the worst in terms of jokes that no one should find humorous, but I’m not sure I’m ready for racial jokes. This will be interesting to see if this trend continues, and if continues, or if goes the way of new Coke.

Publishing news is not good, although Harlequin did buck the trend and have a nice quarter, and it *seems* that Harlequin authors might perhaps be pleased this royalty period, but my Tyvek has not come, so I can’t say “Woohoo!”, or “Meh” with any authority right now.

Last night, I finished Lisa Kleypas’ Blue-Eyed Devil, and thought it was awesome. I had read Sugar Daddy about a month ago, and enjoyed it, but contrary to popular opinion, I loved Blue-Eyed Devil more I have no idea why, perhaps because it started with the hero, and ended with the hero, with a little heroine-thinking-she-was-in-love-with-someone-else in between, though not as much as Sugar Daddy. I’m a recent Lisa Kleypas fan, having only really glommed her historicals in the past year, and I was nervous about her foray into contemporary, the way Stephen King has, where he takes the beloved friend in the middle of the book, and then they get bitten/turned/converted into something bad, and you see them standing there, and you know they are now a bad person, but you can’t forget the past, and you want to like them. So, needless to say, I was nervous about trying the contemporaries, but I downloaded the first sample from Sugar Daddy and read it, and when I got to the end of the chapter, I immediately bought it and continued reading, not stopping until I got to the end. I think what Ms. Kleypas gets right, IMHO, is that she infuses the page with a ton of emotion, and it doesn’t get draggy or feel like its TMI. Anyway, if, like me, you have been nervous of the LK contemporaries, I give it the Kathleen O’Reilly seal of approval.

I think that’s all for now. Have a nice Friday, and a good weekend, and I’ll be back.

November 7th, 2008 Kathleen O'Reilly Posted in All Things Political, Newsflash, On Biz, Reading Matters | 8 Comments »

There’s a piece in the NY Times about whether or not the F-Word should be allowed on television.  Apparently, Fox Television is in favor of the fornicationally-flavored locution while the FCC says not just no, but effing-no.   What intrigued me most was that the word’s sexual connotations seemed to be the thrust of the problem, not the fact that it was a curse word.  

My only comment, WTF?  We can show copulation on network television, we can imply copulation on network television, we can make bawdy jokes about copulation on network television, but God forbid, that we call it by its name.  Apparently if the word is non-sexualized, then it’s freaking fine.  Sigh.

I will be fair and fussy here and say that I don’t enjoy hearing the f-word overused in casual conversation, and I don’t like when it runs fast and loose through writing or movies.  It’s usage is much more powerful in the one-off, and eventually, for me, like the dialog tag, ’said,’ it gets blocked out.  BUT if a character is given to phonetic freedom, like Tony Soprano, it should be used as necessary.  

I suspect that the Supreme Court will recognize that the use of the word has gone far beyond its sexualized meaning, but I don’t know.  A lot of the justices are part of the older generation where words were very carefully chosen for their precise meaning.  I miss those days, not because we couldn’t say fuck, but because there is something to be said for having a cornucopia of words at the tip of one’s tongue.  Writing and speaking — they both suffer for it. 

November 2nd, 2008 Kathleen O'Reilly Posted in Newsflash | 4 Comments »

(sung to the tune of Gary, Indiana)

Lori Borrill!

What a wonderful name,
named for Lori Borrill of authorial fame.
Lori Borrill, as Smart Bitches would say,
packs an emotional wallop with fun on the way.
Lori Borrill, Lori Borrill, Lori Borrill
Let me say it once again.
Lori Borrill, Lori Borrill, Lori Borrill,
That’s the author I knew “when”
If you’d like to have a logical explanation
Of how Blaze unleashed this talented sensation,
I can say without a moment of hesitation
There’s only one name
That’s at the top of her game
Lori Borrill
Lori Borrill
Not Danielle Steele, Nicholas Sparks, or Stephenie Meyer, but–
Lori Borrill
Lori Borrill
Lori Borrill
My favoritist Blaze-author — ever!!

November 2nd, 2008 Kathleen O'Reilly Posted in Cool People | 4 Comments »

This year, the Smart Bitches, Trashy Novel website gave me two marvelous reviews, and I will forever be in their debt.  And then a few months later, the call came to find a Harlequin romance to give to a mathematically minded, married to a librarian, blogger who happens to like lit fic and historical novels, and mocked the Harlequin romance novel for its bodice-rippery and cheesy plots.  Sex, Straight Up was nominated.

Last week, Doc Turtle began his journey, venturing into Harlequin Blazelandia. And thus, the book was embalmed in formaldehyde, pinned to a rubber mat while the limbs jerked and spasmed, and then was sliced open with a sharp instrument.  On the first few chaps, Mr. Doc Turtle proceeded to poke at the tendrils of fat and the various organs, pushing them aside to find the tenuously beating heart of the book.  I believe the heart will die before he finishes, but to date, we have a received one huzzah, and also roughly two chapters of modified-snark-free zone, which I am counting as progress.

October 26th, 2008 Kathleen O'Reilly Posted in On Writing Miseries | 4 Comments »

First of all, Shaken and Stirred won in the short contemp category in the NJRW Golden Leaf contest.  I was thrilled (I was there, signing, so it’s a lot of fun).

October 26th, 2008 Kathleen O'Reilly Posted in On Writing Miseries | 4 Comments »

the DH and I howled like monkeys during this one:

October 21st, 2008 Kathleen O'Reilly Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

The newspapers have been filled with talk of the financial meltdown and its impact, or upcoming impact, because if you’re not currently impacted, the newspapers expect you to be impacted within the next six months, and if you’re not, they want to talk to you because according to the news, you are the ONLY PERSON IN AMERICA WHO WILL NOT BE AFFECTED BY THIS CRISIS!

And, as is the case with the newsmakers, they start to write pieces on THE WIDGET INDUSTRY IN ECONOMIC CRISIS: CAN IT SURVIVE?   And then there’s the flipside to this argument.  PEOPLE TURNING TO BOOKS IN TIMES OF CRISIS.

So, for this blog, I put on my handy-dandy journalism hat and started poking around to discover if people were really reading more.  By studying the Amazon top 10, a completely non-statistical sampling that is a moody snapshot not reflecting on anything other than the three seconds I spent researching, these are the conclusions I have drawn.

The first book on the list is The Shack, which I think makes a telling statement about the current foreclosure crisis. People are being forced out of their McMansions in Greenwich, and then move into a Shack. People see this title and are drawn to an uplifting tale of one man’s newfound life after his ostentatious home and his greedy, self serving wealth are lost.

Books two and three are part of the Twilight series, by Stephenie Meyer,  Books 1 and Book 4.  Now, this teenage vampire blood-sucking angst is probably not affected by the financial crisis, as teens will not be aware of the crisis until their parents begin to tell them ‘no’, which will probably be in about six months, so I don’t think these titles can be counted as an accurate barometer of the blood-sucking, near-death throes of our entire way of life.

Book four on the Amazon list is the Warren Buffett biography, Snowball.  Did you know that Warren Buffett liked to hang out with porno stars?  I bet you didn’t.  See, until this book, nobody else did either (except for Warren, and a few ladies of high earnings-to-boob ratio).    So, why, in times of crisis, would people want to read about Warren Buffett, a financially brilliant man known as the Oracle of Omaha?  Because, grasshopper, people want to understand why their entire way of life is being flushed down the toilet, and most importantly of all, they want to understand who is to blame.  The Oracle Knows All.

Book five is another Twilight Book.  Been there, done that, the veins are withered to dust.  Let’s move on.

Book six is The Love Dare by Stephen Kendrick.    I had never heard of this book, and was thinking it sounded like a great Blaze title.  So, I read about it, and it’s a how-to-pep-up your romance book, a 40-day challenge for husbands and wives to understand and practice unconditional love.  Unconditional, as in, ‘For Richer, for Poorer’ because honey, you remember all those manicures and massages and really great shoes?  Hey, baby, now it’s just down to us!

Book seven and book eight are more of the Twilight Saga and the Complete Illustrated Movie Companion.  Man, are those teenagers going to be so disappointed after they realize that soon their entire way of life will be trashed, and it doesn’t matter if you’re Team Edward, or Team Jacob, your mom will not buy you those new Hollister jeans, and no wimpy-assed vamp is going to be there to help you out.  All mothers of teenaged girls can nod their heads on this one.  Not pretty.

Book nine is Brisingr, a dragon written by a boy who cannot spell, at least according to Microsoft Word, who is not happy with that title.  I don’t think teenaged males will suffer as much as teenaged females in the total annihilation of all consumer spending and utter chaos that will ensue, so I’m thinking this book will probably hang around awhile.

The last book is Who? The A Method for Hiring by Geoff Smart.  Ha.  I bet that’s a pen-name.   I like the opening blurb for this one:

“In this landmark book, Geoff Smart and Randy Street provide a simple, practical, and effective solution to what The Economist calls “the single biggest problem in business today”: unsuccessful hiring. The average hiring mistake costs a company $1.5 million or more a year and countless wasted hours. This statistic becomes even more startling when you consider that the typical hiring success rate of managers is only 50 percent.”

First of all, can I say that I can’t believe that a how-to-hire book is on the top ten list at Amazon?  And next, can we buy this and send it to oh, say Lehman Brothers?  Nope.  About five months too late.  What about WaMu?  Nope.  Oops.  Wachovia?  Nope?  Those forty gazillion traders at Merrill Lynch that just lost their jobs?  Nope.  AIG?  Fannie Mae?  Freddie Mac?  Congress?  The SEC?  The White House?  Do you see the problem I see?   Who are the thousands of people who bought this book and are living in denial because they actually think that anyone is going to hire them?  It’s very sad, this group, (probably related to the 10% who think the country is on the right track).

Continuing onward, because I am not happy with my findings, I move to the Romance Bestseller List.  Aha!  More proof of the financial crisis and the end of carefree, irresponsible way of life and all mankind.  Within the top twelve are: Living Dead in Dallas, Club Dead, Dead to the World, Definitely Dead, Dead as A Doornail, Dead Until Dark, and then Salvation in Death.  As you can see by these titles, we are dead as a civilization, trade in your big cars and start stocking up on Mac and Cheese.  Even the Pollyanna, rainbows and puppies way of the romance genre is Dead, dead, deader than death.

I have now depressed myself.  Books are not comfort food.  I must go find by Halloween candy and binge before it’s all gone.

October 21st, 2008 Kathleen O'Reilly Posted in On Biz, Reading Matters | 5 Comments »