Examiner.com; just another blog. . .

Image via WikipediaSigh. Well, that little adventure in writing ended way too soon. It's a blog, folks. They can dress it up and put lipstick on it, but it's just another blog peopled by some good writers and a lot of complete lunatics.

Why content farming is bad for journalism.
On any given day, these "writers" pound out a record amount of content, but (didn't you know there was one?) content is a generous word for it. With only momentary lapses into local news like this veteran's policy examiner. Examiner.com can't really be called anything other than a blogspot alternative.



This local gem is the Indianapolis Examiner for political buzz with his dysfunctional diatribe on his wife, a local lawyer, Women who abuse domectic violence laws . Examiner.com does background checks on their writers, but the question is do they check to see if they are writers. Keep in mind that these writers are paid per click. Readers will be contributing to the "farming system".


Writers today are watching an evolution of the business. Paper press and the old journalists of the past are making way for the digital rebirth of their industry. More and more content farms crop up each year, while fewer and fewer objective news outlets survive to provide their unique service, investigative journalism.

The question becomes; who will ask the hard questions of those in positions of power? Will local bloggers be a force to reckon with in the long term? Or will they only be white noise? With blogs out there in the political arena like Firedoglake and Redstate, it's easy to see blogger's influence in politics. What's harder to determine is if this is a good thing. Content farms would take their cues from the blog industry generating inflammatory, rhetorical articles by the hundreds because that's what sells.Without hard journalism to back up those articles, are bloggers merely gasoline on the fire?



The experience of writing for Examiner.com was thought provoking. Do writers want to write so badly they will write anything with any group of people? Is there a standard when the industry isn't even done changing? Where do writers find their opportunity to write good content? The answers to these questions escape this writer.

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Published on Examiner.com

Image via CrunchBaseWell, It's day two after becoming an examiner for Examiner.com. I am the Indianapolis Special Education Examiner. So far, I really like it. There appears to be a lot of support for the writers, and a very professional approach to what could otherwise be a site for people to vent. It's not supposed to be a blog, and that makes it new for me.

Take a look at my articles, and support a starving writer. 

Professional Cred!!

If all goes well, my friends, I may actually be writing to be published in the near future. No, the Washington Post has not seen the light. Ha. Ha. Still, I'm excited to have assignments and actual work to do. Writing is an exhausting hobby.

The Darkest Passion

Cover of The Darkest Passion (Hqn)

Gena Showalter writes novels like other people have snacks; frequently and effortlessly. Her latest in the Lords of the Underworld series is The Darkest Passion. It's brain candy. It is, but I love it.

Normally, this wouldn't be my cup of tea, but it's the epic alteration of mythology to morph into a contemporary fairytale that gets me in this series. Passion might be one of my favorites, but the one that really pulled me in, was Pleasure. Each of the lords are immortal warriors who once served the gods. Each has been giving a demon to carry, the ones they let out of Pandora's box. Each is being shown heavenly mercy, in the form of the perfect woman.

Yeah, well,  I said it was a fairytale. The latest lord to find his match is Aeron. As we suspected, Olivia is an angel fallen from Heaven, but the twist is a bit harsh. She falls because she won't kill the keeper of Wrath. For fans of the series, there are some very interesting turns in this one, but I'm no spoiler. Honestly, the whole series is a keeper.

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Yeah, I'm a gamer.

Image by nasa1fan/MSFC via Flickr

My fanfiction blog is located here. Core Exiles is one of my favorite games. It's a great creative outlet to write a life for my Captain. Hope someone enjoys it.

Just for laughs

Doing, not writing

Image by Stewf via Flickr

When I sit down and focus, I enjoy my writing. Beginning another project recently, I felt more in control of it than my first. It's another romance novel, and I love it. I do.

My passions pull me all other directions. Special education blogging takes up a lot of time, as does my life. It seems like I'm being all things to everyone. My struggle is how to balance all the things I need to do with the one that I only want to do. If anyone out there has suggestions, the suggestion box is open. Look at this blog post! It's pathetic!

Is it legal to clone myself?

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Silver Borne is a Gem.

Cover of Silver Borne (Mercy Thompson, Book 5)

Patricia Briggs final book in the Mercy Thompson series has dropped and was as expected. She tied up all those loose ends and gave Mercy a place to belong in the bizarre other world she inhabits. Silver Borne turned out to be a great read, along with all the rest of her series. That series list begins with Moon Called, where we meet Mercy and the wolves, and continues through, Blood Bound, Iron Kissed, Bone Crossed, and now Silver Borne.

I'll try to avoid spoilers. Mercy lives in a world that has changed rapidly for the populous which inhabits it, except for her. She's always walked that fine line between Human and Something Else. She turns into a coyote, and because she's one of a kind, was raised in Montana by werewolves. There is some drama involved with being a coyote among wolves. Drama that only ended when the local Alpha, without telling Mercy, claimed her for a mate.

This is the culmination of that story. Silver begins with Mercy's new beginning with Adam Hauptman, the pack alpha, and the returning of a borrowed book. One of my favorite features of Brigg's storytelling is how Mercy always starts out with something that should not cause a problem, a mundane action that shouldn't result in crazy, yet it always does for Mercy. It's endearing, and by book 5, you truly want Mercy to win in spite of her rotten luck and penchant for trouble.

Samuel Cornick lives with Mercy and can be easily qualified as her best friend. He's a very old wolf with a lot of life behind him and serious present-day depression. Their relationship has evolved to something resembling sibling closeness over the progression of the story, and Briggs skillfully uses Samuel to show us the very best of Mercy in this novel.

She also closes that gaping story hole of the pack and its reaction to Adam bringing Mercy into their group. The author consistently proves to be a master of writing relationships, but here she really writes the pack as wolves. That makes for some interesting reading to say the least. Fitting in with people would be difficult, but fitting into a literal pack of wolves would be insanity for almost anyone in Mercy's alternate universe. One wrong move, and anyone is prey. It's a dog eat dog world, no question.

My recommendation is to read the whole series. It's a rich and compelling story from the first book to the last. Does it require suspended disbelief? Big time. Is that easy? It is the way Briggs does it. This is a fairy tale for adults, and you never forget that. There are lots of adult themes including rape and the aftermath of rape. This isn't a book for children or almost adults.

Rating: R for Adult themes
Recommendation: It's a keeper.

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The Author as Seducer: How Novelists Turn Readers On

The Author as Seducer: How Novelists Turn Readers On

Warning: This isn't an article for babies. However, I found it metaphorically instructive and entertaining.

Patricia Briggs' Silver Borne

Image by cathepsut via Flickr

Silver Borne dropped on the 30th. It's the latest in the Mercy Thompson series, and I can't wait.

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My Target Experience

Image via Wikipedia

This week I had a lovely shopping experience and want to now tell the world.

Two days ago, my son got his reward for getting 3 A's. We took him to get a Halo Warthog block toy. When we got that toy home, it had half the pieces missing and all the bags opened. The figurines were not there. Having just come from the store, we turned back around and came back, receipt in hand. The woman who handled our actual transaction was not the first we approached. A teenybopper behind the counter was the first we saw. Her manner was beyond rude, veering into accusatory disbelief. Though she knew better than to say it, she made it clear that she believed we had left the store and stolen the pieces, only to bring it back and get another. Beyond that, she explained our options-rudely-, then left the register. I teach Special Education students. One of my students approached me excitedly and wanted to talk. Meantime, she had returned to her register. My son tells me she rolled her eyes at my student. Really? This is the image you want to project? Cruelty and arrogance? That afternoon we left with a sealed Megablock Warthog and a new disgust of Target stores. One, check returns before placing them on the floor, please. How easily all of this could have been avoided! Two, the caliber of your employees, in this case, fell below Wal-mart. While the woman who ultimately did the return was very polite, guess which I remember better. This target is far out of my way and only expediency brought us there that day, but I will think twice before going to any target from now on. My options are many and varied.I can guarantee the Southport location will never see us again. Thank you 
Location of store where you shop: Southport Target in Indianapolis

 To clarify, I use the verb teach, but do not claim to be a teacher. I didn't want to take the time to explain my confusing job. Other than that, everything in this infuriating experience happened just as explained. RAWR!

SNL Takes On The News

Rejecting Reality

Zazzle 

So much truth can be found on a T-shirt. Zazzle-link above- is one of my favorite suppliers of truth. This little gem here is one of my favorites as well. I Reject Your Reality And Substitute My Own. Never could the life of a writer of romance be summed up better.

Going through some of my old novels to study technique brought this thought to mind. We all know that emotion seldom runs that high, and we also know that the same couple a few years down the road will look quite different. We know this because of statistics.

Yeah, I know. Where's the truth in statistics? Sometimes I agree with that assessment. However, in this instance, the divorce rate suggests that romance leaves out some truth somewhere. The question is which truth is left behind. I think we substitute the reality we wish we had sometimes. The  same thing is done so often with autism and other diseases. We romanticize an autistic character in a movie because the truth of the statistic is too hard to bear and unpleasant to look at. Your average kid with autism is not charmingly doing math problems to entertain his friends at school where he's popular despite his social awkwardness. Most of these families live life in a different reality from that. The same is true of romance novels.

What's real romance in the reality in which we all actually live? It would be sad if it's not getting divorced. Then again, isn't that where the rubber hits the road? I mean loving someone when it's easy is a piece of cake, but when that girl you married is nursing a three-week-old, the varnish will come off. She showers haphazardly. She gets grumpy, sore, and tense. Isn't sleeping. Isn't eating. The last thing anyone would call her is the romantic ideal, but she is the perfect mother, putting everything into her child until it all settles down and she can wear make-up again. As a culture, we don't seem to revere that anymore.

Then I did some googling. Procrastinating really, but it gleaned information and an article. Breast augmentation leads to better self-esteem. Well, all right then! Isn't that just more varnish? Romance writers are moving somewhat away from this romanticized view of women. Heroines are putting on a few and getting sassy, but women in Western cultures still seem to feel they must be perfect, love must be perfect. It made me wonder. Have we always been this way? Or did we just reject reality and substitute our own?

Hate to See You Go

Robert Parker dies at age 77.

Mystery loses an icon. Robert B. Parker authored the Spenser and Jesse Stone novels. Spenser For Hire starring Robert Ulrich was based on his novels.

The Writer or The Story?

Cover of Born of Ice (A League Novel)

Kenyon Minions everywhere may hate me for what I am about to say, but . . . What can I do? I just finished two new books from her League series.  I want my darkhunters back, and that made me wonder about my loyalty to an author. I'm a very loyal reader. Karen Moning, I love Fae! Gena Showalter, Oh, Reyes, Masterpiece! Kresley Cole, you're the woman!

In this case, it was clearly loyalty only to a story. Sherrylin Kenyon's darkhunters, those men just rev my engine, and her plots read like a good action flick. In the darkhunter books, she made all the same quirky little writing errors found in her Born books, and it only bothered me in a very minor way. Because her story was good, and I wanted to hear it, I suppose. Born of Ice and Born of Fire didn't have that kind of story.

Frankly, it was a depressing world where almost everyone deserved to be shot. Each and every romance followed a pattern of Attraction, Betrayal, Forgiveness that leads to happily ever after. I'm not knocking it, but how happy can anyone be in a world where brutal torture is commonplace, justice is blind and hospitals expel patients on life support for lack of funds? I wanted to kill the characters and put them out of my misery.

There were high points, of course. In Born of Ice, the hero's mother has some great lines and the ending is everything anyone in a screwed up world could hope for; the bad guy buys it in a hail of blaster fire. Problem solved! Sometimes, violence is the answer apparently, but even that didn't seem to fit in the series like it would in a darkhunter universe. Because there were other answers! You have a justice system and diplomats popping up everywhere, so that the solution seems wrong somehow, too easy. Her universe may have been too much like reality in some ways.

Then there were the little things that kept adding up. Words in common phrases misplaced. References straight from the forties and fifties, like the mecha, Vik, doing a "danger-will-robinson" move, that just didn't fit the tone or story at all. Grammar was an issue, Ms. Kenyon! While, in the past, I've spotted the dark side of Ms. Kenyon's writing style, I dismissed it, or it wasn't this dark. The story was too good to pass up, perhaps. The Born Books left me feeling all hollow inside and wanting to edit like mad.

So, how much can any author count on reader loyalty? I don't think they can. Maybe sometimes we really ring the bell and our work takes on a life of it's own, then maybe, sometimes we realize we have to polish our craft because sometimes the story isn't enough on it's own. I'm going to pay much more attention to craft because of reading this series, so good came of it at least.  However, I'll probably pass on more League books, since I can't really edit them and I can't really read them without Prosac.

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