wc: 14353

Mark gave me a brilliant idea for my nano yesterday. He's the one who came up with the idea of Morgoth kidnapping Argon in my nano last year, which led to the adventures of Celegorm and Aredhel in that one. I should really let him know my plots ahead of time so that I don't have to go to him a week in and say 'hey, you got any ideas for...'

(He's also the one who suggested the way Salgant dies, though that came up in conversation more than a year ago.)

And, I found a word war friend on yahoo who also happens to be a slasher -- she's writing a homoerotic version of Arabian Nights. So now I can chat about plot points with someone and they won't suddenly hit the invisible option and run away need to go offline when that comes up.

Still working on finding some other venues... we kinda need a place bigger than Borders now, and Moondance would certainly not work well (though, it was nice enough, we'd have been able to use the outdoor seating there). I've got a few calls in to places; one in particular I'm hoping calls back since they're so close to Borders.

in other news

demco.com

it's one of the biggest library supply companies, and they have these little contests from time to time

decorate a book truck and such

they had a dr. seuss writing contest - using only 50 words, create a story

so, i came up with something i think i would have been proud showing theodore if he was still around

on the home page for a while, they had some random entries... and it was so crappy... so many entries that were just 'we love books, yay library' rah rah crap

i'm sorry, but if you want kids to read, you don't shove the library down their throats

anyhow... they have the list of finalists... guess what?

it's all crap on 'whee we love reading, reading's so much fun, i love the library'

this is the kind of thing that really makes me hate people in my profession

what? timmy hates reading? probably because you sound like a friggin' lunatic preaching about libraries.

just like someone will scare someone away from a possible conversion by shouting things like 'repent! the kingdom of heaven is at hand!', so too does the child become bored of the librarian who tries to tell a story about the wonders of the library and reading

the best children's books... are the ones that don't remind you that you're reading every other page... the ones that take you to a place far from the library

if the other entries had been brilliant, i wouldn't care very much, but the entries were garbage... my rabbit could come up with something more entertaining (okay, he's a rabbit, he's just entertaining on his own, but you get the idea)

this is part of the reason why our country is failing at literacy