Dad Life (Father's Day Opening 2010)

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The Genre Dilemma

Several months ago, I read a blog post about do's and don'ts for conference panels.  I would cite the author and post if I could remember where I found it, so I'm terribly sorry.  It may have been  Janet Reid's , but I can't be sure.  One of the no-no's was asking a question that was truly a thinly veiled pitch.   Example:  "How do you think a story about robots that pick your nose would sell?  I can show you what I'm talking about, as I have the manuscript in my hand." Earlier today, I participated in my first UF Chat on Twitter.  It was a blast and the discussion was great, and the other participants seemed very knowledgeable.  Several of them are published, and I had a question I wanted to ask regarding the genre of my novel, The Rider of Nealra .  I was afraid to ask, just in case I might look like Robot Pitch Girl above.  Just before I actually asked, though, my toddler woke up and I had to leave.  Several participants were game to hel
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The Idiom Exchange

I wrote a review  last month for the Portal, and one of the stories had slang that really bothered me.  It wasn't because the language was foul.  It bothered me because the author had an American Southerner calling a television a "telly."  Much of the slang and nicknames he used just didn't ring true, and it almost ruined the story for me. Most of my stories are through the eyes of a Montana rancher, and all of the slang I use is derived from my family.  I really like dialogue to sound authentic.  Below, I've written examples of idioms and slang that my family uses, especially the older members.  In the comments below, please offer up slang, accents, and idioms from the places you've been, but be sure to tell where you've heard them. Grandma's Idioms "I feel like I've been rode hard and put up wet."  (People always gave me funny looks when I said this at college, for some reason.) "I burnt the hair right off my tongue."  (C
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He Got Pain Right

As I lay sleepless due to the throbbing in my joints, I had a very long night to reflect.  My screeching nerves decided that Brandon Sanderson got something very right in his novel,  Elantris . Pain. Sanderson's protagonist, Prince Raoden, is stricken by the Shaod , a terrible affliction that renders its victims immortal, freakish, and hungry.  He is thrown into Elantris, a decaying city whose wonder can no longer gleam through the filth.  The Shaod leaves them without a heartbeat.  No injury will heal, and the pain of each injury never fades.  Eventually, the cumulative agony from hundreds of small injuries, coupled with an unrelenting hunger, drives them mad. For me, it started with low back pain, then constant headaches.  Soon my hands were always cold.  Then, I broke a bone in my foot from walking crookedly.  Most of the time I could ignore it, or at least put it to the back of my mind, but even if I wasn't consciously thinking about the pain, its weight was always t
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