let's all play the definition game.
I think [experimenting with drinking before writing] is a good idea. I think it's a better idea to try it out some time other than the night before the Nicholl deadline.
None. I slept in. I am a slug.
On yesterday's list of romance novel primal plots was one named "coup de foudre." I noticed it and sent mail to Barbara Bretton, asking for clarification. I know it means "thunderbolt," but what does it mean in terms of a novel? Perhaps it is when the hero or heroine espies the heroine or hero and is immediately struck, Cupid-like, by a bolt from the blue and falls in love. But this is a guess, and not a very educated one.
Then I got mail from readers asking what "coup de foudre" means.
Knowing the kind of turnaround I get from Pooks on e-mail, and knowing Pooks has written romance novels, I sent mail to her asking what it meant. And got back: "I was gonna ask you if you knew what it was!"
Sigh. If you know, please tell me. Operators are standing by.
Yes, it's screenplay contest season again, and once again I've left everything to the final 24 hours. I know there are some people who can only function that way; I'm not one of them. I hate it.
However, I've decided I'm going to win the Nicholl this year, because of this week's horoscope from Real Astrology:
Drool, my friend Carol once noted, is the highest form of praise. And in light of your growing skill and popularity, Leo, I expect you'll be overstimulating many people's salivary glands in the coming weeks. Sure some of it will be metaphorical slobber, and some will accompany feelings of envy more than admiration, but I would not be surprised if you were witness to actual trickles of spit overflowing from the mouths of people who can't contain their respect or hunger for you. To encourage the displays you so richly deserve, I encourage you to create a little button for your lapel which reads "You Have Permission to Drool."
Well, I'm either going to win the Nicholl or
- I metamorphose (with high-tech morphing effects) into a babe;
- I develop killer social skills;
- for no explained reason, I come into a lot of money;
- Leonardo DiCaprio decides to make me the focus of his existence.
(Actually, that last might make cause drool in others, but it would cause rampant insanity in me. Not to mention make Darin a wee bit annoyed.)
Darin, in a fit of of husbandly passion, bought Civilization II: Gold for me, because he knows how much I love Civilization II (still play it) and Gold has a cool "scenarios" feature that the PC version had but the Mac version did not. And I thought Gold would be cool because it would fix some of the bugs from the regular version.
Boy, was I wrong.
It introduced untold numbers of bugs. I can't believe how much worse the game play is with Gold than with the previous version. One of my favorite things to do is "Revert Game," because sometimes I don't like the outcome of a certain action, like attacking the bad guys, and I want to do it again. In the previous version, the game simply went back to the last saved version.
In Gold, it opens the Standard File dialog box. Forcing me to scroll through tens (if not hundreds, later in the game) of previous saved games for the one I want.
I haven't tried the scenarios yet. Perhaps they will mollify me. But am I glad I saved the previous version.
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Copyright 1999 Diane Patterson
Send comments and questions to diane@spies.com