A lyrics intervention--Train does it again

Long time blog readers know that I started the Enrique Awards--an award for songs with bad pickup lines.

(To see the five contending songs for last years award, you can follow this link: http://janette-rallison.blogspot.com/2011/04/vote-for-worst-song-pick-up-lines_26.html


This year, Train won hands down (or wheels down, since we are talking about a vehicle) for it's song Drive By.

http://janette-rallison.blogspot.com/2012/06/worst-pick-up-lyrics-award-2012.html

In it, lead singer Patrick Monahan sounds like he's stalking some unfortunate woman who's greatest desire is to flee from him. She moves across the country (or at least tells him she does) in order to get away from him. Sadly, he still doesn't get the hint.  And then there is the touching chorus where he proclaims that he is just a "shy guy looking for a two-ply Hefty bag to hold my love."

Yeah, it's always the quiet ones that you don't suspect who end up being led away by the police in handcuffs after the grisly remains are found in their basement.

So in a clear attempt to redeem themselves from the I'm-not-a-danger-to-society category, Train has come up with another song called Fifty Ways to Say Goodbye.  (Catchy song, by the way. I frequently hum it.)

For Pat, saying goodbye entails coming up with fifty imaginative ways to say his girlfriend died.  Here's a sample:


She went down in an airplane
Fried getting suntanned
Fell in a cement mixer full of quicksand
Help me, help me, I'm no good at goodbyes!
She met a shark under water
Fell and no one caught her
I returned everything I ever bought her
Help me, help me, I'm all out of lies
And ways to say you died

Yes, Patrick, I think we can all agree that you are no good at goodbyes.  Most people go with, "Let's just be friends." It's a little less violent.

Note to any women who are interested in Train band members: Don't. Just don't even go there. It will not end well.

Note to the Feds: Check the Hefty bags. That's where he keeps his love.

Note to people who don't know me: I'm just joking about all of this.

Note to Patrick: Seriously, I love you . . . so you don't ever need to like, um, come looking for me.

Writing—it’s sort of like budgeting

Time and money never add up like I think they should. I’m always amazed at the amount of money my family spends. It seems like we should have lots of moeny left over at the end of the month, and yet we don’t.

This year I took on an insane amount of writing. Why you might ask?  Because I have no grip on reality. It’s like all those times when I walk into Michaels and see cute scrapbooking stuff on sale and suddenly think I’m Martha Stewart—or someone with scrapbooking talent.  Which I’m not.  But that doesn’t matter, because I see said cute stuff and I think, “I should buy that because one day I’m going to put together cute, touching scrapbooks that are a tribute to my kids and their innate darlingness.

No, no I’m not. What I’m actually going to do is buy the stuff and put it in a box in my closet with the rest of the scrapbooking stuff I will never use until Armageddon or the zombie apocalypse hits.  Yep, while all the electricity is down and we’re all holed ourselves in our houses with nothing else to do I’ll have plenty of scrapbooking stuff to keep me busy. (Assuming of course that I’ve previously downloaded pictures . . .)

Anyway, when my publishers both wanted a book within the same 6 month period, I thought I could do it.  Here is my reasoning: If I type two pages an hour and work an average of five hours a day, I’ll produce ten pages a day. If I work twenty two days a month, I’ll have the first draft of a 300 page book done in a month and a half—easy. Then I can take the other month and a half to revise it.  Bingo. Two books in six month.

Why is real life never like a math equation?

Perhaps because when all is said and done I write slower than two pages an hour. I actually average more like one page an hour (poof—I just gave myself ten hour days instead of five hour ones.)  And my books are closer to 400 than they are to 300. (Poof—there went my Saturdays) And you don’t have a six month period without things like family reunions, holidays, birthdays, conferences, school visits and other things that don’t allow you to write for ten hours a day.

So what actually happened is I was ensconced in myroom without showering, cooking or cleaning. I was frequently up until 4:00 AM. But the worst is over now, I think.

 Echo in Time is at the copy edits stage. I’ll have revisions for Slayers Two in a week or two. Masquerade's copy edits should be back to me any day now. And I’ll hopefully have revisions for The Wrong Side of Magic soon too.

And when I’m done with all of that, I’ll start working on the third fairy godmother book.

The truth about revisions

The problem with writing a story is that for the author, the story doesn't occur on the page. It occurs in the author's head.  And the story is always good there. I've got some awesome scenes in my mind. I do my best to translate those scenes on the page.  When I write a  novel, I always think the writing is good because I'm still seeing the scenes in my mind.  This is why authors always need to take a break from their manuscripts.  The longer, usually the better.  After a couple of months, I reread what I've written and I can see all sorts of problems that I then fix.  

And then I think it's good . . . until I read it the next time.  Apparently the same is true  in drawing because this comic says it all.

More Erasing Time give-aways

Here are the rest of the blog tour stops. Enter all of them for a chance to win--and also, you can still go back to the previous ones and enter. Sopme of them have a lot of comments, but some only have a few which boosts your chances of winning. good luck!

October 8- LDSWBR   http://www.ldswomensbookreview.com/wordpress/
October 9- PageTurners Blog   http://www.pageturnersblog.com/
October 10- Reading Teen  http://www.readingteen.net/
October 11- YA Bliss   http://www.yabliss.com/
October 12- Wastepaper Prose  http://www.wastepaperprose.com/

for your next chance to win Erasing Time

Head over to Portrait of a Book. Oh, and by the way, it seems that a lot of these blogs are taking comments for a week, so if you missed some of the blog stops, go back and leave a comment because you may still have a chance to win.

http://www.portraitofabook.com/

Next blog stop the Mod Podge Bookshelf

The Mod Podge Bookshelf asked me for a deleted scene. A lot got deleted from the manuscript, but not a whole scene. So I wrote a bit from Taylor's point of view  and sent that over.  You can read it at:

http://themodpodgebookshelf.blogspot.com/

Next blog stop at Books Complete Me

And of course there will be a chance to win a book. You can see BCM's review at:  http://www.bookscompleteme.com/

Blog tour--celebrity fashion and another chance to win

The next stop on the Erasing Time blog tour is the I Am A Reader, Not a Writer blog. On today's guest post, I talk about future fashion. Are today's celebrities crazy or are they just fashion forward?

You can read it all at:

http://iamareadernotawriter.blogspot.com/2012/10/guest-post-giveaway-erasing-time-by-cj.html

Also, you'll have a chance to win the book.

Win a copy of Erasing Time at Fiktshun Blog

Day three of the blog tour is at Fiktshun's blog.  She gave Erasing Time a rave review, so I know she's very smart.  You can read it at: http://www.fiktshun.com/fiktshun/

Blog Tour Day Two

Today hop on over to Tales of the Ravenous Reader for an Erasing Time excerpt and a chance to win the book at:

http://www.lushbudgetproduction.com/

Erasing Time Blog Tour begns!

Hey reader friends,
For the next 12 days (sort of like the Twelve Days of Christmas) I'm going on a blog tour. Today, head on over to Fire and Ice's blog to see what sort of playlist (or lack of one) I have going when I write.

You'll have multiple chances to win a copy of Erasing Time along the way, so be sure to check out the posts! I'll post a link to each day's stop.

Here's a link to today's--and the schedule of future stops:

http://fireandicephoto.blogspot.com/