As I near writing the end of The Murder King’s Valentine, I’m getting all excited. I love writing about Mary, so I figured now would be a great time to show you just how cool she is…

So here’s Mary, pretending to be Sasha, a lusty nurse on the prowl during her rescue of the Murder King.

 

“99 veins of blood to tap,

99 veins of bloood…

Pick the best flavor and drain it dry.

There’ll be 98 veins of blood to try.”

 

Sasha sashayed her curvy human body across the busy foyer of the San Francisco Vamp Palace, her booted steps in sync with the rousing chorus of vamps in the next room and her jaunty nurse’s cap bobbing with the tune. Grasping hold of the song, she continued the refrain silently as she pushed the empty black wheelchair through the crowd of costumed, but deadly, vampires.

Her nurse’s top was white and cut low to the thick, black belt on her waist. A bright red wonder bra pushed everything she had out and up in a bountiful display. The skirt stretched high on her thighs, leaving a few inches of skin bare to the tops of her thigh-high black boots.

She appeared the epitome of a nurse/whore, her make-up vivid and glossy as she pushed the wheelchair with latex-gloved hands to the elevator behind the grand staircase. A Bela Lugosi look-alike cast lascivious glances all down her body as a Queen Elizabeth smiled at her with condescending indulgence. Contrary to modern myth, vampires loved Halloween. It was the one night a year they could let their fangs hang out. Though, tonight their fangs were a bit sharper than usual.

Smiling vacuously, her mind only shielded with the most basic of barriers expected from an average mortal like her, Sasha continued to sing silently. 98 veins of blood to tap…

Sasha entered the elevator, pushed the button for the fourth floor, and gripped the wheelchair handles tight. She smiled, wide and excited for any who glanced her way. 95 veins of blood to tap…

The elevator doors slid open to a long, dark wood hallway with doors on either side. Some were open, some weren’t. At one, a beautiful ice blonde in a dress Cinderella would envy smiled teasingly at a dashing, kilted Scotsman. Her voice was a smooth purr. “You can look under mine if you let me look under yours.”

He chuckled, his voice low as he leaned forward and twisted the doorknob behind her. “Only look?”

Sasha’s smile came easier as she passed them, the chair rolling quietly along the deep red carpet. 89 veins of blood to tap, 89 veins of bloood…

Toward the end, between two closed doors where the wall should be a smooth mural, she deftly swiped a card through the nearly hidden slot. The hallway was silent for the moment, but the pounding of a human heart carried easily through the walls into the many bedrooms. She only had seconds before someone would come to see why hers pounded.

Adding more joy to the refrain in her head, she slipped into the secret hallway with its walls thick enough to hide almost anything thought or spoken and pushed the chair down the narrow tunnel. Halting outside the guard room, she parked the chair and stepped into the opening, leaning against the door frame in a seductive pose.

There was only one guard, sitting with his feet propped up and staring at the monitors morosely. He glanced back at her then did a swift double take, nearly falling from his chair. Sasha grinned wickedly. “I heard you were hungry.”

As he stood, the light hit his name tag. Stan. Stan took his time, gazing from the pulse in her neck, down her exposed cleavage and lower to the inches of thigh exposed between her skirt and boots. In less than a blink, he stood before her, taller, faster, stronger.

Sasha shivered.

Stan wrapped his large hands around her sides and grinned with anticipation.

Pick the best flavor and drain it dry.

Stan groaned, “Oh, yeah.”

There was a reason the little ditty was popular among vampires. Stan leaned forward and licked a trail from the curve of one breast to her neck, meaning to tease her.

Instead, Sasha held him as he slid silently to the floor. Any of her personal taste he’d managed to pick up would be disguised by the knock-out gel she’d smeared all over her skin. It left a brutal aftertaste.

From one of the large front pockets on her smock, Sasha pulled a flash drive and plugged it into the tower. Three key strokes and enter executed the desired file. The monitors and hard drive were recording an old episode of Buffy before she left the room.

85 veins of blood to tap…

Viewer and Reader frustration…

Craig and I often get caught by different ads and commercials for tv shows. What looks interesting? Quite often it all is interesting, downright fascinating. The problem comes from schedules. How many of our parents and grandparents, and for years, us and our children had to make sure we were home by 7 or 8 for the beginning of evenings TV shows. And so many stories captured our attention, we would fill three or four evenings a week with shows.

Yeah. And our news is going nuts with tales of obesity and sedentary Americans. Which, there is a point, but having a limit on how many shows we watch had some really bad consequences.

We’d get into one show and when new ones came out, we couldn’t watch them because they were on at the same time on different channels. So the newer shows suffered a lack of viewership in the realms of numbers that made the producers happy and were subsequently canceled.

Now, thanks to TV on DVD, Netflix, Blockbuster, and Hulu, (not to mention all the other outlets), there are hundreds of unfinished stories out there. Thousands of finished stories.

For instance, we just got through John Doe. An engaging story, a mystery about a man who wakes up naked  in the middle of woods with no knowledge of who he is, but strangely knows everything else. It lasted for one season. 21 episodes and ended on one heck of a cliffhanger.

Luckily, in the case of John Doe, producers put out a statement of what was supposed to happen in the end. The answer to the riddle. Kind of. And while it is good to have an answer to the riddle, we lose the magic of the process. The growing characterization that takes place in each episode builds to that final answer, so it makes more sense, is more well-rounded and wraps up all threads.

But, the problem is each network wants ratings. And they aren’t happy with a few million people. They want everyone to tune out of their lives and tune into their station, all at the same time.

Really? Is this even possible? No. People have different interests. They want to watch different shows on different channels on their own time. When they don’t have work, school, sports and basically, life events deciding their schedule.

Intro streaming media. Any show at any time in any order. It’s all about the story.

But, how many of those stories are half done or worse, barely introduced? How many unfinished stories will we carry around, filling our heads with thoughts and questions?

What’s more, publishers do the same. They want ever rising sales numbers or story series  never end. And readers are left wondering. How would it have all ended?

The good news is that authors, who often have those same uncompleted stories in their heads, are now able to self-publish pretty easily and make their stories widely available. Now it’s just a matter of finding them amid all the scammers, pirates and lazy people who just want to string enough words together they can call it a book or be published “without ever writing a word”. Looks like readers will need to be educated buyers.

I realize there are some things I should not look at because it is guaranteed to piss me off. But there are times I can’t seem to help myself.

http://tinyurl.com/4465766

This is for the benefit of all the lazy, internet morons who believe everything should be theirs for free, even when it belongs to someone else. Thank you to www.dictionary.com and www.thesaurus.com.

pi·ra·cy: [pahy-ruh-see]
–noun, plural -cies.
1. practice of a pirate;  robbery or illegal violence at sea.
2. the unauthorized reproduction or use of a copyrighted book,recording, television program, patented invention, trademarked product, etc.: The record industry is beset with piracy.

cen·sor·ship: [sen-ser-ship]
–noun
1. the act or practice of censoring.

cen·sor: [sen-ser]
–noun
1. an official who examines books, plays, news, reports, motion pictures, radio and television programs, letters, cablegrams,etc., for the purpose of suppressing parts deemed objectionable on moral, political, military, or other grounds.
2. any person who supervises the manners or morality of others.
3. an adverse critic; faultfinder.

Censor
Part of Speech: verb
Definition: forbid; ban; selectively remove
Synonyms: abridge, black out, blacklist, bleach, bleep, blue-pencil, bowdlerize, clean up, conceal, control, cork, criticize, cut, decontaminate, delete, drop the iron curtain, edit, examine, excise, expurgate, exscind, inspect, launder, narrow, oversee, prevent publication, purge, purify, put the lid on, refuse transmission, repress, restrain, restrict, review, revile, sanitize, scissor out, squelch, sterilize, strike out, supervise communications, suppress, withhold

Notes: to censor is to disallow portions or the entireties of books, plays, etc. on the grounds that they transgress propriety, ‘to scrutinize, revise, or cut,’ expurgate or suppress; to censure is to criticize vehemently or harshly, or condemn

Piracy
Part of Speech: noun
Definition: robbery
Synonyms: bootlegging, buccaneering, commandeering, copying, freebooting, hijacking, infringement, marauding, pirating, plagiarism, rapine, stealing, swashbuckling, theft

So, people:

To Censor something is to take it away based on MORAL/IDEALOGICAL grounds.

To eliminate a pirate site is to take it away based on LEGAL grounds.

You steal, you get caught, you get prosecuted. That’s how the law works. Crying censorship is not going to save thieves.

 

Yesterday the family watched the movie, 127 Hours. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/127_Hours The movie is based on mountain climber, Aron Ralston’s autobiography, which I have not read. I didn’t really want to see the movie because I knew it would make me sad and sick, watching with that knot I get in the pit of my stomach. Kinda like Buried with Ryan Reynolds.

I was happily surprised. This wasn’t a movie about someone freaking out or dealing with their situation emotionally. And, honestly, I think that kind of understatement made the movie even more intense.

Even better, Aron is someone I can truly admire. He doesn’t give up, he doesn’t freak out and he doesn’t sit there acting helpless, like half the people in the Titanic movies. Or like Ryan in Buried. (Though I do understand that was his character.)

No, Aron falls and gets his arm trapped. He struggles to get free and when he doesn’t, he takes stock of his situation and supplies. He uses his head, step by step. He takes all those survival lessons he knew from his active lifestyle and he systematically applied them. Patiently, calmly, even though you know impatience, horror and stress are fighting wildly inside him, desperate to be released.

Iron control. Refusal to quit. Intelligent and capable. Yep. I admire him.

 

watch?v=AVdnBsfddRA

Ride Ataxia Fundraiser Page

Here are two wonderful links to information about Ride Ataxia. A fundraiser supporting FA research. These participants are riding three-wheeled trikes for thousands of miles. It’s so amazing. I want to do this one day. So far, I have never used a trike, but it looks like loads of fun.

Because so much work is being done behind the scenes and it occupies so much of my time, I will likely be blogging often on this subject. So, for anyone interested, and for myself as a bookmark for info, here is a list of links to more information about FA and the Literary Collaboration. Enjoy!

# 1 – ENG: INTERNATIONAL LITERARY PROJECT AGAINST FRIEDREICH’S ATAXIA – INVITATION TO WRITERS, ASSOCIATIONS AND FA PATIENTS

See: http://www.babelfamily.org/en/latestataxianews/808-international-literary-project-against-friedreichs-ataxia-invitation-to-writers-associations-and-fa-patients

# 2 – ENG: Video – Dr. Lufino’s talk for BabelFAmily about gene therapy for Friedreich’s ataxia

Transcription by Kristin Kamm and Claudia Guiraldes / Subtitles by Hasan Çiçek

Click CC on the player to select the subtitle in your language

See: http://www.babelfamily.org/en/latestataxianews/809-video-dr-lufinos-talk-for-babelfamily-about-gene-therapy-for-friedreichs-ataxia

# 3 – ENG: Reviews – The Dandelion Diary: the tricky art of walking, by Marguerite Black

See: http://www.babelfamily.org/en/latestataxianews/805-the-dandelion-diary-the-tricky-art-of-walking-by-marguerite-black

# 4 – ENG: Patent application publication – Methods and compositions for mitochondrial replacement therapy

See: http://www.babelfamily.org/en/latestataxianews/807-patent-application-publication-methods-and-compositions-for-mitochondrial-replacement-therapy

# 5 – ENG: A Cocktail of antioxidants as a new therapy against a neurodegenerative disease

See: http://www.babelfamily.org/en/latestataxianews/810-a-cocktail-of-antioxidants-as-a-new-therapy-against-a-neurodegenerative-disease

# 6 – ENG: Open-access article – Mammalian Frataxin: An Essential Function for Cellular Viability through an Interaction with a Preformed ISCU/NFS1/ISD11 Iron-Sulfur Assembly Complex

See: http://www.babelfamily.org/en/latestataxianews/806-open-access-article-mammalian-frataxin-an-essential-function-for-cellular-viability-through-an-interaction-with-a-preformed-iscunfs1isd11-iron-sulfur-assembly-complex

Jennifer Ray, of the wonderful http://www.ck2skwipsandkritiques.com/betrayed_jennifer.html just sent me pictures of Betrayed on the Borders bookshelves in Cool Springs, TN!!  Weee!  This is better than snow sledding!  If books were authors, I’d give a great big hug to Laurell K. Hamilton and Julia Harper!