Random Thoughts Check-in

I just finished the revisions to Pinewood Fog (I always love it when I can write over a thousand words in an hour; wish that would happen more often). I'll do the type-in tomorrow (or start it, as I think I've re-written about 75% of the story and most of it is still in hand-written form). I'll probably have to do another revision as a few thoughts hit me during this last revision. My goal is to have this thing done and submitted to WotF by the end of next week.

Ever had an encounter with someone that makes you wonder if you've completely missed part of a conversation or lost the thread of subtext or run into this person in a previous life that she remembers and you don't? I went out for sushi with a friend on Wednesday night and we had a server that called to mind that sort of feeling. She was so disconnected with us and strange with our orders. We did the all-you-can-eat sushi special, and you have to fill out these little sheets with the food you want for that round of the special. (For each one of four rounds of dinner, you could have so many appetizers, so many sushi rolls, etc.) My friend and I marked what we wanted and got something close to that over the course of the next fifteen minutes or so, but it wasn't quite right. So we looked at the sheet, and scratched our heads when we saw that the sheet had markings reflecting what she brought. Meanwhile, she practically rips my friend's water glass right out of his hand to refill it (she came up behind the two of us, so neither of us saw her and she didn't announce herself; nor did she fill my glass first, which I wasn't touching at the time). When we fill in the sheet for the second round of food, we both made a point to remember our orders. Sure enough, we start getting food we didn't order, but our sheet miraculously has everything marked the way she brings it--even to the point of one request being scratched out. Very strange.

Casa Grande is pretty darn far away from a lot of stuff. On my way up to Scottsdale for John Scalzi's reading and signing, I somewhat perversely looked at the odometer. By the time I got back home, I had driven 100 miles. 100 miles for an author signing, people. But here's the real kicker: I'm so used to driving at least a half hour on the interstate to do anything that I didn't even think much about it.

Speaking of the signing, I'm happy to have two signed books in the Old Man's War trilogy. The first one and the third one. I had hoped to support the Poisoned Pen bookstore by buying both the second and third books there and then having Scalzi sign them. I assumed the store would have stocked up on all the books of the trilogy. I neglected to revise my assumption by remembering that the bookstore specializes in mysteries (though they are wanting to expand into spec fic). So I have a spiffy signed copy of The Last Colony that I can't read until I swing into Borders and pick up The Ghost Brigades. Live and learn, Kellie. Live and learn.

Honing my skills as a writer has opened my eyes to a world of subtext and social commentary (both intentional and frighteningly unintentional). I was reading a book lately where I saw a dreadful undercurrent of misogyny and sexism. I'm pretty sure it was unintentional and not subtle social commentary due to the reliance of telling character motivations through internal thoughts (even when that character's actions and dialog with others made the thougths quite clear enough).

Back to fanfiction, again. Did I miss out on a kink? In the discussions of fanfiction I've read lately, someone inevitably asks why is that the bulk of fanfic focuses on male/male sexual relationships. And someone else inevitably responds, "Well, duh! The majority of fanfic is written by straight women!" Everyone knows that straight men find female homosexual acts erotic, but I haven't heard before about the opposite situation. Is it commonly accepted that straight women find male homosexual acts and relationships a turn-on? How could I have missed this assumption?