S.L. Viehl's Blog, page 201

Cat Magic

As anyone who shares their home with a furry feline friend will tell you, sometimes cats are a little spooky. They can get through doors we thought we closed, find the catnip we thought we put away in a safe spot, and always know when we need a cuddle (sometimes before we know it ourselves.)

Then there is this mysterious business of feline teleportation. I can't tell you how many times I've lost one of my cats, ransacked the house and then searched the neighborhood looking for him, only to come home and find the missing feline sitting next to the empty food bowl and giving me that smug look, as if to say Silly human, you'll never find my secret hiding place. And to date, I haven't.

Cats are maddening, infuriating creatures who do exactly as they please, which is probably why I've always loved them. I also collect books with great cat characters in them, so I was pretty happy to start reading Curiosity Thrilled the Cat , the first book in by Sofie Kelly's new mystery series.

Owen and Hercules own a nice, funny human named Kathleen Paulson, a librarian who has moved temporarily to their small town in Minnesota to oversee the renovation of their library and its historic Carnegie building. Kathleen is a kitty charmer, too, and lured Owen and Hercules away from the feral life to share her home. They all get along fine, although sometimes the cats do things Kathleen knows are impossible, like vanish into thin air, and just as quickly appear. Like the odd and painful accidents she's been having at the library, these seemingly magical powers trouble her. The real shocker, however, is when Kathleen finds the body of another visitor to the town who she disliked, who may have been killed in her library -- and who she is suspected of luring there just before his murder.

I haven't read a good mystery in quite a while, so it was a pleasure to follow the cats and the clues along with Kathleen. The plot certainly kept me guessing, to the point of when I began to suspect everyone in the town of being in on it. But in the end (with a little help from her magical furry friends) Kathleen discovers many things, including the reason why she's been so accident-prone. I appreciated Kathleen's sense of humor and keen insights, as well as the fine detailing of the writing that paired beautifully with easy flow of the story (you usually get one or the other; not both.) The cats had me at Hello, though, and are keeping me for the series. It might have a little to do with the fact that Owen and Hercules could be twins of my two boys, Jak and Jeri.

As always, you don't have to take my word for it. In comments to this post, name your favorite type of non-human character to read about (or if you're not a critter fic fan, just toss your name in the hat) by midnight EST on Tuesday, March 8, 2011. I'll draw five names at random from everyone who participates and send the winners an unsigned paperback copy of Curiosity Thrilled the Cat by Sofie Kelly (who, btw, is the pseudonym of our own Darlene Ryan.) This giveaway is open to everyone on the planet, even if you've won something here at PBW in the past.

Friendly Power

As I mentioned yesterday (just before I jinxed my good news, which turned out to be bad news, which serves me right) I have two books to talk about, and the first is 100% Charlene Teglia's fault. I say this because she sent me Garden Spells , Sarah Addison Allen's debut novel, which otherwise would not have been touched by any ten-foot pole I own.

I am not a fan of magic stories. A) I don't believe in magic and B) most of the time I find it annoying in fiction. Unless the magic is extremely well-written, logical to the world-building and therefore believable (i.e. anything written by Patricia Briggs, Rob Thurman, Marjorie M. Liu, who are masters at this) reading it for me is exactly like watching porn -- what is supposed to excite just ends up looking fake and silly and rather pathetic.

Much to my dismay Ms. Allen did not write the porn-variety kind of magic novel, and now I have to dine on my chapeau (again.) Garden Spells is actually about more than just magic in the real world, though, and tells the story of the Waverly family, a bunch of oddly-gifted characters who are trying (and not trying) to cope with themselves, the past and life in general. They are alternately helped and hindered by their garden, which grows very special flowers, herbs and one very eccentric apple tree with Biblical powers. This all set in a small town in North Carolina populated by the most wonderful assortment of characters I've read in a long time.

I didn't want to like this book, so to end up falling in love with it really singed my southern regions. Who doesn't hate it when they're wrong? But it's worth the pain, because Garden Spells was exactly the book I needed to read right now. I think that makes Charlene psychic, but that doesn't surprise me. Ms. Allen's debut novel does not read at all like a debut novel, and it's the kind of book you end up sharing with everyone you know, even people who don't like to read, so it can work its magic on them. This is a novel that will rejuvenate your faith in great books, and God, we all need that kind of real magic in our lives.

As always, you don't have to take my word for it. In comments to this post, name an author or title who you think makes something fantastic believable (or if you're still a skeptic, just toss your name in the hat) by midnight EST on Monday, March 7, 2011. I will draw five names at random from everyone who participates, and send the winners an unsigned hardcover copy of Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen. This giveaway is open to everyone on the planet, even if you've won something from PBW in the past.

Quilt-Happy

I am bailing on you guys today so I can hang with my non-writer pals at our favorite county quilt show. We do this every year so we can talk (quilting) shop, get high on fabrics, notions and techniques, and generally be like the bird here.

When I get back I have two terrific books to talk about and give away (Charlene is to blame for hooking me one of them) and maybe some news to share. Or maybe not. I'm trying not to jinx it.

See you all tomorrow.

Prize-winning "Today I will be Happy" quilt made by Kelly Wordworth.

Review SPAM

In amongst my e-mail for my business account today was this SPAM:

Dear Lynn Viehl,

Thank you for purchasing from [online bookseller] three weeks ago.

You're welcome. Now why are you bothering me? I got everything. I paid for everything, too.

According to our records, you haven't yet reviewed everything you bought.

I haven't read everything -- wait a minute. Reviewed? When did I say I'd review anything?

If you enjoyed a title, won't you please take a moment to write your review? Reviews help other [online bookseller] members make more informed purchase decisions and help authors market their books.

Oh, so now you're asking. Or did you change your terms of service so that I have to write a review when I purchase something? Did Scribd.com buy you guys or something?

To write a review, simply follow the link to the book's page and click "Review Book": [Title of novel I purchased] [link]

I just realized: this is review SPAM. I've never gotten review SPAM. Buy my freakin' book SPAM, sure, but Review my freakin book? And it isn't even the author SPAMming me. I'm not sure how to handle this. Do I send it to the author and say "Tell your stupid bookseller to get off my back?" Do I make fun of it? Well, of course I make fun of it, it's SPAM, but otherwise . . . hmmm.

Reviews are also a great way for you to build your own presence on the site.

Yeah, I want my name to be plastered all over a site that used the PayPal address of their unsuspecting buyers to SPAM them. I'd be a complete fool to pass up this incredible opportunity. Sign me up! Now!

Once you write a review, you will be credited as the author of the review and other [online bookseller site] members will be able to click on your screen name to visit your member page, where they can read your other reviews, as well as any other optional information you care to share such as your photo and bio.

What about pictures of my eye surgery last year, now that I've come clean about it? I have them in all stages, from presurgical infected mess to grossly swollen, stitched, oozing mini horrorshow. Or I could just show off some of my other scars. Want to see the knee? It makes strong men weep. Honestly. My doctor doesn't even like to look at it directly anymore. He uses a cardboard box viewer, you know, like when there's an eclipse of the sun?

And of course if you're an author yourself--

Huh? You mean, you don't know that I'm an author? After I offered you all those pictures? I'm hurt. I'm really hurt.

--and fellow readers find your reviews informative--

No, I'm an author, so of course I only write stupid, obtuse reviews that make readers hurl instantaneously. Still want me?

--then your book reviews serve as a nice indirect way to help other readers discover the books you've written when they click on your screenname to view your other reviews.

Jesus Christ. You people are really Machiavellian. I almost like you for it, bless your evil SPAMmy little hearts.

If you no longer wish to receive these reminders--

Duh.

--please click the following link: [link]

Clicking. Link doesn't work. Why am I not surprised?

Thanks for supporting [online bookseller site] authors!

No, thank you for giving me something funny to post on my weblog.

Elsewhere

For a chance to win my latest giveaway, aka this lovely Fight Evil Read Books tote and all three Kyndred novels (signed by Yours Truly) you have to leave me now and head over toThe Romance Reviews, where the very nice folks there have posted an interview with me about Frostfire, the Kyndred books and some of my upcoming new releases.

This interview includes some stuff that I rarely talk about, and one thing I've never mentioned, so check it out before it ends up on WikiLeaks. I will also be stopping in to read comments, answer questions and generally be a pest.

You can find the interview here, and the contest page here. TRR will also be running the contest for the entire month of March. Which is also their Grand Opening month, so if you want to join the part, check out this page. and from the front page it looks like they're giving away all kinds of stuff, including a nice bunch of gift cards.

Nice Outfit

For all the dog lovers out there: thirty seconds of our best-dressed furry friends, guaranteed to make you smile, right up to the surprise ending (warning for those at work: plays with some background music.)



Video linked swiped from Gerard at The Presurfer.

Keep Your Cash Ten

Ten Things You Can Have for Free

Freeware caution: always scan free downloads of anything for bugs and other threats before dumping the programs into your hard drive.

Books, the original/free version of BookShelf, is "a simple eBook reader for the iPhone. It reads HTML and text files stored in your ~/Media/EBooks folder, and is smart enough to enter subdirectories, if for instance, you've broken a book down by chapters" (Mac OS X)

ClipboardFusion supercharges your clipboard, and allows you to "Remove clipboard text formatting, Remove HTML tags from clipboard, Clipboard string search/replace, Modify clipboard with Macros, Preview clipboard images and HTML colours with a toaster pop-up, HotKeys to manage your clipboard and Sync your clipboard with other computers" (OS: Windows 7 and Vista (32-bit and 64-bit); Windows XP and 2000 [see special requirements on website download page]; Windows Server 2003 & 2008 [32-bit and 64-bit])

DreamScene XP allows you to "use a video as your desktop background, the same way you would have used a regular picture. DreamScene XP is designed for Windows XP customers to extend Windows features to make using your computer more fun. Change your desktop background to a video movie, which runs in a continuous loop to make your desktop come to life" (OS: Windows XP)

Knit Design Studio is "a handy tool for designers who need to make graphs with both common and not-so-common knitting operations. Great for graphing lace patterns, and also cables. When the graph is complete, a key is automatically made of any knitting operations included in the graph. There is also space to type in any needed knitting instructions (such as shaping). Files can be printed, or saved as a picture file (graph only) to be used in another application. Help files are included to aid in use of the program" (OS: Windows XP/Vista/7)

According to MacApper.com, LyX is "is a different kind of word processor. Most word processors let you focus on content and style, giving you inconsistent documents most of the time. LyX allows you to create professional documents while focusing on structure first, and when you're done, you can export your document as a PDF or web page. This tool is excellent for professional reports, scientific papers and so on" (OS: Mac OS X 10.3.9 and later)

Money Manager Ex is "a free, open-source, cross-platform, easy-to-use personal finance software. It primarily helps organize one's finances and keeps track of where, when and how the money goes. It is also a great tool to get a bird's eye view of your financial worth. Money Manager includes all the basic features that 90% of users would want to see in a personal finance application. The design goals are to concentrate on simplicity and user-friendliness - something one can use everyday" (OS: Windows and Linux and Mac OSX)

NoteLiner "helps you structure and track your work; it provides a place to record meeting and conversation notes, manage todos, and store key project information that might otherwise be scattered about. It is a simple tool that will not slow you down, but will give you a means to stay on top of what you need to do and remember. Noteliner lets you create a hierarchy of notes. You can give these notes follow-up dates, indicate which ones need attention, assign people, prioritize, or mark them complete. Different views allow you to see all the notes assigned to a particular person, those that need follow-up, attention or are dated. You can also specify which notes are part of a To-Do list and then view all To-Dos across your projects along with other items that need attention" (OS: Windows XP; designer notes on web site "It is very stable. I run it on Windows XP but it should be fine on Windows 2000 and more recent.")

Repetition Detector "allows you to detect repetitions in texts. Features: Process text without size limitation; Word and letter count; Top 50 of most frequently used words; Highlight small repetitions (two indentical words which are close); Highlight intermediate repetitions (words used too often inside two or three pages); Highlight each occurrence of a word by clicking on it; Take into account similar words, i.e. with same beginning; Customizable and automatically saved parameters" (OS: Win 98/ME/NT/2K/XP/2K3)

Scribus is "an Open Source program that brings professional page layout to Linux/UNIX, Mac OS X, OS/2 Warp 4/eComStation and Windows desktops with a combination of press-ready output and new approaches to page design. Underneath a modern and user-friendly interface, Scribus supports professional publishing features, such as color separations, CMYK and Spot Color support, ICC color management or versatile PDF creation" (OS: Win NT/2000/XP/2003/Vista/2008/7, Linux, Mac OS X)

Stash is "a personal finance application designed to help you understand how much you spend and where it's going" (OS: Mac OS 10.5/6)

Character Box Lunches

My daughter is taking a culinary class at school, and one of her homework assignments was to make up a mini-cookbook with recipes and photos of some food she's prepared. She decided to write up one for bento boxes, which lead to a shopping expedition and cooking mini-marathon. Because she's never made a bento box (and neither have I) I was a bit worried at first, but soon discovered it's easy and a lot of fun.

Basically a bento box (or more properly, an obento) is a healthy, homemade lunch that Japanese moms make for their kids. It's also an art form, because the moms shape, decorate and garnish the food to resemble little critters, fairytale creatures and other adorable things. If it's almost too cute to eat, it belongs in a bento box.

Here are some shots of my girl's first finished bento box (click any image to see larger version):



 





I think she did pretty well for her first attempt. And I didn't help her at all in the kitchen; now that she's a culinary student she's got to wing it solo (and did fine, all the way through to cleaning up after herself.)

Earlier this month I bought a copy of Yum-Yum Bento Box by Crystal Watanabe and Maki Ogawa, which is a fantastic how-to cookbook filled with recipes, tips, ideas, techniques and lots of information about the different types of Japanese foods used for bento boxes. In the intro, the authors mentioned that kids and grownups like to make character-driven bento boxes, which are called charaben or kyaraben. For example, if you want to do a Goldilocks and the Three bears bento, you shape the faces of a little girl and three bears out of the food (there's a cute recipe for this one in the book, too.)

The writer in me immediately jumped on this idea and began thinking of how I'd make a character-driven meal for one of my stories. I wouldn't try to shape the food into any sort of physical representation (too much temptation to do something other than a face) but I know I could put together an assortment of foods and treats that I've used in my stories or that remind me of certain characters. I'd love to do a bento with what I imagine a Jorenian box lunch would be like, too -- some breakfast bread, candied flowers, herbal tea, lots of berries laced with cream . . . God, I hate dieting.

If you're looking for new ways to get to know your characters and/or your stories, you might try putting together a character-driven bento box (or any kind of meal, for that matter.) This would also be something fun to do if you take your lunch to work or plan to do something writing outdoors.

Twenty Years, Twenty Minutes

Let's take a trip in the KindaWayBack machine to 1989, to when most of the world had yet to discover cyberspace. I started writing in 1974, but I didn't really get serious about pursuing publication until '89.

Back then it was a very different world for writers. Imagine: no internet, no e-mail, no social media, no cell phones, no Twitter or Facebook, no nothing for the writer but the writing and us all alone by ourselves.

I've talked to other writers of my generation, and we all went through pretty much the same thing. We wrote all the time, endlessly, wildly, often shivering with the delight of it because we were so close to it. None of us were perfect, either. We fumbled, we ran out of steam, we crashed, we burned, we resurrected ourselves only to do it all over again. We wrote clunkers and stinkers and failures. We began piling them up along with legal pads filled with even more ideas and story fragments and mini-rants.

After the work stopped sucking quite so much, we decided we were good enough and dared to write up a submission. This we typed on a typewriter with a correcting ribbon, because no matter how thinly we applied it liquid paper (aka white-out) could never look anything but globby. Also, sometimes the ink from the typos would bleed through and leave a little dark ghost of what we never meant to say behind the correct words.

I'll tell you a secret: sometimes I still miss the smell of metal, ink ribbon and white-out. It was our writing perfume.

Anyway, twenty-seven or forty-nine drafts and at least one typewriter ribbon later, we mailed off our submission in an unpadded envelope with rows of stamps we had to lick to make them stick. A week later we went to the mailbox with all our expectations, which were naturally dashed when no response appeared among the bills and junk mail. A month later we started waiting at the box for the postman to arrive. Three months later we suspected the postman had delivered it to the wrong address and went around asking the neighbors if they'd gotten it by mistake.

Six months later we got a thin white business envelope with vertical creases on it from the publisher we'd submitted to. We knew this because it was the SASE we'd sent along with the submission, on which we had neatly written our own address in ink. We put it on the kitchen table and stared at it for at least an hour, afraid to open it for fear it would actually kill us.

When we finally tore into it, the outpouring of praise and admiration we expected was actually a one-page form rejection. Thank you for your blah, it's not for us, good luck yada yada. Sometimes it was even signed. We carefully enshrined that first rejection somewhere so nothing would happen to it (and also so we didn't have to look at it) and then dragged ourselves back to the keyboard. By that night we convinced ourselves of a thousand reasons (all mistaken) for the rejection, and made up the next submission.

Now read the previous paragraph again. Read it ten times, fifty times, a thousand times. We didn't spend a year or two doing that every week. We spent five years, or eight, or ten, until our shrine/hiding place began to overflow with rejections. We shrugged them off in public and wept over them in private. We drove ourselves mad with wondering: What was wrong with these editors? Didn't they read that amazing opening line, the one we spent two years thinking up? And what about the rest? Nobody was doing anything like us. Was that it? Were we too different?

And on and on and on.

The only thing we ever figured out for sure was that no one was going to answer our questions. Ever. We had to find the answers by ourselves.

As the years passed we still wrote endlessly, but the wildness and delight subsided and became a more deliberate, focused quest. We looked at everything in our bag of writing tricks and started sifting and sorting through them. We weeded out what seemed wrong and kept what felt right. We studied how-to books for writers and subscribed to writing magazines (the sum total of available information for poor writers back then.) The more our submissions were rejected, the more determined we became. We would write the book that would sell, by God, or die trying.

New and interesting torture came in the form of editors who would write to request a full manuscript only to reject it three, four, five months later. We began to loathe the words Not what we're looking for and I just didn't love the story. Sometimes -- more often than you imagine -- the responses were personal, and nasty. We stood at the mailbox and imagined socking the postman right in the nose the next time he gave us a sympathetic look. No, what we really wanted to do was call those editors and demand to know what, exactly, they were looking for, and why the hell their love had anything to do with it.

As for the editors who got nasty, we indulged in vengeful thoughts as a kind of anger management self-therapy. We saved all the really inappropriate responses in a special file marked with something like "Send copy of first book" along with more scribbled, rehearsed lines for when we signed it for them: Too bad you passed on this one. Thanks for sending me to a way better publisher. Hey, nitwit -- looks like you were wrong. We prayed our first book would go platinum overnight, not so we'd make a ton of money, but just so we could also include a copy of the Times bestseller list in the nah-nah-nah-nah-nah packages we'd send to every pinheaded editor who'd stomped on, spit at or sneered over our work.

Then something actually happened; usually when we'd hit a really low point, and were thinking about throwing in the towel, admitting defeat, and finally putting an end to the torture. Another envelope with a single page arrived, but this one wasn't a form bounce, or the lukewarm invite for more humiliation.

No, this one was serious. Bizarre, too, for it offered praise mixed in with all the nitpicking. It asked if we were willing to make some changes. It gave us a phone number to call, and a name to ask for, and when we called it, we found ourselves stammering like an idiot and agreeing to everything the editor said because oh dear God the last thing we were going to do was piss off the one person who could make all our dreams come true.

We made the requested changes, and more changes after that, and more changes after that, always frantically cheerful and ridiculously willing. Of course we would change anything, anything at all, because obviously this editor was the smartest one on Earth. It didn't matter how many times we had to redo this or rewrite that, we had his/her attention. Attention meant they liked us. They wanted us. If we did everything right, they would be very pleased and request approval to purchase us.

The final phone call came, and at last the editor uttered the words we had been waiting to hear, praying to hear, working our ass off to hear: "We'd like to make an offer." Once we finished silently shrieking, we dislodged our heart from our tonsils and offered joyous yet still humble thanks. We would not let the editor down no matter what. Then (if we were stupid) we agreed to accept an offer for a manuscript we had been working on for three or four years, an offer that was equal to the pay a worker at McDonald's earned in ninety days, and a month later signed a contract that deprived us of most of our rights as an author. If we were smart, we promised to call back as soon as possible and started (hysterically) looking for an agent to represent us.

Either way, from there we turned pro. The euphoria of selling the first book did give us temporary amnesia, so (fortunately) most of us didn't mail out those F-Y packages to all those cruel editors. If we were lucky, we survived our rookie year. If we were very lucky, we got through everything else Publishing throws at a writer. If we were very very very lucky, we even sold a lot of books.

And then came the internet, and everything began to change.

Today -- right at this very minute -- there is a writer out there who has just received (electronically) their very first rejection. Tonight that same writer will format their rejected manuscript into an e-book, upload it via digital self-publishing to an online bookseller and begin selling it immediately.

Just like that. No muss, no fuss, no heartbreak, no torture, no problem. From there the writer will move on to penning their next work, untroubled by the depression, anger and self-doubt inflicted by the harshness of a lengthy traditional submission process. They need not analyze, improve or even compromise. They might even get lucky and sell a lot of books.

When a writer can do in twenty minutes what it took me and other writers who came up before the internet so many years to accomplish, I'm thinking it has to be better. More tempting, too. How could anyone resist something so easy and painless as self-publishing just to put themselves through the innumerable levels of hell that is (even with the internet) still the traditional submission process? Believe me, I totally get why so many writers are abandoning the still-dismal chances of publishing with a major house in the rush to self-publish for profit. If I was part of this generation, I probably would have, too.

Am I sorry I'm not? Nope.

Don't get me wrong, it's not because my twenty years of slogging my way toward publication makes me superior to someone who does the same in twenty minutes. Technology marches on, and even though the Publishing industry has had to be mostly dragged kicking and screaming along with it, things do have to change. If they didn't, we'd still be writing novels in longhand with quills on parchment and vellum (and just imagine what those writers would think of my speedy little manual typewriter.) Also, plenty of writers are still doing things the old-fashioned way, mailing off hard copy submissions to publishers and waiting months if not years for responses. I don't think that will ever go away.

But for all the speed and ease and no-hassle perks that today's technology offers for writers pursuing publication, I feel like something is still missing. I think it's time. For all the hell I went through, I also got a huge amount of time along with it to find out who I am as a writer.

I had -- literally -- two decades to practice and think about the work, and study it, and develop it, and try things and discard things. During the last ten years, I had all the time I needed to develop theories and work habits, look and find ways to improve my productivity, and teach myself how to be a working writer. Every day I did this; I thought about it, I was obsessed with it. Before I published one word I had like seven or eight different major shifts in what I wrote, too, the same way a painter goes through a blue period or decides to change mediums.

If you ever wonder why I never run out of stuff to talk about writing, it's probably because I spent all those years alone thinking about it.

The solitude, waiting and wondering what would happen, yeah, was not so great, but because I am self-taught I definitely needed the time to grow and mature as a writer. I didn't simply find out what I could do, I had the time to understand it and get it under control and channel it and learn to live with it. It's all the things that have nothing at all to do with Publishing and everything to do with who you are as a writer. I don't know, maybe today's writers can figure all that out in twenty minutes, too.

I am all about speed and efficiency, and I think being able to publish almost instantly is an amazing thing (another reason I've been playing with self-publishing as promotion for ten years -- it's quick and easy.) This is the first time since I turned pro that I feel some optimism for the future of Publishing, too. But as a member of the old typewriter and snail-mail generation, I hope self-publishing and technology doesn't eliminate the entire journey of self-discovery. As arduous and heartbreaking as it can be, I don't think it's a trip any writer should take in twenty minutes or less.

Writers Hospital

"Harvey, Campo, Jennings," Dr. Daranda Star called out as she hurried across the coffee break room toward the trauma bay. "We've got incoming. Move it."

The three interns looked at each other before dropping their copies of The Fire Within, grabbing blank paper gowns and trotting after the chief resident.

"Was it an online train wreck, Dr. Star?" Lisa Harvey asked as she pulled on her gown and turned so Rafael Campo could knot it in place.

"No, thank God. After the last one we're still short of beds." Star snapped on her latex gloves and eyed the interns. "You three know what an MWI is?"

Terry Jennings raised his hand as if they were still in school, then flushed and dropped it. "Uh, doesn't it stand for Major Work Incident?"

"No, Jennings. Mass, not major, and writer, not work. Mass Writer Incident." Star pointed at the hospital's sign. "Remember, we're all about the writers."

"So is a Mass Writer Incident a situation where a bunch of writers are hurt at the same time?" Harvey asked.

"You've got it half-right," Star said. "We use MWI to refer to injuries sustained by two or more writers while gathered together in some way. Ulcerated egos at awards ceremonies once all the winners have been announced, exposure to unsafe levels of cheap perfume and lousy luncheon flatulence in the only elevator running at a con, cascading anxiety attacks on list-servs after learning a phony agent has swindled every hopeful on her list, that kind of thing."

"Dr. Star." Jennings gestured at four units rushing toward the trauma entrance. "Here they come."

"Get out your pens and take notes while you can," Star said, her expression bleak as she hurried to the first unit.

The back doors burst open and an AET jumped out to help unload the gurney, on which a pale-faced young man lay muttering. To Star, the AET said, "Epic fantasy writer, thirty-two years old, locked in a badly-ventilated garden shed with a laptop for three to four days. Regular wordcount but very low, about 10 per hour. His mother reports decreased appetite and general apathy. Patient is dehydrated and unresponsive."

Star leaned over the writer and checked his pupils with her pen light. "All right. Harvey, take this one to trauma room one and get him started on fluids."

The second unit delivered a young, groaning female in a cervical collar.

"Twenty-eight-year old female romance writer," the AET stated. "Reported to have fallen off her chair a few hours ago. No loss of consciousness, but the patient complains of neck pain and nausea."

"They absolutely refuse to move their butts from that chair." Star frowned. "Did you say romance writer?" The AET nodded. "What was she doing with dragon boy?"

"Can't say." The AET made a face. "But they were both logged on to the same writer chat room."

Star tilted her head back to better address heaven. "Baby Jesus, give me strength."

"Dr. Star?" Campo asked, his voice tentative. "Could it have been a word war that got out of hand?"

She straightened and glared at him. "That or fake cyber sex scene practice. Doesn't matter anyway. Take this one to two and get a chatroom history. I want all the numbers and positions." She jabbed a finger at him. "And no talking shop. I mean it."

Campo nodded and wheeled away the moaning female.

By that time the third patient, who had climbed off his gurney, had reached Star. He cradled his right arm against his chest as he demanded, "Why are you people pretending you don't know who I am? Have you any idea how many awards I've been nominated for? My current release was featured this month as Pick of the Day on FutureSFClassics.com. My God, do I have to carry around a book like Dan Brown?"

The AET with the empty gurney caught up to them and gave Star an apologetic look. "Forty-seven year old male, ah, science fiction writer--"

"I do not write science fiction!" the patient said through gritted teeth. "I am a prose stylist of future speculative reality-based singularity surrealism, you idiot."

"My mistake, sir." The AET lowered her voice as she said to Star, "Patient refuses to be examined and denies injury and pain as well as presence in the chatroom--"

"I told you, I wasn't in that stupid chatroom!" the patient shrieked. "My girlfriend forgot to log off before she went to work!"

The AET stepped closer to Star. "Visual assess negative for fractures, carpal tunnel, and the girlfriend. Positive for general weakness, ego overinflation, possibly . . . " she rolled her eyes up toward the fourth floor psych ward.

"Got it. Sir? Sir." When Star had the patient's attention, she poured on the sympathy. "I am so sorry about this. We just need to make sure that you're okay. For insurance reasons, you understand." She grabbed Jennings by the arm and dragged him forward. "This nice young man will take you up to the fourth floor for a complimentary podcast. It's our way of apologizing for intruding on your solitude and disrupting the important work you're doing."

"A podcast, huh? I don't usually bother with that kind of thing, but perhaps, just this once . . . ." The patient gave her a suspicious look. "Will it be broadcast on NPR, or just the internet?"

"Oh, on both, sir," she assured him.

The patient heaved a long sigh. "I suppose I could explain one or two of my theories about the effect of solar flares on the evolution of sentient squid." He sniffed. "If I'm offered a suitable honorarium, of course."

"That would be so generous of you." Star kept her sad face on until Jennings had led the patient in toward the elevators. "Jerk." She glanced down at the fourth unit. "Where's the last one?"

"We only transported the three logged onto the chatroom, Doctor," the AET said as she peered at the unit. "That looks like an information highway pickup. Why aren't they wheeling out the patient?"

"Oh, God. Because they can't." Star ran toward the unit.

Yanking open the back doors, Star looked in on three AETs, all of whom were still frantically working on the motionless, battered body inside. "What have you got?"

"Fifty-eight-year-old female series writer, exertional angina, recent anterior descending percutaneous coronary intervention," one of the AETs panted. "Unstable presentation requiring three sublingual nitro, possibly persistent right coronary artery ischemia. Attack occurred while she was reading hate-mail. Patient tried to refuse treatment but subsequently collapsed."

"What the hell happened to her?"

"Hatchet-job," another AET said. "Nasty one. Went viral on her. Doctor, she's not stabilizing."

Star climbed into the unit and straddled the gurney. As soon as she recognized the writer, she paled. "No, no, no." She leaned over. "You can't quit on us now, honey. You haven't finished writing the last book in your series."

The patient's eyes fluttered and tried to focus on Star. "No one . . . cares. Why . . . bother?"

"I care. I damn well care. And I am not living the rest of my life without knowing if Rex and Heather are ever going to stop fighting long enough to get married and have babies. And there are a hundred other working writer doctors at this hospital who feel just the way I do." As the writer's color improved, she nodded. "That's right, honey. You stay with me, and I'm going make sure you get through this." She turned to the AET. "We're going to take her right to the heart unit. Let's go."