Funny Moments from the Miami Book Fair

-

Now time for the throwaway comments: Those of you only interested in valuable information, stop here. The rest of you, hang on. Here are some travel tips. When going to a popular tourist restaurant (particularly in South Beach) and the waiter offers the day’s special, do make sure to ask the price. It may not be even close to the other entrée’s prices. A $52 chunk of sea bass and two prawns may mean those last five book sales you worked so hard to earn were spent on crappy fish. Don’t let the stupid waitress at the Clevelander take your credit card to start a tab when you know better. You will suddenly awaken in the middle of the night and realize that while you were dancing the night away and fending off greasy Canadian Bob in the ridiculous feather cowboy hat, your card got abandoned only to be retrieved the next evening, which forced you back to South Beach for another expensive meal. Don’t hail a cab late at night when your driver may be nuttier than a can of Planter’s Peanuts. Your knuckles will turn a permanent shade of white and you may spend at least 15 unpleasant minutes with your life flashing before your eyes as the driver “avoids” (and I use that term loosely) five collisions in five minutes. Don’t buy a cute pair of $100 high-heels suede pumps instead of the comfy loafers you eyed because you also deluded yourself into the false and ludicrous belief you might actually wear uncomfortable, miserable heels for eight hours. And you deluded yourself because the cute waiter, who winked at you at the great seafood restaurant next door to the shoe store, brought you two heavily infused vodka drinks. By the time you got to the shoe store, your brain was so drowned in alcohol you lost all good judgment anyway.

And this Friend-Os concludes this special Miami plane ride edition brought to you by the stupid mistake of purchasing a Spanish translation of Steve Jobs’ biography. Now my only question: Where can I take that book back to get an English version?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Step-by-Step Building Sexual Tension Between Characters

-
We'll do a kind of mini-workshop on the blog to show you how to build sexual tension either in a book or script. Watch the two methods I employ between Brea and her love interest Drew. Read it below, and I will deconstruct it for you to show you the slow progression and build up. Please notice, I know the entire storyline between these two, so I'm working by making subtle gestures that only an informed audience would notice, which is why you need to know where your story is going and how you intend for it to end so you can build the foreshadowing into the story. I'm not suggesting you don't let some parts of the story organically evolve, but I do know that to build the story arc you need to the end game and character flaws and motivations. So, let me deconstruct that scene for you. Notice a lot of looks pass between them (keeping the focus on the eye-to-eye contact, which is one of the keys to building sexual tension). And mind you, nothing is sexier than a forbidden
Read more

Can I Pick Your Brain?

-
I am blogging about this in response to another blog I saw on the subject. I didn't completely read that author's total opinion, but I read enough to post a big, "You tell 'em sister!" In my line of work as a publisher and marketing specialist, I run into prospective clients who basically through the excuse of preliminary research, put my staff to work to put together proposals, get print quotes, ask endless advice, ask for multiple meetings, etc. -- all under the guise of "picking our brains" and potential business. While we've gotten better about discerning the difference between real business opportunities and those who make endless requests only to spend time drinking coffee with us and going nowhere fast ... except off to either another publisher with our materials (usually one that in their minds is less expensive) or to try and self-publish (again, using our materials). Whether people set out to deliberately use and run, isn't the point.
Read more

In Loving Memory -- John Andrew Gamble, 1962-2011

-
Image
I rarely discuss my private life on my blog, but I wanted to take a moment to pay tribute to my brother who passed unexpectedly sometime in July in Wasilla, Alaska . John was a true mountain man. He wasn't the least bit materialistic and never cared about worldly possessions. In the last 20 years after he moved to Alaska, I saw him three times, so we were not close; but I admire that he decided to live life his way up in the wilderness fishing for endless numbers of day. I always wondered how he seemed to never bore of it. He would catch so many salmon, he would live off fresh fish year round. He loved to cook, and I honestly have no idea why he got a degree in marketing from Sacramento State. Looking back on it, I think he would have made a terrific ranger. From an early age, he loved nature. He used to catch trout with his hands up at our family cabin. We would wander the forest together. When we were little, we spent sometimes two to three weeks up there, hiking around the w
Read more