The Big Idea is UP!

The great and powerful John Scalzi has now put up the Big Idea I wrote for him; I think it reads pretty well, but then I'm a bit prejudiced in that area :). Spread the word!

Writer's Block: TMI

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Dear lord, no. There are things I don't like knowing about MYSELF, even some things that other people already know. I must presume that anyone else has things they Really Rather Would Not have anyone else know, and for good reason.

(One reason I feel EXTREMELY strongly that privacy is a necessary component of any human civilization, and that this is important enough to mean that yes, at some point you must draw the line and say "Yes, privacy, even if it means that some people will suffer for it.")

Quotes that Never Were...

Most of us are aware that there are some famous quotes that actually were never said the way they're usually quoted. Sherlock Holmes never actually said "Elementary, my dear Watson", and Rick never said "Play it again, Sam", Kirk never said "Beam me up, Scotty."

I think I'm witnessing this in a small way with my own work. Several people have mentioned loving a scene that is also one of my favorites, the one I call "DuQuesne's Awakening", and they mention how they always think of the line "You have no idea what you're dealing with".

But that isn't actually what DuQuesne said. The actual line is: "Your problem, you pea-brained, overbearing, pompous crayfish, is that you think you have any idea of what you're dealing with."

In some ways it's almost phrased opposite the quote. The concept is correct -- he is, in essence, telling Maizas that the Molothos has no idea what he's gotten himself into -- but the actual words are different and were in fact chosen pretty carefully when I wrote it; I deliberately didn't want to just have him say "You have no idea what you're dealing with"..

Heh.

I have Google set up to ping me on mentions of my name (which is, unlike some, unique enough that I can be pretty sure that any such ping will be for me personally). This evening I got one from a forum where the message name was "Arggghhh -- No, no, Ryk Spoor!". Given that this echoed the "No, John Ringo, No", I had to go see what horrible crime I'd committed. Was it sexism? Insensitivity to racial issues? Exploitation?

No, it was the fact that I'd used the word "octopi" as a plural of "Octopus".

Amazing what things push different people's buttons. :)