Ripe Inspiration

In between my once-yearly excuses for not writing (cleaning out meat drawers, shampooing carpets, lemon oiling the cabinets) I've been scouring the time travel google alert archives for some delicious time-suck links to pass along. Do you smell that? No, not the meat drawer. It's the ripe scent of fictional inspiration:

Eighteen years ago, Russell Barnes acquired a box of records through an advertisement. He expected to find music recordings from the Great War era, but was amazed to discover domestic recordings from a family in Salisbury in Wiltshire, who sang holiday carols and discussed "daddy being away at war." These eight phonographic cylinders, made from beeswax and soap, were so fragile, Barnes waited until technology came along in 2008 to convert these recordings to a digital format without damaging them. The result is an mp3 that is true time travel magic to listen to. Article. MP3.

Archaeologists discovered a 100 year old minature Swiss watch in a Ming Dynasty tomb thought to be sealed for 400 years. Theories abound, running the gamut between rodent relocation and hoax to, naturally, time travel. The face reads 10:06. Oh, what story I could weave with that nugget. Photo and article.

Attention all wannabe-Virgin Space Tourists! The UK Space Agency is looking at an ideal strip of land in Scotland for its projected inaugural flight in 2012. Having already taken $65 million in advanced bookings, a reservation will set you back $200,000. My luck? My seatmate would not be the awe-inspiring Stephen Hawking, but prank-punk Russell Brand. I think I'd rather sit next to Russell Barnes.

Telltale games will turn the Back the Future and Jurassic Park media empires into interactive video games to be released Winter 2010/11 in Wii/X-box/Playstation and PC formats. Squee! Another excuse far more enticing than the meat drawer.

Your turn: Would you pay $200,000 to be a space tourist? What's your theory on the Swiss watch? What is your scent of fictional inspiration?

The Perfect Writer's Cabin

Sadly, I don't have a word count to brag on from my days spent in this remote cabin last week. But in my perfect little fantasy world, this $18,000 cabin would be located in a place not hot enough to fry an egg on its stone path, dry enough I wouldn't have to challenge my Diva Daisy anti-perspirant and backdrop enough to call itself Colorado. Even though the testosterone decor seeped between the knotty pine and taxidermic heads really don't inspire romantic interludes between my characters, I could challenge Nora and win using this little slice of heaven.

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What is your ideal retreat?

A Romance Writer's Monologue

You probably heard I'm into the romance writer thing. Kind of getting around to actually reading a few now....a few with red covers...with cleavage and stallions. And wind. And that's why I want to tell you, today, about What I Believe...

I believe in tall and dark and handsome. And variations thereof that don't look like anyone in my reality.

I believe in happily ever after, be it an alien love child or a kiss that survived a fourteen book series, a nuclear bomb detonation and a thousand pirate wenches.

I believe in equal page time for male breasts so long as they don't move like bacon grease at an all-night diner.

I believe Lifetime should mine from Nora's collection exclusively for movie fodder so as not to subject us to any more Co-ed Call Girl specimens.

I believe elf sex is wrong. But don't tell that to the elves.

I believe every Too Stupid To Live heroine should be equipped with a gun to ensure plot twists.

I believe every person who utters the phrase "trashy novel" should be tied to a lift chair and made to watch The Golden Girls and Wheel of Fortune marathons until the end of time.

I believe in the throes of passion, William Strunk, Jr. would lose the capacity to remember his entire fourth edition.

I believe the words steamy, turgid and white-hot should be retired from all romance writers' vernacular.

I believe every woman who covers her romance novel with a knitted cozy should be forced to enroll in pole-dancing classes until she can proclaim her love for man-titty-kind in front of the PTA.

And I believe "that of all the evils on this earth, there is nothing worse than" this music. That's what I believe.

And, if any of you recognize this and wish to read the original, you can find it here.