You · live · only · once · ... · unless · you're · me...

Let's see... I got sick (again!!!) mom came home with loads of Slovak sweets, I finished NaNoWriMo, but not a single story is done (what else is new...) Thanksgiving break is half over, and I only have a very few weeks of school left. YIKES!!!

That about sums it up for the moment. I still have no clue what I'm going to do after graduation. Haven't even started looking for a job, mom wants me to go to Slovakia again (grandma is asking whether I can take 6 months off before starting work), dad wants me to go to Panama with him ... It's probably all just talk. I'm pretty sure we can't afford any of that. Oh, not to mention that tiny little project I've been working on since graduating high school... it's looking more and more pointless, which is why I am lagging WAY behind my goals and why I'm taking forever to take each small step.

Maybe I SHOULD take some time off. Then again, maybe I'm just stalling and procrastinating, and hoping the economy will pick up again soon and make it a little easier on me. I might end up waiting forever for that to happen, though.

Ahywho, not really sure why I picked the whimsical avi. Just been very daydreamy of late, with all new weird, confusing scenarios, and characters that I have no business daydreaming about.

I think there is a male version of me living in Vancouver... It's... strange.

New dentist in the office, a girl with no feeling or compassion. She massacred my gums and they still feel raw now. =( this was the first time since I started going there that I seriously thought about asking for someone else to do my cleanings from now on. The only thing that stopped me was the fact that I only have to go there twice a year. Grrr.

School is getting hectic. It's that time of the semester when final projects start piling up. I have so many pages to write that if it was at all creative, it'd be a novel. Speaking of novels, I broke the 40k threshold today for NaNoWriMo! Only 10k to go. Yey for me!

One more week of hectic and then hopefully a week of rest for Thanksgiving. I can't wait. That taking things one at a time strategy I'd been working on is failing me. I tried to do a little of everything and didn't do much of anything. Oh well. Still got a month.

*sigh* this month is being brutal. But I'm writing TONS so that's good at least.

1: You could sell dirt to a ditch digger.
2: Nah, I'm a horrible salesman. But I could serve him up a platter of richly flavored bullshit.

----
//Jericho and V'lane sitting on the curb in front of BB&B, looking really bored, in the same position - slumped, one elbow braced on one knee and chin resting on that hand, staring off into space.\\
Barrons: Did she call you yet?
V'lane: No. You?
Barrons: No.
(They fall silent for a while. Then Barrons' phone rings)
Barrons: (jumps to his feet, all triumphant) Bloody hell, YES!
V'lane: (gives him a sour look)
Barrons: (answers the phone) Mac!... Oh... Hey, Ryodan...
V'lane: (snorts on a laugh)

----
//On steep hiking trail\\
Girl: (going up a steep hill) Aw, now that's just not fair. The only time a super hot guy comes around is when I'm tired and sweaty and dirty and feel about as sexy as week old socks. Half naked, too.
Guy: (wearing a kilt, going down hill) 'Tis the half naked part that fashes you, lass? (removes kilt)
Girl: (shoulders slump) SO not fair... (stomps off)

( Second five under cut )

( First five under cut. )

I turned in my grad application mid-september to the BUS office that gets the signatures for the students. I haven't gotten any kind of confirmation that my form was received, so I called the evaluation office today and was told that "it says the form is incomplete." O_O

They gave me a number for someone else who would give me more infomation, and this lady didn't even have my form with her, so she couldn't tell me anything, but said that the forms she'd looked over, she'd already called the students and left messages if the form was incomplete. I didn't get any such call. I don't think.  So she took down my information and said she'd look into it and call me no later than tomorrow.

Thing is, I looked over the copies I'd made of the forms and I can't see anything missing on there. The only thing I can think of is that a signature was missing or something which, if the BUS office screwed me up, I may just hurt someone. >=( And there's nothing I can do about it until the lady calls me back. I hope it turns out to be that she just hasn't gone over it yet. Man, I really didn't need that additional stress right now.

On Monday I started the internship. Discovered very quickly that I will not be hiking back up hill from Lbrary Annex I to the main campus Business Building for my class. Thus, I am now making use of the crackpot public transportation to get from A to B (in the case of home-to-Annex, via C). My hours are Mon-Wed, 2pm-6pm. Then I have class 7pm-9:45pm. So basically it's a full, 8-hour day, except it's a 12 hour day, because I have to do homeworks and study 10am-12:45pm (when I leave for work). It also doesn't help that I had most of my midterms this week. Luckily, two of them were take-home. Unluckily, they were bloody involved and took forever to put together. One more in-class midterm today.

Writing is all over the place. I am sort of working on Atlantis, but it's a weird format, where every chapter is about 1,000 words. Most of what I have thus far is setup stuff, which sucks for my challenge buddy, who keeps waiting for the action lol. Now that I have even less time, it's a little harder to get pages down on paper. My brain just doesn't want to deal with more thinking. I figure I'll get over it pretty soon, though.

There was more chat drama that I don't feel like getting into. Long story short, someone likes attention too much, which cause everyone else to turn on each other. This caused the mod to post about it, and now everyone thinks it's my fault, that I told on them. Please. As if I'd bother going through a mod if someone pissed me off. And the stupidity of all this lies in the fact that the chat saves transcripts. And apparently the people involved do not care about this, because they're bitching about it and pointing fingers IN chat. I just shrug and let them. I haven't been on there since Sunday, so anything bad they say now, added to my lack of activity, will only reflect badly on them. So whatever.

I need a nap!

Thinking about redoing my avatars again, because they all look very much the same. No idea what I'll be replacing them with yet, but some will stay, (Like this one)

News: I'm not liking my PHP class. The professor is nice, but he doesn't explain things very well. I preferred my other programming classes, where we did demos of the code. Now I have a midterm involving something that we didn't go over and that isn't covered in the textbook. Grr. I'm also not liking my Project Management class, but only because the professor is a right and proper jackass. Don't ask.

I am starting the internship on Monday, and am pretty nervous about it, because I have no idea what to expect, and no idea if I'll even be useful to them. I learn fast, I just hope I get the chance to prove it. Plus, it's an internship, so hopefully they'll provide some guidance.

Found a new writer chat buddie. We now have "writing challenges" almost every day, so that keeps me busy creativity-wise. Long stories are on hold (yet again) because I have started a new Atlantis story, which my buddy keeps pushing me to write (she has one of her own, so we push each other lol). It's nice to have that: a little pressure and a lot of encouragement. She's also brutal about critiques if I ask her to look at something, which is somewhat of a novelty, but I can't believe how nice it is to get that kind of feedback.

Other news: Was sick, am better now. Plan is to go to ren faire at some point before it's over. I missed the Fremont (formerly the Golden Gate) ren faire, so I don't want to miss this one. I still haven't gotten any kind of confirmation that my grad application was received. Not sure how long I'm supposed to wait before I get one. I hate waiting.

Got new songs I like:

Flyleaf - All Around Me
3 Days Grace - Break
Poets of The Fall - Save Me
Vast - Touched
Natalia Oreiro - Como Te Olvido (sp?)
Mecano - Hijo De La Luna

And my dreams have been pretty vivid lately. Last night, something about "No minotaur in the world could have done that," I said from where I got knocked down on the ground... no idea what that was about.

I spent most of yesterday trying to download and install a virtual PC and console for school. 5 hours into it, I realized that each of the five 700MB files only downloaded half way. WHAT?! How does that happen?? So I had to start all over again. They're now installed and work the way they should.

I joined a writing forum and the first piece I posted there got cut to shreds. I expected it, and pretty much got the comments I knew I would. Good times. I'm not editing the piece, but at least I know I'm on the right track in my mind. There are some talented writers on there, so taking critiques from them is pretty neat.

I had a poser tough guy turn into a whiny bitch on me last night. No idea what the hell happened. One minute we're exchanging insults, and the next he's throwing in the towel all, "I didn't come here to make friends, but I don't want to make enemies either." Huh? Enemies? Dude! If you're going to pretend to be a tough guy fictional character who doesn' t take shit from anyone, make sure you can pull it off. I hate it when people are so inconsistent. And he was lame as that character, too. All flirty with every female hanging over him. Gross. The real character wouldn't even have been there. And he'd have crushed me like a bug for saying anything remotely challenging. This guy folded like Origami. And I ended up feeling bad for MAYBE having hurt his feelings. Ugh.

Note to self: Ignore morons. Especially on full moon nights. Less bloodshed will result.

I still need to transcribe the story bits I wrote during class on Thursday. I had a wide ruled paper, but squished three lines into one designated one to save space. I don't know how I'm going to be able to read it. But I think I like how it's going so far. Another telepath and shape shifter tale. Different characters, though.

My MySpace blog is, as of right now, inactive. I deleted almost all the entries, only keeping the ones I wanted to remember. There are detailed recounts of Vancouver that I'll have to either print or transfer here for easy recovery. All stories are gone, with the exception of the latest chapter. There will be no more posting of stories, except on DA, if I happen to write another short (unlikely).

LJ is my main "diary"/blog now. DA is for writing. I'll be uploading pics to PhotoBucket.

Ok, end of Community Service Message.

On to other stuff. Only two things to say, really. Mom woke me early this morning and I slept the last three hours in 5 minute intervals. At least that's how it seemed. I'd fall asleep, then wake up 5 mins later, turn over, fall asleep again, repeat. I had so many dreams in that time I can't even count them, let alone recall them. Which pisses me off.

Other thing to say: I am seriously considering (and have started working on chapter 1) creating another story in the Blood Moons universe. Tentative title is Blood Trials (or Trails/Rites/Ties). And the heroes will be Jeremy Calen and the new kid on the block, Hailey Chase. I have the personal dilemma all thought out (only took me a couple minutes) I just need the overlying bad guy problem. I need to sleep on it.

I am also realizing that - Holy crap! - I have written a LOT of stories since high school! The count currently is 3 full novels, (3 more unfinished, just about half done), 4 Immortals stories (2 of them half novels), 4 Tarea half novels, 2 Light and Dark half novels (and a 3rd one half done), 1 unrelated half novel, 3 stories of as yet indeterminate length started, and one 4-book series started. And now this newest one. Plus I don't know how many short stories of less than 5 pages (one of which got published).

I've been busy, folks! LOL

Short one because I'm in pain. School started, I got my grad for filled out but not signed or turned in. I have til the end of September. Classes are ok so far - I've only had 2 to date and time.

Got both BloodRush and Dreamfever. LOVED both.

Went to Seattle, came back, short recap and pics posted on MySpace. I didn't like it as much as I thought I would... it's a weird city, and infrastructure is ridiculous. Even the GPS got lost...

Had a weird dream last night from which I woke up with my arms and chest burning, like I was holding a barrel of high voltage with both arms against my collar bone. It was weird.

I went to check my MySpace and saw this picture on the log-in page:

And the first thing I thought was, "Eww, gross." That's gotta be one of the ugliest couples I've ever seen. I remember watching Transformers and thinking that girl was hot. I mean, she had a great figure, beautiful face, awesome clothes, and attitude. WHERE DID SHE MELT AWAY TO?! I want to see that girl again. I don't know who/what this new girl is, but she needs to eat. Maybe if she eats something she won't look like she just spent the last of her cash on a shot of crystal meth.

And what's with the neanderthal man look? Again, I say, the first time I saw this guy in a movie, it was Harry Potter. And he looked great. I guess it shows what make-up can do for people. I don't know what happened between then and now, but the guy in this picture doesn't look capable of intelligent speech.

I don't know why I would even bother thinking about these things, but I saw this picture and I was disgusted. If they wanted to embarass these "stars" I think they did a great job.

An old topic - pardon the pun - but one I got to thinking about today. Also, not cut. Sorry, I wanted this in one piece.

Where do you draw the line between genuine memories and imagination? We all want to believe that we're special - at least in Western cultures. We all like to think that we are somehow different than the masses, that we know something they don't; have some kind of insight, or are on the path to it; or that we have some kind of destiny preordained before we'd been born.

There have been documented cases of people going in for hypnotic regression and describing things from the past, things they couldn't possibly have known, with details, names, places, emotions, sometimes even languages. The skeptics would say to look at such things objectively, and I agree. Of those cases, at least some must have been flukes. We all know the power of suggestion and the havoc it can wreak on the unwary. It's why the self-help industry is booming. Hear people tell you that you are unique and special often enough, and you start to believe it. Maybe the hypnotist in those sessions dropped some clues, subtly guided the patient to the scene they wanted them to see. Maybe those patients - or should I say clients? - saw an old article, some pictures in their grandparents' home, heard stories around the dinner table... something to plant a seed in their minds that hypnosis later nurtured into full bloom.

But could all of them have been such flukes? What if they weren't? What if, like everything else on the planet, our souls get recycled somehow, back into the circle of life? Energy and matter cannot be created or destroyed, so science teaches us. We ingest food and water to power our bodies. Maybe some other kind of energy powers our hearts and minds. It doesn't dissipate as we get older - we don't suddenly become deadened automatons without feeling or interest. So if the body (the matter) gives out so abruptly with death, what happens to that energy which cannot be destroyed? 

Let's pretend for a moment that reincarnation is not only possible, it is a natural part of life: Birth, life, death, re-birth. If the same energy inhabits a new body, why do all those memories and experiences suddenly disappear? A possible reason might be to give the new body a clean slate at life. To "create" an entirely new person, with new parents, new friends, and new experiences to shape them. But again, energy can neither be created, nor destroyed, so those memories (at least the ones powerful enough to alter the energy) should remain. Maybe we get glimpses of them in our dreams. Maybe a sight or sound seems familiar to us, even though we've never encountered them before. Maybe a face stands out in the crowd and triggers the fight or flight response.

If all those memories, decades and lifetimes of change, are hidden inside us, maybe that's why we only get to use a small portion of our brainpower - because the rest is like a giant storage device, keeping a log of all the changes we've been through, until we figure out how to look at them, relive them, without causing ourselves permanent harm.

On the other hand, we all know the power of imagination and the human mind, too. They've been know to change the world, for better or worse. Alter the course of a person's life. It's been proven that in times of great stress - like life or death situations - the brain slows down. Or speeds up? Whatever it is that makes us perceive time as moving slower, giving us a chance to take in more of the details, study the situation more thoroughly before we react. In that small way, we are able to manipulate time to our advantage. So it wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility that our very need to be special, to stand out from the crowd, to have some connection with the past, makes us subconsciously tap into some universal history book and place ourselves into a time and place where we don't belong.

Our dreams - or "memories" - might be nothing more than stories our minds have put together according to some unknown design. A depressing thought, isn't it? That we can fool ourselves so easily in order to make ourselves stand out from reality. The present might be bad, but I don't mind it, because I've lived through much worse (insert here the catastrophe of your choice: What do you fancy -  War? Famine? Plague? Death?) We like to think of ourselves as better, somehow more advanced than our predecessors, but are we really? Or are we just sufficiently different that a distinction becomes clear? In a hundred years, a thousand (assuming humanity survives itself that long), will we look at this time and think, "Those were the good old days," or will we shudder and look away, at the prettier, better things we will have?

Let's go back to pretending reincarnation exists. Let's assume that memories gather as easily as they do in a lifetime, only longer. Let's say that our souls shape our brains to hold the capacity we need them to, and those past life memories are buried deep in our subconsciousness until we are ready to handle them. How would we go about starting to unravel them? Hypnosis? Lucid dreaming? Astral projection, maybe? Is it possible to simply open our minds and let those memories surface naturally, little by little? Are we even capable of observing them in parts, without skewing them with our current preconceptions before they're even fully revealed to us? And how might such revelations change who and what we perceive ourselves to be?

I've dreamed things in such detail that I woke not knowing whether they were real or not. I've seen myself in a castle by torchlight, walking narrow, cobble-stoned streets at night, dancing around a bon fire, in a medieval-ish room facing a mirror and wearing a heavy scarlet gown, in a candle lit room with silks strewn about and giant pillows littering the floor, swimming towards the ocean's surface with white skirts/robes tangling my legs. I've read about pagan rituals celebrating nature and the seasons and imagined in incredible detail how they were performed, without having lived them. I've heard about creatures of myth, spirits, demons, and seen their faces in my mind. Does that mean I've been there; lived those lives? 

Would I want those memories restored? I don't know. I understand just enough about life to know that nothing is ever without risk, or a price. Maybe, by opening that door, I would be shutting the one on my current life. Maybe I'd be so changed/overwhelmed/traumatized by the influx of information that I might never recover. Maybe we were not meant to remember those things, have them interfere with our lives. Then again, maybe, in all those centuries of lifetimes, there are keys to the problems, dilemmas, and issues we face here and now, and have no idea how to deal with. Maybe I'd see the face of a friend as a traitor in some past transgression, and never be able to look at them the same way again, instantly condemning them for ancient crimes they have no recollection of.

All I know is that when I walk down the street to my house in the evening when the fog is rolling in, I get the sense that home used to be a port town; that just over that row of houses, there is a river cloaked in mist, on which heavy ships pass daily. I can almost feel hardpacked earth beneath my feet, instead of concrete, and I can almost see the houses made of wood, with rotting shingles and candle light dancing in the windows. When I walk into a forest, my eyes are open, looking for anything out of the ordinary. I keep expecting to glimpse the shadow of a man up on a hill, one hand on the trunk of a tree, watching me. And I know that there would be a cottage nearby, where the huntsman made his home, with an animal skin laid out before the hearth and a fire crackling cheerfully. I see a castle that's now a tourist attraction, and I know how it felt to walk its halways when there were still tapestries hung on the walls and the dining room was dark, with a huge, heavy wooden table stretching across its length. I look up at the full moon, and I can see a pyre burning in a meadow, and people wearing wooden masks dancing around it, singing.

An easy thing for a writer - to See. To imagine and live the stories she writes. I've dreamt about the stories I write. I've written the dreams I've had. So which came first? The story, or the dream? It almost seems like a stranger might have better luck making sense of the chaos in my head than I can, when I'm smack dab in the middle of it, wading through currents that pull me every which way. Yet should I believe what that stranger suggests?

Mom's on her travel the world trip again and she ordered all these travel DVDs from Netflix. We were watching one of them the other day, and they were showing some artsy town in France where painters and artists gathered like it was the Promised Land. Anyway, I saw the narrow cobble-stoned streets and the houses built like walls of a maze, and I remembered a dream I had a while ago, and I thought, "I was there!!"

Now comes the weird part: 
I was going over old LJ entries and I found the one with that exact dream. Do you know when I dreamt it? Halloween, two years ago. Now, I have a pretty good memory for dreams, but two years, without the benefit of the dream journal I'd started a year ago is a huge stretch for me. I'm thinking there's more to it than just the dream. Read about the dream here. Ignore the people named; I doubt they were significant in the plot.

I have pre-ordered Dreamfever from Amazon. Waiting for the author site to update so I can pre-order Bloodrush too.

We are going to Seattle!! We leave Aug. 15 and come back Aug 18. It's four days, but there is going to be a LOT crammed into them.

School raised the tuition, instituted another restriction on double majors, cut classes, postponed registration, changed professors for one of my classes... So far, I am still okay. I need to register for one more class, then just fill out a grad application, pay the grad fee and not fail my last 3 classes and at the end of the year, I shall have a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration - Management / Information Systems. And unless I majorly mess up, I shall be graduating magna cum laude.

I finished, edited, proofread and printed Blood Moons. The final count is over 92,000. I started going over Alpha Challenge to reacquaint myself with the story and already there is a sea of red on the pages where I need to edit. It's around 50 or so pages so far, and I'm hoping my imagination will carry the story to about the length of Blood Moons.

We found an online store for Slovak food, so we ordered a whole bunch. My days are now spent watching for the FedEx delivery truck.

Dreamt about BatB last night. The "after the happy end" sequel of sorts. Belle and Adam were living in the woods somewhere, with a few kids. They're still as happy and beautiful as they were, just exchanged their castle for a cottage/hunting lodge for some reason. Maybe foreclosure? I dunno. It was also life-like. No cartoons.

Former classmate got married. She looked beautiful in her wedding dress. Another one moved back from England to become a nurse. Another is pregnant, another graduated and is happy as a clam about it, another is having trouble with school I do not envy him. Dad's website is up and running, and he already got a call for a job. He has several lined up at the moment. Bro's going on another "service"/ camping trip through work this week and will be gone all weekend. Mom is overworked and taking it out on everyone except the people who deserve it. So pretty much everything is normal. Life keeps going.

Just thought I should post an update. This thing is more of a public diary than what I am discovering blogs are supposed to be. Alas, my philosophical ramblings tend to go on too long and I don't feel like typing that much. Or thinking that much... I'll let others be depressed and emo about life.

I had some time on my hands today, so I did a complete overhaul of my avatars. All new faces and moods. There's only one that stayed the same, because I can't find a more suitable pic to replace it. This one is my new default.

Facilis descensus Averni:
noctes atque dies patet atri ianua Ditis;
sed revocare gradium superasque evadere ad auras.
hoc opus, hic labor est.

English translation:

It is easy to go down into Hell;
Night and day, the gates of dark Death stand wide;
But to climb back again, to retrace one's steps to the upper air -
There's the rub, the task.

Quisque suos patimur Manes.

Translation: Each of us suffers his own spirit.
Variant translation: Each of us bears his own Hell.

~Virgil (The Aeneid)

 

92,000 words, thank you very much. 160 pages, plus amazing cover art, courtesy of some DA images and photoshop.  *happydances around* Now I just have to do one last edit for typos and such, but aside from that, I am done!!! Woo Hoo!

But apparently, fantasy is just in my blood. Even in a futuristic, sci-fi piece, I still have castles and shape shifters showing up LOL Oh, and a little redhead girl with freakishly blue eyes called Pixie (but she's human).

Now if only I could get going on my other stories - all four of them (plus three more prologues) But at least I have titles for ... most of them... (names are the hardest thing in writing =/ )

Dear arseholes,

I am taking a minute from my busy day to tell you that your parcel service is shite. Despite your lauded service to community, it seems that most of the time, you only serve yourself. Apparently, actually doing what you're being paid to do is too much effort. I have wasted two entire days waiting for my package, and now writing this feels like still another waste of time, but it is worth it just to let you know what I think of your lazy, high priced "services".

Your redelivery webpage is useless. Having missed the mailman the first time, I went online to schedule a redelivery. The "Track & Confirm" page never changed, even though it said it was updated several times a day. What a crock of shite. It never even registered that the package was scheduled for redelivery.

Your 1-800 number is an insult. Just to get through the automated messages - which, by the way are no more help than your website in terms of info pertaining to a package - to an actual person is a pain in the ass, taking longer than it would have taken me to drive to the post office to pick the damn thing up myself. Sadly, as that was not an option for me at the time, I was stuck with this glorified answering machine that doesn't take messages.

Your staff, while polite, is totally incompetent, giving only a pretense of actually working. Having not received my package on the redelivery date, I spoke with a USPS representative who told me that "sometimes, when the package is big or heavy, the courier won't pick it up." Excuse me?! Isn't that his/her JOB?!! The helpful person who told me this also scheduled another redelivery, gave me a new confirmation number and told me I would be called with regard to this package. I was called two minutes after I hung up, by someone else, who told me they would look for my package and make sure it was picked up and delivered.

It wasn't. When I called the 1-800 number yet again, the new confirmation number I'd received the day before wasn't even in your systems. I even tracked down the mail man who distributes mail on my block and asked him directly. He neither had the package, nor did he remember it! I never got a second failed delivery slip. I found the location of my package at a post office in town. When I called the number listed, I got a busy signal - the kind you get when a number is disconnected. After four days of waiting, due to the weekend in between, I was forced to go to the post office and pick the package up myself. There was a line of six people, and one attendant, who took their sweet time getting things done.

So thank you, USPS, for stealing two days of my life. A note for the future: Get your shit together and do what you're supposed to. If you say you redeliver, you had better redeliver. Train your people. It's their job to deliver packages. If it's too heavy for them to lift, they shouldn't be couriers - by the bye, my package weighed 2kg total. Make sure the people on the phone know what the hell they're doing and update your website once in a while, for freak's sake. Or at least make sure it works.

Needless to say, I will not be using USPS for parcel service in the future. For the price I'm paying, I can get much better service and more reliable tracking elsewhere. It is not worth my time to deal with this sort of aggravation. Nothing throughout this situation has given me any hope that the people who work for USPS are anything more than lazy, and do anything much, aside from lip service, unless they're pressed. Your customer service is a joke, and in my opinion should not even be mentioned on any official USPS site.

Hoping to never have to deal with you again,

X

I spent the better part of today waiting for a newsletter from one of my most fav. authors. The exerpt she sent from her upcoming book was ohmygodsoAWESOME and just for that, it was so worth the wait, even though it took time away from my edit. I was hurting anyway, so it wasn't a big loss.

But there was also other stuff in the newsletter - audio exerpts and "out takes" narrated by a guy who got an award for his rendition of the books. Now, I grew up listening to stories be narrated on radio as a kid, but that was like listening to a movie with narration; there were sound effects, and each character had his/her own voice actor. This is different. This is literally someone reading the book to you and "pretending" to be the people they're reading. I wasn't wild about the idea from the beginning, so I was hesitant to click on the spoof out take links.

But I did click. And I shouldn't have. It ruined the actor for me so much I didn't even want to click on the actual book exerpts. Fans keep raving about him, but I wince every time I hear him talking. The voices I hear in my head are so much better than he can do... and his female voices made me shudder. So congratulations on the award, I'm sure it was very much deserved and I aplaud his courage to take on a romance series, but I'm sorry, I will not be listening to him or anyone else read a book to me.

And of course, as soon as I thought this, Jon chimed in. I told him he could do the male voices, but not the female ones, and then, of course, he pointed out that if I got started, I wouldn't stop until I'd read the whole book out loud. So we agreed that we'd each read the book to ourselves and then come together to compare notes. Take that as you will.