The Chicken & The Egg & Where Is Global Warming When You Need It?

Where is global warming when you need it? Really, I’d like to know. If I have to hear about the havoc it’s causing all the time could it at least get off its ass, this 24th of MAY and come shovel all 230 feet of sidewalk we have? Because it’s that wet snow, the kind that’s really heavy and useless, and that’s hard on the back when you’re doing all that bending and lifting.

Yes, I am whining and I’m entitled. It is MAY, for crying out loud. It is AFTER the Victoria Day long weekend. It is not even 10 flippin’ days until my birthday, and if there’s snow on the ground then I will have a little temper tantrum.

Well, okay, I won’t, but I must admit when I got up at 3:30 am because of one extremely annoying cat rubbing my head and purring I was stunned when I looked outside.

We have more snow now than we did at Christmas, and it’s still snowing.

So, on that note, I bring you wholly unrelated proof that the world is on her ass or off her axis or something.

A chicken has gone through a rare, spontaneous sex change in eastern India, a veterinarian said Thursday. The bird laid eggs six months ago -- and some hatched -- but it later began to grow a rooster's comb…
And the owner is calling it a ‘miracle’. If it had been a rooster that turned into a female I wonder if he’d use the same word?

I really need some good jokes today guys. Ones significantly better than the ones Mother Nature is playing.


And another note about Media Predict. I think every single person has a responsibility to do their homework when it comes to an agent, publisher, contest. Many are quick to rush to judgments without all the facts. The initial criticisms I read were based more on speculation about the process, rather than anything substantive (and no, I haven't read it all). Even after my quickie interview earlier this week there were still a lot of unanswered questions, as the comment trail here alone proved.

My thanks to Brian for emailing me and mentioning the terms of use on Media Predict's site. After taking some time to look at them I have to say I have no desire to participate in this. The 'perpetual' right to sell your work will be a deterrent for agents and the ownership issues are of some concern. I'm no expert with contracts but I strongly recommend that anyone considering participation do their homework and consult a lawyer. I will be watching to see how this unfolds, but at this point in time I have to say that my long-term speculation is that it won't produce anything of note to the publishing world.

In short, experienced editors who have been working in the business for years cannot always predict what will catch on and what won't. The reality is anything posted to this site will be likely a minimum of 18 months from publication. By that point, any 'hype' from the process will have eroded. It will make no difference to bookstore staff and readers, who ultimately decide what succeeds and fails in this industry.

I applaud the idea of listening to readers to some degree, but that remains my single biggest issue about this: There is no guarantee that readers will participate. In fact, the proof is that the main crime fiction 'industry' blogs haven't even discussed this, but my interview was picked up by Midas Oracle, a site that focuses on market predictions.

It is my feeling that this approach will attract game players and not readers, or book-buyers. And one thing that anyone in this industry should know is that a lot of us readers don't like being told what books to buy by people who don't know anything about our genre or our industry.

No snap judgments. Two days of thinking about it. And I stand to be proven wrong, but that's my present position on the whole thing.

I Feel Like An Idiot

I mean, more than usual. How is it that you can grow up in a place and not know things about it? Or maybe you did know but you suppressed it all, but I don't think that's the case.

Still, the ongoing process of discovery is something I find fascinating. I thought of this when I read that a certain author had gone to a place not so far away from their home on holidays, and discovered this site they refer to in the back of their latest book as 'skin-crawling'.

What is it that's making me feel especially dumb? I didn't know that the town of Bracebridge, Ontario was named for Bracebridge Hall, a work by Washington Irving, who also penned The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.

What started me on this path to enlightenment, you ask? Well, the discovery that the neighbouring town of Gravenhurst, Ontario was originally named McCabes Bay. A perfectly good name discarded in favour of a literary reference that we don't even talk up. And thus the rumour it was named after two items used by the biggest local business (grave & hearse) is disproven.

You know, I was always told Bracebridge got it's name from the bridges. And I always thought the name Gravenhurst was depressing. Scroll through these and you'll see why it strikes me as an underwhelming name that doesn't fit the landscape.