SharondaWoodfin.net

Hello, 7! Hey There, 64!

After a short (depending upon one's perspective) hiatus, I'm back online. I went to Wal-Mart, today (along with Best Buy, Sam's Club, Toys 'R Us, and even Big Lots), and bought the cheapest computer I could find. I knew before I bought it that it didn't come with a monitor, that it had 2GB of RAM, a 320 GB hard drive, and Windows 7 Home Premium. What I didn't realize until I'd been messing with it for a few hours is that it has a 64-bit processor. All I really know about that is that my best friend's boyfriend thinks it's a good thing, and that I hope my Wacom Bamboo will work with it.

So far, I've gotten rid of Norton, and replaced it with Avast; installed Firefox, NoScript, AdBlock, InFormEnter, Flash and Chrome; installed CCleaner and Google Notifier; uninstalled the e-Bay thing, Google Toolbar for IE, and Adobe Reader; and gotten Amazon Unbox up and running. I still have a lot to install and/or uninstall, and I still don't have a solid opinion on Windows 7, yet. It has some nice features, but I'm still adjusting to the look and feel, now pining away over both XP and OS 9.

The truth is that, after spending 5 or 6 years getting a computer the way you want it, it's a bit disquieting to have to start all over again, but I digress. And to digress further, the low point of my day came at Best Buy, when the guy trying to sell me a computer asked if I wanted anti-virus installed or if I planned to not go online. I hope that's not how Best Buy programs their sales force, 'cause seriously, dude, that's insulting. Bad false dilemma! No, no!!

Anyway, the good points about the new PC, thus far: Lots and lots more memory. Even with heavier system requirements, the performance difference between 2GB and the 512MB I was running on my old system is pretty damned obvious. I can carry the tower around with one hand, which is useful when I need to fiddle with the back of it. MP4s will play in Windows Media Player. Jump lists are handy, and I like the preview windows in the taskbar. Also, sticky notes! I haven't used them, yet, but I'm just ridiculously happy to have them!

Thanks to the folks who commented in my absence, and please, forgive the rambling. It's been a hard seven days. Take a bit of being cut off from the whole damned world, add in a bit of brand new temporary job (one that involves showing up twice each day, including once around 5:30 in the morning); learning to give insulin shots to a kitteh; several trips to the library; lots of stress; my first desperate yet sober trip to a local straight bar (which, it turns out, isn't completely straight); a sick dog; a sick mother; and hours spent at my desk smoking cigarettes and pressing buttons that don't do anything, and -- well, Hell -- I'll forgive myself, whether you forgive me or not.

More on lots of stuff, later (including all of the wild things that lurk in the woods just outside of town; things I didn't know about until just a week ago), once I've figured out the next several steps in whipping this shiny new system into shape.

P.S.

One *good* thing that came out of my unexpected disconnection: I took some time to read. You know, like books. The kind that fit in one's hands and smell really awesome. I read Joyce Carol Oates Foxfire: Confessions of a Girl Gang, and loved this quote:

"...you don't feel extremes of temperature when you're on a mission and your very life's at stake, those hateful bastards wanting to put their hands on you wanting to impose their plans on you, you'd rather die than surrender."

God, to be 14 again!

Scratch that. 14 sucked. But to feel 14 again, I'd willingly convert to an Apple IIe!

Book-Buying Advice Requested

I recently received a $10 gift card for Barnes & Noble from MyPoints. This brings me up to a grand total of $12.63 I have to spend either at the B&N site or in one of the B&N stores. The good thing about this is that I can't spend it anywhere other than Barnes & Noble. If it were an Amazon card or a Wal-Mart card, or just about any other sort of gift card, I'd find some reason to spend it on something other than a book. And I miss buying books! I haven't bought one in so long that I honestly can't remember what my last purchase was.

This is where you come in, dear reader. Since I haven't been buying books, I'm also not especially aware of what's new and readable on the market. This is a short list of some of my favorite works of fiction:

• Stephen King: The Stand, It
• Rita Mae Brown: Rubyfruit Jungle, Six of One
• Clive Barker: Imajica
• Anne Rice: The Witching Hour

In short, I like lengthy, well-written horror and fantasy (but mostly horror). I also like humor and clever dialogue. Lesbian characters are extra-bonusy.

Do you know of any fairly-recent novels that fit some or all of that criteria? If so, feel free to leave your suggestions in the comments. I can't guarantee that I'll blindly follow your advice, but I'll definitely take it into consideration.

And without your help, there's a strong chance I'll end up re-buying and re-reading one of the books I've listed above. Come on, folks! Expand my horizons!

First-Person Perspective and Plausibility

I've read before that inexperienced writers should avoid first-person perspective. As a reader, I hope that there are plenty of new writers -- and I suspect that there are, since first-person seems like the most natural perspective to write from -- who are ignoring that advice.

From a reader's perspective, the first-person narrative creates a wonderful sense of intimacy, a chance to identify with the narrator that simply doesn't exist from the third-person. There are writers who use this to great effect. Anne Rice and Alice Walker are two that come readily to mind.

But there are problems with first-person perspective. One in particular was a recent thorn in my literary side. I was reading a short story by an award-winning author. I was into the story, enjoying it much more than I had anticipated, until the ending desuspended my suspension of disbelief. 

What happened was this: The narrator, at the end of the story, was in a condition such that he couldn't have been the narrator. He wasn't dead. We've all seen (or written) plausible stories where the narrator had died, at some point in or before the tale. (See Poe's "The Cask of Amontillado" for an effective use of a dead narrator.) This guy was very much alive, but with no way to communicate. He couldn't talk, couldn't move enough to write the story down or share it through sign language. And if he had the ability to communicate through some psychic connection, the author never mentioned it.

And here's my small piece of advice: Use first-person, if that's what you want to use. Use your imagination, too, because that makes reading (and writing) fun. But keep it plausible. Or, if you can't keep it plausible, then make it plausible. Above all, don't keep your readers hanging on 'til the end, only to have that end sever the delicate threads of belief.