>Six more pages today. There’s something to be said for this BICHOKing. (Butt In Chair, Hands On Keyboard) <- for those who don't have a clue. It's a writer thing.
Today I saw a fun thing to try on Annie Rayburn‘s blog and jumped in. 😉 Sure enough it took a sample of my writing and thought I was a guy, too. (Go try it, it’s fun.) So, she and I both are ‘butch chicks’.
On Saturday, I found out at the GRW meeting that this:
THE DADDY ISSUE BY MELISSA BECK (Congrats, Melissa!)
is another GRW member. That makes 3 of us vying to be the winner in the same category of the same contest: Laurie. Being of a curious nature, I asked her if she received a call. She hadn’t. A friend had e-mailed her congrats and that’s how she found out.
She makes the 6th person I’ve heard this from, and I know of one author in the published division that had the same thing happen. I know one of the chapter members at SMRW and asked her ‘what gives’. I thought all RWA contests called the finalists and notified them. She was as clueless as I was. But one thing led to another and I ended up writing a letter to be posted on their chapter loop, expressing my views.
Wait, wait. Before you get all indignant, I was nice. I simply stated that there were few kudos to the aspiring writer. Finalling in a contest is one of them. The excitement of that call can get you through a lot – the next rejection, not winning after all, not being asked for a partial–lots of things. But in this case there was – nothing. I found out through friends online congratulating me because they’d seen the list released or had been a judge or something. It didn’t feel official. Like me, others who learned they’d finaled didn’t believe it at first because it wasn’t through official channels.
I also thanked the chapter for their efforts in putting on the contest and judging. I felt I was fair. So why is it that I feel bad for having written the letter? Is it because of the gender thing? If I really was a guy, I’d probably slough it off. Kinda like scrimaging in football. You knock a guy on his ass, then go have a beer with him. But women are taught to get along, make nice, be sweet.
Well, I felt a little cheated, and I expressed myself. Nothing wrong with that, right? Time to move on.
How’s that for a butch chick?
>Got an e-mail from Melissa Schroeder with this title. Okay, I had to bite on that one. Turned out to be one of those on-line test thingies. You should try it. It takes something you’ve written, even a blog entry and analyzes it to determine whether you’re female or male using algorithms.
I gave the thing 343 words (it says it needs 500 for accuracy, but I didn’t feel it was worth 2 manuscript pages of my time) and it determined that I was indeed male.
Oh, yeah? When I informed it I was actually female I got this answer back.
That is one butch chick! I didn’t write the program. Blame the scientists.
ROFL! Never thought anyone would say that about me.
If you want to try it, go here.
On the writing front today, I’ve managed to add 6 scorching pages to my novella. I think I had a hot flash in there somewhere, but it could have just been the reflected heat from Zeenie and Turk. Who knows?
CAROL BURNSIDE / ANNIE RAYBURN 