Last night I took my daughter to the Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus concert. It was FANTASTIC! I think I may have had more fun then my daughter did. LOL.
We thought that Jonas Brothers were going to be opening, but instead it was Everlife. They were good… but we wanted to see the Jonas Brothers. A little disappointed .. but as soon as Hannah came out we forgot about the JB. LOL.
Here is a pic of Hannah singing “Me and My Old Blue Jeans” from last night. Yeah well.. it was as close as I could zoom my camera. I didn’t say we had awesome seats.. I just said we went and had an awesome time.
As usual, I was an emotional mess at the beginning of the concert. This was my daughter’s first real music concert (unless you count the Wiggles when she was 3), and when Hannah took the stage I got teary. I’m not sure why.. but it happens every time now. Any big “ta-da” just sends me over the edge. I was fine before I had kids, but since giving birth I get emotional over stupid things. Oh.. and don’t tell me it’s hormones.. my youngest is 4… LOL.. my hormones have GOT to be normal by now… right? (see this post over at The Cheap Seats blog for more validation that women get weepy after kids).
Well, I did successfully stifle the tears last night, and Hannah Montana rocked the house.
I know.. not a lot of substance on today’s blog post. I’ll try to do better tomorrow.
[tags]hannah montana concert, miley cyrus, women get emotional after having kids, jonas brothers, everlife, kid’s concerts[/tags]
[dels]hannah montana concert, miley cyrus, women get emotional after having kids, jonas brothers, everlife, kid’s concerts[/dels]
Over at Spittin’ (out words) Like a Llama, Colby promises her readers that her books will always tie up nicely. She doesn’t promise a happy ending, just an ending that ties things up.
This is incredibly important to me as a reader. To my mind, there are few things worse than investing my time and energy into reading a book that doesn’t tie up all the loose ends. Personally I prefer happy endings, but if the author can at least come up with an appropriate ending that leaves me with closure, I can deal with it. I want the bad guys to suffer, and the good guy to get the girl, and the good girl to get everything she wants emotionally and physically. See.. not to hard to please me. LOL
No, really. I have been known to throw a book across the room when it ended with the main character “good guy” dying and the bad guy riding off into the sunset.
As a writer, I’m torn. I want the happy ending for the characters in my book, but I also want reality. In real life, not everything turns out happy. Everyone doesn’t get what they want, and sometimes the bad guys really do win.
How to you determine the ending of your story? Do you write the happy ending you want and readers expect? Or do you work on mixing it up and not being predictable.
I find that Nora Roberts is the perfect example of writing the predictable ending. Within 20 pages of starting her books, I can tell you which girl ends up with which guy. I can tell you that it will always have a happily-ever-after. Even knowing this… I still enjoy her books. I read them almost straight through and love her writing style. I devour her books as quickly as she puts them out.
So if I feel this way, maybe being predictable doesn’t really matter as much as I thought. Perhaps readers simply enjoy the journey of a fiction book, and like the fact that they can look forward to a happy ending. Am I representative of other readers of this genre?
What is your take on the predictable ending and the happily-ever-after?
I’m throwing this blog chain over to The Speakeasy.
Please visit all the other participants in the blog chain:
living my life all over again
Spontaneous Derivation
Jenn Hollowell: Working Writer
Peregrinas
Techtainment
Anything That Pays
Polenth’s Quill
wfg thinks out loud
Spittin’ (out words) Like a Llama
A Thoughtful Life
The Speakeasy
Virtual Wordsmith
The Writer’s Round-About
My Copious Notes Blog
Tennessee Text Wrestling
Writings
Twisted Fantasy
[tags]absolute write blog chain, writing about writing, blog chain, writing blog chain[/tags]
[dels]absolute write blog chain, writing about writing, blog chain, writing blog chain[/dels]
OK, so I was so freaked out by my mountain of spam, that I forgot to post what I had PLANNED on posting! LOL
I wanted to take a moment and remember my all-time favorite American Idol moment. During seson 4, the battle came down to two amazing performers: Bo Bice and Carrie Underwood. Bo took a chance and did an a capella version of “In a Dream”. It was a heart-stopping moment for me. And now, I want all of you to enjoy it again.
Don’t get me wrong… I love Carrie Underwood. But this Bo Bice moment was just AMAZING! He was gutsy… and it paid off.
I only hope we have someone even 1/2 as talented as Bo Bice and Carrie Underwood on Season 7.
Oh, and please don’t forget to join me over at www.AmericanIdolist.com. I’ve got a GREAT co-blogging gig over there. If you love American Idol, then come join us for great commentary and breaking news.
[tags]bo bice, american idol season 4, american idol alumni, american idol[/tags]
[dels]bo bice, american idol season 4, american idol alumni, american idol[/dels]
What causes a single blog post to become the target of a flood of spam?
Up until today, I have only had a bit of spam. Strangely, it has mostly been on the same post, “Birth Control for Middle Schools”. I have always been able to handle it. Nothing crazy, maybe 5 or 6 a day to delete.
This morning, my e-mail account was absolutely flooded with pingback spam on this post. When I say flooded, I mean that a new e-mail came in every 3 minutes from 5am until 11am when I logged on and noticed.
Needless to say it took me a while to clean up, and now I am left wondering what to do. For starters, I turned off the comments and pings on that post. That helped immediately. I don’t really want to turn off Pings and Trackbacks on every post, as I like to give a little “love” back to the people who link to one of my posts.
I’m turning on the Askimet plugin for WordPress. That will *supposedly* help with spam comments, but I’m not sure it will help for pingback spam.
Does anyone out there have any suggestions? Do you have a WordPress plugin that you use to help combat spam?
I’m going to continue my search for a solution that works. In the mean time, please let me know if turning on Askimet makes it difficult for you to comment.
[tags]pingback spam, stop spam, stop blog spam, stop pingback spam[/tags]
[dels]pingback spam, stop spam, stop blog spam, stop pingback spam[/dels]