Tuesday, March 06, 2007

Exploiting E

He has no problem with it. In fact, he almost seemed to have fun with it.

Unfortunately, the E/Zombie fans are not really my target chick lit women's fiction audience. Unless... A zombie romance? Paranormal romance is huge right now, but vampires are on the verge of being overdone. Hmm zombie romance... zombie romance... all I can come up with is a scenario where all the guys turn into zombies and the chicks don't even notice. Not enough there for a plot. Must work on it.

I like Mac's rant on the "powerful woman" myth. I didn't realize the extent of the Ripley effect until I read this:

"A little bit of history for you: The "powerful woman" myth was born in pop culture in 1986, in the persona of Ellen Ripley. I make that 21 years. Our species has stood in it's present form for roughly 35,000 years. (NOT counting Neanderthal, and Cro Magnon before that) So I make this out to be .06% of the time. For the remaining 99.94% of our existence, men have been taking care of business just fine.

Mysteriously, up until the night before "Aliens" made it's theatrical debut in 1986 women still seemed to trip and fall while fleeing monsters, or zombies. However, the next morning, the myth of the strong female character was born, and they were able singly-handedly defeat a colony of horrible aliens, while men cowered, and whimpered in corners. (Hey, what's that whirring sound? Sounds like...Charles Darwin, spinning in his grave!)

Naw, dude... Chicks don't think about how to defend the homestead against zombies. They're still too busy gathering."

For the record, I receive TONS of zombie-related e-mail. There must be a reason... zombie romance... zombie romance....

18 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ah! You know, upon reading this in the sobering light of day, I have come to realize what a terrible error I made.

I am embarrassed, and deeply, deeply sorry for what I have written. Particularly in that I am a teacher, and responsible for the molding of young fresh minds, it would be highly improper, and unethical beyond measure, if I did not express my regrets at this post.

I made a mathematical error. That should read, "For the remaining 99.94% of our existence..."

(See, 99.06% and .06% when added together only equal 99.1%... Deeply, deeply sorry about that, deeply, deeply...)

Anonymous said...

Aw, now see...? I messed it up again. I got all flustered, anticipating the inevitable response.

99.94% + .06% = 100%

There!

I should've just let one of the chicks do this calculation for me. They're so much better at maths, and sciences than we are.

Ok, now I need to have a good cry.
When I'm done, I'll relax in front of the tv all afternoon with a cup of camomile, and watch my stories.

Karen said...

I fixed your math typo and my spelling typo (Ridley = Ripley).

Would you please relax? Aren't you supposed to be on vacation? Bubble bath, Glamour magazine, GG seasons 1-5.

Anonymous said...

Hey, I just found the alternate, guy-version of The GG's on the web...

It's called "The Gil-MORE Girls"!!!!

(Wowee-wow-wow-wow!!!!)

Anonymous said...

Here's a Zombie love plot:

Two people, in love, get bitten. They turn into zombies. They eat the third person in the love triangle who has been trying to break them up.

Then a 14 year old sergeant busts in and shoots them in the head.

The end.

(steal this if you want.)

Anonymous said...

What does a 14 year-old sergeant have to do with anything. Is this one of Karen's characters? Karen, what are you writing about???

I enjoyed the squirrel thread BTW. It had huge entertainment value. There was the thread of how Eric would dispose of the squirrel, there was a thread (quite involved) on whether the squirrel was still in the fireplace after a week, there was a thread on whether the squirrel was in fact real or stuffed...

It was quite interesting and I would dip in every night to read the latest. The more imaginative posts were the most interesting. I hope Karen plans on more such threads in the future.

Anonymous said...

No, no, NO!

That won't DO!

I think the 14 year old sergeant's motivation should be to seek out, and HELP!

Anonymous said...

... much like that squirrel.

Anonymous said...

Personally I am sick and tired of hearing about zombies all the time. "Zombies are taking over the world." "Hey, do you think zombies are fast or slow?" "Why do zombies always eat brains?"

ENOUGH!!!

There's more to life than zombies!!! Is this all guys think about?!?

No wonder I'm single. I'm going to die single, I can see that.

Anonymous said...

(Re. Anonymous 4:52 pm: How is your "Wildcard" novel coming along?)

Anonymous said...

Can we go back to the squirrel? Please?

Anonymous said...

Anonymous 5:07 pm said:

"There's more to life than zombies!!! Is this all guys think about?!? I'm going to die single, I can see that."

Well, with a lousy attitude like THAT you are...!

Allow me to address some of these issues for you.

Firstly, my dear, zombies are NOT taking over the world. Good men like those who write to this forum will see to that. You're in good hands. Tut, tut. Don't you worry.
(Quick... check the teletype... someone just wrote that zombies are taking over the world...! Pack your stuff up. Initiate plan Z! Every man for himself! I'm outta here, losers!)

Secondly... I BELIEEEEVE we have sufficiently addressed the er, to use an oversimplified,and very pedestrian phrase, "fast or slow" issue. No more space need be taken with THAT! Thanks.
(Slow.)

Lastly, as for the favourite food issue: Please see my comments re. the creation of the "eat brain" myth, and the "Return of the Living Dead" series.

Now, my dear, if there's nothing more, I've got a hot date I've got to get ready for. There's this beautiful zombie I met on-line. We'll be heading out for a quick zombie, followed by a little zombie, and zombie, and if I play my zombies right, a zombie zombie, with a zombie thrown in for good zombie. (Know what I zombie?)

(Oh! Oh! Speaking of which... she does this zombie, zombie zombie zombie Bangkok zombie, zombie ping-pong zombie zombie zombie! ;))

Zombie zombie zombie zombie. Zombie zombie zombie zombie, zombie zombie, zombie, zombie zombie.

Zombie.

Anonymous said...

Is it true that if you die single, you come back as a zombie?

Anonymous said...

I don't know about dieing, but try living with some of my ex's!

(*Ba-boom-crash*)

Hey, you've been a great audience! I'm here all week!

Anonymous said...

Here's another zombie love plot:

A single woman, gets fed-up with the dating scene. She can't find a satisfactory date, because all of the guys she meets are sci-fi geeks. So in desperation, she dates this zombie so she won't die alone.

The irony is... she dies anyway, because the zombie eats her!

That's gold!

Anonymous said...

This is so sad.

This blog was all about desperation, pain, and loss and now it has changed to a circus of catcalls and nuisance postings.

Superficially (and historically) the posts centered on the author's inability to focus on writing. But it was more than that. It was about personal decisions gone wrong, about angst that builds and overwhelms to the point of paralysis, of seeking to fit in yet not knowing how to fit... It wasn't fiction, it was REAL. It was about someone at a loss as to what to do with her life, always looking at it from the outside and trying to manipulate the things closest to her as if she were a fiction character in one of her stories.

I used to enjoy stopping by to read the latest. It was always a question of whether the author would discover herself in time to keep from the ultimate self-destruction.

Although I had never met the author, I felt, from the posts and threads, that I knew her. I felt that I could recognize her in a crowd if we passed by. That I would be able to see the haunted look in her eyes, of the sad hunch of her shoulders weighed down by the burden of doing what she feels she has to do because others expect it of her.

I would cry when she spoke of this pain. This was a place of pure thought, of absolute sadness.

And now it is a farce.

This has been source of wonder for the year since my friends and I have found it. It is certainly the loss to the blogsphere that this site is now populated by madmen.

Karen said...

Sgt. Yahoo, I know that's you - your voice is distinctive. Amazing how you're always 'too busy' to get together, yet you find HOURS of free time to make fun of me on the Internet. grrrrrr.

Anonymous said...

(3 days later...)

IS IT SAFE TO COME OUT NOW????