Jezebel mentioned an article in the Washington Post on romaction movies, which is a mash-up of romance and action set to a catchy disco beat (I love the nightlife, I love to boogie, I need some rom-act-shun! ahem… sorry).

Actually, most of the great movies do have romance in them for one very good reason. It’s a great way to show someone loves the hero/heroine and thus, they are cool-dudes-people. Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Titanic, Casablanca, Gone with the Wind… Ah, yes, love how Hollywood can stumble over these new “fads” with people.

I was skimming through Save the Cat by Blake Snyder (RIP Blake) and one of the great pieces of writing advice in there is the addition of the Save the Cat scene. The place where the audience sees the hero rushing in to save the cat, because even though he’s an alcoholic, drug-dealing, cheating-hearted ex-con, he still loves Kitty Anon enough to risk his life and limb in order to save the little friskers. Cue the audience going “ahhhh….”

Romance is save the Cat on a larger scale. Romance makes everyone lovable. The great romances are the beauty and the beast. If beauty loves beast, he doesn’t seem quite so furry.

There’s a quote in the Washington Post article that cracks me up:

Dergarabedian calls the new genre “romaction-comedy” and likens the hybrid to a science experiment. “I imagine movie executives sitting around a conference table like guys in a laboratory, trying to build the perfect box office beast,” he says. “They’re trying to figure out, ‘How do we get the guys to go to a movie with their girlfriends and not feel like they’re being dragged to it?’ “

This cracks me up because frankly, if the movie is well-written, everybody wants to see it, male, female, furry beasts.

I hope Hollywood continues this “trend” because I like my heroes and heroines with heart and if this is the only way that Hollywood can figure out how to do it, fine by me. But Hollywood? With that romance thing? You can’t just tell it, you have to show it.
Sigh.
It’s probably hopeless.

June 7th, 2010 Kathleen O'Reilly Posted in Blogroll, On Writing Miseries | Comments Off

Or, how the big-box retailers stopped worrying that reading wasn’t cool and learned to love the e-reader.

It isn’t a huge surprise that less than a week after Apple released the AWESOME, SPECTACULAR, HOLYMOLYTHISTHINGWILLCHANGETHEWORLD ipad, Target and Best Buy have drunk the e-Kool-Aid. Not that I’m implying that there is something *hinky* about e-reader luv. Not that I haven’t been known to lovingly caress my Kindlicious (it’s a pet name). But it is fascinating to note the timing. Seems that Best Buy is getting the Barnes & Noble Nook, and Target (who is sometimes known to strangely and mysteriously know my purchasing decisions even before myself) is selling the Kindle.

Woot! (and no, neither device can be found on woot — yet).

April 8th, 2010 Kathleen O'Reilly Posted in Reading Matters, Techie Things | Comments Off

As a romance writer who has also penned computer programming manuals, I am always pleased to see geeky love things. Saw this on Wired, and needed to repost. My fav is buried in the comments: “You autocomplete me.” ROFL.

Top 10 Geeky Ways to Say “I Love You”

Posted using ShareThis

April 6th, 2010 Kathleen O'Reilly Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

So, I’m a big fan of Michael Quinion’s World Wide Words (see http://www.worldwidewords.org/maillist/index.htm to subscribe).  His recent edition covers the American Dialect Society’s vote on the words of the decade and some other miscelleania word winners.

Word of the year was tweet.  No tweetin’ surprise there.  I think tweet should become a an all-purpose naughty word, like the F word.  Go tweet yourself.  Are you tweetin’ me?  Ah, Tweet!  The possibilities are tweetin’ endless.

Most useful word of the year was fail.  As in, Kathleen’s gym goals: Resolution Fail!

I loved the Dracula sneeze for most creative.  It’s covering one’s mouth with the crook of one’s elbow when sneezing.  I think the schools are teaching this, because both of my kids now do it, and I had never seen it before.

Hike the Appalachian trail was most euphemistic.  I have loved this since I first heard it, and yes, eventually you will see this in one of my books.  “Dude, tonight I’m going to hike the Appalachian trail!”  Fist bumps all around.

They’re saying that twenty-ten will be the pronunciation of the year 2010, but I personally like two thousand and ten.

The word of the decade was google.  Like duh.

And in the next item, he mentions Australian words of the year.  My fav two that are up for voting: slacktivism and brain fade.

Anyway, that’s all the Monday word fun today.

January 11th, 2010 Kathleen O'Reilly Posted in Wordtasm | 1 Comment »

I found this one on Jezebel.  Painfully obvious newspaper headlines.  And I should note that my DS has a t-shirt with Death: The Nations #1 Killer on it.  It always makes me snicker.

January 8th, 2010 Kathleen O'Reilly Posted in Funnies, Newsflash | Comments Off

clipped from www.dailymail.co.uk Publishers are quietly disposing of around 77million unsold books a year, it has emerged. So many titles no one wants to read are being produced that they are being shredded, pulped or sold on market stalls at a fraction of their original price.

January 6th, 2010 Kathleen O'Reilly Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off

Right after Thanksgiving, I had just started blogging over at the WhineSisters, a group of lively, lovely ladies who have been friends and partners in crime for many years. But this past week, one of the Whinesisters, Kathleen Givens, passed away. She was too young, too full of life and laughter, and she will be missed. If you knew Kathleen, you loved her, and I’m not just saying that because she’s named Kathleen.

January 6th, 2010 Kathleen O'Reilly Posted in Cool People | 2 Comments »

I like this story.  According to the UK Dailymail, archaic words like smoyle (old English for smile) are accepted in Facebook scrabble and hardcore Scrabbleista’s are snuffy that such slumgums are allowed.  I didn’t even know Facebook had scrabble, but now I want to install it.  Elain Higgleton, who oversees the Official Scrabble Dictionary is not vexed (16 points) by the rumpus.  However, I began to investgate high-point-value Scrabble words and found some fun ones.

• xerotic — heheh, not what you think.  Prone to hardness, associated with aging skin. 16 points.
• abaka – related to the banana plant.  11 points.
• coccyx – tailbone.  22 points.
• joypop- to use habit-forming drugs occasionally without becoming addicted.  20 points.
• hutzpahs – variant spelling of chutzpahs.  25 points.
• kavakava – an herb used to treat anxiety.  22 points.
• zyzzyva – a genus of a tropical beetle, also it’s usually the last word in dictionary’s, so it’s becoming a common shorthand for “the last word”.  43 points.

On that note, zyzzyva.

December 30th, 2009 Kathleen O'Reilly Posted in Funnies | 4 Comments »

I found this one via Lifehacker, but I love the idea of it, and I think it’s what we may be doing tomorrow afternoon.  Light up Wine Charms…  The actual instructions are located on the DIY  site here. If we get them done, I’ll report back (with pics).

December 29th, 2009 Kathleen O'Reilly Posted in Techie Things | Comments Off

OK, now they’ve done it.  First it was the shoes, then it was the water, now it’s NO BOOKS in the last hour of flight.  AAGGHHHH!!!  It’s not Al Quidditch that’s going to kill me, it’s the TSA.  MSNBC is saying that flyers might not expect the same thing at all airports, which cracks me up.  “Uh, Fran, what do you think the regs should be at LGA today?  No bathroom usage?  No food?  Maybe everyone needs to stand up during the last three minutes of the flight.”  Air Canada is saying nothing in the lap during the last hour.    So, I’m thinking to myself.  If I hold my Kindle at arm’s length, and my lap is clear, am I OK?  Am I a TSA violator?

Thankfully, there is already backtracking, so we’ll see what finally pans out.

December 28th, 2009 Kathleen O'Reilly Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off