Today at 6pm MST (which is 5pm in California and 8pm in New York and that should help cover it), I’ll be on the radio show Skeptically Speaking. It’s on public radio in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada and you can watch (the host, Desiree Schell, not me) and chat live on Ustream. My spot is at the beginning of the show and is called “Speaking Up,” for which anyone is invited to submit topics. My post about remaining skeptical despite chronic illness is the basis for what I’ll be talking about, and I’ve been paired with a main guest, Nancy Walton, who will be discussing human research ethics. I may be too busy hyperventilating after I’m on to listen to the rest of the show, but I really look forward to hearing what she has to say. You can send in questions to her, but my segment is interview-only, for any jokers who had ideas.
I’ve liked this show ever since the first episode I heard. (The show is available to download the following week on the website and iTunes). There are a lot of skeptical podcasts out there, and they all fulfill various niches, but I particularly like the breadth of topics on this show, and the depths to which they’re explored. You learn that skeptical thinking isn’t limited to debunking scams but can be applied in all kinds of ways. Also, my favorite station, KCRW, is public radio run through Santa Monica College, plus the first college to employ me as an interpreter had a good station, so I’m biased in favor of campus radio. I’m tickled that it’s Friday the 13th, the perfect date for a recovering superstitious person to appear on a show about skepticism.
In addition, you might have noticed that shiny new ad down there in the lower right for gift subscriptions to Skeptic magazine. As I’ve written about before, after I read Michael Shermer’s Why People Believe Weird Things I felt like I had fallen down the rabbit hole. Between that and subscribing to Skeptic, a new world opened up for me, one about which I try to continue my education every day. So I’m happy to give back however I can. I don’t get any revenue from the ad; it’s simply a link to the store where you can gift, buy, or renew a subscription. Also, beginning with the above link to Shermer’s book, a small portion of any Amazon purchases made through this site will benefit Skeptic.
As you can see from the widget, I’ve been dutifully churning out atrocious NaNoWriMoProse on schedule, so Monday I’m excited to have another guest post, from a woman who has performed Humanist funerals in the U.K. for twenty years. And next Friday, if you’re very lucky, I might read you some more of my poetry novel. I send you off with a kid with serious chops doing “Hotel California” on the uke.
Here are a few of my choicer tidbits from the first week. The setting is a suicide hotline, and it’s kinda sorta semi-autobiographical. Which doesn’t excuse a passage like this.
She felt like she was on guard in the night, when everyone was asleep except for people who needed help. She was a sentry in the long dark tunnel that often seemed to have no light at its end.
If you can get out of this tortured prose without injury, I salute you.
The first person couldn’t be counted on not to give some attitude if forced to be placed on hold due to another caller’s higher crisis level.
In my defense on this one, “persistent” is used as a noun in the story.
Midnight all the pumpkins turned back into princesses, and the really persistent persistents knew it.
Can you tell I’m being completely lazy with descriptions?
One of the only other men in the room besides Mike, a balding man who looked like he might sell kites on Haight, turned to Dana and said “He’s past that point in his life.”
Too many Richard Wiseman illusions, perhaps.
She stared at the note, reading it or maybe burning the afterimage onto her retina.
And now for an attempt at humor. You have been warned.
He made signs resembling a drowning deaf person’s last wish, but that Dana interpreted to mean “Do not put her on the phone with me.”
Now I’m being a good girl. I’m not going back and editing anything. And it doesn’t all entirely suck. I am, however, starting to wonder what’s going to happen when I run out of material from my time on the hotline. Am I actually going to have to make something up?
Monday I’ll have my first guest post for you, a report about National Disability Mentoring Day. I send you off with something relaxing to watch on your writing break, which should be seen in HD and fullscreen.
On Sunday, November 1, we turn the clocks back by one hour, which is definitely going to give me the edge I need to start NaNoWriMo that day. With my procrastination skills, that extra hour should mean a whole 10 or 11 extra words on my count.
I haven’t been preparing at all outside of contemplating some ideas. I’m doing the literary equivalent of freeballing. It’s the diametric opposite from how I usually approach a writing project, but then those tend to be screenplays and I have no idea what this is going to be. Hopefully a 50,000-word mess, but if I wind up with a 20,000-word lump that doesn’t win…well, I’m just not going to kick myself over it. (Not too hard, anyway.)
I hope to bring you some guest posts on Mondays in November, since I don’t expect to have a lot of energy left over for blogging. I’ve asked some interesting people to share their perspectives on a variety of topics. On Fridays, and put down your drink so you don’t do a spit-take out of excitement, I’ll be posting excerpts from the novel. I’m planning to pick the worst and/or most bizarre segments from that week, so with any luck it’ll be at least mildly entertaining, and possibly even awkward and embarrassing! One can but dream.
Good luck to all you other November crazy fuckers! And happy Halloween too, by the way. I send you off with the most obvious possible video.
