Merriam-Webster’s word of 2007 is W00T, a word I admit to using fairly often myself. W00T illustrates how pop culture (W00T comes from the world of gaming) influences language. Last year’s word was “truthiness”, a term coined by comedian Stephen Colbert on his The Colbert Report.

Just saw this article online. It caught my attention because I once did a report on Amelia Earhart in school. Is anyone else like that — always notice things about people on whom you did reports while in school? Marco Polo is another report subject from way back when. Anyone remember a TV mini-series about Marco Polo and his travels? It was on when I was a kid. Which of the Missing Wonders would you like to find?
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Tomorrow the second round of voting in the American Title contest starts. I would very much appreciate any votes for my manuscript, OUT OF SIGHT. Go here to read the information about the second round and to vote. Thanks!

This is one of the more unique marriage proposals I’ve heard of, but it’s romantic in that it took a lot of thought and planning and will be totally memorable.
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I’m still in holding mold, waiting to hear back from my editor on my chapter outline. I’m hoping I have her response (hopefully a “go ahead”) by the time I get back from a conference this weekend. I’m taking the opportunity to catch up while I’m waiting though — you know, paying bills, cleaning off the piles of stuff on my desk, cleaning, terribly exciting but necessary tasks.
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Anyone catch Heroes last night? What did you think? Do you think the boy who has taken an interest in Claire is a good guy or a bad guy?

I thought this was a cute story about a guy who started an online dating service for farmers.

My sister just sent me the link to a story about the latest business being outsourced to India — local journalism. Yep, stories about Pasadena, California’s local news will be written by two journalists living in India because the labor cost is cheaper. Okay, I can understand outsourcing in some instances, but coverage of local news? This makes absolutely no sense to me whatsoever. And, please, it’s not like local American journalists are rolling in piles of cash. Trust me, I’ve been there.

Yahoo has an interesting article online about the best nine places to retire young. I always love these types of lists. Since the hubby and I have always wanted to retire young, this is of particular interest. Okay, so I’m a writer and my job is portable and I’ll probably never “retire”, but as soon as the hubby is free from life in Cubicle World, it’d be nice to check out other parts of the country. Of the cities on this list, I’ve only been to two — Couer d’Alene, Idaho, and Charlottesville, Virginia. Both are in lovely spots — Charlottesville in the Blue Ridge Mountains and Coeur d’Alene in the upper part of Idaho close to Spokane, Washington. It’s home to probably the most beautiful lake I’ve ever seen.

What would be your ideal retirement spot?

I just read in Publishers Lunch that the Atlanta Journal-Constitution has eliminated its book editor position and may go to just wire copy. This is part of what I, as a journalist and as a book lover, see as a disturbing trend. The corporate bean counters will say that book sections are being eliminated or downsized at metropolitan dailies because of low readership and thus low ad revenue. And therein lies the problem for me. While I understand that papers have to make money in order to be able to be printed and they must increasingly compete with online content, they’ve become too corporate and focused on the bottom line for my taste. There’s something to be said for reporting the news and printing valuable stories just for the sake of public knowledge and education.

And while I’m sure the people who write for the wire services are talented individuals and work hard, the trend of many papers to go with more wire copy bucks what we all learned in journalism school — localize, localize, localize. Even if you have a national story, find the local angle and report it from that perspective. The same should be applied to book sections. Fine, run some wire copy, but don’t nix all of the local-angle book reporting. What is selling at local bookstores? What authors are coming to town for signings? What authors live and write within the paper’s circulation area? What books use the city as a setting? There are a lot of local-angle stories to be mined and made interesting so that readers don’t overlook the book section. It might take a bit of extra work on the part of the editorial staff, but personally I think it’s worth it.

Evidently there’s a cat in England who likes to take the bus to his favorite fish and chips shop. Too funny.

Definitely funnier than the computer woes I’m experiencing today. Hubby now has the hard drive out of my desktop computer hooked up as a slave drive to his computer so he can run diagnostics on it. I tried 20-30 times to book my main computer this morning with no luck. Thank goodness — and Hubby — for my laptop.