Month: May 2012

The Morbid Anatomy Library Needs Your Help!

Stefanie Snider

©Morbid Anatomy Library
(photo ©The Morbid Library)
“The library and cabinet makes available a collection of curiosities, books, photographs, artworks, ephemera, and artifacts relating to medical museums, anatomical art, collectors and collecting, cabinets of curiosity, the history of medicine, death and society, natural history, arcane media, and curiosity and curiosities broadly considered.”

I only just found out about the Morbid Anatomy Library last night during my internet ramblings, and was immediately taken by it. The library has so much of the beautifully obscure: everything from medical models to preserved animals to religious figures under glass.

You can take a mini-tour of the library in this YouTube video. Isn’t it amazing?

Well, according to a recent blog post, the building the Library is housed in caught fire, and many of the oddities there were damaged by water from the sprinkler system. They are currently soliciting donations of money and/or strange artifacts to help restore the Library. If you can help, please visit the Morbid Anatomy blog and let them know.

We need to keep this weird stuff around for us weirdos!

Beyonce And the Illuminati

Stefanie Snider

Guys, I think I’m in the weird part of the internet again.

May I present: Beyonce – Single Ladies (Reversed With Illuminati message)

I honestly can’t tell if this is meant as farce or if this video’s creator believes every crazy-ass bit. What I can say is that watching Beyonce do a jerky, backwards chicken dance is WAY better than the original.

(PS – Yes, I know that “Beyonce” has a little accent on the E. However, two things:
1. I’m too lazy to find the character map right now and
2. This way you can pronounce it Be-YONCE in your head, which is way more fun. You’re welcome.)

SniderWriter Receives Versatile Blogger Award

Stefanie Snider

Ava/Jordanna from Journey of Jordanna East nominated SniderWriter; a big thanks to her! She’s writing a novel right now, and mentioned that the person who nominated her is, too. We’ve got quite the chain going here.

There are a few rules I have to follow to claim my award, the first of which is sharing seven pieces of information about myself. We all know I love talking about myself, so here they are:

1. I live in Canada, and I do have a Canadian accent. I DON’T say “aboot” (unless I’m mocking the stereotype) but I DO say “eh”.

2. I’ve been married now for almost a year, but was with my husband for ten before we did the city-hall thing.

3. We have two black cats, Jade and Zoey. Jade is named for her green eyes, and Zoey is named for Zoe Bell, the stuntwoman in Deathproof. My best ladyfriend also has Deathproof cats.

4. My favourite colour is grey.

5. I’ve always wanted to be a writer, but have also thought about being a nurse, a pathologist, or a mortician. (Can you tell I like guts?) I don’t do any of those things for a living, but my job does involve a lot of blood.

6. My three favourite books are Harriet the Spy (see tattoo here), A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, and Atlas Shrugged. The last often brands me an asshole, but I’m not. Mostly.

7. I am in love with bats. We have them in the backyard, and I love nothing more than sitting in the back watching them flit through the trees at dusk.

I could have done that all day, I’m pretty sure.

The second bit is to nominate another 15 bloggers for the award. Here’s my confession: I don’t get to spend much time reading blogs these days. Between DayJob and writing and family and knitting I’m busy 95% of the time (I sleep the other 5%). I’m kinda out of the loop.

BUT I would like to take the chance to recognize and nominate some of those lovely folks who take the time to comment on this blog. So, thank you to the authors of the following blogs:
butimbeautiful, Journey of Jordanna East, BeckysBlogs, Tonya Kerrigan, Fiercely Yours, Heather Underground, Joseph Pinto, Sore Sport Movies, Underground Walls
(Holy shit! I got all that HTML right the first time!)

Thanks again, Ava/Jordanna, for the nomination. It’s my first blog award ever, and it made my day.

New Project Progress Report

Stefanie Snider

So, as I’ve mentioned before, I’m working on a new project. This one is going to be a collection of short horror stories. Each will be a complete story, able to be read as a stand-alone piece, but the stories themselves share a common theme. I’m planning for this one to be book-length, as opposed to the single shorts I’ve been putting out, and I’m hoping to venture into paper territory (with e-book option, of course).

Pretty exciting stuff.

I’ve had a couple people asking, so I thought I’d throw out a little update on where it’s at:

The first story is complete: drafted, fleshed-out, edited and ready.
It fed into the second story, the one I’m working now, which is almost finished its second draft.
I have plans and loose outlines (the most I ever do) for the other stories, though at this point I’m not entirely certain in which order they will appear in the final work.
I have a firm title that I’m in love with, and some cover ideas.

All in all, if it goes according to schedule, you should see this one available for purchase by end of this summer. Hopefully I’ll be able to bump it up, but as it stands now it’s competing with a commission, so I’m giving myself some extra time just in case.

It’s going to be creepy, and gory, and really, really fun. More to follow; I think you guys will like this one.

Busted!

Stefanie Snider

Books are sacred things around this house: to be respected, and well-thumbed, and loved.

And also, apparently, to provide a place for cats’ asses:

This is Jadie, and she totally knows she’s not supposed to be there. She also knows she’s the boss of me, and hence she got to stay.

Some Guy Who Kills People

Stefanie Snider

Pre-orders are now available! This is one of the funniest dark comedies I’ve seen in a long time.

Learn more here; my review is here. Support indie film!

Rite in the Rain

Stefanie Snider

I was looking forward to coming home tonight. I had plans to sit outside with my coffee and relax under the stars (which I’m sure are behind that smog…somewhere) and maybe write a little.

Anyway. Cue me walking to my car after work. Cue rain and lightning that makes me afraid to put up my umbrella since I’m not in the mood to die tonight. Everything, everywhere, soaking wet. So much for sitting on the steps.

But it made me think of something really cool I saw a while back. An ingenious paper that lets you write even in torrential downpours. I probably wouldn’t be sitting in a torrential downpour, mind you, but Rite in the Rain would totally work in the shower. Or if you’re a little…shall we say…less graceful than others (not saying that I am or anything), it would save your ass if you dropped your writing notebook in a puddle.

Or in the bath.

Or the toilet.

I always carry an index card in my pocket in case I’m struck with an idea. More than once I’ve lost one to the washing machine. They make waterproof index cards, too. How cool is that?

Workouts For Writers

Stefanie Snider

Brew coffee.
Hop from one leg to the other while waiting for percolation completion.
Open the cupboard. REAAACH. Grab the big mug, the one meant for soup.
Fill that bad boy up, and lift. Be careful, here, to put your back in to it. Full mugs are heavy.

Now to the stairs! (don’t forget to count the nine steps from the kitchen through the living room)
And climb. And climb. Clench those buttocks! And climb. Where the hell did all these stairs come from? Whose idea was it to buy a house with a million stairs?!

And dowwwwwn the long hallway. And pullllll out your chair.
Shove the cat off. Shove the cat off. Shove the cat off.

Sit. Get back up for notebook. Sit. Get back up for sweater. Sit. Get back up for music.

Return. Shove the cat off.

Crack knuckles. All of them. Maybe go over them a second time, just in case.

Tense muscles, and PUSH thumb drive in. And PUSH. And PUSH. And LIFT laptop and realize you had it in upside down.

Set laptop down. Breathe. Shove the cat off your lap.

And LIFT coffee mug. And LIFT.

Type for exactly fifteen minutes. Realize you left some notes downstairs. Shove the cat off…