You Have Got To Be Fucking Kidding Me

After a friend of mine mailed me this book today, I came to three conclusions:

1. My friends don't really like me, but know intuitively what will make me shriek in terror.

2. I have to rename that new novel I was working on.

3. One day, I hope to write dialogue this compelling:

From page 7, which is as far as I got in the bathroom today:

"Everyone's having a good time," he said, apparently casually. "People here know how to enjoy themselves. By the way, who's that girl talking to the SHO and the registrar? Have I met her?"

He knew very well that they had never met before.

John shook his head. "Not yet. But you will. She's one of our stars, belongs half to the local university and half to us. She's the university senior tutor for the midwifery course and she also works on the obs and gynae wards. Moves from one to the other. She's good, dedicated to her job. Her name's Jenny Carson." John stood. "Want to meet her? In fact, I've scheduled you to do some lecturing for her. I'll take you over and introduce you." Then he sat down again. "Too late. Looks like she's going. She never stays very long at parties."

I'm looking forward to the sequel, A Very Brady Midwife.

Comments

[Jim Winter]

"he said, apparently casually."

OK, wait just a goddmamned minute! That got past an editor? That's something I'd zap on my first pass through the rough draft. And let's assume, for a moment, I'm drunk (kinda like when I wrote the STAR WARS review calling Lucas a genius. Do they serve Guiness wet?)and missed it.

The second draft goes to my wife, who will cut me off (possibly literally. With a machete.) if I didn't change that. But what if she's distracted? Like she sees Edward Norton naked or something, and it slips by her?

Then the third draft goes to three people who are savage with their red pens. One's a lawyer, one a writer, and the third a schoolteacher. So I run the risk of being sued, trashed on a blog, and given an F for the semester.

There is no way in hell my editor would have ever seen that.

[PoeticaL]

Is gynae a word? Um....yah I didn't think so.

[Karen Scott]

You sound surprised Tod? I read my first Doctor/Nurse romance when I was about two, and I believe I tried flushing it down the toilet. Unfortunately it was my mother's so she wasn't too pleased.

This one doesn't sound half as bad as some of the books I've come across.

The plots are all much of the same muchness. Very hackneyed and steeped in sexism that I equate with the eighties.

Sweeping generalisation I know, but that's just my opinion.

[HelenKay Dimon]

I hear the others in this series - Midwife Does Dallas and Once Upon A Midwife - are quite good as well.

[Graham Powell]

And then there's the comedy classic Take My Midwife - Please!

[Clair Lamb]

I always wondered what the readers of CHERRY AMES, STUDENT NURSE read when they grew up.

[tex]

Tod,

Too bad you stopped at seven. Here's page eight:

"What was in that bag she was carrying? It smelled funny. Bad funny, not clown funny."
"I don't care what it is. She's a medical freak, that's what got her interested in Gynae in the first place," John opined furiously.
"What exacly is Gynae, anyway?" he asked, possibly.
"Lady parts," John twinkled spasmodically. "She's got a double set."
"So how does that benefit me unless I have two penises?"
"I don't know, now that I think of it. I guess you could do one, then the other, and feel like you were hitting some strange. Say, are you up for burning some hoboes?"

[David Thayer]

Her name is Johnny Carson?

[David J. Montgomery]

apparently casually!!!

That's the line of the year.

[JDRhoades]

"Very Special"? Did she ride the short bus to midwife school?

[JDRhoades]

"And then there's the comedy classic Take My Midwife - Please!"

Not to mention that classic of social commentary, "Midwife Crisis".

[Jim Winter]

No matter what, it's still better than Tono Rondone.

[russ]

I'm holding out for Midwife's Anal Confessions.