stop. start. stutter.

I've been slacking on getting books into my GoodReads, so this morning I sat down and caught up. (We're up to $3.29 pledged per book, which is awesome -- if you're still thinking about pledging, operators are standing by!)

Meanwhile, a funny story to tell: one of the books that I added a review for was Gunga Din and Other Favorite Poems by Rudyard Kipling, which I'd pulled out to read out loud to Sarah the other night when she had a migraine. Why Kipling, you might ask? Well, a few weeks ago she'd discovered, at work, that none of her (highly-educated! highly intelligent!) coworkers had ever heard of either Kipling or "Gunga Din", and she'd boggled about it at the time.

Fast-forward to Saturday night, while we were out to dinner for my birthday with two of our friends; she related this story again, and we killed a few minutes happily trying to remember the entirety of the poem. (For the record, I lose it after the first chorus.) I mentioned "The Ballad of East and West" as one of my favorites for recitation ("Ha' done! Ha' done!" said the Colonel's son; "put up the steel at your sides!" -- I mean, seriously, just say it out loud!) and she hadn't heard that one, so I resolved to read it for her at the soonest opportunity. (She likes hearing me read things out loud; it's the last vestiges of my theatre training. I did a good half of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead for her last month.)

The waiter, an adorable floopy-haired nineteen-year-old, came by partway through to bus the table. I pointed a finger at him. "Have you ever heard of Rudyard Kipling?" I demanded.

"No," he said, and as I theatrically (and tipsily) mourned the lack of education -- what do they teach in schools these days, to borrow a phrase -- he shot back, "Well, do you know what a CRX-500 is?"

I didn't know, but Sarah said, "It's a car. A Honda."

He slunk off, chastened. I firmly resisted the urge to cap it with "she's a better man than I am".

Greetings to everyone who's coming in from United Hollywood!

Thank you, also, to those of you who have pledged so far (I've been emailing people as they email me -- if you haven't heard back from me, drop me a quick line to let me know that something got eaten by my inbox) and those of you who have posted to publicize the effort. This is the kind of thing that works best with attention, so please help get the word out :)

(We're at $2.10 donated to the strike fund for every book I read -- this fact has certainly encouraged me to read some more.)

If you've got a GoodReads account, add me! I hope I can be entertaining while working on this project, and having people watching my reviews will make me more inclined to do them. (I used the site for a while back when I first found it, but it was really hard for me to remember to update it, and I kept falling so far behind that I just gave up.)

Happy 2008, everyone!

I've posted before about the Writer's Guild of America strike, and why I think it's important for any writer to support the WGA in their efforts to receive a fair and equitable deal for their creative labors. I've been racking my brain for something constructive to do, other than the usual (see United Hollywood and Fans4Writers for more details).

I remembered tonight about the Read-A-Thon that many US grammar schools used to do (might still do; it's been a while since I've been in grammar school), where you'd get people to sponsor you for a certain amount of money per book you read in a specified period of time. (I'm still a little bit bitter about them; every year, I was accused of cheating. I read very very fast, and I was reading well ahead of my grade level. There was usually yelling.)

Did I mention I read a lot? And very fast?

Did I mention that I've been wanting to make contributions to the WGA Support Fund, and haven't been able to?

Did I mention that I am occasionally able to put two and two together?

So, here's the plan.

1. You agree to pledge a certain amount of money per book I read, for the length of the WGA writers' strike, to be donated directly to the WGA Support Fund (not through me).

2. I will update my GoodReads profile with every book I read from now until the strike ends. (I'll try to include reviews of all the books I read, too, since I keep meaning to start keeping better track of what I read and what I think about it, but if I get really pressed for time, I reserve the right to just log them in. I'll also warn you that my reading selection is sometimes embarrassing. I have an unholy love of pulp.)

3. To pledge to a certain amount donated per book I read (per month), email me with the amount you wish to pledge per book. (I am serious about the reading fast thing. 50-100 books a month is not outside the realm of possibility. Plan accordingly; you can change your pledge later, or donate extra.)

4. I will add your name and your pledged amount to the pledge list, which I will post publicly as a list of names and amounts. Let me know what name you'd like to appear on the pledge list; I won't post email addresses. If you'd like your pledge amount to be confidential, let me know that, too, and I'll log it in as "unspecified".

5. At the end of every month, I'll send out an email to the donor list (I promise to remember to use the blind carbon copy) letting you know what the tally was for that month. You'll be able to check me against the GoodReads account!

6. The math for how much your donation will add up to will be up to you to perform. I'm a writer. Numbers scare me.

7. Once you've made your pledged donation, email me a copy of your receipt (with any and all identifying information blanked out) from the email address you pledged from, and I will log in the contribution to the Grand Tally.

8. You will get the satisfaction of knowing that you're supporting the content creators who are fighting the first wave of the battle about digital distribution, content control, and a day's pay for a day's work.

Okay, and also, if you send me the receipt every month, I'll enter your name into a drawing for Fabulous Prizes.^*

* The Fabulous Prizes are not guaranteed to be fabulous. I'm thinking things like duplicate books from our library, hand-knit items of dubious quality, things like that. Under the circumstances, I think offering things like DVDs would be tacky. ^**

** Also, I don't guarantee the drawings will be monthly, although I'll try to. And if you win, you'll have to give me your mailing address. No returns or exchanges, void where prohibited by law, must be 18+ to play, not responsible for items lost or damaged in the mail, cape does not enable wearer to fly, etc.

9. This will go on until the AMPTP is willing to negotiate a fair and equitable contract and the strike ends. By pledging, you won't be committing yourself to donating every single month -- let's face it; I'm a writer, I'm not organized enough to chase down people who haven't donated, and if you don't make a donation, nobody's going to come after you with pointy things -- but you will be kept on the email list until you ask me to take you off of it.

10. Accusations that I'm only reading this much to avoid doing Real Work will be laughed at. True or otherwise.

11. I will include novel-length works (or full-length plays in the case of drama), short story compilations or anthologies (in the event I actually read them from cover to cover rather than just cherrypicking), and the e-book equivalents of same (in the event of reading from Project Gutenberg or the like). I will not include magazines, newspapers, websites, blogs, or anything similarly evanescent. If you dispute me on including a specific item, well, feel free to check up on me through GoodReads and debit the disputed item from the count!

Reading material may include, but is not limited to, initial reads or re-reads of any and all of the following: science fiction, fantasy, mystery, romance, pulp detective novels, horror, media tie-ins, Great Literature, theatre, religion, physics, history, sociology, biography, anthropology, true crime, craftwork, political science, technology, biology, literary theory, and, in a pinch, the backs of cereal boxes.

Okay, okay, I promise not to count the cereal boxes, either.

Questions that aren't covered? Feel free to comment, or email and ask. (Non-OpenID comments will be held for moderation; the spam problem was getting freakin' ridiculous again.)