Thiiiis close

Looks like I’ll finish it this weekend, all right: completed the big slam-bang action chapter last night, and it was grand; I was exhausted when it was done, sore in the shoulders from tensing up for an hour, and exhilarated when finished, unable to sleep. Read it today, and it was just what I wanted it to be. Quite happy. Only the final wrap-up chapter now, the tying of the loose ends, the payback, the big surprise, the quiet resolution, the grace note finale – and even that changed yesterday, and added another nice little level of awww to the story. It’s a good sign when the story and the characters gain and grow outside of your own conceptions, and you have to readjust things to let them be who they are.

Anyway, that’s the last I’ll say of it, and we return regular EVERYTHING on Monday. Thank for your patience during this Sort of Hiatus Week. Oh, one more thing: I’ve mapped out the Mill City Quintet now:

#1 1980; #2 1984 – same characters. #3: 1947, a hard-boiled novel. #4, 1989 – same characters as #1 and #2. #5: 2010, with some of the characters from all, and a plot that goes back to #3’s 1947 story. I think I can write them all by the middle of next year. #5’s almost half done as it is. Filling in the middle will be great fun.

Oh: Mentioned on Twitter yesterday that I’d seen a sudden uptick in spam, and it’s the sort that really sticks out: manufactured profiles, complete with avatars, all saying the same thing. They came in two varieties: a quote about love and relationships, and something that pointed to a particular website. The simultaneous appearance suggested a single source for both.

Not hard to find: the profiles of all the “users” who dropped the “romance” quote all had the same homepage, and it’s a rinky-dinky fugly site that’s supposed to be some sort of entertainment hub, but exists at the moment to promote some sports bars in San Diego. It seemed curious that someone would set up a batch of fake accounts that tweet without linking to the site, but perhaps I’m supposed to be overwhelmed with curiosity about all these fun, good-lookin’ strangers who are sending the same damned quote, and check their profile, and hey, they all come from the same site! Wow, I bet it’s full of interesting people, let’s give it a click.

Which is what I did, but on another computer from another location, so the spammer didn’t get the satisfaction of turning a tweet into a hit. At the bottom of the page is the name of the site’s developer; click and you’re at his page, which is equally ugly, and touts his skills in the hot, mysterious realm of SEO, or Search Engine Optimization. Yes he has cracked the code! He can get your Google ranking up Up UP, and no doubt he tells clients it’s because he’s able to “leverage” things like “social media,” which makes the uninformed say, “you meet like that Twitter?”

Why yes, we use Twitter to drive people to your site.

Perhaps, but only in the sense that having your neighbor’s dog crap on your yard every hour drives you to your neighbor’s front door to ask him to keep the mutt confined.

Here’s the impressive part: block one user, and another pops up. Can you possibly think of a better way to earn the admiration and interest of strangers than showing up at their house wearing a mask, shouting something through the window, then coming back with a different mask and shouting the exact same thing?

Since the genius behind this endeavor had his email on his “professional” page, I sent him a letter telling him to stop clogging my Twitter stream with his useless crap. This may seem like a small thing, I know, but when I get a message highlighted because it’s sent to me, it sticks out, and when it’s spam you’re irritated for giving it a second’s thought. When it’s the same spam from the same idiot over and over again, it gets very irritating. You’re not only being spammed, you’re being spammed by a lousy spammer. It’s almost insulting.

Hey, just block and report as spam! you say. Can’t block; each one comes from a new fake account. So. If you’re getting spam that sends you to “garlandeharris.com” or has a profile that links to waZuu dot c0m, you’re in the same boat. ?