Jennifer Crusie | Argh Ink | Blog

And thank you all very much.

I didn’t want to use a color twice but I did anyway because I had such good covers for Blue Blood and Blue Suede Shoots. So Rosie just uses blue twice. And the last one had to be called Bet On Black for story purposes, so even though there were better black titles, that one had to stay.

But we have fifteen winners, some of which I did without you (sorry) but many of which came from Argh People:

1. Lavender’s Dead, Killer, Killer (Death of a bride named Lavender)
2. Rest in Pink (Teble) (Death of a beauty contest contestant)
3. Shrieking Violet (Death of a horticulturist)
4. Peaches and Screams (Death at a pie contest)
5. Blue Blood (Betsy) (Death of an heiress)
6. Silver Scream (Magdiego) (Death on a train)
7. Yellow Brick Roadkill (Tara) (Death of a community theater actress/The Wiz)
8. One in Vermillion (RfP) (Death of a painter)
9. Blood Curdling Green (Death at a costume party)
10. Blue Suede Shoots (Chrissy) (Death in a nightclub)
11. Six Feet Umber (Robbie) (Death in a funeral home)
12. Blush with Death (Kwana) (Death of a make-up artist)
13. Gold Dead Fingers (Death of a pianist whose fingers were insured)
14. Tan Little Corpses (Death at a spa)
15. Bet On Black (Death in a casino)

And then because I’m a sad, sad puppy, I became obsessed with doing the book covers. They will not stand up to a lot of attention because I really slapped them together, but I have to tell you, they were fun.

Like this one:

Or here’s all fifteen on Rosie’s Book Page.

And now I must go back to work. But thank you all for playing along at home. You were an immense help.
Or immense enablers. Not sure which.

So I’m thinking about a new book, REALLY far down the road because I have four I have to do first, but it’s about this mystery writer. She’s had some success writing a series about a character whose name I do not have yet, but she’s done twelve now and she’s ready to scream.

So I need twelve mystery titles with colors in the name. And I was killing myself trying to make them up and then I remembered:

Argh People.

So here you go, another play-with-your-brain post. Think pulp fiction, this is no time to get classy. I did some and then Gaffney gave me one, so here’s what we have so far:

Red Hot and Dead
Yellow Rose of Corpses
Gold Dead Fingers
How Now Brown Shroud (from Gaffney, of course)
Lavender’s Dead, Killer, Killer
Tan Little Corpses
Orange You Glad I Didn’t Say Murder?

I’m not wedded to any of those, although I’m pretty sure the Lavender’s Dead one stays. You can do much better, I’m sure. No title is too far out. And don’t worry if you want to use a color that’s already up there, that’s fine.

Swing wide, Argh People.

Oh, and while you’re at it, if you feel the urge, write the blurb for the back cover. I know Tan Little Corpses takes place at a spa. And Lavender’s Dead is, of course, about somebody horrible named Lavender.

Don’t get invested. I’ll probably never write the book. But I do need some twisted titles and I know where to go to get them . . .

ADDENDUM:
I have to get back to work and finish Dogs and Goddesses and instead I played with this, my heroine’s home page.

And now I’m going back to work. ARGH.

You should be very proud.

Adoramilt: Love of Milton
Adosweptation: Love for a man who not only sweeps you off your feet but also sweeps and vacs the house on his day off (Ro)
Affecthilation: Affection for annihilation, mystery readers and writers in particular (Wendy)
Affiction: Love for a great book idea
Affurmation: Love a cat purring in your lap, telling you the world is all right (McB)
Agapupe: Love of a puppy (Teble)
Amorable: So adorable you have to love it (me)
Angoragasm: Love of wearing an angora sweater on a lousy day when you’re sitting by the fire with a good book (Merry)
Armoure: Love of the White Knight come to rescue the damsel in distress (me)
Awwgasm: Passion for cute overload (Egads)

Bowlegged Over: Passion for someone’s prowess at the Reverse Cowgirl (RfP)
Busiwitched: Passion for a great new business idea (Brooke)

Cakche: Ache for cake (RfP)
Chaufferpreciation: Love a thirteen-year-old has for her hopelessly un-hip mother (Rox)
Chromeance: Love for a Harley (Tara)
Chocorgasm: Passion for chocolate that outweighs sex (Elyssa)
Cocoalicious: Warm love when you read a good book with your children in front of you (Micki)

Daddymania: Love a girl has for her relatively unembarrassing father
Disdainamor: Love a cat has for its person (Rox)
Doxporcophilia: Love of dachshunds and pigs together (Jenifer)
Duvetophelia: Love of snuggling under a duvet with your sweetheart when it’s awful outside (Tanya)

Enamorham: Love of hamsters (Wendy)
Enspamored: So in love that you send bad jokes to your loved one every day (RfP)
Erartica: Love of artists and their work (ubergeekmom)
Eviddeadoration: Love of B movies with Bruce Campbell in them
Exasperfection: Simultaneous love and exasperation for spouse (Susanna)

Feedacoldstarveafervor: Passion for following someone you love who has a cold around with chicken soup (Tara)
Felinefishophilia: Love of cats for their food (Susanna)
Felineophilia: Love of your cats (Susanna)
Fiberotica: Passion for yarn
Ficturbanalgia: Longing to return to RiverBend (LtL)
Fidolatry: Excessive love of your dog (Pat)
Fluffilia: Love of a fluffy cat (Talpianna)
Friendshop: Affection for someone you met at the mall (Reb)

Ganachesion: Passion for Dove Ice Cream
Gunndyinglove: Passion for Project Runway

Hobbylobsession: Love of craft stores.

Insanadoration: Love a dog has for its person (Rox)
Insanitiamor: Crazy love (Robena)

Jackiss: Love for your brother Jack, who you used to beat up
Jonamo: Love of Jon (Molly)

Kitkattachment: Love of candy bars

Libreated: Love of books (McB)
LOLCattachment: Love of website with captioned pictures of animals
Lovotion: Hopeless devoted love (DownUnderGal)

Macmania: Love of everything Macintosh
Manomania: Love of hands (Brooke)
Maternalmania: Passion stirred when one’s children laugh (Susanna)
Miltorable: Love for someone too cute to punish (RfP)

Parshill: Love of infomercials (RfP)
Passionaphiliac: Love of passion (Robena)
Petamour: Love of pets (Lou)
Philatelllyic: Love of TVs in postage-stamp size Philadelphia apartments (RfP)
Phyllios: Love of spanakopita, baklava, and anything else made with phyllo dough (ubergeekmom)
Playamor: Love of Spanish beaches (Libby)
Pol’Amour: Love of polar fleece
Punctuaffection: Love of punctuation or punctuality (Chrissy)
Puppiophileism: Adoration of Puppies
Purrversion: Love of two cats at once (Talpianna)

Renovarotica: Obsessive love of redecorating
Roxation: Appreciation of Rox (Molly)

Samoaphilia: Love of coconut-chocolate Girl Scout cookies (Teble)
Shelflove: Kind of love that might happen while browsing the erotica section of the library (RfT)
Shoegasm: Overwhelming love for a pair of shoes in a store window
Sisteragape: Love for your friends after spending a warm, wonderful afternoon with them (ubergeekmom)
Skigasam: Love of shushing down a mountain (Slave Driver)
S’mor-e: Love of chocolate and marshmallow melted on graham crackers (sung to the tune of “That’s S’mor-e)
Sunsation: Passion that rises when you know you’ll be working in the garden again soon (McB)

Techstacy: Passion for a particular piece of technology (Katy)
ThrowmyselfinfrontofacarifIhavetoness: Love a mother feels for her children (Rox)

Veronilove: Love for Veronica
Vinfatuation: Love you think you feel after three glasses of wine (Tara)
Vocamore: Passion for doing what you were born to do (Katy)

Wormeriffic: Love of earworms (Rox)

I found this on an astrology post at the Village Voice by Rob Brezsny (go down to the Virgo entry):

“The Eskimos had 52 names for snow because it was important to them,” wrote novelist Margaret Atwood. “There ought to be as many for love.” Your assignment, as Brezsny suggested, is to coin one.

At the moment I am hopelessly in love with my puppies, so maybe “puppiophileism?”

Or veronilove?

Or amoramilt?

I can also give you “affiction,” the deep love you feel for a new story idea.

Your turn.

Lani just e-mailed Krissie and me and said that she’d heard “My loves grows where my Rosemary goes” yesterday and now she can’t get out of her head.

Krissie e-mailed back with “It’s a Small World After All.”

So I sent them the lyrics to “The Lion Sleeps Tonight.” That chorus is a killer.

I knew there was a name for them, the annoying songs that you cannot get out of replay in your brain, so I googled: They’re earworms and it turns out the reason you can’t dump them is that your brain pays more attention to unfinished things. According to Bill Thompson at the University of Toronto, the key culprits are simplicity, repetition and circularity, and the worst of these is circularity; a song with a circular structure (verse/chorus/verse/chorus) will just cycle in your head endlessly eating its own tail while your brain tries to find the place that it ends. And evidently almost all brains do it: according to another study, ninety-eight percent of people are afflicted with earworms at one time or another, and seventeen percent of people have had the problem last for days (“Dissecting Earworms: Further Evidence on the ‘Song-Stuck-in-Your Head’ Phenomenon, James J. Kellaris, PhD, presentation to Society for Consumer Psychology, Feb. 22, 2003).

The part that stuck with me was the brain being consumed by the unfinished. This explains why writing a book can be so hellish: it takes a year to finish the sucker and your brain knows it’s not done. So you stare off into space, trying to find the end, your brain going into meltdown because the book is just too damn big, placated somewhat by the idea of acts and scenes, but knowing all along that It’s Not Finished and haunting your dreams. You think having “Who Let The Dogs Out?” stuck in your head is bad, try having You Again.

So what are the worst offenders? James Kellaris of the University of Cincinnati compiled a top ten list, but the top spot is “Other;” that is, most people get something individual like “Love Grows Where My Rosemary Goes” or “The Mesopotamians” on their endless loops. We are specific in our attachments. But there were nine frequent earworms that followed “Other”. Read on at your own peril:

1. Other. Everyone has his or her own worst earworm.
2. Chili’s “Baby Back Ribs” jingle.
3. “Who Let the Dogs Out”
4. “We Will Rock You”
5. Kit-Kat candy-bar jingle (“Gimme a Break …”)
6. “Mission Impossible” theme
7. “YMCA”
8. “Whoomp, There It Is”
9. “The Lion Sleeps Tonight”
10. “It’s a Small World After All”

Well, I warned you. And here’s the bad news: There appears to be no sure cure for earworms. Two thirds of the people Kellaris surveyed tried to get rid of the earworm by listening to another song, the dangers of which are obvious. Many people swear that passing the bug onto someone else does the trick. I’d write more but I must go e-mail Krissie and Lani the lyrics to “YMCA.” Just the chorus.

So what’s in your head?