yesterday morning, i decided that i would just get in the car. do that. get that far in the process. so i got in my car. i felt extremely silly because the garage door was closed. i thought, all right, i’m not making a commitment to leave. i’ll just open the garage door.
then mr. radnor my neighbor was out there. standing in the driveway. what if he wanted to talk? argh. i decided to drive out to the street. just that far. suddenly, i found myself on the highway. and then. . . in crawfordsville, indiana, there’s the beef house. it’s quite famous in a family restaurant big portions wholesome atmosphere way. my waitress was jessica, a new facebook friend who is a mom i admire. she works six days a week, consistently picking up an extra day shift because the economy is so bad. she’s putting her son in a private school this coming year. she’s determined to do right by her kids. i admire that. i know that in a few years they’ll be grown and she’ll be in the position i’m in–able to travel and meet with facebook friends.
today i met f2fb friend #108 laura resnick. we were writing buddies, both of us working for harlequin and silhouette. she’s a way better writer than i am and she’s moved into the fantasy field. we haven’t seen each other in more than ten years. we met at the cincinnati art museum. i didn’t know that cincinnati was once named porkopolis, way back in the early eighteenth century. i think the name cincinnati suits the place better, although the residents have taken a flying pig as their unofficial mascot. there are flying pig statues all over the place. and there’s a flying pig marathon the first sunday in may.
as we entered the museum, she gave me one of her books–
the book is the third in her series about esther diamond, an actress who deals with the supernatural in the form of zombies, angry spirits, sorcerers. like twilight but cooler. she promised me that i get to be in her next book. . . . she calls it tuckerizing. i’m not sure where the term comes from.
next up–i go to roxy’s for fish tacos and beer!
arlynnpresser 
April 27th, 2011 at 10:42 pm
To “Tuckerize” someone, i.e. use their name in a novel, derives from the late science fiction writer Bob Tucker, who was a practitioner of the custom (possibly the originator?). Often done for a good cause, such as a fundraising auction, i.e. you bid for “tuckerization” in the novel of a writer, and the money goes to whatever good cause the auction is supporting.
In UNSYMPATHETIC MAGIC, I tuckerized my friend Frank Johnson, a local radio DJ, by naming a character Frank Johnson. I’ve tuckerized a cousin of mine in my next novel, VAMPARAZZI, by setting some of the action at a fictional off-Broadway theater I’m calling the Robert Hamburg Theater. (I didn’t do either of these for a good cause, just for fun. 🙂 )
April 29th, 2011 at 1:13 am
okay, laura, i am fully prepared to be tuckerized but john r. has an excellent caution–the gruesome death business. could i please just end up being glamorous, five pounds lighter, and happy? in any event, i had a wonderful time at the cincinnati art museum. i was surprised at the beautiful buildings and when you took me to see the river, i was really made aware of how very little of the world i have seen!
April 27th, 2011 at 11:10 pm
Wilson “Bob” Tucker was a well-known and active SF fan and professional writer, publishing a number of SF novels (THE LONG LOUD SILENCE; THE YEAR OF THE QUIET SUN and others) and also a handful of mystery novels. He invented the term “Tuckerize” for his regular practice of writing characters into his novels and stories who were named after his friends from fandom. Not always, but often, those characters died gruesome deaths or suffered unhappy fates. He published his books as Wilson and his fan-writing as Bob.
And now you know what Tuckerizing is all about.
I didn’t check but I’d bet that there’s an entry in the Fancyclopedia II that covers this–but then I’m guessing that you haven’t ever heard of the Fancyclopedia, let alone know that there have been multiple editions over the decades.