Vortexers of Awesome

There is so much I want to share this week; but, alas, Casa Mitchell is under heavy quarantine. I have managed to swerve free of strep and H1N1, but I developed a wicked nasty eye infection yesterday like I've never had before: half arrrg pirate wench, half MMA blow to the lids, and collateral ick Fabio could, no doubt, identify with. So until we turn this fort ship-shape, we'll just have to make this week's posts quick and potent.

Vortexer Erin is keeping it real regarding our resident creepy dentist. She writes:

"Thisman.org is a hoax - if you use the free domain tool WHOIS.COM, it will say that the author of the said website goes by the name of Andrea Natella - a guerrilla marketing specialist. The person is apparently advertises by means of making hoax stories,urban legends and other unorthodox method to increase traffic in a certain website. A year ago, this website was a hot topic for debates back in my hometown in Tampa. Internet marketing consultants suggest that this was another way for a site to go viral and receive a lot of hits for profit. Some say it was a trial site for a guerrilla marketing theory - which was proven later on. People thought they would really dream of THISMAN as disappointment filled the whole town of Tampa; Internet marketing specialists were actually impressed by the idea."

Erin, I am a fangirl and bestow upon you a red booth to travel whenever you choose. Be sure to let us know where and when it took you.

Vortexer Rick has launched a quarterly (paying! I know!) web-zine open to submissions starting in February from an impressively diverse genre pool. If you're interested in getting in on the ground floor of this new project, visit his blog, The Writer and the White Cat. I wish him enormous success-he deserves it after the rough year he's had dealing with overt and rampant plagiarism of his stories.

I'll be back Wednesday with more quick and potent. Until then, Arrrrrgh!

Like My Dentist, But With Bushier Eyebrows

Before we move on to something entirely Vortex, I want to mention the 2011 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Contest.

CreateSpace still sends me notification about the annual event. If you have a full-length novel to offer up to public onions and orchids and your skin is thick, entries are accepted between 1/24 and 2/6 or until the 5,000 entries cap is reached. You can find my take on the contest here. Maybe we were all feeling our way its inaugural year-2007-but I don't think the inter-dynamics of the entrants have changed much. It is the nature of competition's beast and a months-long testimony to the drying up of lucrative publishing opportunities. It's not always a genre-friendly contest, so it's important to look at this year's panel of general fiction and young adult judges to see what writing realm they hail from.

Now for this guy....

Does he look familiar? Has he ever once walked through your dream world? Sat down at the next table in an outdoor cafe? Passed you on the street as you walked to work in your bathrobe?

According to thisman.org, the goal of the site is, "to help those who have seen this man in their dreams and to foster communication among them; to understand who this man is and why he appears in an apparently pattern-less array of situations in the dreams of such diverse human subjects."

Some theorize he's a dream surfer, able to enter people's dreams through heightened psychological skills. Others subscribe to Jung's theory that he is an archetype that emerges in times of stress and hardship. Me? I'm sure it'll end up being some type of social experiment in some psychologist student's doctoral thesis. It is fun to read the testimonials, though. If you can speed read past the jokesters to the legit ones, it can get creepy.

What's your theory on this man?

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