Head Up and Move Out!

I'm pleased to announce that we have our own domain name now ... http://www.operationwrite.com I believe this new site will offer you more functionality and a better browsing experience. So we've moved from blogger to the new site. All the posts have been moved. If you've bookmarked us, please update your bookmarks.

See you on the flip side.

http://www.operationwrite.com/

Introducing Mack

Meet mack. With a bottle of Corona and a box of Trojans he's ready for action. Except, as you can see, this poor man has lost his feet. Mack is one of a lot of ten GI Joes I bought off of ebay missing body parts (mostly feet and legs). You see, I was under the impression that like popping a head back on a Barbie doll it would be easy to fix the GI Joes.

Alas, it isn't.

However, the good news is that I've found someone who restores these figures and I'm currently working on their stories in the hopes that the royalties will cover their "hospital" bills to get them repaired.

Mack is the first.

He sits on my coffee table in my living room atop his Humvee (because as a wounded soldier, he deserves some extra treatment), waiting for me to write his story. Which, I am working on (yes, dear editor, I'm working on it!) in the evenings after work.

There's also Sawyer, Talon, and Van. They'll get their turns.

In the meantime, there's GI Joe sized whisky bottles for everyone to dull the pain.

The Start of My Obsession

Mary calls it her addiction... for me it's an obsession. LOL!

I didn't initially plan for my Joes to take off the way they did. I remember being at a chat last year where we got completely off topic and started talking about Barbies. When I was younger, my sister and I used to have a ton of Barbie dolls but we didn't have many Kens. We ended up cutting the hair on a few Barbies and dressing them up as men so the numbers were more even. "Ken" would go to work while Barbie got to go shopping. I like to tell people that I'm so wickedly warped because of that early start!

At the chat, Laura Baumbach mentioned using GI Joes when she was mocking up scenes and I thought it was the greatest idea. I was having trouble with sex scenes in one of my books at the time and figured the Joes would be perfect to help me figure out positions and where certain body parts were supposed to be.

Little did I know they would take on personalities of their own. Once they had names, I started making up stories featuring them, and then started taking pictures of them in different poses. The picture in this post, of Colt trying to overpower a very naked Rick, is actually the first picture I ever took of my boys. The Joes soon started to appear with special greetings for my closest friends on their birthdays and once or twice Rick would personally email people. He's a chatty one! Everyone got such a kick out of them I decided to start making it public. I'm completely obsessed with my guys (and gals!) and search ebay for props and more additions to my Joe family.

Ooops, I better go... My boys are being impatient for a new scene ;)

Jade

Enter the Polar Bears

The girlie squee was heard around the dealer's room when a vendor who specialized in dolls and accessories for making models handed me the polar bear. She'd been holding him for me, especially after I asked about polar bears because of my work with Bjorn's Mate. I hugged him to my chest, gladly paid the money she wanted for him, and nearly skipped back to my dealers table where I put him with the other figures I'd purchased that day. (Including this handsome blond gentleman).

Kjell (on snowshoes) and Bjorn on patrol. And yeah, if he were really in the Arctic he'd need gloves and a face mask. Except he's a manly man and so can stand out in the snow without them. :)

I used to be an avid model horse collector. (Having a real one preempted my need to have a hundred plastic ones). There is an aspect of the hobby called photo showing, where you put your model horses in a realistic setting and take a picture. The pictures are then judged against each other. How realistic is the setting? Is the tack and rider/handler (if used) in correct positions? Does the horse have the correct confirmation and is the horse's position making him look as if he's doing the job requested.

So to me, taking pictures like the one above, is an extension of that older hobby.

The Start of an Addiction

When I write, it's like a movie runs in my mind. And, like most writers, I have a problem with choreography. Because most of my stories aren't menages, there isn't the too many hands/legs problem. No, it's more what went where and when. After hearing several writers talk about what they used (artist's mannequins, action figures, etc.), I decided to get some GI Joes. I just happened to be at ICON, a science fiction convention, and one of the vendors, who I know from other events, was selling out. I purchased two GI Joes and two Barbie figures, both with bendable elbows and knees, joints, etc.

But having purchased my figures (and a couple of katanas for them, LOL!!!), I decided to go out on ebay. Why purchase one, when I could buy in BIG lots. So I did.

I have 10 GI Joes in various states of disrepair. They're going to the GI Joe Medic as soon as I have the cash, because I thought, like popping a head back on a Barbie, it'd be easy to fix them. Alas, it's not. Plus I have 12 more guys. A plastic three drawer full of guns and accessories and clothing. And yeah, I still have just the two women. 6-1 ratio. Not bad at all. *evil grin*

Ebay is my habit. Ebay is my addiction. And on ebay, you can find all the action figures you'll ever need. LOL!!!

Welcome to my world. My name is Mary, and I'm addicted to action figures. :)