One wonders if she’d have admitted her ignorance if angry gamers hadn’t destroyed her book’s rating on Amazon. But it’s good in any case that she tried to correct her mistake in an interview with The New York Times.

Cooper Lawrence, author of “The Cult of Perfection: Making Peace With Your Inner Overachiever,” appeared on “The Live Desk With Martha MacCallum” on Fox News, and, as previously mentioned, joined in on the slander party, lambasting Mass Effect for its “pornographic” sexual content.

She’s the one who laughed before saying no, when asked if she’d ever actually played Mass Effect.

Deciding to do some research after the fact, she came to discover: “It’s not like pornography. I’ve seen episodes of ‘Lost’ that are more sexually explicit.”

“I recognize that I misspoke,” she said. “I really regret saying that, and now that I’ve seen the game and seen the sex scenes it’s kind of a joke. Before the show I had asked somebody about what they had heard, and they had said it’s like pornography.”

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According to the MTV Multiplayer blog, Fox has said that EA (the new owner of BioWare, developer of Mass Effect) has been invited to appear on ‘Live Desk With Martha MacCallum’ to discuss the controversy over Mass Effect’s sexual content

I’m about to say something potentially controversial myself: Just because you invite the slandered party onto your TV program to refute your lies, it doesn’t give you permission to spew those lies in the first place. You’re still lying. You’re still liars.

In my ever-so-humble opinion of course.

via Joystiq

Our Links section has been updated to include more of the sites we’re interested in over here, and where a lot of our link blog updates are directed.

New Additions:

Celtx Blog
Celtx, the screenwriting software we love, also has a great blog where they cover updates to the software, user projects, and other goings-on related to Celtx and screenwriting.

Copyblogger
An excellent site about copywriting, offering tips, tricks, and case studies to improve your writing.

Creative Commons
Because new media creators tend to be interested in new distribution models and issues of copyright. Ourselves included.

Jane Espenson
She’s written for Buffy, Firefly, BSG, and more, and she blogs to help you write better.

John August
Writer of Go, Big Fish, and The Nines, John August is a forward-thinking, tech savvy screen writer who regularly updates his blog, offering advice and answering questions.

Lawrence Lessig
Creative Commons pioneer Lawrence Lessig has posted about pertinent issues relating to copyright and CC, and now he’s focusing on government corruption.

MAKE: Blog
Because DIY is what new media and participatory culture are all about.

Michael Geist
Copyright is important, okay?

Revision3
Home to some of my favorite video podcasts.

Robert J. Sawyer
The Canadian sci-fi author’s main site has over one million words to help your writing. Oh, and he’s currently writing a trilogy about the WWW gaining consciousness.

Surprisingly enough, they get it all wrong.

No doubt due to the controversy stirred up by Kevin McCollough, who’s since apologized for misrepresenting the game and gamers, Fox News decided to tackle the issue of sexuality and Mass Effect.

Games journalist Geoff Keighley does an admirable job of trying to set the liars straight, but he’s outnumbered. One “expert” suggests that the game desensitizes the player to sexuality (without mentioning that the sexual content is PG-13 levels at the most), and a member of the “panel” asks why the game wasn’t rated Adults Only (again, PG-13…).

Of course, the host admits that she only recently bought a video game for the first time, and another says she feels old, wondering where the Atari went.

And they’re telling viewers what to think about video games. They’ve all made idiots out of themselves, being willfully ignorant and spreading what’s tantamount to lies.

The whole issue would be hilarious if people didn’t actually watch, and believe, Fox News. Instead, it’s really, really frustrating, and more than a little scary.

Update:
Joystiq reminds me that the “expert” actually laughs when Geoff asks her if she’s ever played Mass Effect. Then she says no.

I don’t believe in writer’s block.

Maybe, maybe, a very limited number of people have suffered from a real inability to write anymore. Like a loss of that specific brain function, which sounds like a much more serious problem than a lack of inspiration.

Writer’s block, for most people, is merely a deficit of motivation and a surplus of good old fashioned laziness. But that’s not a “block.” That’s not an inability or an impairment. That’s procrastination.

So what if you’re suffering from my definition of writer’s block, one where you know you should be writing, but don’t? Just like you should be cleaning your house, walking your dog, or calling your mother, but you just can’t bring yourself to do it.

What can you do to get past that sort of block?

Research.

It feels like you’re working, but you still get to avoid real, actual work. Instead of writing, look up some information that will help you once you do start. Feel like going for a walk instead of writing? Walk to the library. Just think about your writing project while you’re walking. Call it outlining.

Just do something even tangentially relevant to your project. At least you’ll have accomplished something. And chances are you’ll start feeling a lot more prepared to write. Which may have been all you’d needed in the first place.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some reading to do.