Laura Bradley Rede

Stuff I'm Psyched About Now

2012-01-16T13:57:00.000-08:00

So many fun things are going on this week! I was extremely happy to see this five star review of Darkride on the excellent blog Sizzling Reads, followed by a four star review on the awesome ParaNormal Romance Party blog today (and I loved their favorite quote!) I also had the fun of doing an interview and giveaway with the ParaNormal Romance Party, and they asked some excellent questions, including who I thought Cicely would wind up with in the end and whether I thought there would be a happy ending.

Of course, those questions have been big on my mind lately as I work on the second book in the series, Crossfire. The rough draft is still pretty rough at this point, but I'm starting to see the story take shape and I'm really enjoying writing about a cast of characters that I now know so well. Cicely, Ander, Luke, Emmie - and yes, even Five!- feel like old friends at this point. Which isn't to say that they can't still surprise me! Already every one of those characters has brought something unexpected to the plot of Crossfire and I'm excited about the new discoveries and about taking a more intuitive approach to writing this one. Now, if only I could find a few more hours in the day to write...

How about you? How are your creative projects going? Do you need a little inspiration?
I ran across this article yesterday. It's a list of predictions made in 1911 about how the world would be in 2011. It's fascinating to see how outrageously off some of the predictions are - and how others are dead-on. I think it would be a ton of fun to write a book set in the alternate 2011 described in the predictions. Or how about a whole anthology of short stories by different authors, all set in that alternate reality? With strawberries as big as apples and pneumatic tubes bringing us our food, it would certainly be a cool place to play!

Inspiration

2012-01-11T21:03:00.000-08:00

I think these strange photos by Elle Moss could inspire some beautifully twisted stories. I also think they would make amazing book covers!

Darkride Holiday Special

2011-12-26T13:28:00.000-08:00

Hope the holidays are treating you beautifully! We are enjoying every minute, and to spread the cheer we decided to offer my young adult paranormal romance Darkride at just 99 cents on Amazon from Christmas through New Year's! So, if you know anyone who just got a new Kindle - or anyone who could just use a romantic escape from holiday stress - won't you please pass it on? Thanks! We're wishing you plenty of reading time over the holidays season!

A Little Holiday Lesson

2011-12-24T09:10:00.000-08:00

Okay, maybe as a Twilight fan I shouldn't poke fun, but this actress has all of Kristen Stewart's tics down pat and this is entirely too funny!

Have a great holiday!

Cool Blogs Feature Darkride

2011-12-20T08:54:00.000-08:00

Recently I have been fortunate enough to have some great book bloggers feature Darkride on their sites. Twimom101 Book Blog ran a fun get-to-know-you Top Ten, then gave Darkride a great review. Then Ricochet Reviews ran an indepth interview that was a lot of fun to do - and then gave Darkride an incredibly generous and insightful five-star review! Both these sites are treasure troves of YA that truly support authors and I highly recommend that you check them out to find your next read!

Darkride is Out Today!

2011-12-14T08:40:00.000-08:00

Guess what? My YA paranormal romance Darkride is out as an ebook TODAY! Here's a description:

Ander McNair used to be the favorite son of a great monster-hunting family – until he was bitten by a werewolf and the hunter became the hunted. Now anything that makes his pulse race, even a kiss from his girlfriend Cicely, is enough to turn him into a monster. When he finally has his chance to earn his cure by killing a vampire prince, Ander finds he has to choose between his own past and the future of the girl he loves. Can a guy who’s not even human learn what it means to be a man?

Luke Marianez used to be an immortal vampire prince – until the witch he loved betrayed him and cursed him with the ability to die. Now he lives in the world of vampire blood bars where the waitresses are the drinks, and dreams about killing the last of the witch’s line so he can live forever. But revenge doesn’t just mean breaking the curse. He wants to break the girl's heart, too. Can Luke seduce Cicely without falling in love himself?

Cicely Watson doesn’t believe in werewolves or vampires. She’s not even sure she believes in true love. But she’s about to discover what all werewolves know:

People change.

Want to know more? Visit the Darkride site at www.darkridethenovel.com for a sample of the first chapter, reviews, behind the book tidbits and more!

Want to buy a copy? Here are the links to Darkride on Amazon, Barnes and Noble and Smashwords.

Thanks for all your enthusiasm and support!

Two Days 'Til Darkride (Consider Yourself Warned :)

2011-12-12T09:03:00.000-08:00

Marcy and I were joking that this picture looked like a Luke PSA: "Stay in school, kids! Don't do drugs, and just say no to vampire boyfriends!" My friend David added "This is your heart. This is your heart on vampires." Any questions? :) Well, it's a lot better than your brain on zombies, that's for sure!

(This pic once again comes to us via Creative Commons, courtesy of the Timo Kohlenberg Studio. They do beautiful work.)

Five Days 'Til Darkride, Y'all!

2011-12-09T08:20:00.000-08:00

My YA paranormal romance Darkride comes out next Wed Dec. 14th, so I thought I'd share a picture of one of the characters, Emmie Gardner. Hope you all will get to know Emmie and the rest of the Darkride folks soon :)

(Thanks to photographer Sarah Klockars-Clauser for sharing her photo "Pause for Breath" through Creative Commons. Since Darkride is a no-budget production, I am deeply grateful for the generosity of creative people like her!)

Interview on Blkosiner's Book Blog

2011-11-27T14:17:00.000-08:00

Brandi Kosiner was kind enough to interview me for her excellent blog, Blkosiner's Book Blog. We chatted about which Darkride character I'd most like to have dinner with, what book I'd like to inhabit for a day, and whether pirates are cooler than ninjas! Check it out, and while you're there be sure to read some of her other fun reviews and to sign up for a chance to win a free copy of Darkride!

What think you?

2011-11-26T15:46:00.000-08:00

What do you guys think of my new goth-girl jacket? I bought it at the thrift store today for seven bucks. It's double-breasted and has cuffed bell sleeves. I just had to share :)

Inspiration

2011-11-18T17:51:00.000-08:00

Yesterday Kami Garcia, co-author of the Caster Chronicles (Beautiful Creatures and all), blogged about what inspires her. The photos she posted are so beautifully spooky they inspired me too! So, thank you Kami, for making me want to coin a new words: creepativity, for those things that are so creepy they make me want to create! http://www.kamigarcia.com/writing-inspiration-whats-really-in-my-head-where-it-comes-from/

Dream-like/Nightmarish

2011-11-18T14:08:00.000-08:00

I think these mechanical dolls, from an Oct 2011 Vogue Italia shoot, would make fantastic fodder for a story. Or possibly a nightmare. Or both?

Darkride Cover!

2011-10-31T10:20:00.000-07:00

Happy Halloween and Blessed Samhain! I am thrilled to say that my YA paranormal romance "Darkride" has a cover now! I am eternally grateful to our model, Sage Aurora Magee, and to photographer Rhonda Kist and cover designer Marcy Rede for this Halloween treat. If you want to know more about the book, hop on over to www.darkridethenovel.com where you can read an excerpt and a description of the book in "Take a Taste"and check out more pictures from our graveyard cover-shoot in "Behind the Book." The book's anticipated release date is December 2011.
Have a safe and scary Halloween!

Flooded London

2011-10-23T15:18:00.000-07:00

Today I saw the "Flooded London" pictures for the first time. Created by Squint Opera to be exhibited as part of London Architecture week, these digital images show what the city could look like 80 years from now, when global warming has caused the seas to rise and flood some of the iconic landmarks of London. But this vision of the future isn't dark or apocalyptic. Instead, it shows a time when people have moved beyond the initial tragedy of the floods and adapted to their new circumstances by embracing a simpler, less industrialized life. Although I admit it felt strange to imagine something positive coming out of global warming, I was drawn to these pictures because of what they say about human adaptability and the ability of the world to go on, changed but not destroyed. I liked the idea that nature might have a sort of positive revenge for global warming, the oceans taking our buildings and highways as reparation for the damage people have done. I liked the idea of a sort of manifest destiny of fish. And of course, as a writer, I felt inspired to create in this fascinating setting. Wouldn't flooded London - or any postdiluvian city - make a great setting for a story? Can't you just picture a whole anthology of tales from after the flood? My friend Heather is in the beginning stages of editing a mermaid anthology and she has kindly invited me to submit, so of course now I am imagining a world a century from now, when rising seas have forced interaction between a hidden mermaid species and our own. So many "what ifs" to play with! What if the tide turned on us?

Need furthur inspiration? Here are some beautiful photos of the actual flooding of Paris in 1910.What is it about natural disasters that makes me want to write? :)

Thanatos

2011-10-18T16:10:00.000-07:00

Okay, so you know that I love all things creepy, and obviously I love all things Victorian (or, well, at least all things Victorian in style; there are a few actual things from the Victorian era that I can do without, for example the racism and sexism). So, that said, you would think that I would love The Thanatos Archive - and I do, I really do, but I will also admit that this site gave me the shivers in a very real way. The Archive is a collection of early post-mortem and mourning photographs dating back to the 1840's. Many of them are images of children and young people who are dead, but who have been posed as if they are simply sleeping. This sounds bizarre to us now, but back at the turn of the century it was the custom to photograph the dead as a way of remembering them. Photography was fairly new and expensive and one had to sit very still to be photographed well, making pictures of living children impractical. In some cases, the only picture a mother would have of her child was a post-mortem memorial photo. But knowing how comforting these images might be to the families of the deceased does not make the pictures any easier to look at! As a mom, I was touched by the care that went into many of these photos, the loving preparation of the deceased, but also horrified by this reminder that sometimes mothers outlive their children. Although most of the Archives 1,300 images are viewable only by members, you can take a look through the sample galleries on theThanatos Archive site and you'll see what I mean. Whether photos like this touch you or terrify you (or both!) you have to admit that there is a certain strange beauty about these images, an otherworldly quality that contrasts with the harsh realities of death.

You might wonder how I happened on this unusual site. Well, I was actually looking for the story behind the recent claims that Nicholas Cage is a vampire. I'm sure you heard about this - how a photo dating from the Civil War was offered on ebay for a million dollars as supposed proof that Nicholas Cage is a vampire who has been living virtually unchanged for centuries? Well, Jack Mord, curator of the Thanatos Archives, is the one who offered the photo for sale (and also eventually pulled it off the market). See the photo for yourself here and let me know what you think!

yes, this.

2011-10-13T17:38:00.000-07:00

"If I lose the light of the sun, I will write by candlelight, moonlight, no light. If I lose paper and ink, I will write in blood on forgotten walls. I will write always. I will capture nights all over the world and bring them to you."
- Henry Rollins

Gimme Some Sugar!

2011-10-13T15:20:00.000-07:00

It's the most wonderful time of the year... Okay, so most people sing that at Christmas, but they are WRONG! Nothing beats the Halloween/Samhain/Dias de los Muertos season! This beautiful sugar skull is from Zinnia Folk Arts. Check out the other lively calaveras on their blog!

Hey, Need a Shovel?

2011-10-12T13:59:00.000-07:00

Had you seen this one? Cracked me up.

Also, mad props to the Austin-area hardware chain that reinvented itself as a zombie preparedness center, just in time for Halloween! Way to bring yourselves back to life in this deadly economy, folks - and prepare for the apocalypse at the same time!

It's ALIVE! (sort of)

2011-10-10T11:59:00.000-07:00

The other day I posted about a book on my wish list, Kenneth Oppel's This Dark Endeavor. It's a profile of Victor Frankenstein, the young man who would grow up to be the ultimate monster maker. Well, this little film is about a creature creator of a different sort: artist Theo Jansen, who makes self-propelled kinetic sculptures that move like giant bugs. I find this fascinating in a bunch of ways. Not only is the art and engineering behind these pieces remarkable, they also raise some fascinating questions about what it means to be alive. Jansen refers to his sculptures as "animals" and talks about them living independently on the wind-swept beaches long after he is gone. I have to say, as an artist I identified with his sweetly eccentric affection for his creations, the way he seems to feel parental towards them, and as someone who writes paranormal stories I appreciated his willingness to blur those boundaries between the living and the non-living, because that is a lot of what paranormal stories are about: getting at the crux of what it means to be alive by playing in the shadowy boundary between life and death. As Ander says in my book Darkride, "Does it matter if a heart can beat, as long as it can love?" Or, in the case of Jansen's living sculptures, as long as it can be loved? I say long live the "strandbeests"!

P.S. Don't feel too sorry for me that I don't have Oppel's book yet. Yesterday at the library I scored a copy of Daniel Waters' novel Passing Strange, the third book in the Generation Dead series. I love those books and I particularly love the fact that one of the main characters, Tommy - who happens to be a zombie - has his own blog at www.mysocalledundeath.com. Talk about playing with the idea of what it means to be alive! Check it out :)

Books I Am Coveting Right Now!

2011-10-08T13:30:00.000-07:00

The other day I took my daughter Miranda to our favorite bookstore, the amazing Wild Rumpus, which is right here in Minneapolis. Wild Rumpus is more of an experience than a store, with chickens and tailless cats wandering free and cages of chinchillas and tarantulas. There is even an enclosure of rats that you can watch through a Plexiglas-covered hole in the floor. The rat peep-hole is in my favorite part of the store, a spooky little hut that houses all the "creepy" books: the horror and the paranormal romance and all the other good stuff. The folks at Wild Rumpus have even added a hairless rat to their menagerie, which would usually be enough to keep me entertained for hours, but this time I was entirely too distracted by the books. It seems like there are a lot of especially awesome-looking YA novels out right now. Two in particular caught my eye. In fact, they were driving me crazy, because they looked so amazing and I am currently broke. I wanted to throw a Veruca Salt style fit ("I want it and I want it NOW!") but instead I will have to settle for picking these beauties up as soon as I have the cash!

The first is The Name of the Star, by Maureen Johnson. You can't really tell from this booktrailer but the book is actually a paranormal, with references to ghosts and psychic powers, as well as being a thriller. Check it out.

The other book I'm coveting is Kenneth Oppel's This Dark Endeavor: The Apprenticeship of Victor Fankenstein (a fantastic title, in my opinion) which explores the young adult years of Dr. Frankenstein and explains why he became the monster-maker we know from Mary Shelley's novel. I love origin stories, particularly ones that explore the motivations behind the macabre and make potentially sympathetic characters out of villains, so this book is high on my list.

I would also note that both books get extra points for having beautiful covers. I am cover obsessed right now because my partner Marcy and I are busy designing the cover for my novel Darkride. The cover for This Dark Endeavor (which you can see at he end of this video) is striking, and I can particularly appreciate the quote on the back, "There is a passion in you that scares me." Yes, isn't there always?

Children of the Night is Dead - Long Live Children of the Night!

2011-09-15T12:28:00.000-07:00

So, the blog we know and love as Children of the Night has officially become undead. Technically it is no more (at least, not under that name) but it lives on here at my new author website. As my character Ander says, "Some people survive their own deaths better than others," and I predict that Children of the Night will survive quite well in its new form since I'm going to continue to post the same sweet and spooky content here on the blog, as well as links to my free short stories and news about my upcoming novel Darkride. The old Children of the Night address will still lead you right to this darkened doorstep, or come straight to laurabradleyrede.com. So stick with me, kid. It's going to be a long, dark trip - and that's the only kind worth taking!

Happy Bella Swan's Birthday!

2011-09-13T20:05:00.000-07:00

Okay, you've probably already seen this trailer for Breaking Dawn part 1, but here I am like a good friend giving you an excuse to watch it again. Yes, this is my least favorite of the Twilight Saga books, and yes, the makeup is god awful in this trailer (as it has been in all the movies, imho) but hey, it's still Twilight and that's enough to cheer me up on a semi-crabby day like today. So take a moment to go to your personal Isle Esme and relax )http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=82001

Snapple Scenes

2011-06-21T21:20:00.000-07:00

Every morning I drink a Diet Snapple with breakfast. It’s not for the taste—it tastes like watered down juice—but for the odd little “facts” they print on the inside of the cap. See, every morning I make a little writing game out of them. I imagine that I have to use the fact as the first line in a story. Usually I don’t actually have time to write my story beginnings down. I simply compose them in my head while I do the breakfast dishes or walk the dog or whatever. But this week I decided that I would try to post a few of them here. The following are four different story openings—two one-paragraph bits and two longer scenes—each one using a Snapple fact in the first sentence. Want to play, too? You could start drinking Diet Snapple. Or you could just go to Real Facts at www.snapple.com and find some story-starters of your own.

1) The average koala bear sleeps about twenty-two hours a day. Which means that, if I were a koala bear instead of a thirteen year old boy, my behavior would be considered perfectly normal. No one would be bandying around words like “depression” and “post traumatic” and “treatment.” No one would be having tearful, whispered conversations and no one would be prescribing anything. I probably wouldn’t be at Meadowbrook at all. So, if you think about it that way, the problem is not that I am having a “clinically significant reaction” to the “accident.” The problem is that I am not a marsupial.
But don’t try telling that to your therapist. It will only make things worse.

2) Most elephants weigh less than the tongue of a blue whale. Shocking, right? Kinda puts it in perspective for you? That’s because fat is relative. Subjective. A matter of your basis of comparison. That’s why I sit by Susie “Tsunami” Parker every day at lunch. Now, I know what you’re thinking: Risky move, right? There’s a chance of falling even lower in the rankings, of being declared fat-by-association. But there’s a method to my madness, baby. Seated by myself? Jumbo! But seated next to The Tongue of Blue Shamu? I start lookin’ svelte. It’s a classic designated-fat-friend move and skinny girls have been doing it forever. No reason I can’t, too.

3) If done perfectly, any Rubix Cube combination can be solved in seventeen turns.
I shut my eyes, take a deep breath and twist, feeling the plastic squares click into place like the tumblers on a picked lock. When I open my eyes, it is smiling back at me: six smooth sides, each one perfectly monochromatic, the primary colors of a kid’s block. I let out a little whoop of victory.
But the heavens don’t open up in celebration. In fact, Collin doesn’t even look up from his video game. “What’s the noise for, dumbass? You jackin’ off over there?”
“No!” I blush. “I just solved the Rubix cube in seventeen turns.”
“And what did it say?” He smirks. “Ask again loser?”
“You’re thinking of the Magic Eight Ball. I’m talking about the Rubix Cube. It’s a puzzle of--”
“Let me see that.” Lizzie snatches the cube out of my hand. She turns it over and over, like an ape looking at a nut. “You didn’t really do this. You just peeled the stickers off and stuck them back on.” She wedges one hot-pink nail under a yellow square and tries to pry it up. The edge comes loose.
“You’re messing it up!” I make a dive for my cube, but Lizzy is quick. She jumps up on the couch and holds the cube above her head, twisting wildly.
“Cut it out!” I try to grab it again but only manage to slap the cube out of her hand. It flies through the air and smacks Collin on the back of the head with a dull thwuck.
“Ow!” He drops the joystick and the little guy on the screen explodes in a shower of sparks.
Collin spins to face me. His cheeks are bright red. He leaps for me, his beefy fist connecting with my ear so hard I feel it crush like a tin can. My whole head is ringing even louder than the music on the game. “You ass-wipe!” He yells, “You made me die!”
“No I didn’t,” I mumble.
Not yet.
I crawl across the green shag carpet, past the screen flashing “Game Over.” I pick up the Rubix Cube and cradle it to my chest. It’s all out of joint now, the corners sticking out at awkward angles, the colors in chaos.
I take it firmly in my hands. I give it two quick twists. Snap. Snap.
A single row of red falls into place.

4) There are seven thousand feathers on an eagles and all I need is one. I repeat that like a mantra as I claw my way up the side of the cliff. It helps a little, but not a lot. My progress is still excruciatingly slow; three hours in, I am still a good thirty feet from the nest and those thirty feet are straight up. At this rate, I may never get there.
And I’m not entirely sure I want to. Even this close I can see that the nest is roughly the size of a kiddie pool. It makes me think of a news story I saw about a missing Chihuahua. It was found picked clean in an eagles nest, identifiable only by the rhinestone name on its collar: “Lucky.”
But I am not a Chihuahua. I am an accountant. An accountant who made a promise. Digging my nails into a crack in the cliff face, I pull myself up another inch. The rock crumples a little under my toes and a fine spray of stone goes cartwheeling down behind me, tiny chunks falling all over themselves to get away. I would do the same if there were anywhere to go, but the only way out is down, into the fat snake of the Mississippi. I should never have said I would do this—but how do you say no to your own grandfather’s dying wish? I promised that I would.
Which doesn’t mean I have to. It’s not like he’d ever know now. I’m not the sort of guy who believes in ancestors watching us from the Great Beyond. I mean, it’s a nice idea, but it’s a folk tale.
Like the one about the eagle’s feather that can bring people back to life.

What I Learned Today

2011-01-15T20:21:00.000-08:00

Writing is like playing Pictionary: You may be tempted to just tell the reader something outright, but that would be like just blurting out the word you are supposed to be drawing. It's cheating and it takes all the fun out of it. Instead, your job is to make the reader think of the same thing you are thinking of, by drawing the most concise sketch you can (in scenes that use characters' actions and dialogue to get across what you want to say.) Today I worked on converting a bunch of "telling" to "showing" in my novel, turning a bunch of cheating into actual Pictionary. It was a lot of fun. (And it also helped me understand why some great writers are not necessarily great storytellers, why some people who can craft beautiful prose can not necessarily tell stories that grab me-- and, conversely, why some people whose writing isn't "perfect" can suck me into their stories instantly. The great artists aren't always the one's who win at Pictionary. Sometimes it's the clever stick-figure that gets the image across efficiently, and that's what wins the game.)

Oooh! Sparkly!

2011-01-15T16:44:00.000-08:00

Edward Kitty tempts the Volturi!

Twilight Highlight

2011-01-14T16:55:00.000-08:00

Taking a moment to geek out to a retrospective of Twilight "firsts" courtesy of MTV. Includes a photographic history of Bella and Edward in bed :)
http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1655866/breaking-dawn-bed-photo-our-other-favorite-twilight-first-looks.jhtml

Enjoy!

Backstage? I'll Pass.

2011-01-12T11:30:00.000-08:00

As a vampire-obsessed theatre geek, I truly appreciated this article about the real-life "horrors" behind the scenes of Broadway's "Dracula." Talk about drama!

http://www.nypost.com/p/entertainment/theater/dracula_crew_raises_stakes_zZjzDpQruhzrNmgmKUfDXJ

I Want My Mummy! (but not in that way)

2010-12-17T09:22:00.001-08:00

This video is for anyone who says that we are not in the holiday spirit here at Children of the Night. The fact is, we are always in the holiday spirit-- it's just that the holiday is usually Halloween. But this is a Christmas video, and, I'll warn you, once you see it you can't unsee it.
This video made me quite sure that mummies are not the next sexy monster. You know, demons have always been sexy, vampires got sexy when Bela Lugosi made them rich and aristocratic, zombies are on their way to sexy with the help of books like Daniel Waters' "Generation Dead," and werewolves are sexy now that they have great abs, but I just can't see mummies or Frankenstein's monster getting a sexy make-over. That said, all those other monsters were once thought to be hideous, too, and it's fun to try to imagine what type of spin it would take to give a monster a whole new image. Contemplate that while you "unwrap" this little Christmas gift from the band "Here Come the Mummies."

Consider Yourself Warned

2010-10-15T08:08:00.000-07:00

Every morning I drink a diet Snapple. I do this in spite of the fact that it tastes like... well, diet Snapple. I do it mainly because I like to read the little "Snapple Facts" printed on the inside of the bottle cap. Most of them are things like how many times an adult cheetah could run around the equator in a lifetime or the fact that a banana is a berry. Today, however, the Snapple fact was just three words long: "Snails have teeth." To my under-caffeinated morning mind, this had an ominous ring to it. Like a warning. I mean, who needs to know this and why? Is it, maybe, a reminder to the snails? Is it a call to arms? Like a sort of "the mono pods will inherit the earth," a "slow but steady eats the (human) race"? Or is this some sort of message in a bottle, a cry for help written by some Snapple factory guy being held hostage by escargot? I have no idea. But I considered it my civic duty to post this. Consider yourself warned.

Sign of the Apocalypse--Zombie ASL

2010-10-09T20:18:00.000-07:00

And "Children of the Night" returns from the dead once again for this important message: The zombies are here and they want your brains. They also want you to learn ASL. IMHO, perfect.

How Twilight Should Have Ended Video

2010-08-14T20:20:00.000-07:00

Love this. Love it. Love it. Did I mention that I love this?

Almost to Die For is Out!

2010-08-10T06:28:00.000-07:00

Okay, I admit it, recently I have fallen down on the blog. That's because lately I have been a little out of touch with reality-- and more importantly, a little out of touch with fantasy. I had good reason to be and I'll tell you all about it if you take me out for a Diet Coke but in the meantime I am trying hard to catch up on all the wonderful books and movies I've missed out on-- and to make progress on my own book, too! So, first things first: Tate Hallaway's "Almost to Die For," the first in the Vampire Princess of St Paul series, is available now! You may remember that I have had the pleasure of hanging with Tate on numerous occasions and I've been looking forward to reading this book (described as sort of a Princess Diaries for the paranormal set) for quite a while. So I've ordered mine on Amazon and you can, too.
http://www.amazon.com/Almost-Die-Vampire-Princess-Novel/dp/0451230574

SYTYCD moment

2010-08-07T20:08:00.000-07:00

Okay, so you all know that I am a huge fan of So You Think You Can Dance, right? Well, the other night they had this great group number that was sort of a dark, twisted Mad Hatter's tea party from Alice in Wonderland. I thought it was great-- the feel of it reminded me of "Labyrinth," one of my favorite movies as a kid, and the costuming made the Goth Lolita in me smile. I can't embed it (oh, pooh) but check it out anyhow.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGtYQ2rDWXE

Geek Power!

2010-07-25T13:42:00.000-07:00

Here it is people, the ultimate microcosm of the culture wars, the Good v. Evil lucha libre cage match of the century: the cosplay activist geeks of Comicon counter-protesting against the bigoted right-wing "church" lead by Fred Phelps. Resistance is not futile after all! The Force is SO with us. http://www.comicsalliance.com/2010/07/22/super-heroes-vs-the-westboro-baptist-church/?sms_ss=facebook

Quote of the Night

2010-06-15T22:30:00.000-07:00

"Talk don't cook rice, baby!"

--Chinese Proverb

Okay, maybe a loose translation of a Chinese proverb. "Talk doesn't cook rice" might sound a little more Chinese. And proverby. Proverbial? Whatever.

Quote of the Night

2010-06-14T08:40:00.001-07:00

"Here's the thing. Whether you want to get on the tiger again is up to you. Nobody is going to push you. But you have to ask yourself this: what is more important than the life you deserve?"
--Perry Farrell, frontman of Jane's Addiction

Twilight Class for Teens

2010-06-10T07:21:00.000-07:00

My friend Carrie Mesrobian asked me to spread the word that there are still a few openings in the summer class that she will be teaching, "Revamp: Writing Lessons from the Twilight Series." The class is for ages 13-17 and will meet at the Loft literary center here in Minneapolis from June 21 to July 2. Last year's class had a great two weeks talking about all the important stuff: Twilight, vampires, writing, Jacob v. Edward, and the elements of fiction. With a new movie out this summer, what better time to get together with other Twilight people? There's even a sliding scale fee and you can register online, so no excuses! To find out more, go to http://www.loft.org.

Quote of the Night

2010-06-09T14:19:00.000-07:00

"Are you in earnest? Seize this very minute! Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Only engage, and then the mind grows heated. Begin and then the work will be completed."

--John Anster

Quote of the Night

2010-06-09T14:06:00.000-07:00

"A bird doesn't sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song."
--Maya Angelou

We don't need to know everything about a story in order to write it, but we do have to feel it and we do have to be open to the process of discovering the answers as we go.

Quote of the Night

2010-06-06T07:02:00.000-07:00

"When the Pawn Hits the Conflicts He Thinks Like a King What He Knows Throws the Blows When He Goes to the Fight and He'll Win the Whole Thing 'Fore He Enters the Ring There's No Body to Batter When Your Mind Is Your Might So When You Go Solo, You Hold Your Own Hand and Remember That Depth is the Greatest of Heights and If You Know Where You Stand, Then You'll Know Where to Land and If You Fall it Won't Matter Cuz You'll Know That You're Right."

--the full title of Fiona Apple's second album

You And Me Could Write A Bad Romance

2010-06-03T21:09:00.000-07:00

Here's "On the Rocks" zombie dance to "Bad Romance." You must check it out or I will eat your brain. I'm just sayin.'

Quote of the Night

2010-04-05T20:17:00.000-07:00

"If I should sell my forenoons and afternoons to society, as most appear to do, I am sure that for me there would be nothing left worth living for... I wish to suggest that a man may be very industrious, and yet not spend his time well. There is no more fatal blunderer than he who consumes the greater part of his life getting his living." --Thoreau

Go ahead. Quit your day job.

Quote of the Night

2010-03-23T06:57:00.000-07:00

"Nature seems to exult in abounding radicality, extremism, anarchy. If we were to judge nature by its common sense or likelihood, we wouldn't believe the world existed. In nature, improbabilities are the one stock in trade. The whole creation is one lunatic fringe...No claims of any and all revelations could be so far-fetched as a single giraffe." --Annie Dillard, from Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

Happy, freakish spring!

Now You Know What To Buy Me As a Samhain Present

2010-02-25T19:35:00.000-08:00

Okay, so Samhain is a ways away yet, and gifts aren't exactly the tradition, and you may not have a thousand bucks lying around to blow on little old me, but... you must check this out. It's an entire Days of the Dead themed doll house lavishly decorated by "artistamuerta." I have been crazy for Dia de los Muertos ever since I worked as a tour guide in an exhibit on Mexican popular art about fifteen years ago now. The thrill of spending every day surrounded by the calavacas and retablos and the beautiful, ornate ofrendas for Dia de Muertos altered my personal aesthetic forever. Go take a look at every detail, then get inspired to make your own tribute to the dead because every dia belongs to los muertos around here, right? http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=20249619&ref=sr_gallery_1&&ga_search_query=days+of+the+dead&ga_search_type=category&category=art&ga_page=14&includes[]=tags&includes[]=title

Quote of the Night

2010-02-20T09:02:00.000-08:00

"There are good guys and there are bad guys. Whatever you do, don't forget which side you're on." --my five year old son, Harrison, explaining the rules of the game

Yesterday, Harrison also informed me that "the longer you stay alive, the older you get." Wise kid. But then this morning he also told me that he had to wear his hockey mask while driving his race car or else penguins would fly in his eyes, so consider the source... :)

Quote of the Night

2010-02-17T12:49:00.000-08:00

"Everything seems impossible until it is finished." --Nelson Mandela

Okay, so Mandela was talking about sweeping, revolutionary social change and I am just talking about writing one little book. But the sentiment remains the same.

Quote of the Night

2010-02-08T06:38:00.000-08:00

"Do anything, but for goodness sake do something weird."
--Elsa Maxwell

Dog on the Blog

2010-01-30T20:29:00.000-08:00

Okay, this doesn't technically have to do with writing but I just had to share the fact that our family adopted a new dog today! Zeus is a one-and-a-half year old blue merle Great Dane. He comes to us as a rescue and is the world's biggest puppy-- at 120 pounds, he is quite underweight for his height, and he still has about six months worth of growing left to do. So far he is settling in nicely. He hasn't tried to eat any of our three geriatric cats and he is adorably submissive to Magic, our fourteen-year-old blind dachshund. The kids are thrilled with him. My two-year-old daughter Miranda spent the afternoon asking him over and over "What's your name?" and then telling me, dismayed, "He not talkin'!" She also kept encouraging him to sing along to Highschool Musical and was a little put out that he didn't just join in on the chorus. I can see why; Giant breed dogs really seem like people. When our St Bernard Chaucer passed away two years ago he left a huge hole in our family. Zeus is a very different dog-- a puppy, where Chaucer was a wise elder-- but I still have a feeling that he is going to fill some of that hole. Now, if I can only convince him not to cry for us all night, when we are upstairs and he is down... Wish us luck!

Skull-a-Day Blog is Amazing

2010-01-28T21:45:00.000-08:00

I am in love with artist Noah Scalin's Skull-a-Day blog http://skulladay.blogspot.com/ In June of 2007, Noah announced that he would be creating one skull image a day for a year and posting them to a blog. He went on to create 366 images in a huge variety of media, from metal work to sparklers to carved soap, then opened the blog up to daily submissions from readers who create mind-blowing works of skullage. I got turned on to the phenomenon at my local library when I picked up the book Skulls, published by Lark Books, featuring 150 images from the first year of the blog. You must check it out-- and while you're at it, download a free font based on the artist's skull-alphabet. I sense a new tattoo coming on...

Fire and Ice

2010-01-20T21:17:00.000-08:00

Well, guys, this is the first time I am posting my own fiction here on Children of the Night-- but I hope it won't be the last. I hope this short story "Fire and Ice" will be the first in a very occasional series I'm calling "Deadtime Stories." This story was inspired by photos taken by my friend Tracey's daughters, Chloe Hollister-Lapointe and Willow Hollister-Lapointe, and their friend Maedya Kojis, so huge thanks to them for sharing some of those photos here. And huge thanks to you for reading!

Fire and Ice
by Laura Bradley Rede

I wake up at two a.m. to the smell of something burning. Shivering in my quilt, I roll off the futon couch and stumble the few feet to the kitchenette. Nothing. The microwave is empty, the toaster unplugged, the oven off. Yawning, I head for the Christmas tree. It’s plastic, after all, and covered in second-hand lights, so it’s a holiday miracle that it hasn’t gone up in flames already. But the tree is fine, the tinfoil star on the top twinkling peacefully.

I sniff the air. Still smoke.

Is mom sneaking a cigarette? She sometimes does when she’s stressed out, which is essentially always. I poke my head into her room, ready to scold her, but she’s tangled in the covers on her own futon, safely sleeping behind the barricade of boxes we haven’t bothered to unpack. I stand and look at her for a minute. It’s weird to see her so calm. Her face doesn’t look like her face without the wary crease between her eyes. Usually she’s so vigilant; I’m surprised the smell of smoke didn’t wake her. It makes me wonder if I’m having one of my little psychic things.

But just when I’m starting to worry, a siren screams past our building and I know that the fire isn’t all in my head. I push aside the shade in time to see a second engine flash by. A few blocks away the fire glows like a false dawn. Above it the smoke stretches upwards like a dark thread threatening to unravel the city below.

I feel a wave of guilty relief. There really is a problem.

And for once it isn’t mine.

By the next morning I’ve forgotten all about the fire. I grog out of bed, sleep through my shower, and toss on clothes to match my mood: black on black on black. Back in the kitchenette I help myself to two cups of coffee—also black, as black as my jeans, as black the sky outside. My mother hates it when I drink coffee. “Sabine,” she says, “You’re only sixteen. And you, of all people, can’t afford to stunt your growth.” She’s right, of course, although we both know that it’s the Faery blood that makes me small for my age.

And I’m free to stunt all I want this morning. My mother is still fast asleep, exhausted from working late. She used to try to have breakfast with me to “keep the lines of communication open,” but lately she’s pulling extra shifts, squirreling away money for something secret. A Christmas present for me, no doubt—which I guess should make me happy, except for the fact that I know it’s sort of a consolation prize to make up for the fact that she has dragged me to frigid Minnesota, a world away from my life in New York. My real school. My real friends.

And Hawthorn. Most of all him.

I sip the last of my coffee slowly, trying to store away some of its warmth for my long walk to school. Against my better judgment I turn on the radio weather report but I’ve missed the temperature. Instead the meteorologist is going on about the limited hours of daylight and I realize that tonight must be the Winter Solstice. It’s shocking how out of touch I am. Back in New York I would have been prepping for Solstice for weeks. There would have been rituals and raves and Court functions to attend. Here it feels like just another ordinary day.

I glance in the mirror on my way out the door. Once upon a time I would have bothered with makeup. Today I just scoop my shoulder-length hair into its usual pony tail. The blue dye that used to match my eyes so perfectly has faded to a sort of aqua and the blond has grown out above it. I suppose I should dye it some other color, but I just don’t have the heart. Hawthorn suggested the blue.

Outside I bury my face in my parka, pull my hat low and walk like the Minnesotans around me: eyes on the icy sidewalk, gloved fists clenched, shoulders stooped under the weight of winter.

Which is why I am almost on top of it before I see it, sitting right in front of me like a present: The burned-out hull of what was the Fulton Furniture Warehouse. It is completely gutted, utterly destroyed.

It is also the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.

It’s clear that the firefighters tried to save it. They must have sprayed it down with about a billion gallons of water—all of which froze. Now the blackened skeleton of the building is entirely coated in a shining layer of ice. Icicles—some tiny as needles, some thick as tusks—hang in gleaming stalactites from the burnt out beams. The front display window is a gaping hole lined with icicles and razor shards of glass, like the triple rows of teeth on a shark. The sign above the hole has melted and warped, red plastic running into the milky snow like blood.
As I stand there, staring, the first light of day breaks between the buildings and it looks as if the warehouse is on fire again, frozen fire, sparking tongues of flame caught mid-leap. Screw school, I think. Pushing aside the yellow caution tape as if it were a cobweb, I step through the empty door.

Inside is like a crystal cave. I wander from room to room, admiring the damage. The first few rooms are hollowed out by fire but further in some of the furniture has survived. Ice makes abstract sculptures of the melted plastic chairs, like centerpieces for some grotesque wedding. A wrought iron light fixture has been transformed into a crystal chandelier. Frost paints lace on a glass table top. The pendulum of a grandfather clock hangs still, suspended like a bug in white amber. But there is still a steady ticking, the drip drip drip of water from icicles like venom from fangs, which makes me wonder if the fire is still smoldering somewhere in the heart of the wreckage. The sound makes me strangely sad. I want to talk just to drown it out, just to watch my breath bloom reassuringly in front of me. “Some say the world will end in fire, some say in ice…” They are the first lines of a poem we learned in English class back in New York. I smile remembering the poet’s last name: Frost. “From what I’ve tasted of desire I hold with those who favor fire--”

“But if it had to perish twice, I think I know enough of hate….”

I freeze. I would know that voice anywhere. I hear it in my dreams. “Hawthorn.”

“Sabine.”

I turn and there he is, sitting in a charcoaled arm chair like a prince on a dark throne. He smiles at me, the beautiful, crooked smile I remember so well from New York. “You don’t know how much I’ve missed you.”

His breath doesn’t plume when he speaks, but I know that it would if he wanted it to. Hawth does an amazing impression of a human. I fell for it completely the first time we met, totally believing that he was just the rumpled preppy boy who sat beside me in English lit-- maybe a little too good looking, maybe a little too smart, but I assumed completely human.

It’s hard to imagine that, now that he has abandoned the human thing completely. He looks nothing like he did the last time I saw him. Like everyone in the Faery Court, Hawth changes his appearance with the seasons, as easily as an arctic fox changes its fur. When I last saw him a year ago this fall his hair was warm cinnamon, his eyes the color of caramel apples. Now his hair is spiked short and so blond it’s almost white. His eyes are the pale blue of the sky before snow. Only his clothes are dark, the traditional black of Winter Solstice, the Victorian jacket and slacks so different from his usual jeans and t-shirt.

But his quirky half-smile is the same, and his voice is like coming home.

“Hawthorn, what are you doing here?”

He stands with that fluid Faery grace and takes a step towards me. “What am I supposed to be doing here, you mean? The Queen’s bidding, of course. What choice do I have?” There’s a bitter edge to his sweetly musical voice. “She saw this place in a dream and sent me to prepare a circle here for tonight’s revels. You know she can’t resist fire and ice. She’s greedy for beautiful things.”

Things like you, I think. Hawthorn is beautiful, even for his kind. If he weren’t would Queen Madhart have bothered to collect him the way she did? “Then,” I say carefully, “You are here on official business.” I try to sound casual, but I know he must hear the disappointment in my voice.

“No.” He takes a step closer, voice lowered to a whisper. “I came for you.”

Those are the words I’ve been waiting to hear, the ones he has said in my dreams a thousand times. So maybe my dreams were premonitions after all and not just wishful thinking. Still, I know it’s too good to be true. “You know what the Queen said. No liaisons with mortals. She threatened your life.”

We both know it’s not an empty threat. There is very little that could kill a Faery like Hawth. For a human to do it would take an iron weapon specially forged and enchanted for the purpose. There are only a few enchanters strong enough to make them. But for Queen Madhart, killing Hawth would be easy. She already owns his soul.

“No liaisons with mortals. The Queens hasn’t changed her mind. But…” He hesitates. “But I hoped that you might have changed yours. Sabine, there is enough Faery blood in your veins that you could survive the Change. If you chose to embrace it, to claim your magic--”

“And give up my humanity. Yes, I know. And I’ve thought about it. I really have. I barely think of anything else.”

“And?”

I can hardly stand to extinguish the spark of hope in his eyes. “And I’m still not ready. I mean, life here sucks sometimes, but to give it up, to pass through the Veil completely and become something else, to watch my mom and my friends get old and die… It’s different for you. Faery is your world, and you can visit this one whenever you want. But once I pass through the Veil I can never come back to this world. And Faery isn’t my home.”

“It could be.” His voice is quiet. “Faery can be a beautiful place.”

Beautiful. And terrible. Hawth knows that as well as I do—better, really. I shake my head sadly. “I can’t.”

His face is full of pain. “If that is how you really feel.”

Is it? I’ve made the decision a thousand times over in my head, but now, looking at him, I find myself wavering. That’s certainly how I felt back in New York, when I had so much human life to lose: my friends, my aunts and cousins, my photography, even school. But my mom took me away from all that when she took me away from Hawthorn. Now I wonder if her plan has backfired. Trying to save my human life, has she screwed over everything that made it worth living?

But there is still her. Angry as I am at her, I love my mom. Could I leave her alone completely? This isn’t leaving for college or even running away from home. There would be no coming back.

Hawth sees the answer in my eyes. His own gaze drops to the icy floor. “Then I will have to be the one to change.”

“What?” His words catch me completely off guard, “What are you talking about?”

“There are ways, Sabine. Ways that a faery can become mortal. It isn’t easy. There would be pain. But it can be done. I had considered it before, as a way to escape my servitude, but there was never enough to motivate me. Until now.”

“You would do that for me?” I am thrilled and horrified at the same time. The thought that Hawthorn would love me enough to sacrifice his magic is more than I would have dared to hope. But the thought of him mortal and vulnerable, able to age and die… “The Queen would be furious,” I say, “She would hunt you down.”

Hawth shrugs. “She could do that now. As long as she owns my soul, I’m hers to do as she wishes.”

“But there are laws about killing Fae,” I say, “There’s protocol. But mortal life means nothing to her.” I should know. I’ve come close to being her prey many times over.

“But at least I die free,” He says. “At least I die with you.”

With me. My heart is screaming yes yes yes! But free? Sure, he would be free of servitude, but Hawthorn doesn’t know what it’s like to be mortal. How would he feel, trapped in a human body, his cells aging and dying all around him? The way he looks now—frost glittering in his white-blond hair, his skin smooth and shining like the surface of a frozen lake—he is so clearly a creature of magic. How could he stand to be an ordinary guy? How could I stand to see him become one? The shadows of the icicles fall across his perfect face like the bars of a cage. “No,” I say, “I don’t want you to.”

“What?” The hurt and surprise on his face make him look more human. “I thought you would be happy.”

I have to lie, for his sake. “The truth is, I was just starting to get over you. To move on. I can’t get dragged back into this whole thing. I… I just don’t have the energy.”

He lowers his gaze. Somewhere nearby an icicle cracks and falls, shattering like glass. It’s like the sound of a heart breaking. “As you wish, my lady. I’ve only ever cared for what you wish.”

What I wish. No, if things were as I wish, Hawthorn and I would be together forever. If they were as I wish he would take me in his arms and kiss me now.

Well, at least I can have part of what I wish. “Goodbye,” I say, and I kiss him.

His peppermint lips are cool, his arms around me solid as frozen ground, but they send a warm thrill through me that melts something in my core, something that has been frozen since the day I left New York. I can feel myself going liquid at his touch. The heat between us is enough to burn this building all over again and send the flames leaping even higher than they did last night. Fire and ice. Two things that can never coexist.

Two completely different worlds.

“You can’t have her.”

The voice behind me breaks the magic silence. I pull away from Hawth and spin around. “Mom!”

She is standing there, her winter clothes bundled hastily over her flannel pajamas, a huge iron sword in her hand. I understand too late that all my mother’s working and saving wasn’t for a Christmas present to impress me. It was for a weapon that could kill the boy I love.

I back away from Hawthorn. “It was a kiss goodbye.”

Of course she doesn’t believe me. I barely believe it myself. Her voice is quiet and sure. “You can’t just walk away from his kind. He has you enchanted, Sabine.”

“Mom,” I say, “It’s not like that with us.” But how can I convince her, after what she went through at my age? The Fae can be so cruel to mortals with the Sight, seducing and using and abandoning them like they are the groupies of some endless band. Nothing I say will change her mind.

And there’s no time for talking. Not now, with my mother gripping the giant sword in both hands like a baseball bat. To mortal eyes, the iron looks dark and clumsy, but as I shift into the Sight I see it in all its glory: flaming like a Solstice bonfire, so magically powerful it fills the dark warehouse with its light. It must have cost her a fortune, everything we have and then some. Anything to save her little girl from the one thing that makes me happy.

“Mom,” I say, “Put the sword down.” She’s no swordswoman, but it wouldn’t take much skill. Even one cut from a weapon like that would be enough to wound Hawth badly.

"I won’t.” Her face is dark and cold as the iron. “Not until he leaves us alone.”

Hawth’s hands are up in surrender. He keeps his voice calm. “I have no desire to come between you and your daughter.”

“Then go.”

Hawth forces himself to look away from the threat so he can look me in the eye. His voice is quiet. “Is that what you want?”

I believe that even with his life at stake, Hawthorn would stay if I asked.

But I nod my head. “Yes. You should go.”

For a moment he looks every one of his two hundred years. “As you wish.”

And then, as suddenly as he came, the one good thing in my life is gone. All the warmth in my body seems to go with him and I am suddenly aware that I am standing in a cave of ice on the coldest day of the year.

But that isn’t why I’m shaking. The tears I’ve been holding back for months now threaten to freeze on my cheeks. My mother lowers her sword, takes off her knit scarf and wraps it tightly around me, using the edge of it to dab at my eyes. "There there," she says, "It's over."

Yes, I think, that’s what I’m afraid of.

That was almost a year ago and we’ve been everywhere since—Austin and Savannah, San Francisco and D.C.—anywhere we can lose ourselves.

But tonight I’m done running from my problems. Tonight I’m running towards them.

“Gonna be a long, cold night.” The guy in front of me turns around in his seat and gives me a nicotine-stained smile. “Kinda makes you lonely.”

Well, I could say, tomorrow is the longest night of the year. But I decide it’s better to just ignore him. He probably thinks I’m defenseless, a teenage runaway on a Greyhound bus. Well, I’m about as well defended as people get. I shift and feel the weight of the stolen sword in the bag across my lap. Its magic glows warmly in response.

“What?” The guy says, “You got a boyfriend?”

I look out at the frozen cornfields as they flash by in the dark. Almost to Minneapolis. “Not yet,” I say, “But I will.” As soon as I fight the Faery Queen and win Hawthorn’s soul back once and for all. I have a sword now. A sword, and a whole box of matches. And I know the Queen will come. Because, like Hawthorn said, she can’t resist the power of fire and ice.

Really, I think, who can?

Quote of the Night

2010-01-20T15:29:00.000-08:00

"I love to see a young girl go out and grab the world by the lapels. Life's a bitch. You've got to go out and kick ass."
--Maya Angelou

Tell it like it is. The ability to grab the world is definitely something we should wish for our readers and our characters and ourselves.

Deadlines or "Lifelines"?

2010-01-06T10:29:00.000-08:00

Is this how you feel when you're facing a deadline? Or are you one of those people who thrives when she's expected to produce? I tend to procrastinate but I'm getting better and ultimately I think I work better with a deadline since open-ended
projects don't always get done. Creative projects have a lot to compete with at my house since three young kids and a bunch of pets and a constant battle with house entropy take up most of my energy! Having a deadline on a creative project helps make it a priority. What about you? What's your deadline style?

Zombielicious

2010-01-04T08:14:00.000-08:00

Q: What do vegan zombies say?
A: "Grains! GRAINS!"

It's That Time of Year Again

2009-12-31T09:17:00.001-08:00

Time for New Years writing resolutions! If you want to have a few witnesses to your good intentions for 2010, feel free to post your resolutions in the comments of this post and we'll do our best to encourage you and keep you honest :) Personally, in the past I have focused my resolutions on meeting self-imposed deadlines or increasing writing time, but this year I am starting by focusing on getting back to the things that make this writing thing fun for me. I am vowing in 2010 to disable my inner editor, at least for a while, since I have found that nagging little voice is really inhibiting me lately. What about you? Whatever you are concentrating on in this new year, I hope 2010 brings you plenty of writing joy and success.

Dangerous Wands

2009-12-25T21:26:00.000-08:00

Don't say I never gave you anything for Christmas. This parody of "Dangerous Minds" and Harry Potter is hysterical.
http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1925557

Happy Holidays!

Christmas Ghost Stories

2009-12-24T08:04:00.000-08:00

When my cousin Jenna was little, she used to say that the "stockings were hung by the chimney with scare" rather than care (Santa Claus freaked her out a little). Well, turns out that if she had been alive during the Victoian era she wouldn't have been far off! The Victorians loved ghost stories, especially on Christmas eve-- a tradition that I would bet harkens back to people telling scary stories on the winter solstice to ward off the darkness (but for an interesting conversation about other reasons for ghost stories at Christmas, check out http://ask.metafilter.com/140167/Link-between-Christmas-and-ghost-stories ) Only one popular Victorian ghost story has stayed a part of our American Christmas-- Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol," which seems to come up with a new mutation in the movies or on TV every year-- but you could say that movies like "The Nightmare Before Christmas" keep the tradition alive. If you, like me, wish that Halloween was year-round, maybe it's time to incorporate a little horror into your holiday. I'd start with Bryan Terry's article on Victorian Christmas ghost stories, along with his detailed reviews of his top ten scary stories at http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/430703/the_best_10_ghost_stories_for_long.html?cat=38 . Or, if you prefer to read only authentic Victorian ghost stories around your Yule fire, check out The Fusionalists, a site which bills itself as being "for the modern Victorian" at http://www.thefusionalists.com/victorianghoststories.htm . They have thirteen complete reprints of popular Victorian scary stories for you to read right there, plus a plethora of awesome articles about the era that would make for great research for writing your own Victorian ghost story. So heat up that hot chocolate, put on your best Victorian gown and your Yule log video and get ready to shiver... and not just from the cold.

The Eyes Have It

2009-12-23T12:30:00.000-08:00

My friend Kelly McCullough just posted the cover art for his novel "SpellCrash" over at the Wyrdsmith's blog, and I must say his main character Ravirn is looking good! "SpellCrash" is the next installment in the popular WebMage series, an extremely creative science-fantasy saga that melds modern technology and ancient mythology in ways that will make your head spin. It's not YA, but I couldn't resist sharing it here. Check it out at http://wyrdsmiths.blogspot.com/

Happy Solstice!

2009-12-20T21:09:00.000-08:00

Well, it seems only fitting that a blog called Children of the Night should celebrate the longest night of the year! My family and I are Wiccan, and one Wiccan tradition for winter solstice is to stay up all night telling stories while the Yule log burns as a way of passing the longest night in the light of community. So, I'm hoping that the stories are flowing freely for all of you tonight. I think that, as folks who love to write and read about the paranormal we have a special understanding of the battle and balance between light and dark, so blessed Solstice to you!

Switching Teams

2009-12-19T08:56:00.000-08:00

In case you missed this...Taylor Lautner plays a tween Team Edward fan on SNL. Too good.

Quote of the Night

2009-12-16T10:19:00.000-08:00

"If something is hard to do, do it a lot and practice and it will make it harder to be hard." --Harrison (my five year old)

Just something to keep in mind while we write!

While I Should Be Writing

2009-12-11T07:51:00.000-08:00

I am working on my novel. I am. Really. It's just that sometimes I have this urge to create weird little things that don't involve words. I sewed this little guy out of "upcycled" wool sweaters that I bought at the Salvation Army. Sorry, zombie fans, he's not a voodoo doll. But he does have a little magic all his own, don't you think?

Now back to the novel. Really.

Beautiful Creatures On the Big Screen!

2009-12-10T20:00:00.000-08:00

Well, as you may know, "Beautiful Creatures," the bewitching paranormal romance by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl, hit the shelves this month. What I didn't know is that the book has already been optioned by Warner Brothers for a movie! http://www.thewrap.com/article/warners-picks-witch-franchise-10986 I am thrilled to hear it, but not at all surprised. "Beautiful Creatures" seems perfectly suited to the big screen because the writing is so visual. The gothic Southern setting with its misty graveyards and decaying plantations will be gorgeous on the screen and the magic (just think of Lena's cousin who is able to transform his arms into snakes, for example) is a special effects person's dream. And the book is full of quirky, interesting characters that should draw some great actors. I personally can't wait to see who they cast as the main characters, Lena and Ethan! But the fascinating thing is that the movie will be made before the five novel series is even finished! I guess the folks at Warner Brothers know a good thing when they see it and they aren't going to drag their feet. I for one will be watching. Midnight premier, anyone?

The Worst Pies in London (But the Best Clothes)

2009-11-30T15:54:00.000-08:00

I finally watched Sweeney Todd, the Johnny Depp/Tim Burton movie of the Broadway musical that came out a few years ago, and now I just want to magically transport every costume in the movie to my closet. Even the little extra street urchins get gothic and gorgeous clothes! I was totally inspired and woke up this morning wanting to dress like Mrs. Lovett for the rest of my life. Lately I have been working a grunge-grey-gardens thing, sort of like if Courtney Love was a granny, but now I'm leaning more towards the corpse bride. Amazing!

And speaking of fashion, have you been to All Saints? http://www.us.allsaints.com/womens/ It's like how the Cullens would dress if they were in a garage band in 90's Seattle and it's gorgeous. But my main fashion inspiration right now is Tavi's "Style Rookie" blog http://tavi-thenewgirlintown.blogspot.com/ . (That's actually my main inspiration for writing right now, too, because Tavi, the creator of the blog, is 13 and she has such an intelligent, quirky, honest voice. I spend a lot of time with Old Adults trying to write in the voice of Young Adults, and it is very refreshing to actually read something extremely well written that is coming from an honest-to-goodness YA!) And of course there's Sea of Shoes http://seaofshoes.typepad.com/ But my most important fashion news of the day is that I finally got a kitty hat-- hand crochet and a whopping six bucks so merry early solstice to me :) Okay, must stop talking about clothes now and get back to work...

Art of Darkness

2009-11-29T00:01:00.000-08:00

Do you know what the main problem is with the majority of blogs today? You guessed it: not enough zombies! Well, that's a problem you will never encounter here at Children of the Night. Which is why I wanted to share the work of artist Jillian McDonald, who has created some thought-provoking and generally cool work focused on zombies (and with the occasional vampire thrown in for good measure). Her work ranges from video (the two-screen installation "Vampire Hunt" shows a vampire hunting on one screen while her prey flees on the other-- with McDonald herself playing both roles) to the portraits in her "Zombie Series"-- images of ordinary people who transform into zombies when the picture is viewed from another angle, thanks to the magic of lenticular images. But the works that fascinate me most are the performance art pieces that disrupt daily life, such as the piece in which McDonald organized a large group of people to blend into the crowd on a commuter train and then, simultaneously on cue, to take out make-up and silently transform themselves into zombies. If that doesn't express how I would feel about holding a nine-to-five job, I don't know what does. In an interview in the feminist magazine "Bust," McDonald commented that "the biggest dilemma for horror movie protagonists is that they inevitably become what they fear the most." I think that is a valuable insight to keep in mind as we write our monster stories-- and as we live our lives.

Here are some great still from "Undead in the Night," a performance piece she did in Sweden. Check out the rest of her work at http://jillianmcdonald.net/zombie/ or at http://jillianmcdonald.net/media.html

The Tofurky/Vampire Connection

2009-11-26T20:15:00.000-08:00

Well, it's Thanksgiving and my family is celebrating in the usual way: with delicious tofurky! That's great, you say, but what do your vegan festivities have to do with the paranormal? Well, maybe more than meets the eye.

The million-dollar question in the media today is why vampires? Why now? Well, of course there are a million reasons why vampires are popular. Some of them are obvious-- vampires are bloody sexy-- but some reasons are less obvious. For example, I think that the zeitgeist is connecting with vampires right now partly because the vampire myth deals with the ethics of eating-- a huge issue in our culture today. Everyone who writes about vampires has to decide how their vampires feed and what their relationship is with their food. Are they traditional vampires, hunting their victims? Are they A.M. Jenkens "hemes" who respectfully charm their unknowing victims into a daze before they use a sharp object to extract a little blood? Or maybe they are Octavia Butler's vampires, sensually seducing an entire harem of willing donors. Maybe they are Scott Westerfeld's cannibalistic monsters, or Stephenie Meyer's vampires, who have abdicated their place at the top of the food chain in favor of what they consider a more ethical way. How your vampires feed matters. And how they feel about how they feed? That matters even more. Because whether they are conflicted or at peace, whether they see themselves as monsters or victims, says everything about them-- and about the writer who created them. And possibly about our society, too, because the last few decades have made us aware of the ethics of eating in a way that we never were before. As humans today, we are very aware that we may be the monsters who are sucking the blood out of our environment, out of the animals, out of workers in other countries. Our reaction to that knowledge dictates how we eat. Are we vegetarian? Vegan? Do we buy organic or fair trade, care about whether our coffee was shade grown or our dairy cows were given growth hormones or our chickens were free range? Every step we take at the grocery store, right up to how we answer "paper or plastic," is an ethical decision we have to weigh. So is it any wonder that we are fascinated by vampires? The "vampires dilemma" is our dilemma, too.

Twilight Mom

2009-11-19T14:07:00.000-08:00

A friend pointed out this CNN piece on Twilight Moms. http://edition.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/Movies/11/16/older.twilight.fans/index.html (Thanks, Julie!) You know I'm obstinate enough to resist being part of any demographic (are Twilight Moms a voting block? Like Nascar Dads?) but I have to admit that I fit the description! Sadly, however, this is one Twilight Mom who won't be seeing New Moon this weekend. No, I don't have tix to the midnight show. What I do have is out of town company and a two-year-old with croup. So don't send me any movie spoilers and I'll be looking forward to seeing it next week. To everyone I know who will be seeing it in the next few days, HAVE FUN!

In Vogue

2009-11-14T20:30:00.000-08:00

When I saw a favorite novel of mine, "Beautiful Creatures" by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl, in the December issue of Teen Vogue, I freaked a little (in a good way!) Teen Vogue noted that the book has been generating "major Twilight-level buzz." I have to say that even as I was reading the ARC for this book, I had the feeling that I was in on the ground level of something that might just be the Next Big Book. Here's hoping the Teen Vogue buzz helps that along!
Go visit those beautiful creatures at
http://www.hachettebookgroup.com/features/somelovesarecursed/index.html

Good luck!

2009-11-13T14:14:00.000-08:00

We feel you, Bella :) Happy Friday the Thirteenth, people!

Twilight Class Number Two

2009-11-06T08:21:00.000-08:00

Well, I'm finally getting around to posting about our second night of Twilight class-- that is, of "Revamp: Writing and the Twilight Series," taught by Carrie Mesrobian at the Loft Literary Center here in Minneapolis. And what a class it was! In retrospect, I think that, at our first class, we were all still feeling each other out, trying to sense how free we would be to critique the books. Would the others in the class tolerate criticism of the Twilight saga? Or were they such super fans that they would hesitate to find fault with the books? Luckily at our second class we seemed to have come to an understanding that, because we are admitted Twilight fans, we are the ones best qualified to critique the books-- a sort of reader's version of familiarity breeds contempt. No one thought that it was strange that we could shift from berating the books for using too many cliches to gushing about how excited we are for the midnight premier of New Moon, all without skipping a beat. We certainly did cover a lot of ground in this second class, from a discussion of prologues in general and their function in the Twilight books in particular, to a sort of character makeover for Bella-- what would you change about her character and why? We talked about the fact that Bella is, in many ways, a blank slate. She doesn't have that many decisive character traits, hobbies or interests. While that may be the secret of this book's success-- the character of Bella is so non-specific that readers can easily imagine themselves in her place and live a fantasy romance vicariously-- good fiction typically thrives on specific, even quirky characters. So we tried to re-imagine Bella and found that many of us wanted her to be more active, with stronger interests and opinions. This raised some interesting questions. For example, do we as writers-- and particularly as people writing for the supposedly "impressionable youth"-- have an obligation to create "role model" heroines? Do all female protagonists have to be the strong young women we wish girls would emulate? And if we do have an obligation to offer up role models, how do we do that while still creating characters who are flawed enough to grow over the course of a book, imperfect enough to be relateable? Those are the questions that have been on my mind this week.

Tomorrow it's back for "Twilight" class number three, when we will dive into New Moon with a discussion of romantic cliches. Stay tuned! :)

Blockbuster YA Theory

2009-11-06T07:13:00.000-08:00

Last week at "Twilight" class someone brought up the fact that Bella seems to have guys throwing themselves at her as soon as she arrives at Forks High Schoool, but she doesn't seem to have an interest in any of them. What gives, this reader wanted to know? Well, the question made me think of a post I wrote a while ago for the group blog I write with the other members of my critique group, the Death Pixies. It was about something that I called my "Blockbuster YA Theory"-- although, since then I have renamed it the "Airhead Theory" because Meg Cabot's YA novel "Airhead" is the ultimate example. I actually had been thinking about the Airhead Theory recently because I realized, to my surprise, that even Suzanne Collins' brilliant Hunger Games books can be seen as following the Airhead Theory because, although Katniss is living a total nightmare, it has some elements of a wish-fulfillment dream (being on TV, famous, having stylists and assistants, beautiful costumes, etc.) To explain, here is a reprint of my original Death Pixies post:

"I love to read the big "blockbuster" best-seller YA and middlegrade series and try to figure out what makes them tick. Why is "Twilight" or "Harry Potter" a phenomenon? What put "The Princess Diaries" in the NY Times number one spot? Why do kids write Rick Riordan every day to tell him that Percy Jackson changed their lives? Of course there's no one answer. The thing that makes a book go super nova may be as mundane as the publisher's promotions budget or as esoteric as tapping into a zeitgeist-- the book hit at the right cultural moment. But I think there are certain things that flip a YA reader's switch, and my theory is that one of them is this: the protagonist has to have an "enviable problem." Are you in love with a vampire who is driven to kill you (Twilight)? That's a problem. Is he also gorgeous, ageless, drives a porche and has a psychic sister who can predict the stock market? That's an enviable problem. The darkest wizard the world has ever known wants you dead (Harry Potter)? Problem! You're a hero to a secret magical subculture and a legacy kid at a school for magic? Enviable problem. Does every monster in the Greek myths want to eat you (Percy Jackson)? Too bad. Is it because you're dad is secretly the god Poseidon, and you can now control the waters and command flying horses? A problem anyone would envy. The tricks are this: First, the problem and the enviable aspect must be inseparable. You can't have one without the other. Don't give your protag a killer problem, and them give them something cool and enviable in some other, unrelated aspect of their lives. It just won't work. Second, and MOST IMPORTANTLY, your protag can not revel in the enviable aspect of the problem. Harry Potter is never fully thrilled with his celebrity in the magical world. Bella Swan doesn't care about money or fancy cars. Percy Jackson may have a moment of feeling that it's cool to control the tides, but he's ambiguous and conflicted in his relationship with his divine father. The list goes on. The thing is, if your protag digs the enviable aspect of their problem too much, it will cancel out the negative part of the problem. The stakes will become too low, the reader won't care, and the story will jump the shark because it reads as wish fulfillment. More importantly, if the protag enjoys the perks too much they are claiming those perks for themselves-- and in effect taking them from the reader. As long as Bella Swan doesn't enjoy that new Ferrari Edward bought her, I can enjoy it. But if she starts to brag about how great her car is, it's not mine to enjoy any more. She has become someone I envy rather than someone I'm living through vicariously and so she has lost some of my sympathy.This theory mainly works for fantasy YA (and there are many fantasy blockbuster YA novels) but also works with some non-fantasy that has a high wish-fulfillment aspect (Meg Cabot's Princess Diary series, Teen Idol, All American Girl, etc.) Of course it doesn't apply to everything, but I still think it's a fun game to play. Any thoughts? "

Children of the Night Full Moon Edition

2009-11-01T15:59:00.000-08:00

Can you believe a full moon so close to Halloween? Makes you feel like anything could happen... Which means, of course that we are due for a lycanthrope moment-- and due to start the final count-down to the New Moon movie opening! Here's the "sizzle reel" (I love that term) for the New Moon wolf pack. Enjoy!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

2009-10-31T10:55:00.000-07:00

...and a blessed Samhain to you all! Wishing you joyful reading and writing in the (Wiccan) New Year and a Halloween worth howling about!

What Teens Read (Good News for the Day :)

2009-10-29T08:24:00.000-07:00

Fascinating article in Publishers Weekly about a Teenreads.com survey of YA readers. Although the publishing industry has been hit by these hard economic times, I found this survey reassuring for authors of YA scifi and fantasy.

http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6703770.html

First Night of Twilight Class

2009-10-28T08:15:00.001-07:00

Last night was my first night of Twilight class-- that is, of "Revamp: Writing and the Twilight Series," the class being taught by Carrie Mesrobian at the Loft Literary Center here in Minneapolis. As you know, I have been geeking out about this class for weeks now, looking forward to it actually beginning, and it felt sweet to be back at the Loft and in a room full of like minded folks-- about eight like minded women and one like minded man, to be exact, every one of them individuals I look forward to getting to know. Last night was mainly a "get to know you" session, and it was interesting to hear how each of us got involved in the Twilight saga: everything from "I started reading the books when I was pregnant" to "I read them all when my honeymoon week was rained out" to "my grand-daughter made my daughter read them, and she made me read them." But no matter how one started the books, we all agreed that it was hard to stop. Almost everyone read the series very quickly, popping one book after another like potato chips, and at least one person expressed a sense of mourning and loss when the books were over. In fact, it seemed clear that many of us were there to try to prolong the Twilight experience, even though there aren't any more books to read! Beyond that, we'll have to see where the class discussion takes us, whether the class runs more towards analysis or fandom or a mix of both. So far I think I'm the only class member trying to write and publish YA, but that will change when my friend Heather catches up with us next week. I would say that the class reminded me of a Twilight Anonymous meeting, except that no one really seemed to want to kick the habit (although we were all pretty willing to be objective about the books and discuss their political and literary shortcomings, we are all very much fans.) We have an Atlantic Monthly article to read for next meeting, which should get the discussion kicked off nicely. I'll be sure to keep you posted!

Pardon Me, I Have A Little Frog At My Throat

2009-10-26T11:36:00.000-07:00

Sometimes it takes so little to make my day. Tell me, do you remember this one?

Barebones Halloween

2009-10-23T21:06:00.001-07:00

For any of you who are in the Minneapolis area (or who can get here fast, because it's worth the trip) I want to make sure you know to got to BareBones Productions' annual outdoor Halloween puppet extravaganza. It is really impossible to do the experience justice, but it's sort of a giant storytelling spectacle on the mythic themes of Samhain and Halloween and it is all the "p" words that such a thing should be: pagan, punk, puppetish, political, pageantry, performance art... Seriously, nobody gets the annual descent into darkness like we Minnesotans. We live it and we ritualize it well. My partner Marcy was part of the second-ever Barebones Halloween show in 1995, and she and I were both in the third one-- and it's not too late for YOU to be part of this one, since all the shows grow out of a major community effort and they have roles for volunteers right up to the last. And just being in the audience is a trip, too. You will freeze your ass and open your mind. http://www.barebonespuppets.org/

To give you a taste, here's a film of the fire battle from last year's show:

Quote of the Night

2009-10-23T07:58:00.000-07:00

"Never moon a werewolf."
-sage advice from my friend David Pacheco. Thanks, David.

Love Song

2009-10-22T08:15:00.000-07:00

The class I am taking about "Twilight" starts next week, so to get in the spirit I thought I'd post this fan video set to Annie Lennox' "Love Song for a Vampire." (Seriously, what is cooler than the combination of vampires and Annie Lennox?)

Scare Up Some Books

2009-10-20T08:35:00.000-07:00

Writer Shawn McGuire has compiled a great list of truly scary horror books to help you pass the cold October nights. Most are YA or YA-appropriate and spooky enough to give you nightmares. Consider yourself warned! http://shawn-mcguire.livejournal.com/

Cool Trailers

2009-10-17T12:36:00.000-07:00

Okay, you all know how I adore book trailers! Here's a link to the three finalists in the Kirkus Review's contest for student filmmakers. Each filmmaker was asked to create a trailer for an upcoming YA novel to be published by Delacorte Press. I think the results are excellent. Take a look and vote for your favorite. http://www.barnesandnoble.com/kirkusbva/?cds2Pid=29166&linkid=1484858

He Takes After Me

2009-10-14T08:10:00.000-07:00

My five year old Harrison drew this lovely picture. He says it is a "vampire oozing cherry blood." Fantastic! (I'm sure you can't tell in the picture, but he used his glitter pens to make it. Do you think that means his vampires sparkle? :)

Don't Forget Your Daily Zombie

2009-10-09T19:16:00.000-07:00

Okay, I admit it: I have a tiny bit of blog envy-- but only because Teresa Wilde's "Demon of the Week" blog is so darned cool. And for the month of October, it gets even cooler (colder, in fact, and a bit clammy) because October is zombie month! Yes, Teresa is featuring everything zombie, from writers like Amanda Ashby, author of "The Zombie Queen of Newbury High," to a video by the makers of Shaun of the Dead on how to deal with the undead, to a parasitic fungus in Thailand that turns ants into real zombies. The grand finale will come on Halloween when NYT Bestselling author Angie Fox will be guest blogging. And best of all, you can read it all while drinking your "flaming zombie"-- yes, the blog includes instructions on how to make one. Don't you love a blog that thinks of everything? (And because I read this blog, I am now an early adopter of the term "zom-com." That's a comedy featuring zombies, to you. See? Learn something new every day!) Check it out at http://teresawilde.wordpress.com/

Where Are The Normal Boys?

2009-10-07T21:50:00.000-07:00

One of my first posts to this blog was in praise of the novel "Beautiful Creatures" by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl (due out this December). I found a lot to like about this book, from its eccentric cast of small town characters to its haunting Southern setting to the timeless star-crossed romance at its heart. But aside from all that, there was something else that set "Beautiful Creatures" apart: It is the story of a normal boy who falls for a paranormal girl.

What, you ask, is so unusual about that? Well, anyone who reads a lot of YA paranormal romance knows the pattern: a girl who perceives herself as ordinary falls for a boy who is supernaturally extraordinary-- an angel or a demon or a werewolf or a vampire or what have you. It's a pattern I enjoy-- and my current novel-in-progress follows it to a degree-- but I sometimes worry that part of the reason that this pattern works is because girls have been socialized to think that they are only special if they are loved by a special boy, that they are "extraordinary by association" and not in their own right. So reading about girls with supernatural powers and boys who represent for the humans can be a refreshing and potentially empowering change of pace. But if a reader wants to switch it up, where can she find a normal boy?

I put that question to a yahoogroup I'm on for people who write YA. Here are the books they recommended:
"Blood and Chocolate" by Annette Curtis Klause
"Wake" by Lisa McMann
"Wings" by Aprilynne Pike
"Rampant" by Diana Peterfreund
the Maggie books starting with "Prom from Hell" by Rosemary Clement-Moore

Although I haven't personally read any of these books, the recommendations were extremely enthusiastic and they are now on my "to read" list. But you may notice that even my yahoogroup-- which has seven hundred well-read members-- couldn't come up more than a half dozen books that buck the usual trend. That, however, may be changing: At least four authors came forward to say that they had paranormal girl/normal boy romances coming out soon. Do we smell a trend? And if we do, will more girls with supernatural powers mean more empowered girls? I'll be keeping an eye out for those forthcoming novels and let you know as I spot them on the shelves!

Children of the Night Full Moon Edition

2009-10-02T16:35:00.000-07:00

"A midwest monster of the highest grade
All my teachers thought it was growing pain..."

Nothing like the Cramps to capture the angst :) This song goes out to my werewolf character Ander and to all the teenwolves in the world. Happy full moon, y'all!

New YA Imprint

2009-10-01T11:44:00.000-07:00

Sourcebooks has announced the launch of a new YA imprint, Sourcebooks Fire, and from the starting line-up of books it seems that there will be plenty to love for fans of paranormal YA and contemporary fantasy. I also appreciated the passion of their mission statement and their apparent respect for their readership. To check it out http://www.sourcebooks.com/independentvision/sourcebooks-announces-new-young-adult-imprint-2.html

Quote of the Night

2009-09-30T07:06:00.000-07:00

"We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be."
--Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

Well, winter has officially fired a warning shot across the bow of Minnesota. It's about 37 degrees out as I write this and, although that will feel warm next spring when we are used to sub-zero, right now it feels freezing. The good news, however, is that this change in the weather means that we are officially entering the Halloween season, my very favorite time of the year! I thought that this quote felt right for today because the Halloween season is about the power of what we pretend, of who we present ourselves to be. And who knows more about pretending than writers? So, what are you pretending to be today?

Quote of the Night

2009-09-25T08:08:00.000-07:00

So, I got together with some of my writer friends from the Death Pixies critique group last week for coffee. As usual the conversation was all over the map, from theories of the multiverse to swine flu, from Cirque de Soliel to South Park. But we always come around to writing eventually and in this case to the subject of revision. A few of us are in the midst of revising our first novels and we all strongly agreed: revision makes our heads hurt. There is just something about revising a longer project-- some combination of being detail oriented while still seeing the big picture of theme and through-line and character arc-- that makes the brain feel like salt water taffy. So tonight's quote is a reminder:

"Your job in revision is to recapture the first excitement and know it again, not as a promise but as a promise redeemed." --Stephen Koch

No small feat. When you have been living with a project for a while it can be hard to have the perspective to remember what it was that first captured you about this particular story, these particular characters. It's like recapturing the romance of a first kiss after twenty-five years of marriage. But it can be done, especially when you are able to share your novel-in-progress with supportive writer friends who will share your excitement. So, go forth and redeem the promise. (Too much? Well, you know what I mean :)

Someone Came Back From The Grave and All I Got Was This Cool T-Shirt

2009-09-24T17:30:00.000-07:00

There is something about the undead that inspires t-shirts. It's true. Try typing "vampire" or "zombie" or "Days of the Dead" into something like Cafe Press and see how many options come up. Thousands. But every once in a while one stands out. So here's our t-shirt for today. It's from Tina Seamonster and it cracked me up. If you love it, go to http://www.tinaseamonster.com/. She has many hand-crafted, zombie-related treats, including zombie holiday cards and book marks that say "zombies are crap at knitting." Too. Sweet.

Disney Ahoy!

2009-09-23T08:12:00.000-07:00

Okay, so this is a bit off topic, but I just had to express my excitement over the fact that Tim Powers' novel "On Stranger Tides" has been optioned by Disney so that elements of it can be used as the fourth "Pirates of the Caribbean" movie! I had the pleasure of getting to know Tim Powers a bit last summer when I spent a week in LA as one of the winners of the L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future contest. Tim was one of our workshop leaders. He and K.D. Wentworth spent a week with the thirteen of us who had won, leading us in intensives on writing and publishing. Tim is brilliant and dryly funny and a great speaker. His novels are completely original and some of the things he told us in workshop really changed the way I think about story structure and about the business of writing. I hope this new deal with Disney with just bring him further success! Can't wait to see the results!
http://www.locusmag.com/News/2009/09/powers-novel-optioned-for-new-pirates.html

Your Story Rules

2009-09-18T20:19:00.000-07:00

The first short story I wrote in my adult life was about a werewolf. I asked a good writer-friend of mine to read it and he gave me a lot of useful feedback, but the comment I remember most is this: “Monster stories are all about the rules.”

Well, I suppose I should have realized that. After all, I was a teenager in the 80’s with five younger brothers, which translates into roughly six billion viewings of “Gremlins” --probably the ultimate monster rules movie. So once he said it, of course, I knew it was true. When I read a story about werewolves or vampires or zombies, I’m looking to see how the author is going to put his or her own spin on the rules. How will the monsters be made? Killed? What are their powers and limitations? At this year’s WisCon, the feminist fantasy and science fiction conference, I went to a panel on the “care of your vampire,” which was basically a group of vampire book authors comparing notes on the rules they used to govern the worlds of their stories. It was fascinating to hear how different their takes were, given the fact that they were working with the same folklore as a starting point. It occurred to me that, as a reader, I do not care so much what the rules are, as long as they are strongly stated and consistent. Your vampires may sparkle in the sunlight or they may turn to ash and—although both those choices have very different symbolic connotations and change the story dramatically—I am willing to buy either one if the author truly buys it. I am a theatre geek and one thing you learn in acting classes is that, when you play a character, you must make strong choices, regardless of what those choices may be, and commit to them completely in order for an audience to believe in that character. I think the same thing can be said of writing.

Now, I haven’t always felt this way. When I first started writing, I was afraid to give my stories strong rules. I was insecure in my ability to create a plot and I thought that rules would only trip me up, cause me to paint myself into a plot corner or to violate my own guidelines accidentally, invalidating my story. Besides, wasn’t this fantasy? Shouldn’t anything be possible? Since then, however, I have learned more about world building and I’ve come to understand that stories in which literally anything is possible—stories with no rules for their monsters or magic systems or what have you—are actually not that engaging. Reading one is like watching a tennis match without knowing the rules of the game. It’s not very exciting to watch, and you certainly aren’t tempted to jump in and
play. On the other hand, if you do know the rules of a game--or a story--you can easily move from observer to player. I remember reading Scott Westerfeld’s “Midnighters” series, YA novels that take place in a world with complex rules. One of the rules is that the monsters of the story are afraid of multiples of thirteen. In one scene, the characters have stuck thirteen knives in a door to ward the monsters off. When I read that one of the knives had been knocked loose from the door, I felt a real rush of panic. I had internalized the rules of the story so completely that I felt like I was a part of that story.
It’s an experience I never would have had if Westerfeld’s rules had been wishy-washy or the consequences unclear.

Now, this isn’t to say that you can’t have exceptions to the rules. In fact, the premise of many stories depends on there being someone or something for whom the rules don't apply. But you have to set up strong, consistent rules first and then violate them intentionally, for a reason. And if you do, you may find that your story functions on another level. Because monster stories are “all about the rules” in another sense, too: they are all about our society’s taboos and the consequences for violating them. But if we want to use our monster stories as a consistent metaphor for something in the world around us, we have to make the world within them air-tight first.

Buffy Animated Series

2009-09-14T21:51:00.000-07:00

I needed a little Buffy in my morning! This is the trailer for the proposed animated series that never actually happened. I have to be real-- I don't love the voice they chose for Buffy. But it's still extremely fun to see some of my favorite characters in cartoon form!

Greetings From LaPush, Wish We Were There

2009-09-13T13:38:00.000-07:00

My friend Gillian is traveling in the Forks, Washington area-- setting of the Twilight Saga-- and was kind enough to share these beautiful pictures of Third Beach in La Push. If you need a refresher, La Push is the home of Jacob Black and his werewolf pack and Third Beach is the close cousin of First Beach, the setting of Jacob's fateful conversation with Bella-- the one in which he spills the beans about the Cullens being forbidden to come on the La Push reservation because they are suspected of being "Cold Ones." Looking at these beautiful photos it's easy to imagine that something supernatural could happen in La Push. Gillian said she fell in love with the place and was very tempted to stay and I can certainly see why! Add some vampires and werewolves and the place would be perfect ;) As they say in the Twilight movie: "La Push, baby!"

Thank you, Gillian, and safe travels!

P.S. Gillian said that the fans are excited in Forks. The best button she's seen so far? "Team Mike: I like to keep it human" :)

"...the mile long crescent of First Beach was familiar to me. It was still breathtaking. The water was dark gray, even in the sunlight, white-capped and heaving to the gray, rocky shore. Islands rose out of the steel harbor waters with sheer cliff sides, reaching to uneven summits, and crowned with austere, soaring firs..." Bella's description from Twilight by Stephenie Meyer

Almost to Die For Cover!

2009-09-11T16:41:00.001-07:00

You may recall that a few weeks ago I was squeeing excitedly over the news that author Tate Hallaway was crossing over to YA with her new Vampire Princess of St. Paul series. Well, the first of the series, Almost to Die For (due out in Aug 2010), now has a cover and let me say it's a beauty. Check it out at http://wyrdsmiths.blogspot.com/, where Tate and her fellow Wyrdsmiths blog.

Quote of the Night

2009-09-11T08:14:00.001-07:00

"I didn't say I'd never slay another vampire. It's not like I have all these fluffy bunny feelings for them, I'm just not going to get way extra-curricular with it." -- Buffy

"If the apocalypse comes, beep me." -- Buffy

Books That Go Bump In The Night

2009-09-05T12:10:00.000-07:00

Buying an anthology of short stories is like ordering the sample platter at my favorite restaurant: I may buy it for the dishes that I know I'll love, but if I'm lucky I'll come away with a few new favorites to order next time. That was certainly the case with The Eternal Kiss: 13 Vampire Tales of Blood and Desire, a spicy selection of YA paranormal romances edited by Trisha Telep, which satisfied my hunger for the familiar and gave me a taste of a few new treats along the way.

It should come as no surprise that one of the highlights of this collection for me was Holly Black's short story, "The Coldest Girl in Cold Town." This gritty tale takes place in a near future ravaged by a virus that causes vampirism. Those affected by the disease have been quarantined to "cold towns," lawless, hedonistic, hopeless places from which there is only one chance for escape. This story of one girl's fight to help a friend pits the romanticized notion of vampires against an icy cold reality.

Another highlight for me was Libba Bray's "The Thirteenth Step," the story of a young woman who takes a job at a drug treatment facility that may not be at all what it seems. This story had me guessing at every plot twist and jumping at every little noise-- and, in the end, thinking about the nature of addiction.

"All Hallows," by Rachel Caine, was a fun return to Morganville, TX the setting of her Morganville Vampire series. Told from the point of view of smart-ass goth girl Eve Rosser, this funny, sexy story would make a great introduction to Morganville for anyone who hasn't read the books, or a satisfying adventure with characters who feel like old friends for anyone who has.

We are all familiar with the pattern in much of paranormal romance: a girl who considers herself quite ordinary is made to feel special when she recieves the attention of a mysterious boy who turns out to be much more than he seems. Cassandra Clare's short story "Other Boys" takes this expectation and subverts it in fascinating ways that will make you want to discuss it with your friends. This short story put me in the mind of smart, subversive horror movies like "Ginger Snaps" and "Teeth." A definite must-read.

Another story that could have your feminist book group talking is "Ambition" by Lili St. Crow. Because vampires are often imagined as wealthy and aristocratic, many vampire-human romances are actually Cinderella stories at heart. This well-written story takes the class implications of this and makes them explicit to explore how far one girl will go to escape her depressed, working class home.

Another one not to be missed is "Undead is Very Hot Right Now," Sarah Rees Brennan's hysterically funny story of a recently vamped teenage guitarist cast as a gimmick in a new pre-fab boy band. With perfectly drawn characters and perfectly timed one-liners this satire about exploitation and identity had me reading quotes out loud to friends and flipping to the bios at the back of the book to see what else the author had written. (Imagine my happiness when I discovered that her novel, The Demon's Lexicon, was already on my night stand! Now it's next on my "to read" list!)

But the story that affected me most was Cecil Castellucci's "Wet Teeth." I believe that paranormal fiction is so popular right now partly because it is a great metaphor for how difficult it can be to have real, intimate connections with other people in today's world. In paranormal romance, one partner is often dangerous to the other. Relationships must be negotiated carefully. Well, in an age of AIDS and pre-nups and Facebook friends, I think that we can all agree that interpersonal connection is complicated. We can all identify with the monster who has the power to hurt that one it loves, and with the human who feels frail and vulnerable. Castellucci's story spoke to that for me and it contained a moment that made the bottom fall out of my stomach, prompting me to ask myself, "Is it possible for a story to ruin your day in a good way?" I had the pleasure of hearing Cecil Castellucci on a number of panels at WisCon, the feminist scifi convention, two years ago and found her to be funny and insightful. Since then I have read all her books and learned something from them as a writer; she has a great ability with character arc. Her characters grow in ways that are subtle and psychologically real, and this story is no exception.

All in all, The Eternal Kiss is an anthology that will give you plenty to sink your teeth into. I highly recommend it.

Children of the Night Full Moon Edition

2009-09-04T08:00:00.000-07:00

Well, here we are-- another full moon! And to celebrate, here is your random werewolf fact for the day: Did you know that in France between 1520 and 1630 there were a reported thirty thousand werewolf sightings? Now, I don't know about you, but I tend to think that thirty thousand Frenchmen can't be wrong!

And now you can record one official sighting right here on my block: The other day my almost-five-year-old Harrison asked to see the book I was looking at. I told him that he couldn't see it because it had werewolves in it and would be too scary for him.
"Oh," he said, completely blase, "I've seen werewolves before."
"Really?" I said, "Where?"
"On the sidewalk in front of our house. They were fighting each other with baseball bats."
Huh. Wonder how I missed that.
Not sure the eye witness report is completely accurate on that one-- although it does make for an interesting mental picture, especially when you consider the fact that Harrison sometimes says 'airwolves' instead of 'werewolves,' which makes me think of wolves with wings, like angel wolves. Pretty, really. Even with the baseball bats :)
Have a beautiful full moon!

Judging a Book

2009-09-03T13:55:00.000-07:00

Here's a fascinating School Library Journal article about how teen readers choose books and the huge importance of cover art. http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA6685545.html_

Respect to the Old School

2009-08-31T21:31:00.000-07:00

With the Fall TV season about to begin seems like everyone is buzzing about new episodes of True Blood, the new Vampire Diaries Series, and of course New Moon (all, of course, based on popular books. Writers rule the world). But let's be real: The best vampire movie is Lost Boys, right? The vamps get a very Holly Black-ish, dark Fae aesthetic, a lair with a Doors poster, great motorcycles-- not to mention the fact that as a teenager in the 80's I would have given up my humanity for a date with Star. So, shout out to the old school:
"You'll never grow old, Michael, and you'll never die. But you must feed." ~ David

Now With More Zombie Goodness!

2009-08-30T08:12:00.000-07:00

I just learned that Teresa Wilde's "Demon of the Week" blog will be celebrating Zombie Awareness Month in October with a different zombie every day-- and you know what they say about a zombie a day! (Or maybe that's apples. I always get those confused.) In any event, she'll also be hosting Amanda Ashby, author of The ZombieQueen of Newbury High on Oct 15th and on Halloween she'll have NYTbestseller Angie Fox, author of The Accidental Demon Slayer-- along with her usual treats, like profiles of mythical creatures, demonic news and even True Blood paper dolls. So something to look forward to in October. And in the mean time you can check out her current demon at http://teresawilde.wordpress.com/2009/08/29/demonspotting-5-belial/, or sign on to receive your demon of the week in your inbox (so much easier than hunting them down yourself! And there's always the chance they'll eat your spam...)

When Zombies Attack!

2009-08-27T20:43:00.000-07:00

Over at Schneier on Security, a blog covering security and security technology, Bruce Schneier is discussing "the first mathematical analysis of an outbreak of zombie infection"-- and people, it doesn't look pretty! To prepare yourself for the inevitable, check out http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/08/modeling_zombie.html

(Be sure to read the comments. They're the best part! And special thanks to Kristin and Scott for this valuable public service ;)