stillsostrange

While I don't like to get too carried away when externalizing my characters (e.g. That whole, oh, I don't write the stories, it's all the characters school of writing), it does sometimes feel like I'm having tiny conversations in my head. Tonight's went something like this:

ME: I need to cast the demon-king of Samarkan't. I think we need Clancy Brown. (Browses GIS)

ISYLLT: Clancy Brown is hot.

ME: Seriously. Possibly the hottest guy to ever run around in a skull hat. Also the tallest.

ISYLLT: And who's he playing again?

ME: The demon-king of whatever this Nongol city is.

ISYLLT: This calls for a necromancer.

ME: Yeah, probably. Too bad you're not in this book.

ISYLLT: What do you mean I'm not in this book?

ME: Not in it. This is not a Necromancer Chronicle. You're getting into trouble somewhere else until someone pays me for TNC #4.

ISYLLT: You can't have a plot that requires flirting with a hot demon-king and not have me. This is not a job for amateurs.

ME: I didn't say anything about flirting--

ISYLLT: You yourself said he was hot.

ME: I don't think that's the point...

ISYLLT: That's why you haven't sold book 4.

Dear Male Authors:

Please stop trying to look brooding and stern in author photos. You don't look brooding and stern*--you look silly and affected. And sometimes constipated. And occasionally like giant douchebags. Try smiling once in a while. I bet you'd be pretty if you smiled.



*Unless you're Richard Marcinko. His glare kind of scares me a little.

After cleaning my closets, I discovered many more copies of The Drowning City than I thought I had. And so I turn to the time-honored tradition of having an LJ contest to give some away. My Minister of Contests, tanaise, has decreed that this will be an artistic contest.

If you would like a signed copy of TDC with a mermaid or octopus or sea monster doodle (or another doodle--I take requests), all you need to do is:

Make a book trailer for The Bone Palace. I need to make a real one in the next couple months, and I need inspiration. Yours doesn't have to be good, of course. If you make a good one I'll give you more than a book. Stick figures and storyboards made in MS Paint are perfectly acceptable. If you make me laugh hard enough to have a post-bronchitis coughing fit you automatically win.

OR

Draw cover art for Kingdoms of Dust. I'm breathlessly awaiting preliminary art from Orbit, but I would like more breath and less waiting. So draw something to inspire me! I can't post the blurb yet because it has spoilers for TBP, but the book has deserts, jinn, spies, and formless entropy monsters.

If you're not artistic but still want a book, I'm open to suggestions for different kinds of contests.

Today is a cooking day. I decided to use everything in the fridge that was about to go off, which included a cantaloupe, a summer squash, a cucumber, two zucchini, a bag of spinach, and some phyllo. So now I have a melon/squash/cucumber salad (pretty boring, but the yogurt dressing is great) chilling, and zucchini bread in the oven. When the bread comes out, spanakopita goes in. (There was also a grilled cheese sandwich interlude for the step-spawn.)

To ensure energy levels stay optimal for this endeavor, I put on my very worst 80s playlist. It's my 80s vamp/VD list, and I need a couple more songs to round it out. In case you don't believe me when I say worst, I share it for posterity:

Gino Vanelli - "Black Cars"
Hall & Oates - "Maneater"
Eddie Money - "Take Me Home Tonight"
Cutting Crew - "(I Just) Died In Your Arms"
Corey Hart - "Sunglasses At Night"
Def Leppard - "Love Bites"
Naked Eyes - "Always Something There To Remind Me"
Whitesnake - "Still of the Night"
Lou Gramm - "Lost in the Shadows"
Glenn Frey - "You Belong To The City"

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8. What's your favorite genre to write? To read?

Fantasy. I prefer creepy, weird, dark, urban, etc. to heroic and epic, but fantasy is always what I go back to. I like SF--especially when it's creepy, weird, etc.--but read less of it. To date I have two SFnal stories started, and ideas for one (1) novel. I also love horror, when it's smart and supernatural*, and hope to write something creepy one day. I enjoy reading mysteries and spy thrillers, too, but at this point can't imagine writing one that wasn't also fantastic or SFnal.

*I intensely dislike torture-porn and slasher horror. I don't mind serial killers--I love Criminal Minds and Silence of the Lambs--but I want intelligent plotting and even smarter psychology, not just Ooh, he's crazy and has a knife! Monsters, like everything else, must be complex and smart, or they're boring.

Not that anyone cares, but for the record, yuki_onna sums up my feelings about fanfic kerfluffles here. Fanfic is a pretty freaking First World problem to have, and I for one would be flattered (and yes, possibly also horrified) if it happened to me. I write Lovecraftiana, for Cod's sake, and fairy tale mash-ups; I may have double standards*, but I try not to be a raving hypocrite. The idea of inappropriate slash pairings of my characters mostly makes me giggle.

That said, I can't write fanfic myself, except in very broad strokes**. My brain locks up at the thought of writing someone else's characters, because I know that it isn't "real". My response to this is usually to file the serial numbers off and make it mine, and by the time that's done it's not very recognizable. This is sometimes frustrating--I still haven't figured out how to manage my Dark City idea (see icon). I can't even write for Shadow Unit, except NPCs and gamma-cam.

And now I will return to my previously scheduled Dying of Allergies. (I have also been dying of allergy medication recently. Fun times!)


* Jane Austen mash-ups and sequels give me a nervous tic, but I can still enjoy Dracula retellings.

** I'm going to write my feminist rebuttal to "The Thing On The Doorstep" one of these days, but if you tell me Asenath Waite was a real character in the text, I'll laugh at you.

Firstly, I have solved a great mystery:



That is a large and moving torb. Which means I have an equally large and mobile torb in my house. I house one of the prechosen forms!

Secondly: Does anyone have any questions about The Drowning City so far? Do I need to make a question-asking post for it, to contain spoilers? Do I need to quit writing and become a zuul-herder?

SCENE: A low-lit room. A WRITER sits nursing her drink, looking furtive and nervous.

Enter to her THE WRONG BOOK. THE WRONG BOOK is sexy and well-dressed. Stoic but sensitive. Not at all the sort of book to ever wear a stained wife-beater and ask someone to microwave his pot pie. They exchange a long glance.

THE WRONG BOOK: I thought you'd be here.

WRITER: I shouldn't be, but...

TWB: I understand. I feel it too.

WRITER: I mean it this time. I have a deadline now. And he has an awful temper.

TWB: Does he--

WRITER: No! Of course not. But, well, the advance is awfully nice.

TWB: I can take care of you.

WRITER: Not like this. It's...a three book deal.

TWB: I thought I meant something to you. Haven't I been here all this time?

WRITER: And you're still not finished! I'm sorry, I didn't mean that. Of course I care about you. About us. But we can't meet like this anymore. At least for a few months.

TWB: I won't stand in your way. But remember, if he ever hurts you, true love won't desert you.

WRITER: ... Did you just quote Journey at me?

TWB: Hey, I'm your book.

WRITER: I have to go.

Exeunt