meomeoim

I've always liked Tim Burton. Since I was about four years old. Before I had a concept of what a director was or that he was doing things I enjoyed, I'd reguarly watch them and love them. He does something wonderful that taps into the magic of life that I will be always be envious of. But I was just reading The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy , which I bought for Eric recently. It came out over 10 years ago, so its not anything new, but I just finally got around to it. It's a compilation of flash fiction, very short stories written in rhyming prose. It is a very very unusual book. I don't even think I mean that in a bad way. He captures the simplicity and vulgarity of being the troll in the fairy tale with an unnatural ease. He's able to cast beauty on on things that aren't, but his stories and drawings are still occasionaly offputting. The title story is perhaps the most disturbing thing I've read. It's written in rhyming poem, and its perhaps five or s...

I finished The Hollow Land , and after giving it one cursory read-thru before the real editing starts, I'm pleased with it. It's still hard for me to tell if anything I write is good vs. publishable good , since I'm too close to the product, but I think this is good.  I think the reason I'm having any doubts is its almost complete lack of pop culture references. They were just hard to fit in a post-apopcolyptic action novel about zombies. I slid in a couple, and only one of them might be off-target. (Paul Giamatti is not big with the young adult crowd.) But it worked for me. I'm excited to go back to writing the My Blood Approves series, now that I'm done with this one.  Here's one thing I learned: It's hard writing a love interest for a super badass heroine. If he's more badass than her, if he rescues her all the time, it detracts from her own badassness, and almost defeats the purpose of making her so tough. But if he's a total wuss and alw...