meomeoim

Listening to:  "The Barber's Unhappiness" by the Matches This week in my life: I've taken a decided risk to this whole publishing business. I've written a delightful paranormal romance about vampires. Its well received by my peers and has been downloaded almost 500 times for free. However, since it is about vampires, and the market is tremendously saturated at the moment, I doubt I'll find representation for it. It'd have to be the greatest vampire novel of all time to do that, and it does fall just short of that. (Just.) Meanwhile, I've written and crafted a wonderfully original paranormal romance not about vampires, or werewolves, or witches, or ghosts, entitled Switched . I think its set. Ready to go. Publishable. Magical. Since my last major revisions, I haven't sent it out to agents. This is because I've decided to develop a platform.  Basically, my vampire novel will end up being a throwaway novel (despite being very good), with hopes of...

I don't understand people who want to be writers. I don't mean people who write and want to be writers, I mean folks who say, "I would love to write a novel." Or "I wish I could write." The urge to write when you don't you actually have to the urge to write. I guess its because, to me, it seems so simple. As long as you're literate, you can write. Not well, probably. But if you've had a 3rd eduation, you enough of the building blocks where you can go from there. So, once you're past 3rd grade, if you want to write, what's stopping you? But more than that, I don't know why anybody who doesn't write would want to. I mean, I write. A lot. And I enjoy it. A whole lot. But I don't play football because I don't enjoy football. If I did, I would. I watch a lot of movies, play video games, and read/write a lot. I enjoy these activities so I do them. So I'm assuming, that if you enjoyed writing, you would write. And you don...

You know what I think? (I'm going to assume you do since you're here, reading this.) The answer is: They take a really simple concept and turn it into this gorgeos elaborate thing. And they do it all for real, in one camera shot. No CGI. Yes, this has turned into another one of my CGI rants, but with Alice in Wonderland  opening this weekend (and me going to see it), I can't help but feel betrayed by Tim Burton. The new OKGO video reminds me of the magic and awesomeness that Burton introduced us at the opening of Pee Wee, so his new film only shines as an abomination of that memory. If you haven't seen the super sweet OKGO video, here it is: (P.S. The song itself is super awesome.) Eric, my platonic life partner, makes the claim for the new Alice by saying, "He couldn't have done those things without CGI." And to an extent, I agree. Eric keeps going on about how amazing Helena Bonham Carter (Queen of Hearts) looks, with her big head to little body ratio. A...

First off, I suppose that saying I'm "in love" with him is misleading. "In love" implies an affection based on knowledge and interaction, usually in a relationship of some sort. What I feel - for a person I have never met - is more like hero worship. I suspect it's the way many people feel about religion. Except better, because Christian Bale could and would kick someone's ass. So, I'm not in love with Christian Bale, but I still would never have sex with him. We're assuming for the sake of argument that the opportunity has presented itself in a non-heinous way, like a blow behind a trailer on a movie lot. And we're also assuming that in this time frame, I'm mega-hot, like Megan Fox hot. I would still say no. I've put a lot thought of into it, as its clear that I have no life, and I just couldn't do it. I don't even know how his wife does it, and I'm pretty sure he loves her. It would be far too intimidating. How could an...

Yet its one that I have never asked before. What is my story doing for you? I've never asked it for any of my novels, but I decided to ask it particularly with Switched , since I'm trying to publish it, and if someone else asks, I ought to have an answer. What do I think the audience will gain from reading this? Answer: I want to give what I've gotten. Writing is it a joy, but that's not what I meant. The things I read and watch are because I want a chance to escape into something else. If I haven't cried, forgotten the time, laughed out loud, or felt my race in anticipation or fear, then I've probably stopped reading it ten pages in (or watching it ten minutes in). And I've also come to love that soft warm feeling in my belly when the heroine and the hero kiss (or almost kiss) for the first time. That is what I want to give you, the reader. A chance to feel things and forget about what's going on around you. Life is complicated and messy, but more ofte...

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...