We got twenty inches of snow this weekend. It was the most snow I — Florida girl that I am — had ever seen. It was also the most snow the DC native I married had ever seen. Our power stayed on throughout the blizzard, but several of our friends weren’t so lucky. Those that weren’t, came to camp out at our place.
Yes, that’s right. We had a huge SLUMBER PARTY.
Actually, it was so much fun, we wondered why we’d never done it before. Why did we stop having slumber parties as teens? We played board games, baked brownies and cookies (the latter at eleven o’clock at night), watched movies, talked, played in the snow, made French toast in the mornings, ate ice cream for dinner. (Well, some of us. I had spaghetti.) Actually, we ate so much food this weekend. It was ridiculous. There was always something on the stove. The list of things made to eat in our house this weekend:
brownies
hot cocoa
tea
nachos
baked pasta with peas and cream sauce
macaroni and cheese
peas and carrots
coffee
french toast
grapefruit halves
spaghetti with bolognese
chocolate chip pecan cookies
chicken noodle soup
lamb curry
popcorn
And all that stuff is gone now. All gone. Not to mention several pints of ice cream, a ton of veggies and chips and salsa and hummus, several gallons of milk, a gallon each of limeade and orange juice, candy, nuts, oranges…Yep, I think we staved off the cold pretty well. At one point, we had seven people and three dogs in our little house. It was a rollicking good time.
Were you caught in the storm this weekend? What did you do?
ZvU was recently featured on Entertainment Weekly’s Shelf Life. Though the article calls the collection a book of “essays,” do not be fooled. I think it meant that the essays were the connecting bits written by Holly and Justine, on the specific merits of the beasties of their choice. The actual contributions of all the writers are fictional.
Well, not my story, of course. As always, I am your faithful documentarian of all the human stories caught up in the fight against the growing unicorn menace.Yes, this is what I do for you. No need to thank me. Or, you know, if you do have the need to thank me, you can do so by buying a copy of Rampant. Or ZvU. Or Both.
I’d tell you to preorder it on Amazon, but then you might end up in the same boat as me, whereby you have preordered and paid for something on Amazon which they will now not deliver because they are in a little snit with the publisher and yet have not offered to refund your money. So I don’t recommend that. And I think it’s probably a tad too early to put in an order for ZvU at your local indie. Though you can order Rampant from your local indie here. I have a friend who was in the MIDDLE of reading a Macmillan book she’d bought and paid for on her Kindle and it vanished. That seems really wrong to me. And yet Amazon is painting itself as the wronged party! (Oh yes, they say they capitulated, but Macmillan print and ebooks have not been re-listed yet.)
Zombies Vs. Unicorns is being published by Simon & Schuster. I don’t know what their plan is regarding the pricing of kindle versions. Rampant is published by Harper Collins and yesterday, Rupert Murdoch, the big boss, announced he was having a sit-down with Amazon to renegotiate. We’ll see how that shakes out. I know I’m not buying a kindle, though. I like to own the books I buy, not rent them at Amazon’s pleasure. I’ve got a library down the street for that.
So like every child of the nineties, I was obsessed with Calvin and Hobbes. We had all the collections in my house and I loved reading them, over and over. I really connected with Calvin — his limitless imagination, his ability to turn anything into a narrative, his love of nature. Sailor Boy and I often quote lines from our favorite comic strips, especially the one where Calvin comes upon Hobbes sleeping in the sun and begins to recite:
“My tiger, it seems, it running ’round nude,
His fur coat must have made him perspire.
It lies on the floor, should this be construed
As a permanent change of attire?
Perhaps he considered its colors passé,
Or maybe it fit him too snug.
Will he want it back? Should I put it away?
Or leave it right here as a rug?”
It should be noted that Rio, to whom this poem is most often directed, is about as amused by our efforts as Hobbes was in the strip.
At its height, C&H was subject to a ton of copyright violations. Though Watterson never licensed his images for commercialization. the streets were rife with cars bearing bumper stickers of an evil, peeing Calvin. And then, Watterson ended the strip (to a great fan outcry), and lived as a recluse. But recently he gave an interview to a local Cleveland reporter. Naturally, I was all over it.
My disappointment in the interview is mainly that, with all the opportunity the reporter had to ask BW about his long career, he settled for basically asking the same question over and over again. Look:
What do you think it was about “Calvin and Hobbes” that went beyond just capturing readers’ attention, but their hearts as well?
What are your thoughts about the legacy of your strip?
What would you like to tell the fans who are still grieving about the end of your strip?
Because your work touched so many people, fans feel a connection to you, like they know you. How do you deal with knowing that it’s going to follow you for the rest of your days?
How do you want people to remember that 6-year-old and his tiger?
You can actually see Watterson growing frustrated with having to answer it repeatedly over the course of the interview. There was literally only ONE question that veered from this repetitive pattern: “Do you like the idea of a C&H postage stamp?”
Watterson was pretty gracious though. He just kept beating the drum of: “The only part I understand is what went into the creation of the strip. What readers take away from it is up to them. Once the strip is published, readers bring their own experiences to it, and the work takes on a life of its own. Everyone responds differently to different parts.”
This is so true. Now, decades later, I’m an author myself, and I see that what people choose to take away from my book could be what I put in there or could not. It can sometimes be something that I never even saw in the text myself.
I spend a lot of time wrestling with the notion of “Why did Reader X get this part of the book, but Reader Y missed it? Why did Reader Z love this part of my other book but doesn’t love a similar part in my new book?” (Curse you, internet, and your proliferation of reader reaction blogs and websites!) BUt I can’t control what experiences the reader is bringing to my work, and how the simplest turn of phrase might jar something inside of him or her.
I wonder what the secret is to Watterson’s zen. How it is that he came to a place where he could say, “I just tried to write honestly, and I tried to make this little world fun to look at, so people would take the time to read it” and be done with it. Because when I’m writing, I believe that. When I’m writing, I think to myself, Oh, isn’t this fun. I really like this part. I think this part is fun to read, I think people are going to like this. I am writing for the reader’s entertainment. I want to make the experience of reading one of my books a good experience for the reader. I want it to be exciting and informative and romantic and scary and funny and sad.
But whether it IS to each individual reader — well, that’s up to them.
And, in passing, what a waste. What great questions the reporter could have asked! “What do you think Calvin is doing now, all grown up? Is he an astronaut? A writer? Is he a desk jockey with a marvelous inner life? Does he drive his wife crazy with sick snowman jokes every February? Does he take his kids for hikes through the woods? Does he recite poetry to his dogs while they nap on the rug?”
Well, as of 4:48 Tuesday afternoon, I sent off my revisions on Secret Project #1, which was my first novel of the year. February 2nd, and I’m already one book (and one short story) down. I wrote over 65,000 words in the month of January. And yes, I do feel smug about it.
I also saw my first cover of the year. Zombies vs. Unicorns is already floating around these here internets. And let me just say — I LOVE THIS COVER. I love it so much. I want to hang a print of the artwork on my wall. It’s nothing like what I was expecting, but marvelously unique and eye-catching and perfect for this collection (she says, having only read two of the stories in it).
And Simon & Schuster is already working hard on the promo, as you can see (check out my new Twitter icon, too). You can even partake in a ZvU poll. (Vote TEAM UNICORN, please!)
My other favorite thing about this anthology is it’s releasing right smack dab between the release of the Rampant paperback and Ascendant. Let’s just say that this fall is going to be chockers with killer unicorns. I may have mentioned this back in 2009, but what the heck, new year. My short story in the anthology is entitled “The Care and Feeding of Your Baby Killer Unicorn” and it’s a standalone story set in the same world and timeline as Rampant and Ascendant. It’s about a young unicorn hunter who isn’t living in Rome and how that’s working out for her. (Hint: Not well.)
And, now that it’s February and my schedule has gotten a little less hectic, I definitely plan to b blogging more. I’ve got giveaways planned, some conversations about romance and love stories, a debate on the dystopian fiction, authorial control, gender bias, and all kinds of super juicy topics that have been brewing for months in my brain. Stay tuned!
I know I’ve been very absent from this space this month, but with good reason. I’ve been trying to fulfill my New Year’s Resolutions. In fact, I’ve already fulfilled several of them. Like the bit about signing a new contract. And half of the bit about writing two books this year. That’s right, I wrote a book this month. A short book, but a book nonetheless.
Now you can understand why I didn’t have time to blog.
I promise to be better about it in February.
Off again, since I have a few thousand more words to get down this month. And then, thank goodness, the pace lessens somewhat.
A lot of people having been sending me Yale new recruitment video with gasps of horror. Oh, it’s so cheesy! Oh, it’s so campy! Oh, it’s so ridiculous!
Yeah, sorry, guys, I’m not with you there. I loved the video. I thought it was creative and poignant, and it reminded me of the feeling I got on my own high-school visit to Yale, when I got the feeling that I didn’t at the other universities I visited. When I knew that this was the college for me. Yes, I shed a bit of a tear. What can I say?
And then afterwards, just because Sailor Boy and I are cheesy like that, we put this on:
Sometimes Google Alerts sends me the most awesome things. Like today, I got a link to this amazing fanmade movie trailer, that imagines Secret Society Girl as a Roland Emmerich thriller starring Isabella Swann, Little J, and Cyclops.
I know I’ve been a bad blogger this week. I’m totally swamped with work and other commitments. Next week should be better. In the meantime, enjoy this video, which I found strangely compelling and beautiful:
While in New York with Mitali last week, I was talking about the secret stories I wrote in 2009. In the lead-up to the release of the final Secret Society Girl novel, Tap & Gown, I wrote a bunch of short stories told from the perspective of the other characters in the series. They were released first as password-protected goodies for subscribers to my newsletter, and then later for everyone on the website.
I did it for fun, and to celebrate the conclusion of my first series, but it definitely re-awoke in me a love for the short story format. I loved it so much, I went out and sold a few new short stories, which will be out this year. And the fan response was great. I know a lot of folks read them and discussed them. One fan even translated one into Portuguese for my Brazilian readers.
Taking Rio and Temp Dog #6 for a walk. Temp Dog #6 is a bit of a surprise. Apparently, she was placed on a transport to DC, but the people who were supposed to get her couldn’t. So we’ve got her for a bit. And if she doesn’t stop baring her teeth at Rio, it’s going to be a much shorter bit than she thinks. She’s otherwise a very sweet adolescent puppy, super affectionate with people and will play with other dogs outside. But she needs to learn that Rio is the canine boss of this house, not a Temp Dog.
Making pantry chili.
Making bread.
Writing about a historical unicorn hunter and being inspired by this:
Still floating from some awesome news (and a sneak peek at the cover of Ascendant.)
Speaking of Ascendant, I read from it at an appearance in New York City earlier this week. (Another thing I need to cover on the blog). Here’s a little review of my reading, from Cassandra Yorgey.
