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Sorry about the delay, folks. The winner’s of the contest are: SAM (Comment #11) from “Northern Canada” and RAELENA (Comment #38) Congratulations, guys! Remember, you have to contact me with your address to receive your prize. Make sure to specify which book you want. First come, first served. This blog has been sorely neglected lately. I know this because most of my recent blog posts start out with, “This blog has been sorely neglected lately,” or some variation thereof. I have been doing a lot of guest blogging (in fact I’ve got another coming up tomorrow!), but I’ve also had a lot of other stuff on my plate, such as:
No, I’m not a unicorn slayer. There are two reasons for this. 1) Unicorn hunters have boring costumes: cargo pants, t-shirts, and bows. 2) I don’t know any such thing as unicorn slayers, actually. My books are about unicorn hunters. The difference is kind of the point.
Where was I? Right, Giveaway Winners. The winner of the Robin Wasserman Giveaway is TRAVIS at COMMENT #2! And I promise to be a better blogger. Upcoming: Fun NaNo tips, the second part of my Nice Guys post, and more! Hi, everyone, it’s me, your absentee blogger. I’m sorry I’ve been neglecting this place of late (I know I’ve owed folks more on the “nice guy” thing for, like, weeks) but I’ve been so busy! Florida, St. Louis, New York City, the KidLitCon — and then revisions, revisions revisions! It’s been a whirlwind. For instance, this weekend I spent all day Saturday (from about 6 AM to 10 PM) at the KidLitCon here in DC. I attended panels on how authors, bloggers and publishers can work together, a panel on the new FTC guidelines work (and “guidelines” is really the appropriate word here, because the takeaway message I got from the very nice FTC rep was that everyone needed to chill out), and got to hang out with some amazing authors, including Laurel Snyder, Amanda Brice, Caroline Hickey, Pam Bachorz, Paula Chase Hyman, and Varian Johnson.
Varian Johnson, me, and Paula Chase-Hyman at “Meet the Author” at KidLitCon On top of that, I met some amazing librarians whose blogs I totally intended to come straight home and check out… except: My train to New York City left at 7 AM the next morning. Yikes. So, after sleeping all the way to New York, I arrived, checked into my hotel (Luggage = one tiny suitcase and one enormous bag of killer unicorn cookies) and betook myself downtown to Books of Wonder. The other authors at the signing included John Connolly, Marissa Doyle, John Hulme, Daniel Kirk, Sara Beth Durst, Dan Poblocki, and Michael Wexler — and I am now the proud possessor of all their books. Also at the signing: my editor, Sharonluvscats (in her awesome unicorn jacket!), Cassandra Yorgey, my uncle Tom (who drove down from Buffalo to see me!), a whole bunch of my college friends, and Mitali’s dad. THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO BRAVED THE CRAPPY WEATHER AND CAME!
Sharon’s AWESOME unicorn jacket
Me and Sarah Beth Durst, who has an awesome rundown of the whole event on her blog. It was a really fun signing. Instead of doing a reading (which always makes my palms sweat in fear), we all got a chance to talk about the kernel of the idea behind our books. And regular blog readers know I can go on forever about the ideas behind killer unicorns. After our presentations, a school principal came up to me and said she was buying Rampant because it sounded very educational. I hope, upon reading it, she decides there’s enough mythology, monasteries, and museums mixed in with the making out and the manslaughter. See what I did there? What a wordsmith. After the signing, Sarah Beth Durst and Sarah Cross and I went to a nearby bakery and had ridiculously rich hot chocolates with ridiculously large marshmallows in them. Then Sarah Cross and I went to dinner and caught up, since I hadn’t seen her since Team Castle. We caught up for, um, five hours. Eventually, the people at the restaurant took our teacups and water glasses away and refused to keep refilling. Getting the hint, we betook ourselves to Grand Central Station and kept catching up in the lobby until we finally, reluctantly, admitted we should both probably go home and get some sleep. The next morning, I woke up, packed up my killer unicorn cookies:
And headed off on my day of extra special secret fabulous promotional events. I did a television appearance (more on that soon), a video interview (more on that a little less soon, but still not so long from now), and had nice long chats with my editor about — ahem — secret books I may or may not be writing (see column at right). And then I came home to Sailor Boy and Rio and TempDog #4, who all missed me madly. And I spent all of Tuesday playing catch-up. So, there you have it! Why I’ve not been around. Sorry. In other news, I’ve got winners of the fabulous Kristin Cashore Giveaway, and here they are: MICHELLE OF THE SPIRAL PATH (comment #7) SARA OF THE HIDING SPOT (comment #16) And here’s how it works. You two email me and tell me whether you want Graceling or Fire. First come, first served. I’ve been a bad blogger recently. Part of that, of course, has been due to my ridiculous travel schedule. Out of town for DragonCon, for the Florida signing, for NINC in St. Louis — I’ve barely had a breather in a month. Part of that has been due to my challenging work schedule. I’ve been really busy with revisions to the second killer unicorn book, as well as working on an upcoming anthology (more info on that TK) and some new projects (ditto). I’ve also been busy with the dogs. As many of you know, I’ve been fostering dogs from a rescue organization for the better part of this year. We’re currently on our fourth — and our first puppy. Puppies are always more work than adult dogs, and this little guy has proved no different. However, he’s also a super sweet dog that everyone he meets falls madly in love with. On top of TempDog#4, I’ve been dealing with some fallout from TempDog#3. She was adopted very quickly, but it turned out to be a mistake. I should have known it. I had a bad feeling about the situation when the people came to meet her. I should have turned them down. I should have realized that when they looked at her and said they’d been expecting her to be smaller, more like “that one” (Rio, who was also around), that it wasn’t going to work out. (For the record, she’s all of five pounds bigger than Rio’s 40.) I should have realized that they were resentful that I wasn’t giving them Rio when I had to explain to them that I didn’t “choose” which dog I was “giving up” — that Rio was my dog, and the other was a foster I was temporarily caring for so it didn’t get euthanized in an overcrowded shelter. I should have simply said no when they asked me, after spending two hours in my home waffling, if fostering shelter dogs was “my business.” I should have known they were a tad confused about the procedure of adopting a rescue. I should have decided they weren’t ready to make the commitment and ushered them out the door. Live and learn. I had TempDog#3 for about 4 days. When they returned her to the rescue organization (after a week) due to the appallingly bad behavior of chewing up a newspaper, they made a few pointed comments about how her foster caretaker should have worked harder to curb said bad behavior. Um, four days. Shouldn’t they have worked harder? They had her for longer. They were also upset that I had another foster dog already, because it meant TempDog#3 would be placed in a kennel, where there would be “backsliding.” In truth, what there was was a terrified dog. In two months, she had lived in her former home, in a shelter, in the rescue kennel, in my home, in their home, and back in the kennel. She thankfully made it into another foster’s home last week. The new foster mom emailed me and said the dog was very nervous. Well, little wonder. Poor thing. However, it’s a good thing she was returned. The point of a rescue is not to find pets for people, it’s to find good homes for dogs. That was not the right home for this dog, clearly. They weren’t happy, which means she wouldn’t be happy. I do blame myself for not realizing it before everyone had to deal with so much turmoil. But I’m still pretty new at this fostering thing, and both of my other fosters went to great homes where they are very beloved. Like I said, live and learn. I bring this up because October is National Adopt a Pet From a Shelter Month. Times are really desperate right now. Dogs have been victims of the housing crisis in a big way. When people lose their homes and must move into apartments, guess who often can’t go with them? Cats, too. So, if you’re thinking about getting a pet, consider a pet from a shelter or a rescue. Six months ago, I may have been very skeptical about it, but now, after fostering four shelter dogs, I realize that they can be some of the most wonderful pets in the world. Good-natured and sweet-tempered and well-mannered and above all of it, so grateful to you for giving them another chance at life. Right now, I’m watching TempDog#4 nap in his crate. He’s a beautiful, loving little thing, with big ears and dark eyes and little white paws that he hasn’t quite grown into yet. He’s already so much more calm and self-assured since we took him in two weeks ago. He’s already bigger and more beautiful. He sits and lies down on command and comes to a whistle. We’re working on stay. He’s going to make some lucky person/s a remarkable pet, and I’ll cry when he goes. But then there’ll be another dog whose story breaks my heart, who has had a rough time of it and for whom I can provide a little TLC and a safe, calming environment on their way to their new home. In other news, the winners of the LIAR giveaway are: Michelle at website comment 15 and AudryT at website comment 61. Congrats, guys! Contactl me with your address to receive your prize. Guess what? My editor has offered to donate an extra copy of BITE ME! to the Giveaway, So now we have TWO winners! And they are: Helga Contact me with your address to receive your prize. Okay, next order of business. I still haven’t gotten that whole excerpt thing sorted, but TPTB are working on it, and I should be able to post an excerpt (or link to one) really soon. In the meantime, how about a little excerptlet? _____________________ From the pictures in the glossy brochure, the Cloisters was a Mediterranean palace, replete with colorful frescoes, marble statues of naked gods and toga-clad saints, and towering columns. So it’s understandable that after I disembarked from the crowded bus, manhandled my rolly bag up a steep hill paved with uneven cobblestones, and turned down the alleyway leading to the Cloisters, I almost missed the place entirely. In the brochure, they were very careful not to show the crumbling, poster-plastered wall surrounding the building, the shattered plywood boards covering most of the upstairs windows, the pack of stray dogs sunning themselves on the stoop, and the bum leaning against the wall with a ragged rucksack and a cardboard sign covered in incomprehensible Italian. Any lingering hopes I might have had of a wild summer spent in Rome, riding vespas and eating gelato at midnight in picturesque piazzas, promptly disintegrated. I hefted the bag on my shoulder and maneuvered my way past the slumbering strays. Here goes nothing. Beyond the enclosing walls lay a small, oblong courtyard paved in dusty, cracked mosaics and littered with trash. In the center stood marble fountain featuring a pale stone woman in a flowing stone wrap holding the tip of an alicorn in a small catchment basin. Water cascaded around the horn and spilt over the lip of the basin into the large pool at the woman’s feet. I neared the fountain with care, as if the statue might suddenly spring to life and stab me with the weapon in its hand. I leaned close; the alicorn looked harmless from this vantage point. According to the brochure—which I was beginning not to trust—the horn had been alchemized by some martyred hunter of the past to purify the waters of the fountain. A dollop of bird poop graced one of the twists. Yeah, some purity. And yet, attached to a unicorn, a thing like this almost killed a guy in the Myersons’ backyard last month. Shuddering, I turned towards the doors to the Cloisters, which were large and made of copper oxidized to a pale, sickly green. Decomposing bas-relief squares appeared to be hunting scenes of some sort, but it was hard to make out more than vague shapes—tall, lithe figures in pursuit of longer, bulkier ones. This place was a dump. With some little difficulty, I yanked open the door with a pop. A wash of cool air enveloped me, and with it, a scent that made my nose prickle. In contrast to the sunny city outside, the Cloisters were dark and… dank? What was that smell? I closed my eyes and sniffed again. Fire and flood. Great, two steps inside and this place was already reminding me of ways I could die. I tightened my grip on my suitcase handle. If I left now, how far would my traveling money take me? How much did a EuroRail pass go for nowadays? No receptionist greeted me. Instead I entered a large gallery, a rotunda whose ceilings were studded with mosaics of gold leaf and dark-veined marble. Stone statues of Alexander the Great and other historical figures connected to the unicorn hunting lineage stared out from niches every few yards along the wall. The sound of my footsteps withered on the floor, as if even the soles of my shoes were afraid to disturb the tranquility. Rolling my bag over the threshold, I called into the gloom. “Hello?” As my eyes adjusted to the dimness, I saw before me the outline of a woman and a beast on a raised dais in the center of the room. I approached, only to be met with another set of statues—though these looked more like the mannequins and stuffed figures you’d see in a natural history museum diorama than the hunks of marble in a sculpture gallery. A bronze plaque at the base of the dais identified the figures, and I dropped my backpack in surprise. Clothilde and Bucephalus. _________________________ Twenty-three two days until Rampant is out. (I can count, I swear. Just not look at a calendar.) The Winners of the Jeri Smith-Ready Giveaway are: B.E. Sanderson and Rhiannon! Please email me about your prizes. The way this will work is, the first winner to email me gets their choice of either Wicked Game or Bad to the Bone (include your choice in your email). The second winner to email me gets whatever is left. Last night, SB and I went to see Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Now, I’m not very familiar with HBP (Or Deathly Hallows, to be perfectly honest). I listened to HBP on audio twice, and read DH once. Compare that to multiple readings of the the first five, including dozens (probably) of 3&4. So I may just not be remembering things correctly. I’m not as familiar with the book, so I’m not always aware of when a script makes changes for the better, or are able to bypass things that might work in books and tell it differently for the sake of the visual medium (something that the Lord of the Rings movies, for example, did brilliantly). Also, I felt that HP6 was a tad problematic on a fundamental level (Harry spends half the book on a mission from Dumbledore to discover a secret that, eventually, it seems that Dumbledore already knows — not to mention that the whole Half-Blood Prince’s anticlimactic reveal). I do, however, feel that the film didn’t necessarily solve these problems (it really could have been an easy fix) and introduced others that were entirely unnecessary. I’m not super familiar with Yates’s work (I saw OOP and liked it, but pretty much any opinion of mine would have been a step up from the book), so maybe it’s just that his story sensibilities are UTTERLY different than mine. But. Yeah. His story sensibilities are utterly different than mine. For instance, was there any particular reason that we needed to spend about as much time on Hermione’s charmed birds when she’s crying in the courtyard as we do on, oh, I don’t know. Dumbledore’s death scene? Throughout the movie, there seemed to be this odd focus on story elements and scenes that didn’t, in the end, seem to have much bearing on the entirety. There were a LOT of shots of the overacting Lavendar Brown going all mooney-eyed over Ron. A. Lot. It was funny the first few times. Then it got old. Also, was it me or was Ron shunted almost completely to the side in this film? It would have been easier to buy Hermione’s vast unspoken love for him if he were actually included in some of the serious scenes. His character has entirely been reduced to a comic relief. (Compare to Sokka of Avatar, who manages to be both goofy and a contributing member of the team.) He just sits there, staring dumbly into the distance, out of earshot of their very important plot conversation at the big end sequence where Hermione promises to be there for Harry when he says he’s going to drop out of Hogwarts. And let us not speak of the mishandling of the entire Half Blood Prince plotline. It’s awkward in the original, but it COULD have been integrated so much better. The true horror of Sectum Sempra is not simply that Harry doesn’t realize what a horrible spell it is (after all, this is after Malfoy breaks his nose with his boot), but also that it reminds Harry of the torture that he himself underwent at the hands of the evil headmaster in book 5. Thou shalt not cut with invisible objects. (And thou shalt not cast spells thou dost not understand, either, but whatever.) And then, Ginny Weasely recommends hiding the book? Ginny Weasley, who knows from evil books by mysterious authors? Guys, we already saw you burning newspapers in the first scene. I think that’s a gun on the wall. Speaking of the Weasely house — what was up with that whole Christmas thing? Does Ginny Weasely really go around tying boys’ shoes in the book? There was a lengthy sequence I could have done without. And the Death Eaters came to… do what exactly? Make sure everyone was well out of the house before they burned it to the ground? Speaking of what the Death Eaters come to do — and again, this might be betraying my bad memory of the book — but don’t they have a huge battle at Hogwarts? They come in and start attacking people? The werewolf guy bites all kinds of folks, including one of the adult Weasely’s who came to help in an OOP capacity? These Death Eaters in the movie — I’m not sure why they were there. To back up Draco? I mean, what was the whole point of the yearlong, laboriously detailed and repeated struggle with the Vanishing Cabinet? So Bellatrix could come in and break some windows? Srsly? In passing, moviemakers, one of the benefits of being able to cut away to the villain doing villainous things throughout the entire film is that at the end you don’t need that scene you often have in books where the heroes and the villain talk about what the villain had been doing the entire film. Also, the idea that Harry just sits around while the Death Eaters kill his mentor is a lot harder to swallow when Harry is, in fact, just sitting around, and not immobilized, invisible, and wandless as he is in the book. So that was the bad. It is a testament, perhaps, to the mythic/epic qualities and my love of hte series that despite these drawbacks, I did enjoy the film. I am moved by the story. I guess it’s a question of whether I want to watch these movies as movies in their own right or whether I just think of them kind of like fan art — I watch them to be reminded of how much I liked hte books and to be reminded of my favorite things about the books. A few of my favorite parts:
What did you all think? Okay, I know I’ve been a bad blogger recently. But I’ve also been so swamped. I’m up to my neck in killer unicorns, guys, plus I’ve got house guests. Plus I’ve got these little monsters to contend with:
And as you can see, that white one ain’t so very little. Anyway, the winner of the Betina Krahn Giveaway is ELISA V. Elisa, email me with your address to receive your prize. And, since i”m not fit for blogging at the moment, we’re just going to do another giveaway. yYy! This one has two prizes. I’m giving away the first two books in Jeri Smith-Ready’s WVMP Radio urban fantasy series: WICKED GAME and BAD TO THE BONE. Better yet, they’re signed! W00T! A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of meeting Jeri at a booksigning up the road in Maryland. Here we are at Constellation Books in Reistertown, a darling indie bookstore located in a beautiful old house:
Every time I think I’m “done” with vampires as a trope, some writer comes along to freshen things up, like Smith-Ready with her OCD radio DJs. The musical references fly fast and furious in these two novels, which led one of my fave old local DJs (before the format switched on HIS station and sent him packing) to say:
The winners of the Serena Robar GIVING UP THE V Giveaway are: Julia (comment #3) and Jess (comment #11) Send me your addresses to receive your prize! In other news, today’s post is up at Writers at Play. It’s about Art and the Killer Unicorn books. So I thought I had mentioned this, but apparently, I’m a flake. If you participated in Tap & Gown in the Wild, send me your addresses so I can send you your Secret Society Girl prize package. (Yes, this includes those of you who emailed and were like, “wait! wait! is it too late?”) Email me your addresses: diana (at) secretsocietygirl (dot) com
My Hero. For Fun. Sorry, guys! My internet went down yesterday afternoon and I was unable to coordinate the drawing. So, here we go. (And can I just say how much more difficult this one was than my usual drawings? Usually I just pull up the handy-dandy random number generator and pick the corresponding comment in the thread. But with multiple entries, multiple posts, people emailing me their superheroes — I think my favorite was Indigo’s
– and people TWITTERING me their superheroes… well, it got a little hairy in there.) We had over 120 entries, and THE WINNERS ARE: Brooke Reviews, a.k.a. The Monstar Congratulations, guys! Email me your addresses and I’ll send along your copies of DULL BOY! (Actually, Brooke, I think I might have yours.)
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