A Contest and a Teaser

Nathan Bransford is hosting a fabulous contest over on his blog. The challenge? Write the most compelling teen diary entry (or unsent letter). The prize? Nathan’s usual (awesome) offering plus a copy of The Secret Year.

I couldn’t resist entering. The character I wanted to enter with was sort of a no-brainer. I chose Heather, a minor character in the first draft of Hemlock whose scenes all got chopped in revisions.

Even though she’s never seen in the final draft, Heather’s presence is definitely felt at certain points in the story. Like today’s teaser between Mac (my MC) and Kyle (the boy Heather writes a letter to in my entry for NB’s contest).

I rolled him and he let me. One fluid motion that put the mattress at his back with me on top. I held my face inches from his. Slowly, I lowered my lips and kissed along his jaw. This couldn’t go all the way but I needed some warmth and heat—enough to thaw the places of me that were cold and dying.

“You don’t want this.”

I sat back, stunned. I was still straddling his hips so it wasn’t much of an improvement on the chastity-meter. “Yes I do.”

His face was hard and completely unfamiliar when he said, “I don’t.”

I climbed off of him, off of the bed, and slid to the floor.

The heat that had building in the rest of my body rushed to my face. I stared straight ahead, eyes burning. He didn’t want me. Didn’t want this.

“Because—” My voice caught in my throat. I pictured her. Beautiful and leggy. Limbs wrapped around Kyle as he gave her what I wanted. “Because of Heather?”

“Yes. Because of Heather.” There was a strange catch in his voice but I didn’t examine it too closely. I didn’t want to examine anything too closely.

Random WiP Fact

Salem was almost entirely inspired by a line in “Every Little Bit” by Patty Griffin.

Very early on, the song became Mac’s theme but about halfway through the first draft, I realized that the love interest in the song wasn’t either of the male characters who had appeared in the draft up to that point.

It’s funny how a morning turns a love to shame
Disguised and disfigured and you thought I tasted like rain

I kept going back to that line and, every time I listened to it, Salem became a little more concrete.

Thank you…

Thank you, Mr. Tennant, for four wonderful years.

Too lazy for a proper post

So it’s going to be a vid-playlist of songs that I was absolutely obsessed with in college. Songs that I would listen to so many times that my friends threatened to stage musical interventions.

Common Disaster by Cowboy Junkies

No Rain by Blind Melon

Malibu by Hole

Teaser Tuesday

Here’s a little teaser from The Illusionists’ Field Guide.

Colt is in my biology class. Once you get past the random references to Jesus, he’s actually not bad. It’s Thursday and we’re eating lunch on the bleachers when he questions the wisdom of his ham and mustard sandwich. “It’s not kosher.”

“You’re not Jewish.”

“Right. But if I was…”

“You’d be eating a different sandwich.”

“Jesus was Jewish, though.”

“That’s the rumor.”

He sighs and wiggles his arm back and forth. With just the two of us out here, the tat is allowed to see the light of day. “It’s too hot for long sleeves,” he complains.

I don’t reply. He knows I think it’s a waste to cover up the ink on his arm. I look out over the field. Rachel is sitting underneath the far goal, her back against one of the posts, an open book resting on her thighs. I really want to be that book.

A taste of a playlist

I’m toying with the idea of getting back to work on The Illusionists’ Field Guide at some point in January — at least on a part-time basis.

In prep for that, I’ve started listening to the playlist I put together for it. It’s quite different than any of the playlists for Hemlock were. Very heavy on The Smiths and The Jesus and Mary Chain.

I’m not going to post the whole list but here’s a smattering:

Here Comes Cowboys, The Psychedelic Furs

I Think I’m in Love, Beck

Panic, The Smiths

A trio of reviews

Books

Three Days to Dead by Kelly Meding

Free of revisions (until I get feedback from my lovely betas), I was finally able to crack open Three Days to Dead. It was definitely worth the wait. Meding’s unique take on gargoyles and bridge trolls was, I admit, my favourite aspect of the book. I love it when urban fantasy takes an old idea and manages to make it seem completely new. I haven’t seen much in the way of gargoyles since our beloved 90’s cartoon and all I can say is, “More, please.”

I also thought sticking Evy in Chalice’s body was a genius way to soften and throw off balance a character which might have been almost too tough had she gone through the book in her original body.

A Complicated Kindness by Miriam Toews

I’m a bit on the fence about A Complicated Kindness. I can see why critics flocked to it and why it so quickly became a book everyone was talking about. I’m not sure, however, why it seems to be ranked higher in poplar esteem than The Flying Troutmans (which I read a few weeks later and fell deeply in love with).

Part of what I loved about The Flying Troutmans was how wonderfully Toews writing style lent itself to interactions and conversations. Perhaps that’s why I prefer it to A Complicated Kindness which is very much about isolation and living inside of one’s head.

In the end, though, I’m still in love with Toew’s style and voice and feel a little spark of joy that she’s Canadian.

Movies

Sherlock Holmes

Insert a weary sigh here. There’s nothing more disappointing to me than a movie which has all the elements of greatness but, somehow, manages to put people to sleep. Robert Downey Jr was, as expected, a fun package of untidiness Rachel McAdams was gorgeous and engaging in a role that was both larger and more important than the previews let on. . Jude Law was, as always, perfectly capable.

But it didn’t work. The city seemed dull, the gags played out fast, and the action scenes seemed repetitive (except for one slaughterhouse scene which was actually the 5 minutes I sat up a little straighter). The occult plot did nothing to help.

Peter Travers summed it up pretty well in Rolling Stone: “Downey is irresistible. The movie, not so much.”

For the love of Sarah

I adore Sarah Harmer. She’s one of those rare artists whose CDs I simply have to own. She’s also AMAZING live.

Sadly, she doesn’t seem to be all that well known outside of her native land (*cough* Canada).

So I thought I’d share some clips I found on YT.

Around this Corner:

Uniform Grey

Almost (the actual music video)

Teaser Tuesday

“I’m always drawn to broken men. It’s a sickness.”

I struggle to keep my face neutral. Blank. One eyebrow gets away from me, sneaking up of its own volition. Spock-like. Frankie is in full-on drama mode, talking more like a world-weary spinster than what she is: a seventeen-year-old who had the misfortune–or studpidity, if I’m feeling less than charitable–of falling for the biology teacher.

She continues to babble and I nod in the appropriate places, but I’m not paying attention. My hands are alreay drifting down to my backpack, feeling for the slight bulge that assures me it’s still there. My security blanket. My insurance.

Alright, so this isn’t so much a teaser as what happens when my mind wanders. I’ll be blow drying my hair (which is what I actually was doing) or sitting in traffic and I’ll just start stringing snippets together in my head. Most aren’t part of anything I’m working on and they usually feature characters which never make it past a paragraph or two.

Sound of Silence

“The Sound of Silence” is one of those rare songs I really wish I could experience for the first time all over again. I can’t actually recall a time in which I didn’t know it. Simon & Garfunkel were ever-present voices in my house–something I complained about when I was a child (I always wanted to listen to The Big Chill Soundtrack — on repeat) and embraced when I was a teen.

My parents were not, however, as extreme as this friend’s were (as revealed to me over lunch):

“My mother, she would round us up.”

“Like cattle?”

My friend nods.”Yup, she’d herd us into the living room.”

“She took her Simon & Garfunkel seriously.” I’m suddenly grateful that my parents were low-key in their S&G worship. I probably would have rebelled at being rounded up.

“We’d sit in the living room and she’d turn out all the lights and we’d listen to ‘The Sound of Silence’.” She smiles. ” We didn’t speak until we had properly had time to absorb the song. The boys didn’t get it.”

I wasn’t sure I was getting it, either. “She knew that whole line about ‘Hello Darkness, my old friend’ isn’t literal, right? And the bit about the silence?”