Shanna's Road Journal | Exploring 'Suburban Fantasy'

I've been on a deadline, so I've barely left the house lately, which rules out being "on the road," and I haven't even been around much online, but there was a panel topic from FenCon back in September that's been churning around in my brain ever since then. The panel was on "suburban fantasy," and that's brought up some thoughts about where contemporary fantasy novels take place.

The current "urban fantasy" genre seems to draw heavily from the hardboiled detective novels, with a somewhat outsider hero (or heroine) who is tough and street smart, dealing with the underworld. In urban fantasy, that hero usually has some kind of supernatural powers or status, and the underworld is the world of the paranormal. But what about contemporary fantasy stories that don't use the city as a setting?

The suburbs would seem like an ideal place to explore the idea of the "other." In our culture, we think of the suburbs as a place of sameness and conformity. The houses all look alike, and every shopping area has the same national chain stores and restaurants. Anyone who doesn't quite fit in can be made to feel very left out. Now multiply that by hundreds of times by making the "other" be not just someone who dresses differently and likes different music, but also is some kind of supernatural or magical being who has to keep that status a secret. In an urban setting, at least all the oddballs manage to find each other and establish a kind of community, but what does a vampire, werewolf, faery or wizard do in suburbia? Then there's the small town environment, which may not have quite the same level of physical sameness but which does tend to be a place where it's hard to keep secrets. These settings might create even more conflict for our supernatural main characters.

There have been a few books that take the urban fantasy type stories or mythology and put them in different contemporary settings. Julie Kenner's demon- hunting soccer mom series, starting with CARPE DEMON, involved a suburban housewife who was also a retired demon slayer forced out of retirement. I'm currently reading a book called ELFLAND by Freda Warrington, which explores a fae magical culture in a modern English village. And I do have my suspicions about a large "fairy ring" of toadstools that keeps appearing in my suburban neighborhood. I know there's a story there.

---

Shanna Swendson writes "Fairy Tales for Modern Times" and is the
author of the Enchanted, Inc. series about a Texan in New York City, a
magical NYC. Visit her
website or blog
for more information.

Heather Long | Shelf Wars: Science Fiction and Fantasy Strike Back

My husband and I share similar tastes in books. Granted, he likes some authors that I just can't get into and vice versa. But our last few trips to the bookstore haven't been fruitful for him. Why? Because the plethora of urban fantasy and paranormal romance seem to have staged a coup on the science fiction and fantasy shelves of the bookstore.

This is not to slight these wonderful books, not at all. For I am a huge fan not only of reading them, but of writing them. But my husband is floundering his way through the section looking for some solid science fiction in the flavor of David Weber's original Honor Harrington book: On Basilisk Station or Peter F. Hamilton's universe spanning Reality Dysfunction.

For pure fantasy, he's still enjoying Jim Butcher's Codex Alera series (which I have to confess, I haven't started reading yet!) I love Jim's Dresden books and my husband does too, but I've not been as into the high fantasy in a while. Luckily, I have the whole series on the shelf so far, so when I do get to reading it, I will have it.

So, here is my dilemma. Finding the kind of books my husband is so desperately searching for. His birthday is next month and our anniversary is at the beginning of October. As mentioned, we're heading to Disney World (yes, we love the fantasy of that) for vacation in just three short weeks (I cannot wait!) and I want to surprise him with some good books for him to read.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to recommend some solid fantasy and/or science fiction books that my husband might enjoy. You have to avoid Arthurian or Star Trek or Star Wars. He does like the Doctor Who novels, but I think we're only up to the Martha books so far and The Story of Martha is high on my list of books to buy.

You've got to read the rest, so click here

Rita Herron | THE DEMONBORN: DARK HUNGER

Myths and legends and the paranormal world

When I first conceived of the idea for the Demonborn series and Dark Hunger, I knew I wanted to write about strong men, demons, crime fighters and the battle between good and evil.

Next, I needed to build my paranormal world and make it different from all the other paranormals out there. What could make mine unique -- fresh?

The answer to that for me was to write about a world that intrigued me, a setting that I felt at home with, but one that naturally lended itself to a dark, eerie atmosphere that enhanced my story lines. I also thought having the paranormal creatures appear in the normal world was even more terrifying than to have a completely fantasy world. What if demons actually existed on Earth?

Born a Southerner, spooky stories about ghosts, local legends, cemeteries, and odd things that go bump in the night filled my childhood. Since my series is a dark, gritty romantic suspense filled with evil demons and murder, my setting had to reflect that same creepy feeling.

Click here to read the rest of Rita's blog, leave a comment or enter her blog contest.

Jade Lee | TORTURED PRO NEEDS HELP. A lot of help…

Some book are written from inspiration. Some books are written because there is a contract. And then there are books that simply won't shut up!!!!!

I write historical romance. That is the core of my career. Historicals set in the Regency era. Historicals set in China. Historicals set wherever my muse and the market wander. And then, because it's fun, I'll write contemporary sexy (as with my Blaze books) or paranormal (as with Crimson City or These Boots were Made for Stomping!). But those are just fun books and come along when someone offers the possibility to me, not because I go out searching for them. Don't get me wrong, they're good books, but they are written because the opportunity found me, not the other way around.

As you may imagine, the above keeps me very busy. So the last thing I needed was a fantasy romance series. Sure, I grew up reading Tolkien like everybody else, loved the Thomas Covenant chronicles (talk about an anti-hero!), and wrote my undergraduate thesis on Narnia. I have adored fantasy for years and mourned the absence of a decent love story in all those coming-of-age-with-magic books.

But...and I'm going to put this in bold here...I am a professional writer. Here's what professional writer means to me: I get up every morning, I drink my coffee, and I write to my core audience. It is my job, and as such, it needs to have a clear career focus and goal. No other worker would decide to be a welder one day, a plumber the next, and then a month down the line say, hey, how about carpentry? That's not a professional, that's a hobbyist or a kid looking for a career path. Well, I've got a hobby (racquetball) and I'm well past the kid stage. I am! (she says stomping her foot.)

So what the frick was I doing writing a Fantasy Romance???? Dragonborn was this cool idea I played with in my spare time. It started when I was a kid. I thought of a girl (my age–whatever age that was) who carried a dragon egg in her belly, bound mind to mind with the unborn dragon, and eventually hatched the egg and deposed the evil baddy. Woo hoo! Coming of age at its finest (but notice the girl-centered plot). Then one day–as an adult–I realized that she had a boyfriend. Not just a boyfriend, but a dragon killer boyfriend who was using her to find the egg. They fall in love, but then he discovers that she's got the egg. Oops! What a tortured love story!


Wow, did I love that! So...eventually, I wrote Dragonborn. Why? Because it was such a cool idea and I didn't have a contract at the time. Why not? I wrote it...hmmmm...five years ago? Yes, it took that long for Dorchester to finally read it, buy it, and publish it. Great. It was a fun lark, but it's over. Good book. They've deposed the evil baddy, fallen in love, and are going to live happily ever after...probably. Because it's always “probably” in fantasy.

Then I realized that I had a problem. ....

Find out what Jade's problem is by clicking here... and possibly win a prize by commenting on today's blog!

Christine and Ethan Rose | YA Fantasy: It’s Not Just for Kids

As we tour around the country signing our book, Rowan of the Wood, we are frequently asked this question: "What age group is your book written for?" It’s a very difficult question to answer because we write for young readers of all ages. The content is appropriate for younger readers but it’s enjoyed by young and old, alike.

I learned to read at the age of six. A year later, I read Gulliver's Travels. By the time I was ten I was reading Frank Herbert's Dune, and now, at the age of 40, I consider Tove Jansson's Moomin books some of the best ever written. I read nearly as many young adult books as anything else. Many of the books I read in childhood were not fully understood by my younger self, but I enjoyed them anyway. They also helped me get a jump start on many difficult subjects that I would have to wrestle later in life.

The mind of a child is much more curious and agile than that of an adult, as well as being infinitely more creative. It should be fed to the limit of its capacity. Good stories, well written and enthralling, are a great way to encourage that creative appetite. Once a child’s mind is captured by the possibilities inherent in reading, they will never look back.

A good story is ageless. Timeless. It spans generations and breaks down international borders. YA Fantasy, with the success of such books as Harry Potter, Twilight, and Eragon, has become recognized and enjoyed by readers of all ages. For those of us who love a good story and do not require steamy sex scenes, the genre provides an escape into a more innocent time. We can once again dream of being the hero in a grand adventure, having magical powers, saving those we love. We believe in magic and in the goodness of people. Our hearts break with the sacrifices of the tragic hero and rejoice with the reunion of lovers. A good story is ageless. Timeless. Young Adult fantasy is no longer just for kids; or rather, it’s for the child in all of us, whatever our age.

So now when asked what age Rowan of the Wood is aimed at I reply, "nine to ninety-nine," but don't exclude anyone outside that age group who loves a good story.

BOOK BLURB After a millennium of imprisonment in his magic wand, an ancient wizard possesses the young boy who released him. When danger is nigh, he emerges from the frightened child to set things right. Both he and the boy try to grasp what has happened to them only to discover a deeper problem. Somehow the wizard’s bride from the ancient past has survived and become something evil. Award-Winning Finalist of the National Best Books 2008 Awards

Check out the Holiday Contests, where you can win books, B&N gift cards, a digital camcoder, and more!

The book is available now via Amazon (Kindle, too) and wherever books are sold.

Christine and Ethan Rose are the authors of the new YA fantasy novelRowan of the Wood. They live in Austin, TX with their three dogs and Shadow the Cat.http://www.christineandethanrose.com/ * http://www.rowanofthewood.com/

Lori Handeland | Where do you get your ideas?

By far the question I’m asked most often is “Where do you get your ideas?” Not only by interviewers but by readers and by friends and family. I get the impression that those who know me best can’t believe I come up with all the creepy, violent “weird” stuff without some help. Which I guess is a compliment.

I get my ideas in several ways. For instance, from something I’ve read. The concept for Any Given Doomsday came to me several years ago when I was researching another book and came across the legend of the Grigori, and it fascinated me. How the Grigori, or fallen angels, came to earth to watch the humans, then mated with the daughters of men and produced a supernatural race known as the Nephilim.

I bought a bunch of books on prophesy, Revelation, angels, demons and read them whenever I had the chance and an idea started to nag at me—one of those ideas that captures an author and won’t let go. In the world of The Phoenix Chronicles, the Nephilim have been here since the beginning of time, wearing human faces, but beneath they are the monsters of legend—vampires, shape shifters and more.

I had long wanted to write a series with a continuing character—a cross between Stephanie Plum and Anita Blake—two of my favorite heroines in fiction. I had the vague idea that my heroine would be psychic; I wanted the series to be set in my hometown of Milwaukee.

I came up with the character of Elizabeth Phoenix, however I had to admit to myself that the zaniness of Stephanie would never work for Liz. Liz is dark, dangerous; she does not screw around. If she does, people die.

I continued to build on Liz’s world little by little, uncovering her background as a foster child, meeting her foster mother Ruthie, her childhood love Jimmy and her mentor, the Navajo witch, Sawyer.

Liz discovers there is a secret society that fights these supernatural creatures, and she’s just been put in charge of the ground troops. One little problem—the end of the world has been set in motion—doomsday is right around the corner—and she has no idea what she’s doing.

Sometimes an idea comes from someone I meet in my travels. For instance, when I decided to set the second trilogy of my Nightcreature Novels in New Orleans, my husband and I took a three day tour. I’d been to New Orleans twice before, but I needed more specific knowledge.

The first day we were there, we ended up in an Irish bar off of Bourbon Street. The place had a terrific juke box that played Patsy Cline. The bartender was a gorgeous red head from Boston whose name was Diana.

The bar appears in Crescent Moon as Kelly’s, where Patsy Cline sings “Crazy” while the heroine, a red head named Diana, asks pertinent questions of the bartender and the patrons.

At times I get an idea from my own life. The little boy in my Harlequin Superromance Leave it to Max is very similar to a little boy who used to live at my house (he grew into a very large, bearded young man when I wasn’t looking). A lot of my son’s best lines ended up coming out of Max’s mouth. My little guy always opened all the doors and cabinets in every room he was in. You never knew what might be in there. He was accident-prone big time.

The day I went to the fed ex box to mail the manuscript (about a little boy with a broken arm who got into all sorts of trouble) I returned home to a phone call from the school informing me that my version of Max had one too. That was kind of creepy. My husband begged me to “never put him in a book.”

Sometimes I get ideas from a line in a magazine, newspaper, an image in a movie or a TV show, a dream. I even got one once from a license plate. It was pretty cool.

I’m always interested in other people’s thought processes so tell me—Where do you get your ideas? Where do you think writers get their ideas? What have you heard from others? Share!

Lori Handeland
www.lorihandeland.com

Jennifer Lewis | What’s your fantasy destination?

Inventing your own country is a lot of fun. If you like hunky Mediterranean men, you can make sure it’s densely populated with them. Naturally all your favorite foods feature prominently in local cuisine. And if you’d like to take a sensuous mental dip in the warm waters lapping against the crystal sands of your imaginary locale—who’s to stop you?

I had all this fun and more in creating the nation of Caspia for my new book Prince of Midtown. It’s the third book in Silhouette Desire’s “Park Avenue Scandals.” The editors at Silhouette chose a different Desire author for each book in the series and gave us the plot and characters to make our own. In my case they also gave me a country.

I was handed the name Caspia and informed that it was in Europe and “like Venice.” It came complete with handsome prince Sebastian Stone, a spirited playboy in desperate need of reform by the love of a good woman: namely his down-to-earth American assistant Tessa Banks.

I’m the kind of writer who likes to know ALL the details, even if they don’t actually end up in the book, so first I had to figure out where Caspia was. I remembered there’s a Caspian Sea, but when I rushed to the globe I realized that—bordered by countries including Iran and Kazakhstan—it wasn’t technically in Europe. While visions of Kazakh horsemen galloped readily across my brain, I decided that wasn’t exactly what the Silhouette editors had in mind. After a lot of research and intense daydreaming, I imagined the horsemen had galloped through Southern Europe, conquered some picturesque countryside between Italy and Greece, and named it Caspia.

You’d never know all that from reading the book, but I needed to know ::grin::

I love warm weather, so naturally Caspia enjoys a balmy Mediterranean climate. Since I enjoy dramatic landscapes, I brushed in some steep mountains skirted with lush wildflower meadows. From the top of the crags you can look down over the red-tiled roofs of the town all the way to the glittering ocean. As Sebastian was proud of bringing prominent designer stores to his homeland, I made sure the harbor was ringed with upscale boutiques, accessible by a stroll along the smooth stone quays, or by a romantic gondola trip. ::sigh::

Nearly every review I’ve had has mentioned how much the reader enjoyed visiting Caspia in the book, so I guess my fantasy works for other people too. What would your personal paradise look like?

Jen
http://www.jenlewis.com/

Eva Gordon | STONE OF THE TENTH REALM

Hello Fresh Fiction,

I have written five full-length novels, three fantasy novels, The Stone of the Tenth Realm, Gaea's Keeper and the sequel to The Stone of the Tenth Realm, Alchemist of the Tenth Realm, a science fiction titled Post-Apocalyptic Genome, and Werewolf Sanctuary, a paranormal romance in my Wolf Maiden Chronicles. The Stone of the Tenth Realm is my first published novel. My second romance fantasy, Gaea’s Keeper is due out next summer.

I have a BS in Zoology and graduate studies in Biology. I have taught Biology, Environmental Science and Anatomy/Physiology in both public and private high schools. My background in science and passion for wildlife biology inspires my writings. I moonlight as a faculty member of the Grey School of Wizardry, an online school for kids and adults interested in magic and lore. I am in the departments of Beast Mastery.

I am passionate about wildlife and the environment. I combined my love of animals and writing by being a guest speaker for the Silicon Valley Romance Writers last summer. My topic was on Wolves and Ravens as Archetypes in Science Fiction and Fantasy Writing. I also teach at The Grey School of Wizardry in the Department of Beast Mastery. I have also taught about animals in fiction workshops for the Hearts Through History Romance Group. I spend several weeks last summer doing volunteer work at a wolf sanctuary in Southern Oregon. All my life I have trained and worked with dogs and horses. I hope to soon pursue the ancient art of falconry

The Stone of the Tenth Realm


By Eva Gordon

Blurb

Sophie Katz, a Jew, escapes a Nazi concentration camp. By way of Prague and with the help of a golem and the Kabbalah she is transported into the 10th Realm, a magical dimension that parallels the world she left behind. Logan Macleod, a man hunted unjustly for a murder, runs to the Bestiary, a forest so dangerous no man dares enter. Drawn by his bagpipes, Sophie and Logan meet. As love ensues, the Tenth Realm's evil parallels the Third Reich's atrocities. Together they must join the armies fighting Gustaf Hissler, Adolph Hitler's doppelganger. Will they survive?

Please visit me on my website

www.ravenauthor.com/ or on my blogs (I have a fan group on Facebook)

evagordon.blogspot.com/

EveGordonPage

Eve Gordon

Yasmine Galenorn | Things That Go Bump In The Night & Other Delights

From the time I was a little girl, I was terrified of the house I grew up in because I knew it was haunted—by what I couldn’t say, but a malign energy tainted that house. It didn’t help matters that I’ve always been somewhat psychic. I could always sense whatever was there watching me. To this day, that house shows up in my nightmares and in my nightmares, it’s usually filled with tens of thousands of spiders (I’m arachophobic) and I wake up screaming. Granted, I had a lot of serious baggage to deal with in childhood, but the house stands out in my mind as the ‘haunted house on the hill’ even though it was smack in the middle of a lower-class suburb.

Scared of the house or not, that didn’t detour me from falling in love in love with the paranormal, and from becoming a total fantasy/SF freak. When I was five years old, I stumbled over Dark Shadows and went nuts over it. I’m not certain why my mother let me watch a vampire soap opera but wouldn’t let me watch ‘the man with the funny ears’ (Spock, on Star Trek, which started the same year). I have a feeling she didn’t fully realize that Dark Shadows was about a vampire.

But before ST:TOS was over, I was watching Kirk, Spock, and my favorite—Uhura, take on the denizens of deep space. And every Saturday, I settled down in front of the TV for the Science Fiction Double Creature Feature, immersing myself in Godzilla, The Day the Earth Stood Still, War of the Worlds (and no, we’re not talking Tom Cruise’s version, we’re talking the real thing here!), The Valley of Gwangi, The Creature from the Black Lagoon—all those incredibly riveting old movies that I still love today. In fact, just last night I hauled out the DVD of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

I knew I wanted to be a writer from the time I was three and had been making up odd little stories from the day I could string sentences together. I learned to read early and my loves ran to volcanoes, dinosaurs, and…would you believe it? Yep! Fantasy and science fiction. The Space Cat series by Ruthven Todd was one of my first discoveries—I just loved that adventuresome astronaut cat. And thanks to a non-restrictive policy allowing children to check out books from any section of the library, I sped through the fantasy and science fiction section. I ploughed through Asimov, Clarke, Pohl, and my favorite to this day—Ray Bradbury. I cut my teeth on The City and the Stars, I fell in love with Something Wicked This Way Comes and The October Country. By the time I was ten I knew that I didn’t care all that much for Heinlein, but I was nuts over Clifford D. Simak.

As time went on and I left home, I discovered Anne McCaffrey, Marion Zimmer Bradley, JRR Tolkien, Jack Chalker, Joan D. Vinge. And later on—Ben Bova, and Greg Bear, among others. I added them to the growing list of writers I admired, but I also began to branch out in my reading, moving into other areas. But my love for F/SF never diminished, nor did my determination to make it as a writer in that genre.

Fast forward to my first book contract. In 1996, with seven novels hiding in my closet (and trust me, they’re still there), I received my first contract. Not for fantasy—or SF—but for a nonfiction book. Of course, the nonfiction was connected to my love for the paranormal. It was a book of guided meditations. But I didn’t care—I was ecstatic I’d finally gotten my foot in the door. Soon, I thought—soon I’ll find a home for my fantasy.

Eight nonfiction metaphysical books later, I landed an agent and she found a home for my eighth novel—a paranormal mystery, of all things. Now, I’d never planned on writing a mystery but that’s what the book turned out to be. So I wrote two mystery series for awhile, thrilled to be telling stories again instead of writing nonfiction, but still wanting to break into my favorite genre. In specific, urban fantasy.

And then, a few years ago, I sent in a new proposal. My editor loved it and my agent negotiated a contract for me for a third series—this one urban fantasy/paranormal romance. And so my bestselling Otherworld Series (aka Sisters of the Moon Series) was born. And I finally felt like I was ‘home.’

Now, as I’m starting work on the seventh book of that series—Bone Magic—the fourth one is about to hit the shelves. Dragon Wytch will be out on July 1st, and it’s my twentieth published book! Best yet, I’m still head-over-heels in love with writing this series. I’ve finally found an outlet for my wild, over-the-top imagination. And my readers seem to agree: what I knew when I was three years old—that I needed to write fantastical stories—was right on target.

So tell me, what’s your favorite genre? What do you love to write and/or read? Has it changed since you were a child, or have you had a lifelong favorite?



You can contact me through my website, MySpace, or Live Journal.
Keep watching the skies!

Yasmine Galenorn

Robin D. Owens | Writing Fantasy

One of the wonderful things about writing fantasy is that you can make up your own worlds – and all the names. :) Sometimes naming things – planets, continents, rivers is fun (Huckleberry Finn River, Great Platte Ocean, Hard Rock Mountains). It can be easy. I knew I wanted a Celtic background for my "Heart" series so naming the planet Celta didn't require much thought.

But naming the planet in my Summoning series (average American women summoned to an alternate dimension to fight invading evil) was harder. This planet was sentient (and who's to say they aren't?), it's weak because an evil, alien Dark has been feasting on it for years. But it loves the people who are trying to save it and themselves (oh, and creatures – the flying horses and magical shapeshifter animal-companions). The language is French based, and I tried several names that didn't work. I finally decided that the defining characteristic of the planet was love, so it became Amee.

It's also very cool to map the planets. I did a hand drawing of Celta, found software to make it more real looking, then have recently gone beyond my drawing of two continents to the whole world. All fun and motivating to write more about wonderful places.

The best thing about writing your own worlds, though, is sharing it. All my coworkers at my day job got to pick a river or a mountain or whatever to name. I got the Ruby Ananda River from that. Or I can offer contests to name things. I have a passion flower called An'Alcha from that, and, of course, the Plano Straight – that's a huge geographical feature on Celta. I've had characters (murder victim and cop in Heart Quest) named by my readers.

That's the most fun of all, sharing the world with readers who enjoy it as much as I do.

Blessings

Robin D. Owens
Robin, EXCERPTS: http://www.robindowens.com/reads/reads.htm
On Writing & Publishing http://www.robindowens.blogspot.com/
2002 RITA(c) Winner

Chris Marie Green | MIDNIGHT REIGN, Vampire Babylon, Book Two

Years and years ago, when I still played with Barbies, Saturday nights were a magical time. They were all about steak dinners with the family around the candlelit table and my dad smoking his cigar in the backyard afterward. Saturday nights were also when IN SEARCH OF… aired on TV, and I remember watching it, enthralled, and oftentimes, scared to death when Leonard Nimoy told us about things like The Loch Ness Monster and Bigfoot.

Of course, I was young, and I freaked out at everything. So when a certain episode about vampires aired, it left an indelible impression that’s stayed with me until this day.

Long claws, sharp teeth, a woman in bed with a gnarly shadow creeping over her…. I was hooked, and it’s no surprise that I’m writing about vampires now for Ace Books.

In keeping with what scared me when I was younger, my own vampires usually have a mean streak and will do anything to survive. In fact, my first vamp book THE HUNTRESS (for the defunct Bombshell line from Silhouette) featured a tribe of female bloodsuckers, feral and hard to slay. I loved those gals, but the real villain in that story was vampirism itself.

I suppose you could say the same about my Vampire Babylon series, a noir-mystery-fantasy with romantic elements. This particular group survives because of secrecy; among their many gifts, they’re great spies who continually mess with the heroine, Dawn Madison, and her new team of hunters. Every book in the series revolves around a vampire-related mystery, but to me, the horror comes from how far a person might go to capture long-lasting life, youth, and fame.

Here’s a hint of what the first book in the series was about:



But NIGHT RISING, Book One (2/07), concerned more than Jesse Shane’s death. Dawn got sucked into the search for a vampire underground when her dad went missing, and her personal discoveries go hand-in-hand with what she finds out about these vampires—and what her own mother’s death might’ve had to do with them.

As you can see in this next trailer, the second book, MIDNIGHT REIGN (2/5/08), continues Dawn’s search for her dad.



There are a lot of twists and turns for you mystery fans. And for those of you who want to follow the relationship between Dawn and The Voice? There’s plenty of that, too, and BREAK OF DAWN, Book Three (out in September) is going to delve into Dawn’s search for who "Jonah" really is!

I hope you stop by my Web site at http://www.vampirebabylon.com/ because, among other things, I’m giving away a great prize for the contest. It’s a "museum quality" Giclee print called "Little Blood Sucker," and it’s signed by the artist, Billy Martinez of Neko.

Isn’t it great? I’ve got one hanging on my own wall.

Thank you for reading, and happy hunting!

Chris Marie Green (AKA Crystal Green) writes full time across the genres. Besides her Vampire Babylon series, she writes for Harlequin Blaze and Silhouette Special Edition. You can visit her other web sites at http://www.crystal-green.com/and www.myspace.com/vampirebablylon.

Melissa Marr | Secret Passages & Mirrors? Not So Much.

As a writer, I've found the misconceptions about writing fascinating. Now, as a rule, I don't tell people what I do, but somehow or another it almost always eventually comes out--at which point there are several typical responses.

1. "Who'd you know? You have to know someone to sell a book."-- This is utterly false. I wrote a book, researched agents, queried, wrote another book, queried some more, signed with an agent who shopped my book. Then I accepted an offer. There were no secret passageways, networking, muttered passwords, or any of those things. No tricks. Write, research, repeat as needed. It's pretty straight-forward.

2. "Who are you in the book?"-- I've been astounded by how many people ask this. I write multiple points of view, so there are various guesses. Ash likes photography, so do I . . . so maybe she's "me." Hmm. I have friends who like photography too, but I'm not them either. Having an interest in common with a character isn't being that character. Those commonalities help me write the characters, but each character has something of my beliefs or interests or ant-interest or anti-beliefs. It's an exercise in adding veracity, not a mirror into the author.

3. "Ok, but am I in the book? Or will I be in the next one?"-- I'm sorry, but no. You're alive; they're fiction. I'm aware that some authors do this, but I'm not at ease with any conscious insertion of real-world people into my texts. It feels uncomfortable to me. In retrospect, I sometimes see traits of people I have known. These aren't intentional on part when they do happen. My fave example is that a person I dated 14 years ago had a shoulder tattoo that I ended up giving a minor character in Wicked Lovely. I didn't do this deliberately, but after the fact, I realized that this tattoo had impressed on my memory and was in text. The character has no similarity to the real person beyond the tattoo. Little bits of life swirl in our memories and end up on the page, but again, there's no mirrors.

I love my job. Spinning out stories is exciting to me. Sometimes, though, the misconceptions are as interesting as the fiction itself. Secret passwords, hidden versions of people, and identification games--this is exciting stuff . . . but a sort of fiction as well.

http://www.melissa-marr.com/