She sits there every night when I'm cooking supper or cleaning. The spider plant doesn't seem to mind. ;)
26 November, 2011
Moar Nuttiness
Peanut again, on her spider plant.
She sits there every night when I'm cooking supper or cleaning. The spider plant doesn't seem to mind. ;)
She sits there every night when I'm cooking supper or cleaning. The spider plant doesn't seem to mind. ;)
21 November, 2011
Nutty, nutty
This is Peanut.
Peanut and her sister, Echo, joined our household this past August and while Echo's name was chosen for her (she chirps instead of meows and it sounds a lot like a dolphin's echolocation, so... Echo) Peanut chose her own name. We had something else picked out for her but we all kept calling her Peanut, or Nutty.
Which she is.
She's super gentle, sweet, and prone to random acts of purring, but she also gets herself into crazy troubles.
This morning The Nut woke us up by being upside down in the corner of our bedroom closet so she could un-attach the corner of the carpet just barely reachable behind a set of shelves.
We've had to remove Miss Nutty from being stuck - again upside down - from a packing tube, the broom closet, and the coat tree. She consistently leaps in, gleeful and oblivious, looking for the fun and novelty of almost anything. She likes to ride on shoulders. She helps me type. Monster Under The Blanket is her favorite game. If something gets knocked over (especially things like button jars), we can pretty much guarantee she did it. Her favorite perch is the middle of my big spider plant, which has been flattened for weeks now but otherwise suffering no ill efects. And, as you can see in the pic above, taking the regular path (even out of a paper bag) just isn't her thing. She just has to do it her own Nutty way.
I still miss our Princess Malaysia quite a lot, but The Nut has become pretty freaking cool to have around.
Peanut and her sister, Echo, joined our household this past August and while Echo's name was chosen for her (she chirps instead of meows and it sounds a lot like a dolphin's echolocation, so... Echo) Peanut chose her own name. We had something else picked out for her but we all kept calling her Peanut, or Nutty.
Which she is.
She's super gentle, sweet, and prone to random acts of purring, but she also gets herself into crazy troubles.
This morning The Nut woke us up by being upside down in the corner of our bedroom closet so she could un-attach the corner of the carpet just barely reachable behind a set of shelves.
We've had to remove Miss Nutty from being stuck - again upside down - from a packing tube, the broom closet, and the coat tree. She consistently leaps in, gleeful and oblivious, looking for the fun and novelty of almost anything. She likes to ride on shoulders. She helps me type. Monster Under The Blanket is her favorite game. If something gets knocked over (especially things like button jars), we can pretty much guarantee she did it. Her favorite perch is the middle of my big spider plant, which has been flattened for weeks now but otherwise suffering no ill efects. And, as you can see in the pic above, taking the regular path (even out of a paper bag) just isn't her thing. She just has to do it her own Nutty way.
I still miss our Princess Malaysia quite a lot, but The Nut has become pretty freaking cool to have around.
08 November, 2011
Plus Pages and Banner Graphics
Now that Google Plus is allowing pseudonyms and business pages, I've set one up for my novels and shorts. If you're a plusser, please check it out! :)
I made a square banner graphic for that page, plus a much larger, longer graphic on facebook. I think they've both turned out well, but if anyone has suggestions to make the artwork better, I'm always open to critique. :)
I made a square banner graphic for that page, plus a much larger, longer graphic on facebook. I think they've both turned out well, but if anyone has suggestions to make the artwork better, I'm always open to critique. :)
31 October, 2011
NaNoWriMo
I am officially participating in National Novel Writing Month, also known as NaNo, where a slew of crazy writers dedicate one month to writing FAST. The goal is 50,000 words in November, usually in a new project special for NaNo, but I desperately need to make good progress on Stain of Corruption. Soon. I need to have at least the first draft finished this year. I need to get this book out of my head and off to the fans, despite the endless insanity we've been mired in since, well, March when the postal closing mess tipped the first domino of 2011 life chaos. And I need to get back in the habit of daily prose creation.
Anyway, I'm all signed up and I've been working on the book steadily since I promised to get my 50k in November. I will post daily (well, nightly since I write at night, ha ha) word counts on Twitter, or you can follow along and friend me on NaNoWriMo. :)
Life nuttiness continues (gak, don't get me started on the post office!!), but books don't write themselves. C'mon, November! Let's get LOTS done!!
Anyway, I'm all signed up and I've been working on the book steadily since I promised to get my 50k in November. I will post daily (well, nightly since I write at night, ha ha) word counts on Twitter, or you can follow along and friend me on NaNoWriMo. :)
Life nuttiness continues (gak, don't get me started on the post office!!), but books don't write themselves. C'mon, November! Let's get LOTS done!!
13 October, 2011
Corn
I live in Iowa. Small town Iowa, to be precise, and have lived essentially my whole life surrounded by corn and soybeans.
Corn whispers, did you know that? The leaves caress one another in the wind. Deep into a big, green, field it is quite possible to lose sense of direction since the corn gan grow well over most anyone's head (hint: follow the row, it'll end sooner or later, or listen for traffic and go that way) but, mostly it's pretty mindless to walk through a cornfield in high summer. Just wear a long sleeved shirt and pants, not shorts - I don't care how hot it is, wear the full-coverage clothes anyway. You'll thank me later. You'll be surrounded by green, emersed in it, swimming in it, and, other than the whispers and the wind, it's nearly silent there. Peaceful. Cut off from most everything. You can think in a green cornfield, like walking through a sensory deprivation chamber of green (unless you're wearing a tank top and shorts, in which case you'll be too scratched up and itchy to notice the peacefulness).
However.
Anyone who has to call the cops for being lost, TWENTY FIVE FEET into a corn maze is crazy, stupid, or both. Twenty five feet. It's not that far. Four tallish guys put head to foot. TEN STEPS. Tops. And taking a cranky toddler and a newborn into an hour-long maze only highlights the idiocy. What? They couldn't simply turn around? Couldn't yell 'Hey! We need some help here!' Couldn't climb back up onto the platform they'd just crossed and look to see which way was the 15 feet to the entrance?
Nope. They called the cops.
I couldn't put this in a book. No one with any sense would believe it.
Corn whispers, did you know that? The leaves caress one another in the wind. Deep into a big, green, field it is quite possible to lose sense of direction since the corn gan grow well over most anyone's head (hint: follow the row, it'll end sooner or later, or listen for traffic and go that way) but, mostly it's pretty mindless to walk through a cornfield in high summer. Just wear a long sleeved shirt and pants, not shorts - I don't care how hot it is, wear the full-coverage clothes anyway. You'll thank me later. You'll be surrounded by green, emersed in it, swimming in it, and, other than the whispers and the wind, it's nearly silent there. Peaceful. Cut off from most everything. You can think in a green cornfield, like walking through a sensory deprivation chamber of green (unless you're wearing a tank top and shorts, in which case you'll be too scratched up and itchy to notice the peacefulness).
However.
Anyone who has to call the cops for being lost, TWENTY FIVE FEET into a corn maze is crazy, stupid, or both. Twenty five feet. It's not that far. Four tallish guys put head to foot. TEN STEPS. Tops. And taking a cranky toddler and a newborn into an hour-long maze only highlights the idiocy. What? They couldn't simply turn around? Couldn't yell 'Hey! We need some help here!' Couldn't climb back up onto the platform they'd just crossed and look to see which way was the 15 feet to the entrance?
Nope. They called the cops.
I couldn't put this in a book. No one with any sense would believe it.
10 October, 2011
Reviews. And warning stickers.
While checking out some stats on Amazon (thanks, whoever bought Fire and Sid this past week!) I noticed that there was a newer review in my cue. For Threads of Malice. The reader gave it one star.
I honestly don't have a problem with bad reviews - I know my books aren't for everyone and I'm totally cool with that - but the reader obviously didn't read any of the numerous other reviews bluntly stating the subject matter of the story, or realize that my stuff, especially Threads, is gruesome, violent, and brutally frank about the dark underbelly of humanity. And, I'd like to take a moment to note, despite the violence and horror of Dubric's world, it's nothing in comparison to what happens to real people when captured by sociopaths and murderers.
My characters are fiction. Pretend. Mere imagination. Serial killers do things to real, living people that are horrific beyond comprehension. As twisted as I'm often said to be, I can't even imagine how anyone could actually do what I've read during research, let alone the worse acts that no one outside of law enforcement ever gets to see. What I make up is pale and frothy in comparison to reality and I always, always, try to offset some of the darkness with a bit of light from humor, romance, and family - an important facet of my work that doesn't usually brighten the reality of murder.
I wish I could apologize to this poor woman. I dunno what she was expecting, but obviously Dubric's version of John Wayne Gacy was too much. While I don't expect to thrill every reader, I also don't want to leave mortified, angry readers in my wake either. It's a hard line to walk sometimes, remaining honest yet inoffensive. I just tend to step toward the 'honest' side of that choice.
Some days I wish I could have NC-17 for Violence and Depravity stickers put on the books. Especially Threads.
Or, as my buddy Michele often suggested, 'Do NOT Eat Tacos While Reading This Book!'
(She was eating tacos while first reading the autopsy scene. Maggots. Remember the maggots? Apparently the combination wasn't pleasant. ;) )
Anyway, if, by some miracle, that reviewer is reading this, I am sorry that you hated the book, that it was too gratuitous and you thought the violence served no purpose. I am. I'm sorry that you had to endure the depravity and perversion. I don't want to disgust people, so in that I obviously failed.
But, in the mid 70's, a man named John Wayne Gacy raped, tortured and killed more than 30 teenage boys and young men in far nastier ways than I put in Threads. Gacy finally got caught, thank God. But there are others out there, roaming free and doing similar and worse things even now to men, women, children, and the elderly. It happens every day. For real. I've tried to write 'nice books' but it's simply not in my makeup. I cannot do it. During my forays into the dark, however, I try to shine the brightest light I have and report honestly on what I see. Abuse. Murder. Madness. I don't choose these topics, they choose me. And I always, ALWAYS, try to tell the unvarnished truth as best I can. I might write fiction, but I don't lie. And I don't flinch.
The books really aren't about the dark, though, they're about the people, the good people, who stand up and say that they will no longer allow this to happen. And they stop it. They're about how no matter how awful, how incredibly, impossibly awful things get, Dubric will endure, regardless of how heavy the burden of his ghosts becomes. How Dien will protect the weak, even if it kills him. How Lars will always get back on his feet and snarl at the dark.
How someone has to say NO! I won't allow it anymore!
And, in the end, that someone succeeds.
I write about the people who refuse to falter in the face of evil. And that, I am never sorry about.
I honestly don't have a problem with bad reviews - I know my books aren't for everyone and I'm totally cool with that - but the reader obviously didn't read any of the numerous other reviews bluntly stating the subject matter of the story, or realize that my stuff, especially Threads, is gruesome, violent, and brutally frank about the dark underbelly of humanity. And, I'd like to take a moment to note, despite the violence and horror of Dubric's world, it's nothing in comparison to what happens to real people when captured by sociopaths and murderers.
My characters are fiction. Pretend. Mere imagination. Serial killers do things to real, living people that are horrific beyond comprehension. As twisted as I'm often said to be, I can't even imagine how anyone could actually do what I've read during research, let alone the worse acts that no one outside of law enforcement ever gets to see. What I make up is pale and frothy in comparison to reality and I always, always, try to offset some of the darkness with a bit of light from humor, romance, and family - an important facet of my work that doesn't usually brighten the reality of murder.
I wish I could apologize to this poor woman. I dunno what she was expecting, but obviously Dubric's version of John Wayne Gacy was too much. While I don't expect to thrill every reader, I also don't want to leave mortified, angry readers in my wake either. It's a hard line to walk sometimes, remaining honest yet inoffensive. I just tend to step toward the 'honest' side of that choice.
Some days I wish I could have NC-17 for Violence and Depravity stickers put on the books. Especially Threads.
Or, as my buddy Michele often suggested, 'Do NOT Eat Tacos While Reading This Book!'
(She was eating tacos while first reading the autopsy scene. Maggots. Remember the maggots? Apparently the combination wasn't pleasant. ;) )
Anyway, if, by some miracle, that reviewer is reading this, I am sorry that you hated the book, that it was too gratuitous and you thought the violence served no purpose. I am. I'm sorry that you had to endure the depravity and perversion. I don't want to disgust people, so in that I obviously failed.
But, in the mid 70's, a man named John Wayne Gacy raped, tortured and killed more than 30 teenage boys and young men in far nastier ways than I put in Threads. Gacy finally got caught, thank God. But there are others out there, roaming free and doing similar and worse things even now to men, women, children, and the elderly. It happens every day. For real. I've tried to write 'nice books' but it's simply not in my makeup. I cannot do it. During my forays into the dark, however, I try to shine the brightest light I have and report honestly on what I see. Abuse. Murder. Madness. I don't choose these topics, they choose me. And I always, ALWAYS, try to tell the unvarnished truth as best I can. I might write fiction, but I don't lie. And I don't flinch.
The books really aren't about the dark, though, they're about the people, the good people, who stand up and say that they will no longer allow this to happen. And they stop it. They're about how no matter how awful, how incredibly, impossibly awful things get, Dubric will endure, regardless of how heavy the burden of his ghosts becomes. How Dien will protect the weak, even if it kills him. How Lars will always get back on his feet and snarl at the dark.
How someone has to say NO! I won't allow it anymore!
And, in the end, that someone succeeds.
I write about the people who refuse to falter in the face of evil. And that, I am never sorry about.
06 October, 2011
Links! I have links!!
I've created a new page here on TamboWrites called Books and Such. It's over to the right and has anything you need to know about the novels, shorts, and where to buy them. :) Thanks for your patience.
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