Because It COULD Happen

(Cross posted to Fangs, Fur & Fey)

On of the questions asked of authors on the Fangs, Fur & Fey list was: "Why do you write urban fantasy?"

I have to first start by saying that I’m a huge fan of urban fantasy. I read a lot of it as a teen/young adult (which was some time ago now), probably for me the most memorable of which was Emma Bull’s WAR FOR THE OAKS. I still read a lot of it, in fact.

This is going to sound extremely fannish/Mary Sue, but what I love about urban fantasy, is that, well, that it could happen... to me.

When I was a kid, I loved to play pretend. I had the kind of overactive imagination that sent me into Hixon Forest every day of summer vacation with a wooden sword and a couple of willing friends. I’d still be there, except at some point it became somewhat socially inappropriate for me to tell people to call me “Zurg, Amazon Queen of Venus.” (Except maybe in the bedroom, but that’s another story.)

Urban Fantasy is an invitation to play again. Because the settings are contemporary, I can imagine that that unwashed looking guy talking to himself two seats in front of me on the city bus is, in fact, a werewolf. That’s the sort of stuff I like to play with in my own novels (and in the enjoyment of other people’s)... the taking of real things and added a supernatural or paranormal spin on them. I mean, what if all the guys/gals who talk to themselves are, in point of fact, talking to something real? What if those plastic bags blown around by the wind are messengers to some kind of new breed of urban faerie? My friend Kelly McCullough based a whole universe in an as-yet-unsold fey book called THE URBANA on that idea.

It makes walking to work more interesting, you know?

As If You Needed One More Blog To Read...

I was just invited to join a new LiveJournal community that might be of interest of readers of Tall, Dark & Dead. It’s a collection of paranormal romance writers called fangs_fur_fey/

British Cover

Here's the British cover for Tall, Dark and Dead. (Yes, they realize they mispelled my name. It's being fixed.) Outside of that, I think it's awesome.

Astro Alert:Mercury Retrograde, Neptune Direct, Jupiter Square Saturn

Your up-to-date astrological information here!

This from Astrology.com

"Are you thinking of making some lifestyle changes? The Jupiter square Saturn on October 25 is the perfect excuse to cut back on any excesses and to assess the areas of life where you are overcommitted. And with Neptune ending its retrograde -- a phase that began last May -- when it turns direct on October 29, you are tuned into your hopes, wishes and dreams. Now is the time to incorporate these ideals more deeply into your life."
"But wait! That rascal Mercury turns retrograde on October 28, a period that will last until November 17, so it will be essential to do a thorough review of your plans before making any life-altering decisions. Start reviewing old contacts, ideas and plans. What have you accomplished? Are you stuck in a rut? Though communication snafus and misunderstandings abound during any Mercury retrograde period, it's also an ideal time to analyze, evaluate and effect real change."

Math Disproves the Vampire

World Science has an article that shows that vampires can't exist, mathematically speaking. Check it out: Math vs. Vampires: Vampires Lose".

Garnet and Sebastian Short Story News

As you know, a short story I wrote featuring our very own Garnet Lacey and Sebastian von Traumm will be coming out in an anthology edited by Charaline Harris. I just got new and improved information about its release date. See the note below:

I just wanted to catch you up on the status for MANY BLOODY RETURNS. Ginjer Buchanan at Ace has read the manuscript and loves it. (That is a quote!) And though I'd thought it would be a paperback release, the book will be a September 2007 HARDCOVER release.

Cool Yule!

Lizard Man of... My Hometown?

Now I’m reading Hunting the American Werewolf by Linda Godfrey and Mason has wanted to look at all the monster pictures. While flipping through the book, we came across a reference to my hometown. Apparently, in 1994, there was a sighting of a lizard creature sulking near the water front of the Black River near the Hardee’s of Clinton Avenue Bridge. What’s amazing to me is that this BLOCKS from the house I grew up in and where my parents still live.

According to Linda Godfrey the author of Hunting the American Werewolf, it all started when a man and his teenage son went walking with their dog and the dog slipped its leashed. They started hunting for the pooch, when “Suddenly, a movement near a tree caught their attention and they trained the flashlight in that direction, hoping to find the runaway hound. Instead, they were astonished to find themselves looking at a creature standing on two legs in front of a tree, something taller than a man and covered with mud-colored scales. Its eyes were yellow and slitted....”

Then she goes on to talk about all the mysterious drownings that happen near LaCrosse. Except, most of those drownings, while tragic, aren’t terribly mysterious. They tend to involve college kids who go bar-hopping – LaCrosse’s main bar street, Third Street, is as you might guess, a mere three blocks from the Mississippi – and wind up in the river. She makes a number of connections to the Mississippi and various Winnebago (Ho-Chunk) legends of monster snakes that drag unfortunate victims to watery graves, which would be a fine stretch, except the sighting of this lizard man was on the Black River. I know, because that’s the public beach I grew up swimming in every summer for nearly seventeen years.

Clearly, I have a lot of paranormal leanings, and I honestly believe that LaCrosse is a very magic town. A Menominee legends says that where three rivers cross there will never be a tornado. Despite the fact that the Midwest is plagued with tornados, LaCrosse (which is the junction of the LaCrosse, the Black, and the Mississippi rivers) has never been hit by one. There are gorgeous, wild Bluffs surrounding the town and undeveloped marsh land that cuts the city into the north and south sides. I could see how a magic creature could feel at home in LaCrosse and could, in fact, stay fairly undetected for a while.

But, I’m not buying this one.

I think the fact that Godfrey admits that she gets this story second hand and the fact that it happened in a place that I’m so intimately familiar with really stretches credibility for me. I will say that when I was growing up (70s and early 80s), the shoreline of the Black River was left undeveloped. I used to roam past the beach barriers and hike for miles through willow and weeds… and it was spooky. But, after I left, there was an attempt, I guess, to gentrify the area and the city clear-cut of all that wilderness. You’d think if there were a selkie or a lizard man living there, someone would have seen evidence of it, when the area was much more wild.

Wouldn’t you?

Marry Me, You Vamp!

From the Vampire Vixen’s chat list, J.C. Wilder (once again) had something interesting and provocative to say, “I heard Virginia Henley speak many years ago and she made the statement, ‘Women would love to sleep with my men but they'd be crazy to marry them.’ - I feel that way about the vamp. They're dark, deadly and ultimately sexy but one would have to be crazy to truly trifle with one.”

Yeah.

That’s part of what irks me when readers of TD&D complain that my vampire character is morally reprehensible. I want to say, “Well, Duh. He’s a vampire. He EATS people.”

I totally understand the appeal of the romantic, tragic vampire. I think, however, it’s easy for post-Buffy fans to forget that the traditional vampire is a killer. He can have remorse, but he still needs to kill to survive. Most vampires aren’t like Angel. They may not be soulless (depending, of course, on the author’s rules regarding such things) but neither are they without sin. (You may say Angel had his Angelus, but I’d counter that in many respects those were two completely different people – one entirely possessed by a demon and the other burdened with a soul. I liked both, though Angel was more interesting to me because he was more self-aware and introspective.)

Anyway, it’s in the sinner that I find interesting literary ground. This question of can a killer be a “good” person interests and excites me. When I sat down and conjured up Garnet, I wanted this question to be central to her personality, too.

I love romantic comedies, and I always knew that I wanted TD&D to have some light-hearted, if not downright humorous moments. However, I didn’t really want a silly, vacuous heroine. I wanted someone who would be equal in strength (ala Garnet’s magic and Lilith, who, if unleashed could eat the vampire for breakfast) AND in emotional depth (she has her secrets and her darker side, too.)

Would I really want to marry Sebastian? No, not particularly. He’s a decent enough sort, a day-walker, and filthy rich… but he still drinks blood and he’d need a source for that blood and it couldn’t be me – not forever, anyway. Plus, I’m not sure a vampire would ever be able to settle down and lead a truly normal life. There is, after all, no statute of limitations on murder...

Market Killer Strikes Again?

Ever since Other me wrote cyberpunk into the ground, I've been joking that now that I've transformed into Tate Hallaway I'll do the same for the whole vampire chick-lit craze.

Guess what's being reported on Vampire Vixens' yahoo group?

"In the publishing world trends come and go like the hems of dresses. According to a lot of publishers I'm hearing, 'We're not interested in vamps, we're all bought up' of the sales are 'slipping'. This is just my opinion but, if the sales are slipping its because of the NY 'rush' to fill the shelves with vampires. This has happened with every 'trend' and the quality begins to slip as they make that mad dash to catch the trend.
What do you think, are vampires dead?" (from J.C. Wilder)

Sounds like I may have done it again. Any requests for the genre or sub-genre I should wipe out next? Inspirational romances? Space opera?

Sigh.

The Black Dog of Père LaChaise

I’ve been reading The Beast of Bray Road, and there is a section in the book about supernatural black dogs, who guard certain graves.

Shawn and I have long been cemetery aficionados – to the point of having photographs hanging in our house of striking or interesting headstones. For me, cemeteries have always been peaceful, contemplative places. When I was a teenager, I used to bicycle out to the pauper’s cemetery on Campbell Road and sit in the shade of the oak tree just to be alone with my own thoughts. When Shawn and I lived on Girard Avenue in Uptown in Minneapolis, we spent a lot of time strolling the grounds of Lakewood Cemetery. I almost never find cemeteries to be spooky or creepy –with two notable exceptions.

The first was our trip to London when we visited Kensel Green. The problem with Kensel Green, despite the fact that it was WAY OUT (we had to take not just the tube, but the train) and we arrived at dusk (generally a creepy time of day), but also that it is as old as the more famous Highgate, but unlike it, it has remained open. Highgate, which is much larger, is filled. Once filled, they closed. Not so Kensel Green. Along one wall, we stumbled across moved or removed headstones. Plus, Kensel Green is old enough that when above ground crypts are in disrepair, there is a certain… shall we say, smell, which was made stronger by the classic London drizzling rain.

Eeeeeeewwwww.

We searched for Charles Babbage, who is supposedly buried there, found Christopher Wren instead, and then left in a hurry.

The next year, in 1995, my parents, Shawn and I traveled to Paris. Shawn and I took with us a great guide book we found called Permanent Parisians: An Illustrated Guide to the Cemeteries of Paris. Despite our Kensel Green experience, we had a lot of fun roaming the cemeteries of the London area. Plus, Paris has one of the most famous cemeteries in the world, Pere LaChaise, where many, many famous people are buried: Heloise and Abelard, Moliere, Balzac, Oscar Wilde, Alice B. Toklas and Gertrude Stien, Proust, and, of course, Jim Morrison (of the “Doors” fame). The cemetery covers acres of land and has gravel roads (complete with street signs) intersecting it. It’s a gigantic necropolis. We were in heaven!

We got lost somewhere after finding Balzac and were paused on the road, consulting our map. That’s when I saw it. The black dog. It was running towards us, through the headstones, barking fiercely. Given how many cats run wild in the cemetery, the thought of a supernatural being never crossed my mind. Our only thought was: run, run away fast. We ran, keeping the dog in our peripheral vision. We crossed the next intersection and it was gone. I hesitate to use the word disappeared because, despite writing about the paranormal, I tend toward the rational. But, it was gone. “That was weird,” we said, and then we went on with our trek.

Only later did I hear about the legend of the black dog. Then, I started to wonder – had we seen one?

To this day, I don’t know.

Web update

I've updated my web page to include the art for DEAD sexy, the back cover blurb, and most importantly a link to an excerpt of the first chapter of the newest Garnet Lacey book!

Enjoy!

Owwwwwooh, Werewolves of Wisconsin!

My trip to Oshkosh was, as I predicted, not terribly profitable. However, it was _very_ entertaining. First of all, I got to meet my host family’s friends and I had that instant feeling of being among "my people." These are gaming, science fiction, fantasy, TV and movie fans – geeks, even. Ah....

Even though I sold exact zero copies of _Tall, Dark & Dead_ at Apple Blossom Books, despite all the promotion that Candy, the owner, did for me, I ended up buying several books about subjects that I think will make their way into the novel I’m currently working on (tentatively called) _Bloody Smashing_, book three of the Garnet Lacey series.

For instance, did you know that Wisconsin has its very own werewolf?? Well, according to Linda S. Godfrey who wrote _The Beast of Bray Road: Tailing Wisconsin’s Werewolf_, it might. The cool thing is that this is non-fiction. These are unexplainable sightings that actually happened to people in an area not terribly far from Madison -- the town where the Garnet Lacey books are set.

Plus, Candy pointed me to several other cool books, including _Weird Wisconsin_ which I plan on ordering from her soon.

What I love about this is that when I sat down to decide where I was going to set the Garnet Lacey books, I picked Madison both on purpose and somewhat randomly. Let me explain. I love Madison and I make a yearly pilgrimage to State Street and surrounding environs. It’s a very funky, cool place where I could quite easily imagine vampire and other paranormal things hanging out (and not being bothered much, since it’s such a eclectic, accepting town in many ways.) Plus, there really is an occult bookstore on State Street (Shakti Bookshop).

But, even though I grew up in Wisconsin, I’m not from Madison, so the decision was a tad random… so it’s wonderful when I discover that my home-state is, in fact, EXACTLY the kind of place where werewolves and such could live.

Anyway, if you’re interested I found out that Weird Wisconsin has a web site. And, I found Haunted Wisconsin too!

Another sale!

It's been a crazy year for Other Me. I just heard from Yoon Ha Lee at the The Internet Review of Science Fiction that my interview with Karin Lowachee will run in their forthcoming issue.

It's a good interview, in my HUMBLE opinion. It was an interview I did because her book CageBird, which I read as part of the Philip K. Dick award committee work, got under my skin. I thought it was an excellent, but difficult book, and I really wanted to know authorial intent. Karin's answers surprised me, and hopefully, they will you too.

Horray!

Frak You, BSG….

I finally finished watching all of the BSG 2.5 episodes, and I’m never going to watch the show again; I’m that mad.

I think the writers of the show completely misunderstand why I’ve been tuning in. I don’t care about the toasters, their plan, or whether or not the lost colonies ever find Earth. I care about the people. I want to see them interact, every day, with each other – on the ship or on the ground, under stress or in peace. I don’t care about the wham-bam action (yes, it makes my heart pound… but why does it make my heart pound? The pretty explosions? Oh, ORANGE! Wow, THAT’s why I’ve been tuning in, because I love the orange explosions so much… oooh, you added yellow, wow-whee.) No, you fraking idiots. Explosions themselves don’t make good drama. For me it’s the characters, and now...

S

P

O

I

L

E

R

S

...“one year later” I don’t know these people any more.

I understand that the writers wanted to skip what they perceived as the boring parts (peace) and get back to the Cylon action.

Whatever. That's for crap storytelling, people. Who do you think you are, George Lucas? (Oh, and guess what? I hate HIM, too.)

I think they miscalculated my attachment to these people. For instance, I would have hung on for an entire season of peace, because with 50,000 people struggling for survive on a planet “ruled” by a corrupt president, a degrading military, there isn’t such a thing as “peace.” No, in fact, that’s drama. Human drama.

I want to have seen the military decommissioning – the decisions to do that, the arguments Adoma may or may not have given for continuing it. I want to see what happened the day Starbuck decided to get married (what the frak, btw? Does she really seem like the nagging, yet devoted tent-wife we see in the snippet of the “now”? How did THAT transformation happen?) I want to see Callie and the Chief work through his violence issues (is it just me or has that guy gotten away with murder and assault with almost no consequences?) I want to see Apollo so give up on life that he lets himself get fat (oh, and if there was no longer any reason to tune in, a fat Apollo pretty much clinches it for me; I like my pretty boys, pretty, thank you.) How did the XO become the sole, sober voice of reason, “You and I both know the Cylons could show up any day?” (And his wife stayed on the ship? Five minutes earlier in the episode, he said she could go cat around without him.) Giaus as completely corrupt? (Yeah, he had his moments, but when the nuke blew, he seemed striken… what makes his character interesting is that conflict between being human and being a completely misguided, manipulated cylon-fraker. He HAD been one of my favorite characters. Not no more.)

And now I hear from my friend Rick that they’re going to skip ahead another year or more? I’m supposed to go the BSG site and download a few minutes of condensed storytelling to satisfy my need for ACTUAL CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT.

No, not interested, thanks.

I’m too mad. And, frankly, I don’t care any more. You rip out the stories of these people and you rip out the heart of the story. That’s a quick bleed-out. I’m done.

Oh, but thanks for the black fighter pilot... too little, too late, especially since he doesn’t get a story. Apparently no one does any more.

This Just In...

An Amazon.com search just showed that Dead Sexy is now available for Pre-Order! Hurrah!

The Hard, Cold Reality of “Book Tours”

I leave for Oshkosh, Wisconsin on Friday afternoon. I’m headed off to stay with a friend of a friend and stop into OshCON and do a signing at Apple Blossom books in Appleton.

Before I was published, I had this crazy idea that publishers arranged and paid for authors to go on book tour. They don’t. At least, they don’t pay for mine. No doubt there are some authors who get the royal treatment of fifty states in fifty days, the tab picked up by Houghton Mifflin or Penguin USA or whoever, but that’s a select few… and, more to the point, no one *I* know.

How did I end up doing the signing in Appleton, you ask?

Well, sometime after my book first came out in May this friend of a friend in Oshkosh read Tall, Dark & Dead and loved it. He’s also involved with OshCON and he emailed me to see if I was interested in attending the con in October. I said I was, but it’s a bit of a drive for me (several hours by car) and I have a young family at home who will have to make arrangement to survive the weekend on their own. Sensing my hesitation, Phil (my friend of a friend) sweetened the deal: how about I see if I can help you arrange a signing at one of my local bookstores? Or maybe two? “Oh,” I typed, my eyes twinkling, “That’s starting to sound worth it. Especially if you’re willing to make initial contact.”

Because while I love to do signings – what could be cooler than people coming up to YOU and asking for your signature on a book they loved? – I HATE arranging them, especially in places where I’m not local.

I’m not a shy person, but there’s still something in me that inwardly cringes when I have to dial a bookstore’s number and try to convince them that I’m a good bet for a signing. The thing that you may not know about book signings is that they rarely sell a lot of books. I’ve been told by booksellers that if you sell a half a dozen (that’s SIX) you’ve done really well. Many times a bookstore will only order several copies knowing that even those might not “move,” which backfired once… I had a signing in my hometown. It was my first published book. I got some media attention – the Sunday paper ran a huge article the day of the signing, plus my parents told everyone who had ever known me – fifty people showed up. Great for me, except the book store had ordered fifteen copies. Luckily, I’d thought ahead and brought book plates to sign. After that, I started carrying extra copies in my car, though I’ve only had cause to use them once since then.

Normally, it’s crickets. The resounding sound of emptiness.

The class I took in publicity said that the point of book signings is not to sell books, it’s to talk to booksellers and get them excited about “hand selling” (talking up your book to customers who ask, “What’s good?”). Even though I know that’s what I’m supposed to expect, it’s still disappointing to drive (eight minutes or eight hours) to sit in a mostly empty bookstore with that wistful, yet doomed expression of someone whose date is never going to show….

When book signings are local, I can do something to mitigate that depressing experience. I can print up and send out postcards announcing the signing a week or a month in advance to my friends, acquaintances, people to whom I’ve taught classes, etc. Then, usually, some people show up. When the signings are out of town, like this one will be, I’m at a loss as to what I can do. Now that I’m writing romances, there’s the possibility of contacting the local RWA chapter and seeing if they will, at least, run a notice in their newsletter to members… but, this brings me right back to that slimy feeling of asking people to do something for me that doesn’t net them much in return.

A more robust self-promoter than myself would send off press-kits to the area newspapers in hopes that somehow I will have written a press release that makes an Oshkosh reporter psyched that an out-of-towner that has no connection what-so-ever to their city has come to sign one of a million paranormal romance. It’s a tough sell. What usually happens is I work like a dog to come up with a clever hook about my work, write up and print out the press releases, gather up reviews and articles about me for a press kit, go to the effort to make them pretty, yet accessible, spend the money to ship them off…

…And get zero response.

So, I'm off to Oshkosh to listen to their crickets. Wish me luck?

Copyedited Manuscript Delivered

Yesterday evening I FedExed the copy-edited manuscript of Dead Sexy back to New York. I have to say this was the cleanest copy I've ever had to approve... which, frankly, unnerved me. I'm used to having to do all sorts of crazy last minute changes. This time I only had to answer a couple of questions, fix one herb, and that was it.

Weird.

Still, the book is that much closer to being ready to hit the shelves!

Now, I need to start working on Bloody Smashing... just one more episode of Battlestar Galactica, then I can start...

Respect for arthropods (and other ick!)

When I asked Mason what I should blog about this is what he suggested:

“Dear dot-com.,
Nothing else. Now let’s look at ‘deep sea’ + ‘ocean creatures.’”

He’s just discovered the wonderful powers of google, and that there is a world of images of his favorite things: hammerhead sharks, Brazilian wandering spiders, Madagascar hissing cockroaches, black widow spiders, harvestmen (the arachnid family that daddylonglegs belongs to [pictured]), giant squid, etc. Whenever he sees me sitting at the computer, he always comes up to me and tells me what search words he wants me to use (even when I’m not online.)

I have to say that I have learned to enjoy things -- and by "things" I mostly mean arthropods, a.k.a "bugs" -- thanks to being a parent to a curious boy like Mason. Even though it means sometimes picking up millipeds in my backyard and inwardly thinking "eew".... I tell myself that by not cringing and shrieking like the Nelly Queen I truly am, I am hopefully fostering exploration, etc., etc. for my budding entomologist.

TV May Be Evil...

...But it taught my three year-old to say "hypengyophobia" (the fear of responsiblity.)

In case you're wondering he learned that word from "Charlie Brown's Christmas."

Tate at the Sprawl

As part of the Midwest Fiction Writer's Harvest Fall Festival, I will be answering questions and signing Tall, Dark & Dead on Saturday, September 30, 2006 starting at 7:00 pm at the Sear's Court in the Mall of America along with Jennifer Cruise, Bob Mayer, Barbara Samuel, Judy Baer, Kathleen Eagle, Lois Greiman, Michele Hauf, Maureen McKade, Patti O'Shea, Wendy Rosnau, Roxanne Rustand, and Cynthia Williams. It should be quite the event.

Dead Sexy Cover

Here it is! The cover for DEAD SEXY, the second book in the Garnet Lacey series.

The back copy reads: I should’ve known I’d never get away with murder. Especially when the people I accidentally unleashed the dark Goddess Lilith on were Vatican witch hunters. Besides, I’ve had other things to worry about. I really don’t want my vampire boyfriend to find out my vampire ex is stowing his coffin in my basement...

Meanwhile, pesky frat boy zombies are popping up everywhere, even at Mercury Crossing, the occult bookstore I manage. And if that weren’t enough, I’ve got a gorgeous FBI agent hot on my trail.

What to do? A teensy little love spell might encourage cute FBI guy to listen to my side of the story, and I could break it any time…right? Between love spells gone wrong and sharing my body with the Goddess Lilith, a plea of innocence won’t be so easy to conjure up...

Post Script: The cover artist is Margaret Gockel and it was designed by Monica Benalcazar.

British hardback listed on Amazon.com

Check out the Headline Review Amazon listing

A New Pluto?

This was sent to me: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/5344892.stm and it made me wonder. If we were to adopt a ninth "new" planet, how are astrologers going to deal with it? Pluto is the former-planet-now-dwarf-planet that currently rules Scorpio (my sign) and I have a lot personally invested in its "atributes." What if they get reassigned to this up-and-comer?

I don't know if I can cope.

More Garnet on Tap!

First, I just heard this morning from my agent that Anne Sowards at Berkely bought BLOODY SMASHING -- the third installment of the Garnet Lacey series, which continues the adventures of Garnet, Sebastian Von Traum and the gang at Mercury Crossing. They want a delivery of May of 07, so that means it will be out some time in spring of 08. DEAD SEXY (book two) is already delivered and will be out in 07. Hooray!

Secondly, I'm not sure if I ever followed up about the short story that I submitted to Charaline Harris' vampire birthday anthology MANY BLOODY RETURNS (Ace - paperback). My story called "Fire and Ice and Linguine for Two" has been delivered, accepted, revised and is now also waiting for publication. It's a short story featuring Garnet and is about Sebastian's birthday.

The Problem With Catch Phrases

My homework for my publicity class is this: “Seriously evaluate your work and look for the threads or core story that pull at your readers’ emotions on a subliminal level. Once you find it, you may have to simmer and boil your message down to get it short, snappy, and concise.”

I have a small problem.

The theme of Tall, Dark & Dead is actually one that a number of readers are reacting to negatively on Amazon.com. A couple of reviewers have written in to say that they find the main characters somewhat (or entirely) morally reprehensible. I didn’t intend for readers to find my heroine and hero unlikable (and, it should be noted, *most* readers aren’t finding them unsympathetic), but I did want my protagonists to wrestle with a fairly hefty moral issue honestly. That is to say the theme is a prickly one: “When is killing acceptable?” I think that this bigger issue, especially when diffused by a chick-litty chatty, romance heroine, is perfectly acceptable, even laudable in a vampire novel. Vampires, after all, by their very nature, are killers. Who better to have this kind of thematic conversation with, right?

Right?

Well, it worked enough to sell the book to my editor. I mean, I feel that this kind of moral question is very effective as a theme for a novel and as a conflict for a character, but I don’t know how well it’s going to boil down into a happy, snappy catchphrase with which to brand myself. “Tate Hallaway, the funny violence philosopher!”

Somehow I’m not hearing the cha-ching of bestsellerdom with that one.

The other approach, I suppose, is to try to position myself as the vampire chick-lit lady, except that brand already belongs to a number of authors. Probably the best well known being: Charaline Harris, Kim Harrison, MaryJanice Davidson, et al. So, how do I stand out, especially when my core story is so prickly?

Even my locale has even been taken. Whereas Harris is the Southern Vampire writer, Davidson has claimed the Midwest (being from and placing her novels in Minneapolis/St. Paul). My novel takes place in the Midwest also, but in the quirky capitol city of Wisconsin -- Madison. My main character is a Witch, but then so is Kim Harrison’s. My novels have an astrological element, but it’s not terribly strong in the second book. It’s probably not enough to "brand" myself with at any rate.

You begin to see my problem?

I suspect this tendency of mine to want to write about things that… well, matter (at least to me)… continues to get me into trouble (I believe this may have been part of my downfall in my other persona). I’m difficult to “brand” because, while my themes might be universal, my answers are personal. And, not, as the Amazon.com reviews are showing, always entirely things people who pick up a cartoonish covered romance really want to think about.

A better person would know how to spin this. I don’t.

Astro Alert! (And a Review)

First, the important stuff:

Lunar Eclipse in Pisces
Do you have an urge to howl at the Moon? With the September 7 full Moon lunar eclipse in sensitive Pisces you may feel a bit thin-skinned. Yet, there isn’t a better time to tune into yourself and take stock of where you are and what you want. See if you can take some time away from your busy schedule. Turn off your cell phone, hire a babysitter or take a personal day from work.

Because full Moons, even lunar eclipses, represent a culmination of what you set in motion during the last new Moon, you should review what you've started since the new Moon on August 23. Between now and the next new Moon later this month, on September 22 (also the date of the autumn solar eclipse) -- get a plan together to make changes that will make you feel more comfortable.

But for now, do yourself a favor. Watch a beautiful sunset, listen to a serene piece of music or sit quietly someplace where you can hear yourself think. You’ll be glad you did!

So says astrology.com

Also, Michele Hauf returned the favor and wrote a very nice review of Tall, Dark & Dead here: Have You Read This Yet?

Branding or Bondage? (Yes, This is About Writing, Not Sex)

I’m taking an online class on self-promotion from the women who run Blue Moon Communications, and the first set of lectures are all about how an author “brands” (as in builds a brand name for) themselves. If you haven’t heard of this concept, consider yourself lucky. The idea is that any product (even things like authors or museums) can benefit from the kind of advertising that works for say, Coca-Cola. A consumer is supposed to form an association with you and your work, which solidifies a particular image in their head, like when I say “McDonald’s” you think: fast, ubiquitous, cheap, and utterly evil food. Okay, you’re not supposed to think that last one, but you get the idea, right?

Lot of people buy into this idea as a good thing. When I was still working at the Minnesota Historical Society, I sat through an entire meeting devoted to getting to the core ideas MHS wanted to express as they began the process of branding themselves. My local chapter of RWA has had special lecturers come in and teach authors how to do this also.

Here’s my problem: I’m not convinced this is a good idea for authors.

However, I can see this sort of advertising working well for places like Minnesota Historical Society. Even though it might be a nebulous idea like ‘fun learning,’ what MHS produces can be distilled into sell-able concepts or information bytes.

One of our first assignments for my promotion class was to think of three well-known authors and to consider what their brand might be. All the people I could think of – Stephen King, Anne McCaffery, and J.K. Rowling – might have been “branded,” but they were also pigeonholed. Stephen King is the horror guy, Anne McCaffery is the dragon lady, and J.K. Rowling is the kid wizard woman, even though they might want to be someone else. They’re stuck delivering stories in that same niche. Not “branded,” so much as in “bondage.”

Yeah, you’re saying, but branding clearly works. Those guys are famous! I’m sure they’re crying all the way to the bank. I mean, once you’re THAT famous, presumably you are writing fulltime and may have the time to write what you want on the side under a pseudonym… or maybe you finally have enough money that you simply fall into some kind of intense bliss of uncaring joy.

I still don’t buy it.

Part of the problem is that I don’t believe this works from the ground up, only in reverse. Let me explain. Stephen King, Anne McCaffery, and J. K. Rowling didn’t set out with a brand in mind (especially King and McCaffery, they both started writing in the 1970s). They wrote what they wanted to. It just so happened that what they wrote struck a cord in the (inter)national market. They wrote what people wanted, WHEN they wanted it. By accident. Not by design. My point is, they were already bestsellers. To my knowledge, none of them set out to be the dragon lady or horror guy or the whatever babe du jour.

I’ll grant that perhaps one of the salient features of being a bestseller is writing something that’s easy branded. A simple message is a broad one. That makes sense to me.

But I’m not entirely convinced that distilling one’s own work into a sellable catch phrase is really going to suddenly translate into a broader appeal, especially when the book is already out there. The assumption is that an author continues to build their brand-name recognition with each book. This is great a great idea… if you can last that long. One of the reasons authors are so desperate to try ideas like branding, is because the reality of the book buying world is that books don’t have a very long shelf life. That, my mentors at Blue Moon would tell me, is why you brand the AUTHOR, not the book.

Again, great in theory. Let’s say an author brands herself the telepathic dolphin chick, and no one wants stories about mind-reading sea mammals? Well, then, my instructors very bluntly explain that if the books the author writes bomb, s/he needs to take on a penname and try again. You’ve effectively killed the author by branding them to the type of books that died (of course, this happens anyway, because of the way books are bought by chain bookstores.)

Whereas I can see that authors who already have established reputations can be said to have a brand, no one that I can think of has risen out of the unwashed masses by branding themselves as, say, the tarantula chick-lit writer. And I don’t know what branding yourself the sassy arachnid author gets you, other than the potential to have to be that for as long as people want stories like that and you’re forced to change your name and do it all over again.

That’s not to say that I don’t think some of the advice given as part of this whole branding idea isn’t sound. It’s perfectly reasonable to consider what your theme is and to try to have it reflected in your web presence, in print, in your professional demeanor. In a lot of ways, because the publishing industry is set up in such a way that branding is its own self-fulfilling prophesy (which is to say, you get sort of branded by the marketing department anyway, and, as I said, big chains attach your name to your sales figures so you sink or swim with your series no matter what), you might as well try to paddle the boat rather than just going along for the ride. But, I don’t think an author should fool themselves into thinking that if they can crack this mythical branding nut, they will suddenly find themselves on the New York Times bestseller list.

I really think that the only way you get to be a bestseller is by luck.

Or by magic.

A Speedy, Fun Read

GETAWAY GIRL
Michele Hauf
Silhouette Bombshell (September 2006)
0-373-51421-2
$4.99

In this fast-paced romantic adventure novel, it’s all about speed for Jamie McAlister, a former criminal getaway driver, who is attempting to go straight in Michele Hauf’s GETAWAY GIRL. Of course, her first pick-up for the “good guys” goes horribly wrong, and Jamie ends up entangled with sexy bad guy Sacha Vital, an expatriated American living in Paris who is trying to escape the shadow of his criminal father.

I had a great time reading this novel, even though I usually prefer romantic stories with a bit more speculative twist. This is a straight-forward action-adventure novel, but Hauf handles the plot twists and turns with the same skill as her fictional Jamie steers her “bimmer.”

Jamie is a fun heroine, very chick-litty-chatty, who creates a theme song for everyone she meets. Granted, being the old fuddy-duddy that I am, I don’t know every song she refers to, but I can usually get the gist of them from the titles. The secondary characters are likewise intriguing. I was particularly drawn to Dove, the omni-sexual information broker, and Fitch, the Southern woman-of-a-certain age hacker and Jamie’s main contact for her various driving jobs.

Additionally, I enjoyed “revisiting” Paris throughout the pages of this novel. I’ve always been a bit of a Francophile, and getting to wander the arrondissements with Jamie was a treat.

I would recommend this book to anyone who wants a fun, fast read.

If I may go on a small riff, however, without detracting from Hauf’s read?

[RANT] There’s a small reference when the two lovers are reminiscing about their first anonymous encounter, when Jamie says in the moment after sex, “I’d thought it was the first time in a while that I truly felt happiness, as well.” What’s up with this? It reminded me of my biggest disappointment in “Buffy: The Vampire Slayer,” which is that when Angel is cursed to lose his soul after experiencing one moment of pure happiness -- that one moment is after sex. It’s not that I’m a prude, or that I think that after-glow isn’t wonderful. But wouldn’t it have been nice if one rainy afternoon, while sitting on opposite ends of the duvet reading, Angel just burst into evil-Angelus?

Most of my moments of pure happiness have happened in intensely mundane moments like the one above. But, then maybe my recognition of these kinds of moments is why I’ve been in a relationship with the same person for the last twenty-one years. Of course, most romances are about first blush, not the maintenance of a two-decade (and still going!) long love. Joss Whedon, with his quirky outlook, could have pulled off an Angel-turns-bad-while-quilting moment, but I didn’t really expect one from Hauf. GETAWAY GIRL isn’t that type of book, nor should it have tried to be, but it just sparked this thought.[/RANT]

Saturn/Neptune Opposition! Pluto Direct!

I know you always turn to me for these sorts of things...

My newest Astro Alert from astrology.com says this:

Amid much astrological intensity (including the controversial reclassification last week of Pluto to a "dwarf" planet -- see below), serious Saturn and idealistic Neptune begin the first of three oppositions starting August 31, while Pluto gets ready to turn direct on September 4. The result? You are likely getting clearer and clearer about what you do and do not want in your personal relationships -- and the world is too.

Indeed, from the global to the personal, human beings have an unwitting tendency to cyclically nurture -- or damage -- their relationships; to attract friends as well as foes. The upcoming planetary shifts represent the perfect time to get a handle on this aspect of human nature, and rethink the instinct to ... well, not think about the effects your actions have on others.

Also, because I'm sure you've been wondering what astrologers have been thinking about the whole Pluto-not-a-planet problem, here's their note on that:

The Pluto Predicament
Pluto joined our solar system’s family of planets in 1930. Seventy-six years later, as astronomers have discovered more and more orbiting bodies, including asteroids, comets, moons and as-yet-unclassified bodies, the International Astronomical Union has reclassified Pluto as a dwarf planet.

But this doesn't mean that you should disregard Pluto's place in your charts! It hasn’t left the solar system; it's just in a new category.

Historically, astrologers have examined events in the world at the time of a planet's discovery for clues about what it represents. As god of the underworld, Pluto represents power, transformation, the cycle of death and rebirth, and the process of breaking down and rebuilding. And now the status of Pluto itself is transforming -- a sure sign of its power and influence!

Time will tell if the scope of Pluto's symbolism will decrease as a result of its reclassification. In the meantime, Pluto retains all its astrological significance, as it continues to orbit our Sun.

New Review

Check out the review for Tall, Dark & Dead at lovevampires.com.

The Mammoth Creation Project

Apparently, there is a group of Japanese scientists hellbent on reproducing a wooly mammoth (from sperm frozen in permafrost and an elephant's egg). The thing I find cool about this is that they already have permission to house their creation in a national forest in Siberia.

That's like the guy who wrote The AntiChrist and a Cup of Tea who surrenders his copyright in the event of the tribulation (beginning of the end of the world.)

It takes a certain amount of chutzpah. Not sure exactly what kind, but a certain amount of it, clearly.

If you want to read the article that inspired this ramble, check out: World Science: Bringing Back the Extinct

Now turn to page 135, Everyone…

Second paragraph, near the end, begin reading: "My favorite mug, a blue and brown glazed, hand-thrown pottery one made for me by my friend Frank out in Oregon, had been left with so many other important things in Minneapolis."

Today, Frank sent replacements.

In his August 14th letter, he writes: “Dear Garnet: A little bird told me (actually I think it was a turkey vulture, but my ornithology is kinda suspect) that you were in need of replacement tea mugs, as you’d been reduced to discount bin specials from the Giga-Mart....”

“Geez, [Tate], give a fellow a little warning, will you? One minute I’m sailing along, navigating the plot convolutions of the contemporary vampire romance, the next I’m laughing so hard I nearly fall off of the bed. ‘My friend Frank out in Oregon....’ Does that count as placement?”

No, my dear Frank, but this does:

Check out the fantastic pottery work of Oregon potter Frank A. Gosar, as featured in Tall, Dark & Dead at his web site: Off-Center Ceramics

In my opinion, one of the best parts of being a writer is getting to slide bits of your real life into your novels. When I thought about all the things I’d leave behind if, like Garnet, I had to flee in the middle of the night, Frank’s pottery was one of the things I’d miss (his artwork, too! I have a couple of watercolors of his on my walls.) So, I decided to write him in. Apparently, there’s a term for this phenomenon: tuckerization. Frank found it on wikipedia: a "tuckerization" is the act of using a person's name in original fiction as an in-joke. I wouldn't say that I used Frank's name so much as an in-joke, but more as an homage to a good friend and a marvelous potter.

Now go buy some of his stuff (your friends NEED some for Christmas/Solstace, you know they do), or read about the life-sized ceramic cow he hand-built for his MFA terminal project. Or listen to his morning show on KLCC (89.7 fm/NPR), The Saturday Cafe.

More Thing I Never Needed to Know

A dear (yet evil) friend of mine and fellow fantasy writer Naomi Kritzer sent this news article from Appril 2006 which appeared in the Nikomis East Neighborhood Association's Back Yard newsletter to me. Shark Tales No More: Live Sharks Caught in Minnehaha Creek explains how Hurricane Katrina has sent bull sharks (those that can live in freshwater) further up the Mississippi than ever before -- including an 5 foot adult male found alive in Lake Pepin (in the winter!) and two pups (one of which is shown here) found Minnehaha Creek, a park Mason and I frequently swim in and hike around. The ending of the article is particularly unnerving to me, because I was totally one of those kids who was mocked for not wanting to swim in the Mississippi after "JAWS" came out (and I only saw the poster, as I was too young to see it in the theatre.) Now, all I can say is... ha! Sharks were probably swimming around in the Mississippi that whole damn time.

Edited at a later date: Oops. I guess I was April Fooled. Nevermind.

Going to the Post Office!

The revisions for DEAD SEXY are done! I printed up the final copy and will be headed off today to Kinko's/FedEx.

If only that meant I could sit back and rest...

... alas (and I'm not REALLY complaining, mind you,) I have about 8,000 more words to write on a short story about Sebastian and Garnet that (with any luck) will appear in MANY BLOODY RETURNS a vampire/birthday-themed anthology edited by Charaline Harris. The good news? I figured out my plot last night. Now I just have to get all the pretty images out of my head and on to the paper. The easy bit, right?

Sure.

Off to the post office!

Diveriscon Schedule

I'm going to be at Diversicon this weekend, and here is my schedule:

SATURDAY:
Noon-12:50 Vampire Chick-Lit. The hot new thing is dead. Let's talk about who's writing it and what they're writing about. mod., Tate Hallaway; Richard K. Lyon, Sybil Smith, Jody Wurl.

5:00-5:50pm Feminist Romance. Very often romances in short stories an dnovels follow very patriarchal rules, even when fairly feminist individuals are writing. What does a faminist romantic storyline look like? What don't we see these? How can writers who like to think of themselves as feminists avoid falling back on the old standbys? mod, S.N. Arly; Paula L. Fleming, Catherine Lundoff, Rebecca Marjesdatter.

Writers' Group Blog

My writers group, Wyrdsmiths, has just started a group blog. This blog is intended to be about writing, the craft of writing, the writing life, and anything else we feel like talking about. The group is comprised of a number of published and award-winning science fiction and fantasy authors including: Eleanor Arnason, Naomi Kritzer, Kelly McCoullough, and Lyda Morehouse.

Check out the wyrdsmiths.blogspot.com

Other Me Reports a Sale

Other Me has been a very busy short story seller this year. In fact, she has some more good news to report.

"I just heard from Eric Heideman, editor of Tales of the Unanticipated, that my short story about furniture obsession, the 1916 Irish Uprising, and time-travel, called 'The Van Buylen Effect' sold for issue #28, scheduled to come out in late 2007 or early 2008."

You go, Other Me!

Revision Crunch

Sorry I've been such a spotty blogger, but I got my revision letter for Dead Sexy from my editor Anne Sowards. She had some substantial issues with the romance as I'd written it, so this has been a fairly major overhaul. It's going quickly, though. I'm one of those strange critters who actually enjoys revising.

Plus, I've been reading Grammar Snobs Are Great, Big Meanies: A Language Guide for Fun and Spite by June Casagrande, which is just tremendous fun. Some of the reviewers on Amazon.com don't seem to like it much, but I've enjoyed what I've read so far (perhaps she flubs the ending? Can you do that in a book about words?)

I'd hazard a guess (by skimming the first reviewer's comments) that the people who are offended by the book are, in fact, grammar snobs themselves and don't like being put in their place. I like the book because though I want to be a grammar expert, I'm not (and I know it, and I, like her, have been terrorized by grammar snobs in my past.) This is not a book for someone who wants to be proven right, rather a book that enjoys language and the modern usage of it. The fact that Casagrande discusses in great length why The Simpsons is the most grammatically correct TV show on today tells you a lot about the kind of person who should be reading this book. That person would be me

(not "I").

The Value of Hanging Out with Other Writers

I've been thinking a lot about writers' groups in the past couple of days, and I was just reminded of one of the best reasons to be in one...

...for the company of people who UNDERSTAND.

My friend and fellow writer Rachel was over for lunch today and, as writers often do, we got to talkin' shop. She told me about some positive rejections she got from magazine editors and how two stories came back with editor comments. I stopped her and said, "Wait. Are you saying they want to see the stories again? Like, an informal request for revisions?" "Oh, yeah," she muttered. "I should really get to those some time."

Some time, grrl! How about today!

Thing is, the other people in Rachel's life just don't really get it. There's no one who says, "Uh, yeah. You should do that. I would've! Yesterday!" Because to them, one rejection is just like another.

We all know the truth. If you get the yellow rejection from Realms of Fantasy you're moving up the ladder, that much closer to the written "I liked this, but I just bought a telepathic rabbit story. Feel free to send more when you have something new."

And We all know that when you get that last one, you send something off the next day, if you can.

Even when your spouse/lover/partner/pool boy/S.O. is extremely supportive, there's nothing quite like having another writer in your life who understands that you ARE a genius, who is, in point of fact, just waiting for some editor somewhere to recognize you for what you are. Someone with whom you can (as I like to call it) cast the rejection slips (there should be a word for this thing we all do where we ponder the meaning of cryptic wordings ala "didn't quite grab me" vs. "didn't quite work for me, alas" -- rejectomancy?)

My writers group fills this need for me. Rachel and I will just have to do lunch more often, because writers need this stuff.

Maybe even more than caffeine.

 

But don't quote me.

W2W Deadline Extended

Other me would like to let any Twin Cities area residents know that the deadline for the SASE: The Write Place's "Writer to Writer" mentorship program has been extended to August 15. So, if you were thinking about signing up for a master class with HER, you can still do it!

Application and complete guidelines can be found: www.saseonline.org/home/archives/000037.html

/Public Service Announcement

Back to me... if you're going to be around this weekend, you can catch me on Saturday, August 5, 2006 from 1:00 pm - 3:00 pm, I'll be signing Tall, Dark & Dead with fellow SF/F authors Naomi Kritzer and Kelly McCullough at the Northtown Center Waldenbooks. For directions or other information call (763) 780-1264.

Wickersham Brothers

My son is currently completely obsessed with the Chuck Jones' animated TV version of "Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas." "Horton Hear's a Who" has been tacked on as a bonus feature. I had vague memories of this being on TV when I was a kid (yes, I'm THAT old), but I'd completely forgotten about the song the blue gorrillas (the Wickersham Brothers -- and yes, if you don't remember they're in the book, and named) sing.

It's completely political.

Here are some sample lyrics:

We're the Wickersham Brothers.
We're vigilant spotters.
Hot shot spotters of rotters and plotters.
And we're going to save our sons and our daughters from you.
You're a dastardly, ghastardly, shnasterdly, schnook,
Trying to brainwash our brains,
With this gobbledy gook.
We know what you're up to pal.
You're trying to shatter our morale.
You're trying to stir up discontent.
And seize the reigns of government.
You're trying to throw sand in our eyes.
You're trying to kill free enterprise.
And raise the cost of figs and dates,
And wreck our compound interest rates.
And shut our schools,
And steal our jewels,
And even change our football rules.
Take away our garden tools,
And lock us up in vestibules.

When I made Shawn listen to this she said, in a horror stricken voice, "They're Republicans."

I don't know about that, but it does make me wonder what Dr. Seuss would write about if he were alive today.

An Invitation....

I just got my very first invitation to submit a short story to a vampire anthology edited by none other than Charlaine Harris. I don't have any of the details yet, except that the tentative title is BLOODY RETURNS and the theme is vampires and birthdays.

The coolest part of this is that when I got the email from Charlaine she said that the reason she thought of me is because of a nice thank-you note I'd sent after she ran a rewiew of TALL, DARK & DEAD as part of her Book Blog.

I guess my Mom was right. Being polite really does get you ahead in this world.

Honestly? I would never have believed her, except this is the second time in my life a thank-you note has played a key role in getting a gig.

Guest Blogging...

See my pets (and those of my alter ego) at:
Riding with the top down: Tate Hallaway harbors vampire kitties

The Strange Thoughts of A Three Year Old

This is a conversation Mason and I had in the car the other day. We were listening to JACK FM and "Beautiful People" came on."

Mason: Who's singing this?
Me: Marilyn Manson, I think.
Mason: Is he a princess?
Me: [Long pause, while I consider this.] Sure, honey. He's a princess.

Now what possessed Mason to ask that particular question, I'll never know. But, you know, he might be on to something.

For Once, I'm Jealous of Her

Other Me got a huge article about Her in Strange Horizons. Not that you'd want to read it, but if you did, you could find it here: http://www.strangehorizons.com/2006/20060724/morehouse-int-a.shtml

What Makes a Witch?

I started reading Advanced Witchcraft by Edain McCoy, and, as with a lot of such books on witchcraft, she asked me to "...grab a pencil and write out your definition of an advanced Witch, or what you see as advanced Craft practice." I'm supposed to take some time to mediate on who I am and how I got here, where I want to be and how I want to get there, and why I want to be an advanced Witch.

Because being a retarded Witch seems like a bad idea?

See, this is why I never functioned very well in the few pagan communities I tried to join. I'm too sarcastic and... what is it my astrological chart says about me? "Your mind is deep, but rarely charitable."

I'm a self-initiated Witch, which means that everything I know about Witchcraft I taught myself. No one waved a wand, magic or otherwise, over my head and proclaimed me a Witch. Most days I'm perfectly okay with that. What others might think about my level of Craft (or lack thereof) doesn't usually get in the way of any of the "acts of love and pleasure that are Her ritual" that I practice in my daily life. The Goddess is still real to me, whether or not someone else thinks She should be.

But then there's days like today, when I started McCoy's book and she made it clear that she felt the only true path to becoming a Witch (despite being originally self-initiated herself) was being trained by a large coven. There are lots of references to remembering moments when your teachers taught you this or that, as if there was one shared path we've all trod upon, like a catechism. She makes a lot of references to the "ten blistered fingers" we all got by serving our masters.

This concept of a formalized path is so foreign to me that I don't even have a point of reference from the religion of my youth. I only know about catechisms through osmosis. I grew up in a mostly German/Irish Catholic town, but I was raised a Unitarian Universalist (a very liberal religion to start with), except not in a church, but in a fellowship. If you don't know what this is let me explain it at its most simple: we had no minister. A fellowship is structured not unlike a reading group. People get together. They talk. They have some snacks. They go home.

That was my STRUCTURED, ORGANIZED religion.

In fact, I didn't even know UU s had any kind of formal instruction until I moved to Minneapolis/St. Paul and discovered this crazy thing called a Unitarian church. With pews! With call and answer! With hymnals! With MINISTERS!! I mean, I knew we had a church building somewhere in Boston, the fabled First Unitarian Church, which I came to view as a kind of mystical Mecca, but I never once believed we had any kind of written liturgy or anything so formalized....

So, anyway, when you're raised to think "church" is sitting around in the meeting hall of an old folk's home with a bunch of other people (no one of them more vested with arcane knowledge than any other) talking, drinking coffee, and eating donuts, the idea that you need to be preached to from someone with an advanced degree in order to truly experience your spirituality is hard for me to grasp.

Learning from other people, I get.

Listening, I get.

Being receptive to experiences that come out of the universe, I get.

I also understand experts. In fact some days, I'd love to have a teacher like McCoy describes, which may be part of why I react so strongly when she assumes I should have had one. Especially since so far I've failed to find one. Utterly.

I thought I had a teacher when, several years ago, I joined a local branch of Reform Covenant of the Goddess. I think in the terms of New Age woo-woo I wasn't _ready_ to join a group like this. I had a lot of misconceptions about what it would really be like. I wanted a coven, and I got a ladies sewing circle (with attitude.) And, as those of you who know me, I'm a bit of a diva and an alpha personality. Humble newbie acolyte, I'm not. I lasted about two months, in which a lot of crazy magic happened, actually.

First sign: a starling got trapped in the altar room in my house. We have four cats and the altar room is our upstairs sun room. Somehow, a starling got in (through the flue in the basement?) and managed to spend a good portion of the day flapping around wounded, though not killed by the four fanged predators, in one particular room. I managed to capture it and brought to the wildlife rescue center. I told the person who had been assigned to mentor me in this group, and she told me that starlings are symbols of group activity. My response? What was I supposed to make of a wounded "group activity" on my altar? (Oh yeah, I forgot to mention this starling showed up the very DAY I started doing the work assigned to me by RCG.) That seems like a pretty straightforward BAD sign. She said, "Well. Maybe you should focus on the fact that it was rescued."

Meanwhile, my horror movie spidey-sense was tingling. And as it turns out, I was right and the Goddess isn’t so subtle after all. Not more than two days later I got into a clash of personality with the high priestess/group leader, which ended in me getting asked to leave. The last group ritual I did with them was Samhain, and as part of that, they had people pull cards from a Tarot deck as their "message." Mine? The High Priestess. Seemed clear to me that I was supposed to go off and do my own thing.

So I did.

Only now I'm struggling to advance my craft. Every once and a while I think I need to try another group. We have a CUUPS (the Unitarian Universalist pagans) group in town, and I should probably consider trying out their rituals, but after my experience with RCG I'm a little gunshy about asking the Goddess for another group.

Yet, on days like today, I feel like I need one in order to grow.

Ego-Surf Gem

So, I was out ego-surfing today. The sun was shining and the wave were high...

Anyway, I came across this website, http://dearauthor.com/wordpress/ which I recommend to y'all. They wrote a very nice letter to me, which you can find at http://dearauthor.com/wordpress/tall-dark-and-dead-by-tate-hallaway/. But, generally, I thought it was a cool blog, and one worth passing along.

Face Recognition Fun

Okay, if you have a lot of time on your hands I well and truly recommend this site: http://www.myheritage.com/face_recognition.

I ran this photo of myself:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And got a 73 percent match to Namie Amuro:

 

 

 

 

And... (drum roll, please)... John Belushi.

AWESOME.

I *bleeping* love this site.

Success Stories...

..about me.

I got this note from my editor this morning:
"TALL, DARK & DEAD remains on the bookstore bestseller lists--
#22 on Bookscan's fantasy trade paperback bestseller list
#23 on B&N's romance trade paperback bestseller list"

Plus, my agent informed me yesterday that she sold British rights to Tall, Dark & Dead, Dead Sexy, and Bloody Smashing (tentative title for the as-yet-unwritten book 3 of the Garnet Lacey series) to Headline/Hodder for a modest (but not insubstantial) lower five-digit figure.

Today Britain, tomorrow... the World. (crossing-fingers.)

Underworld (2003): My Opinion

Plot summary provided by IMDb:

"A war going on for centuries between vampires and Lycans/werewolves, never seen by humans eyes, until one of the werewolves by the name of Lucian (Michael Sheen) finds out about one human that can bond with vampire blood and Lycans blood, Michael (Scott Speedman). Selene (Kate Beckinsale) is the vampire Death dealer that finds out why the Lycans are following Michael and falls in love with him. Kraven (Shane Brolly) is the leader of the vampire house after Viktor (Bill Nighy) dies and wants Selene by his side, but she is a wild cat to break."

Again, I read a lot of the viewer's comments and I have to say I'm surprised by the number of people (okay 2 out of several pages, and I only read the first few pages) complained that one of the reasons they didn't like the vampires in this film is because they had reflections in mirrors. Okay, I can respect all the of the viewers who complained about the constant night, the continuous rain, and the blue, BLUE filter cast on everything (my cousin Jonathan and I speculated that perhaps this film was supposed to take place in Helsinki in the winter, since there never seems to be daylight. Our other possibility, Seattle during the spring, since it was, in fact, constantly raining, I'm not sure there was a dry moment in the film.) But, you're mad because the vampires have reflections and cast shadows?

EVERYTHING casts a shadow. EVERYTHING has a reflection. Dead or alive. Next time your gerbil gives up its ghost (and they die, a lot. I had gerbils for several years until I realized that a two-year life span was going to kill my very sensitive and rodent-loving heart), put it in front of the mirror or out on the pavement in the noon sun. You will see that being dead makes no never mind to shadows and reflections. Okay, you're saying, but vampires are magical. Yes, I agree, but they still wear clothes. The clothes would have a reflection, unless like Superman vampires have some kind of personal ionic field of "alienness" that makes everything within inches of his flesh also invulnerable (which, frankly, makes more sense to me than the undead's clothing suddenly lacking a reflection. Turning invisible along with the Invisible Woman, that can be explained; not having a reflection, harder.)

And, WTF? I don't understand why this particular characteristic would make or break a vampire film for someone. I mean, one of the two who commented about the shadows/reflections, said that s/he was disappointed because the vampires didn't bite. That, to me, is a legitimate reason not to like a certain fictional portrayal of a vampire. For a lot of people, myself included, the bite is essential to vampirism. And, let's face it, when done right, biting is sexy. And vampires should be all about the sexy.

But, the rest of it – staking, shadows, turning, reflections, daylight tolerance, etc. – is all up for debate as far as I'm concerned. Given that Bram Stoker's Dracula walked around in the daylight, I don't see the need to follow Nesfaratu (the movie) in terms of its vampire lore. If you wanted to get into a fist fight about it, I think a person could make a pretty serious claim that Stoker's Dracula is the definitive answer on that one, which makes all the vampire movies that show daylight sizzling the fiends "wrong." And you don't see a lot of people complaining about that (myself included – I actually kind of like the night restrictions, because it makes for a puzzle to be conquered for the author of vampire stuff.)

Vampires have such a diverse and various set of "assumptions." One of the things I look forward to when watching a new vampire film or reading a new vampire book, is how the screen/writer is going to play with the usual mythos and, correspondingly, how they're going to explain their vampires and their vampire's various restrictions/strengths. I like most answers. I am less fond of "vampire as separate/parallel species," but I have enjoyed those stories, when done right. And, all it usually takes for me to consider something done right is a plausible back story.

I'm not entirely sure how vampires were explained in Underworld (because I actually missed the first half of the film), but I really enjoyed the idea of werewolves as the day-time guardians (slaves) for the vampires. The werewolves were clearly, to me, the heroes of this first film. As someone on IMDb pointed out, this film is either consciously or unconsciously about class. The werewolves are working class in appearance and dress and, as it is revealed, back story (and, therefore, in my opinion, much more likable); the vampires are aristocrats. More than that, the vampires are the former slave-owners. Slave-owners = bad.

There were two star-crossed lover stories in Underworld, which is, as Shakespeare knows, always a crowd-pleaser. First, Michael our human turned wolfpire or vampwolf (half werewolf, half vampire) and Selene the death dealer (vampire), who, OF COURSE, is later sent to destroy him. The second is Lucian's (head were) back story, in which we discover he was a slave who loved the master's daughter. To be absolutely and perfectly honest, this kind of love story always appeals to me.

The part that confused me was actually the main plot. I gathered that the werewolves were attempting to find Michael because he was the descent of the human line of the father of both the vampires and the werewolves and wanted to specifically turn him into this hybrid. (Note: I also liked this sort of Biblical, Son of Abraham, Son of Isaac thing, where both weres and vamps come from the same people, even though they now are bitter enemies.) What I missed (or couldn't figure out) was what purpose he would serve, exactly. A lot was made of the fact that he would be stronger than either weres or vampires, but I wasn’t sure to what end, since, quite clearly, he didn't want to be party to this underworld war at all. Perhaps Lucien realized his was the far more sympathetic story and figured Michael would agree to fight on their side when he heard it. But, thing is... a vampire from the other side, Kraven, was involved in this plot to find Michael and turn him.

I wondered if maybe mating vampire and werewolf was meant to be some kind of symbol of unity, embodied physically in Michael. A kind of, "look, we really can get along, even if it’s only on the cellular level. So, let's stop all this silly fighting." Except Kraven was not presented (at least in what I saw) as sympathetic in any way. If he was trying to lead his people to peace, I didn't see an evidence of that agenda in the way he acted (in the last half of the film, anyway.) Plus, his name sort of implies that he's the villian.

What I will say about Underworld is that it made me want to read the novelization of the movie so that I could see if any of my bigger questions are answered. The universe is compelling enough that I intend to put Underworld: Evolution on my rent-it Netflix list.

So is that a recommendation, Tate? I don't know. Probably not. But, if it I had the chance to see it again for free, I would. Take that for what it is.

My Take on "The Forsaken"

The IMDb database gives this for a plot summary:

"Sean (Kerr Smith) is driving cross-country to deliver a vintage Mercedes and attend his sister's wedding when he picks up a hitchhiker, Nick (Brendan Fehr), who just happens to be a vampire hunter, tracking down a group of youthful vampires that feed on unwary travelers. As the plot thickens, they run into Megan, (Isabella Miko) who has been left for dead by the vampires. As they use her as a lure for the vampires, Sean becomes attracted to her. Further complications ensue when Sean is infected with the vampire virus. He, Megan and Nick must race against time to kill the vampire leader (Jonathon Schaech) to stop Sean from becoming one of the undead."

I scanned through some of the user comments (of which there are a ton, especially given that I'd never heard of this film) while formulating my own thoughts about this movie, and I have to agree with the general assessment that this film doesn't entirely suck, but it's not especially good either.

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The things I liked included the character of Nick, the vampire hunter. He was just kind of a dude, you know? In fact, I found myself pleasantly surprised when this easy-going, beer-drinking oaf ended up being the keeper of the arcane knowledge. I really liked the fact that Nick's vampire hunting skillz weren't in the realm of superheroic at all – no Buffy-esque ninja staking moves. As far as I could tell, he had The knowledge, a gun, and "the cocktail," which wasn't actually for hunting vampires at all, but for keeping their victims from turning.

Vampirism as "sexually transmitted" disease is hardly a brand new idea in vampire fiction, but this was the first time that I'd seen it combated with drugs, specifically pharmaceuticals originally formulated to help HIV patients survive longer. I couldn't decide, however, if this detracted from the film or made it cooler. Thing is, vampire as disease isn't terribly sexy. Especially after Nick informs us that "the drugs don’t work, not forever. The only way to cure the disease is..." (drum roll, please) "...to kill the head vampire." Okay, maybe it's supposed to be some kind of CDC metaphor for Patient Zero or whatever, but it didn't really work for me, alas, since the whole must-kill-the-big-baddie is such a cliché.

Then there was the origin story, which make no sense whatsoever. According to Nick (who never tells us exactly how he found this out) eight French knights go into some horrifically bloody battle and must make a pack with Satan to survive. They eat one of their colleagues (as some sort of Satanic bonding ritual?) and become the first immortals with a taste for blood. They wake up the next morning so ashamed of their deeds that they hide from the light of day, and, what, I guess then are shamed into flames the next time the sun hits them or one of their offspring? (Talk about a bad blush! They don't just feel like their cheeks are aflame, they really ARE on fire!)

The disease metaphor gets completely forgotten, and people like me who think far too hard during action films, are left wondering, "So, then at what point is their bite an 'infection'? Who is the first infector? Satan? If that's the case, could these HIV drugs kill Satan? Is he corporal? Does the Ultimate Bad Guy even have blood? Shouldn't the local exorcist also want some of these HIV drugs to cast out other minor demons? Or was it the first guy they ate the one who was diseased, and if so, with what? Is vampirism our own Mad Cow disease fraught with the warning, don't eat other people, it will just lead to diseases that embarrass you to death?"

And when you start thinking like that, it ruins a perfectly functional action film.

Postpartum Novel Depression….

So the book is off. I just sent the paper copy to the publisher this morning. Now I'm having that strange postpartum ennui I get right after I deliver.

Part of the problem is that I just spent several months in high-production mode. I wrote every night from eight or nine in the evening until midnight. Now I have nothing to do with that time. I've been watching a lot of TV and movies (including two vampires ones: I finally saw Underworld on cable at the in-laws and then on Saturday I watched another Sci-Fi Channel original vampire film, this one called The Forsaken.) But, the shine is already wearing off on that.

So I have writing ennui.

I could start the next Garnet Lacey novel. I've written outlines/synopses for the next two, but I have a weird superstition about that, which is that I don't like to start the next novel until the contract is at least being negotiated (preferably only after the contract is in the works.)

Alternate-me was invited to submit a short story to another anthology, this one about paranormal sleuths, which is right up my alley. I even have an idea, so that's probably what I’ll work on next. Of course, however, when I sit down to write I just sort of stare at the screen like I've forgotten how to write.

*sigh*

Wanderers Go Wandering Again: Mercury Goes Backwards, Jupiter Forward

...At least that's how it looks from our vantage point here on Earth!

I got a new "Astro Alert" from Astrology.com. So here's what's in store for us all:

As Jupiter turns direct in passionate Scorpio on July 6, you are ready to take some significant steps forward in your life. But wait! Mercury also turns retrograde on July 4, so it will be essential to do a thorough review of your plans before you get too far ahead of yourself.

Whenever Mercury goes retrograde, the most important point to remember is that it will now prove tricky to make informed decisions about the future. Mercury retrograde periods are notoriously well-known for communication snafus as well as difficulty and/or lapses in decision-making. Yet with Jupiter also turning direct, no time will be better for looping back to old contacts, reviewing ideas and rethinking ways of optimizing your schedule.

So be careful what you say to old contacts, I guess.

Answering the Charges of Anti-Catholicism

A reviewer on Amazon.com posted this:

"First of all, why hasn't anyone mentioned the SEVERE anti-Catholic viewpoint in this book? And don't get me wrong, I'm not Catholic, I'm not even Christian, and I certainly don't mind a good Church bashing on occasion when done appropriately, and I absolutely love a good vampire and/or witch story, but I was STILL offended on behalf of all Catholics. Hallaway created a world wherein the Vatican runs a hit squad of witch killers. Once they identify you, they murder you, viciously, in cold blood. The Church was depicted as hypocritical (using their own witches in order to kill other witches), insane (psychotic obsessive witch killers showing absolutely no intelligence - just passion for murder), and full blown evil (attempting to create a race of master, day-walking vampires in order to continue killing all witches - and likely all other vampires and probably a few humans who just don't like the Church). If I were to hazard a guess, I'd say Tate was either a lapsed Catholic with a personal vendetta against the Church, or someone who stopped reading history at the Inquisition - and didn't pay much attention to the facts even at that. I don't mean to come across sounding like a Catholic apologist, but come on! Her depiction of the Church was so vindictive, it made me what her real agenda was.

My only real agenda ever is to write a ripping good yarn. Honest.

That being said, I don't want to dismiss the concerns this reader has for the biases she's perceived in my book. I will say that she's absolutely correct that I made the Vatican the villains in Tall, Dark & Dead. Another reader (on LiveJournal, not on Amazon.com) pointed out, and correctly so, that I also had my Vatican agents misusing Last Rites.

If Doctor Freud could get his hands on me, he'd probably decide that I do have some kind of deep-seated issue with Catholics. All my writing, even that in my much-referred to alternate life, has some passing reference to Catholics or Catholicism. My extended family are all Catholic. I grew up in a small Wisconsin town dominated by German and Irish Catholics. I went to three years of a Catholic grade school. Both of my parents are lapsed Catholics (for the record, I, however, am a lapsed Unitarian.)

None of this, however, has made me a Catholic-hater (at least outside of my fiction. Clearly something is going on in the subconscious of which I should try to be more aware of in future books.) In the alternate-me books, I worked very hard at not having any anti-relgious overtones, and am happy to count priests (both active and ex) in my fan base. Admittedly I wrote this book a lot quicker.

My reasons for making the Vatican the villains in TD&D had much more to do with the contemporary fantasy feel I wanted the book to have. And it probably does reveal something dark and ugly about me that when I asked myself, "Who, in this day in age, is most likely to have an organization devoted to stamping out witchcraft?" I answered, "I know, how about the people who brought us the Inquisition?" You know, thinking about it, perhaps I should have chosen a more fundamentalist religious sect – the sort who are still actively burning books, etc. – but I made those folks the villains in my last set of books (and talk about something I need to GET OVER.)

Plus, despite what the Amazon.com reviewer implied, I actually like the history of the Catholic church (about which I've read extensively while doing research for my other-me's books). Church history is so fascinating and rich, and full of heretics and dissenters. Perhaps, however, I am a victim of the Catholic mystic. The same misunderstanding of modern Catholicism that has people, by the droves, willing to believe that the Vatican is actively trying to take out Dan Brown's hero for uncovering "truth" about Mary Magdalene. People who can see Illuminati-level conspiracy in the bureaucracy of the Catholic church, simply because it's so ancient and so big.

I don't want to be one of those people.

While I can't fix the problem in TD&D, I (*knocking on wood*) will have the opportunity to correct it in following books. In the proposal for the third Garnet Lacey book I have Matyas and his mother returning (after a somewhat successful exorcism). Matyas has a close working relationship with the Order of Eustace, and I can use him to correct Garnet's assumptions about the witch hunters. Keeping in mind that all of the information about the Order comes directly from Garnet, I can have Matyas tell her, for instance, that, despite what she's heard and what she believes, the Order isn't officially under the aegis of the Vatican and, in fact, may be a splinter group of heretics who still consider themselves Catholic, but who are not. That way their insane evilness makes more sense. I can write in any number of ways for them to get their funding, etc., which could help distance their evilness from modern Catholicism.

Because I do want to fix this perception. It's most certainly too late to make things up to the angry Amazon.com reviewer, but, my mother always told me, it's never too late to try to do the right (write) thing.

My Two Favorite Words in the English Language...

..."THE END"

Yes, this means I finished last night. Now all I have to do before sending the sucker in is some polishing.

A great big huge sigh of relief.

Home Stretch... and Fun News

I have one more scene to write, then I'm done. Part of the reason this process at the end has been so slow is that I'm also doing some revisions at the same time. It's a strange thing, but despite having written several books now, I still am very anal about sending in the best product I possibly can. It's my job, you know? More than that it's my career -- my vocation.

Fun News... Tall, Dark & Dead has gone into a second printing. Never in all my life has this happened for me. To say I am thrilled would be an understatement.

Also... my editor emailed me this yesterday: "We talked about the cover for DEAD SEXY today. The publisher really praised the cover of TALL, DARK & DEAD and said we wanted a similiar look for this one. The scene we chose is the one where Garnet is taking a ritual bath in preparation for casting the love spell, Barney [the cat] glaring at her. Everyone was very enthusiastic about this idea!"

As am I... It sounds really cute!

Back to writing! And stop bugging me, Rick! [BIG TEASE] Oh, and Rick, your buddies in Iraq have been sending my alternate persona a lot of fan mail! Thanks for sending those books. I may not be into our reasons for being there, but it's fairly awesome to get "UNCLASSIFIED" email from the International Zone.

Sounds of Silence

Book due in a matter of days... can't break to blog... must keep writing.

Uranus/My-anus!

Here's the lastest "Astro Alert" from Astrology.com (because I _know_ you were wondering):

"Rest up while you can! On June 19, Uranus turns retrograde, bringing his flair for the unusual to a planet near you. Until the ruler of rebellion returns to direct motion on November 20, you may notice an increase in personality transformations or oddball news reports; indeed, the conventional wisdom for the next few months is 'Expect the unexpected.' Now, those of you with well-worn PDAs and perfectly up-to-date planners might find that advice less than reassuring. But the key to success these days is to go with the flow. That mind of yours is brimming with untapped talents and innovative ideas, and Uranus is bound and determined to set them free!

Uranus established his reputation as our solar system's renegade long ago. But this planet is very much a rebel with a cause, namely humanitarianism, creativity and breaking with tradition. During his retrograde journey, that energy -- which typically plays out on a more collective scale -- is focused inward. Is there a cause you want to get involved with? a pottery class you've had your eye on? a certain bohemian side of yourself that you haven't seen in a while? Seize this chance to celebrate your individuality and move beyond the status quo.

Of course, a period known for erratic, unusual behavior might not be the best time to act on every brilliant idea. But these upcoming months are your golden opportunity to think outside the box in ways that the 9-to-5 world of convention doesn't always allow. Experiment with new modes of expression to find the one that suits you best (pens, food, clothes, music ... no doubt you have ample tools all around you). By late November, you may find that you're ready to share what you've learned with the world."

Keeping up with the Hallaways

A very brief interview with me appeared on the Oshkosh Word Nerd blog: http://bkwriter.blogspot.com/2006/06/author-answers-with-tate-hallaway.html.

And, if you’ve ever wanted to ask yourself deep and meaningful questions about Tall, Dark & Dead, we’re having such a conversation at Coffee Time Romance (you have to register to join, but it’s free) http://coffeetimeromance.com/Boards/. Sample question (just in case you think I'm kidding): "After discovering what she/Lilith did, Garnet panics and decides to hide the bodies (with the help of her vampire ex-boyfriend Parrish) and flee the scene. What do you think might have happened if she had decided to go to the police instead? What would you have done?" Questions like this one will be asked an answered for the entire month of June!

Did I mention that I'll be at Dreamhaven Books & Comics on Tuesday, June 27 from 6:30 pm to 8:00 pm? This reading is sponsored by SASE: The Write Place and is free and open to the public. Dreamhaven is located at 912 West Lake Street, Minneapolis, MN. For directions/information call (612) 823-6161 or check out their website at http://www.dreamhavenbooks.com/. There is free parking available behind the building. Come see me do my thang in full regalia.

Opposite of a Ghost Vortex?

As I watched a scruffy-looking doppelganger of "New Kitty/All Ball" slip into our garage, I suddenly had a thought. In the book GRAVE'S END the author talks about a "ghost vortex" which, I gather, is a kind of dead thing magnet on the spiritual plain. Anyway, given the number of stray cats who seem to find our backyard especially comfortable, I asked myself, "Do you suppose there’s some kind of thing like a ghost vortex, only in reverse -- a hey-this-is-a-great-spot-to-hang-out-you-living-thing vibe?"

Or do I just have some funky past life cat karma to deal with?

Grave's End

Have you ever seen a ghost?

I think I have. When I was going to school at Augsburg, the college bought up a number of houses in the neighborhood and had them demolished to make way for a parking lot. However, one of them was picked up and moved to a new location by its owners. One early morning during this elaborate house-moving process, as Shawn and I were headed off to our respective classes, we both saw a figure of a woman in the upstairs window. It was just a flash, and she was gone. When we asked each other about it, we both described her looking sad, and I thought that by the way she had her hand on her belly she was pregnant. Shawn said she hadn't wanted to say anything, but she’d gotten that impression too. Was she a ghost? Someone living saying a final good-bye to the house? Who knows?

Then there was that Halloween visitor to our house who passed through the kitchen and up the stairs that are no longer there. That one was a fast-moving ball of light about the size of a quarter, but three of us saw it.

While up at the cabin this past weekend, I read a friend's copy of Elaine Mercado's GRAVE'S END, which is billed as a true life story of a haunted house. It's a very compelling story. What makes this particular account so engaging, I think, is the fact that Elaine, the author, begins very much as a skeptic and stays one quite a long way into the memoir. She and her husband are constantly trying to come up with rational reasons for the paranormal events. Also, she talks about how the family got used to a lot of the phenomenon and how, since it wasn't a constant every day occurrence (outside of the feeling of being watched), they tended to forget about it in between episodes. It took her something like fifteen years to finally admit her house was haunted and to pursue having it "cleansed."

Throughout the book, she is just a regular person who happens to have all this weird crap happening in her house.

I think GRAVE'S END would be a good book for someone who is curious and open to the idea of ghosts, but who doesn't already believe. I guess my feeling about ghosts can be summed up this way: while at Augsburg an English professor asked us if any of us believed in the possibility of witchcraft (or something like that), and I said, "Hell, yes. I believe in the POSSIBILITY of anything."

What about you? Any ghost stories out there?

Full Moon at the Lake Cabin

I have to confess something. Despite practicing Wicca for nearly a decade, I have only rarely done rituals outside. I suppose that's like saying I’m a Catholic who never goes to Mass, but there you have it.

I understand the appeal now. Despite chilly weather (it was in the Fifties, if not colder,) having a fire going in the fire pit, the moon rising through the tall pine trees was amazing. Plus, when we talked about being between the worlds, it was true – we did our ritual at twilight, a time between day and night, and while standing on land that was between land and water.

Generally, the cabin was amazingly relaxing. It's owned by a friend of ours and is located in a small lake town in northern Wisconsin about two hours from the Twin Cities. It's one of those resort type communities, where, despite the pine trees and lake view, you can see your neighbors and still hear the hiss of the highway from across the lake. Yet, it's surprisingly peaceful. I don't know what it is about having water on your property, but it does seem to change the dynamic. It's like all those other people kind of disappear and all you focus on is that View, on the sound of waves crashing on the shore, and the haunting sound of a loon's call.

Mason loved it. Every moment was, "Can we go down to the lake? Can we go kayaking?" (Yes, my three year old LOVED the kayak and he learned how to say it.) Plus, our little city kid got to see purple martins, tree frogs (we briefly caught one), and a multitude of insect life (like daddy longlegs, water striders, crickets, and, of course, the Minnesota state bird, the mosquito.) We have most of those beasties in our own backyard, but, like cooking outdoors, somehow seeing them up at the cabin made them seem more wild, more Natural.

The whole weekend was a kind of Sabbath, a time out of time, where the focus was on family, friends, and leaving work at home. Shawn, in fact, insisted that I leave my laptop at home, and though now I feel terribly behind on finishing the book, I think she was right. It was good to take a true break and stand between the worlds.