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").