Get Dusted for Free!

In celebration of the Blue Moon I have decided to make Dusted free for 5 days from September 1st to September 5th!

Now, I'm going to be honest when I say I'm not sure if you can download the entire thing for permanent keeps, or if it's a 5-day entire book preview. Can't argue with the price either way, eh?

This is a one-time only deal so get it while you can!

You can find Dusted using this super-fancy link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B008E75YL6

Temporary Hiatus

Whatever "excelsior" means...

Excelsior readers!

I have just started both a new job and a class as of today, so I will not be posting for a while.

Make no mistake, however, as I will be back soon with your regularly-scheduled blogging goodness!

Until then, cheers!

Rules for Editing (Editing)

Okay, so technically it's supposed to be a Publishing advice day, but I don't have anywhere for editing, and both are thinner than the rest of the categories, so why not?

While editing some people's manuscripts, I've started to come up with my own set of rants rules for the writer before it is given to people to read and review. This counts for anyone doing it for free. If you're paying someone, I guess it's your money, and it's their income, so whatever.

Perhaps most importantly is my Number One (No. 1, #1, numero uno, unus, ena, in case I didn't make it clear enough): Review it yourself first.

That bears repeating.

Number 1: Review it yourself first.

I'm reviewing it for plot points and character development, not basic grammar and weird sentence structure. Those are things you're going to catch on your own if you just read it. I'm a Writer, Jim, not an English Teacher. I don't want to spend an hour writing advice to you about hyphens.


And that's why all my friends have scars.



Number 2: Tell me what you want reviewed.

I don't want to spend an hour writing advice to you about hyphens, only to find out that's not what you wanted.

Tell me what you want, Writer, and I will give it to you in my review. There's only so much I can do, I can't rewrite your entire manuscript for you, and there has to be one thing about your manuscript in particular that's bothering you. Even if it is spelling or grammar, I can do that, but you have to tell me. The more detail you give me, the better. If someone says, "I don't feel like Brandon Badguy is evil enough, what can I do to make him better?" By golly I'm going to focus on Brandon Badguy and give you some advice, because that's what you specifically asked me to do. If you say "Review this" and throw me a stack of papers (be they a stack of actual papers or a big .doc file) and tell me nothing, you're going to get a reviewing mess. It's going to be helpful, yes, but it's not going to be the best review that it could be.



Number 3: Expect it to take a while.

I have my own things to do, I have my own life. I'm not going to drop everything I'm doing, no matter how awesome your magical manuscript is. I have goats escaped from a fence running rampant on the road, I have chickens to feed, I have a kitchen to clean, I have a Windows Server 2008 class every Thursday and Friday (Flexible Single Master Operator, y'all!). Those are Real Life things, but those are to be expected from the Writer, what Writer doesn't seem to expect is that Reviewer has other things too: I'm writing my own work, I'm reviewing my own work (because I follow Number 1), I'm reading a book, Minecraft just got updated this week, Steam had a sale on Deus Ex, my kitten just bounced off my face and we are now participating in a Benny Hill-esque scene in the backyard. Anything could be happening, so that it could take weeks and weeks, if not months and months, to review your manuscript.

I don't want to spend all day sitting at my computer, the white background of Microsoft Word as the only source of light strong enough to give me a tan darker than Gollom's, to review your manuscript from start to finish.

I'm not getting paid for reviewing your manuscript, so I'm not likely to be professional about my schedule.



Number 4: First come, first serve.

I'd never had this one happen to me until recently. Someone sent me their 60k manuscript to review, and then another friend sent me their short story. I'm sorry, but I'm going to review the 60k word manuscript first. Why? Because it was sent first. Size doesn't matter, if it did, I'd be reviewing nothing but short stories while my friend's 60k word manuscript would gather dust. He worked pretty hard to write all of that up, rather than crank out short story after short story, it's only fair I review it before getting to those dozens of short stories.

Don't expect me to put the finishing touches on Writer 1's manuscript, and then turn around and pull up Writer 2's manuscript, either. I'll probably take a long break between them.




Number 5: If I bother to read something of yours, you'd better read something of mine.

It's only fair. I'm working for free here. You want something read or reviewed so badly you're asking me to do this for you. You should be able to do the same for me. I've never been more miffed, and therefore slow, to review someone's Manuscript 2 because they didn't read something of mine when I reviewed their Manuscript 1 months ago.



Number 6: Number your chapters.

I never thought I'd ever have to say this, but that 60k manuscript? It didn't have chapters. It had end and beginning chapter points, but not actual chapter numbers. I'm not going to review it in one sitting, so please give me a jump point. The way I have been navigating through this manuscript is by copy-pasting a chunk of random text "growing on the other side of the fence" for non-literal example, and putting it in a different Word file with START REVIEWING AGAIN HERE written next to it so that I can do a Find option and look from there.

I don't want to have to do that.

When I finish, I want to end where it says Chapter 6. To know where I stop, I want to write "On Ch6" on a piece of paper at my desk. When I pick it up again, I want to use the Find function and type "Chapter 6" and instantly bounce there to continue my work. Anything that inconveniences me even just a little bogs me down a lot more than you'd think.



Number 7: Warn me ahead of time.

An old friend of mine asked me to review a story of hers, but she didn't tell me what the fanfiction was based on...or even that it was a fanfiction in the first place. Instead, I had to use what little I knew about the show it was based on to figure out it was a fanfiction based on the show.

Along with your manuscript, provide a quick and dirty synopsis of the story for me, including characters, so I'll know where I am and what to focus on. I don't want to focus on Lilly, only to find out she's just a shopkeeper and only appears in a single scene. I don't want to review an entire manuscript, only to find out your main character is an OC in an I Love Lucy fanfiction. Fanfiction reviews differently, tell me what it is.


This dog is a better editor than me.



Number 8: Don't expect professionalism.

I'm not an editor, I never learned how to edit, and I'm doing this for free. I have no idea what I'm doing.


Number 9: I'm doing this for free.

I can't say this enough. I'm doing this for free. I'm not getting paid for this. You didn't drive a truckload of money up to my house. It's from the goodness of my own black heart. Keep all of that in mind.


Number 10: Review my review.

Like I said before, I have no idea what I'm doing. As a writer, the only way you're going to get better is to keep writing, and for people to point out your strong and weak points. As a reviewer, the only way I'm going to get better is for all of you to leave me alone you to point out my strong and weak points. I've reviewed a lot of stuff, and I don't even know if I'm doing a good job, or making their once beautiful manuscript into a smelly mess because they never told me if it helped or not. So, as far as I know, but I could, potentially, keep ruining people's work because no one told me I was wrong.

Even something as "It helped me" or "That's not what I wanted" can be helpful. With only 2 exceptions, whenever I've reviewed a manuscript and returned it to Writer, I have never heard about the review, or the story, ever again. Tell me if I was able to point out errors in a clear manner, tell me if something I did was confusing, tell me if I reviewed a part weirdly.



Number 11: DO NOT TOUCH

Don't touch the manuscript when I'm editing it. This is almost as important as Number 1. Review it yourself, but once you give it to me? Stop. Nothing is more frustrating to me than to make a huge review of something, and then find out the writer nixed the entire scene, making my hours of reviewing worthless.



These are just my rules, and I'll probably come up with more as time goes on, but if you just keep these in mind, the world of writing and for-free-editing-by-friends will be a much happier place.



I Have An Idea, Mr. Writer (Writing)

I've heard of writers bugging people about stories they should write, but I never thought I'd be one of them. I think the first was when my brother said I was a writer, and a woman started talking to him about me writing a biography of her.

Since then I've had a couple of people either offer me their ideas, or tell me a more general idea that I should write.



I'M A WRITER!

Really, it's like seeing a guy in a straitjacket, in a padded cell, beating his head against the wall and you say to someone, "Hey, that guy doesn't have enough crazy, I think I'll offer him some crazy."

If a writer was short in ideas, they wouldn't be a writer now, would they?

I have so many ideas in my head that they're competing for attention. I can't get 20 pages into a new idea before something else jumps into my head and starts rearranging the mental furniture. I eat and I work and I lay in bed, all the while these ideas are becoming more and more detailed, which really only makes them worse.


Hey that idea sounds like a pretty goo-

As of this very moment I am working on two separate manuscripts, and a massive collaborative-writing project going with at least twelve other people, and I have four other ideas in my head vying for attention. I don't just mean vague ideas either. When I say ideas I mean worlds, characters, plots, scenes, beginnings, endings, dialogue, rules. All of these, for all seven ideas total, are going at the same time.

I don't have room in my head for your ideas.

Even if I did, though, I wouldn't ask for your story.

Don't take it the wrong way, though. I'm not saying because I hate it, quite the contrary, I love hearing about other people's stories, I wouldn't ever ask for it for several reasons. Probably one of the biggest is because I would never make it right. It's your story, you should be the one writing it. You know all the ins and outs of the world and characters and plot. I'm in the dark, stumbling around.


"A blog made us do it!"

That actually makes for a good comparison. Asking someone to write a story for them is like putting them in a dark room in your house that they've never been in before. The light is turned off and you're trying to direct them to the other side of the room because you know it so well. You can't touch them, steer them, or give them a flashlight. All you can do is talk to them. Guess who's going to the hospital?

A writer, no matter how good, can never tell your story for you.

Second, how do writers get started? We certainly don't think to ourselves, "Oh hey, I have this awesome idea, I should tell Benny to write it!" We decide we are going to write it, and we do, and then we all cash it in and jump into our giant swimming pools of money and dance on our solid gold toilets.


You knew I was going to use this picture again.

This all doesn't even take into account money, really. What happens if you do take someone's idea, write it, and it becomes a bestseller? How would that split?

"I wrote it."
"But I came up with it!"
"But I wrote it!"
"But I had the idea for everything!"
"BUT I WROTE IT!"

I honestly don't know how cowriters even get along without strangling each other.

So maybe, instead of asking your writing friend to consider writing this brilliant idea of yours, try it yourself. There's nothing quite like it, and you may find yourself in a straitjacket while people are telling you their ideas before long, too.



Music Without Lyrics (Misc)

The cool thing about music without lyrics is that you can't help but let your mind wander. Give it some time into the song and you might find yourself imagining a setting, or even a whole story, because of it. I do it all the time, and use it for writing or inspiration a lot.

This one is a personal favorite of mine, give it a try, and see what you come up with.

Green Rider (Books)

Hover Horse is hovering.

A lot of older authors seem to vividly recall reading The Lord of the Rings as a kid. I read it in my teens after watching the movie, and actually hated it. The story was incredibly dry and boring, no matter how much I wanted to enjoy it.

Maybe because I read Green Rider by Kristen Britan first.

I'd say Green Rider is an old book, but that's like saying a song from a year ago is old. It's really a matter of comparison. Green Rider was published in late 1998, so I was either 10 or 11 when I first read it.

It was my favorite book from the very start.

The story is about a girl who, after getting kicked out of the medieval equivalent of school, comes across a dying messenger, begging her to take his message to the king. She agrees, and suddenly finds herself swept up in adventure as people are trying to kill her for the mysterious message. She has no training as a fighter, so must rely on her wits and the messenger's golden winged horse brooch, which can make her invisible.

It was the second book I ever had that wasn't your typical kid's book (the first one I will talk about next week), and it wasn't until I had reread it years  later that I realized it was basically a ripoff of The Lord of the Rings. Still, it has graced my bookshelf the entire time.

There have been several sequels to it but it manages to stand on its own. In fact, I recall not particularly liking the others, and the author has taken a long time to get around to writing and/or publishing them. First Rider's Call, book 2, was released in 2003; The High King's Tomb, book 3, was released in 2007; and Blackveil, book 4, was released just last year in 2011.

There's something quite frustrating to wait 5 years, then 4, then another 4, for each book to come out, especially when you're a bright-eyed little girl. There was a particularly fascinating place in the world, too, that the books just barely hinted at, called Blackveil, and when it takes 13 years for the author to finally get it it you're not shouting "Finally!" anymore, you're glancing up from another book saying "Are you still here?"

Still, it was kind of magical to me. It was a story with all of this cool stuff: a smart horse, a plucky young heroine, all kinds of badguys trying to kill her, magic. When I was surrounded by The Boxcar Children, Ramona books, and Hank the Cowdog, Green Rider came along and I was sucked right in because it was Serious Business, and I loved it.

It's not the most original story, but it's a good, solid fantasy book that you can bet you will enjoy and not have to worry about picking up the rest of the series for any unanswered questions. I still see new copies of it in bookstores, so check it out.

My Mentor, Dad (Personal)

When I was a kid I remember our dad used to have us kids line up and spin around, in an example of the planets. If it was just my brother and I, we were the Earth and the moon, or Earth and the sun. If we had friends or family over, we had the potential for a whole solar system of kids. Kids love spinning around. That was how we learned about our solar system.

Our dad read to us a lot too. He's got some really old science fiction books, and my bedtime stories consisted of Red Planet and Have Spacesuit Will Travel by Robert Heinlen, as well as Integral Trees by Larry Niven. He did more than read them, too, he talked about space and what would happen if you were in it, and how you'd survive, and other planets. I knew more about space travel and science fiction at 8 years old than some people do at 30. He read us kid's books too, I remember The Wizard of Oz, and The Trumpet of the Swan, thought not as vividly.

These were the days before Harry Potter, and before the whole revolution of children's books because of it. I wasn't one of those kids who read The Lord of the Rings and fell in love with it. Heck, I didn't even know what it was until I watched the movie at about 13 years old (also courtesy of my dad). So, I had my dad's books to read. I was anywhere from 8 to 16 when I read most of them, because I didn't really have many books of my own.

One of the most prominent in my mind was Jumper, by Steven Gould. I've reread it since and it's always managed to have kind of an awesome impact on me. Other books I read as a kid:

Wildside by Steven Gould
Mockingbird by Walter Tevis
Z for Zachariah by Robert O'Brien
Emergence by David Palmer
The World and Thorinn by Damon Knight
A whole slew of things by Stephen King
Ingathering by Zenna Henderson
Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card
Cuckoo's Egg, by C.J Cherryh
The Stars my Destination, by Alfred Bester


I remember reading something by Hal Clement, I think it was a collection of short stories. I read a couple of Ann McAffery's Pern books, too.

There were nights when I would point a flashlight up into the sky and wonder if there was anything up there that saw it. I didn't become a hard science fiction buff, like he did, but I certainly see the world differently, thanks to him.

Query Tracker (Publishing)

Querytracker was the place Cynthia Hand suggested to me when I talked to her during her book signing. I played with it a bit, but never managed to get a hang of it. It's got some helpful information though, for those of you who have gotten far enough to consider an agent or publisher. Here's the link: http://querytracker.net/

All Just Survivors Preview (Writing)

           A chorus of sounds from behind them told Kathrin that their quick, sharp movements of fighting had alerted more.

            "Let's move!" the man growled.
            Kathrin grabbed his arm and wrapped it around behind her. They half ran the rest of the way, the man's injured leg becoming more and more awkward with each step he took. He collapsed just outside as Kathrin threw the door to the gun store open.
            "Don't leave me!" he screamed frightfully. His eyes wide as he held his hand out for her. Kathrin saw behind him, the horde of infected so close that she could hear more subtle gurgling as they sped toward their promise of a fresh meal.
            Kathrin grabbed his arm, her fear making her able to drag him the rest of the way inside. She slammed the door behind them and locked it before leaning up against it and sliding down to a sitting position.

Hmm, can anyone guess what my next story will involve?

Nevermore Book Review (BONUS!)

First, it's unfair that people who order books get them shipped on the same day they can be purchased on the store. Nevermore came out on the 6th, and they didn't start shipping until the 6th. Therefore, I got it on the 8th, when I could have easily, two days earlier, picked up a copy from Idaho Falls. Heck, I could have walked there, like a really nerdy Mad Max, and picked up a copy faster than it was shipped to me.

Here is a spoiler-free review (followed by a spoiler-filled one)


I would have looked like Mel Gibson afterwards, too.

Nevermore: The Final Maximum Ride blah-de-blah subtitles are for people who pay attention (I think it was Adventure), by James Patterson. The wait was too long, so I picked up the fourth Sookie Stackhouse book that was filling my shelf. So, it was because of that, when I finished Dead I Forget The Name Because They All Sound The Same And It's Hard To Keep Track, and the stupid Mad-Max-inducing shipping time, I didn't get to read it until the 9th.

The book is completely silvery, looking pretty, though I have to ask why Max is grey-haired, but probably just going with a general theme. There's a weird little sticker on my copy as well, that states "RIP: Maximum Ride." I'll leave it on, for posterity's sake. There's also some weird red-edged, super-white, high-quality pages at the end advertising/previewing his next book in a new series.

So, with some trepidation, I popped on my wing-themed jewelry, grabbed a drink, hopped on the couch, and settled on to read Nevermore, finishing it in about 24 hours.

Nevermore pops you right in where Angel left off. I reread Angel before Sookie, because it's been forever.

If I were to sum up the book in a single word, it would be this: Again.

Everything happens. Again. All of the big reveals that happened in the first seven book. Again. All of those gasp-inducing moments want you to gasp when they happen. Again. All the suspicions that came to light will come to light in the very same way. Again. Even the book itself can't help but say "again" once in a while, because it was so blatantly obvious. Even James Patterson himself admits it's the same things over again in this quote from an interview USA Today: "I'm starting to repeat myself. I still enjoy Max. But I'm not as attracted to the other characters, try as I may."



Don't worry Max, Nevermore makes
everyone prematurely grey.

James Patterson had a great story going when he started the series. Then, when it got popular, he decided to pull it to a 90 degree angle. Then, when I suspect the fans whined, he had to pull it back in the original direction. The problem was, we were then headed down a different road. Yeah, it's in the same direction, but now we're one block over from the road we'd been going.

In my spoiler-free review I won't tell you who Max ends up with, Fang or Dylan, but I will say the whole thing is B.S. I feel like Dylan was thrown in there to make the Obligatory Twilight-esque Love Triangle. You can't avoid it in YA books anymore. It's impossible, and it makes me sick. I wasn't happy.



"My tiny, book-marking body
is one big gob of pain."

I rolled my eyes twice within the first 40 pages, then a third time, several groans, and then had the urge to throw the book across the room. Max isn't funny anymore, she cries a lot, and she's too distracted weeping and worrying about her boyfriends that she actually gets surprise-attacked in the middle of a battle. If you know anything about the series, you'd be vomiting rage right now. Do you see that crumpled piece of paper on my copy of the book? That's my bookmark.

I was disgusted with the whole thing. When a series wraps up, it's supposed to tie together all the threads still left dangling. Here are some of the things that will never be answered:



Eeeeeeewwwwwwww.  ~Me

Their powers: Fang being able to camouflage, it's mentioned once early in the series and is never used again. Gazzy throwing voices and imitating them, is used once or twice for comedic effect and never used again. Nudge's computer hacking skills and metal use, the metal power is used once, on a lock, despite the fact that the characters know how to pick locks. Total jumping really high, where did that go? Iggy slowly becoming able to see. Iggy can see shadows when the world around him is white (snow, for example) and he can instantly recognize what color something is by touching it. It's never mentioned again.

The flock's parents, the discovery of which seemed very important and is almost the driving force behind the story of the original trilogy, is never mentioned again.

Ella's note in the sand in Angel, the note that says I was meant to have wings. Remember that? It felt kinda important? Yeah, apparently everyone, even Max, suddenly get amnesia about that whole thing, and Ella just Conveniently Appears at the very end, like nothing happened.

Something that has bugged me continuously since book 3 were the clones of everyone. Don't remember? It was one of those things that sort of hinted it was going to be Very Important, and then never happened. The whole flock were hiding out, and seeing Fang II, Iggy II, Nudge II, Gazzy II and Angel II all of them come walking out of a place, and everyone is freaking out, and then it's never mentioned again.


Hate you so much...

Here are some specific things that bugged me.

Total. I hate Total (and not the breakfast cereal). I've already mentioned it before, about how he's that irritating voice in so many shows, or the character that's thrown in for cutsie points. You can honestly remove any and all mention of Total from the entire series and it doesn't change it at all. He has no plot-value and is only around to make the occasional failed-witty one-liner. If ever there was a dog I wanted to punt, it would be Total. Why did James Patterson feel the need to include Total in the first place? What purpose did he serve?



The again part. As I said, there were a lot of again moments. I'll mention more in the spoiler-filled section, but here's one I can tell you without ruining anything. They decide to go to school. Why? Apparently it was Dylan's idea, and because they want to feel normal. In Book 2 they already went to school, and I think it was well-established that it was a disaster. So why do it all over again? What are they hoping to gain from it? Education? No, that was already established. Social interaction? I'm homeschooled. If anyone is in a similar position to Max and the flock, that would be me, and I can honestly say that isn't the reason they're going to school.

This one might initially seem like a spoiler, but it's not, because it doesn't go anywhere. In case you haven't read any of the books, Iggy is blind. He's already had a meltdown about it before, but otherwise it's been used as self-depreciating humor on occasion. During a scene in school they're in the cafeteria eating. Nudge is talking about fashion to all the generic fashion-obsessed schoolgirls, when suddenly Iggy comes up and talks about everyone being blind. Everyone in the room is blind and he insists that they are. Things get awkward. Then the chapter ends and the next one picks up with a different scene. What happened? Was Iggy freaking out? Having a meltdown about being blind (again)? Was he giving the girls a hard time?

Another one similar to the Iggy part. Nudge feels like a freak because she's scorned by some guy, who then makes her a social outcast at school. She mopes, gets angry, and then it's suggested that she's going to try and have her wings removed when she throws a part of scissors at a picture of herself with wings. After that, the serious message of self-mutilation for the reason of being accepted versus loving who you are is never brought up again.

Another part with the school. Everyone freaks out about something, and decide to abandon class in the middle of it to try and escape. The very next moment, Dylan is going back in the room to grab the textbook he forgot.


KILL IT WITH FIRE!!
(Fire apparently being a crappy book.)

"Hang on, I know there's an earthquake happening, but I have to grab my textbook."
"Wait, I know the building is on fire, but I have to get my textbook."
"Just a minute, I know someone was shooting at us, but I forgot my textbook."

That is not okay.

"All up in my grill" was used again, and I am disgusted. No one with any self-respect uses the phrase "All up in my grill" to describe someone getting in their face. What is a grill? A grill is tacky plating someone has done to the front of their teeth, typically done by people like Flava Flav and other rappers (if Flava Flav is not a rapper, this should show you how much I don't pay attention and/or care.)



Step 3: Mourn
"WHYYYYYY!!!???"
(Note Nevermore is conspicuously absent.)

Mofo.

Got your attention? Yeah, it got mine pretty good too when one of the characters (Ratchet) said it. He called one of the characters (not saying who for spoiler reasons) a mofo. What does mofo mean, children? That's right! Is it appropriate in a kid's/teens book? Has that kind of language ever been used in the Maximum Ride series before? Then what is it doing in here now?

I'm not usually one that throws accusations of racism around, but it feels pretty demeaning for only one of the two black characters in the entire series to be a street-thug, swearing badass "mofo" who came from a gang.

Speaking of strong language, I feel like at some point the series was held back a little to make it more kid-friendly, but is still used in weird ways. In the same book where there is darn and crap and kick-butt, there is also mofo and whup-ass and sexual tension. What age range is this series aiming for anymore?

The first three books were good. Then 4 and 5 were crap. Since then James Patterson has been very obviously trying to correct for his mistakes before wrapping up the series. What's left is the scarred victim of this car wreck of a story. I can still see the soul of Maximum Ride that I loved so much, but it's pretty dim an buried. Nevermore should have been called Nevermind, with everything that's happened and failed to happen.

It is a great example of how an author makes a series chug forward for too long, in the name of fans and money, until he's absolutely sick of the characters, the fictional world, and everything in it. He should have stopped when he wanted to keep going, only then would there still have been love in it.

Because of this, I didn't even read the preview to his next book, and I will never buy another book from him ever again.


And now, my spoiler-filled parts of the review:




SPOILERS!

HEY THERE ARE SOME SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

IN CASE YOU DIDN'T NOTICE THE FIRST TWO TIMES:
THERE ARE SOME SPOILERS!!!

Here is my spoil-filled parts of the review. (Oh, and the word "spoil" starts to look and sound weird when you use it too much.)


Ow.

Max, Fang and Dylan.

Never, in a story love triangle, have I ever facepalmed so hard. I think I'm going to need surgery. Probably the previously worst love triangle I've ever read was Twilight. During the entire story Bella obviously chose Edward, it was clear as day through the series. In the Maximum Ride series, Dylan comes along in Book 6 (I think) and exists purely as the second boyfriend corner of the love triangle and for fangirls to argue Team Dylan or Team Fang while I scream cancer-infested rage vomit in their direction.

Let's step back for a moment, back to Twilight. What if Edward only existed in the entire series, and Jacob only appeared in the story halfway through Breaking Dawn, and the love triangle happened? Other than making for an even worse plot-less story, it would be pretty obvious how it would turn out.

So let me just say it right here and now: Max choses Fang.

I'll admit, if I had to pick one of the two, I was rooting for Dylan. Fang is a quiet, barely-speaking, emo-dressed, long-haired, dark-and-handsome cliche. Fang is the guy girls fall for, have one passionate hunky date with, and then he leaves her for someone skankier. Dylan is bright, happy, open, honest, caring, devoted. Dylan is the guy girls date once they have sense, marry him, and have 2.3 children with a white picket fence in the yard (it's called real life, girls.)



I said menstrual, not minstrel.

Fang abandons Max and the flock at the end of Book 6, figuring he and Max were both too hard-headed and leader-like to get along much longer. Max is devastated and menstrual about it. Dylan is there, though, and he's kind and loving and all of those other things I said in the paragraph above. Max falls for him head over heels in the little time she's known him because that's what a great guy he is (Fang was around for 15 years, for example, and they were like siblings growing up together). Dylan takes her out on dates, he builds her the tree house of her dreams, he says so many nice things to her.

Fang and Max stay separate through Book 7, only coming together at the end to fight together, and then separate. Nevermore (Book 8) has them separate most of the time too. Then, the moment Fang shows up again, Max only has a moment or two of triangle-feelings, and then starts smoochy-facing Fang talking about how they will be together forever.

What?

Dylan is around, and Max is head over heels for him, then Fang shows up and suddenly it's gone. The end. What about Max II though? That leads me to Fang's Gang.

Fang gets together his own group called his gang in Book 7. In the beginning of Book 8 he's betrayed by the two girls suddenly and for no logical reason (I would expect some foreshadowing), and Fang chases the other two off. None of them are mentioned again. This little part screams at me that Patterson had started Fang's Gang with something in mind and then scrapped it, deciding to tie up that plot thread in the stupidest, most convenient way possible.

That leaves Maya/Max II. Maya was looking to be a rather deep character that had a lot of potential, and Fang was falling for her. With love triangles, there's always a Second Girl that comes along so the reader doesn't have to feel bad about the Jacob being left in the dust of the happy couple. Maya, I get the feeling, was supposed to be that Second Girl.

I also get the feeling that Maya was also scrapped, as well as the Dylan romance with Max, because too many fans wanted to see "Fax", fans name-cramming title for Max and Fang (of which induces more rage-vomit.) Which means that James Patterson is a weak, pathetic author who folds under the pressure of his whiny, girl-fans instead of standing strong and writing what he wants to write.

Max's mom. If you haven't read up to book 3, then you're probably not going to read it anyway, and don't have to worry about spoilers (why are you reading this review in the first place then?). I know this is pretty early on, revealing that Dr. Martinez was Max's mom, but it still bugs me. Why did Martinez end up being Max's mom? That's way too coincidental. In Book 1 Max lands in someone's back yard, and that person is her mom. That's like driving to Portland, Oregon. Walking down a neighborhood street, ringing a doorbell. Bam, those are your real parents answering the door.

Max's mom is also evil...ish, in Nevermore. She's absent the entire book when, towards the end, it's revealed that she's evil. Then, when Max and Martinez are face-to-face, she says "Oh, I was being mind-controlled." And everything is okay despite the fact that, normally, Max wouldn't believe a second of it if Max didn't have author-induced brain damage at this point.

Again points:

Jeb is evil again. That's not really a surprise. It's okay for a character to be evil, then good (and in reverse). Heck, it's even acceptable for a character to go evil-good-haha-I-really-was-evil-all-along. But when a character goes evil-good-evil-good-evil-good so many times you've lost track, there's something wrong.

How many times can a character be resurrected? There is an unspoken rule that says once. And even then, you'd better have a good reason for it. Ari is resurrected not once, not twice, but three times in the entire series (if you count Jeb abandoning him in the first place as one. I do.) What does Ari do in Book 8? He's in two scenes. He kills Maya, and is then killed later. That's it. He could have been a generic badguy and it would have actually made more sense. Instead we're treated by "Gasp! Ari! Again!" for a few pages. I had to hold onto my eyelids, my eyes were rolling so fast they nearly flew out and rolled across the floor.

Not only Ari is revived, but he's evil. There's that good-evil-good-evil thing again. This time, though, I managed to keep track. This is the literal number of times he waffled, if you count him being good as a kid. Even then there's no "Haha I was evil all along" he's evil for the convenience of being evil this time.

Erasers are back, too, for no logical reason. It's never explained, and they all die when Ari dies. That's it. James Patterson vomited up favorite things from the first 3 books just to try and make readers feel warm and fuzzy inside.

The Voice. In the first trilogy, it's revealed that Jeb is the mysterious Voice that talks in Max's head. After that, the series all but said "No, wait, he lied, this is a different Voice!" Halfway through Nevermore the Voice suddenly shows up, speaking to everyone. Everyone listens to it, doing everything it says because, well, Max always did what it said.

Wait a minute, no she didn't.

When the Voice first showed up, Max fought it tooth and nail. There were times when she sometimes did the opposite of what it told her. So why is everyone suddenly acting like Max always listened to it, including Max herself?

The Voice is revealed at the end of the book as Angel, but that doesn't make sense because there were things the Voice said and did that Angel couldn't have. At the end of one of the books it's even revealed that Angel has her own Voice speaking to her. Angel wouldn't have to, which suggests it's just another of Patterson's obviously scrapped plans.

It even feels like Patterson scrapped ideas within the span of Nevermore itself. Angel is kidnapped, stuffed in a dog crate, and experimented on (again) and the flock rush off to rescue her (say it with me people: again). During that time she's operated on. Once on her brain, which is never mentioned again, once on her eyes resulting in blindness like Iggy, and her wings are clipped so she can never fly again. However, when Max finds her she is neither blind nor are her wings clipped. She was imagining it. How. Convenient. We come back to Nevermore being called Nevermind.

Maximum Ride starts out as a survival adventure story, but the series eventually evolves into having to save the world. First it's about saving the world from global warming and pollution. All those poor little oil-slicked duckies make Max and the flock so sad! Then, it turns into the potential for a virus. Humans pollute too much, therefore they must die! We're so evil. We're a pimple on Mother Earth! Several groups rise and fall, remaining inconsistent for the rest of the series. It stays with the whole virus apocalypse threat until the very, very end when, apparently out of nowhere, a meteor hits earth and wipes everyone off the face of the planet except for people like Max and the flock. Nevermind the fact that scientists would have seen the meteor coming from (literally) miles and miles away, and that it should have been even briefly hinted at before happening.

Thus concludes my spoiler-filled review.







Ellie Goulding's Lights (Misc)

I love this song.

Unearthly (Books)

Unearthly is one of those books that I normally would have groaned and reshelved after looking at it for a fraction of a second. I'm not a fan of YA romance, especially of the paranormal variety. But I noticed Cynthia Hand was a semi-local author, and I was intrigued. I've never known a local author that wrote fiction before. Most of what we see here are books about wildberries or mountains, or other things like that.

I had originally gone to Barnes and Noble to get Eyes like Stars, but Unearthly kept drawing me back to it. As I said in my Maximum Ride review, I have a thing for angels. This one also had me interested because it actually had a scene in Idaho Falls, which I live rather close to. Shipping hadn't been kind to their stock though, and I'm really picky about the condition of the new books I buy, so I was digging through them when I saw one that had a sticker that said Signed Copy. I thought "Sweet!" even if it was a crummy book, I had a signed copy. I had never owned a signed copy of a book before, so it was already special.

I expected it to be a lame book, another Twilight rip-off where the girl is totally stupidly in love for some guy who makes it pretty obvious that he wants to kill her and strip the flesh from her bones before eating the marrow while watching Lifetime, because he's sensitive like that.

But it wasn't.

It's pretty good. It's not a book for everyone, though, but it's got a fairly wide audience. It's one of those books where I'd say "Interesting nothing" goes on. It's a good read in the same way that hiking or camping is fun. Some people think hiking and camping is fun, some don't. There's never really an in between.

I was also expecting it to be a paranormal story where the characters never actually use their powers. The Summoning is about a necromancer girl, but she maybe uses her abilities 3 times in the entire trilogy, for example. Or Hush Hush, where the love interest of the main character is an angel but really is only a jerk. When a character has superhuman abilities, I as the reader, expect them to be used. I don't want the characters to derp around until the final scene when they finally do something.

The main character in Unearthly is part angel and, while she doesn't use her wings as often as Max and the flock in Maximum Ride, she does use them a lot. There's also a lot of reveals that made me go "whoa." That's important to me, too, because I'm one of those people who's able to figure out the twist at the end of the book/movie/game only ten minutes into it. Cynthia Hand writes well, and manages to keep secrets well enough that you're actually surprised when it hits. The characters are believable, too, and the setting. Everything about it makes it one of those stories that you can believe would actually happen, and it's easy to imagine and immerse yourself in the story.

The sequel was just as good.

I actually waited past release day, tormenting myself, so that I could get a signed copy. Like before, it held a new moment for me. I've never been to a book signing before. Barnes and Noble was empty, but I had arrived early. But, when the time came, it's like a beeper went off and suddenly poof! A loooong line of people. Yikes. It was awesome though. I got to ask her how she managed to get an agent, which was a question that I was itching to ask her (it's since been made into a FAQ answer on her blog.) I told her a bit about my own writing adventures and she signed my book. I was expecting just her name but boom. Awesome. Every time I picked that book up I would open it to the signed page and smile like an idiot. I think that happened for two whole weeks.

She also gave me the courage to get published.

The very next day, after getting a signed copy, I started querying agents and organizing my manuscript for Dusted. I only got one response from a single agent, a rejection, and the rest never replied back. Still, I took one huge step forward, one that I may never have taken without Cynthia Hand and I think, in a large way, it's because of her that I'm published now.

And she has no idea who I am.

I'll definitely be there for the third and final book in the Unearthly series. It will be coming out January of next year. If you start the first one now you'll be ready and hyped up for it, too. At least check it out because Cynthia Hand is awesome.

You can read her blog, as well as get information about her books, here: http://www.cynthiahand.blogspot.com/

Growing Up on a Farm (Personal)

No two farms are alike. No matter how many farms you go to, things are going to be done differently.

I was about 10, when we went from a small town to the countryside. For the first couple of years we had nothing but our little dog and cats (as well as cats that came with the house. You always have cats come with a house.)

I can't remember anything exactly, but eventually we got a couple of cows. They were bottle fed. If you've never bottle-fed an animal you're really missing out on something. Your hands get all sticky, and you're not sure if it's drool, milk, or a gross combination of the two.

We named him Kevin.

Eventually, we got some pigs. Luckily, they were weaned, so we didn't have to deal with feeding them. Everything a pig sees, it wants to eat: birds, grass, roots, slop. I've seen them dig up and eat pieces of coal, I've seen feathers leftover from a bird snacking on their pellets and was too slow to get away. Pigs are kind of scary, really. The only thing that outweighs their scariness is their deliciousness.

We've raised a couple batches of pigs and cows, as well as sheep, but what are the most prominent in my life are goats and chickens.

Stupidly delicious.

There isn't a lot to chickens except that every time you think they've set the bar for stupidity, they not only raise that bar higher, they get stuck on it, hang upside down for a hot summer day until their head turns purple, and then when you try to rescue them they beat you across the face with their wings and scream at you until everyone else is in an uproar. I've seen chickens die in ways that would make the creators of the Darwin Awards sputter. But they're delicious.

We keep most of them for their eggs, and let them free range most of the year. They'll kill anything green they have extended access to. The chicken run looks like a miniature setting for a Mad Max movie. Oh, and they poop. They poop like crazy. Anything they can get themselves over they'll poop on. The area right outside the barn and chicken coop is like a minefield. Except there's so much poop all you can do is avoid the extra liquidy bombs. Even my cats step in it once in a while and scream "Eeeeeew! What the #%&^% is wrong with you!?" (my cats swear a lot).

I've got a Buff Orpington in my sights, repeat, a Buff Orpington.

If you're trying to get a vegan friend to eat meat, get them a chicken. By the time that thing is ready to dress out and cook, you'll have to fight your friend off to keep them from eating the chicken's raw heart out of spite.

That's not to say chickens are all bad, they're quite a source of entertainment. They like to make a racket when they run, which causes a ripple effect and sets the rest of them off cackling. Seeing their interactions with the cats is like seeing a small, furry and feathered adorable war going on.

Goats could almost be an entire thing of their own. Let me start by saying they test everything: your fences, your patience, your sanity, your car's hood. Our first goat managed to jump out of the bed of a pickup truck and run around, avoiding three people, for an entire day, while its front and back feet were hobbled together. After that we've had goats press through spaces smaller than you'd expect a goat to be, squeeze through every little imperfection in your fence, and be sneaky enough that sometimes you're not even sure if they're getting out or not. I remember one conversation in particular:

"Uhm, is Garrett supposed to be in with the girls?"
"What? Noooooo!"

They're kind of jerks.

Goats are magic, and I don't mean the good kind of magic either. They're warlocks, and they know it. They're incredibly smart, too, and twice as stubborn. I've seen goats save up their poop so they can drop their smelly little marbles for you to watch them roll off the milking stand, just because you put her up there, or they try to poop in the milk you're collecting. They'll put their foot right on the edge of a milk bucket and tip that thing right over, otherwise. I've had goats step on my feet, and it took me a couple of years to finally realize they were doing it on purpose.

Goats are a ton of fun though. Slash is our oldest goat, and she adores people. She'll rub her face on your leg, like a cat, or bring her hoof up to touch you with it to get your attention. There's something of a rivalry between us and her, where she slowly tries to escape from the pasture. The moment she know she's been seen, though, she usually heads back in.

What is good-magic about goats, is when they have kids.

Usually it's late February to early March when they give birth on our farm. There's still snow on the ground, and the cold has a kind of silencing effect with the world, so it's just you and a goat in labor. Unless they're a new mom they usually do fine, and it's almost like Christmas to see how many she will have and what they will look like. We've had some real anomalies for fur color thrown at us sometimes, we've also had moms that we didn't think were pregnant, then had a couple of kids, somehow. Doesn't matter what happens, there's always a "wow" moment every year.

Sometimes, you have losses. Idaho winters are pretty harsh and cold, and sometimes we don't get to the kids in time. But we have had some kids you'd think were brought back from the dead. I've seen kid goats, their bodies stiff and cold, be revived and grow up completely normal and healthy. Our method to warm them up involves floating them in a warm sink full of water.

You ever have one of those moments where you just sort of wonder "What in the world am I doing?" but it's in a weird, good way? Yeah. Goats float. So you're trying to keep their body in the water and their head above it. There is a tiny goat, floating like a pool toy, in your kitchen sink.

You're never bored on a farm, nor are you really rushed. It's slow and peaceful in a lot of ways. Sometimes I can just pull up a chair and watch the animals as the sun sets, and it's pretty zen.

Until I see Slash eating the lilacs.

Digital Rights Management (Publishing)

What is Digital Rights Management?

If you've ever bought a videogame, movie, or music CD, you know about copy-protection. It's that annoying little thing that makes your life that much more inconvenient. Yeah, I copy stuff, I copy it like crazy, but you know what? Illegal copying ususally creates profit to small-time people.

The best example I've seen is Neil Gaiman talking about Copyright Piracy in this video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Qkyt1wXNlI It's a quiet video, and the sound quality isn't that good, but it's worth a watch.

He talks about favorite books, and people loaning them out. I've got a list of my own that, when I read the book, I went out and bought a copy:

Feed, by M.T. Anderson
13 Days to Midnight, by Patrick Carman
The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins
The Host, by Stephanie Meyer (and I never would have read it otherwise)
Song of the Lioness series, by Tamora Pierce
Divergent, by Veronica Roth

These are just the ones given to me that I've thourally enjoyed. I loan my books out quite a bit to friends and family, and they've, in turn, bought copies.

Cory Doctorow also has a good point about piracy, mentioning Piracy versus Obscurity: http://craphound.com/littlebrother/about/

Obscurity is my biggest threat, copies of my novel selling dismally slow, if at all some weeks. DRM is the only one-time option on Amazon's publishing options, and I have it turned off. Even if Dusted was selling like crazy I still wouldn't have DRM on because, from my own experiences, nothing is more frustrating than a tough-cookie copy-protected anything.

So, I'm proud to announce that anything I sell will never, ever have DRM so long as that option is in my power.

Mary Sues (Writing)

Mary Sues are interesting things. Not a lot of people I know are aware of their existence, and sometimes they're hard to explain.

So, what is a Mary Sue?

Mary Sue is, in a nutshell, the author's wish fulfilment. It has somewhat evolved into the reader's wish fulfilment. Mary Sue began when fanfiction became more mainstream and has become more and more common in main characters of novels. Bella Swan from Twilight is a commonly-mentioned character, and one I will be using as an example.

A Mary Sue is a character that has so many positive aspects that it overwhelms anything negative they could possibly have. Bella, for example, is so beautiful to everyone, five guys ask her to prom on the same day (or at least three, my memory is, thankfully, fuzzy). And, while she's clumsy, it's seen as endearing and as an excuse to show her to be vulnerable and cute.

They're usually the smartest, the prettiest, the youngest to ever do something, and everyone loves them in one way or another. Sometimes, in fan fiction, they are the child of the author's favorite character, or the author's favorite character falls in love with them.

Here's a good entry from Wikipedia on the description of Mary Sues:

The term is also associated with clichés such as exotic hair and eye colors, mystical or superhuman powers, exotic pets, possessions, or origins, or an unusually tragic past, especially when these things are glaringly out of step with the consistency of the canon. These features are commonplace in "Mary Sues", though even a character who lacks them may be labelled a "Sue" by some critics. The term is more broadly associated with characters who are exceptionally and improbably lucky. The good luck may involve romance ("Mary Sue" always gets her man); adventure ("Mary Sue" always wins a fight or knows how to solve the puzzle) and popularity (the "right people" seem to gravitate towards the character). These characters have few problems while attempting to achieve their goals. "Everything goes her way" is a common criticism regarding "Mary Sues", the implication being that the character's inability to fail makes her insufficiently humanized or challenged to be interesting or sympathetic.

As I mentioned before though, Mary Sues aren't exclusive to fanfiction. In fact, they used to be much more popular for TV shows and books decades ago. Entertainment was more about flights of fancy and escapism through fantastical means. Now we prefer darker, grittier, more realistic characters in our fantasies because it is more about realism than whimsy.

Now, don't get me wrong, Mary Sues have their place. They're often a good launching point for young authors in the same way that writing in an established universe with fanfiction is a good start if you want to write and not spend so much time dreaming up a whole world from scratch. Just don't expect to actually go anywhere with that kind of writing. Think of fanfiction as training wheels for a bicycle.

Every woman under that smoky gaze just ovulated.

Author self-insertion has its place too, but I don't mean total self-insertion, I mean in pieces. I've heard the writing mantra Write What You Know. The best thing you know is probably yourself, and who knows more about you than yourself? (except maybe your mom).

Don't use your entire self, though, and especially as a single character. Don't use specifics either. Rather, use aspects of yourself, and use them in pieces. Distribute yourself around to fill in pieces of characters.

If your favorite color is green, your hair is blonde, eyes are blue, and you have a thing for Adam Levine; don't make your main character a blonde-haired, blue-eyed, green-wearing girl who dates a  messy-haired hunk named Aaron Lane.

Putting aspects and experiences of yourself into your characters is harder, but more rewarding. Probably my most obvious example to anyone who knows me would be the relationship between Jaden and Crystal in Dusted.

I have a brother who is almost a year older than me, and being homeschooled as well as living out in the country has led us to being pretty close siblings. Rather than make myself Crystal and my brother Jaden, I instead took my brother and my relationship as siblings and used that as a basis: The way we think the same thing sometimes, how we can communicate without saying a thing, inside jokes, how we tend to sometimes make someone else feel lost when we're together (including our own parents), how we can just hang out and it's no big deal.

In Dusted there is a scene where Jaden and Crystal cook up some bacon and play the original Mario on an old Nintendo system. My brother and I never actually did that specifically, but it is based on some rare times in our early teens when neither of us could sleep so we would sometimes leave the lights turned off and fire up our Nintendo 64. We had Donkey Kong 64 and, in it, it had the original Donkey Kong as an unlockable easter egg, the one with the platforms and you played Jumpman (Mario) jumping over barrels, gaining points in the process. Why did we play it in particular? I have no idea. Why in the dark? I guess so we'd ruin our vision.

If you didn't play this in the early 90's then I hate you.

The bacon part of the scene comes from even older time when we played Secret of Mana and ate fresh coconut for the first time. That's it, but it's a pretty vivid memory that we both have. Adding both memories, mixing them up a bit, and adding some original thoughts to it, makes it into an unique scene. Taking something from real life makes it believable too, because not only is it possible, but it already happened in one way or another.

Does that make Crystal and Jaden Mary Sues in some small way? Perhaps a bit. Does it make them more believable as a result? Definitely.

The real trick is to not make it obvious.

So if you worry people are too busy rolling their eyes to finish reading what you wrote, do some research on Mary Sues. Familiarize yourself with them. I enjoy running my characters through Mary Sue Tests. This one is my favorite: http://www.springhole.net/writing/marysue.htm and I just discovered this one upon writing this article: http://www.onlyfiction.net/ms-test.html

Crystal scored a 23, but I think it could be plus or minus about 10 points, depending on exceptions.

A character in an unfinished novel of mine, meanwhile has 17 points, but I'm not sure if some of the questions work. One being "Does your character have an exceptional singing voice?" He does, but partly because it's actually his (unsuccessful) profession. If you know Mary Sues though, you'd know the singing question to be more aimed toward a character that randomly breaks out into Disney Princess-esque singing, or sings to soothe a beast or something. He's also in his mid-30's, so that alone should subtract some points since most Mary Sues are under 25. Everything's variable, and depends on circumstance and the story around the character.

All in all, it comes down to what you think.

Buying Used (Misc)

Do you ever hold something used in your hands and you kind of wonder "How did this end up here?" I do that all the time.

Some things I can understand, like I my mom has a spinning wheel that's missing a part, and I've got a music box with a stripped plastic gear. They're both things that are broken, but not quite broken enough to be thrown in the garbage.

Then there are things like a Nintendo Wii 6 months after the release, when people were still going nuts and they were flying off the shelves. Why would someone give up a brand new gaming system only 6 months later? Did they need the money? Did an angry girlfriend take it, sell it, and then break up with the guy? The same for almost-new videogames.

Then there are the really strange things, like tools, or this music box here. They really make me wonder who owned them previously, and why they were given up. Oddly enough, what primarily comes to mind is "Did someone's grandma die and they cleaned out their living room?" Do I own something that belonged to dead person, or something that grandma wanted to pass on to her daughter? What's the story? How old is this thing? Is it valuable? Did there used to be a department store, 30 years ago, that had shelves of these things?

Objects make a good launching-point for a story, sometimes.

The Dresden Files (Books)

Maximum Ride used to be My Favorite Book of All Time. You know that book, you have one of your own. No matter what book you read after it, your Favorite Book of All Time will stand strong. What bumped Maximum Ride off the pedestal of favorite for me?

The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher. Aw yeah.

If Maximum Ride gave my character Crystal her teenage wit, The Dresden Files gave her everything else.

I was 20 or 21. I found it mostly by accident. My dad used to be a part of the Science Fiction Book Club, and I often got books there too. I kept reading the description of the first 3-book omnibus, wondering "Should I? Shouldn't I?" I like magic, but otherwise I knew nothine else about it. I worried it would be lame (you know, kind of like A Madness of Angels.)

I never did buy it.

One of the best things about living where I do in Idaho is I live only 20 minutes away from the self-titled "Largest Used Bookstore in Idaho." I don't know if that claim is true, but I have yet to see evidence to the contrary.

Gently whispers "I love you."

I was lucky, incredibly lucky, to find a copy of Wizard for Hire (the name of the omnibus). Used copies of any of Jim Butcher's books fly off the shelves the moment they touch them. Still, if it had been any other Jim Butcher book, even the first book, Storm Front, I would have passed it right by without a second thought. The only way it would have gotten my attention is because it was that big, blue, beautiful omnibus. I picked it up, knew I had been looking at it in the Science Fiction Book Club fliers, and decided to get it.

I was probably 3/4ths through the first book in the omnibus when I ordered the other three omnibuses from SFBC. From that point until the last sentance of White Night it was a whirlwind.

Suddenly here's this...this guy. This Harry Dresden. He's awesome. He slings magic around like it's candy. He's sarcastic. He's hilarious. He's a loser in love. He's tortured. He has these crowning moments of awesome that can't ever be topped, and he does it again and again. That picture? Up there? That actually happens.

Dresden Files, where have you been all my life?

Every story is a gem. It's never suffered from series entropy. If anything, it gets better. Funnier, action-packed, amazing.

What can I honestly say? Pick up a copy of Storm Front, the first book, and go from there. I promise you won't be disappointed.

"There was a sound of impact, a raspy, dry scream, and the vampire went down hard. It lay on the ground like a butterfly pinned to a card, arms and legs thrashing uselessly. Its chest and collarbone had been crushed. By an entire frozen turkey. A twenty-pounder. The plucked bird must have fallen from an airplane overhead, doubtlessly manipulated by the curse. By the time it got to the ground, the turkey had already reached its terminal velocity, and was still hard as a brick. The drumsticks poked up above the vampire's crushed chest, their ends wrapped in red tinfoil. The vampire gasped and writhed a little more. The timer popped out of the turkey. Everyone stopped to blink at that for a second. I mean, come on. Impaled by a guided frozen turkey missile. Even by the standards of the quasi-immortal creatures of the night, that ain't something you see twice."   

Rungis, the God of Harvests (Personal)

It's the first day of August, the Day of Harvest (Lughnasadh), the birthday of someone I know, and the day Rungis the Latvian God of Harvests first showed up.

Sup?

I live with my parents and they work night shift, to keep from making themselves crazy with changing hours all the time, they live the night shift on their days off too.

Night shift is an interesting way of life, but that's another story for another time, but for now let me just say some strange things go on at night.

My parents were cleaning the barn around midnight when they heard mewling. We've got another cat that's rather friendly and has a very kitten-like voice, named Sandy, so my parents thought it was her. They'd called enough that the kitten decided to poke its head into the barn. Certainly not Sandy. Apparently, it didn't take long to convince her to come out of our straw stack (I'm convinced that it's a cat spawn point by now.)

Souls, she eats them.

We live out in the country, so it's rather weird for there to be a kitten running around as we only have one neighbor within kitten distance (a very scientific measurement). They said it wasn't theirs, so we kept her.

I'd written a speech paper on black cats a few years back, and in doing so I learned about Rungis, the Latvian God of Harvests. According to Latvia's old pagan beliefs (they're primarily Christian now) they believe black cats embody the spirit of Rungis, and finding a little black kitten on a pagan harvest holiday is rather coincidental, but fun.

That, and we had our best squash harvest from our garden, ever. It exploded, crawling all over the rest of the garden, so much that we had to keep it from choking off the rest of the stuff we were growing, and it grew up and over a fence and into a goat pasture, where the chickens hid under and laid plenty of eggs that we didn't find for a long time.

Assembly instructions not included.

We've already had so many black cats in the past that we're running out of names, so we called her Smudge, like a coal smudge.

My brother was dating at the time we found Smudge, so I was left pretty bored and lonely. There's only so much you can do by yourself when you live out in the country. That left Smudge to be my buddy. She usually slept on my bed in the sun while I read or wrote.

Cats grow up, as cats tend to do. Smudge was always friendly a friendly kitty. She was also very vocal, and loved to let you know she was there. This spring, she got big and round, and suddenly our Rungis was pregnant with little Harvest Demigods.

Momma needs a mousetini.

She had kittens on April 20th just before my brother and I were ready to head for school. We didn't get a good look at them until later that day when our parents were awake. She was very happy to see us, and didn't mind at all when we touched and held the kittens.


We were kind of hoping for at least one solid black kitten, but the genetics roulette didn't provide. Instead we were given what mostly look like tabbies, which is weird because there were mostly 2 possibilities for tomcats: A white tomcat with orange ears and a tail that we own (thank God that didn't come to be), and a beefy, wild Siamese. So where the heck did these tabby...things come from? No idea. Two are pure grey tabbies, one being longhair, and the other two I call "Camo-tabbies" because they're tabbies, but a mix of both orange and grey tabby markings. There were 3 girls and one boy, for a while their designations were Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and Dave. (Yeah, that's okay, I didn't get it either.)

Insomnia kitten was stuck on the bottom.

Eventually they were named Grim, Bean, FSMO, and Dave. My brother and I are Computer Networking Technician graduates and FSMO is pronounced Fizzmo, short for Flexible Single Master Operator role. A part of Windows Server. Nerdy, I know, but Fizzmo is a cute name, especially for a kitten.

I've never seen a mother adore her babies so much, and I've seen herbivores. Everyone grew up nice and healthy.

We're always responsible about spaying our cats, this was an intentional litter, so we made arrangements to have Smudge spayed, but the day before, she didn't show up. That wasn't like her at all. I felt bad because she usually got closed up in the barn with her kittens, but that night she wasn't in the mood for it, so I left her out. That was July 10th.

We haven't seen her since.

Her kittens are still growing well, they're 3 months old right now. Since their mother disappeared they've been extra attached to us, but they still show signs that they're waiting for her. Bean almost got her nose smacked off because she mistook Sandy for Smudge last night.

It's silly, but I like to think Smudge really was Rungis, in some way. She came, made our squash harvest unnecessarily plentiful, blessed us with little Harvest Demigods, and went on about her divine way.