Adventures with Neil

I am very psyched to share about my trip this last weekend to Atlanta to see Neil Gaiman on his last U.S. book signing tour. This was my second time being in the physical presence of my favorite author. The first was in 2011 at World Fantasy Con in San Diego, which you can read about here.

The adventure started out by picking up my friends Ann Marie and her boyfriend Lee and driving five hours from Florida to ATL. We got to the site of the event, a small women's college, about three hours before Neil was scheduled to talk and went to grab something to eat. When we got back like thirty minutes later, there were hundreds of people in line ahead of us. We had to wait in the blazing sun for over an hour to pick up our tickets, but it was a very pretty and magical looking ticket indeed:

 

After that, we had to get in the longest line I've ever seen, which spanned like half the campus, to wait to get into the building. This is the line when we got to the back (though it's missing about thirty people on the left side), and what you can see below is only about a fifth of the whole thing. Can you see how far it stretches into the distance???

 

 

We finally got in and sat in the balcony at the back of a large auditorium. Neil spoke at about 7:30 and as usual was smart and charming and super cool. He read from Ocean at the End of the Lane and then had a brief Q&A, though he refused to answer more than three Dr. Who questions. My favorite answer? When asked how he approached a writing project, he said, "I just sidle up next to it and say Hullo."

 

This is the gorgeous building we were in:

 

 

After Neil spoke the serious waiting began. We had about six hundred people ahead of us to get our books signed. Finally, after midnight and eight hours of waiting total (eight!), we got our books signed. And it was totally worth it. Neil was so friendly and made a point to talk to everyone even though he'd been signing for hours. He said he liked my shirt, which just about made me giggle like a school girl, and I asked him about something he'd said he was working on when I saw him in 2011, and then we were through and it was over, and I didn't regret one bit of the waiting.

 

Here is a pic of me and Neil, with most of my makeup melted off from waiting in the Georgia heat and a beam of light cutting across my head:

 

 

Silly as it sounds, I feel changed every time I see Neil. It solidifies my aspirations as a writer, and helps me dream of the future. I want to be the cool author with an eight hour line. I want to travel the world and make good art and inspire others. I want to free the imagination of countless readers and change how they see the world every time they pick up one of my books.

 

So, yeah. It was a pretty rad weekend :)

 

**Update** LOL, I just read my old WFC 2011 post where I talk about waiting ONE WHOLE HOUR to get Neil to sign my book. Oh, perspective...

 





A Very Sad Goodbye

My dear pony Mocha died last night. I think it was peaceful. He was very old and had been lethargic and just not himself the last few days, so I had suspected he was going soon and was able to say my goodbyes. When I went out this morning to feed the horses he was just lying in the pasture.

I remember when I first got him almost five years ago how he was such a rascal and would never let me catch him in the pasture. We worked together and soon he got over that silly habit. We had been told that he was very skittish and abused by someone in the past, and so it was hard to win his trust.

I remember how he would always chase my huge warmblood away from his food, though he was less than half his size, if I didn't seperate them during feeding time. He was so bossy to the other horses, but so dear and sweet to his people.

I remember when I made him wear a Santa hat and pose for Christmas pictures a few years ago, and how when I was squatting on the ground trying to get a good angle since he was so small that he kept coming up and snuffling my face with his soft muzzle. He was the cutest Christmas pony ever.

I remember last November when he an abcess in his eyeball of all places, and I had to give him five different medications ten times a day, all through the middle of the night even though I had to get up at 6:30 for work. That went on for two weeks, and then the medications were weaned off slowly, but all in all it was six weeks of intensive care putting medicine in his eye. I didn't even have to put a halter or leadrope on him. He just stood there and let me mess with his eyeball. Even though we were close before that, I think that experience made us truly trust each other.

He was part of my inspiration for Everdream, my last novel about living carousel ponies. The specific character he inspired was Onyx, a grumpy, bossy jet black pony that is part of the dream caravan. When this gets published, he will be on the dedication page.

This morning after I found him I noticed that a single magnolia bud was on the tree, and just a few minutes ago when I went to pick flowers for his grave, I saw that it had fully bloomed, just in the last couple hours. White and perfect just for him. I placed it in his grave along with some blue hydrangeas.

I will miss you, old friend. May your spirit be boundless and joyful wherever you travel.

An Uncomfortable Confession

A couple days ago I was watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer on Netflix and grumbling to my husband about how there are barely any non-white characters on the show. This came after a scene where a black man was depicted unloading a van and then gets eaten by Dracula (double whammy of a person of color depicted in manual labor and then being instantly killed off). And I had a very uncomfortable realization. In the WIP I'm editing now (my second book), I don't really have any significant non-white characters either.

I sat there thinking, "Wait - can that be right?" And it pretty much was. I had one fairly minor Asian character, but that's it. Now, I've grown up (thankfully) in a non-prejudiced family. My grandmother was one of the few white teachers who volunteered to work in integrated schools when they were first mandated in the 1950s, and my mother is famous for making a gift to NAACP in honor of her extremely racist in-laws during her first marriage. I am a huge promoter of diversity of all kinds.

Recently the HBO show Girls, which is fairly new and exploding in popularity, was called out for the same thing. The creator, writer and main character Lena Dunham had to admit that she had made her show with an almost entirely white cast of characters as well. And when you look at it, a lot of the TV, movies, books, magazine pictures, etc. have mostly white people depicted. What disturbs me about this, as evidenced by my own writing, is that even for people who consider themselves fans of diversity, we can sometimes slip into white-centric thinking unconsciously.

So, for the WIP in question I've gone back and reevaluated my main characters and made sure that there is diversity in the mix. And it's something I'm going to have to be conscious of in my writing from now on. They say to write what you know - but just because I'm about as white as you can get, other than a little Native American blood, I don't want to "write white" (and I frankly think that piece of writing advice is not the greatest anyways). Diversity is beautiful, and our writing can only be better by sharing it.

What about you? If you take a good, hard look at your cast of characters, what do you see? I know I'm not the only one, based on a ton of the books I've read. I'd love to hear your opinions below.

The Art of Stopping

Confession: I'm a workaholic.

Aside from my creative writer side, I have a very type-A personality. I thrive on goals and deadlines, self-imposed or otherwise. I like to always have something going on, and I write, edit or query pretty much every day (in addition to working more than full time and dealing with kids, husband and multiple pets). But every now and then I have to do something that's rather hard for me. I just have to stop.

So, I haven't posted in a while because I needed to replenish a bit. Work has been stressful, and I've been sick several times this year, and I found myself in the unusual (for me) position of not knowing what writing project I wanted to work on. I was querying one book, and immediately started a new one, which I usually do to distract myself from querying. Then I got some great feedback from a couple agents on the book I was querying, and suddenly I went into a bit of a tailspin. Should I edit? Should I push through and finish the first draft of my current WIP? I really just wasn't sure.

Thus, I stopped. I recognized that I needed to really make myself take a long break and just BE. Which is very unnatural for me, but I did it for several weeks. I was lazy and watched lots of Buffy, Vampire Diaries, Game of Thrones and Castle. And after a bit I started to feel back to normal, and the feeling got stronger, and now I think I'm almost back to where I need to be.

I've decided to pause on the new WIP and work on edits on two books. Then, querying shall begin anew! I got great responses from agents and writers alike on these, and I know the areas I need to work on. So, that's the plan. What have you been doing lately?

Myth or Reality?

Today at work we had a book club meeting at lunch and discussed The Scorpio Races, which is loosely based on Celtic mythology about water horses that drag people to their deaths (and it's an AMAZING book, so go read it, NOW, if you haven't already). So naturally we started talking about myths in general, and how similar some are all across the world.

For instance, vampires and werewolves are prevalent in myths and folklore all around the world. My young colleague from Trinidad was saying that vampires are still very much feared today, and that as a teen if she came home after dark her grandmother would make her walk through the front door backwards as this is supposedly something a vampire would not be able to do. They also sprinkle salt all around their houses, which is said to ward them off.

How is it that so many different cultures spread all over the world have these common myths? Is it word of mouth spreading from travelers? Do they all stem from some primal basic human fear, thus the sameness of them? Or did there used to be some truth to these myths before the world became so modern that all the magic faded?

I find it all pretty fascinating, especially since I love vamp and werewolf tales. So, what's your take? Is there some truth in the old tales? Or is it all explained in some rational way?

Passions

Last weekend I got to go to an international equestrian event that is held in my city each year. It's pretty exciting, because my city is not that big, so it's cool we have it here. I've loved horses since I was born practically, and been riding since I was nine (though I'm so busy I haven't done much riding in recent years). Anyways, here are some pics I took.

Sometimes I get to combine my passions and sneak equine things into my books (or in the case of my last book, have the entire thing involve horses). What are your other passions besides writing? Do you ever get to combine them?

Hope you're having an awesome week :)

You've Got To Be Kidding Me

Recently I decided to pick up the first book in a very popular series that I've heard rave reviews about for years. I was super excited to check it out and had honestly felt remiss for not doing so sooner. So, I started reading it. It was good. I got even more excited. I get to about page 60 in the book, when the main character (a woman), meets the secondary main character (a man). The man comes to the woman's house in the middle of the night (they have never met before), enters her house without her permission, and then she becomes instantly aroused, throws herself at him physically, and they get busy in her living room.

Wait, what??

Yeah, I hope that's what you're saying. Because what rational, intelligent woman would instantly desire to sleep with a complete stranger who has broken into her house? It doesn't matter how hot this man is. I would find a weapon and bash that a**hole's head in. No stranger better come into my house at any time of day without permission and expect a welcome reception, let alone sex.

What is up with this? How is this okay? I am very disturbed by the extreme sexism here, not to mention this book is written by a woman. I've of course heard of this tired plot in bad romance novels, but this is a popular fantasy series. Or, perhaps it's technically paranormal romance, but I thought those were a little more intelligent and were supposed to have strong females leads. Now, don't get me wrong, I love some romance and bedroom action in my books. But not if it makes women look completely moronic. Not to mention, a slow build to the booty scenes is so much more satisfying anyways. If they hook up right away, where's the tension? Oh, that's right, it fell off with that chic's panties.

So, pipe up here - where do you fall on the romance spectrum? Are you okay with home invasion stranger sex (and if so, why?)? Or are you like me and prefer a liberal dash of intelligence and non-degradation of women with your nooky? I want to hear from the guys, too!

Okay, I'm off the soapbox now.... hope you're having a good weekend :)