So, a duck walks ino a bar…
BROKEN, my work-in-progress, is almost, almost done. I’m getting a few more thoughts from my beta readers, and have been entering the final edits. I’ve got the bones of what I think is a pretty decent query letter and this little baby is about to fly.
Do any of you remember the song “At This Moment” by Billy Vera and the Beaters? How many of you will forever associate it with the moment Alex P. Keaton professed his love to Ellen Reed, and she left anyway?
The next WIP, tentatively titled FALLING AGAIN, is just waiting. It exploded into my head around mid-April, but while I’ve been dealing with life and finishing up BROKEN, I’ve just been letting it ferment. I’ve got characters, names, conflicts, arcs, and what I think is a pretty tortured book. And I’m delighted about that!
If you wish we could clone Nathan Fillion, raise your hand.
My writing space is about 98% finished, thanks to the sewing blitz I had last weekend. (I had very specific curtains in mind, and ended up just having to buy the fabric so I could make them. Yeah, I bought the fabric last April. I think it’s part of what makes me a panster.
Spellcheck makes ‘panster’ into ‘punster’ if you’re not watching.
Thanks to Montana, I’ve been reading Neil Gaiman’s NEVERWHERE. It’s my first Gaiman (I tried Good Omens, and had some trouble with it, so stopped trying Neil for a while.) I’ve really been enjoying this book, but I’m not finished, so no spoilers, please! I think I’ll try his American Gods series later this summer. Has anybody read those?
Speaking of Summer Reading, anybody have any favorites or upcoming books they’re excited about? C’mon, give me your best beach/plane read!
If you wish you were at BEA this weekend, raise your hand.
You people are all fabulous, commenters and lurkers alike. I wish you a happy weekend and fabulous June!
Tuesday Ten: The Total Comic-Geek Edition
I’ve mentioned before that I’m a geek—band, comic, girl—I wear all of the badges proudly. Of these, band has slipped off since I graduated from high school (though I still have the soul of “One day, at band camp…”) and the girl geek is almost a continual, low-grade thing, like what makes me laugh or my favorite foods. So that leaves the Comic Geek.
I’ve enjoyed comics as long as I can remember, from the classic Carl Barks-created Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge my dad got me hooked on, to the X-Men I secretly read from my brother’s stash, to the Teen Titans I collected later in high school. I have since eased up on the encased-in-plastic-with-a-backing-board rigidity that some true comics aficionados adhere to, but I have always enjoyed a run of Daredevil, an arc of the Fantastic Four, or the deliciously dark mini-series of Cloak and Dagger. And since I’ve thrust my toe in even deeper and reveled in comic writers such as Joss Whedon (creator of Buffy, for those of you first time readers to Pam Writes Romance), Jeph Loeb (producer/writer for such shows as Smallville, Lost and Heroes), and Kevin Smith (writer/director of Dogma, Clerks, etc.) I have found that my comic geek is growing.
It’s only natural, I suppose. There are comic book hero movies coming out at a wonderful clip, and it’s crossed over into fiction, even romance. (Jennifer Estep, anyone?) Go to any alternative fiction conference and you’ll be hard pressed to draw the lines between paranormal, anime, comics, science-fiction, fantasy and a slew of other sub-categories. But the comic conventions (commonly shortened to ComiCons) can be the most fun of all, and based on my personal experience, here’s why.
#1—I got to “meet” Chewbacca. (Though at the conference Montana and I attended, Peter Mayhew was there, so I could have really met Chewbacca. 
#2—Having drawings made for you by the same people who’ve drawn Superman, Wolverine, Green Lantern, Spiderman, and one of my personal favorites, Herobear and the Kid.
#3—Watching people of all makes and models dressed up in costumes is just a hoot. Some looked like they raided the Goodwill bag, some could have gone straight onto a Hollywood lot. Others, with their costume swords and battle-axes, needed to be avoided lest an unfortunate accident occur.
#4—I got to talk to Jo Chen, the fabulous artist who did these (and more):
This is what an amazing artist she is—when I asked her how she got hooked up with Joss to do the Buffy Season 8 series, she said he called her. How’s that for living the dream?
#5—Hearing a talk by Todd McFarlane. You want to hear about somebody who’s made it by being true to their voice and not backing down? This is him.
#6—I got to see R2-D2. That is just the cutest little robot and he is even more so in person. Er…you know what I mean. 
#7—As writers, I think one of the best things about this Con for Montana and myself, was talking to the other artists and writers. Granted, they wrote about Magneto and the Incredible Hulk, but they faced the same thing we do—telling their story in a specific way. We have 70,000-100,000 words to tell our story, they have a limited number of pages and panels but have a strong visual medium at their disposal. And you know me—I love talking writing.
#8—Watching the kids ask this poor dude to “kick” them down the hill, yelling (you guessed it) “This is Sparta!” 
#9—Even better was then having that same gladiator come back and stand by us, telling us in a very weary and cynical voice, “Yeah, the kids like that. I just hope none of their dads is a lawyer.”
#10—And as promised many weeks ago, the picture of me with the Stormtroopers.
Don’t tell Montana, but if I can Photoshop a little Santa hat on one of them, I think this is going to be our Christmas card this year. May the Frosty be with you.
In Xanadu
Don’t ask me why, don’t ask me how, but the other morning I was feeling particularly nostalgic–but nostalgic not as much in a “Remember when” sort-of way, but more of a ”I want to do this again” way. I wanted to wear Xanadu barrettes.
Xanadu barrettes, for those of you who missed it, forgot it, or weren’t even born, were these barrettes with multi-colored ribbons woven through the body of the barrette with the ends left to trail down, sending silky streams of color through your flowing hair like you were the lost tenth muse. (It makes sense if you’ve ever watched the movie.)
And for those of us whose family couldn’t afford these barrettes or the to-die-for satin baseball jacket, they also sold kits so you could make your own barrettes, or for the truly thrifty, you bought the barrettes (if you didn’t have a spare pair somewhere), bought ribbons at JoAnn Fabrics, and made your own Xanadu barrettes.
You may be asking why I was getting nostalgic for these barrettes. (Heck, knowing some of you, you’re getting a few pangs of sweetly innocent lust for them as well!) I think these barrettes were some of our first forays into young womanhood, that awful, painful, bittersweet and exciting time after playing tag with the boys at recess and before discovering Bonnie Bell 10-O-6 and Seventeen magazine. We were now getting dolled up for those same boys and these barrettes with their beautiful flowing ribbons in their girly colors made us feel pretty. They were pierced ears and prom dresses and pretty pink fingernails before we were allowed to have any of them, all braided up in satin ribbons.
I’m well past Seventeen magazine now, and know I am beautiful, both inside and out, so I can honestly say I wasn’t longing for these barrettes to make me feel pretty. I just think there’s always going to be a part of me that likes dressing up and wearing extra sparklies or touchable silks and velvets and recapturing that feel of wearing ribbons in my hair. I may not be royal by birth, but I can enjoy dressing up like a princess.
That, or Olivia Newton-John circa 1980.
