It's become such an essential part of my writing that I can't create my stories without some sort of music playing in the background. Unfortunately for Tarl, my husband, it sometimes means a single song on endless repeat for hours on end, but...well...such are the sacrifices of living with creative types, eh? One learns to cope, and in his case it has meant noise cancelling headphones (not for him, mind you, but for me).

Where did all of this come from? Initially, it probably started because when I was a kid I used to listen to LP's of Disney movies. Yes, I realize many youngsters out there don't even know what the heck LP's are. (They're like oversized CD's with 2 sides that makes cool scratchy noises when played.) I would listen to the records and imagine the movies...over...and over...and over. You know how kids are. My favorite was "The Fox and the Hound". Out of that came the "Star Wars" soundtrack on record. I'd never seen the film, so came up with my own version of the movie based on the pictures on the album and the music. It was really strange, and it was different every time I listened to it. All I remember is that I used to break out into a really bizarre, epileptic-like dance whenever that cantina song came on. (Give me a break! I was, like, six years old!)

So after graduating from the "Star Wars" seizures, I made tapes wherein I acted out storylines, complete with soundtracks nabbed from the stereo. My sister partook in one that we titled "Nightmare" in which we were two sisters (surprise, surprise) who got lost in a cave and had to find our way out, all the while struggling against our mother re-marrying some evil new boyfriend who was trying to kill us. We even did our own sound effects. I remember some really bad friendship song coming on the radio that we thought was perfect for the end and we hit the record button just in time to get it. We ended up laughing and making running noises like we were tumbling through a field of flowers in complete bliss for foilling the evil boyfriend's scheme and escaping the horrific cave. How sad that the tape was lost.

My next real soundtrack experience was the score for "Edward Scissorhands". I snagged songs from that and completely remade them into my own stories, many of which worked their way into my film "Black" as Phear's storyline over 12 years later. First, however, they made their way into a short story called "Phear". That story is incomplete and ends with her mother shouting, "Run, Phear! Run away!". For those of you who have seen "Black"...gee...I wonder what part THAT is...

Anyway, so for every book I've written, there is a playlist. I now offer up the one for "Zurigan's Child". Some songs were used for specific scenes, and some for ambience. Some were used in conjunction with others, and some only briefly. Maybe some day I'll give more details, but for now, here is the whole for you to do with as you wish:

1. More Than This- The Cure (The X-Files: The Album)

2. Can't Run But- Paul Simon (Rhythm of the Saints)

3. Ubiquitous Mr. Lovegrove- Dead Can Dance (Into the Labyrinth)

4. Two Step- Dave Matthews Band (Crash)

5. Like Cockatoos- The Cure (Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me)

6. Fish Out of Water- Tears For Fears (Elemental)

7. Spark- Tori Amos (From the Choirgirl Hotel)

8. You Look So Fine- Garbage (Version 2.0)

9. Fragile (Reprise)- Sting (The Living Sea)

10. Wash Jones- Squirrel Nut Zippers (The Inevitable)

11. Never There- Cake (Prolonging the Magic)

12. To Have and Not To Hold- Madonna (Ray of Light)

13. Morning Breaks- Nellee Hooper (Romeo + Juliet Volume 2)

14. Little Blonde in the Park of Attractions- Tangerine Dream (Tyranny of Beauty)

15. Big My Secret- Michael Nyman (The Piano)

16. Iiee- Tori Amos (From the Choirgirl Hotel)

17. Can't See (Useless)- Oingo Boingo (Boingo)

18. Laura Palmer's Theme- Angelo Badalamenti (Twin Peaks)

19. Where Would I Be?- Cake (Prolonging the Magic)

20. Selina Transforms (Part 2)- Danny Elfman (Batman Returns)

21. You Are the Pan- John Williams (Hook- Original Soundtrack)

22. 16 Horses- Soul Coughing (The X-Files: The Album)

As far as I know all of these songs can be had via itunes, so have at it. I found them all to be great for my writing, so maybe you'll feel the same. I have no idea what they might be like to listen to while reading ZC, so if you have comments on that, or any others, feel free to post. Ta!

    I began my journey to publication at the age of twenty-one.  I had just finished my first novel, a fantasy entitled (and, yes, I am using the word entitled despite some embittered agent's recommendation that I not use it because "it makes it seems like one is entitled to something in return"...sheesh!) "Zurigan's Child".  Summoning every ounce of courage I had (which wasn't much at the time), I wrote and re-wrote query after query, synopses after synopses to present at conference after conference.  Alas, to no avail.  Most often I was told, "What an interesting story, but it's not what we're looking for right now.", or "We don't buy fantasy, only science fiction." even though they were agents listed as scifi/fantasy agents in the catalogue.  Many a time I was even openly mocked in front of agents I paid to have time in front of.  Such is the life of a young, aspiring author. 

    I turned then to the "Writer's Market Guide" book, and spent the better part of two years writing short stories and fine tuning my queries to suit the markets wherein, all the while continuing the saga of Caroline in the Assaudian War series.  Again, no avail.  I amassed a great deal of "We love your story, but it doesn't fit our market right now" rejection letters (what the heck does that mean anyway?!), and found myself doubting my talent.  This happened for a long, long while.  It wasn't even a matter of the feedback being negative because it wasn't.  It wasn't as though the editors and publishers were saying, "Hey, your work sucks and there is nothing we can do with it." or, "Get yourself a copyeditor." or, "Get a day job.".  They had positive things to say.  The worst they said was, "It's not what we're looking for."  So vague.  It was like they expected me to read their minds, or be part of their club, or screw their publicists for tips.  I didn't get it.  I still don't.  I felt like an idiot.  It was like I was missing this one mystical key that would open the door to everything, and no matter how hard I tried over the years, I just did not get it.  Over and over, I did not get it. 

      So I stopped submitting.  I said, "Screw it.".  I couldn't figure it out, and it was tormenting me beyond belief to the point where I was doubting my abilities as a writer (which was one of the things that made me truly happy), so for years I submitted absolutely nothing and focused instead on writing more of the novels for the Assaudian War series, a stand alone novel entitled (there's that word again!) "The Scourge of the Bone Cages", one called "Kraysh" which is one of two, and a bunch of shorts...oh!  Plus I made a movie because I got sick of the book bs and decided to try my hand at the movie biz.  I hooked up with an old friend of mine, Billy Garberina, via an old writer author of mine, Bob Vardeman, and got in touch with local indie film guru Scott Phillips.  From that, "Black" was born.

      I am currently self-publishing via Amazon, Lightning Source, and Kindle, and am finally getting my works out for the public to see.  My faith in the old method of submitting to agents is no more.  With more and more of the publishing houses merging together and fewer and fewer of them publishing new authors, the chances of new authors seeing print through them is so slim it's ridiculous.  The chances of seeing a regular income is even more ridiculous. 

      My initial goal was just to see my books in print so people could read my work.  I didn't care if they thought it was like so-and-so's work.  I didn't care if they thought it was too wordy, or too...whatever.  It was mine.  I wasn't trying to cater to a market, or to anyone's tastes, or to inject it with a literary botox.  I was writing to make a statement and express what I wanted.  I believe the same now, and I'm glad that I still can.        

      Much has changed since ten years ago, but not that much.  Publishers are still looking for the next bestseller.  They want who they can tag as "the next so-and-so".  Whoever sells the most is whoever is marketed the most.  Sometimes there is a "runaway", but it is rare, and it is nothing to count on.  It is definitely nothing to bet your career on, and even then, the career is probably fleeting.  Don't sacrifice what you don't have to.  I really don't think it's necessary anymore.     

    It's not even a matter of work, so laziness does not play in here.  To establish a career as a writer, for example (and I'm going to continue using writing as an example because, well, this is a writing blog after all) takes a tremendous amount of work.  There's not only the time to write the material, but to market yourself and attempt to connect with publishers...the outcome of which is not guaranteed no matter how diligently you try.  (I've argued the statistics on this with many.  If you aren't working among all the variables that will produce publishing success then it will not happen no matter how many times you submit, so sometimes you can't say "Keep trying!  It's bound to happen someday!".  And it may have nothing to do with quality.  The same, I'm sure, can be said of any art which is why some masterpieces only became known after the unfortunate artist died.  Ugh!)

   Alot of times the choice to do what we want while young stems from witnessing those who are older as they look back on their lives with regret.  So many evaluate their present careers which may or may not be producing enough to keep them financially stable (or more so), but don't seem to be keeping them emotionally and spiritually fulfilled.  Some may think, "What if I had continued with my dream of becoming a rock star?" or an actress, or screenwriter, etc. etc.  They may think success would have befallen them in that career, or maybe at least that they would have been more fulfilled.  Heck, sometimes people abandon their current careers and pursue the dreams they left behind.  A few do so with hopes that are too high (ie- I'll become the next Michael Jackson), but most who do so in the middle age are quite a bit more humble and take it on as either a hobby or something a bit more down to earth (ie- opening a modest restaurant to start rather than being the next Gordon Ramsay).  I personally remember, though, remarking on this particular regret and vowing to never experience it.  Thus my own personal choice to pursue a writing career while working retail jobs that allowed the freedom to do so. 

    It's easy enough to continue this lifestyle for a while, and some can maintain it for their entire lives.  What passion fulfills us is definitely worth alot, but sometimes many of us who made this decision do not end up obtaining the "American Dream".  We aren't the rock stars or Stephen Kings.  We make choices that keep us within our own moral boundaries, but sacrifice opportunity, and others that open doors to exceptional experiences, but may pull us back financially.  Not having this ideal "American Dream" may make some feel like failures.  Others may not care at all, for they're doing what they love.  Regardless, there is one thing that beckons to everyone at some point or another, and it has nothing to do with stardom.  It even has little to do with success on a broad level.  It's all about financial stability.

   On my own personal level, I was fine with what I earned in retail for years.  In my early twenties, earning anything above minimum wage was fantastic.  It meant I was exceptional.  If I got a dollar above it...Holy crap!  I was living the high life!  Obviously I had no understanding of economics at all.  (What they don't teach you in school: wage comparison and what income is allocated for.)  Of course, I didn't really need money for much.  I shared an apartment.  I didn't get sick much.  (Who needs health insurance?!  I'll just cross my fingers that nothing happens to me.)  I didn't get much time off, so vacations were out of the question.  I didn't have children.  Savings account?  (I still ask, "Wtf is that for?".)  And debt...well...I just figured that since I had no kids it would just poof! into oblivion when I died. 

   That, however, was in my early twenties.  Later on when I started watching my friends buy houses, multiple cars, go on expensive trips, buy tons of new shit...then I started thinking, "Hmmm.  Maybe this starving artist lifestyle isn't so great after all.".  A couple of years of financial crises later and I really started re-evaluating my situation.  I started thinking a few very pertitent things like, "I really enjoy having functional teeth.", "It's great having a reliable vehicle.", "I am getting tired of hearing my apt. neighbor's singing in the shower at 6am.", "It would be nice to afford new furniture instead of always having to get hand-me-downs.", "Why is everyone telling me I'm too skinny?", "I'd like to not have to save up to go to the movies.", and most importantly, "I'm just pretty damn sick of dead-end retail jobs.".  Now some people may enjoy the starving artist lifestyle.  More power to them.  It's really not for me, though.  I'd like to not have to take out a loan to pay for a root canal and crown...and new tires for my car.  That kind of sucks in my book. 

  So although the initial dream of doing what would fulfill me sounded great, and it was, there was an additional part to that dream that didn't fulfill.  It was the actual job part.  I might not be a famous author, but I'm still working at the writing part.  Zurigan's Child is an ebook, and I've just submitted the form to Ligntning Source that they have to approve so I can get it available in physical format without having to spend thousands of dollars.  The only thing I'm changing is the second part that I discovered I was so unhappy with.  That, unfortunately, involves the arduous task of going back to college for a degree in Biology.  Then there's an even more arduous task of grad school for a more specific degree in...well...I'm still trying to decide.  It'll have something to do with genetics, chemistry, biochemistry, and/or neurology.  I've got a bit of time.  Maybe a year before I'm no longer an undergrad anymore. 

  Either way I'll have a different "real job" in the end.  Maybe then I can get better dental care.  Or maybe I'll just go to dental school instead and do my own damn teeth. 

  My answer: Oddly enough, the character I can't get out of my mind is Artemis P. Gone from "The Maxx" comic series.  Sure he was a rapist and kind of a psychopath early on, but he had some amazing psychological talent and interesting powers.  In helping Julie remember the trauma that she repressed and that caused her to have the overlap with the real world and Outback realms, he was pulling some major therapy.  If that kind of universe existed, it's definitely something I would want to discuss with him as well, especially since he could wander between both realms at will.  He did have remorse for his prior "evil ways", so it's not like one would have to worry about him running amuck.  Intelligent, concerned, talented, intriguing...all good reasons to bring a character into being.  I want to know more about this guy.       

   With the disappearance of Borders, then, does this mean Barnes and Noble is soon to follow?  They've already been up for sale.  Local bookstores have been struggling for ages.  I can't imagine that once the big corporations are gone, WalMart, Hastings, and Target are going to be able to keep the tangible book industry afloat, so what will this mean for publishers?  Currently there aren't any bestselling "ebook only" publications coming from them.  At least from what I've seen.  Normally the tangible book comes out, and the ebook follows at a lower price if it follows at all.  If all that's available are some bestsellers in hardcover and paperback that Amazon and aforementioned chain stores can push, ebooks are going to have to bring up the majority of sales.  Already, though, I'm hearing of authors finding creative ways out of these contracts with the publishers, or finding loopholes to gain more money.  The publishers don't seem to be taking these ebooks seriously yet.  Perhaps they should. 

   And what about childrens' books?  Young adult books and teen readers I can see making it into the digitized format no problem.  Textbooks on Kindle?  PLEASE!!!  They're already working on that, and coming up with "rental" programs for them.  Beginning readers, board books, etc...stuff for the really young children just learning to speak and read?  No way.  They love to get their hands on those books and turn the pages (and tear them apart, too, but, hey, we all did that).  It's about interacting.  So maybe thanks to them the physical book will never truly go away.  Eric Carle and his blinky fireflies will be around for a while, and so will that gluttonous caterpillar. 

  Where then will that leave the public libraries?  Will they become a cache of the antiquated format?  A treasury of what once was?  How will they keep up with new titles if they are not printed in physical form?  Would they be able to obtain enough funding to establish a rental system for ebooks like companies are doing for the textbooks?  I sure hope so.  I'd hate to see them struggle.

   So with all this in mind, I'm still digging through my old stacks of tangible books, looking for the ones I haven't read yet and plowing through them.  I own a Kindle.  I've put everything I've written onto it and am converting my books into proper Kindle format to sell.  I love that I don't have to carry a huge tome around with me and can instead have this sleek looking leather bound electronic device instead that weighs practically nothing.  However!  It does not smell like a book.  It makes an odd clicking noise when I 'turn pages" instead of an actual page turning noise and I miss that.  I can't tell how far into the book I am by its thickness anymore.  I can't easily skip ahead to a random part and read it, but have to go page by page (I don't know why I like doing that, but I do...it's one of my favorite things to do with a book I'm enjoying).  I can't dog-ear pages, and it won't look like I read it when I'm done with it.  There's something oddly satisfying about a book looking like you've read it, esp. when you've read it more than once.  It looks loved.  It looks experienced.  An ebook always looks fresh and new.  Maybe that can be exciting, too.       

    Once upon a time there was a little goth girl who aspired to be a marine biologist.  No, I'm not kidding.  When I was a kid I loved dolphins and whales, sea stars, squid, sharks, anglerfish with their bioluminescent lures, all that stuff.  Okay, fine, I still do.  One of my first attempts at a novel was when I was about 10.  I planned on writing a "biologically accurate" tale about a dolphin who was separated from his pod and had to travel all over the ocean to find them again.  It started with his birth and, surprise, surprise, he was separated from his mother by tuna fishermen.  Well, by the nets separating the pod, dolphins getting caught in the nets, the boats chasing them off, etc.  Actually, though, the way I wrote it was very brutal because I had been watching graphic footage on the Discovary Channel of the fishing boats (via protesting groups), and wrote exactly what I saw.  It was incredibly sad.  Most of the pod died from drowning (the poor little protagonist saw their corpses caught in the net as he swam by crying for his mother...PTSD ensued not too long afterward), or died after being hauled onto the boat and their bodies were tossed back into the sea. 

   Still friendless at this point, the little dolphin encountered sharks where he lost a portion of his dorsal fin (more PTSD) and got lost.  I think after this he fell into a deep depression and finally made a friend out of a crab or jellyfish or something.  I can't really remember, but it was something really small that was a pain in the ass to keep around.  I didn't know what to do with the dolphin after this and felt I'd taken on much more than I could handle, so abandoned the project.  I mean really...what can you do with a baby dolphin who really isn't weaned and is swimming around with a jacked up dorsal fin in the middle of the ocean talking to a jellyfish?  Logic tells you that the little guy is doomed.  Maybe even at 10 I knew better.  I think the whole thing is saved onto a floppy disc for my Apple IIc in my closet and is probably irretrievable at this point.  (sigh)  Oh, well, that's beside the point.

    So I've loved marine life and even at 10 years old was on some eco conservationalist kick.  When I first went to college my plan was to study marine biology in Seattle.  Reality struck me when I realized that unless I was super lucky and managed to get a job in some marine park or zoo, or could get tons of grants, most likely I would be working for the government testing the ocean for pollution levels or doing horrible projects like one I heard about while I was there.  Get this: in order to test a new method for oil spill clean up, some brilliant neanderthal proposed dumping tons of crude oil into a "sectioned off area" of Puget Sound (ie- there are floaties on it to keep it from spreading over the surface, but it will still sink, and birds can still land in it, fish will still swim in it, etc) and lighting it on fire.  Yes this was actually proposed and was in the newspaper.  Fortunately someone grew a brain and shot it down.  I wept to think that as a marine biologist I might have to do something like that, or test the water after. 

    Onward back to NM where I attended UNM with a major in creative writing and now a minor in biology.  After much though, and much plinking away at my keyboard in Seattle, I came to the conclusion that my passion was and always will be writing.  Here's a funny thought.  1996.  Not too far in the distance past, yes?  I was still lugging around my old Apple IIc to type on.  It went to Seattle with me.  (I believe it had its own purpose there.  Secretly it may have been stalking Bill Gates.)

      So my intention was to fuel my science fiction writing with my biology minor.  I am a firm believer in the "write what you know" mantra.  If you know nothing, you can write nothing.  If you don't know it, research it.  So what better way to write about the science that I love so dearly (genetics and cellular physiology was included in this because I found these loves in Seattle), than to keep up with the times and find new material every day?  Well, education is one thing.  Granted it inspired me because I could actually now understand what I read about, and I could put it into a format that others could comprehend.  Or, I could pick and choose.  What helped even more, however, was just reading about the current issues, or even past issues and applying them to the present.  Always adding the "What if?" inspired me greatly. 

    Where my education fit in, and where it continues now, is in how I can interpret the material and make it believable.  By working in the lab, I can write a totally believable story with a researcher, or geneticist, or anything having to do with a lab in a general way.  I know where to go and who to ask for information to help when I get stuck.  My job is my lifeline.  But that's the obvious. 

    Or is it so obvious?  Sometimes it seems like far too many writers take their readers' suspension of disbelief for granted.  It is so easy to look at a picture of a beaker, or a sword, or a gun and write about using it.  It's even easier to read someone else's description and paraphrase, esp. if it's of a place where you've never been.  A far different experience, however, is to actually use that beaker, or that sword, or that gun (and not to kill someone, smart asses).  I can't tell you how much difficulty I had in writing "Kraysh" when I was trying to describe the forest using NM field guides and online pics, and then winter came and I went backcountry skiing and took my notecards with me.  Those descriptions wrote themselves after I went into the woods myself.  It was the same writing "Scourge of the Bone Cages".  There is no way I could have written that if I hadn't even swung a Japanese sword. 

  Now I'm not suggesting to study something for years to master it before writing about it.  For example, in the case of the sword, just pick it up and actually swing it.  Go to a class or two.  The first couple are usually free anyway.  Shoot a gun or two.  It makes a world of difference, and the readers will appreciate it.  I know I do.  Actors study dances and movements for weeks, sometimes months for roles.  I believe as writers that we are obligated to our readers to give them some semblance of authenticity, too.  At least as much as our tiny little purses will allow anyway.           

    What is your favorite cliched plotline?  What is your most despised cliched plotline?  (There is a reason why I don't say 'least favorite' here because that would still imply that you still like it.  I say 'most despised' because I want to know what cliched plotline, upon encountering it, makes you throw the book across the room or immediately turn the channel on the TV with such disgust that you then want to wash your brain out with Clorox bleach.)

      My favorite is the psychotic character.  I know that's not a plotline, but I don't really care how the psycho got into the story as long as he'she is there.  It's also a little more particular than just the general "babbling nonsense" kind of psycho character who wanders aimlessly and who the main character encounters for a brief moment, interprets his/her words or tries to, and then moves on.  This type of psychotic character has to have more of a stronghold on the story.  (From here on I'm going to say "they" and such because I get annoyed typing he/she all the time...I know it's "grammatically incorrect", but...well...deal.)  THEY (mwahahah) can be the main character (preferred, but not common) or a supporting/secondary character.  They can have a tragic backstory that has led to their going/being crazy in the story (preferred), or they can just have been born that way (much less common, and far more difficult to write).  All I'm looking for is that the character is clinically crazy.  If they have a definable disorder that I can recognize...awesome.  If they are a sociopath...fantastic.  Auditory and visual hallucinations?  Even better.  They just need to be there in their craziness.  If their psychosis is part of the story I am in my glory reading/watching the tale (see Batman, Dexter, American Psycho, Natural Born Killers to name some well knowns).  If it's a side factor, great.  I'm still game.  Many of my friends have often recommended books to me solely using the phrase "The main character is crazy" or something similar and I've snatched it up.   

    For those of you that have read further into the Assaudian War series, or who have read my fantasy novel Kraysh, my favorite cliche may sound a little familiar.  For those of you that haven't and enjoy this sort of plotline, these two series are just for you.  They are massively different, of course.  The Assaudian War is written from Caroline's perspective, the young abused noble with corrupted magic.  She struggles with this magic to keep it from infecting her mind and, she believes, turning her into Zurigan the Animal Assaud.  Kraysh, however, was a novel I wrote in response to Lord of the Rings.  I'd wondered to myself, "What would it be like for me to write a novel from the evil character's point of view?  But not an evil character that had any trauma, or abuse, or anything like that to have made it evil.  Just a character who is evil for evil's sake, and a character who can't be redeemed or turned good."  Thus was born the psychotic and inheritantly evil creature Kraysh, and a world that I had the most fun creating so far.

     Now, the psychotic crazy that I enjoy writing is not one of nonsense.  It's resembles nothing of Alice in Wonderland or even Richard Adams' Watership Down (Fiver) and The Plague Dogs (Snitter) though those are two of my favorites concerning the crazy secondary character types.  My psychotic characters, or as I often put it, my characters that are "a bit off", are coherent (most of the time) and rational (often too much).  The basis of my "a bit off-ness" comes wrapped in studies of dissociative disorders (related to multiple personality disorder though none of my characters suffers directly from that), sociopathy, schizophrenia, migraines (not in any way related to psychosis although it can feel like you are losing your mind or suffering a stroke while experiencing one...and Caroline does begin to suffer these because of her tainted magic in The Vein to Gainsay), anti-social disorders, addiction, and sado-masochistic relationships. 

      The most damaged characters make for the most interesting characters, especially if they are trying to hide it.  They may not ALL be crazy, but many come damn near close.  Caroline is "a bit off" from the start and progresses in very interesting ways because of the tainted magic that she can't get rid of.  Kraysh would never admit that she's a sociopath because she can't be anything else.  The rest of them, well, they speak for themselves. 

  Onto the second question: my most despised cliched plotline.  Easy.  Rescue the wimpy ass secondary female character.  Seriously?  Are we still doing this?  Come on people!  It's 2011 and you still can't think of a better plotline?  Wow.  The new twists nowadays are that she starts out as a strong character like a modern day woman, but she still needs to be rescued.  Even if she started out strong, the fact that she has to be rescued in the end makes her a lame character to me because of this cliche.  I can't help my prejudice.  They even put this cliche on top of other plotlines just to have it there.  I don't understand why this plotline is predominant among the male hero stories.  I just don't get it.  Maybe it's a guy thing.

     Ok.  So I gave my favorite and most despised.  Now I want to hear yours.     

  Now, I agree with the "don't try to impress" part.  One should never force style.  If you're sitting there focusing on every word like you're folding origami, you're losing flow.  However, if the story is streaming from your mind and you find yourself furiously typing an entire novel in that general manner, by all means this is probably how you write.  Fine tuning, as always, is essential in the editing, but to trim out natural vocabulary or style just seems...well...very wrong.  I liken it to lighting your carefully concocted floral arrangement on fire and saying afterward, "It was just too damn colorful.". 

   This seems to be the trend though: remove style.  Remove description.  Remove anything that might be cause to slow the reader down a bit.  This a part of the "bestseller" mindset.  Chapters must be three pages or less, double spaced.  Characters can have no more than a one sentence description, though most don't even have that.  Make sure you use a mash-up of easily describeable material with a twist as a selling point.  Never mind the other widely popular advice of "don't write for the market" because if you can't describe your work using other authors' works, you can't sell yourself.  I'm not kidding on this either.  Publishers, editors, agents (book and screenplay alike) eat this up.  I went to a screenwriting conference in Santa Fe and the first thing they told us before setting us loose to pitch to agents and producers was to compare our screenplays to popular and successful movies and ideas.  Black became a mix of Tim Burton does Thirteen.  I got nods of instant comprehension every time. 

    One of the bits of advice I got as a new writer (and I can't for the life of me remember who said it to me, but it's the best advice I think I ever got) was to never write passively.  "What's that mean?" I asked.  "Use your keyword search," my advisor continued,"and type in the word 'was'.  Replace every one with something else."  I think I tried it out on one of my short stories and I was appalled with how often I'd used the word was.  It wasn't even in the sense of was -ing.  I used it for descriptions, too, like "His hair was stormy grey.", or "She was atop the hill when the fighting broke out.".  Ugh.  How boring!  I left in a couple because, well, I frankly got sick of it, but I really got a sense of when might be an appropriate place to use "was" in a novel (hardly ever), and when wasn't.  At a few conferences, editors gave the same advice.  What I'm seeing now, however, is a resurgence of this word in the "write for bestseller" market.  More lazy writing.  It's like they're deliberately inspiring people to write badly. 

   I hate to say it, but even Stephen King has fallen prey to this style.  I recently finished "Under the Dome" and, although I enjoyed the moral at the end, I have to say it was written very poorly.  Over 1000 pages and you would expect some character description in there somewhere.  Nope.  Every other verb?  Was.  The unfortunate side-effect of reading novels written like this is that you don't really read them.  You skim them.  Yeah, you want to know what happens, but not necessarily for the right reasons.  In my books I want people to read on because of the characters, because of what they're thinking and feeling, because of what they're experiencing and not just because of what's happening around them.  When you skim a book without really absorbing the text because there isn't anything to absorb, you just want to know the ending.  You might as well skip to the last chapter and save youself a heap of time.  It's like watching TV, but not paying attention until the last 10 minutes because that's the big reveal.  That's what this "bestseller" style reminds me of.  3 page chapters?  Commercial breaks.  Passive style?  Made for TV. 

  I don't know about the rest of you, but I prefer heart and soul in what I read and write.  I want fully textured worlds and characters that stimulate my brain, not skeletons with twist endings.  If I can't tell one author's work from another, I'm not going to bother, for something is off there.  Would you listen to a band's music if it sounded exactly the same as everyone else's?  Why write that way?  Media for the masses is like mass producing potato chips.  They might be tasty, but they're all the same thing, and they're not very memorable. 

   So really it's not really anyone's place to say you can or can't write a certain way.  You can write any way you want.  Whether people enjoy it is a totally different affair.  Whether you sell it is something else entirely.  Meshing the three together seems to be about what you want to do with your story, and what you can live with.  As for potato chips?  No thanks.  I hear they make you fat anyway.            

  Soon enough we're going to connect Black to this website, probably with its own page associated with Atmospheric Productions, my independent film company.  Websites and Black so far have all managed to be difficult children indeed, so consolidation is in order here.  If anyone asks me tomorrow what the most difficult aspect of filmmaking has been I'm going to say websites.  They are my bane! 

   All marketing of Black, including the film festival entries that we'd been working on over the summer, had been put on hold last fall once I'd gone back to college.  Full time college took all my time, but perhaps now that I've adapted and with the resurgence of copyediting on the books and marketing going on, Black will resurface.  It's odd in a way.  It seems that the books may be easier to promote now than the movie.  How ironic. 

    For any interested that haven't seen it yet, here's the link to the Comic Expo's official site:

http://abqcomicexpo.com/

  It shall prove to be exciting!    

   When I first started working at a used bookstore I remember thinking, "Holy crap!  This is the perfect place for me!".  I would gather armloads of books to conduct research with while writing my novels.  If I couldn't find the info in the store, I would borrow other people's books or order more.  It was exciting and exhilerating because of the amount of effort I had to put into it, and I ended up learning far more than I expected.  What also came out of it were new ideas I hadn't even considered possible.  Many plotlines in the Assaudian War series came about because of books I stumbled upon while researching other topics.  Short stories blossomed because of much of the same scenarios.  Books fed my creativity not because I found what I needed, but because I found what I didn't.  I ended up with my own library, the bane of anyone who helps me move, and my pride and joy and number one tool for writing anything. 

    Googling for a quick answer just doesn't carry that same kind of fulfillment, and finding a direct answer won't inspire more.  Granted, there are times that you need to be quick.  If you're under a deadline, or it really is a simple answer, or it's 2am and no bookstores are open because the world is lame, the internet is absolutely the perfect option.  However, we mustn't let ourselves become lazy and rule out traditional research altogether.  The lazier we get, the less likely we are to research at all (take a look at some of those TV shows...I can research during a commercial break what their writers didn't bother to for the entire episode!).  Take a few hours and browse a library or bookstore.  They are the best places for inspiration. 

  Totally random: I still want to jump into a big pile of books like in a ball pit.  It'll hurt in reality, but in dreams it sounds really fun.