The Morning After -- Last Call!

EDIT: It's too late.

Publishing is, in a nutshell, a bitch.

First, you pour your heart into writing something. Then you submit that piece (or a synopsis of it) to countless publishers, magazines, and agents. Most of the time you'll get a resounding "no" (or silence) for all your trouble. But then someone says yes. And it's glorious. Your story goes into print, nobody, but nobody buys it, and it goes out of print.

So is the fate of The Morning After. Got some great reviews, but ::raspberry::

December is the last month it will be available for sale. After that, I'm not sure what I'll do with it. I could send it to another magazine/small publisher and hope for better results (including that they don't go out of business, like has happened with 2 of my other publications), or I can publish it myself.

So anyway. Head to Untreed Reads and pick it up for 50¢ (if you like spending more, go to any other ebook retailer and pay 99¢. Either way, I get the same fraction of a dollar as compensation.)

New Avenues (and a Chapter 1)

Giving Wattpad a try. If you like eyestrain but hate paying for books, my novel is there (and above in the widget)!
For those of you who enjoy a file they can put on their Kindle (or other device), head on over to Smashwords and pick up a copy. Paperback coming soon.

Now, I realize to get good sales, I've got to shove this thing down your collective throats. I did that in the past and honestly, it got me nowhere. Expect the occasional "buy my book!" tweet, but I can't be a 24/7 commercial.

A lot of love has gone into The Silent Treatment. As some of you know, it was available previously, and then mysteriously out of print. An author can never really leave well enough alone with her own work, so I re-edited the whole thing (including a new first chapter), and gave it a shiny new cover.

During the re-edit, I realized how much I love this story. It's not just the silent film angle, it's the budding romance and the family angst. I've also realized that I probably couldn't write southern dialogue today like I did back then. I was amazed at how little the characters cussed (compared to the still-unpublished Awake, which is much more New York in its vocabulary), which is pretty typical of that region.

Anyway, I'm hoping those of you who thought the beginning of the novel wasn't quite gripping enough will give it another shot. Recommend it to your friends if you like it -- word of mouth is everything to an indie author. Write a review if you can be bothered.

And here's a nice closeup of the new cover. A lot of anguish went into its creation, but I'm certain I've got something good.

Writing vs. Talking

There are a few reasons I like writing more than anything:

• It allows me to daydream as much as I want
• I can work through problems in a creative way
• and I can redo my work many times to make it ready for the public.

Speaking is different. Speaking is all first draft, and as we all know: first drafts suck.

So if you meet me and want to discuss something important or upsetting, expect a lot of blank stares and shaky-handed eye coverings as I struggle for the right words.

"I just ... I mean ... I can't... I ..." sigh. Head shake.

How To Write: Chopping

When movies started talking in the 1930's, it's kind of all they wanted to do. Fill up that silence.
Just a few years before, characters communicated with a glance or a gesture, relying very little on title cards.

Eventually, moviemakers discovered that while their characters now had the ability to talk, they didn't have to do it all the damn time.

As a new novelist, you might face the same problem. Now you've got all these glorious words, and pages are stacking up, you love the feeling of having created something so ... BIG! But now I'm going to tell you to cut a chunk of those words and send them down the great cyber toilet.

Ooooh... bummer.

Let's talk about cutting scenes.

There are many stages of editing, but none more painful than taking a giant chunk right out of your book. That's a high word count to trash ... and there was that funny line in there you can't bear to part with.

Not sure what to cut? Take a look.

Let's say you're writing a story about a murder. The only way your detective character can trap the criminal is if he goes to the store first and picks up some supplies.

Scene 1:
The Detective and his friend are discussing how they can trap the criminal before she strikes again. They know ~information~ and how she'll react, they just have to lure her with enough candy to get her in the trap. (It's not original, but what do you want?)
The Detective says he'll go to the store, get the supplies, and the two will meet to set the trap.

Scene 2:
The Detective browses the aisles of CVS to get just the right kind of candy. Maybe his mind wanders and we learn some backstory.

Scene 3:
They have the supplies and set the trap, which stops the criminal.

When I write a story that follows a similar formula and proudly show it to my beta readers, one of them invariably comes back to me with, "the story was good, but wordy."
"WORDY?" The whole thing is words, right?

Here's what WORDY means: BORING.

By the time I get that critique, I'm full of my own words. "You stuck-up blankety-blank! That scene shows CHARACTER! It's got backstory! It's not wordy, you just don't get my writing."

We're writers and we're sensitive. Our books are our babies (for some of us, the only grand children my mom will ever get).

When I was reading another author's book, though, I came across a similar problem. I was THIS close to the good part, when I get stuck waiting for a damn train to cross the road. Once I trudged through, I realized if the author had started with the first scene and skipped to the third with the detective holding a bag of newly-bought candy, I could have assumed what happened in between.
Of course, when I see someone else doing it, it's easier to go back to my own novel and fix the mistake without all those hurt feelings.

That backstory or joke or clever line you've got in that dead scene? Either move those pieces somewhere else in the novel, or trash them.

New Edit

One of the best things about indie publishing is that if I feel it necessary, I can go back into a book and tweak it. That's what's happened with The Silent Treatment. I love this story. Today, you can get the updated version on Smashwords (soon at other retailers, and soon to paperback).

New cover:

For anyone who has already bought this book and would like the new version (which includes minor edits, expanded scenes, and a new surname for the protagonist), contact me. 

"total" creative freedom

A writer is never finished with a book. In the case of my own work, especially with the cover, I can't leave it alone. Behold the latest incarnation of The Silent Treatment:

This even happened by accident and I'm in love with it. Also, after seeing the cover like this (with no words -- we're dealing with silent movies, after all), I liked the idea of leaving the title off the front. Not many people have done this (maybe for good reason). Some argue that because the book will be sold next to a big paragraph of copy (including title and author), and someone handling a physical book can just turn it to a slight angle and read the spine, a title on the cover isn't totally necessary. They do it on CDs all the time.

But! CreateSpace doesn't allow for this. I even wrote them an email explaining my position and asking them to waive the requirement, but the answer was no. And yes, I tried looking for another company who would do what I wanted (one is a formatting disaster, and others want you to sign up for expensive packages), but that isn't happening. So the next proposed cover is this:

Kind of illegible, but that doesn't make a heap of difference to me (we'll see if it gets through the CreateSpace guy). This version is still sparse, still grungy, but maybe following the rules just enough.

So in the next few weeks/months/etc, expect to see a new version of The Silent Treatment: newly covered, newly edited.

It's that magical time again...

If you don't hear from me for the next few weeks (or if you hear way too much), this is why.

This year's novel involves

• The revamping of a familiar character (of mine)
• A botched wedding
• Family drama
• and MURRRDERRRR!

Turning a new page (or two)

First of all ...

this is really the way my cat drinks water. Actor portrayal.

My actual cat doing this.

Things don't always go the way you planned. It's not always bad, but before you see the good, you can only register disappointment. Sometimes it's something you can control (maybe you messed up), sometimes not.

New York City is a hard place to try something new. When I arrived, I was completely overwhelmed by all the people and the cramped spaces and the sheer overload of the senses (and suddenly Philly didn't look so bad anymore). I was also taking on a completely new career: hair. During this time, I also tried self-publishing my novels. All good stuff to try, but sometimes life throws you a curve.

a hairstyle I can really be excited about

The hair industry is tied heavily to the fashion industry and to editorial styling, much of which I don't give two s**ts about (probably why I've been pushed out of certain salons -- even one I loved very much). My co-workers were all about experimenting with pairing bowties and suspenders with pleated jeans and shirts you could see straight through, and pants that may or may not have been pajama bottoms. I wore something I thought looked professional (and felt comfortable enough cleaning toilets in).

When I decided to get into hair, I thought the best I could expect was to sell makeup to people at Macy's or work at Supercuts. Neither of those options are what you do in NYC. You style celebrities. Or old people who've had a lot of cosmetic surgery and wish they looked 25. They complain about why no one wants to wear tailored clothes anymore to a person making less than minimum wage. Often it feels like you're dressing in your absolute best clothes and coiffing your hair to get on your hands and knees to scrub the bases of the chairs: the best dressed janitor in town.

Finally, though, something miraculous happens and you're able to get your hands on a client's hair to do some styling yourself, and go at it with such gusto that you give yourself carpal tunnel syndrome within the first two months.

Someone loves you, regardless.

So I went to get some acupuncture on my wrists and cut my hours back at work (at a place now where I feel like I finally fit in, which is a miracle in itself). The only glitch is that I'm not cutting any hair at this place, but trying to fill those gaps with freelance work.

Somewhere in all that, I lost my love of hair. I was excited about it at the beginning, but now I feel like I'm banging my head against a wall and it might be better to give up than to try another place and another and another.

One of the biggest draws about this city is that there are a million different options. At the beginning of my hair career, I understood that if one place didn't work out, I would eventually find my perfect match and everything would be fine. That is still true. Somewhere out there is a salon where I won't feel like everyone's sneering at my sparkly t-shirt and uncomplicated hair, where I can cut a client's hair and get paid for it, and where I don't feel like I have to put on a costume and a fake persona to fit in. That place exists. But can I stop feeling wounded enough to go find it?

I'm adding henna to my resume, and enjoying it very much. Since I've been drawing most of my life, I've picked this up relatively quickly, because it just involves drawing with a different medium. It's artistic and involves "beauty" without being either hair or makeup. Kind of a fresh start.

I've taken down a few of my self-published works in an effort to only showcase my best and try again with traditional publishing. It feels like a step backward, but it isn't. The hair thing will work itself out, hopefully without me having to become an office temp again. I'll get my henna practice in and book some parties. I'll find an agent who loves my fiction and maybe make a moderate living that way.

Sometimes you have to step back. Sometimes you have to try something new to get something to work. I'm sure all this headbanging will prove productive in the end as long as I'm adjusting my approach each time. Or at the very least, it'll look like I'm rocking out pretty hard.

Chapter One...

There's nothing like a trip to Paris to derail your blog updates, right?

Me totally behaving myself at the Louvre

Also, the pink hair's gone now. Some things are awesome for a little while, and then it's okay to go back to something that doesn't make people double-take.

First things first: I finished Exchange in Eichstätt (Kat Shergill Mystery 2). While I'm polishing up the last bit of editing, you can enjoy the first chapter here: (click). You're more than welcome to send comments/concerns before the whole thing goes live.

Also, I finished a few books (reading), and I have some thoughts.

The Stranger -- Kyra Davis
This is a trilogy, of which I've only read the first 2 parts. With part 3 now available, I ought to get on that.
So, this is erotica. I struggled through Fifty Shades of Gray (shouldn't say that... I didn't get through it because of all the cringing), and thought there had to be something better than this if I wanted to read a sexy story. Since I'm a fan of Kyra Davis' mystery books, I got right on board.
The good news: it's better than 50 Shades. The bad news: the story deals with domination. Instead of feeling sexy, sometimes I just wanted to not be around the male protagonist. Oh really? You'll allow me to do this? You want me to ask you specifically for X sexy favor? You've got a special acceptable behavior for me? How about you go **** yourself?
Granted, this specific area is touchy for me and is not the fault of the author.

The Hunger Games -- Suzanne Collins
I stayed away from this trilogy because it's YA. I'm not a teenager, so I didn't think it would be for me. I was wrong, and I'm okay with that. The characters were real and relatable, and the suspense/drama/danger stayed tight throughout. At the end, I felt drained and sad, and I wanted to pick up the first book again immediately and re-read the whole thing.

I Can Barely Take Care of Myself -- Jen Kirkman
If you're a person who wants children, you won't enjoy this book. On the other hand, I can't imagine my life WITH one, and can't understand why it's so important for other people. Reading this book was one big, "Yeah! I agree with you!" fest. Also, all these "don't ruin your life with a pregnancy" ads have done nothing to change my mind.

Thanks, terrifying ad on the subway! I will never be letting any babies in my house.

Okay, back to something that's not so scary. Stephen King.

Misery -- Stephen King
Now, I've got to say, I love me some Stephen King, and I've probably already gone off about it at length. I'm much happier, though, when he stays away from creatures and focuses on the evils that live in people's hearts. That's the stuff that's really scary ... something unassuming (an ex-nurse, for example), but hiding something disturbing.
The fun thing about reading a horror novel is that sometimes you're reading along, all suspensed-up, and then something gruesome happens (like the person's head comes off). I get the book away from me and shut my eyes. But this isn't like a scary movie: the pictures are in my head, and they stay there. So I open my eyes and check out the ads in the subway...

OH MY GOD!!!!!!

The fun thing about Misery was that it was about a writer with a crazy fan. Maybe I'll never crash my car and be nursed back to health by my "umber whuun fayunn", but the way King describes writing is exactly how I feel about it. "Falling into the hole in the paper"... very accurate (also for reading). And I'll bet if my freedom was contingent on me leaving the one and only copy of my novel behind, I might not leave either (not really a spoiler). 

Mark your calendars, peeps!

Read my interview by Long and Short Reviews on May 8!

Not dead

You guys, I am woefully behind on my NaNoWriMo word count. There's no excuse for this. I have no internet access at home, no cable, no phone (thanks, Sandy!), therefore: no distractions. However, sometimes laziness is the biggest distraction.

Just a short note to say I'm still here, I just don't have a whole lot of internet access to update anything. Maybe when I come back, I'll have a shiny new novel to promote! 

How to Write: Sex Scenes

Right now, I need to tell my parents to stop reading. I appreciate your love and support, but this is not the post I want you to remember me for. Click here instead. (goes doubly for grandparents)

Anyone else who doesn't appreciate R rated material should also skip this one.

Alright.

My current work in progress, Awake, has something none of my previous works have had: a sex scene. Believe me, I've been trying to figure out how I'm going to show this novel to my parents without chopping out a whole chapter. Actually, when I first picked up the book Sex, Murder and a Double Latte the first sentence resonated with me:

"The downside to writing sex scenes is that my mother reads my books."  

Yeah, obviously, I'm not the first person to have this problem. I guess I'll figure something out when the time comes. (Just now getting a lot of unnecessary anxiety about this.)

Barring the difficulties of sharing scenes as intimate as these, getting the words out can be difficult too. This post's aim is to help with that.

There are different kinds of sex scenes for various situations.

For realistic scenes in which you don't want the girl to seem too easy, or the guy to be a coarse, ill-mannered brute, there's a specific order to the action, starting way before the scene itself. It's not so much what is done – ‘petting’ (kissing and limited fondling), ‘heavy petting’ (breast fondling with direct skin contact, stimulation through clothing), or even actual intercourse. Assuming mutual attraction in the first place, what matters is actually the order in which the characters do these things. As long as they each go through the same stages step by step and it is accepted by the other, everything is usually okay, even if the stages are gone through quickly. 

If you follow the stages in roughly the right order, sex will always seem consensual, and therefore acceptable. Some of the later stages often merge or are skipped altogether without problem. The faster it happens, and the more stages you skip, the more explosive and lust-based it seems, BUT you have to show both parties at same stage for it not to seem like rape for one or the other. The slower you take them through the stages, and the fewer stages you skip, the more it becomes love-making, and the more erotic it becomes. This order is roughly: 

1. ‘Accidental’ hand touching.
2. Hand touching/holding.
3. ‘Accidental’ body contact. e.g. arm brushing breast or vice versa, hips/legs brushing while walking/sitting.
4. Deliberate contact. Arm round shoulder/waist.
5. Touching other’s face/hair.
6. Kiss, with minimal body to body contact.
7. Long kiss, full body contact.
8. Brief contact with lesser erogenous zones. e.g. Ear lobe, neck, back.
9. Longer deliberate contact with major erogenous zones (breasts, followed by thighs/legs, followed by inner thighs and upward, through clothing.
10. Naked contact between torsos. Strong genital to genital contact through clothes, accompanied by strong pressure and movement.
11. Full naked contact.
12. Actual intercourse.

How to describe the sex scene:

1. Making it coy, old-fashioned, clichéd and funny
1. Use pet/old names for the sex organs. 
2. Recycled metaphors and similes. “His train entered her tunnel at full steam ahead.” “Her maidenhead opened for him like a flower to the sun.” “His honeybee sipped her delicious nectar.” “His rocket launched into her orbit.”
   

1. Making it pornographic:
1. Rapid invasion of personal space.
2. Make the sexual response one-sided.
3. Focus on the sex organs and intercourse.
4. Use lots of the four letter words repeatedly, and the more insulting slang.
5. Repeat words like thrust, rammed, forced at regular intervals.
6. Keep repeating the same actions over and over.
7. Skip lots of stages.
8. Focus on physical descriptions rather than emotions.
9. Avoid gentle gestures, or touching non-erogenous zones.
10. Skip kisses unless they’re brutal and forceful.
11. Lots of loud cries, especially four letter words.
12. Significant use of force or pain.

1. Making it love-making:
1. Go slowly through each of the stages, at least to start with, and show that each is enjoying and accepting it.
2. Place the emphasis on how it feels rather than on what is being done.
3. Loving touches on each other’s bodies away from erogenous zones, kisses and eye contact. Whispered endearments (but not coy ones). Lots of foreplay in other words.
4. Show each showing their pleasure to the other. 
5. A small amount of scratching and biting is okay, but it’s easy to overdo it. Qualify it to stay safe e.g., gentle scraping, nipping.
6. Show mutual surrender to the pleasure as you approach the climax.
7. Both achieve climax; together is best but not compulsory, as long as the one who reaches orgasm first continues until the other does. Let the climax continue for a reasonable time, at least for the woman. Average time for a man from initial onset to final contraction is up to about 7 seconds for a man, 30 seconds for a woman, though the last ten seconds or so, they’re fading down. 
8. Don’t be too graphic/specific. If you need to be specific, stick to the accepted words and/or the commonest, least coarse alternatives/abbreviations. Even so, keep it the minimum.
9. Gentle sounds if any.
10. Remember intercourse is simply one stage in love-making.
11. Repeat 3c after climax.
    

1. Making it fairly steamy/ erotic/spicy:
1. Go through all the early stages very quickly. Can put up to three in one sentence.
2. Skip odd later stages, but mix in foreplay/kisses/eye contact even during intercourse.
3. Include the same loving gestures as in love making. But make them more forceful and produce a stronger and noisier response.
4. Can use more graphic/specific description but stick to the ‘acceptable’ options as in 3g.
5. More of stuff in 3e, but more strongly, but make sure you show a pleasure response by partner, and have them return it.
6. Make it noisier, quicker and more forceful for both.
7. Make them collapse with exhaustion afterwards, if only for a few moments while they get their breath back.
8. Even more important to repeat 3c afterwards.

Other resources: 12 Step Guide to Writing Sex Scenes, How to Write a Kissing Scene

What the hell is up with Melanie?

(Yes, I stole and modified the title from my friend Jenny, but only because I love her.)

Unless you count spending far too much time on social networking sites trying to get people to pay attention to me like an ignored 5-year-old, there isn't much to report. If I don't go food shopping soon, I'll be eating cereal for dinner (not that there's anything wrong with that). The pile of clothes in the corner of my room hasn't diminished for quite some time.

On the plus side, I got some comments back recently for the 2nd book in the Kat Shergill series, so I've been working on that. Still trying to come up with a title. Maybe I'll hold a contest. This ties nicely into the "wanting attention" category.

Also a plus: I love my job! This is good because I spent a lot of money to get a job like this. It still amazes me that some days I think, "Maybe I'll go in to work and get some highlights," or, "My friend needs a haircut -- I'll take her to work on my day off." I would have shot myself if I'd ever thought, "you know, those reinsurance status reports aren't going to process themselves. I have some extra time on Saturday ... think I'll go in for free."

my tools are even pretty!

I also re-watched The Lord of the Rings recently. Not only is the imagery in that movie gorgeous, but the characters are so dimensional. I appreciate things like this more now that I'm writing with a fury: not everyone is completely good or bad. Take Frodo for example: he's the underdog who saves the world and destroys the ring. Hooray! Except it wasn't as simple as that. He starts out friendly, loving, slowly becomes untrusting and weary, identifies more with someone who's been through similar trials more than his best friend, makes Sam cry, changes his mind about saving the world, and succeeds BY ACCIDENT. It's so beautifully done. Even when Frodo shows his ugly side, we still know he's a good guy.



Not in the same category, but I also re-read Kyra Davis' Sex, Murder and a Double Latte. The humor in this book is nothing short of charming. Still suspenseful even though I knew what was going to happen. (It's always disappointing to go back to a book or movie I thought I loved only to find I just hyped it up.) When my little monetary slump is over, I'll buy her newest in the series (she's now indie like me!).

Back to editing.

Q&A

I've been tagged. And I'm going to tag you too.

THE RULES


1. You must post the rules.  

2. Answer the questions the tagger set for you in their post and then create eleven new questions to ask the people you've tagged.   

3. Tag eleven people (or as many as you can) and link to them on your post.

4. Let them know you've tagged them! 

It's always fun (for me) to be part of an interview, so when M. Nicole Cunningham tagged me, I was flattered. Here are her questions:




1. What is the oldest book you've ever read?
In terms of publication, probably the Bible. In terms of the age of a physical book, I've read several classics from the early 1900's. I liked the brittle pages and that the cover might fall off if I wasn't careful (no, really!)

2. What was the first story you ever wrote and what was it about?
My very first story was called The Bad Carwash. I probably wrote it when I was in kindergarten. It was about a woman who went to a car wash and got her dress caught in the door, thereby soaking her dress by the time the wash was finished. Started strong, but degraded into multiple car washes with various parts of the car falling off in the process. That's actually about how long the original was, too.

3. Who is your favorite author? If you have several, list them all out!
Always a tough question for me. Classically, I love Oscar Wilde and Charles Dickens. In the modern world, I'm pulled toward writers who take my mind off other things, like Kyra Davis and Jennifer Weiner.

4. Tell me a little story about the significance of your birth date.  Feel free to embellish. 
Well, I was born. That's pretty significant to me!

5. What tropes are beginning to annoy you in steampunk? I know you have a few; I certainly do. *coughairshippiratescough* 
Uh, I'm not entirely engaged in steampunk, so I couldn't say.

6. Do you think a novel needs an idealized hero?
No. The hero should be someone who's flawed -- someone people can relate to. Any time you idealize something, you run the risk of it becoming a parody or a "Mary Sue".

7. What do you think of gender roles in novels?  Should they reflect reality, an ideal, or something in between?  
Most often, they should reflect reality. I write everything from "the present" so the roles are what I see around me.

8. What makes a delicious villain?  
Someone who has 2 sides. Everyone has a little good and a little evil, so when the villain displays something good, something you can identify with and (possibly) agree with, it makes the character so much frightening (and believable).

9. Tell me about a lesser-known novel that made an indelible impression on you and why.  
I could probably sit here all day thinking of the "perfect" choice here, but I'm gonna go with Help! A Bear is Eating Me! by Mykle Hansen. Hilarious! It impressed me because voice can make or break a story. This story is more than a little morbid (a man trapped under a car has his legs slowly eaten by a bear), but the way the author handles the narrative and characterization makes the novel funny.

10. Earlybird or night owl?  
A little of both.

11. Favorite mythological being?  Feel free to pick an obscure one.  
Unicorns. They were a serious favorite when I was a kid, and they still make me a little happy. Although, if we could put some wings on a cat, that would be cool. My cat already hurls herself through the air, so I wouldn't have a hard time picturing that.

Now for the tagging! 

• Jenny Duggan
• Richard Pearson
• Megg Jensen
• The Lisas
• Veronica and Thomas
• Marcus Stricklin

Please answer the following questions:

1. What's the most annoying book you've ever read?
2. You're in a bookstore: what's the first section you visit?
3. What project are you working on now?
4. Are you a "plotter" or "pantser" (i.e. do you use an outline or just "wing it")?
5. What do you do when you're not writing?
6. Why did you choose your specific genre?
7. Who are your biggest influences?
8. How much of your writing is based on your own experiences?
9. Are you ever afraid you'll never have another book idea?
10. We all like TV (even if we don't want to admit it). What's your favorite TV show?

LIVE!

It's happened. I pushed the button on Smashwords.com and released The Silent Treatment.

Kat Shergill doesn't expect to find a piece of forgotten movie history during a bout of retail therapy. After watching the coil of film found tucked inside her purchase, she's shocked to witness the brutal murder of a famous 1920's star by a fellow actor. 80-year-old mystery aside, someone will stop at nothing to get the film away from her and silence what she's discovered. 

Head over to Kat Shergill Mysteries for more ...

Silent Movies 102

To get ready for my forthcoming novel The Silent Treatment (you can catch the first chapter here: Chapter 1), I thought I'd share a few more silent movies with you, such as the oldest surviving one:



When I started watching silent films, I got hooked on the comedies -- namely Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton. The more in depth I got, though, the more I connected with the German Expressionism films because of the emotion in them. They weren't quite so goofy. Also, as silents matured through the 20s, the technique of filming and acting became absolutely gorgeous before plunging into the world of "talkies".

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1919)
Not even sure when I saw this movie first, but I was captivated. Everything about this film is unrealistic, and that's what makes it beautiful. The sets are painted and angular. The characters are something out of a nightmare. [93 year old SPOILER ALERT] The twist ending in the mental asylum brings all the strange elements together, since the entire story was being narrated by a "crazy" person.

I like this story so much that I've thought about adapting it into a novel. It would be a lot of fun (and not much of a stretch) to make this a murder mystery and create my own new twist.


Metropolis (1926)
Everyone who knows me knows I love this movie. Stealing my answer from The Lisas' blog interview:

I love a lot of movies, but I always go back to Metropolis from 1926. It was never an ordinary movie for me. The first copy I saw was a poorly presented public domain DVD I bought for about $5. The plot didn’t make a whole lot of sense, but the visuals were a real treat. After some research, I found out that after its release, the film was truncated, and the plot veered into some strange territory because it did so poorly at the box office. So, I tracked down the novel it was based off of, and it was a whole new experience. The characters made sense, missing scenes put others into perspective, and most of all, it was how the movie was supposed to have been seen (the director’s wife wrote the novel at the same time the movie was being made). 

Throughout the years, pieces of “missing” scenes have been found in various film museums around the world and plugged back where they belong. Now that the film has been restored to almost its full length (and with the correct plot), I feel like it hasn’t just been a nice movie, but something lovely I witnessed being rebuilt.

Sunrise (1927)

A sweet movie about a husband and wife falling in love with each other again. The film starts out with the husband conspiring with his mistress to kill the wife ... so they have a lot to overcome.

The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928)
Even if you know nothing about the history of this character (or care), the look of the film will blow you away. Originally, it was meant to be watched completely silent (i.e. no soundtrack), but in 1995, Richard Einhorn wrote a stunning score for the film which even stands alone as a great piece of music.
Because this movie came at the end of the silent era, the cinematography is gorgeous. The acting style (while extremely emotional), is much more natural than films from even a decade before. [581 year old spoiler!] You'd even swear they were burning the actress at the end.



Asphalt (1929)
This movie stars the lead actor from Metropolis, and it's a fun movie about a cop who falls in love with a thief.

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I was recently interviewed on The Lisas' blog about writing! Very exciting--check it out! http://thelisas.wordpress.com

Not this year

Oh NaNoWriMo, how I love you. Last year, I compared the challenge to my version of Christmas (since I don't have the wherewithal to visit my family around the Holidays), but ended up failing to write 50,000 words because that story didn't want to be written. This year, as you all know, I'm in school, and won't have the time or energy to start a new story and bang out all those words in a month. November's going to be tricky for me anyway.

However, I can't stay away from writing, even if I'm not starting anything new. Since I've gotten to New York, I've been plugging away at editing Awake, my favorite, ever-changing mess of a novel. I have high hopes for it this go round, though.

Sometimes writing is the only thing that keeps me sane. I'm learning something completely new (and a bit foreign), living in a new (big and very crowded) city, with some ... interesting roommates. When asked why I write mysteries, why I focus on kidnappings and murders and dark things like that, I tell them I have to write it down so I don't do it in real life. That usually gets me a laugh ... but sometimes I wonder if it's not completely true.

Living away from my husband and with someone who seems to only find fault in what I do, writing is the one thing that stays exactly the same in either place. Sure, the characters and plot are always being tweaked, but Sophia always loves Josh, and they all want to know just how the hell to get home.

Another thing to keep my sanity in place is re-watching old TV shows I used to love. Because my internet connection is crap for crap and I can't watch new TV, I've been either watching DVDs or patiently waiting for something to load on Netflix. The two shows I've gotten (re)hooked on are The Young Ones, and Star Trek: The Next Generation. ... Better than focusing on not having a husband or a cat in my room, and blocking out my roommate's conversations about poop.