Lilith Saintcrow

All right! Posting will be spotty (or nonexistent) while I’m in San Diego for the organised madness known as ComiCon. While I’m gone, here’s something you might like: check out The Mammoth Book of Vampire Romance, shipping now, which has two stories by Yours Truly in it.

* A Standup Dame: Jack Becker took the wrong case and woke up dead. Now he’s got to solve his own murder, and his only ace in the hole is his smartmouth secretary.

Every dead gumshoe should be so lucky…

* Coming Home: Liana Spocarelli’s come home to Saint City. She’s got a Nichtvren Master to kill, another sexy Nichtvren to keep off her back, and a visit to her foster mother to fit in. Life isn’t simple for a demon-trained Magi.

Especially when your foster mother is named Danny Valentine…

Enjoy! And very, very soon I’ll have good news about Selene and Nikolai. Like, really good news…

ComiCon Ho!

I am sitting here, dear Reader, contemplating the mystery of hair dye.

You see, I was born a blonde. But I haven’t been blonde in about seven years, thanks to Clairol and (more often) Feria. I hate the way I look when I’m blonde. I hate the jokes about how stupid I must be because my hair is pale. I even hate seeing blonde hairs in the hairbrush. Gray I like. Black I like. Red I’ll live with.

Blonde? No way. It may work for others, but not for me.

So I’m perched in THE CHAIR, my head slathered with stinking goop, and I am thinking about this mystery. It’s one of the few things I do For Myself, dyeing my hair. I don’t wear makeup–slap a little eyeliner on and I’m good to go–and I almost never buy clothes (why? the ones I wore two years ago are baggy but still good). My expenditures are: children, household, books, and only then whatever things I might need.

But gooping up and chemically altering my hair color is something I feel okay doing. I don’t feel guilty for spending ten bucks on a bottle of hair dye, whereas I’ll feel guilty dropping ten bucks on something else for myself.

Hmmm.

Yup, it’s a mystery.

I also have to pack today, set up the blog message and auto responder for while I’m gone, go get snackies for the train trip (thirty hours of READING! Watching SCENERY! Writing in my journal! Listening to MUSIC! THINKING!!!1!!!) and print out various things I’ll need for the trip.

But for right now I’m going to sit here. Macavity (our tuxedo kitty) just jumped up on the chair and stalked for the back, where he likes to sit and purr and nuzzle my hair while I’m working.

Heh. Not right now. He got about to my shoulder, got a snootful of dye-smell, and is now grooming himself across the room. I’m sure he’s traumatized.

It’s all part of the mystery of hair dye. In twenty minutes I will not even be close to blonde.

Thank God.

*yawn* G’morning. It was a long busy weekend over here. The new website is up (doesn’t she look cute?), and gosh does it look grand. The forum is up too–unfortunately we lost some stuff in the transition, but most everything made it okay. If your username or a post is missing when you sign in, it’s just because the switch over to PHPbb was, shall we say, kind of eventful.

I find I’m liking PHPbb too, more than I thought I would. I originally had some problems with their interface, but with the newer versions everything seems to be smoothed out and lovely.

In other news…COMICON! I’m heading to San Diego for ComiCon. I’ll be signing at the Mysterious Galaxy booth, and hanging out with Orbit and Harlequin peeps. I’m told there will be anime karaoke.

My cup, as they say, runneth over.

I’m taking the train down, which will be awesomeness; I glanced at the itinerary this morning and it’s a long time to be in motion. Still, it’s not a plane, which means no long lines and strip-searches, and it’s just about the same chunk of time that a plane ride would take once one factors in getting there hours and hours early, checking in, security, waiting on the runway, waiting to land, waiting to deplane, recovering, etc., etc., etc. Instead I’ll be sipping at a bottle of water watching the landscape go by, not worrying very much. Or reading. Lots of reading.

Incidentally, if anyone has train-travel tips or tricks, please pass ‘em along! It will be my first long-long train ride, and I am so excited and anticipatory it’s not even funny. I’m expecting to have an awesome time.

In writing news, I’ve had to scrap 2k in the most recent Jill book. It took me a couple days of beating my head against the wall before I figured out I was Doing The Wrong Thing. So instead of things starting out with a bang we’re going to have an exorcism.

You know, I just realized, typing that: I have the coolest job in the world.

Anyway. It’s Monday. I’ve got packing to do and all sorts of stuff going on. Guh. Time to get to work.

Cross-posted to The Midnight Hour

Good morning, everyone. I hope your week was swell. Me, I’m still pushing my hair out of my eyes, blinking blearily, and wondering whether or not it’s Wednesday.

But onward! Mush! Mush! *cracks whip*

Story has rules just like painting and drawing have rules, just like music has rules. In all art, you must first know the rules* before you can break them effectively–if you even want to break them. Here are a few (just a few) that have helped me.

The Story May Not Belong To The Hero. As Karen Fisher says, the story belongs to the character who changes the most. It’s okay for the story not to really belong to your hero. You just need to understand who the story really belongs to so you can provide resolution. Or you could rewrite the whole damn thing, making “the character it really belongs to” your protagonist. Your choice.

Of course, spending time thinking about who the story really belongs to in the beginning stages can save you a lot of grief. I’m just sayin’.

The Arc Of Doom. Stories follow a pattern/arc. First, there is a situation in equilibrium, at rest. Then something happens to smack the situation out of equilibrium. There is conflict while the situation tries to resettle itself. There is a crisis, then the situation settles into a new equilibrium.

Think about the equilibrium at the start of the book and at the end. Think about what the crisis point is. This crisis/catharsis is mostly what gives a satisfying emotional experience to the Reader, which is what you want. In order to manage that impact, you need to think about where it’s going to hit.

Risk, Danger, Cost. If there is no real risk to the characters, there is no danger; there is also no cost for overcoming the obstacles. Without risk, danger, and cost, the story is not going to have as effective a crisis. If there isn’t a risk or a cost, the characters are just doing things to do things, and the story runs a much bigger chance of collapsing like an unfortunate quiche. You cannot be afraid of hurting your characters.

Come on. They’re not your friends. They’re your characters. Rough them up. Make them risk something. It’s all fun and games until some character loses an eye. Then it’s serious story.

Made To Be Broken, Sometimes. Sometimes you can play with the rules. But be absolutely sure you know what rules you’re playing with and what the intended effect of breaking them is. A great deal of thought and care must be taken with breaking rules. When done right, it’s what art is all about. When it’s done wrong, it breaks a story–sometimes irretrievably.

There are few things as hair-tearingly frustrating as that.

You don’t have to be a slavish follower of convention. A certain amount of internalizing and analyzing the rules of the road will let you decide how to break them in the way that best serves the story–or, more commonly and usefully, how to use them to uncover the heart of the story.

Oddly, the above are rules I rarely break, but just having them inside my head while I structure a story is neverendingly helpful. The biggest part of breaking rules is in grammar, especially for dialogue. People rarely speak grammatically, and the way a character breaks grammar rules while speaking is a cheap, easy, and effective way to characterize. You get a lot of bang for your buck in the violation of grammar conventions.

But that’s another blog post. Be safe out there, my friends. *ebil grin* Except for with your characters.

* Sometimes they’re not rules, they’re more like guidelines. Still, disregard at your peril, my dear word-pirates.

Due to popular demand (Megan F., this one’s for you!), the UnSullen One put together an “I (Heart) Japhrimel” graphic for T-shirts.

They’re available in:

* V-Neck
* V-Neck Plus
* Scoop Neck
* Long-Sleeve T
* Long-Sleeve T (Women’s)

And for those of you who enjoy a good cuppa, we have both regular and OMG HUGE coffee mugs blazoned with the name of your favorite demon.

Enjoy! And many props to the UnSullen One, who hath created a thing of beauty. You should see what he’s working on next…