Gross, Creepy, Downright Terrifying: Six Books To Make You Question Reality

1. Lost Souls and Exquisite Corpse by Poppy Z Brite
Yes, right off the bat, I'm giving you a two-for-the-price-of-one entry. Can't help it. I can't pick just one book from her, but I can pick two. (Drawing Blood is also fantastic.) Poppy has such intensely beautiful command of the language. Lost Souls gives me chills every time I read it and I can't enjoy Dexter (the books or the show) without thinking about Andrew and Jay. (If you want to directly support the author, you can visit the Poppy Z. Brite eBay page.)

2. My Life with Corpses by Wylene Dunbar
The only entry on this list that is just creepy and disturbing, this novel is entirely underrated and under-appreciated. I haven't met anyone else who has read it and that makes me sad. It's such a good book. Funny, weird, beautiful, and thought-provoking, this novel is less horror and more existential, but it still makes the air feel a little colder.

3. American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
This is my favorite modern American novel. Yes, it's about a serial killer. Yes, it's about excess and self-indulgence. It. Is. Amazing. The first time I read it, I thought I was going crazy. That is, until I got to the first explicit murder scene. Then I realized that it wasn't me, it was Patrick, and holy shit this guy is fucked up. If you have the stomach for it, this is the sort of novel that will drag you bodily from your real world and throw you unceremoniously into the world the author has created. 

4. Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs
If American Psycho grabs you and drags you into Patrick Bateman's world, Naked Lunch bashes you in the head, knocks you out, and forces you to wake up cold, alone, and scared in the world Burroughs created. I've never done acid, or any other hallucinatory drug, but I imagine it can't be much different from reading this book. 

5. Splatterpunks II: Over the Edge edited by Paul M. Sammon
All right, this one isn't a novel, it's a short stories collection. "A mosaic of viscera, excrement, sex, and degradation whirls before our eyes in this anthology of stories and essays that run the gamut from lame and pretentious to genuinely stunning." Reading this book is a lot like being suckerpunched repeatedly.

Just For Fun Friday: 10 Things to Make You Feel Good

Today, I offer a break from the professional in order to share the personal. If you've read my tweets this week you already know that I've had a pretty crappy time of it over the last five days. It's just the little things, like having an incredibly unusual case of the Mondays followed by a whole slew of tiny little annoyances that snowballed into something awful and resulted in me refusing to do anything productive at all. Ever have one of those weeks? Of course you have. We all have. 

In the last few years, I've had to cope with things like my husband's year-long deployment and postpartum depression. What I've learned is that the little things can suck, but they can not-suck, too. In fact, the little things can make your day and remind you that it's all going to be okay.

So here are some of the little things that help me remember that it's all going to be okay.

1. "The World Is Just Awesome" Discovery Channel commercial. (Version 1)

2. "The World Is Just Awesome" Discovery Channel commercial. (Version 2)

3. Dance Off with the Star Wars Stars (2008)

4. Dance Off with the Star Wars Stars (2009)

5. Boba Fett Dancing

6. Pictures of Tim Armstrong from Rancid

7. Mike Rowe and Geoducks

8. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

9. Damn You Auto Correct!

 

10. Puppies Being Cute

The Blog Post That Is Not A Blog Post

So I'll come out and confess here that I'm kind of having a rough day (the baby didn't fall asleep until the husband woke up, the weather is weird, and we were supposed to have dinner guests who canceled at the last minute) and blogging is the last thing I really want to be doing. However, I want to make it to 500 blog hits this month and that won't happen unless I actually, you know, blog.

This is where the "now with 100% more filler" tag comes in.

Last night, I opened up a new word processor file (I don't use MS Word, I use Open Office--I do plan to post about it at some point) and wrote up some meta on Lilah Thompson, my heroine from the current WIP. Because I've been editing line-by-line, I've lost sight of the big picture. I needed to step back and look at it. I also needed to work out Lilah's motivation. She's not exactly the most likable character (I'm hoping she comes off sort of like Scarlett O'Hara, a character I always thought was unlikable but still appealing), but I don't think it's necessary for a heroine to be a likable character. After all, not everyone is a likable person. I do hope that readers can identify with her, which to me is more important.

Meta is telling in the way that the actual story is showing. It isn't ever meant to be shared, but it can be very useful. I write meta for original characters when I'm having a difficult time sticking to their characterization (characterization is something I'm fabulous at--when I write fanfiction; I struggle when I write original fiction, mostly because character-building is something I have to work at) or when I'm having trouble with the evolution of a character.

Knowing that no one is going to read it is liberating. Knowing that it's a useful tool for helping me focus and settling my brain makes me want to do it.

Lilah has her reasons for doing what she does, and I explored those. She gets her happy ending, but not before she makes a mess of everything. I think her situation is something most of us can identify with. We may not have dead spouses or high school sweethearts who waited for us, we may not have distant-but-loving fathers and sweet-but-demanding mothers, but I think that most people will understand Lilah.

I like this story. Which is good, because if I don't like it, how can I expect anyone else to like it? I like the emotional conflict Lilah feels and I like the physical manifestation of the Clay/Lilah conflict. I like that I got to write humor (the book cover is a result of the funniest scene in the story, I think) and that I got to write banter. Cass's story was sex with minor character development; Lilah's story is character development with sex thrown in for fun.

Now all I have to do is finish the second editing pass and send it off to beta readers and, maybe, advance readers.

Monday Miscellany: I don't wanna!

I'm just going to start this post by saying that I don't really want to be making it. I don't feel like I have anything terribly interesting to say. But I'm doing it, anyway, because I really need to get better at blogging, and I need to work on creating more original content, and, hell, my blog is so much prettier now that I want something new to pretend to look at so I can admire the colors a little more today.

Over the weekend, I did a lot of housework and a lot of writing. I mean, a lot of housework. I let it go for way too long. The thing is, I write so much better when my house is clean. (I should mention here that it's not like they were nominating me for "Hoarders," but it just wasn't clean enough.) Want evidence? I'm done with the last two action-drafts of the stories for Cass Gets Her Kicks. I finished the final action draft today, during Lilly's nap. Next up, of course, is drafting. But most of my action draft is actual draft, anyway, so I'm not too worried.

I'm really, really excited about this project. I do my best work within six thousand words. Doing well is going to give me confidence to do well in the novel.

Today, I redesigned the website and changed the scheme here on the blog to match it. I need to do the same thing to my Twitter, you know, for the sake of continuity. What do you think? It's still DIY, but I do plan to hire a professional eventually. I'm just prioritizing right now. I also haven't added any Easter eggs yet, but I will. I love when my favorite sites have a little something extra, so I need to get on that.

I also need to get on editing some stories to put up. I do plan to post the first Cass Reed story there--behind appropriate "Adults Only" warnings--when it's ready to go. I still have to work on a story called "Invitation to Eden." It needs serious work, but at its core, it's solid.

My dad is a professional photographer. We discussed it tonight, and I will be helping him get his photos out there. Poor old man, he's hopeless when it comes to social networking. I'll keep you posted on this as I complete each step.

Unfortunately, I haven't read anything useful or visited any websites worth writing home about over the last few days. It looks like this entry is just filler. Sorry for that!