Love Like Winter

Since the hubby and I were talking about a specific vampire villain of Briar Rose today, I thought I would post this song by AFI. It’s almost eerily good as a vampire song.

warn your warmth to turn away,
here it’s December,
everyday

it’s in the blood
it’s in the blood
I met my love before I was born
he wanted love,
I taste of blood.
he bit my lip and drank my war,
from years before

Tags: Briar Rose, music, vampires, villains

The Changer Contract

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Tags: Briar Rose, Fae, ideas, Moonsworn, vampires, worldbuilding

Agent research

I’ve now sped through the first two books in Cassandra Clare’s The Mortal Instruments trilogy, and I’m really liking them. It’s good urban fantasy, and she doesn’t tell it through that annoying LOL-speak lens that a lot of YA authors are using nowadays. Also, those books have proven to me, beyond a doubt, that my Briar Rose idea is doable. If someone else can combine vampires, werewolves, fae, and ANGELS into a single mythology and get it published, then so can I. That is, in fact, exactly what Briar Rose is.

So in my enthusiasm, I looked up Clare’s website and poked around for a while today. Glad to know I’m not the only writer who composes soundtracks for her stories. She mentioned the name of her agent, so I decided to be a good little trying-to-get-published writer and went to the agent’s website. Barry Goldblatt Literary. I found their list of authors and found two I recognized right away: Holly Black and Libba Bray.

These happen to be two authors who I have developed a very high respect for in perusing the YA genre. This might be an agency I could pitch Shades to. (I know I could pitch Briar Rose, but I’d have to, you know, write it first )

I also discovered that the publisher Simon & Schuster was also coming up a lot…but they don’t take un-agented stuff. Alas.

Tags: Briar Rose, Shades

Monday, Nov 24, 2008: The birth of Briar Rose

This was written around the time Briar Rose was beginning to take shape in my mind. Nearly a year ago, now.

Nov 24, 2008: Recently I became intrigued with this new movie Twilight that has come out…more because the book series seemed to have so many fans already than out of any real interest in the subject. Vampires have never really been my thing, you know? Well, a few days ago I actually had a whole afternoon and evening to myself (hubby was helping with the youth group retreat, and my mom had Eli for the day). So, after embarking on a quest to gather some new items for my wardrobe (when you’re still wearing maternity clothes and you have an almost three year old, you KNOW your wardrobe needs help!), I decided to spend a few hours reading in a bookstore. Something I haven’t been able to do in a few years, with a baby and now an active toddler.

I picked up the book Twilight. I’ve discovered over the years that when they decide to make a movie out of a book, chances are the book is at least worth reading. This book series, durned if I knew it was a series, seems to be especially popular among the high school female crowd, and a few chapters into the book I began to see why. I mean, come on, what hormone-riddled young female mind can resist a story about a totally hot guy who also happens to be a vampire? And a good vampire to boot! *imitates a swoon*. I couldn’t finish the book in the amount of time I had, and the next day I realized that I had doomed myself to madness by starting it at all. I went to the library, although it had occurred to me by then that I wasn’t going to find this book there. Not with the movie out. I put myself on the waiting list with low expectations. The good news is the Brevard County library system has 52 copies of the book in circulation. The bad news is that there are now 201 people on the waiting list. Yeah, so much for getting a hold of that one anytime before Christmas. Haven’t seen the movie yet…not sure I want to until I’ve finished the book (also not sure if I’ll be able to convince the hubby to see it with me). I used my morning time while Eli was in school today to go to Books-a-Million and read more. Tomorrow I will do the same. I might get it finished by then…we’ll see. It’s a fast read and I’m a fast reader.

Stories like this are like candy to me…sweet going down, bit of an addictive element to them, but not much substance in the end. Although, being only about three quarters away through the first book, I can see that the author may take the tale beyond the expectations of the genre, which I would like. I’m enjoying it anyway; it touches on the part of me that misses the heady feeling of crushing on a guy and the part that loves tragic romance. Not the Romeo and Juliet kind, but more of the Lyra and Will (His Dark Materials) or Will Turner and Elizabeth Swan (Pirates) kind. Separation for the sake of the greater good makes me teary eyed. Although, if I’m reading the elements correctly, Bella is well on her way to becoming a vampire herself. I mean, she has a flighty mom who has a boyfriend, a bachelor dad who has done well enough without her for years, and she’s already left behind the home she really liked. She has no real ties to anyone except the one she’s forging with Edward. If she’s not a vampire by the end of the series, I will be extremely surprised.

You know, I didn’t start this post intending to write a book review. I was actually going to talk about vampires. Remember me not being a vampire person? Overdone genre, in my opinion. Almost as bad as the person turning out to be an alien or an android, you know? You see it coming from a mile away. However, between the Vampire: The Masquerade role playing book I have and now Twilight, I am beginning to understand why they are so fascinating. There is an element of tragedy to their very existence that is appealing, from a writer’s point of view.

Plus, I’m excited because I had this story concept with two very neat characters sitting on my computer that I was afraid I wasn’t going to be able to write. Gritty urban fiction is just not a genre I’m comfortable with, and that’s what this story seemed to want to become. However, if I introduce a vampire-werewolf twist to the plot and add some shamanic elements…suddenly this is a story I can do justice! Having a werewolf as a main character, I can even tie in my whole shapeshifter conceit…I have created an entire hidden society of “changers” that ties everything from werewolves to centaurs to dragons into a common background. Of course, if I make my protagonist’s lady love a vampire, I may have to create a similar rewrite of the undead…I think I can create a world where both are equally likely. Oh, so many fun elements I can tie into this, especially if I also make the main character a shaman on top of being a werewolf. Can you imagine trying to do a soul retrieval for a vampire?? Never mind the fact that vampires and werewolves are mortal enemies…

Eh. I need to finish Shades before I go nuts with this. And then I need to finish Mask of Eldarmarch. And then I was going to do Dreamcatcher…the above story concept was nowhere near the top of my to-do list. I may bump it up a bit, now that it has more direction and potential, but it may be a number of years before I come back around to it. Hey, at least all the Twilight hype will have died down by then!

Tags: books, Briar Rose, ideas

The list

Check out the new “Writing Projects” and “Contact Me” pages up at the top.

I will be updating Writing Projects over time, as stories develop and I create newer and better pitches for them. In Contacts, you will find my Lj, Twitter, and Facebook pages, among other things. You’ll only be able to view the Writing Projects page if you are registered and logged in.

Some of the CSS on the blog is still wonky, but that will get fixed as we experiement.

Tags: 134340, Amphitere's Vision, Briar Rose, Dreamcatcher, EFO and C, Eryndal, Harmony, ideas, Mask of Eldarmarch, Masquerade, Pandora, Shades, Tindaari, Valkaria