But It's a Dry Heat

Author Archive

The Music of Chaos, Casting Call

Every once in while, I get the feeling something is missing in my life. I look around, find my dog; the horse is where he should be; nothing’s on fire; nobody’s exploded; all’s well.  Now what has got my spidey-senses all a-tingle?

*Palm to forehead slap.* Oh, yeah, I know.  I should promote my frickin’ book.  Then somebody says something funny on Twitter, or a fight breaks out at my favorite blog and I forget about the matter entirely.

So I’ve got a little interview over at Kathleen’s Place to Reflect.  Kathleen Anne Gallagher is a fellow Decadent author, and a super nice person for letting my stop by and babble at her blog.

One of the questions was who would I cast if The Music of Chaos were a movie.  Typically, my character’s physical appearance starts out as a rough sketch in my head and sometimes on paper.  Once, in a while, as with Benjamin Black (The Canvas Thief), physical appearance comes first. (He’s not an elf, but he was inspired by this artist’s illustrations of Maehdros the elf [LOTR].) But when developing characters, I don’t think of them in terms of any particular actor.  It’s only after the character has been around a while, that I’ll sometimes stumble on an actor who makes me think: “He could totally be [insert character name].”

Breas the vampire is a blond-haired pretty boy.  But Hollywood’s crop of blond hunks are a little too All American, maybe too Nordic, for Breas.  Anyway, one morning I’m channel surfing, clicking past the Today Show, Good Morning America and other Infortainment with its vapid segments on “Things that can kill your child,” or “Foods that will keep you young.”  I settle on a Spanish soap opera (novela). It’s the usual plotline, fraught with inane misunderstandings, secret babies and whatnot. The hero is played by Puerto Rican actor Carlos Ponce, who is the perfect Breas.  Well, in the novela he’s the hero and too nice to be Breas, but physically he’s perfect.

So there you have it–Breas’s actor doppleganger. Stick a beer in his hand, plunk his ass down on the couch, put on ESPN (preferably a game with his beloved Seahawks) and you’ve got Breas.

If It Ain’t Broke, Break it Anyway

Fiddling with the site template…again.  Yes, I totally stole the header from my other blog.  I like the cartoony version of the Wonder Horse.  Anyway, site weirdness may ensue.

The Internet Ate My Baby

“Careful what you say on the Internet,” whispers the nervous Nelly on an online forum, “An employer or an agent or editor might be listening.”

“Look,” says another, “Here’s a case where someone lost their job because of what they posted online.”

“I won’t buy a certain author’s book because of what she said about toasters,” says another with an imperious sniff.

“Oh-Noes!” cries the Greek chorus, “Beware! Beware! Beware!”

*Yes, this is me rolling my eyes back into my head. Lookie, gray matter!* No, it’s never a good idea to post nekkid pictures of yourself, or a detailed account of your cocaine-enhanced, (more…)

Tangled

My loathing for the “old school” Disney princess (Cinderella, Snow White, et al.) is no secret.  She’s dumber than a bag of hammers and utterly useless as a protagonist. Her only strength is sweetness that can put you in diabetic coma in five seconds flat. And she’s pretty.   Cute, little forest animals love her (which probably means she has fleas), but never mind that, she’s pretty.  Sometimes she hides out with seven little hairy men and cleans their house and washes their skidmarked undies. She waits for her prince to come because good girls never orgasm first.  And they certainly never do anything to save themselves.

Fortunately, Disney heroines have come a long way, baby.  Some more than others.  While I liked Tangled–it’s hard not to–I think Rapunzel is one of modern Disney’s weaker heroines. Weaker is too strong a word, since Rapunzel is smart, inquisitive, artistic and sometimes, driven.

As romances go, however, The Princess and the Frog is a much stronger story. (It’s a stronger story, period.) Especially when (more…)

In Praise of Dragons and Beta Heroes

How to Train Your Dragon is one of my favorite movies. I love this movie for two reasons: Hiccup and Astrid.

First, Hiccup is what some in Romanceland calls a beta hero and I lurves the betas. Second, Astrid is a terrific, strong female character.

Regarding betas ….  The definition varies, but a beta hero is the opposite of an alpha hero.  Alpha heroes are the kind of men who get stuff done with brute force. They are usually endowed with … a corresponding amount of muscle, and often (annoyingly) characterized as emotionally  constipated.  Honestly? That’s not my idea of a romantic hero.  Yeah, the muscles are nice, but as I’ve noted elsewhere, it wouldn’t be long before I got bored and cheated on Mr. Manly with the geeky astrophysicist  across the hall.

The beta hero is more a thinking man/woman’s hero.  He won’t or can’t (more…)

Desert Garden in May

Life’s a beach.

Of sorts.  Casa de Kirby sits in the midst of a vast sandy desert. Lots of sand and sagebrush.  No rain. No large body of water, unless you count the Rio Grande, which, nowadays, isn’t so grande.

Provided you can stand the complete absence of moisture–hasn’t rained in months–it’s not a bad place to call home.

Being an avid gardener, when I first moved out here, I was horrified by the soil.  Soil is a generous term.  It really is beach sand.  The funny thing is, it turned out to be a great growing medium, especially for drought tolerant plants that demanded “well-drained soil.”  You don’t get any more (more…)

AWOL from the Battle of the Sexes

If men are from Mars, so too are women.

I periodically come across discussions regarding the depiction of men in romance novels, in particular, how men are written by female authors. The common concern is that the men aren’t “manly” enough, that they have been feminized (whatever that means).  Alternately, some female writers opine that men are mysterious beings who cannot be fathomed by the female mind.

This is big deal for some women writers.  They even take classes for insight into the male mind.

Which boggles my mostly female, but somewhat male mind.  Do these women know any men? Is the whole of (more…)

Clarity Counts

Here in New Mexico, the local schools use a program called Character Counts to uh, indoctrinate teach kids to be good little cogs in the machine how to play well with others. Whether or not this actually works is debatable. What has always struck me about Character Counts is how those words are essentially nonsense, word salad. Serious, what does “Character counts” mean?

Here’s where someone wearily says, “You know what it means.”

No, I don’t.  At least not absent the whole campaign that goes with the program.  “Character counts” what? Sheep? Cards?

Words do mean … stuff.  But meaning and clarity are a function of a whole bunch of other words.  One of the most common problems I see when critiquing stories over at Critters is a total lack of clarity.  Often this is because (more…)

Blood: The Last Vampire

As a rule, “live-action film inspired by anime” is synonymous with the kind of suck that can give you a full-body hickie.  Blood: The Last Vampire obediently follows that rule.

Saya (Gianna Jun) is a half-human, half-vampire vampire slayer who works for a covert agency known as The Council.  The Council being your run-of-the-mill secret society dedicated to making vampires extinct, a la the Council in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and others. (I can’t really diss the trope, as it’s one I employ in my stories.)  Like Buffy, Saya has a handler, Michael (Liam Cunningham).  But where [Buffy’s]Giles put in a bit of effort trying to school Buffy in the intricacies of supernatural lore, Michael’s primary job is to bring Saya little bottles of blood, wrapped discretely in brown paper bags and placed in her little, dorm-room style fridge.

There are indications that (more…)

Editing, Tweeting and Drawing

I have a whole pile of partially written blog posts sitting on my desktop.

But I’ve spent the past week and change working through the print galley for The Music of Chaos.  In the interest of actually getting something done, I’ve resist the urge to fiddle around on the web.  Well, sort of …. there’s my recent fascination with Twitter.

Ah, Facebook, how quickly I fell out of love.  Actually, I never really was in love; it was just a fling, bought out of boredom and “everybody else is doing it.”

I’m a lurker. Twitter, unlike Facebook, is a lurker’s paradise.  With Facebook, since everyone has their profile locked out of privacy concerns (self included), there’s no skulking around on the edges, watching someone’s interactions to determine if they’re worth knowing.

With Twitter you can follow almost anybody. And it’s full of obnoxiously funny people, the kind of folks who like to slay sacred cows and turn ’em into steaks.

Technically, I’m doing Twitter all wrong.  As a good little author type, I’m supposed to be following people in the publishing industry and sucking up to interacting with them.  Ass kissing. Networking.

Except, I’ve never been much good at networking. Not now; not back in the days of a grownup job. If I thought someone was interesting, I’d pursue friendship. If not, I didn’t bother.  Yeah.  I know.  “Who you know” is how things get done, but I bailed on a 8-to-5 career expressly because I couldn’t shovel the requisite bullshit.

Not about to start now.

In the meantime, here’s a doodle of Talis, my emo, dark elf  in The Music of Chaos and its sequel. I haven’t done much drawing lately and I’m afraid any progress I made in learning to draw people has been lost.  So I’m going to try and get a least one little drawing, even a scribble done, once a week.

Have a great weekend.