I haven't been writing for the past four months, and I'm trying to understand why, out of nowhere, I suddenly get the urge to WRITE WRITE WRITE like there's no tomorrow.

Maybe it's something like Mars being in retrograde, or some sort of biological cycle - something I have no control over, but I've been trying to put the pieces into a sensible whole.

And I think I've hit on something: I write when I'm bored, and since I am bored most of the time, I'm a perpetual writer.

Here's the thing about creative projects: it's almost impossible to finish them.

When I'm painting, I'll have a painting sitting in my studio for months before I finally decide I need to stop, and even then I'll sometimes bring it back for touch-ups.

Writing is even worse, because there are so many moving parts, you just want to keep revising until everything is perfect. But here's a secret: IT WILL NEVER BE PERFECT.

Even if you get an agent and a million dollar deal with the dream publisher, you will still open the book up and immediately see a typo. Or think - well that sentence is terrible. It's human nature.

All this is to say that I've finally decided to put a ribbon on my first project - The Osprey.

It's not perfect, but I've spent so much time and energy on it that I need it to be done. It's fantastic for a first book, and I love it, flaws and all. I think it's a fun story and I loved the way I wrote it.

I'm face-deep in another project right now and I'm glad to be unburdened by the last one.

SO! Consider this my cover reveal and book launch all in one! I drew up a cover in Photoshop and self-pubbed through lulu.com. Check it out:

When Atalanta discovered she could move things with her mind, she did what any self-respecting girl with a hero complex would – start fighting crime. But crime is hard to come by in De Luna, Florida (population 1,982), where the only saving to be done is fishing pugs out of alligator-infested waters.

A crusading thief comes to town with a rob-from-the-rich mentality, and Atalanta, or the Osprey as the locals call her, gets the crime spree she always thought she wanted. But she doesn't count on the thief being just as interested in her as he is in looting the mansions on the waterfront.

Her boyfriend is getting jealous, her best friend is getting suspicious, and when Atalanta uncovers a drug trafficking ring operating out of the town's marina, she knows she's in way over her head.

She's left with no choice but to trust the somewhat charming, possibly stalking, definitely thieving newcomer who just might be behind it all.


Link to the paperback: http://www.lulu.com/shop/emily-ever/the-osprey/paperback/product-21620262.html

Here's the goodreads page: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22299329-the-osprey
If you read it - review it!

PS - I loved doing this cover, so if anyone is interested in getting me to do one for their book, I'd love to talk about it!

I will be the first to tell you, I am not a fan of horror.

When I was little, even a scary episode of the X-Files would make me have nightmares for a week. I have an overactive imagination.

Even movies like Gravity I would consider horror because after the movie is over, I'm not going to be thinking about the graphics, or how great the acting was, or the emotional journey of the characters. I'm going to be thinking - for weeks - about how freaking scary space is.

Which I already knew, by the way. Thanks, though.

But now I find myself in the position of having a work in progress that I want to add an element of horror to, but I have no idea how to do it.

So I started off slow.

I'm a big fan of Welcome to Night Vale, which employs Lovecraftian ideals of horror around every turn, but treats it with such eye-rolling and shoulder shrugs as to make it mundane.

Lovecraft was known as the writer of gaps and he wrote around and between things but never at them. I honestly appreciate his style and the way the Night Vale uses it.

Stephen King is another horror writer who I've been meaning to read. Though I've seen a lot of criticism of his recent books, I know him to be a fantastic writer. I've read several essays of his that were just amazing. So I'd love to read more of his short stories and get more into his style.

I was also directed to Richard Matheson, who wrote I am Legend and was a frequent writer for the Twilight Zone. Every time I looked for classic horror stories, Matheson's name came up over and over again. I loved the movie I am Legend, even though I hate zombie stories, and I would love to read the actual story.

I want to reach out to you, dear reader, who is likely more of an aficionado of horror than I. Do you have any recommendations for great horror short stories? Any favorite authors whose techniques in the field you admire?

TELL ME YOUR WAYS

Interestingly enough, my current Work in Progress has zombies in it. If you have read other entries in this blog, you know how much I insist on hating zombie stories, and I do.

So, I wouldn't call this a zombie story in the ideological sense. As we learned in the third episode of Life: Narrated, our podcast, zombies are used to complain about social woes with impunity. Anything from capitalism, to immigration, to kids spending too much time on their smart phones. (if you haven't listened already, you should! It's interesting.)

But this story brings the zombie back to the basics, I guess. Where there's a necromancer whose in control and the zombie - in life a very important person who died under unclear circumstances - is used as a political pawn more than anything.

I'm halfway through my second pass at editing and as much as I love the story, there is going to have to be some serious structural edits in the next pass.

For instance. In the original, the necromancer is picked up by the army and they hitchhike to a secret military installation.

They hitchhike.

How secret could this military installation be if everyone keeps hitchhiking to it? Why would a seriously outfitted government agency not invest in a car? What kind of two-bit operation is this, anyway?

I honestly have no idea what I was thinking.

No, I do know what I was thinking, because I wrote that scene after hitchhiking on the back on an oil tanker - I was sitting literally on top of the tank - and thought, wow, this would be an awesome scene in a book.

But some things that happen in real life shouldn't go in novels because the details just stand out too much. Instead of focusing on the main point - which would be the military being interested in the necromancer - the reader will be like... but why are they hitchhiking? And why are they on an oil tanker?

All that aside, I haven't reached the 'Oh god why am I doing this? Is this terrible or awesome?' stage of editing, so I'm still feeling pretty chipper.

An update about the podcast! It's been going on! We've been learning stuff!

Namely that a certain someone COUGHMattCOUGH makes a terrible host when he is slightly disinterested in the topic.

We had another podcast in which we were supposed to talk about narratives in general, but I didn't really communicate what it was supposed to be about, and it didn't go very well. It ended up with me babbling a lot and getting off topic. EVEN THOUGH WE HAD A DOCKET.

Long story short, I'm going to be a better communicator next time about our new topic: ZOMBIES.

I am super into this now because my Work in Progress (WiP) is about zombies - not necessarily the way you're thinking. There's really only one zombie in the story, but he's an important zombie.

But not a romantic zombie. Let's be clear.

Anyway, I've been reading up on Vodou and African myths about zombies and anthropological theories so I'm all fired up to talk about that aspect of it. Add to that the fact that none of us really like zombie narratives but want to know why they are so prevalent in the past couple of years and we're gonna have a good time! 

Maybe even a special guest. (Insert suggestive eyebrow waggling here)

OH! And in keeping with the theme of this month, you should check out Shawn T Anderson's short story on Internet Troubadours - Kill Tokens and Taffeta - It's great! All zombiefied and whatnot.

I'm still not sure if I'll post the final edited version of Life: Narrated Episode 2 - it depends on what happens during the editing process which I am scared even to start.

Also: I just finished the first edit run through of my WiP y'all! I'm excited!


Whew. That's all the updates for now. A real post is forthcoming, promise.

If you have a suggestion for what we should talk about in our zombie podcast, leave a note!

I'd like to dedicate this post to Libby who was kind enough to feature me on her blog yesterday, and is keeping me honest about things I'm supposed to be doing.

Which brings me to the point of this post: MY STORY BLOG.

I am very excited about this, and I imagined that I would be able to tweak it all through my two week holiday and break it out on January 1st. I imagined this despite all previous empirical evidence to the contrary.

No worries, though! Enthusiastic Me has set up most of this blog when I was in the throes of excitement, so all that's left for Lazy Holiday Me to do is create the look for the blog, which I will spend the next year and a half tweaking furiously, anyway.

(this is not to be confused with twerking furiously because that's something you have to ask YouTube about).

So, to the point: This blog will have short stories from me and writer friends, mostly from twitter. It was started with the idea that if I had this blog, the pressure for me to actually write short stories would be more and it would actually happen. Because short stories are good for you, people. Like apples, and exercise, and a good, ugly cry.

There will be a blurb at the bottom of the every story about the author that will contain links and what not so everyone can get meet new people and network. The stories will be between 1,000 to 5,000 words, but I will consider shorter and longer works.

If you are interested in participating, please email me (emilyincarolina [at] gmail dot com). We're going to start with two stories a month, and will do more once I get the ball rolling.

Here is the URL so you can check it out before the first story is posted at midnight:

 http://internettroubadours.blogspot.com/


First story will be posted January 1st*! So stop by and comment!

*this is probably true.

As anyone who knows me personally will tell you, I am a big fan of music. I've done marching band, jazz band, bell choir (not a joke, wish it was), and I was even a mobile DJ for four years. Sometimes I will go days without taking the earphones out. And to tell you the truth, as much as I love reading, I think one of the failings of the written word is that it's just not as expressive as the spoken (or rather, the sung).

That being said, books that try to incorporate song lyrics into their narrative drive me crazy. It never comes across to the reader the way you want it to, and usually it comes off as bad poetry. I have never read a stanza of a song written in a book (even songs that I've actually heard) and thought it was a good idea.

If it's supposed to be sentimental or romantic, it isn't. Trust me. Even books that I love that have lyrics in it make me roll my eyes and skip over the stanza entirely. I'm not saying it can't be done, I'm just saying I've never seen it. If I was that editor, I would have said NOPE.

So, I've had this dilemma of loving music, but not when it's involved in books. I've read a lot of books about rock stars, and being backstage with the band, and all these trappings around what people imagine go on in the music industry, but there are only a handful of books that I've read that give you a visceral, immediate recollection of what it's like to experience music.

These books do not have stanzas of song lyrics in them. They just describe to the point of painful accuracy what one might feel while listening to music - or the experience of going to a live show. In no particular order, they are as follows:

Five Flavors of Dumb by Antony John:

Young Adult Contemporary
I start the list off with this book because it's seriously unique. The main character is deaf. Not profoundly deaf, but with enough hearing loss that it makes her an unlikely heroine for a novel about a band. You can go to the publisher's description here, but what I will add is that this book is full of characters that you know in real life. Real people with real hang ups and blind spots. You spend a large amount of time hating on characters you realize later are just absent-minded, not cruel; or terribly shy instead of aloof. It ends in a triumphant blaze that left me wanting to run a mile while rocking out to Nirvana.

The way the main character talks about music - and remember she can't actually hear it - is all about the expressions on people's faces, the bass vibrating through the floor, the electric energy of the crowd, the way the musicians move with their instruments. It's a whole new way to experience music that I, for one, had never thought of.

This book also happens to be a good look into the life of someone who not only can't hear you, but also who doesn't see that as a disability, even though everyone around her does. I think it's refreshing that what this character wants, more than anything, is not her hearing, but for people to stop treating her like she's disabled. She's fine with being deaf, and that's a powerful change.

Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan:

Young Adult Contemporary
It goes without saying that the book is better than the movie, but I had to say it anyway. Written in two different voices, by two different authors, this book is pure word magic. It's like a glimpse into the inner workings of a date that is going off the rails over and over again and just won't end. It will remind you, in different places along the way, of every date you've ever had, good and bad.

Nick is a straight boy in a gay band and Norah is the angrily responsible daughter of the music industry, silently judging the entire city. I feel like there needs to be a new verb for what she does - hate-partying? Rage-clubbing?

The inner monologue of both characters make it well worth reading, and ends up sounding more like epic poetry - poetry written on a bathroom wall, but still poetry.

As a side note, I listened to this for the first time as an audio book performed by two people, and it was really fantastic. I typically prefer to read, but these two actors were on point.

War for the Oaks by Emma Bull:
Adult Fantasy
This is an odd book. It's one of the few I would actually call urban fantasy (or magical realism?) because the weaving of the modern landscape and the creatures that crawl through it is seamless. Themes of mortality and what it means to be human pervade.

But so does awesomeness.

It starts out being just about a band, but with other weird things going on in the background. Soon it turns into a story about a literal war. This was kind of a surprise to me as I apparently didn't even glance at the title before I read it. Or maybe I didn't think they were serious?

But before you get to all the truly epic battle scenes, the book is littered with grand descriptions of the band playing on stage and the crowd reacting to them; the crowd enraptured by them; the crowd creating a new nation for them. You feel like you are there at the best concert you will ever not hear.

Come for the rock and roll, stay for the fairies.


Dirty Little Secret by Jennifer Echols:

Young Adult Contemporary
Echols has a knack for making characters who have lives I want to read about. In this story we have Bailey, who has grown up on the bluegrass circuit with her younger sister. Her younger sister is tapped to become a mega country star with the caveat that Bailey can't continue to perform. From these characters and their life, you get a peak into the world of a child prodigy who grew up to be a real person. A real angry person.

I think what I like best about this book is all the interesting tidbits you get about the music industry - the fact that it's more common than you think to be forced to perform from a young age with the hopes of being discovered. What it really means to have perfect pitch. All the little things she mentions that are signs of a professional musician, or of an amateur. What parents will give up and sacrifice in order to get just one of their children into the spotlight. And what it does to the one left behind.

Despite the emotional undercurrent, everyone in Bailey's new, illicit band, are consummate professionals, which is not something you read about teenagers these days. It's kind of refreshing. When the band is playing, it's all talk of chords and solos and the thousand infinite messages between bandmates that pass with just a nod. If you've never played with a band, this is what it's like.

This book is also full to the brim of complex and relate-able characters who are neither bad nor good, and the right decision is far from obvious.



If you don't already have these on your To Be Read list, I suggest you add them, cause they are all fantastic, I-can't-bear-to-put-it-down books. And if you're a music lover - like myself - you will definitely find the story hitting home.