Lex Thomas's Blog, page 8

WHAT THE?!

Quarantine: The Loners was chosen by Booklist for their 2012 Editor's Choice List! 




Here's what they said:




The best high-concept YA thriller of the year is this paranoia-soaked novel in which an infected Colorado high school is quarantined by the government, leading to various cliques that transform into warring tribes. Gritty and fearless.




So rad. We're freaking out over here.

#31HORRORFILMS31DAYS

Daniel Kraus convinced us to try and watch 31 horror movies in 31 days across the month of October, and tweet something about each movie after we finished. Neither of us made it to 31, our Book Two deadline got in the way, but it was fun to try. My favorites that I watched were Santa Sangre, Demons, and Outcast.




We'll hang our heads in shame until next year when we can try for the full 31 again. Here's the list of what we watched, the tweets we posted about them, and a few pics.




-Thomas 




THOMAS




1. THE KEEP - Nazis face a Romanian citadel full of evil wind, glowing eyes, and a tedious pace. Plus Tangerine Dream




2. THE SENTINEL- A 70's model gets an apartment thats also the entrance to hell. The finale uses real life freaks!




3.FASCINATION-A bandit in 1916 hides in a castle with weird lesbians who seduce you to death. French erotic horror




4. LINK- Friendly monkey horror. An orangutan in a three piece suit gets a deadly crush on Elisabeth Shue




5. DEMONS- An evil movie theatre turns the audience into bloodthirsty monsters. Kicked ass.




6. DON'T BE AFRAID OF THE DARK- Sad little girl deals with gremlins in a nice old house. Be better with Don Knotts.




7. HENRY: PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER. Ugh, I need to take three showers. Rooker's great.




8-FRANKENHOOKER- Guy assembles a new body for his dead fiancé with hooker parts. Not good. 




9. DUMPLINGS- Just what will an aging actress eat to look young again? The secret ingredient is sickening.




10. SANTA SANGRE - This movie is WEIRD. An intense Mexican carny hallucination with epic mommy issues. Mind melted




11. THE INNKEEPERS - Haunted hotel. Nice look. Nice vibe, tons of suspense and almost no payoff




12. THE CORRIDOR - Old buddies find a hallway of energy in the woods that controls their minds. Fun




13. MIMIC - Genetically engineered roaches evolve into giant humanoid cockroach beasts that live under NYC




14. DOGHOUSE- Unhappy dudes take a boy's trip to a village full of comical female zombies, and get their mojo back




15. THE WOMAN IN BLACK- Harry Potter must survive child-killing ghosts long enough to do some dead people's taxes




16. BRAIN DAMAGE - Sweet talkin brainworm makes you kill, but gives you constant acid trips




17. THE UNBORN - A slapped together evil pregnancy movie with odd cameos and a hideous baby




18. PONTYPOOL- Making sense is the real enemy. And zombies.




19. PIG HUNT- Hicks, hippies, wild boar and gore




20. PRISON- Viggo in Renny Harlin's 1st US movie about a haunted jail. Lots of ethereal blue light, and lightning




21. EMANUELLE AND THE LAST CANNIBALS-The gorgeous Laura Gemser couldn't save this soft-core-snore-gore. Gross junk




22. VIRGIN WITCH - 60's British beauties in miniskirts fall victim to a classy coven, and fail to remain clothed.




23. V/H/S- Horror is scarier when you can barely see what's going on. More horror anthologies, please. 




24. PARANORMAL ADOPTION- Ultra-boring movie about adopting a kid and her evil ventriloquist dummy. Regret.




25. OUTCAST - Gritty witchcraft, greasy Scottish slums, a frightening mother, and James Nesbitt. Sweet movie. 




26. THE STEPFATHER (1986) - Some of these 80's Blu-rays are too sharp, they look all grainy. Movie was alright







LEX




1. THE WARD: John Carpenter makes Mean Girls meets Shutter Island when cute girls easily navigate a psych ward.




2. THE VINEYARD: Lo Pan writes/directs himself as same character who lures actors to the house from Burnt Offerings




3. WAKE WOOD: Worst parents ever. Pet Sematary meets Wicker Man when a couple works out issues in Ireland. Good scenes




4. SHEITAN: A doll-making, bucktoothd French hick hosts Eurotrash clubbers for Christmas dinner. Eyeballs get plucked. 




5. THE NEW DAUGHTER - Overlong, str8-2-vid flick with Kevin Costner about mud gods that want to marry his daughter.

FAN FICTION

How cool is this? Last month Novel Novice held a contest where they asked readers to give their take on how life could take a dark turn if their high school was quarantined. This week they announced the winners. Congrats to Amy Cokenour, Natalie Richards, and Anahit Moumjian for their gritty takes on the premise. Check out their work here.

QUESTIONS ANSWERED

We just finished up at the Austin Teen Book Festival, which was a total blast. We participated in our first-ever event panel with Will Richter, Eliot Shrefer, and Ally Carter, moderated by Jennifer Lynn Barnes. It was a thrill to be part of such an esteemed group and to answer questions about craft in front of a packed house. Thanks to everyone who came and all the festival volunteers!


For those of you who weren't there, we thought we'd compile all of the Q&As we've done thus far. If you're curious about what makes Lex Thomas tick, maybe you can find some of your answers here....



Hypable Interview



Random Acts of Reading Interview



Novel Novice Interview Part 1 and Part 2



Novel Thoughts Interview



Figment Fiction Interview

COME SEE US!

At the end of this month, we'll be in Austin, TX and then Shreveport, LA.



If you're kicking around Austin on September 29th, we'll be at the Austin Teen Book Fest signing books and participating in the Thrill Of The Chase panel with some awesome YA novelists. Click here for all the info on ATBF!



And if you're in Shreveport, we'll be at Barnes and Noble on October 1st. Click here for all the deets.



Hope to see you there!

BLOG TOUR

So, it's been a while since our last post. We've been working fast and furious on both Book Two and the screenplay for The Loners. Needless to say, it's been a busy summer. But we've found some time to meet with some really terrific bloggers to talk about the Quarantine series and what our process has been so far. The blog tour will run through September and is hosted by the good folks at Kismet Book Touring.



Click here for a full schedule and any good stuff you may have missed.

THE WEEK AFTER

So, the book's been out for a little over a week. Every day brings its own little tid bit of excitement. Most of that has been coming in the form of reader reviews and reactions. The book is out there now. Our characters are living in other people's imaginations, and they're getting great reactions.



It's such a huge reward for us to hear that readers are digging details, characters and story twists that we took such special care to craft. It's why we wrote this story in the first place -- to thrill you. So, please keep your experiences of McKinley High coming on GoodReads, Amazon, Twitter, Facebook.... anywhere you can put 'em! We're reading them!



The other excitement this week has come just by spreading the word about the book on other sites. It's always easy to feel a little nervous about putting your face out in the world and talking about yourself. But thankfully, we've been in great hands across the board. Here's a recap of the places we've been featured:



Novel Thoughts interviewed us.







Figment let us contribute a Daily Theme and our Ten Most Influential Horror Movies.












Teen Librarian's Toolbox let us guest blog a Top 10.









And Scripts & Scribes posted their interview of us at this year's ALA.




Thanks to everyone for such a successful first week! 

OUR LITTLE STORY'S ALL GROWN UP

One day we got an idea. What if the cliques in high school were actual violent gangs, and what if the school building was the battleground?





Today, we went to Barnes & Noble to see that our little idea is now a real live book, on real live shelves, for real live people to read. It was a surreal experience, and after we found it on the shelf, we looked at each other with "now what?" looks.



Well, now, it's not ours anymore. It's yours. We hope you love it as much as we do.













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MUSIC TO READ TO

When we wrote our book, this playlist is a lot of the music we listened to. This music helped shape the world of McKinley High and kept us immersed in the story. We think this playlist is the perfect reading companion for anyone looking for the complete Quarantine experience.



Click the above link for eight hours worth of reading music. Can you handle it?

THE CREATIVE STORM

Writing a book is no small endeavor. The process is its own epic journey. You try to map out as much as you can about the story and the characters before you start, but really there's only so much you can know. It's only in the doing that certain details (and *sigh* huge, pivotal elements) reveal themselves. And often they reveal themselves at their convenience, forcing you to go back and rewrite large blocks of story that you had hoped were set in stone. Hence, the need for multiple drafts.



It's grueling; it's frustrating; but it's also euphoric and immensely satisfying when it goes right. We're in the midst of that process now as we hammer out Book Two of the Quarantine series. With just over a week to go until Book One is available for purchase, I thought it would be interesting to share a little time capsule with you, made when we were writing Book One. 




During Book One our deadlines were tight, and so our writing was fast and furious. But the only way to keep a solid pace is to know when to break. Like a marathon runner needs to re-fuel their body, a writer with a deadline needs to stimulate their mind. Throughout the writing of Book One, we were drawing strength and inspiration from every possible source: music, art, film, books, fellow writers' advice, real life... anywhere we could get it. We compiled some of these things onto a tumblr site as we wrote. You can check it out here:




Building The Books




As we get deeper into Book Two, we'll try to post more random stuff there. But for now, you can get a glimpse of our headspace when we were locked down in a quarantine of own.




-- Lex