Sarah Rees Brennan's Blog, page 12
December 20, 2011
My Platinum Edition in Indonesia
A platinum edition! Sounds so fancy. Isn't it gorgeous? May be my new favourite cover.
Of this series, that is, because the UNSPOKEN cover just came in and is UNSPEAKABLY amazing. I'm just trying to pick a colour and soon you guys will all see it. I will have my fingers triple crossed you like!
December 15, 2011
Stuff! But mostly, an auction for Terri Windling.
There is an auction going on at
![[info]](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/hostedimages/1380914749i/3218019.gif)
magick4terri
to benefit Terri Windling, creator of groundbreaking fantasy over the past several decades, ranging from the influential urban fantasy series Bordertown to the online Journal of Mythic Arts. With co-editor Ellen Datlow, she changed the face of contemporary short fiction with The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror.
There is also some cool stuff to be had for a reader, or a writer--one of the coolest offered things is lunch with a literary agent in New York. Barry Goldblatt is an awesome agent who could tell you loads about publishing. (He is also a good time, and the food will be good.)
Also... I am offering a thing! A signed set of the Lexicon trilogy, and a signed advance copy of Team Human.
You remember Team Human. A new summary of it, which is by no means official, but... which I wrote recently, goes like this.
'Friends don't let friends date vampires.
You know when your best friend gets involved with a boy, and he's all she talks about, and she's going to change her whole life for him, and you don't even like the guy?
It's even worse for Mel. Her best friend is dating a vampire.
In the city of New Whitby, vampires are an accepted fact of life, and always a draw for the tourists, but Mel didn't think she would ever be getting to know one. When Francis Duvarney, blond, beautiful and over a century old, starts going to her high school, she can't say that it is a pleasure. But her best friend Cathy begs to differ. Mel's just got to make her see the error of her ways.
As if saving her best friend from the lukewarm embrace of the undead isn't enough for Mel to deal with, there's also another friend with a secret, a grumpy vampire cop with suspicions, and a boy raised by vampires who thinks life works by the rules of TV…'
It is not as cool as some of the other things (some of the other things are so cool!) but... it is there... if people want...
Also The Demon's Lexicon and The Demon's Covenant have covers in Germany!
And voila, here they are! I hope you like them, and I hope Germany likes them. They are fun covers for guessing who people are meant to be, and also atmospherical!
I am again in the grip of Thinking A Lot About Covers, because My Lovely Editor of Unspoken has told me that the final cover is in! My genius artist--who, no lie, they let me PICK--sent the original piece of artwork (yes… it's ART… I'm fancy, seriously, this is the fanciest cover ever) to Random House, and it is out being scanned in a giant scanner. I'm not sure how long this will take. I may go Tumblr crazy waiting for it!
So, covers galore, and of course upcoming Gothic and sassy reporter posts. But the thing to remember from this post is magic for Terri!
magick4terri
to benefit Terri Windling, creator of groundbreaking fantasy over the past several decades, ranging from the influential urban fantasy series Bordertown to the online Journal of Mythic Arts. With co-editor Ellen Datlow, she changed the face of contemporary short fiction with The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror. There is also some cool stuff to be had for a reader, or a writer--one of the coolest offered things is lunch with a literary agent in New York. Barry Goldblatt is an awesome agent who could tell you loads about publishing. (He is also a good time, and the food will be good.)
Also... I am offering a thing! A signed set of the Lexicon trilogy, and a signed advance copy of Team Human.
You remember Team Human. A new summary of it, which is by no means official, but... which I wrote recently, goes like this.
'Friends don't let friends date vampires.
You know when your best friend gets involved with a boy, and he's all she talks about, and she's going to change her whole life for him, and you don't even like the guy?
It's even worse for Mel. Her best friend is dating a vampire.
In the city of New Whitby, vampires are an accepted fact of life, and always a draw for the tourists, but Mel didn't think she would ever be getting to know one. When Francis Duvarney, blond, beautiful and over a century old, starts going to her high school, she can't say that it is a pleasure. But her best friend Cathy begs to differ. Mel's just got to make her see the error of her ways.
As if saving her best friend from the lukewarm embrace of the undead isn't enough for Mel to deal with, there's also another friend with a secret, a grumpy vampire cop with suspicions, and a boy raised by vampires who thinks life works by the rules of TV…'
It is not as cool as some of the other things (some of the other things are so cool!) but... it is there... if people want...
Also The Demon's Lexicon and The Demon's Covenant have covers in Germany!
And voila, here they are! I hope you like them, and I hope Germany likes them. They are fun covers for guessing who people are meant to be, and also atmospherical!
I am again in the grip of Thinking A Lot About Covers, because My Lovely Editor of Unspoken has told me that the final cover is in! My genius artist--who, no lie, they let me PICK--sent the original piece of artwork (yes… it's ART… I'm fancy, seriously, this is the fanciest cover ever) to Random House, and it is out being scanned in a giant scanner. I'm not sure how long this will take. I may go Tumblr crazy waiting for it!
So, covers galore, and of course upcoming Gothic and sassy reporter posts. But the thing to remember from this post is magic for Terri!
December 7, 2011
Well, I'm Back
One of the great joys of being a writer and someone who teaches mostly online is that I can travel a lot. This is not because I am rich and glamorous, but because I'm lucky--I am single, pet-less and have a portable job: the boss man is not going to fire me for not turning up to work, because I always turn up to work wherever I am.
Indeed sometimes I must travel to work. Last month I went on a trip, starting in Charleston, at the YAll Book Fest, where I may have seen some of you! I was appointed a judge (a bad mistake) and a panel moderator (a worse mistake), met some lovely people and ate some truly delicious pie.
I also went on a tour of the Scandalous Houses of Charleston, and learned that roses in wrought iron signify a Scandalous House. I've been giving the side-eye to a lot of gates since then.
I visited my friends Holly and Theo Black. There is a white cat at Chez Black with one blue eye and one green eye. So she looks just like me, except considerably tinier and considerably fluffier.
SARAH: I love me some Layla. And why is that, Layla?
HOLLY: We did not get the cat because she looks like you, Sarah.
SARAH: Because we're both Gracelings. Isn't that right, Layla? What's your Grace, sweetie? What's your Grace?
'Graceling' is a deeply nerdy reference to Kristin Cashore's novel of the same name, in which people with two different colour eyes all have special magic powers. I think my Grace is tea-drinking.
Theo and Holly Black also extremely kindly hosted me for a Proper American Thanksgiving, which took me rather by surprise as I had entirely forgotten when that holiday was or that it existed. Americans, it is all go with them! Hallowe'en, Thanksgiving, Christmas, no pause to rest until January!
SARAH: Holly, I am ready for a traditional Thanksgiving, but--is it going to be super traditional? Because I don't know the ceremony for giving thanks.
HOLLY: ...
Apparently, ladies and gentlemen, there is no ceremony of giving thanks.
Then I went to a writing retreat in Arizona, organised by Kelley Armstrong and Melissa Marr, and attended by many awesome writer types. And for some reason, me. It was extremely fancy. Kelley Armstrong is one of those writers that I am still kind of awed by: both because I love her books, and because I read Bitten when I was a teenager, and the idea of a writer was still a mystical distant figure.
This means I sometimes spend my Writing Quiet Time peeping at Kelley Armstrong over my computer. If she sees me looking, I mouth 'HEY KELLEY HEY.' She accepts this gracefully.
I never peep at her computer when she isn't looking. Or, I haven't been caught yet.
I was rooming with the lovely Jeri Smith-Ready, and on the last day we made a terrible discovery.
SARAH: Oh no I didn't make my bed! What you must think of me!
JERI: Oh, I've only been making my bed because you always do.
SARAH: But I NEVER do.
JERI: But on that first night...
SARAH: I got up early and took my blankie WITH ME.
JERI: It looked made to me...
SARAH: Oh Jeri. We've been such fools. How could we have been so blind to what we both wanted?
Then we fell into each other's arms and promised never, never to make our beds again.
There was also much talk of books, of course, in which everyone else discussed books with wise words and much insight, and I acted out romance novels and maybe pretended to make out with and/or pretended to kill several ladies. I don't know why anyone ever invites me to anything.
I had a good time, though. When Rosemary Clement-Moore told me that her novel The Splendor Falls was a Gothic novel with a Welsh hero, I became so overwhelmed with joy that I threw myself into the swimming pool.
ROSEMARY: Is she... dead?
CARRIE RYAN: I think she's OK. She's still holding her glass above the surface of the water.
It's possible that my Grace is in fact trailing disaster wherever I go.
SARAH: Oh I will light the fire outside, no problem. Hand me that fancy firelighting stick.
AUTHORS EN MASSE: HER HAIR'S ON FIRE!!!
SARAH: So it was! Oh well, only a few more split ends.
BETH REVIS: I thought I'd seen hair on fire before. Like, a little smoke, a little spark. But there were actual FLAMES. In your actual HAIR.
SARAH: Mmm toasty fire.
AUTHORS EN MASSE: DON'T GET SO CLOSE TO THE FIRE!!!
What is new since I've been gone? Well, I have a tumblr now! Finally the lure of expressing myself with ridiculous pictures grew too strong. Check it out!
Among my more notable tumblr posts so far: on dealing with critics, and on Twilight.
For indeed I did see Breaking Dawn: Part I while I was away, and had a fun time except for at a certain psychological moment, when Cassandra Clare offered me a cherry slushie and I turned a whiter shade of pale. We discussed it a lot afterward, the idea of protecting women from 'dangerous ideas', which inspired me to make my post and inspired Holly Black to make a much better one.
Sarah Monette wrote a post called How To Help An Author's Career (if one feels so inclined, which nobody has to feel!) It made me wince remembering how I'd feel when people said they were waiting until the end of my series! So I thought I'd link.
I'm very honoured to see The Demon's Surrender on this list: yay for gay in YA.
People have been saying they don't have a Team Human summary, so here is one from the back of the Advance Reader's Copy: When a vampire shows up at Mel's high school, it's up to Mel to keep her best friend from falling in love with him. Add a mysterious disappearance, a cranky vampire cop, a number of unlikely romantic entanglements, and the occasional zombie, and soon Mel is hip-deep in an adventure that is equal parts hilarious and poignant.
Annnd, Unspoken has a release date: the 25th of September, 2012. Four days after my birthday! Two months after Team Human comes out! Next year will be quite a year.
It also may finally have a cover, after a lot of... adventures.
EXCELLENT EDITOR MALLORY: Thank goodness, after all that drama.
SARAH: Oh Holly, I caused drama.
HOLLY: You didn't cause drama. Er, well, in this specific case, you didn't. Remember how... all that stuff... happened?
SARAH: How could I forget?
I'll tell you all another time, and I hope to show you the cover soon! If you feel inclined to ask me questions and receive replies with pictures, pray do so! Or of course you can just talk to me here. ;)
For now, I am back home. It's chilly in Dublin in December. I wonder if I should light a fire...
Indeed sometimes I must travel to work. Last month I went on a trip, starting in Charleston, at the YAll Book Fest, where I may have seen some of you! I was appointed a judge (a bad mistake) and a panel moderator (a worse mistake), met some lovely people and ate some truly delicious pie.
I also went on a tour of the Scandalous Houses of Charleston, and learned that roses in wrought iron signify a Scandalous House. I've been giving the side-eye to a lot of gates since then.
I visited my friends Holly and Theo Black. There is a white cat at Chez Black with one blue eye and one green eye. So she looks just like me, except considerably tinier and considerably fluffier.
SARAH: I love me some Layla. And why is that, Layla?
HOLLY: We did not get the cat because she looks like you, Sarah.
SARAH: Because we're both Gracelings. Isn't that right, Layla? What's your Grace, sweetie? What's your Grace?
'Graceling' is a deeply nerdy reference to Kristin Cashore's novel of the same name, in which people with two different colour eyes all have special magic powers. I think my Grace is tea-drinking.
Theo and Holly Black also extremely kindly hosted me for a Proper American Thanksgiving, which took me rather by surprise as I had entirely forgotten when that holiday was or that it existed. Americans, it is all go with them! Hallowe'en, Thanksgiving, Christmas, no pause to rest until January!
SARAH: Holly, I am ready for a traditional Thanksgiving, but--is it going to be super traditional? Because I don't know the ceremony for giving thanks.
HOLLY: ...
Apparently, ladies and gentlemen, there is no ceremony of giving thanks.
Then I went to a writing retreat in Arizona, organised by Kelley Armstrong and Melissa Marr, and attended by many awesome writer types. And for some reason, me. It was extremely fancy. Kelley Armstrong is one of those writers that I am still kind of awed by: both because I love her books, and because I read Bitten when I was a teenager, and the idea of a writer was still a mystical distant figure.
This means I sometimes spend my Writing Quiet Time peeping at Kelley Armstrong over my computer. If she sees me looking, I mouth 'HEY KELLEY HEY.' She accepts this gracefully.
I never peep at her computer when she isn't looking. Or, I haven't been caught yet.
I was rooming with the lovely Jeri Smith-Ready, and on the last day we made a terrible discovery.
SARAH: Oh no I didn't make my bed! What you must think of me!
JERI: Oh, I've only been making my bed because you always do.
SARAH: But I NEVER do.
JERI: But on that first night...
SARAH: I got up early and took my blankie WITH ME.
JERI: It looked made to me...
SARAH: Oh Jeri. We've been such fools. How could we have been so blind to what we both wanted?
Then we fell into each other's arms and promised never, never to make our beds again.
There was also much talk of books, of course, in which everyone else discussed books with wise words and much insight, and I acted out romance novels and maybe pretended to make out with and/or pretended to kill several ladies. I don't know why anyone ever invites me to anything.
I had a good time, though. When Rosemary Clement-Moore told me that her novel The Splendor Falls was a Gothic novel with a Welsh hero, I became so overwhelmed with joy that I threw myself into the swimming pool.
ROSEMARY: Is she... dead?
CARRIE RYAN: I think she's OK. She's still holding her glass above the surface of the water.
It's possible that my Grace is in fact trailing disaster wherever I go.
SARAH: Oh I will light the fire outside, no problem. Hand me that fancy firelighting stick.
AUTHORS EN MASSE: HER HAIR'S ON FIRE!!!
SARAH: So it was! Oh well, only a few more split ends.
BETH REVIS: I thought I'd seen hair on fire before. Like, a little smoke, a little spark. But there were actual FLAMES. In your actual HAIR.
SARAH: Mmm toasty fire.
AUTHORS EN MASSE: DON'T GET SO CLOSE TO THE FIRE!!!
What is new since I've been gone? Well, I have a tumblr now! Finally the lure of expressing myself with ridiculous pictures grew too strong. Check it out!
Among my more notable tumblr posts so far: on dealing with critics, and on Twilight.
For indeed I did see Breaking Dawn: Part I while I was away, and had a fun time except for at a certain psychological moment, when Cassandra Clare offered me a cherry slushie and I turned a whiter shade of pale. We discussed it a lot afterward, the idea of protecting women from 'dangerous ideas', which inspired me to make my post and inspired Holly Black to make a much better one.
Sarah Monette wrote a post called How To Help An Author's Career (if one feels so inclined, which nobody has to feel!) It made me wince remembering how I'd feel when people said they were waiting until the end of my series! So I thought I'd link.
I'm very honoured to see The Demon's Surrender on this list: yay for gay in YA.
People have been saying they don't have a Team Human summary, so here is one from the back of the Advance Reader's Copy: When a vampire shows up at Mel's high school, it's up to Mel to keep her best friend from falling in love with him. Add a mysterious disappearance, a cranky vampire cop, a number of unlikely romantic entanglements, and the occasional zombie, and soon Mel is hip-deep in an adventure that is equal parts hilarious and poignant.
Annnd, Unspoken has a release date: the 25th of September, 2012. Four days after my birthday! Two months after Team Human comes out! Next year will be quite a year.
It also may finally have a cover, after a lot of... adventures.
EXCELLENT EDITOR MALLORY: Thank goodness, after all that drama.
SARAH: Oh Holly, I caused drama.
HOLLY: You didn't cause drama. Er, well, in this specific case, you didn't. Remember how... all that stuff... happened?
SARAH: How could I forget?
I'll tell you all another time, and I hope to show you the cover soon! If you feel inclined to ask me questions and receive replies with pictures, pray do so! Or of course you can just talk to me here. ;)
For now, I am back home. It's chilly in Dublin in December. I wonder if I should light a fire...
November 16, 2011
Ain't No Other Manor But You
HEROINE OF REBECCA: Last night I dreamt of Manderley again... and it was looking fine.
HEROINE: I remember when I was twenty-one and hanging out in Monte Carlo eating dinner with Mrs Van Hopper, when a dude walked in the joint...
MRS VAN HOPPER: That's Max de Winter. Darling, I hear he has an absolutely huge... estate, if you know what I mean.
HEROINE: I assume you mean he has a really big gorgeous house called Manderley and amazingly large grounds.
MRS VAN HOPPER: Exactly!
HEROINE: Oh hi Mr de Winter! I'm young enough to be your daughter, and should maybe mention that I am an orphan, totally vulnerable and alone in the world!
MAX: I like you. Let me tell you about my vast... tracts of land.
MAX: You want to come live in Manderley?
HEROINE: Is this a proposal of marriage, sir?
MAX: ... Don't all proposals centre on a discussion of property?
HEROINE: Hot.
HEROINE: So Max de Winter and I are getting married.
MRS VAN HOPPER: What on earth have you been getting up to with Max de Winter, that you're getting married after like a week?
HEROINE: Oh, you know. Riding around in his car. Listening to him talk for a long time, in really loving detail, about his house.
MRS VAN HOPPER: ... Saucy minx.
MAX: Darling, do you like Manderley?
HEROINE: I love it! Though I also find it a bit intimidating, because it is so, so big.
MAX: You're young and inexperienced! Of course you're a bit overwhelmed! That's natural. Also, heh heh, it is bigger than other dudes' houses.
HEROINE: Also something a bit sinister and mysterious about it. Maybe the fact the driveway is lined with walls of blood-red flowers or the fact the housekeeper looks like a vampire!
MAX: Don't be ridiculous, sweetie. Just brace yourself.
MRS DANVERS: I do not drink... wine. And I do not like anybody to be called Mrs de Winter except Rebecca, Max's dead wife.
HEROINE: ... I'm sure we'll get on like a house on fire.
MRS DANVERS: Rebecca was totally in charge of Manderley. She set up all the furniture. She threw the best parties. Nobody is ever going to be Manderley's mistress but Rebecca.
HEROINE: I'm sure she was super hot, but maybe Manderley can come to love again. Do you think that vase of lilac would look better over there?
MRS DANVERS: Rebecca likes it where it is.
HEROINE: Yeah, but Rebecca's... dead, so maybe we could move the ornaments about a bit...
MRS DANVERS: I will cut you.
HEROINE: Ten-four. Vase looks great as-is!
HEROINE: Dumpling, can we maybe talk a bit about Rebecca?
MAX: Why would we talk about her? What do you know? I'M INNOCENT, I TELL YOU! STOP IT WITH YOUR MAD INTERROGATION!
HEROINE: ... Whoa. Something's suddenly become super obvious.
HEROINE: .... I guess he's still totally in love with Rebecca.
HEROINE: You wanna go for a walk on the beach and look at the cute cottage there, honey?
MAX: Never visit that scene of HIDEOUS CRIME ever again!
HEROINE: I don't understand, baby.
MAX: Uh. I mean, don't go there. It has, like, dry rot.
MAX: Sweetie, meet Frank, my agent, and my sister Beatrice.
BEATRICE: You look nothing like Rebecca! Awesome, I was afraid you'd be a husband-stealing tramp.
FRANK: Totally nothing like Rebecca! What a relief.
HEROINE: ... I wonder if I can find out what colour lipstick Rebecca bought, and buy it in bulk.
MRS DANVERS: How about you dress in a Rebecca costume for your fancy dress ball, and sweep down the stairs of Manderley like you own the place.
HEROINE: I do own the pl-
MRS DANVERS: Like you own the place and you're totally hot.
HEROINE: Challenge accepted.
MAX: Oh God, it is the ghost of Rebecca come back to haunt me for my awful crime! Back, fiend! Back from the hell whence you came! I shall swoon!
HEROINE: ... Max, man. He just truly hates practical jokes.
MRS DANVERS: Oh hi do you want to see Rebecca's bedroom? I enjoy coming in, and touching all her things, and lying on her bed and smelling her dressing gown!
HEROINE: That sounds super fun, but I think I left the iron on.
MRS DANVERS: PS Max was craaaaaaaaazy in love with Rebecca.
HEROINE: Yeah, it sure seems like.... Max was crazy in love with her. Yep. Totally Max.
MRS DANVERS: Why don't you leave Manderley to her? Why don't you go?
HEROINE: Uh, heh heh, Mrs Danvers, I'd be delighted to go, but I think you have mistaken this window for a door...
JUSTICE OF THE PEACE: Uh, Max, we found a body in a scuttled boat at the bottom of the bay? Look, I don't want to upset the ladies, but it sure does look like you urdered-may your ife-way.
HEROINE: Uh, Mr Justice, I know I met Max in Monte Carlo, but I don't speak French.
MAX: Okay, I'm just going to spit it out. I totally killed Rebecca.
HEROINE: Don't understand what you mean by that...
MAX: Shot her, scrubbed out the bloodstain, dumped the body.
HEROINE: Max, you mysterious man of mystery, quit talking in code! By 'killed' do you mean 'really, really super loved, definitely more than you love me?'
MAX: No. I was totally not into her.
HEROINE: So in conclusion, you murdered your previous wife, you are a killer, you married a super young helpless chick, and basically this is a Bluebeard and his castle situation.
MAX: Now you've got it.
HEROINE: Baby! This is great news! Why didn't you tell me sooner?
MAX: ... Because I really did not think you would take it this well?
MAX: You see, Rebecca was a drug addict. And a sex addict. And she invited, like, really reprehensible friends to Manderley. One of them peed in the courtyard fountain.
HEROINE: ... You did the right thing, Max.
MAX: Also she told me she was up the duff with someone else's kid, and I was not going to let Manderley go out of the family.
HEROINE: That fiend! Of course you had to kill her. I completely understand. It was for Manderley!
MAX: Wanna know something, babe? You complete me.
HEROINE: The news that my husband is a stone-cold killer has been really empowering for me! Mrs Danvers, I don't want cold meat for lunch, I want it hot!
JUSTICE OF THE PEACE: Looks like Rebecca committed suicide, yo.
MAX: Whoo I'm getting away with murder! I mean literally getting away with literal murder! Yes! ... Why do you say that?
JUSTICE OF THE PEACE: Oh, when Rebecca said she was pregnant with someone else's kid, what she meant was 'had the cancer.' That Rebecca, am I right?
MAX: .... I truly hate practical jokes.
HEROINE: Why'd you stop the car, Max?
MAX: Manderley is smokin'.
HEROINE: So everything's as usual, then?
MAX: No, I mean, smoking as in... actually on fire.
MRS DANVERS: Lunch hot enough for you? Mwhahahahahaha!
HEROINE: .... In retrospect, sandwiches would have been fine.
HEROINE: So Max got away with murder, and we were totally in love, but none of it mattered, because without Manderley our lives were meaningless and we were dead inside!
READERS: This was not exactly the romance we signed up for...
Gothic books are often referred to as 'girl meets house.' House is intimidatingly tall, dark and sinister but madly attractive. Girl is scared of house! Maybe trapped in house! I mean, girls could and did feel really trapped in their own homes, way back when, whether it was in the kitchen or in the attic with the yellow wallpaper. But girls were also supposed to be at their most powerful in the house... if they could remove the lurking threat, they could be happy there, and secure both in the financial sense and in the not-getting-murdered-to-death sense. A house, a dude, the whole package.
Girls aren't trapped in houses the same way anymore. But kids are: your parents want to move you to a sinister manor, your new address is No 1, Weird Stuff Going Down Here Lane.
But the manor in Gothic novels is beautiful as well as terrifying: fascinating, full of secrets and shadows as it is. The house is a character in a Gothic novel, and I went around a lot of English manors trying to get Aurimere in Unspoken just right: part of the reason I set the book in the Cotswolds is because there they build with stone like gold.
Part of the reason I picked Rebecca to talk about the Girl Meets House, I mean Gothic genre, dear readers, in this case art was imitating life. The author of Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier, was nineteen when she fell in love.
DAPHNE'S DIARY: (ACTUAL QUOTE) I remembered a line from a forgotten book, where a lover looks for the first time upon his chosen one—"I for this, and this for me."
After loving from afar for years, Daphne du Maurier was at last able to be with her true love. She rented it for twenty-five years.
The kids grow up so fast, don't they, honey?
ACTUAL OWNER OF MENABILLY: I was thinking I might like to live in my house.
DAPHNE: This is an outrage! You are breaking my heart!
ACTUAL OWNER: Lady, this is a house. Maybe be more chill.
Daphne du Maurier was not a lady who was going to be more chill. She took action! She just rented the house the next moor over.
I imagine the next years went a lot like this...
CHILDREN OF MENABILLY: Dad, there's a weird lady outside...
OWNER OF MENABILLY: Pay no attention, kids, that's just Mrs du Maurier.
CHILDREN OF MENABILLY: ... But Dad, she's like... licking the windows.
OWNER OF MENABILLY: Nobody's neighbours are perfect. Reginald! Please draw the curtains.
HEROINE: I remember when I was twenty-one and hanging out in Monte Carlo eating dinner with Mrs Van Hopper, when a dude walked in the joint...
MRS VAN HOPPER: That's Max de Winter. Darling, I hear he has an absolutely huge... estate, if you know what I mean.
HEROINE: I assume you mean he has a really big gorgeous house called Manderley and amazingly large grounds.
MRS VAN HOPPER: Exactly!
HEROINE: Oh hi Mr de Winter! I'm young enough to be your daughter, and should maybe mention that I am an orphan, totally vulnerable and alone in the world!
MAX: I like you. Let me tell you about my vast... tracts of land.
MAX: You want to come live in Manderley?
HEROINE: Is this a proposal of marriage, sir?
MAX: ... Don't all proposals centre on a discussion of property?
HEROINE: Hot.
HEROINE: So Max de Winter and I are getting married.
MRS VAN HOPPER: What on earth have you been getting up to with Max de Winter, that you're getting married after like a week?
HEROINE: Oh, you know. Riding around in his car. Listening to him talk for a long time, in really loving detail, about his house.
MRS VAN HOPPER: ... Saucy minx.
MAX: Darling, do you like Manderley?
HEROINE: I love it! Though I also find it a bit intimidating, because it is so, so big.
MAX: You're young and inexperienced! Of course you're a bit overwhelmed! That's natural. Also, heh heh, it is bigger than other dudes' houses.
HEROINE: Also something a bit sinister and mysterious about it. Maybe the fact the driveway is lined with walls of blood-red flowers or the fact the housekeeper looks like a vampire!
MAX: Don't be ridiculous, sweetie. Just brace yourself.
MRS DANVERS: I do not drink... wine. And I do not like anybody to be called Mrs de Winter except Rebecca, Max's dead wife.
HEROINE: ... I'm sure we'll get on like a house on fire.
MRS DANVERS: Rebecca was totally in charge of Manderley. She set up all the furniture. She threw the best parties. Nobody is ever going to be Manderley's mistress but Rebecca.
HEROINE: I'm sure she was super hot, but maybe Manderley can come to love again. Do you think that vase of lilac would look better over there?
MRS DANVERS: Rebecca likes it where it is.
HEROINE: Yeah, but Rebecca's... dead, so maybe we could move the ornaments about a bit...
MRS DANVERS: I will cut you.
HEROINE: Ten-four. Vase looks great as-is!
HEROINE: Dumpling, can we maybe talk a bit about Rebecca?
MAX: Why would we talk about her? What do you know? I'M INNOCENT, I TELL YOU! STOP IT WITH YOUR MAD INTERROGATION!
HEROINE: ... Whoa. Something's suddenly become super obvious.
HEROINE: .... I guess he's still totally in love with Rebecca.
HEROINE: You wanna go for a walk on the beach and look at the cute cottage there, honey?
MAX: Never visit that scene of HIDEOUS CRIME ever again!
HEROINE: I don't understand, baby.
MAX: Uh. I mean, don't go there. It has, like, dry rot.
MAX: Sweetie, meet Frank, my agent, and my sister Beatrice.
BEATRICE: You look nothing like Rebecca! Awesome, I was afraid you'd be a husband-stealing tramp.
FRANK: Totally nothing like Rebecca! What a relief.
HEROINE: ... I wonder if I can find out what colour lipstick Rebecca bought, and buy it in bulk.
MRS DANVERS: How about you dress in a Rebecca costume for your fancy dress ball, and sweep down the stairs of Manderley like you own the place.
HEROINE: I do own the pl-
MRS DANVERS: Like you own the place and you're totally hot.
HEROINE: Challenge accepted.
MAX: Oh God, it is the ghost of Rebecca come back to haunt me for my awful crime! Back, fiend! Back from the hell whence you came! I shall swoon!
HEROINE: ... Max, man. He just truly hates practical jokes.
MRS DANVERS: Oh hi do you want to see Rebecca's bedroom? I enjoy coming in, and touching all her things, and lying on her bed and smelling her dressing gown!
HEROINE: That sounds super fun, but I think I left the iron on.
MRS DANVERS: PS Max was craaaaaaaaazy in love with Rebecca.
HEROINE: Yeah, it sure seems like.... Max was crazy in love with her. Yep. Totally Max.
MRS DANVERS: Why don't you leave Manderley to her? Why don't you go?
HEROINE: Uh, heh heh, Mrs Danvers, I'd be delighted to go, but I think you have mistaken this window for a door...
JUSTICE OF THE PEACE: Uh, Max, we found a body in a scuttled boat at the bottom of the bay? Look, I don't want to upset the ladies, but it sure does look like you urdered-may your ife-way.
HEROINE: Uh, Mr Justice, I know I met Max in Monte Carlo, but I don't speak French.
MAX: Okay, I'm just going to spit it out. I totally killed Rebecca.
HEROINE: Don't understand what you mean by that...
MAX: Shot her, scrubbed out the bloodstain, dumped the body.
HEROINE: Max, you mysterious man of mystery, quit talking in code! By 'killed' do you mean 'really, really super loved, definitely more than you love me?'
MAX: No. I was totally not into her.
HEROINE: So in conclusion, you murdered your previous wife, you are a killer, you married a super young helpless chick, and basically this is a Bluebeard and his castle situation.
MAX: Now you've got it.
HEROINE: Baby! This is great news! Why didn't you tell me sooner?
MAX: ... Because I really did not think you would take it this well?
MAX: You see, Rebecca was a drug addict. And a sex addict. And she invited, like, really reprehensible friends to Manderley. One of them peed in the courtyard fountain.
HEROINE: ... You did the right thing, Max.
MAX: Also she told me she was up the duff with someone else's kid, and I was not going to let Manderley go out of the family.
HEROINE: That fiend! Of course you had to kill her. I completely understand. It was for Manderley!
MAX: Wanna know something, babe? You complete me.
HEROINE: The news that my husband is a stone-cold killer has been really empowering for me! Mrs Danvers, I don't want cold meat for lunch, I want it hot!
JUSTICE OF THE PEACE: Looks like Rebecca committed suicide, yo.
MAX: Whoo I'm getting away with murder! I mean literally getting away with literal murder! Yes! ... Why do you say that?
JUSTICE OF THE PEACE: Oh, when Rebecca said she was pregnant with someone else's kid, what she meant was 'had the cancer.' That Rebecca, am I right?
MAX: .... I truly hate practical jokes.
HEROINE: Why'd you stop the car, Max?
MAX: Manderley is smokin'.
HEROINE: So everything's as usual, then?
MAX: No, I mean, smoking as in... actually on fire.
MRS DANVERS: Lunch hot enough for you? Mwhahahahahaha!
HEROINE: .... In retrospect, sandwiches would have been fine.
HEROINE: So Max got away with murder, and we were totally in love, but none of it mattered, because without Manderley our lives were meaningless and we were dead inside!
READERS: This was not exactly the romance we signed up for...
Gothic books are often referred to as 'girl meets house.' House is intimidatingly tall, dark and sinister but madly attractive. Girl is scared of house! Maybe trapped in house! I mean, girls could and did feel really trapped in their own homes, way back when, whether it was in the kitchen or in the attic with the yellow wallpaper. But girls were also supposed to be at their most powerful in the house... if they could remove the lurking threat, they could be happy there, and secure both in the financial sense and in the not-getting-murdered-to-death sense. A house, a dude, the whole package.
Girls aren't trapped in houses the same way anymore. But kids are: your parents want to move you to a sinister manor, your new address is No 1, Weird Stuff Going Down Here Lane.
But the manor in Gothic novels is beautiful as well as terrifying: fascinating, full of secrets and shadows as it is. The house is a character in a Gothic novel, and I went around a lot of English manors trying to get Aurimere in Unspoken just right: part of the reason I set the book in the Cotswolds is because there they build with stone like gold.
Part of the reason I picked Rebecca to talk about the Girl Meets House, I mean Gothic genre, dear readers, in this case art was imitating life. The author of Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier, was nineteen when she fell in love.
DAPHNE'S DIARY: (ACTUAL QUOTE) I remembered a line from a forgotten book, where a lover looks for the first time upon his chosen one—"I for this, and this for me."
After loving from afar for years, Daphne du Maurier was at last able to be with her true love. She rented it for twenty-five years.
The kids grow up so fast, don't they, honey?
ACTUAL OWNER OF MENABILLY: I was thinking I might like to live in my house.
DAPHNE: This is an outrage! You are breaking my heart!
ACTUAL OWNER: Lady, this is a house. Maybe be more chill.
Daphne du Maurier was not a lady who was going to be more chill. She took action! She just rented the house the next moor over.
I imagine the next years went a lot like this...
CHILDREN OF MENABILLY: Dad, there's a weird lady outside...
OWNER OF MENABILLY: Pay no attention, kids, that's just Mrs du Maurier.
CHILDREN OF MENABILLY: ... But Dad, she's like... licking the windows.
OWNER OF MENABILLY: Nobody's neighbours are perfect. Reginald! Please draw the curtains.
November 7, 2011
What Is She Getting Up To These Days?
This is just a post full of... STUFF. I have many things to tell and show you guys!
One such thing: the Charleston Young Adult Book Festival this weekend. I am going to it! I am very excited, you guys. It's Rhett Butler's home town, and I get to hang with people and talk about books. I do an interview for the festival here, in which I claim 'when I was a teenager, it was all demons, demons, demons.'
I have two panels on the Saturday.
Saturday, November 12
American Theater
446 King St.
Charleston, SC 29403
http://yallfest.org/
Noon DEMONS, WITCHES & CASTERS OH MY! • Ballroom
Sarah Rees Brennan (The Demon's Lexicon)
Caitlin Kittredge (The Iron Thorn)
Victoria Schwab (The Near Witch)
Kami Garcia (Beautiful Creatures)
Moderator: Kim Derting (The Pledge)
DON'T DIS-TOPIAN • Cinema, 4 pm
Beth Revis (Across the Universe)
Kim Derting (The Pledge)
Diana Peterfreund (Rampant)
Eliot Schrefer (School for Dangerous Girls)
Moderator: Sarah Rees Brennan (The Demon's Lexicon)
6 pm YA SMACKDOWN • Ballroom • $5•
All 26 writers on stage at once for YA games!
Presented by Chas. County Public Library YA Services
MCs: Kaleb Nation and Sarah Rees Brennan
The first panel may be a problem for me: I like demons and magic users. I may end up viciously attacking my own arguments, like a dog chewing its own tail. The second panel, well, I totally know how to talk about dystopias: other people make cogent arguments about society and oil resources and war, and I say 'Have you ever considered that Where The Wild Things Are is a dystopia? Max does not seem to me fit for the position of King of All Wild Things. Just sayin'.'
I assume I get to moderate the dystopia panel because I have a story in the YA dystopia anthology After, edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling (fancy people!) with many other fancy people in it. Behold!
After
Introduction
The Segment by Genevieve Valentine
After the Cure by Carrie Ryan
Valedictorian by N.K. Jemisin
Visiting Nelson by Katherine Langrish
All I Know of Freedom by Carol Emshwiller
The Other Elder by Beth Revis
The Great Game at the End of the World by Matthew Kressel
Reunion by Susan Beth Pfeffer
Faint Heart by Sarah Rees Brennan
Blood Drive by Jeffrey Ford
Reality Girl by Richard Bowes
Hw th'Irth Wint Wrong by Hapless Joey @ homeskool.guv by Gregory Maguire
Rust With Wings by Steven Gould
The Easthound by Nalo Hopkinson
Gray by Jane Yolen
Before by Carolyn Dunn
Fake Plastic Trees by Caitlin R. Kiernan
You Won't Feel a Thing by Garth Nix
The Marker by Cecil Castellucci
I am not sure how that happened: I am definitely not cool enough to be on that list. But I'm very pleased. My story Faint Heart was based on an idea I've talked about before - a future world where the social rules are like the court of Eleanor of Aquitaine. Courtly love, and chivalry, and clones. But forget about me: did you see who else is in the anthology? My gracious. It's out next year. Next year is a big year for me!
This year was big too: the year I finished my Lexicon series! For all those wanting a Lexicony taste, here are some deleted scenes from Demon's Surrender. Warning: spoilers, and unexpected people kissing!
Speaking of next year being a big year, if you happen to be in Charleston this weekend, there will be signings after every panel. As well as signing any books, I will have Team Human stickers to give out! Should you happen to want a sticker that says 'Friends don't let friends date vampires.' AWESOME ADVICE!
July 3rd 2012 is the official release date for Team Human in the US, and it is now up on amazon. It feels all real!
I will also have booklets of the first three chapters of Unspoken with me, free to good homes.
And Unspoken, as well as coming out in the US from Random House, is coming out in Czech from Levne knihy, and in the UK, Ireland and Australia from Simon & Schuster UK, who already published (and beautifully covered!) the Demon's Lexicon series. I'm really happy, as my UK editor Venetia Gosling (doesn't she have the best name?) is the first person I ever pitched Unspoken to.
SARAH: Whenever I see people with a psychic bond I just can't help but wonder how that's meant to uncomplicate a relationship.
VENETIA: Well, reading someone's mind is meant to be a sign of connection--of love.
SARAH: And you would love them. And hate them. You'd be all mixed up about them you'd hardly know. Not having even the slightest veil over all your secrets would be so strange. I mean, just think about what you'd feel like if you came downstairs in the morning and your husband thought something unflattering about your outfit.
VENETIA: What might he think about my outfit...?
SARAH: Somebody has to write a book about how strange, and co-dependent, and addictive, and tangled and terrible it would be, to have that kind of bond.
VENETIA: But let's get back to the issue of my outfit.
SARAH: You see how it's already tearing us apart.
But nothing could tear me and Simon & Schuster UK apart! I love their Lexicon covers--I'm so excited for my Unspoken cover. (Whether I will have different covers in different countries: yet to be seen!) But lovely that I will have a book out next year on Irish and English shelves, so my family won't think I'm fibbing about this 'being a writer' lark.
My friend and awesome author lady Saundra Mitchell made me a beautiful book trailer for Unspoken which made me clap softly to myself. I cannot wait for people to read it!
Isn't it lovely?
One such thing: the Charleston Young Adult Book Festival this weekend. I am going to it! I am very excited, you guys. It's Rhett Butler's home town, and I get to hang with people and talk about books. I do an interview for the festival here, in which I claim 'when I was a teenager, it was all demons, demons, demons.'
I have two panels on the Saturday.
Saturday, November 12
American Theater
446 King St.
Charleston, SC 29403
http://yallfest.org/
Noon DEMONS, WITCHES & CASTERS OH MY! • Ballroom
Sarah Rees Brennan (The Demon's Lexicon)
Caitlin Kittredge (The Iron Thorn)
Victoria Schwab (The Near Witch)
Kami Garcia (Beautiful Creatures)
Moderator: Kim Derting (The Pledge)
DON'T DIS-TOPIAN • Cinema, 4 pm
Beth Revis (Across the Universe)
Kim Derting (The Pledge)
Diana Peterfreund (Rampant)
Eliot Schrefer (School for Dangerous Girls)
Moderator: Sarah Rees Brennan (The Demon's Lexicon)
6 pm YA SMACKDOWN • Ballroom • $5•
All 26 writers on stage at once for YA games!
Presented by Chas. County Public Library YA Services
MCs: Kaleb Nation and Sarah Rees Brennan
The first panel may be a problem for me: I like demons and magic users. I may end up viciously attacking my own arguments, like a dog chewing its own tail. The second panel, well, I totally know how to talk about dystopias: other people make cogent arguments about society and oil resources and war, and I say 'Have you ever considered that Where The Wild Things Are is a dystopia? Max does not seem to me fit for the position of King of All Wild Things. Just sayin'.'
I assume I get to moderate the dystopia panel because I have a story in the YA dystopia anthology After, edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling (fancy people!) with many other fancy people in it. Behold!
After
Introduction
The Segment by Genevieve Valentine
After the Cure by Carrie Ryan
Valedictorian by N.K. Jemisin
Visiting Nelson by Katherine Langrish
All I Know of Freedom by Carol Emshwiller
The Other Elder by Beth Revis
The Great Game at the End of the World by Matthew Kressel
Reunion by Susan Beth Pfeffer
Faint Heart by Sarah Rees Brennan
Blood Drive by Jeffrey Ford
Reality Girl by Richard Bowes
Hw th'Irth Wint Wrong by Hapless Joey @ homeskool.guv by Gregory Maguire
Rust With Wings by Steven Gould
The Easthound by Nalo Hopkinson
Gray by Jane Yolen
Before by Carolyn Dunn
Fake Plastic Trees by Caitlin R. Kiernan
You Won't Feel a Thing by Garth Nix
The Marker by Cecil Castellucci
I am not sure how that happened: I am definitely not cool enough to be on that list. But I'm very pleased. My story Faint Heart was based on an idea I've talked about before - a future world where the social rules are like the court of Eleanor of Aquitaine. Courtly love, and chivalry, and clones. But forget about me: did you see who else is in the anthology? My gracious. It's out next year. Next year is a big year for me!
This year was big too: the year I finished my Lexicon series! For all those wanting a Lexicony taste, here are some deleted scenes from Demon's Surrender. Warning: spoilers, and unexpected people kissing!
Speaking of next year being a big year, if you happen to be in Charleston this weekend, there will be signings after every panel. As well as signing any books, I will have Team Human stickers to give out! Should you happen to want a sticker that says 'Friends don't let friends date vampires.' AWESOME ADVICE!
July 3rd 2012 is the official release date for Team Human in the US, and it is now up on amazon. It feels all real!
I will also have booklets of the first three chapters of Unspoken with me, free to good homes.
And Unspoken, as well as coming out in the US from Random House, is coming out in Czech from Levne knihy, and in the UK, Ireland and Australia from Simon & Schuster UK, who already published (and beautifully covered!) the Demon's Lexicon series. I'm really happy, as my UK editor Venetia Gosling (doesn't she have the best name?) is the first person I ever pitched Unspoken to.
SARAH: Whenever I see people with a psychic bond I just can't help but wonder how that's meant to uncomplicate a relationship.
VENETIA: Well, reading someone's mind is meant to be a sign of connection--of love.
SARAH: And you would love them. And hate them. You'd be all mixed up about them you'd hardly know. Not having even the slightest veil over all your secrets would be so strange. I mean, just think about what you'd feel like if you came downstairs in the morning and your husband thought something unflattering about your outfit.
VENETIA: What might he think about my outfit...?
SARAH: Somebody has to write a book about how strange, and co-dependent, and addictive, and tangled and terrible it would be, to have that kind of bond.
VENETIA: But let's get back to the issue of my outfit.
SARAH: You see how it's already tearing us apart.
But nothing could tear me and Simon & Schuster UK apart! I love their Lexicon covers--I'm so excited for my Unspoken cover. (Whether I will have different covers in different countries: yet to be seen!) But lovely that I will have a book out next year on Irish and English shelves, so my family won't think I'm fibbing about this 'being a writer' lark.
My friend and awesome author lady Saundra Mitchell made me a beautiful book trailer for Unspoken which made me clap softly to myself. I cannot wait for people to read it!
Isn't it lovely?
November 3, 2011
Baby's First Sleuth
Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to this our first Sleuth Thursday, which will be happening every month as part of a set with Gothic Tuesdays, up until Unspoken is published.
She was my first reporter.
Lois Lane. I'm sure she was a lot of people's first sassy reporter lady, as Lois Lane has been around since 1938. But I have never been a big comics fan--so many pictures, not enough words! I'm told I missed out on crucial bits of Neil Gaiman's Sandman by skipping the pictures, oh well!
This total lack of comics knowledge has afforded my father, a big comics buff in his day, much amusement.
SARAH: *watches a different Superman take, Smallville*
FATHER: Have Lex Luthor and Superman had their baby yet?
SARAH: *spits out drink*
FATHER: Comics are beautiful art forms!
SARAH: *choking, dying*
FATHER: You enjoy your TV.
The total lack of comics knowledge also meant that when I was about twelve, Teri Hatcher's Lois Lane was a revelation.
I was at an awkward age--mind you, many of my ages were awkward ages--after I had realised that a bowl cut and the ends of my tracksuit bottoms tucked into my socks were perhaps not the look for me, before I started dressing like season one Buffy the Vampire Slayer. (Fifteen years old, nose constantly in a book, wore a dress made entirely of fishnet. Never let it be said that personal dignity influenced any of my decisions!) I don't think I was sure who I was planning to be at twelve, and I didn't think a cheesy TV show I happened on one day was going to help me decide.
But I knew I really liked Lois of Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman a lot. I didn't get that the title was a pun on Lewis and Clark the explorers--dudes, I was twelve and Irish, I had no idea who they were--I just thought Lois came first because she was the most important one. He had super powers, but she was the one in charge.
Lois: Let's get something straight, I did not work my buns off to become an investigative reporter for the Daily Planet just to baby-sit some hack from Nowheresville! And another thing, you are not working with me, you are working for me. I call the shots, I ask the questions.
Clark Kent was cool with it. Why would he not be? And Lois Lane wouldn't have cared if he wasn't. Lois Lane knew what was important--she wanted to tell stories. Not just any stories, but the right stories.
Lois Lane: I'm really glad you're here. But why are you here?
Superman: To help.
Lois Lane: To help. I need a little bit more of a quote than that. Something like, "I have not yet begun to fight," or, "Damn the torpedoes."
When she had adventures, she wasn't In the Wrong Place At The Wrong Time (But Thankfully Wearing the Right Fetching Nightgown). She meant to be there, doing her job--she was walking into adventures with both eyes open, ahead of anyone else.
Lois: Excuse me, Lois Lane here. Remember me? Award-winning investigative reporter, emphasis on investigative, specializing in covert break-ins.
She thought she was awesome, and it was okay for her to think that. Other people thought so too. It was kind of a well-known fact.
Superman: You know what's great about you?
Lois: Sure, but you could repeat it.
Lois Lane refused to be put in a box!
Lois Lane: Why do men always assume that women have nail files with them?
Clark Kent: I'm sorry, but do you have a nail file?
Lois Lane: Actually, I do, but only because it's part of my pocket knife.
Her attitude towards boys was pretty excellent.
Dr. Klein: [reading a note from Superman] "Lois, it's too dangerous. Stay put until you hear from me".
Lois: Aw, he always says that. And I never listen.
It didn't matter what she wore (cardigans under giant polkadots! SURE! It was the nineties!)--I thought she was soooooooo pretty.
The show even had an episode where Clark was all 'So, my manly flower has yet to be plucked' and Lois was like 'Soooo. Not the case with me! No indeed. Gosh. Well I respect your decision Clark and you are a super patient person! Me not so much. We cool? Cool!'
The show also had stuff like, uh, amnesia and mysterious flying babies, and Lois had to be rescued a ton, I do not mean to say that it is the most quality television. But in retrospect, Lois Lane may have been responsible for the fact that I thought I wanted to be a reporter for a little while. Even though I know so little about politics, I thought Che Guevara was a goalkeeper.
I loved Lois Lane so much, I watched several seasons of Desperate Housewives. If Lois was in it, I wanted it in my eyes!
I loved Lois Lane so much, I actually did research about her. Not that I read the comics: no to that, put your pictures into words, people! But I watched all the movies, and I read up on Lois Lane and what inspired her: partly the fact that in 1930s films girls were allowed to be 'competent, wise-cracking reporter-sleuths.' (quote from Craig and Cadogan's The Lady Investigates.) It was a job, after all, and a decorous one (lady writing stuff! Indoors! Kind of okay!). But it was an exciting one, too.
Lois Lane was also partly based on a real-life sassy reporter lady called Nellie Bly. Guys, I cannot even tell you about Nellie Bly, but I will attempt.
NELLIE BLY: *writes letter about how a newspaper article is sexist. Nellie is just reporting the facts*
EDITOR OF NEWSPAPER: What amazingly intelligent dude wrote that letter? I should like to hire him to report for this fine paper of news!
NELLIE BLY: I am not a dude! But I am amazingly intelligent.
EDITOR OF NEWSPAPER: Er... the thing is, it's 1884, so...
NELLIE BLY: I command you with the force of my awesomeness to hire me.
EDITOR OF NEWSPAPER: ... yeah, okay.
EDITOR OF NEWSPAPER: You had better report about lady things! Shoes and so forth.
NELLIE BLY: GONE TO MEXICO TO REPORT ON DICTATORSHIP STOP. MY ARREST MAY BE IMMINENT STOP.
EDITOR OF NEWSPAPER: I think I may swoon.
NELLIE BLY: Once again given sucky reporter jobs. Wait... I have a brilliant idea. I am going to pretend to be insane.
NELLIE BLY: You like my crazy faces? I've been practising them in the mirror!
JUDGE: Please tell me your name, unfortunate crazy lady.
NELLIE BLY: I am the walrus. Coo coo cachoo.
DOCTORS: ... Yes, she is definitely crazy.
NELLIE BLY: I'm not crazy, you're all crazy. You're all totally coco bananas. Have I mentioned that I am a banana?
MEDIA: Has anyone noticed something quite important?... This crazy lady is crazy hot.
NELLIE BLY: *sultry crazy face*
MAD-HOUSE: Come on in, crazy lady.
NELLIE BLY: Release from asylum followed by hard-hitting journalism about what it is like on the inside, followed by massive social reform!
JUDGE, DOCTORS, MEDIA AND MAD-HOUSE: ... That went differently in our heads.
NELLIE BLY: You know that book Around the World in Eighty Days? Awesome book. Totally going to go make fiction a REALITY.
EDITOR: Nellie, wait...
NELLIE BLY: MET JULES VERNE IN FRANCE SEEMS SUPER NICE GUY STOP.
EDITOR: Nellie, stop...
NELLIE BLY: IN SINGAPORE STOP. JUST BOUGHT TOTALLY COOL MONKEY STOP.
EDITOR: *swoons and refuses to get up*
Nellie Bly, 1864-1922, epitaph 'COME AT ME BRO.' (Note: probably not Nellie Bly's actual epitaph.) So concludes my awesome history lesson.
The tradition of sleuthin' ladies is almost as old as Gothic mysteries. In fact, there have been a few amateur sleuths in Gothic fiction. (You guys are going to be hearing about Wilkie Collins' The Woman In White, I promise.) But it seemed clear to me, in a Gothic mystery, the lady reporter is who you want. She has a reason to investigate the noise in the attic. She's going to get it done.
I'm really glad twelve year old Sarah found Lois Lane, even though Lois may be to blame for a polka-dot jumper I owned and actually wore outside the house. We will speak no more of that.
Of lady sleuths, there is more to come.
She was my first reporter.
Lois Lane. I'm sure she was a lot of people's first sassy reporter lady, as Lois Lane has been around since 1938. But I have never been a big comics fan--so many pictures, not enough words! I'm told I missed out on crucial bits of Neil Gaiman's Sandman by skipping the pictures, oh well!
This total lack of comics knowledge has afforded my father, a big comics buff in his day, much amusement.
SARAH: *watches a different Superman take, Smallville*
FATHER: Have Lex Luthor and Superman had their baby yet?
SARAH: *spits out drink*
FATHER: Comics are beautiful art forms!
SARAH: *choking, dying*
FATHER: You enjoy your TV.
The total lack of comics knowledge also meant that when I was about twelve, Teri Hatcher's Lois Lane was a revelation.
I was at an awkward age--mind you, many of my ages were awkward ages--after I had realised that a bowl cut and the ends of my tracksuit bottoms tucked into my socks were perhaps not the look for me, before I started dressing like season one Buffy the Vampire Slayer. (Fifteen years old, nose constantly in a book, wore a dress made entirely of fishnet. Never let it be said that personal dignity influenced any of my decisions!) I don't think I was sure who I was planning to be at twelve, and I didn't think a cheesy TV show I happened on one day was going to help me decide.
But I knew I really liked Lois of Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman a lot. I didn't get that the title was a pun on Lewis and Clark the explorers--dudes, I was twelve and Irish, I had no idea who they were--I just thought Lois came first because she was the most important one. He had super powers, but she was the one in charge.
Lois: Let's get something straight, I did not work my buns off to become an investigative reporter for the Daily Planet just to baby-sit some hack from Nowheresville! And another thing, you are not working with me, you are working for me. I call the shots, I ask the questions.
Clark Kent was cool with it. Why would he not be? And Lois Lane wouldn't have cared if he wasn't. Lois Lane knew what was important--she wanted to tell stories. Not just any stories, but the right stories.
Lois Lane: I'm really glad you're here. But why are you here?
Superman: To help.
Lois Lane: To help. I need a little bit more of a quote than that. Something like, "I have not yet begun to fight," or, "Damn the torpedoes."
When she had adventures, she wasn't In the Wrong Place At The Wrong Time (But Thankfully Wearing the Right Fetching Nightgown). She meant to be there, doing her job--she was walking into adventures with both eyes open, ahead of anyone else.
Lois: Excuse me, Lois Lane here. Remember me? Award-winning investigative reporter, emphasis on investigative, specializing in covert break-ins.
She thought she was awesome, and it was okay for her to think that. Other people thought so too. It was kind of a well-known fact.
Superman: You know what's great about you?
Lois: Sure, but you could repeat it.
Lois Lane refused to be put in a box!
Lois Lane: Why do men always assume that women have nail files with them?
Clark Kent: I'm sorry, but do you have a nail file?
Lois Lane: Actually, I do, but only because it's part of my pocket knife.
Her attitude towards boys was pretty excellent.
Dr. Klein: [reading a note from Superman] "Lois, it's too dangerous. Stay put until you hear from me".
Lois: Aw, he always says that. And I never listen.
It didn't matter what she wore (cardigans under giant polkadots! SURE! It was the nineties!)--I thought she was soooooooo pretty.
The show even had an episode where Clark was all 'So, my manly flower has yet to be plucked' and Lois was like 'Soooo. Not the case with me! No indeed. Gosh. Well I respect your decision Clark and you are a super patient person! Me not so much. We cool? Cool!'
The show also had stuff like, uh, amnesia and mysterious flying babies, and Lois had to be rescued a ton, I do not mean to say that it is the most quality television. But in retrospect, Lois Lane may have been responsible for the fact that I thought I wanted to be a reporter for a little while. Even though I know so little about politics, I thought Che Guevara was a goalkeeper.
I loved Lois Lane so much, I watched several seasons of Desperate Housewives. If Lois was in it, I wanted it in my eyes!
I loved Lois Lane so much, I actually did research about her. Not that I read the comics: no to that, put your pictures into words, people! But I watched all the movies, and I read up on Lois Lane and what inspired her: partly the fact that in 1930s films girls were allowed to be 'competent, wise-cracking reporter-sleuths.' (quote from Craig and Cadogan's The Lady Investigates.) It was a job, after all, and a decorous one (lady writing stuff! Indoors! Kind of okay!). But it was an exciting one, too.
Lois Lane was also partly based on a real-life sassy reporter lady called Nellie Bly. Guys, I cannot even tell you about Nellie Bly, but I will attempt.
NELLIE BLY: *writes letter about how a newspaper article is sexist. Nellie is just reporting the facts*
EDITOR OF NEWSPAPER: What amazingly intelligent dude wrote that letter? I should like to hire him to report for this fine paper of news!
NELLIE BLY: I am not a dude! But I am amazingly intelligent.
EDITOR OF NEWSPAPER: Er... the thing is, it's 1884, so...
NELLIE BLY: I command you with the force of my awesomeness to hire me.
EDITOR OF NEWSPAPER: ... yeah, okay.
EDITOR OF NEWSPAPER: You had better report about lady things! Shoes and so forth.
NELLIE BLY: GONE TO MEXICO TO REPORT ON DICTATORSHIP STOP. MY ARREST MAY BE IMMINENT STOP.
EDITOR OF NEWSPAPER: I think I may swoon.
NELLIE BLY: Once again given sucky reporter jobs. Wait... I have a brilliant idea. I am going to pretend to be insane.
NELLIE BLY: You like my crazy faces? I've been practising them in the mirror!
JUDGE: Please tell me your name, unfortunate crazy lady.
NELLIE BLY: I am the walrus. Coo coo cachoo.
DOCTORS: ... Yes, she is definitely crazy.
NELLIE BLY: I'm not crazy, you're all crazy. You're all totally coco bananas. Have I mentioned that I am a banana?
MEDIA: Has anyone noticed something quite important?... This crazy lady is crazy hot.
NELLIE BLY: *sultry crazy face*
MAD-HOUSE: Come on in, crazy lady.
NELLIE BLY: Release from asylum followed by hard-hitting journalism about what it is like on the inside, followed by massive social reform!
JUDGE, DOCTORS, MEDIA AND MAD-HOUSE: ... That went differently in our heads.
NELLIE BLY: You know that book Around the World in Eighty Days? Awesome book. Totally going to go make fiction a REALITY.
EDITOR: Nellie, wait...
NELLIE BLY: MET JULES VERNE IN FRANCE SEEMS SUPER NICE GUY STOP.
EDITOR: Nellie, stop...
NELLIE BLY: IN SINGAPORE STOP. JUST BOUGHT TOTALLY COOL MONKEY STOP.
EDITOR: *swoons and refuses to get up*
Nellie Bly, 1864-1922, epitaph 'COME AT ME BRO.' (Note: probably not Nellie Bly's actual epitaph.) So concludes my awesome history lesson.
The tradition of sleuthin' ladies is almost as old as Gothic mysteries. In fact, there have been a few amateur sleuths in Gothic fiction. (You guys are going to be hearing about Wilkie Collins' The Woman In White, I promise.) But it seemed clear to me, in a Gothic mystery, the lady reporter is who you want. She has a reason to investigate the noise in the attic. She's going to get it done.
I'm really glad twelve year old Sarah found Lois Lane, even though Lois may be to blame for a polka-dot jumper I owned and actually wore outside the house. We will speak no more of that.
Of lady sleuths, there is more to come.
November 2, 2011
Ghosts, Governesses and Cricket
I was told by a lovely lady in an email that she would really like to see some book recommendations, so: my readers' wish is my command! Book recommendations it is.
My new disclaimer: I have met Laini Taylor and Maureen Johnson. I have not met Kendare Blake or Y.S. Lee, and the only way I shall meet P.G. Wodehouse is in another world.
Not only have I met Laini Taylor, but I have used her as a prop. In 2009, I was on tour with Scott Westerfeld, and at a festival in Portland they whisked him off to do fancy things. I was alarmed.
SARAH: But... am I to do stuff in front of people... by myself? I mean, I can! But I like... to have a friend...
PUBLICIST: You're going to do a joint thing with Laini Taylor. She is over there. Her book Lips Touch: Three Times has Goblin Market stuff in it!
SARAH: And her hair! IT IS PINK! Hi--hi new friend! Hi!
LAINI TAYLOR: ... Uh. Hey.
Later I read Lips Touch, and it was very clear to me that everyone had devised a cunning plot to make me look bad by making me go onstage with a genius. However I soldiered on! (Always nice to have someone up there saying the intelligent stuff. Let us face it, it is never me.) It was also very clear that Laini Taylor should give up this 'novellas' business and write a long YA book, just for me.
And she did! (Probably not... just for me.)
Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor
On one of my regular daughterly visits to the family homestead, I brought this book to my mamma. My beloved mamma called me about it later.
MOTHER (devoutly): Oh Sarah. It's so good.
SARAH: I know, right? I knew you'd like it.
MOTHER: I wish you could write like this.
SARAH: Well. Well, me too.
My mother, a straightforward lady! But I knew what she meant: the writing in Daughter of Smoke and Bone is really descriptive and intricate, but clear too, the sentences and the story both beautiful and beautifully intertwining. It's Laini Taylor's writing voice, so different from mine that I don't even know how she does it, I just tilt my head back and admire.
I am not much for an angel romance. It is not the angel books' fault! I always envision that scene in Dogma where Angel Alan Rickman takes down his pants and... well. Anyway. If you haven't seen that movie, I will draw a veil! Suffice it to say that I blame Alan Rickman for the fact I find it hard to take angels seriously as romantic interests. Also, I am pretty firmly Team Demon! The angels are our ancient enemies.
Also, angels should be scary, but in a very particular aloof way, and if there's romance with an angel, it should feel very, very transgressive. Because--ANGELS. Such things are forbidden. I wanted to see both those things in a book: I wanted to feel both those things--but I didn't, until this book.
Once upon a time, an angel and a devil fell in love. It did not end well.
This book ended well, began well, and middled well, though. Plus, blue-haired heroine who studies art in Prague, longs for love, can and does fight, and is ferociously and above all things loyal to a very untraditional family.
Anna Dressed In Blood by Kendare Blake
I truly hate it when people compare my books to the TV show Supernatural, and yet watch me... compare someone else's book to Supernatural! I deserve to be smacked. I haven't seen the show in years, but this book has all the things I wanted from the show--hunting very complicated monsters, hunting that has a terrible price, a really vivid conjuring of small-town America, and girls who are both amazing and essential, even seen from a boy's eyes.
Cas Lowood is a snarky, handsome, loner ghost-hunter. He goes it alone! He carries his dead father's blade to slay the ghosts! He does what needs to be done and he is a lone ranger, okay?
Except his life is not going at all to plan. A ghost eats his cat. Carmel, the beautiful blonde cheerleader-type he was batting his eyes at for information, has a baseball bat and is prepared to use it--potentially on him. His snark gets him concussed and thrown in a haunted house, where he is seeing two of everything, and not just the dude... who the ghost just ripped in two...
I love seeing a character be dizzy, knocked-for-six in love with someone entirely unexpected.
THOMAS THE SIDEKICK & CARMEL THE BAT-WIELDING PROM QUEEN: Cas! Cassio! Speak to us! Describe the vile ghost who just murdered a classmate before your very eyes.
CAS: Uh, black veins! Black eyes! Hair like black snakes! Dressed in, you know, blood! And--how do I put this? If ghosts were presidents, she'd be Baberaham Lincoln.
THOMAS & CARMEL: ... He's probably still concussed...
ANNA: I cannot believe you came by again. I refuse to be ghost-slain.
CAS: I am determined to ghost-slay you! So, here I am.
ANNA: ...
CAS: So besides ripping people in half, what are your hobbies? I wonder if we like any of the same bands?
ANNA: ... Leave before I rip you in half.
THOMAS & CARMEL: Research time! Look, here's a picture of Anna when she was alive.
CAS: I'll be taking that very important evidence, thank you!
THOMAS & CARMEL: And... putting it in your wallet...?
CAS: For safe-keeping. Yes.
THOMAS & CARMEL: ...
CAS: *shifty eyes*
The Name of the Star by Maureen Johnson
As my review for Anna may have indicated, I love a funny book. Not a book that's just funny--a book should make you laugh, and something else, whether that something else is 'admire craft' or 'feel scared to death' or 'cry like a little baby' or 'pound your fists against a pillow and go--It's not fair, it's not fair!' (Not that I ever have any of these reactions to books, because I am very normal and behave in a totally normal and reasonable way at all times.)
Given that Maureen Johnson's foray into the paranormal is a ghost story, focusing on Jack the Ripper in modern times and how quickly a culture of fear can spring up... or be created, set in London in a Very English Boarding School seen through the eyes of an American fish out of water, with a detailed magical system that makes the science of ghost-hunting seem plausible, I had several of these reactions. You will have to read it to see which ones.
But I really loved the intrepid heroine, Rory, who would poke an alligator with a stick or hunt a murderous ghost because that's who she is, and I am very glad that Maureen Johnson has turned her funny, smart hand to fantasy. Because I think fantasy is where it's at.
A Spy In the House by Y.S. Lee
The Body in the Tower by Y.S. Lee
I recommend both these books because I wasn't quite sure about the series until The Body in the Tower, when I became suddenly very sure indeed. It had all the ingredients I love: set in a beautifully realised and researched past England, London in all its kind of smelly past glory, a lady sleuth.
Mary, who is half Chinese but can pass as white, has a secret that is a far, far bigger deal in her time, and this neatly gives us the perspective of the outsider who sees more of the game--Mary does not feel part of this society any more than we do--and the detective with a dark secret.
I love books set in England (it seems to be the fictional place of my heart) and historical novels, and what I especially like about these books is that the focus isn't on the aristocracy. A Spy In the House is all about the sleuthing possibilities open to a governess or a companion, due to the weird in-betwixt-and-between position they have in a house. And The Body in the Tower is about bricklaying in Victorian times... because Mary is dressed up as a boy apprentice.
Cross-dressing! Including a scene where Mary is wrestling with our hero, and feels she must point out that were someone to spot them they would believe terribly distressing things about his preferences: not only is she passing as a boy of thirteen, but she hasn't had a bath in ages.
Mike and Psmith by P.G. Wodehouse
When I was talking about The Fall of the House of Usher recently, I realised how many people are a) looking out for old books and b) potentially interested in free books! So I thought I'd like to recommend something from Project Gutenberg, where books that are out of copyright are free to the public!
I really like P.G. Wodehouse. Why? Because he is hilarious. And this is one of my favourite books he wrote, partly because it's about kids and not adults, so it's different from his other books--no romance--partly because it's about cricket, my favourite sport.
But mostly because of Psmith. Our hapless hero, Michael Jackson (yes... now an inadvertently hilarious name...) sadly walking the halls of a new school, discovers a lanky, monocled youth who leans against mantelpieces referring to people loftily as Comrade, steals other people's studies because 'It is imperative that we have a place to retire to after a fatiguing day,' cunningly pretends to care about archaeology, informs everyone that the P in his name is silent, and stares in polite bewilderment at the people around him who are full of go-getting spirit and love for their school. Eventually he is taken up to the headmaster's office, and questioned. Among the questions asked: "Er … Smith, I do not for a moment wish to pain you, but have you … er, do you remember ever having had, as a child, let us say, any … er … severe illness? Any … er … mental illness?"
Naturally I have loved Psmith from childhood. Read Mike and Psmith here.
My new disclaimer: I have met Laini Taylor and Maureen Johnson. I have not met Kendare Blake or Y.S. Lee, and the only way I shall meet P.G. Wodehouse is in another world.
Not only have I met Laini Taylor, but I have used her as a prop. In 2009, I was on tour with Scott Westerfeld, and at a festival in Portland they whisked him off to do fancy things. I was alarmed.
SARAH: But... am I to do stuff in front of people... by myself? I mean, I can! But I like... to have a friend...
PUBLICIST: You're going to do a joint thing with Laini Taylor. She is over there. Her book Lips Touch: Three Times has Goblin Market stuff in it!
SARAH: And her hair! IT IS PINK! Hi--hi new friend! Hi!
LAINI TAYLOR: ... Uh. Hey.
Later I read Lips Touch, and it was very clear to me that everyone had devised a cunning plot to make me look bad by making me go onstage with a genius. However I soldiered on! (Always nice to have someone up there saying the intelligent stuff. Let us face it, it is never me.) It was also very clear that Laini Taylor should give up this 'novellas' business and write a long YA book, just for me.
And she did! (Probably not... just for me.)
Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor
On one of my regular daughterly visits to the family homestead, I brought this book to my mamma. My beloved mamma called me about it later.
MOTHER (devoutly): Oh Sarah. It's so good.
SARAH: I know, right? I knew you'd like it.
MOTHER: I wish you could write like this.
SARAH: Well. Well, me too.
My mother, a straightforward lady! But I knew what she meant: the writing in Daughter of Smoke and Bone is really descriptive and intricate, but clear too, the sentences and the story both beautiful and beautifully intertwining. It's Laini Taylor's writing voice, so different from mine that I don't even know how she does it, I just tilt my head back and admire.
I am not much for an angel romance. It is not the angel books' fault! I always envision that scene in Dogma where Angel Alan Rickman takes down his pants and... well. Anyway. If you haven't seen that movie, I will draw a veil! Suffice it to say that I blame Alan Rickman for the fact I find it hard to take angels seriously as romantic interests. Also, I am pretty firmly Team Demon! The angels are our ancient enemies.
Also, angels should be scary, but in a very particular aloof way, and if there's romance with an angel, it should feel very, very transgressive. Because--ANGELS. Such things are forbidden. I wanted to see both those things in a book: I wanted to feel both those things--but I didn't, until this book.
Once upon a time, an angel and a devil fell in love. It did not end well.
This book ended well, began well, and middled well, though. Plus, blue-haired heroine who studies art in Prague, longs for love, can and does fight, and is ferociously and above all things loyal to a very untraditional family.
Anna Dressed In Blood by Kendare Blake
I truly hate it when people compare my books to the TV show Supernatural, and yet watch me... compare someone else's book to Supernatural! I deserve to be smacked. I haven't seen the show in years, but this book has all the things I wanted from the show--hunting very complicated monsters, hunting that has a terrible price, a really vivid conjuring of small-town America, and girls who are both amazing and essential, even seen from a boy's eyes.
Cas Lowood is a snarky, handsome, loner ghost-hunter. He goes it alone! He carries his dead father's blade to slay the ghosts! He does what needs to be done and he is a lone ranger, okay?
Except his life is not going at all to plan. A ghost eats his cat. Carmel, the beautiful blonde cheerleader-type he was batting his eyes at for information, has a baseball bat and is prepared to use it--potentially on him. His snark gets him concussed and thrown in a haunted house, where he is seeing two of everything, and not just the dude... who the ghost just ripped in two...
I love seeing a character be dizzy, knocked-for-six in love with someone entirely unexpected.
THOMAS THE SIDEKICK & CARMEL THE BAT-WIELDING PROM QUEEN: Cas! Cassio! Speak to us! Describe the vile ghost who just murdered a classmate before your very eyes.
CAS: Uh, black veins! Black eyes! Hair like black snakes! Dressed in, you know, blood! And--how do I put this? If ghosts were presidents, she'd be Baberaham Lincoln.
THOMAS & CARMEL: ... He's probably still concussed...
ANNA: I cannot believe you came by again. I refuse to be ghost-slain.
CAS: I am determined to ghost-slay you! So, here I am.
ANNA: ...
CAS: So besides ripping people in half, what are your hobbies? I wonder if we like any of the same bands?
ANNA: ... Leave before I rip you in half.
THOMAS & CARMEL: Research time! Look, here's a picture of Anna when she was alive.
CAS: I'll be taking that very important evidence, thank you!
THOMAS & CARMEL: And... putting it in your wallet...?
CAS: For safe-keeping. Yes.
THOMAS & CARMEL: ...
CAS: *shifty eyes*
The Name of the Star by Maureen Johnson
As my review for Anna may have indicated, I love a funny book. Not a book that's just funny--a book should make you laugh, and something else, whether that something else is 'admire craft' or 'feel scared to death' or 'cry like a little baby' or 'pound your fists against a pillow and go--It's not fair, it's not fair!' (Not that I ever have any of these reactions to books, because I am very normal and behave in a totally normal and reasonable way at all times.)
Given that Maureen Johnson's foray into the paranormal is a ghost story, focusing on Jack the Ripper in modern times and how quickly a culture of fear can spring up... or be created, set in London in a Very English Boarding School seen through the eyes of an American fish out of water, with a detailed magical system that makes the science of ghost-hunting seem plausible, I had several of these reactions. You will have to read it to see which ones.
But I really loved the intrepid heroine, Rory, who would poke an alligator with a stick or hunt a murderous ghost because that's who she is, and I am very glad that Maureen Johnson has turned her funny, smart hand to fantasy. Because I think fantasy is where it's at.
A Spy In the House by Y.S. Lee
The Body in the Tower by Y.S. Lee
I recommend both these books because I wasn't quite sure about the series until The Body in the Tower, when I became suddenly very sure indeed. It had all the ingredients I love: set in a beautifully realised and researched past England, London in all its kind of smelly past glory, a lady sleuth.
Mary, who is half Chinese but can pass as white, has a secret that is a far, far bigger deal in her time, and this neatly gives us the perspective of the outsider who sees more of the game--Mary does not feel part of this society any more than we do--and the detective with a dark secret.
I love books set in England (it seems to be the fictional place of my heart) and historical novels, and what I especially like about these books is that the focus isn't on the aristocracy. A Spy In the House is all about the sleuthing possibilities open to a governess or a companion, due to the weird in-betwixt-and-between position they have in a house. And The Body in the Tower is about bricklaying in Victorian times... because Mary is dressed up as a boy apprentice.
Cross-dressing! Including a scene where Mary is wrestling with our hero, and feels she must point out that were someone to spot them they would believe terribly distressing things about his preferences: not only is she passing as a boy of thirteen, but she hasn't had a bath in ages.
Mike and Psmith by P.G. Wodehouse
When I was talking about The Fall of the House of Usher recently, I realised how many people are a) looking out for old books and b) potentially interested in free books! So I thought I'd like to recommend something from Project Gutenberg, where books that are out of copyright are free to the public!
I really like P.G. Wodehouse. Why? Because he is hilarious. And this is one of my favourite books he wrote, partly because it's about kids and not adults, so it's different from his other books--no romance--partly because it's about cricket, my favourite sport.
But mostly because of Psmith. Our hapless hero, Michael Jackson (yes... now an inadvertently hilarious name...) sadly walking the halls of a new school, discovers a lanky, monocled youth who leans against mantelpieces referring to people loftily as Comrade, steals other people's studies because 'It is imperative that we have a place to retire to after a fatiguing day,' cunningly pretends to care about archaeology, informs everyone that the P in his name is silent, and stares in polite bewilderment at the people around him who are full of go-getting spirit and love for their school. Eventually he is taken up to the headmaster's office, and questioned. Among the questions asked: "Er … Smith, I do not for a moment wish to pain you, but have you … er, do you remember ever having had, as a child, let us say, any … er … severe illness? Any … er … mental illness?"
Naturally I have loved Psmith from childhood. Read Mike and Psmith here.
October 18, 2011
Let's Go Gothic
It is autumn now, and less than a year until Unspoken is released! So here begins my series of Gothic Tuesdays, in which on one Tuesday every month, I will talk about Gothic fiction and what about it calls my name all night long.
I am also going to have a Lady Sleuths Day, but I have not picked a day of the week for it. Maybe Thursday! Does Thursday sound sleuthy?
So my agent, the Lovely Kristin, had given up on getting me to write anything popular, because I am a monster who destroys all in my path! Or... I march to the beat of my own drummer, or something.
KRISTIN: So what's this... thing that you want to write, then?
SARAH: Oh gosh okay wait till I tell you! It's going to be awesome. You'll see. It's about a lady reporter who lives in a tiny English town.
KRISTIN: Always England with you...
SARAH: But this is different! Lexicon was cities. This is in the country, and that's quite a different feel. You know what Stephen King called 'The Peculiar Little Town'? Secrets. Beautiful surroundings. Oppressive feelings. And on the hill above the town, a house...
KRISTIN: Oh you're writing a Gothic novel.
SARAH: ... Beg pardon?
KRISTIN: I used to love Gothic novels! I love Mary Stewart!
SARAH: Mary Stewart? Didn't she write books about Merlin? My book's not about Merlin.
TRUE STORY: My book now has a Merlin mention in it. Irony's ironic like that.
KRISTIN: You know, Gothic novels. A girl trapped in a house... not sure if her surroundings are sinister, or sure who she can trust...
SARAH: Wait, like Rebecca? Oh hang on, wait, I've read tons of books like that! Huh. You know, I never put it together that all those books with a similar theme were a genre and not, you know. A weird coincidence. Gothic novels! How about that.
KRISTIN: They were very popular... in the eighties. You want to write a kind of book that was popular thirty years ago. This is a terrible idea.
SARAH: Terribly awesome.
I then began on my epic Gothic Reading Fest. But Gothic novels did not begin in the eighties. Ann Radcliffe's Mysteries of Udolpho, a super-famous classic Gothic, was written in 1794, and Jane 'My Queen' Austen wrote an affectionate parody of Gothic fiction, Northanger Abbey, in 1817.
This is a lot of past to cover! I thought I would take Edgar Allen Poe's Fall of the House of Usher, which came out in 1839, as a good example of early Gothic, showing a lot of the stuff that later Gothics would be famous for.
... Later Gothics would be famous for being totally crazy.
So. The Fall of the House of Usher.
HERO OF USHER: Just going to visit my old school friend Roddy, it'll be a jolly lark!
HERO OF USHER: ... Goddamn this is a creepy house.
RODERICK USHER: I feel extremely unwell.
HERO OF USHER: Well, a name like 'Roderick Usher' would get anyone down. Buck up, old chap!
RODERICK USHER: No, seriously. I might be a vampire. And I think the flowers are out to get me.
HERO OF USHER: ... Ooookay. You want to do some fingerpainting or something, Roddy?
RODERICK USHER: My house is the boss of me! It's possible I'm in love with my sister.
HERO OF USHER: ... She seems nice.
RODERICK USHER: She's not well.
HERO OF USHER: Sure. She's not well.
TELEGRAMS FROM USHER: SEND HELP STOP RODDY DEFINITELY ON THE OPIUM STOP.
RODERICK USHER: I have written a poem, and set it to music! 'Paranoia paranoia everybody's coming to get me...'
HERO OF USHER: Roddy please put the violin down.
RODERICK USHER: My house is alive! I can tell because the windows are breathing.
HERO OF USHER: I have a question about the house. IS THERE A DOCTOR IN IT?
SKETCHY DOCTOR: *is sketchy*
HERO OF USHER: ... Goddamn.
RODERICK USHER: Have you read this book called 'Staring Creepily At Dead People'?
HERO OF USHER: ... No...
RODERICK USHER: It's a very good read.
HERO OF USHER:
RODERICK USHER: My sister is dead.
HERO OF USHER: Right. Well, Roddy, considering the things you have decided are alive - this house, that flowerpot -
RODERICK USHER: It's watching me...
HERO OF USHER: You definitely got your medical degree off the internet, is all I'm saying.
RODERICK USHER: I'm just going to bury her in the walls for now.
HERO OF USHER: ... 'S totally normal behaviour...
TELEGRAMS FROM USHER: THIS AIN'T RIGHT STOP DOCTOR MAD SKETCHY STOP LADIES IN WALLS STOP I AM COMING TO REALISE RODDY MAY BE A LITTLE ECCENTRIC STOP
HERO OF USHER: She is one fine-looking corpse. So lifelike. Well, time for tea! I fancy cucumber sandwiches.
RODERICK USHER: *twitches* The sandwiches are alive.
HERO OF USHER: It's been a week since we buried Madeline secretly in the walls, and Roddy is just not looking well! How are you doing, buddy? Got any dark secrets you want to tell me?
RODERICK USHER: Just listening to the faint scratching sounds and staring into the abyss...
HERO OF USHER: Can't imagine what said dark secrets might be!
HERO OF USHER: 'Twas a dark and stormy night, nobody was answering my telegrams, and in between the rolls of thunder I could hear these weird scratching sounds. Probably my imagination!
RODERICK USHER: Hey buddy!
HERO OF USHER: Hey buddy! I'm really freaked out tonight, I'm so glad you came to my bedroom wearing a manic expression! Can we cuddle?
RODERICK USHER: LET US BE AT ONE WITH THE ELEMENTS!
HERO OF USHER: Okay, I'm going to want you to shut the window, and come sit down, and I'll read you a bedtime story and get you a cup of warm milk.
RODERICK USHER: The clouds are alive!
HERO OF USHER: ... Of course they are, Roddy. Of course they are.
HERO OF USHER: Do you hear, like, crashing and screaming?
RODERICK USHER: Ahahahahahhaha! Ahahahahahahaha!!!!!!
HERO OF USHER: .... I think I hear crashing and screaming.
RODERICK OF USHER: All right! I'll be straight with you bro! We totally buried Madeline alive! I've known for days! I could totally hear her trying to get out and starving to death and all!
HERO OF USHER: Uh, why did you not mention this earlier?
RODERICK OF USHER: Oh, I don't know. I didn't want to bother you and fuss around getting living people out of tombs. It is my aim to be the perfect host!
HERO OF USHER: ...
RODERICK USHER: Yeah, I think that's Madeline outside.
MADELINE USHER: I am wicked angry.
MADELINE USHER: ... And I don't feel so good.
TELEGRAMS FROM USHER: I'M NOT SAYING I SCREAMED LIKE A GIRL BUT SOMEONE WAS SCREAMING AND IT SURE WASN'T MADELINE STOP I WAS RUNNING AND MADELINE THREW HERSELF LIKE ON TOP OF RODDY SOMETHING VERY WEIRD GOING ON THERE STOP BLOOD MOON STOP MAYBE THE HOUSE EXPLODED I DON'T KNOW STOP I THINK IT WOULD BE BEST IF RODDY AND I LOST TOUCH STOP
This tale has a lot of Gothic stuff in it. One of those things is this...
YOUR BOYFRIEND: *is tall, dark, sinister, looming, maybe trying to kill you, definitely has secrets*
YOUR BOYFRIEND: *is a house, which is just another of many problems in your relationship*
Besides the Gothic Manor You Should Not Date, there's also the fear of being helpless, trapped and stifled. Like, literally stifled. Buried alive. People get buried alive ALL THE TIME. Dudes do not have authority over ladies by virtue of being their fathers, husbands or brothers in quite the same way as they used to back in Roddy and Madeline's day.
Parents still have authority over their kids like that. If they say 'We are moving to No. 1 Atmosfear Lane, Murderville,' you are moving.
And that fits pretty well, because that's still family. Family is another theme of Gothic novels: the Ushers are just the beginning of Gothic Families That Ain't Right. I love creepy families, their ties to each other, twisted love for each other, and giving them an ancestral home full of secrets does no harm.
One last theme of the Gothic novel: imagination. 'Am I imagining this? Should I be afraid or not? Am I just being paranoid? Is someone trying to kill me, is that the sound of someone who's been buried alive, is that a real ghost, or am I crazy?' The abiding fear of your own mind, and all the shadows in its corners. It occurred to me that a beloved and terrifying imaginary friend would be a natural progression.
Jennifer Crusie, my favourite contemporary romance author bar none in all the world, has written a lot on her blog about Gothic novels, and I will definitely be devoting a Gothic Tuesday to her Gothic novel, Maybe This Time.
Next time we'll be doing Jane Eyre and Rebecca, because Gothic Novels Have Two Mommies, and these are those mommies. Also expect references all over the place to Joanna Russ's essay on the modern Gothic, Somebody's Trying To Kill Me And I Think It's My Husband. I don't agree with all of it, but does it not have the best title in the world?
More fear, love, families and manors to come.
I am also going to have a Lady Sleuths Day, but I have not picked a day of the week for it. Maybe Thursday! Does Thursday sound sleuthy?
So my agent, the Lovely Kristin, had given up on getting me to write anything popular, because I am a monster who destroys all in my path! Or... I march to the beat of my own drummer, or something.
KRISTIN: So what's this... thing that you want to write, then?
SARAH: Oh gosh okay wait till I tell you! It's going to be awesome. You'll see. It's about a lady reporter who lives in a tiny English town.
KRISTIN: Always England with you...
SARAH: But this is different! Lexicon was cities. This is in the country, and that's quite a different feel. You know what Stephen King called 'The Peculiar Little Town'? Secrets. Beautiful surroundings. Oppressive feelings. And on the hill above the town, a house...
KRISTIN: Oh you're writing a Gothic novel.
SARAH: ... Beg pardon?
KRISTIN: I used to love Gothic novels! I love Mary Stewart!
SARAH: Mary Stewart? Didn't she write books about Merlin? My book's not about Merlin.
TRUE STORY: My book now has a Merlin mention in it. Irony's ironic like that.
KRISTIN: You know, Gothic novels. A girl trapped in a house... not sure if her surroundings are sinister, or sure who she can trust...
SARAH: Wait, like Rebecca? Oh hang on, wait, I've read tons of books like that! Huh. You know, I never put it together that all those books with a similar theme were a genre and not, you know. A weird coincidence. Gothic novels! How about that.
KRISTIN: They were very popular... in the eighties. You want to write a kind of book that was popular thirty years ago. This is a terrible idea.
SARAH: Terribly awesome.
I then began on my epic Gothic Reading Fest. But Gothic novels did not begin in the eighties. Ann Radcliffe's Mysteries of Udolpho, a super-famous classic Gothic, was written in 1794, and Jane 'My Queen' Austen wrote an affectionate parody of Gothic fiction, Northanger Abbey, in 1817.
This is a lot of past to cover! I thought I would take Edgar Allen Poe's Fall of the House of Usher, which came out in 1839, as a good example of early Gothic, showing a lot of the stuff that later Gothics would be famous for.
... Later Gothics would be famous for being totally crazy.
So. The Fall of the House of Usher.
HERO OF USHER: Just going to visit my old school friend Roddy, it'll be a jolly lark!
HERO OF USHER: ... Goddamn this is a creepy house.
RODERICK USHER: I feel extremely unwell.
HERO OF USHER: Well, a name like 'Roderick Usher' would get anyone down. Buck up, old chap!
RODERICK USHER: No, seriously. I might be a vampire. And I think the flowers are out to get me.
HERO OF USHER: ... Ooookay. You want to do some fingerpainting or something, Roddy?
RODERICK USHER: My house is the boss of me! It's possible I'm in love with my sister.
HERO OF USHER: ... She seems nice.
RODERICK USHER: She's not well.
HERO OF USHER: Sure. She's not well.
TELEGRAMS FROM USHER: SEND HELP STOP RODDY DEFINITELY ON THE OPIUM STOP.
RODERICK USHER: I have written a poem, and set it to music! 'Paranoia paranoia everybody's coming to get me...'
HERO OF USHER: Roddy please put the violin down.
RODERICK USHER: My house is alive! I can tell because the windows are breathing.
HERO OF USHER: I have a question about the house. IS THERE A DOCTOR IN IT?
SKETCHY DOCTOR: *is sketchy*
HERO OF USHER: ... Goddamn.
RODERICK USHER: Have you read this book called 'Staring Creepily At Dead People'?
HERO OF USHER: ... No...
RODERICK USHER: It's a very good read.
HERO OF USHER:
RODERICK USHER: My sister is dead.
HERO OF USHER: Right. Well, Roddy, considering the things you have decided are alive - this house, that flowerpot -
RODERICK USHER: It's watching me...
HERO OF USHER: You definitely got your medical degree off the internet, is all I'm saying.
RODERICK USHER: I'm just going to bury her in the walls for now.
HERO OF USHER: ... 'S totally normal behaviour...
TELEGRAMS FROM USHER: THIS AIN'T RIGHT STOP DOCTOR MAD SKETCHY STOP LADIES IN WALLS STOP I AM COMING TO REALISE RODDY MAY BE A LITTLE ECCENTRIC STOP
HERO OF USHER: She is one fine-looking corpse. So lifelike. Well, time for tea! I fancy cucumber sandwiches.
RODERICK USHER: *twitches* The sandwiches are alive.
HERO OF USHER: It's been a week since we buried Madeline secretly in the walls, and Roddy is just not looking well! How are you doing, buddy? Got any dark secrets you want to tell me?
RODERICK USHER: Just listening to the faint scratching sounds and staring into the abyss...
HERO OF USHER: Can't imagine what said dark secrets might be!
HERO OF USHER: 'Twas a dark and stormy night, nobody was answering my telegrams, and in between the rolls of thunder I could hear these weird scratching sounds. Probably my imagination!
RODERICK USHER: Hey buddy!
HERO OF USHER: Hey buddy! I'm really freaked out tonight, I'm so glad you came to my bedroom wearing a manic expression! Can we cuddle?
RODERICK USHER: LET US BE AT ONE WITH THE ELEMENTS!
HERO OF USHER: Okay, I'm going to want you to shut the window, and come sit down, and I'll read you a bedtime story and get you a cup of warm milk.
RODERICK USHER: The clouds are alive!
HERO OF USHER: ... Of course they are, Roddy. Of course they are.
HERO OF USHER: Do you hear, like, crashing and screaming?
RODERICK USHER: Ahahahahahhaha! Ahahahahahahaha!!!!!!
HERO OF USHER: .... I think I hear crashing and screaming.
RODERICK OF USHER: All right! I'll be straight with you bro! We totally buried Madeline alive! I've known for days! I could totally hear her trying to get out and starving to death and all!
HERO OF USHER: Uh, why did you not mention this earlier?
RODERICK OF USHER: Oh, I don't know. I didn't want to bother you and fuss around getting living people out of tombs. It is my aim to be the perfect host!
HERO OF USHER: ...
RODERICK USHER: Yeah, I think that's Madeline outside.
MADELINE USHER: I am wicked angry.
MADELINE USHER: ... And I don't feel so good.
TELEGRAMS FROM USHER: I'M NOT SAYING I SCREAMED LIKE A GIRL BUT SOMEONE WAS SCREAMING AND IT SURE WASN'T MADELINE STOP I WAS RUNNING AND MADELINE THREW HERSELF LIKE ON TOP OF RODDY SOMETHING VERY WEIRD GOING ON THERE STOP BLOOD MOON STOP MAYBE THE HOUSE EXPLODED I DON'T KNOW STOP I THINK IT WOULD BE BEST IF RODDY AND I LOST TOUCH STOP
This tale has a lot of Gothic stuff in it. One of those things is this...
YOUR BOYFRIEND: *is tall, dark, sinister, looming, maybe trying to kill you, definitely has secrets*
YOUR BOYFRIEND: *is a house, which is just another of many problems in your relationship*
Besides the Gothic Manor You Should Not Date, there's also the fear of being helpless, trapped and stifled. Like, literally stifled. Buried alive. People get buried alive ALL THE TIME. Dudes do not have authority over ladies by virtue of being their fathers, husbands or brothers in quite the same way as they used to back in Roddy and Madeline's day.
Parents still have authority over their kids like that. If they say 'We are moving to No. 1 Atmosfear Lane, Murderville,' you are moving.
And that fits pretty well, because that's still family. Family is another theme of Gothic novels: the Ushers are just the beginning of Gothic Families That Ain't Right. I love creepy families, their ties to each other, twisted love for each other, and giving them an ancestral home full of secrets does no harm.
One last theme of the Gothic novel: imagination. 'Am I imagining this? Should I be afraid or not? Am I just being paranoid? Is someone trying to kill me, is that the sound of someone who's been buried alive, is that a real ghost, or am I crazy?' The abiding fear of your own mind, and all the shadows in its corners. It occurred to me that a beloved and terrifying imaginary friend would be a natural progression.
Jennifer Crusie, my favourite contemporary romance author bar none in all the world, has written a lot on her blog about Gothic novels, and I will definitely be devoting a Gothic Tuesday to her Gothic novel, Maybe This Time.
Next time we'll be doing Jane Eyre and Rebecca, because Gothic Novels Have Two Mommies, and these are those mommies. Also expect references all over the place to Joanna Russ's essay on the modern Gothic, Somebody's Trying To Kill Me And I Think It's My Husband. I don't agree with all of it, but does it not have the best title in the world?
More fear, love, families and manors to come.
October 13, 2011
Teen Wolf
So, my resolution to blog more! How about blogging hilarious TV? I have rarely seen TV more hilarious than Teen Wolf.
I will give any show with elements of ze supernatural a chance, because I love me some fantasy. The basic premise of this show seems to be: People sure do like that Twilight! If we did a show all about werewolves, it would just be about the shirtless dudes in Twilight, and SURELY everyone would like that.
Fine by me, as I am devoted to The Vampire Diaries, also building on the popularity of Twilight. I was excited!
I watched half the pilot, and myself and the roomie gave up in disgust. Then a few months passed... I heard there was an actual gay character (In a supernatural show? Not a metaphor? Not subtext? An actual gay character? Actually?)... we gave it another try. Had our standards lowered, had we gone mad, did it get better? Who can say. But we watched the whole season.
Without further ado I present to you the tale of the Most Useless Werewolf In the World, and the People Who (Inexplicably) Love Him.
WELCOME TO BEACON HILLS
POPULATION: 2375.
SHIRTS: 4.
LACROSSE FANS: 2375 (there was one dude in Beacon Hills who wasn't a lacrosse fan, but the werewolves killed that guy.)
SCOTT MCCALL: Our hapless protagonist. Severely asthmatic. Dumb as a box of rocks. Does not own a shirt.
STILES: Obligatory genre-savvy best friend of protagonist. Is on meds for ADHD, super smart but cannot focus in class. Owns all the shirts in town. Never shares.
SARAH: appreciates the fact that there are reasons for these kids to be loners, rather than 'too deep to fit in.'
JACKSON: Minor antagonist. Captain of the lacrosse team! LACROSSE is very big in California. Dumb as a box of slightly more intelligent rocks than Scott's.
LYDIA: his beautiful mean-girl girlfriend. Sekritly smart but pretending not to be to please him. (Lydia, be better than this.)
ALLISON: beautiful new girl in town. Family has lots of weapons. Surname Argent.
SCOTT: ... does not speak French.
SCOTT: I got bit by a wolf and now I am awesome at lacrosse! Rule!
STILES: This is lycanthropy, Scott.
SCOTT: OH MY GOD, IS THAT SERIOUS? WILL I GET A RASH?
SCOTT: Couldn't help but use new super hearing to discover you need a PENCIL, new girl?
ALLISON: I like you. You have a certain animal magnetism.
SCOTT: Rule.
JACKSON: So you are suddenly awesome at sports, and kind of aggressive. Where are you buying the juice?
SCOTT: My mom does all our grocery shopping?
TALL, DARK MYSTERIOUS STRANGER: *looms*
SCOTT: Who that?
STILES: Derek Hale. Few years older than us? Of the Hale family...? Who all died except Derek and his sister, who were in school when the house was burned down around their family by arsonists who were never caught? That's why his face looks like that all the time.
DEREK: :(
SCOTT: House that burned down six years ago, leaving many dead, terrified orphans, unsolved arson case, and a burned-out manor in the woods? Don't remember that...
STILES: Seriously? You are my best friend, and my dad is the sheriff. Everyone in a small town would know this.
SCOTT: ... Not ringing a bell...
STILES: I seriously suggest that you do not go to this party on full moon night.
SCOTT: No. I must go on a date with Allison. IT IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN ANYTHING.
STILES: More important than people's lives?
SCOTT: As my friend you must try to understand my priorities, no matter how dumb or sociopathic they may be.
SCOTT: I am a wolf. This is so awkward.
DEREK: Allison, you look like you need a lift home.
STILES: Allison, just checking you got home okay.
ALLISON: I'm touched by the concern for my safety shown by all the boys who WEREN'T my dates to the party.
SCOTT: I am a wolf. This is so awkward.
DEREK: Please attempt to not get shot by these hunters. I will protect you.
SCOTT: You are also a werewolf! OMG! You bit me! You jerk! Oh my god, people are shooting at me! I'm so mad in so many directions and I have so many questions! First of course is, how will this affect my relationship with Allison, the werewolf hunters' daughter? Did she talk about me on the car ride home?
DEREK: :(
STILES: We must deal with this problem!
SCOTT: Do you think I should send Allison flowers?
STILES: No... the werewolf problem...
STILES: Scott, come with me and help me find the dead body buried in Derek's yard and then I will summon my father the sheriff!
DEREK: No, see, that is my sister.
SCOTT: ... Sick, dude.
DEREK: Someone ELSE killed her. Someone ELSE bit you. A DIFFERENT WEREWOLF. And my sister was my ALPHA, i.e. the boss of me. And now there is a new alpha, i.e. the boss of us, and we are betas and we need to team up and defeat our evil wolf overlord!
SCOTT: I do not want to.
DEREK: And I will help you be a werewolf.
SCOTT: ... Then I can date Allison!
DEREK: :(
DEREK: Due to the fact that physical aggression and other physical stuff could turn you into a wolflike monster that will kill people, I suggest you do not play lacrosse or date Allison.
STILES: Due to the wolfishness, maybe cool it on the lacrosse and dating?
SCOTT: I REFUSE. WITHOUT ALLISON AND LACROSSE, LIFE HAS NO MEANING.
JACKSON: Oh my God, Scott is even good at bowling. LIFE HAS NO MEANING.
JACKSON: ... I must know his dark, bowling-prowess-related secret. It is my no. 1 priority!
LYDIA: I wonder if they put 'bad taste in men' in the Beacon Hills water.
SCOTT: I am so filled with angst at the unreasonableness of my friends.
COACH: What is it McCall? Is it a girl?
SCOTT: Noooooot exactly.
COACH: Oh okay. So, Jackson's best friend Danny is single and into dudes? He is a hot guy. And a great goalie. Keep it in the team, you know what I'm saying.
SCOTT: It's cool.
COACH: You cannot do better than Danny, son.
STILES: I will train you to be a werewolf, Derek is an ass.
DEREK: :( My face is just stuck this way. :(
SCOTT: *knocks out Danny in wolfy lacrosse throes*
JACKSON: NOT MY BFF. I WILL END YOU.
EVERYONE ELSE: Danny? That is so uncool.
STILES: Scott, I have figured out that Allison's voice dewolfs you!
STILES: Also, Danny? That is so uncool.
STILES: Do you think Danny likes me? Am I attractive to gay guys?
SCOTT: This show is not called Teen Sidekick. Let us discuss MY problems ONLY.
JACKSON: *is a better friend than Scott*
JACKSON: I don't want to watch the Notebook again, Lydia.
JACKSON: Hey video clerk, I need the Notebook... Oh. I see you've been brutally murdered by a werewolf. Awkward. Time to faint and have the werewolf claw at my neck? Yes indeed.
DEREK: We must deal with this evil werewolf menace.
SCOTT: What rhymes with 'Allison'?
DEREK: :(
BLOND VICTIM LADY: drivin' along, dead of night, wind in my hair, werewolf on the roof...
BLOND VICTIM LADY: Must stop to freshen makeup and go after werewolf with bazooka.
BLOND VICTIM LADY: *actually Allison's Aunt Kate*
AUNT KATE: *pursues werewolves, shoots Derek with wolfsbane bullet*
DEREK: My life. :(
DEREK: *faint from gunshot wound* Must find Scott. He will help me.
JACKSON: Scott is useless.
DEREK: Buddy, nobody is more aware of that than me, but I am out of options okay. :(
JACKSON: I presume due to leather jacket AND stubble that you are Scott's drug dealer? What are you selling Scott?
DEREK: I am either going to kill you or faint.
JACKSON: You should quit sampling the merchandise.
STILES: JESUS CHRIST, IT'S A SICKLY WEREWOLF! GET IN THE CAR.
DEREK: Scott, I need your help. You must go to Allison's house and find the bullets used to shoot me so I may cure myself.
SCOTT: That will be my second priority. My first is impressing Allison's parents and Aunt Kate. I LOVE ALLISON.
DEREK: I am dying. :(
STILES: I am driving a dying dude around in my car. :(
STILES: Can I drop you off anywhere?
DEREK: I will rip your throat out with my teeth. :(
STILES: You are such an alarming person. :(
SCOTT: What beautiful chintz curtains, Mr and Mrs Werewolf Hunter! You have a lovely home. I am happy to sit and chat all day.
DEREK: Okay, I'm ripping off my shirt.
STILES: Oh, of course. I know how werewolves like to do that. Is it for angsty showering in your jeans? I know werewolves enjoy that occupation greatly. Is it for a lingering locker room shot? Is it to celebrate Tuesday?
DEREK: You are the only person in this town who is ever useful, and thus I would like you to chainsaw off my arm.
STILES: ... Scott never asks me to do this...
STILES: I am not accustomed to this new alarming shirtlessness.
STILES: You are such an alarming person. :(
DEREK: JUST CHAINSAW OFF MY ARM!!!!!! :(
DEREK AND STILES: Our lives are terrible. :( :(
SCOTT: After a lingering dinner, I have located the bullet in Aunt Kate's bag.
AUNT KATE: Who the hell went through my bag?
SCOTT: !!!!
ALLISON: Me. Wanted condoms.
SCOTT: I could not be happier about this on so many levels.
STILES AND DEREK: BOY ARE WE PLEASED TO SEE YOU.
STILES: So Danny, how is Jackson after seeing a brutal murder? Did he see any evidence werewolves are real?
DANNY: He is traumatised and you are crazy.
STILES: Do you think I am hot?
DANNY: ... crazy.
STILES: Lydia how are you feeling?
LYDIA: Medicated!
STILES: So you will have no recollection of this conversation?
LYDIA: None at all!
STILES: Is there any chance you could ever love me?
LYDIA: None at all!
STILES: Do you have a problem with me deleting incriminating pictures of werewolves off your phone?
LYDIA: None at all!
AUNT KATE: Hey, any werewolves working out in this burned-out mansion?
DEREK: :(
AUNT KATE: Derek, meet tazer.
AUNT KATE: Whoa, Derek the werewolf, way to grow up hot. Should I kill you or lick you?
DEREK: :(
AUNT KATE: I looooooooove torturing werewolves with tazers.
DEREK: *escapes through woods*
DEREK'S SHIRT: *does not escape*
SCOTT AND ALLISON: While all this plot stuff is happening to other people, we are talking a lovers' stroll in the woods!
DEREK AND STILES: Oh, take your time, guys.
SCOTT, ALLISON, DEREK, LYDIA, JACKSON & STILES: *rounded up and trapped in darkened school by Alpha*
STILES: At least Derek, the other active character in this plot, is here.
ALPHA: *rips out Derek's lungs*
DEREK: :(
STILES: Just me then. Forever alone.
LYDIA: I can make Molotov cocktails?
JACKSON: Baby, I will mess up your making of Molotov cocktails so we are totally defenceless.
ALLISON: I wish I had my crossbow.
ALLISON AND LYDIA: *would clearly be good characters if freed from the tyranny of strictly romantic storylines with the two dumbest dudes on the show*
SARAH: Free Allison and Lydia!
SCOTT: I can explain everything.
SCOTT: ... DEREK HALE IS THE KILLER.
STILES: NEVER TALK AGAIN.
ALLISON: Scott, you are clearly lying and involved in shady business, so, Imma break up with you.
JACKSON: I am all sweaty and pale and weird from my werewolf clawing! Allison... I really like you.
ALLISON: Oh my God.
JACKSON: And Scott. I really, really like Scott.
ALLISON: You are obviously high.
JACKSON: Let's all be frienz.
STILES: Scott, will you find out if maybe Lydia could ever be attracted to me?
SCOTT: You are my best friend, and you have saved me from both death and murder of all my loved ones many, many times. You are the most awesome friend. I will totally do this.
SCOTT: And by 'talk to Lydia' you meant 'make out with Lydia myself' right?
STILES: :(
STILES: I've come to visit Scott, and I have brought bondage gear. *cuffs best friend to radiator*
SCOTT'S MOM: You kids play nice.
STILES: I'm still mad, but I don't want you to kill people. I really am the most awesome friend. I'm going to stand guard now, listening to you growl and howl, with my head in my hands.
STILES: ... also my mom's dead.
SCOTT: Uh, are you not aware that Allison broke up with me? Why does it have to be all about YOUR pain all the time? God. *breaks out of chains*
DEREK: Hey I'm alive! And saving Scott from killing his girlfriend while a crazed wolf. Scott, has this experience made you rethink any of your life decisions?
SCOTT: I don't know what you're talking about.
DEREK: :(
SCOTT: By the way, I told the whole town you were a psychopathic murderer.
DEREK: :( :( :(
STILES: Derek what are you doing in my bedroom?
DEREK: I have to hide out here, because I'm a fugitive.
STILES: MY DAD IS THE SHERIFF! Wouldn't Scott's house make more sense?
DEREK: Scott is writing sonnets about Allison right now. He may put them to music later. :(
DON'T MAKE HIM GO BACK THERE.
SHERIFF: Son... your first lacrosse game where you actually get to play is on later today. I am so excited.
STILES: DUN COME IN MAH ROOM! YES.. I AM EXCITED TOO... HUGS NOW SERIOUSLY LEAVE.
SHERIFF: What kind of crazy porn is the kid watching in there?
STILES: So I'm going to look into the text that lured us all to school to be murdered that day. Who sent it? My lab partner has mad hacking skills I WILL make him use to find out.
DANNY: I absolutely will not use my hacking skills. Who is that guy hanging out in your room?
STILES: He's not a fugitive. If that's why you're looking at him. He's not a wanted killer. He's my cousin... Miguel...
DANNY: He's got blood on his shirt.
STILES: FROM NOSEBLEEDS. Change your shirt, Miguel.
DANNY: ohhhh myyyyyyyyy god.
STILES: ... I've just had a brilliant idea.
STILES: You know that scene where the femme fatale distracts the dude for the con? Congrats Derek! You are the femme fatale.
DEREK: :(
STILES: Try on every shirt in my wardrobe.
DEREK: THEY ARE ALL TOO TIGHT. :(
STILES: Is that so? You surprise me! Proceed.
DANNY: OH MY GOD, COMING OVER TO YOUR HOUSE IS AWESOME.
STILES: Work it, tiger. So, Danny, about those hacking skills?
DEREK: :(
STILES: My house, my rules.
DANNY: Your house rules.
The rules are that you can leave your hat on, werewolf. Oh, what's that? You're not wearing a hat?
DANNY: Scott's mom was the one who sent Scott the text. Radically exciting news.
STILES: Scott's mom lured us to the school? ... Scott's MOM is an evil werewolf? Um. Thanks, Danny! Later, Danny.
DANNY: LATER MIGUEL.
DEREK: :(
STILES: Scott's mom can't be the werewolf!
DEREK: So who do you think it was using her phone from the hospital where she works? My fire-scarred comatose Uncle Peter?
STILES: To the hospital, let us investigate!
SCOTT: I don't understand why you're not coming to the game, Stiles.
STILES: Because people dying is more important than lacrosse.
SCOTT: ... I don't understand what you mean when you say that...
DEREK: I do, though. :(
STILES: Are we having a beautiful moment?
DEREK: No! Because you made me feel CHEAP earlier. :( *bangs Stiles's head against steering wheel*
STILES: Ahahaha, so the alpha IS your comatose Uncle Peter.
DEREK: Well, crap. I was only saying that to be ironic. :(
CRAZY UNCLE PETER: All the aunts and uncles on this show are crazy.
DEREK: Stiles, run!
STILES: I absolutely will. I'll get Scott!
DEREK: That is such a sweet thought. But Scott is useless. :(
JACKSON: I've worked out you're a werewolf! MAKE ME A WEREWOLF TOO. BITE ME, BITE ME, BITE ME...
SCOTT: Augh! It doesn't work that way! Augh!
JACKSON: Yeah well make it work or I will make sweet love to your lady.
SCOTT: NO! Not my LADY!
JACKSON: Yep. I will do her someplace you will hear with your super wolf hearing and you will hear every moan and pant we make and...
STILES: What is up, bro?
SCOTT: Um, Jackson's... talking dirty to me?
JACKSON: Bite me bite me bite any bit of exposed skin you like bite me bite me.
DEREK: The schoolboys in this town will not stop hitting on me. :( And I have enough problems already.
Jackson is being very inappropriate today.
ALLISON: I'm so done feeling helpless and as if people, such as my boyfriend and entire family, are keeping life-threatening secrets from me. I am going to practise my crossbow skills.
LYDIA: I will come too!
SARAH: Free Allison and Lydia!
Oh Allison. I know Teen Wolf is killing you. Allison! Your aim is true.
DEREK: I am evil now. Yep... totally evil. You and I should probably team up... with my evil Uncle Peter, until such time as we can catch him unawares.
SCOTT: YOU MONSTER.
DEREK: :(
JACKSON: Derek I'm in your burned out manor bite me bite me bite me bite me-
DEREK: KID, I SWEAR TO GOD-
SCOTT: Unhand him you MONSTER.
HUNTERS: Oh hi.
DEREK: Run, kids!
AUNT KATE: Oh look, I have shot Derek, and I intend to keep him chained up in my basement. And electrocute him. And lick him.
DEREK: MY LIFE. :(
JACKSON: Lydia, once I am a werewolf I won't need a girlfriend! Welcome to Dumped-So-I-Can-Spend-Time-In-The-Woods-With-Shirtless-Dudes-Ville, population you.
ALLISON: Lydia, since you macked on Scott, be a friend and take Stiles to the dance?
STILES: Yay! My life is finally looking up! Finally!
LYDIA: I love Jackson sooooooo much.
STILES: Or not.
UNCLE PETER: How's about I lure Lydia out to the lacrosse pitch and savage her?
STILES: OR NOT. :(
ALLISON: I wish somebody would tell me the plot of the TV show I am in!
AUNT KATE: We're werewolf hunters, Allison. Check out this werewolf. Isn't he hot? I'm torturing him, and it is super fun!
DEREK: :(
ALLISON: ... I retract my wish.
AUNT KATE: Electrocute, knife, lick abs, electrocute...
AUNT KATE: Remember when you were fifteen and I seduce-molested you, and you thought we were in love, and I used you to locate your family, and then burned your whole family horribly to death?
DEREK: :(
AUNT KATE: Goooooood times.
This is why Derek's face always looks like this. Derek wishes everyone would just cut it out.
SCOTT: I'm not allowed to be at this dance because I am failing all my classes! Danny--please, please dance with me.
COACH: You're not allowed to-
EVERYONE IN SCHOOL: *deathglare*
COACH: LOVELY TO SEE SUCH HAPPINESS. Dance, children. Dance.
DANNY'S BOYFRIEND: Uh, step off my man.
DANNY: Look, guys throw themselves into my arms 24/7 around here. We are the number two town for shirtlessness in America, for God's sake! I can't help it. Don't hate the player: hate the game.
SCOTT: Now I can dance with Allison! As Stiles pleads for Lydia's life on the lacrosse pitch, and Derek is tortured by his molester for the 3rd consecutive episode, I am sure everyone is totally invested in this romantical moment.
ALLISON: Scott I have something important and plot-relevant to say about werew...
SCOTT: Shhh, honey. Shhhh.
ALL THE GIRLS IN TEEN WOLF: are wasted. Teen Wolf, be better than this.
UNCLE PETER: Help me find Derek or I kill you.
STILES: How do you expect me to do this?
UNCLE PETER: You're the only smart person on the show.
STILES: A fair point. Okay, but help for Lydia first! OR YOU CAN JUST KILL ME.
UNCLE PETER: Smarts and a moral compass. I like you.
STILES: I don't want werewolves to like me. :(
STILES: ... Except Scott, obviously.
STILES: Okay, I'm going to break into Scott's computer to get Derek's phone number to trace him via GPS...
UNCLE PETER: Scott's user name is Allison? ... Scott's password is also Allison?
STILES: Still want him in your pack?
UNCLE PETER: You know, I am Crazy Uncle Peter, but I am not this crazy. I totes wish I had bitten you instead, Stiles.
SARAH: AND SO SAY ALL OF US.
UNCLE PETER: Can I bite you? Can I can I can I bite you?
STILES: Um... no... thank you?
UNCLE PETER: I know you want it.
STILES: No... thank you... very much?
BEACON HILLS: no. 2 for shirtlessness. no. 1 for inappropriate physical contact, often of a bitey nature.
SCOTT: Derek, I found you in Allison's basement, mostly by accident! Let me unchain you.
DEREK: Oh, thank you, Scott. At last I have a friend and ally who-
SCOTT: First promise me to protect Allison's family from Uncle Peter.
DEREK: Let me get this straight - a condition of my freedom is to protect the woman who molested me and massacred my entire family?
SCOTT: I <3 Allison!
DEREK: ... You unbelievable jerk. :(
STILES: I must go save the day, I sense a confrontation with evil is imminent, and Scott is entirely helpless without me due to his non-functioning brain.
JACKSON: I will help you! Trust me!
ALLISON'S DAD: Who is the other werewolf and where are they all?
STILES: Pardon me, Mr Crazy? I know not these 'werewolves' of which you sp-
JACKSON: I WILL TELL YOU EVERYTHING.
STILES: Oh for the love of God.
ALLISON AND AUNT KATE: Werewolf hunting is a go!
UNCLE PETER: Killing Aunt Kate is a go!
UNCLE PETER: Sorry Allison, but she really was a bitch.
SCOTT: Allison, we are both totally about to get et by Uncle Peter. So it's important for me to take this time to tell you that I love you very, very much.
STILES: I AM HERE AND I BROUGHT MOLOTOV COCKTAILS! Lydia is more useful than Scott and Jackson, and she is unconscious for the entire episode!
JACKSON: I'm here too...
ALLISON AND STILES: Molotov cocktails and crossbow prowess unite!
UNCLE PETER: *burns*
DEREK: I'm going to kill him now.
SCOTT: Derek no, if I kill him it might reverse my werewolf curse! Or it might make me the alpha and boss of you...
DEREK: I cannot contemplate a future in which you are the alpha. *kills*
AUDIENCE: I cannot blame Derek for a single, solitary moment.
ALLISON: Daddy please don't kill my boyfriiiiiiiend. We already killed the bad werewolf.
ALLISON'S DAD: Well, this is underwhelming.
STILES: So Lydia is not dying or transforming, which means some other supernatural crap that I, of course who else, must solve. It is always me.
JACKSON: Hey Derek I am trespassing in your home again bite me bite me bite me-
DEREK: I just killed my last living relative and I am feeling a little unstable. :)
JACKSON: ... What is that? I have never seen your face do that before.
SCOTT AND ALLISON: The viewers will be relieved to know that we love each other very, very much!
VIEWERS: are very much hoping to see a progression in Scott and Allison's relationship in the next season.
I will give any show with elements of ze supernatural a chance, because I love me some fantasy. The basic premise of this show seems to be: People sure do like that Twilight! If we did a show all about werewolves, it would just be about the shirtless dudes in Twilight, and SURELY everyone would like that.
Fine by me, as I am devoted to The Vampire Diaries, also building on the popularity of Twilight. I was excited!
I watched half the pilot, and myself and the roomie gave up in disgust. Then a few months passed... I heard there was an actual gay character (In a supernatural show? Not a metaphor? Not subtext? An actual gay character? Actually?)... we gave it another try. Had our standards lowered, had we gone mad, did it get better? Who can say. But we watched the whole season.
Without further ado I present to you the tale of the Most Useless Werewolf In the World, and the People Who (Inexplicably) Love Him.
WELCOME TO BEACON HILLS
POPULATION: 2375.
SHIRTS: 4.
LACROSSE FANS: 2375 (there was one dude in Beacon Hills who wasn't a lacrosse fan, but the werewolves killed that guy.)
SCOTT MCCALL: Our hapless protagonist. Severely asthmatic. Dumb as a box of rocks. Does not own a shirt.
STILES: Obligatory genre-savvy best friend of protagonist. Is on meds for ADHD, super smart but cannot focus in class. Owns all the shirts in town. Never shares.
SARAH: appreciates the fact that there are reasons for these kids to be loners, rather than 'too deep to fit in.'
JACKSON: Minor antagonist. Captain of the lacrosse team! LACROSSE is very big in California. Dumb as a box of slightly more intelligent rocks than Scott's.
LYDIA: his beautiful mean-girl girlfriend. Sekritly smart but pretending not to be to please him. (Lydia, be better than this.)
ALLISON: beautiful new girl in town. Family has lots of weapons. Surname Argent.
SCOTT: ... does not speak French.
SCOTT: I got bit by a wolf and now I am awesome at lacrosse! Rule!
STILES: This is lycanthropy, Scott.
SCOTT: OH MY GOD, IS THAT SERIOUS? WILL I GET A RASH?
SCOTT: Couldn't help but use new super hearing to discover you need a PENCIL, new girl?
ALLISON: I like you. You have a certain animal magnetism.
SCOTT: Rule.
JACKSON: So you are suddenly awesome at sports, and kind of aggressive. Where are you buying the juice?
SCOTT: My mom does all our grocery shopping?
TALL, DARK MYSTERIOUS STRANGER: *looms*
SCOTT: Who that?
STILES: Derek Hale. Few years older than us? Of the Hale family...? Who all died except Derek and his sister, who were in school when the house was burned down around their family by arsonists who were never caught? That's why his face looks like that all the time.
DEREK: :(
SCOTT: House that burned down six years ago, leaving many dead, terrified orphans, unsolved arson case, and a burned-out manor in the woods? Don't remember that...
STILES: Seriously? You are my best friend, and my dad is the sheriff. Everyone in a small town would know this.
SCOTT: ... Not ringing a bell...
STILES: I seriously suggest that you do not go to this party on full moon night.
SCOTT: No. I must go on a date with Allison. IT IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN ANYTHING.
STILES: More important than people's lives?
SCOTT: As my friend you must try to understand my priorities, no matter how dumb or sociopathic they may be.
SCOTT: I am a wolf. This is so awkward.
DEREK: Allison, you look like you need a lift home.
STILES: Allison, just checking you got home okay.
ALLISON: I'm touched by the concern for my safety shown by all the boys who WEREN'T my dates to the party.
SCOTT: I am a wolf. This is so awkward.
DEREK: Please attempt to not get shot by these hunters. I will protect you.
SCOTT: You are also a werewolf! OMG! You bit me! You jerk! Oh my god, people are shooting at me! I'm so mad in so many directions and I have so many questions! First of course is, how will this affect my relationship with Allison, the werewolf hunters' daughter? Did she talk about me on the car ride home?
DEREK: :(
STILES: We must deal with this problem!
SCOTT: Do you think I should send Allison flowers?
STILES: No... the werewolf problem...
STILES: Scott, come with me and help me find the dead body buried in Derek's yard and then I will summon my father the sheriff!
DEREK: No, see, that is my sister.
SCOTT: ... Sick, dude.
DEREK: Someone ELSE killed her. Someone ELSE bit you. A DIFFERENT WEREWOLF. And my sister was my ALPHA, i.e. the boss of me. And now there is a new alpha, i.e. the boss of us, and we are betas and we need to team up and defeat our evil wolf overlord!
SCOTT: I do not want to.
DEREK: And I will help you be a werewolf.
SCOTT: ... Then I can date Allison!
DEREK: :(
DEREK: Due to the fact that physical aggression and other physical stuff could turn you into a wolflike monster that will kill people, I suggest you do not play lacrosse or date Allison.
STILES: Due to the wolfishness, maybe cool it on the lacrosse and dating?
SCOTT: I REFUSE. WITHOUT ALLISON AND LACROSSE, LIFE HAS NO MEANING.
JACKSON: Oh my God, Scott is even good at bowling. LIFE HAS NO MEANING.
JACKSON: ... I must know his dark, bowling-prowess-related secret. It is my no. 1 priority!
LYDIA: I wonder if they put 'bad taste in men' in the Beacon Hills water.
SCOTT: I am so filled with angst at the unreasonableness of my friends.
COACH: What is it McCall? Is it a girl?
SCOTT: Noooooot exactly.
COACH: Oh okay. So, Jackson's best friend Danny is single and into dudes? He is a hot guy. And a great goalie. Keep it in the team, you know what I'm saying.
SCOTT: It's cool.
COACH: You cannot do better than Danny, son.
STILES: I will train you to be a werewolf, Derek is an ass.
DEREK: :( My face is just stuck this way. :(
SCOTT: *knocks out Danny in wolfy lacrosse throes*
JACKSON: NOT MY BFF. I WILL END YOU.
EVERYONE ELSE: Danny? That is so uncool.
STILES: Scott, I have figured out that Allison's voice dewolfs you!
STILES: Also, Danny? That is so uncool.
STILES: Do you think Danny likes me? Am I attractive to gay guys?
SCOTT: This show is not called Teen Sidekick. Let us discuss MY problems ONLY.
JACKSON: *is a better friend than Scott*
JACKSON: I don't want to watch the Notebook again, Lydia.
JACKSON: Hey video clerk, I need the Notebook... Oh. I see you've been brutally murdered by a werewolf. Awkward. Time to faint and have the werewolf claw at my neck? Yes indeed.
DEREK: We must deal with this evil werewolf menace.
SCOTT: What rhymes with 'Allison'?
DEREK: :(
BLOND VICTIM LADY: drivin' along, dead of night, wind in my hair, werewolf on the roof...
BLOND VICTIM LADY: Must stop to freshen makeup and go after werewolf with bazooka.
BLOND VICTIM LADY: *actually Allison's Aunt Kate*
AUNT KATE: *pursues werewolves, shoots Derek with wolfsbane bullet*
DEREK: My life. :(
DEREK: *faint from gunshot wound* Must find Scott. He will help me.
JACKSON: Scott is useless.
DEREK: Buddy, nobody is more aware of that than me, but I am out of options okay. :(
JACKSON: I presume due to leather jacket AND stubble that you are Scott's drug dealer? What are you selling Scott?
DEREK: I am either going to kill you or faint.
JACKSON: You should quit sampling the merchandise.
STILES: JESUS CHRIST, IT'S A SICKLY WEREWOLF! GET IN THE CAR.
DEREK: Scott, I need your help. You must go to Allison's house and find the bullets used to shoot me so I may cure myself.
SCOTT: That will be my second priority. My first is impressing Allison's parents and Aunt Kate. I LOVE ALLISON.
DEREK: I am dying. :(
STILES: I am driving a dying dude around in my car. :(
STILES: Can I drop you off anywhere?
DEREK: I will rip your throat out with my teeth. :(
STILES: You are such an alarming person. :(
SCOTT: What beautiful chintz curtains, Mr and Mrs Werewolf Hunter! You have a lovely home. I am happy to sit and chat all day.
DEREK: Okay, I'm ripping off my shirt.
STILES: Oh, of course. I know how werewolves like to do that. Is it for angsty showering in your jeans? I know werewolves enjoy that occupation greatly. Is it for a lingering locker room shot? Is it to celebrate Tuesday?
DEREK: You are the only person in this town who is ever useful, and thus I would like you to chainsaw off my arm.
STILES: ... Scott never asks me to do this...
STILES: I am not accustomed to this new alarming shirtlessness.
STILES: You are such an alarming person. :(
DEREK: JUST CHAINSAW OFF MY ARM!!!!!! :(
DEREK AND STILES: Our lives are terrible. :( :(
SCOTT: After a lingering dinner, I have located the bullet in Aunt Kate's bag.
AUNT KATE: Who the hell went through my bag?
SCOTT: !!!!
ALLISON: Me. Wanted condoms.
SCOTT: I could not be happier about this on so many levels.
STILES AND DEREK: BOY ARE WE PLEASED TO SEE YOU.
STILES: So Danny, how is Jackson after seeing a brutal murder? Did he see any evidence werewolves are real?
DANNY: He is traumatised and you are crazy.
STILES: Do you think I am hot?
DANNY: ... crazy.
STILES: Lydia how are you feeling?
LYDIA: Medicated!
STILES: So you will have no recollection of this conversation?
LYDIA: None at all!
STILES: Is there any chance you could ever love me?
LYDIA: None at all!
STILES: Do you have a problem with me deleting incriminating pictures of werewolves off your phone?
LYDIA: None at all!
AUNT KATE: Hey, any werewolves working out in this burned-out mansion?
DEREK: :(
AUNT KATE: Derek, meet tazer.
AUNT KATE: Whoa, Derek the werewolf, way to grow up hot. Should I kill you or lick you?
DEREK: :(
AUNT KATE: I looooooooove torturing werewolves with tazers.
DEREK: *escapes through woods*
DEREK'S SHIRT: *does not escape*
SCOTT AND ALLISON: While all this plot stuff is happening to other people, we are talking a lovers' stroll in the woods!
DEREK AND STILES: Oh, take your time, guys.
SCOTT, ALLISON, DEREK, LYDIA, JACKSON & STILES: *rounded up and trapped in darkened school by Alpha*
STILES: At least Derek, the other active character in this plot, is here.
ALPHA: *rips out Derek's lungs*
DEREK: :(
STILES: Just me then. Forever alone.
LYDIA: I can make Molotov cocktails?
JACKSON: Baby, I will mess up your making of Molotov cocktails so we are totally defenceless.
ALLISON: I wish I had my crossbow.
ALLISON AND LYDIA: *would clearly be good characters if freed from the tyranny of strictly romantic storylines with the two dumbest dudes on the show*
SARAH: Free Allison and Lydia!
SCOTT: I can explain everything.
SCOTT: ... DEREK HALE IS THE KILLER.
STILES: NEVER TALK AGAIN.
ALLISON: Scott, you are clearly lying and involved in shady business, so, Imma break up with you.
JACKSON: I am all sweaty and pale and weird from my werewolf clawing! Allison... I really like you.
ALLISON: Oh my God.
JACKSON: And Scott. I really, really like Scott.
ALLISON: You are obviously high.
JACKSON: Let's all be frienz.
STILES: Scott, will you find out if maybe Lydia could ever be attracted to me?
SCOTT: You are my best friend, and you have saved me from both death and murder of all my loved ones many, many times. You are the most awesome friend. I will totally do this.
SCOTT: And by 'talk to Lydia' you meant 'make out with Lydia myself' right?
STILES: :(
STILES: I've come to visit Scott, and I have brought bondage gear. *cuffs best friend to radiator*
SCOTT'S MOM: You kids play nice.
STILES: I'm still mad, but I don't want you to kill people. I really am the most awesome friend. I'm going to stand guard now, listening to you growl and howl, with my head in my hands.
STILES: ... also my mom's dead.
SCOTT: Uh, are you not aware that Allison broke up with me? Why does it have to be all about YOUR pain all the time? God. *breaks out of chains*
DEREK: Hey I'm alive! And saving Scott from killing his girlfriend while a crazed wolf. Scott, has this experience made you rethink any of your life decisions?
SCOTT: I don't know what you're talking about.
DEREK: :(
SCOTT: By the way, I told the whole town you were a psychopathic murderer.
DEREK: :( :( :(
STILES: Derek what are you doing in my bedroom?
DEREK: I have to hide out here, because I'm a fugitive.
STILES: MY DAD IS THE SHERIFF! Wouldn't Scott's house make more sense?
DEREK: Scott is writing sonnets about Allison right now. He may put them to music later. :(
DON'T MAKE HIM GO BACK THERE.
SHERIFF: Son... your first lacrosse game where you actually get to play is on later today. I am so excited.
STILES: DUN COME IN MAH ROOM! YES.. I AM EXCITED TOO... HUGS NOW SERIOUSLY LEAVE.
SHERIFF: What kind of crazy porn is the kid watching in there?
STILES: So I'm going to look into the text that lured us all to school to be murdered that day. Who sent it? My lab partner has mad hacking skills I WILL make him use to find out.
DANNY: I absolutely will not use my hacking skills. Who is that guy hanging out in your room?
STILES: He's not a fugitive. If that's why you're looking at him. He's not a wanted killer. He's my cousin... Miguel...
DANNY: He's got blood on his shirt.
STILES: FROM NOSEBLEEDS. Change your shirt, Miguel.
DANNY: ohhhh myyyyyyyyy god.
STILES: ... I've just had a brilliant idea.
STILES: You know that scene where the femme fatale distracts the dude for the con? Congrats Derek! You are the femme fatale.
DEREK: :(
STILES: Try on every shirt in my wardrobe.
DEREK: THEY ARE ALL TOO TIGHT. :(
STILES: Is that so? You surprise me! Proceed.
DANNY: OH MY GOD, COMING OVER TO YOUR HOUSE IS AWESOME.
STILES: Work it, tiger. So, Danny, about those hacking skills?
DEREK: :(
STILES: My house, my rules.
DANNY: Your house rules.
The rules are that you can leave your hat on, werewolf. Oh, what's that? You're not wearing a hat?
DANNY: Scott's mom was the one who sent Scott the text. Radically exciting news.
STILES: Scott's mom lured us to the school? ... Scott's MOM is an evil werewolf? Um. Thanks, Danny! Later, Danny.
DANNY: LATER MIGUEL.
DEREK: :(
STILES: Scott's mom can't be the werewolf!
DEREK: So who do you think it was using her phone from the hospital where she works? My fire-scarred comatose Uncle Peter?
STILES: To the hospital, let us investigate!
SCOTT: I don't understand why you're not coming to the game, Stiles.
STILES: Because people dying is more important than lacrosse.
SCOTT: ... I don't understand what you mean when you say that...
DEREK: I do, though. :(
STILES: Are we having a beautiful moment?
DEREK: No! Because you made me feel CHEAP earlier. :( *bangs Stiles's head against steering wheel*
STILES: Ahahaha, so the alpha IS your comatose Uncle Peter.
DEREK: Well, crap. I was only saying that to be ironic. :(
CRAZY UNCLE PETER: All the aunts and uncles on this show are crazy.
DEREK: Stiles, run!
STILES: I absolutely will. I'll get Scott!
DEREK: That is such a sweet thought. But Scott is useless. :(
JACKSON: I've worked out you're a werewolf! MAKE ME A WEREWOLF TOO. BITE ME, BITE ME, BITE ME...
SCOTT: Augh! It doesn't work that way! Augh!
JACKSON: Yeah well make it work or I will make sweet love to your lady.
SCOTT: NO! Not my LADY!
JACKSON: Yep. I will do her someplace you will hear with your super wolf hearing and you will hear every moan and pant we make and...
STILES: What is up, bro?
SCOTT: Um, Jackson's... talking dirty to me?
JACKSON: Bite me bite me bite any bit of exposed skin you like bite me bite me.
DEREK: The schoolboys in this town will not stop hitting on me. :( And I have enough problems already.
Jackson is being very inappropriate today.
ALLISON: I'm so done feeling helpless and as if people, such as my boyfriend and entire family, are keeping life-threatening secrets from me. I am going to practise my crossbow skills.
LYDIA: I will come too!
SARAH: Free Allison and Lydia!
Oh Allison. I know Teen Wolf is killing you. Allison! Your aim is true.
DEREK: I am evil now. Yep... totally evil. You and I should probably team up... with my evil Uncle Peter, until such time as we can catch him unawares.
SCOTT: YOU MONSTER.
DEREK: :(
JACKSON: Derek I'm in your burned out manor bite me bite me bite me bite me-
DEREK: KID, I SWEAR TO GOD-
SCOTT: Unhand him you MONSTER.
HUNTERS: Oh hi.
DEREK: Run, kids!
AUNT KATE: Oh look, I have shot Derek, and I intend to keep him chained up in my basement. And electrocute him. And lick him.
DEREK: MY LIFE. :(
JACKSON: Lydia, once I am a werewolf I won't need a girlfriend! Welcome to Dumped-So-I-Can-Spend-Time-In-The-Woods-With-Shirtless-Dudes-Ville, population you.
ALLISON: Lydia, since you macked on Scott, be a friend and take Stiles to the dance?
STILES: Yay! My life is finally looking up! Finally!
LYDIA: I love Jackson sooooooo much.
STILES: Or not.
UNCLE PETER: How's about I lure Lydia out to the lacrosse pitch and savage her?
STILES: OR NOT. :(
ALLISON: I wish somebody would tell me the plot of the TV show I am in!
AUNT KATE: We're werewolf hunters, Allison. Check out this werewolf. Isn't he hot? I'm torturing him, and it is super fun!
DEREK: :(
ALLISON: ... I retract my wish.
AUNT KATE: Electrocute, knife, lick abs, electrocute...
AUNT KATE: Remember when you were fifteen and I seduce-molested you, and you thought we were in love, and I used you to locate your family, and then burned your whole family horribly to death?
DEREK: :(
AUNT KATE: Goooooood times.
This is why Derek's face always looks like this. Derek wishes everyone would just cut it out.
SCOTT: I'm not allowed to be at this dance because I am failing all my classes! Danny--please, please dance with me.
COACH: You're not allowed to-
EVERYONE IN SCHOOL: *deathglare*
COACH: LOVELY TO SEE SUCH HAPPINESS. Dance, children. Dance.
DANNY'S BOYFRIEND: Uh, step off my man.
DANNY: Look, guys throw themselves into my arms 24/7 around here. We are the number two town for shirtlessness in America, for God's sake! I can't help it. Don't hate the player: hate the game.
SCOTT: Now I can dance with Allison! As Stiles pleads for Lydia's life on the lacrosse pitch, and Derek is tortured by his molester for the 3rd consecutive episode, I am sure everyone is totally invested in this romantical moment.
ALLISON: Scott I have something important and plot-relevant to say about werew...
SCOTT: Shhh, honey. Shhhh.
ALL THE GIRLS IN TEEN WOLF: are wasted. Teen Wolf, be better than this.
UNCLE PETER: Help me find Derek or I kill you.
STILES: How do you expect me to do this?
UNCLE PETER: You're the only smart person on the show.
STILES: A fair point. Okay, but help for Lydia first! OR YOU CAN JUST KILL ME.
UNCLE PETER: Smarts and a moral compass. I like you.
STILES: I don't want werewolves to like me. :(
STILES: ... Except Scott, obviously.
STILES: Okay, I'm going to break into Scott's computer to get Derek's phone number to trace him via GPS...
UNCLE PETER: Scott's user name is Allison? ... Scott's password is also Allison?
STILES: Still want him in your pack?
UNCLE PETER: You know, I am Crazy Uncle Peter, but I am not this crazy. I totes wish I had bitten you instead, Stiles.
SARAH: AND SO SAY ALL OF US.
UNCLE PETER: Can I bite you? Can I can I can I bite you?
STILES: Um... no... thank you?
UNCLE PETER: I know you want it.
STILES: No... thank you... very much?
BEACON HILLS: no. 2 for shirtlessness. no. 1 for inappropriate physical contact, often of a bitey nature.
SCOTT: Derek, I found you in Allison's basement, mostly by accident! Let me unchain you.
DEREK: Oh, thank you, Scott. At last I have a friend and ally who-
SCOTT: First promise me to protect Allison's family from Uncle Peter.
DEREK: Let me get this straight - a condition of my freedom is to protect the woman who molested me and massacred my entire family?
SCOTT: I <3 Allison!
DEREK: ... You unbelievable jerk. :(
STILES: I must go save the day, I sense a confrontation with evil is imminent, and Scott is entirely helpless without me due to his non-functioning brain.
JACKSON: I will help you! Trust me!
ALLISON'S DAD: Who is the other werewolf and where are they all?
STILES: Pardon me, Mr Crazy? I know not these 'werewolves' of which you sp-
JACKSON: I WILL TELL YOU EVERYTHING.
STILES: Oh for the love of God.
ALLISON AND AUNT KATE: Werewolf hunting is a go!
UNCLE PETER: Killing Aunt Kate is a go!
UNCLE PETER: Sorry Allison, but she really was a bitch.
SCOTT: Allison, we are both totally about to get et by Uncle Peter. So it's important for me to take this time to tell you that I love you very, very much.
STILES: I AM HERE AND I BROUGHT MOLOTOV COCKTAILS! Lydia is more useful than Scott and Jackson, and she is unconscious for the entire episode!
JACKSON: I'm here too...
ALLISON AND STILES: Molotov cocktails and crossbow prowess unite!
UNCLE PETER: *burns*
DEREK: I'm going to kill him now.
SCOTT: Derek no, if I kill him it might reverse my werewolf curse! Or it might make me the alpha and boss of you...
DEREK: I cannot contemplate a future in which you are the alpha. *kills*
AUDIENCE: I cannot blame Derek for a single, solitary moment.
ALLISON: Daddy please don't kill my boyfriiiiiiiend. We already killed the bad werewolf.
ALLISON'S DAD: Well, this is underwhelming.
STILES: So Lydia is not dying or transforming, which means some other supernatural crap that I, of course who else, must solve. It is always me.
JACKSON: Hey Derek I am trespassing in your home again bite me bite me bite me-
DEREK: I just killed my last living relative and I am feeling a little unstable. :)
JACKSON: ... What is that? I have never seen your face do that before.
SCOTT AND ALLISON: The viewers will be relieved to know that we love each other very, very much!
VIEWERS: are very much hoping to see a progression in Scott and Allison's relationship in the next season.
October 12, 2011
In My Homeland of Eire, and Fair England
I promised to blog more. ;) This is actually quite a boring post about the stuff I will be doing for the rest of October.
APPEARANCE AT THE NATIONAL LIBRARY
http://www.childrensbooksireland.ie/events/event/dystopian-themes-in-young-adult-fiction/
Kildare Street
Friday, October 14, 5:30 pm to 7:00pm
Panel on YA Dystopia with Ilsa J. Bick and Peadar Guinan. (Sarah Subtitle: Talking about my plans to hook up with a warlord if civilisation as we know it is destroyed. If civilisation as we know it is destroyed by zombies, hook up with a zombie warlord.)
GUEST AT OCTOCON
Saturday 15 October-Sunday 16th October
http://www.octocon.com/
Camden Court Hotel, Camden Street, Dublin 2
Panels of many sorts!
Saturday
11:00 Learning From other Creators (Sarah Subtitle: How I Shamelessly Take Advantage Of My Friends, Especially Holly Black, the Book Whisperer, And Also Crib Advice From Dead Guys.)
15:00 "Women in Scifi/fantasy/comics panels" - Are they still needed? (Sarah Subtitle: Are men still needed? Couldn't they be in the kitchen... baking me a pie? I love pie.)
16:00 Maintaining an online community (Sarah Subtitle: Hey you guys! I'm going to be talking about you guys.)
Sunday
16:00 writing for kids is easy
TWO CASSANDRA CLARE EVENTS, at which I am CHAIR!
October 26:
London
Foyle's 1-3 pm
113-119 Charing Cross Road, London, WC2H 0EB
October 27: Dublin: 6pm
Easons: 40 Lower O'Connell Street
Phone 01 858 3800
THIS IS A TICKETED EVENT! Please secure tickets by clicking and following the instructions or paste in the URL below.
http://www.easons.com/events_display.asp?K=e2011092314344902&sf1=blog_type_code&st1=EVENT&sf2=blog_approved_flag&st2=Y&dtspan=0:365&sort=sort_date&m=8&dc=9
As aforesaid, these are events for Cassandra Clare, and I will be there for the purpose of teasing the redheaded moppet asking her very appropriate and insightful questions. Ahem. But I will be there, should you a) wish me to ask Cassie an appropriate and insightful question for you! b) want me to sign something or c) wish to collect the first few chapters of Unspoken, which I will be giving out.
For my edits of Unspoken are handed in, which is a very pleasing thing! Never has my ass been so kicked as regards edits, which is also a very pleasing thing, because with luck it means the product will be commensurately awesome. And it means I feel a step closer to getting the book to you all. I am now in the midst of rewriting bits of the sequel, Unbound, to make it fit for my editor's eyes, and I am going to start blogging on Gothics and Lady Sleuths soon. I am so freaking excited for people to meet Kami and Jared and Angela and Holly and Ash. I cannot even say.
APPEARANCE AT THE NATIONAL LIBRARY
http://www.childrensbooksireland.ie/events/event/dystopian-themes-in-young-adult-fiction/
Kildare Street
Friday, October 14, 5:30 pm to 7:00pm
Panel on YA Dystopia with Ilsa J. Bick and Peadar Guinan. (Sarah Subtitle: Talking about my plans to hook up with a warlord if civilisation as we know it is destroyed. If civilisation as we know it is destroyed by zombies, hook up with a zombie warlord.)
GUEST AT OCTOCON
Saturday 15 October-Sunday 16th October
http://www.octocon.com/
Camden Court Hotel, Camden Street, Dublin 2
Panels of many sorts!
Saturday
11:00 Learning From other Creators (Sarah Subtitle: How I Shamelessly Take Advantage Of My Friends, Especially Holly Black, the Book Whisperer, And Also Crib Advice From Dead Guys.)
15:00 "Women in Scifi/fantasy/comics panels" - Are they still needed? (Sarah Subtitle: Are men still needed? Couldn't they be in the kitchen... baking me a pie? I love pie.)
16:00 Maintaining an online community (Sarah Subtitle: Hey you guys! I'm going to be talking about you guys.)
Sunday
16:00 writing for kids is easy
TWO CASSANDRA CLARE EVENTS, at which I am CHAIR!
October 26:
London
Foyle's 1-3 pm
113-119 Charing Cross Road, London, WC2H 0EB
October 27: Dublin: 6pm
Easons: 40 Lower O'Connell Street
Phone 01 858 3800
THIS IS A TICKETED EVENT! Please secure tickets by clicking and following the instructions or paste in the URL below.
http://www.easons.com/events_display.asp?K=e2011092314344902&sf1=blog_type_code&st1=EVENT&sf2=blog_approved_flag&st2=Y&dtspan=0:365&sort=sort_date&m=8&dc=9
As aforesaid, these are events for Cassandra Clare, and I will be there for the purpose of teasing the redheaded moppet asking her very appropriate and insightful questions. Ahem. But I will be there, should you a) wish me to ask Cassie an appropriate and insightful question for you! b) want me to sign something or c) wish to collect the first few chapters of Unspoken, which I will be giving out.
For my edits of Unspoken are handed in, which is a very pleasing thing! Never has my ass been so kicked as regards edits, which is also a very pleasing thing, because with luck it means the product will be commensurately awesome. And it means I feel a step closer to getting the book to you all. I am now in the midst of rewriting bits of the sequel, Unbound, to make it fit for my editor's eyes, and I am going to start blogging on Gothics and Lady Sleuths soon. I am so freaking excited for people to meet Kami and Jared and Angela and Holly and Ash. I cannot even say.
