Feb
8
2010
Feeling nostalgic today. So here’s some stuff I remember watching on Saturday mornings:
Kung Fu Theater is something my mom was into. After the cartoons were over, they’d show a martial arts film, usually a Shaw Brothers epic or something with either Bruce Lee or Bruce Li. The best thing I remember seeing during Kung Fu Theater was 36 Chambers of Shaolin. Best kung fu film EVER.
Jan
31
2010
I love playlists. I have playlists built around all kinds of crap: food, people’s names, nonsense lyrics, mean boys, robots, spooky sh*t (I blogged about this particular playlist here). I even have a playlist based solely on the Berkinator, which I like to call Berkin’ It Up.
And so of course I have playlists for my books. Here’s a sampling from the Bleeding Violet playlist.
Jan
31
2010
It’s called INK and I just watched it, and it is fan-freaking-tastic! It’s about a man and his crappy relationship with his young daughter, but that story is entwined with this epic battle between the beings that bring you good dreams and the beings that bring nightmares. I can’t even explain how good this movie is!
It’s super low-budget though (the people who made the film couldn’t get any money or studio support so I don’t think this was even released in movie theaters). It doesn’t have the look of a movie, but rather a really high-end TV show with awesome special-effects and fight scenes, but that got cancelled before anyone even saw the first episode.
INK was directed and written by some guy named Jamin Winans and all I can say is how stupid is the movie industry that when a guy comes at them with something as awesome as this movie is, they just ignore it? Even GYMKATA got released in theaters for crying out loud! It just kills me when actual hardworking, deserving people can’t get a break.
All I’m saying is, if you wanna see something super incredible, GO BUY THIS MOVIE; I bought my copy on Amazon.
And just for the record, there’s no sex/sexual situations or anything disturbing. There are fight scenes but nothing more intense than you would find in a Buffy episode. I don’t even remember seeing any blood. The main character does drop the f-bomb quite a few times when under stress, though, but that’s it. Here’s the trailer:
Isn’t that awesome? And just for the record again, no I’m not being paid to promote this ;p. I don’t know any of these people. Someone on Amazon recommended this movie to me, so I’m just passing along the love. 
Jan
25
2010
I haven’t done a Music Monday in a long time. I’m in a mood to celebrate the bizarre, and who’s more bizarre than Grace Jones? She’s this scary/beautiful supermodel from the 80s who’s been in movies, but is also a singer. She even sings in French–that’s how badass she is. This song isn’t in French; it IS creepy and strange though, and I’m kind of into it right now.
Jan
21
2010
Just a quick ping to let you know I’ve added a Frequently Asked Questions page to the site. So hopefully I will never have to answer certain questions ever again. :p
Also, there’s yet another blurb for Bleeding Violet. A librarian I know who subscribes to the Simon Pulse newsletter (or maybe it was Simon & Schuster?) pointed it out to me:
Just like the chick on the cover, you’ll find yourself wrapped up in this twisted and fascinating story about a crazy girl who finds herself in an even crazier town. Word to the wise: this isn’t your average paranormal story that you’ve read time and again.
If you’re looking for a cutesy protagonist, Hanna is not your girl. She is plagued by hallucinations, a medicine cabinet full of pills, and a closet stuffed with frilly, violet dresses. If you’re looking for bloodsuckers in the suburbs, instead you’ll find an odd East Texas town with flesh-eating creatures, parasitical spirits, and doors that lead out of this world.
But if you’re looking for a romance, you’ve come to the right place. No, not another corny love story, but one that is honest and fitting in the non-fairy tale sort of way. But don’t say I didn’t warn you . . . Love can be a dangerous thing.
I really like this blurb. I like the way it attempts to weed out the non-weirdos so that they don’t get their minds blown. xD
In other news, I’m sure everyone’s heard about how Bloomsbury put a white girl on the cover of Magic Under Glass even though the main character, Nimira, isn’t white. Bloomsbury did something similar with the book Liar, but I think that since Nimira isn’t black, they figured no one would notice or cause the same kind of fuss over a brown girl. Turns out, brown girls kinda want to see themselves represented on covers just as much as black girls do. Strange how that works, isn’t it?
Anyway, if you want to show support for Jackie Dolamore (the author of Magic Under Glass and the innocent party in all of this), go to this site http://petol.org/bc4all and sign the petition. Also, feel free to write something really scathingly brilliant to Bloomsbury about how completely uncool it is to whitewash covers in the 21st century.
Bloomsbury USA 175 Fifth Avenue New York, NY 10010 Phone: 646-307-5151 Fax: 212-780-0115 bloomsbury.kids@bloomsburyusa.com children.publicity@bloomsburyusa.com
Okay nevermind. xD Controversy has ended. Bloomsbury is changing the cover. http://bit.ly/8Snbd3 I’m gonna leave the contact info up though, just in case Bloomsbury decides to go for a hat-trick.
Jan
12
2010
According to the random thingy chooser, the winner is:
Congratulations; you have successfully cheered up my book. 
Email me your address, as you have 24 hours to claim your prize or it will go to a different book cheerer-upper.
For my personal favorite, I choose:
It was pretty close between Aik and Jessica who introduced me to that fabulous weirdo anthem “All My Heroes Are Weirdos”, but I had to go with Aik. Based on her comment, she sounds like a really cool, confident, super-nerd. Love that! Super-nerdiness must be encouraged.
Honorable mentions:
Steve and Lacey for great quotes, although Ninefly’s was the best: “Creativity is a mental disorder“. Soooo getting that on a tee shirt someday.
sbklinda and Thuy for knowing how to twist logic until it screams, “Uncle!”
Yan for having the most educational comment.
Emilee and Kay whose posts always make me feel normal.
Statements I must comment on:
Mike Jung – name one thing badminton players ever did to contribute to society. Exactly.
Ari - I don’t think it would be boring if people walked around naked. It would be the opposite of boring.
And Susan, what can I say? I like the irony :p
Thanks for playing, y’all!
Jan
9
2010
Ka-Yam Chui from The Letter Garden drew a picture of Hanna and Rosalee for me. My very first fan art! Of course, I asked her to do it, but so what? I refused to be robbed of the joy of fan art. :p It’s always really interesting to see someone else’s idea of something that used to be solely in your own head. Love how she put Swan in the picture too. 
Thanks, Ka-Yam!!!!!!!
ETA: Ka-Yam reminded me about this one. This is the first picture of Hanna she sent me. Ha! So this one is really my first bit of fan art. Which I didn’t ask for, so see? It’s totally legitimate. xD
Jan
8
2010
We all know how much I hate blogging–I’m sure it’s legendary at this point–but there are a few people for whom I am willing to overcome my hatred. People I will not only blog for, but also blog about. Jennifer Hubbard is one of those people. She is my Tenner buddy, and really just an all-around good egg (I can say things like “good egg” because I am very secure in my dorkiness).
Anyway, Jennifer wrote a book everyone is talking about and eager to read called THE SECRET YEAR.
It’s about a poor, hot boy named Colt who secretly hooked up with Julia, a sad, privileged beauty who dies unexpectedly. The only thing Colt has to remember her by is the diary she kept during the time of their affair, which he hopes will explain why she was so determined to keep their relationship a secret.
I asked Jennifer a few questions to get to know her as a writer and a person and here is what she had to say:
Explain the origin of your book’s title.
The Secret Year was at least the third title this book had in its pre-publication life. But it fits well: it’s about a year in the life of two people who had a secret relationship.
Every author has a distinct style. Describe yours.
I tend to write on the shorter side, but I invest a lot in each word. That probably comes from my years of short-story writing. I aim for brevity and clarity, but with layers of meaning.
What does your book offer a reader that no other book can?
One reason I started writing was to tell stories that turned out the way I thought they should, because I grew impatient with stories that ended too neatly. I try not to be formulaic. In The Secret Year, the characters are aware of the “opposites attract” storyline, and they play it up, they make fun of it, they use the expectations of that script for their own purposes. However, their differences also affect them in ways they don’t expect.
What’s one writer’s myth you’d like to bust?
I hear a lot of, “You HAVE to do this,” and, “You MUST do that,” when it comes to publishing and promoting. And 99% of the time, the thing that’s being touted as a requirement is actually optional. You don’t have to blog, Skype, Twitter, do school visits, do vlogs, produce a trailer, and develop a playlist. Everything helps, but nobody has time to do everything and still write. And if a certain task doesn’t come naturally and feels like a chore, I think the discomfort shows and it becomes less effective. I do think writers nowadays need to be online in at least one place, but there’s a lot of leeway in where, and how, and what to do with that online space. I’m online a lot because I enjoy it; it’s fun for me.
What do you read for fun?
Almost everything. Just for example, my bookshelves contain classic novels, nonfiction works about everything from the birth of the atomic age to the Gold Rush, YA novels, Nancy Drew books, essays, poetry, travel narratives, memoirs, true-crime stories, the journals of Lewis and Clark, a few picture books, short-story anthologies, literary magazines, and on and on.
What was the last book you read that blew you away and why exactly were you blown?
The last book that gave me the cold chills and made me rave to anyone who would listen was Peter Cameron’s Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You. I loved the voice, the humor, the richness of the language. It’s about the aftermath of 9/11, though in a very subtle way; you have to pick up on the cues. It’s about the difficulty that self-protective people have in reaching out for love. It’s just stunning, IMHO.
If you could pick any writer alive or dead to mentor you, who would you pick and why?
I used to long for a writing guru, especially in the days before I knew any other writers. Now, with the internet, I’m in constant communication with other writers, and this “pool of mentors” is wonderful. But I have to mention two special people. Danielle Joseph, author of Shrinking Violet, is my mentor through the Class of 2k9/2k10 program. And I consider Kelly Fineman, of the blog Writing and Ruminating, to be my blogging mentor. Hers was the first blog I read, and I still read it every day. She taught me how to get started on LiveJournal.
What’s the one thing you want to accomplish before you die?
I’ve accomplished a lot of the things on my list already, like “Get published” and “See the giant redwoods.” Now I just want to see as much of the world as I can, and put as much good into the world as I can.
If you guys want to know more about Jennifer, follow her on Twitter (I do; she’s got a GREAT sense of humor) @JennRHubbard. She’s also got a real blog, unlike my poor excuse for one, which has smart, informative, writerly type posts: http://writerjenn.livejournal.com/
So go check her out, she’s pretty cool. And go buy her book, THE SECRET YEAR–it released yesterday, but today is Friday so I know y’all just got paid. xD
Jan
5
2010
It’s official, folks. Bleeding Violet is finally out and about in the world–the REAL world, not just the world in my head. Talk about surreal.
Anyway, I thought I’d do something nice for my book today, you know, show her how very loved she is. (People keep saying she’s weird and dark and creepy, and I think it’s starting to give her a complex, poor thing.) So I’m going to do a Release Day Giveaway that’s open to everyone from everywhere. Yes, even Philadelphia (joke between me and my football archnemesis Josh Berk).
If you want to enter, all you have to do is leave one comment for my book explaining why being a weirdo isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I’ll pick a winner at random, using the random chooser thingy, but I’ll also pick a personal favorite. The winner gets a signed copy of Bleeding Violet and the personal favorite gets a BV bookmark and a Porterene key (you have to read the book if you don’t know what that is). This giveaway will end next Monday, and on the following Tuesday, I’ll announce the winners.
So that’s it, and I really hope you guys can make my poor little book feel good about herself. Good luck!
Dec
26
2009
Okay, here it is folks. I crunched some numbers (well, the computer did) and the randomly chosen winner of the Bleeding Violet *Christmas Giveaway Extravaganza is:
It’s almost 11 a.m. my time, so I will give you til 11 a.m. tomorrow to claim your prize or it will go to the next random person on the list.
As for the comments, I have to give a few special shoutouts:
Ari MissAttitude for the Edith Beale quote. Grey Gardens is one of the best documentaries EVER!
Emilee for being the most like the main character in the story. xD
Kay and Stacy W for their strange attempts to actually describe the color violet.
Yan for adding to my storehouse of useless but fascinating trivia.
and finally:
Kelly B and her awesome inability to keep a secret.
Be sure to check back again on my actual release date, January 5, for another BV giveaway. Thanks for playing!
, people’s names, nonsense lyrics, mean boys, robots, spooky sh*t (I blogged about this particular playlist 