Meljean Brook

And now the tot has it, too. Poor little tot.

A bookseller talks about designing effective bookmarks and postcards at cynsations (which is an awesome blog for those interested in the YA market, particularly current fantasy/horror YA). I’m currently designing the bookmark for DEMON MOON, and already I like it better than the DEMON ANGEL bookmarks. Anyway, her tips are for YA and children’s books, but I think probably hold true for every genre: make it simple and uncrowded, make it eye-catching, make it pretty.

Robin Schone is having a Guest Author Day over at The Good, The Bad, and the Unread. Ah, remember when THE LADY’S TUTOR burst onto the scene? Love that book. Love the cover. Love the parody. And I’m so glad she’s back.

Abreva really works. (And for the price, it damn well should!) Anyway, is there anything worse than a cold sore? No. No, there isn’t.

Jane has a most excellent rant over at Dear Author. (Which you probably read before coming here.) Because I guess George Clooney is hot and all … but really. I add my *headdesking* to everyone else’s.

And just because we can never have too much He-Man (I first saw this a couple of years ago (maybe posted it on the old blog?) but they have a much better version on YouTube now) HE-MAN DOES 4 NON BLONDES:

I love George Michael. If there are any artists who define the sound of the 80s for me, it’s got to be Madonna, George Michael (and Wham!) … and the music from the Footloose soundtrack.

The reason is pretty simple: I didn’t have a stereo, but my sister did, and the cassettes I mostly remember her having were Madonna’s True Blue (which started my love for Madonna), a Wham! album and George Michael’s Faith, and the sweet sweet sounds of Kevin Bacon finding love and shaking his ass and running through a warehouse in the Bible belt.

We must have played them a billion times, and by the time I was buying my own music, it was pretty much a sure thing that I’d pick up the next Madonna/George Michael album (which may say a lot about my views on sexuality). So George is one of the few artists I’ve followed since I was a kid — and except for his last album, every single one has hit me exactly right. The music he did in Wham! and the Faith album not as much anymore (Missy would kill me for saying that) but I still love them.

(This is also partially inspired by KristieJ’s recent YouTube-fest.)

Okay, first there’s Wake Me Up (Before You Go-Go), also known as “Jitterbug” (and forever immortalized in the Zoolander gasoline fight.) God, what an awful video. But it’s so catchy! And I don’t know HOW anyone watching this couldn’t have foreseen his eventual jump out of the closet. Or was everything in the 80s just this gay?

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I got an updated version of the DEMON MOON cover and put it on the sidebar — the primary difference is the silver foil that will go on the lettering — but it also looks like it’ll have more of a lavender tone than the original blue, and the edges smoothed out with the color wash. Also, you can’t tell on this version, but in the large file Colin’s hair is exactly what it’s supposed to be — very messy blond (’cuz he can’t look in the mirror). Reduced, it looks more fuzzy. Also, it looks like the kerning on the O in “demon” was increased, because the M used to be centered right on Savi’s butt, but now it’s a little farther left. Hmmm.

Okay, this probably interests no one but sick ol’ me, but still. Pictures!

I just recovered from a flu-thingy, and now I’ve got the Head Cold From Hell coming in. Which is why I’ll probably be posting videos and pictures over the next couple of days.

Anyway, I shouldn’t be so blergh, because this is the view from my balcony (and my office-area, where I’m typing this now). It’s kind of a crappy picture, because the batteries in the digital camera are dying, but we usually don’t get such a sharp look at Mt. Hood. But the past week, it’s been like this almost every day (and is like this right now): bright and snowy, all of the ridges and shadows clearly defined. This pic really doesn’t do it justice.

And Bobby took this the other morning:

Via Wonder Woman at Capes and Tights.

Via Newsarama — A webcomic adaptation of Orwell’s 1984. Chapters One and Two are online, the rest are still in production.

Okay, so I was checking out the search strings that lead people to my site, and I’m pleased that DEMON ANGEL and Meljean Brook (and Meljean Brooks) are among the top twenty.

The other seventeen? All about He-Man. I kid you not.

So, curious, I dropped by the old blog and checked out my He-Man post … and saw 982 comments, of which about 950 are spam. So, I plan to delete the post, but since I’d feel terrible if I deprived the world of a source of He-Man fun … and deny all of those Google searchers a place to visit, I’m reposting it here (where I have better spam control.)

Heh. I just realized that link isn’t going to work in about half a second. Anyway, from the archives of April 27, 2005 (my grandma’s birthday) I give you THE MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE … who just might have some unexpected sexual tendencies.

ETA: Comments turned off. He-Man is a spam magnet. (more…)

I think it’s great that people still use things like a phone book to look up a number. But I a) hate talking to anyone on the phone so much that I let my answering machine get EVERYTHING b) won’t call anyone unless I absolutely have to, and usually know the number already c) don’t mind paying $.50 for 411 if it saves me time and effort rather than hauling out a 6lb book and trying to find the number and searching through 1000 pages for something, and d) I HAVE THE FREAKING INTERNET!!

As you can see, I don’t need any more phone books. I don’t even need ONE, and certainly not the five I’ve gotten in the last month. So please stop leaving them on my doorstep, because then I just have to take them straight to the recycler — which is all the way across the apartment complex. So I have to take the damn things down to my car, drive to the recycler, get out, put the damn things in, and drive back home. I don’t like it. And I bet your poor delivery guy doesn’t like hauling them up the three flights to my apartment either. So please, for my sake, for his sake, stop sending them to me.

Sincerely,

Meljean, your customer who is living in (and enjoying) the twenty-first century.

…actually, Yellow Pages and Qwest, I’m not your customer. So I’m pretty sure tossing 48lbs of paper at my door is illegal or something. Paper harassment.

* I have trouble remembering the final comma in a set of serial commas. This was brought to my attention in the latest round of copy-edits. I also have a tendency to over-semi-colon. Did I mention that my copy-editor rocked? I had to stet very, very few changes, and most of those were style issues or words that I wanted to keep (for example, Mumbai vs. Bombay — Savi says Mumbai, Colin says Bombay, and it fits their backgrounds. I understand the reasoning behind switching them all to Mumbai, but I’m stubborn about dumb little things like that. Or Colin using “forgot” instead of “forgotten”, and Savi “opens” and “closes” the lights instead of turning them on and off.) Anyway. All of her suggestions and changes were great, and smoothed out/clarified some of my more tortured sentences — of which there were several *g*

I was feeling better today, so I didn’t read as much (I’m starting on THE SCHOOL FOR HEIRESSES anthology today, finished Kathleen O’Reilly’s BEYOND BREATHLESS (Harlequin Blaze) last night, and it was as good as the review that made me notice it in the first place said it was). I’ll probably be reading a lot more short stories and anthologies from here on out, because that seems to be the way of it while I’m writing.

I also got back to work on DEMON NIGHT after about a month away from it (doing promo for DEMON ANGEL and revisions/copy-edits for DEMON MOON) — I reread the proposal and synopsis, all of my notes, put my collage back up on my computer desktop and updated the pictures to fit the story better, and started editing a scene that I’d written for the proposal but that got pushed back because it dragged down the pacing after the first chapter (the proposal is three chapters — the scene now fits in chapter four). Tomorrow I’ll begin writing the scene that goes in between the end of the proposal and the moved-to-chap-four scene.

I gotta say … I love this story and the characters. It’s fun as all hell, I think a lot of my pacing problems won’t be such an issue (crossing fingers) and I love where I’m going with the overall mythology of the series. It’s not under contract yet, so I haven’t gotten the official “go ahead and write the rest of it” but I’ll keep working anyway.

Except I did laugh so hard I cried a little.

Oh, Miiiiisssssssssssssssyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!

MISSY: I’m freeee!

MELJEAN: Not for long. Just long enough for you to explain something.

MISSY: Aw, man! I hate you.

MELJEAN: Well, I can’t take long, because I’m not feeling so well, and any moment I might have to abandon the computer to throw up, and I have a feeling the passage I’m about to quote is going to hurry that along.

MISSY: I don’t care. Puke your guts out. Just tell me what we’re reading!

MELJEAN: Ginna Gray’s Where Angels Fear.

MISSY: Oh oh oh oh!! I love that book! I cried and cried and cried at the end, when Sam has to chase after Elise at the airport and tell her he loves her, and it’s so hard for him and a lone tear streaks down his lean cheek when he says it and she falls into his arms …. *sobsobsobsob*

MELJEAN: God, this is making me sick, too.

MISSY: Shut up! You have no soul and no heart! … that’s not the book I read. That has a different cover.

MELJEAN: No, it’s a reprint. It was a popular series. So popular that every time you walked into a UBS and tried to find the first book in the series, Fools Rush In, it wasn’t there. It took you almost seven years to find a copy. And you also bought up all of the others in the series along the way, until you finally forced yourself to stop.

MISSY: Were they good?

MELJEAN: I think they were pretty good, because Gray’s a pretty good writer, even though I haven’t read anything new by her in a while. And I’ll admit Where Angels Fear was an enjoyable read, even if it didn’t reduce me to tears again. It was okay. Except for…

MISSY: What? What?

MELJEAN: Remember how Elise wakes up on the first page in bed with Sam? This is what she encounters:

Avoiding his penetrating stare, Elise lowered her gaze, but her misery increased when she encountered his naked chest. It was broad and dark and covered with a pelt of black hair that shone with the same blue highlights as that on his head. A silver medallion dangled from a chain around his neck, swinging lazily back and forth.

MISSY: So?

MELJEAN: He. Has. A. Pelt. A PELT! Jondalar and Ayla wore pelts to keep warm in the Ice Age.

MISSY: Oh, I love Jondalar and Ayla! And I love Sam!!

MELJEAN: And worse, there’s a medallion! It’s skeezy! Way gross. Oh, and shit keeps getting lost in it. Like her nipples.

Above the towel, his navel was a shadowy cavity amid the whorl of black hair that arrowed downward from the thatch on his chest. In that glossy mat, Elise saw the glint of silver, and her breasts swelled and tingled …. Sam brought her back into his heated embrace, and she gasped as her sensitive nipples sank into the crisp hair on his chest…

A thatch? A glossy mat? What kind of chest hair is so thick that a medallion is covered by it? The silver’s always winking at her from inside the chest hair. At one point, she wants to “bury her aching breasts in the crisp hair on his chest” — how small are her titties and/or how deep is that mat? It freaks me out!

MISSY: What’s your problem? Lots of heroes have chest hair and medallions. It’s sexy.

MELJEAN: *killsself* All I can say is, thank god the 70s and 80s are over.

MISSY: Oh, go puke, you stupid twit.