Color blind, or color impervious?

New blog entry:
Race & my mother's footsteps

Excerpt:
"So it's gonna be biracial."

These were my mom's words when I showed her a picture of me and my future baby daddy.

These words could have been uttered with just about any kind of emotional inflection imaginable: humor, rage, disregard, antagonism. As actually spoken by my mom, they might have been about a trip to the supermarket or the day's weather: "Oh, fancy that. Another cloudy day in Eugene!"

I told my mom drily, "Yes, that does tend to be a consequence of having a white mom and a black dad."


That was it. That was our entire conversation on race before my mom passed away almost a year later. Frankly, it was a much more exhaustive conversation than I’d expected on the matter, which–knowing my mom–I hadn’t even realized would warrant note.

Much more important to my mom was the question, “How’d that happen?” When she asked these words immediately after I announced that I was pregnant, she wasn’t asking for a refresher on sex ed. She was asking, “How’d my presumably lesbian daughter end up pregnant?”

Phooey on you, insurmountability!

New blog entry:
Pens & pitchforks

Excerpt:
“oh nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo”

This was Sarah’s exact response when I gave her a couple-sentence synopsis of The Monster’s Daughter’s sequel. It mirrors my own sentiments when I read the book’s concluding paragraph about two weeks ago.

In my case, the feeling didn’t come out of the blue. It started in mid-March as a fleeting, almost imperceptible discomfort in the pit of my stomach when I read a scene about midway through the book. As I continued my first revision and moved nearer the book’s conclusion, my discomfort grew more and more pronounced.

It was a full week after I’d finished my first revision that I was able to pinpoint the source of it. In the same conversation excerpted at the beginning of this entry, I told Sarah, “i do believe life can be very shitty sometimes, but i am troubled by this degree of shittiness.”

During and after that conversation with Sarah, I despaired at the prospect of having to scrap the book in its entirety. If I had to do that, I’d have to do the same for the third book. Despite Sarah’s suggestions there were many ways to avoid a total rewrite of TMD 2, I knew there was absolutely no way I could keep the story’s core and simply retool it. None! I’d have to do a total rewrite.

Oh, how I despaired!

Take two

It's come to my attention that some folks don't like shouting out their name across the interwebs. It's also been pointed out that some folks in that group might rather enjoy a free ebook of The Monster's Daughter. This can be expressed simply as follows:

Vampire Venn

In deference to y'all in the middle there, I'm just going to tweet the coupon code tomorrow morning. I'll disable the code after 25 downloads (or end of day, whichever is sooner--you did see that I'm in contracts, right?).

TMD! All free-like!

My, how things change over the course of ten weeks!

I released The Monster’s Daughter in late January of this year. I’d run it through beta readers for their invaluable feedback and spell checked it a dozen times. I’d read through it myself even more times—so many times, in fact, that I wanted to banish Ginny, Montana and vampires from my brain forever. If only doing so were as (comparatively) easy as demolishing vampires!

When I published it then, I swore I was done. I wasn’t going to touch another semi-colon or sentence again. I totally meant it, too, and I did a great job sticking to my guns for roughly 24 hours. In what feels like the eternity since I decided those pop-cap guns weren’t worth sticking to, the book’s gone through an editor and a copy editor. I’ve made some small but significant revisions. I’ve had the book formatted to look like one you’d find in a library because it actually belongs there.

Now I can also say I’ve rejoiced in holding that truly final, truly beautiful book in my hands. The Monster’s Daughterwon’t be for everyone, but I’ve heard enough praise from readers to know that it will definitely be for some.

If you’ve read a sample and think The Monster’s Daughter might be your kind of book, today’s your day! Let me know in comment that you’re interested in getting The Monster’s Daughter as a free ebook. If you do so by noon tomorrow PDT and you’re one of the first 25 requestors* (between WordPress and Blogger), I’ll send you a Smashwords coupon redeemable on April 7, 2011 PDT. If your comment doesn’t fit both those criteria, fear not! I’ll likely give away a couple of print copies in the near future.

Also, the creepy infomercial guy waving to you from over my shoulder wants to remind you the ebook is only $2.99 most places ebooks are available. Even if you didn’t get a free copy, that’s just 299 pennies more than free!

If you’ve just heard about The Monster’s Daughter or if you’ve been cheering me on since 2004, I want to thank you so much for sharing this ride with me! It’s truly the company that’s made it a ride worth taking.

* I’m giggling as I write this, because (a) I can’t for the life of me imagine 25 “requestors” and (b) using the word “requestors” makes me feel like my contracts career has taken over my entire brainpan!

A video of pre-parent, shenanigan-loving me

New entry:
New hope!

Excerpt:
As I mention in my bio and elsewhere, I didn’t expect to enjoy motherhood. I had a special wariness in my heart toward babies, who I perceived as writhing, screaming, non-communicative balls of blubber who served no real purpose save to drive their parents crazy.

FEAR & REVERE me!

New blog entry:
Elementary school vampires

Excerpt:
Elementary-school appropriate witch? Check. Mummy? Check. Werewolf? Check.

I was excited to teach my Japanese elementary school students (shogakusei) about Halloween, which was my favorite holiday throughout childhood. A lot of that was due to its proximity to my birthday. What's not to love about presents and candy and two consecutive days of celebration?

It wasn't all about my birthday, though. Some of my enthusiasm for Halloween was related to my early love of horror. I'd loved the genre ever since my mom found six-year-old me sneak-watching horror flicks from our hallway. Forbidden stuff, ooh!

Please don't tell me you liked it!

New blog entry:
A simple "thanks"

Excerpt:
Ohsoawkward. Ohsoawkward.

These were my thoughts when a neighbor-turned-friend told me her feelings about The Monster's Daughter.

The funny thing was, she loves the book. Her primary comments were that: (a) it reminds her of who she was as a teen, (b) it's evoking so many feelings for her and (c) it's helped her understand feelings she couldn't quite put her finger on before.

I love it when I have those "aha!" moments thanks to someone else's words. So why is it so awkward to hear I've inspired them?