Jeri Smith-Ready

Earth Day is his Birthday

As an amateur-turned-professional-turned-amateur environmentalist, I tend not to celebrate (or even notice) this Gaia-honoring holiday. To me, every day is Earth Day.

However, every day is not Misha's birthday. The only cat I've ever had whose birthday I knew for sure (we got him from a coworker whose harlot kitty came home knocked up one night), Misha turns Lucky 13 today.

To join me in celebrating the Day of the Guy, please enjoy this instructive video, "An Engineer's Guide to Cats." It even contains a potential solution to global warming at the end, thus fulfilling my holiday obligation.



Since his favorite thing in the world is a new pair of (human) shoes, I might need to make a trip to DSW. Anything to keep the boy happy.

Labels: holidays, pets, videos

• posted by Jeri @ 8:36 AM
• 7 comments

Happy New Year!

(Quick reminder, since a lot of you were away doing whatever it is normal people do over the holiday: there's another Wicked Game ARC drawing this week. Scroll down to last Friday's post. There aren't many entries yet (slackers!), so your chances are excellent.)

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I read yesterday that the way you spend your time at midnight on New Year's Eve is the way you'll spend the rest of the year. I guarantee that I will not spend 2008 drinking too much champagne (how can 1.75 glasses be so intoxicating?) and staring at the blandly handsome face of Ryan Seacrest (how can 1 man get paid so much for doing so little?).

I took the whole day off yesterday, something I never do. Saw Sweeney Todd, which was amazing, the ideal marriage of men and material. When I heard last year that Tim Burton and Johnny Depp were bringing the Sondheim musical to the big screen, I thought, "It will be perfect." And it was.

Then I spent the evening finishing A Rush of Wings by Adrian Phoenix, which comes out next Tuesday. I'll blog in detail about it over the weekend, but it was awesome--serial killers, vampires rock gods, FBI conspiracies, and fallen angels, all in one gorgeously written novel.

On to my 2008 Goals:

1. Rewrite The Reawakened (non-negotiable, since it's under contract)
2. Write and rewrite Bad to the Bone (ditto)
3. Write six tie-in stories for Wicked Game
4. Submit proposal for more vampire books
5. Submit young adult fantasy proposal (completed Book 1 and series synopsis)
6. Write and submit proposal for new adult novel/series
7. Fix screenplay ending and begin submitting it to contests again
8. Design and build WVMPradio.com website and blog for Wicked Game's release
9. Build MySpace pages for WVMP and characters
10. Attend 5 conferences/conventions/book festivals
11. Sign stock at 100 bookstores
12. Do 10 non-conference appearances (signings, talks)
13. Do 25 online interviews/guest blogs
14. Read 50 books
15. Watch 50 movies
16. Foster 5 dogs (not all at the same time)
17. Do my part to make sure my candidate becomes President
18. Never be satisfied with "good enough."

You'll notice that a lot of these are repeats/carry overs from my 2007 goals. I'm a work in progress.

What are your hopes and dreams for 2008? Do they involve booze and fake celebrities? If so, consider revising. Or hell, go for it.

----------------
Now playing: Sleater-Kinney - Start Together
via FoxyTunes

Labels: foster dogs, holidays, The Reawakened, vampire series, writing life, YA series

• posted by Jeri @ 9:08 AM
• 6 comments

Divine badness

Because a lot of you weren't with me last December (and those who were are dying to hear it again), I must share with you a couple of Christmas carol gems I discovered a year ago.

First, a repost of my blog from December 13, 2006:

>>>

The unholiest of nights

I've often thought that a virtuoso performance of Verdi's Requiem can make a believer out of an atheist.

Now, courtesy of The Sneeze, I've found a song that will do the opposite.

(There's a streaming audio button you can hit, but which is barely visible in Firefox. It's right above the words 'or download the mp3.')

Merry Freakin' Christmas.

>>>

Make sure you listen to the whole clip if you can stand it, because it gets better worse as it goes along, right down to the last few seconds. It actually gives me an endorphin rush, either from the pain or the sudden influx of oxygen from laughing so hard.

Then, if you're still conscious, relax with a guy singing "Jingle Bell Rock" using nothing but the title words.

Should I worry that I enjoy these things?

Labels: holidays, music

• posted by Jeri @ 7:24 AM
• 1 comments

Character birthdays, Part Two

I mentioned a few weeks ago that March 1 was the birthday for Shane, the hero of my vampire novels.

One reader asked me offline if I bought Shane a birthday present. A couple of months ago a discussion on this subject took place on the Smart Bitches site, prompted by a post on Laurell K. Hamilton's blog. The discussion centered on how real the characters are to authors, how much they drive the plot, and how thoroughly we know the contents of their pockets.

I can usually tell you what kind of music my main characters like (in Bad Company it's sort of the point) and even how they take their coffee:

• Lucifer: Black and bitter, as dark a roast as possible
• Beelzebub: Tons of cream and sugar--he hasn't an ascetic bone in his body
• Ciara: Three sugars, no milk, except when she's really tired, when it's time for a gigante mocha, organic two-percent milk, one-and-a-half shots of coconut, no whipped cream, lots of cinnamon, and a little nutmeg
• Shane: Black and cheap

There's no coffee in the Aspect of Crow world, which is one reason I'd never want to live there. They make do with chicory. Also, without electricity it's a lot easier to get a good night's sleep.

I use character interviews to deepen my knowledge of these people, but usually not until after the first draft. The first draft is the getting-to-know-you process. I put them through hell and see how they react. Do they crumble? Do they run? Do they fight back with nasty words? Fists? Do they blame others? Themselves?

If I know how they face down certain death, the rest comes easy. When they step up to a coffee counter and the bored barista says, "What'll you have?" the answer is waiting on the tip of my brain.

Back to Shane's birthday. I wanted to get him food, because like a lot of gift-buyers, I go by what I would want most (be honest, you do it, too).

But vampires can't enjoy solid food ("everything tastes British") so I settled on a six-pack. The local liquor store didn't have any microbrews from his home state of Ohio. Instead I bought some Smithwick's Irish Ale, made by the brewers of tar-in-a-bottle, aka Guinness. It was a nod to Shane's heritage, and the whole reason for posting this musing today and not tomorrow, or, say two weeks ago when it would've been more timely.

A brief product review: Smithwick's is fantastic! It's extremely smooth, while somehow maintaining a rich, full-bodied ale taste. How did I get this far in life without trying it? Go pick up one (or six) for yourself, and have a Happy St. Patrick's Day!

A-Z Update: "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" by Green Day

Labels: craft, food, holidays, vampire series

• posted by Jeri @ 9:04 AM
• 5 comments

Happy Groundhog Day

Well, what if there is no tomorrow? There wasn't one today.
--Phil, Groundhog Day, 1993; screenplay, Harold Ramis

Cue annual pitch for my favorite film.

Roger Ebert named it one of his Great Movies. Transparency Now has a wonderful essay on it entitled "Breakthrough to the Real Self."

In short: Bill Murray + spiritual existentialism + large rodent = Cinematic Bliss.

It gets better every year.

Labels: holidays, movies

• posted by Jeri @ 2:12 PM
• 6 comments

2007 Goals

1. Write first draft of Wings of Crow (non-negotiable, since it's under contract)
2. Rewrite Bad Company and write detailed synopsis of Bad to the Bone (ditto)
3. Submit young adult fantasy (Book 1 and trilogy synopsis) to prospective editors before Memorial Day
4. Read 50 books
5. Design and build WVMPRadio.com website and blog for BC's release
6. Take a vacation with just my husband
7. Make marketing budget and actually keep to it
8. Finish Animal of the Month pages during the first half of the month
9. Make my MySpace page kick ass (or at least decrease its suckage)
10. Spend one day a week on marketing/promotion and reserve the other six days for writing
11. Begin proposal for new novel/series to submit in '08
12. Fix screenplay ending and begin submitting it again
13. Attend 5 conferences/conventions/book festivals
14. Sign stock at 100 bookstores
15. Do 10 non-conference appearances (signings, talks)
16. Foster 5 dogs (not all at the same time)
17. Enjoy the ride

That's mine. What are your goals? Do they make you stretch? Do they have measurable outcomes? Do they involve chocolate?*

I'm especially excited about #10 above. Promotional tasks have distracted me from writing, and conversely, I've made my writing deadlines too tight to afford time for promotion when it really counted (i.e., last October). It's all part of the learning curve, and this year I'll do better.

Happy New Year!

*"Eat more chocolate" definitely has a measurable outcome.

Labels: holidays, writing life

• posted by Jeri @ 11:39 AM
• 6 comments

Xmas wrapup

Favorite gift: Ray Lewis jersey (and watching the Ravens crush the hated Steelers on Christmas Eve--at Heinz Field, no less, where they've never won before--and then having the Colts lose to the Houston Texans (snicker!) to give the Ravens the No. 2 seed in the AFC)
Least favorite gift: Viral gastroenteritis

Favorite moment: 2-year-old nephew playing with (loud) musical Thomas the Tank Engine* in the middle of church
Least favorite moment: See least favorite gift above


*the source of which may or may not have been the writer of this blog

Labels: holidays

• posted by Jeri @ 1:50 PM
• 2 comments

More Xmas Pain

And here's a guy singing "Jingle Bell Rock" with no lyrics except the title words. Again, courtesy of The Sneeze (which you should all be reading daily so I won't have to tell you the funny parts. Which are all of them).

Remember, I bring you these gifts because I love you.

Word Watch 2006
Count: 226,974
Remaining: 23,026

Labels: holidays, music

• posted by Jeri @ 12:08 PM
• 10 comments

The unholiest of nights

I've often thought that a virtuoso performance of Verdi's Requiem can make a believer out of an atheist.

Now, courtesy of The Sneeze, I've found a song that will do the opposite.

(There's a streaming audio button you can hit, but which is barely visible in Firefox. It's right above the words 'or download the mp3.')

Merry Freakin' Christmas.

UPDATE!! The antidote, courtesy of Xmas Xtravaganza. The angel's name is Antonique Smith. It's a Christmas miracle.

Another Update: The bad 'O Holy Night,' with zombies. (I actually find it funnier to hear the song without visuals, but Your Mileage May Vary.)

Labels: holidays, music

• posted by Jeri @ 6:45 AM
• 7 comments

Has anyone seen my marbles?

Clearly I've lost them, because I plan to be at the mall tomorrow at six a.m. Me, the woman who never EVER leaves the house on Black Friday.

It's work-related, though. I want to sign stock at the Waldenbooks so the books can be on display and sell, sell, sell!

It should feel insane, but I'm too full of food to care. Sigh...a Thanksgiving dinner that couldn't be beat.

Labels: holidays, writing life

• posted by Jeri @ 8:59 PM
• 0 comments

The last dark Halloween

As I mentioned 365 days ago, this is the final year that Daylight Savings Time will end before Halloween. Read last year's post for my grumpy thoughts on that.

Today I began my Halloween celebration by rewriting the final scene of Voice of Crow. It's dark, and triumphant. Darkly triumphant, one might say. A fitting end for the second volume of a trilogy.

Tonight we'll spend the evening with our friends in the suburbs, people who live in a trick-or-treater-friendly neighborhood. We've hung out on Halloween with this couple for nine years in a row. Originally my friend Jason (in his pre-spousal days), who lived in an apartment, would come to our house in the 'burbs to share the joy of giving out candy and emotionally scarring young children for life.

When we were younger and less overworked, we dressed up for the trick-or-treaters. One year Jason wore a Batman costume, which all the kids loved, except one:

A young boy, maybe five or six, arrived alone at our door, dressed as the Joker. When it opened, and he was confronted with his nemesis, the tyke narrowed his eyes and murmured, "Batman..."

Then they fought to the death. I, as Catwoman, looked on with amusement.

Sigh...I miss the old Halloween traditions. This year it's pizza and "Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein." We are so old.

So how are you celebrating this wonderful holiday?

Labels: holidays

• posted by Jeri @ 2:15 PM
• 9 comments

Halloween Mix Tape

A good compilation tape, like breaking up, is hard to do. You've got to kick off with a corker, to hold the attention[...]and then you've got to up it a notch, or cool it a notch, and you can't have white music and black music together, unless the white music sounds like black music, and you can't have two tracks by the same artist side by side, unless you've done the whole thing in pairs, and...oh, there are loads of rules.
--Nick Hornby, High Fidelity

I'm dating myself by even using the term, but since our car only has a tape deck, and my husband has had his iPod surgically attached, I still use tapes. Every October I listen to this mix I made back in 2002. It's like having Halloween carols.

Anyway, here it is, recorded in reverse alphabetical order by artist:

"Dragula (Hot Rod Herman Mix)" - Rob Zombie
From the Matrix soundtrack. The day this song doesn't get my blood pumping, just start shoveling the dirt over me.

"Introduction" - Tom Twycker
From the soundtrack to Run Lola Run, a cool German movie about a woman who relives the same twenty minutes three times in an effort to save her boyfriend's life.

"O Death" - Ralph Stanley
From the O Brother Where Art Thou soundtrack, from the scene where they're about to lynch Tommy Johnson (aka, the Wizard of Oz homage scene).

"Hell" - Squirrel Nut Zippers
Not from a soundtrack!

"Tragic Kingdom" - No Doubt
Back before Gwen Stefani became a bubbleheaded sellout. A song about the darker side of Disneyland.

"Polly" - Nirvana
Off Unplugged in New York. Rob, if you think Nirvana is all noise, you should give this album a listen. Beautiful vocals and guitar playing, and a huge dose of self-effacting humor from Kurt Cobain. Painfully good.

"Heresy" - Nine Inch Nails
Trent is uncharacteristically angry in this song.

"Sharks" - Morphine
Because every mix tape of mine must have a Morphine song. It's the law.

"Skinwalkers" - Robert Mirabal
Taos Pueblo tribe member mixes traditional Native American music with rock 'n' roll.

"Lake of Fire" - Meat Puppets
Yay, cowpunk! Who says Texas has no edge?

"Vampires of New York" - Marcy Playground
Ah, Marcy Playground. Geek Meets Grunge. On their second album, they did a song ("Wave Motion Gun") that used the 1970s Japanese animated TV show Starblazers to illuminate heroin addiction.

"Crawling" - Linkin Park
Widely regarded by me as the weak link (ha! get it?) on this mix tape. I thought they were pretty cool back in '02, but now I'm over them. Still, it's there.

"Monster" - L7
Riot grrrls extraordinaire. In Requiem, I modeled Gianna's punk band, Public Humiliation, after L7.

"Falling Away from Me" - Korn
Though they are the mentors to the mentors of Linkin Park (Limp Bizkit), they're still cool in my book, because they don't take themselves seriously. I had to put this on a Halloween tape because it debuted on the second South Park Halloween episode. The band members played themselves in a brilliant Scooby Doo spoof. When they changed into various forms of corn to "fight" the pirate ghosts (or was it ghost pirates?), I laughed so hard I couldn't breathe.

"Voodoo" - Godsmack
One of the tape's highlights.

"People Are Strange" - The Doors
My favorite part of this song is Ray Manzarek's cute little keyboard interlude. I have this vision of a bunch of eerie old people prancing around wearing zombie-like smiles at a David Lynch-esque firehall dance. There's this one lady in a pale blue print dress with big glasses and her hair in a bun. She's creepy. But happy. And that's all that matters.

SIDE 2 (it's a tape, after all)

"Halloween" - Dave Matthews Band
A lyric from this deliciously evil song gives us the mix tape's title: Shadows on the Window

"Burn" - The Cure
From The Crow soundtrack. As I was listening to this last week, I came up with the perfect ending to Voice of Crow. If you haven't seen the movie (or read the comic) The Crow, it's about a guy who comes back from the dead to wreak vengeance upon the people who killed him and his fiancee. Hearing the song reminded me that Crow, like all the Spirits, isn't always benevolent. Hee-hee.

"Bloodletting" - Concrete Blonde
One of several songs (along with Sting's "Moon Over Bourbon Street") inspired by Anne Rice's Interview with a Vampire.

"The Future" - Leonard Cohen
I knew Kurt Cobain and I shared a brain when he wrote in "Pennyroyal Tea": Give me a Leonard Cohen afterworld/so I can sigh eternally. Cohen makes me sigh, heavily. However, this song once made me burst into tears, as I was driving home on Election Day 2000. Because I could see the future, brother. It is murder.

"Creepy Crawling" - Chumbawamba
They were most famous for "Tubthumping" (the I get knocked down, but I get up again song), but the whole album was wonderful. Anarchy you can dance to.

"Dr. Bones" - Cherry Poppin' Daddies
Even more than the aforementioned Squirrel Nut Zippers, the CPDs somehow made swing sound sinister.

"Comfort Eagle" - Cake
We are building a religion/We are making it bigger/We are widening the corridors and adding more lanes/We are building a religion, a limited edition/We are now accepting callers for these pendant keychains.
They don't come any more sardonic than Cake.

"Mouth" - Bush
This is a remix off Deconstructed, but I think it also appeared in the American Werewolf in Paris soundtrack. I say "I think" because like all but 13 or 14 people, I never got closer to watching that movie than seeing the commercial.

"Big Brother/Chant of the Ever-Circling Skeletal Family" - David Bowie
Another good Election Day song.

"Low Red Moon" - Belly
No special comments, just a great song.

"In the Flat Fields" - Bauhaus
Because you can't have a Halloween mix tape without a Bauhaus song. Another law.

"The Pink Room" - Angelo Badalamenti
From the Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me soundtrack, which could be an entire Halloween tape on its own. "Black Dog Runs at Night" gives me the hibbie-gibbies every time.

"Happy Phantom" - Tori Amos
Baby, don't fear the Reaper. It might be fun to be a ghost.

Happy Halloween, everyone. Now go get your creep on.

Labels: holidays, music

• posted by Jeri @ 7:27 AM
• 10 comments