Official Author Photo

Is that really me?

Thanks to Joe Camareno for taking the photo, and to wonderful make up artist Ramona Doerning for her steady hand and with the blush.

How I Survived my Author Photo Shoot

Thank goodness for good friends with good connections.  That's how I found a terrific photographer to take the headshot I'll be using as THE photo on my books and all that kind of jazz.

I'm not an actor or performer, so I'm not the most comfortable person in front of the camera. The photo you see currently on my blog is one I took myself, in my own bathroom mirror.  I find that a much more comfortable way to get my photo taken than to pose for other people.

Okay, I can be a bit of a goofy ham when I feel comfortable. Which is why it was great having Joe shoot my photos, since he was so easy to chat with and told me to "flutter my eyelashes" at the beginning of the shoot.

Still, it took me awhile to warm up.  Later, as I went through the (over a thousand!) photos, I noticed how sort of squinty and skeptical I looked in the early shots.  Sort of a "Is this really necessary?" attitude.  Which isn't fair, since I set the whole thing up and yes, it is necessary, thank you very much Nina, you squinty skeptic.

It was kind of surreal, going through all those close ups of myself.  I re-noticed my grayish front gums (thanks to a bike accident I had when I was ten that knocked my front teeth out and lead to all sorts of traumatic dental fun over the years), and how I seem to like the left side of my face better than my right given how I angle it toward the camera pretty consistently. 

And ah, the schnozz.  It's a gift from my Berry forebears. My beloved Aunt Janet had this nose, until she got a nose job in her twenties.  No nose job for me, thanks.  I love my big schnozz, my freckles, my squinty green eyes, my weird gums, and tendency to smirk. It's easy to love beauty and symmetry. More a point of pride to love your own faults.  It's a struggle, one that will go on my whole life, I suppose, but I'm determined to keep at it. Beats hating yourself!

The main thing, as a redhead, is to wear green. I'm not kidding. For someone with my coloring, it's like a magic trick to make your hair look good, you eyes glow, and your skin say 'Thank you!"

One thing you can be sure of, this photo will NOT be my author headshot. Though I love it for obvious reasons:

I'll post the official photo when it's ready. Meanwhile, am treasuring the ugly/goofy/crazy face photos too.

My Book's on Amazon!

I'm on vacation, typing away here in on my bed in my motel room, with travel buddy Wendy on the other bed doing the same, and she just casually says - Otherkin's on Amazon.

WHAT?

So yeah, it is.  Here.

No cover. No info. But HOLY DINNER PLATES! 

There's, like, a release date and everything.  I had no idea.  July 31, 2012.  Sounds good to me.

Who are we kidding?  Sound great to me!

Maine, the first day

View from our window, Maine. That's our deck, with chairs, and the dunes and Atlantic beyond.

Then once I get to the beach, I'm out there with no one but a lone surfer and a friendly gull for company. I find a huge empty blue gray shell, and then sit on a bench to breathe in the ocean and sky.

Back at our motel, Wendy and the Teddy on my bed enjoy their books.

King's Chapel and Burying Ground

Boston. One thousand bodies. Only 505 headstones.

I'm weird. I love cemeteries.

Wonderland

You've got to love a town where the last stop is Wonderland. Yay for Boston.

What's on My Wall

I found this at a Polish photography studio called Stereolit and had to have it and two others.The photographer, Piotr Vasco Wasilkowski, titled it "Bloody Skeletons and Wolves Howling."  I framed the photos, then grouped all three in a vertical line down the wall. To me they tell a different story every time I look at them. Sometimes this photo is the beginning of the story, sometimes the middle, and sometimes... the end.

If you're in the mood, visit Kasia and Piotr on Stereolit's website. They made it very easy for me to buy the photos online, and they arrived very quickly, in perfect shape.  I just love them.

What's on your wall? And why?

Advice for Young Writers

Happy Birthday, John Lennon

Dreaming of a world where John Lennon still lives. Dreaming of a better life. Dreaming of his dream.

Cover Copy

My latest learning experience as a soon-to-be published author has been in writing/editing cover copy for one's own book.  The lesson is this:

It's really fricking hard.

My fabulous (truly, she is wonderful, so colloborative, insightful, nice...) editor sent me her company's first stab at the copy for the front and back cover of my book, and invited me to give her my thoughts.  Now, I work in Hollywood by day, where writers get no say in the taglines for their TV shows.  Vast publicity and marketing departments determine how a film or show will be presented to the public, and as a writer you just sit there and are grateful you got paid to write the script.  So this was rather revolutionary to my way of thinking. Asking the writer's opinion?  On anything?  As a writer I have to say - Huzzah!

I liked a lot about the copy they sent me but because I'm so close to the material, I, of course, had opinions. Hey, I'm an opinionated person about most things. But about my book?? Puh-lease. I try NOT to think of it as my baby, but you get the idea...

I wrote them down. I tried to be more clever than the copy they sent. I read the back covers of tons of other books.

Okay, maybe not non-fiction books like this, but you see what I mean. I rifled through my library, focusing on YA books. Hard backs didn't help me much, since they often don't have any copy on the back. Also, everything on my Kindle was pretty useless for these purposes.  (Poor Kindle users don't get to see the pretty pretty covers or read the blurbs we writers work so hard to get!)  But fortunately for these purposes, I'm a total book hoarder.

But really, that wasn't very useful because there were infinite ways to approach writing back cover copy. Do you tell a bit of the story, naming the main characters, and being very explicit about the main conflict?  Here's the text of the back cover of the UK copy of GAME OF THRONES:

In the game of thrones, you win or you die.

As Warden of the north, Lord Eddard Stark counts it a curse when King Robert bestows on him the office of Hand. His honour weighs him down at court where a true man does what he will, not what he must. . . and a dead enemy is a thing of beauty. The old gods have no power in the south, Stark's family is split, and there is treachery at court. Worse, a vengeance mad boy has grown to maturity in exile in the Free Cities beyond the sea. Heir of the mad Dragon King deposed by Robert, he claims the Iron Throne.

Or do you show the conflict, but emphasize mostly emotion? Here's the back of Stephanie Meyer's YA blockbuster, TWILIGHT, with what I think is a masterful pitch on the back cover.

Or do you tantalize and tease, hoping to ensnare folks with just enough of a mystery that they want to find out more? Check out the back cover copy for Karsten Knight's new YA book, WILDFIRE:

I am the fieriest depths of hell

I am the surface of the sun.

I am the belly of a volcano.

I am the unstoppable force that

has formed new islands, and the

same unstoppable force that has

brought cities to their knees.

I am the volcano goddess who has

survived a thousand years.

I am Ashline Wilde, and I may

not survive another thousand

years, but I'll go down in flames

before I go up in smoke.

Intrigued?  That's what they're hoping.

I pretty much tore my hair out over the weekend trying variations of all three approches.  I reread most of my book, hoping to pick out useful quotes.  I consulted my critique partner, doubted everything I'd ever written, then kept going back to the thesaurus to make sure there wasn't a better word in there for "power" or "lurk" or "prowl." I ended up going for the more mysterious sort of copy.  My editor approved, but cleaned it up and made it much better, much less awkward. Now we think we've basically got it.  

Is it perfect? No.

Will you get to see it here right now?  Nope. Sorry. Not yet.  (Told you we went for the more mysterious/tantalizing type of copy.)

Will I think of a dozen other ways it could have gone?  Yep.

But I really do need to get to wrapping up my outline for book 2 so I can write the darned thing.  Can't dwell on stuff too long, or you go crazy and never get anything done.

But hat's off to the publicity and marketing folks who come up with this stuff. 'Cause it ain't easy.

'Ware the Apocalypsies!

Thanks to the brilliant Gretchen McNeil (have you read her book POSSESS yet? You must!) I've just joined a group of YA authors called The Apocalypsies, all whom have debuts just before and during 2012, the year to end all years...

Yet another example of how stunningly supportive and nice the YA writing community is. Seriously, the writers I've met (and editors, and agents) have all been nothing but kind and nice and all those words that sound so boring but are actually really great.

The writers are all really funny and talented too, but you already knew that.

My info's not up on the site yet, since this JUST happened. But I'm psyched!  I'll get to meet fellow writers as well as support them.  It's not very apocalyptic, but this is how I feel right now:

National Feral Cat Day Coming Up!

Did you know that if you catch and kill all the feral cats in an area, that area just fills up again with cats?

But if you trap, neuter, and return those animals to that area, the population stabilizes, no new kittens are born, the lives of the returned, neutered cats are improved, and behaviors like yowling, mating, and fighting stop.


Yep, cats have been in the wild, living near humans for over 10,000 years.  They deserve to be respected as much as any other animal. Killing them doesn't work. Trap, Neuter, Return (TNR does. It's been well documented.  Don't believe me?  Check out Alley Cat Allies and learn.

This October 16 is National Feral Cat Day, promoting compassion for cats.

Oh, and cats aren't responsible for the lower numbers of songbirds and other resident species.  Human beings are. We need to use these big brains of ours to make the world safe for birds, cats, and people.  Together we can do it.

Vonnegut on Stories

A funny bit of writing advice from one of my favorite writers.



I'm outlining book 2 right now. This made me think perhaps I'm overthinking things a bit...

Giant Rubber Bunny Suits or What Not to Put in Your Biography

So I have to write my bio today, that thing that describes me on the back of my book.  Somehow, as soon as I heard that, my mind went completely blank, as if I knew nothing about myself.

Serious or silly?  Short, for sure. But just how boastful or loony should I be?  What, if anything, in my life, is really relevant?  What would folks actually care about?

This is a good problem to have, don't get me wrong. It's thrilling to think that info about me will appear on a book by me.  It's mind-boggling, in fact. But I find it hard to describe myself.  Tall, red hair, prone to using a long word when a short one will do...

A friend on Facebook suggested I do a bio from the POV of a tiger.  Very cool idea!  However, after writing something like: "Nina Berry smells like cantaloupe and single malt scotch," I thought better of it.

Another friend offered to write it for me. But I've known her since sixth grade, and she knows waaaaay too much about me.  I mean, we used to sing "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" after French in the most hideous high pitched tones and imagine certain teachers who shall remain nameless dressed in giant rubber bunny suits, for crying out loud.

Sigh.  Off to try to find a balance between giant rubber bunny suits and "I went to college in Chicago."  Wish me luck.

Yes, it's September 11, ten years after, and I'm not going to turn on the TV.  I didn't watch much TV ten years ago either.  I went to work and worried.  I'm worried still.  I'm not even going to stay on the internet much longer. I need to write and move on and be present, not past.

It's a beautiful day here in Los Angeles. The gold sunlight is filtering through the vines that creep over my living room window. And because I'm in a bit of a mood I can't help remembering how Natalie loved those vines, and how Max used to bask in the puddles of sunshine. They're both gone now. And I'm here appreciating it for them.  Not much else we can do for those who have died and left their mark on us.

Back to work.

My Book's on Goodreads!

The news came to my Inbox thanks to a Google Alert, looking like this:

Web 1 new result for "Nina Berry"

Nina Berry (Author of Otherkin) Nina Berry is the author of Otherkin (0.0 avg rating, 0 ratings, 0 reviews, published 2012) www.goodreads.com/author/show/5145815.Nina_Berry

You can imagine how quickly I clicked on that link.  I have no idea how this happens, but my book just appeared on the Goodreads site, and people have already signed on as "to be read."

*Nina's Head Explodes*

God, I love the internet.

I have no idea if I should be doing anything to fill out the author info or anything.  I shall do my research.  Until then:  WOO HOO!

Otherkin

 

by
Nina Berry

My rating:

add to my books

Otherkin

by Nina Berry

0.00  ·  rating details  ·  0 ratings  ·  0 reviews

Nina Berry's OTHERKIN, in which a girl discovers she can shift into a tiger and is introduced into a world where people and objects aren't what they seem.

Expected publication: August 2012 by K Teen

Evocatively Moldering

After reading about writer Ransom Riggs's blog Strange Geographies, with its fascinating photos of forgotten places, I googled "detroit photo abandoned" to find again a photo essay I'd seen awhile back of shots of abandoned buildings in Detroit.

Turns out a couple of French photographers, Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre, shot the photos, which were picked up by Time Magazine, which called the subsequent photo essay Detroit's Beautiful, Horrible Decline.

The photos really are remarkable:

They evoke strange, twisted feelings and longings and half-stirred stories inside me.  You can almost feel the ghosts brushing past you.

I tried to write a short story in college called "Evocatively Moldering" after I took Art History and was taken with that phrase, uttered by my professor, to describe how the Romantic painters of the 19th century liked their buildings.  They liked ruins clutched in vines, rotting, empty, suggesting a semi-forgotten past now merging with encroaching nature.

Looks like our own cities are now becoming something the Romantics would like to look at. Not to live in, of course. They had cozy homes stuffed with trinkets for that.

What is it about the sight of decay that inspires stories?   Do you want to tell us how that empire declined?  Is it nostalgia?  Or perhaps it's knowing that one day we too will be gone, and probably forgotten, just as the people who once dwelled in these ruins are.  By making up their stories, we can pretend we are also preserving ourselves for just a little bit longer.

Editors Rock

I have long known that the folks involve in writing for kids are wonderful.  As soon as I joined SCBWI, I found myself in the company of many generous, kind, funny, smart, supportive people.  I've heard that it's different in adult publishing - more cutthroat.  I don't know.  But in kid lit, most people are just, well, nice. My agent, Tamar Rydzinski, more than proved it in all of her dealings with me - so fair, kind, perceptive, and intelligent.

This whole appreciation for the niceness/wonderfulness/general awesomeness of KidLitters rose to a new height this week after my first chat with my editor, Alicia.  Not only was she Queen of Nice, she really really GOT my book.

Those of you who write alone in the dark, wondering if you're insane to try to be a writer will have a glimmer of understanding of just how wonderful this is.  While you're typing/scribbling away, you secretly fear that no one will ever truly understand what you're going for on paper.  And you secretly dream that at least one person will read it one day and go - aha!

The dream part of all that happened to me this week while talking to Alicia.  She understood the whole subliminal body image issue I tried to sneak into my book.  She loved that a group of friends plays a crucial role in the story.  She "grokked" my world building, big time.

Can I just say - this is the way to my heart?  Read my stuff, love it, get it, tell me all about it, and I'll love you forever.  I'm easy like that.

Sure, she had notes.  She'll have more.  What notes she did have were so on the money it was scary.  I can't wait to see her line edits.  Seriously!  There's nothing like taking a manuscript you love and  making it  better.  It satisfies something way down deep in my soul.

So, future novelists/writer - I want you to know that editors rock.  Yes yes, self publishing/epublishing are flourishing and more power to those self-propelled successes.  But, for one, am so damned glad I have an editor.  I want my book to be as good I can make it.

Is This Heaven?

I Love Los Angeles

People who've never lived in LA love to diss it. I've had very good friends and relatives look at me like I was nuts when I said I loved living here. They talk about the traffic and the smog and the earthquakes and the supposed lack of culture. They look down their noses at folks who live here. I hope it makes them feel good.

Because they're wrong.

I grew up in paradise - Honolulu, Hawaii, that is. I know a great place to live when I see one. Hawaii is a great place to live.

So is Los Angeles.

Yes, LA has some traffic issues. Hell, I was here for the gigantor Northridge Quake in '94. I know it's not perfect here. Nowhere is perfect. I'm not going to go into how San Francisco also has traffic and quakes, or how Hawaii has vog (volcano smog) and higher expenses, or how NYC is way too pricey or Chicago has winters that can freeze your lungs with one breath. Every place has good things and bad things. I'll cop to traffic and earthquakes, with occasional side dishes of wildfires.

But those who love to try new things or just want to find like-minded people to hang with, LA is a wonderland. I was just talking about this at lunch today with fellow denizen Amy, and she pointed out that she ran across a group in Long Beach that gets together to sing sea shanties.

You can do anything in LA.

Want world class art? Try the Getty or LACMA or MOCA. Want to play hockey, eat Ukrainian food, then hit a jazz club? Come to LA. Hit the ski slopes (in winter) in the morning, then have dinner by the beach. Watch an old movie on the big screen at the Egyptian Theater, then have dinner down the street where Thai Elvis sings. Watch people from every walk of life take the metro or get their photo taken with Spiderman on Hollywood Boulevard. Or take yoga from a world class teacher on Montana Ave, then ride the ferris wheel on Santa Monica pier. Take a lesson in trapeze while you're at it.

You can be anything, watch anything, eat anything, try anything. It's a rich life in Los Angeles, even if you don't make a lot of money. And the weather? Let's just say it's August, and on the westside it's about 75 degrees at Noon.

And it's beautiful here. Yield to the loveliness of LA. Watch the video below.

LA Light from Colin Rich on Vimeo.

Wednesday - Embarrrassing or Not? Confession

I had a huge crush on Captain Kirk from Star Trek.  Particularly the season one Captain Kirk, still trim, young, and manly.

I watched the show obsessively (it was in reruns), and even at that age I could see the difference between the Kirks of season 1 and season 3.

Season 1:

Season 3:

Not that I would've kicked Season 3 Kirk out of bed for eating Fig Newtons. By the time we got to the movies, the feeling had waned. But I was watching a few moments of Season 1's "Conscience of the King" with my Dad last night, and he actually said, "William Shatner was a handsome man."

And yes, my Dad is straight. He's just secure enough to make offhand remarks like this. And I agreed with him. I told him now, as I couldn't as a teenager, that I'd had a crush on the young Captain Kirk.

Amazing how there was NO WAY I ever would've said that to my Dad when I was 13. You can't talk to your fricking Dad at that age about anything to do with boys.

But now - why not? He's my friend as well as my Dad. Lucky me.

Proof!

My brilliant writer buddy and critique partner Elisa Nader took this screenshot of the announcement of my book deal in Publisher's Marketplace.  (It's a bit small here. You can click on it if you actually want to be able to read it.) The site requires a subscription to see stuff, so a screenshot is the only way for the outside world to see proof.

As my friend Diane said, they published that I'm going to be published.

Which means it's all real.

Incroyable!

I Have a Book Deal!

I can now officially announce the BIG NEWS.

I have a two-book deal with Kensington Books with their K Teen imprint.  Let the dancing commence!



The books are part 1 and part 2 of a YA paranormal series. The title of Book 1 is currently OTHERKIN (subject to publisher approval), and it'll be out August or November next year.

All hail my agent, Tamar Rydzinski at Laura Dail Literary!

All hail Kensington Books' K Teen imprint for saying they love my book!

Still so much to do. But I had to share.  Life is sweet.

The Beauty of the Book

Borders Bookstore chain is closing.  Over ten thousand people are losing their jobs, publishers are taking a huge hit as Borders fails to pay them money it owes, authors' print runs are shrinking (see a great NPR article here with the deets), but for me it's another sign of the death of the beauty of the book.

Reading will survive, of course. Books will continue to be written and read, perhaps even in greater numbers, as ebooks take over and almost all sales eventually shift to one electronic form or another.  That's the most important thing, I suppose.  (Well, the lives the Borders employees affected by this are probably the most important thing, really. But you see where I'm going.)

But I can remember going into Tower Records and holding my first Beatles LP in my hands. It sent a visceral thrill through me that downloading an mp3 on ITunes simply cannot duplicate.  The music was tangible, real, in my hands. The cover (it was Live at the Hollywood Bowl) had what looked like actual tickets to the concert on it.  I could imagine holding those tickets in my sweaty little hand as I joined my screams with the other girls at the concert.

Getting a page to print up with an electronic ticket in my email for concerts today does not generate that excitement.  Burning my own cds or watching files download from MySpace sites after I buy a file does not make my toes vibrate with love and passion the way holding this album cover did.

So it goes with books.  I still have some of my first books - the Oxford Book of Nursery Rhymes, Now We are Six by A.A. Milne.  I wrote in those books. I circled words I liked and tried to spell out my name on the inside cover. I can still see my four year old scrawl and my five year old comments in these books.  When I hold them now I remember with sudden swift vividness how it felt to recite "Bad King John" with my Dad as he held the book in front of me.

Kids can't circle words on their iPads today. Or if they do, the circles don't stay.  When they get older they won't see the wear and tear of the years on the "pages" of their Kindle editions, or remember how they smeared chocolate on the blank back pages of their Nook while they read House at Pooh Corner. 

And the smell of a new book!  The ivory gleam of pages ruffling through your fingers as you estimated how much further till Nancy Drew unraveled the Mystery of the Old Clock.  To enter a bookstore was to enter a cathedral of story.  To touch the spines of those books was to come into contact with a hundred new ideas, a thousand new adventures.  If you saw another kid eagerly reading a pink book with an octopus on the cover, you could hunt for that book yourself by spotting that distinctive shade of magenta on the shelf.  You can't do that by looking at the back of an iPad.

But Borders is closing.  And printed books are a dying breed.  A few afficionados will remain, and a few bookstores will live on by catering to collectors, the same way vinyl records still sell a few copies to those who want a multi-level experience when buying music.

This to me is a tragedy.  Reading will  live on, thank goodness.  But the visceral connection to the word will die.  Maybe it means more people will read books, and that is something to celebrate.  But I'm in mourning for the "real" book.  And for all those people who lost their jobs.

Updated to add: Just to be clear - I'm pro-ebook, pro-Kindle, Nook, e-reader, etc. Reading is fabulous, regardless of the means.  I just wish the rise of one method didn't have to mean the death of the other. 

Maybe It Once Kissed A Pomegranate

Life has been a bit nutty lately in ways that I can't blog about because it all involves other people whose privacy I will not violate.

But I am sorry I haven't blogged much lately.  I feel like my writing is finally starting to go somewhere, then I don't have enough time, or sometimes, enough energy to blog/tweet/Facebook to share stuff with people and move forward on it.  Oh well.  Plenty of time ahead left for self marketing, right?  Sometimes you just have to deal with what's right in front of you.

Then a story like this one on Yahoo News catches my eye, and my imagination runs riot.  That's how it works for me. An archaeologist finds a tiny golden bell that once adorned someone's robe in a sewer in Old Jerusalem, and my imagination takes over.

Whose robe once tinkled with this bell?  A priest in a holy procession?  A wealthy woman on her way to see her lover?  Did the owner of this bell realize the moment when it was lost, when it fell from the robe and bounced into the sewer? Did Jewish rebels, using those sewers to flee Roman legions while their beloved city and temple were razed back in 70 AD sneak past where that golden bell lay in the muck?  Did a rat once mistake it for food down there?  The Bible describes priestly garments being adorned with such bells, hanging between decorative pomegranates. Does this bell remember the pomegranate it once kissed? If it could speak, could we hear the ancient sermons it listened to?

This is why I love archaeology and history.  It makes me think about the people of those times - about their losses and loves, their tragedies and transcendent moments.  It's been a rough week or year or decade for the world. Madmen take the lives of innocents, children starve while politicians create unnecessary roadblocks to progress, temperatures rise, polar bears can't swim far enough, self hatred leads to self destruction, illness strikes, and frightened people hurt others because they know no other way.

In the past this all happened too. They were people like us (okay, maybe with worse teeth and shorter lifespans), and their stories are now gone, except for hints like this little golden bell. It's left to us to imagine and remember.

The Book I've Waited For

It's not often I go to the bookstore the day a book is released especially to get it. But I did it today for George R.R. Martin's A Dance With Dragons.  Ohohoho! You betcha.

I don't think I've done that since the previous book in this series, A Feast For Crows, came out. That was November 8, 2005.  I waited nearly six years for Dragons.  People asked me if I'd wait to buy it so I could get it when George R.R. Martin (the author) is in town at the end of the month, signing books.

Wait two more weeks?  Hell, no.  I might go see Martin at the signing, but no way I'm waiting till then to read his book.

People asked me if I'd wait to get it in paperback.

Wait MONTHS???  Eff that and eff you. You don't get it.

It's not very often I get all passionate and crazy about anything.  I did it more often as a teenager, of course.  But I was never the sort to stand in long lines for things or to get autographs or to collect stuff.

So when I stand in line, when I rush to buy, when I go the extra mile to get/read/watch/meet/listen to something or someone, you know I love it with every fiber of my little soul.

Which is why I didn't buy this on Kindle, despite its enormous size.  Reading a book this fat on a Kindle would be much easier on the hands and arms.  But some books you need to be able to touch, to pour over the maps, to sniff the paper and the glue and feel the embossing on the caver.  All that, plus the amazingly good writing, pull me completely into another world.

And this way I can lend it out when I'm done.  That's what I did with the earlier books in the series. And I converted a bunch of folks in the process. 

Don't get me wrong - read this on a Kindle or Nook or whatever you like.  I don't care.  I prefer the hard copy.  But if you like fantasy at all, just read it.  Well, read the first one Game of Thrones first.

And if that's not your cup of tea, then find something you love and run your hands over its embossing.  A little passion is good for the little soul.

I love movies. I love travel. In fact, I'm a total geek about such things.

Now there's an app called Augmented Reality Cinema that pleases the movie/travel geek in me very very much. I haven't downloaded it yet, but I shall! You need to see it to believe it, but it allows you to view clips from movies that had scenes shot right where you're standing.

Sheesh, in LA I could walk out my door and spend hours watching clips shot in my neighborhood, I bets ya.

A demonstration, below.



And yes, I now have a smartphone, my first. That in itself is a hint to you of the big things to come...

Obscure Hints Galore

Verbal hint: my website will soon have a new look.

Obscure visual hint:

Sort of a Hint

The mood in this one isn't quite right for it to be a true hint. But I just love the artist Michael Sowa.

Want to see more of his work?  Check out the video below:



His animals have such rich inner lives. Everything he does hints at a larger story. I can't even begin to pick a favorite.

Another Hint: Big News on the Horizon

Yep.  Until I can spill it.  Here's another relevant image:

The Biggest Hint of All

Tiger on the Watch, by Jean-Leon Gerome, 1888.

More soon.

Another Hint

From artist Utagawa Kuniyoshi:

A Hint of Things to Come...

Not exactly this. But this very cool old illustration puts one in the proper mood...

Happy Summer!

Summer solstice today, and in LA the temperature's in the 80's and sunny.

As it should be.

This is the longest day of the year, and as a person who grew up in a state (Hawaii) where the days stayed pretty much the same length all year ('cause Hawaii's close to the equator) I have a strong love for this day. I still find it very odd to have daylight around 8pm. When I visited Ireland in August a few years back, I took photos without a flash at ISO 100 at 10pm at night. To me, this is miraculous!

In ancient Egypt, the summer solstice marked not only the day the sun was at its highest, but the beginning of the all-important inundation of the Nile.  In their mythology, it was at this time that the sun god Horus defeated his uncle Set, Lord of Darkness.

Which reminds me, lots brewing right now, writing-wise. Can't share, but it feels good to percolate. I am coffee! A strong, slightly bitter brew no doubt.

In Which My Tweet is Quoted at Ew.com

Did you see episode nine of Game of Thrones yet? If you have, you can see that I'm quoted in a (SPOILERIFIC) article at ew.com here.

If you haven't, don't waste time reading this. Go and watch, little grasshopper! Go now, I say!

I read the books by George R.R. Martin first, loved them, and was thrilled when HBO announced they were adapting them for cable TV.

And here's the thing. The series isn't perfect. But in some places it's actually better than the books. This is coming from a book lover, from one who has read all the books several times.

They proved it big time last night in episode nine, entitled "Baelor." Again, it wasn't perfect. Some of the exposition in the middle dragged a bit, although the acting and character work was as always fabulous.

Then they got to the final scene of the episode, a scene which, in the books, is infamous and celebrated amongst fantasy readers. I won't spoil it for you here, just in case you haven't seen the show or read the books. (Go do both! Now, fucking now!) But after I first read the scene, I literally sat there dumbfounded, mouth agape, for five minutes. It's bold, it's harsh, it's completely wonderful.

So I knew what to expect with this ep of the show. I knew it was coming. I was thrilled to see what they'd do with it, braced for the emotional impact.

It was far better than I ever could have dreamed.

How often does that happen? So I tweeted about it. Fifteen minutes after the east coast feed of the show ended, I tweeted. "I read the books. I knew it was coming. Still, it was shocking, horrific, and fantastic. #gameofthrones #baelor."

And ew.com used it in their article.

I'm too famous now to bother telling you more. *sniff*

Actually, I didn't gain a single twitter follower from it. But it was pretty cool just the same.

More Food For Thought on Blogging

A veddy interestink post by writer Kristen Lamb here about why you shouldn't blog just about writing if you're a writer.

The main reason? It limits your audience.

I've struggled along with what to blog about on this blog a bit. How focused on a topic should I be? How often to post?

So this sort of article from an expert is helpful.

1. Post three times a week. (Gulp.)

2. Write about stuff you like and that the general public likes. Throw promos for your book in there somewhere and make it feel organic, by gum.

Of course, I don't have a book to promote (yet!). And I do post about stuff I like - movies, Ancient Egypt, writing, travel. I haven't gotten up to three times a week. That's partly because I don't have anything to promote! Why bug people when you have little to offer?

Perhaps I shouldn't view my blog as "bugging" people, ey? Step #1.

One of the issues is that I work in an industry that makes things I love - TV and film. This is a good and lucky thing for me. But it means I can't really blog too freely about the product it produces. I can't rave about my fave TV shows too much or rant about ones that suck. I work with these people! That's not cool.

But I do love and can discuss things like: old movies, language, bodysurfing, travel, history, poetry, art, animals, RPGs, underdogs.

So I'll ponder how to make a blog identity out of some amalgalm of that.

My Favorite Movie in On

It's The Searchers and it's on AMC right now and I can't tear myself away except during the annoying commercials. I already own the dvd, which comes from an amazing print, but this is one of those movies, like Jaws or Casablanca, that when I catch a glimpse of it on TV, it ensnares me for hours.

I know folks have issues with it. They think it's racist. And indeed, John Wayne plays a racist bastard in the film. But the film thinks he's wrong. In fact, one of its major themes is that our entire country is based on racism. What else could've made us think we had the right to take it from the people who were here before us?

The movie's about other things too - vengeance, love, and how an old love can turn vengeance into forgiveness. But ultimately, the racist old blackguard played by Wayne can never be forgiven, can never be part of civilization. He made America possible, but he's too awful to ever be let inside. We wouldn't have to live with our terrible past, now would we?

The ending is justly famous. Wayne brings home the girl (young Natalie Wood) who had been kidnapped by Indians (I'll call them that here, not Native Americans, since that's how the movie refers to them), whom he had sworn to kill himself. He couldn't kill the daughter of the woman he loved, no matter how much he despised the fact that she's now "tainted" by living with Indian chief Scar. He saved her, redeemed himself, in a way. But it's not enough. It'll never be enough. As he said of the dead Indian who's eyes he shot out, he's doomed forever to wander between the winds.

Blogger won't let me post this widescreen (it's shot in 1.85), so it's best viewed here. Or see the slightly cropped version, below.

It used to be cool to be adult. To be sophisticated, witty, worldy, intelligent, insightful.  Nowadays the movies are full of people who all desperately want to be younger and dumber.  I don't get it.  This is the world I'd like to live in:

Why You Should Use Obvious Blog Post Titles for Search Optimization

... Because people rely on technology to find things for them on the internet, and tech doesn't "get" the cool, ironic, poetry-referencing title you used for your post.

I've been reading up on SEO (Search Engine Optimization), and I still have much to learn, but seriously, I'm considering retitling my blog. (Well, not really, but you get the idea.) If this blog were titled "How to Become a Successful Writer" it would be misleading as hell, but it would get me lots of hits.

Of course, you want folks to linger on your web page too. So don't mislead them, tempting as it may be! You need to offer up the goods you promised in the title, not only because it's the right thing to do, but because you need to get them to click on something, to go to the next page of your blogpost.

Which is why I need to figure out how to make you click on a link to read the rest of this post.

The Nape of Your Neck

I've been out of town for the past couple of weeks to help out with some family stuff. It's left me a bit drained and tired, a combo of jetlag and the dazed sort of "hunh?" feeling that comes from seeing people you love having difficult times.

So I haven't blogged or written much at all. I can feel the psychic hole that leaves somewhere near the base of my neck. That's the spot where the chills start, where the hair on your nape stands up when you spot a knee-meltingly hot man or you experience a mind-blowing moment in a story. So that's where I feel the absence, the lack, the void, when I don't write for awhile.

But things and people in my life are on the mend, and I'm back in my Hollywood homeland. My head is fuzzy with fatigue in the afternoons, despite the sunshine, but it can't stop buzzing about the idea for a TV Pilot burbling around in there, as well as three or four different ideas for the next novel.

Sometimes I like to draw out this anticipatory time before I plunge into the actual writing. Much of the writing process doesn't actually involve putting words on paper. Daydreaming is essential. Imagining scenes between your characters can spark plot ideas, inspiration, thematic insights, and on and on.

Jogging last night down Hollywood Boulevard, admiring the silhouettes of the palm trees against the darkening sky, I realized that in one of my ideas I was giving way too much plot to a minor character. I could easily give that activity to the main character. In fact, that activity made the main character much more interesting to me. It fleshed her out. Action = Character as we writers all know. What she does shows you who she is. So give her the cool stuff, for crying out loud, Nina!

So the daydreaming, mulling, fantasizing, all that is vital. If you sidestep it and plung into writing too soon, it can rob you of not only some of the fun of writing, but of some really good ideas.

Just keep in mind - this is the exhilarating part. Many people burble over with ideas. They offer them up to me like precious jewels, telling me I can turn them into books or scripts if I want.

I have to tell them then: ideas are the easy part. It's the writing that's hard. So don't put off the tough stuff of putting words on paper too long, or an idea is all you'll ever have.

So this weekend - writing will happen.

42 Third Act Plot Twists

I can't fit the entire image on my blog and still make it big enough to read. (Plus I don't want to steal something and make it look like my own.) So go to Desden Codak's website here and see his genius table of 42 Third Act Plot Twists.

I can't pick a favorite out of all of them, but I'm particularly fond of "Food Starts Eating People" and "Ancient Druids Lose Interest."

I'm tempted to write 42 stories and incorporate each one. Which one will you write?

Rock the Drop!

It's Teen Lit Day!

To celebrate and promote reading to teens, Readergirlz is promoting Rock the Drop - where folks attach the above bookplate to a YA book and leave it somewhere random for a lucky teen (or adult!) to find and read.

On twitter, authors and readers are tweeting photos of themselves leaving books everywhere from Panera to bus stops.  I'm printing up a bookplate and will let you know where my own contribution lands.

Interested in Rocking the Drop?  Check out Readergirlz, get a fave YA book, and do it!

Never Satisfied

I hope soon to post about how I got my agent, so that others will not despair in their own quests.

However, am a bit slammed - working the day job, family stuff, sleep, and trying to write a TV pilot.

I've got ideas for another YA book, but scripts are faster to write, and I think I've got an interesting pilot idea.  I hope to get a first draft down in another six weeks, depending on how crazy my already crazy life gets.

So, as is my usual wont, I'm taking a class to help along in this writing endeavor.  I favor mediabistro.com's classes - so far all three have been very much worth my while.  They feature professionals as teachers, who can pass on their real life experience as well as their more academic insights to their students.

My teacher in the TV Pilot writing class gave me a great insight I thought I'd share to any readers who either watch or write TV.  It's very simple, and maybe I'm simple for never quite seeing this before but...

In TV, the protagonist wants something they can never have.

Lightbulb!  I'm always thinking about my protag's desires and how active she is, and inner and outer goals and so on.  In books and films, usually the inner desire is fulfilled (in an unexpected way, hopefully) by the end.

But TV doesn't really end, does it?  You want an idea that a network will see possibly going five years, if not more.  So you must give your lead character a driving inner goal that can never be fulfilled. 

I just watched the ending of Big Love, and even before (spoiler alert!) Bill was killed, I kept thinking - he'll never get what he wants most, which is to live openly as a polygamist, in peace and harmony with his wives and society.  "How the heck can they end this?" I pondered.  They can't give him what he wants.  It just wouldn't be believable.  Sure enough, instead they got rid of Bill at the end.  That provided us with a conclusion without violating verisimilitude.

And think about it - all the most successful TV protagonists will never be satisfied.  Even the cops on shows like Law and Order and CSI have a driving desire for justice.  This can never be completely fulfilled because there will always be another murder to solve, another killer to find.

So I gave my protagonist an impossible goal that I think will work for the TV idea I have.  That's just one little step, but I think it helped me keep moving forward.

Do you have a desire that can never be fulfilled?  Atter all, life doesn't come to a conclusion either.

The Good News is... I have an Agent!

Hee hee!  I'm so tickled!  Now that I've officially signed I can tell you...

I HAVE A FABULOUS LITERARY AGENT!

Her name is Tamar Rydzinski and she's part of The Laura Dail Literary Agency.  She loved my YA fantasy novel, gave me some amazing notes, and now we're working together.  I'm so lucky to have her in my corner.

I could blab on about how this all came about and how great she is all day, but will keep it short for now.  Not only does she love my writing, but she GETS it.  She gets it so well that at points she understands what I need to change more than I understand it myself.

This is key.  Because no novel is perfect.  But as a writer you can get entrenched in your own flawed thinking You will need to rewrite to make it better, even after you think it can't get any better.  You need someone to come along and point out where it can get better, and maybe hint as to how.  Sure, a good editor will do that, but in order to impress an editor, an agent with this ability is a huge help.  And now I have that help!  Huzzah!

Plus, Tamar really knows the business.  This is also TOTALLY KEY.  Because I only know it a little, and I need help in that arena.  A good agent will target editors, write a pitch letter, help you get the best contract for publication, and are respected by their peers.  Again, color me very fortunate in snagging Tamar in this department.

Basically, agents rule!

Okay. I'm off to add her agency link to my Links thingie on this blog and to hug myself some more.  It's been a long road full of hard work to get here.  And there are still many steps on the road to publication, but this is a biggie, and I'm thrilled! 

Woo hoo!

Good News is coming... along with Spring

I have to wait just a little while longer, then I can share my good news with you.  It concerns writing. And waiting, and the rewards that come with persistence and luck.

And it's great!

Meanwhile, the rain pours down here in SoCal as I eat chocolate and spend lots of time playing with my cat Lucy.  She misses Max and isn't eating much, but we're getting by.  My boss had her adorable baby girl, also named Lucy.  I told her I loved the name, but not that I my cat's name is Lucy.  Plenty of time for that later - people don't want to think about your cat when they look at their gorgeous new baby.

My cat Lucy is named for the youngest, bravest of the Pevensie children in the Narnia books, and a character I loved from an early age.  The cat Lucy is not particularly brave, as it turns out.  Once, she escaped from my apartment through a screen, and I found her just a few feet away, flattened out like a fluffy black pancake, terrified.  Yes, Lucy is rather plump.  Now that I don't have to leave food out for too-skinny Max, I'm limiting her food intake in an effort to get her lose weight.  Meanwhile, she still likes to sit on my pillow, looking like a flluffy black pyramid with big yellow eyes:

Yes, my bedroom walls are grassy green.  Green's my favorite color, and not just because it looks good on redheads.

I didn't set out to get two black cats. It just happened. But it turns out that both black cats and dogs get adopted less often than animals of other colors.  I don't know it it's superstition or that other colors are cuter or stand out more, but let me tell you - black cats rule!  Max was the friendliest thing on four legs, and Lucy is really quite gorgeous, with brown highlights and a fluff-tacular curly tail. 

I looked after my friend Natalie's all-black chow chow Frances for four months a few years back, and she was the smartest, sweetest dog you could ever hope to meet.  If you're adopting a pet, consider a black one.  They only look mysterious and cool.  Really, they are darlings.

Cheshire Cat Moon over Hollywood Boulevard

I had to let an old friend go yesterday.  My beloved furry feline friend Max.  It's been over a week now since I lost him, and only now can I bear to post about it.

He has gone on to the big Catnip Fields in the sky after gracing me with his presence for 19 of his 20 years. His dementia was becoming too difficult for him, so I had a vet come to the home to ease him out of his distress. My other cat Lucy even got to say goodbye.

Max was a very special cat. He was charming, friendly, whimsical, and sweet - a spirit with fur, as my friend Brian described him. There was a lot of eye contact with Max. You can see it in the photo below. He wanted to get to know you. Pick him up and he'd shove his nose in your mouth to say hello and see what you had for lunch. Kittens followed him around worshipfully. He presuaded dog-people to say, "I'd get a cat, if I knew it would be like Max." Dogs themselves would beg to groom him, and he'd deign to allow them to nibble his fluffy black fur.

Despite the sharpness of his claws and his ability to kick the butts of cats twice his size, he eventually earned the nickname The Cat of Peace. Max was proof that you can live a small, quiet life and still make the world a better place. He did that for me every day.

The night after he died, I went for a run, sniffing and trying to just listen to my breathing rather than to the grief whispering in my ear.

As I turned right down Hollywood Boulevard, I got an eyeful of a luminous crescent moon in the perfect "smile" position above the palm trees.  Of course I thought of one my favorite fictional characters, the Cheshire Cat.  And I thought of Max.  And for a moment my heart swelled with happiness as I thought perhaps the Big Cat in the Sky was grinning down at me.

The Mysterious Giant Cow

(Currently listening to insanely catchy new tune by The Strokes called "Under Cover of Darkness," which you can stream from their MySpace page here, or download for FREE for the next two days here.)

So I'm outlining a new story, and I'm currently in that nebulous zone where my unconscious and conscious mind need to work together and I can't quite tell if they're doing it or not because, hey, half of it involves my subconscious.

By which I mean that I'm busy trying to think of how the story should go - how the central theme should be reflected in the plot and characters, what cool twists the story could have, who should do what to whom, and so on. I'm scribbling in notebooks and typing random things in between tasks at work.  I ponder and juggle scenes in my head while I'm driving, sometimes so intently that I realize I missed my favorite song on the radio just as it's ending.

All of this is work.  And that's the conscious bit.

I've learned over the years that my subconscious is busy working on things at the same time.  Only it doesn't inform me of its progress until something burbles up from the depths and presents itself to my conscious mind as JUST. SO. INCREDIBLY. OBVIOUS.

And that's the trust part.  I have to trust that my subconscious is going to step up and point out the obvious to the rest of my brain.  Over the years it's seemed to work, mostly.  There have been projects I abandoned because the ol' subconscious burped up an answer.  I hammered away for awhile, then realized it just wasn't going to work, and moved on.

But usually I have a sense that the answer will come.  I don't know where or when or how or what the hell it'll be.  But it will come.  I have to make a leap of faith about my own brain.  I trust it to step up to the plate  if I just keep hammering away.

So writing is major work.  And that work is necessary. The conscious work provides the raw data (I think) that the subconscious masticates and savors and digests through various stomachs, finally pooping out a more cohesive strategy for the book.

And yes, I just used a metaphor that makes my subconscious out to be some sort of mysterious giant cow.  Not the most flattering, given that it also turns my story into manure.  But it's fertile all right, so I suppose it all works out in the end.

Write the Book You Want to Read and Give the Speech...

I didn't attend SCBWI's New York conference this year, but I wish I'd been able to listen to keynote speaker Sara Zarr. The kidlit internet has been alive with admiration for what they heard her say, and after reading more about it here, I just had to post the link.

It's the speech she wanted to hear when she attended conferences, before she was published, while she was filled with frustration.  It's about leading a creative life, and how that's the point of it all.

An agent at a conference told her: "The time between when you are no longer a beginner but you are not yet in the business is the hardest and no one can tell you how long this phase will last."

So what do you do during that phase?

You lead a creative life.

How?

Read more about what Sara Zarr said here.