Criminal weirdness

A friend sent me a link to the top criminally weird headlines of Newsweek for the year, here are some of the ones I loved best:

Man stabs girlfriend's fish - "If she can't have me, then she can't have the fish!" - I guess we should all be thankful there weren't any children involved since the judge gave this loony fish visitation rights pre-stabbing.

Bridal bouquet brings down a plane - This was a bit different. Normally, women toss the flowers and wedding attendees watch as the melee ensues as desperate ladies duke it out to win the right to think they'll be the next lucky lady to traipse down the aisle. Sometimes superstition blows. In this case, someone got the brilliant notion to have a man throw the floral confection out of a plane, whereupon it got sucked into the engine... You do the math. Men aren't meant to toss the roses.

It's not good to be a zombie in Iowa - Basically, a guy was trying to order something to eat when random Dude ran up shrieked "Zombie!" and started beating on him. No kidding, read the article. It's a great day to be alive, in Iowa.

Don't fling poo in Cali - Seriously. You can rape, murder, sell dope and steal. Heck the list of other crimes you can commit and get off in 7 to 10 is as tall as a little person, but fling poo in a court of law and you're looking at a solid thirty years. People in California have really odd priorities.

Man arrested for indecent exposure - Sounds really passe right? Up until you read how he was standing with his naked gentitalia manipulating the same via strings ala Pinocchio at his apartment complex. Assault with a stringed instrument...

Japan's next first lady makes Tom Cruise look sane - She's married to "the alien" has been to Venus, rode in a triangular spaceship, and is certain she met Tom Cruise in another life - when he was Japanese. Yup, she wins the fruitcake. Read the story.

There are many, many more but these are the ones I liked the best. Here is the link the the top 20. See which ones you'd pick.

Exciting news

Got an email today that was pretty exciting, the incredible art on my cover for Frights & Delights is up for a Quasar at EPIC! So massive congrats to my talented cover artist for all of her outstanding work on Frights & Delights! And good luck to her in the contest.

Restless...

With my surgery date approaching, I've had a hard time focusing on writing. Face it, building inner terror does not end itself to a good creative flow. So, I've been working on editing and sponging up some missed movies. Meaning I've come to a few conclusions.

Christian Bale has to be the most over-rated, waste in a movie ever. He ruined Batman and now he has ruined Terminator. If it wasn't for Heath L. as the Joker the whole Batman returns would have never been seen in this house on penalty of death. The only redeeming thing about the new Terminator movie was Sam Worthington. He made the movie watchable. Please, Hollyweird, quit the freaking love affair with Bale. His acting skills are non-existant, all he does is all brooding forehead thing with the raspy voice. Ugh! There were kids on my high school drama team with more panache. And no, he is not attractive, so lets nip that delusion right here and now.

Angels and Demons. The book was unreadable and the movie was borderline unwatchable. It came off as a quasi-apology for the DaVinci Code with moments of sheer stupidity given the portrayed scholarly depths. Don't make any more Dan Brown books into movies. Yuck.

Transformers, it was entertaining so long as you turned off your brain. Because if you turned it on, the first thing that comes to mind is, "what the hell is so 'up' with Shia LaBeuff?" He's like everywhere lately - Eagle Eye, Indiana Jones, Disturbia, I Robot, Constantine... every freakin' movie I've had a desire to see this geeky kid has been front and center having some sort of psychotic episode. And he screams like a girl, like a horror movie diva, as in Jamie Lee Curtis is probably standing back giving him a nod of approval and a salute to those pipes. You couldn't have missed the most unmanly screams he produced in Transformers...we watched the dorm scene no less than five times just for the panicked screams, they made us laugh so hard.

Top things off my nephew wants me to take him to see New Moon. There aren't enough pain killers in my pill bottles to put me in a coma for that kind of pain *cringes* Why can't kids just read the books and be content? The books are so much better...

I think I'm better off hiding out in anime again, time to return to watching D. Gray Man.

Do you guys have any suggestions?

Guilty Pleasures - no, not the LKH book

We all have them, guilty pleasures, things we seek out when we're feeling down, crabby, uninspired, and generally lackadaisical. Recently, I read an article about the difference between the way women think and speak and men, then it hit me - there must be a difference in guilty pleasures as well.

Wrong.

While one of my guilty pleasures is reading, my husband has never been big on books - unless they're graphic novels or nudie mags - but he and I share a long list of other guilty pleasures: we enjoy the same TV shows for the same reasons (with the exception of Dexter - he says its depressing - and The Vampire Diaries - which is too 'stalkerish'), Chinese food, donuts, archery, target shooting, bird watching (which involves a lot of cat watching - and snickering - at times too), and rampant gossip. We like the same kind of movies - action/adventure, horror, gory thrillers and the occasional anime. Well, that and and the rare raunchy comedy like The Girl Next Door. But this leaves me with a quandary... I've been told on more than one instance that I'm not very feminine, and also that my writing isn't very femme, so perhaps my guilt pleasures re stacked in the man corner as well since I'm not lusting after spa packets, chocolate coated anything, mani-pedi's, or a spiffy, expensive, new wardrobe let alone trendy shoes.

So, I'm curious, what are your guilty pleasures? And do you think sex makes a difference?

Goin' to the dogs

Between shopping on Black Friday and post-turkey day clean up, I missed posting on Frightening Journeys this week, so I decided to take advantage of the crickets and cobwebs over here and ramble on the subject: what is my favorite shifter. Believe it or not - it isn't the werewolf.

Yes, I know, shocking considering how many of my books have featured werewolves or man-wolf shifters, but I'm finding a new fascination taking me over. Cynanthropy for one, before you go looking it up at Wikipedia and getting all disappointed - trust me, there is next to nothing there, if you want information on occult studies you've got to hit the stacks - it's dog shape-shifting. I know a lot of people won't see much of a difference between a dog and a wolf, but they are there trust me. If you ever want to see, or learn some really nifty (read nerdy) differences between wolves and dogs look up two different articles, one on the hunting patterns of wolves and the other on the instinctive knowledge dogs have of calculus. Yes, ladies and gents, calculus. It took me a good long time to wade through that article, but it was well worth it, notably since I learned something interesting. The only other animal that has been known, or observed, to apply the same analytical skills while hunting prey individually has been the Kodiak bear.

Leading me to my next type of favorite shape-shifter, the berserker. No, I won't call them were-bears or therianthropes. I subscribe to the old school philosophy that everything has a name, and deserves to be called accordingly. There aren't many stories out there featuring berserkers, the bear shape-shifter, and the ones that do exist always seem to want to make the bears misunderstood and cuddly - not at all the way I picture them.

I am thinking it's time to kick my writing into high gear and rectify some of this shit ;)

Right now I'm working on addressing the lack of cynthropes with my female/female stories Leash Laws and The Relation Chip. So people, keep on me, keep nagging, push me little and I promise they'll get to you. Why do dogs have to be man's best friend? Sheesh...lol.

Friday at Frightening Journeys

Each Friday I guest post at Frightening Journeys. This week's topic was how to work through writer's block. Instead of talking about it, I showed how I did it by crafting a piece of pre-history for an interracial female/female urban paranormal romance I'm working on titled The Relation Chip. The nifty part is, the exercise distracted an annoying bit of bickering my charcters kept devolving into when I was trying to set up a nice romantic scene in the regular book. Maybe I should work on back-stories more often. Even more exciting? This may make it tie in with my other IR female/female romance, Leash Laws. Hope you guys have a chance to pop over and have a peek at a work in progress.

Things that go Bump in the Night

Thank you, everyone, for all of the wonderful entries for the Halloween contest! There were a number of wonderful stories shared. The first listed is the winner, the rest appear in no particular order, beyond my own whimsy.

From Jevea:

Halloween has always been my favorite time of year. The cool crisp air the crunch of leaves under my feet. I was born at Myrtle Beach so being a beach girl I had a different sort of life. Different than those in the country. I remember well shaking with anticipation as I sat at my desk at 7 years old. In the first grade. I could not wait for the day to come to a close because I knew that night I could dress up in my homemade costume and walk through the trailer park getting candy. Things were safe back then in the 60's. Children could walk freely without fear of someone hurting them or stealing them away. My mother had made me a "Zorro" costume. I had a play sword bought for a dime at the local 5 and 10 store. She drew a fake mustache over my lip and found a small black hat that my daddy had in his closet. I thought I was the stuff! I was always a tomboy. So little princess and girly costumes did not appeal to me. I watched Zorro every Saturday on a black and white TV. That is who I wanted to be. A swashbuckling savior a defender of the weak and poor. I really got into the role as I dressed to go trick or treating.

The night drew near and I was shaking to get out the door. It was cold, well cold as it can be for the beach. Out the gate I dashed sword in hand and pumpkin bucket in the other to gather my loot. The other kids joined in and we all went from house to house knocking on doors shouting: "Trick or Treat!" Candy and homemade treats were abundant as we, the park's children, wandered through the night. Our parents, of course would be standing in the yards watching keeping an eye on us as we marched through the park. How I miss those innocent times. There was no fear. No worry. No looking over your shoulder for a predator to come and kill you. As the night came to a close and we had plundered all the candy we could we headed home to check out our pumpkins. What a wonderful and exciteting time. I poured my bucket on the floor with my Daddy sitting behind me. He and I went through every little thing. There was candy bars, cookies, candy apples, popcorn balls, M&M's, treats of all kinds. I remember my Daddy saying "Come on Wheel, ("Wheel" was his nickname for me), give your old Daddy a piece of candy." I would laugh and say: "NO it's mine." He would make a sad face and pretend to cry. Then with a big smile and a hug I'd tell him to get anything he wanted. He would always go for the popcorn balls. My Mama would get the Tootsie Rolls then complain because it stuck in her teeth. I had candy for days and the memories of a very fun filled night with friends and family. I do miss those times so much. The thing I miss the most is my Daddy. He
passed away 11 years ago. How I miss him.

Happy Halloween to those who remember the innocent Halloween's of the past. May you always keep your memories alive and well in your hearts.

From Char:

When I was a kid, there used to be an old abandoned, haunted house down a long, dark and very creepy lane. The whole area had a very eerie feeling to it. Anytime I was there I felt like I was being watched. I didn't like to go there but my friends talked me into going ghost hunting one halloween.

Well, we got more than we bargained for that night.as we were going inside, one of my friends tripped over a pair of muddy workboots that were by the door. All of a sudden this big dirty guy came out of another room yelling at us you never saw 5 kids try to get thru a door so fast. In our hurry to get away we forgot about the big muddy ditch that was between us and the road. We all ended up falling in the ditch and had to walk home covered in mud. I tried to sneak in the house, but got caught. I looked so pitiful that mom didn't have the heart to punish me. A couple of deputies went out there to see what was going on and it turned out he was a hobo looking for shelter for the night. He yelled because he thought that we were trying to steal his boots. It took us a long time to live that night down.

From JW:

My favorite Halloween memory was when my boys were 4 and 5 years old and I
made their costumes. They were bumble bees complete with black/yellow stripes, black shoes and stingers. They were the favorite costumes of our housing development. They grow up too fast, don't they? I made all of their costumes until they quit wearing them.

From SiN:

As a child I was afraid of scary things like most kids are my mom and dad incouraged all kinds of things bobbing for apples haunted hay rides, ghost stories, and scary costumes everything to get me outa my shell. I was about 9 when things changed for me. I was a normal little girl who wanted to be a fairy princess and have pretty wings a crown and a wand can't be a fairy princess without a wand.

Well I was also a tom boy who adored my doting older brothers who enjoyed a good scare but never played scary pranks on me that all changed when i was 9. It started out any normal halloween day where you are soo excited to get to school to have that fun dress up party and candy and such I was soo excited but I couldnt find my
princess costume so I raced threw the house yelling Mommyyyyyy

The boys are snickering cause they know they did something with it. What's a matter sis they said I started to sniffle and told them I lost my costume they replied awww let us help you because big girls dont wear fairy princess costumes they go as
something scary I sniffled and said but but i wanted to go as a princess. They laughed and said how about a gross dead princess I'm 9 I idolized my brothers so I gave in. They were so proud of their creation they invited me to watch scary movies with them because I'm such a big girl now. Now at the time I was afraid of scary movies but who can pass up a good movie with your favorite pals so I agreed the boys thought they were ohhhhh so slick.

I get threw the day at school with great anticipation wanting to hurry and get the trick-or-treating done so I could go home and watch with them.. we got home and dibied up the candy after our parents checked it of course. I was antsy wanting to hurry up and watch the movies. So it was time to watch ...

I got half way threw watching the first Nightmare on Elm Street I was scared beyond belief to the point I went to bed and started yellin for my mom n dad but
something changed that night after all that fright, I found out I liked to be scared and a good scare was the best anticipation all year. Now every year I forgo the costume and the trick or treating obvously but I watch horror films and wait for that one good scare.

From SS: (the biggest aw moment)

When I was Five years old I had got sick and had to be in the Hospital with Asthma. So my little Brother that was three years old at the time would go to doors and ask for candy for his sick sister too. So, he Trick or Treated for both of us.

From RL:

I remember going to our Aunt and Uncle's place uptown and having supper with them. Then we kids scrambled into our costumes, grabbed our bags for treats and headed out. We wanted to reach every house if possible - that was our mission.

We see my older cousin and he informs us that some very big guys (older) are on the prowl and stealing kids' candy and they tried to take his. We turn and make for my cousins' house, looking back to see if we are being chased.

This was a special night because we lived on the lake bottom (dairy farm) and Mom and Dad took time off from the farm for us to be able to go Trick or Treating. Awesome memories; I even remember my Aunt had made Puffed Wheat cake for dessert.