Only In A Junior High School.....

So, part of my day involved running around in a toga and spitting water on my colleagues.
Betcha your job is nowhere near as interesting as mine is..... :D

Martin Willoughby Reviews Confessions of an Average Half-Vampire for The British Fantasy Society

Confessions of an Average Half-Vampire. Book Review

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Confessions of an Average Half-Vampire by Lisa Shafer

CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, p/b, £6.37

Reviewed by Martin Willoughby

This is a novel aimed at the young adult market, but shouldn’t be disregarded by adults.  Why?  It’s good fun.

Eric is a half-vampire.  His mum’s normal while his dad’s a vampire who skipped off when he’d impregnated Eric’s mother.  Since then, Eric and his mother have had to move several times after he’d bitten various kids, and spends part of his life every week taking a syringe to sheep and cows to get some blood.

Being a half-vampire means he has ‘gifts’, such as being able to calm people and animals by talking in a calm voice, sending them to sleep occasionally, and telekinesis.  The last of them comes as a great surprise to him.  He has a wheelchair-bound friend called Joseph and has the hots for a girl called Kacey.  Well not quite the hots, but they do get on well.

Yes, it’s full of teen-angst and drama (it’s aimed at them remember), such as how do you kiss a girl without sucking her blood at the same time (something he manages) and ‘am I gay’.  What lifts this out of the ordinary is Eric’s attitude.  Think Harry Dresden as a youngster, lose the bad language and the killing and you’re there.

Eric’s mum travels a lot for her job and leaves him alone for several days at a time, but as he’s a half-vampire, sensible and strong for his age she doesn’t worry too much.  One trip, she takes him to Edinburgh where he meets his dad…and wishes he hadn’t.  His dad turns out to be a drug-addict and the blood Eric sucks leaves him feeling sick for a day or two.  On the plus side, he gets to meet another vampire, one his mum fancies, and some acolytes who are happy to let him drink some of their blood. When he returns home, all hell breaks loose: well alright, I’ve exaggerated a little, but he does end up in a serious fight with someone who’s trying to kill him.

The one thing that kept me reading this book was Eric.  He doesn’t need much blood, nor does any vampire for that matter, and he explains his need to be indoors as a case of Porphyria.  Garlic?  Loves it.  Crosses?  Only when playing football, not that he does play football, but…well you get the idea.  In short he’s a normal kid that most adults and children would recognise.

I enjoyed the book and found it an entertaining read. I’ll leave the final few words to my 11 year old son: “Dad, can you keep reading that to me. It’s so funny.”

Fang Marks -- And Other Hazards Of Springtime

It's that time again.
Hot weather is coming.  My grass is already drying out.  Yuck.
Today, Dad and I tackled one of the most depressing tasks of spring: turning on the sprinkler system.  Back in the manual days, this was no big deal.  It meant wrestling the huge sprinkler key onto the tiny lever some 10 feet down a hole and turning the key.
Nowadays, however, with the "improvements" of an automated system, it means that some new electrical problem will occur every year.  Usually, one of the stupid little valves will refuse to shut off.  Last year, the control box gave up the ghost and had to be replaced.
And this year?  The Return of the Rat.
In the autumn of 2011, as I was opening the valves to winterize the sprinkling system, I found a rat in the backyard valve-cover box.  He'd made a nest of dead leaves and acorns and looked majorly pissed off at me when I ripped the roof (lid) suddenly off his home.  In fact, I had to poke him with the screwdriver to get him to leave.  I spent 20 minutes with a bandana over my face and leather gloves on, digging out his nest.  I then put DeCon out everywhere and hoped Mr. Rat would eat it and crawl under some bush and die.
I was very pleased last autumn to find the sprinkler box empty.  But that little bugger fooled me and moved in AFTER I'd shut everything down.
So today, while there was no rat in the box, there was a nest.  AND the little vermin had chewed through a wire and gnawed off one of the plastic screws, making it so we couldn't shut off that valve.  This means, of course, that the whole system must be shut down in order to keep it from running continually.  Groan.
Oh, and it also meant another 20 minutes with a bandana and gloves, digging out a nest.  Gross.
But this is not all.
No, as I was moving the large sprinkler key out of the corner of the garage, I accidentally hooked the handle against a manual edger hanging on the wall, and the tool came crashing down onto my arm.  Since an edger has "teeth," I was "bitten" on the right forearm.  Due to the triangular shape of the "teeth," it truly looks like something with fangs has chomped into me.  In fact, Dad's first thought when I showed him was that the rat had bitten me (although the marks are an inch apart, so that would've been ONE BIG rat).
So, the day is now over.  My sprinklers do not yet work (no surprises there; it's never easy), as we have to replace parts and wires.  I have extra laundry to do, washing all the clothes and towels from the rat nest clean up.  I had to buy new garden gloves (too risky to keep the old ones after that).  I may have been exposed to hanta virus and tetanus.  And, my arm looks like I've been spending some time with my own half-vampire creation, Eric.
This is why I dread the yearly job of readying the sprinkler system for summer.

Breathless by Brigid Kemmerer

This novella by Kemmerer is part of the Elemental series, which includes the novella Elemental, the novella Fearless, the novel Storm, the novel Spark, and... coming soon... the novel Spirit.  Breathless is an e-novella which comes right after Spark.  The novella will be released on April 30.  That's tomorrow.  Go buy it.

Kemmerer writes really well.  Seriously, I didn't much like the characters in Storm, but I was sucked into the book because it was just that good.  The Merrick brothers seemed so real (for all their paranormalness) that I had to keep reading.
Spark I liked quite a lot.  And I've read both Elemental and Fearless.  So I was very excited to win an author's copy of Spirit from Brigid last week:

I was all set to read it when I learned that Breathless comes before Spirit chronologically.  So I hustled off to Amazon to pre-order a copy, slightly miffed that I'd have to wait until April 30.
Then, just tonight, Brigid tweeted me that Spirit has the novella in the back!!!
Awesome!
Thus, I've just finished Breathless.
Yes, folks, read the review right here BEFORE you can buy the book!
Breathless is my favorite so far.  It is SO not what you expect from a paranormal romance.  And the writing is still perfectly gripping.
I'm not going to tell you any more.  It's two bucks, people.  Go buy it and read it.  Do it now.

First Proof Copies Of The (Dis)Appearance Of Nerissa MacKay

These arrived on Thursday.
Yes, I know that the cover has problems.  I've already talked to the resident artist (aka Dad) about how to fix it.  And I'm averaging about 8-10 changes per page on the text right now.
But.
Getting the first copies of a book is always SO exciting!  And you should've seen the faces of the 7th graders who'd signed up to be  beta readers!  Yes, I let them choose from a package of colored pens so that each beta reader has a different color (about 4 kids will read each physical copy of the book, so having them stay consistent with their own color will be very helpful to me), showed them some printed instructions on how to make constructive comments (these kids are 12 years old; they don't already know how to do this), and then let them have their first go at it during reading time on Friday.  A couple of them are still too scared to write anything, but one boy dug in immediately, making several valid points.  And they definitely were envied by those who had not signed up/been selected.
I hope to get them all through this by the end of the school year.  Then I can do another copy over the summer and have more beta readers next fall.
I'm still waiting for one of the English teachers to finish his copy edits on Becoming Brigid, too.  I'm in hopes that one can be ready for publication by August (fingers crossed).  The librarian said he'd be happy to set up the book trailer over the summer, which is good.

Robert Kirby's 13 Particles of Faith

Robert Kirby is my favorite living humorist.  He might even be a tie for the incredible Erma Bombeck, who is no longer among the living.
Kirby's also the most realistic Mormon in the world, willing to admit his true thoughts about everything.  And this means he often gets hate mail from people who don't think he's a "good enough" Mormon or else that he'd make a better non-Mormon.  Last week, he responded to those people with his own thoughts on faith.
Part of that article includes his own personal parody of Joseph Smith's famous 13 Articles of Faith, which every Mormon primary child is required to memorize (you qualify for a gold star in my book if you can still recite them without looking; I can still do it.).  If you're familiar with the Articles of Faith, this is funny.  If you're a Mormon, this is REALLY funny.

Kirby’s 13 Particles of Faith

1. » I believe in God, Jesus Christ, the Holy Ghost, and in mankind’s inability to tell the difference between them and a giant ball of fire or an extremely intolerant political party.

2. » I believe that men will be punished for their own transgressions, including stuff we did completely by accident or because of testosterone. Women will probably just get probation.

3. » I believe that through the atonement of Christ, everyone will one day be able to tell annoying church leaders where to get off.

4. » I believe that the first principles and ordinances of the LDS Church are boring speakers, meetings that last forever, music that sounds like whale sonograms, food storage gone bad and idiotic bickering over caffeine and movie ratings.

5. » I believe that a man must be called by God, by prophecy and by the laying on of hands, by those who are in authority, and that Facebook posts and texting do not apply. Meanwhile, women answer only to a biological clock.

6. » I believe in the same organization that existed in the primitive church: deacons, teachers, centurions, lepers, thieves, virgins, lunatics, mustard seeds and demonically possessed swine.

7. » I believe in the gift of tongues and would die a happy man if, just once, some smarta-- would have the guts to try it when I was around.

8. » I believe the Bible and the Book of Mormon to be the word of God as far as I personally can translate them correctly, which I try not to do because it scares me.

9. » I believe all that God has revealed, all that he does now reveal and I believe he will yet reveal many great and important things pertaining to the colossal foolishness of the entire human race.

10. » I believe in the literal gathering of Israel and in the restoration of the Ten Tribes, most of whom will work for Microsoft; that the New Jerusalem will be built on this (North American) continent by undocumented migrant labor and that Christ eventually will rain personality on a generally colorless church.

11. » I claim the privilege of worshipping Almighty God according to it being none of your &%#@ business, and allow all men the same privilege, except for megachurch pastors, self-help gurus and some cannibals.

12. » I believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers and magis. . . wait, no I don’t.

13. » I believe in being honest to a point, true to myself, chased by the police, benevolent to the deserving, virtuous on the Internet and in doing whatever my wife says. Indeed, I may say that I follow the admonition of Paul in believing, hoping and enduring — and that all of this damn well better be worth it in the end.

Announcing The Title For My Newest Work In Progress

So, last July, I created my first outline for an alternate history/steampunk novel, which eventually was titled The Chocolate Smuggler's Notebook. (Blurb and cover here.) Because I have been rather busy doing the final few months of edits of Becoming Brigid and getting the first physical proof copy of The (Dis)Appearance of Nerissa MacKay ready for my first gamma readers (who come even before the beta readers), all I've done thus far on Chocolate Smuggler's is a prologue, chapter one, and at least 17 different plot outlines.
Then, last February, I had a new idea.  What if I did a series of short stories -- parallel chapters, if you will, done in the rambling, not-quite-a-plot style in which Alexander McCall Smith writes the 44 Scotland Street series -- set in the same alternate history world as The Chocolate Smuggler's Notebook, but told in a different style and featuring minor characters and parallel plots happening in a different part of the continent, plots which will affect what happens to Olivia in the main book?  I'd publish the stories in e-book form individually, and then all in one POD volume later.  It'd be a fun way to promote the main new book.
I had my 9GT students help create characters' personalities for the series of short tales, but it wasn't until today that the ideas all clicked into place and I figured out how everything will all work together.  But now, I'm ready to announce my plans.
The entire group of works will be called The Chocolate Chronicles.  The main novel will be YA (because the story won't work if Olivia is any older than about 16, I've decided) and will retain the title of The Chocolate Smuggler's Notebook and the main setting of the State of Deseret (which was, in real life, the very short-lived territory Brigham Young set up for the Saints; it was to be not-quite a part of the US, but the US government squelched that idea about 3 seconds after they became aware of it and pared down the area to Utah Territory).  The parallel tales will be called The Chocolate Chronicles: Scenes From New Penzance and will be set northwest of Deseret, in the town of New Penzance, in the country of Pacifica (which never existed, but will be somewhere east of the real town of Astoria, Oregon, along the Columbia River).  The titles of the individual tales are (so far) as follows: 1) The Tale of London Sunday, 2) The Tale of Lady Agnes Breathwright, 3) The Tale of Ellen Andersson, 4) The Tale of Camilla and Oscar, and 5) The Tale of Captain Annie Lovelark.
If all goes as planned, the tales should be steampunk and feature a gypsy merchant boy, a missing balloonist, a steamcowboy, investigative reporting, two sets of illegal identical twins, one set of legal fraternal twins, a sky pirate, a woman who prefers younger men, a revivalist preacher with some pretty strange ideas, a steampunk KGB, a battle of the sexes for power, herbal medicine, an alchemist, some Mormon mysticism from the early 1800s, ancient buried treasure, phrenology, a young man who reads Mary Shelley, some good, old-fashioned, Shakespearean cross-dressing, and -- of course -- illegal chocolate and those addicted to it.
Story inspirations thus far include the aforementioned 44 Scotland Street, Nellie Bly, Shakespeare's 12th Night, ABBA, Wicked Plants by Amy Steward, the Pulp-o-Mizer, a very strange dream I had a few years ago, The Pirates of Penzance, Jack Sparrow, a trip down the Oregon Coast, the story of the Brother of Jared in the Book of Mormon, a line I had to edit out of a draft of All in the Half-Vampire Family, and the Beatles' movie Yellow Submarine.  (I'm sure you can see all the connections immediately, of course!)

I hope to have time to begin writing it all soon, but right now, it's nothing more than scribbled lists in two notebooks and a Pinterest page.