99th Page Challenge

Good morning, my blurking darlings. Today we have a slight departure from the norm. I've joined some fellow writers in the 99th Page Challenge. Oh, I can hear all of you now, complaining, "But, Empress, I haven't had time to enter your Sensible Reading Challenge, how can I face another? Dammit!"

Because this one is EASY. Easy-peasy, as the Brits say. This is based on the 99th page test (don't ask me, go over to the Fabulous Alicia's blog, A Slice of the Blog Pie, and read and follow. She's almost to 100 followers, and when she hits it, CONTEST TIME!).

When reading this page and all the others, you should focus and answer the following three questions:
1. Would you turn to page 100?
2. Why or why not?
3. Based on what you read, how likely would you buy the book?

All I'm allowed to tell you is the title and the genre (I HATE having to genre my book, but it's da rules, dammit...)
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One Flew Out of the Broom Closet
Paranormal

Hal just shook his head (he does that a lot around me); he’d told me that living in L.A. for a couple of years had given him a high weirdness tolerance—nothing could shock him anymore. “If I cross your palm with silver,would you read my cards?” he asked.

“No, but if you cross it with ten dollars, I’ll be happy to,” Ronnie beamed.

Hal laughed and pulled out his wallet and instead of a sawbuck, he laid a fifty on her. Then I remembered California community property laws; he must have done REALLY well from the divorce, especially if she still had the Beverly Hills property.

OK, I was far too cool and pure of soul to have thoughts THAT avaricious.

Ronnie looked at Hal speculatively and motioned him into the tent. I toasted him with my tea cup and waved him in. She closed the flap behind him, and out of courtesy, I moved over to a nearby picnic bench to sip the mint tea and relax.

It was a perfect early autumn day. If you’ve never been to New England in the fall, you have to make a trip because it’s just breathtakingly beautiful. I won’t live anywhere there isn’t four seasons; the fun of living in Boston is that you can get any one of the four at almost any time: New Englanders live for the January Thaw when, in the middle of the worst of winter, we’ll get a few days of 40-60 degree weather, and all the snow (if we’ve had any that year) will melt. And when Spring first shows her face… there is always one day in March when the temperature will shoot up to 65 degrees and the world will smell GREEN, that incredible scent that promises the cold is leaving and the world is waking up again. On that day, every Bostonian that can gets out for the day—busts out the lighter jacket, the non-winter footwear, and just basks in the weather. We bitch and piss and moan constantly about the weather, but let me tell you, REAL New Englanders, real Bostonians, won’t live anywhere else because we’ve got the best weather in the world. We NEVER get the horrible extremes that you get down South—no hurricanes wiping out the entire freakin’ coast—or like in Buffalo or Chicago, where you’re either buried in snow from October until nearly June or the wind rips your skin off; or like the Midwest where a tornado can take out a town with almost no warning, or Cali where half the state burns down while the other half falls into cracks in the earth. We may get a couple of weeks of extreme heat in the summer (and the humidity SUCKS ASS), but for the most part, it’s a really temperate place to live. Our springs are lovely (when winter doesn’t decide to go straight into summer like it usually does), but our
autumns…

Our autumns are GLORIOUS. I live in a city where just driving down a street at the height of fall can break my heart with its utter beauty because the trees are a riot of color and the sun creates a golden light that fills my soul with utter peace and joy.

I love where I live.

Today was one of those days. We’d hit September, our first real autumn day when the blast of summer had chilled a bit, and the trees had started to change, although peak hadn’t hit yet down here, and probably wouldn’t for at least another three weeks but there was already a carpet of old pine needles and new-fallen leaves, and the air was scented with wood smoke from Ronnie’s little fire and a couple others around the compound, roasting meats from the cookhouses, crushed pine, a little whiff of stables, and that lovely, loamy fall smell… leaf mould, earth, dew… Gods, I love that smell. For me, that’s the smell of adventure and potential, the scent of life to come. All combining with the lovely mint steam of the tea slid me into a gentle meditative state.

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Soooooo... whatcha think?

And don't forget to hit up the other blogs in today's little challenge.

What Are We Going to Do Tonight, Empress?

The same thing we do EVERY night, blurkers... try to take over the world!

(With apologies to one of the greatest animated series ever, The Animaniacs.)

I spent two plus hours on the phone last night with one of my oldest friends, Ferd. Ferd is a God among friends--that poor bastard has put up with me for almost thirty years. (We met not long after birth... YEAH, RIGHT!) We became friends our frosh year at St. Clements by virtue of being stuck in a lot of the same classes together, including the misery of Mr. Lynch's French class. I went into that class enthusiastic, eager, DYING to learn the lovely French language. By the end of the year, it was my favorite blow-off class. I actually stop studying for vocabulary quizzes and did a challenge to see if I could get him to catch me cheating. (He did, eventually, but it took him two months. I laughed, took the zero, and didn't give a shit. I proved my point and still got an A in the class.) Mr. Lynch was a sad creature. I mean, you know you're in trouble when even the freshmen give you shit. And showing up to teach in plaid pants in 1981... not the smartest sartorial choice on the planet. We had a good time in that class--didn't learn a lot of French, mind you, but some of my favorite memories of high school come from that class... Talking Cheese, Steve G.'s Great Leap to Freedom... and I became a crackshot with a rubber band thanks to a lot of practice.

Ferd is the only one of my old high school chums that I've stayed in regular, constant contact. We've done a lot of theatre together, something for which he forgave me a long time ago. If all goes well, I hope we're going to be able to revive the radio theatre company. Tangents Radio Theatre was a hoot and a half. I wish we still had video from the Bump in the Night show--it was brilliant. Would have given a cup size to have seen the mayhem Ken and Kevin got up to, destroying a chair as part of the sound effects for "The Fall of the House of Usher." (There was a 2" shard of wood embedded in the wall when they were through. AWESOME!)

Anyway, the Ferdinator and I have been talking for almost a year about my website. I own a domain--madmadameriz.com--it's been mine since 2003--but I never got around to building a website because I really didn't have a reason to. For real. I mean, if I'm going to spend money to have a web site out there, I want it to be there for a reason besides just existing, y'know?

Well, Broom Closet and the Kinsale Chronicles have given me a reason to finally get my arse in gear, and Ferd offered to build a super-duper ultra-awesome website because that's what he does as his sideline. He'd like it to be his main line, and honestly, I hope that between my website and the one he's building for another friend (that one is going to be INSANELY amazing, but I can't say who, what or where until it goes live and then will promote the fuck out of it!) he'll be on his way towards that.

We've had periodic discussions over the past seven months about what's going to be on there--last summer, he introduced me to the concept of podcasting as a way to do readings and promotions, and considering that some of the consistent feedback I got about the first draft was the question of whether or not people will get my rather dry and sarcastic sense of humor, I really began to see the value in the idea. Sooo... hopefully, by the end of February, my website is going to be live with my sexy black and pink logo, a writing-specific blog (this one will not go away; this is my space to talk about WTF I want to without worrying about being censored or censured. Taking shit is a different story), merchandise (because who doesn't love merch?), news, podcasts, performances, freebies (in terms of snippets), and other marketing opportunities.

Yes, I said "other marketing opportunities." That's the purpose of the website--marketing the work. Because honestly, I have to get the hell out of my current sitch before I go postal.

Well, not totally postal--I'm against violence and guns, for one thing--but I am ready to just scream. Part of me wants to investigate working for the Evil Empire; part of me wants to set up shop reading Tarot and working Voodoo part-time and being a barista part-time. It has to be less stressful.

So, there you have it. BTW, Ferd is the guy kneeling down next to his sexy blue Fender. Dennis is the other guy. Two damn good friends. :-)

It Is Accomplished

For the record, at 5:28 a.m. E.S.T., I finished the rewrite/edit of One Flew Out of the Broom Closet.

I am exhausted. I am PSYCHED. I am also incredibly proud of the work. I feel like I am at the top of my game as a writer-the work is strong, intelligent, exciting, and funny. It's a DAMN goof story, the single most important factor-it's compelling, unique, and told in the voice of a character whom I truly love.

I can't wait for people to read this novel. I can't wait to write the next one. Well, i can wait a few hours because I am falling asleep as I tap this on my 'droid.

G'night, my cherished darlings. 

NaNoWriMo Share... an exerpt from the new book

OK, I'm sharing this bit I wrote at O-dark-stupid a.m. today because I am loving it. It's rough draft, first pass so be gentle with critiques. If you ever want to know why theatre people deal with all the bs we do for theatre, this is why...

The theatre was on the opposite side of our building, behind the other leg of the U-shaped building. Like every other building besides the library and adjoining building, this was another brick Victorian confection. “Close your eyes,” Michael said, pulling out his keys.
“Michael, I’ve been in this theatre before.”
“When no one else has been here?”
OK, he had a point. And I knew what he was getting at, so I closed my eyes.

The door creaked open, an old, comfortable creak of hinges over a hundred years old that were oiled regularly. Michael put an arm behind my back and led me into the cold dark of the empty foyer. The scent of oiled wood, dust, velvet, paint, sweat, tears, memories… that gorgeous perfume that old theatres have, a combination of human imprint and ghosts, the passion of phantasies that have embedded themselves in the very fabric of the building’s reality, a place where dreams came to life for two-hours’ traffic, the place where the public came to feel the extremes of human experience and imagination, safely contained and on a time limit, a place to laugh and weep and cringe in the sacred dark of the audience while under the lights, actors gave voice to all the things the soul hides and fears to talk about in the harsh light of reality.

Who needed religion when there was the theatre? The most ancient of temples, the place of sacred communal experience, the arena where philosophy, performance, literature, art, and all the best and worst elements of the human soul were laid before an audience, a banquet for the spirit and the mind, the only place I ever truly felt alive and connected to the world.
I walked forward, eyes still closed, hands outstretched not like a blind woman feeling her way, but fingers spread to pull in the energy of the room, questing forward, finding the door to the auditorium, and all the whispers on the edge of hearing became a silent roar, filling my senses, wrapping me up, welcoming me, the spirit of the place taking me in and claiming me as its own.
There were tears on my cheeks.
Oh, dear sweet merciful Gods, I had finally come Home.

Michael was there, his protective arm behind my back, a gentle touch on my cheek brushing away the tears. His arms went around me, pulling me to him, a wall of solid humanity and maleness, a yin to the yang, and there was a kiss, a fleeting sweetness on my lips that shocked and thrilled me. I let it happen; it had to, if that makes any sense. And when it ended, I rested my head against his shoulder, over his heart, beating strong and sure under my cheek, breathing together.
I broke the embrace gently and met his eyes.
Neither of us spoke, just smiled sadly: we knew it was the magic of the place, the force of narrative causality, the fact that the theatre expected drama and there were conventions.
I touched his cheek and left without a word.