Weirdish Wild Space

2:59PM - THRALL Available for Pre-Order

Just wanted to let folks know that reservations are going strong for THRALL and we're down to the last few copies. If you want to reserve yours, go here.
Remember, credit card info isn't taken for the reservation, so you won't be charged anything until the books come in.

9:21PM - The Lake

In my world, everyone is sleeping.

I am at the lake, by the water's edge. Above me, the night sky glitters with the embers of stars. The breeze smells like autumn. The drapery of silence is lifted only by crickets and the lap-lapping of the water against its shore. I am alone.

I used to come here when I wanted to hide. Tonight I came here because I want to heal.

I don't have a silver tongue. I don't have gypsy magic. I don't have strong hands and a warrior's heart. And in my world, everyone is sleeping. But I have the lake, and the little ploinks of fish out there where the velvet blacks of water and sky blend. I have sand beneath my feet. And for the first time in years, I don't feel suffocated by the voices that silence brings.

The little girl I was made me the woman I am. This weekend, I traced the patterns of the universe – mine, and those of the people I love. Being scared with other members of the lucky seven is better than being scared alone. And scars don't mean healing if the wound beneath is sepsis, cancerous, eating away at the healthy tissue around it. Cutting open an old wound and digging out the cancer hurts like hell. The shock to the system is awful. The antiseptic burns. But that's the only way to heal.

I had a very strange kind of malfunction today. It was like an earthquake in my soul. I felt the aftershock for hours. I didn't recognize it for what it was until maybe an hour or so ago. When you take months and years of hurt and place them in the hands of the people that mean most to you in all the world, that's a powerful magic. When you place them in the strong hands of warriors and trust that those hands won't let go, that's a powerful magic. When you use the words you have, even if you choke on them, to call a thing out and make it real, that is powerful magic. And when you realize you're standing right on the shoreline of a moment that will change you, and you have the choice to bury a cancer under more scar tissue or finally vomit it up, that's a powerful magic. It rocks you all the way through the meat and mist of you, beneath your skin, in your bones, in the invisible bars and rods that hold you up. I didn't know that would happen, and I'm glad no one told me, or I might have made the wrong choice. Tonight, I am everything I need to be, and have everything I want.

In my world, everyone is sleeping. But it's important to me that when they wake up, they know that I've gone to the lake, and they see what I've gone to do there. It's important that they know that while I'm looking up at the stars, I'm thinking of the warrior and the wordman and the gypsy. I'm going to sleep here at the lake, beneath the stars, and when I wake up, I'll come back to them. But tonight, in my world, there is me and the lake and the ache of an old wound's cradle, and the stars.

1:08PM - About Fairy Tales

Once upon a time....

I think a lot of self-esteem for women comes from what you learn in fantasy as little girls. Think about what you're bombarded with, in books and TV: fairy tales. Princesses. I could go on and on quite cynically about what this means for women and body image and society, but let's skip all that. Let's talk about fairy tales, loves, and what really makes for a happily ever after.

Girls are taught that you are loved because you're beautiful and good, clever and sweet, pure and innocent. Men will love you for being beautiful and good. Girls are taught to be loving, to forgive (or even be oblivious to) people who want to hurt you. You're taught that pretty princesses who can sing and have animals help them clean their rooms are the ones who have the happily ever afters, because princes will come one day to sweep you up onto their horses to a castle of love and riches and laughter and peace.

Then you go through that awkward phase, where boys won't talk to you and you feel ugly and clumsy and confused and moody and maybe assume it's because you're not the pretty, graceful, all-good creature you youre supposed to be, and that's why boys won't ask you out and you're on the outskirts of the popular crowd, where the pretty, confident girls hold court and you wonder what evil witch put a spell on you, and you wish it was a spell that would let you sleep until you were 21.

Then, if you're lucky, you do become beautiful, or at least pretty enough to look at yourself in the mirror and nod before you go out the door. Men do try to win your heart and your hand. You learn about boys, and how they do things for you when they like you -- like princes going out to slay dragons or find the enchanted fruit for you. You remember how you crushed on heroes like Link, and how the fighter types moved your heart.

Still, like Tori Amos says, when the king tells you the white horses are still in bed, there's something to be said for that. Boys don't always have a castle, and can't always kill the dragon. Boys are under spells of their own sometimes, drinking too many potions at the tavern, or smashing glass slippers that they don't see as the opportunities they are. Sometimes a kiss doesn't break the sleeper hold on you. Sometimes, your heroes die in battle or go off with the bad fairies or let the witches convince them you'll never truly give them your heart. Sometimes you can toss your braid all the way to the ground and live through the headache of their climb, only to find in the end, they let go and fall back to earth without you. Sometimes the white horses have all gone ahead, and you're in your thirties, just old enough to have seen men off to be married and looking to start their own happily ever afters, and a little too young yet for that first round of divorces.

I think the most devastating thing is realizing you can try and try to be the perfect princess, but no bird will ever land on your finger, no deer will help you with the dishes, and not all princes can or will sweep you off to kingdom far, far away. There are poisonous apples everywhere, and sometimes you are tempted to take a bite. There are far more rogues and evil wizards and witches in the world who make life complicated.

But you know what? The one thing they never taught us as princesses was how to survive and adapt, and it's a damn shame. There are hints of it, though, in the old stories -- the old-school Grimm-style tales. They knew, even then, that women were more than pretty faces and demure behavior and shut mouths. The princesses worth marrying ARE the clever ones, the resourceful ones, the ones who don't necessarily need saving from the tower. They are the ones who have daggers of their own, can kill their own dragons in comfortable anything-but-glass sensible shoes. They are beautiful in their way and good in their way, and most of all, they are strong. Real princesses never care about the money a castle brings. They never care if they can sing anything but a lullabye to their babies. If animals love them, it's because animals understand kindness, and true princesses have an innate, although not naive, kindness toward everyone. They are fair, and just. The real princesses are beloved by the kingdom because of who they are and what they can do. True princesses have been their own heroes all along.

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm a true romantic and a fairy princess at heart, and I believe princes are out there. However, any prince charming of mine has to be more than a man with a horse, and a promise of a castle. He has to be a hero who appreciates his woman not as a trophy to be swept away and placated with promises, but as a partner to rule a kingdom with, to stand beside in battle, to admire for her cleverness as much as her beauty, and to fall in love with under enchanted stars. I am not just a princess anymore. I have an heir to my throne. I have ascended to my own rule. I am an empress, and I rule an empire of dreams. I have spent far too long waiting first for princes to make good on happy endings, break the evil spell that was destroying them, and/or come back from a war they couldn't win. I think the 100 years' bad spells are broken now, and I am free of the tower. Pricked finger healed, apple dislodged, mirrors broken. I have a happily ever after waiting for me in that land far, far away, and I am off on an adventure to find it. If I pick up a hero along the way, all the better for me. But it is my empire, and from now on, I rule supreme.

The End

11:15AM - My Life To-Do List

My List of Things to Do Before I Die
Because I told Kelli Owen (Dunlap) that I would.... ;p Like Alethea K, I've had most of these items in my head for a while. Some I've managed to do. Some I'm on the fence about. All of them say something about me. They are listed in no particular order of importance.

1) Publish a novel with a NY publisher
2) Get on the NYT Bestseller list
3) Write full-time
4) Have one of my works optioned and/or made into a movie
5) See France
6) See the Carribbean
7) See the Pyramids
8) See China or Japan
9) Get married (decided against this, at least for now)
10) Have a child
11) Go fishing
12) See a ghost and/or UFO
13) Get a Masters degree
14) Live in a log cabin on a lake (preferrably Lake George)
15) Eat at Ninja in NY
16) Fly in a hot air balloon
17) Learn to salsa dance
18) Learn to tango
19) Learn to bellydance
20) Take up pottery as a hobby
21) Learn ancient Egyptian (I didn't cross this out, but I do know some of it -- I can read the occasional hieroglyphic)
22) Find absolute, true inner peace
23) Give up drinking (so far, so good)
24) Tell the people I love that I love them one last time, and tell the people I don't that they never really mattered. And believe it all.
25) See my grandchildren
26) See Centralia, PA

11:15AM - Backbone

I've decided that those last two tweets don't have to be private. I am who I am and I won't apologize for it. If I did, it would negate the whole point of either of those posts.

1:08PM - Decisions

I looked at Sprout today. Took a really good look at him. And I realized a few things. Funny, how sometimes the answers are right in front of you all the time.

See, today has been a spectacularly bad day so far, and if I think of all the things I have to do to fix everything that is wrong, it becomes too overwhelming. It's not like drowning. It's like being eaten alive. Pieces of you fall apart, fall away into the hungry mouths of life and its twists and turns. Sometimes you can wriggle away with a few cuts, a few scars. Sometimes not.

I've tried my whole life to be a good person, to see the good in people and when I loved them, to do it unconditionally, vulnerably, and with all my heart. I have tried to trust, to understand, to forgive. I have tried to move on, and when I was asked, even when it killed me, I have tried to let go. I have tried to be a good parent, to make up for never having been able to give my son a father and a nice house and a puppy and the whole picket fence life. I've tried to be a good friend, to be there when I was needed. I've tried to be a hard worker, dedicated to the job I had to do. And more often than not, I have failed.

I don't know if people can change, but for my sake, I hope they can. I hope I can. Because when I looked at Sprout, I saw that he wasn't my little baby anymore. He's on his way to becoming a man, and he knows things. He feels things. And in spite of everything I could never do for him, he loves me and wants me to be happy, and strong. I saw a boy who knows when his mother is distracted and sad, and saved me SweetTarts from the movies last night so that he could cheer me up. I saw a person who needs me more than anyone else in this world, and for a long time, I was afraid of failing him worse than I already have. I was afraid of being weak in front of him, and not being able to teach him where real strength and real confidence and real love comes from.

But I have always loved him, more than anyone or anything else in the whole world. I didn't know how big and full of love a heart could be until I had him.

So there are things I am going to give up, because having them takes too much away from us. There are ideas and dreams I wanted to see fulfilled, but I am letting them go because to hold onto them would be like letting life's hungry mouths bite into me over and over and over. And if anyone deserves a strong, whole human being in his life, it's that boy in the next room, watching Spongebob and eating pizza bites. I can't fix 12 years of never having really known what the hell I was doing, but I'll be damned if I'll go into the next 12 falling apart.

So there will be walls. There will be scarring. There will be the shutting down of things that aren't and never were meant for me. And surprisingly, I'm okay with that. I need to do this. I'm going to write and work and be a mom, and I'm going to be ok. Not now, but someday. Change happens whether you want it to or not. The best thing you can do is guide it in the right direction.

Today, Sprout and I are going on a road trip. And I am going to put all these hurts and fuck-ups and problems aside. I am going to spend time with friends, and laugh, and enjoy the company of people who understand and care about me. I am going to forget for a weekend that there is a world outside a porch and a garage and a field with bleachers. And when I come back, I will be different. I will have my walls and my scars and a slew of closed doors. And I will take away the keys and hide them. I'm doing this for me. Moreso, I'm doing this for Sprout. When I come back, I will be different. And that's ok. In fact, that's just fucking fine.

5:09PM - Lessons for the Life- & Lovelorn, Letters I Will Never Send, & Renewal of R D-BTs

Just because you love someone, that doesn't mean that's enough to make a relationship work. And just because he loves you, doesn't make it okay to ignore that it's not enough. I learned that with K.

You can't love someone for who they could, will someday, or might be, only who they are. I learned that from J.

Moving on and letting go are two different things. Moving on means you've resigned yourself to the fact that a relationship won't work for you. Letting go means you've resolved the reasons for holding onto the relationship in the first place. Moving on is an outcome of logic. Letting go is an outcome of the resolution of emotion. Moving on is the first step. Letting go is the last step. I learned this, too, from J.

You're strong enough, just because you're still standing, and you're not dead yet. Hold on to that.

Birthdays are always a reason to celebrate. Someday you'll run out of them, so smoke 'em while ya got 'em.

Every monster has a weakness, even the one inside you. Especially the one inside you, although it may not seem like that. It's not always about fighting it off, either. Every piece of us is a survival tool. Sometimes it's ok to accept the teeth and claws and acid-spit as a part of yourself. Just remember which bitch owns this ship, dig?

~

I don't know if you do this, but I do. I've done it since I was in high school. And I have kept them, if for no other reason than that I can privately pat myself on the back for writing a heart-render or a tear-jerker. (I may be cold and distant about hurts, but I am not without feeling.) I call them Letters I Will Never Send. They are written letters that express true feelings to people that for whatever reason, I can no longer express to them in real life. I wrote one to an abusive ex about the effects of his abuse on me. I wrote a couple telling people how I felt about them, before or because I couldn't tell them in person. I wrote scores telling people how their betrayals hurt me, how they made me angry, how they made me sad. I wrote wall-builders, Kelli Dunlap would call them. The view of the wall from the inside, with every rough-hewn brick exposed for exactly what it was and what purpose it served. I've written many of these different kinds of letters, and have kept them in my Letters I Will Never Send folder.

You can think this is crazy. I suppose, without the proper explanation, it sounds obsessive -- stalkerish, even. It's not. It's perfectly logical, IMHO, for a person whose best attempts of reaching out for solidarity or empathy or bonding over the common human experience usually appear in writing. I'd dare to go a step further and say it's a hell of a lot healthier than bottling up those feelings. I don't ever have to hurt anyone with my rage, or run the risk of heartache in reading a floundering response to such an honest outpouring of emotion, but I can say what I need to say, and in saying it, let it go. It's a leech-bleeding, for want of a more elegant term. It's giving over some piece of baggage you don't want to carry around anymore to the claims guy you know will ship it across the country and lose it. Good riddance, I say, to bad baggage.

Someone I used to know once told me he always got out The Big Things in his writing. I think that's true for a lot of us. What you can't learn from us, what we hide, what we're afraid to feel, is in our fiction, raw and vulnerable and right there for anyone to see. All those things you'd never imagine if you see me working a con party or a panel or something, it's in my fiction. Everything I worry I'll never resolve will work its way into a character quirk, a subplot, a mode of description. We put the feelings back into the cosmos from whence they came. When we write it -- a story, a novel, a Letter We Will Never Send -- we take the step between Moving On and Letting Go.

It's not the sending, and I guess that's my point for bringing this up in the first place. It was never about the sending. It was about the feeling, the processing, and the letting go.

~

I realize I haven't done Random Drive-By Thoughts in a very long time. I have been away, loves, to dark, strange, terrible countries and fierce landscapes. But I'm back now, at least for a while. What I can't neatly tweet in 140 characters will probably become a resurgence of RDBTs.

However, this might take a while. I have some things to take care of -- properties to sell in those dark and foreign places, and letters to begin burning, now that they no longer serve their purpose. But then, loves...then....

~

I think, maybe, that's all I've got right now. But that's certainly enough, isn't it? I'm tired now, and I have miles to go before I sleep.

5:21PM - Reminder About Panel/Signing at Sussex County Arts & Heritage Festival

Gary Frank, Kathy Ptacek, Eileen Watkins, and I will be on a panel about marketin fiction tomorrow night, and will have books to sign, followed by coffee. Stop by and see us.
Details:
March 16, 2010, 7-9pm
Sussex County Arts & Heritage Council
133 Spring St., Newton, NJ
$6 at door, ‘cuz we’re at least $6 worth of awesome.

Originally published at Mary SanGiovanni. You can comment here or there.

12:01PM - Panel/Signing at Sussex County Arts & Heritage Festival

Come join Kathy Ptacek, Gary Frank, Eileen Watkins, myself, and others as we talk about marketing fiction. Following the panel will be a signing. I will have copies of FOUND YOU on hand, for anyone who wants to pick one up. And if you want me to sign anything you already have, bring it along!

Originally published at Mary SanGiovanni. You can comment here or there.

1:21PM - Happy Holidays!

Wanted to wish you folks Happy Holidays. To family and friends, I love you. To acquaintances and colleagues, I’m glad for you. To readers and fans, I’m thankful to you. To those I’ve just must, I’m excited to know you. To those who are lost to me now, and those lost to me forever, I remember and miss you.

Originally published at Mary SanGiovanni. You can comment here or there.

10:47PM - Aha! Little Life Changing Moments for Writers

So, I’m quoted in Michael Knost’s article, “The Aha! Moment,” which is up at Cemetery Dance’s Writers’ Corner.

Originally published at Mary SanGiovanni. You can comment here or there.

10:13PM - Back in Action

Hey folks, just a heads-up (or a reminder, if you didn’t know) that you can come chat with me at my forum, hosted by the lovely and talented Brian Keene. Sign up and say hi, ask questions, bring wine, heckle, whatever. Come visit me and make me feel loved and special and warm all over, okay?

Mary SanGiovanni Forum

Originally published at Mary SanGiovanni. You can comment here or there.

1:23PM - How I Spent My Weekend @ Spooky Empire Con

Was going to write a con report but no one reads them (ha ha ha). So, here are highlights of the trip:

- Meeting and chatting with Linda Blair, Chris Sarandon, Tom Savini, Cerina Vincent, Brian Krause, Ed Gale, Adrienne Barbeau, John Landis, and others
- The Elvira impersonator. He had the biggest boobs I’ve ever seen
- Taking a picture of Christine — the deadliest car I’ve ever seen (that I was NOT behind the wheel of)
- “Accidentally” molesting Brian Krause when we were taking pictures (swoon – my new fantasy boyfriend, in addition to RR and SM)
- The pool party — picture drunken goths in their underwear (or less) singing karaoke (badly)
- All the panels — they were a lot of fun, and packed with intelligent and interesting attendees
- The Ripley’s Believe It or Not Museum
- DVD loot score!!!

Thanks to all the readers, fans, and other cool folks I met or chatted with this weekend. It was great meeting Tim, Adam, Alice, Gary, Anthony, Lelia and more (please forgive me if I’m forgetting names) and seeing Phil and Anya, Jeff and Lynn, Owl and Nancy. Special thanks to Owl for inviting us! It was a great time.

Originally published at Mary SanGiovanni. You can comment here or there.

11:16AM - Appearance @ Spooky Empire Con This Weekend

Hi, everyone,

Just a reminder that if you’ll be in the Orlando area, I will be a guest at Spooky Empire Con, and will be doing some panels and signing copies of FOUND YOU all weekend. Below is a schedule of where I’ll be and when:

Spooky Empire Con 2009 Author Programming and Signings

Friday
9:00 PM SIGNING
Kevin A. Ranson, Mary SanGiovanni

Saturday
12:00 PM SIGNING
Richard Lee Byers, Mary SanGiovanni

6:00 PM THE HORROR GENRE — A WOMAN’S POV
How do women perceive horror victims? Is there any bias between female and male horror writers?
[Alice Henderson, Mary SanGiovanni, Lynne Hansen (M)]

11:00 PM SCARED HOT: SEX & HORROR
Sexy vampires, seductive shape-shifters. Why does sex and horror go so well together?
[Lynne Hansen, Mary SanGiovanni, Robert Massetti, Steven Shea, Adam-Troy Castro (M)

Sunday
11:00 AM THE THING IN THE BASEMENT
From forgotten caverns to the New York subway, our experts explore their favorite underground horrors.
[Mary SanGiovanni, Vince Courtney, Del Stone Jr. (M), Owl Goingback]

3:00 PM CHOOSING YOUR MONSTERS
Which monsters are over-used? Which are still untapped resources of evil?
[Mary SanGiovanni (M), Tim Anderson, Jeff Strand, Alice Henderson]

Originally published at Mary SanGiovanni. You can comment here or there.

6:08PM - MY HFNN Must-Have Reading List for Horror

Okay, I don’t know how I missed this, but…here it is.

Originally published at Mary SanGiovanni. You can comment here or there.

5:12PM - Author’s Guild

So I am now officially a shiny new member of The Authors Guild. I’m pleased as punch that they accepted my membership, and I’m very much looking forward to seeing what they have to offer.

Originally published at Mary SanGiovanni. You can comment here or there.

1:45PM - Spooky Empire Con Author Signings

Hey folks — if you’ll be in Orlando for Spooky Empire Con next month, I’ll be signing copies of THE HOLLOWER and FOUND YOU. Here’s the schedule:
FRI 9:00 PM Kevin A. Ranson, Mary SanGiovanni
SAT 12:00 PM Richard Lee Byers, Mary SanGiovanni
SUN 4:00 PM Steve Alten, Mary SanGiovanni

Originally published at Mary SanGiovanni. You can comment here or there.

1:39PM - Kindle Versions of THE HOLLOWER and FOUND YOU!

For all you tech-savvy folks out there, I see that Amazon has Kindle versions of my books out now. This delights me immensely. If any of you do have a Kindle and you pick it up, let me know how it looks….

The Hollower

Found You

Originally published at Mary SanGiovanni. You can comment here or there.

1:23PM - New Short Story

INHUMAN – Issue #4 is now available for purchase and should arrive in a week or so!

The fourth issue is selling for $6.95 + $2 S/H via media mail when orderd from this site.

Featuring ‘When the Monsters Get You’ by Bev Vincent where he tracks down the monsters of Stephen King. Also included:

New Terrors:

• The Pornography of Puppets – Chad Hensley and W.H. Pugmire
• Meat Wagon – Justin Gustainis
• Becoming Michael – Joseph Nassise
• Nada Nother Night – Lois H. Gresh
• Two by Boston – Bruce Boston
• I Known Why the Waters of the Sea Taste of Salt – Steven Vernon
• Der Fleisbrünnen – Mark McLaughlin
• The Days After the World Went Away – Mary SanGiovanni
• Will O’ the Wailing Wind – Darren Speegle
• Day of the Dead – Kiel Stuart
• The Eater of Hours – Darrell Schweitzer
• Snapshots From a Feast – Matt Cardin
• Xan-ti-maca: The Pit of Hell – C.J. Henderson and R.Allen Leider
• Castle Hybrid – Robert Swartwood
• Shapes in the Illusive Night – Stephen Mark Rainey

Vintage Horrors:

• Chompers – Joe R. Lansdale
• Ants – Chet Williamson
• The Day the Monsters Broke Loose – Robert Silverberg

Departments:

• From the Vault – Editorial by Allen K
• When the Monsters Get You – Essay by Bev Vincent
• John Pelan’s Things From the Vault – Interview by john Pelan

Originally published at Mary SanGiovanni. You can comment here or there.

9:39PM - Spooky Empire Updates Author Guest Info

Names and photos of us (the writers) and all the famous folks up at the Spooky Empire website. 

Originally published at Mary SanGiovanni. You can comment here or there.