zombie dogs

SCIENTISTS have created eerie zombie dogs, reanimating the canines after several hours of clinical death in attempts to develop suspended animation for humans.

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zombie dogs

land of the dead

I was almost the only female in the theater. Almost. Shortly before the movie started, a guy and girl sat right behind me and began making out. Then an ad for a rob zombie movie came on, and the guy jumped up and shouted, “Yeah, Rob! Rob Zombie!” okay, two of my favorite theater things going on, and the movie hasn’t even started.

So now it’s me, thirty fat guys -- I’m sorry. I know that’s a stereotype, but I’m telling the absolute truth here -- me, thirty fat guys, a screen shouter, and a mall rat. I begin to wonder if something is wrong with me.

I move to another seat on the other side of the theater.

Someone sits right behind me with some kind of stinky spam sandwich that makes my throat burn. By this time the movie has started and I’m sinking down in my seat, pulling the neckline of my shirt up over my nose.

What’s wrong with me?

Girls don’t like zombie movies.
There’s something wrong with me.

But as soon as the movie starts and the zombies begin to move in that sweet, sluggish way they do, I smile. And I keep smiling.

I love zombies.

And I think I’ve figured out why most girls don’t like zombie movies. It isn’t because there isn’t a lot personal growth and angst and girl talk and deep feelings exposed and explored. It’s the gore. As soon as the gore starts, my mind begins to drift. I find myself wondering if they have cinnamon scones at the nearby caribou coffee. On screen, a zombie reaches deep into the mouth of a victim and pulls out what I think is a heart. Could be a lung, but I think it’s a heart. If they don’t have cinnamon, the lemon scones are pretty good…

And then we have the thing I try not to think about: If zombies are dead, how is it they “die” when they are shot? Oh, stop it! Don’t think about that! I mean, I could get it if they had their legs cut off and could no longer get from point A to point B, or they were incinerated. That’s the best solution. Turn them to ashes. But shot? It’s a zombie movie, for chrissake. It doesn’t always have to make sense. Yeah, but, but, but… I almost think there was an explanation for that in night of the living dead, but I don’t remember what it was….

I give it an 8 out of 10. maybe 9 out of 10, but nostalgia and my lovelovelove for night of the living dead and my respect for george romero probably play into those numbers. That opening half hour in night of the living dead – if you’ve never seen it, you have to see it. Amazing. Absolutely amazing.

I love zombies.

do you scare yourself?

people ask me this all the time. and my answer is always no. very few things that i read, watch, or create actually scare me. i guess real life is so much scarier than anything i could invent. and yet... i recently read john connolly's bad men. wasn't scared at all while reading it. wasn't scared a day later. but then, last night, i was wandering around the house about 2:00 am. walked past some windows -- and suddenly remember the part of the book where the gray girl with the black eyes floats and hovers outside a two-story window.

jesus!!!!

the hold steady

i am kinda crazy about this band.



they just released a new album that is what i guess would be called a concept album -- but that seems too dreary and heavy to really describe it. the songs are somewhat connected in a somewhat disjointed yet jointed way. :D the album is set in minneapolis/st paul where two of the band members used to live.

the current state of music is so pathetic, and it's been so long since a band has come along that seemed real. maybe that's why i'm excited. even though you might say the hold steady reminds you a little of lou reed's new york period, or elvis costello, or wall of voodoo, or even bruce springsteen, the sound and clever lyrics are very much rooted in minneapolis. Craig Finn captures the dark, artistic despair and desperation of the twin cities music/party scene.

the hold steady
publicity

stalking dean koontz

Desperation, prostitution, and the degrading quest for cover quotes.

What have we turned into? Buncha whores? Ever hear the one about an editor who had a desperate, unpublished author stick a manuscript under the bathroom stall while the editor was on the toilet? Now extreme pressure is being put on published authors to come up with similar tactics, to somehow get New York Times bestselling authors to read our work and give us quotes. What is so messed up is that these quotes aren’t really used to sell the book to readers; they’re used to sell the book to the publisher’s marketing department. No quote, no financial backing. So lemme see…

My to-do list:

pick up a box of computer paper and ink
get cat shaved
car oil change
dental cleaning and checkup
stalk Dean Koontz

a storm blows in

A storm blows in and wakes me up in the middle of the night. So I do what I do best at 4:00 a.m. -- I worry.

For the past week, articles I’ve read and people I’ve talked to are indicating that publishers and booksellers are finally admitting that the downturn in book sales might not be part of a cycle but a shift in how readers are reading and buying and getting information.

Thank you. You can’t address a problem if you don’t admit it exists.

One thing I’ve actually admired about the book biz is that it doesn’t try to be cool. But more and more I’ve come to realize that’s also part of its problem. Movies are all about cool. Music is all about cool. The closest publishing gets to cool is when it publishes books about cool movies or cool music. And those cool kids who used to hang out in the school hallways wearing cool clothes and doing cool things? They now hang out in internet hallways. That hallway now has no walls, and this new world building is having enormous impact. Those small groups of people who all do the same things, listen to the same things, read the same things, watch the same things, are now enormous groups of people looking for what’s cool and individual and different so they can all do it together.

Shallow? Yes. Honest? Yes. Because trying to be James Dean is a part of our genes. I’ll bet Jesus would have emulated Dean if Dean had been around back then.

Most publishers are trend-followers. This can be bad in a world of big wheels turning slowly. By the time a trend is recognized, pointed at, discussed, paid homage to, printed, and sold to the consumer, it’s usually on its way out.

Publishers are going to have to take risks. A hard thing to do when sales are down. And by risks, I don’t mean finding the next somebody who writes like fillintheblank. Right now, the worst thing a writer or musician can be is someone who doesn’t sound like anybody else. Does that make sense????

5:00 a.m. Storm is over. Birds are singing. Oh, wait. They aren’t singing; they’re whistling in the dark.

another image of home

Thank you, Burlington!!!

Thank you, thank you, to everybody who came to my signing May 13th. And a great big thanks to Chris and Tom at B. Dalton!!!!! It was wonderful seeing and visiting with everyone!! Thanks for making the event such a success!!


The Hawk Eye

Following are the bestsellers for the week of May 10 to 16 at B. Dalton in Westland Mall.

1. "Before I Wake," Anne Frasier
2. "Play Dead," Anne Frasier
3. "You: The Owner's Manual: An Insider's Guide to the Body That Will Make You Healthier and Younger," Michael F. Roizen
4. "Hush," Anne Frasier
5. "One Man's Wilderness: An Alaskan Odyssey," Sam Keith
6. "Sleep Tight," Anne Frasier
7. "Dr. Isadore Rosenfeld's 2005 Breakthrough Health: Up-to-the-minute Medical News You Need to Know," Isadore Rosenfeld
8. "Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants," Ann Brashares
9. "Baby Signs: How to Talk with Your Baby Before Your Baby Can Talk," Linda Acredolo
10. "Broken Prey," John Sandford

crimespree magazine

have you seen crimespree magazine?
their sixth issue just came out. lots of articles, photos, and reviews. cost is $20.00 a year. you can also check out previous issues online.

crimespree

to bouchercon or not to bouchercon

i've never been to bouchercon. this year it's in chicago, a short flight for me, plus i'm fairly familiar with chicago. and this year they're having thriller panels -- which i won't speak on simply because i hate public speaking and am a total failure at trying to teach writing. for one reason, i hate to have to break down and analyze what i do.
okay, so who's going?

bouchercon

can you go home again?

i wonder what it means when you visit your hometown after being gone for five years and fall in love with it all over again? and this is after thinking very little about the place for five years. does it just mean i was way overdue for a vacation? does it mean i'm crazy? delusional? or is it time to pack it in and return to my roots?

Snake Alley -- Burlington, Iowa

"Ripley's Believe It or Not!" labeled Snake Alley "The Crookedest Street in the World" The Alley, which drops 58 feet, had both practical and aesthetic purposes. German immigrants in 1894 built it so horse-drawn carriages could get downtown without going down the steep inclines of other streets.

back to the subject of creativity

The original premise for BEFORE I WAKE was this: A killer’s execution is webcast. One of his adoring fans is watching at home, his walls plastered with articles and photos about the killer. Once the killer dies, the fan takes on the killer’s persona and MO.

That was the original concept, which doesn’t exist anymore after plot revisions. By removing the mad fan, it becomes a completely different story. Certainly not the story that was somehow fully formed, just waiting to be excavated. With my last three books, I’ve found myself struggling to hit markers that have nothing to do with the creative process, and I think that method of plotting can subtly upset the pace of a story and certainly make it so it doesn’t unfold in a natural way. You start to feel like you’re playing Twister.
hmmm...

i just noticed i've been doing a lot of bitching lately.

note to self: this isn't your private diary; delete this entry very soon....

is this the end of paperback culture?

Have you noticed the big shift? The lack of paperbacks in bookstores, even grocery stores and discount stores? Are mass market paperbacks soon to be a thing of the past? Some bookstores no longer display regular paperbacks in the new release section AT ALL. Those coveted spots are now reserved for trade paperbacks and hardcovers. I can’t help feeling sad about the death of the paperback, and not just because I am published in mass market fiction and my books will now be much harder to find. I feel sad because mass market paperbacks have always been a part of our culture. It seems there is this kind of subconscious, elitist movement away from all things white trash. While some people like my friend Bonnie might embrace her trailer park roots, many of us are admiring our wine sense while trying to forget those roots ever existed.

Here are some excellent articles on the history of the paperback, plus some other cool paperback sites.

A Short History of Paperbacks:
Link

this is a really cool site:
Link

more:
Link

more:
Link

Those Gorey Covers!
Link

the mystery of creativity

I’ve always had this strange idea that stories arrive in my brain fully formed. At the beginning, the book is just a mood and a shape and a color. But it’s all there; I just can’t see the whole thing. Not yet. I have to look for it, dig for it, uncover it very carefully. The truer I stay to that original feeling and mood and shape, the better and stronger the book will be.

first person

I grew up in a time when you could actually hear good music on both AM and FM radio. FM stations played entire albums, and after school my friends and I would walk to the corner newsstand/bookstore/cigarette shop to get a fresh-off-the-truck copy of Rolling Stone. The old guy who ran the place never ordered more than three copies, so you had to get there within hours of the delivery. At that time, Rolling Stone was printed in tabloid format, with no slick ads, and a single reading would leave your hands black with ink. Over the next several days, we would pass the quickly fading copy around, poring over every word, discussing the articles.

There was only one movie theater in our little desert town, and it was mostly for hanging out, making out, and yelling insults at the actors on the screen. The noisiest moment I ever witnessed was during A Man Called Horse, when Richard Harris was dangled by his nipples.

If you wanted to really watch a movie, you drove to Roswell. Because this was also a period of time when good movies were being made. Movies like Midnight Cowboy, Mash, Easy Rider, and Rosemary’s Baby. Few of those movies played in Artesia, and if they did you wouldn’t be able to see or hear very well.

So we read a lot. Mainly science fiction, but also books people were talking about at the time like Trout Fishing in America and Stranger in a Strange Land. Soon we were groking everything.

“Grok means to understand so thoroughly that the observer becomes a part of the observed—to merge, blend, intermarry, lose identity in group experience. It means almost everything that we mean by religion, philosophy, and science—and it means as little to us (because we are from Earth) as color means to a blind man.” Robert Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land. I read Dostoyevsky’s The Idiot about then. It wasn’t a big hit with my friends, but I quite liked the passages about epilepsy.

Back before I was born, my grandmother played guitar accompaniment to silent movies at the Capital Theater in Burlington, Iowa. I used to imagine her strumming out the soundtrack to silent horror films. She would have been about sixteen, and I always pictured her propped on a stool in front of red velvet drapes, wearing thick black stockings and a black cotton dress with a big bow on one hip.

Music and books and movies have always been a part of my life. Even a part of my life before my life.
Now you rarely hear a good song on the radio. Music and movies, and gasp – even books -- seem to be imitations of imitations, of imitations. Labels and studios and houses have to know that the new idea will sell. The only way to do that is to be able to point at a previous idea that has done well. And so the watering down continues and continues, until the market bottoms out and somebody takes a chance simply because there is no other way to turn.