Download Page Updated

I updated the downloads page today. The files for Written in the Stars and The Selkie Wife now include the outtakes.

I also added EPUB versions for Nook users.

Enjoy!

Stand up for Katalina!

The Stand up for Katalina charity has been an incredible outpouring of love from the fandom. As always, I stand in awe of the generosity and kindness of this amazing group of people.

 Katalina's bavery and grace in the face of her illness inspired this story for me. I deeply enjoyed writing it and I hope you guys enjoy reading it.

If you'd like to get a copy, along with stories from dozens of awesome fanfiction authors, donate here.

There's a teaser on the site, but I thought I'd give you just a little bit more....

Alice thinks her introverted sister, Bella, needs to get out and enjoy life, so she signs her up for tango lessons. Thanks to a sexy, hands-on instructor, Bella will learn more than the steps.

He pushed play and the music began. “Because, Bella, I’ve never met a person who needed to dance more than you did.”

“You felt sorry for me?” The words were like a sharp needle, stabbing into her heart.

“No. I wanted to be there when it happened. Because I knew it would be glorious.” He extended a hand. “Dance with me.”

It was a request she could never deny.

“We’re going to try something new,” he told her. “Do you trust me?”

She did. God help her, she did. She nodded and he smiled again. “All right. I’m going to dip you back, lowering you down. I want you to curl one leg around mine. We’ll go slow.”

He took her into his arms and, as always, her heart sped up. As if he knew it, he smiled softly, and brushed a tendril of hair back from her cheek. “Here we go.”

He lowered her, slowly, as he’d promised. Bella used her right leg to brace herself and curled the left around his legs. “What do I do with my arms?” she murmured. They were currently locked on his shoulders.

“Let go,” he said softly.

She did, and it was so deliciously freeing to feel her body completely supported by his arms, knowing that she was utterly safe within them. Slowly, Bella lifted her arms until they were behind her head and she let her head fall back. He made a small sound and she sensed, more than felt it, when he lowered his head and brushed his lips across the vulnerable column of her throat. As lightly as the brush of butterfly wings, like the kiss of a summer breeze.

The Fires of Censorship Still Burn

As good almost kill a man as kill a good book: who kills a man kills a reasonable creature, God's image; but he who destroys a good book, kills reason itself, kills the image of God, as it were, in the eye.” John Milton, Areopagitica

~.~

As many of you know, the fandom went through a period of censorship a little while ago. Many beloved stories were removed from fanfiction.com, and despite the efforts of petitions and personal pleas sent to the administrators, the purge went on. Some of the stories will never return, and will exist only as traded files amongst the few.

Banned Books Week ended a few days ago, but it's an issue of which we should be aware year-round. Nearly every day, there's another story in the media concerning the efforts by a tiny, yet noisy, number of people who seek to ban books from schools and libraries (books they often haven't even read except to skim through and cull "objectionable" parts for their complaint.)

Author Pat Conroy wrote a beautiful letter in response to two of his books being banned by a school board, which was published in the local newspaper. It's long, so I won't repost it in its entirety, but you can read it here, at Letters of Note.

October 24, 2007 

To the Editor of the Charleston Gazette:

I received an urgent e-mail from a high school student named Makenzie Hatfield of Charleston, West Virginia. She informed me of a group of parents who were attempting to suppress the teaching of two of my novels, The Prince of Tides and Beach Music.

[...]

I've enjoyed a lifetime love affair with English teachers, just like the ones who are being abused in Charleston, West Virginia, today. My English teachers pushed me to be smart and inquisitive, and they taught me the great books of the world with passion and cunning and love. Like your English teachers, they didn't have any money either, but they lived in the bright fires of their imaginations, and they taught because they were born to teach the prettiest language in the world. I have yet to meet an English teacher who assigned a book to damage a kid. They take an unutterable joy in opening up the known world to their students, but they are dishonored and unpraised because of the scandalous paychecks they receive. In my travels around this country, I have discovered that America hates its teachers, and I could not tell you why. Charleston, West Virginia, is showing clear signs of really hurting theirs, and I would be cautious about the word getting out.

[...]

About the novels your county just censored: The Prince of Tides and Beach Music are two of my darlings which I would place before the altar of God and say, "Lord, this is how I found the world you made." 

[..]

The world of literature has everything in it, and it refuses to leave anything out. I have read like a man on fire my whole life because the genius of English teachers touched me with the dazzling beauty of language. Because of them I rode with Don Quixote and danced with Anna Karenina at a ball in St. Petersburg and lassoed a steer in Lonesome Dove and had nightmares about slavery in Beloved and walked the streets of Dublin in Ulysses and made up a hundred stories in The Arabian Nights and saw my mother killed by a baseball in A Prayer for Owen Meany. I've been in ten thousand cities and have introduced myself to a hundred thousand strangers in my exuberant reading career, all because I listened to my fabulous English teachers and soaked up every single thing those magnificent men and women had to give. I cherish and praise them and thank them for finding me when I was a boy and presenting me with the precious gift of the English language.

[...]

The school board of Charleston, West Virginia, has sullied that gift and shamed themselves and their community. You've now entered the ranks of censors, book-banners, and teacher-haters, and the word will spread. Good teachers will avoid you as though you had cholera. But here is my favorite thing: Because you banned my books, every kid in that county will read them, every single one of them. Because book-banners are invariably idiots, they don't know how the world works—but writers and English teachers do.

~.~ 

As has been said before, all it take for the wrong thing to triumph is for good people to do nothing. Bibliophiles need to become more noisy than those who would seek to suppress. Snuff the flames!

Coming soon ...

By the incredibly talented SoapyMayhem

I'm writing a story for the Stand Up for Katalina compilation. In case you don't know, Katalina is a member of the fandom who has been diagnosed with terminal cancer. People wanted to do something for her, of course, so she asked that we donate to the Stand Up to Cancer charity. Her bravery and grace during this difficult time are inspirational.

Katalina gave each writer a prompt. She asked me to write about an Edward who dances the tango, and a story began to bloom in my mind ... a story about a shy, awkward Bella taking dance lessons, and an instructor who teaches her more than just the steps ... He teaches her to take joy in life.

You'll love this compilation. There are over 40 authors signed up already, and more are joining every day.

Stop by the website and leave a little note of support, and please, donate if you can.

An Interview with Fanfiction Addiction

Fanfiction Addiction, the Spanish Twific group, interviewed me for their first issue of Virtual Magazine. It's absolutely beautiful. Even if you don't speak Spanish, you should check it out because it's prettier than many print magazines.

The interview in the magazine is in Spanish, but I have permission to post the English version here. Enjoy!

· If you were...

A month
April. When the spring has begun and the world is filled with new possibilities.

A day of week
Friday, when everyone is anticipating the fun of the weekend.

A moment of the day
Right as you fall asleep and slip into the dream world, where anything and everything is possible. 

A planet 

Pluto. I don’t care what astronomers say! It’s a planet to me, and always will be!

A drink
Iced tea. Fresh and crisp, with a hint of sugar. 

A musical instrument

A violin. It’s a difficult instrument to learn, but creates beautiful music. 

A fruit:

A grape. Tasty and good for you, and if squeezed and allowed to age, turns into a drink which gives joy to those who share it. Good for the heart, too! 

A meal:

Chicken soup. Warm and soothing, something that nourishes and brings memories of home and comfort. 

A body part:

The brain, the seat of imagination, the part of us that creates our dreams. 

A subject:

Sociology. I’m fascinated with what makes people the way they are. 

A number:

Seven. There are four sevens in my birthdate, and seven letters in my full first name, Melissa, and a few other instances where it appears. 

A color:

Blue, the color of the sky. 

A scent:

Sandalwood. My favorite. 

A city:

London. It’s a vibrant city, full of history, with a diverse population.

A language:

English; it’s the only language I know. But it’s a rich language filled with colorful words, nuances and subtle inflections. Turning a graceful phrase is like a dance, beautiful when it turns out right, embarrassing when it falls flat. 

A song:

O, Fortuna - Carmina Burana. I think it’s one of the most beautiful songs ever written.

A movie:
Lord of the Rings 

A name:
Calliope, Greek muse of epic poetry


A picture:

 

A book:
The Velveteen Rabbit.

"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"

"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."

"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.

"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."

"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"

"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

A flower:

Stargazer lily, my favorite flower. 

A station:
King’s Cross because I love Harry Potter. 

A garment: 

A hat. A big, floppy hat in a color that doesn’t match anything, with a large plastic flower on the side. (One of my favorite poems is “When I am an Old Woman I Shall Wear Purple.”) 

A country:
Ireland. Land of mists and legends. 

A place:
Kauai, a place of flowers and waterfalls. 

An animal:
A dog 

One sense:
Sight 

A cartoon:
Futurama 

A gift:
A bookstore gift card. 

A hobby:
Sculpting 

A feeling:
Curiosity 

1. - If you could choose see your work as a TV series or a movie, which would you choose? And why?

This is a difficult question because I’m not sure I would like to see any of my works made into movies. I’m usually disappointed with movies made from books. Very rarely do they capture the spirit of the original and they often have a lot of changes to the story or characters. The movies they make are rarely as good as the “movie” I see in my head when I’m reading or writing. I think I would prefer that everyone see their own “movie” rather than watch it on the TV or cinema screen. 

2. - You mentioned that a Volturi male suffers when your couple dies. It's physical pain typical for his race or is just the pain of losing her?

A Volturi who loses a beloved mate can literally die of grief. They lose the will to live and begin to waste away. 

 3. - Was it difficult to create such a different world? What inspired you to create it?

I have read romances and seen movies where people go to live on other planets, and it always seemed to me that they made the aliens too human. Some of them would throw in a couple of differences and a few strange-sounding words, but make the rest of the alien culture basically the same as humans. As I see it, aliens would be much different than earthlings. They wouldn’t have evolved exactly the same as humans, or have the same culture.

I started with their physical traits. Twilight uses wolves, and so I decided to make my aliens feline-based. I had to think of everything from their physiology to their diet, to their reproductive process. As an example, since they’re strictly meat-eaters, their teeth would be different from our own.

But, at the same time, I wanted all of their traits to be realistic, so I based them off of various animals and some rituals of human cultures. The idea for drones came from bees. The idea for the babies to be born in an “egg” actually came from an old TV show called “Mork and Mindy.” (Helen of Troy from Greek mythology was also born from an egg.) The idea for the males incubating the babies came from penguins/seahorses.

4. - Bella will introduce some human traditions?

Yes, she will. In the first outtake, “Nessie’s Mating”, Nessie thinks about how her mother introduced shoe-wearing to upper class women. Alpha women didn’t wear shoes; their mates were supposed to carry them in places where the ground was rough. And while that seems sweet and caring, it also keeps a woman dependent on a man for transportation. Bella saw shoes as a sign of liberation.

She also introduced the idea of having pets. The Volturi thought it was strange to keep their “food” in the house, but after the Empress did it, people started keeping animals as pets. Eventually, this would lead to better treatment of animals as people start caring about them. 

 5. - Do you believe there was life in other worlds?

I’d say it’s likely, given the number of planets that are out there. But as to whether there is intelligent life, I cannot guess. I’d say it’s unlikely we will ever know, unless we manage to invent something like the “jumpers” that can fold space and time and move people over the vast distances of space. We’re not likely to get a radio signal from aliens; their technology would probably be so different from ours that we could be “hearing” them right now and not even know it because we don’t have the right kind of machine to listen. 

6. - What do you feel to see your histories are translated in different languages? Can you imagining that they were going to reach to so many persons?

I’m thrilled and amazed that the translators are willing to put so work into bringing my stories to people who speak other languages. Truly, it is an incredible gift. I love reading the reviews.

It’s very exciting that people around the world can read my stories. I never imagined having such a large audience. The first story I wrote got a grand total of 45 reviews and I was delighted that I had any readers at all. I certainly never expected this level of interest. It’s amazing, and a little scary sometimes, too, because I’m afraid I’ll disappoint so many people. 

 7. - Why you histories [stories] have schemes inspired in supernatural things?

I like exploring how people would react in bizarre circumstances. Many of my stories start out in my mind with the question “What if this happened …?” 

8. - How do you let to flow your stories in the context of unconventional situations?

I try to make unrealistic situations as realistic as possible. In Written in the Stars, I tried to think about what it would really be like to be a queen, having so many decisions to make – and having to live with the consequences of those decisions- the responsibility, and being watched at all times. In The Selkie Wife, I took an old fairy tale and used it to tell the story of Queen Mary I and tried to stay as close as I could to the real history of the time period. In Better Angels of Our Nature, I wanted to explore the concept of great power coming with great responsibility.

9. - Where the idea comes of the ritual of courtship of the Volturi? Did you inspired in some African tribe or in an animal?

Their mating ritual of bringing dead animals came from both human and animal mating rituals. Many species bring a “gift” to a female they’re courting, including human males who try to buy the biggest diamond they can afford for the woman to whom they’re proposing. Money isn’t as valued in Volturi culture as a status symbol; their status is based on strength, and so it would make sense for a man to “prove his worth” by bringing the female animals that are hard to kill. 

10. - On what did you base to create the religion Dynali?

From archaeological finds, it appears that the first gods of humans were female, a mother-figure, so I chose a female deity for them. Because the Dynali world is mostly covered with water and they’re an amphibious species, it made sense to make her the “Mistress of the Waters.”

In the scene where Tanya tells Bella the parable of the rippling water, I knew what I wanted her to say: that all of our actions have far-reaching consequences of which we may not be aware. A smile given to a stranger may alleviate their sadness and give them hope. A teacher’s enthusiasm may inspire a love of learning in a student. And so on. Even tiny actions may have huge consequences. I saw the metaphor of the ripples spreading in the pond, and then how the stone the young man threw would have had effects unseen, below the water.

"Dark Goddess" Nominated for Fic of the Week

Dark Goddess has been nominated for Fic of the Week over at Teh Lemonade Stand. There are two days left to vote.

Thanks to Dessie Dhiee Masen for nominating it.







Me right now:

Busy Girl is Busy

Oh, yeesh, I hate starting out a blog post with an apology, but I feel I owe you guys one for how long it took me to get the next chapter of Dark Goddess posted.

Come on, you can't say "No" to that cute little face, can you?

As I posted on my novels blog, I'm back in Editsville. Just as the process was finishing up for Ghostwriter, I'm starting edits on my second novel. These are the big ones, changing scenes for better flow, adding text, deleting scenes as needed, not simply approving the addition of a comma or slightly re-worded sentence.

I managed to finish up the Selkie Wife story I'm contributing to Fandom 4 LLS, so that's one project off my overcrowded plate, but I still have the story for my publisher's Valentine's Day anthology to finish.

Thanks for your patience and support.