Second Post! Playlists!

I know. Two posts in one day!

No, the sky isn’t falling. Hell hasn’t frozen over. The Seventh Seal hasn’t been broken. (Really Demi Moore is alive and well.)*

Basically, blame Melissa Olson. She is working on the follow up to her debut novel Dead Spots and was looking for songs that readers felt personified Scarlett, her protagonist. This had me considering music, and my playlists. Well, that and the fact that I had no idea that Macklemore and Lewis were playing in Milwaukee last night. How did I not know this?

But I digress. *deep breaths*

The problem here is that I read 1-2 novels a week. I read Dead Spots a while ago. Which means Scarlett is blending into a haze of protagonists from a lot of different other novels. This is part of the reason I don’t wait before starting the review as a general rule. Especially for Wicked Lil Pixie, as those are full reviews.

At the same time, I have been working with a number of go to bands that have been sitting on my playlists quite a bit lately. I’ll drop a few of them into the post here. Leaning towards ones with videos I can post, because who doesn’t like music videos?

Bad Ass Female Protagonists (or Villains)

For this I have been going towards Halestorm and In This Moment. The songs are rough, raw and have that growling female vocals that just scream (literally in some instances) power to me. So, I’m just throwing this out there for Melissa as this is what I remember without confirming by re-reading a chapter or two. These songs say “powerful female protagonist” to me.

Halestorm – Love Bites

In This Moment - Adrenalize Me

Halestorm – I Miss the Misery

In This Moment – Blood

Other Protagonists (mostly my male ones)

For the most part, I have songs that feed into a theme I am going for. In most of my stories the heroes have at least a bit of the feeling of being a freak. Not normal. To this direction, a lot of the songs lean towards being not normal or supporting the dual nature of a person. Which, when you think about it, is a lot of academic thought put behind the motivation and inspiration of a cool song.

Halestorm – Freak Like Me

Wayland – Welcome to My Head

In This Moment – Welcome to the Gun Show

Volbeat – Sad Man’s Tongue

Wayland – Reno (best video I could find – unreleased song – next album)

Volbeat – Still Counting

Honkeytonk Monster Hunter (inspiration)

In this instance I not only do a severe jump in genres, but this is a one-for-one. The artist singing these was the direct inspiration for the protagonist. Not much else to say here, other than… “That boy can sang!”

Ben Dukes – Down in Flames

Ben Dukes – Old Fixer Upper

Summary

For the purposes of Melissa Olson, the top section on bad ass female protagonists works best. But it is far from the only playlists I work with. In an effort of full disclosure, most of my Halestorm and In This Moment songs are for my female villain/serial killer. But I stand by their uses. After all, the villain is the hero of their own story.

An Open Letter to Big Bang Theory

To the Writer’s Room at Big Bang Theory;

Thank you. I appreciate the geek culture and humor you have brought to the mainstream. I am not one of those geeks who denounces you as laughing “at” us and not “with” us. Then again, I have never been accused of being overly sensitive or empathetic. So take that as you will.

I did however see some dire implications in this last week’s episode where the guys took to playing D&D while the women went to Vegas. Not in the humor itself, mind you. I’ve been dealing with those types of jokes since Tom Hanks lost his shit and thought a mugger on the streets of New York was an orc bandit. (Forget that in the common rule system back then a cleric couldn’t use a dagger. Brain him with a claw hammer, sure… but not stab him.) For me, the issue was due to the implications that this episode of your sitcom would have towards my game night. Specifically, towards myself – the Dungeon Master for Life™. (Y’all might think I am kidding. Sadly, no.)

First off there was this exchange;

Sheldon – “I’ve never played D&D with girls before.”

Penny – “Oh, sweetie… nobody has.”

In and of itself, a fine joke. Bazinga. Though this left me in the awkward position of having “the talk” with the women in my group. I had to convince them that they actually existed. It was touch and go there for a bit. Trying to talk them down from claiming they were unicorns, I found myself debating the case while simultaneously fighting off Tim Curry and his army of goblins. It the end it all worked out without me having to convert a Scientologist to the side of Fey.

My second issue came with Wolowitz and his impressions that gave voice to his NPCs. While the voices themselves (and especially Dr. Cooper’s reaction to them) were humorous, it left me in a very Leonard-like predicament. I now have to become a junior Rich Little (a shout out to the older geeks in the audience) during my game night. While I fancy busting out a Walken impersonation from time to time, there are only so many situations where you can call for more cowbell in a role-playing setting. The timing… it’s no good… not right…

So suddenly the Alvin and the Chipmunkesque voice of Puff Puff (full name Dandelion Puff That Floats on the First Spring Breeze) the pixie companion of the party isn’t good enough. Now Puff Puff has to sound like Mike Tyson from The Hangover. Okay, that’s a bad example. Those voices are nearly identical. But you get my drift.

In short, as writers know that words have power. And I’m not simply talking about the Power Word series of spells. Words cast about in jest have power. They are the butterfly that sends ripples along the pond of my game night. And Ashton Kutcher is busy enough with being plopped into Two and a Half Men without having to join in on my game night too.

Sincerely,

Zombie Joe – DM for Life™

Ref: (pop culture reference cheat sheet)

• Mazes and Monsters
• AD&D (aka 1st Edition): Cleric Rule Set
• Big Bang Theory: Sheldon’s Jokes
• Legend: The Plot
• Legend: The Scientologist in the Ointment
• SNL: Host – Christopher Walken, Don’t Fear the Reaper skit
• Alvin and the Chipmunks
• The Hangover
• The Butterfly Effect
• Two and a Half Men: The Sheen Meltdown

Romantic Times from the Eyes of Cupcake Man

So it seems that some from Romantic Times have decided to rename me. Don’t worry, I have no intention of rebranding my blog, my social networking or the reviews. That said, when passing me one morning, an author whose name is escaping (and whose card I haven’t come across yet in unpacking) said she was going to be calling me Cupcake Man from now on. I thought Zombie Joe was pretty memorable, but for convention purposes… sure. Not to mention, though the numbers are starting to swing more our direction we men were sorely the minority at the con. They rebranded a couple of our restrooms as women’s restrooms.

the view from our room at RT

The same morning I was called Cupcake Man, I had also tweeted about being incognito. I was wearing my Wayland tour shirt and denim. Not a piece of zombie identification on me. Of course by the end of the tweet I was entering in the epiphany that I was one of twenty dudes at the convention, so there was no hiding. That said, I still found it the same as my first one in 2010 – helpful, inspiring and a lot of fun.

I would have more photos (and may once I collect them all), but during most of the costumed events my wife wasn’t bringing her camera. Hell, most of the time she wasn’t wearing her glasses, so it wouldn’t have mattered if she did. I will make it a point to collect up the photos from the camera and our phones. I am a bit more liberal with what I will call a decent picture.

Today I am going for a quick teaser of my week in Kansas City, so… some highlights:

• Sarah Rees Brennan and Heather Brewer calling Rachel Caine a robot. Sarah even proceeded to pummel her with a holographic bookmark. (For the record, the bookmark is awesome.)
• Nicole Peeler announcing on a panel that Jeaniene Frost is a “pinch hitter.” (Meaning she writes from both the male and female point of view.)
• Nicole then telling the assembled attendees that Jackie Kessler goes from men to boys. (Meaning she writes male point of view in adult novels and YA.)
• Seeing just how many people (honestly, mostly women due to the format of the con) will accept food from someone before they even know their name.
• Getting to know a lot of new people due to reminding them they took food from someone who looks like me before they even knew who I was.
• Steampunk Tea: Really, what more needs to be said here? Lots of awesome stuff given away. A lot of people cursing that they weren’t born closer to the same day as Nicola Tesla.
• Met up with the other reviewers on Wicked Lil Pixie. Ironically I still haven’t met Sahara. It didn’t help that I have no idea what she looks like.
• Seeing a lot of Karina Cooper. Really she is as effervescent as they come, and you can’t pass up saying hello when you pass by. And with her planning to attend TeslaCon whenever possible, it just makes sense to remain in contact with her.
• Asking Diana Rowland to sign my copy of Carniepunk. (No, she didn’t write a story in that one.) I told her to just sign Mark Henry’s story. He wouldn’t mind.
• Jaye Wells telling people her goals were to not cry and to not cuss. She didn’t cuss, and almost made it without crying. (Sorry to out you Jaye.)
• Tiffany Reisz asking “who gives out awards for smut?” during her acceptance speech.
• Diana Rowland thanking the inventor of Spanx during her acceptance speech.
• Meljean Brooke announcing to the crowd she was a dork. (Really one of the most touching speeches of the night.)
• Karina Cooper explaining how her husband sold his Magic cards to pay for her trip to accept her award. (Not to mention being one of the ten people there that likely got what that meant. Me, John Scalzi and like two to four other urban fantasy authors.)
• Karina Cooper’s story of screaming when she found out she won. I won’t embarrass her or her husband by retelling the whole thing. Too bad nobody records all those speeches.
• Getting seated randomly next to Andrew Schaffer during the anniversary dinner.
• …and together they fight crime!
• Discovering a preopening band for Necrospank5000 and Laser Vaginas. (Pew! Pew!)

More will follow later. Maybe some more expanded stories. Possibly some awesome new books I picked up. Who knows?

Throwing in the Towel

This post has next to nothing to do about writing. It’s only link as it is part writing exercise and part getting my thoughts clear in my own head. A really great day ended with an extremely frustrating condo association meeting. So this morning (even though a power outage took out our alarm clock), I am doing my writing exercise to exorcise the demons from the night before. So to speak. Nobody spoke in tongues or anything.\

I have heard a number of times the saying:

It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog.

Most often attributed to Mark Twain (though confirmation is sketchy at best), it is an excellent saying. It reminds us that the little guy doesn’t always have to lose. Not that I would ever accuse myself of being a “little guy.” (That was a physical size joke, not a social status one.)

Last night our condo association met to discuss an issue. It was a storage issue in the townhouse style condos (as opposed to the apartment style, or garden style homes). We were sold on one of the features being a semi-private garage where we could put up shelves for garage items. It seems this is not in our declaration. Or the declaration was changed before our board took over (we bought before the units were sold out and the association was handed over to us).

With the rules in the declaration for the one set of units (such as a 30 pound weight limit on dogs that we never had in the townhouses), now it is a matter of getting 67% of the owners to vote in favor of something to change it. Last night not even 67% of the owners bothered voting either way. That left the townhouse owners (at least those of us at the meeting) feeling under-represented and put upon by the garden style units. We have to follow their rules without their advantages (like not paying for water, having built-in water softeners into their system, etc.).

The problem I was hit with? Well there were two. One was the defense against changing the declaration to reflect what we were sold on was, “Well, it’s in the declaration.” We can’t change the rule, because its a rule. Though that is honestly the after effects of the insanity of it all. Maybe it is naive to things should make sense, especially things we have control over. Maybe its the side effect of being a writer, where everything we put to paper needs to make sense.

The larger of the two issues is the attitude I was met with. Board members rolling their eyes when I talk. Telling me options and directions we can go towards the end, and then never responding back to me. Or better, responding with the instructions that you will not speak to me without another board member or the management company there. That tells me there is not only a lack of respect, but that there is an active effort to quiet our side of the debate. Call me cynical, but it speaks to me that they don’t trust the other board member to shut me down. So they wish to be there to do the shutting down for him.

So their general idea is that I am out of line. I’ve faced the rolling eyes and the scoffs before. Granted it has been a long time since anyone has been so rude to my face, but I remember how to deal with it. And at this point the question is raised of if this is even a fight worth pursuing. 40 hour a week job. Reading and reviewing 1-2 novels a week. Writing my own stories. Odyssey Con. Festa Italia. Is it worth my time to create a presentation on the issue and go door to door an convince the resident owners to vote for it?

Part of me says yes. The declaration has to be changed anyhow. Currently it doesn’t allow us to keep our garbage cans in the garage. City law states we can’t keep them outside on the curb. It also states we can’t have welcome mats on the front door for people to wipe their feet on – because they don’t want them in the hallway of the apartment style homes. If it has to be changed anyhow, there would be no cost difference to add the language for our “semi-private garages.” But that would be less time for everything else I have going on in my already busy life.

I am feeling like I am done with this. Done with them. They aren’t my neighbors, they are the opposition. I will not give respect to those who openly disrespect me. And if the others in the townhouses who are affected more by this reversal are ready to throw in the towel, I’m not going to drag them through this any more even if I feel it is the right thing to do.

At the same time, I will be expressing myself in any and all ways allowed in their precious declaration. Things I have held off on in an effort to not “scare the norms.” I have a garden in front of my unit that is mine to do with as I please. It has been far too long that I have held off decorating or planting in it. And I have known for 4 years what is needed in that space.

I may not be able to have Neil Gaiman’s gazebo, but I can have a feature I have heard is kept near his gazebo. The garden zombie will be mine. Oh yes, it will.

Oh, and maybe an upside-down hanging tomato plant. We’ll see.

I will leave you with a final thought though. Consider the confrontations we face every day. From the smallest disagreement to the largest blow-out. Take a moment to consider how different these conflicts would be if we all took a moment to reflect on how what we said appeared to the others involved. Common courtesy seems to be something of the past, something we have gotten away from. At the same time, I think it is something that could cure a lot of these little ills that bother us. There is far to much big shit hitting us from all sides these days to spend so much time and energy on things that could be cured with common courtesy.

Attention RT People – Cupcakes at the Bar

Our 1st fully decorated Iron Druid batch.

I hope this gets the attention of anyone attending Romantic Times this coming week. There was discussion of cupcakes at the bar. I would call it cupcakes and coffee, but realistically it could very well be cupcakes and hooch. Or cupcakes with hooch in them. Or both. But it will be happening.

My plan is that we will be there by 5:00 on Wednesday. So realistically I am thinking between 6:00 and the disco party that night (or 9:00 for those keeping score) is a perfect time. And yes, we have costumes for the party so we are totally going to the disco event.

You’ll have to ask Dakota the theme of that cupcake…

What I am looking for is an approximate idea of who all would be showing up for some cupcakes, drinks and discussion. Our current cupcake tote carries 24 cupcakes (assuming we don’t go crazy with the decorations on them), so if I need to plan for a blister pack I need to know as soon as possible. So please comment below if you plan to join us.

Also, I am looking towards what to make. If you have any requests as to type, add that in to your comment. I will say that this early in the growing season Hornicorns would be tough to make. Fresh sweet corn isn’t an easy commodity to come by right now. (Sorry Phin.)

My list of current book-themed cupcakes are as follows:

• Hornicorn - sweet corn cupcake with candied bacon topped with a maple cream cheese or white chocolate cream cheese frosting.
• Trampire - a hard cider cupcake with a cider and apple compote filling and cinnamon cream cheese frosting.
• Ryzkahl (spicy demon lord) - an ancho chili devils food cake with a cayenne ganache filling and a white chocolate cream cheese frosting.
• Velveteen - a black velvet (grey really) cupcake with a white chocolate ganache filling topped with a grey cream cheese frosting.
• Iron Druid - a stout chocolate cupcake filled with an Irish whiskey ganache and topped with a Baileys frosting.
• Snugglepumpkin - a pumpkin cupcake made with honey and topped with a honey yogurt drizzle. (Safe for dogs and humans. When not making for dogs, replace drizzle with cinnamon cream cheese frosting.)
• The True Cupcake - (nothing to do with the book, more to do with the author’s tastes) devils food cake with a peanut butter cup baked into it frosted with a dark chocolate cream cheese frosting and garnished with a couple of Reeces Pieces™.

I have a collection of other recipes as well. Those are just the book related ones. I think that is all of them anyhow. It’s tough to keep them all in my head.

Comment below and we’ll see you in Kansas City.

A Thought Born From YouTube: OddCon Edition

Yes, this past weekend was Odyssey Con. It was also the first year I had any hand in the organization of it. 2013 also marked the first year I sat in on panels. Not a strange thing for Odyssey Con, as fan-run panels are common, but a big thing for me. I have never sat in on a panel before. In fact, other than my time as a trainer at my last job (over 13 years ago) I tend not to do much in the way of public speaking. Add this to the collection of conferences I have attended sitting in the audience listening to my favorite authors speak, and you’ll get the idea as to why this was off-putting.

I had told people, “Come to my panel and watch me choke at public speaking!” And while everyone laughed, I didn’t feel it was that far from the truth. I was convincing myself that I really could manage it. Not 100%, but there is that voice writers get now and again that will whisper “you suck at this” in our ears as we’re writing. And by whisper, I mean shout rather loudly. And by in our ears, I of course mean over a bull horn.

This came up as I watched a video from MeekaKitty, a YouTuber/young lady who was responding to a video with the topic On Being Ugly. The point of the original video was it was okay to just be okay. It was about being comfortable with your lack of physical beauty. In general. MeekaKitty on the other hand looked into the lack of empathy in the comments. In short, it is not up to us to make the person in the original video “all better.” But our discomfort with the situation and feelings lead us to say, “you’re not ugly” as opposed to just listening to their feelings. To an extent I understand that.

Partially when I claim I would choke while public speaking, it is because I very well could. It had been decades since I have done anything close to comedy, acting, singing or even the radio show I had back in college. The most public speaking I do is when I run our bi-weekly Dungeons and Dragons game at my place. Shouting at the Internet in my reviews or into Twitter doesn’t count.

Furthermore, I am a gamer geek. And not the “pew-pew” kind that a lot of the more mainstream gamers are these days. I’m a full on Dungeons and Dragons gaming geek. (You never go full on gamer geek.) And while not all the stereotypes are true, there is a bit of social awkwardness in many of us. More than once I have been at a conference and my wife will tell me to go say hello to someone, or introduce myself only to get the reply “maybe later.”

Partially this stems from doing escort duty at gaming conventions in the past. I was always of the mind you don’t interrupt or bother the people that are there for promotion. You stand invisible. (Let’s not even get into the psychological implications of that.) The rest has to do with being just enough off the norm, I like to get a “read of the room” before I out myself.

Realistically, posting to Twitter that I am trying to convince my wife to come home early and go to the Wayland concert with me is one thing. (The band did say she HAD to come home early to make the show. She also decided I could handle it on my own – weeknight and all.) Going up to the merch table after the show and asking them to sign the EP for Welcome to My Head because I gave the one I picked up at the Dane County Fair to Kevin Hearne this past weekend is a complete other can of worms.

Seriously, I have seen this band in concert twice. I am using one of their songs for the dybbuk story’s playlist. On twitter I have communicated with them directly (assuming it is a band member who is doing the social networking). Still walking up and saying “hey” just isn’t in my usual wheelhouse. Had it clicked during the pre-NYE event that it was Dean from the band we were in the elevator with, I still might not have introduced myself. Also, what band wouldn’t want to know that I gave a signed copy of their EP to a New York Times bestselling author?

At the same time, I think it is perfectly fine to retreat once in a while. Life is balance, and sometimes I need to have some peace. Not to mention my freakish hearing (side effect of letting a doctor play with my spinal cord) makes talking in a bar or party type setting difficult. Waiting for some quiet to introduce myself, once I am comfortable, is just fine.

We all have our quirks. Some we can change, some we accept.

Public speaking is really not a problem for me as I don’t get stage fright. I don’t really care if I make a fool of myself in front of people. Meeting an author at the airport and playing Morgan Freeman to their Jessica Tandy, much less so. Which is why it meant so much to me that I do it. It helped that the author was one I have read and is a member of the League of Reluctant Adults. I figured if I could meet Mark Henry, Jaye Wells and Diana Rowland and make it out alive, Kevin Hearne was a safe bet.

In short, accepting your quirks and working past them is not the same as feeling sorry for yourself. For some people it is accepting you’re not attractive in the eyes of the world at large. That doesn’t mean you hide in a cave with a bag over your head. For others it means knowing you’ll never be skinny, but always striving for healthy. And for those like me, it means knowing you’re not overly social 100% of the time, but knowing you can bury the doubt and work forward no matter what. Ironically also an awesome skill to have when writing.

You see, I knew I’d bring this full circle back to the topic of writing.

And I’ll leave you all with the song I am heading out to get the EP of later tonight. My protagonist’s theme song for book 2 of my Honkytonk Monster Hunter series.

In Which Zombie Joe Contemplates Summer Camp

Really the point is in which I wonder to myself when summer camp became such a chore. I knew taking on the new roles would tax my time. At the same time, I am loving what I am doing and really getting in some solid reading time. The real slap in the face came in two spots, both of which hurt in their own way. And so I quote The 40 Year Old Virgin;

“That sign had two sides, and the both hurt… equally.”

The first came in the form of an email letting me know that Camp NaNoWriMo was gearing up. Granted it started earlier this year than last, but I have final edits and a cover to produce before I can get ecopies to people. The fates seem to be conspiring against me, but this afforded me the opportunity to kick my ass into gear. So I am going rogue and doing a final edit of Under the Hood this time around. It also didn’t hurt that the cover of Ben Dukes latest album has him looking damn near exactly as I had pictured the main character in Under the Hood.

Past that, I was talking to my son about plans for the future. In leading the conversation the direction of balance of responsibilities, it dawned on me. While I was getting some solid reading and reviewing in, I was causing an imbalance in my writing. A major one. It was like the tarp was lifted off the huge hole that was left in my day – I needed to get back to writing every day. Even if it was just a little bit.

So here we are. The cover has been lifted and placed back over my plans to build a gazebo like Neil Gaiman. Mornings are starting earlier again, giving more time for work in the morning before going to… well… work. I have also been getting into the mood for old fashioned NaNo-style write-ins for the afternoons. Even if it’s just me sitting in a coffee shop pouring over edits, critiques for my writing group, or reviews/blurbs for the various sites I am posting to. Provided I get them in early enough.

My next step is to clean up my library. Not because it is my gazebo, but because I need a place in the condo I can be comfortable enough to write in so that I have some time at home with my family. Even on the nights my wife isn’t home, I’m sure the dog would love the company. And the excuse to beg for food while I eat dinner.

Anyone else doing Camp NaNoWriMo? What are y’all working on?