Time for Another Shameless Plug (hopefully my last for a while ;)

My website is FINALLY up and running. I think it's got everything it needs, apart from the minor issue of Aigaion Girl not being up for sale yet. Otherwise, I think it's looking really good. I need to come up with some more interesting news than that I've launched the site (which is what is currently showing on the news page) and remember to frequently update the "bits" page, but everything seems to be running smoothly, which makes me very happy. You can check it out here.

Blood & Hot Sauce

Y’know, it’s surprising what you end up missing the most.

Take me, for example. When I was first infected, I steeled myself for endless nights of angst. Never seeing another sunrise, never seeing my old friends and my family again, becoming a monster who had to kill to sustain my own existence, possibly being damned to an eternity in hell...I got over it. None of the old clichés really gave me that much trouble, to tell the truth. No, what got me was the hot sauce.

I’ve had a bottle of hot sauce in my fridge since forever. Hot sauce goes with everything. Everything. And that’s exactly what I ate it with. You ever had cold Chinese from last night – no, Chinese takeout from a fast food place – look, no one thinks that’s funny, so give it a rest, will you? Have any of you ever had cold Chinese food from last night with pickles and hot sauce for breakfast? Let me tell you, it is a feast fit for...well, okay, for a twentysomething male college student. But anyway. If it was possible to survive on nothing but hot sauce, that’s what I would have done.

And then I was infected.

And I discovered that there is, in fact, something that hot sauce does not go great with. And that would be a stomach that’s adapted to handle human blood and...that’s it.

Yeah. It’s fucking boring. Ignore all that romantigothic bullshit about ‘the sweetest bitter nectar ever to cross his lips’ blah blah blah. Blood tastes like blood. That’s kind of the point.

Sure, the first few nights I didn’t notice. It’s kind of a kick for the first little while, as I’m sure all of you know. But then one night I went to the fridge without thinking. And there was that one lonely bottle of hot sauce staring accusingly back at me.

That was the first time my condition actually made me cry. That’s right, I curled up in a ball in the corner and bawled and angsted until the sun came up and knocked me out. Not over my soul, or the family I could never see again, or the people lying dead in dumpsters because of me. No. Not me. I cried over hot sauce.

Oh, now you’re all laughing. Like you haven’t done it too. Every last one of you had a favourite food, I can almost guarantee it. And then one night, when you’d successfully got the big questions out of the way, when you were feeling pretty good about yourself, you realised, “Oh. My. God. I will never eat crackers and cheese again.”

No? Okay, maybe it was realising you can’t go on day-long shopping sprees anymore. Or how in summer, you can’t go shopping at all, because your favourite stores close before the sun sets. Or maybe...I dunno, you can’t go to waterparks anymore. Look, all I was trying to say is that those old clichés aren’t the big deal here. We all thought about them, all the time, even back when we were human. Especially you – you were a vegetarian, right? When it comes to stuff like, like, metaphysical or moral issues, they’re just too big. It’s easy to pick a side, or decide to stay undecided, and then forget about them. No, it’s the little things that get under your skin.

Like hot sauce.

I’m rambling? Oh, I’m so sorry. Take the floor. Angst about how you tried to survive on rats but nearly died again, we all love to listen to that story.

I’m never coming to one of these meetings again.

Naming Characters

I'm of two minds about this. In my very early writing days, I tried to come up with completely unique names for my female protagonists, and as a result, came up with very common names like Ariel and Violet and Adrianna. Now, I find I'm always torn between the extremes. I have characters named things like Apple, Caution, Emmeline, Fiercely, and then characters with names like Kate and Sophia. What I find I'm trying to walk in the middle, with common names that aren't too common. My latest two are Daphne and Jillian.

I was usuing babynames.com to look for character names long before they added their very useful tips for writers section and I've always been pleased with the results. They suggest:

If you name your character right, you will choose a name that is unique to your character and memorable to your story.

I completely agree, but my problem is with finding unique names that don't clash with the realism of the story. Some heroine who's grown up in an average family with boring parents is not going to have a name like Tatiana Starr McKnight (thank God), after all.

I'm just wondering what everyone else does for this. For my side characters, I often use Seventh Sanctum's Quick Name Generator, but for my mains, I'm finding it increasingly difficult to come up with totally unique names that are still readable.

A Review of Sorts: To Find A Wishing Well

A few years back, I spent the best $0.25 ever at the library's discarded book sale, and bought Hylda Lee's To Find A Wishing Well.

I'm really glad I did. I've never seen another copy of it, and everyone that I or Bean have ever mentioned it to gives us a funny look. It's obscure, which is too bad, because I think it's one of the best children's novels ever.

It's about Lila, the 11th child of a King and Queen who have nothing but sons, and how a well intentioned fairy gives her the gift of always wanting something...which of course, backfires. When she's sixteen, she sets out on a quest to solve this by finding a Wishing Well on her brown and yellow striped horse Zeb. Along the way, she meets Ethelbert the Owl, Mitch the Otter, an enchanter, Caesar the dog and Prince Sorin, a host of other talking animals, gets a magic bag that is always filled with milk and cheese and apples and honeycomb, and gets her happily ever after.

I know there are some who would criticize the fact that everyone gets their wishes granted (Zeb wants a horn like a unicorn, Mitch wants to be able to fly etc), and that everything's happy and there's next to no hardship, but the book is still full of good morals: Like, 'help your friends when they're in trouble', and, 'get the whole story from the dragon because maybe he didn't actually mean to torch your kingdom'. Lila gets most of her wishes answered, but finds out that having everything you want, when you want it, isn't as much fun as wanting it. It's fluff, but it's the right sort of fluff, and I wish it was more well known.

As it is, I can't even find an example of the cover to add to this. I'm actually going to have to scan it. Google came up with nothing, if you can imagine it. The book is really that obscure. But if ever you do come across it, you should read it. It's adorable.

Freedom of Speech

I was reading Neil Gaiman's blog and I came across this article, which is essentially about freedom of speech as it pertains to art, and his thoughts on the subject. It's an interesting article and it got me to thinking.

I got into this a little bit with my post about the new Irish blasphemy laws, but I think it's something that needs further exploring, especially given the name of our site and the revolutionary nature of the original English Coffee House.

Gaiman's blog entry seems to have spawned from a question regarding his opinion on lolicon (a genre of manga and anime wherein childlike female characters are depicted in an erotic manner) and the banning thereof. What Gaiman points out is that regardless of your opinions on what is being said, depicted or printed, what it all boils down to is the right to free speech and free art. As he points out, the law can't be precise. It can't decide this is bad, this is good, this is passable.

The Law is a blunt instrument. It's not a scalpel. It's a club. If there is something you consider indefensible, and there is something you consider defensible, and the same laws can take them both out, you are going to find yourself defending the indefensible.

I don't think it should be up to governments to decide what people can and can't say. I don't think there should be a can and can't say. Laws are made by people, people have opinions, feelings and gut reactions, so unless those things somehow all magically start meshing, some people are going to be offended by other people's art. The solution: ignore it, speak against it, post it on your blog and trash it. But silence it? Isn't that what they did to people who thought the earth was round?

Freedom to write, freedom to read, freedom to own material that you believe is worth defending means you're going to have to stand up for stuff you don't believe is worth defending.

Personally, I think this lolicon stuff sounds a bit weird, and now that I know roughly what it is (I had to look it up), I'm not about to delve into it to see whether or not it's worth taking the time to defend its merrits as art. The point is, people should have the right to produce what they want*, regardless of who might be offended.

As soon as freedom of speech goes, we're out of a job.

*As long as no one (including animals) is hurt or exploited in the production.

Volantynys - A Valentine's Day Story

I shouldn't be here – and I don't know why I agreed to this, I really don't. I was lonely, I guess, but I've always been lonely and it's never driven me to anything this awful, anything this degrading.

But whatever. I'm here now.

I'm here, at the mouth of Hell. It's bright inside, too bright, but too dim, too, like the light can't make up its mind. And there's this hum, a thousand conversations loud enough to heard, too quiet to comprehend. It's horrible. Deep breath, as we pass over the threshold.

He takes my coat. He does everything he's supposed to and it makes him that much worse. I can't help hating him.

The other him is just a glimmer across the room. I thought I saw him sitting at a table there, but maybe not. Maybe it was wishful thinking.

Property management, veterinary assistance and I'm ready to kill myself. I'm considering faking a headache, a phone call, anything but my continuing interest in this conversation.

He raises his glass to me. Not him but the other him. The him that I'm actually paying attention to. He's more than a glimmer now. A glimmer and a half, then gone again.

The economy. Politics. The politics of the economy. I have to go to the bathroom. Excuse me.

It's not such a bad place. The floor is well maintained, the walls are rich, the music isn't unbearable. The snippets of conversation I can make out are infinitely more interesting t

han the ones I've been having, but not enough to grab my full attention. And, I'm about to pass the other him's table. Hymn. In my mind, that's how I'll tell the difference. Him and Hymn.

He isn't there. He isn't anywhere. My glimmer and a half is gone. I'm contemplating slipping out through the kitchen. I'm contemplating walking out the front door, right past him, letting him know

I'm leaving. Being bold.

No. I'll go into the bathroom, I'll powder my nose, and I'll return for something stimulating about the political economy of property management and veterinary assistance. I'm a coward.

He grabs my arm, hard. Hymn. He's wearing a mask, white china. Black lips trailing red blood. A heart on his cheek, like it's a tear.

He shoves me into the wall, harder. My breath catches in my throat, my heel catches on the baseboard and I'm completely unwilling to struggle free. I'm his.

He whispers to me. His voice is dark gravel pouring over hot breath. I nearly melt. My whole body is trembling as I nod my assent and return

to Him.

Is everything OK? I have to go. The only conversation worth having. I grab my coat and I'm gone.

He follows me out. He follows me into an alley, calling my name. I'm telling him to leave, but he won't listen. What's going on? I wish I knew.

There he is, my Hymn, my mask, my silver blade, my single tear.

Who is this guy? Why do you care? He's not you; that alone would be enough.

He whispers again, my black lips, my red blood. He tells me what to do.

We're the last thing he sees, on his back in an alley, my blade buried up to the hilt in his chest.

We step over him, his hand low on my back, his eyes high on my legs – my stilettos clicking on wet pavement and broken glass.

I love this Hymn; makes my heart sing.

Twitter?

What are your opinions on setting up an account on Twitter for Devereaux Court? All I can imagine posting would be updates whenever there was a new article. Worth it? Or maybe those of us with Twitter accounts (*shudder*) should just post a hey check this out every time there's a new article up. Thoughts?