West of Mars

Yeah, I know. I put the asterik in there… makes me sick, too, but every now and then, you gotta conform.

Anyway, I’ve been meaning to bring these two things to your attention for too long now. Long enough that I’m tired of The Tour Manager closing my Firefox window and the open tabs along with it. And it’s Sunday. Seems like a good time to bring you a Sunday Best.

First off, we have a very cute set of cookie cutter and six cookie recipes from the folks at Punk Rock Kitchen. While this is sort of pink and definitely missing the biting social commentary that characterizes punk rock, it’s still a lot of fun. I’d definitely give this as a birthday present to the younger set.

And next, this is something I’d totally like to track down and get for myself. It’s a new graphic novel (and you guys know how I love my graphic novels *coughJoannSfarcough*) about an all-girl rock band, the Apocalipstix. The book was actually released in July, so it only took a month to cross my radar. Not bad, but really. They could have sent me a review copy and I’d be telling you all to go on over to Front Street Reviews and read what I thought of it.

So there ya go. Some cool shit for a US Labor Day weekend. Make it a good one; it’s the unofficial end of summer. I’m going to miss summer around here. Sort of.

“Where are we?” Scott asked, looking over Fozzy’s shoulder. He pushed up his glasses even though they didn’t need it.

Fozzy shrugged. “Somewhere.”

“Is that somewhere near where we’re supposed to be?”

Fozzy shrugged. “It’s somewhere in the mountains. Are we supposed to be in the mountains?”

Lido handed Scott the map. “Are there mountains in Texas?”

“No,” Scott said, wanting to grab handfuls of hair and tug until his scalp hurt. He wanted The Hatchet to come out of its blankets and chop down the mountains and get them to Texas. “We have a problem. We need to be in Texas in an hour.”

“This isn’t Texas,” Fozzy said.

“No shit, Sherlock,” Lido said. “I told you to take that right.”

“We have an hour before we have to load in, and we’re staring at the frickin mountains!” Scott leaned back in the seat and kicked, hoping he caught Fozzy in the butt. Idiot. How many times had he said, “Go East. Due East. We’re in Arizona, so there’s no way we can miss Texas”? How frickin dumb was the guy, and who the hell had stuffed him in the back seat where he wouldn’t be able to see well so he could catch this mistake earlier?

“So what do we do?” Lido asked. Scott could see the panic creeping into the guy’s eyes, hear it in his voice.

“Like I know?” Scott shot back. “If you’d followed the stupid map…” He grabbed it out of Lido’s hand and looked at it.

No wonder. Lido had been holding it upside-down.

“I guess,” Scott said, taking the deepest breath he could manage in the mountains’ thin air, “we turn around and go home. And hope like hell someone’ll hire us again once word about this gets out. You know it will.”

“There’s no way?” Fozzy asked.

“Dude, we don’t even frickin know where we are!”

“Gimme that map,” Fozzy said. Once it was in his hand, he carried it back to the trailer Lido’s dad had loaned them for the quick trip to Texas. The Hatchet was in there, sleeping.

Scott seethed while Fozzy waited for The Hatchet to do its thing. Lido hung his head, lit a cigarette, and tried to look cool.

Gecko just sat and stared at his hands, folded in his lap.

Scott wished he could be more like Gecko. Nothing bothered Gecko.

Including the confetti Fozzy brought back up to the front.

“Good work,” Scott said. “Now how do we get home?”

For every ShapeShifter in the world, there’s more than one Deadly Metal Hatchet. Hapless but well-intentioned. Talentless but with a great marketing gimmick. And hoping to make it big.

Explore more Deadly Metal Hatchet here. And be sure to leave a comment so I can return your visit, eh?

If you need a Trevor fix, there’s one I posted right below this one… Come on… you know you do!

They’d been on the bus for what felt like weeks. So long that they were way overdue for a day off inside of an actual hotel room — and every single member of ShapeShifter was grossed out by the thought of how excited they were about something as sterile and isolated as a hotel room. But at this point, with only the bus or the inside of the venue to look at, a hotel seemed like the ultimate luxury.

During these stretches, it wasn’t unusual for no one to talk. No one had anything to say, really. Not when you were spending exactly every waking minute with each other. Not when you’d done this dance for years.

Mitchell didn’t even have much to say to Kerri, which was pretty pathetic considering they were still newlyweds. She didn’t seem to care, except that she was as bored as the rest of them. So bored that she had squished herself on the couch beside him, her chin on his upraised knee. Instead of drawing, she was playing idly with the hair on his leg. He knew she wouldn’t be doing it if he’d put his jeans back on, but when all you were doing was sitting on a bus, why bother with pants?

He could only take so much of Kerri’s petting and stroking. It wasn’t hot, it wasn’t comforting. It was just damn annoying.

He lifted his leg and straightened it, moving gently so he didn’t startle her onto the floor or hurt her. “Woman,” he growled, “my leg is not a guitar. If you want to strum something, go find one.”

With a shrug, Kerri stood up.

“What are you doing?” He knew he flailed as he sat up, but he didn’t care. She’d been supposed to stop petting him, not do … whatever.

“Getting a guitar,” she said carelessly, and disappeared into the bunks.

Eric and Daniel chuckled as Mitchell groaned, but Trevor nodded. “That’ll teach your dumb ass,” the bass player said and lit a cigarette. “You know she can’t resist a challenge. Even an easy one like that.”

“At least it’ll give us something to do,” Daniel said as Kerri came back carrying Mabel.

She sat down at the other end of Trevor’s couch, facing Mitchell, and put the guitar properly on her right leg. Then she shook out her hair and straightened her back, looking to the table at Eric. Mitchell noticed how pointedly she ignored him. He tried to keep his latest groan inaudible; it would only egg her on.

“So. What do I do now?” she asked Eric, a too-bright smile plastered to her face.

Mitchell wanted to cover his own face with his hands. Anything to keep from watching this. But he couldn’t look away.

“You need a pick,” Eric said.

Kerri handed the guitar to Trevor, who took it with a sneer. She stood up, watching Mitchell as if she expected him to do something.

“What?” he asked as she stared down at him. Fuck, but he hated it when she smiled like that. All smug and full of herself — and about to make him the butt of some joke, he was sure. Anyone with a shred of common sense would get up and leave before it happened, but he was stuck there, both by his own inertia and some sick need to be present.

Kerri bent down so she could reach across him, making sure she brushed her breast against his face. She dug in the change pocket of his jeans.

He refused to so much as breathe until she came up with one of the eight million or so picks they’d had made for this tour. He told himself not to panic; he still had two others in there. And maybe she’d give it back. Or, even better, make him come looking for it.

She smirked at him as she reseated herself and took Mabel back from Trevor.

“Okay,” she said to Eric, “now what?”

Trevor leaned forward as Eric motioned Mitchell out of the way so he could sit across from Kerri and give her instructions. She made a show of not knowing how to hold the pick or how to use it.

Her performance set Mitchell’s teeth on edge. And that was before she struck a note.

“What about my face?” she asked when Eric told her she was ready to move on to the next step.

“What about it?” Eric asked.

“Not even Asshole there can play guitar with his face,” Trevor said, jerking his chin at Mitchell, who growled. Kerri didn’t need to know about the time he’d tried. Hell, Mitchell wasn’t sure Trevor knew about it.

Kerri took a deep, exaggerated breath. “I know that,” she said. “But to watch the three of you, in order to play guitar, you also have to make faces. Like this,” she said, puckering up like she’d eaten a lemon. “Or this,” she said, opening her mouth and widening her eyes.

Daniel laughed.

“Oh, you’re not much better, you know,” Kerri said, pointing the pick at him. She stuck her tongue into her cheek and, again, let her jaw drop open.

Mitchell bit back a smile, but Eric didn’t bother hiding it. Her faces were poor imitations of theirs, but they got the point across. Daniel pretended he didn’t care, and Trevor was pretending he wasn’t paying attention, even though his eyes flicked back and forth. He was, like always, too full of himself to give in and have a good time, especially because it was Kerri at the root of it all. Trevor couldn’t stand it when she pulled shit like this — because he wanted to be the one at the center of it.

“You know what’s going to happen now?” Daniel asked, picking up Eric’s cigarettes and fiddling with the pack. “We’re going to get on stage tonight and obsess about our faces.”

That was entirely too true.

Mitchell told himself he shouldn’t care. Guitar players were supposed to make faces; the girls in the crowd ate it up. The guys thought it was the path to coolness — and a lot of them practiced their faces more than they did their guitars even though the more you played, the more natural the faces turned. It was all part of rock and roll.

Besides, he told himself as Kerri tried to stand up, only to discover the hard way that guitars had straps for a specific reason, if this got inside his head too bad, he’d divorce the wench.

But in the meantime, at least he wasn’t bored.

Has it been too long since we’ve had an outtake just for the fun or it, or WHAT?

If you’re new around here, the best way to figure out what’s up is to head over to my main website and poke around. Or click on each character’s name above; that’ll take you to their character sketch page on the website. You can read about everyone, or click on some of the links at the bottom of the page and be taken back here to the blog for more of the gang in action.

The Sunday Scribblings Prompt this week is How I Met My…. I immediately thought of one of the most important instances in my fictional world: when Mitchell and Kerri met.

BUT, I’ve got a life. And that life demanded that I join the Cub Scouts and the rest of my family (still-infected finger and all) for a weekend up in Cook Forest State Park. Camping. Which means the only writing I did was in my head. I did a lot of writing last night; every time I closed my eyes, I was back on that damn canoe.

Mitchell and Kerri will have to wait until later in the week. For now, it’s all about the old stuff.

I have posted two great stories in this vein here on the blog. Both have their great qualities and it’s hard to choose one to talk about first.

Check out Chelle LaFleur’s post that started out to be about a local musician named Jock LaFeet and became, instead, about Chelle’s introduction to four guys driving around the country in Dad’s Ford Bronco. Four guys who call themselves ShapeShifter.

Read it here — and laugh with me about how Chelle’s voice has evolved into something I now adore. Hope you do, too.

Whoops. A third introduction crept into my awareness. (Read on for the second; I’m out of order for the moment.) The first time ShapeShifter runs into Deadly Metal Hatchet. I miss DMH. Do you? If you’re not sure, here it is: Trevor and Mitchell first meet. Read it here, if you haven’t seen it yet. Or in a cleaned up form, as a downloadable .pdf, go here.

“How I met…” stories are important in writing fiction. Without them, your characters have no history. That makes it harder to create the all-important backstory that makes them come alive.

Now, if someone can explain why the river came alive behind my closed eyes last night, I’d appreciate it. That’s one “How I met” experience that I could live without. It better think twice if it thinks it’s welcome to return tonight…

Many of you who hang out here know that I’ve made friends with a group of writers I call the Eroti-chicks. They are a great group of women who write romances, often erotic in nature, for many of the e-publishers. I’m acquaintances with a few who’ve made the leap to print (like Lauren Dane, whose copy of Making Chase that I won in a contest a while back finally arrived. Yippee!) and to big publishing houses.

Now, let’s focus in one of my eroti-chick friends, shall we? Today’s focus is on the lovely Christine D’Abo, whose friendship toward me has touched me both personally and as a writer.

Christine’s got a new book out today, folks. It’s called Primal Elements, and I know you want to read it.

Here’s the blurb:

The last thing Jenna Robins wants for her thirtieth birthday is a trip to
the Perfect Match dating service, but she is given little choice from her
group of friends. What she doesn’t expect is to be “matched” with Ben
Hawthorn, her arrogant and handsome, ex-boss. Her opinion of Ben hasn’t
softened much since he sabotaged her research project by pulling the funding
at the last minute seven years ago.

But after a night of passion and the discovery of an alien artifact, Ben and
Jenna are forced to come to terms with their past relationship as the device
draws them closer together physically and emotionally. They must rely on
each other if they are to survive an attack from an old foe, and the force
of their own attraction.

Sounds good, huh?

Well, I thought so, too. So much so that I was inspired to ask Christine what song most makes her think of her book. I mean, heck. I write about music and rock stars, right? Let’s talk about books in the guise of music.

Here’s what she said:

I think the song that fits their relationship the best is Someday by
Nickelback. Their relationship seven years fell apart, things were said
and done that pulled them apart. Now they’ve been put together again and
want to make it work.

So. There ya go.

Christine’s new book, and the song that goes with it.

You know you want it.

For every clunker I find for my book club, I manage to find some absolute keepers, too. This month, we read The Kommandant’s Girl, Pam Jenoff’s debut novel. Here’s a blurb, taken from the author’s website:

Nineteen year-old Emma Bau has only been married for three weeks when the Nazis invade her native Poland. After her husband, Jacob, is forced to disappear underground as part of the resistance movement, Emma soon finds herself imprisoned in the ghetto with her parents. There she meets one of the resistance leaders and with his help, she is able to escape the ghetto and live under an assumed, non-Jewish identity.

Emma’s already precarious situation is complicated by her introduction to Kommandant Georg Richwalder, a high-ranking Nazi official who insists that Emma come to work for him as his assistant. In this position, Emma has the opportunity to provide information to the resistance movement and potentially help her still-imprisoned parents. To do so, however, she must become perilously close to the Kommandant, a troubled man with a dark secret whose romantic intentions are clear. Emma makes the difficult decision to become involved with the Kommandant and, as their relationship intensifies, she is forced to acknowledge her own undeniable feelings for him. Desperately, Emma wrestles with questions of loyalty and duty until at last she is able to locate information sought by the resistance movement regarding the Nazi liquidation of the ghetto. Spurred by this information, the resistance undertakes the fateful bombing of a Nazi café, unleashing a chain of events that will change Emma’s life, and the lives of those she loves, forever.

Based in part on actual events, The Kommandant’s Girl is a compelling tale of love and courage in a dangerous and desperate time. Unique in voice and evocative in historical detail, the novel’s widespread appeal stems not only from its eternally popular subjects of World War II and the Holocaust, but also from its timeless themes of hope, struggle and defiance in the face of overwhelming odds.

Okay, how do I even begin to tell you guys about this book? Here are some thought fragments:

Utterly impossible to put down
Compelling
The sort of book you get lost in
Impossible to keep from identifying with Emma/Anna

See a trend here? I’m writing this before tonight’s meeting, but the members of the book club I’ve spoken with thus far have all spoken highly of this book. They’ve all agreed it’s the good kind of fast read: the kind that sucks you in and you just want to read and read and read until it’s over. And then, dammit, you want more.

Best of all, part of the central conflict of this book is one that leads to such great discussions: if you were Emma (or Jacob), what would you do? How would you view Emma’s actions?

The ending is open. We don’t get to find out what happens to Emma, although the story of Lukasz, the rabbi’s son who the resistance passes off as Anna’s cousin, would make for a compelling story in its own right. Again, this will also make great discussion at the meeting tonight.

I’ve mentioned before that my book club tends to veer away from the Holocaust; when you get a group of Jewish women together, you’re bound to have someone whose ties cut a little too close to this period in history. But like A Thread of Grace, this is one book I’m glad we chose to read.

There is a follow-up that was just released in April. Called The Diplomat’s Wife, it’s the story of Marta, a secondary character in this book. I’ve already got it on my wishlist, even though from the summaries I’ve read, many of the themes parallel this book’s. We shall see…

In the meantime, don’t miss this one. I’m actually giving it to my vet tech next week, or I’d do a giveaway with it. Truly, I loved this book.

I’m going to pick on my fellow writer friend, Amy Ruttan, here. But only for a moment. And only because of the numerous people who’ve asked me why I don’t join RWA, she’s the only regular reader I know of. (Feel free to correct me on this subject)

Now, let me start off by saying that while I feel that only recognizing certain publishers is counter-productive to everyone — and let’s not open that argument here; that’s not what this post is about — that’s not my reason for not joining RWA. To be honest, I think there are a lot of reasons why this organization would be good for me.

But the local meetings are SO far away that I can get to another state or two faster than I can get there. And the local meetings — at least the last time I checked, over a year and a half ago — were all day on a Saturday. I don’t want to miss out on that much family time. Not to mention how angry my cats will get with me for being gone that long.

Yeah, that’s a pretty good reason to keep my distance. After all, isn’t part of the reason we join these things to be able to talk in person to other writers?

Well, there’s Nationals, everyone argues. What a great time Nationals is. I have to go. I’m missing out.

Yeah, okay, sure. After the great experience I had at Romantic Times last April, I can totally believe that.

Except for one thing.

You see, to me, this is what one wears when one gets dressed up and wants to put a good face on for the world to see. Pull on my washable suede pants, add a pair of Doc Martens, or maybe my $2 slip-on tennies with the skull-and-crossbones insignia all over them and … you get the idea.

Needless to say, I’d get thrown out on my skulls. Nevermind that every single person on the planet says to wear what you’re comfortable in, especially if you’re going to make pitches. Nevermind that I write about rock and roll for a reason (that reason being this is who I am).

Nope, boys and girls. It’s all about the dress code. I don’t pass muster, and I have no real desire to play dress up and pretend to be someone I’m not.

Take me or leave me. But do it as I am.

(btw, for you Eagle-eyed groupies and casual link-clickers, yes, that IS the very smoking Rob Zombie in that hoodie I so covet. And for the record, I’m not buying it. If it were a pullover it’d be mine. Hear that, Rob???? Wanna pass that along to your wife, please, since it’s her clothing line we’re discussing here?)

(and is it any coincidence that now that I’m trying out EntreCard, Blogger thinks I’m a spam blog? Didn’t think so.)

I won’t bore you with the chain of events, but suffice it to say I’m taking an antibiotic that’s just making me want to make like Mitchell, in this outtake. (He’s so much fun to pick on!)

So I spent yesterday on the couch with the Olympics on and the laptop sucking me in. That means that today’s the first day I’ve been able to fire up my XM Online and listen to the temporary Metallica channel.

I was right when I said sitting here would be easy and getting up to go to the bathroom would be hard. I’m also a bit concerned that there’s soon going to be food caked everywhere on my desk and carpet… you get the idea.

If you’re not as addicted as I am, you might want to check this out. I got an e-mail from Sneak Attack Media, telling me about this cool indie flick they’re showing online. It’s called Dig! and I can hardly wait to sit and watch it, myself.

Once October comes, and my all-Metallica XM channel is no more.

Of course.

Amy wanted corn. It was her turn to make dinner. Mitchell had volunteered to buy corn. “It’s summertime,” he’d said, then promised he would throw it on the grill. Mitchell liked grilled corn and Amy hated cooking. It worked all around.

Problem was, it was still early in the summer. The corn wasn’t ripe. And Amy wasn’t telling what else she was making, which made it hard to guess what else to buy.

There were packages of corn in the freezer, already shucked. That seemed wrong; everyone knew corn was better fresh.

But Amy wanted corn. She’d better appreciate this.

I wish I had a relationship with my sisters like Mitchell has with Amy. For more of their antics, see The Time Before Dinner, Naked, and Baking Cookies.

More food: Soy Sauce 1, Soy Sauce 2, and Val’s Cake.

Thirteen things the fans treasure Admit it. You have a shelf, or a box, or a wall, or a closet full of stuff that you keep only because it came from your favorite band. Some things are universal to all bands. Others are specific to our favorite fictional band, ShapeShifter. See how many you have — or how many you wish you have. 1. Anything autographed and yes, it’s true that the boys will autograph anything. Guitars, CD booklets, clothes, and bodies. For the girls, bras are popular. For the guys, it’s their t-shirts. For the desperate with nothing else to have signed, it’s the backstage pass. 2. The autographs that are then turned into tattoos are treasures, but they probably won’t be worth money some day. 3. Any girl who’s played the Steal the Band’s Underwear have quite the treasure. Especially if they’re lucky enough to get something worn for more than five minutes. 4. Set lists. The most valuable of them are lifted right off the stage and still have gaffer’s tape on their edges. 5. Picks, drumsticks… the usual. It’s all customized by tour or event, of course, adding to the value. 6. Wolf Whistle t-shirts. At the end of every tour, the band plays a surprise show at local club All Access under the name Wolf Whistle. It’s usually announced the day before, and no line’s allowed to form until ten minutes before the doors are set to open. Getting in can be impossible. 7. Posters from the early shows. 8. Hell, anything from the early days. The first t-shirts. The demos. The flyers about early shows. Even the bootlegs. 9. T-shirts from special one-off shows, like the Musical Hanukkah Celebration. The only way to get these puppies is to be inside — or to have a friend who’s inside. 10. Magazines featuring the band. 11. Did I mention bootlegs? Audio, video, it’s both good. 12. Personal pictures with the guys. Again, these may not be worth much to anyone but you unless you’ve got a picture of you and a guy in a compromising position — and with Trevor, there is no such thing as a compromising position. 13. Ticket stubs. The unused old style ones or the new computer scanned are the best treasures, but sometimes, anything will do. Don’t know who ShapeShifter is? Click on the link and fix that; you’ll be taken to a bio page of the band. From there, you can click on the names of other characters who populate my fiction and/or this blog and explore my world. Come on. You know you can’t resist.

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things.
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