West of Mars

If you hang out at my Win a Book blog, you’ll have seen me mention that I think Rachel Vincent is the cat’s meow. That’s not me being funny, nor is it me blowing smoke — many of you have noticed that I’m quite lousy at blowing smoke. Fire’s so much more fun.

That’s why I like Rachel’s Shifter series. Faythe is better at playing with fire, too.

The third book in the series, Pride (following Stray and Rogue), is about to be released. So I went to Ms. Vincent and asked her the usual question: What song best sums up your book?

Here’s what she said:

I’ve got the answer to your question! Though, actually, I could only narrow it down to two songs. One which reminds me very strongly of the actual plot, the other which echos the emotional arc. Is that okay?

The first is Headstrong, by Trapt. The lyrics can be found here.

The second is the Seether/Amy Lee duet Broken. The lyrics can be found here.

Okay, confession time. I adore both those songs. They may not be my usual head-banging angsty fun, but when have I let that stop me?

Before I get to the fun stuff — the videos and the blurb — I want to mention a fun giveaway that Rachel’s doing at her blog. A copy of each book in the series (so far) or a gift certificate to B&N Online — and Rachel’s trademark; a bag of Godiva chocolate. Check it out. Tell her I sent you.

Here are some video links:

Headstrong

Broken

And now… the blurb for Pride!

I’m on trial for my life. Falsely accused of infecting my human ex-boyfriend—and killing him to cover up the crime. Infecting a human is one of three capital offenses recognized by the Pride—along with murder and disclosure of our existence to a human.

I’m two for three. A goner.

Now we’ve discovered a rogue stray terrorizing the mountainside, hunting a wild teenage tabbycat. It’s up to us to find and stop him before a human discovers us. With my lover Marc’s help, I think I can protect the vulnerable girl from both the ambitious rogue and the scheming of the territorial council.

If I survive my own trial…

Excuse me, but I’ve got to go read Rogue now…

Check it out, gang! Trevor actually consented to an interview!!!

This doesn’t happen often, but how could Trevor say no when it was his own personal (and favorite) groupie, Lana Moses, asking the questions. How can our favorite bad boy resist a chance to charm a woman straight into his bed?

Thanks to Thomma Lyn at Tennessee Text Wrestling for handling Lana’s end of things. And hosting the interview, too. Use this link to get there, and have some fun!

That’s pretty darn cool. Know what else is?

In just over two months, The Demo Tapes earned me a profit! Do you know how few authors who do it themselves can say that? Now, the profit lasted about a day, as I reached behind me to grab a copy to autograph to one of you dedicated groupies and … realized I’m down to four copies left. So I had to order more.

They’re on the way, but thanks for the support thus far. Keep on helping to spread the word; these links I keep throwing up aren’t just for you, they’re to make sure I am keeping careful records of who’s doing what to help the cause. Don’t worry; you WILL be rewarded with more than a book. Plans are in the works.

Stay tuned. And in the meantime, Vive la Trevolution!

She’d only cancelled her trip home because Trevor had taunted her into staying on the road with them. So far, it had been okay. The city had lost its magical hold on her; she felt like a stranger and the city felt like any other they’d been to. Nothing special anymore. Even the memories were getting foggy, drowned out by the vividness that was life in Riverview.

Only as she’d stood in Primanti’s and watched them make sandwiches for Mitchell and Trevor had she felt like she’d never left. It had been a temporary feeling; as she’d reached out to pay the woman in the greasy white apron and gotten a glimpse of her black leather tour jacket, she’d remembered why she was here, and, more importantly, who she’d become.

That didn’t mean that standing in the bowels of the Igloo, watching from the fringes as the band met with their fans, was a comfortable thing. Any one of those people could be someone Kerri knew, someone she’d grown up with. Someone like Emily van … van… van Something. Who was shimmying in front of Mitchell as she eyed his crotch between head tosses, still the School’s Top Slut eight years later.

It was all Kerri could do to stand there, watching Emily draw an index finger down the middle of her bottom lip while giving Mitchell a come-hither look. Drawing attention to herself would cause more problems than it could solve, and Mitchell was doing fine on his own. But that didn’t mean it was easy to stay in the shadows, a faceless member of the band’s crew.

Kerri watched as Emily drew the strap of her tank top aside, pumping her shoulder a few times like a model in front of the camera. It was probably habit, Kerri thought. She’d seen pictures of Emily back in high school, the illicit ones the guys had taken during drunken and drug-fueled nights, with Emily as the belle of the ball. Hell, Kerri had seen more of Emily than Mitchell ever would; what was she getting upset about?

Mitchell moved on, to a kid who looked to be about eighteen. A guy whose eyes had boggled at each of Emily’s antics and who now wasn’t sure who he should be talking to, Emily or Mitchell.

Kerri watched Emily as Mitchell dismissed her entirely. She pouted and leaned back against the wall, throwing the occasional dirty look at Mitchell. Kerri wondered what the woman would say if she knew just who it was who Mitchell had married. They hadn’t been friends in high school; they’d had to tolerate each other due to the fact of simple proximity. Kerri had been the cool chick, the one who’d fit in. Emily had fucked her way to acceptance.

As she watched Daniel come near enough to make Emily perk back up, Kerri decided that it was probably a good thing those ties she’d felt to the city were gone. While she doubted she’d have wound up like Emily if she’d stayed, the simple fact was that some ties were harder to break. She and Emily would have seen each other around town, would have still shared some friends, spent some Sunday afternoons at the same house, rooting on the Steelers. Their orbits would have overlapped and Kerri would never had escaped. She’d have turned into those people she’d hated most.

Leaving had been the right thing, even if the way she’d done it maybe hadn’t been. Letting the lies spread about what had happened the night before she’d married Mitchell had been a blessing in disguise.

Standing in the shadows, being a nameless, faceless member of the ShapeShifter crew was a hell of a lot better than anything she would have become if she’d stayed in town.

She hoped Trevor would teach Emily van Whatever a thing or two. And that Emily wouldn’t teach him about something he’d need antibiotics to cure.

This week’s Sunday Scribblings inspired this, as did the woman on the spin bike beside me last Friday. She’d toss her hair and pose for the mirror; it was an experience, watching her.

If you weren’t here over the weekend, you’ll want to scroll down or click through; you missed some Roadie Poet!

Been home longer than a month.
Promised job never came through.

Happens sometimes.

Antonio’s moved in, too.
I’ve never known Mom to be so
Happy.
She sings in the kitchen while she makes dinner.
Feasts.
We eat leftovers for weeks.

I pick up some local stage work.
The crew there,
They never been on the road.
Most of ‘em won’t get there.

But they dream anyway.

Dad wants me to move my stuff
Come stay with him.
But I’m happy here.
Getting fat.
Loving Mom like this.

When I leave,
It’ll be for a tour.
But right now, it’s fun to be home.

Trevor Wolff doesn’t do reruns. And this Thursday Thirteen thing, all this dying and resurrection drama, it smells of reruns.

But Susan’s insisting. All ’cause of Robin. And Robin… Now there is a woman for you. Strong. Devoted. I bet she could teach Rusty a few things about being cool, too. Even though it was Susan who she said was cool, not me. I’ll have you know, Robin, I’m cooler than Susan can ever hope to be. Got that?

Robin got handed some blog award where she was supposed to tell ten things about herself. She wanted Susan or me to do it.  Susan thought that it’d be fun to get to know this new Thirteen crowd. Maybe remind the old crowd what they’ve been missing.

That means old Trevor gets to do the honors. Ten things about himself, not about Susan. Only, since I’m Trevor Fucking Wolff, I get to forget how to count again and turn ten into thirteen. Which is still better than Mitchell, who’d turn ten into twelve. Idiot’s got his head so far into his music, everything with him’s all about fours.

1. My name’s Trevor Fucking Wolff. Yeah, it’ll be on the quiz. Take notes.

2. I play bass in this band I founded. ShapeShifter. You shoulda heard of us; we fucking thunder. Not rock. Rocking’s for sissies. We thunder. Get the dif?

3. That dork I mentioned, Mitchell. He’s my best friend. Like a brother to me. I lived with his family for two years until I quit high school two days before graduation and Mitchell’s parents told me it was time to move out on my own.

4. I got this rinky-dink apartment over Decade. Still live there.

5.  I have a Vincent. That’s a motorcyle, for you who don’t know better. I rebuilt it mostly by myself. Hammer, Wrench, and Torque helped.

6. I star in Susan’s first book, The Demo Tapes.  You need a copy, if you don’t already have one.

7. It’s chock full of 20 of my favorite adventures. Well, favorite until Susan puts out The Demo Tapes: Year 2.  She’s working on it.

8. Before Mitchell fell in love with this redheaded artist type, he and I tore up the city of Riverview, where we live. Now that he was dumb enough to commit an act of monogamy with Rusty, I rule the city myself. It’s not as much fun as watching Mitchell be a dork.

9. If there’s a willing girl, I’m there. A woman’s body is best appreciated up close. All those curves and soft places; it’s a guy’s fantasy come true. Every single time.

10. One thing no one told us was that the groupies you meet on the way up are the ones you’ll remember the longest. That’s ’cause they do more than spend ten minutes making you happy, ifyouknowwhatTrevormeans. They give you a place to crash when you’re on tour and too broke for a hotel. They feed you after-show dinners and keep the beer flowing and give you Advil in the morning when you had too many beers.

11. Not me, though. My idea of beer’s root beer. I get to laugh at the hungover asses of those three.

12. Susan wrote a book. A novel. When you read it, you’ll get the root beer. And meatball subs. The more copies of The Demo Tapes that you buy, the sooner you’ll get to read the novel. She’s not the only one who promises. I do, too. There’s shit in that book that I’m sick of not being able to tell you about.

13.  How many of you Thirteeners missed old Trevor? ‘Cause Trevor sure missed a lot of you…

Pop quiz: What’s Trevor’s name again?

Have you met my friend Natasha? Also known as Spyscribbler, she’s a piano teacher, a writer, and a wife whose husband is gone for VERY long periods of time. I don’t know how she does it; I’d go mad without the company.

One thing she’s often thinking of is taking a big novel to the New York publishing houses. That goal of hers inspired me to say something, and I’m over at her place today, saying it.

Go check it out. Say hello to Natasha. Add her to your reader. Like everyone else whose blogs I’ve been dropping in on lately, you won’t be disappointed. (and not just because it’s actually ME you’re reading. Heh. I’m funny.)

In the past, when we’ve seen Kermit Ladd on these pages, he’s been run in circles by the boys in the band. That ShapeShifter band, that is (for you who don’t know just who rules the roost around here). Kermit, however, isn’t the amateur you may think he is. Nope. The man’s won awards for his journalism, and is generally well-regarded in the field. Here’s why, in a piece inspired by both this week’s Sunday Scribblings prompt and a comment made at a new blog I’ve recently found, Metalblog.

No matter how loathesome everything else around this strip mall where the end of the line trickles into place, its beige façade faded by the blazing Arizona sun, trash bleaching in the fire lane like a dead fish washed up by a red tide, there is always something worthy of one’s attention. In this case, it is three young men, maybe as young as eighteen, maybe as old as twenty-six, who crawl out from behind the artificially green bushes near building’s side.

They are dirty. Their black hair wears a layer of brown dust, as do their tattered-in-places clothing. Their shoes haven’t escaped; rather, they bear the brunt of the damage. Holes in the soles and at the toes haven’t seen attempts at repair. Nor have the revealed nails seen a clipper, much as they need to.

Foot sore, weary, and hungry, they ask where they might refill their water bottles. They lick their lips as they eye the snacks others munch, oblivious to the new arrivals who need their money for the precious few tickets that remain.

No one jumps to help them, offer advice, or point them to a spicket. In fact, the thick crowd assembled to see Sammy Spencer perform across the street pretends these three simply don’t exist. The three are, to an extent, relieved. To be seen, noticed, acknowledged by the wrong people will mean that instead of the inside of a theater, they will be treated to the inside of a police car. Instead of the music they came so far to hear, they will hear a judge issuing the order that they be deported back home.

A reasonable person would bemoan the other side of what attention can bring: the helping hand that can shelter them, help them, provide them with what they need. Not these three.

“We used to it, man,” one of them tells this intrepid journalist once contact is made and safe identity established. “No one want help the Spics. Let these Spics tell you sumpin’, man. When Sammy Spencer get done and walk off that stage, we start our own walk back home. We don’t want to be part of no society that so mean to us.”

“We work hard at home,” the second one says. “But Sammy, he cancelled show in Mexico. This his farewell tour. We can’t miss the farewell tour.”

It is pointed out that Sammy’s already held two farewell tours, and no one has been fool enough to label this one the same. It seems that Sammy Spencer’s latest idea of retirement means three months on tour and one off, summers spent with the reunited and reconfigured Scarred Heart, and grandiose statements about unplugging the microphone that keep the fans pouring through the doors the moment they open. He now limits the countries he visits, and no longer seeks to gain visas for the many he’s been banned from. Perhaps there is even some taming of the famed Sammy Spencer, the man who once gave an interview while dining upon what he still, to this day, maintains was a dog, a delicacy in some of those countries in which the man is no longer welcome — and a few in which he never was.

These three Mexican men, who snuck across the border between our countries simply to say farewell to their musical hero, are the epitome of Sammy Spencer and the rebellious ways he seems to have, finally, thirty years later, matured beyond.

Yet it is clear to this journalist, at least, that he continues to inspire a flaunting disregard of the law, of simple things like visas and passports and lawful entry into another country.

These three young men, covered in dirt, stomachs audibly growling, are the essence of rock and roll.

Ahh, those of you who have seen this week’s Booking Through Thursday prompt have been chomping at the bit, waiting for me to drag my sick (again) carcass off the couch and come answer it. I know you have been.

If you’re not sure why you’ve been waiting, here’s the question:

* What songs … either specific songs, or songs in general by a specific group or writer … have words that you love?
* Why?
* And … do the tunes that go with the fantastic lyrics live up to them?

See? Tailor-made for Susan!

Since there’s mention made of Broadway in the part I didn’t copy for you, I’ll start there. My #1 all-time musical?

Rent.

Does this surprise anyone? And not just because I came a job acceptance away from going and living my own variation on that bohemian lifestyle (Sorry, Mark. I love you anyway!).

It’s One Song/Glory that gets me. And c’mon, those of you with creative, artistic urges, you know you feel the same way. To create just one moment of brilliance that’ll survive our lives (even if they aren’t going to be as shortened as the Rent dudes’)…

*sigh* Maybe even a *swoon*

There’s also that line in Les Mis, near the end, when Fantine is dying: To love another person/is to see the face of God.

Definite swoon.

BUT… we all know I’m a rocker chick. I could talk about lyrics as poetry forever. In fact, if I’d stayed in academia, I probably would be teaching a course or two in this subject, irritating all the Fundamentalists by creating classes like Heavy Metal Poetry.

’cause, for me, this is the essence of it all. Real heavy metal lyrics, not Motley Crue’s Girls Girls Girls. Thrash, speed, whatever you want to call it. Disturbed’s Liberate, which quotes a famous prayer:

Out of Zion shall come forth a law
And the word of the Lord from Jerusalem
Nation shall not raise sword against nation
And they shall not learn war anymore
For the mouth of the Lord hath spoken

Given what’s going on in Gaza, this takes on yet a new urgency, doesn’t it?

Hell, Disturbed’s Prayer: This is the way I pray.

This makes more sense when you understand that a part of Kabbalah assigns value to each letter in a Hebrew word. And in this system, the words for Prayer and singing are the same.

I doubt that’s the way the band meant it to come out; there’s some veiled sexuality there if you read the lyrics in context, but part of me thinks it’s very hard to take a band in proper context. Lyrics are personal, they are powerful. They’re sort of like tarot cards: you get out of them what you need.

(anyone who remembers Late-Night Load Out, which is in Demo Tapes: Year 1, can see this prayer/song attitude in action.)

This is the tip of the iceberg for me. I could go on for days. Look at Godsmack’s Voodoo Too: Have you ever wondered why in a dream you can touch a falling sky/Or fly to the heavens that watch over you?

Ahh, the sense of wonder in there. Of childish abandon and hope.

But for sheer power of the mental image it provokes, the award’s gotta go to the King of bands, at least in Susan’s heart. Yeah, you know. That M-band. Again.

I’m frantic in your soothing arms/
I cannot sleep in this down filled world.

(that’s copied from the lyric book, but I swear James changes down to doubt.)

Yep, in an album that most people panned as utter drek, I’ve found these two lines that create a mental image so powerful, I can’t shake it. There’s so much emotion going on here… man, I can’t wait to create some fiction based on that image. There’s a sensuality, a power, an insanity, a desperation…

Who knows? Maybe one day I WILL get to teach a course in Heavy Metal Poetry. Maybe we’ll combine it with some creative writing and use the lyrics as a prompt. Where does this take you? What does it inspire?

Look around this blog and you’ll see what it inspires in me.

(note: all lyrics are copyright of their owners. I’ve used them entirely without permission but with even more respect. Got an issue? Tell the Tour Manager and we’ll take ‘em down. But the post won’t make much sense if we do!)

Hmm. I have serious and silly for you. I think we’ll start with silly.

I found this flow chart, thanks to either Blabbermouth, Brave Words and Bloody Knuckles, or the dudes at Metal Sucks. Don’t remember who and it doesn’t really matter. If you’ve ever wanted to name a heavy metal band (which I do on a regular basis, come to think of it), you NEED this chart.

Check it out.

Kudos to the creative minds behind that.

And kudos to the creative and caring minds behind this, the serious part: The Humane Society in Oshawa, Ontario (that’s Canada for you who might be geographically challenged) burned down last month. One hundred forty animals were killed. The music community is coming together to put on a benefit concert on January 17, so that the shelter can rebuild.

So much for musicians being nothing but uncaring, self-centered jerks.

Read the press release I saw here. It’s the only info I can find; if you hear anything else, let me know. And go here to see the shelter the next morning. Early reports are that the fire was started when mice chewed through electrical wires.

One more thing I’ve found, which is neither serious nor silly. It’s fascinating. Ready? Back around 1990, I discovered this band called The Dan Reed Network. I loved them. I own all three of their albums. And then … they vanished (like many bands do.)

Check out THIS article in BraveWords. I can’t see myself creating a character like the man Dan Reed has become, but he sure has had a cool life.

I think one of my favorite parts of bringing my fictional vision to this blog is the way in which you guys get as caught up in my characters as I do.

Take, for instance, my friend Toni, of It is Nap Time. I’ve known Toni for awhile, first through the now-defunct Thursday Thirteen, and more lately (and perhaps better) through EntreCard. She was the third person to buy an autographed copy of The Demo Tapes from me — and the first to surprise me with the purchase. I hadn’t known she was lurking with that much attention … or love for Trevor and Mitchell.

A week or two ago, she posted an apology on her blog. She’s been in a funk since the holidays. She went on to describe reasons why, and if you read carefully enough, there was the REAL reason: she was (at the time) seven weeks pregnant.

I left her a comment: Congratulations! But… Trevor’s not the father, is he????

She played along, just like any of your more vocal groupies around *coughKotacough*

And today, I’m pleased to be her featured Meet My Friends Monday. Stop in and meet Toni yourself, if you haven’t met her yet. She’s awesome people.

But, be careful, Toni… Trevor’s always wanted to do a pregnant woman!

Here’s the link.