West of Mars

As I’m editing The Demo Tapes: Year 3, I’m noticing that I spent a nice chunk of the year looking at the band from the outside, instead of from the inside, like I usually do.

Musical Hanukkah Flashback #10 proves that to you: it’s written from the point of view of a new character, a guy I was dared to create. Best of all, he’s got a history with the band — and they don’t know it.

I titled this one Other Side of the Curtain. I meant it in both a physical sense, as that’s where Penis is standing when the story opens. But it’s also a metaphor: he’s outside the band, looking in.

Be sure to leave comments here or there as you stroll down memory lane and catch up on what you may have missed — or what you’ve never seen before. And remember, the best way to keep this fun coming is to buy my books. If you’ve missed it somehow, at least 50% of my royalties in November and December will be headed to charity, but if you can’t wait and need to buy now, go for it. I know my accounting is odd, but it’ll allow me to donate a higher percentage when all is said and done.

And if you’d like to start at the beginning and read the flashbacks in order, here’s the link to the first one. If you’re looking for the next, use this link.

I’m posting this here instead of at Rocks ‘n Reads so more of you will see it. Once again, Jennifer Estep has knocked one out of the park. Go pick up Venom, which releases today. Or, heck, pick up the entire Elemental Assassin series.

Sometimes, when you work your way through a series of books, you get the feeling the author wasn’t expecting this or that to happen. That the unfolding series of events is as much a surprise to the writer as it is to you, the reader.

Not so with Jennifer Estep’s Elemental Assassin series. This is one of the best plotted series I’ve encountered in years. In other words, as we devour Venom, the latest release in the projected five-book series, there’s a sense that nothing has been left to chance. Everything that happens has a reason, and we’re building to something big, explosive, and Earth-shattering.

Just the way I like it.

In Venom, a number of things are happening. Gin Blanco finds that retirement is a difficult state to remain in. She may not be taking money to do her job, but people still need the skills of her alter ego, the assassin named The Spider. Just because she wants to run a restaurant and take classes at the local community college doesn’t mean people’s lives have gotten any easier.

In fact, as Venom progresses, Gin’s life is getting a bit harder. Her baby sister isn’t just alive, but is the newest hire on the Ashland police force. Bria is replacing Donovan Caine, the man Gin had serious chemistry with but who couldn’t handle her being on the dark side of the law.

Baby sister’s no pushover and her presence, sniffing around Gin as she attempts to figure out what’s going on, quickly becomes constant and reliable. Gin’s not ready to expose their relationship yet — although I do wonder how ignorant Bria truly is. I hope I’m not disappointed in future books and that she’s figured it out.

Also replacing Donovan Caine is a new dude in Gin’s life. The chemistry is there. He knows she’s an assassin. If the weapons he’d forged and hung on his wall are any indication, Owen Grayson could very well be Gin’s soulmate. This man has many mysteries he’s hiding. While some are revealed in Venom, it’s obvious there are many, many more we’ve yet to encounter. Owen has the same delicious potential as baby sister Bria.

Believe it or not, these are merely the subplots. Like I said, the Elemental Assassin series must have been planned out from the get-go, because the heart of this story is that of Roslyn the vampire. She’s found herself, entirely unwillingly, in a relationship she wants no further part of. As those dark secrets are revealed, it’s obvious that Gin is, once again, set on assassinating a truly heinous being. I dare anyone to argue for this low-life’s survival.

As awful as Roslyn’s problem is, it is at the same time a stroke of luck for Gin. This is the opportunity she’s been wishing for: the chance to bring down Mab Monroe and her city-wide-controlling operation. Oh, Gin’s not going to effect this downfall in one fell swoop. Nope. That’s where the beauty of Estep’s plotting comes in. This opportunity to help Roslyn becomes the first step in achieving Gin’s ultimate goal. As the series unfolds over the next two books, we’ll get to watch what happens. Will it succeed, will it fail… we don’t know. It could easily go either way.

That’s because Estep isn’t afraid to put her characters on the hook. She lets them get beat up (as Gin does in the opening scene of Venom). They take their lumps. By doing this, Estep creates the niggling sense that maybe Gin won’t have a happily ever after — at least, not in the way Gin’s envisioning it.

And as readers, we eat up that uncertainty. We need to keep reading. We need to know. And we agonize that book four in the series, Tangled Threads, won’t be out for another six months.

Overall, Estep’s dark world continues to both fascinate and feel like a familiar place we take refuge from our own lives in. This is a world where vampires go out during the day, where Giants are real people, and Dwarfs are infused with good magic. It’s a world of possibility. And by creating an assassin, not only does Estep get to play with the big moral questions, she allows us to wish we could be Gin. Just long enough to turn into the Spider and … take care of … things… ourselves.

Venom. You’re not surprised to hear this, but it’s a West of Mars recommended read.

Ahh, the third year of the Musical Hanukkah Celebration. If you haven’t been here until now, you’ve really been missing out.

In the third year, the band had outgrown All Access, the dinky but cool club they’d used for the first two years. Their manager, JR, had finagled them a deal to move to the Rocket Theater — a venue previously reserved for Riverview’s drag queen community.

There’s some justice in the band moving in with drag queens, and not just because Kerri used to hang out with them…

Checking out the Rocket Theater. One of my favorites!

And now the standard disclaimer stuff… in November and December, at least 50% of my royalties will be donated to charity. For full information, check out my contests page. And to follow the flashbacks from the beginning, use this link.

Want to go to the next? Here’s the link!

Susan’s note: Springer and Trinity appear here every now and then. When last we saw them together, Trinity was in trouble. It was our boy Springer to the rescue — then as now.

Springer sat down on the edge of the bed beside Trinity. She was hugging her knees to her chest, like she did all the time now. Getting herself in major trouble the way she had… it had messed her up pretty good.

“This year’s Musical Hanukkah? You up for it?”

He hadn’t expected her to say yes. Hadn’t expected her to do much else other than what she did: shake her head from side to side exactly twice. Fast, too. Nothing slow or deliberate. It was like she wanted to get done with this talking stuff as fast as she possibly could.

“Trin,” he said, trying to stop himself from moving an inch or two away from her. But c’mon, he wanted to say. How long was a guy supposed to keep getting the cold shoulder? She wasn’t even his girl and she was acting like this. “You gotta pull yourself together already. Life’s falling apart all around you.”

“Why?” she spat, her voice dripping with an edge that gave Springer the chills.

“Why what?” Springer asked, confused.

“Why do I have to pull myself together? What if there’s nothing left to pull together? Did you think of that? Did you forget I got kicked out of the house, I got kicked out of school? I’ve got nothing, Springer. Nothing.”

“Well,” he said, wondering if this was a good idea or not, “you’ve got me.”

She made an ugly face.

“And a place to stay,” Springer said, starting to panic. “Grandma was saying the other day that if you’d be willing, she’d pay you to be her companion.”

“Oh, great. I’ve gone from being a whore to … to…”

“To having a good job taking care of a sweet old lady,” Springer said. “You’ll have a place to stay and whatever you need.” He didn’t mention that he could move back home. Or stay here with Trinity and Grandma. “All you’d need to do is the cleaning, the grocery shopping, stuff like that.”

“Taking care of the garden, cooking. You know. Being a slave. Are you sure I’m not really Black, Springer? Is this the South before the Civil War?”

It was sad he’d gotten used to her talking like this.

“Slaves didn’t get paid. Grandma’s willing to pay you. And let you use her car. I bet if you wanted to go to school for something, she’d help you.”

“School?” Trinity raised her head, her chin coming forward. As her forehead tilted back, she rolled her eyes. “Dropouts can’t go to school.”

Springer sighed. All he’d wanted to know was if she was up for the Musical Hanukkah Celebration. Or maybe if he should go without her. It was looking like that was how it was going to go.

“Look, Springer, why are you here?”

“Because right now, I live here. Someone’s gotta take care of grandma.”

“I can’t take your job, Springer.”

“I wish you would.”

“Why? So you can go live life while I’m slaving away here?”

“So you can do something besides feel sorry for yourself,” he said, sstanding up. “And because I think Grandma would rather have a girl around than me.”

“You’re her grandkid. She’s not allowed to not want you around.”

As if she’d realized the hypocrisy of what she’d just said, she smiled. Sort of.

“Think about it, Trin. You’re not the only one around here who’s miserable ’cause of what happened to you. Right now, you’re the one with the power to change it all.”

She shrugged and put her chin back down on her knees. Springer left her like that, just like he usually did. At least she’d said something. A lot of somethings.

It was an improvement.

Check out other Friday Flashers, as well as Weekend Writer’s Retreat. There’s good fiction to be found on this here Internet.

I haven’t done a Booking Through Thursday prompt in eons, mostly because they haven’t really appealed. Today’s does.

It’s all about what we’re reading now, and if we enjoy it and all that.

So…

I’m reading three books right now — an ARC copy of Jennifer Estep’s Venom. It’s coming out on September 28 (yeah, I waited until the last minute. The file refused to convert to .epub nicely, so I have to read on the laptop) and if you haven’t started Jennifer’s Elemental Assassin series yet, you are SO missing out. Start with Spider’s Bite, the first, and go from there.

Really. Jennifer knows how to build a world that’s so comfortable, you’ll think YOU live there.

I’m also about to finish up Linda Fairstein’s Death Dance. If you’ve read my book talks for any length of time, you’ll remember I’m a HUGE Fairstein fan. You don’t have to read the series in order. They’re smart and full of historical facts about the city of New York. During her years as a prosecutor, Fairstein herself pioneered a lot of the ways in which rape victims are dealt with and helped in the court system. We’ve still got a long way to go, but she was instrumental in taking those first vital steps.

And finally, because I needed something to read and the laptop was tied up by children or husband — not to mention I’m overdue to turn the review in — I’m reading Jan Bornstein’s Deuces are Wild. It’s the third in a trilogy, and it’s rock and roll fiction. I’m not terribly far into it yet, so we’ll see…

Remember to keep your eyes on Rocks ‘n Reads for other books I’m reading. Add it to your reader; I don’t post there often.

Ready to launch into some fiction? Although this piece will appear in Demo Tapes: Year 3 (which I’m still hoping to release in conjunction with this charity push of mine), why wait?

In Moving the Celebration, the band has to sift through the verbal diarrhea that comes with their manager. The guy’s good at what he does… he just never shuts up.

There are changes afoot for ShapeShifter. New challenges to face. Including a few they don’t know about yet…

Remember, gang, we’re doing this because I’ll be donating at least 50% of my royalties in November and December to charity. See the contests page for full details, including a link for a direct donation. I’ve got some prizes for you, if you’d like to make a difference that way.

Today’s student can be tomorrow’s Lady Gaga. Let’s make sure our kids have the chance to experience the power and beauty of music.

Need to start flashing back from the beginning? Follow this link. As each new flashback gets posted, I’m going back and including the link to the next one. By the end of October, you’ll be able to hopscotch all the way from the first to the last!

Today’s Musical Hanukkah Celebration Flashback lets us begin the look back at the 2008 posts — the third year of the Musical Hanukkah Celebration’s existence.

Since this coincided with the release of The Demo Tapes: Year 1, bigger and better was the way to go.

In Byline: Chelle LaFleur — Gearing up for Musical Hanukkah Year 3, Mitchell outlines to Chelle all the changes. There are many.

Check it out. And remember once again, I’ll be donating at least half of my royalties in November and December to charity. The contest page will tell you more.

Would you like to donate directly? Go ahead; the link’s on the contest page. I’ll be doing random drawings and giving prizes — books! — to anyone who chooses this option.

If you’d like to catch up on your history, here’s the link to the first Musical Hanukkah Flashback. From there, you can follow each flashback forward to today’s. Need to go forward, to Flashback #8? Please do!

Note from Susan: if you click on Green Hair Week, you’ll learn a little bit about Jim Shields and what happened to Mitchell. While this piece is a companion to my novel, Trevor’s Song, and will probably feature in a Demo Tapes anthology somewhere down the road, it has no spoilers for anything already in print.

“The guy just makes my skin crawl,” Mitchell said, trying to suppress the shudder. “We need to be off this tour and done with him.”

“Has he done something to offend?” JR asked.

Mitchell paused, waiting for JR’s usual verbal onslaught. It didn’t come. JR was actually, for once, quiet.

Trevor flicked his cigarette from the corner of his mouth onto the ground. He didn’t bother to grind it dead. “What the fuck does it matter? The guy’s a fucking powder keg. Up one minute, down the next. All in our faces about shit we can’t control, then making like he’s our best friend.”

“He’s too volatile,” Eric said, nodding.

Mitchell thought about that for a second, then nodded. Perfect way to describe the dick. Volatile.

“Backstage is a powder keg,” the guitarist went on. “We all hate being there. C’mon, JR. There’s got to be a way to get us off this tour. Daniel and M here say you’re getting all sorts of offers for us to open for better acts. I think you need to take a longer look at some of them, even if it means we take a break.”

“It hasn’t all been bad with Jim,” the manager said. “You had a nice long break in Phoenix and it turned out to benefit you quite well”

“My hair turned green,” Mitchell said. He crossed his arms over his chest and glared at the manager until JR shut up.

“But the break refreshed you. It taught me and your booking agents quite a bit that we’ll be discussing once it’s your turn to headline but for now, you’re not quite ready to headline, so it’s all opening acts for you still and really, Jim Shields isn’t that bad of a guy Why can’t you just finish up this tour like we’ve planned It’s really not that much longer”

“Because,” Trevor said, taking his time as he lit up a new cigarette. It was for effect, Mitchell could tell. Hell, most of Trevor’s cigarettes were for effect. His own bad boy version of being demure. Or something.

“I need more of a reason than that, Trevor. You have a contract with Jim You signed it and were perfectly happy to You were excited, even, and so was I This was going to be a good thing, bringing you new fans and getting you into cities you’d never visited before.”

“Because,” Mitchell growled, “if you don’t get us away from that asshole, I’m going to shove his microphone stand up his ass and make it come out his mouth. I don’t give a shit about contracts or opportunities or anything like that. I care about not being yanked around by this asshole anymore.”

He was aware of everyone around him cringing, of his voice rising, of the pressure in his cheeks that meant his face had turned red. Trevor would probably tell him later that viens had popped. He didn’t care. Didn’t care about any of it. He’d had enough. The band had had enough. It had nothing to do with his fucking green hair and everything to do with unstable dickhead Jim Shields. This is what it had come down to. It was a matter of survival, no matter how fucking dramatic that sounded. No one could live like Jim was making them live.

Mitchell would be damned if ShapeShifter was going to have to keep trying.

Yup, this is a Three Word Wednesday prompt: demure, offend, volatile. And I’ll link it at The Weekend Writer’s Retreat, also. AND at Friday Flash. AND Sunday Scribblings. That might be all, but who knows? I do like to increase my fan base!

2007′s Musical Hanukkah Celebration turned into The Year of Springer, didn’t it?

You guys claimed you liked him. Heck, I like him. He’s a good egg, and I’m all about good eggs.

This was our final post from the 2007 Celebration. And yep, you guessed it: it features Springer. This is called The Day After, and that’s exactly what it is. Go read it and you’ll understand more.

And now for our usual reminder… we’re doing this to bring you guys up to speed before November and December hit. During those months, at least 50% of my royalties will go to charity. Mark your calendars so you remember to buy a book or three! Books make great gifts and yep, it’s about that time of year to start thinking of this stuff…

If you’d like to start at the beginning of the Flashbacks — and at the beginning of the celebration — you’ve got a grand idea. Would you like to see what comes next? C’mon. You know you do.

Be part of something big. Musical Hanukkah 2010.

Man, what a busy day yesterday turned into. That means you’ll need to move fast to get over to Suzan Harden’s blog, Wild, Wicked, and Wacky. I did a three-question interview you’ll want to check out — and am giving some goodies away, as well.

Hurry, though. The entry deadline for the goodies is tomorrow. Thursday. The sixteenth.