November 11, 2009

I will not forget.
Thank you.

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Waiter? There’s a pixie in my soup.

Urban Fantasy saved my sanity.

What is Urban Fantasy, you ask?  The good editors of Wikipedia have defined it as:

a subset of fantasy defined by place; the fantastic narrative has an urban setting. Many Urban fantasies are set in contemporary times or contain supernatural elements. However, this is not the primary definition of Urban fantasy. Urban fantasy can be set in historical times, Modern times, or futuristic times. The prerequisite is that it must be set in a city, primarily rather than in a suburban or country setting, which have their own genre subsets.

Taking that into account, I define it as: the completely badass way of taking the niftiness of magic realism, mythology, urban legend and fairy tale and lobbing it into a (typically) contemporary urban setting.

Take Charles de Lint for example.  de Lint combines equal parts faerie and First Nations mythology and mixes that with the idiosyncrasies of a metropolitan setting.  He has gone so far as to create, for the purposes of his Urban Fantasy writing, his own city; Newford.  Newford exists both where and when de Lint requires, affording him more freedom than that available in the utilization of a known city centre.

One of the most popular subsets of Urban Fantasy is paranormal romance.  Though not restricted to the realm of Urban Fantasy, paranormal romance set in contemporary society harnessing the mystique of legends such as vampires and werewolves is wildly popular as I write this.  The Twilight Saga written by Stephenie Meyer is a fantastic example of paranormal romance.  Long story short: our protagonist, Bella Swan, meets (shiny) vampire Edward Cullen in their high school (yes, this one’s Young Adult) and falls head over heels in love with him, but must also contend with the affections forced upon her by  her werewolf friend.

As with every genre, there is great Urban Fantasy and there is terrible Urban Fantasy.  These measures, of course, are completely subjective.  My tastes are 100% my own.  Yours are your own.  I don’t dig Harry Potter, you may.  I put Neil Gaiman on a pedestal, you may hate him.  Que Sera, Sera.  This is actually the reason this particular narrative has been nibbling away at the frayed corners of my poor little brain.  I was, recently, sent this (in an email) by a good friend:

I might even go so far as to say that my overall impression of Urban Fantasy (even though I have never read any) is that the genre targets the same types of readers as trashy Harlequins or other cheap romances.

In terms of the most popular Urban Fantasy, I completely agree.  It seems to be written to sell and what sells is, essentially, a these are the days of our lives brand of the genre.  There is a huge market for it.  Candy coated escape literature.  But!  This is not the only type of Urban Fantasy that exists.  It is not all fanged angst, or Shifty lust.  That’s just the most publicised Urban Fantasy out there, right now.  Some of it, like Gaiman’s Neverwhere, doesn’t contain a true aspect of romance.  Sure, there is one degrading romantic relationship and one clear attraction between a pair of characters, but neither carries the story.  That yarn depends entirely on Gaiman’s genius writing (I am 100% bias, but this is also my blog), the peculiar setting and the evolution of the story’s characters.

When your head’s always in the clouds and you yearn to see dragons curl about city skyscrapers, unicorns in a city park, or faeries dancing about a ring of wild mushrooms, Urban Fantasy will save your sanity.  Until you are one of the blessed few who is allowed to enter the Otherworld, this is as good as it gets.

The Doors – People Are Strange

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We interrupt your regularly scheduled program. . . .

For news!

I have entered the published world!

Click click click!

My review.  On the store’s website.  My review.  Somewhere that isn’t here.

That is amazingly badass.

AND!?  I was chatting with a customer, this afternoon, about writing books (she was buying Bird By Bird and I commented on it being a great book, which lead to a conversation about writing books) which lead to a conversation about writing wherein she asked me if I wrote.  I said yes and she invited me to join the writing group she was starting up!  I said yes!  I think I’ll work hard, this time, and make the writing group thing work, this time!

Life is good, peeps.  Life is good!

Bon Jovi – Wanted Dead Or Alive

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100 problems.

Here it is, kids!  My first shot at that book review game.  Feedback would be lovely!

Enjoy.

In Stray, Rachel Vincent introduces her audience to the world of werecats.  Shape shifters.  Simply put: werewolves with an affinity for catnip.

Our hero, Faythe Sanders, is thrown into a world of violent strife in this premiere episode of Vincent’s Shifters series.  Her story begins when she catches the scent of, and is confronted by, a fellow werecat.  This antagonising feline, who is described as a Stray – a human who has been scratched or bitten by a werecat (in traditional werewolf fashion) – begins the plight of Faythe and her Pride – a collection of (mostly) born werecats, most of whom are related by blood.  Faythe is stringently protective of her independence and is not, at all, pleased when her run-in with this unknown Stray catalyses a string of events that land her back into the lap of the family she has worked hard to avoid for the past five years.

Throughout its 618 pages, Stray provides edge-of-your-seat action and adventure from the playful antics of a Pride of werecats hunting on the family ranch to the climax of the novel wherein the heroes confront the villains.  There are few dull moments.  There is, subsequently, also not a great deal of character evolution.  Vincent has endeavoured to begin not only a single tome, but an entire series by writing in the first person perspective, utilizing Faythe as her narrator.  This is a dangerous gamble and difficult to pull off.  Unfortunately, Faythe Sanders is a shallow character and does not inspire much affection.  It was difficult to feel drawn into her world, or her plight.  Vincent’s supplementary characters, too, show no real depth and seem to exist merely for the witty rapport, and sexual tension, that unites most of this tale’s players.

Vincent’s writing style is basic, but clean.  She peppers her narrative with contemporary, witty descriptors:

Strays have a distinctive scent, which is easily distinguished from that of a Pride-born cat.  It’s like the difference in taste between Coke and Pepsi: subtle if you never drink either, but unmistakable if you’re accustomed to one and suddenly confronted with a mouthful of the other. (Vincent 234.)

It was also refreshing, given the adult Urban Fantasy genre, to see a story that did not require a smattering of four letter words to make its point.  There were curses, throughout the pages of this story, but their numbers were not strong and the tale thrived without gratuitous vulgarity.

Overall, I did not thoroughly enjoy this novel.  Vincent’s writing did make me smile once or twice in its description and (sometimes) surprising wit, but the story arc was as deep as the characters in it, and those characters tended to be more irritating and cliché than anything else.  I felt cheated by Vincent’s introduction of Faythe as not only her protagonist, but also her narrator.  She was spoilt, whiny and irritating; not at all someone I felt drawn to or supportive of at any part in her journey.  I hold high hopes that Miss Sanders evolves throughout the Shifters series, though I will likely not be continuing to join her in her journey for future reviews.  A final warning to those of you interested in picking up Stray for a quick treat to your busy, overworked, minds: beware the implied forced sexual interactions.  Rape is not described in immediate detail, but it does exist in this story and it is disturbing.

Apocalyptica – Life Burns

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PS. mephy proposed.  I said yes.  I has a fiancé.  w00t.

Survey says!

This whole book review thing is plaguing me.

On one hand, I have the memory of the Breaking Dawn fiasco.  I came, I wrote, I was disgusted by myself.  That, and I (effectively) broke a promise to my boss, who I have a great deal of admiration for.  I disappointed me.  On the other hand, I have intrigue and a wee bit of a competitive nature (inherited from my dad – much like my temper!  Thanks Dad!).

So!  I’ve been researching.  I don’t know the first thing about writing book reviews.  I suspect that, really, it all comes down to reading a book and then writing your reaction to, and feelings about it.  Of course there is room to be as objective, or subjective as you’d like, depending on the circumstance.  I feel that I am at liberty to say anything I would like here.  This is my little corner of the intrawebz.  For the company, however, I figure I’d have to write with a bit more professionalism (while, naturally, retaining the essence of the vyx – some things just can’t be ignored, or stifled).

The research has been interesting.  Some fancy tidbits out there.  And?  Reading reviews is helpful.  I think I’ll do it.  /Nod.  I’ll try, anyway.  I’m about to embark on a notorious (in my workplace, at least) series of books (for those of you keeping score, the first in the series is Stray by Rachel Vincent).  This, I think, should do for a practice run.  Maybe I’ll work up to BD and be ready with it in time for the flick (oh.  Or the PB).

So kids.  Let me know!  What should be included (or excluded, for that matter) in a book review?

Metric – Gimme Sympathy

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PS.  If you remember the greatness that was PoEin15m, you must check out Tin15m!  (Rly.  So much love.)

Thanks!

I am Canuckian.  This means that we’re into that time of the year where we like to give thanks (and eat punkin pie and turkeyturkeyturkey!).  I am thankful.  Let’s give thanks!

I am thankful to my commenters.  You guys make me smile.  You also make me feel incredibly guilty when I do not post for months at a time.  I am also thankful to my silent readers.  I appreciate your attention a great deal.  Kendra, too.  I am very thankful to Kendra.  She inspires me, prods me to action, and feeds me inspirado like it’s cookie dough.

On a more personal note, I am so thankful for the people in my life.  I have no idea what I did to attract the attention of these people, or to be born into the most amazing family one could fathom, but I am so thankful.  Every day.  I muse, and I give thanks to my lucky stars for the people in my life.  Thank you for your support, your encouragement, your (constructive) criticism, and the shoulders you provide.  Thank you for the endless supply of “oh hellz yes!!!1!!1!one” in response to my requests for coffee dates, and (let’s face it) for just putting up with me!

And?  Of course.  I am thankful for my mephy.  You are my sunshine, Sparky.

I have a wonderful life.

Now.  This doesn’t fit the theme, but I am not going to write two posts today.  My lovely and fabulous friend C has begun her blogging journey and I have to point y’all in the right direction (natch).  Check it: C’s Book Blog!  She’s going to review books!  She reads Urban Fantasy, too, so it’s right up my alley.  I appreciate that.

On that note, I have been considering that book review thang.  The Boss asked me, quite a while ago, to review Breaking Dawn when it was released for the store’s website (I am shameless in my promoting.  It’s true).  I wrote a review, but failed to submit it because I thought it was trite and poorly written.  But.  I’ve been thinking about it (the review writing, not Breaking Dawn) more frequently, recently.  It might be fun.  And?  I’m reading a lot more, these days.  It’s just fuel for the fire, really.  Couldn’t hurt to try, anyway.

So.  Let’s do that fun 360° thing.  I am thankful to C and the Books & Co. crew for inspiring me to consider a new avenue!

Estuera – Flow

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It’s a beautiful life! Oh oh ohh!

Write.  Right?

I’ve been gone for a long time.  Almost two months.  Which, actually, is unclear.  I haven’t been gone gone.  Just bloggingly absent.  Let’s chalk it up to life being hella busy, lately.  Good busy, though.  Fun stress (read: vyx and mephy are going to buy a house).

Look.  K’s journal prompts numbre quatre.  I remembered, just now, that she’d put up another list.  I wanted to link it – because that’s what I do – but I had to read it first.  Did you see that one?  This one:

Go take pictures.  Never taken pictures?  Don’t even own a camera?  Don’t worry about it, go to Walgreens and buy a 35mm disposable, spend a day just snapping away, don’t worry about how they will turn out, how amazing they will be, just record your life.

That is badass.  I want to do that.  I think I will.  Not today, though.  It’s already 2058hrs; a bit late to start chronicling my day (although!  The pumpkin pie I’m gearing up to mow down on would make a fabulous picture.  Hrm).  I like that, though.  And?  Let’s face it, it’s a good mantra for any creative portion of life: don’t worry about how it will turn out, don’t worry if it will be amazing or trite crap, just do.  I dig that.

Exciting update: (inorite!  What could be more exciting than buying a house?!) I’ve been reading voraciously.  Pretty skookum, imo.

Okay kids.  Lame update, I know, but I felt the blog bug and I didn’t want to see it get squashed.  I’ll try for more consistent updates, again, soon.

Ace of Base – Beautiful Life

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Edit/PS.  Do you think that supplemental creativity aids primary creativity?  Would a photo journal of a day in the life of your bitchy neighbourhood vyxen make me feel more like writing?  Does painting help photographers?  Does writing poetry inspire a novelist?  (I think these things because I have decided that I need more creativity in my life.  I need a fun hobby – like a craft – but I haven’t decided what to do.  I’m still thinking about archery, but that’s not terribly creative, just frakking nifty.)

Eat them up, yum!

Kendra blogged yesterday.  This should come as no surprise as Kendra blogs (quite brilliantly) on a very regular basis.  Her blog, yesterday, however inspired me (which, now that I think about it, is also not a surprise.  Kendra is my inspiration.  This inspiration was different from past inspiration.  This inspiration was productive!).  She was kind enough to quote from a book that I keep meaning to crack open and read (then study), Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott.  Read on (Ima just re-hash the bit she bolded in her blog, because that’s what inspired me – if you would like to read Kendra’s blog (which you should.  By now you should have it fed through teh RSS and visit her writing like the Oracle at Delphi.  I do): click it.  Click it gud.)!

It reminds me that all I have to do is to write down as much as I can see through a one-inch picture frame. This is all I have to bite off for the time being. All I am going to do right now, for example, is write that one paragraph that sets the story in my hometown, in the late fifties, when the trains were still running. I am going to paint a picture of it, in words, on my word processor. Or all I am going to do is to describe the main character the very first time we meet her, when she first walks out the front door and onto the porch. I am not even going to describe the expression on her face when she first notices the blind dog sitting behind the wheel of her car–just what I can see through the one-inch picture frame, just one paragraph describing this woman, in the town where I grew up, the first time we encounter her.

As much as I can see through a one-inch picture frame.

That’s not a lot.  That’s just a bit.  A nibble.

So.  Because today was a Monday and Mondays are generally pretty not busy at work, I wrote.  Not a lot, it was busy enough to keep me from pounding out a novel, but I wrote enough to make me grin like a Cheshire cat.  Bare bones?  I am beginning to introduce a character.  In this introduction, I am sketching someone new.  I am meeting someone new.

To make the deal better: mephy read it and liked it!  He even read some crazy deep meaning into it that I had not intended, so that’s a bonus.  I r smrt.

(I wrote about a dead fish.  Rly.)

Ludacris (feat. T-Pain) – One More Drink

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Don’t mind me, it’s “one of those days.”

It is so frustrating to have ideas, but no way to sketch them.  To flesh them out.  I can see stories, sometimes in eerily vivid detail, but I can’t do anything beyond that.

I pick up a pen and all of a sudden language evades me.  I put my fingers to the keyboard and Spike TV becomes entirely more important.

You have to write in order to be a writer.  I get that.  I appreciate that.  I believe it with my whole black little heart.  HOWEVER.  It’s incredibly difficult to put that into practice, sometimes.

I feel as though I am standing in the middle of an impressive hill, hands white knuckled around bicycle handlebars.  I can see the end, it’s tangible, but man, oh man, it’s difficult to mount that bike and start the climb in the middle of a steep hill.  It’s not quite like that, but it’s what it feels like, right now.

Extreme – More Than Words

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To dream, or not to dream?

So.  My friend and colleague, Kendra, has graced WordPress with two entries worth of writing prompt lists (one and two).  Since I cannot come up with anything on my own, right now, I am challenging myself to write down the line of these prompts.  Now, I have already written to the subject of dreams, so let’s start with nightmares!

Dictionary.com defines a nightmare as a noun.  This is a start.  D.com goes on to say that it is 1. a terrifying dream in which the dreamer experiences feelings of helplessness, extreme anxiety, sorrow, etc.  2. a condition, thought, or experience suggestive of a nightmare  3. (formerly) a monster or evil spirit believed to oppress persons during sleep.  Number three is my favourite.

I think we’ve all experienced that terrible dream: being chased by the Boogeyman, the sneer of an evil razor-blade toothed circus monster, or having a ginormous bear (which was actually more akin to a bugbear than an actually bear, in hindsight.  Big scary critter) stand in your backyard tearing into your pet dog (I was a strange child.  I have evolved, as you might have guessed, into an even stranger adult).  I am almost 100% certain that we all have an understanding of what a nightmare is and how it effects our lives, in the most base of definitions.

On the topic of dreams (as K and I have outlined in our lives), however, I have to wonder: can you have nightmares for your life as you can have dreams for it?  My dreams are simple and they make me smile.  But I have things that I do not want to see in my life at any moment, can these be considered nightmares?  I think so.

I nightmare (it is not quite as effective a verb as “dream” can be) that my life will be made up of complacency.  I fear that I will be content for the rest of my life.  My biggest nightmare is that I will continue to plod along this safe country road path of life and not be struck to turn, on a whim, onto that path less often travelled.  There are, certainly, perils on that path, but the pay out, I wager, is greater.  More effort equates a more pleasing gain.  Surely I will not be terribly disappointed with life if I am comfortable and content, but will I have actually lived?  I don’t think so.  There’s a pretty big world out there, and I think that I should experience it.

Change gears.

Before I sign off, I’d like to address number three.

a monster or evil spirit believed to oppress persons during sleep

Really?  Why is this a former use of the term?  Can we not believe that while we dream darkly that we are oppressed by devils?  I quite approve of that.  It makes a great deal of sense to me.  On the other hand, when I was driving home from work yesterday, I said I hearty hello to the serpentine head of a dragon in the clouds.  Is it that much of a surprise that I would be sweet on the idea that, while nightmaring, I am oppressed  by devilish minions?  Probably not.

Queen – Death On Two Legs

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