Hold me to it!!! P. 1

Okay, you guys. Here's the thing.

I only wrote a little bit this week. A very little bit.

A grand total of 2200 words.

I know, that sucks huh?

I have no defense except that I've been busy as hell. That's all I got, though. I'll make it up next week, I promise. Possibly over the weekend... who knows?

As I sit here, looking at that paltry number and scoff a bit at myself, I want something from you guys. Don't be nice to me. Make fun of my little numbers... kick my ass with words. Seriously. I need it for bringing up such small numbers. It's sad. I deserve to get my ass stomped.

But for now, I'm actually gonna go write some more. Those words will count towards next week.

Till then...

Peace & Love
~Effie

Spitting Out the Unnecessaries

Sometimes, writing is much like seeded grapes. You keep the good part and throw out the bitter seeds that you don't want or need.

Nasty buggers, those seeds.

When choosing what to throw out of your writing life, whether it be within a story or even in your "network" of writer-ish types, bear one thing in mind. You can't do everything for everyone, nor can you include every little thing. Sure helping people is great, doing things with other writers is great, but egads, it's draining.

I took a good, hard look at myself this morning and I don't even like what I see. There is absolutely no color in my face what-so-ever, the circles under my eyes seem to have doubled (even for a chick with chronic insomnia), and I have lost so much weight it's scary. Oh yes, I can count my ribs and cut people with my hip bones. Not good at all. I was sitting comfortably at about a buck forty (women all over are gasping in shame that someone told their weight on the evil interwebz) and I'm down almost thirty pounds from that. Hell, I feel unhealthy.

My point?

We writers try so hard to spread ourselves out--but a too thin layer of cheese on any cracker is useless. Might as well just let it slide off, yes?

The life of a writer, especially one just starting in the publishing business, can be very isolating. More and more time gets spent on editing, writing new sections, rewriting this or that, reading for one writer friend, reading for another, trying to make sure you talk to everyone in the biz you know a few times a week at least. The writer forgets what the sun looks like, forgets what he or she looks like, what outside smells like. They forget to eat (just coffee and a cigarette, please!), forget to call their mother on her birthday, forget to pick up bread for lunch. Got to churn out more words.

We're not machines, okay guys? Yes, setting goals is great. As long as they are realistic goals and one doesn't forget to take care of themselves. You can't write shit if you're dead.

Writing needn't be an obsession. It should be fun, should be something you enjoy doing as much as you desire to do it. If it becomes a chore, what you put out turns to crap.

Writing crap is okay--after all there is nothing you can't fix and sometimes you have to write crap because it just won't leave you alone. But if it gets to the point of burning yourself out, I think it's time to reassess exactly what you are doing. No one's chosen career should kill them. And if you only put out crappy writing, you need to take a look at what caused the change and get back to you. A tired, burnt-out writer can't write for themselves, much less socialize with others and help them out.

Which brings us full circle.

How many of your "writer" friends only talk to you when they want help with something? Thankfully, this has happened very few times to me, and I've had no problem cutting them the fuck out of my circle of writerly friends. If I hadn't, I'd be in worse shape than I am now. This is taxing, guys. If all you do is take and take and take, with no reciprocal return for whom you take from, you are only hurting yourself in the long run. We should help each other, not be selfish and only get what we can out of each other. This business is tough enough and draining enough without selfishness added to the mix. Eventually, the takers will have taken all they can get from every writer whose path they have crossed and there will be no one to help them when they really need it.

And if you are one of those that only take, I say this. Shame on you, asshole.

Peace & Love, y'all
~E.

Oh, you sexy BEAST you!

I'm so sick of this new fad that has vampires as protagonists. They shouldn't be protagonists. I think ALL of these vampiric romances are gimmickry. Bland blah romance story, so what do we do? We make one half of the couple a vampire who hates themselves. COME ON!

Let me ask this. Would you date someone who drank blood? Would you find Hannibal Lecter (fictional) or Jeffrey Dahmer (very real until his death) sexy? Ooh baby, ooh baby. Would you lay beside someone who could, at any point and time, roll over and take a chunk out of your throat?

Let's all face the music here. I'm not ranting, but I'm gonna make my point. Vampires don't like humans except for as dinner. If a vampire male or female took an interest in a human of the opposite sex, they would turn the human. Humans are the vampire's natural prey. No way around it. Does a tiger fall for a gazelle? Would a lion love a zebra? (Although, I do have to mention, I did find my cat having his way with a squirrel once, but he was one of those that would have his way with anything... we called him the rape artist)

These vampire romance things are ridiculous. It's time to move on from the vampires and let them be the horrifying, disgusting monsters they are supposed to be. Vampires do not have souls. No soul. They are things, creatures. They do not feel. RESEARCH! My god, if you can use google, you can find out what constitutes a real vampire.

I wouldn't kiss a dead man. I wouldn't kiss a man who wanted to drink my blood. What is so sexy about a killer? Before you (general you) start screaming "my vampire doesn't kill anyone", I'll go ahead and say it. If he doesn't kill, he's not a vampire. Or she, since we could be talking about the female here.

The sexy enchantment everyone is bastardizing is supposed to be frightening, not admirable. The animal magnetism has been part of vampire lore since it's fledgling days. However, the "enchantment" wasn't by a sexy guy who just happened to have fangs and suck blood. It was like hypnotism--the one on the receiving end had no control over themselves. They went like a lamb to the slaughter... because there was no way to stop it. And in all actuality, that particular trait of the vampire was borrowed from snakes, of all things. Want to kiss a snake?

I'm not trying to stifle creativity. But just because your story has a vampire in it doesn't make it horror anymore. The vampire is just the new forbidden fruit and to be honest, it disgusts me. The things we used to fear are becoming acceptable and desirable.

Does anyone know what happened in the 17th to 19th century to people who were thought to have the "vampire virus"? Anyone? If they do, I'll eat my hat. Does anyone even know what the "vampire virus" truly was? Tuberculosis. Let me put on my history hat and instruct...

Throughout Europe and the colonies, a sickness struck. Those afflicted would weaken, grow pale, feeble and frail. Their skin would eventually take on a translucence that could only be explained by old folklore. Vampires. Many times, after the death of one person with the sickness, their family members would become ill. The more widespread the illness, the bigger the fear grew. It became the belief that if one died, the corpses were reanimating and coming after their families in the night while they slept. One after another, family members would die. Immediately after their death, their cheeks would grow rosy, as those with TB or the plague do, feeding the belief that the corpses were rising from the grave.

To stop this "vampire affliction" it became practice to mutilate the bodies. Remove the head, burn the heart and mix the ashes in a tea to feed the living but ill relatives, saw off the arms and cross them over the remains. Pretty gruesome, huh? But this is all sexy. This is romantic.

I admit it, I'm pissed. Every single vampire romance out there is a fraud and bull shit and I don't mind people knowing how I feel about it. These are the monsters of my genre, but suddenly, they aren't monsters anymore. They're just "misunderstood". Sure, sweetie, come on. I don't care if you kill me by ripping out my throat, because it's you and I LOVE you.

Fuck it.

I'm done with this. I can't keep going or I'll just get angrier.

Peace & Love, y'all
~E.