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I've been in California the past several days, which was nice. But I've come down with bronchitis, which is not-so-nice. Especially when you have to ride on an airplane. Oh, what misery. At least tonight I can sleep in my own bed. . . .

While I was down there, I watched The Spiderwick Chronicles movie, which I liked very much. Somehow the ending left me a teensy bit unsatisfied, but overall it's an amazingly fun film that I had a blast seeing. I would definitely recommend it (and watch it again). And it was so cool and a bit insane seeing Holly Black's name on the big screen - I mean, I chatted with her online just a few months ago at readergirlz. How exciting for both her and Tony Diterlizzi.

I had about a week off from sickness this month, but otherwise I've been pretty flattened. I'm so behind with things - classes, a couple of book reviews, emails - which is frustrating. But I try to focus on the ups: Oscar season (I have a deep love for watching the Academy Awards), a fresh stack of books from the library (that's always thrilling), yummy muffins, making lists, planning and looking forward to things yet to come.

Only one more week left until March! Spring will be upon us soon. . . !

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I had a conversation with Holly Black recently where we both admitted that every time we’re told that we can’t do some particular writing thing we are compelled to do it.

“Vampires are played out. There is no new take on vampires left!” someone will tells us.

“Right then,” we’ll think to ourselves. “Challenge! We’ll be writing a vampire story.”

“Avoid adverbs and adjectives,” someone will say.

We will immediately have an attack of the Angela Carters.

David Moles admitted to a similar reaction to definitions of genres. They make him want to write something entirely outside the limits of the genre being defined.¹ Holly and me are the same,² whenever we see a YA definition we find ourselves thinking of the exceptions and thinking of ways we can stretch those boundaries. How can we get away with writing books where the protags aren’t teens? Or have the kind of content everyone is so sure you can’t have in a YA? Or where the story does not have the immediacy everyone associates with the genre?

It’s probably very childish but there’s a level at which all writing rules (never head hop! avoid passive voice!)³ and genre definitions make my back straighten, my nostrils inflate, and leave me with an overwhelming urge to shout, “You are not the boss of me! I’ll write what I bloody well want to write!”

When I was chatting about it with Holly we decided it was a good thing. Definitions be damned!

1. Well, okay, he said something kind of sort of like that and it’s my paraphrase and I’m sticking to it.
2. I also like to defy certain grammar rules: “Holly and me” sounds way better than “Holly and I” which always sounds to me like the British queen saying “My husband and I”.
3. Except for always add zombies. That writing rule you should all obey.

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Drowsy Monkey">Drowsy Monkey tagged my good friend Dawn from Twisted Sister with the 7 weird things about me meme, and Dawn tagged me. I usually avoid the Weird Things About Me Meme's, because, who wants to admit weird things about themselves, especially if they happen to be neurotic? But in this case, I made an exception because, Dawn is my very good friend and has been since I began blogging, and I think that is enough of a reason to swallow my ego and do away with my dignity.

Therefore, here are seven weird things about me the first of which may frighten you from reading the rest, but we will see...

The first weird thing comes from a guilty conscious or at least it’s what my best friend from high school and I decided, since she does the same weird thing-

I'm going to try to articulate the first weird thing about me by giving a made up scenario as an example… So imagine this... While visiting a friend’s house out of town for a while, the friend comes to me her eyes wild with disbelief and says, “Someone took my grandmothers jewelry from my dresser, Ann! Can you believe that? Who would do a thing like that?"

My reaction would be: My eyes would avert away from her, resembling the expression of a bored monkey looking away with disinterest, and a finger in its mouth toward a more amusing event. In the meantime my neck would turn rosy, orange, or blue, but different colors, because when this is happening I actually feel what I think a heated crayon would feel like coloring my neck and face- with the words I am G-U-I-L-T-Y ! When in fact, I would never do something like that in a million billion trillion… years!

Actually, one of my best qualities is honestly especially in friendship, but in this type of situation I would still feel like I appeared guilty, and because I feel as if my expression is that of someone on the wrong side of the law, or the wrong side of everywhere, I think I look that way as well, but that is another meme and another story. My point being, that because I actually feel as if I am guilty, I give off the impression when stuff like this has happened, maybe not that exaggerated, but you get the drift. I am not as bad about it anymore, but my best friend still wrestles with it, and she is the only other person I know who has experienced the feeling. I used to worry that something really serious was going to happen one day and I was going to spend the rest of my life in jail for the for something I didn’t do. This neurosis did as I afore mentioned get better after I realized where it might have come from. I had a critical stepfather who always thought I was lying about everything, so go figure…

Now with the number one weird thing about me out of the way maybe you will believe the next six will be easier to swallow and keep reading….

2) I wear socks all the time, except if I’m on the beach or laying in the sun or in the bathtub…I even sleep in socks … I wore socks when my son was born even though the delivery nurse tried to take them off after she locked my legs in those stir-ups, but my husband put them back on and finally the Doctor told Hitler’s sister to let me wear them if I wanted too.

I have a box of keep sakes I brought home from the hospital that contains my sons baby bracelet , a Hershey bar his daddy gave me, (can you believe I saved that?) a bottle of wine, and of course, the socks I wore during his arrival into the world.

In addition, these socks were not just regular socks they were designer socks… I was not going to have my baby in plain white socks, no sir, these socks
had pastel pink, gray, and blue diamond shapes on them. My Doctor laughed throughout the delivery while my husband (a psychologist) tried to engage him in a conversation about what made people neurotic -no doubt afraid his child was going to inherit my penchant for socks.

O.K, let’s see what else I can think of that is weird about me, seven things Dawn? This is too HARD.



3) I laugh at the most inappropriate times and situations, which I know is a common weird thing to do, but I have the audacity to laugh or begin to smile while someone is telling me about something awful for the first time. I do not know if it is the shock of the expression on their face, or the deep emotional response expected from me, but I feel like running away and hiding behind a tree, where I can let out a huge laugh then return to the person say, “That’s really terrible news.”

4) I cannot eat in a restaurant if awful music is playing in the background. Even if the music is low, especially if it’s low, I cannot tolerate it and it takes me forever to order from the menu. Although it takes me forever to order from any menu anyway, the mission is impossible if the music is awful…you get the picture.

5) I can’t pee in a public bathroom if someone is in the stall next to me, and can hear my pee hit the water in the toilet…it just seems to personal… I don’t want them to witness the sound of my pee… “They just don’t know me like that” Isn’t that a song. I think it is, I heard the saying or the song somewhere, anyway I apologize to the artist who wrote it.

O.k. again number six, (I hope I have a blog after this) Lets see, hmmm Sometimes I blush for absolutely no reason when someone is talking to me, and it’s always a stranger and they always misunderstand my blushing for attraction- which wouldn't be terrible if I were attracted to them, but I never am! Then, the guilty face thing starts, followed by more blushing, and laughter, then I have to go to the bathroom- and it’s usually a public bathroom, and you can guess the rest.

7) I have to run the water in the bathroom sink when I brush my teeth…


I'm going to end this meme with Dawn's words and say "enough weirdness for one evening" (except she said the word "day") and tagged these two bloggers with The Seven Weird Things About me Meme:

Sandee at Comedy Plus
Misty at My Dogs Keep Me Sane

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Holly Black is the author of the Modern Faerie Tale series (Tithe, Valiant, and Ironside) as well as the Spiderwick Chronicles (which were illustrated by Tony DiTerlizzi). The Spiderwick Chronicles movie comes out on February 14! We're excited! Are you? Yes? Good!

We asked Holly Black 13 questions... and, as we're sure that you're thinking, yeah, yeah, shut up and get to the interview already... here they are!

Interviewingly yours,


1. What made you want to write YA/urban fantasy/faerie books? What made you want to write in general?

I've always liked to make up stories and I've been interested in folklore, particularly faerie folklore, since I was a teenager. Growing up, I lived in this creepy old Victorian house (not unlike the Spiderwick house) where the trees were so tall that the branches scraped at my windows at night when the wind blew. My mother believed in ghosts, so it wasn't like she was going to tell me that any of that stuff didn't exist. Basically, in defense, I started reading folklore about faeries and ghosts and werewolves and vampires (especially vampires!) to try and protect myself. I was pretty much scared all the time.

One of the things I love so much about contemporary fantasy and urban fantasy is that it juxtaposes the fantastic against the world that we know, ideally giving the reader the feeling that if we look just slightly to the side, out of the corner of our eyes, there might be something there. That the world might turn out to be bigger, more interesting, and maybe a little scarier than we thought.

2. Zombies or unicorns?

Unicorns. They have SWORDS ON THEIR HEADS. What is more badass thanthat, I ask you?

3. Say that you're at a carnival, and there's an organ grinder who has a time-travelling monkey named Herbert. For a shilling, Herbert will locate your teenage self and give her a letter, written by you. What would this letter say?

Stop writing all that mopey poetry and learn to plot! More seriously, I would give my younger self a list of books that she really ought to be reading, instructions on how to change time to make sure a particular thing didn't occur (my sister died in her twenties, in a way that was highly preventable), and would point out to my younger self that there's music to go with that all-black-clothes-with-eyeliner look I was trying to rock. I'd also like to reassure her that not everyone secretly hates her.

4. The Spiderwick Chronicles are being made into a movie! What's that like, for you, as an author?

I went to media training to learn how to better answer questions like this one and I was told to stop saying "surreal" and to give an anecdote instead. But really, it feels surreal. And wonderful. I was sick the other day and just slacking in front of the television with cups of tea and the trailer came on five times. I really had difficulty processing that experience (the cold medicine didn't help either).

5. What was your favorite YA novel of 2007?

I know I am going to forget a bunch of books and want to go back and add them, but here are a few of my 2007 YA favorites: Sindy Felin's TOUCHING SNOW, Kathleen Duey's SKIN HUNGER, Cassandra Clare's CITY OF BONES, Libba Bray's THE SWEET FAR THING, Jo Knowles's LESSONS FROM A DEAD GIRL, Cecil Castellucci's BEIGE, Scott Westerfeld's EXTRAS, Maureen Johnson's GIRL AT SEA, Justine Larbalestier's MAGIC'S CHILD, Shannon Hale's BOOK OF A THOUSAND DAYS, Isabeau Wilce's FLORA SEGUNDA.

The book that meant the most to me to see published, though, was Steve Berman's VINTAGE. He'd been working on it when I was writing TITHE-- we'd been critique partners since we worked at the same medical publisher (I was a production editor on THE JOURNAL OF PAIN)-- and we both inserted the other person's title into our books. Corny is reading VINTAGE in TITHE and one of his characters, Trace, is reading TITHE.

6. What was your favorite book as a teenager?

I loved Tanith Lee, particularly SABELLA, OR THE BLOODSTONE and TALES FROM THE FLAT EARTH, Michael Moorcock's ELRIC series, and Anne Rice's INTERVIEW WITH A VAMPIRE.

7. Now, ask yourself a question! (The create-your-own-question-question!)

What is the thing that always cheers you up, Holly? Coffee. When I'm tired, it wakes me; when I'm cold, it warms me; when I'm uninspired it fills me with the will to go on.

8. If you were to take over the world, how would you do it?

Excellent question!

First, I would purchase the appropriate accessories: high collared gowns, tall boots, sharks. Then I would purchase a small island. From my base, I would train an army of rats to scamper among you and find out everything. Yes, *everything.* Then the blackmailing would commence.

9. What advice would you give to aspiring writers?

I have two pieces of advice that might seem really obvious, but they were really the most helpful to me:

1. Read everything. Read outside of the genre you like, read nonfiction, read mysteries, read science fiction and fantasy, read literary fiction, poetry, short stories, history, true crime, the backs of shampoo bottles, everything. Different kinds of stories teach different tricks and I really think that diverse reading leads to richer writing.

2. Although this one doesn't work for everyone, the thing that really pushed me to be serious about my writing was getting a critique partner. Having someone to be accountable to and who was going to give me crap if I didn't finish a chapter on time made a huge difference in actually getting a book finished. And having to tell me when a scene worked and when it made no sense was invaluable.Cecil Castellucci once told me to "write from my inner rage and my inner perv" and I think that was the best piece of writing advice I was ever given. Lots of times I shy back from making a scene as intense as it needs to be and her advice reminds me that I always have to make sure the messy and hard stuff is there in the writing and is as real and true as possible.

10. Who would win in a fight-- Spiderman, or James Bond? Explicate.

James Bond, because he fights dirty.

Well, maybe it depends on which James Bond vs. which Spiderman? Tobey Maguire would still be a soulful and conflicted webcrawler while Daniel Craig shot him, but I believe Tobey could manage to net Timothy Dalton and dump him in the East River while Tim was still trying to come up with a quip.

11. Do you believe in faeries? Magic? Time-travelling monkeys?

Actually, I was raised with a belief in the supernatural and ghosts which is extremely hard to shake. I have become more of a skeptic over time, but I am still fascinated with reading evidence related to the paranormal.

12. What's your next project?

There are two things that I'm working on right now. I have my first graphic novel, called THE GOOD NEIGHBORS, coming out from Scholastic in September of this year (at least I think it will be in September). Ted Naifeh (of COURTNEY CRUMRIN and HOW LOATHSOME) is doing all the art. I am so excited to be working with him. THE GOOD NEIGHBORS is loosely based on the true story of a woman named Bridget Cleary, who was killed by her husband in front of family and friends, because they all thought that she was a changeling. In my graphic novel, Rue's mother has disappeared and the police believe that her father killed her. Rue has to decide what really happened, whether there's such a thing as faeries and whether her mother is one. It's the first book in a trilogy.

The other book I'm working on is called THE WHITE CAT. It has absolutely no faeries in it. It's my grifter, curse magic, boarding school, cat-in-a-dress book that borrows pretty loosely from the fairytale of the same name. I have to finish it by this time next year, so it won't be out until 2010.

13. What's your favorite kind of cookie?

I am torn between ginger snaps, especially the really spicy kind, and oatmeal raisin cookies. The oatmeal raisin cookies may be the result of brainwashing however, as my dad would shop almost exclusively in the generic aisle when I was a kid and bring home generic oatmeal cookies every week. I hated them then, but now, perversely, I love them. See, brainwashing works!

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I'm going on vacation on Friday. To China. I can't wait. My productivity has plummeted. And there won't be any updating next week, because China blocks Blogger. Plus, that whole vacation thing.

Also, school started this week.

First things first (except this isn't first. Ah Well.) The Biblio File store has been updated with my top picks/current favorites for September, so check it out.

Um... next things next? Some book reviews, because that's what we do here.

Anyway, I finally got around to reading The Spiderwick Chronicles by Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black.

5 books make up one overarching story-arc. But really, each book is like a mini-episode. There's not much in ways of subplot or character development. Overall, they're fun. They're short enough that even thought I really wasn't drawn in at all to the story, I still wanted to finish them all.

The Field Guide

The Grace parents have just gotten divorced and the former Mrs. Grace moves her 3 kids (Jared, his twin brother Simon, and their older sister Mallory) into crazy Great-Aunt Lucinda's falling down wreck of a house. Jared discovers a secret library, a book about fairies, and the fact that faeries and their ilk are real. In the process, he gets in a lot of trouble with his mother, who likes to think the worst of him.

The Seeing Stone

In which Simon is kidnapped by goblins. Mallory and Jared explore the woods behind the house and find out what being killed and eaten by a bear is really about. An enemy is made. As is a friend (or two). And now they can see goblins and things.

Lucinda's Secret

In which they visit some elves, find out the truth about Uncle Arthur, and decide that maybe it's time to pay Aunt Lucinda a visit. Because maybe she isn't crazy after all.

The Ironwood Tree

In which Jared gets expelled, we meet some dwarves, there is a bloody massacre, and Mallory is forced to do her very best impression of Snow White. Also, some of the most daring escapes to date.

The Wrath of Mulgarath

In which there are dragons. And the end.

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This month, the fabulous Holly Black is the featured author on the readergirlz web site! Holly Black is the author of a series of modern urban faerie tales, which includes Tithe, Valiant, and her newest book, ironside. This is a great series; fascinating and mesmerizing, but very dark and definitely not for kids! You can read my reviews by clicking on the book names above. Holly Black is also the author of The Spiderwick Chronicles, which is a series for children and which will be released as a movie in February, 2008.

Readergirlz is particularly highlighting Black's newest novel, ironside. As with all the readergirlz features, this one includes a "while-you-read" playlist, a community challenge that relates to the book, an interview with Black, discussion questions for your book group, a book celebration guide, and more. You can also chat with Holly Black on Thursday, August 23rd, 7 PM Pacific / 10 PM Eastern. Readergirlz really makes reading fun! Click here to go to readergirlz.

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ironside: A Modern Faery's Tale

by Holly Black

As Roiben's coronation as King of the Unseelie Court approaches, Kaye is uncertain where she stands. She doesn't feel like she completely belongs in either world, faerie or human, and she's not certain where she stands with Roiben. The Unseelie Court sees her as a liability and an inconvenience, and they tolerate her only for the sake of their new King. Goaded by some of the Unseelie Court, Kaye publicly declares her love for Roiben and he gives her an impossible quest to prove her love: find a faerie who can tell an untruth. If she succeeds, Kaye will be his consort and sit by his side; if she fails she can never see him again.

While Kaye seeks for something that doesn't exist, she and Corny, who is conflicted after his experience in Faerie, along with Luis from Valiant, are drawn into the impending war between the Seelie and Unseelie courts. The devious Silarial, Queen of the Seelie Court, is determined to rule both courts and will stop at nothing to triumph over Roiben.

Like Tithe and Valiant, ironside is a dark and compelling book. Even if I hadn't been reading it for the 48-hour book challenge, I probably would have read it straight through; it's a hard book to put down. Black is brilliant at showing how the faeries can be both horrifying and seductive, often at the same time. But where Tithe conveyed the horrors of the monsters of Faerie, this book is more about the monster within. It's also a great twist that the Queen of the Seelie, or Bright Court, is devious and cruel, while the King of the Unseelie, or Night Court, is a compassionate faerie who struggles to "be like ice" as is required of the Unseelie King.

ironside is definitely my favorite of the series. Holly Black is a gifted writer and I hope that she continues to write YA fantasy.

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