Jaye Wells

I’m far from a fiction veteran, but I have a couple of releases under my belt. It’s not that I don’t get excited about new books coming out or what have you, but I don’t have a lot of firsts anymore. Until now.

This first isn’t one that I expected to be crazy excited about. And I’m sure why it’s so thrilling, but I’m seriously about to piss myself.

The audiobook of Red-Headed Stepchild comes out tomorrow (Tuesday). Probably my excitement is a mixture of having Sabina and the gang kick ass in a whole new medium and the ability to hear them talk like real people. If you’re interested in a sample of what that will be like, click here for a brief clip.

But that’s not really the only exciting part. I’ve had a brainstorm so epic, so exciting that I should probably get a medal or a free dinner or something. Are you ready?

The Red-Headed Stepchild Audiobook Drinking Game!!!!!!!!!!!

Below, I have outlined the rules. There aren’t many so don’t worry. Also, it goes without saying that if you’re under 21, do not let yourself be influenced by the awesomeness of this idea. Also, don’t have your parents’ lawyer call me.  Also, if you play this game do not drink and drive. Seriously. That totally sucks.

Here we go: The left column is the key word to listen for. The right column is the action you must take when said word is, well, said.

Fuck … 1 sip (look,it’s in there a lot so we don’t want alcohol poisoning)

Forked … 2 gulps (wait until you’re done laughing first)

Mancy … 5 sips (Adam’s worth the hangover you’ll have)

Moist … chug the whole damned thing (I’m so sorry)

Anyone else have any suggestions? Have fun and have your friends film you while you play.

So yesterday I was scanning twitter and saw yet another story about how poorly the big chain bookstores are doing. This on the heels of news that one of my favorite independents in Dallas also closed. Every day we’re bombarded with sad prognoses about the book industry. To read it, everything is on life support right now: Publishers, book stores, and even books themselves.

I personally can’t–and don’t want–to imagine a world where bookstores and print books don’t exist. (I’d also, for the record, be pretty upset if publishers went away, but that’s a blog for another time.) I don’t hate ebooks. I don’t loathe online print book retailers either. I spend money on both all the time. But my first love will always be print and I hope to continue that love affair for a good long while.

I’ve blogged before about how we’re conveniencing the joy out of our lives. But it goes deeper than that. Joseph Campbell once said, “Your sacred space is where you find yourself again and again.”

Bookstores are temples and stories are my prayers. I suspect it’s the same for a lot of you.

As kind of a half-joke, I started a thread on twitter about how we need a national book day. A major holiday for reading. Like Valentine’s Day, only for books. The kind of holiday that Hallmark makes cards for and that has its own mascot. Because, guys, it’s that serious.

Recently, Time magazine ran a list of 10 things kids today won’t experience. Reading real books was on that list.

Think about that. Time magazine, a major national print media outlet, has declared the print book obsolete. Besides being a bit premature, it also, sadly, looks to be an accurate prediction.

So here’s what I’m thinking. There’s this National Buy a Book Day on September 7. You probably haven’t heard about it because it doesn’t have any catchy slogans (why not get some writers on that, guys?) or celebrity spokespeople. But I think we can change that. Imagine what could happen if book lovers everywhere–from publishers to agents to authors to booksellers to readers–spread the word.

Everyone knows someone who never reads. Buy them a book. Everyone knows a kid who would rather play Nintendo than read. Buy them a book. Everyone knows a friend who loves to read. Buy them a book too. And then buy one for yourself. You deserve it.

I don’t care what book you buy. This isn’t about promoting my books. It’s about promoting ALL books. And any book that sells helps all of us.

So spread the word. And next Tuesday, get thee to a brick and mortar bookstore and buy at least one book.

For the price of a paperback you can help save civilization.

Back in college we had this saying: The walk of shame. It referred to that horrible walk back to the dorms in the harsh light of day wearing the same clothes you wore the night before, only now they reeked of stale cigarettes, warm beer and lost innocence. I mention it now because I feel as if this post is my own personal “blog of shame.” I’d like to just slink back into your lives, but I think we all know what I really need is a round of antibiotics and a nice long shower.

I wish I could claim I’ve been spending all my time debauching. Alas, those days are far behind me. Instead, I’ve been working on revisions of Green-Eyed Demon and being a mom. The good news is the revisions went really well and the better news is school starts Monday. Woohoo!

While I’ve been away a couple of fun things have happened. First, I found out that The Mage in Black went back for a second printing. Thanks to everyone who bought the book and turned your friends on to Sabina and the gang.

Second, I’m spending some time this week and next duking it out with Nicole Peeler at the Borders Babel Clash blog. We’re dishing about humor in urban fantasy and the difference between kick-ass heroines and, well, selkies. Come join the discussion! Or heckle us, whichever.

Couple of non-pimpery items to share today.

1. This week I as in Bath and Body Works with Spawn. I was perusing the lavish bubble baths when, from across the store, I hear a small voice yell, “Mom! They have vampire blood!” Of course it was my son yelling, and of course I ran right over to investigate. Apparently the store has its line of Halloween hand sanitizers out already. Zombie, spider web, candy corn, and yes, vampire blood. Did you know vampire blood smells like plums? Also, in what universe is any type of blood sanitizing?

2. What the what!?! Could this be the sexiest cover of Rolling Stone ever? Nay, I say. NAY! If you want it to be the sexiest cover you need to boot Sookie’s ass of it and stick Alcide in the middle. Just sayin’. Still, it’s great to see urban fantasy get such mainstream coverage–or, um, uncoverage– lately.

That’s all I have today, my friends. I hope you’re all behaving yourselves.

P.S. I was going to post pictures but WordPress continues to vex me. I keep hoping it will resolve itself, but I think I might have to surrender and bring in some expert help. Meanwhile, click on the links, especially for point the second. You’ll thank me later.

Hi everybody!

Some of you may not know that before deadlines and social networking competed for my attention I was a quite active blogger. During my blogging heyday, I made several great friends who were also writers–all aspiring. I’m happy to say that I’m not the only one of our motely confederacy that has since landed a publishing contract. Some of my cohorts include Jamie Ford (Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet), Sean Ferrel (Numb, out next month) and now, Sarah Hina, whose novel Plum Blossoms in Paris released a just a couple of weeks ago.

I became a fan of Sarah’s writing immediately. She doesn’t just write words–she paints with them. Her prose is evocative and visceral and lovely. I couldn’t be more thrilled to have her with us today to share the vignette that made me a devoted Sarah Hina fan. Enjoy and welcome to Sarah!

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I met Jaye back in November of 2007, when I first started Murmurs.

Naming my blog was the easy part.  Though I was drawn to the vibrant writing community forming around Jason Evans’ Clarity of Night contests—where Jaye and I had enjoyed some success—and though I had already finished writing Plum Blossoms in Paris, I was still tentative about sharing my work with the world at large.  I didn’t so much plunge into the pool, as dip a toe in; I didn’t shout, but murmur.

Jaye left a comment on the first vignette I posted for my “4 Days and 3 Nights in Paris” series.  And I don’t have to look back in my archives to remember what her exact words were: Wow . . . just wow. They meant that much to me.  And still do.  Not because I believed the piece to be extraordinary.  But because I was searching for a hand in the dark to reassure me that I belonged there.  That I was really a writer.  And Jaye was among the first to offer me one.

It didn’t hurt, of course, that she was such a damn fine writer herself.

Blogging quickly became the centerpiece of my writing life, and to a great extent, has remained my focus over the past two and a half years.  And maybe it shouldn’t have.  Maybe I should have been working harder on that next novel. Yet I can’t bring myself to regret a single story, poem, or shamelessly sentimental post about my kids.  Blogging has streamlined my prose, encouraged experimentation, and made me a bolder and more confident writer.  I really do consider it a classroom of sorts, with each student taking her turn as teacher, too.

Still, all that pales in comparison to the friendships I’ve made, the people I’ve laughed with and cared for, and the many hands offered—and taken—that encircle this smaller, if more brilliant, world of ours.

And that is worth shouting about.

Jaye has graciously allowed me to re-post that first vignette here.  And though my fingers are itching to revise some things, I’ve kept its original content intact. Le Pont Neuf is the oldest bridge in Paris.

Le Pont Neuf

The lights on our bridge look lonely tonight.

I am lonely tonight.

Lovers pass like fireflies. Incandescent hearts. Collars raised, they are close with their heat.

The quay cobblestone is cold and hard, my knuckles curled between its grooves, palms raised.

In America, it is autumn. The leaves tremble for an anxious fate, while someone strums nostalgia’s dissonant chord.

But spring was our prelude in the celestial city, and summer our pas a deux. This season is the absence of sound. The Seine murmurs, but I cannot hear her silver tongue. The leaves lie, quiet, on the ground. I cannot recollect that which has not happened.

And the Eiffel Tower still shimmers like a shattered diamond across my shoulder.

And the flocking tourists still squawk too loud.

And the musician still plucks his instrument’s nerves.

And the air still smells of your perfume.

And my heart screams your name.

Our bridge still stands.

It has been standing for hundreds of years.

I will wait.

(I am still so young)

Okay, yeah, I know. It’s been a long time. What can I say? Deadlines and a kiddo on summer break make blogging fall on the priority list. What’s important is I’m here now and I have something to discuss that I’m still formulating my own opinions on.

The other day I was reading an article (“10 Ways to Find More Pleasure Every Day” by Paul Bloom, Real Simple, July 2010) about how to find more small pleasures every day. The suggestions included things like listening to a new favorite song on repeat and petting a dog–you know, simple things.

All well and good until I got to no. three. “Don’t buy boxed sets of DVDs.” The article sites economist Tyler Cowen, who says that “much of the joy we get from purchases lies in the experience of seeking them  out, getting them home and opening them up.”

This simple statement gave me food for thought for the rest of the day. Why? Well, I agree with him. Case in point, I bought myself the collector’s edition box set of Buffy the Vampire Slayer last December. At first, I was excited to watch the series all the way through again. But I soon got bored with them.  Not because I don’t enjoy the series. Not because the show is boring. But, I believe, the easy access made the need to watch less urgent.

So it begs the question: Are we convenience-ing the pleasure out of our lives? Are we so addicted to instant gratification that we’ve lost the ability to slow down and savor life’s little rituals? And has the ease of which we acquire things reduced our respect for them?

In a way, these every day rituals become a sort of micro Hero’s Journey–seeking out a desired object (a quest), offering up payment (sacrifice) to receive it, bringing it back to our homes (the return), ritualistically unwrapping it, etc.

Okay maybe it’s a stretch. But this whole thing got me thinking about ebooks. Let me preface this by saying I am not anti-ebook, per se. Yes, ancillary issues revolving around ebooks make my life more difficult (piracy, pricing wars, etc).  But I’m not against them. I just think that maybe we’re putting too much emphasis on what is, at this point, amounts to industry chicken little-ism (A BEA statistic related that a mere 4% of book sales in April 2010 resulted from electronic copies. My own royalty statements bear out this stat btw). Now all that said I’m sure I’ll still get comments from ebook enthusiasts for what I’m about to say, but oh well.

Here goes: Ebooks are not as awesome as paper books and never will be. Why? The visceral ritual of it.

Two scenarios for you.

1. You hear one of your favorite authors has a new release. You make time during your lunch break to head to a book retailer (doesn’t matter which one, it’s still a quest). Your stomach quickens a bit when you see it on the shelf. The scent of the book store–paper and coffee and knowledge–temps you into browsing a bit longer than you intended. Maybe you grab another book or two. Then you pay for your purchases at the check out (an altar?) and escape the cozy confines of the store and go back to the real world. All day at work you’re thinking about that moment when you finally get home and can dive into the story.  Maybe you go to a special favorite bistro to read in solitude, maybe you draw a bath, maybe you find your favorite chair and turn off the phone. Either way, it’s a ritual.

This scenario also applies to online orders of physical books. Except replace going to the store to going to the mailbox. The little spark in your gut when you see the Amazon package. The gods have bestowed a gift upon your mailbox! Rejoice!

Scenario 2:

You hear your favorite author has a new release. You turn on your laptop.  Log in to ebook web site. Click link to purchase book. Maybe you add a couple of impulse buys that you’ll maybe get around to one day. Turn on your ereader. Oh look, there’s the file. Read.

Okay, I know. I’m totally biased.

But I’ve been thinking about these things lately. How home baked cookies are always better than prepackaged. How cooking a meal for my family is always more enjoyable that going through McDonalds. How I (sometimes) enjoy the ritual of hand washing dishes.

Call me a Luddite. Call me a kook. I don’t give a damn. As humans, we need rituals. They give weight to the every day. They break up our fast-paced, breakneck lives. They make up slow down. Ponder. Savor.

Now. The argument could be made that rituals evolve. Maybe one day people will feel this visceral nostalgia for ebooks that many of us feel for print books. I think that’s true. But a primitive side of me inherently distrusts feeling invested and in love with a virtual thing. Although, on the other hand, I love my characters and they are virtual. So who knows?

I’d love to hear your opinions on this. But please remember to be respectful of other’s opinions. Because, verily, I will not hesitate to wield the Red Pen of Doom. Go!