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Fictionista, Foodie, Feline-lover

Tuesday, December 31, 2013

Noir Bling from Red Hot Kitten

It's no secret that I am all about the Etsy. This year I discovered a shop called Red Hot Kitten run by artisan/jewelry maker Michelle Tichota, whose motto is, "Takin' over the world, one bad-ass Bettie at a time."
I love her store. She creates great jewelry out of images of pulp novels (noir, sci fi, fantasy) and sells it for a very nice price.
I am particularly fond of the stretch bracelet I bought myself made out of old mystery novel covers for $8. (See picture.) Seriously, if you have a love for pop culture, whether atomic-era design or bad-ass noir, you need to check this woman's shop out here.

Sunday, December 29, 2013

Coming Soon...the Frontier Trilogy of YA Science Fiction

some people get books for Christmas, I get book covers.
Thanks to Joy Sillesen of Indie Author Services, I now have covers for my upcoming YA science fiction trilogy, tentatively titled Frontier. Set in a future where a Chinese corporation (The Double Fortune Trading Company) has colonized the known universe, the books follow the adventures of a young colonist who takes on the corporation on behalf of the colonists. I'd love to reach the readers of the Hunger Games books, of course, but I had the original idea almost a decade ago when I was developing television series for my then-boss at Warner Bros.
The books are: Frontier, Beixing, and Zhanghai. Frontier sets up the conflict and takes place on the planet of the same name, which was named by the colonists. Beixing is the planet that houses the corporation's political power
for the galaxy, as well as the most prestigious university in the sextor. Zhanghai is a planet-sized trading post of sorts, a place that sits at the crossroads of intergalactic travel and attracts human and alien traders.
The first book is nearly complete and I hope to finish the sequels and have both out by the end of the year. I'm writing them under my "Kat Parrish" pseudonym to keep them separate from the mysteries I write under my own name. 

Thursday, December 26, 2013

An unsolicited testimonial for the Kindle paperwhite

A few years ago my best friend gave me a Kindle and it changed my reading habits forever. I was just starting to cope with some vision problems that made it harder for me to read print books. For someone who reads as much as I do--for business as well as pleasure--the idea of not being able to read was horrifying. The Kindle, with its ability to bump up the font (and I don't need it huge, just bigger than the average font in a book), made all the difference in the world.

I got a Kindle Paperwhite for Christmas. I'm already in love with it. It's so bright and easy to read. It's so intuitive to use. It's just the ereader of my dreams.

An infographic for the unierse!

Sizes of the Universe
Source: Number Sleuth

Wednesday, December 25, 2013

Merry Christmas

My brother took this picture of a red and white cardinal a couple of years ago. I didn't even know that cardinals came in red and white. One of the things I miss about living on the east coast is cardinals. We don't have them in Los Angeles.  And we don't have snow. (We have 70+ temps today.) I like the weather, but I do miss the cardinals.

Sunday, December 22, 2013

The View From My Window

I have a Japanese Magnolia tree outsie my office window. In spring, it is full of the gorgeous purple blossons, but they don't last very long. It was so warm here last week that the tree was fooled into putting forth one perfect bloom.

R.I.P. Ned Vizzini



I was saddened to hear that Ned Vizzini killed himself this week after living with depression for more than half his life. He was the author of, among other books, a novel about his struggle with darkness. It's a book that promised a great career as a writer. But in the end his darkness swallowed him whole. Here's the review I wrote at the time.

In Ned Vizzini’s quasi-autobiographical novel, It's Kind of a Funny Story, ateenage boy struggles with clinical depression and finally realizes he might be able to conquer it one day at a time. 

The trouble starts when CRAIG GILNER applies to a tough private school in Brooklyn.  He spends most of a year studying for the entrance exam and taking private lessons and undergoing prep exams.  When he isn’t studying, he’s hanging with his friend AARON, who also wants to get into EXECUTIVE PRE-PROFESSIONAL HIGH SCHOOL.  Aaron is a lot more laid back than Craig about the whole thing.  He spends most of his time smoking pot and having sex with his girlfriend NIA.  (Craig covets Nia in the worst way and when Aaron tells him about feeling the inside of her “pussy” and tells him it feels like the inside of a cheek, Craig nearly goes wild.)

Always sensitive, Craig gets clinically depressed after he gets into the school.  His parents (mom designs postcards, dad’s in health insurance) are very concerned and send him off to a psycho-pharmacologist named DR. BARNEY.  He puts Craig on Zoloft and refers him to a psychotherapist.  It takes a few sessions to find a good fit for him, but Craig really likes DR. MINERVA. And that’s when Craig’s problems really begin.

There’s an urgency and a freshness to this novel that marks the author as a real talent.  This is not the usual coming of age story.  It is, instead, a character study.  Craig is just a normal kid until his depression and anxiety spin out of control and he succumbs to the pain of it all.  Every step along the downward spiral feels completely real and plausible, as does the ambiguous ending.  (Craig is all right, for the time being, and hopeful that he will only get better with time.)

The characters here are not always developed to their fullest, but the author has a knack for giving us the detail that will make them come alive.  Craig’s mom shows up at the hospital toting the family dog, much to everyone’s dismay.  When she hugs Craig, the dog is in between them and growls.  (It does not go unnoticed by Craig that the dog began barking at him when he his depression began to take hold.)

Nia, the girl of Craig’s dreams, proves to be a superficial sort long before Craig realizes it.  She’s a tease and not really worth all the energy he pours into loving her.  (His friend Noelle speaks for most readers when she tells Craig that Nia is a slut.) 

The various patients on the adult ward are a mixed bag.  The writer does a good job of making these damaged people come alive.  It is perhaps too on the nose that Noelle is a survivor of a suicide attempt brought on by sexual abuse.  Bobby and Tommy and Humble are actually pretty funny in their roles as drug burn-outs (what Bobby calls being a “garbage-head”) and they’re as close to the voice of reason as he’s going to find.