Writer's Grove

Vainamoinen is not a cleaning product. Nor is it a communicable disease. And to completely disappoint you on your third guess, it is not an exotic sauce to pour on your roasted animal flesh of choice.

Vainamoinen is a Finnish deity/culture hero who may or may not have been Tolkien’s inspiration for Gandalf. He played an instrument called a ketele, which he invented himself, made out of materials he happened to have handy at the time: a giant pike’s jawbone and the hair of a blond maiden who must have had particularly thick and resilient hair.

By using the power of his ketele and his voice, he could make magic happen. That’s some serious shredding on the ketele. I’m going to have a good ol’ time with him in HAMMERED; can’t wait to see what kind of guy he turns out to be.

Today I finished my first round of edits on HOUNDED. I have no idea how many more rounds I have to go, but the first round was so much fun that I’m not concerned about it continuing for a while.

I also finished a pronunciation guide for the Irish names and words in the book, and in the opening explanatory paragraph I decided to substitute the cliche “rain on your parade” with “steal your marshmallows.”

I think having your marshmallows stolen would be infinitely worse than having your parade graced with a little precipitation. If you can’t watch the parade—or march in it, for that matter—then there are infinitely more entertaining things to do, because parades aren’t all that swell, to be honest, and dang if Arizona can’t use the rain. But if someone steals your marshmallows, then your day is ruined, period.

So say we all.

Though it’s doubtlessly been pointed out elsewhere, vampires suck.

They don’t delicately consider the feelings of needy teens and Louisiana barmaids. They eat teens and barmaids and everything else. Sorry, kids.

Vampires are dead monsters who return to the grave every day, and by night they snack on the first juicy carotid artery they see. That’s the way they were originally drawn up, that’s the mythology, and I’m sticking to it. Sensitive vampires didn’t exist until the last couple of decades, and suddenly it seems that they’ve just been misunderstood for all these centuries and what they’ve really wanted all this time is a meaningful relationship with an extraordinary female. What is going on? Why are all the scary monsters getting turned into cuddly buddies? Can’t we stand to be scared by anything anymore?

It’s all the thrice-cursed romance writers’ fault. They’re cynically exploiting women who know, who just know, that they’re special and different somehow, and someday the knight/prince/vampire lord of darkness will recognize their inner worth and take them away for happily ever after and feed them boxes of chocolate while they get pedicures.

Zombies, fortunately, aren’t being treated (yet) as viable love interests. What we get instead are movies that make them seem funny and vastly entertaining to destroy. It’s a different way of attacking the same problem: monsters are monstrous.

Leave my monsters alone. People should be screaming when vampires show up, not sighing.

I have much to be thankful for: my wife and child, a house to keep them safe, and entertaining brouhahas between my dogs and cats; a spiffy set of friends; and a good publishing deal that represents a dream come true for me.

But on the day itself, I think I’m most thankful for the strange traditions of my family. I have no idea how they started, but part of me doesn’t really want to know. I’d rather enjoy the mystery and oddity of it all.

Here’s what we do: we go out to the McDowell Mountain Preserve north of Fountain Hills and have our full turkey dinner out there, on stone picnic tables, amongst the Saguaros and the Palo Verdes and the teddy bear cholla. Now this dinner is all-out, mind you, there’s nothing missing: we have the gravy, we have the sweet potato thing with the marshmallows on it, and several homemade pies are on hand for dessert. It just has this potluck feel to it since everybody brings something and it’s not all cooked in one kitchen, plus there’s the whole paper plate thing.

After the dinner we all hike up Lone Mountain to burn maybe 300 of the 5,000 calories we consume, and then comes the topper: we string a rope over a Palo Verde branch and beat the crap out of a pinata. This is simply inexplicable to me and I love it. I remember doing it when I was a kid, and now I watch my daughter do it and I’m telling you, it’s a really good time.

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday simply because my family has managed to stray far, far away from the Hollywood-packaged motif of sitting around grandfather’s table and squabbling about this and that. We have a freakin’ picnic among plants that want to stab us and nobody does the dishes! We’re Bohemians! We’re fightin’ the Power! Stickin’ it to the Man! We’re On the Bus!

I hope y’all are happy and safe and thankful for this fortunate life we’re living.

Today I reached 50,000 words on HEXED. I also went through a whole box of tissues because I’m ill, but at least I’m getting some writing done in between the sniffles.

Thank goodness for Day Quil.

Can somebody please, please, please release a death metal collection of Christmas songs? Actually, I have the perfect band for it: Lamb of God. The singer delivers his lyrics like he’s hawking up the personal loogie of Satan, and it’s that voice that I want to hear sing “HARK!” And then you’ll get this thumping double-bass drum groove and a shredding guitar lick, and then he’ll growl along with it like tigers hunting Siegfried and Roy, “the herald angels sing, glory to the newborn king, PEACE ON EARTH! and mercy MILD! God and sinners reconCILE!” And then they’ll just thrash for three minutes. Yeah!

I’m telling you, if they’d play that in the stores instead of the same old tinny, weepy, wussy stuff, I’d be buying stuff so fast Visa wouldn’t realize I’d maxed out my card until I’d single-handedly ended the recession.

Wouldn’t it be awesome to hear Metallica do Jingle Bells? I’d love to hear the vocal stylings of James Hetfield applied to such a jaunty classic:

Dashing through the snoooooow-AH!
In a one-horse open sleigh-AH!
Over the fields we goooooo-AH!
Killing all the waaaaay-AH!

There’s money to be made here, I’m sure of it. Metalheads need something to keep them sane amongst all the yuletide cheer. Who will join me in demanding this music? A psychobilly song or two would be fun, too:

Bunnies roasting over an open fire
Zombies nibbling on your toes

You get the idea.

I shocked my students yesterday when I told them that stories didn’t used to have happy endings. Before the corporate giant of Disney, the bad guys used to win, because the tales reflected the truth of the world: the powerful ate the weak.

Little Red Riding Hood was eaten by the Big Bad Wolf, and the same wolf ate the first two of the three little pigs.

The Little Mermaid died in Hans Christian Andersen’s original tale; she didn’t get married and sing happy songs with crustaceans.

Goldilocks? The bears ate her. Hansel & Gretel? All cooked crispy in the witch’s oven.

And fairies, by the way, aren’t cute little creatures with wings that want to help out Peter Pan and sprinkle children with pixie dust so they can fly. One of the reasons I wrote HOUNDED was to depict fairies as the heartless enemies of man they originally were in Irish legend.

Perhaps Disney’s most infuriating episode of meddling with the past is Pocahontas. The real Pocahontas died at age 22 of tuberculosis or pneumonia. She didn’t live happily ever, painting with all the colors of the wind with her raccoon and hummingbird friends.

Sorry, kids, I don’t mean to be mean: I just think Disney’s like high fructose corn syrup. It’s not real, it’s not good for you, and you shouldn’t swallow any of it.

I used a five-syllable word in the title just to freak out one of my students. He thinks that words longer than his fingernail should not be allowed. I think that they should be cherished, like the halcyon days of his youth. (I used halcyon to freak him out even more.) Plus, alliteration is always a good time, right?

Right now I love Poland, population 32 million or so. Never been there, but you know, maybe someday.

The reason I love Poland is that it’s the first country to buy translation rights to my urban fantasy series. That’s right, my first foreign sale is to…POLAND! Not to Germany or Italy or China or even the UK: Poland.

I am grateful to them and of course I hope they enjoy the Polish witches in my series. Malina Sokolowski, the leader of the Polish coven, is one of my favorite characters, and I always delight in writing about her. The Polish coven, as a matter of fact, is quite involved in the plot of HEXED.

I’ve learned quite a bit about Poland in the course of my research for the novels. The primary thing I’ve learned is that I have no idea how to pronounce anything in Polish. I look forward to learning much more, of course, and now I’m quite excited to know that my books will have an international audience.

Thank you, Poland!

There is a certain amount of hyperbole associated with the abilities of Chuck Norris. But facts are facts: Gandalf told the Balrog “YOU…SHALL NOT…PASS!” and the Balrog didn’t pass. In fact, Gandalf smote his ruin on the mountaintop. And then he saved Minas Tirith.

Chuck Norris can’t take a Balrog. Chuck Norris can’t even take Legolas. Chuck Norris certainly can’t pass Gandalf. Therefore Gandalf owns Chuck Norris—because, look, you can’t deliver a roundhouse kick to a dude with a magical force shield. Gandalf would send Chuck Norris back to the Shadow.

Gandalf can make Nazgul flee with a little white light from his staff. Gandalf can slay armored orcs with a little tap from said staff,  even though he’s all old and arthritic. Gandalf can say “Your staff is broken,” and your staff will break. Gandalf can break Chuck Norris’ staff.

Gandalf is simply superior to Chuck Norris in every way. So there.

I’ve reached 40,000 words on HEXED, which means I’m halfway finished! And since this is the second book in a three-book contract, I’m also halfway finished with that, too!

I think this calls for pudding.