A Wager Between Friends

/ Shauna Granger / 21 Comments

Many of you know that I participate in an online RPG called #MageTech. It’s pretty awesome and often quite silly. Over Halloween our illustrious DM, Kristin McFarland, mapped out a one-off special episode that deviated from our normal play. It was so much fun and successful, she’s decided we could try to do these more often. But one of the cool things is that there are many RPGs based on beloved TV shows and movies.

So we were all deciding what RPGs we’d like to do and of course the standards came up, D&D spinoffs, Supernatural, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. At that last, a few of our gammers went on a happy little tangent about the show and characters, while I just sat there, smiling awkwardly.

Why was this my reaction? Because, gentle viewers, I have never watched BtVS. That’s right, now you know my big secret. Yes, get it out…

Feel better? Anyway. I had a lot of reasons not to watch the show growing up. I won’t get into all of them, but it has finally come back to haunt me. So, of course, everyone screamed that I had to watch the show, least I be shamed throughout the game.

BUT WAIT!!! I said. Someone else in our little group deserves just as much shame! Our dear Brian O’Conor, epic fantasy writer, has never watched an episode of Supernatural.

Yes. You read that right.

Listen, BtVS came out in ’96 when I was a mere fourteen years old, but Supernatural came out in 2005! C’mon! How could you not watch?

Anyway. Because of our mutual freak out, Brian and I have a wager. For every episode of BtVS I watch, he must watch one of Supernatural. I don’t know how fair this is really, because EVERYONE said, “Just get through season one and you’ll be okay. Season one is super campy, BUT IT GETS BETTER, WE SWEARS IT! WE SWEARS ON THE PRECIOUS!”

That is not a glowing endorsement for me. This might’ve been one of the big reasons I didn’t watch when I was a kid. A campy first season isn’t going to get me to commit.

As of this writing I am eight episodes in and yes, it is INCREDIBLY campy. But I’m getting through. The thing is, it doesn’t need to be so campy. If someone had slashed some of the cheesy slang that doesn’t sound natural (anyone wiggin’ out?!), it wouldn’t be so bad. But what has bugged me the most is the girly “sexy” gasps and grunts that Buffy makes when fighting. I’m sorry, she’s a teenager, do we need to sexualize her like this? It’s creepy. Also, girls DON’T MAKE SEX NOISES WHEN THEY FIGHT. Have you ever seen a real life girl fight? That shit is serious and scary.

Speaking of, all the “mean kids” on the show is so weird to me. I didn’t go to a school where kids just randomly walked up to people and insulted them, while the meek person they are picking on just snivels and tries to hide. If someone came up to you in my HS to say something to you, it was usually followed by a punch, which lead to a bloody fight and the armed campus police arresting people. So this doesn’t speak to me in a familiar way. But, hell, I like Mean Girls, I can get past the fantasy that high school is like this in real life.

I do already love Xander. He’s adorbs and hilarious. So he’s keeping me watching. And I’ve been promised new characters as soon as S2. So we shall see.

I did tell Brian that the Leviathan season of Supernatural will balance us out with BtVS’s S1 (though by the time you get to the dreaded Leviathans, you already love the show and chars, I’m asked to deal with the worst season right off the bat, not fair if you ask me).

Anyway. I’m getting through  a bad season. Brian has a bad season to look forward to, but we’ve made the damn bet.

Stay tuned to watch me get through the rest of the show and TAKE BRIAN DOWN!

Also, Emmie has promised cookies to whoever finishes their task.

ETA: Last night I finished Season One of BtVS. Brian? You. Are. Going. Down. Sucka.

Happy 2014!

/ Shauna Granger / Leave a comment

So here we are, a new year!

Yesterday I was over at the Spellbound Scribes’ Blog talking about my 2013 resolution and how I did. You can check that post out here.

My resolution was kind of insane really. I came very close to accomplishing the whole thing and even did more on one goal than I planned, but it was probably too much. I’m not going to force that much on myself this year. But I am going to make some resolutions. I’m putting them up on here to keep myself accountable – I don’t know if I would have made as much progress on my 2013 resolutions if I hadn’t put it out into the world to see.

Fun resolution: A Blessings Jar. A lot of you probably know what this is, but for those of you who don’t, this is where you make the effort, throughout the year, to write down the nice, awesome, fun, cool things that happened to you through out the year on little slips of paper and put them into a jar. At the end of the year you empty the jar and read the pieces of paper. It’s so hard to remember all of the nice things that happen through the year because the stressful, sucky, crappy memories are much louder. We find ourselves thinking, “I’ll be glad when this year is over,” even though some awesome things might’ve happened. I’d like to remember those awesome things better.

Should be easy resolution: I’m going to be better at my personal blog. I don’t know how I became the unofficial manager of the Spellbound blog, but I focus on that blog much more than this one. I want to fix that. I’ll be making a better effort to put something up every week, even if it’s only a reblog or a pic, I’m going to do better.

Writing resolutions:

  1. I will complete the second book in the World of Ash trilogy by 4/15 and I will have it published by the end of the year.
  2. I will polish my NaNoWriMo novel and start to query it.
  3. I will write a stand alone Solstice/Christmas story and publish it in November.
  4. I will start working on a new novella trilogy idea (note, idea, not necessarily write and finish) for  my penname.

That’s it as far as writing. I may very well write more, I hope I do, but I’m not going to over-extend myself this year like I did last year. Nope, not gonna happen.

But I think that all looks good. And I feel good about it. So, Happy New Years everyone! What are your resolutions?

World of Ash – One Monthaversary

/ Shauna Granger / Leave a comment

So one month ago exactly, World of Ash was released into the wild. I was very nervous about this book because it gave me such a hard time during the editing process and it was totally different than my first series, so I wasn’t sure how it was going to be received.

Well, I’m happy to say my fears were unfounded. So far, it has been received very well (*runs around knocking on every piece of wood she can find*) and I still can’t believe that it is on one of Amazon’s Top 100 lists! Today, on the one monthaversary it is still on that list, hovering around #38.

WOA Ranking One Monthaversary

 

So that’s pretty damn fantastic. You guys are amazing. Thank you to everyone who has bought a copy and an extra thank you to everyone who left a review. I love you guys so much!

BurCon – Sunday November 24th

/ Shauna Granger / Leave a comment

I got to see the stars of Supernatural yesterday! Check out how awesome it was!

Shauna Granger's avatarSpellbound Scribes

I was very lucky to win a ticket to the Supernatural BurCon event for Sunday, thanks to the awesome Debra Kristi!

Because it was such short notice for me I couldn’t do any of the autographs or photo ops with the stars of the show, so I was reduced to taking a few ninja shots of them. I thought I’d share some of the pics I got. Forgive the quality – I forgot my real camera and was reduced to taking pics with my phone so some of them are quite grainy.

photo 4First up! I was lucky to get to meet fellow Spellbound Scribe, Emmie Mears in person and we got to chuckle about the similarities of our hairs. And, thanks to Emmie’s keen eye, we got to meet one of the writers and Executive Producer, Adam Glass. Mr. Glass was very nice and approachable, I think, if we’d…

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The Color Blue

/ Shauna Granger / Leave a comment

Some days you just feel out of sorts. Kind of off. Like the color blue. Yesterday was one of those days.

There’s no one reason and there are a hundred reasons. I have reasons to be happy, sure, but sometimes that color just sneaks up on you and there’s nothing you can do but bear it.

I woke up in the morning knowing full well that I had written up to the half-way point of chapter 16 in my new work in progress (WIP) but that I had only outlined through the first quarter of chapter 17. What does that mean? That means that there was a very real chance that by the time I finished writing in the morning I would come to the end of that outline and be lost come Wednesday. And I was right.

When I was done writing for the day I had to go workout and then do cardio. I did it even though I was kind of dragging my feet, sighing like a eye-linered teenager. And when I was done I dragged myself back inside and did some cardio. I managed to read one chapter of the book I’m critiquing as well. So, not a bad morning by any means. It wasn’t even lunch time and I’d accomplished a lot. A lot. But I was just kind of deflated.

If it gives you any idea, to get through writing I went from listening to Gold Dust Woman on repeat for an hour to Counting Bodies Like Sheep to the Rhythm of the War Drums for the next solid hour. With the volume turned way up. If I can’t listen to my soundtrack on random and have to resort to ear-splitting levels of one angry song, things are not going smoothly. Funny enough, I love every word I put to paper today, even if I hated them while I was writing.

Then I made a business call, and was very happy to just leave a voicemail. Extroverts don’t get this quirk of mine. I fucking hate talking on the phone. Hate. It. It’s one of my introvert quirks of mine that gets worse the older I get. I don’t like the anticipation of a phone call, especially if it’s an important one, I don’t like trying to sound calm and cool because I so rarely am and I’m conscious of my “Ums” and “likes” and all that weirdness. I’ll happily talk to a crowd of hundreds but put me on the phone and I hate life. I have no idea why. I just know that I was a happy camper when they stopped charging ten cents a text.

Then my hubs told me that he was done for the day – no more clients. He hugged my blue self and asked if I’d like to do something. Get out of the house. Try to shake it off. Whatever I wanted.

We’ve been watching our pennies because, as they say, “Winter is coming.” And we’ve dealt with the plague going around like so many others. So these two things have kept us cooped up in our tiny house for weeks.

So I put myself together, figuring out what would accessorize nicely with my particular shade of blue and we left. We had a little lunch and then went to see Loki and the Dark Planet. What? Oh, you thought it was called “Thor” and the Dark Planet? Yeah, that’s going around a lot. It’s wrong. It’s the Loki show and WE ALL KNOW IT. SHADDUPYOU.

By the time the movie was over I was feeling a lot better. I even got an idea to make the last scene I wrote in my WIP better, stronger and might help me figure out what’s happening to this character. I even managed to outline the rest of chapter 17 so I have something to work with tomorrow.

Why am I blue? Who knows. I think it’s the book I’m working on right now. I just hurt my main character and I hate when I do that. And I’m in the middle of NaNoWriMo without a complete outline and that sucks.

So why am I telling you all this? Because it’s easy to think that people always have it together online. It’s easy to look and sound upbeat and like everything is just mashed potatoes and gravy. But it’s not, not always. Sometimes the gravy is lumpy and the potatoes are burned. I’m writing my ninth novel right now and it is kicking my ass. I actually looked at my hubs at lunch, sighed and said, “Writing is hard.”

So if things are hard for you, if you’re feeling a particular shade of blue, know that you’re not alone. Even if people seem fine, they might be trying on their own blue coat today. Take a break. Go do something. Get out of your head for a minute and cheer yourself up. Let go of that problem. You deserve a minute.

All Hallows Read – Halloween 2013

/ Shauna Granger / 1 Comment

Last year was the first year I ever participated in All Hallows Read. If you’re not familiar with it, it is this cool concept that Neil Gaiman came up with, where on Halloween you give out at least one scary/Halloween-themed book to kids to help promote reading. Though it doesn’t have to just be kids, people are taking the concept and running with it, which is pretty cool too. But the idea is to promote reading among kids who might not be so excited about reading.

Now, I’m no fool, I don’t just give out books, I also give out little goody bags and then offer the books too. Last year I only gave away five books. I was heartbroken when one little girl looked me in the face and said, “I don’t like reading.” Yeah, this is what we’re working against.

I’ll admit, last year I was actually kind of nervous asking if kids wanted the books and often found myself not asking, especially if it was a huge group of kids at one time. Though often, once you drop the treat into their pail or bag, the kids turn and run too quick for you to say anything about the books. I found it was way easier to give the tiny tots books because their parents were right there and I could look at the parent and say, “Would s/he also like a Halloween picture book!?” And of course parents loved that.

But this year I decided to be more active and vocal about the books. And this year not ONE kid said no if I got the chance to ask. Yes, some still turned and ran before I had a chance to ask, but if they lingered just a second, that’s all I needed to quickly say, “I have books too! DO YOU LIKE SCARY BOOKS?!” Once again the parents of the tiny tots loved it and were happy to take the picture books, but the older kids surprised me so much. Last year, every single pre-teen and teenager said no when I asked if they wanted a book. But not this year.

I gave out seven copies of Neil Gaiman’s Coraline to kids ranging from 7 years old to 12 years old. I gave out four copies of Forest of Hands and Teeth to teens ranging from 13 years old to 15 years old. I gave out nine copies of R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps to kids ranging from 7 years old all the way to 16 years old. And that 16yo zombie boy was my favorite. I looked at him, sad I didn’t have an “age appropriate” book for him because his friend got the last copy of Forest of Hands and Teeth and said, “You might be too old to want Goosebumps.” To which he replied, “No way! Never too old for Goosebumps!” And happily picked one from the stack.

I also gave out five copies of It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown and around 10 copies of two different Witch-themed picture books to various tiny tots. And often, when I held out the choices, the kids (even as small as 2 years old) would pause and actually consider which book they’d like to pick.

At one point, I heard one mom say to another, “Oh yeah, I think they do that every year. They gave us a book last year.” That’s right, I’m developing a reputation which is fantastic. And very often I heard kids yell to their parents and friends, “I GOT A BOOK!” Which of course made me do a little Halloween dance. At one point a little girl yelled from our porch, “They’re giving out books!” And I was really worried she was warning people off but then five kids came running up for their books. I can’t even.

But more surprising? We ran out of goody bags because there were actually more trick-or-treaters this year than last, but we still had books. So when people came to the door, I apologized about being out of candy, but offered the books instead and you know what? They happily took the books. Not one kid said, “No thanks.” Not. One.

So I started out with nearly 40 books and now only have 5. This is amazing.

Gave away one more book right after I took this pic.

Gave away one more book right after I took this pic.

And the Winners Are….!

/ Shauna Granger / Leave a comment

WOA (1)

Thank you to all my readers who participated in the Hallowe’en Jack-o-Lantern Book giveaway! There were lots of awesome entries, but only five could win. And the winners are…

1. Jamie Hale: Most Creative for her amazing Greenman Pumpkin
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2. Jeni Matthews: Creepy but Pretty for her Jason Vorhees pumpkin AND her Wicca inspired pumpkin.

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3. Kelly Lynn Harris: Funniest for her, well for that munchkin’s face really.
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4. Amanda Weese Rienguette: Scariest for her cannibal pumpkin.
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5. Maritza Cruz Whiteman: Prettiest for her Magical Castle Pumpkin.
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All the winners have been notified by email. If you didn’t win, don’t worry, the book comes out in just one month and you can get your hands on it too!

Will I or Won’t I – Ender’s Game

/ Shauna Granger / Leave a comment

With the highly anticipated release of Ender’s Game, the internet has been abuzz with talk about this book to movie feature and, more vehemently, about Orson Scott Card.

The big question: Are you gonna see it?

Maybe you don’t know why this is such a big deal. It isn’t just your typical, “I hope they don’t ruin this awesome book,” concern. No, it all comes down to the author and who he is and what he does with his money. If you don’t know, I encourage you to Google, “Why is Orson Scott Card crazy?”

Mostly, I’m pretty liberal about what people do with their own lives. I mean, I’m not down with you telling me what I can and cannot do with my life, money or anything else, so who am I to tell you? But, I will not spend money on someone or something when I know that money will go towards something I wholeheartedly disagree with.

Orson Scot Card is a deplorable person, in my eyes. He actively works towards taking away people’s rights on things that I think everyone should have a right to. I’m sure we’ve only seen the very tip of the crazy iceberg that is OSC.

There are a few arguments about why some people, who, if they had known then what they know now wouldn’t have supported OSC’s career no matter how awesome his writing is, are saying they’re okay with spending money on the movie.

One of the big arguments is they can separate art from artist.  Mandy P., writer and awesome lady that she is, does a fantastic job of outlining this in her post about the same subject. Go check it out. Yes, she makes a very valid point that, as consumers, we more often than not buy things from artists without having any idea what their morals are or where their money goes. This is totally true. But for me, if I find out after the fact that the artist does things I find morally reprehensible, then no, I won’t keep buying. No, I won’t keep recommending. No, I won’t go see the movie based on their work. No, if I find out that their profit, which came from my buying their work, is going towards something I disagree with, no I won’t keep giving them money.

Another argument I’ve heard is, “Well, they already paid the guy, so  my ticket won’t make a difference.” No, maybe not one ticket, but the hundreds of thousands that are probably going to sell because so many people don’t know about OSC, will make a difference. Here’s the thing: OSC didn’t just write Ender’s Game; he wrote a lot of books. So in my mind, I think, “Well, if this movie does well, then the movie companies will be happy to offer him more movie deals with even bigger payouts.” So yeah, they paid him but you don’t know if his contract entitles him to a percentage of the profits or if the profitability of the movie will lead to more movie deals for him.

I’ll let you in on a secret. I’ve never read Ender’s Game. I know, le gasp! But it’s a Sci-Fi book and I am not a Sci-Fi nerd. I’m a Fantasy nerd. I did not read a lot of Sci-Fi growing up, but I do love me a good Sci-Fi flick, so if I hadn’t learned about OSC, and had only seen the previews for Ender’s Game, I probably would’ve gone to see it because it looks cool and there are so many actors I like attached to the movie. But I do know about OSC so I can’t support it. I mean, when we all found out about Chic-fil-a we were all up in arms and refusing to eat their delicious fried foods, why is art different? Yeah, our money was always going towards something we didn’t know about, but once we did we stopped going.

But we all have to make our own decisions and it is not for me to tell you to go or not to go. Make up your own mind, I did and there’s no changing it. I’ll keep my $15 out of OSC’s pocket and go see something with dragons or magic ’cause that’s my bag.

Hallowe’en Contest and Book Giveaway!

/ Shauna Granger / Leave a comment

WOA (1)Alright my lovelies! The contest is now open!

Send me your creepiest, funniest, most creative jack-o-lanterns and I will choose five lucky winners to receive an eARC (electronic advance reader copy) of World of Ash one month before the publication date!

You can post a pic on my Facebook page. You can post a link to your pic on my Facebook page or here in the comments. You can instagram a pic and tag  me @dyingechoes. You can even tweet  me a pic of your grinning jack @dyingechoes! Easy peasy people!

The contest runs through Halloween so you have from 10/26 through 10/31 to get your entries in! Any posted on 11/1 or later will not be considered.

Now for the rules! If you enter the contest you are agreeing to read World of Ash by the release week and you will write an honest review of the book and post it on Amazon and Barnes and Noble (you can post it elsewhere too of course, but those are the minimum). You must post your review no later than 12/7/13. If you cannot or are not willing to do this, please do not enter the contest. Anyone not following the rules will feel my wrath! It burns us, Precious.

Also, for bloggers: I have a blog tour running through YA Bound where all of you are welcome and encouraged to sign up. 148477_1708773278633_1217118393_1914634_6377389_nYou will of course have the option to read and review the book should you sign up for the tour. I would much prefer my blogger followers/readers to sign up for the tour and allow other readers (who are not bloggers) to participate in this contest.

Winners will be announced on the blog and on Facebook on 11/4. Winners will be asked to provide their preferred ebook format (epub, mobi, pdf) and I will personally email the copies.

It’s pretty simple!  Good luck to all!