Writing · for · Young · Adults

Just a reminder that I'm blogging at HarperCanada's Blog until next Tuesday. They're SHOCKING posts. Really...

Cheers,

Art

Starting tomorrow I'll be blogging at HarperCanada's Blog. It'll be fun, it'll be nifty and I'll talk about lightning, chocolate covered crickets and how to defend yourself against a shark. Oh, and truffles, too, of course...

Cheers,

Art

Hey Megiddo's Shadow just received 4 1/2 daggers out of 5 at the 3 EVIL cousins book review blog. Long have I dreamed about a 4 1/2 daggers out of 5 review! It's a great site, check it out. And they have a cool logo, too.

Oh, and I got the entries for my listserv contest. The question was "What does it feel like to be hit by lightning?" And the winning answers were:

It feels like being tickled in the ear with an anvil.

Peter in Thunder Bay

I would say it feels like a fire, but as quick as a cricket. I think the impact would feel like you've been pushed and you lose your breath along with your sight for the second you're being hit.. But this happens so quickly I don't know if you'd feel it while you're hit xD Overall I think it'd be painful.

Billi in Toronto

Having been hit by lightning, and lived to tell the tall tale, I have to say it is the most unusual feeling. I tell people it is "terribly tingly", which of course describes it perfectly. You tingle all over, in an ALMOST good way. It is quite similar to hitting your funny bone, which ALMOST tickles. The best part (read "the ONLY good part") is how discombubulated you feel afterwards. Your joints are all loose, and you almost feel like you could float. Of course, stories of my Great Uncle Skiffington (real name), who was actually hit by lighting multiple times, lead me to believe that being struck by lightning renders you unconscious, followed by muscle aches from head to toe, and a messed up memory, temporarily. Personally, I prefer my version, tall and all.

Sarah in Regina

What's it like to be struck by lightning? Wow! That's what it's like. It's like turning into a Christmas tree, it's like morphing into your favourite meal (well done), it's like becoming ... like ... supercharged with celestial energy and then drifting away in a cloud of smoke. It's like some force in the cosmos has decided that you and only you are (just like our parents used to tell us) a very very important person. You have been selected for a very special vacation by the GALVANIC CORPORATION (one way, no refunds, speedy service). What's it like to be struck by lightning? It's like glow little glow worm, sizzle sizzle. You know that song? Why, then, sing it along with me! One and a two: glow little glow worm, sizzle sizzle./ I've got a bolt that'll wet your whizzle .... That's what it's like.

Dave in Saskatoon

Great, eh. They each won a copy of JOLTED. And they're all members of my listerv. You can join, too. Membership is free...

Art

The contest question was, "What does it feel like to be hit by lightning." Thank you to all the entrants!

And, yes, Josephine the magic pig has chosen through a clever system of random analyses and rolling around in truffles! And the winner of the free copy of Jolted is:
~Liviania!!!!

Can you hear the crackling of fireworks? The snapping and popping of a book being shoved into a bubble pack envelope? Here comes the winning entry:

"I imagine it feels like nothing to be hit by lightning, at least a first. You only feel it if you survive, slowly, as your nerves send the signal along and your brain figures out what happened. Perhaps there wouldn't even be pain, only shock. A strange sort of emptiness because the lightning is too much for a human body and there is no way to feel it. No way for the body to comprehend the magnitude of the stress, the changes the lightning wrought.

I imagine it feels like nothing. A nothing that is really too much something and leaves only pain in its wake. And perhaps a little beauty, because it's a nothing no one else has."

~Liviania

Wow, I'm gonna steal that and put it in my next book and make millions. Millions, I tell ya.

Again thanks for the entries!

Art

Dear Citizens of Somewhere,

JOLTED? No, it's not a new pop. Or a new dance. JOLTED is my latest soon-to-be released book. To celebrate the Canadian launch of JOLTED: Newton Starker's Rules for Survival, I'm giving away a copy of the book. It's not on bookstore shelves, but I've got my copies! You could have one, too. Wow. You could read the book before anyone else (except me, and my editors, my agent, and a few reviewers, the postperson, and my wife). The book will be released to the public August 19th in Canada and March 2009 in the US. JOLTED is all about a young man who must spend his life dodging lightning. He goes to a survival school in Moose Jaw to learn how. He also has a magic pig for a friend. Doesn't everyone? Here's the cover:

All you have to do to win the book is post an answer to this skill testing question (on or before August 18th, 2008): what does it feel like to be hit by lightning? The most creative answer will win. Or else I'll have my magic pig choose the answer. Her name is Josephine, BTW.

All the best,
Art

My dear, lovely, wonderful, brilliant friend, Kathleen Duey, has tagged me. I assume I did something to her in another life that has caused her to unleash this blogging Cerberus-headed nightmare (actually technically it would be a Cerberus and two thirds nightmare since I have to now tag five friends and we all know Cerberus only has 3 heads and I need two more heads to make that image work, but I digress). Yes, if you read the brackets I have to tag 5 friends. Who am I mad at today?

Here are the rules:

1. Pick up the nearest book.

2. Open to page 123.

3. Find the fifth sentence.

4. Post the next three sentences.

5. Once you've posted your three sentences, tag five people and post a comment to the blog of whomever has just tagged you. Therefore I will comment on Kathleen's blog . If I tagged you, you should be posting a comment on my blog. Nothing nasty. : )

Here I go to reach, ugh, for the nearest book. Oh, it's The Alienist by Caleb Carr, this should be fun:

"It's the obvious interpretation, if you've got a body with a cut throat. But I noticed almost immediately that there was extensive damage to the laryngeal structures, especially the hyoid bone, which in both cases was fractured. That, of coures, indicates strangulation."
"I don't understand," I said.

Hope no one was in the middle of eating a burger...
It is an excellent book.

Actually that wasn't so painful. And look, I finally posted to my blog! It's been months. Want to know what's been slowing me down, then visit the good ol' Hunchback.

Cheers!
Art

The Spanish version of Monsterology is out:

Wow! Monstruologia! It sounds so classy and sophisticated! See, monsters are monsters no matter which language you use. And it's illustrado por Derek Mah. Now that's cool.

If only I could read Spanish.

Cheers,

Art

Finally settling down after launching Villainology in Calgary and Saskatoon. Went well! Lots of people out there seem to like their villains!

Am going to blog about it a bit more later, but in the meanwhile here's a new "movie" trailer for the book:




And here's the video version of the interview with the Headless Horseman:





Cheers,

Art

Yay, I'm happy to report that
Invasion of the IQ Snatchers has been nominated for a Saskatchewan Book Award for Children's Literature.

If I can work this right, I'll get a free lunch, a free dinner, and, $1500.00! Uh, that last part would mean actually winning the prize, tho. There are some lovely other books nominated.

Speaking of prizes, the free Villainology contest was won by Sandra Kasturi! Yay, a free book. Other winners too numerous to mention came from the UK, the US, and someplace called Canada. I just mailed everything today. I betcha they can't wait until their mysterious prizes arrive!

Cheers!

Art

It's the final day of the win a free Villainology book contest (see my Oct. 9th post for details)! At 9PM Mountain Time I'll be doing the draw. There have already been thousands and thousands of entrants (remember authors like to exaggerate). It'll be kind of like bingo, though. I have prepared a special rolling glass ball and will be stocking it with eyeballs. Each eyeball will have one of your names etched on it. I know, it sounds icky, but I had to do something with all those extra eyeballs. Oh, there's a similar contest on Facebook in my Villainology group, so feel free to enter both.
Hey who's this?

And this?

Neat, eh? They're both from the villain lineup at the start of the book. That Derek Mah (the illustrator), he's so brilliant.

Cheers, salutations, and all that jazz,

Art

It's day 2 of the win a free Villainology book contest (see previous post for details)! And, also, it's the day after Villainology was officially unleashed upon North America. Now something that authors do obsessively (well at least this author) is wonder such things as...how is my book doing? Are people picking it up right now? Did anyone order it? Instead of reading the entrails of pigs we watch Amazon rankings obsessively. So much so that our eyes pop out:

Okay, we don't look that bad (the above pic is actually one of those odd things that happened while I was making the trailer for Villainology (see previous post). It's a transition between Billy the Kid and The Wicked Witch. I thought it was so gross I'd share it with you). Anyway, Villainology is currently #5,853,389 in Books on Amazon. Now what does that mean? Do I have to find 5.8 million buyers before it reaches the top? And it says there's only 1 copy left. Did that mean they had 2 copies and sold 1? Was the book starting at #10000000? See, it's very confusing. Yet on B&N the book is at # 218,505? Is that better? On Amazon.ca the book isn't listed as being released yet. What? Get with the times! Ah, where are those pig entrails?

Don't worry, I am doing some writing today. It's just kinda fun obsessing...

Art

Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls, Villains and Villainesses, I come not to praise Caesar, but...wait wrong speech!

It's V day! That's right Villainology: Fabulous Lives of the Big, the Bad, and the Wicked is now officially on store shelves or in little mail rooms of online booksellers waiting to be shipped in fancy little packages. Imagine, thousands and thousands of books crying out for a home. They make great door jambs!

Look, the powers that be, whoever they are, put together a Villainology trailer to celebrate:



Oh, and to further celebrate I'm going to give away one signed copy of Villainology to someone who reads this blog. The trick is, since this blog appears on LJ, Blogspot, Myspace and some rather disreputable places I have to find a fair way to do this...so, whoever goes to the Villainology section of my website, arthurslade.com, and tells me what the "word of the day" is, then e-mails me (click on the old telephone on the top right of my web page) will have a chance at winning. I’ll do the draw three days from now (Oct. 12th). Remember to include your e-mail address in the body of the e-mail. Five other entrants will receive a fabulous mystery prize.

Onward! Upward! Away!

Art

Well, I just read one of the nicest reviews of my career. It's for Villainology and it's here in Canadian Materials magazine. It has the best "quotable" line ever! Here it is! "Villainology is the ultimate literary gateway drug." I soooo want to get a t-shirt with that on it.

Oh, and I have to say, whew! And woo hoo! I just finished ten days straight of working on Worse Than Starkers and sent the latest draft to my editors. I've rewritten this book countless times now and felt like I've been looking so close and carefully at it that I was getting to the point of actually unravelling the DNA of my characters (and the plotline). So, whew! I won't have to look at it for awhile. Of course, now is that odd time where I wonder: do they like it? Did it work?

To take my mind off of such questions I plan on eating as much turkey as possible on Thanksgiving Monday (Canadian Thanksgiving, that is). I find food takes my mind off most everything.

Cheers,

Art

Yep, in my list of villains for Villainology, Lizzy Borden was axed. She axed for it! Okay, enough Schwartzeneggerisms! Here's what I wrote about dear ol' Lizzy:




Lizzy Borden: Maybe you’ve heard the skipping rhyme that made her famous forever: Lizzie Borden took an ax/And gave her mother forty whacks/When she saw what she had done/She gave her father forty-one. It’s based on the story of Lizzie Borden, who lived in Fall River, Massachusetts. In 1892 Lizzie found her father and stepmother hacked to death with an ax. Lizzie was put on trial for the murders (the most dramatic part was when her parents’ skulls were unveiled for all the court to see, and Lizzie fainted). She was acquitted by the all male jury and she and her sister split the inheritance. No one ever proved that she had done it. Oh, and in case you’re wondering, the rhyme is wrong, her stepmother got 19 whacks and her father 10. Silly Rhyme! Oddly enough an opera called Lizzie Borden was written about her. Funny how all this violence makes people want to sing.


The book has shorter sketches of villains and also "featured" villains (who get a few pages of text). Originally I thought Lizzy would be the perfect villain to be featured, but the more I read about her story the harder it was to make it funny. I mean did she really do it? And, if so, how do you make chopping your parents up into pieces funny? So she was relegated to a short sketch and later was axed altogether (there's that word again). That was one of the difficulties I encountered in the writing of this book--how do you make evil funny. It was suggested at one point that I could do a piece about Hitler. He's a villain (uh, I hope you agree). But he's not funny (okay maybe Charlie Chaplin could make him funny).
Yet, I was able to make Attila the Hun funny and he was certainly in the same category as Hitler. It partly has to do with time passing and old wounds being healed over. Plus Attila wore a funny hat.

Speaking of villains, I watched the Some Kind of Monster documentary about Metallica.
Ah, I'm kidding about the villains bit, of course. I've been a fan since Ride the Lightning hit the record shelves back in 1984. Although, didn't like much after the "black" album (St. Anger is starting to grow on me). The documentary is painful to watch because of the massive clash of giant egos and the goal of getting an album done. And in the middle of it all is a performance coach/therapist (who only makes $40,000 a month) who is working them through their angst and anger. It's amazing that these guys have everything (moneywise) and yet still want to go through the pain of creating a recording together and making it as perfect as possible. I highly recommend the documentary, even if you don't like their music. It's a real testament to how the creative process can drive you (to drink, sometimes, according to the documentary).

Ride the lightning, everyone!

Art

Well its Bilbo's birthday, today! Or at least today was the day that The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien was released back in 1937. My Grade Four teacher, Mr. Fitzgerald read the book to us. That was the first I ever heard of it. And sadly, I had to miss a week of school and was incredibly disappointed that I wouldn't get to hear that part of the book. Where was I going? What could be more important than The Hobbit? Oh, we were going to Disneyland. I still remember being on the plane thinking, "I wonder what's happening in The Hobbit, right now." Of course that book led me to Lloyd Alexander's The Book of Three and, well, to many more books. Thanks Tolkien!

Here are a few books I recently finished:
Skybreaker by Kenneth Oppel. This was the second time I read it. Probably my favourite Oppel book. The perfect followup to Airborn.
The Great Stink by Clare Clark. A murder mystery novel for adults set (mostly) in the sewers of Victorian London. Very well done. You'll never, ever get the description of the sewers out of your head.
His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman. I'd already read the books, but listened to the audiobooks. They're excellent. I'm still disappointed by the third book, but overall one of the strongest fantasy series I've read. I'm excited about the movies because I want to see what they do with the material.

Art

My first podcast for Villainology is up! It's an interview with The Headless Horseman. Just click here: http://www.villainology.com/villainology/interviews/headlessh.mp3

It should play on your computer without much prompting. It will also be available on iTunes soon.

Art

Where do names come from? What do they mean? And more importantly how does a name affect your destiny? I was listening to CBC Radio on Saturday and they have a lovely show about the English Language called
And Sometimes Y. The topic this week was Name Games, and one of the specialist on the show spoke about how names affect who you become. For instance someone named Sasha might be more likely to go into the arts, or be a more gentle soul than say, someone named Viper. Or someone named Arthur may become an artist (or a writer). Obviously all sorts of factors contribute to the building of our characters, but your name is something that "points" to you. That's how they described what a name does.

Anyway it got me to thinking about how we authors name our characters. In Dust I called the evil rainmaker, Abram Harsich. I chose Abram because it's a biblical name, Harsich because it had a "Har(d)" sound and by adding "sich" it sounded kind of Eastern European. I wanted the name to "point" to the fact that Abram had been around for a long, long time. In my current project one of the evil characters is Miss Hakkadottir. Scary, eh? The good guy is Modo. I sometimes spend ages searching out names for my characters. Other times they appear out of the blue. Anyway, it's one of the (many) fun parts of this whole writing craft. Who else gets to name so many people?

Art

Oh, and on another note found another nice review of Megiddo's Shadow at Relish Now. "Edward Bathe’s journey from teen to young man is a three-tissue read." That's good, right? I hope I get some kind of royalty from the tissue company!

Ah, yesterday in the post the brand new copy of Villainology arrived. Woo Hoo. I'm impressed by Derek Mah's artwork once again. And the invisible man on the cover is soooo cool. Really.



There it is on my desk next to a cup of hot chocolate and cuddling up to a copy of Monsterology. I'm very pleased with how the book turned out, as you can probably tell. And it's officially my eleventh published book. Yay, for lucky number eleven!

Here's the table of contents:

1. The Wicked Witch of the West
2. Attila the Hun
3. The Wolf
4. Billy The Kid
5. The Headless Horseman
6. Morgan Le Faye
7. Qin Hui
8. Shakespearian Villains
9. The Invisible Man
10. Emperor Nero
11. The Queen (from Little Snow White)
12. Scarface Capone
13. Scrooge
14. Phantom of the Opera
15. Mephistopheles

Cheers!

Art

Yep, good ol' Sweeney Todd didn't make the Villainology cut. He won't be standing side by side along with Attila the Hun and Emperor Nero. What does a villain have to do to make it?


Sweeney Todd: A fictional barber who lived on Fleet Street in London. Anyone who bumbled in looking for a shave and a haircut, ended up getting a deep throat cut. Sweeney then chopped up their bodies and put them in pies. People pies is what they were called and they sold well. Sweeney first appeared in a penny dreadful (a really cheap story that sold for a penny) called "The String of Pearls: A Romance" (1846) that was likely written by Thomas Prest. Next came a play then musical after musical after Musical. Ah, there’s nothing more musical that cutting people up and stuffing them in pies. Kinda makes you wonder what everyone was eating in Oliver Twist. Sweeney Todd may be based on someone real, but no one has ever proved it. I guess somebody ate the evidence.


Poor, poor Sweeney. Well, at least he keeps people singing. Which reminds me. There was a Heavy Metal band called Fist back in the '80's who had a cool song called Fleet Street. The lyrics were something like:

"Follow the baker,
The people pie maker,
Makin' people pies,
Evil in his eyes!"

Hey, it was a cool song. Still is. It's somewhere on my iPod right now.

Speaking of eyes, here's a villainous eye...any guesses who it belongs to?

Tune in next time when you'll find out why Lizzie Borden didn't make the cut. Get it, the cut? Maybe that should be the whack.

Art

Well, a nice review for Megiddo's Shadow from Ventura Country Star. I'm always happy to see a good review. It's a real pick-me-up first thing in the morning (although it's evening as I write this, I'm a slow blogger). It's always an odd feeling to think that my book is being read so far away (Ventura is in California, I'm in Saskatchewan, Canada). My books have a more exciting life than I do.

Which is fine. I'm just here to write them.

The real trick of this writing biz is to not read the bad reviews first thing in the morning, tho. That's a buzz kill!

Art