mollyringle | Entries tagged with holidays

First, a quick piece of writing news: I recently finished the first draft of Ballad for Jasmine Town, my next book! It takes place on Eidolonia, the island of fae and witches where Lava Red Feather Blue is set, but you won't need to have read Lava Red Feather Blue to understand it. Each book can be read as a standalone. The manuscript is currently incubating undisturbed for a month or so before I open it up again for revisions, but I will of course have more to tell you about it in the future.

Meanwhile: we are almost to my favorite holiday, Halloween! In my opinion the US needs more holidays where we wear costumes, roam the streets at night, and exchange chocolate free of charge. Not to mention all the spooky movies and books we treat ourselves to this time of year.

This got me thinking that I should rank the top five most Halloween-suitable books among my own writing. Here is what I came up with, and I admit I am perhaps cheating since one of them is a three-book series:

5. Sage and King – Only scary if you have a phobia about spells that turn you or your body parts into plants. Assassin magicians can be mean that way. Overall mood is fluffy and steamy, though.

4. Lava Red Feather Blue – Not too scary on the whole, except for one scene involving a dark passage through a fae-realm forest of birch trees whose purpose in life is to terrify and/or kill anyone who enters.

3. The Persephone’s Orchard series – It is about the gods of the dead, after all, and there are some cruel murders and a dash of human sacrifice. (The Bronze Age; these things happen.) But said gods are basically lovely people in my version.

2. The Ghost Downstairs – This one has several traditional creepy haunted house moments, which I personally think are some of the spookiest scenes I’ve written. But it’s also essentially sweet and romantic throughout in terms of mood.

1. The Goblins of Bellwater – To me this novel isn’t truly scary, but I would say it’s my eeriest and most unsettling book, so moodwise it’s probably the best Halloween fit.

As for films, we have so far dusted off two old favorites for weekend movie nights, both of them comedy monster movies: Tremors and Young Frankenstein. Truly delightful!

Do you have any favorite reading or viewing for Halloween season? I want to hear about your costume too!

Be well and pace yourself on the candy.

Hello all,

I have been not getting a lot of work done lately, since our household was on vacation for two weeks in England and Wales! I had not been there since 2004 and it was fabulous to be back, despite the heat wave. (Luckily a "heat wave" in Britain only means temperatures around 85 F/ 29 C. Still, I would have preferred a bit of iconic British rain or mist.)

If you're the kind of person who enjoys trip photos, I spammed Instagram with mine:

https://www.instagram.com/writermollyringle/

At this point you'll have to scroll down a little to get to the Britain ones, but I'm sure you'll be able to find them. For those unfamiliar with Instagram: you then click on each one to bring up the post, and click on the arrows on the photo itself (not on the edges of the window) to see the other photos in that post.

Nonetheless, writing work does progress:

The audiobook for Summer Term is in production and should be ready in a few weeks.

I should also be having more editorial discussions about Dramatically Inclined in the fall, and will keep you informed on news there too. Part of that story takes place in London, which made me especially happy to see that city again in person!

And I'm deep into the writing of my next book, which involves fae and royals and a fictional country and a male/male love story, and I'm quite taken with it at the moment.

For now, feel free to retaliate with your own vacation photos--after all, I need ideas for where to go in future years.
Take care and enjoy the summer!

Everyone knows what Valentine's Day is really about: chocolate!

I ran a search on my books, and predictably enough, nearly all of them mention chocolate. Some examples:

Summer Term:
He set down the glass, thought a moment, and said, “I would like to make chocolate chip cookies.”

Persephone’s Orchard:
Adrian peeled the plastic wrap from the brownie, broke it in half, and handed the larger section to her.

Immortal’s Spring:
Must be the scents and nourishment of a proper home-cooked meal at last. And the wine. And the chocolate cake—from scratch.

Of Ghosts and Geeks:
When Gwen heard the knock, she imagined it was a local kid selling fundraiser chocolate bars, or Uncle Bert dropping in to beg more details about her “student’s” ghost.

The Ghost Downstairs:
“But he did. He had chocolate with me.” Lina closed her mouth before disclosing what happened after the chocolate.

What Scotland Taught Me: (To my surprise this one has the most references to chocolate of any of my stories. Here are a few.)

“Can we just get some chocolate,” I said, “and go home?”

“Be a dear and serve your boyfriend some chocolate trifle, won’t you?”

Coffee, I needed coffee. No, better yet, chocolate. Chocolate might put my calendar in perspective.

“I was wondering if an old friend could stay at your flat tonight, if that friend brought like a cubic buttload of Cadbury Fruit and Nut bars.”

Valentine’s Day resolved nothing. That afternoon apparently featured Amber wearing lingerie and chocolate body paint in Laurence’s room, and still not getting laid.

---

My apologies for the damage this post may have done to anyone trying to cut calories.

While (badly) playing songs on piano tonight from my book of Christmas sheet music, I found myself amused, as I am every year, by the repeated insistence on figgy pudding in "We Wish You a Merry Christmas." I mean, it's the subject of three of the four verses. So I tweeted about that, and got an even more amusing response out of the blue within minutes.

Speaking of holiday carols: as someone slightly more inclined toward paganism than Christianity (though I have a Christmas tree in the house and Christmas music and all that--I count as a "cultural Christian" when it comes to some of the holidays), I have to tip the hat every year to "Deck the Halls," which is possibly the only popular carol that doesn't reference Christmas or Jesus anywhere in it. It's all about Yuletide and greenery and harps and gay apparel and fa-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la. Also it's ridiculously cheerful.

So, I wish you a merry Christmas, a happy new year, a joyous Yule, a happy Hanukkah, and good times in whatever else you might be up to at the end of this calendar year. And of course I really hope you get figgy pudding. If that's actually any good. I'm not sure I've tried it, to be honest.

Here in Seattle, cool drizzle has moved in, and I was outside just now enjoying it, and listening to Dead Can Dance, and thereby having a delightfully Halloweenish feel to my lunch hour, and that led me to a revelation about Halloween and the Southern Hemisphere:

I have friends in Australia (e.g. writer Dean Mayes) who have expressed dissatisfaction about Halloween; it seems to them just a pointless imported American holiday. And I've always been all, "Noooo, but Halloween is our one truly cool holiday! All the others are tedious, but Halloween's different and spooky and crazy and awesome!" Which I still believe.

HOWEVER, now that I think about it, I bet the problem is simply this: in the Southern Hemisphere, they've got Halloween in the middle of spring. And you cannot have Halloween in the middle of spring. That makes zero sense.

Halloween (or properly Samhain) is all about the decay of summer into autumn, life into death, the veil between our world and the Underworld becoming thin, and all that spooky goodness. You MUST have it on a chilly autumn night with leaves falling off the trees and scudding along the street in the wind. You totally cannot have it among blossoming bushes and greening gardens.

So, see if this makes more intuitive sense, my Australian and other Southern-Hemisphere friends: picture Halloween on April 30/ May 1. Then picture Beltane ("May Day") on October 31. I'm betting that fits a whole lot better. Right? (This blogger has said as much too. I feel silly that this confusion hasn't occurred to me until now.)

Seasons and holidays: sorted.

Our geekiest pumpkins from Halloween: Minecraft swords, Avatar Aang (with somewhat messed-up eyebrows)...

...and a cat, and Toothless the dragon.

And I was Titania, Queen of the Faeries. Complete with battery-powered lights and safety pins, just as Shakespeare wrote.

Much rain and chocolate was had, so that was all good. How was your Samhain?

It is ready! Our Halloween multi-reader performance of Dr. Seuss' What Was I Scared Of? and Lewis Carroll's "Jabberwocky" can be listened to here. It's only 5 minutes long and it's super fun to hear all the voices and accents, so gather your friends (and kids!) around and enjoy.

Super extra thanks to Michael Gordon Shapiro for allowing the use of his beautiful music as the score, as well as for general audio help and for being one of the readers. And great job and a big thank you to all the readers this year. In this usually-online world, it's always a delight to hear the real voices of those I correspond with so much.

- - -

Transcript with readers' names:

Molly: "What Was I Scared Of?" by Dr. Seuss, and "Jabberwocky" by Lewis Carroll. Happy Halloween! Don't be scared.
( Read more... )

Happy October!

I skipped this project last year, but this year am reviving it: the Halloween read-aloud! The selection this year is kid-friendly and only a little bit spooky: What Was I Scared Of? by Dr. Seuss (full text here); with a bonus feature, if we have enough readers signing up, of "Jabberwocky" by Lewis Carroll. Sound good? Of course it does!

All ages, voices, and accents welcome and encouraged. Here are the ones we've done before (scroll down to bottom of page)--have a listen to some, if you like. I re-listened to them lately, and they are so cool. As you can see on that page, in past years our brave band of volunteers has read aloud from Poe's "The Raven," Irving's "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," Stoker's Dracula, and Tolkien's The Hobbit.

Please do volunteer! All you need is a voice and a way to record the lines and send them to me. Your part will be short and manageable, probably only one stanza each (since these are poems). We love including kids, grandparents, roommates, whoever you've got around. Don't worry about the quality of your voice or accent. I'll let you in on a secret: nearly everyone dislikes their own voice and/or accent. What makes these projects cool is the variety of voices coming together on one literary passage.

Simply comment here (or email me, or Facebook-message me...) with the number of volunteers your household is providing, and I'll get you on the list and send you your lines soon. Signup deadline is Friday, October 10. And obviously I'd like to have the whole thing ready before Halloween, so only sign up if you can record lines by, say, a week before Halloween--October 24. IDEALLY WITHOUT ME NAGGING YOU TO REMIND YOU. I don't like to nag.

Thank you, and I'm looking forward to hearing what you've got!

Halloween approaches! Source your costumes now. And may I highly suggest Take Back Halloween for some awesome ideas? They are the nicest and smartest people, and the costumes are doable even for those of us who cannot sew. The Persephone costume, for example, which I'll likely try, just requires folding and pinning a sheet over your shoulders and tying a rope around your waist. Can do!

Or be a pirate: Anne Bonny, Mary Read, or Ching Shih...or Amelia Earhart or Frida Kahlo or the cross-dressing Queen Christina of Sweden...really, so many cool choices over there.

34 wonderful voices from awesome people all over the world, coming together in one file to read a crazy dragon attack scene from a little book called The Hobbit - it has finally come together and is ready as my Halloween present to the world.

Listen here:

http://mollyringle.com/halloweenhobbit.mp3

And read along below to see who our courageous readers are and which lines they are rocking. Thank you so much, all my lovely friends, family, and mysterious-but-so-cool volunteers! And special thanks to composer Michael Gordon Shapiro (also one of the readers) for letting me use his beautiful music in the background.

Happy Halloween!

TRANSCRIPT:

Toby: The Hobbit.

Molly: By J.R.R. Tolkien. This section is from Chapter Twenty-Two, "Inside Information."

Kevin: The dwarves were still passing the cup from hand to hand and talking delightedly of the recovery of their treasure, when suddenly a vast rumbling woke in the mountain underneath as if it was an old volcano that had made up its mind to start eruptions once again.

Shay: The door behind them was pulled nearly to, and blocked from closing with a stone, but up the long tunnel came the dreadful echoes, from far down in the depths, of a bellowing and a trampling that made the ground beneath them tremble.

Phoenyx: Then the dwarves forgot their joy and their confident boasts of a moment before and cowered down in fright. Smaug was still to be reckoned with.

Paul: It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him. Dragons may not have much real use for all their wealth, but they know it to an ounce as a rule, especially after long possession; and Smaug was no exception.

Peggy: He had passed from an uneasy dream (in which a warrior, altogether insignificant in size but provided with a bitter sword and great courage, figured most unpleasantly) to a doze, and from a doze to wide waking.

Zac: There was a breath of strange air in his cave. Could there be a draught from that little hole?

Katy: He had never felt quite happy about it, though it was so small, and now he glared at it in suspicion and wondered why he had never blocked it up.

Ben: Of late he had half fancied he had caught the dim echoes of a knocking sound from far above that came down through it to his lair.

Amanda: He stirred and stretched forth his neck to sniff. Then he missed the cup!

Rich: Thieves! Fire! Murder! Such a thing had not happened since first he came to the Mountain!

Michael: His rage passes description - the sort of rage that is only seen when rich folk that have more than they can enjoy suddenly lose something that they have long had but have never before used or wanted. His fire belched forth, the hall smoked, he shook the mountain-roots.

Shmuel: He thrust his head in vain at the little hole, and then coiling his length together, roaring like thunder underground, he sped from his deep lair through its great door, out into the huge passages of the mountain-palace and up towards the Front Gate.

Lily: To hunt the whole mountain till he had caught the thief and had torn and trampled him was his one thought.

Kris: He issued from the Gate, the waters rose in fierce whistling steam, and up he soared blazing into the air and settled on the mountain-top in a spout of green and scarlet flame.

Michelle: The dwarves heard the awful rumour of his flight, and they crouched against the walls of the grassy terrace cringing under boulders, hoping somehow to escape the frightful eyes of the hunting dragon.

Justin: There they would have all been killed, if it had not been for Bilbo once again. "Quick! Quick!" he gasped. "The door! The tunnel! It's no good here."

Andrew: Roused by these words they were just about to creep inside the tunnel when Bifur gave a cry: "My cousins! Bombur and Bofur - we have forgotten them, they are down in the valley!"
"They will be slain, and all our ponies too, and all our stores lost," moaned the others. "We can do nothing."

Dougie: "Nonsense!" said Thorin, recovering his dignity. "We cannot leave them. Get inside, Mr. Baggins and Balin, and you two Fili and Kili--the dragon shan't have all of us. Now you others, where are the ropes? Be quick!"

Beth: Those were perhaps the worst moments they had been through yet. The horrible sounds of Smaug's anger were echoing in the stony hollows far above;

Molly: at any moment he might come blazing down or fly whirling round and find them there, near the perilous cliff's edge hauling madly on the ropes.

Carina: Up came Bombur, puffing and blowing while the ropes creaked, and still all was safe. Up came some tools and bundles of stores, and then danger was upon them.

tallfemalemanta (LJ): A whirring noise was heard. A red light touched the points of standing rocks. The dragon came.

Lynn: They had barely time to fly back to the tunnel, pulling and dragging in their bundles, when Smaug came hurtling from the North, licking the mountain-sides with flame, beating his great wings with a noise like a roaring wind.

Joan: His hot breath shrivelled the grass before the door, and drove in through the crack they had left and scorched them as they lay hid.

Cara: Flickering fires leaped up and black rock-shadows danced. Then darkness fell as he passed again. The ponies screamed with terror, burst their ropes and galloped wildly off.

Runefurb: The dragon swooped and turned to pursue them, and was gone.
"That'll be the end of our poor beasts!" said Thorin. "Nothing can escape Smaug once he sees it.

Anka: Here we are and here we shall have to stay, unless any one fancies tramping the long open miles back to the river with Smaug on the watch!"

Judith: It was not a pleasant thought! They crept further down the tunnel, and there they lay and shivered though it was warm and stuffy, until dawn came pale through the crack of the door.

Jed: Every now and again through the night they could hear the roar of the flying dragon grow and then pass and fade, as he hunted round and round the mountain-sides.

Jos: He guessed from the ponies, and from the traces of the camps he had discovered, that men had come up from the river and the lake and had scaled the mountain-side from the valley where the ponies had been standing; but the door withstood his searching eye, and the little high-walled bay had kept out his fiercest flames.

Frank: Long he had hunted in vain till the dawn chilled his wrath and he went back to his golden couch to sleep - and to gather new strength.

Kate: He would not forget or forgive the theft, not if a thousand years turned him to smouldering stone, but he could afford to wait.

Steve: Slow and silent he crept back to his lair and half closed his eyes.

Item the first: If you've signed up to read Hobbit lines for the Halloween audio project, here's your first reminder to record them and send them in. I've gotten a handful so far and am looking forward to stringing the whole thing together.

Item the second: Hey look! I got featured as an "author we love"! Fred LeBaron, who put together this little tribute, is a librarian (and dad) who stumbled upon my books a year or two ago, and decided he liked them. In our correspondence since, he has also proved to be one of the nicest people who ever existed. Thank you, Fred! It's not every day I get called "smexy." (But I hope it will be from now on.)

Item the third: I finished reading the Hunger Games trilogy. They were very well done, but I think I will *not* be writing parodies of books 2 and 3, because then I'd have to spend more time in that grim, grim, grim world. Here are the reviews I left on Goodreads:

Catching Fire: 4.5 stars, that half-star mainly only taken off because this world is so dark and upsetting, I can't entirely say I'd read this for fun. Still, it was so compelling, very much a page-turner, that I do give it more or less full marks. The love triangle actually is believable--either Gale or Peeta would be a decent match for Katniss. And boy do I love Finnick so far. Yum. Way to end on a cliffhanger! Ack. Guess the third book is next on the list, then.

Mockingjay: 4 stars. Just finished it, and my immediate, emotionally drained reaction is, "Well, wasn't THAT the most depressing happy ending ever."

Collins is still a very compelling writer here, and the story put tears in my eyes many times, as with the other volumes. But by now everyone just feels so *damaged*. I suppose I was wishing for a stronger feeling of hope by the end. I see how that isn't realistic--Panem wouldn't inspire hope in anyone sane. So maybe that's my beef with the series as a whole: grim grim grim. Too grim. The Hunger Games = war, and war = horror, and no society should do either. Yes, we got that. Loud and clear.

Similarly, I wanted the legendary District 13 to be more interesting, more unusual. Instead it was more of the same. Bland, humorless. No fun. That's Panem for you: no fun.

I make it sound like I disliked the book. I didn't. Things were tied up nicely, and there was plenty of excitement, and even some romantic moments. But maybe three volumes of this is too much for a sensitive humor-loving temperament like mine.

Or maybe I'm just unhappy about who she killed off in this one. (There are at least two that make me particularly sad, and you can guess which.)

Meeting adjourned. We'll bring cookies next time.

Happy October, everyone!

Today I'm extending an invitation to you all: read aloud a few lines from The Hobbit for the world to enjoy. All ages, voices, and accents welcome. It'll be a Halloween audio project like the ones we've done before--click here and scroll down for examples, which you can listen to as you wish. (I re-listened to them lately, and they are so cool.)

As you can see on that page, in past years our brave band of volunteers has read aloud from Poe's "The Raven," Irving's "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," and Stoker's Dracula. With the first film installment of The Hobbit coming up this December, I thought our 2012 Halloween selection could be a spooky piece from Tolkien's novel. Likely it will be about Smaug, the dragon, roaring out of his mountain and torching everything with intent to kill, but excerpt selection may depend on final number of volunteers.

So please do volunteer! All you need is a voice and a way to record the lines and send them to me. Your part will be short and manageable, probably only a sentence or two. We love including kids, grandparents, roommates, whoever you've got around. Don't worry about the quality of your voice or accent. I'll let you in on a secret: nearly everyone dislikes their own voice and/or accent. What makes these projects cool is the variety of voices coming together on one literary passage.

Simply comment here (or email me) with the number of volunteers your household is providing, and I'll get you on the list and send you your lines soon. Signup deadline is one week from today: October 10. And obviously I'd like the lines recorded before Halloween (Oct. 31).

Thank you, and I'm looking forward to hearing what you've got!

I'm considering another Halloween literature read-aloud (see 2010's Project Dracula for example). Maybe in honor of the Hobbit movie coming out soon, we could use a spooky section from that. What's the most Halloweenish part? Bunch o' giant spiders? Smaug? Other? Also, would you guys be up for reading parts and actually recording them on time?

If so: yay! Official sign-up and assignment of lines to follow.

On the "fun yet business" side of things, go here to enter to win one of my ebooks, or any of the other contenders for "Best Ebooks Read by Andrea at the Reading Lark blog in 2011" (she named two of mine - hurray!) -

http://readinglark.blogspot.com/2011/12/goodbye-to-2011-giveaway-1.html

And, to look ahead to 2012, I suppose we all need to frame our resolutions. I have yet to fix on a really good one for next year. But if it helps, I will share with you the two absolute best New Year's resolutions I ever made. I don't remember the exact year of either of these, but they were from sometime in the past decade.

The first was no more getting into arguments online. Yes, that means no posting obnoxiously controversial opinions either.

The second, in a similar vein, was no more indulging in road rage. (I never discharged firearms at fellow drivers, but angry passing or speeding or swerving to "get back" at annoying drivers doesn't help any of us, especially ourselves, does it now?)

Sure, I slip up on both these counts from time to time. But even following them 90% of the time has led to a dramatic reduction of my stress and irritation levels. Imagine--just imagine--the widespread peace and harmony if everyone in the world adopted merely those two simple resolutions. For the first one, Internet traffic would probably drop by half. Or maybe the time spent in flame wars would be diverted into creating and laughing at LOLcats instead. Hey, that'd still be a global improvement on the whole.

But I cite those two resolutions because anger is my biggest flaw. I suppose if you have a different main flaw, you might draw more benefit from a different resolution. Share your own ideas if you like. Happy New Year, whatever you wish to start or stop doing!

Evidently today, April 30, is Walpurgis Night, and while I can't say I've celebrated it before or have definite plans to do so today, I must say it sounds rather cool. Here's what Encyclopaedia Brittanica says on it (and it must be true since it isn't Wikipedia):
---
Walpurgis Night, a traditional holiday celebrated on April 30 in northern Europe and Scandinavia. In Sweden, typical holiday activities include the singing of traditional spring folk songs and the lighting of bonfires. Celebrations in Finland include a carnival and the drinking of alcoholic beverages, particularly sima, a type of mead. In Germany, the holiday is celebrated by dressing in costumes, playing pranks on people, and creating loud noises meant to keep evil at bay. Many people also hang blessed sprigs of foliage from houses and barns to ward off evil spirits, or they leave pieces of bread spread with butter and honey, called ankenschnitt, as offerings for phantom hounds.
[Molly's interjection: Phantom hounds! How awesome is that? Why don't any of our usual holidays involve phantom hounds?]

The origins of the holiday date back to pagan celebrations of fertility rights [sic - surely "rites"?] and the coming of spring. After the Norse were Christianized, the pagan celebration became combined with the legend of St. Walburga, an English-born nun who lived at Heidenheim monastery in Germany and later became the abbess there. Walburga was believed to have cured the illnesses of many local residents. After her death she was canonized as a saint on May 1. Although it is likely that the date of her canonization is purely coincidental to the date of the pagan celebrations of spring, people were able to celebrate both events under church law without fear of reprisal.
---

Other sites give the same basic information; namely, that it was yet another pagan celebration that got turned into a Christian and sometimes specifically anti-pagan holiday. There are reports that in German folklore, Walpurgis Night was when witches met atop a certain mountain, so in a way it's a celebration for witches; but nowadays it sometimes involves symbolically chasing away the witches till next year. Very similar to some interpretations of Halloween/Samhain, that way.

In any case, it sounds like a fun way to start off Beltane/May Day/Spring Day. May you all be the May Queen or Green Man of your personal household this weekend. I did bring in some fresh sprigs of sweet woodruff and orange-mint, so perhaps I'm celebrating in my small way too!

You guys! I have this awesome idea for a new YA paranormal romance!

Okay, the high school girl is mesmerized by the mysterious new guy with his strangely pale hair and shy ways, right? And he's drawn to her too, and they get closer, but she notices more and more weird stuff about him. Like, he always avoids situations where eggs are present. And then one time when he can't get away in time, the eggs near him turn colors. Magically!

She confronts him in a sun-dappled forest on a spring day. He admits it. He's...The Easter Bunny!

"I think you should see what I really look like," he tells her, his voice tortured. He turns around, pulling down the top of his loose jeans. *Gasp!* He's got a fluffy little cottontail!

Scarier stuff would happen too. Like when she stumbles upon him in a hungry moment, and he's got these long rodent front teeth and is viciously biting the head off a Peeps. But I haven't worked out all the subplots.

Good, right?

Want a three-volume ebook set of paranormal romance short stories, for free? Of course you do! So click here and scoop 'em up.

One of my stories is in Volume Three (the one with the pretty blue cover)--it's called "Midsummer Daisies," and, for what it's worth, I sort of pictured David Tennant as the hero. You can tell by my description of his "reddish-brown hair in a tousle of controlled chaos." That story is rated PG and purely heterosexual, as are all the Vol. 3 stories. Volume One contains male/male romance that can get very steamy (woohoo, slash!), and Volume Two contains erotic male/female stories. (No, I don't have any stories in those two volumes--this time...)

Enjoy! And remember, for online gift shopping ideas that don't involve standing in line outside department stores on Black Friday, check out the comments in this post. It's becoming quite the books-and-crafts fair. Very cool. Browse, pick something for someone you love, and support an independent artist or entrepreneur!

So many of you out there are the creators, owners, or performers of fabulous goods or services, any of which would make excellent holiday gifts. I want more of the world to know about you, plus I want some good ideas for my own holiday shopping, so here's what I'm going to do: I'm going to give you this space for free advertising!

If you have anything you want to advertise that could potentially be given as a gift, tell us about it in the comments below. Keep in mind that good ad copy gets more click-throughs, so I advise keeping it to a brief, clear, fun paragraph, complete with handy link.

I'll start by (of course) reminding you of my books currently for sale:

The Ghost Downstairs, for anyone who likes moody ghost stories. (Purchase from the publisher, Amazon or an indie bookstore near you. Ebook or paperback.)

Summer Term, for the steamy-beach-read fans. (Purchase from the publisher, Amazon, or an indie bookstore near you. Ebook or paperback.)

What Scotland Taught Me, for snarky teen girls who require comeuppance, anyone who remembers the perils of being 18, or anyone who adores Edinburgh. (Ebook only; purchase from the publisher or Amazon.)

Now you! What are you selling? Tell us of your wares. Offer open for as long as this LiveJournal shall live, though readers will likely diminish the older this post gets.

*cue the screams*
It is here!

Download and listen to Operation Dracula, our intrepid volunteers from around the globe reading an excerpt from the original Bram Stoker. Our selection is the (abridged) ship's log from the doomed vessel, the Demeter, which carries Dracula to England.

Music generously provided by Michael Gordon Shapiro. Thank you so much to Mike as well as all the readers, especially those jumping in bravely at the last minute!

( Transcript of lines and readers... )

(If you signed up via LJ, I used your LJ username. If you got volunteered by someone else, or signed up on Facebook, I used your first name. More or less. Thus concludes my organizational system for Operation Dracula.)

In related news, I highly recommend this brief and hilarious comic-strip version of 'Dracula'. Thanks for finding that, Katy!

Any last-minute takers for Dracula lines? We have some blank spaces from the no-shows, and need to fill them in. It's easy and quick (as long as you have a computer that can record voice samples), and you get to be part of this cool little Halloween project, the third in our spooky series so far. Hop up and volunteer, and if I don't hear from the original voice actors by the end of today, you'll get a line!

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Molly Ringle

You've read the book; now see the blog!

Entries tagged with holidays

My most Halloween-suitable books

I finally went back to Britain!!

Happy chocolate - er, Valentine's - Day!

Figgy pudding is important, people

A revelation about Halloween and the Southern Hemisphere

This is Halloween, this is Halloween...

Halloween audio: Seuss and Carroll. Listen now!

Halloween read-aloud is back!

Take Back Halloween

The Hobbit audio: it is here!

Three items on the agenda

The Hobbit for Halloween: signup!

The Hobbit for Halloween?

Giveaway, and New Year's resolutions

Happy Walpurgis Night!

Maybe I'll call it 'Ostara Boy.'

The free, it just keeps coming.

Free advertising for everyone, right here!

Operation Dracula is here!

Volunteer Dracula brigade, stand by!