That post title looks like much more of a bummer than Gloryhound's Tribeca show actually was last night, but the song it comes from (which I hadn't heard the band play before) was a good one. As was the rest of the evening. There was a snowstorm on Wednesday night and it was actually still pretty cold (I had to use both hands to wrench my car door open, and cleaning the windshield required more time than I care to recall) but a whole lot of people came out anyway. It was as if they were intent on proving that a little more winter wasn't going to get them down. Which, when you live in a climate as unpredictable as this one, is as good a way to look at it as any. (Based on current conditions and the forecast, though, I'd say my plan for getting back to riding Mitzi this weekend is probably off.)

I'm still taking a small amount of cold medication which has a terrible effect on my ability to think creatively, so I'm just going to stop here for now. Take your vitamin C, folks!

( Set list is here. )

Incidentally--and this looks very Groundhog Day at first glance--the band's next gig is at Poley Mountain, outside Sussex, NB. Yes, I know I said that last week. But if you were in the Maritimes last weekend you know that it rained like Noah's Flood last Saturday in Nova Scotia, and apparently it was no better in New Brunswick so the event Gloryhound was supposed to be playing at got postponed until today. Which probably means the band is on the road pretty much even as I type. Hope it's a good one, and drive carefully!

Hmm. The next Tribeca show is on Holy Thursday. Which means I'll be starting Good Friday in a bar. Which is, I think, an entirely new one for me and something perhaps we won't mention to my mother...

So. I currently have two library books checked out: Those Who Hunt the Night and Traveling With the Dead by Barbara Hambly (and no, that second one has nothing to do with San Francisco rock bands!) If I find myself unmoved by either of them we can conclude for sure that vampires are Not My Thing.

I also have four items in on hold, three about Catherine Howard, the other one of Henry VIII's wives he had beheaded. And one that's been described as sort of Real Person Fanfic about Richard III and the author's idea of who the mother of his illegitimate children was. I wasn't going to check that one out because after my experience with The Other Boleyn Girl (and Mary actually existed!) I figured my patience for medieval Mary Sues might be wearing thin. But hell. If I can't be bitchy on cold meds, when can I be bitchy?

When I feel like myself again I'll get back to writing about present-day non-vampires, but it's anybody's guess what influences will reach out from this stuff to my own...

Check out Christopher Denny and the Old Soles. Seriously. You won't regret it.

I'm pretty sure Rob Crowell is playing keys with them at the moment (which is a helluva commute!!) I'm sure he's heartbroken about missing our latest snowstorm...

...not as well-written as you assure me Barbara Hambly's are...

the latest chapter summary of the inept vampire novel is up.

I don't know about you, but I am going to concentrate on the small annoyance of the author calling the dog a "Belgium sheepdog," to keep my mind off the larger and more horrific issue of... well, everything else about the story.

Belgian Sheepdogs. Think about Belgian Sheepdogs.

Who SO deserve better...

Oh my God, I'm quoting Saving Private Ryan (I'll spare you my thoughts on Saving Private Ryan--suffice it to say there are some movies that live up to relentless hype--The Changeling really is the scariest fucking movie in existence--and some that don't.)

Anyways.

Why do I keep harping on that inept vampire fiction when I am neither into vampires nor, despite evidence to the contrary, completely heartless?

I'll tell you why. There's a lesson in there for us. And it's a lesson so clear that you don't need the brains of a Belgian sheepdog to find it, either, which makes it useful even to those of us so zooed on cold meds that we can't tell Richard the Third from Richard Simmons.

Okay, forget I said that last part.

My point, and I swear I do have one, is this: over the past couple of weeks I have gone on and on about my main problem with this piece of crap, and the problem is not so much that it's distractingly badly written, as that the problem is serious enough that even the distractingly bad writing cannot distract you from it:

The author apparently sees her vampire as an attractive and desirable character.

She apparently expects us to share this opinion. Indeed, her whole story hinges on this assumption, since he is in fact the main character. And it's an assumption we all make as writers: we assume other people, readers, will want to spend time in the company of the characters we create.

However, she has not done a single thing to make us like or care about him. So when the female lead lays eyes on him and immediately starts thinking romantic/horny/whatever thoughts, the reaction of the reader is "so what?"

The reaction of the reader would probably be "oh HELL no!" if the female lead wasn't such a waste of pixels herself, so really, it could be worse.

But that's a problem I encounter relatively often in mysteries, which are what I write: the author clearly positions the main character as someone I am supposed to identify with and relate to and cheer for and admire... and does not do a single thing to earn those reactions from me.

And there we are, right back to the basics: Show, don't tell. And be careful what you show me, at that. Because if your "spunky, feisty" female protagonist (who had better be a fucking Schipperke if you're giving her those adjectives) demonstrates her feisty spunk simply by being rude to all her cross her path, whether they deserve it or not, well then I will probably see her as a noun that is only polite if she is, in fact, canine. I won't like her and I won't root for her to save the day and win the man.

If your darkly handsome vampire lead goes around killing the innocent without mercy, do not expect me to boomerang around with him when he runs into his One!True!Love! and gets all sentimental. Because I am not she, and I am wary about my throat.

It's a matter of being aware of what you're doing as much as anything. In showing us how downtrodden the heroine is, are you making her whiny and uncharitable? It's surprising how often I find myself not liking the view I get through the character's eyes. Which is cool if that's what you intend, but... is it?

I posted a week or two ago about trying to create a small-scale likable protagonist, and some of the decisions I made in attempting to create a perspective character readers might like, despite the fact he's a scattered thinker and maybe not terribly smart and has a tendency to break "dumb" laws regarding drinking ages and some controlled substances.

The vampire story that's about to earn its own tag? Is a great example of what happens when you put no thought into how the reader is going to experience your character, and just assume everyone else loves/lusts after your character as much as you do.

Because: bad writing.

And also: ew!!

I just found out that I STILL have funds left in three of my book budgets. One of them just refuses to get spent--I have tried three times to spend that last sixty dollars.

I tell you what, my bank account could take a lesson...

Right. I'm on my way--I think I've finally finished spending my book funds. I'll stop at the grocery store and see if ANYTHING looks like it would be something a person with a cold would care to eat during a snowstorm--if we have one tomorrow, which seems increasingly likely.

If I make it to any shows or anything fun, I'll let you know. And let's hope the vampires and the Tudors don't get me. I'm unclear on which I find scarier, but the public library should help me figure that out...