Fall is Almost Here - And if it isn't, it should be!

[rattlesnakeroot]

Is everyone else in the Eastern U.S. sick of the weather? Do I see lots of hands raised? Of course!

I've been totally escaping that reality by staying inside working on my novel (okay when I'm not goofing off somewhere else), although I am worrying about length because my characters want to have long conversations, so their romance is taking over the mystery part more than I originally intended. My male leading character is just a little . . . "intense" . . . if you know what I mean. He might even seem quite familiar to some of you in a . . . princely sort of way.

And he is sarcastic - but I only use the word "snarky" in terms of his ex-wife who is, um, shall we say an unpleasant woman.

But even so, I am also faced with the fact that I can't get through a chapter without Dev (that's his name, cough cough) being tempted to make a vampire joke or two (or three) at the expense of Twilight and True Blood (sorry to my daughter who is True Blood's biggest fan). I think men are probably puzzled as to why women watch vampire shows and read the novels, since women don't really want men to act like vampires, LOL - at least I don't - at least not too much, LOL. It's a mixed message, but it's fun to play with, although I won't be using the phrase "bad boy syndrome" anywhere in my novel, thank you very much. My character is neither a bad boy or a bad man nor is he a vampire.

I got curious and checked Bram Stoker's Dracula out of the library - the original novel not the movie with Gary Oldman *shudder.* And I am really enjoying the book! For a 19th century novel, it's quite readable and some of his descriptions are just as erotic as anything on True Blood or in Twilight. It's no wonder that Dracula started the whole vampire-madness-genre. As Buffy once said, "What it is about that Dracula guy?"

And heck, if Bram Stoker didn't care about length in his novel, why should I? His book is over 300 pages single spaced! And of course Twilight is itself a sort of useful heavy doorstop. So even if I only mention vampires now and then, I guess it's okay to write a longer novel than I intended.

In the spirit of all that, I made some Halloween Icons (no vampires but a few skulls) and posted them on nettlebrew!
More Here from years gone by under my Halloween Tag.


 
 
 


After about three days of cool mornings which spoiled us, we suddenly have temps in the 90s again and a sudden drought where I live, while Texas had a deluge from Tropical Storm Hermine. My friend Fostwolf asked with tongue-in-cheek the other day if they called the storm Hermine because JKR has "Hermione" copyrighted.That would be no, as the name Hermione comes from Shakespeare's "A Winter's Tale" as well as being similar to the name "Hermes" the messenger of the Gods. Or it comes from "Ermine-Weasel" which is that little white ferrety thing in certain paintings of Queen Elizabeth the First. Of course she also had a pet snake in case the Ermine didn't behave, LOL.
   Behave You Little Weasel!!!




That also reminds me - I never posted some pictures I took of a beautiful king snake that lives in my vegetable garden. I nearly stepped on him one day, so thankfully he isn't a dangerous species, and in fact is a valuable snake that is immune to poisonous snakes! Too bad Snape didn't spend more time studying king snakes before Deathly Hallows, but I digress . . .