Zero's Virtual Studio

I WANT YOU...to read!

2009-01-14T18:29:00.000-08:00

I WANT YOU...to read my novel!

It's not a first draft but I've worked on it and I need feedback.

Title: "Gaeadians - the Shards of Gaea"

Host: Fictionpress.com

Genre: Steampunk / science fantasy

Rating: Everyone

Audience: young adults, ages 13+

Length: 24 chapters - 300 pages

Synopsis:

Man eating trees, talking insects, jackalopes, and steam driven machines - it may seem strange to us but it's just another boring day in the town of Belthro to Celestia. That is until destiny decides to to shake things up.

Critique desperately needed.

Need comments on:

what you think of characters

what you'd like to see

if you'd buy this book if it was in print

what you like

what you dislike

if you love it

if you hate it

if you think its strange or trippy

is the writing good or crappy?

is it unique or is it just a bad Star Wars clone?

is it the greatest thing you ever read or does it suck horribly?

Two more replies...

2009-01-11T12:38:00.000-08:00

About the above image: so, I've started reading Sarah Monette's novel series The Doctrines of the Labrynith which consists of three books so far (all of which I own) and the final book is coming out in April - Corambis.

To make things sort and to skip my rabid fandom: I really love this book series. Its an entertaining read and a breath of fresh air, so I drew a scene from the second book The Mirador when the characters Felix and Mildmay are down in the labrynith under the nobleman's house. In retrospect, I think the book series calls for a star black and white picture with grey hues but I couldn't resist the sight of Felix and Mildmay in color. ^_^

Sadly, I'm my own worst critic. I think the picture should be darker in some areas, or just dark completely. I may reformat it some day.

Back to my own manuscript news: Two more replies and I sent five more queries. So out of the 18 queries I sent, I have 3 positive responses, which just goes to show that you have to try, try, again in the publishing business. I'm pretty perky right now about this. Yay.

Agents only?

2009-01-09T02:07:00.000-08:00

"The Spider Queen chosing Her Mate" zee rose 2008. I did this very recently. I will post pictures from manuscrpt when I am less tired. T_T

I have mixed feelings about so many publishing companies wanting only agents to solicit books to them. I can understand it from their point of view that they want to deal with a professional, but I also feel that you can block off a lot of interesting ideas and people.

Not only that, but having a literary agent won't guarantee that the company will like your idea or that they'll get your book published right away. And even if they don't, you still owe them a chunk of your money.

Those are my main reasons for not having a literary agent.

I prefer my career advisor.

Partly because she doesn't charge much and I'm currently a starving artist.

So, what have I been up to lately? Well, my laptop fried its battery pack so I had to get a new one (expensive). In the meantime, Gaeadians is undergoing its third revision. This one is personally the best (in my opinion), because I've been working on subject-verb agreement and describing the surroundings better. Instead of focusing just on colors and shapes, I'm starting to incorporate sound and smell.

Why? One word - immersion.

Immersion is the reason why readers prefer some books over others, and why other books outlast others as well. There are boos we read because we're bored, because we're sad, and there's nothing on TV - but there are books we read because they're old favorites and we don't mind reading them again and again, or taking them on a long car, bus, or airplane rid.

Bestsellers lists go by the week or month, but if you can truly touch a reader's heart, then you have something great good.

Virtual immortality.

A great example - Dr. Seuss. I am an adult and I still love to read Dr. Seuss because it has such wonderful images and interesting word play. The same goes for Alice in Wonderland and the original books of Oz by L. Frank Baum.

You can probably tell I'm a fan if you ever read my work.

So far with the book, I've sent 13 new queries to different publishing companies. Out of those 13 queries, I have these responses so far:

2 said - "We aren't accepting submissions"

1 said - "We solicit our work."

1 said - "You're American, and we're a Canadian publisher. You see the problem here?"

2 said - "Our audience isn't aimed at young adults."

1 said - "Your manuscript sounds interesting. Please send it in and we'll see."

So the lesson here can either be interpreted as "Don't give up" or "Get an agent already. What are you? Stupid?".

Interestingly enough - the company that solicits doesn't seem to have a lot of diversity in what they publish. It's pretty much something you pick up once and put back down again, only to be regulated to the basement and a garage sale eventually.

So, I don't think it would have worked out anyway.

At least somebody said they were interested!

*cartwheels off into the distance*

"'Til Twilight Tears Away"

2008-10-27T19:01:00.000-07:00

I just recently wrote this short story. It was written in response to the modern vampire novel being so shallow, so I wrote a satire on it. It deals with goths, the idea of romance, immortality, and the modern crisis of the HIV/AIDS viruses. This one of the short stories I plan on publishing.

*Warning: the follow story contains adult language.*

"til twilight tears away"

zee rose

The blue streaks across the black and when I am lying in my bed, I know my boyfriend Vincent is now dead.

The radio blares the morning news of the economy falling on its face, breaking its nose and bleeding green almighty dollars while I see the soft rise fall of Joseph’s chest as he turns over it bed, squeezing violet covers tight on the bed as he turns over in his sleep. He must be dreaming of the upcoming move. The cardboard boxes stand in brown monoliths around the flat mattress we lay on, observers of our “living in sin” as my mother curtly put it when she knew Joseph and had been my new roommate and not Stephanie from down the lane.

But all I hear is that Vincent is now dead.

Time moves on though. We drop dead on the stop of the clock (so goes the belief) but time moves on – decay proves that. Either we’re left where we fall or we’re given burial and ritual, neither of which Vincent received.

And he never shall.

Time moves on and the phone is ringing just as the pasta starts to boil over into the blue gaslight. Joseph is at work in the office downtown, a shiny new building with Plexiglas windows and a 24 hour cleaning crew. He fixes the computers there and checks the firewalls for leaks. At a big pharmaceutical, they had to do everything to keep security tight. A lot of crazies out there, after all.

Vincent didn’t have a job. When I asked him about what he did for a living on our third date, he smiled and said “I’m a Jack of all trades”. I laughed even though I half-understood. I was just glad such a handsome man was talking to me.

The phone screamed. I wanted to change the tone so many times but Joseph always wanted it to sound professional in case we had guests. I’ll smile triumphantly when the electric company disconnects the lines and pack it up next Saturday.

“Hello?” I said into the phone, stretching my body over the counter to the phone carrier while using the other arm to turn down the stovetop heat. The amazing elastic woman.

“Elizabeth.”

The voice is ice on the other line.

“…Elizabeth…Lizzy...help…”

“…help me…”

The voice is ice and it reaches out in jabbing needles, making puncture wounds in my cheek from the receiver, for my boyfriend Vincent is calling from in his coffin.

I scream and smash the grey phone on the floor; a sob has a chokehold on my throat as tears come to my eyes; their painful saline quality stinging and rolling down my cheeks, down my pink pursued and pouting lips. I bend over and pick up the plastic fragments that have been jolted off of the machine and onto the kitchen tiles. “It fell” is what I will tell Joseph. “I’m clumsy. I’m nervous about the move.” I will tell him.

My boyfriend Vincent is dead. He lies in the coffin on Third Street. Vincent never asked for my help. He was too handsome and proud for that.

And time moves on.

Joseph and I have an informal dinner in the empty living room, watching the still hooked up TV box that lies on the ground and eating the spaghetti and meatballs that I made. The sauce is spicy, a family recipe but its bland and nothing to marvel at me. Joseph compliments me, trying to be polite. He knows I’m easily stressed by the littlest of things – a consequence of having a nervous mother with a zealotry that would make Spanish Inquisitors proud. Or shirk, depending on how loyal (or skeptical) they were to begin with.

My molars are grinding away at the mushy, brown sugar sweet soaked sausage when I hear the familiar SQUEEEEKIITTT of the condominium gate.

“What was that?” Joseph says between noisy chews.

“Probably a raccoon.” I say, hiding my guilt very well. I stand up, taking his empty plate and mine to be washed in the sink, “I’ll just peek in the back to make sure it doesn’t tip over our garbage again.”

My boyfriend Vincent used to always go through the red gate that encircled the condos. He always went through the back gate. It was rusty and at the edge of the woods that desperately attempted to regain the condo’s land, forking tree branches in over the fence only to be razed back to where it belongs. Like a wild animal fearing fire. Vincent always loved those woods. I love those woods still.

I have the gun with me. It is in my pocket. It is always with me. The twilit ribbons wrap around the world to bring night, Vincent always told me. They protected us from constant sun. The night air makes my skin tighten and its rubs my face the wrong way. I feel frostbite coming on but I’m only taking a single step outside. That’s all. I don’t need a jacket for that. I have the gun with me. I’m only checking something.

I go to the rusty condominium gate. It only goes up to the rise of my breasts and the tops are spiked – meant to discourage intruders but not to cut off visitors. There was no guard station at the condos – no 24 hour security, just some people lounging around. It was more of a well kept trailer park if anything else.

My boyfriend Vincent lies in a coffin on Third Street. And now he’s hunched over in front of the condo gate near the rim of the woods. Our woods.

My boyfriend Vincent is handsome and pale. His skin is porcelain–flawless, smooth, inhuman. His eyes are maroon and slanted so slightly. We went to the coast and in the summer sun they were brimstone coals, matching his dark red hair–always cut short, always perfectly maintained. His hands were always soft, his nails always filed and cut.

Could this be Vincent? It is the same handsome face but its swirled tightly, scrunched in pain, the left side of his mouth snarled to the side in a menacing expression. His hair has started to grow ragged and long, his clothes are filthy. The ends of the nails are bloody stubs and all along his body…sickle moon scars, as if he has been trying to tear his own flesh off.

My boyfriend Vincent is dead and this shambling creature huddled near the gate of our old memories is who?

“Lizzy.” the creature sputters. A dark red liquid dribbles out of his mouth, runs down his chin. “Lizzy…I knew you’d come…Lizzy...” His voice crackles and screeches at random intervals, like one of my father’s old records warped in the merciless summer sun.

I can’t hold back my sobs at the sight of Vincent in front of our woods. This was where Vincent took me and told me his secrets. He believed in purging the soul of guilt by telling the truth when the time came. He confessed to me and we would be stronger that way. Vincent told me so. We would be held together by glue of secrecy.

“Lizzy…” the creature who was Vincent coughs. “…I need help, Lizzy…”

“No one will help you, Vincent.” I admit. The truth must be told. “No doctor. No hospital.”

“Witch.” breathes the creature who was my boyfriend Vincent. “Witches will help me.”

“I don’t know any witches, Vincent.” I say.

“I do.” The creature lurches forward and grabs my pant leg. I don’t scream and I’ m not shocked either. Vincent was always surprising me. Grabbing my shoulder, squeezing my waist, pinching me when I wasn’t paying attention. “Lizzy, take me to the old place.”

“Vincent, I can’t. I have…”

“Lizzy. I can’t move, Lizzy.”

My boyfriend Vincent is begging for my help. Powerful and commanding Vincent needs me to help him stand, to encourage his legs to move and walk to our woods. The woods were Vincent confessed to me and then shoved me against an oak. Bark dug into my back, prodding it as he kissed me and initiated our romance for the first time. For my first time.

I want to take Vincent to the old place but I can’t move his handsome body far. I open the condo gate and take him to the woods, where we won’t be seen. The full moon watches us, watches my shame, as I place Vincent on soft grass, prop him against a tree, sat next to him and fought my heart. Fought to not scream and sob, rip my hair and clothes at my fallen angel.

My boyfriend Vincent confesses to me.

“It was the wrong person.” confesses Vincent, “There’s so few rules but they’re big ones, Lizzy. Don’t go into the sunlight. Don’t go into the church. Don’t feed on the blood-sick.”

He doubles over; his lungs are doing jumping jacks on top of his organs. The sound of a dying car engine. Finally, he spits out coagulated blood, staining the silvered green of the forest.

“The littlest rules…the littlest rules, Lizzy, they mean the world.” continues my sick Vincent. “I was so broken after you left, Lizzy. I went crazy a while. I started feeding on people again and…I’m such a stupid fuck, Lizzy. I fed on this guy…normal looking guy didn’t kill him or nothing but…I started feeling sick and I knew…when I kept coughing up blood…I knew what happened.”

He starts giggling, my Vincent. He giggles and smiles at me. His teeth are crimson.

“The guy is all fine now, Lizzy. I sucked it out of him – the disease. A few more months with it and it would have hit him like a ton of bricks but me? I got the bug, Lizzy, and he’s healthy as a fucking ox…”

My boyfriend Vincent never swore, not even when talking to me casually. He was always serious with me. He only swore at others, when he was pissed off at them. Like Grey. Vincent was always bickering with Grey, even though they were best friends.

“Lizzy, I need to see Grey.” he says, the grin still on his face. Vincent never wants to see Grey, not willingly at least. He told me he never wanted to talk him after what happened before. “Grey is a witch. He can help.”

Grey lived downtown in an apartment complex. He had moved from his old place in the woods after I tore away from Vincent. I see him in the street occasionally when I visit Joseph at his job. I give him a nod and he will nod back, depending on his mood.

My boyfriend Vincent’s hand is cold when I touch it. I never remembered him being so cold, not physically. He was always distant, always thinking of topics I could not name, his expression always universal, but never was he frozen to the touch. I would have known when I let Vincent caress me, let him lay me down in his bed, let him strip every bit of clothes slowly, seductively.

Let him finally fuck me before I tore away from my boyfriend Vincent.

“Lizzy…please….I need to see a witch…” gasps Vincent. There are tears in his eyes, “I don’t want to die, Lizzy…the others…they say I’m fucked and might as well be gone…they’ve turned their back on me, Lizzy…”

“You’re already dead, Vincent. You died a long time ago. You told me yourself. One hundred years, Vincent. That’s three different lifetimes for you.”

I say it because it is truth.

My boyfriend Vincent is dead and he should stay dead. I tore away from him long ago before he could rope me down even tighter.

“Just one last favor, Lizzy…please…not as your lover but…please…we had fun, we were friends once, Lizzy…I don’t want to die...I still love you, Lizzy…I really do…I don’t know why you left me…”

Proud and handsome Vincent is begging me for another chance. He’s begging and lying to my face. A caged animal at the shelter, backed into the corner when he knows it’s his turn to go into the gas room.

“You don’t love me,” I say it because it’s true; “you’re foolish and desperate. I told you I would kill you if you came back here.” I pat the gun in my pocket. “I’ll take you to Grey, tomorrow night but you stay away from me and you sure as fuck stay away from my life. You’re dead. I’m alive. That’s it, Vincent. I see you again…the bullet goes in your brain.”

I want to put the bullet between those maroon eyes right now but guilt clamps down my hand. It holds down the hand that shot Vincent in his left shoulder when I knew the truth. It squeezes it tight, causing suffocation, keeping my itching right arm from shooting Vincent in his foot when he tried to rekindle the romance.

My boyfriend Vincent limped back to his hovel on Third Street with his other dead friends and lied in his coffin secured in the basement and slept another day away, cursing my name and my tearing away.

Time moved on and I met Joseph while packing up my things to go back to Arizona. These Washington woods made me think only of my boyfriend Vincent. Joseph is sweet enough and I left him try to close my open wounds. I’m bold. I make the move on the second date and he’s already moved in though he knows I’ll be gone soon.

He never really answered me when I asked if he was coming along. We aren’t officially together. Vincent pushed me off of the rollercoaster ride of my first real relationship since puppy love high school days and left me falling into the darkness when I slammed into the pillow of Joseph, only to have a broken leg instead of a broken neck.

“I have to see a friend, so I’ll be home late.” I tell Joseph over the phone from work. I work at the Walmart on Sumner Avenue. They’re sad that I have to leave soon. Had I stayed, I would have become a manager. I won’t miss them.

“Okay. I’ll leave you some dinner.” offers Joseph.

I leave my shift early to go pick up Vincent. It is sunset and twilight is wrapping around the world in a silk ribbon, like Vincent was wrapped around me.

My boyfriend Vincent used to live at Third Street with his “covenant” as he called it. Vincent romanticized it for me before he showed me the actual thing. He always did that for me. That was before I knew how disappointing reality would be when he had to make it seem so much more glamorous. Vincent told me the covenant was a banding of outcasts, coming together just to survive while society didn’t accept them. They lived in a large house, did as they pleased, never worked, and never paid taxes. It was a Lost Boy’s dream. Or a Lost Girl’s.

The Third Street “covenant” was in an abandoned hotel that, when it was up and running, was reserved for homeless families until the Health Board shut it down for having rooms out of Clive Barker’s nightmares and not giving a fuck about it. His “people” consisted of strung out living dead like himself that wore all black, thick make up, and stole wallets or whatever they could get their grimy hands on. There was one named Carl who always smoked blunts and never spoke to me. Another one, Esmeralda, was a junkie who could never sit still, always spoke of daylight ribbons, and seeing the moon in cups.

Vincent nearly cried when he learned she died. She had gone too long without her drugs and was more strung out than usual. She stumbled into the daylight–burst into flames and was only hot ash and a memory. No one else noticed. New living dead moved in and out of the abandoned hotel. As much as I wanted to, Vincent never let me stay there long.

My boyfriend Vincent always shielded me from the hideous things in his life.

Now Vincent lies bleeding over my back seat, coughing and sobbing to God to end his pain. I had kept him in my car all night, covered him with the old, woolen blanket he always used to keep out the sun. It scratched your skin, making it nearly impossible to sleep with but Vincent always made due. It was either deal with the itching or burn to death like junkie Esmeralda.

“Hold on.” I mutter half hearted. My guilt makes me turn the key in the ignition and drive out of the parking lot. The glue that once held Vincent and me together makes me drive downtown to the apartments where Grey now lives.

It is dark now. Twilight has conquered the world and it is perfect for living dead like Vincent but still Vincent cannot move. He has lost too much blood now and his life is a vermillion ribbon moths feed on. I let Vincent lean on me as I keep him moving.

I know Grey lives on the first floor. He’s afraid of heights, even small ones, and too much of a coward to conquer that fear or admit it openly.

Grey is expecting us because the door is unlocked. His apartment is neat and small. When I open the door, Grey is sitting at a table looking directly into my eyes with those pale moonlight eyes, shuffling tarot cards casually.

“This said you would come.” says Grey, waving an upside down card at me. The Hanged Man. Surrender.

“I need help!” gasps Vincent. I drag him over to the conveniently placed chair at the table where Grey sits. Grey shuffles his tarot cards and lays them out. I sit in another chair between Vincent and Grey.

“Who doesn’t?” decides Grey.

“This is serious, you smug fuck.” coughs Vincent. He talks like a broken marionette. “I f…I fed on the wrong person! They were blood-sick and now…fuck it Grey quit playing with those fucking cards and help me! I don’t have much time left now!”

Grey clenches his teeth suddenly and I see him bear fangs at Vincent. Catholics have church and confession. Grey has cards, runes, and varied grimoires. He would have gone wolf then and snacked on Vincent’s esophagus as he tried to in the past but he sighs – expelling his anger with the composure of a Buddhist monk.

“There is no cure for being a vampire, Vincent,” replies Grey, “and that is what you need. You feed on the life of others and when that life is tainted, you are tainted as well. There are reasons you don’t feed on the blood-sick, after all.”

“…Grey…please…we were friends once…”

“I’m no friend to death, Vincent.”

“Then there’s nothing you can do for me at all?”

Grey flickers his eyes in my direction.

“Two silver bullets.” he says to me.

Before I can say anything, Grey returns his attention to Vincent. Vincent hasn’t even noticed Grey’s diversion.

“One for the brain so you won’t feel the other goes into the heart.” continues Grey. “I suggest you end it now. I knew a vampire whose pain went on for half a century before it finally got him in the end. A century of blood-drinking will do that to you.”

There is an inhuman noise, between a curse and a wail to some merciless, unnamed god that hears the blessings and blights of the living dead. Vincent stands, stumbles backward and knocks his body against the curling wallpaper of the room. Grey does not move, neither do I. He stumbles out, still wailing at his fate. The living dead delay the equalizer but he does come – the reaper walks a foot between him and the living dead while he stalks the shadows of the living.

“Two silver bullets, Elizabeth.” says Grey. He opens my palm with a clawed hand and places two long bullets in my hand. They’re cold and it sends a shiver up my arm.

I bite my lower lip, bruise it hard.

“Do you still have the gun I gave you?” asks Grey. He smiles to himself, “The one you used on Vincent very well, I have to admit.”

My boyfriend Vincent has no hope of escaping his fate.

“He’s sick.” I manage to say in reply, rolling around the silver bullets in my palm. “You could have lied to him.”

“And what good would come of false hope?” says Grey, “He lied to you and what good came out of it? He got shot twice and he lost you.”

I don’t reply because it’s true.

I load the bullets into the gun Grey gave me when I came to him crying late that one night, with the full moon hanging over me. He had the gun already out and ready to give away. He was ready to show me down to aim and shoot.

“Remember: first the brain. Then the heart.” Grey calls to me as I walk down the hallway with his gun in my pocket.

My boyfriend Vincent is in the alleyway between the apartments and the coffee shop. Where he was when he told me he loved me for the first time after he introduced me to the Third Street covenant.

My boyfriend Vincent is vomiting what remains of his blood. Blood he stole from innocent bodies–humans, then animals, then humans again when I tore from him. Vincent is sobbing and he looks at me. The full moon casts me in silver light and it bounces off the surface of the gun I hold, making it shine.

He’s crying tears of blood as it slides out his nose, falls out of his mouth and other openings in his body. Handsome Vincent’s skin is wrinkled and his mouth is small and puckered like the old man he should be. A hundred years now. Three lifetimes for Vincent.

“…do it…” orders Vincent.

I should protest.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Grey doesn’t know everything. There has to be someway to help you, Vincent. Maybe we could turn you human? Or find an antidote to the blood-sickness? Maybe you could transfer the sickness to someone else?

I don’t say a word because it’s a lie.

I am for aiming Vincent’s forehead. First the brain, then the heart.

“…why did you leave me, Lizzy…?” whimpers Vincent the shriveling man.

Grey was a witch, a human with the ability to change into a wolf at his command. He was a confidant of Vincent’s. The living dead always needed allies strong in magic if they were to survive in this hectic modern world. I wanted to badly meet Grey. I was sixteen. The exciting danger of Vincent had sharpened my dull life. Vincent would take me to clubs to meet other living dead and I would introduce myself. drink wine, and act very mature and grown up while Vincent touted me around.

Vincent made Grey sound like a powerful man who could make wishes come true and I was absolutely dying to meet him. Vincent wouldn’t take me to see Grey for two and a half months. I held onto his every word, believing his promise of introducing me to this magic man.

The wonderful wizard Grey lived in a shed with a leaky tin roof behind a half-demolished building on the outskirts of the city by himself, save for the company of wild dogs and cats. It was boiling hot in the summer and freezing cold in the winter. He made his living telling fortunes, holding séances, and kitchen witchery like using willow’s bark to cure headaches.

Vincent introduced me as his Sweet, Darling Lizzy to the Great Wolf Witch Grey.

Grey looked me in the eye and then smiled at me.

“What a cute pet, Vincent. She’s much better than the blondes and the brunettes. Any particular reason you’re picking up overweight high schoolers now? Are they more interesting or just easier to fuck and impress?”

Vincent had blown off Grey’s words as a joke but the first crack in the glue between us was there.

Fuck and impress: our relationship in two simple words.

I met Vincent right after the abrupt move to another state. I lived with my father and he worked all day and barely noticed me. I didn’t know anyone in town and I was lonely. Then this handsome man showed up and romanced me, told me how beautiful I was and then took me to the woods. Confessed to me of his dangerous life, of his secret sin of being a vampire – being one of the living dead. He was part of the shadows but he made it sexual and appealing. Living in the darkness. Wearing all black. Hanging out with witches, werewolves, and other night creatures. Never having to obey or live as people do.

Staying out of the sun to live forever young. Vincent was a century old and he told me of his adventures through time. He saw the moon landing on TV and went to see The Beatles live in concert. He never got to miss a moment in history and it was enchanting.

This decaying city was his glorious world of darkness. His mansion was the abandoned hotel on Third Street. His plain wooden coffin located in the old storage basement was his exotic chamber of forbidden secrets, pleasures, and lusts. The junkies and homeless strangers were his covenant held tight by the universal bond of sin and being outcast from their homes and societies.

And I was impressed with it all. And I wanted to be in that life with Vincent. To make love in the eroticized darkness and be living dead like him.

Fuck and impress.

Now the romance was gone from it. I didn’t see a wonderful house of exotic vampires but a decrepit building of addicts with broken mattresses and no plumbing. His friends were shallow as a rain puddles on a paved street, consumed by their false dark world, lacking any real danger.

My boyfriend Vincent was no longer a sexy vampire. He was the living dead – a walking corpse that fondled me as he pleased and showed me off in the new clothes he bought me and at “social gatherings” with his friends, which consisted of sitting around a burning trash can and getting high or drunk.

And I, Elizabeth, was a stupid high school girl with a boring life.

Then it all came crashing down with that.

I wouldn’t let Vincent near me. I couldn’t stand to touch him. To be near him. I realized that I had let a living corpse kiss me. Make out with me. Fuck me. His blood drinking disgusted me, even though he only fed on animals, it still made me nauseous. His friends were all idiots lost in their own little worlds and self-hates.

Like I was.

I hated myself for letting Vincent bind to me. I tried to pull away and he only held on tighter. He refused to let me go now. When it had been two weeks since I let him near me, Vincent tried to hold me down and force me.

I kicked him in the balls and ran sobbing at my own childish embarrassments and failures. I was too afraid to go home. Vincent knew all my habits and haunts by now so I wandered around the city. I slept in a bus station until the twilight was gone and my safety confirmed.

Then I ran to Grey. He was the source of my pain – my troubles. Everything had been so perfect and he had ruined it with two words! Two fucking words had turned my fanciful dream into a nightmarish reality.

And he gave me the gun.

“Normal bullets won’t kill but they’ll hurt like hell.” he said.

I didn’t want to kill. I wanted protection from Vincent. I had to have my life back. My petty, monotonous, high school girl life. A life full of trivial dramas: first crushes, overdue homework, overbearing mothers, lacking popularity and not having a prom date. I longed for those minor problems now.

I went home, back to the condos, and Vincent was waiting for me. What the fuck was wrong with me? Why was I being such a bitch all of a sudden? Was I cheating on him? Was that why I wouldn’t fuck him anymore? Was that why I suddenly hated everything about him? About his world?

He was going to kill me if I was cheating on him.

He took one step forward at me and I yanked my gun out, pulled the trigger. I shot Vincent in the shoulder and he stepped back, first in shock and then yelled in pain. He called me a stupid bitch and a traitor. He moved forward at me and I shot again. I was too scared to aim right and I shot him in the foot. Vincent fell to the ground and cursed me over and over.

I was shaking and crying. My stomach was in knots.

It was midnight; the twilit ribbon was wrapped around the world even thicker than before.

My boyfriend Vincent called me a fat slut and an ugly cunt while he limped into the night as he bled from his shoulder and foot.

The twilit ribbons ripped away, letting daylight on me again. My father drove up to the condo in his car and asked me what the hell I was doing outside with a gun in my hand.

All I could do was cry and run inside. I locked my bedroom door and forsook the world. For undoing all I ever loved about my boyfriend Vincent the Vampire. For raping my dream of living with Vincent the Vampire and becoming a Vampire myself, having a wedding at the midnight hour, bearing his children while we had our own covenant in our glorious mansion, and becoming part of famed undead aristocracy Vincent always spoke of.

Vincent the Vampire had gone to his own devices, back to the coffin on Third Street back to the shadows where he belonged.

Time moves on. I couldn’t stay in my room forever. I started going back to school regularly but everything reminded me of Vincent the Vampire. I dropped out and got my GED instead. I started working the graveyard hours at various stores, saved up money to move into my own condo.

But now Washington made me think of Vincent the Vampire. I had to leave.

Now Vincent the Vampire kneeled before me and my gun is at his head. First the brain, then the heart.

“…l…izzy…” he gags on his own vomit.

Vincent the Vampire is now a wrinkled man a century old. His dark red hair has greyed, falling out of his head in large chunks. His skin sags from his body, sinking downward to the trash strewn ground. He spits out his vomit, and it contains chunks of yellow, rotten teeth stubs.

My boyfriend Vincent the Vampire suffers and I see him for what he is.

I pull the trigger. A silver bullet to the brain. Another bullet to the heart. There is no blood left in his body to splatter on me.

Vincent the Vampire’s body shakes and he looks at the wound in his chest. He smiles at me, relieved that it is now over. He has no teeth left at all. It is the gummed smile of a man who has lived too long, a corpse that refuses to rest.

My boyfriend Vincent the Vampire is at peace.

I go to Grey. Give him the gun. He knows what I did and his eyes are red and teary for it. Vincent always thought he was having an affair with me. He will always think that.

I lay on the daybed in Grey’s backroom. Grey sits beside me, comforting me as best as he can. He always reminds me that there will be nothing between us. I’m far too young for him, immortal or not.

“You weren’t meant for his world,” he tells me as his claws stroke my hair gentler than Vincent ever did, “so few of us understand evil that all we can do is fear it or sexualize it for our own comfort.”

I look out the unwashed bedroom window, looking into the alley where Vincent the Vampire’s cold body lies. The twilit ribbons snap away and the sun peaks out from between the shreds. The body that was Vincent the Vampire burns away as soon as the sun hits it, shredding it into ash and memory as those before him.

everybody hates twilight, huh?

2008-10-18T22:40:00.000-07:00

"I am the wind blowing through your hair" zee rose 2008. Happy Halloween and Merry Samhain! Print now available. Email me at smavmartin@yahoo.com

As a result of its high popularity, the Twilight series by Stephanie Meyer is started to get some serious backlash from the anon forces of the internet - which I'm not surprised at. Harry Potter went through the same thing. It partially has to do with the audience - young teens - who are pretty vocal and when they hate something, the world shall know it.

To be honest, I can't blame them. I read the first book and the writing leaves much to be desired but who am I to throw stones when my own house may as well be made of toothpicks? (It sure as hell isn't glass. I'm not that horrible of a writer once I have a spell check, a thesaurus, some sleep, and if my muse isn't being a complete bitch to me)

I'm a staritng author myself aiming for the same audience: so how would I handle it if the anon power of the intenet started tearing me apart as it always does? I mean, I've laughed at the authors' expense myself but how would I feel?

I suppose it would depend on the initial book reception. Twilight is hated by critics but loved by its fanbase and no matter what people say, just as in the case of JK Rowling, Stephen King, Kurt Vonnegut (RIP, buddy), and Cornelia Funke, they will still make money because people like their work. I've dealt with critics of Stephen King as callng him often cliche and that he draws out his stories for too long but I still buy it. Its the same with the Pendragon series.

Its because - honestly - I'm familar with it. It makes me comfortable. Not to say that I won't try something new. I've recently become a fan of Gregory Maguire and Sarah Monette. I'm currently reading The Virtu by Sarah Monette since I just finished Melusine, which was a refreshing breath of air to me.

Still - some works I just don't like. I'll be honest, I don't like everything and anything I read. I'm not a fan of Twilight or Eragon. I dislike the idea of the human-like vampires (Another discussion for another day) and dragon stories fall into cliches, which Eragon fails to escape from.

One of my biggest pet peeves are cliches. Once again, another discussion for another day as I discuss the difference between a motif and a cliche.

Project #1: Urban Fantasy Adventure visual novel - Chapter One

Made using Ren'Py.

A choose your own adventure story in the style of a Japanese visual novel. You play as the central character. Your deicisons will effect your destiny. You can become anything from a hired goon to a dancer. There's four different good endings you can get in the first chapter. By "good" I mean "not dead".

Story:You have been exiled from Faerie and trying to survive in the harsh, decaying city that lies on the Borderlands. So far:

scripting: story - 100%, technical - 95%

images: characters 100% done, backgrounds 100%

Endings completed: 4 out of 4

Project #2: Comic book

So I've gone up at page ten so far. The inking and drawing is the longest process but lettering is easy. I have to have a minimum of 32 pages but I think it'll end up being 45 pages long for issue one.I'm currently looking for sponsorships. Wanna run an ad in my comic? Email me at smavmartin@yahoo.com. So far:

pages done: 10 out of 32 minimum

Project #3: Poster

I'm set to design a billboard righ tnow. So far, I haven't started it.

I miss plot in anime

2008-10-13T21:35:00.000-07:00

A picture I drew for a lesser known anime called Iczer One adn Fight! Iczer 3. For all its cheese, I like the anime.

I'm currently addicted to Dungeons and Dragons: Tiny Adventures. I have a Dragonborn Wizard! Yay me. I'm up to Level 2 so far. I know - pathetic but I have a life. I'm also playing Gigolo Assasin at adultswim.com. Their games are a little complicated but they're entertaining. Like, the controls are a little difficult at times and for the puzzle game they don't give you the hints properly but that's just my opinion.

I'm really into Gurren Lagann lately since there's no where else to get good anime except for the scifi channel and online. Well, there's IFC but I'm not a big fan of Hell Girl or Gunslinger Girl. Why?

Well, let me explain Hell Girl. Hell Girl is an interesting anime. It toys around with a concept first introduce to us in J-horror movies like Ringu or anime like XXXhoLiC where the supernatural can become tools of the living. It can also fall into the general adventure vein like Mushishi. Anyway, while Hell Girl and XXXhoLiC are interesting stories, sometimes I crave a little more.

I mean, they both read like a series of interconnected short stories rather than an actual series. Character 1 goes from point A to point B occasionally meeting Character 2 and Character 3 and sometimes getting to point C to break up the pace. But that's it. There's no actual story. There's no end. It just keeps on going and going and going...

Its gets repetitive after a while and boring, so I lose interest before an actual story starts. Its kind of why I lost interest in InuYasha. Okay, actually, I lost interest in that series because of the annoying fans and the fact that it just kept going on with no actual story like Naruto. It was tedious and I moved on to better things. Thank God I did or I would be doing this on message boards all the freaking time:

"OMG I LUV INUYASHA!!!11!!!!"

I'm glad my brain stopped me early.

BOOK UPDATE:
4 query letters returned out of 8
1 - "Submit another time. Good luck, kid."
2- "Not what we publish. Get lost."
1 - "Get an agent and we'll talk."

Project #1: Urban Fantasy Adventure visual novel - Chapter One
Made using Ren'Py.
A choose your own adventure story in the style of a Japanese visual novel. You play as the central character. Your deicisons will effect your destiny. You can become anything from a hired goon to a dancer. There's four different good endings you can get in the first chapter. By "good" I mean "not dead".
Story:
You have been exiled from Faerie and trying to survive in the harsh, decaying city that lies on the Borderlands. So far:
scripting: story - 100%, technical - 20%
images: characters 95% done, backgrounds 65%
Endings completed: 4 out of 4

Project #2: Comic book
So I've gone up at page four so far. The inking and drawing is the longest process but lettering is easy. I have to have a minimum of 32 pages but I think it'll end up being 45 pages long for issue one.
I'm currently looking for sponsorships. Wanna run an ad in my comic? Email me at smavmartin@yahoo.com. So far:
pages done: 8 out of 32 minimum

book update

2008-10-11T20:28:00.000-07:00

"High Fructose Corn Syrup" - a girl I drew who would be the personification of high fructose corn syrup. (c) zee rose. 2008

For some reason, my thing keeps translating to some hindi language thing, so I've finally worked around it (I think). I recently got another letter. It was short but it pretty much said "No" to my book, which I'm fine with. I'm not at the end of my rope.

BOOK UPDATE:
4 query letters returned out of 8
1 - "Submit another time. Good luck, kid."
2- "Not what we publish. Get lost."
1 - "Get an agent and we'll talk."

Project #1: Urban Fantasy Adventure visual novel - Chapter One
Made using Ren'Py.
A choose your own adventure story in the style of a Japanese visual novel. You play as the central character. Your deicisons will effect your destiny. You can become anything from a hired goon to a dancer. There's four different good endings you can get in the first chapter. By "good" I mean "not dead".

Story:
You have been exiled from Faerie and trying to survive in the harsh, decaying city that lies on the Borderlands.

So far:
scripting: story - 60%, technical - 0%
images: characters 90% done, backgrounds 25%
Endings completed: 3 out of 4

Project #2: Comic book
So I've gone up at page four so far. The inking and drawing is the longest process but lettering is easy. I have to have a minimum of 32 pages but I think it'll end up being 45 pages long for issue one. I'm currently looking for sponsorships. Wanna run an ad in my comic? Email me at smavmartin@yahoo.com.
So far:
pages done: 5 out of 32 minimum

work

2008-10-10T23:44:00.000-07:00

This picture I drew makes me laugh so hard.

I'm still working on my stuff right now. Kind of tired.

Project #1: Urban Fantasy Adventure visual novel - Chapter One
Made using Ren'Py.
A choose your own adventure story in the style of a Japanese visual novel. You play as the central character. Your deicisons will effect your destiny. You can become anything from a hired goon to a dancer.

Story:
You have been exiled from Faerie and trying to survive in the harsh, decaying city that lies on the Borderlands.

So far:
scripting: 25%
images: 55%

And Project #2: Comic book
So I've gone up at page four so far. The inking and drawing is the longest process but lettering is easy. I have to have a minimum of 32 pages but I think it'll end up being 45 pages long for issue one. I'm currently looking for sponsorships. Wanna run an ad in my comic. Email me at smavmartin@yahoo.com.
So far:
script: 100% (entire story finished! yay!)
rough sketch: 21%
inking: 5%
shading: 5%
word bubbles: 5%

BOOK UPDATE:
3 query letters returned
1 - "Submit another time. Good luck, kid."
1 - "Not what we publish. Get lost."
1 - "Get an agent and we'll talk."

Independent projects

2008-10-08T14:51:00.000-07:00

'
"Sailor Moon 3000" I owe a lot to Sailor Moon. If it weren't for the show, I would have become a vet instead of a cartoonist. Good thing too. All characters belong to Naoko Takeuchi. Art style belongs to zee rose, 2008.

So, I'm working on two seperate indepedent projects to keep myself preoccupied while waiting for all my letters from the publishers to return.

So, Project #1: A visual RPG novel
Its going to be urban fantasy, involving you (the main character) being exiled from Faerie and trying to survive in the harsh, decaying city. Its going to be of the choose-your-own-adventure variety but with pictures! Shiny pictures that I made. I'm making it using Ren'Py, a freeware program commonly using to be ren'ai (Japanese dating sim) and turn-based fighting games. Except my game will have an actual plot.
Scary thought, huh? Anyway, its going to be broken into chapters. I'm working on chapter one right now where your adventure begins.
So far:
scripting: 10%
images: 0%

And Project #2: Comic book
I'm publishing a comic book through lulu.com because I need some serious cash on the side. NEED MONEY. WANT FOOD. *ahem* So, I'm going though lulu.com to do this because, honestly, the oomic book industry is a little messed up right now. They just cancelled the minx line of books! Damn you, DC! Why can't you have neat stuff like Image or Marvel?! That's everybody hates you.
Okay, maybe I hate you except your Elseworld titles like Kingdom Come, Watchmen, Sin City, The Dark Knight Returns, The Long Halloween and Son of Batman because they don't suck as much. But everybody else sucks.
Especially Hawkman. You know why.
So far:
script: 100% (entire story finished! yay!)
rough sketch:15%
inking: 0%
shading: 0%
word bubbles: 0%

BOOK UPDATE:
3 query letters returned
1 - "Submit another time. Good luck, kid."
1 - "Not what we publish. Get lost."
1 - "Get an agent and we'll talk."

It's finally been sent...

2008-09-21T16:30:00.001-07:00

(c) Zee Rose. 2007. Another character from my book. I love Lolita fashion - punk, goth, sweet, pirate, artistocrat...it doesn't matter. I own my fair share of corsets and fancy lace stockings. I had to include a fire-breathing Sweet Lolita in it. And if you have no idea what I'm talking about, check out the book Japanese Schoolgirl Inferno or the movie Kamikaze Girls. Or both. They're both good.

Yesterday, at approximately 3:15 pm, I finally shipped off my manuscript samplers with cover letters and a self-addressed stamp envelope. It cost twenty dollars, which is probably five euros right about now. That said, the first chapter has been written. It's up to the publishers now. Personally, I'm hoping that Tor likes the books since I enjoy a lot of the books published by them, especially Elantris. (I sometimes find advanced read copies at the libraries)

Back to school

2008-09-15T09:07:00.000-07:00

This is a picture of a flying city from my novel. Its so fun looking. I wish I knew how to build models. *sadness* (c) Zee Rose 2008

Finally printed out the sample chapters and query letters (nearly ran out of ink in the process) but I'm on my way. Then I had to buy stamps. Nearly done now.

Meanwhile, I've returned to college, so I've been a little tired as of late.

My back aches oh so much now...

2008-08-29T20:49:00.000-07:00

Another character from my book. (c) Zee Rose. 2008. All rights reserved.

...because I've been hunched over my laptop for the last couple of weeks in a feeble attempt to get all my query letters done. By the way, out of the 25 publishers that apply to my story, only 14 of them (so far) will let me submit to them since I'm unsolicited. I have an agent. Just not the literary kind. More of the, "I will advise you and state the obvious and drive you when you have overdosed on Twinkies and you should not drive at all" agent. >_<

I have to go back to college next week and I'm horribly unprepared for it. Agghh, what happened to my summer? I barely did ANYTHING this year besides go to Conneticon and get so sick I couldn't go Sunday. T_T

If anything, I'll update with new art while I silently scream inside my head from the sheer frustration of trying to publish a simple science fiction/fantasy novel without the aid of an agent.

Conecticon!

2008-08-13T11:36:00.001-07:00

This is my main character from my book Celetia. (c) Zee Rose. 2008.

I'm back from Coneticon and I overloaded on Saturday so I spent Sunday sick as a dog. This was my first big convention though and I had a lot of fun!

I met the creator of The Devil's Panties and bought an issue of that. Then I met the guy who writes Ansem's Report, a sprite comic based on Kingdom Hearts. I met the guy who does Chugworth Academy, Applegeeks, and BEST OF ALL - I met my longtime favorite Brian Froud: the guy who does Flipside!

I got his autograph too so I'm a happy nerd. Then I took pictures of people cosplaying and went to the dealer's area to go spend my hard earned money on artbooks and doujin and other things that I do not really need. I'll upload pictures later when I'm not as exhausted.

In books news I'm promoting my art on my deviantart website at http://zerosoul.deviantart.com and preparing to sell the posters. I have also tweaked my cover letter and I am sending it out at the end of the week. Wish me luck!

Submissions and Comicon

2008-07-24T23:38:00.001-07:00

(c) "Jazzy Jackie". Zero Rose. 2008. A character based off of my grandmother.

Yeah, its been a while. I briefly forgot my password but heres a quick update on the book so far.

I have finished the second version and received notes from the editor. Unlike the first eidtion, he noted my great improvement. He also noted that although I'm descriptive, I lack the sensation of touch, taste, and smell. So many days later, I added those in and now begins the long saga of submitting manuscripts, queries, and letters to the editors of publishing companies for me to wait and wait until months later I get a reply.

Also, I have just finished a short for a film festival. It has taken three weeks of my life. So between work and this, I've been pretty busy.

Now, I'm watching ComiCon Live on G4 and I saw the trailer for Watchmen. I'm pumped up for it. I can hardly wait. I love the way Rorsarch looks. He's my favorite comic book character of all time.

I'm also excited for Spore, which has caused me to take initiative into fixing my bigger computer so that I can put Spore on it since the game is probably going to be ridiculously big.

So, I'm busy fixing the cover letter, fixing artwork from the book so that it looks so neat and a nice cover that'll appeal to my audience. By the way, my audience enjoys the artworks of Bleedman, Endling, and anime-influenced art so you can probably guess how its going to look. The cover and back covered will be color while the inner art will be greyscale.

I gotta work now so I'm cutting this short.

Cover letter

2008-04-30T00:53:00.000-07:00

"Of Raging Winds and Waters". 2008. Based on a sketch I made in art class while bored. You can also see it on my deviantART page, http://zerosoul.deviantart.com.

So I just finished printing the frighteningly long second draft of my manuscript "Gaeadians", which starting off at about 100 something pages and then literally ballooned in walrus-like fashion to a whopping 400-something pages. Needless to say, it took me a good 3 days to print it off my home printer, ruining about 10 sheets of good paper due to jams in the process. T_T Tragic, but they shall be avenged. I hope my editor likes it. My agent hasn't read it yet. She's been lagging since she's been sick, but we shall soon be on top of our game, so no worried there.

In the meantime, my birthday is near so I got my present early. I FINALLY got a camera, which means I'll be able to have a video journal and start doing my stop motion stuff, which I've been getting ready for FOREVER it seems now.

I'm currently tweaking my cover letter for my manuscript. Tell me what you think:

Dear Mr./Mrs./Ms. –

Gaeadians: The Shards of Gaea is my 103,529 words, unique, soft science-fiction fantasy novel in the epic tradition of Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time saga with the uncommon and rich setting of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials saga.

Science fiction and fantasy have often been at odds with one another but with the success of genre straddling novels like Tinker and The Looking Glass Wars have changed that.

Celestia lives in a dimension of sapient insects, man-eating trees, where folkloric beasts and creatures walk the earth. She soon discovers her destiny: to protect their world against the invaders that seek to rule it. She must share her fate with other chosen ones–from an aristocratic honeybee to a forest dwelling wolf-man. Their adventure will take them beyond their own reality in an adventure across universes.

Sincerely,

Zee Rose

I was worried it may be too short. I had a bit of trouble trying to find novels similar to mine. The biggest issue was finding novels that included people who WEREN'T all white and blonde in the fantasy/science-fiction genres. >-<>

Its kind of sad when you think about it. I always go to the library to scope out the newest books and read, and they recently added a section called 'urban', so I was a little curious about it. When I was growing up, there weren't a lot of blacks, spanish, or anybody as main characters in books, which made me a little sad. I mean, it wasn't a big deal but it's sort of sad in this day and age you can't find a black superhero or warrior's tale even.

Moving on: the books weren't very positive, to begin with. They're all about shootings, gangs, tough inner city life. Yeah, it has black people in it but its kind of sad that you can't find a good adventure story or epic. Its bad enough I have to deal with that crap in real life, I don't want to have to read about it.

Whatever. I plan on changing that.

In the meantime, I got two manga from the library: MW and With the Light.

MW is by Osamu Tezuka and I have to say, is pretty intense. There's sex, violence, murder (constantly), and insanity. The story is interesting, although there is a quirk or two in it that bug me, but I won't spoil anything for you. Its worth reading if you're interested.

With the Light is a lighter affair, but it deals with the issue of raising an autistic child. I have to say that I was very impressed with the author, since she made sure the manga was realistic in raising someone with autism. I even felt a tear well up in my eye. I'd say everyone should read this manga, even though I usually hate shoujo manga because the heroines usually annoy me. This manga is a rare exception though (well, this and Utena, Basara, and Godchild).

Code Geass recently aired on [adult swim], so I was leaping for joy. So far, I've only been watching adult swim for Death Note, Home Movies, Aqua Teen Hungerforce, Robot Chicken, Venture Brothers, and Harvey Birdman. Everything else I kind of ignore. I mean, Bleach would probably appeal to me if I hadn't seen Yuyu Hakusho beforehand.

In future news, I recently saw the previews for the new season of Avatar: The Last Airbender. God, I love that show. At first I was skeptical, but then I got sucked in. *hangs head in shame* Yes, my fellow otaku criticize and poke me for my unwilling love but I MUST HAVE MORE! MORE I SAY! Unfortunately, it doesn't start until July, which is also the same month that Venture Bros.' third season premieries.

Sadly, I have to say that if there's a time conflict, Venture Bros. is going to win for me. I love that show. Dr. Orpheus is my favorite character, mainly because I'm a Dr. Strange fan to begin with.

Speaking of Marvel...

*dramatic pause*

IRON MAN!

*dancing*

I am trying to persuade my buddies so that we can camp out overnight, or at least go to the first showing. I haven't done that since Star Wars Episode I came out, so I'll be hyper the entire time.

Well, I'm exhausted. I've got an art paper to type.

Peace,

zee rose

Version 2.0

2008-04-13T18:54:00.001-07:00

"Little Red Riding Hood". I made this picture for a digital art midterm using photomanipulation.

Man, time flies doesn't it? Anyway, I've spent my days finishing up version 2. I'm printing it out as I type. I tightened up the images, made sure there were grammatical and spelling errors, and plot holes. ^_^ Oh, plot holes - the bane of all writers. Anywhoo, I'm going resubmit to my editor so that he can nitpick away at all the problems that I did not see. I hope I can finally send this thing off. I don't want to wait too long. I'm tired. More later, I s'pose.

Ciao,

zee rose

Submitted

2008-02-18T19:29:00.000-08:00

A recent pic I made using shading tips from my new art tutorial book. Copyright zee rose 2006.

So, I finally submitted my manuscript to the editor, hoping to get some good feedback from him and I really hope he does not tear me a new one. T_T My manuscript, called "Gaeadians: Book I" since its the first book in what I hope will be in a series of four to six books since I'm still working out the details right now.

It's 69, 375 words now - including the new table of contents. The feedback I got so far is that I need to redo the map featured there since he said it looked squished and unfinished. The main reason for this is because on their world, they haven't developed paper technology because they have tree-people. So, it's kind of awkward when you use paper and someone says "That's my grandmother" or something along those lines. -_-; Anyway, that's the first thing I have to fix.

In the meantime, I bought The Big Book of Manga, so I'm working on my art right now. Expect happy pretty art updates!

Ciao,

Stasia

"Seminars and a finished manuscript" or Day 7

2008-02-11T15:44:00.000-08:00

An illustration made for an anime contest. I won best original character. Copyright Zee Rose 2006.

I think it's been at least three days since my last update, so I will explain. I attended the seminar on getting your book published and met with, well, mixed success. Most of the people there were either independently published (something I have no interest in doing) or restating facts that I already knew. However, my time wasn't entirely wasted since I met some published people (not famously published but published anyway and thats what counts) and asked a question about genres.

You see, my manuscript is a mixed genre. It's young adult literature in general, but when you get to the nitty gritty of it, its steampunk action-adventure soft-fantasy retro-scifi, like I sort of said in my previous posting. They suggested I try looking at different publishers who publish the same thing. Interestingly enough, that day at the library, I found a book that was also similar to my book - The Looking Glass Wars by Frank Beddor, which I must say I LOVE since I enjoy anything dealing with Victorian London and Alice in Wonderland and uniqueness is a must. I especially favor trilogies - mainly because of the Tolkien/classic fantasy fan in me.

Anyway - I networked a bit with a lady interested in black people who like writing, although she said scifi/fantasy isn't her thing but networking is networkings so I was happy. My agent was happy too and enjoyed the poetry slam thing they did after the seminar, but I went and browsed the library for more books on publishing.

Now, the manuscript so far: the first draft is done - with 69,853 words, making it about 191 pages without pictures. I took out the drafting pictures and am redoing them as I write this using Photoshop 6 (and I am very jealous of anyone who has CS). So, I'm going to add the pictures, do a spell check, fix any problems that still prolong in the draft and then show it my personal editor and hopefully they won't be too brutal like they were with the prototype. T_T I fear for my poor little draft sometimes...

I'm marking my calendar for March 16th - the manuscript reading day. Eeep.

Wish me luck,

Zee Rose

"Classes and Comparisons" or Day 3

2008-01-31T05:13:00.000-08:00

An illustration made by me for an anime contest in 2006, the 99th anniversary of anime's creation. Invader Zim got lost, by the way. (c) Zero Rose. 2006.

I just started going back to class at college. I'm taking classes in the evening so I have plenty of time to finish the manuscript during the day and do anything else. I only have class once a week, which gives me even more time. The manuscript is almost finished. I have an idea for another story, but I'm forcing myself to put that off until the other one is finished.

I wasn't surprised how many older people there were in the classes. Since they're at night, most of the people there either have families or fulltime jobs. Most of the girls my age have families. Sometimes I think I would be that way if I wasn't such a nerd. And yuppie. Defintely yuppie. >_<

Anywaaaay: I looked around for the top selling books and what genre, etc. etc. to see how popular my manuscript would be. Mine falls into (I'm guessing roughly) young adult steampunk, soft fantasy, Neo-Victorian, soft sci-fi, myth and legend, action/adventure.

I checked http://asp.usatoday.com/life/books/booksdatabase/default.aspx for the listing and...well, it was a mixed victory to be honest.

Stephen King, whose work I ABSOLUTELY love, is the top seller. But I don't write horror since I prefer to draw it instead. I have trouble making my point across most of the time when I try to write a bloody scene after bloody scene after crazy clown eating people and so on but King does it well. ^_^

As for the other books...well, they're mostly about dieting, self-motivating, other countries, and romance novels. Since I don't read (and hate) those kind of books, I don't think I'm in too much trouble. Sadly, I don't see anything that would appeal to my genre of writing. Besides steampunk, I also write urban/contemporary fantasy.

So I searched around for top selling young adult books in general and found a few that I've read, like Yolen's Briar Rose and Black's Tithe and Valiant. Still, I had trouble finding steampunk exactly so I looked around for an already published book similar to my own that I can use in my cover letter as an example.

Several hours later...

I manadged to find some things but not exactly what I was looking for.

Steamboy (which is a movie, NOT a book)
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (a graphic novel, but NOT the kind of book I'm doing)
The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson (we're getting warmer...)
His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman (pretty close)
A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket (pretty closer)

I think the setting of the novel is fairly close to His Dark Materials - in that there is a level of technology, but it is steam based. Like, they have cars but they run on steam made from crystals within the engines (it runs in the same manner nuclear power does). They also leap through dimensions, which is done in His Dark Materials as well.

Next, I have to find something similar to the creatures, the story and so on but that's another day.

The Manuscript Reading or Day 1

2008-01-27T22:10:00.000-08:00

...so I finally got a reply from the woman my agent contacted for me. Since I'm looking for publishers to receive my manuscript and approve of it, she thought it would be a good idea for me to do some reading. I was a little...unsure at first. I mean, my manuscript is pretty long and has a lot of words. I really hope I don't mispronounce anything, or sound stupid, or a crazy authoress. Yes, I know I sound whiny and meek but I'm a shy person by nature.

Getting back to the story: anxieties aside, we went to the Olive Tree Bookstore and met with the owner. She was actually very nice and willing to let me read part of my manuscript at an event along with some other authors. I got her business card and emailed her about two weeks ago from today about the content, mood, theme or anything else I should pick. Well, I just got a reply TODAY.

To be honest, I'm really glad. I was looking forward to this. At first I thought she had cancelled it or something but now she told me it's been moved to March 15. My agent will probably go nuts or something about schedule changes. She's paranoid like that. ^_^ But I'm still glad.

I talk about my manuscript a lot so I'll give you the basic idea since I'm still tweaking it.

When I was a wee Zee, I always loved fantasy/science fictions novels and stories of wonder, talking fish, gothic wonderlands, funny hobbits, and angsty cyborgs. Sadly, no one in these novels looked like me. That is to say, that no one was Black or was described to look remotely Black. Not to say that I didn't dislike the stories but it made me a little sad, so when I got older - I developed an interest in Black myths and legends.

Sadly, due to time and chaos, there are very few so I decided (I was around 13) that I would write stories that woul be for people like me who loved fantasy/science fiction but hated the fact there weren't people that looked like them. My middle school wasn't the best so I spent most of my time writing since I was ahead of the class.

That story, after a LOT of tweaking, become my manuscript - whose name I shall reveal eventually. The story is basically about the saga of a dimension where folklore and local legend has become reality. It has a Victorian-era/steampunk setting because, I really, really, hate writing about medieval times. Also, I wanted my characters to have a level of technology and I LOVE the idea of steam-based machinery. It makes me happy. Don't ask why.

The story is going to take place between several different dimensions - one which is based is folklore and another which is based on ours. Sort of like His Dark Materials.

The style of the novel is done in the fashion of Japenese light novel. That is, it has pretty pictures and words. I did this for two reasons - (1) I like pictures and (2) some of the animals and creatures in the story is too hard to describe so it's better to show than to tell.

In the meantime, my manuscript is nearly complete. So far, I've got around 47,000 words - which is good because I was worried it would end up being a novella and I'd have to write book one and book two together (which I may end up doing anyway because they sort of go hand and hand but we'll see).

It should be finished soon. I have six more chapters to go.

Wish me luck,

zero

"You should get a blog..." or Day 0

2008-01-27T02:21:00.000-08:00

"Reiya". 2006. An illustration made for a contest by me. Hello.

My pen name is Zero Rose, or Zee for short. I am an Crucian/African-American woman attempting to get published. I am a computer animation major, whose life long dream is to make cartoons, books, comic books and fun things like that. I use emoticons a lot. ^_^ They give me joy. It is a simple joy but joy not the less. ^_^;

This blog has two purposes: (1) getting my art out there and (2) a log of me on the road to getting my book published, which is a life long dream I have been putting off for a long time now but must be done.

Today, I went to a book signing/lecture at the library with my agent. At first I didn't want to go because I foot issues but my agent insisted. She's evil like that. So I chugged some advil and went down to the library. It was freezing and I had to wear my comfy shoes (which are slip ons and not very warm ones either).

There were some people there so I was thinking this wasn't such a bad idea and that I wasn't the only nerd around. So I waited and finally the speaker came. His name was G. Michael Dobbs and he had published a book called Escape! How Animation broke into the mainstream in the 1990s. I'm always willing to hear about cartoons so I was a little excited. I had done my thesis paper for film studies on animated film so I wondered how similar this would be to my paper. Not saying that it was a good paper since I got a C on it, but moving on...

Dobbs is a great speaker. He was very interactive and lively. Also, he showed us a film Windsor McKay did called The Sinking of the Lusitania, done traditional and in black and white. It was wonderful and amazing how someone could accomplish so much with just pictures and a camera. No sound, no color - just thousands upon thousands of black and white drawings. I was jealous, actually. I had to take traditional animation as a course in college but it was so long.

And painful. My arm wanted to fall off after seventy drawings of a sack moving across the screen.

Returning to the lecture: it was very good. I'm glad I went. After the lecture, I went up to see Dobbs and get a copy of his book. He was great to talk to and when I mentioned my major and how I'm trying to get published he said "You should get a blog" and I was like "Okay".

You see, I'm not really a journaling person, at least not up until now since I had nothing interesting happen in my life - outside of teenaged angst and whining but I'm an adult trying to jumpstart a career.

So, I'm going to have a professional blog and post things - like my art, animation, and anything else I have on hand/computer.

The next event I have to go to isn't for a week or so now - my agent scheduled me for a book publishing seminar. And then I have to go to Barnes & Nobles for a book publishing group meeting.

Peace out.
- zero