Book Tour--GOLD MANOR GHOST HOUSE

GOLD MANOR GHOST HOUSE by Merry Brown
A young adult paranormal romance

BLURB
Anna thought life was going to be awesome. She was right…and wrong.

Won her dream job acting in a hit TV series. Check.

Working with her best friend. Check.

The set’s haunted and she’s in the middle of a supernatural war. Uh, check?

Anna Rose Ellington is sixteen and living in Hollywood, hoping to be a star. Anna just landed a major role on Ghost House, TeenTV’s new fall drama. A show promising to be so hot, Meg Sweet (the reigning teenage diva), signed on for the lead, and Adam Lewis (international rock sensation) is a principal player.

Her dreams are falling into place until she gets on set and begins questioning her sanity. It’s true she has an unusual dream life, where once in a while her dreams literally come true. But it’s been a while. On top of her dreams not staying put in her brain, including the guy she’d been dreaming of for years, the house they’re filming in, Gold Manor, might actually be haunted. But that’s the least of her worries.

EXCERPT
“And now for that special musical treat I was telling you about. As your dessert comes around, our very own Adam Lewis is going to play the latest single with his bandmate, Ewin, from F&L.”

Adam got up on stage and the lead singer appeared from the shadows. As he got in position, he took off his jersey, put on his leather jacket and strapped a guitar around his shoulder.

As I was saying no to the piece of fried cheesecake, my eyes rested on the pair singing, “The Only One.”

It took a moment for my brain to register what was before me. I saw clearly, but couldn’t believe. I was looking at the impossible.

On stage, playing guitar and singing back-up vocals to Ewin Larkin was Leather Jacket Guy.

Leather Jacket Guy was Adam Lewis!

My mind froze as my fork slipped out of my hand and clanged to the floor. The noise caught the attention of Adam and Ewin. In mid strum Adam stopped playing. He threw his guitar to the floor, his face filled with panic.

“Anna, get out of here now. Get Out!” he shouted.

ABOUT MERRY

Born and raised in Bakersfield, California, Merry Brown now lives in the northwest corner of Tennessee with her husband, three boys, and Daisy the cat. She teaches philosophy at the University of Tennessee, Martin, where she counts it a great privilege and joy to introduce students to perennial questions about the nature of the universe, meaning, morality, and the human condition. Merry Brown's love of philosophy and young adult paranormal and dystopian literature inspired her to write THE KNOWERS, the first book in the Exiled Trilogy. GOLD MANOR GOLD HOUSE is her latest YA paranormal romance book.

Check out Merry’s website. Follow her on Twitter @Merrybrown, and connect with her on facebook—Merry Brown.

Get GOLD MANOR GHOST HOUSE on Amazon.

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Hey readers,

Tense scene. Nice.

Follow the rest of the tour here.

And don’t forget to comment for a chance at a prize.

One randomly drawn commenter will win a $25 Amazon gift card.

Guest Appearance--Stephanie M. Wytovich

Good Wednesday,

The Lockbox is happy to have a guest today. You may remember Stephanie Wytovich. I interviewed her last summer. Well, she’s back, and she’s going to talk about her forthcoming book of horror poetry, HYSTERIA.

Without further ado, here she is.

-So…talk to us about HYSTERIA. What’s it about?

The easy answer is that HYSTERIA is about madness, but to me, it’s always been about acceptance. When I sat down and decided to start writing it, I essentially decided to go a little mad myself. There was nothing easy about writing this collection: no fun nights composing next to the moon, no clever evenings spent making up metaphors and bringing characters to life.

It was hard.

And it was painful.

I read a lot of abnormal psychology, studied the diseases of the brain, and traveled across the states to visit different asylums and feel the air and the charge of what it meant to be locked up in solitary. I sat in the isolation rooms of West Virginia’s State Penitentiary, and spent the night at the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum.

And then I met her.

Hysteria.

Most of the pieces came to me late at night, crazed and racked by insomnia, and when they did, they were fluent and clear, as if I were talking to the characters one-on-one. I wrote down their voices, shaped the faces that I saw in my nightmares, and looking back, it’s no wonder I didn’t sleep. The patients that readers will meet in this collection are vicious, cruel, and more often than not, completely insane.

Although there are a few innocents.

But who out there is really walking around with a clean conscience?

-What inspired you to put the book together?

When I was an undergraduate at Seton Hill University, I had to start a blog for my Intro. To Literary Study course. I heard everyone talking about blogs and their importance, but to me, it just seemed like another chore that I had to maintain when all I wanted to do was write poetry and study art. But, I created one…quite sarcastically at that.

“Join me in the madhouse,” I said.

Blogging drove me insane, and I hated doing it. And then one day, I hated it a little less, and then even lesser than that. The crazy part about it was that I soon started doing it for fun. I played with the madhouse theme, reviewing psychological films and critiquing books under the veil of psychoanalytic criticism. I read a lot of Freud—probably too much Freud—and paid special attention to his ideas on sexuality and the uncanny.

I saw madness—erotic, uncanny madness—everywhere I went. The thick, black sludge of the mind’s breaking point.

And when I realized that madness broods inside us all—whether we choose to accept it or not—I knew that I had to explore it, dissect it, rip it apart with a scalpel and study it.

And so I did.

-Is there anything in there that shocked even you?

The entire collection was/is quite shocking to me. Yes, I realize that probably sounds odd considering I write horror, but I don’t think I’ve ever created something so dark, so angry before. There are pieces in there that I look at and think who/what wrote that?

But that’s what I wanted.

I wanted the voice that not only sits in the shadows, but is the shadows. I wanted darkness, blackness, and madness all wrapped up in a straightjacket and ready to go.

And then I wanted to release it and watch the asylum burn.

-Do you ever see yourself writing anything but horror?

Horror is what I do—what I love to do—and I can’t imagine doing anything else, because let’s face it… horror is in everything. What’s scarier than exploring space and meeting aliens? What’s more frightening than meeting creatures that exist only in your wildest dreams? And what’s more horrifying than falling in love?

Fear is in everything.

It doesn’t matter what genre I’m writing in.

I’m going to strangle it and take it down.

-Name a book/tv show/movie you like that would surprise people.

Something that would surprise people, eh?

I’ve seen every episode of Spongebob to date.

And I was there opening day to see the movie when it came out.

That crazy, yellow sponge cracks me up.

Preorder your copy of HYSTERIA here.

Find Stephanie on the web at her blog. Follow her on Twitter @JustAfterSunset.

She’s also on Goodreads. Enter the giveaway to win a free copy of HYSTERIA!

“Also, I’ll be reading from Hysteria at Kafe Kerouac on August 2 from 7-9 p.m. alongside fellow poets John Edward Lawson and Michael A. Arnzen to kick off DogCon2. There will be comedy, madness, and amputated prose, not to mention a whiskey tasting to follow! We’d love to see you there!”

About Stephanie Stephanie M. Wytovich is an Alum of Seton Hill University where she was a double major in English Literature and Art History. Wytovich is published in over 40 literary magazines and HYSTERIA is her first collection. She is currently attending graduate school to pursue her MFA in Writing Popular Fiction, and is working on a novel. She is the Poetry Editor for Raw Dog Screaming Press and a book reviewer for S.T. Joshi, Jason V. Brock and William F. Nolan’s Nameless Magazine. She plans to continue in academia to get her doctorate in Gothic Literature.

Check out my previous interview of Stephanie here.

Not My Favorite Tropes

Good Monday,

Last week I discussed the difference between genre conventions and tropes. This week I promised to reveal a few tropes and why I am sick to death of them. Here goes.

-“Super Macho Man”

You know who I mean. It’s the hero who’s no less than 6 ft 5. He wouldn’t be caught dead (or alive…or undead) in anything that isn’t black leather; he rides a magically pumped up motor cycle of some kind; forget a tall building in a single bound, he can get about 4 or 5 in there, and he’s got tats (but no, call them tribal/dark magic markings or suffer his wrath).

Oh, I almost “forgot,” he’s, like, super-amazing in bed. This guy’s been all over, done stuff with women all over (alive, undead, dead), and is an expert in every form of pleasure (way more than any “normal” human male). Best part? He never gets distracted or makes a mistake during sex. Even if the hoard of demons/vampires/zombies/whatevers chooses the hot-and-heavy moment to charge over the wall, his woman is getting off. And, somehow, they’ll still manage to escape the hordes. Don’t even get me started on the body. If I read the words “chiseled six-pack” one more time…. *sigh*

K, who’s reading this and hurling insults at me because I insulted the hot urban fantasy hero? Get over it. Lol. No, seriously. I’m not saying this guy can’t be written well. I’m just saying I’m sick of seeing him.

-Female version of the above

This one irritates me even more. “I’m 4 ft 11. I always wear black leather (which I look smokin’ hot in, fyi). I am an expert at every type of martial arts on the planet. I can wield every weapon on the planet (that’s swords and guns, b*tches). I’m probably blonde (the better for my hair to stand out against my black leather). I’m hot, and you know it, and I, like my male counterpart, am the sh*t in bed.”

Blech. Be a real person. I’m sorry, but even the most trained warrior of the 4 ft 11 variety cannot take a foe three times her size down without earning a scratch. Er, unless she’s in an urban fantasy novel. Then she can. My bad.

-Vampires and zombies that are “emotionally scarred” or “sexy”

I know I’ve ranted on this before. Vampires are undead. THEY ARE NOT SEXY!!!

Same goes for zombies. They eat brains for crying out loud. I’d be really concerned if I got into a relationship with a zombie.
“So, what do you want for dinner?”
“You.” *bashes skull in and feasts*

Oh man, shiver.

As far as the “emotionally scarred” thing goes, I’m all for putting twists on mythical creatures. I do it all the time. But can the twists be different every so often? Emotionally scarred vamps/zombies had their time. They’re done. Let them crawl/shuffle back into their lairs.

-Chosen one

“You are the one. The one who will lead our nation/country/world back to greatness. Oh, by the way, you’ve been living in a tiny place in the middle of nowhere that is far from any trace of magic—the magic that you’ll need to save the world. You’re nineteen, you say? Excellent, the world is scheduled to end sometime when you’re twenty. Get learning.”

While this makes for a lot of tension and stress (and tears) on the protagonists part, it’s the backbone for almost every epic fantasy novel/series I remember reading before college (and a few after). It’s not just epic fantasy either. Poor Harry Potter fell victim to the chosen one fate. But Rowling did a good job with it. And then everyone else tried to do the same because HP was so successful. Point, I enjoy the chosen one storyline. I just want to see it disappear for a little while.

-“The fate of the world rests on finding the magic sword/lamp/orb/talking cat”

I love enchanted artifacts. When I was a kid, I spent hours combing through my dad’s Dungeons and Dragons books in search of cool items I could pretend were real. There are so many neat things in those books.

Unfortunately, I seem to have not been the only one on that band wagon. Writers everywhere opened up the Player’s Handbook and/or Dungeon Master’s Guide and sifted through the myriad of magical items. They found the one they wanted, maybe tweaked it a little, and stuck it at the center of a book. A band of merry heroes was than instituted to find said object and rid the world of the plagues of evil.

This storyline, for me, is similar to the chosen one idea. I enjoy it. I really find it fun and interesting to read. It just started with “Lord of the Rings” and didn’t stop. Maybe if the object was a talking cat I’d read it. For right now, though, I don’t think we need any more all-powerful artifacts that “in the wrong hands could bring destruction on a scale the likes of which we have never seen.”

For more tropes that aren’t my favorite, see this post from back in February.

As always, thanks for reading.

-Mary
@desantismt on Twitter

Book Tour--THE RULES OF DREAMING

THE RULES OF DREAMING by Bruce Hartman
A mystery/suspense

AN INTERVIEW WITH BRUCE
-What book and/or experience made you want to be a writer?

When I was a kid most of my play involved imagining myself in a fantasy world—don’t ask me why—and I think writing fiction is a continuation of that. As a writer, the challenge is to create a coherent, consistent fictional world that a reader can believe in, and still tell an interesting story.

-What genre(s) do you write?

I’ve written a couple of unpublished comedies, then one mystery, Perfectly Healthy Man Drops Dead, which was published in 2008. I’ve got a couple more mysteries in the pipeline, and a couple of comedies. I also write short stories, mostly of a satirical or philosophical nature. In general my writing seems to be heading off in a philosophical direction.

-THE RULES OF DREAMING Blurb

A novel of madness, music — and murder.

A beautiful opera singer hangs herself on the eve of her debut at the Met. Seven years later the opera she was rehearsing—Offenbach’s Tales of Hoffmann—begins to take over the lives of her two schizophrenic children, the doctors who treat them and everyone else who crosses their paths, until all are enmeshed in a world of deception and delusion, of madness and ultimately of evil and death. Onto this shadowy stage steps Nicole P., a graduate student who discovers that she too has been assigned a role in the drama. What strange destiny is being worked out in their lives?

-Spoilers?

These aren’t spoilers, but I’ll give you a few more incidents that shape the story. It takes place in and around a posh private mental hospital in a small town in upstate New York.

A mental patient with no musical training or experience sits down at the piano and plays a fiendishly difficult piece of classical music…

A young doctor’s life spins out of control as he falls under the spell of three irresistible women…

A beautiful graduate student, struggling with her thesis, suspects that her psychiatrist is ruled by the fantasies of a poet who’s been dead for two hundred years…

A blackmailer stumbles on an isolated town with more crimes on its conscience than he could have imagined.

-For aspiring writers, any tips?

This isn’t practical advice, but I would say: Write the book that only you can write. The reason it’s not practical is that the whole publishing industry—including your agent if you’re lucky enough to have one—wants you to write a different book. They want you to write the book they would have written, which, no surprise, would be a lot like some recent best seller, only better. They are running a business. Still, they’re not necessarily the best judge of what will make them a lot of money. They rejected John Grisham’s first book, and Tom Clancy’s, and Dan Brown’s. So write the book that only you can write, and if they reject it, try to get as much detailed, objective criticism as you can stand before you write the next one.

-What’s your favorite book/genre to read?

I’ve read a million mysteries, but since I started writing them I don’t read many of them anymore. Now that I know how they work, I’m sort of hypercritical and can always see the ending coming at about page 25. But I’m always looking for good ones, especially if they’re funny, or quirky, or literary without being fatuous. Outside of mysteries I read a fair amount of general fiction and non-fiction, history and philosophy, including a lot of classics from earlier centuries and different cultures.

-What’s your favorite thing you’ve ever written?

I think my favorite thing is a story called “Kafka’s Creative Writing Teacher,” which, needless to say, nobody wants to publish.

ABOUT BRUCE

Bruce Hartman lives with his wife in Philadelphia. He has worked as a pianist, music teacher, bookseller and attorney and has been writing fiction for many years. His first novel, Perfectly Healthy Man Drops Dead, won the Salvo Press Mystery Novel Award and was published by Salvo Press in 2008. If all goes well, a steady stream of new books will be coming out over the next few years. The first of these, The Rules of Dreaming, will be published by Swallow Tail Press in May 2013.

Check out his website/blog. Like his Amazon author page, and connect with Bruce on Goodreads.

Buy THE RULES OF DREAMING on Amazon.

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Hey readers,

I really, really, really hope this never happens to me or anyone I know. Heh

Interested? Follow the rest of the tour here.

And don’t forget to comment for a chance at a prize.

Bruce will award a $50 Amazon or BN.com gift card (winner's choice) to one randomly drawn commenter.

Book Tour--CASSIE SCOT: PARANORMAL DETECTIVE

CASSIE SCOT: PARANORMAL DETECTIVE by Christine Amsden
An urban fantasy

BLURB
Cassie Scot is the ungifted daughter of powerful sorcerers, born between worlds but belonging to neither. At 21, all she wants is to find a place for herself, but earning a living as a private investigator in the shadow of her family’s reputation isn’t easy. When she is pulled into a paranormal investigation, and tempted by a powerful and handsome sorcerer, she will have to decide where she truly belongs.

EXCERPT
My parents think the longer the name, the more powerful the sorcerer, so they named me Cassandra Morgan Ursula Margaret Scot. You can call me Cassie.

I've been called a lot of things in my life: normal, ordinary, and even a disappointment. After the Harry Potter books came out, a couple of people called me a squib. Since I haven't read them, I have to assume it's a compliment.

Personally, I prefer normal, which is why the sign on my office door reads: Cassie Scot, Normal Detective.

You have to understand that around here, when your last name is Scot, people are easily confused. Not only are my parents powerful practitioners, but I have six talented brothers and sisters. Plus, my family hasn't always been known for its subtlety. When weird stuff happens around here, the people who are willing to believe in magic are prone to suspect the Scots.

The day I opened for business I got a call from an old woman who swore her cat was possessed by the devil. She also swore she'd read my web site, which clearly stated the types of work I did and did not do. Exorcisms were on the No list, and while I hadn't specified pet exorcisms, I would have thought it was implicit.

ABOUT CHRISTINE

Award-winning author Christine Amsden has written stories since she was eight, always with a touch of the strange or unusual. She became a “serious” writer in 2003, after attending a boot camp with Orson Scott Card. She finished Touch of Fate shortly afterward, then penned The Immortality Virus, which won two awards. Expect many more titles by this up-and-coming author.

Check out Christine’s website and blog. Follow her on Twitter @ChristineAmsden, and like her Facebook page. Connect with her on Goodreads and on Google+.

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Hey readers,

When I was in kindergarten, I hated having to write out my name because “It had three capital letters.” I think I would have quit if I had Cassie’s full name.

Like what you see? Follow the rest of the tour here.

And don’t forget to comment for a chance at a prize.

Christine will be awarding a $10 Amazon gift card to a randomly drawn commenter during the tour.

Conventions vs. Tropes

Genre conventions? Genre tropes? Different? Same?

I say different, but feel free to argue with me.

First, definitions.

Conventions. They’re not those things writers go get drunk (I mean, learn stuff) at. (Well, they are but not in this particular situation.) Conventions n. things that make a genre a genre. They occur in the big five as I’ve begun calling them—science fiction (sf), fantasy, horror, mystery, and romance.

Examples: SF – advanced tech. Fantasy – magic. Horror – something disturbing. Mystery – serious crime committed. Romance – happily ever after (HEA)

If you take these elements away, a book doesn’t fall in the genre anymore. So conventions are defining fundamentals.

Tropes. Not those things you vaguely remember from high school chemistry. (Those were isotopes and not related to writing.) Tropes n. things that often appear in works of a certain genre but are not necessary to said genre.

Let’s use those conventions to look at this.

-SF/advanced tech - There are lots of possibilities for advanced technology in a sf world. Tropes are the ones we see most often—faster-than-light travel (FTL), lazar weapons, teleportation chambers, group think machines, etc. Cool, but not necessary. Avoiding these and finding new potential tech (or even putting a new spin on the existing tropes) makes the story more interesting.

-Fantasy/magic – Magic is pretty broad and, really, pretty vague. George R. R. Martin’s “Song of Ice and Fire” series is fantasy, but for anyone who’s read “Game of Thrones,” you know there isn’t a lot of magic. By contrast, the wizards in “Harry Potter” use magic for everything from chopping vegetables to fighting. That’s a big spectrum.

What are some magic tropes? Well, the “magic school” is one—Hogwarts, Hex Hall, Earthsea, etc. It appears in quite a few places, but not all fantasy novels need incorporate it. The “chosen one” is another trope. Harry Potter, Garion, Richard Cypher, etc. All have been set up for greatness by elements outside their control, and none can shirk their duties because if they do, humankind will perish. Again, seen pretty often but not mandatory.

-Horror/something disturbing – I don’t just mean blood and guts. Actually, I don’t mean blood and guts at all. While that may be part of a horror book, it’s not all there is to “disturbing.” Psychological horror relies on breaking down the reader’s mental defenses. Sometimes horror is more affective when it’s not gross.

Now, tropes. Blood and guts have been done in their various forms. Zombies—oh man. So many zombie books/movies. Heck, even the “nice” zombie has been done. Essentially, the scary creature/scary ooze that will make everyone into scary creatures thing, among others, crops up a lot.

-Mystery/serious crime – Usually murder. Why? Because it needs to be something serious enough for the reader to invest interest, and murder is pretty serious. It doesn’t have to be murder, though. Grand theft of extremely valuable possessions or cash also works, as does child abuse in its various forms. So the serious crime is the convention. Murder is an often-used trope that can be replaced by an equally serious crime.

-Romance/HEA – You need a HEA in a romance. If you do not have a HEA, it is not romance. End of story. How you get there and who you get there with may vary, and there are plenty of often-used options. Alpha males, guy/girl from wrong side of the tracks. I don’t read a lot of romance but setting up a group of guys/girls and then showing a HEA for each of them throughout a series seems pretty common. Just make sure you have the HEA. Once you have that, be creative with the how. I’ve been told by people who have much more experience reading and writing romances that it’s very easy to fall into patterns and formulas but that it’s not impossible to be original.

Side note: Romance actually shows an interesting case of a convention being broken-ish. There’s a new thing going for ya or this “new adult” thing—HFN, happy for now. The idea is that younger characters might not stay with who they end up with at the end of the book. I’m not saying this is a good or bad variation. I’m just saying it exists. Debate at your own risk. It’s just an interesting example of how such a necessary convention of a genre can be altered. “Follow the rules till you make it. Then turn the rules on their head.”

I was up at my June residency for Seton Hill University’s MFA in Writing Popular Fiction program the week before last. Every res, the head of the program poses a question that becomes the residency theme. This time, it was “What are you sick of seeing in your genre?” We spent a lot of time that week talking about tropes, and it occurred to me that tropes and conventions often walk a narrow line. Sitting down to write this post, however, I have revised that statement. Conventions and tropes often can walk a fine line. There are some elements of a genre, though, that just are.

So what am I sick of in my genre (fantasy)?

I feel like a game show host. That will be the topic of next Monday’s post. “Find out…after the break.”

Until then, have a good week and maybe try to guess. Heck, leave a comment with a guess. Five bonus points to anyone who gets one right. (I don’t have a purpose for “bonus points” yet, but I have an exceptionally good memory. Someday, those bonus points might translate into cool stuff.)

I Have Returned

I have returned. Late, yes. But better late than never.

For those who celebrated yesterday, I hope you had an enjoyable Fourth. I went to see fireworks last night. They were awesome.

I was up at Seton Hill last week for residency. I learned a ton. Some of it will work its way into posts to follow. Some of it is irrelevant to writing—for example watching two people eat a peanut butter, bacon, cheddar burger. One loved it. One hated it. It was an awesome moment.

In any event, I will be back in full swing next week. I spent this week recovering from lack of sleep and organizing my jumbled thesis thoughts.

Happy writing, reading, living, and other. Have an excellent weekend.

Cheers.