May
22
From Burned by PC Cast and Kirstin Cast
“Yeah, ’cause we think you’re like Rachel on Glee,” Shaunee said. “Super annoying, but she has to be in the show ’cause sometimes she comes up with good stuff and kinda saves the day.”
Alright, this quote jumped out at me for two reasons. The first, most obvious one is that I love Glee and love Rachel.
The second is that it was a pop culture reference. I always wonder if I should put them in my own writing or not. I’m an admited pop culture junky so tend to want to lay them on heavy. It is a risk because if your readers don’t know what you are talking about the majority of the time, you might lose them. It is also kind of like putting a time stamp on your book. When I read The Vampire Diaries by L.J. Smith, I know no idea that the first part of the series was written nineteens years ago. It seems so modern.
Lately, I’ve been going by what genre I am writing to figure out how much to throw in. For example, my crime book has very few. Off the top of my head, I can only think of a few clothing ones to show that my main characters is a designer kind of girl. It aids to the overall story. For another book, I am having the character work in a club. It is much more light feeling and I think the pop culture stuff is fitting.
I wish I had marked the page in Dead in the Family by Charlaine Harris that had the best pop reference ever. It was something about Sookie hearing Jace Everett’s Bad Things. For anyone that watches True Blood, it is the theme song. I thought it was so clever of her to put it in there. An extra treat to all of us that are big fans of both you might say.
Posted in Quotes bad things burned charlaine harris dead in the family glee kirstin cast l j smith pc cast pop culture quote rachel sookie stackhouse true blood vampire diaries writing
May
05
Sorry this post is up so late.
This last week I got to go see PC and Kirstin Cast, authors of the House of Night series at Powells in Portland. First off, they are so funny. It is awesome seeing a mother and daughter work together. PC writes the story first then Kirstin edits. PC had obviously been an author for some time but Kirstin is also starting to do some stuff on her own as well as working as an editor.
Okay, I’ll admit, I couldn’t help but ask about how many cats they had adopted from the shelter Street Cats that they talk about in the book. I love the fact that they include both the shelter and a cat they got from there, Nala, in the book. When I publish a book, I’m definately going to continue to give money to the West Columbia Gorge Humane Society, where I adopted by cat Temperance.
Most of the people there ask questions about the plot but there was some about writing and publishing. A few people asked questions about why certain characters died or had other things happen to her. PC kept saying that she cried and cried when certain characters died and some of them she just couldn’t part with so had to come up with new plots. Some people acted confused about this answer but it made perfect sense to me. When I write, I’m just conveying what I see and hear in my head. I tried writing stories that I planned out the entire thing first but it didn’t work. I just have to write as it comes into my head and then edit later. PC said it is like writing out a movie in her head.
Since I’m big into House of Night right now, I’ll have a few more post going up soon. Watch for those. Thanks everyone that reads my blog. Love you guys!
Posted in News/Current Issues burned cedar hills house of night kirstin cast pc cast portland powells vampires zoey redbird
