Samhain Publishing

I’m excited about my new release today, La Queue-de-Cheval (The Pony Tail). When I say “pony girl” I guess you all think of weird super-kinkiness, right? Well, I think it’s my most romantic book yet! It’s also lots of fun and might just take you places you never thought about going… Nothing like a bit of novelty to stimulate the imagination.

I’m going to agree with Sam’s previous post: making an educated choice makes a much better marriage.

Unfortunately. both of you have to make an educated choice, and you can’t actually educate other people. Horse, water, drink, and all that.

This is my second time around, too, and I found someone who knew what they wanted. That matters a lot – in fact, it’s possibly the only thing that matters. You can’t be happy until you get what you need, and you can’t get what you need if you don’t know what it is. And you won’t know what you need until you know who you are.

It never ceases to astound me how many people don’t know themselves. Didn’t the entire 60’s generation take off a few decades to find themselves? What happened with that, anyway? Apparently the whole gig turned out about as well as Woodstock – glorious in concept; dirty, smelly, and not so much fun in practice.

Now you look at the younger generation and their Woodstocks, which are cleaner, nicer, and much less cantankerous, and you think, “At least they learned something.” Maybe that’s what the 60’s got us: smarter kids.

My nephews and nieces are just leaving high school, and while they’re not on fire to take over the world, they do seem considerably more aware of themselves as individual persons, distinct from their parents or communities. I don’t remember thinking that way; I just remember identifying myself in negative terms, as not-them, rather than as something positive. This generation is still rebelling, of course, but I think they’re trying to go somewhere (even if they don’t know where yet), rather than merely trying to get away.

When I was in High School, there were only three groups: the jocks, the nerds, and the losers. (I was special: I got to be in the last two groups at the same time). Nowadays there’s dozens of groups, from emos to evangelicals. and it seems to me that everybody has a group they can join. I think that’s a good thing.

I’m not sure how I went from remarriage to high school in this post, but then, to be honest, I’m not sure how I went from high school to marriage in my life. It just kind of happened, and then I was here. Like this post.

A few days ago, Mary talked about what makes a hero. Perseverance; doing what’s right, regardless of the cost; thinking of what others need.

But what I want to know today is what makes a villain? Not just any villain, but one we like to read about. George R. R. Martin has made quite a splash with his “Song of Fire and Ice” series, where several of the more popular protagonists are an incestuous pair of twins and a homicidal dwarf. I’m not so sure I like those characters, but Magneto in the “X-men” movies intrigues me. He’s got good goals and grave dignity – he just skips one too many corners on the way.

Heroes and villains used to be black and white, and in some movies (like anything with Arnie in it) they still are. But these days villains also come in more nuanced flavors, people who aren’t merely acting out because of a bad childhood or simple-minded psychotics. Martin Landau’s character in “Crimes and Misdemeanors,” for example: a thoroughly respectable doctor, known for his charity work, who just so happens to be an adulterous murderer. He doesn’t feel remorse for his crime, which makes him clearly the bad guy; but does feel a deep and tragic grief for the fact that he doesn’t feel remorse. He recognizes his failure to be a proper human being – or worse, just how low one can sink and yet still be human. He touches us with his evil, because we know we could be him, with only a few excuses and rationalizations.

Joss Whedon is the TV master of the poplar villain. Spike, Darla, Lindsey, Lilah, Harmony… he was arguably better at creating watchable villains than he was entertaining heroes. Whether funny, sexy, tough, smart, or just plain cool, these were people who did bad things but still resonated as real people, not just a wicked laugh and a handlebar mustache (or to update that old image: a voice under a hockey mask). And not just disposable extras for the hero to toss off a building or riddle with bullets.

Some people like their morality stories without sympathy for the devil. I certainly can’t stand the ones that paint gangsters and thugs to be glamorous, but at the same time I appreciate having to choose between difficult paths. I find the drama sharper when the bad guys are acknowledged to be bad, and yet still human beings.

What about you? What villain worked best for you, and why?

I’m sitting here trying to compose my blog when the doorbell rings. A woman wants to buy the old truck sitting in my driveway. It’s beat to heck, complete with dents and huge swatches of bare metal instead of paint, doesn’t have any amenities like air conditioning (a necessity in Arizona!) or even a radio, and it doesn’t have a for-sale sign on it.

I explain to her that the truck is even more broken than it looks; something is wrong with the transmission and it won’t go higher than 2nd gear. It will cost at least a thousand dollars to fix it, and the truck wasn’t worth that much even when it ran. My plan was to donate it to charity (and they would sell it to a junkyard).

She begs me to sell it to her for $50. She says her nephew needs a work truck, her friends know some good mechanics, and she can afford a thousand dollars to fix the truck.

I tell her she could buy a running truck for two thousand or so from somebody else, and it would even look better. Also, there’s no guarantee of how well it will run after that kind of work.

She said she couldn’t afford two thousand. She really wants the truck, and she tried to drive it away right then and there.

I put her off by telling her I would have to talk to S.C. first (ah, the joys of having someone else to help make these decisions!). But as long as I’m blogging, I thought I would ask all of you.

See… I’m suspicious. Who just stops at a house at random and asks if they can buy a car? True, the truck looks it might not be driven too much (it’s dusty, and blocked into the driveway by my real car). But I swore many years ago to never make any kind of deal with people who come to my door and ask me. If I want to buy something, I’ll go find it. I won’t buy anything from strangers that come to my door.

And I love that old truck for sentimental reasons; it has been a steadfast and true companion for many years.

On the other hand… this woman doesn’t want to sell me anything. She wants to buy something from me. And how can it be a scam? Even if all she does is drive the truck to the junkyard and sell it for $250, so what? I still make $50 more than I was going to by donating it, and frankly, she deserves the profit for showing the initiative. That’s how people start businesses and make money. If she can make a profit off of my trash, who am I to complain?

She suggested writing a paper that made it clear I had told her about the transmission and she was taking the truck as-is. I’ll take my license plate off of it, so I can’t be held liable in any way for what happens to the truck. Legally, I’ll be in the clear.

And S.C. has been on me to get rid of the old thing. It’s been around longer than S.C., and there might be a little jealousy there. Also there are the facts that it isn’t really driveable, never will be, and we’ve already bought a car to replace it.

So… why shouldn’t I sell it to this strangely impassioned truck aficionado? My gut says “No!” but my head can’t think of a single reason not to say “yes.” I’ve got a few hours before S.C. comes home. Maybe you all can give me some advice on what to do when really strange things happen.

Or at the very least, share your own experiences that made you go “hmm,” even when you couldn’t figure out why. Tell us what you did, and how it worked out.

It is my favorite season in Arizona: the monsoons. Great grey mountains roll in, blocking out the sun and revealing all the colors in depths the intense sunlight obscures. Flashes of lightning can be seen for miles and miles across the flat desert, and the deep bass roll of thunder is like a distant symphony. The tang of ozone mixes with dust kicked up by the winds and given weight by the abnormal humidity to create the most unique smell I have ever encountered. I think Mars would smell like this, if it could ever rain there.

Then, without warning, the floodgates open up and water pours from the sky. It’s not like rainfall; it’s like someone has dumped a bucket over your head. Half the time there are bits of ice mixed in, even though the temperature is sweltering and the water is no colder than a tepid bath. The little hailstones plink about on the still-hot ground, and you can watch them melt within seconds. The streets flood, water rushing to and fro with nowhere to go, trapped above the ground by the hard clay that lies a few feet under the deceptively soft sand.

And in ten or twenty minutes it’s over. The clouds sail off as quickly as they came in, leaving sunshine and a staggering rainbow, sometimes two, stretched from left to right. Everything is washed fresh and clean, and kids come out to play in the canals that have replaced the roads, the occasional pool-raft or canoe being put to good use.

Nobody goes anywhere or does anything when it rains in Arizona. The stores are empty, traffic is paralyzed, and the electricity goes out throughout half the city. Even though it is just water, it is as debilitating to the locals as a blizzard is in Chicago or an earthquake in San Francisco. Man is the creature that adapts, and in Arizona we have adapted to the gentlest of natural elements, using the rain as an excuse to stop whatever we’re doing and bow to the power of nature instead.

Afterwards we grumble about having to mow the grass.

I’m very excited. Today Samhain releases my second book; or, as I prefer to think of it, my first book that isn’t my first book.

I was also very excited about my first book, but this one feels even better. I think it’s because this is actually the first one I wrote. And I wrote it for someone special. Which was the first time I ever wrote an entire book for someone else. (Although not the last time!)

La Ceinture is about a plain leather belt, and all the many, many different things a belt can mean (and ways it can be used – if I missed any, let me know…). But mostly it is a story about what keeps people apart and what brings them together. When I wrote it, S.C. was still on the other side of the world (quite literally!). Happily, that is no longer the case.

The story is also quite dark, which might or might not have anything to do with the number of editors (3) it consumed before being published. Although I trust Samhain’s readers are made of sturdier stuff, there’s no harm in warning you that it’s not the light, fluffy romp that La Bonne was.

To find more heated words (the good kind of heat), join me and my fellow Samhain erotica writers over at Passionate Prose.

Au revoir –

Michele de Lully