Urban Fantasy Writer's Group

Chapter 2 of Guardians is live and kicking!

The Story up to now: Regan, a bodyguard for celebrities and socialites, escorts the mayor’s son to a museum benefit for a religious archeologist seeking more money. Before we get to find out much about the Dr or the people at the party, we find out that her contact Andre is missing, her sister goes out of her way to guilt her into coming to see her the next day and then that something is wrong that an old friend and one of the venue security think she needs to be in on. Find out what happens next in Chapter 2


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Last Saturday, I'm happy to announce, the first Chapter of Guardians went live. You can go to http://www.guardiansnovel.com to hear it!

So far it's gotten rave reviews. I was on Jackie Kessler's "Cat and Muse". Karen Syd from Echelon Press recommended it.

I would love to know what you think! Don't be shy.

It was a little slow coming out but Angellus Journals: 10 is up and alive. ;) (Johnny 5 is alive!)

Things are so crazy while I get ready for Balticon next week, and I have been trying to head off the flue that I slipped a bit on my time release. But I believe this is the best question answered so far! Check it out.

For anyone who only wants to use livejournal to check on my Guardians feed you can add it here: http://syndicated.livejournal.com/guardiansnovel

The RSS feed is http://www.guardiansnovel.com/feed

#7 is out and I'm very excited. It's only a few more weeks until the release of the first chapter!!

Angellus Journal #7 is up where I'm is asked what she recommends reading wise to help you prepare of Guardians release on May 22nd.

Many great things are in the works including: a cover, a prize giveaway at Balticon, and so much more.

I've adding a mailing list that you all can join for any new news. Just go to the site and fill in the form on the right side. Don't worry I won't spam you. :) Feel free to sign up and tell your friends about this group or my site! Spread the Guardians word!! :)

How does everyone here outline novels (those who outline novels, that is)?

Do you use cue cards, stickynotes, poster board, just a text outline, pictures....

X-poster

Does anyone know of a blogger who recaps convention panel discussions? I'm really in the mood to read some.

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Just a bit behind but the Angellus Journals: 4 was released last Sunday. AJ:5 will be up on Monday!

From the Podcast Novel: Guardians by Kimi Alexandre here's your chance to ask Kimi, her characters, or her cast any question you'd like!

Who knew that a trip to a museum benefit to guard an underwear model could change a girl’s whole life? Raegan Fischer stepped into a closet but didn’t quite come out alone. Now she’s part of a secret but no one let her in on the rules. It’s set to put her smack in the middle of a celestial police investigation she’s not equipped to deal with.

In order to protect her sanity, her body, and people she cares about, she’s going to have to figure out who isn’t what they appear to be, play a game of spiritually enlightened catch up, and track down an artifact that holds a dangerous key to the whole thing.

http://www.guardiansnovel.com

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The newest Angellus Journals question is up! Millie from fearofwriting.com asks a seemingly harmless question about gargoyles and one of my character can't wait to answer her. http://is.gd/oryr

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When it comes to UF, you would think that world building would be a piece of cake. Throw some monsters in a favored city, a dash of swords, big guns, and magic, a little romance and intrigue and there you have it. But as I have tried to finish the back ground to my latest piece, I keep finding more and more details of life that the Fantasy encroaches upon.

In a world where the monsters are new and the magic is fresh, how many levels of govenment would they impact? Would leaders call for Marshall Law to quell the flooding creatures? Would the local police be enough to handle the change or would the Feds move in? Would commerce dry up? Would federal funding come to a screeching halt?

And what of the gawkers? Would the city become a tourist trap for thrill seekers? The ghost hunters and monster chasers? Would the paparazzi roam the streets searching for the primo shot for their tabloid rags?

These are just the beginnings of the questions that slow me down as I work out my story. Do others allow themselves to delve that deeply or do you cut yourself off? Do you purposely ignore certain details for the sake of your sanity or do you try to cover the basics and focus on the bits that intrigue you the most. I would enjoy hearing how far others go to build their worlds.

The final two panels I attended at WFC this year are up on my blog!

Genre-Hopping
Evolution of the Vampire Hunter

Soon I'll post up a contest for the extra books I obtained at the Con :)

Crossposted

Hey everyone.

I'm attending World Fantasy Conference this year and I've take a shit-load of notes on all the panels I've been to and posted them up in my journal. You're welcome to come by and look. Also, please comment and discuss if there's something that wasn't explained well enough on those notes :)

• Killing Significant Characters
  
• Defining the Next Paranormal Detective - focus on female influx
  
• Resurgence of YA Fantasy
  
• Sidekicks who Try to Steal the Show
  
• Blind Alleys and Red Herrings - Mystery in Young Adult Fantasy
  
• Real Life Villains
  
• Canadian Fantasy - Is there such a thing?
  
• David Morrell Writing Workshop
  
• Location Location Location
  

There are still two more panels to come tomorrow morning and hopefully there's lots of interesting stuff for me to post.

Cross-posted

Urban Fantasy (as well as Paranormal Romance) has taken the book shelves by such a force that it is truly breathtaking. So many books revolve around vamps, weres, ghosts and ghouls, urban sprawl and darkest nights. They all make for fun reads but these trappings are mere props. They add a flavor to the story and without them most stories could be told from different genres with few changes.

Take the creatures away from LK Hamilton's Anita Blake books and you've got a gritty detective story. Take the vamps out of JR Ward's Brotherhood novels and you've got an action-packed thriller revolving around rival gangs. Sure, they wouldn't be the same but they'd still be strong stories.

The central plot, the main motivating force that drives the book should have the strongest pull to the reader. Whether it be finding a long, lost love to bring peace to a shattered heart or destroying an ancient evil before it tears apart a slightly imbalanced world, an interesting plot moves a tale.

So, among the UF and PR novels, which plots do you find the most intriguing?

What’s more important to you: relationships or plot?

There are some novelists that had built their acclaim on sensationalist paranormal romance and sacrificed plot plausibility or consistency. Others have the romance more subtle with a solid plot. I’ve always considered the first category to be “paranormal romance” while the other is “urban fantasy”.

What do you think about the categories of paranormal romance and urban fantasy? Are there good paranormal romances that are strong in the plot department as well as the romance?</b.

Been a while, huh?

Question: What projects are you currently working on or will be working on over summer?

For me, I'm working on several ill-formed story ideas that center around vampiric urban fantasy. The problem I'm having is making them less vampire-porn than what's already out there.

 I'm fairly new to the group and not to clear on the protocols, but thought I'd post to say hello to everyone and introduce myself. I go by Sidhe Vicious, or Judi and I'm currently writing my first urban fantasy. Some days are easier than others, lol, but it's great to have found a community of people who share my interests. I once had a magazine article published a million years ago, but not any fiction yet. 

I'm not sure if this is allowed, and please let me know moderator, but I have a contest at my Urban Fantasy - Paranormal Romance book review blog Sidhe Vicious Raves & Rants to win either a signed copy of JF Lewis's debut vampire novel STAKED, or one of his Welcome To The Void t-shirts. I thought it may be of interest to fellow urban fantasy writers/readers. All you have to do is leave a comment at the bottom of the interview. I've read the book and loved it! I have my review a couple of posts under the interview with JF Lewis. 

If anyone would like to friend me here on LJ, please do so. 

Today we have yet another quest at my humble blog aka Kristopher Reisz and he is going to talk about this and that, all connected to literature of course, some way or another. Enjoy.

1. Hello Kristopher and welcome to this edition of "Interrogate the Author" with me, the innocent, but oh-so-curious Harry Markov. Thank you for the opportunity to sit on my virtual chair and answer all my nonsense. Now let's warm up. How are you feeling?

I'm feeling pretty good. It's about 1 a.m. here, and I just got off work. But the coffee's brewing, so things are looking up. How are you?

2. Thank you for asking. British manners really make my day every time. I am doing just fine. So as we all know, writers usually get this bang on the head by an invisible epiphany and suddenly from ordinary human beings we all get the strange notion to start creative writing. When did your epiphany bang you and how did that happen? I mean it could have been either a novel or an actual hit in the heat. Details are usually wanted here.

Nobody watches a five-year-old singing to himself or making a dinosaur from Play-Dough and asks, "Why are you doing that?" Even if they did, the five-year-old wouldn't feel any need to explain himself.

Through childhood, creativity in a dozen different forms is seen as natural as eating or sleeping. It's only after we become adults that we're expected to put it aside for hard work, mowing the lawn, and–weirdly–raising children of our own. I never had a bang on the head or any sort of epiphany. I do what everybody did once; I just never quit.

I am very happy to announce that the glorious, newly risen star of Urban Fantasy, Jeaniene Frost has given consent to participate in a simple Q&A. I am also happu to announce that this author has recently won the Romatic Times Readers Choice with her debut novel "Halfway to the Grave". You can find my review of that book HERE, before I started my seperate blog. Now let's get this interview going!

1. Hello, Jeaniene. I’m so thrilled to be having you here on my humble place on the Internet as one of the first test subject in my upcoming series of interviews. I really appreciate the time to answer my rambling questions. How are you feeling?

Hi Harry, and thanks again for taking the time to interview me. Things are good! I’m getting pre-release jitters as time winds down until ONE FOOT IN THE GRAVE comes out, but everyone tells me that’s normal.

2. Of course it is, until you shake your hands so violently that you won’t need a mixer to make whipped cream anymore. So as we all know, writers usually get this bang on the head by an invisible epiphany and suddenly from ordinary human beings we all get the strange notion to start creative writing. When did your epiphany bang you and how did that happen? I mean it could have been either a novel or an actual hit in the heat. Details are usually wanted here.

Oh, it was a bona-fide Moment, and I remember it clearly. It was January 4^th , 2004, and I was sitting at my computer browsing Viggo Mortensen’s actor profile (I’d LOVED Lord of the Rings, The Two Towers, and that was shortly after it came out.) Anyway, I was looking at Viggo’s biography and saw that he was an actor, painter, poet, publisher, photographer, and political activist. *pause* It was then that I had the crystal clear thought of, “Jeaniene, you are wasting your life.” As far as my dream of being an author went, in any event. Also, this happened shortly before I turned thirty, so I’m sure that looming milestone played a part in my epiphany as well.

After that day, I began writing. First it was poetry – which I love, but am terrible at – and then the idea for Halfway to the Grave hit me in a dream. It was so vivid, I completed my first of the story in about three months.

Now be sure to check out the lovely Miss Frost's:
Site: Jeaniene Frost, Author of the Night Huntress series
Blog over at LiveJournal
"Halfway to the Grave" is available at Amazon
"One Foot in the Grave", the second installment, has been just released.

Geez, it's been a long time since I last posted. Hope you like my peace offering ;)

“Unleashed” by Kristopher Reisz
Paperback: 352 pages
Publisher: Simon Pulse (February 19, 2008)
ISBN-10: 1416940014

As a debut post to my specialized in reviewing blog, I am going to report my impressions from “Unleashed” by Kristopher Reisz. But first I want to brag that this is a personal copy sent straight from the author himself, the very first I have ever received without winning a giveaway. So I don’t feel like a virgin in that area anymore and after the squealing was ticked on my to-do-list I set out to read it.

I was a bit skeptical with whether I am truly going to enjoy it or not since the paranormal limelight favored werewolves, which are in my book least favorable. As a reader and writer my accent falls on magic and mental power, whereas the werewolves are thoroughly physical and carnal. TV movies showing unintelligent half human, half wolf monstrosities didn’t help either to build a better view. Even when I researched shamanism and learned that werewolves change into whole wolves and don’t rely on the moon and had a deeper spiritual symbolism I wasn’t very keen. But I read this book and everything has changed for the better. People don’t joke around, when they say that written words have power.

Being a teen and the book being young adult with characters my age I think it was a match made in library heaven. The story is told by multiple points of view, but follows mainly Daniel, who is the shooting star in his high school in Birmingham and has the perfect life. He is the most popular, most athletic and has one a place in Cornwell, an Ivy League college. However on his path to fit the part of the perfect pupil with brightest future, Daniel has lost his own path and his identity.

Hi ya'll. I set up syndication for a few blogs I found so if your interested...

roc_ace - The Roc/Ace blog from Penguin Group
urbanfantasylnd - Urban Fantasy Land

Also, here is a list of the UF/F author blogs I have on my friend's list:
blackholly - Holly Black
cassandraclare - Cassandra Clare
faerie_writer - Maggie Wood
janetgurtler - Janet Gurtler
jbattis - Jes Battis
jenlyn_b - Jennifer Lynn Barnes
jimbutcher - Jim Butcher
katatomic - Kat Richardson
kris_reisz - Kris Reisz
mdhenry - Mark Henry
megancrewe - Megan Crewe
melissa_writing - Melissa Marr
mizkit - C. E. Murphy
mroctober - Steve Berman
rkvincent - Rachel Vincent
sartorias - Sherwood Smith
swan_tower - Marie Brennan
tammypierce - Tamora Pierce
tltrent - T. L. Trent
Feeds:
jaye_wells - Jaye Wells
larbalestier - Justine Larbalestier
megcabot - Meg Cabot
officialgaiman - Neil Gaiman

Do you have any more to add to this list?

Also, are there any outside blogs you would like to see syndicated? I can set them up with my permanent account.

I voiced this question on my own livejournal and I want to see what people have to say here.

How do you feel about truthful, possibly scathing reviews?

I know I have read many urban fantasy books and I simply...disliked them. Or maybe hated. Or maybe just found so many flaws and consistency issues that I was dumbfounded that they had even been published. But I'm nervous about posting my true thoughts on them for fear that people won't be receptive of my opinion.

I know one of my issues with books is when there is FAR too much of a sexual focus that the storyline loses itself and the women in the book have no integrity, simply tossing themselves between men. Thusly, I've felt that paranormal romance isn't for me but I fear not including this side of the urban fantasy genre in my reading in case I neglect some of the better works out there

So, I'm asking you. Also, how do you feel about the subgenres in urban fantasy?

Also, are there some authors out there that you see everyone LOVING but you just...can't get into it?