Fear and Laundry

New stuff

Sat, 31 Dec 2011 21:08:00 -0600

As promised - the excerpt from my next book is now up! Check it out under the “next book” tab.

Happy Holidays!

Thu, 22 Dec 2011 11:55:00 -0600

I hope everyone’s had a nice fall season and/or semester (for those of you who are in school). I’ve been pretty caught up in school myself and have had very little time for anything else these past few months. I wasn’t even able to do NaNoWriMo this year, which truly saddened me as it was the first year since 2003 that I have not participated :(. (I will, however, still be donating to them because I think it’s an awesome project and I hope to join in again in the future). But hey, I got 5 A’s and learned a LOT, so I guess busting my butt on school work was worth it!

As for my next book: it will not be released this month, as I had hoped, because…well, because that was a REALLY ambitious goal, especially given how intense this semester turned out to be! Lol. However, there IS a mostly-completed draft, I AM still working on it and it will be released sometime, hopefully in 2012. The excerpt will be up before the year is out! That’s a promise. In the meantime, I’ve decided to donate any proceeds from the December and January sales of Fear and Laundry to the Houston Food Bank and Meals on Wheels. So if you know of anyone who needs a last-minute gift idea or is getting an e-reader for Christmas, please don’t hesitate to suggest this little 99 cent book of mine! Ha, ha :).

Thank you all for what has truly been one of the most amazing years of my life. I will never forget it. Have a wonderful holiday and I will update again very soon…xoxo - Liz

kentstatecult: Hellbound: Hellraiser II barfbag

Wed, 21 Dec 2011 13:38:30 -0600

kentstatecult:

Hellbound: Hellraiser II barfbag

Photo

Wed, 21 Dec 2011 13:24:12 -0600

A quick update and a blanket 'Thank You'

Fri, 22 Jul 2011 12:04:00 -0500

Hi! Just wanted to let you all know I’ve been working, working, working on the next book and think I am THIS close to having a brand-new excerpt ready to post here. I aim to have the entire manuscript ready for my husband (always my First Reader) to read by the first week of August. I’m so excited to see what he thinks!

I’d also like to take a moment to say a “blanket thank you” to everyone who has given Fear and Laundry a chance, and an extra special thanks to everyone who’s gone to the trouble of contacting me about it in some way and/or rating or reviewing it somewhere online. Thoughtful feedback has been popping up all over the place lately and I can’t tell you how much it means to me. It helps me so much as a writer to know what you guys like, what you think could be better, etc… I wish I could hug every one of you who has said something. But that might be kinda creepy. So instead I’ll just try to return the favor by dedicating myself to improving as a writer and delivering the best stories I can ;). Thank you!

LOL!

Fri, 22 Jul 2011 11:37:00 -0500

LOL!

annasarkisian: KILL YOUR TV & READ.

Sat, 02 Jul 2011 16:04:51 -0500

annasarkisian:

KILL YOUR TV & READ.

Yay!

Wed, 22 Jun 2011 12:12:43 -0500

Yay!

Please disregard how sweaty I look - and also my awkward...

Wed, 22 Jun 2011 12:10:51 -0500

Please disregard how sweaty I look - and also my awkward posture. I was like “Do I bend down? Do I not bend down? What’s going on here?” The whole experience was quite rushed and fluster-inducing. But she was oh so nice. No surprise!

Book list nerdiness

Wed, 15 Jun 2011 13:08:00 -0500

I think I’ve become a little obsessed with the Goodreads website. I’ve spent oodles of time there lately, adding all the books I’ve read over the past few years to my account. I think I’m almost done. However, it doesn’t quite match my LibraryThing account. I know the two lists don’t HAVE to match exactly, but…I would really like for them to! Lol. I’ve also got 3 different TBR lists (one on GR, one on LT and an Excel file on my PC) that I need to somehow combine into one master, monster list. And I need to stop adding titles to all of these because I start to get anxious whenever I feel like they are getting too long. I mean, I start to feel like I won’t ever actually have time to read ALL of these books. And that just makes me sad.

I have issues, I know.

Anyway, as of yesterday Fear and Laundry is now available as an ePub download on Goodreads for the low, low price of just a dollar.

Speaking of pricing: one of the things that appeals most to me about indie publishing is the ability to set my own prices. In particular, I really love the idea of making books available for cheap and/or free. I don’t think Amazon and B&N allow indies to set their ebook prices at zero - although that would be awesome - but it’s cool that Goodreads does. I didn’t know that when I first put Fear out. I’m still editing my next project (still untitled) but am already thinking ahead to its release (I’m aiming for December) and am definitely toying with the idea of making it a freebie in some way, shape or form. Hmmm…

In other news: I saw Motley Crue this past weekend and they put on a great show! This Friday I’m going to Sarah Dessen’s signing. I’ve been waiting for this event to buy a copy of her new book, and am excited I’ll finally get to read it.

Blank Fiction

Wed, 08 Jun 2011 12:23:00 -0500

In Fear and Laundry, Veronica’s best friend, Lia, is obsessed with the lead singer of a band called Blank Fiction. In retrospect, this probably just sounds like I couldn’t come up with a more creative band name. Ha, ha. However, I assure you that lots of thought went into this decision! I played around with a bunch of different possibilities (and, I’ll admit, even a little with this fun thing) but ultimately decided on Blank Fiction in reference to a literary term, which

describes the writing of a generation of contemporary US writers whose influence started in the 1980s and is still alive at present in the voice of authors like Dennis Cooper, Bret Easton Ellis and Chuck Palahniuk.

(Wikipedia refers to this same idea as “Blank Generation Fiction”).

I liked the way “Blank Fiction” sounded - and how I was then able to connect the band to Lia’s zine, The Blank Slate. I also really liked being able to slip in a teensy homage to two of my favorite writers, Chuck Palahniuk and (especially) Bret Easton Ellis.

Just packaged up the copies of Fear and Laundry for the...

Fri, 03 Jun 2011 16:40:00 -0500

Just packaged up the copies of Fear and Laundry for the Goodreads giveaway. They’ll be on their way to the winners very, very soon! Thanks muchly to everyone who entered.

Oh, and just a quick reminder - the LibraryThing giveaway is still going on for a couple more days.

Great weekend

Tue, 24 May 2011 11:56:00 -0500

The past few days have ruled. Hard. I saw My Chemical Romance at the House of Blues on Friday night (yes, it was amazing!) and spent the weekend in Dallas visiting old friends and my adorable godchildren. Then, yesterday was my seven year wedding anniversary. In addition to the MCR tickets, I got roses and chocolate-covered Oreos (not to mention the seven years of dreaminess and awesomeness, of course). Having a husband rocks!

There’s still a little time to enter for a chance to win a paperback copy of Fear and Laundry over at Goodreads. I’m also giving away both paperback and electronic copies on LibraryThing, if you’ve got an account there.

PS: I did get my Kindle repaired after all. It was quick, painless and inexpensive - and gave me yet another reason to love Amazon! Now I just need to decide what I’m going to read next…

Crushed Kindle

Fri, 06 May 2011 12:04:00 -0500

Lesson of the week: don’t leave your Kindle sitting on the couch while you get up to go do something else for a minute.

‘Cause when you get back you might, you know, forget that you left it there and accidentally kneel on it and make the screen go all wonky :(.

I’m so saddened by this! I’m addicted to my Kindle. And what a time to mess it up, too - what with summer and all it’s attendant summer-reading-gloriousness right around the corner! Here’s hoping I can get it fixed or replaced soon.

In brighter news: Meg Cabot’s post over at Forever Young Adult totally made my day yesterday. I loved everything she had to say in it. Have I mentioned that she’s awesome? ‘Cause she is.

Wow, that last post…fangirl much? Lol. I am still bouncing...

Wed, 04 May 2011 11:26:00 -0500

Wow, that last post…fangirl much? Lol. I am still bouncing off the walls a little after meeting Clive, but I’ve calmed down some. Enough to post this picture of me from TFW with Angus Scrimm from Phantasm.

Aw, isn’t he adorable? And so sweet and friendly, too. It was a pleasure and an honor to meet him. This is probably my favorite photo from the convention (after the one of me with Clive of course).

Phantasm doesn’t get a mention in Fear and Laundry (something I plan to rectify in the next book, as it is one of my favorites), but Subspecies does. I was quite happy that during his TFW Q&A panel, Mr. Scrimm gave a shout-out to the sweet wig he wore in it. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a picture of it to post here. You can catch a couple glimpses of it in the trailer above, however. At about 0:09 and 1:00. Hee, hee.

Please pardon the big, silly grin on my face. I just got back...

Mon, 02 May 2011 13:10:19 -0500

Please pardon the big, silly grin on my face. I just got back from Texas Frightmare Weekend in Dallas and OMG, it was probably the best weekend of my life!!!

I’d been to a couple of horror cons before this and they were fun and everything but…this time I got to meet Clive Barker, who has been a huge hero of mine for over twenty years. I really never thought I’d get to meet him, much less talk to him and watch him draw a sketch right in front of me, just for my husband and me. It was surreal. And a dream come true. He was so nice and funny and classy and even more amazing than I could ever have imagined.

Frankly, I don’t know how the rest of my life is going to follow this up. Lol.

I’ve got pictures and stuff and will write about the weekend in more detail soon, but for now I’m just still so discombobulated…happy sigh. Enjoy the Hellraiser trailer, won’t you? This movie is what started my whole obsession with Barker in the first place.

Video

Thu, 28 Apr 2011 12:51:00 -0500

Okay, now that I’ve gotten myself...

Thu, 28 Apr 2011 12:49:00 -0500

Okay, now that I’ve gotten myself started…here’s some more Gone With the Wind goodness. This is the trailer for the movie. I don’t know about you, but this totally makes me wish I had four spare hours to go and watch this whole movie again RIGHT NOW.

And because I can’t figure out how to embed two videos in one post, the post right after this one is the “30 second bunnies theater” version of GWTW.

Carreen

Thu, 28 Apr 2011 12:14:00 -0500

Fear and Laundry is set in Carreen, Texas. There is no such place. However, I am originally from West Texas and strove to make the setting fairly authentic. In West Texas, there really are days near the end of the summer when you sweat to death while the sun is up and then freeze your butt off after it goes down. Makes it kinda tricky to plan your wardrobe! It’s also very windy there and sometimes there are dirt storms like the one described near the beginning of the book.

Carreen is named after a character in Gone With the Wind. Scarlett O’Hara’s youngest sister is named Caroline Irene, but her family calls her “Carreen.” It’s not so much that the character of Carreen was a particular favorite of mine or anything (although I guess she was the sweeter sister), but I used to be really obsessed with Gone With the Wind in general and wanted to give it a shout-out. I still love Gone With the Wind (both the movie and the book), but when I was younger, it really sort of bordered on a sickness. I mean, as a teenager I put together a 1,000 piece jigsaw puzzle of the movie poster, framed it and hung it up in my bedroom. But, um, perhaps I’ve said too much…

Anyway, I loved Scarlett and Rhett SO much. I know they were sometimes sort of awful and dysfunctional but I loved them. Even though he’s nothing like him, Clyde’s bodyguard in Fear and Laundry, Rhett, is named for Rhett Butler.

L-R: Carreen, Scarlett, and Suellen O’Hara

Abandon

Tue, 26 Apr 2011 15:26:00 -0500

Today’s a happy day. There’s a new Meg Cabot book out! I was lucky enough to score an advanced copy of Abandon earlier this month at TeenBookCon and can tell you that, unsurprisingly, it’s pretty great. Eagerly looking forward to the next installment in that trilogy. According to the book tour information on her website, Meg will be here in Texas tomorrow. Too bad it’s nowhere near where I live :(!