Vita and the Monsters of Moorhouse

Heya Velocininjas! Long time no see. I've been in the process of moving my blogging over to jilliankarger.com, which should be up and running soon.

I wanted to let you guys know that my dark fantasy novel, Vita and the Monsters of Moorhouse, is now available on Amazon in Kindle and paperback. You can get it here.

I wrote about this novel (previously titled simply Moorhouse) many times on this blog as I worked on it over the years, and it's so exciting to see it out in the world after nearly a decade.

Thanks so much for all your feedback on those terrible, early sketches I posted on here. I hope you enjoy the finished product.

Short Post and a Song #130: The moral of this story is that flip flops are terrible.

ME: It's nice out today. I should wear flip flops!

[roughly five seconds after leaving my apartment in the flip flops]

ME: *sobbing* Why do I always make decisions that end up hurting me in the end?

COP: You need to get up off the sidewalk, ma'am.

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"Oslo in the Summertime" by of Montreal

I'm back to working on the second book in the Renaissance Experiment trilogy now, but last week I took a break to clear my head and splash around in a few of my other works in progress. I spent most of the week editing my monster novel, Moorhouse, but I also did some conceptual work on a science fiction project of mine, tentatively titled Tabula Rasa.

Halfway through writing Moorhouse I found a song that I could imagine playing during the opening credits of the movie version of my novel. Despite being a severe case of thinking way too far ahead, this really helped crystallize in my mind what the important themes were of what was at the time an overly complicated story.

For Tabula Rasa I imagine "Oslo in the Summertime" playing right at the beginning of the story's first scene. A group of young adults wake up on a beautiful but deserted island, and no one has any memory of who they are or how they got there. There's something in this song that just perfectly captures for me how unsettling an experience like that would truly be, how a person might almost become sort of numb and just float through it all, because what else could you do?

Short Post and a Song #68: Someone out there thinks I'm a real comedian. ...Maybe. Probably not.

Someone recently found the blog by searching "comedian jillian on chopped." They were probably searching for information about a funny chick named Jillian who went on Chopped at some point, but I am going to pretend that the random searcher was looking for me and this post. 

Thank you, random searcher, for making me feel like a real comedian—even if it was just an accident.

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"Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk" by Rufus Wainwright

I'm officially querying with Moorhouse and am trying to put it out of my head by doing some editing on Renaissance Lab. I got mostly good feedback on it from agents who requested it but the only people who really seemed to love it were the assistants who read through to the end, and not the agents who read just the first fifty to one hundred pages. So I'm trying to see if I can't infuse the feel of the rest of the novel into the beginning, or perhaps hack off the beginning altogether.

This song is on my Renaissance Lab playlist and it felt like a reunion of sorts when I put it on and started reading through my old pages. 

Short Post and a Song #63: I'm baaaaa-aaaaaaaack!!

The first hundred or so times I heard "...Baby One More Time" by Britney Spears, I thought Britney was singing to some dude named Babyn.

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"Sargasso Sea" by Suzanne Ciani

This simple pairing of strings and piano here is so full of emotion, my poor little Grinch-sized heart can barely take it. This is my gift to you writers out there like me who work best with instrumental music.

P.S. I promise it won't be another ten years before my next update. After months in the revision cave, I am ready to query with Moorhouse and am committing back to at least one post a week. 

Thank you so much to you Velocininjas who have checked in through comments or email during my hiatus. (Should I start calling it a sabbatical? That sounds classier, I think.) You all deserve chocolate and flowers and flowers made out of chocolate and chocolate made out of flowers. 

Or maybe not that last one.

Dear Moorhouse rough draft,

Oh, my dear, the times we have had together! I bet you’re laughing now at those naïve comments I made in the early days about how you would be “done in just a few months” since you were “just a kids’ book.”

Comments like those really must have pissed you off, because you went on to take months and months and months—two years from when I first had the idea. You beat me up good, making me wonder at regular intervals if I was good enough to write you. But I kept fighting back one sad little monster sketch at a time.

And now I have vanquished you. You’re still all out of order, like a Picasso painting with your nose where your chin should be. But you’re done and down for the count.

In a few days I’ll get to work un-Picasso-ifying your face. But for now I’m watching a ton of Parks and Recreation and eating victory peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

(I would have victory ice cream, but my battles with you have left me too lazy to go to the store.)

Love always, 
Jillian

Short Post and a Song #59: It's all about perspective.

The handle on the cold water faucet in my bathroom is incredibly resistant to being turned off. So resistant, in fact, that I have to use both hands to insure its off-ness. 

I could be annoyed about this one of many bits of ill-repair in my apartment. Instead each time I turn off the cold water faucet, I take it as an opportunity to pretend I am a giant steering a tiny pirate ship in particularly high seas.

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"Long, Long Time Ago" by Javier Navarrete

We're back to creepy music this week. This is the theme from the darkly beautiful Pan's Labyrinth. This features on a few of Moorhouse's playlists.

Short Post and a Song #58: Mama Revisa

I'm getting toward the very end of writing my Moorhouse rough draft, which for me is just about the most stressful part of writing a book. Ending Renaissance Lab was a bit easier for me since I had extensively outlined how everything was going to go. I'm doing a lot more pantsing with Moorhouse, which means I'm still not 100% sure how things will go down in its final scenes. 

So I've done a terrible little drawing for me and anyone else nervous about how their books are will tie up:

Next time you get bogged down by the writing blues, just remember Mama Revisa and her calming words of wisdom.

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"Satellite" by Guster

I've been a fan of this song for a few years now, though I only recently realized which that it had any name other than "The Dee-Dee-Dee-Dee-Dee-Dee-Dee-Dee Song." I'm pretty sure it's on the soundtrack of something, though I'm not sure what. I like this acoustic version even better than the original; I just love watching that violinist go.

Short Post and a Song #57: ...Except for Cameron Diaz. If Cameron Diaz is a unicorn, then she's one of the dick ones who tricked Charlie into going to Candy Mountain and stole his kidney.

Movies like It’s Complicated, Something's Gotta Give, and The Holiday are perfectly enjoyable just so long as you think of them as fantasy films, and of their heroines as unicorns wandering through enchanted, beautifully decorated forests.

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"Piano Concerto No. 21" by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

I've been listening to Mozart a lot while writing these days. I find his music helps me to be more productive without being a distraction.

I know I've been quiet lately and skipped a few Short Posts and Songs. So here are some more consolation sketches for you. As always, new readers should know that I make sketches to help my writing, and not because I think I'm some kind of Vincent Van Gogh. I'm actually quite happy not to be some kind of Vincent Van Gogh; I very much enjoy having both my ears.

These are some of the main characters in Renaissance Lab, my dystopian novel. I'm a lot better at drawing faces than bodies, so there are many floating heads in all my sketch books. 

More floating heads! These guys are characters from my WIP, Moorhouse, done with my fancy new blue brush pen.

This sketch is a good example of how I never let a lack of space stop me if there is a doodle to be drawn. For some reason I find Mazkin's (the monster on the lower right) expression here endlessly amusing.

Short Post and a Song #56: This is the gift that hipsters give to the world.

Every day when I wake up in the morning in Brooklyn, I know, without a doubt, that no matter what I choose to wear, there will be several people out there who look FAR more ridiculous than I do. So what if my shoes don't match my dress? At least I'm not wearing twelve scarves in eighty degree weather and a pair of stripey glasses I can't see out of.

So thank you for that, hipsters. It takes a lot of pressure off, honestly.

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"Sloom" by Of Monsters and Men

Yep, I've featured Of Monsters and Men ONCE AGAIN. This is partly because right after I made a big deal about featuring the band three times on the blog, I turned right around and featured Florence + the Machine for the third time. 

So of course you can see why I had to feature a fourth song by Of Monsters and Men.

My other reason for featuring this band is that I'm SEEING them in concert the day after tomorrow. (!!!!!) My cousins and I will be on the lawn where we won't be able to see a damned thing, but I'm still just so excited to be in the presence of their beautiful, whimsical music live.

P.S. I lied in my earlier post when I said all the Moorhouse-y songs were strung together at the begininning of My Head is an Animal. "Sloom" is one of the later tracks on the album, and it's one of the Moorhouse-iest of the bunch.

Short Post and a Song #55: Seriously, I don't know what they expect us to be able to keep in there. A stick of Juicy Fruit won't even fit in most lady pockets.

Dear designers of women's jeans, pants, and shorts:

I would like pockets into which I could fit more than two Skittles, a button, and a piece of string. 

K, thanks, bye.

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"Into Each Life Some Rain Must Fall" by The Ink Spots feat. Bill Kenny and Ella Fitzgerald

Here's a golden oldie for you Velocininjas today, all the way back from 1944. This song helped me figure out some important character/relationship development stuff in Moorhouse, and for that I will be eternally grateful.

I know I skipped a Short Post and a Song, and that this one is a few days late. It's a wonder that there hasn't been total anarchy and rioting in the streets as a result. 

So here's a consolation color sketch of three of the monsters in Moorhouse. Longtime readers may recognize earlier incarnations of these critters. Shorttime readers should not expect a beautiful work of art, since that is not how we do things here:

From left to right: Mazkin, Peebles, and Dotted-Line Jack.

Blogging will continue to be even spottier than before until I finish the book, I'm afraid.

But in the meantime, please enjoy the music and the monsters.

Short Post and a Song #53: The Makeup Conundrum

Guy: Ugh, women are so annoying with their makeup. Why can't they realize that they'd all be so much more beautiful without it? 

(Sees a woman who is legitimately not wearing any makeup.) 

Guy: Are you feeling all right, ma'am? You look SUPER tired. 

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"Over the Love" by Florence + the Machine

I wish I could say this song's significance to me had anything to do with The Great Gatsby. It is, after all, my favorite book if I gun-to-my-head had to have a favorite. I also got to be one of the first to report on the movie, out this weekend, back when it was just a twinkle in Baz Luhrmann's eye.

But no. The reason I'm featuring "Over the Love" this week is because I was writing what will probably be the creepiest scene in Moorhouse (top five at least), and the only way I could get through it was by listening to this and "Seven Devils" over and over on a never-ending loop. It turns out that Florence + the Machine suits demonic dolls and psychotic robot monsters quite well. Is anyone surprised?

Short Post and a Song #51: I suppose you could also just do his voice in an animated film, but the shrinking thing would be way more impressive.

Dear Michael B. Jordan,

You were one of my most favorite parts of Friday Night Lights. Could you do me a favor and shrink yourself down to an eleven-year-old boy so you can play one of the main characters in my children's novel if it ever gets made into a movie? 

I know the book's not even done yet, much less agented or published. But hey, if it doesn't work out, at least you'll get to do high school all over again. And who doesn't want that?

~*~*~*~*~

"Dirty Paws" by Of Monsters and Men

Today's Short Post and a Song is kinda cohesive for once, since like Michael B. Jordan, this song helps me to imagine what a movie adapted from my WIP might look like. "Dirty Paws" would serve as the soundtrack for my imaginary opening credits, which in my mind would take up the entire song and have the moving-through-the-story feel of Daniel Kleinman's Skyfall opening (only with less guns and sexy ladies and more monsters and flying horses).

Of Monsters and Men has officially become the first band that I have featured not just once, not just twice, but three times now on the blog. Not so coincidentally, these are also the first three songs on the album. I've taken to writing by hand on the subway in the morning these past few months, and nothing gets me ready to work on Moorhouse like listening to these three tracks. Not that I don't adore the rest of the album, but fortunately for me, the particularly Moorhouse-y songs are all strung together at the beginning.

Okay, off to go write more of that book. It may have not only been bought by a publisher but sold for film in my dreams, but in reality I've got another 10-15k more words to power through. Onward!

Short Post and a Song #39: I know you're out there somewhere, Crazy Cat Lady BFF, and I will find you.

I would really like to make friends with a crazy cat lady someday. I love cats but am fairly allergic and also enjoy owning black clothing that isn’t covered in cat hair. So a crazy cat lady friend would be the ideal solution. I could go and pet old Georgina’s fifteen cats every so often, and sip lemonade and eat butterscotch candies and listen to Georgie’s tales of life in the theatre.

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"King and Lionheart" by Of Monsters and Men

While writing Renaissance Lab, I had a very special moment with a very special song. The song was "In the Backseat" by Arcade Fire, and when I first heard it I suddenly understood my protagonist in a new, much deeper way. Two days ago I had almost that exact same experience with Moorhouse and "King and Lionheart." Whenever I hear this song, I know exactly who my protagonist is, what she wants, and what makes her special. 

I'm not going to share how many times I've listened to this song on obsessive repeat, nor how many times I've watched the beautifully whimsical music video. I'll just say an enormous thank you to Of Monsters and Men, Arcade Fire, and all the other songwriters who write the music that makes so many other jobs in this world that much easier. 

I'll leave you with the quote that always comes to mind when I think of how grateful I am to the people who write the songs that guide my writing, by Stephen Chbosky from The Perks of Being a Wallflower:

“And I thought about how many people have loved those songs. And how many people got through a lot of bad times because of those songs. And how many people enjoyed good times with those songs. And how much those songs really mean. I think it would be great to have written one of those songs. I bet if I wrote one of them, I would be very proud. I hope the people who wrote those songs are happy. I hope they feel it's enough. I really do because they've made me happy. And I'm only one person.”

Short Post and a Song #35 (and some additional ramblings): I bet the Breakfast Club went on to become Bender's own little squad of Space Monkeys.

Warning: I'm about to give away the end of the movie Fight Club. If you have not seen or read Fight Club, I recommend that you immediately do both—preferably movie before book. Then I want you to come back and be disappointed that you did all that work for a joke that wasn't even that amusing and was really more about the movie The Breakfast Club anyway. I'll be waiting here patiently.

There's a scene in the movie The Breakfast Club where assistant principal Mr. Vernon asks student Bender to hit him. And it made me think of the scene in Fight Club where Brad Pitt asks Edward Norton to hit him as hard as he can. And then I wondered that if Bender had hit Mr. Vernon as hard as he could, would The Breakfast Club have turned into Fight Club? Both movie titles have the word "Club" in them. Both feature oddball brunettes with too much eyeliner. They're practically the same movie already.

What if Bender and Mr. Vernon were the same person the whole time? 

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"The Violet Hour" by The Civil Wars

Here's another Civil Wars song for you because they are my favorites. This one doesn't have any lyrics—just piano, guitar, and violin. There's something haunting and sad in this tune, which suits Moorhouse perfectly. 

I've been working on my WIP a lot. I know I've been saying that for a while now, but it's never stopped being true. "Work" has just often translated to making piles of mediocre drawings of monsters and endless lists rather than writing the actual novel itself. 

The "actually writing the novel" part of the work didn't start in earnest until somewhat recently. Now it's hit me like a train ... which is why I took down the prologue I briefly previewed on this blog. 

When I'm coming up with a new idea, I love to talk about it with whoever will have me. I am deeply indebted to the friends and family who allow me to talk their ears off about the ideas bouncing around in my head in the early days of a story. I figure out my ideas through talking and am very grateful that Steely Dan and others don't mind listening.

Eventually I reach a certain point with a book, though, that I don't want to talk about it anymore. I become satisfied with my plan (or lack thereof, as has been the way of this novel) and suddenly talking about the book goes from a helpful tool to a possible hindrance. There was a time for discussion, for planning, but now is the time for action. You don't map out a plan of attack, charge onto the battlefield, then sit down and start discussing the plan all over again. You face the attack and adapt as well as you can to the unexpected. You have faith in your plan and yourself and focus on getting through to the other side.

Please don't mistake my battle metaphor for an implication that my book isn't going well and has been this great trial. I was just trying to make writing sound more badass than it really is. The book's been going well—I do miss writing more than a handful of lines on the blog every week, though. Blogging activity will continue to be on the lesser side for the next few months, but I'm hoping to sneak attack you with a few legitimate posts in the interim.

P.S. Sorry this is a few days late. The combination of two weeks in Ohio followed immediately by my cousin visiting left me unable to get my shit together until now. I know a fairy dies every time I post a Short Post and a Song on a day that does not begin with the letter "S," and for that I am truly sorry.

P.P.S. Never mind. Apparently I wasn't clear on the rules of what kills fairies and what doesn't. I'm pretty sure we're actually okay on this one.

Updated: Short Post and a Song #30: These are the gems one finds at the bottom of an IMDB rabbit hole.

H. Jon Benjamin, whose vocal talents have graced Home Movies, Archer, and Bob’s Burgers (AKA three of the funniest cartoons in the history of ever, largely thanks to Benjamin), was once in an episode of Sex in the City. He played Miranda’s coworker who mistakenly set her up on a lesbian date. When Miranda told him she wasn’t gay, H. Jon Benjamin just looked her up and down and said, "Seriously?"

My life got the tiniest bit better after learning that random fact, and I hope yours did as well.

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“My Neighbor Totoro” by Joe Hisaishi

I saw Spirited Away and Howl’s Moving Castle while I was still quite young, but didn’t end up seeing this particular Miyazaki film until only a year and a half ago. I loved the movie and only a few days later I began sketching out ideas for Moorhouse. My story’s quite different from My Neighbor Totoro—substantially darker in tone—but I was very inspired by the beautiful whimsicality of the film and the strong familial relationships at its core. 


P.S. I realize now, hours later, that I could have made this post cohesive for once if I had said "I saw Spirited Away and Howl's Moving Castle when I was a wee baby Jillian." Opportunity wasted, right?

And if you didn't get that, start watching Archer. Seriously. Danamaniac just got me into it and it is fan-fucking-tastic.

The Labyrinth

So you extra-observant Velocininjas may have noticed that I took the synopsis of Moorhouse down from the Books page. Don’t worry; I’m not giving up on the book or any such nonsense. Quite the opposite, in fact.

I did take a bit of a break from writing the book for a few months. I'll admit that I was intimidated. Originally this was a story I imagined writing after I had already written many, many others and was a weathered veteran with a lifetime’s worth of experience at my disposal. At twenty-four, I just didn’t feel ready. But after months of feeling scared that my writing skills weren’t up to the task, I decided to simply get on with it. This is a story that I never stopped thinking about, and I knew it would haunt me until I wrote it all down.

I’ve since done heaps of terrible sketches (some of which you’ve seen) and made playlists for each of my main characters. I made notes across four or five different notebooks—not because I filled the notebooks, but because I tend to settle for the closest writing surface available to me when I happen upon some new facet of my book’s world.

I recently went back to writing the actual book and it’s going quite well. But as I’ve mentioned before, I’m not using an outline to guide my way on this one. I know where I want the story to end up, but I’m discovering the twists and turns of the journey there as I write. As I wander through the labyrinth of writing this book, it’s felt strange having a synopsis posted on the blog. Putting a synopsis on this blog makes it seem like Moorhouse is this fully formed sculpture when in fact I’m still chiseling away at the stone.

Whew, I haven't stayed serious for that many paragraphs on this blog in a long time. I’ll make up for it next week when you will be getting not just one, but two straight posts of Twilight adventures. After two long months, we’re finally finishing this book. Maybe Bella will die in the end!!

(Naw, we all know she’s not going to die. I can dream, though.) 

Short Post and a Song #16: My sincerest apologies to Tina Fey.

I'm just gonna go ahead and let this photo of a display table in a local Barnes & Noble do most of the talking today:

I'm sorry, Tina Fey. I'M SO SORRY. Though the fact that your pile is smallest does give me some hope for humanity as a whole.

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"Fantasia/Atreju's Quest" from The Neverending Story soundtrack

I was not just a little obsessed with the movie The Neverending Story as a kid. I was A LOT obsessed. I was so obsessed that I considered naming my firstborn son Bastian. I was so obsessed that I tried blending a raw egg with orange juice because Bastian's dad does it in the movie. (It was disgusting.)

It's been years since I watched the film, but I've been listening to its soundtrack a lot lately while working on Moorhouse. I was too blown away by Falcor's awesomeness the first hundred times around to realize how incredibly good this movie's soundtrack is.

Moorhouse Conceptual Sketches

Hey there my bros and my brolinas. I hope everyone’s having an awesome Thursday. I expected to have to go into the office today but found out yesterday that it wouldn’t be necessary. I am also off to Mister Dancy’s family’s lake house tomorrow for the weekend. So I’d say it’s been a pretty good day so far.

I’ve been working a lot on Moorhouse, my current WIP, and have been having quite a bit of fun with it. So much fun, in fact, that taking time away from it to write a blog post is something that I am not particularly in the mood to do today.

To solve this problem, I’m gonna force you to look at some of my conceptual sketches for Moorhouse. I’m not going to claim any level of artistic ability, but they can give you a good idea of how I work my stories out by sketching. 

I showed you sketches like these once before. That time they were actually a prize for entering my Out-of-Context Dialogue contest early. The prize for that contest, by the way, was a sense of writerly community. Yeah, I kind of suck at giving prizes. (Sorry, Robert.)

So today you’re getting some of these sketches for free. Considering the quality of the artwork, I still feel like I’m getting some kind of deal here.

Since I will be away this weekend, there won’t be a Short Post and a Song on Sunday. But if you want to stop by and leave YouTube links to the songs you like in the comments of this post while I’m away, you totally should. I’m always on the lookout for new music and would very much appreciate suggestions.

All right, you crazy kids. Prepare your eyes for mediocrity, and I’ll see you next week!

My ability to draw scenery leaves much to be desired.