Okay, so as I've mentioned, I'm in the process of making a bunch of jewelry designs for an eventual etsy store. They're looking pretty keen, I must say, and I am looking forward to putting it all up.

Beading is incredibly relaxing and creatively fulfilling for me, maybe because it's relatively pressure-free as a passtime when compared to writing. My sense of self-worth isn't going to live or die on whether I'm any good at it, and that's refreshing.

This evening I made a necklace about Gerard Way's favourite drawing subjects.

(Beckah, don't click that.)

Yeah, you know you can't wait for my store to be ready, don't even lie.

Okay, so I haven't been using different icons lately (I dunno, weird mood or something) but THIS ICON HAS RARELY BEEN MORE APPROPRIATE.

Steph believes in supporting local bands at the Knitting Factory!

That story I wrote that one time where Steph and Frank have friendship and makeouts is totally canon you guys.

From Sharpest:

One day I looked at my own history and I saw that it was paved with dead girls, mute muses smothered silent. SOME DAY I SHALL FIND A STORY WHICH DOES NOT BEGIN WITH A DEAD GIRL and then maybe, finally, I'll be ready for publication.

First lines of Roads & Crosses:

The day Lily dies is peerlessly pretty. After that, the season turns
in one hurried rush, the leaves tumbling gold and the clouds rolling in
under the blue. Autumn makes up for lost time. But that comes after.
Lily dies when the weather is warm.

I feel that this image is one of the truest depictions of the opening chapters of Roads and Crosses. Well, Will's face isn't right, and Lily's hair should have red in it, not blue, but otherwise I feel it's pretty spot on.

Last night I made my mother watch Amok Time and Patterns of Force, which is the one where Spock and Kirk get whipped by Nazis in prison. Star Trek really isn't very much like the common cultural perception of Star Trek.

So hey, I wrote a story. I do that sometimes!

Okay, so I was totally going to hold off until queenbitchfest was done with and then do one big recs post, but aaaaaah, Boys Keep Swinging is so amazing I couldn't wait. It's every teen movie you ever loved plus the ones that were awful only this time the premise is done right plus everything that's wonderful about taking a bunch of characters and putting them in an AU and seeing them be perfectly themselves in a new context.

QueenBitchFest is an anonymously-posted fic challenge, which is nice because I'm pretty good at making people dislike me and once I know someone dislikes me it's hard for me to read their fic, so this way I get to enjoy everything without feeling uncomfortable due to the idea that the author holds me in contempt or loathing. (NO SERIOUSLY THIS IS VERY STRESSFUL FOR ME A LOT OF THE TIME, AND I AM CLEARLY NOT THE ONLY PERSON WITH SUCH CONCERNS. I RUIN MY OWN FANDOM EXPERIENCE BY BEING GENERALLY HORRIBLE IN ALL WAYS AND A NASTY BITCH, BUT I PROMISE I DON'T SET OUT TO BE THAT WAY IT JUST KIND OF HAPPENS.)

The story I wrote for the Fest isn't up yet, and since it is the most blatant example of LOL MARY WROTE THIS ONE that you will ever see in your entire life, I'm sure it will be obvious as soon as it appears. But once the whole Fest is over, I will do a big giant recs post of everything sparkly, I promise.

I'm not American, but that's never stopped me from appropriating American culture before, muaha! So, here are the things I am grateful for from the last year:


- I am grateful for my family. Beyond words.
- I am grateful that I can call some of the best, bravest, cleverest, most generous, kindest, funniest, meanest, silliest, craziest people in the world my dear friends. They are my second family.
- I am grateful for my cat, who is fourteen years old and who I only get to see when I visit Brisbane, but is my dear, dear little darling.
- I am grateful for my new apartment, which is already starting to feel like home.
- I am grateful for my job, for all that I whine about it.
- I am grateful for Audrey's artwork.
- I am grateful for music.
- I am grateful for bleary-eyed, tour-bruised early mornings in airports with friends.
- I am grateful for days spent writing with friends.
- I am grateful that people are reading and loving my books.
- I am grateful that I had a chance to make my grandfather proud of me.
- I am grateful for the wisdom of children.
- I am grateful for the rare moments when Melbourne's weather is perfect.
- I am grateful for Kylie's zine.
- I am grateful for medication.
- I am grateful for technology.
- I am grateful for red lipstick.
- I am grateful for comics.
- I am grateful for sleep.
- I am grateful that I am still here.
- I am grateful for words.
- I'm grateful for My Chemical Romance.
- I'm grateful for Fall Out Boy.
- I'm grateful for Lyn Z.
- I'm grateful for Adam Lambert.
- I'm grateful for William Beckett.
- I'm grateful for coffee.
- I'm grateful for education.
- I'm grateful for public transport.
- I'm grateful for evening air.
- I'm grateful for love.
- I'm grateful for oceans, telephones, pink nailpolish, black nailpolish, small brass charms, veggie burgers, the Bride of Frankenstein, Russian dolls, white cat-eye sunglasses, metal songs about elves, black Birkenstocks with gold sparkles, glass beads, ballpoint pens, netbooks, bones, eyelashes, twitter, email, livejournal, novels, barriers, staples, and shampoo.

I'm feeling more positive about the books today than I was -- not sure now whether to do five or six. I'll just keep writing and see how it goes, I guess. cookiedough basically sat me down and said YOUR SELF ESTEEM IS AN IDIOT, DON'T YOU DARE THINK IT'S CAPABLE OF SOUND VALUE JUDGEMENT.

Relatedly, book one is currently 45% off at Fictionwise, which means it is $2.72. TWO DOLLARS AND SEVENTY-TWO CENTS for an ENTIRE NOVEL about queer teenagers, vampires, high school, friendship, feminism, bands, horror movies, punk rock, and other cool stuff.

Don't even PRETEND you haven't read novel-length stories on your computer before, or that you don't stare at a screen for hours at a time refreshing livejournal and twitter and facebook and stuff. TWO DOLLARS AND SEVENTY-TWO CENTS.

You'll like it, I swear! I TELL YOU WHAT, HERE'S MY PROMISE: If you buy it and genuinely hate it, I WILL GIVE YOU THE TWO DOLLARS AND SEVENTY-TWO CENTS BACK. FOR REAL.

Edited to add: Clearly, Pete Wentz endorses my choices on the astral plane, as he just tweeted this photograph of himself. YEAAAH.

I know you're all sick of this by now, but seriously. SERIOUSLY. Adam Lambert and Tommy Ratliff (if you must smush their names, please use RATBERT because that is the BEST SMUSH) on the AMAs.

I mean, afterwards Tommy tweeted "Rock n Roll is a prostitute...it should be tartted up", okay? And then Adam used the exact same Velvet Goldmine quote about the performance in his media interviews.

So here are three pictures of them. On live television in front of fourteen million viewers.

( Ivory and gold... um, maybe not so much. Glitter and spikes, more like. )

I seriously cannot tell you how much I appreciate that Adam Lambert exists, you guys.

Today I actually went to the comics store and bought several months' worth of issues I had piling up there. COMICS! I enjoy them. They are silly.

Behind the cut are two pictures from the books I picked up. Because both the Even Robins are allllliiiiiiive and doing stuff and it's NEAT.

So here are Jay and Steph, interactin' with the Gordon fambly.

( ROBINS )


In other news, I am opening an Etsy store soon-ish with a variety of jewelry designs. I think you'll like 'em. I'm pretty fond.

Also, in the next few days I am actually getting all the Wolf House podcast excerpt stuff set up, I swear. I'm so, so sorry it's taken me so long. Life is crazy.

Relatedly, I have arranged with my publisher for the series to be five books long, rather than six, because I'm feeling burned out and everyone's a) bored of my ridiculous blithering and b) so over vampires. So I'm gonna do one last ludicrous love letter of a book because I love the characters and the story and all that, and then I'll admit defeat and let it go.

IN CONCLUSION, AND MORE IMPORTANTLY, ROBINS.

I try not to duplicate everything from twitter here, because that would be tedious for people who follow me on both. BUT, I had to report this, because it made me smile.



And Erinna showed LynZ TACO BABY and all was right with the world.

An email I just got:

Darling child

I'm loving Roads and Crosses. You are such an evocative writer (makes me recall my own days as a teen vampire).
Love Mum

Handed over the keys to the old place this morning. I am officially moved. As soon as I'm unpacked I'm going to photograph the shit out of the new place and y'all can appreciate my impressive collection of posters from gigs and second-hand furniture. Audrey took a photo of me through the cracks in the walls at the old place, so you'll see I wasn't kidding or exaggerating about living in a hovel.

Fall Out Boy have been totally fucking adorable yet again and thanked http://www.thefortysixthirtytwo.com/ in the liner notes for their new best-of collection, "Believers Never Die" -- the site is a mosaic image of the band, made up of the 4,632 names of their "believers" (though nobody can work out how the names were picked, as they don't correspond to any particular ordering pattern or sign-up process). My name's one of the ones in the edges of the light. It makes me feel all squishy to see it there.

But! While I'm all happy about that, clearly the important thing is for somebody who's got their preorder early to tell me if there's anything interesting in the Sixteen Candles video commentary -- apparently it's Andy and Joe talking about their facial hair, and Patrick talking about his hats, and Pete being lurky and quiet? Whatever, whatever, I don't care, this is the closest thing I get to new canon in my fandom of one, okay? Gimme.

I'm going into the city this evening to do more recording for future Outland Institute radio segments-- talkin' about the Umbrella Academy today, woo. I intend to say "I LIKE IT AND IT'S GREAT". That cultural studies education sure did make me articulate.

Christmas! You might be having one soon. You might not be. You might be like me and be having a quasi-Christmas which involves the presenting of presents but no actual religious beliefs. You might be having another cultural or faith-based celebration around this same time of year which also includes the exchange of gifts, such as Chanukah or Kwanzaa, and be feeling justifiably cranky that your observance is often tacked on as an afterthought to Christmas, a kind of cultural equivalent to the "and with him, as always, is Garth" from Wayne's World.

I always feel a bit wretched wishing people a "Happy Holidays", because it's like I'm saying "I wish you a Merry Christmas even though you don't celebrate Christmas at all, Merry or otherwise", and that's pretty shitty of me, even if it's a well-intentioned shittiness. There needs to be a way of saying "man, I hope this time of year doesn't suck for you, and that good stuff happens to you and the people you care about" without it being tangled up with potential awkwardness. Get on that, society!

Still, however your Decembers might look, you probably know at least a couple of people that you're supposed to give delightful gifts to for one reason or another, right? And since you're on the internet, it's likely that some of the people you know are also on the internet. In fact, that might be where you know them from! They might be living on the OTHER SIDE OF THE WORLD, in fact! It's crazy! What an age we live in, huh?

If you're anything like me, this situation is complicated by the fact that being on the internet and being lazy go hand in hand rather neatly. There are people on the other side of the world who need to be given nice things by you, but the post box is all the way outside, and maybe even down the street! That's a long way to go! Shit! What are we going to do?

Fear not! For here is the perfect solution to your terrible situation. You should buy your internet friends some e-books. You don't have to go anywhere! There are no shipping delays (did I ever tell you about the time I sent a friend a photo of LeVar Burton I took for her? I sent it October 19th, and she still doesn't have it. The mail service is not the reliable bastion of reliability that it should be!) or wrapping-related traumas, or snooty salespeople, or pungent noisy crowds.

Plus, these particular e-books are totally excellent and your internet friends will love them, I swear. Think how cool you'll feel when you get emails saying "wow, those books you sent me over the internet were totally great, friend! I have had an amazingly happy holidays and/or a fantastically merry christmas, and I owe it all to your astounding long-distance gift-giving skills! Hurrah for you!"

Getting an email like that would feel pretty good, right? Yep, it sure would. So your course of action is clear: this December, choose life. Give your internet friends their very own copies of The Wolf House books one and two, and then settle back and enjoy the gratitude they heap upon you for it.

- I sold the Britney ticket for $50, woo! I mean, it'd've been neat to go, but I'm relieved to have one less thing to think about, frankly.

- I got interviewieded for a Campus Progress article, which is kind of niftykeen.

- Erinna stayed here all night to help me pack and to keep me smiling. I can't thank her, and everyone else who has helped and offered to help, enough. It's appreciated a whole damn, damn lot. <33

- Movers are going to be here sometime between two and five, and it's 12:13 now, so I should go do the last bits and pieces. Urgh, NEVER MOVING AGAIN, I swear. And also culling down ALL MY STUFF. I want to live out of one bag, seriously.

Dear Jason Peter Todd:

You know I love you, baby. You are my One True Character (or, at the very least, you're my One True Character who isn't Rosie Cotton or Vampire William Beckett) and I will adore you forever, no matter what the writers do to you. You turned into a tentacle vore monster and I still loved you. That's dedication, okay.

So when I say this, I say it with only love in my heart:

AUDIENCE PHONE-IN VOTES HAVE NEVER BEEN YOUR FINEST HOUR.

Lookit what just turned up in my inbox from Audrey!



AHH I LOVE IT SO MUCH. OH WILL, YOUR EARNEST LITTLE THINKY FACE. LOOK AT LILY BEING ALL CONFLICTED BY HER CONFLICTING EMOTIONAL CONFLICTS. OH WILL.

This evening preachelectric and I went to hang at the studio where The 7pm Project lives, despite us having nothing resembling tickets to be in the studio audience for said 7pm Project, because we are world-class at talking our way into where we're not meant to be, and what's the point of having a mutant power like that if you don't use it for evil?

And so, from the front row of a teeny studio (seriously, the studio audience was forty people; most live shows on the network have several hundred), dosed up on free sugar, we got to watch as Pete Wentz talked about bushfires and Starbucks and how Wikipedia is wrong about Fall Out Boy being broken up. While he was wearing a Fuck City hoodie on live national television.

His handlers were whisking him out as soon as his segment was done, so all we had time for was me to say "love you, Pete" and do the \m/ rock hands, and for preachelectric to wave gleefully, and for him to smile with his pretty sparkly brown eyes and his wide smiley mouth at us, and oh, I really am so fond of that dude, he makes the world a more entertaining and exciting place to live.

Now I am going to go do some more packing! PS BUY MY BOOK, because I deserve a reward for restraining myself from saying give me the twenty-minute sixteen candles video, Pete in the seconds I had his attention. I think it showed admirable maturity on my part!

First review!

This book is a lot more inner turmoily then the first. It's dealing with several characters who has a lot of mental health issues, and Mary puts you directly into their heads. It's wonderful, and uncomfortable.

Unlike the first book, which is goth punk teenagers get embroiled in vampires, this is teens already soiled and spoiled by vampires dealing with what comes next. And it's good, oh it is good.

It's very raw, and sometimes, when reading it I was a little overwhelmed, because god life can suck for people. But Mary never writes a weak character, a lot like Terry Pratchett, in that respect. Every single one of Mary's characters have steel in their soul, and I love reading about how they continue to fight.

I really recommend this book. I'd do it if I didn't know Mary. I'd do it if I hated Mary and wrote her letters in my own blood and stuck them to her mailbox with thread made of my own hair.

Buy Roads and Crosses here.

The temperature outside has dropped below 35 degrees (that's, um, 95 for Americans, I think?) by a whole 0.2 of a degree now, so I'm going out to purchase much cola in order to stay up all night (when it's marginally cooler) packing, as I didn't do nearly as much as I wanted today due to the heat. Urrrrrgh this is a horrible week to move house, partly because of this ridiculous weather and partly because ( TMI of the female sort ). I bet y'all who clicked that cut are really glad you did so.

This afternoon's plans: go across street, buy all the cola. Go into city this evening to see about annoying that Wentz dude. Come home. Spontaneously somehow become industrious and finish all the remaining packing. Sleep. Wake up in morning, do edits on the proof of the new journal issue for work, die of heatstroke.

... WAIT WAIT NO HANG ON, THAT'S NOT IT. HERE WE GO:



If you have ever thought to yourself "hey, what did happen to those vampire stories Mary wrote with Audrey that time? I mean, she talks about them in Sharpest and she still won't shut the hell up about that fucking Fall Out Boy video, so clearly the stories were fairly special to her, but then she took them all offline, what's up with that?"... then you're probably me, as I can't imagine that anyone else thinks that much about the things I do.

However, if you have ever thought to yourself "GOSH I SURE DO WISH SOMEONE WOULD WRITE A ROAD TRIP NOVEL ABOUT PATRICK FROM THE SIXTEEN CANDLES VIDEO, HIS YOUNGER SISTER WHO IS ROSIE COTTON WITH BLUE HAIR, AND A TEEN GIRL HALF-VAMPIRE RORSCHACH FIGHTING CRIME TOGETHER" then you are clearly an awesome person, and also you might like my new book.

The second Wolf House novel, Roads and Crosses, follows two of the hunters as they navigate the aftermath of the shattering events of Origins and Overtures. Already prone to anger and self-doubt, Lily’s fight has become a fight against her own dark thoughts just as much as it’s a fight against the vampire gangs. And Will’s clinical, detached approach to vampire hunting has always helped him in the past, but now it threatens to cut him off from his emotions and his friends completely. And if they can’t save themselves, what good are they to Jay, Rose, and Bette?

The Wolf House: Punk is dead and it has fangs.