Blog moving...

Okay, so I've been encouraged to get more into this blogging thing. So I'm actually moving my blog outside of myspace, and I will TRY to update it on a more regular basis. You can find my blog here: http://alisamlibby.wordpress.com/.

I'm hoping my next book will be coming out next year, and I'm planning on putting some photos and details from my research trip on the blog at some point. I hope you get a chance to visit, read, and comment! And if you have any ideas or requests on what I should write about, please let me know--I could really use the ideas!

Thanks, everyone,

:)Alisa

6:50 AM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Writing, again...slowly

Hello all!

Well, Salem was the bomb, let me just state that up front. I got to sit at a table and chat with a whole bunch of people who were interested in my book. I found that some people had heard about Countess Bathory, but hadn't heard about my book which made me extra glad to be there and spread the word. AND I got to meet a reader (hi Travis!) which was also ridiculously cool. Plus, Salem is just a wonderful town. I love visiting any time of year--but especially October.

So after dragging myself around all last week with a crummy cold (because that's what happens when you sit outside in the shade all day in Salem in October) I'm finally feeling better this week and trying to write. It's an awfully slow process, full of doubt and second guesses, but I'm forging ahead and it feels good.

I may have mentioned this before, but to all of you writers out there I will share what I have learned: writing is difficult. It's fun and challenging and wonderful, but that doesn't always make it easy. I love writing historical fiction, but in the midst of it I whine about being tired of worrying about historical accuracy and all of that crap and I want to just make some stuff up. So, with the historical novel put aside for a while, I've been working on some straight fiction. It can be liberating to make stuff up...but not easy. It's difficult in completely different ways. At least with historical fiction, the plot is sort of there, you just have to figure out how your character would experience it, how to tell the story, etc. But with straight fiction? Holy crap, I don't know what's going on! I haven't a freaking clue. So I make some stuff up and then I second guess myself--is that really what happens, really? Are you sure? Good grief.

Anyhow, that's my rant for the day. I hope you're all carving pumpkins and getting your costumes ready!

:)Alisa

Currently listening : Adore [EP] By Yoav Release date: 30 October, 2007

2:23 PM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

More details about Salem

Hello again, ladies and gents,

Some more details about Salem: the fair is next weekend, October 13 & 14. I'll have a table set up on Hawthorne Boulevard (or at least that's where they've assigned me a spot) where I'll be selling and autographing books. The fair itself sounds like a lot of fun: over 100 vendors will be there, and I bet there will be a wide range of stuff to check out. And Salem is just extra fun in October, ya know? So if you're in town, please drop by...

:)Alisa

Currently listening : American Doll Posse By Tori Amos Release date: 01 May, 2007

2:39 PM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Salem Mass in October!

What could be better than Salem in October? I'm planning to be at the Bizarre Bazaar next weekend (October 13 & 14) in Salem - it's a big outdoor fair where vendors have tables set up to sell their various wares. I'll have books for sale and some stuff to giveaway. Please visit and I'll be happy to sign a book for you!

I'll post more when I have more details,

Alisa

Currently listening : American Doll Posse By Tori Amos Release date: 01 May, 2007

8:59 AM - 3 Comments - 3 Kudos - Add Comment

Update: writing and kittens

It's been a while since I've posted an update. The day after my last post, the three remaining kittens were caught. Such excitement! Oh my, were they pissed off! But we put sheets over the cages and that calmed them down, so I felt a little bit less crappy about the whole thing. It seems likely that they will be adoptable. I knew they were nice kittens:) However, our backyard is now a whole lot less entertaining.

In writing news, I'm still waiting for my editorial letter so I can begin my revisions of my next book. I think when I finally receive the letter I'll be horrified at the thought of having to actually sit down and do work and be productive, but I'm just trying not to think about it. We'll see how that goes.

:)Alisa

8:31 AM - 5 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

This blog is about kittens.

Have I written yet about the kittens? I can't remember if I have. They seem worth mentioning.

We've had four kittens living in our backyard since June. We're now in the process of trying to trap them, so that they can be "fixed" (to put it delicately) and hopefully adopted. So far one has taken the bait--sorry Peanutbutter!--but the others are holding out, acting very cool about the whole thing. Today they were sort of sniffing around the trap, curious, but then one of them found a paper cup and that was the end of that. I couldn't help but imagine the conversation that took place: "Check it out, you hit it with your paw and it rolls. No, no, Oreo, you're doing it wrong - hit it with your paw, like this, and it rolls. See! It rolls. It's blowing my freaking mind."

We would love to take one of the kittens in, of course, but I think it's best that we don't. Our basset hound, Roxanne, is nine years old. She's doing okay but she doesn't really like small bouncy things. They stress her out. At our last apartment our neighbors had this tiny bouncy little Boston terrier puppy, and that thing totally freaked her out. It would hop around her and Roxanne would look for a way out, and then she'd just start whimpering like a big baby. She's sort of an embarassing dog in that way, but we love her desperately. It's sick, really.

So that's the kitten story. I'll post an update later on. I wonder if the three remaining kittens are thinking "I remember someone...orange, don't you? You know, an orange tiger, sort of bossy? Where did he go?"

Currently listening : Begin to Hope By Regina Spektor Release date: 13 June, 2006

2:20 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

About writing lousy stuff...
Category: Writing and Poetry

Thanks to the awesome comment I received on my last post, I'm going to talk more about the importance of writing lousy stuff as you're learning how to write.

I think that writing crap really is an integral part of the learning process. Of course, this also makes me feel better because I still write a lot of crap in the effort of getting to the good stuff in a particular story. But as far as what I wrote as a teenager - wow, you just can't imagine the crap!

I had a phase where I wrote a lot of epic poetry. You know, a whole story told in verse - rhyming verse. It managed to be both boring and embarassing at the same time. I remember sharing some of this with my father, who was a good and very honest critic: there were times that he said my poems were brilliant, but when he thought it was crap he would tell me so. The romantic epic was just one of those times.

But in the midst of all of the crap, there were times when I was totally inspired, elated, completely consumed by an idea. This is what writing is all about. One particular idea I was obsessed with for a while was a Beauty and the Beast-type epic about a young woman and a vampire. There were wolves involved:) So you'll see that some obsessions never really let us go.

If you have any questions about writing or would like to share stories of your own crappy writing, please comment! In the meantime, I'm off to try and find that vampire-epic thingy...

:)Alisa

10:08 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

What it's like to write a novel about blood sacrifice for teenagers...
Current mood: I know, I know, I'm ALWAYS listening to Bjork.

Writers, writers everywhere...

For all of the emerging and aspiring writers out there (and there are a lot of you, considering some of the intriguing profiles I've read!) I'm sure you've all had that experience of writing something and then handing it over to someone else to read. Scary, right?

This was one of the most awkward (and often really, really funny) things I experienced with the release of The Blood Confession. I learned that a lot of people, in general, may not read young adult novels and therefore may not know just how edgy, how challenging and scary and fascinating the young adult novels out there are. So when I told them I wrote a young adult novel, this was often the same as saying I was writing a children's novel.

Then they would ask what the novel was about. Well, see, it's about this Countess who believes that bathing in the blood of virgins will keep her young for eternity...oh, and she DOES IT, she really does it, I'm not bluffing here. And then I get that look of "WHAT? You wrote a book about WHAT? For our sweet and innocent CHILDREN?"

Okay, maybe I'm exaggerating a bit, but I thought I would just share my awkwardness with all of you. So that someday if you share your writing with your parents, or your friends or siblings or whoever, and they crinkle up their noses and say "why would you write about that?" know that you don't have to explain yourself. Mind you, when I was learning to write (which is an ongoing process) I wrote a lot of really lousy stuff too, but that's part of the process of learning how to write.

That's my writing-related rant for today. If you have any questions about writing or about my book, please let me know and I'll answer them in my blog.

:)Alisa

Currently listening : Bjork - Greatest Hits By Bjork Release date: 05 November, 2002

11:14 AM - 3 Comments - 1 Kudos - Add Comment

For my readers...

Hello everyone!

I finally updated my page with some more details about me...no, I'm not actually a Hungarian countess. But I pretend, sometimes:) I tried to post a photo but I don't know where it went. It's still a work in progress.

I'm working on my second book and I'm planning eventually to put photos and stuff up about a trip I took this year to research it--research trips are fun! Too bad you can't time travel...but that's what historical fiction is for, I suppose.

If any of my readers have specific questions, please feel free to contact me!

:)Alisa

www.alisalibby.com

Currently listening : Bjork - Greatest Hits By Bjork Release date: 05 November, 2002

6:33 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Kingston Reading Cancelled

Hi All: Unfortunately my reading at the Kingston Public Library this Wednesday has been cancelled--we're planning on rescheduling later this year.

Meanwhile, I'm at home this week to write, and I'm finding the thought of it extremely daunting. It's 9:36 a.m. on Monday morning and I haven't started yet. Now would be a perfect time to start...or maybe it would be an even more perfect time to look up Lily Allen on myspace? Or listen to an episode of This American Life? The distractions are endless...wait, I have to totally rearrange my desk. I'll talk again, later.

:)Alisa 

6:34 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment