Sonnet on a Sunday / Lily

94

They that have power to hurt, and will do none,
That do not do the thing they most do show,
Who, moving others, are themselves as stone,
Unmoved, cold, and to temptation slow;
They rightly do inherit heaven's graces,
And husband nature's riches from expense;
They are the lords and owners of their faces,
Others, but stewards of their excellence.
The summer's flower is to the summer sweet,
Though to itself, it only live and die,
But if that flower with base infection meet,
The basest weed outbraves his dignity:
For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds;
Lilies that fester, smell far worse than weeds.



So we've skipped ahead, (just a few :) ). I can't remember where I first read this poem, but it was in the front of a crime novel, several years ago. It's the couplet at the end that stayed with me, and that's really where Lily got her name from. Even if the rest of the poem goes over your head, the last two lines are pretty clear.

Lily is also a bit of an anti-Mavis, the fairy from the Willo the Wisp cartoon who always seemed to be skipping through the forest, (but Lily has slightly more of an Edna edge :) ).

Thursday 13 #6 ~ Werewolves

Okay, strictly speaking not 13 werewolves, but 13 weres and shifters. In no particular order, but it’s kind of appropriate that the Lord of the Beasts is at number 1.

1. Curran from the Magic series by Ilona Andrews. He’s tough but he has to be, and the chemistry between him and Kate is wonderful to read.

2. Elena from the Otherworld series. Bitten was the book that really got me into UF, and Elena was the first werewolf I read about, I believe at the time I was finding it hard to find good vampire books so decided to switch species. If you’ve never read Urban Fantasy (UF), Bitten is one of the books I recommend you try.

3. And of course wherever Elena goes there has to be Clay. Obsessed, protective and maybe a touch psychopathic.

4. Jeremy - last of the Otherworld werewolves to be mentioned here (sorry Karl). My favourite Otherworld character. And the Alpha of the pack.

5. Lucian leader of the Lycans from the Underworld movie. I think all my favourite bits of that film are when he’s on screen.

6. Bran leader of the werewolves (Marrok) in the Mercy Thompson Universe (Patricia Briggs). The books start with Moon Called and this would be the other series I’d recommend if you’re interested in reading UF. He’s something of an enigmatic character, centuries old but with the appearance of a young man.

7. Lucas, alpha of the Dark River leopard clan in Nalini Singh’s Psy/Changeling series. This was the first book in the series and it got me hooked.

8. Bowen hero of Kresley Cole’s third full length novel in the Immortals After Dark series - Wicked Deeds on a Winter’s Night. Not strictly speaking a werewolf as the Lykae don’t completely change, but they are the werewolves of their world. He’s sarcastic, does some things which in retrospect he perhaps regrets, but at the end of the story he comes through.

9. Sam from the Sookie books by Charlaine Harris and I guess the True Blood series as well. Though that hasn’t made its way to the UK yet. Sam is kind of unique on this list, but I don’t want to spoil the surprise for any True Blood viewers who haven’t read the books. (LOL - assuming the show will follow the books faithfully).

10. Michael Wyndham - of the Wyndham werewolves series by Mary Janice Davidson. Not the most politically correct werewolf on the list, but he certainly knew how to make being stuck in an elevator more interesting.

11. Mercy Thompson of the aforementioned Mercy Thompson novels. A skinwalker rather than a werewolf, she changes into a coyote. However being raised (at least partly) in a werewolf pack has certainly left her with an insight into pack politics and in-fighting.

12. Tera. From Fool Moon, Book 2 of the Harry Dresden series by Jim Butcher. Another unique werewolf whose circumstances I won’t spoil. I recommend this book if you’re interested in werewolf mythology at all as it covers 6 different varieties of werewolf, all of which I think (going on my faulty memory) make an appearance in the book. So concentrate at the beginning when they’re being described.

13. Vane from Sherrilyn Kenyon’s Night Play. Strictly speaking an Arcadian Were-Hunter, but he changes into a wolf, so that’s good enough for me. Night Play remains one of my favourite of the Dark Hunter series (along with Dance with the Devil) so Vane had to make the list.

Overall I think the werewolves was a slightly tougher list than the vamps, but even so I still had a couple that I wanted to mention at the end. So honourable mentions go to Adam from the Mercy Thompson Universe, and Andrea from Ilona Andrews Magic series.

The Englor Affair by J.L.Langley

I’m probably miles behind everyone else, but I spotted the cover for The Englor Affair by J.L.Langley on theNose in a Book blog and certainly share the SQUEE of delight.

So for anyone else like me who hadn’t seen it, here it is.

My Fair Captain the first in the Sci-Regency series is one of my favourite m/m romances. So I’m very much looking forward to the sequel. And I love that the cover follows a similar theme to the first book.

The blurb can be read on the Coming Soon Page at Samhain. And you should keep an eye out for the excerpt. The Englor Affair is due to be published on November 11th, so should make a nice pre-Christmas treat.

Sonnet on a Sunday

6
Then let not winter’s ragged hand deface,
In thee thy summer, ere thou be distilled:
Make sweet some vial; treasure thou some place
With beauty’s treasure ere it be self-killed.
That use is not forbidden usury,
Which happies those that pay the willing loan;
That’s for thy self to breed another thee,
Or ten times happier, be it ten for one;
Ten times thy self were happier than thou art,
If ten of thine ten times refigured thee:
Then what could death do if thou shouldst depart,
Leaving thee living in posterity?
Be not self-willed, for thou art much too fair
To be death’s conquest and make worms thine heir.

Thursday 13 #5 ~ Vampires

So in honour of one of my current WIP’s, The Bargain which features a vampire hero - Sebastian - this weeks Thursday 13 will be 13 of my favourite vampires (in no particular order). There will be no wimpy, soul searchers here. That’s not my kind of vamp.

1. Selene. Death dealer vampire from the film Underworld. The good girl vampire of this list. She’s kick ass and does the right thing even though it means turning all her fellow vampires against her.

2. Mircea. North American Vampire Senate member of the Cassandra Palmer books by Karen Chance. Dracula’s older brother.

3. Danica Talos. Playing the part of the bad girl vampire on this list. For me, the best thing about Blade Trinity that isn’t Ryan Reynolds. LOL. She chews the scenery and her victims, she’s witty, sarcastic and a total bitch. My favourite vampire of the entire Blade series.

4. John Matthew a.k.a. Tehrror from the Black Dagger Brotherhood books by J.R.Ward. His ongoing story has me completely hooked.

5. Raphael, a vampire you won’t have heard of yet, but who I’ve been lucky enough to read about. He doesn’t take prisoners, and he doesn’t suffer fools. The first of the Vampire Lords of America from D.B.Reynolds a member of my OWG group, currently scheduled to be published January of 2009.

6. Cassandra from Kelley Armstrong’s Otherworld series. KA is one of my favourite authors, and Cassandra is a character whose story I’ve been waiting impatiently for. This is a vampire who doesn’t apologise for her behaviour, who says what she wants to, even if it offends others and who doesn’t always realise when she is offending people.

We have a few either/or’s coming up now.

7. Erik or Bill (from the Sookie Stackhouse series by Charlaine Harris). I have to go for Erik. I liked Bill in the beginning I really did, but he kind of blew it. Plus Erik was so adorable when he forgot who he was.

8. Asher or Jean Claude (from the Anita Blake series by Laurell K. Hamilton). This one is difficult. And I think it’s probably impossible to choose between the two as they kind of go together, so for the list, they get equal billing.

9. Angel or Spike (from Angel and Buffy). Has to be Spike. Angel did have a tendency to take himself slightly too seriously sometimes and even the redeemed Spike still has that British sarcasm thing going on.

10. The Wroth Brothers from Kresley Cole’s Immortals After Dark series. I’m picking Conrad from Dark Needs at Night’s Edge.

11. Jayr from the Darkyn books by Lynn Viehl. Jayr is the heroine of my favourite Darkyn book so far - Evermore.

12. Vayl from the Jaz Parks books by Jennifer Rardin. One of the vampires I’ve read that I actually believe is over 300 years old. His inability to always grasp sarcasm and tendency to take anything Jaz says literally is a delight to read.

13. Henry Fitzroy from the Blood series by Tanya Huff. There should definitely be more bisexual vampires.

A Couple More Reviews

I’m very pleased that the response to If Wishes Were Horses has been so positive, (touching wood). :)

Review on Elisa-Rolle’s LJ

Review at Two Lips Reviews

Will post my Thursday 13 in a while. :)

Sonnet on a Sunday

5

Those hours, that with gentle work did frame
The lovely gaze where every eye doth dwell,
Will play the tyrants to the very same
And that unfair which fairly doth excel;
For never-resting time leads summer on
To hideous winter, and confounds him there;
Sap checked with frost, and lusty leaves quite gone,
Beauty o’er-snowed and bareness every where:
Then were not summer’s distillation left,
A liquid prisoner pent in walls of glass,
Beauty’s effect with beauty were bereft,
Nor it, nor no remembrance what it was:
But flowers distill’d, though they with winter meet,
Leese but their show; their substance still lives sweet.

Thursday 13 #4 ~ Films I Love

Well this topic could run and run, so for the purposes of this post this will just be films made in the past thirty or so years. In similar ways that I can lose myself in a book, I find some films I just want to watch over and over again. They’re the ones that if I catch them as I’m channel surfing I’ll stop and watch ’til the end, even though I’ve seen them numerous times before. In no particular order.

1. Brotherhood of the Wolf (2001) Follows the attempts to kill a beast in 18th Century France that has been on a killing spree. It’s a beautiful film to watch and one scene in particular where the children are chased through the forest by the beast is like a painting that’s come to life.

2. The Long Kiss Goodnight (1996) I mentioned this a couple of weeks ago. One of my favourite ‘comfort’ films. One I have to watch if I come across it channel surfing. LOL - I think I probably know the entire script off by heart. Well I can quote large chunks of it anyway. Samuel L. Jackson and Geena Davis kicking ass. Favourite scene - when Charley flashes Mitch.

3.Alien (1979) Any of the Alien quadrology. Though watching it makes me experience this bizarre recurring dream where I’m in a supermarket and all the other shoppers are Aliens, with tiny baby Aliens running up and down the aisles screaming, and face huggers in baby baskets. It’s not scary just extremely surreal. Favourite scene I’ll take from Aliens. The fight at the end - get away from her you bitch.

4. Shelter (2007) This is the film that’s currently in my DVD machine. Thanks to JenB for the recommendation. Just a really sweet m/m love story with some great songs on the soundtrack.

5. Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion (1997) How much did I hate High School? A lot. And this film just highlights how trivial most of that stuff really is. Very funny. Favourite scenes - anything with Janeane Garofalo in, and where Romy confronts the A group at the end.

6. High Heels and Low Lifes (2001) Another comfort film. Two friends try and blackmail a gang of bank robbers. Favourite scene - first rehearsal for the blackmail phone call and when France wakes up in the morning with a hangover on her way to audition as an alien tomato.

7. Underworld (2003) One of my favourite vampire and werewolf films. Favourite scene - anything with Lucian in, brilliantly played by Michael Sheen.

8. The Matrix (1999) (Trilogy) The first film I saw in the cinema with my mouth hanging open. LOL. The gun battle in the lobby, I just couldn’t believe it. Though my favourite fight scene from the trilogy happens in The Matrix Reloaded, the incredibly balletic sequence on the dual staircase.

9.Pan’s Labyrinth (2006) Incredibly beautiful and moving film, sad but hopeful, the ending is somewhat ambiguous. The visuals are stunning, an adult fairytale come to life, you feel like you’ve entered somebody else’s dream. Favourite scene - stealing from the blind man.

10.The Terminator (1984) This remains my favourite of the terminator franchise, I love the doomed relationship between Kyle and Sarah. It doesn’t matter how many times I watch it, you keep hoping that some way it will work out. (Though I think of the whole series my favourite scene is Sarah’s escape from the asylum in Terminator 2).

11. Mulan (1998) Strictly speaking I don’t think this is my favourite animated movie. I prefer The Incredibles. BUT this was my nieces favourite movie when she was a toddler and whenever she came over we had to play it, to the point where we wore out the tape. And to the point where I ended up buying the soundtrack because I found myself continually singing the songs. Favourite scene - the haircut, because I love the music at that point.

12. Shaun of the Dead (2004) I was a Spaced fan (and if you haven’t seen that series and loved Shaun of the Dead I highly recommend it. There’s a brilliant Matrix parody in the second season (I think)). What I love about SOTD is that you can watch it over and over and see something new every time. Favourite scene - the dart throwing in the pub and the argument over whether or not it’s a real rifle.

13. Die Hard (1988) The original and probably the best, though Die Hard 3 has Samuel L. Jackson. Favourite scene - any time Ode to Joy is playing in the background.

Anyone for NaNo?

Yep, it’s coming up on that time of year again - November - which means NaNoWriMo.

For anyone not familiar with this phenomenon, November is National Novel Writing Month, when thousands of people across the globe sit themselves down in front of their computers, typewriters and word processors and attempt to write a 50,000 word story. This means you have a target of 1667 words a day, which certainly sounds more attainable than 50,000.

I have been taking part in NaNo since 2005. I won (this just means you completed your 50,000 word target, the only thing you’re competing against is your own procrastination) in 2005 and 2006. Though I didn’t win in 2007 the piece I worked on last year eventually became If Wishes Were Horses, so that’s a win in my book.

What you write doesn’t have to be great, though that’s always a bonus. In a way what you’re proving to yourself is that you have the ability to sit down and do it. The main idea is that you don’t revise, you don’t edit, you start at the beginning and keep writing until you finish, if you want to go back and edit you do it at the end of November.

The story I wrote in 2005 I think was the first thing I ever finished and will probably never be shared with anybody. Although there are parts of it I was really pleased with, I have never re-read it because most of it was dire. LOL. I am great at writing beginnings, but up until that point I’d never finished anything. So 2005 was about proving I could finish something once I’d started.

In 2006 I wrote a story which I ended up calling The Tithing. This one I was very pleased with and although it still needs a lot of work. I do hope to do something with it one day. You may have noticed it appearing and disappearing from my progress meter widgets.

I think year on year through NaNo it’s possible to see an improvement in your writing. Though you need to be writing in the other 11 months of the year as well.

2008 is the first year I’ve been organised enough to get an outline worked out before November. For the past three years I’ve been sitting down and writing by the seat of my pants. But this year I’ve got a great idea, I’m going to use September and October to get it solid in my head, with hopefully some character sheets as well. Then come November 1st I’ll be ready to go.

If you’d like to follow my NaNo progress I’ll be posting regular updates in November on my blogs. I’ll also be posting my progress on the NaNo site where I’m posting as SarahL. It may seem like November is weeks away at the moment (which it is ) but before you know it, it will be day 1 of a 30 day marathon. I hope some of you will be NaNoing with me.

For more info. visit - NaNoWriMo

Sonnet on a Sunday

Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend
Upon thy self thy beauty’s legacy?
Nature’s bequest gives nothing, but doth lend,
And being frank she lends to those are free:
Then, beauteous niggard, why dost thou abuse
The bounteous largess given thee to give?
Profitless usurer, why dost thou use
So great a sum of sums, yet canst not live?
For having traffic with thy self alone,
Thou of thy self thy sweet self dost deceive:
Then how when nature calls thee to be gone,
What acceptable audit canst thou leave?
Thy unused beauty must be tombed with thee,
Which, used, lives th’ executor to be.

Thursday 13 #3 ~ 13 Things I Don't Like

So after last weeks raindrops on roses, this week it’s the bees stinging and dogs barking.

1.Flying. I have a phobia about it. Strictly speaking it’s a phobia about crashing, but I haven’t been on a plane for many years and I can’t see that changing any time soon.

2.Aniseed. Just don’t like it, so yep I don’t like fennel or pernod either.

3. Daddy Long Legs (Does anyone outside the UK call them that?) Their proper name is cranefly. They have long spindly legs and follow you. When I was little I was once trapped in the back of a car with one. Cue hysterical screaming and trying to get out of the back of a three-door car when no one in the front thinks they should move because it’s only a cranefly. We were in a public carpark at the time - this did not endear me to my parents.

4.Wasps - I’m only allowing myself two insects and this is the other one.

5.Speaking in public. I’m quite shy so this is a toughie for me. Though I will usually pull myself together and get on with it.

6. Mornings. Well more the fact that I have to get up out of my toasty warm bed. Once I’m up I’m usually okay. And on the mornings when it’s crisp and fresh outside and the sun is shining I wonder why I don’t get up this early every morning. A feeling that lasts until 7am the following day when I don’t want to get up again.

7.Being late. Hate it. I hate it if I’m late.

8. Soggy bread. LOL. So I’ve never tried bread and butter pudding.

9. Litter. I love going to the seaside or for walks in our local wood. And the fact that there is so much litter on the beach when we have such beautiful countryside I don’t like.

10.I don’t like that I’m a slob. Partly I think this is an over reaction so I don’t become completely obsessive compulsive and organize myself to the nth degree.

11.Banning books. I always find it interesting during banned book week to see if I’ve read any of the books on the list.

12. Films with bad endings. I hate when I go to the cinema, pay my money and come out at the end feeling like I’ve lost two hours of my life that I’ll never get back.

13. Intolerance. Now, I think every human being is a little intolerant of something. Just looking at my list I’m intolerant of wasps that like aniseed and get up early in the morning. But being intolerant just because you can, or without reason, or without even thinking why you’re intolerant of something I don’t like.

Hmmm. Hope I don’t come across as too much of a grump. Remember I did post 13 favourite things last week.