Congratulations, Phil (philski) and Erin Mosely! I’ve emailed both of you already. And thanks to all who entered—there was a lot of consensus on answers, which I find interesting! 
Yasmine
I’ll be giving away two copies of ARCs for Night Huntress this contest (maybe three). The contest starts now and ends November 15th at midnight my time. That will give you time to read Dragon Wytch and some of the other books if you haven’t. Why? Because you really need to have read at least a few of the past books in this series by the time you read Night Huntress, and I want the ARCs to go to the readers who’ve been following this series.
So here are the basic rules:
1. Be 18 or over to enter
2. You MUST promise NOT to sell the ARC, upload it to the net, or to give away spoilers before the book comes out. I don’t care if you talk about getting read it early, but no spoiling it for others.
3. If you don’t like the book, send me the ARC back and I’ll reimburse you for postage.
4. You must be willing to give me your name and address IF you win. And I need to have a contact email for you in your entry.
5. Winner will have one week to respond after I pick them on November 2 or 3 and email them. If you don’t respond within a week, I’ll pick someone else.
To Enter:
In this blog post, tell me three things:
1. What character out of Dragon Wytch you liked the most and why.
2. What character out of Dragon Wytch you found the scariest or creepiest and why.
3. Which character you’re most looking forward to in Night Huntress, and why.
Post the answers, along with a contact email for you (and make sure you spell it right), in the comment thread to this blog. ONE entry per person.
I will pick the winners randomly. Remember: the ARCs are not the finished product. There will be some mistakes in there, and there will be differences from the book that comes out in January that didn’t get made by the time the ARCs were printed.
Anyway, good luck, and happy reading!
Yasmine
The three winners of my Autumn Giveaway have been notified. They are:
Candice (My Wordpress Blog)
Jengaart (Live Journal)
^v^Halli^v^ (MySpace)
Thanks everybody for joining in, and have a wonderful autumn!
And now, a few reader questions: books-to-screen
What made you decide to become a writer and why did you choose to do the other world series? I know that writing is not an easy thing to do. The Other World Series is just Awesome, and took a lot of creativity. Do you think this series will turn into a movie like Twilight? and if so, will you do it in the near future or wait until all the books in the series are complete.
First: What made you decide to become a writer? Read my Media Blvd interview
for more than you ever wanted to know about me as a writer. ~grins~
Why did you choose to do the Otherworld series? It’s more a question of I couldn’t not do it–the idea was so vivid and compelling, and I just had to write it. For me, as a writer, if I’m compelled by an idea, not writing it is extremely difficult. Just like trying to write something I’m not enthusiastic over can be extremely difficult.
Do you think this series will turn into a movie like Twilight? And if so, will you do it in the near future or wait until all the books in the series are complete?
Okay, here’s the educational part: authors are not the instigators for books to become movies. A movie producer has to have an interest and make an offer to option a book or movie–so whether it ever will happen is not initially up to me. My part comes in deciding whether or not to say yes if somebody out there offers a deal. And just because a book is optioned doesn’t mean it will ever see film–most option deals die quietly. As for my personal choice, I think these books would work far better as anime. Now, I’d like to see the Chintz ‘n China series become a TV series–I think that would rock as a series.
And: Your Sisters of the Otherworld is going to be made into a TV series or movie. Who plays each of the sisters?
I can’t think of really anybody I think who would fit the characters–I’d rather see them in anime than live action, to be honest.
And another question: if there was a movie or TV show based on the Otherworld series would you write the script or would you chance someone else doing it?
While I got my degree in theatre–directing–I’m not that conversant with screenwriting. I’d love to have my fellow Witchy Chick, Lisa DiDio, take a crack at it–she knows screenwriting and she loves the books. I’d prefer to be a consultant, if these books (or any of my books) ever go to screen.
That’s all for now–watch for my Espresso With column in a couple of days.
Yasmine
Shelly asked: My question is this: does what you are writing shape the playlist or does the playlist shape your writing?
The writing shapes my playlist, or rather, the synopsis of the book. I sit down, with my synopsis, and start building the playlist and songs just beg to be put on there. I usually end up culling some that don’t fit, and adding a few others, but overall, I allow my subconscious to direct me to the songs for the book. And usually, a few songs will stick out as primary songs for each book. For example, so far for Bone Magic, Godzilla (Blue Oyster Cult), Believe (the Bravery), American Witch (Rob Zombie), Remedy (Seether), Psycho (Puddle of Mudd), Rock It (Gorillaz), The Fox (Steeleye Span), The Chain (Fleetwood Mac), and Stormtrooper in Drag (Gary Numan) have become the front runners while I’m writing.
And on the same line, Phyllis asked: When you are writing, do you need to be locked away from the world in absolute silence, or do you need some type of background noise… like crickets, rain or machinery?
Depends on the day, but I don’t work well with other people in the house if I’m writing rough draft. Editing, copyedits, page proofs, revisions–there can be someone else in the house (but not my office), but rough draft? I need the space to get up and wander out in the living room without having somebody talk to me–to wander with my thoughts. Some days I need music to write by, and then I use my playlists. I always have fans and air cleaners going in the house so I’m used to white noise. TV–I can watch TV while doing copyedits or page proofs, but not while writing or revising. And nobody comes in my office without knocking first. ~grins~
Lisa asked: What is your most favorite of all times movie that you find yourself watching over and over whenever you need a pick-me-up or are in a certain mood, that you either have it on DVD or tivo’d?
Oh, that’s pretty easy. Of all time? Rebecca (the Alfred Hitchcock version, not the BBC version). I can’t count how many times I’ve watched that movie, and I wore out my video tape of it, so a few years back, my husband bought it on DVD for me for my birthday. I love it. I have a large DVD collection, and some that I have are because I realized that I always stopped to watch them if I found them while channel surfing, including cult films: Tremors, Romy & Michelle’s High School Reunion, Fargo, Eight Legged Freaks, Mommie Dearest, Men In Black. I have a lot of Hitchcock, a lot of fantasy/action (Terminator I & 2, Alien I & 2, LOTR, Conan the Barbarian, the Indiana Jones movies, the Mummy movies, Andromeda Strain, and so on)…I also collect a number of old movies that I love–All About Eve, Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, Bringing up Baby, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, How to Marry a Millionaire…and a few oddball ones: The 7 Faces of Dr. Lao, Lord Love a Duck…that’s only a part of our collection, but some of my faves. I also watch and re-watch the InuYasha series, and have Murder She Wrote (8 seasons now), I watch and re-watch Sex & the City, and a few TV series on DVD.
Yasmine
Blogged over at the Witchy Chicks today (with pictures) on autumn decorating. Drop over and leave a comment, and you have a chance to win a book by one of the Chicks. 
BTW: the Witchy Chicks now have their own website, though it’s just barebones for now.
Yasmine
Once again, I made it through the day without eating the sugar I was craving. Each day is one more success that I can feel good about and that will help me feel good in body.But I’m tired–I put in over a twelve hour day today. Seriously tired. I need a back rub, I need a lot of things. My office is somewhat back in order, my house is decorated for autumn, and tomorrow I blog about hearth/home on the Witchy Chicks and will post pictures of the house–probably on all blogs.My arms hurt–tendonitis, I want out of my bra, and I’m just…tired. But it feels good to get things done, and tomorrow I can dive in to Bone Magic after morning administration. Okay, off for now, but I leave you with this–some of my favorite types of drumming:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pl-f5a7BgSA
And I really want to see this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPdOmY1BjAU
Okay, good night. I’m outta here till tomorrow.Yasmine
Happy Labor Day, people! And Happy September!
Okay, I found three reader questions that had similar themes, in a sense. So I’m answering those today.
Tarynbthorne asked: When you meet up with new people, you’ve got to run into a few jerks. People who see your style of dress, your weight, or your tattoos and see (in their minds, not mine) a misfit in their ordered little society. How do you deal with it? Your site is titled ‘Life on the Fringe’, is it lonely? Just a question. No offense meant and if given I sincerely apologize. As a larger woman with tattoos and weirdness around me generally, I wonder how others cope.
Answer: To be honest, as tattooed as I am, now I seldom hear the nasty cracks that I used to (which were all about my weight. I used to think, “Boys, you’re so lucky I’m not allowed to own a gun.”). I know the jerks are still out there, but I think they may be a little afraid of me now. I don’t have cutesy, gurly tattoos…they’re seriously beautiful and wild, but they’re also big, and kind of scary for some people. Snakes and deer skulls and giant green panther eyes tend to make the ones who would normally be leery of me shy away.
Mostly, to be honest, I have people coming up to me asking me where I got them and who my artist is. I have teenaged boys complimenting me, I have ladies who are in their sixties come over to me and say, “I wish I could have been that brave when I was your age” (I look about ten years younger than I am–or more, according to a number of people). If people are staring at me because of my weight anymore, I don’t think about it so much because I have only heard catcalls two or three times in the past five or six years.
Maybe I’m so far out there that people just don’t know what to think. LOL…though I get complimented a lot on some of my clothes and makeup as well as my tattoos. And it could be something else: I have a lot of confidence now in who I am–even if I’m not happy with my weight, I’m not unhappy with ME or my general looks other than the fact that I’m a bit oversized for my personal comfort zone. I still get hit on by guys–and women–so I guess either the world has opened up a bit since I was younger or maybe I just radiate some sort of energy. A friend of mine told me last year that I am the oddest combination of exotic and domestic she’s ever met–and she meant it as a compliment.
Life on the fringe is a wonderful, exhilarating place and I wouldn’t choose to live anywhere else. Yes, it can be lonely, but I am who I am–I walk my own path–I don’t compromise my essential self for anybody. Even once I reach my goal weight, I’ll still be a large woman, but as I’ve said before, “I’m a sensual, fat, part Cherokee, part Irish, very intelligent, mystical, bisexual witch”…taking a little of the weight out of the equation isn’t going to drive me back into polyester suits or take me off the edge that I live on. *grins* IOW: I don’t apologize for being who I am.
V-Lockhart asked: I noticed on your info about yourself on the side that you started college when you were 15. I was 16 when I started college so I was curious about your experience with this. What were the pros and cons to starting college so early? How do you think this helped you develop as a creative person? Do you think you were emotionally ready and mature enough to handle such a transition? Where there any other people your age at college when you first entered that you knew of?
Answer: Starting college early and skipping high school saved my life. Seriously. I hated my peer group–I grew up in redneck central and to be blunt, I was far too smart for the classes I was stuck with, and I had such a dysfunctional family and was so outside the norm even then that within two weeks of starting seventh grade, junior high became hell on earth for me. Three solid years of emotional torture. There were too many times I sat on my bed, razor blade in hand, trying to figure out why I shouldn’t just slit my wrists. Only my writing kept me going from the time I was 12-15. I knew with a gut certainty that I could make it as a writer but I also knew that it wouldn’t happen if I was dead. So I put away the razor blades.
I had a bit of a breakdown when I was fourteen and did most of my ninth grade year at home–my mother would take my work to school and pick up the next week’s work. And except for home economics (which I hated because I hated sewing, and I could cook far better than my mother by the time I was twelve so the cooking sessions seemed inane), my grades improved once I was doing the work at home.
Then when I started college the next year, everything opened up. It was like a different world. I made friends for the first time in years, people liked me, the classes were interesting, and I didn’t feel like the scapegoat–which I’d become during junior high. You know, the kid everybody picks on because she’s different. I was the youngest student the junior college had ever had, and my grades put me on the honor roll. It felt like I was among sane people again–the kids in junior high had seemed absolutely crazy to me and I just couldn’t do the pep rallies and cheerleader rah-rah thing, and I couldn’t even fit in with the geeks because back then, most of the geeks were boys (girl geeks were *not* popular where I grew up).
The cons? I can’t think of any. I have never regretted skipping high school.
I love you that’s all asked: Are there any events in your life that if they hadn’t happened or had happened differently would drastically changed who you are today? And where and what do you think you would be like if those events hadn’t happened?
Answer: So many things and events that I can’t count them, and so drastic that I have no idea who or what I’d be if they hadn’t happened to me. Let’s see, the bad and the good starting from childhood: being molested when I was four years old; being in a very dysfunctional family; learning to read very early and being taught books were my friend–not my enemy; having a breakdown when I was 14; not learning to drive until I was in my 30s; starting college at age 15; hitchhiking to California when I was 17; getting raped when I was 17; coming over to western Washington and falling in love with the area when I was 18; dropping acid when I was 18-19 (I learned a lot and never had a bad trip, but I knew when to stop); meeting the Goddess in a mystical experience when I was 19 and realizing that I am a witch and the long journey that path has taken me through over the years; majoring in theatre (helped develop my ability to speak in public); marrying an abusive man because I was on the rebound; living in a converted school bus; meeting and marrying a wonderfully loving and supportive man; living through my mother dying; seeing my second husband go from fully mobile to being somewhat disabled and learning to adjust to that; almost choking to death and having a near-death experience; pursuing my goal and achieving it–being a career writer; succeeding at what is a terribly hard career to succeed at and hitting the bestseller charts…
All of these changed the course of my life. All of these events were significant markers/milestones and there’s simply no way to know who I’d be if I hadn’t lived through all of this, if I hadn’t experienced all that I’ve experienced.
I am the sum total of my experiences–I am more than they add up to individually, and without having lived the life I have, I would not be who I am today. This is true for everyone.
Some of the things that happened to me should not have happened. No child should be abused, no wife should be beaten, but it happens, and we have to pick up the pieces and make our lives what we want them to be.
Nobody else can do it for us, and life isn’t fair. So it’s up to us to bring joy into our lives even if we’ve lived in sorrow. It’s up to us to make something out of our lives even if we start at a disadvantage. We may not control everything that happens in our lives, but we have the choice on how we face what happens, and what we become, in the long run.
Okay, questions for the day over. I’m off to get mocha, eat breakfast, and check on the hurricane.
Yasmine
Okay, folks. Two things: if you tried to contact me through my contact page on the site for the past week, I didn’t get the email. The new incoming reader mail link wasn’t set up right. Now it is.
And now, re: the interview I posted about yesterday. NOW, I can give you the link. I’m giving you two, just because I think it’s so cool to see the front page with me on it. Hee-hee….this may be the only time I ever see myself posted among ‘celebrities’ and it’s just kinda neat. Weird, but kind of neat. So here’s Media Blvd’s magazine/ezine (which, btw, is filled with great interviews, AFTER you read mine, take a look around–especially for Christina Radish’s interviews. She does a great job). And here’s the link directly to my interview.
Now, as I said yesterday, there’s a giveaway involved–an autographed copy of Dragon Wytch and a Maggie poster, and to just sweeten the deal–you enter there, on the site. And if you actually READ the interview, I’ll throw in something a little more.
Yasmine’s Welcome-The-Autumn Just-For-The-Hell-Of-It Giveaway.
I’m going to give away three little gift packages–nothing major, but something nice and fun. And they’ll all be different. I’m not telling you what’s in them, either–they’re surprises, just like we never know what to expect with the coming of each new season.
To Enter: Please read the rules. I won’t be notifying people if they don’t do it right this time and will just delete the wrong entry.
So:
First, actually read the interview and go ahead and enter their contest. Since I’m not running that, I won’t be the one choosing the winner and it will have no bearing on this next part.
After you read the interview, come back here (to MS, LJ or my personal blog) and post your response to a piece of information about me that you didn’t know until you read the interview, or that you did know but still found fascinating or odd or even relatively disturbing.
Post your response IN the comment thread of the contest blog at each site–do NOT message it to me. ~grins~ Just be nice about how you phrase the latter. I will pick one winner from each of the three blogs and send you a little surprise–yes, a good one. Just, at the end of your entry, add whether you’re allergic to any scents/nuts/etc.
Please do NOT give me your contact info until I announce the winners–I will notify the winners and ask for contact info. And yes, you may enter at all three places, but you can only win once. BUT…if you enter at more than one spot, you have to post different answers (to different tidbits) at each place.
Unlike the contest on the interview, I’m closing this one on September 22, at 8:46 AM, the exact moment of the autumn equinox. Any entries posted after that will be null and void. You have to be willing to give me your name and address (again, please don’t do it now, I’ll just delete it if you do) if your name is chosen. Winners will be chosen randomly.
Yasmine (in the mood for autumn, and it’s 60 degrees here, overcast, and I’ve got a lamb stew on the stove)
If you’re down in the gulf coast, please be very careful the next few days. I’ll be lighting candles and sending my prayers to the Lady that everybody ride out the storm in safety, including their furbles. Please, feel free to check in here if you want to.
*hugs* everybody,
Yasmine
posted by VS
Crossposted from the Witchy Chicks: (Warning boys, a gurly post today! With pictures! Of clothes, get your mind out of the gutter ~grins~)
Maura and I’ve talked a lot about our health plans here, and I’m happy to report that I ~am~ losing some of the weight I wanted. I can’t give poundage because bluntly put, I don’t dare step on a scale (a past eating disorder that I talked about in my nonfiction–which contributes to my photophobia, too), so I go by the way my clothes are fitting and when I have to move to a smaller size.
I’m not looking to be thin–I’ve never been thin, dunno if I’d know how to do ‘thin’…but I’d like to be back to the size I was before I met my ex, and that still be ‘plus’ by today’s standards, but I’d be thrilled with it. I like my curves, I like having big breasts, I don’t want to lose them. Some women are born to be thin–I’m not. But I am not happy at the size I’m at, either–it’s too much for my comfort zone, both emotionally and physically.
Anyway, so yes, my clothes are getting looser and my chiropractor noticed the other day, and that’s when I realized that I must be back on track. So I paid attention to what I was eating and yep–there’s a reason it’s coming off. Since I got the contract for the new (second) urban fantasy series, I’m on a much tighter schedule and working longer hours again. And I realized that I’m not eating as much–oh, I am eating, no fears there, but I’m not prone to eating out of boredom and I seem to be sticking to my allergy/low starch diet about 90% of the time, which is pretty good in my opinion.
So now I’m focused on it now, and actively pushing myself on it again.
Now, yes, I am doing this to feel better–I’m tired of feeling crummy and tired of my joints hurting (which happens when I’m eating foods I’m allergic too, and when I’m eating too much starch), but I admit it–I want to fit in some of the clothes that just don’t work for my current body shape. And I want to wear heels again. My back is a mess but if I can strengthen it and lose some of the weight I put on when I was laid up for the actual injury, it will help. It already has–I’ve kept off the four sizes I lost a few years ago, which makes me very happy. My goal by end of this year is at least another two sizes down, and by my birthday in mid-January–at least four sizes down, which is very doable.
So anyway, that’s all preamble to today’s Henfest which is: Dream Outfits. What would you wear, if you could look good in it, afford, it, or whatever else prevents you from wearing it?
For me, the clothes would have to reflect my personality and tastes. I know Stacy and Clinton from What Not To Wear would try to mulch my wannabe wardrobe but hey, I don’t do casual well. I just don’t. I appreciate how much they can help the people on there (with a few exceptions) and would love to get my makeup done by Carmindy, but no–I don’t wear pants–and even if I had the figure for it, most of the time wouldn’t consider it. And I don’t do button up shirts, or high necked collars. I wear skirts that flow, I love low cut tops, and I love sex-it-up shoes. I like clothing that flaunts what I’ve got (hey, if I stare down, I can’t see my shoes) without flaunting what aren’t my best assets.
So here are a few of the additions I’d love to make to my wardrobe, that–besides the promise of health–keep me focused. Because frankly, I don’t have to be thin to wear them, I just have to have my curves in the right proportion. 
So tell me, what are the clothes your inner fashionista longs to wear? What kind of style fits you best? No two people are going to be exactly alike. I can’t imagine living my days in jeans and tees, but some people just mesh with the style and can’t imagine wearing skirts all the time. What’s your style, and what do you secretly wish you could wear?
Yasmine
posted by VS