Cleolinda everywhere

This keeps happening--I'll start a "what's going on" post, and then things will keep going on, and I'll get so behind on What All Is Going On that I never post. ALLOW ME TO ATTEMPT.

(Note: This was written on Friday but not posted. Because of course.)

1) The Black Ribbon story I kept talking about, "The World to Come," is now available! It's in the anthology Athena's Daughters; the ebook is here, and the print version can be pre-ordered for next month.

2) Which I try to explain at the end of Anglo-Filles' epic-length Dracula episode this month (whaddup fucktruck), and fail entirely because my blood sugar had bottomed out. We discuss the Bela Lugosi, Christopher Lee (a little bit), Frank Langella, and Gary Oldman Draculae, plus the recent TV show and Penny Dreadful, with an emphasis on romanticism, interpretations of Lucy, and my ridiculously long monologue about Jonathan Harker as abuse survivor.

3) As a reminder, I was also on A Matter of Taste's Hannibal finale episode. You may be able to guess the topic for which I will be present next month.

4) As a side note, mountain lions are not a vegetable.

5) With the Aromaleigh Hannibal eyeshadow, we took a couple of weeks off posting new additions (I think it was a couple of weeks? I am completely unmoored in spacetime right now, tbh), but we are back now! Here are the last color that went up before the break (Lapse, a cinematography blue) and today's two new colors, Lucid and Woof: ( YES WOOF )

6) Meanwhile, in lieu of posts for new individual colors, I was posting suggested pairings and combinations drawn from various scenes, now that we have a substantial eyeshadow palette to work with. I am not saying you have to figure out a way to cram three and four colors onto your face at the same time; as with a packaged eyeshadow trio or quad, you can use as few or as many as you want. (Also, consult this post for wtf a crease or an inside corner or a socket line is.) But if there's a particular scene or character you like, here are some ideas--Abigail's sweater, The Best Office Ever, the wendigo dinner, Freddie in "Amuse-Bouche," Bella in "Coquilles," Beverly in "Sorbet," and the Murder Basement because I'm a terrible person. I have some more ideas I'm still playing with and will continue to post and you can't stop me.

7) I also updated older posts with my own swatches for Unorthodox, Bellissima, Entrapment, and the aforementioned Veneer.

8) We are currently in the conceptual stage of a new, differently-themed collection (not modern pop culture). Kristen's also got an ongoing dragon-themed collection growing each week, and I believe an ocean nymph collection coming up soon.

9) Things have been exhaustingly hectic chez Jones for about a month now and are just now calming down, maybe. And yes, that is the reason I haven't gotten the recaps started again; we got hit with family health issues, my mother's car wouldn't start but did not need a new battery (then she chipped a tooth), a broken dishwasher (fixed), a dead washing machine (replaced, on sale), a tiny new back patio where previously no green would grow (finished) (then re-finished because a stone was broken in the middle), a yardmageddon (just finished yesterday) (wait, turns out not) that revealed that the brick is about to fall off the front of our house (finally finished), a ceiling (now repaired and repainted) because a toilet (replaced) spontaneously flooded it (I hadn't gone near it for two hours, I SWEAR). Yesterday, a third toilet fixed (a second one broke somewhere in there); today, a quick ten-minute repair on the dryer. (Breaking news: we're going to have to replace the dryer.) (Sunday: It's ordered; was on sale.) Meanwhile, House of Bark lived up to its name... every day. I won't even get into Professional Yard Master's angry phone calls to a sod farm regarding zoysia grass that has now died on our yard because it didn't even have roots. I'm just mentioning it because "sod farm."

10) Thus, I am not caught up on Penny Dreadful, either. BREAKING NEWS: I AM TOTALLY CAUGHT UP NOW

Honestly, until very recently, I've been going to bed some nights at 8 or 8:30 pm, just from the exhaustion of dealing with all this and a few other issues (long story) all day. For a month. And then today, "We're going to re-sod the yard. Again." ("WELL, SOD IT, THEN.") I had a whole paragraph here about medication adjustment, but I think I'll save that for an entry of its own.

(SUNDAY: Now I've come down with a sore throat/earache of some kind. I just. I PERSEVERE.)

heart-of-steel asked: Hello Miss Cleo. So. Dracula. (The TV series that is.) Did you like it, or hate it, or kind of both? (I know a recap is forthcoming on your blog, I was just wondering.)

I’m just kind of staring at my computer trying to figure out what just happened. The more I think about it, the more o_O I get about it. I’m sunburnt from half an hour outdoors and I’m not drunk enough and I think I ate recalled cheese. Everything is terrible.

Stay with me here.




( Read more... )

I had a massive linkspam (with things not about the show, even) ready to go, and then other things happened and I got busy (I've completely fallen behind on the Pacific Rim discussion, sorry about that) and now I have to revise it again both to add things and to weed out the obsolete/time-sensitive things. So I'm just going to table that for a moment and give you the immediate stuff:

SAN DIEGO COMIC-CON! ppyajunebug will be at the Hannibal panel tonight (6:45 pm West Coast time?) and live-blogging it, if all goes well, under the tag "pannibal." (That's specifically for her tumblr; this will take you to the Tumblr-wide tag.) Which is also the hashtag the official NBC Hannibal twitter is using--#pannibal, because we are the fandom that rhymes whenever possible.

@DireRavenstag: I might have to stop by #SDCC, though. I mean, all that delusion and dementia in one giant room? How could I miss that?

@DireRavenstag: If even one fucking elf tries to ride me, tho.... #NotYourPartyMoose #SDCC

Also, I am personally putting money on Lee Pace being officially announced for Mason Verger, given this tweet, although David Tennant is an extremely likely guess, given that they've also talked about having him on.

@DireRavenstag: I see you eyeing me, half-assed Thranduil cosplayer. Don't even think about it. #SDCC


Unfortunately, the Emmy nominations were a gigantic whiff this morning. Even the tech categories. Also, I haven't even watched Orphan Black yet, and I'm appalled that they ignored Tatiana Maslany.

@HitFixDaniel: It's like this: None of the shows nominated for cinematography are bad, but none of them are "Hannibal."


Meanwhile, Miss Freddie has posted interviews with both food stylist Janice Poon, who is delightful ("He is an international man of mystery and there are many styles of cuisine that he can threaten you with") and Lara Jean Chorostecki, who is ACTUAL FREDDIE, THIS IS NOT A DRILL. Seriously, both interviews are amazing.

Meanwhile-meanwhile... character posters for NBC Dracula. That's a thing that's happening. I think my two favorite reblog comments so far are "Lisa Frank Vampires Okay Sure Lets Go With That" and "Holy shit look at Dracula’s kaleidoscope myspace wolves." Guys... I promised to recap it if the universe would get Hannibal renewed for us. I'm scared, guys. It's dark and cold and badly Photoshopped in here.

While you are waiting to hear about various SDCC shenanigans going into the weekend, may I suggest A Matter of Taste's latest episode on Manhunter? I'll be on next week for the Silence of the Lambs episode, which we recorded a couple of nights ago. }:D

Before we get started, pick your poison and go get a refill. Get a lot of refills.

( Leave me here to die )

( Vague spoilers for season two )

( Wrap up: season one spoilers only )

Okay, so. I have talked about Dracula a number of times; I read it in middle school (with big glossy Greg Hildebrandt illustrations, no less) and wasn't ever quite the same afterwards, really enjoyed Leslie Klinger's annotated edition, so on and so forth. Short version: Actors reading Dracula on BBC Radio Ulster. The first four installments (fifteen minutes each) are up for about 20 hours more, so hurry on over there. Long version:


@kiwimouse: @cleolinda *cough* Michael Fassbender reads Dracula: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0170yjj Thought you might be interested.

[Where were all of you when this started running last Monday?!]

@cleolinda: We need to have more actors reading gothic novels. Someone get on this. ( Read more... )


One of the reasons I mention this, though, is that I had a really dry, listless week of non-writing page-staring, and listening to this has made me feel a lot better. I think it's because Dracula is one of those books that makes me want to write, to feel like I can do this. There are some books that are so brilliant, you want to just give up; there are others that are so bad, you just grouse about how you could do so much better. But, true or not, even "I could do better" is more smug than productive. It's interesting to find books that are both good and inspiring, that are admirable without being intimidating. Books with some flaws but with great characters and stories tend to hit that mark for me, I think, and place a very engaging, approachable kind of greatness within reach: not perfect, but wonderful. Since a lot of people are doing NaNoWriMo at the moment, maybe that's a good question to ask: what books do that for you? No, seriously, tell me. I may need to read some of them.

In case you are wondering, I have not posted the new Secret Life because there's one photo setup I think I'll have to skip, and one I can't skip, but can't take at the moment because... well. Everyone's here. My mother is already decorating the house for Christmas. Which is fine with me, because I'm one of those people who wants to celebrate a holiday for a whole month (see also: Halloween). Speaking of which, I need to find a festive new background for my journal. Something I can purplify, just because. Something a little Christmas-spooky, if I can manage it.

ANYWAY. I will probably be able to manage to put the new Secret Life up tomorrow, unless you'd like me to just call it a day and wait until next weekend.

Meanwhile, I have been putting myself through a chronological refresher course of The History of Nineteenth-Century Vampire Literature. ( She might bite us all, and we should be a whole ship's crew o' wamphigaers. There would be a confounded go! )

As a follow-up on yesterday, since I don't think things are going to get any better--what I'm sad about is that my grandmother's mental and physical health took a steep downturn this past weekend. There are some other problems as well, emotional and/or financial; I've started having mild panic attacks again. And foresthouse--she's a longtimer around here, you may recognize her. She's one of my closest friends and my agent now as well. And she's going to have to have a really expensive trial surgery on both eyes--it was that or a double corneal transplant--at the end of the month, and I keep thinking, if I'd finished something to sell by now, we'd have money to pay for it. But I haven't. So we don't. So.

That said, I got 14 pages of a 25-page chapter cleaned up and revised today.

So... now that I've totally brought the room down...

...big casting news for three or four major movies in the linkspam: ( Read more... )

I spent yesterday gleefully researching, and today, I... crashed a bit. Mood is high, though. I'm just kind of sleepy and scattered.

So, instead, I went and read through Mark Reads Harry Potter--the Prisoner of Azkaban and Goblet of Fire blogs, at least. I'd kind of vaguely heard of it back when he was doing Mark Reads Twilight, and--God bless, but I was a bit Twilit-out. ("Even you?" ESPECIALLY me, people.) And quite honestly, it's way more fun to watch someone enjoy good books chapter by chapter than it is to watch them be appalled by bad ones. (Wait, is it? Then what have I been doing? Sudden existential crisis is sudden.) He's blogging a chapter or two of whichever book each day, so basically you're watching him read it in real time, and--well, the way I described it on Twitter was, "It's like Horrify the Twilight Noob with something that's actually good." Because someone linked me to it the other day when Mark got to the Third Task in the Triwizard Tournament in GOF and his head summarily exploded (complete with Gary Oldman gif), and that's the floor I came in on. And was rewarded when, later that day, he hit the Riddle cemetery and What Happens There. Never have the words "CEDRIC WAS A HUFFLEPUFF" carried so much despair. So basically, I laughed my ass off, but it's also great to relive the experience of reading the books for the first time by watching someone else do it. The most recent chapter blog, actually, is a very profound explanation of what the Harry Potter books have come to mean to him personally.

Also, he's on Twitter, and was very happy to see folks I sent over there. If nothing else, go start where I did, it won't take you long.

Also-also: Don't you dare go spoil him. Not even "I can't wait for you to get to chapter ##." I want him to be destroyed by the next three books the way the rest of us were: properly.

Linkspam! ( Read more... )

I don't know if Dracula seems so different to me now because I'm older, or because I'm a different reader, or because I'm a different writer than I used to be, but... it was a (say it with me) different experience this time around. (Of course, this is also what happened when I reread Jane Eyre, formerly my favorite book, for the first time in many years--it was a completely new experience.) Also, I had the Klinger footnotes sitting on my shoulder pointing a lot of things out, which cannot be disregarded.

( I have many, many thoughts )

I have a few links I want to talk about, but I feel too scattered at the moment to really pull those together. I will say, in terms of working on the "Vampires" e-book, that I sat down with a calendar and started working backwards from dates that are already set in stone:

1) New Moon comes out on 11/20 or somewhere around then, I don't know. That weekend, something.

2) My understanding is that we're going to record a podcast (not specifically about New Moon, but it will help to have seen it) that Sunday, 11/22.

3) I don't like to put out Movies in Fifteen Minutes entries until the Monday after a movie has come out, at the earliest--reader statements like "Now I don't have to see the movie!," while well-intended, are probably not going to endear me to whichever Studio Powers That Be. So I want to at least give any given movie a full weekend, since nowadays that's the most important time period financially anyway. SO MY POINT IS, I'm assuming that I can't not do "New Moon in Fifteen Minutes," so that would go up no earlier than 11/23.

4) I want to give myself at least a week of rest between the e-book and the Fifteen Minutes. Therefore, working backwards, I would want to have "Vampires" on Lulu by 11/16.

5) That's two and a half weeks or so from now. I know a lot more about the process of actually "publishing" the e-book now--how to convert the wonky footnotes to PDF (or who I need to do that for me, rather), how to navigate Lulu, and so on. But I would still like to give myself a week of padding to take care of problems, wait on people to get back to me on certain issues if necessary, do my obsessive proofreading, so on and so forth.

6) Therefore, I need to have a readable draft of "Vampires" by 11/9.

7) That's eleven days from now.

8) I've never made a deadline in my LIFE.

9) I did 90% of the work on Van Helsing and Dracula last year, though, when I was doing the previous, longer, more complicated incarnation of the e-book. It's mostly Twilight I'm dealing with right now. I hesitate to say "I can totally do this," in a Famous Last Words kind of way, but theoretically: I can totally do this.

10) Oh God I totally can't do this.

So basically, that's what's going on at the moment--I'm trying to work myself into an It's Go Time, Bitches mindset on the front end of the process and have plenty of emergency padding on the far end in case shit happens, because you know it totally will. I should probably refrain from testing Twilight merchandise during this time, in fact--sweetdragon tried some assorted Twilight chocolates the other day and they nearly killed HER.


(Zomg e-book! The Annotated Movies in Fifteen Minutes: Wizards!)