No More Answers

It's the last day of the Week of Answers. Does this mean there will be no answers in the world next week? I sure hope not. A million angry college students in summer classes will be out for my blood if that happens.

Anyway, the remaining questions are pretty short, so let's get to 'em!

The lovely Danyelle asks:

Why do early mornings exist?

Quite simply, I suspect that they exist to piss me off. Not that the world is all about ME, of course, because I know early mornings piss other people off too. In fact, I think we need an Early Mornings Piss Me Off Society (EMP-MOS).

If the world was run by me, everyone would stay up really late and sleep in until about 10:00. We would also have Zombie Dress Up Day at local schools. Because really? Backwards Day? Boring. Inside Out Day? Yawnsville. Zombie Dress Up Day? Made of awesome.

And that's my platform to rule the world. No early mornings, dress up like zombies any time you want. Doesn't that make you want to vote for me?

What's your favorite flavor of jelly bean?

Chicken and telephone.

Bonus points and my eternal respect if you know where that comes from. Unless you only know it because I told you, in which case I'm just happy that you actually listened.

Super-kind KM Walton asks:

Are you a Summer or Winter?

Oh god. Is this a makeup question? Because if it's a makeup question, I am NOT the girl to ask. I belong to the Boy George School of Makeup application. I just slop that stuff on there.

Or maybe it's just a season question, in which case I like summer because it's HAWT, and I just like the opportunity to write HAWT (always capital letters, people) as much as possible. Or maybe it's a fairy question, because a lot of fairy myths have summer fae and winter fae, and the winter fae are all naughty and the summer fae are all naughty but look prettier when they do it. I am summer fae, unless I've applied some makeup in which case I am winter fae.

Enjoy the weekend!

Let There Be Answers

Whee! It's more answers to questions you didn't really want to ask but took pity on me and did anyway!

So first, we've got a series of questions courtesy of Solvang Sherrie, awesome person that she is.

Have you ever posted an exerpt of "Superbly Useless"? I'd love to read it...

Alright. I'll post one here. Are you ready? Brace yourself.

"The."

Hey, you didn't say how LONG of an exerpt you wanted.

But seriously. I've never posted one. But I'll tell you a secret if you promise not to tell anyone else, and if everyone else in the world skips over this part. Ready?

I entered the first couple of paragraphs in a contest a long, LONG time ago, before I signed with Secret Agent Kate. You can read them here. I got great comments even if I didn't win.

You read that, didn't you, Everyone Else in the World? Le sigh.

As the Query Ninja, have you ever posted the query that landed you with Kate? I know it's good and I'd love to read it too...

I haven't. I'm not sure if I could ninja my own query or not. That's kind of like trying to practice an arm bar on yourself, but I could try. Thanks for the idea!

And finally, what kind of a name is Slayer for a doctor? I'm thinking I would be pretty nervous to show up for an appointment with him!

Actually, Slayer is short for Slayer of Bees. I told the whole story here. So unless you're a bee, you have nothing to worry about.

Storyqueen, who writes some of the most awesome picture books in the world, asks:

What is your current writing project....??? If you can't spill for superstitious reason, give us something, even if it's ambiguous.

I'll give you three words. And none of them are 'the.'

Demon fighting rollergirls.

And now I really want to be one.

Anyway, I'm about halfway done with it. I've been about halfway done with it for a while, but that's because I keep coming up with better ideas. I'm an obsessive editor type. I have been trying to bribe my inner editor to shut it up so I can write some new pages already but haven't been particularly successful.

How do you shut up your inner editor?

More Answers, of the Answery Sort

Remember, it's the Week of Answers! In which I enlighten you on topics of worldwide significance and general lunacy. (And maybe even worldwide lunacy and general significance. Or worldwide signifacy and general lunicance. I'd better stop before this gets any worse.)

KC Shaw asks:

What's the big deal about urban fantasy? Because I keep reading it and I keep getting annoyed with it. But I keep reading it.

You know what this reminds me of? An online IQ test. I want to say that it was at Sparktest.com but can't remember for sure. Anyway, this test had all these really silly questions, and the questions kept repeating, and there was no progress bar, and finally I just got sick of it and closed the window.

And then a little popup came out to tell me that I was really dumb, because I kept taking the test even though it was obviously not any good. So you can guess what I did: I started that bleeping test again and closed the window after the first question, and another popup appeared to say that taking the test a second time was cheating. Either that, or I'm freaking Einstein.

The moral of this story is that I'm only smart when I cheat, so you probably don't want to ask me questions that require any intelligence.

Natalie asks:

Why is my husband consistently annoyed my child actors?

I'm a little confused by this. Your child actors are annoying your husband? Or your husband is annoying your child actors? What are your child actors actually acting? Because if they're zombies, you can send them to my house. In the middle of the night, when my neighbor starts making a bunch of noise, I'll send those child actors over there to moan and scratch at the windows.

Actually, that may be the problem right there. Are the child actors moaning and scratching at the windows? I suggest mittens and chewing gum, so they can paw at the windows and blow bubbles instead.

Jim Danielson asks:

Did the people living on Pluto take away Earth's status as a planet to get even with us?

Actually, people don't live on Pluto. Plutonians do. And really, they don't give a garblesnatch about what we Earthlings think. Actually, I think the most awesome part of this question is that you think I'm an expert on aliens. I'm feeling strangely flattered, Jim. Just call me Spockette.

Anyone want to be Bones?

I bet you're starting to wonder why you bothered asking any questions in the first place, aren't you?

Things That Make Me Snarf - The Zombeatles

The video is pretty funny, but the music is even funnier. Please tell me I'm not the only person in the world who sat at the computer going: "BRAAAAAAAINS!" along with the music.

Answers with Zombies

You asked the Questions, now it's time for some Answers (with Zombies). Kind of like Dances with Wolves, only not really.

The Ey, otherwise known as Jamie, asks:

Who did come up with the 24 hour day? What sense does that make?

Well. There's this thing called Universal Coordinated Time, which of course was invented by The Universe. Yes, the same Universe that sends me emails and has failed to make me rich even though I have sent it loads of bonus ninjas and grass. I'm thinking that I don't have enough sparkles in my books, so here is a teaser from my current WIP:

"I've been sparkling for you," he said sparklingly, the words sending a sparkly shiver down her (you guessed it) sparkly spine.

And then, his sparkling eyes caught fire. Sparklingly.

Best seller, bay-bee.

And then there's The Whit Bra. She asked all this:

I am going to leave all my comments without using the.

What was first thing you noticed about Slayer that you liked?

Slayer and I met while playing Ultimate Frisbee. My friend spent weeks talking about how she wanted to use his ass as an end table.

Not kidding.

And no, I don't know what that means.

But yes, I'm putting it in a book anyway.

When did you decide he was One?

Ummm... one what? A complete lunatic? The kind of guy who will brainstorm enema of the week programs with me? A man who can talk some serious smack about American Idol and actually render it amusing?

The perfect man to father my children so we can take over the world!?!?!

Ahem. Sorry.

Actually, the reality is pretty boring. I woke up one morning and said, "You know, I'm going to move in with him." And I told him and he said, "Okay."

Maybe if you imagine violins playing in the background, it'll be more interesting. Especially if the violins are being played by zombies.

What made you decide to write for young adults?

Well, this might have something to do with the fact that I have the sense of humor of a 14 year old, but maybe not. Mostly, I write for teens because of something Slayer said to me once. He said that he'd never liked reading before. All the stuff he was forced to read was boring, so he pretty much stopped reading until I started feeding him books that I knew he'd like. This was right after the birth of my twins, and I thought, man, there's no way I want that to happen to my kids.

And here's the thing: it's the kind of thing I love to read. (Gasp!) I was trying to write all of this serious stuff. The kind of books read by people sitting in coffee houses and wearing berets while they smoke clove cigarettes. And you all know that I am NOT a clove-cigarette-and-beret kind of girl.

So it all kind of came together, and I've got the two best jobs in the world. Mother to three zombie-tag-playing children, and YA author.

Wow. That was all serious. Bring on the zombie kickline.

And finally,

WHAT CRAP, UNIVERSE?? WHY????

I have no answer to this. Frankly, I have written a lot of emails to The Universe asking the very same question. What crap, Universe? What crap?

More answers later.

The Sequel Secret

Has anyone else seen the commercials for Fast and Furious, the sequel to The Fast and the Furious? This has got to be the best idea for a sequel yet: just recycle the old movie, but take out all the instances of the word "the."

Vin Diesel: Dude! That car is bomb!

Hot chick: No, Vin. You are bomb.

Vin Diesel: What heck are you talking about? Of course I am bomb. I am Vin Diesel.

It's particularly funny if you read it in a pseudo computerized voice. Mine sounds disturbingly like All Your Base Are Belong to Us.

I'm thinking about writing an unauthorized sequel to Twilight using exactly this method. Think anyone would notice?

Next week is Question Week! What do you want to know? Ask in the comments; if I can't answer, my Magic 8 Ball probably can.

The Fancy Nickname Formula

I don't know why I like giving people nicknames so much, but I do. In fact, I distinctly remember hanging around the dorm one night in college, slowly and methodically nicknaming everyone I knew. And the worst part of it is that a bunch of people hung out with me and watched.

If I would have known it was so interesting, I would have sold tickets.

The best part is coming up with that perfect cockeyed combination of words and images. We're not talking cutesy poo nicknames like Honey Bear and Pootie Pie. I'm talking semi-snarfy nicknames like Slayer (which is really only snarfy if you know that my husband is a doctor and then you picture a nurse paging Dr. Slayer over the intercom) and The Electric Lovitz. I'm particularly proud of that one. I want to use it as a band name in a book some day.

But the problem with nicknames is that it takes a lot of hard work to develop a good one, so I'm now using a formula. Said formula is simple: I take 'the' and the first few letters of the person's last name. For example, you can hereby refer to me as The Harr.

The Harr, she is so kewl.

I've found a lot of cases in which this naming system works really well. There's The Whip, The Whit, and The Perk. There's my awesome agent, The Test. One of my personal favorites is The Ey, said in a pseudo-Elvis voice. Or maybe it's more like the Fonz. Or the love child of Elvis and The Fonz.

Something tells me Jamie doesn't like that nickname any more.

And then there are instances in which this system fails utterly. For instance, there's The Po. I am so sorry, Aaron. I just mistakenly named you after a Teletubby. I hope you'll find it in your heart to forgive me some day.

So do you know of any other names that come out really wonky using this method? I want to hear them.