zelda_queen: (Default)
zelda_queen ([personal profile] zelda_queen) wrote2011-01-03 09:52 pm

Marked: Acknowledgments

ZeldaQueen: Hello everyone, and a very happy new year! It's a time to start new things, and that includes sporkings! Thus, we are starting on yet another piece of original fiction. This one was brought to my attention by Miss [livejournal.com profile] shaolina, and boy is it a stinker. Let us begin to tear into Marked, the first novel in the House of Night series

Projection Room Voices: Starting Media in 3...2...1...
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Acknowledgments

For our wonderful agent, Meredith Bernstein, who said the three magic words: vampyre finishing school. We
heart you!

ZeldaQueen: Okay, I'll admit that if someone said "vampyre finishing school", I'd be tempted to write some sort of book about it. But damned if I know how I'd tell if they said "vampire" or "vampyre" to me

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

ZeldaQueen: Let's hope they don't thank Muse and their online fan clubs

I would like to thank a wonderful student of mine, John Maslin, for research help and for reading and giving feedback on many early versions of the book. His input was invaluable.

ZeldaQueen: Okay, I'm going to keep this guy in mind. If this book commits as much research fail as Meyer's series does, I will know to curse his name

A big THANKS GUYS goes out to my Creative Writing classes in the school year 2005-2006.

ZeldaQueen: And as everyone knows, a "THANKS GUYS" is more heartfelt than a regular old "thanks"

Your brainstorming was lots of help (and quite amusing).

ZeldaQueen: I know they meant the ideas were funny, but I like to imagine that their brainstorming techniques involved bizarre ritualistic things, like hanging from their desks by their ankles, sucking erotically on bananas

I also want to thank my fabulous daughter, Kristin, for making sure we sound like teenagers. I couldn't have
done it without you.

ZeldaQueen: I've got a really bad feeling about that

(She made me write that.) —PC

ZeldaQueen: I pity their poor computer, which clearly has gained sentience. I bet it tried to write "SAVE ME!!!" before they caught on and deleted it

I want to thank my lovely "mam," better known as PC,

ZeldaQueen: You call your mother "Politically Correct"?

for being such an unbelievably talented author and so easy to work with. (Okay, she made me write that.) — Kristin

ZeldaQueen: You know, that joke's wearing rather thin. Although I will say that I admire that they were able to work together to write a novel. The most I ever did with my mother was have her help me with my middle school essays, and we nearly killed each other over those

PC and Kristin would both like to thank their dad/grandpa, Dick Cast,

ZeldaQueen: The unfortunately-named bastard

for the biological hypothesis he helped create as the basis for the House of Night's vampyres. We love you Dad/G-pa!

ZeldaQueen: And if the biological explanation for the vampires - excuse me, vampyres - in this book fails as much as Meyer's does, I shall be cursing his name

From Hesiod's poem to Nyx, the Greek personification of night:

"There also stands the gloomy house of Night; ghastly clouds shroud it in darkness. Before it Atlas stands erect and on his head and unwearying arms firmly supports the broad sky, where Night and Day cross a bronze threshold and then come close and greet each other."


(Hesiod, Theogony, 744 ff. )

ZeldaQueen: To give credit, at least they didn't rip an obvious and well-known quote from some popular Shakespeare play, like Romeo and Juliet. Ten bucks says this explains little to nothing about the plot, though

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Onward to: Chapter 1

Back to: Table of Contents
carmyn: (Default)

[personal profile] carmyn 2011-01-04 03:01 am (UTC)(link)
OH DEAR GOD, THE AUTHOR HAS MY NAME. (Only mine is more awesomely spelt :D)

Ahem, anyways, I never read the House of Night series, but reading that quote, I can extrapolate where they got the name from.

Are you doing all the books? (and if so...how many are there? o.O)

[identity profile] zelda-queen.livejournal.com 2011-01-04 03:15 am (UTC)(link)
I'm doing all of the books that I *ahem* was provided. There's a LOT in the series, even more than Twilight. I think it's about five or six books. Anyway, I'm praying it's not as wallbangery as Twilight, or the ranting will be great.
carmyn: (Default)

[personal profile] carmyn 2011-01-04 03:26 am (UTC)(link)
Go ahead and rant, I like the rantings :D.

I was checking out the book titles, and damn it, I hate it when I like the book titles. I actually liked all of Twilight's titles. I guess it has to do with the fact that I have never EVER titled my works, because I am not good with titles and could never come up with a catchy one. Oh well, I love my series title :D.

*muttering* Stupid catchy titles...

[identity profile] zelda-queen.livejournal.com 2011-01-04 04:12 am (UTC)(link)
It doesn't help that the titles are all cool and mysterious and associated with nighttime and you can hear them being read in a whisper by a woman, in the same type of voice one uses to say the name of a new brand of perfume.

[identity profile] yemi-hikari.livejournal.com 2011-01-04 09:40 am (UTC)(link)
Something makes me think that is the appeal.

[identity profile] winki-pop.livejournal.com 2011-01-04 11:40 am (UTC)(link)
*whisper* Lust. Faux-Flaws. Deus Ex Machina. Beauty. Without Consequence. Perfection. Loved by All. Mary Sue by Calvin Klein. To truly be the fairest one of all in your delusions of grandeur.:D

[identity profile] zelda-queen.livejournal.com 2011-01-04 02:12 pm (UTC)(link)
XD Oh, that's brilliant!

[identity profile] winki-pop.livejournal.com 2011-01-05 04:23 am (UTC)(link)
The fragrance does come in other varieties: Scary Sue, Purity Sue, Black Hole Sue, Quirky Sue, Anti Sue, among others :D The Mary Sue fragrance itself has subtle notes of fake humility and contrivance, as well as overtones of bullshit and self-absorption :D

(Anonymous) 2011-01-05 11:10 am (UTC)(link)
So... the Mary Sue fragrence smells like Bella Swan? I wonderhow you managed to be in hr presence long enough to make that.

(Anonymous) 2011-01-07 10:48 pm (UTC)(link)
The particular Bella Swan line has also been scented with just a pinch of FREEEEESIAAAAA.

[identity profile] zelda-queen.livejournal.com 2011-01-05 10:24 pm (UTC)(link)
And it also manages to physically manifest itself as glitter. Mary Sue - so good, it breaks the laws of reality.

[identity profile] watson8888.livejournal.com 2011-01-04 12:36 pm (UTC)(link)
I have to admit, I'm really excited you're doing this book cause I've been having an off-again-on-again relationship with it for a while. I'll pick it up, read the first couple pages, and put it back down, then then next time I'm in the book store I'll pick it up again...and the circle continues. I mean, 'House of Night,' vampyre finishing school — it sounds cool, and I want to like it, or at very least be able to read it, and I can't.

[identity profile] zelda-queen.livejournal.com 2011-01-04 02:13 pm (UTC)(link)
Yeah, it sounds like an awesome concept. We'll just have to wait and see how it pans out.

[identity profile] parrinoyed.livejournal.com 2011-01-05 04:31 am (UTC)(link)
I saw a lot of the first three books in the series when I subbed at the middle school - so I looked up reviews on Goodreads.com.

I do not envy your reading.

Also, there are at least 8 books so far, and I think a total of 12 (or even 15) planned.

P.C. Cast edited an anthology of vampire stories, and accepted one of her daughter's works. In case you want to know about their comparative writing abilities (apparently the elder has won awards, though I don't know which ones). And I found an interview with them, where the daughter complained that her professors didn't take her writing seriously, even though she gave them signed copies.

[identity profile] zelda-queen.livejournal.com 2011-01-05 10:23 pm (UTC)(link)
Yeah, I saw that there were a ridiculous number of books. -_- Best to just take 'em one at a time, I guess.

(Anonymous) 2011-01-05 11:06 am (UTC)(link)
I can not trash this book series enough. You... you just... y-you'll find out. *feels like crying*

Excuse me, I need to go read some Harry/Ron fanfiction to clear my mind. *flounces off*

[identity profile] zelda-queen.livejournal.com 2011-01-05 10:16 pm (UTC)(link)
O_o Well, now I'm all curious about this thing. XD

[identity profile] uniswift87.livejournal.com 2013-07-29 09:38 am (UTC)(link)
The fact that Suethor-daughter has my name, and has it spelled the exact same way, really frightens me...

[identity profile] zelda-queen.livejournal.com 2013-07-29 09:19 pm (UTC)(link)
Yeah, that tends to be unsettling, having one's name attached to a Sue-fic.

[identity profile] uniswift87.livejournal.com 2013-07-30 05:16 am (UTC)(link)
Indeed. I was kind of cringing in sympathy while reading your sporking of My Inner Life. At least Lilly was just an OC's name, and not the author's name... >_>