Stephen King is my inspiration in so many ways. He's gone from genre master to respected author. He's kept producing and stretching himself artistically. Most cool of all, though, he has a band. I do not have a band yet, but thanks to my long-suffering guitar teacher, indie talent Erin Hobson, I have a song that you can listen to on my website, www.alisakwitney.com., and yes, it's werewolf blues, to go with the werewolf book. That's me singing lead, and I wrote the words. Maybe one of these days I'll actually be able to play it...
A New Me
8:31 AM PDT, September 14, 2008
My more internet-savvy friends are telling me that I must update my blogs more often, as otherwise I give the false impression that I am wasting away in a sanitorium somewhere, or chained to a wall in a basement.
The truth is, I've been working, chained to a table at the local coffee shop.
My proof of life? Well, there's my YA graphic novel, TOKEN, that's coming out this October, which is a Dirty-Dancing coming of age romance set in Miami in the 80's. This was a project I initially took on just to have an excuse to hang out at the offices of DC Comics again, and call my old friend, Shelly Bond (we once shared an office, and some wigs -- but that's another story).
I'll be putting an excerpt up on my website soon, along with a sample of the script for the same pages before the amazing Joelle Jones brought them to life.
In addition, I have a werewolf book, The Better to Hold You, coming out under the name Alisa Sheckley in February. It's about a veterinarian who is smart about dogs but stupid about men until her cheating husband gives her a dose of lycanthropy, and I wrote it about five years ago but had the chance to expand the world and flesh it out -- and to learn a lot of really peculiar things about wolves and dogs. (I already knew a lot of peculiar things about men.)
Anyway, my new year's resolution (it's almost the Jewish new year, after all) is to post things more regularly.
What I'm reading right now: Bangkok 8. Discovered it by checking out Amazon's "people who read The Dominant Blonde also ordered" feature, but Burdett's Buddhist detective novel is a unique creation.
What I'm listening to right now: Erin Hobson, who teaches me guitar, but is probably about to become so famous I'll never see her again.
Yesterday I took the train into Manhattan to meet with my undergraduate college writing professor, Kit Reed (Dogs of Truth, The Baby Merchant). We met at a private club near Grand Central, in a 19th century building. It was a novel experience for me; outside, all these guys were sitting on the sidewalk, smoking cigarettes, eating grinders and commenting on my choice of outfit (I was instructed not to wear jeans, and so had put on a dress and heels). Inside, everyone was buttoned down and exquisitely, almost frighteningly polite. I was informed that I should leave my laptop and any papers in an open cubby, as if it were my lunchbox and this was kingergarten.
Trying not to look like a woman concerned about her laptop, I walked up a wide, carpeted wooden staircase and there was Kit, looking disconcertingly as though she had stopped aging back in 1987. Petite, kind and unerringly accurate in her critiques, Kit was the professor who told me not to start smoking cigarettes while I wrote, advice I sincerely wish I had followed, since I lost at least two writing years to quitting.
Over lunch, Kit and I discussed many things, including Joss Whedon (an old family friend of the Reeds, he was the TA for her husband Joe Reed's brilliant film course. I dropped out of that course thinking it was too technical, and sometimes in the middle of the night I still wake up screaming, No, no, I want to go back!)
We also talked about the sudden boom in dark fantasy and paranormal romance (something that both excites and scares me, as I have just sold a book I wrote a few years ago, before the lycanthropy pandemic.)
I recall two pieces of Kitly wisdom:
1. You have to be willing to reinvent yourself.
2. The actor who played Verenus in Rome with such poker-faced skill is making too many facial expressions in Journeyman. What's the point of having an eloquently battered face if you're going to go around showing emotion?
On the train ride home, I mulled this over. You can't spend your whole career playing poker-faced Romans, but you do want to to take from role to role the quality that made you so appealing.
One question Kit and I didn't address: With so many supernatural shows in TV, why nothing from Buffy creator Joss Whedon?
I grew up on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, and recall the days when there were fewer strollers and more trannies on roller skates in Riverside Park. I have an MFA from Columbia University (though only a dim recollection of what I did to get it).
I have worked as a veterinarian's assistant, a Hebrew teacher, and a comic book editor for Vertigo/DC comics. I have also written some comic books. And I still have all my old Shanna the She Devil issues.
Somebody at Vera Wang once called me "the stupidest receptionist we've ever had." I only worked there for one…
