Words: 3,794.
Total words: 3,794.
Reason for stopping: The Agent called. Hence my posting this the next morning.
Music: lots of dance club music.
Lilly and Alice: cat tree and STALKING, respectively.

What's this? Why, it's the first official word count for Midnight Blue-Light Special, of course. What's that? The second InCryptid book, and the sequel to Discount Armageddon. In short, my reward for finishing the fifth Toby book is the sweet, sweet embrace of ballroom dancers who spend their spare time acting as a guidance counselor for monsters, talking mice, brooding monster-hunters, and mathematicians with anti-freeze where their blood is supposed to be. Because that's just how I roll.

I have the first chapter and prologue done, and Very is starting to respond to my request that she pay attention to the plot outline. For Very, this is very rapid adherence to the rules of the road, and I'm extremely proud of her. And yes, she's a fictional character, but I haven't been working with her for a while, so I have to remember how all this works.

I'm back in the cryptid-filled streets of New York City, and I couldn't be more pleased about it if I tried.

First up, calico_reaction has selected Feed as her October book club selection, and is currently moderating a vigorous discussion of the book. She does good, critical review, and you should check her out.

Second up, I'm linking to this in part because other people keep pointing it out to me, often with a "hey hey you should go participate in the discussion" rider. So I wanted to take a moment to explain why I'll read reviews*, but won't read or participate in book discussions.

Having an author join a discussion of their own book often has the unintentional effect of both censoring and stilling the dialog. Which is not to say that people won't happily say "you suck" when they know I'll see it...but people who think that's fun aren't usually the sort of people who really want to do critical analysis, and people who really want to do critical analysis sometimes get uncomfortable critically analyzing someone who's standing right there. This goes double for readers who are also friends of mine. It's way harder to be harsh on a book, or critical of a plot point, when you're worried about hurting the feelings of a friend.

Plus, anything I say about what I meant—not how the text was interpreted—sort of sounds like holy writ. "No, no, you have that wrong..." is not something you want to hear from an author during a book discussion. Ever. It can be really easy for an author to come off as a condescending brat when they chime in on this sort of thing.

Lastly...the "book as child" comparison doesn't stand up for me, most of the time. My books don't need to be fed, don't get the stomach flu, and don't wake me up at two in the morning to look for monsters in their closets. But there are times when the comparison holds. Imagine putting a small child in a room with two-way mirrors all the way around it, like a zoo enclosure. The child doesn't know you're out there, which is good, because you and your friends have gathered to rip that child apart.

She's funny looking. His clothes don't fit. She has too many freckles. His toes are weird. She's not smart enough. He's not cute enough. She's too tall. He's too short. She doesn't play with her dolls the way you think she should. He keeps sticking Lego pieces in his mouth. And so on, and so on, until every possible flaw, real or perceived, has been picked apart in detail. Someone will opine that the child should never have been born. Someone else will opine that the world would be better if the child had been taken behind a barn and shot.

Now imagine that the child's mother is standing right there, listening to every word you say, but unable to defend her child from you in any useful way—in fact, attempting to defend the child will just result in her being attacked as a bad mother on top of everything else.

And this is what it's like to be an author at a book discussion, even a good, civilized, totally bitchin' one like calico_reaction's tend to be. Which is why I don't read or participate in them.

Now you know. And knowing is half the battle! The other half involves airborne rabies hybrids and a hand-held mister.

(*That aren't posted on Goodreads or Amazon.)

So I watch a lot of television. I know people who look at my schedule and word counts and laugh at this claim, like "Ha ha, Seanan is being droll and pretending to do things other than slave away like a weird robot-alien-pod plant," but the fact of the matter is, I probably under-report my television-watching, because it's nobody's business but mine a lot of the time. I use television as a way to wind down once my word counts are achieved.

This doesn't mean I don't consider television an intellectual exercise. I mean, witness the fact that I have essays in multiple books of critical analysis of television programs. I think TV is hugely important in our culture, and that a lot of the time, it does more to influence the way people think about story than anybody else.

I am a television omnivore. I watch dramas, I watch science fiction, I watch comedies, and I watch things that are supposedly aimed at children. I can explain the social structure from Wizards of Waverly Place, identify more than fifty Pokemon on sight, and am eagerly awaiting Unnatural History on DVD. Shows for kids are actually more devoted to plot arcs and character development than anything else currently on the air...except, maybe, for some of the high-concept science-fiction dramas.

Which brings us to the point of this entry: I am head over heels in love with a show called Tower Prep. It airs on the Cartoon Network. Here's the Wikipedia page. You've only missed three episodes. But you should really start from the beginning if you can, because Tower Prep is a mystery series. Not a procedural; not a mystery of the week, although there are weekly plots and challenges; a mystery series.

We begin when our POV character, Ian, passes out at home and wakes up in a strange boarding school called Tower Prep, one that's designed to "nurture and develop" his special abilities. No one knows where the school is, or how they got there. No one knows why they have their abilities, or what they're honing them for. But Ian, and the friends he quickly finds, know that they're afraid.

The writing is sharp. The mysteries are engaging. The plots are complex enough to hold an adult, simple enough to be viewed as "kid friendly" by the network, and just scary enough to have that enthralling edge. The dialog is snappy, the characterization is consistent. And really, that's why Tower Prep is awesome. The characters.

There are four main characters in Tower Prep: Ian, our protagonist, whose ability allows him to see certain things before they happen; Gabe, whose ability allows him to talk anyone into anything; CJ, whose power lets her act as a "human lie detector" and borderline psychic by reading all the minute changes in people; and Suki, whose ability lets her mimic the voice of absolutely anyone.

Two girls, two guys. While Ian's ability could be viewed as stereotypically "masculine," especially since he uses it in fights, he comes to the attention of the school for stopping a bully for beating up a weaker kid. And while CJ is sort of the "team psychic," which is often a female role, most people would reverse Gabe and Suki's abilities, since "persuasive" is often viewed as feminine, and "mimicry" is often viewed as masculine.

All four of them are smart, but Suki is the computer genius, and Gabe is the social butterfly. CJ is perfect, but not cookie-cutter pretty. They are, in short, actually people, rather than being "the hero," "the heroine," "the sidekick," and "the best friend," as they would be in so many other settings. Of the four main characters, only Suki is distinctly non-Caucasian, which is about the only criticism I have...but there are a great many non-Caucasian students and teachers on the campus, providing a slightly better balance to the show as a whole.

Tower Prep is a show I want to watch over and over again. I want to have a viewing party of the whole first season when it's done, and pick the mysteries apart. And I want to give it to every kid I know, because it says, without saying, that gender doesn't have to matter when it comes to solving mysteries and being smart and having superpowers. Also? Neither CJ nor Suki wears a bikini and calls it a uniform.

It's made of raw awesome. If you haven't checked it out yet, you totally should.