Why I Want To Like "Ghostwhisper" and "Medium", But Don't

I was thrilled when these two shows came on TV a few years ago (yes! Shows about ghosts and the young women who see them!) I liked Patricia Arquette as an actress and for being a bit of a rebel (always secretly impressed that she was married to Nicholas Cage for a while, back when he was hot), and I was neutral on Jennifer Love Hewitt.

But these two shows, while having a common theme, have leading ladies who are polar opposite personalities, and unfortunately, I don't find either one of them realistic.

Patricia Arquette, as psychic mom Alison in Medium, is about as much fun as a sack of wet laundry. The woman never smiles, EVER, and is completely self-absorbed, ignoring her gorgeously supportive husband and three semi-psychic children, sticking her nose in people's business with the finesse of an absent-minded rhinocerous, never caring about the repercussions to the living in her quest to make sense of her dreams of the dead.

Jennifer Love Hewitt, on the other hand, as Melinda in Ghostwhisper, is so sickly sweet and dewy-eyed all the time that you wonder if the spirits are drawn to her because she's made of spun sugar. She's SO girly precious-soft-and-feely that you just know she's got stuffed animals on her own personal Jennifer Love Hewitt bed. As in right now. Right this minute. I saw her on a talk show recently where she talked about how she "bedazzles" her lady parts - as in with a rhinestone stapler - which is a bit much TMI for TV, I think.

At any rate, I like characters who are realistic, and I think the writers have missed the boat on both these shows. Mix it up a little, will ya? Get Melinda out of those fake eyelashes, and let Alison do something besides frown. Get to the ghost stories, and give us some characterization we can care about.

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Forever Young - Love Rod Stewart, Hate the Song, and Here's Some Alternatives

Recently, someone asked me how old I was, and I told them the truth (like a fool). The response was, "I'd like the name of your plastic surgeon."

While it was meant as a compliment, it hurt my feelings. My face is my own-nothing nipped, tucked, or injected.

I have nothing against plastic surgery, when did it become impossible to look good without it? There are several things you can do to look younger than your age, and all of them are simple (stop rolling your eyes - I can see you!):

1) Good moisturizer, every day, and stay out of the sun or at least use heavy-duty sunscreen. (Vampires, take note! You were on to something long before the rest of it realized it!)

2) Omega 3 Fish Oil. Pharmaceutical grade, not the over-the-counter stuff. Good for your heart, your complexion, your hair, your everything.

3) Laugh a lot, every chance you get. I can't emphasize this one enough.

3) Regular exercise, doesn't have to be extreme. I walk. Lots.

4) Cut way back on the red meat, unless every few months you feel a burning desire to be a carnivore. Indulge it, and then you'll remember why you don't really miss it.

5) Watch the fried foods. Fried=bad. Might as well open a bottle of fat and drink it.

6) Red wine vs. hard liquor. Must I really explain this one? One your body likes, one it doesn't. Try it, and after a day or two while your taste buds adjust, you'll like it.

7) Don't smoke. Smoke is right up there with sun when it comes to causing skin damage (not to mention what it does to your lungs, your arteries, your brain cells...)

8) Having people who love you, even if you're not perfect. (I'm not minimizing this one by putting it last - appreciate those who appreciate you.)

In many ways, it comes down to the simple equation of input vs. output. Treat your body well, enjoy it while you can, and it will last longer. Abuse it, and say "buh-bye" to your youth long before you're ready.

Oh, and by the way, don't call me a "cougar", either! Hate that women over the age of *cough, cough* who still look good have to be labeled as predatory felines. Geesh. Bite me, already. Or maybe I'll bite you, and throw in a claw mark or two while I'm at it. I can do that, and I don't need fake nails to do it.

I Love Me Some Fireworks

Every year my town throws its own version of Mardi Gras, Florida style, by hosting the annual pirate invasion festival known as Gasparilla.

It's a week-long extravaganza, with at least three street parades, a recreated pirate invasion (swashbuckler style) involving thousands of boats, an airshow, fireworks, charity events, street parties, and general craziness. It's not uncommon right now to walk through my neighborhood and see a giant flag on someone's front porch that says "Arrggghhh! Surrender the booty!"

Why we celebrate being invaded by pirates, I'll never know, but it's fun. :-) Gasparilla begins today for the kids with the Gasparilla Children's parade (the week starts out gently and gets crazier), which will be held not too far from my house. While I'm not going to the parade, I'll be able to stand outside and see the airshow, and tonight my husband and I will walk down to the water to see my favorite part of Gasparilla, the free fireworks.

It'll be fun. Fireworks in the the sky, music in the air, sea breeze in my face. Life is good.

Dweller - A "Monster Bromance" by Jeff Strand

My friend Jeff Strand writes horror novels - sometimes with a comedic twist, sometimes not, leaving his style to perhaps best be described as a blend of a Stephen King and Christopher Moore, who maybe met and adopted a psychopathic baby with a reddish moustache and goatee. (C'mon, wouldn't you be twisted if you were the adopted love child of Stephen King and Christopher Moore?)

DISCLAIMER: I am not saying that Jeff actually IS the adopted love child of Stephen King and Christopher Moore. I'm saying that Jeff is, in theory, LIKE the adopted love child of Stephen King and Christopher Moore might be, if such an adopted love child existed.

Anyway, last week I got an email from Jeff with the attention grabbing title of "I'M NOT RIPPING YOU OFF!", and opened it to find that he was indeed doing just that. (I expected no different, and admire him for his initiative.) Jeff had fulfilled a life-long dream (or at least a two week dream, give or take a week) by corresponding with another delightfully creative whacko, Trevor Strong of The Arrogant Worms, who wrote and performed a catchy little tune for Jeff's latest novel, DWELLER. To prove I had no hard feelings for the festering feelings of jealousy that drove Jeff to try and duplicate the coolness of DEAD GIRLS ARE EASY by The 69 Eyes, I decided to dust off my movie maker skills, add some visuals to the mix, and created this book trailer for DWELLER (which, by the way, has his full approval, and he is now using as his "official" book trailer, so it's not like I'm a meanie or anything):



I think it turned out pretty good, but now just TRY and get that song out of your head! If you can't, just go ahead and buy the book when it comes out in April, and maybe the voices inside your head will go away.

The 69 Eyes on Swedish TV - Never Say Die

Ok, ok, so I have the Helsinki Vampires on the brain (best of luck on the latest European tour, guys!), but all you have to do is watch this video of them performing live on Swedish TV Wednesday morning to see why (have to sit through a Swedish commercial first, though, sorry!):



An old-school-cool and new-school-show-you-how-it's done, 110% performance from each and every one of them. I heart rock n' roll, 69 Eyes style!

Silent Night, Haunted Night Voted One of the "Top Ten Books of 2009"

Pop Syndicate is a cool pop culture review site, filled with variety: a multitude of reviews and podcasts about books, movies, TV shows, music - everything popular, everything modern, with some cult classics, anime and manga thrown in.

Their most recent review of Silent Night, Haunted Night was one of my favorites (a very insightful review that went deeper than most, which every author loves!). It was icing on the cake to learn that I'd been voted as one of the top ten books reviewed by the site in 2009!

I'm flattered to be in the company of these other nine authors and their work:

Child of Fire by Harry Connolly
Running Hot by Jayne Ann Krentz
Prime by Nate Kenyon
Gotcha! by Christie Craig
Darker Angels by M.L.N. Hanover
Enter Evil by Linda Ladd
The Dangerous Book for Demon Slayers by Angie Fox
The Fireside Cookbook by James Beard
Living Trust Advisor by Jeffrey L. Condon

Congratulations to you all, and thanks, Pop Syndicate!

A Final Word On E-Piracy

I've yet to read one of David Hewson's books, but I admire him a great deal for the public stance he's taken on the subject of illegal file downloading. Already ordered a couple of his books, in fact, simply because they not only look intriguing, but because he's an intelligent guy, and I assume intelligent published authors write intelligent books. If anything, he's too intelligent, and because of that, I fear much of what he's pointing out will be missed, so I'm reiterating it here.

He began by talking about e-piracy itself, but took it one step further by making an insightful point about e-piracy in his blog about how e-piracy sites are ad-driven, which means the noble file hackers who ignore the rules and upload files to the web for the "benefit of their fellow men who can't afford it" are actually making money off the misguided Internet shoplifters who frequent their sites.

How does it feel to be taken advantage of, book/movie/music thieves? You're nothing more than a pawn in the empiralistic world of consumerism, being lured to a site by a trial of breadcrumbs, falling prey to the oldest scam in the book, that of "something for nothing". (Oh, please don't start leaving me comments telling me that you've never once clicked on an online forum ad...)

At any rate, the excuses for e-book piracy seem to boil down to:

"I share stolen files out of the goodness of my heart, for the benefit of my online friends."
"I do it because these are books I would never have bought anyway."
"I do it because I can't afford to do otherwise."
"I do it because I want to know if I'll like it before I spend money on it."

Hm. I guess when I stole a balloon as a child I should've said, "But if I hadn't stolen it, the world would never have possibly/maybe/sort of/theoretically enjoyed that balloon!"

And all would've been well with the world, because hey... who needs to learn the difference between right and wrong in this day and age, anyway?

(For you literal nerd-types, I meant that sarcastically. )

And here's my final point: I'm going to read David Hewson's books not because I got them for free, but because I read something about him that I liked, and in that, I found some commonality. We agree on book piracy, and his books look interesting. We are strangers, yet sympatico.

You people out there who want my books for free after I've worked so hard on them and my publisher has invested money in them? We are not sympatico. We have nothing in common. Don't bother to download my books, because you won't like them.

We have no commonality.

The Lamest Excuse for E-Piracy I've Ever Heard

If you've read my previous blog on this subject, or any other author's blogs, or excellent articles like this one or this one or that one, you may have heard that ebook piracy has become a major problem for authors. We, and our publishers, lose many thousands of dollars in revenues from books sales every year, because our books (even those that are already available as low-price ebooks for Kindle, Sony Reader, or Nook) are being illegally converted to downloadable format and distributed for free all over the Internet. What this means is we (and our publishers) can either spend tons of time and effort to send "take down" letters to these file-sharing sites threatening them with legal action (which is kind of like squashing cockroaches - as soon as you crush one, another pops up, and for every five you see, there are probably another five hundred hiding inside your wall), or we can ignore them, and freely allow ourselves to be exploited.

Well, this past weekend I received yet another Google Alert of yet another illegal download of ALL FOUR of my books, so instead of simply reporting them to my publisher's legal department, I took the time to speak up publicly on the file-sharing site's forum about how I felt about what was happening.

I thought it might be fun to share with my readers the reaction I got when I did. :-)

Here's my first comment, in reply to the posting of the illegal downloads:

I hate to be a drag, but my books are not freeware. This is stealing. If you like my books enough to read them, you should pay for them (the Kindle/Sony/Nook versions are very inexpensive).

Why? Because pirated downloads like these not only take money directly from my pocket, but they do not count toward my "publisher-recognized" sales, and if they don't know my books are selling, they're not going to pay me to write more.

Boom. No more books by Terri Garey, or any of the other authors you might like but download for free because you think it's okay.

Tell me this - would you work for a year (or more) for free? Because that's how long it takes to write a book.

Terri Garey (the author)

Apparently, hackers are not used to actually being called on their hacker-ism, and I wasn't believed, as evidenced by this response:

OOOOOpppppppsssss !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

this does beg the question, is this an early april fools day trick by or, what is dear ms garey looking 4 on this forum ?

To which I responded:

Ms. Garey has a Google alert set up to notify her when her books are being pirated for free on the Internet. She usually just reports sites like these to her publisher without speaking up publicly, but she's pretty darn tired of dealing with ebook piracy, so tonight, she decided to speak up. In third person, even.

Terri Garey (the author)

(So what do you do for a living? Feel like doing it for free for the benefit of your Internet friends, like those in this forum? If so, you're a better man/woman than me.)

Strangely enough (or perhaps not strangely at all), it turns out that guy who questioned my response was one of the forum administrators who routinely posts these illegal downloadable files. Here is his completely lame and laughable response, in which he basically says that he does it out of the good of his heart, and that no one bothers to download them anyway. (So, um... like WHY DO YOU DO IT THEN?), and then turns me over to one of the other administrators to be "dealt with". (*Note* "d/l" stands for "download"):

i do it for free, converting ebooks for my internet friends. lot of noise at the moment while the publishers realise there is no place for them anymore, they are going to lose all those profits. but in reality the dl's don't justify the noise. just look at how many times ur posts are d/led, not viewed, but d/led. not many and this forum has a high number in comparison to some. most people don't know or are too scared to d/l from a forum. hell who cares as long as we enjoy our selves and the viewers keep coming.

have a great week andree, i'm off to the beach for a day or so, you can "deal" w/Terri.

By the way, the way I was then "dealt with" was by being blocked from the forum. LOL! Bad author! How dare you speak up for yourself?!

Anyway, one final comment before I step down from my soapbox: Downloading books for free instead of paying for them hurts the reader just as much as the writer in the long run. Publishers will not continue to pay authors for books if they can't make money on them. Your pool of quality reading material will shrink to next to nothing, because the good authors will still expect to be paid for their work. (You think Stephen King or Nora Roberts or J.K. Rowling are going to start writing for free?)

What about Charlaine Harris, Sherrilyn Kenyon, Yasmine Galenorn, Jeaniene Frost, Larissa Ione or any of your other favorite Urban Fantasy/Paranormal Romance authors? If no one is willing to pay for their books, why should they bother to write them?

Think about that.

Monkey See, Monkey Do

Yesterday was my husband's birthday, and I decided to go bananas with his party. :-) He has quite the weird sense of humor, my Bob, and given that he's thrown me some very uniquely themed birthday parties over the years (a Home Depot party, an eBay party, a Big Lots party, and a Buddha party), I felt like it was his turn.

Here he is doing is best to look like the monkey on his banner, and doing a pretty good job! One of the most fun parts of the evening was that everyone else there got into the swing of things, too, and after making Bob leave the room while we prepared, we treated him to a rousing rendition of "Happy Birthday" with everyone wearing monkey masks!


This was one of my favorite shots of the evening, taken quite accidently, when one of our guests realized that Bob was standing and chatting, oblivious to the fact that one of the hanging monkey decorations was perfectly aligned with his head! (The monkey stars were aligned, so to speak.) He snapped it before Bob moved away, and I seriously think he should start using it as his Facebook photo, don't you?






Here's a shot of what happens when people really get into swing of things (I've known for years that my sister was bananas, but I had no idea they'd start coming out of her ears!)

At any rate, a good time was had by all, and my wonderful husband is another year older (but no wiser). Happy birthday, sweetheart!

Life Is What Happens When You're Making Other Plans...

The last two weeks of December have been a bit of blur - not only have I been responsible for the stock prices of Kleenex shooting into the hemisphere and spent a lot of time in bed or in a recliner watching old movies, but my dear, sweet mother-in-law has been gravely ill in the hospital, my son graduated college, and oh, we celebrated the small annual occurrance that is Christmas. :-)

Plus, I'm writing. The first book of my new series is due April 1st, and I want it to be awesome, so in between the Kleenex and the family time, I'm writing. :-) Apart from some Twits and a bit of Facebook time, I haven't been online much.

At any rate, I'm wishing everyone a fabulous New Year and letting you know I'm not dead. I will be back again soon, with my normal fascinating and riveting combination of excerpts and observations. (Can't wait, I know!) ;-P

That was totally sarcastic. Really.

Behind The Veil

Sometimes I feel like that on this blog, except I'm not nearly as spooky as Boris Karloff... :-)

Battle Of The Bad Boys

The boogeyman under the bed... the monster in the closet... scary creatures who go bump in the night seem a lot more physical these days. Vampires, shapeshifters, demons, fallen angels. Spooky has become sexy, and it started long before Bram Stoker's Dracula. The Old Testament alludes to how angels found mortal women desirable, Gen. 6:2 the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose. One would certainly assume that those ancient women found angels completely irresistable in return. So the yen and yang of sex and attraction has always gone hand-in-hand with good and evil, and sometimes the two get mixed.

So what's the current connection between sex and supernatural? Why so many books and movies? Aside from the marketing aspects, I think, for women, it's not just the idea of the ultimate, misunderstood, bad boy... it's about female empowerment. If a woman can bring a supernatural male to his knees through love and desire, that's quite a coup. (If that sounds sexist, then it is, because part of the empowerment involved is admitting it.) :-) It's all about the ladies these days, and what pleases us, whether you're Team Edward or Team Jacob. :-)

Of course, we do love our bad boys (in theory). The bad boy with the good side who wants to be good, but is trapped, governed by fate or fortune or forces beyond his control. Poor, misunderstood bad boy. LOL

The book I'm working on right now, THE DEVIL'S BARGAIN, has two bad boys, and they're squaring off for a battle royale. As the writer, I'm not quite sure who's side I'm on, because I'm rooting for them both. :) The main character is such a bad boy that he's stealing all the scenes. (Oh, that Sammy Divine... he's got a story to tell, that one. And he's determined to tell it his own way, in his own time, with a wicked wink, a killer grin and a bad boy swagger.) But he's got some competition in Finn, the rock star who sold his soul for rock-n-roll, and now wants it back.

Me? I'm just sitting back, calling the shots, and feeling empowered. :-)

Neither one of these bad boys want to stay under the bed or in the closet, and I don't want them to, either.

Oatmeal Raisin Cookies In A Jar (great gift idea!)

I just sent out my most recent newsletter (you're on the list, aren't you?), and since I like to include little extras in it whenever I can, I started searching for great (inexpensive) gift ideas, and found this:

OATMEAL RAISIN COOKIES IN A JAR

3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
3/4 cup raisins
2 cups rolled oats
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
Mix together flour, ground cinnamon, ground nutmeg, baking soda and salt. Set aside. Layer ingredients in order given in a 1 quart "wide mouth" canning jar. It will be a tight fit, make sure you firmly pack down each layer in place before adding the flour mixture.

Instructions to attach to jar:

Oatmeal Raisin Spice Cookies
1. Empty jar of cookie mix into large mixing bowl. Use your hands to thoroughly blend mix.
2. Add: 3/4 cup butter or margarine softened at room temp. Stir in one egg, slightly beaten. Add in 1 teaspoon of vanilla.
3. Mix until completely blended. You may need to finish mixing with your hands.
4. Shape into balls the size of walnuts. Place on a parchment-lined cookie sheet 2 inches apart. DO NOT USE WAXED PAPER.
5. Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 11 to 13 minutes until edges are lightly browned. Cool 5 minutes on baking sheet. Remove cookies to baking racks to finish cooling. Makes 3 dozen cookies.

Put a festive ribbon around the top of the jar, and you've got an inexpensive holiday gift that can be given regardless of race, creed or color (Christmas, Hannukah, Kwanzaa, atheism, monotheism, paganism..). Everybody loves cookies!

And by the way, did I mention that you should JOIN MY MAILING LIST? I usually only send them four times a year to keep my readers updated on new releases, contests, free bookmarks and other goodies like the cookie recipe. Go sign up!

O Spider, Where Art Thou?

Ok, must confess that I've avoided going into the attic all week because last weekend, when I went in to pull out the Christmas tree ornaments, I saw a big, ugly spider sitting right on top of the box I was about to put my hand on. *picture me screaming, snatching my hand back, and disappearing out the door*

Today, made my son go in with me to fend off giant, hairy, 8-legged creatures, only to discover that it was a PLASTIC HALLOWEEN SPIDER that had fallen off my Halloween wreath.

Sigh. My favorite holiday just came back to bite me. My only consolation is that he was very cautious in his approach, too, though I'll probably never live it down...

Apologies (In Advance) to Twilight Fans...

... but this cracked me up!

Dark Kisses from Croatia: New Interview and Book Review at Venia, the Croatian webzine for all things dark!

Venia is a very cool Croatian e-zine devoted to alternative music, pop culture, literature and movies. The magazine is also a part of the team behind the Croatian fansite for my favorite vampire/goth band, The 69 Eyes, (http://www.the69-eyes.com/), and when I got an email from the editor last month, asking if I'd consent to an email interview about my writing, I was only to happy to oblige!

*WARNING* The English translation leaves a bit to be desired - it's a bit choppy, but you can get the gist!

Take a look at their very cool site (here's the English version) http://www.venia-mag.net/eng/intro.html , read my interview at http://www.venia-mag.net/eng/column/storyof-terrigarey-interview2009.html, read a great review of DEAD GIRLS ARE EASY at http://www.venia-mag.net/eng/column/storyof-terrigarey-deadgirlsareeasy.html, or enter the contest to win a signed copy at http://www.venia-mag.net/eng/other/competition.html.



However, if you're like me, you might find it cooler just to read the Croatian versions at:

Venia-Mag: http://www.venia-mag.net/hrv/intro.html
Interview: http://www.venia-mag.net/hrv/kolumna/kultura-intervju-terrigarey.html
Review: http://www.venia-mag.net/hrv/kolumna/kultura-knjizevnost-deadgirlsareeasy.html
Contest: http://www.venia-mag.net/hrv/ostalo/nagradna.html

The 69 Eyes will be playing in Zagreb (Croatia) on January 24th, 2010. I'd love nothing more than to be there, but I will just have to be satisfied with some dark kisses from Croatia in the meantime.

Rock on, ghoulfriends, and THANKS, Venia-Mag!

Incubus Rising - An Original Short

Incubus Rising
by Terri Garey^©

She was an alabaster dream. Pale hair, pale as moonbeams, lay across the snow-white pillowcase. Her cheeks held just the faintest shade of pink, lips holding the cherry sheen of rosebuds I’d long since forgotten. Her dream was full of softness, and the openness of longing. Whoever she longed for was a lucky man. But this night, I was luckier, for I slid into her welcoming warmth with the ease of a practiced lover, and the joy of a man who’d found his reason for existence.

Even after his existence had long ceased.

She sucked in her breath along with my shaft, moaning and rippling her pleasure. Her warm depths gripped me, welcoming my heft and girth as it was meant to be. I worked her well, letting her dream do more of its work, letting it draw us both into its spiral until she gasped her release beneath me, never waking.

Then I withdrew, kissing her gently as I went, leaving her spent and slumbering with a smile upon her lips, while I burned, stiff with a need that could never be released.

For that is my fate, you see.

To satisfy, yet never be satisfied. To please, but never be pleased.

Lest you wonder at my punishment, look only to your own natures, and judge me not. For whether or not women were Adam’s downfall, they have most surely been mine.

Wicked Little Pixie's Book Blog and Giveaway

In my never-ending quest to rule the blog guesting world, :-) I just did an interview for Natasha over on Wicked Little Pixie's urban fantasy and paranormal review site, "Writings of a Wicked Book Addict".

Stop by and leave her a comment for a chance to win her contest, and get "a reader's choice" of books from my backlist!

Blogging at Borders With Sue Grimshaw - win some books!

Stop by and visit with me today as I chat with Sue Grimshaw, corporate executive and Romance Buyer for Borders, Inc., on her blog, "Borders True Romance". We'll be talking about my latest release Silent Night, Haunted Night and I'll be giving away three copies of the book (along with a sparkly Christmas snowflake ornament) to three lucky commenters!