My Junior High Shame-let me show you it

Junior High...ahh...the memories...the painful memories....

You can read about the time I earned myself the nickname "penis head" here, at the League of Reluctant Adults blog:

http://www.leagueofreluctantadults.com/2008/10/hanging-out-with-penis-head-ya-zombie.html

Normally I try to avoid sharing such shameful moments, but my good friend Stacia Kane (author of fabulous urban fantasies for grown ups and teens whose parents let them read what they want. Mine always did...though they probably didn't know some of "what I wanted" was as scandalous as it was...but that's a topic for another blog) asked for a good, juicy Halloween story and that's all that came to mind. The penis head story. So apparently I've had some rather tame Halloweens. I'll have to get out more...like next year...

This year, I'm still trying to think of what kind of costume will fit the bill for tomorrow night. I suppose I could always paint the belly to look like a Jack-o-lantern....or maybe try to work up some sort of "alien just burst through my flesh" thing with a little putty, a fake alien, and some blood...but that might not go over so well at the church trunk or treat since they tend to frown on gore...and exposed pregnant bellies hanging out in the wind. What ya think?

Have a great and safe day tomorrow everyone!

Stacey Jay

The dead have shuffled, but once again I missed the bus

I'm not sure I can express have very, very sad I was to miss this:



That's a pic from Zombie Fest in Pittsburgh. The two day event went down last weekend and included incredibly bad ass stuff like a Zombie Ball, zombie make up demos, tons of undead movies, a HUGE zombie walk, and a jello brain eating contest. Yes. A Jello. Brain Eating. Contest.

Sob!  *single tear leaks down author's cheek*

I really can't imagine more zombie-licious fun. Just the chance to take pictures of all these people dressed in their undead best would have been a blast.

But alas, this year, there was no time for a pilgrimage to Pittsburgh what with the whole "about to have a baby any second" thing, but next year you can bet I'll be lobbying my publisher to snag an exhibit table. I'll have ARCs of the second in the Megan Berry Zombie Settler series ("Undead Much?) by then so I'll have TWO books to promo and double the excuse to go get my shuffle on in Pennsylvania. (Which is so gorgeous in the fall. I love the northeast in October. Heck, I love it just about all the time. Can't wait to move back up there with you Yankees!)

Have a fabulous Tuesday. Hopefully, I won't be here Thursday because I will be having myself a BABY!! Please god!!

Stacey Jay

It's mah birthday, so from the horrifying pastry files...

Zombie cake....



Zombie cake in close up...ahhh! We are digging our wayz out of the chocolate cakez!!



Hello Kitty Zombie cake (I don't know what it is with the Japanese and zombie Hello Kitty, but, disturbingly enough, this is NOT the only cake like this I found. And I've posted examples of Kitty Zombie artwork and even a man with a Kitty Zombie tattoo in the past few months. I have to admit to being a little freaked by the KZ. Intrigued and amused, but a little freaked...)



Ha! The Kick ass zombie doll cupcakes I found while googling the other day! In close-up...



And the wide shot...



Wee! Love the pudgy little hands bursting from the earth-colored cupcake. I'm totally going to try to make a batch of these next week for the school Halloween party. I think fourth graders can handle the freaky factor.

So there you have it. A celebration of horrifying pastry in honor of surviving another year. I swear, I'm feeling older and wiser (and fatter) already. Despite the truly terrifying weight gain I've accumulated this pregnancy there WILL be pancakes after my doctor's appointment this morning. I find syrup helps drown the pain of still having this painful fetus inside of me. (I was joking last night that I'm going to tell baby L to name his high school rock band--assuming he has one, which he'd better because I would totally prefer to be a rocker mom instead of a soccer mom--Painful Fetus because it sounds bad ass and he was truly a torturous little critter to gestate. My first did not prepare me for the extreme ouch factor of being kicked to death from the inside. The Roo was a calm fetus. Which I appreciated....even if it doesn't sound nearly as cool as a rock band name.)

Have a wonderful day all! And thanks so much for the birthday wishes I've received already!!

Stacey Jay

Promotional Items...and frightening the ovaries of the young

I've been pondering what to purchase for little promo item/signing gifties for some time now. On one hand, I think these flesh-eating zombie miniatures or the glow-in-the-dark finger puppets I'm looking at in the wholesale catalog are kick ass. Then...on the other hand I can see teenagers giving me the "what the hell were you thinking" lip curl, followed by the "geez, this woman is insane" eye roll and walking away from my signing desk shaking their heads sadly.

But then, maybe I've just been spending too much time with my own resident eye-rollers. 10 is the worst. I actually got an eye roll while she was putting away her cereal bowl yesterday and she's not usually a multi-tasker.

But then again, I find I don't get eye rolled nearly as often by other people's teens and pre-teens.

Actually...I've...never been eye rolled by someone outside of my immediate family. Wow! What a revelation. Obviously I have to get out of the house more, AFTER I give birth.

Right now, I inspire eye widening, if not rolling, in just about every female under the age of twenty-five. They look at my enormous belly, their eyes get big and their nostrils flare, and I can just hear their ovaries running screaming for the hills, vowing never to touch anything of the opposite sex ever again. I am that big. Like a balloon that could explode baby all over them at any second. A balloon with a writhing alien inside that makes my tummy jump and jerk so powerfully you can see it from across the room. And I guess my face shows just what a blissful, magical experience this gestating thing is for me because often times the mothers of the owners of the young, frightened ovaries come over and pat me on my puffy arm and tell me it will all be over soon.

Sob...but this post was supposed to be about promotional items. What I should get to put in my little giftie bowl beside me at book signings. So yeah, any thoughts on that?

Stacey "too pregnant to live or blog" Jay

Win an ARC and Hysterical PSA

Hey all!

Brooke Taylor is running a HUGE zombie week contest over on her blog and giving away an Advanced Reader Copy of "You are so Undead to Me". Yes, you can be winning it before you can be buying it! You can be seeing the typos and the random comment by my editor that was left in the text at the end! You can read the quiz on the back cover that didn't make it to the final cover other people will see in stores!! God!!! The excitement!!!

So go check out the contest and enter here:

http://brooketaylorbooks.blogspot.com/2008/10/monster-month-of-giveaways-zombies.html

And in other news, I've got a BIG announcement coming soon to this blog, but in the meantime, you have to check out this PSA. I grinned until my face hurt watching this and then had to forward it to my husband...who I tried to convince to forward it among the ultra-conservatives who work out there at the Air National Guard just as retribution for all their inflammatory emails about Obama being a terrorist (eye roll here), but he wasn't going for it. He's so professional and stuff :).




Okay, let's see if this works...

Have a great day!

Stacey Jay

Any day now....for realz!

I've entered hard core nest and "get last minute priority work done before I explode" mode. According to my doctor, I've still got a couple of weeks, but my inner clock is telling me to hurry up and get ready just in case. I could be TOTALLY wrong and still be blogging about how miserably pregnant I am for three more weeks, but on the off chance that my instincts are trying to warn me of the impending baby-pocalypse, I'm going to buckle down and plow through the last of my "can't wait" work.

So, reading through a manuscript one final time before sending today and then a big bunch of edits Friday and on through the weekend, but I'll be back Tuesday....or not? Maybe not? Maybe I'll be trying to figure out how to post a preshush picture of my new baby from my camera phone while hopped up on pain pills. (Hey, a girl can dream.)

Happy Thursday and have a great weekend!

Stacey Jay

And now from the holy crap department...

Bet ya didn't know there was an actual department for that, huh? I'm sure there is though...like a hallway in Rome devoted to holy crap...featuring a crap that came out in the shape of the Virgin Mary from someone down in Mexico who fished it out of the toilet and hustled it down to their priest who called the Vatican to make sure it was preserved in the hall of holy crap. (Nothing against Mexico or Mexicans, but doesn't it seem like the image of Mother Mary shows up a lot down there. Like on toast...and stuff?)

But I digress. I'm talking about holy crap of the work variety. It's not confirmed yet, but my release date MAY be moved up two months for good reasons that I can't yet discuss. This is both exciting--whee! moved up date! And terrifying--gah! moved up date!!

Due to pregnancy exhaustion and just the HELLA work I've been trying to get done before the baby comes I'm already feeling woefully unprepared to promo and now I find out I may need to get all that promo I don't have ready or planned done sooner? Ack! What should I do? Where should I go? Who should I call? (If I weren't so fat I would totally be running around in circles right now.)

I plan on putting out a formal shout out on some message boards if the two month move up date is confirmed, but I'd appreciate any advice in the meantime. I'm planning to have some Vistaprint brochures made for "You are So Undead to Me" (I had some done for another book and they turned out great) and mail them to local libraries, but I want to wait until I get the new date confirmed before I do that. So...in the meantime, is there anything I can do? If you've got knowledge and would share, I would be sooooo grateful. I'm really feeling overwhelmed right now.

Whoever decided working a full, demanding workload while taking care of three kids during my ninth month of pregnancy was a good idea should be shot. (That would be me. Please shoot me and put me out of my gestational/promo-angsty misery!!)

Peace out,
Stacey Jay

I will love you enough to put you out of your brain-eating misery

My husband is the best husband on the entire planet. I know some of you out there might think you have the best husband, and really, that's adorable and all, but um...mine is the best....usually. He's so sweet, funny, sexy, goofy, confident, yet mature all at the same time. And he loves me with the same disgusting smooshiness that I love him. I couldn't usually ask for a better partner or friend or father to our kids. As far as the whole labor and delivery room thing is concerned, however, I'm starting to have some concerns.

I'll preface this by saying I am not a good pregnant woman and do not take to gestation like a duck to water (unless that duck had just swallowed a pound of rocks and was flapping around, quacking obnoxiously, trying not to drown). That said, I believe living with me was mostly tolerable until about two weeks ago when this whole pregnancy thing started to get out of hand. Now I'm just sooooo uncomfortable and huge and my body is protesting my betrayal by making EVERYTHING hurt. Just everything. Back, tailbone, ribs, side muscles, pelvic area where kid is head butting me in an attempt to gain his freedom, swollen leg and feet and ankles. Even my wrist because it is the only thing on me that has remained relatively dainty and I pulled something in there leveraging my bulk into the bathtub. The poor thing wasn't equipped to bear the load.

Long story long, this pain has led to a lot of grousing and whining and occasionally some lying-on-my-side-moaning sessions when the baby gets in a position where all his pointy bits are poking me in all the places that hurt the most. And while I moan and groan, the hubs just kind of sits there....watching television. Ignoring me.

So I finally broke down and asked him--in my sweetest voice, of course, waiting until I had a lull in the pain so I could show my love in every dulcet note--if THIS was what he was going to do in the delivery room? And if so, advising him that THIS wasn't going to cut it. That there would need to be rubbing of my back and talking and soothing sound-making and sympathetic face-making or there was a very good chance that I would let the zombies take him when the plague came. That I would, in fact, relish his groaning as they cracked open his skull and harvested his brain.

I think I got through to him...but we'll have to wait and see. How about ya'll? How were the husbands in the delivery room? (And for all of you who might be teens, just think of all these annoying pregnant woman entries as birth control. Trust me, you REALLY don't want to go through this until you are at least twenty-five...maybe thirty...or maybe you'll just want to make plans to make enough money to adopt an adorable child from another country.)

Happy Thursday,

Stacey Jay

Birthdays now that I am old and crusty...

Okay, so the birthday isn't for a few weeks and I'm not old and crusty. Not yet, anyway.

I usually feel fairly young and perky, in fact, but I guess the pregnancy-related exhaustion is taking its toll because--for the first time in my life--I'm just not feeling the birthday excitement. Usually I declare myself the birthday princess about three to four days pre-celebration and insist on getting my way (and the biggest piece of dessert) every day from then until the momentous day has past. I've been known to steal my middle stepdaughter's crowns and wear them around the house and even while driving kids to school (because I am a master of inducing middle school shame...aren't you glad you're not my kid?).

My husband has borne this all with a tolerant grin for the past few years. I think a part of him even looks forward to the annual ritual (sometimes I start calling him "James" around this time and demand that he fetch my motor carriage from the garage. He calls me "missus" and I tell him "my father better not catch the help looking at me that way" and then hyjinx of the bad romance novel type ensue. It gives us a giggle...and occasionally gets us into situations of the gestational variety.)

And so back to the point: Pregnancy has killed my will to Birthday Princess.

The day is only a few weeks away and I couldn't care less. I refuse to tell my mother what little gifty she might give me, insisting she keep the money and put it in her Kids' Christmas Fund. I told my hubs he can just give me those two things from Pottery Barn that I ordered last week. I put the boxes in the closet unopened and promised to act surprised when I unwrap them. I even shrugged my shoulders at the offer of babysitting so that the hubs and I could have a date night. At this point, I don't think he'd really have that much fun date-nighting with me. I do a lot of moaning and groaning and grunting when I try to stand up or sit down and random hysterical crying. Not the most romantic figure. But then, this little boy is a very painful fetus. (Very Painful Fetus...sounds like an alternative rock band.) My first never made me flinch in actual pain until he was ready to come to the party, but this Bubba...the kicks and the thrashing and the pointy-things-jamming-into-my-heart-and-stomach-and-everything-else-omg-it-hurts-and-I-still-have-several-more-weeks-please-shoot-me-in-the-face-and-put-me-out-of-my-misery.

So...there. Any of you ladies experience third-trimester loss of will to party? Or princess? Or live? Or....whatever?

Happy Tuesday,

Stacey Jay

Kid Reads-Big'un Recs Edition

The Enchanted Forest Chronicles
By Patricia C. Wrede

Big'un LOVES dragons. She's read a ton of books featuring the big, green, and scaly type and seems to enjoy them all. One of her recent favorites, however, was this series by Patricia C. Wrede. It's an early 90's offering so probably only found at your library or by ordering online (I'm not sure if it's still got shelf space at your local bookstore).

This series tells the tale of an unconventional Princess. Big'un, who is far from the girly girl herself, relished reading about the adventures of another girl who didn't like to do her hair, wait to be saved by the prince, or believe in the importance of deodorant...I mean, um...yeah. (Deodorant is important, I'm sorry. Call me a supressive personality if you must, but I believe in smearing the white stick in the pitty region at least once daily. Preferably post shower in order to seal in the smell-goodness.)

I haven't read this series, but it definitely sounds like a lot of fun, great for the 11-13 year old set. Here's what some other wise people had to say about the books:

Book One: Dealing With Dragons

School Library Journal

Gr 5-9-A feisty princess with a mind of her own shuns regal training and protocol, preferring to volunteer herself as a dragon's servant and companion. It's a spirited, rollicking story with clever fairy tale references subtly tied to elements of magic, wizardry, and the satisfying triumph of good over evil. (Dec. 1990)

Book Two: Searching for Dragons

Publishers Weekly

Dealing as it does with dragon-napping and magic-stealing, this sequel to Dealing with Dragons puts a whimsical spin on familiar fairy-tale elements. Ages 12-up.

Book Three: Calling on Dragons

From the Publisher

Those wicked wizards are back--and they've become very smart. (Sort of.) They intend to take over the Enchanted Forest once and for all . . . unless Cimorene finds a way to stop them. And some people think being queen is easy.

Book Four: Talking to Dragons

From the Publisher

Daystar has never seen his mother, Cimorene, actually perform magic. Nor has he ever known her to enter the Enchanted Forest in all the years they have lived on its edge. That is not until a wizard shows up at their cottage shortly after Daystar's sixteenth birthday. Much to Daystar's surprise, Cimorene melts the unsavory fellow. And the following day, she comes out of the Enchanted Forest carrying a sword. With that and little else, she sends him off into adventure.

Have a great Thursday!

Stacey Jay