The Voodoo Review: No More Idols by CHASE AND STATUS

Chase And Status - No More Idols on Amazon MP3

...Dat's what I call some Voodoo beats... Well, it must be lack of chocolate or something, having opted for Jelly Belly beans instead of an Easter Egg when shopping this week, for some reason I'm feeling on a bit of a downer this evening. All my latest stuff is edited and waiting for proofreading copies in paperback format, so all I have to do at the moment is twiddle my thumbs, or open a half-finished project and invent some new Zombies for Dorothy to munch on. I think it was moving some of the books on my coffee table, and unwittingly opening Teach Yourself: Managing Stress on page 179, about relationships. About how critical they are, to adult development and health. Well, I've still not had one, and I'll be 40 this summer - and having it rubbed in by well-meaning Psychology-lite books that I know less about intimacy than a Celica brake disc lifespan (especially when driving with the music too loud to hear the pads drop out as it gets trashed), doesn't do a lot for my self-image and confidence. I can probably still fool a psychiatric department, like I did a few years ago that I'm normal for my age, but that's only I reckon because I saw my paperwork afterwards and they'd got my date of birth wrong and had me down as 24 :) Must be my great DNA :)

Editing "Death & The City" brought back a lot of those memories too. It's about an unlikely hitman's nemesis, single mum Lara Leatherstone (not her real name - she chose it off an online Porn Star Name Generator), who has developed a highly-self-monitoring way of controlling her own psychotic personality disorders, which keeps her off medication and out of hospitals while throwing snipers off rooftops and shooting them from motorway bridges, when not on shift working in nightclub security. All good so far. But to make it a story, it became the tale of what happens when she's set up with another 'Deathrunner' work colleague, and along came the romance angle.

I didn't have any experience of romance to write from, so I used my imagination. As well as exploring all the everyday romantic delusional states that my former workmates and friends were experiencing as I saw them, to develop the scenery of surrounding characters in the book's setting of the nightlife hospitality industry.

Along came film producer Sophie Neville (in real life, not the story - IMDb profile here), and she wanted to have a read. So quite willingly I let her check out my first unedited proofs. Not only did she come back with tips on proofreading annotation and shorthand to help speed up my editing, she emailed asking me to ring, which I did one afternoon before heading to the day job - and she couldn't say more glowingly how great the romance parts of the story are, and how amazing and original they are. Humble thanks was all I managed on the phone, before having to make my excuses and go to work, but have been in a state of shock about ever since.

Either I over-compensated with my imagination for lack of experience, or I don't have the self-censorship of having real romantic events or intimacy to hide in my past, or to keep private. But I go from feeling vaguely fraudulent, to feeling shame that perhaps I've unleashed something that will raise single women's expectations beyond realistic achievement in real life if they go looking for it, to basic curiosity about what I'm missing out on - if a worldly, experienced and accomplished professional in the Media world can identify with and praise the kind of stories that come out of my own inexperienced head. At one point I even thought I had writer's block, trying to keep the scenario running. But I cracked it in my own way - I just can't believe that an antisocial hermit like me can come out with something in that scheme of things, that a fully-grown reader can find so appealing.

To find out about it, you'll just have to check out DEATH & THE CITY: Book One (and Two, which follows on directly, as they were too big for a single paperback volume) on Kindle now - and in paperback next month.

Anyway, enough about my noisy insecurities and depressingly lifelong singledom. (I don't drink, so don't tell me to go to bars or parties *bleck* - saw too much of that sort of thing scraping them off the dancefloor when I was an SIA bouncer).

Instead of taking my car out for a thrash tonight and running in my new brake discs with a bit of Fear Factory's Remanufacture or the latest Pendulum CD, I downloaded CHASE AND STATUS: "No More Idols" from Amazon MP3. Now, that's what I call therapy :) Can't wait to get my hoop out tomorrow and hula my way through the tracklist.

It's dark and beckoning and gives as much attitude as a pack of Komodo Dragons in a cemetery full of shallow graves. Some of the tracks are truly cosmic, including "Blind Faith" featuring Liam Bailey, and "Time" featuring Delilah, and pack that proper big-style anthemic sound that you really need to get you out of that gyroscopic introspection when it's really eating away at you.

Plus the lyrics pack a punch that ring true as well. If you're advanced enough in your self-repair processes to handle a bit of "Fool Yourself", having it mashed in your ears is a good reminder that you're not alone :) Awesome stuff.

If you are finding that you have more internal questions than answers these days, I recommend "Head Case" by Dr. Pamela Stephenson Connolly, and if you can get hold of them, the self-help books by Dr. Raj Persaud that put psychoanalysis and mental health on daytime TV. The research was valid - even if the credits/referencing were vague ;)

For more background info on surgical psychosis, check out my case study on the homepage of www.screenkiss.co.uk

In the meantime, download No More Idols by Chase And Status, and dance off some of that troublesome adrenaline and dopamine clogging up your system...

xxxxxxxxx

The Voodoo Interview: Ist Das Mich, Auf Amazon.de Kindle?

Lisa Scullard on Amazon.de Kindle (also Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk)

...Please be aware that the extent of my German in the exams at school, writing a sample letter for the imagined purposes of 'hiring home help', only goes as far as "Wir haben keine Kellar, wir kannst alles machen eine Kellar" which is very bad taste (and terrible grammar, an even greater crime in the language classroom). But in my defence was written many many years ago, before I even wrote Living Hell. In which more of my questionable approach to YA satirical literature can be found - especially considering I was a teenager myself at the time I wrote it. Wilkommen, Freunden! If I just called everybody Freudian, I do apologise. I should probably stick to writing what I know - particularly in a language that I know.

If I slip into the language of MS-DOS, please feel free to initiate a PC scan. Although this, of course, will only reassure you that the stuff it reveals was already there.

Anyway - this is me. Well, on a good day, or possibly night. Not currently the version of me sitting here typing, wearing a Tesco's Royal Wedding "Marry Me Instead!" t-shirt, eating Nik-Naks and wondering why my cup of tea is nearly cold already. Especially considering the temperature outdoors this afternoon. That's my real hair. Occasionally it tries to choke me in bed, if I don't tie it back. This is not as much fun as some people would believe. Particularly when there are no witnesses, and it gives you thoughts about being strangled by an invisible poltergeist.

I've recently taken up hula-hooping. This is definitely as much fun as anyone would believe! I hooped all the way through "Ultimate Santana" on the patio a couple of days ago, when I got my first custom hoop. Only the cat was annoyed, as it meant he couldn't get to his bowl without nearly being lasso'd, but he got over it. Pretty much as soon as the music stopped, the miaowing for food started.

...Also, according to my stats, and Google, this blog is a match for the search 'X-Rated Muppet Pics' :) Who's looking for x-rated Muppet pics? Shame on you! LMAO :)

But back to the subject. In the last month, I've edited and published three books onto Kindle - Living Hell (as mentioned), Death & The City: Book One, and Death & The City: Book Two. All three will be available in paperback from Amazon and Barnes&Noble in May 2011 as well. That's a grand total of 350,000 words proof-read and edited. My eyes are now squarer than the front of a Hummer. Hopefully, most of them can now be read by a sane person... I try not to discriminate against the mentally able - they have so much to give to society.

Also, exclusive to eBook format (because it's chuffing MASSIVE) is the 2-in-1-plus-1 "DEATH & THE CITY: HEAVY DUTY EDITION" which contains both books in the start of the Tales Of The Deathrunners series, and bonus material - the original feature film script "Heavy Duty" written in 1990. Later inspiring me to redevelop it as the background story of a character in a novel, leading to Death & The City.

DEATH & THE CITY: HEAVY DUTY EDITION on Amazon.com

I got the idea to include this version in Kindle format, after speaking to Jason Kingsley (Rebellion) at The London Book Fair last week. He was panelling a discussion on Transmedia, and the potential for eBooks to be more than the sum of their chapters, which has been explored by a few authors already. An eBook doesn't have to be just the electronic version of a print book anymore. The potential for reference books to have external material added is already huge. But the skill, in fiction, is going to be in holding the reader's attention to the end.

So you never know...

...Unless you try.

xxxxxxx

The Voodoo Preview: Lisa's Bookshelf

Out now - and coming soon...

L xxxxxx

The Voodoo Valentine's Review: How To Meet A Guy At The Supermarket by Jessica L. Degarmo

...Now see how a real author puts it better... Jessica L. Degarmo on Amazon

...The conclusion being that I've just been looking in the wrong places for romance all of my life, so whatever I do next obviously can't involve nightclubs, or loitering in cemeteries. I can't believe all that time spent as a teenager was wasted. Except of course for the zombie muses, but with a name like Voodoo Spice I don't think that comes as a big surprise.

Anyway, on the HarperCollins writer's forum website, authonomy.com, is a lot of talent. And some of them can write as well! And most of them, I can't even picture having spent any time at all sitting in trees, sneaking around in burnt-out derelict buildings, or reading gravestones when they were youngsters. It is a real eye-opener.

One of my favourite authors on the site so far, whose writing skills go far beyond the range of my immediate knowledge (trust me, after understanding the concept of a Valentine card, I have no experience what the rest of the stuff on sale this time of year is used for) is Jessica L. Degarmo. Now published by Night Publishing, I bought her first novel "How To Meet A Guy At The Supermarket" soon as it was available on Amazon.co.uk, and a hilarious migrating decimal-point pricing error had been addressed. I mean, wow. Like she said herself "I can't wait to see what the royalty on that is!"

So the book arrived, featuring a lovable character called Quinn, whose dilemmas meeting men are only matched by the challenges of keeping her writing column entertaining, and once she hits upon a way to combine the requirements of both, puts on her best produce aisle-strutting shoes and heads out to practise squeezing grapefruit with intent.

But real men out doing their weekly food shop aren't there to be plucked from the shelves like a special offer. Quickly sussed out by the staff, and confusing the occasional entirely well-meaning elderly gentleman or First Aider presented by her antics, she wonders how she's ever meant to find a relationship - or write a popular themed column - when she's closer to being barred from the store and restraining orders than to any dates.

But dates she does find, from a handsome beach babe to a Mr. Average with the passion of a cornflake, to finding love in the form of replacing her imaginary lost dog with a real one. And all along, you kind of know she's going to fall on her feet by the end...

Jessica's style of writing is perfect for romantic comedy, how she pushes her female protagonist to the cringe-worthy limits of a singleton's comfort zone, but brings her in line with humour and her character's own sense of the absurd in her situation.

I said to Jessica, having read this in one sitting, that I felt like I was watching a Jennifer Aniston movie. The story is so accessible and the humour so warm, and the character so identifiable, that I'm sure in the right hands it could go a long way indeed.

If you're single this Valentine's, (and zombie tales don't do it for you, although I can't think why not!) Jessica's laugh-out-loud book can be found on Amazon now in paperback and Kindle. Enjoy :)

L xxxxxxxx

The Voodoo Preview: The Terrible Zombie Of Oz

Out now in the Amazon Kindle Store

...Also out now in paperback (Click HERE for online store)

L xxxxxxx

The Voodoo Review: ...A Short Story Interval

...Read more Voodoo Spice fiction HERE...

Tawdry Audrey

Audrey Hepworth straightened her Little Black Dress and rang the doorbell. The excitement was mounting inside her, curling and coiling like a snake in a basket. All it needed was the right tune and it would emerge, taking all her inhibitions with it…

Her first real job. She patted her French-pleated hair and adjusted her pose, wondering if her sunglasses should sit on her head or remain in her hand, dwarfing her tiny clutch-purse. A sudden flutter of paranoia made her look down at her white heeled pumps, looking for imperfections, and as she did so, the studded oak door swung inwards.

Oh, God. There he was. Answering his own door. She had expected a maid, if not a butler. Failing either of the above, a PA.

"Audrey, my dear," the Bohemian movie director greeted her, as if an acquaintance, not a stranger. "Come in. Welcome to my humble palace. A little drink, to begin with? I hear this is your first?"

She nodded and her ‘thank you’ came out as a husky whisper, followed by a blush of humiliation at her lack of confident tone. She stepped into the atrium, noting twin marble staircases either side of the ostentatious entrance hall, and a huge dome of skylight overhead.

"I rarely have company," he confided. "I think I shall enjoy this afternoon."

She followed him to the first living room. Marble hallway floors leading onto deep shag pile carpet, as silent as a panther to walk on after the echoing solid tiles. Vast sofa beds in a Moroccan style, strewn with silk and tasseled cushions in jewel colours. She had heard he was decadent, and his early films hinted at a personality steeped in debauchery. She could almost see the aftershow parties, smell the hookah pipes and hear the hypnotic Eastern music. In the night-time, with those sconce lights down low and candelabras lit… she startled herself with a visible shiver at the thought of what must already have passed here, into the pages of Hollywood history.

"Watch him," Marguerite at the office had warned. "They’re all the same. Play the sweet little elderly man role until you go upstairs, and suddenly it’s closets full of black latex gimp-wear and shackles on the four-poster beds. Those supermodel wives never live there full time. They’ve always got a secret apartment in the City where they can be normal and not have to look at the trophy husband’s collection of pornographic Greek urns and dildo statues…"

"I have already agreed a fee with your employer," he began, interrupting her thoughts from where he stood at the groaning drinks cabinet, rendered immovable on the property by the weight of crystal glasses, decanters and bottles. "I was wondering if there was room to negotiate for one or two extras?"

"Hmmm?" Audrey croaked, accepting a large glass of what she was sure was neat gin, but was too embarrassed to point this out as his hand tinkled in what she was sure was genuine frailty as he replaced the bottle’s crystal stopper. "What did you, er, have in mind?"

"Rather than just exploit my surroundings," he smiled, rather conspiratorially. "I was hoping to have my love of art indulged also."

"I heard you frequently paint yourself," Audrey agreed, bravely taking a sip, feeling her throat constrict in protest at the undiluted spirit, and wondering if that phrase could have come out better.

"A hobby. I painted nudes. Many girls willingly posed for me. Not all of them as lovely as you," he said, indulging her with another smile. "I would like to show you my private gallery of collected works. Some of them deserve special interpretation."

He led the way to a door hidden behind a voile and velvet curtain, and unlocked it with a keypad.

"Not even my wife knows about this room," he said. "At least, I hope she doesn’t…"

Audrey followed him into the gallery. Marguerite did have a point.

"I often wonder how these were posed for," he mused. "And if they were intended as instruction manuals. How do you think these would be reproduced, in practise?"

Audrey took a gulp of her gin, and gestured broadly at the room. At nothing specific, she hoped.

"Well, I can tell you," she began. Pausing for effect, she could swear she heard a goat bleat in the background, and the cluck of a hen who knew that its future was uncertain. She tried to stop a completely inappropriate squeal of laughter emerging. "The animals were usually dead. That’s how they stayed still for sketching and painting. Very few artists of this era painted anything living from the animal kingdom."

"Is that true?" His disappointment was louder even than the very definite sound of goat in the background now.

Audrey swigged again to try and cork her laughter.

"And the models - it was sort of a game for them. Who could get the most bizarre job, or appear in the freakiest painting. Like Jackass and Youtube."

"A kind of artist’s life model X-Factor?" The Bohemian’s face sagged another three centimetres.

"My Masters was in Art History." At least this was true. Her stories of sordid life model tales were what had wowed the interview panel at the magazine, after all. What with all the applicants for the post wanting to stalk celebrities, case up their homes, or marry a footballer, Audrey’s application stood out, they told her afterwards, as Someone Who Could Tell A Great Story - not a nobody who was trying to become one.

Audrey stepped back into the living room, with the director following with a sigh. She decided to turn up the charm, raise his mood a little.

"I’ll mention you’re an avid collector." She opened her purse, taking out a personal recorder before commencing the interview. "The photographer would certainly find them interesting. What do you think of Vallejo and Giger? Now there are some stories of fantasy poses that would boggle your mind…"

L xxxxxxx

 

The Voodoo Review: Mark Watson (Live At The Apollo)

http://markwatsonthecomedian.com/



Friday 10th December, 2010 - I and my imaginary friend, a.k.a author Lisa Scullard, go to see Mark Watson perform stand-up comedy at the HMV Apollo, Hammersmith, London. I say imaginary friend, because we had two seats to ourself :) A small fleet of us, The Stood-Up Brigade, were comparing the seating positions of our spare tickets just prior to thinking collectively "Sod it" and running inside so as not to miss the start. Even so, once I got upstairs and found my seats, for a moment I was nearly bumped from them by a man who imagined temporarily that he had more than his quota of real life friends with him and was under the impression he had bought the whole row. Bless him. But the end two had Voodoo written all over them. If he'd known that, he probably wouldn't even have wanted to sit his own imaginary friends there either.

Comedian Mark, who describes himself as "a little bit Welsh, a little bit West country" has more chatter than a sackload of monkeys. And he's engaging as well as funny - if you've seen his appearances on Mock The Week, or his current TV show Mark Watson Kicks Off, you've seen a snippet of his humour - seeing him live really does him justice. He's a generous performer as well as intelligent, there's no sense of him holding anything back, and his enjoyment of performing infects the audience. A very, very likeable personality. A youngster's active mind meets philosopher of age in a grown-up world which at times seems to be like Babel to live in.

If you want to know what that means, go see him :)

"Eleven" by Mark Watson (to buy on Amazon.co.uk)

Right at the end Mark mentioned his novel "Eleven" (published by Simon&Schuster) was for sale downstairs and he'd be signing copies in the lobby for anyone who wanted to come and say hello. So I went down to grab a copy and started reading it in the queue for autographs. It's great to see more fiction by comedians - a Voodoo Review will follow later at some point...

Not only did Mark sign my copy of "Eleven", he also signed my travel-sized copy of Glamour, right across the lovely Kylie Minogue, with great pleasure. Now that's a magazine that's staying on my coffee table...

Mark's a fast mover as well as talker... :)



...I feel sorry for my real life friend who didn't make it to the show - you missed a good one, dude!

(Mark Watson is on tour now - click here for dates)

L xxxxxxxx