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It started on Twitter. Some young goth-oriented writer posted a tweet asking people to keep on her back about meeting her word quota for the evening. I tweeted back saying that if she failed to meet her obligations to herself, I would make her write "I love unicorns and rainbows and giant mushfests" 1000 times. Or something to that effect.
How David got involved in this, I'm not exactly sure. I do remember a tweet where I threatened to lob stuffed pink unicorns at someone's head (I believe it was David's. Or possibly Colleen Lindsay's). I also remember informing David that the only unicorn that would interest me would be a punk unicorn ridden by Keanu Reeves (my love for Keanu knows no bounds).
Over the next months -- we're talking MONTHS, people -- David would take random tweets of mine and find some way to refer back to unicorns. (example: me: I changed my twitter background and later in the day it mysteriously changed back. Twitter poltergeist? David: It's waiting for the rainbows and unicorns.) It got to the point where I was tweeting David in exasperation: You know very well that Unicorns Kick Ass is NOT MY MOTTO.
Finally, when I threw this question to the Twitterverse: A certain individual on Twitter will not leave me alone about the freaking unicorns. Is this not harassment? David informed me that the price of freedom from his tyranny would be a story. Written by me. About unicorns.
When he sensed my reluctance on the topic, he created this:
and this
An opportunity seemed to arise when Trisha Telep, who edited the anthology which includes my story "I Need More You", emailed me and asked if I would contribute to her paranormal YA anthology which comes out next year (KISS ME DEADLY). I responded with my usual nonchalance (YES YES YES YES YES) and she asked me What paranormal creature do you want? Sadly, unicorns was already taken, as were, emailed Trisha, ghost kids, lotsa zombies, fairies, banshees, vampires and demons (i think).
I tweeted this situation to David -- unicorns was taken. You weep. I know.
David responded with a challenge of his own:
You write a story. I will write a story. The contest? It must be a serious story. It must be "real" and as powerful as it's possible to make it.
I will find a publisher to publish both as a chapbook...
I felt a surge of killer instinct. I'm in.
He replied
Did I mention they have to be UNICORN stories?
But it's an intriguing challenge: to take the cuddly factor out of unicorns and return them to the mysterious, formidable creature they originally were.*
So. On my desk for the next few months: THE DECADENTS, my YA story of 10,000 words or so (I'm going to do something involving sorcery, inspired by a panel I attended at World Fantasy, and playing with the idea of girlpower*) and a story about freakin' unicorns.
I wish there was a point or moral to all this, but I'm not sure what it could possibly be.
* As Holly Black once pointed out, and I'm paraphrasing here, It's human nature to take what scares us and make it familiar and silly and kind of cute. It was a point I brought up months later at my zombie panel at World Fantasy, wondering how far we are from My Little Zombie toys, etc.
** I met the wondrous Francesca Lia Block at a group reading we did for Teen Week in LA recently, and we swapped books -- her PRETTY DEAD for my UNINVITED. I love, love, love the opening lines of PRETTY DEAD:
Teenage girls are powerful creatures...They are relentless and underutilized. They want what they want, and they wil do what they must to get it. Love, possessions, beauty, food, sweets, friends. Unless they are crushed so hard as to give up. But then they are just as relentless, only seeking different things.
So that, crossed with the World Fantasy panel about the representation of sorcerers in fantasy literature, has resulted in a YA story of my own, even if I don't know what it is yet.
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