Magna Edition #1: The Magic Christmas

Even though we already HAD a Christmas in Sweet Valley Twins' sixth grade (Super Chiller #1, which had 3 Christmas ghosts a la Dickens), we're having another one because this one is MAGIC. I wrote and drew in this book, like allllll my other SVT books. I will have scans of some pages of Copy 2 (yes, I defaced the book so much, I had to start a new copy... well I didn't HAVE to, but that's how I roll) added to this post at some point later.
Anyway. This one is the first MAGNA edition, which means more pages to read and delight or whatever. The Magna editions were all Christmas stories (except #100 which was technically also a Super Chiller), so there were two more Christmases after this, each plagiarizing a well-known movie ("It's a Wonderful Life" and "BIG," if ya wanna know).
In The Magic Christmas, the twins' grandparents give them each a (creepy) antique porcelain harlequin doll, which both turn out to be magic. Dolls are *really* princes of a magical land, under a curse. So the twins solve the riddle and follow them headlong to magic-land, to have their own magical adventure (and this was way before Harry Potter, so it was just a general fantasy pastiche). And the grandparents were in on this. They knew about the riddle and the curse. They were shopping for Christmas presents and thought, "Hey, let's give our granddaughters those HAUNTED antique dolls and plunge them into a dangerous adventure in a magical fantasy land." "OK." I mean, it's possible they thought the twins were too stupid to solve the magic riddle that opened the portal and turned the dolls back into princes. But, the twins had magical help from their riddle-solving dreams, aka plot device. (If they hadn't solved the riddle, they'd just go back to being mad at each other about their respective Christmas presents, without a handy Magical Land to make up in, and there'd be no plot).
And naturally, even when threatened with monsters and non-sexy evil sorcerers (evil sorcerers should always be sexy, but in a book for twelve-year-olds, he was just old and smelly with a long-ass beard; BOO), the twins, with the aid of their magical princes, managed to survive and not get magically maimed/ eaten by a bludrat/ devoured by a serpasaur.
Yeah, the author made up new names for magical beasts. Should've been clever, but I'm so over it. The mermaids were called "mermanons" and had scales up to their shoulders, because bare boobs were too risque, I guess. (I hated that kind of mermaid as a child. I thought Disney's "The Little Mermaid" and its seashell bras were Gospel). The basilisk was a serpasaur, etc. Except the unicorns were still called unicorns. WHUT. When I read this the first time at age twelve, I was like, how come they aren't called something weird, too, like "unithorins"? Answer: who knows. Or the writer got tired of making up shit.
Another thing: The princes have the same exact personalities as the twins, but the boy version. Dorin is thoughtful and considerate, and will make a good king. Adair is reckless and just wants to party/ go to war/ be a rash and thoughtless ruler. *BUT* each twin is paired with her opposite in personality. (For those keeping score at home: Jessica is paired with Dorin and Elizabeth with Adair. because the twins are separated for most of this adventure, each blindly following their doll-turned-prince into who-knows-what.) These pairings are because the author assumed that 12-year-olds would subscribe to the "opposites attract" deal, not having taken Psych 101 yet, to learn about The Matching Hypothesis. Yes, there's romance at 12. The twins each get a crush on their respective prince, but then they go back to Sweet Valley after the kingdom is saved and forget all about them. They are given the choice to stay in "The Hidden Kingdom" but choose to go back to dumb old Sweet Valley, of course. Even though the Hidden Kingdom has MAGIC. I would have stayed and gotten fat and lazy on magic, y'all. All the cool clothing and books I could conjure. (I am both twins, because I like both fashion and reading). OK not really.
Anyway, the main reason for mentioning this book on this blog is because it was the only SVT book with a real fantasy sequence. Like, it wasn't a (dumb/implausible) dream like Elizabeth's in The Class Trip. So, therefore, I could have my witch character Piper come visit Sweet Valley and wreak havoc and it wouldn't be much of a stretch. Keep this in mind when you read Book 1, The Babysitter.
(I couldn't have a sexy evil sorcerer, because in a book for middle schoolers, that isn't allowed.)

HEY LOOK A COMMENT

woot I have a comment on Goodreads

(that I am obsessing over)
I'm glad that line was appreciated even though I thought it was kind of clunky/ more "tell" than "show"/ not a proper joke...
..and then this reader apparently stopped at 77%? maybe because she thought it went really weird/ hated it? (Hello, Obsess-y.)
Well, then she gave it 3 stars. OK thx!

Sweet Valley High covers, with captions

Special Christmas - Liz: "Ooh, what is it??"

Jessica: "It's EMPTY bwahahaha!" (you know that would totally happen)

Spring Break, based on their expressions: 

Liz: "OMG FRANCE!"

Jess: "THE AIR IS SO CLEAR"

All Night Long - Sorry, Jimmy Art, but the guy you painted does look like a gay porn star.

Power Play - Jess: "Let's wear gingham blouses and have a staring contest"

Liz: "All your outfit needs is a chianti candle and a menu" (stole that joke from MST3k)

No Place to Hide - Liz and Jess, based on the position of their hands:

"My face!" "My clavicle" "They've been touched!!"

Deadly Summer: "HERP DERP" "AHHH"

SVT "Evil" Stories

I started writing these SVT stories when I was about 16. I used to call them "evil" stories because they really turned me on, but since I was getting turned on by witches and demons and power-over, I felt weird about it. (Really wanted to work on them for Creative Writing Class in 10th grade, but was mortified at the thought of someone READING them. Or having to read them out loud, myself. Especially since they were essentially fan fiction for a book series I was embarrassed about reading). In retrospect, every time in my cycle, as a teenager, that I needed to masturbate, I was probably writing/re-writing "evil" stories. (I didn't own a vibrator at 16, had to get my jollies somehow).

Then one day I mentioned the "evil stories" to my psychologist at the time (they were mostly a secret: only my best friend Sa knew about them) and she was like, " 'Evil'... like Men and Little Girls??" and I was like OMG NO. *That* doesn't turn me on. Ick. I tried to explain that it was Sweet Valley twits and their babysitter was a witch (with supernatural powers, not a Wiccan) who was terrorizing them, because they were awful characters in bad literature... it didn't sound right. Piper and Tobias are supposed to be teenagers in my stories anyway, so that makes it not as bad, I think. (They don't do anything sexual to the twins and their brother, they just terrify/ bespell them, for funsies.) Although it gets a little sketchy with the scene in #1 The Babysitter with (demon) Tobias and Elizabeth. But that was toned way down from my original incarnation. He's a teenage hipster demon, not Tim Curry in Legend*. Also nothing creepy/sexual could happen in SVT, because they were 12, and even when Jessica lied about her age and tried to date a 16-year-old (Book #15), Nothing Bad happened and the guy just was embarrassed about it. SVT is far removed from real life, something I make fun of in my books. Obviously, because the publishers didn't want to freak out middle-school girls with Cautionary Tales. Not until Sweet Valley High, anyway, and even then, the twins (Jessica, mostly, and Elizabeth after coming out of the personality-changing coma) narrowly avoided rape/kidnapping/murder on what seemed like a regular basis, with no emotional scarring. In regards to that in SVH, just WHUT.

I sometimes think I should be writing Sweet Valley High parodies, because then the twins actually have the potential to be murdered (like Margo tried to do in The Evil Twin). But then there can be no supernatural stuff**, which is what I like the best. Also, they can't be killed either way, not for being annoying, at age 12 or age 16.

*I will probably end up talking more about Legend later... Tim Curry as the Lord of Darkness and Robert Picardo as the swamp witch Meg Mucklebones: So Nifty
**except for the (stupid) vampire and werewolf trilogies. I will review the vampire ones on this blog since Robin Hardwick didn't seem to have as much fun as I did (and I was defacing them, not just reading/ reviewing them)

Another trope, another dollar

One of the things I do differently (from the real SVT Super Chillers) in my plots is that Elizabeth still has to bail her twin out, even when the events are supernatural. Like, in SVT, they must've decided that Elizabeth always bailed Jessica out/ tried to rescue her anyway, so let's switch it up and have Jessica, the irresponsible twin, have to save Elizabeth. This is prevalent in #3 The Carnival Ghost (Liz is controlled by evil ghost who makes her forget her twin... too bad it didn't take) and #9 Evil Elizabeth* (Liz wears a haunted mask that she found in a dog's mouth and it makes her more like Jessica, horrors! And since there can't be *two* Jessicas, Jessica has to save Elizabeth and make her be saintly again).
I guess it's more fun to have Jessica be the one haunted/ cursed/ whatever so I can point out that no matter how annoying Jessica becomes from this transformation, it's par for the course for Elizabeth. She will always want to save her bitchy annoying twin and make her "back to normal" even if "back to normal" is awful. Dolt.
So I pushed that even further by having Jessica be turned into a vampire. This happens in Books 4 and 5 (a two parter) which I haven't published yet. I re-read them recently and I really rather love them. They are humorous. But they deal with pubescent vampirism, so maybe that's weird. Like I took the sexiness out of vampirism completely (because I had to).
Also, all my books take place on Halloween, because that's the best time for spooky things to happen in books for 12-year-olds. Various SVT Super Chillers took place around Christmas (Super Chiller #1, #3), on Spring Break (#2, #6), and Mysterious Summer (before or after 6th grade? No One Knows)(Super Chiller #4, The Ghost in the Bell Tower, the one I've defaced the most and have 3 copies of, all defaced slightly differently)(Also Super Chiller #8, another camp story, even though there already was a camp story with Super Edition #3), and were not as scary. Like they weren't even trying.
Plus, having it always be Halloween is a comment on how many times they've had various holidays in this series, and how they've been going to 6th grade for 10 years. In fashion terms, they've gone from jumpsuits to Doc Martens. I usually pretend my books take place in the 90s rather than the late 80s because that's when I was reading SVT, mostly.

*Elizabeth didn't really turn evil - she didn't go on a killing spree or anything. She was just mean/ bitchy/ a punk.

Alternate Universe Sweet Valley Twins

The rising action in the narrative of my dreams is paved with used books (literally - stacks of books exist where they don't in real life, creating walking paths and walls). Used books, like gumball machines that I can use without putting in a quarter, are something I see in my dreams a lot. They are always secondhand paperbacks, stacked with the spine facing up like at the library book sale. I am hunting through the titles until I realize I'm dreaming and get Lucid. This usually happens when I come across the Alternate Universe Sweet Valley Twins books. The Alternate Universe Sweet Valley Twins books are books that seem like real Sweet Valley Twins books, until I notice that the number is wrong or the title is weird or the cover picture is completely different (and not just because it's Bruce Emmett illustrating instead of James Mathewuse, like the overhaul they did in the late 90s). See here:

(same book, different cover illustrator)
I call them Alternate Universe because they seem like they could exist at first - because one time, in an older copy of a real SVT book, the title listed for the next book (listed at the end, where they usually ask a question and say "Find out in the next book [title]") was different than when the next book actually was printed/ published. Like, #33 was listed as The Wakefields' Visitor at the end of Book #32 but when #33 really came out, it was called Elizabeth's New Hero. Clearly just publisher oversight due to the fact that the next book in the series comes out every month. But the alternate title would exist in a parallel universe.
I like to think that Piper, my character, exists in the Alternate Universe Sweet Valley Twins books. Of course, once I happen upon one in my dream, then realize I'm dreaming, the book changes/ ceases to exist. It's hard to hold onto things in dreams. Sometimes I get lucid enough to realize, "Damn, my brain is awesome for being able to completely recreate, visually and as a tactile sensation, a mental version of all these books." With title and layouts and cover pictures and text inside that I can sort of read, sometimes.

A Trickle of Royalties, Can't Complain

Got a notice from Amazon KDP saying a deposit would be made soon. I sold a smattering more copies of the Kindle versions of my books. Yay! Love that game. Although if it could explode into popularity, that would be nice too.
I was just reading The Heretic's Daughter by Kathleen Kent and thinking about Book 6 again. I haven't published it, so there's no need to worry that it's in poor taste. (In it, Piper the witch sends the inane twins back in time to Salem Village, 1692. Or actually, a facsimile in which the twins' family, friends and teachers all play a part.) They don't get hanged though, because the twins have a special immunity to being killed, from being the main characters (and from being 12, in the SVT series). Even when put in various dangerous (and/or supernatural) situations. I guess I'm just commenting on how fucked up that time period was, with the religious zealots, and the humorless Puritans and the sexism and racism. Women were owned by their husbands, slaves were owned by their masters, and children weren't allowed to play. It was bleak. And they were thoroughly convinced that they were doing their god's work. (It was entirely possible that they could sentence a 12-year-old to hang for a conviction of witchcraft, that's how serious they were. Although sentencing fictional characters to hang just for being annoying would be... odd.)
Furthermore, by "Sweet Valley-izing" it, I'm commenting on how resilient the twins are, no matter how ridiculous (and unrealistic) the dangerous situation is. (At some point Piper will give up trying to murder the twins, because it just doesn't work. Haha)
At any rate, waiting to see if I ever get reviews (or comments on this blog) concerning the first 3 books before I publish the next 3.

Rebooting SVH? Ugh.

I guess they're rebooting Sweet Valley High for TV? Or talking about it, or thinking about it... but, the Diablo Cody SVH movie still hasn't happened, so probably not. And would it be an 80s/90s nostalgia thing, or would it be completely updated like the new versions of the first few Sweet Valley High books? Because the latter sucks all the fun out of it. I was hoping if Diablo Cody made the movie it would still be 80s.

I remember when SVH the TV series came out, I was like, 12, and was mad that it wasn't Sweet Valley Twins (being that those were the books I read at the time). I was also mad that it listed *some* cities/ stations, but not mine. Like they listed 10-20 stations the show would be on and then just gave up and were like, Check Your Local Listings. It was like they were dissing my city (which at the time was Honolulu, HI and then Charleston, SC). I mean, not really, it's just that before the Internet really got going, it was harder to get information. The TV Guide was print, on paper, and came in the newspaper. Good times.
For an SVT show, I had it all worked out: each book in the main series would be half an hour long, and the "Super Editions" and "Super Chillers" could be hour-long specials (And Magna Editions would be 2-hour long Christmas TV movies?? haha). I mostly just wanted to see the Super Chillers, a la Goosebumps. And surely it wouldn't be too hard to find an 11- or 12-year-old pair of blond twins, even if they didn't have "sparkling blue-green eyes"? That would have been awesome, but instead I had to use my imagination and shit.
Now, obviously I want my parody series to be televised or made into movies, but as we all know, that isn't a thing. Unless I change all the names and pretend it's not fanfiction, like E. L. James did. But then it wouldn't be a parody - removing all the Sweet Valley in-jokes would leave a bizarre story of flakiness, (non-wiccan i.e. pretend/fake) witchcraft and puberty. Whatevs.
I'll keep dreamin', y'all.

Something that makes me feel weird...

So, when you click on the Amazon link, you see that my books are available *used* from sellers. I find that weird. Like, did the seller actually read it and is done with it, and is reselling, or did they just buy it to resell (or are they only buying the book - ordering the copy from Createspace - if it sells)? And how are they making a profit if it's the latter. I mean, they're charging more, but no one would buy it at a higher price. Also, I've revised/ corrected typos in my books multiple times, so depending on when they bought it, it could be a "wrong"/ earlier copy.
I know, I think too much. I just want my books to be liked, and also to be PERFECT (no typos, at least. I stand by my [sloppy] Rules of Magic for Piper, the witch babysitter).
And you usually only sell used copies of books that are in demand. So far, mine aren't. I hope they will explode on the scene at some point (even if for being bad, like 50 Shades of Gray... well, I don't have bad grammar/ incorrect colloquialisms in my books, and I don't want to be the bete noir of erotica - they aren't erotic so that's ok - but it does read like fan fiction.... really good fan fiction, I think. I guess what I'm saying is, it would be ok to be popular for being someone's guilty pleasure-reading).
I just threw out two earlier "wrong" copies of my books that were published on Blurb. I didn't want them to exist. I could've recycled them, but I didn't want to chance someone happening upon them by mistake, treating them like real books, and then disregarding them purely for formatting errors/ typos. That was my first try in publishing. Didn't have all the kinks worked out yet.
Yesterday I scoured my defaced-SVT books to find a doodle of Piper (my character in these books) to post on my FB page... but I didn't find one "good" enough.
Typical.

Sweet Valley Tropes

My audience for these books is very specific: I am targeting women in their 30s who either liked or hated Sweet Valley Books in the mid-eigthties to mid-nineties. However, feel free to read them if you are:
-of any other gender
-that age but only vaguely aware of those books or
-a younger person (well, 13+) looking for a YA horror/ fantasy/humor mashup
and see how it goes. Although I do think you should have some familiarity with Sweet Valley to get the jokes. There were certain elements that were hallmarks of the series. These tropes include:

• Jessica & Elizabeth LOOK exactly alike but have different personalities. So different that their creator called them "the good and bad sides of one person". Which is kind of an insult to twins. You can write about twins and give them different personalities (and have them be interesting) without commenting on their morality. I guess that isn't EXCITING or EXTREME enough, so we ended up with one twin who was boring and condescending and the other twin was a sociopath. This is more prevalent in Sweet Valley High. In Sweet Valley Twins (where they are 12), these extreme personalities are toned down. But still, Jessica will do something awful to her twin and Elizabeth will smile and say, "I could never be mad at you!" (Ugh). Or she's mad but then they make up by the end of the book. How handy.
• The twins are the main characters and everyone LOVES them. In Sweet Valley Twins (*and Friends*) there's always some random person who is new to the school or goes to the school already and is being mentioned now, because either Elizabeth is trying to "help" them (the token charity case), or if they're deemed "interesting" enough to be bugged by the Unicorns (Jessica's snobby club), then that happens (either the person is famous or "cool" and the Unicorns fawn all over them, or they're a freak and therefore snubbed by the Unicorns, while simultaneously being befriended/ felt sorry for by Elizabeth.) (This trope comes in handy for inserting my character Piper into the story and having it still feel "real"/SVT.)
• When supernatural events happen (in the Super Chillers books), the books ends neatly with the twins defeating the ghost/ breaking the curse/ solving the mystery and coming out relatively unscathed in terms of both physical and emotional injury. Then future books pretend nothing happened. (They are Stand-Alone plots). In Sweet Valley High the danger factor was heightened and made more realistic since they were older (i.e. less hauntings and curses, more drug rings, kidnapping, attempted murder).
• The twins always have money to buy things they want (especially when the item in question is relevant to the plot), despite only being paid in 1980s 12-year-old's allowance (sometimes without even doing their chores! WHAT KIND OF BIZARRO WORLD IS THIS), or else Jessica wants a new purple sweater and makes her parents/Liz buy it for her. In Super Chiller #1, The Christmas Ghost (confusingly both a Christmas story and a ghost story - a la Dickens - PICK A THEME HERE), Elizabeth wants a carousel horse statue (??? why) and Jessica decides she likes it too, and wants ALL THE PRESENTS so she convinces their parents that only she wants it and Elizabeth didn't like it at all. Then 3 Ghosts magically appear to tell Jessica that she's being a bitch, just in time for Christmas morning, so she reforms (but it doesn't last, obviously, because future books pretend like nothing happened/ Jessica is "reset.").
• Endless sixth grade year, with multiple Halloweens, Christmases, Spring Breaks, and even summer (they never say whether it's the summer before sixth grade or the summer after, weird). Endless school projects too, usually just in time to coincide with something similar happening to the twins outside of school, for a free Learning Experience.
• When things get dull at Sweet Valley Middle School, a New Student (or Prince/Movie Star in Disguise) always comes to shake things up. Depending on who it is, all future books must incidentally mention that person so we remember they go to this school now. It helps if one of them is friends with Our Stars, the twins. Or if it's a Super Edition/ Super Chiller, then they never have to be mentioned again. (GOOD we didn't like you anyway)

More Tropes in future posts :-)

New FB Author page...

I made an author page on FB from my regular page... so people (the random, hypothetical people who read my books) can Like... or tell me I'm crap. I feel very exposed.




















 I hope I don't get sued... but... parody laws, right?

Cover Designs

This is taken from my other blog, put here for handy reference.
>>Also, I'm considering re-designing the covers. I can design better covers than that. (Which is why I'm publishing under a pseudonym, so my former teachers won't be embarrassed.) It's just that my books are parodies of Sweet Valley Twins, and the cover reflects that, using the same dopey fonts, 90s layout, and an illustration in the style of James Mathewuse (who always made the twins in Sweet Valley High look like they were posing for a Sears catalog... and at 12, they're also ridiculously glamorous... or had various fashion mishaps*). I have to think about that more. Probably leave them the way they are for now. But I would love to redesign the covers for shits and giggles, maybe do something minimalist with object imagery instead of illustrated people. That would attract more readers. But they wouldn't know what they're getting into. It would be like a smack in the face. "What is this I don't even".




*Some of my favorites include "Liz's fly is open" (it was rendered in a way that made it look like that) and "Sure, wear a blue headband with a purple shirt... it matches." 
I feel like the Unicorn Club books (the series when the twins were in 7th grade and the Unicorn Club got a humanitarian makeover, and therefore included Elizabeth) was when James Mathewuse lost touch with reality as far as current fashion trends. The girls were often depicted wearing purple socks that matched their shirt when that trend died at least five years prior. Or like a big shirt over tights... maybe it was supposed to be a tunic top over leggings. (Yes, I'm the cover-illustration Fashion Police.)

Book #3: The Fortune Teller

Book #3 in my series, The Fortune Teller, is loosely based on Super Chiller #3, The Carnival Ghost. (In that, there is a carnival, and a fortune teller).

As we see here, Liz is able to rotate her head like an owl and be afraid of the titular ghost behind her. Also, an Aloha shirt is appropriate After-Christmas Scary-Story wear (in California, sure). (This story takes place after Christmas, which is probably Christmas #2 or 3 in the series. Not sure why Christmas is needed to start the story, except to indicate that the carnival comes to town on winter break. Later, the scary stories took place around Halloween, properly.) 

When I read this originally, I thought the creepy carnival and the fortune teller (who wasn't creepy in the book, they just thought she was) were more interesting than the boring ghost (who didn't even have a proper back story and was "evil" for no good reason*), so I made my character Piper (the witch from Books #1 and 2) the fortune teller. She and Tobias, who poses as her assistant (who is creepy, but not in child-molester way, natch**), haunt the carnival with the help of some vampire characters created by my childhood best friend, who hold the twins in their thrall, instead of the emotional-abuser ghost controlling Elizabeth. Ghosts are boring in SVT, anyway. (and the Super Chillers were mostly Ghosts, alas). At the end Liz has to point out that vampires are too sexy for books with a fourth-grade reading level, haha (they never did vampires in SVT, only ghosts, curses, Haunted Burial Ground, "Magic" (Haunted) Pen, and Evil Halloween Mask from a Dog's Mouth).***

BTW: I have ratings on GoodReads?? Not to sound desperate, but if anyone is reading my books, please comment on my blog or something. Thx for giving 4 stars (Book 1) and 5 stars (book 2), TELL ME MORE. (Also the moderator of Sweet Valley Unlimited on Facebook has ordered my 3 books, but I haven't heard from her so I assume she HATED THEM).

*also she died on a Ferris wheel before they were even invented, AHAHAHA. bad research skills, ghostwriter!
**It's surprising, when I go back and read these books, how many times there was a "creepy" adult and I didn't think much of it, because I was a kid. Like the books were saying, don't worry your pretty little head about this character, because the twins Always Use Good Judgement (or are fictional characters, so they have a kind of immunity to danger). Snort. Although in Super Chiller #6, The Curse of the Golden Heart, there were TWO creepy males. One of them turned out to be a scuba instructor/ cursed ghost (everyone knows, ghosts are eunuchs, so he wouldn't have tried anything), and the other was just after the treasure (of course there's a treasure). The latter one, the twins met alone on a pier and then were like, maybe we shouldn't have done it that way. Ya think? Luckily Nothing Bad Happened because they are the main characters and it wasn't in the plot.
***Oh, and Fake Zombie Girl Who Didn't Age for 25 years and Mysteriously Haunted Our Dreams.

SVT Super Chiller #5: The Curse of the Ruby Necklace

I already mentioned that when I was 11 I bought a boxed set of Sweet Valley Twins Super Chillers, #1-4, along with the latest one, (hot off the press! remember bookstores? This was from Border's) #5, The Curse of the Ruby Necklace. Then I curled up in a corner and read all of them while sucking on Gobstoppers. (Now, I can't stand the thought of eating candy that isn't chocolate... but I was 11, so yeah).
The Curse of the Ruby Necklace was the one I liked the most, although now when I read it (and deface it), it seems sloppy. The twins get bit parts in a movie, and naturally there's an unsolved mystery for them to get involved in on the side. Danger! Intrigue! All at age 12! The Movie People say they couldn't find Hilda (the suspected murderer, back in 1944) and assume she died. Elizabeth (the more logical, smarter twin) points out that if Hilda was a girl in the 40s (and it's now the 90s), Hilda wouldn't be that old and is probably still alive. Nope, The Movie People say, we searched with the police and couldn't find her. BECAUSE WE DIDN'T HAVE A GHOST TO TELL US THAT SHE GOT MARRIED. Yep, the movie people didn't even consider that Hilda could have taken her husband's name... LIKE MOST PEOPLE DO. Movie People are stoopid. So when the twins need to find Hilda to solve the mystery, they just look up marriages in old newspapers (on microfilm, in the library! Movie People can't be bothered with such heavy research). HILDA DIDN'T EVEN BOTHER TO SKIP TOWN BEFORE GETTING MARRIED. Which is explained in the book as "returning to the scene of the crime." And yet no one bothered her for years and years, she was able to lay low until the Super Twins (and their tagalong cousin Robin) needed to find her to figure out why the necklace is haunting them with nightmares (guess you can't get Lucid with a cursed necklace under your pillow). They easily track her down and learn that (shocker), she didn't kill Lillian. Derp.

Jessica looks stoned on the cover.* Also, when I was eleven I wished the cover illustrator had made their outfits more "even". Like Jessica is too bare and Liz is too covered up... but that's clearly a representative of their personalities,  HA... Also, Liz is wearing her watch too high on her wrist. It's sitting on her carpal.
ETA: Elizabeth is allowed to lie when she's being controlled by a supernatural object (the cursed necklace.) She tells her science teacher that she found an old bottle and uses chemicals unsupervised (Don't try this at home kids!!) to clean up said not-bottle-but-a-haunted-piece-of-jewelry (so it can sparkle at her ominously and control her more). Jessica, on the other hand, will lie without thinking twice because she's a crafty bitch. The necklace, of course, doesn't care who does its bidding as long as the derpy mystery gets solved. (This is important to note when reading my stories. Elizabeth can lie about supernatural events, even though she usually feels horrible for lying, unlike Jessica who has no soul.)

*OK full disclosure, I have never been stoned. I have lead a somewhat sheltered life due to various medical conditions and in high school/ college when most people were experimenting with drugs, I was worrying about when my next brain surgery would be. Although, in high school someone said I looked stoned, so there's that. (I wasn't stoned, I was depressed and had chronic pain.)

Robin Hardwick is my Hero

I feel like Robin Hardwick, author of the blog The Dairi Burger and book If You Lived Here, You'd Be Perfect by Now, has done a foot-in-the-door thing for me, with these books. Because she presented us with the idea of making fun of Sweet Valley High (a thing accepted by most people, except the negative-reviewers on Amazon who said it was "mean." They need to get a life). I mean, I've been defacing my SVT books for over a decade, but that's my own private quirk. I'm sure there were oodles of SV fanfic already on the web, but I find that weird because the "serious" fanfic and the parodies are mixed in together. Like, if you're making fun of it, it's not fanfic, it's the opposite. There were some parodies, I think.
I loved her book; it made me LOL. "Francine, stop trying to make rape chic happen." (Even though it needed a good proofreader. Always proofread/ edit before you turn your blog into a book.*)
So yeah, that makes it okay to do my thing (in my mind), especially since she was focused on the absurdity of Sweet Valley High only, and I am doing Sweet Valley Twins (so I'm not copying, promise!). Different series, still absurd. (Jessica was somewhat of a sociopath even at age 12).
Also it's a way to sneak my fantasy and horror themes on people, as a test run for later (to see if I can be an author).
Robin Hardwick also got to interview Francine Pascal and asked her point-blank about the ghostwriters, which is awesome. I love Ms. Pascal's rather vehement response. Yes, technically they did write the books, although Ms. Pascal probably gave them a very detailed outline.

*Or before you turn your Twilight fanfic into hideously bad erotica. Looking at you, E. L. James. With your 50 Shades of Bad Grammar.

Book #2: The Witch

The second book in my parody-series is inspired by book 3 in the Sweet Valley Twins series, The Haunted House (They could have called it The New Girl, but that was book *6*, with Brooke Dennis). It takes place during the first of many Halloweens in the series... (and it is creepy because Elizabeth and her friend Amy both dress as CLOWNS, AAAGH WHY). Nora Mercandy moves to Sweet Valley to live with her grandmother, who all the kids say is a witch because her house is run down and because they have nothing better to do (Internet hasn't been invented yet) than make up shit about a harmless old lady. They taunt Nora mercilessly, calling her a witch too (no originality). Especially the Unicorns, the club to which Jessica (the more annoying twin) belongs. This was in the beginning of the series when the Unicorns were meaner. 

At the end, it is revealed that Nora's grandfather is a retired magician who had a stroke, not a zombie as previously thought (these 12-year-olds are dumb/ horrible). And all is forgiven, even though all the kids treated Nora abominably and she would likely have some post-traumatic-stress to deal with. To which I say WHAT THE FUCK? (To add insult to injury, Nora's character was barely mentioned in later books. Although I think she did join the school newspaper with Elizabeth.) Clearly, this book's message was: Outcasts Deserve to be Taunted, and Will Roll Over and Take It.

So I wrote my own version, with my character Piper disguised as the new girl (with a new name, Fallon Morrison, just to be random) and she really was a witch BWA HA (hence the title... all of my titles are deceptively boring/vague, to conceal the madness inside). So she could get back at her tormentors (with her supernatural powers), especially snobby Lila of the entitled club.* Because that was much more interesting and a lot less annoying. In my story, Piper-the-new-girl's grandmother is a witch too, her grandfather is an evil sorcerer, and her boyfriend from Book 1, Tobey, appears too, as a demon. (I like demons as well as witches. Vampires are #3 on my list of supernatural creatures. Don't care about zombies, werewolves, or ghosts).
Also I put in an inside joke from "The Office" (US) because I love Creed Bratton. (Sometimes I think of actors when I write these characters, and then think, Stop That, Because You Can't Cast a Movie of a Book You Wrote That Isn't Even a Real Thing. I mean, you can, but it'll never happen. Creed would play Fallon's grandfather, and be awesome).

*Lila makes Nora be her slave, they actually use that word, which made me think, they wouldn't have done that with Maria Slater, the Only Black Character (who appeared many books later, in #50), but she was conveniently a former movie star so that made it okay for her to exist in Sweet Valley. Sweet Valley was super white for a California town... shouldn't there have been more Hispanic characters (who weren't just the help)? This was acceptable literature for kids in the late 80s, which makes me furious now. Rarr.

I dedicated this one to my childhood best friend. We used to play Witches when we were little.

Book #1 The Babysitter

I've been writing The Babysitter since I was 16. I only just recently got my shit together to finish it and (self-)publish it.
I always knew I wanted the twins (and their brother Steven) to deal with a witch. I like witches. They was never really a witch in Sweet Valley Twins, though. Unless you count the fairy tale witch in Elizabeth's very linear dream in The Class Trip, Super Edition #1. Noted because she wasn't even dreaming... she had gotten knocked unconscious. But, a nice fantasy dream sequence would be okay for younger readers, the author/ghostwriter must have supposed. Snort. (NEVER MIND THE POSSIBLE BRAIN DAMAGE... and the fact the Amy Sutton must have a SUPER head, because Elizabeth bumped her head on AMY'S head and Amy didn't get knocked out too[!!??]).
Here's the cover image for that book, which conveys"field trip" but not so much "random fantasy sequence" (also, either the twins switched their usual hairstyles or Elizabeth decided to be mistaken for a Unicorn by wearing tons of purple):

There were ghosts in the other Super Chillers, so why not a witch? And by witch, I mean a fantasy-person with magical powers, not a Wiccan. Jessica and Elizabeth at age 12 wouldn't know what to do with a Wiccan. (The Unicorns would probably make fun of a Wiccan, and Elizabeth would befriend her out of pity, but be a little bit scared of her... or condescending, "Magic isn't real," FU*).
Anyway, supernatural powers are more fun in this instance. Because we're all 12 and shit (or were, back in the day).
I reference some of the real Sweet Valley Twins books in The Babysitter:

•  #15 The Older Boy, in which Jessica (age 12) goes on a date with a HIGH SCHOOL JUNIOR and doesn't get forced into sex because the book is for 10-year-olds (how handy); 
• #54 The Big Party Weekend, in which their parents go on a trip and leave them with a strict older woman, who they immediately hate and play tricks on, and eventually have a wild party (because all 12-year-olds should be horrible to their elders... that's what all the cool kids do); 
• and Magna Edition #3, Big For Christmas (basically the movie "Big," Sweet Valley Twins style). That last one is important because it sets up my character Piper's backstory, and reason for wanting revenge. (It couldn't be because I personally found them, and their series, annoying. That would be too meta. Although I did consider it).

So, it helps if you remember reading these when you were younger. My books are essentially for women in their 30s who either liked or hated (or both) Sweet Valley Twins books as kids. But I market them as kids books... because they're parodies of kids books. No blatant sexuality or violence; everything is (mostly) like it was in Sweet Valley Twins. But lots of dark humor, natch, that would be better appreciated by adults. (It's kind of weird that my first 3 books are showing up on kids' books/reading sites. Like, whoops. I keep setting the reader age as 13 and up.)
I also reference the miniseries The Frightening Four (SVT #97-100), which was scary (intermittently, and painfully unfunny/boring all the other times) for three books and then ended with *another* instance of Halloween (Halloween #4, by my count), and the ending made no sense, like the ghostwriter just gave up. Suddenly the "villain" of the story wasn't supernatural, even though we thought she was for three books previous (and even though we've dealt with supernatural elements in other books [see ALL the Super Chillers], so that would have been permissible??), and also, if it was twenty-five years later, wouldn't she be 33 instead of a girl?? Or at least 33 and not still the same size to fit in the same raggedy nightgown. Since she's revealed to be (DUMB SPOILERS) a real person and not a Freddy Krueger-type dream-invading monster. Lame. (That was about when I stopped reading these books "seriously" because I felt like I was too old for them. You insulted my intelligence, SVT. I also wrote a scathing review on Amazon in the early noughts that somehow got lost in the early internet abyss). Oh also, the non-monster girl (the "non-sequitur" girl, cos she was so random, haha) wanted "revenge" on the twins' mom, Mrs. Wakefield, for something that happened back when Mrs. W was 12 (referred to as Alice Wakefield even though she was 12 and not married yet... ALICE ROBERTSON, WE KNOW HER MAIDEN NAME from other books)... so naturally she went after the twins, who had nothing to do with it seeing as how they weren't born yet. Um, that's not how it works. (The supposed "backstory" addressing this just popped up incidentally.)
I wanted to make a story that was scary (well, scary in Sweet Valley world, which means scary at a Fourth Grade reading level) and ACTUALLY MADE SENSE. (Well, mostly. If you have any issues with Book 1's magic "rules," just chalk it up to lazy ghostwriting, a hallmark of the original series).
If you're interested, you can buy this book using the links at right. Createspace for paperbacks and Amazon for Kindle (the Kindle versions are cheaper). Summaries/ blog entries of the other two books (and the ones after that, if I decide to publish them) to follow.

 

*well magic isn't real but witchcraft is the use of natural forces to effect change in one's life... bitch (calling Liz a bitch, not you)

Saccharin Valley Twits and Fiends: a Sweet Valley Twins (Horror) Parody Series

I thought I should separate my regular blog from my book blog.
Here's everything you need to know about my first three books:
Like many women in their thirties, I read Sweet Valley books when I was younger. Didn't focus so much on Sweet Valley High (when the Californian, sun-streaked blond-haired, blue-green eyed, perfect-size-six twins were 16) as Sweet Valley Twins, the spin off for "intermediate readers" (this series was when the twins were 12 and in sixth grade... which was weird cos I was mostly 11 in sixth grade, but whatever). The first Sweet Valley Twins book I read was #53, The Slime That Ate Sweet Valley. Purchased from my 4th grade Troll Book Order (remember those?). #53 was also known as, "Mr. Bowman the English teacher takes teaching advice from his students, who are minors without a degree in education, as a plot device, so the sixth-grade class can make their own movie." With video (tape) cameras, natch, cos it took place in the early nineties. Not sure what kind of editing devices they used, since computers were mostly for nerds in these books.

I thought that one was pretty interesting (I was 10) so I decided to get more (I also have a vague memory of reading books 1-3 from my school library in third grade). Then it swiftly became COLLECT THEM ALL. (I was, and still am, "Collect Them All" with a lot of things). I distinctly remember buying a boxed set of the Super Chillers #1-4 from Borders at Waikele Center when I was 11. Along with the latest Super Chiller, #5 The Curse of the Ruby Necklace. I liked the scary ones slightly better. Or the ones where Jessica did something ridiculous and everyone went along with it (see book #46 where Jessica enters a contest illegally and instead of punishing her, her parents teach her a lesson in exaggeration by utterly embarrassing her, bwahaha). She got away with such shitty things. Elizabeth was her enabler. Even at age 12!
At some point I decided they needed to ridiculed, so I started writing and drawing in them. (Attempts have been made to convert all these "defaced" books - with their pages and pages of remarks and doodles in pens of various ink colors - into Post Modern Art. But that would require everyone who came to the gallery to sit and read the books, and be able to decipher my handwriting, and get all the jokes... Like Mystery Science Theater 3000, with books. Didn't really work, alas).
I didn't have ALL the books in the series until my twenties - by then the series was into the 100s, had degraded and vanished (last book published in 1998, probably), and I had already defaced most of the books I owned. I still haven't read a couple of the later ones (which didn't have the same pizzazz), but from #1-#90 (plus the Super Editions, Super Chillers and Magna Editions) I have read each of them, and written in them, up to ten times! I am somewhat of a maniac in that respect. Maybe I'll post some page scans on this blog, so you can see what I mean.
In my teens - late 90s - I started writing my own Sweet Valley Twins stories... but they weren't exactly fan fiction. In fact, almost the opposite - I call it "die die die fiction." As in, the Twins Must Pay for rotting my brain with terrible fluff all those years.
I created a character named Piper who was a witch (such things could exist in Sweet Valley at age 12, because their "Super Chillers" often dealt with ghosts and curses). Piper was out to GET the twins. Bwaha! But she never really succeeded in killing them. This was for two reasons:

1. The twins, being the main characters that everybody LOVED (despite all their flaws) could be put in danger, but they never suffered any physical harm - and more importantly, they never suffered any lasting psychological damage, no matter what scary things (ghosts, not pedophiles... well, except in Super Edition #6, The Twins Take Paris, which wasn't even a Super Chiller!! WHUT... go look at that, it really is a thing!!) they went through. This was so the series could go on and on and nothing would change (except the common-rotation of ghostwriters.)
2. Which brings me to my next point, I had way too many ideas for messing with the twins (at age twelve... so, messing with them in a supernatural way, not an inappropriate way, mind you) to confine to one story. Plus, if I made it a parody, it clearly had to be a series much like the original. Except the stories would ALL be scary (well, scary for 12-year-olds, nothing too extreme, just like the original.) And/or magical, because the ones with fantasy elements - like Magna Edition #1 The Magic Christmas - were also more interesting to me at age 12.

I named my town "Saccharin Valley" to clearly mark it as satire and so it wouldn't be copyright infringement. I changed the twins' names to Elizabeth and Jessica Wastefeld. (I also changed other characters' last names, haphazardly, as a comment on the ghostwriters sometimes mispelling/ misnaming characters. Like one time Tamara Chase was referred to as Tamara Powell, randomly. And Maria Slater was Maria Hughes??).
So, these are the first three books in the series. There will probably be three more. After that, it's beating a dead Unicorn (unless people really like them, then sure, I'll keep writing!).