Haven't been here in awhile. Still waiting to see if Books #1-3 explode into popularity (yeah sure sparky) before publishing books #4-6, and technically #6 isn't quite finished.
I just saw Disney's "Alice Through the Looking Glass" and liked it, mostly. I mean, I will buy it when it comes out on DVD, because I have to Collect Them All, the Alice movies (except the 1950 Disney cartoon). But as an Alice's Adventures in Wonderland Purist, I had some quibbles.
Neither movie followed its book counterpart closely (well, it wouldn't anyway, for a modern audience expecting Steampunk-y fantasy), just took ideas and characters and mashed them up. And "Alice in Wonderland" had elements from both books (ex. Tweedledee and Tweedledum are from the second book, as are the Red Queen and White Queen. And the Red Queen was an amalgam of The Queen of Hearts from Wonderland and the Red Queen from Looking Glass. I hate it when they do that - like Disney's animated version). But there was Time as a character in this movie, which was fun. (Time was mentioned in the first book, as a character who made it Tea Time all the time for the Mad Hatter and Co., after being insulted when the Mad Hatter sang at the Queen of Hearts' concert and was Murdering the Time). Sacha Baron Cohen was kicky like in "Sweeney Todd," this time, not insufferable, like "Borat". So Yay.
Also, visually stunning, yada yada, despite not being a Tim Burton film. And I loved that P!nk song, even though the music video was played before the movie as a very blatant product placement. (Now I'm getting into her music again, just like I did in the early noughts).
Anyway. What does this have to do with my books, Saccharin Valley Twits? Well (I have probably mentioned this before), Book 5 is based on Through the Looking Glass. (The book titles in my series are listed inside the first page, just like SVT. Don't Miss Any of the Books in This Hideous Series, haha).
Book 4 is The Vampires Part 1: Blood Moon, loosely based on SVT Super Chiller #9 (in that I borrowed the scene where the twins and their friends have a seance at their sleepover, which provides handy plot foreshadowing, and I appropriated the idea that there's "an old Luna place" in their neighborhood [only mentioned in SC #9, of course]. How many run-down/possibly haunted mansions are in Sweet Valley, anyway?? At the old Luna place there was a Handy Magical Old Person [actually, I think Corrina was young, or Mysteriously Ageless*] in the neighborhood to help Jessica, when Elizabeth turns "evil" (or becomes a normal surly teenager) with the mask that she found in a dog's mouth. So I swapped out Corrina for another of my characters. If you're wondering, I don't plagiarize SVT; I re-appropriate. I just take bits from SVT from various books in the series and use them as jumping-off points to fuel my own plots/madness. And parody the series in general.) In this book, Piper appears as a "new student" yet again.
Spoiler, at the end of this book Jessica gets turned into a vampire and Elizabeth has to save her (of course). Being turned into a vampire is a temporary ailment in my writings, because these things never stick in the Sweet Valley Books (i.e. stuff happens in one book will never get mentioned again. It is like the measles, Joss Whedon; you do get over it. LOL). Piper the witch makes it harder for Elizabeth to save Jessica by having her vampire minion Fox take Jessica Through the Looking Glass into a magical land that poses a quest for Elizabeth, and that's Part 2 (Book 5). Piper essentially re-creates Looking-Glass Land for Elizabeth, using the twins' friends and family as counterparts of the characters (Tweedledee and Tweedledum, Humpty Dumpty, etc.) while Jessica is holed up in a castle with her handsome vampire prince, being made to forget all about her sister (bwahahahaha!). It has to seem believable, not seem too easy, yet you know Elizabeth will save Jessica in the end because she always does and Jessica can't stay a vampire because she has to go to high school in SVH and get a tan and shit (although being a vampire would be a good way to remain a perfect-size-six).
And How Handy, I decided the twins had read Through the Looking Glass (and Dracula, for the vampire knowledge - actually they were reading that in SVT #88) in school, because that kind of thing always happened in the SVT series (see book #80, which I mentioned in my book The Babysitter). So Elizabeth had that to help her in her quest.
I have mostly finished writing this book, I just have to decide if I want more scenes inspired by chapters from Through the Looking Glass. Because there's one called The Lion and the Unicorn (in which the nursery-rhyme characters are fighting for the crown, and Alice serves plum cake backwards i.e. hand it around then cut it) and it seems fairly obvious that I would include that, being that Jessica's in a club called the Unicorns. At some point Lila Fowler, Jessica's rich friend, gets sucked in to the magical land too, and she might be the Unicorn. maybe. What I have written seems sufficient, though, and is funny at times. (not to toot my own horn, but as a person who most of the time thinks she is awful, it's sometimes good to have positive thoughts).
I guess stop talking about it and do it. Or, Hypothetical Reader of this Blog, you could comment on this entry if this is something you'd be interested in reading and then I will publish. It is all Fantasy-Horror-Classical Literature mashup, with parodies of Sweet Valley Twins. How very specific.
*also in the book Corrina was white (what a shock) but at age 13 I was picturing her as Black, like a "Magical Negro" trope. Because if you're going to have a stereotypical personal magically appear to help Jessica with the dumb curse, you might as well go all out. And have one other Black person in SV, for fuck's sake. Also maybe I was thinking of the movie "Corrina Corrina" with Whoopi Goldberg.
