Guest - Parker Blue

[Debra wants you to know she did not write this introduction but thinks it’s funny.]

Parker Blue likes to pretend she’s a hip young chick—and even had a friend draw her that way—but in actually, she’s just a wee bit older than that. And as for being hip, well, maybe not, but she definitely has hips. She’s the author of the young adult urban fantasy Demon Underground series, and here’s what she has to say about herself:

Menopause sucks. They tell you about the hot flashes, night sweats, and mood swings, but they never tell you about the truly horrible part of menopause: noun loss. Ever since I started through "the change," I've been losing my nouns. I'll be talking away, using verbs, articles, adjectives and adverbs with ease, then I'll come upon a noun and be totally stumped. Especially proper nouns. Names?

Ha! Forget it. And what's that small black thing in my front yard the postman stuffs with bills and magazines? Not a clue. I know exactly what it is, but can't for the life of me figure out what it's called.

When I told my doctor about the problem, she laughed. She said a lot of women go through menopause and realize they're having a problem with their memory, but only a writer would identify the part of speech we lose. She promises me it's not dementia, not a sign of incipient Alzheimer's. No, it's simply menopause. My friends laughed, too, until it began happening to them, too. Who knew hormones could mess up your brain so much?

Wait. Hormones screwing with my brain? Oh, yeah. I've been there before...I forgot about puberty. Well, I didn't actually forget. I remember it very clearly (no nouns involved, you see). So that’s why I, a menopausal writer, can still write for young adults.

Besides, Deb Dixon made me do it. I originally wrote the first book of my Demon Underground series, Bite Me, as a paranormal romance, but she convinced me it would work better as an urban fantasy that would span the gap between teen novels and those written for adults. So, I rewrote it and she was right—it did work better.

Now, in the second book, Try Me, part-demon teen vampire fighter Valentine Shapiro and her faithful terrier hellhound, Fang, are once again patrolling the dark streets of San Antonio, Texas. Val's hunky human partner, Detective Dan Sullivan, is giving her the cold shoulder since she beheaded his vampire fiancée. Vamp leader Alejandro is struggling to keep the peace between vamps, demons and humans. The mucho powerful Encyclopedia Magicka has been stolen, someone in the Demon Underground is poisoning vamps, and Val's inner lust demon, Lola, is getting very restless since Val's now partnered with sexy Shade, the shadow demon with the blond good looks of an angel.

Well, whaddaya know, I managed to get through that without the loss of a single noun. Well, so far as you know. Luckily, my noun loss problem isn't visible to readers. If I have a problem remembering one, I can always come back later to fill it in and no one is the wiser. But make me feel better, will ya? Tell me it happens to you, too. If it doesn't, I'm not sure I want to know.

While I'm waiting for your comments, I'll take a break and see if I have anything to drink in the...uh, oh crap, you know—that big silver thing in the kitchen that keeps food cold....

http://www.parkerblue.net/