“I bet she’s tougher than that…
…she runs with vampires.”
- Stephenie Meyer, New Moon

From More Everything: We’re designing a new line of jewelry inspired by our favorite books and one of our favorite subjects – vampires and werewolves, of course.

The first piece is a sterling silver wrist cuff, customized to declare your allegiance to the vampires or werewolves. The vampire edition comes complete with a cubic zirconia heart and garnet teardrop charm. The werewolf version comes with a pewter wolf and mahogany obsidian charm.

Here’s a sneak peek:

Visit the More Everything Etsy Store to purchase yours today!

“I bet she’s tougher than that…
        …she runs with vampires.”
                         – Stephenie Meyer, New Moon

 NOW IN STOCK:  Visit the More Everything Esty Store to purchase yours today!

From More Everything:  We’re designing a new line of jewelry inspired by our favorite books and one of our favorite subjects – vampires and werewolves, of course.

The pieces include:

• A number of semi-precious gemstone necklaces (Vampire’s Bite, The Lion, and The Wolf to name a few)
• Hand-stamped sterling silver cuff bracelets declaring your affinity to the werewolves or the vampires (these are really cool – I can’t wait to share them with everyone)
• Custom hand-stamped sterling silver pendants.

Ready for the best part?  We’re giving some away. 

We’ll be picking 10 lucky visitors to be the first on the block to own them  – must haves for any fangirl.  Leave a comment here (be sure to include your email address) and be entered to win.  We’ll be selecting our first winners randomly on Friday, May 16th.  Additional drawings will be held in the coming weeks as we have more details and more finished pieces available.  (Updated to add:  The giveaway is officially closed now.  Thanks to everyone who won.  These pieces and more will be available for sales in the coming weeks on www.more-everything.com).

Here’s a sneak peek at the first pieces:

I just saw the full cast list for the Twilight movie on www.stepheniemeyer.com.  In addition to that, I watched the clips from Entertainment Tonight and MTV about the making of the movie.  Now I can’t decide if I’m excited or not. 

There’s pieces that fit and pieces that don’t.  Watching the clip, Kristen Stewart is beginning to feel a little better.  Seeing her with Robert Pattinson feels pretty good (I think the height difference helps a lot  – it’s really quite perfect).  But Peter Facinelli drives me crazy (playing Carlisle) – he looks ridiculous.  The biggest bit of indecision?  Jacob of course.  Check it out:

This is the first picture I saw of Taylor Lautner who was cast.

He looks about twelve! Now I know that this is a YA read and that Jacob was younger than the rest of characters but this just threw that in my face.  So, as I was getting ready to put this post together I came across the picture below… 

So this is a little better.  But he’s still only 16 – at least in this picture he looks it.  And I’ll assume he’s growing his hair out for the part.

At any rate, I am sure that when it comes down to it I will anxiously waiting opening weekend along with everyone else.  With fingers crossed…

It’s hard being a fangirl of a book. Books are a whole other breed and I have to say that the Twilight series is probably my first foray into that kind of fandom. See, with TV or movies you have actors and stars and visuals assigned to you. There’s no arguing about what Buffy or Spike should look like because we started with Sarah Michelle Gellar and James Marsters. Even with comic books, you have the drawings. Now, you can argue who’s best suited for the live-action role of a certain character (as I have done many a time with Mark as we talked about the hypothetical casting of the Endless) but you still have a visual reference point.

The characters in books, though, lie in the mind of the reader. Sure the author provides the descriptive details, but every individual turns them into their own image in their head. I, for example, have a very strong image of Jacob in mind. It’s changed and warped as I’ve talked to other people. For example, I was at a concert and a guy walked by (I said to a friend, “Hey, did you see that guy?” and she looked at me and replied, “You mean Jacob?” “Oh my god,” I told her. “You’re totally right!”) and now he’s totally Jacob in my mind. Someone else might look at him, though, and tell me I’m crazy. I think a person’s images of some characters are stronger than others. I think I have a decent mental image of Edward, but my image of Esme may be more easily influenced.

So, again, being a fangirl of Twilight is HARD and I think that’s because of the inherent nature of “fandom”. We talk about it; we argue about it; we put images and music to it. The words take on a life of their own and a fan’s nature is to make that as tangible as possible. It’s pretty simple, but it makes things like movie deals all the more difficult. Since I first finished Twilight and discovered the fan community surrounding it I have had numerous incarnations of the characters to choose from. Even Stephenie Meyer threw her own choices into the ring. This is all fantastic because, when it was still just words, it brought the series to life that much more. Now that this movie thing seems to be really taking off, though, I think all these character picks are starting to backfire.

Basically, this is my long-winded way of saying I really don’t think I’m happy about the casting for Edward and Bella so far. I don’t like the girl from her pictures – I don’t think she has THAT quality. And while I love Harry Potter, and I like Robert Pattinson as much as I’ve seen him, he just doesn’t look like Edward. Now I’m holding my breath and hoping that after the casting for Jacob is complete I’ll still want to go see the movie.

I’m working on a scrapbooking project for myself on the Twilight books and I need some quotes from the books to include.  The problem?  I can’t read fast enough for my liking to find all the ones that I know I love!  So I’m calling out for any Twilight fans who have a favorite quote to share it here. 

Edit 5/7/08 to add:  This has been so much fun!  Thanks to everyone who’s left their mark so far – I’ve loved reading through all the bit and pieces and I’m sure everyone else has as well.  I just can’t believe how many great quotes I forgot!

So I’m not quite off this kick yet.  This one’s totally Jacob – when he’s taking off through the woods at the end of Eclipse and thinking back on what transpired with Bella.

First Day of the Rest of Our Lives – MXPX 

(I can only link to the album where you can preview the track – I can’t seem to find a stream of it anywhere and can’t upload any mp3s here.)

When I say that I don’t mean that I overreacted about how good the Twilight books are or how much they affected me.  I’ve totally come to grips with THAT fact (and I’ve managed to bring someone else down with me now, so I’m not feeling so lonely).  I’m starting to think that I may have overreacted a bit about Edward and Bella and my strong hate for that relationship.

Now that the haze has cleared a little and my wounds over Jacob are starting to heal I’m beginning to realize that everything with Edward and Bella is great and it will still be fun to experience and I’m definitely looking forward to the rest of the story.  I just needed to mourn a little bit.  And then start reading the books all over again…that’s gonna help a lot too.

I’ve been preaching this series to anyone who will listen right now.  I bought a second copy of the first book so that I could loan it to people – starting with a very close friend of mine.  I gave it to her last Monday and she called me on Tuesday to let me know she was already 200 pages in.  Then Wednesday, when I was on vacation, I got a voicemail about how crazy she was about it.  By the following Tuesday when I got back to work she had finished all 3 books.  Since then the two of us have had a terrible time focusing on the job at hand.  Instead, a lot of time has been spent on obsessing over the story.

She also helped talk me down from the metaphorical cliff I was on over Jacob.

Thank god – I’m not sure what I would do if I had to keep trying to talk to disinterested parties about the damn thing.

* *WARNING:  This post contains spoiler for the Twilight series by Stephanie Meyer, most specifically the last book Eclipse.  If you have any intention to read them PLEASE don’t read this.  It would suck if it was spoiled to this extent.**

 …from the latest installment in the Twilight series – Eclipse.  I started Twilight last Monday, I finished New Moon this past Saturday and now it’s Thursday and I was up until 1:30AM to finish Eclipse.  I reached a point of now return in the book where I was so hurt and upset that I decided I could not put off the ending another day and have to go through it all again.

I am really distraught over the ending of Eclipse.  I’ve been visiting the message boards and getting even more distraught because no one else seems to be on my side.

At the beginning of New Moon I was crying over Edward leaving Bella.  By the end of Eclipse I was crying WORSE over Bella leaving Jacob.  And now I’m just really confused by the direction the story took and how things can move forward from here.  Stephanie Meyer introduced Jacob so strongly and now Bella’s going to marry Edward and I’m stuck with a wrenching pain in my chest every time I think about it.  I’m hoping that me being this upset about it is just a product of the whole situation and stress in my life right now.  I’m strung out over this book like I was when Justin left Brian in the last episode of Queer as Folk and like I was after the last episodes of Buffy and Angel.  And why?  So that the stupid girl will go and run off with the nasty vampire.

After this installment of the series I really hate Edward and Bella – and that’s supposed to be the center of the series.  I’m not sure how I’m going to enjoy the next book if that is really what’s supposed to happen next.  And I’m a complete minority when it comes to the people who have been reading these books.

Why did she have to make everything with Jacob so heart-wrenching?  If it was going to come down to Edward in the end it would have been much easier for me if she hadn’t shared the vision Bella had of her and Jacob and their kids when they kissed.  To know that Bella and Jacob SHOULD have been together in the end, were it not for some stupid vampires – that’s what’s stuck in my head and what keeps pulling me back down.

The worst part is that I saw it coming throughout the whole book.  There were times where I could hardly bring myself to keep reading because I really felt like Jacob was doomed.  It made the whole experience somewhat uncomfortable and not nearly as enthralling as the others.  Don’t get me wrong, I loved the book and I’m sure I will be right there when the next one comes out and maybe someday I’ll read this one again.  I just wish everything could go back to the way it was in the first two books.

This whole marriage thing?  Ugh!  That must be the mormon garbage talking.  The whole thing was making me sick.  I got really frustrated with the story.  After reading the whole thing I just simply cannot understand how you can justify Bella’s character choosing Edward over Jacob.  I really doesn’t make any sense to me and I hate to say that I feel like a lot of that has to do with it being a young adult book.  It just started to feel to unrealistic in this one and I was starting to feel like the story was somewhat wasted because of the outcome.  She really didn’t need to jam here point about Jacob home so hard.  While so many people find the character of Jacob to be a nuisance and annoying I really took to it and now I’m feeling like I hate the rest of the story because it just doesn’t make any sense.

Oh well, now that it’s off my chest (and my family and friends are probably thinking I need to be committed) I’m starting to feel a little better.  If I can keep myself occupied I hopefully won’t keep replaying the scenes in my head.  Yep, I feel silly right now for taking it so hard.  Whatever – I guess that just goes to show how strong the characters in these stories are.