Weekly Guest Spotlight.
This week's guest is author Elizabeth Corrigan...or rather Bedlam, a character from Elizabeth's forthcoming book Oracle of Philadelphia, available March 25.
So, Elizabeth Corrigan wrote this book about my friend Khet’s life called Oracle of Philadelphia. Which is, you know, pretty cool, since more than anything I want us to become famous enough to go on that celebrity dancing show. I mean, I would have been more excited if Oracle were a blockbuster movie, because bigger audience, but in my long life I have accepted that I cannot have everything.
I should maybe back up and tell you who I am. I’m Bedlam, chaos demon extraordinaire. Or, really, the only chaos demon there is. That’s how it works, angels all embody a certain virtue or, like in my case, something less like a virtue that’s still fundamental to the world. Although maybe chaos would have been a virtue if I had been a little better behaved at the beginning of time. Anyway, the seraphim—read: important angels—get the good virtues like justice and mercy. And the cherubim are stuck with things like equanimity and punctuality. I guess I’m a cherub, since I’m definitely not a seraph, but I’m not a chubby baby in diapers, so don’t get any ideas
Anyway, Elizabeth tells me that, since I am the most popular character in the book by far, it is partly my responsibility to promote the thing. I have to say that this news comes as a surprise to me, since I’ve never been the most popular anything anywhere. I was never good enough for Heaven or evil enough for Hell, and both sides refused to understand why I couldn’t just follow orders like a good demon. Angel. Whichever was more appropriate at the time. And humans… Well, humans usually don’t “get” me. But apparently I’m popular to this magical audience called “readers.” So points for me
“What does this promotion entail?” I wondered. So I searched the internet, and it told me that I needed a twitter account, like I had any idea what that was. I’ve got Google down, but anything more complicated than that, and I need some help. And Khet is the best friend anyone could ask for, but she is totally useless when it comes to anything technology-related. The last time her phone broke, she was disappointed that she had to replace it with a push-button one instead of a rotary dial.
But I persevered, or, you know, googled “Twitter” and went to the first site that came up. It told me I had to pick a name for my account, so, of course, I typed in “@Bedlam.” And would you believe it was taken? Who do they think originated the concept? So I had two choices: go demonize the person who stole my name or pick another one. I honestly considered doing the first, but I realized I didn’t know nearly enough about computers to actually find that person. So I went with “@BedlamFTW.” Because I’m awesome.
Next I needed to insert a picture of myself, or I would forever be known as a white egg with an ugly yellowy-green background, and I’m far too vain for that. Trouble was, I didn’t actually have any pictures of myself. I didn’t even have any old printed photos that I could scan in. Yes, cameras have been around for a while, but Khet is afraid of them. She doesn’t think they’ll seize her soul or anything like that. She’s just afraid that there will be photographic evidence of her looking exactly the same now as she did fifty years ago, and people will lock her up and experiment on her. I suppose it’s possible that other people have snapped shots of me over the years, but I never stuck around long enough to get copies of any of them. Fortunately, I remembered there was a picture of me on this Oracle of Philadelphia book! Granted, it was a picture of me as a red reflection on Michael’s sword, but it was better than anything else I had, so I cropped it and stuck it in.
Then it was onto actual tweeting time. Once I figured out what that meant—any 140 characters I wanted about whatever I wanted! My conversation with Khet on the topic went something like this:
Me: This is the perfect opportunity for the world to experience my brilliant insights into life.
Khet: Yes. That or you will bitch about whatever is on the radio for two days and then lose interest.
Me: Don’t be ridiculous. I have the power to control all music playing in my presence. I never have to listen to anything I don’t like.
Khet: You do realize that you’re going to need something to tweet on, right? I’m not getting a computer. There’s no place to put one. You’ll have to get a mobile phone or something, and you know how you are about losing those.
Since she didn’t forbid me from using her money to buy myself an iphone, I got one of those and have been tweeting on it ever since. I’ve kept it up for well over a month, and I only lost my phone and had to replace it twice! So, ha! I am a successful twitterer.
So then I was telling Elizabeth about this, she told me I had to get a Facebook account next. Once I looked up what that was, I said, “No way!” I need a much better picture of myself to be seen in that medium. Get me on the cover of the second book, and then we’ll talk.
Elizabeth Corrigan has degrees in English and psychology and has spent several years working as a data analyst in various branches of the healthcare industry. When she’s not hard at work on her next novel, Elizabeth enjoys singing, reading teen vampire novels, and making Sims of her characters. She drinks more Diet Coke than is probably optimal for the human body and is pathologically afraid of bees. She lives in Maryland with two cats and a purple Smart Car.
For an excerpt of Oracle of Philadelphia, click the link here.