Well... just when I thought I was on mentoring leave, the Owls with Bushy Eyebrows program... is that what it's called?  No wait... Little Owls...  found me another mentee.  Apparently being too busy to remember to say no is a yes!  Mean people really have easier lives.  I'm planning to be an evil grouchy old woman one day, just for a break.

So, right now, my karma is in need of a boost, and it's only a short voluntary mentorship.

Once again, the mentee is already better educated than me.  She's into very cool Vampire books by people like Stephenie Meyer and Laurell K Hamilton.  Stephenie Meyer has first chapters on her website, and I must say she has a great voice, nice humour, looks like good stuff. 

What genre are Vampires exactly?  Dark fantasy?  Horror?  Both?  I'm not too knowledgeable about the Vampire genre.  I did like the Black Crusade's Love Vampires tho.  Still, most of my new mentees questions revolve around writing and discipline so far.  Don't laugh.  I know where I go wrong with my discipline, and maybe the mentee will listen to me better than I listen to me.  ;)

Anyway the bookshops need to stop lumping all things speculative under the heading Science Fiction and then people will be a lot less confused about what type of mentor they need. 

Dear Bookshops,

The heading you need is Speculative Fiction not Science Fiction.  Science Fiction is one of the sub-genres of Speculative Fiction.  His siblings are Horror, Fantasy (Urban, Modern, Mythical and their evil quadruplet, Epic - don't be fooled by his green tights and flashy robes... pure evil), New Weird, Alternate History, and rarer things like Gonzo... oh yes... you'll have to take a few books off your mainstream shelves and stick them in that one group of shelves in the corner... hmmmm... oh I see now.

Anyway, I've fluffed up my eyebrows and dived back into the mentoring mode.

Wish me luck!