Borrowing Heaven, Subletting Hell

Fleeting Beauty

2012-01-30T14:55:00.000-05:00

I went to the Museum of Natural History in DC yesterday. Nothing major. Just a day alone with mr myn (which culminated in a feast of gut-busting proportions over at The Melting Pot. You can never have enough cheese. Or chocolate.)

Anyway, one of the new things over at the museum is you can pay a few extra bucks and go wander around in their butterfly house. It's not super huge, but there's a moment of enchantment to be had there. I mean, I'm sure most of us have seen butterflies before, but it was a nice change of pace for midwinter, and fun to just be surrounded by them.

And they were *everywhere*. They landed on your hair or your clothes, your phone, the wall, the floor, whatever. (As you can see by the pictures I'm tossing up here - I finally got a new camera, so that was nice. I couldn't get many action shots, though - they just moved too fast for me to get anything but blurs.)

Anyway, the species were all common sorts of butterflies, so there was no worry that you might accidentally tread on somethings super-exotic and rare. And in one corner there was a stand with hundreds and hundreds of lined up chrysalises. (They all come from butterfly farmers, apparently.)

And it makes sense. After all, butterfly life spans aren't particularly long anyway, but there's an odd part of me that wonders if the butterflies know they're going to be replaced.

So then I got to thinking about the upcoming book release and all the usual hubbub of coming up with ways of marketing and what works or what doesn't work. And I suppose the whole thing is like the butterflies.

They're all so new and pretty and perfect at first, but after a while their wings start to tear. They bump into things or get stepped on. (Or maybe they're playing butterfly Rugby at night. Who knows?)

Some butterflies play it coy and avoid everyone. Others dart in your face - and actually land on it. Some are always moving, and some are just hanging out on the rotting bananas and watching the world go by.

But sooner or later, they're going to die and be forgotten, and the next crop of new and exciting butterflies arrives.

It's a bit like publishing, really. (At least for the mid-list.) We're all just thrown on the shelves, and it is up to us as the authors to decide how we're going to catch the attention of readers...and how we keep it. Do we just do our thing with minimal marketing? (Here's the cover boys. Nice and pretty. Now if you excuse me, I've got writing to do, nectar to eat.)

Do we slam ourselves in reader's faces? Buy me! Look at me! Buy me! (And you know, frankly, it's cute for a few minutes, but dude. GTFO of my hair, k? Your nasty-been-walking-on-rotting-banana-feet are in my eyebrows. Sorta like people on twitter who just make tweet after tweet after tweet about their books. Enough already. I get it, you have a book for sale. So do I.)

Do we completely avoid all of it? Go up super high and ignore everyone and everything? Flash enough author thigh to maybe catch reader attention and then act like everyone is beneath us? Create some odd bit of fake mystique?

And all the while, we know we have such a limited time frame to do this in. The publishers have rows upon rows of other new releases coming up, new debut authors...and of course their own stable of best-sellers. (AKA the exotics - who get their own room somewhere else, eating off of bananas soaked in champagne and studied by the professional entomologists instead of being fingered by the unwashed masses. And that's tongue-in-cheek, of course, but some days it feels like that, particularly when it comes to in-house marketing.)

And really, there's no reason why a mid-lister can't become an exotic butterfly - we hold much of that in our own hands, whatever path we choose to take. And for all my bitching, I'm still grateful I've got the chance to have anyone bother to look at me at all.

Badly made Lepidoptera metaphors aside, it *was* a fun afternoon.

Midnight Man Candy

2012-01-28T22:16:00.000-05:00

You know, I'm starting to forget which pictures I've posted and which I haven't. If you start seeing repeats...oh well? LOL

A Sliver of Shadow Excerpt

2012-01-27T12:53:00.000-05:00

Since there's only about a month until the release date for A Sliver of Shadow, I figured I'd throw a little teaser out there for you in the form of a first chapter excerpt. Hope you enjoy!

The Taste of My Toes

2012-01-26T16:26:00.000-05:00

You know, I realize it's close to the end of the day and I haven't really posted. Not here, anyway. I did have a post on Word-Whores about writing dreams, and what they mean to me (or don't.) And I had a nicely self-righteous rant about fanfiction and plagiarizing on my other blog (which may or may not have been warranted. Probably not, in fact. And for which I did apologize later. But still.)

I hesitate to say it's a hormonal thing, but I have noticed that I definitely get rantier during certain times of the month. One of these days I'll heed my own inner warning and just step away from the keyboard, but until then I suppose I'll just keep shoving my foot further into my mouth.

Now please pass the chocolate before I cut you.

Toothbrushes Need Love Too

2012-01-25T15:23:00.001-05:00

I could pretend I had something worthwhile to blog about today, but I don't.

So, here. Use your sordid imagination accordingly.

Page Turners

2012-01-24T13:33:00.001-05:00

I've been trying to catch up on my reading while I await my own edits.

I'd say reading for fun is one of the things I miss most about being a writer - partially because of time constraints, but also because I have a hard time shutting down the "editor" side of my brain.

It seems to take a lot more for me these days to lose myself in the voice of a book (although I still have a list of "must buy" authors that I can fall into without issue. Could be the mental mountain disappears simply because I choose NOT to look at their writing with such a critical eye - because I trust them to deliver.)

It used to be I'd finish every book I started - good or bad. Now, if a story doesn't grip me quick enough, I let it slide away. I can't tell if it's a sense of overall jadedness or simply that I'm too exhausted most of the time to be interested.

I'm less forgiving, overall and that makes me a bit sad.

(Not that it stops me from buying books. The TBR list on my Kindle grows every week...but I despair of ever getting to most of them.)

As a writer, I don't think it's particularly healthy to not be reading, but it shouldn't be a chore either. But I'm going to try to slip in at least a book a week from here on out.

That being said, I'm open to suggestions - anyone got a current fave they're loving right now? (I'm looking for more Fantasy/Sci-Fi type of things than anything else...) :)

Year of the Dragon

2012-01-23T11:21:00.000-05:00

Lucy and I have caught the plague today - so sickly cuddles all the way around. I spent most of the weekend in my PJs, completely exhausted and just dozing off wherever I was. I originally thought my body was finally being allowed to relax, but now I suspect it was more a harbinger of the blinding pain in the back of my skull.

Not exactly the auspicious start to the new celestial year I was hoping for, but at least I caught up on my sleep a bit. (And my cross-stitch - I broke that out for the first time in ages, just to give my eyes a break from the computer.)

Ah well.

My only claim to the Year of the Dragon is the fact that the Chinese symbol for dragon is in my last name. (Surrounded by the Chinese word for veil. I always thought it would be romantic if the whole thing meant "veiled dragon" - but it doesn't. Though for a while I almost registered that as a domain and was going to run some sort of business out of it. Until I realized the initials were VD and I was like...yeah, not so much.)

At any rate, I hope good things are around the corner for everyone this year.

Double happiness to everyone!

On a completely random note - I've got the finalized schedule for my blog tour now - I'll be posting it on my official website at some point this week, but in the meantime, if you didn't get on the list and you've got space available, just drop me a line and we'll work something out. :)

Midnight Man Candy

2012-01-21T22:00:00.000-05:00

Seems so pensive...wonder what he's looking at?

Expectations and Allowances

2012-01-20T14:02:00.001-05:00

So there's been a lot of talk going around the interwebs the last few weeks about the interactions between authors and reviewers. We've seen several implosions on GoodReads and Amazon (which are nicely summed up over on PW.)

I'll be honest. I've been a tad hesitant to even really talk about any of it - I'm not fond of shitstorms, and getting involved in one that has nothing to do with me personally isn't my goal.

I'm also not going to get into the argument of what constitutes a "legitimate" review. Everyone's definition is going to be different on that. You can go to Amazon to find out what to read, or GoodReads or by word of mouth, or by fortune cookie. I don't care.

And I shouldn't care. I just ask that they make sense. (And I've seen some reviews that clearly weren't proofread or grammar-checked before being posted. Just as authors are held up to writing standards, if you're more than just a casual reviewer - i.e. a book blogger, etc. - it helps me to take the review more seriously if it's written well.)

That being said, I don't think authors should get involved in the review process. (And I've said this before, so that's nothing new. And I've had reviews that made my toes curl and I've ranted in private about them...and then I moved on...eventually. >_< )

Yes, reviews can potentially impact sales, and it *is* disappointing to not feel like you've reached a reader in the way you were hoping. But that's an impossible goal - and looming over a reviewing community defeats the purpose of them.

But I think the openness of the internet has really been a two-way street. On one hand - it's been a great way to communicate directly with readers, other authors, and people in the industry. It's stripped away some of the mystique of the old-school view of the closeted author, quietly typing away on her typewriter in a cardboard box somewhere. It puts a human face on us (Sometimes to our detriment, as the line of private vs public gets thinner and thinner. Do I want to know what you're having for dinner? Sure. Do I need a camera in your bedroom? Not really.)

Unfortunately, the same ability to communicate also allows for snap reactions, particularly when something hits you hard - i.e. reading an unflattering review, for example. I say unflattering, because the idea of "Bad" is subjective. Is it bad because it's poorly written? Or bad because it's negative? Or bad because it's completely missing the point?

So it's easy to just pound out a rebuttal on the keyboard. But that level of engagement has so many connotations. It puts the reviewers on the defensive. It puts other readers on the defensive. (And rightfully so - no one wants to be told their opinion is invalid simply because it's not what an author wants to hear.) When it escalates into a shitstorm like the ones mentioned in the above link, nobody wins.

What I find most disappointing about all of it is the involvement of agents and other authors. While I understand and appreciate the need to rally around friends, I don't believe in direct manipulation of the system (such as "liking" good reviews and "disliking" the bad ones. It's not honest.)

But more importantly, as an aspiring author I was told to always keep things polite and professional - on my blog, on my social networking sites, wherever. Agents and editors mention all the time about how they scope out potential authors and view how they behave to sometimes help them decide if that writer might be a good fit. Makes sense - no one wants to work with a ranting diva. In that regard, I would like to think that those same agents/editors/ should be held to the same standards.

I think most reviewers want to do good by *their* readers...and also by the books. An honest opinion is probably the most sacred way to do that. Not to say that some people don't have a bone to pick. There are trolls out there. And some people delight in the chaos these shitstorms stir up.

But the problem is that there's no such thing as the last word on the internet. Locking down a thread doesn't mean it can't be reopened somewhere else, and tools such as twitter don't give dust-ups such as these time to settle down. The bigger the controversy, the more people are attracted to it. (Much like a car accident. Everyone wants to see the head embedded in the grille.) Before long, the original reason for the issue has been mutated into something monstrous and unrecognizable.

No thanks.

The high road is harder for a number of reasons, but the rewards at the end of it are worth much more. Grace under pressure and all that.

Or as my mother used to say "Be nice to the people you meet on the way up - because you're going to run into them again on the way down."

Word-Whore Thursday

2012-01-19T13:21:00.000-05:00

I'm over at Word-Whores today, talking about champagne...and my complete inability to appreciate it. Also, a little bit about why it's so important to keep you working relationships with your editor or agent on a professional level.

(Until you grow close enough that you invite them to your house to make unicorn poop cookies, that is.)

Wednesday Shinies

2012-01-18T12:44:00.001-05:00

Blatantly pirating this gif off of tumblr (idea as per Jeffe) as my nod to SOPA. (Courtesy of The Oatmeal)

And I'm keeping my own Tumblr dark today as well. I realize it's a rather small act in the scheme of things. Preaching to the choir and all that, but as addicted as I am to all things internet? Staying off Tumblr today has been really, really hard.

It's a goofy, chaotic place - but it makes me laugh and allows me to connect with a different set of people and I enjoy it. I'd actually be very sad if it (and other sites like it) fell to the likes of a bullshit bill written by people who have all the technological understanding of a dead monkey.

*ahem*

That in mind, I received a lovely bit of Brystion/Abby art yesterday, by the massively talented Emma Vieceli. It's a little smutty, so I'm leaving it at a smaller size. Click for a larger view. (And yes, Ion's got a little coverage there. The mystery of his demon deer peen shall remain a secret. For now.)

Following the Leader

2012-01-17T11:22:00.001-05:00

One of the things I've always found rather fascinating with social networking is how it seems to have moved from a simple format of interacting with people into a cyber-popularity contest.

It's all about how many followers you have...and the quality of who *you* are following. (Hmm. This person is following 40 people...but is being followed by 9000! They must be popular!)

Quality, of course, being the operative term. (And rather subjective, at that.) And there are so many choices, aren't there? So many places to make connections that it often feels like a whirlpool of words and thoughts and opinions. Impossible to keep track of on a regular basis, never mind the people who continually change their user names or avatars or website titles.

The other night, I got a new follower or two on my Tumblr. No big deal, and I didn't think much of it. Less than 24 hours later, one of them unfollowed me...because I hadn't followed her back.

I see this on Twitter and Facebook as well. It's sort of the silent cyber version of giving someone the finger.

Yay for passive aggressiveness.

And followers come and go all the time so it's not like I had any personal investment in the person. I have no idea who they are. (And to be frank - I keep the tumblr to fangirl about art and dragon age and other geek stuff. Which is great, until you follow about 200 people and they're all reblogging the same thing, over and over. I've got limits as to how much I want cluttering up my dashboard. Interact with me and I'm all yours, but if you're just collecting followers? Meh.)

I mean, I guess you sort of have to look at why you follow who you follow...and why you decide to unfollow them.

For me, there's a number of reasons - I've got my various inner and outer circles of friends and colleagues from my numerous interests - writing, gaming, certain hottie violin players, etc. But since I primarily took to social networking to help with finding a writing career, I followed a lot of publishers and agents, editors, authors and other aspiring writers. It made sense - I wanted to find out more about the industry, get informed about publishing trends, hang with other like-minded folks.

When I wanted to think about collaborating on the graphic novel project, I began following like-minded artists. Observing how they worked. Their styles. That sort of thing. (Sounds a bit calculating, I suppose, but I didn't want to waste people's time. I appreciate art for art all the time, but if I'm looking for something specific, then laying down at least the groundwork for compatibility is just good sense. Same thing most writers do when they're looking for an agent. It's all about accessibility.)

And sure, we all want to be followed by the superstars, but there's no obligation for them to follow back. And superstar is a loaded term. You've got the big celebrities out there...but then you've got the niche ones too - popular within certain circles. "Tumblr famous" as they say. Sometimes social networking just feels like an illusion - it can close gaps and give you opportunities to interact with people you could never get close to otherwise, but it's a false closeness. Unless the other person actively interacts with you in return, it's a bit like verbal masturbation - you're just spewing your thoughts at people in hopes they might give you a cigarette when you're done. You're definitely not getting breakfast the next morning, though.

But when it comes down to it, there's no obligation for *anyone* to follow anyone else. Some people reciprocate every follow. Some don't. Personal choice.

And even so - people change. Needs change. If someone starts spamming me, I'll unfollow. (And for me, that's about it - I'm a pretty lazy person, so I won't unfollow unless you really piss me off about something. Otherwise I'm content to jabber at whoever will listen about whatever, and return the favor. This is probably the same reason I have over 50,000 message in my inbox. That's not an exaggeration.)

We all have different tolerances and requirements in those we interact with, particularly on the outer rim. It all just depends on what you're looking for.

Adventures in Baking Unicorn Poop Cookies.

2012-01-16T12:15:00.001-05:00

Such as they are.

My friend Danielle came to visit me this weekend and seeing as it was so chilly out, we decided to take advantage of the crazy Unicorn Poop cookie recipe that was floating around the interwebs...And this is what we came up with.

And apologies - I'm basically just going to upload a bunch of pictures here, because it's hard to really be poetic about the fact that we were making edible unicorn feces.

<-- Danielle mixing in the shortening. :D

(These cookies are pretty much NOTHING but shortening and sugar. As one would expect, really.)

<-- A little assistance from ms Lucy.

<-- Taste the rainbow

<-- You're supposed to roll the colored bits of dough into long snakes and then weave them all together.

This was a lot harder than it sounds - they tended to break apart pretty easily.

<- First batch out of the oven. The color faded a little bit when we baked them. (Plus we started getting lazy with the dough rolls and just mixed them up into multi-colored unicorn poop patties.

And yes, they *do* look a lot like regurgitated play-dough.

<- After we put the glitter glaze and sprinkles and magical fairy dust and whathaveyou.

Huzzah for pretty poop!

<-- Where we tell the kids the cookies come from. ;-)

<--...and the unicorns and hedgehogs (and Hello Kitty) had a tea party. And no one asked where the cookies came from.

The End.

Midnight Man Candy

2012-01-14T23:01:00.002-05:00

Shhhhhh....

Ripening

2012-01-13T15:38:00.000-05:00

The only problem with temporarily abandoning a project is that you can never really go home again.

I've been trying to get back into a project I stopped working on in late 2009. It's not something I had gotten very far into at the time - and it's actually pretty well written. All fairly good points, but what's interesting is that three books later, I can see how much this mostly unwritten story has changed over the years.

How my writing has changed, compared to what it was.

The overall story idea has stayed the same, but over two years of percolation has definitely expanded my initial concept. Which isn't a bad thing at all. Maybe it's a bit like ripening fruit. The story might have been fine as it was, but I've had a few years to work on my writing craft, as well as flesh out some plots lines I wasn't sure about before - it's grown in scope and characterization for sure.

Still, it's one thing to wait until something is ready to go...but waiting too long doesn't bode well either. It *is* possible for a writing to be overworked and overwritten. Overripe fruit metaphor and all that. Still tastes okay, but you know it's a little "off".)

I've been brainstorming more than anything else the last week or so, trying to merge into something less panster-like, in the off chance I'll be able to speed up my creative endeavors. (So many ideas and so little time. It's a bit like trying to catch butterflies with a bubble.)

Themeless

2012-01-12T15:53:00.000-05:00

Every once in a while I tend to look at this blog and want to kick it. Mostly because it's themeless. (I don't think that's really a word, is it?) I haven't tried to make it into a reading blog or a writing blog. Or a gaming blog. Or anything, really.

It's like a potluck blog.

(Only you're stuck with my crappy ham and cheese sandwiches, because that's probably all I have left in my fridge.)

I'd probably get more comments if I attempted something cognitive on a regular basis - though I usually find it rather cathartic to just vomit up whatever I'm thinking spur-of-the-moment. (And yes, I'm also aware I've brought this subject up here several times. And really, if it was so damned important to me, I probably should have done something about it by now, right? >_<)

And it's not that there aren't tons of subjects I'd love to wax poetic on. There are many, but regardless of what my fiction writing abilities may be, I don't think I've got much eloquence in the ways of debate. I've started several pieces that I've never posted because I was so exhausted of the issue by the end of it and I just couldn't be bothered. They're sitting in my drafts somewhere, waiting.

Forever alone.

I mean, sure, I can rant well enough. But that's not really the same thing.

There are plenty of other blogs out there that state my arguments and general lines of thought better than I can do myself. I suppose there's a bit of apathy on my end, but I'm also not a fan of rehashing what's already been said.

So, yeah.

As you were.

Man candy and cats, ahoy!

Maybe She's Born With It...

2012-01-11T16:13:00.002-05:00

Fotoshop by Adobé from Jesse Rosten on Vimeo.

Brilliant, on every level.

A Sliver of Shadow Blog Tour

2012-01-10T21:03:00.000-05:00

So I'm gearing up for blog tour shenanigans in the next month or so, but to streamline the process, I'm outsourcing most of this to Betwitching Blog Tours. (Click the linky if you wish to sign up!)

I've got some blog posts and interviews in the pipeline for earlier in the month of Feb, and if you're interested in anything else, just drop me a line via my Contact page.

eARCS will be available for book bloggers and reviewers who sign up for the tour- I just ask that you send me a link to the review when it goes up (even if you don't like it.)

As far as the tour itself goes - I do have swag available for giveaways, including my trading cards. Signed copies of A Sliver of Shadow will also be available.

Also, I've had some requests for blog posts/interviews by @phintheunicorn. If that's something you want, let me know and I'll see if he's available. (He can be bribed with bacon.)

Comic Book WTFkery

2012-01-09T20:26:00.001-05:00

Frankly, this wins at the internets.

Incidentally, if it seems as though I'm slacking off on the blogging a bit...yeah, I am. I've got things I want to write and say and sometimes it's about timing. There's a little bit of me trying to give myself permission to relax and avoid some of the self-induced pressures I tend to fluctuate under - which includes less time on the internet and more time just doing my own thing.

(No thanks to Darchala for sucking me into Orcs Must Die! btw. >_<)

And sometimes it's about things irritating the living piss out of me to the point where I can't actually form a cognitive sentence about it.

Like this lovely post today. (ETA - Looks like the original poster deleted his blog post. How ironic.)

Which is specifically about the cover of this new comic book (called Saga). This is the cover:

Apparently in the world of comics, this is an offensive and disturbing image. Adult content, no less.

And this is the part where my brain just explodes.

I did a small ranty piece on Word Whores a few months ago about the madonna-whore complex in comic books, and here we go. Women CANNOT win. We're told that the skimpy costumes are part of the deal. That the massive boobs and unrealistic T&A contortions of superheroines are what's expected. That we're too sensitive to want something other than glorified excuses of fanservice.

Male gaze pandering everywhere.

And here? An image of a woman using her ta-tas for their original purpose and suddenly it's tasteless and offensive.

Why the double-standard, folks?

Why is it that Catwoman and Batman can fuck each other senseless on the rooftop of the first reboot issue, but this character, who is nursing her child (and where you can barely see the curve of her breast) is lambasted for NOT BEING MODEST.

For not feeding her child in private.

For being inappropriate.

That somehow this is a shock-value tactic to sell comics.

I just don't even have words - frankly, the arguments in some of the comments in the link above just hammer home how objectified women in comics really are.

All is well and good if we're represented as sexy sirens. But mamas need not apply.

And I guess what irritates me more is the sudden backpedaling by the original author of the blog post - that somehow it's not the act of breastfeeding that's offensive but using the concept to gratuitously market something.

Like tits aren't used to market EVERYTHING.

And quite frankly, if this was a gratuitous marketing act, her other boob would have been hanging out. And she'd have a chain mail bikini on. And her ass would somehow be curved to the front of the cover so we could get a nice eyeful of both.

<-- Case in point.

You can't have it both ways. Boobs are sacred...or they're not, but you don't get to thrust your suddenly convenient "moral standard" in my face simply because you "paint boobs all day."

Comics Alliance was nice enough to contact the cover artist for the piece directly to get her opinion on the whole thing, and truly I can't put it any better than they have, so I'll just leave it with the link here.

In the meantime, I'll be buying Saga the moment it hits the shelves.

Midnight Man Candy

2012-01-07T23:34:00.003-05:00

Obvious comment is obvious. *ahem*

Fox and Willow Sketches

2012-01-06T19:20:00.000-05:00

Had a different post planned for today, but don't feel like posting it at the moment due to reasons. So instead, here's a few character sketches from the Sad Sausage Dogs tumblr for my graphic novel collab with Aimo.

Word Whore Thursday: Stupid Party Tricks

2012-01-05T10:21:00.000-05:00

I'm over at Word Whores today talking about stupid party tricks.

It would be a better post if I wasn't so lame. >_<

*slinks away to her quiet corner*

Egg Laying

2012-01-04T14:44:00.000-05:00

There's that saying out there that indicates you shouldn't put all your eggs in one basket. And it sorta goes hand in hand with the whole "don't count your chickens until they hatch." Publishing is often a waiting game, and there's nothing quite so lousy as announcing some wonderful news...only to find out a few days/weeks/months later that you jumped the gun and said item won't happen.

Even aside from having to deal with disappointment, now you have to retract and that's a frustrating feeling. (And potentially confusing to readers.)

But the egg and basket motif makes a fair amount of sense, particularly for writers and particularly in these changing times. After all, there are so many options out there right now - trad pubbing, indie-pubbing, self-pubbing, paper books, ebooks, etc.

Diversify the portfolio and all that. And really, this is where having an agent comes in handy - or at least knowledge of what you're signing away when you do make a deal with a publisher. Namely, the right of first refusal clause - it's not uncommon for a standard boilerplate to indicate that after an author fulfills the contract, his/her next work goes to that same publisher first for them to look at.

In my case I wrote three adult UF books for my publisher. My contract declares that my next work of adult UF must be submitted to them first (and they can decide to pub or pass. If they pass, I can submit it anywhere else.)

Which is nice in some ways, because I know my next work of adult UF will be looked at by at least one publishing house, but the problem is that publishers can take a long time to make a decision...and if you're not happy with your current publisher, that sort of clause can trap you - particularly if the clause is broad - i.e. your next work of fantasy, for example. That could mean anything - YA fantasy, high fantasy, UF fantasy, etc - so you want to be very, very careful with that.

(If you're a prolific writer, doubly so - publishers don't usually release multiple books by the same author at the same time - if you've got a lot to potentially sell, you want to be able to get it out there as fast as you can, while keeping as many roads open as you can.)

Personally, I'm all for it if my publisher wants another Abby book. (or Melanie book - it's quite possible I'll change gears into a different character if I get the go ahead.)

But at the moment, I'm in a weird bit of limbo. Turning in the last book of my contract doesn't mean the complete end - I'll have revisions and copyedits and all that other fun stuff but it also puts me in a place where I can begin to pursue other avenues.

It's a bit scary - but it's also freeing. Writing under contract is much different than writing for fun. I could self-pub, or write a YA dystopian or a retelling of the Little Mermaid with pansexual robots (I hint at this robot mermaid thing a lot. Probably means it's going to happen. Someday.) - but the point is that I've got that creative flexibility built in.. And as much as I love writing Abby and the gang, I also want to work on something new. (And I've been writing her story since 2008 at this point, so I think I've earned it.)

So I think I'll see if I can't dig up some more baskets...and see what hatches.

A Sliver of Shadow Trading Cards are IN!

2012-01-03T19:23:00.001-05:00

Sorry for the camera fail, but the trading cards just arrived so yay! I've got a few contest winners I owe books to, so you'll all be getting a set of these as well. :D

Artwork by the fabulous Darchala, as always. :D

ETA: If you want a set of these or the first, just send me a SASE to the address on my contact page. About .65 in the US, $1.00 to Canada. (Not sure about everywhere else, but I'll wing it.)

Balancing Act

2012-01-02T18:26:00.000-05:00

Such as they are.

I don't usually do New Year Resolution posts. Like Jeffe, I tend to feel the promises we make in private to ourselves are a much more telling sign of our ability to accomplish something. Not that we all don't want praise and kudos for reaching our goals - there's a big reason programs like Weight Watchers works for so many people, for example.

But praise is a hollow motivator sometimes. I know for myself there's a big difference when someone congratulates me on something I don't feel like I've earned. It feels good for about 30 seconds, but after that? It's all empty. Because inside, I know it's not real.

(But hey I finished the draft for A Trace of Moonlight, whee! Subbing to editor some point this week, so yay for me to get that done. Starting the new year without it hanging over my head is a lovely, lovely thing.)

Sometimes we need a kick in the pants. Sometimes it's about finding time to reach those goals - I need to get certified for work for example - and it's one of those things where I need to study to take a test. I already know that the only way I'm going to make time to study is if I schedule the test. Otherwise it's too easy to constantly push aside for more "important" things.

Back when I started getting a bit more serious about writing, I began leaving my word-counts up in the side bar. Not so much as an attention getting thing (ooh, look how much I'm writing and and I am an author and blah blah blah), but more as a personal accountability record. And sure, I could keep that in a spreadsheet or something, but for me it was a very nice feeling to watch that word count go up and it inspired me to continue writing, even on nights when I really felt too tired to do it. I guess I'm a visual creature in that respect...and in some ways, all these little blogs and websites are second homes for me. I spend so much time here, it makes sense to give myself tiny reminders of what my goals are. (Like sticky notes, I guess.)

It's hard as a writer, though. Because it's so solitary, most people don't always understand how easy it is to get discouraged. So it *is* nice to announce to the world that you reached a milestone, even a personal one - particularly in an online group like Twitter, for example. We get it. ;-)

On the other hand, it's not good to get dependent on those kudos either. Your primary motivation needs to come from within you - not based on the potential praise you may receive - otherwise it loses its value. (And probably starts becoming a bit of an obnoxious ego monster.)

Like everything else, it becomes a balancing act between wanting what you need and needing what you have. How you strike that balance is up to you.

Midnight Man Candy: Happy New Year!

2011-12-31T22:22:00.000-05:00

A little naughty David Gandy to ring in your new year.

Bind on Pickup

2011-12-30T11:00:00.002-05:00

Sharing this because I had to.

Finding Balance

2011-12-30T10:44:00.003-05:00

This probably should be one of my resolutions.

Or at least to start eating less. (Which seems like an oxy-moron. I mean, how can you start doing something *less*? Mmph. Whatever. Stop eating so much.)

But to be honest, this past year things got a bit off kilter, so really my New Year Resolution should be about regaining balance. Whatever that actually is.

Chances are I'll never really find it, although I have to say working this week from home has been a nice step in that direction. It won't last, but being able to sorta work around my own schedule without the issue of hours wasted on a commute? Freaking priceless. An extra hour of sleep here or there has made a rather nice difference in my overall attitude - both in sleep and the fact that I've been able to move straight to the edits immediately after work. (It's amazing how much of my life is completely wasted sitting in a car simply because I'm required to be in an office...even though I don't need to be there to do any of it.)

The downside to working from home? The prevalence of food everywhere. Particularly holiday food. At the moment it appears to be handfuls of chocolate covered raisins. (Sorta healthy right? Fruit? Eh? Eh? See Treadmill above.)

Anyway, downhill slope on this first run-through of edits and that's made me more relaxed than anything else. I'm going to make my deadline, huzzah. And I've been soooo good.

No gaming. (And no, I *haven't* been playing Star Wars games on the XBox this week - that's my son, using my XBox Live account. I just bring that up because Raptr tweets it every time he starts playing. Surprised me last week when I was at work and a tweet went by. "What the? I am *NOT* playing ST: TFU, thank you very much.")

No working on side projects - or at least not much. :P (Mostly of a brainstorming nature and something silly I'll talk about next week.)

I'm a little worried there's a few scenes that are repetitive in nature, but we shall see what the new editor has to say. It may just mean I need to move a few things around plot-wise, but either way, I'm feeling like I've got things lined up in a good way for the start of the new year.

Back From the Brink

2011-12-28T12:31:00.000-05:00

...so to speak. Obviously I haven't been blogging for a few days. It's the fun of the family and holiday thing, I guess. That and continuing to work on my quick and dirty revisions for A Trace of Moonlight before I hand the draft into the editor next week.

Incidentally, A Trace of Moonlight is the official title now. (It's what the end of SoS lists as the snippet for the next book, so I'll run with that assumption, anyway.)

(And like everything else I write, my standard MO applies. I come and go in waves both as I write and edit, wavering between, "wow, this is actually pretty good" to "Jesus, this is the worst piece of crap to ever come off the keyboard." However, I'm about halfway through here, and so far I'm actually feeling okay about it. Doesn't mean there isn't room for improvement - there's always things that can be made better, but I'm not feeling too hateful about the story overall.)

So there's that.

Once I turn everything in, I'll have a few weeks to breathe before my editor kicks it back and I'll be shifting gears to work on the graphic novel (currently titled Fox & Willow) and the companion website development. Also, I'll finally get to turn my attention to the epic fantasy thing, which I've tentatively titled Ironheart. I'm rather excited about it - it's been one of those carrots I keep dangling in front of my face.(Haven't really attempted to start it because I was afraid it would consume the rest of my attention - and paying work comes first, so...yeah.) There's so much world building stuff I need to get cracking on for it, but it's all good.

Otherwise, I've got an order in for the next set of trading cards now, so those should be available shortly - I'll post that here once I've got them. And speaking of trading cards - the winner of the Hedgehog Haiku contest for the Mistletoe Madness blog hop is: Sonia! (I'll be sending her an email shortly to confirm, but I want to thank everyone for entering - I really enjoyed seeing the fab poems you all came up with.)

Last thing - I'm giving away a copy of A Brush of Darkness over a Bitch Can Write a Book today - so stop on by and leave a comment!

The Tree is a Lie

2011-12-25T12:23:00.002-05:00

Merry Christmas!

Midnight Man Candy

2011-12-24T23:35:00.001-05:00

Merry merry!

Christmas Eve Eve

2011-12-23T15:36:00.001-05:00

Not much of a post today, I'm afraid. Too much going on and no time to do it in.

Plus now that the draft is done, my brain is leaping forward into the next project (though I keep having to rein it in - there are revisions due there bucko...settle down!)

Makes for little sleep. Think I've maybe gotten 3 or 4 max the last several nights, mostly because the wheels are spinning and spinning. But I actually sorta welcome it - it's hard in the mornings, but I do have to admit I've really missed that mad *need* to get something down on the page, even if it's just in short story snippets that won't go anywhere.

Maybe it's more of a bribe. I feed the muse and in return I'll get through these revisions in no time, right? (And wouldn't *that* be a lovely Christmas gift to myself? No stress revisions. Ha ha. Maybe.)

Anyway, I will probably be taking a few days off from the blog to enjoy the family time, so things may be a little sparse in the next week or so. (Or maybe not. I never really can tell.)

But if you celebrate, whatever you celebrate, have a lovely holiday. :)

Word Whore Thursday

2011-12-22T14:36:00.001-05:00

I'm over at Word Whores today, nomming about chocolate mint squares.

And that's really all I have to say? :) (They are very tasty.)

Though I will point out that even though I took yesterday off from writing/revising as a little reward to myself for finishing the Trace of Moonlight draft, I felt horribly guilty for not doing something productive and was awake until 2AM with my head spinning its gears into oblivion.

Sorta frustrating, honestly.

Also! Still one day left to enter your Hedgehog Haiku into the Mistletoe Madness Blog Hop!! (Get your prickly poems in ASAP!)

GPOY

2011-12-21T14:26:00.000-05:00

One of these is me. See if you guess which it is.

Done With Drafting

2011-12-21T12:14:00.002-05:00

So to speak.

But yes, I finished the rough draft of A Trace of Moonlight at about 2 AM this morning. Odd really, because I've been fighting the story so much the last few weeks and last night it was like my head just snapped because it was TIME. Sat down and cranked out 3000k in about 2 hours, which is ridiculous for me.

Is it the best prose I've ever written?

Nope.

There is quite a bit of revising to do, and not much time to do it in, but I suppose that's always par for the course with me.

I am going to give myself a day off, though. Too much to get done with Christmas coming anyway, and by the gods I am going to fire up some sort of game and play guilt free tonight if it kills me.

In some ways, getting the words on the page is the easy part. Not that writing is ever really *easy,* but I let myself go a bit when I'm writing down the bones. Some pages are just dialogue, for example, with some basic notes as to what I'll need to emphasize when I come back. Sometimes I change my mind part way through a scene or a major plot point, but since I already know I may change my mind again, I leave a note and just keep on writing, as though I've already gone back to change it. (Ah, the glories of being a panster.) Usually by the time I come around to fixing it, I've already refined what it was I wanted to say in the first place, so things fall into place better.

I suppose it's a bit like sculpting. The draft is the metal rods, the words to which I'll craft the finer edges of plot. I'll shave some off in places and add more in others, but without a strong foundation to start with, the rest of it is meaningless. (And likely to collapse upon poking. Plot holes. Logic holes. You might be able to get away with a small one here or there depending on your writing skill, but too many little holes start looking an awful lot like a great big one, the further away you move from it.)

Still. It's nice to have this part off my back. It's also nice to realize that I managed to write it in about five months. (See? See? I *could* be a a two book a year author if I wanted! Maybe. On the other hand? I also like having hair.)

But the bones are down.

Now the real work begins.

Right after I kill these Darkspawn.

Reading My Own Words

2011-12-20T18:28:00.001-05:00

So I got a final ecopy of A Sliver of Shadow today. It's not for public consumption, mind - I can't go sending it off to people. But it's useful to have. For one thing, I can fact check against it as I finish up the last of A Trace of Moonlight. (And by finish, I mean...eh, one chapter to go and then revise like the wind? But still - it's good to have something definitive I can look back on to make sure certain things were included...or not.)

Plus, I put quotes on the back of my trading cards, and I need to find some good ones for the latest set so I can get them all printed up.

It's interesting, though. I don't usually go back and reread my books. I don't know if that's just a mental "I'm done with this story now" or some sort of mild embarrassment that I produced it.

It's like giving birth and being happy it's out...and then someone hands you this stinky, drooly thing that's sorta cute and sorta horrifying and you're vaguely happy it's all over, but there's a part of you that wants to just shove it back whence it came and go to Denny's for a Moons Over My Hammy because it's 3 AM and you've just had an 18 hour bender of pain, chased by a cocktail of Pitocin.

(Why no, I haven't had too many cookies today. Why do you ask?)

Anyway, once I get past all that, the book passes the basic test for me - which is that once I start reading, I actually forget that I wrote it. (At least on some level. That's how I know it works.)

But just randomly flipping through it is sometimes hard. For one thing? There's no going back. It's difficult to read a passage or a phrase and think "Shit, I could have done better than that. I suck and should probably drink more." On the other hand, it's really nice to be pleasantly surprised on the other end of the scale. "Holy shit. *I* wrote this. I'm awesome."

On a related note, it's also somewhat iffy when you read something that you FORGOT you wrote. Particularly when you've been referencing about said thing in the next book that didn't happen the way you indicate and then it's all herrrr durrr herpderp and downhill from there. (Yeah, maybe I need to start keeping one of those writer's bibles or something.)

And speaking of third books? Yeah, I know I said I would wrap it all up nice and neat..and it sorta will be. But it sorta won't. I think there's a 4th Abby story in here yet, so stay tuned...

Catching Up

2011-12-19T14:10:00.000-05:00

I'm not the most organized person, even under the best of circumstances. The week before Christmas tends to turn me completely on my ear and this year is no exception.

Part of that is just last minute shopping stuff. Always too much of that for my comfort, but sometimes I just seem to have no idea what day it is until I look at the calendar and realize I've got a week left and I'm probably pretty screwed.

But I think the kids are all taken care of, and of everyone one the list for gifts and cards, they're pretty much priority. (And frankly, I struggle every single year with everything else. Cards and all the rest of it. I'm notoriously bad at getting them out. By the time I realize I really ought to send things to the people in my life, it's a day before Christmas and I'm so wretchedly mortified that I've forgotten to do it *again* that I just don't bother. It's not a personal thing. It's an "I can't get my act together" thing.)

However, family coming in means the house needs cleaning and there's a part of me inside that just starts laughing hysterically at the thought that I might ever manage to get the clutter under control. Especially given that the sheer amount of toy insanity that is about to descend upon us seems to make it feel like an exercise in futility. And holy cripes, I'm sorta going to have to cook this time around. (And by cook...I mean, buy a Honey Baked Ham and be done with it. Alas, my skills are wide and varied and mostly useless, but dealing with the oven will never be one of them.)

On the good side, we actually managed to get our tree up without incident. (And I even went out and bought a real tree skirt. Not a super nice one, mind...but better than the usual sheet I tend to use. And honestly, I'm not sure why I didn't buy one before. See the "getting my act together" thing above. ) We got Lucy a little tree of her own too - she was ecstatic to decorate it all by herself. Bearhead has been bequeathed to her and used with great excitement.)

And then there's the book. I have one chapter left. And my brain refuses to wrap around it. As an author, it's seriously starting to piss me off, but I'll get it done. Somehow. I actually took part of yesterday completely away from the keyboard - lunch date and a movie with mr myn, and that was fairly helpful. Hard to come back to the pile of stuff that still needs doing, but seeing RDJ in drag in the new Sherlock Holmes flick was completely worth it.

Midnight Man Candy

2011-12-17T22:00:00.000-05:00

Dude's just so casually walking around shirtless. Me gusta.

Mistletoe Madness Bloghop Officially Open!

2011-12-16T10:34:00.000-05:00

Okay - the Mistletoe Madness Blog Hop is officially open. Click here to go to my site for a chance to win some author swag...though be warned, you will have to write hedgehog haiku. ;-)

There are links there as well for a separate chance to win a Nook, preloaded with ebooks from our sponsor authors (including a copy of A Brush of Darkness), so check it out. Contest will remain open until December 23rd. (you can also just click on the graphic on my sidebar later.)

Word Whore Thursday: Mine Eyes!

2011-12-15T12:36:00.002-05:00

I'm over at my weekly Word-Whores post today, talking about what happens when your family members read your sex scenes. (If anything. Maybe you've got super cool family members. Maybe they disown you. Maybe they don't care?)

Feel free to run over there and laugh and share your own experiences with the awkward way of words. (Don't even get me started on my co-workers, particularly the ones that won't look me in the eye anymore. *ahem*)

If I Weren't Laughing I'd be Crying

2011-12-14T13:35:00.000-05:00

I am completely and utterly swamped at work today and no time to do anything other than scream into my arm. But this made me laugh, so here you go.

Also, I've got the blog hop page ready to go for Friday - you're gonna have to write hedgehog haiku if you want a chance at winning, so start thinking those babies up now.

And in the Redundancy Department of Redundancy I also talk a bit about the hop over at the League of Reluctant Adults.

Character Evolution: From RPG to Hipster Elf?

2011-12-13T15:40:00.000-05:00

I get asked how I think of my characters a lot - particularly the weird ones. Phin. Brystion, etc. I mean, my world-building as a whole is filled with odd beasties and people. OtherFolk come in many flavors, and it's a kitchen-sink world so pretty much anything and everything is fair game. Sometimes it's easy - the characters just show up and I know exactly how they're going to fit in.

Sometimes I don't have the foggiest clue.

Sometimes they surprise me quite a bit.

Part of that is being a panster. Half the time, I really don't know everyone's motivation until I get there. As far as characters go, I still have to admit that Ion plays everything so very, very close to his vest. I thought I had him pegged up front...and discovered I've barely scratched the surface. He's one of the hardest characters to write, for that reason.

And that's okay. We've worked out an understanding of sorts.

But today I wanted to chat a little bit about one of the new characters from A Sliver of Shadow. I'm not going to go into a huge amount of detail because I don't want to spoil anyone, but this is maybe just a general overview of how characters come about for me. (i.e. part vague idea, part luck, part wtf.)

Readers were first introduced to Talivar at the end of A Brush of Darkness - he's Moira's brother - both a prince of Fae and Abby's new bodyguard. He wasn't planned at all. He was a placeholder of sorts, in fact. The end of BoD was very different in its early incarnation...and then the publisher told me to change it up a little - so I did.

Part of that was the inclusion of a potential new love interest. I wasn't sure what to do for him at that point...and I was currently playing a PbP game in my forum based on Dragon Age. I was playing a Dalish elf I'd rolled...by name of Talivar. So I snagged his overall physical persona and tossed him in there.

In some ways this was a major clusterfuck. I'd already written nearly half of SoS...without Talivar (see above, with massively different ending.) And it wasn't good enough to simply rip out mentions of Ion and plug Talivar into them. They're different characters and would relate to situations and other characters in massively different ways. Needless to say, there was a *LOT* of revising - but that level of revision would have happened no matter what character I put in.

Now - let me be very up front about this - although his original incarnation was based on an RPG game, Talivar is NOT a DA cut out. Some of his physical flaws - i.e. the eye patch - stayed the same, but his personality is nothing like my game character. The face tats are also there...but by the time I'd changed my mind about keeping them, BoD was already pubbed...and I'd mentioned them....so they had to stay. On the other hand, he's the only elf in the current world with them, and they have no meaning other than personal preference. (Kind of a nice lesson there about writing - sometimes the smallest details have big repercussions later on - and even though Talivar only had maybe a page of face time in BoD, it was enough to set the stage for everything else.)

And yes, there are elves and Fae in my world, but they're based off the more traditional folktales and ballads, with a quick nod at Tolkien in several places. (It's 4th wall stuff, truly.) By the time I was done with him, it was more just a person with the same name. (And I've done this before. As I've mentioned several times, Phineas also existed as an RPG game character at one point as well - but at this point, they really aren't much alike.)

So I set about refining him - there's a lot of elvish politics going on in SoS. With Talivar being a prince, we get to see some of that first hand. As heroes go, he's not alpha in the slightest - he's got his own set of physical issues and old baggage to deal with (much of which won't actually be revealed until A Trace of Moonlight.). But he's also got some goof factor (i.e. Abby taught him to dance The Hustle at one point, so it's not *all* just "My Pet Legolas" either.)

But I was still struggling a bit with his overall role, particularly as I started to think more along plot arcs moving into A Trace of Moonlight. And then I asked Darchala to sketch him out for me as a potential trading card. She made him with short hair...and gave him hipster scruff.

And everything clicked into place. Which sounds frightfully odd, but all of a sudden I knew his background and why he was the way he was. Most of which I can't get into - you'll find out if you read - but I went back and added the scruff. He still starts out with long hair (again, end of BoD...it was there, had to keep it initially), but halfway through SoS, he cuts it. It's nicely symbolic and sets up for some very interesting things to come.

Mistletoe Madness

2011-12-12T11:34:00.000-05:00

Just a heads up that I'll be participating in the Mistletoe Madness Blog Hop coming up in the next week.Be sure to check back in a few days for a chance to win some great BoD/SoS swag from me...as well as a chance to win the grand prize of a brand new Nook, pre-loaded with some fabulous books from some great authors!

(The actual form for entering will be on my official site over at Heart of the Dreaming, but I'll list it here as well.)

Also, I'm over at Vampire Books today for a little Q&A session. :D

Midnight Man Candy

2011-12-10T22:00:00.000-05:00

A little something to keep you warm tonight. ;-)

The Last Leg

2011-12-09T11:57:00.001-05:00

I'm in the last bits of the A Trace of Moonlight draft. 85k written - about another 15k to go. Though really, 100k is just the ballpark figure. A little more, a little less - it doesn't really matter. I'll be fleshing things out quite a bit as I restructure part of the plot, so I don't worry about final counts until I've got something I'm actually happy with.

I think the final word count for A Brush of Darkness was 102k when it went to print...A Sliver of Shadow exploded to about 117k at one point, but I narrowed it down to 110k at the end. (And I'd say the standard UF/PNR usually runs 90k to 120k for trad publishing. Epic fantasy can be longer, but it's also harder to break into if a publisher doesn't want to spend the extra print money.)

When it comes down to it, though - 15k is NOTHING. I have writer friends who can pump out 10k in a day. (Admittedly, they're full time writers, so I have to give myself a pass there.) But if I make a good sized push I should be able to get this thing done by next week.

And yet, my standard MO around this time frame is to slow down. Like I know the end is near and I find myself not wanting to finish it. Odd, because I know how this one ends. I haven't written the ending, but it's in my head. I know what the last line will be and how the last chapter rolls up...and that will be fun and soft and bittersweet. (And will probably leave a bit of an opening for another book, should the publisher be so inclined. *plug plug*)

But right now? It's the big confrontation between Abby and her enemy. It needs to be an epic scene. We need to see the over-arching motivation as to why things went down they way they have over the last few books. And...

...I got nothing.

Okay, not entirely true, but sometimes I have to question my own motivations.Am I dragging my feet because I don't really want to finish it? Afraid I can't do the scene justice? Or is it that once I'm done here, my contract is up and OMFG, what if I never sell another book?

I have no idea.

It's not a block. It's more like the protection of procrastination. (If I don't finish it, I don't have to expose the crap to the harsh light of day and admit that I still have so far to go, perhaps. Odd, because there's a part of me that just wants to get it done and make it look pretty.)

So, I think I'm just going to have to sit down push through it. Type the words, make note of the bodies...and let the revisions sort it all out.

A Sliver of Shadow Trading Cards!

2011-12-08T01:10:00.000-05:00

Okay - the next set of trading card designs have been finalized and here they are! (I'm still working on the back blurbs so I don't actually have any in stock - it will be several weeks before I have physical copies in my hot little hands, but I'll announce it when I do.)

Characters are as follows: Moira, Nobu, Talivar and Brystion (in human form)

Artwork created by the fabulous Darchala!

Just Because.

2011-12-07T20:38:00.000-05:00

I LOL'd.

Prickly

2011-12-07T12:24:00.001-05:00

Everything in my back hurts today, so I'm not feeling much like blogging or joining in the holiday spirit of things.

Here's Tumbleweed not cooperating as I attempt to take a picture of her in a sleigh.

I'm doing a blog hop contest starting next week - I'll throw up some more details about that soon. (I'll be hosting my portion of it on my official author site).

However, part of the giveaway is a stuffed hedgehog. Alas that Tumbleweed refused to really want to be part of the promo shots...

(This is her: "I'm going to crawl into your bed tonight and shank you" look.)

A melding of minds, perhaps. You can see that the stuffed hedgehog is nearly actual size. :D

But with far less prickle to go around...

(Tumbleweed is unimpressed. Though she *did* lick its nose.)

Merry Merry

2011-12-06T11:44:00.000-05:00

So I wasn't originally expecting this to be done until next week (I'm doing an author blog hop and I wanted something fun for the post), but the marvelous Jakface delivered in less than 24 hours and I adore the image so much I'm tossing it up here now...and if anyone's interested, the design is also available in the Zazzle store for your Holiday cards.

Because of reasons.

Socialize What?

2011-12-05T12:40:00.001-05:00

A couple of years ago when I first started the whole writing gig, I got sucked into the social networking game. It was the big thing - start the platform before you have the product so that people would know who I was.

I'll leave the analysis of whether that's a good or a bad thing up to other people. Short story is, for all that I'm somewhat of a introvert in real life, I actually do enjoy the social aspects of blogging and tweeting and all the rest of it. (Maybe it's that whole I was a middle-school geek vibe - behind the electronic curtain, I'm still a bit of a mess, but no one can really see that from where I'm standing. I can be as bold or ridiculous as I like. )

But still. When I first put my toe in the Twitter pool, it was more career driven. I followed other authors, agents, bloggers, publishers - anyone involved with the industry that I could find. Anyone who was published and had "made it" from my particular viewpoint. And really, that's not a bad thing. The publishing industry is changing every moment, it seems - information travels at the speed of atoms on Twitter - it's a fabulous place to gather news, particularly because my time is at such a premium these days. I barely have time to blog my own stuff, let alone visit all my old favorite online spots. Twitter gives me a snapshot of what's going on and I can live with that just fine for now. (And honestly, where else can I find out what's going on in the industry AND find out what people are watching on TV. And reading. And eating. And hey that can of Coke Zero just exploded and someone's cat is drinking it and OMG did you watch Virgin Diaries last night?)

Nonsense? Absolutely, but funny how some of those little things make the people I'm following more real to me.

I've also been able to connect with real friends...and of course, tweet at the occasional celebrity in a vain attempt at two seconds of notoriety. (And celebrities can be defined in multiple ways - you've got the big-wig Hollywood sorts, but there's plenty of what I would call niche-celebs out there too - authors, artists, gamers, whatever. Maybe not big names on the whole, but within their own little worlds? Sure.)

The thing is, the tweet-streams seem to get more and more cluttered as we go. It used to be I'd follow anyone who'd follow me. Quid pro quo and all that...but I don't always do that anymore. I mean, I follow about 1600 people now, and I've got about 1800 followers. It's not huge number, but doable for me at the moment. There's a fair number of spammers in there, I'm sure...as well as people I'll call "Twitter - hoarders" - the ones with 10,000 followers, and they follow 10,000 people? I do start to wonder if they're actually interacting with everyone there or if they are just collecting followers.

As a side note, I also sorta crack up at some of the niche-celebs. They jump into the Twitter pool, tweet a few times, get a few hundred or thousand followers...and then only follow like 30 people back- and always the *same* 30 people - Hollywood bigwigs. Like there isn't anyone else on the planet worth following or interacting with. And I don't get that either. I mean, okay, if you've got 200,000 followers and you're constantly being tweeted at by people, yeah, it makes sense to maybe be a bit more aloof. (And this is obviously a problem I'll never have, understand.) But the usual point of social networking is to...be social, right? I dunno. I can't tell if it's an ego thing or just a lack of understanding as to how the medium should work. (And seriously? Don't get on Twitter and tweet about how people are so stupid and how you had to shut down your Facebook page because you kept getting friend invites instead of them going to your Fan page, and oh, the horror. You've got your 15 minutes. Revel it in, k?)

These days, I'm actually more interested in making more of a personal connection. Follow me and tweet me in a friendly way and I'll more than likely follow you back. But on that same note, because so many authors are forced to throw themselves out there to sell their books, it can be hard to tell if someone is actually interested in knowing me the person...or me, the author who can maybe get you something. It does happen- I get pinged about hooking up random people with my agent, or my publisher...or I get the dreaded "thanks-for-following-and-would-you-please-buy-my-book-DM." (This is a dick move, btw. I will instantly unfollow you if you do it.)

Still, Twitter is a fun place - even if a huge chunk of it is no more than pseudo-verbal masturbation, in a lot of ways it's a virtual party where everyone's invited.

I'll be over here in the corner. Petting the cat and sipping my Coke Zero.

Midnight Man Candy

2011-12-03T22:14:00.001-05:00

Serpentine...

Friday Afternoon WTFkry

2011-12-02T14:22:00.001-05:00

Ladies and gents...I present to you: the Banana Candle.

Which sounds like it should be a euphemism for something, but alas...it is not.

As per When Used Books Attack: Banana Edition, (quoted below) this glorious recipe can be found in "Bo Bold With Bananas."

And I'm all for getting bold with my food, but this seems to be moving into full on fruit peen-landia. (With a cherry on top, no less! See what I did there? Huh? Huh? Phallic innuendo, FTW)

Which is okay. But that's mayo on that there peely-o-peen. (I mean, icing? Sure, I could sorta see that. Might be fun. But mayo? Ick.)

This monstrosity is called a Banana Candle, which consists of a banana stuck in a pineapple slice, with mayonnaise and a maraschino cherry on top. And it is a crime against nature. If someone brought this into my home, I would slap them, and then burn my house down and salt the ground where it stood. This photo is the reason flocks of birds inexplicably die and fall to the ground. Goats and gangrene, who approved this picture??? Imagine my horror – I actually touched this book.

Thanks to @DaniellePoiesz for notifying me of this particular bit of WTFkry.

Word-Whore Thursday

2011-12-01T14:11:00.001-05:00

I'm over at Word Whores today talking a bit about daydreams (And I dug into my muppet nerdom past to pull out a little Rainbow Connection video too, because I dig Kermit.)

Otherwise...I'm on the downhill side of the draft for A Trace of Moonlight (and should be done within the next week or so. And then I'll be madly revising for a few weeks, but it's all good.). I am giving myself a little early present this Sunday though - my stress levels have been extra high for the last few weeks (to the point where I actually almost bought a ticket to London...just because I'd never been there and thought it might a great place to crash for a few days. It's probably best that I don't make snap purchases in that frame of mind, so I talked myself out of it because, hey, real life...but still. Maybe early spring might be better. You know. When I'm NOT under deadline?) So instead, I just booked some R&R time at the Spa on Sunday instead. Probably wiser, all the way around.

On a fun side note, A Brush of Darkness is being discussed over on Kelly Armstrong's forum this month! :D

Crazy Cat Lady of Email

2011-11-30T11:12:00.001-05:00

So apparently I have email issues. Or specifically email *hoarding* issues. And I don't mean a little bit.

I mean, I took an hour to clean my inbox last night...because I was looking for some interview questions I owe some people. After that hour? I still had 40k messages in my inbox. Of which 11k were unread. (That was down from 18k unread, btw. And probably about 60k in the inbox.)

And that doesn't even count the ones actually filtered into specific folders. All those mailing lists and such .(Although I took a large step over the summer and switched to digest for most of them, so at least that little bit has cut down.)

The rest of it? Eh - a fair amount of spam that I guess I just never got around to deleting, but it's more than that. There's all the stupid stuff like ads from places I shop at. Notifications from Facebook. Twitter. Tumblr. Every other freaking social network out there. Notifications from my gaming forum. Notifications from every time someone leaves a reply on my blog. (Only I get those twice - once from Blogger and once from Echo.) All those emails I got when I was the webmaster for FF&P.

And it gets worse, because I have them on multiple machines. I've got pop accounts on different laptops as well, so I've got a lot of these messages in duplicate or triplicate. (Only one account actually pulls them off the server.) Also mostly undeleted. Half the time I do intend to delete the crap when it shows up, but then I get distracted with something else...and then a slew of new messages come in and it's already too late.

I'm not sure why.

Maybe there's that little "But what if I NEED it...5 years from now?" voice. Or maybe there's that lonely part of me that likes to go back and reread some of those tweets or facebook messages and remember a different time.

I honestly have no idea. (But it's fairly reflective of the homelife too. I'm a pack rat. Wouldn't go so far as to say hoarder, but I definitely have trouble getting rid of things...though I'm working on that too.)

But anyway - I'll probably take an hour a day the next few days to try to dig through the rest of it. I *did* find the messages I was looking for and put them into a specific folder, but if you're expecting something from me (a blog post, a book, whatever) and you don't hear back soon, feel free to...drop me an email. >_<

Midnight WTFkry: I Hate My Job

2011-11-29T23:13:00.001-05:00

I cannot look away. Or stop hitting the replay button.

Also? Dudes have AWESOME legs. :D

Stepping Out

2011-11-29T10:54:00.001-05:00

A few years ago I managed to drop about 25 pounds or so. Mostly a combination of Weight Watchers and just limiting my overall food intake. I didn't even really exercise - mostly because of chronic pain issues.

Due to moments of high stress over the last year or so, I've slowly gained at least 10 pounds. Which isn't a huge deal in the grand scheme of things - I can hide it well enough, but I don't really want to go there for too long. Besides it's gone from ooh, bigger boobs to...ick.

I'm getting a little tired of the status quo so I'm going back on the diet bandwagon for a while. Always hard to do during holiday season because it's so easy to say "just one more slice of pie," but I don't really want to start this in another month either. (And yeah, I'll still make my meringues because this *is* that time of year, but I'll be giving away more than I'll be eating. Hopefully.)

I guess what's most frustrating to me is that intentions don't really mean much. I bought a killer treadmill back in April and I've used it like 5 times since then. Not because I didn't want to...but I get on it and walk for 20 minutes (low impact) and something falls out - my SI or my lower vertebrae or whatever and then I'm in pain for like two weeks afterwards. Which sorta equates to NOT WORTH IT.

Which sucks, because I like walking. And I think it would help in the long run (and I sit all day at work. I write for hours at night. I would really like to do something that doesn't involve sitting.)

At this point my SI is actually mostly stable, but the trigger point knots are still so tight that they're actually pulling my joints out of alignment by themselves, so I'm off to start a round of lidocaine injections to see if that will "reset" them in some fashion. It's just one of those chronic things where the muscles can't shut down by themselves anymore. (And I have tried this before and it did help...but since the underlying skeletal issues were still there, it was short lived. Hopefully now that the rest of me is sorta okay, the shots will help more this time.)

Hopefully.

Changing My Ways

2011-11-28T13:08:00.001-05:00

I've almost always been a hard-core panster. I don't like outlines. I barely keep track of anything going on with my stories or characters except for what's in my head. Something about writing it down tends to destroy the urge to actually continue with the story.

On the other hand, it tends to mean I have a more work to do with my revisions. Mini-plots that went nowhere. Extra characters that are...extra. But the beauty of word processing and the multitude of edits involved with the production of a book do allow for changes to be made, often until a few weeks before actual printing. (Assuming by that point it's small stuff. If it's not? Well, then I've probably got bigger problems than a few typos.)

But, as I'm working on drafting the first issue of the web-comic (in between wrapping up the draft of A Trace of Moonlight*), I'm finding I have to plan things out a bit more than I normally do. For one thing, I have a tendency to over-complicate my plots sometimes - and while that's okay during draft mode on something I can edit later on, I won't have that luxury with this project.

1) I don't want to waste the artist's time - she has to interpret and draw up my vision for a scene, and I can't be changing my mind back and forth too much on that. Once she's inked it,we're pretty much done there. (We're going the traditional media route for this set.)

2) The medium itself is visual. It's okay for me to clog up my own notes with complicated back story and inner dialogue, but it's not needed on the production side. (And I've seen graphic novels that suffered greatly from this - too much verbal introspection or useless dialogue.) Definitely a moment where a picture really *is* worth a thousand words - but I think the key is deciding *which* of those thousand words will have the greatest impact and move things along.

3) Each "issue" should be somewhat self-contained...but the underlying story-arc will continue from piece to piece - so that means small things could have very large repercussions later on. (Which is actually something every writer needs to think about anyway - funny how what seems like a throw-away line in Chapter 1 of Book 1 is suddenly a massive deal-breaker of a rule by the end of Book 3. *eyeroll*)

So, I actually bought a copy of Scrivener the other day to see if that would help with my overall creation process. (There's actually a script-writer portion too that I'm trying out as well.) It's been interesting overall - and I haven't spent a *huge* amount of time on plotting yet since I really have to get this book finished first, but it's good for me to start considering how I'll need to change my thought process.

My biggest issue right now is not freezing up - I have a tendency to want things to work out perfectly on the first run of new stuff like this, but I need to give myself the time to make the basic mistakes and work out the rough edges. Learning curve and all that.

* Working title for BoD 3, tho subject to change...

Midnight Man Candy

2011-11-26T22:00:00.000-05:00

Yes.

Friday WTFkry

2011-11-25T18:29:00.001-05:00

I don't even know why the hell I'm posting this except for the fact that my kids and I have been running around the house shouting "CIRCLETINE!" at each other all day.

Sharing the love, y'all.

Mini Pre-Turkey Day Updates

2011-11-23T15:01:00.001-05:00

Just a little post today to wish everyone safe travels and a Happy Thanksgiving. (I probably won't be blogging for a few days - everyone needs a break, right?)

But a few small things of note:

1) A Brush of Darkness was listed as one of Vampire Book Club's Best Books of 2011 - go check it out and leave a comment for a chance to win a copy of it (or one of the other fab books listed. )

2) All Things Urban Fantasy gives the cover for A Sliver of Shadow two thumbs up. Huzzah!

3) A lovely review of BoD over on Literary Escapism today as well..

I've got some swag ordered for SoS - I should have bookmarks and stickers sometime next week, and Darchala is hard at work on the next set of character trading cards, so hopefully those should be done soon.

Also - SadSausageDogs.com is technically now officially live, although there won't be anything there for a while since I'm working on the back end right now. In the meantime, feel free to follow our Tumblr - we'll be posting WIPs and other nice tidbits as we go.

Maybe I SHOULD Get the iPhone 4S

2011-11-22T21:04:00.001-05:00

See all the CollegeHumor Original Videos here.

...or maybe not?

Sad Sausage Dogs

2011-11-22T11:42:00.001-05:00

So I've been hinting off and on for a few months about doing some extra projects on the side (aside from the writing), and here's the skinny.

As a for-fun collab project, I'm writing a web comic series with Aimo. (We're looking at an online pub date of Spring 2012.)

I'm doing this for a number of reasons - as I've stated before, I've always wanted to try my hand at this, and as a fan of comics and graphics novels in general, I've definitely got some stories in mind that I feel would translate really well to this particular medium. (And frankly, Aimo agreeing to collab with me is a bit of a pipe-dream come true. I adore her artistic style, so I'm very excited to see what we can create together.)

As far as storyline goes, it's going to be an original piece, not set in any of my books, and it will focus somewhat on fairy tales (although there's an underlying story arc that we both came up with that I really, really love.)

We'll be hosting the strip over at SadSausageDogs.com (not officially up yet as I'm working on the web design now, but figured I'd throw it out there.) Don't ask about the name. >_< Yes, there are pervy reasons behind it...but they shall remain sekret for now.

In the meantime, I'll make updates as I can. I can't wait to show you all what we've got in store. :)

Seeing Double

2011-11-21T12:44:00.001-05:00

I started wearing glasses some time in the 4th grade. I have a vague recollection of being able to see just fine one moment and then looking a something at the board and having just the faintest edges start to waver out of focus.

I must have said something to someone, because shortly after that point, I ended up with glasses. (Although I have no recollection of the actual process of getting the things.)

And of course, this was circa 1984, so the glasses I got were ginormous bug-eyed looking things, made of heavy glass. (Seriously, WTF was up with fashion in those days? We all look so damn goofy with our knee high socks and our short shorts. And giant puffy ringlet curl perms. And buggy glasses.) I got my first pair of contacts in 8th grade and I've never looked back, so to speak.

And since my dad dropped off two huge boxes of pictures at the house this week, I'll see if I can't come up with a lovely shot of me in my pre-teen dork glory. (Truly, it has to be seen to be believed.)

But the main point I had here was that I took Lucy to the eye doc's this past weekend, and yup - she needs glasses, though it's for astigmatism. (And doc says if we hit it up now, there's a good chance she might not need glasses in the future, though I won't hold my breath. Bad eyes run in the family on both sizes, so we shall see.)

She's not thrilled about it, but it's just amazing to me how tiny and cute the glasses are now. (And scratch resistant!) Instead of being all bug-eyed, she's going to look like a little hipster, (in blue or purple, no doubt.) And hopefully, they'll help her out in school. (I'm wondering if some of her fidgety nature is actually being caused by lack of ability to focus on the Smart Board.).

Odd, though - because I really didn't realize she needed them. And really, why would I? She doesn't squint or complain about not being able to see things...but if this has been a long term issue, how would she know? If all your letters are a little blurry, that's the norm. So I'm actually a little excited to see if she notices the difference.

Midnight Man Candy: Early Edition

2011-11-19T20:16:00.001-05:00

Brrr. It's cold outside. But not inside. ;-)

Happy Friday

2011-11-18T17:44:00.001-05:00

Late posting today but things got messed up. Two hour doc appointment became an additional two hour commute home from said doc appointment, thanks to a fuel spill and more accidents than I care to count today.

And company coming for the weekend, which leads to additional manic cleaning. So...off to finish that and some additional project planning.

And writing.

And I got invited to participate in the next ST:TOR beta...so, maybe I can fit that in too. (And Skyrim. And DA2. And Planescape: Torment. I can't seem to focus on a single game, atm - all over the place...)

But in the meantime, I want to thank all of you for the overwhelming outpouring of cover love for A Sliver of Shadow. Now, I just hope the story lives up to the expectation! :)

I Can Haz Cover: A Sliver of Shadow

2011-11-17T16:44:00.001-05:00

And here we go! *muppet flail*

Word-Whore Thursday: What's In a Name?

2011-11-17T13:39:00.001-05:00

I'm over at Word Whores today, as per usual for my Thursday post. (All about names today.)

And speaking of names, it is that time again - third book title time. I've still got my list from the last time we did this, so I'm working off that one and trying to come up with some new ones as well. Hard to find something that 1) Makes sense and 2) Rolls of the tongue.

*goes back to brainstorming*

Half-Baked

2011-11-16T14:27:00.001-05:00

If you know me, you know I love meringue cookies. (And if you know that, you know I've got my recipe for them here, so feel free to steal it.)

Making these cookies is a lot like an act of love. They take forever to mix. Forever to make. And if you deviate from the recipe, chances are they're going to flop. (They might still taste okay, but the presentation will not be so good.)

Writing is a lot like baking, I think...not just about the words on the page, but also when it comes time to ask for critiques or beta reads. I've seen a few posts over the last few days from writers asking how they know things are done. (Jeffe Kennedy had a good one - go check it out.).

And maybe you don't always know, but there are stages to it, I think.

1) The raw, runny stage. It's rough. (A hot mess, as I call it.) You've got plot lines that don't make sense, or characters who shouldn't be there, or whatever the issue is. But it's not ready to be seen by anyone. You know it needs to be fixed before it's ready for public consumption and chances are, not even your bestest beta buddy is gonna get a look at this.

Also? If you've been working and working and working on the same thing for too long, this is a good time to maybe give it a rest. This is the "it's my baby stage." You're too close to it and therefore it's a lot harder to take critiques into account. Put it down, write something else, play WoW for a few days, whatever. Come back to it with a fresh set of eyes and a slightly thicker skin and get ready to carve it up.

2) Mixing and setting. It's better. You get some people to check it out, but here's the thing - be careful of what you ask for. I've learned the hard way that I really can't ask people to read my stuff until the draft is complete. Sometimes I feel a little lost and I just want someone to reassure me that I'm at least on the right track...but I need to phrase it that way. A quick once over from the reader (who knows it still needs work) is different than a 10 chapter critique on something that isn't done. I sort of liken it to cooking and you ask someone to taste the sauce. You just want a quick yes or no to tell you if it needs more salt, not a write up in the Epicurean.

If I ask someone to tear something apart before it's ready? It has the potential to completely stop me in my tracks. All of a sudden I'm running around questioning everything I've got, telling myself my story is stupid and I'm a complete waste of a writer. It's not a good place to be. Better to have at least an entire story to get a better perspective. If you need to take something apart and put it somewhere else, you know where it might go.

3) Baking - Mmm. It's all in the oven. Its out with your betas and you're waiting and it smells good. (Or not, if you screwed up the ingredients, but that's a different thing.) You're hoping it comes out great. (Always a tough thing - you want people to like it, but you also want them to tell you if it's not working. And sometimes things are unexpected. Taking my meringues example - I made them once while visiting in Calgary and didn't take the elevation into consideration. They flattened out in the pan. Still tasted awesome, but not what I was expecting. As opposed to the time I brain farted and added double the sugar. And they barely baked at all. I was left with a thick gooey mess that I could have used as Spackle.)

4) Ready to serve. The story is warm and fresh and you can read it with ice cream. It's ready to be eaten. You've done the best you can and people get a chance to sample. Some people will love it. And some people will be like "Meh, I can do better." And some people will turn up their noses and walk away.

Because some people don't like meringues. And that's okay.

More for me.
http://mynfel.blogspot.com/2009/12/on-meringues.html

Meh

2011-11-15T14:15:00.001-05:00

Okay, I had this really long in-depth post I'd started to write today, but to be honest it became massively depressing and I decided it wasn't worth posting right now. Odd, since I've been deliriously happy the last few days so I don't know why I felt the need to delve into this big long mess about cancer and my mother and all the rest of it. And the thing is, it wasn't even supposed to be that way...but three paragraphs in and it skipped right past pathos and into despair.

So, I'm not posting it. I'll just let it sit in the drafts and hope just writing it down was enough to get the moment out of my system.

Also? I'm feeling rather old and unhip.

Shooting Russian Unicorns

2011-11-14T11:35:00.001-05:00

Yeah, you know, it's oddly catchy and I kinda can't stop watching. (Though I'm not sure @phintheunicorn would completely approve, but that's okay.)

And in case you didn't realize - yes that's a spoof lipsynch job over a Michael Bublé video. (Original here.)

On a few additional notes, I'm guest posting over at the League of Reluctant Adults today, talking a little bit about an upcoming project I'm looking to do.

Also - All Things Urban Fantasy is taking nominations for best PNR/UF covers, so if you're so inclined, head over that way to nominate A Brush of Darkness (or any of your favs, honestly.) :)

Midnight Man Candy

2011-11-12T23:07:00.001-05:00

A little late night inspiration before I go pass out. Loooonnnggg couple of days.

Friday Morning WTFkry

2011-11-11T10:00:00.000-05:00

Yeah, I figure it's time for something *really* funky today.

So, this is called The Little Rooster.

And it's an alarm clock. For the vagina.

Yes. Just set it, toss it in your underwear and wake up to your very own snorgasm.

What makes the Little Rooster really special is that delicious semi-conscious state when you're not yet quite awake. Other alarms tear those precious moments from you. The Little Rooster not only lets you savour them, it makes them even dreamier. Whether you leap straight out of bed or let it run its lazy course, no other clock will wake you with this joyful secret thrill.

*nods sagely*

Well, alrighty then. Though, I do like how it tells you how you can wear it anywhere. (But don't turn it on for takesoffs and landings, yo.)

Word-Whore Thursday

2011-11-10T14:24:00.001-05:00

I'm over at the Word Whores today for my usual Thursday posting. This week the theme is perfection, which is a rather futile goal - noble to strive for, sure, but perfection is really in the eye of the beholder anyway. What's a deal breaker for some is endearing to someone else.

It's sort of like writing - you can't please everyone and you shouldn't really try. The more you try to be all things to all people the less likely you are to succeed pleasing anyone.

Honest

2011-11-09T15:02:00.000-05:00

There's been a tweet I've seen going around the last few weeks telling readers that the best way to thank an author they like is to leave a review for one of their books. Makes a lot of sense, since usually people only tend to review things when they have a negative reaction to it. Happy people are quiet. Angry people will speak up.

With the constant lessening of paid publicity available to authors (mid-list in particular), so much of our sales depends on word-of-mouth, so I do agree with this sentiment. (Although, I have found that book lovers as a whole tend to be way more vocal about what they like/don't like, which is a fabulous thing.)

Since the galleys have gone out for A Sliver of Shadow, I'll admit I'm feeling a bit more nervous about its reception. It's a different this time around. For A Brush of Darkness, I didn't know what to expect. On one level I was just grateful that anyone would even pick it up, let alone leave a review for it. This time, I've got actual readers I don't wan to disappoint, and readers who maybe weren't as impressed as I would have liked them to be.

Many authors I know don't even read any of their reviews at this point. It's hard - because everyone likes to think that their efforts will be appreciated, but it's a fine line to walk. Reading too many negative reviews can really bring an author down. Before long you start doubting you even have the right to touch a keyboard, let alone actually write something anyone would *want* to read. Not good for a long term writing career.

On the other hand, too many good reviews isn't always an advantageous thing either. Always nice for an ego stroke - and there's nothing wrong with that, but writing is an organic process. It's always about growing and getting better. Start believing your own press and there isn't really anywhere else to go but down. (And incidentally, I see people who get like this in pretty much all levels and types of media. It's hard not to sometimes - the first few times someone gushes over you or your work, you just feel on top of the world and it's lovely. But you can't take it too seriously.)

Sometimes it's not about whether a review is positive or negative, but the quality of it that makes the difference. I would far rather have a review that points out the reasons why it failed/succeeded for that particular reader in a well-thought out manner then one that is merely squees or full of spite.

(And sometimes you have to take who the reviewer is into question with this. Some reviewers are never satisfied with anything. Which is fine - everyone has a right to an opinion and to share it, but I've seen reviews that clearly had a bone to pick - it might be personal or just about a particular topic, but then you have to wonder if they really hate something that much, why continue to read books about that subject or by that author? Also, I'm really wary about people who claim how much they love to "snark" about books. True wit will show in the writing and the perception of the words...not because you're crowing about how snarky you are. That tends to translate into a license to be mean.)

I've had my share of both - happy, fangirly reviews, and reviews where the reader clearly thought my writing was worth less than a piece of dogshit on their shoe.

But the best reviews are the ones that are honest.

Third Time's the Charm?

2011-11-08T17:44:00.000-05:00

You know, back in the days before I was published, I would go to conventions and sit in on the workshops and listen to the authors gush about their editors and their agents and how they'd been with them since the beginning of their careers and how they wouldn't be anywhere without them. Editor X or Agent Y took a chance on them and everything clicked and was wonderful.

And that's a tad tongue-in-cheek, obviously - not all the stories are fairy tales, but still.

It sounded awesome. I mean, who wouldn't want a partnership like that? And sure, editors all work differently - some hold your hand, some don't. Some do in-depth editing and some stand back and give vague direction and let the author do their thing. It can be hard to find the right rhythm.

I'll admit I've had a rather interesting run with the whole New York publishing gig. Two years ago, I got my first agent (Nov 2009). By January of 2010 I had a 3 book deal with Pocket and got my first editor, who I adored. (And still do. Mwah!) By August of 2010, my agent became ill and left the agency. Whereby I got my next agent from the same agency. (Whom I adore. Mwah!). By October of 2010, before my first book even came out, my editor left the publisher to pursue other work in the publishing industry. I had a new editor assigned to me in December 2010. Who went out on maternity leave in August of 2011 and is no longer coming back.

So now I have just been assigned my third editor (Adam Wilson, y'all. Whee!) It's such a small world here because back when Brush of Darkness was out on submission, Adam was working for an imprint of Harlequin and made an offer on it. But he recently accepted a position with Simon & Schuster, and when he discovered my editor was not coming back, he remembered my work and was kind enough to ask for me.

As an author, I cannot begin to tell you what a relief this is. Being orphaned once was bad enough, but twice within the same 12 month period is sort of mind-shattering. Just as I started getting used to how one editor worked, the rug was snatched out from under me. It's hard to keep a positive attitude about your creative work when you essentially get dumped on someone who isn't familiar with you. A forced partnership, if you will. Sometimes it works out and sometimes it doesn't. (And to be blunt, in this case, it didn't.) And if you didn't know this entire huge mess of a story, it might look like I'm some sort of diva simply because my editors drop like flies. But circumstances are odd and often beyond my control.

So to have Adam specifically go out of his way to snap me up means a lot. He's already familiar with my writing voice and the basic storyline. (Hell, he even tweets with my alter ego @phintheunicorn sometimes...even well before any of this.) For me, this is an excellent premise to a new working relationship and one I am very much looking forward to.

Monday Morning Updates

2011-11-07T10:45:00.000-05:00

Such as they are.

Quick note to say I'm guest blogging over at PJ Schnyder's author site today to talk a bit about NaNoWriMo. (Ironic since I'm not participating this year, but I *have* won in past years, so I know the scoop.)

Also, even though I'm still waiting on the cover, I've gone ahead and thrown up a page about A Sliver of Shadow on my author site, so if you're interested in finding out a little more about that, you can see it here. (Once I get permission, I'll put up a full chapter excerpt.)

All the galleys for A Sliver of Shadow are now out, but if you didn't get one, please drop me an email and I'll send your information to my publicist and she'll put you on the list. If we get any rotated back in, we'll send them out.

Midnight Man Candy

2011-11-05T23:00:00.000-04:00

Torso man-candy...for medicinal purposes, of course.

It's Friday!

2011-11-04T15:41:00.000-04:00

...and quite honestly I'm up to my ears in stuff, so not sure what to talk about today.

Actually, I've got a ranty mcrantypants blog that's been brewing up in my head for weeks now about women in gaming (or how women are portrayed in gaming, etc.) but I'm not sure I really have the literary chops to say what I want to say without it coming across as "Guh, sexism bad. Y U always show bewbs?"

So I'll sit on that for a little bit longer. Tell you what though - if I had the time/money I'd seriously look into starting up my own mini-gaming company. Thanks to running a mostly female gaming forum for eight years, I've got artists and writers and game modders galore. What I don't have is honest-to-god programmers and 3D render whizzes. Gaming engine, yes. Original mesh creator? No. But perhaps I'll just put that on the back burner for a bit -I have enough on my plate right now.

But still. It's just so damned tempting to think about.

Anyway, I did some computer housecleaning this week and discovered I'm a bit of a URL hoarder. I have a number that I've bought over the years that I either intended to do something with, or I *DID* something with and no longer need. So, if anyone is interested, I have the following domain names for sale:

Celtic-Moons.com
EarthTears.com
GroveoftheGoddess.com
LittlePotsofHorror.com (used to sell venus flytraps, whee.)
WeNamedTheMonkeyJack.com

There are a few others I may chose to hold onto, but we'll start with that. So if anyone wants one, drop me a line and I'll see what I can do.

Word-Whore Thursday: Fear Itself

2011-11-03T10:56:00.001-04:00

Just a little note to say I'm over at Word-Whores today, talking a little bit about fear.

I'm afraid of an awful lot at times, though I'd guess most of it tends to be irrational (although I suspect most creative types are irrational nutjobs when it comes stuff like that. But that's what makes us creative, right?)

That's what I tell myself, anyway.... >_<

Running in Circles

2011-11-02T14:51:00.002-04:00

Ever feel like your head can't shut down? Like your brain is on a hamster wheel, but instead of doing its thing and chilling out for a while, it just runs and runs and runs and you end up in some wretched state of mental exhaustion where you have a billion things to do and you can't actually stay focused on any of them long enough to do anything at all?

And then you feel like a complete and utter failure because you can't even manage to keep your kitchen sink empty of dishes?

Yeah.

No NaNo

2011-11-01T14:31:00.000-04:00

I was actually debating doing NaNo this year. I've done it before and won and it is fun, but there's just too much going on with me right now. NaNo is one of those things where you really have to want to do it, otherwise it becomes a bit of a slog.

At the moment I feel like I'm walking a pretty tight rope between work and writing, family and personal stuff and I just can't see adding the insanity of NaNo into the mix right now.

Or maybe I'm a little jaded since I'm under massive deadline pressure with this third book. I'd love to have that sort of time and I don't. I'm sort of consumed with the book, and that leaves very little time for anything else. And while I do work okay under some pressure, right now I just don't need the added bonus of anything else.

Too much, and I have a tendency to freeze up and not want to work on anything. (Overwhelmed, perhaps?) And that's bad enough when I'm writing for fun, but I'd rather concentrate on managing at my own pace for this one, even if it's slower than I would like.

But for everyone else taking on the challenge, I wish you luck and happy writing. :)

Halloween Updates

2011-10-31T10:46:00.000-04:00

...such as they are.

I'm a tad bleary since I ended up in the Urgent Care clinic last night with Lucy...who was running a temp of 106. Which freaked me out. (Tried it several times, 106, 107, Err. Tried another thermometer and it said 105. Yeah, off to the clinic/ER). She's being treated for strep now, but it was a very long night. (She does look better this morning, though, so that's good.)

Oddly enough, I seem to recall one of my kids was sick like this last Halloween as well, which makes for a short trick-or-treating stint, but we'll see how she's doing later tonight.

In the meantime, I did submit a list of potential reviewers to receive galleys of A Sliver of Shadow this morning - I only had a very limited number and there may have been some overlap between my list and the publisher, which means I don't actually have a clue as to who is getting one. But if you asked, I did try and hopefully you'll be getting one soon. (They are going out today).

I had a mini breakthrough on the WIP this weekend as well, and the words are coming easier now. Maybe because I'm finally at a part where I know where I want to go. It's odd, though, because it's not anything like what my outline originally was. The joys of pansting, I guess. Also? Melanie is starting to become more of a plot player than I thought she'd be...but it sorta makes sense. She's definitely got her own story to tell, so I suspect some of this is setup for a future installment.

On a delightedly surprising and fangirly note, I want to give a shout out to @wench who was at the MCMExpo in London this weekend and took the time to call me yesterday morning and pass the phone to Adam Howden (@A_Howdz), who happens to be the voice actor of Anders in Dragon Age 2. So I got a nice quick chat with him, which was lovely. And hey, he vaguely knew who I was because I sent him a copy of A Brush of Darkness, courtesy of @aimoahmed, who was also there. Will he read it? Only time will tell. LOL. Also gave a copy to @thevoiceofgid (aka Gideon Emery), but I haven't quite gotten around to pinging him on twitter to ask him about it. Suppose we shall see.

Last thing is a good luck to everyone starting NaNoWriMo tomorrow! (I won't be joining you this year, but I do have a couple of guest blogs coming up on the subject later on this month.)

Midnight Man Candy

2011-10-29T23:05:00.001-04:00

I'm definitely a sucker for the bed-head look. Also? Abs.

How Apropos...

2011-10-28T20:19:00.000-04:00

I'm actually vaguely tempted to try it.

(I think the most creative I ever got was to make those little tissue ghosts with rubber bands and markers, but hey, whatever works...

Also, just for fun I'm throwing up some vintage Collegeville Halloween costumes. Remember these awful plastic jumper things with the dead-doll eye masks? (With those funky lip things that used to basically just collect your sweaty drool when you were out Trick-or-Treating??

And the words FLAME RETARDED on the box cover - like, what? Were there so many choices of costumes in the 70s that you might actually choose the ones that would spontaneously burst into flame?

<- Holy crap, it's the Kraken from the original Clash of the Titans!

Some serious cheeseball awesomesauce right here...

<-- I actually had this one - maybe 1983? I would have been in 3rd grade.

Wow, I'm old.

And wow, we had some seriously shitty-ass costumes back in the day.

I For One Welcome our Hello Kitty Overlords...

2011-10-27T15:14:00.001-04:00

I just had to share this awesome Hello Cthulhu cake...because it is AWESOME.

That and to express a little amazement at my son, who dropped $30 on books at his school book fair. Not that I ever mind my kids buying books - I would take that a hundred-fold over video games or crappy toys. I'm just surprised because he's eight and that's a lot of cash for someone that young. (Saved up from his birthday over the summer.)

Definitely a trend I intent to keep on encouraging, anyway.

Also, I'm over at Word-Whores today, talking a little bit about vampires and werewolves.

Vampire WTFkery

2011-10-26T14:45:00.000-04:00

I don't even actually have words for this. But have a little Halloween WTFkry on me.

Or not. (And I suppose I'm going to have to dig up a link to this at some point...but not until I get home from work. Because reasons.)

Edited to add: I found it on IMDB!

Count Drac is back - and this time he's sucking more than just necks! Count Gaylord stalks the streets of L.A. for the hunkiest victims to ever succumb to lust, as well as his enemy, the Marquis de Suede.

Stormy Brain

2011-10-25T20:26:00.000-04:00

Didn't post earlier today because I had a migraine for a large chunk of it. Makes it hard to be enthusiastic about looking at the screen for sure. (I've take some Excedrin and it's helped the pain part, but I'm *awfully* jumpy right now, so I'm not sure how helpful it will be for the rest of the night.)

I did manage to do some actual brainstorming today - on paper. I'm at a bit of a crossroads with this third book, and I know it because my latest chapter is pretty much everyone just standing around and jabbering at each other. Always a sign for me that things are a little muddled plot-wise.

Characters are often like actors. Sometimes they need very little guidance. Just point them in the right direction and they'll ad-lib themselves into greatness. Others? Not so much. You could compare being a writer like being a director, I guess. If the characters aren't feeling the scene, then maybe I need to tell them where to go and what to say...but if *I* can't figure that out? Then they sit there and gossip and nothing really gets done.

And sometimes writing that out is enough to loosen something. Sometimes it's not.

So today I actually moved to regular pen and paper and started sketching things out. I start with what I know and what's been written, along with notes of things I already know I want to change...and things I'd like to see happen and go from there. Even though I could type it out, for some reason, I find the mechanics of ink on paper to be far more organic when it comes to ideas.

I can doodle, for example - and that's pretty freeing. Plus, for some reason I feel like I can explore more this way. It makes no sense, really, since I can just as easily erase words on the computer...but for some reason, typing it up feels like a larger commitment.

*shrugs*

Just how my brain works, I guess.

Happy Release Day

2011-10-24T10:49:00.003-04:00

Throwing a shout-out there to the lovely Jeffe Kennedy and a resounding congrats for the release of Sapphire!

It's available at Carina Press, Amazon and All Romance eBooks, so go snag a copy today!

A successful executive, M. Taylor Hamilton is on track with her ten-year plan. Too bad her personal life consists of hitting the gym and grocery shopping. Enter the seductive Adam Kirliss. They may have a working relationship, but everything changes at an office party when he handcuffs her to the rail of a yacht.

Taylor writes off the adventure as too much champagne, but when Adam challenges her to a date, she agrees to meet up with him. And follow his rules. They share a night of exquisite intimacy, brimming with both pain and pleasure. But afterward, fearful of losing her heart, Taylor pulls back emotionally.

Adam is determined to prove that she longs for the loss of control he can give her—and the passionate release it provides. How can he make her see that he wants her, and not just her body?

Edit to add: There's a contest over at Word-Whores today to win a free copy - so run over there and leave a comment!

Love is Blind

2011-10-23T16:07:00.000-04:00

Amazing story of a pair of Great Danes looking for a new home in the UK.

The one on the left (Lily)is completely blind and dependent on her friend (Maddison) to help lead her around.

Just throwing this out there, because these two really do deserve a good home

Midnight Man-Candy

2011-10-22T23:09:00.000-04:00

Yay for smiles. :D

Any Way The Wind Blows

2011-10-22T21:58:00.002-04:00

Here's a little William Shatner WTFkry for your viewing pleasure.

You might have to be high to appreciate it.

Slow Down

2011-10-21T16:38:00.002-04:00

I actually don't have much to talk about today - which seems to be more and more the case the last several weeks.

Not sure if that means I just need to take a break from blogging or a break from writing all together for a while. (Not going to happen, at the moment, deadlines being what they are.)

I suppose that's one advantage to having a blog that isn't really about anything. I don't actually feel bad if I don't talk about something Really Important or Terribly Useful. And some days, there really isn't anything more important than man candy or wtfkry.

Not that I mind giving advice or talking about my experiences in the publishing world, but some days I hardly feel as though I have the experience to really tell anyone how to do anything.

But I have to admit my stress levels have gone up quite a bit lately. Part of this makes a fair amount of sense - after all, my next book is technically due in about a month...and I just barely finished with the edits of the second. It's hard for me personally to go from a polished manuscript to first draft ugliness without a bit of a mental double-take.

(This is where having a stack of trunk novels hidden under the bed before I got pubbed would have come in fairly helpful.) I'm a tad burned out on the subject matter, honestly. Not that I don't love Abby and company, because I do...but I'm a big fan of idea percolation, and there hasn't been much of that this time around. Good news is I know how it ends (more or less) so I've got something to aim for - and that is always a good thing, particularly for pantster/mister types like me. There's just less time for wending around the subject matter, I suppose.

I'm sure I'll get it worked out during revisions, but I've got ideas simmering on the backburner just waiting to be cooked up, and they're getting impatient. Makes it hard to focus, though. (And I hope to talk more about one of them in a few weeks once I've got some of the details ironed out - it's something I'm really looking forward to.)

But just due to time constraints, the blogging has taken a backseat to some of the other stuff, and I apologize for that. I shall try to do better as I go.

Still Feeling Crappy.

2011-10-20T16:22:00.000-04:00

But look! Penguins in sweaters!

This is an awesome project going on in New Zealand right now for penguins suffering from a terrible oil spill.

If I could knit, I would be all over this, but I can't - so I spread the word, instead. (I know some of you are...*cough*bluenail*cough*)

Sorry for the lack of a real post, but I'm still really under the weather. Alas. Perhaps *I* should go put on a sweater?

Done and Done

2011-10-19T18:13:00.000-04:00

This awesome picture, by the way, is an actual Nyan cat mod for the new Sims 3 pet expansion.

Well played, friends. Well played.

(Yes, I have it. And it is awesome.)

In the meantime, nothing new today except for the fact that I mailed off the Galley edits for A Sliver of Shadow. It's a bittersweet moment, because after this, there's no changes I can make. For better or worse, it is what it is (assuming the changes I requested get made - sometimes they don't...)

But overall it's a bit of a relief. I'm done with this particular project and back into the new one. I'm continuing to plow through the 3rd book, but even though I've always said I intended this story arc would finish up in three books...well, I'm beginning to wonder if it shouldn't be four after all. Tough call, really, since there's no guarantee the publisher will want a fourth (although that's were self publishing would possibly come into play - although some of that might depend on the demand.)

That and I'm debating throwing in a bit of a monkey wrench into the romantic situation that may not be a good thing in the long run. It could actually be quite devastating. Or it might work beautifully.

I guess I'm just not happy unless things are terribly messy...but I have to temper that a bit, because my preferences here may not actually be the best thing for the story and the last thing I want to do is alienate my readers.

And this just might.

I think I'll run with it for the moment and see how it play out, but the nice thing about being a writer is I can always go back and change it.

At least for a while.

Meh.

2011-10-18T17:06:00.001-04:00

Seeing as I'm feeling a bit like death warmed over, I'm just popping in to say thanks to Heroes & Heartbreakers for giving Phin a shout-out on today's blog.

Also, Jaye Wells is hosting an international UF month contest over at her blog - go comment for a chance at winning some great books. (Including a signed copy of Brush of Darkness) ;-)

Now then, I'm going to crawl back to my bed and attempt to finish my galleys for A Sliver of Shadow (50 pages left to go - due on Thursday! I can do it, right??) Also? I'm going to eat a massive bowl of Mac-n-Cheese. And watch PotC 4. And play The Sims 3: Unleashed. Because there are UNICORNS in it.

(Ha ha, reality is I'm going to go pass out.)

Rennovating the Marketing Machine

2011-10-17T16:14:00.000-04:00

It's only a few more months until A Sliver of Shadow finally hits the shelves, which is awesome. In theory, some of the upcoming hoopla should be old hat for me. After all, I'm already getting emails for guest blog post scheduling and interviews and giveaways. (And I'm dreadful at scheduling. I don't have a PA, but I can totally understand why people have them. Oy.)

In some ways, it's far easier this time around - people actually know who I am (at least some of you, anyway). And having the start of a fanbase is awesome in its own right. But I have to gauge whatever efforts I made for the release of A Brush of Darkness and try to figure out what was successful in helping to drive up sales (if *anything* was, for that matter.)

Sure, I'll get another round of bookmarks and stickers made up - easy to throw into envelopes, and rather no-fuss when it comes down to it. There's going to be another set of character trading cards coming out as well - they really seemed to go over nicely. I almost never turn down a chance at participating in a blog or a website either, though I may want to take it down a notch this time around. I did a *LOT* last year - which made sense at the time - I was unknown and I had to get my name and book title out there.

But then there's the extra stuff - the larger contest giveaways, the Facebook ads, other online spots that cost money, sponsoring some sort of gewgaws at a convention. Publicity is a funny thing because often you really *don't* get out of it what you put into it. But it also depends on the goals - and it's not always just about the money.

Obviously I want to sell books. I want people to discover me as an author. But I don't want to get so caught up in the numbers that I lose sight of the actual goal - which is to write books. It's a catch-22. If an author writes a story and nobody reads it, is it still a story? If it's just reader awareness I want to capture, that's a different thing altogether.

*shrugs*

I'd like to think I'm a little bit wiser this time around, but even seasoned authors will tell you that sometimes marketing is a complete fluke - we really have no way to tell if it was our efforts that drove up sales on a particular week...or if it was completely random.

Just one of those things, I guess.

Merman Ornament WTFkry

2011-10-16T16:11:00.001-04:00

Christmas is right around the corner, you know.

And there's something so incredibly awesome about the butch merman ornament. (Why is he holding his fist up like that??)

So, um...if you're looking for ideas, here you go.

And a few more:

I kinda have to admit I dig the hairdresser merman as well. LOL

All these and ton more can be found at Diamonds of the Sea.

Midnight Man Candy

2011-10-15T23:00:00.000-04:00

I'm not entirely sure what's going on here...but I think that just might be the point. And *ahem*, who cares?

Twist and Shout

2011-10-14T16:16:00.002-04:00

I went to a new back doctor today - this one is an Osteopath. This was on recommendation of my current pain doc, and while I'm all for trying something new, I still feel like this is a rather long term pattern that I can't really seem to escape from.

Essentially I go to Specialist X - Specialist X says they've seen people "just like me" and they're sure they can fix my problems. And I spend a shitton of money and time on procedures that may or may not be covered by insurance. Sometimes I get some relief for a bit. Sometimes it's just an exercise in futility.

Sometimes things improve immensely, but then my Jenga spine decides to topple somewhere else...leading to yet another round of treatments that's often more akin to grabbing at straws. "Well, let's give you a shot of THIS and see if does anything."

Believe it or not, I did have higher aspirations than to become a human pincushion.

Repeat at will, until Specialist X clearly begins to realize I'm not getting better, at which point they 1) give up 2) refer me to Specialist Y. Specialist Y will tell me all of the reasons why Specialist X got it wrong and delve into all the ways and means *they* have to fix me.

It's tiring in the extreme, but I still can't help but hope that maybe *this* time, the magic button will be pushed and things will finally stop hurting. And yeah, I tend to hold back with a fair amount of skepticism at this point but still. Hope.

Man Candy Breast Cancer Check!

2011-10-13T16:12:00.003-04:00

Hmm. Yes. Yes, I do believe I like this.