As with Spring Fevers, the cover was designed by the super talented Calista Taylor. The Fall will be released October 29, 2012. Make sure you snag your copy so you can read my flash fiction piece, Flight Plans.
14 October 2012
Announcing: The Fall
Remember the Spring Fevers anthology from earlier this year, which included two of my short stories? Well, editor Matt Sinclair and Elephant's Bookshelf Press have done it again. The Fall is a collection of fourteen stories about the apocalypse. While many are dystopian in nature, the anthology also includes touches of "humor, romance, and the promise of new beginnings." While Matt has already revealed the cover on his blog, I thought I'd share it again for anyone who hasn't seen it yet. Without further ado, I give you....
As with Spring Fevers, the cover was designed by the super talented Calista Taylor. The Fall will be released October 29, 2012. Make sure you snag your copy so you can read my flash fiction piece, Flight Plans.
As with Spring Fevers, the cover was designed by the super talented Calista Taylor. The Fall will be released October 29, 2012. Make sure you snag your copy so you can read my flash fiction piece, Flight Plans.
03 October 2012
#2012BBF: An Orgasmic--Er, Enlightening Experience
Join me over at From The Write Angle for some additional thoughts on the Baltimore Book Festival!
This past weekend I attended the Baltimore Book Festival. (It was three days, but I was only able to make it for all of Saturday and one panel on Sunday.) I eventwisted the arm of convinced my friend and fellow writer Ty Unglebower to come with me. I'm glad he did, because I'm not sure it would've been quite as fun without someone to talk to in between and after the events. You can read Ty's thoughts on his experience over at his blog. You can go on and read, I'll wait. :-) Tell him I sent you.
Now, back to business. Yes, I had a great time in Baltimore. As I said on FTWA, it was part street fair, part book conference. It was casual, but there was definitely plenty to be learned at the industry panels and events. But really.... orgasmic?
Okay, maybe not orgasmic. But I had this tingly, feel-good moment that was a little bit of epiphany, a little bit of excitement, and just a twinge of longing. So yeah. Almost orgasmic.
The last event of Saturday night for me was a panel of erotica writers talking about... sex, obviously. The subject of the panel was taboos in erotica, but they ended up talking about all sorts of things regarding erotica, thanks to some great audience questions and equally great answers from the panelists. I recently got a bit geeky in an interview where I talked about why I write erotica. (Read it here if you haven't already!) Hearing similar things from each of the panelists was amazing. I was among my people! I loved hearing the authors talk about why they write what they do, the boundaries they push (and the ones they don't), and what makes them tick as writers.
They interspersed readings with the discussion, which gave the audience a taste of their styles. But you know what was kinda cool? Hearing and seeing successful erotica/erotic romance authors, grown women, laughing at themselves and giggling with nervousness about reading the "really dirty" bits. I think it was author Stephanie Draven who said that it was one thing to write the scenes, but another thing completely to read them out loud in public. I didn't know of any of the authors previously, so I wasn't exactly starstruck or have this idea of them as larger-than-life kinds of people. But the laughing and nervousness was a very humanizing aspect. I felt like I was sitting around with friends, reading and having a good time. And I liked what I heard so much, I bought one of Megan Hart's books the next day, and I have a feeling I'll also be checking out Stephanie Draven's in the future.
As an introvert, I'm not always the most talkative person. Until you start asking the right questions. Want to talk about sex in writing? Hope you've got all day. Getting paid to write books about topics I love, and having an opportunity to present on a panel like the one I attended sounds like a dream job to me. I felt like I could personally have talked all night about relationships and sex and writing and characterization and all of the rich depth to be found there... and that's when it struck me.
This is what I want to do. That is where I want to be.
Maybe one day I'll make it there.
This past weekend I attended the Baltimore Book Festival. (It was three days, but I was only able to make it for all of Saturday and one panel on Sunday.) I even
Now, back to business. Yes, I had a great time in Baltimore. As I said on FTWA, it was part street fair, part book conference. It was casual, but there was definitely plenty to be learned at the industry panels and events. But really.... orgasmic?
Okay, maybe not orgasmic. But I had this tingly, feel-good moment that was a little bit of epiphany, a little bit of excitement, and just a twinge of longing. So yeah. Almost orgasmic.
The last event of Saturday night for me was a panel of erotica writers talking about... sex, obviously. The subject of the panel was taboos in erotica, but they ended up talking about all sorts of things regarding erotica, thanks to some great audience questions and equally great answers from the panelists. I recently got a bit geeky in an interview where I talked about why I write erotica. (Read it here if you haven't already!) Hearing similar things from each of the panelists was amazing. I was among my people! I loved hearing the authors talk about why they write what they do, the boundaries they push (and the ones they don't), and what makes them tick as writers.
 |
| L to R: Megan Hart, Molly Weatherfield, Caridad Pineiro, Eliza Knight, Stephanie Draven |
They interspersed readings with the discussion, which gave the audience a taste of their styles. But you know what was kinda cool? Hearing and seeing successful erotica/erotic romance authors, grown women, laughing at themselves and giggling with nervousness about reading the "really dirty" bits. I think it was author Stephanie Draven who said that it was one thing to write the scenes, but another thing completely to read them out loud in public. I didn't know of any of the authors previously, so I wasn't exactly starstruck or have this idea of them as larger-than-life kinds of people. But the laughing and nervousness was a very humanizing aspect. I felt like I was sitting around with friends, reading and having a good time. And I liked what I heard so much, I bought one of Megan Hart's books the next day, and I have a feeling I'll also be checking out Stephanie Draven's in the future.
 |
| Megan Hart, reading from her book The Space Between Us |
As an introvert, I'm not always the most talkative person. Until you start asking the right questions. Want to talk about sex in writing? Hope you've got all day. Getting paid to write books about topics I love, and having an opportunity to present on a panel like the one I attended sounds like a dream job to me. I felt like I could personally have talked all night about relationships and sex and writing and characterization and all of the rich depth to be found there... and that's when it struck me.
This is what I want to do. That is where I want to be.
Maybe one day I'll make it there.
10 September 2012
Pitch Polish Blog Hop - #GUTGAA
In case you forgot, GUTGAA stands for Gearing Up to Get an Agent. In preparation for the agent and small press pitch contests, I'm participating in the pitch polish blog hop. 100 anonymous pitch polish entries will be posted on Deana Barnhart's blog, and the rest of us who'd like help with our pitches are posting them on our own blogs. Let me know what you think about my pitch, and be sure to head over to Deana's blog to help out with some other pitches, too. For the purposes of GUTGAA, the pitch consists of the "meat" of our query letter and the first 150 words of our manuscript. So, without further ado, here's mine!
TITLE: Sorry's Not Enough
GENRE: Commercial New Adult
WORD COUNT: 97,000
FIRST 150:
Sanguinolent sunset. There's a word you don't see every day. Charlotte circled it with her red pen and drew a smiley at the end of the line, below where she'd called out a different phrase for being trite. She continued making notes in the margin as the others took turns giving feedback. By the time she was done marking up the poem, the paper was also sanguinolent.
She looked up when the group grew quiet. Her turn. She looked down at the poem again and hoped its author wouldn't be offended. What was his name? Steven.
“It's a little confused,” she said. There was a pause and a shuffle of papers.
“What don't you understand?”
She snapped her chin up and was taken aback by the force of his gaze. No adjective could adequately describe the shade of green staring back at her.
“I'm not confused. Your poem is.”
TITLE: Sorry's Not Enough
GENRE: Commercial New Adult
WORD COUNT: 97,000
PITCH:
If emotional
wall-building were an art form, Charlotte would be a grand master.
After being betrayed at a young age by the one man she should've been
able to trust, she builds an impenetrable fortress of solitude. At
least she thinks it's impenetrable, until a summer writing workshop
brings Steven into her life. With his obnoxious ego and stupid good
looks, he's somehow immune to her Stay the Hell Away from Me
pheromones. Even more bizarre is that for the first time, Charlotte
can't quite bring herself to really push him away.
The unexpected romance
screeches to a halt when Charlotte and Steven walk into the same
classroom at the start of the school year and find themselves on
opposite sides of the desk. Steven's quick with the apologies, but
sorry doesn't seem to cut it when you've just found yourself cast as
a modern day Lolita, you know?
Obviously the
universe is telling Charlotte that keeping Steven at arm's length is the
only way to avoid getting hurt. Resisting the warmth of his embrace
is easier said than done, though, especially when it's evident Steven has no
intention of letting her go.
And so the cycle of their relationship
begins. Over the course of several years they share moments as
passionate lovers, periods of warm friendship, and months of
barely-civil tension. How can she hope to create a healthy
relationship with Steven when she's never confronted the relationship
that destroyed her ability to trust in the first place? And by the
time she finds the courage to do so, will sorry be enough for Steven?
Sanguinolent sunset. There's a word you don't see every day. Charlotte circled it with her red pen and drew a smiley at the end of the line, below where she'd called out a different phrase for being trite. She continued making notes in the margin as the others took turns giving feedback. By the time she was done marking up the poem, the paper was also sanguinolent.
She looked up when the group grew quiet. Her turn. She looked down at the poem again and hoped its author wouldn't be offended. What was his name? Steven.
“It's a little confused,” she said. There was a pause and a shuffle of papers.
“What don't you understand?”
She snapped her chin up and was taken aback by the force of his gaze. No adjective could adequately describe the shade of green staring back at her.
“I'm not confused. Your poem is.”
03 September 2012
#GUTGAA Meet and Greet!
If you've found me through GUTGAA, welcome!
If you think I've contracted some sort of terrible intestinal ailment, let me explain. GUTGAA stands for Gearing Up to Get an Agent. It's a bloghop/pitchfest/contest/fun time happening during the month of September. For the main sign up page, click HERE. For a schedule of events, see HERE.
Now, on to the meet and greet questions!
To learn a bit more about me: the person, as opposed to me: the writer, check out this fun little list I did for Scintilla in March.
Several of the meet and greet questions had to do with the when/where/how of your writing space and time. There aren't any clear cut answers there, for me, because of one factor: I still do all of my writing longhand. That's right. Pen and paper, baby. Editing and stuff I do on screen, but first drafts are always (with the occasional exception - usually short fiction) on paper.
So I write whenever my notebook is nearby and an idea strikes. Quite often it's sitting on the couch, but it has been in parks, on airplanes, in the car (not while driving, I assure you :-P) and in other people's houses. There isn't any particular time or place when I always write, or a usual process I have to go through. I just need paper and a pen. THAT is something that I am particular about. It has to be a pen, preferably black ink, very preferably NOT blue ink, but any other color is good.
So that's me, in a nutshell. Looking forward to meeting other GUTGAA participants and reading blogs!
If you think I've contracted some sort of terrible intestinal ailment, let me explain. GUTGAA stands for Gearing Up to Get an Agent. It's a bloghop/pitchfest/contest/fun time happening during the month of September. For the main sign up page, click HERE. For a schedule of events, see HERE.
Now, on to the meet and greet questions!
To learn a bit more about me: the person, as opposed to me: the writer, check out this fun little list I did for Scintilla in March.
Several of the meet and greet questions had to do with the when/where/how of your writing space and time. There aren't any clear cut answers there, for me, because of one factor: I still do all of my writing longhand. That's right. Pen and paper, baby. Editing and stuff I do on screen, but first drafts are always (with the occasional exception - usually short fiction) on paper.
So I write whenever my notebook is nearby and an idea strikes. Quite often it's sitting on the couch, but it has been in parks, on airplanes, in the car (not while driving, I assure you :-P) and in other people's houses. There isn't any particular time or place when I always write, or a usual process I have to go through. I just need paper and a pen. THAT is something that I am particular about. It has to be a pen, preferably black ink, very preferably NOT blue ink, but any other color is good.
-When writing , do you listen to music or do you need complete silence?
I usually do like some background noise while I write, whether it's the
TV, music, or outdoor noises. I don't like it to be too quiet.
-What was your inspiration for your latest manuscript and where did you find it?
I can't remember where the inspiration for my current WIP came from
because it's been incubating in my brain for a few years ago. I'm not a
plotter, so I don't do outlines. I wrote down very little as far as
ideas, but I kept all the good little nuggets in my head as I thought of
them over the years, until I got to a point where I felt I was ready to
write.
I knew I wanted to write an erotic novel. (All of my erotica so far has been short stories.) And I had some character traits and plot aspects that I knew I wanted. Bi-racial, young, fashionista; elements of non-monogamy; safer sex and sex positive ideas; emotional depth, but a still a lot of FUN. And from there, my WIP was born.
I knew I wanted to write an erotic novel. (All of my erotica so far has been short stories.) And I had some character traits and plot aspects that I knew I wanted. Bi-racial, young, fashionista; elements of non-monogamy; safer sex and sex positive ideas; emotional depth, but a still a lot of FUN. And from there, my WIP was born.
-What's your most valuable writing tip?
Don't take writing tips to serious extremes.So that's me, in a nutshell. Looking forward to meeting other GUTGAA participants and reading blogs!
08 August 2012
On Lynch Mobs, Social Media, and LendInk
Social media is a funny thing. Nothing moves more quickly than an angry internet lynch mob.
Authors today are understandably worried about piracy and copyright infringement. Especially the ones going it alone, who don't have a big publishing house at their backs.
What do these things have to do with each other? I've seen them work together, for good and bad, the past several weeks. I first became aware of a site claiming to be an ebook library, which was really just a place for people to upload and download (in other words, illegally share) books. The cry of piracy went up. I heard about it on AQC, then Twitter and Facebook. Authors sent takedown notices. Their FB page blew up. PayPal yanked their donate button. Within a very short amount of time, the site had to deal with a lot of trouble brought by irate authors. And rightfully so. Though hiding behind semantics and nasty online personas, the site owner and main defender know exactly what they're doing.
Fast forward a couple weeks. I was about to get on a plane to visit my #goatposse writing friends in Las Vegas and was checking Twitter on my phone. I came across a conversation where someone I didn't know was accusing a writing friend of violating copyright and owning/operating a pirating site. I clicked through the conversation and links to see what was going on, and that's how I first heard of LendInk.com. My Twitter interactions at the time were assuring the rabid tweeter that no, this other person was not affiliated in any way with LendInk. (Turns out the confusion came up because of a Hootsuite toolbar that popped up on the window with my friend's Twitter profile pic. Which is not an excuse for this other person to get all crazy over it. If you don't know how social media apps like that work, you shouldn't be on social media. Or at the very least, you need to refrain from making accusations like that.)
After seeing what happened with the site-that-shall-not-be-named mentioned before this, I wanted to warn other authors about another possible piracy site.
Guess what I DIDN'T do? I didn't immediately start tweeting and posting and re-tweeting and shouting PIRATES! PIRATES! What I did do was look at the LendInk website. I was a little confused about what the site was, at first, and I didn't have much time to look before boarding my plane that day. What I gathered was that LendInk facilitates lending of ebooks (that are already lendable) and that said lending was handled by the appropriate sites (like Amazon or B&N).
There was still some confusion because I was seeing people tweet stuff about not authorizing LendInk to lend their books and people still shouting about piracy. I also noticed a few murmurings about it on Facebook. I didn't think it looked like a pirating site, and I had a plane to catch, so I forgot about it for a few days.
Imagine my shock and surprise when I returned a few days later to find that LendInk had been taken down as a result of this internet lynch mob mentality. My first thought was Oh, maybe I was wrong and they were pirating books. But I really wanted some more info. I didn't have to talk to anyone personally involved, as others had already done that for me. The first thing I read was April L. Hamilton's post on the topic, and then this one on The Digital Reader. They basically confirmed what I thought LendInk was about, plus clarifying a little farther how their process works.
Still, I was skeptical. Because how could SO MANY people fly off the handle like they did and be SO WRONG? Since the site had already been shut down (a result of their hosting company being bombarded with angry, misinformed emails threatening lawsuits, and NOT as proof of guilt) it was difficult to dig for more info. All I had to go on was what I remembered reading four days before.There were also people touting an emailed response received by a friend (or by themselves) from Amazon as proof that LendInk was in the wrong. The letter states Amazon did not authorize LendInk.com or any other website to lend their book, and then suggested "contacting that website to confirm your rights and request removal of your work." When I read that, the only thing I could think was that A) this sounded like a form reply, based on the misleading question about whether the site could legally lend boks, and B) LendInk was never lending books to begin with. No files were ever uploaded to, downloaded from, or stored on the site or its servers.
The owner/operator of LendInk has since replied directly to the article on The Digital Reader, and today a friend (the same one who had been accused of being the owner of LendInk by an overzealous author last week) directed me to another article, this time on techdirt, saying exactly the same thing: LendInk was completely legal and legitimate, and it was brought down by a lynch mob of authors who didn't do their due diligence in fact-checking.
So, to recap:
You are responsible for your own actions. You owe it to yourself and to those who could be negatively impacted by your premature mouthing off to do your homework. Read FAQs, take to google, email the appropriate parties (and for goodness' sake, give it TIME! Not everyone is glued to their inbox every second of every day the way we are, waiting for query rejections or news from an agent), talk to each other in a civil manner, and remember that everything you do in a case like this will be subject to public scrutiny.
Think. Then act.
Authors today are understandably worried about piracy and copyright infringement. Especially the ones going it alone, who don't have a big publishing house at their backs.
What do these things have to do with each other? I've seen them work together, for good and bad, the past several weeks. I first became aware of a site claiming to be an ebook library, which was really just a place for people to upload and download (in other words, illegally share) books. The cry of piracy went up. I heard about it on AQC, then Twitter and Facebook. Authors sent takedown notices. Their FB page blew up. PayPal yanked their donate button. Within a very short amount of time, the site had to deal with a lot of trouble brought by irate authors. And rightfully so. Though hiding behind semantics and nasty online personas, the site owner and main defender know exactly what they're doing.
Fast forward a couple weeks. I was about to get on a plane to visit my #goatposse writing friends in Las Vegas and was checking Twitter on my phone. I came across a conversation where someone I didn't know was accusing a writing friend of violating copyright and owning/operating a pirating site. I clicked through the conversation and links to see what was going on, and that's how I first heard of LendInk.com. My Twitter interactions at the time were assuring the rabid tweeter that no, this other person was not affiliated in any way with LendInk. (Turns out the confusion came up because of a Hootsuite toolbar that popped up on the window with my friend's Twitter profile pic. Which is not an excuse for this other person to get all crazy over it. If you don't know how social media apps like that work, you shouldn't be on social media. Or at the very least, you need to refrain from making accusations like that.)
After seeing what happened with the site-that-shall-not-be-named mentioned before this, I wanted to warn other authors about another possible piracy site.
Guess what I DIDN'T do? I didn't immediately start tweeting and posting and re-tweeting and shouting PIRATES! PIRATES! What I did do was look at the LendInk website. I was a little confused about what the site was, at first, and I didn't have much time to look before boarding my plane that day. What I gathered was that LendInk facilitates lending of ebooks (that are already lendable) and that said lending was handled by the appropriate sites (like Amazon or B&N).
There was still some confusion because I was seeing people tweet stuff about not authorizing LendInk to lend their books and people still shouting about piracy. I also noticed a few murmurings about it on Facebook. I didn't think it looked like a pirating site, and I had a plane to catch, so I forgot about it for a few days.
Imagine my shock and surprise when I returned a few days later to find that LendInk had been taken down as a result of this internet lynch mob mentality. My first thought was Oh, maybe I was wrong and they were pirating books. But I really wanted some more info. I didn't have to talk to anyone personally involved, as others had already done that for me. The first thing I read was April L. Hamilton's post on the topic, and then this one on The Digital Reader. They basically confirmed what I thought LendInk was about, plus clarifying a little farther how their process works.
Still, I was skeptical. Because how could SO MANY people fly off the handle like they did and be SO WRONG? Since the site had already been shut down (a result of their hosting company being bombarded with angry, misinformed emails threatening lawsuits, and NOT as proof of guilt) it was difficult to dig for more info. All I had to go on was what I remembered reading four days before.There were also people touting an emailed response received by a friend (or by themselves) from Amazon as proof that LendInk was in the wrong. The letter states Amazon did not authorize LendInk.com or any other website to lend their book, and then suggested "contacting that website to confirm your rights and request removal of your work." When I read that, the only thing I could think was that A) this sounded like a form reply, based on the misleading question about whether the site could legally lend boks, and B) LendInk was never lending books to begin with. No files were ever uploaded to, downloaded from, or stored on the site or its servers.
The owner/operator of LendInk has since replied directly to the article on The Digital Reader, and today a friend (the same one who had been accused of being the owner of LendInk by an overzealous author last week) directed me to another article, this time on techdirt, saying exactly the same thing: LendInk was completely legal and legitimate, and it was brought down by a lynch mob of authors who didn't do their due diligence in fact-checking.
So, to recap:
- LendInk was not doing anything illegal
- LendInk was not offering pirated books for free
- Users could go to LendInk and state they had whatever title available for lending
- LendInk hooked up users who were looking to borrow with users who had books to lend, then referred them back to either B&N or Amazon to do the lending
- Lending ebooks is legitimate and legal
- This fiasco is an example of social media gone wrong
You are responsible for your own actions. You owe it to yourself and to those who could be negatively impacted by your premature mouthing off to do your homework. Read FAQs, take to google, email the appropriate parties (and for goodness' sake, give it TIME! Not everyone is glued to their inbox every second of every day the way we are, waiting for query rejections or news from an agent), talk to each other in a civil manner, and remember that everything you do in a case like this will be subject to public scrutiny.
Think. Then act.
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