K.M. Frontain's Blog

Three chapters to go on Redemption 2

2012-01-27T10:59:00.000-05:00

And they already feel like the longest three chapters to edit. My biggest issue seems to be long sentences. Where to cut and how to reword to make the sentences more concise without losing flow? And without my eyes crossing permanently. This edit has the speed of a snail travelling to the next strawberry on a warm humid day, which is pretty fast for a snail. There's progress, and there's a trail of half-eaten strawberries back there, and when did I turn into a snail, I wonder? Strawberries are nummy...

Husband expected me to wash wine bottles for bottling currant wine this weekend, but I forgot I made the promise. Oops. Heh heh. And the load of unfolded clothes on the upstairs couch has become a mountain waiting to collapse on the cats. And whoah! When did that much seeds and dust get on the floor? Did I mention one of my parrotlets has this hamster wheel that squeaks? When he runs on it (which is super cute), the wheel goes "Aaiiiee Aaieee!" like a tortured itsy bitsy poodle. I should oil the wheel, but... No, it's funny listening to the noise. Yes, Bug, torture that widder poodle.

Ok, random Friday morning for me. Back to slugging words until the family wakes up and disturbs me like last night. Pedagogic day, darn it; husband doesn't work Friday; everyone is home. Time to trick some kids into vacuuming and folding laundry. Maybe the husband will wash the bottles himself...

Edit: Oh, yeah! More fan art of Bound in Stone! It’s in progress. Follow @wl552 on Twitter or on Tumblr. Woman is brilliant. What she calls flash fiction is beautiful poetry. :-) I’ll post a link to the finished art later.

The freebie results so far

2012-01-21T13:43:00.001-05:00

Not exactly perfectly recorded. Some things I should have kept track of better perhaps, but the free rank didn't interest me.

For the free day, the following downloads and immediate results occurred:

Amazon.com 242, free rank went as low as somewhere in the twelve hundreds.

Amazon.UK 38, free rank in the seven hundreds and a single one star review by a surprised/disappointed reader who admitted to not reading the content warning.

Amazon.de 3 downloads, didn't check the free rank.

One email of attached story for a reader who had a Linux operating system. Yes, Amazon forces you to use a Kindle client (software on a recognized operating system) to download content.

That's it so far. I didn't put this short on Kindle Select to get a piece of the monthly bribe so much as to see if using Amazon as a freebie platform would bring me readers for my purchasable books. I'll give it a few weeks and post about this again.

If there are no visible results, I can think of a few reasons. One, my freebie sucks so much it wouldn't attract a fly looking for fermented poo. Two, the story was just too out there and put readers off my other work, sort of correlates with reason one. Three, freebies don't attract buyers; they attract non-buyers looking for freebies.

The one star review was good in that it put my attention on the genre I placed this fiction under and also got me to refine the content warning a little more, for those who might not get the term BDSM. I added the term violence to the content warning and also warned not to expect a happily ever after.

Amazon allows you to categorize a story in two genres only. Since this first installment concerned demonic monsters meeting each other for the first time and how they bond/socialize/mate, there was a lot of sex. I thought I had no choice but to set the story in the erotica category first and fantasy second. But now I'm not so sure about the erotica category, first because of the reaction of the vanilla reviewer, second because the future installments do not revolve around sex as much (at least some won't). I tend to write plot and relationship. If sex happens, it happens, but sex is not actually the plot goal of Gold Bites. I have a story planned out for the characters. They're probably going to get the crap beaten out of them eventually. Well, they're demonic. People gonna hate.

Ok, any suggestions on genre category would be appreciated. I'll post a follow up on the freebie results later.

2012-01-19T16:11:00.001-05:00

The Beast in Beauty is set to have it's free download day on Amazon tomorrow. The event coincides with a Twitter party, hashtag #IndieOP. IndieOP is for readers, writers, comic book artists, artists in general and anyone who wants to join in. I hope to see some new Twitter-peeps there.

Content warning for this story: This story contains strong language, violence and sexual content not meant for under-aged readers or readers with an expectation of romance and a happy ending. Content includes homoerotica, lesbian erotica, bisexuality, ménage, and BDSM. This is a story about monsters, so it's about monster sex.

Today is an author landmark day

2012-01-19T15:10:00.000-05:00

I have fan art. This is a huge landmark. I have fan art!

I'm awed, as you can probably tell. This is the first time anyone created a work of art based on something I wrote. Ambra, who has been lovely and left me reviews on Amazon, sent a message earlier today and posted the work onto Goodreads. It's absolutely lovely. It's called "Canella in the Old Cemetary".

Here's a link, though I think you need to be a member of Goodreads to use it.

Thank you so much, Ambra!

Cat's Ass logo and KDP Select

2012-01-13T12:52:00.001-05:00

Beginning with KDP Select: I've been following blog posts of this. I understand how it works somewhat better now. I still don't like what it's done to the market (monopoly anyone?), but I have decided to make use of it. No, not for The Soulstone Chronicles. No way I will remove that from Lulu and therefore iTunes. Actually, I have an email with links to show me how to get the series onto Kobo, but I set it aside for a bit because the process is a little complicated and my brain melted.

Books on KDP Select are free to download on certain days the author can schedule, and because they are free that day, they show up in the list as free, which means attention directed toward that book and, hopefully, an increase in sales for other books. Five days of free download can be schedule for three months of contract. That's just the stupidest thing ever. Five days for an even three months. My math OCD wants to add a digit to the five. Why is Amazon being cheap and not giving us six days for three months?

Ok, so despite the five instead of six days, I chose an older short story to use as my KDP Select experiment, an experiment I hope will bring attention to my other work. I spent the last two days melting my brain further converting and re-converting the doc file and testing the ePUB and Kindle versions until I had the correct format with all the tweaks in the original story I wanted. This is a 17 K short erotic fiction story meant to become a series of short fiction stories, not necessarily erotic in each chapter. The Beast in Beauty is something I wrote in 2006 when Erotic Dreams Publishing existed. I still have two reviews up on the internet for it. I shall link them now:

Fallen Angels Review
BDSM Reviews

I had a good review by M.E. Ellis too, but that blog was pulled down and rebuilt elsewhere. I know Emmy gave me permission to post the review on my defunct website, but I can't find the permission, so I'm going to ask her again and post the review on the blog later. Unless I have it on my blog somewhere already. I have to check that. Thinking through my keyboard, sorry.

I had to think up a series name for my short fiction series and arrived at Gold Bites.

Meanwhile, and back before Christmas, I had an artwork epiphany concerning perspective and drew a cat's butt. A cat's butt, it turns out, is much easier to draw than a cat's front. But it took me many decades to figure that out. Two of my progeny are very artistic when it comes to pencils, paint, craft materials. I think all the stuff they've been showing me nudged my failed artist alter-ego out of the tangle of personalities in my head and it gave me ass. I mean cat's ass.

Then, about two days ago, I realized I might actually have something there. It wasn't that bad a drawing really. If I use my better talent at photo manipulation, it might make a logo, a logo I could pin at the end of my ebooks.

And there it is. I spent part of yesterday perfecting it. I added it to my short fiction pub. Then my daughter said, "You need to initial it." She was right. More hours of fiddling with photo manipulation ensued.

I had already spent time coming up with my author signature. I took the initials from the author signature and added them to the logo and re-uploaded my story to Amazon.

And then I came up with a posterized version of the logo. And darn it but I want to re-upload to Amazon again (Yes, OCD).

But there it is, I have a logo. It's the cat's ass.

Really, it's my cat's ass. He's walked off in a huff bazillions of times with his tail swishing off to the side like that. Cat's are huffy.

Oh, yes. Haven't forgotten to work on Redemption 2, just wanted to drive more attention to my series through this experiment. I'll get back to the edit now. :-)

The ePUB tweaking is done

2012-01-10T01:19:00.001-05:00

At last, after days of digging for info (Lulu's FAQs are useless for this), I have fixed the non-resizing font in my ePUBs. I've also, incidentally, removed thousands upon thousands of hidden code that made my ePUBs larger in size.

Why didn't Lulu's converter convert my docs right? Not sure. The converter, I think, should have been programmed to strip from a document anything unnecessary to an ePUB, but it doesn't do that.

Why didn't I know my documents had all this unnecessary stuff? It is hidden to the point it cannot be seen. Really. I literally had to cut and paste each story onto a fresh Word doc (I use Word 2003). Then I had to kill all formatting. Then I had to re-do the paragraph formatting. And after that, I had to add in all the italics, searching my back up doc for each instance and adding it into the new copy.

It took days. I'm tired. I learned more about CSS. I learned more about ePUBs. I'm tired. Yes, I'm repeating myself.

Ok, so I'm back on track. Next up, finish the final final final ePUB edit of Redemption 2. Will take a few days. I'm tired.

I'll just crawl to my bed now and rest my brain. Wish me luck or bless me. I may have CSS nightmares.

But I'm happy it's all done! Yay! :D

Now I'm going to bed.

Blackberry Playbook review

2012-01-05T10:02:00.002-05:00

A brief review of the Blackberry Playbook from an author's perspective: the Word to Go app sucks if you want to edit a large, very large as in my case, document. There is no Go to function, so you can't skip to a page at the back. There is no search and replace function, so that means of skipping to a section is out as well, not to mention this is one of the most important features an author uses in Word. Without search and replace, Word to Go is only good enough for moderate editing of small docs, very small docs, like two or three pages.

When RIM fixes this app to include search and find, it will be awesome. The Playbook fits nicely in my hand. I can reach all keys with two thumbs with very little stretching. I can bring the device as close to my face as I want to see the letters. This is important for me. I can't see a laptop screen without hunching forward a lot, which is why I didn't buy a laptop, since they can be just as cheap but have a complete keyboard. Using glasses for near-sightedness does not help a person read a computer screen. Everything gets blurry in pinpoint. I'm not quite at the first strength for reading glasses, so I'm just plain forced to move my face closer to all screens. Very bad for my back, which already has arthritis down the spine.

RIM come to my rescue and upgrade the Word to Go app.

As for using this device as an e-reader: It's very comfortable. I bought a 99¢ app for this, because the provided app, Kobo, wouldn't let me add to my library by searching for book on the hard drive. That's no good to me. If I buy a book, I want to know exactly where it is on my hard drive. I want to be able to move it around, save it elsewhere, back it up. Couldn't find any means to do that with Kobo so far. I am very glad I did not buy a tablet that forces me to use a proprietary app that controls where I put media, how I buy media, how I store it and when I can read it. Thumbs up for the Playbook in that regard (because of that non-proprietary app I bought--it's called Book Reader, btw).

Last, I am grateful to have bought this device for one annoying reason. Yes, I know that sounds odd, but when I tried my ePUBs on a reading device at last, I found font flow problems that were not evident using Calibre or Adobe Digital Editions on my computer. On a tablet, my fonts refused to resize. The white space between sentences got larger or smaller, but not those fonts.

Ah, the agony! I'm in the process of reformatting docs and tweaking the css sheets of all my published ePUBs. Strangely, the Kindle versions, which Calibre created from the ePUB versions, all work great so far on this device. No font weirdness at all. (Email me if you find any! Or comment.) The Playbook has been essential for testing all css tweaks.

And that's about it. Glad I have the Blackberry Playbook but need to have Word to Go upgraded to be a working application rather than a cheap addition good only for small docs.

Oh, and that wasn't brief at all... Oh, well.

The technical stuff of headers

2012-01-04T22:32:00.001-05:00

Darn it but I had to learn how to tweak css sheets.

First, I had to remove all formatting from Bound 1. After that, I had to find and replace the italics in appropriate places. Then I discovered that Lulu's converter objected if my doc used any font size but the default size for the chosen font. In my case, it's Garamond, which has default size 11. If I used size 12, my doc stayed size 12 in an e-reader. That's just stupid. The conversion engine should not be that stupid.

Then I discovered the headers, which create your title and chapter titles in a doc, refused to resize even if they were the default size for the font. I had to look up css and tweak the css sheet. All header font sizes were changed from 11pt to 1.5em. Don't ask me what the em means. All I know is that it allows some resizing. It's not perfect, but it's better than before.

And that's it. I only have Bound 1 fixed as an epub. The font resizes properly at last. Have to work on each one up the list now.

Edit: Bound 2 fixed as well. Taking a break for now before getting to the next.

2012-01-04T16:33:00.002-05:00

And so, thanks to a Blackberry Playbook purchase, I have discovered that my ePUBs were not resizing font, but resizing empty line spaces. I just did a test on Lulu. I killed all formatting from Bound 1, redid the headers only, and uploaded this file to Lulu for conversion. It resizes font perfectly as an ePUB.

And you know what this means? It means re-doing every one of my ePUBs and reloading them onto Lulu. The Kindle books seem ok, but I may redo them as well to be positive.

Sorry for yet another delay readers waiting for Redemption 2 and 3. I have to get these other pubs fixed.

Need reader feedback on ePUB quality

2012-01-04T16:23:00.000-05:00

Hi, if any readers out there can do this, please post a comment on the font quality of any ePUB versions of my novel you may have purchased. I discovered that my Lulu created ePUBs are glitchy on the Blackberry Playbook. The font size is acting fixed rather than able to become bigger or smaller. That's not what I was led to believe about how Lulu's converter did its work. I'm hoping the glitchiness is solely the fault of this app, but would like to know if it's a fault in other readers. I saw no sign of this glitch when using Kindle. Thanks in advance.

Update:

wl552 came to my rescue and tested an ePUB version. This is definitely an across platform problem with the fonts. I wouldn't have known except I finally have my own tablet and saw this today. Everything looked fine on Calibre. But it's definitely not on her tablet or mine. Instead of getting font resizing, we see line spaces between text get larger. Not good.

I'm working to find out why the ePUBs are doing this. Will post later.

Note to self

2012-01-03T10:32:00.001-05:00

Note to self: never never never never read sarcasm concerning popular published novels by currently famous authors. Ever. Ever ever. Never ever ever. Really.

Why? Well Disco comes to mind, strangely enough. Disco was hot. Then it was not. When it was not, everything to do with it got pooped on. Unfairly, I might add. Actors, the music, everything. Ruined careers followed. Strangely, it seems human nature inclines many of us toward mocking a popular target.

Chicken-peck chromosome, humans must have it. See a sickly bird; peck it to death. See signs of discontent within the flock, choose a target, and peck it to death. Peck everything about it to death. It may have been the best egg layer in the coop. It may have had the most awesome fluffy feathers. It may have been able to find all the best spots for yummy tidbits. It spotted the fox better than the rest of the flock together, but it showed a sign of weakness when some envious bird wanted more attention. It must die. And all its friends too.

Ok, so maybe I exaggerate. Or maybe I don't. You think the internet can be viral? Well, word of mouth has always been that way. Disco example aside, there's plenty of history out there where a thing/person was popular and then was not. The results of the chicken-peck storm were never pretty, but I've always found myself backing off a little further from my own species every time.

Yeah, yeah. I'm pecking my own species. I've got the gene too.

Donate to Wikipedia

2011-12-29T11:11:00.002-05:00

Wikipedia hasn't met its donation needs this year. I love this site. I donate. Please, if you use Wikipedia, donate and keep it running. It's one of the best resources out there for knowledge.

After Christmas update

2011-12-28T12:53:00.002-05:00

Not much to report. I'm still working on the Redemption 2 re-release edit for ePUB and Kindle. I have a busy house; guests of my kids are here and will likely be here for a week. Computer time is limited, but I have a Blackberry Playbook on the way. Once it arrives, I'll load up my stories and I'll be able to edit anywhere in the house, including in my bed when my back is too sore for working at the computer.

The editing app uses a touch screen, which means two finger input, but for editing, that's good enough. Won't be good enough for writing new material. I'll need computer time for that. But since I'm not planning new material until after I get Redemption 3 on line at last, writing new stuff won't occur for several months.

And that's about it for me, three days before 2011 ends. Hope the holiday season is going well for all of you.

And I have an author profile on Goodreads now.

2011-12-24T11:04:00.002-05:00

I never paid much attention to Goodreads until last week. Last week I Googled my author name to see if any of my new Kindle editions showed up. They don't. LOL. Yeah. Maybe someday.

But I did find a Goodreads listing and clicked it. I discovered a number of one or two stars out of five reviews for several books in The Soulstone Chronicles, given by a user named Kendappa. Kendappa nicely loaded up my old covers onto Goodreads long ago, but today I loaded up the new covers. It's interesting that Kendappa really disliked The Disposition of Ashes set. I have a reader who read it multiple times, along with the Bound in Stone set. (VT! I'm so sorry! I'm behind getting out Redemption 3! I'm sorry, I'm sorry! I really wanted to get it out for Christmas, but I can't.)

In case any of you are wondering why I'm so miserable about not publishing Redemption 3 by Christmas, it's because I kinda broke as an author. On top of being physically in very bad shape, I couldn't read, write, or edit for several years. I only recently started reading for pleasure again. I am editing at a speed I can handle and my intention is to get that Redemption 3 up within another month. I've been delayed simply because I discovered Lulu now offers ePUB conversion, which led to getting new editions done and up on iTunes and then led to at last having Kindle versions for Amazon. It's all good in the long run.

Back to Goodreads. I noticed my friend Tressa had a profile and also discovered she had my Soulstone books marked as to be read. And that's when I noticed authors can have an author profile, because Tressa is listed as an author. And so I applied a day or so ago to be listed as an author and have been working on getting Goodreads covers up to date.

And next I'm going to work on Redemption 2 again, up until I'm hauled off to bake more Christmas stuff, do more cleaning before guests arrive and get carted off to work next door for the neighbour, who needs a pet sitter for her multiple pets.

Again, I'm really sorry, everyone waiting on my next releases and re-releases. I'll do my best to get them done as soon as possible.

Alright, one more to republish

2011-12-16T12:31:00.003-05:00

Once I get Redemption 2 done, I'll have caught up to all the previously published books in The Soulstone Chronicles, but now I will have ePUBs and Kindle books instead of unwieldy PDFs. Yay!

Then it's back to the least edited books waiting in queue. This of course means extra time on things other than word weeding. The plot needs to be re-checked for unnecessary deviations. I have to add where information is missing, change tell paragraphs to show paragraphs if at all possible. Doing that last may make the book bigger. Redemption 3 is already huge. An entire resolution of a story arc is packed into that last book. And all the necessary clues for the next arc must get the proper attention. Yes, don't worry. The next three books are written, but they do need major editing.

And here comes Christmas. The shopping is not done (car trouble and was too ill to shop--I still have a bad cough) and I have three house guests for the holidays. Friends of my kids---our house is a teenager magnet...well, young adult magnet more like. My kids aren't that young, some of them. But it's Christmas and they all like food and chocolate. Time to get the baking started. Wish like crazy an affordable "smart" dictation program existed for editing. Hands free editing that doesn't involve hiring a secretary.

Off I go to work again. Let's see how much I can edit before the house magnet brings in a distraction.

Redemption 1 back on Lulu

2011-12-15T15:34:00.002-05:00

Well, the first of the Redemption set is back on Lulu, though not yet on my spotlight. Link.

Unfortunately, Kindle is slowish. Not sure when I'll have a page for Amazon, but I'll edit in a link as soon as I can.

Edit: Here's a link to the book page on Amazon.

Behind on the Redemption edits

2011-12-09T12:49:00.001-05:00

All this conversion to ePUB and Kindle format and new covers have put me off schedule. I'm glad I have the ePUBs done. I'm very happy to have my books on Kindle too and that they all have better covers. So it's a trade off really. Lost time on Redemption but I feel really good about what I have available for readers.

Big apologies to my readers waiting for Redemption 3. I really, really, really, really.....reeeeeallly want to get the Redemptions edited right. I've taken them all off Lulu to go over again. Want to make sure the third novel of the set really goes where it's supposed to go without too many silly detours.

Now if I could only shake this cold, I shall be able to concentrate better.

Let's talk about KDP Select

2011-12-08T12:21:00.001-05:00

Keep the word monopoly in mind.

If any of you have noticed my tweets, I screwed up the night before yesterday, clicked Bound 3 thinking it was Bound 2 and loaded Bound 2 onto Amazon. I was very anxious to get it fixed before someone bought the wrong volume. Amazon, unlike Lulu, is not convenient in the following manner: Lulu, you edit book details, you upload, you publish, you realize you made a mistake, you edit immediately and republish. Within minutes, your correct edition is up. Amazon: you edit book details, you upload, you publish, you wait 12 hours or longer to see the results. While you are waiting, the action button no longer functions. If you made a mistake, you're up the piranha river in a leaking boat without a paddle.

This is a big concern to me, so I left a message on Amazon that they should make correction of mistakes possible, as in put that action button live instead of dead.

Now on to KDP Select. This morning, I go on to my bookshelf page and find the Action button (which lets you edit) replaced by Enroll. I find a notice up top about some new program. I check the KDP Select legal crap and discover that Amazon wants you to remove all your books from all venues but theirs in exchange for a possibility you may get a percentage of a huge figure of money if your book is loaned to readers during 90 days. Remember that word monopoly.

So let's take a better look at this deal. Apparently, if you enroll, you enroll in a lending library. If your book is lent to someone, this adds to your percentage which will be taken out of this massively inspiring figure of $500 000, I assume U.S dollars. Yes, let your mind boggle.

And now think about it. Who does this offer really help?

Best case scenario, you agree to enroll, you get lots of loans, you get a bundle from your percentage. Meanwhile, your ePUB market no longer exists, because you can't legally sell anywhere but Kindle. Not even on your web page. Nowhere, no other formats. Monopoly anyone?

Again, who does the offer really help? The already popular authors of course. They'll make a killing off KDP Select. Provided Amazon lives up to it's claims... Yeah, forgot to mention a little clause there that says Amazon has the sole discretion to decide what constitutes a loan. Wow, what could they mean by that?

So let's say the popular authors get 75% of the loaning action for these 90 days. Let's say that's about a few hundred authors sharing that 75% of $500 000. Now the remaining 25% of loans are the unknown authors, like me. Yes, I don't consider myself a known author. These unknowns number in the thousands. They must share that 25% between them. How much do you see them getting compared to the authors already possessing reputation?

So what has Amazon really done here? Amazon has made a vague promise to give you a percentage if you manage to get your book loaned. You must scratch and claw through all the other free promotions those 90 days to get attention. In exchange for the vague promise of gaining your big dream to become a big name author, you agree to help Amazon establish a monopoly and cut out ePUB competitors. Let's overlook the fact that if you sell just one copy of your novel, your rank jumps from the lowly bottom of the pile, somewhere in the 700 thousands, up to 125 thousand. Think about that. The majority of books on Amazon don't sell much. This is true of even Lulu, btw. And now, for a vague promise, you cut out Lulu, iTunes, Nook, everyone else and give all the power to Amazon. There's no guarantee your book will be loaned. There's no guarantee you'll get any of that money. The only person guaranteeing anything is you when you agree to remove all your books from competitive dealers.

Oh, yeah. What if one of the competitors is an affiliate that placed your book on Amazon? What happens then? If you unpublish at your original Indie pub, doesn't your book disappear from Amazon too?

Granted Amazon provides for free the service of publishing your book on Kindle. This is very nice of Amazon. But did the company just cross the line of decency and start preying on your hopes and dreams?

Here's a forum thread you may want to follow.

New covers

2011-12-06T17:41:00.001-05:00

Other than for the Bound set, no new images, just tweaking.I'm very behind on my Redemption updates because of all the conversions to ePUB and Kindle, and now these new covers. Next job is to reload all books onto Lulu and Kindle with their updated covers. Then it's back to Redemption edits.Here are the new covers:

The credits for the original image of the above cover go to: Luc Viatour/ www.Lucnix.be
I found the image on Wikimedia Commons. His permission to use the original image is not an endorsement of my work.

Delete, Email and Re-write post

2011-12-05T15:08:00.001-05:00

Yesterday I posted about wanting to create new cover images for my Soulstone Chronicle novels. I started with a new image for the Bound in Stone set, but then I re-read the Creative Commons license and had a major confuzzle. Oh, no! BFG attack! Shnozcumber sling shot! Ready! Fire!

Wait! Ok, settling down to normal again...

The thing about creative commons licenses, they're written in the most confusing manner you can imagine. I was concerned about a detail stating I needed to place the CC license in the vicinity of the image, which is impossible on the cover of a book,'cause that's jus' ugly. So I asked permission to place the CC license within the first few pages of the novels.

So I deleted yesterday's post and yesterday's uploads to Photobucket while I waited for the gentlemen who owned the images to get back to me about my use of his original pic to make the face on my new cover. He wrote back just now and gave permission. So all is well. I have a new cover for the Bound set after all.

So here again are the new prospective covers, skinny Kindle version and fat Lulu version:

I still have work to do on the skinny cover (matching size of face to fat cover, basically).

My son is irritated with the faint bits of green in the shaded areas. He's better at working images than I am, so he's offered to get rid of the green tints.

In case you're wondering, this is an image of the Lucifer de Liège statue.

Ha ha ha! My son thinks I'm one sarcastic old poo.

The credits for the original image go to: Luc Viatour/ www.Lucnix.be
I found the image originally on Wikimedia commons.

But I don't write gay fiction!

2011-12-01T15:38:00.001-05:00

I haven't been active here for ages, but I'm feeling healthier and I've started sorting out my older stuff in order to move forward on newer writing.

I started submitting Kindle versions of my epic a few days ago. I now have the first nine novels of The Soulstone Chronicles live on Amazon and have had a few sales, which is nice. But then I thought, how do people find my novels on Amazon? So I attempted to search for them as a customer might and that's when I realized how very limited the Amazon search engine is.

When asked to categorize my novels, I was given exactly two choices of category. Naturally, I chose epic fantasy or as close to it as I could get, but what to choose next? Romance didn't warn a reader that I had homosexual, bisexual or lesbian content. I was stuck with Gay as my second option.

And why don't I like that? First of all, I wrote my stories for a female readership. My market is women. If the powers in Amazon were wiser, they'd have an option under gay fiction called original slash or some label that clearly indicates the stories belong in my genre, a genre of fiction written by women for women who like reading about men in intimate relationships with other men.

Second, most of my male characters aren't gay. Well, yeah, I start the series with two characters who are absolutely gay, prefer men, do men, want men..., but the others are not actually gay. Most of my characters, some not yet introduced, are MSM: men who have sex with men.

Yeah, I know. Some people call that bisexual. Some people call it bi-curious. But when the men in my novels don't consider themselves gay, what does that make them in modern terminology? The closest thing out there is MSM. I think I have one truly bisexual character in there and that's Nicky. She really likes men, but she really likes women too.

But getting back to MSM characters, they aren't necessarily going to be sympathetic to gays. They might get irritated when they're accused of being gay. They might even take offense when approached at the wrong moment by someone who is gay. My characters might not be that pleasing to gay readers (actually, I've had comments to that effect). So yeah, not a good thing to have my book categorized as gay solely based on the fact two penises may have touched.

So that left me with tags. But I'm only allowed seven. Oh, what to enter? It's a big dilemma. I know I need fantasy and epic and soulstone (for those searching specifically for my series), but then I'm again stuck with gay because it's common, bisexual for the same reason, and then maybe gryphon and romance (I think it's romance between men, bromance: is bromance a good tag? Not sure.) And of course I shove in Frontain so people can find me, the author. It just doesn't feel like enough tags.

Truly it would be nice to have a category in Amazon that covers original slash. But...darn it, why does it have to have the word slash in it? Those not clued in might think blood and guts.

Here's hoping that someday original slash fiction will become so mainstream it is recognized in these popular venues and perhaps earns a better name.

ePUBs up to Disposition Three on store shelf

2011-11-26T13:11:00.001-05:00

Well, I've at last placed ePUBs up to the third Disposition novel on the Lulu storefront. It's looking nice; however, three retired PDF versions are still showing on the shelf despite multiple attempts on my part to have them removed. The Lulu machinery is being stubbornly slow about getting them off. Please don't buy the PDF versions. They don't resize.

Both the free PDF novels are still up and will stay up (Gryphon 1, Bound 1). Due to Lulu's sales rules, the ePUB versions must have a price, but I put them as low as I could (99 cents). Those of you who want to convert the free PDFs to ePUB can do so using a wonderful program called Calibre. Please donate to the authors of this program if you find Calibre useful. Calibre can be used on a PC to read ePUB novels. Very excellent. Also, if you don't want to use Calibre, I believe you can download Adobe Digital Editions free.

Nook unfortunately has Bound 1 priced at 5.99$ but hopefully Barnes and Nobles will update to the corrected 99 cent price soon. Soon for B&N may mean five to six weeks. ლ(ಠ益ಠლ

Whoa, where'd that emo come from? Sorry for the childish mental slip ✿_✿

¯\(ºдಠ)/¯

щ(ﾟдﾟщ)

(☞ﾟヮﾟ)☞

◔ ◡ ◔

ಠ_ಠ

✆_✆

๏̯͡๏

ಥ_ಥ

இ_இ

٩(•̮̮̃•̃)۶

(ノ ಠ益ಠ)ノ

☜(ﾟヮﾟ☜)

_

◕‿◕

☯‿☯

<(°A°<) <(°u°<)

<(x.x<)

Heh. Ok. So I lurves my emos.

Bureaucratic silliness over covers

2011-11-08T23:27:00.005-05:00

Those of you following my blog may have read that I removed novels with Lulu assigned ISBNs from my store to replace them with Canadian ISBN novels. Well, this meant starting from scratch with regards to submitting my books to Nook and iBookstore.

This time around, my books were refused for submission twice. Very unclear details in the email concerning getting the subtitle properly named in the ePUB metadata. Unclear because? Well, the Lulu ePUB creation engine only allows Header 1 for book titles (Header 1 is a document format used inside Word). Within a Header 1, anything following a colon is considered a subtitle. This is pretty darned limited. First of all, does everyone want to use a colon to show a subtitle? That's like writing The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. And that's just ugly. Because when Lulu says to do it that way, Lulu also wants your book cover to match exactly. Not kidding. That means putting a colon on a cover where it would stand out as something unnecessary and unaesthetic.

My Soulstone titles all come in sets of three. There's a main title for each set, followed by a colon and Book One or Book Two or Book Three. All the sets belong to The Soulstone Cronicles, which I alway considered to be the subtitle, but Lulu doesn't give me a means to show this.

So when the Bound in Stone set was refused the first time, I did some digging and came up with metadata to show that the set belonged to a series called The Soulstone Chronicles. The metadata even showed where in the series each book belonged. I loaded up my revised ePUBs and waited.

And was refused again. Why? Well, at a guess, it was because the title on the book covers didn't match the limited Lulu engine's ability to create title metadata. Basically, the only thing Lulu can live with for a title is Bound in Stone: Volume Whatever. After that, someone within Lulu couldn't apparently suffer having the series data on the covers and shoved off an email telling me that my title metadata and the book covers did not match.

Here, look at these. PDF version of cover and ePUB version of cover.

The only difference between the two is that the first rendition of the cover nicely says "A novel in The Soulstone Chronicles". But no, I can't have the series name on the iTunes cover. No, no, no. That's just naughty. Bad author. Delete your series name from your covers right now.

Yeah. So in case my guess was right, that's what I did. On the off chance that Lulu really was being that silly (I'm using silly here because I'm being polite), I removed the Soulstone Chronicles info from the covers and re-submitted. And yes, there's my first set of book in the series on iTunes at last. I'm happy that they're up there with their Canadian ISBNs, but not impressed with the stupidity of Lulu's ePUB conversion engine or the bureaucrats in the company who think a series name is wrong on a cover.

List of my available e-books with links

2011-10-22T18:28:00.013-04:00

Books in The Soulstone Chronicles
(Please note that all but two PDF versions have been retired from publication.)

ePUB versions
Buy from Lulu.
Buy from iTunes.
Buy from Nook.

Kindle versions.
Buy from Amazon.

PDF versions (only on Lulu)

Bound in Stone: Volume One 358 pages. This novel is free in PDF format.
The Gryphon Taint: Volume One 288 pages. This novel is free in PDF format.

Other novels:

Loved Him to Death series:
Buy from my publisher:
Haru of Sachoné House
Omos of the Ether
Buy from Amazon:
Kindle versions.

Kindle readers, visit http://calibre-ebook.com/ to download Calibre, a program that can convert ePUB to mobi format, which your Kindle device can use.

Retiring the bad ISBN batch

2011-10-21T18:55:00.004-04:00

I'm in the process of retiring the three Bound in Stone editions (1,2 and 3) that had Lulu assigned U.S. ISBNs. Yesterday my application for an account with the Canadian ISBN Service System came through and I am able to apply for Canadian ISBNs for all my novels now. So I'm replacing all the ePUB Bound novels with 3rd Edition ePUB Bound novels, all with my new Canadian ISBNs.

And that means Lulu will treat my revenues as "other revenues" rather than royalties subject to 30% taxation by the IRS, which deserves no part of my revenue.

For those who are wondering, Canadian ISBNs are free to Canadians.

That ISBN ain't no good

2011-10-14T08:38:00.006-04:00

So. I'm rather slow these days. I've seen sales out of iTunes and didn't pay too much attention to the figures reported with the sales, but today I did.

There's money missing from my royalties.

Ah! Tax withholding. And why?

After some digging, I discovered Lulu assigned ISBNs suck for Canadians. Because the ISBN is given via Bowkers and given within the U.S., my royalties are gouged by the U.S. government. Reading up some more, I've discovered some individuals on Lulu have had a hell of a time recovering their tax withholdings, something to do with refused legal forms on the part of the U.S. government. Nastiness. I think I recall that I needed to send a passport along with my form just to get this assigned number thingie to get my taxes back. More nastiness.

I don't like nastiness, so I've started my application over at the Canadian ISBN services and, unfortunately, I will have to republish Bound One, Two and Three on Lulu with a new set of ISBNs, my own from Canada. And then they'll have to go through the entire submission process on iTunes again. Not fun.

Edit later in the day: I'm still researching this problem (headache). I'm now wondering if my own ISBN from Canada precludes me from Lulu doing the work of submitting my book to iTunes or if having my own ISBN really will make a difference. Lulu forums seems to have conflicting information about this, not to mention that Lulu support isn't altogether clear about it. That or the entire subject of taxes isn't clear to begin with (likeliest reason).

So. It looks as if I may have to confront the dreaded ITN application involving submitting a passport, which I don't have yet. Ain't that nice. Passports aren't cheap here in Canada and I've never had to have one before. And then I have tohttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif send it to the U.S. and trust that it will be returned to me. Yeah. I really like this option. :-(

More edits:

In case any other Lulu pubbers are following this. So far have found (quote):

Only books with Lulu-owned ISBNs are subject to withholding. If you own your own ISBN, your earnings are "Other Revenue" not "Royalties" and are not subject to withholding. ref: link.

Here's the Lulu webpage that doesn't clearly state the above small para: link.

And this page seems to indicate that a Canadian ISBN owned by me will be used by Lulu when submitting to other markets. Maybe. The darned webpage is for paper books and has a distribution purchase offered at the end. Nothing free about that. Nothing to do with ebooks either.

This page states that Lulu's free distribution to iBookstore is a limited time offer. Down in the comments, the official Lulu blogger states that my own ISBN can be used for distribution (he states this answering the comments of other authors).

After a long absence...

2011-10-11T18:02:00.003-04:00

...I have decided to post on this blog at least. (Did you think I meant at last? Maybe I should have said at last.)

The update:

Lulu, this September, put up a converter to allow authors to create ePUB rather than just PDF versions of their ebooks. Previously, authors were obliged to weed through technical material meant to teach a person how to create a valid ePUB from scratch, but I got a headache; I gave up.

But there it is; Lulu stepped up and at last provided, at no cost but your brains banged onto a keyboard while fixing your manuscript, the basic conversion utility to create ePubs. This version of an ebook, btw, is the only one Lulu will also submit to iBookstore and Nook. I have started taking advantage of the converter. Bound in Stone: Volumes One and Two have both been re-published as ePubs. Bound in Stone: Volume One is up on iBookstore (though iTunes neglected to call it Volume One). I've already had sales, which is nice. No sign of the book on Nook yet. Still waiting to see if Bound 2 arrives on iBookstore.

I'm working to get Bound 3 ready for conversion. Eventually, I hope to remove all PDF version of my books from my Lulu spotlight except the two freebies. It'll keep the spotlight clean and be less confusing.

Unfortunately, Lulu's policy about submission to Nook and iBookstore forced me to charge a price for the ePub of Bound 1. Lulu will not provide the service of submitting books to other vendors free; therefore a price must be charged. Can't really blame them. They do have to pay their employees. But I feel bad that some of my readers won't get the free volumes that I have kept free for many years. Even after I delete the superfluous copies of my books, the free PDFs will remain on my spotlight.

That's about it on the Lulu front. I find it hopeful that the first book is out there in at least one prominently global store.

Cocktail Reviews gone

2010-03-19T08:14:00.002-04:00

Well, two of my best reviews for my Loved Him series seem to be missing from the web because Cocktail Reviews, over on Wordpress, seems to have shut down. No idea why. I don't make a habit of checking these things. I just discovered this after clicking links on my blog sidebar to see which still worked.

Fortunately, I copied the web pages with my reviews to my hard drive back around the time they were posted. Unfortunately, I'm not sure how to go about getting permission to post the reviews in their entirety here on this blog, because who do I contact? The reviewers went by code names. My reviewer was White Russian.

White Russian, or the owners of Cocktails Review, I hope your still out there somewhere. Your services will be missed.

Blog Clean Up (this one)

2010-03-18T12:20:00.002-04:00

I have more than one blog, but this is the one I started with. I decided to clean it up. Changed title, got rid of dead links, rearranged book jpegs and removed empty spaces when some jpegs vanished from the web after my Geocities account was deactivated. My original blog banner is gone because it was in my Geocities image folder. I tried finding a copy on the hard drive, but no success there. Oh, well. I did save the gif I made for Loved Him. It was on my Bravehost account, but that account is gone as well, so I shoved the gif up here in this blog.

Bravehost, btw, closed my account because of adult content. It was more like links to my published adult content, but that was enough to make them want to close the account. I have yet to get another homepage, but I don't know if I want to. So, that makes no Geocities, not Bravehost. Seriously, I don't think I want to bother with a website any longer. A blog can do the same work. I just have to get my butt in gear and create specific blog posts to cover the basics.

Storefront simplification

2010-03-12T07:20:00.004-05:00

Been a while since I blogged: understatement. You want a reason? I answered an email recently and likened myself to a rudderless boat. The only good thing about this image is the possibility that my ass is less fat due to the loss of the rudder.

Anyhow, I removed some projects from my Lulu account. These were the print book versions of my stories. They do not sell nearly as well as my eBook versions, so out they went. The storefront is much shorter now and easier to look at, and I'm happy with that.

I'm very slowly getting interested in writing again, sort of edging toward it. I read some books for pleasure recently--fiction, I mean--and the internal editor/critiquer didn't shoot off it's mouth very much at all. This is a good sign, I think. The joy of words may be returning to my personal universe. Maybe I'll find my rudder out there in the cosmos.

In my absence, it seems I've lost my banner to the blog. I'll get around to fixing that eventually.

Why edotirs and poorfrdeaers mghit msis a mspisleled wrod

2008-12-04T19:00:00.005-05:00

For your edification, a curious study which piqued both my interest and humour.

http://www.mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk/~mattd/Cmabrigde/

Keep in mind, a lot of morphemes (or really long words) make a difference to how well this works. Also, the trick seems to apply to skilled readers, which I take to mean those readers who do now how to spell. Presumably, editors and proofreaders know how to spell. We hope.

Quoting:

In it Graham says:
This reminds me of my PhD at Nottingham University (1976), which showed that randomising letters in the middle of words had little or no effect on the ability of skilled readers to understand the text. Indeed one rapid reader noticed only four or five errors in an A4 page of muddled text.

So, proofreaders, editors: read slowly. Very.

:D

Not guilty!

2008-11-03T15:36:00.003-05:00

Feeling guilty for having chronic illnesses is just off. It's off. It's wrong. It's unnecessary. I mean, aside from making you feel bad emotionally, it doesn't help with your physical health, does it?

This is the quote that finally got through to me:

From Practicing The Power of Now, one of the "how to" sections with bold print at the beginning (page 130 if you have the book):

When you are ill or disabled, do not feel that you have failed in some way, do not feel guilty. Do not blame life for treating you unfairly, but do not blame yourself either. All that is resistance.

My take on this: Blame pins the past and future to an illness, so you're burdened with years of whatever tribulations, pain and failure you suffered in the past and also burdened with the potential pain and suffering of the future. Blame keeps you (the spirit) smothered and feeds the pain body (I'm not referring to the chronic illness here, but a sort of egoic entity that feeds off any sort of pain, but especially emotional pain, and helps smother the spirit). Blame is resistance. Resistance isn't what the spirit is about. The spirit is freedom.

Sure, I'm chronically ill, but that isn't me. It's my body. It's something that happens to a body. I was blaming myself, however. I was feeling guilty. But there's nothing I can do about this illness that I'm not already doing. So no more guilty.

You know, guilty also gets in the way of creativity. Creativity is an act of freedom, the spirit. So "Not guilty!" as I said in the blog title. :-)

If I can't work. I can't work. If I can, I will, and I'll accept how it goes because it's a whole lot nicer than being "guilty sick author". I'd rather be just me.

At last, the revision of Gryphon 1

2008-10-23T08:27:00.004-04:00

It's been a year since I was able to get back to this series. I revised the last of the Bound set in September of 2007, and here it is, October of 2008. My, my. Not being able to work on this epic has been bugging me like you wouldn't believe.

Gryphon One is my oldest novel in the epic. It had the most faults to correct. While I wrote it, my style change. You can see the change somewhere around chapter four. The edits involved the removal of repetitive words, not changes to the characters or plot or huge alterations in style (POV, certain types of prose choices). I did get rid of a few paras of excess backstory near the beginning of chapter two and tried to place necessary data elsewhere in dialogue.

Writing is always a learning process. No matter how good you think you are getting, you can learn more. And I swear, this art form has more critics than any other. I mean, you flub a flower in a painting and it's often called style, but you can't blub a blower in writing.

See what I mean? What other art form requires almost 100% perfection to be acceptable? Even 95% properly spelled words looks bad in a published story. Writers have to aim for at least 99% properly spelled words and often, veeeery often, fail to do so. This need for perfection doesn't even take into account the myriad opinions out there as to what constitutes good prose, good characterisaton, good whatever. Art is about taste. Taste is about opinion. But spelling and grammar are all about rules. What a volatile mix!

Gryphon One, long overdue for an upgrade (that's what I call getting rid of repetitive words), has been uploaded to both Lulu and Memoware. This is one of the free ebooks in the series, so anyone who had the older version can upload it again without needing to contact me.

When I get to Gryphons 2 and 3, however, readers will need to send me proof of purchase to get the new versions. Lulu does not give the newest version when a reader downloads a purchased novel a second time. It keeps the older version on file for that reader, so the reader can only get the new one direct from me.

I believe Lulu does this to protect the reader. The logic may be that the reader purchased a certain version and should have the right to access that version in perpetuity (I'm speaking ebook downloads, here). But I'm willing to email readers the newer version at no extra cost, because I'd like them to have it. It's just, I don't know, artistic pride, I guess.

I have a lit version of Gryphon 1 available, though it's not showing on Memoware yet. I suppose I should load lit versions of the Bound set on Lulu as well, but the darned storefront is getting awfully long.

I keep wondering if I should sell ebooks direct from a website using Paypal as a payment method...

Ok, done rambling. Gryphon one revised and available. And now I'm off for a morning nap. I don't sleep eight hours in one shot. Can't.

2008-10-11T17:53:00.002-04:00

I just updated those links finally. Odd, but I thought I did weeks ago, but I actually only updated my site links. I think I did the blog template links, but I may have forgotten to press save changes after.

There you have it. Another case of seriously absent-minded.

Pizza!

Suppertime.

What? Seriously attention deficit. That's what you're thinking, ain't it?

Middle-aged attention deficit disorder. MAADD!

Maadd! Ha ha ha.

Ok, not funny.

Pizza!

Warning, all my links to FB and WCP need updating

2008-08-30T12:39:00.003-04:00

Marci has been working hard as heck to move Wild Child and Freya's Bower over to a new server, so my links on the sidebars with all the nice book covers are not good links, not just now. I'll update them soon, but the basic links are (still are):

http://www.freyasbower.com/

and

http://www.wildchildpublishing.com/

Resigning

2008-07-18T15:24:00.005-04:00

Well, my health pretty much did me in. I couldn't keep up with the editing. Last Friday, I resigned as an FB/WCP editor. I spent my computer hours this week going through files and emails to track down the most current copies of everything and I uploaded them to the FB editor forum for the other editors to choose. My authors were contacted about the resignation. Some answered the email. A few did not. Either way, I'm still availalbe to answer questions, forward emails to the boss, or whatever else that needs doing aside from editing.

I put this off for more than a month. I hung on despite knowing long ago that I wasn't keeping up. I hope my authors will forgive me. It was time to admit it and pass the work along to those capable of sitting down at the computer for longer lengths of time than me.

I'm not out of the loop entirely. I'll be doing cover art, one cover at a time so as not to overwhelm myself. I already have one cover to do. The last few days have been migraine and back pain hell. I had to cancel a session with a student wanting English tutoring this morning. Thank God today wasn't a kennel day. I'd have been limping home after.

So there it is. My latest in the publishing adventure. Yes, I will still write. No, I'm not writing just now; not even editing my old stuff right now. My mind needs more settling time. My mind feels like a million particles in a tornado just now. Very little ability to concentrate on anything to do with words. Pictures come easier, hence covers.

Best wishes to all my authors who were so patient with me and understanding. I hope to see your stories published soon. And to my bosses and fellow editors, you're all wonderful. Thank you.

Star Stepping: An Anthology of Fantasy & Sci-Fi Tales

2008-06-05T13:16:00.005-04:00

This anthology is available on the Wild Child Publishing site.

For interviews and websites of the authors, please visit Debbie Mumford's blog.

Contents:

Beneath and Beyond by Debbie Mumford

Archaeologist Erin Carstedter is a no-nonsense kind of gal. If something can't be defined by scientific method, it doesn't exist. Erin's beliefs are about to be tested by a ruin beneath the polar ice cap. What Erin discovers in those icy depths will challenge her thinking...and change the world.

Read excerpt.

That Old Sweet Smell of Deception by Martin Owton

An ancient dragon tempted out to war for the first time in centuries finds the world greatly changed and dragons a rarity. Does an enemy wizard hold the key to saving dragonkind?

Read excerpt.

Fatal Wager by Andy Heizeler

Read excerpt.

A Pixie Story by Joe Miller

Mike awoke to find himself in a strange land. To then find himself surrounded by a whole hoard of pixies, each one with an arrow aimed at his heart, one could hardly guess how things would turn out.

Read excerpt.

The Honorable Lady by Kim Knox

Royal officials are vanishing and Evia-ben-Thiak doesn't intend to be one of them.

As a high-ranking member of the court, she fears for her life. So, she takes the only option open to her. She hides on a boat sailing to her home-island.

However, the boat is not the sanctuary she hoped for. A friend from her childhood, the now-feared sorcerer, Makovik is also onboard. To be seen with him could end her career; have her thrown in the deepest dungeon. But more than that, she finds he has a plan.

And his actions will change her life forever...

Read excerpt.

Wakinyan's Valley by Debbie Mumford

In a post-apocalyptic world, Mark Whitehorse and his friends search for a safe haven where they can raise their families. When they stumble across a hidden valley, they believe their search is over. But the valley is already inhabited. Will the band of survivors find refuge...or something else entirely?

Read excerpt.

Storms of Light and Shadow by Patrice Sarath

Some gifts are better left unopened.

Read excerpt.

Under a Full Moon by Tom Fowler

A weretiger wizard immune to the lunar cycles suddenly finds himself caught in a painful transformation -- one he suspects was caused by someone else. Can he stop it before he becomes a rampaging monster, and can he find the man who did this to him?

Read excerpt.

Casey by Noelle Sterne

An ordinary junior high school boy, Casey suffers the trials of a teenager until one day his life is changed forever.

Read excerpt.

Bastet by R. S. Pyne

Captain Kai Brenhin Righa of the corsair fighting ship Raven is quite happy not being human. The transition came without warning, a blessing from a stowaway with the face of an ancient Earth Goddess and a strange sense of humor. Now Bastet is back and she needs a favor.

Read excerpt.

Nana Genevieve by Julie Nordeen

As science creates robots that behave more and more like humans, how will we know when they cease to be our creations and become self-aware beings of their own? Nana Genevieve knows. And she'll make sure the world understands...if it's the last thing she ever does.

Read excerpt.

The Tie That Binds by Debbie Mumford

Twin brothers Cameron and Kyle McClellan have always shared a psychic bond. Though the adult men lead very different lives, when career military officer Kyle is wounded in Iraq, Cameron's ability to decipher their special link may mean the difference between his brother's life and death.

Read excerpt.

Star Stepping Table of Contents

2008-05-30T07:10:00.003-04:00

Debbie Mumford has begun a series of interviews with her fellow authors of the Star Stepping anthology, which will be published though Wild Child Publishing on June 3rd.

I pop over to Debbie's blog regularly. Today I'm glad to have done so. The first interview I read reminded me of the reasons I enjoy a good SF story: the potential for an original idea; the ability to put human nature and an extraordinary situation together and see what happens; the ability to fantasize about the practical aspects of possible technology.

Do go over and meet Debbie and her fellow authors. This industrious lady has posted three interviews so far.

More on being in the now

2008-05-28T15:42:00.004-04:00

I've been using the stuff I learned from Eckhart Tolle's A New Earth to help with chronic pain. His advice does work. Interestingly, being in the now (as he keeps saying to do) can put a person through all the stages of grief (from denial to acceptance). I went through such when taking a walk. Instead of avoiding my pain by daydreaming, which I usually do, I persisted in confronting the now while not judging what happened. Even when I became angry that I had to do this, I accepted that I was angry and did not judge the feeling of anger. A few minutes later, a greater portion of my pain at the time vanished. I enjoyed the walk, mostly in the now and without a lot of mental gear in place to avoid my pain. The anger vanished as well, btw. It was my ego (what Tolle calls the ego, anyhow) acting up and getting in my way of being in the now.

Lovely experiment, but I need to put it into practice more often. I've been semi-successful, because the daydreaming has become something of an addictive practice over the years. I need to dream to write, but I also want to enjoy my actual life when I'm away from the computer. There is life beyond the computer.

The computer, writing: to some degree, both were a means to avoid pain . I've noticed for years now that I wasn't really "there" with my family and kids. The last few months, I'm more there. Means less time spent on the computer, but it also means I may actually improve my health at last.

The facts as they stand now: my blood pressure has, indeed, lowered, though my pulse is still too rapid; because I'm being in the now with my life, I don't have a pile of laundry hiding what should be an upstairs sofa (and believe it or not, that pile of laundry adds to my stress the longer it stays present); I've spent more time with my husband, even doing things like helping him when he gets the scrap wood (skids and crates) for next winter's firewood from a local industry .

Truthfully, I'm not much use to him when it comes to the physical labour. I hold the skids up in the trailer while he loads them, or I drag the less heavy stuff closer, sometimes bang a sledgehammer on bigger constructions to break them apart (my idea of weightlifting for health--dislocate my shoulder, give myself more neck pain, and put myself out of breath in five swings, lol.) Mostly I'm there for company, to be there now with him.

It sounds strange, maybe, to add to the pain in my neck through labour, but one of the things I have to do is stay mobile and stay strong to keep my bones from worsening, which means I cannot avoid pain. I laugh off the extra, and that I'm happy being with my husband helps me stay in equilibrium. When I lose that equilibrium, I cry like you wouldn't believe. The Tolle book has helped me keep that equilibrium better.

I like my husband, you know. Been married what? Almost fifteen years. I really like him. He's good company and I've been missing it, off in daydream land with a story instead of living in the world.

Don't get me wrong. I intend to continue writing, but I intend to live, really live, as well. My health demands it, in more ways than the physical.

So yes, I recommend the Tolle book to all of you. It's worth a read. There is no mystery to what he is saying. There's no sitting on a mountain like a holy hermit, or starving yourself to achieve some sort of spiritual enlightenment through ascetism. It's all very simple. Just be in the now.

Good deal and good excerpt

2008-05-03T18:34:00.008-04:00

Marci, our fabulous publisher, has released the first PODcast of a Freya's Bower excerpt. Ok, I'm going to do my lazy bit and cut and paste. Here it comes:

20% Discount!

Freya's Bower is offering a 20% discount coupon for account members who are also signed up for the store newsletter and purchase more than $3.25 in ebooks. If you already have an account, just sign up for the newsletter. You can sign into your account here, or create a new one. You can use the coupon as many times as you like until May 31st.

And there it is.

On with the good excerpt, another from In the Gloaming, this time from Esmeralda Bishop's Robin's Cap. Robin Redcap, btw, is a scary little... You should read the excerpt. (He dyes his hat with fresh human blood!)

Blurb:

Tales of ancient evil surround Hermitage Castle. What happens when legend becomes reality? Graham Parish and Kat Davis are about to find out.

***

Kat stiffened in his arms. “Graham, what is that?” she breathed, fear shaking her voice.

He peered around her and shot to his feet, pulling Kat behind him. He backed up, pressing her to the wall.

There, before them, stood the subject of his thoughts. The powrie’s grin spread across his face, its razor sharp teeth gleaming in the dimly lit room.

“Graham, what the hell is that?” She screamed the words in his ear. Her grip tightened on the back of his shirt. The material flattened across his chest.

Shrugging, Graham tried to loosen her grasp. “That is Robin Redcap.”

He felt Kat jerk behind him. “The troll from the fairy tale?”

The faerie growled. Graham got the impression he didn’t take kindly to being called a troll. Redcap moved. A colorful burst of blurring light streaked across the room. The creature materialized where the light stopped.

Graham swallowed. He had no doubt the creature was fucking with them by showing off its speed.

“How do we get rid of it?”

Good question. Should he tell her getting rid of it was not an option? The only end result would be it getting rid of them.

Subconsciously he had known that, but had refused to admit it until now. Now he was faced with the reality that they would not survive this night.

Redcap moved again; this time the beam of light headed straight for them. Graham grabbed Kat as he stumbled backward, trying to put space between them. Kat clamped onto his arm, bringing it against her chest and screamed in his ear.

The closer the creature crept, the scarier it looked. Deep wrinkles lined its filthy face. Its red eyes filled with bloodlust. The metallic smell of blood and the musty odor of death hung in the air.

The powrie’s lead boots clunked heavily on the floor.

Kat screamed.

Redcap smiled. “Don’t be afraid, kitty. It will only hurt a lot.”

***

Visit Esmerelda at her web site, her blog, or her MySpace.

To purchase In the Gloaming, click here.

And now I'm going to thank Nita Wick for all the hard work she put into posting these excerpts, because I'm just a lazy butt who copied them from her blog. Nita's blog link here.

Nita is wonderful. She's on the ball with her blog, her website (linkie!) and with regards to promoting In the Gloaming. Thank you, Nita!

April Freya's Bower interview and an In the Gloaming excerpt

2008-04-27T11:06:00.003-04:00

Our publisher, Marci Baun, interviewed Debbie Mumford not long ago. The PODcast is up on site and ready for listeners. Here's a link. On her blog, Debbie said she enjoyed the chat (via Skype) and forgot it was an interview. You know what this means, of course. It's got to be a candid and warm conversation with a wonderful author lady. :-)

This next excerpt is from Kelley Heckart’s The Enchanted Meadow, one of five stories published in Faith Bicknell-Brown's fairy anthology. Faith is planning a second anthology. You can find out more about it, I believe, on her writers' group, which is dedicated to discussions about all aspects of writing.

***

Blurb:

Warriors from the Raven clan are sent to guard the king’s cattle. They are unprepared for the strange, otherworldly happenings in the new winter grazing land, including nocturnal visits by a beautiful lass. Only their leader, Taran, can save them—if he remembers how.

***

Alina wanted to cry out to him, but her throat would not form any sounds. The one who had betrayed her and trapped her in this tree had taken away her speech so she could not ask for help to escape her prison. So many centuries had turned, each season passing in a blur of muted colors, her hope fading. Now someone had come, a mortal who could help her, but she needed to communicate with him in some way. Sighing, she realized she was not even sure she knew how to break the curse.

He watched her now with curious eyes, unaware that she also watched him. When she concentrated all of her power, she could imprint an image of her face on the tree trunk, becoming one with the tree. Only he had seen her face in the tree bark, so she knew he was more than a simple warrior. He had the mind of a druid. Only the one who could help her would be able to see into other realms and pay such close attention to her tree. She sensed the affection in his caress. Shivers of pleasure shot through her body at his gentle touch, giving her a sense of hope.

She studied him, admiring the confident way he commanded his men even as he faced the unknown. He stood regal and powerful, the blue warrior marks he earned shadowing the austere planes of his handsome face. Long, golden-copper streaked hair plunged down his back in a wild tangle. She yearned to run her hands through his thick mane again.

As if reading her thoughts, he glanced back at her tree, his bright blue eyes darkening to a deeper hue in the shifting light, his face softening from its usual hardness. When he looked in her direction, he let slip his true feelings he hid from his warriors. Her heart sang with compassion for him.

She felt herself blush at his penetrating gaze. His eyes awakened that feeling of familiarity in her again, but she still could not place it. If she escaped her prison, she could go to him now. Frowning, she thought how she hated the tree that felt like a tomb. The world beyond the tree taunted her with its bright autumn colors, a world so full of life and freedom. She could not bear to look upon it any longer.

To help her bide her time, she thought about their coupling. Her body flushed at the memory. She recalled how wonderful his muscles had felt beneath her touch and the way he had kissed her, caressing her secret places with his skillful tongue, making her moan and quake. A twinge of desire flickered inside her at the thought of having him touch her again tonight.

When they discovered another missing cow, they would have to stay. At least she hoped so. She continued to hide some of their cattle to keep the warrior there so eventually he could help her escape.

At first, she only wanted to use him to help her escape, but now her body trembled with affection for the golden warrior. After he rekindled what had been dormant for so long inside of her, she began to yearn for him and his tender, passionate touch. Could she let him go? And if he should eat of the apples….

***

Visit Kelley at her web site or MySpace. To keep informed about her new books, contests and other book related news, you are invited to join her Yahoo group.

To purchase In the Gloaming, click here.

Excerpt week continues....

2008-04-24T07:08:00.004-04:00

...in the style it began: late. I guess I'll be skipping a day before posting each.

This next is from from Cora Zane’s story, At the Edge of Twilight. Cora is a North Louisiana author with a penchant for shapeshifter stories. But this story is about fairies, of course. Expect the unnerving.

Blurb:

Lured by otherworldy music, Colleen braves a midnight garden and meets a man full of secrets…one who’s determined she should stay with him forever, locked within his world at the edge of twilight.

***

Hands shaking, Colleen clicked on her flashlight and held the rake handle out in front of her for protection. She levered the dull beam of light toward the old tree and scanned it back and forth across the tall grass.

She saw nothing, no movement that should not have been there, but she couldn’t chase away the sensation of being watched. The music played on, more loudly than before, but now it seemed further away than she had originally anticipated. She pushed on through the tall grass, toward the hated oak tree, and raised the flashlight higher. The beam stretched longer and longer still, until the light stretched so far away it bled away into moonlight and wilderness.

She stopped beneath the sprawling canopy of the oak, the hard-packed earth barren save for the running roots that poked through the rotting carpet of dry, dead leaves that crunched under her feet. She moved to the far side of it and stopped there to listen. The lilting, woodsy music crawled over her, through her, made her shiver.

“Hello?”

Abruptly, the music stopped, and Colleen could’ve sworn her heart stopped with it. She lifted a hand protectively to her throat and waited for someone to emerge, to say something.

Seconds ticked by. A minute. Only night sounds answered her. Swallowing hard, she turned a circle where she stood and gathered her courage around her. Despite the silence, she was convinced she wasn’t alone.

“This is private property,” she announced, trying to seem brave to whoever might be watching her. Something dashed off through the leafy foliage to her right.

Colleen yelped in fright and stumbled back, her heart kicking violently against her ribs. She scrabbled out from under the darkness of the tree, too terrified to immediately recognize that whatever had run away had been too small to do her any harm. By the time the thought finally occurred to her, it was too late to regain her calm façade.

She turned in a circle, scanning the nearest trees and bushes with the flashlight. Her ragged breaths sounded loud to her own ears, but her nerves were shot, she couldn’t have controlled it if she’d tried. I never should have come out this far, not at night.

Overhead, black clouds drifted, stretching open in places as the jet stream caught them, thinning them so they revealed fragments of moonlit sky the color of bone. She moved to the far side of the oak and stared across the threshold into the patchy wilderness beyond the back yard.

Long years had passed since the last time she trekked past the oak tree. Her aunt had forbidden it, had alternately bored her and scared her with tales of dangerous wild animals, of missing children lost forever in the woods.

How clear everything looked over there. A faint blue gleam settled over everything, revealing the spiky needles of the pine trees and highlighting the leafy canopies of the sweet gums and maples. In a small clearing just beyond the wood line, stood a broad ring of mushrooms so white they appeared almost to glow. Plucking up her courage, she walked toward the white caps gleaming in the dark, wondering all the while, Where did the music go?

“They draw the eye, do they not?”

Colleen nearly jumped out of her skin. The beam of the flashlight zigzagged wildly as she spun around in the direction of that voice. She bungled the rake handle; it slipped from her fingers and landed somewhere among the ferny bracken at her feet.

She couldn’t bring herself to look for it; she couldn’t tear her gaze away from the silhouette of the man watching her a few feet away. He sat on something, or perhaps crouched down. The beam of the flashlight made a narrow circle on the ground in front of him, and instinctively she jerked the light upward, shining it in his face. He pulled an arm up over his eyes, and all she could make of him was an olive green sleeve and that he had russet-brown hair.

***

Visit Cora at her web site and her blog.

Purchase In the Gloaming

Excerpt week

2008-04-22T06:33:00.008-04:00

Beginning yesterday, I was to post excerpts from Into the Gloaming, but seven cases of chokecherry wine, which I began bottling on Sunday, demanded a shopping trip for corks (bought 250 so I wouldn't have to worry about needing any for a while) and more bottle washing (the last two cases of the bottles from hell; in other words, commercial wine bottles recycled for my use; equals labels with sticky glue; meaning an hour of scraping and scouring per case to get all the sticky crud off). In the end, I ended up with seven cases of chokecherry or chokecherry blend, plus one extra bottle. Eighty-five bottles. Unless my math is off this morning, which it might be.

I'm skipping chokecherry picking this year. I have enough to last two years easily. My wine cellar is all but full. And yet I have three kits of white wine to start and two kits of red. And I still intend to do my second attempt at dandelion wine. The first attempt made an incredible delicate wine. Well worth the effort.

So. Nine months of aging in the carboy. That's how long the chokecherry sat about before bottling. When I first began wine making, I had no idea, really, how much aging was required to make a good wine. But four batches of chokecherry have taught me that wines made from astringent berries require more time to become palatable. Chokecherry makes a wonderful wine, but it does require that extra time. Maturing at least a few months in the bottle will help as well.

On with the In the Gloaming excerpt. Today is Nita Wick's day. She's an author from Tennessee and...oh, my! Nita! The heroes page! Whoa! (Hot! Hot, hot, hot! Eyes melting!)

Links! I have them below the Gloaming cover, and you'll also find the excerpt from Nita's story, The Dream. Remember the scary children's tale about trolls under a bridge? Perhaps you'd like to revisit the bridge.

Links: web site: www.nitawick.com
blog: www.nitawick.com/blog
MySpace: www.myspace.com/nitawick

The Dream by Nita Wick

Lost in one of Scotland's enchanted forests, a sleeping Katie dreams of trolls, faeries, and her fantasy lover. And never has a dream felt so real.

Excerpt

"Have you no sense at all, lass?"

"What?"

"Sittin' on the trow's bridge. Are you daft?"

"Oh, for heaven's sake. I didn't know it belonged to a troll. I got lost. I just needed a place to rest, but I fell asleep." She shrugged. "And now I'm dreaming."

He grunted. "What are you doin' out here in the forest in the first place?" He didn't slow his pace.

Jogging to keep up with him, she said, "The bellboy at the hotel said the forest is enchanted. I didn't believe it, of course. But I thought it was a good excuse to see the forest and some of the countryside while I'm on vacation."

"Did it ever occur to you that there are tour guides for a reason?" He had the irritating tone of an adult reprimanding a mischievous child.

She frowned and pulled her hand free. "What is wrong with you?"

He halted and turned to gaze down at her. "Me? You're the one what's wanderin' around in the forest talkin' to trows."

She crossed her arms. "Look. This is my dream, and I don't like your attitude. Shouldn't you be making mad, passionate love to me now?"

He leaned down, his face hovering just above hers. "Is it your habit to offer sex to complete strangers?"

Rolling her eyes, she groaned. "Never. But this is different. You're not a stranger. And?"

"Do you even know me name, Katie?"

"I?." She thought back to all the erotic dreams she'd shared with this man. "Well, I guess you never told me."

He raised one brow and spun on his heel.

She ran around him and stood in front of him, blocking his path before he'd taken more than a few steps. "So what is your name?"

Blowing out a long breath, he rested his hand on his hips. "Aidan. Aidan McLain."

"Aidan." Katie searched his features and smiled. "It fits you. I like it."

"I'll tell me ma you said so. Can we go now?"

He stepped around her, and she fell in line behind him. "Go? Where?"

"I dinnae know where you're goin', lass, but I'm goin' home."

She stared at his back for a moment before she let her gaze fall to firm buttocks encased in tight denim. She followed him in silence, enjoying the view until they came to a clearing. The little meadow lay nestled in the forest like a hidden treasure. Summer wildflowers bloomed and swayed in the gentle breeze.

"Oh, how lovely. So this is where you'll make love to me. In a bed of wildflowers. This dream may turn out all right after all."

He stopped without warning, and she ran into him. Facing her, he placed his hands on her shoulders. "You're not dreamin'."

"Of course I'm not. That was a real troll. And a fantasy man really can come to life. What's next? Are you going to show me your unicorn?"

Why we create

2008-04-08T15:46:00.004-04:00

Another review out, and a recommended read as well. Click the Dark Divas image to visit the review page.

Do we create art to get admiration? One might wonder if that's the case, but I believe it's only the case "after" the artwork has manifested in the world. Prior to that manifestation, there is this urge to create. Why?

I am following Oprah's on line workshop with Eckhart Tolle and, the day after, I visit Oprah's site to download the transcripts and MP3 format of the weekly broadcast. (Here's a link for you.) Of course, there are always interesting links to the sides. Today, I followed one to a page on creativity.

I quote Julia Cameron:

But what we are actually talking about is that any time that you are engaged in a creative act, you are engaged in a spiritual act. And that's probably the single most important sentence: Any time we're engaged in a creative act, we're engaged with an inherently spiritual act.

And I offer a link to the article:

http://www.oprah.com/spiritself/beliefnet/200802/know_create_b1.jhtml

Back to my take on things. After the creative act is done, we promote a product; hence reviews, chats, book signings and what not. Beforehand, it's a spiritual act.

I can attest to this.

Oh, perhaps some of you might not think I can, since I write erotica, but let me remind you that the act of love can transcend the physical mechanics. Eroticism can lead to spiritual awakening.

But sure, if pleasure ain't for you, you can find some way to suffer to awaken spiritually instead.

Creation is an act of pleasure, from starting a writing project, to starting a child in the womb. (If it's not an act of pleasure, something else is involved in the scene that has nothing to do with creation.)

Back to my erotic writing. Almost all of my stories--well, perhaps all the stories, actually--have in them a theme beyond erotica, beyond relationship, action or adventure. So far, I always delve into the concept of faith, immortality, spirituality, ethics.

Sure I write to entertain, but I also write as an act of faith.

When I read the article on Oprah's site, I felt validated, recognized as a being and as an artist. I'm sure others will as well, whether they write, paint, quilt, work with wood or whatever medium that suits.

Podcasting, editor appreciation

2008-04-03T19:18:00.007-04:00

Freya's Bower started Podcasting a few weeks ago. Wild Child Publishing now has a Podcasting page as well.

I'm intrigued by this Podcasting thing. It's another way to promote, but it's more planned (beforehand at least) and you get to hear the author speaking. There's something warmer about that than loop chats and live chats on a Java window.

Some specifics for the Wild Child Podcast (I'm being lazy, doing the cut and past thing):

Join Marci Baun for our inaugural podcast where she interviews Jack Maeby, author of The Thorazine Mirrorball. To listen, just click on the link. If you are on a PC and would like to download the file, right click on the link below. If you are on a Mac and would like to download the file, control click on the link.

Title: Wild Child Publishing's Inaugural Podcast
Interview Date: March 25, 2008
Length: 18 min 02 sec
File Size: 16.9MB

Listen now!

All of our podcasts are also available on Pod Show.com and soon will be on iTunes.

And now for editor appreciation. I'm going to talk about myself for the remaining blog post. Yes, indeed.

I am.

Actually, I woke up this morning and found an email from fellow author/editor M.E. Ellis. She left a link to a blog post written by author Debbie Mumford.

Linkie time:
http://talesfromthecrit.wordpress.com/2008/04/02/in-praise-of-editors/

Ok, I got to say this. Debbie has some kind of empathy tracking radar, because I needed that. I really did.

Won't get into details, but Debbie rescued me this morning. She's a gem. And ain't it funny, but I said that to another editor just the night previous, before I'd read this blog post.

Definitely, she's got an empathy tracking radar.

Thank you, Debbie!

Release day

2008-03-25T07:17:00.009-04:00

Well, it's release day for In the Gloaming, and we five authors are having our first chat on Brenda Williamson Romance Party. Fairy lovers, come and join us.

Oh, and my sort of fairies, though based on actual fairy lore, are not the wee sort. I'll post excerpts. Come and read them.

We have reviews already!

Cocktail Reviews
Score: A champagne bottle and a flute!

By Nutty Nana:
"In The Gloaming really is a superior set of tales. I have read many authors and many anthologies, and this is the first one for me where every tale is rich and enthralling in their own right. I turned the page expecting more and found myself deflated that the book had ended. I wanted more, damnit!"

Read the entire review.

----------------

Paranormal Romance

By Beth Senters:
"In the Gloaming is a collection of amazing stories written by five very talented authors. Each story is so unique and well written. From finding true love to defeating evil, there is something for everybody in this book. I thoroughly enjoyed it and I know others will too."

Read the entire review.

New stuff catch up

2008-03-21T15:01:00.005-04:00

I have four, maybe five, news items to post. Wait, no, I think it's more like six or seven.

I get a lot of email. In them, I receive interesting things to make note of, but if I delete the emails, or file them away, I forget the interesting things. I even forget I filed the emails in a safe place.

Awful, but that's me. So I work around it. I leave the stuff I should blog about in my inbox where I can see them and I drag them out of the garbage if I accidentally delete them. Eventually, I post about them.

Today is catch up day. I was supposed to blog this tomorrow, but hell, I have the kids home for Easter holiday. It's a fight for computer time now, all the way to Tuesday.

First up, reviews and releases. Next week, March 25th, In the Gloaming goes live on Freya's Bower. I have a short story called The Icicle in it. You may remember it from an earlier blog post, where I cut and pasted an excerpt of the first draft.

Wait a mo...gathering image, links...

There we are. Faith Bicknell-Brown created the image of the fairy and the cover artist gave it that lovely purple overlay with shinies. Click the link to see a bigger version of the cover.

The story behind writing this short is a bit unusual. I wrote it for Faith, specifically. She wanted more fairy stories for her anth, and so I hunkered down and gave her one. Then she wanted more orgasms... Demanding woman.

LOL. Faith is a lovely woman. She has a tough as hell job and is still a lovely woman. If she wants orgasms, she gets orgasms.

Let's see. I'm supposed to be going on about reviews and releases here, but since I'm mentioning Faith, you should know she has a Podcast interview on Freya's Bower. It's the inaugural Podcast. Linkie time:

http://www.freyasbower.com/content/blogsection/46/107/

And she has an interview on a new blog called Author's Studio, also an upcoming loop chat day on Romance_Bistro, and I have just realized I am not yet a member of this group. Must do that sometime...

Back to reviews. In the Gloaming has two already, and hey! I have a webpage on my site with all the pertinent data. I attacked the html and fixed my site a bit. I have, at last, a general page that lists my pubs. I also have a legit Soulstone page for the epic. No more "All your base are belong to us." Gee, I might miss that quote.

Here's the link to the In the Gloaming page, with all the reviews so far listed.

http://soulstonechronicles.bravehost.com/gloaming.htm

Last and very wonderful news, Marci Baun, our publisher extraordinaire (you should search my previous posts for Podcast interview links), has finagled a foreword written by a celebrity for the third Dreams and Desires anthology. I can't say who the celebrity is yet, but I can say that the profits for this particular anth are destined for the St. Bernard shelter near the 9th ward of New Orleans. Katrina destroyed the shelter. It must be rebuilt, and WCP/FB will do it's part to see that this happens. Yay, Marci!

What a mess of a post. I rambled through the catch up, but I think I listed everything. I hope.

Brilliant work on Marci's part. I really believe in this lady. She's got it together.

Ok. Me stuff. Because of the chronics (my new word for body pain bullshit), I had to set aside some manuscripts, pass them on to someone more able to keep up with the work load. I was at once sad and relieved to do this. I then posted I was working on the mm anth at last, but then spent the next week in agony. Well, shit.

On the plus side, doing the Oprah thang (reading the Eckhart Tollé book) is reinforcing many things I already knew about why I should continue with meditation and Zennish stuff. Meditation won't get rid of the physical problems, but it'll help me cope with them and any work slow downs that result.

My eldest fella is reading the book at the same time as me. Last night, he apologized for getting orange juice dribble on a page (he was eating a tangello). I laughed and said he should get out a pen and write "Alex was here."

Orange juice happens.

Anyhow, I have, technically, four full-sized manuscripts to edit. The mm anth counts for two. A horror novel for WCP counts as the third. Then I have a dark fic mm story for FB (novel-sized) and also a novella by the same author. Last, I picked up a short, short novella-ish thing to edit yesterday and that's half done. It was a rush job, but what a wonderful rush job. Lovely story. I'll post more about it later. It should go live very quickly.

And that's it, I guess. More catch up later.

Wait! One more thing, good for authors with only a few pubs:

http://authorspayit forward.blogspot .com/2008/ 01/free-website- template- from-ls.html

Bard of Pain

2008-03-16T15:32:00.006-04:00

This is a special review for me. First of all, Dusk Peterson, like me, is a self-published author. Second, Dusk has worked hard to publish a quality story, done the footwork necessary to knowing how to self-publish, shared the knowledge gained from that footwork, given stories to beta readers for criticism, polished those stories and polished them again.

I was one of Dusk’s beta readers. Bard of Pain is not the only story by Dusk that I’ve read. A few years back, I also “beta’d” Mystery and Rebirth (The Eternal Dungeon). Dusk has been kind enough to list me as an editor of Bard of Pain before I could in fact claim to be one. I’m honoured to have read these stories, let alone have Dusk consider my opinions of them. I learned from this author. I had surprises while reading, surprises that inspired.

In all three stories, I discovered compelling characters who were confronting problems capable of destroying a human being, sometimes physically, definitely mentally. But there’s something very special about Dusk’s dark fic. Dark, very, but there’s this smidgen of light in every cavern Dusk throws a reader, and the brightness of that light is practically overwhelming by the time you get to the end of the novel, and it is like crawling to the opening of a cavern. It’s like getting a miracle.

I’m not exaggerating. Follow any of Dusk’s protagonists through a story and you’ll not only glimpse the mind of a troubled being, you’ll see that character’s transformation. You’ll witness a moment of revelation. Sometimes, just like the character, you won’t see the revelation coming. You’ll feel it looming, but you just won’t see it. It’ll be like rocks tumbling out of the way, unveiling that light I spoke of.

Bard of Pain is a story about a young man who seems to exist to torture people. Warfare makes it easier for him to enact his blackest desires. He becomes an officer and serves the Northern Army as a torturer, though extracting information from prisoners is hardly the most satisfying or true reason for which he commits atrocities on another human being.

When you read Bard of Pain, you might find yourself despising the protagonist, but you’ll be fascinated all the same. Surely, he’s going to be damned for all his evil acts. Surely, he’ll get what he deserves.

He does.

Oh, spoiler, right? No, not really. Read the story. Let Dusk throw you in a cavern and tumble some rocks for you. That promised bit of light I mentioned beforehand? It’s well worth chasing.

destined for an agent

2008-03-14T22:14:00.007-04:00

I'm starting a story that will be meant for mainstream, not that I'm going to avoid adult content. It's just that it will be meant for mainstream and therefore sent to agents. Not erotica, in other words. SF. The plot's in my head, mostly.

Well, that's how I write. I write with a "mostly" and wing it.

For a long time, I didn't have a plot idea that I could see writing that didn't have some erotica in it. I mean, I don't believe in avoiding erotic elements in a story if the story calls for it, so I had a hard time coming up with a plot that didn't need much of that sort of thing. I have to write something that I'm interested in or I just don't write.

Sounds like I'm only interested in erotica, eh? Not true, really. My stories have a lot more plot than erotica, but I was very interested in close relationships for a long time and needed time to explore that area.

But there's my mom going "Why can't you write something mainstream?", and me going "Well, I don't have it in me yet." And there I was playing the Wii and a certain well-known cartoonish video game hero blew a plot into my head.

This was about a month ago, but someone else was playing the Wii today and the plot ballooned. So I wrote the first pages. That's what I always do to solidify a plot in my memory. If I really want to write it, I get the first few pages done at least, that way, reading them brings the entire idea back.

So. SF. Very SF. And not a hard plot to manage. I think I can pull off a reasonable story for mainstream at last. And it's interesting enough that I can have fun with the writing and still have close relationships in it, if not scenes with sex. I can do the "implied sex" routine for a change.

I'm happy tonight. I solved a problem that had been bugging me.

Sure, I'll get to my other stories that I need to finish, but this idea may be the kick in the mental butt I needed to regain my motivations as a writer. :-)

Meet the reviewers

2008-03-12T15:14:00.001-04:00

This is a loop chat on Beth Wylde's group.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bethwylde/

This Saturday, 15 March. Some of the reviewers are already introducing themselves and listing their interests. Not all interests are romance or erotica.

The Price of Gold

2008-03-12T15:08:00.002-04:00

Ansley Vaughan's new novel, The Price of Gold, has just been released on Freya's Bower. Here's the blurb and the book specifics:

Alex Westgate is a man who has everything. A successful trader in the exclusive London gold market, he possesses a smart flat, a fast car and a fashionable girlfriend. But something is missing, and one person is worried about him—his mother.

On the way down to the coast to visit his parents, Alex is involved in an accident that brings him into contact with someone who will shatter his preconceptions and turn his ordered existence upside-down. The goddess Freya, confined to earth because of a malfunctioning chariot, introduces him to her own kind of mischief and zest for living.

Alex is plunged into a nightmare world of sea-monsters, belligerent Valkyries, man-eating wolves and shape-shifting cats. As he learns some hard lessons about love and relationships, it becomes clear that Freya's presence on earth is more than just a coincidence. It's a matter of life and death.

Will he survive the experience to learn the final lesson; that there's more to the human journey than worrying about the price of gold?

This book is part of the Goddess Freya Series.
Please be aware that there is one scene of M/M in this book, but it is primarily M/F.

Rating: Sizzling

Genre: M/F/Multiple partners/Contemporary/Paranormal

Book Length: Category Novel

Price: $5.25

http://www.freyasbower.com/content/view/362/106/

Congratulations, Ansley!

More news from Debbie

2008-02-26T17:06:00.003-05:00

She's on a roll. Debbie is the author to turn to for your sweet romance fix. Sweet romance is popular reading material. It's what people like. It's comforting, because, you know, it has danger and heroic acts and mystery, but it always ends up with that satisfying HEA. Debbie does sweet romance very well indeed.

Ok, so here's the links:

An interview on Ecataromance, where she recently won a few high placements in reader polls.

Another interview on LASR and a contest. LASR is short of Long and Short Reviews, reviews for long and short fiction.

Old ideas, new presentation

2008-02-26T15:23:00.007-05:00

Yesterday on Oprah... Yes, I watch Oprah. Not daily. I check her shows for interesting topics and sit my butt down when she has one. Otherwise I change channels or do housework while half-listening.

So, yesterday during a show with Valerie Bertinelli (I half-listened), Oprah mentioned just before a commercial that only 300 000 people have signed up so far for her live web event. The subject of this event is Eckhart Tolle's A New Earth. Oprah seemed mystified by the low sign-up numbers.

After doing a small amount of research to discover what this book was about, I wasn't mystified. It only took going to the forums on Oprah.com to confirm my theory. Sign ups are low because, well, in North America there is a huge resistance to spirituality that hasn't been derived from or prescribed by religions based on ancient Judaic myth. Some members of these religions are insistent that no other spiritual view is valid, and damn you to hell if you try anything but the right religion, meaning theirs.

Darn, but the "you are going to hell" factions are dead set against meditation. And yes, Eckhart Tolle's book is, basically, another book about spiritual improvement through meditation, through heightened self-awareness.

That's a simplistic description, I know, but like the blog title says: old ideas, new presentation. Anyone who wants to know more about meditation and all the fine details of how to go about it should read a book written by an expert. There are experts going back centuries, but you might have trouble getting English translations for some.

I've ordered Tolle's book from Chapters. I have other books about Zen and meditation, but I'm hoping this one presents the concepts in a manner that doesn't drop my head on a pillow within five minutes. Really, meditation has been the only thing I've done that's helped me with the personal problems I've faced and still face. I wish I'd known about it when I was in my teens.

Pronouns, names and POV in slash fiction: edition one

2008-02-24T14:10:00.009-05:00

For those who don't know what slash is, visit this page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slash_fiction

For those who do know what slash is and who write slash fiction, on with the blog post: pronouns, names and POV. This topic will have a number of posts, and that's why I called the first edition one.

A lot of writers who send in submissions with slash content have awkward use of pronouns, names, and POV. These three things are related when it comes to clarity in a story. I'll begin with the type of poor use I dislike the most: pronouns assigned to the POV character only.

Ok, so let's say a guy named Joe is the POV character of a scene, and the other guy is called Gary. Joe and Gary. I'll write a short scene showing what I mean about pronouns assigned to POV character only.

He entered the room and found Gary seated on the foot of the bed. Gary looked up and smiled.

"Hey," he said.

"Hey," Gary replied.

He moved closer. Gary stood, arms opening to welcome him. They embraced, his hands sliding around the defined muscles of Gary's flank and rising up to splay across that perfect back.

All right, there it is. I hope it was very clear to you how badly written this sort of prose is. It's horrible; horrible to edit, horrible to read.

What do we see up there? Truly, only Joe has the use of pronouns. Believe it or not, I have seen published ebooks in which authors have assigned POV through pronouns. This method of POV assignment is awkward, and the fault gets compounded with more faults to make up for the sloppy/lazy use of pronouns.

First screwy thing that happens when assigning pronouns to the POV character only: bad traffic directions for the reader. Look at line two ("Hey," he said.): Readers will assign a pronoun automatically to the last person mentioned, whether this person is mentioned by proper name or not. The last person mentioned was not Joe but Gary. There is instant reader confusion the moment "he" is used to mean Joe in place of Gary when nothing was done to refocus the reader on who is performing the next action (in this case, speech is the next action). Instead of "he said", it should have read "Joe said".

Remember this: pronouns accord to the last noun mentioned. Whether that pronoun is he, she or it, that pronoun accords to the last noun mentioned. Readers logically tag their attention to the last noun mentioned. The moment a writer misuses a pronoun to refer to a noun other than the last one mentioned, the writer has misdirected the reader. Reader misdirection is not a good idea. Pronouns, the proper use of them, are like traffic signs on a busy highway.

You'll see the same misdirection happening in my example in the first line of para three (He moved closer). Again, last person acting was Gary, but who did I mean? Joe. Awful. Just awful traffic directions. Reader moves forward by one line and sees Gary standing up. Gary couldn't have been the one moving forward. So, once again, through poor use of pronouns, I've made my reader take a step back to work out my writing logic, rather than letting the reader sink into my story smoothly.

Stupid thing to do, assigning pronouns to POV only.

Compound problem: The other character's name will crop up a lot, enough to start getting awkward.

Compound problem two: To offset compound problem one, authors throw out words like those arms instead of Gary's arms, or that back, instead of Gary's back. Or, worst of all, you'll see the author saying the other man, inadvertantly making the reader think a third man is present. Or you'll see overuse of the man or his lover instead of the name Gary. His lover is at least better than using the man throughout the story, but still, if the author truly knew how to use pronouns and understood POV, this fault wouldn't be seen.

Why is using those arms and that back a fault? Well, those and that are words used to refer to nouns previously mentioned, but in my example, was his back mentioned beforehand? No. And yet authors with this terrible style choice do use those and that to refer to nouns that never came up in the story beforehand.

What does this say to me when I read a submission? That if I accept, I'll have a nightmare edit on hand. I'll have to teach this author the trade rather than do my real job.

Don't get me wrong. I do teach authors how to write better and I'm often happy to do so, but a novel written with this magnitude of errors just doesn't get accepted. The author is well below the point of where I can efficiently teach him/her the tricks of POV, which includes proper understanding of pronouns.

Last note on this style choice: Replace he with I, his with my, him with me, they with we. Do you see that? A story written in this style is first person revisited as third person. I have to wonder if authors with ebooks published in this style wrote first person novels that they hastily revamped into third person using search and replace. Whatever the case, I see it and think "not professional at all, not finished, worse than draft".

One of the excuses for this fault: Well, we write slash and we don't want the character names to show up in the text too often.

Get out my bazooka. That's an excuse that deserves destruction. Go read a well-written book with two male characters, and I'm not suggesting a slash fiction book. Any well-written, best seller with two male characters acting at the same time in the same scene: you want to bet the author did not use this style choice? So a name crops up more often. So what? And besides, if an author takes the time to analyze the use of pronouns and POV, names can be avoided to some extent. Pronouns can be avoided too. It's all a matter of carefully choosing your sentence subjects.

But that's enough for this post. We'll get to choice of sentence subjects later.

Author Chat

2008-02-19T14:09:00.003-05:00

Adelle Laudan requested help blogging her upcoming author chat, so here's the cut and paste. She'll be chatting along with Zinnia Hope and M.E. Ellis, two other Freya's Bower authors. This is a loop chat on Zinnia's author group. Just click on the hot chicks to visit.

New reviews for Debbie Mumford novels

2008-02-15T07:19:00.003-05:00

I'm late posting this, but here we go. Debbie Mumford's stories did very well this January during what seemed to be poll month.

Dragons' Choice won best fantasy/SciFi/futuristic romance ebook in the eCataromance. com Readers' Poll and also won an honourable mention as best SciFi/fantasy book for 2007 at Rites of Romance.

Second Sight earned 3rd place honors for best paranormal romance ebook of 2007 in the eCataromance. com Readers' Poll.

And for reviews, two new ones came out on Flash Me Magazine, a PDF publication. The reviews are only available in the PDF version, but you can see the announcement here. Subscriptions are available here.

Editor-in-Chief Jennifer Dawson reviewed Dragons' Choice. Ms. Dawson said:

"Mrs. Mumford's delightful storytelling makes every scene vivid and entrancing. She has an excellent ability to look at humans from a dragon's point of view."

and:

"The book flows between brother and sister in a seamless fashion, carrying two stories easily. Mrs. Mumford's light tone and vibrant characters make every chapter a pleasure to read."

Editor Jeannie Eddy reviewed Second Sight. Ms. Eddy commented:

"The first few chapters drew me into what promised to be a dark, gritty, intriguing story with likeable and sympathetic characters. I especially liked the imagery and Jenny's interaction with her `tiger'."

Well done, Debbie. :-)

Cupnjava gets a really cool interview

2008-01-18T17:24:00.000-05:00

Cup, who is a very nice person, and I'm not being partisan as her editor for Freya's Bower subs, has an interview on Gay and Lesbian Times. She's so nice, she shared the spotlight with a few of her peers, myself included. Wonderful lady. Thank you, Cup!

This is a nice interview, not only because it gives Cup some exposure with the gay and lesbian community, but because it discusses homoerotic fiction written by straight women. That, I think, is important, because, hey, some of us straight people see past the typical social boundaries and it's nice to get recognized for it.

Well done, Cupnjava.

Hey. I'm passing the Mwah Award on to you. Follow the trail back from Bernita to Vesper.

I have others to choose for this award. M.E. Ellis, my fellow editor what smells somewhat brain-fried like I do, you deserve a humongous MWAH! You do. You have a big heart. Don't ever let anyone make you think otherwise.

Faith! Big heart too. I love your humour. Folks, she should write a novel loosely styled after real events she's mentioned in private. She'd have a bestseller and a movie and a T.V. show. Not kidding.

Debbie. You're a lady. I mean, you're a real lady. You're accepting and polite and pretty much everything that makes a person comfortable. You know how many people have that gift, of making a person truly comfortable? You get a big Mwah.

Marci. You're the base on which we all stand. Without you, we sink in mud. Thank you for being our rock.

Second Sight review

2008-01-13T15:04:00.000-05:00

Debbie has given me the link to a wonderful review for Second Sight. I shall pass that link on to you:

http://longandshortreviews.blogspot.com/

Quoting:

I fell in love with the characters and especially with Jenny’s “tiger”. All in all, a great and satisfying read I enjoyed.

Four and a half out of five books, folks! That's darned good. Well done, Debbie. :D

Slowness

2008-01-12T12:51:00.000-05:00

I'm being a slug, but yes, Marci has given me my book sales figure for Loved Him 1, and yes, I will write a cheque and send it to Gai Écoute this coming week. Her Slugness has promised.

Wait a mo. I'm supposed to be a happy sloth...

Her Slothness has promised.

The polls are open

2008-01-03T14:44:00.001-05:00

http://www.critters.org/predpoll/

Time to vote for and/or nominate your favourite publisher, author, novel or story. The lists are already fairly long, but don't let that stop you. :-)

Debbie Mumford has had two novels nominated. Check out LASR and vote for either Dragons' Choice or Second Sight. And Dragons' Choice has been nominated as Best Scifi/Fantasy Book 2007 at Rites of Romance Reviews. I hope you'll visit and add your votes, if the polls are still open. I'm a bit behind on blogging. Sorry, Debbie.

Anyhow, the preditor and editor polls are closed by January 15, so off you go, folks. I believe Debbie has her Sorcha's Heart sequel up in the fantasy section. :-)

Things to do and things I shouldn't do

2007-12-31T17:40:00.000-05:00

Things to do:

Foremost, send in the donations to Gai Écoute. Yes, as of midnight tonight, my royalty donations to Gai Écoute comes to a close. I'll be getting with Marci on that. After she gives me the sales figures from the last quarter to this point, I'll send in a payment to the charity. I'll post the results here as soon as I have them.

I have five manuscripts to edit, one of which is the mm anthology. I'm hoping to have one novella released this month. As soon as it goes up, I can take another manuscript for editing, and I need to because I have a waiting list.

For my own writing, can't seem to get anything new done. Lately, I get burned out very easily. I don't think authors, at least not all of them, really know just how much thought and time goes into editing. And when you have to go over a manuscript many, many times, the process can be extra draining, to the point that I haven't written anything new for my I/P series for over a year.

I did write that wee story for Faith's fairy anthology, though. That was good. Quickly written and it has a definite end. No worries about continuing the story with a sequel (although I did think of one).

What I shouldn't do:

I'm going to digress a bit. What I thought I should do, or what I thought editors should do, back before I became one for Freya's Bower and Wild Child, was to insert words in a manuscript for the writer. You know: writer uses the same word ten times in a page, so editor inserts other options. Or writer neglects using commas, capitals, periods where definite rules of punctuation exist, writer does this multiple times every page--I put the punctuation in. Right?

Wrong. Very wrong. Think about it. If you fix punctuation screw ups that are littered throughout a novel--same errors, over and over--what are you doing as an editor? You're letting that writer know he or she can continue to be sloppy the next time they submit. You're letting them know you think being unprofessional is fine. You're signing yourself up for headaches because you'll get a manuscript designed to give them.

Change the words around too often, fix up the passive voice, the repetitive syntax, the repeats, entire sentences that twist a reader into mental knots, and you've started doing the author's job, which is writing, isn't it? When did editing become writing?

This actually gets worse if you let it. Here's how: point out common writing errors, after having pointed them out multiple times already, and then point them out all over the manuscript. Leave a patchwork quilt of comments, highlights and color-changed font. What have you done? You've become the brain, the mind. You're this wonderful pointer, a smart lazer beam that leaves a visible trail so that the author doesn't actually have to look, really look at his/her writing. And what does the author really learn if he/she doesn't really look?

Nothing. Once again, next manuscript you get from that author will be littered with the same stuff you discussed many times before. Author never learned to look for him/herself.

Don't get the wrong impression here. I like working with new authors. I like teaching them how to get their writing smoothed out and more finished. But at some point in the editing process, I have to pull back and let the author use his/her eyes to find the flaws. And after the author sees, really sees, what has to be fixed, then I hope to find improvement in that manuscript that had nothing to do with me dabbling in it personally.

Sounds harsh? Maybe. But this is how it is. Do the revision and you're still the author. Let someone else do it and what are you? A co-author. Sure, you started the story, but when you let someone else polish it to the point it no longer resembles the original, then that someone else finished the story, didn't they? Editors are not supposed to finish your story. They're supposed to guide you, fix the occasional screw up, prod you when they see a repeated screw up, and point out plot holes and character incongruity. They should give advice and, ultimately, make sure that story is readable and understandable. They should not revise it for you. Absolutely not.

I get burned out, you know, not just from working on a manuscript that comes back with the same mistakes, but because I worry how to explain this stuff to the author again, how to encourage the author to get the revision done right. I don't always succeed. Sometimes I do. The end result of success is well worth the effort. I love it when I see improvement in someone's writing. I really love it.

Ok, so this post seems to have become another whiny lecture on the travails of editing. Not how I meant it, but I guess I needed to let that out. If any of you wonder how an editor can get behind on editing, bogged down on a manuscript, burned out, now you know at least one reason. Editing is really tough on the noggin.

Hey, want to hear the opposite problem, what happens when the author does write well? I friggin forget to edit and start reading like a reader. You wouldn't believe how many small goofs I've missed, how many small goofs a proofreader will miss, when your writing is good already. (I'm pointing at you, Debbie, lol. How's the next story in the Sorcha series coming along?)

I have to whomp my mental butt when I catch myself reading a manuscripts for fun. It's a compliment to the writer, but it's disaster when it comes to properly editing and proofreading. But it's a good disaster. :-)

Here's hoping for a lot more of those this coming year. I'm raising a glass to all writers. Happy writing.

Extending deadline for mm anthology

2007-12-29T16:18:00.000-05:00

Reposted part:

Freya's Bower invites you to submit your short stories with mm content for an all mm anthology. Any genre story: fantasy, western, contemporary, science fiction,horror, historical. We'd like to have a nice mix of genres for this anth. Stories should be between 6,000 to 10,000 words, but we will consider manuscripts a little shorter or a little longer. For submission guidelines as to what Freya's Bower will accept as story content, please visit http://www.freyasbower.com/content/view/12/59/

Double-space your manuscript. Include a header with the title of the story, your name and numbered pages. Indent each new paragraph .5 inches. If there is a scene break, indicate it with a centered***.

All submissions must include:

1. your full name, a pseudonym if used,
2. a brief synopsis, subject or genre,
3. the story attached
4. 'Submission to mm anthology' must be in the subject line,
5. Mail submissions and/or direct queries to kmfrontain@yahoo.ca

Updated part:

Submissions for the anthology closes January 31, 2007.

Links to help writers who want to sub:

http://sgold.members.sonic.net/verb_power.htm
http://www.sfwa.org/writing/chadvce.htm

Reviews, anths, edits...

2007-12-13T23:14:00.001-05:00

...and Christmas. I don't have my tree up. I did not send cards yet. But the shopping is done. Yep. All done. No presents to buy. That, in itself, is a big relief, because shopping for regular stuff has become crazy. I really dislike wading through people to get to the shampoo aisle, but this year wading is obligatory.

I have a theory about how people shop and how people drive. I think you can tell how people drive based on their "in the aisle" habits. If they stand in the centre of the aisle and hold everybody up, before and behind, while staring at some store item without moving, or if they chat with someone without giving a shit that everyone is waiting for them to get their asses in gear and take the chat to a less travelled location, then those people are likely the same idiots who tailgate or cut you off when you have right of way. They're also the type that don't let you into traffic. Ever.

If ever a fairy should exist, or an elf, it should be the store zapper. The electro brownie of the aisles. You hold up traffic, ZAP! Right in the toes.

If you have steel-toed workboots rated for electrical safety, then the winged electro raider shall smite ye with a quick zap to the bottom. That'll free up your case of aisle constipation.

Aisle constipators. Yes. That's what they are. Aisle constipators need enemas. Right. So it's the aisle enema fairies what'll get ya.

On with the list (see blog title). Reviews, just one actually, for Omos of the Ether. Pretty picture coming up. Pretty because of nice bottom on man with nice backside.

And there's the nice picture. Here's the review link. Another wonderful review from Sabella over at Joyfully Reviewed. Thank you, Sabella.

Anths. The mm anth is closing on the official cut off for subs, but I might extend it past the holiday season. I've had two queries concerning subs that were not strictly mm (both were mmf, which I happen to like reading and writing). The bosses have given me the go ahead to do another submission call for a menage anth with a focus on male bisexuality. There we go, ladies and gents. Time to get our favourite fence sitters eye deep in muffs and studs. Fence sitting is great. You can see over here and you can see over there and you can pick the daisies on either side and...

What's next? Edits. I'll be starting the mm anthology edits after Christmas. I'll post the next anthology submission call soon. I'm behind on current edits, as usual. Behind on my own writing targets. Can't seem to concentrate well on writing while I have to edit.

But I did manage to write about 13k for Faith for her In the Gloaming fairy anthology. Took a couple of days to whip it off, and despite the plot pinholes I missed, Faith liked the story, said it made her laugh, but felt totally ripped that I fuzzy floatied two orgasms. Yep. I didn't describe the orgasms in two sex scenes. Fuzzied away from them real quick. They just...didn't seem that important to me for some reason. I know. Weird. Why I think that, hunh? Brain damage from staring at computer screen too long, probably.

So I'm under orders to give Faith those orgasms. Coming right up, Faith. Two orgasms for you. Heh heh heh.

I'm going to give you a small excerpt from that story. Guess what it's called after. Warning, offensive language.

“There’s an icicle hanging from the eave of the sauna, just on the corner where we run out to chill off in the snow.”

Elli’s mother trudged three steps further before pausing and turning about. “What’s that?” she said.

“There’s an icicle—”

“Are you coming or not?” David shouted from somewhere at the front of the lodge.

A trickle of snow pattered off the steep slope of the roof. Then a huge sheet slid down the incline and plopped on the side path Glen had shovelled earlier that day. Elli eyed it and reserved a small gloat for later when her stepbrother returned from the village. For now, she hid the amusement behind a bored expression.

Didn’t matter. Her mother wouldn’t have noticed an open gloat anyhow.

“That man will start an avalanche,” Susan Erickson-Waite grumbled, facing front again. “A real one. That almost landed on my head.”

“It’s just coincidence, Mom. It’s a myth that loud noises cause avalanches.”

“That was no coincidence,” Susan said. She took a step forward.

“Wait! Mom, someone should break the icicle. It could fall on a head…or something.” Something that might hurt worse than a head.

What the heck was she thinking? What else would it fall on but a head? Her family didn’t slide down the path like otters.

Well, Glen did once, but not after he’d hurt his penis on an icy, lumpy patch despite the swimsuit around his middle. That had been hilarious.

“The icicle can wait a few hours until we’re back from the village,” her mother said, glancing back. “Are you sure you don’t want to come?”

Shit, yes! “Yeah, I’m staying here to use the sauna and the whirlpool without Glen sneering at how stupid I look with this cast sticking out of the water.” And staring at her crotch because she had a leg raised.

Susan cast a suspicious glare at the roof, which had yet to shed the full complement of that week’s snowfall. “Well, I think it’s safe. I’m off. Don’t get the cast wet, Elli.”

“Mom! I know already. I’ll put a garbage bag around it. I’ll use duct tape to seal it and I’ll keep it out of the water too.” I’m an adult now, Mom. Look at me clearly, please.

Her mother tested the snow pile with one foot. She sank in to the calf of her black winter boot. “Damn…! All right, use a garbage bag, but stay away from the icicle.”

Adult, Mom! “Yeah, sure,” Elli said.

But as if she could stay away from it. The beaten path, a four foot deep trench Glen never bothered to widen, passed directly under the icicle to the snow bed they used for chilling down. The other side of the sauna building had bushes, an old oak that dropped twigs, and fir trees that littered needles and cones everywhere. And there was scat. Squirrel scat, probably, though she seldom saw the pesky little poops actually commit their atrocity on the pristine snow after a blizzard.

Even if she rolled in pristine snow, she’d uncover the foul snow beneath.

Susan buried her second leg up to the calf in snow. “Don’t stay in the sauna too long,” she called.

“I know, Mom.”

“But stay in there if you trip and hurt your leg again! Crawl in if you have to, especially if you’re closer to the sauna than the lodge.”

“Mom, I’m not going to trip.”

“Don’t shut the door all the way if that happens. I don’t want you dying of heat exhaustion. A second broken leg we can fix.”

“Mom! Go already!”

Her mother looked back, frowning with disapproval. “Don’t be so impatient. It’s your impatience that put you in the cast to begin with.”

God! Elli scowled. “I know, Mom. Please don’t harp about it.”

Her mother’s scowl deepened. “I do not harp.” She hugged the front of her fur coat tighter together, turned away, trudged through the detritus of the mini-avalanche and disappeared around the corner of the house.

“Thank you, God,” Elli whispered.

“Bye, Essie!” Glen hollered. Essie, short of E.S.E. or Elli Sol Erickson. But sometimes Glen called her Nessie, short for beached sea monster, this despite she'd lost the thirty-two extra pounds she'd been hauling about when they'd been teens.

“Good bye!” she shouted back.

“Don’t get your cast wet! Keep your leg up!”

“Shut up!”

Glen laughed. Elli’s mother barked for a return of manners. Car doors slammed and the engine revved to a higher pitch.

And another mini-avalanche grumbled against the roof and woofed onto the first pile.

“Snow, you sound like a crotchety old dog that failed to get up,” Elli said. “And you’re still a coincidence.”

The red SUV edged backward into view. Her stepfather waved. Elli waved back, smiling and meaning it. In the back seat, Glen gave her the finger and made a swirling motion with his hand.

“Not on your life, Glen,” Elli said, still smiling. “Go fuck yourself, you twat glomper.” Her stepbrother was such a perverted asshole. “And yet somehow Mom thinks he’s perfect.” The boy she never had. “Good fucking thing or someone would be in jail right now.”

The SUV rolled behind trees and slipped in and out of view. Tree trunk, red flash, tree trunk, red flash, tree trunk…. Elli turned and faced the sauna. And the icicle.

So you know what I called this story, right?

I is being lazy, I guess. I is messing with grammar now. I needs to muss up words sometimes fer fun. I is ramblergating. I is done talking. Off I go to edits. Woe be to poor authors what have me.

Bleh. Before midnight silliness. I'll be almost normal again in a few minutes when I really do start editing. Almost normal.

Icicle! It's called The Icicle. Just in case you were still wondering.

Golden advice

2007-12-12T23:51:00.000-05:00

Here. You need this if you write:

http://sgold.members.sonic.net/verb_power.htm

This guy wrote about one of the most common things I have to get people to fix in their prose. I wrote him a thank-you email a week back.

He has examples. I love examples. He's thorough. I worship thorough. He's a writing advice god.

Ok, I'll stop with the adulation before you all run for the hills. Visit his website. Check out his advice pages. He has another besides the one I linked.

And for those of you who want a bit more, here:

http://www.sfwa.org/writing/chadvce.htm

That one has been the advice I've tried to follow for the last five or so years. Everything I've written, I've written with Cherryh's advice in mind. Doesn't mean I follow it exactly. Read Cherryh's law at the end. Very important.

You rock, Debbie!

2007-12-10T16:21:00.000-05:00

Debbie had her first review come in for Sorcha's Children: Dragons' Choice. This happened quite a few days ago, but I've been bogged down with things and didn't get around to posting. Belated WHOOOOT!

Here's the link:

Cocktail Reviews

And here's a wee quote:

Summary: A rich and delightful read. Ms. Mumford has an exceptional talent in making fantasy reality. Nothing is unbelievable; my mind accepted everything as fact, without question. Well done to Ms. Mumford in yet again making me believe that dragons do exist. Fantastic imagery, very good word use—a tale written with superb aplomb. I highly recommend Sorcha’s Children: Dragons’ Choice. A magnificent novel that I wished had gone on and on and on…

Again, WHOOOT! Hey, this was last year's Nano story, btw. Debbie used her Nano time to write this sequel. Hopefully, the third installment in the Sorcha series will leave her desk and hit mine soon. *pokes Debbie*

Click the cover to visit the book page for an excerpt.

:-)

A little wisdom on style

2007-12-06T07:54:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, Marci Baun wrote on the subject of style and put into words what I've often struggled to describe. I have her permission to quote:

Style is how you string the words together, not relying on the same words over and over again. That is lazy writing.

And:

I was reading an MS the other day where, within two pages, the author described two different people's clothes by "she wore/he wore". It's expedient. It's easy. It's boring. And when everyone else does it, everyone sounds the same.

And then she gave some excerpts to show different writing styles that didn't overuse syntax/words or go for the lazy common denominator sort of writing that makes for a passive/boring reading experience. I'm going to cut and paste those excerpts. They're all from Freya's Bower published authors (I'll have to track down the author names and book titles and add them into the post later):

Excerpt 1:

Cora jerked from nightmare to nightmare, leaving dreams only to find her image reflected in a monster’s eyes. Dragon eyes. They glistened gem-red in the dim glow of the bathroom nightlight. She screamed. Da’ar Es Saleem covered her mouth.

“You’re needed,” he said.

Sharp, wicked teeth caught a gleam of light. She couldn’t process the shape of him, the very human sound of his voice, the fact of his presence in her Hartford, Connecticut bedroom. Dragons were in New York. She was in Connecticut. She left New York to establish distance—them in one place, her in another. That’s the way she wanted it to stay.

“Go away,” she said. His palm was warm and dry against her lips. Damn it. His form was solid. She sighed. That couldn’t possibly be good.

“You’re not safe here, and we need you,” he reiterated. His gaze moved away. He settled back on his haunches. The floorboards beside her bed creaked. Cora couldn’t make out small details of his appearance in this unfamiliar form and decided not to push her luck by turning on the bedside lamp. She didn’t need dragon visuals right now. His eyes were startling enough.

Excerpt 2:

Sorcha knotted her fists so tightly her knuckles whitened. She glared at her mother across the rough oak worktable. “When are you going to acknowledge me as a fully capable wizard? I’m not an apprentice anymore. I don’t need your permission to seek the Heart of Fire.”

“Fine,” Elspeth shot back, “but I’m warning you this is a mistake. The Heart of Fire is dangerous.” The small, compact woman stretched to reach the braid of garlic hanging from the beam above her head, yanked a bulb loose and tossed it to her daughter.

“So is this war!” Sorcha caught the bulb by reflex, slammed it on the table and separated out three cloves for the strengthening potion. Her gaze never left her mother. “Don’t you realize how powerful dragons are? If Leofric continues on his present course, he’ll push them too far. They’ll wipe us off the face of the earth.”

Fear flashed across Elspeth’s face, and Sorcha knew that her mother agreed; the King’s recent aggressive actions could have serious repercussions.

Sorcha’s mood softened. She picked up her paring knife and began to chop the cloves, pondering the enigma of the woman who had given her not only life, but a heritage of magic. Because of that heritage, strangers often assumed they were sisters rather than mother and child. Elspeth’s long, dark hair sported only an occasional strand of gray. Trim, active, healthy. These words described both her and her mother. Neither of them possessed the lush curves so desired by other women at court, but neither really noted the lack, being too concerned with the practice of magic to worry about attracting the opposite sex.

Different styles, different authors, similar genres. Both dragon stories. (quoting Marci again)

Excerpt 3 -- different genres follow:

“Think about it, Tammy. Two whole weeks of hot men in skimpy clothes on the white beaches in Tahiti. Now if that doesn’t appeal to you, you’re dead,” my sister said. Her hands planted firmly on her hips, she smirked at me, daring me to say, “No.”

Water bottle clutched firmly in my hands, I glared at her from my seat at my kitchen table. “No.” I couldn’t help myself. Any scheme concocted by Cassandra always spelled trouble for me. The answer was reflexive and utter self-preservation.

Irritation, and peevishness, crackled around her. Most people succumbed to her charms, but not me. I’d lived with them for too many years, and experienced too many negative repercussions, to be phased by a pretty smile or a cute pout on her too perfect lips. Let her pout…and find another victim.

“Oh, come on. This time will be different. Besides, what native could resist a tall, lithe, red-headed woman?”

“Plenty. If I remember correctly, that’s what you said the time we went to Hawaii.” I lost my favorite pair of shoes and all of the brand new beach clothes I’d bought to go on that trip. On top of that, the lovely beachfront community she’d promised we were staying in was actually a nudist colony. My eyes were scarred for life after some of the things I’d seen there. Trust me when I say that ugly comes in many shapes and ages. Just the thought of it made me shudder. “And what about the time you claimed the trip to Idaho was a relaxing ski vacation. What happened?”

“We spent the time roping cattle, but the men were hot.” She smiled at me; her blue eyes twinkled. With a flick of her head, her dark brown hair cascaded over her shoulders in glorious, envy-inducing waves. What I wouldn’t give for her sable hair and honey complexion. The only thing we shared, besides parents, were the color of our eyes: cornflower blue.

Excerpt 4:

A sharp horn blast over the loading docks announced the shift change. Dean punched out and made his way through the employees coming and going. He descended the steps of a loading platform, strode across a parking lot, and out onto the sidewalk. An angry sky loomed overhead. Thunder rumbled with a promise of rain, and a moist wind blew in from the nearby river. He managed to walk half of the ten blocks to his apartment before a fine mist began. Within minutes, it transformed into a torrential downpour. Dean muttered a choice profanity and quickened his pace.

He passed a ramshackle building known as a flophouse for prostitutes and druggies. In the doorway, a gaunt, gangly built man stood leaning against the threshold. A black duster that had seen better days hung on his spindly frame. Dirty white-blonde hair hung out of the hood drawn over his head and down the open front of his coat in a mass of gnarled locks. He met Dean’s gaze as he passed.

An arrow of unease skewered Dean’s insides at seeing the loiterer’s strange eye color and wide, over-slanted eyes. The vagrant smiled—or was that a leer?—startling Dean with the mass of pointed and broken green-yellow teeth in his broad, thin-lipped mouth. He wondered if the man was diseased. Breaking eye contact, Dean hurried on his way and hoped that the rain didn’t fall any harder.

Excerpt 5:

Every port has its odour. Verdant’s odour tainted the sea air before a ship reached the harbour. It created a light vapour over the city, settled on the water, floated over surf, enveloped ship and crew. It sank into the awareness and did not leave. Each change of the breeze would sail the stench aloft, but seconds after, the reek would ooze down to assault the nose again. It was never so strong as to provoke illness. It just remained at the front of awareness, the eternal alchemy of Verdant: sea and air and paint.

On the day the schooner stalled before the harbour mouth like a fly caught in a web, the chemical stench did not influence the air as usual, and I frowned at the docks across the water, wondering what had happened to Verdant’s primary industry. In the hold, terebinth resin awaited unloading, destined for turpentine production and, therefore, the thinning of paint, but the cargo couldn’t be delivered while the ship played odd games with the wind. The sails filled, but wooden notes of protest sounded, as if the bow pressed into solid matter.

First Mate shouted from below. I sat on a yard high up the mainmast—a favourite position—and glanced down to watch sailors run by, intent on adjusting the sheets. I looked out again, toward the invisible that had halted the ship, and wanted it gone, just gone. Now.

Naturally, nothing changed, and the ship screamed all the louder, spoke of warping wood and impending breakage. Kima bellowed more stridently, and I contemplated the port we could not reach. I wanted there, and I would go there, before Kima altered course and sailed the ship back out to sea.

I touched the mainmast and prayed.

Excerpt 6:

Jezren laughed and reached across the table to grasp her lover’s hand. His flesh felt hot under her hand, his skin a dark gray compared to the pale tint of her own. She admired her recently acquired steel-tipped nails. Razor sharp, they were a weapon no one could take from her. Unless they sliced her fingers from her body.

“And just how would I wear such a thing?” Din’arik’s deep voice floated across the table.

She traced one of his fingers with the tip of her thumbnail—the steel didn’t even scratch the surface of his flesh. His fingers weren’t much longer than hers—but his hands were webbed to the first joint. She brought his hand to her lips and kissed it.

“Among humans, it means a marriage vow has been given and accepted,” she told him, putting her best pout into her words.

He dipped his head, hiding the slight grin she knew he wore. The play fighting between them ranged from the loud and rowdy to this play act of spoiled brat versus ever patient mentor. She often started such a game when she knew he would object to something she wanted—something he thought foolish. Today, the play fight had started in the market. She’d tried to get him to visit a booth that sold adult toys. He’d refused and had actually walked away from her. It was all the invitation she’d needed to tease him. Later, they’d passed a booth that sold all manner of wedding rings, shackles, brands, tattoos—if it meant you were joined to the person you were with, the heckler sold it.

(Heh heh. She picked an excerpt from one of my stories.)

After the excerpts, she wrote this:

The authors use different language. They use similar tools, but string words together differently. They have their own cadence within the rhythm of their writing styles. The writing is concise, clean, and moves the story along.

Cadence, rhythm. There it is, the thing I've always known but couldn't quite formulate into words. Even in prose, there's rhythm. Style is about that. It's not about mucking up that rhythm with robotic overuse of same syntax, same words, same concepts, same clichés. A writer has to know when to repeat and when not. A writer has to grow an "ear" for that rhythm and hear when he/she violates it with sloppy choices.

Thanks, Marci, for putting it into words for me. :-)

Addendum: Author names and book titles in order of appearance:

Emily Ryan-Davis' from the Dragon Queen series
Debbie Mumford's from Sorcha's Heart

Tahitian Nights Chapbook I by Alyce Brown

Bedevilled Chapbook I by J. Emberglass

My title, Loved Him to Death 1

The Forge: Book I, Discoveries by Shaunna Wolf.

New Debbie Mumford book!

2007-11-27T13:41:00.000-05:00

BUY HERE

Sorcha and Caedyrn's love has created a new breed of beings. Neither wholly dragon nor fully human, Sorcha's children shapeshift at will. The six fledglings have been raised as dragons, but the time has come to explore their human heritage. Aislinn and Taran are the first to leave the ice aerie for the world of men.

Aislinn discovers the lure of sexuality amidst the intrigues of King Leofric's court, while Taran learns the source of his debilitating malady. The siblings confront danger and prejudice among their mother's kin and discover love along the way. But love creates dilemmas: To live within the ice aerie with their dragon kin, or live amongst humans? Aislinn and Taran must make their choice.

*************

Proud editor note: There's a nice excerpt to read; just click the cover image to go to the relevant page. Debbie is a wonderful author and a breeze to work with. Let's hope she brings us installment three of this tale soon. :-)

Call forSubmissions: MM anthology

2007-10-28T14:03:00.001-04:00

Freya's Bower invites you to submit your short stories with mm content for an all mm anthology. Any genre story: fantasy, western, contemporary, science fiction,horror, historical. We'd like to have a nice mix of genres for this anth. Stories should be between 6,000 to 10,000 words, but we will consider manuscripts a little shorter or a little longer. For submission guidelines as to what Freya's Bower will accept as story content, please visit http://www.freyasbower.com/content/view/12/59/

Double-space your manuscript. Include a header with the title of the story, your name and numbered pages. Indent each new paragraph .5 inches. If there is a scene break, indicate it with a centered***.

All submissions must include:

1. your full name, a pseudonym if used,
2. a brief synopsis, subject or genre,
3. the story attached
4. 'Submission to mm anthology' must be in the subject line,
5. Mail submissions and/or direct queries to kmfrontain@yahoo.ca

Submissions for the anthology closes December31, 2007.

I have been Joyfully Reviewed

2007-10-26T19:15:00.000-04:00

Sabella of the Joyfully Reviewed team put out a lovely review for Haru of Sachoné House. Quoting:

Haru of Sachoné House is a wonderful fantasy book. It has intrigue, love, hate, passion and mysticism in great quantities which will keep you entertained from start to finish.

And she also said:

The sexual chemistry between the characters was fiery and I look forward to reading the next book in the series to find out how the struggle between Haru, Vaal and Intana evolves. Haru of Sachoné House is a great fantasy tale that would make a great addition to all fantasy lovers’ libraries.

Perfect. Just what a writer of episodic novels likes to hear. :-) Thank you, Sabella.

Sadly, Erotic Dreams says goodbye

2007-10-20T18:33:00.000-04:00

Well, I've been with Erotic Dreams for going on two years, perhaps a bit more, but the publisher has officially shut down. The wonderful people in charge will no doubt continue to provide reader entertainment via their own writing. I certainly hope so. They were wonderful to work with.

All story rights have reverted to the authors. And there it is. Perhaps some stories will find new homes elsewhere. I wish all the authors good luck. Keep on writing!

And she's back

2007-10-14T00:44:00.000-04:00

Yeah. I disappeared from on line for a bit, but here I am again. Won't list my sorry reasons for the vanishing act. I'll just sound like middle-aged cranky woe-is-me, which is why I seldom bother bitching about personal stuff on line.

Onward with the usual internet stuff. I have a chat schedule on the Fallen Angels Reviews Yahoo group for all Freya's Bower authors. It's an all day event, this day, now, Oct 14. I'm reminding everyone late. Very late. I just finished one post on the group and I'm about to do another before going to bed with my stinking chronic cough... Ignore that momentary MAW bitchiness (MAW: middle-aged woman).

Next weekend there's another chat, I believe it's on Joyfully Reviewed. Then again, it may be on Chatting something or other group. Whatever the case, I hope by then I'll have ameliorated my damned neck pain/back problems.

Whoops. Stupid MAW shit bursting out of me again. Good thing I won't be having the period next weekend, because it just ended this week. Just. Stinking stupid period...

What was I talking about? Chatting on groups. Right.

Oh, forget that. Let's talk about the change, shall we? Anyone had it yet? Did it start in your late forties and finish up in, like, seven or so years? Yeah, because that's how it went for my mom, bless her. Seven years of perimenopause.

She just visited this weekend. My mom, I mean, not perimenopause, which sounds like some sort of hag of the north. After my last period, I felt like the hag of the north. Every chronic condition I have got worse. Now add a cold and then top it off with after-a-cold asthma. Yep. Basket case. Total basket case. I did basic email answering and that was it all this time.

Basket case isn't the right description. Couch slug. That fits. The coughing couch slug of the north. CCSOFN... No, I think I like MAW better.

I've lost the thread of what I was talking about. Let's see. I was having my period, and my mom and I got into a discussion about how much and how little and how often, and my mom thinks my strange months of very little or way too much means I'm going through the change. This was a month of way too much. Way too much of everything.

I'm looking at my couch again. It looks warm and comfy.

Better finish this post.

So. Perimenopause. That's like the name of an Egyptian priest, actually. Oh, great Perimenopos! Grant me access to the temple of Menarche, where I shall tell the goddess the story of the omnipresent Climacteric of the North, who comes to us in the season of gray...

Yeah. Climacteric sounds more like the the hag of the north. No. No, that's wrong. Sounds like Conan's cousin on steroids.

That's it. I'm going to bed. I can't be serious if I hit myself with a rolling pin. Not that I want to. My only rolling pin is made of marble, not that a wooden one would feel any better on the head.

Right. Chatting all day on FAR Yahoo group. Come and join me. It's a loop chat. Not live. You can post any time. I'll be on and off the web all day tomorrow. When the couch is being nice and letting me up.

I'm coming couch!

What? Oh. My bed is yelling at me. I'll have to visit the couch tomorrow.

You think I'm on cold meds, don't you? Yeah, like she's overdosed on asthma and cold meds, pain killers, coffee, tea...

Nope. Been toughing most of this without meds. This is me on ramble mode. What comes out, stays out. Spit, germs, silliness on the blog...

Ok, I'm going this time. Really.

Night, all.

MAW, also known as the hag of the north who has hijacked this blog

New review for Soul Haven/submission call WCP

2007-10-03T16:35:00.000-04:00

Sonja Baines' Soul Haven received a lovely review the other day over at Novelspot. I enjoyed reading this review. The reviewer is the type of person to let her character show through, and those types of reviewers can be fun--when they're happy, heh, heh. She was happy. She had this to say first (the reviewer is Sabine Maurier, btw).

...Sonja Baines' Soul Haven crossed my computer as a suspense novel, my first instinct was to run the other way and ask to be reassigned to something a little more my type, like an erotic romance. But then I thought: how bad can it be? The truth is, it was pretty awesome.

And then she said this:

Soul Haven is a fast-paced book with a high level of readability and an interesting cast of characters and settings. Though I had an inkling of how the novel would play out, I was caught off guard by several of the twists the story took and the way the novel ultimately ended.

If you are a fan of suspense, my guess is you will enjoy Soul Haven. If you are like me and you've never tried a suspense novel before, give this one a shot. It is a fun read and a satisfying story.

So lovely to see a review like that. The honesty smacks you in the eye. I mean, this woman didn't like suspense! *grin*

Well done, Sonja!

And other stuff... Trying to remember the other stuff. Nope. I've gone blank. I'll have to post it later. There was something...

Oh! Yes. Submission call for Wild Child Publishing. I'm going to cut and paste Marci's blog post so you get it straight from the boss (and that's it for this post after; talk to you later):

Do you write science fiction, fantasy, or a blend of the two? Do you have a story between 2500-10,000 words? Then you may be interested in Wild Child Publishing's new science fiction/fantasy anthology titled Star Stepping: A Collection of Science Fiction/Fantasy Stories.

We are looking for mainstream science fiction (soft, hard or anywhere in between) and fantasy. Any planet, any time, any dimension as long as the story is science fiction or fantasy. Combining the two genres or combining one of the genres with another is also acceptable. New stories as well as reprints, provided the author owns the rights, will be accepted. No fan fiction, erotica, or copycat, please.

Please submit stories to: scififantasyanth@wildchildpublishing.com with "Science Fiction Anthology Submission" in the subject line. Please read our submission guidelines: http://www.wildchildpublishing.com/content/view/32/100/.

Submissions will be open from October 1 - December 15, 2007.

Marci Baun
Editor-in-Chief
Wild Child Publishing

True Tales Erotic Series

2007-09-28T14:55:00.000-04:00

Are you a top, bottom or switch? That's the question discussed on the Blushing Ladies Journal. I did a wee essay for this first in a series, but I tell you, I was a chicken compared to the authors who bared their souls. Very interesting reading. I'll be checking that blog regularly for new posts.

Freya's Bower authors have a loop chat all this weekend, so pop on over and see what the authors are up to. There have been some spectacular reviews for new releases, including for the Freya's Bower Anniversary contest winner, Isabella Santiago, who wrote Cinematic Royalty. And check out J. Emberglass's review for Bedevilled as well. Both authors were awarded the entire champagne bottle. Congrats to both!

And our thought-provoking blogger, Bernita, has been garnering some very nice reader reviews for her story in Weirdly. I'm hoping to see more of her stuff up on Wild Child. She's a spectacular writer.

And that's it for this post. Can't think what else to talk about. Have a good weekend. :-)

Second Edition of Bound in Stone set has been released

2007-09-21T16:03:00.001-04:00

I have at last fixed up the Bound in Stone set. The novels have been re-released as second editions with updated covers. The font of the covers pops more and the image in the centre is somewhat larger.

The content underwent a revision based on things I learned this last year editing for Freya's Bower and Wild Child Publishing. I was not extraordinarily strenuous with the edits. I preserved the style pretty much, but I did remove a surfeit of "a moment", "turned", "stared at", and was/ing combinations.

And that's it for the Bound set. Done. Ready for readers. The Gryhon Taint set is up for revision next. I'll try to get Gryphon 1 up quickly, since it's a free read and I want it up to my new standards at once, but I have to wait on the remainder of the series and get back to my duties to the FB/WCP authors I'm working with.

You know, this unfinished project was really bothering me. I haven't been able to write new material for a year. Yes, I've had a lot of editing on my plate, but for my own writing, having my self-pubbed stuff untended left me feeling like I had sunk in quicksand. Just getting the Bound set fixed up has taken a load of pressure off my mind, and let me crawl up the safety rope a little. I feel like I can at least breathe as a writer again.

So. It was self preservation really, doing this. Mental preservation. Writer preservation. The old must be properly settled in niches before I can get on with the new creations. They were screaming at me, the old novels. Just screaming.

But if my editor pokes me hard enough, I shall ignore the screaming and finish writing Loved Him 3 faster, of course. Heh heh.

You want the free to read ebook of Bound 1, here's the link:
http://www.lulu.com/content/1198841

And reminder, I'm chatting tomorrow on Beth Wylde's Yahoo group. It's an all day loop chat and there will be prizes, such as a copy of Loved Him 1.

And! And I have M.E. Ellis's Freya's Bower novels for giveaways as well. Yes, indeed. Come visit. Read her excerpts and mine. See what we're up to, us wild and crazy authors. :-)

All right, I said this a while ago and I will say it again. To those of you who purchased an older ebook version of the Bound set, I am willing to send you the new versions, since Lulu makes you get stuck with whatever version you purchased, for ever and ever and ever. Just email me personally with proof of your purchase and I'll send the new version off to you. Sorry, but this offer does not apply to print versions of any of my self-pubbed novels.

Chat reminder

2007-09-20T21:30:00.000-04:00

The repost:

September 22, all day chat
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bethwylde/
This is a Freya's Bower author day. All genres of erotica and romance. Come and get to know us. Yes, there will be giveaways.

The additional new info:

I'll give away a copy of Loved Him One.

Very good interview with an ebook publisher

2007-09-18T19:26:00.000-04:00

Phil Harris on BlogTalkRadio interviewed Marci Baun, the editor-in-chief of Wild Child Publishing and Freya's Bower. You can download the podcast here.

It is a really good interview. Marci sounds like one great lady. And she is. I know. She puts up with me. ;-)

Lots in this interview, about editing, ebook publishing, when and why Marci and her associates decided to start ebook publishing, print book publishing, author/relations, etc. It's great. Go check it out.

Chatting tomorrow evening

2007-09-14T19:14:00.000-04:00

Along with Jamie Hill, I'll be chatting on Erotic Writers of GLBT tomorrow evening. Time: 7 to 10pm EST.

Topics under discussion: my published work containing GLBT content, and I'll field any questions on editing, editing one's own work, writing advice, mistakes I've made while learning the writing craft, self-publishing tips; pretty much anything anyone wants to discuss, I guess. :-)

I will have a giveaway of Loved Him to Death: Haru of Sachoné House.

Jamie will have a giveaway of Deep Obsessions.

Hope you'll join the group and participate. :-)

Go, Second Sight! And say hello to Hagitha.

2007-09-11T16:30:00.000-04:00

New review for Debbie's Second Sight! Yay, Debbie! And look, she gets to have a cool button for her blog.

Second Sight by Debbie Mumford

"This book will keep you on the edge of your seat..."

4 Cups from Krista
Reviewer for Coffee Time Romance
Read entire review.

Rating: Tangy
Book Length: Novel
Price: $5.75
Genre: Paranormal/Contemporary

Read excerpt.
Buy Now!

And here's a lovely cover for Kelly Madden's upcoming YA release with Wild Child Publishing. Introducing Hagitha the witch, star character in Hagitha's Chronicles.

Beautiful cover, Kelly! Kelly is the artist, everyone. I'm very impressed with the opening image for her web page, too. I love dark trees.

I'll post a blurb later on and a link to Kelly's blog when she sets one up, but do go visit her site. :-)

Last, one more review for Loved Him 1. I received a passing grade from Rainbow Reviews, score three out of five stars. My characters are complicated, but my imagination is good. In other words, I am on the right track, but the train still hasn't arrived in the station. ;-)

This is my second official review from a review site. Not bad. Passing grades twice.

And that's about it for this post. Don't forget about my dual author chat day on Erotic Writers of GLBT. Jamie Hill and I will be chatting this Saturday, September 15th, between 7 to 10 pm EST. Please join the group in advance. There will be giveaways.

The Chat Schedule

2007-09-10T13:21:00.001-04:00

Here's what I have lined up for chats so far (and yes, there will be a book giveaway of Loved Him to Death 1 on each):

September 15, 7-10 pm EST
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/eroticwritersofglbtpromo/
GLBT chat. I'll be promoting all my work, not just the Freya's Bower pubs. Author Jamie Hill will be participating in the chat as well.

September 22, all day chat
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bethwylde/
This is a Freya's Bower author day. All genres of erotica and romance. Come and get to know us. Yes, there will be giveaways.

September 29 and 30, all weekend chat
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/freyasbower_authorchat/
And of course, this is a Freya's Bower author day. Lots of hot excerpts. Lots of giveaways.

October 14th, prospective FB chat
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FallenAngelReviewChatters/
I'm still working out the details on this one, but this should be the date for an all day chat.

October 27th, all day chat
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Chatting_with_Joyfully_Reviewed/
Another Freya's Bower author day. Again, hot excerpts and giveaways. :-)

And that's it so far. I'll post another chat update later, and a nudge for this Saturday.

The List

2007-09-05T15:43:00.000-04:00

Or "How to use the Conjunction AND in Fiction and be Really Clumsy About It".

First way to be clumsy: Use "and" to make a shopping list of character qualities or objects in a scene.

Yuck paragraph one:

He had dark hair and gray eyes, and he had long toenails and big kneecaps. He kept his legs crossed, and he talked with a lisp. He moved languidly, and he seemed sleepy.

Yuck paragraph two:

She wore a bright dress and her hair hung down her back. She took mints to bed and her bed sat in the centre of the room. The evening was the best time to read and the clock said nine.

Ok, so you get that. Very exaggerated, but I do see awkward sentences in paragraphs, sometimes only one, that just lower the entire reading experience. Don't make a shopping list effect using the conjunction "and". Be a little more creative.

Second clumsy use: Put together unrelated facts and make them seem action and consequence.

Wrong: The dogs strolled on the lawn, and the bees buzzed loudly.

What? You don't get it? Seems perfectly reasonable to you? Think again.

Right: The dogs strolled on the lawn, where bees buzzed loudly in the patches of white clover.

Now, do you get it? First example: lazy, just plain lazy. And anyhow, the dogs could have caused those bees to buzz loudly just because they strolled on the lawn.

You don't think so? Dare you to read the definition of the word "and". Try not to knock yourself unconscious. ;-)

One of the definitions: "as a consequence or result"

Hey! Do go read the entire dictionary entry for the word "and". It's because a writer doesn't really understand all its uses that these clumsies come about. (Same thing for the words "the" and "a", btw, but I won't get into that here. Just consider yourself warned that perhaps you should know the difference between the two.)

Clumsy use three: "and then". Yep. That's it. And then.

He walked to the store and then entered.
He picked up the bottle and then drank the contents.

Guess what? "And" has another definition. What is it? Then. And means then. Overuse of "and then" reads clumsy after a time.

He walked to the store and entered.
He picked up the bottle and drank the contents.

See? Much less gauche and so simple to do.

Note: "And then" can be a style choice. I have been known to use "and then". Sometimes it works to keep the reader properly directed as to the order of events, but often it's just clumsy because of overuse. Using "and then" for style, occasionally, is permissible, at which point we can all pretend "and" means "additionally". ;-)

Clumsy four: Try and guess. Go ahead. Try to guess.

LOL. Very poor style, but there's a habit in speech to use "and" when the word "to" is actually required.

Ah, I'm sure there's other clumsies, but I can't recall them now. I'll add to this list on the advice website whenever I think of more.

A review re-viewed

2007-09-04T13:28:00.000-04:00

Omos of the Ether has a new, second review on Cocktail Reviews. Yesterday while I was off on a site doing up an announcement for Loved Him 2, I visited Cocktail Reviews to find the review link for the novel. To my delight, I discovered a new and lengthier review for Omos of the Ether. :D

Still the same champagne bottle plus two champagne flutes, but with details as to why the reviewer enjoyed the story.

Quoting:

Not many people have this power with words, hence such a high score. My last review was short and sweet because I’d literally been left reeling.

K.M. Frontain: I don’t think I will ever read anyone finer.

Squeee!

That's so cool.

Now if only the other review sites would hurry up. So far, only Cocktail Reviews and a wonderful reader has done up reviews for both books in the series. Oh, and M.E. Ellis. She mentioned the series once or twice, heh, heh. Hi, M.E.!

You should visit M.E.'s site and see the gorgeous cover art Covervan did. Beautiful.

What else? Right. I have a chat scheduled on a Yahoo Group for GLBT material, Saturday, September 15, 7-10 pm EST. Please come and join me for excerpts, any old bull shit, and some Loved Him 1 giveaways.

And I have another chat coming up the 22nd of September, another Saturday, and hopefully a number of FB authors will join me. Not specifically a GLBT or erotica chat. Romance/erotica any flavour. All FB authors that read this, I want you there. Promote your stories. Where? Beth Wylde's forum.

Oh! That reader! LOL! Here's the link to see the review she did up for Omos of the Ether. :D

I'm sure I've forgotten something, but can't think what. Oh, well. Will remember later.

Book tagged by Marci and a new newsletter by Jordana Ryan

2007-08-31T17:12:00.000-04:00

Marci passed a tag along to me. Here I go:

1. How many books do you have?

Estimating over 200. A good stack is non-fiction.

2. What was the last book you read?

Fiction? The last Harry Pooter. Whoops. Potter. Had to finish the series. Non-fiction: been digging through my wine making books again.

3. Top ten favorite books:

I just want to say that I don't have a single super favourite book and there are more books that I would count as good reading than I can list here, and my tastes have changed over the years such that things I once counted as great, I no longer do. On with the list:

Random House College Dictionary (What? It's the book I open the most all year long.)

The Belgariad (just those first five books, didn't like the second set of books, haven't bothered with the rest)

..... I'm thinking.

Shoot. I'll just shove in...

The Pern series, especially The White Dragon

Darn it. I'm digging for books to list here. One, two, three, that's all. I need ten.

Oh, man. Wait, it's coming to me.

Nope. Have to run upstairs to the fiction shelf.

I'm back.

Judith Tarr's Hound and the Falcon series, and just about anything she writes in that world.

The BFG! Yes! Yes! Roald Dahl. Pick it up and read like a kid again, folks.

Alice in Wonderland. Who wrote that? (snigger)

Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach

I'm on seven. Need eight, nine and ten.

Grimm's Fairy Tales...by...um...

The Greek myths. I don't care who wrote it.

Help me! Ten! What is ten?

Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover novels, especially the first ones about the Hasturs.

There. Finally.

Tagging M.E. Ellis, Bernita, wl551, cupnjava, Debbie Mumford!

And now on to that newsletter. Jordana Ryan put out her first newsletter today. She has writing tips, news from fellow authors, personal news and excerpts from her writing, and a short story section (this month's newsletter features a story by J.L. Foster). I applaud her for getting this together for us to enjoy. So go check it out. You can sign up to have a copy sent straight to your email.

And if you didn't notice...My Big Pimpage of the day. :D

And the first review for Omos of the Ether is in

2007-08-30T19:54:00.000-04:00

First review from an official review site, that is.

From Cocktail Reviews, written by White Russian.

Thank you, White Russian. :D (That's a super massive grin, btw.)

And this is even better, and no I don't mean my being at the top:

Cocktail Reviews by rating

Look at that list. Freya's Bower and its sister company, Wild Child Publishing, have a nice portion of reviews at the top of the list. A really nice portion. Go down to the five champagne flutes and you see more FB/WCP. Having it all listed together like that, that's nice. I can see the heart and soul of our staff members in there. They're working hard.

Authors, well done. You all deserve it.

Editors, you are a wonderful, dedicated bunch.

And a note to all my authors: it's been a weird week for me. I'm a bit burned out. Had Omos tossed out onto the bookshelf, promoted like heck (must promote like heck some more), worked out some problems, worried about things at home (won't get into that), and now I think it's time to catch up on sleep. Started to catch up a bit last night, but since I can't think while the brain is smouldering, must sleep more. Sorry for the delays.

Oh, and you guys. All your stories are awesome.

:-)

The Editor's Creed

2007-08-28T21:20:00.000-04:00

1. I’m not here to be your fan, but I will be your first fan the day your story is published. I am here to see the flaws in your submitted work. It’s my job. Author, try to understand this when you get back your first revision, your second, or any of them. Flaws hurt and create upset, but it’s not about hurting and upsetting you. It’s about fixing a story. If I’m honest, if I’m any good at my job, you’re going to hear about the flaws in your story. There’s no getting around this.

I’ll try saying things as politely as I can, but I must say the truth. Author, try to remember blunt does not mean I want to hurt your feelings. Blunt merely means I’m working as hard as I can while being honest about what I see. I will not waste time writing advice full of apologies for doing so. Expect honesty from me. Expect directness. I do not go out of my way to attack you, the human being, when I make a request, say a character isn’t sympathetic, give you a suggestion, tell you more than once to fix the same flaw. This is about getting a story edited and that is all.

2. My tools of the trade are words and grammar. Definitions, usage, punctuation, POV. I require knowledge of all these things and a skill for seeing the difference between a style choice and bad writing. Author: I will do my best to explain why something is bad writing. Please listen. I’m not here to change your style, but if I point something out, calmly look at your manuscript again and check for what I discussed. What if I’m right? You’re the one who must live with the end results of your revisions. The editing process, a real editing process, can result in growth for an author. Try to welcome it.

3. Author, your tools of the trade are words and grammar. Definitions, usage, punctuation, POV. I expect you to use these properly. If I discover you require relearning the rules for any of them, I’m going to say so. I will insist that you learn to use them properly. Only when you truly understand the rules can you work the tools of your trade in a manner that defies the rules. When you reach that point, I will smile as I read your work, because I will admire that you arrived at that pinnacle.

4. Revision work is not my work. It’s the author’s. My work is looking for flaws. Flaws are misuse of the tools of the trade, misleading or unclear writing, mistakes in the plot, characters that aren’t believable, poor story flow. Once I find these and point them out to the author, the author is the one that must do the work of patching, covering up, weeding, replacing. If I do the revisions for the author, it’s unfair to me. It’s unfair to the author. It’s unfair to every other author waiting for me to spend time on their story.

It’s not my story. Author, the story belongs to you. Take pride in being professional and do your revisions. Don’t expect me to fix the story for you.

5. Editing isn’t about my vision of a story. It’s about the author’s. Author, remember that when I make suggestions, they are suggestions. The story is yours. The characters are yours. Tell me how you see your characters and your story, and I’ll do my best to help you meet your vision.

6. Editing is about teamwork. I am a human being. I am like you. I make mistakes. I don’t know everything. I miss things. I sometimes need things pointed out. Author, I won’t take offence if you teach me something new, offer me a different way to view an idea, send me a link that shows you did your homework, or highlight a paragraph I may have missed that backs up the plot twist a few pages later in your story. Teamwork is about listening to each other. I listen.

7. I have a standard to live by as well. So does my publishing house. Author, remember that when you decide you disagree with my advice. People will know who edited your story, and if it leaves my hands in bad shape, shame on me. And that’s why I’ll insist on logic when we discuss fixes. Logic trumps opinion. I’ll insist you explain your reasons so I can understand them, but if those reasons don’t make sense, I’m going to say so.

Author, if you have a good reason, I’ll see it and agree. Author, if you don’t have a good reason, I’ll keep showing you why it isn’t good. If we come to an impasse, I can consult other editors belonging to my publishing house. If they agree with you, I don’t mind.

Remember: I’m a human being. I don’t expect to be perfect, but I do expect you to treat me fairly and to remember we are discussing a point about a story, not arguing to hurt each other personally.

Author, I will do my utmost to be fair to your perspective. I promise. But I won’t lower my standards. Expect to work and work hard. I want to see a story published that we can both be proud of.

Copyright K.M. Frontain, 28 August 2007
Permission to reprint granted to all

Omos of the Ether has been released!

2007-08-28T13:32:00.001-04:00

Excerpt is too raunchy to post on the blog. Really. So here's a link (Warning: mm content, adult readers only):

http://www.freyasbower.com/excerpts/lovedhim2.html

And there it is. The story is out there at last. Yay!

Oh. Here. Link to the book page.

Omos released this coming Tuesday

2007-08-24T14:08:00.000-04:00

Do you see the pun? When I was sending the prospective covers to Marci, I was titling them in this fashion:

omosgood.jpg
omosmorebutt.jpg
omosverygood.jpg
omosnobutt.jpg

Almost, almost, almost...

Heh heh.

There's a story behind the cover, as you can see. Yes, another pun in there.

Started with a vague shadow of clothing on the bottom, see, but Marci was dissatisfied with this. I thought she wanted more clothes showing, but it turned out that she wanted less, lol. So I gave her less clothes--omosmorebutt.

But then the man's bottom didn't look right. His posture didn't have an obvious reason for being tilted that way. We went the opposite and I added more clothes--omosverygood.

But then I noticed he had more curve on his butt than he needed. It's from the position of taking off his pants, gives him this female-ish tilt. He had an immediate shave--I took a good bit of skin off him. And there you have omosnobutt, the final cover.

You know, Omos is my series buffoon. I take him very seriously, but he's my buffoon.

All right, I don't take him that seriously. Poor guy. Naming him Omos, then making fun of him.

Oh, you want a big picture now? Look further down my blog about the brain needing to use the coffee post.

A link for the perpetually lazy (of which I am one, when I can get away with it):

http://kmfrontain.blogspot.com/2007/07/

So Omos of the Ether is out this coming Tuesday. Yay! I have my ARC. I have a reader nagging Marci for the release. I have another two books to finish in the series...

Oh, my. Lazy must stop.

I'm not lazy. Really. I just go brain dead for days at a time... Go read the caffeine post if you don't believe me. Well, that post only covered the dimmer switch problem...

Ah, never mind. I'm just going to have to hunker down and get to work, no matter what.

Toot toot!

2007-08-19T16:31:00.000-04:00

No, not a promo for Wind in the Willows... Or did Toad say something else while driving around in his flashy cars...? Never mind.

Tooting my horn for want of anything else to post. Too lazy to come up with another subject, too busy, just want to bask in this a while longer. Here it is, a post that took me by surprise and made my day. :-)

http://meellis.blogspot.com/2007/08/km-frontain.html

Poor M.E. lost the use of her computer after posting that. I hope she gets back on line soon. Her blog tends toward hilarious, bizarre, fun as heck and thought provoking.

Two group chats this coming weekend

2007-08-08T12:40:00.001-04:00

I have two chats scheduled this weekend. The first is a loop chat on Novelspotters, Sunday, August 12, 9 am to 9 pm. This chat is for all Freya's Bower authors. I highly recommend dropping in. We have some wild and crazy and wonderful authors, not to mention their stories are wonderful too.

The second chat is an author chat for me, also a loop chat and also on Sunday, August 12, but between the hours of 8 pm and 10 pm EST. The chat will be held on Romance Lives Forever.

For both chats, I shall be posting excerpts of Loved Him to Death 1, and also excerpts from the upcoming release of Loved Him to Death 2.

Reminder to all, the royalties for the ebook of Loved Him to Death 1 are going to charity.

Addendum and big whoops! I screwed up my author chat day and it's now, Friday, now, now, now! (Now is 21:14 pm and I'm late). I'm going to blame this on my damned chronic illnesses and my period. I'm still suffering from the mental dimmer switch, obviously. Sorry, Kayelle!

Brain, please make use of the caffeine

2007-07-29T02:05:00.000-04:00

I swear my intestines make use of caffeine better than my brain does. Really. My butt's very happy with the early morning dose of stimulator...

Ok, I'll shut up about my butt.

The brain, the mind, whatever you want to call it: mine has always been slightly off.

I'm talking lightbulb, here, not rancid whatever. My mind is not like a lightbulb. My mind isn't just on or off.

Well, I don't think anyone's mind is just on or off, unless you're dead and then it's simply off... And now I'll stop discussing dead, because, hey! I know shit about it. Won't until I'm, well, dead. And then I may not care.

Yes, fine. This isn't about my butt or dead. It's about labels.

Non sequitur comes up and smacks all readers in the eye...

It's not a non sequitur. I swear.

Here's the situation: I go on, for months sometimes, even years, thinking a certain thing, but this thing is off, just off, while the rest of my mind functions perfectly. Suddenly, I clue in. Something, that thing, is...off.

And then I'm "Oh, f___, what was I thinking?"

Labels. I make book covers, right. I have done since self-publishing. I've even made the book cover for my FB published novels. I shall post them, just to show you I do have a partially working brain. I mean mind. (Personally, I think the brain is nothing more than a switchboard for the body. The soul owns the mind, which isn't the brain, and we'll just stop discussing that, because then we're off on the subject of souls and dead and I said I'd stop discussing dead...)

Ok, cover of Loved Him 1:

And then Loved Him 2 (Omos of the Ether, coming this August--this cover image is bigger; too lazy to open my program and reduce size):

And there it is. I can use programs that fiddle with images. I can. Yes, I can.

So why, why, did I not think of making my own wine labels for over, um, seven years? .....

.....
....
...
..
.

My brain, or my mind, is slightly off while it's on. I have a dimmer switch.

This isn't the first time this month I've discovered the dimmer switch is active. No. It's the second. I've had some humdinger of dimmed brained activity in certain areas. Hell of a dim moment. Really dim. Won't get into it. Embarrassing.

Wine. This is chokecherry week. The berries are ripe. I have a narrow window of opportunity, perhaps a few days, to search for and pick the few berries not infested with bugs. These are very, very few. Ninety percent of the bushes we inspect have fifty percent or more berry damage from worms hatching out of the seeds. To my knowledge, only two large bushes of all the bushes in our area have decent berries, and even they have the bug infestation. Thanks to these two lovely bushes, we have enough berries to do six gallons of wine, then another four gallons of faux wine from the same berries.

Damn bugs.

But back to labels. I finally, tonight, realized I could make my own labels for my wine bottles. Here I have been, searching for labels in wine making stores, and most are a generic "private stock" that say nothing about the fruit content or the alcohol content or the date of bottling.

Tonight, I clued in. Tonight, I made this (too huge to post on blogger):

http://i96.photobucket.com/albums/l173/kmfrontain/beetlabel3copy.jpg

Yep. I had another, an image with actual beets, but it looked like it would make a better soup label. But there were raisins in this wine, so fruit still work.

Yes, the image is huge, but again, too lazy to open the stupid program and make the image smaller, and can you tell I've been drinking last year's chokecherry?

No, wait. That chokecherry is two years old or more, but it didn't have it's own label, so I'm only guessing. Ha ha ha ha...

That just isn't funny.

Brain half off. Really.

This weekend has been an all sunburn weekend. Burn the shoulders, pick the berries, curse worms, curse the sun, curse the train that left grit on the berries, then thank the train that left sooty grit on the berries, because perhaps the sooty grit is the reason this particular bush has fewer damned black pinholes indicating previous worm occupation.

It took all afternoon, pretty much, to pick and process 12 lbs of chokecherries. My sunburn hurts a little. Thank goodness I don't have fair skin.

Tomorrow it's still a wine making day. Tomorrow is raisin hunting. Inside Costco.

Yay! No sun!

Later, I shall find another nice, very old image and save it to my hardrive to make a chokecherry label. Won't need it for a year, but what the hey.

Sex Ed for Women: The Prostate Gland

2007-07-24T11:50:00.000-04:00

Yeah. We don't have one, so why am I calling it sex ed for women? That's the thing. Women should know about it. Really. It's like when guys get their "happy rhythm" going on but ignore the clitoris. You like it when a guy ignores your clitoris?

Ok, ok. Some history behind my interest in the prostate. First off, I discovered I was writing mm or slash fantasy. Before finding forums and other writers who wrote similar content, I had no idea it had a genre. But there I was, a woman, writing about two men getting it on. Yeah. So how do they go about it and why does it work? To be realistic, I needed to know. And so I went off researching, but the light really didn't turn on for me until I read a certain book devoted primarily to heterosexual couples (though the precepts can be applied by men to men). More on that book later.

Onward about my research. First of all, the simplest solution to quick pleasure, especially safe pleasure, between men (and even between men and women) is some form of hands on approach. Just hands.

Then there's the more desirable fellatio. Some gay men, a lot actually, could get by on fellatio alone. Anal isn't, as some heterosexual persons might think, the sole sexual aim of a gay relationship. Far from it.

But when the aim is anal, why do they want to? Doesn't it hurt? Well, first off, the anus itself is an erogenous zone. When treated nicely, it's a very happy asterisk. It shouldn't hurt much if at all.

But this post is about the prostate, which is internal.

Well, there. That's the reason anal sex can feel really good to the receiver. It's the g-spot for men. It's the reason ice packs are placed on the penis when men undergo prostate massage as a medical treatment. Yes, ice packs on the penis, ladies. That's what I said. Men get a "hands off the dick" hard on when the prostate is massaged. They can also get a "hands off the dick" orgasm too, although this takes a bit more patience. But medical professionals aren't massaging for this reaction.

Men have been cheated. Het men. This society refuses the existence of the prostate as anything but an organ useful for creating a sticky white fluid in which to deliver spermatozoa. It's viewed as an organ that might one day be a problem for an older man, something that could give cancer, get enlarged, need reaming out. And that's when, unfortunately, men often learn why they should have treated their prostate nicer earlier in life, back when (Oh, no, no ,no!) men absolutely do not consider anything anal to be erogenous, not with regards to themselves, anyhow.

Cheated.

Writing mm fiction, I learned about the prostate's existence and why gay men might pay attention to internal massage and have anal sex, but that's not when the light really turned on for me. It's when I read Margot Anand's The Art of Sexual Magic. I happened across this book by accident, glanced down at a display shelf along the check out counter, just as I was setting used books down to be purchased. There it was, seeming as new as the day it was printed. Rare thing in my French area, a very new looking English book. And about sex.

We're talking tantric sex here, but bought this book for other reasons than humming mantras or performing rituals. Primarily, I picked it up to discover methods to more pleasure, or to unblock the spirit so that there could be more pleasure. And wasn't I surprised to discover the extended orgasm for men. That's what I said: the extended orgasm for men. And it involves massaging his prostate. Men can have a whopping big orgasm because of their g-spot. Huge. Really huge.

Women. You are cheated as well, those of you that don't know about this. Our society has taught most of us that female passivity is sexy. The men are the movers and shakers. The men insert. We receive. Women are cheated because an uncrossable horizon is placed in our lives. We are not to step past the boundaries of considering ourselves the "bottoms" in a relationship. Men are always top, even when we sit on top.

And because women can't look further than being a bottom, heterosexual men are cheated of really understanding and enjoying all of their erogenous zones, including the one that might give them a super orgasm. They aren't allowed to "have" a prostate. It's an invisible, not to be bothered with body part until it causes trouble later in life. To admit needs concerning the anal area is to admit homosexuality. Nothing wrong with homosexuality, as far as I'm concerned, but geez! All men have prostates, not just gay men.

Yes, there are heterosexual men out there who would like their girlfriends to give their bums a bit more attention. Seriously. They would, but many are afraid to ask. And this is why I wrote this post for women, because you know what? We're the ones who have to change sometimes. We are.

And the links, for your edification:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostate_massage

http://ezinearticles.com/?How-to-Give-Your-Partner-a-Prostate-Massage

http://www.nine3.com/Magic.html

And the two most recommended links today:

http://www.whitelotuseast.com/SacredSpotMassage.htm

http://www.aneros.com/default.php

That last one? I want the product it sells. I really do.

2007-07-23T01:15:00.000-04:00

Dream by the Fire Anthology Submissions Call

Freya's Bower invites you to participate in "Dream by the Fire: Winter Magic," a special winter anthology to be released in e-book format the first week of December. Please be advised this is not exclusively a Christmas anthology. While Christmas stories are welcome, as are all other winter-time holidays regardless culture or faith, the anthology as a whole will be a collection that celebrates winter, the season of giving, of finding warmth and thanks. Tell a story that will keep a shivering woman warm on the longest night of the year, and you're telling a story that is perfect for this anthology.

Submissions should be romantic tales between 2,000 and 8,000 words. Even though Freya's Bower welcomes romance of all sexual orientations, this anthology will focus on one man, one woman relationships. Stories may be contemporary, paranormal/fantasy, or historical and end happily-ever-after or happily-for-now. Heat levels may range from Sweet to Tangy (see Freya's Bower for heat level explanations).

E-mail submissions and any questions you have to Michelle or Bonnie, fbwinteranthoATgmailDOTcom

Deadline to submit is September 30, 2007. Submissions will be accepted on a rolling basis.

All submissions must follow regular guidelines as stated at Freya's Bower's submissions guidelines.

Marci Baun
Editor-in-Chief
Freya's Bower

Bilingualism means...

2007-07-20T13:14:00.001-04:00

Scooby. It means you get brand spanking new words like scooby. Yeah.

Ok, so I'll explain that. I remembered it just now while I was helping someone with a grammar question. Kids learn grammar naturally. We're talking one year old, two year old, babies younger than that. They start figuring the language and they make appropriate use of what their parents give them in the way of words. They're wired for grammar. I'm not kidding. They're born to figure it out. Give kids as much grammar and speech and social contact as you can, including reading, and you get a wee genius.

Which is why scooby threw me for a few months. You get your two year old boy, raised in a bilingual household, coming up to you and saying, "Scooby this?"

Yeah. It's a definite question, and because he's conveniently pointing at something he wants, I give him the appropriate response. A yes. Sure you can have this.

Very good. Scooby worked. And of course, because it worked, here it comes again in another hour, and tomorrow, the next day, the day after. Meanwhile, I'm wondering why this two year old decided there was such an expression as scooby. Kids usually have very good logic for grammar at that age. They don't go around inventing expressions. He's never seen Scooby-Doo, and Scooby wasn't a verb. Hmm...

About a month or so later, watching my two year old and my not so perfectly bilingual husband (not back then anyhow--I hadn't fixed his English grammar and pronunciation much yet) communicating with each other, I suddenly discovered the source of scooby.

Ah ha! It's not scooby at all. It's my husband's bad habit of smooshing several words together. It's the French liason thing applied incorrectly to English. It's him speaking too fast and ending up with a slur of words. It's a combination of all these, but basically, it's uniquely my husband. When he is tired, he still smooshes words together.

So. Scooby...thisscooby...this could be.

Yep. My husband was saying "this could be". He said it every time I discussed something and he wasn't ready to answer definitively. And my son, having the perfect mind for learning grammar at that age, and using the information given by his father, understood exactly. Thiscouldbe, or scooby, was a maybe word. It was a possibility. It therefore could be used for questions, like asking for an object, an activity, something to eat.

Scooby play now? Scooby eat? Scooby go outside?

Yeah. Bilingualism means scooby.

No, my kid no longer uses this word. He grew out of it almost as soon as I mentioned to my husband where scooby had come from. My husband's diction improved quite a bit that month, but now that the grammar window has shut down and my son must struggle to remember rules, like most of us do, I still get the occasional word silliness, only not through the perfect logic that he earlier demonstrated when presented with data of imperfect pronunciation.

Very logical that boy, when he was younger. I shall have to mention how he once ran forward and shouted, "Mom, I can go backwards!" Whereupon he turned about and raced back the way he'd come. Yeah, he went backwards. Front first. ;-)

2007-07-17T01:16:00.000-04:00

I am cursed.

Last night, two cop cars parked in my driveway for over three quarters of an hour. They were there to do a "secours" at the neighbouring house. Secours: French way of saying shit is up next door and we're moving in for the kill... Well, not the kill, but they went off to do something over there that took almost an hour. Not the first time. Our neighbour has the occasional difficulties that put him off to a hospital, but has otherwise been a nice man.

My dog started barking when the cops showed up, and one officer came to the door to say they were using our parking lot while they did their secours thing. (Pronounced say-coewr, btw, stress on last syllable.) So I say I'll put my dog in the house and I do.

Then, while everyone driving by speculates what my family did to warrant police visitation, I'm on this computer wondering when the hell the cops will leave. Occasionaly my dog woofs in the basement. I occasionally peak out the blinds. I think I did twice. I'm not very nosy.

And they leave, and not a few minutes later, the plaintive call for help starts in my ditch, the ditch that gets the septic tank drainage. I hear, from my ditch, the cry of a kitten in distress.

So I'm thinking something must have happened to the neighbour's cat. But their cat is an adult and this sounds like kitten. Off I go to get closer. Call the kitten, kitten meows for assistance but doesn't come out of ditch. Now I start thinking feral kitten, only this kitten is making the help me cry, not the "get the f__ away from me; I'm waiting for my mom".

Off I go back into the house (It's like 2 am btw) to get my flashlight, work gloves and a dry cloth. Back to ditch. There's the kitten, acting crippled, tangling in ditch weeds and soaking wet. I fetch it out and put it on the cloth, and it's a perfectly behaved crippled kitten. Definitely not feral.

And it stinks and has a slug on its neck. Ew.

Anyhow, I hold this kitten on my lap in the house for several minutes while it gets out of shock, and I'm thinking, "If this kitten was in the ditch when the cops were there, why didn't I hear it? Why didn't they tell me a kitten was screaming in my ditch? Did the cops dump an unwanted kitten in my ditch? If they lost the kitten, why didn't they come back? This is an unwanted kitten, dumped by cops. What's wrong with the back leg? Old injury, emaciated muscles on one leg, normal on other side. This kitten looks around 6 to 8 weeks old."

My eldest son got rid of the slug. I can't stand slugs. I wash the kitten in the tub. Meanwhile, my regular cat is very concerned that the kitten is alright and then thinks I'm committing kitten murder when the kitten starts doing distress calls in the tub while I'm shampooiing and hosing it down. Regular cat starts making distress calls as well, but calms down when he realizes I have not committed kiticide.

Dry the kitten, take kitten downstairs. Dog is wanting to meet new friend. Dog is the size of a small poney. Kitten starts the "I kill you dead" fake out cry. Regular cat, declawed, attacks the dogs butt. I take dog outside. Tiga (regular cat) attacks her butt again, and pretty much says in cat speak to stay the f___ out. Hilarious, how this neutered male, declawed cat goes all mommy defender for this dumped kitten.

But I'm cursed, see, 'cause I didn't want another cat. No money to spare on vet bills. None. But I have this kitten with a gimp. Very nice personality, not much to look at, but a good kitten. Somehow, my pet addiction took over the universe and gave me another cat.

2007-07-12T22:31:00.000-04:00

M.E. Ellis has a free read. Not only does she have a free read, she has an excellent, worthy of a champagne bottle free read. Yep. Now that's cool.

Coming up with a photo. Give me a sec...

There it is. :-)

And here comes the blurb:

Liddy Whittaker has a weight problem. With two options for slimming down her figure (exercise or girdle), Liddy opts for the girdle and finds herself at the poshest department store in town. Her misadventures in the store don’t stop from Liddy finding a new friend and being asked out on a date. Thus begins the hilarious journey of a woman learns to accept herself for who she is and to be content with her lot.

And here's a quote from the wonderful review on Cocktail Reviews:

"Liddy’s other half is her inner thoughts, which plague her throughout her daily life. At times she even responds to them “out loud” with sometimes hilarious consequences. Other times, it gets her into situations where she says things at inappropriate moments.

This is a very funny, heart-warming tale, of self depreciation, friendship, love and overcoming obstacles.

I give this book the whole bottle of Champagne, FANTASTIC!!"

You must have a Freya's Bower store membership and sign up for the store newsletter to receive the first two chapters. So cool. A super good story, free. Go sign up. You'll be happy.

And in other news, Fade to Pale is in bookstores in Canada. Yep. Very exciting for Wild Child Publishing. Marci will be blogging about this and other great news for WCP on her blog(s).

"bold and penetrating...deliciously disturbing...psychologically acute and entertaining, dark and inspiring..."

Five Champagne Flutes from Harvey Wallbanger
Reviewer for Cocktail Reviews

Like I said, Marci will have more on that, so hop on over to her blogs, either MySpace, or Gather.

Don't forget! Fantasy chat tomorrow!

Man. It's been a busy week and then some, what with all the promoting. But well worth it.

Last bit! Babe King has a new release, The Marian Kind! Go check it out. :-)

2007-07-11T07:58:00.000-04:00

This Friday the 13th, celebrate the paranormal and the fantastic with Freya's Bower authors. Ghosts, the occult, monsters, magic: mysteries we never tire of discussing, reading about, imagining. What better day to celebrate our fascination with the forbidden, the odd, the scary, than on a 13th.

Time: 6 PM EST until the chat dies down
Where: Freya's Bower Author Chat Yahoo Group. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/freyasbower_authorchat (One must be a member, so sign up!)

Other news:
Emily Ryan-Davis blogs about a bookstore without a romance section.

2007-07-10T12:13:00.000-04:00

A loooong time ago. Well not that long ago. A few months ago, Sonya picked me for the Thinking Blogger Award and M.E. Ellis mentioned me as a first choice. I only just now put the award up on my side bar.

Yeah. Slowness. Some things just take a while to percolate. Good thing I'm not coffee, or I'd be undrinkable.

But today I'm going to be faster with a new award. Bernita just named me a "Rockin' Babe/Wench". Thank you, Bernita! And that award is right up on the sidebar today. I like that title. Rockin' Wench... It sounds a wee bit wicked.

And I'm passing this title onward! Directly to M.E. Ellis. Truly a Rockin' Wench if there ever was one. Love her. She's just so odd, and don't I love odd. You rock, M.E.!

My next wench is I.M. Cupnjava, another wonderful oddball, not afraid to write about sensitive subjects. Cup posts even more on her MySpace.

And after Cup, I name Debbie. Yep. Debbie is good fun. After I've warped my mind visiting the odd ducks, I go visit Debbie for a quiet chuckle and some relaxation. She always has something happy and homelike on her blog. Or something just fun to do. Debbie is a true Rockin' Wench for being wonderful.

And that's it. Just three for now. Picked the more prolific bloggers of my faves, because they deserve it.

And now a wee bit that's happening:

M.E Ellis has a new release on Wild Child Publishing.
And Conspiracy of Angels is available in print today.

Excerpts of Loved Him from the loop chat

2007-07-08T19:51:00.000-04:00

These were all the excerpts posted on the loop chat this weekend.
And please read my earlier post about donating my royalties to a charity.

http://kmfrontain.blogspot.com/2007/07/donating-royalties.html

First one, straight from chapter one:

Every port has its odour. Verdant's odour tainted the sea air before a
ship reached the harbour. It created a light vapour over the city,
settled on the water, floated over surf, enveloped ship and crew. It
sank into the awareness and did not leave. Each change of the breeze
would sail the stench aloft, but seconds after, the reek would ooze
down to assault the nose again. It was never so strong as to provoke
illness. It just remained at the front of awareness, the eternal
alchemy of Verdant: sea and air and paint.

On the day the schooner stalled before the harbour mouth like a fly
caught in a web, the chemical stench did not influence the air as
usual, and I frowned at the docks across the water, wondering what had
happened to Verdant's primary industry. In the hold, terebinth resin
awaited unloading, destined for turpentine production and, therefore,
the thinning of paint, but the cargo couldn't be delivered while the
ship played odd games with the wind. The sails filled, but wooden
notes of protest sounded, as if the bow pressed into solid matter.

First Mate shouted from below. I sat on a yard high up the mainmast—a
favourite position—and glanced down to watch sailors run by, intent on
adjusting the sheets. I looked out again, toward the invisible that
had halted the ship, and wanted it gone, just gone. Now.

Naturally, nothing changed, and the ship screamed all the louder,
spoke of warping wood and impending breakage. Kima bellowed more
stridently, and I contemplated the port we could not reach. I wanted
there, and I would go there, before Kima altered course and sailed the
ship back out to sea.

I touched the mainmast and prayed.

Go there. Slip through. Ease on by. Let me be to the invisible as it
is to me: non-existent.

The ship ceased screaming, ploughed down at the bow and came up again,
jerked me forward and snapped me back. I clung on, marvelling that
calm prayer had forced the impediment to ease its grasp.

The bow passed the volcanic spurs that formed the harbour mouth, and
an odd heaviness enveloped me, washed over and around, clung to my
body and squeezed to my bones. I felt movement to my rear, looked
backward and watched my braid lift off my back and hang in the air as
if something held it. My neck began to stretch most painfully.

I struggled to remain on the yard, grimacing and thinking my scalp
would tear loose. Then the midsection of the ship entered the harbour,
and my braid dropped so suddenly I canted forward and almost fell from
my perch.

"Vaal poke His snout in my innards," I whispered. I scrabbled back to
rights, every body hair I owned prickling to a stand.

A shout billowed up from the deck. I started and slipped on the yard a
second time.

"Festive colours up the mount! Careful up there! What's the matter
with you?"

"Shit," I gasped, heart thumping hard enough to crash out of my chest.
This time I'd tangled rope up to my armpits to keep aloft, and hooked
a foot for good measure. I must have looked like a netted bug, splayed
wide and waiting for the spider.

"Nothing's the matter with me except that my first mate wants to
startle me off the yard!" I shouted, then carefully drew my limbs out
from each snarl.

I looked down at Kima. He'd moved to where I could see him easily,
over on the port side near the rail, red trousers bright against wood
and water. Like me, he wore no vest. Despite the sea breeze, the day
had become hot, but I would dismount from my favourite perch soon, to
don an upper garment and hide the indelible mark of a faith the people
of Verdant held in low esteem.

And besides, the incident with the invisible had put a chill in me.

Second one:

Daylight brightened the innards of Celestial Dome, without the aid of
torches, embrasures, or windows of any sort. The ceiling seemed
non-existent. I beheld clouds, the sun, birds flying overhead. A gull
sat above us, as if it floated in midair. Another flew down to join
it, to stand there and squawk. I did not hear the sounds; only saw its
beak moving, a distant, small motion.

The gull made the backward lift indicating defecation, and a light
flashed beneath its bottom. Both birds rose from the invisible, their
beaks open in protest. I wanted to laugh despite my agony, despite the
edict against noise. It was too silly a thing. No indication of the
dropping remained on the outside of the dome. The expanse had flicked
it off with divine power.

I looked down. Marble benches lined the amphitheatre. Aisles, two-men
wide, broke the rows. An upper walk, where temple guards stood in
niches, commanded the highest view. The seating began several cubits
from the entrance and continued around the dome until the inner
staircase interrupted the flow. A huge triangular spur of stone
blocked this second flight of steps from the exit leading out.

Halva shoved me along until we traversed three quarters of the
structure again, this time from the inside. His was an important
family and, perhaps after that day, it would be more important, for he
had successfully brought a foreigner into Celestial Dome. Men stared
at us the entire march, but no one whispered or made comment.

Halva's family seats were in the section closest to the inner
staircase, almost facing the dais on which the dying Oradhé rested.
Halva descended the aisle and crept into his row. I followed, skirted
knees as best I could, repressed the urge to apologize when I stubbed
toes, and seated myself next to Halva. Ignoring the attention of the
entire audience, I looked down at the smooth white expanse of the
central space.

Intana stood near the old Oradhé, his right side toward us. This was
the first I looked at the godling, and I saw ugliness.

His pale pinkish skin reminded me of the underside of toads. Silvery
scales ran along the outer sections of his limbs, with small patches
defining his torso, his back, the fronts of his thighs, and also
marking his calves and shins. This scaling, and his electrum hair,
seemed his only claims to beauty.

The distance prevented me from seeing his features properly. A hank of
silver trailed down his forehead and crossed his nose, veiling his
face in any case. He was tall, his shape supple, well-muscled, almost
boyish. He wore only a grey cloth over his male parts and another over
his buttocks. Silver chains at his hips held the fabric in place.

He looked only at the old Oradhé, who lay upon the dais with a black
robe hiding what appeared to be an emaciated, aged body. Upon the old
man's chest rested the seal, a silver object that seemed too wide and
heavy for his frail body to support. The flat circle appeared to have
gaps in the metal here and there. Shapes swirled together, shapes I
could not discern clearly.

Bright silks draped the dais. Festive colours. Flame colours. It
seemed inappropriate for a culture worshipping a god at one with sea
and sky, for a moment of death and then sacrifice. And continued slavery.

The old Oradhé… I couldn't tell if he still lived, but he must have,
because Intana did not look up. Junior servants waited beside the
godling, watching him, not the Oradhé.

Cast off already, old man, thought I. Cast off before you are even
dead. They look only to Intana, because you are no longer important.
They watch the slave they must keep in metaphysical chains.

My attention rested on Intana again, and I thought him pitiful. What
had he to look forward to but more of the same. An old Oradhé, a new,
and always betrayed the moment he lifted his eyes to see the person
who might be his saviour.

My gaze flitted toward the large brazier to the left of the dais. The
concave, bronze vessel rested on three small likenesses of Omos. Smoke
wafted up from freshly laid charcoal scattered about the old embers.
Precious incense must have been sprinkled over the cinders as well,
for a scent billowed in the air, not so strong as to be unpleasant,
but I suspected it would be pungent down there with Omos's son.

Resting with their ends in the embers lay the two iron rods intended
to burn out the next Oradhé's eyes. My gaze veered away. Images of
eyes popping and searing into gaping sockets chased the lingering
grief over Jumi from my mind. Feeling chilled and slightly sick, my
mind fixed on a group further off to Intana's left, near the lower
amphitheatre wall.

Boys undergoing the manhood ceremony had collected near two
semicircular swimming basins. Most of the celebrants appeared to have
finished the rite and were washing in the larger pool, where priests
with soaps, towels and robes attended them.

An aperture with a metal grid permitted water from the bay to fill the
larger basin, but the aperture of the smaller pool possessed no
grille, and sharks entered the dome to bite the silhouettes of the
celebrants. Little Brother demonstrated his impatience for the
remaining boys to enter Vaal's domain.

I frowned, sensing more than impatience. Was it…anger?

Yes, anger. The Ardu brethren fouled the manhood ceremony. The
supplicants greeted Little Brother in a polluted state.

I looked at the last of the celebrants. Two boys waited their turn not
far from the smaller basin, and it was their shadows Little Brother
attacked. A third boy stood before an elderly man I assumed to be
First Servant. The boys were naked, First Servant as well.

The head priest presided over an earthenware urn half as tall as him
and twice as wide. From it, he ladled the holy oils that Halva had
mentioned. The priest poured this liquid over the current supplicant,
who rubbed it all over his body. After First Servant set the dipper
down, he passed his palms over the boy's entire figure to ensure a
good coating, and then pointed toward the smaller basin. The boy
turned and took careful, small steps in that direction.

A cubit from the basin, another servant of the dome awaited, but he
was dressed in robes and carried a brightly coloured sack. This man
lifted a hand to the boy's face and inserted into his mouth a brown
object.

Ah. The sponge. I wondered if I could procure a sample. Somehow.

I could not help thinking of profit even then, but when another dark
shadow swam past the aperture toward which the boy descended, I
thought only of Jumi again. I tore my gaze back to the centre of the
floor and looked upon Intana once more.

Truly, I thought him ugly for his pale skin, and perhaps he was also
unlucky because of it. What had he done to displease his father so
greatly that he'd been bidden to act the eternal guardian for an
insignificant group of mortals?

Vaal had sent me into this harbour, perhaps with Omos's permission,
but what He meant by it, I could only guess. I had said to Halva I
would keep the secrets of the Ardu faith, but if Vaal wanted the world
to know of the duplicity of Verdant's people, then I would spread this
knowledge to the empires across the sea, and let all know that Omos's
worshippers cheated His son of freedom.

Intana's head suddenly lifted and turned. Just his head. His body
stayed rigid. To his left, the attending servant stepped back to
permit him an unobstructed view of the tiers on my side of the
amphitheatre. Next to me, Halva loosed an excited gasp and clutched my
wrist.

Intana's gaze travelled no further, but remained fixed in our
direction. It seemed to me he had chosen Halva or someone near us.

The sentinels along the upper walk at last went into motion. When
Halva and I had passed these men on the way to our seats, they'd been
silent and oblivious— dark men in dark robes, each bearing staves with
bronze circles at the top, smaller rings looping within the circles. I
heard the rings jangling as the sentinels converged on our section
from all along the amphitheatre.

An image lodged in my mind, of a flock of black gulls circling the
white island on which Intana rested. The wide sleeves of each sentinel
billowed like wings. Flapping hems became the tail feathers that
guided flight. The clinking of the rings echoed down from the hidden
ceiling and threaded the vision with a metallic song of feeding.

The flock gusted an invisible cloud to their fore. It settled over me,
a vaporous acid that burned fate into my bones. I shifted on the
bench, wanting to leave, but the two nearest sentinels blocked the
openings of the first row of seats, and more descended the aisles to
obstruct the rows further up.

The flock gathered to hem our section in. Soon, the feeding would
commence.

Third:

The place of good food: the mother of the house let me in, but she was

nervous and shoved me along faster for being slow. I only wished to
accord due respect, but she wanted no bows or polite greetings. First
a hand to my wrist, and then a yank and a hard shove against my back.

"Ah, Haru Sachoné! The things you have done to Verdant! I should throw
you out, but all the men of Verdant have lost their balls this day,
and I can't run this establishment for men without balls. Since you
seem to be the only one left with any, I must be practical."

She slammed the purple door shut the moment Intana, frowning, came in.
I blinked in the muted light of the entry hall and listened to her
harangue me further for making business difficult. In typical Brellin
style, I slipped past the accusations and went for polite conquest.

"We've come to eat your good food, Yrrylos. Can we not enter Flower
Court, where I may listen to your account of men's shortcomings in
comfort?"

Yrrylos snapped her mouth shut, gave me a frustrated look and set her
plump self off toward Flower Court. I followed, a smile coming to my
lips, because I adored plump women. I winced at once and put the vest
back over my face. I had just made my injuries bleed again.

"Where have you brought me?" Intana hissed from behind.

"A house of good food," I answered, "and entertainment."

"A house of whores!" he spat. "You've brought me to a house of
prostitution!"

"There is no such thing as prostitution to a man of Brellin," I
murmured and thrust through a curtain of amber beads into Flower
Court. The light of the sun hit me again, coming down from windows set
in slanted portions of the ceiling. Everywhere along the walls, in the
more shadowy places, paper and wood privacy dividers formed
compartments, and pots of tall ferns and flowering plants brought
seclusion to remaining open spaces. The hanging lamps within these
artful nooks were not lit. From this fact, I realized we were the only
visitors.

"If there's no such thing, why are you here?" said Intana, hard on my
heels.

"To eat, to rest, to enjoy the company of amenable women."

"I hate you!" he said, and it sounded as though the words had come
through his teeth. "There is prostitution! Even for you!"

"I don't agree. There is only pleasant entertainment, good food and
gifts to women whose company I enjoy."

"Bastard."

Yes, perhaps. But this was the way of the people of Brellin. We did
not disrespect women by naming them whores after we men had come
panting on our knees just to get between their legs. Our mothers and
sisters would bash us with their frying pans for being so hypocritical.

Yrrylos halted. She'd brought us to a nice nook, one with a tall plant
that had white flowers in blossom. They smelled delightful. She
smelled delightful.

I admit; I have this thing for mature women, and Yrrylos often caught
my fancy before her courtesans did. Today she wore the colour of her
guild, a vivid purple robe of fine silk, but with green scarves in her
hair and about her waist. She'd lacquered her fingernails a brilliant
rose. I couldn't help think of their colour on my shaft while her
fingers rode up and down.

Behind me, Intana hissed a wordless warning. Clearly, I was to
reconsider my fantasies or endure further damage to my person.

"He's renowned for choosing only men as his Oradhé," Yrrylos said,
looking at Intana mistrustfully.

"He's been given little alternative," I replied.

Yrrylos's expression became more mistrustful. I didn't doubt Intana
showed his spite in some manner. The air had the feel of thunderstorms.

"Is he grimacing at you?" I asked Yrrylos.

"Yes," she said. "They never let him in a house like this before, and
he's never tried to come to one."

"He generally has a difficult time straying from his Oradhé," I
answered. "Today he is here, because today I am here."

I decided to ignore Intana's discontent and sat on a silk covered mat.
Yrrylos knelt to take off my footwear, while Intana watched with a
scowl. Out from behind a screen, girls pattered forward with washing
bowl and scented soap to lave my face, hands and feet. They beheld
Intana and spilled water on the polished wood, stalling in their tracks.

"Shuh, shuh, shuh!" Yrrylos cried. "What are you thinking? See after
our guests!"

"But it's the Oradhé! And the dragon god!"

"And they aren't guests? Move, you silly things! They still have faces
and hands and feet!"

And our faces and hands and feet were washed, after I ordered Intana
to be seated and to stop making a threat with his face, and Yrrylos
went off clucking about the disaster that was my vest, which she
confiscated and took with her.

"Teach him not to bite, why don't you, Haru?" she said as she left.
"I'm surprised you aren't also bleeding between your legs."

"He's politer with some parts of me," I replied, but she didn't hear.
No matter. She'd return with pain relieving ointments to save my lips
from further suffering. Yrrylos ran a good house. She was a perfect
mother.

"She's hideous," Intana said.

Ah, he was just so petty. "Why must you fuss about this?"

"Because I discover every day that something else stands between me
and your heart!"

"You have no reason to want all of my heart any longer, Intana. You
have made a deal with Vaal."

"Bastard."

Ah, well. Again perhaps. "You'll like the food here."

"It only means I have to start shitting."

I laughed, then winced, blood coming into my mouth again. My lips had
to be in tatters to have this much.

"Ah, Vaal's going to bite my ass if we don't fix that," Intana said,
now looking worried. "Where is that whore mother and her medicines?"

Without warning, I picked up the bowl of washing water, and flung it
and the contents at him. The girls fled screaming.

"Ow! Haru!"

"You are unmannerly! You will not shame me further! Do you understand?"

"Yes," he whispered, his expression startled.

I gave him a fallen towel to wipe his dripping face. "In my society,
there is only one type of whore, and this is a woman that breaks a
contract of paternity. There is no other type. Do you understand? The
women here are sociable persons who enjoy the company of men. That is
all. Is it clear?"

"Yes." He gave the towel back to me, and I put the damp cloth on my
face to stop the blood from travelling down my chin to my chest.

And last one with content warning--original slash (mm, homoerotic) fiction:

A scent of ocean breeze preceded Vaal's arrival. He filtered in from a

shadow on the wall, and solidified only four cubits from me. I did not
bow. One does not dishonour Vaal lowering oneself like one is not a man.

To the rear of me, the two sentinels crashed to the floor, prostrate
with all their armour on. Their pikestaffs created musical notes
against the marble, and one skittered loose past my ankle, but I did
not move. They were forfeit, the pair of them, but only because they
did not know any better. I hoped Vaal would be lenient.

Vaal stepped up to me and rubbed a thumb gently across my swollen
lips. "I do not like how Intana uses you," He said.

"His poor manners have been dealt with."

Vaal lowered His head and kissed me. His tongue was a cold touch on my
skin, but my lips felt better after. "You are too lenient with him,"
He whispered against my mouth.

I could not help but smile at this gentle mockery. He knew full well
my thoughts seconds earlier. "They haven't had the luxury of a proper
education," I said, meaning the pair of sentinels.

"They will have their education," Vaal answered. He straightened,
strode to the double doors of the imperial court and threw them wide.
I stared unthinking at the sight He revealed. What had seemed the
distant roaring of water had been a roaring of water. Imperial court
had been inundated, and Little Brother swam inside.

Blood, so much blood. The water was red.

"Have you made a liar of me, Vaal?" I whispered.

"Did you lie when you said that you did not speak for Me?"

"No."

"Then you are not a liar. You departed the court with a pair of boots
earned fairly. You let His Imperial Majesty live, but I chose to let
Little Brother eat him."

As if behind a wall of glass, Little Brother glided by the entrance.
We looked at each other. He smiled and swam on to the recesses of the
flooded court. A leg spun by in his wake. The foot was bare.

"I don't think the boots will fit," Vaal said.

No doubt. The emperor had seemed a taller man than I. "I'll give them
to my favourite brother when he comes."

Vaal laughed and pivoted toward me. He was naked as before and showed
His readiness to have me. I didn't want it to be before an entrance
leading into a bath of blood and guts, but His excitement refused my
delicate sentiments.

"Take off your clothes, Haru, or I will rip them from you."

I set the red boots on the marble floor and straightened to unbutton
my jerkin. "You, there," I called to the guards. "Stand and face
Little Brother, or Vaal will send you in to swim with him."

They both rose, but abandoned their weapons on the marble. One lifted
to his feet dripping moisture. A yellow puddle glistened on the floor
where his body had lain.

"Face Little Brother," I repeated.

They were uncertain and glanced fearfully at Vaal.

"No. The harbour sharks within Imperial Court. That is Little Brother.
One name serves for all manifestations of him."

They set their eyes on the entrance and remained motionless after, and
I took off my jerkin and my shirt. Vaal came to touch me while I
slipped out of my boots. The points of His black nails traced ribs,
but didn't draw blood.

"This broken arm annoys me," He murmured. His head lowered. Teeth bit
where the break had been. My flesh hurt, but the bone no longer ached.

Straightening, Vaal tore the sling from my shoulder and tossed it
aside. My splint followed. He lifted my bare arm and licked the blood
He'd drawn, and then my skin felt better, too.

"I love the taste of you," He said. His hands lowered to my trousers,
but I grabbed His wrists to stop Him.

"Let me remove them, Lord. I would rather not lose all my clothes this
day."

"You have more in your sea chest."

"None this fine."

"Very well." He had a wry smile on His face, put there by my temerity.

I released His wrists, and He harried my lips while I fumbled with my
clasps and struggled to lower my trousers without tripping. I managed
to shove them off my ankles using my feet, despite that He kissed me
and bent me backward with His ardour. The scent of blood, and sea, and
urine clouded the air, so many fluids in their nature similar. Water,
iron, salts.

"Don't take me here," I whispered. "Please don't take me here."

Such a vain hope to think a shark might have pity. We crashed through
water. Into the depths of Imperial Court we plunged, straight to the
throne where a mountain of men had died fighting to stay on top. I saw
them clearly in my mind, witnessed them struggling and screaming, His
Imperial Majesty all but crushed beneath. And the water rising from
out of the walls. The sharks coming in from shadows. The feeding.

Nothing remained on Imperial Throne now. Even the upholstery on the
seat had been torn away during the struggle to live.

Vain attempt. Imperial Court was submerged to its ceiling.

I don't know how I breathed, but I did. And Vaal had me, there on the
emperor's seat. He did not bend me or thrust me beneath, but sat on
Calaru's chair and positioned me facing toward Him, crouched over His
lap. His black hair floated all about His head. He shoved away a
strand to free His face, and we kissed. I didn't want to put my tongue
in His mouth, but He sucked on it until I did, and then I groaned into
Him. Not from fear. I wanted Him, despite the place, the chill, the
red of bloodied water, the multitude of souls telling me their last story.

Vaal with Jumi's adult face and body. I used this as my reason, but
when the head of His shaft at last broke the boundary Jumi had never
claimed, I no longer thought of my lover dead so long ago. There was
only Vaal, filling me to the root of my manhood, filling me beyond. My
tongue in His mouth, His hands on my hips, and the cold of the water
cradling the heat of my engorged sex. All the victims, all their
sorrow and fear gripped my shaft and squeezed it. It was exquisite
torment, made all the worse when Vaal lifted me and thrust me down.

He set my mouth free. I arched back in the water, exposed my front to
more of the anguish, and felt fingers feather the length of my shaft.

Look, Haru, He whispered.

I looked. My mouth opened, and a long wail came out. The water
swallowed it. He had set a nail at the opening of my shaft. I watched
the blackness lengthen and plunge inward.

Claimed. Claimed where no man or woman had ever thought to claim me.
From front and from back, impaled. The feel of Vaal's nail in my
urethra at once chilled and burned. It was insupportable, the
pleasure. I stopped thinking. I lost the thread of time. My universe
collapsed to include only His intrusive shaft inside me and His nail
lengthening until it touched where He pounded my insides. And then
there was the little mental death.

Donating royalties

2007-07-07T22:30:00.000-04:00

Cut and paste from the Freya's Bower Authorchat list:

Well, the first day is creeping along. I shall post my special
announcement now.

I first started thinking of this when I watched a program on
television about gay teenagers and discovered many were kicked out of
their homes when coming out to their families. I was shocked parents
would do such a horrific thing to their children.

I've written many novels with mm content. I've dabbled in ff content.
I write het content. I'm working on content with transgender elements.
For me, love is love. If two men or two women choose to love each
other, that's fine with me. I make no distinction between their love
and the love a man and woman can have for each other. Everyone has the
right to love.

Loved Him 1 is primarily mm. In keeping with my beliefs, that to be
gay, or to be different, is not innately wrong, that a child, whatever
his/her orientation, is still your child and should continue to have
his/her parents' love, I have decided that, up until the last day of
December 2007, to donate the ebook royalties of Loved Him 1 to Gai
Écoute in Quebec.

Authors, you know how important sounding boards are. Well, they're as
important to those with huge life decisions to make. Support is
everything. That's why I chose Gai Écoute. The first place any young
person with questions about their sexuality might call in Quebec could
just be this place. And it's nice to know they have somewhere to
call that will give them enlightened information to help them with
their troubles.

You may want to know more about Gai Écoute. Here's their link:

http://www.gai-ecoute.qc.ca/

It's French. Sorry. I think the English organization may be a
different one, but it's very French here, eh. Smile They do take PayPal
donations, so I hope to make a nice donation to them January 1, 2008.
I will post the final result of this campaign then.

So. You buy a book, enjoy it, and Gai Écoute gets my royalties when
January 1st rolls around. And if you did enjoy the story, please tell
friends to support the author's endeavor. Smile

The pertinent links:

(book page) http://www.freyasbower.com/content/view/212/100/
(excerpt) http://www.freyasbower.com/excerpts/lovedhimtodeath.html

The recommendations:

http://cocktailreviews.wordpress.com/2007/07/05/loved-him-to-death-freyas-bower/
http://wl551.livejournal.com/45610.html

And of course, I have another excerpt posted on this list already. I
hope you'll read enough to know you'll have a good read while
supporting a good cause.

Karen

Festival Day!

2007-07-07T00:03:00.000-04:00

This is it. The Freya's Bower Festival has officially started, well, for me at least. It's 12:05 in the morning as I write this. Good enough for me.

I'm going to start off the festival with stuff about me!

Well, no, that's not fair. The festival is a loop chat for all FB authors, so let me just give the link:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/freyasbower_authorchat/

And there it is. Now on to me!

I shall start with reviews. I've had a continous ginormous grin since the first. It may be incurable. Let me just link the review. You'll see why.

http://cocktailreviews.wordpress.com/

White Russian gave me an entire bottle of champagne! Heeeeee!

And this evening I recalled that an LJ friend had mentioned she'd post about the book after she read it, and maybe 45 minutes ago, I discovered this:

http://wl551.livejournal.com/45610.html

So you see, the grin is probably incurable. Well, for a while at least. Heh.

Ok, so I'll be posting loads more today, but up on the FB Authorchat group. And I'll also be having a live chat on Sunday evening along with other FB authors. Come and join us. Register in advance, please. For the live chat, look for the profile option on the bottom right.

And I will have a special announcement sometime during the festivities. No, it's not a win this book contest. ;-)

First review for Loved Him!

2007-07-05T15:21:00.000-04:00

Eeeeeeeeee!

http://cocktailreviews.wordpress.com/

Eeeeeeeeee!

Happy! Happy! Happy!