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Archive for July, 2007



Saturday, July 14th, 2007
Updates and Other Blather

I haven’t written a book from beginning to end that hasn’t been contracted in a long time. I’ve decided after I finish up Wolf Unbound, I’m going to write Sisters of Mercy. The full. Period. I haven’t done this since last year. Writing partials and selling that way is nice. It saves time and I don’t get so attached to the book so if it doesn’t sell I’m not as sad. At the same time, it’s like taking a few bites of a meal and wandering off.

Anyway, by pushing and finishing up Wolf Unbound way before my October deadline, I’ll have some time of my own. I don’t owe anyone anything until January so I’m going to finish this book because I want to. This writing thing has to be a balance for me and while I love the books I write on contract - obviously or I wouldn’t have written the partials to begin with - the idea of writing something wholly for myself, without any constraints but those I place on my own, makes me very happy. It’s a simple thing and god knows I want to sell this book of course, but I think at least once a year I want to do this if I can.

Let’s see - Thursday

Zokutou word meterZokutou word meter
45,549 / 70,000
(65.1%)

Wolf Unbound

Friday

Zokutou word meterZokutou word meter
47,682 / 70,000
(68.1%)

Wolf Unbound

I’m cooking, consistently working my way toward the end of the book and I’m liking where the story is going.

For Thursday and Friday

Zokutou word meterZokutou word meter
2,362 / 90,000
(2.6%)

Sisters of Mercy

Friday, July 13th, 2007
Friday Booktalk

NJ Walters’ Woven Dreams - this is a new installment in her Tapestry series and we’re back with the Bakra brothers. Wheee! I won’t lie when I say how much I love NJ’s writing. This story has a wonderfully wounded hero (and it’s a menage too) and a smart but hurting heroine. It’s sexy and fun and another great installment in the series. This one is available now from Ellora’s Cave.

Michelle Martinezes - The Finishing School - I picked this one up at RT and needing a break from pure romance, I picked it up, intigued by the hybrid police/legal procedural angle. I’m glad I did, I really enjoyed The Finishing School.

The book is gritty and dark, the details of the death of the two prep school girls and the lives they led before their deaths aren’t pretty. I liked Martinezes choice to be dark here. The world isn’t always pretty, it’s not always filled with people who want to help you and love you, which sort of makes the interaction with those you love even better. The Finishing School is a clever, dark book, with some loose ends, a lot of character and it’s worth your time.

I finished up a re-read of the entire Crimson City series and as always, I do hope there’ll be more in the future. I love the whole series.

Colleen Gleason’s Rises the Night - The second in Gleason’s Gardella Vampire Chronicles is far darker than the first and I really liked it.

Victoria is still reeling from the loss of her husband and the crushing realization of her position and the loneliness this can mean to the rest of her life.

There’s a new threat rising and she’s got to deal with it.

The backstory is quite interesting and I thought well done. I love the twist of the historical paranormal. Sebastian is back from The Rest Falls Away and Max is little more than a shadow for most of the book, giving us glimpses and leaving us wondering until the very end.

Karen Marie Moning’s Darkfever - I. Loved. This. Book. Is it a romance? Nope. Is it standalone? Nope. Is it inventive, smart, funny, dark and well written first person paranormal? Yep. I can’t wait for the next installment! This is another one I picked up at RT. It had been on my list already but I just hadn’t gotten around to it yet. Now I have to wait until October for the next one!

Thursday, July 12th, 2007
A Last Bit About The RWA Flap

After this I’m done with it, but Angie James, my editor who kicks butt, takes names and makes me a better writer each time she edits me posted this on the author loop and also at her blog and as she’s given her permission to forward, I’m going to post it here.

Yes, Samhain will lose recognition after conference. It doesn’t change anything for our business or with the deal with Kensington, nor our IPS print program. We’ll still pay royalties on time and do business as usual ;) For us, it means we can’t do publisher type things at nationals next year. Perhaps someday things will change and we’ll be back at RWA, doing editor appointments and so forth, but until that time, we continue on as always. RWA is an organization for authors to network and learn from one another. As the guidelines have been set up, removing our recognition doesn’t take away your ability to utilize it as such and the benefits of RWA remain for those authors who wish to enjoy them.

Of course it’s disappointing to us that RWA is unable to accomodate small presses at this time, but it’s understandable that they must do what they believe is best for the authors and the organization.

However, it’s my belief that the allure of epublishing is our ability to sign a wide variety of books and genres without a huge monetary risk. Offering even 1000 dollars advance would remove our ability to do that. Our gain from being approved is not as significant as our gain from being free to take on books because we love them, not because they’ll earn out their advance. Once we enter into the world of larger dollar amount advances, we become a publisher who can’t take the publishing risks that we do now, never knowing what will hit and what will…not so much.

I know it’s important to some authors that their publisher be recognized and that there will be some who are disappointed by the
way things have gone and choose to seek publication elsewhere, and that saddens me because at the heart of things, I think we’re a pretty damn good publisher. We’ll move forward from here just as we would have had we been able to eep “recognition”. Nothing changes. Samhain will remain the same publisher next week, when the policy goes into effect and we’re no longer “recognized” as we are this week.

Permission to forward granted

Angela James, Executive Editor
www.samhainpublishing.com

I think this response is another example of what class truly is. I think some others could learn a lot from this.

Bottom line, I feel no less validated in my writing for Ellora’s Cave and Samhain than I do Harlequin. I got my start in epublishing and I have an amazing amount of freedom. I am a romance author and my publishers are romance publishers. In the end, it’s what I think that counts.

Thursday, July 12th, 2007
Thursday Stuff

No Thursday Thirteen for me today. I wrote until midnight last night and our internet was out from 2 pm until this morning so I’ll do it next week.

Anyway, I’m done being pissed at the RWA. I’m waiting to hear back from my publishers who are there and then I’ll write a letter. I can’t see renewing next year but it’s all water under the bridge and truly, aside from the ability to advertise in Romance Sells, it’s not like I’ve gotten a lot of benefits from the RWA anyway. Although I did love that article on writing from Nora in the RWR and I do read at least one thing in it every month. I’m always impressed with something another author says - Cathy Maxwell’s interview a few issues back for instance, I’ve never read her before but after that interview I went out and picked up a few of her books because wow, the woman is wicked smart.

I wish we could all just focus on the important stuff and not act like a bunch of sixth grade girls creating private clubs to keep people out. But I can’t control other people, I can only control what I do and so whatever. I was a romance author before I joined the RWA and I’ll be one after I let my membership lapse as well.

I’m over at The Bradford Bunch today talking about characters. Contest goodness as well…

The abominable heat of yesterday and the day before has broken, yay! It’s like 75 now instead of 100.

Zokutou word meterZokutou word meter
43,816 / 70,000
(62.6%)

Wolf Unbound - up 2720

And then after I got that far, I gave in and wrote this opening scene that’s been poking me in the brain. This one is post apocalyptic with a romance sub-plot.

Zokutou word meterZokutou word meter
1,300 / 90,000
(1.4%)

Sisters of Mercy - up 1300

Wednesday, July 11th, 2007
Daily Count, Ridiculous RWA Junk, Etc.
Zokutou word meterZokutou word meter
41,096 / 70,000
(58.7%)

Wolf Unbound - start of Day 4 - up 3063 from yesterday! Wheee!

Smidgen of the day:

His father nodded. “I’m glad to hear it. I don’t know what to say, son. I’ve just never imagined this situation. I like it very much that this Tegan makes you happy but I’ve never met a werewolf before much less had one in my family. I’d be shocked if you married a Protestant girl, this is way out of my league.”

Now - so I go back and forth on the whole issue of RWA membership because of some of the attitudes from the National Organization regarding epublishing, small presses and erotic romance in general. But I do like what the chapters offer and I’m of the opinion, or I have been, that the voices within the ranks should speak up. So when my dues came last month I paid them and now I’m sorry.

I am because on the eve of the national conference (one I am SO glad I didn’t spend a dime to attend) they’ve unveiled two of the most exclusionary new rules I’ve seen from them in a while. The first one is how publishers become RWA recognized. In the last few years several epublishers have received recognition: Ellora’s Cave was the first, then Trisk (a very controversial decision) and then Loose Id and Samhain. This agitated many people who seem to think the RWA should be about excluding people to make those members feel better about just how special they are because others aren’t.

To wit - the new board ruling on publisher recognition unveiled today:

Commencing with RWA’s 2008 National Conference, for official publisher participation, a romance publisher must verify to RWA that it: (1) is not a Subsidy Publisher or Vanity Publisher; (2) has been releasing romance novels via national distribution for no fewer than three years, with no fewer than two full-length romance novels or novel-length romance anthologies published in each of three consecutive years; (3) provides per book advances of at least $1,000 for all books; and (4) pays all authors participating in an anthology an advance of at least $500.

and they give us this little “note”
Note:

The Board wishes to note that a $1,000 advance for a novel is an extremely small sum. It is, however, a minimal indicator that a publisher is invested in an author’s career to the degree that RWA can reasonably allocate its conference resources to that publisher, as some consideration has been paid for use of an author’s rights.

What they’ve done is effectively pushed all epublishers out the door. Firstly, ones like Samhain who do give nominal advances and go to print but who’ve not been open for three years yet and then for everyone else with the 1K advance requirement.

I don’t talk about money in public. It’s crass and it’s like talking about how great your books are or how special your writing is or whatever, it’s tacky. BUT, I will say because it’s germane here, I make good money with epublishing. I can’t compare it to NY because my NY book isn’t out yet. But I am a romance writer for two very good romance publishers other than Harlequin (and hey, Harlequin is the grand damme so hee!). Moreover, is that all that makes a romance author? Money? Because what about those authors who struggle and don’t sell through but do so with a big publisher? Are they suddenly not romance writers because something they wrote didn’t resonate with enough readers to make them count?

And the advance stuff is another total blind spot. Look I’m not saying I hate advances, I love them, LOL. But it’s not the only indicator that a publisher is invested in an author. In fact, as far as I’m concerned, the size of the advance is such a small part of it. Look at publishers who do pay small advances but who do a lot of promotion for their authors and give their authors many avenues to write different things and explore. Dorchester does this. Look at Shomi! It’s a great line but totally experimental. They’ve done a lot of advertising for it though. My biggest point is, let the authors make the decisions based on what they feel is most important. Aside from fraudulent places charging authors to print books, etc, this stuff is all smoke and mirrors.

How is this reorganization to close the “club” doors on epublishers good for authors in any way? This is an organization made for romance authors. If they only mean those people the board thinks are worthy, they should say so and stop using my sales numbers to make romance look better. Stop taking my fucking dues then, damn it.

The continual moving of the goal posts to keep out the “undesirables” from RWA is so obvious and so ridiculous, I must admit I’m flabbergasted (and I love the word flabbergasted!) at the absolute, in your face bias I see. And yep, it’s bias. It’s bigotry from people who have no idea what it takes to be a working writer so they assume everyone faces the same struggles and has the same goals with their writing. I want to know how those board members voted on this stuff. Does anyone know? Does it have to be unanimous?

And the PAN stuff, not surprised. More of the same. As if by shutting people out it protects them. Like segregation protected people. It’s backwards logic but sadly, it’s pretty common.

Tuesday, July 10th, 2007
Start of Day Three
Zokutou word meterZokutou word meter
38,033 / 70,000
(54.3%)

Wolf Unbound at beginning of day three - 3251 words yesterday. Up 5782 total for Sunday and Monday!

Favorite smidgen: 

“No. Alphas don’t go. You have no idea what it’s like to deal with five Alphas in one room. Nothing would get done as they measured their dicks over and over.”

Monday, July 9th, 2007
Poetry/WIP/Creative Writing Monday

I’m working on Wolf Unbound so I’m in a BDSM state of mind. 18 and Over only Behind the text Cut…

Read the rest of this entry ?

Sunday, July 8th, 2007
70 Days Update
Zokutou word meterZokutou word meter
34,782 / 70,000
(49.7%)

Wolf Unbound at the end of day one: Just over 2500 words. Not bad.

Sunday, July 8th, 2007
Okey Dokey - Day One - Let’s Get This Party Started, Shall We?
Zokutou word meterZokutou word meter
32,251 / 70,000
(46.1%)
WOLF UNBOUND

Okay so it’s day one and here’s where I begin. Not a bad place really, I’m nearly halfway done. But I haven’t looked at this one since April so I’ll need to spend some time today re-reading to find my place and to immerse myself in the story and characters again.

Luckily this is the third, fourth actually if you count my quickie prequel, in a series so I know the family and the characters pretty well. So if I finish this one by this time next month, I’m golden because it’ll be out of the way before I go on vacation with the dude and I can totally enjoy myself without guilt because I will have finished my October deadline book and can get started on Outshined.

Friday, July 6th, 2007
Seventy Days Of Sweat - You In?

Alison Kent has a challenge up at her blog - 70 Days of Sweat. You can read the details here

From Alison:

The challenge begins on Sunday, July 8 and runs through Thursday, September 20. (Yes, that’s 75 days, but we’re giving you off July 11 - 15 if you need it for conference.

The rules are simple. You agree to write 4 - 6 pages a day (depending on the length of your book) every day between the dates listed above. If you need to take off a day, you make up the pages another. If you don’t like to write 7 days a week, too bad. This challenge lasts for only 10 weeks, and if you have to get up early on the weekends to get the pages done, you do it.

As far as reporting your progress, you’ll come back here each Wednesday and Sunday and post your total word count. (We’ll expect the first reports at LEAST by the 18th, the Wednesday following conference, though for those of you not attending, your first report is do on the 11th!)

The challenge is open to anyone writing in any genre, published and aspiring authors both.

Sign up at the above link at Alison’s blog!

I’ve signed up. You should too!