There's Explosions, Then There's Alternate Realities

After my news yesterday about "Justice" being selected for Sword and Sorceress XXVIII, I spoke on the phone with Friend #1 who is trade published. There was the obligatory "Congratulations" (after I explained who the fuck Marion Zimmer Bradley was). Then she popped out, "You'll have to do a book signing."

WTF?

"I don't think so-" I started, but she burbled on with, "I can help you with arrangements. There's a couple of stores I've worked with. Oh, and maybe someone from New York will read it, and you'll get an offer from a big publisher."

nuqjatlh? (Which, by the way, is Klingon for WTF.) "I really don't want-"

"Or at least an agent! Think of what an agent could do for your career!"

"Why?"

 "What do you mean?"

"Why would I want an agent if I can make my own sales?"

There were some strange choking sounds before the portal between our worlds closed.

Later, I relayed the conversation to DH. He asked if I'd told Friend #2 about the sale yet.

"Are you kidding? No, I'm not going to tell her!"

"Why not?"

"I don't feel up to dealing with her screaming at me about how I'm a sell-out, how I'm being taken advantage of, blah, blah, blah. The usual indie rhetoric." I sighed. "They're both nucking futz."

Maybe that's the saddest thing about our strange new world. Everyone is so sure they are right; they cannot conceive of a world in between theirs and the alleged enemy.

In Which People's Assumptions About Me May Be Exploded

I didn't write a blog post yesterday because I've had some serious issues to deal with over the last couple of days: additional testing for a medical condition, some basic promo for Alter Ego's latest novella which came out last week, cranking on Blood Sacrifice, and reading over a publishing contract.

Yep, I know which of those items blew your minds.

There's this concept out in the publishing world that if you're pro-indie, then you're anti-trad. As I've said repeatedly, different strokes for different folks.

I love indie publishing because I can unleash my creativity. I love learning new things. I love being in control of my work. That doesn't mean it's right for everyone, and as long as you don't get in my face and tell me I'm a stupid, fucking idiot for going the indie route (variations of which have happened, by the way), I won't refer to you signing away all your rights to your book to a publisher as a moronic act of desperation.

Several people have asked me over the last two years if I'd ever consider signing a tradional contract. My standard reply is, "It depends on the offer." And contrary to popular belief, I have been submitting to short story markets roughly every six months.

Tuesday morning, I got my first traditional offer from Elisabeth Waters, who is editing Sword and Sorceress XXVIII. For those who may not know, the Sword and Sorceress anthologies were started in 1986 by the esteemed fantasy writer Marion Zimmer Bradley. She wanted to showcase smart, capable female protagonists in the tradional fantasy setting.

As a fan girl, I have every edition except II, III and V (which if anyone has extra copies they are willing to trade, I'll send you a signed copy of XXVIII; contact me!). I discovered so many great writers through S&S. Writers whose work I've fallen in love with: Mercedes Lackey, Jennifer Roberson, Carrie Vaughn, etc. This was a market I dreamed about writing for!

When MZB passed away in 1999, many of us fans feared that would be the end of S&S. But the Marion Zimmer Bradley Literary Works Trust has continued on with MZB's goal of promoting stories with female protagonists, and now S&S is closing in on a full three decades.

Here's the thing that tipped the scale for me: the contract that Ms. Waters sent me doesn't take away my rights to my work forever. There's no oppressive restrictions on what I can do as a writer. No claim on my next fantasy work. The advance is appropriate for a short story in an anthology. With its history, Sword and Sorceress XXVIII is something I'm damn proud to be a part of.

Does this mean I'll give up indie publishing? Hell, no! But if Ms. Waters wants my story in next year's S&S, I'm probably going to say yes.

Sword and Sorceress XXVIII will be available October of 2013. My story is called "Justice," and I'll have more info closer to the release date.

[As my primary beta reader, DH is already bugging me about a full-length novel with my heroine from "Justice." I should never have given him that copy of A Game of Thrones. LOL]

What Does Success Mean

There were a couple of events last week that made me think.

(This is where DH says, "AAAGGGHHH!)

The first one was having lunch with a former critique group. Four different writing career paths and life events mean we don't critique together anymore, but we still try to get together once in a while.

And by different paths, I mean incredibly different paths. Christie still writes for two of the Big 5 and 1/2, but she's self-published her backlist from the now-defuntct Dorchester and Triskelion. She's also hit the NYT Bestseller List. Teri started with Ellora's Cave, dabbled in indie publishing, and is now focusing on finding a trad publisher for her young adult series. Life has hit Jody the hardest, which is why she focuses on the magazines that still accept short stories. Then there's me, who went 100% indie after nearly two decades of rejections.

Christie related her adventures during her first publisher-sponsored book tour, so of course the conversation turned to book promotion. Needless to say, she's shocked at how little promotion I've done, yet I'm still make a few hundred bucks a month.

Quite honestly, I can't do the amount of travel Christie does for promotion. For one thing, I have a preteen child while her kids are adults with their own homes and significant others. Then there's my health issues. My immune system is so compromised I'm lucky to get through the grocery store without catching someone's disease. Believe me, I wish I were joking. A mild cold swept through GK's soccer team, and I spent a whole day on the family room couch because it was closest to the downstairs bathroom.

The other thing that happened last week was Charlaine Harris's last Sookie Stackhouse novel was released. Despite my best efforts NOT to hit spoiler sites, the fan backlash over the ending was a major topic of conversation on several writer business blogs I follow.

I realize I really don't want Charlaine's level of success. I already have DH pissed at me over something I'm going to do in Book 8 of the Bloodlines series, I can't imagine having thousands of fans sending me hate mail and death threats.

No, I definitely don't want the kind of success Christie and Charlaine have. I would never survive it.

Deep down, I want readers, not fans. I want to give people entertainment in their lives, but not to the point they go Kathy Bates on me. Most of all I want to bring them a little joy. That's my definition of success right now.

But I am a woman, and I reserve the right to change my mind down the road.

Old Spock v. New Spock

This Audi commercial, posted on YouTube on Monday, is too damn funny not to share! (Six more days until Star Trek: Into Darkness!)

More Lessons Learned and a New Distributor

Today's late post is brought to you by the luxury called SLEEP.

After this week's rampage of personal/family issues and trying to get Alter Ego's latest book uploaded, I slept nearly twelve hours, woken briefly by the thunderstorm that rolled through this morning. So, FIRST LESSON, make sure you get enough rest!

(You'd think that would be obvious, right?)

I've been trying out a new distributor Draft2Digital. One of the things I love about D2D is that I can upload my own EPUB file (something Smashwords' Mark Coker had been promising for over a year and only recently delivered). They charge a hair more for distribution, but it's worth the price for direct deposit to my checking account and to avoid dealing with the misogynistic owner of PayPal. (To me anyway. You need to be looking at your own financial goals.) SECOND LESSON learned, keep your options open when looking at e-book distributors.

The only issue I've had so far with D2D is that they use EPUBCheck 3.0 and my WORD files could not convert cleanly. This meant learning HTML coding.

AAGH! NO!

Not that I was afraid, but it'd been seventeen years since I had to learn a new programming language.

Okay, I was afraid my skills had rusted out completely.

The lovely Jaye Manus helped me out by suggesting NotePad++ for my HTML editor (it's freeware!). It took a few tries and missteps, but I FINALLY produced a file that could pass EPUB Check! THIRD LESSON learned, nothing is ever as bad as I fear it's going to be.

So in conclusion:

1) Sleep = Good
2) D2D = Excellent
3) NotePad++ = Good
4) HTML coding = hairpulling, but doable

5) Hiring Jaye to do my conversions next time = PRICELESS!

Planning for Death

Death is the ultimate taboo subject in American culture even though no one evades her. In denying our own mortality, we, as a whole, rarely deal with the things that can make our loved ones lives easier. I saw this denial destroy families, financially and/or emotionally, time-and-time again when I practiced probate law.

Author Jay Lake is facing these very issues right now. He's been diagnosed with stage 4 metastatic colon cancer. And, bless him, he's got a game plan in place to make things as easy as possible for himself, his parents, his daughter, his girlfriend, his ex-wife, and every other person who matters to him.

For each of the following main topics, Jay has a breakdown of what actions to take and who's responsible:

Now
Terminal Diagnosis
Leaving Work for Disability
Reaching the Point of Cognitive Incompetence
Hospice / Palliative Care
Death

You can read the rest at Lakeshore, Jay's blog.

Granted, I no longer practice. I offer this as common sense, not legal advice. Have a fucking will! If you've got underage kids, designate a guardian. Make sure someone knows where all your legal documents are.

I will now get off my soapbox.

[Note: On the evening of May 8, 2013, Jay announced he'd been officially diagnosed as terminal. Despite surgery in late January and chemotherapy since then, ten confirmed tumors have appeared on his liver, lungs, and omentum. Please keep Jay and his family in your thoughts during this difficult time.]

Monday Movie Mania - Iron Man 3

It took us three tries, but we finally made it to see Iron Man 3 last night.

We went to one of our local theaters for the three p.m. show on Saturday. Between GK's soccer game and DH being the league's district cordinator, we were late leaving the field and arrived five minutes before showtime. Sold out.

After a family conference, we decided to hit another theater that serves real food for the 6:15 Sunday show. We know from previous experiences that the supper shows on Sunday are virtually deserted while school's in session. We arrrived at 5:45. Sold out.

There were still seats available for the show at eight even though it was well on its way to selling out too. We bought our tickets and ran errands at Target before returning to the theater.

So what about the movie? There's a reason it blew out records and raked in nearly $700 million since its world-wide release.




*** SPOILERS ***

Pros
1) Pepper kicks ASS!

2) The plot holds an excellent commentary on our current "security theater" in much the same way last year's Bond movie, Skyfall, did, but without the flowery Dame Judi speech. Don Cheadle did so much more with a couple of disgusted one-liners.

3) The not-so-subtle mockery of the politically correct change in War Machine's codename to Iron Patriot. WARMACHINEROX

4) Sir Ben Kingsley should get two supporting actor Oscars for "The Mandarin". If you haven't seen the movie yet, I don't want to spoil any more for you.

5) As the kid sidekick, Ty Simpkins gets major points for keeping up with RDJ's rapid-fire line delivery.

6) You HAVE to stay through the end of credits! BEST CAMEO EVER! I nearly peed my pants I was laughing so hard.

7) Did I say Pepper kicks ASS?

Cons
1) There should have been more Rhodey, and it should have been better. Rhodey was used more as comic relief than as Tony's mirror as was done in Iron Man 1 and 2. If RDJ is serious about leaving the role of Stark (and it's not just a negotiating ploy), I want, no, I demand that Don Cheadle is in the next Avengers movie!

2) I wanted to see what the writers and directors would do with the Mandarin's rings constructed from alien technology. I thought that it would tie into The Avengers in that he stumbled across/stole Chitauri debris from the battle in New York. As a fangirl, the lack of rings was a slight disappointment.

Overall, I give Iron Man 3 a 9 out of 10.

May the Fourth Be With You

Happy Star Wars Day!

The Last of the Christmas Mints

As I write this post, the last of my Christmas edition Lindor Pepperment/Dark Chocolate truffles is melting in my mouth. They're expensive compared to other chocolates, but they have a lot less sugar, which makes my endocrinologist happy.

I definitely need the chocolate fix. Today's been a little crazy. It took me a while to hit REM sleep last night. I kept waking up as the temperature dropped because I was too cold. I'd ditched the extra socks, the sweatshirt and the extra blanket a couple of weeks ago since the nighttime temps were staying in the mid- to high-sixties. So each time I woke up, I put on or added, until I was warm enough to fall back to sleep, only to wake up an hour later from the cold again. We've had 100-degree temps on May 1, but this is the first time I've seen forty-two in May since we've moved down here. No climate change, my ass.

Summer break fever has engulfed GK, so keeping him on track for lessons has been a trial in patience, a quality I lack thanks to not enough REM sleep. He keeps wanting to compare the U.S. and the Roman Empire. Sometimes, how clearly he sees things scares me. Other times, I wonder why more people can't be more like him. Then I realize he's stalling, and I try to force him back to the main subject of the Emporer Tiberius's stance on religion.

Now, I've got to get some writing done before Vegas is on. It's one of my favorite shows so I'm expecting CBS to cancel it at any minute. If they do, I'll defnitely need more chocolate.

Happy Beltane!

May 1st. May Day. Beltane.

The half-way point between spring and summer for most people. In Houston, it means time to put the top down on the convertible and hit the Sonic Drive-in for milkshakes after a hard day, which was what we did last night. (If you live near a Sonic, they currently have a half-price shake after 8 p.m. promotion. The peanut butter fudge is fabulous!)

Both GK and I are counting down to the last day, i.e. May 24th.

Once school's done, I can see about cranking out a few more stories over the summer. We'll see what I can get done. If we continue getting seven inches of rain at a time, I may be spending most of my summer mowing the yard.

In the meantime though, I'm going to enjoy this beautiful weather. It'll be in the 100's with one hundred per cent humidity soon enough.

[DH pointed out that he had the peanut butter and jelly shake, which was also excellent. Neither of us had the nerve to try the peanut butter and bacon shake. Yep, you read that right. Peanut butter and BACON!]