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.

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.

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.

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!)

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.

...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.

***

Excerpt week

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.

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.

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!

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.

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

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.

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,

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

( Read more... )

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.