As I write this at 6am on a Wednesday morning, several major news organizations have called the Alabama Senate special election for Democrat Doug Jones. The Republican candidate, the odious Roy Moore, has yet to concede. This is a big deal for American politics. Early exit polls and anecdotal evidence suggests this is more a…
Read More Doug Jones and the Republican SoulThis will eventually have its own spot on Filigree’s Rule, but I thought the problem merited its own longer post. Literary agents are human: they have likes, dislikes, foibles, and triggers like anyone else. Sometimes an author is lucky and their quirks will mesh with the agent’s. This is one of the major reasons to…
Read More Abusive agents and how to spot themHint: if your publisher pops up and declares they will no longer consider submissions from agents, and requires their authors to sever existing ties with agents…your publisher is either predatory, clueless, or both. This post prompted by the hilarious meltdown from Tyrant Books, an independent literary press based in Rome & NYC. Tyrant *has* published…
Read More On agents and publishersFor a couple of years recently, I worked at a strenuous but fun job painting faux finishes on fiberglass architectural forms. A mostly outside job winter or summer, it involved schlepping big cast brickwork arches onto sawhorses, fixing the (numerous) flaws from the manufacturer, and painting a three tone finish to mimic a particular type…
Read More Myself from SpaceGuilty as charged: I love Halloween more than I love Christmas. I used to be dazzled equally by both. I adored the lights, the glitter, the rich mythology. Both are consumer frenzies, but I hold that less against Halloween than I do Christmas. Not so much the fault of Christmas. It’s been hijacked by both ultra-conservative…
Read More Orange Orchids & a Halloween shirtOkay, we’ll try another version of this. In other words: writing is work. Often very hard work, that might pay little or nothing for an insane amount of time and labor. There is no set ‘destination’, since your career can skyrocket to best-seller and movie status, or crash into obscurity with equal speed. If you…
Read More Crane’s Guide to Writing and BakingProof that the universe has a questionable sense of humor, or GOP marketers are harvesting emails without researching them, or Weebly sold me out (or all three): Trump’s campaign folks have been sending me begging emails *on the email account I use only for things related to fanfiction*. Often very dark and or seriously raunchy…
Read More Trump Asks Me For MoneySince I’ve a nice uptick in sales lately on this M/M space opera romance, here’s a mood board of my original art inspired by the story, cover background from Natasha Snow, and images from Alphonse Mucha, The Nature Conservancy, and Pinterest. I don’t know any other way to respond to the anniversary of 9-11, or…
Read More Moro’s Price mood boardOh god, this is so funny it’s painful. To go along with Lani Sarem and GeekNation’s previous misadventures involving Handbook For Mortals, YA author and blogger Claribel Ortega takes on the soul-stunting task of reading and live-tweeting this book. To be super efficient, Claribel has Storified two separate reads in these handy threads. So if…
Read More Claribel Ortega tweets HandbookI may go on a rant later about the twin dangers of deregulation and ignoring manmade climate change, and how millions of people in south and central Texas will be paying for those governmental, industrial, and institutional mistakes. But right now, let’s consider the sheer power behind this ‘historic’ storm, made immeasurably worse by warm…
Read More Hurricane HarveySo much news to absorb in the last week or so: Charlottesville’s aftermath, Trump’s Phoenix speech, the solar eclipse, religious riots in India, North Korea, Hurricane Harvey… I might touch on all those later, but let’s look at two hilarious gaffes in recent social media. Both of them embody privilege, legal-but-morally-suspect corruption, and astounding condescension…
Read More Big Fails: Lani Sarem and Louise LintonOr: the state of LGBTQIA SFF and Romance publishing in 2017. Tl:dr…diverse authors may be courted by large publishers not so much for the value of their stories, but for the cachet of representing them as proof of diversity in publishing. Unagented authors and agents need to be wary of this possible trend, and plan…
Read More Diversity BingoI’ve talked before about a wonderful fanfic-writer-turned-agented-commercial-author, Alis Franklin. Time for a bittersweet update. LIESMITH has a great sequel, STORMBRINGER, which you can read. And what looks to be a couple of brilliant follow-ups, which you can’t (not yet anyway). You can find out more about her writing here. Out of respect for Alis and…
Read More Alis Franklin: Books of the WyrdAs of 8/4-2017, these are the companies advertising on Fox during Sean Hannity’s show. You know, the Sean Hannity of ‘Sandy Hook never happened’ (it did), ‘Hillary killed Seth Rich’ (she didn’t), and ‘Why sure, I’ll allow myself to be waterboarded to prove it isn’t torture!’ (he never did, not even for charity). So if…
Read More Sean Hannity’s AdvertisersOr in other words, the Twitter phenomenon that is #ThinkBIGSundayWithMarsha, begun and hosted by media entrepreneur Marsha Wright. Okay, many of us roll our eyes at those inspirational quotes slapped on lovely or heartwarming posters, and presented in slim metal frames. You know, the ones your boss and mine put up on our office walls?…
Read More Unrelenting OptimismNow that I have your attention, here’s a little rant about authors asking for reviews. In short, we shouldn’t get grief for this. We shouldn’t be made to feel guilty for asking, or told we’re ‘pandering’ or ‘imposing’ on our readers. Likewise, we shouldn’t hold ourselves loftily above promoting our work in careful, tactful, honest,…
Read More Begging for Eyeballs: authors and reviewsA teaser for a piece called ‘Enlightenment’, which I describe in more detail here. I love book art. It’s one of my default settings after 20 years. ‘Can I make it into a book?’ is a question I now apply to everything from spam emails to a set of cocktail swords found in a thrift…
Read More Book Art Jewelry: EnlightenmentIn the mid to late 1990s, on the late-lamented site SFF.net, I hung out with a group of amazing writers who gave me courage to push forward with my own writing. One of those was Helen Davis. I was lucky enough to read the first few drafts of what would become ‘By Blade and Cloth’.…
Read More ‘By Blade and Cloth’: Helen E. DavisHappy Independence Day, for my fellow US friends (and for everyone else!) While we’re on the subject of independence, do you know about Patreon? The company bills itself as the best way for creators to build a sustained income. From what I’ve seen from many Patreon accounts, it’s succeeding. 35 creators each earned over $150,000…
Read More Patreon Ahoy!I get approached by advertisers more than than I expected, for a blog that has too many words, not enough pictures, and a very low (but loyal!) readership. So far, none of those advertisers have made a compelling case for value-added vs annoyance factor…so, no ads on Blue Night. I’ll happily review products and works…
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