Karenna’s an AbsoluteWrite buddy of mine, and a fellow M/M romance writer. One of her most charming series has been about a vegetarian werewolf pushed into heroism far beyond his comfort zone. The last (so far) is in the series was released today: Tempeh For Two. The main buylink at MLR Press is here. Karenna’s website…
Read More Tempeh For Two – Karenna ColcroftThis is a classic piece of advice for new(ish) writers. It’s also one of the most frustrating, for a couple of reasons. Often, we simply don’t know how to do that yet. It takes time and work to gain the skills to ‘show’ instead of merely narrating important details. Even the critical reading skills to…
Read More Show me, don’t tell meWay back in 1996, I’d heard rumors of a great new fantasy author. The news ran sort of like this: Lynn Flewelling – Del Rey – new fantasy world that wasn’t Robert Jordanish – great map – cute male thieves – cute male thieves fighting corrupt wizards and nobles – cute male thieves crushing on…
Read More Shards of Time – new Nightrunners novel!This morning I was delighted to listen to a Publishers Weekly webcast about the history, current state, and future prospects of digital publishing as it relates to LGBT and M/M romance and related genres. Brief (personal) definition: M/M is simply a romance or other story with a romance subplot featuring male homosexual relationships. LGBT fiction…
Read More Three digital M/M and LGBT romance publishers sound offIt’s been a while. I feel delinquent. This week: another 3K added to Moro’s Shield. After over two years of legal, financial, and health stresses that made it extremely difficult to write this book, I have the plot fully sketched out, I’m happy with it, and I’m well over halfway done with the projected 70K…
Read More Manuscript updates 3-25-2014I’m sorting – when I can – the vast amount of digital, handwritten, sketched, and printed-out information that accrued over my years of worldbuilding the Lonhra Sequence. It isn’t pretty. If I’m to have any hope of self-publishing these stories, I need to do serious housecleaning with all the interlocking and/or contradictory versions I’ve written.…
Read More Housecleaning and dedications…Only I don’t really have an ending deadline date, because I know all about best-laid plans. Singer in Rhunshan will probably, at some point in the next few months, become a self-published fantasy novella. There were valid reasons to delay this step: my fears, my ego, the complexity of doing this right, my worries that…
Read More My self-publishing countdown begins…Years back, I showed in a great little gallery in Sedona, AZ, right on the main tourist drag. Sadly, the gallery owners have long since moved on, but it was a fun gig. A lot of my best sellers were tiny canvas paintings with mini wooden easels, to be had in blank form at several…
Read More Sedona mini-art and internal landscapesAs I flirt more and more with the idea of self-publishing at least one novella in my Lonhra Sequence fantasy arc, I’m paying more attention to cover designs and fonts. All stuff I learned to use one way in commercial art, but the applications for print and e-book publication are slightly different. Once I had…
Read More The science of fontsBased off my post yesterday about the decommissioning of the ‘Lifeinpublishing’ tumblr blog, some friends wanted to know how I feel about the recent charges that many new Young Adult dystopia novels and series are ‘derivative’. I have strong feelings about the direction YA has been going, especially in science fiction and fantasy. I have…
Read More YA dystopias, derivative or dynamic?Years ago, after a particularly tense quarter at a company I used to work for, some defiant soul hung this sign up in the break room. It was probably inspired by the bi-weekly forced meetings all departments had to endure before getting their paychecks. Meetings that followed one of two paths from management, depending on…
Read More ‘The beatings will continue until morale improves’Thank you, kind readers, for reading, discussing, and reviewing my debut novel Moro’s Price. Many of you have taken me more or less gently to task for the large cast, sprawling settings, and confusing names and histories mentioned as backdrop for Moro and Val’s story. To maybe help you out a little (or at least…
Read More New page: a Moroverse glossary and appendixI am honestly trying to decide how to feel about a business practice I’ve heard of recently: writers (often erotica writers) who file the serial numbers off their earlier published work, re-do it slightly if at all, and publish it as new fiction under another title (and often a new pen name). It’s called mirroring…
Read More When writers plagiarize themselvesCourtesy of Tor Books, the noted writer offers a love letter to epic fantasy, explaining to the rest of the world why some of us adore gigantic, sprawling, multi-plotted stories. It’s worth a read. Author’s note 3-4-2014: I haven’t read a lot of Sanderson’s work yet, though I can say that Warbreaker was a solidly…
Read More Brandon Sanderson on epic fantasyI recently had a ringside seat to an authorial meltdown that made me cringe on behalf of the meltees. Without me going into too much detail, a couple of writers basically said, “We don’t read other writers in our genre, because we don’t want to compromise our unique voice.” Going by blog and Twitter comments,…
Read More Golden words and golden momentsNow, I will be the first to admit that I harbor some ambivalence toward George R. R. Martin’s best-known fantasy series. I’ve never actually read the books. (I won a set of the first four and donated them to a reading charity; I’ve made the decision to wait on reading the entire series until the…
Read More Game of Thrones pop-up bookHa ha ha ha ha ha ha, I’ve known something y’all haven’t for a couple of months, but I kept it on the down-low because the author asked me to. But now she’s spilled the beans, so I can too. Announcement thingy here: http://blog.alisfranklin.com/2014/02/27/you-gais-imma-gonna-be-an-author/ I know this unbelievably talented writer whose fan work knocked my sox…
Read More Wyrdtouched, the NovelAdded 11-13-2021, see note below!) Here in the US, writers are getting some interesting incentives. Late last year, we heard about Detroit’s plans to boost the local arts and literacy scene through a permanent residency program for authors. Basically, authors promise to stay in a Detroit house and put down roots in the community, and…
Read More All aboard: free houses and train residencies for writersI had conclusive proof today of something I’d noticed before on several fanfiction sites: stories with happy endings get more hits, faster, than stories with unhappy endings. (Author update, February 28, 2014: the two stories in question are in the same fandom, and are virtually identical in word count. The angsty one was released on…
Read More Simple lessons from fanfiction (some adult content)Rounding out our week of Valentine’s-inspired M/M flash fiction are three more short pieces. Evelise Archer gives us ‘Valentine’s Jeans’: a happily married couple get a chance to recreate special moments, courtesy of their teenage daughter . Kate Lowell shares ‘Fire, Fur, and Faulty Genetics’: an alpha werewolf and a slightly magic-challenged witch celebrate love, trust, and…
Read More M/M flash fiction, Day 7 (adult content advisory)