I have no idea if gold prices will ever drop enough to let me actually make these (or if I’ll make ’em out of ruby CZ and copper and have them plated gold instead), but here is one digital sketch of the Iron Man earcuffs I described in a recent* fan fiction piece. Readers wrote…
Read More Iron Man earcuff and a cosplay rant (adult link)This is a re-blog of a great interview I just found, courtesy of Publishers Weekly: Steven Zacharius of Kensington Publishing Corp. talks frankly about changes in print and digital publishing, the harsh reality of low sales for the majority of self-published authors, and what lies ahead for one of the last big domestically-owned publishers duking…
Read More Kensington Publishing Corp.Tune in today as J.J. Abrams capitalizes on the concepts of interactive storytelling, deep maps, secret histories, and some really fabulous book production. …Not that I’m snarking too much, because I am always thrilled when this form of interactive art media snags more willing victims. I am even looking forward to reading this newest addition.…
Read More Hey, look, Someone Important discovered Book Arts!Okay, okay, so I did just announce that I want to do a few more standalone novels, for the challenge in brevity. One of my fantasy favorites, Patricia McKillip, has done nothing but standalone novels for the last decade or so. Even though there are series I wish she could finish. (Pat, are you there?…
Read More ‘Saga’ is not a four letter wordA year after I outlined it, I’m starting the first actual writing on a new standalone M/M fantasy novel or novella: Mask of Falling Stars Nearly-blind expert maskmaker Parril Morni ignores his better judgment and travels to the city of Altenlida to help his aunt secure the winning bid on some very important festival masks.…
Read More Mask of Falling Stars – begins!Well, yes, most writers do. But there is a special, oddly pure bond when it comes to readers of my free stories, whether those are fan fiction or original fiction. I’m not making money directly from those stories. I get nothing out of them except the initial satisfaction of writing, and the reviews and comments…
Read More I love my readersWhere do people (non-writers) get the idea that writing is a glamorous and lucrative career? For most of us, it is emphatically not. I would have earned more as an optical scientist or by selling term life insurance. That I did not take those or other sane paths speaks to my deficiencies, not strengths. Never…
Read More The Writing Life or something like it(Psst. If you don’t care about the Marvel Comics Universe, or fan fiction, don’t read this post. It’s okay, I don’t mind.) So, I don’t blow a lot of my spare time on Tumblr, Twitter, or Facebook, because there are just not enough waking hours in the day, or scientific equipment that can measure precisely…
Read More Stark Raving Mad (language advisory)First, y’all know what a revenge query is? Revenge queries are the boomerang query letters that a relatively seasoned (i.e. jaded) writer has lined up, to send out to new markets the same day that the first query comes back with a rejection letter. Rejections are a lot like band-aids, turns out – it’s better…
Read More More art I should not be doing.(Nope, don’t look at me. I didn’t enter this year. Moro’s Price came out last year, and I didn’t even know what the Rainbow Awards were at the time.) But several fellow authors from Loose Id are on this year’s honorable mentions list, and may be finalists when the formal announcements are made tomorrow, October…
Read More 2013 Rainbow Awards honorable mentions are out! (Adult content advisory)I just found out that one of my fiber art pieces has been juried into the wonderful new show Eco Editions, which will be seen at my friend Laura Russell’s 23 Sandy Gallery, in Portland, Oregon, from November 15 – December 28, 2013. I’ve been in 23 Sandy shows before, and they’re always beautiful and thought-provoking examples…
Read More Art and the Animas River…steal words from other people. Now, hold on there, pilgrims. I know that most artists ‘steal’ from each other. Most of the time we try a little finesse, taking bits here and riffs there, and sewing it up into a recognizably different package. There are only a few basic plots, after all. But with the…
Read More What to do when you can’t write…(adult language advisory)“Laugh and the world laughs with you. Weep, and you weep alone,” runs the quote from poet Ella Wheeler Wilcox. Maybe not. The NY Times Bestseller list almost always has at least one example of ‘Misery Literature’. Misery memoirs (and their cousins family histories and autobiographies) have been made into major movies and won significant literary awards. And…
Read More Misery Memoirs and Pay-to-Play PublishingErotic romance author Kathleen Tudor also writes M/M erotic romance as D.K. Jernigan. To celebrate her upcoming Circlet Press editorial retreat, Kathleen is hosting an author giveaway over on her blog and Facebook page. Up for grabs is a paper copy of the sizzling Storm Moon Press M/M erotic romance anthology Dracones, with a story…
Read More D. K. Jernigan author giveaway (adult content advisory)Another AbsoluteWrite member has a M/M erotic romance novella being released today: Roughing It, by Holden Wells. To be honest, I’ve only read part of this 35,000-word book – but that part was seriously edgy and hot, with lots of emotional content as well as a convincing M/M perspective. It’s on my order list. From…
Read More Roughing It, by Holden Wells (adult content advisory)Today, Evernight Publishing releases Anais Morgan’s new contemporary M/M erotic romance Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now. I read a beta version a few months back, and loved the story. Not just for the main characters, but the gritty reality of the Big-Box home-improvement store setting, and the triumphant resolution (and it’s not quite what you think,…
Read More Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now, by Anais Morgan (adult content advisory)To celebrate Labor Day weekend and the end of summer (here in the States), I’m featuring a couple of new releases from fellow erotic romance authors. First up is C.P. Foster, with the sizzling second book in her Arcaneology series. I’m picky about vampire erotica stories, simply because there are so many of them in…
Read More Secret Studies, by C.P. Foster (adult content advisory)The first title for this post comes from Berke Breathed’s amazing comic Bloom County, and this particular strip, seen here at Robots From The Future’s comic feed. The second title for this post comes from this quote by author Samantha Geimer, via a Publishers Weekly interview in which she talks about the fallout of her 1977 rape by…
Read More Offensensitivity and the Pressure to Be Damaged (adult themes advisory)I had meant to add this information to my earlier ‘Banned in Russia?’ post, but there was just too much going on. It needs its own post. The Russian state and the Russian Orthodox Church are working together to hold power in a stalled if not decaying country – and they’re blaming homosexuals, ‘atheist scientists’,…
Read More Banning Russia, or why we shouldn’t look the other waySci Fi Con PSA! Phoenix area! Affordable and fun! Got your attention? For those of you in the east to southeast Metro Phoenix area this upcoming weekend, I’d like to point you toward CopperCon Revolution, a local science fiction and media convention with a long history – both with me and the SSF community. My…
Read More CopperCon Revolution