release(s)

So I've decided y'all need an Xmas present, cuz y'all are just so great. What is it? We-ell, TBD. But it'll be a great read, cuz that's what I have to offer y'all. Probably a short story or two, because I seriously don't have time to edit a book between now and Christmas. I'll have to figure out how to link a PDF to the site, and maybe even some art...

Other than that, I have two paid-for releases coming up, GULP.

"To Stop a War," my fav short story I ever wrote, comes out DECEMBER 28 at BIG PULP. I love me that magazine, so go read it and support them and buy their PDF. They're a great zine with awesome taste. (if I do say so myself)

I composed TSAW on prescription cold medication in one night.

See? Aren't you glad you read SS@S? Who else KNOWS that, hmm? Besides you?

19 days to the release. I'll be remindin' y'all and shit.

And then of course QUENCHER, the internet porn book. Er, Erotic Romance. With vampires. Requited love. And girl-on-girl action.

I've been told I must have a release party for it, (my friends are so COOL) so January, here we come. Details forthcoming, but guaranteed there'll be jello shots. Or something equally yummy. Be there or be...somewhere else.

What amuses me most is that this is MY life. The two releases, within days of each other, couldn't be MORE different than each other.

Other people have NORMAL lives. NORMAL books. NORMAL jobs. NORMAL things filmed in their garages. And stuff.

And then there's, er, me, who apparently retained my weirdom since Lincoln Jr. High. Where I had a teacher whose hall pass was a toilet seat. He caused a mental block against science that I suffer from to this day. Still, embrace the weirdom. Some days, it's all we got.

Other exciting stuff going on, too, but I'm not at liberty to share yet.

normal

Ok, after some minor trauma last night and this morning, things are gradually getting back to normal. By which I mean there are various computers running various online sites, SCAR open on the craptop, phone calls to be made, 50 cookies to be baked, ass to be worked, carpets to be vacuumed, beers to be drunk.

You know. Normal.

And it's stinking cold here. And I HATE MY NEW MICROSOFT KEYBOARD. (Yes, it has the letters on it. No, it can't keep up with my typing. ) I have 45 stories in just my slushbox. Two posts to edit. A list of promotional crap-er-- stuff, a handwritten letter to write, a business letter to draft...

You know. Normal.

Going now.

"NORMAL." Discuss.

caught

Trinidad is a man caught between two worlds. He grew up the child of Wiccan ecoterrorists, suicide bombers who also took his little brother and several Christians with them. After that happened, a kindly man, a priest, raised him. There's a solidity in the Church that young Trinidad craved, and he felt he must make up for the sins of his parents, so he dedicated his life to protecting his priest and his church. He is about as one-sidedly Christian as they come. But of course, Castile comes along, his childhood Wiccan friend, to show him that Christianity doesn't have all the answers, and that all Wiccans, and not even all eco-terrorists, are bad.

Trin's resistant, of course, and he has to face the latent mistrust from his Order and his Church. Castile and Trin can solve a common problem, but Trinidad must let his carefully constructed walls fall to do that. So eventually, he is going to have to accept himself as he is, not just the archwarden facade that has served him well these many years. How's he going to do that?

I have an idea, but I haven't written the ending scenes yet.

Obviously, if you read this, then you realize SCAR is really about my own struggle with being caught between conflicting worlds. Writing it now, it seems so obvious, but I've just realized. (I've always been a little slow on the uptake.) But if I had to choose my defining characteristic, it's "not belonging." And whadoyaknow? it's Trinidad's, too.

Anyway, it explains a lot about why I haven't been able to let this book go, even though I constantly wonder if it will ever sell.

write a writer day

Got a nice note yesterday from a reader, amid the snowboarding and football. It really made my day. Writers, whether they write on a blog or fiction or whatever, always love to hear their thoughts touched someone.

It's reassuring, too. I mean, I still hold that there is some lying on this blog, but it's mostly by ommision. Do you really want to hear the details of my struggles with my injuries from this year? Doubt it. But I've had moments of laying my heart out there. I definitely do it in fiction, too. So when I publish a story and someone tells me it's their favorite thing they've read lately, or when I throw something out here on the blog and someone tells me they think the same way, it's reassurring. It lets me know that I'm not completely off base with my weird thoughts. Because, dude, no one thinks that they're the only one who thinks this way like a writer does. We're so insecure, you could shove us with a feather.

So in that vein, let's declare today Write A Writer Day. But please, drop a writer a quick note detailing what touches you about their writing. You'll be glad you did.

And you'll make someone's day. :D

quencher

My cover for Quencher. It's my first "official" book. It's currently only available through an Epress (Whiskey Creek Torrid) and it was one of the easiest things from drafting - sale I've ever done. I have a great partner. He and I work well together. (He plots, I write. We both have our strong suits.) Yeah, you heard me, it's a he.

I do quite like the cover. I think it's eye-catching and vampirish, which were my wants. So I'm quite pleased.

Anyway, it's got your sex and your violence, you know, all the things we like in a book.

No idea what the price is, but it hits cyberstands on January 1. Go buy buy buy!

fuckitness

I guess because I color my hair now or something, most people don't know or don't believe what a geek I was in school. Glasses. Braces. Acne. I played make believe games until the summer after 7th grade, and I only quit that when writing really took hold. My favorite things were horses, Lost in Space, and Star Wars. I liked to draw the Crucifix, of all things. I'd never seen a Disney film, but I'd seen several cool bands in concert (bands no one my age was interested in, but Aretha Franklin, The Beach Boys, Fleetwood Mac). I was too short to wear cool clothes and my feet were too wide for Adidas. I wore Zips, for crissake, and track suits out of the old lady petite section. I was just all... wrong. Geek in spades.

In 6th grade I moved from grade school in Kansas City to a jr high in Chicago. It was a whole new world. Kids there were over Star Wars. Over it, when THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK was just hitting theaters! I did get to ride horses and take lessons. Eventually everyone got horses but me, and I never enjoyed showing, so I never quite fit in there, either. (Never underestimate the power of riding horses. If you can handle a 2000 pound animal, you can seriously handle anything.)

For a year and a half, through the end of seventh grade, I had one sort-of friend. We didn't have much in common. We had no classes together. Our moms threw us together. She was very nice to me, despite being stuck with the sucky girl.

I didn't do well in school. I mean, lower than average grades. I struggled with math. I literally ignored my science teacher. (He was a first-class asshole and set up a permanent mental block about science in my head that I've yet to overcome, 30 years later.) Other kids got school. They caught on. They saw the big picture. I daydreamed and missed a whole hell of a lot.

I knew I was all wrong but I had no idea what to do about it. I sank into writing a book, my first book. I spent months alone. I didn't see other kids except at school and church for an entire year.

At some point you have to say fuck it about what other people think, and I think that's what I was doing, in my 12 year old way. Well, we're grownups and so it should be easy now , right? Well, not so for me. I still have many distinct moments of nonfuckitness. I'm going through a period right now. I mean, I don't even really fit in with the geeks. I'm certainly not smart like them. I swear I should go back to glasses and let my hair grow scraggly. Maybe then...

So with my kid, who feels as if he has no friends, as if no one wants to be his friend, how am I supposed to advise him? He's far too young to have any measure of fuckitness. And really, he's a cool kid. He's much cooler than a lot of the kids I know. He has literally not a mean bone in his body. He simply doesn't understand when people are mean.

Yeah. I know what you're thinking. He's MY kid. I have to all think that. But I think I've got a little bit of perspective, having worked with kids in a professional capacity. He's a kid that's going to make a fabulous, intriguing, smart adult, once he gets over his self-centeredness. He snowboards. He plays drums, man. He rides motorcross and gets air. He's also drop dead gorgeous, and that's not just being a Mom. People have stopped us on the street.

Kids are mean. I accept that. I could go into all sorts of reasons--like organized sports shoved down their throats--of why I think that is. But that's not what this is about. This is about teaching a kid self-confidence when every message he gets all day long tells him he's all wrong.

And seriously, that is way beyond me as a parent.

just words

I like to think I somewhat understand the power of words. It's something I think about a lot, why a particular story strikes me or not. It inevitably gets down to the words.

My kids could probably repeat verbatim my policy on cussing. "It's just words," I tell them. "To me, those particular words don't hold a lot of power." (This is because they're trash words, almost on a par with qualifiers or adverbs.) "But you must be aware that words, and especially THOSE words, hold a lot of power over other people. So my advice is to not cuss at all because it'll slip out when you least expect, or want, it."

My kids saw FABULOUS MR FOX and I guess they inserted the word "cuss" every time one was appropriate in dialogue. Well done, writers. The kids thought it was HI-larious.

My kids have/do cuss. I've called them on it myself. When they've tattled on someone else doing it, my first response is: "Oh, and let me guess, my little angel never joined in, right?" My oldest, who inherited my husbands ability to lie (as in, none at all) always collapses into giggles. When the second one is old enough, she'll look me in the eye and tell me "No, Mom, I didn't." And I'll believe her because she's that good. At lying, that is. But I have no illusions that they haven't inherited my potty mouth. And the husband? He's turned cussing into an art form.

I always like to tell the story, and I probably have here, too, when I lost my purse in Target. I picked up the wrong cart and pushed it an aisle or two away, distracted because we were looking at toys. And then I realized.

"Kids, I lost my purse!"

And both kids (something like 6 and 3 at the time) said, "SHIT!"

In the toy aisle.

I just laughed (after I found my purse).

Now don't get me wrong. I love the word fuck, from the act to the versatility of the word. What other word works in so many grammatical, er, positions? But as for power, using the word fuck, even in unusual circumstances or polite company, isn't going to shock me. It's not a word that has power over me.

Yesterday at a store I listened to this guy on the phone talk about this "bitch" he'd met and fucked at a party. He just went on and on and on. It was all "bitches" this and "hanging with my homies" that . (I mean, seriously, haven't we given up talking like that yet? I thought that went out at least half a decade ago.) It was all big talk, obviously for the sake of whoever he was talking to. But after awhile I could tell "bitches" is just how he refers to ladies, and that he actually liked this "bitch" and I was laughing to myself, thinking you better not call her that to her face or she's going to break your heart, homey. But maybe not. Maybe for their culture "bitches" is a compliment. Or maybe he'll give up talking that way cuz he just found the love of his life. How do I know? And after all, it's just a word, with all the power or lack thereof attributed it by the receiver.

Which leads me to think of power and and that everything everyone does all day long must be a struggle for power. I wonder what it would be like if everyone removed power from the equation, not only in the form of words, but in all non-verbal language and action. Would it be boring?

Fuck, I bet it would.

is a bigot

For fun on a Friday:

I give you "Is a Bigot."

If nothing else, he's a way fun writer.

Happy Shopping Day!!!!!!!!!!!!!