new reviews up for exile

I've been remiss in the self-pimping lately (writingwritingwriting and preparing for an issue of Electric Spec and the end of school) so here goes.

There are new reviews on Amazon for EXILE. Accompanied by 4 or 5 stars, they say stuff like:

It's very, very rare to come across a truly original entry in the epic fantasy world, these days. ...  At no point did I get the feeling I was dealing with cut outs or your typical fantasy cliches.

***

 I'll admit that I don't read much epic fantasy, but this story was absorbing and intriguing right form the start. The world is vast and complex, but is revealed gradually as the hero, Draken, travels through the kingdom of Akrasia, neatly named 'the arse-end of the world'. Lots of magic, action and great characters...

***

 I could relate to the inner turmoil of the main character, loved the plot twists, and the battle/fight scenes were AWESOME. I can't wait to read the next book in the series!!!! 

***

The ending, which I will NOT give away, made the whole book worth the read.

My cohorts and I are preparing for our reading at Boulder Bookstore in ONE MONTH:
 

Thursday, June 13
7:30 pm

ME
JA Kazimer
Shannon Baker
Lynda Hilburn
Drinks and dancing following; 

location TBA (probably Conor O'Neils and the Absinthe)

YES. THERE WILL BE DANCING.

 

And for fun, here's a snippet from something I've been working on, a short story set in the world of Akrasia (different country, 1500 years before, give or take): 

             Lyorn shoved her toward the house. Erryna almost tripped on her nightgown again but managed to stay upright. Smoke made her cough. They walked her around the bodies sprawled on the flagstones and on the little road in front of the cottages. The dead lay pale and still. Blood ran in thick, glossy pools. More bile rose but did nothing but sting her throat. She had nothing left to throw up. They kept her walking down the row of cottages. Families had been dragged out of their beds and murdered.

     “Who is missing?” Lyorn asked.

     Her lips parted. No sound came. She swallowed hard. “My wee brother.” Phelan!

     "Ah, the little lad," someone said cheerfully. "Dead in his trundle."

     


 

bikini

Cuz that's been on my mind for awhile now.

I've long suspected this. Whenever I hear people talk about exercising to lose weight I  mentally shake my head. Have you ever counted calories expended on a typical 20 minute exercise bike? You use up enough to make up for a cookie. Not even a very big cookie. I realize about metabolism, yeah. I plan on walking the dog (now that The Winter of Our Discontent is behind us). But I won't do anything too strenuous; it's tough for me to take an hour out anyway and exercise makes me hungry.

I lost 30 pounds a few years back by basically counting calories. I did two things.

1. I kept the diet to about 1100-1400 per day, though I really did well, obviously, when I was on the shorter end of that. 2. I also wrote down what I ate.

I had to get pretty rigorous to really lose, pretty much looking at every bite that went in my mouth. That's what it takes. I didn't exercise a whit. I also never felt better in my life.

I did Weight Watchers, which lets you "bank" calories and also gives you enough to go tie one on of an evening, as long as it's light beer. I tried WW two years ago again but the plan had changed and I lost so slowly it was painful. (They let you eat more, for one.. Hey, the slower you lose, the more money they make, right?) So now I'm going it on my own, which I figure would be better for me in the long run anyway.


I'm doing it again, but it's a bit of a slow start. New habits and all that. But  I've managed okay and lost a pound and a half. Not stellar. But I know that, say, next week, if I stick to the program I could drop as much as five pounds in a week. That's pretty common, actually, to drop a lot at first like that if you're really doing the program.

I don't have as much to lose as when I did weight watchers, and I'm not planning on getting that low again. For one, I'm almost ten years on and I'm not sure I'm supposed to be that skinny. But we'll see. I wasn't planning on getting as low as I did when I did WW either, so it might happen. 

Anyway, that's one of the things I'm doing.

Insert your weight loss successes and trials and tribulations in the comments. :D

sundry

I'm writing loads, and when I'm not writing I'm hanging out with kidlets and hubcap, like at a Rockies game. And I'm having some Thoughts sometimes. I jot them on the iPad in the night and email them to myself.

Like this:

Did you write your 500k words of suck, put it down, and write some more on something different? I did. I think new writers spend way too much time revising, not realizing how difficult it is to revise utter shit and how little you learn from it. Newer writers also spend too much time thinking of publishing. I spent about 10 percent of my time thinking about publishing for my first few years of writing.


and odd little notes about my stories that no one but me understands:

Santa Muerte - find a sigil
Don't forget the plants.


I'm also finding I've less patience for discussing the business of writing lately. Maybe because I'm so wrapped up in writing now. That is my job, actually, the biggest part of it. To that end I've bought two new books: Writing Fantasy Heroes and James Scott Bell's Plot & Structure.

And I'm taking weekends off social networking lately and doing lots of fun social stuff. This weekend, though, I want to see MOVIES. Which I never do, but there are good ones out right now. Yay!

What are y'all up to?

brenda novak auction

BookSworn is offering up a collection of signed books for the Brenda Novak auction for Diabetes. It's  a cool collection and we've promised to include a few fun surprise items, too. The auction listing is HERE.

Some of the books (minus a couple of late arrivals) are pictured here.

 

Right now the bid is ridiculously low, so I encourage you to bid early and often! 

Also, EXILE is an item from my agency, 

Nelson Literary Agency.  

That listing is HERE.

how much is too much?

This struck a chord with me.

I'm online a lot (as people know) and I have been steadily since 2004, when Sex Scenes opened for business. Back then people used to call me Sex, or sometimes Starbucks. I had dozens of wonderful friends who didn't know my real name or what I looked like. (Clue: I was younger, thinner, and prettier then.) In the nine years since, I've found the Internet is like anything in life: it's all about the people. I'm fortunate to still have wonderful internet friends (some of whom have become wonderful RL friends).

Aaand, sometimes people are jerks, just like they are in RL.

But I had an extreme opposite reaction as what Paul Miller sought, in 2004-5 when I first started blogging. As opposed to learning who I was by being offline, I learned who I was online.

There is unequivocal freedom in anonymity, which the Internet lacks these days, especially for me and other writers, who must "get my name out there." Facebook changed that; everyone is known there. In a way I'll always resent Facebook for that, because that time of namelessness meant so much to me as a person and as a writer. My early years at Sex Scenes taught me people want to read what I write. I found a voice (often different than my fiction voice, not always to my benefit). I learned to write, yeah. I also learned to be me. Essential stuff for a writer.

I'm doing a new thing where I'm dropping off FB and emails on weekends. Really, I'm pretty busy weekends anyway, and I'm not so rigid I won't toss up a tweet about going to a Rockies game or whatever. But I realized I've had too much interaction lately. I'm a loner at heart. I need alone time, and time with friends and family, and that's best found on the weekends. I'm getting kind of snarly about protecting it and it comes out on the Internet. So...not much Internet on the weekends.

The Internet has a certain siren song, though: the instant gratification of response, something sorely lacking in a novelist's life. But I'm monitoring myself that way too, and using it as a reward sometimes. And let's face it, sometimes we need to just fuck around. Sometimes I wonder if many writers need to fuck around more than other people. Where better to fuck around than online?

I neglect things because of internet usage; I also write instead of clean, plant flowers instead of social network, read instead of sleep.  You know, so many hours in the day and all that.

It's a common refrain to say we're online too much. But really? Are we? How do we define "too much" vs "just right"? I'm not sure we can or should quantify it, but can we qualify it?

Where the wind takes you

My kid wrote this song, produced it, and played it. :)

here for a minute

Why haven't I posted?

Er. Uninspired. Also writing a space opera (that has promised to kill me) at a mind-boggingly slooow pace and I'm at the hard bit so...Squirrel!  Which is a short story for an anthology that has such a great list of names I can't not write a story for it!!

Plus lots happened. Starfest!

Hubcap, Me, David Boop, Peter Wacks

 

Me, Jesse Bullington, Molly Tamner (in the wayback)

I'm still fussing mentally over a new proclivity toward feminism. I've sat down to write a post a half-dozen times but I don't have my thoughts sorted yet.

This past weekend I played Cards Against Humanity (a party game for horrible people) with some old friends (which we were advised to do, not start off with strangers. However, I do so much in my life with strangers, I don't know if I'd care...)

Anyway, it's a hoot of a game and I'm well known for hating games.

Print it or Buy it, but srsly, get you some.