Primarily for my benefit, but y'all can come and check it out if you'd like to, too!
* means I have kept the book

Books I read in 2012:
1. Wanderlust, Ann Aguirre *
2. To Say Nothing Of The Dog, Connie Willis
3. Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins(digital) *
4. Catching Fire, Suzanne Collins (digital) *
5. Mockingjay, Suzanne Collins (digital) *
6. Matchbox Girls, Chrysoula Tzavelas *

Today was a day of bad news for the household. Not for me personally, but for family across the states. I therefore confess to having done, oh, nothing that I planned to do today. The long weekend will help sort things, I'm sure.

The Creativity Flow will return on Monday. Yep, I'm going to post Monday, holiday or not.

Have a good weekend! :)

So as I mentioned on Monday, I have something a little different for my usual Wednesday post. I hope you'll indulge me. I hope you can stand taking a break from Tolya and the epic fantasy world for a little while. We'll come back to them, I promise.

But I am so excited about another project that I have to interrupt myself and share with you.

A little backstory: A lot of times, a story will come to me not with a story, but with a character speaking a line that, to me, pretty much sums up the character. It's usually loud, it's almost always undeniable, and it stops me in my tracks and makes me want to write that one right now.

For example (and one day you will know about this project too), I once heard: My name is Triumph. I wear a badge.

I still love that line. *self-indulgent swoon*

But for the project in question, I heard: Being a vampire isn't all it's cracked up to be. Anyone who tells you otherwise is prowling for a snack.

And lo, Tybalt Jones, the hero? Protagonist. Of my next book was born.

Sadly, I was a little behind the times when it came to vampire fiction. By the time I'd finished the book and started it out on the rounds, most agents and editors were saying dear God, send me no more vampires or I will stake you, the author, instead! So Tybalt and Violet (his faerie girlfriend) and Granny (the witch) and the werewolves and and and came home to me.

But there's life in this story, and I am not ready to give up on it. So New York may be tired of vampires. Readers are not. And when we, as writers hear 'Give me the same thing but different!', well...

Meet Tybalt Jones, the reluctant vampire.




This is a cover that I commissioned from the wonderfully talented Anne Cain. I am thrilled beyond all words with this cover, and more, with having a book that has a gorgeous cover with a multi-racial man front and not-exactly-center-but-close-enough. Thrilled. So thrilled. Can you hear me squeeing from there?

I am currently working on getting this formatted so I can release it in a number of electronic formats. Tybalt is going to lead my charge into the world of independent publishing.

And next week, I will have the first chapter available for you to read. I've got a lot of work to do to get everything ready, but that much I can promise.

New words! How exciting is that?

Looky here! It's still Monday and there's a blogpost. How cool is that?

Hello, folks. Apologies again for a quiet weekend. How were things on your end? Do anything exciting that you want to share? Or not exciting but that you feel like sharing anyway? It's all good.

This weekend, I did some more renaissance faire prep. I drove up to Grass Valley, about 90 minutes away from where I live, and spent the night with a couple of other ladies from my new guild. Saturday we got up bright and early and continued on to Fallon, NV where we met some other new guild members, did some fitting, did some sewing, and generally had a grand old time.

I've got the Ren Faire bug pretty seriously again. I realized that it's been eleven years since I worked a faire and I've -missed- it, people. I am currently wishing I could work a long-term eight weekends in one place faire, but maybe one day. This season, I'll be doing several smaller faires.

The first of which, by the way, will be the Valhalla Renaissance Faire in Tahoe. It opens the first weekend of June (June 2nd) and runs two weekends. If you're in the area or feel like making the trip, come see us. Let me know.

I am in the process of fixing up some borrowed garb before I can get the material to make my own. I am apparently "squishy" enough to fit into this particular dress (by which I mean I can be laced into a bodice tightly enough to make it fit), so I'm good to go, at least for this faire. We are a tailoring guild, so we'll be talking about and demonstrating sewing and embroidering and lace making and possibly spinning and dyeing and ... it's going to be a blast.

I am also currently obsessing about building my next-step character. I've always wanted to play a Spaniard at Ren Faire. I may get my shot!

At any rate. I'm back on track for posting, I think. If all goes well, Wednesday's post will be a little different. Keep your fingers crossed. :)

This forgetting to post thing is becoming problematic. I will work on that.

Nothing witty to relate today. Just more fiction.:)

I missed another day on Friday. I am sorry for that! Clearly I need to build up a backlog of posts so that when I have nothing creative to say or I run out of time, I can pull from the pool and be good to go.

Anyway!

Hi! It's Monday again. It's Monday in the middle of May, actually. A very alliterative day and holy heck, how did it get to be that far into the year already? I distinctly remember when a month seemed like fooooreeeevvver, Mom (unless it was summer vacation) and now? Now they just zing by without giving us time to catch up.

Ah, the joys of getting older.

Over the weekend, I finally managed to see The Avengers. Yep, I'm a week behind oh, the rest of the world, but it was well worth the wait. I thoroughly enjoyed the movie. It's been a while since I was caught off guard and laughed out loud in a movie. That happened several times. There were also a couple of near-sniffle moments. If you've seen it, you probably know what they were.

I have to confess, though: I still don't get Hawkeye. I don't know his story. What's the appeal there? Props for him actually, eventually, running out of arrows, though.

Nothing more exciting than that to report, I'm afraid. I hope your weekend was a good one, and that all of the moms in your lives had a fantastic day yesterday!

Hello hello, and apologies for Monday's radio silence. Sadly, I caught my annual head cold and it laid me flat on Monday. I could have tried typing, but it would have come out as nonsense, I'm sure. Rather than being productive, I sprawled bonelessly in a chair at my desk, stared blankly into space and wished that wishing to feel better didn't make my head hurt so bad.

But I'm better now, thanks to the passing of the ick and the Engineer's gift of broccoli cheese soup. (I was craving it while sick. He doesn't like cheese, but he made it for me anyway. From scratch! Now that's love, right?)

I managed a pretty eventful weekend before I was felled, though. On Saturday, I went to a Renaissance Faire symposium. These are hour-long workshops on various topics of interest to those who volunteer, vend at, and perform at ren faires. I used to work at a ren faire. I have not for years, but I'm pleased to say that I'll be slipping back into garb this season for the first time in a decade plus. I am so excited!

Then Sunday, the Engineer and I went up into the hills to visit a co-worker of his and his wife, to spend the day and meet their llamas. Yep, llamas. Silly looking critters with a bouncy gait and long, fluffy, almost-bunny-ears. I got to help shear a couple of them, including a -gorgeous- young gent. I got to touch and pick through the fleeces she's collected for years and I brought home, I kid you not, several pounds of llama and alpaca fiber.

I now have enough of that to last me a while. Probably. Okay, maybe not. What can I say? It's an addiction.

The ick set me back a little on my projects, but I can tell you that I have at least one book cover coming up relatively shortly that I think you will all appreciate (which means I need to finish those revisions so I can share the story with you.) Another is promised and, knowing the artist's work, I don't think any of us will be disappointed.

So the list of Things To Be Done hasn't gotten any shorter, but really, with us writer types, when does that ever happen?

To tide you over until I have something more to show, there's another chapter of the good (free!) stuff under the jump here.

It is shaping up to be a somewhat busy weekend, here. No, not just because tomorrow is Cinco de Mayo, though there may be a refreshing adult beverage or two consumed, just because we can.

No, because there are Things To Be Done.

We still need to find a new place to live.
There is a Renaissance Fair Symposium about ten minutes away.
There is a visit to a llama farm on Sunday.
Some gaming would be nice.
As would going to see the horses in their new digs. (There are sheep there, too. Bonus!)
I could stand to do some dyeing.
And the kitchen floor needs washing.
And The Avengers, of course. Worth the crowds? It just might be!

Only some of which will happen, I'm sure, but that seems like Pretty Busy to me.

And you know what? My writing looks about that busy. Not as busy as some of course, but, there are Things To Be Done there, too.

Finish revising The Dragon Undone.
Finish transitioning Of Shadow Born to this side of urban fantasy rather than that side of paranormal romance.
I really should write the second book I proposed to that e-publisher...
Format Immortal Lies for indie release.
Check my inboxes eagerly for cover art news.
Figure out an anthology story.
Gear up for the Month of Writing with Catie (You're not going to want to miss this. June is going to be epic.)
Complete Songmaker
...

So what am I doing today? Well. I was productive this morning. I was! Now, I am spinning and watching things on Hulu and Netflix. Yep, I know. Pass the popcorn.

What do you have planned for the weekend? Whatever it is, I hope it goes as you expected, or even a little better. "See" you Monday!

Despite the fact that I haven't done much out of the house today, it's been pretty busy, at least in my head. I have also been having with my twitter account (I'm wordsofgray over there, too, if you want to follow me but are not yet -- I'm one follower away from 100 at the moment!) so in addition to being "busy", I have felt very disconnected from my virtual peeps.

And sometimes that is okay too. Sometimes social, borrowing from Monday's post, is really not vital.

That said, it's Wednesday and that means there are words to be shared on the other blog. Enjoy!

It should come as no surprise that I am not a very social being. I'm a writer. We can be very solitary beasts.

There was a time, Once Upon, when I was in my twenties (...and how much did I never think I would write things like this, then) that I was relatively popular. Friends would often come to visit, even from out of state. I went and did things. It was fun and sometimes overwhelming. No, I was never Popular Girl in High School popular -- despite doing the morning announcements senior year. Everyone knew who I was, by voice, at least. Did this score me extra party invites? No, it did not.

Anyway! Now that I am older, I am not so social. And really, I tend to like it that way. I embrace my hermitness. And I'm old enough to make up words now, too. I am happy to write and dye at home, alone, for the most part. But sometimes, it's nice to get out and be social, too.

Though I am considering a virtual knit night, I go out to my local yarn shop once a week and knit with friends. We have, as I've mentioned, gone to the local gaming store to play board and/or roleplaying games. And this past weekend, I got to see a friend present a fantastic workshop at my local RWA chapter.

RWA, if you don't know, stands for Romance Writers of America. It is one of the few professional writing organizations out there that allows people without publishing credits to join. It is a fantastic resource for those who are writing or want to write romance, and want pointers, advice, and a shoulder to lean on. I've been a member for many years. When I was crazy, I considered volunteering at the National level. I was on the board of my local chapter for many moons. I got better.

As I am no longer writing pure romance, and I'm in that nebulous space between published and NYT Bestseller, it's not a perfect fit for me any more, but I'm staying. I'm still writing and most importantly, I treasure the people and contacts I've made while a member.

And this was not meant to be a recruitment ad. Organizations are not required and aren't for everyone. But they do give me an excuse to practice being social, and for that, I have all the gratitude in the world.

Oh, and speaking of my chapter: Brenda Novak is one of my chapter mates. As tomorrow is the first of May, her auction fundraiser for diabetes starts tomorrow. There are amazing things up for bid, my friends. If you have never seen it, go take a look. If you have, come back this year and shop again. You won't regret it.

Hey, look at this. I'm being somewhat serious. It does happen on occasion. No need to mark the calendar.

Lately, there's been some great conversation about what books are worth, at least as far as e-books, e-publishing and independent publishing is concerned. I'm not sure whether that's because conference season is upon us again, there are interesting things happening with regards to security and format on electronic books, because there have some hugely successful fiction projects on Kickstarter lately, or phases of the moon. Whatever the reason, lots of people are thinking, talking, and discussing it.

And since I'm going down the indie road myself over here, of course I've thought about it too. I have not done a lot of opining on it until, well, today, because there are a lot of things to take in to consideration and a lot of factors to weigh.

For instance: Is it possible to underprice a book in the "new" electronic market? Yes, I think so. Though there's something to be said for free fiction (if I didn't believe this, I wouldn't be offering it) and for the "introductory" price point of $.99 on some of the big book selling sites -- Amazon and Barnes & Noble at least -- I don't think that it's a good idea, personally. Not for a first-time author. Not for a first independent offering.

The argument is that free and low price points get an author's name out there and help to build a readership. I think that those things might help, certainly, but I can't agree that a low price point alone is going to do the trick. If an author writes a crap book and offers it for $.99, it's really not going to benefit them to have a lot of people read it simply because it's cheap.

(I realize that no one thinks that they're offering a crap book to the reading public, but let's face it. No one writes a book that makes people squeal with delight every time. There are good books, better books, books that pale in comparison to others, and crap books. Sorry, but it's true.)

On the flip side, it's also absolutely possible to overprice your book as well. Having read comments and talked to people both on and offline, it is the rare reader who is enthusiastic about paying full paperback (or hardcover) price for an ebook. Though there are still costs and time involved in writing and preparing an ebook for general consumption, the perception is that they don't take nearly as much money to make so they shouldn't be sold for as much.

Fair enough.

I think the solution lies somewhere in the middle. Where, exactly, I'm not sure. There's still a lot of figuring and hashing and thinking to do.

Which clearly I didn't do enough of before typing out this rambly, point-lacking post. If you have thoughts you'd like to share with me, feel free to comment or question. If you don't have thoughts and you just want to doodle smiley faces on your screen where a comment might go? Well. That's okay too.

Happy weekend!