Alternative Booker Awards

Seumas Gallacher went and did it again – he has graciously honored me by tagging me for an Alternative Booker Award. Personally, I think this is a ploy to get a peep at my personal bookshelves, but… at least as far as books go, I’m a bit of an exhibitionist, so he’s in luck. The idea is to mention five of your favorite books – preferably without going all literati and pretentious – and then tag 5 other bloggers with this delightful award. Now, choosing only five books is going to be completely impossible for me, so bear with me, you’ll just have to cope with several series!

My newest favorite series on my ‘keepers’ list is by Sean T. Poindexter, and because it’s new and I haven’t mentioned it before I’m going to natter on about it, because I tend to be a little enthusiastic about finding a new favorite. The Dragon’s Blood Chronicles – thus far I’ve read books 1 and 2 – The Shadow of Tiamat and The Will of the Darkest  respectively, are simply wonderful. I would seriously go all fan girl on this poor fellow, so it’s probably good that he’s far, far away. No, I don’t go in for going fan girl because an author is ‘cute’ (although… he is kinda cute), I go fan girl for authors who can write a damned good story. Nothing’s sexier than brains, good vocabulary, and creativity. I’ve already started pestering the poor man about when book 3 is coming out and was treated to the news that there’s a spin-off series coming along as well, which delights the hell out of me. Brains, vocabulary, creativity, and productivity too? What? Oh. You want to know what the books are about? Silly you.

The books center around Megan, a young woman who is entirely average – which I love. She’s fairly pretty but not fall-all-over-yourself gorgeous. She’s got a job she cares about that she’s actually qualified to hold… That’s a pet peeve of mine – characters with jobs their degree wouldn’t qualify them to get. She’s not rich. She doesn’t drive a faboo car. She has realistic insecurities about her appearance but doesn’t hate herself. She thinks her roommate is prettier – or at least hotter – than she is. She’s had past relationships that were lousy, and past experiences that were awful, but she’s not completely destroyed by them. She has a boss she thinks is cute but she hasn’t asked him out. She has a friend who is a complete bitch (oh, come on, we all have at least one). In short, she’s ordinary. I love that because that lets the reader identify with the character even when she’s thrown into extraordinary circumstances.

One of those extraordinary circumstances is hitting a motorcyclist with her car. She’s banged up, but he ought to be dead – and isn’t harmed in the least. He’s rich as Croesus, tall, dark, handsome… and a dragon. What I love about Garrett is that for all those wonderful things he isn’t the least bit charming. He isn’t ‘smooth’ with words, and he doesn’t know how to express his feelings. For me, that’s just about perfect – I, for one, can’t stand a hero who is “perfect” and romantic and all that. Love, in my opinion, isn’t about smooth talk, flowers, candlelight, and dancing. I find “romance” a silly thing for the most part. Love is about how you really feel – and how you continue to feel – when ‘the chips are down’. If your love doesn’t survive all hell breaking loose in your lives it wasn’t really love to start with.

Now, I’m not going to spoil the story for you, except to say that loving a dragon may very well be the definition of all hell breaking loose. Meg is targeted by vampires, as is Garrett, and Meg’s considerably more special than she appears to be. I will say that the plot is exceptionally well done; the ‘minor’ characters and their sub-plots are absolutely essential to the story and Mr. Poindexter develops their characters extremely well. The sex scenes are hot without being disgusting and tawdry or heavily laden with purple prose and ridiculous euphemisms. Better yet, they’re accurate for sex with a… um… well-endowed fellow. I’m sorry, folks, this may be blush-inducing, but unrealistic sex scenes in which the man is well-endowed and they go ‘all night’ are insanely stupid – there’s some wear and tear involved and you’re going to be walking funny and sore as hell the next day, plainly put. The fight scenes are dead-on accurate in choreography and physics (given that there are dragons involved, of course). That’s another pet peeve of mine – fight scenes that just couldn’t possibly work that way make me skim and roll my eyes at an author’s lack of research.

Next on my list is David Eddings’ Belgariad and Mallorean  series. I adore epic fantasy and these series are an excellent example of how it should be done.  Of course, Tad Williams’ Memory, Sorrow and Thorn series is also exceptionally well-done epic fantasy.  For both authors, however, I really only like these series and I’ve never been able to get “into” their other work.

I love funny fantasy, so competing for the ‘funny’ slot are Piers Anthony’s Xanth series and Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series. Of the two series, Discworld is considerably cleaner – I begin to worry that Mr. Anthony’s just a touch pervy. Mr. Anthony has, of course, produced several other series, most of which are even more ‘questionable’ than Xanth;  sex is fine by me, pedophilia isn’t, so I’m not going to recommend any of his other series.

I love science fiction, particularly space opera, and again I have competing favorite series. Lois McMaster-Bujold’s Vorkosigan Saga and Sharon Lee & Steve Miller’s Liaden Universe are my picks, and both have gotten Hugo nominations for the 2012 installments of their series – at least on my ballot. Yes, I get to vote on the Hugos this year. Much as I love Lois’s Vorkosigans, I really can’t get into her other books like Spirit Ring; they’re just not as well done and not as engaging.

My last category of absolute keepers are “my” authors. I’m probably biased, but I think that Justin Macumber (A Minor Magic), Lindsey Loucks (Grave Winner), Shawna Romkey (Speak of the Devil), Cindy Young-Turner (Thief of Hope and Journey to Hope), Jody A. Kessler (Death Lies Between Us), Diane M. Haynes (Rift Healer and Sirocco), Rusty Fischer (Reanimation Reform School among others), Denna Holm (Soul of a Warrior), and Wendy Russo (January Black) are putting out some of the best new books out there. Better yet, most of those books are either going to be series or already part of a series, which means there’s more to read! 🙂 Now, you may over-rate my bias here and think that I love them just because I’ve edited some of their work, but the truth of the matter is – that makes me that much more certain that these are really good books! Think about it; I’ve read these books several times over and I absolutely adore them and will read them again and again. That says something, right?

And, because it’s my blog, I’m also going to mention that I adore Neil Gaiman, David Weber, Larry Correia, and Eric Flint. Just because I can. 🙂 I read a lot, okay?

The five people I’m tagging with Alternative Booker Awards of their own – mostly because I want a peep at their bookshelves:

Shawna Romkey

Lindsey Loucks

Wendy Russo

Jody A. Kessler

Cindy Young-Turner

Just can’t wait to see their favorite books!

 

Wendy S. Russo and January Black

I have with me today, in my virtual kitchen, the very talented Wendy S. Russo, author of January Black, which was released January 15th. Those of you who follow my blog already know that I had the very great pleasure of editing this book for Wendy and for Crescent Moon Press, her publisher. From that perspective, I can certainly say that this is an excellent book well worth not only one read, but several. Wendy’s giving away one $10 gift card and one delightful LiberTea mug just like mine each day of her book’s blog tour – names to be drawn from comments on that day’s blog tour posts, so be sure to post comments on all of them if you’re really hankering for an awesome mug or extra book-buying budget! Additionally, I’ve been very sneaky and hidden a link to a special bonus excerpt of January Black. If you find it and click on it, the password is “matty”. Comment there and you’ll be in the running for an autographed paperback copy of January Black. I’ll post my interview with Wendy first, then pictures, so that my earnest readers won’t be distracted by either the gorgeous cover or lovely author.

MR: Hi Wendy! Good to see you. Just scrape the worse of the snow off on that bristle thing on the porch. You look chilly, let me get you that cup of tea I promised. Sorry about the weather. You’re a transplant like me, but you had the good sense to move south. How do you like Louisiana?

Wendy: Yes, I’m a transplant from Wyoming. I miss the mountains, but I love Louisiana. The weather. The people. The food. I’ve been all over America and I can say that there’s…  As Wendy tracks Mr. Robitille as he walks through the room, her voice trails off. …nowhere quite like Louisiana.

MR: Don’t mind Himself. He wanders through whenever there’s tea on. I met him here in Vermont. Where did you meet your husband, Robert?

Wendy: Powell, Wyoming. Robert and I were in a few classes together at Northwest College…Magazine Production and Drugs and Human Behavior. He was a Creative Writing major, and I was graphic design, so having those two classes together was a sign, if you believe in signs, which I really don’t. But it gets a little stranger. Rob is from Long Island. His best friend from high school, Dave, just happened to have an aunt who teaches psychology at NWC. Robert was on his way to UC-Berkeley, but hadn’t established residency yet. Dave says, “Hey, Powell’s a fun place,” so Rob stopped to get his general education credits out of the way. So, it was that tenuous connection that led us to meeting at all. And I’m not done yet. NWC is a two year college. I changed majors after my first year, so when I met Rob during my third year there.

And yeah, no. After all that, I’m still not a “signs” person.

The next question people usually ask is “how did you end up in Louisiana?” Rob’s cousin Jeff was an LSU student. He said, “Come down. Nice weather. Friendly people. Awesome food.” And he wasn’t lying.

MR: Your blurb says you’ve been writing for quite some time. When did you decide that you wanted to ‘get serious’ about writing? 

Wendy: By serious, do you mean committed enough to complete novels? Or masochistic enough to put myself through the arduous process of writing query letters/blurbs/synopses, researching and contacting agents/publishers, enduring 18-months of rejection by form letters and non-response before finally catching an acquiring editor’s attention?

I wrote mostly poetry before 1997, when I completed my first novel. It was the first of a Star Wars fan fiction trilogy and in hindsight, it’s bad. Well, my friends will tell you that the story is good, but the craft is sloppy.

January Black was the first story that I felt sure enough to pursue publishing, and it wasn’t until three separate beta readers came back and said, “You need to send this to a publisher.”

MR: Do you have other books in the works?

Wendy: I have 2 series, one with a companion book so that’s seven books and no real timeline for completion.

First, there’s Nick Jackson’s error. It’s New Adult Science Fiction with elements of alternate timeline and nanotechnology. The subject of the story is a 19-year-old DJ with Asperger’s Syndrome and stolen tech in her brain. The narrator character is her best friend Sam, who endures her abuse and hides her from various bad guys who are willing to kill her to get the tech from her.

That story has a Paranormal companion featuring Fenghuang, a Chinese fire god, who in this story has taken up residence in the nearby Wind River canyon and has been tampering with history.

The second series is The Choir Boys, which is New Adult Paranormal. It was started as a sort of Three Musketeers meets the Matrix with Angels as the bad guys. It’s evolved somewhat, but there are Angels, Fallen, ghosts, and humans, and hopefully I can take it somewhere interesting.

MR: I have to say that I really enjoyed editing January Black. You write a good story, and I love science fiction that has a well-done political ‘what if’. What brought you to explore the theme of what liberty really is? 

Wendy: The banking collapse in September 2008. I was thinking at the time that there’s nowhere to go. A few hundred years ago, when our ancestors were unhappy with the state of affairs in northern Europe, they left. They boarded boats and they started over. Now, I have Native American ancestry, so I don’t mean to ignore that their colonization destroyed a way of life on this continent. But… those people did something, went somewhere, to escape the cycle of tyranny of the European empires. And as the financial system crumbled, looked at a map of the world and wondered, where could you do that today?

The American consumer accounts for 20% of the global economy. Think about that. We represent only  4.5% of the population on this earth, but when our economy falters, the world’s economy takes a hit. Industries all over the world see less business, production goes down, employment goes down. The whole world is connected now. Unless you take yourself completely out of civilization, endear yourself to a primitive tribe and leave behind ties and conveniences, there’s no place on this earth left to go.

Anyhow, I was working on another story entirely when NaNoWriMo rolled around. I took an image from another WIP, a boy standing in an overgrown garden, and wrote a story about a kingdom where liberty was so taken for granted, the people didn’t even know they lacked it.

MR: I like that you explore how the government can control what the populace knows by controlling what is taught in schools. How concerned are you about revisionism in modern textbooks? 

Wendy: It concerns me, but my husband and I view it as a teaching opportunity for our son. It’s one thing to teach a child to read, to teach him how to separate the pieces and understand what’s being said, but skepticism of what he reads and the compulsion to research more and form his own opinion, that’s much harder and much more important. If, by the time that he’s in high school, he knows the difference between an answer that is “right” and an answer that is “correct,” I’ll be very happy. The question and answers won’t matter so much.

MR: I also like the romance between Matty and Iris. Matty strikes me as a decent boy and a gentleman, the kind of boy I’d hope my daughter would fall in love with. Do you know any boys like Matty? 

Wendy: Matty reminds me of my cousin Zach. Very smart. Independent. Loving, polite, and perhaps a bit socially awkward. In writing Matty, I wanted to present the teenage boy honestly.  I was terrified that I got teenage boys all wrong, but my husband put that down quickly. He also flatly told me not to touch Matty’s errant libido or the hints at masturbation, no matter who wanted me to change it. Matty really is the kind of boy I hope my son becomes.

MR: I recently posted pictures of actors and actresses who might fill the roles of characters in the book I just finished. Do you have any actors and actresses in mind when you think of your characters?

Wendy: There’s a scene in Blade 3 where Hannibal King, played by Ryan Reynolds, chucks a vampire pomeranian out of a high rise and it lands somewhere in the lower levels of the building. When Triple H’s character asks where his dog is, Hannibal responds,” Have you tried the lobby?” THAT Ryan Reynolds sparked King Hadrian.

When I started writing, Taylor Swift’s “Love Story” was being overplayed on the radio, and Matty’s frantic girlfriend took the form of a girl with curly blonde hair.

Matty actually doesn’t have a specific face attached to him. If I were to thrown a name out…Jesse Eisenberg?

MR: Writers tend to be readers too – what do you like to read? Any favorite authors?

Wendy: I {heart} Neal Stephenson, but he’s a tough act to aspire to be like someday. I also love Kate Evangelista, Marie Sexton, Hildie McQueen, Christine Ashworth, and Sean Poindexter. It’s an honor to be associated with them.

MR: What kind of reactions have you had to your writing from your friends and family?

Wendy: The response from friends and family has been incredibly positive, but they’re friends and family. *shrug*

I was blown away to learn that my husband finished reading it. Like I said, he used to be a Creative Writing major, and he’s got a very critical eye when it comes to literature. The first “final” draft he couldn’t get even three chapters into because of the errors in the manuscript. So, when he told me a few months ago that he finished it, and that he liked it, I was completely stunned. And felt like I won the lottery.

MR: I listen to a great deal of music when I’m writing. What are your favorite songs to write to? 

Wendy: It depends on the story I’m writing. With January Black, there was a lot of Taylor Swift, Dream Theater, Glee Soundtrack, and some stuff that my then 2-year-old son insisted we listen to. He’s got good taste in music. His playlist included The Who’s Baba O’Reilly and Sam Tsui’s “Lady Gaga Medley.”

Virgo’s playlist has Kesha and Lady Gaga, and lots of drum machine. The Choir Boys’ list has Breaking Benjamin, All American Rejects, and Red Jumpsuit Apparatus.

MR: Now, I understand that you’re giving away some lovely gifts for folks who comment. A branded coffee cup just like this one – without the tea in it, obviously! – and a $10 gift card are up for grabs, and I’ve sneakily hidden a link here in your interview to an excerpt of January Black – you’ll be giving an autographed paperback to one of the people who comment there as well, correct? 

Wendy: That is correct. There will be daily drawings, so more than one opportunity to win as long as you keep leaving comments on the tour’s posts.

MR: It’s been wonderful having you here, Wendy! I hope that when you do write another book I’ll get to edit that as well.

Wendy: Thank you, Melissa. And if I get another book accepted by CMP, I’m going to insist that you be my editor. I’ll wait in line if I have to.

First, the gorgeous cover:

Just so everyone can stop taking my word for it; “my” authors are entirely and unfairly attractive people – a picture of the gorgeous Wendy S. Russo herself:

I still claim it’s unfair that all my authors (not just the ladies – even the guys are, for cryin’ out sakes) to be better looking than I am, but that’s life, isn’t it? Of course, it wouldn’t be complete without a sneak peak at the awesome LiberTea mug you might win:

Being an honest person by nature I’ll admit that I cropped this out of Wendy’s photo – my own LiberTea mug is currently in need of a wash due to having been emptied just now over the course of our delightful chat… and my kitchen, while homey and comfortable, isn’t nearly so pretty as the lovely counter this mug is sitting on. I’m leaving out the quiche because it’s making my stomach grumble and I’m trying to lose weight. I figure it’s a good thing Wendy didn’t picture it with a delectable pastry or I’d be ringing a peal over her head for tempting my poor self beyond the bounds of self-constraint.

January Black blurb:

Sixteen-year-old genius Matty Ducayn has never fit in on The Hill, an ordered place seriously lacking a sense of humor. After his school’s headmaster expels him for a small act of mischief, Matty’s future looks grim until King Hadrian comes to his rescue with a challenge: answer a question for a master’s diploma.

More than a second chance, this means freedom. Masters can choose where they work, a rarity among Regents, and the question is simple.

What was January Black?

It’s a ship. Everyone knows that. Hadrian rejects that answer, though, and Matty becomes compelled by curiosity and pride to solve the puzzle. When his search for an answer turns up long-buried state secrets, Matty’s journey becomes a collision course with a deadly royal decree. He’s been set up to fail, which forces him to choose. Run for his life with the challenge lost…or call the king’s bluff.

Wendy Russo’s Bio:

Wendy S. Russo got her start writing in the sixth grade. That story involved a talisman with crystals that had to be found and assembled before bad things happened, and dialog that read like classroom roll call. Since then, she’s majored in journalism (for one semester), published poetry, taken a course on short novels, and watched most everything ever filmed by Quentin Tarantino. A Wyoming native transplanted in Baton Rouge, Wendy works for Louisiana State University as an IT analyst. She’s a wife, a mom, a Tiger, a Who Dat, and she falls asleep on her couch at 8:30 on weeknights.

The January Black book trailer can be found by following the link – it’s gorgeous, of course. Now… Did you find my sneaky link to that excerpt? I hope you did! Remember, the password is “matty” – without the quotes, of course. Post a comment here, post a comment there, and check out the other blog tour posts for today and comment there too! Good luck to you, and particularly good luck to Wendy as well as my heartfelt congratulations on the publication of her wonderful novel.

You can find her book on Amazon  as a Kindle ebook, and she’s currently discussing a print run with Crescent Moon Press, her publisher.

You can also find Wendy through all sorts of social media…

On her blog, on Facebook, on Google+, on Twitter, and of course on Goodreads.

Helluva Bang

I started the new year by corralling all my menfolk and lecturing them for a couple of hours. My temper and patience went off like fireworks – with a helluva bang.

Speaking of explosions, I’ve been thinking about weapons systems on my swampy world from Smuggler’s Pursuit. First, it started off as a colony world, so thankfully they wouldn’t be stymied by trying to develop weapons systems from scratch. Naturally, gunpowder would be impractical on a very swampy world, but electric-based energy weapons, a standard in science fiction, would be even more so. A missed shot with a taser-type weapon in inch-deep water might well be disastrous. A flame-based weapon system would be significantly better than that, upon reflection. On the other hand, the weapons of the middle ages would be admirably suited for everyday use, despite the difficulties with metalworking.

Upon consideration, I may have to go with a plasma-based weapons system, though those are as standard sci-fi as electrically-based systems. That said, as in any feudal society, the truly effective weapons would be limited to the nobility and the overall government. It’s surprisingly difficult to successfully hold serfs (or slaves, for that matter) unless that population has no way of retaliating or otherwise rising up against the government, hence our own Second Amendment. Conversely, tyranny doesn’t work very well when the population is armed and can stand up for themselves. That said, men at arms for the varied nobility would be armed, if not so well as the nobility, otherwise the interminable little wars wouldn’t work. This is looking more and more like sword fighting in the street and a lot of oil for preventing rust, with occasional charging dragon knight with a plasma lance. As interesting as that is for a scene or two, it doesn’t work for a civil war that Melia and Sophocles would need to take seriously, but space traders, particularly the arms dealer my Smuggler’s Guild pair are hunting, would certainly take care of the level of technology available for both sides.

I’ve still got to figure out what the ‘bang’ was that set off the fireworks between the two sides of this civil war. Is it a disagreement about how far those genetic modification should go? Is it a normal feudal war about royal succession? I’m preferring a combination of the two. The House Saurian vs. the House Draconis, a War of the Roses, as it were. Now, will our Crandal be young Henry Tudor and Electra (book 3 or 4 in case you’re wondering) Elizabeth of York? I don’t know yet! In any case, if the Saurians are supporters of genetic modification only to the point of a lizardman appearance and the Draconis are in favor of much more extreme bipedal dragon-like modifications there would be an outward appearance differences by means of which adherents could determine sides.

On the editing front, the cover for Wendy S. Russo’s January Black has been revealed and it’s gorgeous and set to be released in January!

January Black Cover Revealed

Isn’t it pretty? I’m excited for her!

And they call it…

I’ve got ‘Bella Notte‘ running through my head and I’m muttering to myself about the title of book #2 in the series. The first, of course, was Smuggler’s Justice. Should the second be Smuggler’s Capture or Smuggler’s Pursuit? I’m leaning towards the latter, since it focuses more on the pursuit of Melia’s quarry. The former could be seen as misleading the reader. I don’t know about you, but as a reader I get pretty peeved with writers who give books in a series titles that sound like spoilers and then go in an entirely different direction from that hinted at in the title.

I’m still hunting for Beta readers for Smuggler’s Justice, so even that isn’t as complete as I would like. I also need to do further research into agents and publishers, particularly with a view towards a publisher who would be interested in a science fiction series rather than a one-off. At this point I can’t see an end-point for the series, so I don’t know how long it’s going to be. So far I’ve got six books rough-plotted and material enough for at least three more after that.

I’ve turned on my Spotify for tonight’s writing. I believe I like Spotify better than I like Pandora because I don’t get “stuck” listening to songs that I don’t like. On the other hand, Pandora gives me a new song or two to throw on my Spotify playlist. Of course, my writing playlist – Writing – is already a day’s worth of music, so I’m in no danger of running out. I may throw some more mellow music at it tonight, though, since I’m in the mood for a more Dean Martin / Perry Como / Frank Sinatra vibe. Probably not great for writing dystopian science fiction with a space opera bent, but there you have it. I could just listen to my Mellow playlist, but I do want to get some writing done tonight.

Editing – sadly, at least for me, I’m all done with editing January Black. I enjoyed working with Wendy S. Russo and I’m really going to miss her characters. I know, as an editor I need to learn to distance myself more so I don’t get so sad when I’m done with a book! On the other hand, it’s probably a good sign for the book’s prospects if I do get a book hangover rather than being heartily sick of the characters by the third – or fifth, or fifteenth! – read-through. I’ll probably wind up e-mailing Marlene at Crescent Moon Press for another book to edit before dawn, but that’s just because I don’t cope well with no work to do.

On the home front –

The teenager is at loose ends, since the girlfriend is heading off for an out-of-state visit with family… I think. I get a lot of information second-hand around here; it’s one of the hazards of sleeping during the day and working nights. I still haven’t heard one way or the other if the girlfriend plotzed over the pendant and chain.

Little Man is quite delighted with himself, his bucket of plastic horses, and his twinkle lights. He’s added his dozen or so new horses to his plastic and resin menagerie of toy animals, introducing them to the rest with a lot of ‘horse noises’, which are apparently going to be a somewhat drier version of a raspberry. He loves farm things. We had a short chat via Facebook’s chat feature with his very best friend, who goes to the farm with him on Wednesdays. He’s missing her and his weekly visit with the Angora bunnies something fierce!

Himself would be enjoying his vacation more if Little Man would sleep past 3:30 a.m.

As for me – I had a sad spell. For just a moment, that moment between sleeping and waking, I could almost believe that the last 5 years and 5 days was a terrible dream and the voices I could hear of a gaggle of little girls were my little girls. I try to push all that emotion off and ignore it as much as I possibly can, but I did wind up having a crying jag. Thankfully, most of the time I don’t have a sonic assault creep up on me when I’m vulnerable so I can keep it under control and soldier on. On the up side, the neighbor’s daughters and their friends seemed to be having a good time selling hot cocoa despite what is shaping up to be another miserably cold evening. It was good to see their happy little faces and get Himself some fairly watery warm cocoa – it definitely wasn’t hot cocoa anymore by the time I got it back across the street, not in this weather!

Definitely a Job

Yes, after nearly three months I’m finally ‘gainfully employed’ again. It’s a relief, obviously. Thankfully this won’t take up the time I devote to editing – that’s always a constant – but it does take up the time I’d been using for my own writing. On the other hand, I can still do that on my days off, so it’s still a win-win situation.

Editing – I think I’ve mentioned how much I love Wendy S. Russo’s January Black, but I really have to say that this book is extremely good. As a History buff (the first half of my Bachelor’s involved a lot of History credits) and what I like to call a Constitutional Libertarian, this really is one of the best takes on how the core ideas of the founding fathers apply to a modern society that has forgotten Liberty. Right now I’m giving the book its final nit-picky edit, which always takes the longest of any edit anyway, but I can’t help but enjoy how well Ms. Russo presents the subject matter while still remaining entertaining.

My writing – I’ve been working on editing the character-by-character individual synopses for Smuggler’s Justice and I’ve got  it out being Beta read. No feedback yet, but I would choose people who have very little time to read, wouldn’t I? I’ve started putting together the framework for the next book in the series, but I haven’t firmed up the title just yet. Right now I’m working with the title Smuggler’s Capture, but I’m not entirely sure that’s where I’m going to go with it. 

I really would like to carry on about the plot of the next book and ‘stream of consciousness’ think it out in writing here, but that would offer some serious spoilers for Smuggler’s Justice, and no one likes spoilers.

More on a day when I’m not working!

Leibster Award – Amazed!

I think even amazed is too tame a word. I’m gobsmacked that Marny Copal over at http://marnycopal.wordpress.com nominated me for the Leibster award. Absolutely floored! Thank you, Marny! Marny’s from Oregon and is the author of Freeblood, which looks and sounds very interesting to my book acquisitive mind. You can follow her on Twitter, as well – @marnycopal

The Leibster Award!  This is an award bloggers give to introduce blogs you might not have found already that we think are completely awesome. Here’s how it works. You post the picture of the award to your blog:

You give 11 random facts about yourself and answer the 11 questions asked by the blogger who nominated you. Then you think up 11 new questions and nominate 11 new blogs – and you can’t nominate the blogger who nominated you.

Eleven Random Facts about Melissa Robitille

1) I’m a great big girl. Seriously. I was 6′ tall, but shrank a bit. I’m very plus-sized. I have enormous feet (size 12 EEE – send shoes… or whole cow hides, not sure which would be less leather). Great big girl.

2) I have five children. Now you know why I shrank. Two boys still at home ( 19.5 and just turned 12), and three girls not at home.

3) I am a nerd and a geek. I have a BSc in Information Technology with emphasis in Application Development – such a nerd. And… I’m a Whovian, and a Trekkie, and I love anime and I’m hoping to get to a Con sometime or other, where I will probably cosplay and walk around grinning like an idiot. So geeky!

4) I have many hobbies, some of which occasionally pay. For instance, fashion design and couture sewing lets me look good, and occasionally I’ll get a good Bridezilla or She Who Must Be Prom Queen, though honestly I have the most fun with dressing up transgendered Gurlz because they have a lot more fun with imagining the outfit. Jewelry design occasionally pays, as does interior decoration, but fine art never does, probably because my art is really scary stuff… No one wants a painting of shattered glass and blood on bad linoleum on the wall above their sofa.

5) I am a klutz. This also comes with a high pain threshold, which may or may not be a good thing, since I discovered in 2010 that a fall in 2008 crushed one of my vertebrae without my realizing I had anything more than ‘a lingering backache’ – this may also account for some of that shrinking!

6) I am extremely near-sighted. Yes, I have a cute profile picture with no glasses on, but other than for pictures and putting makeup on my coke bottle lenses don’t leave my face while I’m awake.

7) In second grade my teacher thought I was “slow” because I was a complete brat in class, so she insisted that I have my IQ tested in hopes of sending me off to Special Ed classes, which in those days were separate and not mainstreamed as they are today. When my IQ came back as 189, she ‘punished’ me by plunking me down in front of the first computer in the classroom our school had – this was 1982, so it was a pretty early Apple. I’ve been using computers ever since. She actually did manage to torment me by giving me 5th grade math to do for enrichment, which has led to a lifelong math phobia. I’m good at math, mind you, but I’m good at it in self-defense! I would’ve been happier with unfettered access to Shakespeare, to be honest. And… as a public service announcement to those of you with high-IQ kids – high IQ comes in many different packages, not all of which involve math. Let your kid have access to what they really love on as high a level as they can manage and then ‘stretch’ it a little further!  I home-schooled my kids for 10 years.

8) I had flesh-eating strep A (necrotizing fasciitis) in 2002. After several near-death experiences, I left the hospital after just 17 days instead of the 6 to 9 months they told me I’d be in there when I woke up on day 14.

9) My first try at a Bachelor’s degree was 1998 to 2000. I was working on a BA in History with secondary teaching certification when my youngest son was born with ‘significant anomalies’ and I had to drop out.

10) I love the color red. Seriously. My wardrobe is black, white, and red. I would wear red every day.

11) I play the guitar, but I can’t read music yet. I play TAB instead, but I’m pretty good at it – Moonlight Sonata‘s one of my favorite pieces to play on acoustic, but I like Love Me Tender on electric. I have two Fender electric guitars, plus a Harmony acoustic.

Answering Marny’s questions:

When did you first realize you liked to write?

*** I always liked corresponding, but I didn’t like writing until High School when we were finally allowed to do some actual Creative Writing. Essays in Elementary and Junior High schools were excruciating for me! I feel fairly guilty for still being a brat in High School, but to this day I thank Linda Novelli, Andrew Pappathan, and Mr. Sokolowski for their encouragement to write. I wrote a few columns and a comic or two for the high school paper, but didn’t enjoy those half so much as… well, lying. What else do you call fiction when you’ve been stuck writing essays for years?
Who is your favorite villain from a book or movie?

*** Hard question! I like a really well-developed villain, and I’m not going to pick any of the villains from my own work (I figure that would be cheating), and I like comedies when I watch a movie… so I would have to say Queen Salmissra from David Eddings’ Belgariad and Malloreon series. She’s evil and she’s crazy, but there’s enough backstory about the position and what the girls chosen to be queen are put through and put on in terms of drugs that she’s understandable.
Can you name one item from your bucket list?

*** I’d like to have a best-selling series, but that’s probably on every author who hasn’t gotten there’s bucket list. Beyond that, I’d like to travel, maybe learn to fly an airplane even!
Do you have a muse? If so, what is it?

*** I do… Punk/techno music and my little boy. The music is fast enough to type to and ‘angry’ enough to give my badass heroines the oomph they need, and my little boy because he’s forever signing to me (he speaks ASL) to ‘Hurry up! More story!’.
What book excited you the most when you were a kid?

*** I started reading when I was two (yes, really). The first book I loved enough to re-read was Little Women. The books that excited me the most and that I still re-read every two or three years are, of course, the Lord of the Rings trilogy (I did mention I’m a geek, right?).
Do you write in a linear fashion, or do you jump around?

*** I write in a linear fashion, but the ideas come in a very lateral sense. I really like Snowflake Pro because it lets me put all the bits and pieces in order so that the story doesn’t writhe under my hands. I’ve at times tried to compare writing linearly without an outline (the way I had written everything up until I latched onto this particular software program) with trying to diaper an Anaconda.
Do you live with animals? If so, can you read their expressions?

*** I do. My son’s assistance dog, Tickle. She’s an enormous black Australian Labradoodle, and when I can see her face (generally after I’ve trimmed down some of her excessive fuzzy-wuzziness ) she’s very expressive. If she hears something on the porch she’ll give me this look that can really only be interpreted as ‘Is that My Boy coming home?!?!’ and then go sit by the door waiting and hoping!
Do you have a personal motto?

*** Hm. Not particularly. I’m a MacPherson (or rather, my father’s mother Georgianna was born a MacPherson), so there’s the clan motto ‘Touch not the cat without the glove’ which is pretty good, and the Ricard family motto (that would be my mother’s father’s family) ‘Sapienta Donum Dei’ – wisdom is the gift of God, which is also pretty good.
Are you dying to know the answer to any mysteries?

*** Sure, but the mysteries that I’d like answers to generally lie within the human heart and mind.  Honestly, though, the biggest mystery I’ve run across is how women think. I can understand men just fine, but I’m a woman and I don’t understand most women.
If you could witness any event in history, what would it be?

*** Oh bugger all. You really got me with this one, Marny. There are too many events to count. Here’s a sampling: In the Beginning – who wouldn’t want to have been there, just to know exactly how that all went down and who’s right? A whole bunch of Biblical things. The arrival of the Romans in Britain. The court of Ferdinand and Isabella to tell that Ricard/Ricardo ancestor that he was being a complete idiot for stealing from people who will hang you. The look on Elizabeth I’s face upon receiving Phillip of Spain’s proposal. Cromwell’s rise to power (I would just love to kick that man for Tobacco Island). Culloden, if only to beat the bejezus out of a Campbell, even if I couldn’t swing the battle because Bonny Prince Charlie was a tactical idiot. The signing of the Declaration of Independence. The adoption of the Constitution. Dolly Madison and the flight from Washington D.C. during the war of 1812 – I would so help her carry stuff! The storming of the Bastille.

Do you like dolls? If so, why?

*** Guilty pleasure. I sure do. I actually have made one of a kind Barbie dolls for my daughters, and I still like making them. It’s a way to make the over the top ball gowns and glitzy glamorous things that I love to make when I’m designing that no one around here ever seems to be terribly in need of.

My eleven questions:

1) What motivates you to write when you don’t really feel like writing?

2) Do you prefer being alone, in a group of people you know, or anonymous in a crowd?

3) Do you ‘people watch’, and if so what’s the most interesting thing you’ve seen other people do?

4) How many books (a rough estimate, don’t go count them) do you have in your house, and what kind of books are they (yes, eBooks count as books)?

5) What are your hobbies?

6) What are your three favorite songs?

7) What’s the biggest, best, and shiniest dream you have for your writing career?

8) If you could take someone’s place for a day (modern or in history), who would you be and why?

9) If you could have a re-do of some point in your life, what would it be and what would you do or say differently?

10) Which family member has been most supportive of your writing and in what way?

11) What part of the writing process (writing, editing, querying, submissions, etc.) is the hardest for you?

AND…. My Leibster Award Nominees are…

Lindsey R. Loucks, author of Grave Winner

http://www.lindseyrloucks.com/my-blog    @LindseyRLoucks

Wendy S. Russo, author of January Black   

 http://wendysrusso.wordpress.com    @wendysrusso

Cindy Young-Turner, author of A Journey to Hope

http://cindyyoungturner.com/blog/   @AuthorCindyYT

Stacy Verdick Case, author of A Grand Murder  

http://sostacythought.wordpress.com    @SVerdickCase

The Dames of Dialogue

http://damesofdialogue.wordpress.com    @damesofdialogue

Seyi Sandra, author of Tales of Five Lies

http://www.seyisandradavid.org/blog/    @seyi_sandra

Jody A. Kessler, author of Death Lies Between Us

http://www.jodyakessler.com         @JodyAKessler

Justin R. Macumber, author of A Minor Magic

http://www.justinmacumber.com     @JustinMacumber

Shawna Romkey, author of Speak of the Devil

http://www.shawnaromkey.com      @sromkey

Rusty Fischer, author of Reanimation Reform School

http://zombiesdontblog.blogspot.com/   @rustyfischer

Andrea Buginsky, author of The Chosen

http://www.andisrealm.blogspot.com/     @andreabuginsky

 

A Day Without the Internet

This week has been incredibly interesting. Some good things, some bad. Most notably, I spend a whole day with no Internet. Coping with Fairpoint first claiming that it was my router then, after I bought a brand new one,  finally admitting that it was a problem with their network, is what brought about creating the above “LOL” on icanhazcheezburger.com. Just trying to get them to admit that they were the ones with the problem was just like giving an enema to an octopus.

A day without the Internet; oh, the shuddering horror! Actually, it might not have been so bad if I had already downloaded the second-round edit file for Wendy S. Russo’s January Black, but I got it about two minutes before the Internet died on me. The teenager got twitchy pretty fast – his phone (currently only working on WiFi), XBox online multi-player thing, Netflix, etc. were all gone.  With no work for me to do I was forced – forced, I say! – to work on editing my synopsis and book “stuff”. Oh woe is me, right? I did actually try to fluff off and read a book, but I couldn’t sit still and pay attention for more than three chapters. That may say something about the author’s work or it might say something about my attention span. Right now I’m reading Leven Thumps and the Gateway to Foo by Obert Skye. So far, so good. My little guy seems to like it reasonably well, which is always part of my criteria when judging how well a YA book “works”. He’s legally deaf-blind, but he does love to listen to stories. I know it’s a really good YA book when he starts signing a mile a minute about the story – nothing yet, but the first few chapters are a ‘slow build’, so it still has time to capture his interest.

In good news… I start my new job at Intralot on the 5th. I’ll be working nights, twelve hour shifts. It’s entry-level, but I can cope with that because it will be official, full-time, ‘professional’ experience. Funny thing was, I think I almost got scooped up for a Business Analyst position with the company but in New Hampshire because someone noticed I can write code.  Who knows, right?

Today we have a birthday to celebrate, so I can’t be nattering on at the world for too long. Little Man is twelve today. He wasn’t “supposed” to live to be six months old, at least according to the first two NICU doctors he had, so I think he’s more than proved them wrong!

My Nerves are Shot

I e-filed my copyright forms and e-submitted Smuggler’s Justice through http://www.copyright.gov/eco and I submitted it to a publisher. So, yeah, my nerves are completely shot. I didn’t do the logical thing and submit to a publisher who generally publishes science fiction, oh no, I took a leap and submitted to a publisher that might be interested in the underlying social commentary. I figured that if they actually read the slush pile (hey, no guarantees there, I know they’ve got mountains to go through, I’m not kidding myself, just hopeful!) then someone might decide they really, really like political intrigue and government cover-ups, even if it is in a science-fiction setting. I particularly think that could be the case if you take the longer view of the series as a whole dealing with lots of different aspects of governmental corruption and the kind of places that slippery slopes can lead.  That said – it’s going to be ‘8 –  12 weeks’ before they get back to me; if  they get back to me at all.

So, while my nerves are seriously shot and I’m trying not to actually shake, I’m not going to hold my breath and I’m very likely to simultaneously submit to other publishers who are more likely to actually want science fiction… lots of gadgetry, FTL travel, odd civilizations, thinly disguised social / political commentary and all. Who knows? Maybe the first folks I contacted will jump on it and be completely thrilled about it, maybe they’ll turn me down, but the point is that this time I didn’t chicken out. This time I actually submitted my manuscript somewhere, and for me that makes all the difference.

I still haven’t decided which agent, if any, to query. I admit that having an agent might be helpful in getting the books sold, but I’m really not sure how well I’d “work” with an agent. Do you remember grades from early elementary school: S for Satisfactory, N for Needs Improvement, and U for Unsatisfactory? I do. I also remember getting a U in ‘works and plays well with others’ every semester for years. You wouldn’t think so now, since I’ve managed to get along quite well with any number of people I’ve worked with, but I do worry that tendency might crop up in working with an agent. I don’t really know why that worry is lurking in the back of my mind. I’m sure agents are perfectly reasonable human beings. Maybe it’s worrying that I’m not an entirely reasonable human being!

That said, I also was a ‘good girl’ and I finished the first round of edits on Wendy S. Russo’s January Black today. In re-reading it, I have to say that it’s still awesome and I still had to blow my nose and clean my glasses (tears tend to leave mineral traces when they dry) and boo-hoo a bit. I sincerely love the way Ms. Russo works to bring the concepts of liberty and freedom into her work…. And of course, I do love me a governmental cover-up, a conspiracy, and a lot of research to uncover them. The characters are endearing and I love that Matty tries so hard to be a gentleman. I think it’s a much more realistic depiction of what goes on in a boy’s mind when he’s a ‘good kid’ at heart than you generally see in YA fiction. I also love that he’s a brat! Okay, okay, no spoilers even though I would absolutely love to rave on and on.

On the home front, my little boy had to stay home from school today because he had one really long seizure and four little ‘after shock’ seizures that wiped him out. Poor lamb wound up sleeping until nearly noon. My big boy has a job interview tomorrow and, yes, I’m really hoping that he gets the job. It would give him something to do besides mope around telling me that there aren’t any jobs not getting snatched up by mid-career grownups who need work to pay the bills. I still think it’s sad that he got upstaged for a job at McD’s by an accountant.

Smuggler’s Justice

Yep. I posted it again. I like the way that red ‘winner’ shines so pretty. :c)

‘Smuggler’s Justice’ is finished and I’ve done the first round of editing on it. Since I wrote the first two chapters in first-person and then switched to third it really needed the work even before going into Beta reading. Right now Himself is Beta reading it. He’s not a big science fiction fan, but he does like political intrigue and political scandal, so I’m holding out hope that he’ll actually like it. That said, I am planning to seek out other Beta readers who are more familiar with commercial science fiction on the market to get a better idea of how the book stacks up.  In the meantime, the next 3 books in the series are organizing themselves into plot ideas I’ll need to churn through Snowflake Pro (which I have decided is possibly the best thing in the world for the outline-haters, like myself, among us).

Of course, I’m going to have to list my handicapped son’s chickens in my acknowledgements for their help with writing the book…  Yes, my little boy thinks that the sounds I make while typing are similar to the sounds of chickens pecking, and he happens to love the farm more that just about anything. He has a rich imagination (as you would expect from a deaf-blind child) and his imaginary friends include a flock of eleven (his favorite number) Rhode Island Red chickens the size of domestic turkeys. He insists that he asked his chickens to help me, and he’s been rooting for me all month long, so the chickens clearly must be thanked!

I’ve been looking at agent listings on WritersMarket.com and market listings as well and I’m really not altogether sure that’s even the route I want to take. I’ll admit that some of my hesitation is financial, but that’s playing second fiddle to my fear of rejection. When it comes to people judging my writing, I’m just as neurotic as any other author, maybe more so considering the great neurosis-free authors I’ve worked with as an editor. Who knows? Of course, despite my fear I’ve drawn up a list of possible agents and once the novel’s through Beta reading I’ll send off my queries if only to say that I didn’t chicken out! That said, I may decide to self-publish entirely in order to get ‘Smuggler’s Justice’ and the rest of the Smuggler’s series out there the way I want them out there without being concerned about print run quantities and the like. On the other hand, that puts all the hard work of finding a cover artist and the like in my lap! I enjoy art, and I’m fairly decent at painting and using Adobe Illustrator, but I’m pretty sure I’m not up to producing the cover I want on my own, and I’m not sure if I can find a cover artist locally who’ll be able to do so either. That means a fairly arduous search for Mister – or Miss – Artistically Right.

For hitting the 50,000 word mark I treated myself to a makeover and a couple of new hairpieces from wiggoddess.com, plus I’ve ordered another one that I liked the look of that she didn’t have in stock in my baby blonde – Clare’s store is down in Berlin, VT. She does all sorts of glamour photography too, so when I need my author photo I’m very likely going to have Clare do it.  It’s an investment because a photo shoot with her isn’t cheap, but I can use the right photo for my author picture on any number of books without ever having to acknowledge that I’m getting any older than that, so it’s all good in my opinion!

Yesterday we drove down to the Vermont Country Store’s store in Rockingham, VT. Of course, on the way there we got a flat tire and had to drive the rest of the way on the ‘doughnut’ spare tire and then all the way back on the back roads at 40mph or less, but considering that it was snowing and the roads were icy I don’t see that as a huge slow down.  While we were there I got lovely soaps (rose, hyacinth, and lavender), nail polish that’s supposed to thicken the nail (which I need because I have paper-thin nails), Tangee blush and lipstick, and two shades of Taboo lipstick. The last time I even saw Taboo lipstick I was eight, and it was the last dregs of my grandmother’s prized hot pink lipstick. After that she switched to something from Avon and was never as happy with it as she had been with her Taboo. I personally got two shades of red lipstick because I tend more towards the ‘vamp/seductress’ when it comes to lipstick than the ‘cheerleader’. The Tangee lipstick and blush changes color to suit your coloring, but I’m still not altogether sure about it since it seems to want to be hot pink on me, and I’m really not a fan of hot pink! Beyond all that I got my little boy a Squawking Chicken. He likes squeaky type toys, so it seemed to be a good fit and so far he seems to like it beyond insisting that it’s definitely not as nice as his imaginary chickens.  I have to admit it’s not as helpful with my writing!

When we got home I gave my son’s friend (his girlfriend’s best friend I think – or at least one of that ‘crowd’) a haircut which she seems to like quite a lot, so that’s nice. I tend to do all the haircutting around here. No, I don’t charge, so you licensed hair dressers don’t come after poor little me! My mother was a licensed beautician for 12 years (1961 – 1973), so I learned the basics from her. Yes, despite a great deal of animosity between the two of us I have to admit that she did teach me some things. I refuse, however, to ever give anyone a ‘shag’ haircut for any reason. The shuddering horror!

In other news, I’ve got a new book to edit for Crescent Moon Press – Wendy S. Russo’s ‘January Black’. I love it to bits after my initial read-through, and I have to say that Ms. Russo did an excellent job with both the subject matter and the prose itself, so I don’t think it’s going to be a terribly long and drawn-out process.  It’s quite a good story, and I’m really enjoying the themes Ms. Russo weaves into her work.

Some of the first books I edited for Crescent Moon Press are being released in December – the novellas ‘A Journey to Hope’ by Cindy Young-Turner, and ‘Sirocco’ by Diane M. Haynes are coming out December 3rd /4th (not sure of the exact dates on those), and the novel ‘A Minor Magic’ by Justin R Macumber is coming out on December 15th. Naturally I’ll be buying a copy of each for my own portfolio – and enjoyment! I’ve also heard that Shawna Romkey’s ‘Speak of the Devil‘ will be released in March 2013, and Lindsey Louck’s ‘Grave Winner‘ will be released in May 2013, but the covers haven’t been released yet nor do I have dates more exact than that.

All in all a very busy month, what with writing a 90,321 word book.  I’ve had some vehicular “fun” and lots of girly-girl stuff to do, and now I’ve got a new book to edit before I can go nuts with nothing to do. Oh! And I have jury duty December 5th. How that’s going to work out if I get the job I think I have a good chance of getting I don’t know.