Ha ha. You all thought I was dead, didn’t you?  Well, I’m not that easy to get rid of.  Ask my kids.  It is now officially Summer Break and Mean Mommy is in town.  Mean Mommy makes them pick up their toys, and makes them leave the video games and go outside to play.  Which has worked up to this week.  For the past two days we’ve been having serious thunderstorms, flash-flooding, and yes, Dorothy, tornadoes.

But my ruby slippers are just fine, thanks.

Now where else have I been?  I’ve been hiding in my WIP.  I’ve been a Very Good Writer and made sure to plug away at three scenes a week (roughly–some weeks are more productive than others), producing content which does not suck.  Prior to that, I was hanging out in every other temporary location I could get to because my dear Ol’ Sparky croaked on me and I kid you not, it took me damn near a month to get it all sorted out and New Sparky up to speed.

But technical woes aside (and there were some damn awesome moments within the woe.  Imagine my glee when discovering New Sparky arrived just in time for the release of Kubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron (I chose Cutting Edge over Rock Solid because I’m adventurous like that and KDE4 Plasma just rocks my socks right outta the box!), for the most part I’ve been playing Writer and not so much Author.  I’ve been creating, storyboarding, plotting, writing, revising, brainstorming, more revising, re-plotting, still more revising–you get the idea.  Now, I’m ready for a little break and to play Author again.  I’ll be doing it at Lori Foster’s Readers and Writer’s Get Together in West Chester, Ohio this weekend.   I’ll be signing print copies of Alien Communion and generally hanging out with a bunch of other authors and readers enjoying a relaxed, romance-oriented atmosphere.

So if you happen to be going (the six of you who read this blog, LOL), please feel free to stop by and say hi!

I admit it. I’m bad news as far as being an e-author goes. I write slow. Well, that’s not quite entirely true. I draft fast, but I revise and rewrite slow. I have to think about it, ponder themes and subtexts, and weed out all the extraneous stuff I like to write that fleshes out worldbuilding.  Much of this stuff comes intrinsically and I’ve been doing it subconsciously up to now.  But as I like to grow as a writer and not rest on my laurels (such as they are), I’ve been paying more attention to what I do unconsciously and finding ways that I can consciously improve it.

A few years ago, when I realized that writing was actually my capital-D Dream–that  it was the force driving me, keeping me going through life’s ups and downs, and one of the reasons I wake up in the morning (the others are six and almost-three and have breakfast demands), I realized that if it wasn’t going to remain an unrecognized, unfulfilled, someday kind of dream, that I’d need to work at it.  To take the natural instincts that I have and understand them well enough to make them grow and refine them into the best manifestation they can be.  I’d have to prune the bad habits and encourage the tender shoots and hardy blossoms until they bore fruit, and then manage the growth to keep the harvest coming.

I have been glutting myself with the fertilizer of writing courses, techniques, articles, and lectures, and after a germination period that felt so long getting through, I’m emerging again to put what I’ve learned to pixels again.  It’s a daunting task, once you understand just how little you know.  But like any big step, sometimes you just have to close your eyes and do it.

I admit it. I’m bad news as far as being an e-author goes. I write slow. Well, that’s not quite entirely true. I draft fast, but I revise and rewrite slow. I have to think and noodle and re-think and brainstorm…writing for me is a very messy process, and one that’s often done while multitasking something else.

Right now, I’m working on something that my critique partner calls “Big-Time Sci-Fi.” It’s a story that takes place in a distant future, space opera setting. It goes beyond world-building and into universe-building, and the sheer volume of just–stuff–that I’ve created as background is kinda getting overwhelming. Not that it’s not fun, but it’s got to be bad when you could conceivably create a lexicon about the same size as the book, it’s kinda troubling to wonder just how you’re going to fit all that deliciously detailed information into a story. More than a little so when you realize you can’t stop the action to detail the intricacies of pricing on the galactic food markets.

I love my worldbuilding. Love it with the passion of a thousand burning suns. However, it’s my strong point (relatively speaking). But it can be distracting from the main building blocks of good story, epecially when you’re avoiding said building blocks because you don’t like seeing your hero and heroine fighting, or failing at what they’re trying to do. Yet conflict maketh the story.

Doesn’t everybody have one? The little motivator that prompts people to buy bowflexes and sign up for gym memberships and eat chopped celery for lunch. The same little motivators that tend to have a shelf life that expires anywhere from a week to a month after the champagne taste has washed out of your mouth.

In spite of knowing I’m going to probably drop them, I still make these things anyway. It takes 28 days to make a habit, and most resolutions end about seven days before that–so close to the goal, yet still so far away. I make the resolutions because even if they don’t stick, they still open pathways in my thinking that allow me to be receptive to the changes I hope to make. If I don’t manage to stick with the change, then at least I’m a step further along on the path to eventually doing so.

This year, my resolution is to not be terrified of losing my faculties. I’m starting to feel my age, and it’s scaring me. Having young kids means that my house gets visited by the germ fairy on a much more frequent basis, and all the little sniffles and coughs and fevers and yucks feel like they’re really taking their toll on my body. Aside from the illnesses, there’s the energy required to keep up with two active and mischievous little kids hell-bent on destruction and world domination (and dangerously close to their goals, I sometimes think).

Those of you out there who are mothers as well will know that Mom just doesn’t get sick, even when she does get sick. And Mom always comes after everyone else has been settled. Which leads into my next resolution–take better care of myself. With the frequency that I have been lately feeling that my mind is going (and a little bit of worrisome family history), I need to stay on top of the game. If my mind really is going, I need to fight that tooth and nail, and if it’s just a sad case of CRS by way of mental laziness, then it’s my job to kick myself in the ass until my brains work their way back up to the proper location.

Although this is my blog, I feel like some of this might be bordering on TMI. I always said I didn’t want my author blog to turn into my personal whine-fest, because it’s the wrong kind of whine with which to woo readers and/or connect with my community. But file this post under accountability, and to avoid breaking my personal taboo, I shall give you something amusing and/or thought-provoking.

Please enjoy my fondest wishes for you all for the New Year via the sentiments delivered at the Surrealist Compliment Generator.

At the risk of having tomatoes tossed at me, I use Wikipedia a lot for brief reference look-ups and starting points from which to jump off when I get a bug up my ass about a subject.  I also cruise Wiki’s homepage every so often, and today’s random “On this day in…” selection proved to be something rather fascinating.  Today, in the year 1384, a young lady named Jadwiga, at the age of ten, was crowned the King of Poland.  What’s more, she did this with the blessing of the Polish nobility, who negotiated with her mother prior to their declaration, and crowned her King instead of Queen so that no one would mistake her for a queen-consort.

Now, I’ve taken some history classes, and read some history books–enough to know that there’s a crapload that I don’t know about the Middle Ages, and enough to know that I consider myself just ignorant enough to not be able to do them justice in fiction–I’m caught between some of the realism I know would just suck to have to live in, and the romantic fantasy that continually draws me to places like the SCA’s Pennsic War in the hopes of capturing just a whisper of that magical feel.  But for the most part, I get that a woman’s lot was short, brutal, and over too quick.  Especially a monarch woman’s.  But the fact that Poland actually picked a queen and afforded her power in her own right is astounding.

Interestingly enough, the crown brought several suitors to her doorstep, and in true medieval romance fashion, one of whom planned to pop the princess and present himself as husband accompli.  That plan was derailed, however, and the princess married a Lithuanian twenty-plus years her senior but apparently a monarch with Poland’s better interests at heart.  Her position likely held little power due to her youth, femininity, and the Polish system of government, but she was able to use her influence to benefit her people.  Not the least of this was restoration of a university, and the translation of Latin books into Polish, thereby bringing books to her people.  Alas, the perils of the medieval health care plan recognize no regency, and the young queen was a month past giving birth to her only daughter when both mother and baby failed to recover.  Jadwiga was twenty-five.  She survives as St. Hedwig, patron saint of queens.

So today, I learned something new.  Part of Eastern Europe had a government with checks and balances present, and an attitude with the beginnings of gender equality (tempered heavily by the whole hereditary kingship thing).  And that the definition of “benevolent medieval queen” includes “try to find your people something to read.”

Today, my good friend and critique partner Roxy Harte asked me point-blank, “Who is Xandra and what does she want to write?”

My first thought was, “Well, that’s a big Duh.”  Followed by, “I write…” and then some silence.  Thick silence.  Silence that had been placed on a strict diet of lard, turkey gravy, and cheetos until it was so thick it needed a triple bypass to even exist.

I realized that making a declaration like that was something that shouldn’t be done lightly.  Uniformly, the advice from more experienced writers, industry professionals, and writing career how-to books has been solidly in the “pick a lane and stay in it” camp.  There are reasons ranging from the marketing-oriented to reader expectation which combine to make a great case for finding a tone and (sub)genre to call your own.  Not to mention playing to your strengths.

But here’s where I came up short.  Alien Communion pretty much wrote itself to a certain extent.  I had so much fun creating the Alcaini and sexually liberating my heroine that the rest just sort of fell into place.  I just finished a draft of a really scorching hot M/M that did the same–I just took dictation from the characters.   And I’m letting my big, sprawling space opera WIP take a breather while I work on something that’s distinctly paranormal in nature.  Not to mention the urban fantasy I have in the archives, or the six romantic comedies I wrote several years back.  Granted, not all of these stories were birthed fully formed from a crack in my head, but they all are representative of me.  Of what makes me a writer.  How do I limit myself to just one aspect of that?

So late on a Saturday night when most people are partying their little bunz off, I’m sitting in bed, blogging and thinking (of course, if I wasn’t blogging and thinking, I’d still be in bed–I have kids and therefore no social life).  I should probably pick a lane, and stay in it…at least long enough to get to the next exit.

Wow. Just wow. It’s a long watch, but oh-so-worth it.

Writing careers are for crazy people. My new theory is that when the Reagan administration closed down all the state mental hospitals, it was in response to a dramatic upswing in fiction publishing. The people who should be in mental hospitals would find themselves a nice comfy spot somewhere on the shelves of bookstores across America and all would be well. Yes, there are several (thousand) holes in this theory and what else did you expect from a nutbag?

The other day, I remarked to one of my friends (who is sane enough to choose a career outside the fiction world) that I was “learning it all all over again” when she asked how my writing was going. She looked puzzled, and then there was a loud bang from the toy room and the subject (like so many of our conversations, being two mothers of small children) went into momspace (you know all those sentences your mother couldn’t ever finish from being spitting mad, or all those times she called you by all your siblings’ and two uncles’ names before she hit on yours? They go into momspace, just like all those extra brain-cells during pregnancy). Forgotten by us until later that night (much later), and I thought about why she’d looked so puzzled. Then I realized that from the outside, once you’re published, you’re “there.” It’s a perception that’s very logical–the assumption is that a person in a field trains, tests, and achieves competence in a field. For writers, people naturally assume that publication is the standard by which competence is measured.

To some extent, this is true–you have to demonstrate competence in technical aspects of writing and coherent storytelling to get past an editor at a publishing house, but there is no set point in writing when you can say you’ve “arrived.” Not if you want to keep doing it.

And it can be damn hard to separate the author from the writer, when that well-meaning friend (or not-so-well-meaning voice of self-doubt), “but you’ve already published a novel–don’t you already know how to do it?”

You have to re-learn it every time if you want to be a better writer. Every story is unique. There are shortcuts, and you can develop a writing process that allows you to consistently chart recognizable landmarks during your adventures in storytelling, but it’s a new thing every single time, and it can be scary to stand at that precipice and feel the deja vu yet still be confused about just where the hell you are and which end is up.

In my weekly cruises around the intert00bz, I came across this worrisome little gem, posted several places, but I found it here on PubRants. Apparently Simon and Schuster wants to take your rights and have them slowly digested over a…thousand years.

What do I find wrong with this as an author? Just about everything.

The majority of the time an author sells a story, it’s to a publisher who intends to put it into print and sell it for as long as they can, to the benefit of author and publisher (and reader, as well–books going out of print means they can’t reach audiences who may have missed them before). In most cases, a publisher releases the rights back to the author when sales fall below a certain level. It’s no longer worthwhile for the publisher to stock the title, and releasing it back to the author makes it the author’s choice as to whether to pursue a possible new/secondary market for the title.

What S&S wants to do is to keep your rights…forever.

The new contract would allow Simon & Schuster to consider a book in print, and under its exclusive control, so long as it’s available in any form, including through its own in-house database — even if no copies are available to be ordered by traditional bookstores.

So that’s it. S&S wants your book ’til death do you part.  And even afterwards.

And make no mistake, there will be authors who don’t have the benefit of knowledge from RWA or the Author’s Guild, whose books will live and die with this conglomerate.

I’ll be the first to admit I’m something of a maverick when it comes to publishing.  I’m published with a small e-press, I have no agent currently, and if I have a single unit of what’s considered “clout” in the publishing world, then I’d reckon “clout” is measured in atomic mass units, and still in the single digits.  But my publisher and I have an understanding–I will write a book to the best of my ability, and they will sell the book to the best of their ability.  If they can’t do this, or after a certain, finite period of time passes, then I can ask for my rights back and try to sell the book to another publisher, who will also try to sell it to the public to the best of their ability.  But if S&S has its way, then once I would sign a contract with them, they would be free to sit on my book and never allow it to see the light of day, and there would be nothing I could do to stop them.  Because technically the book would be “available.”

How are they supposed to make money if they don’t sell books?  Unless their only goal is to keep other people from making money on those books. Seems a bit daft, shooting yourself in the foot like that, but what do I know?  I’ll be paying attention.  I find their lack of threshold…disturbing.

PS - Bonus points for those who correctly guessed that it’s the Star Wars 30th Anniversary.  Hence the metaphors.  I am geek and I am proud.

This week, last year, my first full-length erotic romance, Alien Communion, was released from Liquid Silver Books.

The reception for Alien Communion surprised me. I was honestly pleased to receive very good reviews for it, and solid sales (which indicate people were interested in reading it). It still makes me smile to have the reality brought home that people are actually –gasp– interested in reading one of my stories.

I’ve always been one of those “writer’s writers” - I write because I love the structure and framework of story, of rooting around in the thesaurus to find just the right word, and of the thrill of stringing a story through from start to the high of typing the words “The End.” And for those special times when the characters take over and I’m just the stenographer (and not all my stories are like that, so I value very preciously the ones that are).

That I can share the products of my love affair with prose is an honor and a privilege. If you have read my stories, thank you. If you’ve just found your way here through a link or a whim and are reading these words here, thank you, too. You’re part of the world that allows me to live my dream. If you’ve reviewed one of my stories, I also thank you, deeply and from the bottom of my heart. No matter how you felt about the book or story, the fact that you took the time to share your opinion is a gift I value.

HAPPY “BIRTHDAY” XANDRA

You’re probably also aware, if you’ve been reading this blog, that ‘Xandra Gregory’ is a nom de pixel. Xandra is actually around three years old this week. When I submitted Alien Communion, I knew I couldn’t publish it under my own name for several reasons, the most pragmatic of which is that my name’s just not that sexy. So I “exoticised” some family middle names by running them by my critique partner. Xandra Gregory is the result.

Among my non-writer friends who know who I am and what I write, at least two of them have asked if I have a different “persona” as Xandra. The answer to that is both yes and no. If you know me, you know that in person, I’m a lot more goofy than the image of an erotic romance writer whose first name begins with an X. Writing is my job (and I love my job), and when I’m Xandra, I’m “at work” so to speak. So when I’m Xandra, I’m a bit more…professional. So far that means I haven’t embarrassed myself in public. Here’s to hoping that streak continues. Other than that…I’m pretty much a WYSIWYG person, and I’m a lousy actress. The real me is hard to suppress for very long. I toyed with the idea of trying to cultivate the whole glamorous “erotica writer” persona–I remember reading something in my teens about Barbara Cartland lounging on a divan in a glamour gown and dictating her novels. Because primarily, I think it’d be kickass-cool to have a divan. Glamour gowns inevitably require pantyhose, and don’t respond well to small, often-sticky hands constantly touching. Plus, my life goes too fast for me to sit down during the day, much less lounge. But I wouldn’t make it five minutes without blowing it, so Internets, you get the real me, a little more polite, when you find Xandra.

Pseudonyms have their practical uses, too. I love making those sweeping ‘X’s at booksignings, and I’m comforted in knowing that folks aren’t walking around with bookmarks or CD cases that have the same name I sign my checks with.

They say on the Internets, you can be anybody. But sooner or later, you can’t help being who you are. Xandra and I, we’re pretty tight. So the least I can do for the old girl is give her a birthday wish. She and I, we’re a lot alike, except she has better manners. And flatter abs. Yeah, definitely flatter abs.