Story Intrusion

I'm popping in here at the old blog - it seems so much smaller now - to let you all know that I moved. http://jeffekennedy.com or click here.

Moving on Up

I'm not sure how this will work, but I'm officially moving my blog to my New Website!

Hopefully all the follow stuff will still work.

(Please don't leave me...)

*Sniff*

Writing Space

I'm over at Word-Whores today, with photos of my writing space.

Sapphire Cover!

Sapphire has a cover! Woo hoo!!!

I think it's very pretty. And, um, no that's not me on the cover. I only wish I had that figure.

In the story, I envisioned the fur throw being brown or black. I mean what guy has a white fur rug in his library? Perhaps Kirliss is into polar bears...

Yeah, I know - I'm teasing you. and the book isn't out until October 24.

You know how much I love to tease.

It's been kind of a crazy week, for no good reason. My mom was here visiting, which was very fun. Work has been this weird uneven waiting for other people, punctuated by furious hysteria. And I'm transitioning this blog to my new website. Eeep!

I'm off to Oklahoma City next week for the day job. But I'm hoping Monday you'll be directed to my blog on the website.

It'll be grand, I'm sure of it!

Happy Book Birthday!

I have a post up over at Word Whores to celebrate the release of Feeding the Vampire today. My new website is supposed to be going live, but it's not up yet. Soon, I hope!

Waiting for Godot

Here's a pic of grandson Tobiah with my mom and Stepdad Dave, who is helping Tobiah open his birthday presents. A little catch-up here, since I posted a pic of granddaughter Aerro last week.

So, I was at a bit of a loss on what to write about this morning. It's kind of that tip-of-the-tongue feeling, like I had a topic in mind, but can't quite recall what it was. Tomorrow is all about Feeding the Vampire's book birthday. But I had *thought* I had a plan for today.

Then I remembered.

Oh yeah, I totally thought I'd talk about my agent and my new book deal today.

But you know what? She promised to get back to me by Monday (yesterday) and she hasn't. Everyone keeps telling me to give her more time, but it's been officially one week now. I'm not necessarily in a hurry. Still, I don't see much reason to sit on my hands any longer. Publishing is absolutely about patience panties and waiting for people to get back to you. When the ball is in my court, however, I don't see much reason to wait.

It was kind of amazing, really, how people popped out of the woodwork with advice when I announced that I had a contract offer. Everyone was full of the advice to contact every agent I've ever kibbitzed with and let them know I have an offer on the table. This is the moment, they urge me, to hook an agent.

I feel vaguely like the girl who's gotten pregnant and is looking to bag her man with it.

The thing is, like that knocked-up girl, I'm feeling a bit like, if they didn't want me for myself and my work before, then I'm not sure I want them just because I've got a bun in the oven. Frankly, I'm not convinced I want an agent at all. Kristine Rusch, who posts the very insightful Rusch Reports on the publishing business from the writer's point of view, recently laid out really good reasons why unagented writers not sign with agents. (The post contains a fascinating history of how literary agents came to be in the first place - well worth reading.)

Her post came at just the right time for me, because she echoed what I've been thinking, from all the reading I do about the huge changes in publishing.

Now, I'm not so concerned about the agency clause. The gal I've been talking to has a boutique agency, so I imagine she doesn't have anything really bearish like that. But, more and more, I'm wondering what agents can do for writers that we can't do for ourselves. A bunch of agencies are now announcing that they're assisting their authors with self-publishing, or even developing epublishing branches. They're clearly doing this because their traditional revenue streams are drying up. Indeed, several of my friends who have long-standing relationships with agents are not seeing new sales to publishers right now. Except maybe in Young Adult.

It's a difficult time for agents. I totally get that.

So, right now I'm not convinced having an agent would really make a huge difference for me.

I'm still the awkward girl at the prom. My work is still the kind that the big publishers frown at, with worry on their faces, unable to clearly envision where they'd put me on the bookshelf. I truly believe the key for me lies in building readership. (Thank you, all you lovely readers who read and say nice things to me!) People out there do want to read my books, but no one will know it until I have some numbers.

I'm at peace with that.

What I'm not at peace with is waiting. I don't want to be like Vladimir and Estragon, eternally distracting myself while I wait for something I might not even recognize when it arrives.

No point in reaching for that brass ring if they're dismantling the Carousel and converting it into the Zooming Horses Racetrack.

(Wouldn't that be a cool ride?)

So: no announcement today. See? Here you are, waiting along with me. I may yet sign with this agent or another, on a future project.

But, on this, I'm ready to move forward.

Let's do this thing!

Morning Glories

When I planted these morning glory seeds, I had a vision of the wisteria vine taking off and climbing up the portal, with the purple morning glories winding through. Gardening is a lot about grandiose visions that reality sometimes can't quite catch up to. Our dry winter and even drier spring slowed things down. But, now that the monsoon rains have started, look! I have a blossom. With more promising.

It thrills me to to see it.

Saturday, at the local post office, the guy there was saying to everyone, I can't believe summer is almost over! Someone else - not me - piped up and pointed out that we're just heading into August and that we have at least two more months of warm weather. Really four, because we don't get freezes around here until around Thanksgiving. Post office guy shrugged that off. "But the kids start school in two weeks!"

You all know this is the part I find interesting.

This week at Word-Whores, the theme is made-up holidays. Already Linda and Laura have said interesting things about Holy Days and traditional holidays vs. special and intimate ones. We have all these layers of schedules in our lives, rhythms dictated by the turn of the seasons, the ebb and flow of work, the divisions of school breaks, the intensive celebrations that require tons of preparation. We plan around these things, always looking ahead to which train is coming down the tracks.

Never mind that the school schedule is changing. We set up summer break originally to correspond with labor-intensive planting and harvesting schedule. Now schools go through summer, start early, have longer winter breaks. But still we associate school starting with harvest ending and the onset of winter.

There must have been something about Saturday, because the woman at the gym - not Crazy Gym Lady, a different one with her own special, gentler brand of nutty - was telling everyone who came in that Christmas is only four months away. Someone else - not me - pointed out to her that it was really almost five months. Which, when you think about it, is far closer to being half a year away than actually looming. Still, she was undaunted, keeping her gaze on that Christmas train.

The Taoists say that the key to serenity, to real spiritual understanding, is to keep ourselves in the present as much as possible. In their view, only the present is real. Being awake and fully aware of what's happening right now allows us to enjoy our lives. No anticipating the future, for good or ill. No dwelling on the past.

After all, how can you enjoy summer when you're thinking about it ending?

So I'm enjoying the transitory bloom of my morning glories. I have them now, and that's all that matters.

Amusing Dreams

I had what I think of as my Water World dream last night.

It's one of my standard dreams - you know the familiar ones you repeat over and over. Like the being on stage and not knowing your lines one. Or taking the final exam without ever having gone to class. Or being naked in public except for some feathers and a beak.

What, you don't have that one?

At any rate, Water World is a water park in Denver. No, this has nothing to do with Kevin Costner. It's one of my very favorite places to go, though I haven't been in the last couple of years. I love riding the donut tubes down all the different swirly slides. It makes me feel like a kid again, to spend the day in my swimsuit. At the end of the day, my hair is wet and snarled, I'm sun-baked and water-soaked, deliciously exhausted.

Damn, now I want to go!

My Water World dream is one of those "going there but never quite making it" dreams. It's not a a bad or frustrating dream. We just spend the day going through the admissions turnstile and getting different color wristbands. We get distracted and have to go save people or find treasure. We spend a lot of time in the parking lot, seeing the rides from a distance. Elements from Elitch Gardens, the amusement park of my youth, which has since been relocated and transformed into a Six Flags conglomeration, find their way in. The giant rise of the wooden roller-coaster always figures prominently.

It's actually a fun dream, full of the anticipation of arriving. I'm eternally poised to have the best day ever. It's also familiar and, in an odd way, comforting. It's part of who I am. The sum of so many experiences.

These are the kinds of qualities it's difficult to give characters. Someone recently told me that common wisdom is that novels about dreams rarely work well, because dreams inherently have no structure, which gives the story a "mushy" feel.

I can totally see that.

In fact, one of the "rules" writers like to cite is that you should never have dream sequences. That editors hate them. I suspect this is the "mushiness" coming into play. Usually if a character has a recurring dream, it's a nightmare, as JD Robb's heroine, Eve, experiences. Of course, she has the marvelous latitude of an ongoing series to use that dream as a theme, a device that reveals where Eve is emotionally.

Now I totally want to do something like this. Damn the rules - full speed ahead!

Obsidian Win

Isn't this cloud a great metaphor? Sailing along, giving rain to a very select portion of the landscape.

So, yesterday was a pivotal day for me.

I received a contract offer on Obsidian.

This is the novel that started it all. That took me from nonfiction to fiction. My red-headed firstborn. This is the one that everyone told me they didn't know how to market, because it's hopelessly cross-genre. One famous author friend who graciously read it said it's like I wrote an epic male fantasy from a very female perspective. She also said I was forging a new path with it and that it would feel like wading through waist-deep snow.

Boy did she call that one.

So, yesterday, after 3.5 years of wading through waist-deep snow, I finally broke through.

I can't even tell you how it felt. I sat in stunned silence for quite a while, just exploring the feeling of not STRIVING any more. All those feelings of hope and grief and anger and determined outrage I'd been piling on all that time, just let go. I giggled. I burst into tears when my mom sent flowers. What a ride.

I have to admit - I wouldn't have felt this so much if it had happened right away.

Now, I've let (Possible) Agent who has Obsidian know that I have an offer, as she asked me to do. I'll wait to see what she says and then move from there. But no matter what, Obsidian will see the light of day and I'm just so, so grateful.

Rain for everyone!

Agency Publishing and Conflict of Interest

Bows and flows of angel hair and ice cream castles in the air. And feather canyons everywhere.

For those of you old enough to remember this song, you're welcome for the ear worm. You know, aren't we due for a really good cover of Both Sides Now? Someone should really get on that.

So, it's been an interesting week in the publishing world, vis a vis agents and electronic publishing.

On Monday, much-sought agent Jessica Faust announced on the Bookends, LLC blog, that the literary agency would be developing an epublishing arm. At the time I'm writing this, there are 152 comments on the post. See, they're not the first agency to announce that they're partnering with their authors to assist them with self-publishing their backlists. Bookends, however, is taking this one step farther and plans to establish an entire epublishing arm, which would involve them screening submissions, editing books, electronically publishing them and marketing. For this, Bookends would receive an unspecified split of the revenue.

This is a huge move, from agenting to publishing.

Yesterday, Courtney Milan, romance author and lawyer, posted an excellent breakdown of the situation in An Open Letter to Agents. Now, she does not specifically address any agency in particular - I'm the one drawing this correlation. Courtney lays out the situation in a clear and logical way. She promises a second part today, which I'm interested to see.

What it comes down to for me is Conflict of Interest (COI). Now - full disclosure - COI is a fairly large part of my day to day considerations. I work for a private environmental consulting firm, funded largely by government contracts, primarily EPA. We have meetings about COI fairly often, because we owe it to our clients to do so.

For example (and you can totally skip this part if it's too boring), a company that analyzes water samples contacted us. They've developed a database system for wastewater plants that processes the results of their water tests, compares the data to EPA's regulations and tells the plant operator where they are in compliance with the law. This company would like to develop something similar for drinking water. They came to us, because we're the drinking water experts. All fabulous, right?

Well, no. Because one of the things we do for EPA is assess water system data and their determinations about whether they are in compliance with the law. I'm essentially an auditor. So, if I were to help design a program to determine compliance, while I'm also assessing how well a system using that program does it, then I have the appearance of a COI. Because I could skew the results in my favor.

Now, I would never do that. I'm an objective scientist with strong personal and professional ethics. None of that matters - our company could lose multi-million dollar contracts if there's any chance of COI. Because my client, EPA, awarded me this contract to be their agent and no one else's.

We had several meetings on this issue and eventually decided any role we'd play would have to be one step back. I can explain the federal regulations and the nitty-gritty of compliance to the program developers, but how they set it up is up to them.

So, let's look at a literary agent publishing her clients' work. A writer engages a literary agent to represent her work to publishers. The agent has the contacts, the sales experience and the business savvy to get her client the very best possible deal. The agent represents the writers' interests.

If the agent becomes a publisher, she now has an interest on the other side of the fence. To my mind, this is more than even just the appearance of COI. Arguably, agents who are also writers have this same conflict. Breezily declaring that, oh they have no COI and, besides, they have integrity simply means nothing at all.

In fact, that some agents fob off COI as irrelevant says to me that they haven't seriously considered the issue.

I'd believe that. It might be that you only really think about these things when you have to go through three meetings investigating all the possible COI ripples for each new project, that it becomes a serious consideration.

The thing is, it's only a consideration for them if it becomes a problem in their contract with their clients: the authors. Just like I would be in trouble if I violated my contract with my client, EPA, an agent would be in trouble for violating the terms of their contract with their client, the author, only if the author came down on them. Now, EPA and the federal contracts office can come down on us like Armageddon. Will an author come down on her agent in the same way?

I think we all know the answer to that.

I venture that this is why literary agents aren't terribly concerned about COI. There's really no reason for them to be. The only people hurt by any COI on their part is the writers.

It remains to be seen whether we'll do anything about it.

How Not to Revise

This monsoon season has been a tease. The clouds loom, promising rain, and then evaporate. I watch it on the weather radar - the greens condensing, flashing orange and red - and then it dissolves away again.

As I mentioned yesterday, I've been in revision mode, refining The Body Gift. Actually, now that I think about it, I've been in revising/editing mode for quite some time now. Between revising Obsidian for a revise & resubmit, working on developmental,, line and copy edits for Sapphire and Feeding the Vampire, and now adding to TBG to send to this agent, I haven't done any real drafting since March.

Sure, some of this has involved adding new words, but really, working on a story that's already *there* is a different process.

You know how sculptors (it might be a specific one, but I forget who and I'm feeling too lazy to try to find it) say that sculpting is carving away the extra stone, to find the shape that already exists within? (Maybe it was Michelangelo?) I've always loved this idea. This is how writing and revising often works for me.

Once a draft is complete and the story is pretty much *there* (this is a technical word I've used twice now. feel free to borrow, but use carefully - it's a powerful term), it's like a block of marble. Maybe it's like a rough outline. Or like the horrible, globulous beings that are what remains of people when the transporter malfunctions. Kind of shaped like something, but not really discernible. Not alive, for sure.

I think it works this way for me because I don't really plan my stories. It's more like I download big chunks from elsewhere. Unlike A.S. Byatt, however, I don't get mine in perfect dictation. So there I am, with my amorphous thing, that has some really lovely bits and some pretty damn icky ones. That's when I begin carving.

Revision is an acquired skill, I believe. It takes care and judgment. You have to be brave enough to knock off big pieces that must go, but also patient enough to do the detail work. Over and over, you have to step back and see how you're doing. It takes objectivity and precision.

And, oh yes, you can ruin it. I truly believe that.

There comes a point where, instead of refining and polishing, you're hacking it to bits. Sure, with writing, you can always add it back in. This is the advantage the writer has over a sculptor who accidentally whacks off the nose. The story, however, that brilliantly alive creature, can slowly suffocate, wither away and die if pummeled too much. You're left with a corpse. Maybe a pretty corpse, but a dead body nonetheless.

I know no one wants to hear this. We all want to believe that, with enough crit, enough time and dedication, we can make the book PERFECT. Maybe a truly practiced writer can. But, just as with sculpting, it takes skill and experience.

This is what I'm learning about revising: it's important to keep the final image in mind.

We all start with a seminal image or idea. That changes as we go along. But, at some point in the process, (yes, yes, I know you pre-plotters claim you know it before you even start writing) you have to decide on what you want it to look like when you're done. All revising should be directed to that idea. Don't get halfway through polishing your Running Dog sculpture and then think, hey! a Running Cat would be way cool! Write down the Running Cat idea and go back to working on the DOG.

Having editorial notes helps with this, because you can keep going back to the line where your editor says "do this." I've started keeping a list of what I'm revising towards. To remind myself of that final image.

I imagine that few sculptors create a perfect sculpture on their first try. This is why most writers I know have at least one novel under the bed, maybe several. Those are the corpses.

Like clouds promising rain, sometimes they don't produce.

May they rest in peace.

Recalibrating

I caught a bit of sun on this one, but I love the happy look on Granddaughter Aerro's face.

We spent the weekend with family, celebrating David's birthday and Tobiah's a bit late. It's fun to do these things, to see everyone, but I ate lots of food I don't normally eat, got no writing done and got all out of my routine.

I know - I'm cantankerous.

I think this is why so many people dislike Mondays though. It's much easier to stay with a routine than to start it up again. My folks are retired and they don't notice the days of the week so much, except for planning events. Sometimes I think that's the best way, just to let the flow of time be even. When I'm home for the weekend, though I sleep a bit later, it's not by a huge amount - maybe an hour - and my exercise and writing schedule is pretty much the same. Then Monday isn't so much of a shock.

This morning, though...

So I'm gearing up. Lots to do this week. I'm almost done revising The Body Gift. I've been strengthening the hero and it's working. I found myself mooning over him the other day, which is lovely, because he's been very difficult to get to know. I'm 70% done, with 15 chapters to do over the next 7 days. Totally doable, right?

(There is the small matter of adding an entirely new scene where my characters end up in this very particular image I have in my head, but I don't really know how they get there or what happens. The story magic will fill that in, right?)

Then I send it off to my (potential) agent who is enthusiastically (I like to think) waiting for it.

Okay, off I go to catch a wave. Wish me luck!

I Like My Way Better

I'm over at Word Whores today, talking about being assimilated. Or not.

Really Published

I find this really amusing - my Kindle is now dog-eared.

I don't mind a bit. It seems right to me that my Kindle should look like my paper books - well-used and a bit tattered from being carted about hither and yon. I've had it for coming up on three years now and I still love it.

Last night we did drinks and dinner with another couple to celebrate David's birthday and the gal was asking me about my experiences with e-publishing. She wanted to know if I *could* get paper copies of my books. I told her it varies with my contracts, but I vaguely recall that the Carina contract promises me some bound paper copies for promotional purposes, but I'd have to look at it again to be sure. And, if the book sells well or seems likely to do well in print, they have the right to do that. Which is why they call it "digital-first" publishing.

"But if you ever decided to have these books published, you could, right?" she asked.

"They are published," I tell her.

"Right. But if you wanted to have them really published, so you could hand a copy to your mother or something - could you do that?"

I didn't mention that my lovely mother has a Kindle of her own.

It will be interesting to see how long this notion of "really published" lasts. She seemed to think I'd be longing for the validation of a print book. And, to be fair, I know plenty of authors - especially ones looking to get their first book published - who really want that. They make what I think are dubious decisions between publishing houses, because they want print books, too.

This is not something I care about.

I have a print book. (Wyoming Trucks, True Love and the Weather Channel) It's very pretty; it has many stars on Amazon. Book resellers will nearly pay you to take it. I've sold in the neighborhood of twice as many copies of Petals and Thorns, which apparently doesn't really exist, as they ever printed of Wyoming Trucks.

If that sounds like I'm bitter, I'm really not. It's all well and good to have a hardbound university press book and have people say lovely things to you about it. But having people actually read what I write is far more rewarding.

It doesn't get any more real than that.

Birth and Death

Today is David's birthday.

This has become a dual anniversary for us, because it was two years ago today that we arrived in Santa Fe, in a pouring rain storm, to start house-hunting here. Amazing to us that it's already two years. And now just one more until he's done with school.

We always say it, but time flies on by.

The days rush past, with all our little ups and downs, until something reminds us that this isn't a given. On Tuesday, one of my college friends died. I've long had his blog on my blogroll there on the sidebar. The title is now ironic: I'm Not Dead Yet. He'd been battling pancreatic cancer with courage, humor and determination for several years. He hoped to beat the truly terrible odds of this devastating cancer, and did for quite a long time. Eventually his body gave out. He turned 45 in March; I'll turn 45 next month. I'm still here and he isn't.

Life - and death - are strange that way.

A few days ago, the young woman my cousin is engaged to posted to Facebook that her grandfather has cancer and we should pray for him because cancer is caused by sin. She's a Southern Lutheran and he's now a Lutheran minister. I wanted to comment that my cat died of cancer and I'm pretty sure she wasn't sinful, but I refrained. There's no arguing with that kind of belief system.

I think we'd all like to know why. Why one person gets pancreatic cancer young and another does not. Why some live to be very old and others don't live to see their children grow up.

The one thing I do know is, I'm glad to be alive. I'm happy to be celebrating another year with my friend, partner and lover. I hope never to take this for granted.

Happy birthday, my dear!

Feeding the Vampire Coming Soon!

Two weeks from today!

Yeah, I know it's fast. See it's a "Quickie" (har har) because it's a short - only 7K words. And Ellora's Cave turned it around really fast. Their editorial process, in face, is very slick. My editor, Grace, is very sharp and delightful to work with, too.

You didn't really know I'd written this one?

Well, see it's my post-apocalyptic vampire erotica. I know, right? My critique partners just shake their heads at me. But it's not like I*plan* these things. Sometimes I think it would be cool to be one of those writers who plans what they'll write, but I'm just not.

Here's the blurb:

Feeding the Vampire

Jeffe Kennedy

Through good luck and healthy cowardice, Misty has survived the earthquakes that have torn the world apart, but has no skills to speak of. Or so she thinks. She does have blood, and someone must feed the vampire who has offered his protection and strength in exchange for sustenance. Feeding Ivan is a priority, and Misty finally serves a purpose.

But when she awakens tied to his bed, an unwilling gift to Ivan from the townspeople, she discovers he has hungers other than blood. Hungers he expects her to satisfy in the most carnal manner. Under his seductive persuasion Misty discovers she has the power to sustain Ivan in all ways, while experiencing unspeakable pleasure herself.

See, they all come from dreams. Sometimes daydream-type images, but this one is an honest-to-god full-featured dream. In fact, the excerpt below is pretty much what I dreamed and I built the story from there:

I was compelled to feed him. I had no choice, really.

Earl cleared his throat. “Thank you.” Our town administrator looked around for agreement, but they weren’t meeting his eyes either. Like kids ducking the teacher’s gaze. “Thank you, Misty. We all appreciate your…” He trailed off uncomfortably.

Sacrifice? Surely no one wanted to hear that word aloud. Martyr to the cause? No, not much better.

Earl shuffled the papers in his lap. Waiting for me to get to it, I supposed. Well, he had just said that feeding Ivan ought to be the first order of business. We couldn’t very well make plans for our community while the guy in charge of our defenses wilted before our eyes, especially since we needed him alert and focused. Me? I was pretty damn expendable. I hadn’t brought much to the table so far, except my survival, which really was accidental. Right place at the right time. Turns out stolid New England was just the right place to be for the particular form this apocalypse took. Granite bedrock and all that.

My boring hometown was a safe haven and everyone wanted in on our resources. The people turning up every day were let in or turned away depending on what they offered. I counted my lucky stars I’d been grandfathered in simply because my neighbors didn’t have the heart to kick me out. Excellent keyboarding skills and a customer-friendly personality didn’t count for much in this economy. Especially without, um, customers or working keyboards.

I couldn’t afford to be a useless mouth to feed. Their hearts would harden—they already had. Tonight was pivotal. We’d acquired a vampire of our own for defense. Everyone felt better about our future—if we could keep him happy. At least I knew how to make blood. You could say I was a natural.

And yet, the certainty that had propelled me to my feet seemed to be bleeding away, frightened off by Ivan’s fixed intensity and everyone else’s obvious relief. They waited, restless, for me to just get on with it. Uncomfortable silence.

Hi, I’m Misty and I’m a Fool. I haven’t done anything really unwise in twenty-seven days. Kind of a record for me really. Apparently I was due.

The vampire just stared at me.

I set my yellow pad on the chair and made myself walk across the circle to where he sat in the tacky folding metal chair. My sandals slapped lightly on the tiles, making tinny echoes. Ivan’s roving gaze sent tremors of anticipation up my thighs.

A few murmured conversations resumed. They probably didn’t like the creepy silence any more than I did. I appreciated their polite attempt not to gawk. I’d never seen a vampire feed—probably none of them had either.

I stopped in front of Ivan. He leaned back, long legs sprawled out in careless indolence. He tilted his head at my hesitation and held out his hands as if to help me down from a carriage.

“Perhaps we should step out of the room?” I tried.

“I haven’t the strength to stand.” His grave eyes watched me with avid intent.

If I ran, he would definitely find the strength to hunt me down. After all, he’d walked into this room. Heck, he’d arrived at the bridge leading to our sleepy town only last night, offering his protection in return for our shelter and sustenance. He had to have gotten there somehow.

He wrapped his long fingers around my wrists, cuffing them with bands of steel. Exerting steady pressure, he drew me closer, parting his lips. White fangs gleamed with fluorescent highlights. My heart thumped in panic, hot fear filling me.

“Will it hurt?” My voice sounded thready, weak.

Hunger flared in his eyes at the question. “It always does.”

Ivan snapped me against his hard body. The sharp movement splintered any second thoughts. He pulled me astraddle his lap. My cheap cotton dress hiked up alarmingly. The chafe of his dark denim jeans sent tremors up my fully exposed thighs. Shame and terror flashed through me.

Then all thought and emotion burst in flame, immolating me through the fierce violence of his teeth sinking into my throat. The agony of the deep puncture, fear feeding pain, fired through my blood. I struggled like a wild thing, without thought. Animal instinct screamed at me to flee, to escape by any means possible.

The vampire held me trapped. There was no escape for me, the mouse flailing under the cat’s paw.

My will, never my strong point, snapped. The fight ebbed away with the tide of my blood. The steady drop of pressure left me enervated, without resistance. Darkness filled my brain, prickled with sparking stars. I wilted, becoming a bit of detritus washed upon the shore of Ivan’s body.

Pain filled my veins, pumped through my heart. It replaced my blood, spiraling through my body from the insistent penetration of Ivan’s teeth in my throat. Helpless against the crashing waves, I relinquished my last hold on consciousness and sank into the hot, tarry sea of oblivion.

Yeah. Now you know why I remembered THAT dream so clearly.

I really kind of love Misty. She's different from my other heroines, not as sharp or capable. But she has a different sort of confidence that comes from knowing her limitations. If this story does well, I'd like to write more about her. I suspect she has a lot more to offer than she thinks.

At any rate, you can see the story Here.

Drop Me a Line Sometime

David asked me to stop at the grocery store after the gym this morning.

This is easy to do, because the gym is just up the road and the grocery store is right across the street. On my weight-lifting days, David usually stays home and does his own work-out. Apparently shapely thighs are not a high-priority for him.

Go figure.

Oh! And many of you have asked why there haven't been Crazy Gym Lady stories lately. At first I stopped telling them, because I thought it wasn't healthy to take notes on how much she irritated me, just so I could regale you on the blog. Then she got fired. Yes, she did! There has been much rejoicing in Mudville ever since. Incredible difference for us. We go to the gym, work out, nobody bugs us, we leave. Ah, blessed peace.

At any rate, this morning I paid my dues to the Gods of Shapely Thighs, then stopped at the grocery store. This woman was walking in who looked very familiar. This is our local store and we've been here two years, so a lot of people are looking familiar now. I knew she was out of context, wearing a shapely black skirt and jacket. But she's very tall with tousled curly hair that's quite distinctive. So I'm studying her as she walks in, trying to place her. She stops, just inside the door, at the greeting card carousel and starts flipping through them, frowning.

In trying to place her, I'm thinking she usually looks relaxed and happy. This morning, she was anxious, stressed. It was a bit after 7 and she looked like she would be heading into town, but had to stop to buy a card first. As I did my shopping, I thought about who the card might be for and how pleased they would be to get it. Or she was dressed to attend a funeral and the card would be for sympathy and would likely make the person weepy to read it.

Regardless, whoever gets that card likely never will think about the effort it took for my familiar lady to stop, pick one out and buy it on the way into town. A matter of minutes, but it cost her a bit of stress.

People in our lives do so many things for us, large and small, daily and annually. Some we expect. Some we don't. But they all feed into the vast blood supply that supports and nurtures us.

I'm giving a bit of thought to that today.

Art or Smut?

The fire near Los Alamos (the Las Conchas fire, officially) is confined enough now to look like a giant train, steaming ahead on the horizon. I hope it gets where it's going soon.

Last week, I received the quarterly newsletter from the Ucross Foundation. This is a really wonderful group that supports artists of many varieties. They sponsor a residency program where you can go stay for two to six weeks and, well, create full-time. I particularly like the Ucross take on this because the 8-10 residents at any given time can be writers, composers, photographers, painters, sculptors, etc.

Getting a residency is competitive and you have to pass several stages of admission. Once there, they give you a room to sleep in and a study. I had this amazing study that was like a library, with a little deck off of it. We were on our own for breakfast, which we pulled from this amazingly well-stocked kitchen. At night, we all convened for dinner and always fascinating conversation. For lunch, they would creep up outside your study door and leave a sack lunch. I never heard anyone come or go. It was like we were curing cancer.

This was an incredible experience for me and something I highly recommend to any writer.

This was the first time for me that my identity, and sole purpose for two whole weeks, was entirely about writing. It was a huge transformation for me and will always be an experience and memory I treasure.

They follow their former residents and include news of their careers in the newsletter. The five writers who had stories in Best American Short Stories, the gallery showings, the concerts. All pretty fabulous activities.

I wasn't in there.

And I'm not saying this as a Poor Me thing. The reason my news isn't in there is because I haven't sent it to them. So this got me thinking.

Why haven't I told them about Petals and Thorns, or the upcoming Feeding the Vampire and Sapphire? I don't think I'm ashamed. However, clearly I'm not proud.

Or I would have told them. Right?

I know some of this comes down to the eternal battle between literachur and genre. I noticed that a couple writers I know reported fairly minor journalistic publications for listing. I probably would do that, too, before I'd send out notices about my very naughty novellas.

It surprised me that I think this way and I haven't decided what to do about it. I did a little Twitter poll on the topic and most people said to own it, be proud and send in my info. One gal told me she wouldn't do it either, but then, she was still "festering" about the people in grad school. Something I totally get.

So, I haven't decided. Am I eternally seeking approval from the academics? Do I trumpet my work, which is selling far better than anything else I've ever written, and spread the good word about careers in digital-first publishing?

What would Anais Nin do?

On Being Driven to Write

I'm at Word Whores today, talking about what happens when I don't write.

Thunder Moon

I had to catch the full Thunder Moon at dawn this morning, since last night, appropriately enough, thunderclouds obscured the moonrise.

Love those thunderclouds. Rain all you like!

Yesterday, Angela James, Executive Editor of Carina Press and savvy social media maven, tweeted this:

@angelajames Angela James

Me to agent: "I'm going to pass on this author. She's had occasion to be very rude to me & others in the past." #pubtip : Be professional

14 Jul via TweetDeck

This is noteworthy because we've all suspected it's possible for this to happen. The publishing community is quite small, often insular, occasionally incestuous (and I mean that in the nicest possible way). Whether at conferences or online, we are in each other's laps much of the time. There are no secrets. When questioned, Angela followed up with:

@angelajames Angela James

To clarify previous #pubtip, I've never met author, but she's been VERY rude to me re: past rejection letters. & to readers online as well.

23 hours ago

and

@angelajames Angela James

@salys I didn't look at her writing this time.I'm not interested in working w/someone who has no respect for anyone else, readers or editors

23 hours ago

and

@angelajames Angela James

@salys if I know up front that's how she acts, and she's already destroyed her online rep, her writing is irrelevant if she won't sell

23 hours ago

and

@angelajames Angela James

@salys also, my stress level is high enough. I don't need to purposely add something to work situation that would make it worse

23 hours ago

This is pretty much what I would have predicted. Angela is at the helm of a digital-first imprint of a major publisher. She knows that online interactions play a huge role in this world. The days - if they ever really existed - of a writer getting to play the diva and curse anyone who crosses them are well and truly over.

It reminds me of the small town thing.

When I moved to Wyoming for grad school, I went from living in Denver and St. Louis, to a town of 26,000 people. Functionally the population is half that if you only count the year-round population. Now, I was an *ahem* aggressive driver. Not rage-driver, but definitely big-city driver. Other cars were never about people to me - they were simply "traffic." Nothing personal.

Imagine my surprise when people called me out for it.

"Hey, you cut me off this morning!"

"Geez, how fast were you going down Grand yesterday afternoon??"

"You tailgated me all the way to Safeway - what's up with that?"

Oops.

Once I got over the fact that these people actually looked in my car and recognized me, I discovered I was now accountable for my driving behavior in a way I'd never been before. No longer anonymous, I had become part of a small community, for better or worse. I had to change my behavior.

I suppose you could argue this impinged on my freedom to be obnoxious. Small towns can be oppressive because they do limit freedom of thought and action. The social mores can be restrictive. But, there's always the option to leave that community. If the reasons to stay are compelling enough, you'd better learn how to get along with your neighbors.

And if you want them to hire you or elect you to city council? Find a way to be congenial.

It can't be said often enough: watch what you say in public. Imagine that everything will be heard and remembered, and absolutely held against you in the court of public opinion. People will forgive you the odd slip, but a pattern of continued bad behavior? No no no. My writing buddies and I have the Cone of Silence. All snarkiness must occur inside the Cone.

Make sure it's really on, too.

What was most amazing to me about yesterday's exchange was an author replied to Angela saying:

Oh, shit, I said I was *sorry* I called you "picky."

and

I'm crying now. You're such a b*#$ch.

I didn't include her tweet info here, because I think she's an idiot for posting those and I'll save her this extra bit of self-induced humiliation. The tweets are still up, though, for anyone who cares to see... and to track that her data matches up to Angela's author-in-question.

Perhaps it all comes down to learning to take criticism. Live and learn.

When you do get called out for something, like I did? It's an opportunity for course-correction. Apologize and fix the problem. People will forgive. They'll eventually forget.

But not if you keep behaving badly.