NaNoWriMo

I’ve always been aware of, and interested in, the concept behind NaNoWriMo.  For non-writerly people, National Novel Writers Month is a push for participants to complete a novel—the pre-set goal being 50,000 words—in a month.

I love the push, the camaraderie, the excitement.  But I’ve never “signed up,” so to speak.  I was always a fringe participant.

This year my promotional agency has created a schedule for me in 2011, 2012, and into early 2013.  I am expected to put out six books—3 each in both an adult mystery and a young adult fantasy series.  This will be good for me, and I’m incredibly excited about it.  Maggie, my mystery heroine, and Echo, my fantasy minstrel heroine, are going to be really busy.

And so am I!  I’ve always written quickly, but my worst habit is probably getting wrapped up in “fixing,” which often results in manuscripts landing under the bed or lagging in semi-completion while I fuss.  With the NaNoWriMo hounds at my heels, and the promotional gremlins growling at the door, I’ll be forced to do better.

Let us all invoke, draw upon, and celebrate Captain Mal’s Wisdom… yea, verily, the mighty Joss Whedon shall guide us!

goodkindles is good stuff!

Have you discovered Good Kindles? It’s a dynamite new blog where you can find wonderful recommendations for your kindle.

Among the fabulous reads you will even find… drumroll… My Boyfriend’s Back by yours truly!

Check them out!

GOOD KINDLES

The Apocalypse Is Not Nigh

In spite of rather rigorous predictions to the contrary, the Apocalypse is not, in fact, nigh.

We’re fine. Yet some significant signs and omens have been afoot, not the least of which is my ultimate conversion from physical books.

Books made of paper, you know. They used to do that in ancient times.

But seriously, folks…

I was among the last to convert to ebooking and was among the most ardent protesters. I’d owned several readers, including a Slick, a Sony PRS, and the occasional borrowing of Ahmed’s Nook. I never liked reading on any of them. Then I got my Kindle and began buying more ebooks than print books. Within six months it was rare for me to purchase a paper book. At this point my physical book purchases are strictly “for my home library” sales.

Which is fine. I like having rows of colorful spines lined up along my built-in book shelves. I still prefer to use strictly-hardcover or heavy trade copies of research volumes. Flipping around and using a good index can’t seem to translate itself to digital for me.

But last weekend I was lonely for an old favorite. I wanted to re-read one of my all-time most-beloved re-reads. I realized I did not have that particular trilogy in digital. The large, soft-bound release of all three books together is ungainly, though I love having it in the house. I looked at that version on amazon.com.

Hmmm. Each novel was $7.99; the bundled trilogy was not yet available for Kindle.

Dammit. So I began re-reading the large, floppy, weighty compilation. I was willing to deal with the awkwardness. It was fine. Only about 1/4 of the way into the first book I found myself encountering a word in Italian and reaching for the translation via my cursor… oops, this is the paper copy. As the evening wore on and I needed bathroom breaks I realized I had to mark my place with a book mark. No big deal. Then I found myself tipping the actual, physical, paper book to find the little switch so I could slide it and shut down.

I’ve been re-trained. It’s all over but the crying.

Lovingly, reverently, I replaced that much-adored volume to its place on my shelf, the author’s name and pretty graphics along the spine looking over my shoulder from the lines of favorites by my bed…

…and got online to download the individual titles from amazon so I could read in peace. Best $23.97 I’ve ever spent!

Indie or Self or… what? A DIRECT Answer:

I’m not self published.  I don’t reject the term because I am part of the paranoid fringe.  I reject it because it has nothing to do with my process, my agreements, or what I do.

At one point I did use the terms “independent” or “indie” often.  I’m not married to the phrase, but it pisses off ALL THE RIGHT PEOPLE.  The term was, for a long time, used by small presses.  Independently owned, one might say.  But for the author, it never made sense (to me, at least).  You aren’t doing this independently, you are with a publisher that calls itself independent.  Even that seems, to me, a stretch— how many people working on a book at one time can count as “independent?”

But self-publishing?  I don’t do it myself.  I’m selling through amazon, BN, Smashwords, or another open submission site.  I may format it, edit it,  and write it—or sub-contract parts of the process out—but I damn sure don’t run the site or do the grunt work once it’s done.

Last week a group of writers who are largely New York pubbed—my local writer’s group, which is lucky to have a larger distinguished list than most—chitty chatted the topic.  Many of the members who are signed with the big names are also doing some sel—err—indi--- err… publishing-by-themselves-through-just-as-big-means on the side.  We came to an agreement, within the group, to use the term DIRECT PUBLISHED. 

Direct published.  Hmm.  You know what?  I really like that.  It says what I want: I cut out the middle man, did the book on my own, and asked this big website/store/outlet to release it to the public.  I went directly from my manuscript to the customer source without passing GO, collecting $200 (at least until some stuff starts selling), and avoided the Minotaur’s maze.

Direct Publishing… yeah… I dig that.  I’m sort of a direct kind of gal.

OOPS… Snippet Sunday Monday

Oops.  I apologize to the Snippet Crew.  I was supposed to do a Snippet Sunday post yesterday and utterly forgot, which is really NOT like me.

Mea culpa, and I do beg everyone’s pardon.

So here you go…

From CRY UNCLE, by Chrissy Olinger:

We stopped sticking up for Emily around the time she got boobs.  She was a slut.  At a certain point you don't want people to know your cousin is the slut with a beer hidden in her mitten at the hockey game.  You don't want people walking up to you at a bonfire with the charming little tidbit that they'd banged your fifteen year old cousin in exchange for a bottle of Jack Daniels.

But my brothers could be described as mean... yet not as bullies.  Jackie could be positively cruel, but it was an equal opportunity wedgie-and-butt-cheek-taping system. Nobody was immune.  Actually, he was immune... to the knowledge that taping the ass-cheeks of a two-hundred-and-forty pound tackle together with duct tape was not the same experience for the tapee if he's a hundred-and-twenty pound locker room nerd.  It was one of the genealogical hazards of being a Gallagher.  You may not be ten feet tall, but  you were bullet proof.  You never worried about being safe in Crow Point if you were a Gallagher.  You might get a wedgie, but you'd also get revenge, and nobody would really hurt you.  Payback was too terrifying for those who trifled with the Gallaghers.

Gazing at my brothers, piled in a squirming mass of noogie-driving testosterone on the sloping green lawn of my parents' home, I realized with a disturbing clarity how much a part of my confidence I owed to these idiots.  Was that a comfort or a curse?  Maybe both.

No $hit, Sherlock…

Aspen Mountain Press is a gigantic, gaping craphole.  This is no surprise.  Authors got screwed.  This is unfortunate, but no surprise.  Laws were broken.  This is an outrage, but no surprise.

What still blows me away is that nobody seems to have the dazzling and magical ability to see it coming.  I’ll give you a super-duper tip:

CHECK THE AUTHOR LIST BEFORE YOU EVEN BOTHER TO SUBMIT.

The majority of the list over at AMP means nothing to me, but several names do jump right off the page.  I’ve never read their books, but I’ve read their absolutely insufferable forum/blog postings.  They lurk all over places like Absolute Write (no link, sorry, I wouldn’t point anyone to that place) condescending to newbies.  Many are ops or mods or whatever you want to call an asshole with super powers, endowed by virtue of… well, you tell me.

I’ve never purchased an AMP book, and many, many authors there never saw their books  published.  I’m sure many are wonderful writers.  I wish them all the best.  But seriously, I just looked at the list again, and I’m seeing the same half dozen know-it-alls who seem to somehow, in spite of knowing it all, always appear right in the middle of every bitch-slap-a-palooza over a crap publisher screwing authors.  How, oh how, do these poor bastards—endowed with super powers, mind you—ALWAYS end up victims of crap publishers?

Ironically, over at Absolute Wrong, if you read the thread (to which many of the brand-spanking-new accusers point), you will note at least one mod, at the opening salvo of the AMP inquiry thread, noting they have signed with AMP and know of no issues.  You will note other know-it-alls chiming in with “so far so good” assurances.

I’m clearly no expert, since I have no shiny hat, and have been endowed with nothing empowering me with the super-ability of pedantic bullshit… but I’d just avoid anything with which those idiots associate.

Now gimme my tights and cape.

I Shall Stalk Midnight…

Oh yeah… I’ll be up at midnight tonight. I really need the sleep, but my devotion is beyond absolute. My devotion would be an illness if it weren’t for the glory of fangirldom in its highest, purest, most sacred form.  This isn’t just about book love.  THIS IS PRATCHETT.

October 11th is the release date for SNUFF,Terry Pratchett's newest book. It's not JUST a Discworld book. It's not just the 39th Discworld book (if we include Tiffany Aching, and I don't think I'd even consider crossing her, so let's do). It's Sam Vimes... it's Lady Sybill on holiday... it's something terribly close to religion.

So I will be dorkily hovering over amazon’s REFRESH at midnight.  I could pre-order it to be sent to my Kindle, but they never arrive until after they’ve begun selling, and I absolutely MUST have this book the instant it is live for purchase.

Don’t expect to see much of me tomorrow.  I’ll be reading.  And sighing.  And laughing out loud.  And hoping Mr. Pratchett has a number 40, and 41, and many more left for his faithful.

Website Overhaul

Because my publication schedule has changed, and because exciting new developments are at hand, and because I have new material, and because I felt some of my promotional material was better suited to a wider array of imagery, and because I simply LOVE run-on sentences, I changed my website.

New look, new content, some old favorites, and cetera.

Enjoy!   chrissyolinger.com

Imposing Judgment vs. Judgment Calls

I know a woman who has recently divorced her husband, and I really can’t blame her.  Never liked the guy.  Never liked the way he treated her or her kids.  Never thought it was a healthy relationship, and for me, it would not have even been tolerable. 

I’ve run into “Cindy” a few times since the divorce was finalized.  She’s having a good time.  No, really… a really good time.

I know we like the phrase “don’t judge.”  But I have been thinking about it a lot lately, and the phrase is far too simple to encompass any normal relationship in this world.  We judge.  We can’t stop the reactions we have, and would not want to navigate this life without our impressions.  I want to look at a person and have instincts, assessments, and… yes… the staggering gift of my character judgment.  It has never betrayed me.  It has taught me a great deal, often by my own betrayal of IT.

So when I see “Cindy,” a mother of three, out drinking herself stupid, dressed like she’s still in college, and using far more sexually suggestive language than she did during her marriage, I have a reaction.  Sorry, but it isn’t a positive one.

Does this mean I stopped liking “Cindy?” No. Does it mean I think less of her? Not yet. But there is a difference between judging her and making a judgment call.

JUDGING HER: “Cindy” has become a lush and a bit of a tart and is no longer worthy of my friendship.  She should be spanked for being a bad girl, and shunned.

MAKING A JUDGMENT CALL:  I’ve noticed that recently, “Cindy” has bee celebrating the end of her bad marriage by acting like a lush and a bit of a tart.  I hope she gets past it soon.  I wonder if I can be a good friend to her in the mean time?  (Note to self: I also hope she doesn’t become this person for good… but I have a bad feeling about this.)

Discussions of “fair” and “book covers” are all well and good.  But the truth of the matter is, the world is watching you.  People can refrain from reacting negatively to your behavior, but they DO react, even when they are reciting platitudes about books, covers, and stone-throwing.

Just because I note the behavior, react to it, and reserve the right to keep my benefits of doubt close at hand does not mean I am a stone-thrower… nor does any one person’s right to behave as they wish mean the behavior is wise.

Take it as you wish… it’s your call.