A Writer's World

Barbara Vey, Publishers Weekly blogger, wrote a lovely tribute to Beverly Barton, who suddenly passed away last week:
Beyond Her Book

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In this crazy, frenzied world, we have many ways to entertain ourselves, but to me, none is more enriching and thought-provoking than a book. Many of us have stories to tell, but not all of us could sit down and write the book, from start to finish, much less, in Ms Barton's case, 75 completed novels that are published.

Writers share their world and bring imagination to life within a reader's mind--the characters, their action, the drama become real in our heads during the hours we're immersed in the reading. When a writer dies, the legacy of words remain, still holding power to involve more readers in the worlds inside each book.

Today I walked up and down the aisles of my friend's book store. She sells used and new books and in the years since I first walked in, I've found many new authors down these aisles. Many of them don't even write any more, some have passed on and some are doing other things now, but their books, with their worlds inside the pages, still beckon brightly from the shelves.

It also always amazes me that I can wander these aisles and now call many of those names on the book spines friends and acquaintances, that I've actually met these writers--story-spinners who wrote book after book after book. Their rich imagination and their tenacious ability to go through the writing process continue to inspire and awe me because I know how much work it is and how confusing it could be to juggle books and another job (or two!).

We writers all aspire to be a Beverly Barton. To be able to make a living from writing the books we love. To have passionate readers who always want more. And lastly, to get better at our craft every year.

Yes, this post is a bit melancholic, I know, but I've been feeling as if I've lost myself for a while now. When I'm at the conventions, it's always sell-sell-sell and what's selling and what's not, and when I'm home, it's always billsbillsbillsWrite...no can't, must pay bills.... and then of course, the guilt settles back in because I'm not writing quickly any more, and you know how it is when you're late and you know that a whole crowd of people are waiting for you...you feel horrible and hopelessly out-of-control, and your excuse sounds weak as hell (Oh, I have my other job to do, sorry!).

So. Not as glamorous as you thought, eh? :-)  Of course, the top 5 percent are* glamorous, I assure you. I've met them and they're hard-working too; only, they can afford to be late, nyah nyah.


When I'm feeling like this, I tend to read a lot. Because, heck, if I can't write my own world, I'll play in my friends', you know?

So, this is my very long-winded way to get you to tell me what you're reading right now :-).

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I haven't forgotten about the Ellora's Cave Calendar winner.  I'll put all the names in a hat and let Demon Dog pick one this weekend.

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The More Publishing Changes...

My first Romantic Times Convention was in 2001. Back then, RT was always in Oct. and so, this particular RT was memorably sombre because it was right after Sept. 11. There were almost no New York editors in attendance and many authors canceled too.

I went because I had a chance to room with Cherry Adair. I mean, me, a nobody aspiring-to-be pubbed writer, had the chance to pick the brains of a very wonderful writer...how could I refuse? So I went and in spite of the quieter-than-normal atmosphere (which I didn't know then, since I had no previous experience with which to compare), the RT party went on.

In 2001, there were very few e-published authors or publishers in attendance.  Ellora's Cave wasn't the power house we know today, and everyone was just getting excited about erotic romance and erotica. Also, at that time, small publishers were still viewed with caution because those of us who wanted to be published viewed them as a last option because of course, everyone wanted to have his or her first book picked up by a big publisher, one which offered an advance. 

There were a few writers who took the risk and contracted with these little known small publishers. There was barely any advance money and the books were trade-sized, which were more expensive and often not popular with readers because of size and price. Still, for some, it was a chance to get one's work in book form without going the vanity route.  At that particular RT, I remember talking to a few writers about this new "wave" and possibility of maybe one day electronic books being another way to read. We felt rather adventurous, wondering what the future would bring for us, and I was dreaming of being a successful author.

Ten years later.  Yes, this coming RT Con, now renamed RT Booklovers Convention, will be my tenth.  How things have changed, eh?

Today, I am published, with eight books under my belt. I've tasted the ups and downs of the publishing world and witnessed the rise and fall of genres, mass market books, trade-sized books, and new ways of being published.


Today, ebooks is not just a new wave of publishing, but a viable way to make a living. Recently, a very well-known author, a friend of mine, Barry Eisler, walked away from a $500,000 contract with St. Martin's Press to self-publish because he felt he could make more doing it himself. You can read about his decision at his blog.

This news caused a buzz through Twitter, FB, and all of Internetdom because it wasn't a big surprise to many that a national-selling author had decided to step out. Many of us had talked about it among ourselves and speculated on who the first Big One would be. Because, you see, doing-it-yourself and ebook publishing have lost their stigma since 2001.  Especially when the reading public is embracing it by buying these works. Just ask Amanda Hocking, self-published, and whose ebooks had made her seven figures without any major publisher involved. Today, she's the face of success to authors who want to get their works out. She's also added a wow factor because of her recent contract for seven figures with a publishing house.

You can bet the above two items will be two main topics of private conversations between writers at RT next week! It's amazing how the options have changed, yet not. Watching a best-selling traditional-published author changing places with a best-selling self-published author because of personal career-based decisions is not only interesting, but also very empowering, to us writers.

For the last few years, many authors have lost their contracts or big advances as traditional publishing houses lost money because of fewer sales due to the Big Depression (no, it's not a Recession, it's a Depression). Many have given up and gone back to their previous jobs before they wrote full-time. Many, like me, have lost much writing time as we work longer hours or took up other kinds of work to help pay our bills.

Ebooks sales have been going up since 2007 but I think the turning point was the introduction of the Kindle, and then came its competitors.  Also, Amazon has the $$$ to buy TV ads and thus get the attention of the layperson, those who aren't always keeping up with the latest e-gadget. Amazon's self-publishing business--print and ebook--became the new market place for many writers, both new and experienced, as readers started to try new books that are so easily accessible.

Now, a few days ago, Connie Brockway, another famous name among romance readers, has also announced her intention to self-published a few historical romances. Everyone is suddenly feeling very adventurous. And wondering what the future in publishing will bring.

And I'm still wondering whether I'd be successful in this crazy business.

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Watching The End Of The World As We Know It

Okay, the post title is a little melodramatic, but lately I've been feeling like I'm one of the few dinosaurs left with the impending Ice Age. No, I don't feel a catastropic disaster is going to kill us all, but then it's not 2012 yet ;-P.  And no, I'm not depressed or overwhelmed or even panicky; it's just a strange floaty feeling, as if anything I'm doing now can change at any moment.

Let's look at what's happening around us in ways Big and Small.  First, the Middle East, starting with Egypt.  Thousands of Arabs are standing up, demanding to have democracy, this coming after centuries and centuries of autocratic rule.  They say, in times past, it was easier for dictators to stamp out the kind of demonstrations we saw on TV, but with the use of social media such as Twitter and Facebook (and the Internet), the immediacacy of any kind of news doesn't give them much time to quell an uprising.

Whether that is true or not, one can't deny that there is change going on in that part of the world, and there's a feeling that something different will emerge in Egypt, Sudan, Bahrain, Libya, and other Arab states.  It's confusing times because we don't know what's coming, but we know we'll be affected by it, be it in small ways, like the price of gas, or bigger ways.

Second, the Space Shuttle program is coming to an end tomorrow.  It will take its last flight and will be retired.  Thousands of people will be without their jobs and for the first time ever in a long while, the US will have no space program.  We are going to hitch a ride with the Russians when we need to go to the space station.  JFK is spinning in his grave.

Again, it's not as if DOOM is going to befall us all now that we can't go up in space, at least, not for a while, but it's sign of the times that we're no longer IT.  Other countries are working on their space programs, and we're shutting down ours.  Of course, realists would say that we never found anything on the moon anyway, and landing that thing on Mars was a waste of money, but still, we've lived so long in the Age of Expansion, that we've grown to think that Space is ours, you know? 

Ray Bradbury was the first science fiction writer that gave me an awareness of what was possible with rocketships and space travel.  When I first understood what the space shuttle was, the idea of space travel for the masses became more real, that maybe...oh well, not in my lifetime.  I know there are other things being experimented on by scientists, like the space escalator, but that's still a concept.  As it is now, there are many at Cape Canaveral who aren't happy campers right now.

The third thing I'm bringing up affects me personally.  It's the publishing industry.  Everyday, someone out there is blogging about the impending doom of the system as we know it now.  Print books aren't selling and ebooks are becoming more and more popular.  Publishers are scrambling with new models while box stores like Borders announced bankruptcy.

The days of big contracts being offered to new authors are over.  That's what they're saying.  Those who are on top have nothing to lose, but those who are new will have to struggle harder to be heard among the thousands of new voices that are cropping up among the self-publishing and e-publishing venues.

Someone like me, in the middle (we're called mid-listers), has to find new ways to get new readers.  The Internet is a great place to find them, but to me, it's also a place in which to get lost, especially now that we're expected to learn how to put our ebooks out in different formats for different e-reading devices, become our own publishing houses, and also stand out enough to get readers to buy them.  For those who are tech-savvy, yeah, it's easy and fun, but for someone like me, it's basically lots and lots of time doing stuff I don't like doing.

Many have pointed out that we could hire people to do that for us.  Yes, there are services to set everything up, and the cost varies, and believe me, it still takes time even if you have someone to do everything for you while you write.  As someone with a day job, it's time I don't have, and it's also a lot of money involved.  If you start out with a minus $300-$600 (hiring someone to do the formats, cover, looking for stock pics, set up accts, professional editing, ISBN #s--just off the top of my head) per book, you'd better be damn sure that there are readers out there who will pay for your book for you to recoop those expenses.  Unless, of course, you're just rich enough to treat this as a hobby, and have the extra money to spend.

I don't know what's coming up, but definitely the world of publishing as I know it is changing.  Agents are questioning their roles.  Publishers are cutting back.  Anyone can self-publish and make it into the NYT and USAToday lists. 

There is a possibility that the future generation won't even be familiar with a print book because their parents are starting them out with a Kindle, Nook, or I-Pad.  I was telling my business partner that, if I do decide to open that bookstore, I probably have a ten year window because there are still readers of my generation who do enjoy browsing bookstores and buying physical books and checking for backlists.  There are also, surprisingly, many, many readers who don't go online at all, and still depend on their local bookstore owners for recommendations.  But for sure, the Kindle and the Nook are changing the reading world.

Change can be exciting and scary at the same time.  The cynical part of me says that old saying, about the more things change, the more they remain the same.  The hopeful part of me says that I'll have lots of fun being the new kind of author.  The lazy part of me says that I'll just have to pray to win the lottery so I can do all this as a hobby ;-).  Because, you know, the more I have to work at being an author, the less likely I will have time to write.  Not with a day job as a roofer.

Is there something in your world that is affecting you in a life-changing way?

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Experience Changes Your View

Isn't it strange how new things make us look at the world differently? When I became self-employed as a roofer, my view of what manual labor changed, and certainly, my knowledge of tax laws and social security (because self-employment required a lot of keeping records) grew by leaps and bounds.

How many times have I walked into buildings and houses and never paid attention to rooflines and roofs before that? Gazillions. But my new career changed my life forever.  I never drive by houses and not look at roofs and the quality of work.  It's a part of my nature now.

When I became published, I started to look at book covers with new eyes, checking out placement of names and whether they were tin-foiled or not, whether the size of the font of the name takes up the whole book, and where they were shelved.  These were things I never really thought about before; all I did was write and all I really cared about was getting the story done.

The world of publishing and being published made me very aware of the money side of the book world, the good and bad, and the struggles and victories.  I learned what I always read about--that the writing isn't everything and that sometimes, the circumstances out of one's control could affect one's writing and career.

How many times have I walked by authors signing books in a corner of the mall book store? Dozens. Today, when I pass a table with a lonely author sitting behind a stack of books, I always make it a point to say hi and check out his/her books.  Why? Because I've been on that side and understand how it feels to sit there, all by oneself, smiling till one's face aches, with only the one or two people stopping by to ask for directions to the restroom.

How many times have I just ordered an author's book and not thought about his/her current publisher? Gazillions.  Now, when I browse books, I check the publisher, the imprint, things that don't matter to most readers.  I notice the changes and even if I stopped writing, it's part of my nature now.

Since late December, there's been an addition to my menagerie of mutants.  I've been taking care of an orphaned squirrel, which fell off a tree and too dehydrated to climb in, and being chased by a hawk who had been feasting on her siblings.  It has been an education, with a lot of prayers because I read about how hard it was to take care of a baby squirrel and the survival rate wasn't too hopeful.  Thankfully, MikiSquirrel is doing well and took a liking to sitting on my shoulder and head.

How many times have I walked under trees and not noticed the rustling sounds and the nuts crunching under my feet? Gazillions.  Not any more.  Now I see nuts and I think of squirrel food.  I actually look at the tree and catch sight of squirrels staring back, and I take note of what they were eating so I could collect some later for Miki.  For some reason, she still can't crack nuts open, so I spend time cracking acorns and other nuts so she could eat them.  I, who didn't even own a nutcracker ever in my old age.

These days, my friends and roofers laugh at me because I'm always scrounging around in the bushes looking for squirrel food.  I'm always looking up into the sky to make sure there aren't hawks around when I put Miki outside in the tree.  I've learned what Miki and squirrels do to stay alive.  One day, Miki might finally decide to venture back into the trees and I'll only of pictures of me and a squirrel on my head, but you know what? I'll always be looking up into leafy canopies, listening for squirrel chatter.  It's part of my nature now.

Do you have a similar story of an experience that has changed your life, that it too has become a part of you?

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How My Life Has Changed since 2000

Remember 2000? The celebrations that followed the scare of Y2K (I think I still have a couple of tuna cans from that time, heh)? Dawn of the New Millenium?

Hard to believe that it was 10 years ago since we wrote 19somethingsomething on our checks.  There have been so many changes to the world since that affect our daily lives; I thought it'd be fun to look back and marvel at how different we were ten years ago and how we've ada[ted our lives to all the new technology thrown at us.

Ten years ago, I was definitely online LESS, mostly for email and to check out a few websites.  Blogs were just the new fad that I heard about and everyone was still fwding stupid jokes they've read on their email to 100 of their friends.  This instant gratification has translated to the "death" of snail mail.  Nobody writes letters any more, unless it's to the IRS.  And now, they're predicting the death of email too because everyone is text-messaging.

After my first book was published in 2003, I jumped onto the blogging wagon and have been blogging since.  In the beginning, there was much to say, much to share, loads of things to wonder about; nowadays, sometimes I read the controversies and the discussions online and instead of bringing it to my blog, I just shrug it off because I've read the same arguments and reactions before, maybe worded a little differently.  Eventually, some troll would appear and everyone would start acting like the McCoys and Hatfields, and the whole thing is buried under a bunch of hate. 

Ten years of these cycles and one start recognize the symptoms.  Looking back, ten years ago, I'd never have thought I'd be having a war of words with faceless persons over the Internet about anything.  Or that millions of people would do the same!  It's both amazing and weirdly trivial at the same time.

Ten years ago, I swore I'd not depend on this stupid pencilbox-sized thing called a cellphone.  Today, I've no land line and the cellphone has evolved into the palm-sized smartphone and everyone wants one because they can do everything on the smartphone.  Listening to music.  Playing games.  Email.  Surfing the net.  Calculate job costs.  Read a book.  You can do that with that phone now.  My eyes are ten years older and not liking these new smaller gadgets at all.  I get grumpy--extremely so--when I have to press five different buttons to get something I can just check on my old-fashioned wall calendar.

The gadgets have come fast and furious since 2000, haven't they?  Toys and TVs are so sophisticated now, I need a degree to operate them.  Of course, the "kids today" can do all that with their eyes closed, but yeah, who'd thought I'd turn into that old fart who complain about figuring out their VCR in ten years?!  Yet, setting things up ARE simpler too--Plug 'N Play, thou art a lifesaver.  Without the wizardry of Plug 'N Play, I swear all my gadgets would still be in their boxes, waiting for some time in the future to set up.

Ten years ago, we needed to go to a store to develop our photos.  Today, we could take 1000 digital pics and never print a single of them.  Is that good or bad?

Ten years ago, we didn't know how many sex offenders lived within a ten-mile radius of our house.

Ten years ago, we wrote checks for everything.  I think we'll be going the way of Europe and Britain in the near future--no more paper checks, everything debit/credit cards and eChecks.

Ten years ago, we bought newspapers.  I read most of my news online now.  Once in a while, I indulge myself by buying one so I could sit at the local greasy spoon, enjoy my coffee and a whole newspaper.  It's a lost art, actually, sitting a coffee place and NOT checking online media and email.

Ten years ago, nobody could find me if I didn't want to be found.  Today, we can track each other with cells, GPS, online cookies, Googlemap, and social media.  When I was a teen, I didn't want my parents to know where I was at, and they could never find me till I got home.  Teens today are willing to be called by their parents, have their accounts checked when they use money at the mall, and not care if their reading/watching/anything were monitored.  I WOULD NEVER HAVE GONE FOR THAT.  I WOULD HAVE FOUND A WAY TO KEEP MY PARENTS OUT OF MY SEKRITS.

Not saying that it's not good parenting to know what your kids are up to because the world has gotten more dangerous, but when I was a kid, no way in hell would I let my parents tag me with essentially a wireless leash.  I mean, if I was reading sexy romances on my Kindle, my savvy mom would know.  She could google titles and authors and check out the reviews.  Yes, of course kids steal hide stuff today (and there would be technically-challenged mom the likes of me), but it's getting more difficult as we all become a gadget-immersive world.  For eg., I see moms today texting their kid to come home.   And their kid TEXT BACK.  I find that extremely amusing.

Ten years ago, I wrote more.  On a legal pad, during lunch break.  Today, I write a lot less on my laptop, even though I spend more time on it.  It's my personal failure, compounded by the extremely bad economy since 2007.  But in general, small e-gadgets (I-Pad, smartphones, flashdrives) have promised more time to do anything one wanted anywhere at any time.  I haven't found this to be true.  I just have more gadgets.

Wireless.  Never has there been a word so insidious and deceptive.  Wireless makes one thing of freedom, yes?  Yet, if you think about it, we're no longer that free.  Wireless has tied us to each other and to strangers.  We walked around wired wirelessly to some satellite which monitors, records, processes, and downloads everything we "tell them to."  Our wireless footprints give us away.  Mephistopheles should be renamed Wireless.  There's a novel in there somewhere.

2011 starts another decade.  I'm not sure I like some of the changes/advances of the last ten years.  The heightened security, for example, has made me want to fly less.  I just can't stand the lines or the invasion of privacy.  Which is another topic altogether.  Do you feel you have less privacy now, or is it just me?

One thing hasn't changed, though.  Roofing.  Whereas technology have morphed like that Michael Jackson video that first used that technique, changing features and faces quickly and seamlessly, roofing and all things that need sweat and muscle have changed little.  I'm still doing the same things, wearing the same tools, and swinging the same air tools. 

And since the great Depression of 2008, it's been back to the ancient art of re-roofing, which has essentially been exactly the same the last 50 years--climb on roof, bend over, tear old shingles off, throw into trailer, repeat.  So, I can say that there is one thing that has stayed the same since 2000!  Which...my ten-year older body isn't happy about!

So, what are some of the things (or one thing) you do today that you didn't do 10 years ago?  How have the last 10 years' changes affected your life?

Happy New Year and Happy New Decade to all my friends and visitors!  May you have the best things for the year ahead!

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An End Of Year Conversation With RS Author Buddies

I've been talking to a few author buddies lately about the general state of publishing, especially in the romantic suspense genre.  The news is rather mixed but the consensus is that romantic suspense, as one of them put it, is "no longer the darling it once was."

A few of my friends who are quite big names don't even get distributed at most Walmarts any more.  Remember in 2007, that was the beginning of the Walmart Wave of cutting off midlist and only stocking NYT bestsellers. Well, it has come to the point that some very well-known names are being cut off.  Most of the NYT newer bestsellers are in the paranormal and urban fantasy genres, so a few of these good friends are considering changing their genre. Yes, some of you might call it "jumping on the bandwagon," but for them, it is their paycheck and some of them are the main breadwinner for their families.

I was quite surprised at a few of the series that aren't being renewed.  These are by authors who have been writing for ten, fifteen years, and so have readers who faithfully buy their books.  But it seems that this isn't enough any more.  I don't know, since I haven't been in the New York school of thought these last few years.

Changing names hasn't helped at least one of my buddies; her numbers tanked in spite of online buzz.  There are just fewer physical bookstores out there. So, for a couple of them, the solution is to work harder with online recognition.

My RS for Samhain sold reasonably well in the electronic market. One author friend, a higher midlister, confided that her e-book sales are "killing it," so that's good news. But another, who had a pretty big contract from her publishing house, said numbers were down and she wasn't looking forward to the next round of contract talks.  The one who had her series canceled is now back to writing categories (series romance/Harlequin) of a different genre.  The other one, a fellow Golden Heart winner, someone whose works I really enjoy, has turned to epublishing and is now getting ready a really kickass urban fantasy for submission.

There was certainly a glut of romantic suspense authors about five to seven years ago.  I remember feeling some frustration that some of the stories had very little romance in them and were being categorized as RS.  And many of the huge names were changing genres, from historical to RS, and going hardcover. Their transitions weren't universally smooth, but most of them generally did well, making the NYT and USAtoday lists.

If you looked at the last four years, there were a few big names that started writing paranormal romance and following the pattern, there are now tons of books out in the paranormal/urban fantasy genres.  I'm not sure whether readership for RS has been waning, but certainly the economic Depression of 2008 onwards also contributed to dismal sales of books for publishing.  Books, once affordable, are being sold at $8.99 (this from $4.99$5.99 during my year I got pubbed), and people, slashing their budgets, cut back on book-buying.

Of course, this is just information gleaned from a few conversations with a few friends.  There are no facts to support our thoughts and conclusions; we can only view our publishing world through our royalty statements and contract renewals.  But I do feel that romantic suspense, although not disappearing, has been definitely getting fewer slots and less attention since 2007. Even my bookseller friend, who is not an online person and rarely venture into ebook territory, complained that she couldn't think of any new authors to recommend to her customers; most of the books in catalogues are by the big names who have one hardcover out a year. The midlisters are disappearing, she told me.

I take her comments to heart.  You'll always get the main stars, like the fantastic Cherry Adair and Cindy Gerard, at the main booksellers.  There will be some great reads ahead, but I feel that, for my other friends, the ones I'm not naming, we're preparing to change and to expect changes.  Ebooks will play a big part because sales have been rising (the main positive thing about the publishing business nowadats) but with that, authors have to focus more on online promotion as well as small used-and-new bookstores.

Why the latter? Because those owners, like my bookseller friend, know their customers and they often recommend back lists and sell new books of midlisters.  I know many online are saying they don't even buy paperbacks any more and the future is in ebooks, but there are still at least two generation of readers out there who aren't brought up techy/gadget-happy.  They like reading the way they've been for decades and many are unaware of online groups or discussions because frankly, they aren't into that.

The online community is a powerful aspect of marketing books and authors, of course. My friends think that in many ways, it's both easier and more difficult for the writer.  On one hand, there are literally thousands of new writers (self-published, e-published, etc.) online, a multitude of voices trying to be heard, and many new authors have a hard time getting noticed. The authors I spoke to don't necessary have this problem.  They have readers who find them online and social media like Twitter and Facebook are very helpful (depending on who's talking, LOL, since a couple think they really cut into their writing time). However, it is still a problem to reach new readers; everywhere we turn, we're reading that readers are hesitant to try new works not recommended by other readers, mainly because of higher price and inability to browse.

My author buddies also note that many online reviewers are favoring historicals and paranormal/urban fantasies.  Additionally, there is a growing readership for Young Adult paranormals/UF and younger readers are avid online visitors.  They are the next generation of readers that my friends have to learn to tap into.  Thus, writing in another genre is another option but a few of them feel it's just not their style.  We tossed ideas around and wonder what's in store for us in 2011 and beyond.

In conclusion, my writing buddies, some of whom I've known for a decade or more, with quite a number of books published, are worried and getting ready for changes.  At least one of them is getting her nursing license reinstated.  Another is even thinking of retirement.  Yet another is having fun writing another genre.  As for me, I'm a little off-the-road at the moment, since I was the first one to feel the Walmart and numbers pain, but I've been talking about change for years now.  My friends are just realizing it.

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Friday Deep Thought: Personal Freedom, Public Outrage About Guns & Books

If something really offensive is being sold at a national store, and you're terribly offended by it, do you think protesting and pressuring that national chain to pull this product is ok? If let's say the product is a book, if the chain decides to pull it off its shelves, would you call that banning and censorship?


I have 2 examples

1) A national cardealer is offering to give away AK47 for every new truck you buy, and many are protesting.

2) A book about how to be a better pedophilia is on sale on Amazon, and many are protesting.

Let's say, both bowed down to public outcry.  Some say we shouldn't tell a business how to run their business.  Books don't commit crimes.  Guns don't commit crimes.  Banning and censorship is bad.

Others say, if the businesses know that their actions might hurt their future finances, they should listen.  After all, that's what businesses do, try to make money from the most people possible.  They should be allowed to sell what they want or take off what they want, but the consumers should also be allowed to voice their displeasure and put pressure on businesses.

Your thoughts?

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Chilean Miners Rescue: Human Strength of Spirit

News of the trapped miners' dire straits the last two months have existed for me pheripherally--I was aware of it, but after the initial dismay of hearing about another mining incident, it became just news. Like almost everyone else, I'd thought most of them wouldn't have survived.

Then, news came that they were alive and again, after the initial spark of "wow, amazing, after all this time," I continued with my own day-to-day chores. Again, pheripherally, I read the news about the plans for rescue, of the victims' families and friends praying.  I remember hoping that it'd all work out, but when they said it might take four months before they could reach those trapped men, in my mind, I was prepared for failure.  I mean, four months?  In the dark, with all kinds of crumbly rocks threatening to crush them? And how about the injured ones?

Last night reminded me to not doubt so much.  The human spirit and will to survive is a beautiful and amazing thing.  Only humans would work day and night to rescue their kind the way we have--cutting through rock, inch by inch, using everything in our power (brain, prayer, technology, bare hands) to triumph over what seemed the impossible.

The 33 miners are being brought up one by one by a special capsule that rivaled Star Trek stuff.  Here's the video of the first miner coming out of the shaft--Mr. Florencio Avalos.  The reunion between him and his little son brought tears to my eyes.



Over sixty days in the dark, relying on a tube to bring them food and news, relying on their ownselves to keep the faith while they know their family was above them somewhere, also willing them to be alive.  I'm amazed and awed at what we, as humans, could do.  At times like this, I forget about our political strifes and Wall St. greed and hold out hope that we are really pretty cool for a species capable of self-destruction.

It makes me cheer.  It keeps me hopeful.  And recharges my Muse to keep writing hopeful HEA romances.

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I Is A Dinosaur

I have this big expanse of wall space in my study, and I dream of getting shelves put there, from one end to the other. I've had this dream for a year (and some months) now. The shelves aren't wide like the store-bought bookshelves, but are from precut planks from Lowes or Home Depot--8 inches--so I could stack my books sideways, titles upright, and they'd al fit precisely up to the next plank/shelf, so that I don't have to dust.

In the course of this one-plus year of dreaming, almost everyone I know online has bought an e-reader or is thinking of one. Kindle. Nook. I-Phone. I-Pad. Sony. Many love their new lifestyle--no more heavy books, no more piles around the house, space is now free for other things.

From the standpoint of the new world of ebooks, I'm an utter Fail. You see, I have this nasty habit of browsing through my chosen novel, sometimes starting from The End.  Granted, it's possible to do this with an ebook, with e-reader of choice, but it hasn't given me the same odd satisfaction. I can't seem to flip backwards the same.

Of course, I realize that I'm just an odd duck and the industry is passing me by.  Almost every voracious reader is downloading like crazy--free ebooks, free samples, free galleys, buying more books than ever before--and here I am, still building shelves.

I mean, how medieval. People have virtual shelves now, showing off covers of their acquired ebooks, storing their library in the "Cloud," a place where virtual books exist to be called upon at leisure from anywhere in this world, unless, of course, you're hit by a natural disaster like a hurricane and you're knocked offline for 2 weeks.  Then your storage is off-limits till wifi and electricity return.

But even then, a savvy reader doesn't just have one source of ebooks.  There are those who know how to break the DRM and store their book files into their I-phones.  There are ebooks sold without DRM and these one could store in one's e-device of choice.

So I stare at my medieval shelves and wonder: why should I give these books space in my house when I could put them in the Cloud?  Imagine, a study with no clutter or piles of books.

Maybe I'm just a stasher by nature. I like to stash things, especially books. Shelves upon shelves of touchable books make me deliriously happy for some reason, that looking at virtual shelves does't. Besides, I'm not very organized by nature. I know where my physical books are, even if they're shelved out of order.  Over on top, all oldie Nora Roberts.  In bedroom, all Presents, especially Bianchin and Reid. Far right, a mixture of paranormals, with some Merline Lovelace SIMs that wandered in there that I hadn't gotten the time to move to another spot. And uh, those piles? That's my Loot from various conventions that I haven't gotten to yet. Sue me, but the Loot always makes me rub my hands in glee because I know I'll get to play with them some day.

I just know, if I jump to everything e-books, I'll never know where my files are.  Or, if I'm smart enough to put them all in one place, none of them would be arranged in a way that I could easily find an oldie for rereading. I look at my files in My Documents on my computer and know that would be how my virtual books would look like--everything saved haphazardly, with the odd folder for a manuscript. And somehow, looking at lines and lines of titles on a screen just doesn't give me the same glee.

This is how dinosaurs died off, you know.  They were too big and couldn't adapt to the new Age.

Off I go looking at that wall again....

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Will They Remember Like I Do?

At the Samhain Blog, an editor was putting out the call for different types of romance stories, especially those set during the Civil War, the 20s, the 50s, and the 60s.  Our historical genre is often limited to pre 1900s, with a few authors venturing to the early 1900s/Victorian era.

When I asked about this limited time frame a long time ago--I mean, when one did a time travel, right, why not back to World War II instead of, let's say, Culloden?--I was told that many readers were unwilling to read a romance set so close to their time, and especially World War II, when their parents were alive at that time.  I accepted this strange concept because I was new in writing within the romance genre.

However, I posed that question LAST CENTURY (ahem, yeah, I feel oooold) and World War II is, to me, the next Culloden because of the epicness of it.  And if not World War II, why not World War I? The many interesting things a romance writer can do within that era--the lushness of the decadent rich versus the growing middle class; the Upstairs, Downstairs (GREAT PBS TV show, if you are babes) stuff; a love story (with a happy ending, ahem) set around the Titanic, for gadsakes.  There aren't many published with these settings (there are some, but far in between, and of course, there are historical books with love stories, which isn't what I'm writing about).

I have a theory why there is such a glut of futuristic/urban fantasy books these days.  Don't get me wrong; I love this genre like a teen loves his text messaging, but yeah, too much of the same thing can breed a certain ennui.

As a reader, I get into a rut trying to keep with all the different series of One Special Heroine, her quest, and the one (or two or dozen) Special Alpha Man in her life, set within a very special mix of modern times and fantastical elements (shapeshifters, magic, apocalyptic, angels, demons, etc.)  As a writer, I love the many twists to the old myths, the way other talented writers make each urban fantasy their own, using familiar history and mixing up the old myths to create fascinating stories.

But, like I said, there is a glut.  Just look at the bookstands, if you still go to the book store. The most popular books are all urban fantasies. Readers love them, apparently, and so, editors seek more authors writing them.  We also get younger writers who are venturing into the romance genre, young women who grew up comfortable with playing fantasy video games and writing fanfiction of fantasy/supernatural heroes and heroines, and thus, able to create the mixed-genre feel of urban hipness and medievalish fantasy.

I'll throw out an example of this mix.  Modern world with current tech (maybe even better).  Psychics are used as some kind of soldier, able to read minds of citizens unless they are insane or mentally ill. Except there is one special breed, called PsyBlind. My heroine is a PsyBlind--psychics are unable to read her and she is able to hide this by being a Depressive, one who has to have certain drugs given her to keep the voices out. During this time, the Psychics' hold on humanity has become tighter, as they move higher up in the echelons of ruling power. The President is said to be under the power of a top Psychic.  The Psychics also has a secret, one concerning their inability to have real sex, and this is the story of the first book.

Of course there is an underground system of anarchy, with special heroes, with their own special powers.  My heroine will be rescued by one of these heroes but is he going to use her and thus sacrifice her for the greater good?

Can you see how certain concepts have been twisted to fit into a "new" but familiar urban setting?  I can throw in the techy stuff and still have my heroes fight like medieval dudes with swords and sorcery because the Psychics don't allow guns and are arrogant enough to think they can control sorcery (mind) games.  I can make every tech thing that we love into a subject of paranoia. GOOGLE is now GOGGLE and yeah, IT watches you. Cable TV is all about mind control. 

And this is all from the top of my head, with no real research yet.  I know how far I can push this series and what kind of romance I want it to be. There is a wealth of stuff out there waiting for me to mine and I can actually visualize all the notes already.  It'll be fun.

One thing I realize while reading urban fantasies is that, in a majority of them, there is very little real atmosphere other than the requisite blood and action. Sometimes I feel that the characters speak younger than I'd like but I chalk that up to personal preference, but even so, I do smirk at centuries-old vampires speaking younger than me.  This, I do sometimes blame the author.  For being young.  For taking for granted that her readers are young like her.  And maybe even the editors, because heck, they are getting younger too.

An old fart like me have opinions about older men, especially those who have been playing with power for a long, long time.  About experienced men.  About killers.  And a combination of all the above and have the man still talking like a hormonal teen can make me chuckle, but that's just me.

Yes, I know, I'm digressing from my main point.  In my opinion, the glut of futuristics and urban fantasy and the lack of historicals (in romance) come from the same thing--the readers' familiarity with the present world.  You see, whereas, in a fantasy/urban fantasy/futuristic where one could play with the familiar and still give it a fictional feel, many of us are still familiar with the last century, especially from the 1940s onwards and there is no hiding the facts behind fiction here for us.

I came from a Third World country, which meant that our standard of living back then was quite backward compared to the States, very like the 50s, in fact.  I know what it's like to live without electricity.  I remember a world without telephones at home, when the TV was in black and white, when going to the moon was just some kind of sci-fi story.  I was THERE when they televised the walk on the moon.  I was THERE when the first color television showed up.  I was particularly excited about that new thing called the VHS that goes into the VCR because now we could watch "real" TV shows from Hong Kong.

So, when the new group of writers are researching about the 50s and 60s, they might come across the age-old trope of Leave It To Beaver and Wait Till Your Father Comes Home.  Granted, research and smart googling will* give many writers a wealth of knowledge, but I'm talking about familiarity of the senses here.

Yes, life was something like that in those days but we're writing romance here--would the readers know about smoke-filled barrooms?  This wasn't even a long time ago; bars in the 80s were full of smoke because we allowed inside smoking in public places in those days, but I suspect many writers would leave out the smoking when it was so much a part of night life then.  And mosquito-filled nights that could destroy a romantic walk.  And the fact that travel takes a long while, with no instant messaging between parties.  And oh, forget about phone calls, okay? I remember two calls in Hong Kong to/from my boyfriend that cost about $400 that nearly had him killed by his mother. And no, we had no credit cards back then.

These are more atmospheric things that might be missing.  Coming home with clothes and hair smelling like cigarette smoke.  Unprotected sex.  Women SELDOM drove, if at all.  Men don't actually cuss out loud in public.  Phones--we DIALed, not punched buttons.  The pre-computer era--yes, we read all about what people do in the Medievals and Regencies before they could surf the net, but we're talking about a time not too long ago--can readers dissociate themselves so close to their times?  I know I'd be much more judgmental because I know* about those times--the smell, the craziness, the things we ate, etc.  Many of today's readers are already complaining about the "wallpaper" historicals, wherein the feisty heroine acts and talks like a modern woman from today, with the ability to just up and get deflowered at any given night.  I don't mind reading those stories at all, but I'm wondering whether I'd be as forgiving if a 1950s young miss start spouting about animal rights or a 1960s heroine lectures about unsafe sex to her hippy free-loving friends.

The fear of not getting it right is very real.  Details, cleverly written within dialogue and action, make a story.  I enjoy my good urban fantasies because of the detail in the worldbuilding, the cleverness of the mixing between real and fictional.  I love my good historical romances because of the mix in history and culture.  I can't wait for a good 1950s/60s or World War II story, one that would take me back because of an authentic voice.

P/S Yes, I'm aware that the 1980s and early 90s have tons of romances (Harlequin and Silhouette) that had smoking heroes and heroines.  I have many of those bks on my shelves.  Also, the authors then were writing about their contemporary time, so those books don't really count.

P/P/S Yes, I have read several time travels that had the heroine going back to the 1920s and World War II.  Anne Stuart wrote a great short story with a time travel/paranormal element with gangsters and ghosts, and she did a wonderful job with the authentic feel of those times. And there was one set during Vietnam. Yes, I'm also aware of Suzanne Brockmann's three-stories in one books in her Troubleshooter SEALs series, but I skipped those stories set in WWII because I was more interested in reading the main one and having jumped ahead, never did go back to reread.  The titles are gone from my memory but I remember the stories.

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What Is Wrong With Just Feeling Good? Or, Another Long Meandering Post About Those Who Try To Understand Us

GO DUUuuuuuuKe!

Ooops, sorry, if you're a Butler fan. I find many people are Cinderella lovers; even if they don't watch basketball, the story of David (Butler) beating up on Goliath (Duke) has them rooting and cheering for the smaller college. And I don't blame the instant fans because I love a feel-good story myself, and Butler played like a team on a mission through the night, down to that last second heart-breaking Hail Mary that almost, but didn't. However, for once, I was on the side of the Big Bad because Duke has my heart. Unless, of course, if Notre Dame is involved. Then that's another story :).

It's funny, isn't it, that, if you ask everyone, this tale, if it had a happy ending, with that final shot going in and making Butler--a nobody school--the Big Champion would have everyone jumping up for joy. It is some kind of inherent DNA switch that come on, that we humans WANT the smaller to beat the bigger, and when they do, we get a euphoric nod from the universe, as if that win reflects our hope that we too can beat the odds.

Yup, we love us our Cinderella-makes-good stories. When I think about it, the story really doesn't fit the analogy--why is the school compared to Cinderella? After all, the players aren't mistreated by evil step-kin and made to clean the hearth. And there aren't any glass slippers, balls, pumpkins or fairy godmothers.

I know, I know, I take things too literal sometimes, but I really wanted to know why Cinderella. Why not Three Little Pigs, who outsmarted the Big Bad Wolf? Or, Snow White, which also had an evil stepma and lots of cute dwarfs to her get a slam dunk? Further research gave me the answer and it is BILL MURRAY for whom we can blame this odd term. Of course it's from Caddyshack. It's popular college vernacular we're talking about, and of course they wouldn't be referring to any fairytales. Duh, dude.

In Caddyshack, Bill Murray, our favorite half-crazed character, was self-announcing his own fantasy golf: "Cinderella story. Outta nowhere. A former greenskeeper, now, about to become the Masters champion." So, there you have it. College kids think Cinderella is Bill Murray, a greenskeeper with a gopher complex.

Still, mix-up and all, the public roots for the Cinderella team because it wants that happy ending. The TV producers want that happy ending because then people would tune in and watch and give them happy ad revenue, another kind of happy ending. Heck, I'm beginning to think we all want that happy ending for our own selfish happiness ;-).

But not so for us poor pitiful romance readers.

We, romance readers get bashed ALL the time because our stories have happy endings. There's Oprah, who thinks romance books are just so damn unrealistic in life. Everything must have a horrific heartwrenching ending to be "realistic" to her. So, I'm going to assume that she's satisfied that Butler's defeat proves her theory, that in real life, everyone must end up unhappy.

It is, as if, we can say Cinderella defeated the evil stepmother and her nasty stepsisters, but what? she married the Prince too? You got to be kidding me. That's just so...unreal!

Many try to shame us into hiding our reading habits. Others call what we read non-books. Even writers denigrate the genre (Nicholas Spark, eyeballing you here) and some previous romance writers run from their roots after changing genres. Somehow, romance readers aren't allowed to have Cinderella-loving DNA without inducing some people into eye-rolling, spotting Oxegen-channel-heebeejeebees who suddenly spout purple prose in haiku.

Also, lately, there's this new phenomena of romance studies, chopping up our love of the genre into feministic labels and philosophizing on topics such as the "hole" that the "magic penis" must enter, or some such deep matters. I kid you not. It's a conference of serious romance studies.

I've always posit that breaking down a novel too much takes away the joy of reading. Even though I love to do it and still think it's an excellent tool to help analysis skills, I also have a secret believe that those who become lifelong experts of a certain novel or author or genre tend to not see the story for the words.

And when I start reading fun romance topics like the Magic Hoo Ha become a literary topic at conferences, on how it relates to feminist studies and whatnot, my eyes start glazing and my brain turns to sticky candy. These topics are brought up as if they're something new and relevant. SERIOUSLY? The Magic Hoo Ha and the Big Penis Savior have been around forever, folks. We romance readers have been bandying those terms on the Net since, oh, I dunno, since before there were such a thing as discussion boards. Mrs. Giggles in the early 90s. AAR and Prodigy Romance Boards in the late 90s. I was there, and we were pure romance readers just happily yakking about our favorite (and not-so-favorite) books.

They were fun labels we gave so we could laugh at ourselves because we enjoyed these crazy romance tropes so much. They do NOT reflect our feministic needs to cure ourselves. Nor do they reflect our being strangled in a phallopaternistic society (not my theory, folks). Sure, we welcome new challenges--the -isms, the anti-this/that, the sexual freedom--but if those authors overpower their stories with their agenda, we turn away from them like a kid from veges. We want our meat.

Romances are feel-good stories. We champion our main characters and want them to win in life. We want our happy ending. That's all. We really don't go any deeper than that.

Perhaps if we drop our knowledge about the real Cindy and just go for the Bill Murray version? Maybe that'd help them understand why we enjoy our HEAs and HFNs without those scary analysis about how reading certain books reflect on our character/culture/knowledge/DNAIQGQBBQ?

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The End Of A Series: Mostly Jack Bauer, Some TV, & A Tie-In About Romance Series

I love my post titles these days. It's as if my brain has decided that I need to cram every specific thing into them so I don't start meandering. As if I don't stay on topic or something. Pfft to my brain.

Most of you know I'm a die-hard Jack Bauer fan. It doesn't matter that the show has gotten a bit ridiculous (a bit? A BIT the size of India's population?!) but I still love him with the adoring love of a thousand almond creme cheese cake. It's not Jack Bauer that's gone wrong, you see. It's the writers for that show. He'd always be brilliant, angsty, crazy-tunnel vision, alpha, and overly efficient at killing people.

I started to wonder whether I feel the same about books that are series that follow a single/multiple characters? That I loved a character but hated the way the storyline went as the books continued? Loved the tone of the books, loved the voice, loved the characters, but somehow, when the series was done, I'm sort of relieved, not because my character's journey brought me great joy but that it was so heavy on a certain aspect of that it dragged my enjoyment down? Danny Valentine, your inability to give your lover a chance and your doubts really really REALLY ended that series by making me think you were wrong and stupid. And who wanted to end up with that opinion about the main character?

Or the series have gone so far off course that there is no recognizable thing between Book 1 and Book 111, except for the characters' names? Especially if it sort of changed genres in the middle too. Anita Blake, I'm looking at you.

Some people would read on to the bitter end, but I can't do that. I didn't do that to LOST, the TV series, because there were too many characters with too many storylines and not one solved mystery after two seasons. I couldn't do that with Anita Blake because the characters I've emotionally invested in changed into unrecognizable entities.

And yet, I hung on to Jack Bauer, season after season. There are plot holes galore in each season, with things happening that couldn't happen in the real world and in real time. 24 is called that because it follows an adventure through the course of a day, using a digital clock at the corner of the TV screen. It's a season-long fake reality show of following a CTU (Counter Terrorist Unit) operative as he goes around the a metropolis destroying lots of things and causing havoc while chasing terrorists with accents bent on destroying that city (and the U.S.).

There are nuclear blasts that don't affect Jack's health. Hell, Jack gets shot and he walks and talks in the next hour as if it were just a flesh wound. There are water passageways that lead under the White House. There are non-existent car tunnels in New York City by named streets. There are resurrected characters who were good guys one season and now turned bad, and no, they aren't zombies. And there's always a mole inside CTU that shows how stupid and incapable CTU is.

A book with a plot like the above would have been thrown across the room many a time. And yet, every Monday for the last eight or nine years (with the exception of personal stuff), I've turned on the show and cheered Jack Bauer on, as he continued his fight to "save the world," as we fans like to say.

So my conclusion is that it must be the character. I couldn't take Danny Valentine any more as she changed into a morose and doubting heroine who seemed to side with her enemies more than her lover. I couldn't take Anita Blake any more as she metamorphosized from Vampire Hunter to...umm...Monster Mistress (couldn't come up with a better name) and destroyed the special triangle of metaphysical power that was set up in the first ten books. I couldn't follow Lost when The Others become the focus, and not the core group of survivors.

Don't get me wrong. These books and shows are very good and have mega fans. I'm just picking them as examples of how I, the reader, reach a point where they don't fit me any more. Many people, on the other hand, have stopped watching 24. So it's all about what floats your boat.

I do have series that I've read/enjoyed and put away with a happy sigh when they're done and reread and rewatched through the years. Some that I'm reading now tthat I look forward to the next book:

1) Briggs' Mercedes Thompson series
2) Briggs' Alpha and Omega series
3) Andrews' Kate Daniel series
4) Robb's Eve Dallas (although I'm books behind on this one but this is one series always satisfies me)

As you can see, the examples are mostly urban fantasies. I can't think of a historical series that I'm reading. Brockmann's Team 16 books have character arcs that move the series along and her most famous one was Sam and Alyssa's storyline, which I followed along until the part where Sam was tricked by a turkey baster and in subsequent books, cried buckets and became a drunk. I did read his happy ending with Alyssa a few books later, though, so it's possible to skip parts of a series you don't like and just read the ending ;-).

TV shows: Babylon 5 comes to mind. A brilliant, brilliant five year-arc that had me riveted till today. Every SF show since pales in comparison. Except maybe La Femme Nikita, but it wasn't SF and its ending was an abomination. I did follow Alias and X-Files to the bitter, bitter, incomprehensible end, and maybe that's why I avoid JJ Abrams, who also produces/writes Lost, now. I just don't trust him any more.

The latest TV show that riveted me was Dollhouse and despite its flaws, its storyline was tantalizing and my Whedon love knows no bound, even though his endings never make me happy.

So. I'm thinking that my rules with character arcs are funky. You can write stupid but don't make the protagonist turn stupid. You can have plot holes, but make sure he doesn't make a 180 and turn into something he isn't (except for one episode, by magic, and resolved very soon!) Most of all, don't set me up with a promise that so and so will end up together and then end the series with them getting on with Other Loves. That is like turning Jack Bauer into a coward and have him save himself over others at the end of the show (please, TV gods, don't give the writers of 24 this idea because they'll think they're being damn clever and every fan will hunt them down and shoot their thighs).

What series, books or TV show, are you following? Are you happy with how it's going? And has there been a series that you've dropped because you just couldn't take it any more? Was it the plot or character?

Lots of questions, I know, but I'm always curious about my readers' internal rules about story-telling.

Also, who's going to save the world now that Jack Bauer is going off the air? Sob*

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On And Off Topic About Physical & Media Interaction, or, Not As Serious As Title Sounds

I know some of you have been worried that my posts have been far and few these past few weeks. Many thanks to the peeps who emailed or phoned, making sure I'm okay. You're all so wonderful!

I'm doing okay, just suffering a bit from malaise. I can't explain my exact feelings; it's just sort of bleagh because of the ill health and loss of furbabies. It takes more adjustment than you'd think because my babies aren't human, so their not being here shouldn't affect me like it should.

But they did. It's not just missing them, because I understand that part, having sent my mutant poms to the Rainbow Ridge before.

I guess it's because I spent two years taking care of them in every way possible. So, when I jumped out of bed at 5am so they get their medication, even though I'm not a 5am gal, and realized there is no reason to do that any more, my heart twists a little. Or, when I look at the clock at various times of the day so I could rush home in between jobs to give them their heart meds, and realize I don't have any reason to rush home, there is an empty feeling. Or, even shopping for food--I go twice a week, and on what I called Meat Day at the end of the week, when the supermarket has meat on sale because I cook special recipes for my kidney dogs--and realized I don't have to this week because my freezer still have two weeks' worth of meat...I don't know...it's as if I realized I've spent two years working my schedule around the two Old Ladies and didn't know it.

So, I'm trying to be normal but it's tough. I wrote on Facebook how sad it was when I turned off the central heating in the back porch for the first time in 14 years. I built that room for the mutant poms and now they aren't there any more.

Not that I don't have Lilah and Jiggle Low, but they sleep under my bed, so that's an entirely different future set of grieving moments, I'm sure ;-P. The Mutant Poms loved that porch. They have a huge Mamasan chair that they lay on and they used to jump off and careened towards the doggie door to go outside when they see a squirrel on the tree through the big porch windows. That room is dark at night now and I can't stand it.

Anyway, I didn't want to spend blog entry after blog entry telling you about my grieving process. How embarrassingly boring! I just want to assure y'all that I'm fine, though, just a bit quiet for the moment. I'm mostly worried because my writing mojo had disappeared since my illness and I. NEED. TO. WRITE. Where be the Muse?

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Segue to Related Stuff

It's just not me. Bad Puppy Jiggle Low is out of sorts too. Before, he had a harem of ladies, you see, and when Lilah went into heat and he felt the male pain of being rejected, he would just wander off to the two Old Ladies and get some attention. They let him go after them since they were fixed and they enjoyed his silliness.

Now, imagine a dog without his harem except for the One who Rejects him. He's never bothered me with his lustful little ways before but now? He whines. He wakes me up at night because he has blue balls. Oh yeah, you may laugh but have you ever heard a dog crying about that and licking your face pitifully as if you had the solution. "Oh no, my pretty darling," said I, half-asleep at 3am, "get thee off my bed and go chase Lilah. Go on, be a man."

And it's not a soft whine. It's this long, piteous back-of-the-throat, "I'm so in need" kind of whine. Pause. Repeat. I swear he even hiccupped a few minutes. My boy wants to get laid bad.

Lilah, meanwhile, stubbornly says no. Hey, I'm a 21st century romance writer. No bodice-ripping allowed ;-).

So today, the Bad Puppy has seduction on his mind. Not only is he whining and begging, he's actually bringing her treats. How like a man to try presents. I'm mightily amused by this new tactic.

****************************

Yet another segue to a related topic

On another very popular blog, the post of the day is about electronic books replacing printed (or dead tree, as some are calling them) books as library. The post disagrees with a news article bemoaning the death of tradition, of perusing someone's library to get an idea what the person is like and argues that a virtual library is just the same. Readers just need to adjust, that's all, the writer posits, and besides, the missing physical library doesn't really show the real self because mostly, some people buy books either during different reading phases or if they wanted to show off their literary snobbery. Also, there are just so much one could find out about a person in different ways: go to their virtual library (like Goodreads), or Facebook and ck out their friends, or read their blogs or interact with their buddies on Twitter.

Which had me thinking (ouch!) and my train of thought wasn't really connected to this particular post and that's why I didn't post over there.

I think, the intimacy of our knowledge of people around us via the virtual world is not quite the same as the tactile thing. For example, if I'm friends with a person but never went to his home but have seen pics of it on his blog, visitied his Facebook, checked out his list of favorite movies, even googled a bit about him to see his other opinions on other people's territory, do I really know him? Yeah, sure, a part of him is there, but we all know the face we put out there for the public isn't quite the same as the personal face we show our intimate friends, right? Or has society evolved so much that the public and personal personas have merged?

I'm not talking about teens. Teens love to share, I get that, and yeah, what they show on their social media is what they probably are, unfiltered. I'm hopeful that they'd grow up to be discerning individuals, ones who know that sharing everything online isn't appropriate sometimes.

I'm talking about people like us, who straddle the two worlds of pre- and post- Internet Information. To be honest, I don't really have a Goodreads library because I'm not very good at keeping up and organizing stuff. My physical library is a lazy person's way of showing what I've read and want to read, and my love for the physical book is its ability to catch my eye while in a pile. A book in e-format would never catch my eye the same way because once it's in there, it's in there, which in a way, might save me money because like my taped VHS (yes, VHS!) shows, they'll forever sit in some space, forgotten till some fine day when I happen to peruse the list and find it (AND STILL NOT READ IT). That's why I stopped taping shows after a while, and probably that's why I never buy ebooks that I won't read immediately. Because they're out of sight.

So, I'm all for having electronic shelves to save space, but I'm not convinced that it's good for the human interaction part of human evolution. I see people so absorbed on their I-Phone, I-Whatever, twittering away at movies (WHILE THE SHOW IS ON), ignoring their dates/friends, or playing computer games/watching Youtube (yes, I'm guilty of this too) and wasting hours away. They even have virtual pets, for gad's sakes, ones that die if you don't feed them. If there is ever a case of six degrees of separation....

One of my girlfriends was just complaining to me, sadly, that her teenage son and daughter, just turned 18, who were very, very close to her, TEXTED her a "happy birthday, mom" instead of calling her. Or buying her presents. This is from a family in which every birthday had always been celebrated with much pomp and affair. She wasn't happy and even though she mentioned this to the two kids, they told her that it's what everyone does and didn't mean to hurt her feelings. MY feelings were hurt on my friend's behalf! But kids are blind, I get that, and self-absorbed.

But tell me, how many of you have just sent off electronic cards to your friends the past few years, mass emailing e-cards on Christmas? And if you think that's just the way things are, here's another question, DO YOU ACTUALLY CLICK ON EVERY OF THESE CARD LINKS? Or do you just acknowledge the sender and click delete?

I very, very seldom send e-cards because I know I don't open them. I know the other person would much prefer either a phone call or even a personal email. I guess I'm missing the pretty Christmas cards that I used to get to decorate my small Christmas corner. This past year, I received maybe five cards, two of which are from my vet and dentist. I used to get at least two dozen. I'm not complaining, just noting how social media has changed human interaction. The virtual card is useless to me, but yes, yes, it's good not to waste paper, etc. etc. Likewise, my virtual pet (which is very sexy) is useless to my Bad Puppy because he can't smell her or get to know her like a real dog.

I guess I just want to get to know a human like a real human. Which doesn't mean I want to sniff his/her butt. Reading that person's online webpage, his Shelfari, his opinions, and looking at his pics is personal, but yet, still very detached. It's like me investigating the person, instead of going, "Hey, neat stuff. What the hell is it?" and joke from there.

And no, I'm not ignoring the irony that I'm blogging this ;-) and of course, you only know the Virtual Me. Most of you, anyway. Those of you who have followed this blog for a while certainly know quite a bit about me (the sweetness, the ethereal gentleness, the ability to just bring a smile with my brilliant wit...no?!!!!). I'm, as always, humbled and astounded that you guys like me enough to stay around or maybe it's just the Sexy Veges Pics?

My point? Umm. Social media/virtual shelves is not the same as the Real Thing. And to tie it back to the ebook topic, I say, just come to a Big Signing, with hundreds of authors sitting behind their books. Now compare it to a Virtual Signing, when an author is in a remote place somewhere, signing an electronic signature, which you print out for your book or esave as part of your ebook file. Same interaction, but not personal. At all.

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Amazon vs MacMillan, or Uber Roofer's Roofing 101

The following is solely a rooferauthor's back-and-forth understanding of the situation.

Last night (Friday), Amazon took off the BUY button of all books under the McMillan Publishing umbrella, affecting many of my writing friends who write for, just to name a few, Tor, St. Martin's Press, and Faber & Faber (and don't forget the school books!), making them unavailable for sale. There has been quite an uproar, especially on the Intertubes, among authors, sellers, and readers, all siding one, the other, or none, all castigating one, the other, or both.

Since it is about the book industry and could affect me in the future, I need to process this. There's really nothing I can do because the two giants are negotiating over prices that I can't set. They're doing all the doing and I'm just an author with a small roofing business with which to compare all the finagling going on.

***What is Amazon vs McMillan about?

Well, it depends on who's explaining the Big War. The Amazon side says that they're trying to sell ebooks at $9.99 and mean old MacMillan is telling them in the newest round of negotiations that they can't do that. Amazon is saying that they're all about the readers and MacMillan is not. There is, as far as I know, no official statement.

The MacMillan side says that they're trying to maintain fair competition among all booksellers. In their new negotiations, they're asking Amazon to sell books in a scaled price, i.e. $14.99 to $5.99. From official statement on Publishers' Lunch:

Under the agency model, we will sell the digital editions of our books to consumers through our retailers. Our retailers will act as our agents and will take a 30% commission (the standard split today for many digital media businesses). The price will be set the price for each book individually. Our plan is to price the digital edition of most adult trade books in a price range from $14.99 to $5.99. At first release, concurrent with a hardcover, most titles will be priced between $14.99 and $12.99. E books will almost always appear day on date with the physical edition. Pricing will be dynamic over time.

The agency model would allow Amazon to make more money selling our books, not less. We would make less money in our dealings with Amazon under the new model. Our disagreement is not about short-term profitability but rather about the long-term viability and stability of the digital book market.

I'm interpreting this as MacMillan trying to equate e-books with hardcovers, that if e-customers/e-readers are eager, they can purchase the e-version of books when they first come out at the full price. If they don't want to pay this price, similar to print-readers who choose to wait for the cheaper paperback version, they can wait until the price scales down over time.

Now my interpretation may be wrong but that's how those paragraphs read to me. Here is the link to the entire McMillan formal statement:

PUBLISHERS MARKET/MCMILLAN

Of course, the raging debate narrows down to these facts:

1) e-readers are angry that McMillan wants to raise e-books to $15. Amazon can sell their products at any price they want.

Rooferauthor: I can see their POV. Of course consumers want everything cheap and Amazon is giving them the price they want.

b) Authors are concerned because Amazon took off the BUY buttons for ALL books, meaning, print version of their books can't be bought either. This kind of hardball doesn't make them happy because hey, it's the e-books they're in disagreement with, so why punish the print books too?

Rooferauthor: I also see this POV. But I'm also thinking, readers who want to buy the books can go to Barnes and Noble, Books-A-Million, Borders, and other sites. All that Internetz Shouting might rub the e-readers/Kindle people the wrong way. Of course, authors should provide information on their sites about what's happening and Other Avenues to order their books, even e-versions of them. This, however, doesn't solve the Amazon/Kindle e-readers' dilemma.

iii) "Everyone is just greedy bastards. Everyone makes too much money. Everyone is out to get them. Everyone ought to..." Ah. There are many versions of this kind of scolding. One can't argue against the bitterness. It's an emotional issue for some e-readers. Got it. Ebooks should be cheaper without DRM. Got it. Ebooks can't be treated like print books. Got it.

Rooferauthor: These topics are a whole 'nother can of worms. Since when have retailers make things the price it should be even if the product is cheaply made? It costs Nike $6 to make their shoes in Indonesian factories, but evidently, some consumers are still happily buying those shoes at $50 a pair.

Roofing analogy:

I've been in the business for over 20 years and I've seen something similar happened to the roofing industry. Over the last two decades, big companies have gobbled up all the mid-sized ones. This can be compared to how all the big publishers buying out or merging with each other until there are now numerous publishers like Tor and St. Martins who are actually part of the giant Daddy, McMillan.

Today, in the roofing business, one can survive two ways. One, be super-huge, the kind that have many, many employees, with big trucks and heavy equipment, able to bid on multi-million commercial jobs as well as whole subdivisions, thus giving savings through their accounts with the suppliers, and bringing in bunches of cheaply-paid employees who can do ten or twenty roofs a day to get that profit in spite of the giant overhead.

By giant overhead, I mean these companies have to deal with insurance (workman's comp, liability and health), accounting departments, salespeople, interest payments on property, bills from owning all those company vehicles and construction equipment, maybe tv/radio advertising (I know the yellow pages cost $$$ for those big ads), etc. This is not even counting the silent partners who don't get involve in anything except their share of the profits.

Their pricing of roofs to customers (homeowners) might have to be higher, but they offer an attractive package that some homeowners want--maybe interest-free loans upto 12 months to pay, a job done in a day instead of a week, a "big" name which some of them think = good job (or at least, some sort of guarantee that they could get the company back to fix any problems), etc. etc.

The other model: be super-small, with very few or no employees, with the owners wearing as many hats as they can, including doing the roofing work themselves. With very little overhead, the small company can charge a lot cheaper and make a profit, but they have to work a lot harder because they don't get the same discounts from suppliers. They usually don't have any health insurance (self-employed, plus under five employees) and no big dump trucks or construction insurance beyond the minimum required. They very rarely have the big ads. They don't have to worry about constantly have jobs to sustain the pay and credit; one roof at a time can pay for employees (usually one or two) and expenses, plus a little profit.

If it's like my partner and me, we really only need one roof a week to stay alive. We aren't going to get rich doing that, but it'll pay the bills and we can sustain a so-so standard of living, providing we're careful. We also don't have to worry about huge losses; we don't make any money that job, but at least we're not paying out paychecks in addition to the loss.

On the negative side, we can't compete with the big dudes. There are only two of us; they can do a job much faster than us. They can also, if they decide, eat the loss and bid some jobs lower just to keep their guys working and the company cash flow going. Smaller companies like mine can't do that, so we usually don't take the job or go out of business.

Why am I giving you guys a short course in Roofing Biz 101? And how is that even comparable to Publishing 501?

Well, I can only give you my understand of what is happening. To me, a big company's business model and their profit margin is very different from a smaller one. Besides the extra expenses that smaller companies don't have, they have to take into account that other smaller subcontracting companies may depend on their accounts for their livelihood.

So, back to Amazon. Amazon is one of McMillan's retailers. They also invented the Kindle. To get the e-reading market interested in the Kindle, Amazon lowered their ebook prices, thus taking the loss of what they bought the ebooks for against the profit of selling more Kindles. As I see it, they aren't making any money from the ebooks, but from one of their non-McMillan products. On the way, Amazon is killing the other retailers who can't match that price for the same McMillan ebooks (because they all bought it at, let's say, $15 and not everyone can take a $5 loss).

McMillan would like its other retailers (with their Nooks and their I-Pads) to succeed, so that there is a competitive market for its digital program in the future. It's in their interest not to have an Amazon/Kindle monopoly. They would like all its retailers to have the scale-model it proposed in its new contract (I think Apple has accepted this, but not sure).

Amazon retaliated by pulling all MacMillan books this Friday. Why? Not sure. Maybe to show that they don't need MacMillan as much as MacMillan needs them. I do know that one of their strengths lie in their telling their e-market that it's all about the publishers' greed, thus making quite a number of readers, both e- and print, very angry and vowing one threat or another.

The bone of contention appears to be how much does it take to make an ebook? It's not tangible and there is no overhead of housing them in some storage place. Once it's done, it's just a file waiting to be downloaded. So, an ebook should cost less than $15. For example, Samhain Publishing charges a lot less ($5-8) and they're a thriving company, aren't they? Why can't MacMillan and other big bad publishing companies do the same?

That's just it. They can't. Remember my Roofing 101 above? The big companies have other expenses so they spread the costs of their products around to keep the company going. A small company's smaller overhead, in this case, means less profit to divide, and they're willing to let Amazon play with the price because their ebooks aren't affected. Besides, they're mostly e-books, not mostly print books.

On the other hand, the big guns are mostly print books. The ebook market is growing but not fast enough to sustain their present expenses, with their stable of authors. Losing out to Amazon, one of their retailers, mean that they'd also have to take a loss that perhaps they can't afford to right now (I don't know. I don't want to come off defending them. I really don't know how much it costs for big companies to make ebooks plus their overhead, but I'm thinking closer to double what it takes Samhain). Also, see monopoly concerns above (everyone agrees Amazon is on the way). Lastly, if e-books were to take the place of hard covers in the future, big publishers would like it to have a premium price, just like the hard cover (the logic here is a bit fuzzy).

So, does rooferauthor have a solution?

Heh. Well, one stupid one. Big publisher should form another company under its umbrella that is totally NOT affiliated with the print part. This smaller company should have no employees wearing any other hats but its own. Its overhead would then be similar to that of Samhain and like companies.

Then, after signing their authors and buying the rights to published their books, Big Company can sell the ebook rights to the smaller company, relinquishing all responsibility of production, just the same way it does so when it sells the foreign rights. This agreement can be renewable on a limited basis so authors can renegotiate or whatever other business negotiations that go on in the big business world to make sure they get more money. Thus Big Company now has made its initial "profit."

With the control as well as smaller overhead, smaller company can then produce e-versions of the contracted books at a cheaper cost (no worries about Other Expenses) and sell to Amazon and other retailers at a lower cost and then let the retailers set the price however they want.

Simplistic? Probably, since I haven't really sat down and thought the whole model through. I'm not the one with the problem, you know. I was just thinking, that if a silly small rooferauthor could start trying to come up with a workable solution, these big companies could have done so without playing the billionaire's version of chicken. Right? Just sayin'.

Not that anyone would listen to a rooferauthor.

End Roofing 101. Back to your reading pleasure ;-).

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Renewal Coming Up?

I took a few days off the blog to recharge. I have had a pretty stressful two weeks before Christmas, what with three jobs to finish up before the big day. Besides, I figure y'all are happily snuggled with your loved ones, eating cookies and drinking eggnog anyway ;).

It's the last week of 2009. Does the last week of any given year make you reminiscent and contemplative? This one, in particular, because it is the last of year of the decade and we start a whole new one soon.

Remember 1999 and it was headlined by Party Like It's 1999 and everyone was buzzing about Y2K and some people were stocking cans of tuna and water in anticipation of massive power outage, at the very least? Then, before, 1989 was dominated by Massive Crowd Disasters/Gatherings, starting with the Hillsborough Stadium stampede during a football game, followed by the Tian Ah Men protests, and, finally, topped at the end of the year with the fall of the Berlin Wall.

So I was enjoying my wine and trying to think about the big events that would give 2009 its flavor. All I could think about was the horrible economy and because of it, how slow everything seemed to have gotten. For most of us, personal and business lives suffered from stagnation. So, rather depressing.

Took another sip of wine. Change the direction of my thoughts. Let's move onwards, then. What was the beginning of a decade like?

I do measure my own life in decades. Why? Because I'm old enough, that's why, ha. I can actually get to see some kind of pattern in the way my own life progresses.

For example, 1970 marked the beginning of going to school and learning the wondrous new world of communicating in other languages. I excelled in it. And I found a secret world, one in which I was very comfortable and in which I found my own comfort--books.

1980 was the beginning of my adventure as an adult. I was by myself, in a brand new world, and had the whole future ahead of me.

1990 marked the start of my roofing business. Another different planet to explore.

2000 was the year I made the decision to go after the goal of being published. Big Bad Wolf's finaling in the RWA in 1999 had given me confidence and hope that I might be good enough. 2000 was the year I decided I should try writing Big Books, called single titles, so that I could submit to more publishers. 2000 was the year my agent took me on.

Interesting pattern, eh? Following this trend, I wonder what 2010 would start for me? Maybe a different path? Hopefully, a successful one!

Can you trace your own footprints? It doesn't have to be in decades because I know some of you aren't as ancient as moi :-P. How was your year and are you looking forward to 2010? Perhaps you can share a few of your hopes and dreams with me here.

P/S For those wanting a SEXY VEGE entry, I'm looking for some good material to end decade with! :D

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A Short Synopsis Of Heading The Wrong Direction Without The Brain

As in taking a tumble. As in WHHHHhhooooosssshhh! with no bungee cord. As in going splat.

This is very a very bad position to be in, especially if you're a roofer. And especially, if you hadn't planned on it. But really, when had anyone planned on heading the wrong direction?

I've made unwise decisions before, as have you, I'm sure. Sometimes, it's just a mundane one, like looking at the drip edge and waddling along the roof and not checking whether someone had slipped a piece of tar paper under another without tacking it. Twenty years in the biz and you'd think I'd see that amateur mistake. But life is like that. You can check and avoid slippery sawdust and sand; you can tread carefully when it rain. You EXPECT trouble when you see certain things with your experienced eye, and if you still slipped, well, at least you saw it coming, and perhaps, was able to negotiate the least painful way while sliding off your feet.

On Sunday, no such thing happened. I was there and then, suddenly, I was not. The paper under me was solid, and then, suddenly, it was not. And when it took off under my feet, I understood, in that split second, that this wasn't any magic carpet ride, and that there was nothing between me and the concrete poolside below.

There was no time to panic. I didn't even manage a squeak of surprise. All I heard was my partner's very loud surprised curse while I was heading the wrong direction...straight down and with no control over my body. You know, usually, when you're slipping or sliding, your brain is looking for solutions for you. Your hand automatically reach out to brace yourself. You scream, as if to warn yourself or someone around you to save you. You bend your legs to stop the sliding.

Not this time. My brain was still up on the roof. The rest of me...WwHHHHoooshhh. And in half a second it was a WWwwHHhhacK. That was my head. Saying hi to that concrete. Brain was still gaping in astonishment. Me? Well, like I said, I registered the shout from my partner. Everything else was silence.

And in that silence, the WWWwwwwHHHacK echoed really loudly. I never lost consciousness. and then this sound erupted from inside and was torn from my vocal cords. I'm not sure what it was. I'll call it my Spontaneous Moan. Do you remember those ghost stories your nasty older brother or cousin told you about during Halloween, about walking in the dark, with nary a soul in sight, with things brushing up against you, and then this long unearthly moan came out of nowhere? Well, that's how this sounded, coming from somewhere inside me, but not from my brain, somewhere else--perhaps the soul, or even a more primitive consciousness within--rising out of me like some kind of magical portentous thunder.

And my brain? It heard me. Because I distinctly remember that clear thought at that moment from somewhere outside, that "that sounded absolutely scary-horrible and I'd better shut myself up." And immediately, in a flash, my brain was back inside my head and I could hear my partner rattling the ladder against the wooden pool fence in his hurry to get to me. And my brain was registering that not more than ten or fifteen seconds had probably just passed.

My body had already told me that I was in pain. But how seriously was I injured? I mean, would someone dying be thinking so logically? As in..."Ouch, that hurt. Stop that stupid moaning. And wow, wait till the readers read about this on the blog."

I turned. The sky was still blue and yes, I'm breathing. Deep breaths. My partner was walking toward me and calm as the pool waters not five feet from me, I told him, "I'm okay."

As if I'd know! But that was how I felt. Very calm. In pain, but not the kind that makes you go OW OW OW! or #%*&F*#K%!!! or even whimper. Just my brain and me, looking around.

"Is there blood?" I asked, although I was pretty sure there wasn't any.

He shook his head. I think he was in shock. I sat up slowly, gingerly touching myself. It hurt but I was moving. I took inventory. No dizziness. There was a goose egg on my head but seeing that I'd expected a smashed watermelon, a goose egg was good. I walked. No stumbling. I even stretched a little and found that my ribs hurt.

I thought, and this was a silly and odd thing, about my first nasty fall as a kid, down a very long flight of cement stairs, and how my grandma picked up a shoe and started rubbing my goose egg very, very hard with its sole. I remembered how she made me bawl even more, since I expected some loving hugs and reassurances, not a torture mush with the wrong side of a shoe.

Anyway, after ten or fifteen minutes, I was back on the roof, finishing up my job. Of course, I pointed out to all that someone had kindly retacked the same spot with just one fucking nail and my partner was standing on it. Sheesh. Must I show them again the danger of doing that????! Men. They'll never learn.

The next 24 hours, I was carefully monitoring myself. The goose egg disappeared in a matter of hours, which surprised me. I had developed a headache and neck ache, which didn't. My ribs had stiffened up and I found other slight bruises but everything is a surprise to me because I was expecting much, much more.

I put off sleep, chatting with y'all on Twitter and Facebook, telling you about my little adventure, so that I could see whether my headache would worsen or whether I'd feel nauseous and out-of-sorts, which would indicate serious concussion. I understood the risk I was taking but you know, a two thousand five hundred dollar deductible in one's health insurance is still a two thousand five hundred dollar deductible whichever way you think of it. I wasn't THINKING of that, mind you, but it was one of the reasons, and not the MAIN one, that made me decide to just take it easy for a while. So don't go all mommy on me, okay? I may still go see a doctor and may still take a brain scan.

And oh. Two days later, I'm still trying to remember how I landed. Did I really land on my head? I couldn't have, or I wouldn't have just a goose egg, right? So did I land on my side first, then hit my head? If so, why is there no bruising? And how did I hurt my ribs when my partner said he saw me on my back? The mystery is "killing" me, yuk yuk, yuk.

One last thing. While googling about head injuries, like any silly Internet-dependent Twerp would do, I came across a site talking about children and falling down, how there was an old wife's tale to rub the bump on the child's head hard and that THIS WAS NOT A BAD THING TO DO because it was meant to stop the bleeding, if there were any, and to tell whether the bump is a lump or a concave thing. My grandma knew more about brains than I thought.

And Brain? That was pretty funny how I caught you by surprise the other day. You didn't even manage a squeak!
;-)

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Wait, Wait, There's More (Waiting)

Because readers are still looking for Virtually Hers and writing me emails inquiring about it, I have to explained the current situation over and over again. I'm very blessed by the fact that I have very persistent readers, who keep coming back and asking, but this also has made me sent out a mini-newsletter several times this week. I apologize if you see double emails from me, explaining about Virtually Hers and Big Bad Wolf.

The second round of questions from readers are coming too, mainly, WHEN THEN is Virtually Hers coming out? When will you decide? Because I really, really, really WANT IT NOW.

I wish I could give you all a definitive date when I would decide/what is going to happen/how it's going to happen, but you see, in the publishing world, especially if you're an author, there is a lot of waiting. And waiting.

Let me give you a sense of what I've been through for most of last year:

1) I waited up to October of last year for an answer from my publisher whether Virtually Hers would be published/pushed back/moved to another line/anything. It was the longest wait of my life because, unlike when I was unpubbed, I wasn't free to submit any other romantic suspense while under contract, so my career was suddenly floating in limbo.

2) I waited for one year for an answer from my publisher about a FREE E-BOOK to give away to my readers. It would be FREE from me. Surely that would be do-able. I was even willing to format it into PDF for them. No answer. Not even a maybe. Just silence, despite several calls.

3) Finally, in August, after one year, a definite No. But by then, of course, I also have gotten the bad news about Virtually Hers' Walmart (retail number) problem.

4) When I came home from conference, I gave away Big Bad Wolf as an e-book while waiting for a final decree from on high as to just what would happen to Virtually Hers and Virtually One. Waited. WAaiiiiiiiited. October came around. Feeling the career thing flatlining without any work being sent out, I finally asked to be released from my contract.

5) Once that was done, it was back to waiting, WAITING time for an official contract release letter. Waiiited. Waiiiittttttteddddddd. I signed three copies and sent off in Nov. sometime.

6) Meanwhile, agent and everyone in the business knew that Nov and Dec are too close to the end of the year to submit. Editors usually "clear" their desks and then take a Christmas vacation, so it was best to WAIT till beginning of the year to get back into submitting.

7) An editor privately talked to and assured me she would be interested in any NEW submissions from me but not the dropped Virtual series. This was expected because as I've explained, most publishers don't pick up another house's dropped series. So while I was WAITING for 2008 to be over, I was also thinking. If I were to go the self-pub route with the Virtually series, I should at least do some research, maybe get busy with a project that I wasn't submitting.

8) So, I decided to try Big Bad Wolf as my fun Christmas project while I work on my other writing--the proposals for the manuscripts to be sent out after New Year. Meanwhile, because of holidays, NY publishers usually shut down, so no sign of my copy of contract release yet.

9) Spent over a week for Big Bad Wolf to appear on Amazon. Finally, there it was on the 24 of Dec.

10) NEW YEAR. Flood of unhappy readers emailing me regarding the whereabouts of Virtually Hers. Waaaiiitttttttting for release contract.

11) Most people are off till Jan. 5 and it takes one week to "settle" back into the job, so as of right now, agent and I are waiiiiiitttttinnnnng for this week to be over so she could get on the phone and start calling.

12) When this happens, guess what's next? Yes, more waiting. Because editors, bless them, will need time to read and consider the proposal(s) as well as do a hundred other things for which they're responsible. I'm thinking, optimistically, that I'll hear answers by the end of January, especially on the Virtual series, since that's probably a straight yes/no answer. HOWEVER, based on my last experience, who knows? Maybe there will be long silences while I try not to slit my throat (yes, I'm being melodramatic).

That's why writers keep writing. If we just sit and wait for answers, we'd all go even nuttier than we are already. To keep myself occupied, I'm going on with the "Viking Dude" writing and learning more about the POD self-publishing business. For instance, the last couple of days, I've been looking into making it available through Kindle. Once that's done, I'm looking at I-Tunes because I heard you can download books from there.

Also, if I'm still Waaaaiiiiiting by the end of the month, I'm going to have to consider selling a double-novella of two SEALs through GLOW WORLD CREATIONS, you know, my very own e-store. Why? Because while I wait, I'm one very, very poor writer since there aren't any roofing work to supplement my dream life (I had to let my personal trainer and masseuse go, wah!) I have stories ready and I know many of you will like a good short story of either Cumber baby and yet another Steve McMillan //big evil grinning forming//. Heck, if I'm kept waiting, there's always a short story about exactly what happened to Cam and Patty off-stage ;-). Aha! I knew I could get your little ears all perky.

But what I'm trying to say is, there is a lot of waiting going on when you're a published writer. It's not a one-phone-call-settles-everything business. Editors have to wait for approval from higher-ups too. And I haven't even gotten to the part about those Invisible Bean Counters, the Secret Mages of Conglomerate Profits.

So, please be patient with me. I know most of you are (and you know I love you for being there with me), so this post is directed to the many new visitors googling Virtually Hers and also to those who can't understand why I can have BBW out so quickly but not Virtually Hers.

Next month--Sexy Vegetables POD! ;-) Wouldn't that be a bestseller.

(***whistling. Because I know the posts about Cucumber and new Steve are coming)

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