Hell and Wheels

Hey, look who fell off the earth again. Me! The good news is, I’m still writing, and I’m finally getting paid for my work. But, in the interest of survival I’ve taken on genres outside the one that launched Resonance and Junket City. I’m very much attached to this genre, but currently it offers me little to no income. That is the hard realization of being a new author today. Money, unless one is very, very lucky, is tough to come by. To avoid having to repeatedly say, “You want fries with that?” I have chosen a different branch of the writing road–for now.

I am still writing contemporary dark fantasy, albeit a lot less than I was before. My hopes are that I will generate enough sales from my other endeavors to make myself a wee bit more financially comfortable, and hence able to indulge once more in sweeping story lines, complicated plots, and badass heroines.

I am using this time to hone my craft in a tiny niche, to surreptitiously use my new readers as sounding boards for new ideas and writing styles. I am still writing to the best of my ability, and I hope that once I return full-time to dark fantasy it will show in my work. I will return to my passion as soon as I am able, and at that point there will be no stopping me. Until then, please be happy for me in that I am receiving acceptance letters, contracts, cover art, and people are purchasing my work. It’s a nice change in most ways, especially for my ego, which has taken a slow, constant beating over the past decade.

I will continue to post here, albeit sporadically. If you are friends with me on Facebook, it is the best way to keep up with my ongoing shenanigans. If you aren’t my friend there, but want to be, go ahead and drop me a request. Just be aware that I do not enjoy friend requests that arrive with no personal message. I find that rude and extremely delete-able . Just so you know.

In amazingly happier news, my derby team beat Charm City’s Female Trouble last Sunday. It was a huge win for us, as everyone who knows derby knows Charm. The bout was even streamed live on the Derby News Network (also a big deal), and people worldwide saw us announce our presence. We head off to Black Rose (no, not that Black Rose, but the derby team) this weekend to skate hard and secure another win. Currently both our All-Stars and Wicomikazis are undefeated–a great feeling. The Wicomikazis get to test their mettle once more tomorrow night and I get to cheer them on. For a first season team, they are intimidating as hell. It’s going to be good.

Someone else owns the rights to the photo set, so I can’t post images here directly. But, if you want to see what Avery, a.k.a. Mortem, has been up to, here’s the album from the Charm bout. Yep. I skate sideways!

Thanks for hanging in with me. Many of you have been a constant source of support and a big part of why I never threw in the writing towel. Thank you.

It seems that for a long while I’ve been sitting on the floor with the frame of a puzzle in front of me, picking up the pieces and trying to make them fit, but having marginal luck. The inside of the frame was a big, senseless white space. I knew what I wanted to go there–what should be there–but the pieces remained a jumble of confusion. I would pick one up and try to fit its grooves within those already laid out, but rarely did I ever find its fit. Lately, however, my puzzle has been coming together. I can finally see the picture it will one day be. At first consideration it seemed the pieces just started falling from the sky, dropping into their assigned grooves with little effort on my part. But, that sort of thinking is a discredit to all the of the work I have put into this. No. The truth is there was no act of divinity, no gift from the heavens; I put the pieces there myself.

I had them all along, these chunks of  experience or success, or whatever you want to call them. They were the pile by my knee, the pieces I so desperately wanted to fit inside my puzzle frame. If the parts weren’t nestled against the grooves of their mates, then they didn’t count. I had to have the big picture done, the whole puzzle reflecting its image back to me before I could say, “This is my accomplishment.”  What I didn’t realize, though, was the pile of pieces was already a reflection of something far greater–understanding. With each piece I picked up and examined, I learned more about it, where it went–more importantly, where it didn’t. I got to know these bits of myself and my work, and even if I didn’t find a place for them in the puzzle, they helped me better know its design. After a long time with these bits, I began to look at the puzzle itself. Maybe building it in the traditional sense wasn’t working for me. Going from the outside, in, framing the picture with four rigid corners before allowing the interior components to take their place was what was recommended–say where you want to go and then make it happen, piece by piece, layer by layer until at last the tantalizing center clicks into position. Maybe I had to seize different pieces, turn them into agglomerations of new and unexpected experiences so I might build my puzzle from the inside out, create the final image with the slow drifting together of several different aspects of the whole.

And so it was I looked at my puzzle from a different angle. I picked up pieces and fit them in ways I hadn’t before considered, as obsessed as I had been with building it the traditional way. Some of the pieces still didn’t fit as I’d hoped. Others, ones I hadn’t even considered, fit into the puzzle with surprising ease. And so I made my foray into a new genre–one less socially and literarily accepted–and found that the doors previously closed to me were wide open. And I went through.

My puzzle remains the same, the image of successful author. I am simply looking at more of the pieces, now. And I like what I see.

We’ll talk more about specifics later on.

As you can see my blog has landed safely here at WordPress. I have a lot of cosmetic work to do, but for now I’m happy to just be here and settling in. If you followed me before at Blogger, please do so again. I promise you the same amount–no more, no less-of wit and charm you were subject to over there.

I’m going to go fiddle around with things for a bit. I’ll be back with new, fun adventures in just a bit.

In the next few days this blog will be moving over to WordPress. Google’s new privacy policy does not sit well with me and I feel it is in my best interest to mosey on. I’ll post the details and my new link in a bit, and then all of the posts here will go away. Please follow me over to WordPress, where we can pick up where we left off.I’m sorry to do this, and to possibly lose some of you great followers who’ve jumped on board these past several years. But, a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do.

 Details soon, and then I’ll try and think of a fun new post for my new home.

 Damn, I knew I shouldn’t have played the whale card so soon.

 Sigh.

Fuck SOPA

That is all.

About a week ago I promised Kate Sterling a post on why I’m terrified of whales. I’ve been giving this a lot of thought, of how to approach the topic so I don’t sound like a loon. However, I don’t think it’s possible, so I figured I’d just go whole-loon–with drawings!

Happy 2012, everyone!

2011 will not be missed by many. It was a rough year, to say the least. But, it was my first full year as a published author, and my first year as a roller derby girl. So, even though the socioeconomic aspect was fairly sucktastic, I still have to chalk it up as one of my best years ever.

I have several writing projects in the works, one of which is super secret and involves branching into other genres–something that is both exciting and intimidating. I have a possible anthology inclusion, and a few collaboration projects hanging on the back burner. Along with the three novel projects that have been slowly coming to fruition–Junket City, Harmony, The Harrower, I unearthed a discarded manuscript and realized it was fairly good.  So, I’m adding, The House of Doors to the lineup. Look for Junket City to make its appearance first. For those of you who didn’t participate in its creation, it is the story of demon hunter EllaNon de Mortens who sells demon nodes to the addicted, yet socially uptight denizens of Junket City, and her struggle to save her beloved city from enslavement by a dimension-traveling impostor.

In roller derby I am again on the travel team. I’ve managed to skate twenty-nine laps in five minutes (I used to sweat doing twenty), and I’m no longer afraid to put on either the jammer or pivot panty. This season we face some new opponents, including Charm City’s Female Trouble, and our travels will even take us to Puerto Rico. All I need for that last one to happen is to man up and get my tail on a plane. Yep, yours truly is not a fan of (the notion of) flying. I have been on a medivac helicopter, but no one asked me if I wanted to do it, and there wasn’t much I could do at the time to stop it. Other than that, I have never been in the air. My reasons for not doing so could encompass an entire post altogether, so I’ll just keep it at that.

Everything seems poised to stream in the right direction for the next twelve months. I just need a little luck, a little more perseverance, and for the apocalypse to hold off for another few years. If all of that can come together, I think 2012 should be pretty damn cool.

One of my “projects” also includes getting back to weekly posts. Maybe next week I’ll tell you why I don’t like flying, and maybe even why whales scare the crap out of me.

Until then, have a happy New Year’s Day.