Changeling: AUMCF – Chapter 16

Friday, February 20, 1998

The office lobby was the very definition of non-descript, a bland interior so dull that Marcus felt drowsy just trying to take in the grey, awful drabness. Grey carpet met grey plastic baseboards made of what looked like glossy industrial grade rubber. The fabric walls were a similar depressing shade that made the white tile ceiling seem dim. On the walls at regular interval was a photo, supposedly meant to inspire.

Here, a bald eagle glided majestically over the slogan, There is no I in T-E-A-M.

Marcus muttered, “There’s no U in team either, asshole.”

Saddle up and get ready to ride!

Yes, now you can order Karen Koehler’s AWESOME weird western Black Jack Derringer, Book 1: The Ace of Spades! If you missed my glowing review, this is a Skullvines Press title that I gave five stars to for being a great introduction to a trilogy of weird western novellas.

Karen has also written the Slayer books as well as many other horror or dark fiction titles, and this story makes for a radical shift to a lighter style and a lighter narration. It’s funny and vividly descriptive without being purple, and from the first page, you will get sucked into the world.

If you didn’t pre-order the book, then you really should order a copy. This trilogy is going to be a fast and very bumpy ride filled with mutant horses, pirates, and plenty of intrigue! You don’t want to miss this adventure, believe me!

Order BJD: Ace of Spades from Skullvines Press

Karen is also taking pre-orders on a personal venture, a YA story called Raiju. You can get more information and make a pre-order at http://tokusatsupress.com/

Changeling: AUMCF – Chapter 15

Saturday, February 14, 1998

Henry and Diana were the not-so-lucky winners to find Jasmine, and they looked haggard after their road trip. They’d been suffering in silence while Jasmine complained over “being treated like a child.” That she was still a child had somehow escaped her, but neither adult was in the mood to point this out.

Mostly, they wanted to run to their room and hide from Jasmine’s tirades about “hypocritical adults.”

Kevin and Jenny decided to hide in Kevin’s workshop, because it was clear that Jasmine was angry at them too. They moved to the back of the shop, as far from the door as possible to avoid hearing the girl’s furious stomping. While Kevin worked on an old Space Invaders arcade game, Jenny used the computer to peruse newsgroups for interesting discussions.

Harlequin went to the dark side…

Writers everywhere are expressing dismay over Harlequin’s decision to open a vanity publishing imprint. Already, RWA, MWA, and SFWA have stated that they would  stop recognizing the publisher based on this move.

There are some self -published writers who may see this change as a good thing, another sign that traditional publishing is changing  away from “the old ways.” The problem is, what Harlequin is offering now goes beyond the basics of self-publishing and moves into the territory of a vanity publisher.

There’s debates about what makes a vanity versus what makes a self-publishing service, but let us be clear on my interpretation: a self-publishing service will allow you to make a book with little or no setup costs and charge you per book to make money. They may charge about two to three times what the actual printing cost is, and so in this way, they are not the most economic solution, but they are still not quite ripping off the writer. After all, the writer goes into the deal knowing that they have to pay for the most of books they want to sell.

On the other hand, a vanity service charges insanely high amounts of money for things that people can do for free themselves. A vanity service promises that there is a potential for great sales opportunities for paying for extra services, and most of these services are again things that a self-published writer could accomplish with little or no expense, and with very little time invested either. The publisher does very little work, and the rest of the writer’s money is all pure profit.

Changeling: AUMCF – Chapter 14

Saturday, February 14, 1998

To say that the next two days were awkward would have been putting the torturous experience in unduly polite terms.

Henry had taken over training Jenny and Marcus. During the day, Jenny worked on her disguise, trying to mimic a healthier version of Roland’s deceased daughter. During the evenings, Marcus had to change over to his own disguise, and he suffered horrid aches and pains in his face and limbs. He wanted to hum a spell to heal faster, but he was so frustrated thinking about Laura and Kevin that the music in his head was muted.

Laura came out whenever Marcus did, and she felt terrible guilt over tricking him. Because she felt guilty, so did he. But his motivations for the sentiment were based more on his actions than hers.

Jenny wasn’t faring much better. Tommy wouldn’t come around her on orders from Matilda, and Kevin was avoiding her because he too felt guilty for not mentioning his age.

Jasmine avoided everyone except during meals, and she looked like she was trying to compress bits of coal into diamonds between her tightly clenched teeth.

But one can set the bar TOO high sometimes…

I wrote a little bit about this last night on Twitter, and I want to put my thoughts in a blog post for those of you who don’t follow micro-blogging.

As you know, I took down copies of my e-books from Amazon over their new pricing policy for international Kindle customers. If you missed that, Amazon is giving AT&T a 2$ cut of every e-book sold for “roaming charges.” Sure, it screws the international customers, raises the prices of the books by roughly 20% and cuts out the local cell phone providers from providing a better, cheaper and faster service than AT&T. But the Kindle goes to market faster this way, and that’s all anyone seems to be talking about.

My plan was to shift my e-book sales over to Smashwords, which made sense in light of their plans to start putting books on the Nook. But three points have come up that cause me to doubt my decision to boycott Amazon.

Changeling: AUMCF – Chapter 13

Wednesday, February 10, 1998

The walk back home started out with a leisurely pace, but it soon turned into power walking.

Laura slipped her hand into Marcus’, curling her fingers around his thumb. She was stroking the digit in a suggestive way, and every few steps, she would lean in to brush her breast against the side of his arm.

If she could have been any more obvious about her interest, she would have needed to stop walking to undress first.

Narration experimentation or authorial intrusion?

Yes, after a long ordeal to get a new internet connection, I’m finally back online! I’d like to start off talking about narrators. Before the internet connection went kaput, I’d been talking about how the narrators for the Mystical World Wars often sounded similar, but were in fact several different demigods. Up until the next round of books, the demigods were silent characters, not being part of the story.

However, that will change now that the story has finally made advances to the right point. In many future stories, the demigods will be acting as bit characters in the tales they narrate. So, suppose a demigod is telling their story, and they enter the story to preform in a scene. At that point, should they begin narrating from a first person perspective?

I don’t have to use the same technique for every narrator. Perhaps Morrigan and Apollo might both choose to break fourth wall and use first person narration while they’re in the scenes, while Shiva and Ares will remain detached from themselves and remain in third person omniscient. Perhaps someone will use first person past tense, and another might try first person present tense.

Miscelaneous Updates…

I’m kinda sorta back. Did anyone miss me?

No, we still do not have an internet connection. We were supposed to have wireless internet set up two weeks ago, and we’re still waiting. Oh, but the Internet connection at the old place is still on, because the old company still hasn’t gotten around to shutting it off. If you ever think to bitch in the US because setting up a new phone and Internet connection in the US takes a week, wait until you go a month without service, just because.

As it is, we’re piggy backing off of someone else’s connection, and only hubby’s Mac is close enough to connect. Even if it is running XP, I still feel dirty. =^P It’s also slow, like 14.4 modem with a speech impediment slow. (I said, “B-bee-beep, buh-beep, shit! Beep! Okay, next b-buh-bit… Duh-deet…d-duh–aw, fuck it and hit reload!”)

Changeling – AUMCF – Chapter 12

Tuesday, February 9, 1998

Dinner was awkward for Jenny. The only people not casting odd looks at her were Tommy and Kevin. Tommy had returned to his ubiquitous knowing smile, and Kevin grinned or blushed whenever she looked his way. He seemed oblivious to the mood of most everyone else at the table.

Jenny wasn’t, and she had a hunch that another fight was coming. She knew she was the cause of the fight, but the reason why it would be coming eluded her. Rather than ponder the question, she ate fast, only raising her head to look around the table every few bites.

Jasmine was still glaring about whatever had upset her that morning, but she dropped her head, trying to hide her anger whenever Jenny glanced around.

Henry and Diana alternated between stealing glances at Jenny and exchanging worried looks with each other. Matilda seemed the most restrained, but even she had something on her mind. The problem was, no one deemed it necessary to share information with Jenny.