Drop the scarlet letter and mind your own beeswax!

Every few weeks, some celebrity, politician, or pastor is caught cheating on their spouses. Every single time, this stirs up a shit storm of stunned gasps, loud proclamations of virtue, and blame laying aplenty. It’s like we’re all a society of Puritans who are still living out modern variations of The Scarlet Letter

Given my history, you’d think I’d hate infidelity. I’ve been cheated on so often, it wasn’t even funny. But taking that mindset is assuming that I was completely blameless, and that just isn’t true. As a partner, I had to come off as aloof, or as emotionally distant. The alternative was being more open, and then women left me, “for real men.” This too makes them seem petty in a snap judgment, but hey, if you aren’t a lesbian, dating a chick with a penis isn’t going to work no matter how much you try to convince yourself that having a dick equals being a dude.

But my point here is, the women who cheated on me were only one part of a complex equation, one which can be summed up as “human emotions are fickle.” We fall in and out of love. We develop obsessions and fast burning attractions for other people. This is human nature. It is what we are: flawed and imperfect creatures whose insecurities sometimes lead us to temptations that we cannot say no to.

Now, if it were just the far religious right making a big deal out of infidelity, that would be one thing. But I see a lot of supposedly moderate and liberal people who also jump in on “cheaters” with equal vitriol. We as a society pin scarlet letters on men and women, and we browbeat people for being human.

Why is “being real” only good for musicians?

It’s just after 5 AM, and I’m supposed to be in bed. Hell, truth be told, I shouldn’t be writing because I was supposed to go on vacation. That promise lasted all of one day, and then I spent most of today working through a proof of a novella before sending it off for a professional’s opinion. (Not to be confused with submitting it for publication. I don’t think it’s ready for that stage yet.) I haven’t had a real break since last August, when I went to Amsterdam for a week, and there I kept a travel journal, writing by hand in a Moleskin.

After I got done with that proofing project tonight, I went around reading music blogs, and the message coming out of this industry is “don’t trust the corporate hype.” Which on a certain level makes me say “Amen.” On the level of a music fan, I appreciate a raw talent over some auto-tuned, perfectly groomed corporate “package” band.

But as an indie writer, I wonder if it will ever come time for people to embrace a similar message about written fiction. Some people argue that there’s a “time factor” in that you consume music far faster than you do fiction. I don’t know if I understand that logic. You pay 0.99 cents for a song that lasts 3 minutes, but you won’t pay the same price for a book that takes 3 hours to read? You’ll pay $9.99 for a 45-minute album after sampling one song, but $4.99 for a eight-hour book from an unknown author is too much, even if 25% (two hours) of the book is available as a free preview?

Seeing weird logic about value like this, I wonder: will it ever be safe for someone like me to promote fiction with a message similar to the kind used by musicians? Right now, I know it’s not.

New Releases!

That’s right, my lazy butt has been working on getting a couple new e-book releases ready for y’all nice people! You can get these books for free, or you can pick them up  from an e-book vendor for the cheap price of only $0.99 cents. Please keep in mind that I work on a shareware business model, so if you like any free story you read from me, pleas consider buying a copy. Or if you’re flat broke and really can’t spare the dough, please consider posting reviews for my newest releases. And without further ado, here are my new titles:Edited to add: Oh, yeah! Click on the covers to get to the book details pages and download the books for free. DUH!

In the Grasp of the Devil:
The Collins Family Trilogy Book II

Beware halflings bearing mental imprints…

Amy Collins has cleared every hurdle to reclaim her biological identity in spite of her father’s attempts to destroy her mind, and she’s almost completed training to take over the role of leadership of the family from her uncle Jonathan. She even manages to handle her first test as a trainer with flying colors when she tames Judy Daley, Morgan’s ultra-spoiled granddaughter.

Then Amy is summoned to England for a meeting with clan leader Stephen Collins, who is prepared to turn leadership of his family over to her. The catch? He’s also dumping his worst problem in her lap: his family slayer daughter, Katherine.

While Amy recovers from multiple mental imprints in Sheffield, mage Miguel Ramos is fulfilling his destiny by murdering his former boss, Dory Taylor, and the rest of the American Collins are left reeling by one crisis after another. Amy’s daughter Cora struggles to keep everyone from falling apart, but she’s near the limit of her sanity too.

Can Amy find the strength to assimilate multiple personalities, rebuild her family and keep Miguel from killing himself? Will she be able to resist the daemonic visions sent by Lucien, and channeled through her álfr mentor, Jarred? Or will the strain of dealing with this flood of crises break her?

Waiting for a Miracle: Tales of the City Book I

In City California, Duggan Masters is a living legend. As the criminal Light Master, he has ascended the ranks to become the undisputed overlord of all crime in City. Yet “the game” ceases to have meaning after City’s greatest hero, Miracle Man, vanishes without a trace.

Left with only the local police to foil his plots, Light Master grows increasingly lethal, and the joy of killing has been lost. So Duggan does what any criminal overlord would do: he kidnaps Dr. Wallace Cornwall, a famous “psychiatrist to the heroes” and writer of a best selling self help book for heroes, Our Masks, Our Selves.

Duggan introduces Wallace to Leona, a genetically engineered assassin who has turned to working part-time as a “cat burglar”, and part-time as a serial killer. Wallace talks Duggan and Leona into retirement, but Duggan has one last plot to bring Miracle Man out of hiding.

How far is one deranged criminal overlord willing to go for the love of his hero?

Why Ticked-Off Trannies With Knives is bad…

I’m going to make this a short post and set aside the controversy GLAAD is causing by condemning the film after apparently endorsing it. Once the trans community got wind of the film and contacted GLAAD, they reacted like a typical political lobby by acting as if they’d just heard of the film. But that’s not my concern, and I’ll leave it up to the G and L of the GLBT political groups to bash GLAAD for being two-faced.

No, instead I want to talk about the flawed logic behind making this film and behind the offensive title choice. Ticked-Off Trannies With Knives is described as a “tribute to exploitation films.”

A tribute is a celebration of something good, and there was nothing in exploitation films worth celebrating. They took advantage of actors desperate for work, and they mocked the subjects they presented. Using words like “empowering” or “campy” may diminsh the impact of the word exploitation in some peoples’ minds, but this is still a film that exploits transgender people.

Some people are saying, “Hey you whiny transsexuals, don’t make a big deal out of it. This is just exploiting drag queens anyway.” That really is beside the point. First of all, tranny does not automatically equal drag queen. If the director wanted to make sure people knew his film was about drag queens, then he needed to make the title Ticked-Off Drag Queens With Knives. By using an emotionally charged word, he is exploiting transsexuals, transgenders, and transvestites, and he is doing so without consideration of how this will affect us.

Ruby Don’t Take Your Love to Town – The Trans Reboot

I keep listening to Ruby Don’t Take your Love to Town, both the original version by Kenny Rogers, and the cover by The Killers. Lately, I’ve been thinking about a reboot using some of the same words, but changing the narrator to a post-op transsexual talking to their spouse instead of a handicapped war veteran. No, not as a parody, but as a real effort to “reboot” the song. So anywho, this here is my first attempt at remaking the song:

You painted up your lips and rolled and curled your tinted hair
Ruby is that my makeup that you plan to wear?
I could take you dancing, just let me get my gown
Oh Ruby, don’t take your love to town

I know my Asian sex change has made you awfully sore
But I was dying slowly in the life I’d led before
And yes it’s true that I am not the man I used to be
Oh Ruby, you still mean the world to me

It’s hard to love a spouse when they’ve gone and swapped their sex
I never changed my mind on you, and don’t to be your ex
You’re still the one love of my life, the best I’ve ever found
Oh Ruby, don’t take your love to town

She’s heading out to see a man; I’m cryin’ on the floor
“For better or for worse” don’t mean a thing no more
And I know she had a husband back when she made those vows
Oh Ruby, don’t take your love town

Oh Ruby, for God’s sake turn around

Review Lady Gaga w/ Beyoncé – Telephone

I’ve been seeing a lot of crosstalk about this new video, none of it good. While I don’t really like the song Telephone, I decided to head over to Lady Gaga’s site to see the full “uncensored” video. (You should not label a video uncensored when you blur out the crotch, or when “motherfucker” is cut from the soundtrack to just “motherf—-.” That is generally called a censored version by most people, for obvious reasons.)

My review is behind the cut, but the short version is “1 star: don’t waste your time.”

Kreativ Blogger Award

Melanie Edmonds, a webserial writer and Twitter friend, informed me last week that she’d nominated me for the Kreative Blogger Award. First, I want to thank her for thinking of me. I really do appreciate that.

This is the third award of this kind that I’ve “won” in the last few months, and while I appreciate the sentiments behind each nomination, I’m starting to look at the process of accepting them as a minor nuisance. It’s true that being nominated creates yet another link to my site from another writer’s blog, and this creates another trickle of visitors to read my blog and my stories. But since I don’t read that many blogs, I end up writing the same names down in my own nominations.

The rest of the instructions change from award to award. The first had me name 7 mystery writers and then list 7 blogs I read. The second just wanted 7 other names. This time around, the rules call for me to thank the blogger who nominated me (check) and list 7 “interesting facts” about myself. Then I can list 7 blogger’s names/links.

So, this time around, I’m going to give you 7 facts about me, but I’m going to just copy and paste the nominations I made from the Prolific Blogger award. So if you get the feeling that you’ve read the blogger descriptions before, you have.

Lazy? Maybe you can choose to see it that way, but I’ve been busting my butt to get out a lot of new material, and these awards take time away if I’m spending all day trying to think up new names to add. And again, I just don’t read that many blogs. If I read more blogs, I wouldn’t have time to write as much as I do.

A.M. Harte Reviews Wake Up With the Kimellians

I’m posting this a few days later, but A.M. Harte has reviewed my sci-fi story Wake Up With the Kimellians and gave it 3.5 stars. In particular, I really liked this part:

This is Earth unlike anything you could imagine. I love the world-building: the 1984-esque big brother feel, the security systems, structure of society… all of it.

Be sure to check out the rest of the review, and if you haven’t read the story yet, please give it a shot.

I want to thank Anna for checking out my story for Read an E-book Week, and for writing a great review.  And if you readers wander over to her blog, you might also take the time to check out her web fiction, Above Ground.

Belfire Press is publishing Adopting a Sex Doll!

Although I mentioned this news on Twitter a few times, I held off on making a blog post until after the official announcement came out from the publisher. Today, Belfire Press announced that they will be publishing my sci-fi story, Adopting a Sex Doll, with a release date of 12/20/10.You can find the announcement and details of other new Belfire Press releases here.

Belfire also posted another announcement here, and my name pops up there too. As the current copy editor steps down to work on other projects, Tracy DeVore and I will both be brought in to work as copy editors.

I’m very excited to be joining the Belfire team, both as an author and as a copy editor. This will not be my first copy editing job, but it will be my first job working with fiction from other writers. If I hadn’t accidentally killed my iPod today, I would totally be dancing in celebration. But I am still bouncing in my seat. ^_^

Product Review: NaturalReader 9

Long story short: DO NOT waste money on NaturalReader 9

You’re going to see me use the product name NaturalReader 9 often in this review. This is to bump up the keyword relevance to make sure this review shows up as close to the program as I can manage in most search engines.

Now, as you may not know, I have problems with processing text in my head. I often lose letters or words randomly. My brain also makes odd substitutions, like b for p and d for q. I lose r in many words like a mothefucker, as wells as e and s. I forget to put in period and my commas, sometime migrate to places they shouldn’t be (yeah, that time it was intentional, just to show you what I mean)

So basically, anything from me that’s earlier than a third draft reads like a dyslexic nightmare.