Probably should have said this earlier…

Rather than rant and ramble today, I want to make a short post addressing my readers. By this, I mean those of you who have left comments on my blog, chatted at me on Twitter and Facebook, bought ebooks, pre-ordered The Life & Death of a Sex Doll, left reviews, or did any of those kinds of activities which modern peoples might define as fan-like…activity…riiiight. Anywho, I’m addressing you folks who took the time to show your support:

Thank you. You are the few, the proud, the elite. You are the folks who got what I was saying and decided to pitch in and help. I bitch a lot at the silent folks who are still just passing through and waiting for the next train wreck. (Due any minute now, I’m sure.) But I don’t often take the time to say thanks to the people who heeded the call and pitched in their support.

I’ve mentioned Becka a lot because she’s been supporting me the longest, going all the way back to my first Lulu book ever. But now of course there’s new arrivals like Wendy and Widdershins, and Daymon, all of whom have bought books, left comments, left reviews and ratings. In short, they’ve done everything I asked, and then some. And that is awesomesauce.

Then there’s the middle group of Jodi and Louise over at Belfire Press, who have done a LOT to promote my stuff, and not just the stuff I wrote for them. And then over on Twitter (and Facebook, actually) there’s @Andrew_Wolter, who promoted a few of my ebooks with giveaways, and who lends emotional support on the days when I’m feeling like a total hack. Also on Twitter, there’s @phalcomb, who’s bought quite a few books and reviewed many of them. Those he didn’t review, he still tweeted me to say, “Hey, I read this, and it was pretty good.” There’s @Magelly, who bought one book, and will be reading it until sometime in 2013 at his current pace. =^p I know because on Twitter he sends updates about his slow but steady progress, and I know he’s slow because he hates ebooks, not me. =^) All of his tweet updates about the book itself have been positive so far. And yeah, it’s cool to get feedback and know he’s still reading, even if he’s reading really slow. (And I’m not going to rush him when my own reading pace has dropped to a crawl due to guitar practice and gardening taking all my free time. [Isn't it funny how I never talk about TV shows I watch?Yeah, funny, that.])

There are others who do their parts by RTing messages, but that list gets a bit random and long, and I can’t recall everyone who retweeted something at one time or another. With the fast stream nature of Twitter, it isn’t possible to keep track of tweets, or to track who is retweeting them. (In theory you should still be able to, but New Twitter screwed up the RT system and now it’s not entirely accurate. Okay, it’s piss poor at keeping track of who retweeted what.)  There’s a LOT of writers who have taken the time to write up a little something about me, bloggers who sent me email interviews, and others who wrote up reviews of my stuff for their site.

There’s folks who wrote an email to me to let me know what they thought of my book, or to talk to me about a blog post in private. And finally, there are people that despite my embarrassing behavior, still display a link to my blog in their blog roll. Or they have a link to my Smashwords store listed. I’m sure one day I’ll find links to my Lulu store too, but as I just got the print side of my catalog going, it’s not surprising that no one knows the address yet. (It’s http://stores.lulu.com/zoe_w if you want to post it for me and help spread awareness of my growing print library.)

All of these methods count as support, even if there’s no financial support. Money’s tight, and lots of you people do what you can in little doses. And so, one more time, to you people who made even the briefest effort to help me, thank you. You’ve been a great audience, and I hope my new stuff is not so crappy it sends you away. (And that my whining at the silent lurkers does not bore you to tears.)

So that’s it for the sunshine and happiness. Tune in tomorrow, when I return to serving piss and vinegar.

Mother Nature, multiple releases, and more begging…

So, I was quiet this week on the blog because I’ve been busting my ass in spite of Mother Nature’s dedicated efforts to kill me, my garden, and my print book with Belfire Press. No shit, I’m not joking on any count. The weather shifted rapidly from HOT to COLD very rapidly during three days of this week. The effect on my body was devastating, and I had to up my painkillers and other drug intake. So I was a leeeetle spacy.

I got an email from my kind and benevolent publisher that The Life & Death of a Sex Doll would have to be delayed until mind-June. The problem is, there was a lot of flooding, and the Belfire home offices lost their Internet connection due to the poor weather. So there were delay on all sorts of things, again because of the weather.

And then on Friday, Mother Nature dropped a freak hail storm with torrential and violent raindrops, killing 8 of my strawberry seedlings in seconds, as well as several other smaller herb seedlings that had just started to pop out of the ground. I ran out in a parka, making this hugely dramatic rescue of all my baby plants, and the weather shifted from hot to COLD while I was working. Well, my spine found that really funny. No, I mean it was just shaking with spasms of laughter. But, while my spine was amused, I was decidedly less enthusiastic about the pain. Me and Mr. Rum got together for a conference call with Mr. Bong, and then we all paid a visit to Mrs. Painkiller, and FINALLY, my back relaxed and made it possible to sit straight without huddling my shoulders.

Before we get into an episode of “Aaaaw Zoe,” I’m not looking to host a pity party, really. In fact, allow me to tell you what I still did in spite of my pain. For starters, I busted out the news every day this week, and then I did my guitar practice. Then I sat down to do book layouts and proofing for some new Lulu titles. This week alone, I’ve released three print books, and I’ve updated two Smashwords ebooks with improved editions now that I’ve stripped yet more typos from the print proofs.

If you go to my Lulu storefront, you will now find Blood Relations, A Collection of Vampire Shorts, and Dead End: Omnibus. Blood Relations is of course the sequel to Touched and Redemption Lost, following Vicky and Amber during the start of Amber’s eighteen month pregnancy carrying a vampire/halfling hybrid. A Collection of Vampire Shorts can be considered the sequels to Blood Relations, and each of the three stories offers vastly different takes on life in the vampire coven. Finally, Dead End: Omnibus is a collection of the Dead End trilogy: Dead End, Dead End II: Cults Rising, and Dead End III: Mutation. I released an ebook version of Dead End: Omnibus for $4.99, which may seem high. But if I released the three ebooks separately, I would charge $1.99 each. So it’s actually a little cheaper for this edition than for three units.

My weird superpower…

So, I had to go to the store to buy dinner fixin’s, right? Well I’m in the checkout line, and the lady behind me just starts talking to me about everything. No, I mean EVERYTHING. She’s English, been here about twenty years, and divorced her Italian husband because he was hitting her for many years. Her son is a womanizer, but her daughter is a genius who speaks three languages and lives in Japan. I was told a lot more in the span of ten minutes, but you get the idea.

This is not an unusual occurrence for me. I’ve always had this weird kind of magnetism that makes complete strangers open up to me without prompting. It used to freak me out, like when I was 11 and a lady on a public bus told me that she was cheating on her husband. It’s not something you’d normally tell a stranger, and certainly not a little kid. And yet, nobody every really stops mid-confession and looks at me and says, “Oh wait, telling you that was really inappropriate, wasn’t it?”

I’m not sure how to sum up my super power, but in person, I generate a sense of trust. People feel like they can tell me anything, even though they don’t even know my name. They often tell me they feel like they’ve known me forever, and that I’m instantly familiar. Obviously,  this power does not work online, but I’m not sure if that’s a bad thing. For one thing, whenever people confess like this, I’m really not sure what to say. Mostly I nod a lot and let people get stuff out of their system. On the other hand, it does give me a LOT of new material to work with.

I sometimes think I should try to write a story about someone like me. But the concept sounds so incredible and illogical that I struggle with how to tone it down and make it more realistic for a story. Fiction demands a logic for everything, even if it’s a twisted kind of logic. In the real world, lots of things occur “just because,” but you can’t get away with that kind of “weak excuse” in a story.

If there is an explanation for my “power,” I will never know it. I can only accept that this is one of my quirks. But in a story, I would want to make up a reason for why it happens.

I know I’m rambling, but moments like the checkout confessional make me wonder if maybe I exude some kind of “writer vibe.” It’s like I’m subconsciously broadcasting, Please, tell me your story.

Now, if only I could figure out how to turn it off and on as needed…

Randomnessness…ness.

Just a multi-faceted update this time, so you know I didn’t fall off the planet somehow. Editing work for the glass site is still pretty much the same. Yesterday wasn’t fun, though, as it was a news day so slow, I literally had to search all day to come up with five new articles. Every other news source of our kind resorted to recycling news from last week. I made sure our peeps got new stuff. Cause that’s how I roll.

Hope y’all remember that my duel sci-fi novella, The Life & Death of a Sex Doll, is coming very soon. If you haven’t pre-ordered a print copy or an ebook from Belfire Press yet, please, consider picking one up now or on release day. (Should be any day now, I think.) For $11.99 for print or $2.99 for ebooks, it’s a really good deal. You’re getting Adopting a Sex Doll, my original web serial about an Internet stock broker who modifies a sophisticated sex toy to play house, and the all-new sequel, When a Sex Doll Dies, which continues the story from the perspective of the aforementioned adopted doll. Sometimes whimsical and funny, and sometimes a little sad and nostalgic, this is going to be my first book published by someone else. The editing is even more stringent than my already tough standards, so without boasting, I can tell you that this will be my best book ever in terms of editing quality.

In other writing news, I’ve completed another chapter of Bran of Greenwood and the Scary Fairy Princess. I don’t write every day, or even all day on the days that I choose to indulge the muse, so my progress is much slower. I’m also committing the wicked sin of adding to the earlier scenes before I finish the book. *GASP!* Actually, I’ve done this many times over the last two years. I think that rule really only applies to noobs and people who let the new additions distract them from finishing the story.

More Lulu news, and some stuff you might have read before…

This weekend, I am feeling quite proud of myself. Why? Because this week, I put out four “new” print books on my Lulu storefront. Four. And I didn’t just drop a Word file into the uploader. I did a great layout on each book with InDesign. If I’m able to keep up this kind of pace, I’ll have all my archived stories out in ebook and print by early August. Taking a suggestion from hubby, my coverless releases from the web-serial archives will be gathered under the label the White-Faced Collection. This is a term for coverless books in Italy, though it’s usually applied to classic titles in the public domain. I was iffy on the name, but it grew on me after a week or so, and now I really like it and think it’s kinda cool.

I also decided to add Sandy Morrison & the Pack of Pussies to the list of early conversions for the White-Faced Collection because for new readers, my Mystical World Wars books are daunting. The number of volumes out intimidates folks no matter how many times I try to explain that they’re individual episodes that don’t require reading the whole series. So I need something short, fast, and fun. Well, that’s Sandy. It also describes her book too! Ba-da-pish! Thanks, I’m here all week. Please, buy a book on your way out, and tip your waitress. She takes PayPal.

So…yeah, Peter, the Wolf is definitely going to be released soon, and then I’ll drop NINJAWORLD next for the same reason. People want short stuff to get to know me without committing to a 20 book series. Totally understandable. Peter’s book is a short novel, and NINJAWORLD is a novella so short, I’ll either have to add B&W artwork to the layout or include a bonus story to pad the page count to an acceptable minimum count for Lulu. I detest sending any more than three blank pages in any book, and I long to fill up empty space to give people their money’s worth. So one way or the other, those pages WILL get some ink sprayed on them…like printer shop bukkake. (Now go grab a book and sniff it while thinking, “printer sperm.” Oh, page turns are going to be so much fun for you when you think, Every page is sticky with printer love juice. You’re welcome.)

The thing is, I need you people to help me out with upcoming releases, and this includes my release for the fine folks at Belfire Press, who will any day now be shipping copies of The Life and Death of a Sex Doll. Now if you buy a copy, print or ebook, or you already made a pre-order, I bestow many blessing upon you. Long may the happiness fairies dance over you, or something.

An observation about making time…

Today, I’d like to talk about time, and motivation, and I’d like to start with a tangent. This last week or so, a number of people on Facebook and Twitter have noted, “For someone retired, you sure are busy!”

And, they had no idea. Like, yesterday? I did paid editing, chopping up news articles for a glass web site, and then I proofed When a Sex Doll Dies and sent the proof file back to the publisher. THEN I formatted Touched as a print book for Lulu and uploaded it. That book is a scant $6.95 for a 5.5”X8.5 paperback format. It also includes a bonus story, so it’s a very good deal if you’re in the US. If you’re outside the US…you’ll probably want to get the ebook version at Smashwords instead. Somehow around this, I also found time to practice my guitar for a few hours, and I planted some oregano and thyme.

That was yesterday. Today I had to do the same news editing job, and then I formatted a copy of Redemption Lost for Lulu and uploaded it. THEN I formatted and uploaded a print edition of Little Monsters. Both Redemption Lost and Little Monsters are $11.95, but Redemption Lost is a 6X9 book so it matches up with the other books in the set, while Little Monsters is in a new 5.5”X8.5” paperback format with “publisher grade” pages. What this means is, a 500 page book costs less to print, so I can charge y’all a price that isn’t crazy and still make a buck and some change out of the deal.

I also did gardening and guitar practice today, and I’m sure some of you wonder, “What is it that’s fired her up now?” Well I’ll tell you my secret: it’s steady pay. Yep, totally the regular pay coming in from the temp job. See, with cash coming in, I relax and get into my little workaholic zone, and nothing reaches me because there’s work to be done. I suddenly find all sorts of extra time to get these projects done. Money motivates me to work faster, and therefore, I have yet more time to do other stuff and earn more money! Er, in theory, anyway.

Post-ramble followup, and other updates…

First, for those of you who read all of my previous post without scrolling or leaving the blog and vowing never to return again, bless you. Rape or sexual assault are topics that upset me more than they make me mad, and that leads to a lot longer rambles, which usually means they have even less directness to their points. And hey, those of you who skipped it, I totally understand. Hell, I was ready to skip it after the third round of edits.

Today, I had another one of those weird moments that makes me feel broken. I was laughing with hubby on the subway, and this girl started staring. Okay, a lot of people stare at me, but she’s got this wide-eyed, mouth partway open look, like I’m really, really interesting. I don’t make eye contact, and I keep joking with hubby. But as he’s talking, the girl gets up and moves right behind hubby, and then she really tried to get me to notice her.

How can I tell? Because she checked where my eyes where pointing, and then ducked down under hubby’s arm to try and meet my gaze. So I looked elsewhere again, and she moved to get in my range. She finally caught me on her way out, and then she smiled. And…that’s it. She just wanted to smile back, I think because my smile was so infectious. But of course being a broken freak, it wasn’t until later that I realized why she’d made the effort to reach me. I couldn’t make eye contact, because I had to assume something bad would happen. Yes, that’s really how broken I am.

Sometimes I think the best description to fit me is an antique vase. I’m the vase, and when I look at my reflection, I see something old and broken. I see all my cracks and flaws, and I think, I’m so ugly. How can anyone want a broken ugly thing like me? But when others look at me, they say, “Look at this classic work of art! There are fine lines of age running through the shell, but the design is still great!” And while they gush, I think, Why don’t they notice my flaws? It’s all I can see, and it’s rare that anyone else notices. So maybe it is just me.

A very long post on sexual violence and my personal history with it…

First, please go to http://www.helpthecheerleader.com/ and read it before you get into this overly long entry. This is TMI and a TL;DR ramble of ELEVEN pages, (No, really) so either way, you’re going to be reading a while. Unless you’re planning to skip this post for being too long-winded, (Totally fair if you do. And FYI, this is a ramble, not a rant.) I’ll wait while you read the above link, and then the one below.

Finish the first? Right, now please read this: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/09/us/09assault.html

Before I discuss anything, let me say that when I talk about my past, it isn’t to brag, or to get sympathy. I am speaking about my past not to offend anyone either, but rather to inform. I am writing as a former life-long resident of Texas, as a past victim of sexual assault, and as a perpetrator as a sexual predator. In fact, I probably would be in prison if I were in any other state besides Texas. The cops had many chances to arrest me, and I’m only going to talk about one of the chances they had. But each time the cops chose to look the other way and let me walk. Part of me is eternally grateful that I did not end up in prison.

But then I recall how those same cops took my reports of my mom’s abuse and sent me right back to her. They filed a report, but that did me no good, and it didn’t even matter until years later, when my mom tried to run an in-house daycare. She spanked a child and the parents complained. AND THEN my complaint came up in the system, and mom was banned from watching other kids.

Fat load of good that report did me. It’s the cops who could have saved me, who SHOULD have saved me. After all, I reported the crime, just like I’d been taught in school. But instead they were just one of many factors that made me into the lovely little monster I am today. After running into too many other people in Texas who are somewhat like me, I know that my case is not unique, nor even rare.

So, if you’ve read those two links, you know why I’m upset. (If not, going beyond the cut is probably going to offend you. Fair warning.) I avoided saying anything when those 18 men gang-raped a little girl because she was “dressed too sexy.” I avoided saying anything while community members tut-tutted about how this would affect the lives of the men. And this is because on some level, I feel sick with guilt over my own crimes. I always feel like a hypocrite speaking out on these topics.

What does this porn have to do with YA? Or: The strange ways that writers find inspiration

So today, I have nothing else to talk about, and I’m going to ramble on the topic of Bran of Greenwood and the Scary Fairy Princess and the convoluted creative process that goes into making a story.

First, I have for a long, long, long time tried to write a straight porn story, something with loads of sex and little else. Problem is, I never can make it through writing any porno without getting distracted by the plot. No, really. You’d think someone like me, who can write a sex scene with anyone or anything, could manage to finish at least one porn. But my trunk novel folder has a number of pornos that didn’t get past chapter five.

Second, I’ve mentioned randomly before that I have a burning desire to write transsexual romantic comedies, but with sex in them. And I’ve attempted this a few times, usually ending somewhere in the middle because I’ve run out of idea for a mundane yet funny plot. (Or because I stopped and went “Wait, this isn’t funny. Not even hmmm, funny.”)

So, about nine months ago, the muse hits me with a potential fantasy premise for a transsexual half-elf sorceress and a half-orc barbarian. But not as a comedy. No she pitched it as a straight fantasy with occasional sex. And I kinda liked the idea, but it had problems. For one thing, I really didn’t want the “gender issue” to be the focus of the story. (Even if the goal of the story was finding a cursed belt to transform the heroine’s lower bits magically.)

Sandy Morrison updated and reviewed, and other stuff…

Thanks to help from Twitter follower @MystycalMage, I have been able to release an updated version of Sandy Morrison and the Pack of Pussies. Those of you who already bought a copy, you can just download the new copy from your shelf without having to buy it again. And those of you who didn’t buy a copy yet, please take a look at the preview at least. Sandy’s story has been generating some good feedback from the few people who’ve picked it up thus far, and @MystycalMage has just released a 5-star review, where she said:

At the beginning of the book, I had to remind myself that I needed sleep. I did not want to stop reading. I probably would have read the whole book at once if not for my battery dying.

Woot! Hells yeah, and many thanks to @MystycalMage for all of her help with the feedback on typos and the review. If I could have few more fans like her, and Becka, and Amanda, and…and others, I’m sure I might one day generate enough buzz to turn my library of titles into a Lilliputian cash cow.