And now, a rant on fashionable Twilight bashing…

So last night, I got in a long, long debate with someone about how Edward Cullen is abusive to Bella. I asked what they defined as abuse, and they gave examples that he withheld sex as “a weapon” and that he’d stripped the cables from her car to prevent her from seeing Jacob. Before I go on, I want to point out that Edward stripped her cables because Jacob was still in werewolf adolescence, and as Sam’s partner shows with her clawed face, Bella WAS in extreme danger by being around Jacob during his “growth spurt.” So what people are calling jealousy on Edward’s part is actually him being protective of someone he loves. Which, according to a LOT of folks, is really, really abusive and sick, and girls shouldn’t want a guy like this. Um…okay. Looks like you folks need a perspective check.

My mother had her jaw broken by my stepfather. She had to have her jaw wired shut for three months, and she ate everything with a straw. It was one of the few times she couldn’t lose her temper because she became impossible to understand if she started shouting through her sealed teeth. Mom still lived with my step-dad for another seven years after he broke her jaw.

This was one of many injuries that my mother took from my step-father, and myself being an abuse victim, at a certain point, I even convinced her to go back for more. When my step-dad finally left, he tried to choke Mom on the way out. Later, Mom said he came back to attempt a drive by on her house. This is what an abusive long-term relationship looks like.

In my own life, I’ve dealt with physical abuse, and I was sexually assaulted. I’ve been in long-term abusive relationships, both cases of neglect and of emotional abuse. As a result of all the abuse I suffered, I abused others, and I abused drugs. Because of my dark past, I can say that I’m a real world expert of abuse in all its forms. So when I say I’m having trouble seeing the abuse, I’m not a sheltered young’un who doesn’t know what she’s talking about. I’m just not seeing how being protective in a typically male way is somehow now abusive in the modern era. Moreover, I’m no longer clear on what you people would call healthy. But, looking at the news and the rise of a rape apology culture, I’m going to venture a guess that you don’t have a clue what “healthy” means anymore.

Deaf, Disabled Senior Citizen Tased to Death

Okay, go look at this story, and then I’ll do a very short rant. Very short, I promise.

Read that? Okay. *Takes deep breath* Cops, Tasers are not non-lethal devices. You are not supposed to fire them indiscriminately just because you don’t feel like doing your job. I’ve documented a case where officers have tased the elderly, in their own homes, when they were summoned for medical emergencies involving the victim they tased. I’ve documented other cases like this where a person was deaf or having a diabetic insulin shock and was unable to understand their surroundings. In each of these cases, the officer, whose job is to be level-headed, went right the fuck off with violence as their first response.

This isn’t a violent crack addict with a knife. This isn’t a youth with a questionable toy gun. This isn’t any kind of threat to the officer. He’s in a fucking car, and his victim was on a bicycle. This was a little old deaf man that was murdered by a rookie cop unwilling to do his job. At worst, young Bacon Jaywalker will move to another district after killing an innocent old man in cold blood. Why will he get away with cold-blooded murder? Because he’s “one of the good guys.” If I tased an old man because he “looked menacing to me,” I’d be going to prison for manslaughter at best, murder at worst. But Johnny Law does it, and he’s slapped on the wrist.

But if you can think of some good reason why the cops should be behaving with indiscriminate use of violence for minor domestic issues, please, feel free to explain it to me using little words. Because I’m apparently too stupid to understand why it’s okay for the “good guys” to be evil.

I’m stoking the biggest poll on the internets…

Or maybe it’s a survey…in any case, you probably know that yesterday, I decided to host a sale for Christmas. (If not, you do now.) I’m going to be giving away some ebooks on Smashwords using coupon codes, and discounting all others to 99 cents with another set of coupons. The thing is, I’d like to have you readers tell me which books you’d like to read, but have been reluctant to buy because a new book from an unknown author is just too much risk with so many other holiday expenses. So if you already know a book you’d like to see discounted to free for the holiday sale, mention it in the comments and I’ll count it as a vote. If I get no votes, I’ll select a minimum of four books to discount to free. BUT, since I want to encourage votes, I will discount more books for more votes. So if I get five voters with five different suggestions, I’ll release five books. I’ll do this for up to ten titles, at which point additional titles will have to jockey for the available ten slots.

Why? Well, I’m hopeful that having more free books will also be an incentive for y’all to get other people in on the poll, though preferably they should be readers who like ebooks, or who are expecting an ereader this holiday season. You could also talk friends into casting votes for the book you wanted, but since your one vote still counts as a nomination, there’s really no need to stuff the ballot box unless there’s a lot of voters. Which, given my comment history and current page views, seems a bit unlikely. I expect I’ll have a couple votes here and there, so there will be four free books, for sure. And the rest will be 99 cents until the coupon codes expire in mid-January. Because I love you.

New readers on the blog may wonder what to choose, since you haven’t seen anything by me, ever. First head over to my Smashwords bookstore and look over the blurbs. Smashwords also will let you read free samples on the site, and I give roughly 15-20% as a preview for most titles. So you can get a feel for what might interest you without buying, and then say in the comments which stories you want to be free. I also have to free books, if you like vampires. One is a parody of Twilight, and must remain free forever as fan-fiction, and the other is a short story from a much larger series about Vicky the vampire. (If you hated Louis from Anne Rice’s series, you’ll love Vicky.)

Either way, it’s going to be a holiday sale to extend past Christmas and into the new year, so all the people getting new toys on January 1st discount day can also still take advantage of the freebies and deep discounts.

Now, I don’t normally like doing the Spam-a-rama routine, but on this sale, I will have to get a bit spammy for a little while. I’m so very, very close to cover fees and a copy of Forza 4 from sales, BUT, making this kind of sale means that even if there’s more readers, there’s less royalties. And, giving books away means no royalties at all. But the point of this sale isn’t to give existing readers another chance on the same titles. If you’ve turned them down already, you aren’t going to change you mind just cause I lowered the price, right? Right, so this is my attempt to court all the new people just getting into ereading this holiday season. A million more readers will be bellying up to the online market for ebooks in 2012, and I have to hope that out of those million, I can find…I dunno, 20? 25?

Joking aside, there’s a lot of new people coming in, I haven’t offended them yet, and discounts and freebies for a one-time holiday sale won’t kill me. D’oh, there goes the heart!

Okay seriously, this next year, it’s a whole new ball game, and the market is expanding. Even with my lowly amateur status, I feel very good about being able to find some readers. I’ve got great reviews for most of my titles, and only a few bad reviews thus far. So if I can get some virtual bodies into my humble indie bookstore, perhaps 2012 can end with explosive new sales for me, instead of fiery explosive death for all living things, in accordance with the prophecy.

No sale today, BUT one is coming soon…

Okay, so, I’m not big on Black Friday, or on any commercial holiday. I won’t go shopping today, unless it was for groceries at a local shop. By the same token, I won’t host a Black Friday sale. I don’t want to encourage this or participate in it. I don’t even want to discount my books in the spirit of Black Friday.

BUT, it has occurred to me that during this holiday season, many of you will have bought new ereaders that you can load your own books to if you buy them at Smashwords. Well, you just spent the big bucks on e-ink or OLED screens, and you come to my bookstore, and I’ve only got two free vampire books, and nothing else on sale. And you’ll be upset. You be all like, “What gives, bitch? Where’s your holiday spirit? Can’t I have some free books for my new ereader?”

Well, you may have a point, but you also may want to back off the spiked eggnog for an hour or two. I’m not preachy, but you smell like rum and cinnamon vomit. But getting back to the part you’re right about, I haven’t had a holiday sale in like…ever. And the holidays are times when people need a little bit of a break cut for all the other shit they have to get. So, I’m going to make a few of my newer titles free with a coupon code for Christmas and a li’l bit of the new year, just to catch the late January ereader shoppers. I will try to have a little something from each genre represented, so if free vampires weren’t your thing, I will try to have something for you.

If my free selections don’t grab you, all other titles will also be discounted with coupon codes for this holiday sale. So new readers who were hesitant to jump in for my prices, now’s a chance to sample whole books gratis or at a decent discount.

And one last thing. People, please be careful out there today, and try to practice some goodwill toward your fellow men. When shopping, do not bring mace, pepper spray, or a gun to the store. If this is how you “spread holiday cheer,” then congratulations, Ebenezer. You’re fucking up the holiday for other people because you had to be a douche and turn this into a competition for cheap plastic. So for the people who bring weapons to assault or frighten other shoppers, I hope you have a bad potato and see vapors after consuming your holiday spirits.

To the rest of y’all peace to you, and please think a mantra of “goodwill” even as other people give you the urge to kill.

Book review: Chaos Tryst by Shirrin Dubbin

Chaos Tryst is an interesting idea for a world setting which is hampered almost to the point of ruin by the childish and unrealistic “romantic” couple of this paranormal romance. Arianna Golde and Maksim Medved are characters from the “conflict” school of romance, which states that at no time may the characters have anything resembling chemistry until the last chapters of the book. These two succeed in that regard, and in the process they turn what could have been a cute book with a great idea into a long and painful crawl through fairy hell with a too bubbly tour guide and a male passenger who keeps shouting “harrumph” after every one of the tour guide’s sentences.

Before I explain why the characters don’t work for me, I should explain the world, which was incredibly fascinating and detailed. In this setting, Mother Goose and Grimm’s fairy tales have evolved into their own modern world of “faebles”, one with its own unique history. The history of the land is a sub-plot, as is one of the main character’s tasks, which I won’t explain and ruin for others. The world and settings were great, and many of the bit characters were interesting or cute in some way. Indeed, the idea of all these stories existing as a race of people called faebles instantly tickled my myth-loving nerd roots.

But the same cannot be said for either main character. Let me start with Ari, a “returner.” That’s basically “magical thief with a heart of golde…er, gold.” And to make sure this name isn’t wasted, Ari has gold hair and gold skin too. So Ari Golde goes into the house of three bears to look for an item that’s “just right.” And here after this kind of cute joke, the story falls apart faster than a house of cards in the presence of a hyperactive cat.

Ari is supposedly a pro, having done her job for a hundred years or so. But she’s doing this job with sleep deprivation from several days of stacked jobs (not buying that) and she’s carrying a cell phone and has no trouble stopping in the middle of a quiet house to chat up her mother. (ditto.) The story tries to convince the reader that because of sleep deprivation and Ari being a creature of chaos, her behavior is a bit random. Which is why she’s making about a dozen rookie mistakes just walking through the house.

Some random stories I want y’all to see…

Right after I posted my blog about how great today was because of some great sales, Hubby came home, and in a series of short exchanges he managed to upset me so badly that I almost had a psychotic fit. I ended up screaming on the floor while hubby tried to find a way to calm me down. He failed, twice, so now my throat is raw from screaming. I don’t feel better for exploding, and now hubby is gone for two days with this sourness still hurting both of us. So obviously, I’m not in a good mood. About the only upside is, I think I dusted the hallway by wallowing the full length of the floor.

Still, I want to bring some stories to your attention and detail them a bit. I’ll be able to avoid raging on these topics, at least, because I’m emotionally drained from my one big explosion today. I swear, I’m sure my neighbors think I’m possessed by demons for all the insane shouting I do.

Anyway, this first story, I’ve been sitting on for two days because I wanted initially to set it aside for its own day. But in hindsight, the case isn’t that shocking, and the cops did not get involved, making the headline a bit misleading. Two twelve-year-olds kissed at school and the principal called the cops on them. The cops declined to investigate this, so the heat should all rightfully fall on an overzealous adult who treats all physical contact as “sex.”

I don’t really have much to say except this is what we get when zero tolerance mandates are enacted with no attempts at flexibility or recognition of varying levels of infractions. So even a minor infraction like a kiss is treated the same as kids having an orgy in a temporarily unattended class. (Really happened by the way, in a US class in 2007.) Laws, especially laws written around children, NEED flexibility. Otherwise we get cases like this where a principal is calling the police to report an underage romance in progress.

I can has new sales? YES.

I’m just waking up, so this may be a little wandery, but I woke up this morning to an email notification from Smashwords for a purchase. As It’s highly unlikely that I’ll be getting many new acceptance letters from publishers in my inbox, this sales alert is becoming my favorite email to receive, with a close second going to email notifications of new reviews on Smashwords or Goodreads. But, this was no mere purchase notification for a single title purchase. Nay, it was an email notification of purchasing greatness. Someone bought NINE of my books in one round. They even bought copies of Mmmm…Crunchy! and NINJAWORLD, which had previously remained unsold. On Saturday, I’d also woken up to five sales all in one purchase. (I didn’t fall over myself squeeing because this has happened a few times before. Always love it, for the record.) What this means is, in two days, my sales for the month have gone from low to really fucking awesome with just two buyers. Just, WOWEE. Awesome, and there really are no words big enough to convey my happiness and gratitude for these two weekend buyers.

Which is not to say you people buying books one at a time this month are doing anything bad either. I love you too, and I appreciate you picking something up. Just, this month’s sales were really, really slow. Like all-time low of the year low. I’ve been doing promos, just not with the intensity I used to. I’m not on all the networks either, so I can safely say the sales problem is also an exposure problem, and not an interest issue.

And thanks to these two buyers, I’m going to be able to afford new covers for a couple books, AND I’ve almost got enough funds for a copy of Forza 4 as a Christmas present too. And, we’ve still got all of December to go, so I feel really good about getting those covers and still being able to afford the game too. In scientific terms, this is known as a very, very good thing.

This is great, and since I spend so much time delivering bad news from around the globe, you know I’m glad to share some good news and gratitude every once in a while. I thank you mystery buyers for those 14 sales one last time, and I hope you enjoy the stories. =^D

And I just said this on Twitter, and I want to repeat it here. I have a lot to gripe about, and I bitch a lot at y’all about other people. I know, I don’t say often enough, “I have awesome readers!” But some of you really are great, and I should take time to say this more. So I’ll close this profuse thanking with an apology, for not saying thanks enough.

Okay, that’s enough sunshine. Now back to the DHO_OM.

TDOR and Existential Blues

For today’s Sunday ramble, I’m going to talk about my stuff instead of worldly stuff, but I would like to remind you again that today is the Transgender Day of Remembrance. This is a somber day for me, because as I’ve said in past posts, we’ve had more losses this year. Despite these increased losses, this is not a holiday for angry chest thumping, at least not for me. Chest thumping and speeches can come later next year, when I have something to fight for.

Today, I only mourn the loss of people who, like me, only wanted to live in peace as themselves, and discovered that someone else considered them too dangerous to let live. I pay respects to the people who put their safety on the line in pursuit of happiness and paid the ultimate sacrifice for displaying courage in the face of overwhelming animosity. This is their day, and I will honor and respect our fallen, as I hope others outside our community will for just a few minutes. If you spare just a minute to think on this today, I thank you.

So, moving along, if you’ve been following along with all my posts, you’ve seen the words weather shifts in many recent posts. So it should not be surprising that yesterday I hit one of those existential crisis moments again. This time, the nagging voice’s rant comes down to this: even if I complete every series and can eventually boast an Atwood-like score of 80 published titles, do the numbers mean anything if people are afraid to read or talk about my books? Do higher numbers of works mean really anything if the works are never read?

I’m afraid I didn’t come up with any meaningful answers, but I chose to engage in some vapid venting by going downtown for holiday shopping. After many unsuccessful music hunts these last few months, I finally located a copy of the new Staind album, and I found out that Your Shape: Fitness Evolved will not get a discount because they’ve upgraded it to a 2012 version. So I plunked down the full price for the new version, and if I can hack it, I’m going to try a beginner’s routine this afternoon. I haven’t been able to exercise in two weeks, so I suspect this may also be one of the reasons for my melancholy. Oh, and I got a nice Christmas-spiced black tea from a specialty market. It’s exquisite, and very nice for this coldish time of the year.

Anywho, riding back home, I thought again about the problems I’m having. The obvious answer is still “look for more readers to market to,” but the follow-up question of where has never been met with a viable location, virtual or otherwise. And no, shotgun blasts are not working.

Gay lobbies and TDOR

Weather is shifting like mad, so my concentration is shot. Can’t really think to write fiction, so a rambly blog is the way to go. I can hop topics and it only seems half as insane as it would in a story.

First, I want to clear something up about my stance on gay lobbies. Some people seem to be getting the impression that because I don’t care for the politics of a few well-heeled policy people that I am anti-gay, or that I want gay marriage initiatives to fail. Simply not so, and I bear no malice toward your peaceful agendas. Some of you may think that my bitterness is that I think OUR policies should be secured before theirs. Also not true.

First, I love gays, and I adore lesbians. I’ve hung out with both groups even pre-transition, and like most folks, once you take them as individuals, they’re awesome people. This is why I write about gay and lesbian characters with respect, and I hope it shows when the stories are read by the “target” groups. (I really target my work at straight people, because I don’t see a point marketing to the choir. The choir don’t need to hear the message. They live the message. It’s the straight readers who could use a little diversity and color in their reading, yo.)

Second, I do not care if the gays and lesbians want to spend millions on gay marriage or any other gay-centric policy. It’s their money, and they can spend it however they like. Same goes with DOMA and with the shambling remains of DADT. (Oh it’s down, in theory, but just try serving openly. You’re still leaving quickly.)

Where we ran into relationship problems, politically, is when the gay lobbies that I was donating money to for their gay causes (without expectation of a trans-centric policy) spent my money convincing Democrat politicans to abandon trans protections in ENDA. They did the same thing again, and again, and as each of these betrayals went down, their allies took to the gay blogs to attack and erase trans people. None of the attack blogs were erased, so you can go to any of the gay blogs and work through the archives to see the attacks made. Some of the gays spouted ignorant hate speech with all the fire and passion of a Sunday school minister.

A brief writing update…

This whole week, I’ve been caught up in a storm of bad Twitter karma, none of which is related to me. But I’ve been trying to follow a lot of troubling stories while still keeping on top of my own creative efforts. It’s been a challenge to say the least, but despite the bad news, bad weather, my mood swings and space attacks, and sore wrists, I have cranked out episodes of the serial and written more scenes for Sandy Morrison’s second book.

People expecting me to get into more of the romance angle with Trisha and Kyle will be disappointed, as both are relegated to bit character status in book two. Sandy’s books aren’t meant to be romance titles so much as adventure stories for weird girls. Some romance will happen along the way, but this is supposed to be more about Sandy’s adventures and misadventures, rather than an examination of her love life. Which is not to say it won’t be briefly glimpsed…tastefully, and in a way that I hope doesn’t require me wearing a flame protection suit.

But speaking about a book that I was going the opposite route with intentional bad writing, Bran of Greenwood and the Scary Fairy Princess has had two sales. Which, as I said on Twitter, is precisely two more than I expected to sell. Last night, the second buyer also became the first reviewer, and they loved the characters. They were not so thrilled with the writing, and I totally gave them permission to trash it, while at the same time pointing out, “Sorry, but that was a feature, and I was writing badly on purpose.” So the thing is, even where the reader said, “I didn’t like the lack of description,” I was pleased because they noticed it and needed to say, “Hey, something is missing here.” So this is one of the few times when I’d respond to “You’ve done a great job of writing badly” with “Thanks for noticing!”

Some writers are of the opinion that they should only show you their finest and best work, and only after the most polished version is possible with help from others. I was one of those people, until I went to Amsterdam and went to a number of art museums. And you know what? They’ve got rough drafts hanging in there. There’s some damned ugly old art in still being viewed, some of it even exposing that the great master of one technique was not necessarily a master of all techniques. Visual artists of ages past are allowed to show their fuck ups, and it’s still art.

Well, why is writing different? Because the investment of time in the study of bad text art takes longer? I’m not sure I buy that. Take for example really, really bad writers, whose stories are passed around because they’re just so bad, people can’t believe anyone would attempt to write them. People love to study the badness of those writers, marveling at their lack of skill as much as they might marvel over a master of the craft. But one dud gets reverence, and the other just gets a kind of muted pity. Or perhaps stunned shock that such a thing exists.

I was not trying to aim for that low a level of bad with Bran and Lana’s book. In fact, I was aiming for something closer to “publishable crap,” in theory. This is not to say I would inflict this on any publishers. (You’re welcome.) But, in the end of writing it, I found that the characters weren’t terrible, and in all other ways, I’d accomplished my mission. So, I figure that so long as I warn people upfront that my goal was to write bad, there’s no harm in putting it out on the market. Hey, people have to have good examples of how not to write, right? And anyway, one person loved it, even though they hated it. And for a book that I didn’t expect to sell any copies of, that’s not bad. =^D