Monday Muse: New Hunger - Black Light Burns (Lyrics)

Behold, the dark eery beauty of this song of awesomeness!

YA Paranormal Activity Giveaway/Hop

 
THE GIVEAWAY!

TO ENTER THE GIVEAWAY: 
Enter the giveaway using Rafflecopter.  This hop runs from 2/24/12 to 2/28/12.  Hit the green "Do It" buttons, follow the prompts, and hit the green enter buttons when you're done.  (You may have to log in using Facebook to do this).  There will be one winner (selected by Rafflecopter).  I will contact the winner asking for their choice.  This contest is open to international entrants.

Top Tips for Prospective Authors (Write Well Wednesday)

As Boskone this past weekend, I went to a terrific panel for prospective authors called "My Top Ten Picks for Prospective Authors."  Panelists included David G. Hartwell, Joshua Bilmes, Patrick Nielsen Hayden, Toni Weisskopf, and John Scalzi.  Needless to say, I came out with more than ten tips.  Here's a quick run-down (in no particular order).  I didn't list who brought what up because everyone on the panel contributed to each tip.

1.  Be a good writer.
No brainer, right?  Apparently not, lol.  Be the best writer you can be, kids.  It pays.

2.  Get used to sucking.
There's always going to be someone better than you.  You'll always have critics.  There's always going to be something to fix about your manuscript, so just learn to swallow your pride.

3.  Divest yourself of all attachments.
Be able to write where and whenever, without any props.  The life of a writer is hectic, don't get your muse into a habit of needing your special spot, your special mug, and Chopin playing in the background.  You should be able to write anywhere, no matter what.

4.  Know the difference between storytelling and being a published author.
Are you writing just to have a story published or are you writing to become a professional?  This may change how you choose to edit, publish, and market your book.

5.  Write to entertain somebody else.
 Know your audience and what they want.  If you are a professional writer who wants to make money, learn how to cash this in.  You're not selling out if this is what you do for a career.

6.  Write a practice novel.
Don't let your baby be your first novel.  It's going to suck.  For your first novel, write about something you don't care about.  Learn how to write by writing this practice novel.  Then, forget it exists.  Now, go do your baby some justice.

7.  Pitch the book that you love.
Ever hear that song Passion Leaves a Trace?  Agents and Editors can smell enthusiasm, pitch what you care about and leave the stuff you don't care about in the sock drawer.  Half the time, they take a book because YOU care, and that makes them care.

8.  Look at acknowledgements in published books.
Find an editor/agent that handles a book similar to what you write and personalize your query around that point.

9.  Write the book that you want to read.
This goes back to the passion thing.  The market is a moving target.  Don't try to follow the market because by the time you get your book out there, the market will have moved.  So, write what you want most and give up writing the book that bores you.

10.  Don't rely on money or time as a writer.
You're never going to have time, and if you're 95% of writers, you wont have the money either.  Just make it happen because if you don't, it's not going to.  Also, remember that most of the money you make is going into taxes and other annoying things, so don't count your chickens or overspend before you understand where it's all going.

11.  Have a partner with a stable job.
This goes back to the money thing.  Some years your stuff just won't sell.  Don't rely on writing to pay the bills or feed you.

12.  Your writer friends will do better than you.
Some will get the agent before you.  Some will get contracts before you.  Some will become USA Today Bestsellers and others will win awards.  And you might still be revising your first novel.  Yup, I've been there, so just suck it up and let it go.  The Little Green Monster is an evil one.

13.  Luck is HUGE.
Wanna know why that crappy author got the big contract and no one will sign you?  They were just lucky.  I'm not kidding or saying that just to make you feel better.  Timing and luck are everything in this industry.  You may get an editor on a bad day or just after a big sale.  You may be the first manuscript to fit the desires of a moving market.  You never know, so just keep trying your luck.

14.  You will not make enough money to live on.
The likelihood of being able to support yourself as a writer is very low.   Take a vow of poverty and start investing in Win For Life tickets.

15.  Are you in it to publish or make money?
Ask yourself this question.  It will completely re-shape how you approach yourself as a writer and how you go about publishing and promoting yourself.

16.  What is your return on your investment?
We never have time or money, so ask yourself if everything you do is worth the return on your investment of time and money.

17.  Don't overwork your manuscript by going to too many workshops.
Take criticism, but remember that it's your work and you'll never be able to satisfy everyone.  Shoot for the middle ground and ignore the outliers.

18.  Don't stay in the same workshop.
Variety and new eyes and opinions are a good thing.  Always seek something new.

19.  Submission manuscript should be your final manuscript.
Don't submit one manuscript and then give a revised one after you've signed the contract.  When an editor or agent gives you a contract, they are contracting you for what they read and they will work with you on that piece.  Likewise, don't re-pitch something eight times because it's a newer, better version.  Do it right the first time.

20.  Little side projects help build readership.
Yes, you've got a contract for your epic trilogy.  Now, how about a couple of e-book shorts or a piece in an anthology?  Maybe you'll reach someone who may not have readily picked up your trilogy?

21.  Don't be a Dick.
Yup, I said that on national internet, lol.  That's what they said, verbatim.  You need to understand that there is an arc to your career, you're going to suck one year and be a NYT Bestseller the next.  Don't burn your bridges by acting like a diva.  Treat newbies well, don't be lazy and pay attention to what you say and do.

22.  Esteem of peers comes from writing as well as you can and using the Golden Rule.
Just be a good person and try your best to be a good writer.  Other writers can't help but respect that.

23.  Don't get distracted by social networking.
Don't spend twenty hours a week on the internet trying to network if you haven't even finished your novel!  Non-monetary or follower building efforts are not always worth the damage they can do to your career.

24.  Learn how to apologize and do it seriously.
You're going to make a mistake or offend someone eventually.  Just learn how to smooth things over and sound like you actually mean it.

The inside scoop from editors & agents at the 2009 5th Annual Readers an...

Hints for newbie authors!

Monday Muse: Blue October-Come In Closer

This is just a beautiful song.

Write Well Wednesday: Spicing it up with Con Attendance

This post is a little bit of a shorty because I've got about a half hour and have no time to post for the rest of the week.  Why?  Because I'm going to Boskone 2012 and, following that, I'll be presenting an award at the Boston Science Fiction Film Festival.

If you haven't guessed it yet, I'm big into science fiction and fantasy, so the majority of cons that I attend are SF?F based.  But, I do go to other genre based cons like ComicCon, FaerieCon, and Steampunk World's Fair.  One thing I wanted to bring to light for my fellow authors, readers, and fans is the sheer brilliance of a con -- no matter the type of con.  The number of interesting panels at these conventions never fails to amaze me, neither do the people who speak on them.  There are perks for everyone:

For writers:  Most writers forget about cons.  They're too caught up in going to writing workshops or events where they can pitch to agents.  Those who know about cons tend to think more about the promotional opportunities.  Yes, there are plenty of those.  If you're lucky enough to be a guest author, you'll get the chance to do readings, have signings, and flaunt your brilliance on panels.  This is also a fun, low stress way to interact with fans.  However, just going as an attendee can be very rewarding as well.  Each panel (if run well) can be as informative as a short class or seminar.  You can get all sorts of juice on world and character building, plotting, and navigating the industry.  If you're into Steampunk especially, most cons will be thematically geared toward this new and upcoming genre, with lots of panels on Victorian society, fashion, and science.  A lot of authors don't realize how accessible other authors are at these cons.  You can walk right up to your favorite author and talk to them...You might even get to go to lunch with them.  It's an excellent way to make contacts and get advise.

For readers/fans:  You can get a lot out of panels as well.  A lot of you may not realize just how many genres fall under SF/F.  Depending on the convention, there is a strong possibility that erotic, paranormal romance, horror, mystery and urban fantasy will be covered quite heavily.  Also, don't forget about YA.  Take a look at what's currently lining the YA shelves in Barnes and Noble.  What's that?  Oh yeah, it's fantasy and science fiction.  Yes, dystopians and paranormal romance ARE part of SF/F.  And if you don't think the SF/F peeps haven't noticed, you're nuts.  They look over the bookshelves, see the children flocking and rub their hands together.  "Minions," they think.  "The glorious SF/F readers of the future."  So yeah, they're talking about YA at these conventions too.  Inevitably, the panelists will bring up at least five books you've never heard of and they'll tell you why the books are awesome.  It's like reading a Goodreads review, only you can get to know the reviewer throughout the panel and decide if you think they're nuts or brilliant.  You get a chance to geek out with your fellow genre-holics, meet authors, and buy a ton of things you probably don't need in the merch room.  PLUS, there's usually a large emphasis on SF/F in the media, so if you've recently found yourself salivating for the latest episode of Grimm or Fringe, there's a place for you here too.

So, I hope you'll all consider attending a convention this year.  I can guarantee that (at least on the East Coast of the U.S.) there will be about three within driving distance of your house this year.  Hope to see you at one!

Monday Muse: OK Go - Needing/Getting - Official Video

This is going on my bucket list.

Follower Love: Featuring Lia Habel

For this giveaway I'm featuring the work of the lovely, Miss Lia Habel.  Lia lives in the creepy part of New York.  No, not the West Side.  The OTHER part of the state.  Ya know, where the cows, abandoned barns, and banjo toting hillbillies are.  (I'm just kidding, I have family out there, so there's no hate)   Anyway, the point is: Lia is not a banjo toting hillbilly.  She's actually pretty darn cool.  Lia is one of those secret treasure type people.  She looks sweet and demure...Until you get to know her.  And then she only gets better.  She's my resident zombie expert, has more wigs than Cthulhu has tentacles, and is a highly respected fellow geek.  Plus, the girl writes a rockin' novel.

THE GIVEAWAY!

Lia has sent me both a hardcover edition and an audiobook of her novel, Dearly, Departed.  They are AUTOGRAPHED!  PLUS, she sent me some fun swag!  The contest for Lia's gifts will be featured in the Follower Love Giveaway Hop running from February 7-February 14, so please make sure you stop back here and enter yourself in a chance to see why love conquers all!

Dearly, Departed: Love conquers all, so they say. But can Cupid’s arrow pierce the hearts of the living and the dead—or rather, the undead? Can a proper young Victorian lady find true love in the arms of a dashing zombie?

The year is 2195. The place is New Victoria—a high-tech nation modeled on the manners, mores, and fashions of an antique era. A teenager in high society, Nora Dearly is far more interested in military history and her country’s political unrest than in tea parties and debutante balls. But after her beloved parents die, Nora is left at the mercy of her domineering aunt, a social-climbing spendthrift who has squandered the family fortune and now plans to marry her niece off for money. For Nora, no fate could be more horrible—until she’s nearly kidnapped by an army of walking corpses.

But fate is just getting started with Nora. Catapulted from her world of drawing-room civility, she’s suddenly gunning down ravenous zombies alongside mysterious black-clad commandos and confronting “The Laz,” a fatal virus that raises the dead—and hell along with them. Hardly ideal circumstances. Then Nora meets Bram Griswold, a young soldier who is brave, handsome, noble . . . and dead. But as is the case with the rest of his special undead unit, luck and modern science have enabled Bram to hold on to his mind, his manners, and his body parts. And when his bond of trust with Nora turns to tenderness, there’s no turning back. Eventually, they know, the disease will win, separating the star-crossed lovers forever. But until then, beating or not, their hearts will have what they desire.

In Dearly, Departed, romance meets walking-dead thriller, spawning a madly imaginative novel of rip-roaring adventure, spine-tingling suspense, and macabre comedy that forever redefines the concept of undying love.

Read reviews on Goodreads.  Can't wait to buy it?  Go get it on Amazon or Barnes and Noble.

TO ENTER THE GIVEAWAY: 
Enter the giveaway using Rafflecopter.  This hop runs from 2/7/12 to 2/14/12.  Hit the green "Do It" buttons, follow the prompts, and hit the green enter buttons when you're done.  (You may have to log in using facebook to do this).  There will be two winners for this giveaway, the first entrant will be able to choose which of the two books they would like and the second will get the remaining book.  Should the second winner decide they do not want the remaining book, they can bow out and allow another winner to be selected.  This contest is open to international entrants.

Monday Muse: Looking Glass - The Birthday Massacre

Feature Friday: Lia Habel

For today's Feature Friday post we have the lovely, Miss Lia Habel.  Lia lives in the creepy part of New York.  No, not the West Side.  The OTHER part of the state.  Ya know, where the cows, abandoned barns, and banjo toting hillbillies are.  (I'm just kidding, I have family out there, so there's no hate)   Anyway, the point is: Lia is not a banjo toting hillbilly.  She's actually pretty darn cool.  Lia is one of those secret treasure type people.  She looks sweet and demure...Until you get to know her.  And then she only gets better.  She's my resident zombie expert, has more wigs than Cthulhu has tentacles, and is a highly respected fellow geek.  Plus, the girl writes a rockin' novel.

INTERVIEW: 

A.L.: 

What inspired you to write Dearly, Departed?

Lia:
Superficially, the entire thing started out as a joke. My friends and I wondered why paranormal guys always had to be smoldering and hot and brooding, and I started cracking jokes about "zombies need love too" - but then I said to myself, "Hey, they do. How would that work?" Soon the ideas started multiplying, and I was writing 10,000 words a day. But looking back at that period now, I also think I was attempting to craft a certain type of story - something to counter, just a little, all the books I'd been reading at the time. I wanted to create a hero with a gentle heart, a mouthy girl who was also reasonable, and monsters that looked like monsters.

A.L.: 

Do you see yourself in Nora?

Lia:  

I don't, actually. I see myself as a mixture of Bram and Vespertine, if you can imagine that. (She's not ALL bad. Wait for book two.) We do share a definite lack of height, but I decided to go that route because I have trouble identifying with tall characters. (I mistakenly made my avatar in Skyrim ungodly tall, and I grumble about it every time I turn on the stupid game. It feels wrong to me, since I'm used to being so small!) I think Nora's more open with her snark and opinions than I am. I tend to sit on mine. I see her as this little ball of energy pinging off of everything in her environment, whereas I'm more staid, at least around strangers.

A.L.: 

If you had to pick out an actress to play Nora, who would it be?  How about Bram and Pam?

Lia:  

In my head, I see Nora as Emily Browning - she has this beautiful baby face and breathy little voice. And there's a French actor named Gaspard Ulliel who'd be great for Bram. Pamela I'm always a little undecided on, because I'm not as familiar with actresses of Indian descent as I ought to be. I have some photos of Dilshad Vadsaria I use occasionally for inspiration.

A.L.: 

Alright, we have to ask, why zombies? And why zombie love?

Lia: 
More than zombies, I LOVE monsters and "hideous" characters. I grew up adoring them on a level that's hard to describe - I just always sided with them, always identified with them, and found myself naturally able to do complicated mental gymnastics to excuse all their monstrous foibles. As a tiny girl I wept buckets of tears for the Phantom of the Opera, loved Darkman to death (my intro to Liam Neeson!), and saw 'Beauty and the Beast' as the tale of a woman who stands by her soulmate even though he undergoes a disfiguring transformation into an utterly boring human. So when I tackle zombies, I'm bringing all of that. I can justify the hell out of them. I can find beauty in the weird things about them. And I thought it'd be an interesting challenge. 

As for zombie love, well...I view it as a temporal, and thus amazingly passionate thing (in contrast to how cold they are, I guess!). I think it's impossible for any self-aware zombie to lie about his condition, either to himself or others. I view them as extremely honest creatures - they literally wear every scar, every broken thing for the world to see. It's a total case of "take me as I am." And I guess I find something very attractive in that. It probably has a lot to do with my own personality - I'm like Nora in that I'd totally take 3 amazing years over an eternal "happily ever after." There's something about the idea of immortality that gives me the chills.

A.L.: 

Do you think there will ever be a happy ending for zombies?

Lia:  

It depends on your definition of "happy ending." I think living life to the fullest, a relationship to its fullest, even if you have to say goodbye at the end...that's happy, to me. Because that's what real life is like.

A.L.:

What are you working writing right now?

Lia:  

I just handed in some more edits on the Dearly sequel, so now I'm going back to some projects I'm writing for fun. I always have to have something I'm working on just for me. They both involve monsters, but I'm not telling!

A.L.: 

Are you planning another series?

Lia:  

Honestly, I don't think I'm cut out for series - or if I am, I can only do one at a time. It's just too exhausting, even though I love the characters. So I don't have anything planned just now, no.

A.L.: 

What’s the number one book you recommend someone read?

Lia:  

If you're into the whole "death and more death" thing like me, I love Thomas Lynch's 'The Undertaking.'  He's a mortician and poet, and he writes beautifully about his work. Parts of the book are blackly hysterical, too.

A.L.: 

If you could give one piece of advice to an aspiring author, what would it be?

Lia: 
Write what you want, and ignore everyone else. The one thing that really gets my back up is talk of "trends" in publishing - I honestly don't think that applies anymore, not with the vast amount of self-published material out there, not with the thousands of books produced every year by traditional press, not with the millions and billions of diverse readers. When I hear people sniff, "Oh, no one's buying dystopian anymore," I want to scream, because I always imagine someone out there sighing and shelving their dystopian work - when it was the most brilliant thing since 1984. Honestly, if I'd known anything about writing or publishing before producing D,D, I wouldn't have written it. Earplugs and blinders and insanity, people. That is how it's done. 

A.L.:  

 Are any of your characters modeled off of anyone or anything that you’ve experienced in the past?

Lia:  

No, not purposefully. My mom keeps asking me to put her in, but I'd probably turn her into a zombie and then she'd yell at me and throw shoes.

Lia Habel
Web: http://liahabel.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/liahabel
FB: http://www.facebook.com/lia.habel

THE GIVEAWAY!

Lia has sent me both a hardcover edition and an audiobook of her novel, Dearly, Departed.  They are AUTOGRAPHED!  PLUS, she sent me some fun swag!  The contest for Lia's gifts will be featured in the Follower Love Giveaway Hop running from February 7-February 14, so please make sure you stop back here and enter yourself in a chance to see why love conquers all!

Dearly, Departed: Love conquers all, so they say. But can Cupid’s arrow pierce the hearts of the living and the dead—or rather, the undead? Can a proper young Victorian lady find true love in the arms of a dashing zombie?

The year is 2195. The place is New Victoria—a high-tech nation modeled on the manners, mores, and fashions of an antique era. A teenager in high society, Nora Dearly is far more interested in military history and her country’s political unrest than in tea parties and debutante balls. But after her beloved parents die, Nora is left at the mercy of her domineering aunt, a social-climbing spendthrift who has squandered the family fortune and now plans to marry her niece off for money. For Nora, no fate could be more horrible—until she’s nearly kidnapped by an army of walking corpses.

But fate is just getting started with Nora. Catapulted from her world of drawing-room civility, she’s suddenly gunning down ravenous zombies alongside mysterious black-clad commandos and confronting “The Laz,” a fatal virus that raises the dead—and hell along with them. Hardly ideal circumstances. Then Nora meets Bram Griswold, a young soldier who is brave, handsome, noble . . . and dead. But as is the case with the rest of his special undead unit, luck and modern science have enabled Bram to hold on to his mind, his manners, and his body parts. And when his bond of trust with Nora turns to tenderness, there’s no turning back. Eventually, they know, the disease will win, separating the star-crossed lovers forever. But until then, beating or not, their hearts will have what they desire.

In Dearly, Departed, romance meets walking-dead thriller, spawning a madly imaginative novel of rip-roaring adventure, spine-tingling suspense, and macabre comedy that forever redefines the concept of undying love.

Read reviews on Goodreads.  Can't wait to buy it?  Go get it on Amazon or Barnes and Noble.