You have all been writing and/or thinking about writing for a whole week now without knowing what your rewards will be, so it's time to reveal the prizes! Should you complete the challenge, your name will go into the draw and the following items are up for grabs...

1) ajmenden's cover flat and pen for PHENOMENAL GIRL 5
2) A $10 amazon.com giftcard (sponsored by kazdreamer )
3) UK paperback edition of Stephen Meyer's Twilight
4) A handmade bookmark of Awesome (from sora_blue)
5) 6 delicious Purdy's Chocolate Hedgehogs (Famous Canadian giant hazelnut truffles.)
6) A trade paperback of WILD THING, the anthology with Marjorie M Liu's HUNTER KISS novella that is a prequel to her new UF series that begins with THE IRON HUNT.

And a special prize for the first one finished.. an issue Realms of Fantasy Magazine! (You would have to ask Kaz which one it is.)

All right, you know the drill.... report in the comments.

The Becoming
Writer: Jeanne C. Stein
Genre: Urban Fantasy/Paranormal Romance
Pages: 293

I chose this book for the gorgeous cover and the fact it's written in first person, present tense. Yes, there's vampires (not my favorite UF trend ever), but I read it anyway, and despite some really worrisome themes popping up their ugly heads in this book, I enjoyed it, and I'm willing to read more, only cautiously. Because if these themes continue, I'm going to be really, really pissed off.

The premise: Anna Strong is a bounty hunter. Nothing special, just the usual: catching crooks who skip out on their bail. But one night, what should be an easy case goes horribly wrong, and Anna's turned into a vampire. Her life's turned upside down as she struggles to hold on to her humanity, even though elements of her human life are getting ripped away from her. Someone's out to get her, and Anna's determined to make that someone pay.

The full review, which talks about the very worrisome themes that made me uneasy, is in my LJ, and let me stress that THERE ARE SPOILERS. That said, all comments and discussion are welcome. :)

REVIEW: Jeanne C. Stein's THE BECOMING

Happy Reading! :)

Spent most of the afternoon uploading the pictures from Mexico to Flickr... and you can check out all of the sets, here.

I'm one of the FFF'er that couldn't make it to the Mini-Con due to things like deadlines and small creatures who call me "momma." And I am intensely envious of my two crit partners (of merry_fates fame) who are both going. And rooming together. And meeting people I wanted to meet.

Sniff.

So I thought I would ask the rest of you (heretofore known as "other unfortunates who were also left behind")

1) which author (doesn't have to be FFF) you would most like to meet
2) in what sort of location/ atmosphere would you like to meet them
3) what one question would you ask them before security dragged you away?

I think mine would be Diana Wynne Jones, someone I admire hugely for her career and her writing, and I'd like to meet her over hot cocoas, and I would ask her if she'd ever written any novels that hadn't gotten published that she wished had -- and vice versa.

How about you guys, you other unfortunates who were also left behind?

- maggie stiefvater

I've mentioned it before, but the first Théâtre Illuminata book (new title: EYES LIKE STARS, although it's listed as ACT 1) is now on Amazon.  You can sign up for the e-mail alert when it becomes available for pre-order, or you can add it to your Wish List.

On Wednesday, I wrote 875 words on Chapter 3 of The Red Tree, which brought me to the chapter's end. It also gives me 35,491 words total on the manuscript, or 150+ pages. Even if I'm forced to do the full 100,000 words stipulated in the contract (which would call for some serious padding), I'm more than a third of the way to THE END. If I get the 75,000-words length I want and think the story needs, I'm almost halfway there. Which is quite encouraging at this point. And, at this stage, I have to admit, I like where the book is going.

I took yesterday off, because I badly needed a day off. A full day off, with no expectation that I would write anything. Not even a blog entry. And I have been gorging on movies.

Wednesday night, we braved a thunderstorm to see Werner Herzog's Encounters at the End of the World (2007) at the Avon on Thayer Street. The Avon is wonderful. It was built in 1938 and is even cooler than the Plaza in Atlanta. And the film was, of course, very good. Herzog has yet to let me down. Encounters at the End of the World, while a documentary, covers some of the same ground as Herzog's recent sf film, The Wild Blue Yonder (2005). But it was ground I didn't mind retracing.

Yesterday, we caught a matinée of Christopher Nolan's The Dark Night, and I can now say that, finally, someone has made a Batman film I like better than Tim Burton's Batman Returns (1992). Indeed, someone has finally made a superhero film that works as a film, period, even if divorced from the context of comic-book adaptations. The film is just superb, top to bottom. Yes, Ledger's Joker is fucking brilliant. As much as I love Christian Bale, this film belongs to the Joker, not Batman. Indeed, I'm hoping we see Ledger receive an Oscar nomination for this, at the very least. I also thought Gary Oldman's performance was excellent. James Newton Howard and Hans Zimmer's score was perfect. And I wish I were not so fucking asleep, so I could articulate my thoughts better. I should have written this last night, not this morning, while I'm sitting here waiting for the Ambien to wear off. Anyway, even though I found that The Dark Knight far exceeded my expectations, and I'll go so far as to say it's a damn near perfect film, I did have a couple of qualms with the last twenty or thirty minutes. And I don't feel like fooling with the tags for an LJ cut, so IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN THE MOVIE AND WANT TO AVOID SPOILERS, SKIP TO THE NEXT PARAGRAPH. NOW. Frankly, I think one of the ferry's should have blown, and it should have been the one loaded with civilians. There was just too perfect a build up, and when one didn't blow, it felt like a letdown. Up until that point, the Joker seemed, to me, to be functioning as a sort of bringer of revelations to Bruce Wayne. The Joker always won, one way or another, and he was never wrong, until then. And it felt forced, like maybe the studio execs were too afraid of a test audience in Little Rock or something. If the civilians had pushed the detonator and their own ferry had exploded, after having been spared by the convicts, that would have been true to the film. But that's my only major quibble. Also, big nods to the screenwriters, because, damn, that's a quotable movie, one of the most quotable since Pulp Fiction (1994), I think. I'm making a list of my favourite lines, such as (as the Joker explains himself to Harvey Dent) —— "Do I really look like a man with a plan, Harvey? I don't have a plan. The mob has plans, the cops have plans. You know what I am, Harvey? I'm a dog chasing cars. I wouldn't know what to do if I caught one. I just do things. I'm a wrench in the gears. I hate plans. Yours, theirs, everyone's." Fucking A. Or another of the Joker's lines —— "You see, nobody panics when things go according to plan. Even if the plan is horrifying. If I told people that a gangbanger was going to get shot, or a busload of soldiers was going to get blown up, nobody would panic. Because it's all part of the plan. But tell people that one tiny little mayor is going to die and everyone loses their minds!" Or Harvey Dent's line —— "You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become a villain." Great stuff.

Then, last night, we watched an odd little zombie film, The Signal (2007), which was divided into three parts, with three directors —— David Bruckner, Dan Bush, and Jacob Gentry. It also contains a beautiful cover of Joy Division's "Atmosphere," by the way, courtesy Ola Podrida. A visceral, gory film that does a nice job of keeping you off balance, and of mixing a sort of cosmic horror with black humor. Not great, but a nice surprise.

Anyway....if you have not yet ordered a copy of the new mmp edition of Daughter of Hounds, I ask that you please do so. Thank you. Let's keep these books in print. Meanwhile, Herr Platypus says Friday is as good a day as any to subscribe to Sirenia Digest. And, of course, subpress is taking preorders on A is for Alien.

And wouldn't you just know, as soon as I try to back away from Second Life, I go and discover a pretty cool Medieval Persian rp sim that allows me (more or less) to resurrect Shahrazad al-Anwar, this time as a mute, amnesiac necromancer? I have been spending far too much time in the sim —— Kingdom of Sand —— the last two days, and sleeping far too little. You can see my character's profile and a screencap here (if you're into that sort of thing). Last night, I even caught a djinn.

Now...I have to try to wake up, answer email, and get started on a new story for the next issue of the digest. Where's my cocaine!

No pics...no links...Just a sincere thanks to everyone here.

So many of you have encouraged me, inspired me and even offered suggestions for new things to create. It's a wonderful feeling of community when that kind of feedback is offered.

Have a Steamy Weekend!

 

Another shot from my daughter.  Fits my mood a bit more today.  I’ll admit it.  I’m feeling quite melancholy over missing Conestoga when it’s so close.  My CP and agent are there–plus a lot of UF authors I’d like to meet in person.  Also have to pass on the RWA conference in San Francisco next week.    

My hubby is trying to cheer me up.  He’s already called this morning.  Twice. It’s only eight thirty.  <g> He has me searching the Internet for vintage, tin gas and automobile signs.  Thinks that will take my mind off things.  Uh…

On a lighter note, someone arrived on my website by searching for “what is the use of rinda?”  ROFL!

Another fun search was brain gremlin.  By far, the most traffic is coming from people searching for Anita Blake images.  They are being directed to this post.

So, I’m going to work on dumping this mood and get some real progress on the WIP this weekend.  Turning down family gatherings–which always makes me soooo popular. ;) 

I’m off to find Heather’s Friday Zen…

A few months back, I wrote a fairly angry post about men and rape. A little while later, I noticed the blog post had been referenced on StumbleUpon, with two comments. One comes from a woman who says, "An excellent post by Jim C. Hines on how our society treats rape as a womens' problem," while the other comes from a man who writes, "Pretty good explanation of it, I can't believe that he knows as many women that have been raped as he makes it sound like though."

You know, I've gotten used to guys accusing women of making up stories of rape, but I think this is the first time I've had such an accusation thrown at me. This isn't disagreement about rape statistics, which are hard to track. Nope, this is a guy deciding that what I shared about my personal experiences of watching friends and loved ones deal with sexual assault is an exaggeration.

Dude, did you read the comments to that post? Or did you just assume that in addition to me being a liar, everyone who shared their stories were also making it up. Apparently we're all just pawns in the Big Rape Conspiracy designed to make men feel bad about themselves. (Because of course it always has to be about the men!)

It gets old after a while. This is the same crap I've heard again and again for years, especially from guys. We accuse people of lying because that's more comfortable (for us) than admitting that they might be telling the truth. It's easier to think, "Sure, rape still happens occasionally, and real rape is of course a horrible awful crime and the rapists should be castrated. But most of those accusations are just girls who changed their mind, or who want to get back at some guy."*

Bored now. Could you and your privilege please go play in the corner while the rest of us discuss the real world? K thx bye.

This seems like a very good place to point to the Blogathon Fundraiser shadesong is putting together to raise funds for the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center. Starting at 8:00 a.m. tomorrow, she'll be "Writing flash fiction in the persona of a psychometric xenoarchaeologist examining artifacts from the last days of Earth. Every half hour. For 24 hours." The objects she'll be writing about are up for auction. You can also donate directly to BARCC.

Not only do these centers provide hotlines where rape survivors can call and talk to someone who actually believes them, most of these centers also provide everything from counseling to community education to legal assistance to counselors who can accompany survivors to the hospital.

shadesong has already raised close to $1000, and from the sound of it, last year's blogathon took in a total of about $3500. Rape centers typically operate on a tight budget, and are often some of the first services to have their funding axed whenever the economy gets a little bumpy. As a result, a lot of their support tends to come from grassroots efforts like this. So please take a minute to check out shadesong's LJ and maybe browse the auctions.

---
*If you're getting ready to comment about how false accusations really do happen sometimes, please go read my initial post first.

Over at my community LJ, I'm trying, rather poorly I think, to discuss fleshing out characters. See my pathetic ramblings here. http://community.livejournal.com/capes_coffins/11360.html But I thought I'd bring it up over here too. How do you guys go about fleshing out your characters? 

So my friday fiction is up over at merry_fates . Weirdly, it's the only the second short I've ever written about faeries/ fairies, and I'm wondering why that is. I mean, I've written 150K words about faeries in novel form since this time last year. So why haven't any fey short stories really occurred to me? I have a couple theories

1) After writing two faerie novels in quick succession, I'm all faeried out.

2) Faeries are such complex creatures they cannot possibly hope to be summed up in merely 1,000 words.

3) The faeries have drawn a protective circle around the form of short fiction to keep me from getting in.

So,  the daring and delusionally optimistic           goadingthepen                                 has decided to go with Door #2, the contents of which will be revealed next week. ( It's cool, trust me!) Which means the audio book of The Compound goes to our runner up and her mushroom pockets,      sarahmaclean    
I won't actually be making them for this party, but definitely a future party. So thanks again, everyone, for playing and for all the recipes and suggestions. 

Tiny Snails, Cuatro Cienegas, Mexico, 1995

A cluster of tiny aquatic snails sits in a freshwater pool, called a poza, in Mexico’s Cuatro Cienegas Biosphere Reserve. This isolated region, a spring-fed wetland in the middle of the Chihuahuan Desert, has given rise to some of the most uniquely adapted flora and fauna on Earth.

(Photo shot on assignment for, but not published in, "Cuatro Cienegas: Mexico's Desert Aquarium," October 1995, National Geographic magazine)

Buy a print of this photo.

...I hope.

Here's where things currently stand:

Revision Progress on DOL (pages revised):

198 / 220 (90.0%)

Second Chance (Urban fantasy short story):

502 / 5,000 (10.0%)

Critiquing CP's ms (chapters read):

20 / 26 (76.9%)

No progress on the short story, but I have until 8th August for that. I just want to finish these revisions so I can pass the manuscript onto my brave readers. Even though the progress meter says I'm almost done I still have to rewrite two entire scenes, and maybe add a new one, which should keep my nose to the grindstone for the rest of the day.

I'm also getting on well with the crit I'm doing for sora_blue, and can honestly say it's a pleasure to read.

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While I'm deep in the revision cave, here is a link to my friend skarrah's first guest review over at the fabulous My Favourite Books:

Lex reviews Jackie Kessler's THE ROAD TO HELL

Seems kind of appropriate that she's reviewing something by one of my fellow agency sistahs. ;)

Great job, Lex!

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♥ Oh, and HAPPY BIRTHDAY to melissa_writing!! ♥

***Insert Generic Disclaimer***

Mechanics: Odds and Ends about Language


(Note: All of these topics will be covered more throughout—well, except adverbs. This is just a bit of a language-specific overview.)

A while ago I saw a piece of writing advice concerning adverbs and sex scenes that I didn’t really agree with. The advice was to use as many adverbs as you like, that a sex scene was one place where you don’t need to look for other words or be careful about their use (and no, I don’t think you should never ever use adverbs, but you do want to be careful. Why? Because adverbs are telling, nine times out of ten. Anyway.)

No, you shouldn’t pepper your sex scene liberally with adverbs and pull every purple word you own out of the box. But you may find yourself using adverbs in sex scenes more often than in regular prose, and that’s okay.

There are, quite simply, some words that need modification in a sex scene. When you say the hero pinches or rolls the heroine’s nipples, the reader can be imagining all sorts of things—the kinds of things that may pull them out of the scene—unless you add that “gently”. Or you may need to add “tenderly” to a look or a touch. Someone’s eyes may close involuntarily; someone might suck greedily; or—one of my favorites, I admit—someone might do something desperately.

Not to mention, you may have already used all the straight action verbs you have, and so need to resort to modifying less intense verbs.

You also might find that an adverb fits the rhythm of your scene. Rhythm is very important in sex (heh heh) and so it’s very important when writing a sex scene. I think rhythm is one of those things that can’t really be taught—you pick it up as you go—but to fill that rhythm out, to make your sentences flow, sometimes you need longer words. The point is, use whatever word you need, but don’t feel like you have to modify every noun or verb, because you don’t. You’ll feel when you get it right, if not in the actual writing, than in the editing.

Now. Just as there are specific words for body parts, and hot-button words to evoke reactions, so there are words we use specifically for action. Some of them are on the hot-button list, some aren’t. But one thing you’re doing with those words is capturing a specific mood, whether it’s romantic or passionate (not that you can’t have both together of course) or angry or whatever. For example, if your characters are having a huge argument that explodes into passion—as Gruffydd and Isabelle do in my non-erotic medieval romance Black Dragon—you wouldn’t use words like “eased” or adverbs like “gently”. Instead you have something like this (I’m editing some stuff out so it may read a bit choppy—just focus on the active verbs here [we’re going to look at part of this scene again later]):

But he pulled her closer, making escape from the heat of his skin and the strength of his hands impossible…his mouth fell on hers, devouring her lips as his grip threatened to squeeze the life from her body.
Instantly she was alight with desire, her breath coming in gasps as she clutched him.
His body was hot and slick with sweat and it felt better than anything she had ever experienced as she ran her hands feverishly across the hard muscles of his back and twisted his hair between her fingers.
With a growl, he swung her around and together they tumbled onto the thin straw mat. His hands ran up her legs, pushing the fabric of her dress up to her waist, caressing her thighs and delving into the most secret parts of her body.
She writhed against his questing fingers. She was faint; the air seemed to have left her lungs as she yanked at the cords that held up his clothing. He swatted her clumsy hands out of the way and undid them himself, his lips hot and demanding as he freed his turgid cock and drove it into her without elegance, his hands gripping her hips as if his life depended on keeping her steady for him.
Again and again he pounded into her while his fingers dug into her skin and her legs wrapped around his waist and squeezed. Their eyes locked, held, the anger on their faces turning into feverish need without losing intensity. Again they kissed, their mouths wrestling for dominance.
He bit her throat, her shoulders, holding her in place while she bucked and moaned beneath him. He punished her with his body and she retaliated with hers and he had no idea which of them would win or if there was even victory to be had as they battled with each other, locked together in terrible pleasure on the mat.
He felt her start to lose control, but did not let up his feverish pace. His ears were filled with the roaring of his blood. Dimly he heard her screaming his name, felt the exquisite pain of her fingernails slicing into his back as she arched herself almost off the mat, her body throbbing around his.
And then he exploded, his body shaking with madness and ecstasy and he threw his head back and howled his pain and pleasure into the air, knowing that he was lost.

So, just like in a regular action scene, we’re using very active words: writhed, gripping, roaring, yanked, bucked, punished, battled.

Now let’s look at a romantic scene from the same book (again, edited so we can focus on language):

His tongue was a weapon of pleasure in her mouth as she spread her legs to accommodate him, already desperate to feel their bodies become one. She cradled his body over hers, his lean hips between her thighs. The hair on his legs was both strange and familiar to her, the scent of his skin overwhelming. She could drown in him, sink into him, and she lifted her hips, encouraging him to take her. To make their union complete.
He slid into her, agonizingly slowly so she could feel every inch of him. Her muscles tightened, gripping him, urging him deeper.
He lifted his hands to the sides of her face, gently forcing her to look him in the eyes, forcing her to give him this last piece of herself. She did, and was rewarded with his secrets, with his soul. There would be no more hiding between them, not any more.
The movements of his body grew more urgent. He swelled inside her, stretching her walls, the heat and friction of their bodies together building to heights she’d never experienced before. The play of his muscles beneath her hands was precious, beautiful. The look in his eyes was even more so. She wrapped her legs around his thighs, moving with him, their breaths mingling. His right hand found her left and clasped it, pressing it into the soft whiteness of the bed, their fingers interlocked as their bodies entwined.
He spoke softly, words of love in French and Welsh, his voice adding another layer of sweetness to what was already perfect, and as they moved together and neared the pinnacle of pleasure, he claimed her mouth again in a final searing kiss.
She exploded beneath him, her body arching upwards, her free hand clutching at his back, pulling his hair, her legs squeezing him as she gasped his name, barely hearing hers on his lips as they both burst apart with terrifying, glorious intensity.
He was hers and that was all that mattered now.

Now, that’s not my favorite sex scene I’ve ever written, and it’s not particularly explicit, but do you see the differences? The rhythm itself is different; the second scene uses more flowing sentences, more commas, instead of the breathlessness of the first. And we’re still using some of the same words, but the feeling isn't at all the same. We have Gruffydd “gently forcing” her to look into his eyes. In the first scene he drove himself into her; in this one he slides, slowly. She encourages him; she urges him deeper. They clasp hands. She drowns in him (although be careful of water imagery as it can be very cliché; we’re going to do that later too.)

(There’s another big difference between those two scenes, and it will be the subject of its own post at some point in the next two weeks. Does anyone know what it is? [It's not the POV switch, although we'll do that too.])

So apologies for this post being a little weaker than the others. But I think it’s a good overview, some things to keep in mind as we move on. Rhythm, for example, probably won’t get its own post as it’s both too intrinsic and not complex enough for a long discussion. But now that you have examples in front of you it’s something you can keep in mind and look for in later posts and in your own work.

So that’s your little weekend exercises for those who are playing along. You can do all or none or a combination:

Write two sex scenes using the same basic action words, but varying the rhythm and length of the sentences. See how that changes the mood.

Take one of your current scenes. Combine two sentences into one throughout. Or divide longer sentences. See what that does.

Replace action verbs with basic verbs and adverbs. Is that stronger or weaker?

On the East cost USA.



All the info for this show is here

http://artdonovan.vox.com/

Go if you can dressed to the 9's , if you can not go tell others of it so they may go.

Considering I wrote 91 words last Friday, I think I'm doing pretty damned good for rewriting. I'm about 600 words more than the first draft, but a chapter behind. Weird.

And now I'm tired.

12740 / 50000 words. 25% done!

The Scent of Shadows - Vicki Pettersson "Vicki Pettersson brings fresh ideas, deep psychology and Las Vegas's underbelly...science enforces the magic, there's deep character development, and it all comes together in a ripping yarn...This is one series thriller fans should not miss." Buy

The Scent of Shadows - Vicki Pettersson "Vicki Pettersson brings fresh ideas, deep psychology and Las Vegas's underbelly...science enforces the magic, there's deep character development, and it all comes together in a ripping yarn...This is one series thriller fans should not miss." Buy

Have a lovely day! :-)

Tez Miller