SM Reine - Army of Evil HQ

New books! :)

2013-02-20T10:55:00.002-08:00

In the last month or so, I've put out two new books. How, SM Reine? How could you do this?? The answer is, I wrote them at the same time last year, and a lot of caffeine was involved. ;) It wasn't pretty.

Anyhoo, Darkmoon is the end of The Cain Chronicles, and Of Wings and Wolves is the start of a new series tangential to Cain Chronicles. I hope you like them. I had a fun and crazy time writing them.

Now, I mentioned in the last post that my home base moving to a new home, and that's happening! You'll now find all my information over on SM Reine (yes, I named my site after myself). When life is a little bit quieter, I'm going to move the smreine.com domain over there, too. But for now, I am only going to continue updating that website, and this one will begin to collect dust. So move on over, y'all!

Find my new website here!

2012 in review

2012-12-27T09:09:00.001-08:00

First things first! 2012 is going out with a bang bang, bangity bang.

Yup, it's here.

Second things second, this blog is going away soon. Once I stop being lazy. I'll be moving to a static site more similar to those used by actual authors that will supply Actual Useful Information About My Books, but I'm feeling extremely "whatever, I haven't updated my existing site in months anyway, who cares." So... 2013 resolution??

Anyhoo, the blog is still here for the moment, so I thought I'd do a quick recap of books I published this year.

And those are only the books that I wrote personally. :) I also published books for some friends of mine, including editing, formatting, design, marketing, etc. So I've been a busy little beaver.

Yeah, so, that's pretty much why I haven't updated this site in so long.

I've just had an attack of the lazies just now, so I'll leave you with a tiny preview of the deluge to come in 2013. These covers/titles aren't final yet, so don't get too attached.

Have an awesome New Year. :)

New release! Red Rose Moon :)

2012-11-30T20:32:00.003-08:00

Okay, guys, I totally suck. I said that I was going to blog about NaNo this year. And you know what I didn't do at all? BLOG ABOUT NANO. Or anything else, actually. But I have a good reason for it!

Get it now!

Rylie Gresham, Alpha of the endangered werewolf species, is pregnant. The fact that she's only eighteen and maybe a tiny bit in love with her boyfriend's brother isn't even the worst part: the baby is going to be a werewolf, too. Certain that Seth is the father, she finally agrees to marry him, even if her heart is still filled with doubt.

Abel is being held captive by Cain when he hears about Rylie's condition--and the shocking circumstances surrounding the conception. Rylie and Abel have been mating on the full moons, so there's a chance that he's the father, and she has no clue. Now Abel has to escape Cain and crash the wedding before his mate marries his brother.

A zombie mother-in-law, back-stabbing hunters, and wicked morning sickness mean that they're all in for one heck of a party.

Yep, I was busy writing this!

So that's it for the first four episodes of the Cain Chronicles. I'm still vacillating over whether the next part will be another four episodes or a whole book--I'm kind of leaning toward a single book (like the length of Six Moon Summer), because it's less work and I'm really lazy.

I'll be releasing a compilation of all four episodes soonish, probably in December. So if you've been waiting for The Cain Chronicles to finish before reading it, that's coming soon. :)

By the way, I'm going to be making some major site changes soon, so bear with me while I fiddle! It might look junky for a while. Sorry in advance.

Moon of the Terrible is here! Woop!

2012-11-11T01:21:00.000-08:00

Get Moon of the Terrible now!

Abel is struggling to find his footing at the werewolf sanctuary when he receives terrible news: the girl he loves and his brother have vanished. Seth calls to claim that they're eloping, but Abel knows it's a lie. There's no way that Rylie would get married without telling him. Not when the memory of her scorching kiss is still burning on his lips.

Certain that something is wrong, Abel drops everything to rescue Rylie and Seth--and stake his claim over his mate.

I'm not really sure what to say about this that hasn't already been said, heh. I mean, it's a serial. You know? Things seriously heat up in this episode, though--it's gettin' crazy up in here, yo.

I continue to be stunned by the conversations held over on my Facebook page, which have helped shape the story SO MUCH. I'm really excited at the way episode 4 is already starting to shape up, so make sure to chip in with your thoughts when you finish! :)

Getting your facts right

2012-11-08T13:57:00.000-08:00

As I've mentioned, I'm working on Dire Blood this month for NaNoWriMo. This book is really different from the rest of The Descent Series: most of it takes place in Hell, which has a unique culture unlike Earth's, to say the least.

It's required me to bust out my rusty world-building skills to tackle this monster of a project, and when I say rusty, I do mean rusty. I haven't written anything that required developing a whole new universe in... um, an embarrassingly long time. We'll just leave it at that.

One thing that's easy to leave amiss when world-building is how to feed your heroines. In Hell, this involves some pretty grotesque stuff -- like, human butcher shops -- but it still has to have a foundation in reality. Food informs so much of the culture, even in ways you wouldn't expect. Like, gender roles and stuff. (Maybe this isn't mind-blowing to you, but it is to me. So please let me have my revelation in peace!)

Thankfully, writer friend and avid Newfoundlander Krista D. Ball has written a book to help bumbling writers such as myself get their fantasy facts correct. I asked her to pop by with a post talking about my favorite things: food and feminism. So I'll let her have the blog here! :) Take it away, Krista!

What Kings Ate and Wizards Drank was a lot of fun to research and write. There are plenty of laugh-out-loud moments in the book (my personal favourite is the recipe for increasing the strength of coitis). The book covers a lot of different aspects of food’s history – carrying your food, restaurants and pubs, farming, and home preserving. But there was one thing I couldn’t avoid covering and that was the dark politics of food.

I suppose it shouldn’t come as any surprise that something as basic to humanity’s existence would have a dark side. I found it really tough to deal with explaining historical agricultural societies and put my urban, feminist glasses down.

Many fantasy authors, me included, have worked hard to ensure that our fiction includes equal opportunities for our female characters. I would have rather stuck my fiction in a drawer than turn my beloved Bethany from my Tranquility Series into a domestic servant, scrubbing the floors of the Knight hall.

But I had to discuss the role of women in historical societies because it is the reality of many civilizations and cultures: women worked “inside the home.”

Now, that phrase conjures up specific images: soccer moms, afternoon tête-à-têtes, and a busy life of grocery shopping, making supper, and cleaning the house. In history, we think of the powdered lady in fine silk doing handiwork over tea and crumpets.

Just like today, those images only represent some women and not all. Historically, everyday women worked hard. If the husband’s role was to ensure the animals and grains were ready, the wife’s job was to ensure it lasted them throughout the year with as little waste as possible. The role of the domestic housewife in farming communities cannot be underestimated.

Men worked the fields, moving the large animals and heavy metal ploughs through the dirt in any weather. The chickens, geese, turkeys, and ducks would have fallen to the wife’s care, putting out the daily feed for them. The vegetable and herb garden outside of the homestead would have been hers to care for, as well as foraging for apples, berries, pears, plums, and other local produce.

Women also hired themselves out as seamstresses and domestic servants. If the local manor was having a party, they might send out the word for needing temporary help. Men and women would apply. Women would be given difficult, dirty jobs and paid less for them. In fact, that is why some of the English Kings employed male chefs, as opposed to female kitchen staff; men cost more.

The husband, plus any older boys, would have worked on building the cow sheds, created the hedges around their property, and repairing the thatch roofs. Whereas his wife, and any daughters plus young sons, would have worked cleaning foraged foods, salted butchered pigs, and made dairy. They would have kept the house clean, plus ensured nutritious and hearty meals were on the table each day.

Everyone worked hard for the food on their plates. When we write historical or traditional fantasy stories, it is important to reflect the roles of both genders and their contributions to society. Different, yes, but both vital.

About What Kings Ate: Equal parts writer’s guide, comedy, and historical cookbook, fantasy author Krista D. Ball takes readers on a journey into the depths of epic fantasy’s obsession with rabbit stew and teaches them how to catch the blasted creatures, how to move armies across enemy territories without anyone starving to death, and what a medieval pantry should look like when your heroine is seducing the hero.

Get your copy here!

Excerpt from Dire Blood

2012-11-04T17:34:00.000-08:00

I'm winding down on Moon of the Terrible right now, but I'm also pounding out the words for Dire Blood. Since it's been a while since Damnation Marked came out, I thought it might be fun to post a little snippet from the next book just so the Descent-lovers among my readers don't die from withdrawal in the meantime. ;)

This is from the flashback bits at the beginning of the book, which is following James as a young whelp instead of Elise, for once. It's not edited yet, so I apologize for the word soup.

Enjoy!

November 1979
James was trying to teach the adepts how to invoke watchtower guardians for a powerful circle of magic, but nobody was listening to him. Two of the girls sat on floor cushions intended to make lengthy rituals more comfortable to cast. James had four bowls of ingredients, which had been pushed aside to make room for Ariane, who was painting Christine’s toenails.

“The guardian of the east likes sea salt,” James said. “Your offering should be made in a glass bowl.”

“I think we should go snow-shoeing once my nails dry. I found some in the shed the other day,” Christine replied, blowing on her spread fingers.

The boy blinked. “Would that help you learn?”

Nobody responded. The girls sitting on the cushions in his makeshift circle of power were thoroughly ignoring him. Even Hannah, who sat at the window, was gazing dreamily at the gray sky instead of listening. It was snowing, and the forest outside Pamela’s house looked like a wonderland of flocked trees and icicles.

“This color doesn’t suit you, Christine,” Ariane said. “Let me do the other foot in pink.”

“Aunt Pamela wants us to study,” James protested.

Christine and Ariane exchanged looks—the kind that clearly said “stupid little boy” without having to say it out loud.

“Pamela’s back,” Hannah said suddenly, sitting up straighter. “There are two men with her, and they’re heading this way.”

Ariane gasped and almost dropped the bottle of nail polish. “Quick!”

The girls hurried to clean up the living room. By the time Pamela came through the front door, all three of them were sitting in front of James as though they had been listening to him all along, and he was pouting again.

Pamela was followed by Landon and a man that James had never seen before. The newcomer was willowy, with a hooked nose, cold blue eyes, and brown hair. He wore a plain t-shirt and jeans that fit him as though they had been tailored. There was no sign that he was anything but an ordinary man, but his impassive stare made James’s blood run cold.

“We were just studying,” Ariane said, even though nobody had asked her.

The adults acted as though they hadn’t heard her speak.

“Which one?” Landon asked.

The other man scanned the four adepts. “It doesn’t matter.”

“James is the strongest,” Pamela said, peeling off her scarf and jacket and hanging them on the hook. “He’s young, but his potential is remarkable.”

“No. A boy won’t do.” The man glared at James. “Especially that boy. Regardless, it must be a female.”

“What is this?” Hannah asked, getting to her feet. “Who are you?”

Landon ignored Hannah to address the newcomer. “You’ll have to decide, Metaraon. I don’t know what you’re looking for.”

“Tell me their names, ages, and what magics they cast,” said the man.

The high priestess moved through the room, pointing at each girl in turn. “Hannah turned twelve last month. She has no specialty yet.” Pamela pushed Hannah on the shoulder, forcing her to sit on a cushion again. “Ariane and Christine are thirteen. Ariane, the one with the curls—she shows signs of being a versatile defensive witch. Christine is my niece. She does best with enchantments, despite my best efforts to stop her.”

“They are all very young,” Metaraon said. “Isaac is eighteen.”

“Young as they are, they’re the best our coven has to offer. Or at least, they will be, as long as they mind me in their studies. Give them a few years to mature, and few witches will match their knowledge and skill,” Pamela said.

Ariane beamed at the praise. Christine elbowed her.

The man called Metaraon stared at them for a long time. Finally, he nodded to Ariane. “That one will have to do.” He kneeled in front of her, resting his elbows on his bony knees. As he passed James, a summery smell of grass and sunshine wafted through the room. “Tell me what you know of kopides, girl.”

Her eyes widened. At Pamela’s nod, she replied. “A kopis is a…” She searched for the words in English. “A hunter. A policeman. A diplomat. He is responsible for controlling the balance between humans, angels, and—”

Metaraon cut her off with a slice of his hand. “Fine. Come with me.”

She got to her feet and followed him to the door, looking stunned. Landon patted her on the shoulder. “Good lass.”

“Wait,” Christine said. “Where—?” She fell silent at Pamela’s sharp look.

Ariane put on her jacket. The two men led her outside.

As soon as the door shut behind them, the high priestess sank to the couch, covered her face with her hands, and began to cry.

Later, James would learn that it was the first time he had met an archangel.

Happy NaNoWriMo!

2012-10-31T12:57:00.000-07:00

Kisses for the vampire baby?

It's Halloween, so you know what that means: NaNoWriMo starts tomorrow!

What's NaNo, you ask? Good question!

It's a month-long event where everyone who's ever wanted to write a book sits down to make that dream come true. For thirty days, you sweat, pound at the keyboard, and strive to reach 50,000 words (or 1,667 per day).

You don't have to be a serious writer to participate--in fact, this is kind of aimed at people who have long fantasized about writing that great novel that's lurking in the musty depths of their minds, but never found the time to do it.

So... NOW IS THE TIME! No excuses! :)

I know I have quite a few aspiring writer friends out there, so please join me in NaNo this year. We'll have a lot of fun. I'm a writing machine all year 'round, so I'll post occasional tips on how to write faster rough drafts here to help you guys get moving.

As for the "contest" itself, I will be participating, albeit informally -- I already have a book in progress, so I'm not starting on a new project for the month. But I'll make sure to update my daily word count anyway, just because I like seeing the slider move. I hope you'll add me as a friend. I'd love to see how y'all do.

Are you doing NaNo this year?

New episode of The Cain Chronicles!

2012-10-28T01:00:00.000-07:00

Woop woop!

Rylie's home has been turned into a battle zone by attacking hunters--and by her conflicted heart. Her wolf and human sides are in love with different men, and neither Seth nor Abel will give Rylie up without a fight.

To save her pack, Rylie will have to find out who Cain is. To save herself, she'll have to choose between the man she wants and the man she needs.

I used a lot of feedback from readers on my Facebook to write this episode, but I still need help planning for episode 3! If you're not a FB user, you are also welcome to comment here or on Twitter, of course. :)

Autumn

2012-10-24T20:06:00.000-07:00

I've been so full of doom and gloom lately (lost jobs! sick family! looming apocalypse!) that I think it's time to focus on nice stuff.

This time of year is awesome. In Nevada, autumn and spring are typically the only times when you can actually tolerate going outside for a few hours--it's not a blazing 100F day, and it's also not 20F and icy. We had a gorgeous autumn week or two (I'll take what I can get), so we hauled the poor, sick, and very helpful Toddler out to a corn maze to get some fresh air.

Don't let my sweater fool you--it was actually over 80F, and I was sweltering. But I wasn't wearing a bra, so I couldn't really take it off. Heh.

I've done the corn maze with my husband just almost every year since we started dating (six years ago!). We skipped the first one, because we were kind of on the outs at the time, and once because it rained and they weren't letting people in. It's funny looking back through all my corn maze pictures and seeing us all young and smiling, and then wham! Baby. And now Massive Toddler.

Not quite as massive in comparison to the massive hay, though.

We've since had cold weather jump on us (cold for Nevada, okay?), but I still love the way the air gets in October. There's a crisp flavor to it--snow on the mountains, the rotting leaves, the icy river. I left my office window open all day while I wrote just so I could breathe in the scent. It made my fingers too cold to type, but it was totally worth it.

I used to like autumn when I was a kid because I spent about three days excited about going back to school, until I actually got back to school and remembered how much I hated being there. But now, only the feelings of nostalgia remain. That cold smell makes me think of new clothes for school, binders, unsharpened pencils, text books...

Plus, I start baking cookies with all the good autumn flavors: nutmeg, ginger, cloves, cinnamon, a touch of allspice. You can put that in pretty much anything right now and it's a happy day. (Pancakes? YES. Pie? YES. Sandwiches? ...YES SURE WHY NOT.)

And being a week away from Halloween means candy overload, of course. I'm on a sugar embargo, but my son is not. I'm really terrible about indulging him. But how could you not, with a face like this?

I am a beautiful, attractive human being who makes beautiful, attractive faces for photos. :D

Since I started dating The Hubs in October many eons past, autumn makes me think of him a lot, too. His new status as "full-time daddy and assistant to insane writer person with insane hair" is actually really nice, money worries aside. I love having him with me again. We used to spend so much time together--we worked together, and hung out after work, and, you know, slept together. But jobs and family segregated our lives. We're united again, and reliving all those autumns we spent together in the first few years of our relationship.

I can't wait to take my two year old trick-or-treating again. He was pretty baffled by it last year, but I think he's going to figure out the whole "omg everyone's giving me candy" thing this year, which will make him very excited.

It's a good time of year. Very, very good.

I'm grateful for everything. :)

What are you guys doing to celebrate autumn?

White Pickups

2012-10-19T02:01:00.000-07:00

I read a lot. Considering how much I write, that's probably like saying, "I breathe a lot," or "I blink a lot." Reading's a part of the job, so I'm always chewing up books and spitting them out.

When you read constantly, you notice the same universal themes popping up time and again. That's normal. But when you get a completely unique take on a familiar theme? That's when things get interesting.

At summer’s end, mysterious white pickup trucks take to the roads and compel nearly everyone to “drive off.” Some of those who remain gather in a suburban Atlanta subdivision, and struggle to cope with a world whose infrastructure is rapidly crumbling. One of the few who are mentally and emotionally prepared for the end of the world is Cody Sifko, a youth who quickly becomes the inspiration for the others. When a strange homeless woman names him “Father of Nations,” is she seeing his future or her own delusions? As winter and a hate group try to destroy Laurel Hills, can Cody overcome personal tragedy and seize his destiny?

Love, hate, survival, and an apocalypse like no other—White Pickups is ready to take you on the ride of your life!

White Pickups by Larry Kollar is a familiar theme -- namely, apocalypse -- approached in an unusual way. In somewhat Stephen Kingsian fashion, all vehicles in the world have been replaced with uniform white pickups, which people feel strangely compelled to enter. But once you get behind the wheel... you don't come back. It's certainly very different from anything I've read before.

So when Larry asked to visit my blog to give a copy of his book away to my readers, I was happy to participate. He's got a big ol' swag pack of books for one of you to enjoy. Check out the video about the giveaway, and enter at the bottom!

And make sure to catch Larry on Twitter, his blog, and Goodreads. :) Happy reading!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

The Rule of Three

2012-10-19T01:00:00.000-07:00

I like to appropriate elements of various world religions in my fiction, so I've done a little bit of study into just about everything. Wicca is a very interesting spiritual system. It has some tenets that really stuck out to me--like the whole "and harm ye none, do what ye will" thing is pretty much my life's credo.

I'm finding myself thinking of another one of their tenets right now: the Rule of Three. The idea is that whatever you put into the universe will come back to you threefold. So, if you're putting good stuff out, lots of good stuff will come back to you. And if you're putting bad stuff out... Well, you know.

If that's true, I must have put some pretty bad stuff out there recently, because my last few weeks have not been the bestest.

To summarize, without getting into the drama of it all:

My husband lost his job, so writing and freelance stuff is suddenly our sole source of income.
Broken garage, broken fence, broken car.
Cat required $1200 surgery to remove a bowel obstruction.
And my son has been throwing up near-constantly since 4am this morning.

Okay. Look, universe. Whatever I did? I'm sorry. I take it back.

It sounds dramatic, but it's really not all bad. My husband's out of a bad situation now, and it gives me more time to focus on writing, which I've been having a tough time fitting into our family's schedule. It also allows me to return to graphic design (something I haven't gotten to do in months).

The garage, fence, car, and cat things are very blah, but my kitty is okay, and thanks to a few good months of royalties, it didn't put us into debt. My savings account isn't a pretty sight, but we're in the black.

And the vomiting will pass. Someday. At least we have no choice but to catch up on our laundry now!

Life is still very good, of course. I have no major complaints. We have a happy family, a good house, plenty of food to eat, and I'm supporting my family doing what I love (even if the money situation is a weensy bit tenuous). I don't think it really gets any better than that.

Anyhoo, I'm kind of circling the point of this post like my son's barf swirling around the drain (sorry, gross mental image, but that's what I've been dealing with for six hours), so I'll get to it.

I finished Blood Moon Harvest!

Yep, episode 2 of The Cain Chronicles has been wrapped up. I'm sitting on it for a day or so before digging into major edits, but this means it will be with you guys very soon. :) Sooner than it would have been if my husband hadn't lost his job--but later than if my son hadn't gotten sick. Heh.

This also means I'm cracking down on Dire Blood, the next book in The Descent Series. I'm making good progress and I think I'll finish it ahead of schedule. Maybe a December release instead of January? No promises yet, but I'm optimistic. I'll even have a cover to show you guys soon!

In the meantime, I'm going to be thinking very good thoughts in the direction of the universe. Hopefully a little bit of that will orbit back in my direction.

New Moon Summer is here!

2012-10-10T22:17:00.001-07:00

It's here!

Rylie is Alpha: the leader of the werewolves. They're an endangered species living in a sanctuary, and she's guarded them for two peaceful years.

The peace is shattered when somebody sends Rylie a threatening silver bullet. A new member of the pack goes missing. And to make things worse, her inner wolf is strangely attracted to her boyfriend's brother, leaving her torn between the love of two men--one of them a werewolf, and the other a former hunter.

Yep. I thought I was done with these characters, but... apparently not. :) By popular demand, a new series of werewolfy books has arrived with Rylie, Seth, Abel, and friends.

Once you finish reading this, make sure to stop by my Facebook and tell me what you want to happen next! The discussion is just warming up. Folks are chiming in with awesome ideas. Like, I think you guys are about a zillion times cleverer than I am, and maybe I'll just let y'all write all my books for me from now on. (Kidding!) (mostly.)

Now I'm going to go collapse in a pile and sleep for a million years. And then write whatever you all tell me to put in episode 2. ;)

(Psst--You don't have to have read Six Moon Summer et al to enjoy The Cain Chronicles. It stands alone marvelously. But I've just put out a collection of all four of the original books in case you want to grab it and catch up. It's about $5 cheaper than buying the books individually.)

Serial killers. Um, I mean, serial writers.

2012-10-03T14:18:00.005-07:00

I love TV shows. I don't actually watch TV, mind you, because the commercials drive me crazy, and I don't have cable or satellite or anything. I watch all my shows on Netflix and Hulu and whatnot.

But I love the format of TV shows. It's the best medium for visual storytelling (perhaps in a close race with comic books--man, I love comic books), because you get the most time to develop characters, spend time in a universe, and really get to know a story. Basically, it's the format most like books.

What makes TV shows so different from movies is that each episode has its own plot, and then the entire season typically has an overarching plot, too. Like Buffy the Vampire Slayer. She might be fighting teenagers possessed with hyenas in one episode, but the Big Bad is a master vampire that pops up the entire season. And we got seven whole seasons to get to know Buffy and friends. Seven seasons!

A TV show is not a movie carved into pieces. It's a very unique style of storytelling.

In books, this type of storytelling is known as a serial.

Serials are getting to be pretty trendy. Amazon has started a new department called "Kindle Serials," so they're taking it pretty seriously; they've been a popular format for erotic romance for months, and some of Amazon's bestsellers are serialized.

But I've been into serial fiction for years. In fact, I used to write fanfic for a few different fandoms--like Harry Potter, the aforementioned Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Anita Blake (to nobody's surprise). I was actually a fairly popular Anita Blake fanfic writer way back when. While I love writing books, the serialized format of fanfic still appeals to me very strongly.

Since I'm such a big fan of serialized fiction, I thought I might try jumping in on the deep end now that it's hitting the mainstream. And to kill two demons with one falchion, it also seemed like the easiest way to address one of my biggest reader requests: When are we going to get more Seasons of the Moon?

Well, the answer to that is... sometime in the next two weeks.

Introducing... The Cain Chronicles.

I have planned four new episodes of material with Rylie, Seth, and Abel. It takes place about two years after Gray Moon Rising (so Rylie is eighteen, and we can get into more shenanigans!), and I've got the first one almost ready to go.

One thing I haven't seen in serials yet is reader interaction, and that was always my favorite part of writing fanfic. I loved having people comment with the way they wanted to see the story proceed. So this is going to be a little bit different from other serials available for Kindle right now--YOU GUYS are going to help dictate the story.

That's right. I'm going to publish Episode 1 (New Moon Summer), and then you guys are going to tell me what you want to happen next. I do have a general plot in mind, but you can help guide the story and Rylie's decisions.

The action is going to mostly happen on my Facebook page, since that's the easiest and fastest way to interact with people. Twitter is too hard to track, and my blog doesn't have nearly the following of FB. So hop on over and give me a "like" so you can help decide Rylie's destiny!

I don't have a definite date on this yet, but I'm going to say that New Moon Summer will probably be available by October 19th. So mark your calendars, and get ready for some fun. :) This is going to be a heck of a ride.

Damnation Marked is here!

2012-09-26T11:48:00.001-07:00

Damnation Marked: Get it now!

IT'S HERE. I AM DONE WITH THIS BOOK. DONE.

There's something in the earth deep below Elise Kavanagh's territory. A shadow is falling upon local demons to devour their flesh and harvest their souls. And it's coming for Elise next.

The Union has an easy way out. They want to send Elise into hiding again with her former partner, James Faulkner. All she has to do is surrender the territory and trust that they can protect the ethereal ruins, the dark gate, and the city she's come to know as home.

Greater powers have other plans for Elise and her fabled power as Godslayer--plans that mean surrendering her life and blood to the most powerful demon alive. But if she descends, there's no turning back. Once she gazes into the abyss, it will gaze back into her... and Elise will be damned forever.

Woo hoo, party time!

Juuuust so you guys know, this is on sale for $3.99 right now (it'll normally be $4.95, like The Darkest Gate), so snag it soonish. Also! If you haven't started on this series yet, it's a good time to jump in. I have the rest of the books available for free today and tomorrow. :) You can catch up without spending a dime!

Also, there's some confusion about the intended audience for this series, since the Rylie books are young adult. THESE BOOKS ARE NOT YOUNG ADULT. There's way too much violence and naughty language. Proceed with caution, kay?

I think this is the best book I've written. For serious. And the reviews so far agree. It's the best of the series, at least. Anyhoo, I'll let you all be the judge.

Suggested reading order for newbies:
Death's Hand
Death's Avatar
The Darkest Gate
Dark Union
Damnation Marked
Get 'em all here!

Let's talk about sex, baby

2012-09-24T10:23:00.001-07:00

I think everyone knows by now that my real name isn't SM Reine. I wrote a post on it ages ago, but I'm too lazy to dig it up, so you'll have to take my word for it. I have other pen names. Yes, that's how ridiculously productive I am as a writer. I'm about to publish SM Reine's sixth project of the year, and it's not even everything I've written.

One of my other pseudonyms publishes erotica. It's really nothing weird, and you can figure out who it is with a little sleuthing, but I didn't want to publish contemporary erotic romance under the same name that does paranormal fiction for young adults. (For the eagle-eyed writers out there who are now wondering: When I share sales figures on this blog, I'm only sharing SM Reine's sales. Just for the record.)

What I'm getting at here is that I do write explicit sexual content. It's not my favorite thing, but I'm not a stranger to it. I embarked on writing erotic romance as a personal challenge rather than as a business decision, since it is so far out of my comfort zone and I want to be a great writer who can write anything that the situation calls for. You can consider erom part of my cross-training for the writer Olympics.

Well, Damnation Marked was the Olympics I've been training for. There are two sex scenes in the book. One of them is explicit. It's the first time SM Reine has published explicit sex.

Frankly, erotic romance did not prepare me for the experience.

Now, before you get all excited, you should know that the sex in Damnation Marked is plot stuff and not for purposes of titillation. In fact, both scenes are pretty... ew. In totally different ways. So I wasn't trying to evoke arousal in the reader. I also couldn't use the same verbiage for, you know, "the anatomy." Or even the description of the... ahem... mechanical act. Which makes the whole erotica thing completely useless, basically.

Both sex scenes involve Elise, and sex requires a certain level of emotional vulnerability that she is not good at. Getting into that place with her was hard. Elise, being so distant and stony, is always hard to take on a journey, but getting into the parts of the journey requiring sexuality was a special level of difficult I couldn't have anticipated.

I had debated writing sex between Elise and Anthony in the past, and always balked because I couldn't justify its plot-worthiness. But this was different. I always strive for emotional honesty in my books, even when the situations are ridiculously implausible, and I wouldn't have felt right fading to black for the scenes.

But more than the issues within the story, I've found myself questioning the decision to include the sex quite a lot, too. I mean, I do write stuff for young adults. Should I really have sex in any of SM Reine's books? Even if it's meant to serve the plot, totally un-glamorous, and not really sexy?

Obviously, you know at what conclusion I arrived, given the content of this post.

My books are violent. There is yucky stuff in all of The Descent Series, from what a writer friend called "the meat pit" in Death's Avatar, to slaughtering demons wholesale, to skull-cracking and intestine-spilling and anything else you can imagine and would never hope to see. There are four episodes in the series so far, and each one has something terrible in it. Damnation Marked is no exception.

If I'm comfortable having dead babies, rotting zombies, and brain-splattering violence in my books, why shouldn't I be comfortable having consensual sex between adult characters?

Random smoochy photo for illustrative purposes only.

Consider this my fair warning to you guys, my dearest and most loyal Army of Evil. You've come this far with me. You haven't made a peep about the ultraviolence in the books, and I trust you can take anything I dream up at this point. Including sexy stuff. If you're mature enough to handle the meat pit, you're probably mature enough to handle the horizontal tango.

I'm pretty optimistic about the book. Even though I'm biting my nails over whether it's going to be good enough or not, initial reader reactions are very positive. I've had a few people tell me it's their favorite of the series so far, which is pretty stiff competition against The Darkest Gate. And one of my readers, Tina, said the sex was pretty good. ;) Hee. (Love you, Tina!)

I'll be hitting "publish" on it tonight. Wish me luck. :)

Prozac and working from home

2012-09-20T12:51:00.000-07:00

I've been on a low dose of Prozac for the last five weeks now.

It's still too early to tell if it's made a huge difference, but I can say one thing for certain: Life isn't quite as dark as it was five weeks ago.

I used to sit down and cry for an hour when my husband left for work because I couldn't cope with the idea of being responsible for a toddler hurricane on my own. I haven't done that for five weeks. I'm also not as brittle, or angry, or nervous. I haven't thrown anything across the room, except once when I was PMSing, and I'm always a hormonal monster in that way.

All those relentless thoughts of how ugly/useless/annoying/talentless I am? Much quieter. Still very insecure, but I think that's a character attribute, not a depression thing. Similarly, I'm still having some organization problems. I'm pretty sure that's because I'm a scatterbrain.

It's not all sunshine and daisies, of course. I'm still low on energy, but that's probably because I go to bed at midnight and wake up with my son at 7am. It's also really hard catching up on everything I fell behind on during the worst part of the depression--I still can't bring myself to look at some things.

But I'm actually opening my email when I receive it. I'm not having routine breakdowns. I did my laundry for the first time in about a month.

I might need a higher dose, or more time. I'll talk to my doctor. But it's definitely a start.

It's now been about five months since I quit my Real Job to embark on the "stay at home writer" trail, which is my lifelong dream. A couple people asked for updates, so I'm happy to tell you guys that it's going great (depression, disorganization, and delays aside).

Staying at home has primarily improved three things: Firstly, and most importantly, if I can't write, it's because I'm spending time with my son. And time spent with him is never, ever a waste. Secondly, it cleared out a lot of mental clutter--all the stress from having a job I didn't really care about is gone, as well as the unpleasant exercise in face-stabbing that was multiple useless meetings a week. So I can zone out and think about writing much more.

Finally, even though I don't really have more time to write/edit (because of the Helpful Toddler's need for, you know, his mommy), I've become much more efficient. Clearing out mental clutter, stress, and time wasters is huge. I think I'm going to publish one more book this year than I originally scheduled! Which is good news for everyone. :)

When I quit my job in April, it was coming off a good March--my best month at the time, in fact. I went from earning $1000-$2000 a month to earning over $5000 that month on about 2500 units sold (whoa!!). That's really much too soon to be quitting a cushy job with benefits, and I didn't expect to keep selling like that, but it was inspirational.

Since then, I've beat March not once, but twice. I sold about 5000 books EACH in July and August. That... that is a lot of books. (It took me about a year to sell my first 10k.) My baseline has gone from earning $1000-$2000 a month to more like $2000-$5000 (although I earned much more in July and August). I hit iReaderReview's Top 100 indies list for July, and I think I would have hit it for last month too if I sent them my numbers.

I'm not saying this to brag or anything. Frankly, none of this is about me, or anything special I've done. I am not unusually clever or talented. I'm saying this partially because I think that spreading information is helpful to everyone thinking about getting into publishing--I'm not a bestseller, but I'm a someseller, and you don't have to be Amanda Hocking to make a living.

Mostly, I'm saying this because I want to thank you guys. Those numbers don't come out of thin air. Unlike my government job, the numbers aren't funded by taxpayers. The numbers don't come out of my desktop printer, or my word processor. (It would be cool if they did though, huh?) It doesn't come from a major publishing company and their accountants.

All those books shifted are because of you guys. The readers.

You click on that button to download my books, and you change my life every day. Better yet, you change my son's life. Because of you, my toddler gets to have his mommy home with him when he needs me the most. I can afford my prescription of Prozac. (It takes four sales to buy the generic. Just FYI.) My husband and I can focus more of our time on spending time together, not working. You let me afford to buy whole fruit for my baby. You put the gas in my car that carries my baby and I to my family's house so he can be close to distant relatives in a way I did not enjoy as a child.

It's all you guys. I have no expectations about the future, but I'm humbled to know that about 25,000 books of mine have been purchased by readers just like you. You're going on this journey with me, with Rylie, with Elise and James--and you have made my life so, so much better for it. You're helping me live the dream.

So, basically, thanks. :) And happy reading.

(PS: Damnation Marked is coming out next week!)

Life and stuff

2012-09-12T11:10:00.003-07:00

The last time I saw my grandmother, she was sitting apart from the rest of the family, watching my son drive his new Tonka truck. The procedure to remove the cancer in her vocal chords failed. She was only getting nutrition through the feeding tube in her stomach. It made her distant from the family activity of sharing dinner, made her reluctant to watch everyone else eat her favorite foods.

We talked a little about the feeding tube. She showed me the incisions and the places the chemotherapy had permanently destroyed her hair follicles. She was still carrying nitroglycerin in her purse to restart her heart in a pinch. But she was in fairly good spirits. It's not easy living life through a morphine haze, but it didn't seem to bother her much.

After years of fighting cancer, and after dozens of near death experiences, she was still convinced she was going to get better. I think that determination kept her going.

I hugged her frail body, and said we should see each other again soon.

She died last week.

The body I saw at her viewing didn't look like her. It was a wax doll wearing her sweater, with her family crying around the casket, but the woman I knew (though not very well) was never that still. She was never that quiet. She was always in motion, always getting up to take care of something, even when she was recovering from the newest procedure and eating nothing and should have been resting. The perfect sixties housewife transplanted to the wrong era.

My grandfather, her husband and partner for over fifty years, looked so lost and tiny standing over the doll-like figure of his wife. I wonder what it feels like to see the woman you've loved being laid to rest and knowing she will enter that furnace alone to become ashes.

Less than twenty-four hours before she breathed her last breath, a new life entered the world. One of my very dearest friends had her second daughter--a beautiful, perfect baby girl.

My son is almost two now, and I've forgotten how fragile and boneless newborns are. I forgot the smell of vernix and how velvety their cheeks are. The lack of motor control, the unfocused stares, the wrinkles on their thumb-sized feet.

I don't know what I'm getting at with this, really. I'm thinking a lot about life lately. My grandmother used to be a tiny, wrinkly baby, too. My great-grandmother probably enjoyed snuggling her chubby stomach as much as I enjoyed snuggling my new niece's.

And life goes on.

The autobiographical nature of fiction

2012-08-28T22:40:00.001-07:00

The characters I write do not share my politics. You generally can't infer what I think on specific subjects based upon what my characters think and do.

For instance, I have lots of witches (some Wiccan), Catholics, Muslims, and characters of various other faiths in my books. But I'm not spiritual, personally.

A disproportionate number of my characters have zero interest in children or babies. See: Elise, Betty, and James for starters--not to mention the teenage characters in Six Moon Summer, to whom the idea of babies would be pretty ridic. I, however, am a baby-crazy fiend who is obsessed with fertility, pregnancy, and lactation. Seriously, you would be astounded and probably grossed out about all the things I can tell you about cervical fluid.

I am also a card-carrying hippie. I believe love and pacifism are the way to go, ideally. But you can barely go two pages in one of my books without someone getting punched in the face or stabbed.

So generally, my characters aren't anything like me.

But my books are still pretty much autobiographies. (Bare with me here!)

I was an awkward teenager. Pretty much until my eighteenth birthday, I was unreasonably immature, sheltered, and averse to anything that might actually make me look good. Zero fashion sense. Zero social grace.

Then my eighteenth birthday happened, and everything changed. It's kinda crazy how abrupt the shift was--one day, I was that fat girl in class that made weird laughing noises, and the next, I'd lost fifty pounds and gained self-confidence and people actually flirted with me once in awhile. My whole life changed.

In many ways, Six Moon Summer is the story of that change. I actually lost the weight when I was fifteen years old -- the same age as Rylie in the beginning -- and began this crazy transition from girl to woman. It was a heck of a ride. At no point did I turn into a furry wolf and eat a lot of innocent goats and deer, but I did find my self-identity, find love, and find adulthood.

Death's Hand and the other Elise books tell a different part of my life's story, though still very focused on my adolescence. (I'm only 24. Cut me some slack. I don't have a lot of life to write about yet.)

For all four years of high school, I was the only girl in my 3D computer graphic design class. In my senior year, I was one of two girls in a construction technology class. When I graduated, I promptly got a government IT job where I was -- you guessed it -- the only female-bodied person in the department.

Is it any wonder that I write about Elise, who is one of the only female demon hunters in the world?

I finished the rough draft of Damnation Marked tonight. Scrolling back through the chapters, I can see that this is pretty much the darkest book I've ever written -- even darker than Long Night Moon, which was preeeetty dark. It's all angst and suckitude and getting kicked in the face for Elise and company. I wrote 80% of the book in two of the worst weeks of depression I've ever had, so I guess that's no surprise. There's a lot of shadow, a lot of death, and a lot of misery. It's an almost exact mirror for my mood as I wrote it.

There's a lot more nuance than what I've mentioned above, but I hate to get too detailed. Nobody wants to hear me ruminate about my experiences with gender identity and sexuality as a teenager, or how I interpreted that through the lens of genre fiction, that's for sure. ;)

But it's really interesting to think of how life and art reflect each other -- even when that's not what we set out to do.

Writer friends--do your books reflect your life? Reader friends--do you think you can you tell what a writer is like by reading their books?

Damnation Marked blurb and cover!

2012-08-24T14:54:00.000-07:00

There's something in the earth deep below Elise Kavanagh's territory. A shadow is falling upon local demons to devour their flesh and harvest their souls.

And it's coming for Elise next.

The Union has an easy way out. They want to send Elise into hiding again with her former partner, James Faulkner. All she has to do is surrender the territory and trust that they can protect the ethereal ruins, the dark gates, and the city she's come to know as home.

Greater powers have other plans for Elise and her fabled power as Godslayer--plans that mean surrendering her life and blood to the most powerful demon alive. But if she descends, there's no turning back. Once she gazes into the abyss, it will gaze back into her... and Elise will be damned forever.

You know what this means, guys. :) Damnation Marked is coming soon! Just about a month away!

I'm wrapping up the first draft now, and it's already partially edited (I'm kinda doing things in pieces this time so I can finish it more quickly; I have other urgent things I really have to do soon). I have a spot reserved with my copy editor for mid-September, and she's a speedy beaver, so this will probably be available at the end of September (proofreaders willing!).

So! Mark your calendars. Damnation Marked. September 27th. (Probably.)

If you would like a review copy of this book as soon as it's ready, fill out the form over here. You'll get it AFTER major edits but BEFORE proofreading, which means there will be smatterings of typos and other lovely icky things that most people don't get to see. ;) All I ask is that you add your review to Amazon as soon as you finish. Easy peasy!

Excerpt from Damnation Marked

2012-08-20T08:24:00.000-07:00

I feel like blogging, but I don't feel like blogging. Does that make any sense? (Answer: No.) So instead of coming up with something to talk about, I'm going to share an excerpt from early in Damnation Marked. This book's getting pretty close to wrapping up--I'm very excited for you guys to read it. :D But until then, here you go. Enjoy!

July 1998

Piotr Blodnieks did not look like he was the best at anything. He had a tiny beard under his bottom lip that resembled a paintbrush, a gentle smile, and soft features. His narrow shoulders and sharp joints made him look awkwardly gangly instead of lean and fast. At twenty-one years old, he hadn’t yet grown into his adult muscles.

Speaking to him didn’t give a much better impression: he was a polite, quiet young man who was shy to make friends and seemed to prefer a good book to a fistfight.

Regardless of appearance, Piotr’s name was stamped on Hell’s history books as the greatest living kopis. His name was widely whispered in the night by fearful demons. He was best known for singlehandedly slaughtering a centuria of demons in the Ukraine. And nobody would ever know it by looking at him.

Nobody aside from the dozen kopides he had just beat in a sparring match, anyway.

Hamengku groaned on the ground, cradling his shattered knee, while Piotr wiped blood off his hands with a white towel. Despite having spent the previous three hours fighting, he wasn’t even winded, and only had two bruises. Both of them were from having punched someone else.

“Will he be okay?” Piotr asked his friend, Malcolm, in Russian.

Malcolm helped Hamengku to the sidelines. “Oh, certainly, given a couple weeks of healing.” He switched to his native English. “Isn’t that right?” The loser glared at him without a hint of understanding in his eyes. Most people waiting around the fighting ring didn’t share a common language. “Right! No hard feelings, then? Who’s next up against Piotr?”

The dozen kopides who had lost their sparring matches muttered among themselves. The men still standing only exchanged looks.

Two weeks prior, they had all been summoned to an empty warehouse in Wales by a delegate from the Council of Dis. Over three hundred invitations were sent out, but only the thirty men currently standing in the building had responded, either because it was a convenient distance from their territories, or because they considered the potential honor of being the next greatest kopis worth the time it took to get there.

But nobody could defeat Piotr. He was, in Malcolm’s words, “a bloody machine.” The Council’s delegate—a petite witch with curly black hair—supervised the fight from her seat on a nearby crate, taking notes on the outcomes of each match, and she was rapidly growing bored.

She wasn’t the only getting antsy. The shared bravado in the room rapidly dwindled as Piotr felled one kopis after another.

“Oh, fine. Let me try,” said a man named Brandon when his friend, Shawn, nudged him forward.

They cleared the floor of the warehouse again. Malcolm mopped up a puddle of sweat with a bloody towel, then stood back.

Piotr and Brandon exchanged blows. The air filled with the sounds of knuckles meeting face.

Malcolm hollered, and his cheers encouraged the others to join him.

Nobody noticed a door at the back of the warehouse open, or the two people who entered and took position at the back of the crowd.

The fight between the kopides was short. Brandon didn’t allow himself get knocked out. After a few minutes, he backed off with blood streaming from a cut in his forehead, and held up his hands to indicate that he was done.

The other men booed.

“You’re too fast, man,” he said. “I’ve got to catch a flight tonight. I don’t want a concussion.”

Piotr gave a confused look to Malcolm, who translated. “Looks like you’re stuck being undefeated, mate. Nobody’s going to win against you. Best hope you’re immortal, eh?” He laughed and clapped the greatest kopis on the shoulder. “It’s hard being at the top!”

A quiet, confident voice broke through the laughter. “I’ll fight him.”

One by one, the kopides turned around to search for the speaker, and their eyes fell on the pair at the back.

The first was a man over six feet tall, dark-haired and blue-eyed, who looked like he would have preferred to be anywhere except the warehouse. Stubble shadowed his jaw. He rubbed his hand over his eyes with a low groan.

His companion was a full head and shoulders shorter. Her body had the lean lines of adolescence, aside from thighs thick with muscle, and a bandaged knee. Her red-brown hair was chopped so short that she would have passed for a boy if not for the curve of breasts under her baggy vest.

She was also, clearly and undeniably, the one who had spoken. She was the only woman in the room aside from the Council’s witch.

Malcolm laughed. “Aspides don’t fight.”

The girl pulled off one of her motorcycle gloves and bandaged the knuckles without responding.

“She’s not an aspis, you idiot. Does she look like a witch?” snapped the man at her back. He raked a hand through his hair. “Dear Lord, Elise, do you really think…”

Piotr came to stand beside Malcolm, as did Brandon, and Shawn. They formed a wall of muscular bodies. The tall man trailed off.

“Human girls aren’t eligible for these fights, either,” Malcolm said.

That failed to provoke a reaction from the girl called Elise. She pulled off her other glove and also bandaged that hand.

“You really don’t need to do this,” muttered the tall man. “In fact, I really think it would be best if you didn’t.”

The look she gave him dripped with hatred and disdain. Then she returned her attention to the kopides in the circle, her eyes flicking from one body to the next, and she planted her hands on her hips. Her biceps were almost as well-defined as the line of abs that peeked over her jeans.

“I’ll take all of you.”

The men laughed, but it was getting a little uneasy.

“What’s going on?” Piotr asked in Russian.

Malcolm’s humor had dropped off a degree when he realized she wasn’t joking. “I think she’s a kopis. She wants to fight you.” He switched back to English. “You realize what you’re volunteering for, right?”

She gave a sharp nod and stepped into the ring.

Piotr surveyed her as she lifted her fists and spread her feet into a wide stance.

“I’ll fight,” he finally said.

---

This will be probably be available next month. End of September. I don't want to get too specific on dates yet, but... 28th-ish? As always, if you want to be among the first to know when it's released, make sure to enlist in the Army of Evil!

A slightly more natural life. Maybe?

2012-08-15T23:10:00.002-07:00

My life is just full of change this year. Not only am I finally on anti-depressants (and grateful for all your support, even if I have a hard time saying it), as well as four good months into self-employment as a full-time writer, I have also done two other big things:

I use baking soda and white vinegar for everything in my house. EVERYTHING.
I've stopped eating sugar.

Let me hit on those one at a time.

First of all, did you know you can do just about anything with baking soda and vinegar? It's true! I use them to clean my counters and floors, I use them instead of soap in my washing machine (especially when the cloth diapers need to be stripped--yuck), and the REALLY BIG WEIRD ONE is that I am also using baking soda instead of shampoo.

That's right. I haven't shampooed my hair once in the last three months. I only wash my hair once or twice a week, and I just use a little bit of baking soda rubbed into my scalp.

Surprisingly, my hair quality has drastically improved. My hair is very dense, but fragile and fine; chemicals wreak havoc on it. When I shampooed/conditioned every day, I always looked greasy and gross, and my hair was impossible to style. Uh, not that I style my hair. I'm way too lazy for that.

Skipping the shampoo means my natural oils have a chance to shine, in a good way! And it's pretty much the most awesome thing I've ever done. I don't have to shower as frequently. (Very convenient, when one's toddler is in that "I MUST HELP YOU WITH EVERYTHING ESPECIALLY PERSONAL HYGIENE" phase, as mine is right now.) Saving money is pretty sweet, too.

I do use it as an excuse to go loooong periods of time without showering, though, what with all the laziness. My poor husband. Good thing the Helpful Toddler doesn't seem to notice I reek.

You can learn more about going no shampoo and how it works with your type of hair here: http://noshampoo.org/ (They recommend apple cider vinegar for the conditioning. I just don't use it at all.)

But I think I like using it as a cleaning solution even better. I am paranoid, and having toxic chemicals under my sink scares the crap out of me when my son is clever enough to circumvent baby locks. Being able to fill a squirt bottle with white vinegar and tea tree oil (which is an anti-fungal) and use that for everything--seriously, everything--is a nice, non-toxic way of cleaning up those poopy cat butt smears. Because sometimes, the kitties just can't resist the urge to drag their tushies across my dining room floor.

You guys are SO lucky you're cute.

The second thing is that I've cut out sugar. Actually, almost all carbohydrates. I still eat lots of veggies, so long as they grow above ground (especially the leafy green ones), and low-sugar fruits like avocado and a little tomato, but no wheat or grains or refined sugars. No bananas or apples and suchlike, either.

Why? Well, my body mysteriously decided that it hated sugar a few weeks ago. I suddenly ballooned and felt horrible. You don't need the details, but trust me when I say that the gastrointestinal situation was... no bueno. Muy, muy no bueno.

I've felt tons better since I cut out carbohydrates (less than 30g a day, not counting fiber). No more blood sugar swings, no more bloat, and I've lost about 8-10 pounds. Plus, I never seem to get hungry anymore.

I'm not going to lie--the first week of no-carbing sucked. I was exhausted and foggy. I napped with the baby every day and got nothing done. But ever since I adjusted, I have felt so much better. I don't really miss the sugary stuff all that much, since I'm eating tons of baked avocado, bacon and eggs, chicken thighs, leafy green salads, and nuts/cheese.

And oh man. Lattes made with heavy whipping cream? Dangerously delicious.

So that's life right now. I guess I'm trying to make things a little more natural--or at least, a little less processed. Lots of cooking at home. I make my own cleaning fluids and shampoo substitute. My son waddles around with mooshy cloth diaper butt. I might as well grow some awesome dreads and wear tie-dye shirts everywhere.

My son is way ahead of me on that.

This is my current favorite low carb recipe:

BAKED AVOCADO

Big avocado

Sour cream

Bacon

Olive oil

Salt

Some of your favorite cheese

Cut the avocado in half, rub with olive oil and salt, and bake in the oven until hot and tender. (You want temperatures? Pfft. We don't need no stinking temperatures.) Cook the bacon until it's crispy. Add cheese to the avocado and keep baking until it melts. Then add a dollop of sour cream to each half, crumble the bacon on top, and share with your spouse. If he deserves it.

Have you been getting into lifestyle au naturale at all? Got any good recipes for me?

Baby steps

2012-08-13T10:06:00.000-07:00

It only took me a few months, but I finally saw my doctor about the problems I'm having with depression. Things haven't improved since the last time I blogged about it, I'm afraid. Despite my determination to get treatment, it's so hard to find the strength to do it--when I'm feeling crappy, there's no way I can pick up the phone; when I feel fine, I don't know why I would even want to.

But I did see my doctor. And what an interesting experience that was.

I described the problems I'm having: Forgetting everything. Inability to keep up on commitments. Overwhelmed by trying to take care of my toddler. Crying jags. Losing track of time. Major irritability. Lack of desire to spend time with family and friends. Living life in a fog.

He was very sympathetic and was willing to manage treatment himself (which helps a ton, because I can't keep up on therapist/psychologist/whatever appointments). We agreed to start a low dose of anti-depressants and see how that goes. He warned me that anti-depressants would be likely to have unwanted side-effects.

Which is when things got a little... weird.

I explained that my income is dependent on my ability to function creatively, and if there was a medication less likely to impact that, I would prefer to try it first.

He said, "Just a moment. I'm going to do a little intuitive thing."

My doctor turned to face a Native American wall-hanging, made some hand gestures (which I couldn't see around his back), and seemed to confer with his spirit animal. I think.

Then he turned around and suggested a very low dose of Prozac.

You can't make this stuff up.

I agreed with the coyote spirit and my doctor's suggestion, so now I have a prescription, and I'm about to embark on treatment. I'm optimistic. I have a great support system, a wonderful husband, and general good health. I think I can beat this with a little help for my poor, suffering brain chemistry.

He's also prescribed a half hour of walking with my family every morning, which he says will do much more for my depression than drugs could. He's probably right, but that one's going to be a LOT harder.

Anyway, I'm hoping to be semi-functioning again soon, even if I'm looking forward to about a week of fatigue as my body adjusts to new medication. Everybody has been really sympathetic and helpful during this time. I Can Do This. (I'm mostly optimistic right this second because I have a sugar-free vanilla latte made with heavy whipping cream, which always makes me cheery.)

What strikes me as strangest about this whole experience is how surprised people look when I mention The Depression Thing. "I never would have guessed you're having problems," they tell me. (I've heard this from a dozen people.) "You seem so confident and driven."

I don't really know what people expect out of a depressed person. I feel like I'm dragging a ten ton weight everywhere I go. I look at things and I don't really see them. It's difficult to describe--it's like sensations come in and go right out again without "sticking." I don't enjoy anything, aside from this delicious latte. I deal with a constant internal litany of "you suck, self" (I'm ugly, I'm fat, I'm unpleasant to be around, my writing sucks, my sales suck, why does anyone ever want to deal with me). Life feels so goddamn *dark* right now, like there's never light, and I am so horribly miserable, and I don't know why nobody can *see* that.

But it's a pretty invisible disease. Outwardly, I appear to function. I take my son to the children's museum. I write. People talk to me, and I smile at them. All this darkness hides under my skin

Hopefully, Prozac and exercise will remedy that. And hopefully it won't take my ability to be creative with it.

Dark Union has arrived :)

2012-07-23T10:04:00.001-07:00

Every fifty years, the most powerful ethereal and infernal beings convene on Earth to resolve conflicts with mediation by kopides--humans born to police relations between Heaven and Hell. They're meeting in Elise Kavanagh's territory this year, and she used to be the greatest kopis in the world. But she's not invited.

An old friend, Lucas McIntyre, asks her to attend the summit in his place. When she arrives, she discovers that a human faction called The Union has taken charge of the summit, and they're not playing nice. Worse yet, someone has killed a prominent Union member, and now they're demanding blood.

Elise has to bring justice to the summit in DARK UNION, a 33,000-word (120 page) urban fantasy novella featuring a decrepit ghost town, angry men with guns, and even angrier angels.

Yup. It's here. :)

Let me know if you guys read it--I'd love to hear what you think. I feel a little funny releasing a novella in between books, but I think (hope) it works, so your feedback is mucho appreciated.

I don't write romances.

2012-07-17T14:09:00.000-07:00

Let's talk romance novels.

This is how a typical romance works: Boy meets girl, boy and girl are kept apart for 90% of the book by circumstance, and the story is concluded when boy and girl get together. There are certain expectations about romances which the author must keep in mind while navigating these swoony waters.

The very first romance I ever read.
Yes, there was sexual assault, but not from the hero.
(Thank goodness.)

Romances must have a happily ever after (HEA) or happy for now (HFN), for instance, to be classified as a "romance novel."

Once the hero and heroine hook up, they're generally not allowed to hook up with anyone else. It's strict monogamy from there on out. And if there's a love triangle, the heroine will usually end up with the first guy she meets (who is usually The Good Guy, because there's no love for Bad Boys out there).

Loyalty is hugely important. Studies have shown that romance readers are more forgiving of a hero who rapes the heroine (because he desires her so much that he must have her, consenting or not) than a hero who cheats on the heroine with someone else. That is a whole can of worms I won't touch today. Suffice it to say, romance readers have spoken: they love One True Loves.

Despite having all these rules, it's hardly a formulaic genre. There are a lot of great ways to approach this structure. It's not easy keeping love interests apart for twenty-some chapters, and it takes a skilled writer to pull it off.

I enjoy reading paranormal romance, but anyone who's read my books can tell that I'm not interested in writing it. My stories do not have HEAs or HFNs. The plot does not resolve with the hero and heroine kissing and hugging or whatever it is you kids do nowadays. Yet I think a lot of readers go into my books expecting these things, and it's led to some disappointed reviews.

In short, when reading YA paranormal,
people expect something like this.

These days, the line between romance novel and paranormal is... hazy. Urban fantasy is often seen to be synonymous with paranormal romance. YA paranormal is usually about how a girl falls in love with a smoldering paranormal boy.

I completely understand why people might pick up my books expecting to see these things.

So let me say this now: I don't write paranormal romance novels.

At its roots, urban fantasy is a mashup of detective noir and fantasy. YA paranormal shares teen issues through the lens of speculative fiction. They can be romantic, but they don't have to be.

And my books definitely are not. In The Descent Series, I'm hoping to accomplish epic fantasy in a contemporary setting. And the Seasons of the Moon series is more of a family drama with a girl who turns hairy and eats people.

Definitely not romances.

Given that the majority of Kindle owners are adult women, and that the population of Kindle owners also skew toward the romance-lovin', my life would probably be a little easier if I did write romance novels. I know that many readers would be happier with my books.

The problem is this: I don't like One True Loves. I also don't believe in soulmates. I think there are a lot of people who can complete us in a lot of different ways, and that we can love someone intensely, passionately, and deeply, then move on to love someone else just as passionately if that first relationship ends. It's a totally normal, totally okay part of life.

Plus, I feel like romances -- particularly those with the "one true love" thing -- completely miss how tough real relationships can be, and how that's actually a really good thing. Good relationships take work. You don't just click with someone and live happily ever after. You have to communicate, respect each other, and work on meshing your lives together.

Bad things happen. Good things happen. You fight to stick together and handle it as a team. The end result is (ideally) an ever-growing, ever-changing partnership with another human being, and it's awesome. But it doesn't always end that way! Sometimes things go sour, and that's okay too. That's a normal part of life and growing up.

That's what I hope to write in my books: Flawed relationships between people who work to conquer things together, or... don't.

So please allow me to apologize to all the people who have been bummed out to pick up one of my books and find it ends with the heroine running off on all fours and leaving the hero behind (Six Moon Summer), or that the heroine is sexually compatible with her boyfriend, but not romantically compatible (The Darkest Gate), or that the heroine falls out of love with the hero because he didn't treat her well and they don't get back together (Monsters).

There might not be one true loves in my books, but there is one true butt-kicking. I hope that makes up for my transgressions a little. ;)

What say you, friends? Do you prefer your paranormal with or without a heaping serving of romance?

What makes success?

2012-07-14T07:22:00.000-07:00

(Alert! Boring publishing numbers post ahead. Escape while you still have your sanity!)

Publishing has not been easy for me. This is entirely my fault. I dove into the process with no research, and decided that I would sell my books by hawking them to strangers on Twitter and sending them to book bloggers.

Take a moment to laugh. I'll wait.

Unsurprisingly, it took three months to sell the first 100 copies of Six Moon Summer. That was about $200 in royalties. At the time, the number seemed huge -- it was more than I had made off of writing ever before, anyway, and that meant there were about one hundred people reading my book. Gosh. Never mind that I had spent $750 producing and marketing the damn thing.

Thanks to success stories from authors like Amanda Hocking and Joe Konrath, many writers dove into self-pubbing at the exact same time. YA paranormal is a pretty good genre to be in, too, so quite a lot of writers entered it simultaneously. It's not typically a blockbuster genre (I would reserve that term for things like romantic suspense), but it's got a loyal base of readers, good crossover appeal, and high churn. Readers who enjoy YA paranormal tend to devour it and look for more.

So while I was selling 100 copies on Twitter, writers who were producing the same thing at the same time were zipping ahead to much grander milestones. They were popping out entire trilogies and reaching upwards of 10,000 sales in six months while I was still tweeting "#yaparanormal #pleaseloveme Omgz buy my book!!! amzn.to/lololol".

Still, I felt pretty good about the whole thing. 100 books. That's a lot of readers.

All Hallows' Moon did about the same: 100 copies-ish in three months. Understandably. I had waited five months to release the sequel, which was entirely unnecessary, given that I had actually written Six Moon Summer the year before, and any miniscule amounts of momentum I had built were long gone by then.

Of course, I had other things going, too. The 19 Dragons trounced the other books for its first couple of months. Death's Hand came out shortly after All Hallows' Moon and sold over 1,000 copies in its first three months, which was a huge milestone for me, since it took six months to reach my first 1,000 sales prior to that (don't laugh).

I'll skip a long and boring history of the books in between that, but suffice it to say, things have improved. Gray Moon Rising sold 1,000 copies in about two weeks thanks to the efforts of my dedicated and loving readers.

This month, I have averaged 200 books sold per day -- twice what I sold in the first three months of publishing, every day.

I'm still struggling in comparison to many of my writer friends, who are all smarter, handsomer, and more successful than me. Many of my contemporaries have passed 50,000 sales or more. People in other genres are doing even better--one writer friend of mine, Michael Wallace, is celebrating 100,000 lifetime indie sales this month. (Congrats Michael! Feel free to send my helicopter over at any time.)

But how do you measure success? Is it in a specific number of copies sold? Are you successful when you've shifted 1k copies, 10k, or 50k? Is it when your income from royalties provides 50%+ of your family's income?

Or is it when those first 100 readers pick up your book and fall in love with the characters?

You know, I just don't think it can be measured in any objective way.

I'm feeling successful these days, even though I don't have any big-number milestones to trumpet. The line on the graph keeps going up, and every time I have a series release, I do a little bit better. That makes me feel successful.

Every one of my books has an actual team working on it, now--from artists to editors--and I actually earn out production costs within a month or so, which means I'll probably start spending more money on producing better books. That makes me feel successful, too.

I finished a series, and I'm pushing ahead on a second. I have nine titles out with this pen name now, which is staggering, and seven titles more than I had available in July of 2011.

But most of all, my writer friends and readers make me feel successful. Their relentless love and support never fails to touch me (in the safe & legal sense). You know who you are. ;)

For my writer friends: How do you measure your successes? Is it a specific milestone, or net increase in performance?