I went ahead and published a new cover for Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble. Thought you might want to check it out.

Gotten some positive feedback so far. Be interesting to see if sales pick up.

Wanted to drop by and let you know that a black-and-white, low-res version is now available for your Kindle or Nook. The file format is primarily text-based, so we went ahead and dropped the price to $2.99 on both formats.

We also decided to offer the full color version on Lulu.com in its original format. It’s still available through DriveThruHorror.com, but this way we have an additional place for people to check out the original file. Unfortunately, we’re still trying to find out if we can offer the ePub version on Lulu as well, but right now it doesn’t seem like we can.

If you’re curious about where the book is available, you can check out THE QUEEN OF CROWS page here at Violetwar.com.

Back to the grind…

Here’s one of the questions he asked me:

Did your experience in RPG game design help influence how the end product looked/felt?

It did. I knew that DriveThruHorror.com could handle an enhanced e-book format because of its sister site, DriveThruRpg.com. The DriveThru sites have been offering digital e-books and enhanced PDFs for years before the rest of the publishing industry even thought about embracing e-books. All of us — me, Shari and Leanne — had experience in the gaming industry. That perspective heavily influenced the design and layout. It wasn’t until after we offered the e-book for sale that we realized the limitations of some of the other e-book sites are. Images are still pretty tough for them to render.

To read more, be sure to check out the rest of the interview at PaulJessup.com.

I wanted to let you know that I started a monthly newsletter for mlvwrites.com, which is my author website. The content on my website is more pragmatic and business-focused because of my desire to keep up professional appearances. It’s also where I put most of my promotional energy because of what I’ve been focusing on.

The first monthly newsletter will be sent toward the end of October. To join my mailing list, simply subscribe to the mlvwrites.com monthly newsletter.

There is no obligation for you to subscribe. This is simply a “Hey, readers! If you’re interested…” sort of a thing.

And now! Back to revisions… slog… slog… slog…

As many of you know, it is very important for me as an author to offer a little bit more about me and my life. Mind you, I’m pretty selective about what I share online, so I decided the best way to share these details would be to import my LiveJournal.

Which I did.

And it downloaded everything.

Which was probably stupid.

So, that is the reason why your RSS feeds blew up. I’m sorry, but I do think that connecting LiveJournal with the blog here makes sense.

Only, I shouldn’t do it all at once.

Please forgive me!

- M

Also acquired a vintage skirt; it’s very smashing. My artistic nature kicked in, so while I was finding a necklace to match a very cool skull Matt got for me, I had designed the earrings pictured below. They go great with black. (The beads in the middle are leaves.)

Since I recently cleansed my closet with much invigoration, I am inspired to actually use the small art store’s inventory I found to embark on a secret mission so delightful devilish you will wonder how much I’ve had to drink. (On a side note: I HATE THE WORD “JEGGINGS.” Are they Jheri curls for your legs? Do they have yolks inside? I think not!) If I finish the Halloween decorations this weekend, then I am definitely donning my horns. (I do have some, yes.)

If you have a book or a game, and you’re looking for something to do this weekend, be sure to check out my post entitled, How to Create a Video Trailer to Promote Your Book or Game.

Alas, I am one plate of tomatillos and one Red Bull away from more revisions, so I had better get back to it. Yes, I’m obsessing about this story a lot, but this is what happens when I respect the editor’s mighty red pen. The last time I submitted something to an editor it was a story of suck because I intimidated myself. Trying to avoid this time. Guess being nervous is proof I’m actually human.

Or am I?

The short of it, is that I do not like the word “feminist.” My relationship with words is semantic and contextual, just like everyone else, but for me it is very audial. If I can not hear the song in a story, then it does not turn out well. In this case, there are quite a few words that I have a strong negative reaction to including: racist, sexist, fascist, masochist, sadist, etc. Yes, there are positive ones as well like humanist, but the bad outweighs the good for me. (I don’t like humanist, either. I usually describe myself as pro-human.)

So there it is. It’s the “ist” that bothers the hell out of me. I don’t care for feministing, either. Heard that once, and well…let’s just say that there’s an image there, too.

Right now, my solution is to make up a word since there were NO synonyms for the word feminist in my thesaurus.

Femiknight. This word I could get used to. Unless, of course, you have suggestions?

In other words, sometimes I really despise being online. I need a little sarcastic or dry humor flag icon that I can pop in whenever I’m trying to crack a joke. It’s very, very, very hard to be “funny” when your superpower is impeccably horrid timing. But, right now I’m online for one of four reasons. a) I have the attention span of a cat. SHINY. b) I am using the online Dictionary/Thesaurus c) I am trying to make up for lost “acquiring fans” and “connecting with people” time or d) I am looking for places to submit.

Let’s just say that someone I respect very much yelled at me for not… Crap. How shall I put this? Putting myself before other people. It is infinitely easier for me to say, “Hey, that guy’s an awesome game designer or I read this really great novel.” than to say, “Dude, did you know? I’m awesome and here’s a list of reasons why and you should just deal and worship me I’m your goddess.”

I’d rather be doing laundry. Bleh.

‘Course, there’s people that just don’t care about that sort of a thing now do they? *coughs Sarah Palin *coughs*

Anyway, in the spirit of my spirit I’ve decided to dress up like Lady Gaga for Halloween. Take that for what it is, because don’t you know I’m a-w-e-s-o-m-e?

On that note, I’m going to head back into a river of words. Something is bothering me about one story I’m working on; the cadence is off. Going to try again tomorrow. This other short, though, is cracking me up into tiny pieces. It has cute, fluffy bunnies in it…and does not end well…

(See what I did just there?)

Double bleh + bleh squared = a whole lot of bleh

Just wanted to drop by and let you know that a new interview with yours truly went up on Suvudu.com. I’m pretty happy with the way the interview turned out.

One of the questions was about my process for collaboration. Here’s my answer:

You know it’s funny but five, even ten years ago, there is no way I would have been able to do something like this. There are so many online programs out there now that you can use to talk to people all over the world. James, for example, lives in England. So we worked together using a variety of file-sharing and instant message tools.

In terms of collaboration, I started with the story first. That, to me, was the most important thing to “get right.” From there, I developed a rough concept of what I wanted Mahochepi to look like and Leanne helped me fill in the blanks. Shari helped me flush out the table of contents and then I started working on the individual pieces. — Source: Interview with Monica Valentinelli at Suvudu.com

If you get the chance, drop by and check out The Queen of Crows interview at Suvudu.com.

By the way, I wanted you to be the first to know that there’s more to come for the Violet War! I’m currently revising a short story about Serafina and her grandmother that I’ll start submitting in a week or two. Can’t guarantee that it will get any bites, but we’ll see. I’m hoping for one. There’s other pitches in the works, too.

The question is: Why?

Well, first — I probably shouldn’t be drinking soda to begin with. But that’s neither here nor there. Second, Alchemy isn’t really all that successful unless you have “pure” ingredients. When it comes to food, it’s ridiculously difficult to find raw, unprocessed food that hasn’t had any chemicals or wax used on them. Well, at least in this country anyway. I should say that.

So what would a modern Alchemist do? Starve? I think most Alchemists would probably be very skinny because they’d be more about eating when they have to as opposed to eating when they want to. Big difference there, right? They’d also worry about contamination, so they’d be appalled by the assembly line production of making food simply because there were too many variables for something to go wrong. For example, you wouldn’t catch an Alchemist in a restaurant unless they could watch their food being cooked.

I’m guessing that a modern Alchemist would probably want their own garden and would value relationships with small farmers to trade what they don’t have. I could totally see an Alchemist as a beekeeper who thinks that honey comes from Aurum (e.g. gold). I’m also envisioning that some Alchemists would take up hunting or fishing, but have kind of a religious attitude about it. For example, an Alchemist wouldn’t hunt for fun, but out of necessity. They’d see animals and wild vegetables/fruits as a gift from the Wish Tree. (If you don’t know what that is in this setting, check out my Violet War glossary.)

Right now, I’m on the fence about how they’d view waste or things that they didn’t use. In some of their other rituals, there would be a byproduct. But what about the components they couldn’t recycle? Yes, as you can imagine, Alchemists would respect several cultures (including Native American) that use every portion of the animal that they can. That doesn’t necessarily mean that that’s a good fit for an Alchemist, though. There’s a lot of cultures that look at different types of food and think that they’re not pure or they’re somehow unfit for human consumption. For an Alchemist, I’m wondering if they are more strict about the process of selecting raw ingredients and cooking them that what they’re actually eating.

This idea has been rolling around in my head as I cook my own food. I’ve been thinking about what metals I’d associate with what item and I’ve got a basic concept already down. Right now, the next step is for me to physically explore the modern Alchemist’s view on food in my day-to-day life. Goodbye, soda. Hello, ice tea. (And try not to be pissed off about it.)

And yeah, I am that much of a geek but I’ve always been a method writer. If I can’t research something, then I like to explore aspects of it just so I can write a better story. (Note: this is not an absolute rule for I have written about Frankenstein-type monsters, Cthulhu and well…you get the idea.) For me, William’s character needs to stand on his own. Right now, he’s a wuss that complains when things aren’t perfect. GAG. I hate William because he’s such a whining wussy-pants. If I can establish that Alchemists aren’t so two-dimensional and offer other ways for the science to filter into the setting, then I think he’ll be a little more tolerable AND there will be more Alchemy in the plot. Warning, though…by saying “other ways” I don’t mean details that’ll you notice right off the bat. Sometimes, I put little Easter Eggs in setting description that fit the world and the story. If you catch them, then awesome. If you don’t? Well, there’s always next time. They’re not essential to the plot, but they are always important to the world.