Picture Time: Dr. Who

I really like Dr. Who. I’m not  a super fan, I haven’t seen most of the old series, but have seen a few of them. I have watched the new series since it debuted with Christopher Eccleston. I like time travel stories, but Dr. Who just speaks to me in a way that a lot of the others don’t. It’s the wibbly wobbly timey wimeyness of it. David Tennant is my Doctor, not because I’m not attached to the other incarnations, but because if you say the words “the Doctor” to me David is who springs to mind. Tonight is an important night for Whovians, because tonight we bid fairwell to Amy and Rory. Hopefully not tragically. They are my favorite companions, with Rory edging Amy out by a hair for the top spot. Please don’t die Ponds! In their honor I’m posting some of my Dr. Whoniverse fan art.

 

 

 

(if you are interested these are all available as tee shirts at my Red Bubble store)

And now a bonus story. I don’t really write fan fiction, but this little scene popped into my head one day and I had to write it down.

(whooshy noise)

Amy: Doctor?

Doctor: (paying attention to something other than her) hmm?

Amy: Did you move the Tardis?

Doctor: (still interested in something else) No.  Look at thi—

Rory: Then why is it over there now?

Doctor looks up, silently ponders the Tardis which is not where he left it.

Doctor: Well… graaugh! (waves his arms in front of him)

Doctor: Come on, time to go! (takes each by the shoulder and tries to lead them off)

Amy: But—

Doctor: No.

Rory: Door’s opening.

Tall thin man in striped suit, large coat, and trainers steps out.

Man: Hello! (said with plenty of enthusiasm but no familiarity).

Amy: (raised eyebrow, refusing to be led off) Hi. (whispers to the Doctor) Who is that?

Doctor: No one! Come along, Pond.

Ten: No one? Not hardly. Who are you to— Ah.

Eleven: Right, no time to waste. All sorts of places that are not here.

Ten: I’m the Doctor.

Rory: Did he just say?

Ten: (Puts hands in pockets, bounces on heels) Yeah.

Amy: He’s not.

Ten: Am. (more heel bouncing.)

Amy: Doctor, why—

Eleven: Amy, I can’t stop to answer to questions. I will not be answering questions. Just don’t bother with questions—

Ten: I love answering questions. I’m brilliant at it. Won an award.

Eleven: Fine! I’ll answer.

Amy opens her mouth.

Eleven: (points to himself) The Doctor. (points to Ten) Also the Doctor. Same person, just not the same same person. See?

Amy and Rory: No.

Eleven sighs.

Ten: Want me to try?

Eleven: No.

Rory: Are there a whole bunch of weird blokes called the Doctor? Is that it?

Eleven: Noooo!

Ten: Also yes, a bit. But not quite like that.

Amy:(to Rory) I’m starting to see the similarity.

Eleven: Okay, there’s more than one Doctor, but there can only be one Doctor at a time.  However, there can be more than one Doctor in a time. There done, moving on. Has anyone got any gum?

Rory:(to Amy) Did you get any of that?

Amy: Not really. Lost interest halfway through anyway. You hungry?

Rory: Yeah.

They walk off, leaving the Doctors.

Ten: Nice redhead. Love a redhead.

Eleven: Gum? Anyone?

Ten: Or a blonde.

Eleven:(disgruntled noise)

Ten: Or a fish.

Flamewar: by a Lady

I’m a big fan of Jane Austen.I’ve read all but two of her books. I like to space them out between readings, so first readings of Northanger Abby and Persuasion are still in the distance. I also enjoy adaptations and retellings of her works, though the quality often varies. When FYA announced they’d be doing a Pride and Prejudice theme week, I might have responded with a loud “booyah!” You can read their many hilarious posts here.

Over the last few years there has been a rash of authors embarrassing themselves and damaging their reputations by responding to negative reviews on blogs and sites such as Amazon. It is a shocking phenomena, with both indie and traditionally published authors making a spectacle of themselves. These authors seek out the negative reviews of their work and lash out and attack the reviewers. It is a terrible idea on their part. Bad reviews are no fun, I’ve had my share and should I mange to publish something I’m sure I’ll have many more. And yes they sting and sometimes I get defensive and dismiss the review as “not getting it.” But only in the privacy of my own head. I would never attack someone else for their opinion of my writing. Watching these meltdowns from the outside can be a bit of a head desk moment. What on Earth are these writer’s thinking? No matter if the review in question is well written and thoughtful essay or a single sentence along the lines of “This author sucks, they should stop writing.” A tirade always does far more damage to an author’s career than a bad review could. In short if you can’t weather a bad review here or there, maybe publishing isn’t for you.

Which is a long winded explanation for what I’m about to lay out. I posed myself the question. If the experienced, successful authors of today, who should know better, can’t resist the lure of railing against a bad review, could one of the greatest of all time?

Jane Austen Gets Into a Flamewar With Her Fans

To the editors and readership of the “Austentonian Times,”

Before I address the comments which compelled me to put pen to paper, I would first like to ask that you cease appropriating my name for this “publication” which I most certainly do not endorse. I would also like to point out that while you purport said publication to be an outlet for so called “fanatics” of my work, it seems to me that it is more a place for uneducated lunatics to criticize and ascribe meaning to my work that was never intended.

I would like to refute the anonymous contributor who accused me of having a bias against the clergy.  On the contrary I have the utmost respect for men of God as a whole.  I am in fact a rector’s daughter, and consider the loss of my excellent father to be the great tragedy of my life. To suggest that because I painted characters such as Mr. Collins and Mr. Elton, both clergymen, as undesirable and comical is evidence that I have no respect for the church is utterly ludicrous! Must I explain the function of fiction to your readership? Must I defend my choice to create characters with foibles regardless of their profession? I fear even if I were to try, they would not have the intelligence to comprehend.

To the young lady who wrote to lament that “Fanny Price is so dull! As is Mansfield Park on the whole. La, what happened to the liveliness of Pride and Prejudice? It is by far my favorite.”  I must ask, did I force you to read Mansfield Park if you were not enjoying it? Were you perhaps stuck at the bottom of a well, with only my third novel to pass the time? Did you burn Pride and Prejudice on acquiring my next book, and therefore can no longer derive enjoyment from the less mature piece?  Am I not allowed to explore new themes in my work? Must I rewrite Pride and Prejudice time and again? Only changing the lovers names to Miss Traliza Bonnet and Mr. Pitzsimmon Farcy? Is that what you would have me do? I suspect it is.

To Mr. Currer Bell, if that is indeed your true name, I detect a feminine hand behind your words, but that is neither here nor there. I do not take offense that you and your family believe I concern myself too much with propriety and not enough with “poetry and passion” as you so eloquently put it. If you cannot detect the turmoil within my characters regarding the conflicting pulls propriety and passion, then you are not the audience to which I write. I encourage you to take the next few years, you will excuse me for presuming you are still quite young, there was much in your letter to give me that impression, to seek out books written with your sensibilities in mind. Perhaps if no one is writing such literature you can do it yourself, you clearly do not believe it is the least bit difficult. I look forward to someday seeing the overwrought, sensational, and likely sentimental stories you come up with in print.

There is much more I would like to say, but I have decided you are no longer worth the paper it would take to do so. Good day to you all, and God’s grace on all your future endeavors.

Miss J. Austen, authoress.

This week in writing

 

It’s been an eventful week. I participated in a pitch event on twitter. The rules were simple. Pitch your book in 140 characters or less, and mark it with the tag #pitmad. Agents were following the tag, and if they liked what they saw, they’d favorite your tweet. I had three agents request mine. Which means there are now three agents with pages from Random Acts of Nudity in their inbox (plus a fourth who had requested pages off a similar event the week before). So now I wait to see if any of them ask for more. And I try to not to obsess over the undiscovered typos that appeared in the excerpt seconds after each time I hit send. Hopefully a missing quotation mark here and a random paragraph break there won’t ruin the query’s chances, but who knows? Having an agent/s request pages is a small goal to check off on my mental list of “things that mean I’m a real author.”

It would be very easy to get carried away, imagining that because they asked for pages, I’ll be signed and have a book deal by next month, but that ain’t happening. In truth this isn’t that different from the unrequested queries I’ve sent. With those I sent a query letter and five to fifty pages of the manuscript, which the agent or their assistant would read and then choose to pass or ask for more. (So far it’s all been passes). In this case the agent has only seen a one to three sentence description of the book. The pages will be the first sample of my writing they’ll see. If they ask for more, that will be exciting (and another check on the list).
The major difference, and it’s a significant one, is that these agents already like the concept of my book. With the blind queries I never knew for sure if the agent passed simply because they didn’t like the idea of the book. These agents are into the idea of a high school girl with a sex-tape (uh…a book about a high school girl with a sex tape, I’m not implying they like child pornography. Whoops) So now it’s a matter if they like my execution of the concept.
So as I said, it’s all about waiting. Though what I’m waiting for is hard to say. I only know I’ll hear from them if they like what they saw. None of the agents said they’d contact me if they didn’t. For all I know they’ve already read the pages and decided it wasn’t up to snuff. Or it might still be in their to read piles, and they might not make the decision for several months. It’s best to just celebrate that I qot a couple of requested queries, and go back to business as usual.
In other writing news, I made some progress on my work in progress. And I got another couple of chapters edited. Plus starting this week I’ll be taking an online course on professional editing, which will hopefully make the self editing process easier and more productive.
That’s all for now.

Week 14: The Next Big Thing Blog Hop

Thanks to J Lenni Dorner for asking me to be a part of this.  You can see J’s answers by clicking here.

***Answer these ten questions about your current WIP (Work In Progress) on your blog

***Tag five other writers/bloggers and add their links so we can hop over and meet them.

Ten Interview Questions for The Next Big Thing:

What is the working title of your book?
Random Acts of Nudity

Where did the idea come from for the book?
I kinda stole it.  NOT REALLY!!!  I did not steal it, but my idea was sparked from reading someone else’s concept.  I participate in a board on Amazon where authors post their pitch and get help from other authors in making it as appealing as possible.  About two years ago I read a pitch there about a person who saw themselves in a viral sex tape.  It got me thinking.  The other author’s idea was about an adult male, who didn’t remember making the video, and the book was a psychological thriller.  But the idea of being in a viral sex tape stuck with me.  I started thinking about how most kids these days have recording equipment and how easy it is to distribute video online.  I began weaving the story of a teenage girl who casually makes a sex tape with her boyfriend, not expecting anyone but themselves to see it.  Then after they breakup, it’s seen by their entire school.

What genre does your book fall under?
Contemporary YA.

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?
There aren’t many actors that fit the description of my main character, since she’s plus size.  There isn’t an abundance of teenage plus size actress working today.

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?
A shy honors student is mortified when her ex releases their sex tape to the whole school.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?
I’m submitting it to agents now. Fingers crossed, one will like it.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?
I wasn’t keeping track, somewhere between five and eight months.

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?
I’m embarrassed to say I haven’t read a lot of other contemporary YA.

Who or What inspired you to write this book?
See the first answer.

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?
The MC has a snarky, self deprecating voice.  The way she handles being humiliated and ostracized is (I hope) unique and entertaining, while still being believable.  And the supporting characters rock, if I do say so myself.

Thomas A Knight, I.A. Uaro, Dana Brantley-Sieders, Maggie Young, and Janet Oakley– you’re it!

I’m a fangirl: Jim Henson

I hope this will be a semi regular feature where I discuss some of my biggest influences. First up Jim Henson.

Sesame Street

Like most people born after 1969 my first exposure to the work of Jim Henson was Sesame Street. Back then I didn’t know there was a person behind the puppets. They were entirely real to me. My prime watching years were 1980 to 86. It was a little different than it is today. No Murray or Abby Cadabby, only minimal Elmo. Not nearly as structured about when each segment aired. It was still the early years, I vaguely remember Mr. Hooper and a Snuffy who was imaginary. I clearly remember Gover as a waiter, Ernie stealing Bert’s nose, a song about a llama going to the dentist, Kermit as a reporter. Sesame Street made a huge impression on me and I absorbed as much as I could. It taught me about letters and numbers and words. It also taught me that being smart was important, but wanting to learn was even more important. It taught me people were all equal regardless of color: black, white, blue, green, it was all good. And no matter their quirks—if they can’t count, if all they want to do is count, if they tend to devour your worldy possessions, if they bother you while you’re trying to sleep, or if they’re perpetually crabby—your friends are your friends.
And they were my friends. I trusted them and loved spending time with them. Even after I found out there were people making them say or do the things they did, they were still living breathing beings to me.

The Muppets

My Muppet years started later than the Sesame years but they definitely overlapped. (In this case I’m referring to the ensemble of characters who populated the Muppet shows and movies, though it can be used to refer to all of Henson’s puppets including the Sesame gang). I don’t actually remember a time when I didn’t know of the Muppets. I think I might have been born knowing the lyrics to the Rainbow Connection. While Sesame’s focus was on education, The Muppets were all about entertainment. The Muppets were a little more sophisticated than their Sesame Street counterparts.  They were a tiny bit more complex both in their design and personalities. It’s remarkable that Henson and his fellow performers could imbue bits of felt and fur with such a range of emotions.  These puppets could convey pathos, joy, ennui, insecurity, mania, frustration, contentment etc.  That versatility meant you never knew for sure what you’d get with them. Sometimes it was pure vaudevillian shtick. Often it was zany, chaotic, whimsy. And sometimes it was raw emotion that spoke to the core of the human experience. (Okay, that was a kind of hyperbolic.) Few things have moved me the way Gonzo singing I Want to Go Back There Someday in the Muppet Movie did. Many of the few that have, also involve Muppets. (If you want another example of the muppets moving you to tears, search for Just One Person on YouTube.)

Despite their differences Sesame Street and the Muppets have a lot in common. Such as their affinity for the absurd. But most importantly, like Sesame Street, the Muppets are about acceptance and tolerance.  Everybody is welcome.

Everything else


Once I learned that there was a man behind Kermit and Ernie and the Swedish Chef, I sought out to find more things he’d done. And there was a lot. Fraggle Rock, The Dark Crystal, The Labyrinth, The Storyteller. All these worlds bursting with imagination. It came as a shock, yet felt entirely right when I learned that Henson and his team created the Yoda puppet for George Lucas, and Jim’s longtime collaborator, Frank Oz, brought him to life.

It’s a cliche to say that there will never be another Jim Henson. But it’s the truth. He was unique. My world is richer because of his creations—because of him. I was ten when he died. It was the first time I was so affected by the death of some one I never met. I’m so glad that Sesame Street and the Muppets have carried on after he was gone. Kids need them, I need them. They reflect the world the way I want it be be.  Full of laughter and hope.  And I’m glad that his company continues to produce incredibly creative and original projects like the TV show Farscape and the movie Mirrormask. Jim is gone, but his inspiration continues.

And I will always be a fangirl.

I Fail! (don’t worry, it’s cool)

A few months ago I ran across a tongue in cheek quiz called the fantasy novelist exam.  It posed a series of questions about fantasy novels.  If you pass the quiz, your novel is original and could be worthy of publication.  If you fail you’re SOL, and should consider a new career.  My novel failed.  Other novels that would failed are: Harry Potter, the Song of Ice and Fire series, American Gods, and every other fantasy novel I can think of.  (Answering yes to any one of the over 70 questions means you fail.)
I really like this quiz.  (which can be found here.)  As I said, it’s obviously not to be taken one hundred percent seriously, but it is good at pointing out tropes that have become cliches.  If you do end up answering yes to the majority of the questions, it might be worth taking another look at your work.
I’m posting my results here.  Anything in bold is copied from the website and belongs to rinkworks.com.  My answers are in plain text.
The fantasy novelist’s exam
By David J. Parker
Additional Material By Samuel Stoddard
Ever since J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis created the worlds of Middle Earth and Narnia, it seems like every windbag off the street thinks he can write great, original fantasy, too. The problem is that most of this “great, original fantasy” is actually poor, derivative fantasy. Frankly, we’re sick of it, so we’ve compiled a list of rip-off tip-offs in the form of an exam. We think anybody considering writing a fantasy novel should be required to take this exam first. Answering “yes” to any one question results in failure and means that the prospective novel should be abandoned at once.
1. Does nothing happen in the first fifty pages?
Nope.  Stuff happens.
2. Is your main character a young farmhand with mysterious parentage?

No.
3. Is your main character the heir to the throne but doesn’t know it?
No.
4. Is your story about a young character who comes of age, gains great power, and defeats the supreme badguy?
No, because she’s already of age.  But otherwise yes.
5. Is your story about a quest for a magical artifact that will save the world?
Not really.
6. How about one that will destroy it?
Sort of, but no.
7. Does your story revolve around an ancient prophecy about “The One” who will save the world and everybody and all the forces of good?
Nuh uh
8. Does your novel contain a character whose sole purpose is to show up at random plot points and dispense information?
Nope, but there is a character that shows up at random moments to hit on the heroine.
9. Does your novel contain a character that is really a god in disguise?
No.
10. Is the evil supreme badguy secretly the father of your main character?
No.
11. Is the king of your world a kindly king duped by an evil magician?
No, there is no king.
12. Does “a forgetful wizard” describe any of the characters in your novel?
No, but if you remove the forgetful bit, yes.
13. How about “a powerful but slow and kind-hearted warrior”?
No.
14. How about “a wise, mystical sage who refuses to give away plot details for his own personal, mysterious reasons”?
No, there is a character that refuses to give away information for personal and mysterious reasons, but he’s not a wise mystical sage, and the info isn’t that important to the plot.
15. Do the female characters in your novel spend a lot of time worrying about how they look, especially when the male main character is around?
No.
16. Do any of your female characters exist solely to be captured and rescued?
No
17. Do any of your female characters exist solely to embody feminist ideals?
No.
18. Would “a clumsy cooking wench more comfortable with a frying pan than a sword” aptly describe any of your female characters?
The main character is a pastry chef from our world, who’s never handled a sword in her life, so technically I suppose yes.  Though she does turn out to be a bit of a badass.
19. Would “a fearless warrioress more comfortable with a sword than a frying pan” aptly describe any of your female characters?
No, none of my characters regardless of gender are fearless, though they occasionally act it.
20. Is any character in your novel best described as “a dour dwarf”?
No.
21. How about “a half-elf torn between his human and elven heritage”?
No, there’s an elf, but he’s happy in his elfness.
22. Did you make the elves and the dwarves great friends, just to be different?
Dwarves get mentioned but don’t appear in the book, and the sole elf wouldn’t care about dwarfs unless they were attractive and female.
23. Does everybody under four feet tall exist solely for comic relief?
No, I think all the characters are over four feet.
24. Do you think that the only two uses for ships are fishing and piracy?
No boats.
25. Do you not know when the hay baler was invented?
No, I don’t.  Is that important?
26. Did you draw a map for your novel which includes places named things like “The Blasted Lands” or “The Forest of Fear” or “The Desert of Desolation” or absolutely anything “of Doom”?
No, I didn’t draw a map.  There is an agony swamp mentioned in passing, but it’s sort of a joke.
27. Does your novel contain a prologue that is impossible to understand until you’ve read the entire book, if even then?
No prologue.
28. Is this the first book in a planned trilogy?
No
29. How about a quintet or a decalogue?
No
30. Is your novel thicker than a New York City phone book?
No.
31. Did absolutely nothing happen in the previous book you wrote, yet you figure you’re still many sequels away from finishing your “story”?
No, it’s a stand alone.
32. Are you writing prequels to your as-yet-unfinished series of books?
Nope.
33. Is your name Robert Jordan and you lied like a dog to get this far?
No.
34. Is your novel based on the adventures of your role-playing group?
No, I’m not in a role playing group.
35. Does your novel contain characters transported from the real world to a fantasy realm?
Yes!
36. Do any of your main characters have apostrophes or dashes in their names?
No
37. Do any of your main characters have names longer than three syllables?
No.
38. Do you see nothing wrong with having two characters from the same small isolated village being named “Tim Umber” and “Belthusalanthalus al’Grinsok”?
No.
39. Does your novel contain orcs, elves, dwarves, or halflings?
Yes to elves.  Dwarves are mentioned but don’t appear.  No orcs or halflings.
40. How about “orken” or “dwerrows”?
No, is that a thing?
41. Do you have a race prefixed by “half-“?
No.
42. At any point in your novel, do the main characters take a shortcut through ancient dwarven mines?
No.
43. Do you write your battle scenes by playing them out in your favorite RPG?
No.
Have you done up game statistics for all of your main characters in your favorite RPG?
No.
44. Are you writing a work-for-hire for Wizards of the Coast?
No, but I probably would if they asked.
45. Do inns in your book exist solely so your main characters can have brawls?
No inns.
46. Do you think you know how feudalism worked but really don’t?
Probably.
47. Do your characters spend an inordinate amount of time journeying from place to place?
Yep.
48. Could one of your main characters tell the other characters something that would really help them in their quest but refuses to do so just so it won’t break the plot?
No, they share what information they have when they have it.
49. Do any of the magic users in your novel cast spells easily identifiable as “fireball” or “lightning bolt”?
Yes.
50. Do you ever use the term “mana” in your novel?
No, should I?
51. Do you ever use the term “plate mail” in your novel?
Nope, but there is some chain mail.
52. Heaven help you, do you ever use the term “hit points” in your novel?
What the what?  Is that a gaming term?
53. Do you not realize how much gold actually weighs?
Uh, can’t say that I do.  Don’t have anyone toting it around either, so not too concerned.
54. Do you think horses can gallop all day long without rest?
No, that’s why they fly, duh. (there are no flying horses in my books, but  maybe there should be.
55. Does anybody in your novel fight for two hours straight in full plate armor, then ride a horse for four hours, then delicately make love to a willing barmaid all in the same day?
No.
56. Does your main character have a magic axe, hammer, spear, or other weapon that returns to him when he throws it?
No, but that would be cool.
57. Does anybody in your novel ever stab anybody with a scimitar?
No, but also cool.
58. Does anybody in your novel stab anybody straight through plate armor?
No
59. Do you think swords weigh ten pounds or more?
That sounds impractical.
60. Does your hero fall in love with an unattainable woman, whom he later attains?
No she doesn’t.
61. Does a large portion of the humor in your novel consist of puns?
No.
62. Is your hero able to withstand multiple blows from the fantasy equivalent of a ten pound sledge but is still threatened by a small woman with a dagger?
No, that would really hurt.
63. Do you really think it frequently takes more than one arrow in the chest to kill a man?
Not especially, but sometimes you want to extra kill a guy extra hard.
64. Do you not realize it takes hours to make a good stew, making it a poor choice for an “on the road” meal?
I do realize that, does that make this a yes answer?  Is that cheating?
65. Do you have nomadic barbarians living on the tundra and consuming barrels and barrels of mead?
No, but it sounds like fun weekend.
66. Do you think that “mead” is just a fancy name for “beer”?
Kinda, I don’t drink much.  Mead is yummier than beer right?
67. Does your story involve a number of different races, each of which has exactly one country, one ruler, and one religion?
No.
68. Is the best organized and most numerous group of people in your world the thieves’ guild?
No.
69. Does your main villain punish insignificant mistakes with death?
No, but she might if she’s in the right mood.
70. Is your story about a crack team of warriors that take along a bard who is useless in a fight, though he plays a mean lute?
No.
71. Is “common” the official language of your world?
No.
72. Is the countryside in your novel littered with tombs and gravesites filled with ancient magical loot that nobody thought to steal centuries before?
No.
73. Is your book basically a rip-off of The Lord of the Rings?
No, it’s a rip off of the Wizard of Oz, Harry Potter, and a bunch of fairy tales.
74. Read that question again and answer truthfully.
Okay there is a character that wears a gold ring on a chain around her neck and it’s an important plot point, but that was an intentional homa—yes, sigh.
6 yes out of 74.  As far as failure goes, it could be worse.

Welcome! Aka the boring introductory post

Welcome to my new site.  Some of you will be coming here because we know each other, either in the real world or in the nebulous webland.  To you folks, thanks for dropping by.  The rest of you are probably wondering who I am and why you should care.  I can’t answer the latter for you , but as for the former I’m a big old geek/nerd/dork.  You might have seen some of my nerdy ramblings over on Read Comics.  Or a few guest posts I wrote for Forever Young Adult.  I grew up in Chicago, but recently moved to Minneapolis.  I love comic books, regular books, baking, and baked goods in general.  I’m also an aspiring author.

I’ve completed four novels as of this post, with a fifth hovering on the edge of being done.  None are published, though I’m feverishly working on getting them in publishable shape and into people’s hands.

My young adult novel, working title: Random Acts of Nudity, was a semifinalist for the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award 2012.  Which was a thrill.  I’m currently querying agents in an effort to sell it to traditional publishers.

I’ve also got a humorous new adult paranormal romance (that’s a mouthful), as well as one finished sequel.  I’m working on the third book in the trilogy right now.  I’m thinking about going the self published route with them.

Finally, I’ve got a stand alone fantasy (neither of the urban or the high variety).  I call it a Magic Land tale, since it follows the formula of say the Wizard of Oz or Alice in Wonderland.  In which a person from our world is transported to a new fantastical world.  I’ve yet to see an official name for this particular subgenre of fantasy.  If you know of one please fill me in.  I’m not sure which path  I’ll take with it.

I have a short story in the anthology Horror, Humor, & Heroes Volume 3.  I’ll put up a link to its Amazon page for anyone interested– once I figure out how to do that.

I’ll be posting updates on how my writing career is going.  Could be entertaining on a train wreck level.  You’ll also see excerpts of the novels and short stories from time to time.  And maybe a drawing or two.  I’ll also post on whatever is going through my mind, mostly about things I love.  So expect to read about a lot of baked goods and books.

Until next time, Susie