IWSG: How it Started, How It's Going: My Writing Life

Welcome to the first Wednesday of the month. You know what that means! It's time to let our insecurities hang out. Yep, it's the Insecure Writer's Support Group blog hop. If you're a writer at any stage of career, I highly recommend this blog hop as a way to connect with other writers for support, sympathy, ideas, and networking. If you're a reader, it's a great way to peek behind the curtain of a writing life.

Our Twitter handle is @TheIWSG and hashtag is #IWSG. This month's co-hosts are: Jemima Pett, Nancy Gideon, and Natalie Aguirre!

April 5 question - Do you remember writing your first book? What were your thoughts about a career path on writing? Where are you now and how is it working out for you? If you're at the start of the journey, what are your goals?

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I feel like I just wrote my first book yesterday, though I'm realizing that it's been a decade now. Wow! I guess it's not just my kids that prove that time flies. (Let's not discuss the fact that the youngest is working on learning to drive). 

But yes, my forty-second birthday was the one where I finally made a real and lasting commitment to my writing life, and started finishing and submitting things. Though I was always "going to be a writer" starting around first grade, it was always a far-flung "someday" kind of dream up until then, waters I waded into from time to time, when the weather was nice, but nothing I worked at consistently. 

And here I am now about to turn fifty-two, so yep, that makes ten years. 

From one book to 32 books (counting anthologies)

In 2013, I finished Going Through the Change, the first novel in the Menopausal Superhero series. It was the second book I'd ever gotten all the way to "the end" on, and the one to earn me my first publishing contract. I had pretty big dreams about the difference that writing contract would make in my life--fame and fortune looming large. 

In reality, I have had slow, steady sales in the intervening years as I continued to write more books, survived the closing of a publisher and signed with another one. My biggest paycheck to date meant that my children were extra spoiled come winter holidays, but it wasn't life-changing. 

But in the meantime, my dreams have changed. I don't actually want to be famous. I wouldn't mind at all if my books got famous--optioned and made into a Netflix series or discovered by Reese Witherspoon's book club or something. But the small glimpses into public life I get when I give readings or serve as a guest at a convention have shown me that I don't actually want the kind of fame where people get nosy about your private life. 

I'm more focused on the joy writing brings me, and staying disciplined so that I get to tell all the stories teeming in my brain. 

I'm working on the fifth and final novel in the Menopausal Superheroes series right now, and have hopes of finishing a draft by summer. 

Four novels, two novellas, a short story collection, and all the short works in one volume. 

My publisher (Falstaff Books of Charlotte, NC) plans to release the first of a two-volume omnibus edition this summer, then the final novel in 2024, and the second half of the omnibus edition. Not bad for a little idea that came about because I was frustrated that superhero characters were always so darn young. 

While I've worked on these books, I've also dabbled in short fiction, mostly horror, and have seen my work included in twenty-three anthologies at this point (with another one on the near horizon).  

It's really nice to feel like I'm closing this chapter of my writing life and can jump into some of the other stories I haven't been able to tell--that Gothic romance I started a couple of years back, my witch-craft themed middle grades idea, the historical fiction trilogy based loosely on a family legend, etc. 

So, I'm not rich or famous, but I'm happier than I've ever been before and writing is at the heart of who I am now instead of a someday-I-will dream. 

Thanks to all my friends and family (and fellow IWSGers) who have traveled this road with me so far. I can't wait to see what's around the next bend! 

My Year in Words: My 7th year pursuing writing for real

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2022 is coming to a close. That seems like science fiction in and of itself. How can it be 2022, let alone almost 2023? But I've survived a lot of bad predictions now.

• I made it through 1984, and if Big Brother was watching, he didn't speak up. 
• I made it through 1999, and the party wasn't over after all. 
• Y2K didn't eat my hard drive
• I made it through 2001 and AI did not kill off the humans. Sorry, Dave.
• Ancient calendars didn't end the world in 2012
• I made it through 2015 without getting hit by Michael J. Fox on a hoverboard. 
• I made it through 2019 without finding out if replicants dream of electric sheep. 
• Godzilla didn't return in 2020. Neither did the Terminator. (though both might have been preferable to what 2020 DID bring us)
• And here we are in 2022, and I'm not yet eating Soylent Green.

So maybe 2023 won't be as bad as science fiction led me to believe either.

Writing

My goals were a little mushy this year. After getting through 2020 and 2021, life didn't feel that predictable, so setting goals was harder. I didn't have my usual faith and optimism about what all I'd be able to get done. 

the Menopausal Superheroes novels so far

I've been working on the fifth and final Menopausal Superhero novel off and on for two years now. I was hoping I'd finish a draft this year. 

I didn't. 

But, I'm finishing the year strong, having written on it every day during NaNoWriMo and kept up that momentum in December, so I'm hoping to have a finished draft by March of 2023. 

Partly this was pandemic life. Partly this was me trying to close out a series for the first time, which is a very different task than just writing the next novel in the series, especially for a pantser like me. 

I tracked my word count across six projects: Menopausal Superheroes #5, Short Stories, Book Reviews, Social Posts, Business (by which I mean correspondence, blurbs, bios, etc.), and Blogs. I use Jamie Raintree's Writing and Revision Tracker, because I like how it lets me see my progress on several projects, and track both new words and revised words. Across the year, I wrote 287,642 words and revised 109,515. Not too shabby!

There are still two weeks left, so I'll add a little more to that word count before the New Year bells toll. 

Publishing: 

I did see some work into print though, even if it wasn't Menopausal Superheroes. 

My short stories made it into three anthologies in 2022: 

• Beyond: Horror Flash Fiction includes my short story "What I Can See" 
• A Woman Unbecoming includes "How Does Your Garden Grow?"  
• Post Roe Alternatives: Fighting Back includes "No Country for Young Women" 

I'm proud of all three, but especially happy to have used my writing for a bit of activism, in support of reproductive rights in the second two. 

I also had a few short stories included in magazines. You can read all of these online for free (or listen to them, in the case of the two podcasts): 

• The Beginning of You. 34 Orchard. 10 November 2022. 
• Under an Orange Sky. Allegory EZine. 1 November 2022. 
• Poison. Manawaker Studio's Flash Fiction Podcast. 8 September 2022. 
• Moondance. Night's End Podcast 13 June 2022. (my story begins about 7 minutes, 12 seconds in)
• The Mind Plays Tricks Dark Recesses 27 April 2022
• How Does Your Garden Grow The Fantastic Other, Issue 4 (page 13)  19 February 2022

I'd love it if you checked out any of my work! And, for the books, please consider leaving a review. A few words and some stars makes all the difference in a book's discoverability, and I'd love to see these small presses continue to thrive. 

Submitting

Another of my goals was to submit my work more often. I'm terrible about writing a short story, submitting it once, then letting it languish on my hard drive if it doesn't get accepted. (Hint: if you want your work to get published, you have to submit it). 

At this point, it's not even about fear of rejection for me anymore, but more about managing my limited time so that I can write new things, promote my published work, AND submit my work. 

I set a goal of submitting work 100 times this year and, as I write this, I've done so 99 times. So, you can bet I'll find time to submit one more piece of work before the calendar flips. I was helped by participating in challenges developed by a writing colleague Ray Daley. A few times a year, he collects a list of magazines he intends to submit to, one a day over the course of a month, and invites other writers to try and do the same. 

It paid off, too! Several of the year's publications are stories that met with rejection before finding success. Persistence is the name of the game. 

• What I Can See: written 2019,  submitted 4 times in total, and accepted in 2020 (for publication in 2022). 
• How Does Your Garden Grow? written 2020, submitted 5 times in total, and accepted twice in 2022. (reprints are sometimes welcome in anthologies)
• No Country for Young Women written 2022, submitted 5 times in total, and accepted in 2022 (that's pretty fast for me--to write a story and see it published in the same year)
• The Beginning of You written 2015, submitted 11 times, and accepted in 2022
• Under an Orange Sky written 2014, submitted 14 times, and accepted in 2014 (project folded without coming to fruition) and 2022
• Poison written 2020, submitted 5 times, accepted in 2020 (in a magazine), and in 2022 (as a reprint for a podcast)
• Moondance written 2019, submitted 8 times, accepted in 2022
• The Mind Plays Tricks written 2015, submitted 17 times, accepted in 2022

Promotion

Getting comfortable with promotion has been quite a journey these past seven years. 

I was a guest at ConCarolinas and Multiverse this year, and sold my books at GalaxyCon, Queen City Book Fair, Bookmarks Book Festival and PopCon. 

I also presented a workshop at Orange County Public Library and continue to run the First Monday Classics book club with writer-colleague James Maxey every month.

I've started to stretch my geographic reach in hopes of finding new audiences, and seeking out more one day festivals and events. I'm still trying to find that balance between promotion and protection of my writing time that leads to a wider audience and more sales. Now that I'm no longer a teacher, I'm a little less tied to the academic calendar and look forward to the new opportunities that will open up for me. 

I've also been taking advantage of the wider array of digital opportunities. I record panels with ConTinual Convention on the regular, as well as with Strong Women Strange Worlds, Go Indie Now, Write Hive, and other organizations. 

I try to gather all those together into a playlist on YouTube: 

I didn't put up much new material on my own YouTube channel this year, so I'm hoping to get back to this more regularly next year. 

I've also been exploring new social media options this year, building a presence and a following on CounterSocial, Mastodon, and Hive (@samanthabwriter) in case Twitter finishes imploding, while still keeping up Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, which have been my main channels for a few years now. 

See why time management is such a thing?

How did your year go for your creative or business pursuits? Any insights to share with girls like me who want it all? 

Marketing for Introverts: An OpenBook blog post

 

Welcome to Open Book Blog Hop. You can find us every Monday talking about the writing life. I hope you'll check out all the posts: you'll find the links at the bottom of this post.

Today's question:   Most of us (or maybe all of us) struggle with marketing. What are your top 3 marketing tips?

Hi! I'm Samantha, and I'm an introvert. In fact, I'm really happy that we're having this little talk here on the Internet, where I don't have to actually talk to you.

It's not that I'm not friendly. I bet I'd even like you. It's that I'm still recuperating after participating in a fan convention this weekend for my writing life.

Being a writer might seem like a natural job choice for an introvert. In some ways, it's an excellent fit.

Doing the work requires spending copious amounts of time alone.

The work itself is usually pretty quiet (just some keyboard clicking or pen scritching noises).

You can do the work wherever you are most comfortable.

On the other hand, if you want to make a career of writing, you can't *just* write. You have to put your work out there for others to read.

Then, there's the marketing, that second job of garnering attention for your work and being discoverable. That can be pretty painful for a introverted person, but I'm here to tell you that it can be done. You can make a career as a writer without undergoing some kind of alchemy and becoming an extrovert, and in some ways, introverts might be especially well suited to it.

So, here are a few things to consider if you're an introvert and trying to promote yourself and your work.

1. Take it slow: A lot of people seem to think that building a writing career and support network is a sudden quick movement, like sweeping the legs in a kickboxing match.

It's not.

Not even for extroverts.

Building contacts and relationships is the work of years, and luckily, it's the kind of work introverts are good at! We may not be comfortable standing behind the megaphone and calling for the attention of everyone in the room, but we're great one-on-one and when we get to know someone, we usually get to know them well. Our relationships are deep and strong and lasting.

When you are meeting new people, be reasonable in your expectations for yourself. I'm happy if I make one or two new initial contacts at any given event. I'm not trying to go home with my pockets bursting with business cards. I'm trying to make a few meaningful connections.

2. Pick your poison:  There are a lot of ways to put yourself out there as a writer. You can give readings, participate in discussion panels, teach workshops or classes, hand sell books from a table or booth at an event, make videos about your work, tweet cleverly, blog, etc.

Some of these things will scare the heck out of you, and some may only make you nervous. Pick something you feel like you can do and try it. You can push yourself a little at a time, and you don't have to put yourself out there on every possible platform.

Look at events carefully, think about your comfort levels, and plan accordingly. I enjoy doing fan conventions, for example, but I tend to stick to small and medium sized ones relatively near my home base.

I take my sister with me whenever I can because it's good to have someone more outgoing with you and someone who will help you take care of yourself when you need it. Even better if that someone loves you and understands your needs and limits.

I like panel discussions because they have a clear structure and don't require me to "make the first move" like approaching someone at a booth or table does. Someone will call on me when it's my turn to talk.

I ask convention organizers not to schedule me for late night programming because it's harder for me to be entertaining and clever and "on" when I get tired.

Over time, this has gotten more comfortable for me because I've gotten to know more and more people, so often attending an event means I'll be among as many friends as strangers. I find that VERY comforting.

Though Dragon Con is the BIG con near me, I have yet to apply, because I know how stressful I would find it to navigate the halls of such a large free-for-all event. Maybe I'll get there someday, or maybe I won't. We'll see.

For now, I'm feeling good about how much more comfortable I feel with what I'm doing now.

3. Self-Care! Everyone needs self care, but introverts may need to tend to themselves a little sooner and more specifically than other folks (I wouldn't know; I've never been one of those other folks).

For me, that means being as careful as I can be with my schedule: making sure there are adequate meal breaks and quiet time, packing some good snacks.

That might mean that I skip some networking opportunities and don't go to the bar with the other writers after an event, or decide to spend time alone in my hotel room instead of sitting at my table or booth for two more hours (even if I miss a chance to sell a book that way).

If I don't give myself space to recoup my energies, I'm not going to make a good impression or make good use of those opportunities anyway.

It also means that I try to give myself decompress time after an event.

I'm writing this on Monday and I got home from a convention on Sunday night. I had three different social invitations today, but I turned them all down in favor of sitting here quietly at my laptop. It was the right choice, especially since I'll have to be "on" again next weekend for another event.

So there are my thoughts on how to make a go of this if you're an introvert. I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments! 

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Flung Back Into the Universe

Wow! That was fast. I mean, after nearly eighteen months of hardly going anywhere and seeing only the people in my bubble, you'd think I'd be ready for some travel, some parties and gatherings, etc. But I feel like Wile E. Coyote just after the giant rubberband has snapped, realizing that I've got no control over my speed and trajectory: 

I know, I know. I'm in charge of me and I can say no, but it's not that easy to do. Can I really say no to all my family when they want to see the hubby and me and our kiddos in person at long last? Can I really turn down chances to get back out there at live-in-person author events building some momentum for my life's dream of living off my writing? 

I can . . . but I probably won't. 

That won't stop me from whining a little bit though. I was out of pocket 11 days in June and I'll be out another 9 in July by the end of things. Thankfully, the July stuff is a little more spread out and I'll get 13 days in a row of being close to home between things. 

The tricky bit for me is that I WANT to see all the people and take all the opportunities, but I also rely on time at home during these non-school months to make some serious progress on my writing goals during days with fewer commitments than school-year days. 

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I'm also finding that I'm seriously out of practice. I've always need a bit of introvert recovery time after a big get-together, but my recovery period is longer now, like my social muscles have atrophied. I had barely recovered from my mother's birthday party when it was time to hit the road again to welcome a new baby into my husband's family. 

Thank G-d for coffee. At least my drug of choice is legal. 

As always, I'm seeking balance, because the truth is that I want it ALL but there are only so many hours in each day and only so much Samantha to go around. 

So how are you guys managing the world opening back up? Is it a relief or a new kind of stress for you? 

I'd love to hear about how you're doing in the comments! 

Return to the Public Part of My Writing Life

Welcome to the first Wednesday of the month. You know what that means! It's time to let our insecurities hang out. Yep, it's the Insecure Writer's Support Group blog hop. If you're a writer at any stage of career, I highly recommend this blog hop as a way to connect with other writers for support, sympathy, ideas, and networking.

If you're a reader, it's a great way to peek behind the curtain of a writing life.

Our Twitter handle is @TheIWSG and hashtag is #IWSG.

The awesome co-hosts for the May 5 posting of the IWSG are Erika Beebe, PJ Colando, Tonja Drecker, Sadira Stone, and Cathrina Constantine! Be sure to check out what they have to say, and visit other writers in the blog hop!

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I'm heading to a convention the first weekend in June. That used to be something I did six to eight times a year, but 2020 and 2021 has seen event after event cancelled or altered to become a digital event. Undoubtedly, it was the right thing to do. Stuffing hundreds of geeky folk into meeting rooms in hotels for music, merriment, performance, and discussion during the pandemic would have been foolhardy and irresponsible. 

But I'm headed to a scaled-back ConCarolinas and I'm *so* excited to be easing back into the public part of a writing life. Participation in conventions has been one of the poles holding up this rickety circus tent I call a writing career. 

At conventions, I have readings, participated in panel discussions, hand-sold books, networked with publishers and other writers, and interacted with readers. All this sharing, helped build my name as an author, sold some books, built relationships, and kept me motivated when things were hard. 

Not having conventions has left a hole in my writing life. 

During the past year, I sought out some video and online activities, and some of them were great! A panel held over zoom takes away some of the limits on geography and let me work with people three time zones over from me, or even in other countries all together. People I might never have gotten to work with otherwise. (You can check out a lot of that work on ConTinual's YouTube channel or on my own). 

But there's a serendipity factor in live events that is hard to recreate virtually. I never just wandered through the halls and ended up in a great conversation because I was attracted by the laughter at a virtual event. Zoom meetings don't give you the chance to peek into other rooms and see what's going on. Damn, but I've missed that. 

Now that I'm immunized, I feel a lot safer about venturing into communal grounds again and I'm so happy that I'll be starting with ConCarolinas, a con that has always treated me kindly and made me feel welcome. 

How about you? Are you easing back into the world yet? What kinds of public events have you been missing lo these many months? 

My Publishing Year: A Horror Show with Unexpected Heroism

2020, man. Whew. Don't those numbers just wear you out every time you see them? Between the pandemic, the social unrest, and the politics, I've never been so happy to see a year end. 

Oddly, it was an excellent publishing year for me, though. I guess there's balance in that? 

Seriously, though. I had eight works published in books this year! Holy-freaking-cow, that's a lot. 

Since time was this weird warped thing this year where days could last for years and months go by in a blink, I didn't really realize so much of my work had made it out there into the universe until I took a moment to look back and reflect. 

I am greatly amused to realize that I published 4 super-heroic works and 4 works of horror. That's 2020 in a nutshell isn't it--a horror show with unexpected heroism. 

Long time readers might remember that I had some publishing turmoil in late 2018, early 2019, when I had to reclaim my rights from a failing publisher and seek a new home for my work. The story has a happy continuation though, in that my Menopausal Superhero work is now housed with Falstaff Books, a thriving mid-size publisher out of Charlotte, North Carolina, full of the "Misfit Toys of Fiction." 

Because their publishing schedule didn't allow for seeing a fourth Menopausal Superhero novel into print until 2021, we decided to release short works in the series this year. Friend or Foe, a novella that bridges book 1 (Going Through the Change) and book 2 (Change of Life) came out in March of 2020. 

The Good Will Tour, a stand-alone adventure for Flygirl and Fuerte came out in May. 

And Through Thick and Thin, a collection of short stories set in the Menopausal Superheroes universe came out in August. 

Finally, all the short works were collected into an omnibus edition in Agents of Change, which includes all these works in a single volume and came out in November. 

While all this was happening, I was busy writing Be the Change, the fourth Menopausal Superhero novel. I'm in the last of my self-edits/revisions right now, with plans to send the finished book to Falstaff by January 1st. I think you're going to love this one--I know I fell in love with my character all over again writing their stories here. 

Then came the horror! Although horror was one of my first loves as a reader, I didn't start out writing it. In the past few years, though, more and more of my short work has leaned toward the weird and frightening, and this year, four of my horror short stories made it into anthologies. 

Stories We Tell After Midnight, Volume 2 from Crone Girls Press has been described as traditional horror. These are the kinds of horror stories that drew me into the genre in my youth--stories that give you a good shiver and might make it a little harder to fall asleep at night. That's not to say that they are staid, boring or without humor and innovation. My story, "The Cleaning Lady," began as part of a Halloween flash fiction challenge proposed by writing-friend Bliss Morgan and might have been influenced by the fact that I was watching Downton Abbey at the time and thinking about servant-master relationships. 

Slay: Stories of the Vampire Noire from Mocha Memoirs Press asked for vampire and vampire-slayer stories set in the African diaspora and featuring black characters. My daring little tale, "His Destroyer", is a retelling of the Passover story, about the 10th plague of Egypt during which the first-borns of Egyptians households were slaughtered. The story as I learned it never specified who exactly His Destroyer was, and how exactly the children were killed. So, I wrote this story imagining those details for myself. I gave myself the chills, so hopefully you'll get them, too, if you read it. This is a giant collection--with 29 stories of HUGE variety. I'm so excited to have my work included among such giants of the genre. 

Hindsight's 2020 came about when a group of writers who used to share a publisher came together as a support and recovery group for each other (yes, *that* publisher--see link above). Our theme was regret, or hindsight, and I wrote a wonderfully creepy little thing called "I Should Have Known" set in the Victorian era about love, sacrifice, and monstrosity. So much fun to write! 

Outsiders Within from Abstruse Press just came out yesterday! It's a collection of cosmic horror stories and you might enjoy your trip through madness with Margaret in my story, "Margaret Lets Her Self Go." This is the same press that published Deadman Humour: 13 Fears of a Clown in late 2019, which includes my bit of Lovecraftian horror, "The Gleewoman of Preservation." 

And if that's not enough of my work yet, you can also support the Kickstarter for Ravencon to read my story, "If the Moon is Real." Hear an excerpt here, on YouTube. 

Since Ravencon, a small Virginian convention close to my heart, had to cancel the 2020 and 2021 live events, they've put together this collection of short stories featuring corvids--a class of birds that includes the eponymous Raven of Ravencon. 

The hope is that the Kickstarter will earn enough money to keep the organization afloat and "in the black" until we can gather again as an unkindness or conspiracy of ravens in person. 

Because support has been so strong, they're already working on a stretch goal to create a second volume of the anthology! The Table of Contents includes some pretty impressive names as well as some new writers just establishing a foothold in the industry. Well worth the few dollars, AND you get to support a small convention at the same time. 

I've already got a few more works in the pipeline for 2021, so despite the weirdness of this year, I'm feeling pretty successful on the publishing front. If you've read any of these works, please drop a review on Amazon or Goodreads. Even just a few words is enough to help the visibility of my work. Just "I liked it" or "that woman writes some crazy stuff, yo!" is the best gift you could give me. 

Marketing from Home: Calling into the Void?

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Many of my writer-friends and publisher-friends are struggling this year. Convention after convention has been cancelled, and those in-person opportunities to talk about the work make up the bulk of sales for some of us. 

Attracting attention for small press and independently produced books is an uphill climb to begin with and a major tool in the kit was lost to COVID. Several have resorted to holding a Go Fund Me just to stay afloat/in business. 

I don't know yet how it's affecting my sales--there's lag when you work with a publisher. My last royalty check covered the first quarter, January-March, which still included conventions. It was higher than average. So, I'll see how the August statement compares when it gets here. 

I had two new releases in this span: Friend or Foe (novella, book 1.5 in the series) dropped right at the end of March and The Good Will Tour (novella, book 2.5 in the series) dropped in early May. So, that means I've got more revenue streams with that publisher right now. My first book in the series was on 99¢ sale on Kindle for most of the quarantine. I'm hoping all that helped. 

I've been taking advantage of online opportunities, participating in filmed Zoom panels, online convention content, podcasts, and readings. I've set a summer goal of producing one video a week for my YouTube page, which I definitely don't produce content for often enough. Some of these online opportunities take less time than my in person events would have--a couple of hours shut away in my office, but no road trip, networking meal before or after, or hotel stay. Others take longer because I have to learn new things to be able to participate. But it's much harder to gauge the reach. Who's watching? 

There's so much digital content out there, and the amount has only grown with everyone isolating at home and finding they have the time. Who's going to watch me read when they could listen to Patrick Stewart or Yo-Yo Ma? Even if I recolor my hair and buy new curtains. 

So maybe I'm wasting my time, but I try to look on the positive side. It's my nature to remain hopeful. All this digital footprint I'm building will linger and even if no one listens the week it's released, that great talk I had with Michael G. Williams on Public Domain Radio will there indefinitely. Someone could stumble across it at any time and discover an enthusiasm for the Menopausal Superheroes. 

That makes it worth it. 

And even if I don't find an audience this way, at least I still get to talk books and writing with bookish writing friends. The experiences themselves lift and enrich me. That's always worth it! 

May Reads

Reading has always been my escape, well, as long as I can remember anyway. But like a lot of readers I've talked to recently, falling into a story has been harder than usual for me during quarantine. 

That got worse here at the end of May with police violence leading to protests that became riots. My low-level restless anxiety and imagination full of what-ifs whipped into something larger and harder to ignore. I know a lot of creatives are struggling similarly, with creation as well as consumption of art. I'm managing slow forward progress on my writing still, and am hopeful I can pick up my pace again when the school year ends here in a couple of weeks. 

Despite my struggles, I still read eight books in May, and I really liked six of them. 

I read three books written by friends and colleagues: Gidion's Hunt by Bill Blume, Chasing the Dragon: A Sherlock Holmes Romantic Mystery by Alexandra Christian, and The Reckoning by DM Taylor. 

I've read other books by Alexandra, and I know from being there for some of her readings that her work is clever, sexy, and spiked with humor. Chasing the Dragon: A Sherlock Holmes Romantic Mystery was no exception. Her imagined love story for Sherlock Holmes plays beautifully in the known world of those stories while bringing Alexandra's strengths into play. I hope she writes more in this universe! 

Bill and I have been on panels together at conventions for a few years now, but I hadn't yet read any of his work. Gidion's Hunt  was sweet in a wholesome sort of way, especially considering that it's a story about a teenaged vampire hunter. I loved the family relationships and it looks like Bill has a great foundation for future books in the series in this first volume. 

DM Taylor is a writer I know from Instagram. The Reckoning is a time travel thriller with elements of women's fiction. I enjoyed it quite a bit! It took me a little longer to read this one because I read it as a Kindle edition, and I'm suffering from screen-time overload right now, which is making me prefer paper and audiobook reading to ebooks. 

I also read three graphic novels this month. Graphic novels can be read quickly, often in a single sitting, and the combination of art with narrative really works to suck me in when my attention is scattered. The Sixth Gun, Volume 3: Bound really pleased me. I read the first two in this series last month and loved the way this volume took the focus to Gord and deepened his backstory. I'm looking forward to reading more in this series!

Newprints and Endgames by Ru Xu were passed my way by my thirteen-year-old daughter who loved them. She's a huge fan of Blue, the main character, and I can see why--she's so forthright, scrappy, and determined. Unfortunately, the storytelling disappointed me in that the narration pulled back from hard emotional moments, avoiding conflict that the story really needed. 

The second volume in particular felt rushed, like two books worth of story had been crammed into only one. Still, it evokes a Little Orphan Annie feel in a wonderful steampunk setting and there's a lot to recommend them, especially to younger readers. 

My last two reads were disappointments. I'd been looking forward to reading The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern. I loved the cover and the premise of a secret society surrounding story and books intrigued me. I had positive memories of The Night Circus, so thought I might enjoy another book by the same author, but it really just didn't grab me at all. All atmosphere (gorgeous, beautifully rendered atmosphere) and no substance. Too light on plot and characterization to keep me, especially under current circumstances. 

Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse was my First Monday Classics Book Club choice for the month and it was a slog for me. I kind of had a feeling it was going to be, just remembering the kinds of people who touted its praises back in my undergrad years--almost exclusively entitled young men I didn't like all that much. But, still, I tried to go in without bias and give it a go. 

I found some beauty and insight in the text, but was left with the overall yucky feeling that I get from reading literary representations of male academics having midlife crises which they overcome by having affairs with far younger women. 

There's nothing for me in a story like that. I can't sympathize with the main character, and often can't sympathize with the young woman either because she's a manic pixie dream girl or a complete cypher. Maybe this one was the first novel of this type? I don't know. But it didn't feel innovative or interesting. I've seen this story many times and it's irritated me every time. 

Luckily I'm finishing May in the middle of two good books I'll tell you about in June: Magic for Liars by Sarah Gailey and The Haunting of the Tenth Avenue Theater by Alex Matsuo. 

What did you read in May? What's next on your list? I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments. 

What I Would've Done at Jordancon

Followers of my blog already know that I go to a few conventions every year and that I *love* this stuff. I get to talk writing and books and geeky wonderful content with writers, creatives, and fans all weekend. Sometimes, there are games and drinks and delicious food. Often, there are presents to buy in the vendor room.

Next weekend, April 17-19, I was schedule to go to JordanCon in Atlanta, Georgia, named for Robert Jordan, author of the Wheel of Time series. I haven't attended JordanCon before (a little further away from home than I generally go for weekend events during the school year), so a new convention for me, This is the first big event of my author life to be cancelled for COVID-19 quarantine, and I'm feeling its loss, especially after a month of being home.

My sister, me, and a Wookie at Conapalooza 2019. Guess which is which!

So, Friday, 17 April, I would have gotten up early, excited, happy, and a little sleepy. It's a 5.5 hour drive according to google maps, and I like to get there by lunch time when I can. I would have been happy about taking a day off of school to focus on my writer life.

I'd pick up my sister, who often goes to these events with me, and we'd hit the road, Stevia soda, nuts, and other vegan-friendly snacks in tow (she's vegan; I'm on omnivore). While I drove, we'd talk and catch up and sometimes sing along to power ballads from the 80s.

Nicole Givens Kurtz is one of the big reasons I applied to be a guest at JordanCon; she's attended this and other Atlanta events and talks so happily about her experiences there that I wanted in! So I would have been plotting to meet up with her on Friday, maybe catching lunch before the con really got rolling with her and her husband. Since she's also a publisher, she might have been busy at her table, but I could always bring take out to her if she can't get out.

Assuming I got there early enough, I'd walk around the con for a while, checking out the dealer's hall offerings and looking for con-friends to collect "long-time-no-see" hugs from, and locating all the rooms I had scheduled events in. I'd check in with my publisher, Falstaff Books, and arrange a time to come staff the table and sign books.

John Hartness, my publisher, when I said, "Look like someone
people would want to buy books from." 

Since my first scheduled event was "An Hour With . . ." session, which I gather to be an open author-chat session, with opportunities to interact with readers and maybe do a reading, I'd have been looking for Venessa Giunta because we were supposed to share the time and we've never met. Based on her website, I'm betting we would have hit it off. This time slot is kind of early in the convention, so we may or may not have had much audience. If we didn't, I'd ask my sister to record me doing a reading so I could post it to my YouTube later. 

At a lot of conventions I attend, I offer ten or twelve hours of programming, but I was pretty lightly scheduled for JordanCon. In fact, that was my only Friday commitment, so my sister and I would have chosen some other events to attend, gotten dinner with friends (new or old), and maybe found some music or dancing to end the night with. She's more of a night owl than me, so I might have gone to the room earlier than her, to get a little quiet and recoup time. While I love conventions, I have to allow myself proper introvert recharge time or I fall apart. 

Saturday, I love to start my convention days with room service breakfast, so assuming the hotel offered it, I'd enjoy some bacon and eggs with some fruit and coffee before venturing out into the world and having to be nice to people. My sister knows, so she wouldn't talk to me until after I consumed the coffee. 

I had a 10:00 a.m. panel scheduled on Character and Theme, in particular: superhero stories, character flaws, and how theme relates to internal and external plots. My fellow panelists would have been Bobby Nash, Aleron Kong, James Maxey, and Robyn Huss, so one acquaintance, one friend, and two strangers. From a promotion standpoint, I'd have been looking forward to this one. James knows me well and would "throw me a bone" if I had trouble getting in the conversation, and I was neither the least nor the most published author on the panel, which is a middle ground I'm comfortable in. 

Character flaws are so much fun to work with in superhero stories. In fact, each of my menopausal superheroes has been her own worst enemy in different scenarios, acting from the gut instead of from the head and making situations worse. 

No one illustrates this better than hot-headed, self-assured, and used-to-being-in charge Patricia O'Neill, the Lizard Woman of Springfield. 

I'd have been looking for an opportunity to talk about the time she got Leonel shot, or Suzie kidnapped and the self-blame and guilt she dealt with afterwards. 

Since my next panel wasn't until after 2:00, I'd have tried to have a writer lunch and talk writing life and life in general with interesting people before getting my head together for This Body Ain't Mine! a panel on body horror with MM Schill, Emily Lavin Leverett, and Nicole Givens Kurtz. 

I'm only a dabbler in horror, having published only some five or six short stories in the genre, but I'm a fan. Emily and Nicole are friends, and I was looking forward to meeting MM Schill, especially since she has an affiliation with Pseudopod, a venue I'd love to place work in. Nicole and Emily are both passionate, articulate women I'd talk about *anything* with, so I know the conversation would have been fierce, and, given the content, I'd have shuddered at least once. 

My contributions would probably have included references to movies like John Carpenter's The Thing, the 1978 Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and 2006's The Host as well as books like Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Lauren Beukes's Broken Monsters.  

image source

Almost right after the body horror panel, I'd have hopped over to talk about The Active Protagonist with Nicole (yay! two panels in a row!), Milton J Davis and Kyoko M. I haven't yet met Mr. Davis, but I know about him through Nicole and was looking forward to meeting him in person. After checking out the website, I was excited to meet Kyoko M, too. She who writes monsters? Heck yeah! Sign me up. 

The Active Protagonist doesn't have a panel description in my calendar, but I'd expect us to talk about the importance of agency for characters and some of our favorite take-action characters. I'm often bored by stories where a character just kind of sits and waits for something to happen and then reacts, so I have some strong opinions on this topic. 

Passivity is a hard sell for readers, and if the passive character is a woman? I'm likely to toss that book across the room (I break more Kindles . . .just kidding). A character doesn't have to be an overpowered machine to be the person who takes action; they just have to try something besides waiting or hiding when it comes to conflict. 

My panel day would have ended at that point, and I'd already be with Nicole, so if my other panelists were available, I'd propose dinner and further conversation and then look for some gaming or music fun in the evening. I probably wouldn't have found time to write yet, so I'd head back to the room kind of early and put down a couple hundred words on my WIP before sleep. 

image source

I only had one event on my Sunday calendar and it was a game! I'm a pretty avid boardgamer, and this was going to be my first time running a game at a con. Gloom is a storytelling card game with an Edward Gorey vibe. Each player receives a family of oddballs (circus freaks, eccentric misfits, etc.) and tries to kill off with the most negative points. 

The game uses transparent cards that stack atop one another covering points and adding life events to the story of each character like "was badly burned" or "was diverted by drink." There are some inherently hilarious ones like "was mauled by manatees" and "pursued by poodles." 

For me, the fun comes in the storytelling--elaborating on what the cards say to create a narrative for the short and unhappy lives of your characters as you gloom them to death. Mostly, I don't even care if I win.

I was really looking forward to my first time leading a game for strangers at a con like this, and hope it's something I'll be invited to do at future events. 

All in all, it would've been a great weekend and I hope for the chance to be a part of JordanCon (and other cons) in 2021! 

In the meantime, if you're a would-be con-goer, don't forget that your creatives rely on these events to sell their wares. If you have the means, consider still supporting the authors, game creators, clothing designers, jewelry makers, and collectors of fine geeky wares with online purchases. If we don't keep each other going now, some of our favorites won't be able to keep doing what you love! 

What I've Been Reading: January roundup

I love reading. When I was less employed I read two or three books a week, and I still try for one a week even with my day job, side hustle, and children to raise.

I think in narrative, which I guess makes sense for a writer, and if I'm not getting enough story in my life (both writing them and consuming them in books, movies, and programs) I'm a hot mess. I also LOVE talking with others about books, which is why I'm a bit of a book club junkie.  (The links in each will take you to my Goodreads reviews, something I reference, or to related blog posts on this blog).

So, here's what I read in January 2020. I'd love to hear from anyone else who read this books or wants to suggest other reads:

I started 2020 by finishing a book I started right as 2019 ended: Lovecraft Country by Matt Ruff. It's a book I'd heard good things about from some friends whose opinions I respect, and that I'd also seen receive criticism because it's a book written by a white man about black people.

Working from the premise that the Lovecraftian mythos is real, Ruff wrote a book that is as much about the horrors humans inflict on one another as it is about the Old Ones and mysticism and madness.

The story centers around an African American man and his friends and family in the Jim Crow United States of the 1950s and does not shy away from presenting the subtle and overt hatreds flung at the Turners. Using Lovecraft, an infamously racist writer, as the plot in such a book struck me as rather brilliant and I thought it well executed, but I'd love to hear from others who've read it.

Next up was Burial Rites by Hannah Kent. This was a neighborhood book club pick, and not one that I knew much about when I started reading. My friend Shannon Turlington suggested it. She's a very well read woman and has an eye for unusual and interesting stories, so I'm usually glad when I take her reading suggestions.

That was true this time, too. The story is set in the early 1800s in Iceland--talk about two things I know nothing about! The plot centers around Agnes Magnúsdóttir, the last person to be executed for a crime in Iceland. As her story unfolds and more details are revealed, the tension grows. Bleak and beautiful.

Well worth the read for the view into rural Icelandic life and the effects the landscape and rough conditions had on her people as well as for the fascinating imaginings of what the woman at the center of the case might have been like.

From there, I picked up The Turn of the Key, another book I'd heard quite a bit about. I'm a big fan of re-imaginings of beloved stories, the kinds of books I call "back door" or "side door" stories. The best of them do more than just change the setting--they affect how you view the original work.

This one is playing in Henry James's yard, bringing The Turn of the Screw into a more contemporary setting and bringing in some shades of Ray Bradbury with a smart house used to creepy effect.

I'm currently writing a gothic romance myself, so I'm steeping myself in works in the genre. This one does a great job utilizing the tension and possibly unreliable narrator I loved in James's book, while making it something new with the change of setting and new motivations for some characters. Quite good!

My next read was passed to me by my twelve-year-old daughter, a huge fan of graphic novels, especially those with LGBTTQQIAAP themes.

The Witch Boy by Molly Ostertag is set in a magical world that is highly gendered in societal roles--more so even than the world I actually live in, which still strikes me as heavily gendered in a lot of ways.

Aster is drawn to witchcraft, but males in his society are shifters and magic is for females only.

The story is very direct in its allegory, which made it feel a little preachy and lacking in subtlety to me, but my daughter, who is younger and less jaded, adored it. I wished the book had been longer, allowing the author space to stretch out some relationship building.

I met Daniel José Older at Illogicon in 2017. We were on a panel together recommending reading, and as you might expect from a panel featuring him (or me for that matter), we were looking for diverse reads. I added Older to my authors-to-check-out that day, and he finally made it to the top of my TBR.

I very much enjoyed the premise of Shadowshaper which involved a sort of magic that enabled an artist to imbue their work with spirit, quite literally. And for diversity points? Top marks.

Sierra Santiago is a great main character, realistically a teenager making some unwise decisions while she struggles to deal with the secrets and dangers that have newly come her way.

Sometimes the book felt a little on-the-nose to me, but it *is* a young adult novel, so too much subtlety may not be audience appropriate. The bad guy felt a little one-note and flat to me, but his minions were scary! I appreciated that Sierra still had her family around her, extended family even. I do get tired of the no-family trope in YA books, and this one had a message of reconnecting to your roots rather than escaping them that I could definitely read more of. 

So that was my January in books. What did you read? Have you read any of the books or authors I mentioned here? I'd love to hear you thoughts!