I know there’s some skepticism that I’ll ever get around to the followup to Beyond the Darkening. To demonstrate that I am, in fact, working on Beyond the Burning Moon, here’s a peek at the first chapter.

DISCLAIMER: This is a work in progress, not the final draft, so just grit your teeth and persevere through the rough spots, which I’m well aware are numerous. This is what happens when the first draft is a disaster and every revision pass a nightmare that never ends…

Read the rest of this entry »

For whatever reason, there’s been an unusual amount of great reader email during the past couple of days. It made me cry this morning because that’s just the kind of dork I am. I’ll thank everybody personally when I can be less of a blubbering idiot, but I just wanted to make it known that the words of encouragement are appreciated.

Sometime later this week, when it’s a little bit more presentable, I’ll post a chapter of what I’m working on to demonstrate your support has not been in vain.

(UPDATE: I’ve answered all my email. If you’re one of the aforementioned people and didn’t hear from me, your email address bounced. So, a blanket “thank you” for anyone I missed. You didn’t have to take the time to say, “Hey, good job,” but you did. Words like that make a difference in people’s lives, and I feel very fortunate to be the recipient of them.)

1. It takes more than a week to detox from the internet. I’ve quit every group I’ve ever joined. I’ve stopped checking my sales ranks every hour. Twitter is pretty much dead for me after the account reset.  I don’t read any blogs except the funny ones because of this tendency people have to be redundant and/or infuriating and my crazy desire to avoid being bored and/or infuriated. For 23 hours 57 minutes a day, I have no valid reason to open a browser. I do it anyway. OMG maybe I have comment spam! *squee* I do!

I’m quivering in anticipation of my May 25 book order, not because of the books, but because I’ll have five glorious days of refreshing the UPS tracking screen. 

It doesn't take that long to WALK from New Jersey.

2. There’s a reason drugstore mineral makeup is so much cheaper than Bare Minerals. I was trying to be thrifty. This was a bad way to do it. It takes six times more powder to get the same coverage, which takes six times longer to apply, and by the time you get six layers of powder on your face, it doesn’t look “natural” at all. Also, it’s scented, which makes my eyes burn and really calls into question the general integrity of the product. I mean, if they’re adding perfume, why not oxycholmagisicinese-42? Also, my face looks like I’ve dipped it in baby oil an hour after I put the cheap stuff on, and an hour after I wash it off, there’s another oil slick. Makeup that makes your skin nasty even when you’re not wearing it = not good.

Maybe he's born with it. Maybe he needs some Mineral Veil ASAP.

3. All songs are really about necrophilia. I often have music playing in the background. Sometimes my concentration falters, and a random lyric leaps to my attention. The leaping lyrics this week all seemed to relate to love and death, prompting me to mentally subtitle something The Necrophilia Album. Ever since, I’ve been able to apply this theory to any song by any artist. The romantic allure of the music man is greatly diminished at this point. Yeah, he’s not afraid to express his feelings, but his feelings are that he’d like you to be dead so he can make sweet love to your corpse, in which case an emotionally stunted man who likes a woman with a pulse suddenly becomes a whole lot more appealing.

Sensitive artistes or carcass cuddlers? I think the answer is obvious.

4. VH1 may not be the best source of relationship advice. They were playing a show about 100 things that make men undateable, which just made me feel sorry for men. Don’t despair, guys. Not all women are humorless, superficial, materialistic bitches. Okay, I agree that Crocs are not appropriate footwear for anyone at any time, but if you want to wear a T-shirt with a stupid joke printed on it and narrate in the voice of Donald Duck while playing video games, that sounds like a fun Friday night to me.

You might want to stay away from Rock Band and Guitar Hero, however, to avoid even the remote association with those creepy cadaver-humping musician types.

Xbox? On second thought, you are undateable.

What have YOU learned lately?

Quick note for anyone who’s been waiting for The Nights Before Christmas for their Nook:

It has arrived.

Link added to Books page and excerpt.

I’m burning down The Lab.

1. My email overwhelmingly indicates publishing-related crap is boring and offputting to readers.

2. It’s consuming an enormous amount of my time that could be put to better use doing, oh, just about anything.

3. My email overwhelmingly indicates publishing-related crap is boring and offputting to readers.

4. I was provoked into doing it in the first place by anger (seldom a good start for a project, FYI), and with a little distance from the inciting event, I’m able to see that I can accomplish the same goal of cutting the opportunistic mooch off at the knees by simply not sharing any further information (representing a time savings of 100%).

5. My email overwhelmingly indicates publishing-related crap is boring and offputting to readers.

So, my apologies for diverting from my (admittedly rather flimsy) policy here. One more violation I’m obligated to perform, and then I’m done with posts about publishing-related crap because it’s BORING AND OFFPUTTING TO READERS. (Believe me, I know. As a person who writes, I’m supposed to have an interest in this kind of stuff, but it bores the hell out of me, too.)

If you’ll bear with me for a little longer, there’s more haha and free fic in the pipe.