Cover Contest WHAT'S LEFT OF KISSES

Lovely offerings for the historical collection of novellas -- this was a tough one, so I am really impressed by the submissions. Vote below in the comment section for your favorite.


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Cover Contest Submissions - A SHOT IN THE DARK

Here are the submissions -- please vote in the comments below!

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Cover Contest Submission - SLAY RIDE

Here are the submissions for SLAY RIDE. Vote for your favorite in the comments below.


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I Hate Writing

Well, no. Not really.
 

But as I'm working on this new story, I've been thinking about what an odd thing writing is.

Not storytelling. Humans have been telling stories to each other around the campfire since there was a campfire. No, I’m thinking about writing itself. The craft of telling a story -- which is unique and personal to each author.

Granted, genre fiction has always been more about the story than the craft of telling the story, but even so. Every author has a personal and private relationship with each story he or she writes. We can never experience the story as the reader does. But the reader can never experience the story as we do either.

That seems so weird to me sometimes. Especially when discussing the book with readers.

Anyway.

I like outlines for longer works. I know some writers feel like outlines kill spontaneity, but I don’t mean a point-by-point chiseled-in-stone outline. I mean I like thinking the story through and writing out the first and most obvious scenario. That’s what an outline is. You answer most of the basic questions before you start writing.

But of course writing is an organic process, whether you use an outline or not, and as I write, the story evolves, changes, deepens. So a lot of those first choices change. They would anyway, but having an outline means I’ve already done the original thinking and can move immediately to the next level. It saves time and I think it results in a more complex story than I would otherwise write.

But with or without an outline GOD IN HEAVEN I find the first draft to be hell. Hell, hell, unmitigated HATE IT hell. That first draft is torture. No matter how short the story, no matter how long it’s been simmering, whether there is an outline…it just doesn’t matter. It’s hell. I hate writing every word of the first draft.

No, I mean I hate writing. Period. I always wonder all the way through the first draft why I ever wanted to be a writer. What was I thinking?

I think part of why it’s so hard to write a first draft is that…letting go and sinking into the story. It’s the same thing readers do…let go and sink into the world of imagination. The difference is the writer has to do it first. The writer has to create the world for the reader. That first layer of imagination is the writer’s.

And it’s hard laying that foundation. It is extremely difficult to build an imaginary universe out of words alone, probably more so than ever in this visual age -- to create a world convincing enough to distract the reader from her own insanely busy world, to create characters whose fictional concerns temporarily supersede the concerns of the real life people she knows?

I guess that’s what I struggle with during the course of the first draft. It takes awhile before the world of my imagination is concrete enough that I see anything but typed words when I open the file. All that first draft I -- every writer -- struggles to black out the real world long enough to build the structure of the story world. Brick by brick, word by word.

And then it’s done. That horrible, wretched, deformed mess of a first draft is lying there finished. Well, I use the word "finished" lightly because the damn thing is barely started.

Ideally I like to just hand it off to my editor and forget it for as long as possible. Not even think of it again.

But then when I do finally come back to it, something has changed. It’s actually exciting to open that file and start the rewrite. That rewrite is, well, not fun. No. But this is where the magic happens. This is where the story comes to life. For me, I mean. Until then, it’s just words on a page and a lot of ideas and feelings. But when the rewrite starts, it does really change. Everything changes. I start to layer in the, er, layers. Emotional backstory, for one. Not the who-went-to-college-where or that unfortunate shooting incident. No, that’s mostly first draft stuff. Second draft is all emotional backstory. The psychological nitty-gritty. Who the heck ARE these people. Really.

So many revelations, so many layers. None of them possible until that godawful first draft is done and complete....

 

Excerpt from EVERYTHING I KNOW

As promised, here's an excerpt from the work in progress. TOTALLY unedited, please remember and judge not.

“Mr. Conner! Mr. Connor!” squeaked a familiar voice.

Con looked away from the frozen food case – veggie sausage patties? Really? – and smiled at the sight of Dizzy Miss Lizzy running toward him, her black patent leather shoes smack, smack, smacking the wood floor of Trader Joe’s.  His instinctive pleasure drained at the sight of the square, sinewy figure following silently in Lizzy’s wake. Con’s smile straightened into a thin line, his eyes hardened.

He tried though. He didn’t want Lizzy to think for an instant that his hostile feelings extended to her. He dredged up a stiff smile and tried to infuse a little warmth into his, “Hey, Miss Lizzy.”

“Mr. Connor, we’re having ice cream.” Lizzy reached up a skinny arm – Con winced inwardly at the site of the sticker-covered cast  on the other – with every expectation of being picked up. But Con could no more have picked her up than he could have run her over with his grocery cart. He wasn’t sure he would ever pick up a child again. He went cold just remembering that contemptuous, What kind of normal grown man chooses to hang around little kids? with all that it implied.

“That’s great, Lizzy.”

“Up,” Lizzy prompted.

If Con’s smile got any tighter, he was going to pull a muscle in his neck.

Wes Callahan now reached them. He wore faded jeans, a red tee shirt, and an  expression as grim as Con’s felt.

“Myers.” His brown eyes were dark and direct.

“Callahan.” Con was equally brusque.

“Up,” Lizzy commanded.

Callahan said, “Angel, Mr. Myers has to buy his groceries.”

His little angel slipped her hand into Con’s and confided, “I’m not talking to Daddy.”

Me neither. But Con didn’t say it. Instead he got out, probably with all the warmth of a social robot, “That doesn’t solve problems.”

Lizzy was unimpressed. “Michael J. tried to feed one of Miss Pip’s goldfish to Roscoe.”

Con said weakly, “Uh…”

“Daddy! I like this flavor.” Lizzy darted away to press her face against the glass door of the case across the aisle. “Daddy, this kind.”

“I guess I’m forgiven,” Callahan observed wryly. He was looking at Con. He even smiled, sort of, as he added, “For the moment.”

Con turned, opened the frozen food case and grabbed the first thing he could reach. Anyone else he would have asked the usual things. How was Lizzy doing? How was Mr. Callahan doing? But obviously Lizzy was doing fine, and making polite conversation to her asshole of a father was beyond Con.

“Look, Myers,” Callahan began awkwardly.

Con threw a couple of packets of frozen brown rice in his cart and let the case door swing shut. He pushed his cart away, but Lizzy came darting back like a little butterfly.

“Mr. Connor, you didn’t sign my cast.”

“Angel, Mr. Con—Myers will sign your cast when he comes back to school.”

Con stopped rolling his cart and threw a disgusted look at Callahan. Wasn’t that typical of the kind of parent Callahan was? Blithely lying to his kid so he didn’t have to be bothered with the awkwardness of telling an unhappy truth.

Callahan looked red and even a little uncomfortable as he met Con’s fierce gaze.

Con said to Lizzy, “If you’re still wearing a cast the next time I see you, I’ll sign it. Okay?”

Lizzy’s rosebud mouth turned down. Her dark eyes looked mournful. “But when are you coming back to school?”

Okay, maybe it wasn’t all that easy to tell unhappy truths. “We’ll have to see how it works out,” Con hedged. He gave his cart a nudge, aware that he was trying to sidle away. There were other shoppers around them now and this was getting more awkward by the minute.

“What?” Callahan said.

Lizzy began to cry. That was mostly about her father’s harsh tone of voice rather than anything Con had said. She couldn’t know what Con was really saying.

“What are you talking about, Meyers?” Callahan demanded.

Really? In public? Right there than in the frozen food aisle? In front of Lizzy? Con gave Callahan another of those scornful looks and determinedly wheeled his cart away. Behind him he could hear Lizzy making little mooing sounds – but that was okay. That was her crying-for-attention voice. Her father was quieting her, his deep voice reassuring but refreshingly brisk. Refreshing, because Dizzy Miss Lizzy had Wes Callahan neatly twined around her littlest finger. Good. Con hoped she’d run him ragged when she hit her teens.

But no more thinking about Lizzy or her homophobic dad. No more worrying about the family dynamics of his former students. Or the fact that Michael J. had tried to poison Con’s rabbit – former rabbit -- with sushi. It wasn’t his problem anymore. It wasn’t his business.

Con wheeled his cart into the shortest line and before he knew it, he had his bag of groceries and was walking out into the warm dusk.

Cover Contest

Make that contestS because there are several possibilities here. Four covers and four potential cover commissions.

If you saw my post on cover art at Sid Love's last week, you're aware that I'm working on a couple of little things before I dive back into Boy with the Painful Tattoo. And, as I've done before, I thought it would be fun and possibly inspirational to solicit art from readers .

I'm paying $75.00 for each winning cover (not including any photos that must be purchased) and the artist of course gets a cover credit inside the book.

There's not a huge amount of time on this because...I'm not that organized and this is how it's working out.  So basically the deadline is March 17th and then that gives readers a chance to pick finalists, and then me a chance to pick the winners. Assuming there are any entrants -- and assuming I like the covers!

So here are the projects:

1 – SLAY RIDE – A hardboiled Christmas short story set in the 1940s during World War II. Based on a true and rather grim event in the western US.

2 – WHAT'S LEFT OF KISSES?** – A collection of my historical novellas. The stories will include The Dark Farewell, Snowball in Hell, Out of the Blue, Slay Ride, and maybe This Rough Magic. So that offers several possibilities for the cover (and you can learn more about each title at my website where there are excerpts, etc.)

**The title is from a quote by Bertolt Brecht: “The human race tends to remember the abuses to which it has been subjected rather than the endearments. What's left of kisses? Wounds, however, leave scars.” **

3 – A SHOT IN THE DARK: 2 Novellas – The collection contains This Rough Magic and Ill Met by Moonlight.

4 - EVERYTHING I KNOW - contemporary novella about a young teacher wrongfully fired because of the thoughtless comments of a student's father (in other words, I have no idea how to explain this story).

Those are the projects. Everyone is welcome to submit -- professional, aspiring professional, and just-enjoy-fooling-around-with-clipart.

 Here's how it's going to work (at least in theory). Create your cover in jpeg format - 500 x 750 for our purposes (thanks to Lou Harper for pointing this out!) Remember to consider how the cover will look when shrunk down to thumbnail size.

On the 17th I'm going to post each title and the submission art. The art will be posted without the name of the artist to try and keep it impersonal and focused on the work.

On the 21st I will post the finalists. Of course if there aren't a lot of entries that simplifies that! And then on the 24th, I'll pick my winners.

If you need to purchase photos, try and select from Shutterstock because I already have an account there, and that makes it simple. Please don't use photos or cover art that is not in public domain (unless it can be licensed at a reasonable cost).

I think that's it. Feel free to post questions below.

Sounding off about ACX (Is there an echo in here?)

This is not the post I planned to write today. I was going to blether on about the pleasures of writing in layers, but I'm distracted by the latest announcement from ACX/Audible/Amazon about cutting "royalties" for the audio books they sell. Basically royalties on any of my forthcoming audio works will drop a minimum of 10 - 11%. You can read the announcement here.

First of all, can we stop calling our percentage of these sales "royalties"? They are not royalties. We are financing and producing our own books and ACX/Audible/Amazon is our vendor. They are not our publisher and they are not paying advances and they are not fronting any of the costs nor supplying any support or help along the way. They are providing the sales channels for our work -- and establishing their own monopoly at the same time. So that's the first thing.

The second thing is...wow.

I do not understand why there is no viable alternative to ACX/Audible. WHY does no one come up with a viable alternative? ACX/Audible is not that far out in front. They are still vulnerable to a serious challenge. Why does no one challenge them? Audio books are a potential goldmine. This is one of the biggest publishing stories out there, an area of huge potential growth for all of us. But no. Nothing. Not a flicker on the horizon. (Okay, maybe a flicker from B&N, but now I can't even find the article, so it was probably more of a death twitch.)

You have to give Amazon credit because they have the vision and they have the drive to make these things happen -- and to make them happen easily (The Audio Creative Exchange is a BRILLIANT concept).

AND they have the rapacious greed.

ACX says: We are lowering the royalties as we continue our mission to accommodate more audiobook productions. Our royalties still remain well above those offered by traditional audiobook publishers.

I mean, you do have to at least snicker at the outright in-your-face boldness. We're doing it because we now feel comfortable that we own the lion's share of the market. That's pretty much the message there.

As for the comment about traditional audiobook publishers? Traditional audiobook publishers FRONT THE COST OF THE AUDIOBOOK. So yes, it makes sense they don't pay as high "royalties."  I mean, it's one thing to rob us at gunpoint. Do you have to giggle maniacally in our face while you're doing it?

So what does this mean? I have readers asking me if it means no more audio books.

No. It doesn't mean that. Because ACX/Audible/Amazon has calculated correctly as usual. I understand that audio is a solid secondary revenue stream for me, and I understand that 40% is better than nothing (and so far nothing is the alternative), I understand that, so far, there is no viable alternative, and I understand that the audio market will continue to grow -- and that many of my readers love and appreciate these audio books.

I get it. So yes, I will continue to produce audio books through ACX/Audible/Amazon while hoping, praying, someone comes along with a real live viable alternative.

Here's the thing I want to communicate to my fellow ACXers though, because it only just occurred to me. When I commissioned my audio books, I did not think of asking all my narrators for copies of my files. The files are uploaded directly to ACX and I am betting that the vast majority of us don't ask for copies and don't give the original files another thought. But in seven years our contract with ACX expires and we are free to take the files elsewhere. Except if we don't have the files...

Yeah.

Now in seven years who knows. Seven years is a long time. Maybe we would want new narrators? Maybe the technology will have changed so much these audio files would be useless. But not having options is never a good thing.

 
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Little update: There is a petition being circulated. It's narrator-centric -- I don't think most of us would agree that the boom in the audiobook industry is solely and strictly due to narrators -- but it gives an opportunity to voice your thoughts and share with ACX/Audible how their actions are perceived by their own customers. Please sign if you can.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Coming in 2014

Wait…that’s NOW!

 

So 2014 is upon us like the wolf upon the fold, and I have been hemming and hawing about what’s coming up from yours truly. And partly that’s because I hate to commit lest I fail to deliver, and partly it’s because having the illusion of creative freedom keeps me more…creative.

 

But two projects are contracted and already have release dates. Those would be Stranger on the Shore due out from Carina Press May 5^th (yes, you can preorder, it’s already in edits) and Fair Play, the sequel to Fair Game. (I think FP is due out in November -- also through Carina Press.)

 

So really those are the only two projects absolutely set in stone. That said, there are a couple of things planned for this year that will happen -- I’m just leery about attaching dates to them.

 

The Boy with the Painful Tattoo (Book 3 in the Holmes & Moriarity series). Much anticipated, I know. I’ve got some 15 queries in my inbox at the moment. The hope (and prayer) is to have this out before the summer. It should have been out before now, but to be honest it’s a tricky place in the series -- a turning point -- and I keep mulling over it and trying to decide what I really want to do here.

 

Yes, it will be in digital, print, and audio.

 

Also pretty much for sure this year is Winter Kill (digital, print, audio). That’s the one about the FBI agent and the sheriff’s deputy in the Pacific Northwest (serial killer, environmentalists, Native Americans, etc.)

 

Then we have all the Very Likely to Happen (maybe even before the Will Happens, and those include Ill Met by Moonlight (sequel to This Rough Magic) and Bite Club (sequel to Mummy Dearest). These are both novellas which means pretty quick and easy to write provided I don’t get distracted and lured away by other projects.

 

Ill Met By Moonlight will be paired with TRM in a print anthology -- and there will be an audio book. There should also be a general historical print collection with a new short story. I’m sort of tossing that idea around to figure out what would work best -- should I include IMbM and TRM in that? Or should I leave them in their own print collection? Or both? I’m undecided.

 

I believe I mentioned elsewhere that the last three Adrien English novels have been picked up for Japanese translation by Shinshokan? And we’re continuing to look into more possibilities for translation in other corners of the globe.

 

Finally we have the stuff that should happen, but I don’t want to think about right now: Haunted Heart: Spring, Dangerous Ground 6, Christmas stories, etc. I am very eager to write the sequel to Snowball in Hell, but the original story I’d planned is now pushed back for a book or two within the series. In the words of Stewie the GPS voice…recalculating. And that long talked about project inspired by The Monument Men seems like maybe its time has come...

 

The reality is I can only do 4 -5 projects a year without straining -- strain does not produce the best work, so it’s a matter of figuring out the right projects for the right time. And how I do that is to calculate what I am most eager to write with what you are most eager to read. Sometimes I come up with the perfect solution. Sometimes…not so much.

 

Anyway, that’s where we stand as of this moment. Things could change. They often do. And very often what you have to say plays a part in that. So feel free to speak up now!

 

Three Interview Questions You’re Not Expecting with the Loverly Z.A. Maxfield!

As you may or may not be aware, my longtime pal Z.A. Maxfield is hitting the road again with a new book. My Heartache Cowboy is the sequel to her popular mainstream release My Cowboy Heart. (If you haven't read it, it's classic ZAM. What are you waiting for?!)


I invited Z.A. to stop by and amuse the troops, and she turned the tables on me and dragged me into the interview room too!


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Hi Josh! Thanks for having me over here chez vous today! A lot of people probably know this by now, but you’re actually the reason I established an Internet blog presence. (I’m sure people are lining up to send you thank you cards. NOT)

I joined LiveJournal to read those posts you used to write about writers, writing, and the work you were doing back then. You were right in the middle of Adrien English and just starting to explore the world of Romance… I think I came in right around the release of The Dark Horse, and of course that led me to read the book The Charioteer by Mary Renault.

I looked to you and other successful writers like you back then for book recommends, writing tips, moral support, and a shoulder to cry on and you have always been so generous. Not only with me, but with all the people in your sphere of influence. So thanks for everything you’ve done, I wish I could be as good a mentee as you’ve been at mentoring me, but hey…I can only do what I can do…

I guess you can’t blame the path for the people on it… *snorts*  

Today I thought I’d do an interview format, and see if you’ll answer too…  

Three Interview Questions You’re Not Expecting.  

Three Books On A Desert Island -- This is like Marry, Kill or Shag only with books. You’ve got nothing to do, you have nothing to burn, and you have no toilet paper. What you do have is three books from tenth grade English. Fahrenheit 451, A Tale of Two Cities, and A Separate Peace. Read, burn, er...utilize in another way. Go... 

ZAM - Are there no leaves on this island? Is there no driftwood? Must I??? Really, must I???? 

Okay, if I must, I’d have to say, it just seems fitting to burn Fahrenheit 451, doesn’t it? I’ve read it, and I enjoyed it, but it’s not going to keep me warm unless I burn it.  

A Tale of Two Cities? Yep. I’m keeping that one. Not because I love a Separate Peace any less, but because if I’m going to spend all my time crying on a desert island, I’m going to do it with a longer read. It will take more of my time to get through A Tale of Two Cities than to read A Separate Peace, but the outcome is going to be the same: red swollen eyes, sobbing and despair. But at least at the end of A Tale of Two Cities, it will be a noble kind of despair.

True, and somewhat funny/sad story. On my daughter’s 10^th grade language arts syllabus, right on the top, the teacher put the 1 (800) number for the Teen Suicide Prevention Hotline. It was almost as if they took a look at books like A Separate Peace, A Tale of Two Cities, Of Mice and Men, The Brute, Medea, Frankenstein, and Antigone and thought, wait…

:-(

 

Josh? Do you want to play with those books, or do you want to spin the magic wheel of books and find three different books for your answer? 

Awww. I love A Separate Peace. I get choked up just thinking about it! I’m saving that. Anyway, I’m probably saving all of them because apparently I’m going to be dying of starvation and exposure quite soon anyway, so I’ll need something to take my mind off it. Reading and bracing sea baths. If I do break down, the first book I eat will be Fahrenheit 451, as I’ve always found it a lot to digest.

;-D

 

What will you bring for the coming cowboy apocalypse? Forget Zombies, the Cowboys are coming. Here’s what I’m bringing:

 Texas Caviar

1/2 onion finely diced

1/2 cup each finely diced red and green bell peppers

1 bunch green onions finely chopped (white part and some green)

1/2 bunch chopped parsley

1 basket cherry tomatoes, quartered

2 jalapeno peppers seeded and finely chopped (wear gloves, please)

1 T. fresh oregano chopped

3 T. minced garlic

2 cups vinaigrette

3 cans (15 ounce) black eyed peas rinsed and drained

1 can black beans

 

Combine all ingredients and let marinate in the refrigerator overnight. Serve with tortilla chips and lots of beer.

Funny/true story. My husband bought a bag of “UCLA corn chips” at Christmas. This did nothing to amuse my UCSC and UCI students, despite the fact that they were blue and gold, the correct colors for both my kids’ schools. Apparently they tasted, “Of betrayal.”

Josh, what are you bringing to the Cowboy Apocalypse?

 Oh man, I LOVE that Texas Caviar stuff. One reason I prefer zombies to cowboys is they don’t care about the hors d’oeuvres. MORE FOR ME.

Well, let’s see. You may be surprised to hear I spent several formative summers with cowboys. Elderly cowboys, yes, but cowboys nonetheless. So I am bringing what I know cowboys love. A twelve-pack of Coors beer (I know, I know!!) and the hottest freaking chili I can find.

I don’t eat chili though, so I will ask our readers to supply me with some good chili recipes. Anybody have a good chili recipe out there? Best chili recipe ever? Come on!  

And finally, which of your characters would survive a round of no-holds-barred dodgeball?

Out of all my characters, I think the winner would be Yamane from Drawn Together. Yamane’s tough. He’s resilient. I wrote him to be a true badass, deep down. I’m always likely to pick the little guy to win -- the underdog, the one who’s a little outmanned and outgunned but never outsmarted. That’s just how I like things, so naturally, I’m going to pick the most unlikely character and let him win it all.

Apologies to Samuel Colt, but fiction is the great equalizer. In my work, I have the opportunity to right all the world’s wrongs (as I see them) and settle old scores through the characters I create. So look out, ballers. Yamane is coming atcha.

 Josh? Which of your guys is the biggest badass.

Hmm. I was going to let Taylor MacAllister from the Dangerous Ground series take this one; he’s good at sports and is definitely a bad ass, but then I thought noooo, let’s let a REAL athlete at this one. So I’m choosing Mitchell Evans of Lone Star. Yeah, he’s a ballet dancer, and probably the only character I’ve created who can lift a grown woman over his head. He can leap six feet off the ground from a full stop, so I think he’s probably got this dodgeball thing nailed.




Thank you to Z.A. for stopping by -- and here's wishing her another bestseller!