Want a KindleGraph?

So this is incredibly cool! Let’s say you own a copy of one of my books on Kindle. “How I wish I could have this wonderful novel autographed,” you sigh. “With something personal and written by the author just for me… but alas, my book is digital and has no paper to write on!”

Weep no more, dear readers, because the brilliant folks at KindleGraph have come up with a solution.

I can now create personalized digital autographs for any reader, near or far, who would like to have one! Just go to my page on KindleGraph and let me know you want it, and I’ll whip something up just for you. No expensive travel to see me (especially since I can so rarely travel to make appearances to begin with…) and no waiting in lines! KindleGraph turns the inscription into collectible file you can download onto your own e-reader.

And no, you don’t have to own a copy of the books to request a KindleGraph. You don’t even have to own a Kindle, for that matter.  ^~  Go check it out. It’s pretty darned cool.  :)

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Moo!

I have been waiting impatiently for what feels like forever (but was, in fact, just a little over a week) to get my new Moo Minicards in the mail. These things are SO AWESOME!! The print quality is amazing, you can see all the teeny tiny details of the images, and the cardstock is thicker than a regular business card. I’m in love. For the first set I decided to use a couple of my 3D renders, just to see what the results would look like. Now that I know what these cards are capable of I have all kinds of ideas for Moo cards… more 3D characters — maybe individual portraits? – and book covers too, of course. I’m also dying to make a few for Prayer of the Handmaiden even though it will likely be a good while before I have a print copy of that in my hands.  *grins*  And before I go too crazy with the card-ordering I really probably ought to make sure that I am finding plenty of readers to give them away to, yes?

Anyway, I decided to try a little crafty project by using a bit of grosgrain ribbon and some sticky-back magnet strips to make magnetic bookmarks; just connected two minicards with a bit of ribbon and used the sticky side of the magnet to stick the ribbon to the cards. They’re super cute, see?

I only made a handful of them since I didn’t have very many magnet strips, but they turned out so well that when Shasta got home from work tonight and caught sight of them, she immediately demanded I make one for her too. *grins* Then I got extra industrious and printed out some simple business cards with my book covers on them, a little thank you message, and a “Please enjoy this free magnetic bookmark” clause across the top. Clip the bookmarks to the cards and voila! Sexy little book promotion swag, hee!

I’ve never really used promotional items like these before — for a while I was making blue feather necklaces, skull-shaped pirate rings and character-themed perfume oils, but honestly, those were really more for my own fun and need to work on something crafty than they were for real promotional purposes. I think I’m slowly getting better at shamelessly whoring myself promoting my books in regular conversations with folks, and every now and then I find myself scribbling down the name of my books or my website url on some cocktail napkin for somebody — these cards are a much cuter and  more professional way of giving out my information. Not to mention, they’re so cute that it’s actually *tempting* to whip them out in the middle of a completely unrelated conversation just so I can show them off!  “Hey, by the way, check these out, aren’t they cool?  I write lesbian romance novels, you should look them up sometime!” I’m kind of kicking myself for not having done this ages ago. 

Sirens is in just a couple weeks. I’m so excited, seriously… this is going to be SO MUCH FUN. I have a great list of discussion questions in regard to the topic of LGBTQ monsters, so I can’t wait for the round table discussion! Also, I’m finishing up reading books by the three guests of honor, and still contemplating which sessions I’m going to attend during the day in order to work up the ideal conference schedule. ^~ I’m trying to convince my wife to head up there with me as well. She’d be able to run around the mountains hiking or biking or reading or whatever else she wanted to do while I was at the conference during the day, and I think we’d have a really great time together…

 

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Nell Stark on Girls Who Bite

 Fellow Bold Strokes Books author Nell Stark wrote a great guest blog over at Girls Who Bite. Check it out – lesbian vampires and a discussion of the absolutely fantastic everafter trilogy that she co-wrote with Trinity Tam!

Straightening YA Fiction

Came across a livejournal post today from authors Rachel Manija Brown and Sherwood Smith, originally posted here on Genreville, that makes me deeply, deeply sad.

Apparently these two excellent and accomplished YA authors were approached by an agent who offered to sign a book they had co-authored — provided that they make the one gay character in the story non-gay (or else remove him altogether.)

I won’t repost the full details, as I’m encouraging you to check the post out for yourselves in all its maddening glory, but the bottom line is that it’s so very, very sad to know that this type of thing is still going on in the world of literature. *sigh* I guess maybe I’m spoiled, since Bold Strokes Books is a LGBTQ publisher and I’ve never thought twice about the gay-ness of my characters. Heck, I wrote my first novel long before I even knew there was any such thing as gay and lesbian fiction out there. I wrote it for myself, and for my online friends, because I wanted to create a story that was something I’d want to read myself… and it wasn’t until I’d actually finished the whole monstrous 180,000 word thing that it occurred to me that maybe I could try to get it published.

Honestly, I never even considered the possibility that a mainstream publishing house would want my book. I’d never seen any of my favorite publishers put out  a book that was anything remotely like what I’d just written – but I was over the moon when I googled “lesbian publishers” and discovered that there were smaller independent presses out there that actually do publish gay and lesbian romance. Up until that point, I’d had no idea that such books even existed. I sent my monster of a manuscript off and I’ve never looked back since.

Now, though, with the advent of Malinda Lo’s successful mainstream novels Ash and Huntress (both lesbian YA fantasy published by powerhouse Little, Brown) and a steady increase in interest among YA readers and authors alike in diversity  in YA stories, I’m starting to think more often of the accessibility, or lack thereof, of LGBTQ fiction in the mainstream.

Why shouldn’t there be gay characters in YA fiction? Or starring (not just placed artfully off to the side to add “color”) in mainstream romance? In mainstream fantasy and sci-fi, for that matter? Occasionally you might find some truly excellent LGBTQ fiction in the mainstream (Sarah Waters is a stellar example) but usually such novels are quite literary/weighty/artsy.  And the weighty-artsy stuff IS awesome, but what if you just want something that’s pure and simple fun? Something you can devour easily right alongside the four hundred other equally devourable novels filling your e-reader?

Don’t get me wrong. I LOVE Bold Strokes Books (and Bella, and Intaglio, and all the other indie LGBTQ publishers out there) and I wouldn’t trade my work with them for all the big-name publishing contracts in the world. I think these companies are doing something truly amazing for the genre by publishing stories that mainstream publishers hesitate to touch for fear that sales will not be high enough to turn the profits they’re accustomed to. And I think they’ve really cultivated the LGBTQ literature market in doing so, which is awesome for readers and writers alike. But it irks me that said big-name publishers seem to have discounted the market for gay and lesbian stories. And not only discounting, but actually attempting to SUPPRESS that market, if Rachel and Sherwood’s story is any indication.

So I tip my hat to these two authors, who would turn down an agent contract for the sake of preserving the diversity of their stories. I tip my hat to all the other authors out there who have encountered this kind of ridiculous censoring in their own attempts to share their stories with the rest of the world. And I extend my deepest gratitude to all the readers who are *dying* to get their hands on such stories, and who snap up copies of every one that does manage to get put out there through the courage of writers, agents, editors and publishers who aren’t cowed by the thought of a GAY BOOK.

Also, I’ve wanted to write a YA novel (or series, perhaps) for quite a long time now.  As of today I think this project has just significantly elevated itself in my list of priorities. The world needs more of these stories, folks… so that we can make frustrating encounters like these a thing of the past.

Hoping For Ithyrian Dreams…

I updated the blog a bit tonight… mostly small changes that will hopefully de-clutter some of the social sharing buttons I was using (and add Google+, since I’m pretty sure it’s going to become as popular as Facebook relatively quickly) and made my little Facebook badge more functional. Also fixed some formatting issues that were causing links to render strangely in IE, etc., etc.

Mostly, I have to admit, I worked on blog formatting because I’m still not 100% decided on a lot of the details I’m going to need in order to write the next few scenes of Prayer of the Handmaiden. So… I’m procrastinating, until those details present themselves clearly enough to be turned into prose. :P

With all the hiking my wife and I did this weekend (my butt is going to be SORE tomorrow!!) I didn’t get to finish any more DAZ projects either. But I’m sort of hoping the muse will return this week with the PotH details I need so I can move forward with the story. Wish me Ithyrian dreams tonight, folks! :) Usually that’s where I end up with most of my answers…

Another New Violet Render

Wanted to do something a little different with Violet, so I put her on the Ice Queen‘s rigging… and got her smiling. Sadly I could not find any boots for her to wear that did not have ridiculous little heels on them. Please. No self-respecting pirate is going to prance around the slippery decks of a ship and climb rigging in HEELS. *sigh* But alas, I could not find a realistic approximation, and so we will just have to deal with the silly heeled boots…

You can view this along with other Branded Ann renders on the 3d Characters page, too!

GoodLesbianBooks.com

The ladies over at Good Lesbian Books posted reviews for Sword of the Guardian and Branded Ann that I just came across today. Yay!!!! You guys should definitely check them out!

“Sword of the Guardian by Merry Shannon is fantastic. A fantasy set in a mythical kingdom with a weak king, a lot of political problems, and dark forces moving under the surface to take the throne, I loved this book. It’s also far longer than I expected, was worth every penny, and I’d happily recommend to any reader of fantasy, whatever their personal sexual preferences. This book won an impressive sweep of awards and mentions, especially considering it’s Merry Shannon’s first published book (something that gave me a double take, as I would have sworn it was too good to be a first novel)…”

Go here to read the rest!

And,

“I’m impressed all over again by the believability of the writing, the ease one becomes immersed – the enormous amount of research the author has clearly done to create a natural seeming, accurate and mesmerising setting. The conflict between Ann and Violet is masterfully drawn, and I was constantly sympathising with each in turn against the other.”

Go here for the rest of this one!

Also, I am in love with Good Lesbian Books’ “The Muse of Lesbian Literature” poster:

WANT!!!!!

Violet’s “Ivory Silk” Gown

So after re-doing a Branded Ann-and-Violet-on-the-island render for the new Moo Minicards I just ordered (so excited to get them!!) I then went a little overboard with the Daz-ing and started working on some fresh renders of the Branded Ann characters. You can see them on the Branded Ann 3D Characters page, but I’m going to blog them too because I’m just so happy with how they turned out!

I started with some fun renders of Violet, and this one is probably my favorite; I wanted to see what she’d look like in an outfit similar to the ivory silk gown she’s given by the Spanish merchants (somewhere in chapter four or five, I believe.) HOT.

Have others to share as well, and I’m hoping to get some more done for Ann this weekend, maybe… :)

75% Done with PotH!

With the three-day weekend I was able to squeeze in about five hours of writing time yesterday (luxury!!) and managed to get chapter 14 finished. It was a great chapter to write, too — full of highly emotional scenes and the first love scene of the novel, so I really wanted to take my time with it and do the scenes justice.

Chapter 15 leads us into what I’ve been thinking of as the pre-climactic scene of the novel, the beginning of the end, the start of the final conflict, so I’m really starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel now (even if the characters have got no idea what’s coming at them.) There should only be four or five chapters left at this point, so working hard to make every single one count — maybe I’ll actually get this dratted thing finished before the year is out after all, hm? :P

I did a lot of thinking about the crafting of the love scene in this chapter — I think I put more thought into this one than in any that I’ve written so far, because in this case everything about the scene, the way the characters relate to each other, the positions they choose, the emotional and physical connection that’s established between them, are all pivotal to the heart of the story itself. It got me thinking about how, when I wrote love scenes in SotG and Branded Ann, I mostly just wrote them as I “felt” them… I wasn’t deliberately trying to infuse the scenes with a deeper meaning, but was just writing what seemed organic to the characters at that point in the story. Still, I think if I were to go back and read through them I could probably find a lot of telling characterization and relationship development in those scenes too. It only makes sense — sex is always a definitive moment between two people, whether the encounter is casual or laden with meaning. Anyway, point being, I think I learned a lot from Kade and Erinda in the last few pages. Can’t wait to see this through with them to the end! :)