One Hot Mess

So many things! Let us start with the promo-ish things:

WILD is free for Amazon Prime members right now. Free stuff is awesome. Free stuff about werewolves and drugs is especially awesome. So if you want to enjoy some awesome free stuff, WILD might be right for you!

Ethan Banning is here to save your Christmas (should it need saving). ICE, ICE BABY is my Ethan Christmas Special, in which he almost has a completely nice Christmas Eve, marred only slightly by a corpse. Like my other two Ethan short stories, you can read this without having read AFTERLIFE or DEMONISED.

I've read some really amazing books recently and you should read them too! Carolyn Crane's Disillusionist trilogy is definitely one of my top picks for the year. I adore Jusine, the heroine, and the concept is very fresh, very dark, and very cool. If you like PI books, you might also try LM Pruitt's Taken, There's a touch of the supernatural, but this is mostly a straight-up crime novel, and I loved it.

If, like me, you've heard of SOPA but didn't really know anything about it, you might want to check this video out from TotalBiscuit, and enjoy his strangely sexy voice telling you how we're all doomed if this passes.

Kit Whitfield has been analysing opening sentences of classic books. Her blog is worth reading anyway, because she's very smart and very funny, but this series has been really fascinating.

Laura Bickle is counting down the Twelve Days of Nerdmas, which involves steampunk corsets and Cthulhu sweaters, and is therefore amazing.

And that's it! Happy Monday!

Obviously yesterday was a bad day and it should feel bad, and I didn't answer my writing meme question. Le gasp! So, two for one today.

15. Midway question! Tell us about a writer you admire, whether professional or not!

The first name that springs to mind is Richelle Mead, author of the Georgina Kincaid, Dark Swan, and Vampire Academy series. Firstly because I've loved everything she's written without fail. Secondly because to keep on top of three series and have them all be quality, engaging, emotional, beautifully-written books, she must work hella hard. Thirdly because that's the kind of career success I aspire to.

But there are so many other writers I admire. I love my friend rjpayne's  writing, and know she's going to be a massive success herself. Her short story, By Starlight, is one of the most hauntingly beautiful pieces I've ever read, the kind of story that stays with you long after you've finished it. And I know I'm not biased by friendship - By Starlight was placed fourth in the Interzone Readers' Poll 2009. Growing up I read Tamora Pierce's Immortals quartet over and over again, and those were the books that moved me from "I love reading books" to "I want to write books." I adore MR James and HP Lovecraft, and you can't talk about writers you admire without mentioning Shakespeare (well, I can't, anyway).

16. Do you write romantic relationships? How do you do with those, and how “far” are you willing to go in your writing?

Yes, I do. Love is a pretty big part of life, yo, so it would seem strange to me to never have relationships happen in a story, whether it's just hinted at or the main theme, or whatever. I think so far I've never written anything where the relationship was centre stage, always a subplot, but I don't shy away from sex scenes. On the other hand, I don't write particularly graphic scenes or erotica, because that just doesn't interest me as a writer. 

( Questions under the cut )

Because tedious work is tedious.

Bold the ones you’ve read COMPLETELY, italicize the ones you’ve read part of, and no cheating. Watching the movie or the cartoon doesn’t count. Abridged versions don’t count either.

( Snikt for books! )

On a personal note, I'd just like to add that I think The Time Traveller's Wife is a horrible book with appalling characters and I wish I could get back the two weeks I spent reading it.

I'm trying to write a bio for QueeredFiction. I don't know why I feel the need to provide a new one when there's a perfectly serviceable one on my website already, but I do. Possibly this is displacement activity, since if I'm writing a bio, I'm not doing Day Job Stuff. Always a good thing. The problem is, I can't think of anything to say about myself except "Naomi has a deep and unholy fascination with cephalopods, werewolves, and cocktails." Maybe that will do? Maybe I should make up a bunch of lies, like "Naomi travels in a pimped-out Mustang and always keeps a bottle of brandy and a flamethrower close at hand."

Anyway.

(I just copied and pasted the bio from my website, thinking I'd modify it accordingly, and have just deleted everything except the first line. Sigh).

Anyway.

I've also been pondering some more on the zombie/military UF. My ex-military heroine now has a name and a case of obsessive-compulsive disorder (got to keep everything clean when you're a plague-bearer, you know). I really, really want to write this book. I just need to settle on a title. I fancied Living Dead Girl, until I read Elizabeth Scott's book of the same name (it's an awesome, heart-wrenching book, you should all read it), and now I feel I can't use that title. Then I thought of Better Off Dead, but that's a bit too generically UF. So, I'm pondering more. I plan to start work properly once the Institute closes for Christmas (other projects allowing), so I'm sure the perfect title will hit me by then. If not, I'll just call it The Incredible and True Tale of the Zombie Plague Bearer and Her Brave Struggle with Hair Loss and leave it at that

I'm having a bit of an ebook buying binge. I decided that buying ebooks isn't as bad as buying actual books, because they don't take up floor/bookcase/desktop space. I promised myself recently (as I do at least once a month) that I wasn't buying any more paper books until I'd cleared my TBR pile, which is currently big enough to keep me going well into 2010. I've managed to stick to this promise for a whole three weeks now without cracking, which is definitely a record.

But ebooks, that's okay, right? I couldn't resist Stephanie Draven's new Nocturne Bite - I loved Midnight Medusa, and madlee276  recommended me a Louise Allen Historical Undone, so yeah. I've kind of been slow to embrace ebooks because I love paper books so much, but I've discovered some really cool authors through Samhain, Changeling, and Harlequin.

I went out for a drink with Pip last night, planning not to drink because, man, I drank so much raspberry vodka on Friday night, but there were passionfruit and vanilla martinis on offer, so I had to have one. It was pretty good, so that was okay. We ended up bitching about work, as usual, and I remarked that signing the contract with QueeredFiction has changed my mind about leaving the Institute. Not that I'm anywhere near ready to pack up the day job and write full-time, but I've felt much less edgy and frustrated since I got the news. The burning need to escape at all costs has receded a little because I've got the satisfaction and excitement of knowing I can make it as a writer, and that puts everything else into perspective.

I'm going to speak to my line manager about changing my working hours so I can finish earlier and fit more writing time in in the evenings. So the Escape from the Day Job of Firetop Mountain is off for now. Everything else is going too well for me to stay unhappy at work anymore. Hmm. I must be in love.

Only on myself, obviously.

chaostheoryand I had a write-in last night, and I added 3k to SILVER KISS, as evidenced below:

 

30218 / 60000 words. 50% done!

I'm a week behind my self-imposed deadline as last week I was frantically working on something else. Don't want to say much as I'm not confident about the outcome, but an opportunity came along that I couldn't say no to. With that in mind, I quietly pleased at how SILVER KISS is coming along, and hope I can make my goal of finishing the first draft by late July/early August.

I also managed 400 words on a submission for Samhain's 2010 Angels and Demons anthology:

 

2015 / 20000 words. 10% done!

The deadline for this isn't until November, so I can afford to take it slowly for a bit, but I'd love to get it in well before the deadline. Sigh. Another reason to reconsider the day job... They really are mounting up.

ETA: My long-time friend and writing buddy laburton is self-publishing her first novel, STORM OF MAGICK, this summer, and she's just unveiled the cover. Go take a look - it's gorgeous!

Holy crap.

I just finished this on my lunch break - it's amazing! I had to go and buy Pretties immediately, despite the fact that I've yet to pay this month's council tax and promised myself only yesterday that I wouldn't buy any more books until I cleared the mammoth leviathan that is my TBR pile. But I HAVE to know what happens next!

For reasons best known to ... myself, I suppose, I read a lot of vampire books last month. I've got a bit of a love/hate relationship with vampire books - LKH scarred me deeply, but Richelle Mead and Jocelynn Drake have restored my faith somewhat.

( Click for pretty pictures! )