Category: Life and Other Fun

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the day job

Like many independent authors, I can not give up my day job because it is the only thing keeping a roof over my head and the internet paid for.  Which isn’t to say that sales have been bad.  But if I was relying on book sales to keep me ensconced in comfy pajama pants and cat videos on demand, I’d be sleeping in a cardboard box.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining.  Fifteen years ago I wouldn’t even have gotten a book published (believe me, I tried), so every sale is something special.   And I LOVE the shifting dynamics of the publishing world.  There are so many outlets for books that might never have come to be, and so many new ways of reading content.  It’s truly delightful.

However, that does mean a market saturation, which makes each book sale something you have to work for.  And marketing a book is more work than anyone can guess, unless you’ve done it.

So, it’s a good thing I like what I do for a living.  Doesn’t mean I wouldn’t rather spend my days writing, but I make do with the knowledge that I get to hone my editing skills every day.  I’m also grateful that I work in tech, where I can wear Star Wars and Supernatural t-shirts every day and dye my hair green and sport a variety of tattoos…and no one even looks at me sideways.

Speaking of the day job, the office is waking up around me so I guess I should go pour that second cup of coffee and get to it.  Happy Monday, Readers!

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one of the girls

One of my favorite things in the world right now is the growing awareness of female writers in genres that have been dominated by men for as far back as books have been getting published.  In fact, it’s one of the reasons that I embraced alternative publishing right from the beginning.

In the “traditional publishing” world, what gets published is decided by a small group of people, traditionally older white men, so it’s no surprise that they gravitate toward male writers who write male characters in worlds populated mostly by men and women who are there mostly to serve as a love interest or sex object.

But today, with all kinds of self-publishing and hybrid publishing options opening up, plus the appearance of more and more small and niche publishing companies, women are finding ways to get their voices heard.  So far this year I’ve read something like 10 books (I’m woefully behind due to writing obligations), and a full 7 of those have been written by women.

Most exciting for me is the growing abundance of women authors writing female characters in worlds of sci-fi and fantasy, bringing characters to life that are all the varied things women can be, and building diversity into the worlds they create.  I’ve long turned to science fiction for normalizing the unusual, and now it is stepping beyond the science fiction that I first learned about things like homosexuality, group marriage, alternative religions and other things I hadn’t been exposed to, and showing some real inclusivity.

Women of color are emerging as authors as well as characters.  Old, tired stories are getting pushed aside for some exciting and new tales that are refreshing, challenging, that press our sense of self to the side to experience a sense of someone else, and it’s these books that I find myself wanting to set aside the daily grind for.  My commute is far more than a train ride from the East Bay into San Francisco when I dig for my bookmark and immerse myself in an alternative time line or a space empire or a fantasy land where magic flows.

I’m currently reading The Fifth Season, by N.K. Jemisin.  It’s challenging, and it took me a bit to connect to her changing narrative, but on page 69, I’m hooked in and find myself wishing the train ride took a little longer.

I found this book on a reading list of women writing women in sci-fi and fantasy, as part of a conference I’m going to in October.  I’m looking forward to finding myself in a group of women who write, who read.

Got a suggestion for a good book from a female author?  Drop a note in the comments so I can add it to my reading list.

 

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a festival of books

I have a confession to make.  I have never been to a book festival or convention or other celebration of books.  Not as a reader, certainly not as a writer.  Some of the reasons for this are fundamental issues of who I am, namely the agoraphobic part of who I am.  Large crowds, even mediocre crowds in small spaces make me sweat, palpitate, hyperventilate and ultimately need to leave quickly unless I do an awful lot of prep work first.

So, when I show up on Sunday, June 4th at Civic Center Park in Berkeley, California, I will be attending my first event.

babf_logo The Bay Area Book Festival is in it’s third year, and while I’d love to be able to attend some of the talks and such on Saturday, I have other obligations.  But come Sunday morning, I will load up my cart with books and a table cloth (reminder to self, get a tablecloth), my tablet and credit cart doohicky plus a bunch of water and snacks for the day, and I will BART myself into Berkeley and find my assigned place in the park for the day.

Of course, I hope to sell enough books to break even on the day, but beyond that, my hope is that I can keep my agoraphobic anxiety down and that I get to meet new folks, talk about my books and other books.  I’d love to meet readers who are passionate about what they read and love.  I’d also love to meet fellow authors who are passionate about what they write and love.

If it isn’t too much to hope for, I’m going to hope that some of my friends and family come out to see me too.  It isn’t every day an author gets to do their first event like this…and if I’m being truthful, maybe having someone watch my table for a bit while I look around would be awesome too.

So, if you’re somewhere in the San Francisco Bay area and fancy some book loving come Sunday, June 4th, you should hope on BART and take yourself to the Berkeley Civic Center station.  The park is just a short walk away.

I won’t be too hard to find.  I’ll be the author with green hair, probably wearing a fedora or other hat, and possibly a Star Wars shirt, depending on my mood.  Come Say HI!

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not your mama’s fairy tales

One of the projects I’m working on right now is the assembly and edit of an (as yet unnamed) anthology of short stories from fellow Creativia authors that all stem from the same prompt. It amazes me how so many authors can begin in the same place and take such divergent paths to weave together stories that end up very, very different.

Now that I’ve finally finished my own submission (dragons!) for the anthology, I’m getting started on the work of editing and compiling.

Considering the prompt, I’m expecting anything from anti-fairy-tales to twists on fairy-tales and much more.  I’m excited to get started and I can’t wait to share the finished product with you.

I’m still expecting a few more submissions, with the deadline still two weeks away.  I’m hoping that this will be a fun way for our group to introduce our fellow authors to our own fans.  We’re a diverse group, writing in many genres.

But for now, I need to get back to the day job!

 

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the choices we make

I am childless by choice.  When I was younger I thought I wanted a big family, with lots of kids.  Then I thought I only wanted one.  I even took a few steps toward making it happen.  But in the end, I eventually realized that I did not need a child born from my body to fulfill some societal construction of being a woman.

Which isn’t to say that I haven’t been a mother.  In the years when my two nieces were young, I lived with my brother and his wife and I helped parent two amazing people.  I showered all of my mothering on them, and they turned out to be beautiful young adults.

I’m not knocking those who chose to give birth.  I think it’s a beautiful thing.  I stand in awe of mothers everyday.  I know my own mother is a super-hero in my eyes.  Always has been. My parents split when I was 11, and my mother had primary custody.

Divorce is always ugly for the kids, even when the parents do their best to shield them from the acrimony.  I was old enough to see it all, and while I thought I knew what was going on, I can see looking back that I didn’t understand it all.

But, life after the break up was tough.  My mother did her best though, and she loved us fiercely.  I learned a lot of life skills from her.  I learned compassion and sacrifice from her.

I didn’t need to give birth to understand motherhood.  I didn’t need an infant in my arms to know unconditional love.  I chose to give my mothering to those in need, from my nieces, to the homeless, from pets to families struggling with poverty around the globe.  These are my children, and I could never love them as I do without learning that love from my own mother.

So, happy Mother’s Day, to my mother, my sister-in-law, all of you who mother, whether your own child or others who need you.  The choices we make define us.  Choose love first.

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donations, community, partners

Sometimes I think that the Mondays that follow productive weekends are harder than the ones that follow lazy weekends. We’re heading into the time of year when I have little time for lazy.  There are obligations and volunteer duties, family time and other crazy stuff.

I have volunteered with San Francisco Pride for better than ten years, working in the Donations Partners department.  Essentially, we are the people who greet festival goers with big pink pickle buckets asking for donations to help support the parade and festival. This year I have stepped up to manage the Donations Partners.  It’s a huge task, and a lot of responsibility, but I confess that I love the challenge.

You may wonder where that donation money goes.  And who are all of those people with the buckets anyway?

We partner with community organizations, non-profit groups that work with the LGBT community in some way.  They come from all sections of the spectrum, from groups that work with the homeless, to social organizations, from youth groups to cheerleaders, from churches to other religious groups, from local community centers to drag queens and their courts. Each of these organizations provides volunteers to do the bucket thing.

It’s a long day of work, but each hour that a volunteer works earns money for their organization.  At the end of the festival, the donations money is tallied up, and some of it goes back to the Pride organization to help pay the bills.  The rest is divided up into an hourly rate, and each of the partner organizations gets a grant based on the number of hours their volunteers put in.

Unfortunately, the work puts a bit of a quash on my writing.  Which was my long winded way of saying that I didn’t get much writing done this weekend.  But I did get to take my 68 year old mother to a tattoo shop for the first time in her life.  We took my niece to get her ears pierced.  It was an experience, I’ll say.

But no writing.  I guess I’ll have to try harder through the week.  I need to finish my short story so I can start editing for the anthology, and then I can get back to the world of Shades and Shadows.

 

 

 

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gregarious green

There’s something about going green…I mean, it’s not like it’s strange these days to see people with wild colors in their hair.  On a daily basis I see blues and pinks and purples in a variety of shades and styles.  But green isn’t as common.

I’ve always loved the color, from a faded mint to a dusty sage to a deep emerald to a dark hunter…it reminds me of the earth, of things that grow, things that are natural.

I tried it out back in February, when I wore a green wig to a convention.  I got so many compliments that I determined that one day I’d just do it. Go green.

Of course, it wasn’t as easy as just grabbing some green hair dye.  No, not when I’ve been dying my hair some shade of red for at least 6 years (since the last time I decided to go nuts, bleach it and do fun things with it).  I took me 3 bleachings and a color stripping to get to a blond enough blond that I could dye it green.

I had some moments of apprehension.  What if my work place wasn’t as progressive as I thought it was?  What if I hated it once it was done?  Didn’t stop me though.

Funny thing, this green hair.  I find my self-confidence bolstered,  I find myself happy when I look in the mirror, I find my anxiety levels a little less than they were.  And, people seem to like it.  Sure, I’ve had a few people look at me as if I’m nuts, but most of them smile and nod.  Some even tell me they like it.  People at work love it.

That too makes me smile.  Sure, I’ll be forty-nine in September, but numbers will never prevent me from seeking out what makes me happy.

I hope you can say the same.  Be yourself and put a little color in your life!

In the sequel to Through Shade and Shadow, we meet Zero, a teenage character who expresses herself through wigs that range from the mundane to the outlandish. None of them have been green yet.  I may have to fix that!