The End of a Chapter

I’m a few days late, as usual, but I wanted to give you an update about the state of Trapping a Duchess and At Journey’s End, now that my publisher, Republica Press, has closed its doors. I will miss Emma and Aaron greatly, and wish them the best of luck in their future endeavors.

For the time being, both titles will remain available for purchase on Amazon (in both print and digital formats) and, of course, on my website (if you prefer signed copies).

There are great things happening over here and soon, I’ll be able to share them with you. In the meantime, however, bear with me. :)

Many of you have asked about the podcast for At Journey’s End. I’m sorry to say that, for now at least, the podcast has been put on the back burner indefinitely.

The most important thing to me at the moment is getting Dancing with Darkness (Penelope and Gabriel’s story) finished. This last year has been full of love, loss and lunacy, all of which affected my writing. Now, however, the story is unfolding at light speed (or candlelight speed, as it were) and I hope to have it in a readable state within the next three to four months.

Thank you for sticking this series out. And for putting up with me as a writer.

It means more to me than you could ever know.

~mich

P.S. As is always the case, one novel leads to another. In the process of writing Dancing with Darkness, I’ve come up with an outline for Vixen by Night, which is the fourth (and final) book in the series. It is, of course, Simon’s story. And all I’m going to say is this: Vixen’s heroine, Lady Olivia Drake, is going to be a character you will never forget.

Houston, We [REDACTED] a Problem

If I’ve learned anything this past week regarding the Paypal terms of service debacle, it’s this: If you believe in a cause, then it’s worth the fight.

It seems logical, doesn’t it? And yet there have been many times when I’ve thought, “I can’t scream loud enough to get the attention of a company that large.” I’m just one voice.

But you’re never just one voice. The world is too big. One Who may not be loud enough for the Grinch to take notice, but get them all together holding hands singing “fah who for-aze” and lo and behold, CHRISTMAS IS BACK!

Today, Paypal issued an update (or at least an intent to update) their Acceptable Use Policy. You can read the full blog post here. The short short version is that they’ve clarified that they will ”focus this policy only on e-books that contain potentially illegal images, not e-books that are limited to just text. The policy will prohibit use of PayPal for the sale of e-books that contain child pornography, or e-books with text and obscene images of rape, bestiality or incest (as defined by the U.S. legal standard for obscenity: material that appeals to the prurient interest, depicts sexual conduct in a patently offensive way, and lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value).”

Is it a victory? Yes, and no. Erotica in text form is safe (for now), but as Grim points out, there is definite potential for censorship of art, comic and games. Worse, Paypal has offered no assurances that this visual content will be judged by the standard (the courts and the Miller Test), but rather by Paypal themselves.

One step forward, two steps back? That might be an overstatement, but the bottom line is that we’ve won the battle, but not the war. In the upcoming months, lending our voices will be as important as it was this past week. Censorship, as a concept, isn’t genre (or media) specific.

Don’t get me wrong…I’m not about to put away my bottle of Riesling just because we only took a few steps on the moon. Getting there was the victory.

I, for one, could not be more thrilled to have been a part of the mission.  That being said, I want to thank everyone who lent a voice, especially the lovely Remittance Girl, who organized a fantastic group of folks at Banned Writers (of which I am proud to be a part); Eden Connor, whose awesome interviews provided personal insight from erotic writers; Mark Coker over at Smashwords, whose articulate (and professional) correspondence proved invaluable; and to the long list of co-signatories who fought the good fight by our side.

Thank you!!!

~Mich

 

Tough or Not, It’s a Subject Worth Explaining

This morning, I was stumbling about in the kitchen, waiting for the coffee maker to drip out a pot of liquid tranquility.

A quick check of my e-mails proved the whole PayPal issue wasn’t just some annoying dream. Twitter proved pretty much the same, except with a slight difference: not a single mention of what I consider to be an attack on our rights. No bother, I think as the smell of coffee fills the air. I send out a tweet, get a snarky response and move on.

“What’s wrong?” my thirteen year old (who we lovingly call Vampira) asks.

“Oh, it’s just this thing PayPal is doing.”

Instead of responding with her usual “okay” and a discussion about something going on in her life, she gives me one of those prompting looks.

I was raised in a home where very few subjects were taboo, and have done my best to do the same with my own kids.

With an impressive lack of Godzilla-like roaring and stomping, I explain the issue to her. She listens attentively (though, admittedly, with wrinkled nose) as I list the content PayPal has chosen to ban. Her disgust at these topics is evident; she is, after all, thirteen. Still, I can practically see her mind churning as she asks questions and listens to my answers.

A note: I’ll go as far as to explain how I feel and why, but I’m not going to push my opinions down her throat. If she says she agrees with PayPal, we’ll just agree to disagree (kind of like we did when she was in kindergarten and insisted that George Bush was the best president ever and anyone who voted against him was the devil).

Then she hits me with this:

Her: “So, wait. You said no selling anything that has…sex with animals.” (Cringe)

Me: “Right.”

Her: “Do they mean animal animals or anything that’s not human?”

(more…)

Because I Said So…It Wasn’t Good Enough When My Mama Said It, Either.

Imagine walking into the grocery store to buy your favorite fruit and being told at checkout that you aren’t allowed to buy it. It’s not good for you, that fruit. It might make you want to do something crazy, like mix it with other fruits or, heaven forbid, something savory. You will be forever tainted and morally compromised. Your children will bear the mark of your fruity ways and so on and so forth.

I’m oversimplifying, to be sure, but this whole PayPal censorship debacle is as irritating to me as a flea bite. Or a pimple on my butt.

There are a ton of well-articulated posts from educated writers, bloggers and the like on why what PayPal is doing is wrong. I’ve linked to some of them at the bottom of this post. I encourage you to read them and get involved.

The bottom line is, PayPal has no right to decide what is morally proper for consumption, no right to tell me, an educated adult, what I can and cannot buy. By tossing down the Terms of Service card and forcing companies like Smashwords, AllRomanceEbooks and others to pull titles that offend PayPal’s tender sensibilities, they are violating one of my fundamental rights – the right to make my own decisions.

Erotic writers, even those who venture into “darker” territories like non-consensual sex, incest and bestiality, have a legal right to sell their stories. I’m not the first person to say it, but it bears repeating: there is no law against that type of content. Whether you find it distasteful or not, they have as much right to publish it as the reader has to buy it.

Since when did PayPal decide they needed to regulate my purchases? And if they think those topics are too much for me to handle, who’s to say they won’t decide that anything other than missionary sex is too much? How far will I allow them to go in deciding what content is available?

This, more than anything, is the issue for me.

PayPal’s slogan is “The fastest way to send money,” not “The fastest way to send money for things we deem morally proper.” If I want to read about some guy making it with a horse (I don’t, but that’s beside the point), that’s my business. I wouldn’t let my bank refuse to pay because they take issue with what I’m purchasing. I’d be at my local branch raising all kinds of Godzilla-type ruckus.

And that’s what needs to be done in this scenario. Don’t think about it in terms of “who cares if that offensive stuff disappears,” think of it in terms of “what happens when they find my stuff offensive?” Because that’s what it boils down to. When you allow a company to draw a line like that, you’re one step away from relinquishing your freedom.

Freedom to write, freedom to read, freedom to choose.

Think about it.

(more…)

A Quick Hello

Well, a quick hello and an update.

Dancing With Darkness is coming along. I know I keep saying that, but it is. For the first time since I started this novel, I have written three consecutive chapters without rewriting anything. This is a good sign. :)

I’ll keep you updated as I progress. Thanks for hanging in there with me as I work to make this novel the best one yet!

*smooches*

~mich

Um…What Was This Novel Called Again?

I have a love-hate relationship with Twitter. At times, my timeline is a dream, all the people I follow geniuses, and being a part of it is a genuine pleasure. Other times, I wish I could punch every single one of said geniuses in their virtual naughty bits and delete them from my memory forever. I’ve threatened to cancel my Twitter account I-don’t-know-how-many times (in my head, and occasionally even out loud, causing the Chick-Fil-A drive-thru attendant to ask if I could please repeat my order), set my account to private and even gone on month-long hiatuses (well…hiatus, singular, and I didn’t last the entire month, but I digress).

Why am I telling you this?

Because to go all George Costanza on your asses, I realized something:  it’s not you, it’s me.

Over the past six months, I’ve learned a bit about myself; something beyond the fact that I am slowly turning into one of those grouchy old women who yells at kids, considers anyone younger than 30 to be an idiot and breaks wind in the supermarket.

After my dad died, I felt like I would never write again. And then, one day, I felt like I would never stop writing. Not in an I’m so clever I have a zillion stories to tell kind of way, but in a whiny, everything I write turns to shit way. It wasn’t writer’s block; it was writer’s manure and I hadn’t just stepped in it, I’d created it.

Bear with me here…

As most of you know, I’ve been working on my third novel. And when I say working, I mean moaning and groaning about it until my brain is so full of bitching, even the characters don’t want anything to do with me. I don’t blame them. If you’ve read my books, then you’ve met the main character of Novel 3.0. He isn’t the sort to tolerate self-centered whining. And he certainly isn’t the sort  to offer himself up (naked, or otherwise) on a silver platter just to appease my creative crisis.

And so, I’ve spent the last six months relearning how to write. And it’s been HORRIBLE.

Okay, that’s not entirely true…in fact, it’s total rubbish. Somewhere, deep inside me, this story exists. It’s taken longer than usual to pull it to the forefront, partly because life keeps getting in the way, partly because I expend a great deal of time and energy convincing myself I’m not dying (well, I am, but only bit by bit, as we humans are wont to do) and partly because I have convinced myself that this is The Book. If you’re asking yourself, what the bloody hell does she mean by that? then a) thank you for sticking with me thus far and b) The Book is the one I, as a writer, hope will take me to the next level in my writing.

And yes, as writers I believe we want that with every book. We want to grow with every word, sprout leaves with every story and in general, turn into the Giving Tree by the time we’ve died and someone has (finally!) decided our work would make a great movie. And therein lay the rub. My first novel was exactly that, a first novel. I love it for what it is, for its simplistic story line and for the characters who not only came alive on the page, but in my heart. I love it for the same reason I love the first poem I ever wrote–because I proved to myself that I could.

(more…)

Poetry, Death, Inlaws, the Time Warp and a TARDIS Booty Call

Forgive me, lovelies, for I have sinned. Wait…that’s nothing new, is it? :P

But it has been months since my last post. Why? I could fill a book with reasons (there’s a writer joke in there somewhere).

A few months ago, I was looking through old pictures trying to find a particular one of my dad and me. For those of you who don’t follow me on Twitter (for shame!), my Dad was diagnosed with cancer a few days after my last post. He died a little over a week later. And before you cry for me, Argentina, know that I am coping with the loss the best way I know how, by surrounding myself with the people and things that I love. Losing Dad was the first time I’d lost a really close relative (my great-grandmother only died about five years ago). Yes, I am one of those fortunate people who haven’t had to say goodbye to too many of their loved ones. I don’t think I ever realized how lucky I was. No…that’s not true. I know I never realized. But I do now. I miss my Dad very much. And there are times when I swear I can still hear him say “It’s going to be okay, babe,” in his thick New Jersey accent. He was an amazing man; still is, if you ask me. He will always be the man I measure every other against. For that, I am eternally grateful. :)

Anyway…back to me sorting through pictures. I never did find the one I was looking for. I did, however, find a few poems, including the first one I ever wrote. It was written for my Mom on Valentine’s Day and goes a little something like this:

I love you
I love you
I love you, I do.
If I were a shoelace, I’d give you a shoe.

It’s okay. You can laugh. I did, both out loud and quite heartily. I’m happy to say I’ve outgrown my proclivity for rhyming. And for comparing the people I adore to something that invariably ends up harboring the bacteria of muddy streets and disgusting bathroom stalls. I’m also happy to say that the purple and pink scented markers I used to draw the hearts on the paper have lost their scent. I can only imagine how awful those hearts would have smelled nearly thirty years later. I am, however, going to send that card to my Mom next Valentine’s Day. Not just because I think she’ll laugh as loud as I did, but because my feelings towards her haven’t changed since then. I would still give her a shoe. I know she would do the same for me. Which brings me to my next topic: Inlaws.

In three days’ time…three sleeps, as my husband describes it…I will be meeting my new inlaws for the first time. Don’t tell anyone, but I’m incredibly nervous. Excited and thrilled and ecstatic, but still nervous. Apparently, you don’t outgrow stuff like that with age. :)

And now you’re wondering, as is a certain Cornishman (mostly because he’s looking over my shoulder), what is up with the title of this post? I have no idea. It sounded good at the time and quite frankly, I’m too tired to think of anything cleverer. Well, perhaps that’s not entirely true. The time warp came to mind because that’s how I’ve felt about my writing for the last few months. I’m going to write this. No, I’m going to write that. Maybe I won’t write anything. Oh, stop being a whiny bitch and just WRITE. These thoughts are like shiny red apples. They pop into my head and I decide I need to bite into them. And I do. But then time passes and the air turns my beautifully bitten ideas that awful brown color and I look at that great apple of thought and wonder why I ever considered it a great idea. That’s what happened with The Earl’s Solstice. So, after forty plus thousand words…I decided not to write it.

That’s right, I said it. I’m not writing The Earl’s Solstice. Not right now, at any rate. In my months of soul-searching (translated as somewhere between burying my dad and playing Minecraft until my eyes bleed), I reached one of those conclusions most writers seem to reach at one point or another during their careers: Now is not the time. It’s not the time to write Simon and Olivia’s story.

[This is the point in my internal monologue when my muse turns into a female Godzilla, curses me for wasting her time and then storms out of the room with all the drama of a thirteen year old girl who just found out the boy of her dreams wouldn't be caught dead with a geek girl.]

My muse is a temperamental thing. Can’t imagine where that comes from. But I digress…

I am not writing The Earl’s Solstice because I’m writing Dancing with Darkness. It’s Gabriel’s story. Well, Gabriel AND Penelope’s story. And writing it seemed the next logical step in the series. So far, I’m only about 10K words in, but it’s coming along nicely. In some ways, it’s been easier to write than TES was. If you want my opinion, it’s because it’s fresh. It’s a good thing, too, because the research required to tell Gabe’s story is no picnic. It’s tedious. And distracting. And on more than one occasion, I have sat down to write armed with great ideas and a clear game plan, only to find myself zero words later having a discussion with my husband over the logistics of weapons. Or researching politics. Or staring at topographical maps of towns I never thought I’d be able to pronounce properly, much less write about. Research, my darlings, is the best reminder that you don’t know nearly as much as you think you do. I love it, almost as much as I love writing. Almost.

(more…)

After the Whining…

(Queue Engelbert Humperdink’s song After the Lovin’)

I should apologize for the earworm, but if I have to suffer through it, so should you. :)

Quite a bit has happened since my last post, both with The Earl’s Solstice and my personal life. As this is not the place where I spill my life’s secrets, I’ll give you the short-short version. Last year I met my soon-to-be husband online. I am, as evidenced by my accent, American. He is English. Well…he’s Cornish. I am learning there is a distinction between the two. He came over for a visit last June, then another last September and finally another in December. We married in February and have been trudging through the immigration process for months. I say trudging, but it really hasn’t been all that bad, despite the maze of paperwork, immense financial cost and innumerable visits to offices ranging from General Surgeon to Biometrics to USCIS (Customs and Immigration Services). We had our final interview with Immigration in June and he received his green card in July. It seems odd, but I didn’t realize how much stress I was carrying around throughout the process. I kept wondering why I couldn’t stay focused as I wrote, couldn’t get The Earl’s Solstice to move in the direction I wanted. Um…DUH?

Flash forward to almost a month later…

My mom says you can’t buy happiness. Perhaps not, but you can certainly have it imported. ;)  A happy Mich is a productive Mich. And to call myself happy is a massive understatement. :)  I write romance, for heaven’s sake. It’s not a genre that wants for a stressed-out author.

Flash forward to now…this moment. What were we talking about?  Oh, yes. My apologies. The Earl’s Solstice. Or, more precisely, the first half of the first draft. There I was, fingers tapping at the speed of light, making myself laugh with dialogue and situations and genuinely enjoying running Simon through the ringer. And yet something felt off. I couldn’t pinpoint it, but I could feel it. I knew it was there–like some indiscernable monster hiding in the fog–and it was driving me crazy. So, I sent the manuscript off to Emma Holt, the Editor-in-Chief for Republica Press. I knew she’d be able to tell me if there was a monster. I knew, also, that she’d tell me exactly what the monster looked like once she spotted it.

I wish my instincts were always this spot-on. The feedback I received from Emma was, in a word, phenomenal. Yes, the monster existed. Yes, it looked quite a bit like the monster my subconscious had been warning was there. Yes, I needed to make dramatic changes if I wanted to turn the monster into a princess. I love three things about Emma: 1. The speed with which she responds; 2. Her ability to make me laugh, even at myself; and 3. She doesn’t mince words. EVER.

The last is the most important and is what makes her feedback so important to me. And why I’ll never be able to thank her enough for the *ahem* four page e-mail she sent. It was perfect and just what I needed to move forward. THANK YOU, EMMA!!!!!

All that being said, the monster is still there. He’s moaning and groaning and doing what monsters do when they’re trying to be scary. I think he’s just unhappy because I’ve put him in a moss-green taffeta ball gown and slippers a few sizes to small. And since I’m being honest, I don’t think he likes the little flowers I’ve threaded through his hair, either. He’ll just have to deal with it, though. This series already has a villain. And monsters of his sort don’t have any business in my novels. I’ll send him away to Camp Edward vs. Jacob vs. the Night Monster when I’m finished, but for now, I’m keeping him around as a reminder to keep my eyes open.

As for Simon and Olivia…they’re coming along quite nicely (which sounds like a whole lot of brown-chicken-brown-cow to me, but…). And The Earl’s Solstice is finally shaping up to be the novel I wanted it to be. Soon, you’ll be able to curl up in bed at night and read it. And since the monster is gone, you won’t even need a flashlight. Unless that’s what you’re into. ;)

As always, thank you all for your support and kind words. You guys are amazing! This series, these characters, thank you as well; for without you, they’d be stuck wandering around in my head. Even Gabriel will admit there are better places to be. ;)

~Mich

Ode to an Anguished Creative Crisis

Aren’t all creative crises anguished, you ask? 

Perhaps I should clarify: What I’m dealing with is less creative crisis than Sawyer-type Lost annoyance. If memory serves, it’s the same hullabaloo I went through when I wrote my first novel, Trapping a Duchess, and also(unsurprisingly) the same rubbish I went through while writing my second novel, At Journey’s End. Most of you weren’t around to witness the theatrics. I give you leave to nod and smile and take my word for it. It wasn’t pretty. 

You see, I never wrote these books for you. I wrote them for me.

I write because I enjoy it, because I have stories to tell and characters I want to unleash upon the world. I write because I love it, even when I’m pounding away at the keyboard, my brow furrowed, my expression dark because none of the words filling my blank white screen seem as grand as they did in my head. And even after spending hours writing something that may be rewritten or scrapped altogether, I feel whole. I write because I can’t not write; because doing anything else when there are scenes and moments floating around my noggin feels like cheating.

This is not the case of late. Sitting down to write has become a serious chore. Not, as you may think, because of the typical distractions. My life, for the moment, is remarkably settled. My reluctancy–my oh, sweet zombie jesus I just don’t know if I can do this anymore–is brought to you by a shift in motivation. Simply put, somewhere along the way, I stopped writing for me and started writing for some one or something else.

Only I have no idea who/what/when/where/why/how it is. I only know it’s like one of those invisible little splinters just beneath the skin; you know, the ones that only hurt when you brush over them just so. It’s enough of a hinderance to make every chapter, every paragraph, every bloody sentence a struggle.

Why, you wonder, am I telling you this? 

I want you to know why The Earl’s Solstice isn’t finished (I’m not yet halfway through), and why I still haven’t started podcasting At Journey’s End. I want to give you a heads up regarding where and in what formats you’ll be able to buy these novels in the future; I am unsure, at this point, if I’m going to make The Earl’s Solstice available for print, or take the series out of print altogether. Trapping a Duchess and At Journey’s End will remain available in e-book format until their contracts expire.

But mostly, I’m just having a moment. Thank you for indulging me. 

~mich

Preorders & Contests & Podcasts…Oh, my!

Hello, lovelies! I sometimes wish I had hours and hours to sit and blog about what I’m doing. More often, though, I wish I had someone else to blog for me.  ;)

Whilst you’ve been patiently waiting, I’ve been doing my best to finish what needs to be done.  Here are a few updates:

1. PREORDERS - For those of you who preordered At Journey’s End, I’m ordering the books this week and you should have them by next week. If there is anything specific you want in your inscription, please let me know.  ;)

2. CONTESTS – Today is the last day of the contest. I will notify all winners on Tuesday, February 15th. Prizes will be mailed out this weekend (unless you won a pre-release copy of The Earl’s Solstice, in which case, sit tight).

3.  PODCAST – I have been recording the At Journey’s End podcast and hope to have the first episode up by month’s end. Once I have a backlog of five edited episodes, I’m going to release here and on iTunes. I did the “record and edit as you go” thing with Trapping a Duchess, and while it worked well, I wasn’t nearly as busy as I am now. I figure five episodes will give me a little breathing room so I don’t leave you hanging. 

4. THE EARL’S SOLSTICE - It’s coming along…a little over 22K words now. I’m very excited. Simon has managed to shock me more than once so far and Olivia is shaping up to be one of the most interesting heroines I’ve written.

5. OTHER STUFF – Between weekly edit sessions, recording audio for other podcasters (I’m happy to be doing it for Nobilis Reed and Emmy Z., at present, but there may be another project right around the corner [yeah, I'm looking at you @VG_Ford]), raising kids, revamping my life and BOOKING TICKETS TO BALTICON, I stay busy (like most writers out there). I love it, though…don’t be fooled. I wouldn’t trade it for the world*.

 *I think this is one of the silliest phrases ever. Trade it for all the world? What the hell would you do with THE [WHOLE] WORLD? That sounds like quite a bit of work to me. I mean, let’s not be overdramatic. 

If I failed to address something, drop me an e-mail. I’ll be happy to respond as soon as I can. Thanks again for your support. You guys make me smile more often than you could ever know.

*smooches*
~Mich

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