Sharp Words

You may have read this elsewhere, but I just thought I’d link here in case anyone missed it. Bam’s monthly writing contest is back, at Lorelie’s blog. You may remember Lorelie from the Serial Fabulousity that is Tarnished Angel. And if you don’t, then you probably haven’t read Tarnished Angel. (Go read it!)

The prompt: I wanna see a girl tell a guy what she wants. Sexy, zany, crazy, whatever. I wanna see her pipe up and ask for her heart’s desire.

The word count: 400.

The prize: $50 gift certificate from Amazon.

The deadline: 15 May.

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: This contest is one of my favorite writing exercises, ever. The word limit, the deadline, the faint whiff of competition–all these things combine to get the creative juices flowing. I’ve gotten two novellas out of entries I wrote for Bam’s contest. One was Like a Thief and the other–you may be hearing about it soon… Point is, it’s a lot of fun, and if you haven’t entered before, don’t be afraid.

And if you’re not the writing type (oh, come on, you know you really are!) you can have fun just reading the entries. I love how a bunch of writers can take the same prompt and produce so many different stories.

So, go forth and enter!

First off, this post is probably the girliest thing I will ever post on this blog. I am not some Sex-in-the-City-watching, cosmo-swilling, shoe-obsessed writer type (Yes, I am going to go see the movie–Hey! stop looking at me like that!. I’ll have you know, I happen to hate cosmos. My drink for the year is the pear martini, ok? And I hardly ever use the phrase, “I can’t help but wonder.”). I have better things to occupy my time and my thoughts.

But these shoes, they are so pretty, so terribly impractical, so fabulously cheap–I can’t help myself. So, I apologize, in advance. I’ll try to keep this and all future outbursts to a minimum.

Read the rest of this entry »

…go away. I’m reading.

But come back on March 25th when I’ll give away the copy of Private Arrangements by Sherry Thomas that I would have bought, if I hadn’t been so lucky as to win a copy in the Dear Author contest.

Lorelie (whose faboo story Tarnished Angel, with the pretty, pretty cover, is currently running on The Serial) just informed me in the comments for the previous post that Like a Thief in the Night is on the slate for DA BWAHA March Madness contest, in the Erotica category. Wow. There are so many damn good reads on that page, I’m not sure I would even vote for Like a Thief. I am, however, super excited and honored to see my little novella on the list.

First off, a few warnings.

1. Ann Aguirre has given me money. Not to review this book, but to make a promotional bookmark. Grimspace had been on my Must Read list for quite a while, and I was so eager to read it that I asked Ann to include an ARC as part of my payment. That’s me. I Will Work for Good Reads.
2. The lovely cover of Grimspace may appear innocuous, but don’t be fooled. It is made of flypaper. Pick it up, and it will be glued to your hand until you turn the last page. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
3. I’ve tried to write my thoughts on Grimspace without going off on a tangent about the Romance genre, what it is, where it’s going, and what it should be. I tried, really, but this addictive, fast-paced picaresque sci-fi action-adventure novel is also a damned good romance novel. And for me, it highlights things I want from Romance, but don’t often get.

The Book
The episodic plot of Grimspace follows interstellar navigator Sirantha Jax as she is broken out of prison by a rag-tag band of mercenaries out to end the Farwan Corporation’s monopoly on interstellar travel by setting up their own navigator academy, with Jax as the instructor. The group travels from place to place, usually leaving destruction in their wake. But as the book progresses, the action-packed journey through space becomes secondary to Jax’s emotional journey from the crash that killed her lover–a crash for which she has been blamed and imprisoned, and for which she blames herself–through grief, peace, and into love with her new pilot, March. March and Jax are both broken people in the process of putting themselves back together after tragic events and misspent lives. The touching thing about their story is that they know each other’s faults and strengths, and fall in love not despite this knowledge, but because of it.

Jax is a complicated, twisty pragmatist. She’s not lovable, noble or sweet, but she’s real in a way that makes her story compelling, and the ending emotionally satisfying. We see the action from inside her head in first-person present tense. You may think you have problems reading first-person present tense, but Aguirre’s novel will convince you that you don’t. The narrative style is much like Jax herself–tough, unflinching, immediate, and marbled through with lovely threads of imagery and phrasing that linger in your mind after you’ve turned the page, after you’ve closed the cover.

Possessor of the mysterious and rare “J” gene, Jax facilitates interstellar travel by guiding ships through grimspace with the help of a pilot. During the trip through grimspace, the pilot and navigator are mentally linked, bound up in each other’s heads, privy to the other’s private thoughts. When I closed the cover on Grimspace, I felt like Jax was tangled up in my thoughts, too. Great characters stay with you like that, and right now, Jax is sharing space in a corner of my brain with some of my other favorite first-person narrators like Hammett’s nameless Continental Op, Mosley’s Easy Rawlins, Baird’s Cass, Banbury’s Jill, and Carey’s Phedre. (They all hate each other, of course, but pass the time playing poker while they wait for me to reread their books.)

Maybe I’m just a sucker for flawed heroes and heroines, but characters like Jax and March are something I’d like to see more of in the romance genre. People do not have to be perfect to fall in love. Heroines do not have to be selfless martyrs to be worthy of love, heroes don’t have to save the day every time to be macho or attractive.

But for all my talk of romance, Grimspace, still works as a straight-up sci-fi genre novel. Aguirre’s imagined universe is a diverse, vast, violent, wide-open wild west of a setting, corrupt, confusing, and stuffed with possibilities. Good genre novels are often praised as “transcending genre” which is a backhanded complement if ever I’ve heard one. Grimspace doesn’t transcend the genre, it expands it. It fucks with gender stereotypes, and genre expectations, providing both the kick-ass action adventure you’d expect from a traditional action sci-fi tale, and emotional introspection, and a newfangled type of romance.

With its flawed, fascinating protagonist, its science fiction setting, and its blend of action, adventure and romance, Grimspace is not for strict genre traditionalists, for readers who like perfect heroes, or for the faint of heart*. It’s not perfect, but I thought it was one hell of a read–engrossing, entertaining, exciting. Aguirre has written a sequel, and I’m already brainstorming ways to get my grubby mitts on an advance copy.
*edited to clarify who “everyone” might be.

I don’t know about you, but round these parts, it’s Super Tuesday, which means Yours Truly gets to skip happily down to the local elementary school and vote. I’m going to savor the experience. I haven’t been this happy, or this hopeful to vote ever in my life. This once (and maybe just this once) I am going to vote for a candidate whom I respect and admire, a candidate who inspires me.

I’m not naming names, but if you feel the same way about a particular candidate, maybe you should swallow your cynicism and vote your conscience, too.

I’ve been meaning to move the blog over to Wordpress for the longest time now. Figures I’d get the gumption to do it the same weekend I vow to buckle down and wrap up a proposal I’m working on. Ah, procrastination.

Anyway, here it is. I still have a bit of work to do. I reserve the right to redo the title graphic at some point. I also need to redo the menu on my website home page…the list goes on.

If you’re looking for a way to procrastinate, may I recommend Joanna Bourne’s The Spymaster’s Lady? It’s one hell of an awesome book. I read it in one sitting, and ended up ordering in dinner because I read instead of cooking. Oh, well. Good books make up for mediocre food any day. At some point I will write a post to enumerate all of the things I loved about this book.

One nice bit of news, over there on the left. Like a Thief in the Night hit number 7 on the My Bookstore and More list. Thanks to everyone who has purchased and/or reviewed Like a Thief in the Night.

First, a confession which may make me unpopular in certain authorial circles: I like Mrs. Giggles reviews. I’ve read them for quite a while, I’ve enjoyed almost every book I’ve read from her “keeper” list and I have, I’ll admit, giggled on more than one occasion at her jaded take on certain books.

I can’t help it. She’s like that older friend you had in high school–you know, the one who seemed so sophisticated because she’d been to Paris, and dated college guys and smoked and drank and done it. It took a lot to impress her, so you were always kinda flattered that she found you interesting enough to hang around with, even if she did keep borrowing money for sodas without ever paying you back–not that I’m saying Mrs. G is a welcher. I’m talking about that high school friend. That completely hypothetical, for-purposes-of-example-only cooler than cool, jaded friend whom you haven’t seen since graduation except once in the background of a photo of a party in Rolling Stone Magazine…but I digress.

So anyway, I’ve been kinda nervous about how she’d review Like a Thief… And how I’d take it. She posted the review today, giving it an 85. She used the phrases “It kicks ass - big ass.” and, “these characters are really cool.” which makes me feel both happy and a bit like I’ve dodged a bullet. Not that I’m gonna relax because, hey, there’s always next time.

And though there were things I disagreed with (like why she didn’t give it a score of 112–and yes, I know the scale only goes up to 100, but my baby is perfect–perfect, I tell you ;o) I have to admit, I giggled at her description of the setting:

…Set about 200 years in the future when everyone acts and dresses like they have watched The Matrix one time too many…

See, I thought it was kinda Kill Bill when I read it through after I finished writing, but I can see where all that black clothing might cloud the issue. And as to the aspects of the story Mrs. G didn’t like–the novella-length and characterization? Hey, there’s always next time.

That’s how I felt when I hopped on the Internets this morning to read Sherry Thomas’s combined review of Ember and Like a Thief in the Night at Dear Author.

Today’s the day! Like a Thief in the Night is out at Samhain Publishing. Go buy it.

I’d like to write more, but I guess it figures that the day I’ve been looking forward to for 6 months would fall in the week the day the day job decides to get insanely busy. Wah.

I think my brain is melting from stress. Contests, regular posts and such will resume when the contents of my cranium have returned to at least a semisolid state.

If you want blogging, go check out my post on Bam’s blog. Because I have to go to work.