Authors. August. Atlanta! Special 2-day pass

We’re gearing up for a mega-con to close out the summer! Feel the heat of Authors After Dark 2015: Hotlanta Hijinx!

Both two-day and four-day tickets are available... and there’s SO MUCH going on it’s CRAZY! Two huge dress up balls, four meals, TONS of freebie books from Indies and Publishers alike, Giveaways, TONS of SWAG and events... And the booksigning will have 100 Featured Authors, including our Master of Ceremonies, SHERRILYN KENYON!

Plus, non-featured author spots are now available for a secondary signing. Check out the FB Group for more info.

Visit the AAD Website for more the lowdown on participating authors, and special events, and get your tickets at EventBrite.

Hope to see you there!

Louisa Bacio

Featured Author

http://www.Twitter.com/LouisaBacio

https://www.facebook.com/Louisabacioauthor

Warning Labels for Romance?

Kit Marlowe here! I'm still trying to wrap my head around the news story I read this morning in the Guardian with the provocative headline, "Mills & Boon blamed for sexual health problems."

Wha?! Yeah, that's right:

Blaming romance novels for unprotected sex, unwanted pregnancies, unrealistic sexual expectations and relationship breakdowns, author and psychologist Susan Quilliam says that "what we see in our consulting rooms is more likely to be informed by Mills & Boon than by the Family Planning Association", advising readers of the Journal of Family Planning and Reproductive Health Care that "sometimes the kindest and wisest thing we can do for our clients is to encourage them to put down the books – and pick up reality".

Okay, it's really just another attempt to slam women who read and write romance. Like the LDS "Life Coach" who claimed that women were "unbalanced" by romance, it's another sensational pile of hogwash disguised as "concern" about women. In our childlike simplicity, we're just not capable of distinguishing between fantasy and reality. Poor lost souls!

Of course, the scholar in question refers to 70s era classic Mills & Boon bodice-rippers as her "evidence" for this. Yes, books from decades ago: obviously nothing has changed in the forty or so years since then. Or has it?

While Quilliam admits that more recent Mills & Boon novels are truer to life, with female characters holding jobs and addressing challenges such as disability and domestic violence, as well as enjoying "many and varied" sexual activities, "still a deep strand of escapism, perfectionism and idealisation runs through the genre".

Shock! Shock! Because I'm sure that's not a problem in any other genre! Why, there are no elements of "escapism, perfectionism and idealisation" in -- oh let's say -- superhero narratives or spy novels or military thrillers (you know, the genres generally perceived as appealing to male readers). There's no crazy, unrealistic and condom-free sex in books made to appeal to the boys!

No, it's only women who must have a finger shaken (not stirred!) at them and told to be good and realistic and above all, not to image wild and improbable sex. Aren't you ashamed of yourself?

Nah, me either.

Advice for Writers You'll Hear at AAD

by C. Margery Kempe

From Rome

If you've looked around at all, there's all kinds of writing advice out there: magazines, websites, books, groups. They tell you how to manage your time, how to develop your characters, how to plot your novel -- and that's not to mention the newest trend, telling you how to market your writing once it's out there and coordinate all your social media outlets.

All of these are great ways to avoid what you should be doing:

WRITING

I remember a friend (a reader, not a writer) saying once, "Writer really whinge a lot." Yes; yes, we do. To each other via email, on Facebook and Twitter now and even occasionally, in person. To be fair, there's a lot to whinge about. The long hours, the low pay, the constant criticism (especially if it comes from your own head). But it's also a way of avoiding the real work.

So just write.

Jane Friedman pointed to a terrific article by Anne Allen about Three Questions to Ask Before Jumping on the Indie Publishing Bandwagon. While a lot of people see the leap as by-passing the slow dinosaur of traditional publishing, Allen warns that skipping that process has a price: all those rejections are often deserved. It takes time to build skills and often that story is not as good as you think it is. You're misled by seeing it all in your head quite clearly; your words may not have captured enough of that mental movie to translate it into someone else's head. If you don't get an editor telling you, "no, it's not there yet" and jump to self publishing, then you will get readers or worse reviewers who tell you the same thing -- not in a private email, but out there on the web for all to see. Or not: because it's not criticism that grinds down most writers, but facing daily the supreme indifference of the universe. What if you publish a book and no one cares?

What Allen also makes clear is how much extra work is involved in self-publishing. I faint dead away at the mere thought of coding a manuscript for umpteen different kinds of ebook formats. Not just because it sounds tedious and fiddly, but once again I'm aware that it's time not spent writing. Never forget the very best thing to sell your writing is your writing. While people dream of having that huge bestseller the first time out of the gate, most "overnight sensations" in any field have laid the groundwork already with a lot of hard work. Because if you do have a book that makes a big splash, you want there to be other things for readers to buy.
 
So I'm going to take my own advice now, and shut up and write. You do it, too.

New releases and fun for AAD!

Eliza wasn't kidding! Can we get any busier now that Spring has, well... sprung? Seems I finish one story, to have to dive right into another one, while between I'm revising, rewriting, and editing stuff.

One of the lastest finishes was BELLONA'S WAR RIBBON. This will be available at AAD as one of the Love's Immortal:Pantheon series collections this year. Woot!! This will release April 15th on ARe, so watch for it.

A persistent obsession with a goddess could jeopardize one man's sanity, or could give him eternal love.

An Ancient Civilizations Professor has hungered for one woman for over twenty years. The only problem--she
hasn't existed in millenia. When he is swept from modern times to the birth of the Roman Empire, he thinks his
sanity has finally snapped.

All he wants is to have one chance to love her.

If he can win the heart of the Goddess of War, he might find more than any obsession could ever promise.

I'm also happy to say that Watching Her Every Move and Alpha Awakening have been approved to go to print! The catch?

Gotta write Sheridan's story... Bummer, right?

LOL Nope! She's in the works right now, and I'm really liking her. Imagine Elizabeth Taylor in her Cleopatra days... Oh, and she's a wolf shifter, just like Rush. And wait until you see who she meets.... I'm sincerely hoping to have this for AAD as well.

And let's not forget the Aiza Clan... Brooke will be in print for AAD.

Brooke Aiza has returned home after staying with her Aunt Jerry for more than a year to learn she's an aunt herself by her brother, and her sister is married! Overwhelmed by the changes taking place with her siblings, she begins to feel more than a familial affection for her new brother-in-law, and sees no escape except to put distance between them until she leaves for her parent's home.

Mitch isn't interested in any woman, content with his life. Mostly. Even his brother senses a restlessness building within him, but for what? Then when Mitch suffers a major accident, he and Brooke are all but confined to the same house, and he is left trying to remember why he didn't want anything to do with women. Because the more he sees of her, the more he needs her kiss.

The resurgance of an amulet into the sibling's lives changes everything, for the amulet can control them all. It will take two to destroy the evil stalking the Aiza family, and if Mitch refuses to face his feelings and Brooke can't overcome her hesitations to form a deeper trust, the opening of the gates of Hell could be the result.

So tons of goodies! I'll also be donating a basket for the charity draw, so make sure you bring your luck! You're goooonnnaa waaannnnnnt to wiin.

That's all for this month! See you next round!

Details, details

Hi, all! This is my first post at the blog. Back in . . . oh, July-ish, the lovely Stella invited me to post here "whenever I had time." Hahaha!

So, here it is, nearly October, and I STILL don't have time. But I'm going to post anyway, because it's a very cool blog and I wanted to post at least once before someone shuts the door in my face after the Authors After Dark convention.


For the regulars here who don't know me, I'm Cathy Clamp and write paranormal romance and urban fantasy for Tor Books, along with my co-author C.T. Adams. You'll see that my screen name here is "Cat Adams" and that's because it's our NEW name for the same great books. It's just a little easier to find in the bookstore. We write the Tales of the Sazi and Thrall series and will be coming out with a brand new urban fantasy series called The Blood Singer next year. Cold Moon Rising is our latest book in the Sazi world, out last month, and next up, in March, 2010 is Serpent Moon, in the same world.



Our first book under the Cat Adams name was Magic's Design, which came out in March. It's a stand-alone novel, not part of a series, and if you like urban fantasy, you'll really enjoy it!


I've been spending a whole bunch of time working on details lately. Editing is mostly about details, in reality, and it forces you to really think about all those weird, esoteric things that you truly believed you made clear in a book, but which the editor firmly informs you that you didn't. This last month has been especially challenging because of all the projects that have had overlapping deadlines. Mostly, it's because I have a hard time saying no to really cool projects (I mean, how could you say no to an antho called Chicks in Capes?! This is a proposed cover by the way, one of two. Interestingly, they'll release BOTH covers, which is very fun!)

Little by little, I took on new projects. None of them were big, and I gave myself plenty of "room" to get them done. Or so I thought. But what wound up happening was this:

New Anthology story in existing reality due September 1st.
New Anthology story in NEW world due September 4th.
New Anthology story in ANOTHER new world due September 8th.
Non-fiction essay about favorite author due September 1st.
Second book of new urban fantasy world due September 1st.
New Proposal for new paranormal romance world due September 4th.

SHEESH! And then came . . .


Edits for Serpent Moon, due September 15th.
Copy edits for Serpent Moon, due September 28th (we had delays early.)
Edits for Anthology story #2, due pretty much immediately.
Edits for non-fiction essay, due September 10th.

And just arrived this week are . . .

Edits for Anthology story #3.
Finish up book Second book of new urban fantasy world (which we had to get extended---hmmm, I wonder why.)

As you might guess, even with a wonderful co-author who's taken on half the load, I'm getting a little twitchy. Each kind of writing (new or editing) has its own challenges and forces an author to 'shift gears' to a new mindset. But the back and forth between the various worlds and the various kinds of editing/writing has me either totally ignoring, or micromanaging, every other aspect of my life.

Take the Authors After Dark convention. I signed up and got my room, but OOPS! I forgot to . . . um, pay for the registration. [blush] Then, since I seldom get to New York, I decided it might be a good idea to make plans to meet with my agent and our brand new editor in Manhattan. So I booked an early morning flight and have been figuring out the details of arriving at New Jersey-Liberty, hopping over to Manhattan and then popping up to Suffern. Now, for those of you who are gasping and choking at the potential for those events in a single day, remember that I live in TEXAS, where it takes about an hour of driving, one way, just to get to the grocery store. Twenty minutes on the AirTrain from the airport? Pfft! Nothing. Another half hour of walking when I get to Penn Station? Easy. Then it's just a short hop back to Penn Station and an hour on the train to Suffern, a cab ride to the hotel and poof! Lots of missions accomplished!

Details, details. And speaking of which, I think I'm out of my micro-managed time to write this first post. Can't wait to meet you all next month---if I haven't keeled over by then. :D