I feel special.

My Q&A is up now at Twinja Book Reviews! It's pretty awesome, if I do say so myself. I'm really happy to have been included in their month of author interviews. Please take the time to read it (it's not long)!

Q&A

On Thursday, December 19th, I'll have a Q&A featured at Twinja Book Reviews. Check it out! Thank you, Guinevere and Libertad!

Crazy

I've long had an issue with the word "crazy," particularly as it's sometimes applied to women. Beyond my own experiences, however, I was never quite sure why it bothered me. This article says so many things about calling women crazy that I agree with and didn't even know how to articulate.

From "On Labeling Women 'Crazy'":

The trend of labeling women "crazy" is part of the culture that socializes women to go along to get along. When women are told over and over again that they're not allowed to feel the way they feel and that they're being "unreasonable" or "oversensitive," they're conditioned to not trust their own emotions. Their behavior -- being assertive, even demanding or standing up for how they feel -- becomes an "inconvenience" to men and they're taught not to give offense and to consider the feelings of others before their own.

Read it here.

update

A Dark-Adapted Eye is currently ONLY available on Amazon. However, I will soon have it available on Smashwords and Barnes & Noble (late November, I think). If you'd like a copy for review, email me at heather.crews84 [at] gmail [dot] com.

FREE: A Dark-Adapted Eye and Unchanged

UPDATE: Because of price-matching, Unchanged is also free on Amazon. Yay!

Hey, guess what? I've made A Dark-Adapted Eye and Unchanged free on Smashwords! For how long, you ask? Well, as long as I feel like it. Both books are available in a variety of electronic formats, so whatever your preference, you'll be covered.

Body Image

Like many women (and men, I'm sure), I often find myself dealing with body image issues. I'm not sure how much progress I've made over the years toward completely accepting myself, but I tend to feel more confident these days than I ever did. Whether that's to do with age or experience or just not giving a crap, I don't know. However, my issues are not completely under control, and therefore I worry how I'll manage to raise my daughters with healthy body images.

I found these "10 Better Body Affirmations" by chance, and I felt really positive after reading them. I do think they're good advice, and I'll do well to remember them as my daughters get older, and for myself.

1. Your body is in flux for the rest of your life. Think of your body as fluid instead of static — it’s always going to change. So get comfortable with those changes.

2. No one will love you or not love you because of your body. You are lovable because you’re you, not because your body looks a certain way.

3. The most intensely personal relationship you’ll ever have is with your body. It’s a lifelong relationship that’s well worth investing in and nurturing the same way you would with loved ones.

4. You don’t owe your body to anyone. Not sexually, not aesthetically. Your body is yours. Period.

5. What someone else says about your body says more about them than it does about you. Look past the actual snark to the person who’s saying it, because it’s only a reflection of what they think of themselves. That’s when you’ll see how little power their words have.

6. Your body is not a reflection of your character. It’s a physical home for the complex and wondrous and unique being that is you.

7. Take up as much space as you want. You don’t have to be small, or quiet, or docile, regardless of your physical size.

8. Everything you need to accept your body is already inside you. There’s no book, or diet, or workout routine or external affirmation that you need to feel good about your body right now.

9. Your body is a priority. It’s always trying to tell you things. Taking the time to listen to is of the utmost importance.

10. Wear whatever you want. Your body shape does not dictate your personal style, and fashion rules that say otherwise are wrong. Dress yourself in a way that makes you feel happy and confident and beautiful, because guess what? You are.

Slow and [Un]steady

It's easy to forget how much mental energy writing requires, especially when I go into a new or unfinished project with fancy, fresh ideas. Sometimes those ideas will drain from me so fast that every word is a struggle to write. I'll feel so triumphant at those few words, or so frustrated, and I'll take frequent Spider Solitaire breaks as a reward. (Or I'll come here and write dismal posts like this and this.) I'll feel so empty and stunted, unable to concentrate on my story yet unwilling to divert my attention into anything else either. I'll go through phases where I think my story is so ridiculous and and phases where it's the most brilliant thing ever written. But when I leave MS Word alone and come back days later, and manage to churn out a sentence here and there, I feel like maybe I really will finish this thing. Even if it takes a very long while. I've already written two books, and they were both hard work. So what's a third?

Free ebook!

A Dark-Adapted Eye will be free on Amazon from 8/28 (Wednesday) to 8/30 (Friday). Get it here!

Live

Just a quick post to say that A Dark-Adapted Eye is available now on Amazon!

A Dark-Adapted Eye

I decided today was an auspicious day to publish my second book, so I did. A Dark-Adapted Eye is now available at Smashwords and will be live on Amazon early tomorrow. You can also add it on Goodreads. I'm very excited, and I hope anyone who reads this book enjoys it!

News

Unchanged is now available on Smashwords! It's still $0.99, too! There are more formats to choose from (I haven't previewed them all yet, but the .mobi looks good).

I am also preparing A Dark-Adapted Eye for publication. Here is a brief description of it:

Nineteen-year-old Asha lives in Las Secas, a fictional southwestern city put under quarantine after hundreds of vampires inexplicably infiltrated it one year ago. Now they rule the city at night and it isn't safe for humans to be out after dark. But one night at a club Asha's life is changed forever when she meets the mysterious vampire Rade, who bit her when she was a child. Suddenly she finds herself drawn into a darker world than she ever knew existed.

Then Asha's brother is kidnapped and there is no one to help her find him except the vampire Rade. Both compelled and disgusted by him, Asha soon learns of the chilling prophecy that brought vampires to Las Secas. She must figure out how to stay alive and how to save her brother before the night of the lunar eclipse, when the prophecy will reach fulfillment. Only Asha's quest for her brother and her love for Les, her brother's best friend, keep her from surrendering to darkness.

Exciting, right? Thanks for reading!

subconscious brilliance

I love those half-asleep breakthroughs that miraculously solve all the problems I'm dealing with in whatever book I'm currently writing. Assuming I can remember them in the morning, that is. (Sometimes those glorious ideas have been lost, sadly.)

Experimenting with covers.

I've been making potential covers for A Dark-Adapted Eye in case I self-publish it (which is a possibility, of course). Here are my two favorites so far. I'm really leaning toward the second one because to me it better captures the vibe of the story. It's sort of space-y, which is good since the main character is interested in astronomy.

I did it.

I just finished the first complete draft of my new book, title as yet undecided. I'm sure there will be revisions in store, but I feel really accomplished right now! I even beat my target word count. With help from my great friend Stacey, I'll be working to get it ready for queries. Good things are happening!

Nostalgia . . . ruined!

Okay, this is going to be a random post. Feel free to ignore it.

This morning, I finally, FINALLY got tired of watching crappy cartoons on the Disney channel that are just disgustingly saccharine and destined to leave a child incapable of coping with the real world. I decided we were going to watch a REAL cartoon (i.e. something I watched as a child, which means it's better by default, heh). Anyway, I chose the new-ish DVD version of Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, better known to me as Warriors of the Wind.

Little did I know what I was getting myself into. Right away, I sensed something was amiss. The voice actors were different, which I already knew, but the dialogue was different and there was some extra footage. Apparently this "new" 2005 version is the original (although the Japanese would be the real original) and the old version from 1984 was a so-called hack job and people hated it once they saw this movie as it was actually intended.

But not me. I found the Nausicaä dialogue atrocious and clichéd. Although the new voice actors aren't bad actors, they were pretty terrible in this version. There's something about having widely famous actors voice certain movies that just doesn't work for me. (I don't like them either in, say, Princess Mononoke, but in that case I don't have an older version to compare to.) Princess Nausicaä seemed so pallid and weak in comparison to Xandra, her 1984 counterpart, who was a force of nature. She had so much more emotion and the voice actor added little growls and other sounds to make her seem more passionate. Another thing I like about the 1984 version is the names of things, like Gorgons instead of Ohmus, cloud climber instead of glider, and Seven Fire Demons instead of God Warriors (I mean, come on. God Warriors?).

Eep!

I guess the story is supposed to be better and make more sense or something, I don't know. I'm too upset to pay attention to that just now. I still prefer the 1984 version. I'm glad the music was the same, at least (like that haunting "la, la, lalalala" tune).

Anyway. Probably no one cares about this except me. But we'll probably be watching my old recorded VHS version in this house.

Triviality

When you're stuck at a difficult part in your writing and you're just so discouraged. When you can see where you need to go but you can't figure out how to get there. When you wonder why anyone would want to read this silly thing when there are many more important items on the roster: meaningful works to be read, beautiful works, time to be spent with family, walls that need painting, a sky that needs viewing, wind that needs feeling—anything but what you're doing.

When you keep writing anyway, perhaps badly, probably slowly, because even if no one else loves it, you do. When you remember you care too much to leave it alone. And then it becomes that much closer to whole and the experience from beginning to end is so worth it.

Blake & Me

My friend Stacey at The Endpapers is having a challenge to memorize a poem. At first I thought, I have 3 month old twins and a 2 1/2 year old. No way am I memorizing anything except the last time the kids ate. Then I thought, Well, I do have that book of Keats poems. Or maybe it's Yeats. Anyway, I'll just do a short one. And then, I already know the first stanza to "The Tyger." I'll just do that one.

So there you go. That's six stanzas to memorize! I've got the first two down, working on the third.

and what shoulder and what art
could twist the sinews of thy heart?

One a day. That's my goal.

Don't you forget about me.

I need this shirt:

29

Today is my birthday! In honor of me, I'm putting Unchanged up for free tomorrow and Sunday (the 5th and 6th). I probably should have thought of this sooner, but I barely even remembered my own birthday. So Saturday and Sunday it is. Happy reading!