Third novel, coming soon ...

I meant to write a YA dystopia for my third novel, but that one got temporarily set aside while I worked on an adult horror/romance with vampires. I've finished the first draft of the vampire book and will begin editing/rewriting as soon as I'm done with this post! It's called Lurid, and I've had it FOREVER. I'm so happy I finally got around to writing an ending. I also astonished myself with some of the sex and violence I added to it this time around, so, yeah ... Breaking personal boundaries with this one.

This is the cover:

I quite like it. It's totally my style. However, I would love opinions and critiques. And beta readers, if anyone wants to get really helpful. (Don't worry. I'm a big girl when it comes to criticism. If there's one thing art school teaches you, it's how to gracefully take it when someone rips your work a new one.)

Read an E-book Week

I'm not sure why this image is so grainy ...

I'm participating in E-book Week at Smashwords. A Dark-Adapted Eye and Unchanged will be half off March 2-8. Just enter the code REW50 at checkout and enjoy!

My next book . . .

After the death of her brother, teenage Marlo flees an abusive home and comes to work for an enigmatic mortician.

And that's where the fun begins. Well, not fun, exactly. It's kind of bleak. But sometimes I like bleak.

This is turning out to be a really hard book to write. Maybe because it hasn't been with me for years and years like some of my other stories, so I haven't had as much time to work through problems. I never realized how hard world-building is without info-dumping. That's the most challenging thing, actually—the world-building.

The book is set in the indeterminate future blighted by drought. Recycling is a necessity. Various environmental problems interfere with people having enough food and water, of which there's already a scarcity. But Marlo isn't out to solve these problems. She's got enough to deal with without taking on the government.

Anyway, now that I've thrown that out there . . . back to writing!

Hello!

I've had a good day. I read some new short but nice reviews for A Dark-Adapted Eye (yes, I know you're not supposed to do that) that really uplifted my spirits. I also crossed over to the dark side and joined Twitter. I've added a widget in the sidebar if you want to follow me (although I haven't tweeted anything yet).

Have a great day!

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.