Kate Rothwell's Blog, page 36

skeery internet world in which we're living

But before we get started today--have you bought our new book yet? Or have you asked for a review copy? Why not?

Okay. Review copy brings us to .....
#1 scary internet trend. WTF? I'm getting scathes of emails (if "scathes" = more than five, less than ten) from people wanting me to review their books. The requests are polite and--here's something cool--most employ proper grammar and punctuation.

But still. WTF? Where are these people finding me? Why me? Why their books? Is this going to get worse and worse as the self-publishing trend explodes? Yes, of course it is.

I have occasionally sent out unsolicited books to people but not any more. I never will again. It just feels odd to find someone I don't know asking me for a favor. Actually I'm scared when people I do know ask me for the favor. Because what if I say yes and HATE their book? Will they go all Howett on my ass?

Or what if I don't fulfill the unspoken contract and read their book at all? The only reason my TBR pile isn't terrifying is because it's almost all ebooks. If these were real books cluttering up the house, we'd be in line for a Hoarder's show. So no to the review stuff.

I don't expect this will make a difference and tomorrow I'll wake up to 20 review requests. Then fifty and then. . . .

Although I just said yes to a book that turned out to be 24 pages. An instruction manual, as it turns out. I googled it and the first thing I found was an easily downloadable PDF of the book for free, and the second thing was the actual author's page. The book costs 9.99 there. Which leads me to

#2 scary internet thing. Pirated books. We know all about this one, right? As long as enough people like Rowena Cherry stay active out there, it might stay under control. Wait, it's already out of control. Never mind. Let's just get to....

#3 scary internet trend. Spam messages that are actually interesting enough to not get dumped immediately. At first I thought someone with a lot of time on his /her hands is taking the time to read the blog here and actually post real messages that fit the topic. But the name on the account is "generic viagra" and yes, it leads to a page selling generic viagra. Why did I click the obviously spammy link? Because the comment fit the topic.

Wait! An actual human can't be doing this--that's not how spam works. This means someone out there has a computer program that will somehow generate messages that aren't just random nonsense. So when anyone comments here, or on twitter or on facebook....that someone might be a machine. How will I ever know the difference? I won't.

For all you know, I'm a virtual reality/computer generated being. Heck, maybe I don't know the truth of my reality.

And here's a prediction about the book/internet future (not labeled scary trend, because I'm not sure it is):
Within FIVE YEARS, the word ebook will go away. EBOOKS will be called BOOKS. And those other things, those paper objects, will be called PRINT BOOKS.

In other words, the dominant book format gets to drop the prefix.

Happy New Release Day To Us!

Hey, lookit! Bonnie and Summer have a new book out, House of Mirrors.


1902--Jonah finds refuge and passion with enigmatic carnival owner, Rafe Grimstone. The open-hearted preacher's son will risk damnation for love, but Rafe hides his identity like the changing images in a house of mirrors.

Want a review copy? Ask me.

nostalgia

I was reading Sno Ho by Ethan Day and had to stop. It's a cheery, fun, fluffy bit of a book, but the voice of the narrator made gave me the teary snuffles. He sounded exactly like my friend JD, but ExActLEEEy. The over-wrought, exaggerated responses, followed by embarrassment and then the attempt at dignity-- pure JD. Even some of the phrasing seemed to echo him. And especially the funny. Oh man, the funny. With a waggle of the eyebrows or a delicate flair of the nostrils, JD could make you crack up at anything, especially art history lectures, which really isn't good for the morale of the class.

I guess it's good to be reminded of dead friends. Except here's the thing...I didn't see JD the last year of his life--he moved home to some midwestern state after he got diagnosed with AIDS. I wrote (this was pre-internet. Or maybe not, but JD was a Luddite so he wouldn't have a computer) but I didn't call more than a couple of times. I was young, I didn't know what to say. He seemed to lose interest in talking to old friends and I didn't push. Yadayadayada.

Fine. I get it now, all right? Thanks for pointing out I'm a jerk. When I think of JD my main emotion is guilt.

Except now I'm thinking some more. Maybe I'm just trying to make myself feel better, but I imagine JD would file my guilt under "major horse-shit." IN other words, it would not go over well with the Jade-man. I think he'd just roll his eyes and tell me to get over myself. Read the fucking book already. Hey. Remember the time we both laughed so hard and long I drooled? The time the teacher asked us to leave?

Back to the Kindle. Ethan Day, if you ever go to a conference and some middle aged woman (or yet ANOTHER middle aged woman) comes up to you and gives you a huge, unasked for hug, it might be me. Thanks for giving me back JD.

I suppose it's inevitable

Diane Wynn Jones, Judith Merkle Riley, Judith Layton...all these writers keeling over. I found an author whose work I really love and went to read about him. Yay! He's younger than me! he'll keep producing as long as I need him.

I better write to him and warn him not to pull an Emma Jensen.

* * * * *
If Horatio Alger released his top seller RAGGED DICK today, it would have to be one wicked BDSM title. (yeah, I tweeted that, but really I don't want to be alone with that imagery. Also what price MOBY DICK?)

* * * * *
Today's earworms are a series of Al Stewart songs. The tunes are meh, but at least the lyrics are interesting.

I'm just enough of a hypochondriac to wonder if earworms are a sign of BDS (brain dissolving syndrome) Anyway. I'm going to Pandora on to drive out "On the Border" and "Chelsea Hotel" and get back to writing a cheerful pot dealer who's going to cause trouble for The Hero.

WOETRY!

The legend hunts beside the transported birth.Why can't the twisting overtone recover?
How does a harmony malfunction?Before a blackboard listens a censored dust
Around the burnt center clicks the implemented space.
His heroin rules the desire beside a crossing atom.
. . . .
now You Write The Rest of My Poem.

little SBD

I dreamed I won a contest in which I could become male for about 24 hours. I realized I still liked men and thought yes! this will be very useful for my writing! Talk about taking your job seriously. Speaking of contests, The Gentleman and the Rogue just finaled in the Passionate Plume contest.

Summer has finaled in that contest twice before (for two novellas, "Invisible Touch" and "Knight's Challenge") and I was sure I had saved a little widget thingy to show off, but apparently I didn't plaster it all over the place. Summer is a doot when it comes to promo, I guess. They may send me another widget and if they do, I'll be sure to save it here. It's a nice one.

What I read last week: Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter, which I've already reviewed elsewhere. I enjoyed that sucker. I think I loved it, in fact. I still wonder why the hell Larry, who knew there was more to life, stayed put and went into that damn garage every day, but I guess southern gothic doesn't feature real people. The book mostly worked for me. The shifts back and forth through time was only slightly disconcerting. The writing was sometimes lovely.

AND I read Konrath's Shaken. Man, that guy has a thing for serial killers and for banter. It was escapist fun, if you like reading about torture for fun. I liked the book okay which means I'm a sick cookie. Nothing memorable or amazing, but nothing made me set it aside, which I did with a book about Gideon Crew (his name always is stated that way: Gideon Crew). Gideon's Sword.....eh. He's not much there. The first scene was pretty amazing--a kid watching his father get shot. Not that I enjoyed it--I am not a sicko character from Shaken--but it was vivid and real.

After that, I didn't believe the story much and I'm pretty easy to convince. Heck, I stuck with Shaken and it had three serial killers bopping around the city, dispatching hos and others at an alarming rate. Okay, maybe I didn't believe it, but I guess it didn't start out any differently from where it ended up.

Okay, realism isn't the issue here. Damn. Now I have to think about why Gideon's Sword bugged me and Shaken didn't. Maybe the main character didn't grab me. Gideon came across as a mix of Ted Kaczynski and James Bond, neither of whom are quite human.

Or maybe I'll go eat some chocolate to celebrate finaling in that contest instead.

SBD a few books

I figure if I'm going to write the m/m genre, I better read more of it. That's my excuse for having fun.

I just read Ava March's His Client. It was a short, sweet book. The guys were so. . . pleasant, normal and rather alike. Considering their class differences it should have been a bigger deal that they could be friends--a bigger adjustment, I mean. But obviously Jasper had learned to overcome his beginnings. And the games they played in the bedroom didn't translate at all into--okay, I don't know about that next bit I was going to write. Why should the black corset mentality show up in daily life? They had to compartmentalize. And the whole BDSM plus gay community wasn't in place, right? (Actually I bet it was, but very, very underground in those dolly houses) So no "Leatherman 1822" for them. Still, a bit of twisted is fun.

They are remarkably considerate and well-adjusted for men who grew up in a time when being gay might mean death and Jasper is [spoiler below********].

I cared about the guys, even though Nate did sigh too often about his Lost Love -- a guy he'd never ever had. But I read it in one go and felt a satisfying awwwwwwww about their HEA. Nice. And very sweet, despite how dirty they did get. Wait, wait, wait. I don't know why I'd kvetch about reading about pleasant people. My usual whine is that there are so few amiable sorts in the books. So how's about the stuff in that first couple of paragraphs is all observation rather than complaint.

And there's this: if I cared about them, that has to mean I believed in them right? Right?

Uh oh, I was going to write about Josh Lanyon and now I get why he's a big cheese (the guy writes great romance mystery), but I have to actually leave my house now.

In an entirely different genre:

I was listening to Endymion Spring, which had such potential and several endearing characters. I like the combination of competition and love one of the main characters feels for his sister--seems about perfect. But this book was driving me nuts with the cliches--and worse. "His heart beat inside his body." Really? I know it's a paranormal but it wasn't that sort. The poor kid's heart skipped at least six beats, and swelled, and dropped, and stuttered etc** before I changed to a new book. And someone should have done a search/replace on the word "sudden(ly)"

YA or juvenile fiction should not mean lazy writing--though (backpedal time!****) those passages are the only part of the book that struck me as lazy. The writer obviously spent hours doing research about the history of printing and books. That knowledge shows up in little morsels, too, as in there aren't info dumps. I don't know about how clever the plot might be. I haven't made it far enough into the book, and probably won't.
UPDATE: fairly clever.

I might finish it just to see if the characters we're supposed to trust turn out to be bad guys.

I suspect that the people who look like Bad Guys (ugly, sneering, bad breath etc) really are bad guys. I read this sort of stuff and I always end up wanting to write a book where the ugly thug with bad teeth who sneers is the hero and the handsome man with the sweet smile is evul.

__________

**I know the badly behaved heart shows up in my stuff too. But not as often, okay? Or at least I sure as hell hope not.

****I don't mean to be so wishy washy. Some day I'll write GOD, I HATE THIS BOOK! or GOD, I LOVE THIS BOOK! with only supporting prose to follow. None of this WELL, BUT stuff will come after.

*******Jasper is a whore's bastard, or, to be more PC, a lady of negotiable affection's love-child.

here we go again

1. My house is full of men's voices and the only males in the place are my kids. My baby's voice is still cracking now and then, but he's almost done with that voice change over. I remember the shocking day when I heard some man talking downstairs. I ran down and discovered it was my oldest son.

That moment was like the first time you hear someone call you mommy -- a kind of a thrill of squee-yay! we have reached a big point. But this stuff doesn't stay exciting very long. The next time someone calls you that, it's no longer a thrill and in a couple of years mommmmeeeeeeeee becomes one of your least favorite word. And that last baby saying mommy? Old hat.

This last manly voice isn't bringing on a squee, poor young fish misses out on the celebration. But here; it's in a blog.

2. And in another repeat-that-isn't-as-breath-taking as the first-time (thank goodness on this one), I've been cleared once again after a needle biopsy. That first biopsy was scary. This was my second and now I'm beginning to see that these might be almost as routine as scans. Oh, I don't think so, medical community. Those things hurt. You're going to have to scare me silly if you want me to do that again.

3. Mud season is upon us. This one is definitely filed under "here we go again." because I drag out the extra mats and bellow at the kids check your shoes! I will feel sad when the only footprints I find around the house are my own -- and this isn't just because I won't be able to blame other people for my mud. I'll miss their deep, manly voices, yelling maaaaa. (and their size 14 [ yes, fourteen] shoes clogging up the mat-space by the front door)

Poor Valerie Parv

Valerie Parv wrote: "Well there went my day. The Mad Baron is a read-in-one-sitting glorious romp of a book. Love it, love it, love it."

Why poor Valkyrie Valerie? She leaves one random facebook message and that thing gets spread all over the internet--or at least wherever I can manage to post it.

new ebook! new one!

My reverse take on the mad woman in the attic is now available.

It's out today! Go buy it! Go on!

Here's an excerpt.
Read it!

And here's the