R.L. Naquin's Blog, page 3

Quick and Dirty Update

Okay. Not dirty. But I am going to be quick today.

Why? Because I’m this close to finishing Golem in My Glovebox, and I really want to get those magic words “The End” written.

I have no idea how I’ll get anything done today, though. Monster in My Closet was chosen as today’s SF/F Kindle Daily Deal on Amazon, and the sales rank is on fire. The most exciting part about this for me is seeing how many new readers are picking up the book. Just think of all those people who are about to meet Maurice for the very first time.

I’m sure he’ll feed them plenty of muffins.

Anyway, the sale is for today only. If you know somebody who still hasn’t jumped on board but might want to, please share the link with them, so they can get Monster in My Closet for $0.99!

In other news…

I have a cover for Golem in My Glovebox!!

But… I’m not going to show it to you yet. Being named a Kindle Daily Deal is kind of a big deal. A really big deal. The cover can wait another few days.

In fact, the first people to see it will be the ones who subscribed to my newsletter. Have you signed up yet? Better hurry before the big reveal!

I’m all about the tease. Now, back to work!

See you real soon!

Guest Author: Jody Wallace

Ah, here we are. We made it to Friday. As promised, I have a guest for you. Jody Wallace is a fellow Carina Press and Here Be Magic author. She’s delightfully odd and invitingly weird. I’ve worked with her on a round-robin short story (that turned into a novella by the time we were done) that the HBM group did, and I can tell you, she’s loads of fun to read.

And lucky for you, she has lots of books to choose from. When you’re done here, go take a look at what she has to offer. I’ll give you links at the bottom so you can browse. Her latest release is The Whole Truth, which you can also check out below. Her next one, Angeli, is a science fiction romance about a post-apocalyptic alien invasion. It comes out January 27. She’s a busy lady.

Jody has brought us a poem today, written by her cat, Meankitty. Meankitty has his own website, and does reviews and other catified literary works.

Be nice to Jody and give her some comment love, okay? Take it away, Meankitty!

HOW ARE WRITER HUMANS ANNOYING?

An illustrated poem by Meankitty

(With a nod to Elizabeth Barrett Browning)

How are writer humans annoying? Let me count the ways.

They are annoying to the depth and breadth and height

My claws can reach, when food is out of sight

Though I am a being of ideal Grace.

They’re annoying when I remind them everyday

About my need for sun and tuna light.

They’re annoying and whiny, as cats strive in the Night;

They’re annoyingly distracted, when they neglect to Praise.

They’re annoying when their lap is put to use

As a computer desk, when I want to laze.

They’re annoying when I told them not to use

My drinking pond, annoying with food on the breath

That wasn’t shared—the strife! And, with loud mews,

I shall annoy them back unto my death.

The Whole Truth

A human lie detector is hired to unmask a mole but discovers her powers can’t protect her when even the bad guys are superpowered.

Cleopatra Giancarlo is different from your average twenty something career girl. For one thing, she knows when people lie because she can see the truth in their shadows. For another, she doesn’t use her power for good. Or evil. After repeated failures to help others, she mostly just uses it to get deals at Bloomingdale’s. She fears what the government would do if they discovered her ability, yet she longs to find out if there are people like her out there. If there’s anything more she could be.

She gets her wish when two strangers whisk her away from her old life and introduce her to the world of suprasensors. John Arlin and Samantha Grooms represent an organization called YuriCorp, one of many privately-owned firms that employ supras like Cleo to increase their profit margin. Any of these firms would be thrilled to have Cleo on staff, and their methods of recruitment aren’t always friendly.

But even in the world of supras, Cleo doesn’t get to be normal. Her new boss wants her to go undercover and seek traitors in the company ranks. Her new friends know what she can do and how to work around it. And her new assignment might end up with her in a coma–or worse.

Buy the book: Amazon Barnes & Noble Kobo

Jody is helping Meankitty make bookmarks.

Jody Wallace grew up in the South in a very rural area. She went to school a long time and ended up with a Master’s Degree in Creative Writing. Her resume includes college English instructor, technical documents editor, market analyst, web designer, and general all around pain in the butt. One of her many alter egos is “The Grammar Wench”, which should give you an indication of her character. She is a terrible packrat and likes to amass vintage clothing, books, Asian-inspired kitchenware, gnomes, and other items that threaten to force her family out of the house. She also likes cats. A lot.

Ms. Wallace’s approach to writing is to tell as many outlandish lies as she can get her readers to swallow. Her dream is to be moderately well-paid for this service. You can also find several of her books under the pen name Ellie Marvel.

How to stalk Jody:

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Shenanigans

I’m not really here. Okay, I’m here, but I’m being really, really quiet. I have words to write, since some of you have made demands that I keep doing so.

You only have yourselves to blame for my silence.

Still, I’m really excited to tell you to come back on Friday. I have a special guest coming. Fellow Carina Press and Here Be Magic author, Jody Wallace, has prepared some special weirdness just for you. Seriously, guys. She’s not right. I really admire that about her. If you doubt the level of her oddness, you can go to her other website and ask her cat, Meankitty.

At some point in the coming months, I’ll be showing up on her site, at the mercy of her snarky cat. So, give her a little love, if you don’t mind. I’d hate for her readers to be mean to me when I’m over there. Her cat’s already going to claw me up with sarcasm.

I’ll be back Friday to introduce you. Until then, stay warm!

See you real soon!

Welcome, 2014!

You’ve probably heard about how awesome your predecessor, 2013, was, but I don’t want you to be nervous. I’ll show you the ropes. We’ll start slow and build up to an even better level of awesome.

Look me in the eye and tell me you’re not excited. We’re going to do great things together, 2014!

First of all, we’ve got two more Monster Haven books to write. I know! And they’re the final two in the series, so they’re going to be so exciting. I can’t even tell you all the crazy, really scary stuff we have to write for Zoey and Maurice and their friends. Happy and tragic and terrifying all rolled together.

What? You’ll be sad to see it end? I’ll be sad, too. But don’t worry. Stick around when your shift is over. 2015 will get a crack at Zoey’s world in a whole new way. I won’t abandon them. Honest.

So, we’ll be writing books 5 and 6 in the Monster Haven series. But also, we’ll be publishing books 4 and 5 during your time here. So, that’s pretty great, too.

But wait! There’s more! My dear 2014, you are the year we crank it up a couple notches. You are the year we bring a brand new series into the world. We’ve got a lot of writing to do if we’re going to get the new stuff out before the end of the year.

What? No, it has nothing to do with Zoey and Maurice. It does have Phyllis, the talking (and singing) houseplant, though. And a gorgon receptionist at a mythologically infused employment agency.

Here’s a quick description of the first book in the Mount Olympus Employment Agency series:

Muse: Unfinished

Wynter Greene, chronic failure at following through with anything in her life–jobs, boyfriends, crafting projects–finds herself taking a job as a muse at the Mount Olympus Employment Agency. If she can’t guide her clients into finishing what they start, she’ll be demoted and reassigned to Hades as poop scooper for Cerberus, the three-headed dog. But how can a life-long loser possibly help anyone else until she can first figure out how to help herself?

I’m going to need you to be a fairly quiet year, 2014. I’ll have to write five books (plus a book of short stories coming out in February) if I’m going to meet all my goals. But don’t worry. I’m not totally insane. Nearly all the short stories are written, and two of the novels are already partially written.

Think we can do it? Of course we can. And that will make you even more amazing than 2013.

But lets try not to go overboard with conventions and conferences. For this year, I think we’ll just focus on the writing, okay? Even the promo-train needs to stay in the station and stop trying to hit all the stops.

But oh, so much writing! Are you ready, 2014? I am!

Let’s do this! 

Dear 2013,

You have been epic. 2012 was a hard act to follow, what with publishing my first book, but you handled the transition with grace, poise, and a whole lot of confetti.

You were awesome.

Two books published this year. Amazon bestseller lists for all three of my books. Incredible reviews. Steady sales. New friends in the blogger world who help get the word out and keep those sales coming. Old friends who have my back and hold my hand or kick my butt, whichever is needed. A fourth book completed and already selling steady pre-orders. Readers who touch my heart with their kind words and encouragement, reminding me why I wanted to do this writer thing in the first place.

I went to my first book convention and met some very cool people. I shared a table at a comic book convention where I autographed boobs and spoke on a panel. (Not at the same time, and thank you again to my friends who brought their boobs around to my table be signed so I’d feel like a BIG DEAL.)

I saw amazing sights, like a giant King Kong hanging off a building, the center of the United States, and the talking trashcan, PUSH, at Disney World.

I built a castle, a haunted house, and a DeLorean time machine out of LEGO bricks. I switched to a Mac. I streamlined my book planning so there are few (if any) index cards now (although my whiteboard collection is getting bigger).

And I wrote. I wrote short stories. I wrote books. I started writing a brand new series. 2013 has been the year of a million ideas. My head is so full of ideas, it’ll take five years of writing non-stop to get them all out.

Dude. You’re making it really hard for 2014.

I’m sad to see you go, but I understand. We had a lot of fun while you were here, though, didn’t we?

Thank you for all the big moments that used to be dreams but are now achievements. And thank you for all the small moments filled with love and laughter and contentment that were also dreams once, but are now part of daily life.

You’ve been terrific. Have a safe trip to wherever you go when it’s time to switch over.

You were awesome.

Love,

Rachel

Toughen Up

Several years ago, I found myself surrounded by people who really weren’t nice, especially to me. Now, I know some of you have spent your entire lives in that sort of environment, and I am so sorry for that. But this was fairly new territory for me.

I’ve led a charmed life, I suppose. I can’t say everyone I’ve ever met was polite, caring, and treated me like a princess. That would be a ridiculous claim. But it’s been very rare that people were out-and-out mean.

I think I have a natural defense against mean people that steers me away from them before I come in contact. I know mean, horrible people are plentiful from stories other people tell me. But my experience is limited.

Which is why this particular situation knocked me on my ass. I probably looked like a kicked puppy. First there was the younger of the pair, telling me lies which were followed by condescending comments, then outright insults.

I was crushed.

Later the other horrible person topped it all off with a sneer and the admonishment that I needed to “toughen up.”

For the record, I wasn’t sitting there with a box of tissues bawling like a baby. I was just hurt, and I said so, mostly because I was baffled by the first person’s behavior.

You may be wondering why I’m telling you this story out of the blue like this. It happened years ago, but it still comes back to me at odd moments, that advice to toughen up. It hit me again a few days ago, and I felt like someone tapped me on the shoulder and told me to talk to you about this. Maybe one of you needs to hear what I have to say, especially now, during the holidays. Sometimes family can be the meanest people we know.

So, yeah. She told me I need to toughen up.

Screw that. I don’t need to toughen up. I am tough. Tough enough not to hurt people back when they’re horrible to me. I’m tough enough to keep from closing off my emotions to avoid feeling anything. This many years removed from the situation, I can say I’m tough enough to walk away from an unhappy life and start a brand new one that holds everything I ever wanted and everything I ever deserved. That’s being tough.

Not feeling hurt when someone is mean to you doesn’t necessarily make you tough.

When someone hurts your feelings–and I mean on purpose because they’re horrible people who want to hurt you, not because they’re insensitive or mean well–do you know why your feelings are hurt?

It’s not because you allowed it or because they played on your insecurities or made you realize something terrible about yourself you didn’t know.

Your feelings are hurt because you expected better out of that person. You opened up for love and got walloped with spite. Even if it’s a stranger who hurt your feelings, it hurts because you expect people to be better than that.

And that’s not a bad thing.

I believe in the inherent goodness of people. Most people, anyway. I will gladly choose a temporary dose of hurt feelings on the odd occasion over living a life of cynicism and doubt every day.

Following that terrible woman’s advice would change who I am inside. I’m just fine, thank you. I’m as tough as I need to be.

Are you?

Updates from Outer Space

Look into my eyes. Don’t look at the date of my last post. Nothing strange happened here. I didn’t disappear from the blog for two months. It’s all an illusion. I was here with you all along…

Disney World was awesome, of course. I was going to post lots of pictures here for you, but you know what? There is nothing at Disney World, not an angle of the castle, a pose of Mickey, or a single brick in the pavement that hasn’t been photographed a bazillion times and already exists on the Internet.

The trip was wonderful, exhausting, and heartbreaking when we had to leave. But I brought home no stories of bizarre behavior or strange locations. I know. Weird that a two-week trip to Disney World garners two paragraphs when a day trip to the center of the country caused four separate posts.

But I share weird stuff with you. Disney wasn’t weird. It was wonderful in all the ways I expected it to be.

So. Now that I’m back to blogging, I have a few things I need to tell you. First of all, if you’re not following me on Facebook or Twitter, you might want to click the links up there to do so. That way, if I get too busy again to blog, you’ll still be able to keep track. I always update the Facebook page when there’s news. Or something silly. That page gets more attention than this page or Twitter.  And for those of you who read this blog somewhere other than the actual website, here’s a link to the Facebook page: R.L. Naquin’s Author Page. That’s where you get immediate news.

And speaking of news, I have to talk to you about the newsletter. See the fancy button up there? If you haven’t clicked on it, yet, you probably should. And again, for those of you reading this outside the website, here’s a link to sign up: R.L. Naquin Newsletter. Okay. Now let me tell you why you should sign up.

This weekend the very first R.L. Naquin newsletter is going out. It will contain a super-secret password and a link to a hidden page on this website. For two weeks, you’ll be able to download a free story about Zoey and Maurice’s first holiday together. For the first of those two weeks, this is the only way you can get the story. Then it’ll be published out in the world for people to purchase. After the second week, the download here will be taken down, and the only way to get the story will be to buy it.

So. Free stuff is a good incentive to sign up, yes? As you can see, I’m not going to spam you or otherwise abuse your trust in handing over your email address. I’ve had the newsletter sign-up available for a couple months, and only now am I sending out the first issue.

Last, but definitely important, a quick update on where we stand with the Monster Haven books. I’m currently writing book five, Demons in My Driveway, and book four, Golem in My Glovebox is already available for pre-order for it’s April 21st release. We’re nearly to the end, guys! Or, at lease I am. You still have three more to read, while I only have one and a half to write.

If I don’t speak to you before then, Merry Christmas. May all your monsters be excellent cooks, and may you be surrounded by love, laughter, and tiny brownies singing the wrong words to holiday music.

See you real soon!

 

 

 

Away We Go!

In case you missed my post over on Here Be Magic yesterday, I wanted to let you all know that I’m leaving today for Walt Disney World. (Yay!) I’ll be gone for about two weeks.

Before I go, I just want to tell you a few things.

First, if you missed yesterday’s post, you can read it here: A Love Story. I got kind of mushy and told a true-life fairy tale.

Second, if you are waiting for mail from me, I’m so sorry. My head has been crazy with edits, new stuff I’m working on, and vacation preparations. I promise I’ll get it out to you as soon as I get back. Cross my heart.

Third, I will do my best to bring back lots of pictures and bizarre stories of my road trip and my Disney adventures.

Lastly, I want to hug you all so hard. Thank you for being so wonderful. As long as people keep reading them, I’ll keep putting out more books.

I’m off to make my pilgrimage to the Motherland. Mickey’s waiting for me. I hear he’s almost as excited as I am!

See you real soon!

You Are Not a Statistic

According to the official website, the odds of winning the Powerball are 1 in 175,223,510. In 2012, only 44% of people applying for med school got in. Hippos kill 2,900 people every year. Most articles I’ve read say the odds of getting a novel published are 1-2%.

Bullshit.

That doesn’t apply to me. It doesn’t apply to you. You know why? You’re not a statistic. If statistics mattered, nobody would play the lottery and we’d have a lot less doctors.

Also, hippos are cool. I have nothing to say about that one. Just…you know…try not to piss one off if you’re in Africa. Keep lots of marbles in your pockets so you can toss them off the boat into the hippo’s mouth. Hungry hippos love marbles.

The point here is that when I was starting out on this wild, hippo-less ride, nearly every article I read told me how badly the odds were stacked against me. Time was not on my side. Even if I did succeed in getting published, it would take long years of submitting my manuscript, waiting, collecting a bazillion rejections. It meant writing at least five terrible novels before I’d have a decent one worth shopping around. It meant heartbreak, struggle, disappointment, and probably failure.

You’ve probably heard all that, too.

I’m here to tell you, it’s all bullshit.

I am not a fluke. I am not a number. And neither are you.

There are so many paths to success now. Write something. Edit it so it’s good. It doesn’t have to be perfect. Educate yourself so you can make informed decisions. Then just do it.

Because seriously, you are awesome. You’re different from everyone else out there. You don’t belong heaped in a pile of numbers with everyone else.

Whether you’re an artist, a writer, a nursing student, a filmmaker, a grower of hothouse flowers, a golfer — numbers mean nothing.

Be you. Be awesome. Go succeed.

If You Wanna Buy a Truck, Pussycow

I grew up, mostly, in northern California, in Marin County. You know — where Zoey lives. I wanted my books to occur where my heart was. It didn’t hurt that I’ve got friends out there who answer questions or take pictures for me when I need to see something more clearly than Google Streetview. (Thanks, Kate! Thanks, Paul!)

But I wasn’t born there. I was born in southern California. And I lived there until I was eight.

Which is a long, rambling way of explaining why the death of a car salesman in L.A. made me sad when I heard about it today.

Cal Worthington was an icon. His commercials demanded attention. What was Cal up to this time? They always started the same way: “I’m Cal Worthington, and this is my dog, Spot!” Spot was never a dog. Not once. I saw Cal ride an elephant, play with goats, walk a pony, wrestle a tiger…I never saw a dog.

Then cue the theme that was reminiscent of the Beverly Hillbillies song sung to the tune of “If You’re Happy and You Know It.” I never knew what the words were. I didn’t care, I was a kid. I sang along anyway, as loud as I could.

“If you wanna buy a truck, pussycow. If you’re kinda short on cash pussycow. If you wanna lalalal lala lala lalala, pussycow, pussycow, pussycow.

I went back to the area as an adult, and there was Cal on TV, still with his dog spot who still wasn’t a dog, still selling cars in his Slim Pickens outfit and, by God, still playing that song.

Except, now I could understand the words. Pussycow was actually “Go see Cal.” I laughed so hard I nearly peed myself.

And then continued to sing along with the same words I’d already used.

I never bought a car in southern California, so I never had the opportunity to pussycow go see Cal. But it always made me happy, when I was in the area, to see that his commercials were still going strong.

He was quite the character, and he was part of my childhood. Never underestimate the strange building blocks that make up who you are.

Apparently, ninety-two-year-old Cal died yesterday watching football. I think that’s awesome.

If our pets are all waiting for us on the other side of the tunnel when we die, Cal Worthington had a zoo full of “dogs” named Spot, eager to greet him.

Thanks for the cool addition to my childhood, Cal.

Pussycow. Pussycow. Pussycow.