Liz Everly's Blog, page 150

Sexy Saturday Round-Up

Photo by Dollen

Hello, sexy! It’s the middle of August. Are you ready for school? Well, take a break and read some interesting posts from the web this week. Enjoy!

From Liz:

Roz Morris predicting the future of publishing.

Just for fun, check out Christina Mandora’s hawt blog.

Is seduction dead ?

Portraying ethnic characters with dignity.

CMK

Academic Publishing is deeply problematic

No time to work out? Can you spare 7 minutes?

The biggest mystery writers conference around is next month in Albany: Bouchercon  (I’ll be there!)

21 Reasons to Love Finnish Street Style

From Elizabeth:

Has your lover got some extra cushion for the pushin? Here’s how to be an ally to your fat lover.

You’re petite and he’s well-endowed. Ow! How to make it work.

Which Greek island is right for you? (hint: all of them!)

Fall 2013 hair trends are out. The wet look, anyone?

Stay Hungry,

Liz

Finnish Sauna

By C. Margery Kempe

What could be more iconic than the Finnish sauna?

My cousin Helka asked me if I wanted one the first day I arrived at her cottage. After a long day of travel it sure sounded good. Oskari and Antti got the fires going, one for the hot water (to wash afterward) and the other for the sauna itself. I had a sauna each night I was there. It was wonderful!

The beautiful wood: where every sauna begins.

Wood benches, the bucket and ladle, and of course, the birch whisks; Jussi made these in the traditional style.

My bed was right outside the sauna.

If you’re adventurous, you can cool off by running down to the river and jumping in. Refreshing! So I’m told…

But after a sauna, most enjoy the fine taste of a Karhu beer. Well, I did.

Late night twilight; at latitude 65° N, night is brief in August.

One Of Us: ‘Pre-published’ Author Kiersten Hallie Krum Dishes with Lady Smut ‘Bout Sexy, Sweaty Suspense

Kiersten takes a break from blogging bliss.

Hey fellow vaginas! We’re hanging today with Kiersten Hallie Krum, a would-be aspiring romance author building that professional romance platform brick by brick with her funny blog posts.  

MADELINE IVA: Hello Kiersten, my fellow pre-published author.

KIERSTEN HALLIE KRUM: Hello Lady Smut! Thank you so much for inviting me to take over your blog today.

MADELINE IVA: I love reading your blog posts–so fun.  What part of you that comes out in romance-land that normally doesn’t come out to play in your so-called ‘real’ life?

KIERSTEN HALLIE KRUM: I’m pretty much a what-you-see-is-what-you-get person. While Romancelandia is always a professional environment, it is also a helluva lot of fun.  I think I am more relaxed there around people who “get it” and thus even more myself (God help you all).

Certain environments bring out “Professor K” as my conference wife roommate calls it (I like big words and I cannot lie) but in general how I sound on “The Twitter” or in my blog posts is essentially what you’ll get in my books and in person.

Bo is Lost Girl–
a bi-curious Canadian succubus. Really.

MADELINE IVA:OMG, I adore your blog posts describing an episode of Orphan Black at Heroes and Heartbreakers.  What celebs/movie stars/tv shows etc, are you crushing on at this moment and what’s the appeal?

KIERSTEN HALLIE KRUM: You mean there’s actually someone who doesn’t know? Quelle surpise! At the moment, my biggest TV jones is for the Urban Fantasy show Lost Girl (SyFy Channel) including a particular obsession penchant for its male lead, whose alpha, wolf shifter character hits all my hero hot spots.

I’m also entranced by Orphan Black (BBCAmerica Channel), a show of mad brilliance with innovative plot, crisp writing, and the absolute best performance by any actress on television today. (Full disclosure: I recap both of these shows for HeroesandHeartbreakers.com).

I’m a huge TV and movie fan and I especially enjoy tweeting while I watch, or “twatching” (TM not mine).  One of my favorite things is when the cast of a TV show live tweets and interacts with their fans while watching an episode.

Dyson from Lost Girl. Yow.

Can’t miss programs include Justified, Sherlock, Banshee, Nashville (the music in this show is not to be missed), Strikeback, Person of Interest, The Big Bang Theory, and The Walking Dead, to name a few. I’m an Anglophile too, so I also hang out on BBCAmerica and around PBS’ imported programming a lot.

I adore genre TV, even when it’s just campy, good fun.

MADELINE IVA: Tell us about your background in book publishing. 

KIERSTEN HALLIE KRUM: I worked in book publishing from 1999-2002 starting out as a publishing assistant at Avon Books and eventually becoming promotion manager at what was then Bantam Dell at Random House. I also got my Master of Science in Publishing from NYU during this period.  While an assistant at Avon Books, I wrote back cover copy for our authors, a job I continued to do freelance for more than ten years for various imprints like Grand Central/Forever, St. Martin’s Press, and Pocket Books.

MADELINE IVA:  Has a background in publishing helped you understand the biz? 

KIERSTEN HALLIE KRUM: A publishing background absolutely helps me now as a writer (though it is by no means a requirement) mostly in how it’s made me familiar with industry lingo. I still remember swallowing the embarrassment of ignorance to ask my boss the meaning of the terms “sell in” and “sell through”.  Even all these years later, I feel better informed about how other departments outside of editorial contribute to a book’s successful publication than I might be had I not worked in the industry.

Kiersten blogs recaps of Orphan Black on Heroes & Heartbreakers.

MADELINE IVA: Given your publishing past, what’s your take on the indie market?

KIERSTEN HALLIE KRUM: The independent (or online or self-publishing) market is an ever-more crucial and progressive option both for writers who have not had success with traditional publishing and for those authors unwilling to dance to that tune for a share of their gross profit.

I think what it does best is level the playing field (to mix my metaphors for a moment) by providing an alternative path to publication.

Though anyone who expects it to be an easy or a quick process is bound to be disappointed. It’s not as simple as throwing an MS Word document up on Amazon and behold the readers (and money) shall come.  Independent/self-published authors work very hard for their successes (or at least the ones I know do) and have a keen and savvy understanding of how best to work the system so their titles reach the most readers.

The old adage still rings true: There are no overnight success stories.

MADELINE IVA: You went to RWA nationals this year, and you tell us about #Bittercon here.  What have you learned about people who go to major conferences, vs. the people who don’t?

KIERSTEN HALLIE KRUM: Oh #Bittercon. When you care enough to share your best snark.

I’m a big proponent for pre-published writers to attend writing conferences. Writing is a solitary endeavor and conferences educate, support, and inspire us in a setting designed to encourage networking and socialization with other writers.

Canadian clones–does it get any better than that?

That said, the costs for conferences/conventions are high, especially on the national level. There are a number of more intimate regional/chapter conferences within the RWA network (and outside of it) that offer many of the advantages of a national conference without the higher costs and larger crowds.

Two of the more popular ones are the earlier mentioned New Jersey Romance Writers Put Your Heart in a Book conference every October and the Greater Seattle Romance Writers Emerald City Writers’ Conference, also in October. One for each coast! I don’t know if there’s any difference between people who do or don’t attend a major conference, but I’ve never heard anyone say, “I’m so sorry I went to that conference. What a colossal waste of time and money.”

One of the best perks for pre-published writers at these conferences is the opportunity to pitch their books to invited agents and editors.  A one-on-one pitch is stressful, no question. But if you’ve done your homework and you’re pitching to the right editor/agent for your material, you will almost always get a submission request. Seventy percent of authors who get a request do not fulfill it. I swear my next conference button is going to read “Are You in the 30%?”

MADELINE IVA: Most writers kinda dread social media, but you seem to have no fear. What’s your take on it?

KIERSTEN HALLIE KRUM: I love networking; it’s why I take to Twitter so well since it’s basically the world’s cocktail hour.

MADELINE IVA: That’s what I call it too!

KIERSTEN HALLIE KRUM: Overall, I’m a social creature (though I have more than my fair share of hermit moments too). I interact a lot on social media with romance-industry people from all fields.

Kiersten & I share the love for funny heartwarming erotic romance by Victoria Dahl

MADELINE IVA: What are you reading now?

KIERSTEN HALLIE KRUM: Right now, I’m reading through the troves of titles I picked up at RWA National Convention. Recently, as a birthday treat, I was able to read an advanced copy of Victoria Dahl’s upcoming release So Tough to Tame.

MADELINE IVA: Her work is fabulous! Very funny. Love her.

KIERSTEN HALLIE KRUM: Very sexy and fun.

MADELINE IVA: What kind of romance do you write, why do you write it, and when can we see it in print or on Kindle?

KIERSTEN HALLIE KRUM: I write romantic suspense novels, which basically means I write two books in one, as the romantic relationship and the suspense plot have near equal weight and must intertwine within the story.

I love the romantic suspense genre because I love action/adventure mixed in with my romance (as perhaps my TV choices already revealed). I also have a difficult time finding it plausible that a couple can fall in love for life within the course of a few days, but I have much less difficulty believing a couple can fall in love for life within the course of a few days when those days are made up of highly-charge, life-on-the-line moments.

How people behave in stressful situations when they can’t plan how best to present themselves but can only instinctively react reveals a lot about their true characters. Romantic suspense raises that intensity to a crisis life-and-death level and I love to read, watch, and write that.

Currently, I have a manuscript out on submission. It is the first in a three-book modern day, romantic suspense series about a trio of related woman whose family heritage of espionage has been kept secret from them all their lives…until now.

MADELINE IVA: Thanks so much for chatting with us today–hope you come back and hang out with us again.

KIERSTEN HALLIE KRUM: Bye guys! Thanks again for having me here today!

Kiersten Hallie Krum writes smart, sharp & sexy romantic suspense. Find her snarking her way across social media as @kierstenkrum and on her web site and blog at www.kierstenkrum.com.

Kicking Rejection To The Curb

As many writers do, I keep a lot of files. I’ve got files for book research, subdivided into time periods (Medieval, Elizabethan, earth 19th C., etc.), files for blogging ideas, files for book ideas, blogging research, publicity, conference information, and on and on. I’ve also (happily!) got a couple files for book contracts.

This plethora of paper just shouldn’t be so in our digital age, but I’ve been slow to scan so my file drawers are bulging. So much so, in fact, that my husband starting hinting about how nice it would be if I would go through my “stuff” to see if I actually need all of it. (To help me be clear on what he wanted, he accompanied his “hints” with annoyed sighs whenever he opened his file drawer and saw it bursting with my files. He’s good that way. )

So last night I got down to business trying to figure out what exactly I did have in there that was taking up so much room. There was one file in particular, packed to the gills and over three inches thick. This much be important I muttered to myself as I heaved it out of the drawer. I opened to the first item, a letter. “Dear Author, We thank you for submitting your manuscript but it’s not the right fit for us. Good luck placing it elsewhere.”

Cripes, what was I saving that for? I turned to the next item, a postcard. “Dear Author, We thank you for submitting your manuscript but it’s not the right fit for us. Good luck placing it elsewhere.” There were more letters. More postcards. Lots of them, hundreds of them, all with essentially the same message: We’re rejecting this manuscript.

Again the question: why in the world was I saving this? Many of the rejections were for a book I did eventually end up getting published. Many, but not all. I have lots of manuscripts that still haven’t found homes, and lots of rejections from authors and agents who don’t want them. I also came across a contract I had gotten from a very reputable agency to represent a manuscript that remains, to this day, unsold. The relationship with that agency unfortunately didn’t work out. So why am I saving these often very painful reminders of the tough world of publishing?

Perhaps my thinking was: I’ll show them. One day these manuscripts will get published and then I’ll flaunt these cold rejections, waving them in the air like a victory flag over the evil agents and editors who said it was no good! (Insert evil scientist laughter).

Or maybe I thought they’d make me stronger. See I could tell myself. Look at all of these rejections. You could wallpaper a ballroom with them but you haven’t let them get you down. You persevered and eventually got published.

Truth is, though, I have let them get to me. Each reject has taken me down a peg and caused me to have to lick my wounds, take a breath and regroup, vowing to go on. I’ve felt no infusion of willpower from the letters. They haven’t branded vows of revenge on my heart. And once I got published, I felt no sense of satisfaction or “I told you so” from reviewing these letters.

The thing about writing is that of course we want to get published. It’s the shiny gold star at the end of an arduous journey. But I don’t know any author who writes solely to get published. We write because we love writing The sense of victory and satisfaction and pride come from planting an idea in our minds, letting it germinate, and then giving it root on the page. If we get published then yea! Good for us. But for me a pile of rejection letters serves no purpose other than to make me momentarily depressed.

But what cures that depression? A big hungry shredder, which is exactly where those rejection letters are now. I feel so much better.

Hot Slices, “Delicious” Short Stories, plus a Freebie

I love being a published author with a traditional house. But with all of the indie opportunities out there, I think it’s smart for writers to test the waters and see how we can do with a bit of self-publishing to boost our traditionally published novels. The key to sales these days is producing as much as we can to make it available for readers. Readers can be impatient. When they like your writing, they simply want more. So I’ve decided to answer many emails and requests for new stories by writing a few short stories and making them available on Amazon. This is with my publisher’s blessing. Of course.

I’ve just published two e-shorts in what I’m calling my “Delicious” series. You guessed it. They all have a food theme.

The newest one is called “Ripe” and it takes place on an organic berry farm and it’s about an unrequited high school passion. You know the bad boys that always turned you on, but you were too good of a girl to do anything about? That is exactly Tasha’s experience. Only now, ten years later, she knows exactly what she wants. It’s listed on Amazon for 99 cents. It’s a short enough read for a lunchtime break.

To celebrate the release of “Ripe,” I am offering my first short story for free for two days. (So download it today! click on the book cover, you’ll be taken directly to Amazon!) The story is about a young widow who gets snowed in with her hot chef-teacher. It’s called “Stir until Stiff.”

At the end of my short stories are some “Hot Slices” or excerpts from SAFFRON NIGHTS and the upcoming CRAVINGS.  In the mean time, I’m hard at work on the revisions for LIKE HONEY, book #3 in my SAFFRON NIGHTS series and am gearing up for the release of CRAVINGS in November. So stay tuned!

Crazy Badass Luxury: What It Feels Like Being Fashion’s Bitch

I was looking at September Vogue the other day.  It’s a great value, the same price as a regular mag for a thick tome that could kill somebody if you chunked them on the head with it.  I do recognize that upon reading a Vogue I enter this twisted world.  Instead of reading the articles and ignoring the ads it’s just the other way around.

My thought process was something like this: on the off chance I actually wanted to buy some new clothes and look fashionable this fall, what’s in fashion right now?

I’m here to give it to you straight ladies, it’s looking bad–it’s looking real bad out there.

Finally, after careful analysis I’ve deemed that you have three choices for creating that cutting edge look this Fall:

1) HAUTE GRUNGE

2) HUNGER GAMES

3) CAGED CRAY-CRAY

Alexander McQueen is dead. Long Live Alexander!

Let’s take them one by one.

HAUTE GRUNGE

Haute Grunge = heroine hipster chic.  With a streetwalker twist.

Now, everyone loves to mock hipsters–it’s practically a recognized sport where I live.  Yet their look is surprisingly hard to pull off.

Exactly!

Penny tried it on the television show Happy Endings when she met a guy in a laundromat and went on a date with him only to realize that he hadn’t run out of clothes on laundry day–no he wore those mismatching clothes all the time.  He LIKED  looking like that.

Penny has not quite mastered the ironic expression–see above.

So she tries it herself, but she’s a bit of a miss.  She goes for a kind of Minnie Mouse meets school girl geek and misses the mark entirely, almost, sorta.   I mean, the glasses are almost on the money.  Also hipster women are very skinny for starters, and if you’re wearing a bow like that, it’s ironic and you need an expression to match.

No wonder then that this mysterious retro-ish hard-to-pull-together look would suck fashonistas right in.  Of course they had to muck with it.  They embrace the move towards hipsterdom first by taking the easy path: picking out really ugly granny coats for fall.

Then they muck with the look some more, by adding in what they call a slightly rock-n-roll look, but what I call the big furry coat prostitute look.

Hey Mister–wanna date?

(I always was slightly appalled at how Carrie wore one in Sex & The City–and yes, she was frequently mistaken for a hooker.)

It’s actually muskrat. (Ew!) Hey Mr. Big wanna date?

Now I loved Grunge, don’t get me wrong.  And hipster clothes are very interesting–if it’s a hipster wearing them.  It’s just that the Haute Grunge thing blows chunks.

Turning to the HUNGER GAMES LOOK:

Inspired by Effie from the Hunger Games, this look is straight up over the top, no chaser.  Love it.

Will the real Effie please stand up and simper.

Only one problem–Nicki Menaj has already taken this look and made it her own.  Don’t be a Menaj wanna-be — stay away from the Hunger Games look. 

CAGED CRAY-CRAY:

I mean, some times I too have a bad day and need a cage for my face–who doesn’t?

It helps with dieting too.

This look is definitely Goth gone sideways.

The sideways can take the shape of 60′s acid minimalism like this amazing eyeball coat.  Or it can involve cray-cray shoes with curved heels or striped pony boots.

Yes, but where would you wear it?

I don’t know about you, but just the other day I was going to go out and was looking at my wardrobe thinking: “Now why haven’t I bought myself a pair of striped hairy zebra pony boots? Why? Why?”

Do you hear the sound of pounding hooves?

Because I would look ugly in them is why.  You do not want people to look at your feet and associating them with the sound of thundering hooves across the savanna.

I’ll admit Caged Cray-Cray is my favorite look for Fall — it’s just that I would never wear these clothes.  Why? They’re not feminine and I would never look good in them.

Do I love them as arty objects? Yes.  Will I put them on my body? No.

Though I would love the eyeball coat if it came in an umbrella or a purse.  That would be whack.

RESTRAINED GOTH INSPIRED:

as if to give my eyes a needed rest, there’s this Louis Vuitton ad with Michelle Williams.

A little goth, a little fem.

See, Vogue, that’s what I want to look like.  Is that so hard?

Love the look–Too bad the bag is so ugly.

Sexy Saturday Round-Up

Photo by Dollen

By Liz Everly and the Lady Smut Bloggers

Hello sexy! Is it really August? Summer is flying by! The Lady Smut bloggers are striving to bring you the best and most interesting blog posts on the Internets. Hold on, we’ve got some juicy ones for you.

From Liz:

One of my fav blogging writers Dean Wesley Smith on Killing the Top Ten Scared Cows of Publishing.

A fascinating survey on what readers want.

The Elephant Journal on ten reasons to have sex. (As if we need more. Grin.)

If your looking for an orgasm without the actual sex part.  Here’s some things that can cause one.

Writing tips from a film class. Interesting post from Shannon A. Thompson.

It’s national “Read a Romance Month.” Check out all the fabulous blog posts here.

Seven reasons Social Media might not be working to grow your fiction readership.

From Elizabeth:

Absolutely brilliant! Cormac McCarthy describes the Miley Cyrus video “We Can’t Stop.” Best appreciated if you see the video first.

What your food preferences reveal about you and your romantic partner. 

Wretched writing and other news, via the Paris Review.

Indie Author News tells us how to self-publish a best seller.

We finally learn from a guy’s perspective why men send us pictures of their penises.

From CMK:

“Kindle has turned me off paper books.”

E-book sales growth slowed to a crawl in late 2012 and in the first quarter of 2013. Digital Book World considers what this means.

Five ways to fix the book publishing industry.

Think you’ve got bad reviews? True crime author, Ann Rule, is suing a paper over a damning review of her book about a woman who killed her husband – after it emerged the man who wrote the review was engaged to the killer!

Stay Hungry,

Liz

Helsinki

By C. Margery Kempe

My first full day in Helsinki I had planned to go to the national museum before I met up with my friend Laura (under the clock at Stockmann’s of course, the traditional meeting place in Helsinki) but it didn’t open until 11 so I went to Kiasma, the contemporary art museum first while the heavens opened. Click the photos to embiggen them.

The karhu that guards the national history museum

Outside the music center, perhaps the pike Väinämoinen wrestled

It’s always fun to see what they put in this big, two-level gallery space

In the video section, some recently recovered Warhol films, including John and Yoko at the former’s birthday party (some footage appeared in the Imagine video). Shocked to see John with the same shoes I had in 8th grade O.O

Väinämoinen and the pikebone kantele — actually without pigeons this time!

Have to say hello to Havis Amanda: on May Day she is covered by students’ white caps (and drunken students)

A great public art initiative, putting interesting works on the boring electrical boxes along the street

At the observatory: the astronomers had to lay on the sofa to avoid movement

What fun! A Star Wars toy exhibit, demonstrating how childhood fun can lead to lifelong ambition. Laura brought her children to the observatory when they were young and now Jyri studies and works at observatories around the world

The young woman working there knew Jyri, so we got a few extras on the tour like the eastern rotunda not currently open to the public (learn more http://www.observatorio.fi/english/about.html)

The architect wanted balance always, so since there was only one door leading to the rotunda, he had a second one painted in the lecture room. On the chalkboard equations remained from the last lecture given there several years ago.

We also got to go up in one of the towers; the walkway had a low ceiling. One astronomer’s boys used it as a shooting range, so there were bullet holes in the door leading to the telescope.

The telescope, much newer than the building yet rather old by scientific standards. Still used though — and you had to be sure to close the doors to the hatch so you didn’t fall through while shifting the telescope.

There’s a sweet little café on the grounds, too. We had a salmon quiche and some cold drinks. Laura knows everyone — including the café owner! It was lovely, but even better was dinner that night with the family. Thanks Laura, Risto and Jyri!

A beautiful afternoon in the Plague Park (Ruttopuisto) where the oldest church in the city can be found along with the memorials for those who died.

Of course Lönnrot’s statue is well kept; the compiler of the folk runes that make up the Kalevala has an important legacy for all of Finand and the eternal sage and Aino make a rapt audience in perpetuity.