Maegan Provan's Blog, page 12
March 31, 2015
Clash of Legends Giveaway
It’s release day for Clash of Legends! Check out this awesome giveaway from Jo! (Also, try not to read the other comments, there is a major spoiler!!)
Originally posted on Amaranthine by Joleene Naylor:
Clash of Legends, the seventh book in the Amaranthine series, is live! To celebrate, I���m holding a giveaway. Since this is the seventh book there will be up to seven winners (chosen by random.org). The giveaway is opened between March 31, 2015 and April 28, 2015. Winners will be chosen at the end of April and notified by their preferred contact method.
To enter: ��Leave a comment below (or send an email to Joleene at Joleenenaylor.com ) telling me ��your favorite part of Clash of Legends (or any book in the Amaranthine series). IMPORTANT: You MUST leave me a way to contact you ��� either a link to your facebook profile, or an email address (if you���re worried about posting these publicly, send your entry to me via email). Otherwise I have no way to contact��you if you win.
The prizes: I���ve given away a lot of things over the���
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March 30, 2015
How to Deal with Bullies and Trolls- video by Mortem3r
WATCH THIS. I MEAN IT!!
Holy Cow
I honestly could not think of a real title, so you are just going to have to live with the post entitled “Holy Cow.”
I have a lot I want to talk about in this post and I really hope that I don’t forget something.��I want to talk about authors’ rights and homophobia. Please stick with me because I promise I am going to tie them in together.
I know that when I share a post about some crazy author that has destroyed their career for standing up for themselves against bullies, I have preached the “take it quietly” stance. I know that saying that and then sharing posts about authors’ rights might come off as a bit contradictory. So, I’ve decided I am going to clear a few things up. My mother always taught me that if I didn’t have anything nice to say, I shouldn’t say anything at all. It took me a long time to learn that. Some of my book reviews that I have written might come off as mean, and go against that, but trust me when I say I try to keep my reviews constructive. I try to be diplomatic when it comes to confrontation. I state the facts as I see them and move on. Most authors are this way, as well. Sometimes, though, one person gets rubbed the wrong way, or loves drama and everything goes��down hill very quickly.
Authors continue to get labeled as BBA because they take standing up for themselves too far. Like Kathleen Hale, who stalked a troll and went to her house. ��Or countless other authors who have taken the whole “fight back” stance too literally. Of course, reviewers are just as bad, if not worse. If one reviewer builds up enough of a following, their one bad review can destroy an author’s career before it can even get started. “Social” review sites like Goodreads are a breeding ground for the hate mongers. They will gnaw and rip away at an author until that author snaps and acts out. Of course, there are authors that poke and prod at the reviewers just to get attention so that they can victimize themselves and make the whole situation worse. The whole thing is rather a vicious, fucked up circle. And there are authors who bully other authors because they think they can. Then there are the scammers who try to extort authors and when an author calls them out on their bullshit, the author gets a bad review. (Basically everybody finds a reason to fight.)
So authors, in order to save their careers, keep quiet and let the bullies and trolls walk all over them because their careers can’t afford to be ruined. Someone like myself who has two novels and four short stories really can’t afford to get on the bad side of the masses because my “career” would never recover. We sit back, quietly watching as one or two people at a time post reviews��with things like how they couldn’t relate to our characters, or something as bizarre as hating us for no real reason, and we’re expected to take it. We’re supposed to be at the mercy of our readers. Which, before that gets taken the wrong way, I want you all to understand something. We write for our readers. We breathe life into our books for our readers. Why? Because without them , we have nothing. But that does not mean that we should be abused or mistreated. That doesn’t mean we’re attached to strings and forced to dance like puppets. We want to keep a clean image so we say nothing.
Then shit like this happens:
In August of 2014, Interracial Romance author Roslyn Holcomb went to her blog and stated that white people should not be allowed to write about interracial relationships simply because they’re white. (Which, I mean, you’re going to write about people from two different races in a relationship but nobody else can? Seriously? Fuck you.) And recently, the woman said that if she no longer wants to support the LBGQT community and if she ever came across a transgender person (speaking about a Male to Female transition, or as she put it, a “gay boy”) that she would shoot them.
Dumb ass, ignorant behavior like that is why authors fear for themselves and their careers. Every time an author wants to stand up for themselves, they are afraid of being compared to an idiot like that. So we feel like we��have��to sit back and be quiet. If some authors would get their lives in order and just stop acting foolish, perhaps the forums would be more open and accepting of us standing up for ourselves and expressing our own opinions. We are continuously set back because some authors think that their shit doesn’t stink and they act like it.
I want to work in a community that people are allowed to converse freely without worry that they’re going to be abused or ruin their careers, but we all have to work together to make that happen.��There was a time when authors were well respected and I know that it can happen again. Respect the author. Respect the reviewer. Calm the fuck down.
March 29, 2015
When Did Writers Become Second Class Citizens?
Originally posted on Love's Last Refuge:
This isn���t exactly a rant. It���s more a question, a puzzle I���ve been trying to solve for quite some time.
Fresh off a writer���s conference, I���m pumped and discouraged, and elated and despairing, assured and unsure��� Whatever gamut of emotions that���s intimately tied to ego and self-expression, there���s nothing quite like several days of advice panels to make me realize how much and how little I know.
And that���s neither good nor bad, it���s just the nature of the beast, the perks of joining a community of content creators (who used to be called ���artists��� before commercialization, product placements, and the endless pressure to quantify the self in pursuit of a vision of success that���s tied to monetary worth alone).
As a writer I wear many hats, not all of them associated with the physical act of getting isolated words parsed into some coherence that forms the core of a���
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So what exactly is going on with The Night Touched Chronicles and Becoming Night Touched?
I’ve been briefly mentioning changes coming here and there, but I haven’t taken the time to really talk to you guys in depth about anything. I don’t think that’s very fair. I’ve tried to be as open and honest with you guys as possible. With everything going on on my end, I don’t think I have done a very good job. So today I am going to remedy that. I hope that by the time I have finished and published this post, you guys are still willing to stick by me.
1. What’s up with the hiatus?
Several months ago I kept going back and forth on what I termed as “hiatus.” I had set a schedule for myself that included blogging, vlogging, book reviews, and other things of that nature. My husband and I moved in with my mother in law, which turned out to be the worst thing we could have ever done. I found it hard to stick to my schedule because her negativity weighed too heavily on me. I’m not saying that I’m not negative, because I am, but living in a house with that woman killed my creativity and the stress was too much to handle. Publishing Jeremy almost didn’t happen. Brian and I have moved out, we’re in our own place, and things are starting to get better. I will say that the “hiatus” is off, but I am not giving myself a schedule for now. I still work a full time job and I still don’t have nearly as much time to do everything that I would like, but things are happening slowly.
2. TNTC revamp?
Okay, yes, I am going to be “revamping” Celine. When I originally wrote that book, I was in a hurry to publish and get my name out there. Celine is much shorter than I wanted it to be, and when/ if you move on to Jeremy, the flow doesn’t match. After I published Jeremy, I felt that Celine was a disservice to my readers. I want to apologize for that. I have sort of started work on it, but I have signed up for Camp NaNoWriMo and so I will be working on the rewrite first draft in April. This means that I am going to have to hold off on starting Book Three: Texas until Celine is where I want it to be. I can’t promise that I’ll have everything ready to go and republished early enough to publish Book Three this year, but don’t lose faith, I am writing.
3. Already purchased Celine and don’t want to spend more money?
Not to worry. I am actually going to be uploading the changes directly to the original ASIN. This means that if you already own a copy on your Kindle, then you will automatically get the new version. You do have to be connected to the internet on your device to receive the update, of course. If you’ve published a hard copy and want a new one, forward your receipt along with your address to authormaeganprovan@gmail.com. I know how many copies were sold, so I know how many to send out, I just don’t know who to send them to. This also goes for those who purchased a copy on Smashwords and Barnes & Noble. I have made the digital version of Celine a Kindle exclusive (for now) so you won’t be able to get the update. However, if you forward me your receipt and the format you need, I can get them sent out.
4. What about Becoming Silas and Becoming Jeremy?
Yes, the Becoming Night Touched mini series is incomplete right now, but it will be soon. Silas’s short is almost finished but I really want to spend my free time focusing on the changes/ additions that I want to make to Celine. That doesn’t mean that I have completely ignored my characters in any way. If anything, I am doing them justice by taking Celine to a whole new level.
So there you have it. Those are the top 4 questions that I felt needed to be answered.��I hope that I provided��some insight into everything that’s going on. I appreciate your support more than you know. Don’t forget to follow this blog; I am trying to update more often. There is also the Authors and Bloggers Against Piracy tour coming at the end of May, so watch out for that. Thanks everyone!!
March 26, 2015
A very special Book Review Thursday.
Hello everyone and welcome to a very special Book Review Thursday. I wanted to come out of hiatus for a moment to bring you all an amazing surprise! I am joined by Oren, one of the most interesting, albeit misunderstood, characters from Joleene Naylor���s Amaranthine Series. He agreed to an interview, and I hope that you all are as excited as I am!
So Oren, if it���s okay with you, I���d like to get right to it. What have you been up to since we last saw you?
After the climatic events in Indonesia, Jorick has been understandably���insane. The interesting thing is that he���s not the only one, and there���s been a flurry of activity centered on retrieving his human. In fact, there was such an army that it made progress incredibly slow. It���s difficult moving more than four or five vampires at a time unless you have a van. And since we���re cut off from civilization, we don���t.
Since arriving in Indonesia, have you considered just cutting ties and heading back home? I mean, Jorick has asked a lot of you, do you think that he might be asking too much sometimes?
It���s nice that someone has noticed how demanding he is, but when it comes to fighting Malick we are in accord. It was Malick who controlled Senya and Bren, and so ultimately Malick that is to blame for���for what happened.�� Killing him is essentially finishing what I began by attacking the Citadel ��� it���s the completion of a war Jorick refused to participate in. Interesting that he suddenly thinks it���s his idea.
Once that���s finished, though, we are returning to the States, whether Jorick comes with us or not.
Let���s say once the war is over, the council says ���Hey Oren, we���ve seen your drive and we want you to come work for us.��� Do you think you would ever be able to willingly work at the Citadel or anything like that?
An emphatic no. I can���t believe that Jorick would ever consent to work for the hypocrites. Malick may not be in charge anymore, but I doubt the new regime will be any better. If this war, or quest, if you prefer, has taught me anything it���s that the ancients are insane power-hungry children. Their wisdom is weak and their rule tyrannical. I would no more be a part of their monstrosity than I would become a vampire hunter.
Your after life has definitely been a roller coaster, wouldn���t you say? You went from losing your wife and children in one fell swoop (and I am very sorry for your loss), to traveling across the globe with your maker. What kind of affect do you feel that that���s had on you?
Erm���thank you for the���sympathies. If you don���t mind though we���ll���erm���move along. Globe hopping. It���s tiresome. I was never one for travel, and we were quite content to live most of our afterlives on the plantation in Virginia, until���Ahem. Of course I have traveled before. I had a few makeshift dens near Claudius��� hangouts so that we could keep an eye on him, but we didn���t travel like this. I���m looking forward to going home. Not that we have a den prepared. I suppose that���s something we���ll need to consider.
You have had a very ���humans cause trouble��� stance when it comes to Katelina. Would you say that you are starting to come around to her and her ability to hold her own, or do you still think that her remaining human is still a hindrance?
Ah yes. Jorick���s���human. My opinion of her is, unfortunately, tied into the reaction she causes in Jorick. Were she not associated with him, perhaps she would have been���fine as a human servant. Despite my reputation I don���t dislike humans on principle, provided they know their place. I had human servants for well over a hundred years. The problem with this particular human, as I said, is what she does to Jorick. He is over protective of her, constantly concerned for her welfare, and determined to leave her on a silk cushion ��� only then he won���t *leave* her ��� he drags her with us.�� If he wants her as an equal, fine, then make her an equal and stop all the aggravating fretting, and if he wants to play her knight in shining armor and protect her from the demons, then leave her home where she���s safe. He needs to make his mind up once and for all.
Once you have finally defeated Malick, do you think that you���ll return to the quiet life? Find a new home somewhere a settle down for a while?
Yes, that���s my plan. I imagine we���ll need to purchase a house legally, if we want the idiotic humans to leave us in peace. As for who will be settling down with me, I can���t say. I imagine my sister will, and Etsuko, but for the others; Micah, Loren, his new friend Ume���I assume they will go back to whatever they were doing before
��Now, correct me if I���m wrong, but it seems like you���ve been warming up to Etsuko. I know that more than a few readers are hoping for a blossoming romance between the two of you. Do you think that there potential for a relationship there, or do you want people to just leave it alone?
Erm���Ahem���Etsuko. Ah. Yes. Well. Etsuko is���She, erm. I-I don���t quite know how to handle her. I���m afraid I���m rather used to more���aggressive women, for lack of a better term. Etsuko is very���She���s���accommodating. Almost subservient. I expected such behavior when she was a human ��� as I said humans should know their place, and she did that adequately, but now that she���s immortal���On the other hand it���s refreshing to see someone with the proper deference to their master for a change. Yes. It is nice. As for romance I���Erm���Yes���Well���Romance���That���s���That���s another topic.�� Ahem.
It looks like we���re just about out of time. Is there anything that you would like to add before you go?
Thank you for having me. It���s nice to converse with someone who understands proper respect rather than pushing horrifying questions in their visitors��� face regarding their undergarments, or other such nonsense. I hope that readers who pick up the newest installment are able to enjoy it, despite our author���s limited capacity for telling an interesting story. Then again, I may be bitter towards her for her poor plot choices.
I hope that she forgives you for saying that.�� Thank you so much for joining us today, Oren. And thank you to Joleene for letting you come by. I���m looking forward to reading more about you and the others in the upcoming release of Clash of Legends, which will be out March 31st, 2015.
For those of you interested in pre-ordering a copy, please check out the links below. Thank you so much for stopping by the blog!
Clean Reader= Censorship
Update!! The shop that was linked to Clean Read has been pulled. This is fantastic. Now the app only allows people to read books they have already purchased by other means,
Originally posted on Maegan Provan, Author:
Cursing ahead:�� If profanity bothers your sensitivities, please don���t read. Please don���t put this through a ���clean��� app for you to stomach it. If you can���t handle cursing, move on.
What the fuck is wrong with people? I mean what the absolute fuck is wrong with people today? You can���t sneeze without some asshole getting offended. You can���t speak out about equality, or the idea of other religions without some fucking prude��pissing themselves about being offended.
For those of you that don���t know what Clean Reader is, it���s an app created by an overly sensitive Christian couple to shield their children from the potentially profane words that exist in some books. They replace any word or situation that they have deemed to be ���profane��� with words that they feel are less offensive to the��masses that can���t handle ���bad words.��� To quote directly from the app���s website:
One day our oldest���
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Clean Reader= Censorship
Cursing ahead:�� If profanity bothers your sensitivities, please don’t read. Please don’t put this through a “clean” app for you to stomach it. If you can’t handle cursing, move on.
What the fuck is wrong with people? I mean what the absolute fuck is wrong with people today? You can’t sneeze without some asshole getting offended. You can’t speak out about equality, or the idea of other religions without some fucking prude��pissing themselves about being offended.
For those of you that don’t know what Clean Reader is, it’s an app created by an overly sensitive Christian couple to shield their children from the potentially profane words that exist in some books. They replace any word or situation that they have deemed to be “profane” with words that they feel are less offensive to the��masses that can’t handle “bad words.” To quote directly from the app’s website:
One day our oldest child came home from school and she was a little sad.�� We asked her what was wrong and she said she had been reading a book during library time and it had a few swear words in it.�� She really liked the book but not the swear words.�� We told her that there was probably an app for this type of thing that would replace profanity with less offensive words and perhaps we should get her a tablet that she could use to read books with.�� To our surprise there wasn���t an app like this.�� The more we thought about this idea the more we wanted it to be a reality.�� Eventually we decided we would do all we could to bring Clean Reader to the world.[…]
I’m sorry but if swear words make your kid sad, then your kid needs to just put the book down and pick up something else. If you are raising your children to be completely offended by the world around them, then you have failed them as parents. That is my opinion, of course.
I understand that some children cannot handle books with certain situations in them. When I was growing up, I will admit that I had a sheltered upbringing. As I got older, and I was able to understand that the contents of a book are the author’s choice. I did get upset when my 9th grade geography teacher had us read a book with several chapters��about Chinese concubines and male ejaculate (but that’s a story for another day.) But you know what? I got over it.
Books are about expression. Authors have a purpose for every word they write. If a ‘fuck’ here or a ‘ass hat’ there make a scene more meaningful and give it more drive, then the author used those words for emphasis. If an author chooses not to use “profanity” and they feel that they’re books don’t need it, then good for them. But cursing isn’t used because an author can’t think of a “clean” thing to write. They can think of the “clean” word, but felt it didn’t have the right impact.
The problem with this app is that it opens a lot of very very bad doors. All of those doors open to situations that end in burning books. I don’t know about you but Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury scared me as a child. The idea of books being “taboo” and being confiscated and burned shook me to my core. Allowing something like Clean Reader to exist is allowing people to control what we distribute. And who determines what taboo is? Taboo and offensive are relative opinions and everyone has a different idea. So why allow one app to rule all of that?
Furthermore, do you think they consulted any authors to see if they would be okay with something like this?
I consulted my attorney friend and he gave me a very interesting answer. While Clean Reader claims that they have attorneys telling them they’re not in any hot water, they are being given completely false information. Our books are being sold without our consent on this app, and we are not going to see any money from it. So that is theft of property, piracy, and copyright violation. They are not editing our books for educational purposes or as part of a parody (which are covered under parody law) so again, they are violating copyright. Even though they keep arguing that they’re not editing a book at it’s core therefore not violating copyright law, they are still editing the way the content is being delivered to the reader. I don’t know about any of you, but that is violating copyright to me.
I do not know of a single author that gave their approval on this project. I’m not going to go off, like many, and say that the creators are trying to force their Christian ideals on people, because to me, that’s not what this is. What they are doing is trying to force their sensitivities on the��masses. They are trying to clean the world of what they feel is immoral or improper for children. And yeah, a kid shouldn’t read Fifty Shades, or O, or anything like that. But if an adult can’t handle the material, they either need to grow a pair or not read those books. It is that simple!!!
I know that I could go on and on about this all day, but I won’t. I feel that I’ve made my point. If you are concerned about your books being offered by the company, you can contact them through the app’s website. You can have an attorney help you draft a cease and desist letter, but that’s a lot of money. Just simply state the facts. I hope that those backing the app realize how fucked up it really is. I hope that the creators pull the app before they get sued, because trust me they will. And I hope that we can move on from this.
Oh, but before I go, Clean Reader creators:
March 19, 2015
…Authors… just a wee WURD about getting negative reviews…
Originally posted on Seumas Gallacher:
���if yeez are like me, fellow Lads and Lassies of Blog Land, yeez���ll remember well the first ever ���bad��� review for any of yer masterpieces��� the pink cloud of having finished the first novel was still my principal means of transportation when the thunderbolt struck��� a flurry of ���nice��� supportive reviews had already landed on the Great God Amazon pages��� there I was, this ��ol��� Jurassic, now a Proper Published Scribbler, getting real reviews from real people��� the universe was beautifully smudgy round the edges, like when the dentist gives you a tad too much of the laughing gas��� then in came the party-spoiler with a stab to the literary heart��� ouch!���and ouch! again��� a thousand times ouch!���
���the initial reaction of course, is hurt��� followed by a modicum of resentment��� oh. alright, a ton of resentment, bordering on outright hatred��� but, sensibility settled in��� the guy had���
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Authors and Bloggers Against Piracy- update
We still have several days open for sign ups! Please keep in mind that this is not limited to authors or bloggers of any specific genre. We want to show a united front and this means we need people from adult contemporary to young adult fantasy (and everything in between, of course.) The tour is set (currently) for the last week in May.
Click here to visit the Facebook group and join in!
