Jennifer Brozek's Blog, page 83

Good News

Two bits of good news. One as an author. One as an editor.

Author - I sold my non-fiction essay, "The Sexual Attraction of the Lovecraft Universe" to the very provocative forthcoming anthology Cthulhurotica by Dagan Books.

Editor - I've been promoted to assistant editor at the award winning publishing house, Apex Publications. This means I will be working with the owner and the marketing director, working on novels and anthologies. Basically, a lass of all trades. And I will be announcing a cool new opportunity for two people to work with me during the next year.

Found Poem - The Killing Smile

I used to write a lot of poetry. Almost all of it was just plain bad. Some of it was OK. I stopped about ten years ago, my need for obtuse words spent. I would write a new poem maybe once or twice a year. I found this poem I wrote from 2004. What amazes me was just how much rage and violence is in it. I cannot, for the life of me, remember what I was so angry at. I'm guessing, based on the year, it had to do with the Clueless Boss Beast I had when I worked at Microsoft.

Still, it's a good poem. I guess this is why I never throw out any of my old writing.

The Killing Smile

Fury ebbs and flows in
uncontrolled patterns
restrained by logical bonds
only to break free in a rage
as the polite confrontation
continues.

"I hate you." I think as I nod and
smile
with bitter regret for ever letting
you
put me in this position.

The hate fuels my strength of will
to never give in
to never surrender
to never say "Die."
while you still have the breath to
speak your inane words.

My revenge will be sweet and
dear
full of cold love for the sure killing of
you
with as much sincere kindness
as I can find.

Time Slipping By

To borrow a phrase from one of my favorite authors, "Time is a face on the water." Sometimes it is still and serene. Sometimes it ripples gently. Sometimes it rushes away from you and disappears altogether. Right now, time is slipping by faster that I want it to.

I recently twittered that, occasionally, I regret being an author because as an author I have no time to really get into MMORPGs. I speak from experience when I say I really adore MMOs. The last one I played was AION and partly because I did some writing work on it. I also speak from experience that I cannot both really play MMOs while being an author. I can do one or the other but not both.

There was a period in my life where I would come home from the day job and log onto the MMO I was into. Then I would play it for a minimum of five hours every night. Sometimes more but no less. And on weekends, it was all MMO all the time. Did I write during this time? A little—mostly stuff for the MMO I was in. Character fiction. Play writing. Nothing real. Nothing in my own world. My head was in the MMO and I was happy.

Mostly.

That is why I made the conscious decision to stop playing MMOs to work on my writing career. Video games are too much of a time sink for me. When I played Oblivion, I lost about three months of good writing time. I still wrote. I was that disciplined. I got my hour of writing a day in but the rest went to the video game instead of the usual 3-4 hours of writing and 1-2 hours of stuff writers have to do around the actual act of writing.

I was able to play AION most recently because I only played it with my husband. I did not join a guild, legion or any other social group. I know such social interactions is what keeps people playing the game. By limiting myself to solo (or near solo) play, I limited the enjoyment of the experience. On purpose. Thus, when my husband got bored, I was able to walk away and not look back.

But there are days when I wish—how I wish—I could lose myself in an MMO. But time is a precious thing to me and I don't have that much of it. I would have to give up my writing and editing career for the MMO. The trade off is not worth it. I enjoy my career too much to give it up for a game.

We all have choices on what to do with our time. Writing is my top priority. That's the way it has to stay.

NaNoWriMo Prep Party is On

Friday, Oct 15, 7pm

This will be at my house. There are cats. Take you meds.

If you plan to come, PLEASE RSVP.

Bring munchies and something to take notes with.

NaNoWriMo Interest (Seattle Area)

I'm thinking about doing NaNo again this year on a personal project. Since I've succeeded at NaNo a couple of times and had a NaNo book published, I thought I could throw a NaNo prep party for the 15th where I can talk to people about doing NaNo, how to succeed/survive and such. If you are interested in this, let me know.

Time Passing By - September

September was a pretty good month for me. Busy as all get out with 2 weeks in Australia and New Zealand. I wish I had been able to write more about that but catching up on all that happened while I was gone ate up most of that time.

September saw the official release of Shanghai Vampocalypse, one of my Savage Worlds RPG books for Savage Mojo, the publication of my short Family Duty in M-Brane SF, and my reprint publication of "A Bite to Remember" in The Zombie Feed. I signed a contract to continue my Dice & Deadlines column on Geek's Dream Girl and posted the cover art of the Beauty Has Her Way anthology.

I also announced the close of the Edge of Propinquity's 2010 theme and the new 2011 theme of "Legacies." Then I announced that I was seeking new TEoP universe authors and would be accepting applications until September 30. I have 22 applications to go through for 2 (maybe 3) slots during October.

The month of October will see me through the finish of the Human Tales anthology manuscript for Dark Quest Books, the aforementioned TEoP universe application reviews, writing a couple of stories for invite-only anthologies, announcements of sold stories published, and, hopefully, some contracts signed with awesomeness announced.

I will continue to do TEoP, the featured author (or editor) for Apex Publications and everything else I normally do.

Today, the Rigor Amortis anthology was released to the wild with my story, "Swallow It All," in it. It also saw the release of the inaugural issue of The Little Death of Crossed Genres (speculative fiction + erotica) zine with my story, "Seven Little Words," in it.

From Dream to Comic

Remember when I had this dream and said that I would love to have made into a comic? Well, James Denton rose to the challenge and this is awesome. Both seanan_mcguire and I have seen the comic and love it.

After talking with James and discovering that he is currently unemployed, I (with seanan_mcguire 's blessing) encouraged James to sell prints of this beautiful full color comic online. It makes an excellent 8x10 image.

This is a fundraiser for a guy who is an awesome artist, easy to work wit...

WorldCon 2010 and 2011

"Sometimes it's better if you know it's gonna hurt." –me, RPG panel

This was my first WorldCon ever. I think. I might have been dragged to a WorldCon in SF at some point in my past—I have vague memories of such and they are the frightening sort of being traumatized by being shy and thrust into a huge group of people and abandoned without a car in San Francisco. So, I'm just going to count AussieCon 4 as my first ever WorldCon.

I had a blast despite me forgetting my make up for the Hugo party, b...

jennifer_brozek @ 2010-09-19T11:29:00

Someone wrote this about THE LITTLE FINANCE BOOK THAT COULD:

The Little Finance Book that Could is a short, intelligent book on finance from writer Jennifer Brozek. After applying childhood lessons from her parents in money management, Jennifer was able to pull herself out of debt after college. Always reasonable, and often funny, The Little Finance Book That Could follows Jennifer's journey out of debt, with emotion and pragmatism, laying out her smart, reasonable steps for others to follow s...

New Review of Grants Pass

This is the kind of review that makes me want to write a Grants Pass novel.

http://www.albedo1.com/reviews/brozekj+pillara_grants_pass.html

(Yeah, he liked it.)