More vampire linkage

Vampire article spotted at Tor.com

Muslim Vampires!

Apex has this awesome story on-line now: 50 Fatwas for the Virtuous Vampire by Pamela K. Taylor

Tuesday Cat Pictures

Preposition Cats:

Inky... BEHIND!

Ms. Ball... INSIDE.

Deliah.... IN! (Waaaaaaaaay IN)

Ms. Ball... ON... and, of course, regal.

Sex Scene Class

Join CAMEO, Chapter 123 of RWA as we proudly present "The Hotness-- Writing Love Scenes that Make Readers Fan Themselves. Kim Louise published author some very 'steamy novels' guides you into this world of Love Scenes. Learn how to put the sizzle into that dialog and enjoy learning the techniques.

The Hotness—Writing Love Scenes that Make Readers Fan Themselves

Class Description

In “The Hotness” Kim Louise will take you on a provocative tour of sensuality and ways to weave it throughout your fiction. Good sex starts at “Hello.” Learn how to add narrative elements, actions, and dialogue that start foreplay before the physical foreplay begins. Also presented in this class will be 5 important techniques to make your characters (and your readers) sweat including: choreographing your love scenes like a dance, making your loves scene unique, and how to eliminate purple prose like “her heaving alabaster mounds” and “his throbbing rod of conquest. “

Biography

Kim Louise is a hope-full romantic who still can't believe that she gets paid to do what she loves. She's penned over fifteen novels & novellas, writing for BET Books, Genesis Press, and now Harlequin. She has been a lead author for Kimani Press/Arabesque and 3-time Emma Award finalist. Her novels garner top reviews from Romantic Times Magazine, Romance In Color, and RAWSISTAHZ Book Reviews. Kim’s 2005 presentation at the RWA National Conference on FINDING TIME TO WRITE was selected as one of the top 25 presentations that year. Her novel SWEET LIKE HONEY was a finalist for 2008 African-American Romance of the Year by Romantic Times Magazine. Presently she is working on a Blaze for Harlequin.

Registration Information:

If you have questions you may email them to Lpatrice9@aol.com. Subject line: CAMEO class.

Cost for the Online class is $15.00 for CAMEO members.

For RWA members the cost is $25.00.

For non-RWA members the cost is $35.00..

Payments may be sent via Paypal to cameowriterstwo@yahoo.com

Payments for Class: Must be sent by November 1, 2010

Classes will run from November 1 through November 30, 2010

New Interview

There's a new interview with me over at Amberkatze's Blog. Check it out.

The First Amendment

I'm not a constitutional scholar by any stretch of the imagination, but I'm starting to be driven batty by people (or their supporters) who feel that their "freedom of speech" is being infringed upon when they experience public backlash for saying something homophobic, racist, Islamophobic or otherwise bigoted.

I just looked up the first amendment to the United States Constitution and it reads: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

I'm reading that to mean that the goverment (specifically Congress) can not make it illegal for you to speak your mind. It does not say that you get to keep your job, your contract should be renewed or that you can't be disinvited to be a Guest of Honor at a science fiction convention after you go on record saying something hurtful and stupid.

All the first amendment protects a person from is from being JAILED (specifically by the government) for saying what they think and feel.

Copy Cat

Kelly McCullough posts pictures of his cats every Friday over at Wyrdsmiths, and, I feel like being a copy cat today. Here's my Ms. Piggy enjoying the radiators of fall.

What is Midlist?

The ever thoughtful Jim C. Hines has another excellent post over on his livejournal. Today, he's wondering what does it mean to be mid-list?

I think most of us think of ourselves as mid-list, even though it's a term that's very nebulous and has never been defined for me by any professional, like my editor. We writers tend to talk to ourselves about such things, and make a lot of educated guesses. I think as long as I'm not, as Jim echoes, not J.K. Rowling, Stephen King or other obvious multi-millionaire type writers, I'll probably think of myself as mid-list, right or wrong.

Goodbye?

It's time for me to leave the coffee shop and go home. I have a synopsis for the third book in the vampire princess of St. Paul to finish writing.

I've been struggling writing this synopsis for several months now. I finally realized that one of the reasons may be because I've become very once-bitten-twice-shy about the last book on a contract. When I sold ALMOST TO DIE for, the publisher bought three books. Now that I'm sitting down to plan out the third, I find myself wondering: should I prepare for "goodbye"?

I was very casual about Garnet, and that ended up leaving me in the lurch... with a lot of unfinished business for her character. So I'm thinking that for this last contracted book, maybe I should assume the worst and tie up loose ends JUST IN CASE.

That makes it slightly more difficult to plan, however. Because I don't want to imply to the editor that I'm done and that they should feel free to terminate this series, you know? So, I need to tread carefully. Wrap stuff up, but also leave a new storyline open so if they think I've been selling well enough, they can go for another book or two.

Sigh.

Wish me luck!

Green Man Review

Green Man Review has an AWESOME review of Almost to Die For here, which includes a very funny (and, believe it or not, favorable) line about gouging one's eyes out with a dull spoon.

Oh noz!

My beloved planet Gilese 581g might not exist! Man, this depresses me BEYOND words.... it's like, like someone decided Pluto wasn't a planet! Oh, wait. Dang.

A new gig and a delivery!

My alter ego got a new volunteer gig reviewing graphic novels, comic books and more over at the Science Fiction and Other ODDyesseys! Check out her first review! Angels and demons and superheroes! It couldn't get any better than that, if you know anything about what my alter ego writes....

In news about ME, I am happy to report that I delivered my revised manuscript to my editor for ALMOST FINAL CURTAIN (the second book in the vampire princess of St. Paul series.)

WTF??

....We were JUST missed by an asteroid this morning!* Apparently, TD54 came within 28,000 miles of us.

Um, eek?

*Unnerving knowledge brought to my attention thanks to an SF Signals tweet.

Harris Poll

A new Harris poll shows that of the people who read fiction, a surprising percent (surprising to me, anyway,) read science fiction. Maybe there's hope for my alter ego's comeback, after all!

Royalties and Backlist*

Over on his blog, Jim C. Hines analyzes his royalty statement. The charts and his discussion are plenty interesting all by themselves, but he just casually says a couple of things in his blog that really resonate with my experience.

First of all, I have to say that I'm impressed that Hines has so many books that have earned out. It apparently takes me a lot longer to do that (perhaps I'm slightly better paid). However, I'm only JUST NOW getting royalties for my second book, Dead Sexy, which was originally published in 2007 (and had a Romance and Science Fiction Bookclub h/c edition.) So, of five books, two of them now earn royalties.

But, on the flip side (and knocking liberally on wood) at least all of my books are still IN print, which by five years into Lyda Morehouse's career all her books were out of print.

Which is why I agree that having in-print back list is really important. It's tough to encourage readers to pick up book #4 in a series (even if you wrote each to stand alone) when #2 is already out of print, which happened to me as Lyda.

Secondly, Hines says, "Some authors who get that bajillion-dollar advance for their first book. I’m not one of them. The slower but steady approach seems to be working for me though, at least so far."

This is something I think about a lot. I have had fits of absolute jealousy over other authors' advances, but one thing I try to keep in mind is that it's much harder to earn out a "bajillion" dollars than it is ten thousand. And, while a bajillion dollars would be nice to have in pocket, I have to imagine that unless you happen to actually be the one-in-a-million that actually earns out the bajillion, your editor/publisher will have to be disappointed in your sales figures. Whereas, if you at least break even for them, they might be more likely to keep hiring you for those midlist jobs that someone's got to fill, right?

Though I still dream of a bajillion dollar advance, I think I'd continue to trade it in for a long and glorious career.

* X-posted from Wyrdsmiths blog.

Howling Hiakus

Okay, this is too cool not to pass on... if I were more creative in the poetry department, I'd totally enter this: Werewolf Hiaku Contest over at Bite Club Blog.

What I've been reading...

I've been working steadily on my editorial revisions for the second vampire princess of St. Paul book, ALMOST TO DIE FOR, and doing a lot of cold-weather reading. You know what I mean by cold-weather reading, right? It's the kind of reading that involves a couch, cats (if you have them,) a roaring fire (if you have one), and a lot of blankets.

What I've been snuggling up with has been a wide range. I read CATCHING FIRE by Suzanne Collins, the sequel to HUNGER GAMES (which I loved). I ran out and bought MOCKINGJAY, but things were left in such a depressing place that I found I bounced out of the book almost as soon as I sat down to read it. So my restless fingers lighted on one of the books in our bathroom bookshelf. We intentionally keep a lot of cheesy classics in the bathroom just for those moments when you want to read a chapter or two of something you don't necessarily need to finish. So I picked up TARNSMAN OF GOR.

There are slave girls and manly men and... well, if you don't take it too seriously, a great deal of adventure.

What about you? What are you reading?

Interview with Me

An interview with me appears today over at Booksnob. Enjoy.

Vampire Dreams

This morning, I found an invitation to submit to an anthology called Crimson Dreams in my inbox. I would _LOVE_ to write for this, but vampires aren't the subject of my nightmares, _ever_.

I had a very memorable dream about a vampire once, though. There was some dreamscape plot that involved the FBI, I no longer remember the details, but at some point someone needed pushing around. I used my super-vampire strength and tossed them into a wall. I woke up from the dream with a smile on my face. I was thinking, "Yeah, that would be AWESOME."

But that's the extent of my vampire dreams. Do you dream about vampires? Have nightmares about them?

Listen to Me!

MANY BLOODY RETURNS is now available as an audio book from Audiobook Stand.com. My short story "Fire and Ice and Linguine for Two" is collected therein. The theme of the anthology is vampires and birthdays, so my story involves Garnet and Sebastian's wacky attempt to celebrate his birthday one Christmas. For those of you who have read HONEYMOON OF THE DEAD, this story is actually the first appearace of Fonn, the Frost Giant.

I've pointed you to the .mp3 version, but it's also available as a CD. I might have to order both, since the CD will fit nicely on my bookshelf of achievements, and I can actually listen to the .mp3.

I'm psyched about this because I've NEVER had anything of mine appear in audio format before. It's going to be weird/cool to hear someone ELSE read my words.