Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Vampires, Werewolves and other things going bump in the night

Amid the rash of polls, blogs and other things about were-creatures and the like, one author wondered about the shift from demonizing such creatures to making them sexy and attractive-think of the shift from The Big Bad Wolf of the Three Little Pigs and Red Riding Hood to the countless heroes of shape-shifter romances and from Bram Stoker's Dracula to current vampires.

I think the answer is simple. When we feared these creatures, we demonized them. Now our healthy skepticism has revealed them for the figments they really are, we pity them and start conservation movements. The first step of any conservation movement is to popularize, casting the target in a favorable light to gain wide spread support.

Logically, the Devil must be due his day in the Sun soon, then we can expect the most misrepresented of them all to appear, although God as a sex object takes a leap of the imagination.

Global Warming shrinks in comparison.

It's a great life.

Amy

PS We're off to share out granddaughter's birthday in Sydney. See you in two weeks time.

Friday, May 25, 2007

"Foreign" writers

An editor was lamenting in the Epicbiz Yahoo Group about the standard of English in the submissions he received from "Foreign" countries and others joined in with horror stories of the submissions they'd received.
While I sympathize with them, I was in the middle of Americanizing one of my stories and muttering to myself about the changes it imposed--American English is sometimes painful to the rest of the English speaking world.(Its passion for simplification often robs it of subtle nuances)

I toyed with the idea of responding to him with a submission and having a little fun with his guidelines (they were a little obscure in parts) purely out of annoyance, but better judgement prevailed ans I went back to my task.

He's possibly a very nice man, writing out of frustration more than real thoughts, and may even regret his careless use of the English language to define "Foreign" writers, but he was unwilling to forgive lapses in others, so he can't expect them himself.

Back to work for me

Amy

Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Busy, Busy, Busy

The demise of Rocky River Romance/Saltwater Press freed four books as the rights reverted to me and I'm busy finding them a new home, Americanizing the spelling and colloquialisms to make the stories more readily accessible to US readers.

One of them, Snow Drifter translated very easily, being part set in Aspen, the second is more difficult and I was tempted to take the Americanization further and relocate it as I did with Mitchell's Valley.

It's great, applying the several years of learning to stories I enjoyed writing, but it is also intense. I end each day with a stiff neck and an ache between my shoulder blades.

New Concepts has Snow Drifter and I'm waiting for their response while I work on the others.

It's a great life.

Amy

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Web Traffic

It is bizarre what brings traffic to a website.

I received a huge boost when Saddam Hussein was hung, mainly from people searching for gallow, with or without the pendent s. The word is still responsible for a higher proportion of visits than any other source.

This type of information brings you down to earth with a thump.

It's still a great life

Amy

Sunday, May 13, 2007

Feodar's World has landed violently

New Concepts released Feodar's World today, rating it both sensual and contains violence. The latter puzzled me a little and I had to go back over the story to find the violence as I'd thought I'd skirted around the issue rather well.

The isolated acts of violence are referred to rather than described, but are integral to the story. It will be interesting to see how they rate Rachael's Return which has more violent acts and two battles integral to the secondary love story between Kamran and Helene. They had to be there to make sense of the story and I've presented them as non-confrontationally as possible without losing their reality.

It's a delicate balancing act. I hope I succeeded.

Amy

Wednesday, May 02, 2007

A pleasant surprise

Melanie Grant, from Essence of Romance, a subscribed data base of books, contacted me and my books are now listed with them. It's always great when something comes out of the blue like that. I'd just negotiated an amicable truce with my current heroine, by doing precisely what she wanted, and she'd emerged from her trailer to give me another chance, so the story was flowing again. Along comes Melanie and I now have their banner on my website after a pleasant and painless exchange of emails, complicated only by the time differential between Melbourne and Washington.

It's the second time in less than a month where some reputable organisation has contacted me about my books and I'm feeling a little pleased with myself.

It's a great life.

Amy