testing tags

having a problem getting posts to show up… testing to see if tags are working yet

Vincent Price Movie Marathon!

Anyone else watching it? Twenty-four hours, all Vincent Price, all day, all night. Now why can’t they do this everyday? I haven’t seen a Vincent Price Movie Marathon since I was 8 years old! Back than I scared myself out going into the backroom of the Shop at night as a result of “The Mad Magician”. It was the only time I had ever seen this movie, and today I barely remember anything about it, other than the fact that it burned in my memory as the scariest thing I had ever seen, and I couldn’t wait to see it again. (My mom owned a craft-shop back than, and I watched the VP movies marathon in the backroom.) Though he had scared the wits out of me that day, he instantly became my favorite actor, and today still remains my 1 all time fave. While I’ve seen 50 of his movies, there are still about 30 more that I have never seen.

You can imagine my surprise when I woke up this morning to discover that TCM had hosting a Vincent Price Movie Marathon… Vincent Price all day, none stop, no commercials, no interruptions, just Price movie after Price movie, back to back to back! And they kicked it off with…. that’s right, you guessed it: “The Mad Magician”!

The Mad Magician

The Tingler

The Master of The World

The Last Man on Earth

Tower of London

Fall of House of User

Pit and The Pendulum

Tales of Terror

The Mask of The Red Death

The Tomb of Ligeria

The Abominable Dr. Phibes.

Theater of Blood.

Of that list 5 of them I had never seen before. One, “The Master of the World”, could quickly become ranked as one of his best. A mad scientist builds a giant silver star ship, than goes on a rampage blowing up entire counties. That sounds strangely familiar to me. King Vielder and Melaca and their ship The VISION~D8 and their first arrival on planet earth? WOW! And here I thought I created that idea, now I find that Vincent Price did it in one of the movies I’d missed seeing… and that movie being based on a book written over 100 years ago! I’m sorry to say, that in all my reading, I have never read anything by Jules Vern. I must correct that and read The Master of the World, as soon as I have finished Harry Potter 7, which I am reading right now.

So, anyone else out there mesmerized by 24 hours of the greatest actor of all time today?

Currently watching : The Fall of the House of Usher /The Pit and the Pendulum Release date: 15 February, 2005

Narration for Writers Explained

Attention writers! Have you ever wondered what’s the differance between one type of narration and another? Look no farther, I shall explain them all here. Check it out.

http://www.squidoo.com/Narration-for-Writers/

Vincent Price Movie Marathon!

Anyone else watching it? Twenty-four hours, all Vincent Price, all day, all night. Now why can’t they do this everyday? I haven’t seen a Vincent Price Movie Marathon since I was 8 years old! Back than I scared myself out going into the backroom of the Shop at night as a result of “The Mad Magician”. It was the only time I had ever seen this movie, and today I barely remember anything about it, other than the fact that it burned in my memory as the scariest thing I had ever seen, and I couldn’t wait to see it again. (My mom owned a craft-shop back than, and I watched the VP movies marathon in the backroom.) Though he had scared the wits out of me that day, he instantly became my favorite actor, and today still remains my 1 all time fave. While I’ve seen 50 of his movies, there are still about 30 more that I have never seen.

 

You can imagine my surprise when I woke up this morning to discover that TCM had hosting a Vincent Price Movie Marathon… Vincent Price all day, none stop, no commercials, no interruptions, just Price movie after Price movie, back to back to back! And they kicked it off with…. that’s right, you guessed it: “The Mad Magician”!

 

 

The Mad Magician

The Tingler

The Master of The World

The Last Man on Earth

Tower of London

Fall of House of User

Pit and The Pendulum

Tales of Terror

The Mask of The Red Death

The Tomb of Ligeria

The Abominable Dr. Phibes.

Theater of Blood.

 

Of that list 5 of them I had never seen before. One, “The Master of the World”, could quickly become ranked as one of his best. A mad scientist builds a giant silver star ship, than goes on a rampage blowing up entire counties. That sounds strangely familiar to me. King Vielder and Melaca and their ship The VISION~D8 and their first arrival on planet earth? WOW! And here I thought I created that idea, now I find that Vincent Price did it in one of the movies I’d missed seeing… and that movie being based on a book written over 100 years ago! I’m sorry to say, that in all my reading, I have never read anything by Jules Vern. I must correct that and read The Master of the World, as soon as I have finished Harry Potter 7, which I am reading right now.

 

So, anyone else out there mesmerized by 24 hours of the greatest actor of all time today?

Currently watching : The Fall of the House of Usher /The Pit and the Pendulum Release date: 15 February, 2005

Quick One Minute Review: POTC 3

Just back from Pirates Of The Caribbean 3 with my three brothers. Super cool.

Johnny Depp is great, as is Johnny Depp, and so was Johnny Depp, and ohhh look there’s Johnny Depp over here and another Johnny Depp over there…. how many Johnny Depps can you count? LOL! Funny!

Best scene:
The Black Pearl cruising full speed and full sail across the desert sand dunes. Amazing!

Most amazing special effects:
The decent into the maelstrom! Awesome action packed scene!

Should win an award for:
Best movie wedding in history!

Shocker:
Crazed fan girls beware: DEATH ALERT; one of your fave pirates doesn’t make it to the end of the movie!

Best quote:
“Nobody move! I dropped my brain!” ~ Jack Sparrow or was that Jack Sparrow… oh wait, no, it was Jack Sparrow.

Insider advice to those who have yet to see it:
Stay until the VERY END… stay in your seat, and watch the words go by. AFTER the words go by, watch for a surprise “second” ending.
If you already watched it, and you didn’t stay to see what happens after the words go by… than you missed a very important part of the movie: YOU MUST GO BACK AND WATCH THE MOVIE AGAIN!

Ultimate question:
This movie didn’t actually “end”; like the ending of POTC 2, it ends with what appears to be the beginning of a POTC 4. Well there be a POTC 4? Has anyone heard?

See more progress on: Watch Pirates of the Caribbean “At World’s End”

My Favorite Books

Here is a list of my favorite books, of books I own. You can create your own list here too. Lists up to 200 books are free.

Choosing a Topic to Write About: Are You Enthusiastic About the Idea?

Writers are sentimental about their writing, but are they enthusiastic about it? You have found a topic to write about, but you don’t know if it’s one you really want to write about. How can you tell if you should use it as your next topic? Just ask yourself this: Am I sentimental or enthusiastic about the idea? Does it matter?

 

Do not mistake sentiment for enthusiasm. They are not the same things. Don’t believe me? Let’s ask the dictionary:

Sentiment: noun

1.) Tender, romantic, or nostalgic feeling or emotion

2.) A personal belief or judgment that is not founded on proof or certainty

Enthusiasm: noun

1.) A feeling of excitement

2.) Overflowing with enthusiasm

3.) A lively interest

A tender romantic emotion that evokes nostalgia vs. a lively interest filled with excitement. So how does this affect you the writer? Think of it this way: You may have sentiment for an old faded Valentine, but do you have enough enthusiasm about it to write a story about the Valentine and how it came to mean so much to you? It holds a warm place in your heart, and you well never throw it away, but do you burn with the feverish desire to tell the world about it?

 

Now think about your readers. Your reader has no sentimental attachment to your Valentine, if they saw it, they’d probably toss it in the trash, for it means nothing to them at all. Would they read about it? Well that depends on how you write the story, doesn’t it? If you spend you’re times mooning over the Valentine and its sentimentalness, most likely your reader well toss the story aside calling it a load of sentimental tripe.

 

Sentimental tripe. Yep, that’s what kills many a story. People don’t want to read sentimental tripe that moons and simpers over days gone by and the writer’s obsession with their own past. The reader wants to know the hows and whys behind the Valentine. They want the facts, every juicy detail. The Valentine in and of itself is not enough to keep the reader reading, there has to be something more. Think of the Valentine as the skeleton, the bones of the story upon which you must build up the muscle and flesh to give it substance. Write a story about the sentiment of the Valentine and bore your readers to tears. How do you correct that? With enthusiasm. Question is, do you have it?

 

Your reader wants to know how the Valentine became sentimental. They want to know how the Valentine came into the possession of your character. They want to read about the chain of events that caused it to become a sentimental item. Write a story about the Valentine and how it came to be important TO YOUR MAIN CHARACTER. Instead of sentimental mooning you have vibrant enthusiasm. You have a character, not yet turned sentimental. Now the reader has a reason to want to read about the Valentine. They can see a character that has feelings and emotions just like them. They can become the character and feel what the character feels when he feels it.

 

But are you truly enthusiastic about your idea? Do you burn with the desire to write it? Do you feel that you cannot exist until you have spread the word throughout the entire world? Does a fiery passion to tell everyone everywhere about your story, drive you forward? That is enthusiasm, and that is what you need to tell a great story. Leave the sentiment behind, and let your story burn with passion, let that passion fill your soul; pour your soul into the story.

 

 

Star Log’s Blog Carnival for Writers

I have spent the last couple of hours browsing through Blog Carnivals. I love them.  They are such a great way to find new blogs to read. Well, I submitted several posts from Star Log to some of the carnivals. When browseing the carnival index though, I was disapointed to find that more than half of those aimed at writers have been shut down and are no longer taking new submissions.

In light of that info, I am now starting a new one, to be posted on an ongoing basis here at Star Log. I have decided to hold 12 carnivals a year, one each month. Submissions are open and accepted year ’round.

The overall theme is blog posts of interest to writers. What I am looking for are posts (written by you and posted on your blog), that offer advice to writers of all levels. The prime focus being on fiction stories, though all advice for writers is accepted. Posts on “general” writing topics accepted each month. Additionaly, I’d like to have a sub-theme each month as follows:

January: Writing Mysteries

February: Writing Romance

March: Writing Children’s Fiction

April: Writing Fantasy

May: Writing Science Fiction

June: Writing Pirate Fiction

July: Writing Action/Adventure

August: Writing Gothic

September: Writing High Fantasy

October: Writing Horror

November: Writing Family Memoires

December: Writing Holiday Fiction

Submissions are due by the last day of the previous month. Blog listings will be posted the first week the month. Send your submissions here.

You can copy the following tag to add to your blog so people will have a link back to find your listing with Star Log’s Blog Carnival For Writers:

Info for Romance

As you know I am always seeking out blogs and posts that are useful for writers. Today I found this one which I liked, and had to help promote. I hope you find it helpful:

Rules

April 11th, 2007

There are a couple of different places in blog land talking about rules.  Over at Dear Author, Jane raises some valid opinions about things like rape in romances, abuse, and infidelity.

PBW has another John and Marcia post up…  ;o) if you read PBW’s blog much, you’ll get an idea of what she thinks about rules.

Several authors and readers have apparently done some blogging about the rules of romanceland.  This is always an interesting topic to me…for several reasons.  It can be (usually at the same time) eye opening and entertaining to read the various viewpoints.  I think that I could have somebody summarize some of the blogs and I could tell you whether it was an author that wrote it, or a reader, just by the tone.

Authors don’t want to be told what to write.  (Nope, can’t say I blame them)

Readers don’t want to have surprises in their romances.  By surprises, I mean things like the hero sleeping around, the heroine sleeping around, the heroine getting raped, some sort of infidelity taking place.  (Can’t blame them either…there are certain things that I absolutely hate to read)…

Info for Romance Writers…

As you know I am always seeking out blogs and posts that are useful for writers. Today I found this one which I liked, and had to help promote. I hope you find it helpful:

Rules

April 11th, 2007

There are a couple of different places in blog land talking about rules.  Over at Dear Author, Jane raises some valid opinions about things like rape in romances, abuse, and infidelity.

PBW has another John and Marcia post up…  ;o) if you read PBW’s blog much, you’ll get an idea of what she thinks about rules.

Several authors and readers have apparently done some blogging about the rules of romanceland.  This is always an interesting topic to me…for several reasons.  It can be (usually at the same time) eye opening and entertaining to read the various viewpoints.  I think that I could have somebody summarize some of the blogs and I could tell you whether it was an author that wrote it, or a reader, just by the tone.

Authors don’t want to be told what to write.  (Nope, can’t say I blame them)

Readers don’t want to have surprises in their romances.  By surprises, I mean things like the hero sleeping around, the heroine sleeping around, the heroine getting raped, some sort of infidelity taking place.  (Can’t blame them either…there are certain things that I absolutely hate to read)…

What Does “Non-Genre” Mean?

Many publications say they only accept “Non-Genre Fiction”. A common question writers ask is: “What is Non-Genre Fiction? Doesn’t all fiction have a genre?” I had just read this post and noticed a debate over what is the meaning of Genre Fiction VS Non-Genre Fiction had begun on it’s comments.  Being an editor, I think I can be of help here. So, here is my answer to that question. I hope that some of you find it helpful when submitting your future stories to publishers.When a publication says, “they’re non-genre focused”, they mean that they only want literary fiction and will automatically refuse all stories that a genre driven. A genre driven story is one that falls under the following:

Romance

Fantasy

Sci-fi

Horror

(and the many other such genres out there)

Genre driven stories are focused largely on promotion of their genre and the story focuses totally on that genre. I.e., a romance focuses on a girl’s romantic infatuation; a fantasy will focus on the life of elves wizards and he-men type characters fighting evil in a epic quest; sci-fi focuses on alien life forms traveling from one planet to the next and other such sci-fi type things; horror focuses on scaring the pants off the reader

When a publisher say “they’re non-genre focused” they want to see a slice-of-life story about the day (or week or year) in the life of so-and-so… this is what is known as non-genre or literary fiction. The story focuses on real-life type characters in real life type situations; stories that real like they could be the life of the guy next door or the girl down the road. Non-genre stories tell a story that is not dependant on a fantasy quest or the eloquent narration describing the alien landscape or the steamy sex-scenes. They simply tell a story about life and thus have no genre.

Well, that’s what I see it to mean. Feel free to comment on your own veiws as to the meaning of “non-genre”.

~~EK

Happy Easter from EelKat, Moonsnails, and the Vampire Easter Minions!

Happy Easter from EelKat, Moonsnails, and the Vampire Easter Minions! May they inspire you to write about dancing vampire bunnys!

 

EelKat

Moonsnails Magazine

“Where reality becomes a dream & dreams become reality.”

Writing Exercise: Twinkies

Today is the anniversary of the Twinkie. Answers.com has this to say about them:

Spotlight: Twinkies! Can junk food get any sweeter? Twinkies are comfort food; they’re sweet and light and easy to eat. They have about 145 calories apiece. Everyone makes fun of them. Very few people will admit to it, but someone in America is eating an awful lot of them. Hostess (owned by Interstate Bakeries Corporation) sold about 500,000,000 Twinkies last year. First invented on this date in 1930, Twinkies became a lunch box favorite and were a snack food of choice to satisfy the need for a mid-afternoon sugar fix. In 1999, US President Bill Clinton chose a package of Twinkies as one of the “enduring American icons” to be preserved in the nation’s millennium time capsule.

Quote: “When it comes to Twinkies, I’d rather fight than quit.” — Henry Waxman,

Twinkies
Source

Well, all that got me to thinking, why  not have you guys write a story inspired by Twinkies. So, for today’s writing exercise I want you to write a story about a man who becomes obsessed with Twinkies, to the point that they take over his entire life. This could be a horror, a sci-fi, or any other genre you choose.

Well, have fun writing today’s assignment.

~~EK

Submission Guidelines for Moonsnails

 

Basic Submissions Guidlines:

This is a quick overview of our basic guidelines. See our fully detailed guidelines for each seperate genre on our Submission Guidelines website.

Status:
Moonsnails is currently accepting submissions

Title:

Moonsnails Magazine

Magazine Format:(projected)

Quarterly: 6″ x 9″, 96 – 132 pages per issue;
60 lb bright white paper, B&W text; 10pt glossy laminated perfect bound full color cover

Circulation:

world-wide though print on demand

Contact Info:

Wendy C. Allen, editor-in-chief, twighlightmanor@yahoo.com

Submission Format:

Send in body of email, 12pt Courier or Times New Roman or Send at attachment .RTF 12pt Courier or Times New Roman.

Payment:

copies only at this time; buys one time rights, (the right to print story in one issue; author retains copyright)

responce time: 2 – 6 months

Needs:

Short stories up to 13,000 words.

Literary Genre fiction. Cross-gen OK.

Rarely uses poetry. Poetry used only if it can be considered a full-fledged story, complete with characters and plot. Never accepts free-verse.

Genres Accepted:

Sci-fi, Fantasy, Gothic Romance, and “mild” Horror

Sub-Genres and Cross-Genres Accepted:

Action, Adventure, Alien Invasion, Alien Realms, Alternative Histories, Amateur Detective, Americana, Ancient Civilizations, Animal Stories, Biographical Fiction, Christmas, Classic Literature, Colonial America, Cryptozology, Dark Fantasy, Dragon Tales, Easter, Ethnic Fiction, Espionage, Faerie Realms, Fairy Tales, Family Sagas, Fantasy, Folklore, Frontier Sagas, Furries, Futuristic, Ghost Stories, Gothic Romance, Halloween, Hard Science Fiction, Haunted Houses, High Fantasy, High Seas Adventure, Historical, Horror, Humor, Inspirational, Kung Fu, Literary, Mad Scientist Sci-Fi, Mermaid Tales, Military, Mystery, Murder Mystery, Paranormal, Pirate Tales, Psychological Thiller/Terror, Regional: Maine, Regional: Quebec, Romance, Science Fiction, Serials, Short-Shorts, Slueths, Space Fantasy, Space Travel, Spiritual, Sword & Sorcery, Supernatural, Suspence, Thiller, Time Travel, Twilight Zone style, UFO stories, Unicorn Tales, Utopian Realms, Victorian, War, Western, Wizard Tales, Young Adult.

Things Rejected:

Rejects all stories that contain:

abortion, animal abuse, child abuse, cutting, death glorification, depression, depressive self-pity, drinking, drugs, elder abuse, erotica, expose`, gore, hatred, hunting, politics, pornography, sex, smoking, swearing, suicide, vulgar verbology, and stories about “how my teenage years were crap”.

Stories must be family friendly and rated PG-13 or less

Poetry Needs:

We focus on short stories, thus rarely use poetry.

Sometimes accepts poetry, at best it’s only 4 poems per year, IF it tells a story and has strong characters. Same as fiction needs, seeks longer “epic length” story poems akin to Robert Browning’s Pied Piper of Hamlin, Edgar Allan Poe’s Raven or Dr. Seuss’s Green Eggs & Ham. Prefers long rhyming poems with strong characters and a strong story plot.

Poetry Rejects:

Same as fiction rejects, plus: Does not accept free-verse poetry, haiku, short poems, poems without characters, poems without plots, meaningless ramblings, odes to…, poems without rhythem, or any other type of poem that does not tell a complete story from beginning to end.

Cover Art:

Usually done “in-house”, but well consider submissions of full-color photography or paintings, covering any genre. Always seeks beach and ocean themed photos or paintings. Do not send originals. Email files as atactment. Files must be compatible with MSWorks, MSPaint, or MSPublisher 97, .jpg files prefered. Note that we can not accept .tif files, our email treats them as a virus and deletes them. See fiction for needs & rejects list. Buys one time rights.

Art & Inside Illustration:

Usually uses spot illustrations and copyright-free/public domain illustration, but well consider submissions of B&W, pen & ink, line art only … no pencil, no shading, no grey-scale, no color, our printer well not accept them. All illustrations must be 4″ x 6″ or smaller and camera ready. Do not send originals. Email files as atactment. Files must be compatible with MSWorks, MSPaint, or MSPublisher 97, .jpg files prefered.  Note that we can not accept .tif files, our email treats them as a virus and deletes them. See fiction for needs & rejects list.

Advice:

Best advise: buy a copy of Brian Froud’s Faeries. Use it as though it were our Submissions Guidelines. Treat it as your Writer’s Bible. Use it to create believable fantasy characters. Never go anywhere without it. If you want to write for us than consider Brian Froud your new best friend, read everything he ever wrote. Study every painting he ever did. Watch every film he ever created. Watch the 2 movies written by Brian Froud: Dark Crystal and Labyrinth.

Read the Retief series by Keith Laumer and The Hitchhicker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. We like that kind of sci-fi best.

Watch Star Trek (the original series), Twilight Zone, Outer Limits, X-Files, and Tales From the Dark Side. Let them inspire you. If your story would make for a good episode on one of them, than we want to see it!

We like to see strong characters. Character driven stories. Well written plots. We like fantasy realms, dreamscapes, and alien planets. Creativity is always welcomed. Pirates are always good, we need more pirates. Always seeking stories about Mermaids, Sirens, Dragons, Unicorns, or other creatures of the Realm of Fay. We like to see characters that Brian Froud would have created.

Let your imagination run wild.

Twighlight Manor Press Home Page

Twighlight Manor Press Home Page

Business Plans: Moonsnails Magazine: We’re Back!

In fall of 2005 Twighlight Manor Press announced that it was planning the release of a new magazine, which at that point was untitled and it‘s genre unknown. Our original idea was to keep it local; local writers, local sales, local flavor to the stories. Market research, however showed us that that would be a very unprofitable venture that would doom our magazine to failure before it’s fifth issue. We had to rethink out plan.

Over the next several weeks we threw around ideas and finally decided that the magazine would be a fiction “literary journal”. At first we planned on “all good fiction”, but than after studying the market, realized that this was virtually a bottomless pit, that would result in more manuscript submissions than our tiny staff of four would be able to handle.

Another thing we decided early on, was that, we wanted to stand out on bookstore shelves. Looking at other magazines sold at a local bookstore, Nonesuch Books in Saco, I discovered something. Rack upon rack of magazines, where all the same: 8×11” glossy and flimsy issues, that would not stand the test of time on a bookshelf, given them a shelf life of just 3 weeks. (This short shelf life was according to a study I found online.) According to that study, only a few magazines would be shelved and saved to be read again and again for several years. These magazines had good content and a sturdy binding. I went to Nonesuch Books looking for magazines with good content and study bindings, and was amazed at how few there actually were. In the end I found only three, out of the hundreds of magazines the shop had on the racks. By the end of this stage in our study we came to one conclusion: this magazine, was NOT going to be a 8×11” glossy; instead it would read like a book, with crisp white paper and a square bound “paperback” cover.

After some more market studies, we came to the conclusion that rather than focusing on fiction in general, we would instead use the same rule we use for writing: Write what you know. In our case it would translate into: Publish what you read. All four of us are sci-fi buffs. Sci-fi movies, sci-fi TV, sci-fi comics, sci-fi books… well it seemed only natural that we would thus choose sci-fi as the genre for the new magazine.

By January of 2006 we had a pretty good idea of what we wanted to do with the magazine. On Space Dock 13 (the website) we announced that the magazine was a defiant go, and we were planning it’s release later that year.

With our genre in mind, we set out the name our new magazine. After several weeks of debate, only one thing was agreed upon: that the magazine must have a sci-fi sounding name and that it should reflect our local home base, namely that we are on the world’s most beautiful beach: Old Orchard Beach, Maine.

In April 2006 we introduced the world to two new websites. The first was the message board for writers: A Writer’s Desk. It was our hope that through here we would find new talent seeking to be published in our magazine. A message board built entirely to promote the magazine, today it stands on it’s own and has no connection to the magazine at all.

Our second Website was of course the homepage for our magazine. We had finally decided on a name, and that name was: Moonsnails. After a walk to the beach that cold April, me and my three brothers returned home with tote bags filled with Old Orchard’s most beloved seashell: the Atlantic Moonsnail. Later that day, while sorting the shells on the lawn, it hit me: Moonsnails was the perfect name for our magazine, it kept the local flavor and it sounded sci-fi. Later that week Moonsnails homepage went online.

By the end of April 2006 we were getting quotes from various printers, both local and online. Announcement went out with the news that Moonsnails would see its public release in September of 2006. We were off and running, and than came May 9, 2006 and the flood that washed away all of our plans, destroying everything we owned and bringing Twighlight Manor Press to an instant standstill. We lost everything, the building was condemned, and nothing survived. As far as the business was concerned, we were back at ground zero.

That same day, as a result of the flood, my dad went into a coma. In July of 2006, my dad awoke from the coma and returned home disabled and in my care. In September of 2006, instead of releasing Moonsnails, we found ourselves in the midst of fight to save our land from a local land shark. The result was my dad’s return to the hospital. In October of 2006, a fire swept through. What little we had that survived the flood, was destroyed in the fire and we were faced with fighting out Maine’s frigid winter in a tent, a fate that did not sick well with my disabled dad’s rapidly failing health.

In January of 2007, things took a turn once again, this time in our favor, and we found our selves with electricity, heat, and a roof over our heads, for the first time since May 9, 2006.

Reunited with my computer, I was amazed to find, that in spite of the flood, in spite of the fire, the hard drive remained intact, and with a few minor repairs, it runs as good as new. It looks like hell, a bent mangled mess, but who cares, all my files are still here! All my plans and templates, all those months of research and market studies: they had survived! With that knowledge in hand I set out to pick up the pieces, and once again, plans are underway, full speed ahead, to bring Moonsnails into production.

And that brings us to today. Nether flood, nor fire, nor cold of winter, could stop Moonsnails. Moonsnails rises once again.

~EK

Rant: When Did Gothic Go To Hell?

What happened to Gothic? Where did it go? And who are the black clothed demons that took it’s place? There are times when I get totally pissed over little things. This is one of them. I have been a fan of Gothic since the mid 1970′s. My entire life has been built around Gothic. I wear 13th century gowns of rose velvet. Haunted houses are more than a hobby, they are the core of my existance. Top hats and frock coats are part of my daily wardrobe. I wear burnoose and houplandres and cockscombs. Men I love are romantic owners of haunted house dressed ala Vincent Price. At age 9 my favorite book was Jane Eyre. Gothic flows through my viens. More than half of my fiction books are Gothics written from the 1850′s through the 1970′s.

So what brings on this rant? I just did a Google search for Gothic fiction, because a search on Harlequin’s website revealed that they no longer sell Gothic fiction. You know what I got back as results? Vampires. Death. Sex fetish cloths and weapons. Death. Black leather. Death. Demons. Death. Grim Reapers. Death. Blood lust. Death. Suicide. Death. Depression. Death. More Death. And, well death again. Not one single book. No romance. No haunted houses. No 13th century fashions. In other words, not one single solitary thing that is Gothic.

From what I can tell of Google search, the Gothic of today is nothing like the Gothic I grew up with as a child. Where is the romance? Where are the castles? Where are the handom men in poet blouses and frock coats? When did Gothic die and go to hell? When did Gothic raise from the depths of hell and return as a pit of demonic blackness of suicide and depression? When did Gothic stop being Gothic and start being Satanic?

Where has Gothic gone, and what is this grim blackness that claims to be Gothic today?

~~EK

testing tags

having a problem getting posts to show up… testing to see if tags are working yet

Attack of the POD People! They are not evil.

Are you a self publisher? Maybe you have a manuscript you want published, but you are not sure if self-publishing is right for you? I’m a self publisher myself and I’m always looking for ways to improve, so as you can expect I spend a lot of my “blog reading time” looking for blogs that help writers in general and self-publishers esp. Well, today I came across a new blog I hadn’t found before. My search lead me to this post:

POD is not Vanity is not Self Publish

April 1st, 2007 · No Comments

POD is a technology. It’s a way to print books. It’s quite useful for printing small quantities, particularly if there is intermittent demand. LOTS of publishers who are not vanity houses or scam mills use POD technology. University presses spring to mind, as do very small limited runs of very tightly focused books. POD is not evil.

Vanity presses can use POD technology OR they can use webfeed technology. Vanity presses are essentially printers with some support staff. They’ll help you print up nice editions of whatever you want. You pay for this. It’s called vanity because they don’t acquire the book. Acquire means there is an editorial staff choosing particular books to publish. Vanity houses do not maintain lists, issue catalogs or sell books in bookstores. Vanity presses are not evil

Self publishers can use POD technology or webfeed technology. Self publishers are not vanity presses in the everyday sense of the word. They are “vanity” in the sense that there isn’t an acquisition but the two phrases are used to mean different things in publishing. Lots of people self publish for a lot of reasons. Self publishing is not evil.

POD/scam mills are companies set up to persuade you, the author, that printing your book with their company is the equivalent to having it acquired by a publisher. They charge you money. Unlike a respectable vanity press, they don’t copy edit or produce high quality products. They are out to make money on volume. They prey on author’s insecurities and lack of knowledge. POD/scam mills are the scum of the earth.

Whether a company is the scum of the earth depends on how they run their business, not how they print their books.

There are several POD companies that do not try to persuade you that you have but to print up books with them to be on your way to fame and glory. Lulu and CafePress come to mind. There are others I’m sure.

– Miss Snark, the literary agent

[via To Publish a Book]

→ No CommentsTags: Self-Publishing · Articles · Books

to the authour of this post, I say:

bravo!

*insert clapping smilie here*

every one with a manuscript should read this post, if you know someone with a manuscript pass this on to them.

~~EK

April Writer’s Challange

One month, One Story, yep, you knew it was coming, it’s time for the: April Writer’s Challange:

Easter is just around the corner. For this month’s challange I thought we  would write an “Eastery” story. Doesn’t have to be Easter exactly. I was inspired by Dove Chocolate’s “Fairy Bunny”, which I saw in the store today. They are so cute. On the box is a poem that tells about an enchanted valley where bunnies with butterfly wings live. It’s a cute little image tale, and it got me to thinking: What a great fantasy story that’d make!

So, this month’s challange is to write a fantasy about an enchanted valley filled with magical faeries and the like. You can spin it off as any genre you like. One idea I thought of was based on my siggie gif: The Vampire Easter Minions. Kind of a fairy tale got mad thing.

Ain’t they cute?

 

What can you guys think of? 

The challange is up, so get going and write!

~~EK

Why Do Editors Reject MSs?

I just read this:

Treat your editors like the coach from any sports team because the editor knows their audience and only rejects writing with a good reason–even if you never learn the specifics.

Seemed like good advice, though I know nothing of sports or coaches. I do know, however, that editors have no choice but to reject 90% of what they recieve. Why? Well, for every book they have the physical ability to publish each year they receive 1,000 or more manuscripts. Many publishing houses only print 12 new books a year, one each month, and yet they receive ten times that many manuscripts in a single day. What does that mean for you the writer? That means that your manuscript had better be damn good if you want it to punch out the compatition and make it onto the editor’s desk. Once on the editor’s desk it had better glow if it wants to get picked for publication.

Why do editors reject manuscripts? Well as the editor in chief of Moonsnails Magazine and The Twighlight Manor Press, I think I might know the answer.

Here are copies of a few of the rejection forms we use:

Rejection Notice: No Space At This Time; MS Put on File:

After careful consideration of your ms entitled [ms title goes here] we must regretfully inform you that we are unable to accept it at this time. The decision to deny acceptance was based on the following:At the current time we do not have space for your story in our publication. The reason for this is that all of the space slots have already been appointed for all of our upcoming issues, meaning that it may be a year or more before we well be able to use your story. However, we did like your story, and may use it in the future. Therefore I have put it on file for possible future publication. This does not mean that we can guarantee we well accept it in the future.
Because it may be a year or more before we would be able to accept your story, you are welcomed to submit this same ms to other publishers. If it is accepted by one of them, please inform us of such. If it does get published in an other magazine, we well move it to a file for possible reprint in our magazine.
If at some point in the future we do decide to use your ms, you well be notified and payment well be sent at the than current payment rate.So, you are now staring at this letter, wondering what to do next. Should you polish your ms and resubmit it? Should you submit it elsewhere instead? Should you give up writing like great aunt so-so told you to do?
Answers: maybe, yes, and no.
Yes, go ahead and polish your ms. Correct any spelling and grammar mistakes. Re-read it, possibly re-write it. When you’ve honed it to a fine point, send it out on it’s rounds again. Who knows maybe we’d like the second version of it even better, maybe not, depends on the changes made. Do not let this rejection stop you from writing though. Write more stories, get lots of practice, keep sending them to magazines, keep polishing each draft. Never listen to great aunts who tell you to give up.While your story was not accepted for publication in our magazine at this time, you do have potential and I wish you the best of luck on your writing career. Though I can not promise that we well accept your work, you are welcomed to submit other mss for our consideration in the future.Sincerely,

Rejection Notice: Inappropriate Content:

After careful consideration of your ms entitled [ms title goes here] we must regretfully inform you that we are unable to accept it at this time. The decision to deny acceptance was based on one or more of the following:

explicit sex or sexual references
graphic violence for violence sake
mention of or reference to suicide
animal, child, or elder abuse
excessive use of vulgar verbology
mention of or reference to drug use — this includes one or more of the following:

smoking
drinking
illegal drug use

At this point if you are like most writers, you are sending me a long letter of complaint, protesting that your ms was misrepresented and misjudged, followed by a list of reasons why sex, drugs and gore are essential to your story, ending with a threat of some sort at the bottom. Now, before you write back to me demanding that I force an editor to re-read your ms, let’s review the problem that got it rejected in the first place.

Our editors read the mss and than accept or reject them based on our writer’s guidelines, our current needs, and most importantly the author’s ability to capture the reader’s attention. You the author, are our client. We are your customer. It is the client’s job to keep the customer happy. Remember, the customer is always right. Why? Because it is the customer who knows what they want. The customer is the one with the money. Likewise, it is the customer who pays you for your work or rejects it and pays someone else whose work was better. You do a good job, the customer pays you to do your job. What is your job?
Your job is to write a story that we well want to buy. What can you do to make me want to buy your story? Ah-uh, now we come to the most important part of writing a story: the customer…that one whose always right…our customers. Who are our customers? The people who buy our magazine. The people who read our magazine. Those are our customers. Our job is to keep our customers happy, by buying stories they well want to read. To determine how to keep our customers happy, we first must know who are customers are.
Who are our customers? Let’s examine our magazine.
Our magazine is family friendly: i.e. read by families. Families include all ages. In other words it would not be unusual for the oldest grandmother to be seen reading a story from our magazine to her youngest grandchildren. Keeping that in mind, we do not accept stories that contain any of the above mentioned things.
We are also a small press, sold locally at a tourist resort town on the frigid North Atlantic coast of Maine. Most people who buy our magazine are often tourists looking for something to read on the beach. Others who buy us are local teachers and parents who trust us to publish stories that provide a safe, clean, enjoyable read for students.
What do our readers want? They want a story that they can enjoy reading again and again. They want action, adventure, fun, and entertainment. They want to read about heroes off on grand adventures, pirates seeking lost treasure, super heroes vanquishing dastardly villains, wars in outer space, knights in shining armor, spooky old haunted houses, the type of stuff that was popular in the 1950’s comic books is what our readers enjoy.
What our readers do not want is pointlessness. What is pointlessness? Pointlessness is ho-hum, I think I’ll ad a sex scene in here because I can’t think of anything else to write right now. Pointlessness is , yawn, the dialogue got to short, so I’ll stick in a few swear words. Pointlessness is, geeze this sure is going slow I’ll add a serial killing vampire and have him splatter entrails all over the pages. Pointlessness is, I can’t think of anything else to write, so I’ll have a teenager overdose herself than slice her wrists while jumping off a bridge, because my life is so dull that that’s what I might do tomorrow. Pointlessness is anything that adds nothing to the story plot, it is simply there to fill up empty space. That is pointlessness. Our readers look at sex, swearing, bloody violence, and suicide and say, “Ho-hum. Looks like yet another depressed teenager wrote that piece of crap. Booooring! When are they going to get some real writers to write some real stories. I’m going to cancel my subscription.”
As you can see, if we print those things we lose our readers. If we lose our readers, we lose our customers. If we lose our customers, we lose money. If we lose money we go bankrupt. If we go bankrupt we have to close down the magazine. If we close down the magazine, we end up homeless and starving. So, the author’s ability to capture the reader’s attention is a big factor in considering a ms for acceptance. Think about it this way. When you buy a magazine to read, would you pay to read something like this:

It was a dark and stormy night, the night I wrote this story. I remember it was dark and stormy because I was watching the drug dealer outside my window that night. But my story isn’t about him, no, it’s about me and my life as a teenager. This is the coolest story in the world! OMG!!!!! It is sooooooo greetarific! It is all about how my teen years were nothing but heaping loads o’ crapola. You’ll just love to reading about how my step-dad was hell and how he raped me and beat up my dog, and how my mom was on drugs (that‘s how I knew the guy outside my window was a drug dealer), and how I run away and everything! It doesn’t have a plot, but that’s okay cause I’m the main character anyways, and I’m so great the story don’t need no plot. YAH! But than I got to thinking it’d be great if it was a horror, so I turned my step dad into a blood sucking vampire and I stuck in loads + loads of blood and gore to shock your readers with too!!!! Isn’t that jus the coolest thing??? I’ll bet no body ever thought of doing that yet. Yeah I know, it’s great, don’t thank me, I’ll settle for you kissing my ass and being my eternal slave, I’m so great you know. Oh yeah and sex too, I added a sex scene on EVERY SINGLE PAGE!!!!!! Who cares about story and plot? You don’t need a story line or a plot, not when you’ve got me! Me and blood and gore and lots of sex and great in your face kiss ass @#$&(+!#@%7 swear words to fill up the space right? Am I right or what???!! Oh yeah! I’m right baby! Can ya dig it?!

Okay, so your ms wasn’t THAT bad, but I’m hoping that by writing that example in that way, it’ll open your eyes to the fact that it is very hard for editors to WANT read a ms that is submitted without the author at least stopping to think about what our readers do and do not want. Other magazines do not publish misspelled, grammatically incorrect stories that focus on me, myself and I surrounding by naked girls and serial killers on drugs and nor do we. Okay, maybe there are a few magazines that publish that sort of thing, so, send it to them, they want it, we don’t.
As I said before, the customer is always right, and we have to think of our customers first. Our customers do not want to read misspelled and grammatically incorrect stories, nor do they want to read pointless ramblings. How long do you think a reader will stay interested in your story if you haven’t actually got a story to tell? You would not read it and you know that, and editors know it even better than you do. You’d never pay money to read something like that, so how can you expect other people to buy it? That said, why should we bother to accept it?

So, you are now staring at this letter, wondering what to do next. Should you polish your ms, delete the sex, blood, and drugs and resubmit it? Should you submit it elsewhere instead? Should you give up writing like great aunt so-so told you to do?
Answers: maybe, yes, and no.
Yes, go ahead and polish your ms. Correct the spelling and grammar mistakes. Re-read it, possibly re-write it. Remove the vulgarity from it. When you’ve honed it to a fine point, send it out on it’s rounds again. Who knows maybe we’d like the second version of it maybe not, depends on the changes made. Do not let this rejection stop you from writing though. Write more stories, get lots of practice, keep sending them to magazines, keep polishing each draft. Never listen to great aunts who tell you to give up.

My suggestions:
Never submit a first draft. Polish your ms until it’s perfect. Write it, than re-write it.
Be sure that your story has a plot which readers want to read about with characters readers well want to read about. Who did it? What did they do? Why did they do it? Where did they do it? What was the result of what they did?
Every story needs a beginning, a middle, and an end. The beginning tells us what the goal of the story is. The middle tells us what the character did to reach that goal. The ending tells us what happened when the character reaches the goal.
Be sure that your main character is someone that you readers well have a reason to love.
Third person stories (he said she did) get accepted more than 80% times more often than first person stories (I said I did), and second person rarely gets accepted by anyone (you said you did). 99.8% of all best sellers are written in 3rd person.
Always spell-check
I always recommend writers use Windows XP and MSWorks Word Processor. They are simple, easy to use, beginner friendly, writer friendly, and readily available to anyone with a PC.
If you use MSWorks Word Processor, set it to spell-check, tell it to include grammar checking as well, with writing style as formal. That’ll ensure that most grammar mistakes, including passive voice, are pointed out to you so that you can correct them.
Before submitting always ask for a copy of the magazine’s writer’s guidelines.
Always read at least 2 sample issues before submitting, so that you know what type of stories the magazine is looking for. Better yet, take out a year subscription and carefully examine how the magazine changes from one issue to the next.
Know thy enemy. Read the competition. Know which writers are being published in which magazines. Ask yourself, why did they get published and not me? Examine the stories that are published. How are they different from yours? How can yours become better than theirs. Think of the world of fiction as a great war. Some writers are your allies, they well help you reach the top. Some writers are your rivals, they well climb over you to get to the top first.
Be persistent and never give up.

While your story was not appropriate for publication in our magazine, you do have potential and I wish you the best of luck on your writing career. Though I can not promise that we well accept your work, you are welcomed to submit other mss for our consideration in the future.

Sincerely,

Rejection Notice: Lack of Spelling and Grammar:

After careful consideration of your ms entitled [ms title goes here]we must regretfully advise you that we are unable to accept it at this time. The decision to deny acceptance is based on:

Lack of correct spelling and an abundance of basic grammar mistakes.

Due to the volume of mss we receive each week, we are unable to read mss which require us to first stop and make spelling and/or grammar corrections in order to be able to read it. In the 1800’s when most authors were unable to spell due to lack of education, yes, editors did correct spelling. This is not the 1800’s, it is 200 years later. In today’s world, you would be hard pressed to find an editor that would correct a writer’s spelling and grammar mistakes. Today authors didn’t grow up in log cabins 1,000 miles from civilization, and even if they do live in the Artic Circle, they type the story up on a computer, and guess what? Computers spell check, and most grammar check too.
Before your ms gets to one of our editors, it must first survive the shush pile. The slush pile is a mountain of stories, which threatens to smother our editors in a paper avalanche. Once in a while is found one or two authors who have sent their 4th or 5th draft, a well polished draft with mistakes corrected, and the ms printed neatly and formatted correctly…and editors can actually read it. Those one or two that we can read because they are clean and neat with no mistakes… those are the ones we read, because those survive the slush pile and make it on to an editor’s desk.
Which mss drown in the slush pile? If the paper is dirty, crumpled, and torn, it drowns. If the font is big and flowery, it gets tossed. If the font is smaller than 12pt, it seeps into the unknown. If the paper is scented and has confetti flying out of each page, it gets fumigated. If the paper is pink, red, yellow, blue, or any other color not white, it gets tossed before it gets a chance to blind the editor. If it reads like a dry collage text book, it gets recycled quickly…we don‘t want our editors sleeping on the job. If there are 10 or more grammar and/or spelling mistakes on the first page, it gets tossed. Of every 100 mss we receive, more than three thirds are tossed in the trash as unreadable. Sadly, your ms has fallen into the unreadable category. As a result, your ms did not survive the slush pile and went unread by our editors.
Now, before you write back to me demanding that I force an editor to read your ms, let’s review the problem that got it rejected in the first place.
Our editors read the ms and accept or reject them based on our writer’s guidelines, our current needs, and most importantly the author’s ability to capture the reader’s attention. You the author, are our client. We are your customer. It is the client’s job to keep the customer happy. Remember, the customer is always right. Why? Because it is the customer who knows what they want. The customer is the one with the money. The customer is the one who pays you for your work or rejects it and pays someone else whose work was better. What is your job? Your job is to write a story that we well want to buy. Now than, what can you do to make me want to buy your story? Ah-uh, now we come to the most important part of writing a story: the customer…that one whose always right…our customers. Who are our customers? The people who buy our magazine. The people who read our magazine. Those are our customers. Our job is to keep our customers happy, by buying stories they well want to read.
The author’s ability to capture the reader’s attention is a big factor in considering a ms for acceptance. Think about it this way. When you buy a magazine to read, would you pay to read something like this:

dis is da coolest storee i’s even did wrote!!!! OMG!!!!! It is sooooooo greetarific! it is all about how my teen years were noting but heaping loads o’ crapola, you’ll just lov at read about how my step-dad was hell, and i run away and everting! it doesn’t have a plot, but that’s okay cause I’m the main character anyways, and I’m so great the storee don’t need no plot. I stuck in loads + loads of blood and gore to shock the readers wid too!!!! Is’nt tat jus the coolest thing??? Ya I knoe, it’s great,,, oh yeah and sex too, I added a sex sence on EVERY SINGLE PAGE!!!!!! Who cares about story and plot? you don’t neeed a story line or a plot, not when you’ve got me and blood and gore and lots of sex and great@#$&(+!#@%7 swear words to fill up the space right? Am I right or what???!! can ya dig it?! howe loong do ya tink a weeder will stae intrested in yor storee ifing dey kan’t weed wat U al wote? and you hav‘nt actualy got a story to tell ? “YIKES!!!!!!!!!!!“ U wood knot weed it and yos no that, & us editers no dat even betta tan U doo, so why wood we bodder to weed it? even if it had been a goode storee, we wood not have nonw for all the mistakes… !!!! it jus 2 bad that mor wriders did knot spell an grammer checke afor dey submit

Okay, so your ms wasn’t THAT bad, but I’m hoping that by writing that example in that way, it’ll open your eyes to the fact that it is very hard for editors to read a ms that is submitted without the author first spell-checking it at least. A typo here and there is understandable and overlooked, but how often do you see a magazine publish a story in a complete lack of grammar? Other magazines do not publish misspelled, grammatically incorrect stories and nor do we. As I said before, the customer is always right, and we have to think of our customers first. Our customers do not want to read misspelled and grammatically incorrect stories.

So, you are now staring at this letter, wondering what to do next. Should you polish your ms and resubmit it? Should you submit it elsewhere. Should you give up writing like great aunt so-so told you to do?

Answers: maybe, yes, and no.
Yes, go ahead and polish your ms. Correct the spelling and grammar mistakes. Re-read it, possibly re-write it. When you’ve honed it to a fine point, send it out on it’s rounds again. Write more stories, get lots of practice, keep sending them to magazines, keep polishing each draft. Never listen to great aunts who tell you to give up.

My suggestions:
Never submit a first draft. Polish your ms until it’s perfect.
Be sure that your story has a plot which readers want to read about characters readers well want to read about.
Always spell-check
I always recommend writers use Windows XP and MSWorks Word Processor. They are simple, easy to use, beginner friendly, writer friendly, and readily available to anyone with a PC.
If you use MSWorks Word Processor, set it to spell-check, tell it to include grammar checking as well, with writing style as formal. That’ll ensure that most grammar mistakes, including passive voice, are pointed out to you so that you can correct them.
Before submitting always ask for a copy of the magazine’s writer’s guidelines.
Always read at least 2 sample issues before submitting, so that you know what type of stories the magazine is looking for. Better yet, take out a year subscription and carefully examine how the magazine changes from one issue to the next.

Know thy enemy. Read the competition. Know which writers are being published in which magazines. Ask yourself, why did they get published and not me? Examine the stories that are published. How are they different from yours? How can your become better than theirs. Think of the world of fiction as a great war. Some writers are your allies, they well help you reach the top. Some writers are your rivals, they well climb over you to get to the top first.
Be persistent and never give up.

You have potential and I wish you the best of luck on your writing career. Though I can not promise that we well ever accept your work, you are welcomed to submit other mss in the future.

Sincerely,

As I said these are premade forms. Why do we have premade forms? Because we do not accept certain things, and no matter how many time we tell people that we do not accept certain things, they still send them out anyways, thinking “well, they well make an eception for me”… no, not even if you were Stephen King, would we make an exception.

Baiscly, write the best you can, edit it yourself as best you can, always read submission guidelines carefully, and send your ms out to the places that WANT the type of work you write. Editors are desperatly seeking good writers, they want to accept your work, you just have to find the right editor for what you wrote.

~~EK

Writing Exercise: Word of the Day: Panspermia

Writing exercises come in many forms. Basicly anything that can inspire you to write a story, can become a writing exercise. Well, today I came across a word which I had never heard before: Panspermia. I looked at that word and thought: “What the hell?” It wasn’t used in a sentance so I had no way to figure out it’s meaning. It was part of a True or False quizz, which asked what the meaning of Panspermia was. Of course never hearing the word before, I had no idea what the answer was, so I guessed “False”. Turns out I guessed correctly, but still didn’t know the true meaning of the word, so it was off to the dictionary for me. Here is what I found:

Panspermia: noun

Theory that life on earth originated from organisms coming from outer space. According to this theory, the seeds of life were scattered to Earth but could have been distributed to other parts of the universe as well.

Well, now THAT I have heard of before. (Avid fan of David Dochovny ;) ) So it got me to thinking, why not have a writing exercise based on a word. That word. Well, why not? So here it is:

Write a story using the word Panspermia as your inspiration. It could be about the begining of life on earth, a sort of creation story, a court room drama about a scientist forced to defend his theory, the discovery of proof, even a fan-fic peice about Fox Mulder! Be imaginative, be creative, but most of all have fun!

~~EK

New From The Twighlight Manor Press: 2008 Calendar

Twighlight Manor Press on LuLu
Twighlight Manor Art by Wendy C. Allen 2008 12 month calendar
All art, drawings, and paintings by Wendy C. Allen, featureing the characters from the Twighlight Manor series, including EelKat, Sir Roderic, Etiole, Xavier, and more.
Price: $19.79

LuLu has come a long way

LuLu seems to be on many writers minds lately. It seems like everywhere I go, someone is talking about how they have published a book on LuLu. I look at these people and I say: “LuLu! You have got to be kidding! Who in their right mind would get a book published by LuLu!” I guess you can tell it’s been a very long time since I had any dealings with LuLu. I remember the old LuLu. Quite differant from the LuLu of today.

I remember LuLu when it first started, not sure when that was, but I remember searching Google for self-publishing and finding this little site that boasted to haveing printed “over 100 books”. The site was a total mess, very unprofessional, hard to navigate, and really had no info about what they did. Basicly the whole thing looked like someone had dropped a bomb on Hell. It was terrible. So terrible in fact, that I never went back.

The whole web site was based on a chat-room, and didn’t really have a home page. I remember laughing at it and saying that no one in their right mind would let such a crappy looking web site publish their book.

That was a few years ago, and their site was online, maybe a month at that point, and had a notation that it was “under construction”. I blew it off as someone’s little pipe dream and never gave it a second thought.

Well, last week I was chatting with some fellow writers and one of them was telling me how she was doing her next book with LuLu. I thought “You have got to be kidding! Is that crappy site still going!” She tells me, that yep they were and boy had they changed. So I went and checked it out, and WOW! Did they ever change! It don’t even look like the same site. I’m amazed that they have come so far in just a few short years.

Well, now I’m intreeged. This “new” LuLu has gathered my interest, and I think I’ll test it out. I’ve got a short story, I wrote a while back, but never published anywhere, yet, and I think I’ll test LuLu out with it, see what happens.

While searching for info about LuLu, I also came across this blog. I recomend it to anyone who is thinking of starting a project with LuLu, as the author has written a wounderfully detail step by step instruction of the LuLu publishing process.

I’m interested in hearing of others’ experiances with LuLu. So if you’ve ever published anything with LuLu, feel free to comment and share your thoughts, both the good and the bad. I’d like to know more about LuLu as told by the authors who’ve been published by them

~~EK

Harlequin books seeks “real men” for covers

I saw this article on Yahoo News and thought it to be quite interesting, cause when it comes to romance books, I usually buy them for the cover art, but than rarely ever read the book, all I wanted was the picture on the cover! LOL! Of course all my Harlequins are from the 1970′s though, back when they used to sell Gothics on a regular basic, and the covers had big old haunted houses on them, with a girl in a long gown seen in the shadow of the house, running away. Anyone rember those great old Gothic covers? Why don’t they make those type of covers anymore, I wonder?

Well, here’s the article as seen on Yahoo News:

Harlequin books seeks “real men” for covers

By Jonathan Spicer Sat Mar 24, 3:08 PM ET

TORONTO (Reuters) – Real men don’t pose for the cover of a Harlequin romance. And that’s something the publisher wants to change.

Representatives of Harlequin Enterprises, the world’s biggest publisher of romance novel series, inspected the assets of about 200 men who lined up at a Toronto casting house on Saturday to prove they could flutter readers’ hearts better than professional models.

“We’re looking for some guys that are not your usual models, but have that iconic look that women go for — sexy, sensitive, beautiful and fit,” said Harlequin spokeswoman Marleah Stout, who attended the open casting.

“We want real men … exactly what you think in your mind when you’re fantasising or imagining that ideal man.”

Toronto-based Harlequin, a division of newspaper group Torstar Corp., sold 131 million books in 94 countries last year. It estimates that a third of American women have read at least one of its titles.

Until now, the publisher relied on modelling agencies to supply bodies for its concupiscent covers. But the readership — predominantly female and averaging 42 years of age — was upset when slight, young cover models clashed with the brawny, mature heroes described within.

“Some of the heroes are captains of industry, billionaires,” said Deborah Peterson, a Harlequin creative designer and a judge at the audition. “A lot of the models were too young, men in their twenties … and our audience likes men a little bit older, a bit bigger, than the runway models.”

At the Toronto casting, chiselled hopefuls shed their shirts and donned a cowboy hat for the panel while a handful of other judges watched on closed-circuit camera in an adjacent room.

Several were asked to return for a book cover shot, where they may earn up to C$250 (110 pounds) an hour, according to male modelling agencies.

Others indulged their own fantasies.

“From what I understand, (Harlequin) readers are women who want to escape from the relationship that they’re in,” said auditioner Carlos Troccoli, 30, who was tall, sturdy and muscular. “I can bring that to them.”

My thoughts on that? Well, this phrase stands out to me and makes me think:

 ”We want real men … exactly what you think in your mind when you’re fantasising or imagining that ideal man.”

hhhmmm… you know, I rarely like the men on the covers of Harlequin, they all look like Arnold. Not that that’s a bad thing, Arnold was a regular dreamboat as Conan. But for me, prefer older, more “real”  looking men. They are just so much sexier. When it really comes down to it, I prefer a man who looks more like Sir Roderic from my Twighlight Manor series, as Roderic looked in the late 1800′s to the 1970′s (the guy is 450 years old, so you’ll have to strecth your mind around the dates a bit). Well for those of you not familiar with Sir Roderic or what he looked like in that time period, just think of David Carradine as he looked in Kill Bill. And for those of you who have never seen Kill Bill, I just happen to have visuals for you. Wasn’t that thoughtful of me?

Isn’t  he just gorgeous? Can you think of a better guy to model for Harleqin’s covers? I can’t.

Now if Harlequin had more guys like that on their covers, I’d buy more of their books, esp if the guy turns out to be a spooky gothic guy with a big old haunted house. (I just go head over heals for a Gothic!)

I’d really love it if I could get David Caradine to be a cover model for Sir Roderic. What a dream that’d be!

How accurate?; Writing Thought of the Day: February 18, 2007

How accurate?

Quote:

wren10514 wrote:
This has probably been debated here already, but as I come to look at my novel under the harsh light of editing I begin to wonder….

It doesn’t have to be that historically accurate does it? please!!

Seriously – how accurate are you going to be in your novels? Can a few slips be forgiven?……How about an entire misunderstanding of the period?^^

My Answer:

It depends on a lot of factors…

a few of them being:

Are you planning to publish it?

If yes, now you must consider these sub-factors:

Well you publish it in a pulp fiction magazine?

than no, accuracy would not be expected

Well it you be self-publishing?

than you can do whatever you want gosh darn the consequenses

Are you going to publish legit? With a publishing house and and editor etc.?

Than go with your editors advise, which most likly well be “You better as hell be as accurate as the Bible.”

The next thing you has to consider is: your audiance.

Who are your readers? Who well actually buy and read your book? What do they expect of you?

If they are fans of fiction stories that go off on a limb with twisted reality, than you are pretty safe

if they are scholarly types that have an encyclopidia in one hand and your book in the other, than you can be sure that they well also track down your mailing address and your email, and they are going to send you a detailed list of each and every mistake you made… you’ll want to be very accurate for these readers

If you want to be historical but not historically accurate, than classify your story as Historical Fantasy Fiction and ha’ll cover any mistakes you made in the accuracy department.