Did you miss me?

Okay, I've been a bit quiet on the blogging front for the last month, I admit. Nothing bad happened, I just wanted some time off the online schedule. I actually went a few days not even looking at Facebook!

It was lovely! Social media is a blessing for a writer, but it can be a horrible, compulsive burden too.  Sometimes it's good to step back and get grounded in real life for a change.

Anyway, while I was away I...

• Kicked off a new Victorian Gothic LARP game - we've done the site visit, written the outline plot, assembled a crew team, booked out for players (inside an hour of launch) and had our first crew meeting. I've got the best part of a year to make props and build up a good head of stress now, LOL.

 

•  Adopted a new dog
• Had my sister and her family up to visit

 

• Had a bathroom refitted
• Went to a family wedding

 

• Self-published a new book (well, a reprint ... two reprints under one cover, to be precise)
• And binge-watched a lot of TV, heehee, because NOW WE HAVE NETFLIX 🙌🙌🙌

There will be posts to come on most of the above, no doubt, but I'm probably going to blog on a slightly more irregular schedule just so I don't feel like I'm on the treadmill again.

Hope you stick around! 💕

Sin-ing off

I'm taking a blog-break for a week ... have fun, Sinners!

Into the Shadows

Alas, dear readers - I must regretfully bid you a fond farewell for a few days. I am called upon to take up my post as the kindly matriarch of a beloved family in the gas-lit reign of the Empress Victoria. I am afraid my portrait photograph is not all I had hoped, because I struggle with these new technologies and did not understand the photographer's instructions. But I think it captures my essential sweetness, merriment and open-hearted generosity in a candid manner, and all who glimpse it will be assured that a warm welcome awaits them in my haunted mansion on the banks of the ghastly mere that is Malham Tarn. 

I shall return! 💀

Sinister Ducks

This has been doing the rounds online 😉

Which of course made me think of the GREATEST DUCK SONG OF ALL TIME



(written by Alan Moore, probably after some funny mushrooms I'm guessing)

"Everyone thinks they're such sweet little things
Ducks, Ducks! Quack, Quack! Quack, Quack!
Soft downy feathers and nice little wings
Ducks, Ducks! Quack, Quack! Quack, Quack!
But there's a poison I'd like to administer,
You think they're cuddly but I think they're sinister.
Ducks, Ducks! Quack, Quack! Quack, Quack!
Ducks, Ducks! Quack, Quack! Quack, Quack!

What are they doing at night in the park?
Think of them waddling about in the dark.
Sneering and whispering and stealing your cars,
Reading pornography, smoking cigars.

Nasty and small, undeserving of life.
They smirk at your hairstyle and sleep with your wife.
Dressed in black jackets and horrible shoes,
Getting divorces and turning to booze.

Forcing old ladies to throw them some bread.
Who could deny they'd be better off dead?
Look closer and you may recoil in surprise,
At web-footed fascists with mad little eyes.
Ducks, Ducks! Quack, Quack! Quack, Quack!
Ducks, Ducks! Quack, Quack! Quack, Quack!
Ducks, Ducks! Quack, Quack! Quack, Quack!
Ducks, Ducks! Quack, Quack! Quack, Quack!"

On my knees

"PLEASE approve my mortgage! Pleaaaaaaaase!!!"

This painting, Jupiter and Thetis, by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres (1811), is for kinky fans of big brooding men and supplicant women. In the original legend Thetis, the sea-nymph, goes to ex-boyf Zeus to beg him to intervene in the Trojan War on behalf of her mortal son, Achilles. 

It works, btw.

Things I have learned during the half-year house-moving process:

• Mr Ashbless must love me very very much.
• If you e-mail any British company with an offer of money for their advertised services, the chance of you getting any response whatsoever is about ... 40% tops.  If you really want them, phone.
• Banks are incompetent. Like, unbelievably incompetent. We've lost track of the number of times we've phoned or sent them information/money, only for them to fail to log it in the computer and deny any record that they've ever spoken to us. Repeatedly. HSBC actually sent us a crate of wine to apologise for arsing us around for months, but I still hate them.
• If you are trying to get a interest-only mortgage, when they ask you how you're going to pay it off, FFS do NOT regale them with talk of savings, investments, rental income, inheritances or any carefully-worked financial plan you have. That will just bring everything to crashing halt. The magic words are, "We will make regular overpayments." That is all they want to hear and all they will accept.
• There is NOTHING you can do to your old house to make people buy it. They either like it or they don't, and buyers are mostly crazy. Just Febreze the shit out of everything and cross your fingers.
• The whole chain system is bolloxed. How ANYONE ever manages to synchronise with half-a-dozen other buyers + lenders/solicitors/removal companies to move house on the same bloody day is absolutely beyond comprehension. We didn't even try, in the end.

Anyway, it's all signed, sealed and hopefully soon will be delivered. We've even accepted an offer on our old place!

2018 FTW!

All out of spoons

Normal service will be resumed when something goes right for a change...

Fonts

CLICK

... keen-sighted.

(Says the woman who literally can't read the small print in her holiday brochure, it's so small. Still, I'm sure everything will be fine...)

COVER REVEAL: The Prison of the Angels

Aargh, I'm so nervous! I hope you like it!

Here it is - the cover for The Prison of the Angels - which is officially due to be published by Sinful Press on

1st December 2017!

Here's the wraparound:

And the blurb:

I thought I was a good girl. I thought that no matter what others did for my sake, I could stay innocent. I thought that as long as I acted out of love, I’d be blameless.

I was wrong, wasn’t I?

Milja Petak’s world has fallen apart.

Her lover, the fallen angel Azazel, has cast her aside in rage and disgust. The other contender for her heart, the Catholic priest Egan Kansky, was surrendered back into the hands of the shadowy Vatican organization, Vidimus, after sustaining life-threatening injuries. 

She has killed and she has betrayed. She is alone, homeless, and at the end of her tether - torn apart by guilt and the love she has lost. But neither Heaven nor its terrifying representatives on Earth have finished with Milja. Both of her lovers need her in order to further their very different plans, and both passionately need her, though they may try to deny it. 

Milja is once again forced into a series of choices as she uncovers the secrets Heaven has been guarding for centuries. But this time it is not just her heart at stake, or even the fate of a fallen angel.

This time, the choices she make will change everything.

This time it’s the End of the World.

Quick - hide the porn

BEHOLD MY DESK! It has never before looked this tidy!

It took a week to clear down to visible desk-top, let me tell you

Because we're selling the house and the guy is turning up to take photos for Rightmove first thing on Monday morning (*muffled Ashbless sobs*) , I have been doing a WHOLE lot of tidying up. Mostly it has involved hiding shit in the loft, and throwing out computer games we have never played and can't even run on the PC now. In fact I was advised by a Facebook friend to hide "anything that might be off-putting - really stupid stuff like a candle with a pentacle on it, books with "offensive" covers (specifically erotica), even a scruffy dog bed".

Since 90% of our household goods consists of weird shit/books, erotica and dog-beds, this may not be possible...

 But we did chisel the Green Man off from next to the front door...

I just can't do anything about the 6ft god in the back garden!

And the Hammer Horror Library is a lost cause, dudes...

 I think our marketing strategy has to be "semi-detached house, would suit weirdos", lol

 

To Do

I write lists. It is how I stave off panic about ALL THE THINGS TO DO. And also my memory's not that great, let's face it 😉

This is my list this week:

I just did a little wee

SO EXCITED!!!!

Intervention needed

HEEEEEELP - My "to-read" pile has broken out of the bookcase and is taking over the windowsill!

It Is Finished

Franz Von Stuck; Lucifer (1890)

On 30th March I wrote THE END on the first draft of The Prison of the Angels.

And I felt absolutely miserable.

It's an occupational hazard, I suppose. I've spent four years, on and off, writing this trilogy, and I've never invested so much time and care in a particular set of characters. I adore Milja - I think she's brave and clever and complicated and she deserves happiness. I am erotically besotted with both Azazel and Egan. Finishing the trilogy felt like walking away from someone I really loved. I felt incredibly lonely.

There's also an edge of worry. I've had readers enthuse over many of my books, but not to this extent, and not over a series. I've never had people saying they are desperate to find out how it all ends! My readers have invested in the characters too; they want a happy ending, they want emotional payback, they want satisfaction. They've followed my characters for three books and for the first time I feel like I am writing for someone other than myself.

Can I give them what they want? Have I done a good enough job? There's pressure!

At least I've got a few weeks grace now, as I get to go back in and fix everything, and make it even better.

Fingers crossed...

Please still be magic!

This week I risked my entire writing career and had my shower enclosure torn out and a new one installed. Then I had to repaint the bathroom of course...

Why's it a risk? Well, if you're a writer one of the questions you get asked most frequently is, "What do you do to get over writers' block?" And the answer for me is, "I take a long shower."

I had a magic shower, you see. Every time I got stuck on the logistics of a scene, the choreography of some sexual gymnastics, or the flow of a piece of dialogue, I could be sure that all I needed to do was stand under the water for long enough and it would all sort itself out in my head, like a miracle.

Will the magic work with the new shower? I don't know yet!

I have high hopes of the inspirational laminate backing board though (no more tiles and grout for me, suckas!). It's blue with a white marble effect, but as I told Mr Ashbless, "It just looks like there's been a gigantic cum-fight."
 

And now nobody can unsee that 😈😈 😈

Witless fraud

Cover reveal: In Bonds of the Earth

THIS IS IT!

BEHOLD!!!

I LOVE IT!

Here's the Blurb:

---

"I will free them all."
 
When Milja Petak released the fallen angel Azazel from five thousand years of imprisonment, she did it out of love and pity. She found herself in a passionate sexual relationship beyond her imagining and control – the beloved plaything of a dark and furious demon who takes what he wants, when he wants, and submits to no restraint. But what she hasn’t bargained on is being drawn into his plan to free all his incarcerated brothers and wage a war against the Powers of Heaven.
 
As Azazel drags Milja across the globe in search of his fellow rebel angels, Milja fights to hold her own in a situation where every decision has dire consequences. Pursued by the loyal Archangels, she is forced to make alliances with those she cannot trust: the mysterious Roshana Veisi, who has designs of her own upon Azazel; and Egan Kansky, special forces agent of the Vatican – the man who once saved then betrayed her, who loves her, and who will do anything he can to imprison Azazel for all eternity. 

Torn every way by love, by conflicting loyalties and by her own passions, Milja finds that she too is changing – and that she must do things she could not previously have dreamt of, in order to save those who matter to her.

---

In Bonds of the Earth: The Book of the Watchers 2 is currently scheduled for release in the first week of March, 2017.

Advance review copies (e-print and paper) will be available very soon. If you think you'd be a good candidate for one, you should probably contact the editor at Sinful Press and ask her nicely :-)

I am now too excited to sleep until March... :-D

Screw you, "Show Don't Tell"

Time for a wee rant.

If you even dip casually into writing sites, you'll find stuff like this all over the internet. "Show Don't Tell!" they insist.

Now, obviously if you are at the stage of your writing career where you are inclined to type something like "A man went into a bar. He ordered a drink. A stranger walked up to him and started an argument..." then this is a poke in the right direction. And God knows that in the romance genre (especially paranormal romance for some reason) there are entire series that could be cut down to pamphlet size if some editor just went in and took out all the expository internal dialogue.

But I want to have a good old tantrum about SDT because I think that as a dogma it's - wait for it - ableist and exclusionary. Specifically, it alienates me as a reader, which pisses me off.

Take a look at these examples:

"Resist the urge to explain"! Because you don't want to make things easy for your reader, for fuckssake.

Tell: Jessica was so scared she just wanted to run away.
Show: Jessica felt the blood drain out of her face. Her breath seemed to freeze in her throat.

Now I'm setting aside the fact that this sort of writing turns everything into melodrama (if you are writing a 100,000 word book where poor ol' Jessica is in regular peril, you are going to be bogged down in sweat springing out on her brow, ice-water running through her veins, lurching stomachs, thumping hearts, etc etc until you have worked through every medical condition/cliche in the lexicon or just given up and started repeating yourself). Melodrama is fine - nay, compulsory - if you are writing romance. But...

1) SDT assumes a high emotional intelligence in the reader.

Personally I am not empathetic. I don't read people's expressions particularly well. I don't "feel" their emotions if I am in conversation with them. I do not notice if they avoid certain words or topics. I do not instinctively know what they expect from me in response to their conversational revelations. How I manage is by extrapolating from the overt evidence, based on experience and what I have been taught by people who put in the actual effort to tell me things overtly.

So as far as I'm concerned, every SDT scene is a procession of characters doing and saying random things, followed by me trying to work out why.


"Tell" clues REALLY HELP ME in subtle situations. If you just show Jessica leaving the room in a cold sweat,  I have to mentally pause and scratch my head and go, "She seems to be very upset or scared, I wonder why," (assuming there is no obvious threat like an axe-murderer or a giant spider or whatever in the room). This is no goddamn fun for me as a reader.

I want to be told; "Jessica felt scared; this man with his creepy smile and his laughter in all the wrong places made her feel like she needed to wash herself with carbolic soap." I need some level of explanation.

2) SDT assumes your reader has the same cultural touchstones as you the writer, which is frankly arrogant. It excludes readers of other cultures.

I can't tell what signals consumer choices send, because I'm not into fashion or consumer culture. I can't interpret "coded Jewishness". I can't tell if one character is subtly, cruelly taking the piss out of another unless it is within my age group and peculiar British sub-culture. Which is pretty fucking tiny subset of fiction. 
This is bad enough as a mainstream British reader of mainstream American authors. God knows what it's like for people trying to read across more disparate cultural gaps. It's why we need emoticons.

Here's Giles Coren reviewing Here I Am (which he loved):

"For me it had everything ... But will it also work for you? Is this a great, great novel, or is its greatness only visible to other deracinated Jewish writers with complex sexual needs and a firstborn son named Sam? I can't tell."

Seriously, I read Brigit Jones and didn't get it. That is not my world. Any book that is "closely observed dissection" of anything might as well be in Greek as far as I'm concerned, because all it does is show, not tell.

Look, telling me that a character wears expensive designer shoes and is pharmacalogically dependent conveys information to me. Casually mentioning her slipping off Jimmy Choos and necking Quaaludes does not. (Well, obviously it does now or else I couldn't use the example, BUT ONLY BECAUSE I LOOKED UP EVERY OTHER NOUN when I read Tales of the City.)

3) What makes SDT worse is combining it with other shitty fashionable writers' "rules":

"You're a big shot now,"  she observed disdainfully. - Hey, it may not be the best sentence in the language but it conveys information to me that I do not have to guess.

But no - writing gurus say we must give up all dialogue tags except Said! You can't growl, stammer, laugh or inquire.
And we must cull our adverbs!
Dialogue must speak for itself!

"You're a big shot now," she said, flipping her hair.

No, this is  just doesn't work. Just tell me what is happening, pleeeeeeease.  FICTION IS NOT A GODDAMN COMPREHENSION EXERCISE SET BY THE AUTHOR TO TEST THE READER'S PERSPICUITY.

For my sake - Show all you like, but please please Tell too...

... she pleaded. :-)

Contractual obligations

OMG - 
I've decided I have to take my giant unsorted pile of contracts and put them in publisher order in a nice filing box. Because it takes me forever to look up an old contract.

I think I'm going to need more than one box ... :O

Hobbies

The trouble with women writers...

Francesco Laurana (1430 – 1502); Eleanor of Aragon

I was asked by editor Lisa Jenkins to write a post on feminism for the Sinful Press blog - because they've just published erotica novel Show Me, Sir, which is all about the contentious intersection of feminism and BDSM.
I warned her my post was likely to be arsey and opinionated, but she let me go for it!

HERE