Giftmas Cross Stitch

This is the completed cross stitch I made for H.L. Burke, the winner of the Giftmas raffle! It's her "ginger gentleman" Bruce playing with a dragon.

The books are the colors of her Spellsmith & Carver series. Check out her site here: http://www.hlburkeauthor.com/

Editing Notes. IN. SPAAAAACE!

Hi, how was everyone's holidays?

I'm going to try to get on a schedule for posting here. Let's try every Thursday and see how it goes.

　
So, in case you missed it, my novel JACK JETSTARK'S INTERGALACTIC FREAKSHOW is going to be published by World Weaver Press!



And even though I've edited it so many times over the past year, an acceptance in this case means more editing. I'm working with a great editor, Sarena Ulibarri.

And I have editing notes!

　

• That's what happens when your only exposure to Don Quixote is an episode of Wishbone.
• It occurs to me that the long-range attackers should maybe be in the back and the defenders should be up front to... you know. Defend?
• My editing process: "But what if everyone was queer?"
• A typo changed my character's dad from a drunken oaf into a drunken oak. Go home, Treebeard, you're drunk.
• Basically this round of edits is about making everyone 500% more gay and adding lemur shenanigans.
• I'm editing a novel about sideshow freaks in space... so of course I'm reading an article called "Lemurs smell funny on birth control".
• And now I'm reading about how "Lemurs share gut bacteria when they cuddle". What. Why are lemurs so weird.

 

Major Publishing News!!!!!

Y'all.

(And you know it's a big deal when I start a blog post with the word "y'all.")

These are words I've dreamed of saying since I started writing :

I am incredibly excited and honored to announce that my novel, Jack Jetstark's Intergalactic FreakShow, is going to be published by World Weaver Press.

　

*happy dance*
 
 
Click here to read the official announcement.

Oh my god. You don't even know how hard it's been not to scream this to the entire world for the past few weeks.

(I've been calling this novel "FreakShow" since before I started writing it. When it got accepted, my editor told me there are a lot of other books with the same title and that I might want to change it to set it apart. We did a poll, and Jack Jetstark's Intergalactic FreakShow was the overwhelming winner. So yes, this is the same book all those editing notes came from.)

　

We're in the early stages of editing right now and looking at a release in early 2019, but I'll share as much of the process as I can.

Little Updates

Okay. Couple quick things.

1. The Giftmas fundraiser earned more than double our goal, for a total of $1,089 for the Edmonton Food Bank! Woo!

2. To celebrate the release of Mrs. Claus, some of our characters are sharing their favorite recipes on Rhonda Parrish's blog. Click here to read my Mrs. Claus's recipe for chocolate and powdered sugar cookies. (Thanks to my mother for letting us use her recipe.)

3. You're gonna want to come back tomorrow for my biggest announcement ever. Like, so big and exciting I've been about to explode for the past three weeks because I HAVE A SECRET AND I CAN'T TELL ANYBODY! Suffice it to say my life changed on November 30th in a major way, and I can't wait to share it with you.

Review: Six Wakes

Six Wakes by Mur Lafferty
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I wanted to love this book. I do love parts of it (IAN, mostly). I just feel like it doesn't love me back.

I'm conflicted. The story is 5 stars, no question. It's unique and twisty and exciting and clones and murder and spaaaaaace!
But the dialogue feels stilted and the book could stand another round of editing.
And then there's the way the story treats disability.

On the one hand, I love that Joanna felt "wrong" when she changed her cloned body to fix the genetic disorder that caused her to be born without legs, and chose to be disabled in all subsequent lifes. On the other hand, it felt awkward to me how she was described. "Joanna turned her wheelchair." No. Joanna did not turn her wheelchair any more than Wolfgang turned his legs. Joanna's wheelchair is part of her. Joanna turned.
In a way, I'm kind of glad they found her prosthetic legs as soon as they did so her disability effectively disappeared and didn't have to be commented on (except one time when she took her legs off and another character had to comment on how small she looked? What the hell was that about?).
But that wasn't the worst of it. For a book that tackles such big questions as what it means to be human and whether clones have souls, it skipped right over a character cloning her husband and curing his MS against his consent, only ever talked about disability as something that can be cured through hacking of DNA (once going horribly wrong and resulting in the death of a baby), and I won't spoil anything but CAN'T PEOPLE HAVE MORE THAN ONE PERSONALITY WITHOUT SOME OF THEM BEING SADISTIC MURDERERS!?
(It's also the teensiest bit hinky that there's only a few queer people and one of them was a bad guy and the other were bad guys pretending to be gay.)

Like I said, I wanted to love this book, but it's hard when it feels like people like me could be erased on every page.

View all my reviews

2017 Eligibility Post

Apparently it's the time of year where writers are supposed to post lists of what they've written this year that is eligible for awards. I'm not super sure I'm doing this right, but why not?

　


Do-overs - July 5, 2017 on Spectrum Lit

The Falling Marionette - July 25, 2017 on Expanded Horizons

Chrysalis - July 26, 2017 -podcast on Cast of Wonders

Earth Music - September 22, 2017 on Syntax & Salt

Always, Always - November 6, 2017 in When You're Strange  

Christmas Magic - November 28, 2017 in Mrs. Claus

The Medusa Channel - December 2, 2017 in Perpetual Motion Machine Publishing's newsletter


I definitely had a lot of success this year (and next week I might be able to make the biggest announcement ever!). I think my writing has improved, but I've also been submitting at a much higher rate. In 2017 so far, I've made about 70 submissions. A handful were accepted, a few I had to withdraw because someone else accepted the story, and 11 are still waiting for a reply.

Giftmas Guest Post: Beth Cato on Shining a Light During Hard Times

Rhonda Parrish has organized the Giftmas Blog Tour to raise funds for the Edmonton Food Bank.
https://www.canadahelps.org/en/pages/giftmas-blog-tour-2017-supports-the-edmonton-food-/

You can also enter to win loads of prizes! Scroll down to find a Rafflecopter giveaway.

The theme of Giftmas this year is "Shine a Light." This put me in mind of another blog event I took part in recently, Gail Z. Martin's #HoldOnToTheLight campaign where authors speak up about mental illness.

The holidays are often an especially difficult time for those who battle depression and other issues. This has been my experience, too. I am diagnosed with a veritable variety-pack of mental disorders (depression, generalized anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder, agoraphobia). The holidays can make everything feel profoundly more negative. There are more things to do. More expectations. More worries. More money spent. Loved ones are far away--or gone forever. The bright and shiny cheerfulness of the season can feel like salt on a wound.

You may feel hopeless, but please, hold on to whatever light you can find. Look to the comforts of fandom. Watch favorite movies. Read books. Lose yourself in other, better worlds.


Even if you can't stand to look in the mirror, look at others who may be in need. Sometimes, when I'm most mired in darkness, it's easier to help others than to help myself. I have found comfort in feeling useful rather than useless, the way I saw myself most of the time. Those brief moments of light helped me to get by. To survive.


Please enter the giveaway for the chance to win books and other goodies that just might brighten your day. But most importantly, try to be kind to yourself. The holidays will pass. Winter will end. Better times will come. Hold on to the light.

https://www.canadahelps.org/en/pages/giftmas-blog-tour-2017-supports-the-edmonton-food-/


　
Nebula-nominated Beth Cato is the author of the Clockwork Dagger duology and the new Blood of Earth Trilogy from Harper Voyager. Her newest novel is CALL OF FIRE. She’s a Hanford, California native transplanted to the Arizona desert, where she lives with her husband and son. Follow her at BethCato.com and on Twitter at @BethCato.



　

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Giftmas: Shine a Light

Rhonda Parrish, editor of Mrs. Claus, has put together this Giftmas blog tour to raise money for the Edmonton Food Bank.
She's also organized a Rafflecopter giveaway filled with great prizes (including custom cross stitch by yours truly), so scroll down to enter that.

　

I'll admit that I struggled to come up with something for this theme. Shine a light? What does that mean? Am I supposed to say something inspirational?

I have trouble with being inspirational. I'm disabled, and that often comes with people telling me I'm amazing just for existing, or that I've taught them something profound about life. To use a Christmassy example, Tiny Tim.

I don't want to inspire or teach you how to see your own struggles in a different light, so I'm going to elaborate on another subject Rhonda is talking about this week: Why I Give.

　

I don't have a lot. We're on foodstamps and the government pays for the apartment. But I have a lot of time, so I donate that.

I'm always willing to copyedit a friend's story even when I should be doing something else. I'm donating a piece of cross stitch to this raffle which, depending on what the winner wants me to make, is probably going to be time consuming and difficult. I am also making crocheted earwarmers to donate to a tree at my physical therapy.
 

 

 

I'd like to say I'm just a nice person, that I'm trying to shine a little light in someone's life, but really? I don't feel like I deserve the good things in my life.

I could crochet myself a hat, but I was raised to put others first. Always let others go first in card games, let your friends have first pick of Skittles flavors... Why should I get a hat made with fancy sparkle yarn when there's someone else who would probably want it more? I've literally taken a headband off my head and told someone, "If it fits you, you can have it."
 
(I actually put off donating to the fundraiser because the first ten donors would get a free ebook and I didn't want to take it away from someone who would appreciate it more.)
 
I'm aware this isn't the healthiest mindset, but then, the world might be a little brighter if more people acted this way, so I'm less concerned with the internal results and more concerned with the external.
 
 
 
Tomorrow, I'm swapping posts with Beth Cato, so come on back for that. And you can enter the raffle for free below. Go here for more details, or click here to go straight to the donation page.

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It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Giftmas!

Hi everyone, and happy holidays! It's that time of year when we're at our most charitable (right?), and I know there's a thousand charities asking for your money but listen up, because you can win PRIZES for being an awesome person! (Yeah, yeah, giving is its own reward... but prizes are nice, too.)

　

Rhonda Parrish, editor of Mrs. Claus, has organized a blog tour fundraiser called Giftmas to benefit the Edmonton food bank in Edmonton, Alberta. For the next week or so, a bunch of us will be swapping posts and pointing you towards the fundraising page.

One dollar will provide three meals for someone in need. (And that's Canadian dollars - at the current exchange rate, my fellow star-spangled peeps can provide three meals for just 78 cents!)

Everyone who donates a dollar or more will get stickers, an ebook, and a card from Rhonda. There's also a raffle that you can enter, with FABULOUS PRIZES.

　

Among the prizes the grand prize winner will receive is a custom cross stitch made by yours truly.

Ever wanted a cross stitched portrait of your pet iguana? The Starship Enterprise in gay pride colors? A sampler of all your favorite swear words in Morse code? I'm your gal!

I'll work with the winner to design anything that can fit in a 6 inch hoop or similarly sized frame (or, if you want something very small and simple, I can do a few pieces).

　

So head on over to Rhonda's blog for more info and details on how to claim your prizes, click here to go to the donation site, and enter the raffle below! a Rafflecopter giveaway

The Medusa Channel

My flash fiction horror story The Medusa Channel was published today in Perpetual Motion Machine Publishing's newsletter!

If you aren't subscribed, you can read it free here. And at some point it will be recorded as a podcast. I'll post that link when I get it.

Also I'm going to have some very exciting news soon. Like, "start listening to American Pie" level exciting (some of you know what that means :D) - stay tuned.