Stitches for you WoW folks

I solo’d the dragon Teremus in Blasted Lands on my main, and was riding back through Duskwood.  Stitches comes bolting through.  I dismounted and waited for him to attack.

Everyone hates Stitches.  No one who has run Duskwood has failed to get killed at least once by him.  Usually several times.

I guess it was my main’s lvl that stopped him, but Stitches refused to either pass me or attack me.  He just stayed there brandishing his weapons.

I posted on the general chat that I was going to kill him and if someone wanted the femur to get there soon.

A lvl 23 gnome mage showed up.  I killed Stitches in 2 blows and the little gnome got the femur.

And that set me to thinking about my writing.

I can definitely imagine a monster –  running through Red Wolf terrorizing everyone and everything — having to think twice on encountering Jordy.

_____First draft of new scene follows.

“Not as I wish, but as I know must be.  You’re too young and too inexperienced to understand the game, Sibeal.  The real threat is not this bastard prince, but Todd Sinclair.  His fame alone could bring the north, the midlands, even part of the south to Kynyr’s banner.”

“He’s old.”  A note of petulant impatience entered Sibeal’s voice.  She flounced from the chair and covered herself with a robe.

“You’re missing it entirely, Sibeal.  The older thanes will remember him.  Most of the younger thanes grew up hearing tales of his prowess and honor.  They cut their milk teeth on his legend.  That’s something a bitch would never understand.  While you were being taught needle work and weaving, every lycan commander was studying Todd’s strategies and tactics.”

“I have every confidence in you, Trey.  You’re better than he is.”

“Am I?  I wish to bloody hell that Todd had stayed on that farm of his.  Kynyr alone we could handle.  He’s young and inexperienced.  He may be a good warrior.  He may even be a fine warrior.  Todd is another story.  And then there is his son, Jordan.  He’s the foremost Bane Shepherd in all of lycandom, a young Todd by all accounts.  If I could discover where Jordan is, I would send assassins after him.”

“Faerwald and Lairgan could handle this Jordan.”

“Not bloody likely.”  Tremayne chuckled darkly.  “Say Jordan’s name in front of them, and they cower.  My father and I have been careful not to tell them that Todd is Jordan’s father.  I would love to know what Jordan did that has them so nervous.  My father gets his hands on the best killers he can find, and they develop a yellow stripe down their bloody backs at the first whiff of Jordan.”

Niche writing

I suppose that it could also be called ghetto.  Whether you choose to call what I write ghetto or niche (profane or polite) it doesn’t change that fact that it is what it is.

Even as I write this post, I know that someone will snap  up pieces of it as a justification for their own choices.

I proved myself to myself in my youth.  Yes, I rant and I rage at times, but in those still, calm moments, when I am centered and at peace, I would not change what I have.

I don’t know how many of you ever listened to Frank Sinatra, but his song “I did it my way” has always touched a chord with me.  I always did it my way.

It was never easy and there was hell to pay for it more often than not.  My grandmother despaired of ever teaching me anything as a child, because for every good solid suggestion she made to me, I came up with a different (frequently less workable) solution to the problem we were discussing.

My daughter is like that also.  Many times I just want to slap her.  But then I have to shrug and grin, because we all know that paybacks are a bitch.  Everything that she does to me, things that infuriate me most, are the exact same things I did to my grandmother.

I keep dragging my feet about trying to get an agent, or even finishing something new to submit to an agent or a publisher.

It all comes down to ‘my way’ and wanting to do things my way.

While I would love to have books published by the majors, I would have to give them what they wanted.

My way.  My way is not their way.  I have enough fans and an audience base to enjoy.  But more important is my lifelong inability to compromise.

So instead, I will keep my niche and plant roses in the flower boxes of my ghetto, and be satisfied with what I have.

Because I can do it my way.

Has Been

Why does it always come down to this?

I’m dealing with a prima dona over at my message board.

He’s been a freelance journalist for all of 18 months.

And he’s giving inaccurate advice to people.

And I’m a washed up, unprofessional, has-been for challenging him in my usual Cuss Mode.

Not for the Faint of Heart

Basij shots to death a young woman June 20th

Little League Team: my most notorious post at HWA

I joined HWA in 2003.  I was not prepared for what greeted me.  My response to that was the following post created on 9/28/03

Needless to say it got me into a shitload of trouble.

___________________________________________________

I would like to say that after closely observing the functioning of this organization from an anthropologist’s standpoint I have decided that what I am witnessing is a little league game comprised of five tribal groupings.  I pray that you will have patience and understanding as I present to you my findings.

Tribe a) Angry Pros and their allies, the serious affiliate students of the craft

Tribe b) Coalition Forces of the Self Published Overly Glorified (including those from PA) authors and OEWs (old embittered wannabees)

Tribe C) Associates and neo-pros

Tribe  D) Occasional Voices of Reason

Tribe E)  Loose Cannons

It is a troubling and often distressing mix.  Especially, for me, Tribe B.  Supposedly this is a professional organization which, out of the goodness of its heart has expressed a serious willingness to allow the inexperienced with no professional credentials so that the pros can “pay forward”, and instead it has been turned into a sycophantic vanity press hotbed where self-styled, self-published, self-acclaimed geniuses whom no professional editor has yet paid to publish congratulate each other for buying their way into print.  And then Tribe B wonders why the others are so unaccepting of them.  Well, DUH.  Let me point out that taking something to a vanity press is a cop-out,  it’s a lame excuse for not doing the job, for not paying your dues and seeing it through, for not making that commitment to excellence and giving it all you have.  It is not a reason for congratulations.

No one ever said that making it as a writer was going to be easy.  No said that you were even going to make it.  Only that you had a shot at it.  But buying your lame ass way in is like some john walking up to a damned prostitute and asking how much for a blow job.  You want to sleep with a lady, you gotta earn it.  You lame ass jocks ought to stop fondling yourselves and start doing the damned job.  This is probably going to be taken down as soon as sys ops gets a look at it but at least some of you will see it.  And I’ll probably post it on my website and extrapolate.

Kynyr’s War

Like all of the books in the Lycan Blood series, Kynyr’s War (book four) was a victim of the original publisher, Renebooks.  I dropped entire threads that contributed to the conclusions of the last and second to last books in the series, because if they went beyond a certain length the publisher, Jean Marie Stine, would chop them up into components like she did the first three books in my Dark Brothers of the Light series.

I just finished revising and restoring over 40,000 words to Kynyr’s War.  The Doherty family is now back in the books as they were originally meant to be instead of appearing (almost) out of the blue in the final two novels.

I have pitched it back to the editor and now wait on his reactions to it.  There were a few places where I did not make the changes he asked for, and instead requested that he clarify what he wanted a bit more.  The final version will come when I have that clarification in hand and can work on it.

And of course, he has to approve all of the added material.

It must be my fault

I try hard to communicate with people, but then when I finally lose my temper they are surprised and offended.

To my mind I had tried repeatedly to discuss and make it all understood.  At times I have believed that I was understood.

In the end nothing was achieved and months passed.

I suppose there are two possibilities.

1) the person did not remember our previous conversations.

2) I cannot communicate well.

I suppose I ought to add a third one:

I can’t succeed at anything.

A Mysterious Package

I just received a package from the UK.  It had no return address and no note inside it.

However, I have my suspicions.

It’s a tiny plush squirrel in a tricorn hat with a red feather, a red cape, and a sword in a red and silver scabbard.

As soon as I can remember where I put my camera, I am going to post a picture of it.

It’s adorable.

Apology from Andrew Bernstein

I, Andrew Bernstein, hereby unreservedly apologize to Ms. Janice “Janrae” Frank, to those of my company “Polymancer Studios”, and to all others this matter has come to the attention of; for my over-zealous defense of the trademark owned by the company. No malice nor compensation was intended by my actions.

Sincerely,
Andrew Bernstein

Polyfuckers failed to do their homework

Instead of simply finding a word on my website and attempting to shake me down, they should have taken a long hard look at just who and what they were dealing with.

I was shaken initially.  I called my gunslinger and had him deal with them while I pulled myself together.  I went over 30 hours without sleep, living on coffee, smokes, and chocolate candy, while I investigated them and contacted my experts.

And I posted across the net, certain that, as always people would come to me with leads and information.

They did.

As the investigation continues, I will say that they may be facing criminal charges as well as a countersuit should they try to carry out their threats.

They sent an email to the owner of sfreader, Dave Felts, and he posted it on the thread I started.  Their so-called legal beagle did not know proper legal language nor the difference between libel and slander.

The name of their legal beagle does not show up on a search on either the Canadian or American Bar Association membership rosters.

$50 reward

I know it’s not much, but with this economy every little bit helps.  I want to prove that the word is older than my usage.

Therefore I am offering a $50 reward to anyone who can give me the name and title of the work in which an author has used the word besides myself.  It has to predate 04

WHO OWNS A WORD?

Pirate Rebellion

European Report

I support these efforts.  I think the greed of companies has gotten out of hand in an age when people most value the free exchange of information.

Copyright, patent, and Trademark definitions, applications, and enforcement need a serious overhaul.

I have used the term polymancer since 1979, where it first appeared in a Chimquar the Lionhawk  short story.  It is a logical word to create.

Polymancer Studios were “tipped off” by Dagstine that I was infringing their copyright.  My use of the word does not show up on a google search until page 65.

I don’t know how this is going to turn out, but I have been told that I will have my arse sued off if I don’t remove it from all my previously published works and my website.

In this day and age it is possible to remove a word from the public vocabulary with a click of a button and some hard cash.

They will have to locate all the small press publications that published my works over the last 30 years and order them burned.  Otherwise its out there.

While I can understand someone wanting to protect their investment in a trademark, literary usage of a term that had been in play since the Golden Age is carrying matters too far.

I did not invent the term.  It’s been around since I was a teenager reading the old pulps.  You can find it in old issues of Weird Tales.

In the US, the rule is not who used it first, but who trademarked it.

Daverana has offered them a compromise, and they have told use that it will take a few days for their legal department to go over it

I intend to stand my ground, but we’ll see where this goes.

Rules for editing fiction

I am trying to put together some rules for editing fiction that can be handed out to prospective editors at Daverana Enterprises.

I fumbled with it at first, and then started looking for things that others have said about the process.

The first thing that needs to be done is to read the book through completely to get an overall sense of it.  At the same time, you have to keep a list of the characters, place names, descriptions, and any peculiar word choices of the writer.

And I stumbled upon this blog and an excellent post.

Editors and copy editors, even with the best of intentions, can make a mess of a book and destroy the author’s vision.  This is especially true in the case of genre fiction, where the author’s vision may turn upon one or many unique concepts.

Many genre authors, especially in fantasy and sf, create their own words.  The word is defined and then applied throughout the manuscript.

Jordan Sinclair

Panic Time

In the old days I used to keep voluminous notes on everything I did. Most of them were destroyed by Jean over the years. That was back when she was still Hank.

As the years progressed post-Jean, I became more and more stressed out when I attempted to keep track of things. It became a given that I would have attacks of panic and extended moments of feeling overwhelmed. This is a PTSD thing that happens in the silences, but not during the episodes that created it.

After bollocking up several attempts to keep a coherent timeline on my series, I resorted to the intellectual equivalent of counting on my fingers.

It did not work out so well.

Yesterday Steven instructed me to create a timeline (and stop procrastinating about it) for book four of the lycan series.

On reflection, I realized that I really needed to go back and start working on the timeline with the first book and work my way up to book four.

And….. (drum roll please)

TA DAH!

I had fucked up.

So I am back to fixing book 1.

Fortunately, it’s simple; just a bit time consuming.