Author Archive

  • 09 Mar

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    Rowling’s writing an adult book?! Oh noes!

    6

    This is what happens when you think you have everything worked out. Already had a post lined up for today, I said. It’ll just flow off the fingertips, I said. No problems with posting it on Friday morning, I said. I tell ya, I’m such a slacker sometimes!

    Anyway, before I head into today’s post, I thought I’d revisit last week’s, um, less-than-charitable thoughts on why Watson, for example, is being played by a woman in CBS’s new series and not Holmes. One of my hypothetical network “creative” directors/bean-counters says: “[Because] men will turn off in their millions and that’ll trash our viewing figures.”

    Well, I only had to wait a few days for vindication of my jaundiced view. Director Andrew Stanton, on marketing “John Carter”, had this to say:

    I changed Princess Of Mars…because not a single boy would go.

    He does go on to say that he then changed “John Carter of Mars” to plain ole “John Carter” because:

    And then the other truth is, no girl would go to see John Carter Of Mars.

    Oy! And two more bits made me sad:

    I hate doing things out of fear, but I can’t ignore that truth … Mars is going to stick on any other film in the series. But by then, it won’t have a stigma to it.

    So not only can’t we have an allusion to a woman in the title, we also can’t have anything futuristic in the title either because of a stigma attached to it. Let me be clear, I’m NOT slamming Andrew Stanton for any of this. I’m just sad that such decisions need to be made by people like him in the 21st century.

    Anyway, onto the second piece of news. Rowling is writing an adult novel! As yet, we don’t know the book’s genre or “vision”, if you will, although clues say it’ll be something along the crime line.

    Am I a fan of Rowling’s work? Not really. We have all the Harry Potter books. I read through them just so I could keep tabs on how things finished, but I don’t feel a driving urge to re-read them. They’re there for the kids now, in case one or both of the two would like to delve into Potter’s universe. (I can’t stand Potter’s universe, having been educated in one very close to it, but it may hold novel value for my two.)

    I say “oh noes!” in the post’s title. Why? Because JK Rowling is (a) one of (if not the) richest woman in the UK, (b) is a writer, (c) is a woman. This means that every mean-spirited, narrow-minded excuse for a critic is going to excoriate her, regardless of the book’s merits (or otherwise), based on nothing more than a combination of (a), (b) and (c). And I’m talking about both male and female critics here.

    When I first read the news of Rowling’s next book, I winced. I personally think this is an extraordinarily brave move on her part, especially considering who she is. My fear is that no good will come of it because of who she is. People resent her for her fame, the way she rose to it, the money she’s earnt from it, and the fact that she dared do all this while being…a woman.

    (While not at all in the same league, I remember one petty-minded manager at a company I was contracting for telling me that one reason he was making life so difficult for me (not paying my invoices, writing obscenities on my work, locking me out of the company’s systems) was — and I quote — “because you’re a woman and you earn more than me”. And that was just little ole me. You can just imagine what Rowling’s going to face, can’t you?)

    I think Rowling is as competent a writer as Dan Brown, really I do. But no matter how much criticism Brown has copped, I predict it’s going to be nothing compared to what Rowling faces when her book hits the shelves. She has my sympathies and my best wishes.

  • 02 Mar

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    On flattering women and demographics

    6

    (Courtesy: Wikimedia Commons)

    Two interesting pieces of news hit my browser this week. I’ll cover the first piece today.

    Via The Washington Post, we find out that “Lucy Liu will play Watson to CBS’s Sherlock Holmes“. WaPo goes on to declare: “People appear to have a problem with that”.

    Damn straight I have a problem with it. And it’s not because Watson is being portrayed by a woman. Frankly, stalwart reader, I couldn’t give a damn. But LUCY LIU???!!! I’m sorry, I’ve seen Liu in a number of movie roles (unfortunately) and she has yet to achieve the acting ability of a piece of limp processed cheese. The other problem I have with Liu is that her voice is so annoyingly American, it just swamps everything else.

    Before you start lighting the bonfires, I would hasten to add the following. Of all the accents in the world I have listened to, the North American accent is — to me — the clearest, the least ambiguous, the one that I would like most people to speak, given a choice. However, for something that is, at its heart, British, that everyone knows is British, that was created by a Scottish Brit, that is forcibly designed to remind everyone of its British origins from its title onwards, Liu’s unabashed twang, combined with her apparent lack of acting skills, is going to be…less than impressive.

    (The reason I don’t buy “Troy” on DVD is because of Brad Pitt. Next to all those Shakespearean plummy tones and measured deliveries (standards that Australian Eric Bana managed to rise to), Pitt comes across as nothing more an LA surf-boy. It’s painful.)

    If CBS really wanted to do something different, why not do a contemporary series that just has some nods to Sherlock Holmes? Why not use Jeffrey Deaver’s books as a foundation, instead of Conan Doyle’s? Wouldn’t that have made more sense? And it wouldn’t be so grating.

    So here’s what I think went on….

    — oOo —

    Some bean-counters sat around a desk, discussing a new series.

    “Sherlock Holmes is always popular,” one said, “there’s always some new Holmes shit out. And the Downey movies. Why don’t we do something like that, but as a series?”

    “Ah, I don’t want to go fucking around with historical shit,” replies another. “We always screw it up and then those nutjobs from colleges and historical societies write in ten-page fucking letters itemising each of our mistakes.”

    “No, no need,” the first one declares. “We’ll just…set it in modern-day New York! Like Law & Order!”

    The second snaps his fingers. “And we’ll have some Brit guy in there, just to make it obvious that this is really Sherlock Holmes and not a way to cash-in on Law & Order!”

    “Right, we cash in on Sherlock Holmes rather than cashing in on Dick Wolfe. Brilliant!”

    A third, reading a report, now interjects. “Hold on a minute. Have you read the latest news? Women are the primary shoppers in their household. In fact, women control $12 trillion of the overall $18.4 trillion in global consumer spending. Man, think how much crack I could buy with that!”

    “You want some of that action? No problem,” says the first. “We make Holmes a woman. That brings in that demographic. The sponsors’ll lap it up. Ka-ching!”

    “You can’t do that!” (It doesn’t matter who says this.) “Who’ll believe anyone’ll listen to a woman? I mean, seriously? Besides, men will turn off in their millions and that’ll trash our viewing figures.”

    “Okay okay, we make the side-kick…whatizname again? Watson, yeah? So the side-kick, this Watson character, is the woman, the lead is some whacked-out Brit and we sell it as something ‘exotic’. No biggie.”

    “Not only that,” the third, the bookworm, adds, “but Asian-American buying power is the highest of all race/ethnic groups. So if you’re going to have a woman as Watson, it had better be an Asian woman. They spend more.”

    “An Asian woman?”

    “Yeah, but one of the whiter ones, not any of that South Asian shit. My brother-in-law’s still pretty upset about losing his job to three H-1B visa holders and I don’t want to have to listen to some heavy-duty ‘I’ve got a Masters degree and I still can’t find a job after 2 years’ loser shit over the Thanksgiving turkey, know what I mean?”

    — oOo —

    So my reasoning is that it’s either that…or Liu was cast as Watson because she’ll bring a depth of characterisation to the role that has not been evident in past interpretations of Doyle’s beloved legacy. Take your pick.

    POSTSCRIPT: I would have preferred an African-American female Watson myself. There are a lot of very strong AA actors out there and it would have certainly lent an “edge” to the whole Holmes-in-modern-day-New-York vibe. Maybe someone should pitch that to HBO?

  • 24 Feb

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    Being a selfish #homeschool parent

    4

    From the time The Wast was born, he puzzled us. Here was a child who could not go to sleep for the first four months of his life if he wasn’t resting on my chest. As a result, I learnt how to sleep while half-reclining in bed, holding him loosely in my arms as I dozed. It was strange and we didn’t know how to deal with it until we stumbled across the term “attachment parenting”, which is a philosophy that prioritises parent-child bonding above everything else. In fact, you could say that The Wast actually set the pace by demanding attachment parenting from us. He was much more content (and quiet!) if he slept near us, was breastfed on demand, carried about in a baby sling and generally handled more than not.

    Being an attachment parent can be very demanding but The Wast trained us so well that we fell into it again very naturally when Little Dinosaur arrived. It became normal to hold them at every opportunity, to check on them while they slept. Their beds were in our room and we co-slept until our move to Singapore. We eschewed baby monitors, pacifiers (dummies) and commercial baby food. And boy, it was tough. There were days when I was t-h-i-s close to a frazzled nervous breakdown. But we persevered because we had a long-term goal in mind, and that was to bring up children who considered us friends and who would themselves develop into caring, responsible adults.

    When they started “normal” school, J and I hated it, although it took a few years to figure out why. Was it because we didn’t get to see them for the best part of their day? Was it their exhaustion when they finally walked through the door? The hours and homework that ate away at the time they could spend with us? But we kept them at school because that was how we thought it worked. We thought we had to put aside our own reservations for the good of their “education”.

    Then, all the problems started and I won’t repeat them because I’m sure you’ve heard enough about them, and we made the hard choice to homeschool. And it’s turned out that homeschooling is exactly the right choice for us as attachment parents.

    Our children are our friends again, and we share plans and projects with each other. We share our lessons and interests with them (the Byzantium Empire, cooking and publishing) and they share their lessons and interests with us (mathematics, movie-making, and computer animation). This is all apart from the satisfaction we get from crafting an individual educational framework for each of our children, one that’s seeing them move beyond their peers (and kneejerk diagnoses of “autism”, “nervous system disorders”, “severe retardation”, etc.) to achieve at a level a year or two beyond their age group.

    Now, I sit back and wonder how I ever thought of education in any other terms. We’re not religious or dogmatic people. We homeschooled our children at first out of necessity, but are now finding it a joy because, in addition to the academic achievements, we’ve rediscovered our children and they’ve proven themselves to be wonderful, resourceful humans. We know they’ll go and find their own way in life — they must do — but, in the meantime, we’re proud to be sharing part of our life’s journey with them.

    ADDITIONAL: One of the links I’ll be putting here is from a report by Bonnie Rochman, who says:

    As I understand it, attachment parenting puts babies first and mommies and daddies trailing behind in a distinct second/third position.

    While that may be how it looks to an utterly disinterested observer (and let’s not even start on the patronising “mommies and daddies” term! Jesus frickin’ Christ!), that’s not how the dynamic actually works. To me, attachment parenting is about respect. Just because you’re in a position of power over a child (and, as a parent, you are) doesn’t give you the right to dictate particular actions without respecting the child’s opinion or perspective. That’s it in a nutshell for us. And if you can’t do that (respect your child as another growing human being), then don’t have kids.

    To learn more about attachment parenting, try Attachment Parenting International

    You can read the opposing case from Ms. Rochman and Erica Jong at Healthland 

    Can I just say…Jong seems to think that caring for a child 24×7 “shackles” me, as a mother. Yet, not only do I do almost all the cooking at home, as well as homeschooling, ferrying the kids to a lot of their external classes, and seeing to the other domesticated animals, but I also find time to write for a few hours, chew the fat with J over a couple of glasses of alcoholic beverages, watch a movie almost every night, and get some recreational reading in. Not to forget my 8-9 hours of sleep. Admittedly, I couldn’t do all that with toddlers, but kids are only at that stage for a little while. Take it from me, attachment parenting is not a death sentence.

    I’m back to writing BALANCE OF TERROR and am a little over 10% done. 90% to go!

  • 17 Feb

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    Starting BALANCE OF TERROR

    2

    Being a fiction writer is a lot like being an academic. The maxim driving your entire career is “publish or perish”. So, while I’m waiting on edits for RETURN OF THE HANTU (and to take my mind off things), I’ve begun writing the sequel to IN ENEMY HANDS, titled BALANCE OF TERROR.

    So far, I’ve crafted a rough cover blurb and am 5,000 words in. I’m aiming at a total of 75,000 words but we’ll see if I hit it.
    What’s that? What’s the blurb? Okay, you asked for it!

    Save one man? Or save billions? It’s Moon’s choice.

    Stellar physicist Moon Thadin and amnesiac savant Srin Flerovs are on their way to possible sanctuary with an old research partner of Moon’s. But between them and safety lie a cunning arms dealer, a suspicious pirate captain, and a universe of unfamiliarity.

    Refusing to turn her research into a weapon, Moon and Srin outran the Republic in IN ENEMY HANDS, only to find that the anti-Republic rebels they’re heading for want her knowledge for the same reason and they’re willing to trade critical gene therapy for it. Withhold the therapy and Srin will die. Share the research and billions will die.

    Can the needs of one ever truly outweigh the needs of many?

    The synopsis found approval in DevEd’s august eyes (with only a few minor tweaks) and so I’m powering ahead. I’m planning a tentative release for July or August.

    On that note, have a great weekend and I’ll catch you next week.

    PS Last week, I told you I’d be talking about samplers today. I screwed up. I posted that one over at the Sandal Press blog by mistake. I suppose that’s what happens when you mix up your hats. But if you’re still interested in hearing about my take on samplers, and why I was disappointed with a recent one that crossed my path, follow this link and make a comment. It’ll be the first non-spam one I’ve received!

  • 11 Feb

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    Introducing Sandal Press and its blog

    0

    It is a fact that a lot of promotional truths fly right over my head. And if I’m going to be a successful writer, I really need to make an immediate priority of think about marketing a little more.

    Enter Sandal Press. As you know, stalwart reader, I am now investing energy into getting my publishing business up and running. And that business is, of course, Sandal Press. What you should know about Sandal Press is the following:

    • It will almost exclusively contain all the fiction I’ve written over the past year and will write for the next, say, three years.
    • It will be updated with links to etailers where good digital books are sold.
    • It also contains a blog.

    Oh yessirree! Sandal Press has had its own blog for a few months now and I’ve been remiss in not mentioning it. I blog there once a week (on Thursdays) about publishing concerns, whereas I blog here once a week (on Fridays) about, well, anything that flits into my brain.

    With that in mind, I’m cutting this week’s post short so I can guide you to the Sandal Press blog, where I’m currently running a series on why otherwise intelligent and rational people decide to self-publish. Because I’ve been getting incredible amounts of spam at that blog, I have limited the comments’ period to 6 days after each post but if you go along now and have a read and would like to weigh in on the latest post, you’ll still be within that window.

    Have a great weekend. I’m talking about samplers next week, so catch you then.

  • 03 Feb

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    How I learnt to stop worrying & love the synopsis

    2

    When I first started writing professionally, it was in the area of non-fiction. For more than a decade, I was a freelance technical writer easily earning an annual six-figure salary. During that time, I honed a method for approaching how to write, say, a manual on contract administration, and I used this same method when I began writing fiction.

    That method was strict planning, chapter by chapter, and it concentrated on one question: WHAT. What happens in Chapter 1? What happens in Chapter 2? And so on.

    Over the past couple of years, however, I’ve been playing fast and loose with that methodology and, in the past year, have discovered that I’ve been consistently moving away from the straight-down-the-line chapter-by-chapter outline. That’s not to say I’ve become a pantster (i.e. writing “by the seat of my pants”, otherwise known as “spontaneous” or “organic” writing). I dislike organic writing because it’s my opinion that it can so often lead to writing myself into a dead end, sagging middles, or — most wasteful of all — abandoned manuscripts. A plan of some sort negates a lot of those problems.

    Instead of asking WHAT, I realise that I’m now asking HOW and WHY. And answering those questions doesn’t easily fit a mechanical outline. However, it does fit a synopsis.

    Three books on, I’m finding that a synopsis is now the best vehicle for planning how I want my story to look. And, by reading the synopsis, I can also quite accurately estimate how long the story’s going to be. I suppose that bit comes with experience. The other plus with writing a synopsis is that my DevEd prefers it. He can quickly read through two pages and come back with questions on action, motivation and the general arc of the book. Not only does it sharpen my thinking but also saves us both a lot of time further down the track, when the manuscript has been written, double-self-edited and passed to him for further comments. (And has the potential to save the kind of re-structuring I had to do with THE CHECK YOUR LUCK AGENCY before it passed muster.)

    The synopsis. I know writers usually hate them but I now consider them one of my tools to increase efficiency. Write the synopsis, write the blurb, then write the book. If the first two aren’t right, or at least sound the least bit compelling, then the book itself isn’t going to be right. That discovery alone (one week’s effort for synopsis plus blurb) is enough to save me two to three months’ worth of work, if not more in terms of possible rewrites.

    I’d say that’s a pretty good trade-off.

    ADDITIONAL The original two-page synopsis for BALANCE OF TERROR, the sequel to IN ENEMY HANDS, is now with DevEd for his comments. I’m hoping he likes what he reads but I’m also reminding myself that it’s much easier to fix the flaws in two pages of writing than it is to fix them in 80,000 words. I’m a lazy writer like that.

  • 27 Jan

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    Review: “How to Speak Dog” by Stanley Coren

    2

    [start: pre-review rant]

    If there was one group that I always detested while studying for my psychology degree, it was the behaviorists. The followers of BF Skinner are those who reduce every interaction to types of conditioning. I intensely disliked this mechanical view of humanity, almost as much as I disliked the empirically sloppy and out-and-out lunacy of Sigmund Freud.

    Take the situation of a teenager self-harming. A behavorist would be thinking of either extinguishing that behaviour or channeling it into a more “acceptable” alternative. So, just to go to extremes, a behavorist would consider the issue of self-harm “solved” if the teenager in question, say, began making daisy chains instead of cutting his/her inner forearms with a Stanley knife (i.e. box-cutter I think Americans call them). Does that solve the underlying issue? Of course it doesn’t but as behaviorists are only concerned with surface actions and reactions, it isn’t a problem for them.

    The dross that passes for the “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus” series of books are another in this line of fatuous reasoning and if I can ever dig out my copy of that book (then again, I probably used it as toilet paper, thus granting it some degree of utility), I’ll do a review on that one too.

    [end: pre-review rant]

    Which is my extraordinarily long-winded introduction to “How to Speak Dog” by Dr. Stanley Coren. May I say what an utter UTTER delight it is to come across someone in psychology who actually seems to like and respect animals! I have always regarded our history (whether economic or social) to be incredibly speciesist and unbelievably arrogant about our place on the planet. We would like to be respected but don’t consider it necessary to respect those we inhabit this world with. What a “civilised” attitude to have!

    And so, again, to this book. Dr. Coren is a skilful and entertaining writer who is able to explain canine behaviour in a straightforward manner that precludes a purely mechanistic view of animals. He is all for anthropomorphism of our mammal cousins, and I couldn’t be happier. After some interesting and informative anecdotes at the beginning, Coren launches into animal (including human, for we are animals too) evolution. He even makes the provocative and delightful supposition that human speech may owe its development to dogs!

    He then goes into describing extraordinarily intelligent animals (with some explanations of how they achieved this…excellent observational skills, mostly) and how dog names affect their reception by strangers. The construction of clever experiments, in this case to test canine cognition and comprehension, always fascinates me and Coren’s examples of such scenarios and the conclusions that can be drawn from them are captivating.

    Different chapters of the book cover Face Talk, Ear Talk, Eye Talk, Tail Talk, Body Talk, Sex Talk, Scent Talk and I was able to watch the interactions between our mini bull terriers and our cats with much greater interest (and amusement) after reading the chapter on “Dogs Talking to Cats”. There are even illustrations that show escalated levels of fear, dominance, submission, and so on.

    I won’t say that I agree with everything Dr. Coren says. Bull terriers, for example, seem to have their own sub-set of behaviours that doesn’t always appear to correspond one-to-one with the “phrasebook” Coren provides (all the physical indicators, conveniently grouped together in the back). Sausage, for example, always accompanies my husband on his nightly lock-up of the house and approaches this duty with a confident trot and her tail bent sharply up (so sharply, in fact, that it looks broken). Coren says this is a dangerous behaviour: “It is a definite sign that immediate aggression is being contemplated by the dog” (p. 126), but we interpret it to mean a watchful alertness; i.e. “On Guard!”, especially when there is no immediate sign of danger in the vicinity. When her “duty” is done and she’s safely upstairs, Sausage relaxes that sharp bend and comes looking for cuddles, preferably in someone’s lap.

    But, other than a couple of niggles along those lines, I have no truck with anything in the book and, in fact, have bought two other books by Dr. Coren on dogs and dog psychology. As with this one, I’m sure the next two books will also be keepers.

    Summary: Highly recommended to any caring dog (with cat!) owner. I’ll be giving this 4 stars and copying the bulk of this review to Goodreads.

    HOW TO SPEAK DOG: Available from The Book Depository for US$11.00 with free shipping worldwide

  • 20 Jan

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    New “Asian Value”: Infidelity

    5

    Back when I was a teenager, child of migrants, sitting at the dinner table in Australia, my parents used to express their opinions on the ways of the world. One of their favourite soapboxes was how depraved Westerners were.

    “We never had homosexuals in Malaysia before the British came.” How they’d know that, both being born well after the Portuguese, then Dutch, then British invaded, is beyond me.

    “Before Asia started reporting Western news, there was no such thing as child abuse.“The same lack of coherent reasoning also seems to be coming into play with NO accusations in Asia of child sex abuse by Catholic priests. Yeah, right!

    “Now, everybody accepts swearing, nudity and crime. It’s God’s punishment against the Western world.” Which is ironic, because I’m sure the majority of white Australians thought that the Asian immigration trickle (of which we were a part) was God’s punishment against them. LOL

    In addition to these pearls of wisdom was one bandied about at every Asian gathering you could think of. Asian associations, Asian business organisations, Asian social gatherings, it didn’t matter which. And the pearl of pearls was this: We Have Asian Values. No other culture or nation can storm our pure white shiny citadel because it is constructed from Asian Values and not those sloppy, undisciplined, depraved mores that pass for free thought in the (mostly Western) world. I’m sure that if you translate the speeches of the Chinese politburo, or read pronouncements from the Indian parliament on foreign affairs, you’ll come across a variation of this steaming pile of crap.

    Which is why it delights me no end to present to you the Durex Sexual Well-being Global Survey 2011.

    Oh Malaysia. Wonderful Malaysia. The country that states quite categorically that one of the pillars of its constitution is a belief in God. It doesn’t matter which god, as long as it’s someone, you know, deity-like. Needless to say, a non-belief in God is feckless, immoral and leads to the kind of depravity that used to be known in the world as Western democracy. (Missing it yet?) And it’s this pillar of nationhood that’s used to make your average citizen appear pious. So damn pious, in fact, that Malaysians (you know, those god-fearing folk) are ranked THIRD IN THE WORLD for infidelity.

    Isn’t that a hoot? But that’s not the end for Asian Values because The. Most. Unfaithful. Nation. On. The. Planet. is…Thailand. Followed by South Korea. And Malaysian women are more unfaithful (39%) than Malaysian men (33%). Yes folks, those “Asian Values” appear to be at the global vanguard of sexual dishonesty. Give yourselves a pat on the back.

    You can’t believe the absolute storm of laughter that echoed through our house when I read the article in an edition of Malaysia’s The Star newspaper. But Malaysians don’t disappoint, with claims that infidelity “is in the genes” (and thus does not interfere with one’s duty to God) and — my favourite — infidelity is due to “more opportunities [in modern society] for men and women to socialise”. That’s right. Just send women to the kitchen, make sure they never come out of the back of the house, and your infidelity problem is solved!

    This brings up a very interesting Jordan-based Islamic organisation that has been banned in Malaysia but is around (and, purportedly, growing) in Singapore. I’m referring to OWC, or the Obedient Wives’ Club. (The reason it’s banned in Malaysia is not due to its gender-oriented teachings but to the fact that the founder of this branch of Islam — of which the OWC is a part — is considered a heretic.) To be completely dispassionate, these people are utter lunatics. What else can you say about a group that believes that a man can manifest in several geographic locations simultaneously in order to sexually satisfy multiple wives? Or that wives should serve their husbands “better than…first-class prostitute[s]” in order to stem male infidelity. No no, I can’t do justice to the words of OWC’s Vice-President Dr. Rohaya Mohamed, who said, in clarification of that comment, that

    “I believe we have been misunderstood and misinterpreted. When we said that husbands should treat their wives like first-class prostitutes, we were not putting wives on the same level with prostitutes. We are talking about first-class elite types, not street hooker types. [Does that clarify things sufficiently for you? -Kaz. All bolded words are my emphasis] Our wives provide men with top-level service.“

    Bwahahahahaha! There’s nothing I can say that can ridicule the organisation better than their own words. The OWC also blames wives for domestic violence (“When a husband comes home and receives good treatment from the wife, they become better and more loving husbands. Why would they treat their spouse badly if they are treated well?”), and wants everyone to know that: “The modern wife seems to forget that it is her responsibility to keep the husband satisfied.”

    And if you’re thinking it can’t get any worse than holding (theoretical) sex lessons for OWC members (pictures, illustrations or even workshops on the topic are haram (forbidden)), may I add that they also believe:

    If the reason [a woman got married in the first place] is love, then the woman is more likely to cheat on her husband. The first and foremost reason for getting married should be the fear of God.

    Which reminds me of a joke. What comes between fear and sex? Funf! LOL

    I read recently on Twitter (from a woman, of course) that it is bad form if someone who is a strong feminist criticises women with dissenting views. Well, I’m a strong feminist. And, believe me, if there is a group of dissenting women who deserve to be criticised more than the OWC, I’ve yet to hear of it. Their kind of simplistic reading of complex human relationships, proselytized by future victims of domestic abuse themselves, sets the whole area of gender relations back a few centuries rather than contributing anything of value, and I shall be criticising like hell whenever and wherever they, and their ilk, are mentioned in my presence.

    ADDITIONAL: The OWC has published its own Sex Guide (unfortunately only available for sale to OWC members).

    For an extra 50 points, its title is: “Islamic Sex, Fighting Against Jews To Return Islamic Sex To The World“(Seks Islam; Perangi Yahudi Untuk Kembalikan Seks Islam Kepada Dunia), with a 1000 point bonus for (a) allegedly not pointing out how “Islamic sex” is different from “Jewish sex” AND, (b) not outlining how “Islamic sex” shall be returned “to the world” when only OWC stalwarts are allowed to buy the tract in the first place. But no, by all means, let’s not criticise them.

  • 13 Jan

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    Not one but TWO new releases and an appearance

    0

    Well, maybe one and a half.

    Welcome, stalwart reader! I have news! My latest novel, QUINTEN’S STORY, about a bitter and maimed man and the crewmember he buys is now percolating through your favourite etailers. This means Amazon, XinXii, Smashwords and Omnilit/All Romance Ebooks. The price for his novel (approx. 70,000 words) is currently set at US$3.99, with it going up to US$4.99 at the end of the month. So, if you’re hankering for a copy, I’d get one now rather than later.

    As is usual, you can read a bit of the background, and the entire first chapter, of the book at my website. If you’re after a summary page of where you can buy it, please click on this link to be taken to Sandal Press.

    And that brings up the second piece of news. Sandal Press has also put together a sampler of all its 2011 releases, which includes the first two chapters of QUINTEN’S STORY. It is available from Sandal direct for the princely sum of…FREE!

    That’s right, partials of all of Sandal’s 2011 releases plus a bit of our first 2012 release. All in all, that comes to 39,000 words. I’m hoping it will generate some interest, and drive paying customers to my door but, regardless, I think it a valuable annual exercise and have already started to construct the 2012 sampler to make my life easier this time next year.

    Having been brought up in a repressive Roman Catholic environment, it’s difficult for me to really trumpet about my latest novel, but I know it’s required, so here are some summary points:

    • It’s set in the Republic
    • There is a love story at its heart but no romantic happy ending
    • The novel gives greater insight into the Transitional (shapeshifter) species and how it fits into Republic space
    • Yes, I will be releasing a sequel, hopefully at the end of this year or the beginning of 2013.

    BLURB:

    Quinten Tamlan was once the scourge of the Republic. Then he disappeared….

    It’s been seven long years for Quinten Tamlan. Scarred and bitter, he has lost direction and the spark of idealism that once fired his resolve.

    Until he decides to take on a new crewmember. Quinten believes he has his own problems. He believes he is alone and forgotten. He is wrong. Quite wrong.

    Again, links to my website and Sandal Press for your convenience.

    I am not resting on my laurels. I am still finishing up the first draft of Cara d’Bastian’s next book, THE RETURN OF THE HANTU. Once that is off my plate, I’ll be plotting out…the sequel to IN ENEMY HANDS, currently titled BALANCE OF TERROR. I know its basic structure but will need to sit down and see if Kad Minslok can’t throw a few spanners into the machinery of Srin and Moon’s pharmaceutical dependency problem.

    And, lastly but not leastly, Katiebabs is holding a 2012 Lesbian Appreciation Event at her blog, Babbling About Books, and a few of us authors (Cathy Pegau, Jessica E Subject and myself) will be having posts up during this event. I believe mine will appear on Sunday. For some great books for you to add to your reading list, make sure you visit. You won’t be disappointed.

  • 06 Jan

    Posted by


    Category

    The Janus post

    7

    Yep, it’s the time of the year for the inevitable retrospective. In all honesty, that’s always been a bit difficult for me as, once I have a story published, I half-forget about it and move on. So if you ask me when a particular book was released, don’t be surprised if I don’t have a clue! BUT, I think I can tell you what happened this year. Roughly.

    * I published a short SFR story set on Europa (one of Jupiter’s moons) called, appropriately enough, EUROPA EUROPA. This story was included in Total-E-Bound’s SEEING STARS anthology, as well as being released as a standalone short in digital and audio formats.

    * I was chuffed enough about EUROPA EUROPA to write another short for Total-E-Bound, called TAINTED LOVE. My first evah vampire story, I now think I should have published it under the Cara d’Bastian pen-name, just to give a bit of additional focus to that new name. Ah well, what’s done is done. I thoroughly enjoyed writing TAINTED LOVE and might revisit Cleo and Bryce at some point.

    * J and I started up Sandal Press and published an SF novel as our first self-published release. At 90,000 words, WAR GAMES was the book that several agents said they loved but couldn’t sell. I could either let it languish in a drawer, have it and my career hog-tied to an otherwise well-respected small press with the vilest contract terms imaginable, or publish it ourselves.

    * A vacation to Poland provided the impetus for a small travelogue on the Silesian and Moravian regions of Poland and the Czech Republic, respectively. It was called IT’S 10AM, WHY AM I STILL SOBER? (Sandal Press) and is currently making the rounds of the family, so it’s just as well I kept my normal swearing to a minimum while writing it.

    * The vacation itself and release of the travelogue pushed out the publication of THE CHECK YOUR LUCK AGENCY (Sandal), which still emerged in October (yay!), although Kobo only managed to get it listed in December and then without its cover. Sigh.

    With those three releases, J and I met our initial milestone of three Sandal releases in 2011, even if they weren’t the three we had initially envisaged.

    Have we made any money with Sandal? No. We’ve spent hundreds of dollars in editing, cover art and sundry business expenses without making a tenth of it back. BUT…I didn’t expect to. When I was first pitching the idea to J, I told them that self-publishing was a long-term proposition and that I wasn’t expecting to see any serious money come out of it for three years. Yep, we have a thirty-six month event horizon on Sandal Press. At the time of this writing, we’re barely five months in. Sure, I’m disappointed I’m not an overnight sensation ;) , but we’ll just stick to the plan for now.

    What does this mean for 2012?

    We all have plans and I’m sure that whatever I put down now will change by the time the next release comes out, but 2012 looks like fast becoming The Year of the Sequel.

    * I’m planning on releasing the next two or three books in d’Bastian’s Check Your Luck series (Book 2: RETURN OF THE HANTU, Book 3: WRATH OF THE HARIMAU).

    * Okay, a space opera set in the Republic coming out in January (QUINTEN’S STORY) is not a sequel but bear with me.

    * A few of you might be pleased to know I’m also contemplating the sequel to IN ENEMY HANDS.

    I thought I’d still have time to write some stories for some other publishers but wonder if I’m being overly ambitious about that, so I think I’ll just stick to my Sandal plans for the time being.

    What about you? Anything you’d like to share about what you did this year or what you’re planning for 2012? Is there any other Augustin title you’d like to read the sequel to?

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