Perfect Gifts for Writers

1. Scrivener writing software. $40







2. IP address fee paid for a year. (Mine would be around $90. If your wondering for your writer friend/spouse, I think that's about average.)


3. Author Swag for giveaways/promotion. Cafe Press and Zazzle are great places to start. $5 and up

4. A shiny new Author Logo. $125



5. Chic office accessories to make
desk-time more fun. See Jane Work has cute stuff online, Target has a nice selection in the store. $10 and up

 
6. Netbook for easy typing/researching on the go. Around $200

7. Unique USB Thumb Drives for the sale/giveaway of e-books.


8. Barnes and Noble or Amazon Books gift card. The best way to write great books is to read great books. Also, books on writing and books for researching themes (i.e. Celtic Myths for the paranormal writer, A History of Scotland for the Highland romance author.) $25 and up

9. A great coffee machine...cause every writer I know needs to mainline caffeine in order to meet deadlines on top of everyday life.

10. Dues or conference costs paid. Romance Writers of America membership $115, RWA Conference or Romantic Times convention.

Twitter Etiquette for Authors

• If every one of your posts is a plug for your writing, you're doing it wrong.

• If you only tweet excerpts from your novel, you're doing it wrong.

• If you send me SPAM the second I follow you, you're doing it wrong.

• If you post Review snippits once an hour, every hour for an entire day, you're doing it wrong.

• If you use # in front of half or more of the words in your post, you're doing it wrong.

• If you occasionally post about contests on your website, you're doing it correctly.

• If you sometimes post novel excerpts and self-promo but it isn't the majority of your tweets, you're doing it correctly.

• If you follow someone and then un-follow the moment they follow-back, you're doing it wrong.

What are some of the other annoying things you see on Twitter?

The Best and Worst of Christmas

Best Christmas Movies:

While there are many I could name as "the best Christmas movies", the original Gremlins and National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation are indisputably two of the greatest. Two lesser known (at least to recent generations) movies that I've found to be some of my favorites are Christmas in Connecticut and Holiday Inn. If you haven't seen these, do yourself a favor and watch them this holiday season.

Worst Holiday Decorations

While no one can be blamed for having a slight curiosity about the "wacky-waving-inflatable-arm-flailing-tube man" of Christmas, you have to admit, this semi-recent craze is one of the tackiest Christmas traditions available at your local Wal-Mart.

"Hey, look! A ten foot, plastic, touch-button inflatable Snow Globe! That'll look great in our yard next to that old Ford we have up on blocks. We'll put it between the Ford and our trailer. It'll really tie the yard together."

Or, for some reason I'm not sure I even want to know, you can get a set of hollow, plastic, preferably weather-faded Nativity Scene people/animals and prop them up under a shoddy ply-wood lean-to. If you want to get real classy with it, drag out a bright orange extension cord and plug in a spotlight to shine on this atrocity so it cannot escape notice, even after dark. Presentation, after all, makes all the difference.

The Fictional Hymen

I've been reading a lot of historical romances over the last six months. At the risk of being ostracized by non-romance reading higher literary connoisseurs, I have to say: I love, love, love me some big brawny Scots in kilts.


There is one similarity, however, in nearly every single one of the historical romances I've read that drives me crazy, The Fictional Hymen. Or, rather, the breaking of said hymen.

Why is it, in historical fiction, losing one's virginity is so painful and terrible it always reads like the heroine is having an appendectomy sans sedation?

Okay, so the hero's wang is always of fictional proportions but still, why is it always the most painful thing in the entire world? I remember my first time clearly. Disappointing, uncomfortable, embarrassing maybe, but not the end of the freaking world. Of course, "he" was no where near "fictional proportions", still, I don't buy the scene where the heroine describes losing her virginity as being "ripped in half". WTH

Now, like I said, I still love historical romances. I'm just wondering what the deal is with this theme? I understand the nuances of the times may have left the woman with little to no knowledge of sex prior to marriage but I'm wondering how that translates to being "ripped in half" while losing one's virginity.

In none of the contemporary romances I've read have the heroines felt this way while losing their virginity. In contemporary romance, the heroine usually feels a twinge, a short spike of pain maybe, then she realizes she's having sex for the first time with a man who's cut like a Greek statue and she stops worrying about her stupid hymen.

I'm thinking maybe I'll make my daughter read only historical romances as a teen--and only to the first sexual encounter--so she'll never want to have sex. Hahaha On her 18th birthday, I'll gift her the last half of all those novels.

Annnd, on a lighter note...

I have some wonderful things happening during the first half of 2012. With my first book A LIFE BEYOND YESTERDAY set to release in February, I'll be doing some blog tours, shameless self-promo and even a few book signings in my local area.

I've been working on some promo stuff for give-aways and sale items for book signings and finally received my official, finished S.J. Drum logo.













I've also had a couple requests from literary agents and publishers to read the full SURPRISINGLY SUPERNATURAL manuscript for possible publication. *Fingers crossed, hoping someone is fabulous enough to pick it up!*

Now, for the Needs-Your-Input part of the program:

A lot of people are using e-readers these days so I've been working on some ideas for including e-books when I do author appearances. Specifically, I'm planning on obtaining a booth at the Yellow Springs Street Fair and will have printed copies of my book available for purchase. In addition to the traditional printed copies, I'm thinking of having some thumb-drives loaded with the e-pub/kindle/pdf version of the book for sale at the table as well.

My idea is to have the thumb-drives printed with my logo on the outside and attached to a book-sized, sturdy card-stock print of the cover of my book. I'll be able to sign/personalize the printed cover and you could, if you were so inclined, keep it (even frame it if you wanted, cause I'm just that awesome lol) This way, those that would rather read on their e-books don't have to walk away empty handed and I don't have to depend upon them going home, logging onto the internet, searching out my book, digging out a credit card, and ordering the e-book. Win/Win, right?

Any thoughts? Suggestions? Irrelevant profanities?

Personal Demons

The days (sometimes weeks) immediately following me reading about child abuse are always full of sleepless nights, nightmares, restless days and an all around emotional funk. Why do I keep reading about these things when they become top news? Because if those kids can endure the reality, I feel like the least I can do is read about it. The victims deserve that much at least.

The problem is, whenever a case like the Jerry Sandusky case comes to light or I read a book like The End of the World as We Know It by Robert Goolrick, my own personal demons always break free of their prison as if they've discovered a kindred spirit in these stories and can't bare to be corralled in the dark space where I keep them.

So, I spend the next few days or weeks trying to gather them all up, hog-tie them and stuff them back down where they belong...where I don't see them every time I close my eyes.

I start going back over things and telling myself "I shouldn't have worried about causing a scene. I shouldn't have worried about being embarrassed or getting into trouble, I should've screamed and yelled and kicked and fought harder. I shouldn't have sat there and tried to be as still and silent as possible, tried to disappear. I shouldn't have laid there and wept and waited for it to be over. I should have fought harder."

Even though I've had no less than six psychiatrists tell me it wasn't my fault, I can't help but think it was. Because it wasn't one time and one person. It was numerous times over the course of my life and a handful of different persons. If I didn't somehow ask for this or at the very least, not discourage it properly, then why did it happen?

Humiliation and fear are the number one reasons why there are always more than one encounter. When you're young, when you're a child and someone does something to you they shouldn't, sometimes it feels good. You can't help it and it makes you feel wrong and dirty and ashamed. Emotionally, you might be dying inside but your stupid traitor of a body doesn't seem to be on the same page.

I don't have the answers. All I know is I feel so deeply for the children abused by Jerry Sandusky and others like him. If life were a comic book, I'd gladly take the role of avenging heroine.

Sneak Peak At My Work-In-Progress

Here's a little peak at an excerpt from the first draft of my WIP. The working title is CAGED IN MYTH and it's a young adult novel about a 17yr old guy with Druid ancestry who lives and works with other orphaned supernaturals.

“I could go for a beer,” Jace said, stretching his long legs across the backseat.

“Well,” I said, shifting into second gear as I drove down the winding drive, “If you’d gotten your sister to make the fake ID’s like you were supposed to, we could be going to the bar right now and drinking all the beers we want.”

“Hey, man, I tried. I’m telling you, she’s turned into a total prude since she married that douchebag Zander.”

Alex piped in, “I thought you liked Zander.”

Jace grumbled something unintelligible.

I laughed, “He just doesn’t like that the guy’s fucking his sister.” That earned me a smack to the back of my head and a stream of curses from the backseat.

I slammed the brakes, ripped the keys out of the ignition and shoved the door open. Jace clung to my neck with a vice-like choke hold while Alex shouted encouragements from the passenger seat.

I rolled outside and onto the gravel with Jace still attached to my back, trying his damnedest to assert his authority by inserting a spit covered finger into my ear.