Dame Rinda

Things have been well…heartbreaking here in Oklahoma. And there is enough to read out there, enough to watch on the news about it so I don’t want to add to it. We are all helping where we can and when we can’t, our hearts are with the people in Moore, Shawnee, Carney and other towns hit by these horrific tornadoes.

Luckily, I have a lot of work to keep the mind occupied. I’m in the midst of checking over a print galley and also in a round of edits on BLOOD OF AN ANCIENT. This sequel to Dweller on the Threshold comes out in October and I’ve never been more nervous about turning in a book before. I had it completely plotted out and midway through realized it wasn’t going to work. With less than a month to go, I had to re-plot. I didn’t have time to let anyone see it–not my agent, not my CP–before it was winging its virtual way to my editor. Her response has been quite a bit more positive than I expected. In fact, she seems to love this story even more than the first. That’s good!

So, how about a tiny snippet?

I couldn’t shake my entourage. Every single one of them wanted to go once we left the hospital. I put my foot down about the smitten fireman, tried to send him home with a glare. It didn’t work. Blythe’s three minute tongue probe did the job. I wish I could erase my brother’s look of interest while he watched that kiss.

Hell, I wished I could erase the image from my own mind altogether.

Physically, I was okay now. I heal pretty fast from normal wounds. By the time we arrived at the emergency room, a lot of the smoke damage had already cleared from my lungs. The paramedic had been eyeing me with suspicion, so I ducked out as soon as Castor and Blythe arrived. I would have had Blythe use a spell to smudge their memories, but the accidental fires were worse than usual—if she could even get a spell to work.

My lungs, eyes and throat felt sore, but I could deal with that. I’d had worse. The scars on my arm and leg, now thankfully covered with the clothes I’d had in my Jeep’s trunk, attested to that.

“Too bad you can’t keep that sexy, throaty voice,” Phro drawled from the backseat as we parked my sad-looking vehicle a block from the address Elsa had been given. My Jeep was fairly new and had been a beautiful, shiny red, but a nasty, vengeful ghoul had keyed it recently. He’d also painted a huge, black happy face on my driver’s side door. Blythe had hand painted some flowers over the face, but she’d used watercolors. Still kind of cracked me up. They’d bled off with the first settling of morning dew.

“You’d attract boyfriends like crazy,” Phro continued.

“Don’t want boyfriends.” I looked up and down the street and found pretty much what I expected out here.

Nothing.

This rumored ancient lived in an old warehouse a couple of miles south of the city. The place looked deserted, so I couldn’t help but wonder if the address was bogus. In my admittedly limited experience with these creatures, I’d found they liked living in style. This dirty concrete block building in the middle of nowhere was certainly not panache.

“Why’d you park so far away?” Blythe asked.

Was that movement by the right side of the building? I squinted, trying to see through a thick stand of holly trees . “He could be skittish. We should walk up slowly.”

Three of the streetlights were out, creating dark pocketed corners we’d be avoiding. The blanketing cloud cover made it worse. There wasn’t a light near any of the doors—not even the heavy, industrial metal ones. Apprehension skittered up the back of my neck and I held out my hand. “Let me have the instructions again.”

Elsa passed me the paper. Go around the first building and down the narrow alley to the one in back. Knock on the door and wait.

“Everyone wants boyfriends,” Phro said, continuing a conversation I’d already forgotten about. She never gave up easily.

“Drop it, Aphrodite. I just want the Minoan.”

Elsa opened the passenger door. “Let’s get some blood then.”

In a little less than two months (July 16, to be exact), the first book of my new YA series will finally be hitting the stands. In many ways, the wait for this one has seemed endless–when Replica comes out, it will be my first YA release in two years.

Replica will be my first published science fiction novel. It’s set in the relatively near future, and while there is a major science fiction element to it–the ability to create exact Replicas of human beings, down to memory and personality–at its heart it’s more like a political thriller/murder mystery. In the world of Replica, science may have advanced, but human society has taken some steps backward. Corporations have become hereditary monarchies, and society has once again become highly stratified. Arranged marriages are the norm for the aristocracy (known as Executives), and it is very rare for someone to be elevated past the class to which they were born.

The two concepts make for a rather unusual science fiction novel, but there is something else about it that–as far as I know–is unusual in today’s YA science fiction and fantasy market: one of my two protagonists, Nate Hayes, is gay. (My impression is that it is more common to have a gay protagonist in contemporary YA than in sf/f.)

I know some YA authors who have featured gay secondary characters, and I know they have met with some criticism for it. Sometimes, very nasty criticism. To tell you the honest truth, I took this step with a lot of trepidation, because if other authors get flack about gay secondary characters, I can only imagine how some people might react to a gay protagonist. And yet, I loved what the concept did to my storyline. (In the Executive class, homosexuality is unacceptable, so Nate is firmly in the closet. He has also been informally engaged to his best friend, Nadia, since they were both children. It makes for a wonderfully awkward marriage-of-convenience story.)

I am still nervous about how some people will react to the story. I think our society has come a long way toward acceptance, but it still has a long way to go, and those who oppose gay rights often do so with a great deal of anger. But there’s a general rule of thumb I follow when I’m writing: if I’m scared to write something for any reason, then I must write it. I am a prolific writer, and if I keep writing things that feel safe and easy, I know I will get bored and stop growing as a writer. I want to challenge myself–that’s part of the joy of writing for me–and the fact that something scares me is a sure sign that writing it will be a challenge.

I can confirm that writing the Replica trilogy (I’m at work on book 3 right now) has been quite the challenge–but it’s been a wonderful one. I love these characters, and I love this story. Enough to put it out there even though I know some people will be offended by it. I will probably get some angry emails and some ugly reviews. But you know, if someone is unable to accept Nate for what he is, then that person probably isn’t really in my audience anyway. And I refuse to let fear stop me from doing what is right for my story.

Sixteen-year-old Nadia Lake’s marriage has been arranged with the most powerful family in the Corporate States. She lives a life of privilege even if she has to put up with paparazzi tracking her every move, every detail of her private life tabloid fodder. But her future is assured, as long as she can maintain her flawless public image—no easy feat when your betrothed is a notorious playboy.

Nathaniel Hayes is the heir to the company that pioneered human replication: a technology that every state and every country in the world would kill to have. Except he’s more interested in sneaking around the seedy underbelly of the state formerly known as New York than he is in learning to run his future company or courting his bride-to-be. She’s not exactly his type…not that he can tell anyone that.

But then Nate turns up dead, and Nadia was the last person to see him alive.

When the new Nate wakes up in the replication tanks, he knows he must have died, but with a memory that only reaches to his last memory back-up, he doesn’t know what—or rather, who—killed him.

Together, Nadia and Nate must discover what really happened without revealing the secrets that those who run their world would kill to protect.

If you’d like to read the first chapter of Replica, click here.

If you’d like to bid for an ARC of Replica, you can do so here, in the Brenda Novak Auction for Diabetes Research. (I also have a complete set of autographed Nikki Glass books available.)

If you know of any YA science fiction or fantasy that has a gay protagonist (not just a major character, but an actual protagonist), I’d love to hear about it. I know they’re out there, but the lists I’ve seen either haven’t broken it down by genre, or lump in protagonists with secondary characters.)

This is a (re-edited) post from Sept 2006; one I lost when the site was hacked. Fortunately, I had a partial backup, and since Skyla Dawn Cameron mentioned this post to me in conversation lately, I thought I’d put it back out there. Enjoy.

I thought for a while about even mentioning this. No, really, I did–second thoughts are rare and wonderful things for me, but I do occastionally have them. The benefit of this kind of advice to new authors is infinite, though one suspects those who need it won’t dig it until it’s too late.

The advice I have to give is this: Relax. Because the hard sell doesn’t work.

I’ve noticed this at conventions and signings galore. The new author, excited and happy, is pitching his/her book to everyone in sight. S/he assumes that because s/he is excited, that all the rest of us cannot wait to hear about his/her novel/screenplay/short story/idea/self. A little bit of this enthusiasm is good, it makes one’s eyes sparkle and one’s cheeks flush. You can’t help but be excited about your own work–if you’re not, you should find another career.

But beware the hard sell.

The hard sell is filling the airwaves with your self-promotion. It’s consistently talking over other people to get your idea heard. It’s bringing the discussion around to you and your work every time you open your big mouth. It’s being so “cool” you literally don’t care about anyone who doesn’t register on your celebrity radar.

It’s annoying. And it will lose you so many friends and opportunities it’s not even funny.

Publishing is really a small business. You never know when the person you’re rude to on a convention panel or in an elevator at a trade show may hold the power of life or death over your wee manuscript in the future. It’s best to be tactful and interested in other people at cons and shows, not to mention writer’s group meetings. (If you should bother to go to such things.) You don’t have to be completely self-effacing–you can network until the cows come home and talk shop until you’re blue in the face.

But don’t use the hard sell.

I’m going to give two instances of the hard sell, suitably embellished and altered to protect the innocent and the guilty alike. Ready?

* Instance Number One There’s a certain small press–let’s call it Hip Press–gathering critical praise for taking risks with horror and fantasy manuscripts. They publish some interesting stuff and their covers are good…but before an author submits to them, he asks around and finds out they suffer from a serious case of “I’m cooler than you.” The managing editor (or the person impersonating him at conventions and trade shows) has rapidly acquired a reputation for snubbing authors that don’t fit his definition of “hip” or “groundbreaking” enough. Which would be fine…except Too-Hip Editor is openly rude when he snubs. He ends up sneering both publicly and online at several paranormal authors, who quietly tell their friends in the biz (including their agents) that they won’t submit to Hip Press, since working with this man will almost certainly turn into a nightmare. The press struggles with low submissions quality (and, let’s be honest, indifferent accounting too was a symptom of said “coolness”) and finally folds, and nobody will say out loud why. The answer is simple–Too-Hip Editor cut his baby off at the knees by doing the hard sell–”my press is so cool we won’t publish you/ don’t need to use good business practices.” He was so interested in his own “coolness” he shot himself in the foot professionally.

* Instance Number Two Imagine, if you will, a new author (let’s call her Z) at a convention. She’s just beginning to break out and is attending a number of panels. Z is so excited about her book she brings mountains of promo material, and everything that escapes her mouth in the panels is about how wonderful she and her books are. It doesn’t matter what the subject of the panel is–Z is quite frankly all about Z and Z’s books, and devil take the hindmost. After a particular panel Z approaches a midlist author and makes her pitch for a collaboration. The midlist author listens politely and says something vague, then disappears. Z waits after the con for the people she exchanged business cards with to call or email, and sends emails to the midlist author reminding her of Z’s presence. There is no response, and Z’s frustration grows. In response, she tries pushing her books even harder, but suddenly conventions are full and she can barely score a panel or a signing to save her life. Unbeknownst to herself, Z’s behavior has been passed around by several midlist authors and con organizers, and she’s acquired the reputation of a blowhard. Nobody wants to hang with her, and she grows more and more frustrated.

Writing is not generally thought of as a social art. One of the biggest complaints one will hear from writers is that they must spend almost as much time marketing as writing. Done correctly, marketing and networking can be a boon and help grow your career. To be an author means one has to get along with editors, publishers, agents, fans, booksellers, and God knows who else, including convention staff. That’s a lot of people to get along with, not to mention other authors, who may struggle with the same issues and be dying to talk shop with someone who understands.

Yet so many starting authors commit two great sins: they only flog one manuscript and they don’t know how to get along in a professional-social capability. The former belongs in another blog post, but the latter is what this post is all about.

Getting along professionally-socially is an art more than a science, and it’s made more difficult by the fact that publishing is such a bloody incestuous business. You will meet everyone once or twice in your career at least. Your gaffes will follow you like crows follow the gibbet. Your offenses will be spoken of with relish and your coups may be envied. The hard sell is the number one mistake I see new writers making in that capacity.

So here’s a few tips and pointers to help you along, if you suspect you may have inadvertently tippled into hard sell territory.

* Write nice thank-you notes. In your thank-you notes, talk more about the other person than you do about yourself.

* When you are on a convention panel, mention your work’s title at the beginning when you are introduced. Then let it go. Don’t mention the title again unless it’s truly relevant to the panel and the discussion at hand.

* Study arbitration and counseling techniques. Don’t say, “You’re an idiot” to someone. Say, instead, “I disagree because ___” or “It’s my perception that ____.” Not only will this avoid the hard sell, but it will make you look good, especially on a panel.

* Be polite to everyone. It’s hard, especially when you’ve had a six-hour plane flight and baggage problems and now you’re at dinner with someone who keeps yammering about their newest success. Make the effort to be polite and to care. You never know.

*Try to be just as interested in other people as you are in yourself. Yes, this is hard for every single human being. But just try it. And be as happy for others’ success as you are for your own. There really is enough success to go round. Suzie Sue’s success will not steal readers from you. Your own idiocy will steal readers from you, not Suzie Sue’s new book.

* If you meet a famous author or one of your personal heroes, thank them kindly for their good work and fine example. Tell them in one sentence or less how much their work means to you. Do not mention your books/screenplays/novels until they ask–which they probably will, especially if you say, “Your work helped me continue writing. Thank you so much.” They have people trying to pitch crap to them all day long. Don’t do it. Your time will come.

* When you are on a convention panel, limit yourself to one or two promo items. A cover illustration and a stack of bookmarks works just fine. A cluttered pile of promo material makes you look desperate.

* If you don’t have a valid question while you’re in a panel audience, keep your trap shut. The panelists are there because someone wants to hear their opinions. Do not use your opportunity to ask a question to do a cheap shill for your unpublished manuscript. It’s rude, and people do remember these things.

* Do not get drunk with fellow authors unless/until you have a personal as well as a professional relationship with them. I would say, don’t get drunk with fellow authors AT ALL, but I’ve broken that rule once or twice, with my writing partner… *grin*

* If you find yourself saying, “I know you don’t publish _____, BUT–”, for the love of God, stop. Take a deep breath. Back away from the pitch and go soak your head. That one sentence causes new writers untold amounts of grief. If you find yourself using it, you should rethink your strategy a bit.

* Be polite. Be polite. BE POLITE. Say please and thank you. Wait your turn. You may occasionally (or frequently) be run over by someone who is using the hard sell. It’s frustrating, but it’s okay. The person still using the hard sell will make your patience, forbearance, and politeness look ever so much better. Do not be discouraged if you don’t get a chance to talk to a celebrity. Console yourself with the thought that when you do finally manage to speak to a celeb or a famous author, your politeness will be a welcome relief for them, and may lead to good things.

* Be careful where you gossip. Yes, scuttlebutt travels fast in the publishing industry. But don’t go around gossiping indiscriminately. You’ll hear more if you keep your mouth shut, and when you do decide to drop a quiet word of warning to a fellow industry person, it will carry more weight.

* Last but certainly not least, use a little common sense. A pinch of sense goes a long way in this biz. You will find more friends and make more connections that endure with politeness than you ever will with the hard sell.

I suspect those moved to read this don’t need the advice, but just in case, there it is. Is there any common hard-sell tactic I’ve missed?

If you’ve been a writer any amount of time, you’ve probably experienced those moments. The ones where you stare at the computer screen, unable to get a decent line on the page let alone an entire story, and you’re totally convinced your muse has abandoned you. Or you’re constantly distracted by the ever-growing to-do list even though you know you should be writing. Or you force yourself to write, but you’re totally convinced the story is utter crap and no one would ever want to read it so why bother anyway? It’s over. The well is dry, the story dead. You can’t do it any more.

And yet you can’t entirely walk away, either. So when it all falls apart–or, at the very least, seems like it’s falling apart–how do you get back into the writing groove?

Sometimes the best thing you can do is absolutely nothing.

Seriously.

I don’t know about anyone else, but I find it very easy to let writing dominate my world. I make myself go to the gym nearly every day, but I don’t have a lot of other outside interests. Writing is both my relaxation and my job, and it would be very easy to sit at home and do nothing else. But therein lies the danger.

Because as writers, we need stimulation. We need fun. We need people. Our muses are like our bodies–they need to be constantly fed and watered. If we don’t refuel our creative wells, then all sorts of bad stuff can start happening in our writing lives.

And one of the very best things we can do for our writing is turn off the damn computer and do something totally different for a change. Ignore the housework–if your family doesn’t like the mess, then let them clean it up! Do something for yourself. Go watch a movie. Visit a museum. Sit in a cafe and listen to conversations. Take a drive to the beach and watch the sun go down. Don’t think about writing at all. Just enjoy.

It’s advice I followed last weekend. I’ve been having a lot of trouble with the start of the 7th–and last–book of the Dark Angels series. I’d written ten pages, but I just couldn’t seem to get any further. I had no idea what the damn problem was, no matter how many times I opened that story up and read through it.

So I decided to just forget about it and do something different. I’d bought myself a new lens a few months ago, and hadn’t had the chance to test it out. As I was heading into Melbourne on Sunday for the Mother’s Day Classic (a 4 or 8 kilometre walk or run fundraiser for breast cancer), I decided to stay in town overnight and test out the new lens by wandering around my fabulous city taking night shots. And I had an absolute ball, not only taking shots, but watching people and talking to strangers.

And it worked. The next morning, my recalcitrant muse piped up with the reason why the start of that story wasn’t working. What I had wasn’t the start. It was a second or third chapter. So I sat down and nutted out the first five pages, and the story is flowing again. Not writing, not worrying about it, and doing something else totally worked.

And if you’re having similar problems, maybe it can for you, too

In case you’re interested, here’s a couple of the shots of Melbourne:

And finally, the winner of the signed copy of M J Scott’s fabulous Iron Kin is Jesse, who said For my current fictional troublemakers, Mal is one of my favorite. I also have a great appreciation for The Mentalist’s Patrick Jane and I love both Castle and Becket. My tangible troublemaker is a feline appropriately named Mayhem. Jesse, please send your address details to kez @ keriarthur DOT com (no spaces) and I’ll forward them on to MJ for you.

Dame Rinda

I was hoping I’d be sharing some VERY exciting news about my own work today, but I still don’t have the okay. OMG, I can’t wait! But I must.

So, I’m instead sharing some other exciting news about my critique partner’s work. She’s at RT and because it’s the second of her appearances in a short time, she didn’t have time to post about her new release. So…I’m sharing.

I love the Bound Series!!!

The third and final book in the trilogy came out yesterday. If you haven’t tried the Bound books, start with this one. These are dark, gritty romances that have this delicious magic and mafia feel to them.

BLOOD BOUND – by Rachel Vincent

Blood Bound

By blood, by word, by magic…

Most can’t touch the power. But Liv Warren is special—a paranormal tracker who follows the scent of blood.

Liv makes her own rules, and the most important one is trust no one.

But when her friend’s daughter goes missing, Liv has no choice but to find the girl. Thanks to a childhood oath, Liv can’t rest until the child is home safe. But that means trusting Cam Caballero, the former lover forbidden to her.

Bound by oath and lost in desire for a man she cannot have, Liv is racing to save the child from a dark criminal underworld where secrets, lies, trauma and danger lurk around every corner…every touch…every kiss.

And more blood will be spilled before it’s over…

Then there’s

Shadow Bound

Kori Daniels is a shadow-walker, able to travel instantly from one shadow to another. After weeks of confinement for betraying her boss, she’s ready to break free of the Tower syndicate for good. But Jake Tower has one final job for Kori, one chance to secure freedom for herself and her sister, Kenley, even if it means taking it from someone else.…

The job? Recruit Ian Holt—or kill him.

Ian’s ability to manipulate the dark has drawn interest from every syndicate in the world, most notably an invitation from Jake Tower. Though he has no interest in organized crime, Ian accepts the invite, because he’s on a mission of his own. Ian has come to kill Tower’s top Binder: Kori’s little sister.

Amid the tangle of lies, an unexpected thread of truth connecting Ian and Kori comes to light. But with opposing goals, they’ll have to choose between love and liberty….

And the newest release!

Oath Bound

The Tower Syndicate will fall…

The secret daughter of the head of an infamous Skilled crime family, Sera Brandt has hidden her past, her potential and especially her powers. But when a tragedy strikes her other family, Sera needs justice. And the only way to get it is to reveal her heritage- including a rare Skill-and take the reins of the TowerSyndicate from her cunning and malicious aunt.

If he can figure out how…

Kristopher Daniels might have the answer. He’s fought the syndicate to protect his sisters, but he’d never realized just how close to the new heir he needed to get.…

And if they can survive

Neither is used to trusting. But there’s something between them that can’t be ignored. And so Sera is on the run with a man she can’t figure out, a target on her back and the new knowledge of just how powerful she really is….

Dame Kaz

So, it’s been a while since I checked in with a general sort of update. Life has been a little on the hectic and challenging side, over in Kaz Land, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t made time to consume all kinds of media… Because let’s be honest: who needs sleep? I don’t really have time for a ‘proper’ post, so here’s a bit of fun to start your week.

I am finally watching the rebooted Battlestar Galactica. Can you believe I’ve never watched it until now? Crazy… I always knew I’d love it, but somehow missed out on the first season and then just never managed to catch up. Anyway, I am finally righting this terrible wrong! I’ve only seen the miniseries and the first couple of episodes of Season One so far (please – no spoilers!), but I already LOVE Starbuck. Oh, wow… love her. Katee Sackhoff does an amazing job, even at this early stage, and I can’t wait to see how her character develops.

Kara Thrace (aka: Starbuck)

And this is coming from someone who grew up watching the original series, and was always a huge Dirk Benedict fan as a kid…

Sorry, Dirk…

There’s a new Starbuck in town!

And while we’re on the subject of awesome female pilots, here’s another you should definitely check out:

That’s Carol Danvers – aka: Captain Marvel - which is currently my favourite comic book. I keep hoping we’ll see Carol in the next Avengers movie, but I don’t know if that’ll happen. Maybe? We can dream, right?

Captain Marvel also happens to be written by an awesome lady in her own right, Kelly Sue DeConnick.

See? Awesome.

I love Kelly Sue’s writing so much that I moderate her forum in my copious spare time. Ha! (That’s a little known Kaz Fact.) If you want to check out what she’s doing with the character, you can now buy the first trade collecting issues #1 – 6:

Let’s see… what else?

Season 3 of Game of Thrones is absolutely rocking my world.

Daenerys Targaryen (aka: Daenerys Stormborn)

Brienne of Tarth

These ladies are two of my favourite characters. I still haven’t managed to read any of George R. R. Martin’s original books, but now we’re onto the third season of the TV show maybe I’ll try the first couple in the series.

Okay, moving on…

Here’s something that isn’t a new discovery, but I am still pretty obsessed with this incredible Wonder Woman cosplay by fitness instructor and UK pole-dancing champion Sarah Scott. She seriously ROCKS the look and, more importantly, the whole feel of a young Diana (in my humble opinion).

What do you think?

Here’s Sarah in her day job (looking like a real-life superhero):

A couple more pics in costume (click to embiggen):

And finally…

Something that never fails to lift my spirits and make me smile:

(Video by Phiz)

Next week is going to be highly eventful for me, and I’m both excited and preemptively exhausted thinking about it. First of all, there’s the release of Rogue Descendant, the third book in my Nikki Glass series, which comes out on April 30. It’s been almost a year since the release of my last novel, so I’m thrilled to have a horse back in the race! I’m anxious to see what my fans will think of this one. There may be a few of you cursing my name when you finish it. (In a good way, I hope.)

Part of what’s exciting about this release is that it will be happening while I’m at the RT Booklovers Convention in Kansas City, MO. Even though I’m a natural introvert and generally don’t like being around masses of people, I love going to RT. I love talking to my fellow authors, many of whom I only get to see once a year or so at conventions, and I love talking to my fans. I also love soaking in the atmosphere of excitement and the general love of books.

If you live in the Kansas City area, I highly urge you to check out the Giant Book Fair on Saturday, May 4 from 11:00-2:00. The event is open to the public, and there will be more than 400 authors there. We’ll have copies of our books to sell, and you can also bring copies from home for us to sign. Click here for the nitty-gritty details–notice there’s a link where you can see the list of authors attending. I always feel like a kid in a candy store at this event, and it’s a good thing I have to sit down and sign or who knows how many books I’d find myself buying and then having to pack! Please note: I will not be signing in YA Alley but will be in the “general population.” Authors are arranged in alphabetical order throughout the room, so you should have no trouble finding me.

I’ll also be participating in the Teen Day festivities that day, including doing the Author Speed Dating from 2:30-3:30, which was a lot of fun last year. The Teen Day Party was also a blast and will no doubt be just as fun this year. It’ll be held from 6:15 to 8:00, and all the Teen Day authors will be mingling. There will also be goodie bags (with lots of free books!) for the first 250 teens who register. ARCs of Replica will be floating around there somewhere. You can see the full Teen Day agenda here.

The other big thing that’s happening next week is the start of the Brenda Novak Online Auction for Diabetes Research. Diabetes has had a huge influence on my life, as all the women on my mother’s side of the family have had it. (Here’s hoping my father’s genes beat out my mother’s in this battle!) I participate in the auction every year, both by making donations and by bidding. My offerings this year are an autographed set of all the Nikki Glass books, and an ARC of Replica, which doesn’t come out until July 16. It’s a great cause, and there are wonderful items available for writers, readers, and everyone else. The auction opens on May 1 and closes at the end of the month.

And now it’s time for me to get back to working on some of the zillion things I have to get done before I leave. Taking a week off can be quite a challenge when you’re on deadline. But it’s so worth it!

I realized today was my day to post here at the Dames…and due to revision of the third Bannon & Clare book eating what little sense remains in my brain (never much to begin with, really), I, if you will pardon the term…

I got nuttin’.

SO. Here’s what I’m going to do. From now until 5pm PST, right here at this blog post, I’ll answer questions. (Except the nasty or egregiously personal ones.) If you ever wanted to pick my (poor aching) brain, now is your moment. (Other Dames might pop in, too.)

GO!

Technically it’s my day to post, but I’ve decided to hand it over to my friend, crit buddy, and all round wonderful writer, M.J. Scott, because her latest novel, Iron Kin, is now available–and it’s absolutely fabulous! So, with no further delay, over to M.J:

Thanks to Keri for letting me hang with the Dames for a Day and tell you about my new book. It’s lovely to be back here at the Dames (I swear I didn’t bribe them all with Tim Tams but I’m willing to)!

Anyway, now that I’ve distracted my thought process with chocolate, let’s drag the subject back to my new book, Iron Kin. This is the book I was writing when I turned forty then promptly broke my ankle and had to spend three months in a crazy moonboot . The book that was meant to be the end of my trilogy but somehow kept stretching until I finally got the message that what happened in this book meant I needed another book to wrap up the series. (Hello, my name is M.J. Scott and I’m writing a four book trilogy.)

If you’re stuck on the couch for three months then you might as well have something interesting to write about. Luckily for me, my hero and heroine were up to the task. What happens when you throw a half-Fae, trouble maker psychic hero with a rebellious human metal mage who wants to get away from her overly protective brothers? Quite a bit, apparently.

I like a good set of mismatched lovers (it’s been a bit of theme in this series, divided world, divided romances, divided loyalties). Mal and Inara, Sunshine and Con, Dante and Japhrimel, heck even Mr. Darcy and Lizzie Bennet or any just about any Katharine Hepburn movie. Lois McMaster Bujold (who writes excellent space opera and fantasy if you’ve never tried her) says that she tries to think up the worst thing that can happen to her character at any given moment. I like to take the same approach both with what’s happening in the story and who my characters fall in love with. There’s something fascinating about watching two people who are all wrong for each other and from completely different places find the secret common ground that means they are actually, exactly right together. Saskia and Fen fall definitely into this category. One is an idealist, one’s a definite cynic. One’s itching to get involved in fixing things and one is mostly hoping to stay out of trouble and stay alive. Not a good match on paper, each of them a troublemaker in their own way but somehow they work.

Here’s a taste of them:

“Is that so? Tell me, Fen, what special powers do you have that make you invincible?”

I shrugged. “I can see trouble coming.” That was a lie, but nearly thirty years of life in the border boroughs had left me with a healthy instinct for trouble and the ability to fight my way out of it when I had to.

“I thought you wore that chain around your wrist to stop yourself from seeing. So I really don’t see how your sight can be all that useful. It’s hardly practical.”

Before I could answer, Saskia reached up and yanked a hairpin free from the neat coils of her hair.

“Whereas I can do this.” She held the bronze-colored pin upright between her thumb and forefinger, then narrowed her eyes at it and the tip of the pin burst into flame.

Impressive. Not that I was going to tell her that. “I don’t think any Blood or Beast is going to stand still while you stick a flaming pin in them.” I did my best to sound bored.

She shot me a look that made me wonder why my head didn’t ignite as the pin had. The flame on the pin died abruptly and she flicked it toward the empty grate, where it made a little sizzling noise as it hit the hearthstone. One quick glance around the room and she stalked over to my mantel and picked up a pewter candlestick. “Can I borrow this?”

It was obviously a rhetorical question. I sensibly stayed quiet, limiting myself to a nod. She shot me another flat glare, then moved her hands, one to each end of the candle- stick.

I wondered if she was working up to braining me with it, but then she suddenly pulled her hands apart and the metal . . . stretched. That was the only word for it. As if it were rubber or clay or toffee. I stared as her right hand moved over one end of the candlestick, working it to a wicked point, more dagger than candlestick.

She made a satisfied sound, then moved her grip so that she held only the blunt end. Definitely more daggerlike. Perhaps I had underestimated her after all.

She aimed the sharp end toward me and snapped her fingers. The point lit up like a flare, burning with a clean white light. She smiled nastily at me and before I could say anything she threw the flaming dagger toward me with deadly force. It whistled past my head, close enough for me to feel the hot rush of air as it traveled past me and buried itself in the far wall with a solid thunk. At once the wallpaper began to smoke and char, the burning smell.

“That’s going to cost me extra rent,” I said.
***

Interested in winning a copy of Iron Kin? Just comment on the post (tell me who your favourite troublemakers are or whatever else takes your fancy) for a chance to win!

M.J Scott is an unrepentant bookworm. Luckily she grew up in a family that fed her a properly varied diet of books and these days is surrounded by people who are understanding of her story addiction. When not wrestling one of her own stories to the ground, she can generally be found reading someone else’s. Her other distractions include yarn, cat butlering, dark chocolate and fabric. She lives in Melbourne, Australia.

Want to know more about M.J? Her website is www.mjscott.net or find her on Twitter or Facebook or sign-up for her newsletter.

Happy Weekend, Dame readers!

A little late with this announcement (sorry!), but here is the winner of my giveaway to celebrate the release of THE STONE DEMON. I used random.org to toss out a number, which means the winner of a $25 gift card from Amazon is:

Sarah Wedgbrow

Congratulations, Sarah! Send me an email (writerkaz AT gmail DOT com) and I’ll email you back with your gift card so you can start spending.

Thanks to everyone who entered the giveaway and helped me to celebrate.