My average rating for women’s books is over a point lower than for those written by men (3 stars versus 4.25 out of five.) What is going on ? I’m a feminist! I’m a huge fan of women authors and a strong supporter of women anything! Am I secretly sexist? I took a closer look at the books.
Read the full post at Our Own Kind of Porn.
“Because the sex scenes make up so much of the book, I feel I cannot give it a rating. Rather, I will commend the author for the things she did well, mentioned above, and recommend the book to those whose tastes in this regard are different from mine.”
It didn’t take long for my resolution to review a book a month on my various blogs to land me in hot water. First Impressions was billed as an M/M romance and the premise of the two men’s lives sounded interesting. It was. But clearly I was way out of touch on just how steamy romances get these days. I was traveling internationally while reading the book, and actually afraid if anyone saw what I was carrying, I might get detained for bringing pornographic material into the country.
Luckily, I arrived back in the US without incident. Read my attempts to handle the review with grace at at Review: First Impressions
I knew I didn’t want the image of Teddie, my hero, to be a photo. This was a book about out of body experiences, and a clear likeness seemed too stark. I wanted something vague, more like a sketch. She had to be young, dark-haired, and there had to be green involved. I didn’t expect a lot of results when I combined all these search parameters, and I didn’t get them. However, the one image I got had potential.
Read more at Designing your own book cover, part 4.
(For more on this topic see Designing your own book cover, part 1, part 2 and part 3.)
I was sort of like someone who wants to fire a few BB’s at a squirrel to scare it off the lawn and gets handed an AK-47. Before I knew it, I had dozens if not hundreds of relevant images and so many cover ideas that my head hurt. Take a look at a couple of the wild combinations…
I had to make a decision. I picked something that I thought would please everyone a little and my novel first appeared with the cover below.
It took me no more than a few days to accept that I did not particularly like it.
Read more at Designing your own book cover, part 3.
(For more on this topic see Designing your own book cover, part 1 and Designing your own book cover, part 2.)
It was time to contact the graphics people at Mother Spider, and see if the same magic could be performed on this cover that had happened with my first book, xo. I explained to Jennifer, the owner of Mother Spider, that the novel was about the grown-up adventures of a boy who had once taught himself to shift his appearance while watching his pet chameleon. I had to have the boat, the sunset, the fire-dancing imagery, at least one chameleon and an orange cover.
“We’ll see,” was all she said.
Read more at Designing your own book cover, part 2
(For more on this topic see Designing your own book cover, part 1 and Designing your own book cover, part 3.)
But wanting to do something and knowing how to do it well are two different things, as you can tell by looking at my first version of the cover to the right. I knew my book needed to be red …
Read more at Designing your own book cover, part 1.
(For more on this topic see Designing your own book cover, part 2 and Designing your own book cover, part 3)
My Amateur Photo
I traveled 8000 miles to see Mount Kilimanjaro, and I almost missed it. It’s true that I also came to see lions, elephants and zebra in the wild, and to have an adventure with my relatives, but Kilimanjaro was near the top of my list of reasons for making a daunting journey that took three plane flights, eighteen hours in the air, four vaccinations and sixteen days on malaria meds.
Unfortunately, the 19,341 foot former volcano that rises 15,000 feet up off the plains of Tanzania tends to be covered in clouds in August, which is something I didn’t know ahead of time. On the drive to our camp, we got to see the very top of the peak poking out above the clouds, impossibly high in the sky.
I hope his photo looks like this
At the very end of our stay, we would get to see much of the base of the mountain glowing in the sunrise. But my one chance for the best, the fullest view, happened when I was busy reading a guidebook to Kenya. I know, it’s ironic. And I should have read that book before I left home.
Read more at Happy Peace Day, Chinese Person in Tent Number 59.
(Read more about my trip to Kenya at Like Eating Crab, Still a Sunrise?, Replacing me with … and Smiling my way across Kenya)
I spent the summer of 1972 checking groceries, making out with my high school boyfriend, and trying my first marijuana. At the time, I needed both the money and the worldly experience because come September, I was off to study journalism in the big city of Chicago.
Even though I was going to be too young to vote, I also spent that summer following politics. I’d met Nixon the previous year and felt a visceral dislike for him. I’d become increasingly opposed to the Vietnam war. I was a geeky high school debater with a lot of opinions, and less of them favored the GOP each day. Oh, and I loved spy novels.
So on June 18, when I heard about a break-in at the Democratic National Headquarters, of course I was intrigued. Over the next two years I would become enthralled by the enfolding story.
Read more at And that’s the way it was, June 18, 1972.
(For more segments about June days from long ago, see That’s the Way It Was June 10, 1947, June 15, 1984, June 28, 1888, and June 30, 1940.)
I suspect that you and I have have lived through times that changed the world in large ways, but it takes years to see the effects, especially in an age with cable news shouting about the significance of everything every minute of every day. But someone like my character Ariel would know right away, finding herself overcome with dizziness as the probabilities shifted heavily one way or another.
Read the entire post at Did we just witness the dawn of America’s four party system?
I conducted psyche experiments on myself when I was a child. You can’t blame me. There were things I needed to know, and I was my only cooperative subject. For instance, were all my preferences acquired tastes? This was important. If they were, then maybe I would eventually like beer, which was good because this appeared to be a necessary component to getting along as a teenager. On the other hand, it meant I might eventually wear pink polyester stretch pants like my mother, which was a horrifying concept. Either way, I had to know.
Read the entire post on my y1 blog at Am I capable of learning to like anything?
Mr. Kimmel is associated with a group called TAT (Truckers Against Trafficking) that is working to educate those affiliated with the trucking industry to notice and report signs of sex slavery. Using the slogan “Everyday heroes needed” this group is fighting domestic human trafficking and so far has identified 425 likely trafficking cases involving 744 victims and 249 minors.
This tears at my heartstrings in a particularly strong way. My research for c3, a science fiction book about sex trafficking, sent me researching dark corners of the internet into which I would never have ventured otherwise. I was appalled, and I would described myself as someone who does not shock easily.
Read the entire post on my c3 blog at Antidote to current events: Truckers Against Trafficking.
Nothing exists, at least not as solid matter. Push a theoretical physicist to describe what is and you are going to hear a lot about waves and particles. If you push her further, she’s going to concede that at some very basic level the particles are really waves too. Yep, it looks like it’s all waves, man. Nothing but waves.
Read the entire post, along with reflections on Kelly’s Heroes, what makes for a good vocalist, and celebrating the 4th of July in U.S. on my z2 blog at Positive Waves for a Happy 4th
There is picture of me shaking hands with President Nixon. I’m sixteen and in a skirt so short it should be illegal. He is looking right at the camera, with the frozen smile he made a hundred times that day as a selected slice of the citizenry of Kansas was paraded before him. I’m looking away. In spite of the honor of meeting a U.S. president, I already do not like this one and I will come to like him even less as we both grow older.
Read the whole post on my z2 blog at Don’t shake Nixon’s hand.
When you read a book of fiction written decades ago, you steel yourself for possible sexism, racism and general intolerance. You accept that the hero will likely be a tall, non-elder, physically fit and able, straight white male possibly assisted by inferior but lovable sidekicks from other demographic groups. I’ve listened to many a lively discussion about how much slack a writer from days past is entitled to before the enlightened reader of today gets tired of the stereotypes and throws down the book.
Read the rest of my post at I know sexism when I see it?
….and so when somebody I like calls somebody I don’t like a nasty name, I try to revers
e the roles. I mean, how would I feel if Justice Scalia, who has never impressed me as a supreme court justice or a human, called Rachel Maddow (who I adore) a troll. I’d be, upset, right? People should not call people names.
Read the entire post on my z2 blog at I don’t like name calling either …..
Think Too Much
Care Too Much
Get in Fights
Don't Say Much
Don't Keep Quiet
Don't Behave
Scare Them All
Save the World
See the Future
Explore Another Reality
Tinker with Time
Look Like Anyone
Become a Telepath
S. R. Cronin 