Guest Post, Elizabeth L. Brooks

What are your biggest pet peeves for other people's grammar? Are there any mistakes that you find yourself making regularly?

The one that makes me want to get up and leave the room when I hear it is a contraction I've only really heard in the last few years, in which people leave "to be" out of verb clauses. For instance: "The
dishes need washed," instead of "the dishes need to be washed." It actually gives me the shudders. If the extra two words are really that much extra effort, you can get away with the gerund: "The dishes need
washing."

My own besetting grammatical sin is commas. I'm terrible with them. I leave them out when they should be there, or put them in where they're superfluous. Even knowing that I do this doesn't help; I'll second-guess myself, and then end up getting it wrong on the few occasions I would've gotten it right to start with.

Do you ever want to go back and edit an older story?

GOD, yes, all the time. I try not to even look at older stories sometimes, because I know I'm going to find things that need to be
fixed, and not be allowed to do so, and it's painful.


How much of your life and the people you know end up in your work?

I think it's impossible to avoid injecting some amount of one's own
experience into writing. Even when I'm trying to imagine something
completely new to me -- the telepathic connection that occurs in the
"One Mind" books, for instance, or the experience of shape-changing in "What You Are" -- I'm pulling on my experiences of things I've done or read or felt that might be similar, to enable me to describe what I can only imagine.

That said, I do try to avoid being too obvious about it. I'll extract
a particular feeling, or a gesture, or (rarely) a few particularly well-chosen words. I try to avoid doing more than that, because I wouldn't want my friends or romantic partners (past or present) to recognize themselves in a scene I've written and wonder: is that really how I acted? does that mean the other character in the scene
represents her? is this really how she saw that event? is this how she sees our relationship?

I do have to admit one exception: Jesse Summers, from "Assumption of Desire", is in fact based on a real person, an adorable twink that I met at a GLBT Pride event. He helped me and some other editor/authors
break down our tents and tables and schlepp everything back to our cars at the end of the event, and in payment, I offered to write him into my next story. I make no claims that the character Jesse's
personality is anything like the real Jesse's, but physically, he's an exact copy.

Is there a character or story that's stuck in your head and won't leave, from either your work or someone else's?

Oh, yes. Dawn moved into my head some eleven years ago (his initial appearance was almost *exactly* eleven years ago, actually), and he hasn't left since, despite going through several incarnations in the meantime. I thought publishing "Safe Harbor" would exorcise him, but it's only made him dig in deeper.

What projects are you currently working on? Are you willing to share a small excerpt from a work in progress?

My most promising project, at the moment, is the one I'm working on
with you, actually. For your readers who may not have been paying
attention: we're each writing a short-short (1000 words or less,
usually) each week, generally in response to some generously donated
prompt words.  I post excerpts fairly regularly on my blog, but here's one just for you and your readers:

What was taking him so long?

Finally, she heard his tread on the stairs. “Babe?”

“Second thoughts, already?” He wasn't even in the room yet, but she could hear the amusement in his voice.

“I just want to know what you have in mind.”

He appeared, sat next to her on the bed. He combed his fingers through her hair, spreading it out around her. “You remember your words?”

“Of course.” She'd chosen them herself, and he'd repeated them four times, as he'd fastened each of the restraints at her wrists and ankles.

He stroked her face, traced the line of her throat, outlined her collarbones. “Are you using them?”

She hesitated. His fingers felt good on her skin... “No. I just want to know.”

He smiled, kissed her lightly. “Then no.”

As a note: Elizabeth is running a contest to win an adorable tentacled minor god of your very own. Go to her blog and leave a comment, or her Facebook page and tell her what color octopus you want.

This one is mine. You can't have it!

Snippet

Seriously, I have a problem.

I've mentioned, I'm sure, that Elizabeth L. Brooks (the fabulous editor of He Loves me for my Brainsss!) and I are working on a collection of short-short stories.

When we originally discussed the idea, we were thinking of maybe 40 stories in the sub 1,000 word length.

(You, over there in the third row? I hear you laughing. Shut up. Seriously. Shut it.)

Thus far, I've written nine stories for the project.

They are:

After the Party - 1,016
Two Tents* - 933
Mouse Games* - 1,355
Away Games - 370
Home Inspection - 1,064
On the Job Training - 1,679
Dinner Service* - 811
Steal Not a Moment - 1,466
Surrender - 1,108

The stories with * asterisks next to them mean that the story isn't really complete. At least with Two Tents, I've got another two parts of similar length to go before I consider the story complete. Dinner Service has another two parts, Drink Service and Kitchen Service, ditto on them being the same length. Ish. I really want to steal Home Inspection, write another 1,500 words or so, and submit it for a collection. Also, Surrender isn't quite done yet either. I dunno about that one, I think I need to go back and fix some of it.

Even though I've managed to cut down my writer's bloat a bit (did I mention that my first novel, which is currently in content edits) was over 190,000 words as a first draft? My second novel, which is currently being read/reviewed for publication, is only 80,000... ) I'm still fighting a LOT with the short-short.

That being said, I really like some of these stories a lot, and I think the exercise is good for me. I might not be the short-short queen or anything, but at least in the process of working on this collection, I will get better. And that's all anyone can ask, right?

Here's a sample from On the Job Training...

“I'm Noel,” she said. 

A thousand puns and jokes leapt immediately to mind, and he bit down on all of them. It was unlikely that he could make a fresh one, and no one ever appreciated those sorts of things anyway. “It's a pleasure to meet you.” That was safe enough.

Noel raised an eyebrow. “Very good. I admire your restraint. You said, earlier... it was 'mostly.' Now, adorable as my shoes are, I have to say that if you're after a cheap one-night stand, please go elsewhere. You seem interesting enough, and I'm certainly not adverse, but I have strict requirements, and I'd rather you not waste your money if you're not qualified for the position.”

“Lucid's not cheap,” Danny chipped in from over his shoulder. “So it would be an expensive one night stand.”

“Not helping me here, bro,” Chandler muttered.

Noel laughed. It wasn't a titter, a giggle, or one of those fake chortles that he was used to hearing from women in bars. It was an absolutely delighted guffaw, full on belly-laugh that shook her whole body in delightful ways and was infectious. He couldn't help answering it. He blushed, embarrassed, felt more embarrassed, having blushed, and still couldn't help laughing. 

“Oh, that was wonderful,” she said, blotting carefully at the corners of her eyes with a napkin, leaving small red smudges behind. “What do you think, Danny? Is he worthy?”

Oh, god. He finished the rest of his beer.

“He drinks good beer,” Danny said, “even when his friends aren't here, so he actually likes it. He's not just showing off his hefty paycheck or his fancy palate. He plays darts a few times a month. In fact, I was expecting his crew in tonight. Responsible, too. I've never had to take his keys. And he remembers to tip.”

Chandler stared at the bartender. Really? He'd noticed that much? Suddenly Chandler felt about eight years old, being scolded for forgetting to write a thank you note, or for licking the butter knife, or any of the dozens of faux pas he'd committed in front of his grandmother. He felt the urge, however briefly, to just say never mind, pay for his beer and leave. 

If he did that, though, it was doubtful he'd ever be back. Not after having such a personal witness. Oh, well. He took a deep breath, met her cool, curious gaze. If he was going down, it'd be spectacular, and in flames.

Marscon 2013

This weekend upcoming is the annual Marscon science fiction/fantasy convention.

If you've never been to a sci-fi convention, I can't really recommend them highly enough. If you're a sci-fi geek, of course, and if the idea of being stuck in an elevator with a Klingon doesn't bother you. Sci-fi geeks run the gamut of weirdos. (Altho, to be perfectly honest, I only know a few geeks who are actually Sheldon levels of intolerable assholes.) But a sci-fi con is a great excuse to let your geek flag fly...

I usually go for the music - as you all know, I'm a huge fan of filking and supernatural folk music. There will be several performers there - Jonah Knight, Mikey Mason, Poison Dwarf, the Blithering Humdingers... and the writing workshops. This year, my editor Kristina Wright, and my fellow writer and best friend Elizabeth Brooks will be sitting erotica panels... so that should be fun!

The husband brought home print-outs of the schedule yesterday. Three copies.

He gave one copy to me, one to the kiddo, and kept one. Over the week, we're going to look at the schedule (there's almost 30 damn pages!!) and figure out what we want to do, what we can do, and what we will do. Having to juggle the kiddo back and forth, since she really can't go to a writing panel for writing about alien sex... (No, really! There's a panel for that!! And yes, I'm planning to go.)

Marscon has the huge benefit of 1) assuming that geeks are also old 2) and that they've actually managed to carry on conversations and relationships long enough that 3) they've had babies. 4) those babies are likely also geeks

There's a HUGE amount of family friendly programming and stuff specifically aimed at the younger geeks in the crowd.

The husband is taking Friday off so that we can leave as soon as the kiddo gets home from school (driving up to the peninsula can be horridly time-consuming) and the kid's got Monday off for MLK-day. So I might not get a lot of work done.

That being said, this whole sitting down in front of my computer for several hours with the stated agenda of Getting Shit Done seems to be remarkably more productive than I might have imagined.

Captive of My Desires, Johanna Lindsey cover
Artist: Alan Ayers

Yesterday I wrote almost 2,000 words.

It's been quite a while since I've been that productive. I wasn't tracking my word count very carefully last year, but I don't think I've had a day like that in a while. I wrote 1,200 words on my steampunk-vampire story, took a break, then came back upstairs and wrote about 600 words on Full Frontal Neighbor.

While making dinner, I thought about how to move the story along, and I head-worked a pretty good conversation between my main character and her best friend... much like me and my best friend, they're both in the novel business, but Claire, the best friend, is an editor and publisher. Mallory, the main character, is an artist. She's the one who paints the cover art...

And I was so determined not to forget the line that after dinner, I went back upstairs and wrote another 400 words or so, just so I could get to that conversation.

Here, enjoy a small snippet...

“Well, I have three covers. How’s your time? Can you do three in a month?”

“I have a couple in the drawer, that I painted just for funsies. Maybe one of those would fit. Otherwise, I got time for two. I’m still knee deep in the moving-in process. Stupid movers lost half my stuff and I’m just now getting it back.”

“You said. Which reminds me, your ex was poking about. Asked the new girl where you were living. She didn’t know, so she didn’t tell him. That guy just does not take no for an answer.”

“Tell me about it,” I grumbled. “I had to move back east to get away from him.” That wasn’t entirely true, but I wasn’t above blaming David for just about everything. It was one of my less attractive traits, but at the moment, I wasn’t worried about it. Claire hated him almost as much as I did. Neighbor boy stretched magnificently, and I stood there, silent in the darkness, watching him in all his masculine glory. There was a delicate, not quite unpleasant, ache between my legs. At least David had been good for one thing.

“… and I’ve got one collection of short stories about shape-changers,” Claire said. I drew my attention back to the conversation.

“Werewolves?” Great. I hated painting werewolves. Readers all had their own ideas of what lycanthropes should be, and inevitably, anything I painted would be all wrong for two-thirds of them.

“No, just shape-changers. Some of them turn into cats, or foxes. I think one of the stories has a guy who turns into a weasel.”

“All men turn into weasels, eventually.”

--Full Frontal Neighbor

Promo For Under My Skin by Sommer Marsden

Nothing creepy about that, no...

Today, I bring to you my special guest, Sommer Marsden. (Check back here in a few weeks for some more personal time with Sommer... ) Her new book, Under My Skin, has just come out and wow, it sounds fantastic! I love Sommer's stuff, although she writes so much faster than I can read, so I have only made small dents into her production pile. But her werewolf series, Big Bad and Long Lost are excellent, and I so much adore the Zombie Exterminator series... I really like Urban Supernatural stuff. It's the orsumest!

Back Cover/Blurb

House bought for a steal online when it turns out there’s a damn good reason—check.

Malicious ghost with a body count to his name—check.

Sad, lingering female spirit pining for her still living (but currently dying) fiancé—check.

What’s a widowed medium to do when a departed soul asks to ride piggy back in her body?

To share her space and get under her skin? Juliet Bale does the only thing she can do—with her twin sister’s good counsel—she lets Lanie share her body to help her dying beloved Elijah cross over. The problem is that with all the reuniting, and sharing one body, things get seriously intimate and Juliet can’t help but see exactly why Elijah Rivers was so beloved.

It’s so wrong to sorta kinda fall for a dying man, and yet—check.



Excerpt from Under My Skin 
© Sommer Marsden

“I’m telling you, Minnie, it feels off.” I tucked the phone under my chin and tried not to trip on the damn thing. My brand new kitchen had a way-old phone. It actually had a cord, for goodness’ sake.

“Off how? Off is relative when it comes to you, twin sister, dear.”

I snorted, and Minnie made a high-pitched sound that said she was laughing at me. “Har har.”

I slipped my silverware—triple wrapped in plastic—into my freshly washed and tidied drawer. I had just spent three hours wiping down the room and cleaning everything. I wanted it as spic and span as possible for me and my own energy. Most people don’t realize when you move in a new home, along with other people’s dirt, you get other people’s emotions.

“I mean, what is off, Juliet? Is the paint too bright or the window too small or…what?” My sister was mocking me.

“The energy,” I said, pushing a stack of brightly colored cake plates into a small side cabinet. “Don’t play dumb, Min. You haven’t just met me. You know, your sister…the sensitive. Resident psychic medium,” I chuckled, making a joke at my own expense.

I swore I heard her smile over the phone line. I could picture my sister in my mind. Same long unruly dirty blond hair as mine. Same startling blue eyes that could turn gray with mood, weather or depending on what color we wore. But we weren’t identical, we were fraternal. She was shorter and curvier than me, her nose just a bit sharper. And her tongue.

“Juliet, let’s face it, any place is going to be off to you, right? Any place you go is going to be steeped in someone else’s emotions and past, yes?”

“Yes,” I agreed, wiping my hands on my shirttails and leaning against the giant butcher block island in the center of the room. “True story.”

"Well, then, just deal with it. There is no clean space for you, really. Unless you build a brand new home from scratch and not a single worker has a bad day or an illness or any of that.”

I nodded even though she couldn’t see me. She was right.

“So take this new home and treat it as your own. Smear your own energy all over the place.”
I snorted, eyeing my shirt. It had been Justin’s. My heart crimped up at seeing it. Three years had not dulled my loss, and despite being psychically sensitive and talking to spirits more often than not, I had yet to see or talk to him. I wondered if it were somehow taboo for us to speak or if he thought it would be too painful for me to see him.

“Hello?” my sister sighed.

“Sorry, I hear you. You’re right. Though I don’t know about smearing my energy all over the place. Kind of makes me sound like a monkey—”

“Juliet!” she snapped, knowing where I was going with that analogy. “Onto other things. How are you doing? I mean…how are you doing?”

She meant moving out of the former home that Justin and I had shared before he died. She meant on my own. She meant finally embracing the fact that I was single and maybe moving on with my new life. Montgomery House was that chance. I mean, how often do you get to buy a house with a name? And I’d gotten it for a song. Which worried me, but…

“I’m fine,” I lied. “No worries.”

“I’m coming to see you soon,” she threatened, and I smiled.

“You’d better.”

* * * *

He was big—big and looming. But he was also thin. The kind of build that made the mind pull up images of a praying mantis or some ungodly sea creature trapped in the darkness near the ocean floor. Just seeing him turn his muddy eyes to me made my heart thunder.

“You’re here,” he said and smiled.

The smile was the most frightening aspect of his appearance. It twisted his face in such a way that it reminded me of a molded rubber mask that had gone askew. Almost as if his skin didn’t quite fit on his bones the right way.

I turned to run, and when I did, his long arm shot out to plant a big, strong hand on my shoulder. Being touched by him was like experiencing the most sudden and all-consuming emptiness imaginable. A sob ripped out of me.

“I thought three was my lucky number,” he said, his voice gravel turned under a tire. Sand scraped across stainless steel. It made my head hurt, and my heart followed suit.

I pulled against his strength, knowing I’d never break free until I awoke. I knew by the energy I was trapped in a dream. Knew he couldn’t really hurt me…not yet. But I also knew that as long as I slept, I was his. This was the secret my new house held. This energy. And this was where I’d be until I could drag myself back up to my conscious mind.

“Three what?” I managed, stalling.

“Three girls before you came.” The cadence of his words stirred goose bumps along my skin.

The fine hairs of my scalp prickled with dread.

“You killed them?”

“I consumed them,” he said. “Their essence.”

The urge to scream was overpowering. The urge to weep even stronger. Instead, I did the only thing I could do. I turned into his grip to face him. He looked surprised for a moment, his long rubbery face and his sick brown eyes showing shock. But then he smiled, and that hole seemed to open in my stomach again. I studied the face. The old-fashioned brown suit. The proper white buttoned-down shirt. Cufflinks, a tie clip, wingtip shoes and close-cropped hair.

Then I bit my tongue as hard as I possibly could and tasted blood. His face lit up when the coppery taste flooded my mouth. Maybe he could smell it. But then he realized what I’d done and frowned at me.

“You’ll be back,” he said. “I’m here all the time.”

I woke up.

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He Loves me...

So, you can get your e-copy of He Loves me for My Brainsss from Torquere...

Thought I'd give you a little sample today...

“Wish you didn’t have to go,” Avesy said, drawing a teasing line down his chest, finger tracing along the waistband of his trousers. Korin forced a half-smile, heart aching.

“I wish you wouldn’t talk about it,” Korin answered. He snatched at the teasing hand, jerked Avesy’s arm down, placed his palm firmly against Korin’s straining erection, ground his hips against his lover’s fingers. He groaned at the touch, then roughly pushed his lover onto his back. Korin tore the buttons free in his eagerness to get his pants off, much too eager, he was going to cream his pants right there if he didn’t get what he wanted, what he needed. There was nothing but hot desire in Avesy’s eyes and Korin let himself sink into those eyes, sink in and drown there, not looking away.

He’d tasted Avesy’s lips a hundred times and more, but tonight, this one night, was sweeter and more bitter than any flavor he could ever imagine. The last time, the very last. And even having memorized every line of his face, every soft nuzzle of his mouth, Korin was startled all over again at how intoxicating those sweet kisses were. How full and lush his mouth was, how heavy his breath, and how Korin’s entire body turned to fire with the simple touch. Like wine. 

Well, I had to move my work hours around immediately, since I discovered that on those days I need to take the husband to work, I don't get back to the house until almost 8:30. So... guess I'll start at 9am. No worries.

I did do some writing on the 1st, even though technically I was still on vacation. I decided to work on my story for a Valentine's Anthology. I was specifically asked to submit, if I could, and I admit that that's flattering.

I'm running a Shadowrun paper and dice game at the moment, and cyberpunk (and cyber sex!) are on my mind recently. What would it be like, to be able to jack into your partner's head, feel what they're feeling? Sometimes it could be really amazing, and sometimes, not so much. I'm exploring that, with the help of two characters, Adria Benn-Parker, a character who's been hanging about in my head for a while and needed something to do, and a new fellow who just showed up recently, Cyberius Jann. We'll see how that goes. It's a pretty tight deadline, so we'll see if I can get something put together by mid-month.

Hey, my first ultra-short story is due to my partner on the 9th (that's going to be the established pattern for the time being, we'll exchange our shorts on Wednesday...) So, I could use some prompts, please. One noun, one verb, one adjective, and two random words of your choice. Please, help a writer out, here?

Blood Sight

I'm trying to decide what project I want to work on for NaNoWriMo. Here's the opening idea I have for Blood Sight.

Flash Fiction, A picture's worth 1000 words.

I saw this on Twitter and decided it sounded like fun...

Then she rolled over and said, "Sorry about the knife, darling." That was three days ago, I haven't slept much since. The couch is comfortable enough, you know. It has dark fabric, the better to hide stains. I wonder about those stains. Is there really something I should know? She hasn't said anything. I can hear her, in the kitchen. Chopping vegetables? Dear lord, I hope they're vegetables. I've been wearing the same clothes; somehow I feel too vulnerable to take my clothes off, even just long enough to change. The dark blue sweatshirt matches the bags under my eyes.