Conference Goals

So I made it down to CO Springs and enjoyed an afternoon of pure writing, followed by a nap, and some more writing. So yay!

I also met two interesting writers this afternoon at the Thursday workshop on pitching for which I helped out by listening to Science-Fiction/Fantasy/Horror writers (which there were only two). Thank you Mike (PPW Contest Finalist for his MS, Grave Shift, that I hope Denise Little who he is pitching to falls in love with) and Leah, who has a a historical fantasy based on Rome and a female gladiator. Both books sounded wonderful and I hope they will be on the market soon.

My goals for this conference are vague. Mostly I'd like to thank people who'd made my last year possible even though they likely have no clue the impact they've had. People like Bill May, Chis M's dad, who gave me feedback I needed for Curses! A F**ked Up Fairytale. I teared up when I met him this afternoon because his feedback was so vital to me selling the story. So thank you, Bill. I can never say how much I appreciate your support and dead-on feedback.

Laura Hayden also gets a thanks for something that she probably doesn't even remember but that kept me writing when I wanted to give up. At my first PPW in 2007 she was handing out the awards for the contest where Dope. Sick. Love. placed third. When I walked up to get my award, she said, "I judged this one, and loved it." A real, live, and amazing author liked my work. It meant everything to me. Thank you, laura. If you haven't read her stuff, do so!

Bonnie Hagan and Chris Mandeville (and Ruh) get a huge thanks for one, a great conference, and for being amazing people, but also for last year's session on improve. That workshop formed the idea for Frog It! the second book in F**ked Up Fairytale.

I plan to let each of these people know how much their kindness, words, and actions have meant to me. And I also plan on doing the same for other writers this weekend.

A Couple More Rules for Indie Authors

Psst, don't take me the wrong way. I think indie publishing is wonderful. It offers more control for writers, but let's not ruin it by throwing on rose-colored glasses.

Rule 5:

Stop taking yourself so seriously. This is not a all or nothing platform. You can self-epublish and query agents (just not the same projects). Don't give up your dream of traditional publication for the illusion of e-publication. Which brings me to rule #6...

Rule 6:

You are NOT Amanda Hocking, nor are you J.A. Konrath, Barry E, or any of the other e-publishing heroes. Doesn't mean you can't be, but don't fall for the 'you should walk away from any traditional publishing deal and go indie because you can make more money'. You won't. Let's face it, you don't have a readership that extends beyond maybe 100 people, if you're lucky. Having your book in a bookstore gives you that readership.

New Rules For Indie Authors

Here's a list of rules for those indie authors of ebooks:

1) If you don't own or read on an ebook reader you cannot e-publish. The same holds true for people allergic to paper. If a book gives you hives, you cannot write one.

2) Quit blathering on about your reviews. So you have 10 of them. We all know you paid your friends and family to write nice things about your book. I'm not saying that there is anything wrong with that. In fact, I'm glad your friends and family like you enough to write a review. Not that they have EVER actually read your book otherwise they might take exception to your veiled references to the time the two of you got drunk in your dorm room in college.

3) Don't lie to me about how much money you make a month in sales. Guess what? I can find out at novelrank.com. Besides ebooks sales are much like asking a guy in his twenties how many women he's slept with. So here's my ebook sales confession: I make roughly $50 a month in sales off two short story collections. Let's try for a little honest in this new publishing formula.

4) Stopping bragging about being an 'indie' author. Yes, you have ebooks out in the world, and yes, that legitimatizes you as a writer. Sort of. But that pedophile in Pueblo had an ebook out too.

If you want to brag, make sure your book is worth bragging about. Let's face it, most indie authors are choosing e-publishing because they've been rejected at major publishers or they can't get an agent. That doesn't make you hip for thumbing your nose at traditional publishing.

Okay, that's enough for now. Thought? Comments? Hateful rants?

6 Days Until the 2011 PPWC

I'm so excited to go to this years PPW Conference. This is my fifth year of attending, and the first year I will be participating as a faculty member. The experience is always amazing, often inspirational, and sometimes heartbreaking. But worth every minute. I learn so much, but even better, I get to hang out with fellow commercial fiction writers.

Trust me on this, literary writers are a different breed. In my time at Naropa hanging out with wonderful writers, we never break into a discussion on the merits of using naughty words in a sex scene. Just doesn't happen. For commercial fiction writers, any craft talk is open and accepted.

Meeting new people is a breeze. You sit down next to them, and say, 'So what do you write?' and you have an instant new friend. At Naropa, you sit down, wave away the pot smoke and body odor, and say, 'How about that hybrid, cyborg, transgendered piece in the latest edition of the New Yorker?' Not that you've read it, nor it even exists.

I love both worlds for different reasons. Commercial writers want to entertain me. The literary ones I know, want to save the world with words. Both have equal importance.

So if you're not doing anything next weekend and you're a writer in the Colorado area, consider coming down to the Pikes Peak Writers Conference.

You're Looking Very Green Today!

WAIT! Don't click away. This isn't an loving post for Earth Day. Instead I wanted to talk about jealousy and writers. Do writers suffer from more jealousy than other professions? I've never seen a doctor smear another over the way he ends his stitches. But get a group of writers together and toss out the name Dan Brown, and look out!

I, myself, being perfect and all, have never badmouth a fellow writer.

*SIGH*

How I wish that was true. I have done my fair share of sneering at Twilight, dismissing Amanda Hocking books without ever reading one, and wishing herpes on a certain member of one of my writers groups. Oh you know who you are! I will get you! Just watch your back, you worthless hack!

Oops. My point is, writers need to overcome this ugly green monster. Or else it will destroy us. Put that negative energy to use. Stop obsessing. Easy enough, right?

Hell no.

But from now on I will do my damnest not to talk shit about my fellow writer. If you catch me doing so, smack me. Really. Right upside the head.

Oh, and Happy Earth Day...

Doesn't the Earth look fat in that grass? Did you see the way she roots those trees? Slut....

Writing Sex Scenes at Work

So I have a day job. A good one, not in the financial sense, but one I enjoy. Mostly due to the amount of freedom and a hell of a great boss, who I love as a friend too. The work is all right. My students are great.

The thing is, I have a scene to write today, while at work (during lunch) and it's a steamy one. A sex scene with plenty of bodily fluids and tongue action. My first one in this new book. I want my characters to enjoy themselves, but I'm blushing with each sentence written.

Have you ever read a sex scene, or written one in an uncomfortable place? How'd you manage it?

Is E-Publication Giving Up on a Dream?

Today I was reading a favorite blog, a writer friend who is damn good at what she does, and yet, her blog post shook me to the core. She commented, Well if this doesn't work (referring to a novel she's currently writing) I can always self-publish.

She wasn't referring to not working in the writing sense, but rather, it not fitting a traditional publishing format for it's genre. But to hear someone I respect toss out the self-publishing option like it was nothing, made me wonder about writers everywhere.

Are we at a point where if we don't find any agent after three queries we throw our book up on amazon? Are we then giving up on our dreams?

What does that mean for the future of new authors?

Is traditional publishing pushing these authors into selling their books for .99 cents on purpose? Why not? They can then turn around and pick up newbies for a fraction of an advance.

Are we are writers giving up too easily by e-pubbing our work?

What do you think?

Win a Copy of The Body Dwellers From Goodreads.com

Goodreads Book Giveaway

The Body Dwellers

by J A Kazimer

Giveaway ends June 01, 2011.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

Enter to win

Writers on the Brink Interviews Me

Hey for any of you considering entering the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers Contest or any other writers contest, the great people over at Writers On the Brink Blog interviewed me about my contest experiences.

I share my story to publication as well as some tips on your own entry.

Good luck!

The Body Dwellers Available in Print

I'm so excited that The Body Dwellers is now available in trade paperback from Solstice Publishing. Buy your copy today for $11.99.

A System of Tubes Called the INTERNETS is Making Me Crazy

Alas, dear reader, you might have noticed a strange, unnatural trend in your life over...let's say, the last five years. You know what trend I'm referring to, and it's not Brazilian waxers with really cold hands. This trend has to do with checking the freaking internet twelve billion times a day. I can't seem to unplug, no matter how hard I try.

My name's Julie and I'm an addict.

Even now, when I have the first chance all day to sit down and write, I'm spending my time blogging and checking email, not to mention my amazon sales stats. WTF is wrong with me?

So help me, fellow internet addicts. Share your sorted internet tales of back alley googling and high-speed hookups with avatars I'd avoid like the plague in 'real' life.

Was It Something I Said?

How does a writer deal with political correctness and peer-pressured censorship? I want to be able to speak my mind, yet I don't want to listen to other people's hate speech. What is the line? The first amendment protects my right to free speech, but it doesn't clear me of consequences of said speech. How much of your writing is effected by your readers response? And, do you curtail a character to those expectation?

A Junkie Tale ~ For U

Junkie-dexterous

I glanced around the park, seeking a public restroom to ply my doper trade. The shaking started, my body’s own alarm system, telling me I had but seconds to spare.

I jogged up the palm tree lined path, clutching the bindle and my kit in one hand while loosening the belt around my waist with the other.

Yep, I’m junkie-dexterous.

Are you?

By the entrance to the park, next to a playground filled with tots and their Ritalin popping mothers, stood a rest area bathroom. I pushed my way inside, gagging at the stench of rotted sewage. Years of overflowing shit-water stained the concrete, turning it a muddy brown. Most of the plumbing and fixtures had been stripped away, pilfered by baseheads in need of quick cash or improvised crackpipes.

Two stalls, both without doors, faced the each other. Fecal matter, wadded paper, and desperation clung to the toilet seats. I closed my eyes, and wondered how desperate I’d become. There had to be a point where I said no more. That I refused to live this fucked-up existence. My guts cramped, forcing me to admit the terrible truth. I had a long way yet to go.

Junkie-bitious

I turned the faucet, but no water poured from it. Not a single drip. Fuck. My eyes fell on one of the toilet, and its rust-colored water. I glanced at the syringe in my hand, and back at the porcelain bowl.

Fuck.

Bending over the stained toilet, I drew rusty water into my needle while mouthing ‘what the fuck am I doing’ like a mantra. The plastic turned cold as water filled the chamber mixing with my dried blood. A rush of heat licked up my spine and into my brain. My heart sped up, and my breathing quickened.

I mixed the toilet water and a good-sized hit, cooked it up with a precision only the finest of chefs ever accomplished, and drew the bitter nectar back into my spike.

Junkie-licious.

I tied my arm with my belt, and readied myself for a foray into corroded vein territory. My veins are both my salvation and my worst enemy. At the height of my habit, it took me over an hour to find a usable vein. Now, I can usually hit after fifteen minutes of digging. I pressed the needle to my flesh, tapping my finger against a fragile blue line running on the inside of my forearm.

“Mommy,” a small voice from the doorway said. “What’s that man doing?”

I froze. My eyes met the eyes of a horrified mother. She scooped up the little boy and backed up a step. “Don’t hurt us,” she whispered. “Please. I’ll give you money.”

“I...” I dropped the needle. It fell onto the shit-coated floor, and rolled away. I raised my hands. “I don’t want your money.” Even though a part of me did. “I’m not going to hurt you. Take your kid and go.”

Tears leaked from the mother’s eyes, and the child in her arms began to cry. She kissed his forehead. “It’s okay, baby. Mommy’s right here.”

I swallowed. A fleeting memory of my own mother circled my mind. “Go. Now.”

She nodded, and ran from the restroom, the child cupped safely in her arms.

I closed my eyes, shame burning deep inside me. My stomach cramped, and I puked, splattering the concrete floor with bile and blood. Tears ran down my cheeks.

With grim determination, I dropped to my knees, and scourged the vomit-stained floor for the syringe.



From The Junkie Tales Collection ~ Buy your copy at amazon.com or barnesandnoble.com

Vote for The Junkie Tales for Best Short Story Collection from Spinetingler Magazine:
http://www.spinetinglermag.com/2011/04/01/2011-spinetingler-award-voting/#more-5009

Out With the Old

I spent most of my night last night shifting through years of critiques, the hard copy kind. Out of the four critiqued manuscripts I found, three of them are published or soon to be published, so when I reviewed the critiques certain realizations occurred to me. Namely, voice, style, and anything but copy editing is so subjective in a critique that I began to question whether or not expanding the energy to a critique group is actually effective. Then I read a critique from my first book, the one no one will likely ever see. In those pages I saw just why critiques are important.

How do you feel about your critiques?

To Colour or Not to Color?

E-book readers, help a girl out. I currently have a wi-fi nook. I do love it, but some of the features of the new nook color make me very...umm...happy? Being able to surf the web, blog and check my email on my e-reader? With a vibrating option...

Oh yeah, baby.

So those of you with a nook color, or any other e-reader, what do you love/hate about yours? Should I make the $250 investment in my ereadering future?

Want a Bigtime Hollywood Agent?

Great post by Karen Lin. If you're interested in screenwriting, this is the woman that knows her stuff!

Writing from the Peak: Column: Getting Your Script Into The Right Hands b...: "SCREEENWRITINGREPRESENTATION: HELP IN GETTING YOUR SCRIPT INTO THE RIGHT HANDSBesides pitching to filmmakers seeking scripts through l..."

Buy The Junkie Tales

Buy The Junkie Tales, which was nominated by Spinetingler Magazine for 2011's Best Short Story Collection Award, at amazon.com or Barnes & Noble.com for $2.99.

Vote for The Junkie Tales at http://www.spinetinglermag.com/2011/03/31/2011-spinetingler-award-best-short-story-collection-nominees/