KevaD's Blog

I’vebecome superb at starting stories. Mountain climbers, Sherpa guides in tow, aregathering at the base of my Work in Progress (WIP) pile in the hope of beingthe first to plant a flag on the summit. For reasons I haven’t yet fullyidentified, my imagination is in overdrive, spewing out plots and charactersfaster than I can keep up with them. I have a computer file titled “RandomMusings” that has grown to over fifty pages of book titles, characters completewith accompanying traits and idiosyncrasies,  plots and twists in a variety of genres, andsome pretty interesting endings. What I don’t have are finished books.

 

Obviously,my problem isn’t the notorious ‘writer’s block.’ I’m writing every day. Itwould just be nice to get beyond the first three or four chapters of somethingwithout a new idea sprouting in my mental garden. Yesterday, I even wrote thefirst chapter of a nonfiction book.

 

Somemight say I have the ‘shiny distraction’ syndrome, but I don’t think it’s thateither. When a new story idea hits, I have to write it down before it vanisheslike a sock in the dryer. Unfortunately, once I do that, I rarely return to thestory I was working on.

 

Rightnow, I have no clue how to break this pattern of unfinished books begun withthe best of intentions. I suspect a locked room with intravenous feedings ofcaffeine may be looming on the horizon.

 

Thisisn’t like me. I’ve always been focused and driven. Currently, my mind is the ballin a racquetball game. 

 

Ifanyone has any solutions, realistic or not, I would love to hear them.

I’ve become superb at starting stories. Mountain climbers, Sherpa guides in tow, are gathering at the base of my Work in Progress (WIP) pile in the hope of being the first to plant a flag on the summit. For reasons I haven’t yet fully identified, my imagination is in overdrive, spewing out plots and characters faster than I can keep up with them. I have a computer file titled “Random Musings” that has grown to over fifty pages of book titles, characters complete with accompanying traits and idiosyncrasies,  plots and twists in a variety of genres, and some pretty interesting endings. What I don’t have are finished books. 
Obviously, my problem isn’t the notorious ‘writer’s block.’ I’m writing every day. It would just be nice to get beyond the first three or four chapters of something without a new idea sprouting in my mental garden. Yesterday, I even wrote the first chapter of a nonfiction book. 
Some might say I have the ‘shiny distraction’ syndrome, but I don’t think it’s that either. When a new story idea hits, I have to write it down before it vanishes like a sock in the dryer. Unfortunately, once I do that, I rarely return to the story I was working on. 
Right now, I have no clue how to break this pattern of unfinished books begun with the best of intentions. I suspect a locked room with intravenous feedings of caffeine may be looming on the horizon. 
This isn’t like me. I’ve always been focused and driven. Currently, my mind is the ball in a racquetball game.  
If anyone has any solutions, realistic or not, I would love to hear them.

Karaoke Nostalgia
The man resembled the scarred plank floor and the boozy, nicotine stained air. The music started, he missed his cue, never caught up to the beat. The song was “He Stopped Loving Her Today.” The night, the first anniversary of his wife’s passing.
Why is it so damn hard to order more napkins?

DEAR K is a fictional website devoted to making fantasies reality.
This initial offering by HC Brown and myself is a trilogy of erotic short stories.

Lynda wants to learn to submit.
Danielle wonders what an unrequited high school crush is doing now.
Brianne needs revenge on the man who hurt her.

What they don't know is that the brooding, coffee addicted K is about to make their deepest, and even darkest, desires come true.


http://steamereads.com.au/product/dear-k/

http://www.amazon.com/Dear-K-ebook/dp/B00EJRTPAG/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1376523301&sr=1-1&keywords=dear+k

https://www.allromanceebooks.com/product-deark-1268478-147.html

Due to Noble Romance Publishing closing its doors, a number of my books are currently not available to readers. I apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. Hopefully in the near future, I'll find these stories new homes.

The books not currently for sale are:

Out of the Closet
Back in the Closet
Sunday Awakening
A Dance with Bogie and Bacall
Desire Damned
Catherine's Toys - Volumes I thru IV
The Zombie with Flowers in Her Hair

For me, it came after a thirty-eight year writing hiatus, and my deciding, for whatever ridiculous reason, I needed to have a book published. Obviously, age doesn’t always pack common sense in its wrinkled baggage. I quickly gathered enough formatted rejections that I could have conducted an intense study rivaling many universities on the subtle differences utilized by the majority of recognized agents and publishers in telling writers to go away. The commonality was that none of those responses provided a clue as to what I was doing wrong.
So, I figured that since I’d been rejected by the best, and a few of the worst, why not humiliate myself further and ask one of the most notable and respected editors in the business to take a gander at my work. To my total amazement, he agreed. As a courtesy I won’t mention his name so he doesn’t start receiving a flood of similar requests; not that anyone here would do that, of course. I asked him to be frank and blunt. His frankness was a rapier; his bluntness a circus tent stake sledge hammer. His final comment was a suggestion that I write for personal pleasure and never allow anyone to see my writing.
I accepted the gauntlet thrown at my feet as a challenge and opened my eyes and mind to the fact I lacked the education, the knowledge, to climb the literary ladder. I read, and read, and read some more about how to write. But reading doesn’t garner experience. I joined several critique groups, moving on when they became too nice, too complimentary. I finally found one, ERA, that kept its membership small in order to work one on one with each other, and where the members weren’t shy about slicing and dicing, all the while sharing how I could improve my writing. My stories have since won four legitimate awards and I write a nationally distributed column for a news service. However, I’m not content with my writing, and as a result I keep practicing and working to get better at what I love.
For me, the lesson was to step back and accept that learning is a never-ending journey and no matter how good I think I am or can be, there is and will always be another rung in the ladder a fingertip out of reach. Because of that, I view everything I read and write as part of my education, a way to hone my craft.

By the way, that editor and I still stay in contact.

 20th ANNUAL CALLIOPE FICTION CONTEST
Theme: “Fair and Square”
Deadline: February 15, 2014
^   ^   ^
Used in a phrase, both words mean the same; but what if you separate them?  Use the phraseor the word(s) “fair” or “square” in your story. But don’t lose sight of what makes a story come alive: sharp characterizations, vivid imagery and artistic use of language. Winners will not be separated into categories, but entries will be compared to others within their respective genres for judging purposes.  Neatness and manuscript presentation count.
^   ^  ^                                                      


Word Count

Up to 3,000 words.
 
Form
All types of fiction (including genre) accepted: this includes general audience/mainstream; magical realism; science fiction, fantasy, light horror, mystery, romance, or cross-genres thereof; young adult and juvenile. NO picture books.  NO explicit sexual content, excessive profanity, gory violence and/or extreme horror, please.
 
Entry forms/fees
No entry form required.  Entry fees: Calliope member/subscribers—$5 first entry; $2 second; next 3 entries:Free.  ( Write “Member” on upper right corner of title sheet.)  Non-members: $10 first entry; $5 for each additional story. Maximum: five stories per entrant. Membership special: $16, includes a one-year subscription to Calliope (4 issues) and one free entry. 
      Make checks or money orders (in U.S. Funds only) payable to: Writers’ SIG.  (We will also accept fees in mint, U.S.stamps in lieu of checks or money orders.)  To make payment via PayPal , go to www.paypal.com, click on “send money,” and put in Cynthia@theriver.com when it asks “which vendor.”
 
How to Submit/Format
Entries accepted from September 15, 2013 to February 15, 2014, and must come by regularmail. No other method will be accepted.  Use standard manuscript format: 1” margins; double-space for stories more than 500 words.  Name, address, phone number, e-mail address, word count , and title of story should be on a separate cover sheet, stapled to the manuscript in upper left corner. Print only title and page numbers on manuscript.  State “End” below last sentence of story.
      Work must be original—no reprints. Winners must retain sufficient rights for publication in the BIG Summer 2014 issue of Calliope, or their entries will be disqualified.
 
Prizes
Although final determination depends upon the total amount of entry fees received, a minimum $50-1st Place, $25-2nd Place, and $15-3rd Place is the goal. Also, an anonymous benefactor has pledged to donate an additional $100 to the cash awards, if more than 20 entries are received.    
      Gift subscriptions to Calliope will be at the editor’s discretion.  All winners and honorable mentions will receive certificates suitable for framing. Other prizes depend on donations received.
      Receipt of entry will be acknowledged if email address or a self-addressed postcard is included; manuscripts will not be returned.
      Allstories submitted will be considered for future publication.
      n Include a SASE for the winner’s list, and receive a free mini-critique of your entry.
 
Notification
Winners will be notified by mail or email; state preference on cover sheet.  Formal announcement will appear in both print and electronic versions of the Summer 2014 issue, together with the First through Third Place winning stories.  Other winning stories will be published in appropriate subsequent issues. We use one-time rights only.
 
About The Judging
Winners will be selected by The Fiction Editor, with comments, opinions and concurrence solicited from other Calliopeeditors, and/or others the Fiction Editor deems appropriate.  The decision of the judge will be final; every attempt will be made to render a fair and unbiased decision.
 
Mail entries and fees to:
Calliope Fiction Contest
5975 W. Western Way, PMB 116Y
Tucson, AZ 85713
*  *   *
For membership information and a sampling of stories visit our web site:
www.CalliopeWriters.org  Calliope is a publication of The Writers' SIG of American Mensa, Ltd.

Title: The Other Side
Series: Book #1 in the Island Girls Trilogy
Author: Zee Monodee
Line: Ubuntu (geared to African Romance)
Publisher: Decadent Publishing, LLC
Release date: July 30, 2013
Genre: Contemporary Romance/ Romantic Comedy/ Interracial Multicultural Romance/ Bollywood
Length: 272 pages
Heat Level: Sensual/ 2 flames
Blurb:
Divorce paints a scarlet letter on her back when she returns to the culture-driven society of Mauritius. This same spotlight shines as a beacon of hope for the man who never stopped loving her. Can the second time around be the right one for these former teenage sweethearts?
Indian-origin Lara Reddy left London after her husband dumps her for a more accommodating uterus—at least, that’s what his desertion feels like. Bumping into him and his pregnant new missus doesn’t help matters any, and she thus jumps on a prestigious job offer. The kicker? The job is in Mauritius, the homeland of her parents, and a society she ran away from over a decade earlier.
But once there, Lara has no escape. Not from the gossip, the contempt, the harassing matchmaking...and certainly not from the man she hoped never to meet again. The boy she’d loved and lost—white Mauritian native, Eric Marivaux.
Back when they were teens, Eric left her, and Lara vowed she’d never let herself be hurt again. Today, they are both adults, and facing the same crossroads they’d stood at so many years earlier.
Lara now stands on the other side of Mauritian society. Will this be the impetus she needs to take a chance on Eric and love again? 
Buy Links:
Decadent Publishing http://www.decadentpublishing.com/product_info.php?products_id=817&osCsid=uk690a1muqacdt8v6csmtuo7d2 
Amazon (available at the discounted price of $2.99) http://www.amazon.com/Other-Side-Island-Girls-ebook/dp/B00E77XHG6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1375035073&sr=8-1&keywords=the+other+side+zee+monodee 
Trailer:
Link http://youtu.be/kaUG05Sdypg 
About the author :

Zee Monodee
Stories about love, life, relationships... in a melting-pot of culture
Zee is an author who grew up on a fence – on one side there was modernity and the global world, on the other there was culture and traditions. Putting up with the culture for half of her life, one day she decided she'd stand tall on her wall and dip toes every now and then into both sides of her non-conventional upbringing.
From this resolution spanned a world of adaptation and learning to live on said wall. The realization also came that many other young women of the world were on their own fence.
This particular position became her favorite when she decided to pursue her lifelong dream of writing – her heroines all sit 'on a fence', whether cultural or societal, in today's world or in times past, and face dilemmas about life and love.
Hailing from the multicultural island of Mauritius, Zee is a degree holder in Communications Science. She is a head-over-heels wife, in-over-her-head mum to a tween son, best-buddy-stepmum to a teenage lad, an incompetent domestic goddess, eternal dreamer, and an absolute, shameless bookholic. When she isn’t penning more stories and/or managing the Ubuntu line at Decadent Publishing, you can bet you’ll find her with her nose in her tablet, ‘drinking in’ a good book. 
Tidbits about this book & series (please choose 1 or 2, whichever you feel more relevant for your blog): 
- The Island Girls trilogy follows the 3 Hemant sisters – Lara, Neha, Diya – over the span of the 2000-2010 decade, chronicling the changing face of the Mauritian society over that crucial period. 
- Book 2, Light My World, is Diya’s hilarious quest to find Prince Charming in the sea of frogs that is Mauritius (well, what it is according to herperception!). Follow her on this desperate mission in September 2013. 
- Book 3, Winds of Change, follows Neha as she must come to terms with widowhood and the fact that her marriage has always been a sham. In waltzes a man with the ability to make the perfect, ‘saintly’ widow she is burn with passion like she never suspected existed. Will the saint turn into a sinner, or find her rightful place simply as a woman? Find out in November 2013.
 

In my search for authors I might be interested in reading and ultimately interviewing, I visit a wide variety of social media sites. As such, I’ve been encountering some authors who openly refer to readers as ‘idiots, dolts, and dopes who should shut up and keep their opinions to themselves.’Don’t get me wrong; the vast majority of authors are fantastic people. They write because they can’t stop. Every word, every story is a piece of these authors’ hearts and souls they gladly share with the world. But, being human, and an avid reader, I do notice the rotten apples spoiling on self-constructed podiums of deluded grandeur, shouting their disdain of the readers who have yet to comprehend the author’s magnificence.So, here’s my personal message to any author who truly believes that stroking their ego is far more important than satisfying readers with the best story a writer can produce:You’re an asshat.

The “Big Six” publishers are now officially the “Big Five.” http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/10/opinion/book-publishings-big-gamble.html?hp&_r=0 
Does it matter? Not in my opinion. At least, not by the way readers shop. 
Times have changed, which is exactly why the Big Five are changing.Once upon a time it was commonplace to find at the end of a shopping aisle a revolving metal tree filled with a specific publisher’s books. Often, paperbacks were lined in wooden bins by the publisher and genre. Those days are gone. In the brick and mortar stores, books are housed by genre/category for the buyers’ convenience. Who the publisher is has become mostly irrelevant to shoppers. We only have to examine book covers to confirm that belief. Publisher logos have been reduced to the size of footnotes, a postage stamp advertising the delivery method if you will. 
The method of shopping has changed dramatically because of the Internet. Book covers are digital thumbnails potential buyers browse past in their search for a good story. Even Harlequin, a once testament to visual branding, is redesigning their covers to try and adjust to the split second of attention they have from potential Internet buyers. Bookstores rarely, these days, have the space to isolate a publisher’s books and now mix them on the shelves with other publishers by genre, not the brand name. Alphabetical listings are by the authors’ names, not the publisher. 
Yes, there are and will always be some readers who connect with a specific brand such as Harlequin. But the bulk of readership, inundated by the steady supply of books hitting the digital bookshelves from unknown and untested publishers, not to mention the self-publishing gold rush, has relegated the publisher’s importance to a ‘second thought’ status. That said, there is an area of reader importance publishers still hold a fingernail grasp over – genres not yet considered mainstream. 
Readers looking for books such as same sex stories, erotica, or extreme mental/visual images such
as gore, still tend to migrate to publishers focused on providing high levels of editing and a ready stable of skilled authors in a specific genre. However, as the smaller indie publishers vie for a foothold, these indie publishers aren’t the least bit shy about expanding their interests to swaying genre readers to their own book lists. Few “romance” publishers now limit their inventory to strictly vanilla heterosexual tales. They want those erotica and same sex readers, those book buyers, to give their authors a try, too. 

Young Adult (YA) and MM (men with men) books are two of the hottest rising genres. Simply put, there’s money to be made. Wiley publishers are quickly adjusting their strategies to accommodate those readers and expanding their once rigid publication interests. Many MM publishers now have a YA division. The reverse is also true. And, there’s nothing wrong with that. Publishing is a business – a constantly shifting business still whirling in a funnel of confusion brought on by the Internet and its endless opportunities for entrepreneurs. To survive, publishers have to sell books, and that means finding readers willing to invest in their product. And, due to the waterfall of books gushing into the daily pipeline of availability, publishers have to spread their literary nets to gather in all the potential customers they can. The same holds true for authors. Few limit themselves to one publisher and aren’t afraid of self-publishing should a publisher quaver on a project. Authors understand they need to keep their own supply of books flowing to readers or risk becoming yesterday’s news. As I said, publishing is a business, and authors depend on the sales of their books to pay the bills. 
And there it is in a nutshell. The methods of selling books have changed. Authors have no choice but to compete by keeping their names and books in front of readers. The publishers who understand this have kicked their production lines into high gear in order to compete against indie publishers and the self-publishing industry. One person, one self-published author, can make a difference; a financial difference publishers must offer high paying contracts to in order to corral that author’s fans. 
There will, hopefully, always be those large, big-named, pie in the sky publishers authors dream about. However, readers just aren’t that worried about who published the book they love anymore. My generation, the one raised with bestselling books lined up below racks of camera film at the end of grocery store checkout lanes, is fading. New generations of readers are finding their own way to shop utilizing the palm-held technology they are being raised with. Where I thought my first AM portable radio was a public symbol of my growth into puberty, there are now some teens who don’t know what AM radios were. It is quite possible a generation that will never hold a print book in their hands beyond curiosity at how their ancestors used to read may be a mere decade or two away from being born. 
How can publishers adjust? Some already have. Kensington Books, a publisher I believe has yet to receive the industry respect it deserves, has opened an e-publishing division. Even Trident Media Group, a renowned literary agency representing authors, has opened an e-publishing division with hundreds of books available to consumers. 
Many authors, my daydreamer self included, will continue to hold a contract with a Big Five publisher to be the holy grail of writing. For those who achieve that perceived pinnacle of success, their author friends will congratulate them with toasts of digital champagne. But the reality is, while we authors continue to gravitate to publishers who can provide professional editing, marketing and help generate sales, readers will simply ask, “When’s your next book coming out?”. 
Welcome to the future. 
By the way…. HC Brown and I recently signed a contract with Steam EReads, a romance publisher located in Australia, to publish our co-written erotic romance trilogy DEAR K. We’re really excited about this partnering and hope readers will be too. Look for DEAR K this August.http://steamereads.com.au/