Ugly History

It's a joke I see pretty often, in various incarnations: Friends help you clean up after a party.  Real friends help you clean up after a murder. Best friends promise to clean up your browser history after you die.

And boy, am I going to need that.

So far today, I have researched:

• Scotch (the drink)
• Billy Joel
• Bösendorfer pianos
• Straightjackets

Which is a weird little list, but not all that terrible, I suppose. But then earlier this week, I was researching butt plugs, dildos, and cock cages.

I don't even have a boyfriend.

As might be assumed from the fact that about two weeks ago, I spent a half-hour or so trying to ascertain a reasonable, ball-park rate for a rent boy who makes housecalls. (Fact-checking that story also led me into some research on the gay porn industry and -- bizarrely -- custom-built refrigerators.)

Also in December: breeds of roses, recipes for red velvet cake, and military tour/leave policies.

I suppose it could be worse.

I could be editing murder mysteries.

Grammatical

As well as being friends with Lynn, I also happen to be her editor for most of her Torquere Press releases. The other day, I wrapped up my notes on her novel that's scheduled for release next year and sent her the marked-up file, along with the assorted paperwork that goes along with each release.

The next day, she caught me on Facebook and asked me a grammatical question. I answered, and she said, "I ought to take a class or something. I've forgotten all this stuff." (Mind you, Lynn majored in English, so it's not like she just didn't learn it.)

I chuckled and said, "I've been thinking of writing up some of the most common errors that I see and posting it. But the ones who most need it probably won't read it."

"I'd read it," she promised. I could feel her making big googly eyes at me on the other side of the screen. "Please?"

Well, all right. Since you said please.

Let's start with homophones and other similar-sounding words.

You know about them already. Stop relying on your spell-checker for combinations like: its/it's -- your/you're -- then/than -- effect/affect and their friends.

Do a search for both variants (yeah, I know, to/too/two has three, but I don't usually see this one screwed up outside of the occasional typo) and make sure you feel good about your choice. Look the rule up online if you have to.

I still have to look up the rules for lie/lay/laid/lain every. single. damn. time, myself, so it's not like I have any special knowledge, here.

***

Semicolons are not hard! There are two correct uses for a semicolon. Only two. Ready?

1) Joining two complete sentences that need to be linked. Note that they must be complete sentences. If you could not correctly replace the semicolon with a period, then you cannot use the semicolon. Example: I went inside; it was starting to rain.

2) The semicolon replaces a comma in lists if the list items have commas of their own. Example: Your dinner options are meatloaf, peas, and potatoes; chicken, broccoli, and rice; or soup and salad.

That's it. That's the only two uses for a semicolon in prose. For better (and funnier) examples and explanations, you can check out The Oatmeal's comic (http://theoatmeal.com/comics/semicolon) but that's the lot, right there. All the other uses I see ought to be a comma or a colon.

***

Dialog tags. Oh my sweet gods and little pink toasters, but it seems like almost nobody can use a dialog tag.

Tags have several rules, but they're not actually that hard.

The first -- and the one that gets broken constantly -- has to do with the choice of verb for the tag. I can't tell you how many times I've seen this:

"That makes me happy," he smiled.

Here's a rule of thumb for you: If the verb does not imply a vocalization of some sort when it stands alone (said, shouted, coughed, laughed) then you can't use it for a dialog tag. A smile does not make any noise, and therefore it cannot be used to deliver dialog. (Neither does a smirk or a grin.) The above example is more correctly rendered:

"That makes me happy." He smiled.

or

"That makes me happy," he said with a smile.

or

"That makes me happy," he said, smiling.

Don't even get me started on dialog tags that don't have anything to do with the dialog, e.g.: "I'll answer the door," he stood up. AAAAAAARGH. Either add a proper dialog tag (...he said, standing up) or make it two separate sentences.

The other rule has to do with punctuation. If you are not going to use a dialog tag, then the sentence ends with the end of the dialog. You should, inside the quotation marks, use whatever sentence-ending punctuation makes sense. Period, question mark, exclamation mark. And then the first word outside the quotation marks should be capitalized, because it's the beginning of the next sentence. "Are you coming?" He looked back, waiting for a response.

If you are going to use a dialog tag, then your sentence is not finished yet. Replace your period with a comma. (Note that question marks and exclamation marks, as they convey more information than simply "end of sentence", should be left alone.) The first word outside your quotation marks should be lowercase, however, (unless it's a name) because the sentence is continuing, no matter what punctuation you used to finish off the dialog. "Yes, of course!" she answered.

***

A participle is a verb that modifies a noun or noun phrase, which is a very stuffy definition and much easier exampled than explained: "I'll answer the door," he said, standing up. In this example, "standing" is the participle, modifying our speaker.

Unfortunately, I see a lot of participles being used as the next action, rather than a modification of the current one. For example: He stood up, walking to the door. In this case, the noun phrase being modified is understood to be the first whole first clause: "He stood up". And since you cannot walk to the door and stand up at the same time, this is incorrect.

An easier way to keep track of it is this: If you're going to use an "-ing" verb, try slipping a "while" at the front and seeing if it makes sense. For example: He stood up (while) walking to the door. This does not make much sense, and therefore is incorrect; the correct way to write this would be: He stood up, then walked to the door. Or possibly: He stood up and walked to the door. They have moderately different emphases; choose the one that best suits the situation at hand.

On the other hand: He walked around the room (while) staring at the ceiling. This does make sense, and so you can correctly say: He walked around the room, staring at the ceiling. (He should be careful not to bump into anything, though.)

***

Pronoun confusion! This is not a hard rule of grammar, but part of Torquere's style guide. As such, you have somewhat more leeway here -- but I've found it makes for much smoother reading (even if not necessarily writing). The rule here is that each pronoun set should only have one antecedent per paragraph.

Wait, "antecedent" is one of those fancypants grammar words, so let's back that up a smidge for those of you who had better things to do with your brains than storing 8th grade grammar lessons:

An antecedent is the thing that a pronoun refers to. If I have a scene with Joe and Mary, then most likely all the (he/him/his)s in the scene refer to Joe, and all the (she/her)s belong to Mary, and so Joe is the antecedent of "he" and Mary is the antecedent for "she".

But Torquere, being a publisher for mostly m/m romances (or sometimes f/f or m/m/f, but in all cases at least two people of the same gender), runs more often than most into this sticky situation where you could easily have two antecedents for the same gender pronouns. For example: Jerry shivered as he took off his shirt. Who do those pronouns belong to? I can see several different interpretations here: Jerry is taking off his own shirt; Jerry is taking off someone else's shirt; someone else is taking off Jerry's shirt; or someone else is taking off his own shirt. Without further context, there's no way to tell which interpretation is correct.

So the rule Torquere has is that in each paragraph, all the pronouns of a particular gender must have the same antecedent (and that antecedent must be made clear by the context).

I will say that this is a very difficult rule to abide by strictly, and since it's a house rule, I don't follow it 100% -- I'll skim past the occasional slip as long as all the antecedents are crystal clear. (Other editors are extremely picky about this rule, though. Your mileage, as they say, may vary.) But I've found it's an excellent rule to keep in mind for the sake of clarity, anyway. You may know perfectly well what you're trying to say -- but are you completely certain that your reader will?

***

There. Those are the grammatical mistakes that I trip over most often. I hope that's at least vaguely helpful! Any other grammar questions you've stumbled over and could use some help with? Please ask!

Spicy Brains

I missed last week, too, I know. Here's the thing: September sucks.

I mean, it's great that it's starting to cool down again, and fall is pretty much my favorite time of year, but here's the thing... I have a Day Job. And at the Day Job, we mostly do government contract work. And mostly (currently, exclusively) for the US government.

The US government has a fiscal calendar that runs from October 1 through September 30 of the following year. I have no idea why, really, but it does. What that means is that the majority of our contracts end around the end of September, which means we (at the Day Job) have to wrap up the work (which is sometimes a bit of a scramble) and package it up and deliver it (which is always a scramble). And even the customers with contracts that aren't ending generally want a lot of reports and data packages around that time so they can include it in their end-of-year reports.

So pretty much all of September -- especially the last half of it -- are always slammed for me at the Day Job. Which has the effect of eating into everything else I do in a domino effect of exhaustion.

But! Yesterday I sent out two huge packages, and once it was done, the rest of the afternoon was fairly calm. And we're in hurry-up-and-wait mode on a couple more packages, so the next day or two look to be fairly quiet for me (not so much for others) and I thought: tonight, I will Be Productive!

My slush pile had gotten huge. I had -- no kidding -- more than 20 submissions for Torquere's Christmas short story line, so I waded into that and Got It Done. (If you are reading this and your story was rejected, let me say this: There were more than twenty stories, and there are only three release dates in December. There's no way I can handle more than nine or so of them in a month, and I agonized really hard over the choices. There's a good chance that if your story went through a couple of rounds of beta-reading and revision that it would be a solid contender for next year's Christmas collection.)

And then I did some crocheting, which doesn't sound particularly productive, but the piece I'm working on now has a hard deadline (it's a gift for a child's birthday that's in a couple of weeks), and then there's another piece in the queue that I've been commissioned to do, so that's going to be moderately urgent, as well.

And then... O Best Beloved... Then... I wrote.

See, earlier in the day, E. M. Lynley had put out a call for submissions that tickled a thought in my brain. It's a twisted fairy tale call, and I had this story idea a while back for re-imagining "The Gingerbread Man," but it had never quite gelled. I mentioned this on Facebook, and several friends concurred that I needed to write this. And then a bit later, while I was crocheting and turning the thought over in my head, I figured out what my opening hook was.

So I turned off the overhead lights and put the lamp on its dimmest setting. I lit a gingerbread-scented candle. I used Freedom to turn off my internet access for an hour, and Isolator to block out everything but my word processor. And I wrote for one hour. At the end of which I had just over 800 words. Wow. Considering how little writing I've been doing for the last few weeks, I'm very impressed with myself, honestly.

And now, as your reward for having waded through all that, a snippet from last night's writing!

***

Jonas remembered when he was fourteen, Dad had taken him aside, fidgety and uncomfortable, and Jonas had realized he was about to get The Talk. A couple of his friends had gotten The Talk from their dads already, and Jonas figured he already knew pretty much everything he needed to know from them -- plus there had been those films in Health Class that had managed to be simultaneously vague and gross -- but it was one of those things that everyone had to endure, like homework, or letting your aunts pinch your cheeks. So Jonah sat on his hands and studiously avoided meeting his father's eyes, waiting.

Only Dad hadn't really given him The Talk, not the way Jonas' friends' dads had given it. Dad had coughed a few times, cleared his throat and then coughed again, and finally said, "Look, son... There are things a young man just needs to learn for himself, and anything I try to tell you isn't going to do any good. So I'll just say this: a man acts responsibly, and with honor. You know what I'm trying to say, son?"

"Sure, Dad."

"Good. Then we're done-- Oh, one other thing. If you bring a girl back here to the house-- Well, I expect it's better than going out to the park and getting caught, but if you do, it's probably best if your mother doesn't know anything about it. Eh?"

By this point, Jonas' face had been aching with the force of his blush. He nodded quickly. "Yeah, sure, Dad."

(It wasn't until later that he had realized that he couldn't bring anyone to the house for anything more illicit than playing video games anyway, because he shared a room with John, and there was no threat or bribe on Earth that would be big enough to put a lock on the eight-year-old's mouth if he caught Jonas kissing a girl.)

Following Directions

All over the web, you can find advice for writers who are looking for their first publication. Some of it is advice about the writing itself, and some of it is advice on how to find a publisher that's a good match with your work, and some of it is advice on how to actually perform that submission so that your work will stand out and be noticed in the slush pile along with all the... well... slush.

In that last category of advice (and often in the other categories as well) you will see this invaluable bit of advice: Check and follow the submission guidelines. ALL OF THEM.

Torquere's submission guidelines are at http://www.torquerepress.com/submissions.html. JMS's guidelines are at http://www.jms-books.com/index.php?main_page=page_2. Nearly every publisher -- even the big ones -- have submission guidelines linked to their front pages (even if those guidelines are "we are not accepting submissions at this time" -- don't ignore this, or you may have made a name for yourself as someone who doesn't know how to follow directions by the time they are accepting submissions again).

Now... I've never thrown out a slush manuscript for failing to meet the formatting guidelines, or for using British English instead of American. (I even accepted a story once that was a downright formatting nightmare, because the writing was strong and the story was sweet and hot.) When I reject a story from the slush pile, it's generally because the writing is still too rough for publication, or because Torquere (I don't read slush for JMS) isn't the right audience for the story (straight-up nonromantic erotica, for example, or stories with tragic, non-HFN endings).

But some of those guidelines have more to them than simply making things easier on us to edit.

Recently, an author sent us a whole collection of short stories. The writing was good -- really good -- and so we took them. The plan was to publish each story separately, and if they did reasonably well, to bind them together into a collection. So I started in on the pile. I edited the first story, went through the edits with the author, and then sent the file on to my proofreader...

...who sent it back and said, "Were you aware this is fan-fiction?"

Well, no, I hadn't been aware of that. The show it was based on isn't one I've ever seen. Ditto for the editor who'd first picked the collection out of the slush pile.

Right there in Torquere's guidelines, it says:

...We will also reject stories that are clearly a copyright infringement, including any that have been converted from fan fiction or that are based on TV shows, movies, or literary characters.

JMS has a similar notation. In fact, pretty much every publisher says this. It's one reason Fifty Shades of Grey got such a bad rap, because it was pretty well an open secret that it had started out as a Twilight fan-fic. It had been sufficiently altered so that its origins were no longer obvious, which is how it managed to skate through to publication.

I sent the information and the tags and tells the proofreader had marked on to Torquere's management, who spoke to the author about it. The author admitted that every story in the collection was, in fact, a fan-fic. Now, I can't swear as to the wording of that author's contract, but Torquere uses mostly boilerplate contracts, and my latest contract with them reads, in part:

The Author certifies that this is his/her original work, and that he/she maintains the rights to this material. The Author certifies that this work is not based upon another entity’s copyrighted work.

Standard boilerplate stuff, mind you. Which means that the author was in breach of contract. Sigh. So now there are ten stories that we thought we were going to publish which are now off the schedule.

I don't have anything against fan-fic. Some of it is horrible, of course, but some of it is really good. This story was really good, and I'm both sad and angry that it turned out to have been fan-fic, because it would have made a great addition to Torquere's offerings.

But the author didn't read the submission guidelines carefully enough. Or did and thought that maybe we wouldn't notice. Or that this rule didn't apply to them. Or whatever.

Well, whatever, indeed: Read the damn directions. Especially the stuff that looks like it might have legal implications, folks. Write all the fan fiction you want; there are hundreds, if not thousands, of forums out there in which you can share your writing with thousands, if not millions, of appreciative fans. Go for it. But if you want to get paid for your writing, if you want to be a professional writer? You have to follow the professional rules.

Appearance: Guest Blog!

Three days in a row that I have something to post?! Don't get used to it. ;-)

As it happens, I'm a guest blogger today on V. L. Locey's blog, Thoughts From a Yodeling Goatherder. V. L. wrote "Two Guys Walk Into An Apocalypse...", one of the stories in the He Loves Me For My Brainsss anthology, and has been featuring guest bloggers every Thursday this month to celebrate the release.

So I'm there today, talking about something even scarier than zombies:

I'm not going to talk about zombies, actually. If I could write coherently about zombies -- if I could be as eerie and elegant as Lynn was in last week's guest post, or as funny as V.L. is, in her story in He Loves Me For My Brainsss -- I'd have written a story about zombies, instead of deciding to edit an anthology about them. (I've written an erotica/horror story, but it's about succubi, not zombies. And "Dead On Her Feet" sounds like it should be a zombie story, but it's really just about a very tired soldier.)

I'm going to talk about blurbs and titles.

Check it out at:
http://thoughtsfromayodelinggoatherder.blogspot.com/2013/01/undead-thursdays-guest-blogger.html

Zombie New Year!

Happy New Year, everyone! I hope you all had amazing, fantastic holidays, filled with love and presents and beautiful things and fun, and I hope you continue to have all those things throughout the new year. I'm going to put up a post eventually about my resolutions, but today, I have to celebrate!

Today is release day for He Loves Me for My Brainsss, my zombie anthology! It's mine, in that I edited it. I actually did not write any of these stories, though I had a story notion ready to go in case I needed filler. But I didn't need filler, and that's good, because my story would have really had no place at all along with these, either in content or quality.

I know, one doesn't generally think of zombies and erotica together, but these stories make it work, I promise. And there's something for everyone! A little dark and scary? Done. Over-the-top camp and silly? Got it. Makes you think about the nature of human existence? Right here. I've got six stories here (well, five stories and one novella) and each one of them elicited a deep, visceral reaction from me when I read them, and I hope you'll give them a try, too. Here's the individual blurb rundown:

W.O.L. by Lynn Townsend: In a distant, post-apocalyptic future, walled populations are protected from the lazar hordes by the roaming Knights of the Red Cross. But when Knight Korin meets Doctor Avesy, he is forced to reconsider the sacrifices that every Knight must make and to wonder if the cure might not be worse than the disease.

The Domesticated Zombie by Rob Rosen: The Great Zombie War is finally over, leaving hordes of newly domesticated zombies. One such domestic, Jake, starts to show signs that he's not entirely dead, and Max, his owner, gets more than he bargained for in the process.

Fox Spirit by Alyx Shaw: Karl loves Kenny, even though he's never really understood Kenny's fondness for, and fascination with, foxes. But one stormy night, the oldest of their foxes dies. Kenny asks Karl to bury the old fox, but it's late and it's raining, and Karl decides to wait until morning...

Delicious Caleb by Damian Serbu: Could transforming into a zombie actually set you free? Living in the closet at a conservative college meant hiding his lust for men until his zombie state forced him to face reality and accept assistance and maybe more from his one-time (and very adorable) student, Caleb.

Violet by K.C. Morgan: Josh's world crumbled when he came out to his parents with disastrous results. Little did Josh know that the rest of the world was about to end, as well.

Two Guys Walk into an Apocalypse... by V.L. Locey: Paul and Gordon face off against zombies with only a cat named after a famous city, an old man with a fondness for Tennyson, and their love and killer wit as weapons.

These are fantastic stories, and I couldn't be more proud of this book if I'd written every word myself. It's available right now as an ebook (it's up at Torquere's store, but not at the distributor sites yet -- but I expect it to be up by the end of the day in all the usual places), and in a couple of weeks, it will be available from Amazon in print format!

Notes

I'm back! I took last week off for Thanksgiving, and quite a good holiday it was for me, despite some peculiar car trouble and then my house's heater giving up the ghost.

Nothing particularly exciting is happening today, so I thought I'd just drop a few little notes for you.

To start with: Next week will be the release of Ink from Torquere Press, including my story, "The Sinner's Star".

If I could write a blurb for "Sinner's Star", it would go something like this:

Five years ago, Dope's best friend, Rat, died as they were fleeing the scene of a crime they'd helped commit -- or so he thought. But now Rat's turned up on Dope's doorstep with a new tattoo, a .45, and a grudge... against Dope!

Tune in next week for the official release and some excerpts from the story!

***

Next up: If you recall, the amazing Kristina Wright had set up a blog for Duty and Desire; my interview is live now, so check it out: http://dutyanddesire.wordpress.com/2012/11/16/interview-elizabeth-brooks/

***

And finally: You guys, Brainsss is starting to pull together, and I couldn't be more excited if I'd written all these stories myself! They're so good. I seriously can't wait!

Cool Stuff

Today, apparently, was the day of extremely cool stuff happening to me as a writer and editor.

The first thing that happened was that I logged into Facebook and saw a post from the editor of the forthcoming Duty and Desire, which includes my short story, "Dead on Her Feet" (not to mention Lynn's "Snake Dance"), noting that freaking Publishers Weekly had a review of the anthology -- which is awesome -- and that they called it "highly recommended" -- which is beyond awesome. It might only have been awesomer (shut up, spellcheck, I'm a writer; I'm allowed to make up words) if one of the mentioned stories had been mine, but I'll be honest: my story in this anthology serves as more of an aperitif or a sorbet to cleanse the palate between meatier selections than as a featured course in its own right. Don't get me wrong, "Dead on Her Feet" is a very sweet little story and I quite like both the writing and the characters, but it doesn't contain a whole lot of punch.

Then I did some more work on editing the stories for the zombie anthology I'm editing, He Loves Me For My Brainsss. Which only served to remind me how frakking amazing and talented the authors are in this book. Seriously, I'm editing my little heart out, but mostly what I'm telling my authors is that they need to go to family therapy with commas and semicolons, which is honestly a ridiculously minimal problem to be having at the initial editing round. These stories are fun or funny or touching, the characters bicker and snipe and love each other deeply (sometimes all at the same time), the plots are witty and engaging and even surprising. And the authors themselves are remarkably responsive; I don't think I've yet written one of them and not at least gotten an acknowledging email back within a couple of hours. Tops. It's possible that this is going to spoil me for all future anthologies.

And finally, while I was working on that, I got an email inviting me to come to MarsCon in January. When the email notification popped up in the corner of my screen, I nearly ignored it. I saw "MarsCon" in the title and figured I'd gotten on the email list -- I've been going to this con for several years in a row -- and I assumed this was an email to remind me to register. But that little "new mail" icon burns at my soul and I can't leave it alone for long, so I went to open it, just to clear the notification icon... and it wasn't a mass mailing. It was an email inviting me to come to MarsCon as a guest, to participate in some of the late-night, adults-only panels. Last year, I attended a few late-night discussion panels as part of the audience, and I had a blast. The late hour (and age-restricted attendance) lent itself to some spicy, intimate, downright fun discussions. And this year, they want me to sit on the other side of the table? Holy eff, yes. I waited long enough to be sure that my kids would be safely stashed somewhere (the Almost-Ex agreed to swap custody weekends with me) before I sent back my barely-suppressed squee of agreement and made my hotel reservations.

(Funny but true: as the crow flies, it's less than a mile from my house to the convention hotel. But because of the wonky way the streets are laid out here, it's more like a five-mile drive. It's still very close by, and it seems ridiculous to get a hotel room when it's that close... but the last couple of years have taught me that if I have to get in the car to go somewhere I can change clothes or drop off my purchases, then it's not close enough. Especially if I'm going to be helping to moderate the late-night panels, I want to be able to just stagger back to my room and collapse rather than have to go out into the cold and drive home afterward.)

Add to that my continuing excitement over Seductress' release last week, and my anticipation for the release of Weird Science in two days (stay tuned for the usual Wednesday post, which will feature buy links and some celebratory excerpts!), and today was just a very, extremely fantastic day to be a writer/editor.

Stepping Out

I don't know how much of this is meant to be kept under wraps, so I'm erring on the side of caution. I'm sorry if this ends up being confusing or vague; I'll fill in the blanks when I'm sure I can.

I got an email yesterday from one of the publishers that I'm working with, offering me what is, in essence, a pretty significant promotion as an editor. It would mean more responsibility and more work -- lots more work.

Just reading the offer dropped me onto that trembling line between euphoria and terror. It's a feeling I've had before, a sign that something wonderful is within my grasp, if only I can be brave enough to reach for it, and strong enough to hold it. I feel like a young bird, balanced on the edge of the nest, dreaming of flight but uncertain of my wings.

But as I was reminded, in talking to my friends, sometimes you can't let the cost of failure rule you. Sometimes, you have to just let go, and trust in yourself.
I accepted the offer. I stepped over the edge.

Just now, in the time before the full weight of the responsibility is handed over, I feel a little like I'm falling. But I refuse to look down, because I am trusting my wings to unfurl before I land.