Submitting and writing thoughts

Today, the last of my Uugly Remillard babies, poor Jack, finished his surgery and went out to my editor. The Sweet Science of Bruising should be out from Ardent Press next year.

I have a book my Beta didn't hate, didn't feel the need to shower after and enjoyed.
I also misspelled the hero's name 8 times. (I <3 Spellcheck)

The hero is no longer a mobile vibrator and a backdrop for the heroine. She's still rather high-handed, being a notional woman quite used to getting her own way. But she's like that with everyone, because genius.

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Done writing women for a while, I think.
I do all right with them as side characters, but all the strong ones ever come out as is ice-bitches.

DJ Admire is a very flawed character, hostile, alcoholic and generally abrasive. She's also determined, dedicated (if only to the next bottle) and unafraid. This is a woman who walks into a nightmare--her recurring nightmare--with her eyes open and her Desert Eagle ready, who wagers all her life-span to get the information she needs. She's horrible to the one person in the whole world who loves her, mostly in an effort to make him stop, and keep him alive.

Lillian Shaw is high-handed and imperious. She has money and brains and an insatiable curiosity and does not tolerate being told what to do. She does exactly as she pleases and ignores her reputation in the best Scarlett O'Hara fashion, without the moping and pining, but with some machinating.

Sarah Brown is a loathsome bitch. She has money, she wants a title. And she wants it from her old fiance, Edward Kilsby, Lord Withycombe, who dumped her after the War. She has decided to marry Edward, come hell or high water, whether he likes it or not. Financial abuse, blackmail and outright murder are not beneath her.

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Had an interesting experience. Was told "I like contemporaries, because I want to fantasize about it happening to me." I responded with "That's exactly why I write space opera. I wanna be a space cowboy and have hot sex in the zero-gee harness. Nobody wants to be a part-time merchandiser."

I thought it through a bit more. I write fantasy. All of it is fantasy. The werewolves and elves, space opera and dystopia, the kink and the romance alike. They're all fiction and I write it by the rules of fiction because they don't happen in real life.

I know the tone and the tropes and the conventions: Werewolves change on the full moon, subs control the scene, vampires are best killed by beheading, people really do believe in their religion, push a button and it goes ftl, and people do love their partners. It's all just tropes to me.

I ultimately believe in happily ever after as much as I believe in flower fairies. I believe in zombies more than I believe in love, because zombies are a real thing (the drugged kind). I define family as the people you have an obligation to.