Excerpt day

Today is Excerpt day at the Den of Debauchery's SubAnnex.
http://valarltd.livejournal.com/2008/08/17/

Go, vote in the poll, read and leave feedback, enjoy the piratey goodness...
http://valarltd.livejournal.com/846423.html


From Kestrel on the Horizon:

Of his first sea battle, Adlai would later remember little save noise, confusion and smoke. Collins had issued him a pair of pistols, powder and shot, along with a quick kiss and orders to hold his post before the door of the Captain’s cabin. Each time the cannon roared, he wanted to cover his ears and scream. He did not. He was a man, not a child to be terrified of noise.

He’d done his best, standing as chaos raged about him. He watched Tobias run a man through with a cutlass and mild-tempered Deering swearing like a screeching parrot and reloading his musket as fast as he could fire it. Stephan strode through the din and press, a giant black demon who found it easiest simply to seize one enemy head in each hand and smash them together like the rocks that martyred his namesake. Even gentle Will, the cook’s assistant who was no more than fourteen, wielded a vicious-looking cleaver in defense of the galley.

A large man gave a wicked sneer and headed for Adlai, his cutlass raised. With shaking hands, Adlai raised the flintlock and fired. The man fell back, his sneer obliterated. Adlai reloaded the pistol, his hands still shaking badly enough to drop two balls and half his powder.

“You’ll need those,” Deering said, folding the lost shots into his hand while Adlai could do no more than stand and stare at the dead man at his feet. “We’re winning.” Deering vanished back into the fray.

Nikolai is Back!

Click the Cover. It will take you straight to the order page.



For the newcomers, and those who haven't been listening to me babble about this for ages:

James Ligatos is a man with an unusual hobby. He turns promising young criminals into world leaders. His latest project is Nicholas Boyd, formerly Nikolai of the Revenant street gang. But the little killer-turned-file-clerk is much more than Ligatos and his staff bargained for. As Kentucky attempts to secede from the Confederated States of America and rejoin the United States, Nick's skills and the group's training are put to the ultimate test, and the price of failure is death.

Reviews linked here from Rainbow Reviews, Literary Nymphs, Dark Diva Reviews, Obsidian Bookshelf and Elisa Rolle.

It's up for the Darrell Award here in Memphis.

A very productive night

Naomi and I rock.
We rock like a Cracker Barrel Porch full of cranky old men.

We got three submissions off tonight.
One for Ellora's Cavemen Anthologies and two novels.

I feel...very odd. As if I've just run off a cliff and not quite noticed it's no longer under my running feet.

Finally here!

$3
Frosted Hearts is available from Phaze!
Blurb: In this follow-up to Collared Hearts, artist Anthony and gallery owner Josh endure the trials of the Christmas holiday - from family squabbles to snowy accidents - with their passionate, kinky play to make the holidays a bit brighter.

Will Scarlet's Song

20,322 / 50,000 (40.6%)

The people craned and stretched, for in the middle of the guard was a cart. Tied to the cart, with a noose already around his neck, rode Will Scarlet wearing only a shirt and a crown of oak leaves, the mark of a traitor to the crown.

He looked at the crowd, searching each face. Although some pitied him and some looked at him sorrowfully, he didn't see the faces he sought. His heart sank like a plummet of lead, but he refused to show this.

Instead, he sang. If he was to die this day, he would teach all of Nottingham a new song. They would sing it long after they had forgotten him and it would set the Sheriff's teeth on edge each time heard it. Head held high, he sent his voice ringing over the crowd.
“The sheriff of fair Nottingham
doth tax his good folk full sore
But Robin Hood has tweaked his nose
Fie on Phillip the Fumbler!

He sets the men about the gate.
He sets them at his door.
Still he cannot catch the rogue,
Fie on Phillip the Fumbler!

He spends too much time in the stable there
Along beside the hostler
Lucky for him, the mare does not talk
Fie on Phillip the Fumbler!

He taxes folk upon their bread
He taxes them their beer
But Robin Hood will steal it back
Fie on Phillip the Fumbler!”

By the second verse, the more daring rascals were singing along with the chorus. When he finished the first time, he began again. Half the young men, already merry on beer, took it up.

Bess and Little John

10,598 / 50,000 (21.2%)

FOLLOWING is PG-13


“You're so large anyone would know you on sight. John Little, called Little John, second in command of the outlaws,” Bess turned the name over in her mouth for a moment. They strolled by mossy bank, all overhung with willows.

Little John leaned down and whispered, “Not little at all. Not anywhere.”

Bess gasped, her eyes large and her mouth a round O of shock. She smacked his arm, barely a tap. “You're naughty!”

John registered no pain, but gave her wide and merrily wicked grin. “Are you naughty, Bess?” He stopped them under a willow with wythes that grew so think none could see them.

Seeing they were curtained in, as certainly as if they had been hidden in the little anteroom of the palace with the velvet drapes, Bess beckoned Little John down and whispered. “Wicked as the day is long and more versed in the carnal arts than you can imagine. I went on Crusade after all.”

Little John scratched his great shaggy head. “What was a lady doing on a crusade?”

Bess laughed and settled herself on a tussock of grass. “Have you not heard how Queen Eleanor took a whole hoard of us? She dressed her maids as Amazons and rode topless half-way to Damascus.”

John sank down beside her, his eyes huge at the thought of the Queen and her maids riding bare-breasted across the continent.

“And how naughty are you, Johnny?” Bess teased.

He caught her round the waist again and kissed her. She opened beneath him, letting him go deep into her mouth. He crushed her closer and she only kissed him the harder, her own passions ablaze.

Bess clung to him, mindful of the job she'd done in her braes earlier that no erection would betray her to Little John until she was ready. When he let go of her mouth to look into her face, she breathed, “Yes, oh John, yes.”

He gave a lopsided grin behind his beard. “Oh, you are a naughty girl.”

Bess laughed. “Oh yes, I am. This is a fine and private place. I'll show you all my wickedness if you desire.”

JulNoWriMo

5,802 / 50,000 (11.6%)

A sample:
Marion brushed her hair, thinking on the oddities of the day. Bess had already retired. She heard a bird call from the balcony, but surely no chickadee was abroad at this late hour.

She set the hairbrush aside and hurried out. A cloaked figure hovered at the edge of the balcony. She withdrew in fright. The handsome young butcher pulled back his hood and clung to the rail, entangled in the ivy that grew on the tower.

“Mad and merry butcher, you take an unwarranted chance with your neck.” She looked down, knowing it was many feet to the ground.

He smiled at her, his teeth white within his yellow beard. “A worthy risk to finally see my lady this close.” He took one hand of hers and kissed it.

Marion gasped. “Caution! Both hands on the rail or the vine. I would not see you fall.” She stepped closer and did not try taking his hand from hers. “'Twould be a shame to lose you before I know your name.”

He swung up, throwing his long legs in their green hose over the rail, and landing on his feet before her. He favored her with a proper bow. His voice was sweet as the birds in the morning as he said, “Robin, my lady. I am Robin.”

She inclined her head in acknowledgment. “My lord Locksley,” she said, using his proper title. She offered her hand again. “Lady Marion FitzRoy.”

He took it and kissed it again, pausing to breathe over her wrist. “So soft. I knew you would be.”

“My lord Nottingham does not allow me out. Or I'd have been down for a kiss from a good tight butcher.”

“I didn't coax you well enough to sneak out then. I tried my best.” Robin looked entirely crestfallen.

Marion took his other hand with her free one. “Please, my lord, understand, I am locked in. Bess is allowed out, but my uncle, the king, says naught should happen to me. The war goes poorly. Alas, Bess is a poor messenger.”

Robin laughed. “Shall I remedy that?” He drew her closer and wrapped his arms around her waist.
She gave him a saucy look and a wicked smile. “Have you still three pennyworths of meat about you? For it was fine beef.”

Robin sighed. “Only a bit of kidney, too squashed to sell. I was going to pass it to a beggar as I left town.”
“Then allow me to pay you for it.” She slid her arms around his neck. “And in full.”

News and a contest

Ellora's Cave just announced their Summer print sched.

"Raising the Dead" is going to be part of Trick or Treats 3.
A real book in a real bookstore! *bounce!*



AND!

If you want to win a copy of "Five Time Loser"
send in a made-up CB handle for yourself
or just go to http://www.angelsparrow.com/contest.html

This is a sexy little paranormal. Elisa Rolle reviewed it here

I'm doing JulNoWriMo, and nicely

3,800 / 50,000 (7.6%)

Excerpt:

Robin hurried out of the gates of Nottingham town, his purchases slung on his back. Will Scarlet tucked the lump of bread and cheese he was nibbling back into his wallet and fell into step with his long-legged leader, who whistled a snatch of a bawdy tune he'd heard that day.

"You show your face too boldly in the town,” Will chided. “You'll not whistle half so jauntily when the hangman cuts your air with his hempen necklace.”

Robin slung an arm over Will's shoulders. “The morn is fair, the air is sweet, and yet you are fretting again?”

Will sighed. “How can I not? Your capers leave with without a moment's peace. Has not the Sheriff who lives in the castle you passed not a stone's throw from sworn to hang all seven score of us and you higher than the rest?”

"He doesn't scare me,” declared bold Robin.

"He scares me enough for both of us,” Will replied. He took a long drink from the skin of good sack he carried. He offered the wine to Robin who had a drink and passed it back.

"I've proven myself more clever, time and again,” Robin boasted and laughed, sending it ringing among the trees.

Will shook his head, a grim look on his face. “Hard to laugh hanging, my merry master.”

Robin grinned and caught him around the waist. “Will, Will, my dour conscience, I don't see a noose around my neck yet.”

"Not yet, but you take too many chances.”

"If we are not bold, how will we be taken seriously?” Robin demanded.

"Yet if we step too boldly, we will saunter into their hands. And you should not walk through the town with your naked face”

Robin embraced Will, holding him tightly. “Never stop being my conscience, dearest Will. I need you.”

Will smiled up at him. “Come, let's see what awaits us back in the wood. What did you learn today, bold Robin?”

"I think I did see that lovely maid.”

Will feigned shock, pressing a hand to his chest and staggering backward a step. “A maid? Our fair Robin's eye has been caught by a maid? Will wonders never cease!”

Robin cuffed him lightly about the head, grinning. “She's lovely, Will. But under our dear sheriff's protection.”

"Oh indeed?” Will raised his eyebrows. “Tell me of this maid you saw? For I thought that sort was much more my hunting preserve than yours.”

"I have hunted your course before, Will Scarlet, and I may hunt it yet again. Oh her lips...” He trailed away thoughtfully. “Her lips are lovely. As lovely as yours, my dear Will, although you keep them from me.” Robin ran one finger over Will's very full mouth, the one that sang so sweetly he charmed merchants out of their best wares and maidens out of their virtue.

Will rolled his eyes. “Robin, you know I love you and you know as well we lie together poorly.”

Robin took his hand from the soft lips. “Of course. I know. Still...” He touched Will's mouth again and stroked his face. “I still want. I don't expect anything of you.”

Will stretched up and pecked Robin on the cheek. “As if you have not seventy score others to slake yourself upon.”

Robin pulled him close. “But my Will is always my most trusted.”

“Aye, your own sweet Will. Which you have whether we lie together or not!” Will laughed at his own joke, and Robin joined in, for as chief of the outlaws in Sherwood, his will was the law of the forest.

Characters of Color

I am white. Let's be very up front about that. I'm not "Anglo," and I resent being called that. I'm Celtic, with the extreme pallor that suggests. I'm somewhere around the shade of tapioca pudding. I grew up in a Sundown Town and had minimal exposure to anyone darker than my Pakistani doctor. I went to a university with a 2% black, 40% Asian student body. So, I'm probably the worst person in the world to write this article.

But, I write characters of color, anyway. While I hesitate to call it "liberal guilt," I do worry about how I write them. People--especially authors and fans--of color say it is insulting that I worry more about how to make a Barbados sugar plantation owner accurately black than I do over how to make three-armed green aliens convincing.

The difference is that with the latter, I can use the time-honored method of "Making shit up." As long as it sounds good and holds up to being poked a little (where does that third arm go and why is it there from an evolutionary standpoint?), the readers will suspend disbelief.

With the former, I have the base layer: male plantation owner, and an extra layer atop it: half-black in a white society, half-white among the black society. I have critical readers who know more than I do examining it as closely as a piece of cross-stitch under the eye of a county fair judge, looking for knots and strings and such.


The very fact that I can choose not to write about PoCs is privilege. I know this. In many cases, I exercise this. There are many stories where the cast is limited to the two men, and there is no reason to make them CoCs. Then again, there is no reason not to, except for that extra layer of work to "get it right."

Too, I am constantly surprised by the way people define CoCs.
Someone posted an icon of Alexander Siddig, Dr. Bashir of DS9. It took me aback. I never considered him anything but white. Ditto a rather long discussion over whether a deliberately racist society would allow someone who looks like Oded Fehr to move through it freely. Middle-Eastern and Jewish never registered as CoC. Maybe it's a result of having half-Lebanese stepsisters and Pakistani doctors. They look white, except for the deeper tan. Given how deeply some of my white classmates tanned, even that was no obstacle.

To me "of color" means black. It's hard enough to write "People of Color" because my mind keeps making it "colored people," which is racist. Even PoC has its problems because I keep reading it as "pox" which implies a pox on society. But these are the preferred terms of the community and my discomfort is on par with straights who hate using the word "gay."

But onward.

Every time I write a story with a cast of more than two, I wonder if I'm being racist by not including a CoC. (sometimes I wonder about stories with two)

Every time I add a CoC, I wonder if I'm succumbing to tokenism.
I wondered about adding CoCs to my current project and realized there would be four places for them--stevedores, housekeeping, porters, transported criminals in steerage--none of which will set well with modern audiences. Period racism doesn't play.

I wonder if I'm being lazy and working from stereotypes, which are mental shorthand. Is saying "Yes, he is well-hung, and so is every other male of every shade in this particular outfit, by design. Eight inches is a minimum hiring requirement." acceptable? Or is it perpetuating sexual myths?
A quarter of the cabal that rules the world is Jewish (a married couple). Is this straight out of The Protocols and paranoia? (the other six are Catholic, Hindu, Shinto, animist, Russian Orthodox and atheist)

***

Much of my problem with all of this is that for some years I was actively racist. I did not consume media with people of color in it. I would turn the radio channel. My fanfiction and fanvids deliberately excluded CoCs. I was attempting to avoid the reality of my life in the south as much as possible. I worked in largely black jobs, lived in a mostly-black neighborhood and tried to escape by making my off-hours as white as possible.

I had an awakening a few years back and began working to behave properly and get my ideas in line with my beliefs. I do worry though, that old thought patterns wander back in, that old behavior patterns still dominate.

I'm lousy at detecting privilege, stereotypes, etc. I lived in that for so long, that I know a lot of it creeps in.

This is not a call to assuage my conscience.
This is not an effort to justify myself.

I'm just trying to get my ducks in a row and do better, one day at a time. I don't always succeed.
Sometimes I get it right. Sometimes I fall on my face.
The important thing is to keep working.