Category Archives: Books

by | May 18, 2011 · 1:00 am

Balancing Act

by Crymsyn Hart

The summer is gearing up with conventions that I’ll be heading out to so I can hang out with some other cool authors and meet some great new people. I’ll be headng to Fandom Fest in Kentucky in July and then Authors After Dark in August. There I’ll be chilling with some more paranormal romance authors. I can just imagine that we will be talking about. Getting up together with more than three hundred women will be an interesting experience and who knows if there will be a cat fight or two.

Before all of that, I’ve found that I’ve been confronted with a balancing act of late. Writing for myself and writing for the market place. Not speaking for anyone else, but over the past couple of years I’ve noticed the market place has changed. Vampires used to be huge (not that they aren’t anymore), but zombies seem to be the in thing this year. At first it was okay to write just one couple in a book and the reading population was happy.

Now it appears that menage a trois and multiple partners are the new rage. Trying to follow the market, I’ve dabbled in this genre of the erotic romance, but find it difficult to keep up. I’m more of a one man and one woman kind of girl even though adding in the other characters makes for an interesting twist on the plot. So the question is, how do I balance everything?

I’ve always stuck by the staying that you have to write for you and not for the market. Most of what I write is for me. And I do admit, I bow and have found myself writing more of the erotic and adding in more of the sex than I find necessary, but hey, people love to read about sex. I find that I write more of the multiple partners as a dare to myself. Just to see if I can do it. And if the dare doesn’t work out, well then I guess I have to write more for me and hope that others en

Leave a Comment

Filed under Books, Crymsyn Hart, Gail Z. Martin, J.F. Lewis, Tina R. McSwain

Tagged as , , , , ,

by | May 11, 2011 · 10:31 am

Fandom needs its Glee

by Gail Z. Martin

Thanks to Glee, American Idol, Dancing with the Stars and Guitar Hero, my kids know the words to all the songs that were popular when I was in high school, and quite a few songs that made the charts when I was still riding a tricycle.

These TV shows, plus Karaoke and dance video games and the ubiquitous Rock Band have made the hits of the 70s and 80s—and some of the 60s—cool again.  Sure, the songs have an updated sound (no chord organs), and they’re not the original artists.  But as covers go, they’re pretty damn good.  Better than many cover bands I’ve heard.  But what really matters is that these shows and games managed to make songs that were meaningless to teens and  twenty-somethings relevant and relatable.

So how does fandom go about doing the same thing for the favorite books that aren’t on the radar of anyone under 50?

I think one thing that’s important to note about the Glee phenomenon is that no one lectured viewers about the relative merit of the old songs.  Not only that, both artists and performers had to be willing to bend to update the sound.  And it doesn’t work for every song.  I don’t think we’ll be seeing the car crash ballads of the 1950s revived, unless they’re updated for drive-bys. (It’s possible.)

What does this mean for fandom?  Instead of bemoaning the dearth of young people at (some) cons, perhaps some bending is in order from the old guard to entice young fen into the flock.  Media cons certainly have young fans in droves, because they like the fames and the TV/movie tie-ins and the costumes.  How is that a bad thing?  These don’t diminish books; they extend our audience.

At the same time, it’s important to recognize that some stories won’t resonate with readers outside of the time period of the story’s creation because the world has changed too much, even for sci fi.  Stories that are overtly sexist, racist, jingoistic or otherwise exclusive will feel like ancient history, not futuristic tales.  Some stores, beloved as they may be, outlive their time.

The artists whose work has suddenly become relevant to a whole new generation are profiting from the exposure.  The original fans find themselves smiling and singing along, much to the amazement of their kids.  (If you’d have asked me if someday my teenagers would know the songs from Rocky Horror Picture Show, I wouldn’t have bet money on it, and I’d have been wrong.)  In fact, by closing the musical generation gap, these shows have opened a door to a whole new form of togetherness.

Cons can be a terrific forum for shared interests across generations.  I’ve seen it happen.  If it’s not happening at a con near you, tune in to an episode of Glee or fire up Guitar Hero and see if you don’t get a few ideas on how to bridge the gap.

 

Leave a Comment

Filed under Books, Fandom, Gail Z. Martin

Tagged as , , , , , , , ,

by | May 4, 2011 · 10:58 am

The Holy Terrors

We call her Gizmo for short.

by Crymsyn Hart

If my pets had voices they would say, “You’ve done enough writing for the day” after only five minutes on the keyboard. “Come out and play with us. Throw the ball so I can catch it. No throw the Frisbee so I can catch it.”

I can already hear them barking at me to get my attention and pull me away from the computer. And if it’s not my two dogs, then it’s the bird screeching at such an insane volume that even with music blaring, earplugs in, and me in the other room with the door closed, I can still hear him.

I love my pets very much, but they run the house. Now that I’m working from home, I get to spend my whole day snuggling with my black Lab, Morrigaine or fighting with my Border Collie/black Lab mix, Cadence. Both of them are my babies. Morrigaine makes a wonderful footstool as I recline on the love seat and she takes up the other cushion. While I do that, Cadence is jumping by my head so her two front paws land on my laptop and press a whole bunch of keys and gibberish appears on the screen. She has already victimized my laptop and my v, b, & n keys have been sacrificed to the writing gods. Luckily the sensors are still intact so I can still write.

If Cadence isn’t jumping on my keyboard, she accidentally steps on the power cord and with one wrong move pulls it out of the laptop therefore leaving me gasping for my lost words because I hadn’t pressed save in the last couple of minutes or ready to throw the laptop across the room because it needs a new battery. Once Cadence pulls the cord out and that doesn’t get my attention, she then pokes her wet nose into my arm. I think this is the worst of her actions to interrupt my writing day. Because she seems to do it right when

Lapdog, foot warmer, and great Frisbee catcher.

I’m in the zone. Of course, there’s nothing I can do except look longingly at the screen, and pray that my characters will talk to me once I’m done being the slave that my dogs have trained me to be.

Leave a Comment

Filed under Books, Crymsyn Hart

Tagged as ,

by | April 28, 2011 · 10:31 am

Why book fans need media and gaming fans (and vice versa)

by Gail Z. Martin

I run into some groups of fans who have a “separate but equal” view when it comes to conventions. Some book fans get twitchy around fans whose primary experience with the genre comes via gaming, movies and TV. Multi-media fans sometimes don’t “get” what all the excitement is about listening to a bunch of authors talk in a hotel ballroom.

Can’t we all get along?

I’ll be the first to admit that I consume the genre in multiple ways: books, music, movies, TV, anime, costuming, and when time permits, role playing games (video and old school). For me—and for many fans—consuming the genre in more than one way deepens the experience.

Don’t get me wrong—I love books. After all, I write them. But I also enjoy the genre when it’s presented well in a variety of formats. I’ll get something different out of each experience. Experiencing the story in ways that stimulates multiple senses makes it more memorable, more tangible and more pleasurable.

That’s why I think that the books vs. media “controversy” is a tempest in a teapot. Book and multi-media fans have a lot they can learn from each other. Working together with respect for each other’s perspective and experience, they can gain a whole new way of alooking at their favorites. They can serve as cultural translators for each other, and in the process, find treasures in formats they might not have otherwise explored. I really believe book fans need media and gaming fans—and vice versa—because together they provide a more well-rounded and wholistic fandom, with roots in the past but comfortable and fluent in the present.

It’s worth the effort to bridge the divide. Fandom is stronger—and more fun—when we work together.

Leave a Comment

Filed under Books, Fandom, Gail Z. Martin

Tagged as , , , , , ,

by | April 27, 2011 · 10:59 am

What’s in a Name?

by Crymsyn Hart

How do you find the name of your character? Do you scour name them after your best friends or other people that you know? Do you use some random name that pops into your head? Or do you run to the baby book of names or website and see what’s trendy these days? Or do you want a meaning of a certain name first before you choose the most sacred of titles for your main character or the secondary ones who are involved in the novel.

I confess. I’ve done all of them.

My first book was based all around my friends. So each character got the name of the person I was writing about down to coping their personality. Of course the experiences in the book were all made up, but the names were not changed to protect the innocent. LOL

When a character pops into my mind, I get their attributes first most of the time. Then I hit the Internet baby name websites and search the meaning of a name. Once I do that, then I know I’ve found a good moniker. Or I look at the names I already have and try to find the balance of what the letters the other names start with. Other times the names pop into the story even without me conjuring them up.

But names are a big part of who a character is. They give you insight into who they are. If they’re strong names then the reader would hopefully know they will turn out to be. Sometimes the spellings are different than normal or the character ends up with a nickname. Sometimes their name can have an impact in their destiny.

What do you think? Have you read anything where a character’s name just didn’t fit? Or do you look for the deeper meaning in a name?

Leave a Comment

Filed under Books, Crymsyn Hart

Tagged as ,

by | April 14, 2011 · 10:27 am

The Graying of the Fan—Or Not

by Gail Z. Martin

I attend more than a dozen sci-fi/fantasy conventions each year, mostly along the East Coast. One of the topics that comes up often in conversation, if not as the actual topic of a panel, is the fear in some areas that fandom is graying and that young people aren’t embracing the genre.

I just don’t see it.

If anything, the Millennial generation—those folks now in their teens and twenties—are the most sci-fi saturated generation in history. They teethed on Buffy, came of age with Harry Potter, immersed themselves playing Final Fantasy, navigated the Twilight phenomenon, and exist in a world where a huge percentage of the books, movies and TV shows have a supernatural/paranormal bent. It’s almost impossible for them to avoid the genre. These young people played with light sabers as kids and went trick-or-treating as anime characters.

But here’s what over-40 fans need to accept—the next generation of fans are a multi-media fandom raised in a multi-media world. Few of them are going to go back and read pulp stories from the 1930s or 1940s—why should they? Not only were those stories, however much they may be revered as classics of the genre, written fifty years before they were born, but the sci-fi in them isn’t amazing to people who played with computers in day care, are indigenous citizens of the Internet and navigate iPads, iPods and cell phones with the fluency of a Borg.

I’ve found that when people lament the decline of fandom, there’s really a wish for fandom to remain primarily book oriented, and, if truth be told, on books published a while ago. Yet, as futurists should know better than anyone, time marches on.
I’ve been to cons that eschew media and gaming where people ponder the lack of young fans. Then I go to multi-media cons like DragonCon, and I see where all the young fans are. The next generation of fans want to celebrate the genre as they’ve come to love it—and that goes beyond books to gaming, anime, movies, TV and the Web. Speak their language, honor their interface with the genre, and they will come—in droves.

Something amazing happens at multi-media cons. Older fans discover elements of the genre that they’re surprised to like. Younger fans get switched on to authors who were published long before the fans were born. And just like on a Star Trek episode where two alien races have a positive first encounter, the whole thing works surprisingly well.

Leave a Comment

Filed under Books, Fandom, Gail Z. Martin

Tagged as , , , , , , , , ,

by | April 6, 2011 · 10:01 am

Remembering

by Crymsyn Hart

Over the weekend, I was doing a lot of cleaning, getting down and dusty. While I was cleaning, I came across some of the stories that I had written in high school. I took a moment to go through the short tales. It got me to thinking about the people in my life who had been influential in helping me write and encouraged me to do so.

During middle school and through high school, writing was a way for me to cope with the reality of the my chaotic environment. My friends always lent me a kind ear. My teachers always told me I could do what I wanted. My family stood beside me through the years, but it was my grandfather who really encouraged me to keep on going.

When I was twelve, he set up a small space for me in his office, in the attic, so that I could write during the weekends that I would spend with them. So during the hot summer hours, I’d retreat up there with his electric typewriter and start tapping away at the keys. He would read everything I wrote and kept on encouraging me even though much of my stuff was about vampires. He asked me once when I was twelve, why I loved vampires so much. I shrugged and told him I didn’t know. I just loved them and I would keep writing about them as I got older. He dutifully told me that my likes would change as I got older and I would probably move out of the faze. After I had several works published that he had read, he told me he didn’t mind reading what I was writing, but he just couldn’t stomach any more vampires. That was something I brought up again a few months before he passed away. He chuckled and said that he really wanted me to finish this one piece that I had done when I was in high school. Out of everything it was his favorite. A young adult fantasy novel about a girl who steps into another world and discovers that sorcerers and unicorns are real.

Well, this was the very thing that I had come across when I was cleaning this weekend. Years ago, he had printed out the massive volume and went through and edited it for me hoping that one day it would see the light of day. It was up on my shelf in two huge three ring binders. Before he passed away, it was the one thing he insisted that I really focus on.

So these past few days, I’ve been flipping through the pages he marked and am finally seeing where the story should go from here. It’s been collecting dust for way too many years to count and I pluck at it once and a while. But for him, I’ll finish it and see it done. All because he was the one who was there for me and always encouraged me to keep on writing. Vampires or not.

Leave a Comment

Filed under Books, Crymsyn Hart

Tagged as , ,