Neighborhood News

It has not been a quiet week in Loch Susan. Though this is Spring Break for us and some respite is absolutely required, projects beckon like really pissed off hip-hop Sirens.

There's the big school art fundraiser that begs near constant attention, the exercise videos that mock me by the hour, the boy's student council election speech, the girl's science project, the two blogs...oh, and that whole I'm about to e-publish multiple books in a few months.

That last one is a doozy: a thrilling, liberating, terrifying doozy of a to-do. My BFF and writing partner, Keri, has enlisted me to create our own e-publishing house where we plan to publish her horror and suspense novels, our mystery series, and later, my mainstream novel, as well as various essays, short stories, and my massive backlist of poems. Down the line we see other works in different genres, and Keri is after me to write a novella on my favorite topic: home.

We have been critiquing each other through our various writers' groups since 1996, and began writing together in 1997. We have each had close calls with the legacy houses, and have been agented since 2005. So why go the e-pub route? Because writing ain't horseshoes and close doesn't count.

When you have something to say, something to add to the already overflowing conversation, you should employ any means necessary to get in your two cents. That, and ebooks are actually much more profitable than traditional publishing for the as yet unpublished author. (Need proof or clarification? Check out our blog at publishingyourself.blogspot.com for more info and great links. Keri's personal blog is: spectralobelisk.blogspot.com if you're so inclined.)

My next step is to dig out the stuff I either gave up on, didn't finish, or need to re-invision and create a matrix of opportunities for the e-reader market. Some works will be accessible, others...well hey, I can put whatever I want out there. And so can you.

If you're good, really good, and you know how to vet your work (or have friends who can do so), then why wait around on someone else's timetable? Why hand your dreams over to someone who doesn't always understand them well enough to describe them? Why dot every i and cross every t just to have some bean-counter tell the editors that slasher/zombie/chick-lit/humor isn't selling this cycle?

As I disappear into the sea of paper in my garage, I'll make it a point to snorkel up to the surface every now and again to burden you with snippets of my work. Let me know what you like and what you think sucks: what you want more of and what you hope to erase from your memory with a good, stout drink.

So say all and whatever you feel should be said; I've been waiting forever to have this stuff read.