this-is-why-we-can’t-have-nice-things

Jan

2025

Tik… Tok…

The clock is ticking down. Tik…tok…tik…tok.

Now, I’ll admit that I don’t post as much as I used to on Tiktok. Part of that is that when your thing is “Carline Talk,” you have a limited lifespan — once your kid no longer has carline? You’re kind of done. The other part is that the moderation team is… something. I’m not sure what, but they are something (I got a community strike for saying that Ursula was Disney’s contract lawyer — make it make sense!)

But Tiktok is where the book people are, so I stayed. I had some lovely interactions with other writers through Booktok, learned about new books and tools and indie bookstores. Promoted my books and helped promote others. And I learned things — about politics, about uprisings and unrest. I followed people who knew more than I did, and I watched people my son’s age grow and become active in their communities, and push back against the powers that be.

And that’s the problem, isn’t it? The powers that be could not control the narrative on Tiktok. So it had to go.

I’m still hoping for a last minute miracle. But I’m not holding my breath.

Where will I be? Here, of course. Always have a social media avenue you control. ALWAYS. So I have my blog, and I have my newsletter. I’m on Bluesky and Mastodon and Tumblr. I have the whole Meta suite — Facebook, Instagram, and Threads — but those are becoming increasingly more toxic, and I am probably going to focus my marketing efforts on Bluesky and Mastodon. Heck, I even fired up my Fetlife account! (That was mostly to find out what the heck was going on with some nasty local doings — I can’t say I’ve ever sold a book via Fetlife, but I have met a lot of wanna-be doms who lack reading comprehension.)

I’m keeping an eye on Neptune (and am on the beta testing team), so we’ll see where that goes, and I got an email this morning about a crowdsourcing campaign for a social media network aimed at adult content creators. And in the meantime, I’m working on not one, but TWO novels where our hero has to step up and fight back against a corrupt system oppressing his people. If I had a nickle, right?

The first week back was getting into the groove of writing after being off for a few weeks. I didn’t make the wordcount that I wanted on either manuscript, but I did get started on both. Baby steps. This week will be more. Maybe. It’s Highland Games week, so I won’t be writing at all this weekend unless it’s on paper (and they’re calling for rain, so I might not even be doing that. We will see.) If you head out to the games, I’ll be over in Bairn Care, near the clan tents. Come and say hi!

Work in Progress

Tales from the Arena: King of Swords
(Tales from the Arena, book 4)

7629 / 90000 (8.48%)

The Coral Throne
(The Sea Prince, book 2)

1401 / 90000 (1.56%)

Promotions

It’s Bookmas! Every day for the rest of the month, you can get free ebooks and free tools for writers, with a new book or tool every day! Check out today’s offerings here!

Appearances

6th Annual Love is in the Air
February 8th, 2025
Lakeside Community Center
Port Orange, FL

***

ICFA
March 19 – 22nd, 2025
Orlando, FL

***

3rd Annual Spring is in the Air
April 13th, 2025
Venetian Center,
Leesburg, FL

***

6th Annual Mother’s Day Bazaar
May 10th, 2025
Ormond Beach Elks Lodge
Ormond Beach, FL

***

3rd Annual Summer Artisan Market
June 29th, 2025
Brannon Center
New Smyrna Beach, FL

***

Smut Lovers: The Conference
September 17th – 21st, 2025
Orlando, FL

Jul

2024

Which Way Is Up?

Did you ever have one of those days when you just aren’t sure which way is up? I think I’m having one of those weeks, and it’s only Monday.

First, there’s the political news. No, I’m not giving up, but I am worried.

Second… you know this Spiderman meme?

Right now, I have two vendors and my health insurance doing their best impression of this meme. I’ve spent ages on the phone today, and each of them is saying that the other is the reason that things aren’t happening, and I have no way to verify which of them is accurate.

Needless to say, not a lot has gotten done today, because trying to wrangle each of these has been like trying to comb water — interesting exercise, and completely unproductive. Well, possibly productive, but I won’t know until Thursday.

As I told Darling Editor, beating my head against the wall would be more fun.

What’s also more fun is King of Swords — I’m eight chapter in and it’s humming along nicely. Teren is a fun character to write, as he tries to figure out how to make all the various broken parts of himself fit together into something approaching a whole. He’s just met the person who is going to help him, and they’re adorable together, if I do say so myself. I can’t wait for you to meet these two.

There are still purple flowers outside my window. I think something ate the iris buds, though.

Work in Progress

Tales from the Arena: King of Swords
(Tales from the Arena, book 3)

24965 / 90000 (27.74%)

Promotions

The Smashwords Summer Sale is winding down — just over a week left! You can pick up my entire catalog 25% off here and here.

Counsel of the Wicked is still a contender for SPFBOX, so it is STILL on sale, but because of the Smashwords sale, it’s even BETTER — it’s FREE (only on Smashwords)!!!

Appearances

Necronomicon
September 27-29th, 2024
Tampa, Florida

***

Not So Spooky Hallowfest
October 6th, 2024
Deltona, Florida

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Wizards, Witches and the Weird
October 27th, 2024
Daytona Beach, Florida

Jan

2021

Heck of a Start!

Boy, that was a heck of a start to the year, wasn’t it? And we still have the rest of the year to go!

I would very much like some boring now. Anyone else with me?

Unfortunately, it’s likely to get more interesting before it gets boring. So I’m going to hole myself up in my writer cave and try to ignore the outside world. I have edits to work on, and a new book to write.

Heir to the Firstborn

(Heir to the Firstborn, Book 5)

3083 / 150000 (2.06%)

Heir to the Firstborn is going to focus more on Del, Treesi and Aria (as much as the boys will allow. I need to wrestle the focus of the books back from Owyn and Aven. They keep trying to take over.) It’s been slow getting started, but I’ve also been working on edits. The edits on Wings of Air are done, and I’ll be getting the preorder up this week. I’ll be starting the edits on The Lady and The Sword today, but I’ll be taking those more slowly. The Lady and the Sword isn’t scheduled to come out until May. I have a little bit of time there.

Focus is… challenging at the moment. (for example, I’ve been staring at this blog post for over an hour, trying to find the next word.) There’s been doomscrolling, and stress eating, and rather a lot of yoga to try and offset the effects of doomscrolling and stress eating. I’m trying not to engage with conspiracy theorists online, for the good of my heart (remember, the block button is your friend!). If I didn’t have books coming out that need promotion, I might go on a social media hiatus… or, you know, not. Because let’s be real — all my friends live in my computer, and social media is how I talk to them.

How do you maintain focus when the world around you is chaos? I know this has been a real issue with a lot of other creative people. After ten months of quarantine, a lot of us have found workarounds. But now things are going even weirder and focus is gone.

I think the first thing is to be gentle with ourselves. Things are so far from normal that we can’t even see it from here. And honestly, there’s no way back to that normal. Nor should there be — normal is what got us here in the first place. We need to redefine normal, and we really can’t do that until the chaos factor eases up a bit and stops acting like someone mixed their Jumanji cards up with Cards Against Humanity.

So, here’s hoping that soon normal will be something other than a setting on our dryers.

Preorder now on Amazon!

Jun

2020

BangbangbangbangWHOMPWHOMPWHOMP!!!!

Today’s blog post is being brought to you by the roofers working on the house that backs up to mine. We had a pretty intense hailstorm down here a couple of weeks ago, and… well… damage was done. (Thankfully, our roof survived it pretty well. Neighboring houses? Not so much.)

How intense? This was a small hailstone.

In the fourteen years we’ve lived in this house, I’ve never seen hail like that. My car has a couple of good sized dents in the roof, but no windshield damage.

My office window looks out into the backyard, so I have the constant sound of saws, pneumatic hammers, and other things emphatically going *thump* as the soundtrack to my writing day.

Echoes of Light

29754 / 50000 (59.51%)

***Wings of AirHeir to the Firstborn, Book 4

28031 / 95000 (29.51%)

Writing continues, as writing is wont to do in my house. Echoes of Light is building to a climax, and I’m hoping to have it done this month. I increased the wordcount, but now I’m not sure that I’ll make 50K. It’ll be 40K or thereabouts. Perhaps a little under, but definitely not much over. Which is well within the wordcount limits for the call for this boxset.

And I’m pretty sure there will be more stories about John Zebedee and Ethriel. They haven’t told me what they’ll be yet, but there will be more.

Wings of Air is already wandering off the outline. I think this is a new record — usually, we get to the first major transition before the characters get headstrong and go their own way. Not this time. They’ve decide on a subplot that is obvious in hindsight, but wasn’t on my radar when I started planning the book.

Still haven’t decided what I’m working on for Patreon after Heir to the Firstborn. I’ll tackle that once I get further into Wings of Air — I’ll need to decide before I finish, though. No pressure! None at all!

Once I finish Echoes of Light, I’ll be planning out the rest of the Flesh and Blood series, too. I have a nifty new Series Bible from Plot Your Work and I’m looking forward to setting it up.

Things are still really unsettled here — we have no idea what’s going to happen in the fall. The Governor says school will start on time and with the regular schedule, but at the same time Covid cases are spiking because the state reopened too soon. We’re being careful, but at the same time, we’re very much aware that there are a lot of people out there who are not being careful, or who think that the whole thing is a hoax, or a joke, or not as serious as it really is.

I don’t understand people sometimes. I just don’t.

Be careful out there. Stay safe.

Oct

2018

Mirror: Sex and the Single Merman

Working on chapter 13, and I just wrote the first sex scene in Heir to the Firstborn. Chapter 13 will go up at the end of October.

The sex scene will not appear in chapter 13 at that time.

And, now that I’ve confused you, let me explain. Patreon is cracking down on adult content, and some creators have lost their accounts even if adult content was posted for Patrons only. Since I do not want to lose my Patreon, the sex scene in chapter 13 will be a fade to black, left to my readers most fertile imaginations. All of the sex scenes that run on Patreon will be like this.

However…

When the book comes out, the sex scenes will appear in uncensored form. So when the book comes out, there will be new content (aka, the good bits, to quote William Goldman).

So, there is something to look forward to.

Also, making a mental note that I really do need to write something other than a blog post entitled “Sex and the Single Merman.”

May

2018

Work in Progress: The Lady and the Sword, week 14

The end is near!

I’m halfway through the second to last chapter of The Lady and the Sword, so I’m calling it. Draft by the end of the week!

The Lady and the Sword
Swords of Charlemagne, Book 2

78653 / 85000 (92.53%)

I have to say, for the record, that I am never again writing a book that has a non-linear timeline. Margaret, Douglas and Mystere are linear — their timeline starts in book one, and will continue unbroken until book four. Roland, Olivier and Turpin are not linear — their timeline jumps, and it’s been interesting. Especially since the Carolingian parts of The Lady and the Sword happen between the first two sections of Hidden Things. I keep having to go edit the scenes in book one to fit what happens in book two. Thankfully, the Carolingian parts of Ashes and Light will happen directly before the final Carolingian section of Hidden Things. I know that part of the story already, so most of the edits to book one have already happened. (That being said, I just thought of something that needs tweaking.)

Okay, now for what may very well be the last excerpt:

***

Roland nodded. He looked up, seeing the torches on the walls of Pavia. “There are bathhouses in Pavia.”

“Probably, yes.”

“Think we could sneak into the city and visit one? I need a bath.” Roland glanced at Olivier, who was clearly trying not to laugh. “What?”

“Little things that I never understood about you before. Now that I know you better, they make perfect sense.” Olivier answered. “We can’t visit a bathhouse, but you can still bathe. The surgeons will probably insist on it. And I’ll help you shave, if you want.”

“What’s funny about bathing?”

Olivier looked around, then switched to silent conversation. “When you were telling me about running wild as a boy, you said that you remembered two things. You remembered being hungry and being dirty. Ever since I’ve met you, I’ve marveled at how much you can eat. You’re thin as an arrow, and you eat more than anyone I’ve ever seen. And you bathe more than my sister’s cats.”

Roland blinked. “I… I never connected them.”

“You probably wouldn’t. You’re inside it. You can’t see the whole of it.”

Roland looked away, trying to think of something else to say. “I… you have a sister? Who has cats?”

“Aude,” Olivier answered. “She’s six years younger than I am. And she has three cats.” He sighed. “At some point, I really should find her a husband.”

“Not me,” Roland answered quickly, and Olivier burst into laughter.

“If you’re certain?”

“I’m certain,” Roland said.

“Then not you,” Olivier agreed. “Although, I admit that I wouldn’t object to having you as a brother.”

Roland swallowed hard and smiled. “Thank you, Olivier.” He frowned looking down at the dirt as they walked. “I don’t know that I’m ever going to marry. A woman, I mean.”

“Do you even like women?”

Roland considered, then nodded. “I like everyone,” he said. “I prefer men, but I like women, too. I know Uncle wants me to marry at some point. I’m just… I don’t know. The idea is terrifying.” He looked around, then pitched his voice low. “Olivier, may I ask you a question?”

“Let’s get you bathed first.” Olivier stopped outside the bath tent and looked inside. “We’ve got it to ourselves. We can talk in private. Come on.”

“I’m going to need help,” Roland looked down at his left arm.

“I know. You don’t mind my help, do you?”

Roland smiled. “I’m glad of it.” He stayed quiet as Olivier helped him remove what remained of his clothes, helped him scrub dirt from his skin, listened to Olivier grumble over the multitude of scratches and bruises.

“You look like you fought with a thorn bush and lost,” Olivier said, wrapping a drying sheet around Roland’s waist.

“Sit down and I’ll comb your hair.”

“Thank you. And I think I did. With the thorn bush, I mean.” He sat down on a bench and closed his eyes as Olivier started working the comb through his hair. It felt just as good as when Turpin did it. “Olivier, may I ask that question now?”

The comb went still, then started again. “Of course.”

“You have sons— ”

The comb stopped again. “I don’t beat my children, Roland. I don’t hurt them. I don’t treat them the way Ganelon treats you.”

Roland turned around to face Olivier. “I wondered. I can’t see you ever hurting them. But you’re here, and not there. You’re not with them.”

“Even when I’m with them, I would never hurt them,” Olivier said. “Not my boys.” He frowned, then set the comb aside and straddled the bench, facing Roland. “Roland,” he said gently. “Not all fathers are like Ganelon. You’ve seen Charles with his children, haven’t you?”

Roland nodded. “Yes.”

“My sons, they mean the world to me. I would never hurt them. Charles is the same. Your father, your real father, I imagine he would have been like that.”

Roland shrugged his right shoulder, then winced. “I don’t know. I can’t know. And… that’s why I won’t marry, Olivier. I’m not going to do to any child what was done to me.”

“You wouldn’t,” Olivier said firmly. “Because you know what it’s like.”

Roland frowned. “Is it that easy?”

“Being a father isn’t easy, Roland.” Olivier smiled. “When they handed Aquilante to me the first time, I was terrified that I’d drop him! But I’d never change it.” He paused, then nodded. “The next time I go to Vienne, come with me. I want you to meet my boys. Meet Gismonda.”

Roland smiled slightly. “I’d like that.”

***

The other news this week happened over on Twitter. Months ago, I paid in to have the cover of Heart’s Master included in advertising at the Romance Times Convention, which was this past week. I’d forgotten all about the ad until I got an email from the president of my RWA chapter — my cover was one of two that had been deemed unfit for public consumption in the hotel, and had been censored.

Now, I wasn’t at RT, but Cecilia Tan was. So I texted her and told her what was going on. And, oh, what a can of worms that opened!

Things did resolve happily, however, and the ads were replaced by the next morning. I also had a lovely conversation with the general manager of the hotel, who fell all over himself apologizing for the mess. All’s well that ends well.

Upcoming plans — once this book is in the can, I’ll be proofreading The White Raven: Morrigan’s Heir so I can send that off to Circlet. Then I’ll proof this one and send it and the updated Hidden Things in to Forbidden Fiction (which just recently changed to Enspire Publishing).

And once those are in, I’ll spend the rest of the summer doing some worldbuilding for the Elemental thing. But for that, you’ll need to be following me over on Patreon.

May

2016

Gluten Free Writer

I don’t talk a lot about medical things. If you’ve seen my baking posts, you know I do a lot with gluten free baking. That’s because I am medically gluten free. I don’t have celiac — I have had the genetic tests, and I don’t have the markers. But when I eat anything with gluten (which means anything which contains or has been contaminated by wheat, barley, or rye), I get sick. The official diagnosis was Non-Celiac Gluten Intolerance. It’s an auto-immune condition, and it’s not very well understood.

Now, this is the point where I get to tell people that no, I’m not looking for Doctor Google or any macrobiotic diet tips. I’m not looking for the current research — I keep up on that. And I’m not looking for people to tell me that it’s all in my head. My gastroenterologist and I have this under control

Last night, I had the fun of participating in a dinner hosted by the group putting out the Nima sensor. This is a nifty little device that uses spectrographic analysis to test your food at the table and see if it contains a safe level of gluten. For anyone who is medically GF, eating out is like playing Russian Roulette, so something like this is a tool that can be very useful, especially for people who have to travel a lot. You know, like writers. It was a little daunting — attending this dinner were the best and brightest of Central Florida bloggers on allergens and gluten free dining, and sitting right next to me was the Head of Special Diets for Walt Disney World. And then, you know, there’s me, being a little bit of a fish out of water.

Now, this device — you take the removable capsule (single use only, but they’re working on a recycling program for them). You put a smidgen of the foot you want to test into the capsule, and close it down hard. There’s a pop, which is the internal seal breaking and releasing… something. Then you put the capsule back into the machine, which is about the size of my palm. You turn it on, and it starts gurgling as it grinds up whatever you put in to prepare it for analysis. And within two minutes, you have an answer in the form of a smiley face or a frowny face. Frowny face, clearly, is BAD.

What was surprising was that this dinner was held at a restaurant that is pretty well known for the care it gives to gluten free dining. And the group hosting the dinner went in with full disclosure — we’re going to be testing EVERYTHING. So you’d think that they’d be extra careful, right?

There were positives — two of the choices of soup, and the only vegetarian entree both came back strongly contaminated! And I heard just a little while ago that several people got sick — I apparently dodged a bullet!

Needless to say, I *want* one! Especially with the travelling that I’m going to be doing over the next couple of years!

Feb

2015

Focus? What's that?

So, today, my husband and I were on our way to lunch. We’re sitting at a red light, waiting for the light to change.

WHAM!

We were rear-ended by the car behind us, and the woman who looked old enough to be God’s grandmother. She let her foot off the brake and rolled into us.

Cops were called. Information was exchanged. Tickets were issued — to God’s Granny, who was solely at fault. Insurance was called. For a fender bender, it’s a relatively innocuous one — the damage to my car is minor enough that it doesn’t even meet my deductible! God’s Granny has already been in contact with the body shop to pay for the repairs, which will happen next week.

But focus? There’s none of that in this house tonight!!!

Aug

2012

Serpents! Serpents!

If you’ve ever read Alice in Wonderland, you might get that reference. If you haven’t, or haven’t in a while, allow me to explain.

To quote Jefferson Airplane (back before they were a Starship), one will make you larger, and one will make you small. Sides of the mushroom, that is. And one side of the mushroom made Alice’s neck stretch so long that her head poked up through the trees and disturbed a pigeon:

`Serpent!’ screamed the Pigeon.

`I’m NOT a serpent!’ said Alice indignantly. `Let me alone!’

`Serpent, I say again!’ repeated the Pigeon, but in a more subdued tone, and added with a kind of sob, `I’ve tried every way, and nothing seems to suit them!’

`I haven’t the least idea what you’re talking about,’ said Alice.

`I’ve tried the roots of trees, and I’ve tried banks, and I’ve tried hedges,’ the Pigeon went on, without attending to her; `but those serpents! There’s no pleasing them!’

Alice was more and more puzzled, but she thought there was no use in saying anything more till the Pigeon had finished.

`As if it wasn’t trouble enough hatching the eggs,’ said the Pigeon; `but I must be on the look-out for serpents night and day! Why, I haven’t had a wink of sleep these three weeks!’

`I’m very sorry you’ve been annoyed,’ said Alice, who was beginning to see its meaning.

`And just as I’d taken the highest tree in the wood,’ continued the Pigeon, raising its voice to a shriek, `and just as I was thinking I should be free of them at last, they must needs come wriggling down from the sky! Ugh, Serpent!’ (Alice in Wonderland, chapter 5)

Okay, so why am I talking about children’s literature and/or snakes?

I’m not. Not really, anyway. I’m talking about that favorite pastime of people on the internet everywhere — jumping to conclusions based on insufficient data.

About a week or so ago, the word went out among independent and small press authors, warning about a website called Lendink.com. OMG, PIRATES!!!

Except they weren’t. I went to the site, took a look. Read the FAQ, checked out what they were about,and went “Oh. It’s a dating site for books.” And before you ask, yes, Princes was up there.

The reason I’m not linking the site? It isn’t there any more. Because dozens of writers who did not bother to do their own research, or who did not understand how Amazon and Nook lending work, panicked. They swamped the hosting company for the website with DMCA notices, and the site was taken down.

Violet Blue talks more clearly than I can about this, in an article over on CNET.com. So I’m not really going in to what happened, or where the site came from, or who started it or why. Violet covers that nicely.

No, I’m on a bit of a rant here. Because one of my writing groups (a marketing group that I’m pretty sure is going to be my former writing group about twenty seconds after this goes live) was one of the sources of what Violet accurately calls a witch hunt.

When this broke, and people were panicking and yelling “OMG! ~~Serpents!~~ Pirates! Batten down the hatches and unleash the DMCA!” I pointed out that this was legal. That it was a legitimate use of Amazon and Nook lending capabilities, and it was in essence a lending library for ebooks. I wasn’t the only one pointing this out. We were ignored. We were told right off that we didn’t know what we were talking about. And one person even said that they wouldn’t want their books in a library anyway, because then no one would buy the book!

Right… that was the point when I stopped trying to make sense. I had better things to do than yell down a dry well.

When the Violet Blue article went live today, I posted it to the list. And the people who were the most vehement about how this was piracy? Well, a couple of them are now asking what they can do to help get the site back up. And some of them… yeah…

Violet Blue has been dismissed as a shock-jock, as someone who is trying to get a rise out of people. She’s been denigrated (Little Violet? Really?), and her very accurate point that this has made indie and self-pub authors look bad is being dismissed out of hand. Even though there is a link to the Twitter thread on the subject, and the thread has been going on for days.

Look, people. I get it. Book piracy on the internet is rampant. It costs us money. Yes, I know.

That doesn’t mean that just because it looks like a pirate, it IS. Do your research! Don’t trust that whoever is telling you that this is a pirate site know what they’re talking about!

After all, it might just be a kid who ate the wrong side of the mushroom

ETA: I just found out that the gentleman behind LendInk has been getting threatened. And so has his host company. THREATS???? For doing something that is perfectly legal? People, this is OBSCENE!

Apr

2010

>And this is why we save things to disk!

>I’m writing two different erotic stories that have Russian characters (three if you count the ongoing Man from UNCLE fanfics). So I have several Russian language websites bookmarked. One of them was a whole page of Russian mat (really, REALLY profane insults. Usually sexual in nature). You can see how this might be useful to me.

Except that the page is gone. ARGH!!! Now I have to spend valuable writing time looking for more sources of mat that aren’t written in Cyrilic!

this-is-why-we-can’t-have-nice-things

Tik… Tok…

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Which Way Is Up?

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Heck of a Start!

BangbangbangbangWHOMPWHOMPWHOMP!!!!

Mirror: Sex and the Single Merman

Work in Progress: The Lady and the Sword, week 14

Gluten Free Writer

Focus? What's that?

Serpents! Serpents!

>And this is why we save things to disk!

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