RITA ® Award-Winning Author of Fantasy Romance
//My Patreon and Discord community are live! I’m also talking about one of the best pieces of writing advice I ever got and how, if you want to be a writer for the right reasons, there’s no fire to put out content.
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Exciting news! I’ve officially opened my Patreon: Jeffe’s Closet, A Mentoring Community for Newbie, Intermediate, & Expert Authors. The Patreon leads directly to a Discord community where all kinds of conversations will occur. I’m super excited to make this into a vibrant community. Right now the Discord is open, but pretty quiet – which means you’ll get a lot of personal attention from me. Come and join in!
As far as our topic this week, what we do for health insurance, I self-insure. As a full-time author, I have no employer to provide me with health insurance (or other benefits). My husband took early retirement from his career and was insured through them for quite some time, though each year the premium was sucking up more and more of his retirement stipend. Soon we were going to have to pay in – ugh! Then the concierge health insurance service became available through SFWA (Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association). SFWA collaborated with other writers’ organizations to make this service available to our members. I was able to transfer my husband onto insurance via the Affordable Care Marketplace – and both of us together ended up paying over $1K LESS EVERY MONTH. I’m a fan! Thank you, Obama – seriously.
//What to do when an author’s editor leaves the house, the one question to ask career authors, studying movies made from books to understand theme and what subplots/side characters aren’t important.
//Paying the price – do we always have to suffer or sacrifice for a reward? Why this is often offered as a writing rule, especially when creating magic systems. Also a report on ROGUE FAMILIAR: coming along!
//Can you miss something you never had? Also thoughts on creative crisis, how I always hit a point where I think the book I’m writing is TERRIBLE, and upcoming plans for my mentoring/coaching Patreon and Discord community!
//A report on YouTube monetization (yay!) via putting up audiobooks and thoughts on podcasting ROI. Also why each book is a challenge to write, how to deal with a sagging middle of a novel, and how to improve craft.
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I’ll be at the Willamette Writers Conference In August! I’ll be teaching a workshop and giving manuscript critiques. I’m not sure yet if I’ll be in person or online, but I’m hoping for the former!
This week at the SFF Seven, we’re discussing which fictional villain we’d totally write a redemption arc for if copyright and trademarks weren’t a thing.
You know, I did this once before – although I was in the clear legally, as the original work had just moved into common domain. My villain? The phantom from The Phantom of the Opera. I don’t know know that I redeemed him, but – SPOILER – I did ensure that the heroine picked the correct guy!
My version is called MASTER OF THE OPERA, and is a contemporary, erotic retelling of the old phantom tale as written by Gaston Leroux. I set it at the Santa Fe Opera house, so it has more of a Southwestern mystical vibe than the Parisian opera house of the original stories. I won’t post the cover(s) here. There are a number of them, as the book was originally published as a serialized ebook, and so had six different covers. Then it was published in print as a single edition with a different cover. Salient and recent good news: I received word that my publisher plans to put a new cover on the book and repackage it! So, stay tuned for that re-release. I’m super excited to see this new cover and a new bounce for this book and my sexy villain.
//How you know when your creativity is flowing, which story ideas have enough juice to sustain a novel or series, and how to handle those New Shiny ideas when you have other works in progress to focus on.
//Happy St. Patrick’s Day! A short podcast today, explaining why I postponed the ROGUE FAMILIAR release date and why it won’t really be as long as it the dates imply.
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Our topic at the SFF Seven this week is Artificial Intelligence (AI) and what’s going on there with the creative professions. I have Opinions, which boil down to my conviction that nothing can replace human creativity. But a lot of very smart people have written on the topic and SFWA has been collating those. Go read those excellent articles.
For my part, I’m trying to get ROGUE FAMILIAR written. I’ve passed 60K words and I’m closing in on the Act II Climax. I’m getting there! But I’m not there yet. No way can I make a March release date. So I’ve pushed the release back. Amazon will tell you the new release date is April 24, but that’s a handy lie. That’s just the farthest date I could push to, just in case. I’m guessing it will be more like April 7 or 10. I can always release early! I know you all are patient and supportive, so I don’t need to apologize. (But I feel I do.) Anyway, I’m working away on this!
No AI involved.