Man Candy: The Female Gaze Unleashed

by Allison Pang

If you follow my other blog at all, you know I'm no stranger to the concept of man candy. It's pretty much a weekly staple - though I tend to limit it to Saturday nights (or days when I just didn't feel like blogging. So, hey - throw up a smexy man and we're good to go.)

Sadly, I tend to get a lot more hits on those days than any other. Maybe I'm a boring blogger...or maybe the female gaze just needs more of an outlet than it's been getting. Not that I'm into objectifying for the sake of it (and not that I'm always above it, either.) I tend to keep my blog pictures tasteful for the most part, although my personal collection certainly dips into the more risqué,  I don't find I need to go there on the blogs.


(Part of this stems from the fact that I do sometimes try to be "professional". Yeah, you can stop laughing there. Plus my blog feeds into Facebook. Which a lot of family/work people read it. So, yeah, they know I'm pervy. They don't need to know how  *much*)

Anyway, I'm just going to toss up a few pictures in no particular order. My tastes vary depending on my mood, and it's not always about teh sexxy bods. I totally agree with Jeffe about the hands earlier this week. I'm a sucker for hands. Feet too, although honestly, as long as they don't have troll toes, I'm pretty easy going.

I'm a sucker for a dude in a kilt. And doubly so for Ewan McGregor. He looks so totally bad-ass and casual all at the same time.

Plus he's not afraid to get naked in his movies.

Le Sigh, for Robert Downey Jr.

To be honest, I didn't like him much when he was younger, but I'd definitely dig him now. :)

(I've found that although I like looking at the young bods of teh smexxy guys, I'm definitely more attracted to men who look like they've seen something of the world.)

Mmmm. Guys who are good with animals rock. Just like this guy's thighs.

And well, duh. Of course, I'm gonna throw in some shirtless David Garrett in there. (Tho I admit that I actually enjoy his non-posed pictures better, particularly the ones where he's losing himself in the music.)

I'm a sucker for artists and musicians in general and I'll take talent over looks any day of the week.

And here's a little Eric the vampire action, aka Alexander Skarsguard.

NOM

Patrick Dempsey is another one I couldn't stand when he was younger, but he aged so very, very well.

Probably one of my favorite models (so nice I used him twice, since that's him up there at the top). Theo Theodoris is basically Greek perfection.

Unfortunately, he's actually in prison now for drug issues. (It's a pretty sad story, but if you're interested in finding out more, go check out the Free Theo site on Facebook)









Hmmm. And I guess just some of my favorite random hottie pictures to round it out. :)

...Guess I better stop now. *cough*

Plots and Sundry

by Allison  Pang

I'm probably one of the worst people to ask about plotting, because for the most part I don't really plot much of anything. When it comes to books or short stories, I usually have some basic idea of how I want things to go, but the most I do is write a rough outline. Most of the time I don't even know what's going to happen until I get there, and sometimes I don't even know why things happen until I get to the end and *then* it all falls into place.

(And then I go back and edit. And re-edit.)

It's probably not the most efficient way to write and there have been times where I've tried to be a bit more organized, but success has been limited overall. Sometimes I think if I spend too much time on the idea and write down all the little details, I tend to lose interest in telling the story.

That being said, when it comes to my webcomic, I do tend to write up a more detailed storyline - mostly because it's a joint venture and even though Aimo and I are pretty good at knowing how we want to put things together, it's still just good manners to make sure I'm not stringing my artist along with last minute plot changes.

OOO

As an aside note, today is my last post as an official Word Whore. I'm turning in my corset for now - and just want to thank the readers and my fellow Word Whores for all their support and fun over the last few years. My decision to leave is simply based on a number of "real life" factors, but I'm confident I'm leaving the site in good hands.

:)

The Biology of Genres

by Allison Pang

When I was (much) younger, it seemed to me that genres were a lot broader than they are now. You had your basic fantasy (the sword  & sorcery stuff), the sci-fi, the mysteries, the horror, the romance, the western...and that was more or less it. (Not counting contemporary, I suppose.) And I tended to linger in the sci-fi/fantasy reading material myself, for the most part - except for occasionally pilfering my mother's romances (the old-school bodice ripper, "his knee forced her thighs apart" sort of dubcon that was fairly prevalent at the time).

If you take a look at evolutionary niches in general, it can be pretty easy to see how species change over time to fit into a certain environment. Whether a species lives or dies can often be determined by their adaptability, especially during an abrupt change in habitat. (Your favorite plant died out? Too bad - better eat this other one and like it or you're gone too...)

Books are very much like that - except the reader audience and publisher expectation make up the

environment. As a literary species, books and the authors who write them have to change or risk being forgotten. (Just look at the poor western genre - so robust in the 70's and 80's...but now it's mostly tumbleweeds. Heck, even the straight pulp horror books I remember seeing on the shelves in the 80's are nearly extinct. I seem to recall there was a huge run on "killer animals" at one point - probably inspired by Jaws, but you name it, there was a book about crazy animals and how they killed people. Cujo and Swarm are the ones I remember most, but there are some great cover gems here. )

Anyway, I'm going off topic, but again, we don't really see a lot of those sorts of books anymore. (And probably for good reason?)

But you know what we do see a lot of? Vampires.

Vampires started out as creatures of horror - but over time, they've become seductive, sparkling beacons of misunderstood angst. In a sense, they evolved and a new genre niche was created - Urban Fantasy. (You could actually split UF into several sub-species as it were - particularly if you think old school UF like Emma Bull, vs the UF spawned by Buffy, who essentially became the progenitor of the mainstream smexy vampire that birthed a thousand undead babies.)

Vampires have slowed down now, but the niche certainly expanded to allow other supernatural beings in - werewolves, demons, angels, fae - pretty much anything can show up in a UF. Although there's always that fine line to straddle between writing something the reader wants/expects and being original. Publishers say they want original, but it often feels as though they just want more of whatever is selling, which is why writing trends tend to come and go in waves. Much like the hawks and doves concept - when a market is saturated by one thing, consumer interest often wanes, creating a gap for the next "big thing" and then there's a new wave of a certain idea - and success is very often being in the right place at the right time, or having a trunk book that fits the bill just as the wave is cresting.

At any rate, I'd say we're seeing far more diversity in book genres overall - a cross-pollination, if you will. (e.g. UF x Romance = Paranormal Romance or Romance x Mystery = Romantic Suspense)

This is a good thing - diversification allows authors to reach more readers. Readers who are only familiar with romance might become more interested in UF after reading a PNR, for example. (And anything that increases audience potential is great.)

Where it potentially becomes problematic is when a book straddles too many genres. (Like those pesky monotremes. Mammals who lay eggs. What the hell is that? By the same token, your steampunk-zombie-dystopian-ya fantasy might be a tad confusing to describe.)

But from a publisher perspective, if a book doesn't fit into a box they can easily sell, then there's a chance the book will be rejected. Doesn't mean it's not a good book - many such books have gone ahead to self-publish and done great, which...again - change in environment. Self-publishing allows for additional change and growth that wouldn't be able to happen otherwise.

The  best advice I can give, though, is not to genre-hop simply to chase a trend. (Unless you can pump books out obscenely quickly.) By the time the book hits the shelves, there's a good chance that genre may no longer be "hot".  In the end, write the book you WANT to read, whatever the genre - it's passion for the story that sells books, not necessarily the label on it.

Finding Inspiration

by Allison Pang

I'm on vacation this week for my regularly scheduled escape to the shore, so at the moment, my inspiration is currently limited to refilling the creativity well via long walks on the beach and sitting in the sun.

That being said, the picture here was supposed to have been an egret standing on the post. But even though my camera was lined up and ready to go, I waited too long trying to get the perfect shot and a few moments later something spooked the bird and it flew away.

Sometimes I feel that way about ideas. I can get them easily enough for the most part - inspiration can and does come from anything. And I'm not always in a rush to write them down - I've found it can be better to let things percolate and see what sticks strongest.

(I've probably made this point before around the same time during previous years, only with seashells or

something - there's always one more shell under the waves - it's hard not to try to collect them all - but then it can be *so* hard to decide which is the best/your favorite and that can lead to a sort of idea paralysis.)

However, ideas that don't get written down don't become books. Inspiration aside, waiting too long to create the perfect story usually means it never happens - better to get some notes down or a basic outline if nothing else. Even if you're not quite ready to write it, at least you've got something to come back to.

So while I'm not doing much actual writing during this trip, I am doing a fair amount of idea percolating. (Surprise, most ideas are ocean related, but there are obvious reasons for that.) >_<

I might even be writing some of them down.

Convention Etiquette

by Allison Pang

Think we're covering most of the basics this week, but a few additional thoughts on the cosplay side of things:

1) Ask permission before taking pictures. This applies less to writing cons and more to the fantasy/anime sorts, but cosplay can be a very personal thing to a lot of people. Even though they're on display, they may not want their picture taken, but even so, it's just good manners. (And most are perfectly willing to strike a pose, so just ask! And if they say no? Be gracious and move on. They don't owe you an explanation.)

2) Touching. I shouldn't even have to say this, but costumed or not, do not touch people on purpose without permission. >_< Even aside from potential sexual harassment issues and personal space boundaries, costumes can be delicate - the last thing you want to do is accidentally "glomp" someone's hard work into pieces.

3) Hygiene. Again speaking from experience at some of the busier, larger cons - by the third day of camping out on the hotel room floor without a shower, you are going to stink. Please do everyone a favor and bathe regularly.

4) Be nice. When it comes to cosplay, everyone is in different stages of creative development. You'll see amazing costumes and starter costumes. All are equally valid form of fandom expression. Even if you think someone's costume sucks, keep it to yourself. Do NOT tell someone they are too fat, too thin, the wrong race/gender/whatever. Again, I shouldn't have to say it, but there it is. Fandoms are for EVERYONE.

5) Speak up. Because harassment is sometimes prevalent at these sorts of events, if someone makes you uncomfortable with what they're doing/saying/etc - tell them to back off. Costumes can often be on the skimpier side, which some people take as an invitation to be mouth-breathing troglodytes. Women in particular are socially trained to "be polite" and not to "rock the boat." Don't do this. Find out what the event's harassment policies are before you attend and determine what your safety limits are and what you need to do to make sure they're met. And on the other side, if you see someone clearly making someone else uncomfortable, say something. Ask them if they're all right, find con security, tell the troll to pound sand - basically be a decent human being.

In the end, though convention etiquette really comes down to that. It's a few days of fun, sure...but that doesn't mean you get to leave all sense of propriety at the door of the hotel, either.

Wonderful Workshops

by Allison Pang

I've run an impromptu workshop or two at various cons (most of them were co-hosted, so that tends to take off the pressure a little bit.) However, I haven't done it enough on a regular basis to give specific advice as to the do/don'ts - but I do have a fair bit of experience in teaching. I spent about 7 years doing computer instruction to classes of anything from 5 to 50 people and I suspect a lot of the same skills come into play.

So here's my basic 5 suggestions:

1) There's actually an old adage that was fairly popular among the computer instructor set: Tell the students what you're going to tell them. Tell them. Tell them what you told them.

Sounds flippant maybe, but it's basic communication. Announcing the sorts of things you're planning on covering makes sense - it's a sort of table of contents so attendees know what to expect. (And if someone accidentally ended up in the wrong room, maybe they'll stay.)  I should also point out that a workshop that you present a lot is going to be much smoother overall than one you're doing once. If it's a long term thing, you'll find yourself falling into a rhythm after you've done it several times and you'll know how to time things just right.

At any rate, the gentle reminders of the topic on hand can help attendees to remember what you've told them. (And obviously, this is going to depend on the type of workshop. A serious craft workshop is going to have more thorough content then something off the cuff.)

2) Practice beforehand - should go without saying, but if you ever remember having to do those book reports in middle school, it's almost a given that you're going to end up with either too much info or not enough. What looks like a lot of content on paper can go by mighty quick if you're nervous and talking too fast. (It's probably better to have too much info than not enough - being able to hand out supplementary materials to cover the things you couldn't get to is a good way to drum up additional interest in the topic or in you as a brand.) That being said, definitely practice your presentation in front of a few good friends - they can help you work out the bugs and help you determine where you might need more detail or a place where you can shave off some time.

3) Cite your sources! (Or at least know where they come from!) Don't throw stats around unless you're confident in them - and if you're not sure, it's probably better to indicate a statement is your opinion as opposed to fact. ("I think X is" as opposed to "X is".) People aren't shy about asking questions or possibly calling you out, so it's important to understand the information you're presenting. And it's okay to say you don't know the answer to a question - you can use that as an opportunity to research that info and maybe answer it later on your blog or in a future workshop.  (As long as you aren't saying you don't know to EVERY question - but don't make something up just to have an answer, either.)

4) Walk around or stand up! If it's possible or in a smaller venue, I've often found that walking around the room slowly can keep people focused on you. Sitting at a table and talking to your hands is not going to keep your audience interested. Also, make sure your voice carries if you don't have a mic - also something to practice beforehand if you can. Keep water or something to drink close by - talking constantly in a loudish voice for 45 minute or more can definitely make for a dry throat.

5) Encourage discussion if time allows. Whatever you do - try to leave at least 10 or 15 minutes after the workshop to allow for discussion (unless you're actively doing Q&A as part of the workshop - just watch the time - it can be very easy to get off track, so make sure you have a good way to get back on topic. If you aren't good about keeping your own time, get a friend or an audience member to give you a heads up if you're getting close to running out of time.

Otherwise, just make sure you wrap things up nice and neatly (and have some swag on hand - giving away an arc or your latest book is a nice gesture.) If you're at a con, people have limited amounts of time to attend things - make them happy they attended yours. :)

Panel Panache

by Allison Pang

Lots of good advice coming in from my fellow Word Whores this week, so I'm going to just touch on a few things that might be helpful for shy/introverted panelists.

I'm the first to admit I'm not the world's greatest public speaker - I tend to get pretty nervous about the panels in general, though it can depend on the crowd. The best is when I know the other panelists pretty well - it can be fun to riff off each other - and I think that when the panelists are obviously having a good time, the rest of the room tends to have a good time as well. There's nothing quite as awkward as panelists who don't like each other - obvious tension is obvious. >_<

That being said, here's a few basic suggestions:

1) Have a basic idea of what you're going to say/talk about. You know the topic beforehand, hopefully. If you're quick on your feet, then no worries. If you have a tendency to freeze up or forget your thoughts, it's totally worth it to maybe write up a few basic notes to remind you of what you want to say. With smart phones and tablets, it's plenty easy to throw up a few bullet points  to keep you on track. (This is particularly important if you're doing more of a workshop panel - staying on topic is very important.)

2) Choose your seat!  This isn't always possible if you've got name tags or particular seating requirements, but where you sit can make a big difference as to how you form your answers. If the moderator asks you a specific question, that's one thing, but if a question is asked to everyone on the panel and they go down the line, being the first or second person to answer can look better than always being at the end, particularly if it's a larger panel. Constantly saying "I don't have anything else to add" gets old after a while. (If a moderator is good, though - he/she will change direction throughout to make it a little more even.)

3) Make eye contact.  Engage the fans by making eye contact when you are answering. Doesn't have to be the entire time, but you want to make them feel like you're all part of an extended conversation. (And on the same note, don't bury yourself by constantly checking your email either..)

4) Learn how to redirect. Technically a good moderator should be able to do this, but not all moderators are good, and I've been on some panels that had no moderators at all. In that case, it can be good to brush up on your "gentle reminders" to try to bring a panel back on topic. YMMV - some people can easily hijack a panel for their own needs and that's not fair to anyone. (Except them, of course.)

5) Get to know your fellow panelists. This isn't always possible, but often if I know ahead of time who else will be on the panel with me, I will read one of their books (if they have anything to do with the topic.) Being able to draw attention to a fellow panelist's work is a nice thing to do, and can be an easy way out if you really *don't* have anything else to say about the question. ("In Suzy Sunshine's book, which I just read, btw - she has a great example of XYZ...")

6) Speak up!  If you have something to say, say it! (This is the hardest thing for me, to be honest - there have been times I wanted to interject something, but I couldn't figure out the best time to say it, and then the question changed and it was too late.) Don't be rude, obviously - but don't be afraid to let your voice be heard, either.  Your experiences are just as valid as anyone else's.

Pay the Toll to the Troll

by Allison Pang

I'm paying closer attention to the troll aspect of this week's particular subject - for a number of reasons. First is because I seem to have picked up a troll of my own. (Yes, she's a puppy...but even at 8 weeks, I can tell she is going to be a sassy, back-talking little troll. Whee.)

But on a more serious note, I tend to be fairly concerned about the trolls that routinely hang about the convention scene - simply because it is so prevalent and often it's disguised as "compliments."

Of course, some of this depends on the sort of convention you're attending. Sometimes writer-based cons tend to be a bit more mellow (particularly the romance ones, as there is often a higher female to male ratio. The exceptions, of course, were stated earlier by some of my fellow word whores - there are some cons that do employ male cover models and sometimes attendees can get out of control. There is no excuse for the sort of thing. Ever.)

However, that being said, the majority of trolls/harassers at most cons do tend to be men - you've got the cosplay creeps who decide that just because someone is wearing a skimpy costume, that gives them free range to touch/poke/be lewd or whatever. And god, the catch-22 thing kills me. Often said trolls will look down upon female cosplayers for being "slutty" - after all, why would they dress like that if they didn't want attention? Oh wait, maybe because the many (male) comic book artists draw their superheroines with melon ball breasts, costumes made of metal and dental floss and have them "expressing their STRONG FEMALE POWER" in poses that aren't actually possible. It's basically a self-fulfilling prophecy breeding ground of dudes who are used to comic books catering to their gaze and then complaining about being "friend-zoned" when lady cosplayers object to being treated like a piece of meat.

And no, not all guys are like this, and some are obviously completely socially oblivious - but there are plenty of professional trolls who know exactly what they're doing and how to go about doing it. (Women are often taught that it's not polite to say "no" - it can make it very difficult to call someone out, because then you're accused of making a scene and hey, he didn't actually mean anything by it...)

Part of the issue is that many cons do not have clear rules as to what constitutes as harassment. (In fact, SDCC is under fire for having some pretty vague rules - they actually admit that having a more clearly defined policy in place would indicate there are problems at their con.) *blinks*

The good news is that many cons are listening and doing what they can to educate con-goers and also to provide safe places for people who are feeling threatened. Cosplay Is Not Consent is one such page on Facebook that is committed to trying to stop the perpetuation of this sort of behavior.

Now, cosplay trolls are perhaps the most obvious, but there are still those people who use their industry power to get what they want - I've seen that at gaming conventions, comic conventions...and yes, writing conventions.

In some cases, said perpetrators are well known to be such, but because of who they are, convention planners are sometimes unwilling to make a stink about it because they don't want to offend the person. (However, in recent years, I've noticed that this is no longer the case - several high profile attendees are being called out as being inappropriate and are no longer welcome at some conventions.)

For a somewhat depressing look at the convention harassment timeline, check out this link - it goes back as far as 1973, so this is clearly not a new issue in any sense.

In the end though, the only thing that is going to make things better is for people to speak up - not just those being harassed, but those who associate with trolls - if a friend of yours does something inappropriate, call them out on it. Silence is often seen as consent, approval (or at least lack of disapproval). It also means better harassment policies and a better implementation of those policies.

It also probably helps if we start seeing each other as people and treat everyone accordingly.

Swag Bag

by Allison Pang

When it comes to giving away swag, I've started to have a bit of a love-hate relationship with it.  Part of that is just trying to find the right balance - the cost of producing it versus the whole "return on investment" thing.

I honestly couldn't tell you if swag directly results in sales or not - but sometimes swag isn't really about selling a book as much as it is about selling the product that is you.

When my first set of books came out, I jumped on the bookmark bandwagon - as well as the trading cards (which you can read more about here in this post from a few years ago.) While I liked the uniqueness of the trading cards, they are really more for fans of the books than they are about getting new readers, so when you're trying to figure out what might work best for you, be aware of which audience you're going for.

That being said, I've collected a lot of swag over the years at various cons. The best swag is small and easily portable - I'm more inclined to pick up things I can use like pens or bookmarks. (Though with ebooks, I don't even use bookmarks anymore, so I tend to look for teh pretteh.). I'd stay away from larger items, to be honest. One con I was at gave people these huge umbrellas in the swag bags - which were nice...but way too big for my suitcase so I ended up leaving it behind.

Compact is good for handing out purposes as well. It's way easier to keep a handful of bookmarks or pens in your purse or pocket and hand them out as opportunities present themselves. (But YMMV - and keep in mind that some cons have actually banned paper based swag simply due to the amount left behind/thrown away, so watch out for that if you're going to a planned event.)

These days the only thing I'm producing swag for is the Fox & Willow webcomic - mostly in the form of postcards that I can either mail out or (more realistically) leave a pile on the counter at various comic book stores that I might run into. Anything that might grab someone's attention long enough to check out the website works for me.

Also, with the advent of things like kickstarter and patreon, don't overlook digital swag - if you're trying to keep print costs down, thing like wallpapers, screensavers or pdfs might be a viable option, particularly with so many electronic devices out there. Something I can use as the background on my phone might be more appealing then a bookmark, depending on the image in question. :)

Also - a quick word of caution. If you have swag out at book signings, etc. keep in mind that anything on the table is often seen as fair game. While a lot of readers usually ask me if they can have something (yay, polite!), I've also had "demo" swag up and walk away when my head was turned. (Usually samples I was displaying that could be bought in an online store - usually it's small stuff, like keychains or whatever, but I've had stuffed toys walk away too, so just be aware!)

Dazed and CONfused

by Allison Pang

This is actually a timely topic for me as I've been out of the convention scene for a couple of years now. Not really by choice, of course - health issues just made traveling a bit more problematic than usual. (Plus I ended up using most of my vacation time for surgery recovery, so...eh.)

The thing about cons is that for the most part, you get out of them what you put into them - and that as you and your writing journey changes, so do your con experiences. My first writing con was RT 2009 (so long ago, ha ha.) I was working on my first book, and I had no idea what I was doing.

At that level, nearly everything about the con was a pro - meeting people, pitching my book, attending panels and workshops - it was worth every penny and I learned an incredible amount - and it only fueled my desire to attend more conventions. (It's where I first met Jeffe, btw - we ended up rooming together and hosting the FF&P Party in our suite, so yay networking! And actually - speaking of networking, I met many of my fellow Word Whores at various cons as well - small world.)

However, as my writing experience changed. so did my reasons for going to cons. As an aspiring writer, most of the panels and workshops I attended were on the craft of writing itself, how to find an agent, how to write query letters. Once I had more confidence in my writing, I moved into topics involving marketing, networking, and self-publishing.

After I had a book published, conventions became more like marketing events - trying to figure out what swag might work best, doing signings or panels or readings. In some ways it's easier because you know your way around what's going on and how to better manage your time, but if you're a natural introvert, it can also be harder. (At least for me. I know my largest weakness is being on panels - not because I don't have anything to say, but because I have a tendency to not speak up as much as I should. I'm working on it. >_< )

You may also find that as your writing focus changes, the sorts of cons you attend change too. Some of that may be due to "real life" commitments like jobs or family. (It can be a lot harder to get away with younger children, for instance.) And then it becomes a question of trying to figure out which cons get you the best bang for your buck. Not every con is a good fit - if you're uncomfortable in larger crowds, try out smaller ones. If the smaller ones don't have the selection of events you want, head toward the bigger ones. I've done cons as small as 200 people all the way to 120 thousand. They both have their charms, but I will admit, I'm most comfortable around some of the smaller venues.

And of course - the audience changes depending on the convention as well - obviously RWA or RT are going to focus on romance and writing. A comic convention like NYCC is a completely different animal. Maybe not so good for romance writers...but if you're looking to get a comic critiqued by a editor, it's the better way to go.

So the best advice I can give for conventions is to know your purpose for being there. Networking? Spectacle? Pitching? Panels? Sightseeing/research? (And there's nothing wrong with just going to a con for fun, either - they don't *all* have to be about business.)

All that being said, I'm dipping my toes back into the convention pool a little later this year - I'll be at Authors After Dark in August and World Fantasy Con in November. Hope to see some of you there. :)

No One Expects the Spanish Exquisition...

by Allison Pang

*ducks*

Yeah, that's a pretty lousy pun, sorry. (Though really, you sort have to admit it's got a bit of a Terry Pratchett feel to it, maybe?)  How about...no one expects the Spanish Exposition? No? Anyone? >_<

I didn't really have anything prepared for "Exquisite" anyway - and since my brain has been mostly focused on Dragon Age: Inquisition instead (and the highly priced Inquisitor version that has these mega cool looking tarot cards), my brain just sorta went there.

And I don't usually buy collector's editions because they tend to be overpriced, but still - they're fun to look at.

Anyway...my fellow Word Whores and I have had some discussions recently and have come to the conclusion that the word a week thing on the blog isn't working, and so starting next week, we'll be back to more writerly type topics.

And if you have anything you'd like us to talk about, please feel free to mention it in the comments or via email. Thanks!

Experiments in Crowd Sourcing

by Allison Pang

When it comes to marketing trends I tend to sometimes be a little behind the curve ball. Sure, I'm on most of the social media sites (except for ones I care little about, like Vine, or any sort of video blogging...no good for me, thanks.)

And I've thought about doing a Kickstarter to get some self-publishing projects out there, but it's still not something I want to hop into just yet. (And I really need to sit down and plan out the concepts more - there's a lot of coordination that needs to be done.)

But I did stumble across something relatively new a few months ago: Patreon. 

In a lot of ways, Patreon is like Kickstarter. There are goals and reward tiers, but the difference is that it's an ongoing donation - or maybe more like a subscription. Patrons choose to contribute a certain amount per month or per item of content. (And they can set a max, so they don't go above a set amount per month.) In return, they get access to whatever reward tier they're subscribing to.  (And reward tiers are hard - obviously you want to give people something for their buck, but not something so huge or complicated that the effort outweighs the value. But it's hard to know sometimes without actually trying it.)

For something like my web comic, it seems like an idea thing to try - if only to offset the cost of webhosting and art supplies. (And ideally, if we get enough, it will help Aimo and I to look at getting Fox & Willow ready for print, or even start some additional projects.)

It's an experiment, though - we've only been up for a few weeks, and I'm learning both how to manage the patron system and figure out the best way to advertise it. Like so many other things, I'm not a huge marketing person - it's pretty easy to fall into the obnoxious category and the last thing I want to do is turn people off.

Anyway, you can check out the Fox & Willow Patreon page here. :D

Egregious Spine

by Allison Pang

A bit of a rant to come.

If the body is a temple, mine is surely inhabited by meth-addicted rent-boy elves, tapdancing along my spine with shoes made of nails and razor blades.

How else to explain why...WHY now - six months after my double fusion where my back was fixed and things were good...that my arms/hands/fingers are now going numb and burning all the time?

Egregious spine, indeed.

Oh, wait, here's the answer.

Yeah, not one, but TWO herniated discs shoving their sticky little innards where they don't belong. (Namely, into my spinal column.)

I had the MRI done on Monday because over the last few months I've been having periods of numbness and tingling in my hands and fingers - and finally on this last week it's been 3 days of the left hand being numb...and then that stopped and it's been 4 days of the right hand being numb.

It moves. Exciting.

Two nerves are being hit, which is why both the left and right side are going off (but more on the right than the left, so my right side is worse.)

The only good news about this is that the bulging is centrally located - there's a little more breathing room there - if they were on the right or left side only, I'd be in an extreme world of hurt. As it is, it's just dreadfully annoying more than anything else. Sort of feels like my hands are constantly asleep, with some mild wrist/elbow pain. (And sometimes the fingers burn bad enough I have to put band-aids on them because I can't bear to touch anything, though that tends to come and go.)

*ahem*

At the moment, I'm not sure what the plan of action is. There's a chance an injection of steroids or two will bring down the inflammation enough to give me some relief, but that's a short-term fix. The evidence in the picture says this has been going on for quite some time - there are bone spurs along the vertebrae signifying where the body has attempted to heal itself and failed. Most likely there's another double-fusion in my future (probably in the next six months or so.) I'm waiting on my surgeon to text me back as I type this.

Yay, me.

Effervescent (FlashFic)

by Allison Pang

Another bit of flash fiction for the subject of the week. :)

OOO

The boat shimmied on the line, pulling at the ropes like a fierce horse as the waves shunted it away from the docks. I could only watch in silence.

The Effervescent Mermaid was my father’s, a downeast cruiser of ramshackle paint and a host of memories all wrapped within the scent of brine and dead fish. The lobster traps hung useless at the sides, dreaming of crustaceans and covered in a smattering of barnacles.

And I?

I had no dreams. No wish to feed my family upon the whims of the sea.

From where I stood, I couldn’t see the shrouded body of my father, nestled in the bosom of his beloved boat, rocking to a lullaby he could no longer hear. But if I cocked my head just so, I almost saw the old man, nut-brown and stooped and smiling at the white-caps in the distance.

The rope whined beneath the strain of an impatient current.

Time, time it sang.

I sliced the rope, watching only until the boat began to drift. For a moment it was as if the boat were the anchor and the dock was afloat, bobbing and whirling me into some distant place.

“Aye, then,” I whispered and turned away.

Dreams. Death.

The tide could take them both.

Spreading the Disease

by Allison Pang

By chance I found myself in the ER this week for about five hours. There's nothing quite like a hospital to make you feel like you're in a petri dish. No matter how much antiseptic is used, you're still surrounded by carriers. (And no matter how quick I hop in the shower when I get home, it's always a given I'll pick up SOMETHING while I'm there. If I'm lucky, it's just a cold. One time I went to get my lungs checked out and two days later ended up with a staph infection in my elbow that required some severely hardcore antibiotics to clear up. Go figure.)

Anyway, I was sitting there and waiting for my turn at the triage and noticed a young mother with a child maybe about 18 months. He was clearly not feeling well - terrible wheezing and running enough of a temp that the nurses actually brought him some liquid Tylenol. At one point a nurse came out to start some paperwork with the mom and was asking if the child was up-to-date on his shots.

The mom blithely replied he'd never been vaccinated.

I thought the nurse was going to implode on the spot, but I found myself watching this unfold and wondering if maybe I was at Ground Zero.

Not that I have much to worry about - I've been vaccinated, after all. But the "herd immunity" phrase that is so often touted in vaccine arguments does depend on the idea that everyone who can be vaccinated, should be - not only to prevent yourself from getting sick, but to protect those with compromised immune systems, the very young and the very old. (The theory being that if 90% of the herd is immune to a particular disease, the other 10% who can't be vaccinated will not be as likely to contract it, simply because the rest of the herd are not carriers.)

And I get that there was a study that came out declaring vaccinations cause autism and parents want to avoid that. Except that the guy who made that study has since backtracked and the study has been retracted. And now, we're learning that signs of autism are present in the womb. But people want answers, and it's easier to blame trace amounts of mercury, I guess. But the end result is that we've now got outbreaks of diseases like measles and whooping cough that were nearly wiped out in North America decades ago.

That's really a sort of simplified explanation, of course, but it's one of my hot-button topics. Sort of like people using anti-bacterial soap all the time. It seems like a good idea, but biologically speaking, all you're doing is creating super-bugs. Evolution under a microscope, my friends - wipe out all the weak bacteria, and you're left with those few mutants who are hardier than their weak-willed friends. With a more narrow gene-pool to work with, guess what you're getting? The X-Men of the bacteria world, essentially. More immune to drugs and soaps and whatnot, so we become forced to use stronger drugs, which then starts the whole process over again.

Due to over-prescription of antibiotics, we now have diseases that can no longer be cured. Remember the "clap"? It was a lovely STD that could be treated with penicillin to the point that people didn't care all that much about getting it. Not anymore.

And don't get me started on the HPV vaccine. (I'm not actually going to touch it right now since the inherent misogyny that is used as an excuse not to give it to daughters makes my blood boil and I don't have time for that.)

*ahem*

Get vaccinated. Wash your hands. Use protection.

And listen to some Anthrax.

Decrepit Back

by Allison Pang

I don't have much to add to this week except to mention my back. My glorious back.

Back the Betrayer, I name it.

Breaker of Discs, and Grinder of Bones.

Bringer of Pain.

STUPID BACK.

Decrepit being the word of the week, I have a long and sordid history with my back and assorted back issues.

Most of it all began in February of 2008 when I bent down to chance Lucy's diaper. (She was about 18 months old.) My L4-L5 disc blew out, leaving me unable to get off the floor. Keep in mind, the DH was at work and I had a toddler and a 4 year old. And it took a while for the 4 year old to find a phone he could reach.

Lucy thought it was great fun, mind. She wobbled around me and straddled my head and bounced up and
down on it and then then opened a package of peanut butter crackers and pulled them apart and laid them all over my legs.

Yeah.

Fun.

I ended up at pain specialist and had an MRI done and was told that even though I was just past 30 years old, I had the back of someone who was 60. Not only did I have the cracked disc, but I also had a number of odd birth defects that made things "interesting." I've got a vertebrae or two that aren't fully formed on my right side and a set of facet joints where one is abnormally small and the other is ridiculously large.

Anyway - that was the start of the saga. In the five years after that, I suffered multiple steroid shots, facet-joint injections, a micro-discectomy (which failed), about $10k in out-of-pocket prolo-therapy expenses (which was about 40 injections at a time, every 6 weeks), a discogram, radioablation of the nerves on the left side of my spine, chiropractics, cupping, trigger point injections, magnesium infusions, acupuncture...and a fair amount of painkillers.

I have seen more specialists than I care to think about and everyone had a theory as to what would make me better. The discogram actually showed a Level 5 Dallas grade tear in my L3-L4 disc as well, but as of now that is holding steady and I'm not looking to borrow any more trouble. Could be that it's going to require additional work later on, but eh.

The worst part of all of this is that the cures can hurt just as much as the cause. And worse than that is the fact that it never really stops. Mentally, that's really, really shitty - because you know, no matter what you do, you will always be in pain.  It becomes a vicious cycle. In my case, the initial disc blowout was bad enough, but eventually the disc began to collapse into the spinal column and put pressure on a nerve. Which meant pain running down my left leg, all the time.

The micro-discectomy took care of the nerve issue, but it left the surrounding bone structure unstable, thereby putting a lot of extra pressure on my muscles all around it. Which led to trigger-point muscle knots that just never let go. Those muscle spasms then started pulling hard on the vertebrae and my SI-joint, which started dislocating all the time. Which led to more pain. Which led to more spasms.

When what was left of the L4-L5 disc collapsed on the left side, the vertebrae began to grind together and that's when I ended up finally giving up and turning to painkillers. (I'd been avoiding them for those 5 years because I knew it could be such a slippery road.) But there comes a point when you have to do *something* even to just get a little bit of relief. So I was on opioids for about a year and suffering from a fair amount of depression.

But like everything else, it's a short-lived relief. The more often you take the painkillers, the less they work, and the more you have to take. And that's no good. Between being stoned out of my mind and unable to do anything physical, a lot of my life suffered.

The end result turned out to be another surgery. And I was reluctant to do it. Surgery of this level can't be undone, and I'd read so many horror stories of people who'd had fusions done that left them worse than before, or with new types of pain. I went to at least three different surgeons to try to figure out the best course of action, but I was constantly double guessing myself.

I had the double fusion in September (L4-L5 and L5-S1), and while I ended up giving up some things (the ability to touch my toes, for example) there is an upside.

 Six months out and I'm as close to pain free as I've been in a very long time. (At least as far as the back is concerned.) Sometimes I have a flare, or bad weather makes things ache, but it's a different sort of pain and just knowing it will subside makes all the difference.

Debt of Energy

by Allison Pang

The first law of thermodynamics says energy cannot be created or destroyed. It's either kinetic or potential and essentially all things do is pass it around in one form or another.

I would beg to differ when it comes to my youngest. She's pretty much a perpetual motion machine trapped in the body of a little girl. The rest of us have to eat or sleep before we can soldier on, alas. Though I admit my stamina isn't what it was, even from only 5 or 6 years ago. I used to be able to stay up later for days at a time without repercussion.

These days? Not so much. Writing into the wee hours, or all night gaming sessions are becoming a thing of the past. What used to take me a nap or two to recover from can now take a solid week to catch up. (And days of crankiness and feeling like crap, which don't help me me much.)

Part of that is health reasons. Part of that is juggling schedules. Working. Kids.

It all adds up and cuts into creative productivity time.

Do I write, or do I spend time with the kids? Clean my house or go for a walk? Okay, the last one is a joke. I don't clean much. The kid thing is pretty legit though - as irritating as it can be to have things interrupted, the truth of it is that they will not always be so little, and they have to come first.

But sometimes it isn't about time, per se. It's about having the energy to do the things I need to do vs the things I want to do.

When it comes to health issues, I tend to point to the spoon theory, which is a chronic illness thing. It's not about just feeling tired - it's about legitimately having to make choices. Do I expend the energy to take a shower, or do I cook dinner? Each activity costs a spoon...and you only have so many spoons on a given day. Use up too many and it can cost you pretty bad later on.

In general, I have more energy then I did over the past year. Some days I don't. There is nothing quite as frustrating as wanting to get some writing done, only to wake up and realize that it's not going to happen today. It's not a laziness thing - it's about knowing I need to go to the grocery store and that just doing that will probably use up everything I have. No matter how much I try to nap or rest, it won't make any difference.  (If it were just laziness, you'd find me gaming or reading or doing something fun...but I don't have the energy for that either, more's the pity.)

Now, I will admit things have gotten better for me in some ways - since my pain is mostly under control now and constant pain is exhausting in its own right. For example, I visited a friend on Sunday and walked for several miles all around Old Town Alexandria. In the past, doing something as simple as that would have left me crippled and in severe pain for at least a week. It's a choice I would have made anyway, simply because I haven't seen this friend in many years - but I would also have been very aware of the cost.

But aside from some mild leg cramps and a bit of stiffness, I was perfectly fine. Even my infamous slipping SI joint stayed where it was supposed to be.

So the balance of energy becomes a precious commodity. I hoard it up when I can to use it when I'm best able, but I've also come to realize that some things are out of my control. Like a credit card, I've got an internal limit - burning the candle at both ends sometimes seems like it can be the better, faster way to do things, but the cost of doing so too many times is usually pretty detrimental in the long run.

The interest rates are a right bitch.

The History of Deadlines

by Allison Pang

So, here's the thing. Deadline is one of those words writers use all the time. We talk about the pressures of writing under a deadline. "Can't talk/tweet/blog now - I'm under deadline!" And it's not just writers who have deadlines - pretty much any sort of professional office is going to have them for various things - before a deliverable is due, for example. (Projects also have "milestones" which are basically mini-deadlines, but eh.)

Point is, we're pretty flippant in the way that we use it, given its rather macabre beginnings.

Where does the term deadline come from? How did it come to be associated with writing in the first place?

If you start digging a bit, you discover that newspapers started using the term around the end of the Civil War. (The theory being that newspapers had to get articles out on time when the information was relevant. If you missed your "deadline," it meant that the story was dead and wouldn't be printed.)

But how did the newspapers come to use the term?

By interviewing Union prisoners of war kept at the now-infamous Andersonville Prison. (Not to say that captured Confederate soldiers had it much better in Union prison camps, but this is the one people talk about. History is written by the victors, after all.)

Anyway - for the 14 months it was open, Andersonville Prison held about 45,000 Union soldiers. Over 13,000 died in that time due to the terrible conditions.

The prison itself was built in 1864 - at 26 acres, it was only intended to house 10,000 soldiers, but at its peak held 33,000 at one time.

And by prison, I mean it was just a big open field with a stockade built around it - 20 foot log walls buried 5 feet into the ground, with guard towers every 80-100 feet.

Initially, the prisoners weren't allowed to have any shelter at all, but many of them died as a result of heat stroke and exposure and eventually they were allowed to erect little tents to block some of the elements.

Not to mention the stream that ran through it that was supposed to be used for drinking/bathing water. This might have been better if the Confederate soldiers who guarded the prison camp weren't camping upstream

and basically polluting the water with their own garbage and feces. The center of the prison was basically a 4 acre swamp of liquid shit.

So, basically you have 30,000 people crammed into a tiny area without shelter, a disease-laden source of drinking water and limited supplies of food/medicine/clothes - this led to typhoid, cholera, dysentery, scurvy and other assorted awfulness. There were two "dead barns" located at the north and south ends - where bodies were stacked up until they could be buried in mass graves later on. (About 100 people died a day, in fact, during that summer in 1864.)

The man in this picture was one of the survivors, if that helps paint the picture more accurately.

Where do the deadlines come in?

On the inside of the stockade there was a trench dug about 19 feet away from the wall. (Eventually a small wooden fence was built to make it easier to mark the barrier - you can see it in this picture to the right.)

If any prisoner crossed or even touched that barrier, they were shot dead by the guards in the towers without warning.

Hence, the "deadline."

Sort of puts a new perspective on things, doesn't it?

There is a lot more to this particular bit of history than these small number of facts, but it's a bit more complicated than this blog will allow for, so I'll end it here.

Crisp

by Allison Pang

I think for a number of these topics, I'm going to start writing flash fiction as a bit of a warm-up to other things, particularly if I don't have much else to say on the subject. (I've a number of other little projects I'm working on, and I figure I might as well pop into some character heads to get to know them better. Which could be a good or bad thing.)


Crisp

The apple is crisp the way her bones are crisp – crunching between pale teeth, skin splitting to lay bare the sweetness of the flesh within. It drops from her fingers; such nerveless appendages no longer have use for fruit. The juice stains her lips, even as her blood stains mine.

Beneath a coating of dew, the apple glitters like snow in the sunlight.

The Fine Print

by Allison Pang

There's something both exciting and terrifying about being under contract. As a fledgling author, many of us had dreams of just what it all means - fame, fortune and glory, perhaps - or book tours and signings - or hardcover best sellers lining the shelves. Pool boys, at the very least.

But the reality of sifting through a 20-odd page legal document is both mind-numbing and confusing.

And really, how many of us skim through contracts we probably *should* understand before we sign them? "Yeah, yeah, promise you I won't sue you if you accidentally kill me while I'm on the operating table. Done."

I'm pretty sure one of the reason contracts are so nefariously ridiculous is just for that - in the hopes that we, the poor consumer, will skip to the good part, sign our names and be done with it. Just look at EULAs (End User License Agreements) on computer software. Most of us scroll right through them during the install program with nary a backward glance. (Although you will sometimes find some tongue-in-cheek clauses within. Hell, when you install iTunes, you actually promise that you won't use the program to create nuclear or biological weapons with it. So, um. Yeah.)

As a species, we're rather nonchalant about signing over our rights when it comes to the next big shiny purchase. Probably because most of us aren't actually lawyers. In the case of, say, a house - most of us have a Realtor to help guide us through the process, or a mortgage lender. And we vaguely trust the "This paragraph means x or y. Sign here and here and here and you'll be all done." But at the end of the day, we're still the ones who have to take responsibility for just what it is that we're signing.

This is especially important in today's world of publication. Just a few years ago, there wasn't much by way of e-book rights written into contracts, for example. Kindles didn't exist. And even now, there's an interesting disparity as to what constitutes fair royalties of ebooks vs print books (earning a percentage of a gross vs a net sale can make a pretty big difference.) Not to mention things like rights (what are you selling? English rights, world rights? Again, something to think on. Some people like the publisher to handle all of that, some prefer to handle foreign sales on their own or through their agency. Lots of different directions to go.)

And then there's the right of first refusal clause - which is something publishers tend to sneak in on their contracts - but like everything else it can be broad or narrow. For my first print contract, I gave the publisher right of first refusal for my next work of adult UF - which mean the next UF I wrote after my contract was filled had to go to them. If they wanted it, they got it. If they didn't, I could take it somewhere else. Or, if I decided I didn't want to write UF anymore, I could go anywhere I wanted and not worry about it. A lot of "boilerplate" publisher contracts will sometimes have right of first refusal for *ANYTHING* the author writes after the fulfilled contract. Which might sound like job security at first...but it's not, especially if you and your editor have parted ways, or your sales aren't great. (Or in at least one case I know of, the publisher just sat on it. And sat on it. And sat on it...and the author was trapped, because she couldn't take it anywhere else - and everything else she wrote had to go to that publisher first anyway. Awful situation, all the way around.)

Whether you have an agent or not, I would argue that it's never a bad thing to have a literary lawyer take a looksee over what you're agreeing to. In theory, if you have an agent, that is part of their job...but not every agent is equal and I've heard enough horror stories to know that doesn't always work out. Sometimes a neutral third-party gives us the transparency we need to determine what is best for us - but it's on us to read that fine print.