Hi, friends–
Just blogged this today at Women and Words about the meltdown at Romance Writers of America and some of my thoughts.
Category: Random WTF stuff
10 things I’m looking forward to in 2017
Hey, all!
So the Hootenanny over at the blog I co-admin, Women and Words, kept us crazy and busy, and I’m pretty sure we must’ve given away around 500 books. But I don’t even want to count for sure.
Also, in case you didn’t realize, I do a Fangirl Friday blog over there almost every Friday about what I’m fangirling over, so if that’s up your ally, give it a whirl. This past Friday’s was my thoughts about Carrie Fisher.
And in keeping with my fangirl obsessions, I’m also on Tumblr and I’m writing a Clexa fic at Archive of Our Own.
Anyway, I just want to say that for the most part, 2016 was full of serious suckage. So here, I’m listing 10 things I’m looking forward to in 2017, provided the new regime doesn’t shut down the Internet and start rounding people like me up (only partially kidding).
1. Wynonna Earp Season 2. OMG I can’t EVEN! SO EXCITED about this! Wynonna Earp provided balm to my broken Clexa heart in the wake of the bullshit that was S3 of The 100. Queer and POC rep! Possible March premiere of Wynonna Earp S2. More of my fangirling over it. By the way, shout-out to the Wynonna Earp fandom, which organized and was largely responsible for convincing the network (SyFy) to renew for a second season. Well done, my peeps. Well done.
2. Killjoys Season 3. Killjoys, too, provided some balm to my little wounded heart in the wake of The 100 and yay, it was renewed for a third season. Ass-kicking women, great plots, space opera awesome-ness. Queer and POC rep. It’s well worth your time to check this series out. And here’s me fangirling over it.
3. Star Wars Episode VIII: This is the last Star Wars appearance of Carrie Fisher, if I’m not mistaken, and I’ll most likely cry when I see her on the screen, but damn, Star Wars. Thank GAWD for Star Wars in my life. It feeds my little space opera/spec fic/adventurous soul.
4. Resident Evil: The Final Chapter – Yeah, whatever! I enjoy the Resident Evil movies because HELLO. Mila Jovovich kicking serious ass all over the screens as Alice, battling the evil corporate empire and various zombies and whatever the hell else she has to deal with. Woman power, y’all!
And yes, that is Guns n’ Roses playing. How can you not want to see this movie?
Notice my theme, here? Fangirling and escapism. If only I could have my own band of outlaws and take to space…
5. ClexaCon, Las Vegas, March: HOLY SHIT I am SO STOKED about this. ClexaCon is the inaugural con for queer women in media, named in honor of the iconic ship Clexa, from The 100. I will be attending as press (Women and Words) and I will be blogging and Tweeting about it and I may be moderating a panel. We shall see! If you’re interested, here’s an interview I did with some of the organizers.
6. Releasing a few more books/novellas. Okay, so, I’ve been kind of tight-lipped about what I’m up to in that regard, and I usually am (weird superstition), but I am going to be publishing a few things this year. So stay tuned. 🙂
7. Writing more fanfic: I dunno. I’m really enjoying this, so I may actually write some more this year. Probably Clexa, but you never know. And holy shit, I may actually do some AU Clexa. WTF? lol
8. Continued work building community: Some of you know that I and bunches of colleagues do lots of community-building through Women and Words and organizations like GCLS as well as through various other organizations, and I love doing it. I’m going to keep doing that — and I think we need it now more than ever.
9. Hopefully some more travel, provided the new regime doesn’t put travel restrictions on people it deems “unworthy” (again, only partially kidding…ugh). I would LUUUUUV to go to New Zealand and Australia, so if anybody in those countries feels like putting up a half-cracked weirdo American fangirl/author like myself, let me know! LOL
10. A super-secret project I can’t tell you about yet. Really looking forward to it, and you’ll be the first to know when it drops. 😀
Regardless, stay strong, my friends. Stick up for each other, speak out, and remember who you are. Much love for 2017.
Things I’m up to, including a forthcoming release and fanfic
Hiya, peeps!
Whew. So the Order Up blog tour wound down and we gave a bunch of copies away and hopefully introduced a bunch of you to some new authors.
Next week is crazy-time for a bunch of lesfic authors in the States, as we head to the GCLS conference. So I’ll be running around doing that. Tweeting and Facebooking and things, so if you’re unable to join us in person, well, you can still hang with us in spirit.
I also very quietly have been working on a long novella/short novel that is part of The Law Game series through Ylva Publshing.
Mine is If Looks Could Kill, and it’s Book 5. It’s due out in the next month or two. I’ll keep you posted.
Description:
Eleanor “Ellie” O’Donnell is part of a special investigative unit within the New York City Police Department. Her latest assignment has her tasked with uncovering the relationship between internationally known fashion mogul and all-around ice queen Marya Hampstead and a local Russian crime family. As legendary for her business acumen and beauty as her uncompromising and unapproachable personality, Marya Hampstead is not a woman to cross.
Unfortunately for Ellie, the only way she can get close enough to conduct her investigation is by pretending to be an aspiring designer who takes an internship at Hampstead’s company. Definitely out of her element, Ellie has to put all her acting and investigative skills to work as she delves into what at first seems a simple case of occasional public outings with a man whose family has ties Hampstead might not know about.
But when Marya’s father, an international businessman, shows up in New York, it becomes clear that something else is going on, and that there’s much more to Marya Hampstead than meets the eye. The question is, how much more and how deep is Ellie willing to go to find out?
In the fast-paced world of clothes, critics, and competition, Ellie uncovers a lot more than runway gossip, including secrets that will kill far more than a bad outfit.
Hope you’re interested in checking that out.
OH, and here’s a bit more news. You guys, I’ve just started posting my very first fanfic. I’m one of those obsessed with The 100. I’ve already blogged about the episode in season 3 that shall not be named here, and that is primarily what kicked me in the ass to actually do fanfic.
I have written fanfic in the past. Just not about TV shows and I’ve never posted it. I’ve used it as a writing exercise, to explore characterization and motives while playing in someone else’s world. Maybe that’s a weird form of cosplay. Heh.
At any rate, I am posting a Clexa fanfic, a chapter or two at a time, every week or 10 days or so, over at Archive of Our Own. The title of the work is “Grounded,” and I’m AndiLand or Andi Marquette over there, if you’re into Clexa fanfic.
All rightie. Happy weekending, everyone.
Bring out your dead: on killing characters and historical tropes
Hi, peeps! (see what I did there, given the holiday? Heh.)
I hope this weekend treats you well and that everything is fab with you and yours.
This, my friends, IS A MAJOR LONG-ASS POST. But one in which I need to unpack a few things with regard to certain tropes.
I’ve been thinking about the characters I write, and the characters I’ve grown attached to through other people’s writing, and how it affects people when a writer decides to kill a character.
Writers make decisions all the time on which characters live or die, and that depends on a variety of factors, including the genre, narrative arc, and the personal arcs of the characters themselves. It also depends on where the story may be headed, especially if it’s a series, and how that character is going to fit into a larger picture down the line, if at all.
So there are any number of factors involved in a decision to remove a character either from the printed page or a TV show or movie. And there are any number of things that can happen, both inside the story and outside once the character’s death occurs.
There are also much larger currents at play, and those, too, have a role in reactions. Especially outside the story, among those who are following it.
Specifically, I’m thinking here of a couple of series on TV that I follow. Those are The CW’s The 100 and AMC’s The Walking Dead.
And here’s where I put the SPOILER ALERT. If you follow both these series and you have not seen the most recent episodes, DO NOT READ ANY FARTHER. STOP NOW.
I MEAN IT. SPOILERS.
NOT KIDDING.
Okay, fine. Don’t say you weren’t warned.
Let’s proceed.
And because this is a looooong piece, with lots of rumination, grab your fave delicious beverage and snacks before reading on. I’ll wait.
dum dee dum. la la la. ::checks the Twitterz:: ::plays around on Facebook::
Okay, ready? Let’s go.
Author McCrankyPants strikes again over newfangled tech things
Hello, peeps! I thought I’d burden you today with author insecurity #72: tech inadequacy.
I was chatting with a colleague the other day who asked me if I used a social media management tool and I about flew right off the handle.
BECAUSE LOAD ME DOWN WITH YET ANOTHER @%$&^%^*%&^@%*&$ THING I HAVE TO PAY ATTENTION TO ONLINE! WTF????
I already feel freaking inadequate when it comes to every new &^A&*#^%A(*&#@^*A&@()% iGadget that comes down the pike. And every time I turn around, there’s something else. AUTHORS! USE THIS! DOWNLOAD THIS TOOL! CONSOLIDATE! DIVERSIFY! ARE YOU ON INSTAGRAM? PINTEREST? IT’S THE LATEST THING! HURRY! DO YOU WANT TO SELL BOOKS OR NOT? GET THIS, FOOL!
YOU’RE BEING LEFT BEHIND LIKE A PILE OF CLOTHING IN A WAYWARD RAPTURE!
Identity, politic
Hi, all!
Geez, WTF, Andi? It’s been, like, forever and a day and all kinds of THE THINGS happened and where the hell were you and just what are you doing?
I know. Straight up, I’ve been FB’ing incessantly about the Women’s World Cup (OMG YAY TEAM USA) and writing for deadlines and then there was the amazing historical BOOM when marriage equality was ruled the law of this great land and then there was a horrific tragedy and then all kinds of crazy over certain flags. I decided much wiser heads than I can address those two latter issues, and I still haven’t quite been able to wrap my head around the whole marriage equality thing.
At some point, I will blog that, because I’m coming from a perspective of believing that I probably wouldn’t see it in my lifetime or if I did, I’d be in my 60s or 70s. This perspective, I think, causes a fatalistic outlook on relationships. Marriage was something I thought I could never have, so I never planned for it. I educated myself about the issues, worked to advance them as I could, but I never thought it would be something that I myself could enjoy.
And that leaves its own kinds of scars. Which I will discuss later, as I ponder more.
In the meantime, I wanted to discuss something else. Specifically, what repercussions marriage equality may have on genre fiction.
I wonder this because yesterday at Women and Words, we posted a blog by New York Times bestselling romance author Melissa Foster, who just released a new book in her Harborside Nights series that features a lesbian main character and this character’s love for another woman.
Foster predominantly writes heterosexual romance, and this is her first F/F. As she notes in the blog she did at WaW, she got a little bit of blowback from her writer colleagues.
Why?
I’m up to stuff…
Hi, peeps!
So I’ve got some stuff going on with regard to books n’ things, and I’m not going to announce anything just yet, but I did want everybody to know that I am, indeed, UP TO THINGS! ALL THE THINGS!
In the meantime, I’m writing a longish short story for consideration in a Halloween anthology and I’m working on a holiday novella (you’ve got to get that stuff in before mid-summer to make the fall/winter publication schedules). I’m also working on a crime novella for another project and my colleague in crime R.G. Emanuelle and I are doing another F/F food anthology with Ylva.
We’d LUUUUUUUV for you to consider submitting a story to us.
HINT HINT HINTY HINT HINT.
Our last food-themed anthology is currently a Lambda finalist and a Goldie finalist. That would be All You Can Eat, and yes, we are looking to include recipes in this latest volume, “Order Up,” as well.
And yes, I have a romance novel I’m tinkering with. It’s nearly done, but it needs some overhauling, so we’ll see what happens there. Regarding the rest of the things, well, stay tuned…
muah ha ha
Happy Tuesday!
Clothes-minded
Well, HI, peeps!
It’s been a crazy busy couple of weeks. I’ve started writing again. That is, I started back to work on some novels I’ve had lying around on my hard drive. I did write a short story that got picked up last month for an anthology that’ll be published in the next few months. So my hiatus was kind of spotty. Heh.
ANYWAY. I’m currently getting some things ready for the upcoming GCLS conference in July in New Orleans. That involves a lot of thought about swag and what to bring and what not to bring in terms of my books.
I’m also getting ready to attend the 27th Lambda Awards. My co-edited volume All You Can Eat: A Buffet of Lesbian Romance and Erotica, with fellow author and editor R.G. Emanuelle, made the finalists’ list in lesbian erotica. I’ve not ever attended the Lambdas (or “Lammies,” as you might here), so this is a new and cool experience.
With that in mind, I’ve been thinking about clothes.
Why? Well…
Yet another episode of “Ask Andi Random Questions”
Greetings, peeps!
I know. I’ve been out of the loop for a bit. Traveling and the like.
I did get some STELLAR news a couple days ago, however. The anthology that I co-edited with fellow author/editor R.G. Emanuelle made the finalists’ list for a Lambda award. That would be All You Can Eat: A Buffet of Lesbian Romance and Erotica. Hit that link to find out more. Many thanks to all who contributed (list at the link), our designer, Sue Niewiarowski, and to Ylva Publishing. We are honored to be a part of this. See you in June!
All right! Now let’s talk about Q&A. Every once in a while, I ask people to ask me whatever questions they want and then I post those along with the answers here on my blog. For those of you who asked more than one question, I took one from each. So let’s get to it!
Things that are kind of awesome when you’re not writing
Howdy, peeps!
As some of you know if you follow this here bloggie thingie, I’m in the middle of a bit of a writing burnout and I’m actually not currently writing (stories/novels/novellas), which, though a relief in some ways, comes with its own set of issues (OH NOES I AM SLIPPING INTO WRITING OBSCURITY AND NO ONE WILL EVER CARE THAT I WAS ONCE HERE WRITING *gnashes teeth tears hair reaches for glass of bourbon*).
Regardless, I had to take a break because it just got way too scary trying to balance everything and not take any time to simply live and I started worrying about things like emotional health. And I’ve found some awesome things since I went on writing vay-kay. Here they are, in no particular order:
YOU MUST CLICK TO SEE! MUAH HA HA!
Andi Marquette 