Welcome to Biting-Edge, a blog shared by authors and vampire experts, Mario Acevedo and Jeanne Stein. We’ll cover urban fantasy, vampires, pop culture, and all things Joss Whedon. Unlike other fantasy blogs, we don’t insist on body cavity searches (unless you ask politely). Snarkiness is most welcome...though we won't promise not to bite back!
Sunday, January 08, 2012
A presidential retread and those pesky his and hers
Mario here:
Two years ago I had the good fortune of meeting fellow scribe, Jason Heller, who writes for the AV section of the local Onion and was a contributor to Westword. Heller's a long time critic and raconteur of popular music and culture in general and a thoroughly funny guy. So who better to pen the story of former-president William Howard Taft running for the White House (again)? Heller's novel, Taft 2012 is getting excellent notice and his publisher is sparking up the buzz with these super book trailers.
Catch Heller at his book launch at the LoDo Tattered Cover, Tuesday, January 17, 7:30pm.
Another FOBE (friend of Biting-Edge), J.A. Kazimer is sponsoring a Goodreads giveaway for an ARC of her newest book, Curses, A F*cked
Up Fairy Tale. It's a great parody of the paranormal mystery genre, and here's your chance to score a copy.
If anyone has a crystal ball for the publishing industry, it might be Hyperion CEO Ellen Archer. In this posting on Digital Book World she shares her thoughts about the state of the business, the impact of ebooks (expected to be more than half of Hyperion's revenue by 2015), author advances (shrinking), and the importance of social media to your writing career.
Fellow Leagurer Carolyn Crane expounded recently about Some writing/reading things that she thought she'd never do but now does all the time. She discusses how Twitter has forced her to LOL and ROFL. And her beloved Roget's Thesaurus has been displaced by online versions. Like her, my dogeared thesaurus gathers dust next to the recycle box. It's so much easier to google *word* synonym. But progress brought an unexpected treat--the Merriam-Webster online dictionary's videos.
You get to see and hear brainy (and easy-on-the-eyes) librarian types pontificate on topics such as the pronunciation of troublesome words, flat adverbs, and the stinkeye. A favorite video addresses the whole clunky his or her construct. If you've ever had your hand slapped for writing "Everyone must bring their coat" because it's supposedly more grammatically correct to write "Everyone must bring his or her coat" then guess what? Vengeance is yours. Don't let the pinheads bully your use of the indefinite pronoun. And this video tells you why.
Two years ago I had the good fortune of meeting fellow scribe, Jason Heller, who writes for the AV section of the local Onion and was a contributor to Westword. Heller's a long time critic and raconteur of popular music and culture in general and a thoroughly funny guy. So who better to pen the story of former-president William Howard Taft running for the White House (again)? Heller's novel, Taft 2012 is getting excellent notice and his publisher is sparking up the buzz with these super book trailers.
Catch Heller at his book launch at the LoDo Tattered Cover, Tuesday, January 17, 7:30pm.
Another FOBE (friend of Biting-Edge), J.A. Kazimer is sponsoring a Goodreads giveaway for an ARC of her newest book, Curses, A F*cked
Up Fairy Tale. It's a great parody of the paranormal mystery genre, and here's your chance to score a copy.
If anyone has a crystal ball for the publishing industry, it might be Hyperion CEO Ellen Archer. In this posting on Digital Book World she shares her thoughts about the state of the business, the impact of ebooks (expected to be more than half of Hyperion's revenue by 2015), author advances (shrinking), and the importance of social media to your writing career.
Fellow Leagurer Carolyn Crane expounded recently about Some writing/reading things that she thought she'd never do but now does all the time. She discusses how Twitter has forced her to LOL and ROFL. And her beloved Roget's Thesaurus has been displaced by online versions. Like her, my dogeared thesaurus gathers dust next to the recycle box. It's so much easier to google *word* synonym. But progress brought an unexpected treat--the Merriam-Webster online dictionary's videos.
You get to see and hear brainy (and easy-on-the-eyes) librarian types pontificate on topics such as the pronunciation of troublesome words, flat adverbs, and the stinkeye. A favorite video addresses the whole clunky his or her construct. If you've ever had your hand slapped for writing "Everyone must bring their coat" because it's supposedly more grammatically correct to write "Everyone must bring his or her coat" then guess what? Vengeance is yours. Don't let the pinheads bully your use of the indefinite pronoun. And this video tells you why.Labels: J. A. Kazimer, Jason Heller, Merriam-Webster, Taft 2012
¶ posted by Mario Acevedo @ 3:30 PM 3 comments
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Are we not men...or cavemen?
Mario here:
We'll start with the pimpage. Shout out to Colette Duke, who gives us sensual science fiction romance. Here's her giveaway to celebrate Emerald 3 hitting #1 Science Fiction Romance Short Story:
"Emerald 3 is my entree into the science fiction romance world. A short story, just to get my feet wet in the genre. I was tickled enough when it was #1 in an incredibly obscure category of Amazon's bestseller lists. March 23 the category wasn't so obscure. Emerald 3 hit the #1 spot for 'science fiction romance short story' on Amazon. Holy moly.
To celebrate, I'm giving away a free copy of the full story (yep, including the nocturnal goings-on of Fioran and Alohxi) to the first five people who leave a comment on this post and send me their contact information via my Contact page. You'll need to specify which format you prefer. I can send HTML, EPUB, and PDF.
Thank you for celebrating with me, and I hope you enjoy meeting Fioran, Alohxi, and the tree people of Emerald 3."
And now...
To be a novelist you must be a student of human nature. Makes sense. We write stories about people and to be credible, our characters must act like real people. But our stories have to be interesting so we put the emotional screws to our characters and watch them react. So how should they react?
What fascinates me is that while we like to pretend that we're open-minded, rational, and sophisticated, the truth is that we're pretty identical to our caveman ancestors. In fact, for most of the 200,000 years that homo sapiens have been around, people much like us wandered naked in the wilderness, hunting and gathering, building fires, and no doubt trying to scramble up the food chain. Coping behavior was encoded into that inherited part of human consciousness responsible for survival--aka, the lizard brain. It could be little things. We like bling because shiny baubles remind us of water, a necessity for survival. We eat sweets because in nature, sweet foods gave us nutrients missing in woolly mammoth meat.
Outsiders were rivals and today, we're wary of anyone who doesn't look or act like us. Sex? Think about it, our ancestors had to get their freak on regardless of plague or ruin, otherwise that would've been the end of us as a species. They even had prehistoric sex toys and porn. Considering that soap wasn't invented until Roman times (or maybe it was the Babylonians), our boinking caveman forebears must've been some rank motherfuckers.
Having said that, we're not animals, meaning we understand in the abstract the consequences of what we do. Success as a writer may be ingrained in our desire for greater esteem within our tribe, but the discipline of writing requires that we muffle our lizard brain, sit our ass down at the keyboard and work. The caveman inside us can never be used as an excuse for our individual failings.
Andddddd...more pimpage...
Our blessed Kat Richardson shares a gooey enchilada with her thoughts on the ongoing e-publishing ruckus. Trust me, she is as brainy as she is easy on the eyes.
And BFF to the Biting-Edge, J.A. Kazimer continues her contest. It's free swag, people!
We'll start with the pimpage. Shout out to Colette Duke, who gives us sensual science fiction romance. Here's her giveaway to celebrate Emerald 3 hitting #1 Science Fiction Romance Short Story:
"Emerald 3 is my entree into the science fiction romance world. A short story, just to get my feet wet in the genre. I was tickled enough when it was #1 in an incredibly obscure category of Amazon's bestseller lists. March 23 the category wasn't so obscure. Emerald 3 hit the #1 spot for 'science fiction romance short story' on Amazon. Holy moly.
To celebrate, I'm giving away a free copy of the full story (yep, including the nocturnal goings-on of Fioran and Alohxi) to the first five people who leave a comment on this post and send me their contact information via my Contact page. You'll need to specify which format you prefer. I can send HTML, EPUB, and PDF.
Thank you for celebrating with me, and I hope you enjoy meeting Fioran, Alohxi, and the tree people of Emerald 3."
And now...
To be a novelist you must be a student of human nature. Makes sense. We write stories about people and to be credible, our characters must act like real people. But our stories have to be interesting so we put the emotional screws to our characters and watch them react. So how should they react?
What fascinates me is that while we like to pretend that we're open-minded, rational, and sophisticated, the truth is that we're pretty identical to our caveman ancestors. In fact, for most of the 200,000 years that homo sapiens have been around, people much like us wandered naked in the wilderness, hunting and gathering, building fires, and no doubt trying to scramble up the food chain. Coping behavior was encoded into that inherited part of human consciousness responsible for survival--aka, the lizard brain. It could be little things. We like bling because shiny baubles remind us of water, a necessity for survival. We eat sweets because in nature, sweet foods gave us nutrients missing in woolly mammoth meat.
Outsiders were rivals and today, we're wary of anyone who doesn't look or act like us. Sex? Think about it, our ancestors had to get their freak on regardless of plague or ruin, otherwise that would've been the end of us as a species. They even had prehistoric sex toys and porn. Considering that soap wasn't invented until Roman times (or maybe it was the Babylonians), our boinking caveman forebears must've been some rank motherfuckers.
Having said that, we're not animals, meaning we understand in the abstract the consequences of what we do. Success as a writer may be ingrained in our desire for greater esteem within our tribe, but the discipline of writing requires that we muffle our lizard brain, sit our ass down at the keyboard and work. The caveman inside us can never be used as an excuse for our individual failings.
Andddddd...more pimpage...
Our blessed Kat Richardson shares a gooey enchilada with her thoughts on the ongoing e-publishing ruckus. Trust me, she is as brainy as she is easy on the eyes.
And BFF to the Biting-Edge, J.A. Kazimer continues her contest. It's free swag, people!
Labels: caveman, Colette Duke, J. A. Kazimer, Kat Richardson, prehistoric sex toys
¶ posted by Mario Acevedo @ 1:39 PM 7 comments
Wednesday, November 03, 2010
News and Views...
Now that Mario and I are Master Bloggers, how I love that, I was relieved to find a few articles of interest for this week's Master Blog. But first, a couple of personal items.
Chosen was nominated by RT Book Reviews Magazine as Best Urban Fantasy Novel for 2010. Competition is keen: MAGIC BLEEDS by Ilona Andrews; TOTAL ECLIPSE by Rachel Caine; DOUBLE CROSS by Carolyn Crane; MOB RULES by Cameron Haley; DUST by JoanFrances Turner.
Win, lose or draw, I'm honored.
Second, HEXED, four novellas by Ilona Andrews, Yasmine Gaenorn, Allyson James and moi, is available now for preorder here :
Here's the back cover blurb about my story:
From national bestselling author Jeanne C. Stein comes "Blood Debt," where bounty-hunter-turned vampire Anna Strong is visited by three witches who ask her to right an old magical wrong. Anna will have to live up to her name to make it through alive...
From Shelf Awareness:
Powell’s Books, Portland, Ore., has purchased 7,000 books from Anne Rice's personal library and set up a dedicated page on its website to sell them, the Oregonian reported.
Powell's From the Library of Anne Rice section notes that the collection includes "editions signed or annotated by Ms. Rice, and many have her library markings on the spines. The collection showcases her love of literature and writing and reveals a true intellectual curiosity--classic philosophy, the Brontes, biblical archaeology, and Louisiana history are just a few of the subject areas represented."
From Shelf Awareness:
New Zealand officials agreed to a deal "under which they will contribute special financing and introduce labor legislation" to discourage Warner Brothers and Peter Jackson from taking the production of the two movies adapted from J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit out of the country.
The New York Times reported that the agreement came "after a week in which thousands of New Zealand film workers had taken to the streets in a push to save The Hobbit--and much of New Zealand's film industry with it--while others questioned whether its politicians had gone too far in kowtowing to Hollywood."
Meet Deaver: Jeffery Deaver, author of the next Bond novel
From USA Today :
And a special congratulations to Julie Kazimer, one of our Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers buddies, on her first book sale:
J.A. Kazimer's F***ED UP FAIRYTALE, pitched as "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" meets "Shrek" when Cinderella is run over by a bus and a private investigator (on mental health leave from the Villains Union) is hired by her not-so-ugly stepsister to solve what she believes is a murder and break her own curse before New Never City is riddled with dead bodies, to Peter Senftleben at Kensington, in a nice deal, in a two-book deal, by Sharon Belcastro at Belcastro Agency (World).
Always a nice thing to celebrate!!
Chosen was nominated by RT Book Reviews Magazine as Best Urban Fantasy Novel for 2010. Competition is keen: MAGIC BLEEDS by Ilona Andrews; TOTAL ECLIPSE by Rachel Caine; DOUBLE CROSS by Carolyn Crane; MOB RULES by Cameron Haley; DUST by JoanFrances Turner.
Win, lose or draw, I'm honored.
Second, HEXED, four novellas by Ilona Andrews, Yasmine Gaenorn, Allyson James and moi, is available now for preorder here :
Here's the back cover blurb about my story:
From national bestselling author Jeanne C. Stein comes "Blood Debt," where bounty-hunter-turned vampire Anna Strong is visited by three witches who ask her to right an old magical wrong. Anna will have to live up to her name to make it through alive...
# # # #
From Shelf Awareness:
Powell’s Books, Portland, Ore., has purchased 7,000 books from Anne Rice's personal library and set up a dedicated page on its website to sell them, the Oregonian reported.
Powell's From the Library of Anne Rice section notes that the collection includes "editions signed or annotated by Ms. Rice, and many have her library markings on the spines. The collection showcases her love of literature and writing and reveals a true intellectual curiosity--classic philosophy, the Brontes, biblical archaeology, and Louisiana history are just a few of the subject areas represented."
# # # #
From Shelf Awareness:
New Zealand officials agreed to a deal "under which they will contribute special financing and introduce labor legislation" to discourage Warner Brothers and Peter Jackson from taking the production of the two movies adapted from J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit out of the country.
The New York Times reported that the agreement came "after a week in which thousands of New Zealand film workers had taken to the streets in a push to save The Hobbit--and much of New Zealand's film industry with it--while others questioned whether its politicians had gone too far in kowtowing to Hollywood."
# # # #
Meet Deaver: Jeffery Deaver, author of the next Bond novel
From USA Today :
Best known for his thrillers starring quadriplegic criminalist Lincoln Rhyme, Deaver has a new mission: Bring Bond into the 21st century in a new 007 novel.
The yet-to-be-named book is cryptically referred to as "Project X" by Ian Fleming Publications Ltd., which owns the rights to Fleming's work…
"The novel," he says, "is set in the present day, in 2011. Bond is a young agent for the British secret service. He's 29 or 30 years old, and he's an Afghan war vet."
That in itself is big news. After all, if Bond were aging in real time — he first appeared in Fleming's Casino Royale n 1953 — the now doddering (although assuredly still handsome) 007 would be nearly 90.
A very cool idea:
Ever wonder what it would be like to hang out with Frankenstein? U Star Novels offers "a range of romantic novels that are fully personalized to include up to 30 of your personal details, making you and your partner the stars of your very own novel....
With U Star Personalized Classics, the plot remains the same, the only thing that changes is that it could be you following the yellow brick road, or your brother hunting vampires in the darkest depths of Transylvania, or your best friend starring in one of the best-loved romances of all time alongside her own Mr. Darcy!" ---
A novel Christmas present perhaps....
The yet-to-be-named book is cryptically referred to as "Project X" by Ian Fleming Publications Ltd., which owns the rights to Fleming's work…
"The novel," he says, "is set in the present day, in 2011. Bond is a young agent for the British secret service. He's 29 or 30 years old, and he's an Afghan war vet."
That in itself is big news. After all, if Bond were aging in real time — he first appeared in Fleming's Casino Royale n 1953 — the now doddering (although assuredly still handsome) 007 would be nearly 90.
# # # #
A very cool idea:Ever wonder what it would be like to hang out with Frankenstein? U Star Novels offers "a range of romantic novels that are fully personalized to include up to 30 of your personal details, making you and your partner the stars of your very own novel....
With U Star Personalized Classics, the plot remains the same, the only thing that changes is that it could be you following the yellow brick road, or your brother hunting vampires in the darkest depths of Transylvania, or your best friend starring in one of the best-loved romances of all time alongside her own Mr. Darcy!" ---
A novel Christmas present perhaps....
# # # #
J.A. Kazimer's F***ED UP FAIRYTALE, pitched as "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" meets "Shrek" when Cinderella is run over by a bus and a private investigator (on mental health leave from the Villains Union) is hired by her not-so-ugly stepsister to solve what she believes is a murder and break her own curse before New Never City is riddled with dead bodies, to Peter Senftleben at Kensington, in a nice deal, in a two-book deal, by Sharon Belcastro at Belcastro Agency (World).
Always a nice thing to celebrate!!
# # # #
Fox is out with a new trailer for its big Christmas film, the Jack Black-starrer Gulliver's Travels which gets released December 22:
Huffington Post readers chose "7 Movies That Are Better Than the Book."
See if you agree and feel free to add your own.
# # # #
So, who's doing NaNoWriMo? I've logged in 7500 words--but I know I can't keep up this pace. Just trying to get ahead of the game...
From Deadline.com
Fox is out with a new trailer for its big Christmas film, the Jack Black-starrer Gulliver's Travels which gets released December 22:
# # # #
Huffington Post readers chose "7 Movies That Are Better Than the Book."
See if you agree and feel free to add your own.
# # # #
Hollywood studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc., the home of James Bond, filed for bankruptcy protection on Wednesday in a plan that had the backing of its lenders and put funding of its half of "The Hobbit" back on track.
Yikes.In the sure sign of the impending Apocalypse file:
'Hobbit' Money Sought as MGM Files for Bankruptcy ....
Hollywood studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc., the home of James Bond, filed for bankruptcy protection on Wednesday in a plan that had the backing of its lenders and put funding of its half of "The Hobbit" back on track.
# # # #
So, who's doing NaNoWriMo? I've logged in 7500 words--but I know I can't keep up this pace. Just trying to get ahead of the game...
Labels: Anne Rice, Gulliver's Travels, Hexed, J. A. Kazimer, James Bond, Jeffrey Deaver, Peter Jackson, U Star Novels
¶ posted by Jeanne Stein @ 2:58 PM 6 comments
