Maven (The Endure Series, book 1), by S.A. Huchton
Release Date: June 3, 2013

So, this is a big day for me. I’ve been building up to this for a few months and now that it’s finally here… Well, it’s hard to really express exactly what’s going on in my head. Today, the cover for book 1 in my brand new series is being revealed to the world.

Frankly, it’s terrifying. How are people going to react? What if they hate it? And, worse, what if no one cares enough to look?

I’m sure everyone feels this way when they put a new creation out in the world. Artists (and by that I’m including all producers of creative works) put their hearts out there when they share a new Thing They Did. We all want these Things to be well-received. At the least, even a negative reaction can be a positive. It means you did something that elicited some sort of response. Someone looked.

Today is like that for me, only this is a little different than what many authors may experience on cover reveal day. Most of them don’t design covers, especially not in a professional capacity. Yes, these images are representatives of the words contained in that package, but if it’s not well-liked they can point to someone else and say “THAT GUY’S FAULT”. Me? I can’t do that, because, in this case, I’m the cover designer.

If you didn’t know, designing book covers is what I do. Usually, this is for other people. Yes, that’s still my art going out into the world, but I have zero control of what happens to it after that and I’m not accountable for the story contents. There’s a disconnect in ownership after I release a client’s cover. That image becomes their herald, not mine. Not to say that I don’t do every job to the best of my ability, but, quite often, once the job is done, it’s done. I move on to the next one. You know. Work.

Designing a cover for yourself is so much more personal. In many ways, I will always be my own biggest critic and this cover speaks to that. The hours I sunk into searching through stock photos to find the exact model I wanted… you don’t want to know. As the author, I knew very specifically what I was looking for as far as representation went. The character featured on my cover has been a fixture in my head for years. I know her extremely well. In many ways, being the author makes my job as a designer harder because of that intimate knowledge. I finally had to “settle” for the most similar person I could find. I tell this to my clients all the time: we’re looking for representative, not literal depictions. Swallowing that bit of reality was painful, but at least now my clients can rest assured that I know how tough it is to take. It’s hard to listen to your own advice!

Another difference in designing for myself versus for others is the time I could take with the project. I don’t rush any job, but I had months to sit on this image, to tweak it during downtime, to scrutinize every last pixel. It was probably fine when I “finished” it the first time, but, like they say, art is never finished, only abandoned. I had to force myself to stop before I ruined it. Seriously. This cover is live now and I’m fighting myself to not open it in Photoshop again.

So, I’m sure I’ll go through this anxiety all over again when Maven goes live on June 3rd. Probably worse, actually. It’s the first long-form fiction I’ve released since The Dreamer’s Thread podcast in 2009. Will others see the change and growth in my writing? I certainly hope so. After four years, I think I’ve learned a thing or two!

Above all else, though, I hope people look.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Description of Maven:

How far would you go for love?

Since losing her parents at 14, young prodigy Dr. Lydia Ashley has focused on one thing: an appointment on the Deep Water Research Command Endure. Now 21, she’s about to realize that dream, but nothing is how she imagined it would be. Her transitional sponsor forgets her, her new lab is in complete chaos, and, as if that weren’t enough, she’s about to discover something so horrific it could potentially destroy all life on the planet. 

Daniel Brewer, a noted playboy and genius in his own right, may be exactly what she needs… Or he may make everything worse.

Has she finally found a puzzle she can’t solve?

I’ve had the tremendous pleasure of reading all of the stories in the Garaaga’s Children: Ancients series by Paul E. Cooley and been fortunate to be able to voice a few of the female characters in the Parsec  Award nominated podcast versions of some of these stories.

These stories start before the written word, when stories were passes down from one teller to the next. These are the stories that became the legends. The stories of the hunters, the hunted, and the story tellers themselves. Stories of love and war. Of sex and violence. Of ancient religions, warriors, and scholars.

These stories represent the beginning of an ever expanding saga. Garaaga, his children, their followers, and their hunters are not just the stuff of legends. They are around in the here and now as well. There are so many more stories to come as Cooley chronicles these groups as they battle their way through history.

Ancients is the first volume of the Garaaga’s Children tales.

Now, these stories are being published in a limited edition hard cover version that is being offered as a special package that includes the signed numbered hardcover, bonus materials, a bonus story, special ebook, and the audiobook. All for just $35.

These aren’t the stories that legends are made of. These are the legends themselves. Go back to the beginning and discover the truth of Garaaga for yourself.

So, I am a writer.

I have no problem saying that. I know many creative types that hold back on calling themselves “writers”, “painters”, “sculptors”, etc. Why? Because they may not make a living at it. And we are defined by how we make a living, right?

Wrong.

We define ourselves. And even though I have a day job that pays the bills (almost), I define myself as a writer because that is what I do. I write. I create. I put words on the screen and that turns into paper books and ebooks that I sell. Can I support my family that way? No. But Van Gough couldn’t support himself with his painting alone and he is called a painter. I write therefore I am. Or something like that.

But, beyond the defining name of writer, I am also a businessman. An entrepreneur, if you will. I make half my income from my writing. That’s a pretty big deal. I have always, for most of my life, looked for the perfect small business to start. I’ve had a vegetarian jerky company (true story, tasty jerky), I have been an independent sales rep, and I have a massage school degree. But it wasn’t until writing happened for me did I find my business niche.

Who knew being creative would actually pay off?

The thing is, with writing as a business, is that there is no manual or plan that leads to success. Is there with other businesses? To a certain degree, yes. If you open a café in a good location, with a good menu, and good prices, and good marketing (and work your ass off) then you will have good success. With writing, though, you can have a great novel at a great price and have great marketing, but it can still flounder. Why?

Nobody knows.

That’s the thing about publishing, which is really the business I am in, no one has a freaking clue what will sell and what won’t.

This is why I have opened my writing career up to my fans and readers and I’m asking them to choose my next novel. (You can read all about it here). Since no one, from massive multinational publishing megagiant to little ole self-publisher, knows what will be a hit and what will be a miss I realized that I needed to go to the source. I had to ask the readers what they wanted instead of writing my next novel and forcing it on them in the hopes it is exactly what they are looking for.

What I’m doing isn’t so revolutionary. Many industries have focus groups after focus groups and take poll after poll to see what their customers want. You think Taco Bell just happened to throw the Doritos Taco up on the menu for shits and giggles? No way, Jose. They market tested that puppy before the first one was even wrapped and handed to a salivating code monkey. But, for a writer to hand over the direction of their next project to the readers? Crazy mad!

Or is it?

Why wouldn’t I ask? Why would I waste a couple months on a novel that only a small percentage of my fans want to read? Why go to all the expense of publishing something that may or may not sell? Isn’t that really madness?

Why gamble?

Ah, there is the key. Gambling. It is well known in publishing that you aren’t in the book business. You are in the gambling business. And I don’t gamble. My game of choice? Poker. That’s not gambling. Not when you know how to play. I hate gambling. It’s a waste of time and money. I want to know I have at least some control over the outcome. Random throw of the dice? Watching a ball spin, spin, spin until it stops on whatever number/color it stops on? Pull a lever and pray? Come on 21? Nope, not for me.

Does my novel experiment have risks? Sure. Everything does. There are no sure things in life. If you are told otherwise then you are being lied to. No such thing as sure things. Chaos rules existence and always will. But I fancy myself a chaos surfer. I like to hop in and see where I end up. That is why I have taken the risk of handing my creative direction to hundreds of people I may or may not even know. Most of them I do not know. They are total strangers.

But they are readers, fans, customers.

Is the customer always right? No, of course not. But they are the ones with the dollars in hand and how they spend those dollars, that process of exchanging money for goods, is always right. I’m just hoping the customers’s/fans’s/readers’s choice of my next novel matches their desire to exchange money for the goods.

If it doesn’t  Well then it was a good experiment and I’m just right back where I started. Just hanging out with all the writers, publishers, agents, book industry folks, waiting to see what novel hits the wall and sticks. Either way I am cool.

Why?

Because I’m a writer. And I’ll still get to write. And that is what matters.

Editors note added on May 5, 2013~

Jake’s readers and fans have selected his next novel and you can pre-order it HERE.

Dean is British, male, brown skinned, and gay. Many of his poems deal with one or more of these topics. And when they don’t, they are certainly from his unique point of view.  I am none of these things. Yet each of his poems speaks to me. While they are about his individual circumstances, they have universal appeal.  Themes of sex and sexuality, identity (as an individual, a citizen of his country, and a member of a larger global community), education, rights and responsibilities, and the larger social condition feature prominently in his work.

As a poet myself, I struggle daily with trying to find the words to express my own inner turmoil as I make my way through this life. I found myself saying, “Yes!” out loud as I read some of these. He so eloquently hits the nail squarely on the head. Some of them are intimate. All are special.

I first found Dean’s work on the Indie Feed Performance Poetry Podcast.  He performed the title poem and I was completely blown away. He has a number of videos on YouTube and has free albums available at BandCamp.

Here’s the description of this volume from Dean’s site:

Revolutionary, reflective and romantic, I Am Nobody’s Nigger is the powerful debut collection by one of the UK’s finest emerging poets. Exploring race, identity and sexuality, Dean Atta shares his perspective on family, friendship, relationships and London life, from riots to one-night stands.

If you haven’t already guessed, I am a huge fan of Dean’s work. These poems are phenomenal when performed but more importantly, they stand up on their own alone on the page. So well, in fact, that I have to limit myself to just a few at a time…savoring them slowly before moving on to the next.

Sometimes, it isn’t a question of want, but need, and what I need is you.

Hard, inside me, now.

I don’t want you to ask.

Seduction is a matter of grace and I’m beyond that now.

I’ve shattered into suspended animation, inconsolable, wretched, a frozen banshee’s howl.

I can’t make do with these others.

I’ve tried.

I find the dance of their shadows far too pale.

A mimicry of sunlight, when what I crave is a solar flare.

No, it has to be you.

To leave me soulless, boneless, floating and thoroughly fucked.

Mass to my inertia, I crave your weight most of all.

My bones simply a thing to be ground like particle etchings of starlight, recorded in the blackness, by a light years breath.

I ache for brutality despite the patience recalled in your kiss.

That gentle coaxing I denied, because it would make me less wrong.

I am a glitch in time, a razor slashed pre-raphaelite painting that screams on the inside.

The blank map of your predilections lure me continually to a reality that may not exist.

Winding paths as fleeting as the question of whether you want at all.

Let alone me.

Need unrelenting like stone, it can be covered, chiseled away.

My litany of minutia, I can look past any atrocity and smile.

Wind sways the branches, the twisted tree in the forest whispers it’s still irrelevance.

Frozen in the destruction of my own time, continually forgetting this dream of hope.

Salsa Nocturna by Daniel Jose Older

This review is long overdue. I didn’t keep track of how many books or stories I read or listened to in 2012; but this book was one of my favorites. The only stories I loved more, or read more times, were ones I worked on as editor.

This is an interconnected series of short stories by Daniel Jose Older. Besides being a writer, he’s a musician, song writer (both with Ghost Star), and paramedic. He calls New York City home and the love he has for the city, as well as her inhabitants, is evidenced in every word. And those words….swoon. His prose is tight, full of imagery, and wonderfully evocative.

Usually after I finish reading something, I archive it immediately because my kindle has WAY too many things on it waiting to be read. This book is the exception. I’ve read the entire thing twice and some stories more than that. If I had to pick a favorite, it would probably be Magdelena. Or the title story. Or maybe The Collector… See, this is why I keep going back to re-read them.

I suppose I should try to explain the premise of these stories. They are a mix of ghost stories: the supernatural, urban fantasy, and crossing between the worlds of the living and the dead (the dead have their own bureaucracy, if you didn’t already know). There are multiple main characters and the stories sort of oscillate between them. Some are creepier than others (like those damn dolls), some made me cry, and some made me laugh out loud.

His words mambo, pulling you in close to dance you through the story until you are left gasping for air at the end, wondering what just happened and so glad it did.

You can get your copy here. His accidental poem (taken with permission from a tweet of his) is here. And, you can read his blog here.

Chocolate Scotch has been around for 18 months now and as today is the end of 2012 it seems like an appropriate time to take stock of life, the universe, and everything. Getting people of all walks of life, who create in different ways, to share their thoughts on creativity, art, and/or inspiration in the hopes of adding kindling to people’s creative flame is the goal at ChocolateScotch. That there are poems, audio posts, stories, essays, and letters here thrills me. So far, there have been 78 guest posts in the Creativity Blog Project. This is a lot less than I had hoped to have by now; yet they are a stunning collection of thoughts.

In looking back, I know I’ve not given this site the time and energy it requires to grow over the past year. As with a lot of my creative endeavors, I started out by giving it my undivided attention and over time let myself get sidetracked. As with all things, moderation is key. I know now that publishing a guest post a day was an insane way to start this project. It took way too much of my time and made sustaining that output (once the initial pile was posted) all but impossible. That is, and have any kind of life beyond these pages.

For the coming year, I would like to post a couple of guest posts a month. Every other week seems reasonable; one a week would be ideal. If you’ve already contributed but have another thought on creativity that you would like to share, by all means submit again. If you haven’t already contributed, why not?

If you are already on the awesome page of contributors and would like to update your information, please send an email with how you would like your bio blurb to read now. And, if you are updating that, I urge you to consider sending in some new thoughts as well (but this is not required).

If I had to sum up the past year in a single word, it would be grateful. Grateful for all of the support I have received from friends old and new. Grateful for the amazing and inspiring posts so many have contributed here. Grateful to be doing things I love like writing and editing. Grateful for too many people and things to list them all here. Mostly, grateful for you.

Thank you for reading.

Here’s to a brand new year and the creations we all bring forth therein.

Cheers,

Sue

There are countless ways to be creative. The problem is though, that there are even more ways to procrastinate. Not being creative is sometimes easier than being creative. And once you try to do one thing, hundreds of ideas come flooding into your brain – for something completely different. To illustrate it better, I will write throughout this text where I take a break to do something else creative. Like I’m about to do, halfway through this very paragraph.

** Written 2K of a short story. **

In this way, I can somehow trick myself and my creativity. I remember at university, when I had to study a lot, I would always excuse myself to clean my flat. It was the only thing I could do that would shut up the guilt-devil when I didn‘t want to study. When I did NaNoWriMo in 2010, I was only working a few hours a week because I had to study for my last big exam. Needless to say that starting NaNo could have been seen as the worst idea ever. On the contrary, for me it worked splendidly. When I didn‘t want to write anymore, I went to study because that didn‘t make me feel guilty. When I was sick of studying, I sat down to write; after all, I wanted to win NaNo too and I had a daily word count to achieve. After a short while I had spiralled myself into a procrastinating perpetual motion machine. In trying to procrastinate from one thing, the only other thing I could do brought me forward as well. So I wasn‘t procrastinating at all anymore, my guilt had been satisfied and I won NaNo and passed my exam.

** Written 500 words for a paper on Intellectual Property Law ***

Needless to say that I do not possess the longest attention span in the world. I am what everyone said Generation Y would grow up to be… at least to some degree. But that is the problem. Between checking one‘s Twitter feed every 5 minutes and twitching at the sound of a new email, it is sometimes hard to be creative. That does not mean it‘s not possible. If it hits me, I can write a couple of thousand words in one go, which usually results in a low where I have to watch a few episodes of TV to charge my batteries. Sometimes I just need a break. The good news is: a break can also consist of doing something else productive. What defines productive is up to you. Whatever makes you feel productive or has an actual result. And as John Lennon once said, “Time you enjoy wasting, was not wasted”. Now, my brain jumping around between 300 things has actually led to defending procrastination. Super. The point I was trying to make was that creativity and productivity can mean something different for everyone. Some people just want to be creative, some just productive. And some greedy buggers, and I count myself proudly as one of them, want it all. Creative and productive. With a sprinkle of genius.

*** Knitting for two hours ***

Creativity can sometimes work just the same for me. When I‘m sitting in front of a blank piece of paper and I just don‘t get the inspiration, I start cooking. Or I take my camera and go on a photo safari in my neighbourhood. Sometimes it takes nature or the people around you to get inspired. For some people, it helps to watch, look at or read works by other creative people. Luckily, the internet can provide a huge amount of inspiration from creative people. The problem about it is the same thing though. Sometimes it is just too much. I hang around in my usual places online, and unless I actively go out to search for something, I would be inspired by the same people over and over again.

This is why you need to go out. Nature, streets, museums, shops. If you run out of ideas, sometimes just broadening your horizon helps. Look into things you never thought about, have never seen or never knew. Creativity might just find you there.

*** Written 600 words on my doctoral thesis ***

In the short story podcast that I‘m hosting and producing with Mick Bordet–Every Photo Tells…– we try to find inspiration for stories in photographs. Each month we put out a new photo and give the listeners a month to write storied inspired by them. That is the gist of it, but in reality, it goes deeper. All of the photos are also taken by one of us and we have been together when most of them were taken. It started off with us roaming through old photographs for those which could inspire a story. After a while though, we found the photos we had already taken were sometimes a bit too… slick to provoke a story. Now we have changed our point of view. Whenever we are out and about and there is a camera, we are also on the lookout for new EPT photos. Different angles and things that we wouldn‘t have thought about taking a photo of, had it only been for our personal photo album. Like the duck on the wooden plank, which attracted the biggest number and widest range of stories so far.

Go out and look for the duck on the plank, you might find something you never expected.

It’s my job to help you.
I spend a full forty hours a week
And more when there is over time
Helping people
Lots of people
Just like you.

I wouldn’t do this kind of job,
No matter how bad the economy gets,
If I didn’t like helping people;
Because while the pay is okay,
I have to put up with folks like you
And that takes a special dedication.
Or stupidity. Whatever.

I don’t understand,
No matter how many times
I have to deal with it,
Why you think it’s okay
Or even beneficial in some way,
To be abusive,
Or obnoxious,
Or just a bully
To the person who is trying to help you.

I understand you are frustrated.
And angry.
I get that this is about money,
And you may even be confused.
But really? ALL CAPS?
Or calling everyone who works here an idiot.
And, demanding that we fix our mistake
When it was really your mistake
IMMEDIATELY!
OR ELSE!!!

Or else, what?
All you have accomplished
By being an abusive ass
Is you made my job a little bit harder.
And while I am certainly up to the challenge,
When my job is helping you,
Is that really what you want to do?

But beyond the job itself,
And fixing whatever your issue may happen to be;
There is a bigger picture here.
You seem to have forgotten
That you are dealing with
Your fellow human being.

And regardless of your issue,
Your level of frustration,
Your anger or confusion,
Or whatever your excuse may be;
It’s not okay to treat people
Even Customer Service slaves
Like they are less than people
Less than you

So if you really want to help me
Help you,
Then remember my words.
But if you really just need
To blow off some steam
At whomever is unlucky enough
To find themselves
In your cross hairs
I’ll be right with you.

With a smile,
Thinking,
What a fucking deuchbag,
While I fix your problem;
And wishing I could fix you
Instead.

Matthew Sanborn Smith combines flash fiction with what at first listen sounds like the stream-of-consiousness ramblings of the criminally insane in itty-bitty episodes (4-7 minutes) that pack one hell of a punch.  The stories are massive mashups of bizarro, fantasy, science fiction, satire, humor, and just plain silliness.  There is lots of potty humor, sexual inuendos, foul language (or fowl language, who knew ducks talked that way?), puns, and play-on-words ridiculousness.

As someone who normally mainlines podcasts, I’ve had to change my listening behaviour with this podcast.  It has quickly become my favorite mental floss to clean out the detritus left behind in my grey matter by some of the other podcasts I listen to that make me think too much.  This is not a podcast that you will want to listen to all 137 (and counting) episodes at one time.  It’s too high energy, too insane for that.  Instead it is perfect as is…just one or two episodes at a time.  It is like podcast chocolate…so amazingly wonderful a bite or two at a time.

Meanwhile, there have been a lot of episodes that I listen to repeatedly.  For silly stuff, these bits of flash fiction are well crafted and I want to go back to get all the tasty bits I miss in the first listen.  The style is minimalist.  This is not flowery prose and fear not, no adjectives were wasted in the writing here.  This is definitely an acquired taste; but it quickly becomes an addiction.

There are things in life that I love to indulge in.  Things like chocolate, scotch, and hairy mangos.