jana_denardo (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
jana_denardo) wrote2015-08-02 02:14 pm
jana_denardo) wrote2015-08-02 02:14 pm
Entry tags:
Sunday Small Talk & 100 Things
So I'm staring down at the pipe at a very busy August. On the 14th Snowbound is out. On the 19th Boldly Go my freebie Vegas wedding story will be out. On the 21st out comes Soldiers of the Sun, my second novel. It's going to be fun. Hectic. Insane.
But can I just say I'm thrilled that people are buying all three Soldiers stories. I have sales of the novella and pre-sales for the above mentioned ones. I couldn't be happier.
And the domain for my webpage has been purchased and my friend is busy working on it now.
I'll be hosting the cover reveal for Soldiers of the Sun on tuesday so be watching for that.
I did in fact finish Camp Nano and would have put some graphics up if freaking photobucket didn't try to download a virus into my computer via its shitty ads. Instead of a graphic how about a taste of the opening pages of Blood Red Roulette. That's more fun anyhow.
This was no place for a ghost hunt. Arrigo had thought that even before he started out for his destination, Delilah's Diner, a greasy spoon hanging onto the 1950s with the tenacity of a bear trap. He remembered the location from the other week when he had been in the area on his actual job. As an enforcer for the Chiaroscuro, he had taken down a renegade vampire just a block away, in a biker bar called The Alibi. As a vampire himself, Arrigo belonged to an organization helping to keep ill-mannered and dangerously violent supernaturals under control. About the only thing worth noting in The Alibi had been a cute blond bartender. As for the vampire he had been sent there to end, the idiot was so young, so full of himself, it hadn’t been much of a fight.
Arrigo knew when Delilah's Diner crossed his desk at his day job at Taabu and Giancarlo's Psychic Advisement and Paranormal Investigations, it couldn't possibly be part of the new business he was considering: a ghost walk. Las Vegas had a few, but if Tripadvisor was to be believed, they were light on history. He hoped to come up with a tour backed up by Vegas history, with some good ghostly stories and a reasonable walk. It was a perfect job for vampires and there were several young vampires in town who weren't old enough to be out in the sun, like he could be, who could be tour leaders. Arrigo thought there was probably a joke in there somewhere, a vampire hunting ghosts.
Deliah's was too far off either the Strip or Freemont Street to make it good for the walk, not to mention it was a sketchy side of town. Still, he could add it into a book he'd been commissioned to write about haunted Vegas. Also it afforded Arrigo the chance to swing by The Alibi. He wanted to know more about the family who seemed to run the place, or at least the hot blond. The gray-haired, bearded man who screamed redneck with the bayou accent to back up the image held no interest for Arrigo other than to inspire distaste because of the hostility he lorded over the two young men who worked the bar with him: one was the blond that had caught his eye and the other was brawnier with darker hair. Arrigo decided they were obviously his sons from the way they interacted. Their accents were Louisianan, Cajun, actually. Arrigo figured they had come west looking for new homes after Hurricane Katerina like so many others. He knew a whole clan of vampires who gave up the New Orleans cliché and moved to Tempe, Arizona. Arrigo recognized the accent because he had lived in the Pontalba Apartments in the French Quarter once upon a lifetime ago.
Since he was on that side of town documenting haunted diners, Arrigo decided to stop at The Alibi, even though he hardly fit in. Maybe he'd see the hot blond. Those stunning blue eyes, short golden curls, and a muscular build got his motor running. Arrigo never discriminated between sexes when intimacy was concerned. Not that Arrigo had approached the blond and probably wouldn't tonight either, at least not in The Alibi. This sort of bar probably thrived on gay bashing, and he was not in the mood to get into a fight with people he’d gladly drain down to the last drop.
And I wanted to add another of those 100 things about writing here too
Just a decade ago you wouldn't find too many gay characters in mainstream fantasy. I'm old enough to remember the fall out when Mercedes Lackey made a main character gay (yes I realize this is more like 20 years ago). You would have thought the world was ending. 'No one will ever take her seriously again.' Heard that one many times. They were wrong but still in the 90s I remember so many agents/editors/publishers saying not only no gay characters but threatening to black ball you if they caught wind you published something like that elsewhere.
Now you're starting to see gay characters, mostly as secondary characters, sometimes as one of the group of protagonists and they're just there being who they are. No fan fare, no OMG you're gay! They just are who they are and this is amazing to see. Chuck Wendig has a whole series with a gay protagonist, Maggie Stiefvater's Raven Boys may have a gay character (I say yes but you could read the statements as the character not giving a damn someone called him gay as in insult), Rick Riordan's second Olympiad series has a gay character and yes there is another popular YA writer who has a hot series and a movie with one too but since there are things I don't like about her, I didn't really want to include her.
I'm sure there are more examples. And I wish it was as simple as oh hey, this character's gay and everyone goes on with their lives. Oh how I wish. Of course it's not that simple. Every homophobe seems to come crawling out of the woodwork with something shitty to say in their non-reviews that exist to blast the author for daring to include a gay character. Chuck Wendig had a beautifully sarcastic response to that last week. I haven't seen how the others have responded to it.
There will always be haters. Who cares about them? I'm just glad to see the inclusion of these characters, especially in YA. Young people coming into their sexuality need to have some positive ...well if not role models since that's an odd thing for a fictional character to be, then at least to see people like themselves in roles other than those designed to ridicule.
But can I just say I'm thrilled that people are buying all three Soldiers stories. I have sales of the novella and pre-sales for the above mentioned ones. I couldn't be happier.
And the domain for my webpage has been purchased and my friend is busy working on it now.
I'll be hosting the cover reveal for Soldiers of the Sun on tuesday so be watching for that.
I did in fact finish Camp Nano and would have put some graphics up if freaking photobucket didn't try to download a virus into my computer via its shitty ads. Instead of a graphic how about a taste of the opening pages of Blood Red Roulette. That's more fun anyhow.
This was no place for a ghost hunt. Arrigo had thought that even before he started out for his destination, Delilah's Diner, a greasy spoon hanging onto the 1950s with the tenacity of a bear trap. He remembered the location from the other week when he had been in the area on his actual job. As an enforcer for the Chiaroscuro, he had taken down a renegade vampire just a block away, in a biker bar called The Alibi. As a vampire himself, Arrigo belonged to an organization helping to keep ill-mannered and dangerously violent supernaturals under control. About the only thing worth noting in The Alibi had been a cute blond bartender. As for the vampire he had been sent there to end, the idiot was so young, so full of himself, it hadn’t been much of a fight.
Arrigo knew when Delilah's Diner crossed his desk at his day job at Taabu and Giancarlo's Psychic Advisement and Paranormal Investigations, it couldn't possibly be part of the new business he was considering: a ghost walk. Las Vegas had a few, but if Tripadvisor was to be believed, they were light on history. He hoped to come up with a tour backed up by Vegas history, with some good ghostly stories and a reasonable walk. It was a perfect job for vampires and there were several young vampires in town who weren't old enough to be out in the sun, like he could be, who could be tour leaders. Arrigo thought there was probably a joke in there somewhere, a vampire hunting ghosts.
Deliah's was too far off either the Strip or Freemont Street to make it good for the walk, not to mention it was a sketchy side of town. Still, he could add it into a book he'd been commissioned to write about haunted Vegas. Also it afforded Arrigo the chance to swing by The Alibi. He wanted to know more about the family who seemed to run the place, or at least the hot blond. The gray-haired, bearded man who screamed redneck with the bayou accent to back up the image held no interest for Arrigo other than to inspire distaste because of the hostility he lorded over the two young men who worked the bar with him: one was the blond that had caught his eye and the other was brawnier with darker hair. Arrigo decided they were obviously his sons from the way they interacted. Their accents were Louisianan, Cajun, actually. Arrigo figured they had come west looking for new homes after Hurricane Katerina like so many others. He knew a whole clan of vampires who gave up the New Orleans cliché and moved to Tempe, Arizona. Arrigo recognized the accent because he had lived in the Pontalba Apartments in the French Quarter once upon a lifetime ago.
Since he was on that side of town documenting haunted diners, Arrigo decided to stop at The Alibi, even though he hardly fit in. Maybe he'd see the hot blond. Those stunning blue eyes, short golden curls, and a muscular build got his motor running. Arrigo never discriminated between sexes when intimacy was concerned. Not that Arrigo had approached the blond and probably wouldn't tonight either, at least not in The Alibi. This sort of bar probably thrived on gay bashing, and he was not in the mood to get into a fight with people he’d gladly drain down to the last drop.
And I wanted to add another of those 100 things about writing here too
Just a decade ago you wouldn't find too many gay characters in mainstream fantasy. I'm old enough to remember the fall out when Mercedes Lackey made a main character gay (yes I realize this is more like 20 years ago). You would have thought the world was ending. 'No one will ever take her seriously again.' Heard that one many times. They were wrong but still in the 90s I remember so many agents/editors/publishers saying not only no gay characters but threatening to black ball you if they caught wind you published something like that elsewhere.
Now you're starting to see gay characters, mostly as secondary characters, sometimes as one of the group of protagonists and they're just there being who they are. No fan fare, no OMG you're gay! They just are who they are and this is amazing to see. Chuck Wendig has a whole series with a gay protagonist, Maggie Stiefvater's Raven Boys may have a gay character (I say yes but you could read the statements as the character not giving a damn someone called him gay as in insult), Rick Riordan's second Olympiad series has a gay character and yes there is another popular YA writer who has a hot series and a movie with one too but since there are things I don't like about her, I didn't really want to include her.
I'm sure there are more examples. And I wish it was as simple as oh hey, this character's gay and everyone goes on with their lives. Oh how I wish. Of course it's not that simple. Every homophobe seems to come crawling out of the woodwork with something shitty to say in their non-reviews that exist to blast the author for daring to include a gay character. Chuck Wendig had a beautifully sarcastic response to that last week. I haven't seen how the others have responded to it.
There will always be haters. Who cares about them? I'm just glad to see the inclusion of these characters, especially in YA. Young people coming into their sexuality need to have some positive ...well if not role models since that's an odd thing for a fictional character to be, then at least to see people like themselves in roles other than those designed to ridicule.
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