A message from a hag.

*deep breath*

I was almost fooled into thinking that this year would be a peaceful Women in Horror Month… but hurray… of course someone had to ‘shake things up a little.’

By now anyone who has anything to do with the Indie / Small Press / Self Published writing world must have heard about ‘Haggate’ or ‘Hagapalooza’. For those of you who don’t, here’s an update in a nutshell. An author (I shan’t name them, that’s not my place) got very upset with the horror community and he pointed out that all female horror writers look like hags.

This is the actual quote (though a lot more was said): “They do library readings, sign their novels on people’s lawns, pose for pictures as ghouls and monsters (the women are especially guilty of this; most of them look like hags anyway), and self-publish their work.”

My first reaction was to give myself a painful facepalm, mumble something about stupidity, and sigh,… but now, in hindsight… I actually want to thank the author who said this. Why? Because his dumb remark was a spark that ignited the flame. What he said created drama… but also awareness.

Let’s be honest, it’s nice that we get interviewed for Women of Horror month, but without the ‘drama’ it’s just that. People dutifully share the interviews, and the occasional person will point out it’s Women in Horror month. This doesn’t always create a lot of awareness, and not a lot of people really care.

There are a few people who always get their ‘knickers in a twist’ over the Women in Horror Month, and they’re quite verbal about it. For some reason women getting attention, when men don’t, doesn’t sit well with these individuals, and they can get very rude and very mean about it.

To those of you who are so jealous that we have this month… don’t be. It does NOTHING for sales (at least, not from my experience, February tends to be a crappy month in sales for me), and so far most of us just have to deal with a  lot of surly misogynists, who are suddenly reminded that women actually exist in the horror genre, and they hate us so much that they will go out of their way to be hateful.

Being called a hag was actually one of the kinder experiences I’ve had. It was less patronizing than last year, when I was accused of using my sexuality to sell books. God forbid we’d actually just have talent, right?

So, what the author of that little ‘hag’ statement did, is point out something that’s very wrong in the world, something that proves that we NEED a women in horror month… We’re still being judged on

our appearance, and not our talent.

Now, I didn’t even take the comment as particularly misogynistic. It wasn’t exactly ladies friendly, but the man was so angry at everyone, that he made derogatory remarks about more than just women. But it was remarkable that he pointed out our looks.

What do my looks have to do with my writing? Unless I decide that I want to take up body painting and put my words on my naked flesh… nothing. It doesn’t matter how I look. How I dress is irrelevant. All that should matter is ‘my work’. Why are women always expected to ‘look good’?

Someone made a funny remark about Stephen King selling books with his looks. I laughed, but at the same time I felt sad too. It doesn’t matter for men how they look, but women are expected to be attractive. And we feel that pressure (at least, most of us do).

And to be really honest… it kind of sucks being called a ‘hag’. Sure, I laugh about it, because what else can you do? If someone is being mean, the best remedy is to ignore it or mock it. At the same time it did hurt a little. The way he said, this stranger, was demeaning, and the message it sends to women is that they’re of less worth.

Which, incidentally, brings me back to the point of the women in horror month. Times are changing, and I’m glad of it, but we still struggle with too many stereotypes. Too many people (I don’t want to single out men here) still treat us as if we’re not a integral part of the ‘horror writing game’, as if we’re ‘different’ somehow, and what we do isn’t as ‘valid’. It’s a man’s world, and we’re just guests in it.

 

I keep reading in comments that ‘women write a certain way’.

Ehm… okay? What way is that?

Last year, my good friend Malina Roos decided to challenge the people who claimed women wrote differently than men, and she put up excerpts of writing without names. It was impossible to see which was written by a man, and which was written by a woman.

Not one of the people who said they wouldn’t read anything by a female author accepted the challenge… though apparently some of them did send Malina some nasty messages and threats.

How dare a woman step out of her place, right? No wonder they got upset.

So back to why I’m thanking the author who called us hags. His statement caused outrage, and it was like a band-aid being torn off. It exposed the festering wound underneath. Sometimes these wounds heal best when they’re out in the open. Misogyny is the same way, it can only be battled if we all see it.

He started Hagapalooza, and he created a wave. We joke about it, put pictures of hags up on our profiles, and some of us (me) even wrote ourselves a haggy bio.

Are we using this incident to get attention?

Sure we are, we’re writers, we need to be seen.

But it’s more than that, we’re using it to say “Here we are. You can’t get around us, and we won’t stand for disrespect any longer.”

This is actually my drawing that I made for my story 'The Bone Witch'

That’s what the women in horror month should be about, so thank you for reminding us of that, surly author. Thank you for making us band together. Thank you for showing us the men who stick up for us, who respect us for who we are. Not just as women… but as people. Because we may be different in many ways, when it comes to writing horror… we’re exactly the same. We all want to scare our readers, we all love the genre, we all want to make good books, and we all want to sell them. What we wear, where we come from or how we look is irrelevant. It’s about what’s in the pages.

But in the meanwhile… we might as well laugh at Haggate.

I am hag… hear me cackle.  

Ranks, preliminary ballots and celebrations.

It’s funny how 2015 is making 2014 feel like a better year than it was. I’ve been getting some rather wonderful news.

First I found out that two of my novels made it to the top ten in the Predators and Editors readers poll. Angel Manor made it to a shared third place in the Horror Novel category, but my real proud moment was when I found out that Coyote: The Clockwork Dragonfly made it all the way to the second place in Steampunk novels. 

I was over the moon, and more than a little humbled, that so many people had voted for my books. Normally I would make a bunch of silly jokes now, but to be honest, I’m feeling rather emotional about it all.

Well okay... maybe a couple of emo jokes, but that's it. 

On top of that, I found out today that Angel Manor made it onto the preliminary ballot for the Bram Stoker awards. I’m crossing my fingers that my novel will live to see another round, but making it this far is already very flattering.

Not saying I will get my grubby little mitts on one of those nice trophies, I'm just hoping I may get a
nomination. It's nice to dream *grin*

I may not have found an agent yet, and none of my work has been picked up by a top five publisher. The New York Times bestseller list is just a dream at this point. But it’s moments like these that I have a lot of hope for the future. They remind me that people are reading my work, and that some of those people actually liked my work enough to vote for it. That’s huge.

I can never say this enough, but I am grateful for my readers. To all of you out there who have supported me, and who still are waving proverbial pom-poms in my direction: THANK YOU.

Your kindness touches my heart and gets me through the moments where it’s not about awards or rewards.

I love you all.

End of the year ramblings

The end of 2014 is approaching , and I, for one, donned on my steel toe boots to give it a firm kicking in the behind as it goes. “Sayonara Sucker!!”

On a personal level this year has been a dastardly villain from a silent movie, twirling its handlebar moustache at me. Yet, at the same time, I think I needed to be tormented to make a fresh start, to reinvent myself and become a happier person.

Career wise 2014 has been quite pleasant. It took a long slow start, but this was the year where people started to notice my writing a bit more. Especially the horror community has made me feel very loved this year as an author, but also as a person.

In the middle of this year the first short story of Even Hell Has Standards came out, called Pride.  Getting it out there was a challenge, and there was a moment I almost quit writing all together, but

once it was out in the world, it became the stepping stone to Angel Manor, my first full novel.

The year was a bit of a roller coaster of productivity. There were moments were crippling self doubt made me discard everything I wrote and start over again. At the same time I’ve written three full novels, and rewritten a novella into a novel, so it’s not been a total waste. Two of the three novels (and the rewrite) have been published this year, for the third (Alleria) I’m still looking for a nice home (and hopefully an agent)

This year has been the perfect set up for a great 2015. I have found the team I like to work with, and I’ve been very fortunate in working with all the talented people so far. My editors, Lisa Lane and Lisa Jenkins have not only been fantastic and professional, but they’ve taught me a lot about my trait, and I’m very grateful for them. I got to work with two awesome artists too, Stephen Bryant and Paul Chapman, who produced some of the best looking covers I have ever seen. It was a special privilege to work with Lori Michelle, who was the formatter for the Coyote novels. It was a real pleasure to work with her. Another exciting thing was that my books (Deeply Twisted and in the future Angel Manor) are going to be converted to audio books by one of my favorite narrators, Chris Barnes. I am so excited about this.

 

Publishing Angel Manor has been a particular joy for me. I think it’s a blessing that I submitted it to Horrific Tales Publishing. I knew it would be a good fit, and I’m glad that the publisher, Graeme Reynolds thought so too.

For me it was very humbling to see how well Angel Manor was received. People really helped create a buzz, and I watched breathlessly as I saw the novel rise in the ranks. It was beautiful to witness. Everywhere I looked I saw people talking about Angel Manor, and it was really a dream come true for me. I don’t think the readers will ever realize how much they really mean to me.

When we hosted the book party, and a lot of Facebook friends (and people I didn’t know for that matter) dressed up as nuns, taking selfies to support the book, it blew my mind. I laughed till I cried at all the nun jokes and ‘caption this’ comments.

Then, to my surprise, we managed to repeat the success of the book party for Coyote: The Clockwork Dragonfly. Even more people dressed up and made the most creative wanted posters. I was amazed.

To be honest, I haven’t found the target audience for the Coyote series yet. It’s on my list to work on for 2015. Being a slipstream genre hopper isn’t easy, but I couldn’t imagine being anything else.

So, 2014 got me noticed, on to 2015 to expand my loyal readers base, to find people who enjoy my work. I still have the dream of finding an agent and getting some of my work traditionally published, but in the meanwhile I’m very happy with the independent publishers I work with.

I’m ambitious and have many plans for 2015, here are some of them.

1.      Angel Manor is part of the Lucifer Falls trilogy, I plan to publish the second book late 2015

2.      Around the summer I want to publish the third book of the Coyote series, called Coyote: The Rip Walker.

3.      The first book in my Celestials series (I haven’t decided on a title yet) will be written. I don’t know where I’ll submit it yet, because I’m not sure what exact genre it’s going to be. This is a book I’ve been mentally working on for 15 years at least, and I have written it several times, but just wasn’t satisfied with it. This year I will finish it. I’m going to set it in the same reality as the Lucifer Falls series and the books will have a few plots intertwined. It’s also going to have common ground with the Even Hell Has Standards series.

4.      I shall either write my coming of age horror novel (no title yet), or my thriller ‘Man’s World’. If time permits me, I shall write both, but I don’t know if I can.

5.      There will be a second story to the Even Hell Has Standards series. I’m thinking it will be Wrath. I struggle writing these, because the real life horror I had to research has a rather intense effect on me. I do want to have them written though.

6.      Though I said I wasn’t going to write for anthologies, I have at least one anthology in mind that I’m going to submit a story to.

7.      Aside from writing, I need to work on my marketing skills. One of the things I plan to do is attend more conventions. I already have two planned for next year, and I’m hoping a third, if finances will allow it. I want to get closer to the readers, and be more prolific.

Aside from all these career changes, I am planning to make a lot of changes in my personal life. 2014 rubbed my face in it, and showed me why I was so miserable for the last two years. This is not me, I’m all about the fun and the shenanigans, so I intend to spend my life celebrating them. I will think more positively, lower my ridiculously high standards of what I must achieve, and feel like less of a failure. There are so many great adventures to be had, and I want to have them all. Next year I will find more balance between work and free time, and I will start to enjoy life again, both as a mother, but also as an individual and a wife.

Bring on 2015, I won’t claim I shall own it, but I’m definitely ready for the change this time.

Coyote

*lights a campfire and hands you a marshmallow*

Howdy partner… I mean… ehm, welcome to my blog. We’re not in the Weird West, I know, but I’m going with a theme here.

So, the Coyote books are coming out… and as usual I HAZ EXCITEMENT!! (and a teeny tiny bit of stress, that comes with me making things complicated, but more on that later)

Many of you are already familiar with Coyote, because quite a few people have bought the novella. (If you haven’t, don’t buy it now, unless you’re keen on getting something that will be out of print soon… again, more on that later)

 With each book I write, the Coyote-verse expands and becomes more a part of me. I love playing around with the different genres within the setting. A little bit of magic mixed with a lot of strange technology, how can this not be fun?

Coyote came to life many moons ago *cough* when I was a young lass in my early twenties. My friends and I wanted to play a game called “Deadlands” and I created Coyote as my character. In hindsight I think I was very much influenced by the image of Drew Barrymore in ‘Bad Girls’, but I don’t think I was conscious of that at the time. Only when I watched the movie again years later did I have an “Light Bulb” moment.

Coyote was an enjoyable character to play. Aside from her personality, I don’t actually remember much about her, I can’t even remember what background I attributed to her. She didn’t actually become ‘Charlotte Webb’ until I wrote the novella. (Yes it’s my little nod to the novel, whether you like it or not, I really love the name)

I made a few drawings of her around that time, maybe even a few years later, and posted those on my amateur artist page on Elfwood. People really took a liking to Coyote, there’s something extremely fun and sassy about her, and a lot of other artists asked me if they could draw her too. I love Coyote ‘fan-art’ so naturally I encouraged it.

From the very beginning knew I wanted to write a story about this character, and in 2012 I decided it was the right time. I was going to write a short story for an anthology. The theme was science fiction, and I had some great ideas for Coyote.

However, the story wouldn’t be told in under 4000 words, and I ended up with a novella instead. Now I’ve rewritten that novella and turned it into a novel, because that would suit the series better.

I made some very conscious decisions when writing the Coyote-verse. Even though I had no idea what Steampunk was when I started, I knew I wanted to mix realism with magic and technology.  At the same time I tried to paint an almost stereotypical picture of the wild west. Yet at the same time  I wanted to surprise the reader by adding hidden meaning to the setting. My goal is to bring the unexpected within the expected.

Maybe I succeed, maybe I don’t… that’s up to the reader.

Though the setting is weird west, I don’t think it rules the stories. I believe that Coyote is accessible for all types of readers, not only those who like Cowboys and Indians, so to speak. I wrote the setting around the story, not the other way around, and the books are very character driven.

One of the most challenging characters for me was (and still is) writing Caesar. He started off as a sidekick but is growing into much more than that. I wanted an underdog, so I chose a former slave. Since I’ve never been a slave, black, or a man, I’ve had to write his character completely from empathy. It was important to me that Caesar was a contrast to Coyote, so where she was loud and very present, I wanted him to be calm, quiet, and almost invisible. I decided that being born into slavery probably didn’t do his self image too much good, but I didn’t want him to be a victim either, so I gave him an inner strength. To me, he’s one of the most beautiful and complex characters in the series, and I can’t wait to see how people respond to his

personal story.

Writing Coyote is easy. I tap into the life-loving, brazen part of my personality and just go with it. I was extremely sad when the novella first came out and someone said “Oh I’m so over the ‘tough chick’, it’s been done.” Personally I like to think Coyote is more than that. She’s tough, true, but she’s flawed too. I wanted to write a character that girls could look up to, without making her ridiculously perfect. She’s a person, not a superhero.

In the Clockwork Dragonfly I touch upon the ‘larger plot’ that will be spread out over several books. I plan to write at least five, but who knows, if they become a success, and I have more stories to tell, I’ll write more. I don’t want the series to be watered down and uninspired, so unless I have a lot of ideas, I won’t write more than five.

This year, after I had written the Clockwork Dragonfly, I decided to rewrite Coyote: The Outlander. This has made the whole publishing part a little trickier, and I won’t lie… it’s made me go bug-eyed with stress a few times.

Why did I do this? Well, initially because I was considering selling the series to a slightly larger press, but they only accepted full length novels. I really want to get these books in the actual shops and on the shelves, so if someone makes me an offer I can’t refuse, I shall take it.

It did trigger something in me, and I decided I didn’t like the idea of this series starting out with a novella. My OCD determined that the series should consist of books that are roughly the same length.

I had to rebrand ‘Coyote: The Outlander’ anyway. The artist who made the beautiful cover decided to

focus on other elements in his life, rather than his art, and I needed covers that all fitted together.


Luckily the wonderful Paul Chapman wanted to help me out. This would be the perfect opportunity to change the first book, and turn it into a novel. I’m keeping the name, because it fits.

If I’m completely honest, this wasn’t as easy as I thought. I didn’t want to destroy the story of the first book, and I didn’t want to add ‘forced bits’. The sequel was already written, so I had to keep that in mind too. Plus that I’m a chronological thinker, so in my heart I was already writing book 3. Suddenly I was back in time, and I had to keep in mind that certain things had not happened yet. It was a real struggle, but at the same time, I got to give the world more color, and I loved it. My biggest regret had always been not doing more with Caesar and Tokala in the first book, and now I got to add little bits of information. I even managed to write Jim McLeod –my Scottish friend, who I promised to give a cameo in all my series—into this book. 

It felt very gratifying.

So now the book is more than twice as long. There is still a lot of the old book in there, but even those parts have been rewritten and re-edited. I think it’s a better book for it. But that’s just my humble opinion.

There was another ‘snag’ in this whole ‘rebranding’ idea.

The publishing.

Boy, this part is giving me ulcers. I can’t even tell you. First of all, the date for the Clockwork Dragonfly has been set. December 12^th 2014. The book is near ready, so we plan to go ahead with publishing it. Advanced Readers Copies have been handed out, and the book party is planned.

But… the Clockwork Dragonfly is a sequel. It was written after the first version, so it doesn’t need the ‘new’ Outlander, I don’t want to urge people to buy the novella (DON’T!! wait for the new book) This makes it more difficult, because I of course want people to buy the Clockwork Dragonfly when it comes out, and not wait. I’m aware of how unhandy this all is.

I have been working my derriere off to get the Outlander out in time with the Clockwork Dragonfly, but I don’t think we can make it. Hopefully it will be out the week after.

Another thing that bothered me was that people who bought the novella now will be missing out on the new content in the new novel. We considered putting them up under the same ISBN, but we’re not allowed to, the book is too different.

Tip My Hat is going to come up with a nice giveaway to accommodate those who brought the novella, and would like to read the full novel. I don’t know what yet, but I’m sure there will be an announcement soon.

So, it’s been a complicated journey with the Coyote series, but hopefully it’s going to be smoother sailing from here. Next year I’ll write the third book “Coyote: The Rip Walker.” I can’t wait to get started on that one. I really do love this series, and I hope the readers will too.

For now I still need to find the target audience for Weird West / Steampunk books. I know Coyote has a few loyal readers… and if you are one of them, I would like to thank you for your support.

  

Fan letter to my readers

I was forced... erm... asked to do a guest blog by my publisher. It ended up being a piece that was very much from my heart, so I wanted to share it here as well. You know, in case my readers find me here.

This is the link to the website the blog was originally posted: http://nblo.gs/11sbwI

Anyway, here it is:

Fan letter to my readers.

Not since Romeo and Juliette has there been a romance so great as that between a writer and a reader.

*coughs* ehm… okay, that’s utter nonsense, sorry about that. I went for a nice dramatic opening… artistic license and all that.

First of all, I don’t think Romeo and Juliette are all that romantic. They were very young, barely knew each other, and if my memory serves me correct, Romeo was trying to get it on with some other bird first. Also… it resulted in unnecessary death, which sounds rather foolish to me.

But I digress. What I’m trying to say, in my own rather clumsy manner, is that readers are very important to the author. We’re always telling each other that we need to write for ourselves, but we don’t really… we write for an imaginative audience.

shameless promotional pic

I have recently released my first full length novel. A horror book called Angel Manor, through Horrific Tales Publishing. This meant I had to do that which I dread most: get my book noticed. It really got me to think about readers, and how absolutely vital they are to writers; we can’t live without them. The same way that readers can’t be readers without writers, writers are really not worth much without readers.

Finding an audience is a challenge for us. Unless we’ve broken through and

have made our claim to fame, the writers have an ongoing quest to search for the holy grail: their readers.

We’re a funny lot, authors, most of us (not me) are introverts who prefer to stay well away from the public eye. Yet at the same time, we want our books to be read by millions. Not just for the money, mind you. Though getting paid for… you know… work… is quite pleasant. We really want readers because they breathe life into our stories and our worlds. A story is a flat entity until it gets an audience. Look at what the readers of Harry Potter have done. Without his public, he wouldn’t be what he is today. There would be no theme parks, no movies, no merchandise, nothing. Just words on a page that no one has read.

That wasn’t JK Rowling who created the hype. If we writers had that power, all our books would have their own theme parks *sits back and fantasizes about Coyote world* and movies. It’s the fans that make all this magic happen. Their combined love for a book can move mountains.

We writers dream about readers. We talk to them in our work, hope to seduce them, lure them into our realities, and we want them to love us. We have a bit of an exhibitionistic streak in us. Not that we’ll end up flashing people our naughty parts (some might, but most of us prefer to stay fully dressed), but we like to ‘flash’ our minds. One could argue that that’s a naughty part too *cheeky grin*.

Unfortunately not all readers are kind to us. There are a good many Trolls out there who would quite happily destroy the career of a budding author, for whatever reason. We fear those readers. Writers whisper about them, the way children will talk about the monster under the bed. All of us know that not every reader can like your work, and we’re prepared for the one and two star reviews, they are a

part of life. But on occasion you get that one star review that makes no sense, or that is just spiteful.

One of my author friends has been openly attacked for having a racist character in his horror book.

Just because we write bad characters, doesn’t mean we’re bad people. It’s painful to be called names by strangers. Most of us take it to heart; we’re often extremely sensitive souls, we creative

weirdos.

Authors thrive on reviews, they get us through the darker parts of the creative process. Writing can be a lonely process, and a review can make you feel very loved, or at the very least noticed. Plus they are vital, they actually help us make more sales. The best way to help us build our careers is to talk about us, recommend our work. This is what keeps us sold and keeps us sane. Luckily most readers understand this. It’s difficult to get people to write reviews, so when they do, we tend to be very grateful. I have to admit, there have been a few reviews that have made me cry happy tears. In fact, whenever I’m feeling a bit blue, I read those again. It’s like reading a love letter. They are a testimony of my words touching another human soul out there, and it’s magical.

So, in light of all these wonderful readers, I want to write a little fan letter. I know it’s usually the reader who writes to the writer, but I thought I would mix it up a little.

Dear reader,

I’ve been a fan of yours ever since I started writing. Though we’ve never met, I actually feel very close to you. We share something, an understanding of the world I created in my books. That’s pretty special to me.

Your kind / honest review has really made an impact on me, and I was thrilled to read it. I love that you made the time to give me your opinion on my work. That was pretty awesome.

I have to admit, I think about you a lot. Know that whatever I write, it’s all for you. I long for your approval. Nothing makes me happier than you smiling, crying, or gasping with horror when you read my work. If my words can reach you, can make you think or just provide you with some pleasant entertainment… I feel more fulfilled.

Thank you for existing, dear reader. You are so very special to me, and I feel a deep admiration for you.

With love,

Chanti.