A reminder that there will be a combination WHITE FLAMES (by yrs trly) and SUCCUBUS IN THE CITY (by Nina Harper, aka Shariann Lewitt) book party and reading this coming Friday at ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif) pandemonium_bks!
Friday, May 16th
7pm -9pm
Pandemonium
4 Pleasant St., Central Square, Cambridge
Books will be sold, autographed and read from.
Should we have cake? I was thinking of bringing a cake. Except I won't have a car and bringing one on the T might be kind of a challenge. If I order a cake, would someone volunteer to pick it up and bring it? I'll bring plates and forks... *ponders*
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| 2008-05-11 20:11 |
| My Tablesetting Fetish |
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I do not get to indulge it often, but I have something of a fetish for proper table setting. That means that, yes, I learn a new napkin fold pretty much each time I host a dinner party of larger than 6 people, and that I covet someday being able to have something other than the plentiful but plain stainless steel flatware I bought at Target.
Fortunately, this fetish of mine fits well with corwin's love of buying housewares, so now at least we have all the proper wine & drink glasses (red, white, champagne, cocktails, etc...) and he's never complained about my continual search for machine-washable but beautiful table cloths and table runners.
What follows is some picspam of the Easter Dinner table I actually bothered to take pictures of. Ironically, this is one of the table designs I've done where I did not use any of the fancy runners I brought from Hong Kong or have accumulated over the years.
It being Easter and Spring and all that, I wanted something with color, so I used our dark blue tablecloths on the bottom and then folded the lavender one into runner-width and used that. I then used the napkins that matched that one. I used the "candlestick" fold here, as it's supposed to look like candles standing up in the wine glasses, but most people assumed that, it being Easter, they were bunny ears. All art being open to interpretation... I'm fine with that.
( Click to see the photos and more blather. )
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| 2008-05-09 15:53 |
| Motorcycle for Sale: Honda Shadow 1985 -- $600 as is |
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Here's what I just put up on Craig's List:
The time has come for me to sell my beloved Honda Shadow. I'm just not riding it anymore and my backyard is not a great place to keep it. The bike has under 5000 miles on it, NOT KIDDING.
Bike runs but needs work -- needs new battery (this one works with jumpstart) and a tune up, plus cosmetic stuff. Weather has taken a toll, but I never rode it much and so it has really low miles.
It's a Honda and Hondas from that era just run forever, like HP laser printers.
* Facts: 1985 Honda Shadow VT500c
* V-twin engine
* shaft drive (not chain drive)
* cherry metallic red gas tank and trim
* includes original toolkit and spark plug puller!
* very easy bike to work on and maintain
* cruiser style, comfy seat
* 5' 4" shrimp like me puts both feet on ground easily
* great women's bike
( More details including the story of riding to John Preston's funeral )
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| 2008-05-04 00:29 |
| Photos from the Book Party |
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| white flames |
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So, lots of people took my digital camera and took photos of the party. As a result... I don't know the names of everyone in the pictures.
I put them up on Flickr, here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/26277413@N06/
If I do this right, here are a few:
( Some photos )
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| 2008-05-03 23:22 |
| PARTY! |
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Wheeee! It's now 11:30 pm and I've had enough to drink that I actually had to type my LJ password like six times to get it right...
People are having much fun. I'm about to upload photos. A couple of other people have been going around with my camera so I'm not even sure what's on the camera right now...
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| 2008-05-03 15:37 |
| Mild reminder re: party tonight |
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| festive |
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Reminder for those coming to the book party at my house tonight:
-There are cats. Medicate appropriately.
-If you didnt RSVP, you can still show up, of course!
-House is not child-proofed. At all. Knives on low shelves, all that. And we WILL be talking about sex and porn. (Because we always do.)
I will set up the laptop as a "blogging station" so people can blog about the party for those who are only there in spirit. :-P
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| 2008-04-22 15:05 |
| Quick general life update |
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Yeah, still alive!
Still in PT for my knee. At this point, it's exercises forever until the left leg is as strong as the right, which right now it just isn't. Lift lift lift. Must kick more things, too.
WHITE FLAMES, my long-awaited book of erotic short stories, supposedly ships from the printer TODAY. I will believe that the publisher actually got around to fixing my misspelled name on the front cover when I hold the book in my hot widdle hands. *holds breath*
Oh yeah, so mark your calendar: book launch event May 16th at Pandemonium Books in Central Square! Details soon. It'll be a co-reading/signing with Nina Harper (aka Shariann Lewitt) whose book SUCCUBUS IN THE CITY also just came out! A night of sexy books, fer sure.
I'm trying to get back into the habit of reading BOOKS and not just the Internet and manuscripts and required reading for various contest judging. I've been carrying Anne Bishop's SEBASTIAN in my bag now for two months. I think I've read 3 chapters. I got BEST FOOD WRITING 2007 for Xmas and that's the book in the bathroom--I've gotten a lot farther, about 6-7 essays in and really enjoying them. My mom gave me HOW TO WATCH BASEBALL SMARTER and it's by the bed... but I tend to read about 3-4 pages and then conk out. It's a good book! But one I could have written myself. But I'm reading it anyway hoping to review it and a few others I've gotten recently.
Anyway, that's 3 and they are all going slowly. For many years I used to read 4 books at a time pretty much constantly, each one taking from a week to a month... at this rate, it'll take me 3 months to read these three. But... one step at a time.
I bought a small rose bush for my desk. The leaves are already turning yellow. Hmm.
Allergies are wiping me out, but not as badly as Zyrtec itself was, which was making me sleep 11 hours a night. Huh. I'll stick with chinese herbal remedies for now.
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| 2008-04-02 00:29 |
| Please feel free to cross-post and forward (contest) |
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| circlet |
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I just posted this at the circletpress comm, but figured I'd do it here also with a note that it is OK to forward and post in writers forums and so on. Please pass the word! We got such great stuff for the Valentine's Day contest I figure it's time to do another one:
It's time for another contest at Circlet.com! This month's contest is looking for the best entries of either microfiction or essay-form that are on the theme "the sex toy I wish existed, but doesn't." What do you dream of? Whether it is magical, technological, psychosexual, or what, craft your idea into either a microfiction or an essay and submit it to us by April 15th!
Word limit is 1000 words. Submit either as text in the body of the message or as an attachment. Be sure to include:
1. Name you would like used on the published piece
2. Your actual name and physical mailing address
3. A brief bio or byline that can run with the piece
Winners will receive a copy of The Erotic Writers Market Guide (a $19.95 value!) and a trophy in the form of a web graphic/banner that can be proudly displayed on blogs and websites!
All submissions should go by email to "circletintern" at Gmail. Deadline April 15th.
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| 2008-04-02 00:08 |
| A personal post over at Why I Like Baseball |
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| baseball, wilbb |
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My latest entry over at Why I Like Baseball contains, among other things, some personal stuff about my decision to retire from playing (I'm forty, people!), heartbreak over the destruction of Yankee Stadium (I thought I was fine with it, I really did...), and history, history-makers, and historians.
Click on Being There.
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| 2008-04-02 00:05 |
| Written on Saturday at the bar at Clio |
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| food, foodie posts |
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Wrote this on Saturday while sitting at the bar at restaurant Clio.
Sitting in the bar in Clio, the rather high end restaurant in Boston's Back Bay, sipping a lychee-based martini. It's quite good. Strawberry vodka, lychee puree, a sugared rim, and garnished with powdered, freeze-dried strawberries. There is one more alcohol in it, but the first few sips have already erased my memory of what it was.
The bartender recommends that next I try their "Enter the Dragon," which features cayenne as an ingredient. Another of the specialty cocktails features basil-flavored sugar on the rim.
The American palate is changing for the better, I think. It's not just the P.C. push toward healthier food, and it's not just the mainstreaming of more "ethnic" cuisines (i.e. you can get sushi in the grocery store now). Food is getting spicier, and a greater intensity of flavors is prevailing.
I'm seeing this not just in the changing of the mall food court and the menus of middle-of-the-road restaurant chains, but in cocktails.
( cocktail musings )
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| 2008-02-25 23:42 |
| I can haz artses? |
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| art |
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 So when Book Expo America was in New York City, not last year but the time before that (2004?) -- I was invited to a book party of Annie Sprinkle's at the Museum of Sex. My agent took me and a bunch of her other clients out to eat at a fabulous fusion restaurant called Basta Pasta, which is if a bunch of Japanese chefs decided they wanted to cook sort of nouvelle Italian with an Asian twist. Verrrrah good food.
After dinner, we went over to Annie's party at the Museum, and one of the really nifty things they were doing was basically every party-goer could take home a piece of erotic art as a party favor. They had artists on hand making art while people watched. I don't recall now who all the artists were or what they were all doing. I think there was one woman who was making painted impressions of her breasts, for example.
The artist that caught my and corwin's attention most, though, was a fellow doing Chinese-style brush painting, named Fred Hatt. He had a live model who would change her pose every few minutes, and he just tossed off painting after painting of her. In the course of the evening he must have done over a hundred. Maybe two hundred? I'm not sure how long he was there for, and each one took only a few minutes.
In the end we chose two pieces out of the rather large pile he had made, and I rolled them up and lovingly guarded them through the evening and the trip home a few days later.
The paintings have been sitting in the study, rolled up with a few other things, waiting for me to get around to framing them and hanging them. Today corwin went off on a business trip and ti seems like whenever he goes away, I get the urge to do home improvements. I have no ida why this urge is dormant when he's here, and wakes up immediately as soon as he leaves. On the way home from dropping him at the airport, I went by the art supply store and bought frames, and spent the evening futzing with the hooks and such.
And now, I haz artses!!
( Photos under the cut. )
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I ordered my own book from Amazon today, and I'm going to come out ahead on the deal when I re-sell them. Here's why.
Okay, so you have a book coming out. And you want to sell some copies to your family and friends at a book party. You've read the clause in your contract that says you get a discount of 40% (typically) if you buy them direct from the publisher. but that clause goes on to say that you won't get royalties on copies you sell yourself. (Aside: Why? I don't know. Publishers have an irrational fear that your own sales might somehow eclipse theirs and obviate the need for publishers in the first place? If only it were true!)
They'll also charge you to ship the books, usually. So say you buy 20 copies of your $15 book. You get them at 40% off, but you pay, say, $22 shipping. So you paid $202, or $10.10 per book. And you won't be making any royalties on them, so if you sell them at $15 each, you make $4.90 per book.
To avoid the no-royalties thing, I usually have Circlet Press, my company, buy the books through a book wholesaler like Bookazine. (I've also heard of authors in this area getting them via new England Mobile Bookfair. I've not done that myself though so can't speak about it.) Bookazine sells us the books at 40% off, does charge shipping (about the same $22 say), but at least I get the sales count toward my royalties. In my case that is a bit more than a dollar a book. So I'd be making like $6.20 a book. That's good!
But today I noticed that Amazon.com is selling the book for 32% off, WITH an additional 5% off if ordered in advance before the book is published. Well, that's 38% no? But of course if ordering 20 copies, I will be way over the amount needed to get Free Shipping. So I just paid $193.23 for 20 copies! I saved about $9 total over either of the previous methods, which adds another 45 cents a book to what I get to keep of the $15 cover price.
So look and see what kind of discount Amazon is offering before you nag your editor to put in an order for you at your publisher's warehouse.
--
Edit: It's been pointed out I never said what book it was. White Flames, published by Running Press. I made an info page about it: http://www.ceciliatan.com/whiteflames.html
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| 2008-02-21 13:43 |
| Book party May 3rd, 8pm |
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| book party |
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Save the date, Saturday May 3rd, 8pm, for a joint book launch party for my new collection of erotica from Running Press, "White Flames," and Nina Harper's "Succubus in the City."
Yes, that's the same weekend as Steer Roast and Somerville Open Studios. We know.
The party will feature cocktails. And food. And books. Books will be for sale and ogling.
Party to be held in a private home. RSVP to get directions by commenting to this post with your email address! (Comments are screened. If you already know where I live, consider yourself invited! Just RSVP so I know how much booze to buy.)
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| 2008-02-20 22:09 |
| The moon looks like a blood stain right now. |
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Just sayin'.
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| 2008-02-15 15:20 |
| Party tonight |
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I got the room number for tonights Best Fantastic Erotica champagne reception tonight at Boskone. Room 427, 10pm to midnight, Seaport Westin in Boston.
Can't go later as I've got to get home on the T And the room's occupants need to sleep!
I'm on a panel on erotica at 9pm so we'll start right after that.
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| 2008-02-14 00:33 |
| Boskone Party Details |
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We'll definitely be hosting a champagne reception for the launch of Best Fantastic Erotica at the Boskone convention this Friday (tomorrow, Feb 15th) from 10pm to 12 midnight. Room # to be announced, it will be posted at the convention, which is at the Seaport Westin in Boston. Please come on down, sip some bubbly, and peruse the book and meet some of the contributors! Thanks to B. Lynch-Black whose room we'll be using and who contributed one of the awesome stories in the book.
Meanwhile, Happy Valentine's day, read some smut:
"Terran Export" by Victoria Pond and "Gifts of the High Ones" by Daniel J. Cottle are two very different takes on the holiday, perfectly perverse, and perfectly Circlet, as they are the winners of the "Future of Valentines' Day" microfiction contest.
In mundane news... I love my new dishwasher. It sounds like water splashing! And not like my kitchen is being repaved!
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Turns out I will be on programming at Boskone this weekend. I'll be there Friday night, speaking on a panel on Utopian Fiction, and one on Erotica. If I can find a room to do it in, we may also have a little book launch party for Best Fantastic Erotica. More champagne!
No idea what's going on with my sleeping. Three nights in a row I've had some form of insomnia, and didn't get more than 5 hours uninterrupted any of the three. So, yes, I am a zombie now.
Meanwhile, things are moving along for my upcoming book of erotic short stories, White Flames. I've returned the proofs, there is a cover design which I'll soon have a copy of I can share here, they're asking for my photo.
And anyone who wants a review copy of Best Fantastic Erotica (I mean, if you actually have a place to review it and aren't merely trying to scam a free copy), speak up now. They're mailing in a few days.
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| 2008-01-25 17:18 |
| Fun stuff on the circlet blog site |
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| circlet |
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Thought I'd point those of you who don't read the circletpress blog itself to the fact that www.circlet.com has had some nifty essays published recently:
Lauren P. Burka contributed a piece on writers in the sf/f genre who handle sex well: Great Science Fiction with Great Sex Writing
And Jean Roberta provided one entitled In Defense of Breeders, on the lack of some writers in the genre to recognize the reproductive consequences of sex.
We're also running a contest!
Want to win a copy of Best Fantastic Erotica? Submit a 250 to 1000 word microfiction to our Future of Valentine's Day contest! If your piece is chosen for publication at Circlet.com you'll win a copy of the book!
To submit to the contest, please send an email that includes:
- Your Name
- Name You Want Your Piece Published Under
- A brief bio or contributor's note
- A 250 - 1000 word microfiction on the subject of "The Future of Valentine's Day
- The mailing address you'd like your prize sent to!
Send your submission via email to "circletintern" at Gmail.com! Winning entry/entries will be published the week of Valentine's Day! (Of course...)
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I'm blogging this from the annual Arisia SF Convention where the wireless is free, the costumes are hot, and the fun never stops. I go to a lot of science fiction conventions but Arisia has been and still is the one that is consistently the most fun.
I typically do a Friday night smut reading at the con. There are times when I invited other readers to join me, but for the past ten years or so I've pretty much done it solo. I will regale the audience with funny, hot, smutty, intense stories for an hour to two hours, and I am very pleased that typically all day Saturday I will run into people who thank me for helping get them laid.
When the con was in the Park Plaza hotel, where it was for many years, I would usually do this reading in the largest breakout room they had. But now that the con has moved to the Hyatt Regency in Cambridge, where space is limited, the only space they had for me was in the sleeping room for one of the con committee. It was incredibly gracious for them to let me put a dozen or so eager (and horny) fans onto their bed, not to mention another dozen on the floor, another dozen in a few chairs in the room and sharing them, and standing in the entryway, and crammed in the doorway...
Maybe photos will tell this story a bit better:
( If there had been rafters, there would have been people hanging from them... )
Anyway, Best Fantastic Erotica is launched! We sold probably a dozen copies of the book plus a lot of others. A good time was had by all. We had sparkly bubbly of the alcoholic and non-alcoholic kind.
other notes:
Best button I've seen so far:
"I am Dyslexia of Borg. Your Ass Will Be Laminated."
Best T-shirt:
"National Sarcasm Society. Like we need you."
More later if my battery power holds out.
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