Mailed

I’ve been told that prologues are too much in this day and age. They’ve lost their popularity and people simply don’t like them. Readers want to get straight to the meat and potatoes of a story.

When I heard no prologues, I was a bit disappointed, but I said “All right.” I can deal with the idea of getting right to the story without introductions or delays. I’m an adult; there were very few tears. Yet now people are saying they don’t want epilogues either? Well gee thanks, Harry Potter, yet another thing old scar head has ruined for the rest of us.

I suppose that I’ve been abusing the privilege of epilogues somewhat by using them to foreshadow the next story, but what else am I supposed to do? When you get rid of my precious prologues, there has to be somewhere where I can stick all that great pre-story, not really part of the story, story stuff. Yet reviewers have said they would prefer no epilogue at all.

Take Heroes & Villains for example. The epilogue is the beginning of Allies & Enemies. There’s a glimpse of their life in the future, the introduction of one of the main characters of Allies & Enemies, and a general idea of where things are going to go. It’s an intrinsic tie-in to Allies & Enemies, but would have made a terrible prologue.

Which leaves me wondering what I should do with the epilogue I wrote for Allies & Enemies. Leave it in? Dump it? I have no idea.

These are the hardest parts of writing for me. Wanting to please the reader, but not wanting to displease myself. I mean, without the epilogue, the story seems incomplete to me, yet it’s not part of the story itself. It’s the afterward, the introduction, the wrap up of one part and the opening of the next.

To epilogue or not to epilogue, that is the question.

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Catch some of my free stories at Kimichee: Read Something.

The Originals has become my current TV obsession. I’ve been watching the episodes on Hulu, but the regular show time is Tuesday’s on the CW. It’s a spin-off of The Vampire Diaries, which I’ve never watched, but it’s pretty standalone.

The first episode opens with Elijah returning to New Orleans to handle his brother Klaus’ issues. He finds out that his brother has impregnated a werewolf girl who has entangled herself with witches. From there, we are introduced to the main characters and the idea of Original vampires is explained.

Elijah is the main star of the first episode, but succeeding episodes are from the POV of the rest of the cast. So if you don’t like the tone, don’t worry. That first episode is just to introduce the characters and the background. It’s been getting better and better.

Klaus is definitely the Machiavellian star of the show, and his sister Rebekah carries her own. Marcel is very handsome and charming as a vampire king, and Cami–who I was pretty meh about–has turned out to have an interesting backstory of her own. Hayley is the smart-mouthed and plucky werewolf, and Davina is the caged girl–they are both trapped in the center of vampire and witchy hostilities.

Go check out the show on Hulu. I definitely recommend it for your watching pleasure.

Riptide Publishing: Anniversary Sale!

Riptide Publishing is turning 2 and there’s all kinds of awesome things taking place. It’s a whole month of sales. This could be your chance to round out your Andrea Speed collection.

Week 1 (Oct 1 – Oct 5): All First Wave titles 40% off, plus 15% off other select backlist titles

Week 2 (Oct 6 – Oct 12): All Second Wave titles 40% off, plus 15% off other select backlist titles

Week 3 (Oct 13 – Oct 19): $2.99 sale! Plus 15% off other select backlist titles

Week 4 (Oct 20 – Oct 26): $3.99 sale! Plus 15% off other select backlist titles

Week 5 (Oct 27 – Oct 31): Gift Certificate Sale: All gift certificates are 10% off

Go check it out Riptide Publishing

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Kindle auto-correct is pissing me off

Remember when I was getting pissed off that there was no better spell check on the Kindle? Yeah. How do I turn the auto-correct off?

It’s very frustrating when I painstakingly spell something out — there it is right on the screen — then one hit of the spacebar and I look incredibly stupid.

If I spell something out a key at a time, why would it try to fix it? I don’t need to have my words corrected by something that seems to know less about spelling than me.

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I saw this

I haven’t watched a ton of new movies, but here’s a list of stuff — movies and shows — worth seeing:

OBLIVION – movie. beautiful, cinemagraphic dystopian sci-fi.
PACIFIC RIM – movie. fun monster fighting robot sci-fi.
PROMETHEUS – movie. thinky horror sci-fi.
LOOPER – movie. crazy time travel mafia sci-fi.
BREAKING BAD – TV. meth making science teacher/drug kingpin.
YOU’RE BEAUTIFUL – TV. girl dressed as boy, joins band kdrama.
PENELOPE – movie. Girl cursed with a pig nose. Wonderful costumes and sets.
KINGDOM OF HEAVEN – movie. Still beautiful knight during the Crusades story.
IRON MAN 3 – movie. Tony Stark is a ninja.
ORPHAN BLACK – tv. BBC sci-fi series about a woman that finds out there’s eight of her.

Any great movies or shows out there? I’ve got Netflix and DramaFever.

I’m trying to watch this show, but my dad won’t stop talking. Asking questions is all right, but he makes these dumb comments.

I think he needs his own Twitter. That or I should set him up with a blog. He has thoughts and opinions he would really like to share.

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Heroes & Villains is a finalist for the 2013 Rainbow Awards. How cool is that?

There’s so many great books listed this year. It’s thrilling to see my book up there with all of them. They look so bright and hopeful all on one page.

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All this quippage during action scenes, I think that would be totally distracting. There you are focusing on your job, and someone feels the need to make with the funnies.

This is serious time, boss. STFU.

Then again, it’s kind of reached the point of ridiculous with having a brand new girl go out in the field with no training. They are supposed to be a highly trained government agency. WTF? I question putting the safety of the world in their hands until they at least go through Basic.

It’s an interesting show and I look forward to watching more episodes, but I wish the script was a little better. I’m hoping the show gets better.

They’re playing up the sexy — sexy people, sexy technology — I wish there was a bit more plot to this porn.

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What I’ve been writing on –

ParaShift: My mm sci-fi mpreg story. The elements introduce
themselves. I just took the concept of a post-apocalyptic society that’s been struck by a sterility plague, added a touch of A/B/O, and ran with it.

Tuesday Night: My mm au superhero story. I’ve introduced Henry David and things are chugging along. I promise not to go all hate-style on Carrie. That’s not an angle I want to play.

The Panic Pure: My mm suspense thriller. I posted Chapter Eighteen on FictionPress if you’re following that. I’ve gotta clean it up before posting it on Kimichee but I’ll start catching everything up.

= posted from my kindle =