So if my recent tantalizing hints about smoke have, well, tantalized you, you can find out more here. (Especially for you, Laura.) The books aren’t live just yet, but it’s going to be very soon–a matter of a couple weeks, I’m thinking. I’ll announce it when I can.

So, yeah. There it is. *looks around nervously*

*flees*

A few random things, since I am tired and lazy today.

* Pangea soap–especially the Malagasay Cinnamon Cassia With Clove–rocks the Casbah. And you can get them cheaper at Cost Plus. Cinnamon cassia clove soap is AWESOME.

* Finally got my act together to do contests. Phew.

* The weather has finally broken. It’s much cooler today, or it feels like it because the humidity isn’t hovering in the hellish range. I HATE being sticky.

* I am revising mirror, the sequel to smoke. After I’m done with that, revisions on the first Kismet book are in the pipe, and maybe getting that second Steelflower book out of my head. I do kind of want to wait until Steelflower is in paper form.

* Jacques Yonnet’s Paris Noir: The Secret History of a City is a fabulous book. I can’t believe I’ve waited this long to read it.

* It is now time for lunch, and I’m hungry. So off I go.

Have a good Tuesday, everyone.

Good morning, everyone. It’s Monday, and today’s Reader Questions are brought to you by Reader Priscilla in a recent email. Good morning, Priscilla!

In the scene where all the members of the team take a drink and give a quote. What does Japh’s quote “A tai, hetairae A’nankimel’in. Diriin.” translate as?

I suppose it can’t hurt to tell you now, although it is explained in To Hell And Back, I think.

The quote means, “Here I stand, hedaira, as your Fallen. It is done.”

Eck. Now that I write that I’m unsure if it got into the final drafts of the last two books, or died the death of a thousand cuts. That’s the trouble with publishing stuff–after the rough draft, two rounds of revisions, copyedits, and final proofing, the book in paper is not at all the book in my head. Closer, sometimes, but not always.

*sigh* Anyway, that’s the gist of it. That’s what Japhrimel is saying. it’s part of the old ceremonial language used before the fall of the White-Walled City.

Why did Japh seem so ashamed to let Danny see him feed?

You know, that surprised me too. Demons are okay with sex and with the ingestion of normal food; doing both in public (sometimes to excess.) True feeding, however, is something private, not the least because it represents a vulnerability.

Plus, I suppose the sheer quantity of blood/energy Japh needs to power his engines, especially during the metabolic changes of becoming A’nankhimel, might be…disturbing…to Dante. And he was very uncertain, very much not wanting to frighten her.

Japh’s behaviour and actions became more human over the course of the book. Was this just a consequence of spending time around humans or due to Japhrimel becoming A’nankimel?

More the latter than the former. Japh has human vassals, of course, families where service to a demon or to Hellesvront are passed down through generations. But he never wanted to understand a human in order to make him or her happy before Danny. He was just satisfied if they served his purpose.

Part of the process of Falling is becoming more human, which is a dreadfully embarrassing and profoundly wrenching experience for a demon. I hadn’t noticed him growing more human until he made his sacrifice at the end of the book (another scene that had to die, unfortunately) where he returned the Egg to Lucifer and suffered a punishment in Danny’s place. She still doesn’t know he died the first time to keep Lucifer from killing her, because Danny knew about Eve now and had actually touched her.

Thanks, Priscilla! Great questions.

And now for the Potter fun. I did finish The Deadly Hallows this weekend. I read it in six hours, which finishes my unbroken streak of reading each Harry Potter book in a whole chunk the first time. No, I’m not looking to spoil anyone, but just to be safe for all you tender young thangs, I’ll put my thoughts below a cut.

Read On, If You Dare »

Item one: My weekly post at the Midnight Hour is all about how writing is lonely, and questions I wish I could ask other writers. Some of them are tongue in cheek, others are deadly serious.

Item two: I cannot wait for Harry Potter 7 to be in my hot little hands. I will have to sleep tonight so I can pull another all-nighter tomorrow, so I can finish out my streak of reading each Harry Potter book overnight as soon as I receive it. Ambition, thy name is Lili.

Item three: the Sullen One and I caught a late showing of Transformers last night. Review under the fold, but before you click, know this. In my ever-humble opinion, ROBOTS ARE AWESOME-O! And Good Robot vs. Evil Robot Epic Battles are even more AWESOME with a side of RADICAL SAUCE and a big steaming pile of OMG GEEK LOVE on top.

Too bad the movie sucked a$$ on the plot level. But hey, what do you expect on a movie based on a cheap Hasbro toy line?

Read On, If You Dare »

It is a terrible book, but it is no longer a terrible unfinished book. I’ve been working on smoke for a long time–it’s the second book I ever finished, and while it was done (as in the ending was finished) it wasn’t…well, any good. I still love it. It was the first book I ever finished by letting the characters tell me what happened.

It’s done. By “done” I mean in publishable form, even though nobody would ever publish such a thing. For one thing, it’s badly constructed, the main character is a Mary Sue, the hero isn’t a hero, there’s drug use, suicide, adultery, and lots of “oh please you are too stupid to live” going on.

But I still like it. When I get my proof copy and take a look at it, we’ll see.

On another note, I love Star Wars. Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher look so young. I always loved Han Solo more than Luke anyway. Han was ambiguous, dangerous and sexy. Luke was just a Hero.

I wanted to BE Han Solo. Screw being a Princess or a Hero, I wanted to be a smuggler with a Wookie by my side.

Hey, there’s a filk song in that. I’d Rather Be Han Solo.

It ain’t easy being a princess
Protocol ain’t my thing
Receptions make me yawn
Parties until dawn
And diplomatic boys
with all their bling,
BO-ring!

OH I’d rather be Han Solo
A smuggler with a Wookie by my side
I’d do the Kessel run
With my hair all up in buns
And the Millennium Falcon as my ride (yo, yo)

*scribbles furiously* (Help with lyrics would be appreciated.)

I go for Kyuzo in Seven Samurai too. (Hey, we all know A New Hope is Hidden Fortress revised.)

The kids have all three Star Wars movies plus the latest one that came out; Episode I and II are not allowed in this house and the DHM had to plead to get III in over my objections. Still, it’s got Mace Windu and Yoda. But come on. JarJar? Midichlorians? Puh-leeze, Mr. Lucas.

It’s going to be a long day.

Now that the Muse has finished bugging me to redo smoke, I’m going to watch Star Wars and maybe take another whack at that space opera. Yeah, it’s cliche, but what are you going to do?

Watching Alec Guinness stride his way through Obi-Wan Kenobi is great fun. I can almost see Ewan McGregor growing up to become Guinness’s Obi Wan. *shivers in delight* Hey, I read the novelization Alan Dean Foster did, Kenobi comes through as a much deeper character there.

Which reminds me, I saw a Return of the Jedi novelization (I think I even own such a beast, written by James Kahn) but not an Empire Strikes Back one. I wonder if such a beast even exists, and who it was ghostwritten by…

But I’ll still rather be Han Solo.

Instead I’m looking for Jonathan Coulton on YouTube.

I mean, come on. How can you resist zombies in a business meeting?

Or this little gem of a love song?

Come on, ladies. Line starts on the left.

And to finish it off, a bit of CROSS-GENRE MADNESS made possible by CyranoCyrano. Gina Torres is smokin’ hot. And this made me snort my cereal this morning.

I ask you, is that not awesome? Are we not geekdom? Do we not bleed when you scratch our fandom?

Rock on.

whoo! Ask for help and get an avalanche!

Thanks, everyone. I’ve got quite a lot to get through in the next few days. Mucho thanks to MartianMoonCrab, who sent me absolutely LOVELY stuff. You rock.

I suppose it’s time to be more specific. The character I need help with was born in Byzantium around the time of Constantine Porphyrogenitus, lived for a Long Time (hey, what else do you expect of a vampire?) and left Constantinople about thirty years after Mehmet conquered the territory. So, as a Reader just emailed me to point out, what I’m probably looking for is Koine Greek endearments.

For the moment I’m using kardia (my heart) and anasa mou (my little breath) but I’m needing more. So here is the next task: can you find me Koine Greek endearments or point me in the right direction? The Persian is nice, but as that same Reader pointed out, it might not be quite what I’m looking for depending on the character; thirty years isn’t enough for that to work its way into his lingua and survive for this long.

I had originally intended the character to be French, but a French vampire? That’s SO BEEN DONE. Why not have him be a Greek who would consider himself a Roman?

I love my job…

Note: this is an actual email I sent in reply to a cry for help last week. I think it’s useful, so I’m posting it with identifiers stripped out. It’s work safe but if you don’t like blue words, don’t click the cut.

From: Lili Saintcrow <*************>
Date: Jul 14, 2007 9:50 PM
Subject: Re: Lili, I Need Your Advice!!
To:

Hey ******,

This is going to be fast, since you’re under deadline and I pulled an all-nighter last night.

There are two problems here. One, you’re afraid. That’s okay. Inside every writer’s head is a little voice that says, “You’re not good enough. You can’t say that. Who the f!ck do you think you are?” For me it’s my mother’s voice. “That artsy fartsy sh!t will never put food on the table! Grow up!”

EVERY writer has that voice in their head. It is the Censor, the curse of every creative, and it’s also a crutch when you don’t want to work or when you’re pushing your comfort boundaries.

What helps me is knowing I can write absolute crap. Giving myself permission to write crap was the best step I ever made as a writer. You can write whatever the hell you want. Quality isn’t important. Quantity is. You churn out enough work and sooner or later your craft will get better and someone will like something you’ve written. it’s the shotgun theory of publishing. So just-okay writers get published because being just-okay at this is all right. Even being crappy at this is okay. What is important is that you try.

Read On, If You Dare »

It’s not that I’m only happy when it rains. It just feels like it sometimes. I love the rain here in the Pacific Northwest. I love it so much that it’s why I live here.

When people who live here complain about the rain, the gracious part of me says out loud, “Hm. Well, I like the rain.” The ungracious part of me screams in my head, “Why do you LIVE here then? Quit bitching and move to f!cking California! Go on, go!”

You get the idea. Needless to say, this morning it is raining, a quite respectable drizzle that has managed to water my lawn and garden thoroughly. Huzzah! And I don’t feel so dry and snappish, thank goodness. I even looked younger in the mirror this morning, though that might have been the fact that the barometric pressure finally stopped messing around and I got some sleep.

So I’ve put everything else on hold and am revising Smoke, otherwise known as “that hideous vampire novel that got me published but will never get published itself.” (Long story.) I am finding, much to my surprise, that it’s not as bad as it could be. Oh sure, you can definitely tell it’s my second novel, the first one where I really let go and was working through Some Issues, but it’s not an active howler like I thought it might be. And right now it’s making me happy, a good way to say goodbye to Danny Valentine. I am unsure why the grieving process has latched onto this book, but hey, I’ll go with it.

Yes, I am also revising it for a Nefarious Purpose. Don’t worry, you’ll know all about it when I get there.

I’m giving myself today to go through and revise, to get my fill of the story and do some architectural changes. (I must also shout out here to the Martian Mooncrab, who is a RESEARCH GODDESS!) Tomorrow is a day for other work, like contests etc. and a trip to the post office to mail all sorts of goodies out.

I’ve spent the morning emailing with peeps and am now settling down with coffee and some Massive Attack, ready to dive back into the book. I don’t want to come up for air anytime soon, so…have a good day, dear Reader, and here’s hoping you find something that makes you happy too.

Good morning, everyone. It’s Monday. Which kind of cancels out the good morning. The weekend was of the sort where, maybe, just conceivably, it might have been better if I had declared it a stay-in-bed-and-lock-the-doors kind of weekend. But alas, such was not meant to be.

Okay. So before I start the Reader Questions, I need a little help. I need to know about Byzantine Greek and Turkish endearments. I’m going back through an old book and changing a few things. So, um, if you know any, or know someone who knows any…could you let me know?

Okay, begging over. On with the reader questions! I’m going to be answering a few of the more common ones today.

Hey Lili, why is it Magi/Magi in the Valentine books, instead of Magus/Magi? Don’t you know the singular is Magus and the plural is Magi?

Yes, I know. Furthermore, so does Danny; I had the same conversation with her. Her reply was that Magus had meant something awful to werecain and was a term of approbation in the Republic of Gilead; besides, words tend to shrink after a while. It was just easier for Magi to be singular and plural and neuter gender, and it served to differentiate that class of psions from a lot of excess baggage from the word “Magus.” Which is, strictly speaking, more a word for a sorcerer than a psion.

So, really, it was intentional, and for a number of reasons.

What the hell does Jace see in Dante anyway?

Frankly, I don’t know. Jace took me by surprise as much as Japhrimel ever did. He was originally intended to be a minor character in the first book, and nothing was going to stop me from keeping him in Rio with his Family to run…

…and then he showed up at Danny’s door and wouldn’t go away no matter how many times I rewrote the scene. And there were at least four rewrites.

I tell you, it is a humbling experience to have a character flatly refuse to go away.

Anyway, I don’t know what Jace sees in Danny. I do know he had plenty of women before her, and almost none after her. I do know she was the only woman who wasn’t easy for him. I know that there was a heavy component of masochism–after all, he’d done a lot of things that weren’t exactly nice, and he made up for it by having this painful relationship with someone at least as self-absorbed as he is.

The problem with telling a story from first-person is that you’re not allowed to show a lot of the other characters. You can only see through the fisheye lens of the one character, and if they’re dealing with a lot it’s difficult to let another character’s motivations shine through.

I suppose if I was a better writer Jace would be more clear. *sigh* That’s the problem with being a writer, no piece of art is ever clear enough.

Dammit! I can’t wait! When is the next Valentine book coming out?

The next Valentine book is The Devil’s Right Hand, and it’s due out in September. I know, I can’t wait either. I’m starting to see some reviews now, so I think ARCs have gone out, and I’ll be doing ARC giveaways and contests Very Soon.

I’ve been getting this one a lot: are you a Harry Potter fan?

YES. Will be getting book 7 soon and staying up all night to read what one of my LJ buds calls Potterdammerung. Heh.

On a serious note, a lot of you have also emailed me to ask what I think of the recent RWA de-recognition of epublishers, including Samhain Press, who I am published through. Officially, I say it’s sad but the RWA is looking to protect its members in the best way it knows how. As I’m not a member, I don’t know how well that protection’s working.

Unofficially, I’m saying it’s a damn shame some institutions are so hidebound they can’t see some aspects of publishing have changed. Advances for ebooks are smaller because writers get a MUCH bigger chunk of royalties due to distribution costs being lower; having your publisher recognition depend on the type of advances you hand out is mind-boggling to me. The point behind RWA recognition isn’t whether or not RWA thinks the publisher is (brick-and-mortar) worthy of the Stamp O’Approval; it’s to protect writers who are producing work and furthering romance publication. Ebook publishers have become a part of the ecosystem, for better or for worse, and I think it’s a bit of a shame that RWA seems determined to try and reverse that trend instead of looking out for authors who might get their start in epubbing.

Still, the RWA seems to have loosened up regarding erotica and non-hetero romance. It’s a shame (again) that the members had to get up in arms before they did so, though. The RWA is fast becoming a byword for “reactionary,” and that’s very sad, since they have done so much good. I am wondering if it’s just hard for them to change direction because they are such a large organization.

Anyway, I think I’ve opened my mouth enough for one day. Have a happy Monday, everyone!