Great news!

Book five in the Laconia series, Dad and I Are Sort of Human, has been accepted by Eternal Press. We are still working out the details but I will announce the release date once it has been decided.

A Mess of Links

I now have a Goodreads author page. Check it out. Since posts on this blog are now linked to it and show up there, is this an example of recursion? XD

Another new video, as well. This one is a celebration of all four currently out books. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v​=5Nc5qJ1TMKw

And I now have a tumblr, called Geek Nip. It is mostly focused on stuff I find entertaining rather than promotion, but you might enjoy it.

My New Page at Manic Readers

By following the bread crumbs back from the Eternal Press Reviews page, I found Manic Readers, a site that helps you submit your published work to several review blogs at once. I have a page there now. Just going with the free account at the moment, but if it proves useful I may try a subscription. It's yet another place to find biographical information, bibliographical information, and a few pictures that may be of interest.

http://www.manicreaders.com/DonayaHaymond/

This picture below is one of the ones I've posted there. I'm on vacation at the moment, but during the school year this is how I tend to decorate my half of a dorm:

Pretty cunning, don'tcha think? :D

Humans and Demons and Elves

http://eternalpress.biz/book.php?isbn=9781615724352

The Elves of North America use dimension-bending magic to conceal their woodland villages from humans, though it fails to protect them from the beautiful-but-deadly Eudemons. Edofine is less prejudiced than many, even befriending an Archaedemon, whose people are known for switching sides in the ancient conflict. But when young Edofine's clan is destroyed, he has only one person to turn to: his cousin Kryvek, who was adopted by humans who established the Official Magics-Humans Institute (OMHI). Will Edofine be able to adjust to human society? Can the OMHI help him despite facing its own crisis? Could he possibly be falling in love with Kryvek’s friend Lira, a half-Elf half-Eudemon working for the OMHI? His life has fallen to pieces, and the reconstruction is full of surprises.

Sample Passage:

"One more time. You turn these knobs, and water comes out. One knob has hot water and one has cold water. You adjust the amount depending on your preference."

"And then what do I do?" Edofine stood inside the shower, gingerly poking the pipes. He was still in full Elf regalia, complete with dead leaves and grass stains.

"Cover yourself with soap and stand under the water so that it washes off. Do you think you can handle that?"

"You do this every day?"

"Yes."

"What a waste of time and water."

"Way to be sanctimonious, kid. I am merely teaching you how to conform to local hygienic standards. When you live indoors in small apartments, washing frequently becomes very important. Some even enjoy it. I'll leave you alone now to get acquainted with it."

Kryvek was growing annoyed with having to explain these basic things to his cousin. He knew Edofine wasn't being obtuse on purpose, but helping him was like having a child to take care of. Kryvek's stomach growled again and he looked at his watch for the fourth time in ten minutes.

Panic rose in Edofine's throat, which, coupled with his hunger and disorientation, made him worried he might vomit. "You cannot leave me. What if I do something wrong and I scald myself? What if the magic governing these pipes breaks down? Anything could happen."

Kryvek was about to dismiss Edofine's fears, but he saw the hurt in Edofine's drooping shoulders and bowed head and changed his mind. "All right. I'll stand right here in the doorway and talk you through the process. First take your clothes off.” Standing in the shower, Edofine disrobed. Kryvek noted many scars and bruises underneath the grime. “You have to put the clothes outside of the shower, otherwise they’ll get wet.”

“Now turn the hot knob…”

“Aiee!”

“I meant turn it while standing sort of away from the stream of water, so it wouldn’t hit you full force. No, don’t turn it off! Turn on some of the cold!”

“I think you are trying to kill me…”

Leave a comment to have a chance to win a free PDF of either this novella or one of my three other published books of your choice!

Write-A-Thon Update

I've raised my target amount of money - actually slightly more than my target amount - and I'm going on a sabbatical from these daily blog postings. I feel bad doing so, like I'm letting people down, but I've just exhausted my creative juices. Guess I'm not like some of my friends in that regard, who can keep churning out good work without getting sick of it.

This does not mean I'm abandoning all writing enterprises, though. I am slowly building up a short story for a new Damnation Books anthology, as well as launching Humans and Demons and Elves tomorrow and the day after (time zones are making my schedule funny). I am also translating yet another Shakespeare play into modern English for my best Elance client.

I will eventually get back to expanding The Raw Ghosts of Thailand and working on Sweeping the Puddles Away, I promise. I'm just going to concentrate on the stuff that pays immediately for now.

Thank you for your understanding.

300 for 30: Day 25

I closed my Fanstory.com account today, ending what has been a significant era in my development as a writer.

Fanstory.com is like fictionpress.com in that authors post their work for reviews, but you have to pay for a subscription, which gets you two guaranteed reviews per chapter, a newsletter, and free entry into their contests for which you can get cash prizes. It was the one spam email offer I ever took up, and for several years it served me well. I got better, more rounded and mature feedback from readers, and best of all, I met my fairy godmother there.

Sally Odgers was initially just another of my fans, but she critiqued with a steady combination of enthusiasm and a helpful eye for details, eventually putting her marks on all the Laconia novels. I started reading her work and realized she was a woman of vast talent, a real professional. Eventually I discovered that she has been working in the business for six decades as an author, editor, manuscript assessor, and workshop teacher. She has won the Australian World Fantasy Award, an achievement even mentioned on Wikipedia. And she loved my work. She volunteered to write me a letter of recommendation to anyone I wished while I was still trying to get published, and when she got a job contracting for Eternal Press she introduced me to the company, nudging them to take me on. She is now my regular editor. She might as well have waved a wand and told me that I would go to the ball.

I don’t regret my time subscribing to Fanstory. But after a hiatus where I was concentrating on getting the first three novels out, I came back to find the place changed. Perhaps it was me who had changed. All I knew is that I saw an endless circle of people patting each other on the back in order to receive pats in turn, a wheel of inflated yet insubstantial praise and excessive granting of stars per review, with ugly flames and comments for those who didn’t comply. It feels more like an author mill than a think tank of creativity. I am saddened, and I have said goodbye.

300 for 30: Day 18

I'm going with something half-baked today, because I'm tired and starting to slide into another depression. Who knows, I might perk up in the process.

So you get a list! (And there was much rejoicing - insert dispirited 'yayyyyy'.)



Writing-Related Things I'm Doing At the Moment

1. This 300-for-30 which is going to morph into 750-for-Clarion on the 26th.
A. Some it, as you have seen, is miscellany like this.
B. Another portion is my Raw Ghosts of Thailand expansion, again obvious on this blog.
C. Though I'm in composting mode, letting Sweeping the Puddles Away mature in my brain before I make a serious attempt at it, I may take a few nibbles as part of the Write-A-Thon if I tire of A and B.

2. A "translation" of a Shakespeare play into modern English [I won't say which publicly; I signed a non-disclosure agreement], ghostwriting for a $200 payment. Due on the 25th. I'm glad it's not overlapping with the Write-A-Thon.

3. Editing the first manuscript in my new long-term position, for $50. Low pay but great resume/work experience credit; the publisher is quite snazzy. This is due on the 22nd. I have not received the actual manuscript yet. If I don't get it by tomorrow I am requesting an extension, because I said I'd need a week to do it, and they had better GIVE me a week, by Eru! And they'll give me another one immediately afterwards that I must have done before August 1st, since they "had to fire one of their copyeditors".
* I must admit, I am curious about what the copyeditor did.

4. Waiting to hear back from Queryshark, of queryshark.blogspot.com , to see if she is interested at all in either posting my query for Seasons Four Open the Door on her blog and eviscerating it, or on, just maybe, requesting pages. In the meantime I am polishing the query until it screams, so that if 90 days pass with no reply I can resubmit a better one in September.

5. Waiting to hear back from various other agents for Seasons Four.

6. Promotion, promotion, promotion for Humans and Demons and Elves. I'm hoping to get the Facebook page fanbase to at least 300 before July 7th. I will have to take some time off my Embassy job on the big day to be available on live chat during my appointed hour, and draft up some contests/"press releases" to put on the Yahoo loop.

7. Waiting to hear back from The Memory Eater anthology about whether a story I submitted pleases the editor enough to be included. I would get a share of whatever the book makes. I adore the Ryan-North-edited Machine of Death anthology this is inspired by, and would love to be part of a similar project. I'm on equal footing with all the other submitters credential-wise, though, since the editor has explicitly stated s/he doesn't care about that. But their twitter does follow mine, which can't be a bad sign anyway.

8. Growing my Twitter community- largely consisting of trying to find interesting things to say on command, like a trained parrot.

9. Occasional fanfic, because I'm a writingslut like that.

10. And a partridge in a pear tree.

Clarion UCSD Write-A-Thon

What: Like a walk-a-thon, a write-a-thon has participants set certain goals that will tax their abilities and ask others to sponsor them for a good cause.

Who: Me, and hopefully 99 other writers. At the moment there are only 35 total, so you should go join! They'll take anyone who loves to write and is willing to put in the time and effort.

Why: This allows underprivileged young writers who show speculative fiction writing promise to attend a workshop to hone their skills under great instructors. I have had the benefit of lovely creative writing teachers, mentors, and resources. Not everyone has. Also, Neil Gaiman put an announcement on Twitter about it, and when I replied saying I joined, he thanked me personally and donated $50 to get me started. I nearly died of squee. There are drawings for prizes for both participants and donors, but if that's the only reward I get I will still be thrilled.

Where: My page is at http://www.theclarionfoundation.org/writeathon/wrtn-writerpage.php?writerID=8145

How: I will be posting 750 words a day from June 26 to August 1 on this very blog. If my gentle readers are willing, I would love to raise at least $150 this year, though of course more would be great. There is a donation button on my page. They take PayPal and are fully tax-deductible.

The 300-for-30 challenge will be put on hold for the duration of the Write-A-Thon, but since you'll be getting even more from me, I doubt there will be complaints. :D

I've changed my mind...

As Margaret Hsu has begun to form more fully in my head, I realize that poetry is the writing that will be integral to her healing, not working on a script. The script is too much me. I write decent enough poetry but it isn't my favorite form. I haven't written much, on my own, for a while. I wrote it in the hospital, though. I can write it for her.

Here, actually, is the one poem I wrote in the hospital I still like:

~*~

The Gargoyle Principle

Written Halloween 2010, in ---- Psych Ward (Nonviolent, Temporary, Women’s)

It was All Hallows’ Eve, Samhain, Hallowee’en when the pills

helped me fall asleep despite the shhhnoisyshhh

which, it being 3 AM, means it is All Hallows

the day, itself, with spirits awake and walking

the way I am awake and wanting 48 hours enchanted away.

We don’t sleep well here on the best of nights

and one might think our own demons animate

us to mutter and toss, thrash and request

for sedatives from the front desk, the night shift –

nurses nursing coffees as they nurse us.

Cathedrals have gargoyles as sort of psychic

bodyguards, a demon on your side to frighten

the ones that would do you ill. In my current

illness I have an ugly bat-doll clutched by my side

hug-sized, looking alarmed enough for the both

of us so I can be calm, calm, thanks to the gargoyle principle,

thanks to the slow but reliable tick of time

towards the day, hour, minute my body is free as my spirit

sheltered by my plush gargoyle and a blanket of inky scribbles.

First Comment Prize Drawing

This might be a slightly pathetic thing for me to do, considering I have only four followers at the moment of this writing, but I am announcing the Great Comment Prize Drawing Experiment. One commenter in the month of February will be chosen to receive the following prize of their choice:

1. A PDF copy of ONE (1) of my three published novels.

2. A Crocheted Chubby Cthulhu doll, hand-crocheted by myself:

As sold at http://www.etsy.com/listing/66958205/crocheted-chubby-cthulhu for $6 plus $3 shipping ($5.00 if you are outside the U.S.).

3. Or finally, a hat-scarf-fingerless gloves combination set, like so:

The yellow-brown combination is no longer available; your options are pink-brown and lavender-green.

Let the first contest begin!

Waking Echoes Appears in an Ad

Happy Valentine's Day!

I've been having a lovely morning and afternoon with only one class, lunch with my new boyfriend (so we're still in the excessively silly & sweet phase), chocolate-covered strawberries, and the promise of cuddles during a movie this evening.

But when I went to check my mail, things got even better. I received an issue of Realms of Fantasy, which perplexed me because I have submitted a short story of mine to RoF before and was turned down, and I didn't recall ever ordering a copy, what with sour grapes and all that. Lo and behold, on the inside cover of the February issue is a full-page ad for several Eternal Press Young Adult titles. As you can see, on the top right corner is Waking Echoes by Donaya Haymond. (Forgive me for the blur, please; I have perpetually shaky hands.)

<--- This is the outside cover, for those of you interested in picking up a copy. You can get one at http://www.rofmag.com/. I like the art.

I must say that I feel somewhat vindicated now, after RoF rejected what I consider the best short story I've ever written, though I understand the problem with the bottleneck between slush pile and restricted column space. Tyree Campbell of Sam's Dot publishing accepted the story, called "Phantom Limb(s)" for Aoife's Kiss, where another story of mine, "The Mormon Bohemian", was published in 2007 and voted Best of Issue. "Phantom Limb(s)" would have appeared in a regular Aoife's Kiss and "The Mormon Bohemian" in an anthology, except that Aoife's Kiss appears to have gone bankrupt - at any rate I can no longer seem to contact anyone involved in it, and it no longer appears in new volumes of Writer's Market. My fairy godmother (my editor/mentor Sally Odgers) tells me that this is a common problem in the fiction industry.

Ms. Campbell said that though she loved "Phantom Limb(s)", she recommended that I send it to a journal that could pay me more, and gave a few suggestions and tips. Realms of Fantasy was one of her picks. I've put my ambitions for the story on hold for now, though I may try submitting it other places later. If all else fails, the protagonist holds a supporting role in my incipient first non-Laconia novel, and I could integrate the story into the book. Or, as Sally once advised, I could try getting a short works collection published.

Anyway, I'm very pleased by this development, and especially honored that Eternal Press chose one of my titles to feature in the spot.

I Can't Believe I Forgot to Mention

Waking Echoes, solely out of the three novels published already, is also available for sale in print form by the Barnes & Noble online store. You can find it at http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Waking-Echoes/Donaya-Haymond/e/9781615721429/?itm=2&USRI=waking+echoes .

Of course this is very exciting. It's not as much a big deal as being in one of their brick-and-mortar stores for a traditionalist, but I do have to remember that online and e-book sales are on the rise...

Wait, what's this? I type in Waking Echoes and I get...OMFG (if you'll pardon my reverting to adolescence)! It's also for sale on the Nook! It wasn't before! This means people requested it!

AAHHHHHHH! :D

Okay, so they misspelled the "Haymond" as "Hammond". A recurring fly in my ointment of delight, as it were. But nevertheless, here it is: http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Waking-Echoes/Donaya-Hammond/e/9781615721412/?itm=1&USRI=waking+echoes Hopefully someone will correct the error soon.

'Scuse me, I need to tell everybody.

A Slight Tweak in the Title

I have just been informed that an author Eternal Press is friendly with already has a book with a title that ends in "Oh My!", so I've agreed to change the title of my fourth novel to "Humans and Demons and Elves". That's probably what people would have called it when talking about it anyway. Eight words is a bit of a mouthful for a title.

Funny enough, this has the earliest history of any of my novels, despite being the fourth. My best friend and I came up with the original plot and characters when we were in seventh grade. We intended to make a graphic novel. Sadly, I moved to China with my parents before we were able to get very far. I have offered her a share of the writing profits, as she's still my best friend to this day, but she's refused. So I'll just have to get her extravagant gifts with my money. Mwahaha.