Laura Anne Gilman once again has a brilliant breakdown in her post here.

My first reaction: Dear Amazon, that word does not mean what you think it means. OF COURSE Macmillan has a monopoly on THEIR product (books/ebooks). DUH. That’s basic business. I have a monopoly on the books I write. Tobias Buckell posts along those lines.

What makes me the angriest is that readers/Kindle customers do not understand that what this is, is a battle between giants and the consumer is the one that is going to lose. This isn’t about price points for e-Books–because if it were, why then were all the print books taken out of the catalog. This is simple supply-chain economics.

My other huge beef? Is that Amazon once again pulled this tactic (1) over a weekend and (2) without informing its customers – who saw books disappear from their pre-order lists, from their wishlists, from their carts. No explanation until this lame response, buried in a forum that frankly, most customers do not read.

I have a Kindle. I’ve bought tons of books on it–because it’s easy to use, has wireless access and since I am an Apple computer user, I was able to buy books without having to use third-party software (early Sony Readers didn’t have Mac-compatble software). You know what? My recent edition is not even 90 days old, well within the return time period. I’m bloody well returning it. I’m angry and tired of feeling that Amazon is, however convenient for other types of purchases, acting like a twelve-year-old and not like a business.

Will I lose my  books? No, because there is Kindle for the PC (and I can go back and re-add VMWare Fusion to my laptop and run a vritual Windows environment) and I understand there is Kindle for Mac coming soon. Will I continue to buy e-Books for my Kindle? Doubtful.I’ve already canceled several extant preorders. Sad, because due to my tiny apartment, this is often the only way I get to read and keep hardcover books. Yes, I could use the library, but often I am too busy to read the book within the alloted time span. Plus, I enjoy rereading my favorites.

So, I’ll continue on without the Kindle, reading books on my laptop and waiting for a better option. In the meantime, I’ve got a bunch of print books (mass market pb) that I haven’t read yet.

ETA: I just processed the online return form for the Kindle. This was my additional comment in "reason for return": "Due to Amazon’s recent removal of all Macmillan titles, I no longer wish to be a Kindle customer. I am very angry."

Getting better at the computing while resting eyes. Day 4 of drops and I’m able to stay on the ‘puter longer, yay!

In other news:

I can haz Cafepress store: http://www.cafepress.com/chickwriter Image is Keira’s logo, designed by Alex Pineda.

Working on revisions to BLOOD HEAT. I’m about 2/3 done, yippee!! 

Working on TRUE BLOOD essay (due 2/15). Most of my reading/research compiled, now I just have to finish the writing part.

Thinking about short story for Mammoth Book of Paranormal Romances 2 (due 4/15).

Taking a nap soon? Maybe. (up until 2 a.m., woke up to bright sun and noise of snow scrapers)

Hope everyone is having an excellent weekend!

(and it’s DAMNED cold here. I posted a pic of the temps when I woke up)

Looks like another round of Amazon!Fail. This time, on a much greater scale.

For reasons only speculated upon (but probably due to contract/pricing wars) – Amazon’s pulled all Macmillan (including Tor) titles off the virtual shelves. Still available through third-party sellers, but not via Amazon. This means no Kindle e-book version.

Rampant internets blogging abounds (and most more eloquent than I am):

Scalzi

Jay Lake

Laura Anne Gilman

BoingBoing

New York Times

ETA: Jackie Kessler

But where is the official word from either Amazon or Macmillan? Nada. Zilch. Zero. Mum’s the word.

VERY bad form, Amazon. As I stated in a reply to Laura Anne’s post, this only hurts authors and readers.

Note: I am not a Macmillan or Tor author but many people I know are.

We’re barely 3 weeks into the year, and already, it’s turning out to be a grand one. A long time ago, a now retired writer friend of mine told me to just keep on working on my writing, that eventually, Things would Happen. I smiled and nodded, pretending to agree with her. How the heck were "Things" going to happen out of the blue? I mean, that’s hogwash, right? Wishful thinking?

Now, some six years later, I can see that she was absolutely right.

I turned in BLOOD HEAT (book 4 in the Blood lines series) mid-December. Since then, I’ve managed to let it go (not a small feat) and just waitfor editorial feedback. This is probably the first time that I’ve done this. Previously, I just angst over what I’d turned in, revisited the manuscript dozens of times and worried. Now, it’s not like I think the book is perfect – but I know that my editor will give me constructive and great feedback that will help me make it better. (Thing #1–learning to roll with the process and trust in it).

Shortly after I turned in the book, I received an email from SmartPop Books. They’d sent it out to all their previous contributors (some of you may remember my essay in IN THE HUNT). SmartPop is putting together a new anthology, this time, on one of my favorite shows of all time: True Blood. I submitted a few ideas and they liked one of them and are offering me a spot in the anthology. (Thing #2: I get to write MORE fannish meta for pay. This is truly the life!!)

Earlier this week, I received an out-of-the-blue email from the editor of the Mammoth Book of Paranormal Romance. She’s doing a 2nd volume and invited me to participate. After a bit of discussion, I’ve signed the contract and will be writing a short story for the anthology. (Thing #3, a goal I’ve never articulated to someone–to be invited to participate in a themed short-story anthology).

Yesterday morning, again, out of the blue, I got an email from an awards committee chair asking me if I’d like to serve on the committee. What he didn’t know (nor did anyone else), this is a committee I’d wanted to be on for a long time–but kept forgetting to find out how one got on it. Needless to say, I accepted the position. (Thing #4, another goal achieved without talking about it or even actually pursuing it).

Serendipity? Fate, lending a helping hand? Or is it just the manifestation of what starts to happen when there’s some sort of critical mass achieved? I don’t have a clue, but my friend was right–Things indeed do Happen. And it is glorious!!

Here’s hoping that 2010 turns out to be a glorious year for all my friends and family!!

Hey, folks – In addition to working on a non-fiction project, I am about to commit to a short story project. (eep!!) It’s for an anthology and I’m dying to do a modern day fairy tale but am tired of the same old, same old.

What’s your favorite fairy tale(s)? (I’d love to learn about ones that aren’t Disneyfied and/or Euro-centric!)

Please comment below and thanks in advance!!

x-posted to Facebook and Twitter

After growing like Steve McQueen’s Blob, the darn thing was beyond too big for the space, and totally not as comfy as advertised. Oh well. Live and learn, eh?

Thanks to Carrie from DCWW, the Big Red Blob and its accompanying ottoman will now live the life of ease in her family room, loved by kids and parents alike.

From Birth of a chair

My space is now empty again (except for the brand new bookshelf waiting to be filled. Tomorrow, since I’m off work, I’m heading to the land of Swedish Meatballs and funky-named furniture to look for something that will actually fit.

Day 2 of chair saga = chair is *not* comfy lounge chair as described. Nope, not at all.

I barely sink into the thing (and I’m not a lightweight by any means!) – and it’s highly non-human friendly. Maybe if I were a werewolf or wer-dog? Damn it. I had such high hopes!!

So I’m back to square one and sitting in my Ikea Lysele chair bed for now. I really need a smaller recliner/comfy chair type of seating for that corner. Any thoughts?

I spent the last couple of evenings whingeing about taxes and quarterly estimated taxes–something I’ve never had to do before. In the last 2 weeks of December, I got a very nice and unexpected royalty check from Simon & Schuster. Nice because it wasn’t expected and it was a very nice chunk o’cash. So I proceeded to pay down some debt.

After munging numbers and pulling out hair (metaphorically for the latter), I owe a chunk of the above plus the ever lovely self-employment taxes (15.3% thanks ever so, Uncle Sam). So I girded the loins, filled out the form and paid online–since they’re due Jan 15. Sigh. It’s nice to get money for writing. It’s less nice to take nearly 35% of it and give it to the Feds.

After ridiculous fiasco with freecyclers not showing up to pick up my donation furniture, Salvation Army showed up this a.m. and carted it all away in a matter of 15 minutes. Those boys were efficient!! Good thing, too, because my new chair arrived today at the office.

It’s a large lounge chair (a.k.a. big red bag of memory foam) and arrived in a duffle-looking bag. It amused me highly. So I photo chronicled the birth of the chair--just like Sea Monkeys(TM) it grew and grew…

Hope you’re as easily amused as I am…

ETA: day 2 of the lounge chair that would not stop growing

From Birth of a chair

From Birth of a chair

Wound up the holidays quietly at home, where I wanted to be. Like everything else, the relaxation time is over and it’s back to work–both at the workplace and at the writing. Surprisingly, things jump started a little faster than I expected, I just got greenlighted (usage?) for a new short non-fiction project (aka PTICTAY) that I can’t talk about yet, plus I am working on synopsis for Book 5. Also working on a proposal with a co-writer for a possible new young adult project. Also working on a guest blog for Vampire Wire (thanks for the invite, Marta!)

Definitely not complaining, I love it when I get writing gigs!! And I’m extremely psyched about the PTICTAY–it’s really, really awesome and I’m beginning to get the glimmer of what Book 5 will be about. Just got to nail it down before the slippery bastard gets away.

The possible YA project is also quite fun, CoWriter and I are banging ideas/thoughts/character notes back and forth using Google Wave as a collaboration tool. Not sure how to use it for actual writing, though–I think I’d rather use Google docs for that, creating each chapter as a document so then I can keep the master in Scrivener. (mostly b/c CoWriter is a PC and I’m a Mac and we use different tools). Scrivener will let me compile our chapters into a final draft, create our outline/synopsis and make it easy for me to construct. Word and I do not play well together on large documents. Someday, I shall regale you with the horror story about how it lost ALL my edits post-editorial changes on Matters of the Blood (for the first Wildside/Juno release), including all the editorial markup. TrackChanges: 1 Lima: < 0. That was the last time I used Word to write a book.

Hope everyone is keeping warm (if you’re in the Northern Hemisphere) or cool (Southern Hemisphere) and that you had a fabulous holiday season.

The new year has started out just fine, thanks–let’s hope it continues along this vein.