Love in Dark Settings

Hey, you guys know that you can reply to any of my Reply to Comments, don't you? One of the reasons I place my replies in a separate post is so that people won't miss seeing the conversations sparked by past posts.

How I reply to comments at this blog.


( Reply to lusiology about British children's dramas )
( Reply to Anonymous (hey, don't forget to sign your anonymous posts, guys) about Socrates and Plato )
( Reply to catana1 about language in historical novels )

. . . and thank you to MightyMaeve, Clare London, sa_tsl, and slashbluegreen for your kind comments about "The Unanswered Question."

The prince was told that he must find himself. But what if finding oneself means losing one's love?

Parental supervision is strongly suggested for this story.

"I thought that he would return once his wounds were healed. I would never have left him if I had known this would happen."

—John had a way of speaking, softly and simply, words that were most chilling. ¶ A new Kindle e-book edition is issued of the friendship fiction novel Blood Vow.
—The darkness that Farsight had sensed during the past weeks was quiescent, perhaps driven into sleep by the light. ¶ A free edition of the suspenseful fantasy story "Night Shadow" is the first in a new series of ePub e-books.
—Reminding himself that he was not to kill anyone in this dungeon. . . ¶ A holiday gift story is posted at The Eternal Dungeon.
—He had prepared himself for the possibility of death at the hands of the enemy. He had not expected his King to die in the moment of his victory. ¶ Two stories are posted at a new series site devoted to rare litfic: gen, het, and slash.
—The Turn-of-the-Century Toughs bibliographies are updated.
—New blurbs, cover art, and excerpts are posted from upcoming fiction.

The details.

"I am not a historian. And even if I was I wouldn't know everything about every era. So generally, if I'm reading a story about 1800's Australia, or 1920's Ireland, or Tudor England, my default mode is that I'm a little on edge. This is because I want to like the book, and I trust the author not to jolt me with glaring anachronisms. If there are small mistakes I won't catch them – and if the book is good enough – such as Dash and Dingo was, I can forgive the odd gaffe. We all make mistakes – hell we are human. But if the book unravels as I'm reading it, and there's glaring nonsense heaped on 'omg she didn't' then I know I'm NOT in a safe pair of hands."

--Erastes: A Safe Pair of Hands.

"I suppose I don't see what's so wrong about getting the facts right. No-one complains when mystery writers use the correct poisons or the right ballistics, after all. I don't feel I'm being preached at when I read murder mysteries, and I enjoy learning about things I didn't know. Just because something is romance, historical romance, doesn't mean that it should automatically be allowed to warp the facts. 'Oh I know cocoa powder doesn't have the same effect as belladonna' said Agatha Christie, 'but it's fiction, so why does it matter?'"

--Erastes, in the comments section of the same article. The whole thread is worth reading, because other historical novelists and readers chime in with their thoughts.

( Background to my entries )
( Writing and Simplicity: Bunches of stats )
( Writing: Text-to-speech, braille, and my Muse )
( Writing and Simplicity: My writing schedule this month )
( Writing: The Muse swoops in and takes hostages )
( Writing: Prisons in the 1910s (Life Prison research) )
( Writing: One stick too many (e-publishing, print publishing, and 'Rebirth') )
( Writing: More from the prisons in the 1910s (Life Prison research) )
( Writing: First, let's kill the lawyers. Then the software manufacturers.) )
( Writing and simplicity: Internet addiction thoughts )
( Writing: Yet more interesting prison writings from the 1910s (Life Prison research) )
( Writing: Smashwords improvements planned; plus, Smashwords versus Lulu )
( Simplicity and Writing: Internet addiction and ePub creation )
( Simplicity and Writing: Another day of Internet addiction . . . but I'm ready to upload )
( Writing: Erastes on the history of gay historical fiction )
( Writing: How do I find a place within the m/m fiction community? )

"If B&N wants to maintain a 20th century business model, they should start selling sculptures. I figure they've got at least ten years before consumers get hold of 3D printers and scanners, and force them to invent new ways to make money on [Rodin] downloads."

--John, commenting on the LendMe feature of the Barnes & Noble Nook e-reader.

( Background to my entries )
( Writing: Rape, torture, and therapy (with spoilers for KatBear's 'Jailbait' )
( Writing: Google Book Settlement redux )
( Writing: More news on Google Editions (with my summary of the various options available to e-book self-publishers) )
( Writing: Summary of my sales this year )
( Simplicity: Reworking my monthly schedule again )
( REVIEW: Recommendation of Syd McGinley's 'The Complete Dr. Fell, Volume Two: Found' )
( Simplicity: Getting my messed-up schedule back in order )
( Writing: I've been bittorented )

"Bad fortune, I think, is more use to a man than good fortune. Good fortune always seems to bring happiness, but deceives you with her smiles, whereas bad fortune is always truthful because by changing she shows her true fickleness. Good fortune deceives, but bad fortune enlightens. With her display of specious riches good fortune enslaves the minds of those who enjoy her, while bad fortune gives men release through the recognition of how fragile a thing happiness is. And so you can see Fortune in one way capricious, wayward and ever inconstant, and in another way sober, prepared and made wise by the experience of her own adversity. And lastly, by her flattery good fortune lures men away from the path of true good, but adverse fortune frequently draws men back to their true good like a shepherdess with her crook. Do you think it is of small account that this harsh and terrible misfortune has revealed those friends whose hearts are loyal to you? She has shown you the friends whose smiles were true smiles . . ."

--Boethius: The Consolation of Philosophy (circa 520 A.D.) as translated by V. E. Watts.

I began posting here about my recent illnesses because I figured there might be others here who had gone through these illnesses too, so we could swap stories. As a result, I've been both surprised and touched by the really nice comments I've received, here and elsewhere, wishing me well in my quest for health. Thank you all for your kind thoughts.

The good news is that I'm well on my way back to good health, so I don't anticipate any major health crises in January.

( Background to my entries )
( More about my back )
( More about my jaw )

At any rate, I'm now sleeping reasonably well (with the aid of no less than nine pillows; that's how many it takes to prop my various appendages into the right position) and have no jaw or back pain the daytime except when I exercise, in which case my back flairs up. I'm a bit worried about that latter problem, because part of my creative process comes from plotting while I'm dancing, but maybe by the time I start my composing cycle again - on January 1 - my body will have healed enough that I can do some dancing.

And man, is "good health" on my list of things to be thankful for as the new year begins.

As always, I welcome comments from folks who don't have accounts at my blogging services. But due to repeated spamming at my DW blog (we're talking real spam - comments that are illegible), I'm going to have to screen all anonymous comments from this point forth. You can still post anonymously at my LJ and IJ blogs without going through the screening procedure. Otherwise, you'll just have to wait a bit for your anonymous comment to show up.

"Just like music, Hollywood's first reaction to [piracy] will be 'Well, that's just not fair. That's jumping the turnstile, that's breaking the rules. We have to shut that down, because if you remove that option [i.e. piracy] then people will be more patient.' You won't remove that option, and you're losing valuable time if you focus on removing that option at the expense of improving that option and bettering that option, beating that option.

"The music people used to say, 'How can you can compete with free?' And now you ask anybody in digital music and they'll tell you, 'I'm just trying to compete effectively with free.' They've embraced the very condition that up until very recently they said they would reject. I'm telling you, you are going to compete with free. Sometimes you're even going to win, once you make the commitment to living in the marketplace as it is and not as you wish it were or as it once was."

--Eric Garland.

( Background to my entries )
( Writing: Terrific e-book self-publishing news from Smashwords )
( Writing: More thoughts on Smashwords )

Meanwhile, if any of you have published through Smashwords, I'd be interested to know whether you've had good experiences with them. Have you had any bad encounters as a result of their adult content policy? Did you have any technical problems in getting your e-books onto their site? How have your sales been?