Skyla Dawn Cameron

Apr 10 2014

Fuck You, Sheep

blanketdog Basically the month keeps getting MORE FUN.

And by “fun” I mean not fun.

EVERY DAY there’s something (TV? Broken! Half the rent money? To the vet! Distressed cat? Shat on me in the car! Big editing thing? Blue Screen of Death LOST OVER 150 PAGES OF EDITS!) but no one’s dead yet, so there’s that.

Blind Cat. The vet thinks I witnessed a mild seizure. Any number of things could’ve caused it but given that she’s seventeen, blind, and has chronic upper respiratory infection, anything done to either diagnose or treat that would be invasive, we are not going to do, but instead focus on her comfort/quality of life and let things run their course. I will sell a kidney for my pets but not at the expense of a little old lady’s comfort. Tests are being done to get a picture of her overall health–if it’s something as simple as hyperthyroidism, that can be treated.

Sophie and (in theory, finances permitting) Miss Dinah get six month checkups/blood work done next month. The former also needs the frequency of one of her meds increased, and it’s just as easy to move all the animals onto a new feeding schedule to accommodate (else I’m prone to forget meds if not given with food since I never know what time/day it is), so that means I’m looking at a really fun few weeks of getting everyone used to that wherein I am possibly eaten by a pack of feral cats + dog.

I endeavor to not be whiny or overly negative, despite the fact that’s where my fubar brain chemistry takes me about 83% of the time, but seriously, in the past ten days there was all of the above plus the previously mentioned repetitive stress injury flareup, food poisoning, emergencies with Mum’s new dog, computer crashes, and my teeth have been bugging me. THE FUCK. I might need to crawl in bed and hide for three days straight in case I accidentally breathe on something else and break it.

It does bear mentioning that, should you feel inclined, you can…

get a pre-made cover from my design site if you’re self-publishing and want something inexpensive (and often sexy)
shop for ebooks direct if you’ve been thinking about checking out one or more of my titles
toss a fiver in the tip jar if you’ve been enjoying Soulless (and haven’t already)
buy stuff by some of my clients so they can afford to hire me again (some I act as an assistant for)

…if any of those appeal to you. And if not, hey, that’s cool too. Would someone just come over with pizza, beer, and a TV for a while?

Now I have to go do–

Wait, nope, I’m not doing anything tonight. Because fuck you, sheep*, that’s why.

Llama-cant-deal-with-it

G’night.

——

* “sheep” being the month of April, of course. And fuck my fucking horoscope.

Apr 07 2014

The Week Begins

eoyre Tuesday we launched the fundraiser for Julie.

Tuesday night my body said “NO NO WE ARE HAVING NO MORE OF THIS TIME TO STOP BREATHING“.

Wednesday was an emergency vet visit with Mum’s new dog.

By Thursday night, I had food poisoning.

The weekend was recovering and some house cleaning, which is just as well because mostly I just feel like poisoning everybody. And then Sunday night my elderly blind cat…well, I don’t know. Had some sort of little episode. I lean toward *maybe* some kind of seizure, though I’d like to rule out a stroke, so it’s time to see if our vet can offer anything a bit more concrete. Most of my pets are elderly. Which suits me just fine–my GOD I do not like kittens/puppies–but the bunny’s eleven, dog’s fourteen, and three of the cats are fourteen to seventeen, which means they’re all slowing down at about the same rate. I grew up with animals, have never *not* had a dog, a couple of cats, and a smaller caged mammal, but it makes absolutely no difference–I can never wrap my head, or my heart, around the fact that their lives are so much shorter and more fragile than ours.

There is a very full work week ahead of me with being knocked on my ass last week–edit letter to finish, content edit to finish, two cover drafts to get sent off, and knitting (oh god, all the knitting). And it’ll involve being offline for long periods of time as I’m ODing on the internet as it is (it’s odd, the way constant interaction seems to make me jittery and exhausted). I can’t take new work for a few weeks yet but I’m running a pre-made cover sale as those are quick to customize and a few of the critters have six month checkups soon on top of Blind Cat’s visit, so a bit of a $ cushion would be helpful.

And there in the background, the current WIP is at the point where it’s eating my brain.

I’m at around 80%, with less than 20K words to go. I might play with a chapter or two throughout the week, but then I’m blocking off Saturday through Monday to finish it, because once I get going it’s going to be a mad dash, stabbing and stabbing the damn book until it’s dead. I wouldn’t trade this feeling for the world–not after regaining it after such a long absence–but I can feel myself turning into that snarling, absent-minded, twitchy creature who doesn’t bathe or clean or move except to re-position the keyboard before diving back in again. I’m already having trouble sleeping again and carrying on conversations with humans (not the animals–they don’t mind), and it’s only going to get worse before I emerge bleary-eyed, incoherent, and exhausted next week, a total mess but one completed WIP richer.

I’m definitely looking forward to it.

Apr 03 2014

The Body Knows Best

Tuesday night, after the launch of the fundraiser*–and on the heels of even more hours a day on the computer than I usually spend–I was working on one of the campaigns when the upper back/shoulder pain I’d been feeling throughout the day intensified. Not dull aches and pains but sharp shooting ones that made it impossible to sit/lie done/stand or hold any position for more than a few minutes. It crept around my right upper ribs, making it hard to breathe.

There might’ve been flailing. Okay, there WAS flailing.

Luckily I have a friend who Knows Medical Stuff and after *mumbleanhourandahalfofhorriblepainmumble* some time she was like, oh, yeah, you have Mouse Arm and something’s spasming. So after alternating hot and cold compresses, taking ibuprofen, and contorting my arms into all sorts of positions so I could massage the affected area, and I was at least able to sleep. But I have to take a few days off of the computer (and I can’t really knit, either, my GOD I am so fucking bored). Pushing it yesterday had the pain flaring up again last night; yes, I really have to listen when the body says, “Hold on a minute, I need to rest”.

So that’s where I am. No Soulless chapter this week because PAIN; stuff I don’t get paid for always drops to the bottom of the priority list when shit like this happens. There is, of course, still work to be done, and I can’t afford to get another week behind else my clients will probably hunt me down and kill me (they’re lovely people, but really, they can’t be expected to wait because I broke myself), so I’m thinking I’ll extend my new internet-free Friday (wherein I get housework and day job work done in spades) by having an internet-free long weekend. This coincides with a massive, 958 pg book on post-independence history in Kenya that just arrived, so alternating a couple hours of work with resting and reading should clear things up.

The body knows. Chronic illnesses aside, when a sudden injure flares up it is almost always a sign to slow down. Which I have tremendous trouble with, but I know that if I ignore those warnings, I’ll set myself up for something even worse down the road. And so I retreat.

At least until I can get cyborg parts to replacing the existing ones causing me trouble.

———-

* Fundraiser runs all month. There are lots of awesome packages of signed books. $15 will get you a few things including Whiskey Sour, the Zara and Juliette short story e-collection.

Mar 24 2014

Last Week for 25% Off

9Crimes_ The sale for buying direct from the shop is only on for another week. All the books, novellas, and collections in the series are available–plus my site is the only place you’ll find 9 Crimes–and you get a zipped folder with four different ebook formats, so there’s something for ever ereader.

To get 25% off, use the coupon code read when you checkout.

I don’t foresee sales being that frequent of a thing, so this may be it for a while.

I also rarely update here now but for those who might’ve forgotten, we’re over halfway through Soulless. There are ten weeks’ worth of chapters to go. I’m still deciding what (if anything) I’ll serialize after it; it’s reminded me what I used to like about eserials but also the things I do not miss at all. We’ll see!

Mar 21 2014

Why You Need to Buy SELENE

Lilith Saintcrow’s Selene releases in ebook today–for the next several weeks, it’s exclusive to her online bookstore. This contains the prequel, Brother’s Keeper, and the sequel short, Just Ask, as well as the previously serialized novel.

I often write up quickie reviews of things I work on but not full reviews because, well, conflict of interest and all that, even if I worked primarily as a graphic designer, but the truth is that I end up working on fabulous books and I want to tell people about them. Selene is no exception, so here are a few quick words on something I loved about it.

It’s set in the same world as Lili’s Dante Valentine books, though it takes place prior to them and stands alone just fine. This is a post-war world, a dark future version of ours; the worldbuilding is detailed while still being easy to follow, and glimpses of it will be familiar to Danny Valentine readers. Selene is a sexwitch, a slave to her body’s requirement to use sex to recharge her magical batteries, so to speak. She’s tied to Nikolai, a bloodsucking Nichtvren, who is the city’s Prime Power; using him to recharge said batteries keeps her off the streets, true, but she’s essentially indentured.

The Dante Valentine books give a very realistic portrayal of what it would be like to actually be in a relationship with a demon–a creature so foreign, so alien, that it simply doesn’t think like we do, and even when well-meaning it functions on a logic entirely different from a human’s (a contrast to most PNR). A similar attention is given to Nikolai; Saintcrow is one of the few paranormal authors I’ve ever read who actually seems to have considered what an ancient vampire would be like. There’s never a doubt that he cares for Selene, but it’s love from his point of view. And that’s not entirely compatible with what you, I, or Selene would see as “love”. This is never forgotten for a moment in the text: he is not some dangerous but cuddly alpha male she needs to just shut up and submit to. He isn’t human, and as fascinating as this makes him, it’s means they aren’t on equal footing and this is never something romanticized.

Likewise, Selene is an unflinching depiction of what it would actually be like to be “owned” by a monster. How you can be attracted to one and care for one on some level, but know its an unhealthy situation you need to be free of before it kills you. To be trapped, literally enslaved, by forces out of your control, and having the constant tug of needing freedom even if it means your life. There is no swooning, I-will-bow-to-your-will here. Selene is her own person and desperately needs to be free. Saintcrow never takes the easy way out with any of her characters, but especially not Selene, who never loses her desire to be in control of her own life. Her arc from controlled to in control is wonderful to follow.

Though Selene–the novel–ends the only way it could have, the sequel short at the end, Just Ask, provides a satisfying conclusion to Selene and Nikolai’s story. This isn’t a happily-ever-after, tied up in a bow sort of world, but it’s a REAL one full of hope…which, for me, is a perfect ending.

You can currently get Selene for just $5.99–a steal for what’s technically a three-for-one–exclusively at Lili’s site in HTML, MOBI, PDF, or EPUB. It releases elsewhere for $6.99 on May 1, and later will be available in print.

And a small reminder: thank you to those who buy books. Because it matters. Series get cancelled. The numbers have to be there for writers to continue to publish, and midlisters need the support. And I want writers like Lili, who put so much time and attention into their craft, to always be able to publish their work. Thank you to those of you who help them do so.

About Selene:

Life isn’t easy for a sexwitch. Even your own body betrays you. It’s bad enough that Selene is part slave to Nikolai, the Prime Power of Saint City, but she’s got her brother Danny and she’s got her job at the college. In the postwar wreckage of an uncertain world, it’s pretty much all she’s ever allowed herself to want.

Then Danny ends up murdered, and Selene finds herself a pawn in a dangerous game. Indentured to a bloodsucking Nichtvren and helpless, told to stop trying to uncover the identity of her brother’s killer, Selene has nowhere to turn. If she’s a good girl, Nikolai will leave her a little bit of freedom. He’ll take care of her, and she’ll be safe–if she obeys.

But Selene hasn’t survived this long by being obedient to her cursed powers, or to the men who buy her time. Her brother was all she had, and now she’s ready to borrow, beg, lie, steal or kill–whatever it takes to avenge him.

And if Nikolai gets in the way, Selene will use every tool in her arsenal to make him regret it…

This special edition also contains the prequel short story Brother’s Keeper and the sequel short story Just Ask.

Speaking of excellent books to read, I have Wayfarer here awaiting my attention this fine Friday afternoon. I haven’t slept in a week and I think lounging with the cats and reading is exactly what my brain needs…