Exciting Book News: Gargoyle Girl Productions is Born & ARTIFACT Comes Out in August 2012

by Gigi Pandian

I've got some exciting news to share: I've formed Gargoyle Girl Productions and I’m going to publish my first mystery novel myself!

Publishing is a crazy journey. I've been having fun with it, so at first I was content to keep writing while my agent pitched my books and I waited for forces to align and result in a sale. My breast cancer diagnosis changed my thinking. When I thought about what I wanted to do to live my life to the fullest during these uncertain times, along with what I've learned about publishing in the last few years, everything clicked into place. Here's the story:

The 10 Reasons Why I Formed Gargoyle Girl Productions and am Publishing My Novel Myself

1. I didn’t rush into this. I’ve written mystery stories and scripts since I was a kid, and wrote my first [awful] novel in college. It wasn’t until I wrote a draft of the mystery novel Artifact for NaNoWriMo six years ago that I felt I really had something.

2. The novel has already received several distinctions. I was awarded a Malice Domestic Grant for unpublished traditional mystery writers while Artifact was a work in progress (2007). After getting involved in writers groups and learning how to edit a novel (2008), the manuscript was a finalist in the St. Martin’s Best First Traditional Mystery Competition (2009). It also received an Editor’s Choice award at the SDSU Writers Conference (2009).

3. I kept writing and had a work of fiction published. After Attifact, I wrote a YA mystery novel, another book in my mystery series, outlines of several more books in the series, and two short stories with series characters. My first short story is out in Fish Tales, a Sisters in Crime Guppies Chapter anthology, and the second one was accepted into the next anthology.

4. I got myself an agent. After going through the process of learning how to boil down my novel into a query letter, a synopsis, and a one-line pitch, I signed with an agent who shared my vision for the book and series.

5. Through two years of pitching to big publishers, my agent and I heard a lot about how good Artifact was, but that it didn’t fit established genre lines. I have a very lighthearted voice but write international treasure hunt adventure plots. It’s a cross-genre combo I happen to adore (think Elizabeth Peters and her Vicky Bliss mystery series) but not one that big publishers seemed keen on right now. I tried to write a "dark" mystery last year, but my natural voice came through and it turned out even more lighthearted than Artifact! At first I was content to wait out the market, since I’m having a blast writing more mysteries. But then:

6. I was diagnosed with breast cancer earlier this year, at age 36, which is the kind of thing that helps you clarify your priorities. I’ve always loved crafting mystery stories. I’d like to share them. Yup, it was the health shock that pushed me over the edge to make the decision to publish my mystery series myself. The diagnosis gave me a newfound clarity to see things I already knew. I love my day job at a non-profit, so I’m not looking for a new career. I want to make sure I’m releasing quality books, but I don’t want to rely on a publishing house to determine the fate of my books. And not to be too much of a downer, but with my uncertain health, I want to embrace life with my own deadlines.

7. My agent suggested it was time to think outside the box. She had this idea right before my diagnosis, suggesting we consider different publishers than the main NYC presses, but I didn’t have time to consider my publishing plans until I was recovering from surgery. I thought about what “thinking outside the box” meant to me at this juncture in my life. I would have decided to move forward with my self-publishing plan regardless, but I’m glad she supports my decision to put my book out myself so it can find its audience.

8. I have the design and production skills to produce my books myself. My title at my day job is Graphic Designer and Publications Manager. I do design, layout, and distribution of public education materials. With my skills, I can put in my own labor to create book covers, eBooks, and printed books. I’m working with a professional editor because I believe it’s such an important part of the process that signing with a publisher would have given me. The rest of the production process I can do myself.

9. I know what I’m getting myself into. My network of writers – Sisters in Crime, Mystery Writers of America, Romance Writers or America, my critique partners across the country, and my local brainstorm partners – have taught me so much about the business of writing and publishing. Even though those were sometimes hard lessons to learn, I’m forever grateful to them. I know this isn’t an easy path I’m taking. But I also know what I need to do to make it a good one for me.

10. Life itself is a risk, and I want to have fun living it. Toward that end, I formed Gargoyle Girl Productions. Named after my mystery-themed photography site, it’s an umbrella creative boutique to encompass all of my creative work: writing, design, and photography. I’m launching the first book of my Jaya Jones Treasure Hunt Mystery Series as both a printed book and an ebook next year to coincide with the end of my main cancer treatments. I’m going to throw a big party. I hope you’ll join me in celebrating.

ARTIFACT comes out in August 2012: When historian Jaya Jones receives a mysterious package containing a jewel-encrusted artifact from India, sent by her ex-lover the same day he died in a supposed accident in the Highlands of Scotland, she discovers that the secrets of a lost Indian treasure may be hidden in a Scottish legend from the days of the British Raj. But she's not the only one on the trail...

Martha's Meme Crutch

We've had the definition before, but let's go over it one more time for effect:

meme: an idea, behaviour or style that spreads from person to person within a culture

Sometimes it's a youtube video, but sometimes it's something else entirely.

Remember this:



I couldn't make it through a day of junior high without something going all not worthy.

Or how about this:


I don't know when it popped up, but back in college I never said "I know, right?" but now I'm that douchebag that says it all the time. Oh yeah, also, using the word douchebag all the time? Meme.

There was a time no one used the word douchebag to describe someone negatively. Then someone used it. Then it caught fire and everyone used it.

The problem with these types of memes is that they lead to verbal crutches and, in writing, the dreaded cliche.

As a young-adult author, I'm naturally obsessed with whatever Taylor Lautner's abs...I mean...Taylor Lautner is doing so I've been checking out his latest trailer:



There's a point where Taylor Lautner is on the phone with what must be the bad guy.
The bad guy says, "We're going to find you."
Taylor responds aggressively, "Not if I find you first."

That's technically another meme. Somewhere, societally, we decided the badass answer to "I'm going to find you" was "Not if I find you, first."

Even though this makes absolutely no sense.

If I said to someone: "I'm going to find you."
And they said, "Not if I find you first."
My natural response would be, "Oh...cool, well, let's just agree to meet somewhere? What's good for you? I don't mind cabbing it...maybe we could grab lunch?"

If cliche is the enemy of the writer than so is meme...but strangely, not zeitgiest (which we've discussed before in depth on this blog...)

The key is capture the spirit of the times without beating it like a dead horse (ahem...yet another meme turned cliche...)

With all the pressure to keep your writing pristine, thank goodness there's blogging! Where I can say whatever the hell. :)

Forget Me Me, Let's Talk About Something Far More Important

I think we've already established that I'm not an early adopter. Really, I don't care about the latest whosit or whatsit unless at some point it will save me time or money. Otherwise, being the first to have the latest (or fanciest) is pretty far down on my list of needs.

So this whole Meme topic has left me sort of adrift. I still don't really get Meme's and frankly, I don't care. There are so many other, more worthy topics of note to occupy my attention.

So instead of Me Me, I'm going to tell you about the Blue Star Mothers of America. www.bluestarmothers.org

I think this might be the third week in a row where I've talked about philanthropy (and so sorry to keep bringing it up) but this past weekend my daughter and I volunteered for this AMAZING organization. From their website:

The Blue Star Mothers of America, Inc. is a non-partisan, non-political organization. We do not support any political candidate, nor do we endorse any religious organization. The military represents all aspects of America as does our organization.

We are mothers who now have, or have had, children honorably serving in the military. We are a non-profit (501[c]3) Veterans service organization supporting our military children while promoting patriotism.

My daughter and I worked with the Blue Star Mothers to solicit donations for care packages to be sent to the troops overseas at our local grocery store and then helped sort the various items. We made cards to send to the servicemen and women who are serving our country in foreign locations. And we talked with mothers and fathers whose children are making a difference.

What do they need? They need small things, hot chocolate, oatmeal, poptarts, toothpaste, floss, makeup for the female troops, tampons, candy, cup o noodles, tuna, coffee, a variety of small easily purchased items to assemble into a package for the servicemen and women to receive during the holidays.

Sometimes they keep the items, sometimes they give them to the kids in the regions they occupy and protect. These men and women are laying their lives on the line. I don't care how hard your budget is to keep, one small purchase, as little as a dollar can make a difference in their lives.

Think about it.

xo,
Lisa

YouTubophobia

L.G.C. Smith

Every time I get an email or read an article or blog post with a YouTube link, anxiety skitters through me. To play, or not to play? Most of the time, I don’t play.

I am afraid of YouTube.

To varying degrees, I’m also afraid of Twitter and Facebook.

I could blame it on being, ahem, shall we say past the first flush of youth. That’s a factor, but it isn’t the whole picture. Technology doesn’t inherently scare me. The people who use it are another matter. But technology is pretty cool.

I could claim to be upset by the potential for unintentionally invading some poor teenager’s privacy when a video of him getting walloped in the groin by a baseball bat wielding two-year-old trashes his dreams of stealing fifth-grade girls’ hearts from Justin Bieber. But that’s only a minor consideration.

I do worry about unsuspecting young people not realizing the depths of garden-variety depravity to which they may expose themselves with photos, clever videos, sexting, and what have you. But this doesn't contribute to my personal fear.

Free-floating anxiety, of which I have more than the average bear, isn’t to blame. No. I’ve acquired skills for talking myself down.

There is one thing about YouTube I can’t get away from. However alluring all those funny videos are, and there’s no denying the bone-deep appeal of Randall’s honey badger narration, they will Suck Up All the Time in the Universe.

YouTube is the blackest hole of a time sink on this side of the galaxy.

Alas, unlike the honey badger, I give a shit. I have books to write, research to do, and more books to read than I can fit into my days as it is. There are children in my life who are still young enough to want actual interaction. These circumstances alone, though wouldn’t make YouTube super scary. I also have a little issue with an OCD approach to clever film clips. I may have been born without a stop button. Therefore . . .

I am afraid of YouTube. Not memes. Memes are fine. But I will never be ahead of any curves that start on YouTube. I know my limitations.

Meme Me

-- Adrienne Miller

Thank heaven for YouTube.

Yes, I get that there is more to memes than Double Rainbow and The Bed Intruder Song. But let's be honest, you're not interested in that, are you? You don't care about the evolution of the paper clip as a prime example of how the human mind constantly struggles to improve our current situation.

No, you want the funny. It's ok. So do I.

So here are some of my favorite  favorite sources of web based comedy.

Blame Society Productions

You probably already know about Chad Vader: Day Shift Manager. If you don't, you should. Darth's little brother has been running shifts at Empire Market for 3 seasons now.



The cast and crew have been making these for free. These are talented people and they deserved to get paid. There is a kickstarter campaign to make Season 4.

But Chad Vader, as great as it is, isn't the best that Matt Sloan and Aaron Yonda have to offer. They have put out an embarrassment of YouTube riches. My favorites: Beer & Board Games, Fun Rangers, and Ehow. Note: all of these are edgier than the PG Chad Vader episodes, definetly NSFW...but they're also funnier.

"If only three sheep can be involved, it's not worth my time!" Seriously, don't click on this if you're at work. 

Next time you have an hour to kill, check them out.

Rifftrax

If you were anything like me, you spent the last part of 1999 crying in a corner because you'd just found out that Mystery Science Theater 3000 had been canceled.

Ok, so you probably weren't anything like me...but, if you really like to listen to three ridiculously funny guys making fun of movies, check it out.

Fortunately  Mike, Kevin and Bill are always suitable for work!

Viral Video Firm School

Brett Erlich is a god. Don't believe me?

I give you Exhibit A:

And Exhibit B:



See? There's like a million of these, and they're all just as awesome.

Poodle with a Mohawk

I'm so out of it that I have no idea what a "meme" even is. Sophie's lovely Bouchercon post on Monday was no help at all, and Rachael's delightful essay still leaves me feeling, well, still a little unclear on the concept, a little out of it.

But this is no surprise. A good many of us authors --nearly all, perhaps?-- were hopeless book nerds in high school. I've never really "gotten" the latest meme, much less have I been on the cutting edge...I've never once said, for instance, that "I saw that video when it only had a few hundred hits." I'm the last one on the bandwagon, folks. And I really don't mind my seat in the rear.

About the only time I ever exhibited anything approximating coolness was an awesome T shirt I had the second year of college. It featured Fifi, a poodle, who was "small, black, and mad as hell."

(Check out the copyrighted artwork, by Lynda Barry, here.)

"He knew what people thought of his kind: High strung. Spoiled rotten. French." But once he becomes Poodle with a Mohawk, "You'll never call him Fifi again!"

It was the kind of culturally-loaded humor that young people love: in order to get the joke, you had to know the kind of pampered poodles that were prevalent amongst the suburban folk; you had to understand the political statement implicit in the Mohawk hairstyle; and you had to embrace an ironic way of looking at the world.

These days, I'm lucky to check out the Crazy Nastyass Honey Badger (narrated by Randall) at about hit number 17 million. Yes, I said it: 17 million. But check it out...I may be late, but the view from the back is pretty good:


Funny, huh? Wish I still had that Poodle T shirt, though. It was rad. Which meant cool, a very, very long time ago.

Whisper Meme

Meme: an idea that spreads through a population, taking hold like a virus. They can be harmful: racist memes that spread through a family/territory/area. Or, as in the case of faith-based religions, they can be argued to be helpful--they assist people to live happier, more peaceful lives (unless that faith-based religion likes to bash/fight other people in which case, let's go back to calling it harmful).

And in terms of internet memes, they can make you feel like you're in fourth grade, still feathering your hair the wrong way, pegging your jeans but not knowing the rubber band trick so the pant leg always falls down.

If you miss a meme, you're out. Not with it. You're hanging with the uncool crowd, and you thought you doing okay up until that point. Someone chortles and says, "But what does it meeeeean?" and everyone else says, "Double Rainbow!" And you go, huh? Then everybody trips over themselves to tell you about the funniest thing that's ever happened, anywhere, and YOU MISSED IT, and they tell you the story, and even though you don't care, you try to look like you do, because then maybe you'll be a little cooler than you were five minutes ago.

Can you tell I was one of the uncool kids? When my peers at school at school would ask if I knew the latest song, I would nod and pretend that I did. Friendship pins? No, I just didn't like wearing mine, I said, desperate to catch a glimpse of one so I could try to approximate it in private later.

And I can see the attraction of a meme, I really can. It's fun to be on the forefront of anything. "Yeah, it has five million views now but when I saw it first it had six." But I miss too many things. I get Rickrolled and I don't even know it. (But click here if you'd like to be -- wouldn't you like that?) It's a flood. No one can keep up with the coolth on the internet, so I've given up again. I keep abreast of the knitting memes as much as I can (and they exist, believe me. Clapotis! Koigu! Swallowtail!) but that's about it.

But now, because I know something that you MIGHT not know about, I have to share it with you -- did you know about whisper videos? That they're A Thing? People video themselves whispering, and people clamor for more. It seems to be some kind of relaxation fetish-y type thing, and I'm both fascinated and completely creeped out by them. I can't listen to them, can't even get through one. But there's a good example here. I think you should click. Good GOD, it's odd.

And THAT, my friends, is what the internet is for.