cover of The Witch the the Warrior

Learning from Mistakes: Rethink, Redesign, Rewrite

Writing is in some ways a strange process. First you tell the story you want to tell; when you're done with that you have the option of sharing it with others who might enjoy reading it. (I've written about this Writing vs. Storytelling dualism before.) On platforms like Ao3, the "sharing with others" part is easy and low-risk, because everything is free. People browse, they skim the tags (sometimes), they click, they start reading. If the story goes somewhere they don't like they stop reading. Sometimes they yell at you in the comments; usually they just move on. Sharing your…
July 10, 2021Posted inBlog postTags: , , ,
stacks of wooden tiles and concrete blocks in a field

E-book self-publishing checklist for first-time authors (Part 1)

After 30 years functioning as a systems analyst—driven to make procedures both efficient and humane—but being paid as a tech writer—explaining procedures clearly—it's second nature to write down processes I've wrestled with. Here's a summary of what I've learned the past few months as I scrambled to get ready to self-publish my first books. (My goal here is to do a brief summary: most of these points could be entire posts on their own.) The tasks are listed in the general order I did them (or wished I'd done them!) Also, before I get into details, let me say up…
March 29, 2021Posted inBlog postTags:
Kalikoi logo revealed!

Kalikoi logo revealed!

Ta-da! Look at this lovely logo! The short version of the story of the name and logo is this: as the publishers have both calico cats and calico koi, the initial idea was to call this new publishing venture showcasing F/F romance "Calico House," with a logo of a calico cat and a calico koi touching noses. However as there is already a Calico House, someone suggested Kalikoi. Not only did that word evoke the Hellenic world (yes, and by Hellenic world we mean Sappho), but, according to Google Translate, καλήκος  (kalikos) means "friend." The decision to go with Kalikoi became…
March 23, 2021Posted inBlog postTags: ,
What’s a name in? (or, For the love of anagrams)

What’s a name in? (or, For the love of anagrams)

I have a confession: I used to dread naming characters. I'd write things with characters named "Blue" or "Asparagus," scrambling at the last minute to come up with something better. This all changed in 2011. I was writing a story that had a minor character who was a previous incarnation of a villain I despised. (Let's call him Ramik.) I was stuck for a name until I started playing around with the letters of the phrase "Ramik hates" and came up with "Mihakrates," which I decided worked as a vaguely ancient Greek character story set in a vaguely ancient Egyptian…
January 4, 2021Posted inBlog postTags:
Baby Steps: From casual fanfic writer to published author

Baby Steps: From casual fanfic writer to published author

I've been writing since I was 7. In that first story—my memory of it is paradoxically both sharp and dim—Amazons in sherbert-colored chitons leapt about fighting off... something? All I remember is that they had gold cord belts. My next writing memory is in the churn of my preteen years: I stood in front of the class and made up a story about a witch in a wood. I don't remember the story I told, only that I shuffled blank sheets torn from a yellow legal pad as I pretended to read. I was caught, of course, and taken to…
October 26, 2020Posted inBlog postTags: ,