Vampires and Robots

   I had mentioned once, a long time ago, that I suffer from false memories. That is, I remember things in vivid detail that never actually happened. While it is very likely that this is just proof that I'm a replicant, it makes for some interesting conversations that usually end in, "That never happened." "Yes it did, I was in the back yard on the swing..." "Christina, there was no swing." And no, my brain would realize that there was no swing, but the memory of being on said swing would remain as strong as ever.    Because of this, I often find myself questioning my more bizarre or surreal memories of things that I may have seen on television. Fortunately, we live in a world with Google and YouTube. When I absolutely need to know if the serious situation of the singing pills who were definitely not candy was a real PSA, Google came to my rescue. The title of this blog post comes from an old Sesame Street cartoon  about  a girl whose mother sends ...

   As you may have noticed (since I mention it constantly), I tend to spend a lot more time on the robots than the vampires, despite the title of this blog giving vampires top billing. The robots have just been very persuasive.    Well.....    The vampires have finally struck back. In my last post, I discussed an upcoming sci-fi project called Princess Robot Commander. I've since decided that this story will now be a trilogy. While this is great news and I am happy that one of my joke ideas took on a life of its own, I have had to shelve it. Why? Because I am not ready for an epic of epic proportions just yet. And no, that wasn't a typo, I just didn't feel like hitting the thesaurus right now.    Instead, for the time being, I am going back to work on a series that I have abandoned several times in the past. This one is called, for the time being, Chaos in Blackbird. It is 100% pure urban fantasy with absolutely no science fiction elements. T...

   It is time once again to evaluate the progress in my fight against my crippling fear of all things social media. We are now reaching the two year mark and much has changed, with mixed results, hence the subtitle. Let's begin with... The Good    I've finally worked up the courage to join a few groups on Google+ and Goodreads. Not many, mind you, but the ones I have found seem to be made up of kind souls who share my interests. Of course, that doesn't stop me from second guessing my every post and frantically worrying that I've said something that will offend or outrage someone. Some habits die hard, but I'm working on that.    There are perks to each of these sites that I am slowly discovering. Both are great ways to connect to other indie authors and to bounce ideas off of one another. There are even groups out there specifically for us introverts. They might not have as many posts as say, promo communities, but it's comforting to know that I am n...

   Unless you are an author or work in the publishing industry, the current court battle between traditional publishing giant Hachette and Amazon has probably flown under your radar. The simple version: Hachette wants to price ebooks high enough that there is no advantage to choosing them over physical books and they want everyone else to do the same. Amazon wants ebooks priced reasonably, with the high end being $10 (technical nonfiction being the outliers, but this dispute is over popular fiction and nonfiction). As such, Amazon has incentives at this price point. Mind you, Amazon also has incentives for the traditional publishing giants, but for Hachette, this isn't good enough.    As a self published author, I've been keeping tabs on the apparent stalemate for some time. What the eventual outcome means for us hasn't been entirely transparent, but there is a lot of speculation. But yesterday, me and millions of others like me were pulled into the battle . Aft...