Guest SFWA Blog Post on Website Usability and Design

Hop on over to the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America website to read my latest guest post entitled, Authors! 8 Tips For Your Website’s Usability and Design.

Here’s a quote from the article:

In today’s article, I’d like to share with you some tips to consider when you’re reviewing your current website or when you’re thinking about creating one. Let’s take a look at these tips for your website’s design and usability.

1. Structure Your Theme Around Your Update Frequency – First and foremost, I believe that you have to make a decision, up front, about how often you plan on updating your website. If you’re not going to blog or update very often, you can simply choose a different website theme that’s a little more static than a blog, but still attractive and professional. — SOURCE: Authors! 8 Tips For Your Website’s Usability and Design

Enjoy!

March 3, 2010
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Announcing the Release of THE QUEEN OF CROWS

The Queen of Crows by Monica ValentinelliCentered around a short story entitled “The Queen Of Crows,” I designed a unique, digital product that I think you’ll really enjoy. At a retail price of $4.99, you will receive a magazine-style layout of THE QUEEN OF CROWS, a professional illustration of a character named Mahochepi and more!

This product is the first digital release set in the world of the Violet War and is also the first fiction product published through Flames Rising Press. The short story, which is entitled “The Queen of Crows,” takes place during the 1860s and focuses on the tough decisions that a Navajo elder named “Tse” must make to save his people. Will he summon Mahochepi, the Queen of Crows, without knowing who–or what–she is? Read the story and find out!

Here’s what you can expect to receive when you purchase THE QUEEN OF CROWS:

    * The Queen of Crows: A Short Story
    * Inspiration
    * Original Character Portrait: Mahochepi
    * Who Is Mahochepi?
    * What Is the Violet War?
    * Letter to the Reader
    * The Queen of Crows: First Draft
    * Printer-friendly black-and-white version and full color version

The product will be initially released in digital format through http://www.drivethruhorror.com, but other formats will be made available. To keep up-to-date with news about his product set in the Violet War, be sure to visit VioletWar.com.

What are you waiting for? Visit THE QUEEN OF CROWS at DriveThruHorror.com today! There, you can preview this unique product before you buy and then download it for yourself!

About the Contributors

    MONICA VALENTINELLI is a professional author and game designer. Described as a “force of nature” by her peers, Monica is best known for her work in the horror, dark fantasy and dark science fiction genres and has been published through Abstract Nova Press, Eden Studios, White Wolf Publishing, Apex Magazine and others. Her credits include: a short story titled “Pie” in the award-winning Buried Tales of Pinebox, Texas anthology through 12 to Midnight, an original flash fiction piece entitled “Prey,” which placed an honorable mention in a Mirrormask writing competition and “Twin Designs,” a science fiction novella for the Tales of the Seven Dogs Society collection through Abstract Nova Press.

    LEANNE BUCKLEY is a professional illustrator with over ten years of experience under her belt and has worked for both the comics and gaming industries. Her clients have included: Image Comics, Mattel, White Wolf, Paizo, Wizards of the Coast and several others. In addition to her freelance illustrations, she was a Senior Artist for four years at Humanhead Studios, a video game design studio. Her work includes: Put the Book Back on the Shelf: A Belle and Sebastian Anthology through Image Comics, Cthulhutech through Catalyst Game Labs, the Exalted line for White Wolf Publishing, and layout as well as concept work for Mattel. For more information about Leanne and her contact information, visit http://leannebuckley.com/.

    SHARI HILL is a professional editor, layout artist and writer with over 15 years of experience in non-fiction, gaming, and academic publishing and communications. She is currently a communications coordinator at a private university. As a freelance editor, she contributed to the All Flesh Must Be Eaten line by Eden Studios, and her credits include the Worlds of the Dead setting collection, the Book of Archetypes series and the Eden Studios Presents series. The Queen of Crows features her first credit as a cover artist.

    March 1, 2010
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    Guest Post: Gender Portrayals and Genres at Apex Book Company

    This month, I talk about Gender Portrayals and Genres over at Apex Book Company.

    In early science fiction and even horror, gender roles were often idealized according to the culture and the author’s views and experiences at the time the work was written. A good example of that are the few female characters in H.P. Lovecraft’s fiction and his attitudes toward other races and classes. While it may be extremely difficult to read some of his stories now, because they are rife with depictions that we would not deem to be politically-correct, Lovecraft was also a product of his generation. Could the absence of women in Lovecraft’s work be the reason why there are so few mainstream horror female authors today? Hard to say. I think what we can say is that an author’s lifestyle and background often play a subconscious role on the evolution of their characters, too. Whatever Lovecraft believed played a role in not only what he had written, but how he wrote it.–SOURCE: Gender Portrayals and Genres

    Stop by and read the post, or check out a preview of THE CHANGED by BJ Burrow, which was published by Apex Book Company. I have several of their titles on my “to read” list, so if you’re into horror and science fiction, you might want to check them out.

    February 18, 2010
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    Writing and Conventions

    For the past, few months I’ve been taking a serious look at my short-term and long-term goals, and I’ve come to some pretty interesting conclusions.

    When I look back at the projects that I have published, I realized that I have just as many that fell through the cracks due to bad business partnerships, horrible contracts, etc. I am very fortunate to have had the experiences that I’ve had, but at the same time it’s very frustrating. Even though there’s enough success out there to be had by everyone, there is a dark side to the industry that kind of gets glossed over sometimes. For example, some people believe that unless you’ve been published through a “big house” your work doesn’t matter; others plagiarize blatantly or take credit for someone else’s work and they still seem to make a name for themselves. The list of misconceptions and/or preconceived notions goes on and on and on. To top it all off, your work almost gets lost in the shuffle sometimes because “Everyone has a book to shill.”

    That’s the bad part. The good part is that I have been pretty active figuring out not only what I want to write, but who I want to write for.

    My strong background in business allows me to see publishing and the entertainment industry for what it really is. It is, in short, a very complex industry that is focused on selling as many books/games/movies as possible. I have no illusions that publishers need to make money because otherwise, at the end of the day, they can’t stay in business any longer. On top of that, I work in the field of online marketing every day. The signal-to-noise ratio is often staggering, and I’ve found that some of that noise is pretty distracting — especially when there’s not a lot of substance behind the noise.

    I know all of these things in my head, but admittedly I can’t always reconcile them with how I feel about the quality of my work. That’s part of the reason why I’ve decided to pull back from a lot of extracurricular activities like conventions. I don’t want to become a total introvert, but I’d rather roll up my sleeves and get back in the trenches to “do something” than whine about what I’m frustrated with or not doing. In my world view, the hand of publishing doesn’t come down and pluck a writer out of thin air. You need to sweat a little, and maybe even bleed a little.

    Well, I’m back to sweating. I have a lot of stories in my head and a metric ton of manuscripts to revise and submit. Conventions seem to take a lot out of me right now; as John Kovalic put it last night- “Every con takes away three weeks of creative thought, minimum. One to prepare, one during con week, one to recover…”

    He’s exactly right.

    February 17, 2010
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    On Writing a Historically-Accurate Paranormal Short Story

    Currently, I’m working on revisions for a short story entitled THE QUEEN OF CROWS that will be released as part of a digital product through Flames Rising Press. Set in the late 1800s, the plot revolves around a Navajo medicine man who is trying to summon a vengeance goddess called Mahochepi, the Queen of Crows.

    This story has evolved several times from its original incarnation, but the process of editing it has taken longer than some of my other stories. Why? Well, part of the reason is because this story was inspired by a historical event called the “Long Walk.” At the time, the U.S. government had planned to develop a center for Native Americans at a place called “Bosque Redondo.” The center would function as a kind of “rehabilitation” center, where Native Americans would be (for lack of a better word) Americanized. Needless to say, there’s a lot of pieces to the story that required research. For example, did you know that the Navajo refer to themselves as the Diné? Or that they lived in houses called hogans?

    Although this story is a work of fiction, I wanted to give the work an authentic feel without giving my readers a history lesson. Therein lies the need for multiple revisions. You see, regardless of what my intent for the story is, my readers still have to enjoy what I’ve written. Writing anything based on a historical time period is tricky business for any writer. In my case, I found it hard to swallow my editor’s comments that there were sections that came across as being too preachy. What I wound up realizing, was that I was trying too hard to offer readers a chance to empathize with the main character. To me, the idea of being removed from my house to be re-trained to live in a different society is pretty terrifying. While that concept is part of my story, it’s really only one aspect of it. After all, this story is about what happens in my fictional world, not what happened in a factual timeline.

    Because this story will fit together neatly within my Violet War setting, there are a number of paranormal elements to it. Those elements give me a wider berth in terms of what should be (or what shouldn’t be) historically-accurate. Once you introduce magic into any setting, the standard rules may no longer apply. I’m finding that the history portion needed to be there, because it serves as a great foundation. Now, I can go in and “adjust the volume” to better integrate the paranormal elements.

    While I didn’t expect to go through another round of revisions, this process reminded me that it’s easy to have a distorted view of your story when you’re really close to it. By the end of the day, however, this will be a much better story once its done. To me, it will never be “good enough,” but like all writers, I’m definitely my own worst critic.

    February 10, 2010
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    Looking for Monica’s books and games that are still in print? Visit Monica Valentinelli on Amazon’s Author Central or a bookstore near you.

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