New Release from Cleis Press!

Please Sir: Erotic Stories of Female Submission is now available from Cleis Press! The anthology includes my short story "The Sub Fairy," in which married bliss gets a kinky twist when one woman finds the courage to ask her husband to be her dom. Can dominance and submission find a place in their life?

The anthology has its very own blog, which you can find here, and make sure to check out editor Rachel Kramer Bussel's interview with yours truly!

Read a steamy excerpt of "The Sub Fairy" over at my website.

Tuesday Tip: Speech Tags

The subject of speech tags can be a polarizing one amongst writers. Few subjects elicit a faster, more rabid response than whether one should use "he said" after a piece of dialogue.

Speech tags and dialogue attribution are how writers let the reader know who is speaking. The simplest form is the aforementioned "he said," which comes just before or just after a quotation of dialogue. For example: "I never eat peanut butter on toast," John said.

There are two schools of thought regarding "said." One school believes that the word "said" has become all but invisible to the reader and should be the preferred explicit speech tag, along with tags like "asked," "whispered," "cried," etc. These folks believe that what needs to be avoided are those tags which are sometimes called "said bookisms," and tend to be used only to avoid repeating the word "said." Examples of these are words such as "interjected," "queried," and (to be avoided at all costs) "ejaculated." These tend to be a heckuva lot more distracting to your reader than the repetition of "said" would've been.

The other school believes that explicit speech tags of any sort are the devil and need to be burned out of your manuscript with hot pokers. For these folks there is no excuse for using "said." In order to let their readers know what is going on, they use implicit speech tags, as in the following example:

"I can too eat all the hot dogs in one sitting." John crossed his arms over his chest and glared.
Mary shook her head at him. "No, you can't!"

In this example, it's perfectly clear that John says the first bit of dialogue, and Mary says the second, all without an explicit speech tag.

When it comes to this touchy topic, I myself like to give my favorite piece of all-around-useful advice: All things in moderation.

Using implicit speech tags for every piece of dialogue becomes just as repetitive as using an explicit speech tag every time. Instead, vary your dialogue attributions. Skip attributions occasionally. You can usually skip every third or fourth attribution of a two-person conversation completely with no problems on the reader's end. Combine the more tell-y explicit speech tag with a show-y bit of action, such as: "You've got to be kidding," he gasped, backing up a step before he could stop himself.

And while yes, you could do that last example as an implicit tag purely by changing the comma to a period, I think the rhythm is better this way; less choppy, more fluid. But that's a matter of personal opinion and style. I prefer to use more implicit than explicit, but sometimes the rhythm really seems to call for that explicit speech tag. Why limit yourself?

100 Words About: Wisconsin and Alcohol

So recently my beloved home state has been in the news again because of our apparently extraordinary relationship with alcohol.

Now, I've heard from many non-Wisconsinites on this matter. Most amusing, of course, is Lewis Black, but I've never taken the drinking thing all that seriously. I mean, really, do we drink so much more than other people?

But then I read in the AP's article "Nearly one in four Wisconsin residents age 18 to 44 had four or more drinks in one sitting at least once within a month's time in 2008 - the latest year available - topping all other states, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention."

And, blinking in confusion, my first thought was, "So?"

And then I thought, "Hmm, maybe we do have a little bit of a culture problem."

But seriously, four drinks in one sitting is nothing when a sitting can be several hours long. That's what we do here – sit around and drink, usually while watching sports of some kind. And who hasn't gotten together with friends at least once in a month's time? Here, if you're limiting yourself to one drink an hour you're either taking it easy or you're a lightweight. Is that really so unusual in other parts of the country? I'd love to hear your opinions.

Image: Nicholas Tarling / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Tuesday Tip: The Last Word

You don't always have to have the last word.

This is something that took me many years to learn. It's not something that I learned from the publishing industry, and thank goodness for that, or I shudder to think what my reputation would be like.

We all know people who have to have the last word. Some are only like that when they argue, and some are like that about everything, not content unless theirs is the last voice in every discussion.

Don't be one of these people. Start practicing now.

This will become important in your publishing career, because as an author you very often don't get to have the last word. You put your words out there, on paper or digital document, and then you give them to an editor. The editor will make changes, more than likely, and sometimes you won't agree with the changes. Yes, you get to express your opinion, but ultimately, the editor or the publisher will probably have the final say. This is a case where you don't get the last word. (See my post on working with your editor for more details.)

Then, once your work is published, you're done with it. That's pretty much the end of the discussion for you. Unfortunately, it's just the beginning of everyone else's discussion. Eventually someone is going to give you a bad review. It may be an anonymous commenter, or some guy with a blog, or the New York Times. It doesn't matter. Your part in the discussion is done. This is one instance where you really must not attempt to have the last word. (Read Nathan Bransford's excellent post on this subject here.)

I learned this valuable lesson when I worked at a company full of passive-aggressive people who always had to have the last snarky email in the email thread, no matter how right or wrong they were. Eventually I learned it just wasn't worth the argument. Sometimes they'd make me so angry I would type out a huge long snarky email reply…and then I would delete it. I felt better and the discussion, which was usually completely irrelevant and unproductive at this point, was over. (Note: if you plan to do this, do NOT put anyone's email address in the "To" field. "Delete" is so very close to "Send"…)

100 Words About: A Very Long Week

I don't know about y'all, but this has been one freaking long week for me. Nothing Earth-shattering or terrible, but very, very long.

I am really tired of feeling like crap.

Time is so very weird. All week I've kept thinking "Today is Friday." And for four days, I've been wrong. It makes the week seem to stretch out somehow. You would think time would be constant: a minute is always thirty seconds, after all. Numbers. The numbers should always add up right.

And maybe they do. But our perception of time is so wonky that it's almost a moot point. In my own personal timeline this week has felt like about two weeks, and yet it intersects perfectly with everyone else's weeks. It doesn't seem like it should work that way, somehow.

Image: Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.net