Carys Weldon Blog
Sunday, May 28, 2006
I'm back! (Again)With the laptop in Alaska with my hubby, I'm pretty much incommunicado at the conventions--as far as blogging goes. I hope you'll all bear with me.
I had a good time. Science Fiction conventions are SO different from romance and fantasy, or regular writer conferences. First of all, sf fans are mostly purists. They argue to keep sex out of sf books. Crazy, huh? I say, that's the only thing they're missing! You can throw in a kitchen sink with a super duper garbage disposal that can portal a carrot to another universe, but no sex? Unreal!
Recently, I read a sf book that had a guy on a ship with two women (Yeah, just a threesome) for six months and he didn't get it on with either of them, nor did any internal dialogue of desire or even interest of any kind come into the narrative. I could not suspend my disbelief! I mean, geez, truth is...marooned on a ship for that long? The doorknobs would start to look good...if there were doorknobs, I mean. And in sf/space, there probably weren't any, so...that makes him look all the more fetching, right? He even bunked in a room with one of them.
Supposedly, he was genetically enhanced. Yeah. If braindead to the idea of sex is an improvement? I'm keeping my feet on terra firma. Forget the new frontier!
Luckily, for me, there is a group of readers out there (YOU) who appreciate some good sex sprinkled into a book. I do have a sf book coming out with Extasy titled ANGEL BET. When it comes out, you can tell me what you think of twisted reality in a futuristic setting--Carys Weldon style.
Meanwhile, there's a storm brewing. Did you hear?
If you read the post before this, you'll see that there has been some turnover at Extasy. This is one of those times when the metaphor of having all one's eggs in a basket seems to be appropo. My editor, whom I love, Stefani Kelsey, is no longer at Extasy. She is, I believe, still under contract with Zumaya, the parent company.
What does this mean to me? And you?
Well, I have seventeen books under contract with Extasy already--and most of those contracts were just signed or renewed before all this hoopla. So, I'm in the house, under professional obligation for a while--two years at least--so, if you hear rumors of boycotting Extasy, please don't--that'll only hurt me and the other authors. It's not our fault that management has problems. Who doesn't?
I HOPE to complete and sell the rest of the books to the series I've started to Extasy. I expect them to be accepted. And you should be able to go to the Extasy Books site to find more of my work--as six of the completed titles will be coming out there.
In future? Well, if Stef gets a job at another house, I would certainly hope to send (at least some of) my work her way. How often do you find a "boss" that gets ya? That ya totally click with? (Almost never!)
Do I support her? Hell yeah.
Would I follow her like an adoring puppy? Yeah. No doubt.
Can I pull legal contracts, as some authors are talking of doing?
Probably not. I'm not legally savvy. But...most importantly, I want my readers who've supported, say, my Wanton Werewolf Series, to know they can go to the same publisher and pick up the other books in the series. It would be real annoying to me, as a reader, if I read 5 books in a series and then couldn't find the damn finale or something. So, rest at ease, the rest of the werewolf series will be buyable in the same place--Extasy Books.
Back to Stef...
I admire her for many reasons. She's a hard worker--I can testify that she was online answering my questions at all hours of the day...sometimes 3 a.m. and sometimes 6 a.m.--I felt good about all the books she acquired and then edited. The quality is there. Not only in my writing, but because she advised me on many fixes, and saw the books through to completion with a keen eye. I have learned a lot from her. She and I are friends, and will remain so.
The company...
Extasy Books gave me my start and because of that, I have some loyalty to the company. (Although, truth is, Stef was my acquisition's editor and the one who gave me that start!)
Bottom line?
Editors come and go, and so do authors. I think it will be tremendously hard to replace Stef with an editor that has so much skill and understanding of my corner of the erotica genre. She is/was great to "her" authors--and that's why you'll find comments from many authors supporting her--including Morgan Hawke (Extasy's best selling author) and Brenna Lyons (Extasy's 2nd best selling author.) And, of course, me (Extasy's third best selling author.)
~Carys Weldon~
1 Comments:
I think you're right. It's funny, but prime time television (sci-fi channel) has done a tremendous amount of putting sex into science fiction in the last couple years.
Last year, at CONquest, they had a panel on sex in sf. It wasn't attended by that many people--and those were adamantly opposed--except for a handful of people like me...the sex pushers.
But...it seems so unnatural to have human beings interacting anywhere, including space and foreign worlds, without any emotional attachments, or sexual interaction. I mean, isn't the act of getting it on one of the basest instincts of all?
I'm not a skinny woman, but most of the time, if you said, "Hey...wanna do it or...have cereal?" I'd pick the bed boogie. But that's me.
Okay, sometimes I say, "Nah." But I usually go get a banana and make a long drawn out deal of downing it. Just to drive my husband crazy. I mean, what's life about if it isn't to have fun?
I love a tease more than anything. Don't you?
By 
CarysWeldonblog, at
5:57 AM
