wendypalmer

wendypalmer, 6 days ago to random

#WritersCoffeeClub May 3. Should books include a content warning?

(LONG, and it gets pretty footnotey)

They serve a valuable function, though “should” is a strong word. In one way, it’s a personal preference — I see more content warnings in author notes than from the publisher, which implies to me that the publisher is neither enforcing content warnings nor preventing them. And obviously self-published authors (like myself) make the decision for themselves, both to include them or not, and where to draw the line.

BUT if the author/publisher doesn’t provide them, it’s almost certain that reviewers will. Some reviewers just list them to help out other readers. But some get very annoyed that they had to find out for themselves.

I also suspect it’s generational ie younger authors are more likely to do it, for their younger (but still adult) audience. I think it comes from losing the unspoken cues (imprint, genre, cover style, blurb etc) from traditional publishing that told us what to expect, due to the rise of genre-busting self-publishing, and also a more general blurring of genre lines, combined with the culture of fanfic, where thorough warnings are expected as a community-driven convention.

And I also think it is a bit muddled, as any big and self-determined umbrella term is likely to become. It can be “warning: contains graphic violence” or it can be “warning: only-one-bed trope alert!!!” And that’s ok but it might undermine the serious content warnings for the readers who need them. But I think readers have become used to parsing CWs for themselves.

(1/3)

wendypalmer, 6 days ago to writing

Today, in my adventures in foolishly asking the internet general research questions:

The internet, shamelessly repeating the same factoid endlessly: throwing rice at weddings is an ancient tradition dating back to the Romans!

An anonymous old lady writing a cranky letter to the editor in 1895: this is a modern tradition that doesn't date back more than forty years and needs to stop before it takes a new bride’s eye out.

#writing #AmResearching #WeddingCustoms

wendypalmer, 8 days ago to queer

As usual, my light fantasy romance books (LGBTQ+ characters, positive rep) are on sale for all of June at Smashwords. DRM-free, and I’m happy to virtually assist with sideloading to your ereader if you need it.

https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/wendylpalmer

And as usual, I will donate ALL my June royalties, not just from Smashwords sales, to an Australian LGBTQ+ charity (at the moment I favour the Equality Project, but am open to suggestions).

The Uses of Illicit Art (m/m romance) is my most popular book but I’d like to put in a good word for Fair Haven (m/nb romance) and Domesticated Magic (transm/m romance).

#pride #books #LGBTQ @lgbtqbookstodon

wendypalmer, 10 days ago to sport

It’s fascinating being a parent of a child of a sex “invading” the environs of a single-sex sport — in this case, it’s a boy, playing high school netball, which until last year was all-girl (primary age was mixed, and social adult teams can be mixed, and the state body was wanted the local comps to get more men playing…but if you cut boys out of the sport for 5 years 🤷)

At a tournament where the all-boys team was thrashed by every girls teams, I overheard some pretty snide comments along “these arrogant boys, thinking they can come along and beat our girls” lines — the organisers of your girls comp were so scared untrained boys could beat skilled girls that they forced them to play up in both age and skill. You should be insulted, not smug.

And last night my partner had to sit through “this shouldn’t be allowed, it’s too unfair” comments from a grandmother at the domestic comp, who was watching her granddaughter’s team get trounced by our son’s team.

At this local, amateur, level, though, it doesn’t matter. The only thing, the only thing he does that the girls don’t do is jump for rebounds. He can do a fast chest pass? So can the girls. He can lob the ball as far as it’s allowed to go? So can the girls. He can catch pretty much any pass? So can the girls. They sure as hell outrun him and know much more about positioning!

The reason our 13 year old boy is a better player than your 12 year old girl is that it’s his second year in this age group. He was as outmatched as your granddaughter his first year too!

Anyway, it reminded me of that girls basketball team being banned from a boys comp in case (/because) they beat the boys. And of course the viciousness aimed at trans kids. I’m sure there’s a different psychology behind each case, but the underlying mechanism seems to be fear. And a sexism, often unconscious, that assumes the magic of XY can and should automatically beat anything XX.

#sport #KidsSport #netball

wendypalmer, 10 days ago to random

A sad story told by counting mostly ducks 🦆

1 duck (hen), 2 drakes
1 duck, 2 drakes, 8 eggs
1 duck, 2 drakes, 6 dud eggs, 2 ducklings!
🦊
1 duck, 2 drakes
1 duck, 2 drakes, 12 eggs
1 duck, 2 drakes, 2 crows, 3 eggs
1 duck, 2 drakes, 2 ducklings!
1 duck, 2 drakes, 1 duckling
1 duck, 3 drakes
1 duck, 3 drakes, 10 eggs
1 duck, 3 drakes, 8 ducklings!
1 duck, 3 drakes, 2 crows, 7..6..5…4…3…2…1 duckling, 1 more crow
1 duck, 3 drakes
1 duck, 3 drakes, 8 eggs
🦊
0 ducks, 3 drakes, 8 eggs
0 ducks, 3 drakes, 1 clucky chicken, 8 eggs
0 ducks, 3 drakes, 4 handraised ducklings
2 ducks, 5 drakes
🪓
2 ducks, 1 drake
🦊
0 ducks, 1 drake
😭

#CountryLife

wendypalmer, 14 days ago to random

#WritersCoffeeClub May 25 and 26 twofer: cover art and writers guide

I do all my own covers, due to budget. I’ve become better as I’ve gone along but I have trouble matching the cover properly to the tone of the book. Mostly this is lack of technical skill and artistic ability, partly it’s the same trouble I have with picking a representative title.

My covers are all in my header (and I have a blog post about updating one: https://wendypalmer.au/2024/05/14/author-notes-new-cover-just-dropped/) , but my latest is below.

I like it (and I love that smug little smile on the Taurasi bull’s face) but it doesn’t exactly scream quirky queer romantic fantasy 🤷

This is also the book I’d most like to write a guide, or really an annotated version, for. I mostly write standalones or short series, there isn’t a huge amount that would be interesting to add, but there’s a lot going on in the background for Domesticated Magic.

wendypalmer, 14 days ago to bookstodon

This is one of those times I wish people would include a review with their rating 😊

(It’s for How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying)

#bookstodon @bookstodon #BookReviews

wendypalmer, 19 days ago to linguistics

When people tell me they read one of my books and found it “quite good”, I like to assume they’re from the US where “quite” apparently means “very” 😊

As opposed to the UK/Aus, where “quite good” is just damning with faint praise.

Unless you say it was “really quite good”. That’s when you mean “very good”.

If you say “quite good, really”, that means you’re surprised it was any good.

And if you say “Oh, I say, that is quite, quite remarkable”, you’re an 18th-century Earl confronted by a tempestuous highland beauty who is tossing her raven-black locks and flashing her sapphire-blue eyes at you because you’re enclosing her commons 😉

#WritingCommunity #linguistics #quite

wendypalmer, 24 days ago to random

My timeline at the moment 😂

wendypalmer, 24 days ago to random

#WritersCoffeeClub May 16: What's your target audience? Why?

Ok, hmmm…

People who like cosy fantasy with Happy Ever Afters, but want Plot as well as Just Vibes, who enjoy or at least don’t mind open-door sex scenes, who are open-minded about queer characters, and who are a bit over massively long and overdramatic series about teenagers and their love triangles and just want a quick and fun stand-alone read.

So, you know, me and six people 😃

A gif from Futurama, Leila saying “so what does this mean for us and our many fans” — there are many fans (you know, the blowy sort) in the background.

wendypalmer, 1 month ago to fantasy

May the Fourth is also my latest book's birthday 🎉

Domesticated Magic is a romantic fantasy towards the cosy end of the spectrum, with The Feels, and a grumpy-sunshine-type m/m pairing.

Mateo and his family fled when their people turned to sorcery. Mateo’s own magic is tame but it’s still banned in their new home...yet they use it every day. But the sorcery seems to have followed them. They already lost their world once. Mateo can’t let them lose again.

Read more plus find buy links here (also on #KoboPlus and Everand):
https://wendypalmer.au/books/#domestic

#fantasy #romance #NewRelease #bookstodon #books #SelfPromo #indie @lgbtqbookstodon

Animated version of the cover of Domesticated Magic. The cover, blue border (half Greek-style tiles, half Viking-style runes), title and author name are split in two by a black lightning bolt. On one side is the outline of a bull's face made of curly floral-like lines. It glides in from the left, wearing a rather insouciant expression as it stares at the viewer. A green butterfly perches on one horn, gently pulses. It stands out against the cream background, black lines, and blue border and text. On the other side of the cataclysmic split is the helm of awe, a snake-like dragon biting its own tail to form a circle around magic runes. The dragon rolls in from the right to stare at the bull, and does not look impressed.

wendypalmer, 1 month ago to writing

Having a problem with my Calibre-created ebook where its chapters are listed properly in the table of contents, and the pages are counted correctly, in every device including the Kobo app on my iPad…except on my Kobo Clara ereader, where it says 1 of 22 for 3 pages in a row, then 2 of 22 for three pages etc (basically the pages aren’t reflowing with the change of screen and font size).

And I found a reddit thread where someone has the same/similar problem, and asks for a solution, and the only answer is someone informing them that pages are an obsolete concept in Ebooks, and it’s like…have you ever used any ereading device, which will tell you how many pages you have left in a chapter and recalculate that for you if you happen to change screen/font size?

And I’m so annoyed on the question-asker’s behalf. Sorry they didn’t type “pages” in quote marks to prove they know they’re not real in ebooks, or type “number of taps until I reach the end of the chapter” or whatever phrase they needed to use to not trigger a completely irrelevant lecture.

(Maybe it was that technique where you ask a question and log on as a different user to answer it very wrongly to enrage people into giving the correct answer 😂)

#ebooks #calibre #writing

wendypalmer, 1 month ago to random

oh look, I won myself

wendypalmer, 1 month ago to random

Latest book all uploaded to the various ebook vendors, just in time to beat the preorder deadline 🎉

And that's it for being in that world... Bye-bye, boys! Bye Mateo, you grouchy sweetheart. Bye Jonas, you presumptuous charmer. But I'll miss Anika and her cosy teahouse most of all 🍵

#WritingCommunity #BitterSweet #ByeByeHaveFun #PrincessBride

wendypalmer, 1 month ago to random

What could possibly have happened to cause a big one-day spike in sales of one of my books?

(It’s always the Victorian-era fantasy romance. Sometimes I picture Kit and Alex being very smug at my couples from settings inspired by less-popular historical eras… though when my VIKING-era book comes out next year, Feilan and Remy are going to give you a run for your money, boys… 😂 )

#WritingCommunity

wendypalmer, 1 month ago to random

This article via @humanities about “sad girl” novels — “If things described as “girl” are cuter, smaller, sillier, then what does that mean a “girl novel” is? A novel, but not as important?“ — taps into my dislike of “boss babes” and “girl bosses” type phrasing too.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/apr/11/sad-girl-novels-the-dubious-branding-of-womens-emotive-fiction

#GirlPowerMyArse

wendypalmer, 1 month ago to books

Red, White & Royal Blue is on sale on Kobo Au for $2.99 and it gave me enough pleasure when I read it via my library that I would absolutely buy a copy…except it has the movie cover. Can’t do it. Same reason I couldn’t get Boy Swallows Universe when it was on sale last month either.

But All Our Shimmering Skies and The Adventures of Al-Sirafi are also on sale, with normal nice covers 👍

(Of course, I’m pretty sure they can just swoop in and change the cover even after you’ve bought a copy anyway; I just really wish you got to choose your favourite)

#books #bookstodon @bookstodon

wendypalmer, 1 month ago to bookstodon

For some reason, #Hoopla’s recommendation algorithm is phenomenally accurate for me compared to the commercial options…this is six for six, the downside being I’ve read every one of them already 😂

#bookstodon @bookstodon

wendypalmer, 1 month ago to linguistics

Speaking of favourite words, look what language change has done to "nonplussed".

I think it was probably 20 years ago when I first saw it used in the second sense in a print book, which meant a whole chain of people agreed on its meaning...I was quite nonplussed at the time...

These days I avoid using it in my books because I'm guessing anyone over 40-ish uses it in the first sense, and anyone under 40-ish uses it in the second sense, and the meanings are so very opposite that it's just going to lead to interpretation problems!

#linguistics #language #WritingCommunity

wendypalmer, 1 month ago to random

Apropos of today’s #WordWeavers question, my kid came across me working today and asked to play a game where he’d see how many tries it took to find randomly chosen words in my MS (using the search function, not manually scanning through 124,000 words 😊 )

Turns out I don’t mention the colours pink, purple or orange a single time…

#WritingCommunity

wendypalmer, 2 months ago to random

#writerscoffeeclub Apr1. What's your favourite easter egg in your own work and/or another work of fiction?

In mine, with an Ancient Eastern Europe inspired setting…one character earnestly explains that they never imported copper because of a bad experience with a shitty copper merchant…that’s right, it’s a cameo from Ea-nāṣir.

wendypalmer, 2 months ago to Parenting

I’ve been conducting a personal social experience since my son started school. Across three different schools, I’ve listed my partner (Dad) as the primary parent for contact, me (Mum) as secondary.

We both get some communications. A random assortment is sent only to him (I wonder how this works with divorced parents).

ASTONISHINGLY, I have always been called first for the “your child is sick” summons and the “your child is misbehaving” conversations.

Hmm, what could possibly be the reason for that…

#parenting #sexism

wendypalmer, 2 months ago to Parenting

My kid, staring me dead in the eye as he swipes up on all of the apps open on my phone 😂

#parenting

wendypalmer, 2 months ago to AncientGreek

Any experts in Ancient Greek in the fediverse who would be willing to spend a little time to help me rework some words for a fantasy novel in the same way Latin often gets abused by fantasy novellists?

#AncientGreek #language #writing

wendypalmer, 2 months ago to Etymology

My partner decided “loaf” was a weird word so I looked up its etymology and now we know “lord” comes from “loaf-ward” ie guardian of the bread.

#etymology #TIL