In which you're spared hearing me sing karaoke

It’s here, it’s here! Remember when I linked to a free podcast of my story “The Sound of My OwnVoice”? Well, the whole anthology of urban fantasy stories from Fiction River, Hex in the City, edited by the phenomenal Kerrie Lynn Hughes, is now available for sale!

Here’s what I wrote for the intro to my story…

Years ago a humor blogger relayed a tale about drunkenly singing karaoke with friends, to the point of rolling around on the stage. Sadly, there’s no logical progression to how my brain forms ideas—it’s rather like the Underpants Gnomes on South Park (Phase 1: Collect Underpants. Phase 3: Profit). Here, it was Phase 1: Drunken Karaoke. Phase 3: Woman Who Has No Idea She’s a Siren Because She’s Been Told Never to Sing Gets Drunk, Sings Karaoke, Then Hot Guy Stops Her, and Then Stuff Happens. I found the rest of the story as I wrote it.

(I have been told this is a novel. In fact, it will be…eventually. For now, you get the short story, and by the gods you will be thankful for it!)

This anthology, though… It’s all I can do not to drop everything I’m doing and start reading. Holy shitballs! I mean, just look at this table of contents:

Foreword: Puzzle Pieces, Kristine Kathryn Rusch

Introduction: Hexen & Magick, Kerrie L. Hughes*

King of The Kingless, Jay Lake

Speechless in Seattle, Lisa Silverthorne

Thy Neighbor, Nancy Holder

Somebody Else’s Problem, Annie Bellet

A Thing Immortal As Itself, Lee Allred

Geriatric Magic, Stephanie Writt

Red As Snow, Seanan McGuire

Music’s Price, Anthea Sharp

The Sound of My Own Voice, Dayle A. Dermatis

The 13th Floor Problem, Dean Wesley Smith

Dead Men Walking, Annie Reed

One Good Deed, Jeanne C. Stein

Fox and Hound, Leah Cutter

The Scottish Play, Kristine Kathryn Rusch

--

*Kerrie, if you have a website, I failed to find it…so sorry….

Traveling and writing and editing, oh my!

I got home last night from a stressful week away (which I prefer not to discuss publicly, as it involves people whom I care about who have not consented to be blogged about). I came down with a cold halfway through the trip, which didn’t help my stress levels one bit. You know you miss normalcy when you’re thrilled to have a few hours in the airport to work undisturbed. (I got no work done on the trip, nor did I have time for popping onto FB/Twitter/Reddit/whatever, so if anything important happened, please let me know!)

I have lots and lots of good and exciting work things happening, some of which I can’t quite talk about yet, but here’s a few items of note:

• Teresa and I have been hard at work finishing up two manuscripts to publish. As I went over them yesterday to make final tweaks, I was reminded again how much I love these fun books (both funny, sexy romances, one a contemporary and one a light paranormal) and how much I love writing with Teresa. We’ll also have an erotic holiday collection of short stories out before Christmas, called Sexy in Your Stocking. Keep an eye out here or at SophieMouette.com for updates.
• I received the proofs for my urban fantasy story “The Sound of My Own Voice,” to appear in the anthology Hex in the City. I’m blown away by my name in the table of contents with some real luminaries of fantasy fiction. This news will have its own blog post soon, but let me just say that this story, about a pissed-off woman who discovers, drunkenly, that she’s a siren, was one of the most fun I’ve ever written.
• I’m gearing up to teach an e-publishing workshop to some local writers. It’s a whole new challenge, and if it goes well (which I think it will!), I may see about offering it again.
• I’ve been freelancing as an editor (copy editor and developmental editor) at Lucky Bat Books, and now I’m moving up in the world to a project editor position. (Or maybe Project Manager; I’m not sure of the exact title they use, but it’s similar to what I did at a scholarly publisher as a Production Editor). Lucky Bat offers à la carte services for the modern writer to help you get your book out in the world as the best book it can be.

I’m sure there’s more, but I need to hit the ground running workwise today, because I’ve been off for a week and I’m taking Friday through Sunday off for a re-enactment event. (We’re planning to go to the site tomorrow on the bike to help set up the encampment, but I may not go if I’m still fighting off this cold. Also, the bike is still at the dealer so the insurance guy can look it over, and Ken may not have time to put on a new right foot peg for me. [The previous foot peg went kablooey thanks to his accident during this year’s IBR.])

And, of course, having been away means I want to spend time with Ken. It was pure joy to get off the plane yesterday and get thoroughly smooched. We stopped at our favorite Thai place near the airport on the way home (leftovers!), and then we were home and I got to snuggle with the kittays before curling up with Ken and a glass of wine to keep the DVR from exploding.

I leave you with a picture of my great-niece and I after she gave me a "makeover." I'm pretty sure I'm destined to be the Bride of Frankenstein for Halloween...!