I've been trying to crack the pro writing markets off and on for about five years now. This past March, I sold my first novel. When I announced the sale at my local Romance Writers of America chapter (which I'd joined only a couple of months earlier), one person (a multi-published author with Harlequin and Mills and Boon) remarked, "Wow, that was fast!"

Not really. It took me two years to write the novel, and two years to get it published. But when I mentioned that to this particular author, she looked amazed and said, "But I thought getting e-published was easy!"

“Using language may be compared to riding a horse;
much of one’s success depends upon an understanding
of what it can and will do.”
- Richard Weaver, The Ethics of Rhetoric

My bass teacher, in an effort once to encourage me to learn how to read music, reminded me of my studies in English and creative writing.

“Imagine a writer without a true understanding of the rules of grammar of the language they write in; the difference between a musician who works, and a guy who maybe plays in a band but winds up paying to exercise his craft-- even if it’s just gas money to get to the gig-- is the ability to read music,” he said.

The covers are hard to miss in the bookstore -- dark and shadowy in tone, they show a beautiful young woman, usually tattooed and dressed in revealing clothes. She’s armed and the accompanying cover blurb informs the reader that this character is prepared to kick supernatural butt all the way back to hell if necessary. Welcome to the brave new world of urban fantasy.

Once, this corner of the speculative universe had broader boundaries. The term ‘urban fantasy’ encompassed everything from Tanya Huff’s crazed pantheon in Summon the Keeper to the twisted version of London’s Underground in Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere, and on to Tim Powers’ Cold War spies in Declare, or the alternate streets Charles DeLint created for his Newford tales. Some great new fantasies with urban settings have come along recently. For example, Elizabeth Bear’s Blood and Iron deals with the intersection of Faerie with the modern world. The Secret History of Moscow, by Ekaterina Sedia, blends Russian folklore and mythology with the gritty reality of post-Soviet life. But more and more these sorts of stories are called ‘contemporary fantasy’ to distinguish them from the publishing juggernaut of urban fantasy.

Q - First off, I have to ask - how did you come up with the idea for Nina?! It's such a wonderful concept, which immediately snagged my attention.

It started by reading about Vincent Van Gogh’s life. I’ve always been fascinated by him and his art. Some people believe that he was schizophrenic and I agree. But the more I read about him the more I wondered…or daydreamed, what if he wasn’t crazy? What if his paintings were talking to him?

As writers of speculative fiction our job is to tell a story that transports the reader to a new and exciting place. To accomplish this, we must establish a relationship of trust and, more exigently, arouse the reader’s curiosity as to what will happen next.

As writers, we have only one tool to accomplish this: language.

In his book, The Death of Metaphor, Desmond Egan-- one of Ireland’s greatest contemporary poets-- laments the decline of English prose, decrying it as ‘decadent and lazy’. Egan points his finger directly at the tendency of modern writers to replace transitive verbs with the verb ‘to be’ as the greatest cause of this decline.

How did you first become interested in writing? Is it something you always had a passion for, or did it grow on you over time?
I’ve always been interested in writing, though it started out as corny poetry as a child. I started writing science fiction in high school in the early 1990s when I couldn't find any true science fiction in the book store anymore. I was never interested in alternate realities or Gaia-earth connection or fantasy, which is most of what came out at that time.

Dear Mr. Barnes & Mr. Noble,

I am afraid I have some very unfortunate news to impart to you sirs: someone has stolen the Horror genre sections from your stores. At least in the Northern California region. I have yet to investigate the matter beyond my geographical area. I thought it imperative to inform you, since it has been about a year now since I noticed this disappearance and I have not heard of any investigation in the news. One would think the theft of a whole genre from a such a famous fixture in the publishing industry would be newsworthy, but I suppose with Tsunamis, Wars, Famines, and Traffic reports, the loss of a genre did not get reported. Perhaps it has not even been noticed, since I am apparently the only Horror fan in the whole Northern California region if I'm the only one noticing this dastardly disappearance. I can only assume the regional managers felt they should best deal with the situation, since the genre has not been found and put back where it belongs, as I'm sure you sirs would quickly rectify if you knew of its kidnapping. I'm sorry to alarm you, I'm sure this comes as quit a shock, I hope you do not have high blood pressure and collapse dead with a heart attack upon opening this letter, but I thought I should let you know--aortas be damned.

Where have all the dark goddesses gone? Where are the daughters of Hekate and Lilith? Please, some one, anyone, tell me: why can't the Horror genre produce one woman writer that can ascend to reigning queen of Horror? I glance through my local bookstores, and you can almost smell the testosterone wafting with the smell of dusty paper. You can give me your excuses: the fan base is male; violence is a masculine trait; the horror genre can't support that many authors anyways. Whatever. I cannot be convinced that I am some aberration, the lone twisted chickadee that adores the genre as well as any penis could. Not buying it. After all, if horror fiends were solely male, how would our kind reproduce? So you can't tell me somewhere out there, in a land far far away perhaps, there can never be a Great Dark Poetess that can manifest like Stephen King or Clive Barker.

How do we justify our morbidity when faced with true horror? We, the revelers and writers of fake fears, and dreamt up demons. How do we justify our fanciful imaginings when faced with a truth that puts it all to shame?

I had half written a different sort of rant. Like the rest of the sleeping country, I was oblivious of what foul beast towards Bethlehem crept: Katrina.

Anyone of good conscious has been horrified by what has occurred. And though the tragedy started with a storm, and was compounded by a flood, it is the all too human elements that hit us hardest. The families unable to save the elderly, the abandonment of the bodies of loved ones, humans plucked from trees and rooftops. And then there are the crimes that in light of the tragedy can only be called abominations. Rape, murder, complete brutality. I dare not even begin, if you have read or watched --you know.

Sick people don't like being told there is nothing wrong with them, and writers don't like being told that their writer's block is the product of laziness and a lack of commitment to the craft. Yet, oftentimes, that is the attitude a blocked writer encounters. As a frequent sufferer of hard-core writer's block, I've decided to take a stab at writing the kind of article I'd always wished I could find.