Ramblings of an Australian Writer

The Romance Review end of year party is going to be amazing and starts today, running all November long. The Year-End Splash (YES!) Party starts on November 1 at 12:00am EST. There are more than 400 participating authors and publishers, and there are more than 400 prizes up for grabs during the whole month of November. Grand prize is a $100 Gift Certificate!

All you need to do is head over to TRR every day--http://www.theromancereviews.com/event.php--and register. Registering is free and easy. By registering, the good people at TRR are able to keep a track of who wins what, when. Click the link there every day to enter a new competition each day in November! I'm giving away a copy of "City of Jade."

The TRR party isn't just for M/M romance; it's for all romance, all genres, all lengths. I do hope you'll join up at TRR and join the party and win some great prizes!

Everything happens ~*~*~ HERE ~*~*~

I'm so pleased to announce that Mythica, my paranormal set in South Australia, in the towns of Tiddy Widdy Beach and Ardrossan, has been picked up for publication with Bottom Drawer Publications. BDP are an Australian press, publishing both hetetosexual and homosexual romance and erotic fiction by authors worldwide. They have open submissions, guidelines are here.

So here's to another new book from me with a local publisher!

Mythica is the story of Caiden, a half-human, half-Mythica. He's part Selkie, and lives by the sea in the country town of Tiddy Widdy Beach, next to Ardrossan, on the Yorke Peninsula of South Australia. He has all but given up on romance, so when he meets Gray, a Sylph, the attraction takes him by surprise.

But danger lurks and there is a shadowy group called Free Earth who seek to destroy all Mythica on Earth. Can Caiden and Gray survive this threat to not just their lives but to their fragile new love?

Regarding the previous entry about LJ's IP blocking, new information has come to light and should ease a great deal of the concerns. The relevant information is here: Staff talk about the matter. There is an article in the NYT about Russia cracking down on certain sites, which may be of interest, here.

To quote the relevant post by LJ Staff:

LJ staff here, and responsible for site policy. This rumor spreading about being blocked for posting slash/gay content is unfounded. Their IP address was temporarily blocked from accessing LiveJournal, and this sort of thing does happen due to anti-spam & anti-DDOS measures which are in place, and these unfortunately do produce some false positives and block people who shouldn't be blocked sometimes. This is completely unrelated to their journal's content, though. If there was a problem with angstytimelord's content, it wouldn't still be accessible; you'd see a message indicating that it was suspended. That didn't happen because there is no problem with their content; they haven't violated site policy. We're very anti-censorship, and while Strikethrough did happen, there's not a single person working for LiveJournal who didn't argue against that decision; the people who made it haven't worked for LiveJournal in 5+ years.

Since some concerns about Russians overtaking the site's policy have been raised, I think it's worth clarifying a few things. All content policy issues are handled by people in the U.S. Any admin tools that can be used to restrict access to content on the site are not accessible to anyone in Russia. LiveJournal's datacenter is in the U.S., not Russia. Russian law does not dictate our site policies. The extent to which the Russian government has affected site content is that we do disable access to certain entries to people who are in Russia; when this happens, we display a message that this content is inaccessible within their region. This is to accommodate a law which forces all internet service providers in Russia to block access to any website which does not comply with this. This means if we choose to not block such content in Russia, everyone in Russia gets blocked from accessing all of LiveJournal. There's an article about this law at http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/01/technology/russia-begins-selectively-blocking-internet-content.html?_r=0.

Thanks to morgandawn @ DW for alerting me to this.

Spreading the signal for fellow LJ users.

Originally posted by nochick_fics at Spreading the word: Livejournal has IP blocked me for posting slash fic.

Originally posted by angstytimelord at Livejournal has IP blocked me for posting slash fic.

I've apparently been IP blocked, I'm only able to post now via a proxy server.

Livejournal is apparently "cracking down" on anyone who posts slash fic on this site, so BEWARE! I've been blocked from accessing the site, posting, ANYTHING. Simply because there is "gay content" in my journal.

If you post anything slashy, please spread the word & let others know that the Russian homophobia has spread to LJ. It's sad & pathetic, but that's apparently the case.


C/P from a separate entry:

Please spread this message to your friends list, your non-LJ contacts
who might be thinking of coming here, everyone you know. Hell, tell
your next-door neighbor & your dog. LIVEJOURNAL IS IP BLOCKING
JOURNALS THAT FEATURE GAY CONTENT.

For the last few months, I've had trouble logging into my journal. I
worked around it with prozies, but apparently even that is at the
point of barely working any more. I have been blocked from access to
my friends page, inbox, communities, everything. I've sent numerous
reports to the so-called "support" team -- & gotten nothing but
crickets.

As of last night around 7 pm Eastern time, I was completely cut off
from LJ access. I've been informed (albeit rather politely, I'll grant
you that) of my journal's "gay content" being "investigated."

This is heinous, repulsive, & reprehensible in every way. I have done
NOTHING WRONG to cause me to be IP blocked. My fanfiction does not
harm anyone -- no one is forced to read it who doesn't want to. Yet
apparently the "Russian overlords" consider any kind of gay content in
a journal to be grounds for "investigation."

*****

I think most of us knew this day was coming, but it still sucks in ways I cannot even begin to articulate.  If you have any amount of gay content on your LJ, whether it's one fic or one thousand, please take steps to back-up your content if you have yet to do so, be it through Dreamwidth or Ao3 (I have a couple of invites if anyone needs one) or wherever best suits your needs.

City of Jade has recieved an Honorable Mention in this year's Rainbow Awards, which is truly wonderful and I'm so thrilled. To see the other recipients (and maybe grab a book or two to read for yourself), the last four posts are here:

Fourth Post (where City of Jade is listed.)
Third Post
Second Post
First Post

There's one more post of Honorable Mentions to come, and then the winners for the various wonderful categories will be posted by Elisa on October 1st, 2013.

I'm a bit behind in posting what's going on, which is due entirely to having pulled my back muscles. My physio, who is a magic worker, has put most of the problem to rights, but there is lingering pain and the necessary meds make me very tired, so I've spent most of my time resting or doing necessary stretches. Let me tell you, though, internets--back pain is nothing to sneeze at. It's quite possibly the worst pain I've ever felt, and that says a lot.

Anyhoodle, last week, I was at the ARe Cafe, talking about my love of series, and especially about The Archangel Chronicles, of which the next three are in the editing queue with Dreamspinner Press. I've started writing book seven, because these characters are very loud in my head--though they've had to endure my inability to do much while recovering from the back issue--and that book is coming along very quickly. You can read my post at the ARe Cafe here.

Noble Romance have closed and ceased operations. Emily Veinglory's Erotic Romance Publishers site has more information, here. What this means is that my novella, Life and Nothing But, is no longer available for purchase. I have my rights reversion letter and my plan is to go over the book and edit it again and then it'll probably go up on Smashwords. I'm not totally certain about this, though, so that may change, but suffice to say that the book is no longer available.


Link of the Now: Something a little light--Cat Versus Human, a cute comic strip about the joys of living with cats. I relate to this one, having had my own feet at the mercy of Castiel's talons of doom. And this one made me lol heartily. I hope you all enjoy this comic too.

Writing:

I have been a busy bee. I've finished Mythica, which is now in the hands of my lovely beta, Cate, and I've written 20% of my Belle Epoque novel, which has the tentative title of Boulevards and Love Songs. This may change (probably will, actually,) because titles are my nemesis and it doesn't quite *fit*, but for now, it's not known as Untitled Belle Epoque book. And that's a good thing.

Weather:

I am SO HAPPY with all the rain we've been having. It's been very cold at night, but the rain has been awesome and my plants have been very happy with it all. The chili, lavender and rosemary need to be repotted into bigger pots very soon, so next fortnight, I'm going to Bunnings to invest in the necessary things to make my plants happy and spread their roots. I am a servant to my plants. I've noticed a marked increase in honey bees, too, which, while I don't want to be stung, is awesome, as bees are very much of the good.

Weaving:

And it's been good weather for weaving, though I have decided that mohair is the fibre of the devil and I hate it with a fiery passion. That stupid fibre--it keeps breaking or it un-ravels from its spun shape thing, or it pills, and argh. I did have it in its skein and that was just a recipe for frustration, so mum helped me wind it into a ball, of sorts. I realised that I didn't have enough cardboard to wind it around, so it ended up being wound onto a drumstick. The drumstick was given to me by a friend in a band, when after a party one night, learning that I intended to walk home, he gave me the drumstick so that I could use it for self protection. That eventuality never arose, and I've kept the stick for the last ten or so years. And this weekend, it came into its own and became the support for the mohair of doom. When I'd finished winding it all, the result looked a little like a dagwood dog made of wool or a woolly fairy floss. Look at it!



Link of the Now:

In my wanderings through the vast lands of the Internets, it occured to me that while doing research (and I do a lot of it, it's true,) I come across interesting and awesome things. So, I have decided to implement an ongoing thing in the blog, which is the Link of the Now. Instead of the link of the day, as I don't update every day. So, of the now it is.

For the first Link of the Now, I present to you a site I found while I was link hopping and researching Paris and Russia in 1895 for the Belle Epoque book. I'm a bit fuzzy as to how I ended up on this site, selling the most amazing (and expensive) Faberge original antique jewellry, but the page is so full of pretty, shiny things, I don't care how I got there. Just... pretty, shiny things! (Yes, I'm a magpie.)

They have lay-by/lay-away... This necklace is my ultimate favorite. I love it. I love how it looks like ribbons. And this ring is quite lovely. This set is gorgeous, but I do love the ribbon one the best. Ahem. Close the tabs, L. J. Step away from the expensive shiny things...

So what shiny things do you guys like? And what sites are you enjoying at the moment? :D

I'm over at Jacqueline Brocker's today, so do drop in and say hi. I'm talking about "City of Jade" and research!

For this hop, I wanted to write about something that is important to not just me but to a very large number of Australians: the legalisation of same sex marriage in Australia.

Until very recently, gay marriage was not in the top ten of things federal Australian politicians were concerned about. The states, however, had a different attitude, and in June, Tasmania's upper house (Senate), passed gay adoption rights. This was an important step forward, particularly when considering the history of Tasmanian equal rights, and noting that Tasmania was the last state to abolish the draconian sodomy laws. The Tasmanian lower house (House of Representatives) followed suit soon after, allowing gay couples to adopt children "previously unknown to them".

Around the same time as the Tasmanian adoption bill passed, the South Australian parliament had a bill put to it by Susan Close, seeking to legalise gay marriage. Her reasons for proposing the bill were personal due to her brother, who is gay, not being able to share the same marriage rights as she has. While South Australia has been first to implement many positive laws and bills, (including the first state to abolish the sodomy laws and make rape in marriage a criminal offence [refs.]), it's unknown whether the same sex marriage bill proposed by Ms. Close will pass. In any case, as the Gay News Network states, Little by little we are winning the war. The support for equal marriage reform grew by two votes from the 26 senators who backed marriage equality last year.

Federally, however, both sides of Australian politics have remained staunchly unwilling to consider legalizing gay marriage, while the Greens and other independants try to get the matter the hearing it deserves. Then a few weeks ago, in June 2013, former Prime Minster and then-current backbencher, Kevin Rudd, made a post on his blog in support of gay marriage. One of the stand-out quotes from the post is the following: "I for one have never accepted the argument from some Christians that homosexuality is an abnormality. People do not choose to be gay. The near universal findings of biological and psychological research for most of the post war period is that irrespective of race, religion or culture, a certain proportion of the community is born gay, whether they like it or not. Given this relatively uncontested scientific fact, then the following question that arises is should our brothers and sisters who happen to be gay be fully embraced as full members of our wider society? The answer to that is unequivocally yes, given that the suppression of a person's sexuality inevitably creates far greater social and behavioural abnormalities, as opposed to its free and lawful expression."

Many thought that this was simple rhetoric. After all, Mr. Rudd was a backbencher now, with little influence upon the Labor Party currently in power and there was an election looming, called for September 14th, 2013. And then, the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, called a leadership spill. I will save you the details of Australian politics, but in essence, what happened was that the members of the Labor caucus went into a closed meeting to vote on who would lead the party. As this was the fourth time this had happened in Ms. Gillard's tenure as PM, Australians rolled their eyes heavenward and shouted at their televisions that the spill better be finished before the rugby or Masterchef started. Thankfully for all fans of rugby and cooking, it was, and the upshot was that Julia Gillard was ousted from her position as Prime Minister by Kevin Rudd, just as she had ousted him a term ago.

What this means now for the GBLT community in Australia is that there is more than a spark of light at the end of the tunnel. Mr. Rudd has made his position clear, and, in the days after the spill on 26th June, 2013, he was even clearer on the subject of gay marriage. It has been stated that Mr. Rudd has offered to hold a referendum if Mr. Abbott continues to refuse a Liberal Party conscience vote or, if not a referendum, a plebiscite. These are huge leaps forward for equality. A referendum is the voice of the people, not the politicians, and a plebiscite is much the same, being a direct vote on a matter that could amend the constitution or law.



Whether one likes Mr. Rudd or not, I think that, as Susie O'Brien for the Herald Sun wrote:

"In the end, it's just about recognising that marriage matters and that love should be legally recognised in marriage, regardless of the gender of the couple.
It's really not a big deal, so let's just get on with it."

*~*~*

As part of this blog hop, I will give away one ebook copy of my current release, "City of Jade," a historical m/m romance set in the twelfth century, on the Silk Road from Constantinople to Hangzhou. Just leave a comment to enter the draw!

And to enter the main Queertown Abbey Blog Hop draw, answer this very simple question in a comment. What was on TV the same night as the Labor Party leadership spill?


KEEP ON HOPPING--ONWARD TO THE NEXT AND OTHER WONDERFUL POSTS!

I'm at Sinfully Sweet Romances today, talking about all sorts of things, so do drop in and say hi!