ICARUS Release Today!

I'm excited to announce that today is the release day for ICARUS by J.S. Chancellor. To celebrate, the author and her publisher, Rhemelda, are hosting a "Twitterview" where anyone can hop into the action and ask questions. This event will rock the Twitter world for more than 10 hours as J. S. shares not only her love for this novel but also her passion for the writing craft. Anyone will be able to ask questions of J.S. Chancellor on Twitter using the hashtag #Icarus. Be sure to follow @Rhemalda and @Jschancellor on Twitter to be part of this awesome event.

About the Book:

ICARUS is a paranormal romance: a love triangle between vampires who need a substance called Icarus to process light. In this richly drawn world, Jessica Slate is kidnapped by vampires who claim that Trinity, her “bad boy” lover, is the Anti-Christ and they take away her source of Icarus. With the clock ticking, can she escape her kidnappers—or will she discover that she belongs with them and that they’re right about Trinity after all?

J.S. Chancellor is the popular author of the Guardians of Legend trilogy (Son of Ereubus, Blood of Adoria, and Eternal Requiem). ICARUS is the first book in The Kindred series. Matthew Robert Best called ICARUS, “… a refreshing take on an otherwise exhausted genre, leaving me more than a little pleasantly surprised …. Such a fun read, with much more substance than I’m accustomed to in paranormal fiction.”

About the Author:
J.S. Chancellor, whose personal motto is, “woe is the writer who mounts their merit on the masses,” started writing stories when she was still in grade school, and finished her first fantasy novella at the age of 14. She drafted chapter one of the Guardians of Legend trilogy when she was a freshman in high school, sitting on a stool in front of a piano bench, in her parents’ den. It wasn’t until she was 25 when a resident at the apartment complex where she worked lovingly made a casual remark about her procrastination that her passion for fantasy fiction took center stage. Since then she’s focused all of her efforts on writing, to include leaving her full time job in September 2009 and actively maintaining a blog dedicated to the art of crafting fiction. She currently resides in Georgia with her two beloved dogs.

The Social Networks

Yup, that's plural. This post is not about the movie (which I haven't seen).

I first heard about social networking (though it wasn't called that) maybe years ago with Friendster. I created an account, invited some other friends to join, and then had no idea what to do with it. I let it sit there, and finally closed that account about a year ago.

When we got to the university, I opened a Facebook account. This was back in the day when only people with a .edu email address could get an account. Back in the day when each status update automatically started with "is". It was fun keeping up with my friends and making up gerunds and bad progressive-tense constructions ("is liking" *blech*) to create sensible status updates beyond "is in the library". Posting pictures inspired me to take more pictures in the age of the digital camera. All in all, I could easily keep up with it, and was liking it quite a lot :)

Today, however, Facebook isn't enough. For me, I also have this lovely blog, a Twitter account, an account on Ravelry (for lovers of fiber arts), SparkPeople (for those needing a cyber fitness community... this is usually the first to be forgotten by me) and Goodreads. Each one is different (although, I swear I will never full understand Twitter) and serves a different purpose.

But recently, I've been getting more invitations to other networks. Select2gether (I'm pretty sure this one is just spam, though). LinedIn. Academia.com. But where do you draw the line? The people who invited me for the latter 2 are good friends and reputable people, but I can't figure out how these networks are any different from what I've already got.


How do you social network? Where do you draw the line? Or is there no line to draw? Should we all participate in everything with the hopes of inspiring those heavy book sales someday? And if you use a number of different networks, how do you manage everything?

Cyber-Suck, Or How I Learn to Stand on One Foot

Dear Fellow Blogophiles,

Let me describe for you my past week (which, oddly enough, I also happen to be learning to do in my Macedonian class this week, but that's completely unrelated).  I wake up early, some mornings do yoga, have my tea and cereal (or muffins one morning :) and spend about an hour on Blogger since so many people post or schedule their posts GMT 4:00-13:00 (–5).  In this time, I never get through everything I want to read, and leave at least a dozen posts open in tabs in my Firefox window.

After the morning routine (се туширам, мијам забите...) I head to class.  Including travel time, this takes about 5:30 hours—all in all not bad, considering some people have real 9-5 jobs, so I'm not complaining.  Frequently on our breaks I will even hop on the computer, check my email, and even log into Blogger to respond to someone who's commented on a post—that's how excited I am when you guys comment.  Yes, I'm a dork, but a friendly dork :)

After I come home, I get on Blogger and try catching up again or writing my own post.  I frequently discover that hours have passed and I still have 2 dozen tabs open that I want to read.  But, obviously, I have to stop, do my homework (домашна работа), make dinner (правам вечера), clean up (мијам садови), and then spend time with my husband who I haven't seen all day.  After a while, I'm exhausted, so I move upstairs and read until I pass out.

Do you notice what's missing here?  Do you see the obvious problem?

As if this weren't bad enough, I've now thrown Twitter into the mix.  Btw, folks, I don't get it.  I understand the potential.  Tweet about your new books, others ReTweet, and thousands more than otherwise will buy the book.  And that's awesome.  I haven't seen any of that yet, and instead have seen a lot of people talking about their flights being delayed on their way to SCBWI.  It actually feels similar to an incredibly disorganized chat room that I used to frequent on a dial-up modem, designed entirely in ASCII.  I know people love Twitter, and I know I just need time to sort it out, find more people to follow, figure out what an interesting Tweet might actually be, but all the time I'm dedicating to Twit-covery is yet more time I'm not writing.

I'm still new on the blogoscene, all things considered.  I'm still learning my way.  But do you have any advice for a poor girl with a time-management problem who just wants to write AND blog-network AND support her friends' blogs AND encourage new followers AND Twick-or-Tweet AND have a real life?  Is the answer: stop sleeping?  It all comes down to balance, and I've never been good at standing on one foot much less organizing my time.  *sigh*



How do you do it?  How do you manage your life, your writing, and cyberspace?

Tweetophobia

This week is turning into a list of semi-embarrassing tidbits about yours truly.  How did that happen? (If you missed it, Sunday ended in my admitting to missing a character, and yesterday I discussed my cast and—former!—Gossip Girl obsession.)

So today, here I go admitting another of my problem areas for all the world to see:  I'm afraid of Twitter.  Yes, I admit it.  The first step in seeking help is admitting you have a problem, right?

At least the little birdie is heading east :)

You may be wondering how on earth I could possibly be afraid of a social-networking tool.  I obviously blog, I have a Facebook account**, I have previously had MySpace and Friendster accounts (although I think I have finally gotten those closed), and I have three email addresses.  I am not anti-technology.  I am not anti-social.  Therefore, I should not be anti-social technology.

Here's the rub.  I joined FB back in the days when you needed a .edu email address to get an account—very long ago indeed.  We also all know that academics tend to have strong opinions.  Having been on FB for *cough* years when Twitter rolled around, the FB backlash strongly influenced my understanding on Twitter:  it's a useless long list of unrelated tweets about whatever random things Ashton Kutcher's brain can create, and a bunch of tweetheads who tweet sweet nothings in his ear.  Does that sound positive to you?

But I have recently thrown myself into the blogosphere, full of writers and agents and editors who all suggest you follow them, be it for networking, researching, or simply gaining more points on that contest to receive so-and-so's latest ARC release.  I've been pondering Twitter and it's meaning in my life now for two months and have yet to muster the courage/hutzpa/cajones/jajca to open an account.

Surely I have nothing to fear but the fear itself.  Now I just need to move past it.

I would ask if you have a Twitter account, but that's probably an obvious yes.  How do you use it?  Do you tweet and retweet or just follow?  And, forgive my ignorance here, but how do you follow a tweeted conversation when other tweets show up in between?  Is there a Twitter equivalent to the Blogger dashboard or Google reader?  Anybody got a Twitter for Dummies manual lying around?

**I am not trying to hide on FB from anyone, even though I haven't linked myself up here.  At the moment most of my academic compatriots know nothing about my alternative life as a writer, and I'm not quite ready to have the world merge.  If you're truly motivated, I would never deny a friend request.  But when I get more of my clashing-world scenario smoothed out, I'll add an FB link on the sidebar.