Today, over at The Whine Sisters…

So, for a while now I’ve been working on what I’ll call the Project with a friend. This is the second time I’ve written with a partner, not counting writing prologue’s and epilogues with Kathleen and Dee for our Hell With The Ladies and Hell On Heels anthologies, or with Kathleen for this month’s Just Fooling Around Blaze Encounters (wasn’t THAT a clever way to work in my current release?!)….

continue reading at:  Writer’s Corner-Writing with a partner.

I spent much of the weekend at events, first as the keynote speaker at the annual Irving Club Tea in Lockhart, and then as the keynote speaker at the Tarrant County College’s Writing’s A Snap Conference.

Both were great fun, and I couldn’t have felt more welcome (as in, people were incredibly nice, laughed at my talk–at appropriate moments–and bought books.  Can’t beat that!).

Between the two events, I listened to some classes on CD from screenwriter William Martell, and folks, let me tell you, if you haven’t heard of Bill and his ScriptSecrets website, you’re missing out (and, yes, I’m talking to you novelists, too!).  I listened to Guerrilla Marketing (great ideas even if you’re not writing screenplays), Writing Indies, Writing Thrillers Part 1 and 2 (fabulous discussion and very thought provoking) and Ideas and Creativity (wonderful, and inspirational, and damn Martell, I came up with several new ideas that I have No Time to write!).  You can learn more at the Script Secrets website or check in over at my J.K. Beck blog, where I’m talking about writing and inspiration and Bill’s books and CD classes.

So, Friday started with me dumping my children on my good friend Aaron (is that not one of the coolest sights?) so that my girls could play with his little girl until my husband got off from work and gathered the kids up. (A million thank yous to Aaron from me!). After that, I got on 183 and headed off to the charming little town of Lockhart.

The Irving Club, I learned, is the oldest women’s club in Texas and has been permanently housed at the Eugene Clark library since the library was built.

The ladies were awesome, and the building was fabulous!

Check out these pics of the event, the room, and the incredible food!

I felt royally spoiled!

In talking to the ladies, I also learned about a great opportunity for all you writers out there.

A ghost story contest with a (drumroll!) $1000 prize! The proceeds go to the upkeep of the library building, and considering the beauty of the building that’s a worthwhile cause.

The contest is the Scare the Dickens Out of Us contest, and the deadline is still a long way off. So be sure to check it out!

We wrapped up with a booksigning and general chatting and it was so much fun! The ladies also gave me an awesome gift basket (thanks!) that I forgot to take a picture off (bummer!). I have, ahem, already finished off the candy. The wine will be opened in an hour or so (of when I’m typing this…no, I’m not indulging in the morning!).

After that, I got back on 183 and headed to the relatively new tollroad that skirts Austin’s horrific stretch of Interstate 35. Then it was about 3 hours of heading down one road. It’s a boring drive, but I had the afore-mentioned Martell CDs to keep me company, so I was happy and the trip zoomed by.

I found my hotel (thanks to the conf for putting me up!), adjusted my Sleep Number bed (how fun is that?) and pulled out my laptop. I didn’t get nearly as much work as you’d expect done. Having trained myself to write between interruptions by the kids, it’s now hard to write knowing there will be no interruptions. Sigh.

But I did indulge in some of that chocolate!

The next morning I headed off to the conference and met Liz Lounsbury for the first time in person (she’s another Harlequin author and was coordinating the conference. She’s awesome!).

I also met Marianna Jameson, an online friend who I finally met in real life. Yay! And a bunch of other people participating in the con, including O.K. Carter, a columnist for the Ft. Worth Star Telegram and Alan Birkelbach, the 2005 Texas Poet Laureate (how cool is that?).

I thought I took more pics, but apparently not. Here’s Liz giving an introduction, and a shot of some of the participants and faculty/instructors/panelists.

We started with a Q&A panel (well, my part started. The conference was an all-morning affair, and I rolled in about 11) and then we had lunch (fajitas!) and then I gave a keynote speech, which went great. I think. The downside of reading glasses is that I can no longer see audience faces. But I got laughs and questions after and lots of people stopping to comment and have me sign their books, so I’m calling it a big success. Most of all, I had a great time.

So thanks to the folks in Lockhart and Tarrant County for a great weekend!

I recently signed up for Google Alerts, and let me tell you…talk about an education.  I knew my books were appearing on Torrent sites (because I send a never ending stream of “you’re violating my copyright, please take this down” emails), but I had no idea how MANY torrent sites until I signed up (which is weird because, like 99.9% of authors out there, late at night when the manuscript is going slowly, I’ll Google my name, just to see what’s out there, and I would only rarely find these sites.  GA finds tons.  Several per day.  Damn depressing.)

So I thought this post was particularly appropriate, and very informative.  My husband works in a school, and from what I hear about what the kids talk about, most of them just don’t get it.  It’s out there, online, how can it be bad?  But it is, because, hey, it’s stealing.  Folks need to be educated, folks.  Pass it on.

“Piracy.” It sounds so romantic, doesn’t it? The high seas. Adventure . . .

But there’s nothing romantic about the case in Minnesota where a woman was fined $2 million for illegally downloading 24 songs and sharing them with others. Last Friday, the judge slashed her fine dramatically – by more than $1.8 million — saying the initial punishment was too much.

via Blog – Murderati.

I recently added an RSS feed to my iPhone, and as I was laying in bed reading through posts, I ran across a post from The Rejector about public domain and the copyright law. At the end, she asked if anyone else had a different take. I do.

I’m actually against the extension of copyright laws to the point that it has now reached for the written word. Works in the public domain are more published and better-read as a result, and if an estate is large then children are likely to squabble over it, sometimes preventing a book from being republished long enough for it to disappear entirely. Do my potential, currently non-existent heirs need to benefit that badly? If I were to live another forty years, which is extremely possible, my current books won’t go into public domain until 2119. Does that sound ridiculous to anyone else?

via The Rejecter: Google Books Ducks Copyright Law, Sort of.

Like I said, I don’t agree, and that’s despite the fact that like the Rejector, I’m a huge reader of public domain books. I troll Gutenberg.org and my kindle is probably half public domain books I’ve downloaded from Manybooks.net. But I have never–not after three years of law school, two years of clerking on the Fifth Circuit, and 14 years of practicing law, including a significant practice in copyright and intellectual property law–gotten into my gut the rationale behind the concept of public domain literary works as the system currently works. Sure, I get that people want access to literature, and that such access fuels the marketplace of ideas, but why the devil does that have to mean that someone other than the author’s descendants gets to make the profit? After all, is intellectual property any less a property right than, say, a house? (apparently so, in light of copyright law, but my question is should it be?).

Think about it. I work my tail off writing a book. It gets published. People read it and get to (I hope) enjoy visiting something that was conjured from my imagination. They pay me for that (and note here that I’m NOT paid for used book sales or library rentals or, of course, pirated, scanned books that have been put up in torrent files–so there’s already limited monetization from this creation). But if a book is bought new, then I get my 7.5 or 8 % of the retail price. Add it all up, and most authors are not making an amazing living. But, again, that’s not the point. My imagination. My work. My property.

My house I can leave to my kids. And they can leave to their kids. Also my diamonds and pearls, my wedding china, and my silver (all of which I got from my grandmother). No one is going to come along 70 or so years after my death and rip the house out from under my great grandchildren. If my descendants so choose, they can be living in my boxy little ranch-style house in the year 3,000.

My books, however, profit someone else.

Someone can come along when the books hit that magic public domain date, slap a new cover on, print on clean white paper, and toss that puppy back out into the market. The publisher then makes money. My heirs–those to whom I have bequested my literary property–get nothing. (In the comments on The Rejector, Jane Yolen, whose books I love, says something similar, and I agree with her comment).

How is that fair? (A brief pause as I revert back to my childhood self and my dad saying, “whoever told you the world was fair.” Well, no one. But the underlying idea of any legal system should be fundamental fairness.

The only rationale I can see–and it is legitimate–is the retention of books in the marketplace. We don’t want The Count of Monte Cristo to suddenly disappear because no one is around to authorize publication. Fair enough. But what about a dual system: After copyright expires, the books are deemed in the public domain. Anyone can take the text and publish a new book. But a statutory royalty must be paid to those who hold the rights to the books, be it the children or grandchildren of the author or a library to whom the rights were willed. And if the rights-holder can’t be found? Well, put those royalties in escrow for a few years while notice is distributed, the law already provides methods of notice when a person can’t be found. If no rights holder shows up, then the royalty portion can stay with the publisher or be distributed to certain statutorily designated charities or whatever other system is devised. But at least then the author (via her descendants) isn’t suddenly cut loose from a product that she created!

How about y’all? What are your thoughts on public domain and copyright?

I’ve been a bit absent from cyberspace (this happens when suddenly you’re living your life and your mom’s!) but I’m excited to say I now have six sisters! Yes, me, an only child now has six sisters to whine and bitch and celebrate with!!! Come visit us at The Whine Sisters blog!

And watch this space! In celebration of the great reviews TAINTED has been getting–and the fact that TORN will be on shelves soon!–I’m going to do a special celebration post tomorrow!

(Oh, and Kennercast is on hiatus until after Thanksgiving. Got nasty sick and still have no voice. Trust me. It’s for the best that I exist only in print at the moment!)

Come visit me on the web today! Sci Fi Chick posted a fun interview (and a fun picture from DragonCon!).

And I’m the guest blogger over at ParanormalityUniverse.

and all this week over at the Penguin blog!

I really like Lily.

In a lot of ways, the heroine of my new Blood Lily Chronicles series is similar to other heroines I’ve written, especially Kate Connor, my demon hunting soccer mom from the suburban town of San Diablo. Both Kate and Lily are women who speak their mind often with a sarcastic turn of phrase. Both are loyal to their families. Most important, both fight demons.

via Dear Reader Letter from Julie Kenner – Science Fiction and Fantasy – Penguin Group USA.

After LJ’s article last week about Brigham Young University’s (BYU) usage of the Kindle ereader device for faculty-driven interlibrary loan (ILL), the university is suspending the pilot program, saying that it wants to get written rather than verbal permission from Amazon.com.

via At BYU, Kindle Program on Hold, But University of Nebraska-Omaha’s Program Going Strong – 6/17/2009 – Library Journal.

I thought this article raised an interesting question. I love my Kindle, but I can’t share my Kindle files. Just doesn’t work. But I could share my Kindle, and, in fact I have. I’ve uploaded stuff for my 7yo, and let her read it when we were in the car (and she was bored). I’ve passed the thing to my husband to have him read favorite passages. Nothing unusual about that.

In that way, the Kindle (or any ebook) is just like any book. I mean, if Mary is reading Carpe Demon, she can’t lend the book to Joe, and still have the book herself. I.e., they can’t both have the book at the same time (as would happen if I could copy my kindle files and email them to my friend Kathleen).

But the physical book, sure. And the e-file turns the kindle into the physical book. So lend that puppy out.

Which makes me wonder: WHY would a library think it needs permission from Amazon to do this? Sure (as an author) it would be great if there were 16 copies rather than 1 (16 royalties!) but that’s not the way the world works (and, in fact, most libraries do order multiple copies of popular books, and then if readers find the books, they’ll buy copies, etc. etc.).

So what am I missing? Why is this causing a hulabaloo? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

The Prada Paradox starts with a bang, and keeps up the pace throughout.

Joyfully Reviewed Romance Novel Reviews.

Got this in my inbox today! Always makes me happy when readers and reviewers find my older titles! And I did love that trilogy!

“Read the Best Movie That You’re Never Going to See – Cinematical.”

Okay, I haven’t finished the blog post I’d planned for today, but this is too funny not to blog.

Seriously.