Whoa! My first Cimmerian City review!!!

Cocktail Reviews just finished reviewing Cimmerian City my upcoming sci-fi novel and I'm jazzed! 4 Flutes out of 5!!!

Check it on out here on the first page!!!! http://cocktailreviews.wordpress.com/ or here for the regular link:

http://cocktailreviews.wordpress.com/2007/04/28/cimmerian-city-mundania-press-llc

A snippet: "Cimmerian City shows us a frightening outcome to current fears of crises on every front. From global warming and rampant pollution, to race wars and violence, from global control of the world's economy by a handful of corporations, to controversial medical experimentation for profits for a drug-dependent society. Here is the extreme vision that Cimmerian City give us of the haves and the have-nots. The few people who can afford to protect themselves from this severally damaged world and those who are subject to the uncertainty of daily life."

If you haven't added the official Cimmerian City Myspace page, feel free to add it on here: http://www.myspace.com/cimmerian_city

As always, check out the official page here complete with excerpts and a link to the Shadow Man short film: http://www.raelori.com/cimcity.html

Today started out as being such a crappy day that I wanted to climb under the covers and park there for the next few weeks but it definitely shot up once I saw this AWESOME review considering this is the book that is my baby! My weekend and next week has been made! lol

Also, check out An Alternative Read's blogpost of my excerpt on their blog here: http://tjbook-list.blogspot.com/2007/04/516-cimmerian-city-rae-lindley-sci-fi.html

Let me down easy! Always welcome!

Today I got the most sweetest and awesome rejection letter from a noir magazine today. They described my narrative as "lucid and fluid." My pacing was "excellent". And I made "fine, dark touches" that created a "creepy, noir feel." I almost fell out of my seat! Even though it was a rejection, in which I understand the situation of the mag being in their shoes, I thought it was really sweet for them to give me such kind words. Hopefully I'll place the story somewhere, but for now I'm going to let the letter simmer in my brain for a while and keep me moving foward!

I also got a rejection from said previous lit agent (see 'I Found Him' entry) which is understandable because the book isn't really mainstream. But I shall keep on keeping whether it be attached or single! lol.

For now, I'm going to focus on building up Olympus Haven: our spec resource site, reading submissions for the Oasis and editing the books we have now for release coming up.

Also somewhere in there, I have finished tidying up Cimmerian World, as I think I'm going to add some things in there I was going to leave out previously; also marketing Cimmerian City; and getting some of my short stories out in the world of magazine land.

Also, of interest. They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Since opening our site at Lavender Isis Publishing, we've had another publishing company continually rip our ideas off style for style [and format]. It's interesting considering how they wait until our ideas come to the forefront and then proceed to do the same. I guess it can be flattery because it shows how great our ideas are lol. But considering the treatment of said publisher's authors, negative reader feedback toward them, and especially the way they dodge paying their artists and authors full compensation, I like to think that good prevails and those in the industry with the author's well being will prevail in the end and be left standing tall and making a difference. A girl can dream, can't she? (Hence the name of the blog, I guess!). At the same time, this could mean that said publisher won't find their own niche in making a mark if they continually rip off others. In a way that's kind of sad. But I guess one has to learn the hard way.

I don't wish them ill will, per se. But as the saying goes....what goes around...comes around...

Reviving the fugue state

Recently, I was asked what genre I would like to tackle that I haven't before and my answer was horror.

I was looking through my old writings today after being inspired by the movie Silent Hill which I finally had a chance to watch. To straighten up a few things here, I'm a HUGE fan of the games and although I initially boycotted the movie due to everything I heard, I wanted to take a moment and see the movie for myself. Good thing I read ahead though, so I can hide through the gory parts (yes I hate gratuitous gore in films, especially if they aren't in the original source material). I'll give a full review of the movie in a sec, but to finish out my point I was inspired because of the inadequacies (or lack thereof) within the story and the lack of characterization in the movie. Now grant it, it's hard to get a nice full characterization like in a novel (and my roots as a screenwriter shudders at the thought of this) but I know it's possible because many other good movies have proved it.

Zipping back to the initial point, I realized that I got my start in horror. Back when I was a preteen and teen, I couldn't get my fill of vampire novels and scary stories. I remember one I read in which shadows in a particular room would come to life once the lights go out. Freaked me out so much, I couldn't sleep and my mom took the book away and I haven't seen it since.

I started a story sometime ago about a woman who found out her father's assets were to be turned over to her after his death. She has to go to this town to sign papers for acceptings of ownership and such. Turns out the place is a ghost town...and not exactly empty.

I'm currently turning the story into a screenplay due to it's visual nature.

Back then I also had an idea for the third Silent Hill game. I sent it in and let's just say it's interesting how similar things turned out in the third game. Still, I think it's kinda cool. I still have a copy of that letter with my old letterhead in a box somewhere.

In any event, I'd like to make it a point to finish said story. I think it has much potential to be entertaining and pretty scary. As I write it right now, I'm listening to the Silent Hill game soundtrack and it's midnight. So I hope I'm not up all night with thoughts of my story dancing around in my head. I'll have to think of a happier story by the time my head hits the pillow.

My review of Silent Hill the movie version goes as such. It wasn't as bad as I imagined...the first hour that is. Alot of what happened in the game played out and in a strange twist of fate, I wish they would have made it more theatrical. Funny because throughout the time the movie was out, I was wishing they would have made it more like the game! What I mean is, I wish there would have been more characterization and more motive for the main character. I also wish they would have kept the main character a male, but that's neither here nor there. I highly enjoyed the visuals in the beginning of the movie. The town was beautiful especially when it changed to the 'Other World.' I wish they didn't muck up the story in changing into a weird strange evil cultist Crucible type story and kept the paranormal elements like that in the game with Dahlia being the leader who let the whole deal. Seeing the monsters was as unsettling and I almost felt the way I did like when I first played the game. Straight out creeped. The movie stayed with me which is kind of good but I couldn't help but wish for more. I'm also of the mind that the gory parts could have been left out and stayed truer to the game's atmosphere which relied on scary, unsettling feeling without showing you every sense of torture known to man. That's the beauty of the SH games, it was creepy without being in your face. Kind of like Alien. The atmosphere and psychology of the world disturbed you! I wonder what Ridley Scott would have done with the adaptation...

So in a nutshell, I'm on a writing streak and I have the movie to thank for that. I'm going to see if I can't get a few pages written before I return to real life. Right now I feel like my mind is in Silent Hill and it's an awesome feeling because I'm going through everything my character is going through. Writers out there will know what I'm talking about. :-)

New month, new challenges

And so another month is upon us. Spring is around the corner followed by summer (and hopefully some good summer reading!!) It's officially 4 months until the release of my big novel/labor of love and I'm feeling like it's time for one big exhale.

I love writing. I really do. And although sometimes it feels like the "job" borders on masochistic tendencies (particularly sending out your work after continuous rejection after rejection) it's a highly useful form of treatment, especially when you take the many problems we have today and incorporate it in the writing piece. I personally love the type of stories that talk about our society today and deconstruct it through the eyes of the characters. Stories like these transcend mere genre labels, but even still I love the sci-fi end of things. ;-)

In any event, it's time I take some time off and do something that many writers have to do when the business side of writing becomes too much: reacquaint myself with the love of writing and why I started in the first place.

Writing, like everything these days, is a business and sometimes it seems like the business side overtakes the creative end. "What sells" is the main trend, rather than "what's good" even though both can go hand in hand if given the chance. But that's probably a topic for another blog!

Off to my writer's retreat!