New Things for a New Year

Oh my goodness! Would you look at that. It’s a brand new year just waiting to unfold. Welcome to 2013!

The start of a new year is always exciting for me. I love the process of creating resolutions (or evolutions as suggested by Andi HERE). I use my resolutions as a road map for the year, and itinerary, if you will. I don’t think I’m a huge failure if I deviate from the path. I feel ahead of the game because I’m making an informed decision. I want to go one direction, but it may turn out that this other way was actually better in the moment. Now, don’t get me wrong. Some of that in-the-moment redirect is the product of pure laziness. For example: I resolve to go to the gym five times a week. But one morning it’s cold, and raining, and dark. The trifecta of things I hate about winter in the Northwest. So, instead of getting up at five am, I choose to snuggle in and sleep a little longer. And for sure if I string too many of those snuggle in days together, I will regret it. My clothes will fit a little tighter, my wife will nag me (As well she should. I’m an unpleasant person to live with when I skip the gym.), I’ll miss hanging out with my workout buddy, and the list goes on. But my love/hate relationship with my gym is not what I came here to talk about. That was a total deviation from the roadmap right there!

Back on track. Andi and I have decided to add a few new featured articles to Women and Words and that’s what I’m here to share with y’all. First up, we LOVE that lesbian fiction is growing at an amazing rate. Like I’m sure many of you do, we have a hard time keeping track of all of the goings on. So we’re going to add two features a month called  “Coming Attractions” and “Hot off the Press”. The third addition is called “New Beginnings” and will focus on finding a home for your used books once you’ve loved them to pieces and are ready to part with them.

Let me explain further.

COMING ATTRATIONS: This will feature announcements of new works on their way to us. For example, Author X signs a contract with her publisher, but the book isn’t due out for another six to eighteen months. But Author X is the excitable sort. She wants to share her news. And by God, we want to share it with her. That way we can ALL be excited for Author X. In order for this to work, we ask for some awesome communication from y’all. If you are Author X (or know Author X), please hook us up with the fabulous news. We want to know!

HOT OFF THE PRESS: This will be a comprehensive list of all the new releases for the month. Now, let me offer the caveat that it can only be as comprehensive as the information available to us. We will diligently troll the known presses for new lesbian works, but if you (or someone like you) are independently releasing a new novel via the wonders of self-publishing, we might very well miss that. And that would make us sad. Solution: drop us a line and we’ll include it. Notice the tab at the top that says CONTACT US? Click on it and you’ll get a nifty form that you can use to tell us all about your wonderfulness. We want to know. For reals. Or, if you don’t think about it until AFTER we’ve published the list, drop a comment at the bottom of that particular blog post. We’ll grab it and edit the original post tout de suite. Yep.

NEW BEGINNINGS: Some of us love digital. And some of us love print. And a lot of us (like me) fall in the middle. A few print books, a few digital. Here’s the thing, for folks who love print, the library is great, but doesn’t match the joy of BUYING a NEW BOOK! Bliss. But then, the books begin to stack up and if you’re not careful, the stack grows so big that it’s a danger to the safety of your family. One wrong move and the whole book tower comes crashing down. So, what to do with those books to ensure that they are still loved? Clearly, you can’t just toss your beloved tomes into the recycle bin. But your wife has threatened divorce if you don’t do something. There are many excellent charities around the country that would love to have your used gay/lesbian themed books and that’s what we’ll talk about here. Some places are very specific, like shelters for at risk gay/lesbian youth. Some are generic, like your local library system. All have merit and need more attention brought to their needs.

That’s it for our new ideas! What do y’all think? Pretty slick, huh? But before I let you go, I want to mention one other thing:

GUEST BLOGGERS: We feature guest bloggers all the time. Typically, the blog coincides with a book release, but that’s not a requirement. So, if you’d like to contribute a guest blog, contact me (jovebelle at gmail dot com) or Andi (andimarquette at gmail dot com). If you’re the ambitious sort who loves, loves, loves blogging and would like to contribute on a semi-regular, semi-permanent basis, we can talk about that as well.

For real, that’s it for now. Happy New Year, y’all. Hope you’ve got your roadmap at the ready for the upcoming year.

And, just because we’re cool like that, here’s The Indigo Girls singing Get Out the Map.