Last post, I whined about the high costs of going to see live music.

Let’s focus on the good.

The show itself was a lot of fun. New kids We as Human rocked out for four songs. I’ve been listening to them on SiriusXM Octane and recognized two of the four. Oh, sure, their sound was horrible, but that’s part of the rite of passage of being the new kids. That and the two inches of stage they were allotted. Lucky ducks. They got two. (cue Beavis and Butt-head laughter)

In This Moment played next, to a still empty pavilion that seemed not only unfamiliar with the band but also a bit befuddled. Musically, I think they were the most exciting on the bill. They’re doing things no one else has the guts to — but frontwoman Maria Brink looks brittle. Along with the tone change from last album to this, it looks like this poor woman has been through hell and back.

I’d love to have dinner with her.

Back to the show…

Between the knee braces and the way Maria hobbled off the stage for a costume change between each of their five songs (all from the new album. Bummer.), as well as the fact that she never moved, staying put on a platform and flanked by two barefoot, corseted dancers … well, it was bizarre. I expected that from Maria. I did. And I’m all for musical theater, too. But I didn’t expect the lack of showmanship from her band, nor would I have ever imagined that while she was off changing her coat, the band would turn their backs to the audience, almost as if we were only allowed to look on their faces when Maria was there to capture the spotlight and distract us from them.

Next time, Maria, wear the same outfit for more than one song and add Beautiful Tragedy into the set.

Papa Roach played next. Twenty year veterans of the scene, and it showed. They might have owned the best set of the night.

I can’t say the same for Skillet. While they are fabulous showmen (and I met their cellist when he was playing with local Rock Cello band Cello Fourte … and did I mention he used to work with a friend of mine?), their sound was muddied and bass-heavy. The top end got lost, particularly the vocal work by their guitarist. BIG disappointment. And Tate? Dude. I hope that’s not an addiction problem I’m seeing you with because the Tate I met, the one who worked with my friend, wouldn’t let himself turn into the slovenly onstage creature I almost didn’t recognize.

And finally, Shinedown. Ahh, Shinedown. The big draw of the night for me and my concert buddies. They were everything I expected and more — but like In This Moment, they took overly long breaks between every song. They also had long intros for each. Personally, I prefer it when a band flows from one song into the next. That’s when time stands still and all that matters is what’s happening on the stage. We, the audience, never leave the magic you are making.

Shinedown is a band who gets that magic, too. So why they interrupt it, I’ll never know. I wanted more of those moments when the concert buddies and I had our arms around each other and we swayed and sang. There’s your magic, right there. But it wasn’t enough.

Same thing that I told In This Moment: quit with the breaks and play another song. I’d have loved to hear a live version of My Name. That was my theme song for awhile there. It might still be.

And that finale? Powerful. Very powerful, and you’re hitting the exact right audience with the message, too. I loved it … except… the audience is so focused on the video screen and the story being told that the song got lost. Totally and completely. There’s got to be a better way to make the point, guys. You’ve got good people working for you. Put them on it.

All in all, it was a great night. We even jumped in line to meet We as Human and get the concert buddies some autographs. Nice group of guys, with great synergy. And they loved my pink ESP Explorer earrings.

I may have a new crush. I know my iTunes wishlist is groaning with the new additions to it.

But mostly, I realized I was wrong to stop going to see bands play live. That of all the things I gave up and sacrificed, this shouldn’t have been one of them. This is my lifeblood. Always has been and quite probably always will be.

I do need better concert buddies, though. And a few more bucks so I can afford those service charges and those inflated food prices.

But what I’ll give you for those nights out is more and better fiction. I promise.

I’m trying to be a bit more organized about Rocktober this year, so I thought I’d invite you ALL to join in.

Here’s what I’m looking for from authors:
Featured New Book Spotlights. These can run any day of the week, so long as they focus on Rock Fiction.

Know what else I’d like? Blurbs about your books. I’ll feature your book that way, too, if you are too busy or even too far removed from your book to do it justice with a Featured New Book.

From readers and bloggers:
Pick a book. Write a blurb about it.

Send me links to reviews you’ve written recently (always the best; authors like to know they’re still being read) or in the past.

If you decide to host a Rock Fiction author for a blog post or an interview about why Rock Fiction, send me the link! I’d be glad to feature it. Again, feel free to dig through your archives.

My goal is to fill all thirty-one days in Rocktober with at least one Rock Fiction goodie. Decide how you want to celebrate, pick a date, and it’s yours. Hopefully you’ll get to share it — that’s a good thing! The more Rock Fiction, the better. Many would agree with that statement, so let’s show our love for the genre!

Not sure if it’s Rock Fiction? Here’s a list for you to start with. Find something that appeals and rock on.

Yeah, I know Full Circle is the name of a song by Vegas rockers Otherwise, and beyond that, Otherwise has nothing to do with this post.

But last week, I felt like I’d come full circle.

It has been ten, nine, maybe eight years since I last saw a band play live. Disturbed. A tour sponsored by Jagermeister. In Cleveland’s House of Blues.

Last week, it was the Carnival of Madness tour. We as Human, In This Moment, Papa Roach, Skillet, Shinedown.

You CAN go home again, folks.

Oh, lots has changed. I bought three tickets for $75. And spent another $45 in service fees. What the FUCK? I think Eddie Vedder had it right when he tried to take on Ticketmaster. He saw where things were headed.

And people wonder why no one goes to shows anymore.

On top of that, such a large bill meant an early start time: 5PM. I left my house around 2:30, expecting traffic (but see above about no one going to shows anymore. Wasn’t a problem). That’s a long day and night — and meant dinner for me and the concert buddies had to be bought on-site.

Bye bye to another $40.

I’ve now spent more in ancillary items than I did on the tickets. So I am pretty confident when I say that, at least in this case, ticket prices weren’t the reason for the crummy attendance. There’s a vowel for you Live Nation, Ticketmaster, huge corporate promotions folks, and Vanna didn’t even need to sell it to you. Don’t bleed your customer base dry while giving us all patronizing pats on the heads and whining about how low ticket prices are.

Of course, crummy attendance wound up meaning we got a free seat upgrade so that the people with lawn tickets could sit where we’d been supposed to. Move ’em forward, don’t make the bands look past rows of empty seats in order to find their real fans. Works for me, and not just because I got better seats out of it. I have yet to meet a band who plays better to an empty house than to a full one.

That’s the rant part of the concert experience post. I’ll be back with thoughts of the bands and general impressions of the show. Once I got past the exorbitant food prices and service charges, there wasn’t much else to rant about.

Thankfully. The point of live music is to feel alive, to feed your soul. Not to bleed your bank account dry.

I finished a book earlier in the week that has become one of my new favorite Rock Fiction books of all time.

Amazing, mind-blowing, totally altering the way anyone will view the music business and what it takes to get big…

But you’ll have to wait until Rocktober to hear more about it.

I’ve still got plenty of room if anyone wants to join in! I am going about it a bit more organized this year and am hoping to be able to feature a book and/or author a day, either here or elsewhere.

Join in! Spread the word! This year’s Rocktober will be the best yet!

Drop me an e-mail if you’d like to play along.

I’m blogging over at Animal Friends about the sweetest pair of girls to ever hang out in my foster room. Come by and meet Constance and Claire.

I think it changed in graduate school, this trend of good things happening in the month of August. My MFA graduation was in August. My firstborn showed up this month.

And now…

I’m pleased to announce that West of Mars is seeing its first expansion. I now have a non-fiction department, headed up by my good friend and even more experienced editor, Mary Sutton.

Sometimes, things come together, the stars align, and this was one of those moments. I had an employee, and then, a job landed in our laps. And voila. Non-fiction department is up and running.

It may take a bit for me to change the website (yeah, see Demo Tapes 4 on this here site? Sheesh.) because I swear, all you fiction writers spend the year working on your manuscripts so you can ship them off to your editor during the summer. I’m swamped. I am loving it.

Stay tuned… there’s more changes coming.

If you’ve got a work of non-fiction, go and contact me directly and I’ll forward it on to Mary. She’s going to be enjoying a degree of autonomy over there in non-fiction land.

Yep, another week with no Featured New Book.

This is something I’d like to see continue and grow, not wither and die, because I’d like to build on the Featured New Book for some of the changes I’d like to implement here.

That’s why there’s been an overall lack of blogging. Between summer being the time when all you writers finish up your revisions and decide it’s time for an edit and the behind-the-scenes changes, things have been busy here.

You’re going to like what I’m rolling out. It’ll be slow, and it’ll be awhile (I’m still looking for the right accountant, which is frustrating because the other two pieces came together so quickly and easily), but rest assured, there are some really good things in store.

Jump on board. Tell your other friends to send me some Featured New Book Spotlight pieces.

It’s gonna be better than good.

I clicked through to a post this morning that was supposed to be about censoring books. I’ve had Trevor’s Song censored so many times because of its language, I like to be able to laugh it off with fellow authors.

But man, did this post set me off. It was a different sort of censorship.

The author was talking about how she’d published some romances with some sensual or sexual scenes (to what level of sensuality/sexuality, I don’t know) under her own name. Her husband wasn’t thrilled with her choice, because this woman has standing in her community.

She’d brushed him off — and been shocked to discover teens she was familiar with were reading her books. Sex scenes and all.

Her contention was that we parents should be censoring what our kids read.

Now, if you’ve been hanging around my blog for any length of time, you’ve noticed that on Tuesdays, one or the other of my kids likes to blog.

I have read very few of the books they blog about.

To put it simply: I don’t have time. Both kids can read a book in two days during the school year. Less during the summer. Teen Girl Rocks and Reads, as she calls herself, isn’t a teen yet. And she has fallen in love with the ease of Overdrive and her iPod. For her, the iPod is a book depository first and a toy second.

So let’s take a look. Two kids, who each devour books. One mom, a single parent who owns a successful, growing business, who runs the household, who is active in her community, and who has her own life. (pretty much in that order, too.)

Do the math.

Go on. Maybe your head won’t explode like mine just did.

So now I’m going to say something that might be unpopular with the helicopter crowd, but here it is: as parents, our job is to instill values in our kids. When my daughter downloaded a book with sexual content that made her uncomfortable (and hadn’t been hinted at in the book description, she claimed), she simply hit delete. No muss, no fuss. She didn’t even tell me about it until I asked her about a kissing scene in a book I’d recommended to her. When she fessed up, I shrugged it off. She’d done the right thing, as far as I was concerned.

Think about it: she saw something she didn’t like, and she walked away.

For me, that’s the greatest success I could have as a parent. She handled a situation with no drama and no demands that Mom come to the rescue and delete the book so she didn’t have to look at it ever again. She didn’t inform me she was never reading another book, never using Overdrive. Nothing. She just said she wished that the information had been in the book description. If she had known, she wouldn’t have downloaded it.

Yes, my kids are still young enough to need some protection from the world. Absolutely. But on the flip side, I dashed down to a small town half an hour from my home yesterday to pick up my son, who got off a charter bus 10 days after I’d last seen him. We’d had contact once, when he’d asked me to send him a care package.

He was at the Boy Scout National Jamboree. He spent days with new friends I’d never met, led by two men I’d never met (and two I know well), walking in the woods, managing his own schedule, his own cleanliness (a shout-out to the other Scout parents who now chuckle at the words ambient shower), laundry, money, responsibility, and even a day devoted to giving back to the West Virginia community at large.

Even if I had been one of the adult leaders on-site, I couldn’t be there to protect him. To warn him before the many thunderstorms rolled in, or tell him when it was safe to go back out. I wasn’t there to make sure he handled guns safely, or had his harness attached to the zip line properly. Those are the sorts of things that, as a Scout, he is expected to know and be attentive to on his own, even before the staff checked to make sure he was following protocol.

In short: the Scouts instill values in him, values that help him make smart choices.

As a parent, I have tried to instill values in both my kids. And when I see my daughter quietly walk away from a book with content she isn’t comfortable with, I know that while I may have hugely failed in other areas, at least in this one, I’ve been a success.

So, no. I won’t censor what my kids read. I’ll gladly read anything they tell me is worth my time and that they want to share or discuss with me. I’ll let them make their own decisions, and I’ll take a deep breath and let it out each time those decisions prove I was right to trust them.

I got that proof with my son and Jamboree. I got that proof with my daughter and that book.

For all my missteps as a parent — and some have been huge — I know I am doing something right. There’s no going backward from here.

Yeah, while Teen Boy is on self-imposed hiatus (his new thing is “I’m working on the blog” but when I look over his shoulder, my blog looks suspiciously like Minecraft), the Teen Girl has decided to bring you some Rockin’ Reads. Her choice of name, not mine!

Please welcome her and make her as comfortable as you’ve made the Teen Boy.

When he gets back from National Jamboree, I’ll see if I can get him reading AND blogging again.

Wow, I’m flattered by the response my Dear Employees letter evoked.

Those of you with serious talents to add to West of Mars, don’t be shy about hounding me. This summer, I begin the process of building the infrastructure that’ll let me bring in extra editors, and I’d love to have formatters and cover artists (and… and… and… ) in the fold, as well.

If you haven’t heard, I’m also going to launch a promotional business that’ll encompass the Featured New Book spotlight but go beyond it. My dream is to revolutionize online book promotions, and yes, you’ll be able to afford to join in. Part of my vision is to have events that you authors and bloggers can join without the need to open your wallet. (Of course, the other part will be events that will hit your wallet… did I even need to say that?)

For you readers, it’ll be free, all the time. No worries there!

Of course, a new web design needs to go along with that — there’s a reason Demo Tapes 4 isn’t on the site yet. It’s in the works, and wait until you see what the supreme Tim at Tech No Riot and I have cooked up. I’m even willing to share Tim’s services, so if you’re in need, he’s your man. Tell him I sent you.

Stay tuned. Once upon a time, West of Mars was a very well-known name. The phoenix needed to die so it could be reborn, and with your help and support, West of Mars will be even bigger this time around.

It goes without saying it’s going to be better, right?

That means you’d better get your baking skills in gear and make friends with FedEx. I wasn’t kidding about those samples!

A copy of the letter I intend to write one day when I have employees to torture.

Dear Employees.

Once you’re done with all that, sit back down to whatever you’re working in refreshed and glad to be employed be someone as utterly cool as me.

What do you think? Want to come work for West of Mars?

Well… I still don’t have a book to feature! How is it possible that no one out there has a new book they’d like to talk up?

It’s not that hard. I mean, hello? ONE question. That’s it. Just one.

Otherwise, it’s been quiet around here. Settling into the new schedule that includes having Teen Boy Reads and his sister underfoot. Editing like a fiend; I’m finally no longer behind.

And… it being June, I’m spending part of the week at my second favorite place on the planet: Boy Scout Camp. Rumor has it two other women are coming this year, so I’m eager to see how their presence will change the dynamic. After all, my attitude has always been that I’m on the men’s turf and they shouldn’t change because of me. Well, okay, they should put their tent flaps down before they change their clothes, but they should be doing that anyway ’cause there are young kids around.

Best news? I’ve been spending a nice chunk of time writing. Hope to have it for you next April, for my annual birthday release. Cross your fingers, keep the good stuff coming, and find me some books to feature here, will ya?

First off: the Featured New Book spotlight is empty again! C’mon, authors and readers. If you don’t have a new book out, surely you have a friend who has one. Send him or her my way. I love to help others out.

A reminder link to the Featured New Book Spotlight page. Follow the directions and send me an e-mail.

Second is a bit of a weird story. Despite clear instructions NOT to, a potential client left a comment asking for a sample edit and what my timetable is. The mail got deleted, as the site says it will, but I dug it out.

I’m sort of wishing I hadn’t. I tried twice, in two different ways, but the e-mail bounced.

Either someone is messing with me, which I don’t appreciate, or Janet made a mistake, which happens.

Janet, if you’re out there, please be in touch. My calendar is filling up pretty fast, so we need to connect sooner rather than later.

According to last week’s Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, today is WPTS-FM day in the city of Pittsburgh.

Join me in the celebration, will ya?

I didn’t get my college radio start at PTS, but I sure blossomed there. I took an hour and a half of weekly heavy metal programming and turned it, at its peak, into 11 hours a week. I interviewed bands, went to shows, built a staff, networked my way into what I thought I wanted: a career in the music biz.

You guys know how that ended. I walked away from the biz…but keep writing about it. The seed had been planted before PTS, sure, but up in the Pitt Student Union (fourth floor), it grew. And grew.

So… celebrate with me today. PTS was seminal in my quest for self-discovery, the place that was my home during the years I lived in the (ahem) residence halls. I met true goths and women who took over the role of promotions director, ordered a bunch of WPTS-branded rubbers, and had all the musicians she met sign them. I wonder if she still has Chris Cornell’s. I met groupies and promoters and journalists and had my face splashed across the front cover of the Pitt News. I met the guy who told me I should forget about going to New York and working at a label ’cause I’m better as the big fish in a small pond, not as a small fish in a big pond.

Ahh, the tales I could tell. We’d be here for days, weeks, months. And you’d all laugh and say yeah, that sounds exactly like me. You can see it in the Trevolution writings.

Congratulations, PTS. I still miss you — and this alum is proud as hell that you’ve been named one of the top five stations in mtvu’s ranking of the nation’s college radio station. I’d like to think I played a small part in that. Who knows? Maybe my legacy lives on over there.

I’ll have to stop in and see.

Miss me? I miss blogging, too, and I need to do a follow-up about the Pennwriters Conference. Let’s just say that each year I go, I have an entirely different experience. So far, it’s all been good, even if it hasn’t been what I was expecting/hoping for.

Anyway, the real reason you miss me isn’t the conference. It’s that the hurricane that is West of Mars Editing has blown back up into a Stage 3 storm. Maybe it’s Stage 4; being able to tell involves lifting my head out of my current project (another good one!) and taking a good, hard look around. I’m too busy to do that, with manuscripts lined up and my awesome clients waiting patiently for me to work my fingers to the bone.

With every day that passes, I love what I do even more. I paid a high price for this career, but I don’t regret it. If anything, I wish I’d been able to do it sooner.

I hope to be back with regular stuff here soon — I have at least two Featured New Books to bring you, and one Rock Fiction review, too. In the meantime, know that I’m working to bring you guys some great reads. And yes, I’m being a good nag and staying on Teen Boy to bring you more of what he’s reading. He’s got drafts saved. He just needs to finish them up. He’s got that end-of-the-school-year funk. Or something. I do know he’s not nearly as busy as me.

In the meantime, keep me in your reader (I’ve switched to Feedly. It’s … different), keep buying the books of the Trevolution (did I mention I’ve been writing more again? Well, I am!), and keep telling your friends about the Featured New Book spotlight and about what an awesome editor I am.

Even if it means less regular blogging, at least you know I’m loving life.

It’s been a long time — years — since I last attended a writer’s conference. In that time, I’ve done scarcely anything that’s been writerly in or around the Pittsburgh area. It’s been rough. I’ve missed it.

I think.

This morning, as soon as I put The Girl Band on the bus, I’m headed down to the Pennwriters Conference. I’ve been volunteering and helping out… I have to say, it was way more fun when I did it two years ago. I had more time, fewer obligations, and no editing clients who simply have to come first.

I think this is a great organization, but I have to take a step back and evaluate. Although I have six books out, they won’t consider me published. Although I volunteered to lead a few panels — including one all about reviewing, including how to respond to negative reviews, how to solicit reviews, where to look, and why you should/shouldn’t pay for a review, something I’ve never seen offered at ANY conference — my offer was lost. When I brought it up to the very person I’m volunteering my time for, she said if something opened, she’d be glad to plug me in.

You know where this is headed. Someone was needed to fill a Sunday morning spot.

It’s not me.

In fact, I am not even planning on being on-site Sunday. After the book signing on Saturday, I am going to pack up my books — I don’t expect any to sell and, being that horror show called self-published, I have to schlep my own books to/from the signing — and call it done. Smile through dinner with the local group who is smart enough to value and like me.

For me and Pennwriters, it’s going to come down to how the weekend goes. There are very few, if any, panels I’m interested in taking. I don’t need to learn how to self-edit. I don’t need social media for beginners, which has been taught at every conference since at least 2010. I don’t need to learn how to pitch to literary agents, or what happens after my book sells. That’s not my path. And lunch today? The choices are the hot buffet luncheon for the published group who won’t consider me published or the more expensive cold cuts in a box (at least, that’s what it was two years ago) with a talk given by someone who was less than gracious (to say the least; my group of friends has banned me from ever inviting anyone to our group dinner ever again, based on how he acted) about … how to find a literary agent.

Needless to say, I am planning on heading out of the hotel and up to a local beer joint that makes great fries. Maybe, if I find a friend who feels as I do, I’ll stay and eat in the hotel restaurant. But really, Bocktown’s not far, and I haven’t been there in years, either.

Two and three years ago (there are three links there), things were very different for me. The exact opposite of how I’m feeling now.

But the industry has hung a sharp left since then. My life has gone even more sharply in other directions (hello, editing business!). And maybe it’s time to find — or create — a group where I’m not the round peg in the square hole, filling pretty well but not quite.

I don’t know. This weekend will tell.

You might have seen mention of it on Facebook, although the mention was made in the comments on one of my groups.

But if not, here’s how last week ended. Life as a kitty foster mom sometimes takes unexpected twists and turns.

After five months, I had to say goodbye to the world’s coolest cat, Geronimo. Stop in at the Animal Friends blog and read about the farewell.

And get ready for more… there are three kittens in the foster room!

So I had a fabulous idea. Let’s celebrate Record Store Day.

Lots of my author friends were willing to chip in and have fun with me.

But… man, I need a promotions person over here. Not only have I been slammed with editing work, I’ve gotten Demo Tapes 4 up and running (go get a copy!), but I’m getting ready to do a big website overhaul and… I get word that my iconic S avatar is too old, and the original files too lost.

So now I’ve got to redo all that. Which means something’s gotta go, and that something is… Record Store Promo Day fun.

If you know anyone who’d like to be the West of Mars promotions person, send them my way. I may need more than one, and as we get up and running, this WILL be a paid position. Possibly even full-time, but I’m not ready to think of that yet.

Edits. Fonts. New Novels. And have I mentioned I’m a single parent these days, too?

Next year, folks. Once I get a promotions person, we’ll have us some GRAND fun.

Seriously. There is such a thing as Record Store Day.

It seems fitting to me that I, as an author and champion of Rock Fiction, set up some sort of fun promotion.

Here’s what I’m thinking…

I invite everyone who likes to post fiction on their blog, if they write Rock Fiction or not, to write some flash fiction celebrating Record Store Day or music in general. I’ll set up a linkie so you can share your link and draw in new friends. We’ll make it like a blog carnival of old.

And if you’ve written a work of Rock Fiction, why not consider giving a copy or two of your books away? Again, I’ll set up a linkie for that, too and we’ll have ourselves a Hop!

More details will follow as we get closer, complete with the promised linkies and other ways to share the fun (I can hear my IT guy swearing at me now). Let me know if you’re interested in any way — and other ideas for the day are welcome, too.