K.E. Skedgell

QUILTBAG. What does that mean? Here's the definition according to the Queer Dictionary : QUILTBAG is an acronym. It stands for Queer/Questioning, Undecided, Intersex, Lesbian, Transgender/Transsexual, Bisexual, Allied/Asexual, Gay/Genderqueer. It is meant to be a more inclusive term than GLBT/LGBT and to be more pronounceable (and memorable) than some of the other variations or extensions on the GLBT/LGBT abbreviation. When I first came across this acronym, I thought, what the hell does QUILTBAG mean? It can't mean a bag made out of a quilt, because, you know, silly me, that's the first thing that popped into my mind. So I looked it up and it all made sense to me. The acronym itself is befitting, like a quilt it represents patches of the different aspects of queer life, all wrapped up into one acronym like a bag. The representation of queer folks in entertainment has grown in the last several years as the world becomes more accepting: from books to TV and mo...

W ith the passing of the craptastic year that was 2012, I'm going into this year with a more optimistic outlook. Yeah, I was like that last year, had plans to finish the first draft of my novel by summer, have it edited by the end of the year and ready for querying by this time. Having my novel finished was my one big goal and I was positive I could accomplish it. Then shit happened, as it always does, and for much of the year I had dealt with a bout of depression. I didn't finish the first draft (though I am one chapter away from finishing it), I certainly didn't edit it, and querying for representation, well, you know. But this year, gosh darn it, I will have this book finished. I will have it edited and read by Betas, and I will start querying. And I will begin work on the second book of the series as well. I have chunks of it written already because I had thought I would be able to merge the two halves together into one. Nope. Not gonna happen. By the time I finish...

A s the title says, I made some nice progress on my WIP the past couple of days. Yesterday I wrote a total of around 1850 words, and today 2270 words to finish chapter 26, which ended with a total of 9300 words, a longish chapter. I had written 3000 words in one day once, but that hasn't happened again. 2000 is nothing to snark at. I'm dreadfully slow at writing, it takes me hours to write 2000 words. Sometimes the words will flow for a few hundred in about twenty minutes or less, other times a mere fifty give me a headache for an hour or more. Or I'll obsess on one lousy word, unable to move on for minutes upon minutes at a time until that word I'm trying to come up with decides to pop up in my brain. Such is writing. So since I have finished this last chapter, now begins a new one, and this one jumps forward in time a few months, because nothing really of any importance happens until then when all hell starts to break loose. Some chapter openings come to me easy ...

I t's not all about you. Oh wait--in second person perspective it is! Currently I've been working on a scene, (albeit very slowly, life kinda has put the brakes on my writing for a bit) where this point of view perspective I believe, I hope, is going to work for the scene. The rest of the book is in third person, sometimes close, sometimes a little more distant, all depending on the scene, which in the edits and rewrites I'll make it my goal to transition everything more into a closer third perspective. This scene, though, will most likely be the only one in second person point of view, unless I decide to delve into it again with another similar scene. The reason for this little change up isn't to be show offy, it's because for the point I'm trying to bring across in the way I want the reader to see and feel in this particular scene, I believe second person will work best. A lot of peeps don't like second point of view, and I'm not too thrilled with...