Rabia Gale

alchemical fantasy

blogging

share your knowledge! call for guest posts

Done a lot of research about Victorian London? Is grading gemstones your day job? Have you worked with horses all your life and are tired of the way they’re portrayed in fiction? Come share your knowledge with the rest of us.

Starting from mid-August, I’m running a series called “Back to School For Writers” on the blog. And I need your help.

So, if you’re a firefighter, an Aztec expert, or a World War I buff, come tell us about it. What do books and movies almost always get wrong about your subject? Shed some light on an obscure field. Address the myths, pull back the curtains, and show us what a day in the life of an octopus wrangler is really like.

I have 2-4 spots left to fill, starting from mid-September. If you’re interested in doing a guest post, leave a comment below or email me at rabia [at] rabiagale [dot] com. Let’s talk!

my one-night stand with pinterest

It all started innocently enough.

I was in communication with an artist about designing a cover for Rainbird (more on that later!) and she wanted to know what my favorite book covers were.

Well, as you can tell from my book cover/artist Mondays, I was delighted to share this information. I remembered that a friend of mine had sent me a Pinterest invite (oh, so long ago). It was a minute’s work to sign up, create a board with the original title of Book Covers I Like, and start pinning!

I was hooked. Pinterest warmed my pretty-picture-loving little heart. I loved creating boards. I loved choosing images. I loved curating my collections. And it was so easy! None of this mind-numbing downloading and uploading and resizing business. Just pop in the web address, pick an image, write a catchy comment, and hit the button.

In an orgy of pinning, I added boards about fairy tales and steampunk and beautiful natural landscapes.

A day later–after that initial warm glow had faded–reality crept in and put her cold, dead fingers on my neck.

Don’t you think, said she, that you’re spending too much time on this?

It’s only the novelty of it, I told her. I’ll be fine in a day or two. It’s not like my children aren’t being fed and clothed–eventually.

Don’t you think, she pursued, that maybe you should be more careful about what you pin and repin?

It’s not like I’m downloading images onto my hard drive, I answered, defensively, starting to get rattled.

Would you, she went on, feel comfortable putting these images on you blog? Are you absolutely positively sure that you’re not violating anyone’s copyright by pinning them?

….

She had me.

Because I wouldn’t have put all those images on my blog. Some of them certainly, like the book covers. But interior illustrations? Photographs taken by who-knows-who? Artwork by people who didn’t have a prominent Pin It button displayed next to it?

I deleted all my boards save the book covers one. I had let my weakness for lovely art and pretty pictures run away with my good sense. If I couldn’t post an image on my blog in good conscience, I shouldn’t be pinning it.

This was about the time that author Roni Loren posted her nightmarish story, Bloggers Beware–You Can Get Sued For Using Pics On Your Blog, which only deepened my conviction that deleting my boards was the right thing to do. It also sent me scurrying back to check the few images on my blog that aren’t book covers or pictures I took to make sure they’re legit for me to use.

I probably will go back to Pinterest one day, a wiser, more circumspect, and more respectful pinner. But not soon, and not without a lot of care.

Do you pin or post lots of pictures on your blog? Where do you find images are okay for you to use? If you’re on Pinterest, how do you protect yourself?

readers, what can I do for you?

Readers,

I know who you are. Or at least I think I do.

You are dear family and real-life friends who support me by subscribing to my blog and buying my books–thank you!

Or, you are other writers I’ve met online, through the Online Writing Workshop (we go way back, you and I!), or Holly Lisle’s How to Think Sideways and How to Revise Your Novel courses, or Kristen Lamb’s We Are Not Alone class. You support and encourage me.

Perhaps you read my fiction, came to check out my Internet home, and stayed.

Maybe you don’t fit in any of these categories at all. Maybe you followed the trail here from a tweet, a comment on another blog, or a search (perhaps you were looking for information about Toph, or tutorials on making Japanese paper dolls and zebra templates, or pictures of small purple flowers–all popular keywords!).

But for some reason, however you came here, you decided to keep checking back. Thank you.

Over the years, my blog has changed a lot. I used to post about my writing process, but now I rarely do. Occasionally, I post a snippet from my work, and once in a very great while, an entire story. I post about my genre–the books I like, the trends I see, the covers I adore, the movies I enjoy, the 80s cartoons I loved. Sometimes I put up something funny, or beautiful, or inspiring. Sometimes I talk about one of my other great passions–learning alongside my children.

Yes, I’m all over the place.

I’ve never asked my readers for their input on my content before. I’m rectifying that now. Which posts have you particularly enjoyed? What do you want to see more of? Do you have any questions for me?

7 things about me

I received a Versatile Blogger Award from several members of my WANA class: Julie Kenner, Cindy Bell, and Liv Rancourt. Thanks, gals! You’re sweet!

So, according to the rules, I need to post this cute little icon (happily grabs), link to the person(s) who nominated me (done! see above), tell people seven things about myself (see below) and pass on the award to 5/7/14 other people (er…how about three?).

Seven things about me:

1. I’m bilingual. I speak English and Urdu–the language of Pakistan, the country where I grew up. Hands up if you’d heard of the language before reading this post.

2. My husband and I got engaged in Hong Kong. We spent a month there and I loved it. Would love to go back there someday and take the kids.

3. Currently, I have a 2-liter bottle full of soil and grass seeds on the window sill, and steelwool rusting in a small bowl of water on the kitchen counter. These are otherwise known as the “What is a Biosphere?” and “Why is Mars Red?” experiments. Why yes, I am a homeschooling mom! Why do you ask?

4. Apparently, when I was a wee little tot, I had a pet lamb (Rabia had a little lamb, little lamb… no, it doesn’t quite roll off the tongue, does it?). I used to ride it, and it would butt me affectionately in the tummy. It was scared of my mom’s high heels and would run and hide if it heard her coming. It would also eat clothes off the line. But the little lamb grew into a great big sheep and it was given away (or turned into dinner, I suppose).

Or so they say.

I have no recollection of such a pet, and I still wonder, to this day, if it is not a hoax perpetrated upon my gullible younger self.

5. Speaking of perpetrating hoaxes: When I was a preteen, I convinced my 5-years-younger brother that we were all a family of witches who’d been sent to earth to study humans. However, since he was born without magic, we’d have to leave him behind when we returned to Witch Land.

He was most upset.

Oh, I was a horrible sister. I’m better now.

6. I have this weird squicked-out can’t-look-away fascination with giant squids. And titanic battles between sperm whales and giant squids in the black depths of the ocean.

7. I take my tea the British way– black tea with two spoonfuls of sugar and a splash of milk. And biscuits to dunk into the tea are mandatory (I use Ritz crackers, since I can’t find any of the brands I grew up with here in the US, boo).

I pass along this award to: