June New Releases by Indelible Authors

June releases by Indelible Authors
 

CROSSING
by Stacey Wallace Benefiel
 

 

Due to heavy subject matter, Crossing is recommended for readers 17+.

He stole her lipstick…and her heart.

Twenty-year-old Dani Walker can’t believe her luck when she’s paired up with the gorgeous Liam Garrett as her Acting I scene partner – or when he ends up in her bed. Being a Plain Jane with a mouth on her hasn’t exactly served Dani well in the guy department. In fact, she’s had nothing but one night stands. Still, she lets go of her insecurities and falls for Liam, despite feeling like he’s holding something back.

When Dani finally discovers Liam’s secret, she must learn the true meaning of accepting the ones we love for who they are, or risk losing the best thing that’s ever happened to her.

Amazon Kobo B&N itunes smashwords ( *75% off for the month of July!)

 

 

CHOKE
by S.R. Johannes
(book 2 in the Breathless novella series)

When Eria escapes her home in the Biome, she uncovers more about her
features and specifications as a HumaNot. Following her father's
instructions, Eria embarks on a journey into a dangerous and unpredictable world.

Along the way, she encounters a young rebel, Dirk, who explains he's from the Anarchy, an underground human resistance rising up against the BOTs--advanced man-made robots gone wild. Together, Dirk and Eria battle underground serpents, desert dingos, sand storms, and advanced Bots that are always hot on their trail. As they become closer, Dirk reveals his hatred of machines, forcing Eria to hide the secret of what and who she really is.

When the truth of her identity comes out, Eria is forced to become the very thing she hates the most.

 

Amazon

LOVE, TINK
(the complete series)
by Elle Strauss

 

Enchanted meets Peter Pan in Love, Tink.

Tink is hopelessly smitten with Peter, the leader of the lost boys who'd mysteriously arrived at Neverland two years ago. Unfortunately, Peter is tired of the adventure and especially tired of dodging Captain Hook who is after his head. He just wants to go back to New York City and live his life as a normal fifteen-year-old.

Tink is the only one who can help Peter return, but it breaks her heart to do it. She just wants to make him happy, so she does the unthinkable and betrays the fairy king. Now her heart is filled with remorse. Should she go after Peter? Should she follow him to his New York?

Originally published as six separate novella episodes, Love, Tink the complete series is all six stories together in one volume.

Amazon Kobo itunes smashwords (coming soon to Barnes and Noble)

DRAGONFLY

by Leigh Talbert Moore

 

“Gossip Girl meets VC Andrews in this contemporary family saga. Love, lies, and betrayal become the new normal when Anna enters the world of Jack and Lucy Kyser.” –Magan Vernon, international bestselling author of The Only Exception

 

Three bad things I learned this year:

-People you trust lie, even parents. 

-That hot guy, the one who’s totally into you, he might not be the one. 

-Things are not always how they appear.

 

Three good things I learned this year:

-Best friends are always there for you, even when they’re far away. 

-That other hot guy, the one who remembers your birthday, he just might be the one. 

-Oh, and things are not always how they appear.

 

Anna Sanders expected an anonymous (and uneventful) senior year until she crossed paths with rich-and-sexy Jack Kyser and his twin sister Lucy.

 

Pulling Anna into their extravagant lifestyle on the Gulf Coast, Lucy pushed Anna outside her comfort zone, and Jack showed her feelings she’d never experienced... Until he mysteriously withdrew.

 

Anna turned to her internship at the city paper and to her old attraction for Julian, a handsome local artist and rising star, for distraction. But both led to her discovery of a decades-old secret closely guarded by the twins’ distant, single father. 

 

A secret that could permanently change all their lives.

 

Amazon B&N iTunes

 

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Congratulations to our Indelible authors who made the 2013 Kindle Book Review Awards semifinalist lists in the YA category!

G.P. Ching for GROUNDED,
Leigh T. Moore for THE TRUTH ABOUT LETTING GO,
and Christine Fonseca for TRANSCEND.

Congratulations!

Indie Life: How I keep from going crazy. Uh, crazier.

I'm not gonna lie, the last six months of my life have sucked. 

My dad had a massive heart attack and an emergency quadruple bypass. My mom was diagnosed with breast cancer and went through a couple of surgeries and radiation. I'm getting divorced. I owe more taxes than I used to make in a year. My dog Chief, my last pet, is on the verge of dying.

Yeah, I qualify for country song status for sure.

So, why haven't I taken to my bed with a gallon of ice cream and all twenty-seven seasons of Grey's Anatomy?

Four reasons:

1. I have two kids - a six-year-old boy and a four-year-old girl. They need me to do my mom thing. They need me to feed them, and force them to bathe and brush their teeth. They require hugs and kisses, and dance parties, and for me to know what Minecraft and Dog with a Blog are. My kids keep me dependable.

2. My friends, both IRL and on the interwebs, and my family. They've watched my kids, taken me out to the movies, spent hours chatting about nothing on Facebook, helped me do yard work, and above all else, listened to me. My friends and family take my burdens away.

3. Exercise. Author Angela Carlie somehow managed to get me to sign up for a relay team even though I've never run a mile in my life. This summer, I'll run three, six mile legs in a race from Seattle to Whidbey Island. Another friend of mine talked me into joining her CrossFit gym last August just before my life imploded. I cannot tell you the value of lifting heavy things and doing burpees until your mind is blank. Exercise keeps me physically and mentally relaxed.

4. Work. Writing is therapy that I don't have to pay for. FOUND (Penny Black #1) distracted me with the intricacies of building a future world and creating a main character that is very different from myself. The two pen name short stories I wrote were pure fun - decadent writing just to write. CROSSING, the novel I'm working on now, has been an altogether deeper experience. It's semi-autobiographical and it is helping me repair my self-esteem. I've been able to cry and laugh and remember...and move on. Writing gives me whatever I need. 

My wish is that your life is a little less hectic, but if it's right up there with my vida loca, I hope you have some good ways of dealing too. If not, I highly recommend weight lifting and writing romance. :)

                                                                                                                                                                 

Stacey Wallace Benefiel is the author of the Zellie Wells trilogy, FOUND,  the Day of Sacrifice series, the Toilet Business - a collection of humorous essays, the upcoming CROSSING, and multiple short stories. She sometimes goes by S.W. Benefiel or Reina Stowe, but knows she's not foolin' anybody. Stacey lives in an orange house in Beaverton, OR with her kids and her dog and a lot of clean laundry that always needs to be folded and put away.

                               

Deadline, feels like I'm going to lose my mind

I haven't written a FIRST book since 2005. That's when I finished the first draft of Glimpse - it was 30K, a family saga, and nowhere near being an actual novel. I didn't know that, though - my background is in monologue and play writing -I was just stoked I'd told the story I'd set out to tell.

Fast forward to now, almost exactly seven years later, and I'm trying like hell to finish Found, another novel set in the Zellie Wells world. (I've written other firsts in between, but nothing novel length.)

I can't shake the feeling that all the experience I've gained in the last seven years, all the time I've put into becoming a full-fledged AUTHOR, is keeping me from finishing Found.

Sometimes it sucks to know too much. To be aware of all the mistakes you're making while you're making them and not be able to stop yourself from correcting them right then and there.

Found is a cool, interesting story that I want to write - only I can't get away from comparing it to Glimpse and trying to not do all the things I did wrong with that book all over again.

I thought if I approached the writing of Found in a completely different way - if I made a more detailed outline than I ever had before, if I used a beat sheet, if I set a timer and wrote without self-editing - that I could get over myself.

Instead, I've lost myself. There's not as much of me in Found as there is in Glimpse.

Glimpse has around one thousand written reviews across all platforms, with an average of 4 stars. It came out in 2010. When I read my reviews on Amazon (I stopped reading them everywhere else) I pay most attention to the 3 star, middle-of-the-road ones.

From these I've learned that my pacing isn't great, my use of slang is annoying, and that I don't describe things as fully as readers would like. And everyone hates Zellie's mom. :)

So, I thought that by working on making these things better, in addition to having other books under my belt and knowing what I was doing this time around, that I could bust Found out in two months.

My first self-imposed deadline was August. Then October...November...now it's hopefullybyChristmasfirstweekofJanuaryatthelatest.

Some of my heel-dragging stems from life stuff - I didn't have any kids in 2005, my dad had a heart attack and my parents who usually help me out a ton now need my help ( which I'm more than happy to give!), I signed my kids up for way too many activities, and I've committed to working out at least four times a week.

Therefore, when I get a chance to sit down and write, keeping in mind all of my new rules, following my beat sheet, trying not to self-edit...it's about as fun as getting a colonoscopy.

I read this post by my friend, and probably yours, Megg Jensen and it did make me feel a little better.

What I'd like to hear from you all is: How do you get better technically without losing the joy?

I'm stumped. I'm bummed. And I'd really like to have a new book out in time for all those new e-readers! (Psst. I'm at 40K and have an editor that will read it anytime, so all is not lost.)

                                                                                                                                                                  

Even though she can't finish her latest novel, Stacey Wallace Benefiel can push press 55 lbs. forty-eight times. So, there's that.

Creating an audiobook using ACX

Over the summer I was hanging out with a bunch of indie author friends at a book fair in Pioneer Courthouse Square. Now, none of us ever sell very much at these things, but that's fine because they're really an excuse for us all to get together, eat doughnuts, and talk about indie writing/publishing/marketing stuff that no one else in our lives is remotely interested in. (We also take a lot of dumb pictures of each other trying to look authorly.)

Author Laura A.H. Elliott and I got to talking about audiobooks. She was just about to release her first one -  13 on Halloween. I'd always wanted to do audiobook versions of my books, but assumed that it was kind of a logistical nightmare and out of my price range. (I'm cheap. Book covers are the only thing I pay for!)

When she told me that she didn't have to pay a dime to have her audiobook narrated and produced, I was all SHUT THE FRONT DOOR and grilled her like I was doing a front page piece for the Cheapskate Gazette.

I went home and opened an ACX (Audiobook Creation Exchange) account that day. Glimpse came out at the end of last month, Glimmer is making its way to Amazon, Audible, and iTunes right now, and Glow and the Zellie Wells trilogy are in production.

 

I thought I would share with you all just how easy the process of creating an audiobook through ACX has been for me, so that we can all have people not only reading, but listening to our books! 

 

1. Got to https://www.acx.com/

 

2. Create an account (click on the big Get Started button after admiring Neil Gaiman for a minute)

 

3. This account works with your Amazon account - so you'll have the same sign in and password

 

4. Creating an account here is very similar to creating an account on any e-book platform - just follow the directions and fill in the info

 

5. Confirm you own the rights to your titles. This is similar to adding your books to your Author Central account, sort of an is this book yours? within ACX and then you confirm if it is or isn't.

 

6. Next comes the bit I found the most tedious - creating your title profile

 a. Post a cover photo (don't worry, it's not the FINAL cover art)

 b. Post a description

 c. Post an excerpt for narrators to audition with

 d. Post a write up of anything else potential narrators and producers need to know - for example, I stated that I needed a female narrator that could handle alternating POV's/chapters between a female and male character.

 e. Post word count, territories (most will be Worldwide like with e-books)

 f. Choose your royalty sitch.

 

This is where you decide if you are going to pay an upfront hourly rate or royalty share. Obviously, if you pay upfront...it's going to cost something. If you do the royalty share, you don't pay anything upfront, but you do split all of your royalties with the narrator/producer 50/50.

 

I chose to share my royalties, and in fact am happy to share my royalties. I honestly feel like my narrator, Martha Lee, put just as much work into creating the audiobooks as I did writing the books!

 

7. Now your title profiles are listed on ACX for narrators and producers to peruse. (A lot of the narrators are also the producers.)

You can wait for them to come to you, but I have no patience, so I started listening to narrator auditions right away. (Go up to Search and click on Narrators for hire.)

 

8. To narrow down the number of auditions, you can put in parameters for your project. ex. Genre, Gender, Accent, Payment (some narrators don't do royalty sharing), Style, etc. I did this and came back with about 20 audition samples to listen to.

 

Now here's where I feel I had a bit of luck. I found Martha the first go around and when I heard her audition...I got that feeling like when you're going along writing and the dialogue is flowing and you don't even have to work for it. She just sounded right.

 

I could have made her an offer straight away, by clicking on the Make an Offer button, but I was new, so I asked her to audition for Glimpse. You know how in your head all your characters sound like you when you're reading your books? Well, when I heard Martha's samples, I thought she sounded more like Zellie than I did.

 

9. I made her an offer - this is basically stating that I would like to hear the first 15 minutes by this date and have the project completed by this date. Don't worry if you are clueless to how long the whole thing should take - ACX has a formula to help you figure it out based on word count. Also, I think it's a good idea to always go with the 72 hour offer. Martha is in New York and I'm in Oregon, so we have had some time zone issues.

 

So, hopefully they accept your offer.This is all done through the messaging on ACX. I will say that we had some trouble with some of our messages not reaching each other. No matter, when it came time to send her the manuscript, I emailed her the word doc. and we've mostly been communicating through e-mail since.

 

Now, you might not want to e-mail a stranger a word doc. Go with your gut. I wanted her to be able to print the manuscript out in the font and font size she wanted and also so she could make notes. In addition, Glimpse has been out since 2010, so I wasn't really worried about it being pirated (because it already has been all over the land) or people calling into question if it was mine. ( For better or for worse, it is. Ha!)

 

10. Then you wait. In the meantime, you can add your cover art to the project. However, BE CAREFUL. If you're good with Photoshop, you can probably adjust the covers yourself. If not, have your cover designer or someone that is good with Photoshop format your covers. Don't just slap your e-book cover in the shape of a square up there. 1. it won't look right 2. it's a pain in the butt to change it.

 

I put a placeholder cover up for Glimpse - a stretched out version of the e-book cover - and then I couldn't get it to go away. I had to e-mail ACX the good cover my husband made and ask them to change it on their end.

 

11. Listen to the 15 minute sample and either approve it, or ask them to make changes/try reading things a different way

 

12. After the 15 minutes are approved, you wait for the whole thing. Each chapter is a separate file to download. In addition, the narrator should send you a opening and closing credits and a 5 minute sample.

Listen to these intently - it's totally fun! - and make notes of any changes. Glimpse had two pronunciation changes and Glimmer had one. The narrators are locked out of making any changes until you click on the Request Changes button.

 

13. When you're totally satisfied with your audiobook, all you have to do is approve it and it goes to ACX for a final vetting. After that, it can take a couple weeks to a month to distribute out to Amazon, Audible, and iTunes. For me, it showed up on Audible within a few days, Amazon not much longer after that. iTunes was the hold out (as per usual).

 

The one sort of weird thing about the whole audiobook experience is that we don't control the price. Right now Glimpse is $19.95 on Audible, $17.46 on Amazon, and $9.99 on iTunes. In addition, Audible had a big promotion and Glimpse was offered at $5.46 or something for over a week, with the option to get it FREE if you joined Audible. So, FYI, if you're a control freak like me, that takes some getting used to.

 

14. Start promoting that puppy!

 

**If you choose to hire a narrator/producer outside of ACX, that's cool. There is also the option to distribute it to other audiobook retailers, but the royalty system is way different. I figured I was hitting the big three with my deal, so that's why I went with that.

 

**If you'd like to see this information with pretty pictures, go here.

 

                                                                                                                                                               

 

Stacey Wallace Benefiel doesn't look very much like her Author Photo anymore, so she thought you might enjoy this picture of her taken by Angela Carlie in Lisa Nowak's backyard.

 

 

 

 

Dance Moves

You know what we don't talk about enough on this blog?

TV.

Since I have my fellow Indelibles to be informational and inspirational, talking about books and writing and publishing, I've taken it upon myself to bring you an advertisement/endorsement of a TV show.

The following is not a review. There was a reason I was a Theatre major instead of an English major, and that reason is critical thinking can suck it.

Bunheads

I'm in love with this show. It's written and produced by Amy Sherman-Palladino - the woman who wrote most of the seasons of the Gilmore Girls. Now, if you haven't watched that series, which ended in 2007, go do that.
I'm serious, go watch the whole thing. Jess, Dean, Logan, Luke, Christopher, these names might mean nothing to you now, but you'll see, I've just suggested a whole new group of fictional boyfriends for you. Not into boys? Lorelai, Rory, Layne, Suki, y'all. Thank me later.

Back to Bunheads - it's about Michelle (played by the awesome Tony award winning actor Sutton Foster) who is a Vegas showgirl that marries an admiring and persistent fan and moves to his home in Paradise, CA. Her husband dies in a car crash by the end of the first episode - I'm not giving anything away here, the show wouldn't work otherwise - and leaves her his house, which he shared with his eccentric ballerina mother (Kelly Bishop!), and a ballet studio that is on the property.

Hilarity ensues.

If you've missed Sherman-Palladino's fast talking ways and her ability to make a show appeal both to adults and teenagers, Bunheads delivers. There are lots of Pop culture references for us old folks and the teens on the show ACTUALLY look and act like teenagers. They're awkward and silly and bitchy and trying to grow up to be good people.

Paradise isn't quite as quirky as Stars Hollow, but it does have a couple funny weirdo standouts. Truly (played by Stacey Oristano - Mindy on Friday Night Lights) is the quintessential woman raised in a small town that's never been anywhere else. She's a 60-year-old trapped in a 35-year-old body. Truly owns the only clothing shop in town and she has the unique ability to "know what everyone needs" except for herself. The banter between Michelle and Truly is delightful.

There's also a local bar owned by a burn-out hippie couple that lends to the California feel of the dialogue. They're the one time things slow down, way down, man.

Bunheads is on Monday nights on ABC Family, which has nearly as good of a track record for cancelling shows I love as FOX, but I'm willing to bet this one stays around for at least another season. (No such luck for The Nine Lives of Chloe King - my fave teen show from last summer!)

Don't worry if you've missed the first five episodes - they do a great "previously on" at the beginning that will get you all caught up.

I hope you all give it a try and if you ever want to talk TV, I'm here for you. I watch all the things.

                                                                                                                                                            

Stacey Wallace Benefiel is the author of the Zellie Wells trilogy, the Day of Sacrifice series, The Toilet Business - a collection of essays, and multiple short stories. She sometimes goes by S.W. Benefiel, but knows she's not foolin' anybody. Stacey lives in an orange house in Beaverton, OR with her poet husband and their two young children.

For more info on Stacey and her books, please visit her website: http://staceywallacebenefiel.com

Starter Covers

Hey there, Elle Strauss here.

You know that term, starter home? It's the cute little house built for two that you buy when you're young, maybe have a child or two and feel totally squished in when you get the family pet? By then a few years have gone by and (supposedly) you have some equity with which you can buy a bigger house? One you can live in for the next many years and raise all your children?

Yeah, it didn't work that way for me either. But, that's a long winded segue into my topic of Starter Covers.

A starter cover is the first cover a book receives before getting a makeover cover.

My book Clockwise had a starter cover.

starter

makeover

Why did I change it? I was concerned about lagging sales and a few people suggested that the first cover looked too middle grade, primarily because it was illustrated. I loved that cover but I agreed that it didn't have the "read me" factor for an YA audience.

Interestingly, Clockwise was chosen for a cover challenge  last week and the voting results surprised me, 12 to 11 for the original!

I still think I did the right thing by changing the look of book one before putting the rest of the series out, but chances are if I'd stuck with the first theme, it would've done as well.

The main point here for me is, as an Indie it was my choice. I wanted to change it and I did. =)

I'm not alone in this starter cover syndrome. Several of my writerly friends have changed their covers recently, some for the same reasons as me and some because they thought it was time to try something new. Traditionally published books get new covers all the time, when the paperback comes out, for instance, or to update a book or series that's been out for more than a year.

Sometimes they update too soon, and make readers angry, but I'll get to that in a minute.

starter cover

 makeover

starter

makeover

starter

makeover

starter

makeover

Megg said: I just wanted to mix it up a bit. The old covers sold well but they've been around awhile.

Stacey said: It didn't stand out as YA. Readers couldn't tell what genre the books were just by looking at them. When they did read the books, I got complaints that the more mature upper YA subject matter didn't jibe with the illustrated covers - which made people think they were MG. Now readers love them and are picking them up because they love the covers. They are recognized as the Zellie brand now and the next trilogy will have similar covers. 

Cheri said:  I'm an indie author, and I love to try new ideas. I had a theory about covers with vivid images on a black background and wanted to test it out. I also knew that in the tiny thumbnail image, the beautiful swirling font of my book title is difficult to read. I wondered if that was a deterrent to potential readers, so I wanted to test that out as well. 

Magan: When I first went through the whole cover design process I was looking for someting in the realm of HP Mallory with the cartooney covers. Both our books are comedic with romance, so I thought a cutesy cover would do the trick. Then the reviews started to come in and I realized alot of people weren't picking up the book because the cartoon cover was giving off a middle grade vibe and that wasn't what I wanted.


Though it's great to change covers, authors have to be careful not to annoy their fans by changing covers they might love, especially mid series. There's some talk on the 'sphere about series books getting a make over midstream. For people who bought the first book, or the first two books in the series, it's annoying when the next book no longer matches. See this post by Narratively Speaking. She's particularily upset by the recent change made to Beth Revis's covers. I for one have Ruby Red sitting on my shelf and have long waited for book two to hit shelves. I'm a little annoyed that the covers have since changed and now my series collection won't match. Plus,the collection loses value when this happens. I'll still buy it though, since I loved book 1.

Megg and Stacey both changed covers for their whole series once the series was out. I, on the other hand made the choice to change the cover theme after the first book was out, believing it would be better in the long run and hoping I wouldn't put off any of my readers who bought the first one. I didn't have a lot of readers yet at that point, and no one has complained so far. (Magan has done the same.)

What do you think about the cover updates? Does it bother you if series covers change before the series is complete?

 

Elle Strauss writes time travel and merfolk chic-lit, light SF and historical YA fiction. When she’s not writing, she’s reading, hanging out with friends and family, and sometimes traveling. To ward off writer's butt she does a bit of hiking, biking and yoga. Elle is married with four children and divides her time between British Columbia, Canada, and Germany. Find out more about her and her books at www.ellestraussbooks.com

New Adult - Let's make it happen

This is the suh-weet Day of Sacrifice Omnibus cover that Keary Taylor designed for me and I'm revealing it for the first time today, here, on the Indelibles site! (You can download the first DoS story for free from Amazon, BN, Smashwords, and iTunes.)

The last novella in the DoS series, Unfavorable, will drop next weekend and the Omnibus soon after.  I've got all my ducks in a row and am so happy to have another series under my belt.

Great cover.
Fun, sexy paranormal stories.
Awesomely edited.
Beautifully beta-read...everything seems in order.

Except, well, the problem I run into every time I publish a Day of Sacrifice story.

What category does it fit in?

These stories are not quite YA. The characters are predominantly 17-25. And only one story - Rebellion - has main characters that fit into the age range of Paranormal Romance for Adults.  There is also, on average, more language and sexuality than a YA novel, but less than, say, what you'd find in the Black Dagger Brotherhood books.

As a self-published author, marketing the book is only slightly less important than writing the book and, frankly, marketing these stories has been a bit of a PITA.

At the #indiechat last week, we got to talking about New Adult as a category. It's not a new idea, but it seems the category is as enigmatic as the books that belong in it. Many publishers, large and small-two exceptions being Rhemalda Publishing and Crescent Moon Press, don't use it because it's not recognized by Amazon or Barnes and Noble. In addition, some feel like there isn't a need to further compartmentalize novels, grouping them by genre, then sub-genre, then category, then sub-categories.

The thing is, YA isn't really recognized by Amazon or Barnes and Noble as a category either. You list your books in Children's or Juvenile Fiction and then you can choose teen-ish sub-categories from there.

It makes me feel skeevy.

My YA novels are intended for upper teenage readers and to see them pop up next to children's picture books is just not right.

That being said, YA, Young Adult, is a thing and we've all embraced it. Books need a proper category to go in so that they reach their intended readers. That doesn't mean that adults don't read YA or vice-versa, but it would certainly cut down on some confusion.

And there has been a lot of reader confusion with the Day of Sacrifice series. Reviews indicate that readers think it's too racy for YA and too vanilla for adults.

Yeah, because it's New Adult. :)

So, here's the deal. Many of the Indelibles have written/are writing/want to write novels that fit into the New Adult category.

We're all just going to agree that it's a thing. In the world. That people want.

Like I said before, I'm self-published and half the reason that works for me is because I don't like to sit around waiting for permission to do things the way I want to do them. Now, I know full well that Amazon and Barnes and Noble aren't going to include New Adult in their categories (or even create a joint YA/NA category like they should) any time soon.  What we can do is start using the label in our tags, descriptions, and in how we refer to the books we write.

If we want it, let's make it happen.



(For a more in-depth discussion of the New Adult category, check out this rad article here.)

Stacey Wallace Benefiel is the author of the Zellie Wells trilogy, the Day of Sacrifice series, The Toilet Business - a collection of essays, and multiple short stories. She sometimes goes by S.W. Benefiel, but knows she's not foolin' anybody. Stacey lives in an orange house in Beaverton, OR with her poet husband and their two young children.

Country, when Country wasn't cool

I’m ripping off the Band-Aid today.

I’m getting real.

I’m coming clean.

I’m a Taylor Swift fan.

For years I’ve been saying that I listen to her music because it helps me get into the teenage mind when I write – most specifically, Zellie, because I think a 16-year-old pastor’s daughter is definitely Tay Swift’s target demographic.

I’m not her target demographic. I’ll be thirty-seven in May. I drive a mini-van. When I was her age, Grunge music was all the rage. I have the flannels and long-haired college radio DJ’ing ex-boyfriend to prove it.

The last time I confessed to enjoying girly pop music…the name Debbie Gibson comes to mind. On the bus ride to school, Bill Ellis asked me if I liked Bon Jovi or Michael Jackson better and I said I loved Electric Youth.

One tends to remember the most embarrassing moments in their life.

After that, I never admitted to liking anything that wasn’t Cool Guy Approved – The Mighty Lemondrops, The Violent Femmes, Kate Bush, They Might Be Giants, Blondie, The Cure, Uncle Tupelo, The Pixies, The Replacements. I genuinely liked and like these artists.

But when I was home alone hairbrush singing in the mirror…I was all about Showtunes, Madonna, Cyndi Lauper, Paula Abdul (!), Celine Dion and Mariah Carey.

And forget New Country. That was like owning up to thinking it was okay to marry your cousin.

Hence, there was a period of time where I kept all of my Faith Hill CD’s in Ani DiFranco cases.

I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with liking Taylor Swift, or Mariah or Faith – it’s just not me that’s supposed to.

But I do, and not in an ironic guilty pleasure sort of way.

I like Taylor because she writes her own songs and because she learned how to play the banjo. She’s not the best singer in the world, but her intentions are good, her words are heartfelt and she tells a great story.

She writes about longing and forgiveness, first love, passion, heartbreak and getting your feelings hurt. I find her songs to always be in the moment and I never doubt that she’s gone through the emotions she’s singing about herself.

And that makes her relatable.

Who hasn’t loved someone that didn’t love them, or wished they could take something back that they’ve said?

Who among us hasn’t wanted to ask our critics, “why ya gotta be so mean?”

Plus, she basically called out John Mayer for being John Mayer-y in Dear John and I think that’s something we can all get behind.

Change is my favorite Taylor Swift song, mostly because it’s loud and rockin’ and makes me feel like I’m kickin’ ass and takin’ names.

Shall we commence to get our girly rock on?

1-2-3-4!

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Stacey Wallace Benefiel is the author of the Zellie Wells trilogy, the Day of Sacrifice series, The Toilet Business - a collection of essays, and multiple short stories. She sometimes goes by S.W. Benefiel, but knows she's not foolin' anybody. Stacey lives in an orange house in Beaverton, OR with her husband and their two kids.

Her website is: http://staceywallacebenefiel.com