The drama continues over at #EquusFight, the contest where the equine stars of the anthology Equus are pitted against one another in a Battle Royale!
My trained war unicorns Nova and Reaver made it through the first competition, but they are neck-and-neck with a Sleipnir-inspired rival. Now, normally you know I’d be all supportive of Sleipnir, because of The Songweaver’s Vow and other stories, but not this time. This time it’s war. Unicorn war. Continue reading
I wanted to share an excerpt from a short story I sold a few months ago. This is taken from near the beginning:
He could not look away, could not move, could not speak . His chest was tight and his lungs constricted, and a distant part of his mind realized he was having a panic attack. Another fragment of rationality told him that was impossible, that he had no pulse to pound in his temples and no breath to catch. He was experiencing only what his subconscious thought he should, patterned by a lifetime of… life, when faced with a salient stimulus from a highly traumatic experience.
He swallowed against the pressure in his throat and drew a deep breath of what he knew wasn’t air. He closed his eyes and exhaled, counting to twenty. Then he opened his eyes again and faced his murderer.
No release date yet for the anthology, but I’ll let you know when I have one! Probably mid to late 2015.
Two cousins, the boy dressed in military camouflage and the girl in a ballerina outfit, wait outside a door as they go trick-or-treating,. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I’ll be honest, there’s a trick to this treat: this is only an excerpt. Not the complete story. (Sorry!) I’ve turned in three stories in the last two days, and there just wasn’t time to get this one done, too.
But I wanted to share at least a bit of it, because it’s seasonal, and it’ll be a fun peek behind the curtain of the writing process to see how it develops. Some stories keep a similar feel from the beginning, while others are hardly recognizable by the end. This one will change significantly before it’s done! but that’s why it’s called a draft. Also, please enjoy a glimpse of the quite-real Irvington Halloween Festival and maybe mark your calendars for next year!
I’d love to hear your comments on this work in progress, so please don’t be shy. Also please note that it will be available for a very limited time, because it is just a draft — and trick or treating doesn’t last forever! Continue reading
It’s hard to pick a favorite time of year — I like pretty much everything except March — but October would be near the top of any list. The colors, the slanting light, the crisp temperatures along with favorite traditions such as bonfires, pumpkins, and spooky stories.
I write this from a train car rolling through autumn colors. Trains are a great way to experience scenery, and I’ll have a travelogue post soon to share with you. But I have something else to share as well.
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Bonus: you’ll learn to count with kanji in the paperback edition of KITSUNE-MOCHI.
Want a sneak peek? Here’s a glimpse from chapter 3 of Kitsune-Mochi (sequel to Kitsune-Tsuki)…. Continue reading
Aarrrgh! It’s offic’ly Talk Like a Pirate Day! And in honor, we’re goin’ t’ look at a burnin’ question: Why d’ our pirates talk like this?
Of course, thar aren’t a lot o’ recorded pirate speeches. Even court records o’ tried and convicted pirates don’t capture t’ dialect o’ t’ accused. What we think o’ as “pirate speak” developed rel’tively recently in modern media.
I’m only flirting with the idea of #TeaserTuesday, but here’s a brief excerpt from Kitsune-Mochi. Let me know if you think #TeaserTuesday is a good idea, ‘kay?
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Assassin’s Creed (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I don’t typically attempt NaNoWriMo in the way that many writers do — I mean, actually writing a new novel — but I do use it as a shameless excuse to dedicate more time to side projects I wouldn’t otherwise. I have no memory of what I did with it last year, honestly, but two years ago I wrote an Renaissance espionage/thriller novella based on too many hours of Assassin’s Creed parkour and a single Within Temptation lyric. You need NaNoWriMo to justify toys like that. Continue reading
Okay, I am pretty equal-opportunity when it comes to paper books and ebooks. I have minor preferences — I like paper books for plane trips (no obligatory power-down!) and ebooks for reference material (I have no guilt highlighting and annotating a ebook, while defacing a paper book even in the name of education feels wrong) — but I feel fairly egalitarian about the whole thing.
I can flip through a paper book in a store and get my own free sample; I can’t with an ebook. Both types, however, offer (or suffer from) electronic sampling. Amazon automatically provides peeks of a book’s first 10%, while other sites allow the publisher to set a sample (my Smashwords account is set to show at least 20%, for example). Publishers (and self-publishing authors) need to consider this when laying out their books. Continue reading
