Fell Beasts & Fair: A Noblebright Anthology

I may have mentioned that 2018 was going to be a busy year for me…

….which is why, barely a week after the publication of Staff & Crown, I’m bringing your attention to another book that has a piece of me in it–AKA, one of my stories.

Introducing Fell Beasts & Fair; a Noblebright Anthology, from Spring Song Press. This collection of 23 stories ranging from short stories to novellettes will be out on March 20th, and it is my delight to share with you a short excerpt from my own offering (plus an excerpt from one of my favourites in the collection).

Cloudy With a Chance of Dropbears is a UF novellette that takes place in the world of the UF series I will begin publishing half way through this year, and features that most Australian of mystical creatures–the Dropbear. Below is a sample for your delectation! 

–oOo–

I went and got my own coffee before the coffee boy got back, eager to sniff out more payments that had a suspicious lack of product to go with them. I put it down on my desk and settled myself to sit down, but something sharp and hot seared my leg where my Behind Identify Card should be. I yelped and pinched it out of my pocket. Behind magic is the good stuff, but there’s nothing that melts faster than an Identify Card, magic or no magic. Something about magic and the newer human manufactured substances doesn’t blend well.

Now that I looked at the card, it was a lot blacker than it should be. Well, parts of it were blacker than they should be and it was still hot in my fingers, and now there was nothing burning in my pocket… I squinted down at it, irritated to find that my glasses weren’t around my neck, and reached for the desk where the missing glasses should have been.

My desk wasn’t there. Actually, the office wasn’t there. No wonder the ground was so squishy beneath my peg—it was real grass, not the magic-fake they put in Behind offices.

Great. Someone had relocated the office without telling me. I’d send off a pretty well loaded message as soon as I found where those goons in Location had parked it this time. I’m as security conscious as the next leprechaun, but there was no way we’d been found so soon after the last move. I looked down at my Identify card again, and it looked a bit red in the middle. Red in the middle, and if I squinted at it just right, there were words making a black scrawl in the centre of the red bit.

Kill the kid and you can come back, it said.

I snuffled a dry laugh down at it. Somebody was having a laugh. It was a bit stupid, though; kid was the word used for human children, and who was going to find a kid Behind? I looked a bit closer, and a sticky breeze swept across my forearms, raising goosebumps in spite of its warmth. That wasn’t just red behind the writing. It was Red. If somebody was having a laugh, why was my Identify Card marked Red for Deport? Deportation Red meant tried, executed, and deported. No return to Behind.

That was stupid. Someone had to be having a laugh. I was still Behind…wasn’t I? But where in Behind was I? I looked around me, dazedly taking in the dark green foliage of trees and the playground, and the half tree that someone had turned into a house—wait. The playground? Fae don’t have playgrounds. And why was the heat so heavy today? Where in Behind had access to this kind of muggy heat? Muggy…muggy heat? There’s no muggy heat Behind; too many weather mages.

“No,” I said numbly, sweat springing to my brow. “Because that means I’m—that means I’m in the human world.”

Red for Deport. I was in the human world.

–oOo–

And because I really loved the feel and characters of Alena Sullivan’s Blanche, Bear-Wife, here is a sample of that delightful read…

–oOo–

It’s during the ice storm in February that the bear first comes by. “I hate to be a bother, but it’s mighty cold out,” he rumbles apologetically, hugging his ice-crusted coat tight around his shoulders as he ducks through the doorway. “It is, that,” I admit, smiling a little crookedly and pouring a hot mug of apple cider. I reckon that’s the sort of thing a bear could drink— it’s something warm, at any rate. I set it on the counter as the bear lumbers up and takes a seat on the stool across from me, gingerly testing it against his weight before he settles properly.

Rosie nudges me, elbow bordering on painful against my ribs. “He’s a bear,” she grits out through clenched teeth.

I lift a shoulder in a shrug. “It’s cold out there.” My Gramma, who raised me, is a little old lady who believes in real Southern hospitality, in making everybody welcome and looking after them all the same. When she opened this place, it was the only joint on the street that didn’t have a sign in the window that said whites only, and she never looked twice at anybody, not for their color or their war wounds or their piercings or tattoos. She doesn’t like my tattoos much, but she loves me, with or without them, and I’m not gonna shame her by turning anybody away in this weather.

“A freaking bear,” Rosie repeats, a little louder, a little shrill, and I can feel my mouth go tight around a cringe. The bear flinches.

“That’s no call to be impolite,” I say.

–oOo–

Fell Beasts & Fair will be out on March 20th, and is available for preorder on Kindle, Kobo, iBooks, Smashwords, and B&N. Paperback will be available soon!

Cover Reveal: A TIME TRAVELLER’S BEST FRIEND

Guys, I’m so excited! I’ve been wanting to update the cover for A TIME TRAVELLER’S BEST FRIEND for a little while now (I mean, I love the old one, too, but I needed something more commercially viable), but I wanted to make sure that I first a). had an idea of the sort of thing I wanted, and b). had the second volume written and almost ready to go.

Of course I got Jenny to do the cover. I knew how good she was going into this, and the conversations we had about the cover really had me excited, so I had very high expectations of the cover.

Those expectations? They were totally blown out of the water. This cover. I mean, THIS COVER, GUYS.

It’s perfect. It’s amazing. It’s my FAVOURITE COVER SO FAR.

Guys, I can’t even—I just—just WOW

Keep an eye out over the next couple of weeks: I’ll be blogging and talking about A TIME-TRAVELLER’S BEST FRIEND: MEMENTO MORI over the next two months in preparation for publication day in September. Closer to the day there will be another cover reveal, and you can expect excerpts, competitions, and giveaways, etc.

Also, don’t forget to let me know if you’re not on my Awesome Beta Readers list and want to be. I’m signing up Betas over the next week, in particular for this scifi series; so if you love Douglas Adams-esque scifi, message/pm/email me!

Update: Bright as the Eyes of You

Hi, everyone!

So, as you may have seen, Bright as the Eyes of You has a complete first draft on Wattpad, and now nearly a complete second draft in hardcopy (changes which I now have to transfer to digital, argh!) Some very lovely readers have already sent me niggles and inconsistencies that they noticed in the first draft so that I could fix them for the second, so I’ve been very busy with that.

What’s next?

I’m so glad you asked.

At the moment I’m mired up in Copyright Swamp. As some of you may or may not have guessed, the title of BatEoY and all the chapter headings were tiny excerpts from songs by one of my favourite bands, The Monkees. And since songs sung by The Monkees are still under copyright, I’ve had to go scouring the internets for the copyright holders of 16 different excerpts from 16 different songs.

It ain’t easy, I’m tellin’ ya!

I’ve heard back from a few of them, but nothing to tell me how much it will cost to get licenses to use the lyrics, so I’m still stuck. If it’s too expensive, I’ll have to simply seek a license for the title and take away the chapter headings for publication. It will make me sad, but I’d be sadder if I were to be sued for copyright infraction, so there’s that.

Fellow writers, don’t do this to yourself. Don’t pick out chapter headings from still-copyrighted songs and then come to love your odd, perfect, whimsical chapter headings so much that it seems to physically hurt to take them away. Learn from my pain.

Anyhoo.

Now that I’ve got the second draft of BatEoY nearly ready to go, I’ll be sending out copies to my Awesome Beta Readers next week. (I’ll also send it off to my mum, so she can pick out all my typos). And after that, BatEoY will be going off to an Actual Editor™ for a second round of edits. I’m kinda nervous, because I haven’t worked with an Actual Editor™ before.

But no gain without pain, eh?

So if you’ve read the first draft of BatEoY, now is the time to tell me all the mistakes I made. Seriously. Have at it.

And now that I’ve (sort of) finished BatEoY (well, come to a temporary, unavoidable halt, anyway), and now that I’m finally caught up on my NaNoWriMo word count, I’m going RELAX HARD. Oh, and sit down and watch some KDrama. Because it’s study, guys.

Have a glorious week, you blokes!

Exciting News! (Also, Help!)

Guys!

Masque has been nominated for, and come out as a finalist in, the 2016 eFestival of Words Best of the Independent eBook Awards!

Twice.

Once in Best Novel, then again in Best Fantasy (High Fantasy/Sword and Sorcery).

Screenshot (142)Screenshot (143)

Whhhhhheeeeeeeeeeee!

The finalists are now open to public votes, so if you’ve read and enjoyed Masque, please head on over to the Bards and Sages eFestival of Words website and vote in one (or both!) categories. I promise to think you’re awesome for the rest of my life!

Three cheers (and lots of Hogan’s Heroes)!

It’s finished!

The Short Thing I started as a challenge has grown to be a 41k word novella titled PLAYING HEARTS, and has finally finished its growth spurt! I had a huge day of writing on Saturday (6k) and a huge day today (5.5k) to finish it; and it feels SO GOOD!

Now I’m gonna put it aside for a week and not touch it until I start my week of intensive editing.PLAYING HEARTS BOOK COVER-picmonkey

That means…

Me watching Hogan’s Heroes
Me reading LOTR again (then more Hogan’s Heroes)
Me finishing Catching Fire (then more Hogan’s Heroes)
Me drinking SO MANY cuppa teas (while watching Hogan’s Heroes)

*Happy Sigh!*

A WHOLE WEEK to relax!

Now I just have to be firm about Not Writing.

Hey! If you want a free, advance copy of PLAYING HEARTS (on March 1st), join my mailing list! You’ll also get MASQUE for free!

Cover Art and Competence

I’ve always been under the impression that I’ve not got the talent for cover-making.

Hey, for all I know, that impression is the correct one. But I came across a handy-dandy guide on Joanna Penn’s blog, in which a process for making covers through Microsoft Word was explained and shown. So I thought, ‘Well, why not give it a try?’

So I did. My Underland Novelette Thing now has both a cover and a title. Hooray!

Introducing PLAYING HEARTS, its cover, and a small excerpt by the way of a bit of contrast from my MASQUE’s 1st Birthday Posts. Let me know what you think! And if you haven’t yet signed up to my Newsletter, do so now: PLAYING HEARTS will be made available to my subscribers for free, a couple months early.

 

Playing Hearts Official Take Umptyteenth 3-page-001

Above my head, the Queen’s voice said: “I’d hate to think that you’re sharing your…tea…around Underland. It’s not healthy.”

There was a garbled mumble from the Hare that made me thankfully aware that he was still alive, and Hatter sat down again. I immediately seized his legs again, and though they were as skinny as ever they weren’t as stiff. I had the feeling he was as glad for me as I was for him.

“Not healthy for you, and certainly not healthy for them,” said the Queen. I didn’t think she was really talking about tea, but for the life of me I couldn’t figure out what she was talking about. “The type of tea you’re spreading about has a nasty habit of poisoning the drinkers.”

“Poisoned tea is no use,” said Hatter, his legs quivering. “All our guests would die. Dead guests are so hard to entertain. Perhaps a little sip of Syrup of Poppies instead?”

“Number Six, restrain the Hare,” said the Queen. Her voice was soft and plump, like a pillow. A pillow pressed against my face so that I couldn’t breathe. “I’ve heard that a hare’s foot is good luck.”

Above my head there was a brief, violent struggle, the sound of smashing crockery and what sounded like the Hare’s feet beating against the tabletop.

“CALUMNY!” yelled the Hare, his voice more frenzied than before. “A HARE MAKES HIS OWN LUCK, MADAM!”

 

Gratitude And The Self-Publisher

It’s a funny thing, this self-publishing business. You start out with reasonably realistic expectations–‘I’ll probably only sell a book per month at first’, and ‘It’ll take a long time to build that email list’–and you put your head down and work at the thing.

You sell your book-per-month, and you feel grateful. You’re excited that there’s someone out there every month who wants to read your book. Then it’s four books a month. After that, it’s four books per week. At first you feel delighted: your sales are growing! But the next month, when it’s still only the four books per week, a subtle sense of disappointment begins to creep in. You begin to forget that once you were happy with a book per month.

Soon you’re averaging a sale per day. Giddy excitement! Life has never seemed so good! You may not be one of the best sellers out there–or even one of the best Indie sellers–but you’re not doing too bad for yourself. And your sales are still growing, albiet slowly. Maybe you have a promotion or two. Suddenly there are spikes of twenty to one hundred sales over a day or two, and it feels great! Then you get back to the humdrum sale-per-day after the promotion ends, and suddenly it feels a bit flat…

What’s the problem here? There is no problem. Your sales are fine. Your career is fine. It’s still growing, and it’s still miles ahead of the reasonable expectations you had when you started this thing. And yet, that subtle sense of disappointment still tends to creep in when you’re not watching out for it. You have to remind yourself that a sale-and-a-bit per day is miles ahead of where you reasonably expected to be a few months ago. There are still many miles to go and many readers to reach before you find your audience.

What does this have to do with you, you may be asking? (Apart from my use of the 2nd person for the blog post, that is). To you I reply: Precisely nothing. It’s more of a reminder to myself. But for all the other indie authors out there who sometimes feel glum and disappointed at the amount of books they’re selling (or not selling, as the case may be), try looking back to your beginning as an author.  I bet you’re doing better now than you were then. And you’ve probably done the same thing I have: you’ve become so used to a higher rate of sales that you’ve ceased to be grateful for what you’ve got. Take a moment to remember what it was like when you were starting out. It helps to put things in perspective.

And maybe don’t check your sales every day. That’ll help, too.

What A Glorious Feeling!

There’s a really horrible part of writing. It’s that part, about halfway through–or even 3/4 of the way through, or right at the end–when you’re convinced that everything you write is utter drivel and it feels like there’s no saving it. The plot is hopelessly holey, the dialogue is trite and stiff, and the surrounding prose is as uninspired at a piece of toast.

We all get it. Well. get it, and I’d hate to think I’m alone in my funk, misery–as they say–loving company. For me, this time, it hit like a sledgehammer right at the end of FIRE IN THE BLOOD. I didn’t even want to edit it. TWELVE DAYS OF FAERY was so quick and easy to write, and it felt like FITB was one drag after another–problems with characters, problems with plot-holes, etc. Most of ’em I fixed as I went, but it left me feeling raw and uncertain about the whole novella. Especially since I preset a publication date on FITB before it was finished (December 25th, in case you’re wondering).

That was then.

Now?

This is me now:

giphy

What makes the difference, you ask?

Well, mostly I think it’s mental. As in, I’m mental, inclined to worry, and unnecessarily complicate things by obsessing over them. Also, a little while ago I finished first edits of FITB (with two quicker rounds to go). Not only did I fix the remaining, tiny (much tinier than I remembered) plot-holes, but I found that the whole thing was about twenty times better than I remembered it being. The dialogue was everything I wanted it to be, the story progressed so much more smoothly than I remembered, and it was all in all a much better novella than I thought it was. So I polished it some more and then went and watched The Marriage Of Figaro on Youtube.

All that wasted worry! I could have spent that on something else!

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