Kirby Crow's Blog, page 2

2 weeks!

I don’t know about you guys, but I can’t wait!

Rainbow Awards, and a new release!

The Rainbow Awards were a smash this year! 450+ books, 170 judges from all over the world, and $17,300 donated to LGBT charities. Elisa Rolle is a tireless supporter of LGBT visibility in literature and an amazing organizer and beautiful person. We love you, Elisa!

My novel Hammer and Bone (Riptide Publishing) took Rainbow Awards in Best Cover Illustration, Best LGBT Novel, and tied for 1st place in Best LGBT Anthology or Collection with Keep the Stars Running, an anthology by by Andrea Speed, Talya Andor, Lexi Ander, Leona Carver, and Cassandra Pierce. (Less Than Three Press). The King of Forever also took 3rd place for Best Cover Illustration

(So that’s like 4 wins for moi. Not that I’m bragging or anything. *decorates self in awards like tinsel on an Xmas tree la la la* )

Thank you, judges! I know the workload was especially heavy this year. If I could give you all an award, I would. But not mine, because… MINE.

And… Malachite is finally here.

I thought about Malachite for about a year before I wrote the first draft of a short story that eventually became the 115,000 word novel that will be released on January 1st. Malachite is an Alternate Earth story, more speculative/steampunk than fantasy, where an ancient island city-state populated entirely by males has become isolated from a female-dominated world. The city is now surrounded on all sides by pirates, gangs, and just plain bad blood. It a solid m/m romance with angst, sex, and an HEA. Though it’s the first part of a series, it’s a complete story in itself (no cliffhangers). And if you want an early look at Jean, Marion, & Tris, I’ve been posting chapters of Malachite on its Tumblr blog, and will continue to do that until December 31.

I’m so excited about this book!

 

 

 

Malachite

I know I’m lazy about updating my blog. I’m trying to fix that. You can throw pies at me later.

I’ve been sharing chapters of my new novel Malachite over at Tumblr, I guess because it’s really easy to post there, and WordPress? Not so much.

Malachite will be released in 2015. I’ve got some CRAZY deadlines this year and Malachite is one of two novels to be published by 2016. Anyway, I’m posting part 1 below. Parts 2-4 are also on Tumblr, but I’ll be posting them here for the rest of the week, too.

Tumblr Link

1

Thirty years ago…

“Well, if it isn’t Aureo’s pet cat. Didn’t think you’d show!”

Jean shrugged. “Here I am.”

Chal was big for his age, in an age where boys in the Zanzare slums grew like brittle reeds with rotting teeth and spindly limbs, bones ravaged by rickets, guts gnawed by parasites and hunger.

Jean Rivard was skinny and small, black-haired, big hands and feet but bony everywhere else. Where he would be if Aureo hadn’t seen the promise in his thick wrists and the murder in his flashing eyes?

Over the sea wall, that’s where, Jean thought. Straight into the mouths of crabs and bottom feeders.

Chal was a bottom feeder. The older boy had made Jean the offer of a fair fight in the Mire, hoping to lure him with the promise of mercy if he was defeated. Jean wasn’t that stupid. Plenty of other boys had been. Where were they now, those stupid, stupid boys? Ask the crabs.

Jean flexed his hands and stood with his feet wide apart on the mound of the Cerchio Paladino. A broken circle of pale, ruined towers surrounded the mound, and dark was falling fast. The marsh was coming alive with a thousand sounds as stars winked into existence against a brooding gray sky. Waves lapped the sea wall and salty gusts swirled sand around their bare ankles.

Chal had dirty brown hair and a shark smile. The sunburst scar on his arm where he’d been branded into the Crossbones was still pink and shiny at the edges. He posed with his hands on his hips twenty feet away and smiled, turned his head and spat into the green turf that grew soft and tame on the sacred mound of the Aequora, but wild everywhere else. He swaggered a little about the mound. “Well then, puss. Let’s get on with it.”

“What’s your rush?”

Chal’s shoulders were easy, his hands uncurled. Chal was arrogant, and why shouldn’t he be?

“No point in wasting my time. We both know you’re never leaving here. Say hello to the fish for me.” He slipped his hand under his vest.

Jean turned his head as if to spit, but whistled low and long instead.

Chal froze.

The Mire was a flat expanse of ruined masonry and swamp. Three thousand years ago, an opulent city of towers and castles had stood there. The swamp had been gorging on it for centuries. All across the misty land, crooked black trees veiled in moss thrust their trunks up from the muck and threw long shadows over thickets of reeds and eelgrass.

From those shadows, twenty small heads rose, and one man.

Chal jerked his hand from his vest, guilt flooding his cheeks in hues of red. “What the fuck’s this, then?”

Jean turned a pitying look on the other boy. Chal knew what it was. He just hadn’t accepted it yet. Jean waited for Aureo to join them in the circle, one adult male followed by twenty boys.

Aureo Marigny was six and a half feet of ropey muscle and menace with a soft step and a charming smile. Laugh lines were stamped deep in his bronzed skin, haloed by a coiffed head of golden blond hair. My best weapons, Aureo was fond of saying. At thirty years old, he was supreme overlord of the Teschio gangs infesting every island of Malachite.

In the Citta Alta, the Consolari called them simply gangers, but down in the Mire and the Zanzare, all knew they were Crossbones, and they were death.

The boys formed an outer circle around the ring of turf as Aureo towered over the two boys on the mound. The eyes of the twenty young watchers were solemn and dry. There’d be no tears today. Aureo didn’t tolerate weepers, and the weak were culled quickly from his ranks. His branco, he called his army of boys, as if they were a flock of sheep. In some ways they were, but every boy had his own specialty of violence or graft. Their one desire was to join the Teschio, to proudly bear the brand on their skin and name themselves Crossbones.

Among the branco, only Chal wore the brand. Chal was talented but viciously petty, and that amused Aureo enough to mark him.

Jean knew most of the boy’s names. There was Remo the Swan, who could dance. Flame, who had hair redder than wine. Verdi the spy. The Frog Twins. Reed and Mario and Carlo. Francis, who was only a little smarter than a rock. And there was Marion, Aureo’s current favorite, with hair as bright as the sun and prettier than ten Remo’s. Marion had lost his father the same day Jean lost his, in the same Zanzare street war. Aureo had found them weeping together over a pair of shattered corpses.

The rumor among the branco was that Marion was Chal’s highest target, but Chal hadn’t dared yet, not while Marion was a favorite.

“Chal, my boy,” Aureo said fondly. His words were so soft, so gentle. A scorpion’s tail hidden under velvet. “Chal, dear heart, give us your knife.”

“I don’t have—” Chal began. He glanced at Aureo’s gentle expression and surrendered the blade hilt first.

Aureo knelt. He wiped the edge of the knife on the damp turf several times before he drove it into the ground between the boys.

“Vendetta laws,” Aureo declared loudly. “One weapon, no interference.” He patted Chal on his hairless cheek. “And no poison either, lovely. Poison is for bastards and traitors. Little Jean is neither.”

“Oh,” Chal said from between gritted teeth, “he’s a bastard, all right.”

“Because he outsmarted you?” Aureo chuckled. “If so, we’re all bastards.” Aureo lowered his voice. “I told you to leave off last time, didn’t I? I’d be wading hip-deep in dead boys if you had your way. Think of this as… a penance.”

Chal shoulders lost their tense set of peril. His lip curled. “Sì, maestro.”

Jean watched them closely. Chal had probably intended to finish him off quick with the poison, throw him over the wall and return to the Zanzare boasting of another easy victory. Six other boys who had disappeared the same way. The only thing those dead boys had in common was a whisper of talent and catching Aureo’s eye.

Taken in all, Chal was a jealous little shit.

Aureo stepped away to the edge of the circle. “When you’re ready.”

Chal winked at Aureo. “Don’t go far.” He looked at Jean and sneered. “This won’t take long.”

He’s right about that, Jean thought. Chal was a head taller and twenty pounds heavier, a seasoned killer. Jean had no kills to his name yet, no family, no reputation. Only that brutal promise that Aureo alone seemed to divine.

“If you say so,” Aureo returned. “Don’t dawdle, though. A wicked storm is brewing.” Aureo locked eyes with Jean. The man nodded.

Jean reached for his belt and slipped the thin stiletto from the leather sheath. Chal’s chin lifted as he scanned the sky for thunderclouds. Jean drew back his arm and threw. The springy blade, no broader than a wasp, sang out with a buzzing whine and buried deep in Chal’s throat.

A collective shiver went through the watching boys. A few sighed. Some laughed when Chal croaked like a toad and clawed at his neck, his hands running red.

Only one boy didn’t move, didn’t sigh, betrayed nothing. Marion was like a pale statue among living creatures, beautiful and perfect and cold.

Aureo came back into the circle and nudged Chal with his boot. Chal choked and grabbed at Aureo’s leg with bloody fingers. The knife stuck out of his neck like a quill in an inkwell.

Red ink, Jean thought. The only ending Chal would be writing was his own.

“Dear me, aren’t you a mess?” Aureo smiled down at the dying boy. “I told you— no more fucking poison. See what happens when you don’t listen?” Aureo looked into the face of every boy as Chal wriggled in the dirt like an earthworm drying in the sun.

“Remember this, oh my kittens: Chal was warned, but he chose not to heed me. He chose. When I give an order, you obey it like it came down from Paladin himself. My commands are the word of fucking God.” Aureo pointed at Jean. “Just as I ordered Jean to throw the knife. This was not a duel. It was an execution.”

Jean stood amazed as Aureo approached him, his eyes fixed on the bloody handprint staining Aureo’s knee.

“Only one of our own can be commanded to send a Teschio into Paladin’s arms,” Aureo said. He laughed loudly and clapped Jean on the back. “Remo! Bring the iron!”

The boys gathered round, hooting and chanting Jean’s name, rubbing his hair for luck, pounding his back. He barely felt their hard fists, filled as they were with joy and envy and relief, and no small amount of fear. Chal would not be murdering again. Jean had killed the monster, but what manner of beast was taking his place? Would he be fairer than Chal, or should they fear him? Even Jean didn’t know.

The boys kindled a fire and Aureo dropped the branding iron into the coals. Jean smiled carelessly and sat cross-legged by the warmth to wait for the iron to glow. He drank from the wineskin Aureo offered as the boys dragged Chal to the wall and tipped him over. Chal’s legs were still kicking.

The stars came out. Aureo pulled the red-hot brand from the fire. Jean began to kneel, but Aureo shook his head.

“Stand tall, prince cat. Kneeling is for slaves and dogs. Teschio have no masters, no law but ourselves. We’re free souls, and until the axeman comes for our heads, no bastard will put us on our knees.” Aureo showed Jean the branding iron, held it near his cheek and let him feel the heat radiating from the metal.

Jean looked up at Aureo calmly. Come what may, the day was his. He’d shown Aureo that he had no fear of killing or death. Be damned if he’d be scared of a little burn.

Aureo watched him for a long  moment, then grinned and pressed the brand to Jean’s bare arm. Iron met flesh with a sizzle and a curl of steam. Jean gritted his teeth until his jaw ached, but made no sound. His flesh smoked with an acrid stink.

“Benvenuto alla famiglia,” Aureo pronounced. “You’re Crossbones.”

He laughed, but he was crying, too. Aureo took Jean’s face between his hands and kissed him on both cheeks.

“We’re family!” Aureo grinned and shook Jean until his teeth rattled. “Marion? Where are you? Ah, come here, boy! Come shake hands with Jean! You’ll be brothers when you earn your brand. Won’t be long now.”

Marion came forward and offered his hand.

Jean grinned. His smile died when he saw the flat dislike in Marion’s eyes.

“Congratulazioni,” Marion murmured. He touched Jean’s hand and looked away, over the sea wall, where Chal’s body had not floated into sight yet.

It was Jean’s first experience with Marion Casterline’s knotty contradictions of morality and justice. He couldn’t see the pity in the result here. “Thank you,” Jean answered.

“Do you think he’s dead yet?”

Jean shrugged. “Dunno. What’s it matter?” His arm began to hurt, pain setting in as the fire in his blood ebbed.

Marion gave him a long, cold look. Jean squirmed under that merciless study. Marion examined him like he was pulling apart some poisonous creature washed ashore.

“It matters,” Marion said. “Don’t you ever forget that it matters.”

***

Havin’ a sale, yup!

If you STILL haven’t read Scarlet and the White Wolf, Book 1, a new revised edition is on sale at Amazon Kindle for 1/2 price for a short time. Getcha one!

Or, if you’ve read it and liked it, how about recommending it to a friend?

Isn’t he cute?

 

I’m working on revised paperback editions of the first Scarlet trilogy today, but they probably won’t be for sale until the end of the month. If I finish work on The King of Forever paperback edition over the weekend, I’ll announce it, but I’m pretty sure I won’t have the proof before next week. I know that Amazon lets you see the finished paperback digitally, but I prefer to have it in my hands and makes sure its perfect before it goes on sale.   Gotta look out for you guys!

 

 

 

The King of Forever

FINALLY, right?

I know you guys have been very… Very… VERY patient, so hugs and virtual chocolate to everyone who sent me asks about the series and have been anticipating its release. I love you all! 

This week has been brutal with the heat, the AC conking out, and my computer just refusing to work if it has to, you know, be all hot and stuff. I was working really late (because my office stops imitating a steam chamber when the sun goes down) on some last minute touches to the cover artwork, my Wacom pen was on its last legs, and my poor, tired brain went into vapor lock. I completely messed up the cover in CS5. While trying to merge a layer, I accidentally flattened all the layers, and then I saved over it and closed it. Not a huge deal for the digital cover (since it was almost finished) but a really big deal for the paperback cover. That’s what I get for sitting at my desk until Stupid O’clock

Luckily, I remembered that I may have had a wonderful moment of paranoia and backed up that folder with its  umpteen hours of artwork to an external drive, and there it was. So, yes, the paperback version will keep chugging along.

Scarlet and the White Wolf, Book 4 is available for Kindle pre-order on Amazon with a release date of July 10. The date can’t be moved back, so there won’t be any more delays. I wanted desperately to make the end-of-June date on my website, but I really need this extra time to put some last-minute continuity work into the manuscript(s) and to firm up the date for when The Temple Road will be available.  That’s SatWW Book 5, in case I haven’t mentioned it.  The Temple Road is already completed and well into the editing process. I hope to have the paperback editions for both books available close to the ebook release dates, but I won’t give out an exact date until I’m positive.

On July 10, I’ll have a firmer date for SatWW 5’s release. All I can tell you right now is that it’s coming out in 2015, hopefully closer to fall than winter. SatWW 6 will be released in 2016, BUT it will be the beginning of a new chapter for Scarlet and Liall, and the story will be separate from Books 4 and 5.

Got that? 4 & 5 connected, 6… not so much.

And that’s all, you amazing folks. Thank you so, so much for all your kind words and encouragement (and prodding! I needed that!) and for reading my novels and hanging in there. I hope you’ll feel it’s been worth it.

-Kirby

 

 

 

 

 

Hammer and Bone

So this is my new book, a novel-length collection of short stories tied together by themes of retribution, hatred, prejudice, loss, and love. I’ve been pitching this book hard all week (as authors do), so before I drive anyone away with my (amazeballs) sales patter, I’m just going to refer you guys to The Novel Approach and Goodreads. You can see what other readers have said about it and decide whether or not this book is for you.

Have a great weekend!

I need a virtual vacation

I’ve discovered that whenever I’m in full-swing writing mode (LIKE NOW OMG fingers ow!), I tend to neglect some important stuff. Like laundry, the clock, cooking dinner, forgetting to pay the phone bill, and… oh yeah, playing games.

You wouldn’t think the last one would matter so much, but for me, it really does. Like reading books and watching movies, gaming is my recharge function. It’s the headspace I crawl into where I just absorb, unwind, and I can appreciate someone else’s creation, some other artist’s world. It’s a poor writer that doesn’t read, and it’s an uninspired Crow that doesn’t game.

I’ve been looking at some of my old game screenshots. EVE Online, mostly. I miss it. I haven’t played for about 4 months now. Not for lack of wanting to, but it’s a subscription game and those add up when you have more than one. Plus, I have to choose where my energies go. I get just as frustrated by not writing as I do by writing too much.

I’m almost never still and I’m almost never bored. Too much holds my interest, so many things I want to do, so much stuff I want to learn. I have a restless mind. I only truly relax when I’m in a virtual world somewhere or in the woods. Even asleep, I dream constantly and vividly.

Maybe there’s something about a virtual world that pulls a blanket over some part of our consciousness, frees it to drift away with our eyes wide open. That could be some of that unexplainable lure that gaming addicts experience; the ability to truly cut ourselves loose from who we are for a little while. I’ve read about gaming addictions, but it’s never happened to me. When it’s time to turn something off, I do it. There’s always some real-life klaxon going off anyway, calling me to this or that chore, so my gaming binges are short-lived perforce. I have a much harder time closing down CS5. I can be too frazzled to write or too distracted to play, but I’m never too sick to paint. If I’d chosen to be an artist instead of a writer, who knows how it would have turned out?

Good thing I decided to be both.

 

 

Crow Compromises. Sort of.

I haven’t posted much about gaming lately, like I haven’t posted much about art and drawing, for the simple reason… I haven’t been able to do it. My right hand went wonky (de Quervain’s tenosynovitis) in early spring of 2014, and when I say wonky, I mean it didn’t work. I couldn’t grip a bottle, a pen, I couldn’t open a jar, turn a doorknob, nothing. My hand was this useless fleshy stump-thing on the end of my arm. Worst of all, I couldn’t type very well or very long and I couldn’t hold a game controller. At some point in late August I could begin holding my Xbox controller, but it was painful and I realized after an hour of Assassin’s Creed that I was damaging my wrist again. If I wasn’t careful, I’d need surgery and I’d be looking at even more months of recovery.

How did this happen? Blame my green tea plants and tomatoes. I’d noticed my wrist and thumb feeling sort of weak and stiff over the weekend in March. I put it down to the fact that I did catch my thumb in the bathroom door handle and wrench it something awful (it’s a narrow hallway, the handle is antiquated, it’s just clumsy all around in that old hall) and I remembered feeling lucky that it didn’t really hurt at the time, despite how bad it was twisted. Welp, it caught up to me that Monday. I dug out the bed for the tomatoes and moved a 50 lb bag of mulch for my tea plants. My thumb was stiff and the bones of my wrist felt like they were separating whenever I lifted something. But I’d wrap it that night, put some ice on it, a little Ben-Gay maybe (stinky!) and I’d be fine in the morning.

Nope.

I thought it was a sprain and I treated it like one, wrapping, ice, heat, Ibuprofen, etc. We went on vacation in May and I couldn’t swim in the ocean because the waves hurt. Then I swam because I wanted a shark to bite it off. It just wouldn’t stop. Just ow ow ow every time I moved my thumb. It went on far too long for a sprain.

Anyway, it was a type of tendonitis caused by use, or rather overuse. I couldn’t garden and spend hours typing and game through the night. Something had to go. I compromised. I updated my speech-to-text software and began using that more to write. I turned the vegetable garden over to the menfolk. I typed with a chopstick taped my brace. I gave up my Xbox controller for the foreseeable future. Oh yeah, and I gave up washing dishes. That was someone else’s job all summer.

I didn’t have to give up PC gaming so much because the hand movements you do with PC are smaller than your fingers spanning a console controller. But it was still awkward trying to game with a ring mouse (it fits on my index finger) and after a dozen sessions of getting my ass handed to me by Orcs and pirates rats, I stopped playing. I could draw on my Wacom tablet and CS5, but not for very long, and it came down to short-term denial vs long-term benefits. So all summer and fall and on into winter, I was not an active gamer. I followed the news, enthused over new releases, kept up with my favorite people at Gamestop, watched the guys play, but I couldn’t participate beyond that. I read a lot of Game Informer magazine. I watched a lot of Netflix.

It was depressing.

Anyway, I stopped sleeping with the brace on my hand in October. I’d put off some orthodontic (toofypegs!) surgery as long as I could by then, so I exchanged one pain for another and there were complications (naturally!) and it was a crappy Autumn altogether. My left wrist is also beginning to show signs of wear now from compensating for the right. It’s not nearly as bad as the right and it won’t get that bad, it’s just tight and achy and I have to baby it a bit, now that the right is healed. But this type of injury tends to happen again after the first time. You never really get rid of it. I’ve had to make some adjustments in how I do things, mostly using athletic tape on my hands if I’m going to play for a long time on console. I wish I was kidding. And wearing a really stiff hand brace if I use gardening tools. No more slogging 50 lb bags of topsoil or mulch across the yard, either. That’s what a wheelbarrow is for. Or menfolk.

Alas, I still have to do the dishes.

For everyone who reads this blog for the gaming meta and virtual life thinky-thoughts: I’m back.

If you’re waiting for books from me (and I hope you are, because I really do love my readers) it was a frustrating 2014, but I’m back.

To the Orcs, Spiders, Uruks, and Wargs of Ettenmoors: I’m back. Hide your collective hairy asses.

 

 

 

 

Pin the stocking on the Grinch

If you’re like me, you look forward to Christmas, but not the poundage you’re destined to pack on from all the goodies. To that end, I’ve been choosing alternate stocking stuffers for years. I get sick of chocolate by Halloween, so by the time Christmas finally rolls around, I don’t want to see one more bon-bon, truffle or chocolate orange. NO MORE.

However, in my family, a stuffed stocking is non-negotiable. You either take your damn candy with a smile or you’re a Grinch! But substitutions are allowed…

To that end, I’ve made a list of alternate items I’ve placed on my stocking list over the years.  One of your Grinches might like them!

Numi Tea

You can’t go wrong with Numi. Every flavor is delicious. They’re also the perfect shape for wrapping.

Freeze dried strawberries and bananas

Dried bananas can be quite hard and dries strawberries can be chewy or sour or both, but freeze drying is a different process. They’re delicious!

Dried fruits and nuts

Apricots, cherries, cranberries, blueberries, walnuts, pecans, papaya, pineapple, almonds, dates, figs, anything you can imagine. Dress them up in decorative jars with a pretty ribbon or piece of fabric. Don’t just chuck a bag of trail mix in there because THAT’S CHEATING.

Gourmet coffee

Bag or single-serve pouches, doesn’t matter. Starbuck has great little packs of single serve instant coffees called Starbucks VIA. They’re my favorite.

Herbs and spices

Small, delicate jars of saffron, vanilla bean, organic curry, or smoked chipotle. I love chives but they’re kind of expensive so I hoard them like gold. Any herb or spice your Grinch desires is good, but again, ribbons, wrapping and attention are required. A stocking shouldn’t look like a bag of groceries.

Honey and Jams

A squat jar of gourmet fig preserves or a thin bottle of Tupelo honey is better than any peanut butter cup.

Liquor

Drop an alcohol miniature of Devil’s Cut, Tequila Rose, or Baileys Irish Cream in there and you won’t want to cuss your relatives out by lunchtime. You’ll be laying under the tree, but whatever.

Jerky

We have now moved into male stockings. No, not that kind.

Or you can do what I do sometimes, and tell your family and friends if they simply must buy you a box of holiday candy or drop something into your stocking, you’d rather have an iTunes or Steam card. Given the average price of a box of candy (and how long it lasts around my house) I’d much rather have a gift I can enjoy for more than *38 seconds

 

*candy-devouring time approximate.

Ehrmagerd

This totally counts as a blog update.

Minimalist style.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

*injects a lot of carriage returns and spaces*

*slinks away*