Michael Ripplinger's Blog, page 3

March status update

My project tracker speaks for itself today:

Yesterday’s Demons is done! I finished it late Friday (early Saturday, technically). Then I celebrated with a bowl of cereal.

I chose a mix of vintage 2015 Boo-Berry and 2015 Franken Berry, and since this was a celebratory bowl, I added extra marshmallows. My beloved Disneyland coffee mug, seen in the background, contained the last of the Gevalia Columbian coffee that got me through the final copy edits.

I have two patron saints when it comes to w...

Please, Mr. Postman

Photo credit: Daria Nepriakhina

I recently got myself a mail box at the local post office. There’s just one problem: it’s sort of lonely. Right now, all I ever find in it is mail meant for its previous lessee.

So I’ll make you a deal, loyal friends and true: if you send me a postcard or a letter or an old Hallmark card you have laying around, I’ll send you a postcard right back. It will be fun! And if you have any children, it will be educational: they can see first-hand what this old-fangle...

Yesterday’s Demons cover reveal

It’s time! Without further ado, here’s the cover ofYesterday’s Demons:

I wanted this cover to do a lot. I wanted it to show the story’s hero, Siv McCaig, and one of the savage white demons. I wanted it to be an action scene, and I wanted it to demonstrate the story’s fantasy and Western elements.

It was a tall order, but artist Stuart Harrington ofStuArtStudiosnailed it! Working with Stu was a blast. He completely understood what I wantedYesterday’s Demonsto look like right from the beginnin...

Reminder: cover reveal coming soon

Photo credit: Pixabay

I’m going to pull the curtain off of the Yesterday’s Demonscover here on Wednesday of next week. But subscribers to my newsletter will get to see it on Monday.If you want to be one of them, please take a minute and subscribenow.

The cover is a painting by Stuart Harrington of StuArtStudiosand it is way cool. I’ll tell you this much about it now: it features the hero ofYesterday’s Demons, Siv McCaig, as well as a white demon, a monster responsible for Siv’s every nightmar...

2015 Year-End Status Update

Source: www.gratisography.com

I wrote about what I read last year, and about the tone of my personal life in 2015. But what about that “become a published novelist” project I’ve been working on?

At the start of last year, I came up with an action plan that had six items on it. I accomplished four of them.And I have a good reason for not finishing the other two. It has to do with a significant change of plans I made mid-year.

First, here’s what I planned to do and did.

Finish the second draft...

I have a newsletter now

Newsletters are cool. Or at least, that’s what I imagine the Eleventh Doctor would say while wearing a fez. Andnew for 2016, I’ve established one. I plan to send newsletters infrequently – only a few a year. But when I have big news, subscribers will hear it first.

The first newsletter I send will represent the official unveiling of the cover ofYesterday’s Demons!

Stuart Harrington of StuArtStudioscreated an amazing painting that you’re going to want to see right away. I’ll post it here on W...

2015: The Year of Fatigue

For a while, I called last year “The Year of Hell” in a nod to the classicStar Trek: Voyager two-parter. I stopped using this moniker for a few reasons. First, it was pathetically dramatic. Second, it was wildly inappropriate when there are Syrian refugees and parents with missing children and victims of senseless gun violence in the world. Finally, it was wrong because pretty much everything that happened to me in 2015 was not just good butgreat.

But there was so much stuff going on at the s...

2015 in Review: Reading

Howdy, strangers. I missed most of December ’round here because we moved into a new house early last month and I’ve spent the last three weeks unpacking. But it’s time to get back into it and I’m going to start with my 2015 reflections.

I know the fact that I’m still looking back at 2015 makes me look painfully behind the times, but it’s really only one of 1000 things that does that, and I don’t like to do my reflections on the past year until it’s actually over. What if something great happe...

Winter fire

I’m writing this on one of South Texas’s few days of cold, which means I’m writing it in front of a raging fire. I love fireplaces, especially brick ones, andespeciallystone ones.Maybe one of the reasons I love fantasy so much is because fantasy books feature so many scenes in taverns and inns and castles with massive stone hearths. The fireplace at Bag End sets the scene for Frodo’s quest inLord of the Rings. My favorite location in all ofThe Sword of Shanara is the Ohmsford family inn becau...