Jennifer Linsky's Blog, page 3
April 29, 2017
Saturday Scenes, 29 April '17
I participated in #SaturdayScenes this week, writing a one-shot fantasy about a mountain that could have been Everest in another world.
You can read it on my blog-thing of doom.
You can read it on my blog-thing of doom.
March 18, 2017
Jenny and the Upcoming Appearance
Hi!
Here's something you may not know about me: I have severe social anxiety. The kind where I literally throw up after talking to strangers on the telephone. The kind where an unexpected confrontation in the parking lot at the grocery store can leave me trembling and crying for days. Serious, crippling, social anxiety.
So you may believe me when I tell you that Annette Holland and Charlie Hoover had quite a difficult task of persuasion to get me to appear on their podcast, The Geek Questioner.
But somehow (mostly because I trust Annette) they did convince me. We'll be recording my episode on Friday, the 7th of April, and it should be posted a few days thereafter. You may count on me to link to it once it's up!
Here's something you may not know about me: I have severe social anxiety. The kind where I literally throw up after talking to strangers on the telephone. The kind where an unexpected confrontation in the parking lot at the grocery store can leave me trembling and crying for days. Serious, crippling, social anxiety.
So you may believe me when I tell you that Annette Holland and Charlie Hoover had quite a difficult task of persuasion to get me to appear on their podcast, The Geek Questioner.
But somehow (mostly because I trust Annette) they did convince me. We'll be recording my episode on Friday, the 7th of April, and it should be posted a few days thereafter. You may count on me to link to it once it's up!
February 25, 2017
Saturday Scene, 25 Feb '17
In accordance with prophecy, here's this week's #SaturdayScenes! This offering is a freshly-written snippet for what may (or may not) evolve into a sequel for Flowers of Luna. As always, you are encouraged to leave a comment after the show.
It's funny, but when you walk away from people, you expect them to stay right where you left them. Planets are predictable that way. There's no, “hey it's Tuesday! What's Jupiter doing?” Ol’ Jupiter is doing just what he’s been doing for the last billion plus years: The King of Storms is rolling along his orbit with his harem of moons orbiting around him. “Hey Io, nice to see you. Callisto, how you doing today? Big guy! Still got your red spot, I see!”
But people? People have agency. They're liable to get up in the middle of the night and decide, “hey, I'm going to walk down by the reservoir and get murdered.” Which is apparently what happened to Jin’ichi Fujikawa. Which in turn, was what gathered four Gray women together in Lunagrad.
My three-mat apartment was not big enough to hold four Grays and a Tsuchiya, even if we were of the younger, less mythically engorged, generation. So we were at the other place we could be reasonably certain no one could see or hear us -- the storefront-turned-design-studio my business partners and I rent to run our student fashion label, The Girl Goes Dancing.
My girlfriend, Hana Tsuchiya, was pacing in front of the display sheets that blocked the view from the street. She was picking the rough cuticles of her thumbs with her other fingernails. My sororal twin, Ren, was draped bonelessly over the leather sofa; our identical nieces Maddisyn and Makayla were leaning against the pool table in mirror-image postures, arms folded under breasts, one heel resting on the toes of the other foot.
That the four of us were family was immediately obvious to the casual observer. We all had the same retrousse nose, epicanthal fold, and steel gray eyes; we had the same figure, archtype 12, broad of breast and hip, with a long, well-defined waist and proportionally shorter legs. My hair was raven-wing black, though it glowed in the dark; Ren’s was burnished copper. Maddisyn and Makayla shared dark-blonde hair as they shared everything else. But beyond the physical, there was a shared sense of dangerousness about us; a sense of impending violent action.
Maddisyn decided I’d been silent too long. “I bet you’re all wondering why I called you here,” she quipped.
“I was wondering that, actually,” Makayla responded. “Is it my birthday? I love birthdays.”
“Sush, children,” Ren said. Our nieces were the same age we were, commissioned from the same genetic lab twenty years ago, but we made a point of being of the older generation. “Let Ran tell the story.”
“Story time?” the nieces chorused together. They sat cross-legged on the Persian carpet in fluid sync, propping elbows on knees and chins on conjoined fists. “Tell us a story, venerated and aged aunty!” Makayla added.
I held out my hand toward Ren. She picked up one of the sofa pillows and tossed it to me. I threw it at Maddisyn, who ducked. “Hey,” she protested. “She said it! I’m just the straight man!”
“Would you be serious?!” Hana exploded, coming around the pool table. “Jin’ichi is dead! Murdered! And you’re acting like this is some kind of game!”
“No one is acting like it’s a game, Hana-chan,” I reassured her. “This is the Gray family version of deadly serious.” The other three nodded agreement. Somewhat mollified, Hana came over and took my hand, squeezing it tightly.
“We understand this is our Moore’s Farm,” Ren assured her, referencing a situation our parents and older siblings had faced when we were small children. “Humor helps keep the mind calm and working. And Grays… well, you know our credo.”
“Scientia Dimidium Bellorum?” I asked, trying to figure out how that fit.
“Stab when you have to,” Ren countered. “Offer candy bars when you can.”
“Also?” Maddisyn chimed in, “remember the lesson of Great-Aunt Umeko, and don’t get the two mixed up.”
“It’s really not very effective if you stab them with a candy bar,” Makayla agreed.
Hana looked at me and shook her head. “It’s like dealing with four of you at once,” she complained.
“That’s why I called them,” I agreed. “These guys are going to learn that they messed with the wrong Gray.”
It's funny, but when you walk away from people, you expect them to stay right where you left them. Planets are predictable that way. There's no, “hey it's Tuesday! What's Jupiter doing?” Ol’ Jupiter is doing just what he’s been doing for the last billion plus years: The King of Storms is rolling along his orbit with his harem of moons orbiting around him. “Hey Io, nice to see you. Callisto, how you doing today? Big guy! Still got your red spot, I see!”
But people? People have agency. They're liable to get up in the middle of the night and decide, “hey, I'm going to walk down by the reservoir and get murdered.” Which is apparently what happened to Jin’ichi Fujikawa. Which in turn, was what gathered four Gray women together in Lunagrad.
My three-mat apartment was not big enough to hold four Grays and a Tsuchiya, even if we were of the younger, less mythically engorged, generation. So we were at the other place we could be reasonably certain no one could see or hear us -- the storefront-turned-design-studio my business partners and I rent to run our student fashion label, The Girl Goes Dancing.
My girlfriend, Hana Tsuchiya, was pacing in front of the display sheets that blocked the view from the street. She was picking the rough cuticles of her thumbs with her other fingernails. My sororal twin, Ren, was draped bonelessly over the leather sofa; our identical nieces Maddisyn and Makayla were leaning against the pool table in mirror-image postures, arms folded under breasts, one heel resting on the toes of the other foot.
That the four of us were family was immediately obvious to the casual observer. We all had the same retrousse nose, epicanthal fold, and steel gray eyes; we had the same figure, archtype 12, broad of breast and hip, with a long, well-defined waist and proportionally shorter legs. My hair was raven-wing black, though it glowed in the dark; Ren’s was burnished copper. Maddisyn and Makayla shared dark-blonde hair as they shared everything else. But beyond the physical, there was a shared sense of dangerousness about us; a sense of impending violent action.
Maddisyn decided I’d been silent too long. “I bet you’re all wondering why I called you here,” she quipped.
“I was wondering that, actually,” Makayla responded. “Is it my birthday? I love birthdays.”
“Sush, children,” Ren said. Our nieces were the same age we were, commissioned from the same genetic lab twenty years ago, but we made a point of being of the older generation. “Let Ran tell the story.”
“Story time?” the nieces chorused together. They sat cross-legged on the Persian carpet in fluid sync, propping elbows on knees and chins on conjoined fists. “Tell us a story, venerated and aged aunty!” Makayla added.
I held out my hand toward Ren. She picked up one of the sofa pillows and tossed it to me. I threw it at Maddisyn, who ducked. “Hey,” she protested. “She said it! I’m just the straight man!”
“Would you be serious?!” Hana exploded, coming around the pool table. “Jin’ichi is dead! Murdered! And you’re acting like this is some kind of game!”
“No one is acting like it’s a game, Hana-chan,” I reassured her. “This is the Gray family version of deadly serious.” The other three nodded agreement. Somewhat mollified, Hana came over and took my hand, squeezing it tightly.
“We understand this is our Moore’s Farm,” Ren assured her, referencing a situation our parents and older siblings had faced when we were small children. “Humor helps keep the mind calm and working. And Grays… well, you know our credo.”
“Scientia Dimidium Bellorum?” I asked, trying to figure out how that fit.
“Stab when you have to,” Ren countered. “Offer candy bars when you can.”
“Also?” Maddisyn chimed in, “remember the lesson of Great-Aunt Umeko, and don’t get the two mixed up.”
“It’s really not very effective if you stab them with a candy bar,” Makayla agreed.
Hana looked at me and shook her head. “It’s like dealing with four of you at once,” she complained.
“That’s why I called them,” I agreed. “These guys are going to learn that they messed with the wrong Gray.”
February 23, 2017
A Scene Sneak!
And while it's not Saturday yet, I thought maybe you might like a sneak preview?
“Scientia Dimidium Bellorum?” I asked, trying to figure out how that fit.
“Stab when you have to,” Ren countered. “Offer candy bars when you can.”
“Also?” Maddisyn chimed in, “remember the lesson of Great-Aunt Umeko, and don’t get the two mixed up.”
“It’s really not very effective if you stab them with a candy bar,” Makayla agreed.
Come back Saturday for context!
February 22, 2017
Hark! An Interview!
The wonderful book blogger WhatTheLog recently interviewed me on her blog, and I realized I hadn't linked it here, yet. So, uh, there you go! Clicky-click!
February 11, 2017
New WIP Material
Nobody has really asked (why hasn't anyone asked?) but my next book is probably going to be Little Sister of the Dragonslayer, a fantasy work set in a land largely inspired by Azuchi-Momoyama era Japan.
I made a page public on my regular blog if you'd like to read some.
I hope you enjoy it, and overlook sentence fragments and the like; this almost literally came out of the keyboard and onto the blog without editing. At all.
I made a page public on my regular blog if you'd like to read some.
I hope you enjoy it, and overlook sentence fragments and the like; this almost literally came out of the keyboard and onto the blog without editing. At all.
February 4, 2017
The Wilds
Howdy!
So Flowers of Luna has been loosed upon an unsuspecting world! (Or, I dunno... maybe I've hyped it enough that the world was suspecting, after all). And many of you have downloaded it, or started reading it on Kindle Unlimited, and that's fabulous!
But I'd really like to know what you think of it. Please, leave me reviews, not just here on Goodreads, but especially on the Amazon page.
Leaving reviews is the reader's superpower! Number of reviews is a big part of how Amazon decides whether, and how, to suggest the book to other readers, which has a direct impact on the author's ability to sell books, feed her little gray cats, and keep writing! More importantly, it helps me learn what you like and don't like, and those things can be incorporated into future books!
So, as the kids say, Please 'kay thanx!
So Flowers of Luna has been loosed upon an unsuspecting world! (Or, I dunno... maybe I've hyped it enough that the world was suspecting, after all). And many of you have downloaded it, or started reading it on Kindle Unlimited, and that's fabulous!
But I'd really like to know what you think of it. Please, leave me reviews, not just here on Goodreads, but especially on the Amazon page.
Leaving reviews is the reader's superpower! Number of reviews is a big part of how Amazon decides whether, and how, to suggest the book to other readers, which has a direct impact on the author's ability to sell books, feed her little gray cats, and keep writing! More importantly, it helps me learn what you like and don't like, and those things can be incorporated into future books!
So, as the kids say, Please 'kay thanx!
February 2, 2017
Counting Down!
Hey, y'all!
Can you believe it? We're less than 24 hours from the public release of Flowers of Luna! I'm so excited that you'll all soon get to read the words that I've spent years preparing for you!
Another exciting piece of news is that the dead tree edition has finally gone live on Amazon for pre-orders! You'd better hurry up and order one, before they run out!
(Nah, not really... they publish 'em on demand. But it sounded good, didn't it?)
Can you believe it? We're less than 24 hours from the public release of Flowers of Luna! I'm so excited that you'll all soon get to read the words that I've spent years preparing for you!
Another exciting piece of news is that the dead tree edition has finally gone live on Amazon for pre-orders! You'd better hurry up and order one, before they run out!
(Nah, not really... they publish 'em on demand. But it sounded good, didn't it?)
January 29, 2017
Pre-orders now available!
Hello, reading people! I have some fantastic news! I've finally finished with all the manuscript prep, and Flowers of Luna is now available for pre-order through Amazon!
(WILD MUPPET ARM FLAIL!)
As I write this, only the eBook is up there, but the dead tree edition should join it fairly soon, for those of you who prefer them leaves to turn.
Woo! And... did I mention Hoo?!
(WILD MUPPET ARM FLAIL!)
As I write this, only the eBook is up there, but the dead tree edition should join it fairly soon, for those of you who prefer them leaves to turn.
Woo! And... did I mention Hoo?!
January 26, 2017
Cover Reveal!
Hey, True Believers!
I've posted the cover for Flowers of Luna, and you can look at it on the book's index page!
WILD MUPPET ARM FLAIL!
Flowers of Luna is due out from Kindle Direct Publishing on 3 February '17. You'll be able to find it on Amazon -- please look forward to it!
I've posted the cover for Flowers of Luna, and you can look at it on the book's index page!
WILD MUPPET ARM FLAIL!
Flowers of Luna is due out from Kindle Direct Publishing on 3 February '17. You'll be able to find it on Amazon -- please look forward to it!
