Melissa A. I. Murray's Blog, page 5

Sneak Peek of Circle 2: Hidden

The process of rebuilding Hidden is slowly but surely coming along, I have autosaved files on both the desktop of my semi-salvaged laptop, in a backup folder in my documents section, and my external hard drive. "Never again!" shall likely be my motto for the rest of my writing career. Regardless of what I lost in the great laptop crash of Summer 2019, I still want to be able to share tiny excerpts and sneak previews with you, my potential future readers and all three of you who follow my blog. It's difficult to choose sections to share that can stand on their own, but that also won't give away any many major plot points or big reveals from the story. I want to tempt you, my potential future readers, with excerpts that will whet your appetite to read the rest of the book, but I also want to reserve the best parts for the completed book. Thus, time after time, I find myself drawing from the secondary story lines, the "supplemental scenes" as I like to think of them. I write them in a separate document from the main story line, and then add them in throughout the manuscript at the end, wherever they fit best in the spots I reserve for my cutaways. This excerpt is no exception. It largely occurs inside Laria's head, giving you a glimpse of her mindset throughout the story, but hopefully without revealing too much about what the story itself has in store. Without further ado, enjoy! The Fifth Spinner halfheartedly gazed at the images transposed across the Loom’s perpetually shifting fabric: a suburb outside of Chicago where a family crammed into a hatchback, a couple’s argument in an underground sierren settlement on the border, a grandmother collecting eggs on a farm in Slovenia, a nietheran colt sprouting its alicorn in the Origin grove in Faerie, an artist with lime green hair painting deer in her back yard. Laria fought the urge to try and call up an image of Dahrigek; she did not trust herself to stay calm if she saw the threads fail her once again. She was the watcher of the worlds. If she could not see a single part of a single world, she still had plenty of other locations that she could observe, that she should observe. Although her primary role as the reigning Spinner was to guard the Loom and ensure the spirit of Antiln remained within, the unwritten secondary duty of each Spinner was to watch, to remember, to record. The history contained within the innumerable volumes of the previous Spinner’s journals paid worthy homage to that duty. Tarel, her immediate predecessor, had taken the role very seriously, leaving Laria a whole wall of bookcases stuffed with scribbled writings; her section of the annals of Spinners past took up nearly an entire room in the cottage. Yet Laria, however closely she forced herself to watch Earth and Aorea in the Loom, could not quite bring herself to record. Not yet. Not while her friends, the closest friends she had had in many years, the friends who had changed her life and showed her how much more there was to the universe, were in danger. Especially not when she was the one who placed them there.

New Covers and Audiobooks

So while I've been waiting for my new laptop to arrive, now that everything is double and triple backed up into multiple files and multiple folders and multiple drives (never again! if overkill it must be, so be it), I have remained absurdly busy. After years of prodding by my husband, I have finally consented to turn Destined, the first novel in my Circle series, into an audiobook. So for all you audiobook fiends out there, you'll be able to listen to a professional voice actor narrating my story, complete with character voices. The whole shebang. And for those of you who have been wondering how to pronounce all the crazy names and Slavic or Russian words I've thrown in there, now you will know! Because of course, my over controlling self had to send in a recording of the proper pronunciation of all the names and unfamiliar terms I use. Heaven forbid they not come out perfect. So yes, audiobook is officially in the works, and when it's live I will post the link! It will be available on Audible and iTunes and anywhere else audiobooks happen to be sold. I prefer to read books and imagine the characters' voices for myself, so I have never been much of an audiobook listener, but it's another mode of getting my story out there. Ultimately, that's all any writer wants: to be read (or heard; same thing). Because of the nature of audiobooks and how much effort goes into recording them, it will also be a bit pricier than the e-books or the paperback are, but comparable in price to other audiobooks of a similar length. Perhaps when the whole series is done, I'll release a hardcover boxed set as well...but that is many years, and four books, in the future. Speaking of the paperbacks...they are about to get a whole new look! And by "new" I mean I have tweaked the cover so that it matches better with the e-book cover, which is closer to my original vision for what the book should look like. However, the technology at the time when I originally released the paperback was not quite up to the task of making them match. Either way, now the cover of the paperback uses the same art, font, and layout as the e-book does, so the colors should be more vibrant upon printing. So long, old cover! The text remains the same (although I did catch and correct a few more typos in the final manuscript; so embarrassing), so it's the same book you're used to. But if you want a copy with the shiny new cover, the updated version will be live on Amazon in about another 48 hours. Or, if you want to buy the used copy in "good" condition that someone is selling (probably a scam company) for $800-some, be my guest. But if you want a signed copy, all you have to do is ask! I promise I don't bite. Well, not without a request, anyway. Final bit of news: along with the revamping of the cover for the paperback and the creation of the audiobook for Destined, the e-book also got some love (as did the e-book for Bound). I finally went through the X-Ray feature for kindle, so if you forget who a character is--I do have quite a few I juggle throughout both stories, and considering *I* have to reference my notes regularly to keep everyone straight, no judgment if you have trouble remembering who's who--or if you're unfamiliar with one of my obscure references to either Slavic myth and folklore or long dead historical figures from Ancient Rome, you'll be linked straight to a quick note on the character or the corresponding wikipedia article, whichever is more relevant. So for all those who thought the lanti were just the Greek gods with weirdly changed names, now you can learn about the pagan Slavic pantheon that I used as my initial inspiration. No more confusion about why Zeus has copper hair and carries an ax, eh?

New Song on Soundcloud!

So about a year ago I wrote a song called "Queen of Spades," but even though I heard the melody in my head at the time I wrote it, I couldn't hear the rest of the music. Well, I woke up this morning with the intention of taking a short break from writing by working on a sewing project, but instead, music happened. I went downstairs to get my sewing machine and pick out some fabric...yet then I saw my keyboard languishing in a forgotten corner and then the next thing I know, I'm six hours into recording and my husband is calling to let me know he's on his way home. The song turned out a lot better than I would have though possible if you'd asked me how my musical skills were holding up yesterday. I also didn't intend to write a blog post two days in a row, but here we are. The tone of the lyrics and music seem a bit incongruent to me, but this song could not have been composed any other way. The lyrics remain rather...intense. The song explores the way our concept of deity evolves over the millennia as civilizations rise and fall and our understanding of the universe expands and contracts. It is written from the perspective of a primordial goddess of death, hence all the "I am" statements, that for obvious reasons, do not describe me. I am not a spider. Probably my favorite lines from this song are toward the end of the second chorus: "I am the void / I am the pause between breaths / I am the cold of the trigger pulling back again." So yes, the lyrics are a bit intense. The music itself, however, is super upbeat and borderline pop, which if you know my own taste in music is rather unlike me. I tend toward the indie and folksie, and definitely not anywhere near the pop arena, but again...here we are. In many ways this song is a contradiction, and it appears to even contradict my usual sound. Sometimes art turns out differently than the artist expected it to, and that's ok. To listen: https://soundcloud.com/maimurray/quee...