Aaron Conaway's Blog, page 6
April 3, 2018
Timberhaven’s First Podcast!
March 30, 2018
Fridays In Timberhaven – Before The Weaver: Jarboe
March 23, 2018
Fridays In Timberhaven – Before The Weaver: Audrey (finale)
March 16, 2018
Fridays In Timberhaven – Before The Weaver: Audrey (part three)
March 9, 2018
Fridays In Timberhaven – Before The Weaver: Audrey (part two)
March 2, 2018
Fridays In Timberhaven – Before The Weaver: Audrey (part one)
February 20, 2018
It’s Here!
The time I’ve long awaited is finally here. The day when you can hold a book I’ve written in your hot little hands!
Yes, Waking The Weaver has arrived. (At least in paperback. The Kindle Edition drops on Thursday.) Technically it arrived two days ago (which you would’ve known if you were a subscriber! What, you don’t like prizes? You’re opposed to free stuff? Nah, I’m just playing with ya. But for real, though, you should go subscribe.) but who’s counting.
This is the book where you’ll meet Lord Jarboe and Thegan, Madame Xaxu and Lady Nicoline. The Fells, The Pub, and many more citizens and locales of the colorful town of Timberhaven. Oh, and Michael. If you’ve been following my work for a while (thanks for that!), you met Michael in my old blog Unfamiliar Magic, but this is the final cut. The real deal. You can go down the Timberhaven rabbit hole here, by way of the journal of one Michael Gideon.
Some of you have been with me from the beginning as I chased this writing dream of mine. I don’t have the words to explain what that means to me. I can only hope you find this book entertaining enough to be some kind of half-assed Thank You.
I’d like to buy a paperback copy, please.
I’d like to preorder the Kindle version, actually
Please, read it and let me know what you think!
A
February 19, 2018
Hear ye! Hear ye!
Big happenings this week. I’m giddy with excitement!
That being the case, I’m holding a raffle. If you’re a subscriber, your name’s going in the hat.
Winner gets a prize!
So, if you’re a reader but not a subscriber, what’re you waiting for? Sign up and get in the mix!
As always, thanks for reading.
A
February 12, 2018
A Valentine
A Conaway 3 Adventure
Starring:
Roxie
Kiya
Minerva
And Guest-Starring:
Lauren (Mother/Momma/Mommy) & Stewart
Once upon a time there was a gray tabby cat named Roxie, her little sister, a mixed Carolina Dingo/German Shepherd dog, named Wakiya (though everyone called her Kiya for short), and her littlest sister, a brown tabby named Minerva (though her mom still occasionally called her Sydney and her dad often referred to her these days as Miss Minerva.) They lived together with their adoptive parents and had many adventures independently of one another.
This tale, however, is an adventure that they shared.
* * * * *
It was another cold February in Kansas City.
Valentine’s Day.
Roxie was cuddled up in her Mother’s bed, buried beneath the sheets and blankets in a dome of cozy that was second to none. Dreaming of the olden days, of steel blades and bullets, and gunpowder in the air like air freshener, Roxie smiled in her sleep.
Kiya, for her part, lazed before an oscillating space heater, lifting her head only occasionally to scratch an irritant itch or to stretch as she daydreamed of chasing squirrels.
Minerva tended to her latest invention, the Huggable Backscratcher. It was proving too difficult to maintain peak back-scratching while mid-hug so she was trying to improve the elasticity of its carbon-cored, patent-pending scratcher.
All three girls stopped what they were doing, though, when the front door opened.
“Hans Olo,” Lauren, aka Mother/Momma/Mommy (depending on which of the three girls you asked) laughed as she came inside. “I don’t know why I said it that way. Hans. Olo. Hans Olo! His name’s not Hans!” Another fit of giggles.
“No,” a voice, Aaron’s aka The Fat Man/Daddy/Daddy (depending on which of the three girls you asked) came over the speakerphone, laughing as well. “He never caused a shoeless Bruce Willis to jump from the top of an exploding building.”
“He’s not Gruber!” Lauren laughed and laughed.
“I’m going to grab dinner,” Daddy’s voice came again. “What do you want?”
“Food,” Lauren smiled in answer.
“What kind of food,” her hubby sighed.
“Good food!” she laughed and ended the call, making her lack of choosing diner absolute.
Kiya ran toward her Momma and that’s when she noticed it. The small stuffed animal, a triceratops in soft, fuzzy green with big blue eyes, in Lauren’s hands.
“A toy!” Kiya barked, jumping up on Lauren. “A new toy!”
“Uh-uh, Kiya, no!” Lauren admonished the puppy’s behavior. “This is not for you.”
Puzzled, Kiya took a perfunctory sniff around the room.
“Where is there other puppies?” Kiya wondered. “Momma is confused, I am the puppy! Toytoytoytoy!” She leaped for the dinosaur again.
“Kiya, leave it,” Lauren placed the toy on the table out of reach along with the contents of her pockets as she emptied her coat. “Stewart is not yours. Not all of the toys are for you. Stewart is Momma’s.”
With that, Lauren left to go do other things, leaving Kiya to ponder this turn of events.
“What’s going on?” came Minerva’s voice from the basement through the vents.
“A wrong thing is happening,” Kiya said, staring down Stewart with her closest approximation of a mean look. “Bad.”
“What is it?” Roxie asked from the bedroom. “Mother is singing in the kitchen. The Fat Man is out of the house. Seems a pleasant enough afternoon.”
“Momma brought home a toy that is a not for puppies toy,” Kiya said as she searched the other things that Lauren had left on the table, keeping a wary eye on the triceratops all the while. “That is the wrong thing. I think Momma is being tricked. I’m looking through the stuff she took out from her treat place.”
“Ooo,” Minerva couldn’t contain her excitement. “I wanna see! I’m coming upstairs!”
“Silence, fool,” Roxie said. “Kiya, do not touch anything. I will be right there.”
“There’s a piece of small paper here with words!” Kiya barked. “It has a long word on it in big letters:”
“Kiya,” Roxie shouted as she made her way down from the bed, stopping only to grab her katana. “I said not to touch anything!”
“P, L, A,” Kiya began spelling.
“Play!” Minerva shouted her guess up through the vent. “I love to play! Though, that’s not a long word.”
“N, E, T,” Kiya continued.
“Planet!” Minerva yelled victoriously. “Mommy bought a planet?!”
“What?” Roxie scoffed at the vent as she made her way down the hall. “Minerva, shut up.”
“A, R,” Kiya squinted at the receipt.
“PLANETAR!” Minerva screamed. “Wait . . . what’s a planetar?”
“I, U, M.” Kiya finished the word, smiling at Roxie like she’d just won a spelling bee.
“Yes, Planetarium,” Roxie said, eyeing Stewart. “So Mother and The Fat Man went to the Planetarium. On their adventure, they picked up a stuffed animal. The Fat Man has probably angered Mother and this is a feeble attempt to get back into her good graces. Pathetic, really. I am returning to bed.”
“But, Roxie, look at his fuzzy face!” Kiya said. “It’s not trust-having. It’s a bite face that I should. So Momma is safe.”
“Whatever,” Roxie said over her shoulder. “This was not worth retrieving my sword. Ah, well, might as well sharpen it now that I have it out.”
“I think it’s a lovely face,” Minerva explained. She hovered over her sisters, having finally escaped the basement via the hovercopter she’d made from chopsticks and old VCR components. “I wanna headbutt it.”
“Don’t go near it, Minerva!” Kiya whispered a harsh warning through gritted teeth. “Momma said it was uh-uh.”
“Oh,” Minerva said, landing her hovercopter on the table. “He has pretty eyes. Hi Stewart!” Minerva waved.
“No, we picked him up at the Planetarium,” Lauren was on the phone again, in the kitchen. “I named him Stewart. He’s such a cutie!”
“Hey, Roxie guessed right!” Minerva beamed at Kiya.
Kiya squinted doubtfully at Stewart.
Seeing this, Minerva followed suit and squinted doubtfully at Stewart.
“You think he’s an alien?” Minerva asked out the side of her mouth.
“Dunno,” Kiya returned, not looking away from Stewart. “Why, do you think he’s an alien?”
“Dunno,” Minerva whispered back. “What’s a Planetarium?”
“I think it’s where sick planets go to get better when they have cuckoos,” Kiya explained.
Minerva pondered this for a full minute. “That doesn’t sound right.”
“Whoa!” Kiya barked, running around the table to get behind Stewart. “He moved! Did you see him move?” Kiya barked some more.
Minerva shot straight up into the air in her hovercopter, stopping just shy of hitting the ceiling. “I don’t think so, but maybe?”
“What are you two –” Roxie froze as she came back out of the bedroom. Mother was coming out from the kitchen to see what Kiya was barking about. Minerva was hovering merely six inches above her head. If Mother looked up . . .
The three girls worked a standing contract with the Teslan Empire, an empire headed by the disembodied consciousness of Nikola Tesla himself. They were called in whenever Nikola needed the best; Roxie’s brawn, Kiya’s charm, and Minerva’s brain. The only rule they had to adhere to in order to keep the contract was to never allow people – humans – to know what they were capable of. They had to appear to be normal pets.
Minerva floating in her homemade hovercopter was not normal pet behavior.
“Kiya, what are you –” Lauren asked as she came out of the kitchen.
“Kiiiiiii-yaaaaa!” Roxie ran down the hallway and pounced, her claws extended. She landed on Kiya’s . . . tender spot.
“My butt! My butt! My butt!” Kiya ran around the table with Roxie attached.
“Roxie, stop!” Lauren yelled. “Ooo, I forgot to shut the bedroom door. I’m gonna have to let you go.” She hung up the phone. “Kiya! Roxie!”
Roxie steered Kiya back down the hallway as Lauren followed. Minerva took the opportunity to escape, returning to the basement.
* * * * *
Later that evening on their parents’ bed, Kiya licked her butt. And not for the reason she generally preferred.
“I am sorry, you know,” Roxie offered from the pillow above her. “It had to be done to maintain our cover.”
“I know,” Kiya pouted before returning to her damaged goods. “Stupid Stewart.”
“Hey guys,” Minerva called up from the basement in an exaggerated meow. “As I’m thinking about it, I don’t think he moved.”
“Shut up, Minerva,” Roxie hissed back.
“No more talking about it, please,” Kiya laid her head down on her paws.
“Okay,” Minerva said. “Love you!”
“Us too, you,” Kiya smiled. “And Momma, and Daddy.”
“And Mommy and Daddy!” Minerva cheered in agreement.
“Ugh,” Roxie said, hiding under the pillow.
February 2, 2018
Kiya Is VERY Excited . . .
Know why? Because here it is, the cover to my first novel, Waking The Weaver!
“All small towns have secrets. But Timberhaven’s secrets may mean the end of us all.
Michael Gideon is a bestselling author actively ignoring the problems in his life: his alcoholism, how the recent loss of his sister is affecting him, and a nagging feeling, just at the back of his mind that there’s something. . . off. He’s come to the small village of Timberhaven in hopes of recovering his passion for writing in time to pen his latest book.
Timberhaven has other ideas.
Within days of arriving, Michael no longer feels himself. The very thought of booze makes him nauseous and he has to convince himself that the mirror in his rented manor isn’t watching him. Even more puzzling, while Michael explores the streets of Timberhaven some locals seem to already know him.
Michael is further pulled into the mythology of Timberhaven when a clandestine group of unelected town officials holds a gathering, resulting in an arcane election for a role they think perfectly suited for Michael.
Waking The Weaver is a modern day urban fantasy presented in the form of Michael’s journal entries. Join Michael as he explores Timberhaven, a magical village that exists at the crossroads of science and magic, fiction and reality.”
Available for you to own March 2018!
