Karalynn Lee's Blog, page 4

A snippet of Slip Point: Shayalin meets a pirate

A nibble from Slip Point, all edited and everything:

"Ah, there you are. And all ready for me." She aimed a gun at Shayalin and divested her of her pack.

"That's—"

The muzzle of the gun moved to point directly at her head. Shayalin shut up.

The woman deftly unfastened the pack with one hand and pulled out its contents onto the floor. Shayalin's clothes were shaken out for anything that might be tucked within their careful folds, even her undergarments. The gun never wavered, and Shayalin swallowed all of her protests.

When the pack was finally emptied, turned inside out and its seams thoroughly inspected, the woman let it drop. "There's nothing in there," she said, turning an accusing look on Shayalin.

That pack had held everything from Centuris she had decided to keep, now strewn about for anyone to see. Certainly more than nothing to her. "What were you expecting?" Shayalin snapped.

"Oh, maybe a special item to be delivered to Urioq. I seem to have heard of it from someone." Her smile promised unpleasant things.

Shayalin hadn't really planned this through. She parried with, "Who said it was tangible?"

To her surprise, a thoughtful look crossed the woman's face. Her eyes narrowed. "Speak plainly, girl. Why were you so worried about a pirate attack if what you have is in your head? Who would know about it—and what is it?"

Shayalin retreated to the truth. "I wasn't worried about the attack. I was worried it wouldn't happen."

This time the woman's eyes widened. Then she laughed—not in derision, but with the full-throated amusement of someone appreciating a good joke. "And so you fed me that tale. I didn't think to look past the surface with a Rim girl. You could hustle a few bets with that act."

"Thank you," Shayalin said dryly.

"Most people would call you stupid instead of clever for arranging this. So now the question is, why?"

Shayalin took a deep breath. "I'm looking for Kennick Bailey," she said. If this was some other pirate entirely, she'd just walked neatly into a trap of her own devising with no way out.

The woman eyed her with suspicion but not, Shayalin was relieved to see, confusion. "You look young to be a bounty hunter."

"I'm not a bounty hunter," she said. "I have…a business proposal."

"Something in your head after all," she mused. "Careful, little girl. Admitting to business with a pirate is as good as being one, as far as the law's concerned."

Shayalin bristled at the condescension. "But you're not the law, are you?"

The woman grinned. "We all have our vices."

—

I'll post the first chapter on my site once I've got a cover to show off.

The Nell Sweeney Mysteries by P. B. Ryan

I got the first book on a whim because it was offered for a low price when I was heading out of the country, and I've a fondness for thoughtful historical female sleuths. The beginning was unremarkable: a doctor and a nurse attend a difficult childbirth. But you learn that the nurse, Nell, is a quiet but observant woman, and projects such a sense of reliability that she's offered the job of governess for the baby. Naturally such a woman must be of unquestionable propriety. Then you get just an oblique hint of Nell's past, and suddenly this placid story rips wide open into a flood of tension and questions.

I quickly bought the rest of the series.

These were originally published as the Gilded Age Mysteries; they've been rebranded for their ebook incarnations. I actually prefer the former series name, as it refers to a period of fast economic increase in America, when the rich were filthy rich and industrial workers grew thick like flies. It's not a time I thought myself ever interested in before, but it makes for a perfect backdrop for these stories.

As you can also tell from the series name, these are presented primarily as mysteries. Given my own genre of work, however, I want to talk about the romantic elements. The spoiler-averse should flee now and know only that these six books are welcoming to someone who's looking for a romance with an imperfect hero who nonetheless deserves our adoration. (There are, as with any recommendation, caveats.)

Said hero: the estranged son of wealthy parents, a surgeon, a survivor of war, a gambler, a man accused of murder…and an opium addict. I don't find drug addicts particularly appealing, and yet Ryan pulled it off here: his illness was convincing, it proved a very real barrier, and even so I thought that Will was smoldering. He's sharply intelligent, caustic, prickly, and to all appearances quite capable of taking care of himself while he slowly drowns in past sorrows.

His first meeting with Nell is rather hostile. He doesn't welcome anyone's help, and she's shocked at his cavalier attitude. But they're bound together in common purpose, and they're both intelligent people who are interested in other people's secrets while having their own to keep. They don't share any initial attraction — he's boorish to her and she sensibly dislikes such behavior — but they quickly gain a grudging respect for each other. And the more they learn about each other, the more that respect grows into a genuine affection. It's pretty clear by the end of the first book that they hold each other in fond regard. But nothing outright is declared, nothing actually happens. And even as events in the next several books rouse them into acknowledging their feelings, obstacles arise.

So this is actually a lovely romance…if you take the series as a whole, since you only get your happily-ever-after at the very end. One book that closed on Nell and Will together filled me with dread, since stark consequences had already been laid out beforehand, so I can't even count that one as having a happily-for-now ending despite the milestone reached in their relationship.

I found this a fascinating juxtaposition of genres, rather like one of those optical illusions that can look like one of two images depending on how you interpret it. I know that at some point (the books blur together; I read them straight through) I kept reading because I wanted to know about these two people, not because I wanted to see how Nell solved the next mystery.

I'd love to find other series that manage something similar, drawing out the formation of a relationship through several books and keeping the journey worthwhile. In the meantime, I'm going to go reread these.

[Series page on author's website]

The End, Take 3

A friend asked me over lunch, "How do you know when your writing's good enough?"

I'd just admitted to her that some of my finished stories were filed away, never to be seen by anyone else's eyes, because I knew they weren't good enough.

Writers vacillate between overweeing pride in their literary babies and bleak despair that the letters they string together are no better than infant-babble. Even so, I like to think I have a decent sense of "good enough to get noticed on an editor's desk" from the works I've gotten published and the works I haven't. (Editors are like predators. They will sniff out your uncertainty and pounce upon the vulnerabilities you're aware of.) But what I ended up trying to describe instead to my friend was "I know it's really good for me as a reader."

There have been a couple of stories that I knew were pitch-perfect once I wrapped them up, and when I read them even years later, they make me happy. I imagine that that sort of ringing joy comes from a work that hits all your buttons and slips past your critical defenses and makes you enjoy it as a reader, not a writer.

For me, it's highly dependent upon having a storyline with just the right bounds: a lilting beginning, a quiet yet powerful ending with a sweet aftertaste. Not every plot can be told in such a way. But I've done it, and I can't stop trying to do it again.

So the current work-in-progress is undergoing its third ending revamp, because I feel as though hovering just out of reach is a glorious closing. I'm not just aiming for "good enough." I'm gunning for "good."

So: back to the word processor…

(Then again: there is S. J. Kincaid's story of The Best Book I'll Ever Write. But onward without doubt! Remember the predators.)

More ergonomic tools acquired

A Kinesis Freestyle split keyboard. By split, they mean actually separate sections for each hand (connected by a 20-inch cord).

Also, the DXT Precision mouse, which is vertical (so you use a pen grip) and can be used with either hand. (I like alternating which hand I operate my computer mouse with.)

As though that weren't enough, my desk in the office is now at standing height.

I remember when I first got an acute case of RSI. It left me unable to type, and I almost broke into tears right there in the office. I kept thinking, How can I work if I can't type? But the real horror of it was that I could keep working (after I took a break, and with careful adjustments to my schedule and workstation) — but my typing was limited. I can't write longhand for any extended portion of a story. So now the 8-14 hours a day I spend in front of a computer for work  actively reduce the time I can spend writing after I escape from the office.

So, no, I'm not spending too much on these tools.

Consequences of overseas travel

Lack of reliable Internet = stupendous word counts — that's in relative terms, naturally. I'm quite a bit farther along in the tentatively titled (aren't they always?) Through All Four Seasons.


Lack of reliable Internet = not being able to respond to blog comments or business emails in a timely manner. I feel crummy about this, although the publisher in question was more than gracious about the delay.


Lots of ebook purchases. I mean lots. I just checked my credit card statement, and yikes! But it's worth having lots of weightless reading material on hand when you can't sleep on planes, especially a trans-Pacific flight. I'll try to share some readerly thoughts soon.


I also tried to play some interactive fiction, but:



typing into a command parser on a smartphone is evil,
I get RSI on my e-reader due to the constant button-pressing, and
the physical gamebook I had needed dice. The only dice I had on hand were Mathematician's Dice. Yes, I know, the geekiness, it is overwhelming.



Ever and always, the renewed exposure to another culture can only help in writing about other worlds. And the gustatory exposure is just generally beneficial, except to my waistline.

Demon's Fall free today

Carina Press is offering Demon's Fall for free today if you buy it from their site with the coupon code DEMONFREE! Get it here.

I figured that if my publisher could give out goodies, I could so do too, especially for those wonderful readers who have already bought a copy of Demon's Fall. So I wrote a new short story, "Shadow Hunt": romantic fantasy about a fox-shifter. Read it online or get the PDF file.

If you like Demon's Fall, you can also get "Lilith" (about the title character, who makes an appearance in Demon's Fall) for free in the anthology Just One Bite, e-published by AllRomanceEbooks.com. You do have to register on their site, but no payment details are necessary.

Back to the world of Demon's Fall

I was told several times that the setting of Demon's Fall was too rich not to mine further. I'm not a series kind of gal, but I ended up coming up with a nugget of an idea, very different in tone, but leaning on some of the world-building. Here's the start of the very preliminary draft.

Let Slip Glory

Keziah was born during a raging storm.  The midwife bundled her up and offered her to her mother, but her mother, blind, never reached for her. Instead she turned her face toward the window and asked between peals of thunder, "Do you hear wings?" before succumbing to the hours of labor and blood loss.

She had been a young bride, less than a year into her marriage.  Keziah did not blame her father for wedding again soon afterward to a proud woman who showed as little care for her stepdaughter as her predecessor had.

Finding little to keep her in the house, Keziah spent most of her time in the kennels and stables. The dogs and horses were skittish of her at first, but soon came to welcome her presence and her gentle hands along their backs. Her favorite was an alaunt bitch, a liquid-eyed hound with the keenest intelligence of them all. They spent nearly every waking hour together, and some in slumber, and Keziah was happy. Then her stepmother realized that her own daughters' prospects might be dimmed by this wildling child in her household.

From then on, she was supervised by a governess and taught deportment, history, and embroidery. Her days were a misery of lessons never learned right, her evenings full of teasing from her stepsisters for the same mistakes. So on the night of the great storm, when she would have once been pressed against the warmth of canine bodies and the occasional cold nose, she was in the house, trying to memorize noble bloodlines through eight generations to the sound of pounding rain and howling wind. She heard the older servants whisper about how there hadn't been such a storm since the night her mother had died.

Two months later, the alaunt whelped. The kennel master, who still held a softness in his heart for the child who had once wandered his domain, sent her word through a chain of servants, and she climbed out of her window to be there. The first pup born was large, and his dam strained to bring him into the world.  She died soon after, and the rest of the litter with her.  Keziah mourned her passing, but soon found herself busy caring for the pup, for he was clearly a mongrel and the kennel master could not spare any time for him.

She called him Caleb.

He had a keen nose and keener mind, and she swore there were times when he understood her words. He knew to stay absolutely still and silent under her bed when her governess swept in, and never whined for more food, as though he realized that she was sneaking him as many scraps as she could, sometimes giving him some of her own share. Even on his meager rations he grew into a large beast. Keziah watched this with pride and dismay. She knew it would only grow more difficult to hide him.

It was worth it, though, to have a friend. He lent his warmth at night, and listened patiently to her practicing her recitations. When one of her stepsisters set up a wailing about her latest sartorial disaster, Caleb would flatten his ears and exchange looks of long suffering with her that made her laugh. And after her father once again waved off one of her anxious queries with barely a glance at her, she would go to her room and sit on her bed, and Caleb would rest his head in her lap and she would know that she was loved.

But as she had learned with the arrival of the governess, happiness never lasted.

The kennel master inadvertently revealed Caleb's existence, as he had assumed that the master of the house had blessed it. The governess was horrified and her stepmother furious.

"Sell it immediately," she commanded.

The kennel master wrung his hands. Calm when dealing with snarling dogs, he was at a loss when faced with an angry woman. "I wouldn't get anything for it, m'lady, except perhaps as stew meat. He's a mongrel, you see."

"You can't let him be eaten!" Shocked, Keziah twisted out of her governess's grasp and threw her arms around Caleb's neck.

"Come away from that thing this instant," the governess said, tugging ineffectually at Keziah's arm, dignity overcome by her ward's scandalous behavior.

But when Keziah looked up, through her tear-blurred vision she saw her stepmother standing still and thoughtful.

"I won't have the dog sold," her stepmother said.

Keziah didn't move.

"But this is a respectable house. We can't have a half-breed sullying our lines, nor have you running wild with animals as though you were one yourself."

She hated it when her stepmother spoke in this reasonable tone, as though coaxing her from ridiculous fancies. "What will you do with him?"

"There must be some farmer or rat-catcher who'll take a free dog. In return, you'll apply yourself to your studies and act like a proper daughter of this household."

She breathed in Caleb's scent, feeling the tension in his body and knowing that the only thing keeping him from growling was that it would make the situation worse. Did it matter that he was a mongrel? He was the most intelligent creature she'd ever known. "Will I get to see him?"

"No. A proper daughter, I said." Her stepmother came closer to her in a rustle of skirts and laid a careful hand on her shoulder. She rarely touched Keziah and didn't seem to quite know how to go about it. "Focus on becoming a proper wife to a wealthy man. Then you can ask him for all the hounds and horses you like."

None of them would be Caleb. But she hugged him one last time, knowing that the choice her stepmother presented to her wasn't really a choice, and stood, one hand still on his ruff. "All right. Just don't send him to be butchered."

"I won't."

Her stepmother had never lied to her. Keziah let go of her last hold and watched the kennel master take Caleb away. He went quietly, but only after turning his gaze upon her in a long look. She did not think it meant farewell.

"Now go to your room, and don't expect any supper," her stepmother said wearily, as though Keziah were throwing a child's tantrum. "Tomorrow's a new day, and we'll start over then."

What did she expect? That with the dawn, Keziah would turn into a simpering likeness of her stepsisters? But she bit her tongue and obeyed. She threw herself onto her bed and let the sobs finally come.

Once she had cried herself out, she fell asleep. When she awoke, it was night, and Caleb was howling.

Email hacked

Embarrassingly, my Gmail account (karalynnlee) has been compromised. I'm still in the office for the day job and so can't deal with this till later today, but wanted to warn folks.

Great writing…about videogames

I have to say that some of the most interesting and entertaining reading I've been getting lately has been from issues of Kill Screen, a magazine focused on "videogames. Videogames? Videogames!"

Even their writing guidelines are worth a read, with lines like "'Smart' writing doesn't necessarily mean 'academic' writing. (The New Yorker is a great example.) Please make your argument without losing momentum, resorting to academic terminology, or burying us in citations. The word 'mimesis' snuck into our last issue, but we swear it will never happen again."

I'm only an occasional gamer at best — I had my Halo days — but I love how approachable these articles are, even when they deal with games I've never heard of, and especially when they do. (From Grand Theft Auto to Oregon Trail, Big Buck Hunter to Second Life.) Thoughtful analysis about a field that gets too little of it, engagingly presented.

It makes me wonder if there's any topic that I wouldn't be interested in, if only it were written about well enough. Of course, nonfiction has the advantage of often being on a topic that's inherently interesting. With fiction, you have to go and make it all up.

My other great discovery is the Digital Romance Lab, focused on "investigating love + romance in videogames."

Of course, this is all being discovered whilst I'm working not on the branching path story, but on a much plainer fantasy story.

To be packed

I think all readers have TBR (to-be-read) stacks: stuff they might conceivably want to read in the future, but don't have present time or interest for. I'm starting to compile a TBP (to-be-packed) pile of books that I'll want to read while on an upcoming trip.

It's tough because it has to be something I want to read — but not so desperately that I'll end up devouring it before I depart. I've also grown snobbish, refusing re-reads when there's the potential for a new and exciting story. And I tend to like lighter-toned fare while traveling. The list of criteria goes on.

It used to include "paperback" for weight reasons, but I've recently succumbed and acquired an e-reader, so now it's "digital" that I'm looking for. And that's an entirely new can of worms, because digital editions tend to be available before the paperback, giving me greater choice — but often at near-hardcover prices. Ugh.

And I used to only buy ebooks if they were only available in digital format, or if I didn't care if I lost my own copy in a hard drive failure. Now I'm looking at titles that I may well want to acquire in print for keeps — but I also want them conveniently available on my e-reader for this trip. So do I buy them twice?

Series are especially giving me trouble, because I like having matched sets, and having book 1 in print and book 2 in digital does not qualify. But the latter members of a series are often good candidates for interest, since I liked the previous book (a good sign) and yet haven't read the next one (so something fresh!).

Somehow, though, I don't doubt that I'll have a half-dozen books ready for perusal as I snuggle into my seat at the airport. There are some problems that are good to have.