Leah R. Cutter's Blog, page 31
November 24, 2012
New collection available! Beyond the Garden
New Collection! All the stories have been published before. However, if you haven’t read them, at $5.99, it’s a bargain, considering that Walking Gods, just by itself, is $3.99 (it’s 12,000 words long.)
The blurb:
While there are many gardens, as well as green growing things in the stories in this collection, the most important tales take place beyond the garden, outside the fence, when you stray from the path and walk under the trees, into the wilderness and beyond.
Tales included: “Gulkhanam,” “The Other Story,” “The Doom of Alokai Temple,” “One Fall Day,” and “Walking Gods.”
It’s available at the usual places:
Available at Barnes & Noble (Nook)
It will be available as a paperback sooner rather than later.
In other news, I finished, “Of Heaven and Hell,” the latest story in the “Shredded Veil” series, but this one is told from Toni’s point of view. I still need to figure out which story I’m going to publish next week. And I’m going to create another collection or two, but I haven’t figured out the stories or titles or anything yet.
I hope that for those of you that celebrate, it’s been a wonderful, stressfree holiday. Me, I’ve had a great time.
Crossposted from my website. If you'd like to comment, you can do so here or there.
November 20, 2012
Free Fiction! (in)substantial shadows
Free Fiction! A new story, never before published! (in)substantial shadows
I am a shadow, living in the shadows, always among you, always watching.
Come hear how those of you living in the world, you brights, seduced the best of us to cross the barrier and try to live beside you.
We’re a people trained to observe, not act. Yet that sweetness of doing became our undoing.
I am a shadow. This is my story.
This story is available for free on my web site for at least a week. (I might end up leaving this one up for two weeks, depending on how the writing goes this week.)
It will also be available in the usual sources.
Like “The Secrets of 9s” which I wrote last year, I think this can best be classified as literary, with a side of fantasy thrown in. I sent it to a couple of places that buy that sort of thing, but no one took it. This is the first short story I wrote as part of the 2012 short story challenge. I’m pubbing it with “The Secrets of 9s” as a bonus story.
In other news, I finished typing up “The Tiger’s Shadow” today. It’s about 6200 words, and I’m still wondering if I need to make it a little longer, add one more scene. It felt good to write something to length. I haven’t started the new story yet, but I’m on vacation, so I have more time than usual as well.
I really like this story. I have no idea if anyone else will or not. It’s not an easy story. There are two other stories I need to write along this theme: one set in Brazil around this same time (1946) as well as a second set in Germany, around 1900. I am SO HAPPY that I’ve found a way to combine the historic fantasy I love with this modern day story, how they’ll all tie in together. I still don’t know if the short stories will become the first part of the novel or if they’ll stand alone. I’ll figure that out once I start the novel.
Crossposted from my website. If you'd like to comment, you can do so here or there.
November 18, 2012
Done enough
This morning I wrote about 3 pages on the current story. Tonight, I did another 16, so probably around 3000 words today. I’m a bit fried around the edges — I’ve gotten out of the habit of writing so much in one sitting.
But I did finish the story, for some definition of finished. I’ve finished the hand written draft. I’ll type it up tomorrow — all 5000+ words of it (I think that’s what it’ll be.)
I’m taking off all next week. Found myself thinking about the day job this evening and wrenched my thoughts away. I don’t have to do anything for the day job tomorrow, and that’s a good thing.
Now, I must go collapse because I can’t even think to post tonight.
Crossposted from my website. If you'd like to comment, you can do so here or there.
November 17, 2012
Back on track
Giving myself permission to move back to the world of “The Raven and the Dancing Tiger” has certainly proven to be the right thing to do. I easily wrote 1000+ words last night — I’m not sure how many. Generally, six page = ~1000 words, which I did, plus filled the margins with notes. So it will probably end up being more than that.
Tonight, I sat down and cranked out eight hand written pages, again, with lots of notes in the margins. There’s so much more of this world and these characters and clans that I want to explore. They all have recitations, but they have different ones. Not every clan is close to their other soul.
For the raven clan, the worst insult they can hurl at one another is “half-breed” — neither human or raven, half here, half there, never truly whole.
For the tiger clan, the worst thing you can be accused of is being wild — not human, not tiger, not warrior, merely a beast that is beyond reason.
That was just one of those things that came flying out of my fingers while I was writing, one of those true things that you don’t know until you write it, and then you realize it’s one of those founding basics, on which the entire world has already been built–you just hadn’t articulated it until then.
I am having more fun than I can say while writing this.
The other good news: I had been threatening to write another story set in the Shredded Veil Mysteries world, this time told from the POV of Toni. I came up with the idea and the title this afternoon: “Of Heaven and Hell.” It’s another of those longish stories, and since I’m on vacation next week, and my muse seems to be interested in it, I may write that story next.
Then I may come back to this world and write another backstory for the next novel.
I’ll give you a hint: The tigers weren’t the first clan to be tainted by the shadows.
Crossposted from my website. If you'd like to comment, you can do so here or there.
November 16, 2012
Giving in
All week, I’ve been struggling with the short story I’ve been trying to write. “Project block” is what Kris Rusch calls it — and I think that’s right. I don’t ever get writer’s block — I can always write. I get project block, though, when there’s something wrong with a project and I can’t figure it out.
So this morning, while I was walking, I asked my muse, as I am wont to do, “If I could write anything at all, what would you like for me to work on?”
My muse was strangely silent. No project sprang to mind, no new story or idea I wanted to explore.
This was odd. Very odd for me.
At some point close to the end of my walk, I started thinking about the world of “The Raven and the Dancing Tiger” and the shadows and various things, and my muse perked up.
Also very odd.
So I asked myself, “Would you like to work on this?” “This” being, in general, the next novel, playing in that world, etc.
My mind lit up.
That’s about the best I can do to explain how it felt. Suddenly, all these story ideas were there, all these connections were being made, and this weight was lifted off my muse. I felt like I was glowing and could run forever with these ideas.
See, I’d told myself earlier that I wasn’t going to work on the next novel until January. I believe this was why my muse was initially silent — I’d already told it, in effect, “No, you can’t work on that.”
I’m not giving up on the idea of a short story a week. It’s just that the next short story (the one that I’m writing this week, that has to be finished by Sunday, that I’m only starting on tonight) is going to be, “The Tiger’s Shadow,” which is back story for the novel. It’s historic fantasy, set in India, around 1947.
Maybe that will satisfy my muse and I can write another short story set somewhere else. Or maybe I’ll have to just start writing the novel. The following “short story” may end up being the first chapter of the novel, more backstory, as it were. I’m not convinced that “The Guardian Hound” is going to have the same structure as “The Raven and the Dancing Tiger” — with current day and backstory chapters intermixed.
I will be on vacation ALL OF NEXT WEEK (not that I’m excited about that or anything!) So I hope I can get a lot of writing done.
Crossposted from my website. If you'd like to comment, you can do so here or there.
November 15, 2012
Sticking my foot in it
Went to see the podiatrist this morning, a follow up visit.
At the first visit, the doctor had mentioned I had structural issues, pointing to how high the bone for my big toe sat in my right foot. I hadn’t realized that in his opinion, the structural issues are causing all the pain.
He thinks the only cure is surgery.
I’m not convinced. I will be getting a second opinion.
I don’t want to get two bones fused in the top of my foot in an effort to lower the bone for the big toe. I keep thinking that there must be some sort of PT or exercises or something I can do to change the shape of my foot.
Instead of surgery to fuse two vertebra together, people instead go for core and strengthening exercises, and avoid the knife. Can I do the same thing? Get my foot strong enough that they don’t need to fuse bones to provide the stability I need?
In the meanwhile, to help with the pain, I’m getting orthonics to wear in my dancing shoes, so I can go dancing again.
And I will be doing research, trying to figure out what else I can do. As well as going and talking with a trainer, to make sure I’m walking correctly now (I had no idea that I haven’t been walking correctly until the first trip to the podiatrist. I’ve been practicing walking correctly, and I can train myself to change. Will that be enough?) I’m also going to see my body worker to get her opinion on what else I may be able to do. She always works miracles for me. I hope she has some ideas.
I really miss dancing. However, I walked some today, and I’m just in too much pain. (That doesn’t mean I didn’t consider going, at least for a while. If the problem really is structural, that means that rest, ice, and elevation don’t help the problem. They help the pain, but that’s it. None of that makes me better, or will cure me. Which means I could go dancing again, if I could stomach the pain.)
If anyone knows a good podiatrist in the Seattle area, please let me know!
Crossposted from my website. If you'd like to comment, you can do so here or there.
November 14, 2012
To blog or not to blog*
I read a piece today about someone rethinking his position on fake geek girls.
I have my own thoughts about this (including, who the f**k died and made you geek god and therefore in a position to judge other people’s geekness and whether it lives up to your rules or not?)
But I wanted to comment on a different part. From the piece:
Have you ever vented in the spur of the moment, something you wish you’d taken some time to really think out? Have you ever used Facebook as a catharsis for a burst of emotion? Have you ever felt your logical side peek out and say “Hey now, you know that’s not what you really feel…” only to have your emotional side say “YEAH BUT IT FELT REALLY GOOD TO SAY!”
No. I have not. I cannot count the number of times when I do not blog or post what I’m thinking or feeling. Why?
Much of it comes back to WIBBOW — Would I Be Better Off Writing?
–I don’t have time to moderate comments. I would be better off spending my time writing.
–As a female, if I fly off the handle about something, the chances are high I’ll have a shit storm raining down on my head 100 times worse than if I was a male. I would be better off spending my time writing. (Unlike some of my fellow female bloggers, you’ve never had the experience of a man following you everywhere on the internet with the express purpose of trashing what you say and making your life general hell. While you may have generated a shit storm with the above mentioned post, it isn’t as if that happens every time you post.)
–It’s the internet. Everything, and I mean everything, I’ve ever written on the internet could be found by my current employer, any potential employer, etc. Locked forums or private groups or long dead web pages–you put it out there, it can be found. (I do lock posts sometimes, but that’s because I don’t want them to be seen immediately, not because I have some kind of naive belief that it’s protected.)
So do I fly off the handle? No, sir. I do not. That’s not my choice or my privilege, as it were.
And now — back to writing.
*WIBBOW is always the answer
Crossposted from my website. If you'd like to comment, you can do so here or there.
November 12, 2012
Free Fiction! Dragon’s Son
New Fiction! Never before published!
Even in the future, some things remain the same: family, dreams, and the law.
Long Yen works hard to be a good dragon’s son, doing everything his family asks him to do, even if it involves being a money launderer or stealing a miner’s ID.
Now, he’s been arrested, and this strange, foreign lawyer is asking him to turn against his family for his freedom.
For the next week, this story is available for free on my web site.
It’s also available at all the usual places.
Available on Barnes & Noble (Nook)
I wrote this story for the short story workshop that I took this spring. I sent it to four different markets, where it garnered nice rejections, so am now publishing it here. I don’t write a lot of science fiction, though I do like it.
This afternoon I got the first proof for “The Raven and the Dancing Tiger. So pretty! I’m hoping that I’ll just be able to approve the next proof.
Tonight I start writing the new story, spending time and relishing the writing. I also realized that I didn’t really like all the short stories I wrote last year during the Baker’s Dozen challenge. I only liked about half of them when I finished writing them.
However, the writer knows nothing about the work they produce, and it isn’t up to me to say which one is the best. That made me feel better about the stories I’m writing this time, as I don’t seem to be liking many of them either.
Crossposted from my website. If you'd like to comment, you can do so here or there.
November 11, 2012
Progress and movement
I hurt my foot about 1 1/2 weeks ago. I’ve been going kind of stir crazy, not able to walk around or do as much as I’d normally like, because I’m trying to stay off my foot, keep it elevated and icing it. (I haven’t been able to go dancing, either, and that’s been really hard.)
A big part of the problem is that my writing process is closely linked to walking. This afternoon I had an issue with the short story I was trying to finish — several issues, actually. My first instinct was to get up and go walk somewhere.
After I figured out what I could through merely writing, brainstorming, and taking notes, I eventually had to go walk. It wasn’t that far, and I was careful, walked more slowly than usual.
But I was only able to solve all the issues in the story by walking and thinking about it.
I came home and iced my foot again, elevating it. But really, this sucks. I’ve always said that the words flow better when my body is in motion. That hasn’t changed.
I currently despise the story I just finished. (“The Tortoise and the Maiden” — a fantasy set in ancient China.) I recognize that’s because I had so many issues and had to drag it from one path to another. I also know myself and my process well enough to know that when I look at the story in a few days I won’t hate it anymore.
In addition, I realized that I’m tired of writing short stories, with an emphasis on short. I like writing novels and more complicated things. So the next couple stories don’t have to be as short — which is good because I have another Sadie Louise story (one of the origin stories for “The Piano Time Rag.”) And that girl don’t say anything fast.
I’m going to put up another short story for free for next week. Thank you to everyone who bought “The Raven and the Dancing Tiger.” I’ve finished another short story in that universe, and I’ll be posting that eventually (I might wait until I’m closer to finishing the next novel.) I haven’t figured out which story yet…I have three that could go, but I’m only going to post one per week.
Crossposted from my website. If you'd like to comment, you can do so here or there.
November 7, 2012
Thank you and newsletter
I sincerely appreciate it. If anyone felt like leaving a review at Amazon or Goodreads, that would be awesome too.
Some of my fans don't read my blog, or LJ, and they've asked to hear about new novels and things via email. This has prompted me to get my act together and start generating a newsletter. The first one should go out this weekend.
The newsletter would come in two flavors:
--Quarterly "this is everything going on" flavor. This one will sometimes contain coupons for discounts on my work at Smashwords. Plus possibly give aways (hardcopy proofs, free ebooks, etc.)
--Big announcements, which I'm defining as either a new novel available, or a short story available in a magazine or anthology.
If it's possible to combine the two (novel comes out close to the end of a quarter) I will.
Right now, you sign up for one, you sign up for both. Maybe sometime later I'll get fancy and have two lists.
If you're interested in signing up for my newsletter, please leave a comment here with your email address. All comments are screened, so no one will see them except me. I'm still setting up the widget to allow people to sign up for the newsletter on the website.
