Red Tash's Blog, page 268
September 27, 2011
Do you listen to podcasts? I'm listening to Ravenwood, by...
Do you listen to podcasts? I'm listening to Ravenwood, by my new friend Nathan Lowell. I keep forgetting this is actually his voice, it's so smooth.
This painting, a mix of fantasy and sci-fi, reminds me of Nathan's Podiobooks library. Have a look-see. Hear anything you like?
Art by Haryarti
September 26, 2011
I checked my sales over the weekend, and I'd broken the...
I checked my sales over the weekend, and I'd broken the top ten for new dark fantasy on Amazon, top 20 for new contemporary fantasy, top 50 for horror, and top 70 for all fantasy.
Pretty cool, huh?
I am not a cosplayer (although I do have one or two...
I am not a cosplayer (although I do have one or two or…thousands in This Brilliant Darkness), but this is one costume I would kill or die to possess:
Too bad I'm not the sewing, crafty type. I can only admire the handiwork of others.
For Halloween, you can catch me in River Song's Utah outfit.
Just added Author #37 to the Grand Prize package of my Kindle...
Just added Author #37 to the Grand Prize package of my Kindle Giveaway, Red Tash's Trick or Treat Bash.
Welcome Ruth!
(Just loving this Wednesday Addams pic!)
Morticia: Wednesday's at that very special age when a girl has only one thing on her mind.
Ellen: Boys?
Wednesday: Homicide.
I need to have an author headshot done. Barring that, I need to...
I need to have an author headshot done. Barring that, I need to scour my collection of other mugshots and find one that I'd be okay with people seeing on Keep Louisville Writing.
Totally taking Finn's advice—I know I need to be myself. But what does myself want to portray? I am rather fond of my Ferrier portrait. Hrm.
September 25, 2011
This is a tremendously beautiful idea. This is exactly what...
This is a tremendously beautiful idea. This is exactly what contemporary fantasy seeks to do to your MIND. It's what I do, anyway. Try to do! I hope I succeed.
Speaking of doodling on things technologically, did you know I can autograph your Kindle now? Yep, I can. BIZarre, huh?
Project Photo Doodle, Creating Doodles on User Submitted Photos
September 24, 2011
Welcome back to Sample Sunday, Dear Reader. I've got a...
Welcome back to Sample Sunday, Dear Reader. I've got a new passage to share with you this week, from This Brilliant Darkness, Chapter Seven.
This is a Greachin chapter. This Brilliant Darkness was just featured in the Weekend Reading category at Bat Country, btw.
In this sample, Greachin is still in a very young host body that he's tailor-making to scare the wits out of our hapless heroine, Christine Grace:
It was a matter of hours before he could take flight into the darkness, on the hunt for the woman. He could manage a few miles, if he stopped to rest on the way. A few miles were all he needed.
The woman's pulse was calling him, but not from these woods. He'd found her scent in this locale, but except for his finding a host, it had been a dead end.
Well, she'd found a dead end, too, hadn't she?
A smile flickered across his dimpled cheeks, and faded as he turned his head in the direction of his target's beating heart.
Christine Grace had been here, definitely, but this was not her forest.
He closed his eyes, tilting his crested head to one leathery shoulder. He could hear the rattle of branches in a canopy across the nearby town. He was on the outskirts and she waited in the center, radiating a signal that burned in him, impossible to ignore.
Her ruah beat upward and out, into the woods, her scent wrapping languidly around her own trees, then carried to him on the breeze.
Greachin hummed, unconsciously leaning into the direction of her spirit, as the woman walked briskly across a hard paved path. His ruah flapped enormous wings high above her, then dove.
Too soon. Not yet.
His small physical eyes opened, and he wrenched himself upright. He had gone too far, too fast into the scent, into the pulse. He wrapped his chubby baby legs around the branch of the ash.
An insect bored into the trunk, and Greachin leaned forward, pawing at the emerald green bug with his tender talons.
Hunger. Torture.
Eating was a trick. Greachin leaned forward on the branch, his supple lips sucking theinsect's spindly body into his mouth, raking the exoskeleton across his burning gums. His pointed teeth strained to burst through blackening flesh.
Distasteful meal. Teething, too. The scare had better be worth it.
Greachin mused over the power of fear as he munched another emerald ash borer.
And eating.
The humans seemed to love eating, making great rituals out of it, but Greachin had never understood their celebrations. Meals, hugging, kissing, shaking hands—and the mating. Oh, what a ritual surprise that was. The fruitless mating.
Insane.
Greachin continues to riff on the unique experience of human physicality, and someone dies in this chapter, but I shan't spoil it for you. This Brilliant Darkness is $.99 right now on Amazon, and I invite you to give it a read and let me know what you think.
And in case you're a science nerd like me, here's a little educational video about Greachin's lunch, the Emerald Ash Borer that's been a bane to Indiana forests for the past decade, courtesy the USDA:
The Nature Walk: Understanding the Life Cycle of the EAB
Take a virtual nature walk and learn all about the life cycle of the emerald ash borer, an invasive beetle that has killed tens of millions of trees, from forests to neighborhoods.
I'm pretty sure that the kids' chant "Burn it where you buy it" has a completely different meaning in Bloomington.
While you're here, enter my giveaway. You could win a Kindle or Amazon gift cards.
War of the Worlds by Jack Teagle
I love this artwork. I could...
War of the Worlds by Jack Teagle
I love this artwork. I could write an entire post about how WotW is one big metaphor for all the deep, dark secrets that lurk below the surface in each of us, but you probably already get that, don't you?
