Niall Teasdale's Blog, page 34

Amendment to the Amendment

There’s an update to the Second Edition of Thaumatology 101 which is up on Smashwords now. This is to address an issue with the EPUB table of contents. I’m not sure whether it affected other formats on Smashwords, but if you’re not sure, grab a new copy. Hey, it’s free.

Links to the Apple Bookstore

Just in case anyone out there is an iPad user (or iPhone, I won’t judge), the Books and Anthologies pages now have links to the Apple iBookstore to allow you to quickly locate the wonderful world of Thaumatology.

In other news, I passed the 10,000 word mark on Book 11 as part of NaNoWriMo at the weekend. It’s going good.

Superb Samhain

It’s that time again. The time when people think it’s cool to be scared and create silly little things to get with the scary programme. Even the canteen at work…

Yes, it’s a Halloween cupcake… What will they think of next?

Meanwhile, the second edition of Thaumatology 101 is available for download from Smashwords. If you already own it, it won’t cost anything. There’s a little extra material in there, as well as a few corrections. You can find it at https://www.smashwords.com/books/view.... Amazon users won’t be left out as soon as KDP finishes processing the files.

There’s also a new cover…

Enjoy. And have a good Halloween.

Addendum: Edition 2 is now available through Amazon too.

Anita

 

 

Anita first appeared in Legacy. She is the Captain of the Battersea pack and when she first appeared she was basically just the hard-nosed leader of the pack’s Guard unit. I had no clear idea of who she was or what was going to happen to her, or even what she looked like. She has variously been described as an Amazon, and as the kind of girl Conan would have drooled over, but I’ve never given a particularly good description of her. That seems a shame since she’s developed a boyfriend, three sisters, and far more of a personality over the course of the series.

So, I did what I usually do and built a model of her to see what I thought she really looked like. Then I can work a proper description into the rewrite of Legacy. I like the way she came out; she’s got all that suppressed power and she’s pretty good looking. So, I did a render of her on a visit to High Towers, sitting on the rug in front of the fire, as she often does when escorting Alexandra, her Alpha. Since she doesn’t usually wear clothes when she does that, the picture is after the cut.

I think there’s more to hear about Anita. I know there’s at least one story to tell about her and her family. Here’s to seeing more of Anita (in the literary sense, rather than the visual, since there’s not much left to see).

The full-sized image can be found here: http://tharcion.deviantart.com/art/Anita-335037262

Book 11 Title and NaNoWriMo

In another week, I’ll be head down working on my first ever probably successful NaNoWriMo entry. Why is this one going to be successful? Because I’m writing Book 11 of the Thaumatology series and I should be easily able to bang out 50,000 words in the month. That probably won’t wrap the whole book, but I may get more done and I should definitely have the first draft wrapped by Christmas.

One of the things NaNo sort of expects is a title, even if it’s a working title, I guess, so I have fixed on a one for book 11. It might change before publication, however, I rather like this one. So, subject to change, book 11 will be called For Whom the Wedding Bells Toll.

I also have a cover design for it, but I’m not revealing that for a bit. That would give far too much game away.

Johnny Depp Stole My Brain

On Monday evening, I watched Dark Shadows, the Depp movie featuring dark humour and a lot of actors I like. I have to say, I’d hoped I would enjoy it more, but it did make me chuckle several times. That, however, is not why I’m posting.

No, ever since then I have been waking up with Karen Carpenter belting out Top of the World going through my head. I want it gone! I’m going to go funny (funnier than usual) if this keep up.

“Out tiny songstress!”

Over here in Progress Land

I haven’t posted in what seems like ages. Sorry, I was at FantasyCon and then a wedding, and I’m trying to wind myself up for writing Book 11 as a NaNoWriMo project, and releasing Dragonfall and The Other Side of Hell in December.

Part of the wind-up process is a complete review of the 8 published Thaumatology books. It’s actually quite interesting going back to stuff I wrote (what seems like) ages ago. One of the joys of eBooks is that I can issue updated versions, and I plan to do just that. These updates will not have revisions to the plots or anything like that, but they will have the odd extra scene which adds to the existing story, and they will have more errors removed (yes, I still find typos in the manuscripts).

The first of these updates is going to be Thaumatology 101, obviously, and I’m hoping to put this out for Halloween. It will have a new cover, and the largest portion of extra detail comes in the form of more detail on how Ceri breaks free from Lily’s demon side in Part 2. Best of all, if you already own the book, you will be able to download the update at no cost to get more Ceri/Lily action.

I’ll be putting up a post when that update is available. Stay tuned.

A Note on Pronounciation

I never seem to have time to read, and that’s a bad thing for a writer. I do have time to listen though, so I resubscribed to Audible and I’ve been listening to auiobooks. This works and I’m getting through far more books this way. All well and good.

Now, one book I’ve been stuck on for a while is book 4 on the Rachel Morgan/Hollows series, A Fistfull of Charms. I have a soft spot for Rachel, Ivy, and Jenks; these are the books which got me writing the Thaumaology stories. I read the first couple, and started writing, and then I read the third one over Christmas and was embarrassed to discover that one of the characters was called Ceridwen. Still, it is a great name, and my Ceri spells it with a ‘y’.

Anyway, today I picked up the audiobook and I hit one irritating thing instantly. The narrator was pronouncing Ceri like “Seri.” Ceridwen (or Ceridwyn) is a Welsh name (here’s the Wikipedia entry for the “original” Ceridwen: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceridwen) and the Welsh tend to pronounce their ‘c’ as a ‘k’. It’s usually a hard sound, not a soft one. Ceridwen is Kair-id-wen, Ceri is Kerry. Did the producers of the audiobook just get it wrong? How did Kim Harrison mean it to be pronounced? Is this an American thing and the Brits reading this will be going, “Of course it’s a hard ‘C’!”

Enquiring minds wish to know! (Maybe I should ask Kim Harrison… hmmm.)

Harper Voyager Open Submissions

So I’ve delayed my current project a little to go over Thaumatology 101 again because Harper Voyager are opening up their submission system for two weeks. I’ve been trying to get an updated version together for a while, so this is a good excuse to try to get that done.

And if they don’t want it, I’ll update the eBook and possibly put out a print version through CreateSpace.

If you’re looking to get yourself a book deal, go search out Harper Voyager.

You Can’t Stop the Music

I have a drastically eclectic music collection. Seriously, you should see the playlists on my MP3 player. Rihanna, Sting, Beyonce, Evanescence, Within Temptation, the Pussycat Dolls, Disturbed, Tina Turner, Peter Gabriel… I don’t pick music for the genre or because of some dumb peer-pressure urge to feel trendy; if I like the lyrics or the sound it goes in my list.

And some of it influences what I write. Petite popular songbird, Rihanna has resulted in two short stories and gave me the title for a book. (Admittedly Chris Brown wrote it, but Rihanna made it famous.) Russian Roulette produced a short story about one of my City of Heroes characters, and Disturbia continued her story as she rescues someone who has discovered the big city has a dark side. Disturbia remains the theme tune for the dark underside of the Thaumatology universe.

Linkin Park… I’d love to write some more stuff based on their songs. New Divide gave me a three episode short story detailing the mental decline of a superhero. The imagery in the song was perfect for the idea I had had, and the idea had sprung from listening to the song. (Rihanna’s Russian Roulette spawned a story in the same sort of way.)

Book 10, The Other Side of Hell, started out as just “The Other Side,” a name taken straight from the Evanescence song of the same name. Evanescence (and Within Temptation, and Nightwish) produce evocative songs, wonderful inspiration material. With Evanescence I found their second album a bit of a disappointment (there’s about one song I enjoy listening to from it), but their third is really back in the land of the good stuff. You can find the lyrics for The Other Side here: http://www.evanescence.com/audio/theothersidelyrics.html The sentiment behind this is what kicked off the final form of book 10.

Book 9, Dragonfall, has a theme tune too, though I’d got the plot worked out and a lot of the book written before I was watching some old videos on YouTube and came across the Within Temptation video for Stand My Ground. Within Temptation are a Dutch band and maybe not so well heard of in the US, but well worth the listen if you like Goth Rock. (They’re more consistently good than Evanescence.) Stand My Ground is one of their older tracks, but an awesome anthem.

Book 11 has a theme too. Go see if you can find Storytime by Nightwish somewhere.

Character theme tunes; what do I think of when I think of music for my characters? You’d probably be a bit perplexed by that collection. Ceri and Lily share a Beyonce track, kind of the theme of their relationship, Sweet Dreams. Why? Just think back to the way they started and lay that against the chorus:

You could be a sweet dream or a beautiful nightmare

Either way I don’t want to wake up from you.

Faran gets Bad Things, the Jace Everett track which a lot of people will know as the theme music from True Blood. Yes, True Blood is about vampires and Faran is an incubus, but just think about it… Seriously, if you’ve never heard it, look it up n YouTube and tell me that’s not Faran.

I haven’t thought much about the other characters. Anyone have any ideas for themes for the Thaumatology characters? I could do with some recommendations.