Tansy Rayner Roberts's Blog, page 4
February 11, 2019
February Essay: Paging Dr Ellingham
January 23, 2019
The Creature Court Pre-orders and Prizes
February is Creature Court month!
After my successful Kickstarter and nearly a year of distributing rewards, this award-winning fantasy trilogy is finally coming back into print on February 14, 2019, featuring revised text and gorgeous new cover art by the amazing Kathleen Jennings.
“Blistering fire raining from the sky, explosions and devils and stabbing shards of ice. A city of people sheltering underground, rebuilding their lives despite the horrors that screamed down from above. It was the stuff of legends, ancient history, stories that had grown bigger in the telling. But the truth, Velody, is that the skywar never stopped. It’s hidden from the daylight folk, but we of the nox are still fighting that war. It’s our job to protect the city that can’t protect itself.”
You can pre-order ebooks of Power and Majesty, The Shattered City and Reign of Beasts right now on Amazon Kindle (more ebook vendors to follow).
Paperback editions are available for pre-order at Booktopia, Book Depository, Amazon and more. You should be able to order them directly from your local bookshop if you’re in Australia, the UK or US.
BUT WAIT, THERE’S PRIZES!
To encourage pretty pretty pre-orders, I am holding a contest! Prizes I have to give away include:
15 Creature Court pins (designed by Kathleen Jennings for the Kickstarter) in winner’s choice of black, teal, green, or NEW COLOUR plum.5 signed paperback copies of Cabaret of Monsters, prequel novella to the Creature Court trilogy.2 prize pack boxes including signed paperback of Cabaret of Monsters, all 4 pins, assorted random goodies AND a hand-made felt mouse.
How to Enter (multiple entries encouraged).
Send me an email with a screencap/copy of a receipt showing you have pre-ordered Power and Majesty, The Shattered City and/or Reign of Beasts. (1 entry per book)If you already bought or pre-ordered any of the trilogy via Kickstarter, send me an email to let me know you want to enter the contest! (1 entry per book)Post any Creature Court themed image on Instagram with the hashtag #creaturecourt — and send me the link so I have your contact info! (1 entry per image)Tweet a link to this post with the hashtag #creaturecourt including my handle @tansyrr — and send me the link so I have your contact info! (1 entry per tweet)My Patreon subscribers get 1 bonus entry each — but it’s opt-in, so contact me through Patreon or email to let me know you want to enter.
Entries close at midnight on 28 February 2019. Emails should be sent to news (at) tansyrr.com.
Sign up to my newsletter if you want to stay in touch with my releases, book gossip, giveaways and special offers, plus reading and tea recommendations. There will be lots of special Creature Court content through February!
January 14, 2019
January Essay: Team Mary Queen of Scots
January 10, 2019
Testing
Patreon Post 3
The Mighty Patreon Test Post
January 7, 2019
How I Patreon
It’s now been four and a half years since I launched my Patreon page.
At the time it was a very new form of crowdfunding, and I had a specific project I wanted to make happen: Musketeer Space, still the best elevator-pitchable novel I’ve ever written (gender-swapped retelling of the Three Musketeers in Spaaaaace).
I adore serials, and I was excited to write this particular story. For more than a year I immersed myself in space opera, Musketeers and more. As well as publishing a chapter a week of the novel on a blog (spoilers: this is a great way to write a novel that is long enough to be two novels) and pausing halfway through to write a festive prequel novella, I also did a weekly rewatch of Robotech and a monthly critical essay reviewing one of the many Musketeer adaptations (now available as the book It’s Raining Musketeers).
At the end of the project, I edited my mighty tome into a coherent (if way too long) novel, and sent it out as an ebook to all of my Patreon subscribers. I was proud of what I had achieved… but not quite sure where to go next, Patreon-wise. Should I wind up the project? Start something new?
After a few quiet months in which many of my subscribers understandably withdrew… but an awful lot did not… I came up with the new creative model I wanted to work with. A podcast, which like the serialised Musketeer Space, would be widely available to anyone who wanted to consume it.
Now addicted to writing serial fiction, but not quite so addicted to writing novels that come in at just under 200,000 words, I decided that my new fiction podcast, Sheep Might Fly, would be an excuse for me to write series of long short stories (my sweet spot is about 13,000 words, possibly the most unsaleable story length of all time) and also to re-home stories that had been published elsewhere.
To provide value to my Patreon subscribers, I added a bunch of extra rewards — all subscribers received ebook editions of the new podcast stories, as well as other books and goodies throughout the year. Thanks to the regular income, I was even able to commission artwork for some of these books, as with the Castle Charming series, featuring the gorgeous work of Katy Shuttleworth.
Since I began Sheep Might Fly, my library of ebooks for subscribers has built, so that new people signing up get a huge wealth of fiction titles, including:
Fake Geek Girl (Belladonna U #1)
Unmagical Boy Story (Belladonna U #2)
The Bromancers (Belladonna U #3)
Halloween is Not a Verb (Belladonna #4)
Glass Slipper Scandal (Castle Charming #1)
Dance, Princes, Dance (Castle Charming #2)
Let Sleeping Princes Lie (Castle Charming #3)
New subscribers also get the epic space opera that started it all, Musketeer Space along with its prequel novella Joyeux. Also, Ray Guns For Ladies, my story about the importance of matching your weapon to your manicure.
One of my favourite levels, at the $5 mark, is a Random Act of Post sent out several times a year — these subscribers have received letters, postcards, recipes, enamel pins and a fanzine about Xena (a Xenzine). Postage is going up and it’s a lot of work to produce 25 lovely letters in a batch, but there’s something very tactile about sending a cool thing through the post, so I do enjoy it.
Other rewards include original arts and crafts, a behind the scenes newsletter, and non fiction books every year. More recently I’ve added membership to the Galactic Suburbia Slack (including a special Sheep Might Fly discussion channel!), monthly essays that subscribers get 2 weeks before anyone else, and 3 exclusive stories every year for those subscribing at $2 or more per month.
These stories are still available for new subscribers and include:
Tea and Sympathetic Magic — a Regency comedy-of-manners novella about courtship via magical croquet, elopements, house parties, spellcracking, weaponised teacups and why a gentleman’s best feature is always his library.
Super Spy Science Secret Santa — a story of how Christmas shenanigans in the workplace are dangerous when your job is building tech for spies.
Girls Who Read Austen — a short short about what to do when every college roommate turns out to be a creature from Greek mythology.
Charm or Dare — drinking games with the characters of Castle Charming, told from the POV of the mighty and glorious Corporal Jack.
Caesar and Cleopatra: a playlist — an odd little piece including all my favourite bits of the love story between Caesar and Cleo, plus a decapitated ghost and some steampunk.
The Alchemy of Fine — a Belladonna U story of how the band Fake Geek Girl got together, told in reverse chapter order.
So uh, yes, one or two dollars a month to my Patreon goes a long way.
BUT WHAT NEXT?
I started a new weekly-serialised novel last year, reworking a long-lost manuscript of a Mocklore novel that I adored, but my publishers didn’t quite… get. It’s a bit bonkers, I’ll admit, a kind of Shakespearian soap opera with magical disasters. Finally readers of Hobgoblin Boots will find out what happened to Luc Triclover after three goddesses gave him the golden apple challenge, and he ran away. It’s so fun to be back with Bounty Fenetre, a character designed purely from the idea of “well what sort of person WOULD wear chainmail lingerie?” and highly influenced by all the cheese fantasy I read in the 90s. Glad to know it’s good for something.
Soapy Ballads is entirely exclusive to my Patreon subscribers, and currently 1 Act into a 4 Act novel… Act II starts this Friday!
When I started Musketeer Space and signed up to Patreon, it was originally to give myself deadlines and push me out of a creative slump. Now, the large majority of my writing happens because of, and around, Patreon. It provides a substantial part of my monthly income, as well as a built-in audience of readers who are excited about whatever I produce next, which helps a lot with keeping my creative energy alive. (It’s nice to be wanted)
I seriously thought of starting a Drip late last year, after getting a much-coveted invitation, but while I like the idea of being less dependent on Patreon as a single platform, it felt like stretching myself too far. Patreon has become comfy to me, like a well-worn couch!
I am fascinated, always, to hear stories of different creators and how they use Patreon to fuel their art and industry. It’s always a tricky balance, to offer enough that subscribers want to come over, without over-promising, over-extending, and burning out. I don’t think I could do the ‘write a story a month’ thing that so many other writers do, and I’m currently happy with my balance of Patreon pay-out to creative work. I’m close to maxxed out at what I can offer to subscribers, but at least there’s new content building up all the time, which hopefully makes it appealing for new readers to try out.
When creative people I know ask about Patreon as a platform, I’m always cautious — it’s not for everyone. And it helps a lot (as with almost anything) to have a built in fan base. Patreon isn’t like Kickstarter, which brings a hefty proportion of random traffic to your page. The creators who make it big straight away tend to be those who have a big following already and/or have been giving away free content for years.
But not all of us need to make it big, for it to be worthwhile. When I first started with Musketeer Space, I used the money for my publishing “war chest” to save up to pay cover artists and send out rewards. Later, it brought in enough income to make up for the loss of family allowance when my youngest child turned 6. Now, it’s an income stream that equals one of my 2 x admin-from-home day jobs that keep the lights on.
The money is nice. Getting paid for what you make is pretty damned great, especially in a regular, reliable (ish) dose of funds. But the most important thing I’ve got out of Patreon over the last 4.5 years is the community of subscribers who read, comment, and await my Next Thing.
(I’m really excited about my Next Thing, it’s gonna be great)
(Watch this space)
IF YOU LIKE MY WORK, SUBSCRIBE TO MY PATREON, IT’S SHINY AND SOMETIMES THERE ARE MANTICORES.
December 23, 2018
The Art of the Christmas Special
I’m fascinated with festivals and traditions — it’s something that has always interested me, to the point that I wrote my Honours thesis about religious festivals in Ancient Rome. The history of Christmas, with its hodge-podge of different cultural traditions layered in over so many assumptions and so much storytelling has become something of an obsession of mine in recent years.
I was delighted to find some new TV Christmas Specials to love this year — my favourite genre of holiday media, still competing strongly with Fakey Better-Than-Hallmark Romances on Netflix and Festive Teen Wolf Fanfic.
Old favourites include Miranda, The Vicar of Dibley, AbFab, Community, Parks and Rec, Brooklyn 99, Gavin and Stacey and of course the ultimate retro classics, Blackadder’s Christmas Carol and Bernard & the Genie (the latter is a TV movie, it counts). Plus, you know. Thirteen years of Doctor Who taking on Santa robots and flying sharks.
Upstart Crow, the not-exactly-new-anymore Shakespeare sitcom by Ben Elton, is both educational and entertaining — but its 2017 Christmas Special which I discovered on Australian iView this year is an instant classic! I love how many of the jokes come out of real historical detail, building in so many bits of Elizabethan Yuletide tradition with a bunch of modern smirks to camera. They talk about the Advent fast, the Lord of Misrule, wassailing and of course the twelve nights themselves, which we mostly hear about these days via pre-Christmas sales advertising.
I particularly adored the way that one of the Love, Actually plotlines was woven in, building up to a truly extraordinary scene with Emma Thompson guest starring as a brittle, savage and deeply complex Queen Elizabeth I. More than a sitcom! Those are some of the best lines I’ve ever seen her deliver as an actor.
Another recent discovery for me, as I’ve been mining the comedy trove in iView, is a sitcom I’ve been meaning to track down for years — Plebs! This laddish, “boys behaving badly” comedy happens to have a killer cast and sets so beautiful I couldn’t believe it — how does it look that good? Sitcoms can’t afford that level of historical accuracy and scope, let alone the CGI to fake it! (turns out they film in a replica Rome somewhere in Spain)
Anyway the first season of Plebs ends with a Saturnalia episode that beautifully summed up so many traditions of Ancient Rome with an irreverence that I really enjoyed. Io Saturnalia!
You will find me reading a Saturnalia poem here on the latest episode of Cabaret of Monsters on the Sheep Might Fly podcast.
Those of you who are pining after a Doctor Who Christmas Special this year, hopefully the next Verity episode will be some comfort to you — it is a festive game (not saying what kind) devised by Our Liz, and you have to hear it to believe it. It’s going up on Christmas Day in the US which means, in true Christmas fashion, Australians get to hear it on the 26th.
Also check out this splendid post by Paul Cornell in which he responds to a challenge I gave him, to invent Classic Who Christmas Specials that never were. I’m now a bit heartbroken that they don’t exist (or, if they do, it’s in an attic somewhere with the long lost Feast of Steven).
Happy holidays if you celebrate, and happy Blissfully Quiet 25th if you do not. What are your favourite TV holiday specials or Christmas episodes???
I have two festive novellas out this year! Check out Merry Happy Valkyrie, a cozy Christmas tale of Norse magic, snow and Tasmanian weather, and also Cabaret of Monsters, a dark fantasy celebration of Saturnalia, shape-changers and holiday theatre.
December 6, 2018
Tea & Sympathetic Magic Release Day
It’s Tea and Sympathetic Magic Day! Sign up to my Patreon for $2+ and download a brand new Regency magical comedy novella… plus a bunch of other ebook rewards… access to the exclusive Galactic Suburbia Slack… oh and a new serialised Mocklore novel with weekly updates.
Here’s a sample of the new novella, to see if it suits. My plan with this one was to write the fictional equivalent of a Devonshire tea with extra jam.
Tea & Sympathetic Magic (excerpt)
Chapter One
If anyone had told Miss Mnemosyne Seabourne (Mneme for short) that she should grow up to be the sort of person who was bored of garden parties, she would have declared then and there that growing up was off the table.
Little Mneme had been an outspoken child, to the constant frustration of her mamma, and adored parties because cakes and conversation were her favourite things. She dreamed of a future when she was Out in Society, attending croquet games and glamorous balls, ready to catch a dazzling husband.
These days, at twenty-two years old, she would much rather be at home in her father’s library, with a cup of tea and a book. There was, as it turned out, a ceiling on how many garden parties you could attend before they all became dismally dull.
Lady Agnew’s garden party was the fourteenth Mneme had attended since this Season (her fifth since coming Out) began, and she was about ready to throw a teacup at the next person who informed her that it was a lovely day.
It was a lovely day. The sunshine was perfect. The roses were in bloom. The cakes were frosted in charming shades of blush pink and cornflower blue. There was the promise of sweetened ices later, and an eligible Duke on the premises.
Everything was awful.
“Is your tea to your liking?” asked Miss Letty Agnew, daughter of today’s hostess. Only on her first Season, she had not yet been crushed flat by the disappointments of the marriage market.
Mneme smiled as genuinely as she dared. Most of her energies these days were poured into appearing dull; today that meant blending into the crowd of lovely, eligible young ladies in muslin frocks who danced attendance upon His Grace. “My tea is perfect,” she said, keeping a careful eye upon the man of the hour, who stood in the centre of the pungent chamomile lawn in his bright orange cravat (which clashed with his even brighter beard), laughing loudly at something.
“We source the blend from a darling little plantation on the Isle of Dormouse,” said the very young Miss Agnew, her voice trailing off as she realised that her audience was less than enthusiastic for the topic. “Oh. You’re not interested in tea.”
“I am very interested in tea,” Mneme assured her. “Tea is the centre of my thoughts. I have drunk three cups this afternoon already, each more splendid than the last.”
Tea rarely disappointed her. Tea would never ruin her chances at a decent marriage by constantly hurling her at the highest-ranked and least appropriate suitors, refusing to listen to a word she said about what she actually wanted…
It was possible that tea was no longer entirely the centre of her thoughts.
Across the lawn, Henry Jupiter, the Duke of Storm, laughed at something one of his admirers said. His entire body shook as he indulged in a guffaw far longer and louder than society deemed polite. A lightning bolt of power sizzled in the air above his head, and no one batted an eye at that either because a Duke was allowed to be as rude or careless he liked. Everyone of a lower rank was expected to keep their magical abilities buttoned up and quiet, when there was tea to be sipped and polite conversation to be made.
The Duke of Storm’s entire existence was infuriating to Mneme. He held out an empty teacup as if expecting it to be snatched by empty air — and oh, there was one of his three personal footmen, who did indeed replace the empty cup with a brimming one, without the Duke having to wait more than a second or two.
The universe was infuriating, that such rituals existed to meet the exact needs of men who had done nothing to deserve them.
Henry wasn’t even a particularly terrible example of a Duke; but because he was a Duke, no one would ever demand that he improve his character to any degree. At least when his mother the late Duchess was alive, there was someone who brooked none of his nonsense.
Mneme’s teacup rattled in her saucer. She caught Miss Agnew staring in alarm at her too-firm grip on the delicate handle, and corrected the hold so that the teacup was less in danger of being snapped to pieces. “I wish he’d choose a wife already,” Mneme huffed. “Then some of us could breathe out for the rest of the Season.”
“I wish he’d choose me,” Miss Agnew blurted, and blushed.
“Be careful what you wish for,” said Mneme automatically, a ritual phrase often spoken in magical households. She caught sight of her mamma, fluttering around the Duke of Storm like a hungry butterfly, and turned away with a sigh. “Marrying a Duke is not all it’s cracked up to be.”
“But he’s so almost handsome, and he does cut a fine figure in his suits,” Miss Agnew protested. “The Queen often invites him to advise her of matters of state, which means his wife will surely be invited to several royal events every year, and so many parties. Also, they say the ducal estate of Storm has the finest library in all the Isles. Three thousand volumes!”
“A fine library does increase the appeal of any potential husband,” Mneme conceded. She thought better of Miss Agnew, that she counted the library as a bonus to a gentleman’s appeal. “If only one could be sure that he had ever read a book.”
“Oh dear,” said Miss Agnew in despair as her own mother Lady Agnew took the arm of the Duke, whisking him along the lawn. A parade of whirling muslin dresses fell in behind them, none of his admirers wishing to be left behind. “I do believe it’s time for croquet.”
“Balls,” said Mneme, and then grinned impisly at Miss Agnew, who spluttered out a very unladylike laugh in return. “Very well,” she said, with a sigh to show that it was a great inconvenience. “I suppose we can be friends despite your terrible taste in suitors.”
“He’s not my suitor,” said Miss Agnew, her blush reaching higher on her cheeks. “I’ve only been introduced to him twice.”
“Mnemosyne!” boomed the Duke as his bright cravat and even brighter head of red-gold hair swung past the two ladies. “How jolly to see you. I didn’t even know you were here!” The pressure of matchmaking mammas and young ladies desperate to do something more than drink tea swept him onwards. He was gone before Mneme could do the polite thing and encourage him to talk to her friend.
“You know him personally,” hissed Miss Agnew. “He called you by name!”
“He’s my cousin,” Mneme said heavily.
“Is that why you don’t want to marry him? Because you know, quite a few lovely marriages do start out as family affairs…”
“It’s more that I’ve met him,” Mneme interrupted. She had already received several lectures this Season on why it was Perfectly Normal for cousins to marry. Mostly from her mamma, who would not let go of the image of Mnemosyne as the Duchess of Storm. “We wouldn’t suit at all, is the thing. I’m sure he’ll make someone an adequate husband, if their expectations are not unduly raised by the whole ducal title business, but that person shall not be me.”
“Will you be my partner for croquet?” Miss Agnew asked after a long, thoughtful pause.
“As long as you understand that I shall he hitting my ball in the opposite direction of His Grace the Eligible Duke of Storm at all times.”
“That’s all right,” said her new friend. “I can pine from afar.”
* * *
There were only two places where eligible young ladies in the polite society circles of the Teacup Isles could properly show off their magical abilities to marriageable gentlemen: the ballroom, and the croquet lawn.
The object of the game was to knock one’s ball through the right hoops, with a mallet. But ten years ago, the very young Queen Aud was presented with a set of gold-plated croquet hoops as a coronation gift from the distant Troilish Empire and almost caused a diplomatic incident by declaring that croquet was the dullest pastime in the world.
Alfred Lord Manticore, the Queen’s Personal Advisor on Magical Matters, saved the day by challenging the court to a more “interesting” version of the game, after which the traditional rules lurched rather dramatically into a royal indulgence of chaos, charmwork and the gratuitous application of hexes.
The unspoken rules of the new game made it a free for all when it came to charms, enchantment, illusion or any other forms of magic considered appropriate for mixed company. One could not put a spell on another player, or the lawn itself, but you could do so to any mallets, hoops or balls that came within three feet of you.
The New Croquet was a splendid romp, when played with imagination and gumption. It was also, as was true of any pastime enjoyed at garden parties, house parties or other gatherings of eligible unmarried gentlefolk, an excellent opportunity for creative flirting.
Mneme and Miss Agnew were both, as it turned out, very quick with a mallet. They entertained themselves knocking around a ball which flicked back and forth between being a rolled-up hedgehog and a grass-covered coconut macaroon.
Every other eligible lady in the garden party orbited the Duke of Jupiter, as if he needed the attention. Their spells were a riot of hearts, flowers, teasing word games and attempts to be memorable while demonstrating no originality whatsoever.
“You can join the crowd, you know,” Mneme assured her new friend. “I won’t think any less of you.”
“I’m hoping to gain points by being aloof and mysterious,” Miss Agnew shot back, clipping the hedgehog gently through another hoop, which hissed at her exactly as if it were a snake. “Oh, crumbs,” she said, staring at it in alarm.
“Brace yourself,” Mneme warned in an undertone as a certain mamma broke away from the gaggle of lace-shawled chaperones, chuffing towards them with a bosom that was incapable of doing anything other than heave.
“My dear,” Mrs Galatea Seabourne gasped as she reached her daughter. “The best of news! The Duke has invited you and mousy little Metis to his house party next week. A house party, Mnemosyne! For a whole fort-night.”
“What fun,” said Miss Agnew with a hint of jealousy.
Mneme made a pained expression. “You promised me this was the last one, Mamma. You promised we could go home.” Mneme adored the Seabourne family home. They had a modest library, a lovely garden, a very competent cook, and most important of all: no horde of people trotting through the house at all hours, demanding that she audition for the role of future wife.
Home was quiet and peaceful and calming in a way that the flurry of Society was not. If marriage could not offer her that, then she was in no hurry to be married; and to a Duke least of all.
“It’s the end of garden party season, of course I promised this was the last one,” said her mamma with a careless wave. “House party season begins. And you will be a guest of the Duke! Why as his cousin I expect you will be top of the table if that interfering Lady Lovage doesn’t take against you…”
Mneme groaned. This was clearly a battle she would never win. “If I agree to go to Cousin Henry’s house party without complaint, I needn’t attend any others, need I?” she tried.
“That all depends if you have a ring on your finger by the end of it!” declared her mamma, who was nobody’s fool. Mrs Seabourne turned around and trotted back to the game, neatly side-stepping two croquet hoops which had been charmed to dance a minuet together.
“You know what you have to do,” said Miss Agnew in a low voice, as they both watched Mrs Seabourne cross the croquet lawn.
Mneme sighed heavily and nodded. “I have to find the Duke a suitable wife.”
Want to read more? Sign up to my Patreon at $2+ a month (unsubscribe at any time) and you can download this Regency magic novella TODAY along with a teetering stack of other bonus stories.
December 3, 2018
Merry Happy Valkyrie!
It’s December and that means my new Christmas fantasy novella, Merry Happy Valkyrie, has been released into the wild!
I’ve been home sick with a cold & a sniffling child since December began, because weather in Tasmania (and Australia generally) has been bananas this spring. It’s nearly summer and we just put the gas heating on because the rain it rains every day! We’re in a drought, so this should be good news, except that last time the rain was this extreme in Tasmania was on the other side of this winter just gone, and I know people who are still recovering from the flood damage.
Funny (peculiar) that my new book is in on the joke (haha as well as peculiar!) that is Tasmanian weather. In Matilda, the fictional town where Merry Happy Valkyrie is set, it always snows at Christmas even though we don’t do that in Australia (except when we do, i say, looking suspiciously at my view of Mt Wellington out the window).
Don’t look for Matilda, it doesn’t exist. The people who live there told me to say that, and they should know!
You can buy Merry Happy Valkyrie from your favourite ebook platform, or direct from Twelfth Planet Press. Read it to find out why Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without dragons.
And check out my guest post at Stephanie Burgis’ blog, talking about my favourite Christmas fantasy and romance stories over the years, across various media. I just remembered that I forgot to talk about Christmas crime. One of my favourite Ngaio Marsh murder mysteries is the one called Tied Up With Tinsel…
