Chelsea Gaither's Blog, page 68
November 14, 2012
T-minus OH HELL
Yes. I am procrastinating working on picture. I am waiting for the caffiene and trailer music to kick in.
When this book is out I am going to spend an ENTIRE day playing Minecraft. That will be my vacation.
(...because January's book is the Starbleached sequal. And I know at least two of you have read that one. So you'll want the next one)
(PS...so I check my stats like, hourly, and I've noticed a bizzarely interesting trend. Notably...who's the dude from South Korea? Whoever you are, your tenacity awes me.)
Okay, the bass has kicked in. On to painting we go!
When this book is out I am going to spend an ENTIRE day playing Minecraft. That will be my vacation.
(...because January's book is the Starbleached sequal. And I know at least two of you have read that one. So you'll want the next one)
(PS...so I check my stats like, hourly, and I've noticed a bizzarely interesting trend. Notably...who's the dude from South Korea? Whoever you are, your tenacity awes me.)
Okay, the bass has kicked in. On to painting we go!
November 13, 2012
Not a TOTAL disaster, but...
First of all, I am NOT delaying this project past the fifteenth. NO DELAY WILL STOP ME.
That said...FUCK. We had a tiny storm today. It knocked out the power.
I screamed, and then discovered that I had saved my project just in time. There was much rejoicing.
Then the power died again.
Not only did I lose the extra work I'd done? The file? Was TOTALLY corrupted. Completely. Utterly.
Except for the preview tile. You know, that little tiny picture that tells you what you're looking at? That was fine.
...so I took a screen shot of the preview tile, expanded it up to fit the full image size, and blurred the living shit out of it.
So the GOOD news is...most of the color is in the right place, and the human shapes are, roughly, still correct. And I know my anatomy JUST well enough to go on from there.
The bad news? I HAD THE CASTLE THE WAY I WANTED IT. I am weeping. I am sobbing. I am a blubbering fucking wreck. It's not a total waste, and I even like some of the color blendings done here. But OH MY GOD, I am SO not happy with the universe in general right now.
THE BOOK WILL BE OUT ON THE FIFTEENTH AND IT WILL HAVE THIS AWESOME ARTWORK IF I HAVE TO PULL AN ALL NIGHTER TO MAKE THIS WORK.
Here is another work in progress. Pat me on the back and tell me I am awesome, because I do not feel awesome. I feel like kicking puppies.
Leythorne would not approve of kicking puppies.
That said...FUCK. We had a tiny storm today. It knocked out the power.
I screamed, and then discovered that I had saved my project just in time. There was much rejoicing.
Then the power died again.
Not only did I lose the extra work I'd done? The file? Was TOTALLY corrupted. Completely. Utterly.
Except for the preview tile. You know, that little tiny picture that tells you what you're looking at? That was fine.
...so I took a screen shot of the preview tile, expanded it up to fit the full image size, and blurred the living shit out of it.
So the GOOD news is...most of the color is in the right place, and the human shapes are, roughly, still correct. And I know my anatomy JUST well enough to go on from there.
The bad news? I HAD THE CASTLE THE WAY I WANTED IT. I am weeping. I am sobbing. I am a blubbering fucking wreck. It's not a total waste, and I even like some of the color blendings done here. But OH MY GOD, I am SO not happy with the universe in general right now.
THE BOOK WILL BE OUT ON THE FIFTEENTH AND IT WILL HAVE THIS AWESOME ARTWORK IF I HAVE TO PULL AN ALL NIGHTER TO MAKE THIS WORK.
Here is another work in progress. Pat me on the back and tell me I am awesome, because I do not feel awesome. I feel like kicking puppies.
Leythorne would not approve of kicking puppies.
Artwork HO!
I have three days, counting today, to get this picture done.
One of those days is taken up by my boss's idea of Diwali. Which might be good, IDK.
And every element in it, every single one, is something I am not good at.
Suffice to say? I. am. freaking. out.
Here is a WIP
Don't say I didn't give you anything today.
One of those days is taken up by my boss's idea of Diwali. Which might be good, IDK.
And every element in it, every single one, is something I am not good at.
Suffice to say? I. am. freaking. out.
Here is a WIP
Don't say I didn't give you anything today.
November 12, 2012
City of Bones chapter 5
I can see auras. And if it were the fun, mystical kind of aura, I'd be on cloud nine right now. Aura, however, doesn't just mean the neon neatness that happens when you drop acid. It also describes the bizzare visual phenominon your body sends out when a migrane is imminent. I went for a bike ride today and was ten minutes out when my vision began flashing red and blue with electric tingles, and just made it home before a large portion of my vision up and disappeared. The headache that followed, I am sorry to say, was spectacular.
My point? I'd rather still have the migrane and aura than be reviewing this chapter. Is it a Gor revisit? No. Is it Hubbard level logic fail? Not really. Is it Lakes Sex WTF? No. And I'd rather have it be one of those things because this chapter is boring.
Clary overhears several conversations between Isabelle and Alec. While she's unconsious.
This is something I don't get. Being unfamiliar with Blue Laws? I can give somebody a pass for it. Unless you actually work for a restaurant in a state with Blue Laws (I just spelled that "Blew laws" which would be awesome.) you probably wouldn't know, for example, that it is illegal to sell booze, peroid, before 10am on Sundays (and even then you have to order food). Defining "all ages" as "Allows unsupervised 15 year olds into an alcohol-selling club"...you're an idiot, but I'll still cut you a pass because it wasn't something I thought about until I was threatened with possible arrest for serving a minor alcohol. But I see this trope crop up all the time. Whenever a writer has information they want one character to know about that the other characters would NEVER tell them, they have the character fall asleep and overhear the information while in a dream state.
Let me explain how stupid this is. How many of you have fallen asleep in front of the TV? How many of you remember more than a few minutes of the show after you closed your eyes? This is something that EVERYBODY does. The only way I'd give this stupid a pass is if the main character dreamed this conversation were happening between two dinosaurs. Because that would be awesome.
And Clary isn't just hearing this stuff while sleeping. She's been unconsious for three days. Do you know what unconsious means? It means not consious. And given that it's poison keeping her under, this sounds like a freaking coma.
So what is so important that the main character MUST overhear it while in a three day coma?
Then Clary starts dreaming. And among such dreams as "Jace is an Angel" (GAG) and foreshadowing re: Simon, we get this little gem:
Two: A whip...is like a net...of gold rings. You know, I knew in a kind of sub consious way that the descriptions in this book were bad, but this kind of blew my mind, hard. Let me illustrate the fail here. This:
when wrapped around Isabelle, looks like this:
Incidentally, if I ever become queen of the universe, chain mail neckties will become part of the uniformThat's what she's describing. A net of gold rings is fucking chain mail. Isabelle's whip turns into clothing. Freaking wow.
Then she wakes up in Hogwarts.
Hogwarts is also called "The Institute" (...=school=Hogwarts) and Isabelle is there to make Clary feel like a small and plain little flower. Clary has a stomach ache, so Isabelle gives her a magic potion to drink.
Allow me to lay out what has happened so far, mkay?
Clary either went to an alcohol-free club in a church basement, or snuck in using her mom's ID. She watched three kids her own age murder a fourth boy in cold blood, while the Murder Trio raged about demons and hunters and killing. No one else can see these people. The next day a member of the Murder Trio, Jace, stalks her to a poetry slam and tries to kidnap her, only to let her leave because her mother is in trouble. Mom is attacked by a demon, which Jace knows all about. She passes out and wakes up in a strange place, where another member of the Murder Trio gives her something strange to drink.
Clary Frey is too stupid to live. Sadly, she will.
Then we have Expository Conversation B, where Clary finds out all about Isabelle (Last name, Lightwood, brother Alec, absent parents) and Jace (Dad died when he was young, never met Mom. Hey, Clary never met her Dad! Look! They've got something in common!) Then Isabelle tells Clary she stinks and needs to go take a bath.
Riveting.
Something that bugs me is how old-fashioned everything is in the Institute. Everything here is like 1800s era. There are glass lamps that are either kerosine or gas, and Clary smells candle wax as she wanders around the hall. However, outside, there are cars speeding by. She's still in New York City. The house just isn't on a power grid.
I kind of got the whole "no modern tech" in Harry Potter, in that I understood why the Malfoys and Hogwarts might not have radios and computers (the story takes place in the late nineties, the Malfoys have their collective heads jammed up their racist asses, and Hogwarts has to accomodate students whose parents see muggle tech as the peanuts in the cafeteria of life) but I didn't get why Ron's family or Sirius's manor wasn't wired for sound, given that in the former's case, Daddy has a serious crush on muggle tech and the latter is square in the middle of London. It makes even less sense here, especially when technology is the great equalizer. There is very little a wizard could do that modern tech can't. Magic would have been a HUGE advantage in every other era, but in this one, whenever I imagine myself imagining magic in a real life setting, part of my brain goes "Hey, I just sent an e-mail to somebody in Japan in less than three seconds! Why are you still using an owl?"
So she wanders around this mint Victorian mansion and finds Jace playing a piano, expertly. And we get this:
One, they are totally going to be fucking by the end of this book, and two...that bolded part. What the fuck does it have to do with the price of tea in China?
IDK. He greets her with this:
They go find Dumbledore Hodge. And continue through the Institute, which...oh, for fuck's sake.
I googled this. I found a map:
...That is not what I'd call "Between". That's more "Stapled onto the join". And this one I won't let fly. Cassandra Clare is from the UK. This is like ME saying Navada is between California and Arizona. FRANCE AND GERMANY ARE TOUCHING. NOTHING IS BETWEEN THEM.
Fuck. I'm not even halfway through this chapter yet. And I am skipping SO MANY THINGS to try to make this breif as possible.
Then he takes her to the library, where the books are all bound with leather and velvet.
Leather. And Velvet.
Seriously. Velvet is a book binding material here. I've owned several velvet-bound novelty books and let me tell you, they do NOT age well. It's something you put on Baby's First Journal. it's not something you use to record the Deep Secret of the Universe.
And then Alec appears and is revealed to be a total ass, Clary calls her uncle and finds out that he is a total ass, Hodge shows he'll be the Gandalf for this book, and I'm speeding through this chapter suddenly because I'm having a HUGE bout of religious rage and I have to vent about it.
A frequently occuring motif here is angels. Angels and demons, angels and demons, and...okay, I have to address this. I was going to wait until it got worse, but it's getting fucking annoying and I need to get it over with. Every book of magic draws on some kind of mythology. I'm trying to draw on modified Celtic/British with a seasoning of Greek, which is what C.S. Lewis and Rowling drew on. Tolkien did European mythos.
Cassandra Clare is drawing on Christian mythology for this novel.
My faith, in other words.
The problem with writing in any mythology is you tend to treat it like a buffet. You take what you like and you leave the rest. Thus, it is a lot safer to draw upon a more or less "dead" faith than it is to draw on one that's still alive. First, because you piss fewer people off. Second, because the odds of running into somebody who actually understands the theology you're working with are relatively small.
Cassandra Clare? Has managed to pull full research fail on the biggest religion in the world.
See, the Shadowhunters, that hunt demons, are the Nephilium. She gets exactly one part right: The Nephilum were the offspring of humans and Angels. Yes, boys and girls. The Bible does say that humans and angels got it on and had a whole bunch of kids. And then Clare basically says "But the bible got it wrong, and Shadowhunters were really created by people drinking angel blood out of the Mortal Cup."
No.
Nephilum were the product of angels getting it on with human women. Something that God disliked so much that he freaking drowned the human race. The Nephilum are one of the reasons for the biblical flood. Noah's ark is a thing due to the Nephilum. And they were considered very, very evil in the Bible. One of the fun theological debates you could have is if Goliath, as in David and Goliath, was a Nephilum or just a very big man.
It is possible to take Christian theology and fuse it to magical elements. C.S. Lewis did it beautifully, a couple of other Christian writers did it, and Neil Gaiman fucking nailed it. But there's one thing all those writers have in common: They respected the source material. Even if they didn't believe in it, they took the time to research the things they're drawing on and present them in a manner that stands up to casual theological scrutiany. (See Good Omens)
Cassandra Clare grabbed all the shiny objects and left the rest of it sitting in the box. The biggest sign that this is so? There are a lot of angels, and a lot of demons, but nobody ever brings up God. And I don't mean goes "this is the One True God of Cosmos, fall on your knees in respect and love" I mean nobody mentions the posibility of deity. In a book about angels and demons. Written by an author who did enough research to find something as awesome as the Nephilum.
There's a factual connection between Christianity and the other elements Clare employs, but there isn't a spiritual one. At no point does Clare take time to connect the dots between the pixies, the Shadowhunters, and the Christian theology. And I know this isn't a bullshit thing. American Gods has a deep spiritual/emotional connection between the gods of every pagan religion ever and America itself. It's a story about a battle between Odin and the spirit of talk shows. And it WORKS.
City of Bones does not work. It's all fluff and bubblegum, and its drawing upon sources that are deep and pretty damn dark at times.
To sum up the rest of the chapter, we find out that Valentine has all the same goals as Voldemort, and that Clary is going back to her house to get clothes and see if maybe her Mom came back. Hodge writes a letter. The rest of us go to sleep.
End of chapter.
My point? I'd rather still have the migrane and aura than be reviewing this chapter. Is it a Gor revisit? No. Is it Hubbard level logic fail? Not really. Is it Lakes Sex WTF? No. And I'd rather have it be one of those things because this chapter is boring.
Clary overhears several conversations between Isabelle and Alec. While she's unconsious.
This is something I don't get. Being unfamiliar with Blue Laws? I can give somebody a pass for it. Unless you actually work for a restaurant in a state with Blue Laws (I just spelled that "Blew laws" which would be awesome.) you probably wouldn't know, for example, that it is illegal to sell booze, peroid, before 10am on Sundays (and even then you have to order food). Defining "all ages" as "Allows unsupervised 15 year olds into an alcohol-selling club"...you're an idiot, but I'll still cut you a pass because it wasn't something I thought about until I was threatened with possible arrest for serving a minor alcohol. But I see this trope crop up all the time. Whenever a writer has information they want one character to know about that the other characters would NEVER tell them, they have the character fall asleep and overhear the information while in a dream state.
Let me explain how stupid this is. How many of you have fallen asleep in front of the TV? How many of you remember more than a few minutes of the show after you closed your eyes? This is something that EVERYBODY does. The only way I'd give this stupid a pass is if the main character dreamed this conversation were happening between two dinosaurs. Because that would be awesome.
And Clary isn't just hearing this stuff while sleeping. She's been unconsious for three days. Do you know what unconsious means? It means not consious. And given that it's poison keeping her under, this sounds like a freaking coma.
So what is so important that the main character MUST overhear it while in a three day coma?
“Yeah. I thought she was a pixie the first time we saw her. She’s not pretty enough to be a pixie, though.”Seriously. She has to hear what the other characters think about her. Because we would be completely without meaning if we didn't know this, and there will never be circumstances where the other characters could express this otherwise.
Then Clary starts dreaming. And among such dreams as "Jace is an Angel" (GAG) and foreshadowing re: Simon, we get this little gem:
Isabelle sitting naked with her whip curled around her like a net of gold rings,One: Why? Why would a straight girl dream this?
Two: A whip...is like a net...of gold rings. You know, I knew in a kind of sub consious way that the descriptions in this book were bad, but this kind of blew my mind, hard. Let me illustrate the fail here. This:
when wrapped around Isabelle, looks like this:
Incidentally, if I ever become queen of the universe, chain mail neckties will become part of the uniformThat's what she's describing. A net of gold rings is fucking chain mail. Isabelle's whip turns into clothing. Freaking wow.Then she wakes up in Hogwarts.
She saw clear blue sky above her, white puffy clouds and chubby angels with gilded ribbons trailing from their wrists. Am I dead? she wondered. Could heaven actually look like this? She squeezed her eyes shut and opened them again: This time she realized that what she was staring at was an arched wooden ceiling, painted with a rococo motif of clouds and cherubs.Yep. Hogwarts. Also, Clary, honey? I have read this book. No way are you getting a toe through the pearly gates.
Hogwarts is also called "The Institute" (...=school=Hogwarts) and Isabelle is there to make Clary feel like a small and plain little flower. Clary has a stomach ache, so Isabelle gives her a magic potion to drink.
Allow me to lay out what has happened so far, mkay?
Clary either went to an alcohol-free club in a church basement, or snuck in using her mom's ID. She watched three kids her own age murder a fourth boy in cold blood, while the Murder Trio raged about demons and hunters and killing. No one else can see these people. The next day a member of the Murder Trio, Jace, stalks her to a poetry slam and tries to kidnap her, only to let her leave because her mother is in trouble. Mom is attacked by a demon, which Jace knows all about. She passes out and wakes up in a strange place, where another member of the Murder Trio gives her something strange to drink.
Clary Frey is too stupid to live. Sadly, she will.
Then we have Expository Conversation B, where Clary finds out all about Isabelle (Last name, Lightwood, brother Alec, absent parents) and Jace (Dad died when he was young, never met Mom. Hey, Clary never met her Dad! Look! They've got something in common!) Then Isabelle tells Clary she stinks and needs to go take a bath.
Riveting.
Something that bugs me is how old-fashioned everything is in the Institute. Everything here is like 1800s era. There are glass lamps that are either kerosine or gas, and Clary smells candle wax as she wanders around the hall. However, outside, there are cars speeding by. She's still in New York City. The house just isn't on a power grid.
I kind of got the whole "no modern tech" in Harry Potter, in that I understood why the Malfoys and Hogwarts might not have radios and computers (the story takes place in the late nineties, the Malfoys have their collective heads jammed up their racist asses, and Hogwarts has to accomodate students whose parents see muggle tech as the peanuts in the cafeteria of life) but I didn't get why Ron's family or Sirius's manor wasn't wired for sound, given that in the former's case, Daddy has a serious crush on muggle tech and the latter is square in the middle of London. It makes even less sense here, especially when technology is the great equalizer. There is very little a wizard could do that modern tech can't. Magic would have been a HUGE advantage in every other era, but in this one, whenever I imagine myself imagining magic in a real life setting, part of my brain goes "Hey, I just sent an e-mail to somebody in Japan in less than three seconds! Why are you still using an owl?"
So she wanders around this mint Victorian mansion and finds Jace playing a piano, expertly. And we get this:
Watching the quick, sure movements of his hands across the keys, Clary remembered how it had felt to be lifted up by those hands, his arms holding her up and the stars hurtling down around her head like a rain of silver tinsel.
One, they are totally going to be fucking by the end of this book, and two...that bolded part. What the fuck does it have to do with the price of tea in China?
IDK. He greets her with this:
Piano keys jangled as he got to his feet. “Our own Sleeping Beauty. Who finally kissed you awake?”
They go find Dumbledore Hodge. And continue through the Institute, which...oh, for fuck's sake. (The Institute looked) like it had been naturally hollowed out of rock by the passage of water and years.No, it doesn't. It looks like a building because that's what it is. I get what she's saying. People added to the institute over the years until it looked something like the Winchester building. But a building doesn't get to look like a cave unless it has actual stretches of exposed rock. And on the way, they have Expository Conversation C, where Clary finds out no one is in the Institute, that it's where Shadowhunters go when the world gets too hot for her, and they have their own special little country, Idris, which is a small country between Germany and France. Clary responds thusly:
“But there isn’t anything between Germany and France. Except Switzerland.”
I googled this. I found a map:
...That is not what I'd call "Between". That's more "Stapled onto the join". And this one I won't let fly. Cassandra Clare is from the UK. This is like ME saying Navada is between California and Arizona. FRANCE AND GERMANY ARE TOUCHING. NOTHING IS BETWEEN THEM.Fuck. I'm not even halfway through this chapter yet. And I am skipping SO MANY THINGS to try to make this breif as possible.
Then he takes her to the library, where the books are all bound with leather and velvet.
Leather. And Velvet.
Seriously. Velvet is a book binding material here. I've owned several velvet-bound novelty books and let me tell you, they do NOT age well. It's something you put on Baby's First Journal. it's not something you use to record the Deep Secret of the Universe.
And then Alec appears and is revealed to be a total ass, Clary calls her uncle and finds out that he is a total ass, Hodge shows he'll be the Gandalf for this book, and I'm speeding through this chapter suddenly because I'm having a HUGE bout of religious rage and I have to vent about it.
A frequently occuring motif here is angels. Angels and demons, angels and demons, and...okay, I have to address this. I was going to wait until it got worse, but it's getting fucking annoying and I need to get it over with. Every book of magic draws on some kind of mythology. I'm trying to draw on modified Celtic/British with a seasoning of Greek, which is what C.S. Lewis and Rowling drew on. Tolkien did European mythos.
Cassandra Clare is drawing on Christian mythology for this novel.
My faith, in other words.
The problem with writing in any mythology is you tend to treat it like a buffet. You take what you like and you leave the rest. Thus, it is a lot safer to draw upon a more or less "dead" faith than it is to draw on one that's still alive. First, because you piss fewer people off. Second, because the odds of running into somebody who actually understands the theology you're working with are relatively small.
Cassandra Clare? Has managed to pull full research fail on the biggest religion in the world.
See, the Shadowhunters, that hunt demons, are the Nephilium. She gets exactly one part right: The Nephilum were the offspring of humans and Angels. Yes, boys and girls. The Bible does say that humans and angels got it on and had a whole bunch of kids. And then Clare basically says "But the bible got it wrong, and Shadowhunters were really created by people drinking angel blood out of the Mortal Cup."
No.
Nephilum were the product of angels getting it on with human women. Something that God disliked so much that he freaking drowned the human race. The Nephilum are one of the reasons for the biblical flood. Noah's ark is a thing due to the Nephilum. And they were considered very, very evil in the Bible. One of the fun theological debates you could have is if Goliath, as in David and Goliath, was a Nephilum or just a very big man.
It is possible to take Christian theology and fuse it to magical elements. C.S. Lewis did it beautifully, a couple of other Christian writers did it, and Neil Gaiman fucking nailed it. But there's one thing all those writers have in common: They respected the source material. Even if they didn't believe in it, they took the time to research the things they're drawing on and present them in a manner that stands up to casual theological scrutiany. (See Good Omens)
Cassandra Clare grabbed all the shiny objects and left the rest of it sitting in the box. The biggest sign that this is so? There are a lot of angels, and a lot of demons, but nobody ever brings up God. And I don't mean goes "this is the One True God of Cosmos, fall on your knees in respect and love" I mean nobody mentions the posibility of deity. In a book about angels and demons. Written by an author who did enough research to find something as awesome as the Nephilum.
There's a factual connection between Christianity and the other elements Clare employs, but there isn't a spiritual one. At no point does Clare take time to connect the dots between the pixies, the Shadowhunters, and the Christian theology. And I know this isn't a bullshit thing. American Gods has a deep spiritual/emotional connection between the gods of every pagan religion ever and America itself. It's a story about a battle between Odin and the spirit of talk shows. And it WORKS.
City of Bones does not work. It's all fluff and bubblegum, and its drawing upon sources that are deep and pretty damn dark at times.
To sum up the rest of the chapter, we find out that Valentine has all the same goals as Voldemort, and that Clary is going back to her house to get clothes and see if maybe her Mom came back. Hodge writes a letter. The rest of us go to sleep.
End of chapter.
November 10, 2012
State of the CW
So I woke up today feeling sick as a dog. Part of this might be because I laid sod for my boss yesterday (THIS TIME OF YEAR IS SLOW, people. Only capslock can fully express how SLOW it is right now) and part of it might be because, tempreature aside (eighty digrees high, seventy low. I heart south texas) it is November and that means colds are everywhere. But I do not feel like doing anything today except curling up and going back to bed. Which ain't gonna happen.
I've officially decided, with five days left to go, to change the title on the next book. Prince of the Gray Keep no longer really fits. The story...ah, kind of got away from me. So it is now This Found Thing.
I am doing this because I am a self-published author who no longer gives a fuck. Ah, universe, with your rules about professional behavior:
I'm not famous, I'm not successful, but the freedom to do what when I want to TOTALLY ROCKS.One more slight program change. I decided on the fifteenth as a release date last month, not knowing that it is...uh, dually...dully...dwalli...fuck it, the Indian festival of lights. Diwali! There we go, google comes through once again. And my boss is having everybody dress up in sarees while we serve people wine and chicken. I do not find out about this until november first. And naturally she got the date WRONG so I spent all month thinking, "Oh, thank GOD I'll have the book out by then".
Nope. So what we're going to do is, MIDNIGHT november 15th. After I survive my completely white boss's idea of Diwali.You will have book. With pretty artwork. I promise.
What's really hit me hard this month is a MASSIVE increase in my responsibility at work. The boss, for reasons that are totally understandible, has decided that I need to become her unofficial second in command. Not because I can actually do the job (I can't. I don't want it. I do not want to be first in line on the firing squad the first time somebody screws up) but because I am the only person who shows up consistantly, who also understands that "clean" doesn't mean "swipe a rag at the mess and call it a day" but rather "if at first you don't succeed, bring out the gloves and lye."
So whereas last month I had more than one day off, this week? Every day we're open, I'm there. I'm learning how to cook, or how to do the books, or how to do one of the ten million projects we got going on. AND I AM VERY TIRED. And the daunting thing is not getting this DAMN book edited (I love this book, but I kind of hate this book, because it went from "oh, little tiny fun project meant to get you interested in unreleased future projects" to "OMGWTFBBQ complicated") but getting the ARTWORK done. Because, thanks to reusing old artwork on the cover for preceeding book? And given how fucking complex this one got on me? I have to do something awesome. In a week. Involving EVERYTHING I suck at painting.
I'm going back to work now. Either that, or to go soak my head. One of the two.
OH! And the Buy Day...thing. Which I still don't know if anybody is going to do, but I'm going to do it anyway because I can. Here are the particulars, decided arbitrarily, as of right now:
When: Sunday, November 17th.
Where: Amazon.com
What the hell?: Buy Day is something I'm making up as I go. I'd like for those of you who intend to buy the book anyway to all buy it on the same day. So that I know I have repeat buyers. It's something I'd like to know so that I can make future plans. Do this ONLY if you intend to buy the book anyway. It's going to be 2.99. Decide if you want to buy or not, I'll be waiting over her in the corner.
If you do not intend to buy the book and you want to wait for it to become free...we'll see if I do that or not.
City of Bones reviews pick back up on Sunday/Monday/whenever I feel like not dying again.
I've officially decided, with five days left to go, to change the title on the next book. Prince of the Gray Keep no longer really fits. The story...ah, kind of got away from me. So it is now This Found Thing.
I am doing this because I am a self-published author who no longer gives a fuck. Ah, universe, with your rules about professional behavior:
I'm not famous, I'm not successful, but the freedom to do what when I want to TOTALLY ROCKS.One more slight program change. I decided on the fifteenth as a release date last month, not knowing that it is...uh, dually...dully...dwalli...fuck it, the Indian festival of lights. Diwali! There we go, google comes through once again. And my boss is having everybody dress up in sarees while we serve people wine and chicken. I do not find out about this until november first. And naturally she got the date WRONG so I spent all month thinking, "Oh, thank GOD I'll have the book out by then".Nope. So what we're going to do is, MIDNIGHT november 15th. After I survive my completely white boss's idea of Diwali.You will have book. With pretty artwork. I promise.
What's really hit me hard this month is a MASSIVE increase in my responsibility at work. The boss, for reasons that are totally understandible, has decided that I need to become her unofficial second in command. Not because I can actually do the job (I can't. I don't want it. I do not want to be first in line on the firing squad the first time somebody screws up) but because I am the only person who shows up consistantly, who also understands that "clean" doesn't mean "swipe a rag at the mess and call it a day" but rather "if at first you don't succeed, bring out the gloves and lye."
So whereas last month I had more than one day off, this week? Every day we're open, I'm there. I'm learning how to cook, or how to do the books, or how to do one of the ten million projects we got going on. AND I AM VERY TIRED. And the daunting thing is not getting this DAMN book edited (I love this book, but I kind of hate this book, because it went from "oh, little tiny fun project meant to get you interested in unreleased future projects" to "OMGWTFBBQ complicated") but getting the ARTWORK done. Because, thanks to reusing old artwork on the cover for preceeding book? And given how fucking complex this one got on me? I have to do something awesome. In a week. Involving EVERYTHING I suck at painting.
I'm going back to work now. Either that, or to go soak my head. One of the two.
OH! And the Buy Day...thing. Which I still don't know if anybody is going to do, but I'm going to do it anyway because I can. Here are the particulars, decided arbitrarily, as of right now:
When: Sunday, November 17th.
Where: Amazon.com
What the hell?: Buy Day is something I'm making up as I go. I'd like for those of you who intend to buy the book anyway to all buy it on the same day. So that I know I have repeat buyers. It's something I'd like to know so that I can make future plans. Do this ONLY if you intend to buy the book anyway. It's going to be 2.99. Decide if you want to buy or not, I'll be waiting over her in the corner.
If you do not intend to buy the book and you want to wait for it to become free...we'll see if I do that or not.
City of Bones reviews pick back up on Sunday/Monday/whenever I feel like not dying again.
November 9, 2012
Interview with Virginia Yarborough
Virginia Yarborough is an awesome person from Goodreads. She's relaunching her sci-fi book, The Alien Mind, this month and asked me to participate in her blog tour. I got to ask her a lot of questions and she was patient enough to give me the answers. 
What inspired you to tell this story? The original seed idea for The Alien Mind was inspired by a comment I read somewhere once which stated that humans only use 10 percent of their brains; I wanted to know what we might be able to do if we could use all of it! However, I will say that my book has come a long way since its first release in 2005. My husband and children are the ones who inspired me to rewrite the story and turn it into what I had originally envisioned for it. Using Createspace enabled me to add my own illustrations to the cover and interior of the book in order to allow the reader a peak into my original vision of the scenes and characters in the book. This book now truly feels like a work of art completely designed by me and the culmination of an 8 year dream!
Who would you say your biggest influences as an author are?I try to be very careful about letting one person or another influence my writing too much as I prefer to try to write something that has not been done to death before. However, for world building or character interactions I always fall back on movies and books. My go-to influences for world building and character interactions would be George Lucas' Star Wars movies and the books based off of that series, as well as Jk Rowling's Harry Potter. Instead of using them as formulas or making my characters and worlds sound JUST like them, I prefer to use them instead as 'examples'. "Does this world I have created have as much detail and unending possibilities as [insert example]." "Do these characters illicit this reaction in the reader like [insert example]."
The science in the book is pretty cool. My personal favorite is the hyper-dimensional time travel. What was your favorite part to write?I'm glad you enjoyed it! I'd have to say my favorite part to come up with and to describe was the method Rivi uses to travel through space to the different planets. Trying to describe what an unfolded fourth dimensional cube looks like was quite a fun challenge. I also rather enjoyed writing the scenes where Rivi's friend Daniel walks the halls of her mind.
Rivi has to adapt to some confusing situations pretty quickly. How well do you think you’d react in the same situations?*Chuckles* Yeah, if I was honest I should probably be cast as one of the scientists who is running around freaking out when something goes wrong.
What sources did you draw on to design Aun and its people? I had an image of how I wanted the Aunantet to look years before I thought about drawing them. I knew I wanted them to have more simplistic features and to be bald with tattoos encircling their head and neck. Since the Aunantet have plain features, I thought it would be neat if they could tell each other apart by the description of who they are and their ability from just one row of symbols around their head.
I also knew that we always wish we had more arms so I gave the Aunantet a third arm and leg. While drawing I pulled random images from the internet to get an idea of how lips and eyes should be shaped, but the rest was already in my mind. I had an image of Ankh already in my mind when I sat down to draw him so it was just a matter of teaching my hand how to copy what I was seeing in my mind.
Self publishing can be pretty overwhelming. What would you say were the biggest challenges you’ve had to deal with since you started? Do you have any regrets? The biggest challenge in self publishing is knowing who is the right person to use as your publisher. Self publishing should allow you more control over your work's formatting, cover, price and distribution. It should also offer you the ability to walk away and try something else if it is not working for you. I'd say the first thing I would advise against is paying to have your book published. An author would be better off hiring their own editor and finding their own cover designer separately rather than paying thousands of dollars to a company that is going to sign you into a few year exclusive contract and not even help you promote your book. If you do decide to sign a self publishing contract with a company, make sure there is an option in the contract that allows you to leave and take your book at any time. My one BIGGEST regret is taking my second book to Publish America.
My newest release, The Alien Mind, is published through Createspace. The process was liberating and inspiring! The biggest challenge was formatting the manuscripts headers and footers properly in the paperback version as well as getting the index in the kindle to work properly. Other than that I absolutely love being published through createspace, it is free, their prices for author copies are awesome, their program is user friendly, and the amount of control over distribution and pricing makes them one of my favorite companies.
What advice would you have for writers just starting out?
This is the easiest answer by far. Start a blog, then start a social networking platform, join a writers group- in that order. These two things are very important to growing your fan base and will be very helpful when releasing your first book, as well as teach you things along the way about your audience, tips of the trade, and other things you will be glad you learned ahead of time!
Author Info:
Virginia Jennings lives in South Carolina with her husband, three kids, and two cats. She graduated from High School at 16 and was published by the time she turned 18. She is the author of two science fiction books and has plans in the works for two fantasy books as well. Her ideal evening is spent watching Star Trek or Eureka with her family over dinner. She enjoys playing putt putt and watching the latest sci-fi or action adventure movie. She does most of her best writing in the car as her characters prefer to talk to her while she is driving. Finding time to write down what they tell her- now that is where the real challenge is! When she is not hanging out with her family or writing she also runs the 'Where Writers And Authors Meet' writers group online at www.wherewritersandauthorsmeet.webs.com or www.facebook.com/groups/wherewritersandauthorsmeet
Authors Website: www.virginiajennings.webs.com On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AuthorVirginiaJennings On Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/virginialori... On Shelfari: http://www.shelfari.com/authors/a2479890/Virginia-L-Jennings/ On Amazon: http://amzn.to/RLoyH9
November 8, 2012
Publishers and Grocery Stores, or: Why we all might be screwed.
So I messed up on the dates for the freebie day. It's today, guys. If you have not yet read Rise of the Winterlord it is free today. Go get a copy.
The big news in the publishing world has been the Penguin/Random House merger. Until they have an official name I'm calling it Penguin House, because I can and because I find the whole idea to be rather scary. At first I was all like, Self Publisher here:
And then I started pretending that I had a career. And if I had a career as a real writer I would NOT like my industry right now. At all.
I used to work for HEB, a grocery store here in Texas. Now, those of you who live up north may not understand what it's like here in TX. You have many choices. Piggly Wriggly...uh...other...stores. I don't know. Here in Texas there are two grocery store options. You can go to HEB, or you can go to Wal-Mart. That's it. And I don't mean "That's it, except for the Mom and Pop store down the street" I mean THAT'S IT. If you don't count the guys selling watermellons out of a pickup truck, HEB and Wal-Mart are the only options in Texas. And I think Wal-Mart is still here because they've got a store everywhere and can divert resources to Texas when they need to. HEB is the nicer option--someday remind me to tell you about what happened when Galveston got clobbered by a hurricane. It was freaking awesome--but as far as consumers go, you might as well flip a coin.
What does this have to do with Penguin House?
The problem with comparing grocery stores to publishers is, grocery stores allow for competition within the store. You want macaroni, you can buy Kraft, you can buy Velveeta, you can buy the store brand, which may or may not be as good, but it'll be cheaper. Grocery stores are more like Amazon. They got books from everybody, and they got a store brand--KDP. It might not be as good as the name brand books, but it's cheap and there's a bigger selection.
The Penguin House merger, in my VERY humble opinion--and I am in NO WAY qualified to offer anything more than my own shitty analysis--creates the potential for two big problems.
The first, obvious problem is, you only get one shot at publishing. Once you are, that's it. That's what you get. You get one chance to impress an agent per project, one chance to impress an editor, and if you're self published, you might as well have put your career up against the wall, blindfolded, and offered it its final cigarette. So if you want to be a real writer, you have to pour your heart and soul into your projects, make them their very best thing possible, and then repeat the process over and over when the Powers That Be tell you to stuff it. Yes. I'm bitter.
This system works great if you have talent, and lots of publishers to choose from. Let's assume that you are good (and that's a big assumption) and you have THE BOOK. There are six publishers to choose from: A, B, C, L, Y and X. After doing research, you find out that A and B don't publish your genre, and that C has some financial issues and has gained a reputation for screwing its authors over. L, Y and X are all fine. Unfortunately THE BOOK is a lot like THE OTHER BOOK, which is published by X. X is not going to buy THE BOOK because X will not compete with itself. They reject you. L has bought all its books for this year, so it passes. Y, however, is focused on competing with X, and it would really like part of THE OTHER BOOK's pie. So Y buys THE BOOK, makes lots of money, gives you lots of money, and everybody's happy. Except X, because now THE OTHER BOOK has competition. (Why people who like THE OTHER BOOK wouldn't also buy THE BOOK is never explained).
Now, let's say before you submitted THE BOOK, X and Y merged. Now X and Y are both X, and X is still the publisher of THE OTHER BOOK.
This is a competative industry. X has more resources, so its books do better than the others. A, B and L do alright, too, though there is a little belt tightening involved. C, however, was already in trouble. It goes down like the Titanic in a blaze of unpaid royalties and uncertain rights holdings. You still have a book to sell.
A and B don't publish your genre.
L rejects.
X is not going to compete with itself.
Your project is DOA.
Publishing is a crap shoot, where the first requirement is loaded dice (AKA a good book. And Good=Gaurenteed Bestseller). The current model only works for authors when there are a large number of places to gamble at. If you don't win at Harper-Collins, you might win at ROC or DAW or Del-Ray (Yes. My genre is Fantasy, how did you guess?) or, if you're lucky and have an agent, Little-Brown et al. Now, not only has the casino taken one of the tables away, the remaining table has taken up a MASSIVE amount of the floor (35% of the market.)
Is this a good thing? Bad thing? I don't know. I don't know what the game at the new table (Penguin House) is going to be like. Are they going to allow for internal competition? Are they going to take risks? Can they afford to take risks? Who knows.
The second problem, though, and let me stress HARD that I am in NO WAY QUALIFIED, and am probably wrong in this analysis, is something that could be hugely bad for this industry as a whole. INCLUDING self-published writers, given how hugely dependant we are on Amazon.
I do not see this merger as an attempt to better compete with the other book publishers. I see this merger as an attempt to compete with Amazon. And if this is true, it's going to torpedo the publishing industry.
I might be wrong, and I expect a lot of people to tell me that I am, but Amazon has a freaking choke hold on the book industry. Part of this is the Kindle. Part of the the appeal of the Kindle is, at any one point in time (like today) you can go on there and get good books free. Or cheap. I forgot my bible last time I went to church. So I got on Amazon and downloaded three of them onto my phone, in about five minutes. I'm sad today because I can't get obscure e-book titles I already own in hardcopy. And a lot of authors, me included, have for one reason or another, gotten sick of rejections and being told either "NO" or "NOTHING" and have published on Amazon. A lot of these books suck, but enough of them don't for Amazon to be making a LOT of money. And eventually Amazon is going to get sick of losing its bestsellers to publishers, who are a lot more difficult to deal with than authors, and is going to try to keep most of them for themselves. Which puts Amazon in direct competition with publishers.
Now, I might be wrong in this, but most publishers are already in a state of conflict with Amazon. They need Amazon to offer their books to the public, but because Amazon is THE book distributor, Amazon can absolutely tell anybody they want to go hang themselves and get away with it (temporarily). Sure, a publisher can withdraw their product, but that'd be like taking Kraft macaroni off the shelf. The grocery store still has Velveeta shells and the store brand. It'll survive. The loyal customers will make an extra trip to the other stores, and the undecided will give the store brand a try.
If I'm right, and I really hope that I'm wrong, that I'm an alarmist, that I'm an idiot and that I need to shut up now, but anyway, if I'm right Penguin House will eventually focus, not on the other publishers in the industry, but on freaking Amazon. There will be strong arm tactics first, and we know how that works (Macmillian: Let us price OUR BOOKS the way we want. Amazon: Let me think...how about NO *disables buy button*) and then probably a boycott or two, a major regrouping, and then an all out war.
Which will, not incidentally, take out most of the other publishers as collateral damage. Think WW2. Hitler didn't conquer Europe because he wanted Europe. He conquered Europe because he wanted Russia. Europe had resources he needed, and it was in the way.
Again, I'd like to be wrong. I want to be proven wrong. I want to be told to sit down and shut up. Repeatedly. But I don't see Penguin House merging to compete with Tor-Forge and Little Brown. I see this as them wanting to take on Amazon, because breaking Amazon's choke hold is the only way publishers can survive. The only way to do that is to have the clout (read as resources and market share) to tell Amazon to stuff it.
Like with HEB and Wal-Mart.
And a universe where we have ONE bookstore (B&N) ONE online store (Amazon) and ONE Publisher (Penguin House) is a VERY ugly universe for writers, no matter which side of the contract you print on.
The big news in the publishing world has been the Penguin/Random House merger. Until they have an official name I'm calling it Penguin House, because I can and because I find the whole idea to be rather scary. At first I was all like, Self Publisher here:
And then I started pretending that I had a career. And if I had a career as a real writer I would NOT like my industry right now. At all.I used to work for HEB, a grocery store here in Texas. Now, those of you who live up north may not understand what it's like here in TX. You have many choices. Piggly Wriggly...uh...other...stores. I don't know. Here in Texas there are two grocery store options. You can go to HEB, or you can go to Wal-Mart. That's it. And I don't mean "That's it, except for the Mom and Pop store down the street" I mean THAT'S IT. If you don't count the guys selling watermellons out of a pickup truck, HEB and Wal-Mart are the only options in Texas. And I think Wal-Mart is still here because they've got a store everywhere and can divert resources to Texas when they need to. HEB is the nicer option--someday remind me to tell you about what happened when Galveston got clobbered by a hurricane. It was freaking awesome--but as far as consumers go, you might as well flip a coin.
What does this have to do with Penguin House?
The problem with comparing grocery stores to publishers is, grocery stores allow for competition within the store. You want macaroni, you can buy Kraft, you can buy Velveeta, you can buy the store brand, which may or may not be as good, but it'll be cheaper. Grocery stores are more like Amazon. They got books from everybody, and they got a store brand--KDP. It might not be as good as the name brand books, but it's cheap and there's a bigger selection.
The Penguin House merger, in my VERY humble opinion--and I am in NO WAY qualified to offer anything more than my own shitty analysis--creates the potential for two big problems.
The first, obvious problem is, you only get one shot at publishing. Once you are, that's it. That's what you get. You get one chance to impress an agent per project, one chance to impress an editor, and if you're self published, you might as well have put your career up against the wall, blindfolded, and offered it its final cigarette. So if you want to be a real writer, you have to pour your heart and soul into your projects, make them their very best thing possible, and then repeat the process over and over when the Powers That Be tell you to stuff it. Yes. I'm bitter.
This system works great if you have talent, and lots of publishers to choose from. Let's assume that you are good (and that's a big assumption) and you have THE BOOK. There are six publishers to choose from: A, B, C, L, Y and X. After doing research, you find out that A and B don't publish your genre, and that C has some financial issues and has gained a reputation for screwing its authors over. L, Y and X are all fine. Unfortunately THE BOOK is a lot like THE OTHER BOOK, which is published by X. X is not going to buy THE BOOK because X will not compete with itself. They reject you. L has bought all its books for this year, so it passes. Y, however, is focused on competing with X, and it would really like part of THE OTHER BOOK's pie. So Y buys THE BOOK, makes lots of money, gives you lots of money, and everybody's happy. Except X, because now THE OTHER BOOK has competition. (Why people who like THE OTHER BOOK wouldn't also buy THE BOOK is never explained).
Now, let's say before you submitted THE BOOK, X and Y merged. Now X and Y are both X, and X is still the publisher of THE OTHER BOOK.
This is a competative industry. X has more resources, so its books do better than the others. A, B and L do alright, too, though there is a little belt tightening involved. C, however, was already in trouble. It goes down like the Titanic in a blaze of unpaid royalties and uncertain rights holdings. You still have a book to sell.
A and B don't publish your genre.
L rejects.
X is not going to compete with itself.
Your project is DOA.
Publishing is a crap shoot, where the first requirement is loaded dice (AKA a good book. And Good=Gaurenteed Bestseller). The current model only works for authors when there are a large number of places to gamble at. If you don't win at Harper-Collins, you might win at ROC or DAW or Del-Ray (Yes. My genre is Fantasy, how did you guess?) or, if you're lucky and have an agent, Little-Brown et al. Now, not only has the casino taken one of the tables away, the remaining table has taken up a MASSIVE amount of the floor (35% of the market.)
Is this a good thing? Bad thing? I don't know. I don't know what the game at the new table (Penguin House) is going to be like. Are they going to allow for internal competition? Are they going to take risks? Can they afford to take risks? Who knows.
The second problem, though, and let me stress HARD that I am in NO WAY QUALIFIED, and am probably wrong in this analysis, is something that could be hugely bad for this industry as a whole. INCLUDING self-published writers, given how hugely dependant we are on Amazon.
I do not see this merger as an attempt to better compete with the other book publishers. I see this merger as an attempt to compete with Amazon. And if this is true, it's going to torpedo the publishing industry.
I might be wrong, and I expect a lot of people to tell me that I am, but Amazon has a freaking choke hold on the book industry. Part of this is the Kindle. Part of the the appeal of the Kindle is, at any one point in time (like today) you can go on there and get good books free. Or cheap. I forgot my bible last time I went to church. So I got on Amazon and downloaded three of them onto my phone, in about five minutes. I'm sad today because I can't get obscure e-book titles I already own in hardcopy. And a lot of authors, me included, have for one reason or another, gotten sick of rejections and being told either "NO" or "NOTHING" and have published on Amazon. A lot of these books suck, but enough of them don't for Amazon to be making a LOT of money. And eventually Amazon is going to get sick of losing its bestsellers to publishers, who are a lot more difficult to deal with than authors, and is going to try to keep most of them for themselves. Which puts Amazon in direct competition with publishers.
Now, I might be wrong in this, but most publishers are already in a state of conflict with Amazon. They need Amazon to offer their books to the public, but because Amazon is THE book distributor, Amazon can absolutely tell anybody they want to go hang themselves and get away with it (temporarily). Sure, a publisher can withdraw their product, but that'd be like taking Kraft macaroni off the shelf. The grocery store still has Velveeta shells and the store brand. It'll survive. The loyal customers will make an extra trip to the other stores, and the undecided will give the store brand a try.
If I'm right, and I really hope that I'm wrong, that I'm an alarmist, that I'm an idiot and that I need to shut up now, but anyway, if I'm right Penguin House will eventually focus, not on the other publishers in the industry, but on freaking Amazon. There will be strong arm tactics first, and we know how that works (Macmillian: Let us price OUR BOOKS the way we want. Amazon: Let me think...how about NO *disables buy button*) and then probably a boycott or two, a major regrouping, and then an all out war.
Which will, not incidentally, take out most of the other publishers as collateral damage. Think WW2. Hitler didn't conquer Europe because he wanted Europe. He conquered Europe because he wanted Russia. Europe had resources he needed, and it was in the way.
Again, I'd like to be wrong. I want to be proven wrong. I want to be told to sit down and shut up. Repeatedly. But I don't see Penguin House merging to compete with Tor-Forge and Little Brown. I see this as them wanting to take on Amazon, because breaking Amazon's choke hold is the only way publishers can survive. The only way to do that is to have the clout (read as resources and market share) to tell Amazon to stuff it.
Like with HEB and Wal-Mart.
And a universe where we have ONE bookstore (B&N) ONE online store (Amazon) and ONE Publisher (Penguin House) is a VERY ugly universe for writers, no matter which side of the contract you print on.
November 6, 2012
Free Book Day on Amazon! AND BOOK SAMPLE!
So, first up, Rise of the Winterlord will be FREE, on Amazon, all day tomorrow. So if you haven't had a chance yet, go grab a copy.
Second. Prince of the Gray Keep has kind of...erm, evolved. Knowing that most of you have NOT read RotW, and that PotGK won't make much sense without it, I've kind of, um...included it. In Prince of the Gray Keep. So technically you'll be picking up a small sample of a larger book that still stands on its own. But I also know most of you have not read it, so...yeah. I want my book to make sense.
So now, without further ado, BOOK SAMPLE:
The instincts of a soldier saved him. Already on edge, he had considered any man coming through that door a threat. So when the stranger came at him, he stepped back without thinking, grabbed the stranger’s wrist, twisted, and struck a nerve point just above the wrist. The hand went limp, knife sliding through numbed fingers. The rest of the move ended with the combatant’s hands on the enemy’s throat; Leythorne didn’t think snapping this stranger’s neck neck would be wise. He shifted the last move so that the elf’s own weight carried him to the ground. The man was skilled. His knees hit the stone floor, he took the weight, then rolled and came back up. His hands moved in a quick, tight pattern, and a pure bolt of heat brushed Leythorne’s cheek, singing hair and beard. The Keep muttered options frantically, offering spells for his defense, methods of killing that were gruesome in their effectiveness. It seemed desperate to keep its new master alive. Leythorne ignored these suggestions, ducked, and fought like a man. He landed a beautiful right hook just below the Elf’s eye. These arms had strength, and the Elf went sprawling. Pardal tossed him the Elf’s knife. He caught it, burning his fingers where the rags had slipped. As the Elf rolled up, Leythorne caught his legs and sent him once more onto his back. Sitting on his thighs, Leythorne bought the knife under the man’s chin. Silence in the room. The elf spat in his face. “Finish me, then.” The elf said. “I’d rather die than serve you.” “I am not Faer,” He said, quietly. “And I will let you go.” And he did. It went against every instinct, but this man was known to the others. Killing him might be a bigger mistake than releasing him. Dropping the knife where the man could see it, he backed up slowly. The Elf snatched up the knife, but by now Pardal was armed, and Ledden stepped forward, thrusting the wrapped sword hilt into Leythorne’s hands. And he stayed at Leythorne’s side after. The elf looked frantically at the mortal. “Do you know what this man is? Do you, Pardal?” When Pardal nodded, cautiously, the Elf seemed to explode. “Why do you, of all men, protect him?” “He’s the man that saved my son and myself from the Old One.” The Elf looked at Ledden, holding to Leythorne’s belt, then at Pardal. His pale blue eyes burned. Holding Leythorne’s gaze, the elf spat to one side. “What lies you tell, Jennal.” Leythorne flinched, and he smiled. “Oh? Did you think I would not know your face? Old companion. Dear, dear friend.” Well, that would be his luck. The one man in this place who had known Faer personally was not only alive, he was someone his only ally trusted. “What is your name?” he asked, feeling more exhausted than all the world. “What a fair jest.” Calm words, taut with hate. They should have murdered on their own. “Should I ask yours? Pretend we have never met before now?” “We never have.” “I would not—” “Jennal Faer attempted to slave a mortal in the hills above Ravensfel. He did not know this man was Portal gifted, and that the gift would react…well, for him it was badly. It saved my life. Our powers tangled and I found myself looking through his eyes.” His heart was pounding against his ribs. If this man, who called Faer friend, should react so poorly, how would Rashaliem react? If he returned to Ambercross, he would have even less time to be convincing. Think about it later. Deal with this now. The man spat again. “You lie. And damned badly, for you.” Leythorne shrugged. “If you don’t believe me, leave. Take what is yours and go. You may have some of that, too.” He gestured at the Duskin Lord’s finery. “But I would suggest running far. It sounds as if the Duskin are ripping this island apart.” The low rumble of internal fighting swelled like the tide. The other man turned to Pardal. “Why would you say the man was good? Why bring me here? Even the Duskin Lord was better than this monster.” “He saved my life, and spared my son from the torturer’s hands. And he did not need to.” Pardal quickly related Leythorne’s actions a bare hour ago. He stretched the truth far too much, because he made it seem that Leythorne was a hero. The Elf turned to the boy. “This is true?” the child nodded. The Elf looked stunned. After a few heartbeats, however, he recovered.“But you killed the Duskin Lord in the process. These two could have been collateral damage.” Something in the distance broke. It was big, and the impact that followed rattled teeth. The sea-sound of war swelled into individual sounds. Voices screaming and urging each other on. Fists throwing blows, knife and axe resounding off shield. Inhuman throats rose in one great chorus. Victory and hate. Triumph, and then a call to further war. Leythorne’s pulse quickened as the sound slowly faded back. The Keep’s interest had peaked, and he had the dreadful feeling these halls were filled with darkness and red thread. Leythorne and the others were running out of time. He turned to the Elf and smiled, thinly. “We can stand here and argue who and what I am as long as you wish, but these others will not survive unless we stand together. Or at least, get out of my way.” “Perhaps you may show the Duskin how murder is done.” His temper, tried by exhaustion and this hell he had awakened to, finally snapped. Not bothering with magic, he slammed the elf hard against the filth coated wall. The muck from eons of filth and bloodshed felt grimy beneath his knuckles. It stained the elf’s perfect skin. Leythorne found himself not caring for anything, save that he had his enemy by the throat. “Stand with me or leave. But if you do not wish to help, get out of my way.” The Elf’s face hardened. “I have protected them since you gave me to that monster you served these long centuries. Do not tell me to leave them behind.” “Gave?” The word was shocked out of him. “I was the price for your victory. A taste of what your master would gain, if you won the day and the throne.” The Elf shook his head spitefully. “It was the delight of my life that you would rot forever insensiate in that cell. My revenge for all I had suffered.” Leythorne let him go, shaking. The Mistlands were something no one fully understood, something that everyone feared. The thought of being given to the creatures in it... “You’ve had your revenge. Jennal Faer died in a mortal form at least a hundred years ago.” “A pretty lie.” The elf sneered, rubbing his neck. “A defeat that costs you everything and a mortal, nothing at all. But I would not believe—” Leythorne threw another punch. Even the outer roar had fallen second to the brutality in this room. Loss fueled a rage deeper than anything he should have felt, and his fist’s impact seemed to echo off the walls. When they finally stood apart again, he shouted, “It cost me my wife and my king. And even if I could convince Rashalem that it is his friend that stands in these dreadful bones, my wife…” He stopped. Oh, this pain was greater than the whole world. “My wife is dead. I can only hope that Faer didn’t…” his throat closed. “That it wasn’t his revenge. Mock me all you wish, but claim it is painless once more and I will finish what that son of a bitch started.”
Prince of the Gray Keep comes out November 15th. I promise.
Even if it kills me.
Second. Prince of the Gray Keep has kind of...erm, evolved. Knowing that most of you have NOT read RotW, and that PotGK won't make much sense without it, I've kind of, um...included it. In Prince of the Gray Keep. So technically you'll be picking up a small sample of a larger book that still stands on its own. But I also know most of you have not read it, so...yeah. I want my book to make sense.
So now, without further ado, BOOK SAMPLE:
The instincts of a soldier saved him. Already on edge, he had considered any man coming through that door a threat. So when the stranger came at him, he stepped back without thinking, grabbed the stranger’s wrist, twisted, and struck a nerve point just above the wrist. The hand went limp, knife sliding through numbed fingers. The rest of the move ended with the combatant’s hands on the enemy’s throat; Leythorne didn’t think snapping this stranger’s neck neck would be wise. He shifted the last move so that the elf’s own weight carried him to the ground. The man was skilled. His knees hit the stone floor, he took the weight, then rolled and came back up. His hands moved in a quick, tight pattern, and a pure bolt of heat brushed Leythorne’s cheek, singing hair and beard. The Keep muttered options frantically, offering spells for his defense, methods of killing that were gruesome in their effectiveness. It seemed desperate to keep its new master alive. Leythorne ignored these suggestions, ducked, and fought like a man. He landed a beautiful right hook just below the Elf’s eye. These arms had strength, and the Elf went sprawling. Pardal tossed him the Elf’s knife. He caught it, burning his fingers where the rags had slipped. As the Elf rolled up, Leythorne caught his legs and sent him once more onto his back. Sitting on his thighs, Leythorne bought the knife under the man’s chin. Silence in the room. The elf spat in his face. “Finish me, then.” The elf said. “I’d rather die than serve you.” “I am not Faer,” He said, quietly. “And I will let you go.” And he did. It went against every instinct, but this man was known to the others. Killing him might be a bigger mistake than releasing him. Dropping the knife where the man could see it, he backed up slowly. The Elf snatched up the knife, but by now Pardal was armed, and Ledden stepped forward, thrusting the wrapped sword hilt into Leythorne’s hands. And he stayed at Leythorne’s side after. The elf looked frantically at the mortal. “Do you know what this man is? Do you, Pardal?” When Pardal nodded, cautiously, the Elf seemed to explode. “Why do you, of all men, protect him?” “He’s the man that saved my son and myself from the Old One.” The Elf looked at Ledden, holding to Leythorne’s belt, then at Pardal. His pale blue eyes burned. Holding Leythorne’s gaze, the elf spat to one side. “What lies you tell, Jennal.” Leythorne flinched, and he smiled. “Oh? Did you think I would not know your face? Old companion. Dear, dear friend.” Well, that would be his luck. The one man in this place who had known Faer personally was not only alive, he was someone his only ally trusted. “What is your name?” he asked, feeling more exhausted than all the world. “What a fair jest.” Calm words, taut with hate. They should have murdered on their own. “Should I ask yours? Pretend we have never met before now?” “We never have.” “I would not—” “Jennal Faer attempted to slave a mortal in the hills above Ravensfel. He did not know this man was Portal gifted, and that the gift would react…well, for him it was badly. It saved my life. Our powers tangled and I found myself looking through his eyes.” His heart was pounding against his ribs. If this man, who called Faer friend, should react so poorly, how would Rashaliem react? If he returned to Ambercross, he would have even less time to be convincing. Think about it later. Deal with this now. The man spat again. “You lie. And damned badly, for you.” Leythorne shrugged. “If you don’t believe me, leave. Take what is yours and go. You may have some of that, too.” He gestured at the Duskin Lord’s finery. “But I would suggest running far. It sounds as if the Duskin are ripping this island apart.” The low rumble of internal fighting swelled like the tide. The other man turned to Pardal. “Why would you say the man was good? Why bring me here? Even the Duskin Lord was better than this monster.” “He saved my life, and spared my son from the torturer’s hands. And he did not need to.” Pardal quickly related Leythorne’s actions a bare hour ago. He stretched the truth far too much, because he made it seem that Leythorne was a hero. The Elf turned to the boy. “This is true?” the child nodded. The Elf looked stunned. After a few heartbeats, however, he recovered.“But you killed the Duskin Lord in the process. These two could have been collateral damage.” Something in the distance broke. It was big, and the impact that followed rattled teeth. The sea-sound of war swelled into individual sounds. Voices screaming and urging each other on. Fists throwing blows, knife and axe resounding off shield. Inhuman throats rose in one great chorus. Victory and hate. Triumph, and then a call to further war. Leythorne’s pulse quickened as the sound slowly faded back. The Keep’s interest had peaked, and he had the dreadful feeling these halls were filled with darkness and red thread. Leythorne and the others were running out of time. He turned to the Elf and smiled, thinly. “We can stand here and argue who and what I am as long as you wish, but these others will not survive unless we stand together. Or at least, get out of my way.” “Perhaps you may show the Duskin how murder is done.” His temper, tried by exhaustion and this hell he had awakened to, finally snapped. Not bothering with magic, he slammed the elf hard against the filth coated wall. The muck from eons of filth and bloodshed felt grimy beneath his knuckles. It stained the elf’s perfect skin. Leythorne found himself not caring for anything, save that he had his enemy by the throat. “Stand with me or leave. But if you do not wish to help, get out of my way.” The Elf’s face hardened. “I have protected them since you gave me to that monster you served these long centuries. Do not tell me to leave them behind.” “Gave?” The word was shocked out of him. “I was the price for your victory. A taste of what your master would gain, if you won the day and the throne.” The Elf shook his head spitefully. “It was the delight of my life that you would rot forever insensiate in that cell. My revenge for all I had suffered.” Leythorne let him go, shaking. The Mistlands were something no one fully understood, something that everyone feared. The thought of being given to the creatures in it... “You’ve had your revenge. Jennal Faer died in a mortal form at least a hundred years ago.” “A pretty lie.” The elf sneered, rubbing his neck. “A defeat that costs you everything and a mortal, nothing at all. But I would not believe—” Leythorne threw another punch. Even the outer roar had fallen second to the brutality in this room. Loss fueled a rage deeper than anything he should have felt, and his fist’s impact seemed to echo off the walls. When they finally stood apart again, he shouted, “It cost me my wife and my king. And even if I could convince Rashalem that it is his friend that stands in these dreadful bones, my wife…” He stopped. Oh, this pain was greater than the whole world. “My wife is dead. I can only hope that Faer didn’t…” his throat closed. “That it wasn’t his revenge. Mock me all you wish, but claim it is painless once more and I will finish what that son of a bitch started.”
Prince of the Gray Keep comes out November 15th. I promise.
Even if it kills me.
November 5, 2012
Prince of the Gray Keep--Update
So this book? Is going to be about twice as long as everything else I've published, when all is said and done. And it has become a very, very strange beast indeed.
I try REALLY hard to avoid pretensious, naval gazing. "THIS IS SPECIAL" kind of writing. I don't want you to be wondering what the conch shell means, in other words. But...well, I also have kind of sort of developed a writing theory where our brains are smarter than we are. And to do a good job writing in a genre, you have to understand what the genre is about.
I'd guess mysteries and thrillers and the like are easy, because they're straight forward stuff. I don't know. I don't think in murder mysteries. I do fantasy and sci-fi, and that kind of is where things go off the psychological rails. Most of why I write is, I find an idea. It's a really, really cool idea, but the story built around the idea sucks.
I have never been to college or taken a professional writing course, so take everything I say with a grain of salt, okay? Fantasy, sci-fi and horror are all, in my VERY and probably wrong opinion, about the human psyche. Fantasy, the really, really GOOD fantasy like Tolkien and Robin McKinley and especially Neil Gaiman, is all about who we are. Fairy Tales teach children that dragons can be killed, remember? But a dragon can be a lot of things. Alcoholism, depression, ugly relationships. To get extremely spiritual and metaphysical on all of you, there's a reason why swords are considered symbols of truth--tell the truth around an alcoholic, and the dragon--either the alcoholism or the alcoholic themselves--has to go away. Sci-fi is about where we're going. I think the big reason why sci-fi has lately gotten very dysotopian and hopeless--the last hopeful sci-fi show I remember seeing on TV was Stargate: Atlantis, and that got cancled a long time ago--is because we've corporately lost hope in our future as a species. Horror is about what we're afraid of. I don't think that needs any more elaboration.
This book, though, this freaking book...Personally, I like it. But it's been a long, uphill slog since I started writing it, and I have no idea if it's any good or not. At this point, I'm shelving assessments of quality and entertainment and just GOING with it. Letting it be its own damn thing because it's going to do what it wants anyway. Long time readers should know, it takes a LOT to pull that admission out of me. I am NOT one of those "I do what the little voices tell me" kind of writers.
But it's time I got really honest with myself about my writing, now. It's not about making money anymore. I need to remember to put that idea away, same as I put the idea of professional publishing away. Now, it has to be about sharing the stories I have the best way I have to share them. Making them be good, over and above my pride, and making them be, well, true. As close to what they ought to be as I, in my VERY limited singular capacity, can get them.
I'm in a really weird place in my life, folks. I've accomplished nothing. Not one thing that I wanted to do five years ago have I done. I don't have a family. I have a job that half the time is surviable and half the time is really shitty, and I'm never going to be a real writer. And yet for the first time in my life, I'm waking up happy. I feel content no matter how shit my job gets. And it's not about the books, and it's not about my job, and it's not about anything, really.
I'm happy.
And I am REALLY happy with this book.
Now if I can just get it done by November 15th...
I try REALLY hard to avoid pretensious, naval gazing. "THIS IS SPECIAL" kind of writing. I don't want you to be wondering what the conch shell means, in other words. But...well, I also have kind of sort of developed a writing theory where our brains are smarter than we are. And to do a good job writing in a genre, you have to understand what the genre is about.
I'd guess mysteries and thrillers and the like are easy, because they're straight forward stuff. I don't know. I don't think in murder mysteries. I do fantasy and sci-fi, and that kind of is where things go off the psychological rails. Most of why I write is, I find an idea. It's a really, really cool idea, but the story built around the idea sucks.
I have never been to college or taken a professional writing course, so take everything I say with a grain of salt, okay? Fantasy, sci-fi and horror are all, in my VERY and probably wrong opinion, about the human psyche. Fantasy, the really, really GOOD fantasy like Tolkien and Robin McKinley and especially Neil Gaiman, is all about who we are. Fairy Tales teach children that dragons can be killed, remember? But a dragon can be a lot of things. Alcoholism, depression, ugly relationships. To get extremely spiritual and metaphysical on all of you, there's a reason why swords are considered symbols of truth--tell the truth around an alcoholic, and the dragon--either the alcoholism or the alcoholic themselves--has to go away. Sci-fi is about where we're going. I think the big reason why sci-fi has lately gotten very dysotopian and hopeless--the last hopeful sci-fi show I remember seeing on TV was Stargate: Atlantis, and that got cancled a long time ago--is because we've corporately lost hope in our future as a species. Horror is about what we're afraid of. I don't think that needs any more elaboration.
This book, though, this freaking book...Personally, I like it. But it's been a long, uphill slog since I started writing it, and I have no idea if it's any good or not. At this point, I'm shelving assessments of quality and entertainment and just GOING with it. Letting it be its own damn thing because it's going to do what it wants anyway. Long time readers should know, it takes a LOT to pull that admission out of me. I am NOT one of those "I do what the little voices tell me" kind of writers.
But it's time I got really honest with myself about my writing, now. It's not about making money anymore. I need to remember to put that idea away, same as I put the idea of professional publishing away. Now, it has to be about sharing the stories I have the best way I have to share them. Making them be good, over and above my pride, and making them be, well, true. As close to what they ought to be as I, in my VERY limited singular capacity, can get them.
I'm in a really weird place in my life, folks. I've accomplished nothing. Not one thing that I wanted to do five years ago have I done. I don't have a family. I have a job that half the time is surviable and half the time is really shitty, and I'm never going to be a real writer. And yet for the first time in my life, I'm waking up happy. I feel content no matter how shit my job gets. And it's not about the books, and it's not about my job, and it's not about anything, really.
I'm happy.
And I am REALLY happy with this book.
Now if I can just get it done by November 15th...
City of Bones chapter four
The night had gotten even hotter, and running home felt like swimming as fast as she could through boiling soup.I think I hate this simile almost more than I hated John Norman's girl-fail.
Clary is RUNNING to go rescue her mother, because things like getting Simon, calling the police, calling her Uncle Luke, or even taking Murder Boy Jace up on his offer of assistance are apparently too much trouble. No. This girl who has NO self defense training whatsoever is running home where her mother is very obviously being attacked, all on her lonesome.
But for a girl totally freaked out about Mom's potential death, she's still pretty laid back. She stops for a
"Don't Walk" sign (as a vet of the no-car crowd, there are MANY alternatives to stopping at the light.) and engages in conversation with her weird downstairs neighbor, who imparts that Jocelyn was "Moving furnature" upstairs. The conversation continues for several minutes without Clary running after her Mom.
Without emparting too many IRL details, because this story does involve my mother, I had a good reason to be EXTREMELY worried when my mom didn't come home one evening. I was pretty sure she was at my (now former) stepfather's apartment, but neither of them were answering their cell phones, no one else knew where she was, and she'd given me clear instructions earlier that day that made not knowing where she was VERY, very scary for me. So I got on my bike at midnight and rode across town to my stepdad's apartment. She was there. I managed not to scream at her for not letting me know where she was, given what she'd told me to do earlier that day, and she apologized.
I was not paying attention to street signs or how my stepdad would feel with me banging on his door on a week night at midnight. I was too scared that mom wouldn't be at his apartment.
Clary? Should not have stopped for freaky downstairs neighbor. But we should have stopped expecting real world reactions from this sunshine girl a long time ago.
And of course, the house has been ransacked. Does Clary call the police? Leave the apartment? Call a responsible adult?
Does a bear shit in a porcelain commode?
Oh, and the robbers left her a surprise.
It was crouched against the floor, a long, scaled creature with a cluster of flat black eyes set dead center in the front of its domed skull.I see that, I'd be surprised.
Now, it is established that many windows in this apartment are broken. Clary does not climb out any of them, thus establishing her as TSTL. Sadly, the creature, which talks (I think this is the Suddenly Talking Monster from Captive of Gor) does not eat her. Valentine, apparently, will be pissed. A Thing that Clary stole from Jace is vibrating like it came from a porn store, and Clary runs around the apartment while the thing mutters about how much it wants to eat her.
In other words, even the monsters only exist to explain things to Clary.
She jams Jace's Thing--a Sensor, but I don't know what that does yet--down the monster's throat, and it starts having a seizure. She races for the door, and...
Okay, she gets knocked out. She doesn't faint. Still, she still gets saved by a Big, Strong Man. She wakes up on the grass, in Jace's arms, after the "Ravener demon" shot her in the back with a magical stinger it apparently didn't have for the rest of the chase through the apartment.You know, there was a moment there when it was behind her and she didn't know it. And it didn't do anything about it.
Suddenly I am remembering Sunshine, and how Rae was captured by vampires who were big, strong, fast, and also capable of knocking her out. She managed to keep herself alive without male assistance and I am suddenly REALLY sad I have to be reading this book, and not that.
So she's lying on her back, bleeding and dying, and she and Jace decide that exposition is more important than getting the dying girl the fuck away from the demon infested apartment. Finally, though, they get moving when it's clear the cops responding to all the screaming are demons, and oh, yeah, Clary is now coughing up blood. Jace draws magical things on her skin using a wand--oh, sorry! Stele.
So numerically identical names re: Voldemort and Valentine are iffy, but god forbid you use the word "wand" in this book. Gotcha.
So Jace and Clary fight their way through a dozen dementors, he takes Clary to Platform Nine and Three Quarters, she goes to Hogwarts and meets Dumbledore, and...woops, mind jumped books there for a second. Let's get back to this one, shall we? What does Clary actually do?
...end of chapter.
