Cedar Sanderson's Blog, page 258

YA Blog Hop

Welcome, Blog-hoppers!

What are you working on right now?

I am working on a couple of projects. One is a short story about a young man, and his new puppy… on a spaceship traveling between planets. Housebreaking, er, ship training? has a whole new set of challenges for my resourceful hero.

The other is the sequel to Vulcan’s Kittens. Titled The God’s Wolfling, it will be the second book in a trilogy about Linn and her supernatural friends and family. The main god in this book will be Mannan Mac’Lir, a Celtic being with a problem, who is willing to exchange his help finding a fire-breathing horse named Fear, for Vulcan’s help with a tricky repair. Linn, and Merrick, the wolfling, wind up going on the quest when the older gods have to deal with a crisis. I’m excited about this, which will be my third novel.

How does Vulcan’s Kittens differ from other works in its genre?

Vulcan’s Kittens is mythology, but not just one mythos. It incorporates Graeco-Roman myths, Hawaiian, Native American, Aztec, and many more, for a very good reason. That reason is that even though it may look like Fantasy at first glance, the gods are not magical, they rely on advanced science they brought with them when they travelled from a parallel universe to our own, fleeing from the war with the Titans. By employing Clarke’s Law, I can create what looks like magic, but is within the realm of the possible in just a few generations from now.

Why do you write what you do?

I started writing Vulcan’s Kittens for my daughter. Now, all four of them want the sequel. It delights me to have my kids clamoring for more stories from me, and I mean to keep writing things for them as they grow, incorporating their passions into each tale – like the dragons I am writing into The God’s Wolfling. Other stories and novels come from my love of reading. Basically, I write what I’d like to read, stories with heroes and pain, but always hope, at the end.

How does your writing process work?

As I made the decision to pursue writing as a professional this last year, I started setting goals, like “write a novel in six months” and then breaking those down into how many words I’d need to write daily, and that made it much easier. As for where the stories come from, well, with the works in progress one came from an idea someone ran by me, and my brain just tackled with a little shout of glee, and this whole scenario about the puppy came alive in my head. The God’s Wolfling was a lot harder, as it needed to fit within the framework I had already built for Vulcan’s Kittens, and progress the big story of the trilogy as well. It took a lot of research and thought before it started to come to life for me, and it was only recently that I was able to begin writing the story, rather than plotting and planning.

Links to Other Blog Hoppers:

Henry Vogel

Storyteller site:

http://www.henryvogelstoryteller.com/

Serialized online novel:

http://cliffhangertwofifty.blogspot.com/

 

Celia Hayes

Writing website:

http://www.celiahayes.com

 

Pam Uphoff

Writing Site:

http://pamuphoff.com

 

Where it began:

http://torchandsickle.wordpress.com/2013/09/09/childrens-and-ya-authors-blog-hop/

 

Wanderlust Lost

Danger lies beyond the known horizon… calling us onward.

I’m researching for a paper, gathering poetry related to the aging Ulysses in Tennyson’s poem of that name, and I thought I’d share my snips with you all…

Rudyard Kipling, The Mary Gloster

“Not the least of our merchant-princes.” Dickie, that’s me, your dad!

I didn’t begin with askings. I took my job and I stuck;

I took the chances they wouldn’t, an’ now they’re calling it luck.

Lord, what boats I’ve handled — rotten and leaky and old –

Ran ‘em, or — opened the bilge-cock, precisely as I was told.

Grub that ‘ud bind you crazy, and crews that ‘ud turn you grey,

And a big fat lump of insurance to cover the risk on the way.

The others they dursn’t do it; they said they valued their life

(They’ve served me since as skippers).

 

Kipling’s The Old Men

“We shall lift up the ropes that constrained our youth, to bind on our children’s hands;

We shall call to the waters below the bridges to return and to replenish our lands;

We shall harness (Death’s own pale horses) and scholarly plough the sands.”

Overlooking the land where anything might happen – wanderlust

“Till a voice, as bad as Conscience, rang interminable changes

On one everlasting Whisper day and night repeated — so:

“Something hidden.  Go and find it. Go and look behind the Ranges –

“Something lost behind the Ranges. Lost and waiting for you. Go!”

 Robert Service’s Spell of the Yukon

“There’s a land where the mountains are nameless,

And the rivers all run God knows where;

There are lives that are erring and aimless,

And Deaths that just hang by a hair;

There are hardships that nobody reckons;

There are valleys unpeopled and still;

There’s a land – oh, it beckons and beckons,

And I want to go back – and I will. “

Robert Service’s The Men that Don’t Fit in

“There’s a race of men that don’t fit in,

A race that can’t stay still;

So they break the hearts of kith and kin,

And they roam the wolrd at will.

They range the field and they rove the flood,

And they climb the mountain’s crest;

Theirs is the curse of the gypsy blood,

And they just don’t know how to rest.”

Tennyson’s Ulysses

“I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees: All times I have enjoy’d
Greatly, have suffer’d greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone, on shore, and when
Thro’ scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vext the dim sea: I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart”

Saturday Snippet: Pixie Noir

Pixie Noir is scheduled to be released Dec. 1, 2013.

Now, that’s an exciting sentence for me. You might not understand it unless you read my blog regularly and know that it’s my second novel, and I’m really happy with it. Even better, my beta readers have liked it. Yesterday evening I sent it off to my editor, and I’m waiting to hear what he has to say about it. The cover artist has a rough idea of what I want for the art, and all that’s left… is you.

I’m going to snippet Pixie Noir up to about the half-way point here on my blog,and I hope you enjoy reading it! Do let me know, and keep in mind this is not the final draft, so any goofs are all my fault.

Snippet #1 was way back in April, and you may want to read that first.

Sometimes we find unexpected beauty by altering our perceptions.

 

“Thanks.” I looked at her as she pulled cups out of a cupboard. The pot was still sputtering. She must have started it just as I knocked before. No wonder she’s pissed, I thought, girl hasn’t had her coffee yet. I realized something else. She was wearing glasses now. She hadn’t had them on before, which must be why she hadn’t seen me right away.

Dammit. I might not have a thing for tall girls, but glasses… I put my coat on the back of the other kitchen chair, lifted the attache case onto the table, and sat down uninvited. I needed to focus. This was a simple courier job, I was going to deliver the paper, get a signature, and go home.

She pushed a thick pottery mug to me and I took it gratefully. She sat down in the other chair.

“Grandma told me a lot of stories. So I know what you are. But I can’t figure out why you are here. I mean, your home tor is about half around the world from here. And I can see that you know who I am. Care to introduce yourself and explain?”

I smiled at her. Beautiful and smart, a wicked combination. I was going to have to play this very carefully.

“You can call me Lom. I’m a courier, and all I came to do is deliver some family documents to you, Ms. Traycroft.”

She raised an eyebrow slightly. “That’s all? You flew into Alaska and drove what, 200 miles, to deliver papers?”

“How do you know I drove that far?” Yes, I was ducking the question, but I was curious what gave it away.

“Your rental car is from Fairbanks. I’m hoping you didn’t drive overnight, that would make me even more uncomfortable with this.” She had her entire attention focused on me, and I could feel the heat of her gaze. Literally. She had power, whether she knew it or not. I looked away and ran a finger under my collar.

“FedEx does come out this far.” she went on. “So there is more to this than you are telling me.”

“I stayed at the Tok Lodge last night.” I offered, finally meeting her eyes again. “And the papers are, hm, how do I say this. Sensitive.”

Now both eyebrows were up. I sighed and popped open the latch on the case. “It’s going to be better to just show you.”

I slid the thick packet of leather and vellum out and put it on the table. It looked decidedly odd on the battered wood. She stared at it while I placed the case back on the floor. The gilded knotwork on the case fit into her kitchen decor about as well as a Loius XIV chair would have.

“What,” she asked in a distant tone, “is this about?”

I could tell she wasn’t happy. Well, I had guessed from her background she might not be, whatever my employers had thought. It wasn’t my choice to be sitting here in a Bush cabin, although I found it a much more welcoming environment than when the packet had been handed to me just three days ago.

She slid the case closer to her and looked at it. “Lovely.” She commented on the design without looking up at me, then she opened it and slid the stack of papers out. Some were ordinary modern white paper, computer-printed. But under them were darker sheets of real vellum, weathered and yellow with age. She started to read. I leaned back and sipped my coffee. She brewed a pretty good cup. Strong, but not too bitter. This might take a while.

I was working on my second cup when she looked up from the last sheet. Her blue eyes were bleak. She hadn’t looked at me for quite a while, I had gotten the refill on my own, adding cream from the pot she had left on the counter next to the coffeepot. It was cute, a little ceramic rabbit. I’d wandered around a bit, too, stretching my legs. She hadn’t stopped me, although I was aware of her attention when I stood at the bookshelves reading titles. I was never out of her sight, nor she out of mine. One of the other instructions from my employers, the papers were not to leave my sight.

“Do you know what these are?” she asked quietly.

“Not entirely.” I admitted.

“How did a pixie come to be playing messenger for Fae?” She changed her tack a little.

“I had a debt to pay. This seemed like a easy way to get out of it. Take a trip to exotic Alaska, the Final Frontier.”

She blinked, then laughed. “Well, you must be a very different pixie. My grandmother told me that they hated to travel.”

“Oh, I do,” I assured her with a heartfelt tone. “But sometimes it’s necessary. And my family uses me as courier more often than I would like.”

I don’t know why I’d just admitted that to her. I frowned as I realized that was the second time she had provoked me into admittances.

She tucked the papers back into their case. “Well, I’m glad your debt has been paid with this, Mr. Lom. It was nice to meet you, but,” She checked her watch “I’m late for work.”

She slid the case across the table with a little more force than strictly necessary. I could tell that they had upset her.

“It’s not Mr. Lom, it’s just Lom. And, um, my debt isn’t paid until you have signed some of those.”

Now the anger was unleashed at me, and her Power lashed out. “I will not sign any of those.”

“I can’t leave until you do.” I told her firmly, trying to keep the nervousness out of my voice. She had a potent force I was fairly sure she was unaware of.

“Then prepare for a long stay. I recommend the Sawdust Pie at the Lodge, it’s quite good.” She got up and walked over to the door and held it open.

I sighed. This was not going to be easy. I don’t know why I had thought it was going to. Pushing the case back into my attache hastily, I plunged back out into the cold. “I will be back, Ms. Traycroft.”

“You’ll be lucky if I don’t meet you at the door with a shotgun, Mr. Lom.” She spat the honorific. “Get off my property.”

The door slammed behind me.

I went back into the speck of a town and found someplace to sit and think about this development. There were only a couple of restaurants, and one was closed. The other had a bar, but it wasn’t open before lunch. Shame, that, I could have used a stiff drink or two.

Instead I wound up at the local truckstop and diner, waiting for my eggs to arrive and contemplating whether she really would shoot me. She had that ring of authenticity in her voice, and I was certain she owned the weapon to back it up. I had pulled out my phone and was checking to see if had service in town when I became aware that the two guys who had just walked in were stopping by my table. I looked up.

And up, and up. The older man was something over six feet tall, and sitting in the booth bench, my feet didn’t hit the floor. I was immediately unhappy, even before I got to the expression on his face. He wasn’t happy. Also, I suspected I knew why.

The other man stood slightly behind him, his face almost obscured behind a bushy black beard that looked as though it might jump off his face and start chasing its tail. Or bite my dangling ankles. I cleared my throat.

“Would you two, er, gentleman, care to sit down?” There was no point in delaying the inevitable. They wanted to talk to me. I preferred they do so in public. Here was as good a place as any.

“Are you the one tha’ went to see Bella this morning?” the older man asked in a low, menacing rumble. Yep, definitely her family.

“I am.” I admitted. The waitress showed up, juggling my plate of eggs and bacon, three cups of coffee, a saucer full of creamers, and a full carafe of steaming coffee. I eyed her in awe as she glared at the men.

“Sit, already, Bob.” She expertly delivered her load to the table without a drop of coffee going astray. The big man deflated slightly and meekly allowed her to shepherd him onto the bench, followed by his shadow. She sniffed, poured, and vanished back into the kitchen.

“Now there,” I commented, “is a woman I hope never to cross.”

I surprised Bob into a guffaw. “May is something, for sure.” He admitted before remembering that he wasn’t here to chat about women. At least, not that one. “What were you doing at Bella’s?”

“I had some paperwork for her.” I picked up the cup and took a sip, although more coffee wasn’t really what I needed just then. This was going to be ticklish, I had enough adrenaline to keep me alert already.

“About?” He prompted when he could see I wasn’t going to go on.

“About none of your business. I don’t know who you are, sir, and my business was with Belladonna Traycroft, and her alone.” I put a touch of ice, and a hint of Power, into my voice, hoping he would get the hint.

He leaned across the table, his eyes narrowing. “Well, well… you’re one of them, aren’t you?”

I was beginning to wonder just what was going on. First, Bella, now this Bob. “One of whom?”

He settled back and folded his arms. “Dan, why don’t you go ask May about some pancakes for us.”

The younger man shadowing him simply nodded slightly at this obvious dismissal and got up. As soon as he was on the other side of the room, Bob nodded at me. “I’m Lavendar’s widower, lad. That makes me Belladonna’s grandfather, and I know why you are here, even if she doesn’t.”

“She does. I showed her the papers this morning. Did she tell you I was here?” I found it difficult to believe, for some reason, that she had gone crying to anyone, even this formidable old man.

“Nope. I heard one of your kind was in town, and I’d hoped to catch you before you went out there, I could have saved you some trouble.”

I sighed. “My kind?”

He raised one bushy eyebrow and I knew where Bella had gotten that expression. “You’re a pixie.”

So much for the humans not knowing about the Olde Folke. “Yes, I am.”

“There’s bad blood between you and her people.”

I had an intuition suddenly that this was not only about Belladonna. He was referring to his late wife. And late? How had Lavendar come to be dead? That wasn’t in the dossier, and was fairly unlikely, as fairy live for a very long time indeed. Not quite immortal, but close, from a human perspective.

“Not any longer, sir. There was a pact created about 300 years ago.” I rubbed my eyes. Lavendar had not been covered in the dossier I was given, except as a name in the genealogy, and I was convinced that had been a mistake on someone’s part. Or, more likely, a deliberate omission. There were a lot of folk who would like me to fail in this mission.

I went on. “I just need to have Ms. Traycroft sign some papers. She has… come into an inheritance.”

His blue eyes, much like hers, narrowed again. “Are you a lawyer, lad?”

I shook my head, smiling. I liked this man already. “No, sir. I’m just a messenger boy.”

Dan returned and slid into the booth, still silent. I regarded him for a moment. Steely gray eyes met mine, and I was surprised to see the laugh lines around them deepen slightly. The beard hid any trace of a smile.

Bob sighed. “Bella doesn’t need any troubles, son.”

I realized he was talking to me, not Dan. Something in the bearded man’s approval had completed Bob’s assessment of me and he’d decided I was not going to die today, at least. I relaxed minutely.

“What troubles has she been having?” I asked him and he ran a hand through his silvering hair, leaving it standing askew.

“Well, now. it started about a year ago, when she came back to town.”

I nodded. I knew she had been hired to do a census of local wildlife by the National Park Service. Given the sheer scale of the state, that had to be a work of a lifetime.

“At first, we thought it was just local idiots who hadn’t thought it through. She wasn’t going to limit hunting, she was going to find data that would in all likelihood loosen the regulations that have been strangling us.” His speech pattern changed as he started to talk about his granddaughter’s work, and I wondered if he realized how thin his ‘good ol’ boy’ facade was getting.

“We had a talk with some guys.” He indicated Dan with a motion. “And they denied it was them, entirely, although we did clear up a couple of incidents. Dan and the boys can be a mite formidable when they try.” He stopped to chuckle in reminiscence. “Her cousins are fond of Bella. And they know how important her work is to what they do.”

“What do they do?” My curiosity is going to be the death of me, I swear. I shut my mouth, but it had already slipped out. For all I knew, they were the equivalent of the Alaskan Mafia. Bob certainly had that godfather aura.

“Big game hunters and guides.” He smiled at me. “Best in the Bush. We need the tourists for our economy, and hunting gets big money into town.”

I nodded. This made sense. He went on.

“But that didn’t stop it. She had her brake lines cut, and only a patch of muskeg and some canny steering on her part saved her. That was the last time, before snow flew. She’s stayed pretty close to home since the freeze, compiling her observations. We’re keeping an eye on strangers, since the locals don’t seem to be the problem…” He shrugged, his giant shoulders still showing their power under his worn plaid shirt. He might be old, but this man was a powerhouse. Bella was a lucky girl.

“I see.” And I did see, a lot more than he did, because the threats against her had likely originated a lot closer to where I had just come from. Well, shit. My job had just moved from difficult to “deck stacked against me.”

The enemies moving against her wouldn’t be seen by Bob and her cousins, unless some of them had the Sight. I did, but the prospect of going up against them for a girl I barely knew was not appetizing. Duty be damned, I didn’t relish dying. For one thing, that meant the family honor debt would pass onto someone who was not equipped to fulfill it. The family has been getting thinner with every generation, and little cousin Devon was barely fifteen. He wouldn’t even be as noticeable as a speed bump to the fairies who wanted Bella and my whole family dead.

I switched my attention back to Bob. “So what do you want from me? I can assure you, I mean her no harm. As a matter of fact, the inheritance would give her more power.”

He raised that eyebrow again. “Really, Power, is it?”

I nodded. I was not at liberty to tell him what was in those papers that rested under my hand in my attache case. I wasn’t so melodramatic  as to cuff it to myself, but anyone trying to take it away would get a nasty surprise. I could, however, give him a clue, if he was astute as I thought he was, and Lavandar had told him enough.

“Well, then…” he mused out loud. The he nodded abruptly. “What did she say?”

“She told me to get out or she would shoot me.” I told him drily.

He burst into laughter. Dan even laughed quietly. I waited until he was done and had wiped the tears out of his eyes. “Don’t know why I expected any less from my girl,” he grinned. “Don’t give up, son, she’ll come around.”

He nudged Dan. “Time to be getting home.”

Before they walked away, he tossed a couple of bills on the table. May had invisibly delivered their order a while back. I was certain she had been listening as hard as she could, too. He delivered his parting shot.

“I’ll talk t’ Bella, and tell her she should sign those papers.”

I watched them walk out. I didn’t think he really understood what was in those papers, or he would be taking me someplace they would never find the body, about now. I was still going to have a hard time with this, and I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted to succeed in it.

I added to the money on the table. He’d left enough, but I figured having May on my good side was worth it.

I went straight back to the hotel. Time to think this through, and make a decision. I hadn’t been straight with Bella or Bob, but that wasn’t about them, it was about the depth of my involvement. Unless you were born to a destiny that you really didn’t want, and had to be dragged kicking and screaming into, you won’t understand my dilemma. I was supposed to get her to sign the papers, but I wanted her to not sign them, ever.

Back in the room I shed my outer layers onto the chair. I was grateful for them… Damn, it was cold outside… but they made me feel like a fat little man. Little was bad enough without being round. Then I flopped on the bed and closed my eyes. It had been a very long three days.

 

 

Saturday Snippets

Sometimes we find unexpected beauty by altering our perceptions.

Hello and welcome to Cedar’s demesnes…

Here I will be posting snippets of Pixie Noir every Saturday, approximately a chapter at a time, until the release date, Dec. 1. Which means that you will get to read the first third of the book for free!

Enjoy, let me know what you think, and check back regularly!

First snippet is here: http://cedarwrites.com/2013/04/01/for-no-reason/

Free Story, and a Review of a Story Collection

First, this is the last day to get my story “Dwarf’s Dryad” for free. Download, share the link with your friends, and if you enjoy it, don’t forget to tip the author with a review!

Also, I plan to put all my short stories on sale, in anticipation of the upcoming release of my new novel, Pixie Noir. So if you have been holding off, the next month or so would be a good time to pick them up!

I’m reviewing a collection of short stories, myself, because I just had no time for reading. Picking up a short to read in off moments when my brain needs a break from work or school means I don’t have to re-focus on the whole plot of a novel, and it works well for me.

I have been working my way through Sarah A. Hoyt’s collection called Wings, which contains between 17-18 stories, more than enough to keep me busy for a while. From the first story, “Titan,” a compelling tale of two lads who find and commune with an ancient force, and one named Leonardo pays a great price for fame, to the noir stylings of “Stock Management” you will find this collection to be as varied as the imgination of one writer can make it. Here are monsters, lurking in the dark, with blood on their fangs, but also the sublime, of humanity, sacrificing for family and winning all. Of Shakespeare in one story, resisting the devil, and in another tale, becoming the devil incarnate to poor Kit Marlowe.

There’s more, in this compelling collection of snipped pieces of worlds that will draw you in. Some very like our regular, everyday existence, with only the winking of a difference that makes it such a surprise. Others are wildly alien, yet still the characters are always human, always living life, even in despair, in ways you will recognize. The colony world of Madrasta resonates with my recent studies in Latin America. I think that you will see I enjoyed exploring her worlds, and I highly recommend you try it, too. Every time I pick it up they suck me in, and give me a short break from reality.

The Library and Research

Cedar in her public library.

I spent my morning class in the library today, listening to an overview of how to use academic databases to do research. I’ve been doing that for a while, but you never know what neat new tip or trick you migth pick up, and besides, I didn’t really have a choice.  Now, you, my writerly friends, might not think you have access to databases, as you are likely no longer a student, but I will point a few things out.  First, if you are reading this blog, you have the whole internet at your fingertips. This can be… problematic, as most of you already know. Second, chances are that your local public library has resources avaible to you, not only in the library (novel thought – do your research in person! Make a librarian’s day!) but online, as well.

Researching online can be more than a little like trying to drink from a firehose, or swim in a riptide. I think most of us have figured out ways to narrow the stream to a manageable level, but here are some of the tips and tricks I have picked up over the years.

Look at the address before you click the link. Most web addresses end with .com, followed by .org, .edu, and many others. Keep in mind that .com or .biz addresses are often commercial concerns, and may be trying to sell you something. Approach with caution (she says, on a .com site… it’s not a hard and fast rule. Only thing I want to sell you here are my books. Look, shiny!) and keep in mind the material is likely not primary sources, but could be used to track backwards to them.

Some will tell you .org sites are fine, but honestly, I am even more cautious about them. At least with a business they will likely be up front about what they are trying to sell, and honest about their products, if they want repeat customers (trust me, as a businesswoman, the last thing you want to do is piss your clients off). Organizations labor under no such constraints.

And last for the purposes of this blog entry, .edu sites are a good resource, but still, never rely on only one source. There are tons of examples out there of professors who have made stuff up whole-cloth and been caught later. I came across Ward Churchill while researching for a class last semester. I just found out about this guy researching for this article. Academia is full of very human people, with all the failings and foibles that implies.

Which brings me to another side point. Never rely on a single source. When you are wanting to get the facts straight, make sure you have at least two, but better, three or more, primary sources that agree (mostly!). A primary source is a study, article, what have you, that is original. Look carefully, some secondary sources might lead back to the same primary, leaving you with a single source. I know, this seems obvious, but…

Going back to the concept of choking the internet into submission. If you are wanting more scholarly research sources, try putting your search through Google Scholar. This will allow you to narrow down results, and get citations readily, if you need them. For writing fiction, you won’t want or need citations, and you may not want or need to do this much research. I love research, but it is easy to fall down the rabbit-hole and into Wonderland if you don’t set limits on the searching you do. A timer, or a “no more than three sources!” might be useful limits for a fiction writer.

Finally, every library is different. Some university libraries are open to the public, so they can become a resource when you have heavy subjects that are more obscure. As I said, most public libraries have databases, and they are under-utilized. All the librarians I know would be delighted to introduce you to their resources, and usually you can tap into them from home with your library card number, as well. Many libraries offer their patrons the ability to borrow books from interconnected libraries, including, again, university and college libraries.

Now, I have to go look up stories and poems on the theme of Wanderlust, for a paper on Tennyson’s Ulysses, and I need to find a good Mayan Jaguar tale, for mapping along with other Latin American folktales. I’ll see you in the rabbit-hole…

I’m late, I’m late!

International Book Week

There’s a little meme that pops up on Facebook every so often. I have no idea if it really is International Book Week, but I thought it would be fun to grab some of the oddball books floating around the office and leave some random sentences here on the blog. What I am doing differently, though, is making the titles white on white below the sentence. Select with your mouse to see what the answers are.

If you feel like it, put your closest book in the comments. Should be interesting! 

It’s International Book Week. The rules: Grab the closest book to you, turn to page 52, post the 5th sentence as your status. Don’t mention the title.

“In the opinion of our highest scholars and savants, he is a scientific research worker and collector probably unique in the history of the world.”

You Only Live Twice, Ian Fleming 

“In their meetings with other public health officials for years after the 1976 outbreak, surviving members of the Yambuku crew always placed the deadly filovirus in a special, particularly fearsome category: a small assemblage of hemorrhagic fever viruses that included Lassa, yellow river, Marburg Disease, and a handful of others, most of which were only discovered in the last three decades of the twentieth century.”

Betrayal of Trust, Laurie Garrett

“But a writer can still create such imaginary worlds and place them around another star – that wouldn’t contradict real-world knowledge, and the universe is vast enough to justify almost any kind of world.”

Notes to a Science Fiction Writer, Ben Bova

“Yeah, we did, didn’t we?”

The Tub of Happiness, Howard Tayler

“In large scale conflicts, dust-off is the evacuation of wounded from the field of battle, typically under fire.”

Resident Mad Scientist, Howard Tayler

“Around 5,000 kamikaze pilots are thought to have died during World War II.”

The Essential Militaria, Nicholas Hobbes

“Bes had left her a note tacked to the barn door.”

Vulcan’s Kittens, Cedar Sanderson

“Any patient who has bled enough to exhibit the signs and symptoms of compensatory shock and who does not improve rapidly with treatment should be evacuated.”

The Wilderness First Responder, Buck S. Tilton, et. al. 

“do not use in combination with other nanopharmaceuticals…”

Something Wicked Vol. 1, ed. by Joe Vaz

“As new forms of media develop and clutter becomes ever more intense, it’s the asset of permission that will generate profits for marketers. “

Permission Marketing, Seth Godin

Oh, and two notes about these quotes! One, they are all paper books that live in my office for either short-term or long term research purposes. E-books don’t work for this, as they are ever-changing when it comes to page numbers. Two, I didn’t arrange them at all, they were written down in order or the stack of books I scooped up. But this would be an awfully fun way to create a story challenge, wouldn’t it? 

 

Beautiful America

I wrote a post on 9/11/13 talking about the different places I have been, how large and diverse our country really is, and I filled the post with photos from my personal collection, each taken in a different state I had traveled to. It went over really well, it seems, and it was suggested I make it a regular weekly thing, to put pictures up on Tuesdays.

I’m not a professional photographer. You’d laugh if you saw the camera I’ve taken most of these shots with. Some of them are old enough to have been developed as prints, then scanned into the computer, so their quality is not the best. I love taking pictures, though, and I’m excited to have an excuse to share some with you all.

I can’t always meet requests – for one thing, there are places I have not YET visited, like the Southwestern states of the US. But I asked on FB this morning, so here are some tree pictures, along with at least one cat photo! Oh, and Francis? I will do a whole post on Fall Color soon!

A fall leaf on the trunk of a white pine tree. NH

Chokecherry trees in a snowstorm. NH

A hemlock tree hangs over Hermit Lake, NH.

Neil, you asked for a tree with Attitude!

A cute cat picture for Leo… Cats are a liquid – they fill the container they are poured into!

Another cute picture… these phoebe chicks flew the nest withing two days of this picture being taken. They were remarkably calm around people, this was taken in our rabbitry, at a little more than head-height to the short author.

A panoramic, or stitched, shot of springtime in NH, looking over Lake Winnipesaukee.

The Power of Free

Cross-posted from Amazing Stories Magazine

The cover for the free story, but click on the mini-Amazon cover link at the end to get your copy.

Harnessing the power of free has nothing to do with that scene in Braveheart where William Wallace hollers “Freedom!” although I will admit I get a shiver down my spine when I hear it (movie has issues, but I still like it…). What it does have to do with is that marketing concept called “loss leaders” where you use something free, or cheap, to promote other products. Basically, in the vernacular “the first taste is free.” Look at the long-lasting success of the Baen Free Library for a terrific example of this in book marketing.

 

So how can we authors harness this idea, of giving our readers something that will tantalize them and have them coming back for more? Well, snippets on blogs, or even free books serialized on blogs (like Elf’s Blood over at Mad Genius Club), social media sites, and websites work well for existing fans. But I’m also using the KDP program on Amazon to schedule promotions and draw in readers who might never have heard of me otherwise. I see spikes in sales a week to a month after those promotions, and they are easy to do.

 

Marketing, and sales, ought never to be an unending stream of “buy my stuff” because how do you react to that? You’re repelled by it, like most people are. Face it, no-one needs to buy a fiction book. It’s not like underwear, or food, or a roof over their heads. It’s entertainment. There are a few of us in the world who have to read, must have books, but even I don’t need to buy books, there are enough libraries and now, free books online, to feed that compulsion of mine.

 

This means that there needs to be a relationship between author and reader. You have to hook that reader, catch them with content that is compelling enough to have them willing to lay down their scarce disposable income – and that’s going to get harder to do as the economy continues to slide downward – and further more, to keep them coming back. How do you do this? Why should you have to do this?

 

Face it, even if you are traditionally published, your publisher does very little to nothing for you, the author, to promote your book. It’s up to you, if you plan to make money doing this, to promote your own work. If you are independently publishing, you already know that you must promote, or perish. If you’re publishing just because it makes you happy to have a book in print, congratulations! Most of us who write want that, yes, but also money would be good. So we learn to promote. Sales doesn’t work, we’ve decided, so this giving away, while painful in that we’re not being paid for some of our hard work, does make sense.

 

I use Kindle Direct Publishing increasingly for my sales efforts. All other markets combined don’t show a fraction of the sales I get through Amazon every month, and I am not bothering with them much any longer. In order to run a free promotion through KDP, the book must be exclusive to Amazon. If you have it up at Smashwords, it isn’t hard to click the unpublish button, take it down for 90 days, and then you can publish it again with one click. Once you are enrolled in KDP with your book, it’s easy to set up the promotion.

 

From your bookshelf, you can select “manage promotions” from the drop down “actions” button in the upper left hand corner, with the title desired checked to select. Then you will name the sale, choose the dates you want to begin and end, anywhere from 1-5 days in length, and save it. There, you are set to do your first sale, now what? Well, now you blog, post on social media, ask friends to share those posts, and wait. This is a little different from begging people to buy your book, now you are giving it away for free, and they won’t mind seeing those sort of promotions. Also, you will appear in Amazon’s free sales, and there is where hundreds if not thousands of readers who had no idea you existed, will see and download your book.

 

You will likely not see an immediate hike in sales numbers. Instead, starting about a week after the sale has ended, you will notice that your sales are going up. Many who picked up the free book, will have just now finished reading it, and if you have a link to your other works in the back of that book, will click through and buy more from you. Most readers are creatures of habit – if they like an author, they are very likely going to buy everything that author writes. This tail to your sale will last anywhere up to a month, as those who grab more than they can read right away on the free sale finally get around to it.

 

I’ve just set up The Dwarf’s Dryad to go on sale from Monday through Friday. I expect to accomplish two things with this. First, anywhere from a few hundred to a thousand, based on previous free offering’s numbers, will go out, into the hands of people who will hopefully like, and want more of me. Second, it doesn’t have any reviews yet, being a recent release, and that many readers will help solve that issue. I also know the sales of my other work will pick up after, so it is a win for me all the way around.

 

And for my readers? Hey, free story!

Free Fantasy Story

From today, through Friday, “The Dwarf’s Dryad” will be available free on Amazon! If you like fantasy, stories with a little romance, and a lot of intrigue, check this tale out. After all, it’s free, what do you have to lose?

Don’t forget, after you read it, if you liked it, tip the author with a review. I really appreciate that.

I look forward to hearing your reactions to this fantastical journey into my imagination.

Click on the cover to download your copy. You do not need a kindle to read the file, there are free apps for your phone and computer.