Kyell Gold's Blog, page 26

Red Devil: Preview

Because it’s coming out next week and I haven’t posted a scrap of it yet. I’ve read from it at conventions, but nothing’s online. So here you go, a little segment I like to call “Alexei Tells A Story.”

Above the sink and stove, the two small kitchen cupboards were closed, their white paint chipped enough to show the brown wood below in a pattern like rot, though the wood smelled clean and fresh if Alexei put his nose next to it. If Meg had been cooking, the kitchen overflowed with the smells of oil and butter and (usually) fish, unless she opened one of the small windows; if she had not been cooking, the strongest smell was the grease that accumulated underneath the cupboards over the stove. Now the kitchen smelled of fish and salt and dish soap, and splashing sounds echoed from where Meg stood over the scuffed, dirty sink.

Alexei’s claws clicked on the cool tile floor as he walked up to the black-furred otter. “Hey, fox-boy,” she said, scrubbing at her plate with a sponge over soapy water. “I have a new drink recipe I want you to try.”

The fox stopped and sighed. “I would prefer—”

Meg held up a paw. “I know, I know. But I’m trying to make this drink that’s, like, special for you. It’s got local flavor and Siberian flavor and I just need someone to tell me if I’m making it right.”

“All right.” Alexei picked up a dishtowel and the clean, wet saucepan.

“You don’t have to dry,” Meg said. “That’s what a drying rack is for.”

“I don’t mind,” he said, wiping the water carefully away. “How was dinner?”

“Fish cakes and noodles and plenty of soy sauce,” she said. “I expect ‘Top Chef’ to call any day now.”

He grinned. “It smells good. Salty. What is ‘Top Chef’?”

“The salt is the soy. ‘Top Chef’ is a reality show…”

“Oh. Like ‘Survivor’.”

“Kind of. Except they have to cook. I have it on my computer if you want to watch sometime. It’s pretty good.”

“Sure,” he said to be nice, though he hadn’t really enjoyed “Survivor” when he’d watched it with his friends in Samorodka. He put the dry saucepan up in the cupboard and picked up the plastic spoon. A grain of rice was stuck in the gap in the handle; he poked at it with a claw.

“My vampire fox friend hasn’t seen it either. You can watch it with us when he comes to visit,” she said.

He nodded. “When is he coming?”

“In a couple weeks. I told Sol. He’ll sleep on my floor, don’t worry about it.”

Alexei smiled. “We can leave if you would like time alone.”

She turned, paws soapy, and scowled at him. “We don’t need time alone. He’s just coming to see the apartment.”

“Uh-huh.” Alexei grinned, and Meg splashed water at him. He jumped and wiped his fur with the towel. “Does this mean you are going to be a vampire too?”

She rolled her eyes. “I don’t believe in that crap.”

He glanced toward Sol’s room, and Meg saw the look. “Even him,” she said, lowering her voice, because even though Sol had started playing music, he had good canid ears. “I don’t know what he thought he dreamed with that painting…”

“His eyes,” Alexei said softly.

She shook her head, and then held her fingers an inch apart. “Maybe I believe in it this much. But people just believe what they want to believe. Our minds are more powerful than we give them credit for. You have to remember what’s real and what’s not, or else you just lose yourself in the shit you want to be real and you can’t find your way back to be any use to the shit that actually is real.”

“How do we know what is real?” he said. “How can we know that there is not more to be seen? In Siberia, we believe that our ancestors watch over us.”

“I thought ancestor-worship was an Eastern thing.” She squinted at him.

“‘Worship’ is like in church?” She nodded, and Alexei shook his head. “It is not like that. Here…” He thought. “My host family, their grandparents had died years ago. They went to where they are buried and put flowers. Kyree—my host mother—she sometimes talked to her mother as if she were alive.”

“Not everyone does that.” Meg finished washing her plate and shook it, then slid it into the rack. “My grandparents died like ten years ago and I don’t even know where they’re buried.”

He nodded. “Yes. But in Siberia—in Samorodka, I know—it is much more common. We thought there was a house where an ancestor came back as a ghost, but also my sister and myself remember our great-grandmother and we think she would like to try to help us escape. She was born in Baranowicze, which was then Lechia, and she fled into Siberia when the war started.”

“Which war?” Meg asked. “They were having them every ten years for a while.”

“World War Two,” Alexei said. “Nineteen thirty-eight.”

“I thought they didn’t persecute foxes.”

Alexei lowered his ears. “Foxes with proper coloring. Great-grandmother was a cross fox.”

“Fucking hell.” Meg lifted a paw to her whiskers, the black dye in her fur. “So she went to Siberia?”

“She stopped in Samorodka because she…” He frowned. “She twisted her ankle so that she could not walk. Sprain, is this right?” Meg nodded, and he inclined his head, searching for words. It was harder to tell the story because he could hear Prababushka laughing in her cracked voice, the Siberian words so familiar that he had fight to speak in a language Meg could understand. “My great-grandfather was the son of the doctor. He helped take care of her and they stayed. She said that it was the happiest time she ever sprained an ankle.”

“She could have sprained her ankle in any town, though,” Meg pointed out. “She might still have met someone, and then someone else would be here telling me this story.”

Alexei shook his head, annoyed that he was telling the story badly. Prababushka would scold him, would tell him to start again. “She had a small doll from her grandmother, who had died the year before. When they were traveling through Samorodka, the doll slipped from her paws. She tried to catch it, and…” He mimed twisting his ankle. “So she always said that her grandmother’s spirit made her stop to meet Dmitri—my great-grandfather.”

Meg smiled. “It’s a nice story, but it’s still just putting meaning into randomness. What about you? You’re running away from a horrible place and you ended up here. What ghost did that?”

“Perhaps I am not meant to stay here,” Alexei said. “I have not met a…” The word ‘husband’ didn’t sound right. “Special person.”

“Thanks.”

“I mean,” he said quickly, “someone to build a life with. And anyway,” he added before Meg could argue more, “I may still have to return.”

“You can’t go back. They’ll fuck you up. It’s just getting worse back there for gay cubs, y’know?”

“Not only the gay ones.” Alexei thought of Cat. “But I will say prayers to Prababushka that I may remain. That is what I mean. We do not put our ancestors in churches, but we say prayers for them and thanks to them.”

“Whatever works.” Meg washed out her glass and one of Sol’s and put them in the drying rack. “I guess it’s no stranger than praying to a guy who died two thousand years ago and nobody knows what species he was and he wants you to eat part of him.”

“Does your vampire fox not want to eat people?” Alexei said, to tease her.

“He drinks fake blood,” Meg said. “It’s fruit punch.”

Alexei laughed. “So everyone believes in something strange. Who can say what is true?”

“I can,” Meg said. “It’s whatever I can touch, what stays the same from one day to the next. I never saw a ghost, I just saw Sol acting weird and then somehow screwing up his eyes. My vampire fox friend says there are chemicals on the Internet you can get that change your eye color.”

Alexei started to shake his head, then said, “Your vampire friend, does he have a name?”

Meg scowled. “I call him Athos, but that’s not his real name.”

“Are you going to learn his real name before he comes to visit?”

“You sound like Sol’s mother,” Meg said. “I trust him. I talk to him just about every day.”

“I only ask,” Alexei said, “because of what happened to Sol. Not the ghost, the real world.”

“Sol believes in a lot of things I don’t. Ghosts. Nice people. Love. I’ll be okay. He won’t try anything.”

“Okay.” Alexei smiled. “You will tell us if you need help?” He picked up the plate she’d put in the rack and wiped it dry.

“Of course,” Meg said, “but I won’t need help. What about you? Bringing anyone over we should know about?”

“You do not believe in love,” Alexei said, teasingly.

“I believe that you believe in it.” She shut the water off, but left her paws in the full sink, moving them back and forth, eyes half-closed as she turned to smile at him. “So I’m trying to respect your beliefs. Not be too biased, you know? So?”

Alexei shook his head. “No. I do not think so.”

Red Devil Interior Art!

Rukis has posted a couple of the interiors from Red Devil and now you can see a bit more of why I’m so excited for you guys to see it. Hell, I’m excited for Thursday when I get to see them!

http://www.furaffinity.net/view/12445...

http://www.furaffinity.net/view/12445...

(And you can still pre-order before tomorrow!)

Out of the freezer and into the refrigerator

This is a busy week! I am trying to wrap up a couple things that are due for February (“Giles” layouts, “Red Devil” e-books) and on Thursday, I fly to Minnesota. I had seen a pic yesterday of a bank thermometer reading -22, and heard lots of crazy stories from my Great White Northern Crew (frozen spit! frozen socks!), so I went to check the weather for the week…

Thanks for the cheery headlines, weather.com!

I get in Thursday evening and leave Saturday morning, so yay! I will bring enough California warmth to nudge the temps above freezing, hopefully.

Why am I going? Same reason I went last year. You guys are pre-ordering Red Devil (and other books) and I am going up to sign a bunch of them so that even if you can’t attend FC, you can still get a signed book. That is how much I love you guys! And flying. And huskies. I think even at the relatively balmy 17 degrees overnight, I may need to steal one of the Sofawolf huskies for warmth.

Anyway, yes! Did I mention that if you pre-order Red Devil (today is the last day!) or buy it at FC, you will get your book signed in special “first release” red pen? (Other books will be signed in the usual gold.) Last year I signed about 300 copies of Divisions, and my signing paws did not break. This year? Who knows! Do your worst!

I’m really looking forward to seeing Red Devil in print. I hope you are too! Once I get back from Minnesota, I’ll be watching some football and then everyone descends on our town for FC. I’m doing a bunch of panels–later this week or maybe next, I will let you know when they are. Reserve some time for the return of K.M. Hirosaki to Unsheathed, Sunday night!

Okay, now I have to go out and buy some heavier gloves. And fox-sized earmuffs.

Red Devil Giveaway over!

The Red Devil giveaway on Goodreads is over! If you are one of the lucky winners, you should already have been notified. If not, you still have a couple days to order Red Devil from Sofawolf and still get it signed and sent (to anywhere in the world, I reiterate! Also I reiterate that I will sign any of my books that you order in addition!).

I will be posting more about the book and answering questions over the next couple days, to give you time to get pre-orders in if you want to.

Red Devil Updates!

Real quick here:

* The Goodreads Giveaway is still on through Sunday!

* Sofawolf pre-orders are up until Tuesday, January 7! They will ship anywhere in the world (whereas the giveaway is US only, sorry). I will sign ANY of my books that you order through Sofawolf.

* Red Devil is the Furry Writers Guild’s book of the month for January!

Out With The Old, In With The New

I’m on vacation for New Year’s until Thursday or so. I can tweet and read e-mail from the phone, but most correspondence will be on hold. Enjoy your New Years and I’ll see you in 2014!

Get a Signed Copy of Red Devil!

Red Devil is set for release at Further Confusion, and in advance of the January release, I’m going to fly to Minnesota to sign books for both the people attending the convention and the people who can’t make it. Pre-order through January 7th to make sure you get your signed copies, and I will sign other books of mine, so if you haven’t read Green Fairy yet, you can get both books signed. At the release of Green Fairy, I signed books in green instead of my customary gold; if you pre-order Red Devil or buy it at FC, I will sign it in red as a mark that you were one of the first to get a copy! Sofawolf has all the details of the signing on their blog–you can also take this opportunity to get the brand-new second book of the fabulous comic “Peachy Keen,” or the brand-new Artistic Visions book with the art of Henrieke (if you follow me on Twitter, you’ve seen her work in my current Twitter icon).

BUT WAIT THERE’S MORE!

If you are on Goodreads (and why wouldn’t you be?), you can sign up for a giveaway to get one of two FREE copies of Red Devil. (I will also sign these free copies. In red.) The giveaway ends on January 5th, so you can sign up and if you don’t get it, you still have two days to run over to the Sofawolf site and place your order. Even if you don’t want to sign up for the giveaway, you can help me out by putting Red Devil onto your “Want to read” list–that way other people see it, and you spread the word.

In the next couple weeks, as the release gets closer, I’ll talk a little more about the process of writing the book, the art (the art is so wonderful), and the special challenges of following Green Fairy. For the moment, I’ll just say that my goal was to do something on a par with Green Fairy while not being the same exactly. I think I’ve succeeded, and I hope you’ll think so too.

Holiday Productivity

Tube and I talked on yesterday’s Livestream Unsheathed about staying productive during the holidays, which focused (as much as we focus on anything) on advice for writers who find the holidays overwhelming and who would like to continue to work during that time. I touched on another aspect of holidays during that discussion and would like to expand on it here for a bit.

In Tube’s case, and I’m sure for most of you reading this, the holidays provide a relief from the day job, a time when he can work on writing for hours a day. I think it’s equally important to enjoy the holidays this time of year. Whatever your religious affiliation, Christmastime has become (for us in the U.S.) a time to relax and appreciate your friends and family. Or in the worst case, take a breath, take stock, get ready for next year.

So yeah, if getting some work done during the holidays is important to you, then by all means set your schedule, make sure you get time to yourself, and so on. But don’t spend the whole holiday working. Even for those of us doing what we love*, we need to stop and enjoy Christmas sometime.

* The old adage “Nobody ever lay on his/her deathbed wishing to have spent more time at the office” does not, I think, apply to writers, because I know for sure looking back that I could have written another few stories or a novel if I’d found time SOMEWHERE.

So hey, if this is the last time you’re reading the blog before heading home for the holidays, or if you’re just taking a break, have a wonderful holiday, whatever you celebrate. Get some writing done and then deck some halls.

Camouflage Up To Date Everywhere Now

Okay, I have now caught up with last week and this week’s parts on the now-running FA, and the blog here, of course, remained all up to date. Just in time for another troubling segment to be posted!

People have started leaving comments about how they think the story should or should not end, which is all very interesting, and I certainly don’t want to discourage anyone from doing that. Of course, I have already written the ending, but I like seeing where people think it should/will/won’t go.

There are about 25,000 words left in the story, which at the rate of 3,000 a week would take two months to finish up; however, as I’m leaving at the beginning of February for a long road trip and won’t want to be posting updates, I will likely finish up the story the last week of January by posting the entire last chapter, or something like that.

I’m really pleased by the reactions to the story, in general. Some people are surprised at the violence in the story; some people have stopped reading for that reason; some people appreciate the characters and what they’re going through. This is a different kind of story, but it was the kind of story it wanted to be, and telling it is a challenge for me. I don’t want to write the same thing over and over again, but I do want to keep the core things the same: good characters, interesting settings, compelling story. I have really been enjoying reading the comments people have left on the story as it goes on, and in some cases having dialogues with people. Thanks, guys, for following along and for appreciating it.

Fourth OOP Book, Statistics

(Yes, there is a fourth OOP book, and a fifth. I have a mailing list, comes out only once a month, where I update all my projects and write up excerpts and writing tips and so on. If you didn’t know this book existed and would like to know when things are coming out, please do join! It’s free!)

So from my notes, the first draft of this was 145,000 words or so (Divisions is 142,ooo in its final form, Isolation Play around 163,500, OOP a svelte 136,000). My “deleted from the manuscript” document is 15,500 words and the file for OOP4 is now 162,000 words, making it just over a thousand words shorter than Isolation Play. Of course, there are months to go before it’s final, and things might be chopped out/inserted, but I am pretty happy with the flow of the book now, so that seems unlikely.

(The most recent editing pass resulted in 1,500 words cut out and 4,500 added, so it was really the first editing pass that cut 14,000 words and then added 28,000.)

I still find myself getting caught up in the last third of it as it goes on, and I’ve improved the early parts. It is very much “Divisions, Continued,” although that’s not the title (I will likely leak the title to the mailing list first). Anyway, I hope you guys will enjoy it.

Now I can get down to first-drafting OOP5, which I’ve already pretty closely outlined. Hope that won’t take long. I am in some ways reluctant to do it because it is the end of this arc for Dev and Lee, but I have ideas for further stories, so I don’t have to abandon my favorite fox and tiger forever (and neither do you!).

So that’s what I’ve been doing with my December–well, that and writing a 6,000 (to date) word story about a minor character to try to get a better handle on their motivation. You guys will see OOP4 this summer, but in the meantime I have Red Devil and The Mysterious Affair of Giles coming out in the next two months (and I have to get to work on Giles as well).