Browsing Tag

bone walker kickstarter

Bone Walker, Short Pieces, Vengeance of the Hunter

Long overdue Kickstarter update + Vengeance of the Hunter

Just to bring folks up to speed on where I am with all the things I’m trying to pull out of my head: my long-waiting Kickstarter backers, y’all will have noticed I have not yet delivered unto you Bone Walker or any of the other remaining rewards. This is a combination of four factors: one, Vengeance of the Hunter pretty much eating my brain for the last few months; two, my abrupt return to the land of Medical Fun (spoiler alert: not really fun); and three, emergency eye surgery on the part of Dara, as I’ve previously posted; four, delay on getting the rest of my edits back from JoSelle, who’s been working on editing Bone Walker for me.

As of this writing I am in what will be hopefully the final line edits for Vengeance. My goal is to finish this edit pass and hand the manuscript back to my editor this weekend. She will let me know if I need to do any remaining tweaks to it, and the goal is to get it squared away before I go offline for surgery on November 11th.

I have also been talking with JoSelle about getting those edits on Bone Walker back, and our game plan moving forward is that she will be doing everything in her power to get them to me by end of November. Either way, I will be commencing my edit sweep on Bone Walker on December 1st. If I have enough brain for it following surgery, I’ll actually start before–but this is me allowing myself some time for recovery to happen. Ditto on finishing the shorter works due to Kickstarter backers.

Related to those shorter works as well–I’m working on getting some cover art together for “The Blood of the Land”, the short story I’d previously done in the Warder universe. Once that’s ready I will be making that available as an immediate freebie to Kickstarter folks, and slightly after that, will be deploying it onto the various places where Faerie Blood is already available for sale.

Meanwhile, Dara’s having had to do eye surgery has thrown her for a loop in getting soundtrack work done, too, but she is recovering from that nicely and we hope to resume work on that ASAP. I also need to hand Dara the data she needs to do the poster and postcard layouts for the Bone Walker cover so that I can get those out to folks as well.

Kickstarter folks, as soon as I’m done with the Vengeance edit sweep, you’ll be hearing from me further. I’m really sorry for this ongoing delay, and that I have to ask for your patience for a little longer. Hang in there. Bone Walker is coming.

November 1, 2013 by
Bone Walker, Carina Press, Faerie Blood, Other People's Books, Vengeance of the Hunter

A few promo things make a post

Item the first: Debut Carina author Sonya Clark would like y’all to know she’s having a giveaway for her forthcoming release Trancehack, which is futuristic paranormal romance. Call it PR with a side helping of SF, if you like! Deets can be found right over here.

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Item the second: speaking of my fellow Carina authors, the awesome Joely Sue Burkhart and Raelyn Barclay are running Coyote Con, a virtual convention, all this month! What’s a virtual convention? It’s a series of online chat discussions on various interesting topics, pretty similar to what you’d find at an actual convention in person.

I’ve been in a few of these panels now myself, and there are more to come as the month progresses! And for those panels you may have already missed, Joely and Raelyn are posting transcripts too, so you can catch up on those here.

The panels I was in in particular were Epic Fantasy, Self Publishing, and LGBTQ/Diversity.

There are a couple more panels today, and there’ll be more the remaining weekends of the month. And one chat room’s also dedicated to just general hanging out too! The full schedule is here!

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Item the third: I will be going to Orycon from November 8-10–the weekend right before my forthcoming surgery, in fact. So unless you’re one of the people likely to show up for the annual Murkworks Thanksgiving Day Homeless Waifs Turkeyfest, this is going to be the last chance to spot the elusive Wild Anna outside her natural habitat. If you’re going to be there, find me and say hi, mmkay?

Likewise, I am going to GeekGirlCon this coming weekend, right after I go see Great Big Sea in Edmonds. I’m going to be REAL busy this weekend. 😀

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Item the fourth: This is your friendly reminder that I am down to three print copies of Faerie Blood, so if you’d like a print copy of this book, talk to me! Getting it directly from me remains the only way to acquire it since I currently have no way of selling it online. I ask $15 if I’m going to hand deliver it, $20 if I need to mail it to you.

I also have a small stock of CDs that contain the various formats of the ebook edition, both the original Drollerie release AND the current Second Edition as well. For these, I ask $5 each.

I will have both of these items with me at GeekGirlCon and Orycon as well!

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Item the fifth: Kickstarter backers, just so y’all know, I have totally had my brain eaten by Vengeance of the Hunter edits. I ran behind on it, and am scrambling along with my editor (who is made of solid gold awesomeness, All Hail Her Name) to get the manuscript finished up so that we don’t impact the schedule. We’re in the middle of line edits now. I will be jumping back to Bone Walker the instant we sign off on this book.

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Item the sixth: I have not forgotten the series of posts on advice on self-publishing; these too have had to be paused while I charge through edits on Vengeance. They will resume soon. Thank you for your patience on that; I’ve seen quite a few hits on these posts, so I do want to finish the series up.

October 13, 2013 by
Bone Walker, Vengeance of the Hunter

Status update from VCON

Well, I think this is a new first for me: I’ve just spent practically all of VCON holed up making a mad dash through the rest of developmental edits for Draft #2 of Vengeance of the Hunter. I swear to gods, people, my editor? She’s made of solid gold awesomeness, and I’ll go on record here and now as saying that Draft #2 has improved considerably because of her. It’s still the shortest book I’ve ever written, but at 84K, it’s still a credible length for a novel.

(I did at least get to see a couple of things at VCON, though. I made a sweep through the dealers’ room and spotted a couple of books I liked the look of, one of which I’ve already bought in ebook form, the other of which I’m going to track down if I can. I would have gotten the paperbacks, except that my shelves are already pretty damn full, the lament of book geeks everywhere. And oh yes, I bought a new Doctor Who t-shirt, one which has all of the first 11 Doctors on it. And it’s weird to type that, rather than ‘all of the Doctors’, now that I know there’s a new guy on the way.

And I did go to the Turkey Readings today, which were awesome and full of win and LOL. Also, I did get to say hi to GoH Mur Lafferty, whose name I know from her work on the podcast Leviathan Chronicles.)

But anyway. Vengeance is in, though my brain is goo. The Editor of Awesomeness will be commencing her next round of edits on it ASAP and I expect to be on tap to charge through those as soon as she throws them back to me.

Those of you who are patiently awaiting updates on Bone Walker, I swear to god I haven’t forgotten you. Vengeance however has eaten my brain. So has the Not-So-Happyfun Medical News I got earlier this week, and the other reason I’ve more or less spent the entire convention hunched over my computer is that I’ve not been in much of a mood to make social noises at a hotel full of strangers.

Y’all will be getting an update on Bone Walker as soon as I can get my brain back. The next thing that’s likely to happen there is that I’m going to get the long overdue posters and postcards made, so stand by for an update on that by the end of this week, mmkay?

Now I think I need to sleep for a week.

October 7, 2013 by
Bone Walker

Music transcription is hard!

My new task to contribute to the soundtrack for Faerie Blood and Bone Walker: transcribing some of the more challenging sets that Dara’s putting together! In particular, the one that goes along with the fight scene in Chapter 7 of Bone Walker. That’s got some fun, fun Japanese stuff going on in it along with a heavily mutated version of “Road to Lisdoonvarna”–and Dara’s also doing some fun almost orchestral things here as well, with interlocking themes representing Christopher and Kendis fighting with the nogitsune.

It sounds really bitchin’ cool in Dara’s work track, especially given the drums she’s laid in!

But Dara doesn’t read sheet music; she learns music by ear. I am pretty much exactly the opposite. I’ve been trying to improve my ability to learn by ear, but I am still very, very much better at learning something if there’s sheet music for it in front of me. That said? It was challenging and FUN to take Dara’s track, slow it down to half speed in my Tempo Slow app, and try to get all the notes and rhythms right on my piccolo so that I could transcribe them into actual musical notation.

My head is very full of notes now and I cannot brain any more tonight. I’m here to tell ya, it’s almost easier writing the book. Well, almost! ;D Not to mention that this is only the first part of the fun with this piece–now I have to actually learn to play it properly. And I’m actually going to have to break out my seldom-played flute with keys, since I don’t have a proper Irish flute with keys on it yet, and this bastard is changing keys WAY too often and into way too annoying keys for me to handle on Norouet at my skill level. (Read: my generally sucking at half-holing.) The piccolo’s too high and perky for this, so it’ll have to be the flute.

I’ve flung the PDF as well as the original Finale Songwriter file over to the others who’ll be playing on the soundtrack with us, and have shared the PDF with the Kickstarter backers as well. Really looking forward to doing my part for the recording–even if it means YIKES Dara’s going to record me! This won’t be the first time my flute playing’s been recorded; there are still the old MP3s from our Three Good Measures days. But this’ll definitely be the first time for something as formal as a soundtrack album, with studio work on it and everything! YIKES! *^_^*;;

February 24, 2013 by
Bone Walker, Valor of the Healer

Long overdue update

Most of you who follow me on the various social networks, or who read the posts I make via my personal blog annathepiper.org (whether there or on LJ/Dreamwidth), know this already–but for those of you who don’t, a couple of weeks ago I was briefly, violently ill. I had to spend four days in the hospital, but happily, the problem was relatively easy to deal with. And I’m feeling a lot better now! This did mean though that I was thrown for a pretty massive loop for a couple of weeks, while I dealt with recovering.

The good news though (well, aside from yay! I’m feeling better!) is that Valor of the Healer is officially DONE and has been handed off to my editor. Now comes the waiting for exciting things like cover art! And final blurb copy! And learning about how Carina’s ARC process works!

In related news, I’ve also finally officially signed the Carina contract. You guys, I’m a contracted Carina Press author. I feel all grown up. *happysniff*

Meanwhile! Now that Valor is done, this frees up my brain for returning to Bone Walker. The goal is to try to finish this puppy up by the end of November. I think I have two chapters left, at which point I’ll be putting out a brief call for beta readers before the book is handed off to JoSelle Vanderhooft for formal editing. Those of you who backed my Kickstarter have gotten a longer, more detailed update about this!

Groundwork continues to be laid as well for getting the Bone Walker soundtrack ready. My belovedest Dara, rock star that she is, has thrown together a bunch of practice tracks of the various tunes we’re interested in for the instrumental sets, so that we can start learning how to play them the way she’s envisioning they should sound. It’s going to be exciting, and I’ve got a LOT of tunes I’m going to have to learn how to play really fast. This is what happens when an author is also a musician, you guys!

And, artist Kiri Moth (may her PhotoShop always swiftly load! May her pencils be ever sharp!) has sent me an initial sketch for the soundtrack’s cover art! Check it out!

Bouzouki Cat Says TWANG

Bouzouki Cat Says TWANG

So, lots of stuff still going on, and I’m hoping to finish the year strong–and with another finished book to show for it. Hopefully I won’t be flung any more health surprises. Wish me luck, folks!

November 15, 2012 by
Bone Walker, Faerie Blood

Kickstarter and Bone Walker update goodness

For those of you who haven’t already seen this update go out to my Kickstarter backers list, I’m delighted to report that there’s some movement on the Kickstarter front!

Backer and friend and fellow session player Ellen, who is made entirely of awesomeness, threw me a boatload of tunes recommendations that will plug very nicely into the instrumental set tracks for the soundtrack, as well as into the bridge of our take of “Lukey”. Moreover, since Ellen is a fine dulcimer player, she’ll be joining us on the soundtrack work! Dara and I feel that she’ll very well represent the presence of Kendis’ house brownies, musically speaking.

I’m feeling particularly happy about the selection of tunes for what’s going to be the battle track for the climax of Bone Walker–Pigeon on the Gate, Tam Linn (a.k.a., appropriately, ‘Howling Wind’), and Farewell to Erin. Those of you who are Irish/trad tunes people, you may be able to get an idea of what that set’s going to sound like just by that alone. I encourage you to seek those tunes out if you’d like to get an idea of what we’re shooting for!

(And this of course means now I actually have to LEARN these tunes. Eep! *^_^*;;)

I’m on tap for a copyedit run through Lament of the Dove–my first formal copyedit run, woo! But that’s due on the 24th. After that, my plan will be to charge through the rest of Bone Walker, which means finishing up Chapter 21 and then a couple more chapters of denouement after that. I’m talking with my editor for that about scheduling–whether this means she’ll be able to do the editing round in December, or whether that’s going to slide to January.

And, happily, the postcards and posters of the Faerie Blood art are now on their way to me! Kickstarter backers have claim on just about all of the initial run of postcards, though it’s highly likely I’ll do a second run if the first run comes out okay. The first run of posters will leave me with several extras, though. So I’ll have enough to offer to people if they want them, once my Kickstarter backers are taken care of!

Fun times at the Murkworks! 😀

October 17, 2012 by
Bone Walker, Faerie Blood

Seeking tunes help for the Bone Walker soundtrack

Things have been pretty wacky around the Murkworks these last few months what with this whole book deal thing going on with Carina–but I do still have the Free Court of Seattle books and related things going on for all you fine folks who supported my Kickstarter. And it’s time for Dara and me to get back to working on the soundtrack for Faerie Blood and Bone Walker!

Which means I need to make some musical decisions. Part of the plan for this soundtrack, as y’all may remember, is that it will include a few instrumental sets of traditional tunes. I am on tap to make final selections for the tracks that need them–but here’s the thing. I am hampered by lack of personal repertoire, and by the sheer staggering tsunami of tunes from the Irish, Scottish, Quebecois, and many other traditions to choose from!

Internets, this means I’m going to turn to you. I know a couple people who’re reading me on Dreamwidth are Irish music people, and I have quite a few musicians Friended on Facebook who may click over to read this. So for any of you who may be reading, I seek tunes to fit the following scenarios:

1) A jaunty hornpipe in G or D (though I am capable of transposition so will consider other keys if the hornpipe is suitably awesome). We intend to plug this in as a bridge for a take of the Newfoundland trad song “Lukey”. Since we would like to distinguish ours a bit from the versions recorded by Great Big Sea, the hornpipe should NOT be “Staten Island” since that’s the one they use in their original studio recording. I’d like something similarly jaunty, though, which does not need to be played super-fast in order to sound good.

2) Tunes to fill out the set which will represent the big fight scene in the climax of Bone Walker. I want these to be reels or reel-like tunes in minor keys, and I want them fast and furious and badassed. Tunes with more than two parts to them are acceptable, e.g., Farewell to Erin. (Which is a candidate for going into this set, but I want other options to consider.) Bonus points if the tunes have names that evoke storms, lightning, thunder, or wind, as severe weather will be a major factor in the scene in question.

So talk to me, session/tunes/music people! What tunes do you know and love that fit these bills? If you fling me a good one, I’ll get your name into the liner notes!

October 14, 2012 by