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2018 writing plan (wait, I have a plan?!)

The holidays are done and I’ve had a nice long vacation, so it’s time to set a 2018 writing plan! Which is surprisingly organized of me, I feel. But it’s a level of organization I really need to aim for, if I want to get my writing back in gear this year. So let’s see if I can pull this off.

Release Walk the Wards

The goal here is to see if I can finally have the novellas that make up Walk the Wards ready to release by Norwescon. That convention falls in mid-April this year.

What this will require: getting the writing done by mid-February or so. Then beta reading has to happen, as well as a proper edit pass.

I’ve already initiated a cover art discussion with the same artist I engaged to do the cover for Warder Soul, Nicole Cardiff. She sent me a thumbnail sketch that I like, and we’ll be moving forward with turning that into an actual picture. This’ll be from the story “The Light Beyond the Gate”–the story of what happens to Jude while she’s in Faerie during Bone Walker.

Who’ll be in this picture? No less august a personage than Amelialoren, the Queen of Light and Morning, monarch of the Seelie Court in her throne room. And there will also be Melisanda ana’Sharran, warrior of the Seelie Court. So you’ll get two important Seelie women on the cover for the price of one!

Behold!

Walk the Wards cover rough

Walk the Wards cover rough

And a general status check: “A Power in the Blood” and “Diminuendo” are both done in first draft form. I’m working now on “The Deepest Breath of Song”, Oscar’s story, though I will probably swap back and forth between it and the other two tales as I proceed to finish this thing up.

As of last night, the book was just shy of 55,000 words and “The Deepest Breath of Song” crossed the 10K mark. I suspect this book as a whole will be a bit shorter than Faerie Blood or Bone Walker, but I’m okay with that.

Release Queen of Ghosts

Once Walk the Wards is safely out the door, I need to return to Queen of Ghosts, my Hades and Persephone story. What has to happen here: review of edits already done, and applying of those to the manuscript.

Then I’ll need cover art for this, too. Once Nicole has finished the cover art for Walk the Wards I will probably also get her to do this book as well.

Target for when to get this done: some time this summer, but what’s more likely is maybe to have this done in time for Orycon. Which would be nice, because then I could have a new release at Norwescon, and a new release at Orycon as well.

Stand by for further updates.

Finish Warder Soul

Probably in parallel to the two above things, I’ll return to working on Warder Soul, Book 3 of the Free Court series. This doesn’t necessarily have to wait till Walk the Wards is released. But it does have to wait at least until I have finished, solid versions of “The Plight of the Warder’s Daughter” and “The Light Beyond the Gate”, because both of these are important setup for that book.

I do not yet anticipate this book being ready to release this year. But I will be trying to get it ready before next year’s Norwescon. Since I’m liking the idea of targeting release dates for conventions where I’m likely to show up and be able to sell books, this might mean having it ready by a convention in January 2019. More as I know it.

January 5, 2018 by
Warder Soul

Seeking recommendations for cover artists

So here I am working on Warder Soul, Book 3 of the Free Court series… but I have a problem, y’all, and my problem is this: my awesome cover artist for Faerie Blood and Bone Walker is no longer available. 🙁

Which means I am in the difficult position of needing a new artist! This is made more complicated by these specific problems:

One, a lot of indie cover artists these days appear to focus on doing photo manipulation art instead of line art. I specifically need someone who does line art, in order to match the style of the previous covers.

Two, in my ideal world, a new artist would have already have a style that’s similar to Kiri’s. Because while two different artists may each be individually awesome, I acknowledge that asking artist B to draw like artist A, if artist B doesn’t already have a similar style, is asking a lot of that artist! So I’d like to make a new artist’s life as easy as possible here, and start from a point of “new artist already has a style pretty close to old artist”, if at all possible.

What will make this at least a little easier is that I do not actually need this new artist to worry about doing the actual cover layout. Dara will take care of that for me, as she did for both Faerie Blood and Bone Walker. I just need someone who can do a piece of art for me that’s reasonably close to Kiri’s style, in dimensions similar to what the Book 1 and Book 2 pieces were, so that Dara can take the Book 3 art and do the same layout to it. I already have a pretty good idea of what I want that art to look like, even; I just need somebody who can actually draw it.

So does anybody out there have recommendations for line artists who have an established history of fulfilling commissions in a reasonably timely fashion? Names, contact data, links to DeviantArt pages, other galleries of previous work, etc., would be most appreciated. Also, if you know anybody who might be appropriate and who is actively seeking commissions, please feel free to point them at this post, or at my own contact data.

I do have plenty of time to get this done, at least, since I’ve only barely begun work on the book and it’ll be a while before I finish it. But I do need to actually settle this now, so that any new artist will in fact have time to work on the piece and chat with me about any necessary changes.

Thanks in advance all!

November 22, 2016 by
Books

Ebook roundup full of cats

The Jewel and Her Lapidary

The Jewel and Her Lapidary

Recently acquired from Kobo:

Temptations of a Wallflower, by Eva Leigh. Historical romance. Third in a romance trilogy by the author Zoe Archer writing under a new name.

The Jewel and Her Lapidary, by Fran Wilde. Fantasy. This is a novella release from Tor.com, and I grabbed it since I liked the sound of the blurb and really liked the cover art. (Relatedly, I also really liked this post on tor.com, in which the artist describes the process behind the cover art’s creation! It’s a pretty neat exploration of how cover art can be made in this digital age we’re in.)

Breaking Cat News, by Georgia Dunn. Comics. Grabbed this after seeing Dear Author review it. It’s a glowing review, and all I needed was one look at the included sample page in that review to go YEP I NEED THIS. It’s a brand new collection, the first released by the artist, who posts on Mondays and Thursdays at breakingcatnews.com. As of this writing, I have already read both the ebook and the entire archive on the site. Recommended. ^_^

16 for the year.

May 24, 2016 by
Other People's Books

Apparently Ilona Andrews and Carina use the same hot cover models

This just got brought to my attention on Twitter by fellow Carina author Nicole Luiken: the husband-and-wife team that write under the name Ilona Andrews have this post up today as an April Fools gag, for a book which does not actually exist.

And as soon as I saw it I saw why Nicole pointed me at it, because that cover guy? LOOKS MIGHTY FAMILIAR, doesn’t he? 😀

So yeah, apparently Ilona Andrews and Carina Press pull from the same pool of hot cover models. >:D BRB, laughing forever!

(Also, HI to any Ilona Andrews readers who drop by!)

April 1, 2015 by
Bone Walker, Victory of the Hawk

Tuesday news: New way to order print copies of Faerie Blood and Bone Walker!

THIS JUST IN:

Now that the Bone Walker Soundtrack is an actual thing that you can actually buy, Dara has taken the liberty of doing a really awesome thing: she’s set up pages on the Crime and the Forces of Evil Bandcamp page to include both Faerie Blood AND Bone Walker‘s print editions as merch associated with the music. WHICH IT IS.

And what this means for you, O Internets, is that now there is a way to order print copies of these books without having to come directly to me. Even more importantly, it means that all methods of payment Bandcamp accepts are now ways that you can pay for the book–including credit cards as well as Paypal.

You can go straight to the Crime and the Forces of Evil Bandcamp page’s merch section and order the books from there. The page for Faerie Blood is here, and the page for Bone Walker is here!

The official pages for Faerie Blood and Bone Walker have both been updated with this information. Moving forward, this will be the recommended way to order print copies of either of these books, since it provides the most flexibility for how to pay.

* * *

I mention all of the above, by the way, because tonight I got Bone Walker‘s FIRST TEST PRINT, and we’re moving forward with the printing, and so soon I will have COPIES TO SELL YOU ALL. SO EXCITING!

* * *

On a related note, although I’m now able to take orders for the print books via Bandcamp, I will still accept direct requests to buy the books in either ebook or print form.

However, since people keep asking me how to go about paying me for stuff, I have spun off a standalone Buying From Me page on the site that explains what things I can sell directly, what their prices are, and what methods of payment I can personally accept.

Please consider this the canonical reference source for how to order things directly from me. I’ll be updating my FAQ to point to it too.

* * *

And while we’re on the topic of that soundtrack, I have taken the liberty of giving it its very own page here on my site. Because it’s shiny, I’m proud of it, and I wanted to make sure new visitors to my site can find out about it. 😀

* * *

Last and OH MY assuredly NOT THE LEAST:

I have an official cover for Victory of the Hawk! \0/ I’m really excited about this cover, since a) it’s gorgeous, b) it’s dynamic, and c) it is a well and thoroughly proper fantasy novel cover.

Ladies and gentlemen, mesdames et messieurs, I give you Kestar Vaarsen, Knight of the Hawk, and baron of Bremany!

Victory of the Hawk

Victory of the Hawk

This cover will be getting added to Victory’s official page, and it’ll be added to the lineup of thumbnails on the homepage too!

January 27, 2015 by
Bone Walker

Shipping edition of Bone Walker cover art!

For those of you who haven’t already seen me gushing about this on the social networks this morning, I am thrilled to announce at last that Dara, Kiri Moth, and I have decided upon the final Bone Walker cover art! This is the base source file that Dara will be using to create the cover for the book, and which I will also be using to create posters, postcards, and desktop backgrounds for all the folks who supported my Kickstarter last year!

Unseelie Bard by Night

Unseelie Bard by Night

Everybody, and I do mean everybody, who supported the Kickstarter will have a shot at the goodies we’ll be making from this art. And we’re very, VERY close to getting the final edits for the manuscript as well so hopefully sometime this summer we’ll be shipping the actual book!

May 28, 2013 by
Bone Walker

Bone Walker cover update!

Kiri just shot me a rough draft of the color version of the cover!

Moody Park is Moody

Moody Park is Moody

General notes, especially for those of you who haven’t read Faerie Blood yet:

  • Yes, Elessir is supposed to resemble Elvis. It’s part of his character. Although as he’s on record as telling Kendis, he was here first, and Elvis had the good fortune to resemble him.
  • Elessir’s ears are bigger than Kendis’, because he’s full-blooded Unseelie Sidhe, and Kendis is half-human.
  • For reasons which will become evident in Bone Walker, Elessir has a smaller magic ‘swirl’ going on on his cover than Kendis did, and he’s also specifically supposed to look lean and a bit wolfish, all of which I communicated to Kiri. I feel she’s capturing these things very well!
  • And since I also pointed Kiri at Elfquest for my inspirational source of What Elves Should Look Like, alert observers may see notes of that in both Kendis’ and Elessir’s covers.

Kiri informs me that these colors are rough background colors and will be enhanced as she starts adding in shadings and highlights. I’ve told her to favor blue and black for Elessir, especially with that guitar he’s playing. Very, VERY much looking forward to seeing the final product!

February 21, 2013 by