All Posts By

Angela Korra'ti

Music, Writing

Note to my brain: no, you may not write this yet

Memo to my brain:

No, you may NOT write a short story based on the Le Vent du Nord song “Le dragon de Chimay”. No matter how awesome a mental image you have in your head of a dragon breaking out of chains that hold him underground and surging up into the open air in desperate search of his lady love, and finally transforming back to human shape before her…

… damn, that’s an awesome image, innit? And it is NOT HELPING that I’m totally seeing this young woman and her “preux chevalier si tendre et amant”, as the cathedral collapses on him and he’s forced into dragon shape and she frantically tries to dig him out and no, no, no, dammit brain! You have a novel to finish and a novella to finish and a whole other novella to write and plan for all these lovely Kickstarter people throwing money at you, so STAY ON TARGET!

You are, however, totally allowed to geek right out over the translation of the lyrics, and listen to the song as many times as you like.

Because yes, folks, I like this band so much I want to write them fanfic. Or in this case, songfic!

Bone Walker, Faerie Blood

Kickstarter update: Two weeks to go!

Backer #82 just came in (hi Kaye and thank you very much for your support!), and this brings us to 84 percent with two weeks to go on the project!

We still have time, but as I’ve said before, we can’t get complacent here!

Backer Soula found my project page on Kicktraq yesterday, and Kicktraq thinks I’m going to go over with a lot of room to spare–but that won’t happen unless pledges keep coming in! So if you’d like to help make Kicktraq’s prediction come true, and especially if you’d like to get your hands on the soundtrack, keep the signal boosted. Tell your Facebook friends. Tell your tweeps on Twitter. Tell Google+ and your blogs and mailing lists and forums and anywhere else you think might be appropriate to spread the word!

Speaking of that soundtrack, I’ll tell you this–Dara showed me some lyrics snippets she was writing last night for a little ditty she’s thinking will be called “Anarchy Now”–a song of the Free Court of Seattle. I took one look at those and immediately knew what I’ll need to be reading right in front of that, when we put this soundtrack together.

Seriously, you guys, do you know how awesome it is to have your partner writing music to go along with a book that’s coming out of your very own head? I’ll share some lyrics with you when Dara gets them to a shareable state!

(What’s the Free Court of Seattle? It doesn’t exist in Kendis’ universe, not yet–but it’s coming. There is a power shakeup coming between the Warders and the Sidhe, oh my yes. Muahaha.)

In closing: signal boost! Signal boost! Signal boost! And thank you again for all of your support and everything you do!

Bone Walker, Faerie Blood

Kickstarter update: Check it out, we’ve got musicians!

A few new backers came in this afternoon, and brought the project very, very close now to the 80 percent mark! This is getting seriously exciting, people. Still two weeks to go and we’re already coming down the homeward slope to full funding.

And now I can share with you these teaser tidbits for who have jumped in to participate on the Faerie Blood and Bone Walker soundtrack!

We do of course have my very own Dara, who has already flexed her considerable musical muscle with her work under the banner of Crime and the Forces of Evil. In addition to commanding the studio equipment, Dara will also unleash her bouzouki Kohaku and every other instrument in her arsenal. She’s already writing chord progressions for music to fit in with Bone Walker, people, and do you know how fabulous it is to hear someone writing music for a story coming out of your very own head? Pretty damned fabulous, that’s how.

We’ll have Sunnie Larsen, mistress of violin and viola, a fixture in the local pagan, folk, and filk music circles. She’s played with the likes of Bone Poets Orchestra, Tricky Pixie, Vixy and Tony, and more!

And we’ll have Leannan Sidhe providing her haunting vocals! She and Dara have performed and worked together, and I’m here to tell you, I can’t imagine a more appropriately-named performer to be joining us on this project. I encourage you all to go check out her own ongoing Kickstarter, not only so that you can get an idea of what she sounds like for purposes of my soundtrack, but ALSO because her second album will be very, very worth your attention. Go check her out and tell her Anna sent you!

Please keep those pledges coming, folks, and if there are places you can signal-boost, do so! Don’t forget, when we get to backer #100, I’ll hand out another ebook copy of Faerie Blood‘s first edition. At the $3,500 mark, I’ll give out one of my two print copies of same, made by Third Place Press as our test run before we do the second edition and Bone Walker!

And at that point as well, I’ll announce what we need to get to in order to bring you not only the soundtrack, but Book 3 of Kendis’ trilogy as well! Stick around, and thank you all, thank you so very, very much, for your support!

Bone Walker, Faerie Blood

Kickstarter update: $3K! Shiny milestone rewards! Stretch goals!

Many thanks to incoming new backers today, especially to backer Cyn, who has pushed us over the $3,000 mark! Cyn therefore wins the Dramatic Character Death opportunity, and will get to consult with me on the character to be named as she chooses, in what story the character appears, and the manner of the character’s Dramatic Death!

But that’s not all, folks, because now that we have cracked the 75 percent mark, I can share with you a few more awesome things! First up, as promised, I present to you Chapter 3 of both Faerie Blood and Bone Walker!

Faerie Blood Chapter 3

Bone Walker Chapter 3

Second, and hopefully just as if not more enticingly, I will now make this initial announcement about the stretch goals that are in store if the project goes over its goal!

The first of this will be Book 3 of the Kendis books, as of yet untitled, which is still in the planning stages. Of this book, though, I can tell you this–part of it will be set in St. John’s, Newfoundland, and will provide some followup to the backstory of Warder Christopher MacSimidh, as well as some things I’m laying down in Bone Walker. I’m actually getting to visit St. John’s this summer, and am very, very much looking forward to seeing the place firsthand, in no small part so I’ll be able to portray it properly in the book!

And the second of these, about which my beloved Dara and I are both very excited, is a musical soundtrack to accompany the novels! We are in talks with musicians local to us who are interested in participating, and we will be using Dara’s own studio to record it. It promises to include not only several traditional sets that fit in well with the characters of the books, but also “Something’s Coming” out of Dara’s own work under the aegis of Crime and the Forces of Evil!

Don’t forget, though–the next backer, #75, will get a free ebook copy of the Drollerie edition of Faerie Blood, and I will keep handing those out to every 25th backer. And at the $3,500 mark, I’ll hand out one signed PRINT copy of the Drollerie edition of the book as well!

Many, many thanks to you all, and again, huge congrats to Cyn!

Quebecois Music

Le Vent du Nord and Genticorum videos!

Because YouTube loves me this weekend and wants me to have awesome things, I bring to you three brand new videos posted by YouTube user bordurat, who clearly has a lock on all the best Quebecois band videos, and two older ones from the same user’s posts.

Videos behind the fold! The three new ones are from Le Vent du Nord’s recent CD launch party in Montreal–so all the between-song stage talk is in French, too fast for me to follow, but the videos are long and have two songs each, so they are quite worth your time. The two older ones are Genticorum, who I feature here now since those boys are putting in a powerful bid to become my Official Second Favorite Quebecois Band (though I reserve final judgement until De Temps Antan gets out here in August)!

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Bone Walker, Faerie Blood

Test run of color versions of the Faerie Blood cover!

YOU GUYS! YOU GUYS! Check out what lovely shiny things Kiri Moth has sent me!

This is a test run of various color schemes for the Faerie Blood cover art, both in light and dark color palettes. These aren’t final–these are Kiri playing with the color schemes and sending me samples to get my vote–but all of them are so pretty that I wanted to share with them you all!

I will be working with her on the #2 light theme as we move forward to the final color art, since I feel that one’s got the best color punch of the three of those, and I want to hold a darker color scheme for Bone Walker‘s cover. Still, though, all of them? SO SHINY. I am full of the artistic swoon.

And just remember, people, a book with the final version of this very art can be yours. If you haven’t pledged yet, come on over! Kendis wants to visit your shelves!

Bone Walker, Faerie Blood

General reminder–and Kickstarter update!

I had a lovely surprise on my way home from work tonight, as a user on Twitter pinged me to ask if I knew how she could find Faerie Blood, because she couldn’t find it on Amazon! Stunned, I thanked her for getting in touch with me, advised her that my publisher had folded and so that edition of the book was no longer publicly for sale, and of course mentioned the Kickstarter in progress!

I also offered to handsell her the Drollerie edition immediately, which she took me up on. I’ve mentioned this before on this blog but I’ll mention it again–just for reference, all, if you still want to read the original Drollerie edition of Faerie Blood, I will still sell it to you! Five dollars to all comers, and that’ll get you the file format of your choice.

The easiest way to pay me is via PayPal to my gmail address, annathepiper. If you do not have a PayPal account, I will also accept $5 in credit to the Barnes and Noble ebook store (because I am a Nook owner and my wishlist is huge), or the same on either the US or Canadian iTunes stores (because I also have a pretty huge digital music wishlist)!

This offer will remain open until the second edition ebook of Faerie Blood is deployed, following the close of the Kickstarter project. Contact me by email (again, gmail, annathepiper) or DM me on the social network of your choice (Facebook, G+, Twitter, I’m annathepiper in all three places) if you’d like to buy that version of the book.

Or, you could support the Kickstarter! If you time it right, you could win a free copy anyway! I started handing them out to every 25th supporter, starting with #50, and the next one is due for backer #75!

And speaking of same–HUGE news tonight as we broke the $2,500 mark! The next big milestone is $3,000, and when we hit that, I will not only post Chapter 3 of both books, I will ALSO offer a character death to the backer who gets me there! Keep your support coming, people! You are all wonderful, every last one of you!