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Angela Korra'ti

Bone Walker

Nanowrimo Days 3-5: Running short, but still running

The last three days I’ve been running short on the word count–mostly because of the huge overnight release we had to run for work, which meant staying up until two last night. Tonight, I’m just running so short on brain that I’m lucky to get any words out at all, but I’m making a point of writing at least a couple hundred just to keep some momentum going. We’ll see how much I can make up over the weekend.

Good news is, though, Chapter 2 is done and I’ve brought another couple characters on camera. Millicent gets to make her first appearance, as well as another character who showed up in Book 1 and who will be back for more this time around.

Written on Tuesday: 777
Written yesterday: 901
Written tonight: 235
Chapter 2 total: 2,906
Bone Walker total (first draft): 5,464

Bone Walker

Nanowrimo Day 2: Oh hey look, Chapter 2!

As predicted, Chapter 1 turned out to be a bit short as my chapters tend to go. But that’s all good, because it also meant I was able to put a serious dent in Chapter 2 tonight as well. Elessir is now on camera, much to the consternation of Christopher and Kendis.

For amusement value, here’s a bit of a snippet from yesterday!

Christopher’s favorite band had come to town, and the audience was having the time of its life.

And I had to admit, so was I. The good humor and boisterous energy of the performers were infectious, and the music, irrepressible. I didn’t know the words to most of the songs, but on the strength of rhythm and melody alone, I was thrilled to clap and bounce along with everyone else. I didn’t mind that mine was the only brown face in sight, or even that half of the white girls in range were paying more attention to the man at my side than they were to the stage. Not that I could blame them. At six-two, clad in a black T-shirt emblazoned with the blue, red, yellow, and white of the Newfoundland flag and cheerfully bellowing lyrics he knew far better than I did, Christopher MacSimidh was difficult to miss. He’d spruced up for the concert, with a new shorter haircut that’d traded off his ponytail for front locks that dangled along his brow. For once he’d even shaved properly, baring an intriguing little dent in the line of his chin that I was certain was drawing the gaze of every straight woman and gay man at the show. It certainly kept drawing mine.

I am up a bit later than I like, but I did manage to meet tonight’s word quota and therefore preserve the small padding that I’d built yesterday. We’ll see if I can do this again tomorrow. And tomorrow’s plan? Finish Chapter 2!

Written tonight: 1,675
Chapter 1 total: 2,558
Chapter 2 total: 993
Bone Walker total (first draft): 3,551

Bone Walker

Nanowrimo Day 1: Some extra words to spare

Ladies and gents, my Nanowrimo effort is now officially underway, with a grand total of 1,876 words clocked in on Chapter 1 of Bone Walker. This is a couple hundred over the necessary daily quota, but that’s fine–I wanted a bit of buffer just to account for the couple dozen words always taken up by contact data at the beginning of a manuscript, and then the couple hundred I’d already tried to write to get this chapter underway.

And yeah, technically, I know you’re not supposed to start a true Nanowrimo effort before November 1st. I figure roughly 200 words could be safely ignored–and I dropped about half of those words anyway because I decided I didn’t like the paragraph.

Anyway, Bone Walker is out of the starting gate, you guys. For the interested, this book will be set roughly two months in time after Faerie Blood. And I’m already close to the end of Chapter 1, which feels like it’s going to run short as my chapters tend to go. But that’s okay. Because this means I’m also very close to the return of Elessir. Muah!

No word meter, because the lovely and talented Zokutou Word Meter appears to have vanished off the face of the Net. But I daresay I can soldier on without it.

Written tonight: 1,876
Chapter 1 total: 1,876
Bone Walker total (first draft): 1,876

Faerie Blood

We have a winner!

Folks, I would now like to take this opportuity to announce the winner of my October Drollerie Review Drawing Contest! I had a total of five participants who checked in, four of whom did reviews in various places, and one of whom rated me on Fictionwise. So without further ado, the random number generator announces that the winner is… Lexie!

Lexie, please send me email with your preferred book vendor so I know where to get you your gift certificate from, and also, give me your email address so I know where to send it! You can find my own email address on my Contact page. You have until Wednesday the 4th to claim your prize, otherwise I will pick another winner!

Meanwhile, everybody else who participated in the drawing, thank you very much! I will definitely do more drawings, timed as my personal budget allows. I may well do another one in December.

Book Log

Another book roundup

This being yet another rundown of books I have purchased lately!

Ebooks:

  • Kingdom of Shadows, by Greg F. Gifune (horror)
  • No Control, by Shannon K. Butcher (romance, replacing physical copy)
  • Silent in the Sanctuary, by Deanna Raybourn (mystery/romance, replacing physical copy)
  • Wild Thing, by Doranna Durgin (romance)
  • WebMage, by Kelly McCullough (urban fantasy)
  • Trick of the Light, by Rob Thurman (urban fantasy)
  • On the Edge, by Ilona Andrews (urban fantasy)
  • Child of Fire, by Harry Connolly (urban fantasy)
  • Unfallen Dead, by Mark Del Franco
  • The Serpent and the Scorpion, by Clare Langley-Hawthorne (mystery)
  • Bright Hair About the Bone, by Barbara Cleverly (mystery)
  • Fledgling, by Octavia Butler (SF)

Physical books:

  • Indiana Jones and the Army of the Dead, by Steve Perry (self-explanatory 😉 )
  • Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters, by Jane Austen and Ben H. Winters (hee hee hee)
  • Doubleblind, by Ann Aguirre (SF)
  • Spectre, by Phaedra Weldon (urban fantasy, although I actually took this one to Third Place so I can buy the ebook instead)
  • Dreadful Skin, by (horror)
  • Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World, by Haruki Murakami (not at all sure how to classify this one!)

This for a grand total of 18, to bring me up to a total of 138 books purchased for the year. Do note that a few of these ebook purchases are re-buys, since I’m winding up replacing a notable number of physical books with ebook equivalents.

I bought the Priest and Murakami on the strength of store credit from Third Place, yay! These being authors that I do actually want in print. Meanwhile, the Gifune horror ebook I picked up to enter a contest being held by the folks over at Horror Mall, since they’re launching a new forum about digital horror books and I figured what the hell, couldn’t hurt to enter. Might get a good read in the bargain.

And of course Fictionwise still totally has my number. It’s worth mentioning though that I’ve poked around a bit on Barnes and Noble’s ebook store, and I note with interest the following:

  • B&N is pretty much selling files in the same format as Fictionwise and eReader: i.e., PDB format with DRM on it.
  • B&N is also using pretty much the same reader programs, only branded differently. Same functionality both on the iPhone and in the Mac-side app you can download. Which means that I can at least read all of these files in the same program.
  • B&N gets points for also letting you download purchases directly to your computer.
  • They do not however get points for the fact that my B&N membership apparently doesn’t apply to ebooks. Which means Fictionwise is still a way better deal for purchasing ebooks. I may however occasionally resort to B&N if they have something in electronic form that Fictionwise doesn’t–because Fictionwise does tend to lag on getting new releases posted, and B&N seems to be aiming for competive pricing with the Kindle. And that means that if I want something that’s out in trade paperback I can get it cheaper on B&N, probably, than I can on Fictionwise. This will require mulling.
  • Last but not least I’ve actually also snurched three free books from B&N, but I’m not counting them in the list above since they were freebies and I’m tracking number of books actually purchased this year.
About Me

General greetings to new readers, and also, Nanowrimo!

I’d like to issue a general shoutout to a bunch of the folks from the Outer Alliance. We’ve all been going on a Friending spree lately and checking out each other’s journals, and several of y’all are now listening in here via Livejournal. LJ people already reading, please feel free to drop a comment and say hi to the new folks. And if you’re actually reading this from angelakorrati.com, hi as well and don’t feel shy; grab a chair, raise a jar, and drop a comment to introduce yourself.

Anyway, for those of you just tuning in, I’m Angela Korra’ti, a.k.a. Anna the Piper, and wherever you’re reading me from, I’m the author of Faerie Blood from Drollerie Press. When I’m not posting on angelakorrati.com about my writing, I am posting from annathepiper.org about everything else. By “everything else”, I generally mean “Great Big Sea, periodic jam sessions at my house, and books”. Lots and lots of books. You’ll see me post a lot of book reviews as I endeavor to top my annual goal of 100 books per year.

Right now though I’m probably about to enter extensive radio silence, given that Nanowrimo is upon us, and I need to start work on Faerie Blood‘s sequel. I will endeavor to post regular updates on my progress, and I’m also officially signed up on the Nanowrimo site as annathepiper. Feel free to keep tabs on my progress in either place! And for those of you who are also tackling Nanowrimo this year, good luck!

Main, Music

Monday morning, damp and awful

I’m pretty sure that if I arrive at work only marginally less damp than I would have done without an umbrella, I might need to think about getting a new umbrella. My pants are wet from the knees down. Yay!

But at least I have on good warm socks and a cup of tea is steeping at my elbow.

Meanwhile I blew the weekend playing way more of our game Unwell Mel than I probably should have done, but hey, we make good games, what can I say? 😉 And has been digitizing a lot of my old filk tapes, finally–which means I can at last get this stuff onto my iPhone. We’re focusing on stuff that has not to my knowledge been released on CD, like the Technical Difficulties tapes, the Where No Man… Trek tape, the general-folk Brandywine tape that’s got some good Julia Ecklar and Leslie Fish on it, and best of all, the original Elfquest tape, the one that isn’t remastered to within an inch of its life.

And this does of course mean I’ll have “Banned from Argo” on the iPhone too. <3

This'll be nice to listen to. I've missed a lot of this; when it comes to filk, I'm really more a fan of the older stuff than I am current, although I do of course like me some and and and . The Technical Difficulties and Julia Ecklar were really the people who got me interested in filk in the first place!