Faerie Blood

Internets, I give you: Kendis! Marie! Thompson!

Active negotation continues with my cover artist, ladies and gentlemen, and she just offered for my pleasure and delight these rough sketches of my girl Kendis, fiddle in hand!

Kendis Sketch #1

Kendis Sketch #1

Kendis Sketch #2

Kendis Sketch #2

We’re going to be going with something more like sketch #2 as Kiri, userinfosolarbird, and I proceed with the cover design, since it seems a bit more dynamic and better suited to Kendis as a character. And. Oh. My. God. I cannot wait to see a full color treatment of this!

I invite you all, O Internets, to imagine a more detailed version of this, in color, with Kendis’ golden eyes alight. And imagine what this same artist is also going to do with Elessir and Christopher. Now be thinking about that, because this, oh my yes, is going to be part of what that Kickstarter on the way is ALL ABOUT. You all can help me make this happen. And it is going to ROCK.

Internet, I am EXCITE!

ETA: And, having just posted the cover art, I have been immediately asked: does Kendis play her fiddle right handed or left handed? Faerie Blood never said whether Kendis is right handed or left handed, so it’s fair to assume she’s right handed. Therefore, fiddlers out there who haven’t already seen me post this to Facebook or G+, my question for you: she should be holding the bow in her right hand when she plays, yes? Because the fiddle will be resting on her left shoulder? This will of course impact the final art since Kendis needs to be holding the instrument correctly!

ETA #2: Just for everybody’s reference, while I tend to use the words ‘fiddle’ and ‘violin’ interchangeably in casual speech, I have been advised that there IS a difference between ‘bluegrass fiddle’ and ‘classically trained violin’. So Kendis, who learned to play in her school orchestra, should clearly be considering herself a ‘violin player’. Doublechecking Faerie Blood, I see that I used the word ‘fiddle’ twice; once was in a bit of dialogue of Christopher’s, so that can stand, but the other was Kendis in the narrative. So I’ll need to fix that in the second edition release.

I’m also being told that EVERYBODY pretty much learns with the instrument on the left shoulder. I’ll make sure this is appropriately reflected in the final art.

And I’m also being advised that the difference between ‘fiddle’ and ‘violin’ matters for how the bow is held as well, so I’ll make sure Kendis is holding the bow correctly as well.

Thanks to all who’ve advised me on this! 🙂

February 25, 2012 by
Bone Walker, Faerie Blood

Bone Walker Kickstarter update!

Just to let you guys know I have NOT forgotten or abandoned this, O Internets: there is new news on the Bone Walker Kickstarter front!

As I’ve previously reported, I’m in talks with a cover artist for not only Faerie Blood, but also Bone Walker and the still as of yet unnamed Book 3. But as of this week, I’m also in possession of an editing agreement I’m about to square away!

Which means that once I hand off Lament of the Dove to Carina’s submissions queue, the big plan for March is going to be finishing Bone Walker. Then I shall hand it off to be edited in the latter half of April, with a target of having it back to me by early May.

And! I’ve pinged Third Place for an appointment to discuss printing of Faerie Blood with them. Dara (who will be firing up her considerable layout experience to do the layout for the print edition) and I will be going to talk to them about that soon!

Which all means, O Internet, that April is beginning to look very, very good for a target timeframe for the Bone Walker Kickstarter. As soon as I have all the numbers for projected costs to bring unto you the second edition of Faerie Blood as well as Bone Walker, I am going to officially get this show on the road.

Getting excited about this, and I hope you guys will join me for the fun!

February 22, 2012 by
Books

And now, a Books Released by Awesome People roundup!

Acquired because I supported its Kickstarter YAY!:

  • Matchbox Girls, by Chrysoula Tzavelas. Because Willowholt writers FTW! I have no idea what it’s about and I’ll look forward to finding out, because Soula is Tribe. I have the ebook edition already, and the print edition should be on the way.

Bought from B&N as ebooks to add to the “repurchased as ebooks” list:

  • Cry Wolf and Hunting Ground, by Patricia Briggs. Urban fantasy; books 1 and 2 of her Alpha and Omega series.
  • Indigo Springs, by A.M. Dellamonica. Fantasy (I think this is more fantasy than UF, anyway, but I don’t know for sure). Book 1 of the Astrid Lethewood series.
  • Instruments of Darkness and Anatomy of Murder, by Imogen Robertson. Mystery; books 1 and 2 of her Crowther and Westerman series. I’ve already read Book 1 and found it excellent! Book 2 just came out.

Bought from Carina Press, because they sent me a coupon code and because of general awesomeness on the part of Zoe Archer:

  • The Last Night, by Nico Rosso. SF/romance. Picked up because Nico Rosso is the husband of Zoe Archer, and I want to see if his writing is as fun as hers!
  • Chain Reaction, by Zoe Archer. SF/romance. See previous commentary re: general awesomeness.
  • Lesserblood Lies, by Ainsley Davidson. SF/romance. Detecting a general genre theme here, folks?

And last but not least, oh my no, picked up in print from B&N tonight:

  • Frenchman’s Creek, by Daphne du Maurier. Because 1) French pirate hero WOO! and 2) apparently, after reading Rebecca, I continue to need more du Maurier in my library.
  • Raven Calls, by C.E. Murphy. Because it goes without saying that I’ll be all over a new Walker Papers from userinfomizkit on Release Day. 😀

36 for the year!

February 21, 2012 by
Bone Walker, Faerie Blood

New cover art for Faerie Blood on the way!

I’ve already noted this on my various social networks, but to note it again here in greater detail: I’m pleased to share with you all that I’m in talks with artist Kiri Moth to do new cover art not for Faerie Blood, but for Bone Walker and Book 3 as well! I very much like her light, airy style, and cannot wait to see what she does with Kendis. Big, big props to userinfotiggymalvern for recommending her!

We’re at the stage of Kiri doing some preliminary sketches, and when she has some to share with me, I’ll see about posting one so y’all can get an idea of what the future cover for Faerie Blood is going to look like. Stand by for the shiny, all!

February 20, 2012 by
Bone Walker, Faerie Blood

Plan of action for Faerie Blood, second edition

For those of you who may be wondering what the status is on my plans for Faerie Blood and Bone Walker, there are a few new developments I’d like to share!

First and foremost, I’ve been doing a bit of judicious Googling and also asking around to get a sense of whether I should use one of the services available to deploy a new version of Faerie Blood out into the wild, or whether I can save myself some money and just do it myself. The answer to this question appears to be the latter. I had a lovely little email exchange with romance novelist Courtney Milan, who kindly advised me on how she got her recent self-pubbed Unraveled out: i.e., she deployed directly to Amazon, B&N, and Apple herself, and used Smashwords to hit a couple other services like Kobo and Sony. Moving forward, I’m going to be looking with more depth into how to do these things.

Secondly, I also asked Ms. Milan if she had preferred software for creating her ebook editions. She pointed me at this excellent guide by Guido Henkel about how to do ebook formatting, with a focus on epub and mobi versions. Boil it down to its essentials, and what you get is “do a bit of tweaking to your original manuscript file, throw in some HTML and CSS, and then fling it through Calibre”. As y’all know, I’m a professional techie. HTML and CSS? Not a problem. So yeah, I can totally do this formatting myself.

(Mad, mad props both to Ms. Milan and to Mr. Henkel, by the way. If you’re a romance reader you should totally go read Ms. Milan’s Turner series, the first two books of which I have reviewed here and here! And if you’re not already familiar with the ebook creation process and you want to be, you should go read Mr. Henkel’s guide and thank him for his work!)

Third, in commencing the tweaking of Faerie Blood‘s previously released RTF file, I’m finding some things that need tweaking. After several hard rounds of editing on Lament of the Dove, my older tendency towards ellipses, which is still present in Faerie Blood, is standing out hard. So I’m going to clean those up.

Also, since this book was originally written in 2003, its ‘present day’ setting is in fact 2003, and that now reads a bit weird to 2012 eyes–especially in regards to things like my mentions of older-style cell phones and passing references to pay phones as well. I’m going to tweak these things a bit since it won’t impact the story any, just incidental details to give a better ‘present day’ feel to any new readers who may pick me up. I am aware that this will require me to adjust my perceptions on ages and timing of certain things that took place before this novel; that’s okay. None of those things are actually in released work yet, so they’re still flexible!

And! I was sad to have realized that the first edition of Faerie Blood didn’t have a proper dedication or a proper acknowledgements section. I will be correcting both of these problems, along with an Author’s Note that will mention the changes I’m describing here.

Fourth, I will definitely be pursuing working with Third Place Books (and possibly also the University Bookstore) to engage their espresso book machine to generate any print copies of Faerie Blood–about which I am more excited now that I’ve learned that these machines are not restricted to trade paperback size. So step one here is going to be to get userinfosolarbird to do a proper print layout for a PDF version, and step two will be arranging to hand that off to be printed.

Fifth, I am investigating a particular artist recommended to me by userinfotiggymalvern, and have had a hopeful initial email exchange with her, including sending her a review copy of Faerie Blood‘s Drollerie edition to see if she wants to commit to doing new cover art for me. More on this as it happens!

Last but not least, please note that all of these plans do not preclude proceeding with a Kickstarter for Bone Walker! Before I move forward with that, though, I’d really like to nail down a cover artist, since it will be important to me to have professional-looking art that can give all three books of this projected trilogy a unifying style. More on this as it happens, too!

February 18, 2012 by
Book Log

2011 Book Log #46: The Thirteenth House, by Sharon Shinn

The Thirteenth House

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

When I read Sharon Shinn’s first book in her Twelve Houses series, I found it a bit shaky in its initial chapters, at least till it got its feet under it. I was very pleased to discover that I had no such problem with Book 2, The Thirteenth House.

This book continues the adventures of the overall cast of characters established in Mystic and Rider as they pursue the greater plot arc of anti-magic sentiment sweeping their kingdom and threatening to plunge them all into outright war. However, the focus shifts now from Senneth and Tayse over to the shapeshifter Kirra, whose participation in the rescue of their king’s kidnapped regent, Lord Romar, leads to a stormy affair with said regent. The catch: Romar is married, and Kirra is impersonating her own half-sister. Between that and Kirra’s need to keep her true identify and her talents secret, the affair is perilous to them both. Kirra’s soon swamped in intrigue–and comes under the threat of the ringleaders of the growing potential rebellion.

Overall I liked this book quite a bit, despite the fact that as a character, Kirra is definitely more flawed than Senneth. She’s impulsive to a fault, and at first this is frustrating. Yet she did well riding the line between “I want to smack her for her choices” and “I am nonetheless sympathizing with her”, and she shows some admirable development when faced with the consequences of her actions. (Even as she’s ultimately forced into a difficult and ethically shady choice indeed, about which I shall not elaborate, because spoilers.)

I did also like Romar, and was relieved to see that Shinn did not go the too-easy route of making his wife unlikeable. Some readers may find the fact that Kirra’s carrying on with a married man ethically shady all by itself; if you’re one of those readers, this book won’t be for you. But for what it’s worth, I did appreciate that Shinn didn’t make it easy on either character.

On the bigger level of the overall story arc, I liked the advancements in this one quite a bit. After I finished this one off as a library checkout, I went ahead and committed to buying the series, and I’ll look forward to finishing them off. For this one, four stars.

February 16, 2012 by
Books

Book roundup time again

Recently purchased in print from B&N, one in-store and the other by mail order:

  • Unbroken, by Rachel Caine. Urban fantasy, Book 4 of her Outcast Season series.
  • In the Dead of Winter, by Abbey Pen Baker. Mystery. This is a Holmes-universe novel that’s proposing that the daughter of Irene Adler is herself a famous detective, and has a loyal partner who helps her solve crimes and chronicles their adventures. So essentially, “gender-flipped version of Holmes and Watson without actually being Holmes and Watson”. Saw a review from Laurie R. King (who knows something about Holmesian novels, I daresay) speaking well of this, so I wanted to check it out. Ordering was my only option, though, since local libraries were for once not terribly helpful in tracking it down.

Meanwhile, picked up electronically from B&N, all re-buys of books previously owned in print:

  • All three books of the Sign of Seven trilogy, by Nora Roberts. Paranormal romance. Y’all may recall I was a little wibbly on how much I liked this, but I do like me some Nora in general and I wanted to keep these around even if I didn’t want to retain print copies.
  • The first three books of the Mercy Thompson series, by Patricia Briggs. Urban fantasy. Shifting Briggs over to electronic buying since she’s got a lot of work at this point, which translates to a lot of shelf space, and I think I want her electronically instead.

This brings me to 25 for the year.

February 16, 2012 by