WordPlay

Yes.  I am writing.  Instead of working on the planned blog (which I wrote most of in draft while waiting for an appointment today, so I did have good intentions), I did another scene in the current book.  That’s Dark Blade of my Nocturne Demon Blade series, if anyone’s keeping track.

I am not feeling particularly guilty.  More like…smug.

smug smug smug smug

To assuage my not-guilt over my not-blog, here is a picture of a puppy owning the Best Toy:

This is THE BEST TOY. Ever. For the moment.

This Wednesday Behind the Scenes, it’s total indulgent gratitude.

What the (insert word of your preferred emphasis here), you may wonder, is that?

Well, that’s when you wallow in gratitude for something you didn’t plan but find truly comforting.

It’s a coincidence that the first released Backlist Ebook was A Feral Darkness, which contains a dog who carries traits, physical and behavioral, from two of my dogs–the first and only time I’ve done that. (Contrary to what many people think, mostly authors just make this stuff up.) The dogs? Jag and Jean-Luc Picardigan.

Jag came to me as a pet and with behavioral rehab needs: a developing and inexplicable fear of…well, no one was quite sure what, only that it happened unpredictably and otherwise didn’t suit his personality. He was an incredibly sweet dog, and I had fallen for him on sight, some months earlier, during a cross-country visit with Cheysuli breeder Jennifer Roberson. (Sometimes you really can almost hear that *click*…). He arrived, fit instantly into the household, and was much adored.  I began trying to understand what drove his problems.

Never actually had the chance. Six short weeks after his arrival, a neighbor child released him from my yard. He panicked straight into traffic.

I wanted to write him a better story than that. Eventually, I did.

By then, I had another Cheysuli dog. Jean-Luc’s special child issues were no mystery; he was injured at birth, made vulnerable by an open fontanel, and as a result developed into a deeply autistic dog in nature. Not to mention his subtly asymmetrical forehead!

So pieces of Jean-Luc Picardigan also helped inform Ch. Nuadha’s Silver Druid. Two special dogs, being shared in their own way.

As it happens, I chose A Feral Darkness as the first Backlist Ebook for many reasons.  Then, when I couldn’t find a stock photo I liked for the cover, along came another unplanned development–Jean-Luc’s appearance there (there were no good ones of Jag, and Jean-Luc isn’t actually too far off in coloring).

It’s the total lack of intent behind it all that makes the situation all the more meaningful to me this week. To know I didn’t plan the timing, the cover…the circumstances…and yet I can still look at the book and smile.

So yup. Today I’m feeling grateful for such comforts.  And the indulgence is talking about it, because some of this you’ve already heard, and none of it is probably truly meaningful to anyone but me.

And in that vein, here’s a totally indulgent snippet from A Feral Darkness!  From a book about forgotten gods and rising powers and modern-day potential for plague and one woman trying to figure out exactly what she started with her childhood wish at an inadvertently anchored place of power…this time it’s all about the dog!

Smashwords
Kindle

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“He’s got a lot more white on him than I thought,” Elizabeth admitted, pausing in her own work.

Or than Brenna had thought. No way, under the mud, to see how broad his blaze was, how symmetrically it encompassed his muzzle, narrowed just enough to miss his eyes, and broadened again at his forehead. Or to see the dark freckles on the bridge of his nose, or how richly his brown cheek patches stood out against the black on the rest of his head. He had a white bib and undercarriage, and except for brown points, a white tail tip, and a jagged white collar, the rest of him was sleek black. Black, aside from his ears. The interior of one was stark white; the other light brown.

But it was the backs of those huge ears that were so beguiling, mostly white with thick brown freckles. Utterly unexpected, utterly charming.

And his eyes. Coming from a clean face, they looked softer, more open. Big love-me eyes that followed her every movement.

But he’s somebody else’s dog.

It’s first draft mode around here (Nocturne Demon Blade series, book 2!), but I’m still poking away at the Backlist Ebook projects.

<= Bet you’ve guessed what I’m working on now.

Touched by Magic was my third book sold,  and the second to see print.  I had a really, really  clear idea what I wanted to do with this book–and no idea at all of how ambitious it was.

I’m glad, actually, that I just barged right in way back then.  I might not have the temerity, now that I’m more eddie-cated about the craft and about publisher expectations.

Anyway, I’m taking the opportunity to give it a good updating.  (More on that in another blog, I think.)  And since it’s the oldest book file on my system, the conversion process itself is…challenging.  This gives me time to ponder the cover.

Let us take a moment to gaze upon that first cover.

*moment of silence*

I can readily forgive the elaborate dress on my country character–the artist had a known fondness for such things.  I can forgive the dark brown instead of pale blond hair…sometimes such details give way to compositional needs.

I cannot forgive the unicorns.

My unicorns are fearsome beasts. Draft-size, draft-weight.  Magnificent, of course, because I deserve magnificent unicorns.  And the colors?  Clearly described as unusual, but simply as pertains to horses.  Brindle and walnut and sable and merle.

They were not pastel.

NOT.  PASTEL.

Nor were they weenie little ponies. Short-necked, loaded-shouldered, sway-backed, static-haired, girly-assed little ponies.

WERE.  NOT.

At the time, this artist’s work generally sold books.  But oh!  So many readers came to me and said, “I almost didn’t pick up this book because of the cover, but I’m really glad I did.  It’s not about pastel unicorns at all.”

It’s really not.

So here I am, about to compose my own cover. I’d sure like to do better!  I have some ideas, but…what do you think?  What would you try to say about this book on the cover?

(Hey, it’s an open book question, so…have a blurb!  Have an excerpt!  Notice what the unicorns are doing, in said excerpt.)

Magic has never been a part of Reandn’s life. Almost gone from Keland when he was born, there is no trace of it left by the time he enters training with the King’s Wolves, the elite force that patrols the king’s lands.

Magic has never been a part of Reandn’s life. Until the people under his care start dying. Until the threat extends to his family, and until he finds himself struggling through disorienting attacks of weakness that turn the very act of going out on patrol into an unacceptable risk. Someone, somewhere, is trying to draw magic back into Keland, and they don’t care what–or who–is destroyed in the process.

But Reandn does.

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Six-year-old Rethia woke to wild hoof beats.

Frightened, she pressed herself against the ground. When she gathered the courage to peer up, she could make out only flashing legs and leaping bodies–and all the while, the unmistakable tingle of magic coursed through her body.

Imperceptibly at first, the pounding diminished and the tickling magic intensified. The creatures were leaving–and they weren’t just running away.
They bounded into the air without landing. Disappeared. Vanished in a flash of not-being.

And when there was only one set of hoofbeats left, solid and deliberate and walking toward her, Rethia trembled with the knowledge that she witnessed great magic in a world that was drifting free of such things, and forgot to be afraid of the beast itself.

The hooves stopped in front of her basket, strong round hooves with heavy-boned, clean-lined legs rising from them. Not a horse. She knew that even before she looked up to see the horn.

She pulled herself upright and looked straight into the face of the unicorn, her deep blue gaze unflinching. It was a heavy-boned face, with ridges etched in darkest walnut instead of gleaming highlights, and with odd, icy eyes that abruptly reminded her that unicorns were not Tame. Wild magic, free always, of what man might intend or wish for it. When the beast did not react to her impudence, she lifted a small trembling hand to touch the thick, tangled mane and forelock, so long they brushed her face even as the animal raised its head. It looked around the trampled, abandoned meadow, blew out a huff of air. When it looked back down at her, its icy gaze warmed, catching the blue of her eyes, staining them with the reflection of its walnut features. It dropped its head to again accept her touch.

She had no idea it would be a trade.

Surely you saw this one coming after last week’s Behind the Scenes.

Because ohhh, yeah, A Feral Darkness made it into “e-print” during the last week, and I’m MOST gleeful about it.

(Right.  That would be at Kindle and Smashwords.)

ME = GLEE

So that means a bonus excerpt (Yay!  Excerpt!),  and some more cover tidbits!

In the Baen version, the chapters are headed by painstakingly chosen runes (Elder Futhark, to be precise), assigned for their meaning to the chapter.  In the e-versions, that wasn’t going to work.  But I found the font!  And there the runes are on the cover, marching neatly across in the proper chapter order.

Plus they look really cool.

The covers in general are coming from stock art, but this one has another special touch to it.  I didn’t have any good photos of Jag, the dog to which this book is dedicated–a dog from Jennifer Roberson’s Cheysuli kennel who had only just come to live with me to see if I could work out some inexplicable fears that had shown up with his maturity.  (Yes, indeed, this was Jag’s book.)  We had only just gotten started with that when a neighbor child let him out of my fenced yard; he didn’t survive the day.  (Oh, YES, this is Jag’s book.)

And I really couldn’t find any adequate stock pictures, and I really wanted Druid on the cover.

But it just so happens that shortly after I welcomed Jag’s successor, the brain-injured but sweet Jean-Luc Picardigan, I took a rather dramatic photo of him.  And that was good enough to work with.

And so there it is.  Not Jag, whose blaze was broader and whose right ear was so charmingly white and speckled, but his nephew.

Yeah, I really like this cover.

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But Sunny cowered at her feet. She whined, and her eyes showed white, and then she bolted away from the door and ran circles around the room, her claws scrabbling in her usual graceless galumphing stride and her tail tucked so tightly to her belly that she didn’t even appear to have a tail at all.”Sunny!” Glancing from the bewildering dog to the starkly empty porch and back again, Brenna would have reached for her, tried to calm her—But then she felt it herself.A whisper of dire gibberish in her ear, a cold brush of fear down her neck…

Of nothing.

It left as abruptly as it had come.

…Wednesday

When it came time to choose the first Kindleized backlist title book–out of print, rights reverted, all mine again–for updating and Kindle formatting (and yes! Smashwords next! It’s my next project!)–it was no choice at all.

What’s your favorite book? That’s a more than familiar question–and it has no answer. I love Dun Lady’s Jess because of Jess, because of the family she built for her very unique self. I love Reandn’s stories for the journey. I love Wolverine’s Daughter for the in-your-face-sword-n-sorcery. Then add in the contemporaries/romances, the tie-ins, the mysteries…

You get the idea! There’s something about each of them that I love most.

But I do often come back to A Feral Darkness, and I think that’s because to me, it feels like the book where I was the most successful in creating the same experience for me as writer and others as readers. Perfectly successful? Likely not. Just, I think…the most successful.

So for that reason, it’s the first book I’ve gotten ready for e-version, and it’s about to go up on Kindle, which can be read on a Kindle or on your Windows PC, Mac, iPhone, iPad, Blackberry, or Android.

Also, because I had fun doing the cover. Do you like it, huh huh huh?

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Something whined.

Feral dogs. Roaming pack at the boiling point.

Something whined on the porch.

Brenna froze, her hand on the door latch. Yank it open, bolt inside—but any sudden movement could trigger an angry dog—or worse, a frightened dog, unwittingly trapped in the corner of her porch. Open the door slowly and slip inside—but any retreat could trigger excited prey instincts. Turn and face it—but that could be seen as a challenge.

For pity’s sake, just stand here indefinitely, until this sub sandwich is so stale you can beat the creature to death with it.

It wasn’t a pack of whines, it was a single whine. It wasn’t an eager whine, it was a distressed whimper. Intermittent, with no sound of movement, no tick of claw against the hard painted wood.

Brenna turned around.

At first she saw nothing, until, blinking in the darkness, she became convinced that there was nothing to see. That it hadn’t been on the porch, but under it, and now had fled. And then it whimpered and stirred, and she saw the faint sheen of an eye reflecting the dim night light from the other side of the door.

As eyes went, they weren’t terribly far from the ground.

…Wednesday

See me doing the little dance of Kindleization?

(No, really. That’s what that is. It’s not a seizure disorder.)

Both “The Right Bitch” and “Bitch Bewitched” are now up on Kindle! And yes, soon to be Smashwords.

I had thought to work on that this week, actually, but it turns out I’m writing first draft on something else, about which I can only do another little dance of–

Oh. Er. Right. I’ll spare you that. Anyway, I’m happy about it.

“The Right Bitch” was the second of the Bitch stories to find a spot in Esther Friesner’s Chicks in Chain Mail anthologies.

Shiba isn’t alone on the border line; she now shares the territory with a hound named Sabre, who would rather leave her in his dust. Two hounds, two handlers, and a new kind of magic rising…someone’s got to figure it all out. Who else but the right bitch?

And then, you know…there are gonna be puppies…and while Shiba happily protects the borderlands from spellrunners, she never thought she’d be protecting her puppies from their magic! Or that the puppies would have something to say about it…

(“Bitch Bewitched” was a story I waited years for the opportunity to write, and found it in the really fun anthology, Misspelled, edited by Julie Czerneda.)

In case it isn’t obvious…I am a hound-lover at heart! They’re goofy, hard-headed, persistent…and as honest and loyal as the day is long. And those eyes! Those ears–! I mean, awww…come ON!

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Sabre whooped with enthusiasm, barreling through the thick wood undergrowth, his nose full of magicsmell, his ears full of Taliya’s distant encouragement—and his brain too hot on trail to think.  So hot he almost missed the answering trail cry to the south—a slightly clearer voice than his own and closing in fast.It made no sense; he didn’t care.  Not with his quarry so close, his sweaty, unwashed humansmell strong with forbidden magic.But suddenly the trail doubled in both humansmell and magicsmell, and then Sabre understood after all.  Two spellrunners, joining forces, both being trailed.Sabre called out, wild and strong.  Confident.

…Wednesday

A BITCH IN TIME

(Yes, now on Kindle!)

Shiba isn’t your average chick in chain mail…she’s a line hound with a very special tracking skill. With her handler, she patrols her territory for illicit magic. But Shiba has just lost her lifelong partner, and isn’t getting along so well with his replacement. He doesn’t trust her and he doesn’t want to, either–for he’s just lost his own partner. With nasty illicit magic sneaking across the border, what’s a bitch to do? Of course, the real question is, will she do it in time…

First published in the anthology DID YOU SAY CHICKS?!, this story was written for the popular Chicks in Chain Mail series edited by Esther Friesner, and a delightful opportunity it was. Because, seriously…I got to play with hounds (my favorite!) and magic (my favorite!) and a slightly twisted sense of humor (my favorite!). What’s NOT to like?

Also, this story was for Strider the WonderHound, with whom I first got to use the words, “Strider! Come down from that tree!”
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Tallon dropped the satchel and looked thoughtfully at his new linehound.Shiba gave him her Noble Beauty pose. After all, she was of the best bloodlines and strikingly marked. The black of her back was glossy beneath her chain mail, and her chest, belly, and legs were white, so heavily ticked with black that from any distance they looked blue-silver. The black of her head and ears was divided by a neat ticked blaze that spread out to take over her muzzle, and her eyebrows were punctuated by deep brown. Her body was sturdy, her tail strong and graceful, and her ears fell long and soft, the perfect compliment to her hanging flews. Best of all, her legs—long, heavy-boned and angular—were up to the task of following her incomparable nose.She knew all this because Jehn, her former partner, had told her so. She believed him utterly, just as she believed everything he said.Tallon just shrugged. “We’ll get along fine,” he said. “Jehn’ll have trained her right, and beyond that, a dog’s a dog.”

…Wednesday

Deep River Reckoning

Deep River Reckoning is a Reckoners short story newly available on Kindle: the journey of a woman recently passed strikes close to home for Garrie and Trevarr, as living and dead clash over the mysteriously damaged spirits of the Rio Grande.

I wanted an excuse to write a Reckoners story, so I ran a contest…the winner shared a few details to allow me to jump start the ghost. Of course, as uncontrollable as my muse is, she quickly did as she wanted to with those details. It was a great start, and a pleasure to work with the ghostly namesake!

And, of course, this is the cover with which discussions here, on Facebook, and over on SFF have been of such help. Look down to Monday’s post…and then take a good look at the cover here!

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…Wednesday

THE SCORIA

Nope, don’t go scrambling through your memory or your bookshelves; this isn’t a book title you should be familiar with!

The Scoria is an idea I’ve had for a very long time; I started working it up in the late ’90s, and then my writing path took me in about ten different directions at once, none of them leaving me time to write this book.  Every once in a while I huge the folder holding my notes for it, though!

And, as it happens, some years ago I had the chance to submit a story to the anthology (edited by Julie Czerneda and Jana Paniccia) UNDER THE COVER OF DARKNESS.  The antho theme targeted secret societies: “Down through the centuries there have been groups sworn to protect important artifacts and secrets, perhaps exercising their power and connections–possibly even mystical affiliations–to guide the world’s future. ”

My little idea was a very nice fit, in a sly way.  So I had the chance to write the foundation piece for the book-to-be, and I was thrilled, and am still thrilled, to have had it.

And now it’s equally fun to have the chance to put out an e-version–for now, on Kindle (currently a sweet 99 cents at that)–but as I gather momentum, on Smashwords (with its many available formats) as well.  I mean, dig it, man–the muse gets to work on a sleek cover and the prose within!  Oh, the happy!

So guess what!  Here’s a snippet!

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“Alleksa! Alleksa!“

Voices raised in joy, in a rare daring.

Galetia twisted from her sentry spot and raised her own hands high, flashing fingers open and closed in the approval of their kind. “Alleksa!” she shouted down into the bowl of the arena ruin, a midnight darkness spotted with tiny ground fires and fire spinners on the move. A spontaneous, whirling circle closed around the central dark spot that held Alleksa.

Hidden here outside the city, only the Scoria celebrated the night.

And only the Scoria celebrated surviving the coming of age that the citties took for granted. Alleksa proved more blessed yet…she would not only survive, she would thrive. Everyone saw the signs–the flashes of change without fever, without shakes, without chills. The ripples of ethereal otherness across her face, without the rash that so often came with such a strong turning.

She would be one of their strongest.

She might even live through to adulthood, protected by this secret gathering of the abandoned, the discarded…those both lost and found. Each year, more infants were plucked to the safety of loving arms. Each year, more youngsters lived through the change.

But oh, the authorities had begun to suspect.

…Wednesday

FEMME FATALE…

Once upon a time, I received an invitation to participate in the neatest of new projects–a collection of three novellas that would, in essence, kick off the entire Bombshell series; it was Silhouette’s way of testing the waters. The first novella–mine–would introduce the elements of the larger story arc; the second would move the larger story forward, and the third novella would complete the larger story arc–while each novella would also be its own self-contained story.

How neat is that? Not only was I being offered the chance to work with two authors I admire (Meredith Fletcher and Virginia Kantra), but the main story arc was a spy thriller with assertive, adventurous heroines. Think Alias or Emma Peel or even Kelyn from my book Wolverine’s Daughter. All I had to work with were the key logistics of the story and one-liner character IDs. Hoo, boy, did I jump at the chance!

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He made no attempt at stealth; two long strides and he was upon her, his hand–the one she’d been waiting for–landing heavily on Beth’s shoulder and clenching the fabric of her parka. He spun her back around, but the anticipation on his face turned to surprise as she offered no resistance, moving easily under his hand–adding her own spin to his pull so she came around quicker than he’d ever considered. She saw that, too–just before she gave the baton an expert flick to extend it, whipping it across the big muscle of his thigh.

He grunted a supremely startled “Uh!”, bending over the pain–only to come face to face with the barrel of her Sig.

She tucked the muzzle under his chin and lifted his face to look up at her. “His name is Wyatt,” Beth cooed, lifting the muzzle just enough to let the end sight dig into stubbled skin. “Steadier than any boyfriend I ever had, but prone to premature ejaculation, if you get my drift. Now…did I hear you say something about going away? Perhaps about walking in the opposite direction, really fast? Because as I think I’ve already mentioned…I’m busy.”

Through clenched teeth he said, “Wouldn’t…want…to…keep…you.”

“Funny, that’s what most of my men say.” Beth stepped back just far enough to indicate he had the chance to leave.

He took it.