Exciting news!  I’m thrilled to report that the Snarky Darksy syndicate has selected Overture as its backed project for September.  Many thanks to C. Brennecke and the entire syndicate membership for their support.  

And now, I invite you all to come on over and bite into some snark for yourself!

Thanks!

Issa

Hello, all! A quick Monday update to share that we’re now at 57 preorders! In just 6 orders time, we will be 25% funded and a quarter of the way to Witherfist being published.

At the time of writing this, Witherfist is currently a nominee for the Epic Fantasy Syndicate’s monthly pick. The syndicate supports "Grand epic fantasy with magic, a fully immersive secondary world, and series potential -- stuff that will make Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, and Wheel of Time fans tingle with excitement."

It’s a real honour to be considered for the syndicate’s support and especially when there are so many brilliant fantasy books funding at the moment. I’ll write to you later this week to let you know what the outcome was!

~ Jenny

Happy Monday, y’all!

First off, A Beast Requires is clinging to 10th Place in the Geek & Sundry Fantasy Contest, with 85 backers. Yea, it’s getting to that part of the campaign where every backer matters, so if you haven’t had the opportunity to back A Beast Requires yet, now is definitely the time. At 107 pre-orders, we’re almost halfway to the Quill goal, which is nice.

So, dragons.

I count myself lucky that so many of you following me are writers. We all know The Struggle. It doesn’t matter how many books you’ve written, or what sort of genre you write, all of our work starts with that first glimmer of an idea. We all cultivate that glimmer, scribbling in notebooks or banging away at a keyboard. We draft, and draft again, searching for beta readers, grammar checkers, and if we’re lucky, an editor. 

While we are all at different places in our writing, we all remember that first book we poured our souls in. Mine was an absolute train wreck of a fantasy adventure, involving a book, a dog, and an angry teenage wizard. I loved it so much, but twenty years later I can look back and say with absolute certainty, it was a complete pile of words. We get better with every story. Hells, we get better with every draft, and we all know the joy that comes from finishing that final edit. But it’s not our final edit, and we all know the frustration and sadness that looms off in the distant horizon.

I like writers. Actually, I like content creators, but I’m particularly biased towards writers. And cooks, but that’s an entirely different story. It’s why I’m so thankful so many writers follow me on Inkshares, and how I absolutely lose my shit when another writer backs A Beast Requires. We all know how rough it is, especially how rough an Inkshares campaign is, so it comes as a welcoming comfort every time one of likes the thing I struggled for. I will always try to back as many writers as I’m financially able to. Support means everything to a writer, especially when  you’re just starting out. There will always be The Struggle, and there will always be dragons, but none of us are ever truly going through all this alone. 

Happy Monday, dear readers!

We are sitting at 38 copies sold, which is amazing, and we’re (as best as I can figure) right in 25th place in the Geek & Sundry contest. This is great - but we can do better! Spread the word about Fae Child, and email a friend you know likes books, or share it on Facebook. Every little bit helps. If you’re following the project and haven’t ordered your own copy, it would mean the world to me if you did.

The meat of this update is an exclusive scene where Dan, Abbie’s father, is meeting with the mysterious Cat. He called her at the end of Chapter 3, and gets a face to face with her later on in the book.

*****

The Cat sat sideways in her chair as Dan approached, legs crossed and toes artfully pointed. A pair of lime green heels lay haphazardly on the wood floor where they’d fallen. “I have to say, I did not expect to hear from you.” Her voice was a throaty purr, and she tossed her long purple hair over her shoulder as she sat up.

“You know why I’m here.” He stood firm a few feet away from her chair. One could better describe the piece of furniture the Cat reclined upon as a ‘throne,’ but he didn’t want to give her the satisfaction.

“Indeed I do. My secretary is quite good,” the Cat said, amber eyes focusing on him. The pupils were vertical slits, and she smiled suddenly. “You should see your face, Wodan. Imagine, you, so worried about a mere child. I never thought I’d see the day that you cared about something more than yourself. Or that there existed something the Hunter could not find.”

She lifted a manicured hand, and a file folder floated off of a side table toward her. Plucking it from the air, the Cat flipped it open. “And a wife as well.” The female made a noise in her throat that Dan realized belatedly was a chuckle. “To risk your exile by exposing,” that rancid laugh again, “yourself like this - your time here in the world has changed you more than I thought possible.”

“I’m not here to talk about me.” Dan crossed his arms across his broad chest, his legs a pace apart for balance. “I want to know what you’ve heard about my daughter.”

“No need to be rude,” the Cat said sharply. “You are the one here for a favor. It costs you nothing to indulge me, and yet you want to push past all the fun.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Felines tend to play with their food. Forgive me if I refuse to be toyed with.”

“Wonderful creatures, aren’t they,” the Cat mused, ignoring the latter part of his comment.

“A little smaller than a dragon,” he said, staring at her, and she laughed.

“One makes their allowances to live among the humans. You have hidden your ears, and apparently your spine, while I…” the Cat gestured down at her slim, feminine body. “Your girl is not the first who’s found themselves in the Otherworld, and she won’t be the last. I don’t do housecalls anymore, though, if you want her out, you’re going to have to get her yourself.”

He clung to hope. “So she’s alive?”

The Cat smiled, an ugly expression on her beautiful face. “I have my people looking into it. With Gate travel outlawed, you understand it takes more than a wish on a star to discover what it is you want to know.”

****

Hope you enjoyed this sneak peek! Until next time!

Jane-Holly

A monster had been unleashed and he felt it would return soon. 

It’s Monday, Ghosts and Guardians!

For those of you who follow multiple books on Inkshares, this may be just one of many updates in your email. I promise it’s a good one. For those of you who follow only me, thanks for sticking with me. ;-)

This week I want to introduce you to Will, who appears in Chapter 5 "A Wolf in Man’s Clothing". Will is the character that has changed the most since his inception over fifteen years ago. His name and his lycanthropy are the only two constants about him over the years. Initially, he was the plucky comic relief (a la Wash from Firefly) but he has become a somber, spiritually centered young man whose morality is at constant odds with his nature. In one draft, Will served as the "everyman" (despite his werewolf-ness) and to an extant, he still serves in that role here, although he is introduced much later in the story. 

(More trivia: Maninder/Frank was the original "everyman", the first to be introduced. Now he is the last to be introduced, and, arguably, the hardest to empathize with.)

So, let’s get to it. Who is Will?

Man 

Werewolf 

Catholic 

Writer 

Alone 

Quiet 

Novice Chef 

Empathetic 

Diplomatic 

Anxious 

Inhibited 

Gracious 

Forsaken Son 

Adopted Brother 

Noble Friend 

Shepherd of Devotion 

Neutral Good 

Champion 

STRETCH GOOOOAALLL!!!

 

Hey, everybody. It’s a beautiful day in my part of the world. I’m enjoying my peripheral view of the deciduous trees, awash in sunlight, while I incorporate into my manuscript feedback from one of my beta readers.

Here is an excerpt from the chapter on which I’m working. It wasn’t part of the feedback, but I can’t help but tinker every time I read through the book and I’m pleased with the results:

"Ada tried to cover her nose and mouth against the hot stench of rotting refuse and the lingering smell of Ray’s sewer bath, but she couldn’t. She kept her visor up because having it down trapped the noisome stink. There was no escape. Breathing through her mouth was no alternative to using her nose; the detritus was as palpable as it was rank. She retched and retched again, but managed to swallow down the hot bile that burned the back of her throat."

Pleasant, eh?

I’ve got two people who said they’re still reading and will have remarks for me, soon, and I still owe Cara Weston a copy as she volunteered to take a look at Disintegration. I’m hoping to at least add the inestimable Rich Cernese’s feedback before I send it. What’s halfway between beta and alpha? I like the term "gamma reader" but that’s (paradoxically) going backwards.

I recently finished beta-reading the first half of Cara’s She is the End. I look forward to getting the other half; it’s one of the books about which I’m most excited. You should check it out.

Dear friends and followers,

It has been a while since my last update. August has been quiet; I admit to having distanced myself somewhat from the campaign. And now I’m just back from spending the last two weeks out west visiting mom.

This is my mom’s dog, Ernie. Ernie is sad because "Murder at the Veterans’ Club" has not yet hit the magic 750 mark. Poor Ernie.

So, we’ll be ramping up again over the course of the week and be back in full gear by week’s end. I hope I can count on your support.

In the meantime, I’d like to draw everybody’s attention to the following projects:

1) "Tantalus Depths" by Evan Graham. I’ve mentioned this book before, and I’d like to reiterate my support. It’s got horror, intrigue, mysterious outside forces, a feel for the ensemble, and solid prose. Every so often, there’s a book that will please readers who normally dislike the genre, and I think this might be it.

2) "The Darkest Places" by Byron Gillan. Here’s a book I’ve been excited about for a long time. It’s a classic cosmic horror as Lovecraft did it, and is set in the 1920s to boot. And yet, not derivative: Gillan promises a more thoughtful examination of the concept of "the Other", and that has me excited all over again.

3) "The Seventh Age: Dystopia" by Richard Heinz. Heinz has been around much longer than I have, and his first book, "The Seventh Age: Dawn", is slated to hit the bookstores in January. "Dawn" dealt with the return of magic to the modern world; "Dystopia" explores the ramifications some years down the road. I’ve worked with Heinz in "Too Many Controllers", and I can tell you he knows how to craft a story and how to tell it. With "Dawn" and "Dystopia", I promise you won’t be disappointed.

And now, I’d like to leave you with this video of me reading Siegfried Sassoon’s "Aftermath". How do I sound? Not too awful? One day ... one day! ... I shall finally get a book trailer up on my project page. Until then ... have fun! Keep reading!

It’s been a long and interesting summer, now drawing to a close as the leaves change color on the trees. I had the opportunity to do a podcast with a local outfit. It was a really nice time. We talked about life in the military and life in Korea, and had a good opportunity to discuss the state of publishing today and the life of an aspiring creator. Check it out!

http://www.changwoner.com/episode-39-writing-fiction-south-korea-brendan-thompson#.V9TTGpzeTlo.facebook