Crumpets and Collected Fate

The site mascot

So here it is, week 11 of the blog. Seems like just yesterday I was staring at my email inbox, chewing my fingernails away to nothing while waiting on word from Curiosity Quills regarding my submission. Somewhere within that blur of anxiety, I received the suggestion ‘you need a website’.

Naturally, I agreed with them, and sat down staring at a blank screen. After a few hours of failure to channel my (lack of) Mechanical Aptitude Psionic power, I realized I would need to do something else. The computer was not terribly impressed with a series of silly faces. Even the cats shook their heads.

Fortunately, a close friend who shall remain, for the moment, nameless has a knack for this sort of thing and helped get the ball rolling. (Not the umbrella toting ball, that’s something else entirely…)

With Marty (so much for the nameless part) came hosting space, domain, and blammo — instant blogdom. Of course, the question remained – what do I put on it. While I continue to roam about the dusty labyrinthine corridors between my ears for ideas about which to ramble (and hopefully not bore anyone to death), I decided to take a future novel idea and put it up for grabs in small pieces.

This, I hoped, would allow me to lure people to come back to the site once a week, on the designated day (Thursday) eager for their weekly glimpse into the world of my mad–err, fiction. [wink]

So thereupon, with task in hand, I began the DF blog fiction.

As it is now week eleven, some of you new to the site are probably looking at post 9, 10, and soon to be 11, wondering WTF is going on, feeling a bit lost, and either wandering off for a spot of Earl Grey or trying to [I hope it’s this one] dig down to the bottom to find the beginning.

On good advice from one of the CQ gurus, I’ve added a separate link to the menu for “back posts” of DF. To be even nicer, I’ve condensed the blog-sized bits into nice chaptery goodness that will hopefully make it a bit less kitten-punchingly frustrating to read. The crumpets (for the tea) alas, did not react well to being uploaded… Those, you will need to furnish on your own.

(I do not advocate the punching of kittens, or the feeding of smashed crumpets to full grown cats.)

So with that said, I will continue to blog the story weekly (hopefully not weakly) and as chapters finish, will add them to the archive the following month. I suppose that means since those of you who were so desperate [one can hope] to get your weekly fix of DF can now return only at the more leisurely pace of once a month (or thereabouts, silly leap years) – I shall have to endeavor to occupy this pace with other things.

Well, so be it. I’m still lost in those cobwebs by the way, but I’m getting somewhere soon. I can almost smell cinnamon buns.

 

-m

Writing Update

The first rough draft of Division Zero: Lex De Mortuis (The law of the dead) is completed at about 94k words.

A cover artist for Division Zero has been chosen and (hopefully) is underway. From what I am hearing, it is quite possible that it will have a first quarter 2014 release date. (assuming all the goblins fall in line, of course.)

Once I get the edit pass settled, I’ll likely post the first chapter as a teaser 🙂

Editing of Awakened Book 2 done

Welp, after letting it sit for awhile, I went back through Archon’s Queen on its second edit pass. By way of comparison, Virtual Immortality is on its eighth, as was Division Zero. Prophet made it to 6 – but this one I am happy with after two.

Perhaps there is something to be said for noticed progress 🙂 It came to my attention at some point after I finished all four of them that passive voice was a bad thing, and like most bad things (and most new authors scrambling to impress their editors) I went on a crusade to stamp it out… At least, stamp it out where it was inappropriate to use.

Much to my happiness, I found less of it in Queen than the others.

Anyway, I am now free to start drafting on the sequel to Division Zero 🙂

I figure I’m already two books into The Awakened series, might as well get Kirsten caught up.

Excerpt from Archon’s Queen

They traded intermittent eye contact while she finished the rest of her meal. Whenever she glanced up, he would be wearing a curious smirk with a trace of a smile. When she got up to leave, he waved her over.

He gestured as if tipping a hat. “Curious running into you here, luv.”

“Innit.” Anna looked down, flicking at the pockets of her new pants. “Long time.”

“Fate and circumstance…”

“How are they then?”

“What?”

“Your dogs.”

Mr. Carroll laughed, patting his leg as he remembered. “They’re resting peacefully now.”

Anna sank into the seat opposite him, captivated by the pattern in the table. “Soz.”

“Pay it no mind, they had a good life. I meant it is fortuitous we have crossed paths. I could use your talents again if you’re available.”

Anna sat on her hands to hide the trembling. “Might be… This isn’t for Mister Cooper is it?”

Carroll chuckled. “No, lass. That ol’ turf accountant’s got his own men now; he doesn’t contract through blokes like me anymore.”

Mr. Carroll was the sort of fellow who put people with needs in touch with people with skills. The last time she had worked for him, she made a touch over ten grand. At the time, she considered it just shy of fair, now it felt like a king’s ransom. He held her ticket out of Coventry, if only she could hold it together. The risk of the CSB lurked like a shadow at the back of the room, breathing cold vapor down her spine. She leaned forward, leaving her hands under her knees, her voice lowering.

“What’s the earner then?”

“A client of mine is in need of a guardian. The usual sort of chap I work with these days is not nimble enough for this one. He wants to get to the top of some dreadfully tall place and tap a local.”

“So just watch his back?” I can do this. “What’s the pay?”

“Fourteen five.”

Kinnell! The yell stayed in her mind. She hoped the shock did not leak through her eyes. “That’ll do.”

He reached forward and propped her chin up. “Rough times, lass? You used to quibble the change.”

“Bit of a transitional period, I’m in. I’m fine.” She forced a smile, ignoring the twitching.

“Still no mini?”

She shook her head.

“Right then. Meet our man at the corner of Neal and Long Acre tomorrow at eleven pm. I’ll meet you here with a stick when the thing’s done.”

“Who’m I lookin for?”

“Calls ‘imself Mr. Orange. Ya can’t miss him.”