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RELEASE DAY: A Flame in the North

It’s here. I have alternately longed for and dreaded this day! For lo, today is the day the Viking Werewolves are set free.

Well, Book 1 of the trilogy, at least. That’s right, my beloveds. The very first salvo of The Black Land’s Bane is now released into the wild!

An elemental witch and her shieldmaid leave home…

The Black Land is spent myth. Centuries have passed since the Great Enemy was slain. Yet old fears linger, and on the longest night of the year, every village still lights a ritual fire to banish the dark.

That is Solveig’s duty. Favored by the gods with powerful magic, Sol calls forth flame to keep her home safe. But when her brother accidentally kills a northern lord’s son, she is sent away as weregild—part hostage, part guest—for a year and a day.

The further north Sol travels, the clearer it becomes the Black Land is no myth. The forests teem with foul beasts. Her travel companions are not what they seem, and their plans for her and her magic are shrouded in secrecy.

With only her loyal shieldmaid and her own wits to rely on, Sol must master power beyond her imagination to wrest control of her fate. For the Black Land’s army stirs, ready to cover the world in darkness—unless Sol can find the courage to stop it.

They thought the old ways were dead. But now, the Enemy awakens…

Now available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple, and independent bookstores.

(The series soundtrack is available here.)

These books are very much a love song, and before anyone asks (again), yes, this is a trilogy, Amazon simply refuses to list the third book yet for weird reasons that have no basis in reality. (Book 2 is out in June.)

Anyway, I fought like hell to write these books against what felt like a tidal wave, and a huge heaping helping of thanks goes out specifically to beta readers K.A., J.P., and K.W. (you know who you are) who read Book 1, assured me it was good when many told me it wasn’t, then read Book 2 and did the same thing. A few dedicated people can absolutely help one fight the good fight. I don’t know if I would’ve made it if not for the small but persistent cheering section who absolutely got what I was trying to do and backed me to the hilt.

I’m extremely nervous on this release day–yes, I know, that’s nothing new. I set out to do something very ambitious here and hope it sticks for the people who like what I was aiming for. In the end, that’s all a writer can ask.

And now I’m going to go stick my head in a bucket. It’s going to be a long day, full of nervousness. But I’m very, very grateful to have gotten this far; my dear Readers, I hope you enjoy Sol and Arn’s first adventure.

Exhilaration, Trepidation

Tomorrow is a release day, so true to form I’m nervous as a long-tailed cryptid in a room full of rocking chairs. I spent last night largely sleepless reading Junji Ito manga, especially his adaptation of No Longer Human, and watching bits of 80’s Hong Kong action flicks. Consequently my head is in a rather interesting space right now. Today’s going to be an endurance contest, and I hope to reach the end thoroughly exhausted–or at least tired enough to sleep.

I did a list of history books I found useful for writing Western epic fantasy over at Shepherd, if you’re interested in that. Oh, and the Monthly Sales page has been updated, since I was notified of a few other price drops over the weekend.

At least Boxnoggin wasn’t restless last night as well. In fact, he snored rather gently into my armpit or ear for almost the entire duration; it’s kind of outlandish to be reading horror manga while 65+lbs of deeply relaxed canine predator burbles moistly against one’s skin. I mean, I’ve had far worse insomniac events, and every time my nerves spooled up I could at least glance over at the dog and think, well, he’s unconcerned, it can’t be all that bad.

Small mercies, indeed.

Part of the problem is the difficulty this series has had getting through the publication process. I feel like I’ve been fighting alone for so long, there’s no possible way to relax. The third great push is still before me, and it’s going to be the most arduous one by far. The exhaustion goes soul-deep this time around; I’m damn near numb, which is hardly a cause for celebration. Of course, choosing to have this be the Year of the Real contributes, and I had to laugh when I found out we’re in Year of the Dragon again as well. I was born in a Dragon year, so hello, let’s pour jet fuel on the burning coal seam!

Jacking into the universe’s flow and riding the wave is great, really. It’s just that when the wave is a monster, the exhilaration is almost as exhausting as the trepidation.

In any case, there’s a few more odds and ends to prep for tomorrow, an entire unrelated to-do list to address, and I think I’m going to let the novella sit and think about what it’s done even though I have a solution for the problem it presented me late Friday evening. I want to get the pitched battle in Highlands War at least settled, so the bulk of today’s writing time can be spent on the Sekrit Projekt. Powering through the mess on that last one will take what limited priority energy I can scrape together.

Boxnoggin isn’t stirring even though I’ve chewed on the dregs left in my coffee mug, probably because I decided not to stay in bed and brood so we’re technically up early. (Technically.) If we get out the door for walkies soon we’ll see the dawn come up together, and he’ll have fun lunging at the feral rabbits who have worked their way up the hill–climate change means we’re seeing territory changes for both them and coyotes.

Monday beckons. I suppose I’d best get started. There’s a long way to go until I can toss myself in bed again and hope for some rest.

Almost to Laughter

I’m almost at the point where I break out in laughter. (Almost.) Generally, once I start laughing I’m okay, and it would be a nice improvement.

Anyway! Things are ramping up for the release of A Flame in the North. The series has had an extraordinarily difficult birth–almost as nervewracking as Afterwar, wherein everything that could go wrong, did go wrong. And there’s a whole lot of work to catch up on, from juggling three books (I’m back to three, hallelujah) to updating book pages to scheduling releases to thinking about covers for a few different things and and and…you get the idea. Just putting my head down and plodding through is the name of the game, I guess.

The weather is finally cooperating. No more freezing rain coating every surface with slippery clear death–it was pretty, especially when the sun broke through for a few moments and dipped the entire world in glaze, but I’d just as soon not do that ever again. Instead, the firs are dripping and when it’s not actively raining mist hangs in a gentle haze over their dark swords, especially at dawn. I love that mist; it’s like a soft filter on the world. It’s not so quiet as during Recent Icepocalypse, but even the hum of traffic seems friendly today. The wind has veered, bringing the ratcheting and occasional blaring of the trains late last night, which half-woke me and I thought, wind’s changed, we’re past the worst.

Gods grant it be so.

I’m still reading The Stand, just reaching the failed appendectomy interlaced with Fran’s “diary”, so it’s about halfway or so. I think what I wanted most was the description of things falling apart, which I did in my own way for Roadtrip Z, and it’s like lancing a boil to a certain degree. (For obvious recent-historical reasons.) Some of it holds up astonishingly well, but what really struck me in this reread (so far) was Larry Underwood “coming out the other side”. King really shines when it comes to describing a personality fraying under the load of awful soul-killing stress.

Yesterday was amazingly productive, between Highlands War–Past Me acted up in the notes, so Present Me put in a vagina dentata joke because I can–and the second Cain’s Wife, which doesn’t have a name yet but is trying to gel under Kaskadia Blues. I also made the best chili of my life, which was a grand achievement I look forward to repeating, and after dinner stole some time for a Sekrit Projekt.

Sometimes protecting the work means shrouding it in secrecy, covering tender shoots so a killing frost can’t interfere.

I must be heading for a spike in some fashion, since every sentence I write has to be redone four times. I’m doing a lot of editing in my head, which generally means I’ve reached the end of a plateau, writing-craft-wise, and am about to make some sort of advance. New skills are being bolted onto the bicycle or old ones updated, I can’t quite tell yet, and the change in balance and speed means I’m wobbling a little. Still, it’s an encouraging sign.

Yep, the sooner I get to the “it’s all absurd, let’s laugh” part of the whole thing, the better. I almost can’t wait for the internal snap and the resultant cascade of giggles. I suppose that’s my own fraying, but it’s better than some other coping mechanisms I could name–or have employed, frankly.

Boxnoggin’s glad to be back in the routine of walkies, and I hadn’t realized just how much those rambles help me get things put together for a day’s work. I suppose I should thank him, maybe by letting him stay nose-down in something rancid for a little longer than I’m comfortable with. Dogs do dog things, yes, but they also don’t make very good choices sometimes, necessitating a “please do not eat that, good gods, let’s move on.”

If only all problems were so simply solved. Tuesday awaits, my dears, let us embark upon it.

Tenuous Peace, Cutting

It’s always mildly amusing when people who have denigrated and dismissed one for a long while act surprised when one picks up one’s toys and goes home. The ol’ “pretending bafflement when the person you used to kick around suddenly isn’t there anymore” can even be deeply hilarious, if viewed from far enough away to protect oneself. Escaping a bad situation, disengaging from those who use one as a punching bag, is tremendously healing.

All the same, I can’t help but find much of the professed surprise deeply disingenuous. Did you think I’d stay forever to be the whipping girl?

Moving on (literally!), I’m revising the last few chapters of Chained Knight today. The pieces are in place for editing (95% certainty) and cover art (that’s a Texas-sized ten-four, good buddy), so maybe around June or so another Tale of the Underdark will toddle into the world. I am deeply relieved to find out that the book is actually good–the beta readers liked it too–and that I’m still pleased by the idea of playing variations on a theme a la Elric. I think there’s one more symphony of that vein in me, but I can’t write it until *checks schedule* probably sometime next year?

That’s all right, it’ll keep. Of course, making it do so will probably force it to tear its way out of my head in two weeks like the last one. Big fun.

The three Underdark books won’t be a series, per se, but they will be variations. Cover art and releasing long enough apart should make that clear, and if it doesn’t end up getting through to a certain proportion of folk, well, there’s nothing further I can do. My work has never been for those incapable of drawing inferences, or unwilling to do so.

Perhaps it’s the energy of the new year provoking a re-evaluation of where my energy is being spent, or maybe my patience has finally been eroded. It could even be the vast inner quiet of two book hangovers at once, or the ongoing realization of my own inalienable value. Whichever way it’s sliced, I’m at a tenuous peace with cutting off a few gangrenous chunks right-fucking-now. At a certain point the consequences of walking away are far less damaging than those of staying where one is not valued, and I learn that lesson over and over. The relief is immense, almost unbearable.

After Chained revisions are dealt with, there’s a duel with a warrior woman in Highlands War as well as a pitched set-piece battle that promises to be rather fun. Not for the characters–Kaia would much rather have a decent bath and a good dinner, and her princeling is of like mind. Unfortunately the story isn’t cooperating with their dual longing, in any sense of the word. And after that…hm, it would be nice if a few folks would clear their pre-holiday inboxes and get back to me about the four…wait, five…no, six, oh my gods, six or so books waiting to either be picked up by a press or, failing that, stuffed in the self-pub cannon.

It’s a wonder I haven’t gone full-feral indie long before now. In any case, I’m giving trad publishing one last year to shape up, as my grandfather used to say–including paying me on time–or ship the fuck out. We’ll see what happens.

Thursday beckons, the subscription drops are formatted and merely require loading, Boxnoggin dislikes the chill damp but will be glad of walkies, and my own inbox could stand a little attention before I choke down some toast and get truly underway.

I’d best get started.

Scaling Cliffs

It’s chilly enough that the slug population is taking a hit–don’t worry, happens every year, there will be plenty more of them once the spring rains show up. Right now my hellebore and I are both heaving a sigh of relief, even if Boxnoggin is trying to figure out how to get into the northern garden boxes to pee on a few of the former. I don’t know why this is suddenly his ambition, but…I guess I live here now.

A lot of work on the docket today–the agent wants a further sample of Temple of Night, which is what Cain’s Wife #1 has decided it wants to be called. And we just reached the titular temple–or we will as soon as I get this one stitchery scene out of the way, and figure out just how the nasty auction vampire (can’t believe I wrote those three words in juxtaposition, but here we are) tracked them down. Plus my agent wants to see some “romantasy” from me. “With how fast you write, you’ll have no problem!”

I nodded, smiling, and my wrists began to ache just thinking about it. Still, there’s Chained Knight, which is romantasy up the wazoo (after a manner of speaking) and I have a couple other things lying about–Xie’s Shadow, for one, and Magekiller and Source, which I think has the best legs out of all of them. I sort of want to do that assassin-and-swordsman-walk-into-a-bar book, but that will have to take its place in the queue. So maybe I’ll make more than one sample.

Not as irritable as I was yesterday, though plenty still lingers. I realized I was truly cranky when I finally slithered into bed, opened my Norton Critical Tale of Genji (I’m having more success with this edition than with previous ones, I think it’s the footnotes), and snarled, “I hate this protagonist and want to get to the part where he’s suffering.”

Boxnoggin, busy settling on his half of the bed, looked faintly alarmed. It took me a little while of explaining the lady of the cicada husks and the dead lady and Genji’s just all-around assholery before the dog decided it wasn’t worth being anxious about and started snoring, and by then I was wishing I’d picked up Chaucer instead.

There’s another bit of hilarity–me wandering around the library yesterday mumbling “where’s my fuckin’ Chaucer at? COME OUT, GEOFFREY. COME OUT AND FACE ME.”

Anyway, I think this time I have a chance of actually scaling Lady Murasaki’s cliffs, and I am grimly determined. Her sly asides make the journey worth it, indeed. But first I have to get through the day’s work, including walking poor ol’ Box, who does not like the cold but likes staying indoors even less. He will be full of energy and eager to sniff the greenery once it warms up a bit and the frost is turned to water-jewels instead of ice-knives.

At least there’s coffee to be had, and I might even be able to stomach brekkie in a bit. No stale croissants survived yesterday, alas, but not every Tuesday can be perfect…

Bread-and-Butter

Made 50k words on the NaNo book, but not sure if it’s going to be done before the end of the month. The world of the series has opened up around me, and true to form I’m only figuring out certain dimensions of the place and characters now. I think I had to earn the protagonist’s trust before she would really talk, so that’s nice to see happen. The first book will probably end with that smoking wasteland I envisioned for the beginning of the second, or maybe with the undead assassin learning about the brave new world that hath such people in it.

His first interaction with smart tech is going to be fun, though naturally he’ll be more interested in weaponry. I have his own weapons lying about here somewhere, an image I came across online and said, that’s it, that’s the one, what the hell do you call those and how do you use them?

Fun times.

Anyway, I’m going to try and get a zero draft of The Temple of Night sorted by December 1 (ha!) and then it’s a quick scan of the first two Ghost Squad books before revising Gamble. Pretty sure that’ll be the last romantic suspense for a while, though I’d really like to write Grey’s book. Jackson’s would come after that, but I’m not fond of him and would prefer not to go to his part of the world. We’ll see what happens.

I did hope, before the end of the year, to get some news back on the…let’s see…five books out on submission? Of course, three of them will no doubt end up being put into the self-pub pipeline and another is the one I’m working on now, so technically it’s more like four and three-quarters books out. You see, the problem isn’t with my work ethic, and the problem isn’t that readers don’t want the books. (For just one example, I am getting daily mail from people who want to see Hell’s Acre out in the world.) The problem isn’t even with small publishers, since the reputable ones are very transparent about their schedules and have reasonable timeframes.

No, the problem is (as usual) trad houses. Overworking and underpaying the people actually doing the damn work–mostly the writers creating what their entire industry is built on but also folk like the production editors who make sure things are arranged neatly between the covers–is a strategy only profitable in the extreme short-term. Eventually it ends up with the writers thinking, “Well, I won’t hear back from a trad publisher about a submission for over half a year and even when I do they’ll pay less than pennies, hand me to an editor who hates the work, do less than zero marketing, and then blame me when the thing sinks–wait, why on earth am I doing this again?” And then off we go to small, indie, or self-pub, unless we decide to throw up our hands altogether and leave the biz entire. It’s not hard to see why good authors are fleeing and readers’ favorite series are dying on the vine.

What is particularly galling is the fact that money is literally lying on the table for trads. Midlist authors–the bread and butter of any publishing house–with proven records have completed books that readers are eager for. But trad publishing simply won’t pull their heads out of their nether regions and pay even half a decent pittance for the books, let alone bring them to market for said chump change; they’re too busy giving “content CEOs” golden parachutes and selling off legacies to the same assholes who hollowed out and destroyed Toys R Us. At this point I’m amazed anyone’s submitting to the Big Four/Five at all, even though I understand why certain slices of the writing field are. The reasons range from new writers just not knowing better to agents hoping that this time someone at a major house will remove cranium from rectum long enough to take a breath and see what’s being offered, because traditionally publishing has come up for air at random intervals and as any gambler knows, there’s nothing so addictive as random rewards. There’s also old seasoned writers giving beloved editors one more chance to straighten up and fly right because the alternative is a lot of fucking work and we’re so, so tired.

So tired. My gods, you have no idea.

The market correction, when it hits, is going to be really painful. Unfortunately the greedyguts allowed to poison our entire publishing ecosystem will be allowed to saunter away from the mess, whistling, hands in pockets full of their ill-gotten gains. There will be no consequences for the writers they drove out of the industry or the books/series they murdered, just fourth and fifth yachts while they send their kids to private schools to become the next generation’s boot-on-neck problem.

Anyway, I keep working. A couple places are on their last chance with me, and I can already see they’re determined to squander even that faint hope. Still, formalities must be observed, I guess. I’m taking the high road, but eventually it’s going to be a case of taking my toys home instead. The new year will see some changes around here, but before then I’ve got to get this zero draft done and Gamble revised. And before that, Boxnoggin would very much like his walkies, since in his opinion I’ve been mutter-swearing at the glowing box while slurping coffee for entirely long enough.

Let’s hope the walk improves my mood…

Next Year’s Work

I should know better than to post while cranky; things tend to go semi-viral and then my mentions are a mess for some time afterward. Still…some things are worth getting visibly irate about, I reckon.

Anyway, I finally managed to get everything out of the way and sink back into Cain’s Wife yesterday, to the tune of 2.7k words. It was lovely, especially since things in the story are jelling at a rapid pace. I was a bit sad that I might not be able to to do the train chase, but then things took a turn in the middle of the rooftop scene and I realised just how I could get the protagonist on the damn train. Which was a splendid relief.

Technically it’s not a “train” but a chain of floating cargo-cars in an industrial flightlane, but that’s beside the point. The point is, she’s going to be on the roof, going pretty fast, fighting off a king sorcerer, when the quasi-angel appears (again) and things go pear-shaped (again). Fortunately, this protagonist has a good way of looking at her own limitations–her greatest power isn’t sorcerous ability or her flawed abilities as a witch, but her mind and how she uses it. She’s generally a hop ahead of everyone else–but only a single hop, and honestly she’s more like Aeon Flux in Goodchild’s Habitat, a cat loose in a lab experiment.

Sometimes one just needs a cat loose in an overly regimented environment, though.

Plenty of things I had planned for the back half of the book have turned out to be unnecessary, though I’m glad they were there to provide weight and heft to the incubation period. The old paradox–no plan ever survives contact with the enemy, and yet planning is indispensable.

I’m even managing to forget how awful publishing is now, what with the sheer joy of creation. And let me tell you, I sorely need that. When the dust settles in December I’ll be revising Gamble and will have two more zero drafts to do things with; by that time I should also know about Hell’s Acre. If it goes to the publisher it’s resting with now, great, if it doesn’t it’ll go into the self-pub queue. By the time that’s sorted I’ll have an answer on the portal fantasy that tore its way out of my head in two weeks, and by the time that’s done I should have an idea of whether or not Cain’s Wife is going to sell. I’m not going to sit around waiting for long; if trad wants to leave money on the table, fine, let them. I’ll be busy bringing out the books myself.

Anyway, that’s next year’s releases sorted, along with the next two Cain’s Wife books and the serial in there somewhere. Always assuming the dystopia and failing empire don’t take me off the census first.

I am full of cheerful thoughts like that lately. No matter, Boxnoggin desires his walkies (he was a right little brat yesterday, my gods) and I should run my corpse at something above a fast walk afterward. Then it’ll be all train scene, all day. I’m considering whips of sorcerous chain, not to mention several narrow escapes. I do rather wish this protagonist believed in carrying something rather larger than a knife, but she’s philosophically opposed to such things and in any case doesn’t need them. (Much.) Especially not with the mercenary crew following her around, armed to the teeth.

But first I’ve got to get there, and in order to do that I need to finish this coffee and perhaps swallow some breakfast. So much to do before I can burrow back into another world. Sure, it’s escapism, but don’t we all (as ol’ JRRT himself pointed out) have a duty to escape in times like these?

Off I (and Boxnoggin) go.