Ice Kisses

Kissed by ice sprites.

We had a long shoal of dry days and icy nights, which meant fine white hairs on everything during walkies. Boxnoggin likes to walk just as the sun is hitting great patches of foliage, warming them juuuuust enough. I like not slipping, so I wear boots.

Big boots. Which gives my calves a workout, I tell you. Now the rains have moved in, all frost is washed away, and I’m happy to hear the little tiptaps on the roof.

Plus, it’s a brand-new month! The Monthly Sales page is refreshed, including a one-day deal (She-Wolf and Cub is $1.99 in ebook today) and plenty of other scheduled goodies. (Be sure to check the dates!) I’ll be adding more as they go live during the month, but this is a good start.

I’m also going to finish The Tomb of Night today. I woke up knowing exactly how, and that’s a good feeling. So I’d best get started; I’m aching to knock off another zero draft.

See you next week!

Filaments in Soil

Well, we made it through the weekend. I knew if another patch of dry weather came the deck had to be sorted, so there was a festival of pressure-washing and sealing. I am still a little weirded out that I am apparently the type of person to own a pressure washer now.

Not that it’s a bad thing, mind you! I just never thought I’d achieve any sort of permanence in my benighted existence, and it doesn’t get much more permanent than such appliances. An investment in futurity, you could call it; somehow I possess a thing that is only to be used a few times a year (if that). Then again, I suppose living for so long in one place does encourage one to drive down roots. After a childhood spent moving, restless as a military-brat rolling stone, it’s weird to have actual filaments driven into soil.

Not to mention waterproofing deck stain clinging to one’s fingers.

There’s new monthly sales (especially coupon codes for my Smashwords and Payhip stores) and it looks like the second Sons of Ymre book will be out on time in November. Once I have preorder links for that last, don’t worry, you’ll be the first to know. I’ve got copyedit queries to get turned around, a discussion between a sellsword and an adai to write, a Ghost Squad book that wants to be finished and will no doubt take up a lot of my working time today, and I have to figure out what to do with the protagonist of yet another book now that I’ve thrown her in the damn pond.

And Guilder to frame for it. I’m swamped.

Which is frankly right where I want to be. There’s also some toast to toss down the hatch and the dog to walk. I have to squeeze in a run today too; I will be useless if I don’t.

Off to Monday’s races, then. The week is starting out somewhere between a bang and a whimper.

New Roasty Toasty

There was nothing unreasonable amid my inbox this morning, and Throne of the Five Winds might still be on sale in ebook if one acts swiftly. (Check the Monthly Sales page, as well–and mind you check the dates!) Boris the new coffeemaker just finished burbling and gave his ending signal, so in a few minutes my cuppa might be cool enough to gulp instead of to sip with plenty of air to cool the liquid at the same time.

Slurping is not very polite, but I am burrowed into my office and one of the lovely things about working from home is that I don’t have to dress up or care about little things like the noises made when I get my coffee in as quickly as possible.

The proofs for Sons of Ymre 2 were sent in yesterday morning, and I honestly meant to dive right into working for the rest of the day. Unfortunately the Muse, my body, and my brain all rose up in revolt at the notion and forced me to take at least a half-day off after faffing around with some stories that will never be seen by anyone else.

I call those “strictly for home consumption”. Not everything needs to be on display; the bulk must reside below the waves.

The sun has moved as the axial tilt shifts, and lingers behind a well-placed fir. I miss the cedars; they were keeping my office shaded on summer morns and I’m annoyed to lose that. But oh well, it’s an invitation to plant something just as nice and wait while it grows. Patience is necessary in gardening, publishing, child-rearing…it’s a shame I have so little of the quality and must force myself to work around it. Gaming oneself is the sign of adulthood.

Anyway, I woke with Boxnoggin’s nose pressed to mine. It’s a little disconcerting to open one’s eyes and see a 60+lb predator regarding one with deep interest, but he just wanted his morning ration of snuggles before beginning daily rituals. My heated mattress topper (nicknamed Operation Roasty-Toasty) largely conked out a while ago, but summer was here so that wasn’t a big deal. I finally broke down, took advantage of the price-gouging letting up for a moment or two, and got another. (Three-year warranty my ass, the first one barely lasted two.) This made Lord van der Sploot incredibly happy despite his being locked out of my room while I was turning the mattress and getting the new topper (washed and air-dried, the anticipation has been intense) on, as well as fresh bedding.

He hates a closed door. Like the Rum Tum Tugger, he’s always on the wrong side. Plus, he could not supervise and render aid, which is his goal in life whenever there is any sort of excitement. He was forced to linger outside my chamber, moping up and down the hall in the hope that my daughter would take pity on his poor abandoned self with treats and attention. She did, of course, but then I had to be shown the error of my ways when I finally finished and opened up the construction site to the public again.

Boxnoggin gave me about ten minutes of heavy sighs, collar-shakings, and Very Disappointed Looks until I won him back over with praise, pets, and a promise that he would sleep in royal comfort. Which brings us to this morning. His side of the bed was nice and toasty due to the new arrival, and all the work paid off because I wasn’t shivering either. So, that’s why he put his nose in my face and demanded snuggles.

The only small blemish upon my enjoyment is the fact of no rain yet, but I can wait. So can Boxnoggin; he will be miserable for about a week as the weather shifts, but then it will be as if we have always lived in grey mist and he’ll be disturbed by sunlight.

There are two books on the docket right now and I might have enough bandwidth to add a third once the new editor is in touch. After that there’s Cain’s Wife to get started, since I’m already building the soundtrack for it. I’d really like to get some portal-fantasy action going–the recent massive Elric read means I have thoughts upon variations. But that’s all for the future.

Boxnoggin would very much like toast and walkies; the weight of his expectant gaze has become most intense.

I suppose I’d best get started.

Waking Up Eager

Have thrice traversed the hall with a relatively full tankard of coffee, and rather feel as if I’m pushing my luck should I attempt even to lift the thing to my lips. However, the siren song of caffeine will force me over the barricades of good sense or burn avoidance, and that quite soon.

The Spring’s Arcana price drop has been added to the Monthly Sales page; tomorrow there will be another sale for a different series to talk about. I suppose it’s just That Time of Year, when trad publishers like to offer deals. Of course I offer them on self-pubbed stuff all year ’round, but September seems to be when a lot of the bigger ones hit. Great good news for readers, especially those with the hardware to use ebooks. (Which is not everyone, let’s remember.)

I do not have Night on Bald Mountain playing inside my head anymore, which is kind of a relief since it stuck around for three-four days. I chased it out with Ellie Goulding’s Love Me Like You Do, but this morning Robot Koch’s Nitesky has burrowed in to make itself at home. I think it’ll go on the Cain’s Wife soundtrack, which I’m already building since I want to get that trilogy planned in my head to a fare-thee-well before I decide if I’m going to do it first-person or third. I’m leaning toward first person for the protagonist and third for everyone else, but we’ll see.

It’s been a long time since I woke up eager to get to things instead of…just braced for enduring another day. I’m not quite sure what to do with myself as a result, and am reluctant to even move quickly lest the feeling evaporate. Today is set entirely aside for the proofs of Sons of Ymre 2; I feel like it’s been a long time for that particular book, though I’m sure it’s just that so many internal changes have occurred it feels like years. Time is never more subjective than during trauma or healing, and gods know we’ve been spending our time in the former state with brief breaks for the most emergency of the latter for quite some while now.

The good mood could be weather-based. Finally reasonable temperatures have set in and the world smells like dry autumn before the rains–crisping, spicy leaves and the last few lawn mowings, things burrowing in and dying off for winter’s long sleep, the trees storing sugar or retracting their leaf-fingertips. I spent most of the summer writing winter books, and now I suppose the tide will shift and it’ll be warmer weather inside my fictional landscapes while I put on a sweater and grin into a hot cuppa or three.

So while I am feeling uncharacteristically cheerful, I might as well get to it. There’s some administrivia cleanup that needs to happen today as well, but that can take second place to getting this little Lovecraft/Chambers-inspired romance scanned and out the door. A deep breath, a pull at the coffee tankard–I have not burned myself, though that is probably a mercy of short duration–and a bit of toast while I get started, and I should have momentum for when Boxnoggin and I return from walkies.

It’s nice to feel ambitious again. Let’s hope Tuesday cooperates.

Rhythm and Assignment

Summer’s long fever has finally, irretrievably broken. It’s grey and quite a reasonable temperature, which means it’s time for serious work again. Not so much on the page–I am most productive when it’s raining, and the sky hasn’t seen fit to grace us with that yet–but with fiddly stuff like copyedits and proofs and sales and home repair and a new walking route for Boxnoggin and easy, gentle runs and and and…

Yeah. Speaking of sales, Spring’s Arcana is $2.99 in ebook from now until Sept 24th. (There are more discounts and fun things on the Monthly Sales page; mind you check the dates!)

I spent half the weekend finishing Riversinger and Minnowsharp copyedits. (That’s Black Land’s Bane 2, for those counting.) I’ve been very lucky in the last two rounds of CEs, blessed with copyeditors who both caught the rhythm and understood the assignment. I shall be very vocal in appreciation, and in asking that they be assigned to future work of mine.

It may seem like I’m too appreciative, but I like to tell people when they’ve done well. And when I feel down or blue, nothing is better than telling other people how awesome they are. Perks one right up, it does. It might be selfish, but if I have to game myself into proper behavior with selfishness, that’s how I’ll do it.

Today is for the new walkies route, a gentle run, the monthly newsletter–which I put off for a few days because of the blasted CEs and also so I could highlight this particular sale–and starting the proofs for Sons of Ymre 2, which is still slated for November release. And I’m sure there’s something else on the to-do list I’ve forgotten, because there always is. If not for the damn lists and post-its I’d never get anything done.

I’m also poking around trying to make Cain’s Wife settle inside my head. It feels like a trilogy; I just have to figure out whether I want to do it in first-person or third. Or first-person with interludes of third, since I don’t want to head-hop in first. Peter Beagle could do that in Innkeeper’s Song because he’s Peter-effin-Beagle, but I am a far lesser creature.

Anyway, there’s damp drizzle hanging between the fir trees. Boxnoggin is very excited because I’ve even been on the phone this morning, and phone calls are rare and exciting things. If he hears me using Phone Voice he immediately trots into the room, tail and ears up, ready to be absently patted while I talk into the small glowing brick. Sometimes I wonder what he thinks I’m doing, or if he consigns the entire thing to Mysteries of the Humans Who Fill His Food Bowl. I’ve often thought dogs might regard us the way Tolkien’s humans see elves.

But that’s a whole ‘nother blog post, it is. I’d best get some toast swallowed and get my engines underway. There’s a quarter-cup of coffee left and dear gods, I brewed it strong–which is good, because I suspect I’ll need it today.

Excelsior, and all that…

RELEASE DAY: The Salt-Black Tree

It’s official–the second and last book of The Dead God’s Heart is now out in the world!


The Salt-Black Tree

Nat Drozdova has crossed half the continent in search of the stolen Dead God’s Heart, the only thing powerful enough to trade for her beautiful, voracious, dying mother’s life. Yet now she knows the secret of her own birth―and that she’s been lied to all her young life.

The road to the Heart ends at the Salt-Black Tree, but to find it Nat must pay a deadly price. Pursued by mouthless shadows hungry for the blood of new divinity as well as the razor-wielding god of thieves, Nat is on her own. Her journey leads through a wilderness of gods old and new, across a country as restless as its mortal inhabitants, and it’s too late to back out now.

Blood may not always prevail. Magic might not always work. And the young Drozdova is faced with an impossible choice: Save her mother’s very existence…

…or accept the consequences of her own.

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

The soundtrack for the series is available here.


It’s…odd, to see this book come out. I’m four stories down the road–publishing is a delayed gratification game, always–and a lot of this duology was bound up with pandemic lockdown. It feels utterly weird to see it come to fruition. I was genuinely unsure if I would survive to see Nat’s story reach the world.

Yet here I am. Very, very strange indeed.

I’ll be taking most of the day off to hyperventilate in a corner, as is usual on release days. You’d think I’d get used to them, or that they’d become ho-hum. Nope, I will never become used to this, and they will never be ho-hum. I have to hope that despite some early review bombing, the books will get to the readers who need them.

Despite everything, Spring is on her way. And I’m content to have it so.

Moving Target, Mess

The Demon's Librarian

Great news–The Demon’s Librarian is a BookBub deal, $.99 in ebook today only. Which I find rather exciting; Chess and Ryan’s adventures hold a special place in my grim, blackened little heart, and the cover is acres upon acres of mantitty, which also pleases me immensely. The moment I have some time and leeway I should get the sequel written, since Chess’s sister Charlie really needs to come into her own.

That’s the problem with writing books. The instant one is done, two more take its place in the to-do list.

I also have to laugh at the “reviewers” who think they would perform perfectly in situations certain fictional characters are faced with. (Go on with your Walter Mitty selves, dear ones.) I suppose that’s part of the joy of reading–patting oneself on the back, flattering oneself that one would behave with aplomb and sangfroid when faced with horrors beyond human comprehension. Not that it’s a bad thing! The reflex serves a valid psychological purpose, and no decent writer would argue otherwise. It’s just…funny to see it play out sometimes.

In other news, I finished the final revise on the second Sons of Ymre yesterday. This morning it goes back to the publisher. Now we only need to get through copyedits and proofs, then the book is cleared for a November launch–gods willing, health permitting, and the creek don’t rise, of course. I finished the revise after dinner in a blaze of concentration and No Sleep Till Brooklyn; the kids know that when the Beastie Boys are blasting, Mum is near the end of a project and shouldn’t be disturbed unless there’s blood, fire, or armed invasion.

I am a little sideways from that massive effort, so I can’t tell what’s on the docket today other than finishing formatting on the week’s subscription drop. Ideally I’d like to take the rest of the day and just…write something which pleases me. I’m sure something will hit the inbox to put paid to that particular dream, though.

Boxnoggin had to nose me two or three times before I could resurrect from the bed’s embrace this fine morn, and I’m sure if I dilly-dally the heat will build and I won’t even be able to get a run in. Which would be dreadful, since I sorely need to purge the stress chemicals and move my physical self enough to jar a few plot points into behaving. Particularly in Gamble, since we’re 30k into that particular book and the first big twist has been telegraphed, which means it now needs to unfold not quite in the way one is expecting.

So it’s swilling the rest of the coffee–shame the dog can’t run the espresso machine, but I’m sure it’s for the best–and grabbing some toast, then out the door for a mile-plus of walkies to wear dear Boxnoggin out. Then I can focus on wearing myself out until that blessed moment when I can return to bed and a depressing history book. Once I get through the current read I’ll polish off the third collected Elric, after which it might be time to reshuffle the bedside TBR pile into something approximating a system.

Or maybe I’ll just leave it in chaos. One needs a little bit of mess to keep the creative faculties primed, or at least I do. The trick is finding the right proportion–too little and it’s sterile, too much and it becomes a rotting albatross about the neck. The happy medium is a moving target, like so much else in life.

…yes, Boxnoggin has discerned, with his infallible sense of timing, that I’m on the very dregs of coffee. I can hear him stirring in the bedroom, where he was engaged upon his post-wakeup, pre-walkies nap. In a minute or so he’ll pad down the hall, nails clicking and collar jingling, to inform me it’s time for the rest of the morning’s rituals to commence.

Thursdays, my gods. Sooner or later I’ll get the hang of them, hopefully before I shuffle off the mortal coil…but I’m not holding my breath. And here comes Lord van der Sploot, sashaying into the office.

See you around.