Scorpion Dawn – Cover Copy
July 1, 2019 • No Comments
I’m still tweaking this slightly, but here is the first glimpse of Scorpion Dawn. It’s in the upcoming Rogue Skies box set and is the prequel novella to the Hellion House series.
When the prey becomes the hunter
Miranda Fletcher lives in a glittering world of aeronauts and artists, dance cards and dandies, but terror lurks outside the city walls. The countryside is infested with hungry abominations called the Unseen, and a single crack in the capital’s magical defenses invites disaster and death.
When Miranda witnesses a murder, she learns the gates aren’t as secure as the Conclave—the city’s protectors—claim. Despite the danger, it’s a secret the mages fiercely guard. When Miranda and her brother learn too much, the price of the family’s survival is silence.
No one is foolhardy enough to defy the Conclave, much less battle the Unseen. But when tragedy shatters her home, breaking apart bonds of blood and affection, Miranda refuses to turn the other cheek.
Sometimes the smallest creature carries the deadliest sting.
Happy, pretty things
June 1, 2019 • 2 Comments
I love illustrated books, especially older ones with hand-drawn and tinted plates. While lots of my favorites are illustrations of novels and children’s stories, I’m fond of old scientific works as well. Botany texts, seed catalogues, and gardening manuals offer a wealth of gorgeous illustrations (as well as information on how to grow things without a boatload of chemicals). Some varieties that show up aren’t that common in modern gardens, so they are great references when looking for heritage specimens.
Recently I brought home a lovely old English (1843) volume because, y’know, book research.
Here’s a sample page of The Floricultural Cabinet and Florist’s Magazine, conducted by Joseph Harrison, editor of the Gardener’s Record, etc.:
I find a quick dose of happiness in the New York Botanical Garden page a day calendar (willowcreekpress.com). It alternates modern photographs of their amazing facility with antique botanical illustrations. I keep this on my desk at the day job so I can take a quick mental vacation to a beautiful green space as required.
Here’s a link to the garden itself: https://www.nybg.org/. The online shop is fun for gardening fans.
Addictive world-building
February 7, 2019 • No Comments
I was thinking about what I wanted most in a story. Some like spooky chills, others the heartache of a great romance. For me, it’s the OMG wonder of discovering an amazing world. Prydain. Middle Earth. Westeros. I love a fully-formed fantasy realm I can walk into and find friends waiting for me. I don’t take to most I find—I’m picky and take a while to settle in—but I’m loyal once it’s won me over.
I think part of the problem with finding a truly satisfying realm is that they’re hard to build. It goes far beyond naming kingdoms and drawing maps. There is a terroir that infuses everything so that the reader instinctively knows the smell and texture of each item in the place. Great authors can spin that out of the aether, making it distinct and complex and madly simple all at once. The characters grow from it (or vice versa) so that even the agents of change are the natural extension of the realm’s internal conflicts. It’s all terribly logical and consistent, as if the reader is encountering a history rather than a piece of fiction.
I read these things and think: I wish I’d written that. And somehow, weirdly, feel as if I have because the author has made it so incredibly real it’s become part of me just by looking at the page.
Is that writing or summoning a world?
How to begin a book (or not)
January 16, 2019 • No Comments
How to begin a book? Book beginnings tend to go two ways with me: either out of the gate like a shot or in a dithery fashion that means I begin chapter one about twenty times, erase it, make it chapter three, erase it, then go back
to whatever it was I wrote the first time.
Some people would say that the latter method results from a failure to plot and/or I didn’t understand the story well enough. This might be true. Most of storytelling is a mysterious process and though people throw theories at it, I doubt it will ever become an exact science. The story might be stalled because my tea was the wrong temperature and/or one sock was inside out. More likely is that I used up my allotted number of story beginnings early on in my writing career, since I started ten stories for every one that I finished.
Half the theorists say the story should begin in the regular, everyday world of the protagonist. The other half advocate for a major explosion. One wonders about the protagonist’s propensity for bomb-making.
The best way to connect these dots (at least some of the time) is to consider that there is exterior action (incendiary vampires, or whatever action you are proposing) and interior action (whatever character growth the protagonist will undergo). What we’re looking for to launch the story is conflict. It could be the start of the action plot (kaboom!) or it could be a high point of conflict for the interior plot (or both, if you can make them realistically coincide).
I’ll throw my advice into the mix: If in doubt, start with the interior plot, but make it a big moment. Show the character sweating so we like that person but understand how he or she desperately needs to change.
Examples of a high-conflict interior plot opening could be a fight, the character getting fired, or the character doing something else high-risk. Whatever flaw they have, demonstrate it to the max. This makes a nice bookend with the end of the novel, where you can show them reacting a different way to the same situation. That’s a straightforward demonstration that they aren’t the same person they were at the start.
Chapter one: Billy gets in a bar fight
Chapter thirty-one: Having developed people skills, Billy de-escalates a similar situation.
This is a stupid-simple example, but you get the point. There is a difference between flashy and important. Billy might win NASCAR and that might make up the bulk of the exterior plot, but it’s important on a personal level that he is a functional human being so that he stays out of jail and weds Mary-Lou.
Put another way, remember that HIGH STAKES are important to open the story, but the HIGHEST stakes are those the protagonist carries inside them. If in doubt, start your story there.
Frostbound: The Dark Forgotten coming up
January 1, 2019 • No Comments
Last year, my goal was to re-release my Dark Forgotten series (Ravenous, Scorched, Unchained, and Frostbound). I had three purposes in mind:
- To get the books in the hands of new readers at a sensible price
- To give myself the chance to revisit the world and build on it if I so choose
- To get some indie books into the world so that I can build my sales
Check, check and check. I’m just about to release Frostbound, the fourth in the original series, which gets me up to date. I was slow on this one in order to get Gifted out the door in time 
for Christmas but, hey, I really wanted to do a holiday-themed novella. I hope you enjoyed it!
Doing an edit pass of these books was educational. I can see improvements from book to book and also how much I’ve learned about writing since. This is completely natural and healthy. However, at times I’m troubled by errors that got past the previous professional editing team, but I have to let that go. It’s history. Probably much of what’s bugging me are only things I’d notice but, as a professional, I want to put out the best possible product. In any event, the books are better now than before, and that’s what counts.
Case in point—today I added a new final chapter to Frostbound. After a reread, I thought a more fulsome wrap-up would improve it. Poor Talia needed a bit more time to adjust to the new hellhound in her life—not to mention the rest of the pack—and we were all waiting for election results. Now there’s a few more questions answered. Not everything, of course, because Joe and Darak and the rest still have stories in the future.
Release date will be mid January, 2019. For more on this book, look here.
Favorite Supernatural Holiday Carols
December 6, 2018 • No Comments
Who 
doesn’t like a playlist of holiday favorites? Whether you’re rocking around the Yuletide tree or mixing punch in your festive cauldron, no party is complete without a soundtrack of traditional and contemporary tunes. We consulted with the good folks over at CSUP—the station that puts super in supernatural—to get their most-requested numbers for the season.
Here we go with the countdown:
- God Rest Ye Hairy Gentlemen
- Silent Night, Howly Night
- Here Comes Santa Claws
- Jingle Hells
- We Three Kings Disoriented Are (aka the mummy song)
- O Come, All Ye Fateful
- The Little Dragon Boy
- It Came Upon a Midnight Drear
- What Child is This? (Theme from The Gingerbread House in the Woods)
- The First Nom Nom (the werewolf did say)
For those of you planning a sing-a-long this season, drop by the station for song sheets and a hot drink between now and New Year’s Day. Our doors are always open! As for whether you ever leave again, your mileage may vary.
10 Holiday Gifts for Your Supernatural Friends
December 3, 2018 • 1 Comment
Christmas shopping can be challenging at the best of times, but the non-humans on the list can present special problems. Need ideas for what to get the vampire with centuries of clutter in his garage or the mermaid who needs everything waterproofed? Here are some suggestions from our retail experts:
- Get that vampire a month’s rental on a storage locker big enough to house his spare coffin collection!
- For the shifters we suggest many, many lint rollers or a rechargeable hand vacuum!
- For the fussy feline shifters, how about modern art that doubles as a scratching post?
- As a stocking stuffer, nothing beats fake human teeth for the vampires!
- A definite must have: non-toxic chew toys for the werepuppies.
- Environmentally friendly dry cleaning options for the mummies on your list.
- Steaks
- Stakes
- A personal crossroad for that special demon. Top seller: something on Route 666.
- High-strength spray adhesive is a thoughtful present for those zombies who just can’t keep it together.
Just remember, whatever you choose, it’s the thought that counts—or possibly the deliciously fresh brains that just manufactured that thought …