Everyone I Ever Was and Everyone I Ever Will Be

Smashwords is having their sitewide Summer/Winter Sale. Until the end of July, you can get both of my books at discount:

In the Darkness Find Me is FREE with coupon code SSWSF.

Jia's Charms is HALF OFF (making it $1.50) with coupon code SSW50.

Put up one of the short stories included in In the Darkness Find Me as a freebie:

Heaven Must Lose

24. How willing are you to kill your characters if the plot so demands it? What's the most interesting way you've killed someone?

I'm willing to kill a character if I think it's necessary to the plot. To me, 'necessary to plot' means that it's unrealistic for a large group of characters to go through a situation like the one I've got them in with all of them making it out unscathed. Or if a character's in a seriously bad spot and there's no way to get them out of it and it's either kill them or come up with a deux ex machina, then they're toast.

I do specifically work on not killing one character just in order to motivate another. I hate the whole 'fridging' thing and when LOST started to do it is when I had to stop watching. And while I know that sometimes crappy, unexpected things happen in real life fights, I'm not much for Death As Gritty Shock Value either ((I'm looking at you, Serenity)).

It also partly depends on the universe I've got it set in. There'll probably be more death in the Pale Moon universe, with its vampires, zombies, werewolves, banshees, and all the accompanying inter-group battles than there was in the We Were Strangers universe, which was at heart a kids-style fantasy story.

As for interesting ways to kill someone: I did have someone attacked by a Demonic Creepy Thing and then thrown out a window in In the Darkness Find Me.

8. What's your favorite genre to write? To read?

To write: Different kinds of fantasy-- Sci-fi fantasy (Karavan, Stealing Time); Urban fantasy (Pale Moon); Traditional fantasy (Memories of Her Singing); Romantic fantasy (Jia's Charms). Also YA (Eight Ruby Slippers for Charlotte) and horror (In the Darkness Find Me).

To read: Horror novels and short stories, fantasy, some true crime.

So I'm working out a list of "Things to Get Done Before Ian's Born":


1) Put In the Darkness Find Me up on my website.

2) Finish the decorative paintwork on the upstairs bookshelves.

3) Complete a revised edit for both Jia's Charms and its sequel.


I just got one thing-- rewrite the solely-my-character parts of Eight Ruby Slippers for Charlotte in the first person-- done tonight. :-) And Chris and I found a wall-mounted pot rack for a good price, and he also built a shelf out of scrap lumber and hung it on the kitchen wall, so we gained some cabinet/counter space and were able to reorganize the kitchen a couple of days ago. Another checkmark.

So, three things to get done before late May. I think I can handle that.

Available here! Cover art by the fantastic Mandy Roberts. You can see more of the art she did for this novel here.

*skips off*

Having yet another hi-my-brain-is-swiss-cheese-and-I'm-loopy day.

Feeling kinda twitchy because a writing project that I was working on has up and died in my head. It's happened more than once . . . I'll get an idea, do character profiles, come up with a general outline, start writing-- and then about thirty pages in it'll all go 'ha ha' and wink out. When it stays with me I'll end up with something like In the Darkness Find Me, which I'm very proud of (query letters will be sent out this Friday!) and sometimes the once-dead ideas will come back.

I've heard from more than one writer that you just have to sit down and make yourself write, but I tend to go with the other school of thought-- if you force it, it will be crap. I know this to be true for myself at least, because I've tried, and it was crap. ;-) Something else will come along. It's still frustrating, though.

Ah well. I'm better at collaborative projects. *G*

Anyway.

Was looking for a movie to watch yesterday night and I saw the box for Quills. I've only seen it once, about three or four years ago, because it made me cry and I keep thinking that one of these days I really should watch it again but I can't quite steel myself because I know it's gonna put me through the wringer.

Considering that, why do I even own it?



Yeah. That would be why.

You know what? There is too much blood in my sugarstream. That's the explanation for all this.

Today is such a good day.

First, the character portrait (see previous entry).

Then, I finished the final draft of In the Darkness Find Me. If there's any publishing news later on, I will let you all know. In caps lock. ;-)

And now I'm over at mom and dad's, they're ordering pizza, and guess what came from amazon.com today?

My copy of Bride and Prejudice! Will be watching that as soon as I get home. :-)