I really don’t mean to fall off the grid; I’m just clumsy

It’s October! When did that happen?

I suppose you lot might be wondering where I ran off to.  Wouldn’t you like to know? I’m still not sure. I certainly wasn’t in the Alps trying to find the mystical Tatzelwurm. Though what a boon for Season of the Witch if I had been. You’d all forgive me the then, right?

What I do know is: I’m still alive, still kicking words around. It’s just been one crazy summer on this end, let me tell you. And, things are not about to calm down any time soon. In fact, this month is probably going to be the craziest. I’m down to the final draft wire on -secret project- and also in the midst of a big move because timing has never been my strong suit.

That being said, let’s get to the updates, shall we?

So, about that, uh, early August release for Season of the Witch #9. In case you haven’t noticed, that didn’t happen. I wanted it to, but I also want the work that I deliver to all of you to be of the highest possible quality and, to be blunt, it wasn’t there. That’s left me with a lot of important decisions mainly because of the experimental nature of Season of the Witch.

I don’t know if anyone other than me really noticed this, but each issue of Season of the Witch so far has been set exactly a year prior to its release date. It’s part of this whole grand vision of an experiment in distribution as well as form (blah, blah, blah). Yeah, I’m willing to admit that sometimes my ideas not only outstrip my time and abilities, but also what really is necessary. While I’ve always found the dating system “clever,” it’s not important to the story and it’s incredibly limiting to let so much time pass between events. Plotlines that I want to develop end up by the wayside. I find it difficult to introduce new characters because their introduction would have taken place in the intervening time, etc. I suppose that if I were releasing an installment weekly or even monthly, that wouldn’t be as much of an issue, but, see the above mention of wanting to make certain I release a quality product that I feel good about and can stand behind.

I suppose this is a long, roundabout way of saying that the action of Season of the Witch #9 will take place only a few days after Season of the Witch #8, but it probably will not be released until January. I will have more details soon. I hope this doesn’t disappoint you all too terribly. I am considering beginning work on the graphic novel editions (whether we reach the Patreon goal or not) over the winter *crosses fingers* and for these editions to fill in story gaps, so don’t worry, the wait is going to be worth it. I hope.

(This is why I ultimately choose Patreon rather than kickstarter, fyi. I -knew- that the posting schedule might end up getting a little, flux, if you will.)

The rest of the updates are way more amorphous, but they include good projects and loads of edits and rewrites of older projects that all may come to life/light some day in the future. I will do better about keeping you updated. In fact (though, oh how many times have I said this), I hope that I will be updating this blog a lot more in the future (as soon as I figure out what to do here other than keeping up updated on my writing  – or a way to translate that into a more regular posting schedule).

Oh! and, Patreon subscribers!, if you haven’t received the email yet, I recommend reading this blog post.

 

 

Not a stand alone piece in any way…

The next installment of Season of the Witch, “Daughter of Detroit” is out for edits right now. I’m pretty excited about it. I really enjoy Clarissa as a character. I feel like her out-of-time disconnect really speaks to me. Like many of the Season of the Witch characters, Clarissa has a hard time connecting with the world around her, but unlike many of those other characters, Clarissa desperately wants to. She wants to be part of the world and finds herself ill-equipped to do so. (A lot like someone else I know. *whistles innocently* but that’s another blog post for another day.)

What I’m pondering today before I dive into edits and try to make my self imposed deadline, is one observation my boyfriend made: “Well, it’s not a stand alone piece in any way.”

Which is completely true. It’s not a stand alone piece. It hasn’t been for awhile.

Season of the Witch has been slowly moving away from being stand alones since I decided to write a sequel to Jaclyn of the Lantern. Even Jaclyn, though, benefits greatly from the added knowledge acquired by reading on. Since Red, when the series diverged from the originally planned six novellas to a much more extended set of episodes, I have known quite well that the stories in the series are all part of a greater mythology, a larger artistic work that hopefully, one day, will be collected into a single tome (Hence the Patreon, which hints at this goal. I would love to make said collection an illustrated and unique work of art, but that’s way down the road). The fact that the pieces are not stand alone is not a failing, but it makes me wonder though if I need to rethink my release structure. I mean, it is a -huge- experiment after all. Sometimes, I think I’m flailing around in the dark with this self publishing thing.

As things currently stand, I put out an installment once every few months by publishing it on Smashwords. I do this so that I can get the largest amount of formats for the smallest investment. By using this method, it creates a separate “book” for each installment, which I don’t necessarily mind. I started doing this with Jaclyn because at that time the plan was six stand alone novellas, but I’ve kept it up because as of right now I’m not aware of a more effective method, and besides, in my mind, it adds something to the endeavor. I jokingly call Season of the Witch my “comic book project” for this reason. But is this really best? Or is it just confusing to people who come to the project expecting full length stories, only to find something a lot more episodic than what they were after? Is there a release structure that would be more indicative of what the series truly is?

I’ve been thinking a lot about comics and sequential art lately…

Or do I just think too much?

Big August Announcement!

It’s August! Can you believe it? Where does the time go?

 

In a few short weeks, volume five of Season of the Witch will be released (that is, if I ever decide on a title). I’ve already begun work on volume six (hopefully due out in October): The Chaos Gate.  My hope is that I can begin work on the first print book in October and include all the material from the first year. But there’s something more important that I need to announce to Season of the Witch  fans:

 

Yep! That’s right. I am launching a Patreon campaign.

Now, this took a lot of thought on my part about how I planned to handle the Season of the Witch series after my pricing realizations. To those who supported me and purchased Jaclyn of the Lantern  and Bethania’s Broomsticks, I am immensely grateful. I didn’t want to lower the price on those items initially because I worried I would seem ungracious to those initial fans who were willing to pay $1 for my work.  However, reaching a wide audience is critical if I wish to continue writing, especially if I wish for it to be more than a hobby, and as a person who is very shy (even on the internet), I have to come up with different ways to build my platform.

For those who don’t know, Patreon is a crowdsourced service where fans become patrons of their favorite creators. Unlike other services (such as Kickstarter) which raise money in one lump sum, Patreon raises money as the artist creates. This provides the artist with recurring funding and the patron the sense of power that comes with being somewhat like the Medicis of Florence. This is their FAQ if you want to know more.

For my campaign, the baseline donation is $1 per novella with two bonus categories. The novellas themselves will remain free, but those who wish to support me further can add a “tip” of $1. At $2, I will publicly thank the supporter (and link to their twitter, blog, books of their own, if they so wish) here on this blog with the release of each novella as well as including them in an acknowledgements section in the book. I added a $5 tier for those who want bonus content, which at this point is sneak peeks and maybe an audio reading or two, but if people sign up at that tier I’ll determine some better goodies based on their requests.

At this point, I have two stretch goals: If we reach the point where $100 is pledged per novella (be that 100 different people or 10 – the glory of Patreon), I will begin work on illustrations for the “grimoires” which will be art books based on the series and if we reach $500, I will begin publishing And So It Was In The Kingdom as a free novella as well.  I will consider further stretch goals if we reach them. So head on over to my campaign page and check it out! I will be more than happy to answer any further questions.

And to those who have always supported me: Thank You! From the bottom of my heart. Please do not think your support is unappreciated by this move. I don’t know all of your names (because Smashwords doesn’t give me access to that information), so I cannot publicly thank you, but know that you are all in my heart.

Now Available: Red, Season of the Witch #4

Exciting News!

The next installment in the Season of the Witch series is available now on Smashwords and pretty much wherever you buy your ebooks!

Red tells the story of Clarissa LaRoux, a young nurse living in Detroit. One minute she is drinking coffee in her apartment in 1965; the next, she’s waking up in a hospital. It’s 48 years later, but she hasn’t aged a day.

With the help of her old school friend, Opaline, now in her mid seventies, she sets out to discover what happened to her and whether or not it had anything to do with the strange goblin that appeared at her window that fateful night.

Red, in true Season of the Witch fashion blends the trouble myth of Detroit’s very own lutin with the Eastern European legend of the fern flower and of course the brewing trouble between the witches of the Harvest and the Underland. It’s a can’t miss.

So get your copy today!

 

 

 

Rejection and Making Decisions

I’m currently in that “just moved” limbo. I turned over the keys to my old place today. Things are all -in- the new place, but mostly strewn about. Slowly, they’re getting into a settled order, but I find myself having to make a lot of decisions about what goes where. In the old place the coffee mugs had a place automatically. Of course I put the coffee mug on the second shelf in the cabinet to the right of sink. They’ve always gone on the second shelf in the cabinet to the right of the sink. Well…now there is no cabinet to the right of the sink! The horror.

I can, however, go to IKEA and, semi-homemade style, build my own cabinet to house the coffee mugs and sundry other currently homeless home-goods.

*

I have queried The Black Guard Chronicles to ten agents since January and have gotten back nary a word aside from a few form rejections. Let me tell you, years of religiously following the Query Shark has given me the strange belief that a form rejection means that you have in some way offended the agent, so that doesn’t help matters much.  I know that The Black Guard Chronicles is good. I believe in this series. Unfortunately, it seems like there is no shelf to the right of the sink. The question becomes now: do I build one?

Brief Housekeeping Items from the Writer

• I’m doing nanowrimo again this year, which is exciting. I’m working on a humorous (ish) blend of political satire, time travel, and zombies. So far I am two days ahead of par on my word count, but it is a bit of an incoherent mess, so there will be a lot of polishing come editing time. Never fear though, with some luck and writing gods willing (I mean we are only 7 days in), you’ll be reading Better Undead Than Red sometime in the fall of 2013.
  • PS if you’re doing nano and want a writing buddy, look up rosainverno, I’d be glad to have someone to keep me in check.

• The first book in The Black Guard Chronicles is completed. I mean it. 100% completed. I still want it to be beta-read by someone, but I really think that it’s ready for the world and it’s time to stop stalling. I just have to make two critical decisions:
  • The current working title is The Black Guard Chronicles Book One: Dosia Blirski. That’s not catchy. I’m thinking of working up a poll or something for title ideas.
  • Do I want to query agents or do another Amazon deal? I’m not the world’s greatest marketer, but traditional publishing is super tough too.

• I’m thinking of doing two web-based serials. One is my modernized update of A Christmas Carol which I started writing last year. It would be published on the writing blog over the course of December. The other is a graphic-novel-esque modern interpretation (with some significant changes to some of the stories, fyi) of The Decameron. I’m floating these two out there to see if there’s any interest.

The Legend of League Park: An announcement

Some of you may know this, but in April I will be officially launching my first published work: The Legend of League Park.

This is truly a dream come true. Not only has being a published author been my dream since I was a very young girl, but the themes in this novel are very close to my heart.

The work itself has gone through many incarnations since it’s initial inception. What was originally meant to be a book about a young baseball historian discovering the Cleveland Naps (a plot I may still use in the future) has morphed into a coming of age story about two young women  dedicated to achieving their dreams, despite the “boys’ club” mentality of the fields in which they wish to excel.

In honor of this (and, of course, to build some anticipation), I’ve decided that I will be blogging each week about an interesting woman from baseball history. I’m really excited to bring you this blog series. It will begin on Monday.

Digital Publishing, Victorian Style

I’ve been thinking a lot about the blog as a medium for writing. I know that I don’t post here often and this mainly because I am still trying to find this blog’s niche. The original plan was to be about my journey from writing my novels to their (hopefully) eventual publication. This quickly fell by the wayside. The world has so many writer’s blogs, do we really need another blog chronicling the publishing process? I’m sure you’ve read enough about query letters to last everyone a lifetime at this point.

I have a couple ideas for continuation. One is based around the whole “Daughter of Rock in the City of Soul” concept a little more closely as a place to do Detroit and Cleveland history posts. Another is a forum for posting of my poetry.

And then…there’s a third…and I’m not entirely sure how I feel about it: A novel in blog form.

Now, wait, don’t run away, hear me out.

Webcomics made me think of it. Unlike many gag-a-day comics that I read in print, a lot of webcomic artists that I know actually have plots and story arcs that they intend to follow. In many ways, they seem to be graphic novels on the web. The wheels then began turning…how could I translate a novel to the internet? Maybe a blog, a blog with a chapter released weekly or monthly, like the Victorian authors once did with their serials in magazines?

I’m sure this has been done before. I’m just not sure how I feel about this as of yet. I am very much a devotee of the traditional publishing format (be that paper or ebook), but perhaps for some of my writing, this might be an interesting experiment, especially something less publishable. Not “lower quality” but more niche. I mean, I am rather comfortable with putting poetry into the blog, due to the unfortunate lack of poetry publication available in other formats and as the ebook slowly takes over, I often worry about niche publications’ ability to compete with “blockbuster” authors.

So…leave me your thoughts, and stay tuned.

And…public speaking…

DURING the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens…
-Edgar Allen Poe Fall of the House of User

We’re getting in to my favorite season now. There’s a crispness in the mornings. Though…there has been since about mid-August, but I can pretend.

My first public reading is on Friday night and I am beyond panicked about this. I haven’t read poetry out loud since high school, which, well, we’ll just say was long enough ago to make me a little rusty. I have chosen a somewhat longer selection than my usual poetry that is more of a dialogue between my father and myself, but I am unsure about the protocol regarding this, and may switch to something more indicative of my style (and also a bit less prose in nature) after going through my files, as I intend to do later today.

That’s going to be messy as well. Some of the pieces in there haven’t seen the light of day in almost a decade…and with good reason.

There is power in youthful self-indulgent poetry though. I won’t deny that. Where would be be literarily without it?

Video Killed the Radio Star

The process of acclimating to a new place is always complicated. I don’t even think I was entirely acclimated to the last apartment, but here I am again, in the process of learning all those little details: how to turn on the shower, where the light switches are, where the buses go from here…and, of course, trying to remember what I used to do before wifi.

I know that I did things. I was born into the digital age, but I have certainly not always had access. I spent a few formative years a little off the beaten path. However…it has been quite a long time, and while I spend this week waiting to be reconnected to the wired world (and I am not very patient as my currently in a coffee shop status will indicate), I’ve gotten to think a lot about that.

I use the internet for a great deal: keeping up with current events, checking the weather, communicating with my friends, my colleagues, my employers…making sure the bus is on time, preliminary novel research, trip planning. I suppose it might be safe to say the internet is more than a little deeply ingrained into my life.

Not to mention how that effects being a librarian nowadays. Several months ago, a nice gentleman came in, wandered about confused for a moment or two and asked me in a concerned voice, “where is the card catalogue?”

Vividly, I remember the little typeset cards. There isn’t anything like that in our library anymore. It really hits me with a wave of nostalgia. I love old things like those little typeset cards, but I’m not going to say the digital age is evil. As I’ve already established, I benefit a fair bit from it as well. Plenty has been written decrying it (for example: an article, I personally found more than a little elitist, but perhaps that is just my perception.), but as with all things…I suppose it just takes a little balance.

Speaking of which, the process of hand-printing my first chapbook will begin next week. After I have wifi so that I can look up a few things from home.

Current Reading: Roald Dahl’s Book of Ghost Stories