Goals and Such

I don't really like New Year's resolutions. I always figure if you want to do something, resolve to do it right there and then. Don't save up all your promises-of-things-you'll-do for one big day. That seems like a recipe for failure to me (though there can be success in failure, too). However, this arbitrary counting of time we call a year (OK, not entirely arbitrary, but how many people really think about what it is we base the length of a year on?) can be useful for stopping to take stock.

Last year, I didn't do as well as I hoped with my goals. I had planned to have a lot more writing done and available for people to read, but I got derailed pretty early on, and I'm not even sure why. I did manage to write (or finish) three novels (two shortish YAs and one somewhat longer adult novel), so really that's not so bad. And I drew some dragons, made some books, got a die-cutter and expanded my card-making repertoire.

But this year, I'm not going to focus on what I didn't get done last year. Well, I am, sort of, but not really. Actually, I'm going to work on some much older things in addition to trying to write more new things.

Old Things to Work On

(Note that I didn't say "Old Things to Finish." I hope to finish them, but if I don't, that's OK. At least I will have more done than I did before).

This Blog. I'm going to aim for a regular weekly post again this year. This is the first one. I won't give myself any soft of word count goal. Just one post a week, even if it's just a picture or a favourite quote.

My Comic. A million years ago, I started an urban fantasy comic -- a webcomic in the sense that I intended to first make it available on the web, though except for lettering, it's all drawn the old-fashioned way and ultimately I want it in print. I worked on it off and on over the years, a little here, a little there. It takes me a really really long time to draw.

Then, in 2004, just before I moved to Nova Scotia, I decided to re-draw everything I had already done to fix it. And I did. Every week a new page, and I even kept going after I finished re-drawing. I made it to the middle of issue 3 (around 50-something pages) and then, for reasons I no longer recall, I stopped. I even still had a few more pages planned out.

So now, ten years later, I'm going to have another go at it. I still love my characters, and it's still a story I want to get to the end of. But I'm not going to re-draw it again, even though it's old art and I might be able to draw it better (and looking back, I really shouldn't have bothered re-drawing it last time; I should have put the energy into making new pages). If I still have all my old files, and I can figure out WordPress well enough to make it do what I need, I might even have the first page up today. I'm going to start from the very beginning, one page a week to start, and while old pages are going up, I'll work on new ones. We'll see how far I get this time. I'd like to at least get to the end of the current storyline.

My Serials. I've have two serial novels on JukePop Serials, both of which have been neglected, due to the mysterious derailment of 2013. One of them -- the one I write as Calliope Strange -- is actually finished. I just haven't posted it all. For that one, I'll put up at least one chapter a week until it's done. The other one, Reindeer Girl, is not finished, but it will be. It was meant to be a way of finishing a book I started a while back, and a way to get me writing regularly. It can still be those things. Maybe I'll manage once a week, but if I can at least get going on it again, however slowly, I'll be pleased.

Other. I'm sure there are other old things I'll revisit through the year, but for now, these will do.

New Things Ahead

Dragons. This isn't entirely new, of course, as it's something I started working on on 2013, but this year I want to make it a major focus. A couple of days ago, I made a Scrivener file for it so I can start working on the text, and yesterday I had another stab at a dragon illustration that's been kicking my butt. I still didn't get it, but I got closer. This is my fun thing, the thing I'm making entirely for myself, but I'll share it, and maybe others will like it, too.

Fiction. There are always too many novels in my head, but this year I'd like to see if I can write one or two more Others novels (as Nic Silver). There are two more I know I need to write for sure. One is what happens to Evgeny while Su is in Germany, and the other is the continuation of Su's quest to find out what happened to her little sister. Also, I'd like to get working on the next Kentaurs novel, which I had intended to write over the summer. And eventually, though perhaps not this year, we'll have to find out what the heck is going to happen to Dubhghall and Maddy after the events of Dark Stranger.

Publishing. I need to get White Raven Press back on track, starting with a new website. I have a handful of novels and collections to get into print, and one to put up digital. Maybe two, but Deer Mouse is an experiment in submitting to a traditional publisher, so I'll have to wait till I hear back.

Painting. Last year I bought some exciting new art supplies, and promptly had no time to play with them. So this year, that's what I'll do. Play. Learn some things. I have a selection of casein paints, and I've already prepped a whole pile of boards to paint on. Maybe something will come of it, or maybe I'll just have fun. Either is good.

Craft. My goals here are just to keep on making stuff, and make more of an effort to market and get work into stores. I hope to do more hand-papermaking, so likely I'll have more cards printed on my own paper, and probably more linocuts rather than polymer letterpress. But again, we'll see how it goes. Also, I plan to play around with more 3D sculptures using die-cut elements. My first batch of dragons came out well, and were well-received. Also, they were great fun to design.

Photography. Some of you may know I studied photography (as well as printmaking, design, and book arts) in art school. I haven't done a lot of photo recently, asked from snaps to sort of visually journal things I see. I have some ideas for projects tumbling around in my head, but I just upgraded my iPhone, and I got a set of Olloclip macro lenses for Christmas (I had their 3-in-1 macro/wide angle/fish eye for my old phone, and will probably pick up the one for my current phone eventually), so I think I'm going to focus on shooting iPhone pictures. No pressure on myself to make great pictures, just something fun. And if they start turning out well, maybe I'll get more serious.

More…

I'm sure there were more things I was going to say, but I've gone on way longer than I meant to, so I'll stop. Basically, I plan to have fun this year, and finish more things -- some old, some new. The only way I can fail is if I stop writing/drawing/crafting completely, and that's pretty unlikely.

Pay-What-You-Want Jewellery and Original Art (or Commission Me!)

For all the info you need to take part is this rare and unusual giant sale of pretty much all my work, please see this post.

Copper Printing Plate Jewellery
These pieces are all hand cut with a jeweller's saw out of recycled copper intaglio plates from my own designs. Most of the skulls are about an inch wide or a wee bit more, so you can kind of judge the size from there. If you need more photos or info, just ask. The feathers are cut from a fairly light copper plate, while the others are much heavier (I don't know the gauge but I can try to figure it out if you need to know).

Usually these retail for $30 for feathers and $35 for skulls. The two scarabs are $75 and $95. I almost never mark them down, so you have a chance to get them as cheap as you'd like.

As shown, the copper is starting to age and tarnish a little. It's really easy to brighten it up to a super shine, or you can let it age and take on different hues as it gets older. I can spray on a clear matte finish if you like, but usually I just put a little renaissance wax on.

Here's what they are (click the image to make it bigger):
1. finch feather
2. white tail deer
3.great horned owl
4. pileated woodpecker
5. mountain goat
6. peacock feather
7. scarab beetle
8. fancy spiral scarab
9. red fox
10. bottlenose dolphin
11. snowshoe hare
12. american badger
13. domestic cat
14. north american porcupine
15. striped skunk
16. harbour seal
17. platypus
18. horse
19. black bear

Miniature Book Jewellery

Yes, these really are tiny books with actual turnable pages. The larger books are just over an inch tall, so that should give you an idea of their size. They retail for $20 for a Japanese stab-stitch necklace, $25 for Japanese earrings or European leather-and-marbled-paper hardcover necklace, and $35 for European-style earrings. Again, I almost never put these on sale, so now's your chance. (They make good gifts!)

European-style earrings (click the image to make it bigger):

European-style pendants (click the image to make it bigger):

Japanese-style earrings (click the image to make it bigger):

Japanese-style pendants (click the image to make it bigger):

Original Art

I don't have a whole lot of original art sitting around, that isn't in the form of prints or books, but I do have a couple of things. If I happen across more, I'll add it, but I think this is really it at the moment. I can however, do something new just for you, but see below for that.

This piece was made to go on the cover of my YA novel A Madness of Kentaurs, hence the centaur on it. Shipping on it could be higher than on the prints, because it's cut/torn paper adhered to fairly heavy card and can't be rolled. It measures 12 by 15 inches.

Then there's this little raven skull pen & ink with watercolour. It's 4 by 6 inches on watercolour paper and was going to be the first of a series showing a raven skull from various angles. I'll finish the series eventually. I'm tempted to just keep it, but...

Commission Me (or Otherwise Hire Me)

I'm not offering commissions on a pay-what-you-want basis, but if you ask for something now I'll charge less than I usually would. Plus I hardly ever offer to do commissions (I'm always open to being asked, I just rarely have time what with all my own projects).

Aside from various sorts of illustration, I also do digital re-touch and custom letterpress, as well as editing of both fiction and non-fiction. If you have something in mind, get in touch, and we'll see about agreeing on a cost and a timeframe. For this kind of job, I will require partial payment up front, with the balance due when the job is completed.

Card Sale

If you've managed to read this far, I have one more thing to add to this sale. Again, it's not pay-what-want, and I'm too headachey right now to post pictures, but all of my die-cut and letterpress cards -- normally selling for $6 or 5 for $25 -- will be 5 for $20 if you buy them directly from me. I'm not sure how long I'll keep them on sale. Maybe a week or two. I'll see about posting images of what I currently have in stock later on so anyone who doesn't know my work can see what I have.

Finally, if there was something you were hoping to see but didn't, please leave a comment or send me an email (anagramforink at gmail) -- I might have missed a few things.

A Quick Writing Update

So, it seems to have been ages since I last posted here. Oops. But I found a big stash of old articles I wrote when I was the "Guide" at About Creative Writing for Teens. The site no longer exists, so I can use the articles however I like. So I think I'm going to start posting them here. I'll edit them some, probably, because my views on some things have changed over the years.

But, the reason I started this post was to say something about the writing I'm doing now. When I first started this blog, it was a way to keep track of what I was working on publicly, with the idea that if people could see when I was being lazy, I'd be less likely to be lazy. So I'm going to try to start doing that again. This could mean lots of very short posts like back in the old days, so be warned.

Anyway. Right now, I am just about to start on today's word count on Dark Stranger, the sequel to Milk Sister. It's coming along very well, at 44, 234 words, and I think it's just about to head full speed into the finale. But I also seem to be leaving a lot of unanswered questions, so there's going to be a third book, most likely. Milk Sister was Maddy's tale, Dark Stranger is Dubhghall's, and untitled book 3 will be their story together. Or something. Then again, I did introduce a pair of interesting new characters in this book, who also have a story...

Other writing news... Reindeer Girl (aka White Foxes, Full Moon) is being serialized at JukePop Serials. Soon I'm going to reach the end of the bits I've written and start writing new stuff. Fortunately, I know more-or-less where it's heading. Aeryn Daring and the Scientific Detective, by alter-ego Calliope Strange, which was formerly serialized at Doctor Fantastique's is now also being serialized at JukePop. It's been finished for some time, so it will appear a chapter at a time until the end (14 installments). After that, I plan to write the next chapter in Aeryn's story. Especially if the current book proves popular.

And finally, now that this update has already gone on longer than I meant it to, Kentaurs. I had a reader (a fan? Do I have a fan?) ask if/when there would be a sequel to A Madness of Kentaurs. The answer is, this summer, if all goes well with finishing up the projects listed above. It'll be called Melanippe's Odyssey, and though it's not a direct sequel (Octavian and Ixion probably won't be in it, except maybe at the end), it will tie into the larger story.

So, there. That's what I'm up to. Now I need to go get Dubhghall a little closer to finding Maddy and figuring out how to escape his destiny.

(PS. I will come back to this later and add links. I'm on my iPad right now and the Blogger app is a bit of a pain for doing much other than text. Edit: JukePop links added (and pictures, too!))

New Book: A Madness of Kentaurs

A Madness of Kentaurs

Octavian wants two things: to see the kentaur herd pass by on the plains, and to have a horse of his own. Ixion is a kentaur shaman-in-training, considered special by his people, but also set apart from them. During the season of madness a runaway horse brings the two together, where they learn that humans and kentaurs have more in common than they thought, and that their nightmares are connected.

It is the time of year when once wild things become wild again, still wild things become wilder, and civilized things shut their doors and pretend they had never been wild.

During the season of madness, the kentaurs of the Pelion foothills—those half-horse, half-human creatures that humans call “centaurs”—journey from their home villages to the sacred lands across the Acheron River. Horses find the kentaur herd irresistible and often run away from their human masters to join the herd. One day, Octavian, stable-boy and floor cleaner at the local inn, gets carried off by the innkeeper’s horse, and ends up trapped in the kentaur herd. He is placed under the charge of Ixion, a young kentaur shaman-in-training, who begins to teach him that kentaurs are not the barbaric, half-sentient beasts he had thought they were.

And then the dreams begin. Dreams in which ancient, cold things with too many teeth steal the boys’ tongues and threaten to steal their sanity. Now Octavian and Ixion both have to learn enough about the otherworld to make it though a grueling initiation ceremony across the Acheron, River of Woe. But first, Octavian has to gain acceptance from the kentaur herd.

Buy from Smashwords

Buy on Kindle

Coming soon in paperback

[BFG] Fantasy Submissions

In an effort to get myself back to working on fiction, which I neglected while in art school, I've started submitting again. I began by entering my YA novel A Madness of Kentaurs in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award. The first round was judged entirely on the pitch. I suck at writing pitches and didn't make it through. Obviously I need to work on writing pitches if I ever hope to get a novel published. You can read the the Kentaurs pitch in a previous post.

Then late last month, I dealt with the disappointment of not making it to round two in ABNA by sending out a bunch of stories. Here are the results so far, by story title:

• Caught on Thorns - submitted to Dark Discoveries via e-sub, haven't heard back
  
• Cobbleshore Knit - submitted to Fantasy & Science Fiction via mail, haven't heard back
  
• Daughters of the Sea King - submitted to Weird Tales via e-sub, haven't heard back
  
• Dragon's Egg - submitted to Silver Blade via e-sub, haven't heard back
  
• Fox Point Dragon - submitted to Cricket via mail, haven't heard back
  
• Great Skerry - submitted to Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show via e-sub, haven't heard back
  
• Hollow Bones - submitted to Dreams of Decadence via esub, rejected; submitted to Clarkesworld via e-sub, haven't heard back
  
• King of Kings, Ruler of Camels - submitted to Cabinet des Fees via e-sub, rejected; haven't resubmitted yet
  
• The Promise of Roses - submitted to Strange Horizons via e-sub, haven't heard back yet
  
• Remembering to Fly - submitted to Fantasy via e-sub, rejected; haven't resubmitted yet
  
• Sealskin - sent to Interzone via mail, haven't heard back
  
• Sharper and More Fragrant - submitted to Clarkesworld via e-sub, rejected; submitted to Fantasy via e-sub, rejected; haven't resubmitted yet
  
• Spinning - submitted to Realms of Fantasy via mail, haven't heard back yet
  

So I'm working my way though the pros and semi-pros and will eventually start sending to the smaller no-pay zines when I run out of paying markets.

[BFG] Aw, Crap

Well, The Madness of Kentaurs didn't make the cut. Here's the pitch that didn't get me to the next round (and yeah, I know, it's not exactly a typical submission pitch--I followed some advice from previous entrants whose pitches did make it through last year):

It is the time of year when once wild things become wild again, still wild things become wilder, and civilized things shut their doors and pretend they had never been wild.

During the season of madness, the kentaurs of the Pelion foothills—those half-horse, half-human creatures that humans call “centaurs”—journey from their home villages to the sacred lands across the Acheron River. Horses find the kentaur herd irresistible and often run away from their human masters to join the herd. One day, Octavian, stable-boy and floor cleaner at the local inn, gets carried off by the innkeeper’s horse, and ends up trapped in the kentaur herd. He is placed under the charge of Ixion, a young kentaur shaman-in-training, who begins to teach him that kentaurs are not the barbaric, half-sentient beasts he had thought they were.

And then the dreams begin. Dreams in which ancient, cold things with too many teeth steal the boys’ tongues and threaten to steal their sanity. Now Octavian and Ixion both have to learn enough about the otherworld to make it though a grueling initiation ceremony across the Acheron, River of Woe. But first, Octavian has to gain acceptance from the kentaur herd.

The Madness of Kentaurs is a young-adult fantasy novel that explores the ideas of difference and belonging that all children face as they become adults.

Stories about who we are and where we came from become very different when told from different points of view, as I learned while studying for my degrees in archaeology and folklore. The concept of belonging is one I have explored in other writing, including a number of short stories published in semi-professional venues.


Yeah, that last paragraph really makes me cringe.

So, what now? Guess I'll work on the pitch a bit, write a cover letter, and send it to some publishers. All they can do is say no.

And I'll get back to work on the next one.

[BFG] Killing Time and Biting Nails

Today is the big day. Well, actually it's only a somewhat significant milestone on the way to the big day, but it seems really, really big right now.

So what the hell am I talking about? Today, February 25, is the day they announce who goes on to the second round of the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award. The judging, for this portion, is based entirely on the "pitch." That's 300ish words of me saying why my novel is good. I'll post it later on, maybe, once I find out whether or not I made the cut.

I don't think I'm going to get very much done today.