My writing process

May 19, 201414 Comments

Last week, my friend and fellow author Tricia Drammeh tagged me in the My Writing Process blog hop, so that’s what I’ll be talking about today. I’ll try not to bore you all to tears, but no promises.

I kid. I won’t bore you. I hope. 😀

What are you currently working on?

Lipei
Artwork by Hazel Butler

I’m currently in the midst of rewriting The Lokana Chronicles. I think this is Official Rewrite No. 3, but since I’ve been working on this series for the better part of a decade, it’s hard to tell – I’ve decided that keeping track of all the revisions this thing has undergone is impossible, and I gave up trying a long time ago. Once I finish revising the first book, I’ll be heading back to the query trenches with it, and this time, I hope I’ll have better luck. I feel like the story is much stronger now than it was the first time I queried, and I hope to find someone who agrees with me.

I also have a short story in the works called The Colony, which is about…

Inquisitor is out!

May 16, 20143 Comments

That’s right, today is release day for Inquisitor, the latest offering from RJ Blain. Read on to find out more about this exciting new fantasy novel!

About Inquisitor:

When Allison is asked to play Cinderella-turned-Fiancee at a Halloween ball, the last thing she expected was to be accused of murder on the same night. She has to find the killer and quick, or she’ll be put to death for the crimes she didn’t commit. To make matters worse, the victims are all werewolves.

On the short list of potential victims, Allison has to act fast, or the killer will have one more body to add to his little black book of corpses.

There’s only one problem: One of the deaths has struck too close to home, and Allison’s desire for self-preservation may very well transform into a quest for vengeance…

Urban fantasy v. epic fantasy

May 14, 20145 Comments

Today I’m happy to have fantasy author RJ Blain here with a guest post on why she strayed from epic fantasy into the realm of urban fantasy for her newest novel, Inquisitor, and the differences between the two genres. Inquisitor goes on sale Friday – be sure to stop back for an excerpt from the book, details about the author, and more.

Urban Fantasy vs Epic Fantasy

My first two novels, Storm Without End and The Eye of God, fall under epic and traditional subgenres of fantasy, making them rather different than Inquisitor, my debut urban fantasy. This is something I get comments about fairly frequently, because most fantasy writers pick one or the other, rather than both.

I’ve even had people suggest the only reason I wrote urban fantasy was because it’s a popular genre. Sure, it’s popular—but so is Game of Thrones. That’s epic fantasy, with boobs and blood, but definitely epic fantasy.

For the record, I’m not much of a fan of Game of Thrones. So yes, I am an oddity.

So why write both? The answer is pretty simple: I like both. It’s natural for me to pursue my interests. That’s why I write; I find it engaging, interesting, fun—and best of all, other people seem to like my books.

I write epic fantasy because I have a story to tell. I write traditional fantasy because I have a story to tell. I write urban fantasy because I have a story to tell.

While my reason for writing these three subgenres is the same, how I write them is totally different.

Blogging U. rocks my face off

April 26, 2014May 14, 201417 Comments

Over the last twelve days, I’ve been participating in WordPress’s Blogging 201 course (no, I did not grab the badge – I don’t know why). It’s been an absolute blast, and it’s also what prompted the recent design changes you may (or, if you’re like me and real observant, you may not) have noticed. Today is Day Twelve, and today’s assignment is to create a poll or survey to gather more in-depth feedback about what readers like and dislike about my blog.

I’ve been toying with the idea of adding a poll recently, anyway, so the timing of this seems like a great big hint to go ahead and do it. If you’re a regular reader here…

A wobbly review

April 2, 201415 Comments

I’m a bit late with this review. But, you see, I was waiting for my kids to finish reading the book so they could help with my review, and they’re slow. Or busy. Sometimes it’s hard to tell at our house, as 90% of the time, we’re all running around like chickens with our heads cut off.

Meanwhile, I read this in three days.

According to the author’s website, Snort and Wobbles started as a joke. I remember fondly its debut on authonomy and am quite pleased to see it finally in print. But what’s it about? Here, take a peek at the blurb:

Dragons are not real. Everyone tells you that. So what do you do when you are eight years old and meet a dragon living at the bottom of your garden? You have the adventure of your life!

When Wobbles and her family move into their new home…

Thoughts for the day

March 25, 20144 Comments

No, it’s not blood. Someone had fun with the ketchup while Mommy’s back was turned.

I’ve been doing a lot of reading lately, mostly in a research vein as opposed to reading for fun (although I do enjoy my research). Here are a few things I stumbled across today that really spoke to me:

Real, life-long security comes not from the barrel of a gun or from being able to spy on your fellow citizens like a Stasi informant; it comes with less harsh extremes of wealth and poverty and increased access to health care and education. -David Byrne

Take a bunch of wolverines. Throw them into a roaring F5 tornado. That’s a toddler. It’ll tear through your home, shrieking and whirling about, scooping things up and depositing them elsewhere. It’ll lose things. It’ll destroy other things. It’ll change direction in the hair’s breadth of a moment — “I’m doing this no now I’m doing this other thing wait what’s that over there.” -Chuck Wendig

Then last year, after my illness, turning 40 and most recently the death of a good friend, I realised that life is just too damn short NOT to be doing what I love. The planets kind of aligned, one of those epiphany moments. -Sophie Tallis (emphasis mine)

All three articles are worth checking out in full (I truly related to Chuck Wendig’s post – I have two toddlers of my own, after all, and have felt the pain of a Duplo block embedded in my foot that he so hilariously references). Happy Tuesday, y’all!

How Star Trek improved my confidence in my writing skills

March 15, 20142 Comments

Seymour and I have been rewatching all things Star Trek since we were dating; we’ve taken care of the original series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and all the movies (although we’re not big fans of the reboot and I haven’t yet seen Into Darkness). We’re halfway through our Enterprise rewatch at the moment (which is great because it means I’m that much closer to a rewatch of my beloved Voyager), having started Season 3 the other night. Seymour’s been telling me about how awful the third season is; he’s not a big fan of the temporal cold war story arc or the Xindi story arc and frankly, I kind of agree with him on the temporal cold war thing.

Anyway, the point of this is that the season premiere of Season 3 had me laughing. And facepalming. The words, “What the hell?!” kept running through my head. Sure, it started off okay – recap of the season finale, Xindi council meeting, theme song (which sucks now – they completely ruined it by jazzing it up). But then they unveil the new command center, and that’s where it all went wrong:

How to keep things straight (or maybe not-so-straight)

March 1, 2014March 6, 201511 Comments

Today I’m excited to have Jim Webster here with a guest post. His book, Justice 4.1, releases today from Safkhet Publishing, and it sounds like a fantastic read. But don’t take my word for it – here’s the blurb:

When a journalist is shot down in a backward area of Tsarina, Haldar Drom of the Governor’s Investigation Office is sent to investigate. He uncovers a hidden medical facility dedicated to the production of Abate, a drug used for population control, as well as evidence of the implantation of pre-created embryos in women brought to Tsarina for the purpose. He also discovers a deeper plot with far-reaching political ramifications. A senior member of the Governor’s family, Doran Stilan, is running a personal feud with the major pirate/Starmancer Wayland Strang. Indeed, he begins to suspect that Stilan may even be angling to take Strang’s place.

The medical facility is destroyed after it is attacked by mercenaries hired by Strang, and Drom has to travel off world to untangle the threads of the conspiracy.

Arriving back on Tsarina, he has to deal with a failed Starmancer attack, punish the guilty, and arrange for Doran Stilan to get what’s coming without undermining the position of the Governor. To do this, he’ll need skill, know-how, and a whole lot of luck to ensure that the guilty face justice.

Talk about an action-packed book! That’s a lot of things to keep track of. With that in mind, here’s Jim to tell us a bit about how he keeps everything straight (or not-so-straight) while writing:

An interview for the ages

February 10, 2014October 12, 20219 Comments

Today I’m excited to be interviewing Irene Soldatos, author of the wonderful book, Bad Bishop. It really is a fabulous read, and I jumped at the chance to learn more about it. Share my curiosity? Then pull up a chair, relax, and get ready for a little fun with history!

KK: What inspired you to write this story?

IS: That’s a difficult question. There was no one moment of inspiration, rather an idea that slowly developed. I read a lot of history. And there are three historians in my family, so I’ve grown up steeped in it, and I suppose I am more conscious than most of the enormous differences, cultural, social, ideological, technological between the people of one historical period and those of another, but also the very many similarities. I found myself often wondering what someone who was born and grew up in classical antiquity would make of the middle ages, for example, if he or she could somehow see it. I suppose this book is a thought experiment on that concept. I wanted to bring together and juxtapose people from various different time periods, in one story. One way to do that would be time travel. But I didn’t like that idea, because it would mean they would have missed the process of history. And the process is even more important than the time period they would arrive at, i.e. the one I set the story in.

KK: The amount of research needed for this book must have been incredible. What did that process involve?

Review time!

February 7, 2014February 7, 2014Leave a comment

Today I’m reviewing Bad Bishop by Irene Soldatos. But first, the blurb:

August A.D. 1120
Dijon. A headless corpse is found in a room with shuttered windows and the door locked from the inside. The man’s name was Salonius and he was the Duke. His young heir’s grasp on the throne is precarious, yet a new alliance is made to safeguard his position.

November A.D. 1120
Barcelona. Alexander, the Prince, learns that the emperor Enmerkar is looking to add Barcelona to his territories.

January A.D. 1121
London. Julian, the Governor, finds that Enmerkar has turned his hungry gaze toward England.

April A.D. 1121
York. Medb, the Queen, discovers that Enmerkar hungers for the whole Isle.

Many now recognize the threat posed by Enmerkar’s continued expansion, so a game of politics begins…