Tag: Fantasy

The Banned Underground: The Amulet of Kings

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tbuWell, it’s Day One of Banned Underground Week here in my little corner of the interwebs, and today I’m going to review The Amulet of Kings, the first book in The Banned Underground series by Will Macmillan Jones.  What’s it about, you ask?  Fix your peepers on this then and find out:

What could be worse?  Having to take a holiday in the (rainy) Lake District in the North West of England with an aunt who turns people into frogs for a hobby?  Or battling the local dark lord, whose attempt at world domination starts with the nearby underground dwarf mansion and its enormous collection of used pizza boxes?  Or getting involved with a jazz-loving bog troll and his dwarfish R&B band?  Or is it being miles from a McDonald’s?  Join the teenagers and find out in this comical adventure where jazz and magic make a tongue-in-cheek laugh riot!

In the first book of the series, we meet the goodies (Chris and Linda, Ben and Grizelda, Fungus and the Banned), the baddies (Ned and the Watches, the Grey Mage, Caer Surdin), and an assortment of other characters (the Edern, the Tuatha, the Bodgandor, and various dwarves and trolls) who all take part in a war to seize the Helvyndelve, home of the dwarves, and the Amulet of Kings, the power source for the whole place.  Naturally, chaos ensues and, just as naturally, the results are hilarious.

Full of jokes both good and bad (which makes them all the better, in my opinion), as well as a whole slew of rockin’ tunes, this book has it all: good food, good friends, good fun, and a good baddie in need of defeat (unless, of course, you ask him).  I first encountered this book – and its brilliant author – when it was up on authonomy, so I was beyond excited to find out that it had been picked up for publication.  I read it in only a few days – I couldn’t put it down.

Tomorrow, I’ll be reviewing the second book in the series, The Mystic Accountants.  It’s another goodie. 🙂

(c) 2013.  All rights reserved.

The bus stops here!

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WMJ-Tour-Banner

This is a big week for me, blog-wise.  See, I love to help out a fellow author when and where I can and this week, I’ll be running a series of posts as part of a blog tour for my good friend, Will Macmillan Jones as he debuts his latest book, Bass Instinct.  It’s the fourth book in The Banned Underground series, which I absolutely adore, and I hope you all will, too.

So what’s in store?  Why, a little bit of everything!  I’ll be sharing reviews of the first four books, which are all hilariously funny comic fantasies set in the UK.  I’ve got an interview with the man himself, so if you want to learn a bit more about a great author, then be sure to drop in for that.  And on Sunday, he’ll be sharing a bit about some of the musical influences behind his work.  Now that’s a post you won’t want to miss!

(c) 2013.  All rights reserved.

Exciting things are heading this way!

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WMJ-Tour-Banner

Don’t forget to stop back next week to have some fun with the Banned Underground and their fabulous author, Will Macmillan Jones.  Pizza and cake will be provided, and punch if I can find my recipe (alas, no beer, as I’ve let my liquor license lapse).  But with Fungus and the gang, there’s bound to be some fun ahead, so drop on by and let the good times roll! 🙂

(c) 2013.  All rights reserved.

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The madness continues. . .

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. . .but not for me.  The emails are out, and I didn’t get one, which means I’m not moving on to the second round of Pitch Madness.  I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed, but I’d also be lying if I said I’d been holding my breath.  My pitch needs work.  Maybe I should have gone with my gut and used the short pitch I’ve got up on authonomy.  But the competition was pretty stiff; 300 or so people were culled from the competition, so I’m hardly alone in my disappointment.  Besides – I’ve made a bunch of new friends, and that is quite obviously the best part of these competitions. 🙂

So for me, it’s back to querying the old-fashioned way – research and submit, research and submit.  Oh, and pray.  Cuz, you know, you gotta pray.  A lot.  The competition out there is stiff, and marketing is not my strong suit (I’m working on that).  Meanwhile, there’s always the #PitMad contest on Twitter next week… 😀

Congratulations to all those moving on, and good luck in the upcoming rounds.  I’ll be cheering you on from the sidelines and doing my best to keep thinking positive while I hunt for agents to add to my query list.

(c) 2013.  All rights reserved.

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Pitch madness!

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LipeiArtwork by Hazel Butler

Lipei
Artwork by Hazel Butler

That’s right, folks, I’ve got pitch madness!  What, pray tell, is pitch madness?  Why, it’s a lovely competition run by the lovely Brenda Drake and it’s happening right now! 🙂  Well, kind of.  The submission window was yesterday and the task for those who chose to accept it was to submit a 35-word logline (a pitch) and the first 250 words of their completed novels.  The slush zombies are currently wading through all the submissions and choosing who will advance to the next round.

Unlike during GUTGAA when I was on the edge of my seat, I was slightly more relaxed this time around because there was no entrant cap – everyone who entered during the window got in.  But!  That hasn’t stopped me from second-guessing every bit of my submission ever since I hit send yesterday morning.

I’ve been working over my pitch and my MS quite a bit over the course of the last six months, but that hasn’t stopped me from feeling insecure about the whole big mess, especially since I have a variety of short pitches in the works now.  Do I use one of the ones I created for the #PitMad pitchfest last fall?  Do I use the one I currently have up on authonomy?   Do I use the one-sentence synopsis I spent a whole day trying to draft?

Castle of Dreams

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Today I had the pleasure of guest posting over on my good friend Andrea Baker’s blog.  She’s been running a series called Castle of Dreams and I’m delighted to participate in it.  My contribution concerns the palace in Lokana, where my book The Lokana Chronicles and my current WIP are set.  It was a whole lot of fun to write.

I hope you’ll head on over and check it out.  While you’re there, have a look at some of the other entries in the series.  Not all are fictitious entries; there are also posts about very real castles, including Kenilworth Castle, which figures prominently in Andrea’s book, Worlds Apart – Leah, recently published by Taylor Street Publishing.

And now, I’m off to bed.  It’s been a long and busy day, full of work and good food and good friends and great family and fun and I am exhausted!  Happy Friday! 🙂

(c) 2013.  All rights reserved.

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The Rose and other tidbits

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rose

A rose by any other name would smell as sweet. (Photo credit: alice_ling)

The rose she has gone back to Nature
Her petals on the grass by her mother tree lay
But memories of her blooming in the sunshine
With me till my own end will stay.

“The Rose,” by Francis Duggan

I hopped on the Alliance thread this morning and found the above waiting for me with a belated birthday wish from the Dreamcatcher.  It’s a lovely little poem; you can follow the link to read the rest of it.  A quick Google search revealed that Mr. Duggan is quite prolific and that a lot of his work is available online.  The site I linked to above had nearly 500 pages of his work alone, possibly more.

So what’s new?  I’ve been rubbish at posting since the new year struck.  I’ve been struggling to get into a routine – any routine – this year and I’ve had some other things weighing me down as well.  Hopefully I’ll have all that unpleasantness resolved soon and I can start making progress on the rest of my goals for the year.

Speaking of goals for the year, I’ve passed 40k on my sequel.

Greetings from somewhere in Chapter 15!

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Well, since it’s been a while since I’ve posted an update, here’s what’s new with my WIP:

  • I’m working on Chapter 15.  The holidays killed my writing schedule.
  • I’m mostly writing during my lunch breaks.  This means I’m not getting much writing done outside of that one hour a day, and I feel like I should be doing more.  It’s causing some angst.

  • This is how I look when I’m editing, when I’m thinking about editing, and occasionally when I’m writing.

    The urge to edit is rearing its ugly head again.  I’m fighting it, but wondering if my fight is in vain.

  • I’m also revising The Lokana Chronicles again with help from the wonderful Ryan Holmes, and have caught a couple bad habits popping up as I write.  It’s so much easier to just stop myself from writing them in the first place than it is to go back and fix them later.
  • I seem to have hit that point where writing becomes work.  The new has worn off; my story and I have left the honeymoon period where everything is all butterflies and rainbows and unicorns and love.  Now we’ve hit the teen years, where I find it annoying and it hates me and is all, “God!  Parents just don’t understand!” and I’m all, “Teenagers!  So irresponsible!” in my best Sebastian voice (you know, from The Little Mermaid), even though I really suck at voices.  But we’ll get through it, I know we will, and then the really hard work will begin. *sigh*

And now, the snippet!