Balancing Act: February 2017

Thursday, February 23, 2017

Con Artists and Star-Crossed Lovers: My Picks for #sonofapitch

I've been working as a judge this week for #SonofaPitch a query contest masterminded by the talented Katie Hamstead Teller. You can check out the details of the contest here. Katie has done this a few times now, so keep your eyes peeled for the next contest if you didn't have the chance to participate this time.

My team was Team Hera, as in Hera Syndulla from Rebels. I picked her because she is fierce and motherly at the same time. One of the reasons I love participating in this particular query contest is because the participants (both the query-ers and the author-judges) foster such a supportive environment. It's hard to balance support with critique, but we do it every time. Hera would be proud of us.

I've made my picks for the five queries to go on to the next level of the contest. So here they are! These are not in ranked order. Luckily, no one made me rank my votes. So, these are alphabetical by title.

Choice 1: A World Apart: This story struck me for pushing the boundaries of what constitutes romance as a genre. Besides just meeting and falling in love, the two men in this story have history and personal baggage to overcome. Their story is further complicated when a crime investigation is involved.

Choice 2: Empathy: Imminent Dawn: I must have been in a romantic mood, because even though this story is a thriller, I was first drawn in by the main character who was willing to take incredible risks to regain access to her wife. I know I'd love to read more about the cyberpunk type brain implants and the intrigue surrounding them, too. I'm just hoping the lovers make it in the end!

Choice 3: Lunar Base Lost: Frontier politics and family conflict are at the center of this story. I was intrigued by the motivations of the characters, and curious to see how far they are willing to go to get their way. I also really liked seeing the way the author incorporated the feedback received to hone and focus the query itself. The last version was a much tighter piece of work than the first one, and that's really the goal of the whole experience in a contest like this one.

Choice 4: No Rest for the Wicked: The author posted this one as an adult gaslight fantasy. Gaslight or steampunk is a genre I'm really starting to appreciate. They seem to capture that old movie feeling of a woman with spunk and moxie. The main character of this one sounds like a woman I'd enjoy inviting to tea so she could tell me about the cons she has pulled and the trouble she's escaped.

Choice 5: Prisoner of Fate: I was intrigued from the opening line of this query, which intermixed the modern concept of a mid-life crisis with the old-fashioned one of a carriage. When I moved onto the excerpt and met Sedhan, a man obviously up to no good, my curiosity was piqued.

I didn't get to read ALL the entries. Darn day job getting in the way of my fun . . . But you can check out all the entries here and at the blogs of the other hosting authors: Elsie Elmore (Team Droids), Elizabeth Roderick (Team Leia), Kathleen Ann Palm (Team Darkside), Rena Rocford (Team Rebels), and of course, our organizer and Grand Poobah, Katie Hamstead Teller.

If you're a writer working on querying your work, you can glean a lot of insight looking through contests like this one. And if you're a reader, it's a good way to see who the new up-and-coming authors might be in the next few years.

Monday, February 20, 2017

#SonofaPitch: Query #10: The Deserved

For my regular readers, these are some special posts this week as part of a pitch contest I'm providing feedback for. My normal musings will return next week.

Myran is deadly hot, the ground is cracked open and rays of lethal light flash through the city every day. But nothing worries Donovar as much as the constant threat of attack.

When he was a soldier, Donovar never imagined he’d be ruling the empire. He hates it. Despite holding a third of the voting power, he’s never felt so powerless to make any real change.

He supported the war in Shense to hunt down and capture the Selsahn rebels, but then they went underground. Disappeared. And when they started targeting civilians, everything changed. Now magical attacks ravage the empire, people keep dying in impossible ways and they’re no closer to stopping the rebels than they were two years ago. There’s only one option he can see: give up and pull out of Shense. Bring the troops home.

But the council won’t stand for it. As long as this war lines their pockets, they’re not pulling out. And the public are so angry, so driven by fear, that even the suggestion of surrender would brand him a coward and a traitor. He’d be kicked out of the Diarchy in the blink of an eye. Donovar’s a war hero, after all. He should be stronger than that.

No - Donovar’s going to have to work in secret. He’ll have to do everything he hates: lie, cheat and backstab his way through the politics and the bureaucracy. If that doesn’t work, he might even need to get out the old sword. Because he’s running out of time. He’s beginning to suspect there’s more to these attacks than meets the eye and, if he can’t find a way to end it soon, the next might be the one that kills them all.

First 250 Words:

The wretch wiped spit from her cheeks. A figure loomed over her, anger distorting the bronze wrinkles on his face.

“Get back, filthy Shem!”

He spat again, this time at her feet. Curling herself inwards, she scuttled away, keeping low to the floor. The man stamped after her – but only until she had scurried back into whatever dark hole she had come from. After scratching out a quick warding sign on the dusty red wall to his right, he turned back to his goods muttering,

“Bloody wide-eyes, can’t a man make an honest living…”

The wretch lay waiting round the corner and pressed to the floor until he was out of earshot. She looked at her spoils. Brushing orange dust from the single bronze drachm she clasped between her bony fingers, she sighed. It was pointless: she couldn’t eat it and nobody would sell to a Shem.

Nobody honest anyway, and she daren’t risk trying to buy from anyone else. Letting the coin drop into the dirt, she made herself small and hurried away, clinging to the walls of the buildings for shade. The farmer had let her go, but the harsh sun would not be so forgiving.

It was approaching Hardlight and she had still not found food. This was the second day running, and if she did not eat tonight she would not have the energy to search tomorrow. She would starve. She would probably die.

#SonofaPitch: Query #9: First5

For my regular readers, these are some special posts this week as part of a pitch contest I'm providing feedback for. My normal musings will return next week.

First 250 words:

Cradled by wind and sunlight, Hikala spun through the sky, a mirror to her partner’s flight. The air whistled through her wings, sounding a harmonic note to balance the wind-song created with each stroke of Sarwa’s violet wings. A final double flip merged flashes of blue and violet and ended their sky dance to screams of approval from the observers scattered across the sky.

Blue wings cupping the air beneath her, Hikala floated on her back and shouted her exhilaration to the wind. Always more reserved, Sarwa hovered at her side and only laughed in response, a wide lopsided grin spread across his dark brown face. Hikala sighed when the same thought she had after every perfect sky dance crossed her mind—to forget the world and keep flying with Sarwa forever. But they had finished their doubles routine and needed to return inside for their score; a score that would determine the winner of this year’s Inhikiod Games.

There were many competitions throughout the year, but these Games were the pinnacle of them all. Not much interested the Inhikiod other than their flying competitions and socializing, so the Games were highly anticipated and the best races were dissected over dinner tables for the rest of the year.

Sarwa offered his hand and he and Hikala flew back to the King’s landing pad, the staging area for the Games. As they lightly set down on the crescent-shaped entrance platform to the huge cavern carved into the mountainside, raucous cheers erupted.

#SonofaPitch: Query #8: Empathy: Imminent Dawn

For my regular readers, these are some special posts this week as part of a pitch contest I'm providing feedback for. My normal musings will return next week.

So much hinged on the conversation she would have on the other side of the door at the end of the hall. Had the install gone as planned? How soon would the implant start to work? When could she use it to speak with Kyra?

Any minute now they would call her name and—ugh. Chandra cringed. She was doing it again.
She curled her fingers inward, grasping tightly at the grit of the charcoal pencil in her hand. The advice of her pre-study therapist came to her.

Draw. Write. Focus on something you can control.

Chandra eased in a breath and opened the sketchbook on her knee to a fresh leaf.

Kyra,

I’ve felt miserable for abandoning you since Ratan dropped me off. That’s not the right word, though: abandon. I did this for you, for us, and when this is all over we’ll be closer than we have been in a long time.

As soon as EMPATHY is working for me, I’ll make sure you get it as well. No matter the cost, I will make sure this works for us. We need it. I need it. I—

“Chandra?”

Her attention shot toward the receptionist. A bleary-eyed participant emerged from the back room and passed between them.

“The doctor will see you now.”

Chandra bit her lower lip. “Thanks.” A stunted breath escaped as she stood.

#SonofaPitch: Query #7: Playing God

For my regular readers, these are some special posts this week as part of a pitch contest I'm providing feedback for. My normal musings will return next week.

For participants, welcome to my blog! I'm happy to host you and excited to see what kinds of stories you've written. Please remember that only the author of this piece and the participating judges are supposed to comment. All other comments will be deleted.

We're Team Hera! Because here on Balancing Act, we're both bad-ass and warm and nurturing, and we'll fight to bring out the best in our crew, um, team. :-)

You can check out other teams on the other hosting blogs: Elsie Elmore (Team Droids), Elizabeth Roderick (Team Leia), Kathleen Ann Palm (Team Darkside), Rena Rocford (Team Rebels), and of course, our organizer and Grand Poobah, Katie Hamstead Teller.

_________________________________________________
Title: PLAYING GOD
Category and Genre: Adult, Contemporary Fantasy
Word Count: 106,000

Query:
Sworn off family in-fighting and rivalries, Apollo has spent the last decade in Portland, Maine, incarnated as research scientist Dr. Paul Archer. Family’s not the only thing Apollo’s sworn off — he’s also done with women (of the mortal ilk), and most of all, Pantheon, a chess-like game the gods play with human lives. So when Venus drops by unannounced, demanding that Apollo repay a debt dating back to the Trojan War by helping her pull off a move in the game, Apollo’s intention is to execute the move, wipe the slate clean, and get right back to work in the lab.

What Apollo doesn’t expect is how this game and its pawn, college senior Theresa DiPaulo, revive his long-buried feelings of guilt and failure stemming from his mother's deicide at the hands of his stepmother. Nor does he expect how compelled he feels to intervene to save Theresa from the same fate. As the game unfolds, and the parallels to that long-ago round of Pantheon mount up, Apollo gets sucked deeper and deeper in, until he can no longer run from the intrafamilial conflict he left behind when he abdicated Olympus and took refuge DownEast. Apollo’s got a plan — if only Theresa would open up and let him in, if only she’d stop trying to protect him, if only she loved him back, pulling it off would be so much easier.

First 250 Words:

“Hold still.” I closed my eyes and, my hands flat on the bare skin of the boy’s chest, forced a surge of energy into him, feeling it spread through his frail body with the beats of his heart. My strength gushed out of me, like I’d cut a major blood vessel. A minute later, when I opened my eyes, my head swam and my legs shook.

The kid was staring at me. I withdrew my hands, and disconnected the IV. Then I sat on the foot of the gurney, fighting the tunnel vision and nausea.

The door opened. The jingle of bracelets told me it was my assistant Demetria. She pressed a Gatorade into my hand and passed another to the boy. I heard the boy’s gulps. I couldn’t open mine, my fingers too weak to grip the cap and twist. Demetria extended her hand for the bottle, and opened it with the same cruel matter-of-factness with which she’d snap the neck of a lab rat.

“Good thing for Connor his parents had him transported here, instead of Maine Med.” Her dry tone belied her words. The boy would have died at the hospital. In surviving to five, he’d already beaten the odds. Demetria wasn’t happy that the boy was still alive. No, that was harsh. She wasn’t happy that I’d brought him back from the edge. It was an important distinction.

I took a couple sips of Gatorade and pressed the damp bottle to my cheek.

#SonofaPitch: Query #6: Killer's Day Off

For my regular readers, these are some special posts this week as part of a pitch contest I'm providing feedback for. My normal musings will return next week.

For participants, welcome to my blog! I'm happy to host you and excited to see what kinds of stories you've written. Please remember that only the author of this piece and the participating judges are supposed to comment. All other comments will be deleted.

We're Team Hera! Because here on Balancing Act, we're both bad-ass and warm and nurturing, and we'll fight to bring out the best in our crew, um, team. :-)

You can check out other teams on the other hosting blogs: Elsie Elmore (Team Droids), Elizabeth Roderick (Team Leia), Kathleen Ann Palm (Team Darkside), Rena Rocford (Team Rebels), and of course, our organizer and Grand Poobah, Katie Hamstead Teller.

_________________________________________________
Title: KILLER'S DAY OFF
Category and Genre: Adult Urban Fantasy
Word Count: 84,000

Query:

Eleven doesn’t feel like killing the President of the United States today. Every other profession gets sick days, so why not genetically-enhanced android super-assassins? Unfortunately, that’s not how his owner/creator/father-figure, Simon Cordova, sees it. A few threats, a little brainwashing, and Eleven is off to the White House.

Only when he gets there, he finds that Simon has lied to him about Eleven being the only android around. Sure, meeting this other guy doesn’t stop Eleven from killing the president, but it certainly raises some questions, such as ‘Why has Simon lied to me?’ and ‘What am I?’ and ‘Why the hell am I being brainwashed?’

Except those answers need to wait, because this job didn’t end in DC. No, it followed Eleven home and found where his friends live.

Now Eleven has to protect those around him while working through a budding existential crisis. But none of that will stop him from finding answers to every one of his questions, even if it takes a few explosions, abundant violence, and at least one hostage situation to do so.

First 250 Words:

“What?” Agent Olsen’s voice hissed through the telephone. “You’re calling out sick from assassinating the president?!”

“Yeah, sorry about that.” I nestled the phone between my head and shoulder while I pulled the bag of Cheetos open. Olsen probably heard it, but who cares? “I’m just feeling a little under the weather.”

“Under the weather?!” Olsen screamed. Static screeched over the line, the cords and tubes of the phone company cracking under the pressure. “You’re a genetically modified android, Eleven. You can’t feel under the weather!”

“Oh, did I say I felt sick? Meant to say tired.” I kicked my shoes off and fell backwards onto the couch. “Didn’t sleep very well last night. Etcetera.”

Static hissed through the phone again before Olsen’s voice simmered down enough to be heard. “—any idea how much time and money and planning went into—“

I pulled the phone away from my ear and glared at it. I had nearly four years of perfect attendance under my belt, and they couldn’t give me just one damned vacation day? Sometimes people just weren’t up to the task of going outside and being productive—or, in my case, murdering politicians in cold blood. Today was definitely one of those off days for me.

Hopefully Agent Olsen and his boss could understand that. If not, then my status as a badass super-assassin earned me some other undeniable privileges.

#SonofaPitch: Query #5: Beneath Green

For my regular readers, these are some special posts this week as part of a pitch contest I'm providing feedback for. My normal musings will return next week.

Title: BENEATH GREEN
Genre: Adult Science Fiction
Word Count: 64,000

Query:

Aev, a Journeyman Architect, hides from invaders terraforming her authoritarian planet, discovering it’s better to die on the surface than rot underground.

Launching world-evolving mists, the terraformers turn Aev’s homogenous white world green. It’s genocide, and she’s lost everything—her family, her home. Now, in the shadows underground, she cowers. From her own desperate people. From the enemy.

To subsist, she scavenges food, water, a place of her own in the catacombs under the city. Slaughtering to survive. As her people burrow deeper, she knows the only way out is up. She has to escape the new green planet, or become a part of the terraformed world. So when her enigmatic mentor asks if she wants “off this rock,” she must trust a cutthroat with a crippled ship.

Otherwise she’ll be left to rot in the dark.

First 250 words:

She saw the stars, the planets. Crystallizing. Unmoved. Microscopic incandescent white voids in the dark sky. Shining far from her. The black-hole ships retreated. The invading fleet ebbed into the obsidian sky. She stood under the reformed surface of her planet, watching from a small entrance not collapsed by the bombs.

Hope burned in her chest. Like the ember of a fire on a damp night, barely smoking. There was much to do before the remaining occupying forces started hunting survivors.

Aev waited quietly in a darkened corner for the dust to settle. The wailing. To stop. But that might take days. When the sick in her stomach passed. The squeezing in her chest released. She rose and walked to the nearest exit out of Underground. The green mist the invaders released hovered outside. Wrapping her world.

She only knew drawing. Buildings. Bridges. Graphite and paper. Lines and geometry. She didn’t know. Death.

A thought twitched in her head. Dark. Cold. Green.

Rebirth.

She didn’t know. Survive.

She needed food. Water.

Her shoulder still screamed red with the pain of dislocation. Something had broken when she set it. The thin bone across her chest. The collar bone. She couldn’t lift her arm.

A crowd gathered. To stare at the banks of green mist outside the door, burning away the smooth white polystone bombed into rubble. Creating layers of dust. The mist boiled in the breeze, thinning.

The stars shone above the mist. Bits of broken blue silcryst in the sky.

#SonofaPitch: Query #4: A Tulip in Winter

For my regular readers, these are some special posts this week as part of a pitch contest I'm providing feedback for. My normal musings will return next week.

Title: A Tulip in Winter
Category and Genre: Adult/Historical Fiction
Word Count: 90,000

Query:

An orphaned Dutch girl, a warlord about to lose his lands and a bold adventurer are brought together in the twilight era of the samurai.

Why must this happen to me, as brutal hands born to untie sashes slid the kimono from my pale shoulders. I was so obviously made for other things.

For a chance to win her freedom, Miyako must embrace the samurai way and change everything about herself. Sailing into the land of snow and pine, the sole-survivor of a doomed ship, she could never envision the future as a warlord's concubine. This man will hold her captive. This man she will loathe like no other. Luckily, Dutch mettle comes in handy when she realizes she has been handed a unique situation. There’s plenty of scheming and intrigue to go around as the other women will do anything to stand in her way.

But a man is a samurai first, the blade is his lover. One magical winter, a bold adventurer arrives on a Russian ship offering Miyako more than a warlord’s empty promises. She’s a woman who has struggled so long against prejudice to find her purpose. She’s fought against enemy concubines but Miyako finds her greatest challenge yet-hiding forbidden love in a land where dishonor is a breath away.

Suspicions are aroused but a surprise from the shogun will force more secrets to go public. When the warlord takes the Russian ship hostage, grabbing her greatest happiness or the freedom she craves collides because no concubine should look at another man, unless she wants to be hung high from a turret at dawn.

First 250 Words:

It’s not that I could forget about the killing.

If I stopped for a second, I’d remember.

The ripe dirt shoved deep under broken nails.

Bruised knees perched at the edges of an open grave.

He hadn’t slept in weeks-now he’d sleep forever.

The sound of the blade popped in my ears, the weapon tore flesh, shattered bone. My hand opened, and the shiny hilt slid from my fingers. He was still staring into my eyes when he dropped and slumped on his side. I shrieked into my hand, the dagger buried within his chest. And all that blood, shimmering crimson under the shadow of the moon.

I had to pull the blade out.

“Go away. Don’t,” he murmured, red gurgling down his lips.

I trembled, hard.

His hand sought the hilt and drew the steel from mortified flesh; a sucking whir spit back squishy ooze.

He looked so deeply into my eyes that a flash of that old feeling stirred.

“Oh, my God.” I wept, clutching my stomach next to his lifeless body.

The black shadow of that castle all that had been my heaven and my hell loomed large. My life as a warlord’s concubine shouldn’t have happened. Courtesans rise by select methods, not by accident. I left on a ship that sank off the coast of a far-flung island. The beauty and glamor of a concubine is celebrated, their praises sung. I was exotic and homely to them. And I didn’t look well in kimono.

#SonofaPitch: Query #3: Lunar Base Lost

For my regular readers, these are some special posts this week as part of a pitch contest I'm providing feedback for. My normal musings will return next week.

Title: Lunar Base Lost
Category and Genre: Adult SCI-FI
Word Count: 89,000

Query:
LUNAR BASE LOST is set in an underground moon colony that lost contact with Earth after nuclear war broke out. Over fifty years have passed since Mission Control’s last transmission. Lunar Base Three hangs on by maintaining a strict society and limiting its population.

Isabela (Izzy) Rodriguez is assistant to Presider Barbara Graham. Barbara’s more relaxed policies have politically split the moon base and even her own family. Barb’s son, Matthew Graham, has become her most outspoken critic, and Barb has Izzy spy on Matthew’s activism. When Matthew and his wife become pregnant, their unborn child exceeds the population that the colony can sustain. Because the young have priority over the old, Barbara, as the oldest colonist, must be euthanized.

Barbara suspects the pregnancy is politically motivated to force her out of office. She urges Izzy to run against Matthew during the special election. As the baby’s birth looms, Izzy and Matthew campaign for the colony’s votes. The baby arrives healthy and sound, so Barbara dies. When Matthew exposes Izzy’s most private secret, the election spirals into violence and jeopardizes the survival of the moon base.

First 250 Words:

Each time the curtain fluttered, Izzy, and those that needed to be here and those that didn’t need to be here but were here anyway, would jump. Once when the nurse came out, a quiet gasp echoed off the round metal walls. But the nurse silently picked up a stethoscope from her supply cart and went back behind that curtain.

One new life, one old death.

Izzy had dutifully done her job a few hours before and got the custodial staff to move several stacks of folding chairs to the bottom floor level of the Hospital Tower. Most members from the Assembly were sitting in them now, although Izzy couldn’t see her dad anywhere. Off duty specialists and novices from the Nuclear Plant were sitting or standing around the bottom floor too. Of course, they would be there to congratulate their boss if what happened happened.

She looked up at the curious heads on the ledges of each level that ringed the round, white metal Hospital Tower. Izzy recognized just about everybody except those on the top level, six levels above the open atrium on the bottom floor. The distance and the fluorescent lighting up there made most of them shadowy, although she did recognize Billy Smith looking down. Big for his age, Ten-year-old Billy had fractured his leg a couple day shifts before when he fell in the AgCenter. He shouldn’t be here now, but this was the Hospital Tower, so of course he should be here.

#SonofaPitch: Query #2: No Rest for the Wicked

For my regular readers, these are some special posts this week as part of a pitch contest I'm providing feedback for. My normal musings will return next week.

Title: No Rest for the Wicked
Category and Genre: Adult Gaslight Fantasy
Word Count: 35,000

Query:

No Rest for the Wicked is the tale of con woman forced out of retirement when her last job comes back to haunt her...literally.

Vi thought her days of grifting and dealing with the dead were over when she left Peter eating steam on a Chicago train platform. No one west of the Mississippi should know she sees ghosts, but a dead stranger still shows up at her doorstep. Transparent hat in hand, he begs her to recover his buried gold to pay his debt and save a life. What should be an easy buck turns into racing horses, cheating at cards, and tangling with bandits, all before lunch.

Once she figures out who tipped off the ghost, Vi must face the past she thought she’d buried. Peter reveals himself post-mortem to warn her of enemies bent on luring her back to New Orleans and willing to murder to get what they want. Neither distance nor death has tamed Peter’s love, and even in his ghostly state he’s determined to do what he can to keep her safe. Vi may play the “damsel in distress” for a con, but she won’t let herself be rescued if she can earn his forgiveness and help him cross over. She may have broken his heart, but she decides to atone for the only deception she’s ever regretted—even if it kills her.

First 250 Words:

Viola Thorne couldn’t pinpoint the reason she preferred to bathe by moonlight. Perhaps it was the quiet chirps of the crickets, or the splash of stars above her head, but something about the nights here at the end of the world called out to her.

Steam rose off the water, eddying around her head and shoulders while the rest of her luxuriated in the gentle currents. A half-empty bottle of whiskey sat near a waxed paper parcel on the rim of her soaking niche. She reached inside and pulled out a fragrant hunk of soap. This was the last of what she’d brought from back East, and there was no telling when she’d be able to get more, but Vi worked the bubbles through her hair with gusto. The smell of lilacs rose from the lather to combat the reek of rotten eggs. She breathed it deep into her lungs as she closed her eyes against the tide of foam.

A gentle sensation as light and dangerous as hornet wings fluttered on the back of her neck and slowed her hands. Miles away from anywhere anyone might possibly want to go, she should have been safe from prying eyes even in daylight. Unwilling to let the peeping Tom know she was on to him, Vi went back to washing her hair, listening for the whisper of cloth as the infiltrator approached. If it came down to it, she could always reach out with her other senses, but only as a last resort.

#SonofaPitch: Query #1: Arcanam

For my regular readers, these are some special posts this week as part of a pitch contest I'm providing feedback for. My normal musings will return next week.

Query:

Naomi is the best healer in all of Nevre’stra. She shares a bond with the wolves, which heightens her senses and allows her to make a diagnosis based solely on the scent of an infection. While scouting the wilderness to help those in need, Naomi encounters her greatest fear, a marauder attack. She survives the onslaught only to be captured by one of the marauders, Delventrus. When Naomi is released, she permanently returns to her home in the city, scarred by the violent memories and the knowledge that she was left alive for only one reason: to carry Delventrus’ child.

Nearly eight years later, Delventrus reemerges in Naomi’s life. Now he wants her daughter, Dana’lia. He forces Naomi to choose between the life of her mate or relinquishing Dana’lia to him. Naomi does not have time to wait for the city guards or the wolves to intervene, she must decide. Yet unbeknownst to her, Delventrus has discovered a source of limitless power connected to her bloodline, and Dana’lia is the key to him obtaining that power. Naomi’s dire choice harbors drastic consequences for not only herself but also all the inhabitants of Nevre’stra.

First 250 Words:

Pillars of afternoon sunlight poured in through the tall, narrow windows of the barracks infirmary. Naomi neTara, the healer, the Luparian, gently held the swollen, red hands of the little girl in front of her. Clear humor trickled from open sores and black lesions made her pitiful hands grotesque. The redness seeped up to her wrists but the black lesions were mainly on her palms and fingertips. It was easy to see why the barracks healer, a former apprentice of Naomi, thought the girl displayed symptoms of Shepherd’s Plague. Such would be the end of the little girl and disaster for the township she traveled from for help. But Naomi did not worry. She held her nose close to the little girl’s hands, closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. She let the scent of the affliction roll across her olfactories and settle on the back of her tongue. Naomi inhaled again to be sure.

A wolf padded along the hidden deer-trails of the forest. When he detected an enticing odor on the wind, he stopped for a moment. It had been days since he had eaten, since he journeyed from his pack and family in search of his own territory and mate. The odor on the wind was meat, rotting in the sun, not choice parts but entrails. It didn’t matter, anything would do. He sniffed at the entrance of a burrow but the scent of prey was stale. The rabbits were long gone.

Wednesday, February 15, 2017

Mysticon 2017

Nine more days until Mysticon! I'm so excited. It's my first time at this convention, and I'll be there as a guest author. This is my year for new cons. I'll also be attending Ravencon and going back to ConCarolinas, but this time as a guest. w00t!

If you've been following this blog, then you know that I love doing the author thing at cons. I get to see lots of my writer friends, and talk nerdy for hours, and maybe even sell some books. My sister is going with me as my Plus One this time, so we'll get to geek out together, too.

Here's what I'll be up to at Mysticon. If you're in Virginia, come find me!

Friday, 24 February, 3:00:

Welcome to the Hellmouth:

I'll be talking all things Buffy with other

fans. To prepare, I've been rewatching the series with my daughter. Ah, the sacrifices we make for art!

Friday, 24 February, 7:00:

What Are Cult Classics? : What exactly makes a cult classic "cult" and "classic"? I'm sure our panel will have it all figured out by the end of our hour together.

Friday, 24 February, 10:00:

ConCarolinas Party: I'm anxious to meet some of the people who pull ConCarolinas together, especially now that we'll be working together this year. I'm even willing to get over my party anxiety to do it.

Saturday, 25 February, 11:00:

Honor in the Verse: Exploring the concept of honor in various fandoms. I signed up to talk about Firefly, which has an interestingly complex notion of honor, in my opinion.

Saturday, 25 February, 2:00:

Author Signing Table: This is the nerve-wracking part, just me at a table, hoping someone comes by and buys a book and wants me to sign it.

Saturday, 25 February, 8:30:

Broad Universe Rapid Fire Reading: This is often the highlight of a con for me. Members of Broad Universe get together and each give a short reading from their work. It's a great way to catch up on what a lot of different writers are up to and find your next read.

Sunday, 26 February, 9:00:

Where are my (super) girls at?: A conversation about female superheroes. What's worth reading or watching? What do wish there was more of?

Sunday, 26 February, 1:00:

Ingredients of a Story: If there's a recipe for a story, what really needs to be there?

Got any thoughts about any of these topics? I'd love to hear what you'd have to say if you were going with me.

Wednesday, February 8, 2017

I Owe it All to Jimmy Buffett

It's almost Valentine's day, so romance is in the air. I'm trying to avoid the chocolate this year, so I'll focus on the love. My own love, in particular.

Love is a tricksy beast, hard to predict, fickle and cunning. When you're looking you can't seem to find her, and she sneaks up on you when you've given up. At least that's how she's treated me.

I'm constantly amazed at the coincidences and twists of fate that brought me where I am now, all the decisions that didn't seem that important at the time, but ended up changing the trajectory of my life.

One of these is Jimmy Buffett.

In the early 1990s, I went on a Honors trip. Basically, kids who were in the Honors Programs at various Kentucky universities all came together and travelled for a week, learning about the history and geography of our fine state. I'd been on one before and had a lovely time and jumped at the chance to go on another.

It was fun. We ate a lot, played pool in the rec rooms at different colleges, laughed, and talked and talked and talked. There was a boy there I made friends with. We connected over a book. We found out that his parents and my parents didn't live that far apart.

At the end of the trip, he invited me to go to a Jimmy Buffett concert with him. I was engaged to someone else, and we were both clear this was a "friends" thing, so I went. It was a wet and miserable night and I was pretty muddy by the end of it, but we had a great time.

It didn't seem like any big deal at the time. But that not-really-a-date laid the groundwork for our friendship to continue. Anytime I came into town to see my parents, I also saw this friend. We'd get coffee, see a movie, take a walk, and talk. Always we'd talk. He was so easy to talk to.

Fast forward twelve years, and we've both had our hearts broken by other people. I was divorced and moving back in with my parents to deal with the financial fallout. He was getting ready to go to grad school. For the first time in all those years of friendship, we were both single at the same time. And boom! There it was.

It's already been another decade since then. We're still happy. So, thanks, Jimmy. Laughing in the rain and singing about spongecake is, apparently, the start of something beautiful.

Wednesday, February 1, 2017

#IWSG: When Writers Read

This month the #IWSG is asking: How has being a writer changed your experience as a reader?

Short answer: Completely!

Longer answer:

In some ways it's probably for the better. I read better books. Now that I have some insight into the process, I'm impatient with lazy writing or bad editing. I know that there is help to be had, and that hard work improves the piece, and I get frustrated with authors or publishers who aren't putting in that level of effort. I'm definitely more apt to just give up on a book that isn't working for me. Life is too short for that!

Sadly, becoming a writer has made it more difficult for me to really lose myself in a story. I'm pulled out by things I once would have glossed over or excused, hence that willingness to just stop reading something. That's why I'm so happy when a story can really move me, or make me laugh or cry. It's harder to do than it used to be. I feel like I've become more of a cynic or skeptic, harder to impress.

I do miss simply getting lost in a book, like a spell has been cast and I can no longer feel the world around me. It's the best sort of escapism. It still happens sometimes, but nowhere near as frequently as it once did. Part of that is just that I am older and I've read so many more things. But part of it that I'm writer.

I'm always reading like a writer these days. Heck, I even watch television like a writer, picking apart plot decisions and characterization to the point that I'm surprised my family will talk to me about stories at all. Whether the story really works for me or really doesn't work for me, I'm always trying to figure out why. Was it falling into stereotypes or tropes without doing anything to make them new and interesting? Was it too much like other stories, with nothing to surprise or amaze me? Was it so different that I felt at sea, with no place to stand and view the story?

I still love reading. I'm just pickier now. It means I'm frustrated sometimes. But it means that my joy is all the more joyful when I find something that rocks my world. How about you? What kind of reader are you?

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If you're not already following #IWSG (Insecure Writer's Support Group), you should really check it out. The monthly blog hop is a panoply of insight into the writing life at all stages of hobby and career. Search the hashtag in your favorite social media venue and you'll find something interesting on the first Wednesday of every month.

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Thursday, February 23, 2017

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Wednesday, February 15, 2017

Wednesday, February 8, 2017

Wednesday, February 1, 2017