stillsostrange

Chapter 3 of Kingdoms is now up on my website. And keep an eye on the Necromancer blog, as I hope to have another character study posted before the release date.

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3. Throne of the Crescent Moon - Saladin Ahmed

I actually read this last year, but forgot to add it to the book list. Ghouls! Crotchety ghoul hunters! Lion girls! Creepy jackal spirits! Cardamom tea! I do not read enough books with cardamom tea.

4. Infidel - Kameron Hurley

I continue to love the Bel Dame Apocrypha, brutal and bittersweet and veined with the impossible hope of redemption. My only nit with this book is Sweet Holy Mother of Fishes, the word rep! I cannot not see it, and it burns us, precious.

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And now I should have lunch and put on non-yardwork clothing, for tonight I'm crashing jmeadows' signing, with cupcakes.

My author's copies have landed! Everyone who has already sent me a donation receipt, your book will be in the mail tomorrow or Wednesday.

If anyone else was waiting for more immediate gratification, now is the time. Donate $8.00 to Planned Parenthood and email me a copy of the receipt. I will then send you a signed copy of Kingdoms of Dust. The book won't be released in stores for another two weeks.

Today was not as productive as I might have liked in wordcount, but I did also manage to take my car to the shop (cracked ignition coil), buy jmeadows' brand new book, meet commodorified & co. for coffee and mutually assured corgi destruction, and spend some time chatting with a strange and tiny new cat in my driveway.

Dreams of Shreds & Tatters

70105 / 80000 words. 88% done!

I have five chapters left to revise from the old-old file, or around 13,000 terrible awful nogood words. I'm not sure what that will become in new words. On the one hand, the old stuff was overwritten and repetitive sentence-wise, so things will shrink. On the other hand, I'm adding more useful bits in this draft, and have two new plot points I want to squeeze in. And the original denouement was atrocious, and needs to become completely different. I would guess the final product will turn into 85k, but I've been wrong before.

Tomorrow I have dayjobbery and climbing, but Thursday through Saturday shall be a bookmarch of epic proportions.

Also, Publishers Weekly has nice things to say about Kingdoms.

Kingdoms has acquired a rating on Goodreads. Now I'm left to wonder if that means eARCs are going out, or if the reviewer is psychic. (It's a good rating, so she's clearly an accurate psychic.) If anyone hears of review copies, let me know.

I have been having quite the terrible no-good day, but I do have a bright spot to share:

On Thursday, March 22nd, matociquala and I will at Pandemonium Books in Boston, having a joint signing/launch for Range of Ghosts and Kingdoms of Dust, from 7 - 9 PM. Come hang out. We promise not to throw books at you. At least not hardbacks.

I mentioned some time ago that I had sold "Bone Garden"--now I have a few more details. I've sold "Bone Garden" to Subterranean Press, for A Fantasy Medley 2, edited by Yanni Kuznia. I've been a fan of SubPress for years, and I'm thrilled senseless to be included in this anthology.

I don't have all the release details, but it will include a limited signed hardcover version. I'll get signature sheets! This is the fanciest I have ever been.

For those playing along at home, "Bone Garden" is a novelette set in Erisín shortly after the events of The Bone Palace, also known as "Demimonde Theatre Boys vs. Oracular Demons", or the story in which I kill sovay.

And now I have to get back to page proofs for Kingdoms.

Yesterday brought doubled good news. "Red", my not-exactly-a-zombie-romance featuring goth bicycle gangs in post-apocalyptic Austin, has sold to Brave New Love, a dystopian YA anthology edited by Paula Guran. (For those of you who followed the Wicked Pretty Things debacle, yes, there was a change of editors. I've worked with Paula before, and am very happy that she took over the anthology.)

Shortly after that, I learned that "Bone Garden"--or Boywhores vs. Oracular Demons--was accepted by its anthology as well. I don't have the all-clear to share details yet, but I'm very happy to be accepted by this publisher.

The CEM for Kingdoms went back to my editor today, leaving me with with a surprising fondness for the book, and the restless itch to write The Bitter Road, aka the unsold fourth Necromancer Chronicle. Not to mention The Poison Court.

That leaves the to-do list looking like this:

Finish Kingdoms of Dust
Write "Bone Garden"
Eurocon
Write dystopian YA story
Kingdoms CEM
Revise "Bone Garden"
Revise "Red"
Write synop & 3 for Oracle of Plagues
WorldCon
Armadillocon
Kingdoms page proofs
Pitch option novel
Poke "Flood" with a sharp stick
Poke "Birthgrave" (Isyllt's origin story) with a sharp stick

Project Valkyrie and Operation: Badger Reduction continue apace. Several of my shirts are becoming less like sausage casings, but I seem to have lost all my swimming stamina since last summer.

Now I guess I'll start looking for awesome stuff to pack into Oracle. Any suggestions?

Good news/bad news:

The good news is, I got the edit letter for Kingdoms today, and my editor likes it! I appear to have pulled off the desert gothic thing. He also had useful suggestions for making the end into less of a dog's breakfast.

The bad news is, the release date has been pushed back till March of 2012. Alas. This is what happens when you blow your deadlines and your middle initials aren't R. R. To everyone who was hoping to get in in December, I apologize for the delay, but I'll try to offer bonus content to make up for it. Necromancer Christmas cards, maybe...

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"Bone Garden"
Words today: 1618
Words total: 6886
Reason for stopping: tired
Darling: "What went wrong?" Something always went wrong. The theatre had taught him that, even if he hadn't seen [the plot] himself.
Tyop: n/a
Named things: If domovoi is "house thing", does that mean kostovoi is "bone thing"?

I'm not sure I can wrap this up in 3k, but at least the beginning has some fluff I can trim.

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The book-and-art sale continues, and will do so till Monday.

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Mad science baking led to Goblin Market muffins (beets, cranberries, pomegranate applesauce, orange zest), a brilliant idea that fell through somewhere along the way. They're tasty, but way too sticky, and end up fused with the cupcake papers. I'll try this again some time.

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Shadowhand (aka Mad Max Beyond Ragnarok) is clamoring at me. The characters have started telling me too much about their sex lives, which is always a dubiously good thing. I'm especially enamored of Loki's grandson, and am trying to figure out a graceful way to conflate both Vális.

Oh, hey... I thought Fenrir was the man with the cold grey voice (because Hel is the hag), but maybe it's Váli. This book is turning into one big family reunion. Maybe Laufey herself will get a cameo.

That last post, about ignoring books and having downtime? Yeah, scratch that. Back on your heads. My head. Whatever.



I'm used to having a big ol' "back", but the size of that "like" alarms me.