My fantasy world, that is. Or at least the name. Yes, Estelend, the world of Chosen of Azara, The Warrior and the Holy Man, and my two upcoming novels, Source-Breaker and Heir of Tanaris, is getting a name change. A long time ago when I first started developing this world, I just called it Source-World. Easy, and it made sense - the world is based on the idea of magic coming from Sources that are natural features, such as caves, springs, trees, etc. Not a terribly original idea, but it's a lot of fun to work with and offers a lot of possibilities for conflicts and stories, and for characters who are involved with these Sources in one way or another. When I was still doing this writing thing just for fun, Source-World worked fine as a name. But when it came time to start putting these stories out in public, I realized that Source-World wouldn't work because the people living in that world wouldn't think of it that way. So I went looking for another name. I don't remember the exact process by which I came up with Estelend, but I do remember it involved consulting the etymology section at the back of my trusty vintage American Heritage dictionary. Anyway, so I came up with Estelend and it seemed okay. I wasn't wild about it, but it was better than Source-World. But I've never really liked the sound of it, and I think it looks funny, and that's been bothering me more and more. Another thing I don't like about it is that, to my ear, it seems a little reminiscent of Westeros, the world of Game of Thrones/Song of Ice and Fire. I'll just say that I'm not a fan of those books and I really don't want to have any suggestion of association with them, and I don't want people to think I'm trying to invoke them. I put off doing anything about changing the name, because it seemed like an awful lot of work and would involve making (admittedly minor) changes in work that's already been published, including to the covers. But I was disliking Estelend more and more, and realized that with two more novels set in the world about to come out, it's now or never - if I don't make the change now, I'm stuck with Estelend. So I chose the words that express the idea of this world, magic or power and source, and went to a site that lists what words are in lots of different languages. "Magic" is pretty much the same in most languages, and I didn't want something so identifiable, so I also looked for words for "power." I tried out lots of different combinations, then did some Googling to make sure I wasn't using something that was someone's name or had an unfortunate meaning. One of my possible names, when I Googled it, Google didn't recognize it and suggested "Gardevoir" instead. Gardevoir is a Pokemon, and a very cool Pokemon, but I don't want something else coming up should readers Google for the name of my world. After all this, I finally settled on the new name for Estelend, Tehovir. It means "power source" in a mashup of a couple of different languages, and looks cool; it fits with a lot of the other names I've invented for this world. How to pronounce it? However you want, since it's not a real word :-D In my mind I say it "TAY-hoe-Vir" (short i). But really, you can pronounce it however you want. Right now I'm in the process of making the change on the covers (fortunately, I do my own lettering and save everything in a Photoshop version so it's easy to go in and just change one word) and doing search-and-replaces in the books and stories set in that world. The publishing services at a lot of the stores I sell through are closed/on reduced hours for the holidays right now, so I'll wait until I've got everything switched around to start uploading. In the meantime, I'll start changing the old covers out on the site and also create a new Tehovir blog category and a page for the series. Because the week before Christmas, trying to get the next book out, what I need most is another task like this :-P But it's really a relief to not have that nagging at me any more, hating the name Estelend and wondering if I should do something about it. In the meantime, if you really want to help make a small change in the world for authors struggling with health or financial difficulties, head on over to the Help an Author Christmas promotion. (Read more about it in this post.) You can browse (full price) books by authors who have donated to the assistance fund, and even make a donation yourself, if you want. The Daughter of the Wildings Books 1-3 and Love and Magic box sets are in the promo, and for each copy of those titles sold during December (whether through the promo or otherwise), I'll make an additional donation to the fund. Thanks for your support!
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Holy cats, it's been a while. What can I say, I've been busy writing.
Anyway. A fantasy and science fiction authors group I'm in got together to raise money to help authors in need. In the words of the founder/leader/person running things, Patty Jansen: "If you spend any time in spaces where authors hang out, you cannot fail to notice that there are a lot of authors who are struggling with finances or health or both. Why is this? Well, when life gives you lemons, writing is one of the few things that you can continue to do." I know the truth of this; this is where I am in my life. As disabled with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome as I am, I'm unable to work outside the home or for any kind of regular working hours. Writing is pretty much the only job I can manage, and it isn't a very dependable source of income. Fortunately, I have a spouse with a steady income, but others aren't so lucky, or are facing situations where even that isn't enough to cover whatever crisis they're facing. To help these authors, we in the group donated money which will be distributed to authors in need in packages of $250. That amount will pay for a cover and formatting to get the next book published, or for a license to Vellum, a book formatting program, or a year-plus subscription the Grammarly, or a copy of Photoshop Elements and a bunch of stock art for DYI covers, or some advertising. It could also pay a chunk of rent or mortgage, buy some groceries, or pay for some prescriptions. In exchange for our donations, the authors who have donated get to have books listed on the promo page. You'll find a wide variety of science fiction, dystopian, fantasy, sci fi/fantasy romance, and even a bunch of box sets. These books are full price, $2.99 and up. More books will be listed as more authors donate to the fund. There's also a donate button on the page if you want to throw a little money into the fund. So go have a browse and discover some new books! Checking in with a quick update on how my current projects are coming along. I'm finishing up the second major revision on Source-Breaker, the next novel I'll be releasing. After that comes the last few rounds of edits; hopefully, this will be ready to release by mid-December. I feel like it's been going really slow, partly because I've had a lot of disruptions and the CFS is really kicking me in the backside right now, and also because there's been a fair amount of work with adjusting characterizations and things like that. But one I get through the bottleneck of those big changes, it should go a lot faster. The other major project I'm working on right now is the first draft of Defenders of the Wildings, the follow-up series to Daughter of the Wildings. I'm writing it all at once, like one big book; it doesn't divide up neatly into separate novels like Daughter did. It's more episodic, like a TV serial, and I'll probably end up releasing it that way. Like with Daughter, what I thought would be the end of Defenders actually wasn't and I needed to add a whole other part, bringing the action back to where it started to finish everything off. But now, after a couple of false starts and more than 150,000 words, I'm within 10,000 - 15,000 words of the end, I think. Lot of work still to go, to get it revised and cleaned up and ready to release, but Daughter of the Wildings has been picking up a whole bunch of new readers lately and I'm eager to offer more Silas and Lainie sixguns and sorcery to the world. And just to prove that yes, this thing really does exist, here's the prologue from Defenders (unedited, straight from my brain to the keyboard): Amber Bay shone gold, the color of its name, in the lengthening light of the late afternoon sun as three men disembarked from the Sea Dragon, the large sailing ship that had docked just a short time ago. All three of them strode down the gangplank with an air of authority -- they knew they were where they were supposed to be, and they knew what they were supposed to do. One was a tall, portly man in a long, richly-embroidered robe tied with a broad blue sash. His fair skin was burned red by the sun and wind of weeks at sea; a round, flat-topped cap sat atop his white-blond hair. The second man was nearly as tall, thin, with amber skin and curling red hair cropped close to his head. He wore a well-tailored dark suit, in the manner of wealthy businessmen on this continent, as did the third man. This man was short and powerfully muscled, ebony-skinned with a long black braid trailing down his back.
As they stepped off the gangplank, followed by a knot of half a dozen retainers and assistants, a man on shore came forward from the crowd to meet them. He was tall, dark-skinned as though deeply tanned and dark-haired, also wearing a well-made dark suit. His right forefinger sported a broad gold ring set with a dark red stone. He bowed to the three men who had just come off the ship. "Underministers. Welcome to Amber Bay and the Wildings." The three men nodded to him. "You are Mr. Desavias?" the tall, fair-haired man asked. He nodded. "I am. At your service, Underministers." "You have the items that were discussed?" the red-haired man asked. "I do, Underministers. That is, I have constructed a prototype according to your instructions, and we have procured more of the substance to fuel it." He nodded to his side, and a fifth man stepped forward. This man was of middling height, lean and muscular, with skin a pale lavender bordering on gray and long dark red hair twisted into thick, ropy locks. He wore tanned leather leggings and no shirt, and was carrying a metal-bound wooden box, with sides about the length of his forearms. "That is the substance?" the fair-haired man asked Desavias. But it was the lavender-skinned man who answered them, speaking the tongue they spoke in with surprising fluency. "It is. A gift from the P'wagimet people in exchange for the Continental Alliance's considerations in the past and in the future. This is only a sample. Greater quantities are being safely stored in the place where the weapons will be made." "Excellent," the fair-haired man said, though he still addressed his words to Desavias rather than the P'wagimet man. "And this... material works as promised?" "It has been extensively tested, Underminister. I think you three gentlemen and your leaders will be more than pleased," Desavias answered. "Good," the red-haired underminister said, but the third foreigner's brow creased in concern. "Are we certain that this is absolutely necessary?" he asked his companions. "It seems to me that the cost is far greater than any benefit this tactic might provide. Even considering the generous donation of the key material by this man's people." He nodded to the P'wagimet man. The other two men looked at him. "If you are having doubts, Mr. Cajali," the fair-haired one said, "please feel free to express your doubts to the Commissioner and ask to be removed from this mission." Cajali's dark face blanched grayish. "I... of course I'm not having doubts, Mr. Dorbich. If you and Mr. Semov are convinced that this measure is necessary in proportion to its cost to the success of the mission, then I will not argue with that. Expansion and Regulation are your realms of expertise, not mine; I will continue to concern myself only with affairs of business." "When you gentlemen have rested from your journey, we will discuss preparations for the journey to the outpost," Desavias said. "Of course, because of the difficulties in transporting the devices, they must be manufactured much closer to the Wildings -- what you call the Middle Lands. And it is more convenient to have headquarters there, as well." Lut Dorbich, Underminister of Expansion for the Continental Alliance's foray into this new continent, looked at his companions. "Thank you. I believe we will be ready to depart Amber Bay in the morning. We have been forced into inactivity during the long journey; it is time to begin moving forward. Are we agreed on that?" Yugalis Semov, Underminister of Regulation, nodded in agreement. After a brief hesitation, Gidejoni Cajali, Underminister of Enterprise, nodded as well. "Very good," Desavias said. "I have a carriage waiting right over here, to take you to your hotel. Follow me, please." Following the mage and the P'wagimet man, the three Underministers walked to a carriage waiting near the busy, crowded pier and climbed in. The Weird Western StoryBundle is down to the last couple of days - it ends Sept. 8 at 9:00 pm Pacific Time. To give you a little more of a taste of this fantastic bundle of books, here are some tiny snippets from the beginning of each book excerpt posted over on the StoryBundle site. To read the full excerpts, along with reviews and notes by Bundle curator Blair MacGregor, head on over to the Weird Western StoryBundle page. Haxan, by Kenneth Mark Hoover Haxan, New Mexico Territory Spring, 1874 I found the old man nailed to a hackberry tree five miles out of Haxan. They had hammered railroad spikes through his wrists and ankles. There was dried blood on the wood and iron. Blood stippled his arms and chest. He was stripped naked so the westering sun could peel the flesh from his bones. He was alive with I found him. Spellslinger, by Joseph J. Bailey I woke to the buzzing of flies. The sound reverberated through my head like echoes from another world. I could not open my eyes. Where was I? Why was I here? Why couldn't I move? Where were my guns? Idyll, by James Derry Marathon—if it still existed—waited in the east. Samuel Starboard led Titan that way, where the border of the family's ranch was defined by a ridge of quartz that was the color of old teeth. In some places the rock crystals rose in spires, four meters high. Titan wound her way up the brown slope to a large fissure in the ridge. A single beam of wood spanned the gap, and a hand-painted sign leaned against the beam. QUARANTINE. KEEP OUT. West of Pale, by J. Patrick Allen I consider it a special kind of madness that had me leaving the house that night, despite fears of something stalking me. Mania and curiosity mashed into a slurry of dread and a sense of looming mortality. Still, I had my head on enough to be considerate: I left money on the dining room table where Frau Sackoff would find it. Some little compensation for what I was about to steal. Dragons in the Earth, by Judith Tarr Dragons sleep in the earth here. I feel them. Sometimes I see them—in my head, in dreams, in the hunched shapes of mountains curled around the flattened bowls of the valleys. They're always there. I'm always aware of them, but sometimes the awareness sinks down deep, till I can almost forget them. A Book of Tongues, by Gemma Files The dream was always the same. She appeared above him, blown by a black wind, her back-sloping forehead girded with a hissing serpent, her swirling hair stiffened with mud. Her round face was set with jade scales, irregular as leaves. The lids and orbits of her wide-spaced eyes were decorated, mosaic-style, with tiny chips of shell, mother-of-pearl and obsidian. New World (New World #1), by Steven W. White *free newsletter bonus!* As the stink of low tide washed over the village of Fort Sanctuary, a little boy named Simon Jones didn't want to get punched again. His nemesis, a seventeen-year-old thug named Marshall Dunster, was stalking him. Stealth, that was the key. Change the usual routine. Don't walk home from the printing house down Sunrise Street like always, but turn left at Fife's pub, the Mermaid, where his father spent Friday evenings. Simon's skinny, nervous legs whipped along, taking him through that left turn– "Gotcha!" Marshall's iron grip found his neck and pulled at his collar. Hair of the Bear (New World #2), by Steven W. White After nine weeks at sea, with nothing beyond the rail but rolling gray swells, the land of Mira beckoned at last. The hollow clang of the lookout's bell echoed down from the crow's nest. Lisandra Jurgen, major in the Royal Guard sworn to uphold the law in Albueshire and its provinces and territories in Sept Algolus, tapped her fingers on the rail's worn oak. Finally, justice would be done. Finally! Flash Gold Chronicles, by Lindsay Buroker Kali McAlister tapped a wrench against her thigh as she contemplated her invention. She had stripped every extra piece of metal she could from the "dogless sled" and had even debated removing the brush bow, but that seemed unwise. Besides, it'd been so cold the last week that men were complaining of pee freezing before it hit the ground. The ice on Forty Mile Creek ought to be thick enough for the heavy steam sled. If it wasn't…winning the race would be the last of her worries. Beneath the Canyons, by Kyra Halland A stable stood between Mundy's Boarding House and the half-built hotel. A boy was tossing pebbles into a circle scratched in the dirt of the stable yard; Silas rode over and gave the boy a penny to watch Abenar and his belongings for a moment. He pulled on his long brown duster, which he had shed in the heat of the day and draped over the saddle behind him, then headed to the boarding house to inquire about a room. A crash from inside the saloon across the street caught his attention. He turned to see a big-bellied, bushy-bearded man come flying backwards through the swinging doors of the Bootjack. To find out even more about the books and authors in the bundle, check out the blog post link roundup on Blair MacGregor's blog. And also, Joseph J. Bailey was kind enough to interview me on his blog - go have a look!
Don't forget, the Weird Western StoryBundle ends Sept. 8. You can get the first four books for only $5, or all nine books for $14 (or more if you choose). Don't miss out on this great deal for an awesome collection of books! Taking a quick break from the Weird Western StoryBundle to announce that The Brilliant Career of Sajur Golu and Other Tales of Azara is now available. This companion volume to Chosen of Azara contains the following stories:
To give you a taste of what's in this collection, I've posted "Coming Home" over in the Read Right Here section. The regular price on this collection will be $2.99, but now through Sept. 5 you can get it for only 99 cents at the following stores: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | iTunes | Kobo | OmniLit | DriveThruFiction | Smashwords Also, Chosen of Azara is only 99 cents through Sept. 5! Amazon (all international sites) | Barnes & Noble iTunes | Kobo | OmniLit | Smashwords | DriveThruFiction As promised, here is cool thing #2, and I have been so excited about this! Beneath the Canyons is part of the Weird Western StoryBundle available now through September 8. Ever since I found out about the StoryBundle site, I've wanted to be part of a bundle, so this is really a dream come true. I am so excited for my book to be part of this great collection where westerns cross paths with science fiction, fantasy, horror, paranormal, and the just plain weird. I'll let the bundle curator, Blair MacGregor, tell you a little more about it: Welcome to our Weird Western Bundle, where wide frontiers, flintlocks, whiskey and revenge meet swords, airships, terraforming, magic, myths, and dragons. You'll find stories here set in the snows of old Alaska and the heat of contemporary Arizona, post-Civil War San Francisco and post-colonization planets, and places that seem as familiar as any wooded mountain or wind-swept desert... until tigers and dragons and horses that are so much more than you might assume burst into the scene. The different aspects of the Weird Western spirit in this bundle will give fans of the genre something they haven't seen before, and folks new to Weird Westerns a wide sampling of its fantastic offerings. Besides my own book, I've read three of the other books in this bundle, Spellslinger, West of Pale, and Flash Gold Chronicles. Judging by those, there's some awesome reading in this collection, and I'll be taking a closer look at more of the books during the time the bundle is available. Here's Blair again to explain how the bundle works: StoryBundle lets you choose your own price. For $5—or more if you'd like—you'll receive the basic bundle of four great novels in DRM-free ebook format. For the bonus price of at least $14—or more if you'd like—you'll receive all nine novels. If you choose, a portion of your payment will go toward supporting Mighty Writers and Girls Write Now. Whether you're already a fan of Weird Western or you want to get a taste of this diverse and growing genre, don't miss out on this chance to get up to nine books at a great price! And don't forget to sign up for the StoryBundle newsletter to get free bonus book.
Time for another monthly progress report, one week into August. July was busy with family reunion/vacation and some other stuff, so I didn't get as much writing done as I hoped I would. I did finally figure out the follow-up Wildings series, which now also has a name, Defenders of the Wildings. I solved the story problems (I think); the events of book 1 make the most sense coming in the middle of book 2, which means I'm splitting book 2 in half and putting book 1 in the middle, with much attendant reworking of the two books. The story seems to be working better now, but what it means for the series is that this series won't be structured in nice, neat novel-length episodes like Daughter of the Wildings. I can't tell yet if it's going to be one large, disjointed book (my least favorite option), two short and somewhat less disjointed books, or a series of shorter serial-style episodes. Right now I've got book 1 (now the second episode) rewritten and I'm constructing episode 1 out of the first part of the old book 2. The whole thing is roughly outlined, and I added a concluding episode which wasn't in the original plan, to tie up the story in a more satisfactory fashion. (I also had to do this with Daughter of the Wildings, which first I thought would be five books, then I realized I needed a sixth book.) I'm also getting ideas for another follow-up set of books, called Children of the Wildings, starring, well, I'll let you guess! I've also been working on edits of Tales of Azara, now titled The Brilliant Career of Sajur Golu and Other Tales of Azara. See my hopefully-not-too-lame cover I made for it above. If you've read Chosen of Azara, you may remember Sajur Golu as the evil, corrupt priest. This collection of short stories contains the story of his rise to the position of High Priest of Source Dar and of the Madrinan Empire, along with other background stories, character vignettes, and alternate points of view of scenes in the book. I'm looking at releasing it sometime before the end of August, in conjunction with the debut of a new cover for Chosen of Azara. Getting a new cover for Chosen of Azara was a very difficult decision; I love the current cover but it just isn't quite right for the genre and while it represents the characters of Sevry and Lucie very well, it doesn't really convey a sense of the story. None of this is the fault of the artist; I love Design by Katt's work and highly recommend her for beautiful photomanipulation covers. Rather, it's the difficulty in finding base photos to work with that are right for the book. Also, with two more novels in the Tehovir world scheduled to come out later this year and early next year, I wanted to re-brand the Chosen cover to fit with the others and with The Warrior and the Holy Man, which is also set in Tehovir. So I commissioned Mominur Rahman, the artist who did the amazing Daughter of the Wildings covers and also the new covers for Urdaisunia and Warrior and the Holy Man, to do these next three covers. I got the final art for Chosen today, and it's gorgeous. Watch for the cover reveal, coming soon! So I've hinted at some exciting things coming up, and new cover art is one of them. The others I still can't talk about, but they're really cool. Stay tuned for news! And finally, since it's Music Monday, here's a video for you. This is "My Therapy" from the album Haven by Kamelot, which is the theme song for my character Davreos from Heir of Tanaris, one of my upcoming Tehovir books. It's been a while since I've done a Tasty Tuesday post, or any other post for that matter. I was away all last week at a family reunion in Park City, Utah. My parents like to go there for a week or so every summer, and last year they informed all of us kids and grandkids that this year we were all coming too. It was fun, though I mostly stayed busy helping with my 3-year-old and 2-month-old granddaughters to give their daddy and mommy a break. Park City is absolutely gorgeous, and there are lots of fun outdoors things to do. We had yummy family dinners, had a cookout with relatives I haven't seen in years, some as long as 30 years and some I've never met (my parents are both from Utah, so we have a lot of relatives there), some folks went skeet shooting, rode on the ski lifts, and went into Salt Lake City for sightseeing and to hear the Mormon Tabernacle Choir rehearse, and there was a pre-wedding reception for my oldest nephew and his fiancee (who is also from that area). The wedding was the next day, Saturday; unfortunately, we had already booked our flights home first thing that morning months ago, before we knew about the wedding, so we weren't able to go. But the reception was lots of fun. I'm home now, and recovering and trying to get back into a routine, and found myself craving hummus. I discovered several months ago that I like hummus, but it's hard to find properly made hummus in the stores. The kinds in the stores usually have soybean oil and/or citric acid, when hummus is supposed to be made with olive oil and lemon juice. The thing that was hanging me up from making it myself was I couldn't find tahini, then I realized that tahini is just sesame seeds and olive oil ground together in a paste, so I bought whole toasted sesame seeds and figured I would just blend them in with the rest of the ingredients. So this morning I dusted off my long-unused food processor and made hummus. And yes, that's my actual hummus I made in the photo. I used this recipe: http://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/hummus/ with the following alterations: *I cut the recipe in half. As written, it makes an awful lot of hummus, and since I'm the only one who eats it at my house, it would go bad before I could possibly eat it all. *Instead of water, I reserved the liquid from the garbanzo beans and used that. *I used 1/3 cup toasted sesame seeds and a little extra olive oil in place of the tahini. *I also added 1/4 teaspoon ground cumin. The recipes I found talk about making your hummus very smooth and creamy, but I like texture in my foods, so I didn't bother with peeling the garbanzo beans (!) or worry about the unground-up sesame seeds. After mixing, taste the hummus to test the seasoning. I ended up adding a little more salt, lemon juice, and cumin. I like hummus with Crunchmaster Multi-Seed crackers, but I didn't have any today, so I tried some with some water crackers left over from Christmas (the thing to have with our Christmas brie) and some other multi-grain crackers. It tastes best with crackers that don't have a strong flavor of their own. As far as how long this will keep, my experience with storing things made with cooked beans says a few days, or maybe almost a week. Not very long. So enjoy it while it lasts! Finally, I have some different exciting things I've been sitting on, not ready to talk about them publicly yet, but watch for some cool stuff coming up in the next few months! A couple of big sales going on right now: July 2-3: This weekend, July 2-3, don't miss the big 99 cent Science Fiction and Fantasy Sale! This one includes all the big retailers: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, iTunes, Google Play, and Smashwords. Tons of books are priced at 99 cents - science fiction, fantasy, sci fi/fantasy romance, dystopian, humor, and even some multi-novel box sets! (selection varies by store) Urdaisunia is part of the sale, available at all the retailers, so if you haven't yet read this tale of war, forbidden love, and gods behaving badly in an ancient desert land, now's your chance to get it for only 99 cents. July 1-31: It's the site-wide Summer/Winter Sale at Smashwords! Use coupon code SSW50 at checkout to get all my books 50% off (except for Cure for Nel and Mistress of the Mirror, which are free!). Lots of other books on sale too, at varying discounts. A few suggestions from the 99 cent promo Amazon page (some of these are available at the other stores as well): Sand & Storm, by Patty Jansen Patty Jansen runs these promos for free, and she puts in a lot of hard work helping other authors. This is her newest fantasy novel. The Dragon's Egg, by Pauline Ross Pauline Ross's Brightmoon novels are always favorites of mine. The Shadow and the Sun, by Monica Enderle Pierce I don't know anything about the author or the book, but I'm a sucker for wizards in love. Things Unseen, by C.J. Brightley I'm involved in a top-secret (for now) project with C.J. Brightley and a number of other authors. I just read C.J.'s novel The King's Sword and enjoyed it quite a bit. Hammer of the Gods (The Desolate Empire, book 3), by Christina Ochs Christina is also involved in this project, and I recently read Rise of the Storm, book 1 in the Desolate Empire series based on the Thirty Years' War. Excellent historical fantasy. (You can also pick up books 1 and 2 for free or cheap right now!) Just an assortment of news and updates. First, Mistress of the Mirror and Other Stories, my new short story collection, is finally available. This collection contains five short fantasy tales of strange things found in pawnshops... And things too strange for pawnshops: Mistress of the Mirror: A poor woman, an assassin, and a mirror. Valuables: A curious pawnshop owner and a mysterious figurine. Of Rings and Lemon Cream Cakes: A respectable spinster and a diamond ring with a mind of its own. Pawned: A fate worse than death. A Worthy Instrument: A struggling musician and the lute of his dreams. Only 99 cents at Amazon | Barnes & Noble | iTunes | Smashwords | OmniLit | DriveThruFiction | Kobo. Through August 31, if you sign up for my email alerts, you can get a coupon code for a free copy from Smashwords! So whenever I think things are going to settle down, it seems like that's just an invitation for something else to happen. The week before last, it was the event that will hereafter be known as the Lycopolypse, when Lycos, the hosting and domain name provider, crashed for nearly three days. The Lycos sites, including customer service, email (including my business domain email), and subscriber control panels went down, as did sites hosted on Lycos and its subsidiaries Tripod and Angelfire, AND (relevant to our interests here) all domain names registered through Lycos (including kyrahalland.com) stopped working. So if you tried to visit my site on those days and got an error, that's what happened. Fortunately, everything is back up and working, but I've also decided it's time to move on from Lycos. I'd been with Angelfire and Lycos since 2001, when I started my fanworks archive that I still run. Back in the old days, if you had some fanfiction or fanart you wanted to collect and post, or opinions to make available to the world, or any kind of hobby or interest to show off, or just wanted to carve out a little space for yourself on the internet, you taught yourself some basic html, signed up with Angelfire or GeoCities or Tripod (there were other hosts, too, but those were the Big Three and Angelfire generally seemed to be considered the best), and made yourself a website. None of this easy, instant Wordpress/Tumblr/drag n drop stuff; you had to actually learn some coding. But it was fun; there were a lot more regularly-updated amateur fansites back then, and if you've never had the experience of going to your favorite fansite, hoping for an update with a new chapter on that fic you were following or some cool new fanart to admire, and seeing - oh joy! - that flashing neon green text on black background scrolling by announcing an update, well, that's a big part of the internet you've missed out on. My fanworks site was hosted on Angelfire; just few weeks before the Lycopolypse I copied it over to private hosting owned by my older son and his wife. The Angelfire site went down, but with the domain names not working, no one could get to it on the other hosting, either, and of course no one could get to my author site. So I made the decision that it was time to transfer my domain names away from Lycos. That's been kind of a mess (I've had to involve their registrar, Tucows), but hopefully I'll get it all sorted out soon without any more disruption. Looking back, I'd been seeing signs for a few years now that Lycos wasn't the great company it used to be. I should have gotten out sooner, but I was still kind of sentimental about it. No more; it's time to move on. One important thing to note: This site being unavailable for a few days had nothing to do with Weebly, my hosting service. Weebly has been awesome and very reliable, with great, responsive customer service. Still, I'm backing up my site (saving to Evernote, so I can keep the contents and the general layout) just in case the day does come that something happens to Weebly. Hopefully it won't; they've been great to work with. So I'm still kind of tearing my hair out over the lack of progress with getting both of my domain names transferred (my fansite domain is all settled in its new home, but the transfer for kyrahalland.com is dead in the water at the moment), but otherwise it's back to the writing. The Source-Fixer is out to beta readers now, and the Mistress of the Mirror collection is finally up for sale. Next up, I'm working on getting Tales of Azara, a collection of companion stories to Chosen of Azara, ready to publish and working out more kinks in the follow-up series to Daughter of the Wildings. Some of what I've already written I can keep, but a lot is going to have to be ditched or changed as I rein myself in from my meanderings and get back to the heart of what the Wildings books are really about. I've been re-reading The War of Art and Do the Work by Steven Pressfield and using the focused and simplified three-part outline structure from Do the Work, and I think I've finally got a handle on this. |
AuthorI am Kyra Halland, author of tales of fantasy, heroism, and romance. Sign up for my email list
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