Sneak Peek Sunday is something fun I found out about from author Isabella Norse's Facebook page. If you're here from the Sneak Peek blog hop, welcome, help yourself to virtual punch and cookies over at the buffet table, and feel free to have a look around :)

Here's my first sneak peek, from Urdaisunia: In the drought-stricken desert land of Urdaisunia, which has been oppressed by the conquering Sazars for three generations, the Urdai peasant woman Rashali has a near-deadly encounter with the Sazar Prince Eruz.

Without warning, there was a rush of pounding hooves from her right, and a voice shouted, “You, Urdaina! Watch out!”  A wall of black struck hard against her right side. She tumbled to the ground, the yoke sliding from her shoulders, the buckets spilling their water onto the thirsty ground.

Rashali got to her feet, stumbling on a twisted ankle. Three Sazar warhorses stood in front of her, a huge black beast flanked by two slightly smaller dark brown horses. From their mounts, three Sazar warriors clad in silver-trimmed black stared down at her.

Hate and rage clouded her senses. These sallow-skinned, narrow-eyed barbarians had degraded and destroyed her people. They were responsible for the deaths of her husband and daughter and countless others. And they had spilled her water. She drew up precious moisture into her mouth and spat at the man in the middle, the man whose black horse had knocked her down.

The three horses danced and snorted like demons. Two long, curved, gleaming-sharp swords suddenly loomed above her head. The man on the right jumped down from his horse and grabbed Rashali in a choke hold. The point of a knife pricked the skin beneath her chin.

Tears of terror filled Rashali’s eyes and her heart raced painfully, but she refused to look away from the warrior in the middle, whose richer silver trimmings marked him as superior to the other two. She would not bow down, she would not give way, she would not grovel before a Sazar, even if it cost her her life.

The moment seemed to hang suspended as the warrior gave her a long, hard, searching look, as though he were trying to peer into her mind and discover how she dared to defy him. Then he sheathed his sword.

Check out the Sneak Peek Sunday site for more sneak peek fun!

Here's the companion piece to the last post about Rashali, an interview with Prince Eruz from Urdaisunia.

1. What is your full name? Is there anything significant about your name?
My name is Eruzasharbat. I'm commonly called Eruz; it's becoming customary among younger Sazars to shorten our names. Some older Sazars think that makes our names too similar to Urdai names, but it also makes them easier to say.

2. How old are you?
I am 25 years old.

3. Tell us about your family. What do you like and not like about them?
My father is Nezudanasag, King of Urdaisunia. My mother, his First Wife, is dead. I have a younger twin brother, Hazramatanarg, and an older brother, Teshtarganazad. Teshtarg's mother was one of our father's lesser wives; that's why he isn't heir to the throne. I also have a number of sisters. My wives are Nishanara (my First Wife), Gutrarina, and Birsaguna, and I have a two-year-old daughter, Mizalilu, by Gutra.

My father and brothers... Let's just say we don't see eye-to-eye on the best way to rule Urdaisunia and deal with the Urdai people. I think their view that it's appropriate and necessary to rule the Urdai with a heavy hand is short-sighted and dangerous, not to mention wrong for its own sake. My brothers would each love to take my place as heir, and I feel like my father is always watching me for an excuse to disinherit me. My father's brother Sumatriganaz, feels more the way I do, but I'm not sure if I can count on him to back me up in a confrontation with my father.

As for my wives, they're charming and attractive, but I never seem to be quite able to please them. Especially Nisha - we've been married for five years and I've yet to give her a child.

My daughter Mizalilu is the light of my life. She's quite perfect in every way, of course, the most beautiful child ever born.

4. Who was your first kiss, and what did you think of it?
My father contracted my first three zanira for me when I was seventeen. Since, of course, it's improper for a man to kiss a woman who isn't legally contracted to him as a wife or zanira, my first kiss was one of them, though I don't remember which one. (I'll admit, though, there might have been a kitchen girl or two before then, but my first permissible experience of any kind with a woman would have been with one of those zanira.) I'm sure I enjoyed it, I enjoy engaging in intimate relations, but sometimes I wonder if duty and physical pleasure are really all there is to it.

5. What is your occupation?
I am the High Prince, the Heir to the throne of Urdaisunia. Besides the general duties that go with the position, I am responsible for matters concerning the Urdai and also the harbor city, Kubiz.

6. What are your best and worst qualities?
I think my best quality is my willingness to look at matters objectively and realistically and to think for myself rather than being blinded by prejudice and tradition. Although this does cause difficulties for me with my father.

My worst quality is that sometimes I lack the courage to stand up for what I think is right. Besides that, allow me to refer you to my wives. I'm sure they'd be happy to give you an exhaustive list of my faults.

7. What quality do you value most in a romantic partner?
I appreciate a woman who is intelligent, and who can challenge me on an equal standing. Also, I know this sounds silly, but it would be kind of nice to have a wife who cares about me for myself instead of just for what I can give her. I know that isn't how things work, but it would be nice.

8. What is your favorite thing to do?
I enjoy riding my horse, Teshkarizaz, and spending time with my daughter. I also like going out in disguise to gather information myself rather than relying on agents to find out the things I want to know. It's a relief to be able to stop being the High Prince for a while and do something challenging and exciting. Also, the Sazars still worship Kuz, the god of sorcerers, and he's one of my favorite gods, so he has granted me a few small gifts which I enjoy using when I have the chance.

9. What is your greatest fear?
That my father's oppression of the Urdai will lead to an uprising, which would lead to bloodshed and disaster for all of us. I especially fear that my daughter would be harmed in a rebellion. I also fear being disinherited - not that I care so much about being King, but because both of my brothers hate the Urdai and would be even more ruthless towards them than my father is. I would like to see Urdaisunia peaceful and prosperous for the sake of all who live there, and especially for the sake of my daughter and any other children I might have.

10. What is your most treasured possession?
My daughter, Mizalilu.

Urdaisunia is available at:
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Apple | Kobo | OmniLit
Smashwords | CreateSpace | DriveThruFiction

Here's another fun thing I thought of to have on the blog: character interviews! I always enjoy reading these on other blogs about characters I like, so I decided to give it a try. Non-spoilery - these interviews are of the characters as they are at the beginning of the book. Have more questions for the characters? Leave them in the comments :)

First up is Rashali, from Urdaisunia!

1. What is your full name? Is there anything significant about your name?
My name is Rashali. It's just an ordinary Urdai name. I've heard that people from other lands have names for their families, but we Urdai don't have that custom.

2. How old are you?
I'm not really sure. With things being so difficult, once someone survives to adulthood, their age doesn't really matter. I think I'm about 22 years old.

3. Tell us about your family. What do you like and not like about them?
Most of my family, including my parents, most of my siblings, and my husband and daughter, are dead. Of course, I don't like that. My sister Kinna is still alive, and a few of her children. I live with them and help care for them. Kinna is older than me, but I feel like I'm the one who is stronger, and who looks after her. That's all right, it keeps me busy and gives me something to do, to keep my mind off of Tigun and Lalana being gone, and keeps me from getting too lonely.

4. Who was your first kiss, and what did you think of it?
*blushes* My first kiss was Tigun. He had come to our village from a village far away, on the Tabra River. He was so handsome, and the first person I'd ever met who wasn't from Moon Bend or one of the villages nearby. I don't know why he chose me - I'm told I'm not very pretty, and that I'm far too serious -  but he did, and he kissed me, and I liked it enough to marry him.

5. What is your occupation?
I'm a widow, a childless mother, a sister, an aunt. I care for my surviving family members, and for others in the village who need me. I'm also a Scorpion, a rebel against the Sazars, who conquered my country three generations ago. My greatest dream is to see the Sazars driven out of Urdaisunia and destroyed.

6. What are your best and worst qualities?
My best qualities are that I'm loyal and hard-working, and I think about things instead of taking them for granted. My worst quality is, I wish I wasn't so weak that sometimes my emotions, my feelings, are hard to live with. I wish sometimes I could just stop feeling anything.

7. What quality do you value most in a romantic partner?
I want a man who cherishes me and respects me, and who is kind and loyal and intelligent. A man like Tigun. I don't know if there are any more men like him.

8. What is your favorite thing to do?
I used to love to... spend time being close to my husband, and also playing with my daughter. I can't do those any more. There isn't anything I really like to do now, except think about and plan for the day when my people can regain their freedom and their pride.

9. What is your greatest fear?
That my people will all die away, our culture and achievements will be forgotten, and only the Sazars will be left in our land.

10. What is your most treasured possession?
My memories of Tigun and Lalana, and my identity as a woman of Urdaisunia. No matter what else the Sazars take from me, they can't take those.

Urdaisunia is available at:
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Apple | Kobo | OmniLit
Smashwords | CreateSpace | DriveThruFiction

Earlier this month, I got an email from an old college friend asking if my books are suitable for a couple of teenage girls in her life. I also had the opportunity to lend my proof copy of Urdaisunia to a good friend of mine, who also happens to be the wife of our current clergyman (in our church, the leaders of the congregation are drawn from the membership and rotated about every 5-7 years). These incidents, along with a discussion on my Goodreads group about content and age appropriateness got me thinking that I should do a post about content and age appropriateness of my books, as a guide for anyone who might be concerned about that.

To establish some context, I'll start by saying that when I was growing up, my parents told me that none of the books in the house were off-limits to me, and if I had any questions about anything I read I was welcome to bring it up with them. I think I was about 11 or 12 at the time. Of course, being the upright, church-going people that they are, my parents didn't have any pornography or anything like that in the house, but they did buy a regular supply of the current best-sellers, with all that entails. The first book I read with my newly-granted freedom (or maybe this was the book that inspired that conversation) was The Poseidon Adventure. The original movie had come out not long before, and the theme song from the movie was a big hit on Top 40 radio, so I was curious. Anyway, I grew up with the idea that, with proper parental involvement, teens should have few if any restrictions placed on what they read.

Of course, now, erotica and books with very explicit sex scenes are a lot more mainstream than they used to be, and I wouldn't be wild about the idea of my own teens reading those. So I'll agree that parents, and anyone who doesn't care to read explicit material, need to exercise more caution now than maybe they used to.

Sex isn't the only concern in deciding the appropriateness of reading material. Graphic violence is something that many parents and readers are concerned about; along with, at least for me, the cause served by the violence. I'm less bothered by reading about a villain being graphically and colorfully disposed of than I would be if the same methods were used against a hero, innocent bystander, child, or animal. Strong language bothers some people. Readers and parents might also object to what they consider sacrilegious content. A handful of f-bombs in a book doesn't bother me, but I've been known to put a book down because of light or disrespectful treatment of matters that are sacred to me. Some people might not like to see people of certain genders or races portrayed in certain ways. Some people might object to a specific political slant. The exact definition of what's offensive or inappropriate is different for everyone. As another example, I'm presently reading a fantasy novel that I believe is generally considered "clean," although it contains at least one fairly intense scene of near-rape, and I'm left wondering why near-rape is considered less objectionable than consummated lovemaking, just because the act isn't completed.

Anyway, the list goes on and on, and the consensus among writers is that you can't please everyone, you're bound to end up offending someone, and the best and only thing a writer can do is to write as honestly as he/she can.

So, to the point. How would I rate my books as far as age-appropriateness and offensive content?

My books feature adult characters, with adult lives and concerns, and contain "mature themes and situations," including sex and relationships, earning a living, death, war, sacrifice, and the struggle against evil forces that disrupt their world. A principle I try to follow in my writing is that everything in the story is there because it's needed. (I'm not perfect at this, but it's what I aspire to.) The corollary to that is, if something needs to be in the story, I put it in. If some important story or character development requires a sex scene, I put in a sex scene, though I leave out any description that isn't important to the point I'm trying to make. However, if some detail of the act is important, I'll include that - but still in the least graphic manner that still gets the job done. My aim is never to titillate the reader - I don't want the reader to be pulled out of the story by thinking about their own reaction to what I've written, I want them to be engrossed in what's happening with the characters (this applies to everything I write, not just sex scenes). On the other hand, if the important character and story business take place before the sex scene, I'll draw the curtain. In Urdaisunia, we don't need to know what Prince Eruz does with his three concubines (no, seriously, we don't); what we need to know is the desperate state of mind he's in that drives him to seek comfort that way.

Same thing with violence. Prince Eruz has to execute some people. The important thing is what's going on inside Eruz's head as he is forced to carry out these executions, not graphic descriptions of the actual deaths, so that's where the focus is in the writing. In Lost Book of Anggird, a couple of reprehensible people are killed in a particularly grisly way as punishment for their misdeeds; the act of carrying out the killings is cathartic to the person who does it, as well as demonstrating the extreme state of mind that character is in, so I focus on that in the writing and not on the (literally) gory details.

Language: I try to use restraint in the use of strong or offensive language, because it loses its impact if it's overused. (A personal line for me is not to use religious oaths that apply in our world; on the other hand, characters in an invented world using oaths that reference invented gods aren't a problem for me.) Again, if it's necessary to communicate what the character is experiencing, or if the use of strong language is appropriate to how the character would speak in a given situation, I'll put in just what's necessary. There's a bit of language in Urdaisunia that's rougher than I would normally use, but it's coming from a thoroughly bad person who is purposely being as insulting and offensive as possible. Anything milder in that situation would have sounded silly.

And so on. In general, I try to put in what the story requires to be told honestly and completely, without going overboard, and certainly without any intent to purposely shock, offend, or titillate.

If you want something more concrete, here is where I rate my books on a couple of different scales:

On the All-Romance Ebooks Heat Rating scale, from 1 - 5 flames, I rate my books a 2: "some [consummated] love scenes. These will be more sensual than graphic and will mostly rely on euphemism." Some parts might edge up just a bit to a low 3, with slightly more graphic description. My short stories run from 0 - 1 flame.

Alternatively, here's a rating scale I devised for fanfiction (another post for another time):
G: Nothing offensive, possibly some slight angst
PG: Occasional mild language, sexual references, mild violence, angsty
PG-13: More frequent language, strongly implied or "on-camera" (non-explicit) sex, more violence, intense angst
R: Strong language, more descriptive (but still non-explicit) sex, semi-graphic violence
M: extreme foul language, explicit sexual description, graphic violence.

On this scale, my books run PG-13 - R. (Short stories G - PG-13).

As far as age recommendations go, my books are definitely not for children. Also not for young teens. As far as older teens go, my books don't fit into the currently-popular Young Adult category, mainly because they have adult rather than teenage main characters and address adult concerns rather than the typical coming-of-age themes usually addressed in YA books, and also may have somewhat more graphic content (though my understanding is that there are plenty of YA books with intense and disturbing content, that address serious issues of sex, drugs, abuse, and so on). Based on my own experience at that age - there wasn't a YA category back then, or if there was it wasn't nearly as prevalent as it is now, and when you were in high school you went from reading middle grade/young teen books to adult books - I think my books are suitable for ages 16 and up. I wouldn't have a problem with my 17-year-old reading them (aside from the embarrassment factor of kid reading love scenes written by his mom!) I mean, really, I'm not exactly writing 50 Shades here.

But, ultimately, the appropriateness of my books is not a decision I'm qualified to make for other parents - or any other reader, period. I hope the information in this post will give readers and parents the information they need to make the right decision for themselves.

Last time on the Breakfast Challenge, we looked at Professor Roric Rossony from The Lost Book of Anggird. Today we'll see what breakfast is like for the characters in Urdaisunia.

In short, not nearly as luxurious. At one time, the land of Urdaisunia was an agricultural oasis, the Urdaisunians having developed various advanced agricultural techniques including an extensive irrigation system. But now drought and war have put an end to that, and food is in perilously short supply.

The staple foods in the villages along the riverbanks, including Rashali's home village Moon Bend, are lentils and  barley (mostly from stores from previous years' crops, since the harvests have been getting worse every year), root vegetables and greens that are native to the desert (because of the water shortage, vegetable gardens can no longer be grown), goat's milk, and chicken eggs. The river villagers' main source of animal protein was always fish, but with the drying up of the rivers, that major component of their diet has disappeared. Every once in a while, the village will butcher a spare goat and eat a small portion of the meat spit-roasted or stewed, but most of it is cured and dried. Goat jerky, basically. The same with chickens: they're more valuable for their eggs than for their meat, but every once in a while a hen too old to lay or a spare rooster will be killed and eaten.

With food in such short supply, the river villagers generally only eat one meal a day. They postpone that one meal as late in the day as they can, so they won't be too hungry to sleep at bedtime. Food supplies are commonly-shared, so food preparation and eating are generally communal activities. In spite of the shortages, the villagers are generous with those who have even less, such as travelers who have eaten their own provisions. They believe it's an offense to the gods to withold even what little they have been given by the favor of the gods.

When Rashali finds herself in unexpectedly comfortable circumstances in the capital city Zir, she is served a meal consisting of grilled fish (the two rivers have been dammed up at Zir, so fish is still available), soft cheese, cold cooked barley dressed with olive oil and herbs, fresh greens, figs, and almond cakes. This is more food than she sees in a week, and she feels guilty at the abundance, thinking of how hungry the people back home in Moon Bend are, but she eats as much of it as she can so as not to offend the gods and the person who provided the meal by wasting it. This is a supper; a breakfast in this situation would consist of cooked barley and/or lentils topped with goat-milk yogurt, barley bread, soft cheese, and figs or grapes. Two large meals a day are served here, one in late morning and the other late in the afternoon. Meals are eaten privately or in a formal family setting.

In another part of the book, Rashali is in an exceptionally well-run rebel camp with good supply lines, including water supplies. Three meals a day are served here, because the days start early and end late and include a lot of military training and other hard work. A typical meal is lentil stew topped with goat-milk yogurt, and the camp also stores hard-baked cakes of barley and lentils.

In Kubiz, the great harbor city, fish is a lot more abundant, of course. Fish stew or grilled fish are eaten at nearly every meal, and Kubiz still has enough food supplies that anyone who can afford it can eat three meals a day. Kubiz is also a very cosmopolitan city, so the food has a lot of international influences, including stir-fry and kebabs. Candy is popular, with makers of almond-paste and honey sweets being common.

I used food in Urdaisunia as a close reflection of the different circumstances and settings the characters find themselves in. In some ways, Urdaisunia is a story of survival, both of individuals and of nations, and food is essential to survival. It was also interesting to do some research into what kinds of food would have been available to the ancient Sumerians. In an earlier version of the book I had the Urdaisunians eating lots of rice, until it occurred to me (duh) that rice cultivation takes a lot of water. Way more water than was ever available. So, goodbye rice, hello barley. I like barley, as it happens, and I also like lentils. I don't think I'd like them as much if that was most of what I had to eat, though.

Camp NaNo report:

4/15 1801 words
4/16 1680 words
Total: 16,829/30,000

Finally, here's a shout-out to Sharon Stevenson, this week's featured writer at the Paranormal, Fantasy, Dystopia and Romance Writers and Reviewers group on Goodreads!

Today's Camp NaNo output:

1517 words Total: 5234/30,000 words.

Have I mentioned how much fun this series, Daughter of the Wildings, is to write? Aside from the issue of it not wanting to let me plan more than a few scenes or chapters in advance, which is completely different from how I usually write. The setting and the characters are so much fun, and I'm finding myself leaving places where I can write short stories and novellas later on to fill in some gaps. The world needs more second-world fantasy (that is, fantasy set in a world completely unconnected to ours) in a wild west type of setting.

Anyway. I realized I haven't written anything about Urdaisunia lately. It's published, it's out there, and I've moved on to other projects. But I haven't forgotten about it. There's a story behind the writing of Urdaisunia, and here it is.

A long time ago, I wrote my first novel. Like a good little writer, I then found an agent in the Writers Marketplace book at the library, and bundled my novel off to an agent who represented fantasy writers. Then I started my next novel.

There were two seeds for this second novel. One was an image that came into my mind, of a peasant woman, destitute and desperate, facing down three men on horseback who were holding swords over her head. Then one of the men, obviously in charge of the other two, orders them, in a language she doesn't understand, to not kill her.

The other seed was my fascination at the time (well, I still have it) with very ancient civilizations and cultures. Not the Romans and Greeks, those whippersnappers, but even more ancient. And not the Egyptians, because that's been done. I wanted really, really ancient, and something that you didn't see stuff about all the time. Sumeria fit the bill. I read up about the technology and culture developed by the Sumerians, and their literature and mythology, and began developing a world based on that. You can find more details about the Sumerian influences on Urdaisunia in this post. Then I plopped that peasant woman and the three warriors down in that world, and came up with the idea of an ancient, proud civilization in decline and conquered by newcomers, and the gods of that civilization all in an uproar about what to do about it.

I started writing that novel and was having loads of fun with it. In the meantime, I got a response from the literary agency I had contacted, a very nice rejection that made me feel like maybe I would hit the target with the next book. Also in the meantime, though, the word "marketability" had entered my awareness. Whether through reading Writer's Digest magazine, or something in the letter from the agency, or both, I don't remember. But at that point, I realized that I was not only going to have to write something good, I was also going to have to write something that an agent would find marketable and that the agent would be able to convince an editor at a publishing company was marketable.

And then I froze up. I had no idea what someone else was going to think was marketable - I still don't. I don't know if anyone does. All I knew was that I had never seen anything like the novel I was writing on the fantasy shelves at bookstores (pre-Medieval, non-European setting, no wizards and magic, all these gods running around doing their soap opera thing), which said to me that books like that were not considered marketable. I mean, I couldn't be the only person who ever thought of writing something like that.

So I tried to change the story. I stuck some wizard and magic stuff (beyond the small amount that came organically) into the story and tried to make the whole thing with the gods a little less weird, and just tried to make the whole structure of the novel more like that of the fantasy novels I was reading at the time. The more I tried to make the novel "marketable," the bigger mess it turned into, and finally I just gave up - both on the novel and on the idea of trying to get published, since it was now apparent to me that I didn't have a clue about how to write the kinds of things that agents and publishers would want.

This was in about 1991. Fast forward to, oh, 2005, 2006, or so. Those characters - the peasant-rebel woman, the hapless prince, the scheming gods, wouldn't leave me alone. So I dug into my old story files and hauled out my old printouts, gave the first few chapters a quick edit, and started posting them on my old fiction website, with the intent of writing and posting the rest of it one chapter at a time.

How did that work out? About as well as you'd expect it to. I had a mishmash of the different old versions I'd tried writing, plot threads that went nowhere, and no clue how I wanted it to work out at the end. So I chucked the whole idea again.

But those darn characters STILL wouldn't leave me alone. So in, hmm, early 2010, on a creative high after completing my first National Novel Writing Month challenge, I hauled out all my old notes and files and printouts, plopped whatever was salvagable into a Liquid Story Binder project, and patchworked together a complete manuscript from usable old bits and newly-written material. It felt really good to finally reach The End on the novel I'd started nearly twenty years earlier.

There was just one problem, though. It was awful. Between my execrable "high fantasy" narrative style from when I first started writing, and the "let's just get this over with" brain dumps in the new stuff, and the random bits of deleted characters and subplots still lying around, it was a huge mess. I figured that one day I would tackle it and make something out of it, but I had no idea how.

And then I discovered Holly Lisle's How To Revise Your Novel online course. It sounded good, and I was gearing up to dive into the world of self-publishing and wanted to get the editorial skills to be able to make my books as good as I could, so I signed up. The project I chose to do the course with was that thrice-abandoned mess, Urdaisunia. I figured if the method taught in the course could make something readable out of that thing, then it could work on any book.

The course has five months worth of lessons, but it took me longer than that to get all the way through all the work. It was hard - just reading my rough draft made my eyeballs bleed at times, and I had to dig down really deep to find the really cool story that lay buried far beneath the surface. But I did it, I tore that thing apart, pulled out and dusted off what was good and got rid of the bad, and put it all back together again. When I finally finished the first revision, I sent my vastly improved story out to some friends who bravely agreed to test-read it for me, did another big revision based on their feedback and some more ideas I'd had about the story, and then, when all that was done, realized I had a novel I was proud of.

And, well, the rest is history. I did the final edits, formatted it, and now that story I abandoned long ago as being a hopeless cause is now out there, on Amazon and in paperback and everything (in theory, you can even go to your favorite bricks&mortar bookstore and special-order it). It's an incredible feeling.

And Rashali and Eruz and all those bickering gods are much, much happier with me now.

The paperback edition of Urdaisunia is now available directly from CreateSpace, and should go live on Amazon within a week. This is a beautiful trade paperback edition, priced at $10.99.

My proof copy of the paperback edition of Urdaisunia came today. It's beautiful! Once I give it a good looking over and approve it, it should hopefully become available very soon. It's a trade-size paperback, and will be priced at $10.99 (U.S.). I'll update the Amazon buy link once it's available.

In other news: I'm still waiting for Urdaisunia to make its way through the Smashwords sales channels to the Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple, and Sony online stores. I'll add buy links as it goes live on those sites.

In the meantime, Chapter 3 of Urdaisunia is now posted for your free sampling enjoyment. I'll continue to post 2-3 chapters a week, with three chapters available at a time, for sampling and free serial-style reading.

I'm working on a short story collection which will include "The Peach Tree" and "You Can't Take It With You," along with a previously-unpublished story, "A Cure For Nel," which is set in the same world as my forthcoming novel Chosen of Azara. (Completely different story and characters, though.) I'm going to experiment with putting this collection in Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing Select program, which will allow me to offer it for free five days out of a ninety-day period, and will also make it available in the Kindle Prime lending library. The downside is that the work has to be exclusive to Amazon while it's enrolled in the KDP Select program, which means that "The Peach Tree" and "You Can't Take It With You" will have to come down from this site. If you want to read them free online, you've got a few more days before they disappear. After that, I'll announce when the collection will be available for free from Amazon, and when it isn't free it'll be only $0.99.

But, you say, I don't have a Kindle! Never fear: here are a couple of different solutions. One is that you can download the free Kindle reading app for your computer, tablet, or smartphone (Android or Apple) and read through that. The other is, my ebooks are free of DRM, meaning that you can buy them from Amazon and use free Calibre ebook management software to easily convert them to your preferred format (epub for most other e-readers).

I'm curious to see if the KDP Select program offers any advantages as far as promotion and visibility are concerned. So I'll keep this collection in the program for a couple of 90-day cycles and see how it works. After that I'll decide whether to keep it in the program or make the stories non-exclusive again.

And in other news, The Lost Book of Anggird is out to the test-readers, and Chosen of Azara is undergoing a quality-check revision pass. It's already been pretty well worked-over, and I had it posted on my old website for a long time. I'm not finding too many problems, but it could still use a little work to bring it up to a more professional level. I'm not planning on sending it out to test-readers, and will hopefully have it ready to release in May or June.

I've also started writing Book 2 (as yet untitled) of Daughter of the Wildings. For months now, Silas and Lainie have been jumping up and down, waving their arms at me and going, "Hey, did you forget about us?" So it's good to finally be paying attention to them again. Like the first book, Beneath the Canyons, this one is kind of scary because I have a vague idea of what it's all about and where it'll end up but not nearly as many details as I would feel comfortable with to fill out a whole novel. I'm hoping that like with the first book, it'll all come to me as I write. It's a fun setting to write in, and Silas's voice is also a lot of fun. I read the draft of Beneath the Canyons last weekend for the first time since I wrote it a year and a half ago, and I had forgotten how very cool it is.

Thanks to digital self-publishing and print-on-demand, this is a tremendously exciting time to be a writer, and it's a dream come true for me to be able to share my stories with other people on my own terms without having to wait for anyone else's approval. I hope you'll join me on the adventure, and enjoy reading my stories as much as I enjoy writing them!

A few things to update tonight. First of all, Urdaisunia has been approved by Smashwords for distribution to the Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Sony, and Apple ebook stores, along with other distribution channels. Watch for buy links as the book goes live on those sites.

Also, you can now read Urdaisunia for free, serial-style, on the site. I'll post a new chapter 2-3 times a week, with up to three chapters available at any one time. The prologue and chapter 1 are now available here. Once I reach the end, the prologue and first chapter will go up as a permanent free sample. If you're not sure about spending money on a book by a new and unknown author, this will give you a chance to try out the book. Of course, I hope you'll enjoy what you're reading enough to buy the book rather than wait seven or eight or nine weeks to find out how it ends!

And now that the Urdaisunia publishing chores are (mostly) done, it's time to get back into the writing/revising routine. Chosen of Azara is coming under the revision knife, and I'm getting ready to start writing Book 2 of the Daughter of the Wildings series.

Urdaisunia is now live at Smashwords! You can buy it directly at the Smashwords site, and hopefully it will soon (pending review of the technical specifications) make its way through to a variety of other sales channels, including Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Sony, and Apple.

In the meantime, I've finished the paperback version and am now awaiting a proof copy. Once I get that and make sure it's all good, Urdaisunia will be available in paperback through Amazon.