Monthly Archives: January 2015

Eaglethorpe Buxton and the Sorceress

Posted on by
Reply

Eaglethorpe Buxton and the Sorceress tops 40,000 DownloadsChapter Sixteen: Wherein hot blood is spilled.

Now might be a good time to mention that while I purchased Hysteria, for thirteen crowns silver, as a warhorse, she has a number of deficiencies that make her inadequate to the task. Oh, don’t misunderstand me, she is a very fine animal, in good health, and she has almost never failed to carry anything that I asked of her. Warhorses though need to be of quite stern stuff. Hysteria was never comfortable with the sound of sword on sword, or sword on shield, or sword on body, or shield on body, or shield on shield. In fact, she’s not too fond of the shhtink sound that a sword makes as it comes out of a scabbard. It was just this sound which accompanied the shout of “stop knave, and prepare to meet your maker,” and it was no doubt this sound that caused her to rear up and toss Megara and myself to the ground. I was not unduly bothered by this, not only because I had been thrown by Hysteria on a number of occasions, but also because I landed on Megara and she was quite nicely padded. She on the other hand had more than a lung-full of air knocked from her by my weight suddenly landing on her. I jumped to my feet and drew my own sword.

“Identify yourself or die,” said I, striking an intimidating pose.

“I am Cleveland Normandy and I am here to put an end to your days of steeling young women.”

“-‘s hearts,” said I.

“What?”

“-‘s hearts. You are going to put an end to my days of steeling young women’s hearts. That’s what you meant to say.”

“No it isn’t,” said he. “I am here to put an end to your days of steeling young women’s bodies.”

“I’ve never… almost never stolen a body in my entire life. Seven, eight times at the most. And why would you care anyway?”

“I care because I am Cleveland Normandy, and I am Megara Capillarie’s true love.”

“No you aren’t,” said Megara, having successfully refilled her lungs with air and climbed back to her feet. She tossed back her hair and struck a pose. “You are my father’s one true love.”

“What?” Cleveland and I both said at the same time.

“He is the one my father has betrothed me to, but I don’t love him, don’t want him, can’t stand him, and don’t want to look at him.”

“She sounds pretty emphatic,” said I.

“I don’t know what that means,” said he.

“It means that she has strongly expressed her desire with great emphasis or…”

“I don’t care what it means.” He jumped to within sword-reach of me. “You are standing in the way of true love.”

“I don’t think we have the same definition of ‘love’, or of ‘true’, and probably not of ‘way’,” said I. “I guess we’re okay with ‘standing’. I guess it all really hinges on what your definition of ‘is’ is.”

My clever wordplay was apparently too much for Cleveland Normandy, for rather than replying with rhetoric, he replied with his sword, thrusting directly at me. Fortunately I am even quicker with my sword than I am with my tongue. Of course with a tongue, speed is not so important as wit. And now that I think about it, with a sword, speed is not so important as swordsmanship. So tongues and swords are quite a bit alike. I parried his blow and swung my sword up, intending to take of his head, but I was wide of the mark and took off only part of his right ear. He squealed like a little girl and turning, ran away.

My Writing: Part Six

Posted on by
Reply

The Young Sorceress

The Young Sorceress was the only book in the Senta and the Steel Dragon series that was difficult to write. I came up with an overly complicated plot, again fitting it between two already written books. This was more difficult than before because of the momentous events that happened in books 3 and 5 of the series. Instead of following the characters and switching viewpoint with each chapter, I decided to follow the format in Brechalon and switch from character to character several times during a chapter. The result was that I really love parts of this book and don’t care too much for others. One of the main goals was to tell the back story of Isaak Wissinger, who would appear in book five. I really love that storyline. Another was to set up Kieran Baxter’s return in book six. I don’t think this worked out nearly as well, though I love the character has he appears in the later book. The Senta story sections quickly became very unwieldy to write, though I think the reader can follow them. I ended up cutting a lot of things that seemed cool when I thought them up, but sounded silly once I wrote them. After editing, this was the shortest Senta book.

The Two Dragons

I was finally ready to publish The Two Dragons, over five years after I had written it. It required much more revision than the two other parts of the original Steel Dragon manuscript had, because of the additional stories. One of the biggest changes was the elimination of a long epilog that told the stories of every character for the rest of their lives. I had decided now to continue the series on, so it wasn’t necessary or wanted. Instead, I wrote a new ending that jumped a bit into the future and set up the next book. I had written this months earlier for fun, not really expecting to use it, but there you go.

The Many Adventures of Eaglethorpe Buxton

I was really tired of serious material after writing The Young Sorceress and revising The Two Dragons. I decided before I was done that I would return to Eaglethorpe Buxton. I had gotten a lot of feedback on the previous stories and quite a few good reviews, so I thought I should continue Eaglethorpe’s adventures. Rather than write a long story, I plotted out three stories, each as long as Eaglethorpe Buxton and the Elven Princess. Adding the three of them together with the two previous stories resulted in a pretty long book. The first of the new stories: Eaglethorpe Buxton and the Queen of Aerithraine had been in my mind for some time. It was a natural continuation of the story in Eaglethorpe Buxton and the Sorceress. Eaglethorpe Buxton and the Amazons, I plotted out while writing the previous story. I was completely done with both before I plotted out Eaglethorpe Buxton and the Day of the Night of the Werewolf, though I had already come up with the title. I had as much fun writing the new Eaglethorpe stories as I had writing the early ones. I’m pretty happy with the book, but sadly it is one of my poorest sellers.

Eaglethorpe Buxton and the Sorceress

Posted on by
Reply

Eaglethorpe Buxton and the Sorceress tops 40,000 DownloadsChapter Fifteen: Wherein we are accosted on the road to Oordport.

The three of us rode down the road to Oordport: myself, the lovely Megara Fennec, and my valiant steed Hysteria, which is to say my horse. Night had fallen, and while one could caution that it is a very good idea not to set out from one city to another in the dead of night, but to take a room at an inn and start instead the next day, I have seldom been one to follow a good idea. It was a day and a half ride from Antriador to Oordport and I wanted to make it there and back within three days. My play was no doubt in difficulty without a lead actress, though she did have an understudy, and I wanted to put things right, and maybe even settle with Myolaena Maetar before Ellwood Cyrene returned from Auksavl in five days.

“So what gave you the idea to act in my play?” I asked the lovely young woman who was pressed up against my back. “Other than hearing that my actress had been turned into a tree, I mean.”

“I read a review of The Ideal Magic in the local broadsheet.”

“Really? What did it say?”

“Well…”

“Come on girl, and tell me. We writers are a thick-skinned lot.”

“It said that your play was made of big words on small matters.”

“What a most excellent review,” said I.

“It is a terrible review.”

“No, it is a wonderful review. Big words on small matters. Why, that is exactly how I write.”

We rode all through the night. Hysteria having been well fed and watered the previous day was more than happy to clop along at a leisurely pace. After a while our conversation lagged however and I dozed off in my saddle. You might wonder that this is possible—falling asleep and sleeping while riding. I do it all the time. In fact, it is probably my single best equestrian skill, which is to say thing I can do on a horse. Unknown to me at the time was that Miss Fennec had dozed off as well. While no doubt far less skilled than me at horsemanship, she was pressed against me so tightly and had her arms wrapped around me so well, that she didn’t fall off either. Neither of us even knew we were asleep until we were awakened by a shout.

“Stop knave, and prepare to meet your maker!”

My Writing: Part Five

Posted on by
Reply

Women of Power

I had published my free books on Feedbooks.com, and one of the features of that site is that many people write fan fiction of superheroes, publishing them in serial form. I love comics, so I thought this was a way cool idea. I wanted to be in control of my stories though and not have them belong to someone else because I used their characters. So I created my own superheroes and setting, writing the first two chapters and publishing them in serial form.

I stopped writing after two chapters because I was busy with His Robot Wife. When I was done, I decided to stop messing around and turn this story into a novel, which I did. I had a lot of fun with Women of Power and am pretty pleased with the story. The title is a play on the phrase “women of color”.

Blood Trade

While I was writing, I had joined a writers’ group called Shared Words. We met biweekly at Borders Bookstore, usually at a table in a back corner. One week we were seated in a different location, right between two entire counters of vampire romance novels. One of my fellow writers suggested I write my own vampire book. I replied that my book wouldn’t be at all popular, because my vampires would be horrible and not at all sexy.

That exchange became an idea that blossomed into a plot in my head. I did renege on my idea that my vampires wouldn’t be sexy, though my vampire, Novelyne, never actually romances anyone in the book. I wrote half the book, the chapters getting darker and darker as I went. I finally realized that I liked where it was going, and went back to the beginning, rewriting the whole thing to be really dark. Blood Trade seemed like a great title because the plot involved the exploitation of runaway children and fits with vampires. I also did a Google search and found no other books with that title. Since then, about a dozen have been published.

Astrid Maxxim and her Amazing Hoverbike

I was talking to a friend about the sources of my inspiration for writing. I pointed out that my first book was an homage to Edgar Rice Burroughs and the books I loved as a teen. I then remembered that I had an earlier love—Tom Swift Jr. I pulled a few of my old Tom Swift Jr. books out of the bookcase and expounded on how much I had loved them. “I should write my own books like these,” I said aloud.

I sat down and planned out what I would write to create books like those I remembered from my youth. I had loved the stories of the boy inventor and his best friend, the 1950’s innocence and enthusiasm for the future, the naïve belief that science and technology would fix everything, so I wanted those things too. I was always bothered by the fact that Tom Swift never aged and no matter how many cool inventions he created, the world wasn’t changed much. I would fix those things. Finally, my story would be multi-ethnic, because the Tom Swift books were really, really white.

I created my characters—the intrepid girl inventor, her best friends (one Hispanic and the other the child of a gay couple), her heroic boyfriend, his best friend (an African American genius who didn’t play basketball), and their bumbling buddy. I created her home base, a kind of cross between Tom Swift’s Swift Enterprises and Disney World, and her home town. Finally I gave her a name—Astrid Maxxim—Astrid meaning star, and Maxxim meaning utmost, literally a super star. I don’t even remember how I came up with a hoverbike as the main invention, but I had more fun writing Astrid than I had writing in a long time.

 

Eaglethorpe Buxton and the Sorceress

Posted on by
Reply

Eaglethorpe Buxton and the Sorceress tops 40,000 DownloadsChapter Fourteen: Wherein I divulge my plan to reunite the lovers.

I led the beautiful Megara Fennec, which is to say Megara Capillarie from the home of some unknown person, who was no doubt a chubby little red-head with a checkered apron and a brown bonnet, and out into the town square of Potter Town, where the shadows were growing long, which is to say it was getting late. My valiant steed Hysteria still waited patiently at the well. As we walked, I explained my plan.

“The plan is thus,” said I. “I will fetch from the apothecary a dram of a potion that is known as living death. You will go home and make peace with your parents and then take this potion. It will make you fall into a coma, a semblance of death itself. From you there will be no evidence that you still live: no breath, no heartbeat, and no body warmth. Your family will think that you are dead and place your body in the family crypt. In the meantime, I will send a message to your beloved in Oordport, telling him the entire plan and he will rush to your side, to reach you just as you return to life, having experienced nothing more than a pleasant sleep.”

We reached Hysteria’s side and I turned to smile at my lovely companion, but she was frowning.

“What’s the matter?” I asked.

“Your plan seems fraught with unnecessary problems,” she replied.

“How so?”

“If the apothecaries of the area are wont to sell drams of ‘living death’, won’t someone suggest that perhaps I have been given ‘living death’ when I appear to die of unknown causes.”

“Living death is pretty secret,” said I.

“How secret?”

“Really secret.”

“But not so secret that just anyone can purchase it from an apothecary?”

“No, not so secret as that.”

“What if, when I die, they decide to burn my body instead of placing it in the family crypt?”

“Why would they do that?”

“To save space.”

“You are a member of the family, are you not?”

“Yes, but I’m just a girl, and I’m young. I haven’t had a chance to do anything grand or impressive that would warrant entombing me in a place of honor. Our family has had that crypt for at least a dozen generations and there have been a lot of us. It’s getting pretty full.”

“But you are Lord Capillaries’ only daughter.”

“I am the only child of his current wife, true. But my mother is his fourth wife and I am his sixteenth daughter.”

“I see.”

“Now that I think about it,” she continued. “I don’t think that I would want to wake up in that crypt anyway. It’s got to be pretty rank in there, and there is always the possibility of zombie attacks.”

“Yes, I forgot about zombies.”

“The only people who can afford to forget about zombies are those people with no brains.”

“That is true,” I agreed. “I suppose we could plan to have your body sequestered somewhere else.”

“And here’s another thing,” she said. “What if your message doesn’t get to my beloved in time? Suppose he hears about me dying before he finds out about your plan. He might do something rash—like hurt himself.”

“He wouldn’t do that would he?”

“He might. He’s very passionate.”

“He’s passionate enough to kill himself?”

“Oh yes. He thinks about it all the time.”

“So what do you propose?” I asked.

“Why don’t we climb on your horse and you just give me a ride to Oordport, where I can meet beautiful, sweet Henri and live together with him there.”

“Well, it is not nearly so poetical a plan as mine,” said I. “But I will do it.”

My Writing: Part Four

Posted on by
Reply

The Dark and Forbidding Land

After finishing Tesla’s Stepdaughters, I jumped into writing book two of Senta and the Steel Dragon (which I had decided was the name of the series). It was challenging because I was writing a new story set between two already written ones. For some series, this might not have been a problem, but in Senta books, lots of characters die.

As I wrote, I kept combining things from the outline and throwing some things out because they would mess with the later, already written, stories. In the end, the book was about 2/3 as long as originally planned, but I liked it.  The Dark and Forbidding Land became my fourth book published in 2010.

The Drache Girl

By the time I got ready to publish book 3 of Senta and the Steel Dragon, it had been finished for almost three years. I went through a quick revision pass, changing very little before publishing it. Like all of the books in the series, I had a hard time with the title. I had settled on The Sorceress’s Apprentice for years, but many of my friends didn’t like it. They thought it could be confused with Disney’s The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. So, it became The Drache Girl.

His Robot Wife

By the end of 2010, I had five books for sale, none of which were lighting up the best-sellers list. Meanwhile His Robot Girlfriend continued to be downloaded thousands of times per week. I decided I would write a sequel. However, unlike just about every other book I’ve written, I didn’t have a strong story before I started. I crafted an outline, but I was never as invested in the plot as I was with other books. I did like writing the characters again though, and it became His Robot Wife. By its third month, it had sold more than all my other books had ever sold all put together.

Eaglethorpe Buxton and the Sorceress

Posted on by
Reply

Eaglethorpe Buxton and the Sorceress tops 40,000 DownloadsChapter Thirteen: Wherein I hear the story of two star-crossed lovers.

 

I stood looking at the young woman, whom might well be the most beautiful creature that I had ever seen. She struck a pose and tossed her thick locks of dark brown hair back over her shoulder.

“You are so beautiful,” I said. “Why would you want to go into such a disreputable business as acting? You could do anything you wanted.”

“It’s not what I want; It’s all that I have left,” she replied. “You see, my family the Capillaries…”

“I thought you said your name was Fennec.”

“That’s my stage name,” she explained. “My real name is Megara Capillarie. And my family and other family, the Montenegroes, have been involved in a feud for dozens of generations.”

“Is it the kind of feud in which you fight the other family, or the kind in which you challenge them to some type of word game?”

“It is the kind in which you fight and kill the other family.”

“Hmm,” said I. “Those types of feuds can be bad, especially if you are the one being fought and killed.”

“But there’s more. I met a lovely young man and fell in love with him, only to find out later that he was none other than Henri Montenegro, the son of my family’s great enemy. We met and exchanged fair words and fair kisses. But then yesterday there was a fight in the street and Henri, beautiful, sweet Henri killed my cousin.”

“So you don’t love him anymore? You hate him now.”

“Of course I don’t hate him! I love him! But we can never be together. He has been banished to Oordport, and I shall never see him again.”

“It so happens that I already have all the actresses that I need to portray the characters in my play,” said I.

“You are one short,” Megara said, tossing her hair back. “Two days ago, the Sorceress Myolaena Maetar arrived at the theater just after the performance and turned your lead actress Angelletta Seedling into a tree.”

“Oh bother,” said I. “I suppose though, that with a name like Seedling you have to expect that sort of thing. I guess I will have to find someone who can change her back.”

“I’m afraid that won’t be possible. You see the locals are in constant need of firewood, and well…”

“They didn’t.”

“I’m afraid so,” she said.

“I find myself in need of an actress then,” said I. “But I could not claim the names of Buxton and of Eaglethorpe, which is to say Eaglethorpe Buxton if I were to take advantage of your unfortunate predicament, which is to say your situation, for my own gain. Before you settle for the life of the stage we must see if we cannot reunite you with your lost love.”

“You would do that for me?”

“Of course,” I replied. “I am Eaglethorpe Buxton, friend to the friendless, protector to the defenseless, finder of lost children and reuniter of lost lovers. And I have a plan.”

My Writing: Part Three

Posted on by
Reply

Brechalon

I was still sending out The Steel Dragon to publishers, though by this time I had decided it should be three books instead of one. I entered the first part, The Voyage of the Minotaur, into the Amazon Novel Contest and it made it to the second round. In the meantime I thought I would write a little story to promote the characters and setting. By the time I was done with Brechalon, I had put so much work into the story that it seemed a shame to give it away rather than sell it. I put it up for sale as a 99 cent ebook, but there was very little interest in it, so in the end, I went back to my original idea to offer it for free.

The Voyage of the Minotaur

By the time I was done with Brechalon, I had received quite a few rejection letters for The Voyage of the Minotaur. I realized that even if the story was great (and I thought it was pretty good) it had too small an audience for any publisher to be interested. At the same time, I was selling a few ebooks of Princess of Amathar. I decided I would publish the manuscript myself as an ebook, but by that time I had fallen in love with the characters and setting and decided that I wanted to write more. So only the first part of the original Steel Dragon manuscript was published. The other two parts would become books three and five of a series.

Tesla’s Stepdaughters

While trying to get The Voyage of the Minotaur published and writing Brechalon, I had been playing Rock Band with my kids on the Wii. In Rock Band, you can create your own characters, which I did—four hot babes, and you can unlock different outfits for them. As I was playing, I unlocked some steampunk goggles, and a story started forming in my head. By the time I started writing, the story was essentially complete in my brain. The only change really was that Tesla’s Stepdaughters was originally the name of the group.  I had never really attempted a detective story before. They aren’t my usual read, though I have enjoyed a few. I was happy with how it came off.

Eaglethorpe Buxton and the Sorceress

Posted on by
Reply

Eaglethorpe Buxton and the Sorceress tops 40,000 DownloadsChapter Twelve: Wherein, as you probably guessed, I don’t die of poison.

 

“Wake up, Master Buxton, wake up.” I felt a gentle slap upon my right cheek and then my left. “Here. Drink this.”

The mouth of a small bottle was pressed between my lips and cool sweet liquid flowed over my tongue and down my throat.

“Is that an antidote?” I asked.

“Antidote to what?”

I looked into the face above me. It was one of the most beautiful faces that I had ever seen. Very large brown eyes, like cow eyes, but in a good way, which is to say large and brown, and with long lashes. A cute little nose. Perfect lips.

“I’ve been poisoned.”

“How?”

“You are the most beautiful woman that I’ve ever seen. Kiss me quickly before I die.”

“What poisoned you?”

“Quickly, the kiss.”

“I don’t think I had better kiss you if you’ve been poisoned. I might get some of the poison on my tongue.”

“Don’t use your tongue. Just use your lips.”

“Well, that’s not really much of a kiss, is it?” quoth she.

“I like the way you think,” I said, sitting up. “If you didn’t know I was poisoned, what was that liquid you just gave me?”

“That was water from the well outside. It’s supposed to be naturally healthful.”

“I feel much better, but ‘naturally healthful, does not quite equal ‘antidote to poison’.”

“I ask again. With what were you poisoned?”

“That pie over there.”

The young woman got up from my side and walked across the room to where the remainder of the pie still sat. From my vantage point, I could see that, as beautiful as her face was, it was nothing compared to her body, especially that part of her body which she presented as she walked away across the room. In a word she was fetching, which is to say very attractive.

“Is this a disconsolateberry pie?” she asked.

“Yes. It was one of the finest buttocks I’ve ever had.”

“What?”

“I said it was one of the finest pies I’ve ever had.”

“Well you can’t poison somebody with disconsolateberries,” she said, walking back over to me and kneeling down. “They are a natural counteragent.”

“That’s very breast for me,” I said, getting up.

“What?”

“I said that’s very lucky for me.”

“They are full of natural antioxidants too,” said she.

“Is that good?”

She nodded. “Would you like that kiss now?”

Then it was my turn to nod, as I was suddenly but momentarily mute. She put her hand on my cheek and gave me one of the best kisses that I have had in my entire life. The only better ones that I can think of off the top of my head, which is to say within easy reach of my memory, are the kiss that I received from the Queen of Aerithraine, in whose company I once had the pleasure of spending a fortnight, and my cousin Tuki, who was the first girl I ever kissed and was also a first-rate kickball player.

“What are you thinking about?” the beautiful young woman asked.

“Kickball.”

“Well, stop it. I want you to think about me.”

“I don’t even know your name, or how you found me, or how you know me, or what you want, or how you were able to squeeze into that dress, or how much pie is left.”

“My name is Megara Fennec, and I’ve been looking for you for more than a week. I want to be an actress in your play.”

My Writing: Part Two

Posted on by
Reply

His Robot Girlfriend

Publishing Princess of Amathar, even if only for myself, inspired me to write again. Over the next fourteen months, I crafted an 800 page steampunk fantasy that I called The Steel Dragon. I printed up a dozen copies (in 5” binders) and friends read and edited them over the summer.

That summer, I discovered Smashwords. It was a brand new thing, and I thought that it would be a good idea to get my name out there as an author. I decided to piece together my earlier flash fiction into an actual story, so that summer, while teaching summer school, that’s what I did. His Robot Girlfriend was the 1,864th book published through Smashwords (now there are over 330,000). I also uploaded it to Feedbooks, Manybooks, and a few other sites. I offered it for free, expecting only to get my name out there. Well, it worked. His Robot Girlfriend was huge, mostly because I was entering epublishing on the ground floor, though I didn’t know that at the time. His Robot Girlfriend was downloaded hundreds of thousands of times, and when iBooks started, it was at the top of their free books for a long time.

Eaglethorpe Buxton

His Robot Girlfriend was very popular online and I was done editing The Steel Dragon, so I began sending it off to publishers, but I needed something else to write. I had recently read Herman Melville’s Bartleby the Scrivener, and I really liked the idea of an unreliable narrator, but I had also read Jerome K. Jerome’s Three Men in a Boat, so I was feeling like something silly might be in order. I decided to set my story in the world I had created years earlier for a Dungeons and Dragons game I played with my kids. I had placed stories there before. In 1996, I had written a play for our school drama club set in the same world.

So Eaglethorpe Buxton and the Elven Princess was born. Eaglethorpe himself was a new creation, as was Jholiera the elven princess, but the places, Ellwood Cyrene, and the Queen of Aerithraine were all pulled right out of our D&D game. I finished in less than a month and was still in the mood, so I wrote another one. Eaglethorpe Buxton and the Sorceress uses the play I had written earlier as the main plot point.

I published both stories as ebooks and then decided that I would publish Princess of Amathar and see if anyone would actually pay for one of my stories.