Words and Pictures to Inspire

I've just slithered in from the RT Convention in Las Vegas. I don't know if this counts as inspiring, but here's a video of my acceptance speech for Best Fantasy Romance of 2015.

Anticipated Releases of 2016!

A rare photo of my stepsister Hope. She's not on social media (*gasp*) and so doesn't appear in my sharing. We became stepsisters as adults, though we knew each other in high school. (My mother and her father, however, did not know each other until MUCH later, so it's not nearly as weird as it sounds.) At any rate, as an only child for most of my life, I count myself privileged to have a sister now - especially one  I like so well. And not only because we share a deep affection for Starbucks.

(In a total aside, another friend of ours who grew up on the same block with us, now works at Starbucks corporate and invented the Flat White, which we also love. Great neighborhood, huh?)

This is the best part of the holidays for me - meeting up with the wonderful people who make my life whole, but who I only occasionally get to see.

But that's not what I'm here to talk about today. Instead I'm to address this week's topic of 2016 Releases I'm excited about.

I'm a total fangirl of Grace Draven, both personally and professionally. Early 2016 promises to bring us the sequel to her brilliant novel, RADIANCE. Brishen and Ildiko's story will continue in EIDOLON and should be wonderful. I get to beta-read, so I'm feeling particularly grabby-handed about this one. Here's the preliminary blurb:

In a bid for more power, the Shadow Queen of Haradis has unleashed a malignant force into the world. Her son Brishen, younger prince of the Kai royal house, suddenly finds himself ruler of a kingdom blighted by a diseased darkness and on the brink of war. His human wife Ildiko must decide if she will give up the man she loves in order to secure his throne.

Three enemy kingdoms must unite to save each other, and a one-eyed, reluctant king must raise an army of the dead to defeat an army of the damned.

A tale of alliance and sacrifice.

I also love the writing team Ilona Andrews and have rabidly followed their Kate Daniels series from the very beginning. Their new Hidden Legacy series looks to be equally transporting. BURN FOR ME came out in October 2014 and we've been semi-patiently waiting for the sequel, WHITE HOT. Here's a fervent wish that 2016 will give it to us nao! I'd also love to see MAGIC BINDS, the next Kate Daniels release, but that looks unlikely and I wouldn't want to be TOO greedy.

I would be falsely modest if I pretended I wasn't excited about some of my own releases. The year will start out quietly release-wise for me, then we get a wham-bam triple-threat release slam!

April 26 will see the release of THE DEVIL'S DOORBELL. This is an anthology of some of my favorite writers of erotic fiction, all ruminating on the euphemism that the clitoris is the devil's doorbell. I've already read the stories from Anne Calhoun, Megan Hart and Megan Mulry. So much awesome there, people.

On May 1, Grace Draven and I plan to release our first duology, FOR CROWN AND KINGDOM. We don't *quite* have a cover yet, but the book will contain her story, THE KING OF HEL, and mine, THE CROWN OF THE QUEEN. Mine is the story of the aftermath of THE TALON OF THE HAWK, the final TWELVE KINGDOMS book, as so many have asked to have. Really excited for everyone to read it!

Finally, on May 31, THE PAGES OF THE MIND, finally will hit the shelves! This is Dafne the librarian's story, and launches the overall tale's next phase, THE UNCHARTED REALMS.

AN ORPHAN’S THRONE
 
Magic has broken free over the Twelve Kingdoms. The population is beset by shapeshifters and portents, landscapes that migrate, uncanny allies who are not quite human…and enemies eager to take advantage of the chaos.

Dafne Mailloux is no adventurer—she’s a librarian. But the High Queen trusts Dafne’s ability with languages, her way of winnowing the useful facts from a dusty scroll, and even more important, the subtlety and guile that three decades under the thumb of a tyrant taught her.

Dafne never thought to need those skills again. But she accepts her duty. Until her journey drops her into the arms of a barbarian king. He speaks no tongue she knows but that of power, yet he recognizes his captive as a valuable pawn. Dafne must submit to a wedding of alliance, becoming a prisoner-queen in a court she does not understand. If she is to save herself and her country, she will have to learn to read the heart of a wild stranger. And there are more secrets written there than even Dafne could suspect…

Should be an awesome year!

Marcella's Top Three Reads for 2015

For reasons I can't recall, it hasn't been a banner reading year. That's 100% depressing and I mean to change it this year. Woman cannot live by writing alone. I seriously need some great binge reads in this coming year. Fortunately, I already have several to look forward to.

Of the books I did read this year, these are the ones that stayed with me - a couple of them actively haunt me. That's the mark of a great story. A few of these names will be familiar to you. :D

Dark Alchemy (and Mercury Rising) by Word-Whore alum Laura Bickle - this is a fun series that also seems determined to kick me in the heart, thanks so much. Not that I'll tell you why I'm being kicked in the heart, naturally. Suffice it to say this has plenty of creepy without extraneous gore. The heroine, Petra Dee is a geologist who goes looking for her missing father in the odd little town of Temperance, Wyoming, only to find it populated by a some guys who might not be entirely human and a dude called The Alchemist who's cooking up something much worse than meth.

Talon of the Hawk by current Word-Whore Jeffe Kennedy. I adore the Twelve Kingdoms series. But I love this one because Ursula is such an emotionally stunted (for good reason) and fun heroine - I use fun in the sense that she had lots of room to grow and lots of dreadful secret to uncover. Maybe she grew in leaps and bounds. Maybe she didn't. You'll have to read it yourself to find out. I don't intend to get all spoiler-y but it's possible I also love this story because it sets me up for another trilogy and that makes me happy.

Dead Mountain: The Untold True Story of the Dyatlov Pass Incident by Donnie Eichar. This book came out in 2013 but it only hit the top of my TBR pile this year. You may be familiar with the tragedy: a group of young hikers venture into the wilderness in the middle of a Russian winter. They are subsequently found dead - their tent ripped to shreds, the fabric cut *from the inside*. None of them are found wearing shoes or sensible clothing. Some of the injuries suggest great violence. Reports of elevated radiation readings in the bodies suggest something sinister. The government is accused of a cover up. Conspiracy theories are born. Up to and including ALIENS! This book recreates the trip, introduces you to the actual human beings who died on that mountain, and looks for a rational, scientific explanation for what happened to the group of promising university students. Compelling argument for what precisely drove these experienced outdoors people to their deaths.

Three Inspiring Thoughts on Writing

Before I share my three favorite quotes about writing, I have to twirl a bit over my big news this week. THE TALON OF THE HAWK was nominated for Best Fantasy Romance of 2015 in the RT Book Reviews Reviewers Choice Awards! I'm so honored to be in the company of such amazing writers, many of whom are my very favorites from way back. Such a thrill!

My three favorite quotes about writing.

There is in each of us an upwelling spring of life, energy, love, whatever you like to call it. If a course is not cut for it, it turns the ground around it into a swamp. ~Mark Rutherford

I found this quote in the book WALKING ON ALLIGATORS, a book of meditations for writers, by Susan Shaunghnessy, which I bought back in 1993 when I first set my cap to being a writer instead of (or, in addition to, as it turned out) being a scientist. I've come back to this quote over and over, to explain to myself why I get depressed if my breaks from writing are too long. Ye olde swamp. Yes, exactly.

Tons of great quotes in that book - I highly recommend!

Take the donuts!

Okay, if you haven't read Amanda Palmer's THE ART OF ASKING, you won't get this. Also, this is an amazing book for any kind of creative. Maybe for anyone at all! Seriously, this book lit up my life and answered questions I didn't even know I had. Anyway, she explains this so much better than I could, that I'm copying from the book. Some of this might not make sense because she references previous thought threads, but that's all the more reason to read the book!

Thoreau wrote in painstaking detail about how he chose to remove himself from society to live by his own means in a little ten-by-fifteen-foot hand-hewn cabin on the side of a pond. What he left out of Walden, though, was the fact that the land he built on was borrowed from his wealthy neighbor, that his pal Ralph Waldo Emerson had him over for dinner all the time, and that every Sunday, Thoreau’s mother and sister brought him a basket of freshly baked goods for him, including donuts.

The idea of Thoreau gazing thoughtfully over the expanse of transcendental Walden Pond, a bluebird alighting onto his threadbare shoe, all the while eating donuts that his mom brought him just doesn’t jibe with most people’s picture of him as a self-reliant, noble, marrow-sucking back-to-the-woods folk hero. In the book An Underground Education, Richard Zacks declares: Let it be known that Nature Boy went home on weekends to raid the family cookie jar.

Thoreau also lived at Walden for a total of two or three years, but he condensed the book down to a single year, the four seasons, to make the book flow better, to work as a piece of art, and to best reflect his emotional experience.

Taking the donuts is hard for a lot of people.

It’s not the act of taking that’s so difficult, it’s more the fear of what other people are going to think when they see us slaving away at our manuscript about the pure transcendence of nature and the importance of self-reliance and simplicity. While munching on someone else’s donut.

Maybe it comes back to that same old issue: we just can’t see what we do as important enough to merit the help, the love. Try to picture getting angry at Einstein devouring a donut brought to him by his assistant while he sat slaving on the theory of relativity. Try to picture getting angry at Florence Nightingale for snacking on a donut while taking a break from tirelessly helping the sick. It’s difficult.

So, a plea.

To the artists, creators, scientists, nonprofit-runners, librarians, strange-thinkers, start-uppers, and inventors, to all people everywhere who are afraid to accept the help, in whatever form it’s appearing:

Please, take the donuts.

To the guy in my opening band who was too ashamed to go out into the crowd and accept money for his band:

Take the donuts.

To the girl who spent her twenties as a street performer and stripper living on less than $700 a month, who went on to marry a best-selling author whom she loves, unquestioningly, but even that massive love can’t break her unwillingness to accept his financial help, please…

Everybody.

Please.

Just take the fucking donuts.

And my most recent favorite, that I have tacked up next to my desk:

What would you write if you weren't afraid?

This one isn't cited to anyone that I can find. It's interesting because when I mention it to some people, they come right back with "I'm not afraid of anything!" Which is great. More power to them. Other people though, particularly well-established, multi-published authors, nod and say, "Oh, yes." It's not fear precisely, but that works well as a good umbrella term. It's caution. It's those voices of the marketplace whispering that something like it has been done. Or has never been done. It's the comments of critique partners warning that readers won't like something. It's the ever-present doubt in one's own instincts.

Whenever I hesitate on going somewhere in a story, I look a that quote.

And I write as if I'm not afraid.

Conversations and Twelve Kingdoms Sneak Peeks

We're talking about dialogue this week in the Bordello.

Now, I spent the last couple of days doing stuff with LERA, my local RWA chapter, as it was the weekend of our biannual Enchanting the Page conference. Alexandra Sokoloff gave her excellent workshop on Screenwriting Tricks for Authors. So, my head is chalk full of ideas about structure and set pieces, not about dialogue at all.

Ironic, considering screenwriting is hugely about dialogue.

At any rate, dialogue is fun for me. I love revealing how the characters interact through dialogue. One really fun thing about writing THE TALON OF THE HAWK was transcribing the conversations between Ursula and Harlan, with all their banter and verbal fencing. Their love affair truly deepens first through conversation, largely because physical expression is out of the question.

(In the upcoming THE PAGES OF THE MIND, the situation is reversed, with conversation impossible. *That* was a bear to write!)

At any rate, I thought I'd share some of my favorite bits of Ursula and Harlan's ongoing conversation. Along with a few glimpses of as yet unpublished conversations. :D

* * *

“Addressing me as ‘Your Highness’ can become cumbersome. You may call me Princess Ursula.”

            “The former has two less syllables than the latter.” His face did not move from its stern lines, but I received the distinct impression of amusement from him—along with the recognition that he had surprised me indeed. He had to know that no one expected a man who looked like the side of a cliff to be articulate or clever.

            “As you wish—either is appropriate,” I replied, deliberately casting a bored-seeming eye over the assembly as I lent half an ear to Uorsin’s conversation.

            “No dispensation for a less formal accolade in conversation, then, Your Highness? What do your men call you?”

            I turned and met his eye, allowed a slight smile. “Captain.”

            He laughed, as resonant and booming as his voice. “Touché, Captain.”

            “Are we fencing, then?”

            “I witnessed your practice today, as you know, Your Highness. It would be interesting indeed to match blades with you.”

            “And yet we are allies, it seems, so such a scenario is unlikely to occur.”

            “You do not spar?”

            “Rarely. Only to teach.” Only with my Hawks. “Are you asking for lessons, Captain Harlan of the Vervaldr?”

            He grinned, and it belatedly occurred to me that the remark, which I’d intended as mildly insulting, had possibly sounded salacious.

   * * *

“You didn’t tell me I could call you Captain,” the mercenary said quietly, folding those massive arms to watch. 

                “Maybe I like it when you call me Your Highness.”

* * *

 

“You’re worried,” Harlan commented quietly to me after we’d ridden for a time, still unrested and fed only from our much-reduced provisions.

            I gave him a sidelong glance. “Being worried would imply that I lack confidence in our forces. I am…thinking.”

            He made a snorting sound. “Not much of a distinction. How’s the head?”

            “Fine.”

            “You’ve lost color. You need to rest.”

            “Thank you, Mother.”

            Harlan raised his brows at me. “Shall I cuddle you on my lap and sing you a baby-sparrow song?”

            My turn to snort. “What in the Twelve is a ‘baby-sparrow song’?”

            “Eh, not in the Twelve. I don’t know your word for it. A soothing tune, usually with a lot of silliness, that you sing to infants to make them sleep.”

            “A lullaby, we call it.”

            He nodded, once, filing that away. Truly his command of our Common Tongue was excellent. He showed flexibility in substituting phrases for words he couldn’t translate. An admirable skill. “Sing me one of your lullabies.”

            I had to laugh. “Danu, no. You do not want to hear me sing. Unless we’re attacked by wolves—then it might serve to drive them off.”

            “Perhaps sometime I’ll convince you to sing for me when we’re alone, then.”

            “Not happening. And before you ask, I mean both that we’ll ever be alone and that I’ll ever sing.”

*  *  *

from THE CROWN OF THE QUEEN

“Are you managing me, librarian?” Ursula asked mildly. A tone that didn’t fool me for a moment.

“Somebody needs to,” Harlan commented in the same tone.

“Don’t start with me.” She shot him a glare over my head. “Just when I was feeling all sentimental over missing you.”

He grinned at her. “I love you, too, my fierce hawk.”

*  *  *

from THE PAGES OF THE MIND

“Dafne is right,” Harlan inserted before Ursula could vent the angry words she had ready. “He’ll be looking for weakness. And I’m sorry to say it, but he’ll assume that of a woman.”

“Then he’ll be in for a surprise,” she snapped. 

“Yes. He will. I’m actually looking forward to witnessing that.”