Saturday 2 December 2017

Elemental Conflict release day!

First seen on the Space Trash blog.

There's a question I like to ask other authors, and it's 'Would you live in the world you've created?' A lot of people - more than I expected, if I'm honest - say 'No way, José.'

Being contrary by nature, I absolutely would live in the world I've created. Admittedly, I might not live very long in it.

It's finally release day for Elemental Conflict, and I'm a little bit mindblown. Exhausted, happy, and staring at a row of four books attached to my name, which feels distinctly surreal.

Writing is my daily dose of escapism, and my sci-fi world is where I go when I day-dream. it's something I enjoy enough to still do after a long day in a stressful job and an hour or so stuck in commute hell. I may not work out, I may not stop long enough to cook healthily, but most days I'll make at least some time to write.

So release day is always a moment of combined 'Huh. Did I do that?' and 'Damn, it's over...' That latter sentiment is what always founders my good intentions to go and actually tell people that I released a new book - as soon as I switch on my computer, I get promptly shanghaied into starting the next book.

So, before I go and write more (yes, it already happened) of the next in the series...go and make a starving, exhausted author very happy and check out Elemental Conflict. It's up on pretty much every major book e-tailer for your reading pleasure ;)

Friday 20 October 2017

Chapter Quotes

First seen on the Space Trash Blog.

Why add chapter quotes? Where do you get your chapter quotes from? Aren't chapter quotes hell to format?

 


Me, personally, I enjoy chapter quotes. Dorothy Dunnett, Seanan McGuire, and of course Frank Herbert are all awesome examples. If you've never read any of these authors, don't tell me because I will get very judgy.





"Facts are a commonly accepted interpretation. Truth is a commonly argued fiction." A Planet's Philsophy, Ankara Zaneth (From book 8...yes, I'm way ahead of myself.)

They're an insight into the world backdrop, a good laugh, or a context-setter, depending on what the author is doing with them and with their book. I put them in because, well, I'm a pure pantser. I don't outline. I generally have no idea what my characters are likely to do once I've dropped them into a scene. I find out when I write it down. As you can imagine, therefore, I usually end up writing my chapter quotes well after the fact. They're actually help me in the editing stage, because they act as a kind of focus mechanism for me when I'm editing a chapter. I can stare at the chapter quote for a bit when I get stuck, remember the awesome thing I was trying to do in that chapter, and return to hacking and slashing motivated and refocused. (Hah.) At least, that's how it sometimes works.
"Modesty is like arsenic: safe only in small doses." Sayings of the Wise, Olar Fantoml

As I kind of gave away in the last bit, I don't get my chapter quotes from anywhere. I make them all up. My father, who had very serious tastes in most of his reading, and considered sci-fi to be an extreme form of escapism, never actually read any of my books - but he would steal them from my mother when she was reading them, and he would read my chapter quotes. I still regret that I never really asked him why, because I think the answer would have been interesting.
"Avoidance requires continuous effort. Confrontation merely requires standing still." ~ Universal Truths, Jahira Suran

And yes, sometimes, depending on the platform, chapter quotes can indeed be hell to format. Kobo, for example, thinks my chapter quotes are a whole separate page unless I spend hours tickling it with an ostrich feather while immersing it in chocolate. (Kidding. I had to get much kinkier than that.)
"Training is not a substitute for experience; it is merely easier to survive." Training of a Cortiian, Nadhiri Longar (Yeah, Book 8 again...working on it.)

As to what my chapter quotes are supposed to achieve other than providing a focal point for my edits - I mostly leave that up to the reader. If they're something that you just skip on your way to the main events, no worries. If they make you grin, or start an interesting train of thought, then I'm happy. I frankly suspect most of mine actually come from Khyria's choices of reading matter. Most of them are downright cynical and sound like the kinds of things she'd remember.

Monday 16 October 2017

Writing Myths that need slaying

First seen on the Space Trash Blog.

Writing Myths that need slaying

I must write something other people will like and approve of.


No. A thousand times no. As Oscar Wilde put it “You can always judge a man by the quality of his enemies.” Write your truth. If it pleases everyone, chances are high you’re doing something wrong. Offend people. Make them think. Challenge their beliefs. Challenge your own. The world is too full of people tiptoeing carefully through their existences without ever standing up for themselves or what they believe in. If everyone is comfortable with your words, you’re using the wrong ones.

I must write at a level everyone will understand.


Don’t insult the intelligence of your readers. Don’t be complicit in the dumbing-down of society. Write to the level that your book demands and your characters dictate. If you have a story able to reach out and grab your readers by the balls, they will find themselves a dictionary if they have to. Don’t lessen your work or yourself to please the masses - because often the ‘m’ is silent.

I must write something that will sell.


Why? Are there writers who seriously go in expecting to get rich from their work? Write what pleases you, because the trending genre this month will have blown away with the autumn leaves next month. Write what pleases you, because forcing yourself

to write what everyone else does will be a brutal exercise in boredom. If no one else is ever to read your magnum opus, you had best make certain it enthralls you. Be original. Be yourself. No one else can be.

Writing is a slog, a chore. Writing is like giving yourself homework every night for the rest of your life.


Writing is an adventure. Every time you pick up a pen, sit at a keyboard, you create a world that only you can; live for a while with the only people you’re willing to invite inside your head. Writing is an addiction and a cure. Writing is an antidote to the tedium of life that was the same today as it was yesterday, as it will be tomorrow. Writing should make your heart beat faster and the hair stand up on the back of your neck. Writing should be what gets you through the things you 'have' to do; the thing that wakes you up in the night with the next scene more alive in your head than the walls around you.

Wednesday 19 July 2017

Character Interview: Anst an Nabat

First seen on the Space Trash Blog.

A Cortiian and an author sit on the side of a large fountain... (not the start of a bad joke)


J C Steel: Nice touch of paranoia.

Anst an Nabat: It's a nice fountain. Care to tell me why I'm here?

JCS: I take it Khyria delegated.

AAN: She mentioned something about this being an assignment I should be able to handle alone.

JCS: Ouch. One unarmed human asking questions. Nice burn. I told her the people who read our stories like sound-bites. Interviews. You're who turned up.

AAN: ...Interviews. Not that I don't enjoy your company, but what am I going to tell you that isn't already in one of the books? I've lost count of how many indiscreet confessions you must be privy to by now.

JCS: It's a thing. Not a thing I really understand, but what I understand about book marketing could go on the back of a postage stamp and leave lots of room. Try this one: what does Cantara rank mean, in the Cortii?

AAN: Seriously? A Cantara commands five riders, or a Canta. They report directly to the Cortiora when the whole Cortia is present, or operate independently when necessary.

JCS: And the Cortiora and Cortertia technically also command Cantai of their own, right? Any special roles within that structure?

AAN: Cortiora holds overall command. Cortertia is second in command, and traditionally responsible for information-gathering. It's not a hard and fast rule. Third Cantara mostly takes responsibility for standard training and evaluations. Fourth Cantara tends to be the social one - generally something like this would be a Fourth Cantara's problem. Fifth Cantara is flexible. Often mission requisitions, supplies, and stray bureaucracy.

JCS: What's the oddest thing about Earth, to you, Anst?

AAN: Do you want the list alphabetically? ... I assume you don't mean the things it has in common with almost every other human-governed world I've seen. Probably the levels of environmental damage. Even the most over-populated Central Worlds would be surprised by the scale.

JCS: So you'd be even more surprised to hear that there's a sizeable amount of the population that prefers to believe that man-made environmental damage is a myth.

AAN: Actually, denial is common human trait, so no, not particularly.

JCS: Favourite Earth food to eat?

AAN: Roquefort cheese. It'd be considered a biological hazard on more advanced worlds, so I can honestly say it's got a unique taste.

JCS: ...could you have picked something a little harder to spell? Not a question. Can you tell me something about your name?

AAN: It was computer-assigned when I was recruited, based on my ID code. It sounds Kihali, but Hejj'in's a big swathe of space.

JCS: Any plans to go?

AAN: To Hejj'in? It's a long way from FPA space. I'm more curious about Atari, if I were planning to spend a lot of a leave on a space liner.

JCS: Why Atari?

AAN: It's not FPA space, there are some interesting stories about Atari worlds, I haven't been there yet - pick one.

JCS: Favourite thing to do in your free time?

AAN: Be transported halfway across the galaxy for a chat about cheese.

JCS: ...arsehole. Anything else?

AAN: I enjoy riding. Horses tend to be undemanding company.

JCS: Anyone taking bets yet on when or if someone's going to make first move for an official First Contact on Earth?

AAN: I'm sure they are, but anyone with a standard lifespan isn't likely to be around to collect. The Nasdari and the FPA are unusually unanimous on letting someone else step in on this planet.

JCS: What are the main concerns for an alien government?

AAN: There's a list. Geo-political instability, if I had to guess, would be near the top. You've got a lot of little countries, and no real single place where a First Contact team could set down without being shot at, or where negotiations could begin without offending some other minor government. The shooting wouldn't worry the Nasdari, but stopping it would take time and credits with no real return on investment in sight.

JCS: Right. Is anyone else likely to step in?

AAN: Not that we know of, but the universe is a big place. The more likely alternate scenario is that you bomb yourselves out of existence and both the FPA and the Nasdari blow thrusters trying to stake a claim first.

JCS: Hah. Yeah, that scenario is amassing more and more voters. What fact about the Cortii do you think would surprise most humans?

AAN: ...sometimes I can go minutes at a time without planning how to kill them.

JCS: Funny. Try this one: what do you think about the way your character is written in the series?

AAN: I'm really not that narcissistic. You probably write me as more patient than I actually am.

JCS: OK, poor choice of question. What do you think of how the Cortii in general are written?

AAN: Given how very few facts we can let you actually publish, I'd say you've captured it with a certain nasty accuracy.

JCS: What do you think of writing, as an art form?

AAN: It's not one I'm very familiar with. If anything I do ends up written down, it tends to be reports. Cortiians in general tend towards more physical art forms, if they practice one at all. I'm getting to the point where I can appreciate what you do, but reading as a pastime isn't something I'd be likely to indulge in on Base.

JCS: Speaking of, I'm not too sure on interview protocol, but standard North American attention span is currently rated at about 6 seconds, so we'd better wrap this up.

Sunday 16 July 2017

Cortiian Word of the week: Akrushkar

First seen on the Space Trash Blog.

Akrushkar, pl. akrushkari

The akrushkari come up a lot in the books based on the Cortiian Base. They're the Councils' enforcers, bodyguards, and most of the rank and file of the Cortii know almost nothing about them beyond their function. Think of them as military police with a tendency to shoot first and ask questions never.

The word comes from old Cortiian, based on krushkar, or slave - one without free will. You'll see the 'a' prefix in a lot of Cortiian words as well, like 'asra', 'as’sri’atan’si' - it's a submission prefix, an acquiescence.

So essentially 'akrushkar' means a slave obedient to orders. In this case, to the Councils that command the Cortii, who make a lot of despots look like underachievers. Because an akrushkar acts under the direct orders of the Councils, or, under a very limited set of circumstances, a Cortiora, they're essentially untouchable - raising a hand to an akrushkar is defying the Councils, and the fact that their personal bodyguards are called slaves should give you an idea of the Councils' views on disobedience.

To understand the akrushkari a little better, let's take a side-trip and examine the Councils for moment. Two levels to this structure: Inner Council, all five of them, and Outer Council, traditionally twenty. Outer Council numbers, unlike Inner, can vary, although it's rare. You'll note the Cortiian preference for fives running right through the command structure.

If you're on the ball, you'll already have realised that new Council members, or magaii, must come from somewhere. The Councils recruit from the top units on their Bases; Cortii who've reached Blue rank or higher, and the Councils are only open, by invitation, to Cortiorai.

So if a Cortiora accepts a place on the Outer Council, what happens to their command? There are a lot of rumours on Cortiian Bases, but the information isn't made common knowledge, and new appointments to Council happen so rarely that most Cortiians simply don't know.

However, the answer is simple and very practical: the Councils can't risk having high-calibre mercenaries roaming around loose with a powerful link to a magai.

Some are offered the honour of a place among the akrushkari, and undergo intense telepathic conditioning as well as memory blocks. Others end up as fodder for the Councils' experimental labs. A very few of the really lucky ones are assigned as solo agents somewhere that their Base needs long-term eyes. Some wind up as Instructors, also after having their memories edited. It ensures that no magai has ties to a serving unit, and that no Cortiian likely to ever spend time on Base again has any potential hold on a magai.

What happens to the Cortiora who accepts a place on Council, of course, is something only known to the Councils. No one has ever successfully infiltrated the Councils.

Friday 14 April 2017

Author: Implosion

Author implosion may be a little over-dramatic. A little. I didn't wake up next to anyone I didn't recognise, I didn't wind up in the drunk tank, and no one had to call emergency services.

So why, you may well ask, have I been completely absent from my writing, my websites, my social media...my life?

Fair. It's been a very busy few weeks - actually, a very busy month since I was last able to really put on my author hat and have fun. This is largely due to my day job, where things unfolded very favourably (for me), in that I landed a very cool new job inside the company, with a lot more actual involvement in the day-to-day business and far more responsibility. I'm thrilled. But, while I've been teaching myself a new and very responsible job, I've also been maintaining half of my old job, meaning I've been crawling home with my head spinning and barely the energy to fall flat on my face.

"Work is the curse of the writing classes." (Misquote) Oscar Wilde.

There've also been the renovations at home. Also a very good thing, as I found an awesome contractor (a species in amazingly short supply in the Greater Vancouver area), and all our bathrooms now have actual, working doors on them. (Ever tried to used the facilities while being stared at by a curious cat? Can be very off-putting...) But, also something that requires organisation, talking to people, and playing Russian Roulette to determine who's going to take a day off work this time and let people into the house.

Plus, and possibly the most devastating to the fragile system which preserves my author time in the wild, we finally bought a gaming computer and rigged it up into the media system downstairs. The combination of the opportunity of all my favourite ways to blow shit up in full surround sound and coming home brain-fried has contributed to some record-breaking shootouts and zero writing happening. (Steam, I'm looking right at you...)

However, I finally have some vague clue what I'm supposed to be doing at work, the snow has finally melted and stayed gone, and the cherry blossoms are out, meaning that my favourite time of the year is here. (No, I do not suffer from hayfever. Feel free to hate me.) I also have four days off work for the Easter weekend, so I'm hoping that I will have the time and energy to make the rounds of my online hangouts, buy everyone a round, and get dug into the final third of my sci-fi sequel. Maybe I'll even get back to my Welsh language course. (Do not ask why Welsh.)

May the chocolate-depositing bunny be good to you.

Friday 3 March 2017

Get Inspired: Week 9

First seen on the Space Trash Blog.

Dreaming of reality (Get Inspired, week 9)


It's cute how people try to break everything down into manageable chunks. It's like watching a five-year-old doing a jigsaw, and turning that last piece of sky around five times to get it to fit in a four-sided hole.

I especially love listening to them on the science of dreaming. 'Dreaming is a mental filing system.' 'They're metaphors for your repressed sexuality.' 'Did you know that every face you see in a dream is the face of someone you've seen, at some point in your life?' Actually, by sheer dumb luck, that last might be the one point they aren't wrong about.

I suppose everyone has to get lucky sometime...there's a thought I'd've lived happily without.

Anyway, thank the Consciousness, dreaming isn't a mental filing system, so I won't have to face the images that calls up some night.

Dreaming is what the conscious mind remembers when you travel between realities. There you go. The big secret, Guide for Dummies style.

Because the human mind is basically an thin skim of intelligence (very, very, very thin in most cases) wrapped around a consciousness that started out remarkably recently as a kind of slime with ambitions (you've heard this story, yes?) - essentially, it can't contain and process what it experiences.

When you fall asleep, you travel between realities. It happens to everyone. Your only solution is never to sleep again, and we know what the experts say about that.

Ever had to deal with people who can't remember to how to tie their shoes or that they had an appointment scheduled? Chances are good those people are falling through this reality, have no idea why they're here or what they're supposed to be doing, and consequently aren't coping well. (Don't worry, they'll wake up - with some odd memories about odder dreams.)

On the flip side, if you're one of those people who has dreams like immersive films, complete with sound, smell and every other sensation, and you can actually remember them once you wake up...well, you're wasting your life at whatever you think you're doing. Give me a call, we'll do dinner. If you're one of those rarities, you have the ability to travel realities intentionally.

Seriously, give me a call. We need you.

This one turned up because I talk to so many people who can't remember dreaming, or dream in black and white (I remain impressed that you can do that, when you see in colour), or whatever. Maybe it's a side-effect of writing too much (not actually sure that's possible), but dreams are hella fun if you're me. Knife fights on the back of old-style steam trains, tigers in storm drains, fighting giant robots, and storming alien factories are just some of the awesome shit that happens when I go to sleep.

Since the usual explanations bore me, I figured I should come up with a better one.

Wednesday 1 March 2017

Get Inspired: Week 8

First seen on the Space Trash Blog.
 
Invocation error (Get Inspired, week 8)

Error: you have cast an undefined invocation.

"Told you the pentagram was too wiggly," Toluk muttered. I glared in his general direction. The damned neon error message that had engraved itself on my retinas meant that I didn't have a precise directional lock, but I did my best to sight back along that self-righteous comment.

"You were the ass who said clockwise, schmockwise."

Frankly, anytime I actually need the blood of a real virgin for something, Toluk's the one I'm going to use. With that attitude, no way he gets laid. Not to mention, I'm pretty sure I'd have queues of volunteers to hold him down.

Anyway, the decidedly icky topic of Toluk's virginity aside, I wasn't any closer to Frogs in the Bogs. The way this invocation was going, I might just about manage to give someone with a particularly bad case of diarrhea a mild French accent for half an hour.

Whichever idiot said magic was a shortcut should try powdering bulrushes; I swear I laminated my sinuses with them after the first few minutes.

Oddly enough, this one was inspired by work.:)

Yeah, no, my work isn't that interesting, but like pretty much every other company we have a team who looks after our computers. They call it upgrades, I call it bi-monthly opportunity to find out about error messages that I didn't know existed. Including: 'You have cast an invocation in error. Please contact your administrator."

Friday 17 February 2017

Get Inspired: Week 7

First seen on the Space Trash Blog

Valentine's colours (Get Inspired, week 7)

I hate those pink and white balloons in the stores around Valentine's Day. They always remind me of blood on the snow.

I was trying to run, but the snow was so deep that all I was doing was exhausting myself. Now, that memory feels like one of those dreams where you can't move, and all I really have are flashes; the metallic taste in the back of my throat; the dark splashes that could have been shadows, but were my twin's blood; and the sound of my lungs clawing for air.

I'd found the note in her schoolbag. An anti-Valentine, if you like. It had probably seemed funny to whoever had stuck it in there, because I was the only one who knew that Carrie had been cutting herself for months. It was the only outlet she had for the defiance, the anger, and the bone-deep exhaustion that she sometimes showed only to me, her brother. Everyone else, because my sister should have been in goddamn Hollywood, just thought she had a thing for retro bangles to the elbows.

By the time I finally found her, she'd stopped bleeding. Because we were both just fourteen when she died, I didn't go to jail for what I did to that boy. It would have been a waste of time, anyway. I know what I did was wrong, and I don't regret it.

Yes, I am a real cynic when it comes to Valentine's Day. At best, it's a way for Hallmark to make money. At worst, it could be renamed Singles' Awareness Day. Like diamond engagement rings, to me it feels like a 'buy me things to prove you love me' exercise. While I'm fully aware this is a really unpopular viewpoint, if you need diamonds and pink bows to prove you love someone, you may have bigger relationship issues.

Saturday 11 February 2017

Get Inspired: Week 6

First seen on the Space Trash Blog.

Commuting. Always a problem (Get Inspired, week 6)

Ever had to queue for a bus while the Wild Hunt rides through? Not a metaphor.

They say that if you can't see the Hunt, the Hunt will ignore you, but there's only so much interest I can pretend in Facebook at the best of times. Even when I really need an excuse not to get chatted at by the guy ahead of me who inflicts his conversation on everyone unfortunate enough to get within range. Even when not seeing the things I'm not supposed to be able to see has saved me thousands in medical bills.

While that guy really does annoy me, I'm not sure he deserved the sword stroke that lopped the bald top of his head off like the top off an egg, leaving a gray fringe of hair around exposed gray matter.

The moment of frozen shock saved me, because I blinked, and the man ahead of me was perfectly whole again, the undoubtedly girly scream still trapped in my throat. Unfortunately, blinking hadn't made the hunter who had coalesced out of the half-seen, half-felt stream of shapes whirling around and through the bus exchange and the buses any less solid. If anything, he and the Hunt were becoming more real by the second, while the hunched shapes of my fellow commuters drained of colour around me.

The flat of the sword was very real under my chin, reeking and sticky with blood, forcing my head up to meet the narrow stare of the rider. It certainly felt solid. Unlike the eyes of the hunter looming over me, which were empty holes in his head.

"As you wish, so mote it be, my lord, Lucas Main, otherwise Lugh ap Gywn," he said. "The most determined of us can only deny our true selves for so long."

Like almost everyone with a full time day job, I commute. Like most people commuting on public transit, I've occasionally entertained less-than-charitable thoughts about idiots who will not STFU, or who really think that their testicles are so impressive they require them to spread their knees across three seats. This one showed up in my head when I was standing amid my fellow zombies commuters, watching the crescent moon over the trees, and thinking about Celtic myths, because by and large those are preferable to thinking about Monday in the office.

Sunday 5 February 2017

Get Inspired: Week 5

First seen on the Space Trash blog.

What they don't tell you about biometrics (Get Inspired, week 5)


My boss was lying on the floor. Not a problem in and of itself; given the layers of security on this station, it should be reasonably unlikely that anyone who didn't know her would be in a position to report her to the powers that be.

The pool of blood and the missing hand, on the other hand, were problems, and unfortunately they were all mine.

I rechecked my helmet display, admiring the clueless series of green reads. Whatever or whoever was in here collecting body parts was apparently something completely outside our security program's experience. It seemed like a lot to expect that my heads-up display wouldn't be equally clueless if my mystery guest decided to add my head to their collection.

Happily, unlike my very ex-boss, neither my head, my hands, or anything else I need to do my job are vital to getting into anything important. I'm a firm believer in the first rule of biometrics: never use a part for identification you can't do without. I slid out of my boss's office, heading for the only thing on this station worth this much trouble, carrying the largest bit of my own personal collection out and ready for use.

My name is Shayanna Willow Anstrim, because three of my parental units were dancers. I chose the Special Forces, instead.

Believe it or not, this snippet showed up in my head by way of my job. I work for a financial institution, and there's currently a lot of noise about biometric identification being the wave of the future. The largest part of the enthusiasm sounds rather like 'because there's no way some idiot can forget their own fingerprint'.

The flipside to that is, to my sci-fi inclined mind, that the future of the annoying bastards who currently only hack files for passwords, birth dates or PINs, will likely at some point progress to hacking fingers, or eyeballs, or whatever else secures something they want badly enough.


Saturday 28 January 2017

Get inspired: Week 4

First seen on the Space Trash blog.
I'll take Death over the Tower any day (Get Inspired, week 4)


My living room windows blew in, less than a second after I hit the deck under my table.
Sadly, this kind of thing happens often enough that my reaction is reflexive. The howling and the light show, those were new.

I should stop reading the Tarot. I tell myself this often - almost as often as I read the damn things. The problem is, I have to wonder, if I didn't read the cards...who's to say the same crap wouldn't still happen, but without any warning?

I'm Maurice Ferland. I read the Tarot. I also listen to the dead (try and get a word in edgeways and you'll see why I put it that way), know enough about herbs to sound convincing, and can draw really cool shit with coloured chalk. Because I'm...who I am, these things are a little more effective for me than the other gris-gris totin', rum-drinkin', chicken-frightenin' types you can find taking easy money off tourists.

They say my grandmother sold her soul to the Devil, but frankly, I doubt it. A devil, maybe. The Devil has nearly as many layers of flunkies between him and the public as the President, and I doubt grand-mère would have had the patience. Still. I wish the old bastard a good morning every time I turn over his card...just in case.
So where did this come from?

Spending my formative years in a well-run boarding school ensured that I made the acquaintance of the Tarot, ouija boards, and almost anything else that was forbidden by the school rules on a regular basis, and the Tarot have always struck me as a goldmine for an author looking for trouble to get into. Pick a card, and you have the germ of a story right there.

Saturday 21 January 2017

Get Inspired: Week 3


First seen on the Space Trash blog.

Immortality doesn't mean you'll live forever...(Get Inspired, week 3)

The peaches of immortality ripen only once in every three thousand years. If you find and eat one, you're guaranteed near-immortality. Not unnaturally, the business interests whom I represent would like the opportunity to acquire some. Imagine Hollywood able to buy everlasting good looks? Hell, we could buy some more property. Mars, maybe.

I took another look through my scope, and sighed. Why do people always imagine that immortality means that they're invulnerable as well? Of course, I would never threaten to shoot the Jade Emperor, but this guy wasn't him. Not the Heavenly Grandfather, and most definitely not one of the Three Pure Ones. If he were, the apparent age of the scantily-dressed schoolgirl in his lap would've disqualified him on the spot. This guy, I wouldn't have any qualms about threatening, although not actually carrying through might be tough.

I spent a moment meditating. Fine. I spent a moment remembering how much I stood to make by not shooting the old pervert. Ancient pervert, if the rumours I'd spent the last few years chasing were slightly more accurate than the last ten or twenty times. About 2,983 years old, to be precise. My little pep talk motivated me to fold up my shooting perch and drop down to street-level like a good girl, rather than leaving brain particles ingrained in the wall behind him that someone would have to clean up.

After all, if the guy temporarily still in possession of his brain matter wanted another 3,000 years of fondling teenagers, he was going to have to pick up some supplies soon. When he did, perhaps I could persuade him to take me along. Persuasion is my business. Being part-siren helps. Carrying enough metal on my person to never be able to fly commercial often helps more.

Where did this one come from? 

Actually, the initial line came from Pawn In Frankincense by Dorothy Dunnett. I'd been meaning to research that particular reference for a couple of decades, and finally got around to doing it. The underlying story of the peaches of immortality was so adaptable to a modern urban fantasy setting that I couldn't help myself.

Saturday 14 January 2017

Get inspired: week 2

First seen on the Space Trash blog.

Shakespeare's Bargain (Get Inspired, week 2)


What if Shakespeare had written the most definitive guides to demonology in existence, in iambic pentameter?

In our timeline, Shakespeare was one of the most prolific and arguably one of the most known playwrights on the planet, chronicling kings and jesters, merchants and witches. If he suffered from writer's block, it's admirably hidden, perhaps in the slower stanzas of King Richard III.

In another timeline, he ran dry after Henry VI, part III, and instead of Titus Andronicus, he vanished without traceable publication for a year and a day. During that time, he made a bargain, and today the Most Unholy Church holds a copy of it, written in blood on human parchment: Shakespeare was to complete a cycle of plays documenting the fall of Lucifer and every demon in Hell. In exchange, words would never fail him and his name would live eternally.

His first work after his absence, Res Infernalis, spawned fame, riots, and calls for his head, as word of mouth spread and crowds overwhelmed the theatres. When guards and an escort of churchmen came to take him for trial, a flash mob exploded in London, and no traces of those men were ever found to bury.

When Filius Abramalech gained Europe-wide renown, the Vatican issued a letter announcing that the English playwright had sold his soul to Satan, and called upon the faithful to send him to his master in Hell. The Pope died within hours of signing it, but crowds thronged nonetheless to see Shakespeare's next work, The Struggle of Beleth, in such numbers that thousands died in the crowds and the crows feasted for days.

Appropriately, Lucifer claimed his due after the publication of Zepar's Tryst, and Shakespeare died aged 102, in the year 1666.

This one came to mind sometime late one night in a fit of green-eyed jealousy over people who never seem to spend time staring at words on a screen that just won't settle down on the page the way they sounded in my head. What if it afflicted even the best of us, and what if writer's block changed history?

Sunday 8 January 2017

Get Inspired: week 1

First seen on the Space Trash blog.

I'm going to bite off more than I can chew, but I'm going to try and add a blog post each week in 2017. (Yeah, yeah...thanks for the cynicism, folks...).

I figured I would sit down each week and try to write a post about a story idea. Am I going to write 52 new books? Hell no. What I'm hoping is that it'll be fun, other people may get a spark from some of them, and that it'll get me thinking of something other than my usual rut.

And hey, if my attempts to get book four in the Cortii series edited and beautiful and inspiring continues to hit the skids, I may take one of my ideas and run with it to give myself a break. My brain feels like a sponge that's been left out in the Sahara at midday right now.


When the stone breaks, a flower will rise (Get Inspired, week 1)


Amaranthe's been dreaming. When you're a French teenager living in a village so small they turn the streetlights out at midnight and the nearest cinema is ten kilometres away, there isn't much else to do, but these dreams are odd. They feel too real, and they're all set in her tiny village, at a time when the time-worn stones of the old church are sharp and pale and new.

Amaranthe dreams as Pierre, at a time when Petromantalum, the place where the roads meet, was the largest settlement in the area. The small church built by holy men twenty years ago has attracted the attention of one of the old gods, woken by the Christian bells and the smell of blasphemy, and from the mountains and the forest, the rivers and the standing stones, the ancient magic is rising.

Old and young, healthy and sick are dying between one breath and the next, and the echoes of their passing murmur in men's minds, driving those left to the ragged edge of sanity. The men of the Eastern cult do nothing but pray to their singular god and call the deaths His punishment for sin.

The son of a legionary and local woman, Pierre is a misfit, caught between two worlds. A generation ago, he would have joined the Legions. Now, with the might of Rome fading back into the East, there is only one way he can fight; with his mother's weapons, and the magic bequeathed to him as her son. No man is a match for the power of a god, but Pierre's sacrifice buys sanctuary for the village at the crossroads for nearly two thousand years.

When the first death strikes, a week into the autumn term, Amaranthe surrounds herself with her friends, goes shopping in the city, and convinces herself that it's poor timing. At the second, she tells herself that it's coincidence. By the third, she realises that she's the only one who knows Pierre's secret - and the only one who can stop the dying.

So...where did this idea come from?

I had a dream about, more or less, this story a few months back, and it's been bugging me ever since. I'm unlikely to ever write it; it's long step diagonally from the type of story I usually write, but the dream was so vivid I could see the carving on the roof beams and feel the rough linen of the clothes. I figured it would make a good opening for the 'Get inspired' posts.