#FREE For Two Days...

Hey everyone!

Just a quick note to let you know that starting today (the 7th) until the 9th, "Veritas, Shadow of the Rose: Book Two" will be free to purchase on Amazon.

This is the book:

This is the link.

Please share with your friends! Let's get the word out!

Now, if you don't have a Kindle, I do have "Veritas" on Smashwords as well. I'll be setting the price to free today (the 7th) until the 9th there, as well.

Here is that link.

I hope you all have a great rest of your week and I'll see you all soon!

Exciting Things To Come...

Hey everyone! I'm sure some of you have heard by now, since I plastered it all over the webiverse. My book, 'Adversarius, Shadow of the Rose: Book One' will be available December 7, 2012!

Super excited over here. Doing the happy dance and everything!

I'll be hosting a virtual book tour starting in January. In the meantime, I'd like to offer up the chance for three lucky people to win a copy of my book. Right now, it is only going to be available as an e-book, print will come later.

However, since I don't have a lot of extra cash, especially around the holidays, I'll just be giving away books this time around. I'll do a bigger giveaway when I am able to. Right now, I'd like to spread the word about Adversarius!

So on that note, you'll see a new little page tab at the top of this blog. It says, 'Giveaway Donations'. Like I state on that page, I'm not asking for money, especially this time of year! I am asking for books, swag, bookmarks, etc. I'll use these as giveaway prizes if you see fit to send me something OR hold onto the item and ship it off to the winner if you prefer that instead.

December 10th will be my first Book Giveaway, so make sure to stop on by and read the rules! Yes, there are rules, there are ALWAYS rules. So help me spread the word about Adversarius!

And thank you, ALL of you, for the wonderful help and support you have given me to get this far. Some of you more than others, and you all know who you are. I appreciate absolutely everything you have all done for me on this journey.

'The Next Big Thing' Blog Meme...

Hey everyone! It's Monday. I can hear the groans from here... lol! Well, I was tagged in "The Next Big Thing" blog hop and tried to get five authors to tag to no avail. I'll still participate, since I'm linked on the lovely Jennifer Brown's blog here. So here we go, hope you enjoy!


What is your working title of your book? 
Veritas, Shadow of the Rose: Book Two. This is currently in revision status and I should be done with it soon. It begins where 'Adversarius' leaves off.

Where did the idea come from for the book? 
I read a lot of fantasy, and have always wanted to write a book, which ended up being a trilogy. Not exactly sure where the idea came from, it just sort of crept up on me out of the blue.

What genre does your book fall under? 
Fantasy, but in all actuality, High Fantasy due to the nature of the work, characters, creatures, etc.

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?
Ha! I have thought about this long and hard. I would absolutely choose Kate Beckinsale (Alex, you'll love this!) for Kayta, Adrian Paul for Black Rose, um, I'm torn between Rose McGowen for Nightshadow or I'd pick Keri Byron (from Mythbusters). I originally chose Heath Ledger for Vendras, but now can't picture him as anyone else. Farrehn would be Dwayne Johnson and I really have no clue for the others right now. That's about as far as I got.

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book? 
'Truth is a bitter pill for Hedric to swallow and only he can decide if it will set him free or destroy him.'

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency? 
Since this is the second in the series, I have no idea just yet.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?
Oh wow, um... it took me a couple years for the first two parts, then I ended up running into issues, put it away and came back to it several years later.

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?
I have no idea. I'd like to say any of the 'Forgotten Realms' or 'DragonLance' books, but I doubt they even come close.

Who or what inspired you to write this book?
What inspired me were all of my favorite fantasy authors growing up. My husband, Larry, came into my life much later and inspired me to finish what I had started.

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?
There is something in it for everyone. A little romance, intrigue, pirates, all sorts of fantasy creatures; old and new. Battles, jealousy, hatred and most of all, friendship and loyalty.


I wish I had been able to tag some authors in this post. I looked, I asked but in the end, people are super busy this time of year. So here is my part, as promised! I hope you liked it.

World Building Wednesday...

There is no end in sight, when you are a fantasy author and building your own world. There are many things to consider and sometimes, you are constantly changing things. You will find, while you are writing, that some things just don't work.

I lost count on how many times I have had to change something. It happens. And maps are no exception.

I've talked about maps before, yes, but now it is time to talk about map makers. I have my world map drawn out by hand on numerous squares of graph paper all taped together. I roll it up when I have to transport it or move. I hate doing that, though, because it tears and crinkles. I get all OCD over it. But I like to have that huge map up on my wall near my desk for quick, easy reference when writing. I don't want to have to keep swapping windows on my computer. Just a quick glance up and sometimes I spend several moments tracking the movement of my characters.

Not only that, each square on my graph represents a certain distance and so configuring how long it takes them to move about is fairly simple. Because math and I are not on speaking terms, I need simple!

But what do you do when you need that map shrunk down and print ready, for say, the inside cover of your book or for your website? Crap! I can't take that huge thing and scan it. I'd be here for days...

I have my own methods and means of getting my map onto my computer, but it's long and drawn out. Not simple at all. But I did take a pic with my cell phone and now my friend Jennifer is working on it by taking those images and going to this site to take it to that next stage.

Here are some results:

This shows the dashed lines of my kingdom borders. Originally, she made them solid lines, but this looked better.

Next came rivers and lakes placement. Right now, this is only on one continent as we work out details for the others.

 

 

 

 

This shows some of the icons that can be used as well as mountain range placement.

I think it is coming along nicely. I can't wait until it is done with city names and the rest of the terrain. This has been a huge worry of mine, how I was going to get this map book worthy or even ready for the internet. I'm thankful Jennifer is willing to play around with this. I don't mind being a guinea pig, because when she is done with my map, she will know what to do for hers. It's a win win! There are other map making programs out there and a lot of them are time consuming. However, if you want a map for your books or website, you're going to have to take the time. There is no fast map making program unless you choose to use a pre-made map. And even then, you'll have to worry about copyrights. So choose wisely and make it your own. It will be so worth it in the end, trust me.

Sweet Treat, Sneak Peek!...

All right! I'm at the point where I am allowed to share snippets of my book with you all until it is released. And possibly even after to keep up interest, of course.

So I thought, hmm... what could I do to make this a bit more interesting? Well, since Halloween and Thanksgiving and Christmas are creeping up on us fast—Cookies!

I'm going to share a cookie recipe and a snippet. So you can make a sweet treat after I give you a sneak peek at my book.

Sound fair? All right, then, here we go!

I'm going to start with this recipe I found in the Better Homes and Gardens Ultimake Cookies and Bars magazine. I have yet to find another special interest issue like it.

I figure this would be a good cookie to pair up with my character Nightshadow. She's pretty spicy and she loves her blended herb cigarettes.

~Spicy Molasses Cookies~

1 3/4 Cups all purpose flour     1/2 Cup whole wheat flour

1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon     1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon ground ginger     1/4 teaspoon ground allspice

1/4 teaspoon ground cloves     1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon black pepper     1/2 Cup softened butter

1/4 Cup shortening     1/3 Cup granulated sugar

1/3 Cup packed brown sugar     1 egg yolk

1/2 Cup dark molasses     1 teaspoon vanilla

In medium bowl, mix first 9 ingredients. In another bowl, beat butter and shortening for 30 seconds. Add granulated sugar and brown sugar. Add yolk, molasses, and vanilla. Beat until combined, then slowly add in flour mixture. Chill for one hour. Roll into 1 inch balls. Bake at 375 degrees for 8-10 minutes.

And since you were so patient through that long list of ingredients, here is the snippet! Enjoy, both the cookies and the sneak peek:

~Nightshadow~

Nightshadow sat up in her room inside the massive mansion Nikkolani had taken over when he first came to Moordigan. This home had been abandoned, overrun with vines and weeds, matching the state of the rest of the city when Nikkolani first arrived. He fixed it up to suit his tastes and used more of the king's coin rather than his own. When he built up his D'raetus Pastiniir, he rewarded his finest assassins handsomely and in different ways based on performance. Being the best at her profession gave her some perks, but it also gave her some heartaches. She worked up the courage to speak to Nikkolani at some length during the night about Farrehn, who now lay in the Healer's Guild because of her. The discussion had been very heated, so much so that she decided to wait to tell him about Sorcha and the agreement she had made.

Dressed in loose leggings and a tunic belted at the waist, Nightshadow now sat before the window, absentmindedly braiding her hair. When she reached the end, she tied it off and stood just as a soft knock landed on her door. She slowly crossed the room, not expecting anyone, and opened the door.

“Nikkolani would like to speak with you,” a young girl told her.

“I'll be down in a moment.”

“I'll let him know.” Nightshadow shut the door and went over to her bed to pull on her boots. As she left her room, she locked the door. Living with thieves, it would be a matter of moments before they picked the lock but she certainly was not going to make it easy for them.

Book Review: Brood of Bones by A. E. Marling...

Title: Brood of Bones

Author: A. E. Marling

Publisher: Aether Publishing

Pages: 364 (Print), File size: 1,417 kb

Page Number Source ISBN 10: 0984022317 ISBN 13: 978-0984022311  ASIN: B005QQ3H7G

Purchase: Amazon

Summary from Amazon.com:

One unexpected pregnancy is a drama; fifty thousand is citywide hysteria.

Cursed with endless drowsiness, Enchantress Hiresha sleeps more than she lives. Since she never has had a chance to raise a family, she sometimes feels like every woman is pregnant except for her.  This time, she is right.

From virgin to grandmother, all the women in her city have conceived.

A lurking sorcerer drains power from the unnatural pregnancies, and Hiresha must track him by his magic.  Unfortunately, her cultured education in enchantment ill equips her to understand his spellcraft, which is decidedly less than proper.  The only person uncivilized enough to help is the Lord of the Feast, a dangerous yet charming illusionist.  Associating with him may imperil Hiresha's city, yet refusing his help will allow the sorcerer to leech godlike power from the mass births.

My thoughts:

This is a well crafted, intellectual piece of High Fantasy. I feel that my review might clash with the intellect level with which it was written. A. E. Marling has created a very unique fantasy world, at least from my viewpoint, and well thought out characters.

Elder Enchantress Hiresha is a powerful magic user, but with many flaws. The largest being her inability to live in the waking world. She has been gifted twelve gowns and her station requires she wears them all. That alone would make me exhausted, but what causes her drowsiness is not the physical activity, but the magic.

The Lord of the Feast is a very interesting chap and I could see he and Hiresha marrying. (If he were not a damned being.) His cryptic humor as he aids the Elder Enchantress helped keep the story moving forward.

I really enjoyed this book. I can't give too many details without giving the entire story away, as much as I would like to prattle on about it. The world was well thought out, the characters were well rounded and flawed deeply. The story itself flowed well and progressed at a decent pace. Most stories you read where a lot of sleep is involved are usually boring, but Marling presents Hiresha's problem with wakefulness in an interesting manner without putting the reader to sleep as well.

Did I mention I LOVE the cover?

Very clean, well written, highly intellectual... I have to give it:

5 out of 5 skull and crossbones.

Writing Wednesdays: Building Languages...

This is an important post regarding fantasy world building. When you think of fantasy worlds, you always think of the creatures, the magic and all that. However, one thing that gets overlooked is the languages.

Sure, you automatically assume there are going to be unique languages associated with different races. Tolkien built on languages for Elves in Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. The Elven language is copyrighted, despite the fact that Tolkien wanted to share aspects of Middle Earth so others could write from it.

I tried, they said 'No.' Quite firmly I might add...

So what's a girl (or guy) who writes fantasy to do about languages? Make it up as you go along.

Unless you have the time, skills and education Mr. Tolkien had, you have to use what is available to you. Most of it will be your imagination. There are ways to go about it and create something. I have a link here to my translator page. I use Latin for a lot of things. No surprise, look at the titles of my books. But I sort of cheat and mix Latin with Drow or Tolkien's Elvish. I'm not using his work, just using it as a guideline of sorts.

What I do is take a word. Let's use the word 'Sword'. We want another 'name' for Sword in our story, so we think about it a bit and hit the internet. Now in Latin, you can use the word Gladius. In Drow it is Killian. But I can't use Drow and I don't want it to be in Latin, that's sort of boring. I want to be unique. So I would combine the two somehow. Kildius, Kilius, Gladian... you get the idea. But a couple of those look kind of lame. So I just shuffle things about a bit and go for something along the lines of Kildan, Adius or completely away from either of my language choices and try Samas. Does this make sense? I may not get an exact derivative from my two language choices, but it sparked my imagination enough to come up with something else entirely.

There are name generators out there as well to help with the language and naming processes. I know there are sites out there that tell you when naming things in fantasy, don't use an apostrophe. Well. Screw that. Use what you want! I have lots of names, including the name of my world that have an apostrophe. Eir du'Brusai.

People always ask me how I come up with names. I honestly cannot give you a formulaic answer. I don't know. Names and the like just pop up in my head and I use what fits. Languages are the same for me unless I get stuck and then use my tricks up above with the two different languages. I try to be unique but not so unique in everything that people get frustrated reading my work. I try to give the unique name and try to find a way to describe exactly what it is to the reader. Most everyone will get the idea right away that my D'raetus Pastiniir are lethal, elite assassins.

But there is that pesky apostrophe!

Too bad. Fantasy Police don't like it, they can arrest me.

I am always happy to help other writers find unique names for people or items. So if you get stuck, by all means, drop me a line! I'd be happy to help. Most of my name generator links are on my links page of the blog. Check them out.

How I Write Fantasy...

I'm going to be writing up some posts in the next several weeks in regards to my views of writing fantasy and more importantly how I write fantasy. Things I have worked on, things that took me a long freakin' time to create. Now, this may or may not help you if you are a fantasy writer, time will only tell. Most fantasy writers take so long in writing their work because of all the world building they have to do. Others just wing it.

So what, first of all, does world building include? Well, that depends on how far you want to get into it. Here is what my world building included:

* Magic

*Kingdoms

*Laws

*Creatures

*Characters

*Money

*Gods and Goddesses

These are just the main things. In each of those categories, there are numerous sub-categories. I had to make lots of decisions regarding the list above.

In making decisions on my world, in general, I had to start out with some pretty mundane stuff regarding the sun, moon, stars and so on.

Might sound silly to you, but in writing fantasy, you're here to think outside of the box. I literally came up with several choices on those basic things and rolled the dice. Not kidding! I used to play Dungeons and Dragons, so I pulled out all my dice. Six sided, four sided, twenty sided and I rolled, baby!

My world has two suns. If you think this might be a hot climate, it isn't really. The second sun is really, really tiny when you look at it up in the sky of my world.

I have one moon in my night sky and of course, my stars make up their own constellations which had to be written down in folklore and the like. I even have a story about the moon. I'm still working on the constellations and the stories associated with them.

So, over the next several weeks, I'll be posting things about my world and choosing from those categories above. Bear with me, as I worked on this world for well over ten years and it still isn't done or is it perfect. I'm constantly adding to it and changing things, but most of what I have is set in stone and is here to stay. So I hope you enjoy what I have to share!

Character Names...

And how the heck to come up with them!

Laura over at Writing Unleashed left a comment for me the other day. She wanted to know how I come up with fresh names in fantasy and story ideas.

Well. Let me tell you! ::Rubs her hands together gleefully::

I have a couple of name generators I go to. Seventh Sanctum, Rink Works, Serendipity, etc. They're all very good, but Seventh Sanctum is my fave by far. But half the time a name in their list sort of works for me. Others are perfect. But even if I use a generator, I still want to make my names unique. So when I saw 'Bassin', I thought... ooh! Alabassin. He's my young prince and Kayta's love interest.

Speaking of Kayta, she was my original Dungeons and Dragons character. When coming up with her name, I used my middle name, Kay, and added the 'ta'. She's been around since I was 19.

Nightshadow was a character in Cosrin, the online role playing game, and she was an assassin there as well. I just figured she was good at hiding in the shadows and wore clothes black as night.

When trying to rename some of the characters from Cosrin for my books, lots of names just came off the top of my head. Like Talaver (Tale uh ver), Farrehn (Far ehn) and Vendras (Vehn drahs). I just plucked those out of the ether. Same with Senweis (Sehn ways).

Now that list I showed the other day of what not to do when writing fantasy, I said a couple of them applied to me. One was "don't use an apostrophe in a name". Well, bugger that, I have a couple of names like the world itself is named Eir du'Brusai (Air do brew sigh). Kayta's last name is Ni'adzul (Knee add zool) and Alabassin's is Li'endrin (Lee en drin). I also have a continent named Istlandu'us (Ist land us). Those sort of came off the top of my head as well.

Now Nightshadow is an assassin and part of the D'raetus Pastiniir (There's that apostrophe again) and it is pronounced 'dee ray tus past ih near'. They are the elite of the elite as far as assassins go. I got that name mixing Latin and Drow, a form of Tolkien's Elvish language. I have translator sites for those. There are lots of things I used Latin and Drow for. Some names I don't want to use the traditional and go for the mix. When I wanted to call my wizards something else, I thought of the Magi and decided to spell it 'Mahjii'.

A friend of mine came up with the name Kefferlings (kehf er lings) for my elf cat race. My husband came up with Dargorians (Dar gore ee ehns) for my humanoid dragon race. I think I got Firlochians (Fur low key ehns) off of a generator. I didn't think Firlochian sounded much like a name and more like a race.

As for story ideas? I'm going for a somewhat generic plot with this trilogy. Tyrannical king wants to gain more power and is trying to wipe out the only force that can stop him, which happens to be Kayta and her family and armies. An arranged marriage where the intended groom would rather be married to another and a few more twists and turns I won't mention because it will spoil it. I also have another book in the works that will focus on Black Rose. He was my husband's character from Dungeons and Dragons and we've made him a champion of a deity. He'll be fighting an Elemental, in this case an Earth Elemental, that accidentally stepped into the summoning circle of a Mahjii and got possessed by a powerful demon. You'll have to ask my husband how he came up with that one.

Okay, so sorry to ramble on! But hope that answers some questions.