Musings & more….
To my extraordinarily patient/understanding/thorough/supportive editor (and I’m not just saying that because you’re currently working on Dowser 7):
Yep, that’s another freaking year!!
Please join me in wishing Scott Fitzgerald Gray the happiest of birthdays. Without him my novels would be clunky, at best, none of the characters would be dressed (at least not consistently) and you’d never know what anything – be it a weapon, an artifact, or a room – looked like.
I received story notes from Scott Fitzgerald Gray (aka the editor, aka SFG) on Reconstructionist 2 last night, which means that I’m in editing mode this morning.
To that end, I have accomplished the following before 10:23 am:
Currently: blogging.
Next up: hot chocolate and gingersnaps.
So yep, I am editing.
Oh … and I thought you might like a sneak peek at the title for book two:
So as I worked my way through the multiple drafts of Catching Echoes, Reconstructionist 1, I highlighted every instance of ‘effect,’ ‘affect’, ‘past, and ‘passed’ that I came upon. I did so because I invariably use one or more of these words incorrectly at least once in every book. Yes, no matter how many times I go over the sentence, no matter how many rules I recite in my head and apply, I always get at least one wrong.
After editing over thirteen of my novels, and I don’t know how many of my screenplays – ten? fifteen? – my lovely editor, Scott Fitzgerald Gray (aka SFG)(who you can find on his Insane Angel website), suggested I might want to jot down the following rules on a Post It! note, then attach said note to my computer screen.
I did one better. And then thought I should share with you all.
Please feel free to share (I’ll also post these separately on Twitter and Facebook for that purpose). And it’s back to writing for me!
GIVEAWAY CLOSED. WINNER JANINE from KANSAS!
If you pay close enough attention to the acknowledgments at the back of my novels, or my rantings on Facebook and Twitter, you will recognize Scott Fitzgerald Gray‘s name. He is my editor. He has edited every single screenplay I deemed worthy of rewriting from the early-2000s through to every single novel or short or novella I’ve published.
That’s a a lot of editing. I imagine SFG now knows me via my writing almost as well as Michael does. So when I met him face-to-face for the first time last Saturday, I was really excited/anxious.
We had brunch. I made my Chewy Gooey Chocolate Cookies. But best of all – and the main point of this blog post – is that Scott brought me signed paperbacks. Yes, he is a writer as well as an editor. I’d be a little lost without him, so hopefully he never stops editing but I greedily snatch up every book he writes and beg him for more as well.
So without further ado, Scott left these two insanely pretty, autographed paperbacks for a blog giveaway! Yes! Thanks SFG!
I read Sidnye (Queen of the Universe) and LOVED it. (Here’s my review). SFG is meticulous with his plotting and he makes you work as a reader, but his stories pay off big time! Book Two is awaiting me on my Kindle app.
Synopsis of Book One: Life is complicated enough when you live full-time at boarding school because your parents are dead, and when the other students around you are mostly idiots, and when you’re doomed to spend the rest of your existence in cafeteria detention because you just can’t stop annoying the people in charge of your life. But that’s when you discover the headaches you’ve been having aren’t just a part of being thirteen and feeling the weight of the world hammering down on you. That’s when you realize the dreams you’ve been having are more than dreams, and the people you thought you were closest to are less concerned with caring about you than with keeping you from knowing the things they don’t want you to know…
Intrigued?!!
Interesting in winning these two gorgeous paperbacks?
Comment below to enter: “Gimmie some SFG!” Or some such. 😀
Easy peasy, though make sure to include your email address in the comment form.
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Scott Fitzgerald Gray is a specially constructed biogenetic simulacrum built around an array of experimental consciousness-sharing techniques — a product of the finest minds of Canadian science until the grant money ran out. Accidentally set loose during an unauthorized midnight rave at the lab, the S.F. Gray entity is currently at large amongst an unsuspecting populace, where his work as an author, screenwriter, editor, RPG designer, and story editor for feature film keeps him off the streets.
More info on Scott and his work (some of it even occasionally truthful) can be found by reading between the lines at insaneangel.com.
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GIVEAWAY CLOSES WEDNESDAY, APRIL 15, 2014 at 8 a.m. PDT. OPEN INTERNATIONALLY. EACH ENTRY WILL BE ASSIGNED A NUMBER. WINNER CHOSEN BY RANDOM NUMBER GENERATOR.
Note: Every Friday I’m going to (attempt to) list any great looking books or deals I’ve come across earlier in the week. Often, I won’t have read these books myself yet – seeing as I’m supposed to be writing one (!!) – but these are deals or books I thought looked good enough to share. All links – for ease of linking – are to Amazon.com but most, if not all, of these books are available on all platforms including paperback. Hint, if you are in Canada or the UK (etc) and want to buy just change the .com in your browser to .ca (etc).
Scott Fitzgerald Gray, aka the editor extraordinaire of ALL my books, just RELEASED the sequel to his young adult SCI-FI, Sidnye, Queen of the Universe. The second book is called La’aryylia. I’ve already read book one and loved it. Yes, I need to do a stand alone blog post about it. And I’ve also already snatched up the sequel, but not sat down to read it yet 🙁
More SCI-FI – John Dalton just RELEASED a stand alone prequel to his Galactic Mage Series, Ilbei Spadebreaker and the Harpy’s Wild.
And more SCI-FI!! Saxon Andrew has also just RELEASED the seventh book in his Sci-Fi Lens of Time Series, Chosen To Die. As a thank you to his readers, Saxon has lowered the price of this newest book to $2.99 until Saturday when it will revert to $4.99.
Trish Marie Dawson is offering Dying To Forget, the first book in her The Station series, for FREE right now. 4.5 stars out of 282 reviews = WOW! NICE!
How about a collection of short stories for FREE? It might be a good way to find some new writers!! End of the Road is a collection of 31 stories by some of the most talented indie authors around.
That’s it for this week! I’ve got some reading to do!!
Every Friday I’m going to (attempt to) list any great looking books or deals I’ve come across earlier in the week. Often, I won’t have read these books myself yet – seeing as I’m supposed to be writing one (!!) – but they’re deals or books I thought looked good enough to share. All links – for ease of linking – are to Amazon.com but most, if not all, of these books are available on all platforms including paperback. Hint, if you are in Canada or the UK (etc) and want to buy just change the .com in your browser to .ca (etc).
Okay, I was crazy excited that Scott Fitzgerald Gray (aka editor extraordinaire) released a new book this week. I immediately snatched it up, but haven;t found the time to crack it open yet (hopefully this weekend). Sidnye is a young adult speculative fiction and the sequel is due out in a month!! YAY!
Also new this week is Kellie’s Diary #4, a horror/zombie graphic novel by Thomas Jenner and Angeline Perkins. Kellie’s Diary #1 is currently available free and has a 4.2 star rating over 127 reviews!!
Russell Blake‘s Black will be FREE TODAY ONLY!! Yes, a freebie from the author everyone has been talking about this week, including the Wall Street Journal and The London Times. 4.3 stars over 42 reviews!
Also new and free from Jan 17th to the 19th is Death, This Way Do Come by Cleve Sylcox. This is brand spanking new, so grabbed it while it’s free! If you like what you read please consider leaving Cleve a review, because honest reviews really do matter!!
Suzy Stewart Dubot’s novella Garnets is $0.99 instead of $2.99 on Smashwords (aka any format) when this coupon is used in the next two weeks: RE82X. Young adult fantasy romance regency fiction? Interesting!
Last but not least, Author Elizabeth Jasper’s Meggie Blackthorn – a story about coming of age in Newcastle, England in the 1960s – is free from January 17th to the 21st. It ranks 4.8 stars over 13 reviews!!
Blackheath – An Elathien Solo Mystery by Scott Fitzgerald Gray & Quinn Hamilton
Synopsis (via Amazon): In the great Free City of Yewnyr, the Blackheath Refuge is home to the victims of the most powerful magic in the Elder Kingdoms — those wounded in body and mind by dark mana, ancient curses, and the hunger of the undead.
When an invisible killer is unleashed within the refuge, the brash investigator Elathien Solo must contend with indifferent authorities, a spurned lover, and a young patient’s terrible secret as she searches for the truth.
And even as a dark conspiracy of murder and madness unfolds around her, Elathien is forced to cope with the still-raw scars of the time she herself spent as a patient within Blackheath’s walls…
FOR MATURE READERS
My thoughts: I really liked this story. I find it has stuck with me the next day – this rarely happens for me – and I am looking forward to more instalments in the Elathien Solo Mystery series.
Caveats: I picked up this book on a day I was seriously under the weather. It took me about four chapters to get wrapped up in the story … I was struggling with vocabulary and the formal tone of the writing for a bit. The writers had me actually looking up words, including arcane, which I was pretty sure I knew the definition of (I did), and rereading bits of information at the beginning. But around chapter four I stopped doing so and just let the story unfold for me.
I came to really like the main character, Elathien — though I have no idea if I am pronouncing her name correctly in my head — she is brilliantly flawed (I love that in a character), fearless and fearful, powerful but restrained with that power (intriguingly so) with a dark, dark past.
I don’t think I have ever read this blend of genre before – a fantasy/mystery – but I quite enjoyed the meshing of the magical dark fantasy world with the more classic mysterious medical-facility plot structure.
The main mystery of the story was nicely interwoven with the mystery of Elathien’s past with just enough of an intersection between the two to keep it interesting but not overly contrived.
Also, I must say I did enjoy the extremely tasty (!!) SEX scenes, which are explicit, but not shockingly so.
I give it a solid 4 stars. You can currently find the ebook at Amazon for FREE, though I am not too sure for how long.
*Disclosure note: I know Scott Fitzgerald Gray. He edits my writing. I have no idea who Quinn Hamilton is, except he she (how about I do a little research before post, hey?) co-wrote this novel and I liked what I read.
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EXCERPT
Elathien was forced to take a step back as Nerani turned on her suddenly. A dark strength had worked its way through the girl, giving her the tone and disposition of a different person. The thought set Elathien on edge as she called up the cantrip of detection, the incantation barely a whisper.
“She knew all their names,” Nerani hissed, pushing closer. “She knew what they did, what they needed, how they lied. She wouldn’t have told, but their fear blinded them. Made them not believe her. So I felt how long it took her to fall. How her legs broke, her spine shattered when she struck the ground. I felt her bleed to death in the dark…”
There was no magic in her. No sign of the possession or enchantment that Elathien would have sworn she was seeing, no sign of Nerani’s thoughts or actions controlled by some outside force. With a sharp cry of pain, the girl pushed past her, stumbling toward the laboratory door.
Which was open now, Elathien saw.
The white light from the corridor beyond pushed up against the pale glow of Elathien’s spell-light, shimmering along a boundary like oil and water settling slowly against each other.
The door had been closed when Nerani stepped away from it. A thousand things could have explained it opening, from the most minor incantation to a loose latch and a breath of air from the corridor beyond. Elathien felt a chill twist through her all the same, rising from the base of her spine as Nerani turned to her.
“They killed Irandis,” the girl said. “You wanted to know.”
“What?” Elathien’s voice caught as she spoke. “I wanted to know what?”
“You wanted to know why I came here. To Blackheath.”
Nerani’s steps were steady as she made her way down the corridor, bare feet silent on the stone floor…
Death and Friendship.
Love and Gaming.
Mind and Machine.
The Meaning of Life.
High School Graduation.
The End of the World.
That Kind of Stuff.
A group of teens discovers that the online game they’ve been playing has serious, life-impacting consequences. While this tight knit group seems on the edge of unraveling at the beginning of the book, the author skillfully interweaves the plot of his action-packed, sci-fi thriller with an exploration of the relationships of his characters. At times, they hate each other as much as they care, but when faced with life and death, games, guns, and secret military organizations, they choose truth and love.
This is rather obviously my kind of book.
I hesitate to elaborate further because I don’t want to give too much away about the plot, which, though it starts slowly, ramps up into glorious action and heartwarming love story. By the midpoint, I was gobbling up the novel and turning the pages as quickly as I could read. By the end, I had tears in my eyes. Unreleased, but still tears.
Normally, I would quote some of my favourite lines when reviewing a good book, but in this case I feel the reader needs to discover this world as the author has presented it, beginning to end, and not in bite-sized pieces. With that said, I will at least hint at my absolute favourite line, which is the accumulation of a running motif. This motif is almost painstakingly set up by the author as a way to describe the feelings of his main character, who also happens to be the author himself. Yes, this is written as semi-autobiographical.
Crazy stuff happens. It can’t all possibly be true. You’ll have to read it to figure it out.
I’m going to read We Can Be Heroes again. And I very rarely reread. I give it a solid 4.5 stars. You can currently find the ebook at Amazon (click the book cover picture above). The paperback version would also soon be available.
*Disclosure note: I know Scott Fitzgerald Gray. He edits my writing. I should therefore be harder on him than other storytellers, just to get back at him for tearing my words apart. So perhaps I am. Perhaps I should have given We Can Be Heroes five stars. Man, sometimes I can be a meanie.
