Firlefanz

I didn't put words into any WiP today, but I did write the blurb for Sky and picked the graphic for his chapter headers (you might have seen that).

This feels like amazing progress. I will definitely commission the cover tomorrow.

I also fixed something else that bothered me (replaced the batteries in the temperature sensor of my weather station) and that gave me another mental boost. Frankly, it's a miracle that thing is still working. It was half submerged in (dirty) water, one of the batteries had rusted, and I'm pretty sure it had been partially frozen more than once. But I cleaned it out, dried it and as soon as the new batteries were in, it fired up and started sending. I'll take that as a sign for my own life. 😀

Feeling much more centered and calm tonight. Tomorrow, I'll tackle one more frazzling thing, and then I'm mostly back on track.

I plan to finish editing Sky and formatting the book this weekend. Depending on how fast my cover designer is, I can publish Sky Falls soon. Can't wait, to be honest.

Have the blurb:

A daring escape. An unlikely ally. A wicked betrayal.

When the day of his sacrifice draws near, Sky Falcon has nothing left to lose. Daring the wrath of the Priests, he escapes through a clever application of his magic, taking the love of his life with him.

Together, they hatch a desperate and daring plan: After escaping the Holy Empire through different routes, they vow to reunite near Jungle Fortress in the south.

On his own, Sky makes an unfortunate mistake which leads him down the road to doom. Can he escape once more or will he find himself bound on top of a Pyramid, after all?

“Sky Falls” takes you on yet another intense and fast-paced ride through the world of the Winds and Pillars, with familiar characters lending a hand.

If you adore being sucked into a tale of magic, adventure, love and battle, you will devour the second book of the Pillars of the Empire by Hannah Steenbock.

So life has been throwing me one curve-ball after the other. Petty things, little things, but they burn my autistic mind to the point where I soothe myself as best I can.

Sadly, that means little to no writing or editing, and trust me, I feel the minutes ticking by, knowing I should be working on Sky. I really hope to get a few things cleared up soon (took care of a some things today, like fighting DHL for shipping labels and emailing my landlord about water damage and mold - not inside my apartment, fortunately). Will probably need to change my mobile phone provider to take care of yet another issue. And that's not half of what my list says.

In turn, all of this means I have little brainspace for coming here and chatting with you all. Or even have some nice WiP quotes to share with you. I'm sorry.

I'm back.

First, apologies for the loooong silence. The instance was offline for a few days, and then I left to visit family and didn't bring all the links. Also, I really went into hibernation with family, and I will admit to enjoying shrugging off daily chores for a while.

I'm still on vacation and will only have to return to my day job on Monday. That feels great.

Today was a game of catching up and getting things sorted after being away for two weeks. Plants are fine. In a big surprise, new neighbors are already moving in below my apartment. I had been expecting an extended period of renovations. I'm a little excited to get to know them.

Also gave my direct neighbor the chocolate I bought for him, because I appreciate it so much that he keeps an eye on my apartment.

Picked up the package that arrived while I was gone. Grabbed some groceries. Caught up on emails (dear gods, so MUCH email!).

Wrote out a lot of the world-building I have been doing for Penumbra, my modern vampires. Feels great. I don't really want to go into any detail just yet, because I don't want to spoil any of the story, and I also don't know how much of it will actually make it into the tale. But it's been great fun to rearrange the world for the next twenty years. (Yes, mayhem and upheaval.)

I promise, you'll hear more about Penumbra - hope you won't get sick of it.

Oh, and I'm getting Sky back from my beta-reader tomorrow... that is a scary thought.

No writing today.

Mind was going through Christmas scenarios for me. Final decision next week. It's nerve-racking.

Even so, I had a lovely chat with an old writing friend about the vampires and the setting. I don't really know enough about the 1930s to feel comfortable with it, to be honest.

Writer Brain jumped to setting it into a slightly noir near future where the villains thrive in the chaos resulting from climate change and epidemics. It will mean revisiting what I have written, but it could be easier on me. (Does that make my tale solarpunk?)

Anyway, that was... a very slow day today.

Today started out really well. I wrote before my morning started (240 words for the Vampires), walked to the office and felt really good.

Ran errands after that (stressful, had to pick up a package from a location I'd never been to before), and then found an official letter that added another mountain of stress.

So not much else happened today, except comfort books and stress eating.

Can't share much, either, sorry. So I'll pull a snippet from Sky Falls, for a change. (This is not "our" West, it's "his" West.) I'll edit his story over Christmas and get it published in January or so.

“Just relax, West. This shouldn’t hurt.”

Sky Falcon was reasonably sure it wouldn’t. He had watched the lightning everyone had in their bodies for months. He had played with it in the plants that their North was growing. The plants had never complained.

“Shouldn’t?” West rolled her lovely eyes.

“I’m not damaging anything. I’m just going to slow it down.”

“Slowing what down?”

“The lightning in your arm. I want you to tell me how that feels.”

Today was office day AND newsletter day. It went rather well, today, for which I'm glad. Wrote 900 words for the Progress Report blog post and updated my website with the new Wolf book (which also meant making and gathering more links).

Also wrote about 100 words for the Vampires. Very little I can share, would be a rather big spoiler.

Instead, I'll share a bit about one of my backburner stories. (Let me know if you want more of that, and I'll slide it in between all the other books.)

Lit RPG Progress Report

Yes, that’s one of those series I’ve kept hidden on my backburner. It’s called The Mengarian Conspiracy and it’s pretty much a tale of a party of adventurers having, well, adventures, doing good and eventually (no idea how long or how many books that’ll take) uncovering a conspiracy to murder the current king and queen. I have three finished books, but I’m being held back by the (always rather stressful) search for a cover designer I can actually afford.

In very good news, I have a beta-reader for book 1 (who already told me they like it), so maybe I can figure out the cover problem.

A very slow day. I really needed that. Wrote 90 words, and I think I now know who the thief is. Leander will be hired to investigate the background, and that... will not be good for him.

In fact, it will be very bad.

(Just figuring this out as I type this, thanks, Writer Brain.)

So I can only give you a teeny tiny snippet because I really don't want to spoil this.

Leander looked up when a key scraped in the lock and the office door opened. By the time Clive Rider was walking in, he had jumped to his feet.

“Close the door. We have a thief.”

“Oh, you caught him?”

Leander gestured to the form huddled on the ground next to the heating pipes.

“Well done.”

Rider dropped his satchel onto his desk, strode over to the thief and yanked the bag off his…

Leander stared.

Not a good day today. Actually not a good night leading up to today.

You see, I gave myself quite a dose of histamine yesterday, and that built up to nasty reactions. Finally realized and took an antihistamine on top of cutting back everything. Yes, that gave me a nice Brain Fog.

Wrote 275 words through it. Leander caught the thief. I know who will appear next (client), but not sure what will happen with the thief just yet. I suppose I'll find out tomorrow.

Have some Leander:

Leander threw a black bag over the thief’s head, grabbed one of his hands and twisted him around, pulling the arm up his back.

A choked scream told him he’d achieved the level of surprise he wanted.

Except the voice was higher than he expected. No matter, maybe it was a young thief. Twisting his arm relentlessly, he marched his captive to the back door, unlocked it and dragged the thief into the boss’s office. Once there, he used handcuffs to fasten the man’s hands to one of the pipes of the building’s central heating. Only then did he retraced his steps, locked up the back door and finally the office door from the inside. Settling into the visitor’s chair, he smiled at the thief, even though the man couldn’t see him.

“And now we wait, my friend,” he said quietly.

Slow day today, and I like that. Read a book, cooked a meal, chatted with my sister and wrote almost 600 words for the Vampires.

Right now, Leander is on his next job, trying to catch a thief. He has no time for a strange, cold something in a hidden corner. Nasty, nasty thing...

Have some fun:

The door opened, silently, but Leander saw the reflection of a light outside in the glass. It closed just as quietly, with the slightest sound of rustling clothes.

This person knew how to sneak.

Obviously not an amateur.

Leander knew better than to hold his breath. Instead, he breathed carefully, filling his body with the oxygen he’d need for the impending fight. The person moved through the store, softly enough, clearly familiar with the premises. The thief slipped through the door to the back, where the jewelers worked. Leander followed.

So far, the intruder had not done anything illegal. He had a key, he had not broken anything, not taken anything out of the store that would constitute a theft.

Which meant that Leander had to wait.

Words flowed today, after I took the time to imagine the fight scene. Hurt poor Winston a lot but decided not to dwell on his injuries much.

This fight and the conclusions they draw from it will put them on the path to meet with Leander and his siblings. Which is a very good thing.

I also ran errands today, took care of a tax issue, and was hit on on my way to the grocery store. (THAT was a surprise, and I couldn't properly respond because mind was frazzled from earlier errands.)

Anyway, send Winston some commiseration.

She gripped her victim’s wrist, slashed it open with her fangs and let the blood drop into Winston’s mouth. As soon as her friend moved, she pressed the sailor’s wrist to Winston’s lips.

He drank the blood, and Melody sighed in relief.

Winston would need more than what this sailor could safely provide, but this first feeding would buy him time and ease much of the pain. “Enough,” she whispered and pushed the man’s arm back. Winston gave a pitiful whine, but she patted his arm at a place where the sleeve wasn’t burned. “We’ll get more. Just wait for me.”

It took most of the rest of the night, but when Melody and Winston returned to their home just before dawn, he was walking on his own and looking much less dreadful.

Not an easy day today.

My Wolf novella is not doing well. Not sure how to market it better. Of course, Google has stopped reporting sales, they are getting worse that way.

In good news, I sent off email with answers for an author interview, I hope that'll get posted. I promoted South in it. Will share if and when it gets published.

Wrote 250 words for the Vampires and I'm finally wrapping my mind around what is going to happen in the upcoming fight. I also swapped out one Greek hero name for another one (want to use the Pegasus tamer for my Mustang series, because of the irony). snicker

Winter Solstice is in two weeks, and really, I'm so fed up with the dark and the cold... but have some Melody and enjoy that.

For now, Melody had to draw as many of them away from the nest as she could.

But maybe, killing one would make the others angry enough to swarm her. That might hurt, but it might also be fun. Melody allowed a feral grin to steal over her face, hidden underneath the balaclava hood, just before she lifted the talisman and thumbed the trigger.

A beam of bright, white light shot out from the talisman, and she heard the unmistakable scream of a disintegrating shade. Before it had even faded in the wind, several more shades hissed in fury.

“Come and get me!” Melody sang out, turned and ran.

Thank you, Sandra. 💜