Release day for THE SORCERESS QUEEN AND THE PIRATE ROGUE!

 

Today is release day for THE SORCERESS QUEEN AND THE PIRATE ROGUE!

     

“I thought I was ready for The Sorceress Queen and The Pirate Rogue but I clearly wasn’t. I eagerly anticipated it but I was in no way shape or form ready for how this book arrested me and held me captive for the duration. I loved Stella and Jak’s even though my heart took up residence in my throat for its entirety. There’s action, adventure, sexual tension, love and so much more. I loved it and can’t wait to be wrecked by the next book in the series.” ~ Timitra on Goodreads

     

A Lonely Road

Stella has always been one to count her blessings. Empath, sorceress, shapeshifter, and healer, she’s grateful for the gifts the goddess of shadows has bestowed upon her. Yes, she’s sensitive to emotions and can’t bear to be in large crowds for long. And yes, that means she’ll never be able to take a lover as she’s unable to withstand physical contact with anyone but her twin brother. Certainly now that he’s found his true love, she feels more alone than ever. None of it haunts her, however, like the vision of the lonely tower where her life path ends.

An Unrequited Love

Jakral Konyngrr is a man of simple tastes: good whiskey, some coin in his pocket, and a fine blade in his hand. Though he’s no prince, not a shapeshifter, and not blessed with any magic, he’s happy in his skin. And yet he seems doomed to live the life of a hero from a tragic ballad, because the only woman he’s ever wanted barely knows he’s alive. As much as Jak longs for Stella, he’s resigned himself to being forever in the background. At least he can guard her back.

A Quest to Stop a Monster

But now Jak and Stella have been thrown together—along with a mismatched group of shifters, warriors, and sorceress friends—chasing and attempting to avert magic rifts that release monsters into their world. Worse, the strange intelligence behind the bizarre and deadly attacks seems to have developed a fascination for Stella. Battling for their lives and the good of the realm, they must fight—and perhaps love—together to alter the course of the future before it’s too late.

     

Incidentally, our topic this week is: INTJ (Myers-Briggs personality typing system) personalities in relation to writing. Of the four primary cognitive functions, which one are you and how does it affect your writing? Intuition, Sensing, Thinking, and Feeling.

For the record, I am INTJ. I think a lot of writers are. *Mastermind fistbump*

Did I mention it's release day?? Even an INTJ gets a little giddy!

How to Write Shorter Works Successfully

THE SORCERESS QUEEN AND THE PIRATE ROGUE comes out April 19! This is Book Two in Heirs of Magic, and you can preorder a copy at the links below or via my website. :-)

   

This week at the SFF Seven, we're examining the differences between writing a short story, novella, novel, series. We're asking each other: Do you prepare for length beforehand or edit down (or add new stuff) afterward?

So, I have Strong Opinions about this. Something that may come as a surprise to exactly none of you. 

I am primarily a novelist now and the shortest works I write are novellas that are typically no less than 25K words. (My novels range from 90K-120K.) When I first started writing, I wrote essays and short stories. My first book - Wyoming Trucks, True Love, and the Weather Channel - was an essay collection. Writing those shorter lengths came naturally to me from work in school. 

When I transitioned to writing novels, it was MUCH more difficult than I expected. I had this idea that it would be like writing a really long essay. 

Reader: it was not. 

I had to learn the rhythm and pacing of a novel, which feels like an entirely different art form than writing novellas or shorts. Because... it is. It's a common error for an author to attempt to stretch a short story concept into a novel. Readers notice that the story feels "thin," stretched out for too long, and filled with stuff that's boring because it's unnecessary. Or, sometimes, a story that's novel-length gets wedged into a shorter format. Then it feels rushed, over too soon, and never fully explored.

So, my answer is that I *always* prepare for length beforehand. The story concept MUST fit the planned length. It's a matter of choosing a story with the correct scope for that length. Shorter works have fewer secondary characters and more straightforward conflicts. Very short works should explore a single idea. One surefire way to confine a story to a shorter length is to have it take place over a much shorter span of time. For example, my novella, THE LONG NIGHT OF THE CRYSTALLINE MOON, which is the prequel to Heirs of Magic, takes place over the course of a single night. This helps to make up for the fact that I have a lot of secondary characters - more than any other novella I've written. It wasn't ideal, but I made that choice because I was introducing a new series.

Naturally, there are no actual rules. Or, if there are, they're made to be broken. But I do think that adding or deleting to winnow a novel into a short, or fattening up a short to make it a novel, almost never works. 

Choose Your Own Religion

Here's a tease of the cover of THE SORCERESS QUEEN AND THE PIRATE ROGUE, out April 19, 2021. This is Book #2 in Heirs of Magic, Book #1 being THE GOLDEN GRYPHON AND THE BEAR PRINCE, with a prequel novella, THE LONG NIGHT OF THE CRYSTALLINE MOON, in the UNDER A WINTER SKY anthology. The cover isn't quite final, so some elements here may change, but it's getting close! Look for a full reveal soon. :-)

Our topic at the SFF Seven this week is "That Old Tyme RELIGION: Does Religion Change the Course of a Story?"

My answer? It depends!

I'm a big of a mixed bag, religion-wise. I grew up in an Irish Catholic family who were pretty much all lapsed, to the point that my stepdad was a former Catholic priest and my mother flunked theology in (her all-girls, Catholic) college because she stormed out of class after arguing with the nun. Extended family included an ex-Carmelite nun and a lifelong Catholic priest. On the other side we have Missouri Synod Lutherans, which my father left behind to convert to Catholicism, a wedding surprise for my mother, who had hoped to escape by marrying a non-Catholic. There's some kind of inverted Gifts of the Magi shiz going on there.

So, while I grew up well versed in liturgical debates, I mostly considered myself Catholic in the same way I'm Irish - by weight of ancestry. In (my co-ed, liberal arts) college, I majored in Comparative Religious Studies, along with my primary major of Biology. My honors thesis compared Meister Eckhardt's (an excommunicated Catholic priest and scholar) sermon On Detachment with Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching. 

For a long time I described myself as spiritual, but not religious - which didn't seem to explain anything to anyone. Now I just say I'm a practicing Taoist. Since almost no one knows exactly what that means (including, arguably, other Taoists), that at least gives me space. 

All of this is by way of saying that, in my books, religion crops up a surprising amount. Or maybe it's not surprising. I find spirituality and the religions that grow from spiritual study fascinating. One of the terrific aspects of creating alternate fantasy worlds is that I can make up my own pantheon of deities - and I can use the worship of those gods and goddesses to explore and comment on religions of our world. The religions I've created have ranged from distant gods (Forgotten Empires) to a trio of goddesses who interfere with fate to the point of taking avatars (The Twelve Kingdoms and the Uncharted Realms). 

In only one series so far have I included absolutely no hint of religion or deities: Bonds of Magic. Those of you who've read DARK WIZARD should feel free to write an essay on why that is. I can promise you that it's a deliberate choice. 

In fact, I'd argue that religion always affects the course of a story. Even in its absence, there is a consequence on the world and how the characters live in it.