Tooting my own horn today as I release the first book in my new Immortal Spy Urban Fantasy Series.
THE BURNED SPY
Gods. Always ready to screw you.
When Bix the Gatekeeper is summoned from exile a hundred and seventy years early by the goddess of the Norse Under World, the former Dark Ops agent knows there’s a catch. On the surface, the terms of the deal are simple. Someone attacked the pantheon’s ambassador to the Mid Worlds and left the ambassador in a coma. In exchange for early parole, Bix must identify the perpetrator and drag their soul to Hel.
It’d be a sweet contract, if not for the details. The ambassador is Bix’s ex-girlfriend, the lead suspect is the key witness from Bix’s trial, and the organization leading the official investigation is the same intelligence guild that disavowed Bix when a covert op went pear-shaped. Undeterred, Bix returns to her old stomping grounds where clues in the smoldering woods of Centralia, Pennsylvania, lead to the waterfront of Washington, DC, and Worlds beyond.
Once valued for her skills creating passageways as small as a capillary or as large as a continent, Bix’s success now depends on the relationships she was forced to abandon. As she squares off against friends who betrayed her and enemies keen to destroy her, Bix follows a trail of secrets, torture, and treason that leads to the very superpowers who banished her. With her freedom on the line and revenge within reach, this highly-trained operative will take on Fates, dragons, angels, and gods to get exactly what she wants.
Hel hath no fury like a burned spy.
Tuesday, January 30, 2018
Release Day: The Burned Spy by @KAKrantz
Labels:
Bix,
Immortal Spy,
KAK,
Release Day,
the burned spy
Fantasy Author.
The Immortal Spy Series & LARCOUT now available in eBook and Paperback.
Subscribe to my newsletter to be notified when I release a new book.
The Immortal Spy Series & LARCOUT now available in eBook and Paperback.
Subscribe to my newsletter to be notified when I release a new book.
Monday, January 29, 2018
What's not to Love?
The Unreliable Narrator. That wonderful voice that tells us what is going on, tells us what has happened and leads us down a rocky path to dubious revelation.
I love that voice. It's a keystone of horror stories and novels.
Poe used that sort of narration in The Tell-Tale Heart to great advantage. Madness tinges the words and leaves the reader wondering what is real and what is not. It's delightful!
I've done several stories with that sort of narration and they are among some of my favorites. In the right hands it's a wonderful reading experience. In the wrong hands, well, what's true about writers everywhere is true here. If the writing is bad, the story will not work well.
it's certainly something to consider if you intend to write for the Twisted Book Of Shadows, edited by yours truly and Christopher Golden, The guidelines are coming in a couple of days.
Two days until the submission window opens for The Twisted Book of Shadows. Submission info will go live on Wednesday night on the Facebook page. PLEASE share to any and all writers and writers' groups with an interest in horror, but ESPECIALLY to marginalized voices. We want the best horror stories we can find, and that means from everyone. Wherever you fall on any spectrum of race, sexuality, sex, gender, age, or ability, if you have a horror story to tell, we hope you'll submit to The Twisted Book of Shadows.
More information soon!
I love that voice. It's a keystone of horror stories and novels.
Poe used that sort of narration in The Tell-Tale Heart to great advantage. Madness tinges the words and leaves the reader wondering what is real and what is not. It's delightful!
I've done several stories with that sort of narration and they are among some of my favorites. In the right hands it's a wonderful reading experience. In the wrong hands, well, what's true about writers everywhere is true here. If the writing is bad, the story will not work well.
it's certainly something to consider if you intend to write for the Twisted Book Of Shadows, edited by yours truly and Christopher Golden, The guidelines are coming in a couple of days.
Two days until the submission window opens for The Twisted Book of Shadows. Submission info will go live on Wednesday night on the Facebook page. PLEASE share to any and all writers and writers' groups with an interest in horror, but ESPECIALLY to marginalized voices. We want the best horror stories we can find, and that means from everyone. Wherever you fall on any spectrum of race, sexuality, sex, gender, age, or ability, if you have a horror story to tell, we hope you'll submit to The Twisted Book of Shadows.
More information soon!
I write fiction, a little of everything and a lot of horror. I've written novels, comic books, roleplaying game supplements, short stories, novellas and oodles of essays on whatever strikes my fancy. That might change depending on my mood and the publishing industry. Things are getting stranger and stranger in the wonderful world of publishing and that means I get to have fun sorting through the chaos (with all the other writer-types). I have a website. This isn't it. This is where you can likely expect me to talk about upcoming projects and occasionally expect a rant or two. Not too many rants. Those take a lot of energy. In addition to writing I work as a barista, because I still haven't decided to quit my day job. Opinions are always welcome.
Sunday, January 28, 2018
The Unreliable Narrator - Love or Hate?
Another photo from Meow Wolf. Nnedi Okorafor and I fell in love with this crazy kitchen and had to photograph each other in it. One of the most fun aspects of this "immersive experience" is not only being able to touch and enter the exhibit, but in a way to become part of it as well. I felt like part of this kitchen and wanted to seem like it, too.
Art of all mediums is interesting in the way it interfaces with reality. It's impossible to recreate reality in art - and maybe not even desirable to do so - but art necessarily reflects and at best deepens our understanding of the real world. Our topic this week is the unreliable narrator - whether we love them, hate them, write them or avoid them.
An unreliable narrator is a point-of-view (POV) character - or characters who delude themselves in some way and thus misdirect the reader. They almost always occur in first-person or deep third-person POVs, though I've read one book where the omniscient narrator turned out at the very end to be deeply unreliable, making the reader realize the entire story was slanted - which was a terrific twist. Recent examples of unreliable narrators are the heroine of The Girl on the Train, who is drunk and emotionally traumatized, with memory gaps, or Gone Girl, where both POV characters are hiding who they really are and keeping secrets from the reader.
Me, I love an unreliable narrator. In fact, I'd make the case that all of my POV characters are unreliable, because I think human beings cannot escape being subjective about their experience in the world. There's no such thing as objective reality. A character will always interpret the world according to their own emotional landscape - which includes denial of some truths about themselves.
Reading a story with an unreliable narrator requires the reader pay close attention, because you can't just believe what the characters tell you. You have to be alert to subtle cues. I love reading an unreliable narrator in the same way I enjoy solving puzzles. I like writing them, too, though I've been sometimes accused of inconsistent characterization by those who don't understand that my characters are sometimes lying to themselves.
Now, a close friend of mine - and one of my critique partners - hates unreliable narrators. She wants to know what's real and what isn't, with very little tolerance for the gray areas.
What all do you think - love or hate an unreliable narrator? Any great examples?
Art of all mediums is interesting in the way it interfaces with reality. It's impossible to recreate reality in art - and maybe not even desirable to do so - but art necessarily reflects and at best deepens our understanding of the real world. Our topic this week is the unreliable narrator - whether we love them, hate them, write them or avoid them.
An unreliable narrator is a point-of-view (POV) character - or characters who delude themselves in some way and thus misdirect the reader. They almost always occur in first-person or deep third-person POVs, though I've read one book where the omniscient narrator turned out at the very end to be deeply unreliable, making the reader realize the entire story was slanted - which was a terrific twist. Recent examples of unreliable narrators are the heroine of The Girl on the Train, who is drunk and emotionally traumatized, with memory gaps, or Gone Girl, where both POV characters are hiding who they really are and keeping secrets from the reader.
Me, I love an unreliable narrator. In fact, I'd make the case that all of my POV characters are unreliable, because I think human beings cannot escape being subjective about their experience in the world. There's no such thing as objective reality. A character will always interpret the world according to their own emotional landscape - which includes denial of some truths about themselves.
Reading a story with an unreliable narrator requires the reader pay close attention, because you can't just believe what the characters tell you. You have to be alert to subtle cues. I love reading an unreliable narrator in the same way I enjoy solving puzzles. I like writing them, too, though I've been sometimes accused of inconsistent characterization by those who don't understand that my characters are sometimes lying to themselves.
Now, a close friend of mine - and one of my critique partners - hates unreliable narrators. She wants to know what's real and what isn't, with very little tolerance for the gray areas.
What all do you think - love or hate an unreliable narrator? Any great examples?
Labels:
Jeffe Kennedy,
Meow Wof,
Nnedi Okorafor,
unreliable narrator
Jeffe Kennedy is a multi-award-winning and best-selling author of romantic fantasy. She is the current President of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) and is a member of Novelists, Inc. (NINC). She is best known for her RITA® Award-winning novel, The Pages of the Mind, the recent trilogy, The Forgotten Empires, and the wildly popular, Dark Wizard. Jeffe lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She is represented by Sarah Younger of Nancy Yost Literary Agency.
Saturday, January 27, 2018
What Really Matters When Balancing Your Life?
This week’s topic is how we maintain work/life balance…or
whether or not you have a standing desk, a treadmill desk, believe in “butt in
chair” or some other mantra. Hmmm, plenty of room there to write a post!
On the micro level, I sit at my writing desk, which is
actually my great grandmother’s desk, a fact which pleases me for the
continuity. I don’t think she wrote anything other than her own diary (which I’ve
never seen – who knows if it even exists but didn’t every woman of her time
keep some sort of journal?). My grandmother used the desk for her
correspondence and I believe may have written some poetry. Then the desk came
to me and I bang out science fiction romance and ancient Egyptian paranormal romance
and probably both ladies would clutch their pearls at some of my scenes, but I
believe they’d be supportive.
I sit in a cheap Amazon ergonomic chair at the moment, and
before that had a cheap Walmart ergonomic chair that was actually better than
the extremely elaborate and price-y ergo chair NASA/JPL provided me at the old
day job. I used my Walmart chair until it literally fell apart after about eight
years. (To be fair to the JPL chair, it had too many levers and controls that I
could never figure out. It was probably extremely ergonomic if I’d ever
mastered the amenities.)
I (mostly) write for a timed thirty two minute stint and
then I get up and walk around, do housework or other activity on my feet for at
least ten minutes before resuming my place at the desk. Why that exact time
frame, you ask? Well, I used to do forty two minutes but that was too long to
sit in this one spot, and thirty minutes feels too short. Go figure! Ten
minutes of activity isn’t long enough to kill my creativity if I’m doing well.
If I’m in the flow of writing, I never even hear the timer and I just keep
writing until I realize my whole body has gotten cramped and stiff. Forget time limits!
I have a trackball mouse, wrist braces if needed for a bad
week, a lower back support and an ergonomic foot rest.
I try to walk a certain number of steps every day and to
avoid sugar. Don’t ask me how I do on those goals.
And a cat to supervise my writing. Did I mention Jake?
I TRY to write at least a little bit every day, but most days
I can do 2-3K words. Yes, I spend too much time on social media.
On the macro level, two events defined my approach to
work/life balance, which that life is too short to waste on things I don’t enjoy
or which are stressful, and that life can end at literally any moment so be
sure you’re getting the things done you really care about. My family is the
most important thing to me and if they need me, I’m there. And of course one
has to take the trash out, go to the dentist, have a mammogram, go to the day
job to support themselves and their family (before I became a fulltime author)…but life is TOO SHORT to waste forcing
myself to finish reading books I’m not into, watching movies or TV shows I’m
not into, cleaning the oven, taking on thankless jobs because someone expects me to do so…etc etc etc.
What gave me this attitude? I’ve talked about both things before
but briefly, one evening after work my husband went out for a bike ride with
his best friend and ten minutes later the neighbors were at my door to tell me
there’d been a terrible accident. An athlete and former Marine, he died in the prime of life, in his mid thirties. Our children
were 3 and 5. And he was literally hit by a truck, so I don't take that phrase lightly. It
happens.
Second, one morning while attending a business conference I
came within about 60 seconds of dying (according to the doctors), after choking
on food and passing out. Only the fact that I was able to pantomime the
Heimlich Maneuver to the co-worker who was at the table with me in the seconds before
I lost consciousness saved my life. And the fact he was a big strong guy, who
persisted in doing the maneuver fourteen
times before the obstruction came loose and my brain got oxygen again. Approximately
5000 people a year die in similar incidents. I would have been done, gone, no
more time to write another word or more importantly, to hug my kids.
So when it comes to your allotted time on this Earth there
are no guarantees, no promises, perhaps no chance for a few last acts or even
words….
I may sound cynical here but I’ve had the experiences to support
what I’m saying. It may be an uncomfortable thought and everyone expects to
peacefully pass away in their sleep at 105, so they feel there’s plenty of time….
Don’t waste your life on things that don’t matter to you, okay?
NOTE: Photos are Author's own or purchased from DepositPhotos
Best Selling Science Fiction & Paranormal Romance author and “SciFi Encounters” columnist for the USA Today Happily Ever After blog, Veronica Scott grew up in a house with a library as its heart. Dad loved science fiction, Mom loved ancient history and Veronica thought there needed to be more romance in everything.
Friday, January 26, 2018
Balance: The Involuntary Standing Desk
I have a standing desk. My standing desk has a chair. As you can see by the photo at right, whether I sit or stand is not at all up to me. This means that any notion of balancing anything is dictated by my furry masters.
That probably sounds wrong.
Balance is such a personal thing. Most people with day jobs have to worry about work/life balance. Writers have a set of unique balance requirements in that we have to look after our brains as much (or more in some cases) as we look after our bodies. We're asking a whole bunch of our minds while we live inside our stories and attempt to imbue our characters with emotions we usually evoke in ourselves to some extent as we put them on paper.
Reading books written for laymen by brain scientists has been a thing recently and one of the fun concepts is that emotion in the body defines reality for the brain which subsequently releases chemicals in response to that emotion. Do you get angry remembering how that twit in the blue car cut you off in traffic? If I've understood the biology correctly, the brain scientists are saying that you brain and body can't tell that your anger is about the past. You're angry now. Therefore there's a threat now. Have some adrenaline and a few stress hormones to go with it. Now your body is reacting physically to a threat that's not even present. We all do this. I get that. But writers and actors do it as a living. And writers and actors need to know there's a need to purge the accumulated emotional and chemical baggage.
Exercise, meditation, changing up and tuning our energy systems - whatever that means to you - they're all tools in the box. Getting out and away - seeing or doing something new, those can also be useful balancers. Sure. I get up at 5AM every day to meditate and do an hour of yoga. It's the single biggest predictor of whether I'll make my word count goal for the day or not. In no way do I recommend it to anyone else. You have to do you.
I used to think I had to get up at 4AM on a consistent basis in order to make life work. I hated everyone and everything, including myself. All those years I thought I had mental illness and I had to take all those psychoactive medications to function. Turns out it was a major body clock issue. When I finally refused to get up at 4AM anymore, I was cured. So if I have any advice at all to offer here it would be this: Don't fuck with your body clock. Yes. You can train yourself to get up earlier, but if you notice you're getting and staying depressed? Back off. There's only so much play in your body's preferred sleep/wake cycle and a definite mounting cost the farther you deviate from it.
I strongly suspect that balance, like every aspect of health, is something you pursue but never quite catch. It's a work in progress and all any of us can do is keep trying.
Which, according to Hatshepsut, I will do standing.
Thursday, January 25, 2018
Balancing Health While Writing
If you've been following me for any length of time, you know that January is a hard time on me, health-wise. January in Austin is when the cedar pollen starts up, and that always does a number on me. One year it hit me so hard, I had vertigo for a week.
Of course, this sort of thing affects creativity, affects the work. I try not to let it too much, and it does become a matter of powering through and just getting it done. Which I've been making a point of doing, even if right now I'm highly medicated and a little out of it. The point is I need to focus on the work, I need to get it done, because... well, not doing it is worse for me, emotionally. A few days without writing or other creative work, and I get very testy. That was the worst part of that vertigo bout-- I literally couldn't work. Eyes couldn't focus. I couldn't do much of anything but lie in bed and watch West Wing. It was terrible.
So thus I stay highly medicated right now to avoid that. And keep working. Which I've been doing: manuscript delivered to my editor this week. Now onto the next things.
There's always the next things.
Of course, this sort of thing affects creativity, affects the work. I try not to let it too much, and it does become a matter of powering through and just getting it done. Which I've been making a point of doing, even if right now I'm highly medicated and a little out of it. The point is I need to focus on the work, I need to get it done, because... well, not doing it is worse for me, emotionally. A few days without writing or other creative work, and I get very testy. That was the worst part of that vertigo bout-- I literally couldn't work. Eyes couldn't focus. I couldn't do much of anything but lie in bed and watch West Wing. It was terrible.
So thus I stay highly medicated right now to avoid that. And keep working. Which I've been doing: manuscript delivered to my editor this week. Now onto the next things.
There's always the next things.
Tuesday, January 23, 2018
In All Things, Balance
I have my weird, but it doesn't impede my writing.
Fantasy Author.
The Immortal Spy Series & LARCOUT now available in eBook and Paperback.
Subscribe to my newsletter to be notified when I release a new book.
The Immortal Spy Series & LARCOUT now available in eBook and Paperback.
Subscribe to my newsletter to be notified when I release a new book.
Monday, January 22, 2018
Butt in chair, hands on keyboard works for me.
I have a day job. I'm on my feet an average if at least five hours a day. When I'm done with that, I write, I write by sitting my fanny in a seat and tapping away at the keys. I also make sure to turn off the internet if it's getting to distracting.
I have over 40 novels in print. I got them by sitting the hell down and writing, then repeating as necessary.
That's just me. You do you.
But get the writing done or no whining.
I have over 40 novels in print. I got them by sitting the hell down and writing, then repeating as necessary.
That's just me. You do you.
But get the writing done or no whining.
I write fiction, a little of everything and a lot of horror. I've written novels, comic books, roleplaying game supplements, short stories, novellas and oodles of essays on whatever strikes my fancy. That might change depending on my mood and the publishing industry. Things are getting stranger and stranger in the wonderful world of publishing and that means I get to have fun sorting through the chaos (with all the other writer-types). I have a website. This isn't it. This is where you can likely expect me to talk about upcoming projects and occasionally expect a rant or two. Not too many rants. Those take a lot of energy. In addition to writing I work as a barista, because I still haven't decided to quit my day job. Opinions are always welcome.
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