Ron’s Ron shirt was just as bad as Ron himself.
If you haven’t yet encountered “The Handsome One” – a short computer-generated chapter of an imaginary Harry Potter book entitled Harry Potter and the Portrait of what Looked Like a Large Pile of Ash – you owe it to yourself to give it a quick read. One of the funniest things I’ve seen in a while!
Bene scribete.
It’s still October.
Bene scribete.
Once up on a time, the Wizard of Health proclaimed, “With a wave of my wand, you will fall ill once more.”
“But this would be the third time in as many months,” I replied. “Can something different than that happen instead?”
“No,” said the wizard.
Bene vīvite.
A wry but whimsical modern fairy tale, The Amber Ring follows a cynical twelve-year-old girl on her reluctant quest to save an enchanted land after its true heroine – her twin sister – unspectacularly drowns in the real world.
I’ve been pretty lax with promoting The Amber Ring lately, so in the spirit of the holidays, I thought I’d do a quick little giveaway.
I’ll make it simple – the first two interested residents of North America to comment on this post will receive a paperback copy of the book. All I ask is that, if you end up enjoying it, you might consider leaving a review and spreading the word.
Or, if eBooks are more up your alley, you can pick it up for free at your favorite retailer (Kindle | iBooks | Nook | Sony | Kobo) or direct download (ePUB | PDF).
Have a great December, everyone!
Bene scribete.
This Halloween saw the release of Ascha, the first in a trilogy of prequels to Shauna Scheets‘s YA fantasy The Tower of Boran. Ascha gives us a glimpse into the early years of High Priestess Michaeyala (The Lady of the Crystal Veil of Boran lore) as she joins the titular character at T’Sala Un Sung – Caillte Saíocht’s premiere school for the study of magic – and sets in motion the events leading up to Seraetia’s adventure in the former book.
You can pick up Ascha in print, Kindle, or other eBook formats today.
As a prequel, it can be read with or without first picking up The Tower of Boran, but if you’d like to snag a copy of Boran along with it, now is a great time to do so, for it’s just been discounted to 99¢ on Kindle and Smashwords!
Happy reading.
Bene scribete.
When the twelve-year-old Heroine of the Fairwoods dies, her morose twin sister reluctantly joins her trusty gryphon sidekick on a quest to save the enchanted land in her stead.
The giveaway I did at Goodreads a few months back got some decent traction, so I figured I’d do a quicker, smaller one here just for my fellow ‘bloggers.
Let’s try this: If you’d like a chance to win a free signed copy of this cynical fairytale novella, just reblog this post. I’ll gather up the names from the track-back comments, throw them into a randomizer, and announce a winner in two weeks (July 21, 2013). I don’t anticipate many entrants, so your chances should be pretty good!
[This giveaway is for the physical (print) edition. The eBook, as always, can be acquired for free at your favorite retailer (Kindle | iBooks | Nook | Sony | Kobo) or direct download (ePUB | PDF).]
Bene scribete.
Only a few days left to enter the drawing for one of three signed copies of The Amber Ring.
And, as always, you can get the eBook for free right now at iBooks, Sony, Kobo, Nook, or download the PDF here!
Still aren’t convinced you want to give it a shot? I don’t blame you – time is precious and new things are iffy. But in an effort to maybe pique a little more interest, I thought I’d share one of my favorite scenes in the book (at least one of the most fun to write), wherein the reluctant heroine Maya and the gryphon Camden encounter the mirthfully single-minded Fairy Cobblers.
Hope you enjoy!
“Ho! Come in, come in!” exclaimed a boisterous little man in a tan shirt and maroon overalls, moments after Maya knocked on the door of his towering boot-shaped house. “Honey-bear, we have customers!” he called over his shoulder.
“What’s that, sweetie-muffin?” a woman’s voice came in return.
“Customers, cherry-doll, customers!”
The woman came quickly into view, rushing up to meet Maya and Camden as they stepped through the doorway. She wore olive overalls and a white blouse, and was clapping her hands together with excitement. “Not just any customers, lovey-cakes, but the Heroine of the Fairwoods herself!”
“Actually,” Cam winced, holding up a talon. “This is her sister, Maya. Sofia’s…”
“She’s dead,” Maya said bluntly.
The couple blinked, sharing a surprised look.
“We’re very sorry to hear that,” murmured the man, taking off his cap – which matched his overalls – and holding it against his chest.
“She was just the loveliest girl,” the woman added, shaking her head at the floor.
After an awkward moment of silence, the man put back on his cap. “Well, we’re glad to meet you in any case, Miss Maya.” He pointed a thumb to himself. “I’m Pilder, the husband.”
The woman copied the gesture. “I’m Hilma, the wife.”
Together, they finished, “And we’re the Fairy Cobblers!”
Maya stared for a moment. They were about goblin-height, these shoemaking spouses, and had pointed ears. They looked like they were perpetually on the edge of middle age. Lesser elves.
“Nice…to meet you,” she managed, taking her first good look around the cobblers’ combined home-and-workshop. Shoes were piled at every wall from floor to ceiling. Boots, sandals, clogs, loafers, heels, and slippers in all shapes and sizes covered every spare surface, spilling from shelves and closets and even the chimney.
What was it with fairy-types and shoes, anyway?
“See anything you like?” Hilma asked, noticing her eyes wander.
Maya found it hard not to gawk at the dizzying array of footwear. There must have been over a thousand pairs just within her sight. “There certainly are a lot of…shoes.”
“Of course!” Pilder grinned, swinging a fist across his chest. “We’re cobblers!”
“Are you stocking these all up for a large order?”
“Well…not exactly.” The shoemaker shrugged abashedly, scuffing the floor with his boot. “It’s only just…not a lot of Fairwoods citizens actually wear shoes, so…they sort of kind of pile up a little bit.”
Maya raised an eyebrow. “If the shoes you have aren’t getting taken, why keep making more?”
“Because we’re cobblers!” Hilma cheered.
Maya exhaled lengthily.
“So!” Pilder clasped his hands together and rubbed them briskly. “Shall we get you fitted up?”
“Good thinking, sugar-loaf!” his wife chimed. “I’ll get the big boy.” She was already behind Camden, grabbing at his hind paws with measuring tape in hand. He looked back, startled, then tried to pull away gently, turning, but the elf woman spryly and persistently kept up.
“That’s all right,” Maya told the couple, holding up her hands. “We didn’t come here to get shoes.”
Pilder froze, his expression drooping. Then he laughed – a nasal, rickety sound – and tapped his foot. “Didn’t come to get shoes, she says! Did you hear that, candy-bean? We’ve got a jokester on our hands! Ha! Ho! Didn’t come to the cobblers for shoes! That’d be a real cat-at-the-end, wouldn’t it?” He chuckled again and winked at Maya, then turned and knelt to start digging through piles of his product.
Maya twitched. “I’m…no, I really—we only came here to ask you a question. Just a question.”
The cobblers both stopped what they were doing and shared a disappointed look. “No shoes?” Pilder asked, voice nearly despondent.
“No shoes,” Maya confirmed.
Pilder rose and sighed dramatically, hunching his shoulders and slipping his hands into the pockets of his overalls. His eyes bored holes in the ground for several seconds, and then he took a sharp breath and looked back up to Maya, jolly composure suddenly regained. “All right, then! No biggie! What can we answer for you, Miss Maya?”
Maya cast a dubious glance back toward Hilma, who seemed to have undergone the same transformation, then asked, “Do you know Gnarble—Gnilling—er, Gnibling—”
“Gnarlington Gnibblemeister?” Camden saved her.
“The gnome geographer?” Hilma intoned.
“The geographer gnome, butter-button!” Pilder corrected.
Hilma put a hand to her chin. “I don’t know, cookie-lumps, I swear it was gnome geographer…”
“Geographer gnome, coffee-bird! He’s a gnome who is a geographer.”
“But isn’t he also a geographer who is a gnome?”
“He was a gnome before a geographer, I think you must agree!”
“So shouldn’t gnome come first?”
“No, jelly-dove, geographer is the descriptor, the distinguisher, the—”
“Do you know him?” Maya interrupted.
“Oh!” Hilma touched her chest, smiling apologetically. “Yes, of course! We sold him the most dashingly dapper pair of boots just a few weeks back.”
“And you delivered them to his house?”
Hilma clapped her hands. “We sure did!”
Finally, they were getting somewhere. “Can you tell us where he lives, then? We need to go see him.”
The elf put on a pouty face and looked to her husband.
“Well, you see…” Pilder scrunched up his features, making fists and tapping his knuckles together. “The thing is…that’s confidential customer information! We can’t just go telling anyone that, even if you are the Heroine’s sister…”
Maya sighed. “But you’re the only ones we’ve found who seem to know his current whereabouts. It would be a very big help to us. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind.” He probably actually would, Maya had to imagine, but it seemed like the thing to say.
“It’s about the goblins,” Cam added. “He can tell us what we need to know to stop them.”
“Goblins,” Pilder grumped, nose reddening.
“Those dirty little devils stole half our leather supply,” his wife mourned.
“And their blasted weasels killed our guard-pig, Spoinky.” Pilder shook his head, raised an eyebrow to Hilma, who nodded, then turned a grin on Maya. “I’ll tell you what, Miss Maya – maybe we can make a little fairy bargain. If you can answer us a riddle, then we’ll tell you where ol’ Gnarly hangs his hat.”
“A riddle?” Maya echoed. That sounded like a hassle.
Pilder bobbed his head, then cleared his throat into his fist. “I’m not always right, but I’m never wrong. I have a tongue and a throat, but no mouth to speak of. I move better when tied up. What am I?”
Maya groaned, eyeing Camden with the expectation of shared incredulity, but saw him deep in concentration, mouthing the riddle to himself. “A shoe,” she answered, pinching the corners of her eyes.
The cobbler blinked. “O.K. O.K., that may have been an easy one. You try, caramel-puff.”
“Sure thing, vanilla-boo, I’ve got just the one!” Hilma pumped a fist, then gave Maya a devious smile. “You tread on my sole, yet—”
Maya cut her off, “A shoe. Are you a shoe?”
Hilma stood in silence, her mouth still hanging open, then folded her arms and nodded gravely. “Very clever, this one. I think she’s got us beat, cricket-pie.”
Even Pilder seemed to double-take at that one. “Yes, yes,” he conceded. “Very well. We’ll give you the gnome’s current address. But on one condition – you must pick out a new pair of shoes to take with you! No charge, of course.” He winked at his wife. “Do we have a deal?”
“You’ll tell us what we need to know if I let you give me free shoes?” Maya slipped her hands into her pockets and shrugged. “Yeah, that sounds fine.”
Bene scribete.
Speaking of giveaways, if you haven’t had the chance to read Shauna Scheets‘s The Tower of Boran yet, you can enter the drawing below to win a free signed copy!
Want it now? You can pick up the paperback at most online retailers, or purchase the eBook in all major formats at Smashwords.
Bene Scribete.
The first draft of The Amber Ring is completed, and at 98 pages, I find myself with an intended short story that became a novelette that’s now closer to a novella.
Oops?
As I work on putting together a presentable second draft for test reading, I thought I would share a short little scene to give a brief glimpse at its protagonist, twelve-year-old Maya Corona.
As Maya half-attentively filled out the answers to her math test, she found her eyes drifting toward the clock above Ms. Patch’s desk, subconsciously counting down the minutes, as she often did, until the tedium of the school day was over.
Her wandering eyes also noticed Braden Thomas, who sat at the desk to her right, surreptitiously sneaking a glance at her paper in regular intervals. She contemplated calling him out, or even writing down the wrong answers on purpose, but then decided to just let him cheat. If he could get through school without bothering to learn anything for himself, he would be one less person to pose any real competition for an eventual job, which people were always saying was hard to get these days.
As she shifted to give him a better view of her exam, she felt something grind against her leg. It was Sofia’s ring; she had left it in her pocket.
Her mind went unwillingly to the previous night. It had been strange to see Cam again. To think of him without Sofia. His charismatic pluck replaced with that crestfallen timidity. Maya wanted to leave the Fairwoods behind her, and had expected them not to not think twice about returning the favor. Her involvement had been limited to the occasional tag-along with her sister, and she had never done anything of importance there. She had been clear on where she stood, though, hadn’t she? Would they leave her alone, now?
“Two minutes,” Ms. Patch droned.
At the edge of her vision Maya saw Braden gripping his pencil tightly, throwing nervous glances her way. Quickly, to his obvious relief, she scribbled down the remaining answers to the test.
Bene scribete.
At the age of ten, Sofia Corona saved the Fairwoods from the malevolent grasp of the Cedar Witch and her goblin army.
Two years later, she drowned unceremoniously in the lake behind her Oregon home.
In the months following the Heroine’s death, when the Fairwoods face a resurgence of goblin attacks, they are forced to turn to Sofia’s cynical twin sister, Maya, for help. But despite an earnest plea from her sister’s faithful gryphon companion, Maya wants nothing more to do with the enchanted land. The request continues to plague her mind, however, and she can’t help but wonder if doing this one last favor will give her the closure she needs to accept her sister’s death and move on with her life.
Such is the premise to my side-project novelette, The Amber Ring, a sort of semi-satirical dark fairytale. I’m just about done with the first draft, and was curious if the concept would appeal to anyone reading this. So – interest piqued? Let me know!
Bene scribete.
Writin' Fish 