I thought we could take a week off. I said, please talk amongst yourself.

Haha!  Not so fast.

Ok we are ready for you to come back and talk to us…lol

Where are you?  You stopped posting…

I just want you to know that if something happened, we’re here for you.

Shiloh became concerned.

recovering?
hiding?
okay?

And the coup de grace

Are you dead?

We are not dead! We took a week off.  It’s called vacation.

So then we come back and load  a new theme.  The old one was creaking a bit under the strain of WordPress updates and those super long thumbnails kind of drove me nuts.  They look nice, but getting a new thumbnail image of at least 600px in width for every post proved to be too much work.

We load the new theme.  Oh noes!  We don’t like it.  Your paper stack isn’t perfectly stacked – it’s not meant to be, btw – and the sidebar is in the wrong spot and there is too much and not enough space in the comments, and fuss-fuss-fuss.  Cry-cry-cry.

If you don’t like change, just wait until you read the Edge 4.  We’re killing everybody.   You guys said there wasn’t enough angst in FATE’S EDGE.  :

:rolls up sleeves::

I’ll give you angst.  Just you wait.

On a more serious note, I’ve reloaded a different theme with the exact same images.  This one has a little more power under the hood.  The comment page link is now more clearly marked: it’s right where the comment number is.

Today will be the prep day – tomorrow we officially start on Edge 4, so today we need to get the synopsis down and the character descriptions.

And how was your week?

PS.  For people who asked: this theme is very slightly modified News Theme, which can be found here: http://themehybrid.com/themes

Test text:

“Andrea…”

“The next words out of your mouth better be work-related or I’ll drive to your office and shoot you in the gut.  Repeatedly.”

“Why in the gut?”

“Because it’s painful and not life threatening.”  He was a shapeshifter, he’d heal the bullet wounds.

He laughed.  He actually laughed at me on the phone.  My head was about to explode.

I am generally a very antisocial person.  Or at least I used to be.  I don’t really have speaking anxiety, for which I credit Russian education.  Over there, declarative reading, poetry and prose, is considered to be a talent and most Russian kids of my generation have recited poetry in class and often on stage.  If you can’t sing or play a musical instrument, you recite.

So, my social anxiety manifests itself in other ways.  A few days before an event, such as a formal dinner out or a signing, I start getting irritable and look for ways to weasel out of it. Strangely, I have no problems with going to dinner with friends or visiting to hang out and play cards.

I also get stressed out during the kids sleepovers, especially when our kids go somewhere else.

Apparently I’ve been cured of my anxiety.  We had four teenagers in the house for pretty much the entirety of the Christmas break.  Sometimes five.  I didn’t only survive, I actually didn’t put up any fights.  Sadly nobody offered to give me a Best Behavior medal.  I was pretty happy, actually, to have a bunch of kids over.  It seemed right for the holidays.

Birthday

This year both my father and Gordon’s aunt called me for my birthday.  My father always remembers it but doesn’t always call.  Gordon’s aunt never remembers it.  I usually get a card two months later, so I feel all special.

Gordon bought me The Relic, which is one of my favorite movies, Kid 2 bought me Gnomeo and Juliet (so I like anything even remotely Shakespearean, leave me alone), and Kid 1 gave me SWTOR, Star Wars The Old Republic Massive Multi-player Online Role-playing Game.  I promptly made a Sith warrior, Gordon made a Sith Inquisitor, so we could run around together, and we spent my birthday being evil.

Funnies

I was reading Shiloh Walker’s IF YOU HEAR HER – interesting romantic suspense, btw – and I got creeped out by the villain.  Usually I eat it up, but for some reason, I came to the part where there is a young woman who just got engaged and the villain grabbed her, and I just couldn’t take it that evening, which says volumes about Shiloh’s mastery of the creepy.  But anyway, here I was, in my bed with my Kindle Fire, looking for something to read.  Gordon is sick, so he had trouble sleeping and I wanted to stay awake out of solidarity.

I typed “something funny to read” into Google for the heck of it and came up with SPELLMAN FILES.  I read it in two nights and laughed hysterically into my pillow.

Here is my review from Goodreads.

A deeply hilarious book about Isabel Spellman, a PI in San Francisco, who works for her parents’ firm. The entire Spellman family is deeply weird but strangely functional. I loved it, the whole thing: the quirky anecdotes about the family, the list of ex-boyfriends, the younger sister addicted to surveillance.

One small warning: before you read this book, take the concept of plot, put it in a drawer in a closet, and don’t come back to it until you are done. It is a non-linear book, and it doesn’t have an ordinary crime-investigation-resolution progression. You just have to roll with it.

I really enjoyed it. As an aside, I really like Lisa Lutz’s website.  I can feel the redesign coming on.  :: listens to the screams of horror from the audience:: Aaaah, yes.  Your fear will make me stronger, for I am Sith, hahahahaha!

Well, I must work. 

[clear]

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post’s poll.

Okay, so I have my fancy Kindle Fire.  However, I haven’t bought any books.

I tried going through the best seller list and it is flooded with $.99 releases and free e-books.  I am kind of forced to wade through these to get to something interesting to read, so I just started downloading samples.  Most of them are crap.  There, I said it.  Poorly edited, badly written crap. I am usually more diplomatic, but Christ on a cracker, can’t these people take a little more pride in the drivel they put out?

Beginning of edit

Originally I went on about John Locke syndrome over here, but John stopped by to defend his good name a little bit, so in the interests of clarity, here is a quote which is often used in support of the assertion that at 99 cents people are likely to buy anything, even if it’s poorly written.

 “I’m new to the writing game. But if I’d started self-publishing even three years ago, I would have spent all my time trying to prove to the public I’m just as good as the top authors in America. These days, the burden of proof is on them. Now the best authors in America have to prove they’re ten times better than me. And in a game like that, I like my chances.” – John Locke

John, who is being very nice in the comments, does stress the importance of good editing and formatting.  Sadly, the quote can be read as stating that one should only aspire to be 1/10th as good as a traditionally published author, but it probably wasn’t fair of me to call it the John Locke syndrome.  Anyway, please be nice to John and don’t flame him.

End of edit

I don’t want to read crap even if it’s priced at ninety-nine cents.  It’s still crap!  What happened to taking pride in your work and delivering the best book you can possibly write to the reader?  Books are not vacuum cleaners.  The idea is not to churn out as many of them as you can as fast as you can to get the biggest pay day.  They are an intellectual pursuit.  They contribute to the cultural wealth of us as people.

Argh.

And the reviews of these masterpieces say things like, “It was okay for ninety nine cents.”

::clenches fist and shakes: It’s not the point for it to be okay!  Don’t do okay, do the best you can do! Be awesome!  You are not just taking the reader’s 99 cents, you are taking his time.  The hours of his life.  Come on!

Dear people who have reviewer blogs: can you please get together and create some sort of graphic badge of coolness that can then be applied to the covers of awesome books, so authors can add them to their covers, therefore distinguishing them from the sea of self-published awfulness and so people like me don’t have to blow a gasket when browsing for something to read?  Thank you.

I will start: Jill Myles – awesome books for ninety nine cents and above.  Some are even free.  Funny, sexy, some are a little improbable but super-fun.  Conquistador on a Dinosaur Island – come on, I know you want to read that!

We are dealing with some family issues right now – no, nobody died – and this matter has to be given a priority.  We know that a lot of people visit this blog every day, and we will continue to post, but the updates will be less frequent and probably shorter.  Usually people start emailing us asking if something is wrong, if we don’t post for three days or more, so this is your heads up.

I’m also not dealing with things as well as I would like, so you will see less of me on Twitter and Facebook.  If there is something that you would like to ask, feel free to email us.  We will be online and available through email.

We thank you for your consideration.

My response to it is $%^#@!  The script is built into the theme.  I have edited it to prevent arbitrary file upload but I really need to disable it all together and removing it breaks the theme. I don’t want to upload a new theme.  I like this theme. I like the giant menu and the featured posts carousel.  I like the home page layout.

:rocks back and forth:

It seems that either we can have a commercial theme with fancy bells and whistles and have problems, or we can have something very simple like hybrid, but have no security problems.

The new house has a pergola. What is the point of a pergola attached to the house?  In my experience, pergola is something the grape vine can hold on to while it’s climbing, but having a grapevine close to the house like this is asking for termite damage, isn’t it?  At the very least, it would be a lovely place for the mosquitoes to hide.

I get that you can hang baskets off of itm but how effective is it at blocking out the sun?

What was wrong with the previous version of Firefox?  Why do you mess with my interface?

That’s one of the problems I have with WordPress. While I like the new version updates, it seems that WordPress wants me to update it every five minutes.  I have this very pretty theme right now, but I am guessing it will soon become obsolete the way the updates are piling on.

So I guess my options are going back to a faster simpler theme and making it look like this one. I usually use Hybrid framework, but I really like the area up on the top of the blog where I can highlight feature posts.  Hybrid, sadly, doesn’t offer one.  :scratches head:  Maybe I can get a plugin for it or something. I don’t even have a clue what it’s called.

One of the other features of this theme I like is the mega-menu, because if you click on books, it lets you click the title faster.  So my question to you today is, do you just click on “books” in the top and go straight to book page or do you wait for the menu to drop down and use the expanded menu?  Did anybody even know it is there?

Because if nobody uses it, why do I have it?

I am leaning more and more toward simpler is better.  I am tired of obsessing over how many database queries a theme makes and how long it loads on pingdom.

In other news I have the plot for a sequel to Silent Blade, complete with new characters.  I have no time to write it.  It’s eating my brain.

Oh I found my camera.  In Gordon’s backpack!

Tried to find a graphic to promote MAGIC SLAYS.  I’ve officially despaired of finding a stock photo of a dark haired woman with a sword who is not ugly, is not scantily clad, or is not licking the sword or holding it in such a way that no effective strike is possible.  In one shot, this knucklehead is holding the sword backward over her head, practically on her hair, so if she does try to cut something with it, she is likely to scalp herself.

I then tried to find a girl in modern clothes facing away from the camera. Epic Fail.   ::sigh::  I wonder where all those graphic artists get their stocks, because shutterstock, istockphoto, and dreamstime aren’t doing it for me. But I did find the stock girl from the Spanish cover, so if all else fails I’ll use her, I guess.

The superbeautiful website apparently makes a crazy amount of database queries and also isn’t loading that fast on Pingdom.  That depresses the hell out of me, because I love it, and it will likely have to be redesigned into something simpler.  Also some of its code is odd.

I looked at the May release line-up, and it’s all big boys and girls.  Big releases.  I am attempting not to have a preliminary freak-out, and the only reason it’s not happening is because I know it’s 3,000 words or die today.

Boy, I am grim this morning.  This isn’t working and that’s not working.

Here is a snippet of Jack and George to counteract the gloom.  I have a feeling this will get cut do to narrative concerns and it’s non-spoilery and also safe for male audiences – there is no making out or girly cooties.  Please remember that this hasn’t been edited at all, so read at your own risk.

Jack squinted at three boys blocking the hallway.    His History class was on the second floor.  He was on the third.  He had walk past the three guys to get to the stairway leading down.  The middle one, a tall dark-haired kid had that half-scared, half-pissed off look on his face that usually signaled a fight.  Being well-behaved while fighting would prove to be very difficult.

Jack halted.  To the right a row of window spilled daylight onto the long tiled hallway.  To the left several doors led into different classrooms.  The doors spat out currents of students and swallowed new victims for another hour of boredom.  Too many witnesses to deal with it quickly.

If he made a scene, they would call Declan and Rose and he would be grounded and watched.  There would be no midnight flight to California.

For a moment Jack considered climbing out of the window and down to the second floor.  It wouldn’t be difficult – he could do it in his sleep.  However, Rose had specifically warned him against climbing out of windows at school.

He had no choice.  Jack swung his bag over his shoulder and started down the hallway, doing his best to look bored.  The three kids focused on him.  Yeah, definitely a fight.  But maybe not here.  With that many people around anything they started would get broken up before any real damage and they’d both be in trouble.  The dark haired kid stepped forward blocking his path.  If the guy swung, he’d hit him in the solar plexus, Jack decided.  Just one short punch, knock the wind out of him, so he can’t scream, and keep walking.

“Jack Camarine!” the dark haired kid’s voice went up a little too high. Heads turned in their direction.  Great.

Jack stopped.  “Yeah?”

“My name is Rodward Grayson.  My uncle is Earl Grayson of Summerick.”

That told Jack exactly nothing.  He waited to see if more information would come out.

Grayson took a deep breath.  “You insulted my uncle at the banquet two nights ago.”

Pieces clicked together in Jack’s head.  “Was your uncle the one who called my sister a whore?”

Grayson’s face turned redder.  “That’s beside the point.  You’ve insulted my family.  I demand satisfaction.”

What?  Jack stared.

“I said, I demand satisfaction!” Grayson repeated.

Something was obviously expected of him, but Jack had no clue what it was. “Ask one of your friends, maybe they can help you out with that.”

Grayson turned bright red.

“He wants to fight you, stupid,” the larger kid on his left said.

Jack gave him a flat stare.  “You won’t like it.”

“No, it’s you who won’t like it,”  Grayson said.

“Fine.  Do you want me to beat your ass right here or do you want to do this later?  Decide, because I’ve got a class to go to.”

“After school, eight of evening,” Grayson said.  “On the sparring grounds.  Be there or I’ll tell everyone you’re a coward.”

From what George said this morning between classes, they were supposed to stay at school until Gaston came for them at dusk.  It was mid-August and sun set around eight thirty.  With luck, he could get this mess out of the way and be gone right after.

“Fine.” Jack shrugged and started toward the stairway.

“I mean it, Camarine!” Grayson said.

Jack kept walking.  The big blond kid on Grayson’s right planted his feet, blocking his way.  Jack hid a grin and bumped him with his shoulder in passing.  The impact spun the blond guy left and out of his way.  Jack went on, keeping the bored look fixed on his face like a mask.  Around him kids parted, letting him pass.

Maybe there was something to this nonchalant thing after all.

He started down the stairs and saw George coming up.  They reached each other.

“I have a fight at eight on sparring grounds,” Jack told him quietly.

“Who with?”

“Some idiot named Grayson. He says I insulted his uncle.”

“I’ve met Grayson.  He didn’t  think this up himself.  Somebody is egging him on.”  George frowned.  “I’ll see you at the grounds.”

Jack rolled his eyes.  “I can kick his ass in my sleep, George.”

“I’ll come all the same.”

They went on their way.  Jack jogged down the steps.  He never could figure out why normal people had to make everything so complicated.

###

Jack lay on the branch of the large oak and watched the world below him.  The sparring grounds occupied a wide square of packed dirt about one hundred and fifty feet wide behind the gymnasium – a tall stone building decorated with snarling bears at the corners.  Carefully trimmed dwarf cypresses, each about six feet tall and shaped like a upside-down icicle, dotted the perimeter of the square. To the left lay the obstacle course.  To the right was the vast grass field, where bel-ga was played, which was one part football, one part soccer, and two parts pummeling people on the other team.

The oak stretched its branches over the southern end of the sparring grounds and from this point Jack had an excellent view.  It was a good place for a fight, he reflected. The campus was deserted – the day students had gone home and the permanent students were heading toward their dormitories for study hall.  Nobody would be loitering behind the gymnasium, and if they did happen to walk by, the cypresses obscured the view.

Jack stretched on the branch.  It would be a nice night for the wyvern flight.  The evening air smelled fresh.  The ground just began cooling off, and the heat rose from it, melting into the darkening sky.  Not a cloud in sight.

Jack wasn’t exactly sure how this whole business with the duel would go.  There was no point in fighting unless you won and he was pretty sure he could win.  But Grayson puzzled him.  Why fight for something said to your uncle, especially since it was the truth.  If his uncle hadn’t opened his big fat mouth…

Bloodlust flooded him and for a moment Jack saw red, just like he had in the banquet hall two nights ago.

Jack sucked the air in through his nose and let it out slowly, trying to exhale the mad with it.  He’d wanted to kill Grayson’s uncle.  He’d wanted to kill him so badly, he’d heard the pulse in the man’s neck and smelled the sweat coming off him.  The world had gone really sharp on him two nights ago and that only happened just before he caught something and killed it.  Or just before a fight.  One way or the other blood was involved.

This was bad, Jack decided.  Sooner or later, he would kill somebody.  He never killed a man before.  He could ask Lark what it was like, but that wouldn’t be civil.

Three guys rounded the gymnasium from the left and walked out onto the sparring grounds.  One was Grayson.  He carried a short wide sword in a leather hilt.  The other was smaller kid Jack remembered from the hallway.  The smaller kid had stood on Grayson’s right.  The third guy was older, maybe fourteen or fifteen, like George.  His hair was dark like Grayson’s and he carried his own sword, a long rapier.

The big blond kid whom Jack had bumped in the hallway was missing.  Jack grinned, baring his teeth.  That’s right.  Didn’t want any.

Grayson stopped under the oak, looked left, looked right, turned, walked back, then walk to the oak again.  “What if he doesn’t show?”

“He’ll show,” the older guy said.

“How do you know, Bosner?”

“Because he’s a Camarine.  They are arrogant.  He’ll show.”

“He’s adopted,” the smaller kid said.

Bosner looked at him like the smaller kid was stupid.

Grayson marched to the left, turned on his heel, marched to the right…

“Stop it,” Bosner told him.  “No need to worry.  There is three of us and one of him.”

“I heard changelings fight like demons,” the smaller kid offered.

“Shut up,”  Bosner told him. “Everyone knows that animals like him can’t flash.  I can fry him where he stands.”

Ah, so it was going to be that sort of fight.  Jack dropped off the branch, landing behind Grayson.  Grayson turned.  Jack bared his teeth at him.  Grayson went straight up into the air, landed in the same spot, and backed away, clenching his sword.

Pale streaks of white glow coalesced about Bosner’s fingers.  “Oh look.  You’ve made it after all.  And they say changelings can’t tell time.”

George stepped out from behind a cypress on the right.  “My brother has better marks in Algebra than you do, Bosner.  I’m sure telling time doesn’t present him with a challenge.”

George had picked a spot downwind from him.  Heh.

Bosner grimaced.  “Camarine.”

George crossed his arms, oozing aristocratic haughtiness until he looked like a smaller version of Declan.  “Bosner.  What are you doing here?  This is an underclassmen duel.”

“I’m here to make sure it’s fair.  Don’t get excited.”

“And you do this out of the goodness of your heart?”

“Grayson is my cousin,” Bosner growled.  “I won’t interfere unless your brother starts cheating.”

“How exactly do you cheat in a duel?”  George sneered.  Jack had to give it to him, the sneer was pretty good.

Nobody answered.

“But you’re right.  It should be fair.”  George closed his eyes for a moment.

A huge dark shape detached itself from the roof, plummeted like a stone, and landed in the grass next to George, its huge paws digging in the grass with sickle claws.  As tall as George at the shoulder, the beast stood on four massive legs.  Hard muscle corded his lion-like body, overshadowed by vast leathery wings, each tipped with razor-sharp claws.  A long flexible tail, covered with spikes, whipped behind the beast.

The creature lowered its wide head, the dark red mane dripping down in long strands.  His face was the worst.  No matter how many times Jack looked at it, he could never get used to it.  A man’s face, scarred and sheathed in lion hide, stared at the boys with burning red eyes.  The beast opened its maw, his long red beast blending with his mane, and showed them his fangs, two rows of long sharp teeth, designed to rend flesh and crush bone.  A deep growling voice came forth.  “Master…”

Grayson turned pale like a sheet.  The smaller kid froze in place like a terrified rabbit.  Bosner backed away three steps.

“Now it’s fair,” George said.  “Three against three.”

“Wwwhat is that?” The smaller kid pointed at the manticore.

“That’s Regulus.”  Jack said.  “George made him.”

“Reanimated, actually,” George said.

“He’s undead?” Grayson took a step back.

“Not exactly,” George said.  “We’re not quite sure what he is.  He’s in a class by himself.”

“How is that fair?” Bosner demanded.  “You have a changeling and a monstrosity?”

“Before I came out, my brother is standing there alone on one side and your cousin, his friend, and you with your flash waited on the other side.”

“I said I wasn’t going to get into it!”

“Not until Jack beats you cousin to a pulp, and then you would fry him with magic.”

“That’s bullshit!”

Regulus turned his face to George.  “Can I kill him?”

“No.  I won’t interfere if you won’t, Bosner.  Stay out of this fight and you have nothing to worry about.”

“I don’t believe you!”

George’s voice dropped into icy calm.  “Are you accusing me of being a liar?”

“If the glove fits, you should wear it!” Bosner bit back.

“Do I get to fight today or not?” Jack asked.

“I don’t know?” George spread his arms.  “Let’s ask Bosner.”

A man vaulted over the low fence separating the training grounds from the bel-ga field and landed between them.  He was short, about five feet and six inches, and seemed shorter, because he was muscled like a bear.  His long black hair spilled down from his face.  His eyes caught the sunset light and glowed with silver.

Jack killed a hiss that started in his throat.  The scent coming off Gaston screamed “not human.”

The small kid took off toward the safety of gymnasium at a dead run.

“Quit screwing around,” Gaston barked.  “Do you expect me to hold the Mirror’s wyvern for you?”

“We’ll have to do this some other time,” George said.

“Looking forward to it,” Bosner said.

“Don’t make me laugh.”

“George!” Gaston’s voice snapped.

“Come on, Grayson.”  Bosner marched toward the gymnasium.  Grayson stared at them for a long moment, turned and followed him.

Gaston headed in the opposite direction.  Jack sighed and followed.  George patted Regulus’s shoulder.  “You can’t come with us.  The cabin is too small, and the wyvern will sense if you follow.”

“I understand, Master.  I won’t follow but I will find you.”

The manticore  beat its wings, leapt, and took off to the sky.  George ran to catch up.

“You should’ve just let me beat his ass,” Jack said.

“It’s bigger than you,” George told him.  “Bosner couldn’t fight you himself, because he’s two grades above you, so he got Grayson to do it.  Bosner’s flash is bright blue, almost white.  He would’ve cut you up at the first opportunity.”

“I’d kill him first.”

“And the we’d have a bigger problem.”

“I just don’t see what was the point of talking?”

“Oh shut up, Jack!”

“No, I just want to know, the next time I have to fight should I like give it like an extra hour?”

George rolled his eyes.  “Shut up.”

“You shut up.”

“Less talking, more walking,” Gaston ordered.  “The wyvern leaves in an hour and we’ve got a lot of ground to cover.”