Cuttlefish turned in
The edited draft of Cuttlefish has been turned in.
The book is dead, long live the book.
Once more into breach, dear friends, once more.
Categories: Books
Leave a comment
Retail therapy
The latest update. Full tail… tale at Changlinomicon.
Forrest:
They were all standing there laughing at me, when suddenly it all went quiet. Dead quiet. Even the crows in the trees went silent. The vile children all dropped to their knees, looking terrified. Good! I looked around expecting see someone from social services and the police. “They’ve kidnapped and tortured me!” I yelled as I turned. “Arrest them!”
Only it wasn’t the police. It was a horse. A horse with a tall slim rider on its back, and fake Spock ears, dressed as if he was going to a medieval theme party. With furs. We don’t approve of people wearing furs. And he had a huge sword. “It’s illegal to have a blade more than three inches long in public,” I told him.
He got quite upset at this… or maybe he just has anger management problems and needs to see a psychologist. His eyes went all narrow. “Why do you not show proper respect, changeling? Kneel.”
“I have bad knees and I’ve been excused from sport,” I told him, but it didn’t stop him from pulling that sword out. So I knelt down quickly. It might not have been quick enough.
“I think you need some help with learning respect,” he said cruelly, as he put the sword back into the show-off scabbard, and waved a finger at me.
I was suddenly aware of a terrible pain in my… well the seat of my trousers. And then a tearing noise… from the seat of my trousers. I tried to see what cruel trick had been played on me this time. All I could see was a large fluffy pink and chartreuse furry thing behind me. I scrambled up and tried to run away.
It followed me.
Because…
feeling behind me…
It was part of me.
Chill, Goblin
I’ll post the updates here, and tag them onto the whole story.
Slub: Seeing as ‘Mummy’ (I thought the kind with frightful moaning and trailing bandages killing people was more like what was required for the good raising of humans, but they don’t really understand what is needed for child welfare) had left cuddling the demon-cat, I thought I’d better investigate my new home. The kitchen was a place that naturally fascinated me as I’m a growing goblin. You could often steal something to eat there, if you were quick.
So I slipped in there. Well, that’s what looking at the orb had me believing it was. But it barely even had a proper smell of garbage, let alone the smell of good nine day old stew. It was all granite surfaces and not even a crumb. Very unhealthy. No wonder these humans are so pallid and weak. I picked on the biggest cupboard as a likely place for a nice slab of fatty bacon to stashed away, seeing as it wasn’t hung up properly.
A cold-spell knocked me backwards, with the icy breath of winter spilling out onto the floor in cold clouds. I slammed it shut on the the demon and muttered a curse against it and all its workings even before it occurred to me I was doing good again. Too late! I heard it gasp and rattle and die in its lair behind the white cupboard.
Changelinomicon. Viler and vilerest
More sweet little goblin children for you.
Changelinomicon updates up
In which a goblin and a Siamese cat meet.
More?
Being number 1
It helps a little if the Kindle Amazon ranking put your books and stories nice and high.
Right now it seems that LEFT BEHIND is at 27 in the free Kindle stories and at Number 1 in fantasy .
This helps to get the author and my work noticed (as it gets listed) so, if you like my writing, please go and get your free copy from Amazon. It’d be useful to stay up there as long as possible!
Thanks 
Dave
What universe do you want a story written in?
I am thinking about writing short stories, and maybe even books in my various story-universes.
To let me know what I should be working on, which universes you might be interested in, please complete the survey we have created.
It’s a text survey, you can write whatever you would like me to write about.
This is the first in the surveys – this will help me decide which universes I will write in.
The existing universes I am suggesting are
- The Forlorn
- Rats Bats and Vats Universe
- Pyramid Scheme Universe
- A Mankind Witch universe (as part of the Heirs Universe)
- The Karres universe- (this would be MINOR characters, not Pausert, Goth, the Leewit)
- Slow Train to Arcturus Universe
- Dragon’s Ring
I will add to these possibilities from any shorts I have done, barring ‘Red Fiddler’.
It’s a one answer survey, so think of the universes I’ve written in and choose which one you want. One universe only.
Take the survey now and get me started.
So where to from here
As an author it’s sometimes hard to even guess what readers want.
Publishers have spent the last dunameny years distancing us from the readers. Readers at most saw themselves as patrons of individual bookstores, keeping them afloat, and engaging in behavior which saw them (with smaller bookstores before the megastore, and after) feeling they had some degree of ownership in Fred’s SF Bookshop.
And Fred in turn engaged with them, responded by ordering books they wanted, giving them individual attention, treating them as if they mattered (which they did). For this he got their business, their loyalty and probably a bit more money than the soulless megastore.
Authors, on the other hand were told that, well, they were lucky to have such a patron of the arts as legacy publishing, because unless they were bestsellers, they lost money publishing them. Various very large sums were trotted out as to how much it cost these benevolent patrons, and authors were encouraged not to look at cover price and do the math, and the numbers were kept as opaque as possible.
Well, I believe writers need to engage the reader as a patron. Yes, get readers involved, get them to tell me what they actually want to read, instead of figures I can’t trust, because the distribution has more to do with sales than popularity, and the distribution on some books has been… well, not good, to put it mildly.
So: I will become Dave the writer and Fred the bookstore. I’m putting up polls. Any of the Universes I’ve worked in, readers can vote:
- Shorts, if I get more than 200 votes, I’ll go to kickstarter and we’ll do a 2 dollar short of at least 5000 words.
- Make it 1500 votes, and I’ll write a novel.
I’m also going to be putting up various proposals for readers to look at – the piece I send to publishers, some sample chapters. I think I have about 10 out there that various publishers have sat on, sometimes for years, without a yes or a no. I’ll see which if any seeing get the votes to go to Kickstarter for stage 2. Those who put up the initial funding – probably $5 a book, will get it directly from me, and the final book, at a raised price, later, can go to Amazon et al.
Interview and book giveaway
Here With Rowena Cory Daniells
