New Release and More

What happens when a young boy is accidentally turned into a mouse?  He has the adventure of a lifetime of course!

I have just released Joey Mousekin's Tale on Smashwords for $1.99. This is a delightful, fun little tale and with a few small illustrations.  I hope people will give it a try.

Writing news:

I am very happy to have Joey Mousekin's Tale out.  This is a fun story and one others have urged me to publish for years.  So there it is!

I am working on finishing the last three projects of the year and they're going fine.  I am making plans to release the Two Year Novel Course on Smashwords in sets of four, one per month and at $0.99.  I have the first set almost done, and I'll do a post about the classes when I'm about ready to put that set up for sale.

One of the projects I'm finishing up is the outline to Water/Stone/Light.  I was playing around with it last night and one of the characters just leapt to life for me.  I don't like his current name (Kontror -- and I keep typing it as Kontrol and getting all kinds of Get Smart images . . . that won't work.), so I'll be digging out the Character Name Sourcebook (this must be a new version -- different cover, slightly different title) and seeing what I can come up with.

I am also starting to work up a list of things to release next year.  This is really difficult.   Just glancing over what I have available and I've come up with 17 things:

1.      Xenantion: Draw the Line (SF)

An ancient and abandoned alien space station -- dubbed Xeno Station, and then Xenation -- brings humans and other species to learn its secrets, and draws Rafael into a dangerous link with something still there.

2.      Paid in Gold and Blood (Fantasy)

A man trying to escape his past travels to a new country, only to discover his patron Goddess has sent him to solve a murder and end the wrath of a dangerous, vengeful ghost that has now focused on him.

3.      Mirrors (Urban Fantasy)

Skye is half human and half fae, and neither male nor female.  He works as a small time detective, and stays clear of the fae who don't trust him -- until his human cousin drags him into a mystery involving the fae and a woman abducted just before her wedding.

4.      The Servant Girl (Fantasy)

Eliza had spent almost her entire life in the shadow of the Princess, serving and protecting her with secret magic, but when an invasion separates them, she must learn to be more than just the servant girl.

5.      Devlin's Team 1: Welcome to Forest (SF)

Devlin is a top Inner Worlds Security agent, and she had not expected the kind of trouble she faced on the backward, technophobic world of Forest.

6.      Beware the Wrath of Bunny Hopper (Urban Fantasy)

Bunny Hopper thought her life was odd enough, but then she leapt into help her brother in a fight . . . and found he wasn't fighting humans.

7.      Autumn Storm (Urban Fantasy)

In the sequel to Summer Storm, it's only a few days before Halloween and Summerfield once again finds himself caught up in dangerous fae trouble, right along with the bad weather they draw.

8.      Vita's Vengeance (SF)

Alsandor Vita is the spoiled, dissolute younger brother of Madame President Elisa Vita Daren of Kai, but when war comes to his world, he's given a chance to become someone else and help in ways he never could before.

9.      Badlands (SF)

Carmen del Santo Palo has lead the Calles for too many years, helping them survive on the dangerous world of Caliente and now she faces the biggest danger of all in the form of a drought and a pending war over the water rights.

10.  Rat Pirates (SF)

When the Lindy (from Vita's Vengeance) ask the Inner Worlds Council for their own port, they meet Lt. Commander Palman, who has come to ask help for the devastated Caliente (Badlands) -- creating a bond that is more dangerous than people at first realize.

11.  Glory (Urban Fantasy)

In a post-apocalyptic future, Gloryanna Del Mar has a secret that draws her back to the small town where her husband died -- and where she, as the avatar of the Goddess Isis, must set to right a problem that has been growing for years.

12.  Journey to Winter (Fantasy)

Prince Nishanon is kidnapped from his desert home and taken to the far northern court, where he must survive in a place of miserable cold, dangerous magic, and people he cannot truly trust.

13.  In the Service of the Queen (Fantasy)

Two young men come to apply for the post of the Voice of the Queen, the court poet, and find themselves caught up in a murder mystery and an impending invasion that could destroy the empire.

14.  Written in the Sand (Fantasy)

Gareth was a guard doing his duty when an attack destroyed the rest of the guards and he must make his escape with the dangerous desert tribe while protecting their holy relic and learning about the dangerous return of the gods.

15.  News from the Front (SF)

The last place Alyn Naevon wanted to go as a reporter was to his home world, where he had been a different person and caught up in the same battles he tried to escape several years before.

16.  Living in Caine's Hold (SF)

Cristos Hellena is the son of one of the most powerful men on Caine's Hold, but when his father unexpectedly dies and his older brother takes over the cartel, Cristos takes a dangerous path to escape his own 'unexpected' death as well.

17.  Singer & St. Jude: The Lost Cause (SF)

In the near future, after catastrophic quakes have all but ruined the west coast, Elias Singer and Nicolas St. Jude are teamed together on the police force, taking on a case that no one else is going to touch -- or help them with.

I'm not even certain how to decide which to do first at this point.  Or if there isn't something else I should be looking at instead.  And I have not even glanced at anything but novels.  I should be doing more novellas and maybe a few short pieces, too.

This is the backside of being prolific.  It can sometimes paralyze you just with the amount of choices available when it comes to Indi publishing or even when it came to submissions.  Even though I love editing and rewrites, by the end it's still easy to say 'oh, I'll think about this later' and go on to something new.

I've done well for getting things out in 2011.   I intend to do better in 2012.

Plus, of course, there will be lots of new things to write.

I hope the cycle never ends, even when it does lead to occasional frustation.

In other news:

We have snow.  Lots of snow.  I don't know how many inches we'll end up with becasue it is still snowing and has been all day.  In fact, it's snowing harder now.  There isn't more than 2 inches on the ground, but I expect to see more add up.  Still, I don't think we'll hav ethe 7 to 10 inches they feared.  I do not have to shovel the snow this year.  It nearly killed me last year (had those kinds of reactions where they say stop if this happens), so I am quite happy just to sit in here and watch.

We did have a power outage and the heaters kicked off for about four hours.  House was VERY cold when I got up.  Cats were not thrilled.  I wasn't all that happy, either.  So I turned them back on and crawled back into bed for about three hours.  Temp was up 15 degrees by then, so that was good. We're still sitting at about 57f (13c) in the main room I keep heated, so that's not too bad.  The rest of the house I don't want to know about.

I suspect we will have snow on the ground from now until March, but I could be wrong.  We've had annoying late December warm ups that melt all the snow just before Christmas -- annoying because you've put up with it that long so you might as well have a white Christmas out of it.  Also, a lot of snow-related toys around here, so it helps to have the snow on the ground when the kids (young and old) get them.

And now it's time to get back to writing!