And here's the final cover for Demon's Fall. I'm pretty much in awe of Frauke of Croco Designs, the artist. She somehow took the vagueness of my character and story descriptions and rendered it into something beautiful.

Copyright © 2010 by Harlequin Enterprises Limited. Cover Art used by arrangement with Harlequin Enterprises Limited. ® and ^TM are trademarks owned by Harlequin Enterprises Limited or its affiliated companies, used under license.

I was taken with the concept of Drollerie Press's double anthology Trafficking in Magic/Magicking in Traffic, and it provided the last oomph necessary to finish up "Unsilenced" — a story about the different prices people will pay for power. One is an empress who seeks even more; one is a madwoman who has all of it anyone could dream of.

I can finally announce that it's been accepted! And I'm actually looking forward almost as much to seeing what other stories will be alongside mine.

I got the countersigned contract back from Carina Press for Gutter-wing -- renamed to Demon's Fall -- so it's all official! The executive editor was kind enough to actually call me about the acquisition, which was an exciting first for me. Things moved along at a steady clip from there:

Revisions are already done, and I'm quite happy with them. (I've been lucky with my editors so far, across all three publishers.) It does seem to be a struggle for me to give the heroine's arc proper weight and curvature when I write from the hero's POV. The cover art request is also in, and I'm quite curious how that'll turn out. And while there isn't a firm release date yet, I've got an idea-seed for a connected short story I'd like to post at the same time. Now to find the time to write it while navigating the new job...

Drollerie Press has released my story "Sea Gifts" in an ebook collection with the same title. I'm particularly proud of this one. I wrote the beginning--The sea brought gifts to the isle-witch--then went on to find out that a dragon's skeleton was among those gifts. Korean folktales are rife with mention of the Dragon King who rules the seas, so I borrowed him, and gave him a human shape and a taste for revenge...and human cooking.

It was probably also inspired (in a backbrain sort of way) by Patricia McKillip's Changeling Sea, which also deals with dragons from the sea and unwise sorceries. It's a lush tale with wry moments, short and sweet and a little wistful.

In any case, you can get "Sea Gifts" from Drollerie here.

I'll have news to share soon, but I'm going to wait until I have officially signed contracts in my hands. In the meantime, I'll talk about one of my current projects so at least you know behind the silence is progress.

If you're interested, read on. Otherwise, hie away.

I think a fair number of people have played a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure book as kids. I found them frustrating, because there's no real sense that any deliberation behind your decision-making is rewarded. You might make what seems on the surface to be a wise choice ("You examine the puzzle box instead of rashly opening it"), only to die in a freak accident ("It explodes at your touch, taking your life in a fiery explosion"). If you keep your finger tucked in the page presenting the choices and go back to take the other path ("You flippantly flip open the lid"), you usually discover that there's no consistency at all ("Inside lies the dragon-king's heart, still beating" -- although it really ought to explode if you touch it to open it, if mere contact triggers such).

I'm not interested in a world that changes every time I turn my head. I want a world three-dimensional enough that I can explore it from different angles and find each one interesting. The fun part should be in how I interact with the story, not how it twists away from any semblance of cohesion.

Gamebooks help by adding stats: you might have a strength score that you could increase by deciding to lift things, or by starting out as a litter-bearer, and later when it comes time to bust down a locked door or hold onto a dragon's lashing tail, that score determines your success. Instead of arbitrary choices, you have an idea of what you're gaining or losing -- after all, starting off as a noblewoman instead would give you a higher charm score or access to jewels with which to bribe folks, which you might find more appealing than brute force.

It's a pain, though, to keep track of these scores while flipping merrily through the gamebook. Enter: hypertext and some handy scripting to record your scores. And you see creations like Alter Ego (life -- seriously) or Choice of Broadsides (swashbuckling naval adventure).

So all this to say that I'm working on one of my own. Naturally my main focus will be on the writing (definitely a lack in those early Choose Your Own Adventures), but I'll be trying to integrate the interactive element in both a sensical and entertaining manner. It's inspired by Swan Lake is all I'll say for now; I'll try to get a snippet up so you can actually play around with it and see what it's like.

I love it when I finish a story that I began years ago. The oldest draft of this one that I can find dates back to 2002, and I'm pleasantly surprised by how much of the prose still rings true to me. I made a few tweaks, but the bulk of what I did was addition: filling in the gap scenes, instead of editing what was already there.

I even knew the ending back then, and I'm still utterly in love with one of the characters — ah, that's why it took so long. This favored character is not, alas, the protagonist, and I think I went into a snit about it and couldn't make myself focus on the right character. So I suppose the story needed a more mature writer, not in terms of writing skill, but in accepting the shape of the story.

I wonder what I'll do once all these ancient story ideas are all finally fulfilled. I suppose at that point, it'll be another eight years in the future and all the abandoned nuggets I'm writing these days will be prime for mining then.

After I clean it up a bit, I think I'm going to send "Unsilenced" over to the Trafficking in Magic anthology at Drollerie Press, since it's too awkward a length for most fantasy short story markets.

She moved through the marble and alabaster halls of the palace as softly as any spirit: as though she had died, Veillen thought resentfully, instead of her father. But the One-Eyed Emperor's body had been placed within its tomb with all the proper rituals a full moon ago, and his daughter, in turn, was trapped in the palace. Empress, the courtiers and servants murmured when she passed them in the hallways, and they would make obeisance, but their eyes were full of bright, hard smiles, and the echoes of their laughter would come to her once she turned the corner. They would give her an appellation soon, either the Ghost Empress or the Silent Empress. Veillen possessed the dry, utter certainty that more than her father's memory remained, and it was his presence that still ruled here, as heavy as his jewelled crown.

It's been a crazy week — NaNoWriMo, the Project of Doom at work, apartment maintenance needs suddenly popping up — and yet I've got a grin on my face. My first book is out! Happiness is seeing your cover smack on the homepage of the publisher's website.

At the same time, some writerly part of me has moved on already and it's asking, "What? That old thing?" And this is even with the accelerated electronic publishing schedule, on a scale of months instead of years. Since Summer-set was accepted, I've finished a handful of short stories and another novella, and my brain is thoroughly occupied with what I hope will be a novel by November 30th. Because it's the reader's job to fall in love with the words (or I hope that's what the reader's doing). It's the writer's job to love creating the words, and that means coming up with new stories, always moving, always dreaming of the next tale.

I'm incredibly behind on emails, even to the point where I only just remembered to send out an announcement to my mailing list members. (I sent them an extra treat as an apology.) In the future, I must remember to actually let people know about these exciting occasions — and yes, there will be future releases.

Despite my resolution to get this one in early, I finished up the submission package for "Gutter-wing" just today. It actually came out to be longer than the minimum length, which makes me think I'm getting the hang of this novella thing.

I had fun with this setting, probably because it was so different for me — I don't think I would've tried it at all if the anthology description hadn't sparked a wayward neuron. Thankfully I'm not tempted by any of Samhain's other anthology calls at the moment, so I should be all good to go for NaNoWriMo.

So it looks like I'll be participating in National Novel Writing Month this year to make sure I actually start writing regularly again. Life's been so busy lately that I honestly haven't had time to sit down and put out the words. I'm counting on lots of peer pressure to keep me in line.

Here's the start of the story I'm thinking of working on:

Her brother traded her for peace, two dozen swords, and three hundred arrows. She did not speak to him on the day the soldiers came to escort her through the mountain pass and to her new home; she was too furious with him.

"Kimri," he said, "won't you even give me a proper farewell?"

She patted her sorrel's neck, then swung herself up into the saddle. They wouldn't need a farewell, she thought, if he hadn't given her away to the mountain-king like market goods. With her knees, she told her horse to move on.

Her brother stood squarely in the way. "I had no choice, you know," he said.

She spared him a disdainful glance. It was true that no one dared challenge Helsmont. The small mountain kingdom conducted its affairs as it saw fit, but in the past it had always done so quietly, involving none others. It had been her brother's messenger who had gone there first, asking what it would take for an alliance between their realms.

Kimri was, frankly, impressed she was worth such a price. But it was one thing for the mountain-king to offer it, and another for her brother to take it.

Tereth sighed and stroked the sorrel's face. "At least don't try to run away this time. Ride safely," he said, then stepped aside.

Her escort was waiting in the yard outside the stable: fourteen soldiers standing by their horses, garbed in leathers and furs rather than uniforms. But from their stance they couldn't be mistaken. That was what had given her away, Kimri thought, the time she'd run off and tried to join a troop. Her brother's warning had been unnecessary; she wasn't going to try to escape these men—

—and woman. There was one among them, but she didn't seem out of place — she had short-cropped hair, a scar on her cheek, and a sword on her hip. She fascinated Kimri, for there was no female soldiers in Anagard.

Kimri rode up to her. "Surety for my virginity?" she guessed.

"Any good commandant could ensure that," the woman said. "King Tathan trusts all of his commandants, and each of them has the obedience of his troop. You would be as safe with any of them."

"An iron fist," Kimri said.

The commandant shrugged. "He is the mountain-king."

"And you?"

"I?" Her demeanor turned formal. "Commandant Beatris. I am charged with your safety until we reach Helsmont and I deliver you into the hands of King Tathan."

"An onerous duty indeed."

When Kimri saw the hint of a smile on Beatris's face, she was reassured that the other woman had a sense of humor.

Alas, I'm not referring to the electricity that tingles through you when you've grabbed onto the tail of an awesome story and it's dragging you through the wilderness at top speed. All I'm going to say is that if you're traveling and plan to write on your laptop, and your laptop's power adapter has a grounded plug (three prongs) and the country you're going to uses a different voltage and you do have a voltage transformer but said transformer only proffers ungrounded outlets...local hardware stores probably won't be able to help you. That's all.

However, I did find out that I'm able to write a nibble of a story with characters in a previously written story (a discovery made just days before deadline, of course). I thought it fitting to offer an autumn-themed story that was tied in to Summer-set, and so you'll be able to find "Fall, Falling, Fallen" at samhellion.com later this month. Here's the start of it:

On the day the prince was to arrive, all the women were aflutter because it was said he sought a bride. Melea was too busy to care — she was looking for a dog that had strayed. "Misbegotten cur," she sighed as she made her way through the browning grasses outside the city, although of course it wasn't. Shiri, the missing dog, was of faultless pedigree — Melea had chosen the parents herself, and Shiri's bloodline was nearly as noble as her own.