the archives

Hot fresh novel, available on Kindle now!

As I mentioned briefly on Saturday, Bellica is now available for the Kindle. I ended up pricing it at $7.99, which is a bit lower than the $9.99 I had originally planned on, but still an accurate representation of the novel’s length and, frankly, what I feel I deserve for it. Also, this price was…

February 8, 2012
Rape Culture in Fantasy Settings

[TRIGGER WARNING: discussion of rape and sexual assault] It’s a Thing. It really is. We’d like to think that the worlds we think up are oh-so-evolved, but the truth is that many of the worlds we think up have a rape culture in some shape or form. Possibly because it’s nearly impossible for us to…

February 6, 2012
SFFSat, Feb 4th: a snippet from Bellica

In this snippet, Bellica Anala is attempting a daring escape from an enemy nation where she has been held captive in a drugged state. This is from my recently released novel Bellica, now available on Kindle. Through some stroke of luck she made it to the stables, where a young groom got another sleeper…

February 3, 2012
The ebook of Bellica is complete

Complete and on Kindle already! I’m pretty excited. I was super excited about getting print copies done too, but I’m even more excited about this — because Kindle is a wider audience. Even if people don’t own an actual Kindle, the option to get Kindle apps is across most platforms. And free. While I am…

February 3, 2012
Mundane Monday: on being optimistic

On Saturday, I spent perhaps an hour and a half crying — no, sobbing, raging with tears in my eyes, lamenting my situation to the heavens above. They didn’t listen very well, but I don’t expect them to. Then on Sunday I did things. I was generally productive. My boyfriend came to visit me and…

January 31, 2012
On celebrity and doing good deeds

A lot of celebrities tend to choose particular issues to ‘crusade’ after, and the commentary on that ranges from rapt adoration to complaining about their ‘phony’ ‘goody-two-shoes’ attitudes. Fact is, most of these things that are marked as either phony or absolutely incredible are just standards of being a decent human being. It’s true that…

January 30, 2012
SFFSat January 28th: Bellica Agate prays at the temple

This is an excerpt from The Jade Star of Athering, a sequel to Dead Transgressions set 10,000 years later and right after the events in Bellica. Bellica Agate has been ordered to travel to Southland to negotiate with the army of Gypsies and their Queen that have laid siege to the province. She decides to…

January 27, 2012
Scratch my last

I don’t hope the CT scan shows something. Because if it does that means there’s something worse than muscle strain going on; there’s longer recovery; there’s me being weaker for a long time. Too damn bad. I made my wish and I have to deal with the consequences. Got my CT scan results back today.…

January 27, 2012
An Update on the Back Situ

Well, last night we went to a different emergency room — one here on the mainland — so I could get an x-ray. About 30 seconds before my x-ray was to happen — wheeled into the room, everything — the power went out. We ended up waiting around another few hours while they worked on…

January 25, 2012
[hardly] Mundane Monday: Mildly Concussed [TMI health issues; bodily functions]

I have a mild concussion. It should be the least of my worries; what with the possibly herniated disc. On Thursday I had really bad back pain and tried to sleep it off; by Friday it was worse. My mom came for a visit on Friday evening. I was incapacitated so we called the nursing…

January 23, 2012