Fairies in February Blog Tour - Frances Pauli

Please welcome author Frances Pauli to my blog. :)


If We Shadows Have Offended

I love that monologue. Puck is by far one of my all time favorite fairies, and the speech is doubly appropriate for The Changeling Race. The series features fairies, yes, but there is also an underlying theme about shadows throughout the books. Not so much Peter Pan type shadows, as in those we cast, but more Jungian shadows, as in the things we bury deep inside.
Like most secrets, our shadows have a great deal of power—both for good and ill. But it is the ones that we deny the loudest, that we bury and forget that have the most potential to cause havoc when eventually they sneak out…and they do sneak out. No matter what, they always leak a little.
So in the trilogy, I found my elves really needing a dose of shadow therapy. The whole bloody race needed serious counseling, in fact. I’m not sure where the idea came from. Maybe I had left over angst from old school RPG’s (you know the ones with paper and dice that don’t plug into anything.) I never did like how special the elves were, how much better than humans, how everyone wanted to play the elf. Whatever it was, when I translated my version of “elfishness” onto paper, they came off a bit, shall we say, arrogant?
Conceited? Haughty? Stuck-up? Pick an adjective. The elves that showed up to play in The Changeling Race had a major superiority complex, and I took great pleasure in showing them their shadow.
I’m mean that way.
Still, once the shadow is out and looking you in the face, you can deal with it, right? So I opened up my Elvin past and showed the perfect little buggers just how many flaws they actually had. I enjoyed it a great deal more than they did, you can imagine. A few of them took it better than I’d expected, but the majority pretty much went to pieces. That’s good in a novel. Chaos like that makes for some great plot.
It really was for their own good. I mean, who could live with that kind of pressure? Maybe a great deal of their stiff, Elvin arrogance came from having to live up to our expectations of perfection. I like to think that they’ll be happier in the future, that their attitudes will adjust and the elves of tomorrow—at least in the world of The Changeling Race--might have a softer side.
I can think of a few that will. Those were my favorites, the ones that stood up, dusted off and got over themselves. So maybe, while I was doling out the therapy, some of it leaked over onto me as well. Maybe I got over my elf discrimination as much as they got over their humans are beneath us attitude. That works for me. Because, after all is said and done, I really love them—stuck up or not—and I think we managed to end the series as friends.
Or as Puck would say… “Think but this, and all is mended.”

Thank you so much for hosting a stop on the tour. I am offering a free pdf of any book from my backlist to one commenter today, and for each stop on the tour that you comment on, you will earn one entry into the final drawing for print copies of all three books. Follow along and enter to win!

Bio:

Frances Pauli writes speculative fiction with romantic touches. Her books are published through Mundania Press LLC, Awe-Struck, and Devine Destinies, and her short stories are featured in various anthologies. More information on her worlds and writing can be found on her website and blog, and she offers free online stories, web serials, podcasts there as well.

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Book Blurbs:

A Moth in Darkness

 The boundaries between the worlds have fallen. Forced to integrate the creatures of fantasy into real life, humanity struggles against its disillusionment, prejudice and an inevitable feeling of inadequacy.

Once an agent for the embassy that mediates between the worlds, Elizabeth Larson has abandoned her past and slipped into a world of nostalgic addiction to fairy revels, dancing, and the dark lure of her own memories. But when Lockland Sheen, her former partner and lover, goes missing, she is pulled reluctantly back into service. She must venture once more across the borders, into the land that haunts her, facing a string of gruesome murders, the imposing Sidhe rulers and her own addiction in the process.

While the Embassy’s agents attempt to soothe tensions between the races, Liz and her new partner search the fairy realm for Lockland. Fighting the constant temptation of the revels, they piece together the trail of an unknown enemy. But the longer they follow it, the more it appears that the man they came to rescue is more villain than victim. And the more they rely on Elizabeth’s ties to the fairies, the closer she inches toward the madness that lurks behind her fantasies.

The Fly in Paradise

 Something’s rotten in the Fey lands. While Marcus Bramble tracks the lunatic who started it all, Elizabeth and the crew at the Embassy sort through the evidence he left behind. With Lockland back, and the revels behind her, Liz’s world is slowly returning to normal. But on both sides of the borders, shadow creatures spring out of nowhere, and the dark legends surrounding the fey take on a whole new meaning.

Now time is against them.  On the mortal side of things, protesters rally to close the borders, politicians descend on the Embassy, and something that shouldn’t exist stalks Elizabeth through the city.

Spiders From Memory

 The Seelie court is gone, and the Tower has fallen into darker hands. Now nightmare creatures terrorize the Fey races, and the whole Fey world turns to frost and shadow.

Liz Larson holds the last remnant of the Seelie Sidhe's power. The elves look to her for guidance, but all she has to offer them is the disturbing story of their origin, the final truth that will turn many of them against her. With her dwindling number of allies, Liz needs to reopen the borders, to find the missing Marcus Bramble, and to avoid the sudden, terrifiying attention of the new Fey ruler, the Unseelie Speaker and new master of the Sidhe Tower.

While her friends in Mundanity race to pry open the gates, and Marcus searches for the answer to a puzzle that could save or damn them all, the Unseelie Speaker marches north, bringing his army and his wrath to focus on Elizabeth. What can one, fairy-touched human do in the face of the Unseelie court's full fury? How can she fight when the enemy's anger is only partly blind, when she can see all too clearly the traces of justice behind it?

2012 - Hopes and Dreams

Happy New Year!

I don't make New Year resolutions. I have never kept the few I made, and I feel it just leads to too many disappointments. So, instead, I have a list of things I'm hoping for this year. :)

1.That Keir will do well when it's released on the 7th May (or at least not get too many poor reviews).
2.That I will finish editing the sequel in good time, and that my editor and publisher will like it.
3.That Gethyon will find a home with a publisher, even if that turns out to be myself via Amazon.
4.That my sfr short will be accepted into the anthology.
5.That I will get my other scifi short completed and up on Amazon.
6.That I will figure out the rest of books four and five which are still a little hazy in my mind.
7.That I won't run out of ideas and that my writing will just keep improving.
8.That my friends and family will be happy and healthy, for this year and many, many more to come.
9.That I will do more reading, and help clear a pending list of reviews.
10.To get into some kind of fitness routine to counteract the amount of time I now spend on my bum in front of this computer!
11.A late addition, but a scifirom with succubi has got my muse all in a tizzy and I've already done 5K words on it, so I hope the fuzzy idea I currently have is going to settle down into a proper story. It's not quite my usual thing, so a bit nerve-racking, as well as exciting.

I think that will do...

Do you make resolutions? Do you keep them? Or would you rather just let the year pan out around you? :)

2011

At the end of 2010, I started to write a post about my non-resolutions for 2011, but never published it. As 2011 draws to a close and I'm clearing out drafts of blog posts that never 'made it', I came across my aims for the year just past. It made for interesting reading, in terms of what I'd achieved, so I thought I'd share. :)


Plans - I already had two book reviews to write, was awaiting feedback from my two critique partners on my unpublished SFR (Keir) before doing a final edit and polish, and needed to write a blurb, synopsis and query letters for submission. I'd signed up for a university course to start in the October and run through to February 2011. I had ideas for a dark fantasy, and wanted to write a scifi novella. I also had two sequels written to Keir badly in need of editing, another sequel half written with vague ideas for a fifth, and a promise to edit a fellow author's second book.

Results - The book reviews weren't completed until February/March time, but they were done and more besides over the year. The edits on Keir took longer than expected, and then the whole submission was delayed because I submitted the first 500 words to a critique contest and had it ripped to shreds. My confidence was destroyed, and so I didn't submit Keir until June. In the meantime I managed to write and self-publish a scifi short story on Smashwords - The Bones of the Sea - tied into the same universe as Keir. I was also asked to guest post about my short by Laurie A. Green on the Spacefreighters Lounge blog.

I passed my university course in March. I wrote and edited my first scifi novella - Gethyon - and had it ready to submit at the same time as Keir. I finished the dark fantasy - No Mercy - and submitted it for a short story competition in June, after which time I had further ideas to expand the 5K short into a novella at a later date. I read, critiqued and proof-read my friend's book which came out in July - Blowing Embers, a paranormal/fantasy romance by Lauri J Owen.

Keir received the offer of a contract from Lyrical Press Inc (squeeee!) in June, with a projected publishing date of May 2012, and I finished my first round of edits in time for the 12th August deadline. Gethyon received a revise and resubmit request (another squeee!), and work on that took me into mid-August, with a promise for feedback from a fellow author in September. In partnership with Lauri, we took it upon ourselves to compile and maintain a list of book reviewers, now over 170 strong.

My second university course was due to start in October, a far more intensive one than the previous which would have taken me into June 2012. However, as the study material arrived I discovered that the diploma I had been aiming for was being replaced by another that not only required twice as many credits, but also in different subjects to those I'd chosen to study. As a consequence I quit the course. In September, I FINALLY began to edit Keir's sequel - Lost Serenity - despite struggling with the MS for some time. I had one of those eureka moments, where I could see how to change a major element of the story and improve the whole. Book Three - Shadowcast - still awaits edits, and Book Four - Seekers of the Nine - is still incomplete. However, I have made inroads into rewriting the very original prequel to the Traveller Series, including a new title, and started one scifi novella and another short chronicling Quin's early travels.

My edits arrived from my editor at the start of November and WOW was there a lot to do! I was given two weeks but eventually had to ask for three to complete it. It also raised huge doubts over doing any further work on the series.Thank goodness I wasn't doing my course though! Gethyon got a rejection but went out on submission again. If all else fails, I'm thinking of self-publishing it. My fantasy short didn't get placed in the competition and has been put aside for future work - again, I may expand it to novella length and either submit or self-publish.I've just finished and submitted an SFR short for a fellow author's anthology. I've also worked on a scifi short to self-pub in the New Year - Samaritan - and even have the cover half done. A fellow scifi author has offered to trade tweaking the cover for a beta read. :D Keir now has cover art and a release date of 7th May 2012.

In summary - I hadn't set myself very much for the year. I'm not sure if that was because of time constraints - I have three young children on top of writing and studies - or because I had such little confidence in what I could physically complete. I don't think I always make the best use of my time, but going by how much I did actually get done this year, I'm pretty impressed with myself. Of course now I'll have an inflated idea of what might be accomplished next year. :(

So how did you do on your goals for the year? Do you believe is setting yourself resolutions, or letting Fate have her way? :)

Romance Contest

This is a contest being run by my publisher - Lyrical Press Inc. It's for Romance and Erotica, and there's no entrance fee and a substantial $200 advance on offer. Best of luck!

The First Annual Lyrical Press How Lyrical is Your Romance? Contest opens on Monday, January 16^th. This contest is open to both published and unpublished authors.

Entries must be complete works, ranging in word count between 15,000-100,000 words, any heat level, and fit into one of the following subgenre categories:

• Contemporary romance
• Historical romance
• Paranormal or urban fantasy romance
• Romantic steampunk
• Romantic Suspense

Prizes:

1^st Place: $200 advance and digital publishing contract (advance payable as $100 upon finalized contract and $100 upon publication).

2^nd Place: $100 advance and digital publishing contract (advance payable as $50 upon finalized contract and $50 upon publication).

3^rd Place: Top-scoring contestant in each genre category will receive an acquiring editor’s critique of synopsis and first 50 pages of manuscript.

Guidelines:

• File type: .rtf, .doc, or .docx only
• 12pt black font (Times New Roman, Cambria, Courier or Georgia preferred)
• Line spacing: 1.5
• Margins: 1" all
• Page-breaks between chapters

Please include a title page listing the following information:

• Legal name
• Pen name
• Email address
• Contact phone
• Working title (include series name and details if applicable)
• Word count
• Genre/category

Entries will be accepted from January 16, 2012 through February 5, 2012, and must be emailed to contest@lyricalpress.com. Entries sent to an email other than the aforementioned will be ignored. Please include book title and contest in subject line thusly: Booktitle – How Lyrical Is Your Romance?. Attach full manuscript, and 2-5 page synopsis in .rtf, .doc, or .docx format (Booktitle_MS and Booktitle_SYN as file names--your book title replaces “Booktitle”). After February 5, the contest will close, but we’ll still be accepting submissions as always at our submissions@lyricalpress.com address.

No entry fee required. Judges reserve the right to Decline to Judge any entry if it does not fit our lines, level of writing is not acceptable, or submission guidelines are not followed.

Entries will be judged on the following criteria: Hook, Pacing/Plot, Characterization, Dialogue, Mechanics, and Author Voice.

Winners will be announced on March 12, 2012 via our blog http://lyricalpress.blogspot.com/ and direct emails to winners.

Review - Silver Thaw by Amy Rose Davis

My review of the fantasy novella Silver Thaw by Amy Rose Davis is now live on the Critique de Book review site here. "The ending left me with tears in my eyes and the intention to read it again very soon."

The Crimson Pact: Volume 2 - edited by Paul Genesse

My review for The Crimson Pact: Volume 2 is now live on the Fantasy Book Review site here. "If you like demons and dark fantasy this is definitely the anthology for you." Please go and check it out.

As an addition, if you're interested in having one of your stories selected to go in a future volume, check out the terms and conditions here. Submissions to the anthologies are by invitation only if you manage to impress the publisher with a piece of flash fiction submitted during their reading period, which is through 1 February 2012.

Inspirations - Scifi/Fantasy Films

Staying with inspirations, these are my top five scifi/fantasy films that I wanted to share with you - let me know if you agree or what your alternative listing is! :)

1.Star Wars. Okay, slight cheat here as this refers to all three films of the original trilogy (and not the later-made prequels). If you want me to stick to the 'rules' then I'd put The Empire Strikes Back in the top slot. For me, this film is 'the Trials of Luke Skywalker' in the finest tradition of testing a young hero, and his struggle to deal with his new-found powers and his dedication to the Jedi religion while still being true to the people he loves. These were the films that converted me from my early love of fantasy to the world of science-fiction. Well, that, and a small crush on Luke Skywalker.<blushes>


2.The Fifth Element. Although I think the story is a little weak and Zorg (Gary Oldman) comes across as one of the most ineffectual villains I know, I love this film. Visually entertaining and with some fab music, it has redeeming features, the feisty and yet fragile Leeloo for one. There's also some great humour in this, and Zorg's crowning moment is his reaction when, having deactivated his own bomb, the device set by the Mangalores activates and explodes. The clip here is the Diva's performance - and it's probably not what you'd expect if you haven't seen the film. I love the mix of classical with funky electronica in this piece. Also evidence that I'm not the first person to have blue aliens, and to do so is not simply 'copying' Avatar. :-/


3.Galaxy Quest. A parody of Star Trek and similar scifi shows, this has some fantastic humour in it, but also rather poignant. If you were famous for a particular scifi role and the show got cut and you couldn't find another job, what would you do? Tim Allen as Jason Nesmith, the actor who played Cmdr. Peter Quincy Taggart, throws himself whole-heartedly into conventions and playing to his fans, only to discover that his 'crew' hate him. Just as he loses faith in himself and everything he's done, a group of aliens who have taken the show as reality - 'historical documents' - seek him out and ask for his help. The show's catch phrase of 'Never give up, never surrender!' is a cry all aspiring authors could adopt. :) The one down-point in this film for me is the death of Quellek. :( Strangely for me, I didn't feel my general nerdiness was being mocked - as scifi geek Brandon in the film says; I'm not a complete nutcase, you know, I understand it's not real. :-P

4.A Knight's Tale. Okay, this appeals more to my mushy side I'm afraid. I love the medieval era and have used touches of it in my writing. I adore Heath Ledger's character in this - a young man striving for his dreams, prepared to take any risk to achieve it, and despite the odd tantrum, he does so with the same nobility of the high-born knights he hopes to emulate. In fact, his behaviour is a darn sight more noble than some of the so-called champions he meets. The use of some classic rock music rather than the more historically-accurate kind makes this stand out for me, and the romantic elements are enough to touch my heart without making me cringe. Sir Ulrich and his lady Jocelyn are well-matched, and his heart-felt belief in himself and determination to succeed are inspiring!


5.The Dark Crystal. I adore this film. For me, it's unique and special. The skill that was needed to make it, the weird and wonderful characters - the whole concept of it. At a time when computerized special effects were laborious and still required the use of models and blue screen, in the early days of animatronics, this film is iconic. To this day, I still collect Brian Froud's fairies, and I even have a couple of the figures - Jen and Kira - that my husband bought me as a birthday present one year. My first full length story was based on this film. Am I gushing too much? :-P


So tell me your top inspiring films, and why they did it for you. :)

Inspirations - Scifi/fantasy Series Part 2

So, continuing with the scifi and fantasy series that inspired me to write in the first place and the upcoming new ones that encourage me, here are the next four. Enjoy!

5.Red Dwarf. Although this is more comedy than scifi, it has to be on my list. All four main characters have some of the worst and most extreme character flaws ever, added to that the fact that only one is actually (barely) human - a cat that's evolved, an android, the last human being alive and a hologram of one of the dead crew, all aboard a mining vessel piloted by an artificial intelligence called Holly who has the mental 'IQ of 12000 traffic wardens.' The series follows their misadventures through space, and occasionally time as they try to return to Earth after three million years lost out in space. The clip is from a 'dream recorder' and features the Cat.



6.Primeval. Probably one of the lesser known series, and temporarily axed when ITV ran out of money to make it. Thankfully the BBC agreed to help fund it (makes my TV licence even more worthwhile!). 'Stealing' my idea of gateways through time and space (oh, wait, that was Stargate too ... ), a mismatched team originally comprising a Professor of Paleontology and his big-game hunting assistant, a nerdy conspiracy-theory student, a 'lizard girl' from a wildlife park, and a reluctant couple of civil servants, they track down anomalies that lead to Earth's prehistoric past. My kids adore this series, so it makes for one of the few times of family viewing where we all sit quiet and watch!


7.Merlin. This is probably the most recent newcomer to my list. At first I was a little wary - 'oh, no, not another remake of the King Arthur legend, sigh' - but it does a fabulous job of it, with a twist. It follows the story of a young Merlin, new to his powers and trying to survive under the ruling of Arthur's father, Uther, who had banned all magic and executes anyone even suspected of witchcraft. Prince Arthur is an ass, even if a rather handsome, gallant one, and Merlin is a soft-hearted fool. The best thing is my daughter loves it too. :)


8.The Sarah Jane Adventures. Okay, okay, I know this one was really intended for kids, but again it's something I can watch with mine and for me it harkens back to the early days of Doctor Who before they revamped it with all the mushy stuff that gets in the way of the stories these days. Also, it starred my favourite companion, the first one not there solely to make the Doctor look good and to scream in all the right places. Sarah Jane had spunk and spirit! Sadly, the actress who played her - Elisabeth Sladen - passed away from cancer earlier in the year. Sarah Jane Smith was companion (briefly) to the dandy third Doctor Jon Pertwee, and then to the eccentric fourth incarnation Tom Baker. The new Doctors have made guest appearances in some of the Sarah Jane Adventures. No longer travelling in the TARDIS, Sarah Jane nevertheless continued to battle aliens intending to conquer the Earth, with the aid of two young side-kicks, an artificially created boy genius that she adopts as her son, K-9 and an alien super-computer.




So what are your top scifi or fantasy series?

Inspirations - Scifi/fantasy Series Part 1

After a discussion on Twitter about a certain scifi series, it got me thinking about all those I've watched over the years and that I've fallen in love with or felt inspired to write by watching. Once I started writing the post, I realized there were quite a few so I've split the post into two parts to make it easier. So, in no particular order, these are my top scifi/fantasy series. Enjoy!

1.Doctor Who. Probably the first scifi series I ever watched, and mostly because my parents were fans. The never-ending (?) journeys through time and space of the renegade Time Lord, now the last of his people, has been running since 1963, which must be a record. The earliest episode I can recall was the very last Jon Pertwee adventure - Planet of the Spiders - and I often wonder if it was the source of my spider phobia. :-/
Of course, it's come a long way since then ...



2.Star Trek. The pure, unadulterated original series! Again, my parents were fans so it was kind of compulsory viewing in our household, but even so my love for ST took me to watch all the following versions. Out of all of them, DS9 was probably my favourite, with Voyager coming a sadly-disappointing last. I tired so hard to like Captain Janeway, but she just didn't cut it for me. Seven of Nine was the only redeeming feature. :( Star Trek is often quoted as being ground-breaking because of the mixture of races and genders working together in a form of equality that many are still striving for even now. The range of story-lines, often covering moral dilemmas as much as Kirk's reputation of 'shoot to kill' make up for the periods of dodgy acting and even more dodgy special effects.


(I really like the Flintstones mash-up of the original, lol.)

3.Farscape. I LOVE Farscape! It's probably been the biggest influence on my writing that I've been consciously aware of. I even treated myself to the complete DVD set including the Peacekeeper Wars as a Christmas present. The idea of a living ship, of an alien that's a plant, of travel through wormholes, and helium farts (yes, you read that right) - fabulous! The relationships between all of the crew and the gradual romance between Crichton and Aeryn are all beautifully done. John Crichton, astronaut, falls through a wormhole to another universe and becomes part of a crew of escaping prisoners aboard a living ship - a Leviathan - called Moya as they attempt to evade the Peacekeepers.



4.Blake's Seven. My husband mocks my fondness for this lo-budget old scifi, but I loved it. It had a fab alien ship, elegant weapons and a hodge-podge of the most psychologically conflicting and demented characters ever. The constant sniping from sardonic Kerr Avon kept up the friction even when poor scenery and the odd dodgy storyline let it down. The iconic Deep Space Vehicle Two - better known as the Liberator - is a state-of-the-art space ship high-jacked by a band of criminals and led by the moral crusader Roj Blake as they attempt to evade the corrupt and tyrannical Federation. You could consider it an early version of Farscape without the romance.




So that's the first four, and I'll post the rest next week. But what's your top scifi series and why? :)

Review - Principles of Angels by Jaine Fenn

My review of Jaine Fenn's Principles of Angels is now live on the Fantasy Book Review website here. "This is sci-fi with a fantasy twist and just a touch of romance." Loved this series and can't wait for the fifth book. :)

Are Contests a Winner?

What are your views on writing contests? Are you a big fan and a prolific competitor? Do you think having one or more awards helps your career and/or book sales as an author? Do they present you with an interesting challenge, or do you feel they are a waste of time?

Until this year, I'd never even considered entering a writing competition. I'd looked at a few and read blog posts on those who had entered and even been placed in various writing awards, but hadn't felt the need for it myself. I'm still not sure of the benefits, and at the moment have no plans to write anything purely for competition purposes. However ...

A book review site that I've written a few reviews for posted a short story competition a while back. They wanted a fantasy short between 2,000 and 5,000 words. By coincidence, I happened to be working on a fantasy short that came within that range, an oddity in itself! For one thing, I haven't written fantasy in almost 25 years and short stories are not my strong point. There's no award for winning. My interest was completely mercenary - the prize is an iPad, or two runner-ups get a Kindle, squee! So I went for it. Winners aren't being announced until November, but I'm trying not to get my hopes up. After all, I read stuff every day that I rate as good or better than my own.

But it got me thinking. I know various people who've entered competitions. I know you have to be wary about some of them. Does it really make that much difference to an author how many and what kind of awards they win? Does it encourage readers? Does it improve sales? Does it help you pitch a book if it won an award? I really don't know.

I've never been one for competitions but I've found myself looking some up over the past week. Maybe the fact that I've had my first book contracted by a publisher has finally convinced me I have something worthwhile of an award. That my lack of confidence is misplaced. Or maybe because I see so many of my fellow authors so excited over the whole process. Maybe I'm missing out on the fun. Whichever, I'm considering that next year I may put my book in for one or two contests. Anyone want to recommend some? :)

SFFS #2

 Welcome to another SFFS post and feel free to comment. I'm continuing with Merciful Darkness from last week, as Darcy confronts a dark daimon in the Sanctum. Just a note - Darcy is herself half-daimon - human with a daimon soul, so her opponent has just greeted her as 'sister.'

“You’re no sibling of mine,” she replied, holding her voice neutral. 

Off-key laughter echoed back. “All daimon-kind are kin, even those born to galesh.”

Darcy kept her silence. Always the same; taunts first, an attempt at trickery before resorting to a fight. And even though the daimon’s use of the slang term for humans, a slur on her tainted heritage, caused her a fleeting splinter of pain in a heart almost frozen, it was an old wound. One scarred over if never healed.

 © 2009-2011 Copyright Philippa J. Green All Rights Reserved

Want to join? It's easy. Go and sign up on the Science Fiction Fantasy Saturday blog (Twitter hashtag #SFFS), read the rules and have six sentences ready to go live on Saturday. Any speculative fiction is encouraged. :)

SFFS #1

Hello, and welcome to the very first SFFS posting - a blog ring of writers showcasing snippets of their speculative fiction best! Read, hopefully enjoy, and then comment at will. Better yet, join up yourself on the Science Fiction Fantasy blog here. 

This snippet is taken from a fantasy I'm currently working on called Merciful Darkness. Darcy is a daimon-hunter called in to rid a village of a dark daimon taking refuge in their religious sanctuary.

 

The only light in the Sanctum slunk down from the bell tower above and revealed little. The interior reeked. Darcy drew a slim silver blade from a sheath at her waist and held it close. From the smell, if the human host wasn’t already dead, it would have been a close run thing even without her intervention.

Sister … The greeting crawled through her mind and down her spine, followed by a shiver. The voice was pure malevolence tinted with dark magic.

Want to join? Check out the blog here for details on how to take part, and to find the links to the other participants. :)

Indecision

I don't know what to do. I've put off going back to submitting for reasons both legitimate and imagined. I've had my confidence hit rock bottom and creep back up again. And even though I said I wouldn't change it, having received a searing critique on the first 500 words of my main MS, I've attempted to rewrite it. And now the quandary.

I actually like several elements in the new version. But I think it's different in style to the rest of the book, even though it's been revised less than three months ago. So - do I insert the new section and then revise the rest of the book to 'match?' Do I stick with the original that I love, but that may be flawed? Do I accept that this may not be the book to try and launch my literary career with and submit my recently completed novella instead? Come back to my main MS later?














You see, in some ways I'm on a very tight personal schedule. I had planned to concentrate on submitting Keir to publishers up until July, as most quote their decision time as three months. Three months from July is October and the start of my next University course. If I have a request for edits or revisions to my MS from a publisher during that time, I hope to complete it before my course starts, or at least be able to justify time spent on both to my long-suffering husband. By September next year my youngest child will have started school, and if I don't have any prospects in terms of my writing then I will be busily job-hunting. No telling when I'll have time to write if I'm working and taking care of my family. I'll also need to do another literary course next October to gain my Diploma.


But things have conspired against me. My muse not only prompted me into writing a novella - Gethyon - which started off as something to publish as a free e-book (and a self-publishing test project) - but which became another potential candidate for submissions. Another quandary. On top of that, my muse then drove me to write a short story, something I'd convinced myself I couldn't do. And while I shouldn't complain about all this inspiration and having a handful of differing writing projects under my literary belt, it's delayed my plans. Add to that various illnesses, pc problems, a raking critique that left me so down I even considered quitting Facebook, Twitter and my blog, and the continuing pull between pursuing traditional publishing versus taking the indie route, and the time has been eaten away.



I need to do something, but I want to focus on one thing. How do I decide? I can't do it all. I've jumped from one editing task to another. I've even been inspired to work on the other completed drafts which really could (and should) be left to a later date. It all feels like prevarication, that I'm still putting things off instead of knuckling down and making some real progress and solid decisions.



So how do I decide? I could post the two versions of Keir and put it to vote, but I usually find it's a split decision. How would you prioritize?

Friday Fiction #5

Don't worry about your wrinkles, mummy.


With a feeling close to resignation, I lift a jar from the bathroom shelf. It was a freebie - I didn't go out and buy it! This winter has dried my skin out in a way that can only be symptomatic of age. The number of years I lay claim to doesn't bother me, but dry skin itches, and while I don't believe in the benefits of anti-ageing creams, at least it should moisturise my skin. I dab my finger into cold, clinging whiteness and start to rub it into my face.
"What are you doing mummy?" my daughter asks. Eight going on eighteen, endlessly questioning, endlessly arguing. I like that she wants to know everything and has a spark, but sometimes her stubborness is overwhelming. She gets that from me though. "Trying to soothe a few wrinkles, honey."
"Oh, but wrinkles don't matter. Everyone gets those."
I make a face at my reflection, temporarily worsening the lines in my skin. I'm glad she has such a philosophical outlook on the realities of life. It's a good, sound mentality to have. "True."
"Besides, when you're dead, no-one will see your wrinkles."


© 2009-2011 Copyright Philippa J. Green All Rights Reserved

Friday Fiction #2 - Canapes and Sprite

This is a piece composed from fixed sentences set by the post A174 group. We're attempting to keep the momentum from our course going by using some of the exercises we were set, and working through some from the course book for the next. I've highlighted the sentences we were given that had to be included - the rest are those I've added to make the story. Hope it works! :-P


The inquest was long and detailed but inconclusive. The cause of death had been strangulation by person or persons unknown. I knew who it was but couldn't prove a thing, not now. Freya was a force of nature – literally – a forest sprite. She was thoroughly unprincipled and up for anything, even murder. If only I had realised what I was getting into when I met her.

The canapes were delivered just before noon. I set them out in the dining room and then looked at her. She said nothing as she stared back. The only sound was the clock tick-tocking on the mantelpiece. The sound of the clock chiming lingered for at least a minute after it finished striking the hour.

“I don't normally do this,” she said into the silence that followed.

“Don't do what?”

“Mix with humans.” She stared at me with those luminous eyes of hers beneath a wave of long auburn hair. Over the weeks that I had known her, those eyes had sucked out my soul, taken my will and left me nothing but hunger for all that I had lost. Her nihilism had led me to reject everything I knew to be right, to be just. To be human.

She looked down at her white hands in deep concentration and began to juggle at least five of the canapes. The careless grace of her actions, the sense that this was no effort at all for her grated on me. She never tried to do anything; she just did them. With an elegance that I would never have, she flipped them high into the air and then gulped down each in turn. I tried to compare her to a frog swallowing flies, but the analogy would not stick. She was too perfect. She was the princess … and I was the frog. A short clumsy human with frizzy chestnut hair, freckled face and brown eyes. That was why I had summoned her, and why now I was cursed with her until the end.

Suddenly she clutched her stomach. The canapes hadn't been a good idea it would seem.

“The things you humans eat!” she snarled and shot me a glare of molten silver before she dashed out into the garden and disappeared into the foliage. I hesitated. The guests would be here at any moment, and an angry forest sprite loose in the garden wasn't something I wanted to pursue right now.

An hour passed, and then another. I smiled my false welcomes at so-called friends, all of whom had betrayed me or let me down at one time or another. Inside a little glow of satisfaction warmed my heart and stilled the butterflies rollicking in my stomach. If only they knew what was coming. Freya's continued absence nagged at me in a litany of doubts, but we had arranged to meet later in the garden anyway. That had always been the plan.

“Hello Samantha.” The voice sent a whisper of chills up my spine. Forcing a wider smile onto my face, I turned. Josh. Another perfect being who had made me feel less than the dirt beneath his feet. My boyfriend only for the sake of a dare before he'd bragged about sleeping with me. If I had gone back home instead of remaining on the train, I might not have noticed his friends all sniggering and pointing at me the week before.

Hot hate replaced the chill but my smile stayed locked in place. A line of poetry flickered through my head. 'If words could kill would I continue to speak your name?' Oh yes. Definitely. “Hello Josh. How are you?” I touched him lightly on the shoulder and all expression leached from his perfect face. Freya's captor charm worked. “Why don't you come for a walk with me?”

I took his hand and led him out. He came as though welded to me. The sweetness of revenge sent the blood pulsing hot and hard through me until my head throbbed with it.

Creeping through the undergrowth she held her breath as she parted the over-hanging ivy. She'd waited anxiously for the past three days for this moment. Just as she had waited for the human female to utter the words she needed to enter this world. She wondered if she should just give the whole thing up, return to the Fae without the human soul she needed for redemption. A return to disgrace and the stripping of her powers.

No. She wouldn't do that. The human's spell bound her to this task, but afterwards freedom and power lay ahead. The need for it burned in her faery heart in a way that no natural flame could.

A movement drew her gaze. Who was that tall, handsome stranger standing by the fountain? Was this the man Samantha had offered her in sacrifice? How delicious. How beautiful. He would be just perfect. She rose from the greenery and stalked towards him.

I led Josh to the fountain. Then I froze. Something swung from the great oak opposite that I hadn't expected to see until much later. Something that should have had Josh's blond hair, not the dark, glossy curls of whoever this poor sod was. You couldn't even rely on a nature goddess to be able to tell one human from another.

The body hanging from the tree was a warning to them all. A shame that it was the wrong one.

TMA 02 - Picture Imperfect

So here it is at last, just as my main character would say. This is the piece that I used for my final University assignment exactly as it was submitted - no corrections have been made based on the feedback I received from my tutor! Overall I was pleased with it, though I'd make several changes if I intended to use it in the future - it is as imperfect as its title suggests. And incidentally, the views expressed by John are solely his own and the bitter aspect of his character, and in no way my own opinions!

There it is at last. The house. THE house, in all its asymmetrical imperfection.
My eyes ache from hours of trawling through images on Google. A one-in-a-million chance, but I’ve succeeded. I flick through the directory on my iPhone. Within moments, I'm dialling the first estate agent in the area. 'Hello? I'm looking for a house in the Cotswolds ... it's not for sale, but I wondered if you'd approach the owner on my behalf ... money no object ...'
There's a flurry of confusion at the other end, but eventually they agree. I rattle off the address, and then wait.
'Hello? Yes. What do you mean, it doesn't exist?'
'I'm sorry, sir, but local sources inform us that the house in question burnt down over a hundred years ago ...'

‘But why are you so obsessed with finding that one particular house?’ Ian demands a few days later. Clearly our weekly meet-up to exchange the latest news is going to consist of him telling me to leave it well alone. ‘And you are obsessed. Don’t deny it.’
I sigh. I’m not going to deny it. It’s a good question.
‘I’m still looking for answers.’
‘John, you’ll be fifty-seven this year. I know being abandoned by your parents is going to leave a lot of scars, but, let it go. It’s too late now. What help is finding a house that doesn’t exist going to be?’
For a moment, we both gaze at a painting on the nearby wall. The coffee shop, a quaint little tourist trap in one of a hundred picturesque old English villages that seem to draw in the Yanks like wasps to a school picnic, sells artwork by the locals. Most of it is dross: demonic-looking corn dollies; musky-smelling pot-pourri mouldering in distorted pots hand-thrown by house-wives who believe imperfection is art; manic splodges of watercolour claiming to be landscapes; wind-chimes made from bent cutlery and glass beads. The painting of a house in distinctive honey-coloured Cotswold limestone, with gabled windows poking from the roof whose grey tiles are the only feature that prevent it from being the clichéd chocolate-box image, is different, strikingly so. It should be. I painted it myself.
‘Because that’s the house I remember; the earliest memory I have.’
‘For all you know, it was just another painting like yours on a wall somewhere. You were shifted around from one foster home to another for years after they rescued you from that rabid old aunt of yours. Maybe one of your parents was an artist. Maybe that’s where you get it from.’
‘Then what about the address? How could I have known that so perfectly?’
‘Memory’s a funny thing. You don’t know that it was “that house” at “that address.” No telling where you might have seen it.’ Ian pauses to drink his coffee, and in that brief moment of peace I sink back into the memory.

Me, too young to remember what age I am, running up a garden path towards that very house and charging in through the door. Then scampering along the hallway and grazing my elbow on the rickety wooden table half-way down, causing a flurry of letters to topple to the ground. My mud-covered hands grasp them desperately, trying to rearrange them into the perfect order they had been in before and hearing with dread the sound of footsteps clicking sharply on the wooden hall floor. A voice berates me, scolding in bitter tones. The letters fall again so I crouch down to reclaim them. Dirt from my fingers leaves grubby smears over them, marks that I know will cost me later. The hand-writing glares out in elaborate curls of black ink, dancing over thick, creamy paper of the very expensive kind. Words that carve their way into my mind. 7 Larkspur Rise, Little Dorrington, The Cotswolds.
Then there’s a whistling sound and the cane falls hard - thwack! I stare up into a face etched with disapproval beneath grey hair twisted into such a tight bun that it seems more like a sculpture of steel than anything natural. The anger in her eyes cuts nearly as deeply as the falling cane.
‘Stupid boy, careless boy! No wonder your parents left you, filthy child …’

‘And if it burnt down so long ago, there’s no way to check.’ Ian was saying, his words snatching me back into the present.
I shiver. Yes, memory is a funny thing. But the memories themselves aren’t funny at all.
‘The photo is recent.’ I murmur, watching his face to gauge his reaction. It’s almost like watching a mirror. Once in a while someone mistakes us for brothers; thin-faced, thick-nosed, both bespectacled, our brown hair streaked grey and eyebrows like deranged caterpillars. I think it’s the eyes mostly; we both have those very pale blue, almost colourless ones that tend to make people uneasy for some reason.
‘It can’t be.’
‘Colour photography wasn’t in general use before the 1960’s. So how could someone take a colour photo of a house that burnt down a century ago?’
Doubt flows across Ian’s long face, forging deep wrinkles of thought around the edge of his glasses. ‘So what are you going to do?’
‘I’m off to Little Dorrington tomorrow. I’ve booked myself into a B and B there, actually on Larkspur Rise. The old maid running it is a bit of an eccentric, but she’s an amateur historian too. She says she has some old photos of the village, some parish records and the like.’ Even though I’m pleased to have found someone with a trace of a lead, there’s still a sense of something out of kilter. Her voice on the phone had grated, like chalk forced across slate.
‘Have you ever thought about seeing a therapist?’ Ian asks suddenly. I find myself staring at him over the rim of my coffee cup, too startled to drink.
‘You think I’m crazy?’
‘I think you’re a talented artist.’
‘That isn’t an answer.’
‘Well, they say there’s a fine line between genius and madness.’
‘And you think I’ve crossed the line.’ I can barely restrain a chuckle. ‘I don’t need therapy; I just need some answers. I can remember the house, but I can’t remember their faces. There’s no record of what happened to them, or to batty Aunt Maud either. I’ve no other family, not even distant ones. I’m on my own.’
‘It’s never bothered you before.’
‘Things have changed. The mortgage is paid off and I’ve taken early retirement. I’ve money to do what I like. I want to know why my parents left me with Maud.’
‘You can’t go back into the past and reclaim them, John.’
‘I don’t want to go back into it. I just want to know what it was.’

After a restless night and no breakfast, I allow the TomTom to direct me on the seven hour car journey to Little Dorrington. Listening to the monotonous tones fails to keep my mind distracted from the strange thoughts churning within. Has the house really been destroyed? And even if it does still stand, if the estate agent got it wrong, would the current owners know anything of its past? Perhaps Ian is right, and it’s madness to even consider trying to discover the truth now. Perhaps I should be looking for a therapist and not the ghost of a memory.
Larkspur Rise is the very first side road on entering the village. As I drive past the rows of houses I count the numbers, where they can be seen. The even numbers run uninterrupted on their side of the lane, so I concentrate on the other side. There’s a wilderness of tall grass and brambles, a fortress of the stuff. Any ruins that might be there are swamped in overzealous greenery.
Then the housing begins again. The first has a name, not a number - Barley Meadow Cottage. The next is so drenched in pernicious dog rose that I can hardly see the door, let alone read the number, but its neighbour is trimmed and maintained to within an inch of perfection, a brassy 13 daring me to even think the word ‘unlucky’.
Some of the tension eases. There’s no number seven, just as the estate agent said. The lane curves onwards between a mixture of peeling white picket fence that looks like it has a bad case of eczema, and dry stone walls threaded with moss and the tiny mauve flowers of ivy-leaved toadflax.
Around the bend, the last house stands alone, the B&B signed screwed into the wooden fence. I stare. The address isn’t the same. This is Larkspur Rise, but it’s seventy-seven, not seven. And yet it’s the house. My house.
‘Arriving at destination …’ the Satnav announces, snatching me back to reality. My breath is catching in my throat, an ache deep in my chest as I slow the car to a halt. I don’t want to move, yet I’m leaving the car and entering the gate as if I have no choice.
Aunt Maud answers the door. The grey hair is still moulded into the tight knot, the eyes knifing through me. The face is still grim and grey, but now I can look her in the eye instead of her glaring down at me. She hasn’t changed in all those years - how? The world seems to shudder. Or perhaps it was just me.
‘Well, well, John.’ Aunt Maud greets me. ‘Seems you’re not such a stupid boy after all.’

© 2009-2011 Copyright Philippa J. Green All Rights Reserved

Sadness

Apologies for the long silence - wow, this week has been chaos! Aside from being ultra-busy, I didn't have much worth sharing - I'm not attempting to go for 'most boring blog of the year'. I have a couple of great things coming up shortly - for now, I just have another piece from my course to share with you. Again, it was something I felt a certain resistance in writing. Having spent the last 15 months writing pretty much what I pleased, being restricted to a theme and to a word count is certainly providing me with the challenge I sought. We were asked to choose an emotion and use it as the title, but to write the piece without abstraction ie we needed to 'show' not 'tell', something I've struggled with and that I have seen other writers suffer too. You can tell me in the comments if you think I succeeded or not!

Despite the drizzle, the open plaza of Culver Square positively buzzed with people. The fountain in the middle had been vandalised again with a heavy dose of detergent, foaming manically with the bronze figures at the centre hidden behind a mass of bubbles. The grey of the flagstones, of the circular fountain and the miniature carven temple at its heart matched the steely gloom of the skies above and the faces of the passers-by. Around them, a mixture of clothes shops, little cafes and the inevitable phone retailers marked the boundary. Alone on a stone bench that ran the circumference of the fountain, Marie roughly scrubbed the tears from her face with balled fists before hugging her raised knees close to her chest once more. Her hands, white against her black clothing, clutched at the fabric as if on the verge of ripping it apart. In deference to the weather she had drawn the hood of her Gothic coat over the lank tendrils of her hair, but it failed to cover her head completely so that the black make-up streaking her face was clear for all to see, if any had cared enough to look. For the most part she kept her head bowed, but occasionally she would glance up fleetingly and scan the faces of those in front, quickly looking away even if one met her gaze and tried to hold it. Again, she smeared fresh tears from her face, smudging the running mascara even further until it seemed as if she wept tears of shadow. Finally she rested her forehead on her knees, the odd sniffles turning to deep sobs and her shoulders shaking with the force of them. No-one seemed to hear her cries. No-one seemed to care. No-one came near.