…Annnnnnd it's out! (A Fistful of Water, + some other notes)

It's out! It's out! It's finally out!

"A Fistful of Water (Chronicles of Marsdenfel: Book 3)" by Misti Wolanski on Ganxy

A Fistful of Water is available now, for $2.99—and that price is going to change back to $4.99 any day, now, so if you want to get the e-book, now's the time. You can find it on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, elsewhere…

Not in print, though. I've been, um, slacking a bit on that. (I have reason! I've been having a formatting detail that I can't quite get right.)

The first draft of the sequel, A Fistful of Life, is hitting the climax on Wattpad, too. That means I'm likely to have the first draft done this month, and it's possible that I'll have the book out by New Year's. Possible. Don't know if I'll make that deadline, though.

…And I really do intend to post things other than release announcements. I even have another lengthy, thought-provoking post (with definitions!) all drafted up, which likely won't get posted until December. (The reason will make sense when you see it.)

But anyway, the first note I really have to address is that I may not be able to post much until December, even if I manage to keep on target with my goal of releasing something every 2 weeks. I pretty much have some major things I'm working on, which mean I need time and energy, which means I have to give something up. (Having said that, watch me post somewhat regularly over the next few months…)

Second note: As I type this, I am feeling better than I have in weeks or months. I pretty much have realized a few details were leaving me vulnerable to infection, so I'm working on correcting those things. I have energy. I was able to do some cleaning and not feel as if I needed a nap afterwards. (I actually stopped yesterday before I started feeling worn by it, for fear that I'd drive myself into a relapse. I'll be doing more today.)

This comes after discovering a really weird remedy for a cold, which I'm going to try using as a general preventative: onion. Specifically, onion against my feet, in a pair of socks.

Erm, Huh?, right? That's what I was thinking when I first heard it. But I'd tested just having pieces of onion out by me when I was sick, and that had resulted in palpable improvement, so I figured I might as well try a piece of onion in my sock. I was peeling a new one, anyway, right? So I broke two palm-size pieces off the outer layer of onion, stuck one on each foot, put socks on to keep them there, and…

I was feeling noticeably better within the hour.

How/why does it work? I've seen various explanations, but one is something to do with the sulfur. Maybe it's aromatherapy, or maybe the released vapors have an immune-boosting effect, or maybe folks are right when they say onion absorbs bacteria. I don't know, and I don't care. It works (for me, so far—I haven't tested it thoroughly, nor had enough other folks try it to get a sense for its general efficacy and limitations).

Presumably, white onion works better than yellow onion works better than red onion at this. Which is interesting. Red onion is best for allergies.

And then if the effective agent is the sulfur, the root should be more efficacious than the main part of the onion. I plan to test that.

Now, to jump back into a publishing topic… I've completely changed the covers on my Overhill stories again. They look a lot more professional now.

See? So much more professional.

But even with "For Want of Cruelty" being free, the stories essentially don't sell. (Small surprise, considering the old covers really sucked.) Hugh Howey's recent post on exclusivity presents the data on going exclusive with Amazon vs. being on all vendors, and per his math, being on all vendors costs him readers.

I do not plan to go exclusive on Amazon with my Aleyi or Darkworld writing, but it occurs to me that if I'm going to unpublish anything from all other vendors and make it exclusive on Amazon—and I really cringe at the thought of doing that—then those stories are a fantastic choice for doing so.

I'm currently reformatting the innards of the stories to use the new covers. Once that's done, I'm thinking I very likely will pull them from other vendors and put them in Amazon's KDP Select program (and in the Kindle Unlimited program), unless you readers convince me otherwise.

So… Do you think I should make the stories exclusive to Amazon (for the time being)? Why or why not?

But if you don't want to influence my decision, here are some other questions:

Have you tried (or will you try) the onion remedy? Are you staying healthy? Are you looking forward to the finishing of A Fistful of Life?

—Misti

Chronicles of Marsdenfel Book 3: A Fistful of Water (and Other News)

A Fistful of Water is done!

Well, drafted. Now I'm putting it through Holly Lisle's "How to Revise Your Novel" class—or, at least, I will be, soon. I seem to be running short on hours in a day, lately.

For those of you who have followed me for a while, you're probably unsurprised that I'm now running a Kickstarter for A Fistful of Water.

But before you click away, this one's a bit different than my others.

First, this Kickstarter is intentionally designed to let you pick up the next book (or even the entire series) at a discount.

Second, this Kickstarter includes opportunity to get a collection of all Aleyi short stories—including the no-longer-available "Butterfly Boots" and one as-yet unreleased one—which will only be available through this Kickstarter.

For you readers of my blog, any donation amount will get you the e-book of the limited-edition story collection. Just comment here with your Kickstarter username or PM me there with your commenter name, so I can know who you are.

And I do mean "any". Minimum donation amount on Kickstarter is $1.

Of course, there's always the possibility that it won't fund, but one reason I am low on hours in the day, right now, is that I'm seeking to apply a marketing class I'm in to Kickstarter. Which means—

Well, I'll let it be a surprise. But I think you'll find it amusing. :-)

---

Now, for other news: My First Draft Fridays over on Wattpad is on hiatus for this week at the very least. Possibly for a bit longer, but it will be returning.

Non-Writing News: I made brine pickles. I dislike them, but I'm not sure if that's a matter of how I flavored them or that I just don't like brine pickles. Considering they were a bit salty and I don't care for saltiness, I'm assuming I don't care for brine pickles and will be attempting vinegar ones, next time.

Writing News: I'm also doing NaNoWriMo this year.

Well, sort of. I'm falling under the "Rebel" classification, this year, where I'm focusing on writing 50k words rather than writing a single novel draft. (The "Rebel" classification is allowable under the formal rules of NaNoWriMo, despite the name being short for "National Novel Writing Month". Speaking of the official name, that missing hyphen bothers me.)

I've designated November as a "Month of Finishing Things". So the sequels to Thrice Uncharmed and The Nymph and the Goblin, my "How to Focus" guide promised to those on my e-mail list for my study guides (sign up here), and my book on how to write essays efficiently that people have been nagging me to finish for years.

I expect that to be about 8k–10k words of fiction, plus 45k or more words of non-fiction. If I'm wrong about how long the non-fiction books will be, I have some short stories that can be added to the "to finish" list.

Have you reached a "finishing" step on any projects, lately? How are your projects coming along? Are you doing NaNoWriMo this year?

—Misti

Something Fun Happened Yesterday Morning…

So I've been poking in various Scrivener projects lately, one being where I keep the AMaC short stories—finished, in progress, and planned. Which reminded me that I never did update the covers for "Driven by the Deadline" and "Associated Accidents", and I had a sequel to the latter that was around 2/3 written. I realized how the climactic scene was going to play out (…politics? really?…) and jotted a note…

Well, yesterday morning, I thought, Yanno, let's just open this and see how far I get into drafting it.

By lunchtime that day, I had the rest of the story drafted—that's over 1.4k words—new covers for the aforementioned stories, and cover for the new story, which was drafted and titled, waiting for some time to pass for the edit read-through. (And did I mention that the cover-making included finding the images for two of the three, which came out of royalty-free stock images I've downloaded to my computer. Here's to hoping that I don't discover any oddities in the licensure once Sxc.hu comes out from maintenance, because I don't want to have to find new images…)

Because, see, I really like what I came up with for the new story. I found an image that, well, fit okay. But it would work better with some gang paint on one of the walls… so I painted it. And used the perspective tool (probably incorrectly). Then put it all through the "painting" filter in the G'MIC plug-in in Gimp, which ultimately makes it all look as if it belongs together, to my admittedly amateur eye.

*If anyone's noticing that I'm a bit…hyper, I'm typing this up Wednesday evening. I had a chocolate hazelnut smoothie this evening (my first attempt to sweeten something with dates) and taste-tested some sugar-containing chia pudding (which I'm attempting to make with some white chia flour rather than the seeds I usually use).

Anyway, this† is the kind of thing that makes more sense if you actually, you know, see what I'm talking about. (†The story cover, not the smoothie or pudding. Though pictures would be nice for those foods, too, when I share my recipes. Someday, I'll have a camera…)

So… Here's the image I started with (which will be updated with due credit to the photographer once the stock site's back up and I can actually find out who the photographer is):

[update 8/9/13: The photographer is Roger Kirby (theswedish) on Sxc.hu.]

And here's what I produced from it:

See what I added? ^_^ *does happy dance*

Is it perfect? No. But it's progress. I may never be a professional cover designer, but making my own is educational and relaxing. (For me, I admit; maybe not for you.)

It's a lot better than my first cover for "Driven by the Deadline" or "Romeo & Jillian", that's for sure.

Another fun happening yesterday: my order came in from nuts.com, a website my mother and I found that sells all sorts of flours, nuts, (dried) fruit, candies…by the pound. At better prices than you find a lot of places. (Things like chia are still pricy, but it's more like $12 per pound rather than $30 per pound.)

We've each placed our first orders—she got several gluten-free flours, while I got a bunch of dried fruit and nuts for smoothies. All their products have ingredient lists and "made in a facility with" warnings, and items are clearly marked when gluten-free (and when kosher and I think there's something else that gets marked, but I don't remember now). And a cool thing? My mother and I each got a sample bag of something else with our orders, and the sample bag? Was of something gluten-free, so we're assuming they actually paid attention and noticed that everything we ordered came from the site "gluten-free" section.

I made coconut milk for the first time, (I made the aforementioned chocolate-hazelnut smoothie), and I soaked some hazelnuts in readiness to make some hazelnut milk. (And I might have all the ingredients I need to make a protein bar recipe I've been wanting to try for months… I have to double-check how much hemp hearts I have. I probably need more of those, but I get those from Mountain Rose Herb.)

Have you done anything fun lately that you'd like to share?

—Misti

Some Updates for December 2012

First, A Fistful of Fire and A Fistful of Earth now each cost $6.99 for the e-book.

Second, I'm having website issues with Wordpress (on my main site—this blog is Blogger), and those issues are bad enough that I will probably be abandoning WordPress once I get a few spare days to write a new site layout. It's eating sections that displayed perfectly fine previously, and I can't seem to get the rollback to take. *sighs* WP just updated, though, so maybe that'll fix it.

Third, I should be getting a response soon from the latest magazine where I submitted "Kill Jill". If it's rejected, I'll be self-publishing it. It's even prepped and ready to go, so watch for that.

Fourth, I've self-published a dark fantasy novelette. This is dark, disturbing, not for kids. If the "Donkeyskin" fairy tale bothers you, avoid this novelette. Otherwise, you might like this slaughtering of "Beauty and the Beast" of about 11,600 words / 65 pages, available in electronic and print format.

Electronic Format: $2.99 US

Amazon US | UK | DE | FR | ES | IT | JP | CA | BR

Barnes and Noble

Kobo

Smashwords

All Romance Ebooks | Omnilit

DriveThru Fiction

Print Format: $6.99 US

CreateSpace (I get a larger % if you buy direct from there.)

Amazon (Might suit you better if you're seeking Christmas gifts.)

Fifth, Captain Morgan's spiced rum is pretty good, but I think I like coconut rum better. (Couldn't resist an alcohol comment on that one.)

Sixth, did I mention I hate WordPress and will probably be redoing my site from scratch?

Seventh, I'm hoping to soon finish a companion story to "A Blackmail and a Birthday"—namely, what exactly happened a year before that when some werewolves tried to eat Ember. I'm hoping that finishing that story will assuage my subconscious's desire to explore a particular related one that's a good twenty-five years (story timeline) down the road… (Lord willing, I'll get to writing it eventually. Likely not for a few years, though.)

Eighth, I need some funny but morbid music, along the lines of "Oh, Michelle" or "Mad Science Love Song" by Seanan McGuire, or "None Too Ladylike" by ApologetiX. Anyone have any specific recs?

Ninth, I need that music because all my major projects on my to-write list are at emotional low points. Usually, I can bounce between a happy moment and a downer one. But right now… I have one narrator who's borderline suicidal, and another who's angry, bitter, and shortsightedly dumb enough to ruin multiple lives along with her own.

I may take a break to write something about someone who's, yanno, emotionally healthy. Or maybe I'll get on a "Let's hang out with the loonies!" kick and knock most of it all out at once. We'll see.

Tenth, I'm seriously considering a side business of making allergy-safe lip balm. It's fun to make, and most lip balm contains things that aren't good for you or that aren't good for me. (Anything ending in –paraben isn't good for your skin. It makes the item feel nice, but it's bad for your skin.) I can easily make my own, but recipes produce along the lines of 5–50 tubes at a time, so it wouldn't take much before I would be swimming in lip balm, so starting the business would really be just setting up something I do anyway so I could make money instead of losing it.

If I did start the aforementioned business, I'd publicly post my recipes so that anyone who wanted to could make the lip balm, themselves. I'd also want to offer customability—for example, if you're allergic to apricot, I could whip up a batch with something like olive oil, instead of apricot kernel oil—but with unshared plastic equipment. Metal and glass can get allergens cleaned off. Plastic…not so much. So I'd either need my lip balm fill trays marked with specific things they're for—and that's if I didn't just fill tubes by hand. (It's doable, although a bit messy.)

You have any particular plans or news or goings-on you'd like to share? Or do you have any particular reaction to any of the above points? Or perhaps a question or something you'd like me to address in a future post? ^_^

—Misti

News: A Fistful of Earth + CreateSpace Editions Are Here!

At long last (and as some have already discovered), A Fistful of Earth is here—and so is the print edition for A Fistful of Fire (with the print version of A Fistful of Earth in the final stage before release)! (Er, a print version is also available for "PRIMpriety", if you're interested in that one.)

And as a bonus for my blog readers, use the coupon code G55ELYAK to get a discount on any of the CreateSpace titles. (Note that this code will not last forever, so get the discount while you can!)

The e-book versions of A Fistful of Fire and A Fistful of Earth cost $4.99—a price that won't last forever. In a few weeks, I'll be raising the price to $6.99 per e-book, which is still a deal compared to the costs of what publishers like Ace charge for the genre ($7.99+), and compared to the cost of the print version.

Enough said on that front, methinks. Wouldn't want to start sounding whiny or apologetic. ^_^

So, if you want the books (and remember to use the coupon code G55ELYAK if getting the print version):

Print Versions:

• A Fistful of Fire
• A Fistful of Earth – ETA live link @ 11:06 AM EST.
• PRIMpriety plus bonus stories

A Fistful of Earth E-Versions:

• Amazon US | UK | DE | ES | FR | IT | JP
• Barnes & Noble*
• DriveThru Fiction
• Kobo
• Omnilit | ARE
• Smashwords
• XinXii

*The Barnes & Noble website seems to be having some trouble, due to Hurricane Sandy. So if you want to buy the book from the B&N store, I would recommend waiting at least a few more days, first. The cover's gone AWOL and the EPUB file seems corrupted, and the system won't accept my re-upload.

So. Here we are: All caught up (finally!) from that Kickstarter thing. (Well, except for two donors who won't give me the info I need to give them their particular bonuses, but that's not my fault. You two know whom you are. *poke*)

If I hit my writing goals for NaNoWriMo*, we'll see about either audio versions (or a Kickstart for audio) being next… Assuming anyone's interested in audio? I've already been chatting with some narrators and running the numbers for it, and audio is a whole lot cheaper than translation (which is…expensive).

*For anyone who doesn't know: NaNoWriMo = National Novel Writing Month, wherein a bunch of masochists get together and seek to write 50k words in the month of November and often discover how doable it is.

Not that I always write 50k words per month—yeah, I suck at those goals—but I'm going to try setting it as a time goal, this coming month. I suspect that might work better.

What do you most want to see from me next (on the blog, as a released story, etc.)? Would you be interested in audio versions for my fiction?

What will you be writing or reading, this month?

—Misti

News on A Fistful of Earth + some author recs

A day late (but hopefully not a dollar short), here's the announcement I didn't get to make yesterday:

The e-ARC is out for A Fistful of Earth, for those who participated in the Kickstarter campaign!

What's that mean for those of you who weren't around or who were unable to participate? The official e-book should be out soon—"soon" meaning "in the next two weeks".

And with that, the POD books will also be coming out. I'm working the kinks out of A Fistful of Fire now, which gives me the template for formatting the POD for A Fistful of Earth, too.

So, here we are! Despite so many delays that I am downright embarrassed, the end is at hand! (And I will not run a Kickstarter for an incomplete book again, until I get a better handle on how long it actually takes me to finish a rough draft, rather than just math based in how quickly I'm capable of finishing a rough draft.)

Thanks for bearing with me!

On other, sort-of-related news, Lindsay Buroker (Emperor's Edge series: steampunk fantasy), Seanan McGuire (October Daye series: urban fantasy), and Shanna Swendson (Katie Chandler series: chick lit fantasy) all had books release recently, all of which I highly recommend. (I think there's a theme going on…)

If y'all want me into go into more detail than "I liked 'em. If the blurb interests you, you should like them, too," I will, but I'll say this much about those authors: Despite getting several books into all three series, I find the most recent books just as good if not better than the predecessors. (In fact, I'd argue that all three series get better with every book.)

Of course, having read all those in release week (and thanks to an ARC from Lindsay, I read that one pre–release week…), I'm now chomping at the bit for more.

What about you? Do you have any books or series that you're eager to see continued or eager to read?

—Misti

What's Up with…Er? Which Project?

No, I have not forgotten about A Fistful of Fire's paperback editions, nor getting A Fistful of Earth published. Nor have I forgotten about… Just see the list below for updates on everything.

• A Fistful of Fire has gone through a very careful re-proofreading process as it's been formatted for paperback, because somewhere in publication I screwed up and uploaded the wrong file. I've also compared the current file against the various other ones to make sure everything's included. I'm also making some formatting changes (like smart quotes) that mean I have to watch for newly inserted errors, like quotes turned the wrong way.


• A Fistful of Earth has finally gotten the results from the "Does this story work?" check. (Long story short: It "jinxed" the first 3 first readers.) Now it's going through editing. After editing comes ARCs to Kickstarter folks, proofreading and formatting and finalizing the cover. (I have the image; I just have to put the typography together—and there are some slight things I'm considering changing about the typography that'll affect the cover for A Fistful of Fire.)


• A Fistful of Water has the basic plot outline. (For me, that means notes jotted of major events, including where the story will end up—and the opening scene is started.) I've started poking at it enough to have a sense of the narrator's voice (Geddis). I've also started compiling that book's song listing. (Anyone have suggestions for songs about someone who feels neglected, bitter, and resentful that she gets ignored and that everyone complains about having what she'd give almost anything to have?)


• Destiny's Kiss will be getting a glance-through to convert it to smart quotes, etc., but that won't be an issue until…


• Know Thy Frienemy (Destiny #2) is the current to-write project. It's half written, so I should be able to finish drafting it in the next month or so, after which time I'll jump into A Fistful of Water.


• Short stories – I have several planned and started. A sequel to "Associated Accidents" that explains how Nirmoh so quickly became Silva's fiancé in A Fistful of Fire. Three shorts all stemming from "The Corpse Cat", which will reveal more about Emris and some side characters in Destiny's Kiss. I have probably a good score more short stories in various stages of completion, including some that would go under alternate pennames or would be (or are being) submitted to 'zines.


• A note on "Of Her Own": I'll be updating it in the next few weeks so it contains an excerpt from A Fistful of Earth rather than A Fistful of Fire. It will be free for at least a short time after that.

So. Now let's talk some numbers.

I've mentioned before that math isn't my strong point. I probably have some form of dyscalculia. If I don't concentrate, I will transpose numbers. I'm not talking the usual "Oh, I do that sometimes" that everyone does. If I'm not careful, I will transpose numbers. No "sometimes" about it.

Even when I'm careful, it happens more often than is normal, but it isn't completely debilitating. I still tend to double- and triple-check my math on even the simplest things. I also apply a lot of logic to my math: I estimate answers before I calculate, so I can quickly figure out when I transposed numbers in a fraction (again).

Still. Even I can see that A Fistful of Fire is about 20k words longer than Destiny's Kiss.

I've mentioned before over on the blog version of A Fistful of Fire that the sequel will cost $4.99 US when it comes out. That's true.

But A Fistful of Earth will only cost $4.99 for 1–4 weeks.

After that, I'll be bumping up the prices for both A Fistful of Fire and A Fistful of Earth by a dollar or two. (So A Fistful of Fire will cost $4.99 or $5.99 and A Fistful of Earth will cost $5.99 or $6.99.) Then, when I release A Fistful of Water, I'll look at the prices again.

Now, why did I mention that A Fistful of Fire is longer than Destiny's Kiss?

There's a growing knee-jerk reaction against too-low prices (even in me as a reader). That $3.99 price point of A Fistful of Fire…is starting to feel too "bargain bin". The book's already available for free as a web novel, which is something I mention openly. I even link to it at the start of the book.

I think $0.99 is fair for a short story of 2-4k words. Those of you who've bought one of mine obviously agree, because you haven't left scathing reviews protesting the lengths and/or price point.

Even Destiny's Kiss, my shorter novel, is over 10 times the length of one of my short stories.

That was why I first raised the price on Destiny's Kiss to $4.95. The sales rate has stayed the same if not increased slightly, so I don't think I've found the ideal price for that audience. (Actually, looking at comparable titles' prices, I've not yet decided if my next move will be to try $3.99 or to shoot higher on that one, to give fair warning to anyone interested in buying it.) I'm not planning on entering Dean Wesley Smith's current pricing scheme—but then a year ago, I never would've put Destiny's Kiss up for $5, either, which is what he was recommending then.

I might just change my mind and start following his pricing recommendations. We'll see.

Some folks scoff at Dean and his wife (Kris Rusch) due to their ranking on the Amazon bestseller lists, which evidently suggest they aren't selling all that many copies a month, but those people seem to forget that other vendors exist. Some authors actually sell better on vendors other than Amazon. Also, consider that an author would have to sell 16 copies of something at $0.99 to equal the income of 1 sale at $7.99 (which is still a reasonable price for a novel, which provides more entertainment time than a $10 movie at the theater).

Dean and Kris aren't dumb. They know business. So when they talk, if I disagree, I sit up and listen and figure out why I disagree. Sometimes, it's because we're at different stages in our careers or have different goals. Sometimes, it's because I'm being dense.

And sometimes, I can't figure out which it is.

I say all this so my fellow writers can know what one of their peers is thinking, and so my fellow readers can have fair warning that my prices are going to change, most likely to go up. (So if you've been eyeing one of my stories, you might want to get it now—unless we're talking about "Of Her Own".)

If you've read any of my stories, which one(s) do you most want to see a sequel/prequel for? What character's your favorite? What off-screen situation or event do you want to see a story for?

And what price do you think too high for a short story? How about for a novel (e-book and print form)?

—Misti

Update on A Fistful of Earth

After many false starts and much confusion when my subconscious and conscious understanding of the story didn't match up, the end is in sight…

And remember that Kickstarter fundraiser I mentioned? It funded! So that means print copies will soon ensue for A Fistful of Fire and A Fistful of Earth, after my cover artist makes print-quality covers for them. (As things stand right now, the plan is for her to just recreate the cover for A Fistful of Fire in higher quality, not to change it.)

Okay, so "soon" means a month or so, since the funds from the fundraiser won't reach me for 3 weeks, and I don't expect the cover artist to start working until I can pay her, and then there's the shipping time for the proof. (The onscreen preview thing can't function on my computer.)

But I already have the the innards file almost ready for A Fistful of Fire, and then that'll be the template for the innards of A Fistful of Earth.

I'm still tweaking some things like font and page size to try to keep it both legible and as few pages as possible, but right now, it looks like the paperbacks will be 5.25x8 inches and cost $9.99 each.

I'm trying to get the price lower, but I don't see how to do that without making the book the 6x9 size, which I don't like; or by making the book a bit hard to read.

And unfortunately, CreateSpace doesn't offer mass market paperback size. Lulu does, but I'd have to charge something like $15 a copy. For a mass market paperback. Ulgh. Not happening.

So here's where we are. Thanks to those of you who donated and/or helped spread the word, and even to those of you who just help with encouragement. Everything helps. ^_^

Now pardon me while I head to work on my day job and squeeze some working on A Fistful of Earth in. (I'm a freelancer, so I don't have to worry about anyone else owning what I do "on the clock.")

I hope your week's off to a good start!

—Misti

A Fistful of Earth Is Almost Here…

And maybe to be followed by print versions of both books!

I know, I know—I've been saying that awhile, but I have something new, something that'll let me fund the paperbacks (and maybe more?) even if I have another unexpected money drain pop up:

I've set up a Kickstarter fund.

If you've not yet bought A Fistful of Fire in e-book format, head on over to there to pledge $3 and get the e-book for a dollar off when the project funds.

If you're interested in A Fistful of Earth, head over to Kickstarter to pledge $4 and get the e-book for a dollar off, too from what the price will be when it comes out ($4.99).

Other items available include autographed bookmarks based on the book covers (no limits), signed copies of the paperbacks (limit of 10), and a character named after you in book 3 (limit of 1).

The amount I'm needing to raise? $500.

If the project is wildly successful, there's a possibility of hardback editions and audiobook editions, as well. (I've listed the needed amounts to definitely be able to produce each item over on the Kickstarter page.)

So. Whether you're looking for a deal on the e-book form of the stories, or if you're interested in signed copies, or you just would like to help me out, check out my Kickstarter page.

It ends on February 6th, before 8am EST. The project will only happen if I hit the $500 before the project ends. (The way Kickstarter works, if I don't hit that $500 threshold, nobody will be charged, and I won't get any money.)

I appreciate your help, be it by donating or by spreading the word.

Thank you.

—Misti

Plans for December 2011

#1:

I won't be intentionally releasing a short story for December. I have a reason for that.

…Because I've already had a story come out, in the first Saffina Desforges Presents anthology: "Primpriety", an urban fantasy novelette featuring a girl whose day's sleep gets interrupted by a murder outside her apartment that she can't stop, and things go downhill from there after she's bribed into tracking the murderer for the cops. And no, she isn't exactly what you're thinking. It's a completely different "world" from my Darkworld series.

The anthology is currently $0.99 US on Amazon.com. I'm not sure of its price elsewhere. I know there are plans to release it on other vendors, as well, but for now, all I have are the Amazon URLs:

• Amazon US
• Amazon UK
• Amazon DE
• Amazon FR

#2:

I'm working my butt off trying to get A Fistful of Earth done, like I promised. I had "writer's block"* for too long, because I wasn't firmly enough in the narrator's head, but… Well, that writer's block lingered for longer than it needed to, because I had some personal problems get in the way of addressing it.

At any rate, it's flowing now. Even if I don't get done for NaNoWriMo, I should at least have a working draft done by the end of next week.

That means…

#3:

I'll be trying to get A Fistful of Earth out when promised ("late 2011"), but that promised release might not be the final polished version. I have some ideas for how to work that, but we'll see how necessary they are.

#4:

I've commissioned a new cover for Destiny's Kiss. It's gorgeous and fits the genre. I look forward to revealing it (and my cover artist) to you.

But I can't. Not yet. Because…

#5:

I'm working on some stuff to coincide with the new cover's release. That's as detailed as I'll get on that right now.

#6:

Write 30k words in the month of December, finishing the first draft of the sequel for Destiny's Kiss. (See my nice little progress bar in the sidebar? I can't promise that I'll keep it 100% up-to-date, but I'll do my best to keep it close.)

#7:

I owe some of you folks reviews of your stories. (And then there are the folks who I've promised to read and review… You know who you are.) I'm hoping to do that this December.

What are your plans for reading and writing in December?

—Misti

*Just FYI, I consider "writer's block" to be the subconscious's last desperate attempt to nab my attention when I'm not hearing it scream "Something's wrong!" at me.

New Release: November 2011

I like all my stories, but this one marks a special time for me. I wrote it in-between wondering why I couldn't get A Fistful of Earth to work. Something was wrong, but I couldn't figure out what, because the main plot points were holding up no longer how I looked at them.

I decided to poke at how Lallie Nonsire, a probably baseborn girl raised in an orphanage, met her rulers and became friends with Silva Feyim, a girl who was daughter to the Prophet of the King and cousin of the ruling family. I figured there was a short story in there.

There was: a short story of 2,600 or 11 pages, entitled "Of Her Own". Writing the short story was the first time I felt myself completely in Lallie's head. Extrapolating from there helped me enter the head of the adult Lallie.

"Of Her Own" is available for $0.99 US from the "big 3" vendors (Smashwords, Barnes & Noble, & Amazon), and it'll reach other ones like Apple and Kobo over the next few weeks.

"Of Her Own"

All young Lallie Nonsire wanted was a quiet life, minding her own business and ignoring what she was by birth.

After her magic betrays her by saving a friend's life, she'll settle for escaping Saf before she's turned into a live torch.

But where can the child of a despised race go?

***A short story of 2,600 words or 11 pages.***

CONTAINS: Some violence.

You can find it at the following vendors:

• Smashwords (My own vendor of choice for buying e-books; get DRM-free files in multiple formats.)
• Barnes & Noble
• Amazon US
• Amazon UK
• Amazon DE
• Amazon FR

I hope you enjoy!

—Misti

ETA: I have no idea where my post title or labels went. I had them in here when I started the post. *scratches head*

New Free Short Story Release!

I know, it's past the first week of September—but I did in fact release another short story at the start of this month! (I just forgot to put up the announcement when I meant to, sorry!) It's even set in Aleyi, the same world as A Fistful of Fire.

"Driven by the Deadline" is about Fael Honovi and why she tied herself to the felven royal family, anyway.

Honovi knows she's going crazy. It's only a matter of time, since she's stuck in a monochromatic land of creepy.

She's a shade, stuck in a plane of reality separate from the primary one—and completely incapable of manifesting a body in the primary plane. With someone killing off the felven royal heirs, Honovi's been asked to play godparent. She'd love it, a distraction from the grayscale monotony that's her life.

But can she get there without her own plane of existence stopping her?

***A short story of 2,300 words.***

ALERT:
This title's on the creepy side.

"Driven by the Deadline" is a short short, hitting about 2300 words, so I have it up for free on Smashwords, who will distribute it to other vendors. It's currently $0.99 US on Amazon.com.

I'm still working out what next month's release will be. A Fistful of Earth is more difficult to write than I expected. Lallie's… not the easiest character to convey. I'm still aiming for "late 2011" release, but it may end up in December. (I hope not.)

In the meantime, please enjoy "Driven by the Deadline"!

And reviews would be appreciated. ^_^

—Misti

A Case Study on Earned Critique: How to Take Negative Reviews (2 of 3)

Some of y'all might remember my post on why I pulled my self-published short "Butterfly Boots". The long answer went into my exposure to fan fiction vignettes and international literature making me produce something that didn't fit my audience.

The short answer? I screwed up.

Now, I realize most of you haven't read "Butterfly Boots", but that shouldn't be necessary. My 2 critical reviewers kindly gave me permission to reproduce their reviews here.

This is a Real Story? July 13, 2011

[by Michael P. Gallagher]

I'm not really sure what this was, although I do know I was struggling to figure out what was going on while reading it - and when the ending came I mentally said, "huh?" This something really had no plot, no beginning, and no end. It's almost as if someone just cut and paste a section from something and slapped it into an eBook.

I found it ironic, and chuckled a little, at the end of the story: there is a brief snippet on the author and it says the author is described as a person that "...took her a while to figure out that `finish a story' thing." No kidding. Can I have my five minutes back?

As I type this review, this book is free in the Amazon Kindle store but that shouldn't make you want to try it - there are several hundred short stories for free right now (just type in "short story" as your search term in the Kindle store section of the Amazon website, and sort from lowest to highest price); most of them are pretty good. This one deserves a wide berth, free or not.

Well... the cover is pretty... July 15, 2011

[by Betty Dravis]

I like the cover and the title of this "little offering," so thought it would be a fun read, one that I could pass on to my granddaughter Melissa's mother to read to her. She loves butterflies and has some cute boots of her own.

I've been warned that some E-books are not up to industry standards and can slip between the cracks easily, but this is the first time I've encountered one. Well, I have seldom been so disappointed in a book. It actually doesn't make much sense, which is too bad because the germ of an interesting idea is here... It is just not developed; the dialogue is jerky, it has no structure, and the punctuation is definitely not up to par. :-(

I hate to look a gift horse in the face (since "Butterfly Boots" - a short story (Aleyi) (Tales from Aleyi) was one of the FREE Kindle offerings), but I simply can't give this a good rating. I'm sorry to be so critical, but I will be happy to read something else by Ms. Wolanski after she takes a few more writing courses. She does, indeed, have a good imagination. :-)

Reviewed by Betty Dravis, July 15, 2011
Author of E-book "1106 Grand Boulevard" and other books

Now, before anyone jumps in and calls these two "mean," remember what I said in my last post, about bluntness not necessarily being mean.

Looking into these reviewers, I find it interesting to note that they're both significantly older than I am. I doubt they read fan fiction, where vignettes are popular. In fact, just the complaints on the lack of structure told me that these two weren't familiar with the vignette form of writing. My first impulse was therefore to dismiss their critique, because "Butterfly Boots" was a vignette.

But, after letting the sting subside, I gave "Butterfly Boots" another hard look. Yes, it was exactly what I'd meant it to be. Yes, it was a vignette. Yes, vignettes aren't a standard literature form (in English, anyway).

…And I had set "Butterfly Boots" up everywhere as a short story. Not vignette. Short story.

That's like calling first person POV "stream of consciousness". Yes, there are come similarities, and yes, they're related, sort of—but they aren't the same thing. Not at all.

I had screwed up.

I faced a choice. I could repair all the blurbs and descriptions everywhere for "Butterfly Boots" and still frustrate those readers who don't know what a "vignette" is supposed to be. Or I could pull "Butterfly Boots" until I had something more significant to pair it with. As a vignette, it didn't make much sense if you weren't already familiar with the world of Aleyi.

So why on earth had I released it as a stand-alone, a free introduction to my world? I have no clue. I've done stupider things, but I like to think that most of them haven't been as public.

At any rate, I therefore decided to pull "Butterfly Boots" until I could stick it as a bonus with something more substantial. Some folks have expressed disappointment that it's no longer available.

Now, one line in Betty Dravis's review still does bother me: "The punctuation [in "Butterfly Boots"] is definitely not up to par." I follow the Chicago Manual of Style with one British modification that didn't show up in "Butterfly Boots"—but "Butterfly Boots" did use dialect. Professional opinions differ on how to punctuate dialect and how to use it properly.

It was tempting to privately grumble (after checking "Butterfly Boots" again) that someone obviously didn't understand proper apostrophe use with dialect. And while that might be the case, something else occurred to me: I like em dashes and ellipses.

It used to be that those symbols (and accented letters) only showed up properly online if you happened to use the HTML code that matched that special character. OtherwiseÀyour symbols got all messed up.

But web applications have improved in the past 5 years. I'd gotten lazy. I'd left the special characters in "Butterfly Boots", so it's possible that they'd messed up and caused Miss Betty's comment. Possible. That's something I can try to fix with some basic use of TextWrangler and the Find… Replace function.

So I earned those critical comments. I also suspect that some folks will consider me "unprofessional" for sharing this story.

I say "Tough." Negative reviews don't have to crush your soul. Take a deep breath and see if you can learn something from it. It may not be what the reviewer intended, but there's a lesson in that review if you care to learn it.

The line between "professional" and "unprofessional" behavior has always confused me, anyway… probably because opinions differ on where that line is…

Post 3 to come: Why you want harsh reviews.

Have you earned a critical review? How did you handle it?

—Misti

Why I'm Pulling "Butterfly Boots"

I've considered doing this for awhile, when I compared the numbers of downloads to the number of reviews. But "Butterfly Boots" was exactly what I'd meant it to be.

Therein lay the problem.

See, stories must have plots—in English. Other languages, not so much. I'm a huge fan of Marco Denevi, who writes shorts that might be called vignettes, by English standards. (If you can read Spanish, you can check out my favorite, "Apocalipsis", here.)

I've been working on my concept of "short story" to make sure they have distinct genre plots (like my urban fantasy short "The Corpse Cat"). Unfortunately, I didn't connect the dots and realize it was a problem with "Butterfly Boots".

It wasn't until it finally went free on Amazon a few days ago and got two 1-star reviews that I realized: Hey, wrong story style for my audience.

So. I'm pulling "Butterfly Boots." If you have it, you can still share it—either to enjoy or to laugh at—but just don't sell it.

Sorry, all.

—Misti