Queen of Crows on Sale

Psst.

I am told there's a GM's Day Sale going on in ebook land. What does this mean to you? Why, it means The Queen of Crows is available at 25% off through Sunday, March 7.

So! If you've been debating whether to pick up the story, now's a good time to do so. Support your favorite independent artists -- at about $3.75, it's both cheaper than a Starbuck's grande caramel macchiato, and more fulfilling. ;)

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The Queen of Crows: Available 3/1

Today, The Queen of Crows was unleashed on an unsuspecting world. (I don't mean you, of course. You are obviously the handsomest and cleverest of all pandas, suspecting things left and right, hither and yon! It must be so, if you are perusing Monica's blogs over breakfast, and chasing down your evening snack with my own humble little scribblepad.)

But what is The Queen of Crows?, ask the poor, confused pandas who have just wandered in from the bamboo forest.  It is, of course, a digital-release short story by my good friend Monica Valentinelli. The story is full of magic and bones and fire and revenge, set on the eve of the real-life horror known as the Navajo Long Walk, and it is delicious.

In addition to the story, Monica has packed a selection of other goodies into the PDF: an original portrait by artist Leanne Buckley, author's notes on the story inspiration and her concerns on writing historical fiction based in another culture, a brief discussion about the main character, a crash course on her Violet War setting, and more.

Plus, you get my fabulous cover! And interior layout. And editing. Yes. So be a good panda and go download The Queen of Crows, won't you?

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Airship pirates, back to work, and the Queen of Crows

Will was right. There is something amusing about blasting Abney Park's Aether Shanties while trying to navigate the winter roads of Northern Indiana. A pirate airship would definitely fare better in this weather than my Corolla.

Yesterday was the first day back to work. It does suck, not being able to take the pain meds during the day. Both for the obvious reasons and for the fuzziness and exhaustion that follow during the evening. Unfortunately I've been back in insomnia mode for the last two nights, as well, so evidently all that recuperating last week used up my sleep minutes. Bah.

In less grumpifying news, I mentioned in an earlier post that the fabulous Monica Valentinelli drafted me to do editing, typesetting, and the cover illustration for her Queen of Crows project, which has been great fun. I'm slowly plugging away at my end -- even more slowly now that I've been essentially out of commission for a week -- but there has been progress. (For those who are either new to EFI, or may have stumbled across this post in a fit of whimsy, QoC is a short story set in the world of Monica's very cool Violet War novel-in-progress, Argentum. I do recommend checking it out if you get a chance.)

Artist Leanne Buckley is providing the character art for the QoC character, so I'm really looking forward to seeing how it matches up to the image evoked by Monica's writing. (M. herself seems thrilled with what she's seen so far.)  More details will follow soon on that project -- but in the meantime, here's a peek at the cover I did for the story (click to embiggen):

 

Mind you, I'll be the first to confess I'm more of a writer/editor/typesetter/webmonkey than a graphic designer.  I do like to play with Adobe programs, though, and this was a lot of fun, so I'm glad she talked me into it. I think it turned out pretty well (for an amateur!). 

Finally, this blog will be getting an overhaul in the next few weeks if I have time. There is much reorganizing and re-templating to be done. (I believe the Violet War site will see its revision first, though, so I'll post here when Monica has the new site up and running.)

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So tired...

It's been an exhausting week, and today was the worst of it. The snow-madness outside isn't helping much. I was ready to crawl into bed when I got home from work. However! The Monica has asked me to help out with a story she's going to be posting for sale soon.

Hurray for layout projects! They are my favorite. To me, text formatting is like ... a crossword puzzle, of sorts. Relaxing, finicky, tricksy and a good excuse to exercise the channel all the typesetting-perfectionist tendencies I try not to unleash on dissertation students. (I'm not sure they'd believe me if I told them that, though...)

The Monica has also asked me to assist with graphics and cobbling together a cover. This sounds fun, but is Very Hard Work when you're falling asleep and thinking half-awake thoughts about yetis and cookies (not necessarily in that order) as you peruse stock imagery sites. Hm. Perhaps I should put the perusal off until the weekend...

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Reason to Be Excited

The Monica let me read a revised version of the first few chapters of Argentum, which she's planning on sending out to publishers in the near future. I am currently unable to concentrate on making sense out of the jumbles in my own head right now, so it was a good change of pace to see how she's reworked the text so far since the first draft initially posted on the Violet War site. It definitely makes me want to flex the writing muscles a bit -- as did Otep's trick of posting an interesting photo on her blog and inviting her readers to "tell the story."

ANYWAY. I'm delighted to have a chance to witness M.'s progress on Argentum, and how the revision differs from the first draft. I wish her much luck and success on her hard work, and I hope she'll get a good bite when she's ready to start sending out the proposal packages.

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The Violet War -- book trailer

If you like modern mythic fiction, I highly suggest checking out Monica Valentinelli's free serial novel, The Violet War (Book 1 of the Argentum series). Monica recently posted a book trailer that gives you a good feel for the mood of the first book:

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