Tag Archives: bowlful of bunnies

Free Book Giveaway!

Well, okay, not exactly free, but I did get your attention, didn’t I? Stay with me, though, it may as well be free.

So, I’ve got ten copies of my collection of short stories, Bowlful of Bunnies, to give away to interested parties. I’d love to sign them and personalize them a little bit, too, and there’s only one thing I ask in exchange. I’m looking for sincere, honest reviews of the book, posted in your blogs or on Amazon or GoodReads, or wherever you’d like, because I’d love to see a few more out there. I wasn’t able to do a lot of leg work in promoting the book before it was out, but there’s no reason why we can’t make up for lost time, right?

Interested? Let me know! Shoot me an email at ellis.engler@gmail.com and let me know where I should send the book, and I’ll send it off as soon as I’m able. There’s no obligation to write a review, or no obligation to write it quickly, it’s a pretty soft “requirement.” But if you do read it and you are able to whittle up something honest and sincere, love it or hate it, I’d love to have the word out there.

See? Pretty much free. But a writer is not much without readers, so I want to take the chance to thank everyone who’s been reading, and everyone who just may start reading sometime soon.

Kill Two Birds with One Click!

For the Holiday Season, which is upon us in full swing despite the sad lack of snow outside of my window right now, you’ll have to forgive me a little bit of advertising. Or a lot more advertising to come, as I’m starting to try to get back into the swing of focusing on my writing career, suffering now due to the recent promotion in my actual career.

Either way, the holidays means gifts and, while I don’t have the resources to do much in the way of gifting, a really great gift to give your favorite independent author during this season is to buy a copy of their book for a friend. This way, not only do you make the author’s day by purchasing their work, but you’re also spreading the love to some other reader in your circle. It’s a gift that keeps perpetuating itself, too. The book reaches someone that the author might not have otherwise been able to reach out to, and, if they like the book, then they’re likely to reach out even further beyond the circle. It’s win-win!

Now, obviously, I’d want to encourage everyone to consider getting my own collection of short stories, Bowlful of Bunnies for a reader on your gift list. They’re short stories, so they’re sure to like at least one of them, and, if not, well, hey, maybe it will help them keep their Yule Log burning. See? Win-win!

So, please, if you’re wondering what you can get me for Christmas, there’s a real easy solution that might knock someone else off your list, too. Buy a copy of Bowlful of Bunnies, and it’ll leave me absolutely tickled and honored. And there might even be a gift for yourself in there, too. If I sell more copies, then I’ll be less tempted to make spammy promotional posts like this one in the future.

Win-Win-Win!

Back to Blog.

So, some of you may have noticed that things have been pretty quiet here at lsengler.com.

Okay, maybe not “pretty quiet.” More like “dead.”

You see, about two months ago, my computer went kaput thanks to an icky virus, and, as a result, I haven’t been able to have very good access to ways to type up posts and keep up with the blogs I like to follow. And, really, the longer you stay off the wagon, the harder it is to get back on. Thankfully, I have a roommate who doesn’t mind me sometimes ganking her laptop when our schedules have us home at different times of the day. Add to this the fact that I’ve just taken a pretty big promotion at work that requires a bit more time on the road and energy into the occupation, my brain hasn’t been as keyed into the strive for my writing platform as it used to be.

But it has gotten to a point where I’m ready to change that. I’m ready to get back to posting and back into the writing community that I’ve missed so much. There’s a lot to catch up on, but hopefully the usual patterns will come back quickly. I definitely won’t be posting as often as I used to, but I’ll be posting a lot more than I have been.

If anyone’s been wondering, I’ve been working on a few projects, too. Serpent in a Cage has taken a slight pause, partially for NaNoWriMo, which started out as a time travel/world jumping novel exploring the lives of Emalia’s parents (from my short story “The Space Between Worlds”) and became instead a rediscovery of my Ace Cooper mystery novels, thanks to a recent viewing of Skyfall (which was incredible). My horror story, tentatively titled Rosewood, is continuing along, as well. I’ve been reading a lot and I’m pretty far behind on reviews, so maybe a few of those will be coming up soon.

Speaking of reviews, I’d like to also send out a very big thank you to Grace over at Books Without Any Pictures for her wonderful review of my short story collection, Bowlful of Bunnies. I adore Grace’s reviews, and it’s a real honor to be among the great things she takes the time to read and appreciate. Definitely the sort of thing to make me want to get back in the game and assure my readers that I’m still in the game and striving to get out my next book.

Happy writing, everyone! See you around.

The “Look” Challenge.

Over at Frame Tale, Kate did a challenge post that she had come across that I just had to give a stab at myself. I love these little games, where you get the chance to showcase a little bit of your work. It’s also pretty useful for those days when you don’t have much else to write about, either.

So here’s how it works:

Take your current manuscript and find the first instance of the word “look”. Then post the surrounding paragraphs as an excerpt of the book on your blog. Lastly, tag five more blogging authors who you think would be a good choice for the game.

What I have typed of Serpent in a Cage right now is a hot mess; I’ve been doing my thing where I inflate the paragraphs to whittle down into more concise words later, but it didn’t seem fair to skip it entirely since a variation of the word “look” appears in the first page. However, I didn’t want to leave it at just a really rough draft, so I’m including Bowlful of Bunnies to it, too. Which also has a variation of “look” right at the beginning. Perhaps something I need to look into not doing so much…

Anyway, without any further ado, here’s a little snippet of Serpent in a Cage‘s rough draft, built around the word “look,” which so happens to be the beginning prologue, heavy and dense as it is in its current unedited state:

      “When she pulled her arm back, tearing the blade away from the soft, warm body, she just wanted it to be over. She wanted to collapse and close her eyes and finally rest, letting the weight of her steel drag her down to the floor, where she wouldn’t have to get up again until she was good and ready. The sweltering heat of the fire was almost as suffocating as the thick smoke that filled the air and choked her lungs, made her eyes sting and start to water. Overhead, the rafters strained with a loud, threatening crack, struggling to keep the roof held under the intensity of the heat. Underneath, there were pitiful groans from the scattering of bodies left for dead. It was a nightmare, something out of a hideous dream, and she just wanted to fall back and let it finally end. Close her eyes and perhaps, when she opened them again, it turned out it was all just a figment of twisted imagination after all.
      But she couldn’t stop. She had to keep focused, she had to keep moving. She had to find the others and make sure they were safe. Auferrix Ferrore gave her sword arm a quick jerk, shedding off some of the wet blood from the blade before it started to stick. Splatters of it landed in the fire and hissed like serpents.
      “Kadue!” she lifted her voice, calling out over the chaos and destruction. Smoke rushed into her lungs, and she gasped from the sudden pain, fighting against a cough. Scanning the area, looking for him, was useless; her eyes were so damp from the stinging smoke that they rendered her blind. She staggered forward, exhausted but determined. If only she could find a way out! In the fresh air of the cool evening, she could collect her thoughts and her wits. She could breathe and begin to see more clearly.
      The smoke was so dense, so thick, that she didn’t even notice the big, hulking man in front of her until she had practically collided into him. She stopped just short of contact; he has his arms lifted over his head, ready to plunge his axe down into a figure on the ground. Panic swelled inside of her as she realized she had no idea if the attacker was one of her own or one of the enemy, but if she did not act, the person on the floor would be just as dead. She moved on instinct, trusting her gut feeling and praying to the gods that she was right. It was justice; it was defending those who could not defend themselves, not matter what their position in this crazy war might be.
      “Firae, give me strength,” she whispered, as she always did before she braced herself for an attack. The axe started to fall, but it didn’t get far. Every action except the bulging of the man’s eyes stepped suddenly as Auferrix drove her blade firmly through his shoulder blades, through his heart, and then out on the other side. The tip dinted against his armor, and she yanked her blade out again.
      A moment passed where the man seemed to be suspended only by the last thin thread of Life, and he fell into a crumpled mass at Auferrix’s feet. She looked down on the poor, lifeless bastard, feeling only a small bit of pity while the heat swelled behind her with a crackle of fallen wood. After nudging the body with her toe, he thrust out her hand to the cowering person she had just saved, hoping she had slain the right one.
      “Come on,” she ordered, firmly, but hurriedly. The smoke had cleared enough that she could now recognize the face gawking up at her. Not his name, but definitely the person, the owner of the tavern they were in, the owner of the tavern burning down into a bloody rubble around them. She closed her eyes a moment to thank the gods and pushed her hand closer when he didn’t grab it. He was in a state of shock, that much was clear, having expected to be cleaved in half by the man between them. Auferrix barked out her next words to get him back to reality. “We have to get you out of here.”

And, as a bonus, here are a few paragraphs surrounding the first instance of “look” in Bowlful of Bunnies, which happens at the beginning of the first story, Dragon Rising, which means it’s nothing special because it’s exactly what you’d read in the book preview, lol:

     Possum, Rabbit, and Prairie Dog had all gone to the river to do the washing, and I had followed to watch them. The sun was bright in the cornflower sky, and hot, so after they had dunked the clothes in the gentle rushing stream, after they had scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed, they laid them out on the big flat rocks that had been soaking up the sun’s heat. There, the clothes would dry, basking like salamanders, and the girls would splash around in the water themselves, laughing and playing, tossing handfuls at each other until they were drenched and cooled. Then they, too, settled down in the long grass, turned their browned faces toward the sun and soaked it up.
     Quiet and still, I crouched next to a boulder too tall and round to be used for drying, underneath a fern for further shelter. I curled my tail in, which was the only way I could prevent it from twitching happily at the serenity of the scene. They had no idea I was watching; the three of them were such pleasure seekers that they had none of the carefulness and caution of their friends, who would have surely caught me. Rabbit was perhaps the most skittish of them, and her bright brown eyes flicked my way on occasion, her pert little nose wrinkling as it tried to pick up the scents carried on the wind. Mostly, though, it was just the sweet grass and the soap still floating by on the river, the fresh linen and the lavender flowers from up the hill.
     She looked at me at least three times, straight at me, without seeing me. My ears pressed back with the pleasure of my successful camouflage. The others wouldn’t even believe me when I told them that I was peering into the intimate, quiet respite of these three bright-eyed girls, knowledge so valuable that I would instantly be skyrocketed up in their ranks. If only Deer and Fox had laundry duties today! They, out of all the girls in the village, were easily the most eagerly sought after. Next time, perhaps I should try my stealth in the kitchens or the temples to see what other wonderful things girls did when they were alone, but I couldn’t imagine anything as splendid as their splashing and laughing, their hair catching in the sun as they tossed it freely around.
     And then they began to talk.

So there you have it. Apparently, “look”s appear pretty quickly in my work, and I hope you all enjoyed this…look (ah-ha!) of Serpent in a Cage. Don’t forget, I’ve got a really cool scary story/mystery contest running until the end of September. I’ll even give you a new prompt with the following picture, found at favim.com, accompanied with the word “clandestine“:

And, lastly, I have a few new subscribers! Hooray! So a shout out and a thank you to Meghan Elizabeth, Amber West, and Cheryl Moore! So good to have you all along!

RoW80 Check-In: More Like a Catch-Up.

“‘I smell Ssark on the wind,” Tayahyla said, her face made of stone. ‘That reek is unmistakeable, a hunting party, though a small one. Still, we’d better move quickly before they start taking to the idea of Human flesh to break their fast.’”

As you may have realized, not only did I skipp Sunday’s Round of Words in 80 Days post, but I’ve also missed a few regular days of posting in between. Sometimes, it happens. Sometimes, it happens especially because a person’s life is so busy she barely has time to do anything else except what’s going on. There’s been socialization. There’s been print copies to review. There’s been a trip to Michigan to plan. There’s been a lot of stuff at work. Oh, yeah, and there was a Labyrinth party.

Needless to say, I’ve been pretty busy. RoW80 is the writing challenge that “knows you have a life,” and that’s definitely become evident these past few weeks for me. So particular goals have gone right out the window, and I’ve been working more on vague projects instead. Here’s a look at what I’ve got going on and, once things settle a little, will have coming up:

-Serpent in a Cage: I’m plugging along at SiaC as usual. I’m just heading into a battle scene, which moves things along nicely, but shortly after this is another battle scene, and then that leads us into the BIG battle scene, and I wonder if it’s almost too much action. There’s stuff happening in between, though, so I guess I’ll see when it’s written! Since my trip requires a six hour train ride, I’m hoping to really blow through the rest of this chapter later today when there’s little else to do but watch the scenery fly by.

-Bowlful of Bunnies: The second print proof for BoB came in yesterday and it is perfect, so I’m estatic and excited and wish I had more time to sit down and actually formulate a marketing approach for it, but I’ve had no such time. I know I want to do some contests, maybe a give-away, that sort of thing, so planning that is on the agenda for my little “retreat,” too. It’s currently available at the CreateSpace store here for $5.99 USD, with eventual Amazon listing to follow in a few days. It looks phenomenal. I couldn’t be happier. And I’ll bet you’d be hard pressed to find cuter page markings than these ones, too.

-Potential Anthology: In a conversation with my roommate, the subject of a special, brief Halloween horror anthology came up briefly, and I’ve been toying with the idea of making it a contest instead of just a collection of whatever I could clomp together before October 31st. I still need to hash out a few details, but I would love to know if this would be something anyone would be interested in. You could submit whatever, there’d likely be a Kindle and print version, and there may be daily or occasional prompts for inspiration, ala the contest Morgan Dragonwillow ran not too long ago that had left me so inspired. Thoughts would be appreciated! If I decide to go for it, I’ll likely have more information available next week.

Those are the main three writerly things that have been occupying my mind in the (very) rare moments lately when I have time. Even today is jam packed with stuff (laundry! cleaning the cat box! job interview! packing! get to the train station on time!), but I’ve made myself take some time to do a little scribbling and a little reading, because I’ve missed the chance to do that and I’m so looking forward to this train ride at four so that I can do nothing but just sit and relax. Ahhhhh.

Still, I won’t complain. It’s been an awesome last few weeks, and I definitely can’t gripe about a day that includes the arrival of a perfect print proof and a phone call I’ve been waiting about for an interview for a promotion, with a brief little “mini-vacation” to follow. Life’s pretty good right now. A whirlwind, but I’m willing to let it sweep me up.

Needless to say, I haven’t been able to keep up with my fellow RoWers lately (though you can do so easily here). How is everyone else doing? Are you planning to get in some Happy Writing?

RoW80 Check-In: What Happened to the Weekend?

“     ‘We’re paying you to care about rescuing the girl,’ Estialog stated simply. ‘What happens afterwards is categorically none of your business.’
     ‘And if we have a moral concern?’
     Tayahyla snorted again, but held back comment. ‘An odd bunch of brigands,’ Estialog murmured, ‘to be concerned with morality.’
     ‘We never claimed to be typical.’”

As I was writing the title of this Wednesday’s Round of Words in 80 Days check-in, I’m thinking to myself, “But, L, it’s Wednesday. You’re halfway to the next weekend already.” And that just really highlights how busy last weekend has felt, in the fact that my brain is still back there on Sunday or something, while time rushes on through to the next weekend.

I’m used to the weekends being busy and a little crazy; it’s par for the course when you work in retail, and it’s usually the weekdays that mean relaxation, especially the earlier, mid-week days that aren’t so hot for shopping. There’s a lot of crazy, exciting things going on where I work, so everything’s in a whirlwind, things are really crazy, and I was really looking forward to spend today getting back in touch with my writing, and then a coworker asks if I can cover for her tonight. Sigh. This means working six days this week, including one day for 9 hours in an 11 hour span (I got a 2 hour break in between, half of which was driving between locations). I want to shake my fists and just yell “ARRRGGGH,” but I know that this is just the start. There’s a good chance things will get crazier, so I’m bracing myself.

And using all the wonderful writing and reading to keep myself centered and Zen. Everyone’s been noting how I really seem in control of my shit lately, and I intend to keep in control and ride through the chaos like an unfappable breeze of serenity. And I think it’s my writing and the fact that, no matter what happens with my Day Job, things are happening with my Dream Job, too, and that’s just incredible.

The print proof for Bowlful of Bunnies arrived the other day, which is such a trip. I took it to work and showed it off to everyone, too, but I think I want a much smaller size, so today I’m reformatting and resubmitting it for review. Part of my brain wanted to just go with what I have now, but then I had to remind myself that patience is a virtue. While it would be exciting to start shilling this print version now, it’s much better to make sure it’s exactly what I want it to be before I let it out in the world. CreateSpace was incredibly fast…much quicker than they had projected…so I doubt I’d have to wait too long again. Plus, the excitement gets me in a fabulous mood, and, whenever I start to get irritated, all I have to do is think about how, in a few days, I’ll have a print proof of my potential book that people without Kindles can actually buy, whaaaaaat?

I’ve been plugging along with Serpent in a Cage, too, finally getting to the point where I think the dragging middle expositionary section gets back into the action again, which should pick things up. I played around with the idea of bringing in Tayahyla as a narrator again, but I think three is enough for now. Her story can be told better in the next book. I’m also poking at Soulless, the haunted house, and the western with dragons a little bit, too, and wondering if I should skip NaNoWriMo this year or go for it. There’s still time, I must remind myself. People are already talking about it, though, which gets me flailing slightly. I have trouble refusing a challenge when it’s presented, yet maybe I should force myself to show some restraint. We shall have to see.

I’ve still got those book reviews to do (I’ve realized that I’ve been putting them off because I don’t particularly like doing negative reviews, and these ones are not glowing, no), but, other than that, all my attention has been mostly on BoB and SiaC and this craziness that is my life lately. Next week, I might be taking what I’m going to call a brief “writer’s retreat” for a few days, and that should definitely help me anchor my center through the chaos…and allow me some uninterrupted, undistracted chunks of time for writing!

How everyone else doing? Did you get a chance to check out any other RoWers today? (If not, you can find them here!) I’m off to do more formatting and reading and scribbling.

Happy writing!

RoW80 Check-In: The Waiting Game.

“Locke grunted, trying to hold down his irritation. ‘Men lie, Majani,’ he said, ‘and quite often, and that’s why I ask. You didn’t honestly believe us to just blindly follow anyone with enough gold into caves and secret dungeons, do you?’”

I wasn’t sure if I was going to pull off a check-in post today, but, thanks to an agreement that has me working all day tomorrow, I was released from work early today and could have enough time to pen this after all. It’s not going to be much of an update, a little quick and dirty, but things have been going really, really well. Not so much with my Round of Words in 80 Days goals, but with life in general. And I’ve strayed a bit from the goals, but other accomplishments have surfaced, which makes me feel a little better about it. Especially since the whole point of RoW80 is the flexibility.

I’ve been doing really, really well with a-page-a-day on Serpent in a Cage, although I feel this chapter is kind of a hot mess. I’m just going to keep plugging along. This is the boring travel chapter, where I have to rely on character interactions to carry it, and I don’t think I’m doing as well as I could be with that. However, that’s what edits are for, right?

I started transcribing what I have for SiaC‘s sequel, too, and, oh man, is it bad! It’s almost kind of funny. It was last year’s NaNo, so, when I was writing it, it was all about word count. SiaC is still my main focus between the two, obviously, but I’m really going to have to roll up my sleeves when I get to cracking down on this one.

But the real catch in my recent progress is that pesky song of the Muse. Sometimes, I feel like I have practically no attention span at all, but my Muse makes me feel like I’ve got the focus of a GOD. Lately, two of my previous WIPs (Soulless with the zombie dystopian world and the one with the super haunted house) have been calling to me, and, not wanting to ignore them, I’ve embraced them with a little bit of scribbling here and there, too. Now, I know I’ve talked a lot about how I was going to push back the fear of finishing Serpent in a Cage, but a part of me still feels, “Maybe not yet…” So if either of these WIPs continue to demand my attention, I might switch my focus again, but we shall see.

I’ve also got two book reviews that I’ve been lazy about writing, and another one to come up shortly, too, so the reading’s going well, too.

And the most exciting news of all?

The print proof for Bowlful of Bunnies should arrive sometime this week. Wait. Did I say print proof? I do believe I did! I’ve finally hopped on over to CreateSpace to give their program a try, and so far, I am incredibly impressed…as well as completely flabbergasted by how incredibly easy it was! Granted, I haven’t gotten the print yet, so I don’t yet know how it’s going to work out, but if it does….having a print version of BoB is going to open a lot of doors. I have a lot of exciting things planned, and I can’t wait to get them started. Definitely stay tuned!

And, in the meantime, why don’t you hop on over here and visit my fellow RoWers? You’ll be glad you did.

Happy writing!

Whittle the Days Away

I’ve noticed these posts where I talk about myself have been kind of popular lately, so, guess what. You’re going to get another one. I was going to take the day off from the blog today, but then I thought I’d write about my feelings instead. Lucky you.

What’s prompting this sudden burst of familiar revelation is that these past few days, I’ve been feeling a little at a loss. I feel like I’ve wasted, squandered, and otherwise completely threw out two very perfectly good days by not doing anything epic or interesting. I (gasp!) watched consecutive hours of television. I (shock!) munched on chips and chicken nuggets instead of having regular meals. I (horror!) didn’t hop into the shower until about ten in the AM. I lazed about and only nitpicked at my writing projects and barely made any progress on my cleaning, I had the chance to go out and do something and instead wallowed away in my apartment as lethargic as the cats who were puddled at random spots on the floor in an epic display of pure apathy for the world outside.

What a complete waste of two free (technically three since I only helped out for about three hours on Wednesday) days.

Except that it wasn’t. That’s the funny part, because, while, yeah, okay, I was pretty lazy, I still managed to get some pretty epic stuff done. I read a lot, which is always nice, and even if I had wanted to go somewhere, I don’t have the money to spend on a trip to the zoo or the museum, which is what I would have wanted to do on a day off. Besides that, I formatted an entire book, built the second half of a cover, submitted it for review, and ordered a print proof of Bowlful of Bunnies. The print proof for an actual print version of my book is currently on its way to me and should be arriving in the next week, after which I will look it over and decide if it’s ready to hit the presses. And then I will have a print book. As exciting as publishing for the Kindle has been (don’t get me started on my attempts to publish on other formats, though, yeeeeesh, B&N why do you hate me so?), the prospect of an actual physical book still leaves me astounded and giddy and opens up so many more doors. It’s one thing to say, “Oh, sure, you can find my book online,” but another thing entirely to say, “Oh, sure, here’s my book right here” and flip the pages in their astonished faces.

So I just spent the last two days giving my writing career another kickstart. As soon as I get the print version where I want it to be, I’ll be starting a whirlwind of advertising and contests. I even had a small jump in my sales of the ebook version of BoB this week…

…so why do I feel like I’ve completely wasted these past few days? The human sense of accomplishment is weird. Or at least mine is. Maybe I’ll blame the fact that it’s been warmer again this week. My brain seems to demand temperatures of 75 or lower.

RoW80 Check-In and Return to the World.

“In the purple dawn, my body is transcendent. It moves with the unconscious grace of a lotus on the water. Though the morning is cool and the breeze quite sweet, my body is cover in a fine sheen of glistening sweat. Every movements is a smooth extension of myself, each step pushes me one bit closer to the edge of my physical and mental limitation. I am a leaf in the wind, a bud on a branch, a petal unfurling from the stem of a flower to greet the morning sun.”

So, this last week has been an interesting one. I was granted an unexpected four days off from work, and, wanting to seize the opportunity, I planned a very last-minute trip back home to see my family, which worked out nicely because my step-sister and her kids were up from Florida and my cousin was on leave before her army deployment. The timing was practically serendipitous. The trip did, however, completely screw up my writing schedule….

So I haven’t managed to get much done at all, my goals are all out of whack and in need of reassessing just so I can get back on the path again, and I don’t really have much of a report. I am excited to finally get things going again; I’ve been desperate to get some writing done, but there just hasn’t been the time between the trip, followed by working all weekend. So, today, instead of my normal check-in, I’m going to take a moment or two and decide what I need to get done and what will be done from there.

So what have we got?

Serpent in a Cage: I haven’t had much of a chance to even touch SiaC, and this needs to change. I want to get back in gear with writing at least one page a day on this project. I’m on page 94 right now, and will use that as my “base” from here on in.

Battarack Girls: As things stand, BG is definitely shaping up to be the next book I finish. Though I’m not sure how I feel about basically publishing a YA “companion” to SiaC that takes place about twenty years after the events in SiaC (which is supposed to start out the Aryneth series…), I’ve had so much great feedback from it that it just seems right. And, hey, the Narnia books weren’t written in order. Neither were the Star Wars books. I could probably dig up some other examples, too, so I’m just going to go with it. So my goal from here on in is to write at least 1500 words a day. As of writing this, I’m at 2012. I think that’s a sign. The quotes introducing my RoW check-ins from here on in will be from Battarack Girls now, too, as little previews and whatnot, instead of from Serpent in a Cage, as they previously were.

The New Novel Project: Since the monthly novel project is one of the easiest projects to keep track of, I’ve been working as consistently as I can on this one. I’m a little behind, but I’m plugging away at this draft of The Unknown Scourge all the same. By the end of the day, I hope to be as close to page 15 as I can get…As of writing this, I’m on page 9, so I’m not too far behind.

The 100 Books Project: I’ve said it once, I’ll probably say it a gazillion times more. I never have trouble finding time to read. Never have, never will, barring someone attacks me and stabs out my eyes with sewing needles (…sorry, a little inspired by the current BG scene…). I read about half of a book on the trains to and from Chicago, got home, read some more of the gazillion other books that I was missing because I limited myself to just two books for the trip. I have one review I need to get to writing, too. So I’m 24/100 (4/30 for this Round).

Other Things: And then there’s a plethora of miscellaneous things I need to get back on the task of completing this week:

–I still owe Elizabeth and Grace stuff for guest posts, which they have graciously offered to let me do. If you’re reading this, ladies, I’ll shoot you off an email sometime within the next few days!
–The deadline for The First Line is approaching swiftly, so I’m hoping to get that finished and sent out soon!
–Write up a copy letter (uuughhhh) to accompany “Dragon Rising” on its quest to discover if it has a chance to become a traditionally published storybook, or if I should start breaking out the pencils and sketching out my own pictures to make it an indie published storybook. This idea is all thanks to Morgan, whose granddaughter gave me the best compliment I could ever imagine by asking where the actual “book” was after the story was read to her. Seriously, that story still makes me glow with happiness.
–Take a moment to really get into all the wonderful things people have been sending me to help promote Bowlful of Bunnies and get it back up to the rank I want to try to keep it at. I’ve been so busy I’ve been utterly failing at building my promotion.
–Focus on getting Bowlful of Bunnies out on other formats: Smashwords, Nook, Apple, as well as poke around CreateSpace for help with a potential physical copy.

This week is all about getting back on track with things, reconnecting with everyone again, and charging forward with the same energy that I had before the unexpected (but much needed) journey threw things a little off course. Since I’ve been out, I’m really behind on how everyone else is doing, so I hope everyone’s doing well! Be sure to check out my fellow RoWers here, and I’ll end with a question, too: What do you do to help you get back on track after a break?

Happy writing, everyone!

The 100 Books Project: Heir to the Empire.

“‘Then he lies,’ Thrawn returned coldly. ‘All men want power. And the more they have, the more they want.’”


“Star Wars: Volume 1: Heir to the Empire” by Timothy Zahn

I finally did it. I finally ventured into reading (and finishing!) a Star Wars book that wasn’t directly based on the original trilogy or written for teenagers. And I couldn’t be happier for it. I’m actually really impressed by how quickly I blew through this book, though I think that speak a lot for just the classic Star Wars story and Timothy Zahn’s excellent writing. I read a lot of these super-mass-market, epic fantasy-sci fi series stuff based on games or movies or what have you, and a lot of them contain a certain amount of suffering. Some value, of course, otherwise I would read them, but you go in expecting a certain cheesiness or corniness, and I did not get any of this from Heir to the Empire. Well written, engaging, with some incredible characters and a wonderful take on familiar characters…I could hear Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia and Han Solo and all the rest as I read them. And I always knew I’d be fascinated by Mara Jade…

Anyhoo, taking place five years after the events of Return of the Jedi (thank you, convenient list in the back of the book!), the New Republic is getting on some stronger feet, Luke Skywalker is getting ready to train him some Jedi (starting with twin sister Leia at the insistence of her husband Han Solo) and there are two little baby Jedi on the way. So thing are pretty good, right? Well, there’s some political unrest in the New Republic, and, far off into the reaches of space, there’s a kernel of the Old Empire still churning up trouble. With the help of an old cloned Jedi Master, Grand Admiral Thrawn intends to strike the New Republic while it’s still young, and ensnare Luke, Leia, and Leia’s unborn children to use for their own devices.

It’s a great story, the first of a trilogy, and the characters really jump off the page. I even love Grand Admiral Thrawn as a villain. I remember, in the past, I tried to read these books chronologically plotwise, which had me trying to tackle The Truce at Bakura, but I could never quite stick with it. This time, I decided to go chronologically based on publication and I wonder if that was what I’ve done wrong the whole time. I just really loved this book. It was so, so Star Wars and I breezed right through it and look forward to when I get to the next in the series.

Books read: 22/100.

And one other thing! Since I finally breached the 25 copies sold mark with Bowlful of Bunnies, I’ve posted the excerpt sneak-peek at Battarack Girls as promised. You can find it as the current Featured Story. It’s not a large sample (about 1200 words), but I hope you enjoy. And thanks to everyone who’s gotten BoB to make it happen.