Posts published in “Writing”

The art, craft, and life of writing.

Ludicrous Speed

Published November 29, 2017 by centaur

If I keep up the pace that I've been keeping ...

I won't just beat my best record ever (which I already have) ...

... I'll hit the somewhat ludicrous amount of 75,000 words in a month, beyond the 70,000 I've already hit.

4,648 words to hit that goal ... less than I did yesterday or even today. Let's get cracking. -the Centaur

Nanowrimo, Challenge Mode

Published November 26, 2017 by centaur

If I write 11,293 words by the end of the month ...

~2900 words a day, not counting today ...

I will beat my all time Nanowrimo record of 65,995 words:

Sounds like a worthier goal than spending the same words responding to everyone who's wrong on the Internet. Onward! -the Centaur

How to Get Published, in Ninety Words

Published November 24, 2017 by centaur

Hoisted from Facebook:

Q. How should I start looking into getting published? A. The most important thing is writing. The next most important thing is finishing. The next next most important thing is researching markets and sending things out. If you are doing all that, there are two other great force multipliers: not waiting to start your next piece while the previous ones are out, and networking - going where other authors are: cons, writing conferences, writing workshops. If you are doing all that, get yourself an agent - it is the next big multiplier.

And that's it, in 95 words! Paraphrasing Robert Heinlein, to get published, you've got to write, you've got to finish what you write, you've got to send out what you write until it gets sold. But if you really want to get published, you can't wait on that first piece to succeed; you need to go ahead and start the next one. And you can't rely on your own ability to find opportunities and markets; you've got to find other writers and editors to help you find the right home for your work. And if you're doing all that, you're on the path to having interesting enough work to attract an agent, so you might as well start looking. -the Centaur

The Way to Succeed at Nano is to Put Nano First

Published November 24, 2017 by centaur

Hey gang, now that I've succeeded at National Novel Writing Month nineteen times, I thought I'd take a little time out to tell you that my secret to National Novel Writing Month success is to put Nano first.

Now, that seems obvious - almost, like, too obvious to be advice - but I want to put it into perspective by first asking you a few questions.

Do you care about finishing what you write? If you don't, don't worry about the above advice. Write what you want, how you want it, when you want it. Again, this seems obvious, but I want to make sure you understand whether this advice applies to you. I started to write "Do you care about writing success?" but then I realized everyone has their own definition of writing success, whether they realize it or not. A beloved friend, Jan, just died, and I will never again hear her read her stories at our local writing group - and you're never likely to read them, as she was more into having fun writing than she ever was about getting her stories published. She was a success at writing without ever needing publication, or even necessarily to to finish everything she wrote. We'll miss you, Jan, but we'll never worry about whether you were having fun: that was obvious.
Do you care about completing Nanowrimo? Again, I almost wrote "Do you care about succeeding at Nano" as I did in the title of this essay, but every word is a victory in National Novel Writing Month. It doesn't really matter whether you wrote one word or a hundred thousand if Nano helped you write it. But, again, if you don't care whether you hit that magic 50K, then don't worry about the advice in this article.
Do you care more about finishing Nanowrimo than doing the comfortable things that you've always done? This is the most important part. Some people need to wait for their muse. Some need to plan ahead. Some need to do other things that seem so important to them. Maybe they are. But given my writing style, those things don't seem so important to me, and given my obsessive-compulsive personality, I'm not going to take on a challenge unless I intend to finish it. But maybe that's not you: you need your outline or your muse or your whatever in your life to make writing possible. That's OK! I know great writers like that. They don't generally take on Nanowrimo, that's all, as Nanowrimo doesn't work for them.

If you think it will work for you - if you want to finish what you write, and you want to take on the Nanowrimo challenge to write 50,000 words and you want to finish it, and you are willing to do things differently in order to make that success happen - then here's the secret: Put completing National Novel Writing Month first. Well, okay, yes, you gotta breathe, and you gotta eat, and don't get fired - however. There are a lot of things that creative people do, and if you want to succeed at National Novel Writing Month, you may need to change them. For example:

Turn off your Internet. Frequently when writing, I hit a speedbump, go look something up, and dig into Wikipedia or TV Tropes or (no joke) find myself reading the city planning documents of a harbor community in Newfoundland to carefully craft some details that will only appear in a paragraph or two of a whole novel. That's my process, and it's produced a number of well-received novels of which I'm proud. During National Novel Writing Month, however, I frequently turn off the Internet on my laptop until I've gotten my magic 1,666 words per day.
Put off your Blogging. I like to blog, but it seems I don't do a lot of it. The reason for this is that I've started doing Nano-like challenges three times per year - Camp Nano in April and July, plus Nano in November - and the rest of the time I focus on finishing manuscripts, editing them, or publishing other people's manuscripts. I have dozens upon dozens of notes for blogposts written on scraps, stored in Scrivener files, even half-finished in Ecto; but during Nano, I put Nano first.
Research after you Write. So many times this month, a pile like the below was on my table, awaiting my perusal, only to be put back into the bookbag or tote bag after I finish my writing. There's a problem in deep learning I'm trying to crack, and some mathematics I need to know to do it, and research for the Cinnamon Frost puzzle books; but I know from experience I can take my whole lunch break or even afternoon diving into mathematics or programming or research. During Nano, I put the writing first. That forces me to go out into space in the story, even if sometimes I need reference when I edit the text.

Take Time off to Write. I am always an antisocial loner, having to force myself to go to lunch with my coworkers (rarely) or to dinner with my friends (equally rarely) or my writing peeps (less rarely, since I can excuse it to my brain as writing related). This isn't because I don't like the people that I like, but because I want to finish my books before I die. (I have a lot of books planned). During Nano, I'm even more jealous of my schedule, taking lunch breaks to write, sometimes bailing on group writing sessions to be alone, and, the big one, taking off Thanksgiving week to write. This year, for Night of Writing Dangerously, I got a hotel room, holed up in San Francisco after the Night, and wrote like mad. I almost finished BOT NET during this writing jag, and ended up finishing six days early because I took this time.
Reject your Comforting Illusions. This last one is the most dangerous advice which may not work for you or even apply to you, and it can be the hardest, but it is this: put getting the 1,666 words a day ahead of your imagination that you need to wait for your muse, or plot your story, or be in the mood, or anything else. Write crap if you have to. It counts (1 word). Write bla bla bla if you have to. It counts (3 words). 1,662 words to go. Feel that this isn't working for you? Write "Nanowrimo isn't working for me!" (5 words) or, even better, "National Novel Writing Month is not working for me!" (9 words). Feel this is a cheat and a sham? Write that down! (I guarantee explaining your feelings will get you more than 9 words). Even better, write down what's wrong with your story and why you can't write any further and what you wish you were writing. That explanation in text will count as words ... and, more importantly, will probably start turning into text. Put another way, feel free to work out your frustrations and even to outline in your manuscript. It will become true words on the next pass ... and will put you ever closer to the end of your story. Once you have a path from beginning to end, believe me, you can revise it into a story that you will truly love.

So, that's it: if you want to succeed at Nano, put Nano first. Turn off your Internet, tune back your blogging, put off your research, and take time off to write. Most importantly, throw off your comforting illusions, feel free to outline or even to vent in your manuscript, knowing that each word you write isn't just getting you closer to success at Nanowrimo, it's getting you closer to having a beginning-to-end path through your story ... which you can then revise into a finished product. And that's how I succeed at Nano. Try it. It could work for you too. -the Centaur

Viiictory, Nineteen Times

Published November 24, 2017 by centaur

So, I just succeeded the 19th time at National Novel Writing Month!

This year, I was working on BOT NET, the second Cinnamon Frost novel. I'm writing these three books in one huge manuscript, which I successfully took from 179591 to 229911 words as of today!

This year, the combination of participating in the Night of Writing Dangerously, plus having the luxury of taking off the week of Thanksgiving to write, really pushed me over the edge:

Interesting, the hole at Thanksgiving. I wonder if that's true every year? That's not something you can readily see when you look at the yearly charts since it moves (stay tuned, these charts are going to come back later):

There was a time when almost every post about Nanowrimo I'd include an excerpt. Frankly, that's gotten harder to do as I've switched from doing Nano once per year to three times per year; the Nano material has become more inchoate as I blaze new paths out into story space, requiring more work to turn it into final material. But, occasionally, I can indeed include some material that gives you a flavor ...

“I … I gotta be honest here. I needs help.” “Cinnamon,” Nri says gently. “I know that. I’ve had many, many students before.” “Another damn teacher,” I rollin’ my eyes. Then I realizes—“Did I say that out loud?” “Yes, you did,” Nri says, smiling sardonically. “I don’t even think that was Tourette’s.” “It-it wasn’t,” I says. “I’m sorry, sir, but …” I grimaces. I genuinely don’t know what tone to set here. Act like Mom’s world, use Southern politeness, act like the werekindred, use growls and barks … or, maybe, just be me? Who’s that then? “I, uh, don’t, ah, know how to say this but I wasn’t tryin’ to insult you before or to butter you up now but we gots a real situation and if we leaves it up to my Mom there’s a very good chance that the D of the W. A. will spirit my boyfriend and my alt-crush off to the wilds of nowhevers, and if the elders of the werehold finds out where they are they may go and do somethin’ stupid right on the doorsteps of people totally prepared to do somethin’ stupid, so I’m guessin’ the smart thing is for the people who are smart and wizardly to do somethin’ smart and wizardly, but I can’t do this alone, because I am, like, thirteen, and why in godsname does everybody think I can do everythin?” Nri stares, blinks, shakes his head, like he’s comin’ out of a trance. “God, I’d wish I’d timed that,” he says. “I think you talk faster than JFK—” “Who?” I asks. “Nevermind," Nri says. "I’m sold.”

Ah, Cinnamon, you and your wacky hijinks. Thanks for coming into my writing life, wherever the hell you came from. And now, on to all the things I've been putting off blogging while I've been working on Nano, including ... how to succeed at Nano! (I hope you'll agree I have some credentials in that area). Onward, fellow adventurers! -the Centaur

200,000 Words of Cinnamon Frost

Published November 13, 2017 by centaur

Milestones are coming. And the first of these is catching up on my wordcount for my Nanowrimo project this November, BOT NET!

Winning at Nano always feels like climbing a hill, but for me in particular it almost always feels like I start out sliding back down, Sisyphus-like, as I struggle to get a handle on the story.

But then there comes that magic point where I need to write 1,666 words in a day and I. Got. Nothing. Then I'm forced to be creative, and the real fun stuff happens, an event I call "going off the rails". Hey, let's try to embed a tweet!

It's all too easy for stories to fall in predictable ruts - but in #NaNoWriMo , when you've got to produce 50,000 words in a month, sometimes your story "goes off the rails" into territory your conscious mind never expected ... and that's gold! https://t.co/Qmtuzb1XKE
— Anthony Francis (@xenotaur) November 13, 2017

So now things are back on track for the month, and I'm smack in the middle of where I normally am this time of Nano ... Actually, it appears I'm ahead. Checking the stats ... yep. At this point, I'm normally just shy of 6,000 words behind ( -5,984, though that estimate is numerically precise, it is not likely to be meaningfully accurate ) but today I am 169 words ahead of the Nano wordcount:

I'm one more thing too: 200,000 words into the Cinnamon Frost trilogy.

There are 3 published Dakota Frost novels: FROST MOON, BLOOD ROCK and LIQUID FIRE, and three more finished rough drafts: SPECTRAL IRON, PHANTOM SILVER, and SPIRITUAL GOLD. By my count, I've written about 900,000 words about Dakota Frost, Skindancer, the woman who can bring her tattoos to life. But in one sense, that's expected: I planned Dakota. I wanted to write a character that other people who can relate to. Cinnamon Frost, as I've said before, is a character I never expected. She shoved her way into the Dakota Frost universe, in one of those "step off into space moments", and she shows no signs of leaving. Cinnamon might say 200,000 seems significant because of how humans process patterns - how we love all those zeroes - but it's just a number: 2*10*10*10*10*10. But somehow, it feels right to take it this far, and I look forward to writing the next 100,000 to 150,000 words that will finish her trilogy and give her a chance to live her own literary life. Time to get back to it. -the Centaur P. S. I said milestones are coming. If you've read closely in this post, you'll realize another milestone is coming soon. Stay tuned ...

10,000 words into Nano

Published November 8, 2017 by centaur

So, the good news: I just crossed the 10,000 word mark in Nanowrimo 2017!

The bad news: I need to be at 13,333 words by today!

The good-bad news is, normally I'm closer to 4500 words behind at this point of Nano, so I am ahead of where I am normally behind:

What can I. say? "Don't get cocky, kid." Back to it ... -the Centaur

You Have a Story to Tell

Published November 4, 2017 by centaur

Oh hey! I almost forgot! Thinking Ink Press, the small press of which I am a part, is doing a fundraiser to produce a book of essays by my good friend Keiko O'Leary, leader of the Write to the End writing group. Keiko's "we accept all writing" philosophy and no-drama writing sessions have inspired many writers over the years, and she's written a lot about her philosophy on her own blog and on Write to the End. This fundraiser, in addition to getting you a cool tote bag that will remind you that "You have a story to tell," will help us put together a book of her essays and publish it through Thinking Ink Press! Go check it out: http://www.thinkinginkpress.com/2017/11/tip/you-have-a-story-to-tell-tote-bag-sale/ or directly at https://www.customink.com/fundraising/writers-quote-tote-bag. -the Centaur

Timeline 10(ab)”’

Published November 4, 2017 by centaur

No progress on BOT NET for Nanowrimo yet today ... yesterday I got my daily word count, but today I needed to core dump some ideas I'd been brewing about a Jeremiah Willstone novella, "Crypt of the Burning Scarab". I had a brain flash about how to make the plot work out, involving a twisty time travel paradox I haven't seen before, and wanted to make sure I read up enough physics and math to make sure the idea made sense, then wrote it all down before I dove back into Cinnamon's world of mathematical magic. But you know your plot is complicated when you non-ironically need a timeline point 10(ab)''' - that's point 10, timelines A&B, variant 3 (prime prime prime). Happy writing ... -the Centaur Pictured: A few of the math/physics books I've been reading on this idea, plus the "GBC" (Goodfellow, Bengio and Courville) Deep Learning book which I'm (re)reading for work.

Nanowrimo 2017 in Process

Published November 3, 2017 by centaur

"Okay, so ... um, hi! I'm Cinnamon Frost, and I'm here to tell you that my biographer, Anthony Francis, is busy as fuck writing my next adventure, BOT NET, for National Novel Writing Month! He's real behind, so as soon as he finishes this post, he's, like, seriously, getting back to creatin' my universe!" Thanks, Cinnamon! Sounds about right! I am now 1170 words in and 3830 words behind according to my spreadsheet. Time to get cracking! I've got a laptop, a table and two and a half hours in the coffeehouse before it closes - GO! -the Centaur

Everything was on fire until earlier today

Published October 19, 2017 by centaur

Not literally; we were far south of the literal fires, which just barely missed the homes of our friends. But so many other things have been going wrong that it felt like things were on fire ... so no posts for a while, sorry. But tonight, I got to the last chapter of Dakota Frost #6, SPIRITUAL GOLD. I will likely finish this chapter Saturday. That makes today a good day. Time for some cake. -the Centaur Pictured: a cat break with Loki. Not how things look right now, but how I feel.

My Daily Dragon Interview in Two Words: “Just Write!”

Published September 6, 2017 by centaur

My Daily Dragon Interview in Two Words: “Just Write!”

So at Dragon Con I had a reading this year. Yeah, looks like this is the last year I get to bring all my books - too many, to heavy! I read the two flash fiction pieces in Jagged Fragments, "If Looks Could Kill" and "The Secret of the T-Rex's Arms", as well as reading the first chapter of Jeremiah Willstone and the Clockwork Time Machine, a bit of my and Jim Davies' essay on the psychology of Star Trek's artificial intelligences, and even a bit of my very first published story, "Sibling Rivalry". I also gave the presentation I was supposed to give at the SAM Talks before I realized I was double booked; that was "Risk Getting Worse".

But that wasn't recorded, so, oh dang, you'll have to either go to my Amazon page to get my books, or wait until we get "Risk Getting Worse" recorded. But my interview with Nancy Northcott for the Daily Dragon, "Robots, Computers, and Magic", however, IS online, so I can share it with you all. Even more so, I want to share what I think is the most important part of my interview:

DD: Do you have any one bit of advice for aspiring writers? AF: Write. Just write. Don’t worry about perfection, or getting published, or even about pleasing anyone else: just write. Write to the end of what you start, and only then worry about what to do with it. In fact, don’t even worry about finishing everything—don’t be afraid to try anything. Artists know they need to fill a sketchbook before sitting down to create a masterwork, but writers sometimes get trapped trying to polish their first inspiration into a final product. Don’t get trapped on the first hill! Whip out your notebook and write. Write morning pages. Write diary at the end of the day. Write a thousand starts to stories, and if one takes flight, run with it with all the abandon you have in you. Accept all writing, especially your own. Just write. Write.

That's it. To read more, check out the interview here, or see all my Daily Dragon mentions at Dragon Con here, or check out my interviewer Nancy Northcott's site here. Onward! -the Centaur

Taos Toolbox in the Taillights

Published June 30, 2017 by centaur

So I and my wife have an agreement: if it isn’t a public appearance, I don’t blog about travel until it’s over. Well, Taos Toolbox 2017 is over, and I can say that this was one of the greatest writing experiences of my life.

Run by Walter Jon Williams and Nancy Kress, the Toolbox is a “graduate level” workshop for writers who’ve either gone through another workshop like Clarion, or have published something on their own. It was two solid weeks of instruction, critique and writing, complicated by a simultaneous deadline on my part for the Conference on Robot Learning; even despite staying up late many nights working on that paper, I had an amazing experience learning science fiction.

I’ll flesh out more about the workshop over the next few weeks as I digest it, but as for now, let me just say that this boot camp for writers was a transformative experience which really gave me a much deeper appreciation about how to construct stories and how to tell them. And now … time for a little rest!

-the Centaur

Applied Plotonium at Clockwork Alchemy

Published May 24, 2017 by centaur

Boosting the signal ... I'll be joining my friend David Colby's panel APPLIED PLOTONIUM at 10am on Sunday at Clockwork Alchemy:

Applied Plotonium Monterey - Sunday 10:00 AM
Applied Plotonium is a discussion and series of examples of worlds that are, in general, 100% scientifically accurate save for a SINGLE element of applied plotonium - a single element or feature that is downright fantastical. Eagerly explores extrapolation ending in exposition!

Presenter: David Colby
Moderator: Roger Que Panelists: Anthony Francis, Michael Tierney

David Colby is the author of the hard science fiction young adult novel DEBRIS DREAMS (think "The Hunger Games meets Gravity") and proposed the panel to explore his love of making the science in science fiction not suck.

In addition to David and me, we've also shanghaied, er, convinced two of our mutual friends to join in: writer and chemist Michael Tierney from the Treehouse Writers will join as a panelist, and the writer and computer scientist Roger Que from Write to the End will serve as our moderator. Drop in - you'll enjoy yourself! -the Centaur

Oh Myyy!

Published May 11, 2017 by centaur

Wow. I guess a lot of books are going to be waiting for me when I get home tonight ... either the shipment of LATER anthologies for Clockwork Alchemy has arrived, or I really messed up my last Amazon Prime order. Be sure to come by Clockwork Alchemy to check them out, or look on Amazon!

“The Fall of the Falcon” Audio

Published April 30, 2017 by centaur

Have you read Jeremiah Willstone and the Clockwork Time Machine and wondered why Jeremiah ended up a Ranger when she always wanted to be a Falconer? Or would you like to get started following Jeremiah's tales on audio? Well, you're in luck! Our friends at Sage and Savant have read one of the earliest Jeremiah stories, "The Fall of the Falcon", for your auditory adventuring pleasure!

The Fall of the Falcon

By Anthony Francis

from the anthology Thirty Days Later, Steaming Forward: 30 Adventures in Time

If you'd like to find out what happens next, get a copy of Thirty Days Later and pick up where "The Fall of the Falcon" leaves off with the stirring conclusion, "The Rise of the Dragonfly"!

-The Centaur

The Centaur Interviewed on Sage and Savant!

Published April 30, 2017 by centaur

One more interview with Sage and Savant ... me! https://www.sageandsavant.com/2017/04/05/anthony-francis-talks-about-jeremiah-willstone/

Q: In your story “The Fall of the Falcon” the main character is female, but she has a male name, Jeremiah Willstone. Why is that? AF: It’s more than just gender bending: it’s an outward sign of their society’s aggressive approach to women’s liberation. I wanted to tell a steampunk story about a young Victorian female soldier, but the Victorians didn’t have women soldiers – we’ve only recently started to allow them in our military. So I imagined a world where that wasn’t just a little bit different, but comprehensively different – a world where women’s liberation came a century early, and with twice as many brains working on hard problems, they were more advanced in 1908 than we are today. But I needed a way to communicate that in the story, and decided that the women in Jeremiah’s family took male names to try to achieve gender equality. With her history written into her name, I now had the storytelling power to discuss that issue as much as I wanted to – or let it slide into the background until someone innocently asks the question, “So, Jeremiah is female, but has a male name. Why is that?”

To read more, check out my interview, and also check out the podcast on Sage and Savant! -the Centaur

Viiictory the Seventeenth

Published April 30, 2017 by centaur

Huzzah! I have once again completed Camp Nano, the little sister to National Novel Writing Month! This marks the seventeenth time I've written 50,000 words in a month!

This month was pretty rough between the recent book launches of THE CLOCKWORK TIME MACHINE and the reprint of TWELVE HOURS LATER, not to mention the upcoming release of SOME TIME LATER - plus a whole bunch of work at work-work teaching robots to learn when the darn things just want to not learn.

That left blood in the water for most of the month, but I really, really, really wanted to be able to take Sunday off and spend time at church, with my wife and cats, and getting caught up on stuff, so I powered through it, trying to make sure I didn't just finish the 50,000 by my count, but also finished the extra ~1500 or so words caused by the discrepancy between the Camp Nano word counter and the one on Microsoft Word, which I use every day.

I was really struggling until I remembered working on my first Nano project, FROST MOON, in which I had to take my characters to the "werehouse" ... which I had no idea how to write ... but just dove in, creating some wonderful ideas that fleshed out the story wonderfully, including Cinnamon Frost. Well, this time I had Dakota and one of her friends heading to a Hopi kiva, and I had no idea how to write that either ... so I just dove in:

The road dipped and weaved out of the green plains and into low foothills. We stopped at … shudder … a McDonalds-cum-gas station for fuel for us and the car, and I took over driving, as the roads got windier and the hills got higher and drier. “Here,” Heinz said, pointing, as he checked the map we picked up at the gas station. We weren’t using our phones—what the DEI could scramble, it could likely unscramble—but he had his laptop out, WiFi off, and was crossreferencing Carrington’s notes. “Seventeen more miles.” The off-ramp led us to an increasingly narrow series of roads connected at T-junctions, with houses and civilization fewer and fewer at each series of turns. Then we crested a hill and were confronted by a valley … the seat of the lone peak called Crown Mountain. “Fuuck,” Heinz said. “This is important. This means something.” “Hat tip, Agent Heinz,” I said, leaning forward. “Damn …” Crown ‘Mountain’ was, technically, a mesa, set on a flat plain of mixed dirt and scrub like a medieval castle. An imposing shaft of rock, solid and red-gold in the afternoon light, rose nineteen hundred feet above the floor of the valley, surrounded by a cone of tumbled rock like slanted ramparts. Atop the shaft, erosion had cut notches like parapets, leading to the crown appearance that gave the crag its name. But our eyes were drawn to the notches cut in it by humans: the largest collection of cave dwellings this side of Mesa Verde … and the only cave dwellings in North America that had been continually inhabited for the last thousand years. “Holy fuck,” Heinz said, as we drove closer and closer to that jumble of deep gashes, ancient caves, ruined mounds, decaying huts, old houses and new construction that was the town of … “Tuukviela,” Heinz said, reading. “Variously, Crown Village or Mesa Village.” “Speak of the devil,” I said: an oversized sign read TUUKVIELA: POP 373.

Forgive the rough-draftiness of the passage, but I have the feeling that Crown Mountain, Tuukivela, the Padilla family kiva and nearby Montañacorona will perhaps recur in a later Dakota Frost book ... but who knows? I had enough fun to write 7030 words today. I'll go into a bit more about why this was a significant milestone in my writing life tomorrow, because it's 4:16AM and I need some fricking sleep. Till then ...

Best of luck, fellow Camp Nano campers! -the Centaur

Book Giveaway with TIP and S&S

Published April 24, 2017 by centaur

Holy cow, I almost missed this, and I helped organize it - we're giving away some anthologies in partnership between Thinking Ink Press and steampunk podcast Sage and Savant! http://www.thinkinginkpress.com/book-giveaway-with-sage-and-savant/ I have stories in three of the four books we're giving away - Jeremiah Willstone stories in the full-length anthologies TWELVE HOURS LATER and THIRTY DAYS LATER, and flash fiction in the Instant Book "Jagged Fragments". Sign up, best of luck, and I hope you enjoy it! -the Centaur

Dover Whitecliff on Sage and Savant

Published April 24, 2017 by centaur

Yet one more of my friends from Clockwork Alchemy, Dover Whitecliff, is interviewed on Sage and Savant! A visit to her sometimes witty, often wacky, occasionally wryly satirical alternate world always makes a fun read! https://www.sageandsavant.com/2017/04/18/down-and-dirty-with-dover-whitecliff-author-and-editor-at-thinking-ink-press/

Q: How did you come up with the theme for the Later anthologies? DW: The Treehouse Authors met for tea at Linde Lane Tea Room in Dixon and decided that we wanted to do a project together for literacy; an anthology was the obvious choice. But the theme is all down to Kiefer Sutherland. The news story of the day was the comeback of 24 and we had never seen an anthology with hour long stories before (though that doesn’t mean there might not be one out there that we missed). The paired stories came about to fill up a twenty-four-hour day, plus it offered the perfect tag line “You can find out what happens twelve hours later.” Q: Yak? Giant Chicken? Trebuchet? What gives? DW: It started with a dare in our email planning with the authors for Thirty Days Later. One author found a picture of a clockwork yak and threw down the gauntlet: “Bet you can’t fit a yak in.” Challenge accepted. Rumor has it that there are multiple yak sightings (bonus points if you can find them all). Since that was deemed “Way too easy,” the chieftess of shenanigans, Sparky McTrowell, raised the yak ante for Some Time Later with a trebuchet, and somehow a chicken was thrown in, possibly due to an excess of caffeine and chocolate. And Yes. I fit them all in.

To read more, check out her interview on Sage and Savant! -the Centaur