Posts tagged as “Dakota Frost”

The Stack is Growing

Published January 27, 2012 by centaur

FROM THE WRITER'S ANONYMOUS 12-STEP SUPPORT GROUP MEETING: Hi, I'm Anthony Francis, and I'm an author. ("Hi, Anthony!") To feed my addiction, I get stuff published.

My first published novel, the urban fantasy FROST MOON featuring magical tattoo artist Dakota Frost, won an EPIC e-book award. It's out in paperback, Kindle, in German as SKINDANCER, and soon to be audiobook thanks to the wonderful reading skills of Traci Odom. The second book in the series, BLOOD ROCK, came out last year to good reviews, and the third book, LIQUID FIRE, will come out later this year. A spinoff series starring Dakota's daughter Cinnamon Frost, HEX CODE, will come out next year, also part of a planned trilogy.

One of my short stories, "Steampunk Fairy Chick," was recently published in the UnCONventional anthology. The story, featuring steampunk adventurer Jeremiah Willstone, is based on a novel called THE CLOCKWORK TIME MACHINE (again part of a planned trilogy) which I've got in rough draft form with a possible release late this year or early next year. Another of my short stories, "Sibling Rivalry," was published in The Leading Edge magazine in 1995, but is now available on my web site. I also write flash fiction. One of my flash shorts, "If Looks Could Kill", was just published in THE DAILY FLASH 2012 (pictured above) and another, "The Secret of the T-Rex's Arms", was just published in Smashed Cat Magazine.

My nonfiction research papers are largely available on my research page, including my nearly 700-page Ph.D thesis (hork). I and my thesis advisor Ashwin Ram have a chapter on "Multi-Plan Adaptation and Retrieval in an Experience-based Agent" in David Leake's book CASE BASED REASONING: EXPERIENCES, LESSONS AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS, and Ashwin, Manish Mehta and I have a chapter on "Emotional Memory and Adaptive Personalities" in THE HANDBOOK OF RESEARCH ON SYNTHETIC EMOTIONS AND SOCIABLE ROBOTICS.

I have more writing in the works, including a novelette called "Stranded" set in the Dresanian universe from which this blog takes its name, and more writing on the Internet. But what I list above is The Stack At This Time - what you can get in print. Enjoy!

-the Centaur

Victory, Official

Published November 25, 2011 by centaur

Well, the team at Nano are handing out winner's certificates now, so it's official: I've won Nano, with an official word count of 55,492 words. I'm still writing more of the story, but am switching to work on STRANDED tonight. I didn't get much done over Thanksgiving, but I did get this chunk written either Wednesday night or this afternoon (don't remember):

I shoves the monster back, between 5 and 6, dinosaur legs scrabbling, towards the loading dock shared with 7 and 8, hurling it backwards through the pedestrian rail which snaps with a tong as Mister Gargoyle falls on his fanny into a Dumpster of yesterday’s garbage. I’m about to leap down on it and rub his face in it, yes I am, when one of those clawed extra-thick raptor legs flies out and connects with my tiger chin. I yelp, shake it off, but when I’m back to snarlin, the monster’s runnin, holdin’ its shoulder, limpin’ off into the night. I stands on the loading dock and lets out my best bloodcurdlin’ roar. I mean, I knows he’s a gargoyle, but I hopes it gives him blood just so it can curdle. But the tiger doesn’t want to give chase, and neither does I. The two of us are of one mind: we gotta go save All Hours Todd.

I've captured almost all of my notes on the story, so it's hopefully safe to shift gears. Though I have to admit it's hard to shake the momentum.

But I have deadlines ... in this case, Tuesday of next week, to get a draft of STRANDED to beta readers in time to get a final to my editors by January 31, 2012. Onward! -the Centaur

Chuggin’ Chuggin’ Chuggin’

Published November 23, 2011 by centaur

Well, Instant Upload is weirdly busted so you get my smilin' mug instead of coffee. HEX CODE is now at 55,000 words:

I'm taking it a little easier now than I was before I hit 50,000 words ... taking more time to read and catch up on email, even taking time to review notes on STRANDED.

But I do want to dump the rest of my floating ideas for HEX CODE into the document while they're fresh, so I don't lose them. From tonight:

I saw this thing earlier, out of the corner of my eye. It easily kept up with me, lopin’ along, twice as fast now that I think about the angles, using its superior speed to keep good cover between it and my line of sight. My only hope is to sit tight and hope it leaves. Then the dragging noise I thought was a trashcan crackles right up behind me. I’m on quadruple frozen now, concentrating on not even moving my tail—harder than you might think if you’re not a cat and don’t got one. I gotta breathe now, but I’m taking it in slow-like, through the mouth, in and out, so that my gut hurts from clenching.

Onward! -the Centaur

Viiiiictory for the Paper Tiger

Published November 22, 2011 by centaur

Once again I've completed National Novel Writing Month. This year, I finished 8 days early. Or, put another way, THIS is what happens if you turn off the Internet during Nano:

I've had a number of interruptions in Nano in the past and this year was no exception. I know I can finish 38,000 words in 10 days and I was initially trying to push to finish at twice the rate, or perhaps finish two books. Well, that didn't happen because of the Galaxy Nexus launch and you can see that in my progress here:

That chasm was the Galaxy Nexus launch (and a few other things tossed in there). But I made it through that, and ultimately succeeded today, sitting in a Starbucks at Santana Row here in San Jose (actually pictured is Michael's Gelato in Palo Alto because the pic from Santana Row hasn't uploaded).

Normally I survive Nano by taking the whole of Thanksgiving week off for a nine day writing intensive. But this time, I've finished early. I still have more to write on HEX CODE, of course, but I now have the luxury of leaning back and thinking through a few twists to the plot, with 50,000 words under my belt making the story solid. So ... I can actually take this vacation ... as a vacation.

So without further ado I present a snippet of the story that was written today ... raw Nano, unfiltered except for a little reformatting and removing some author's notes.

When I found out that Ben was human, or more accurately that elf meant human with special sauce, blabbermouth old me just had to go tell Mom. Then blabbermouth old me had to make up a story of how I found out, which involved a clever lie about school. Not so clever. That just called Mom’s attention to the fact that she now had two underage wards in need of schooling. Getting me into the Clairmont Academy was a pain in the ass, but now they all love us, so getting Ben in was as simple as selecting a school uniform. And boy, does he look hot in it. Hot hot hot. The points to his ears and the green in his skin and the red in the sweater, it’s like Christmas, and that poofy green helmet makes him look like a school uniform tree—when girls aren’t comin up to tousle it. They’re all lookin’ at him. I was sure he had a glamour, but now I’m thinkin it made him look scary. Now he just looks like a boy, a hot boy with funky green hair the girls can’t resist. A passing one does it again and darts off, and I feels for him! He winces, but he clearly likes it. “So, Cinnamon,” Surrey says, setting her tray down, “will you—oh, hello.” “Hello,” Ben says, and there would be a dotted line in the air between their elfin eyes. Surrey’s too frozen to sit down, so Ben stands up, takes her hand, and kisses it with a flourish. “Greetings from the halls of Appalachia, oh princess of Scandinavia.” “Oh, siddown,” I says, and Ben sits down with a plop. He glares at me, but I ignores him. “Ben, this is Surrey Eddington, one of my best friends. Surrey Eddington, this is Benjamin Damon.” My smile grows mean. “He’s my house elf.” “I swear, Cinnamon Frost,” Ben growls, “by the gleaming halls of elfland—” “By the power of Greyskull,” Megan says, sitting down next to the still-smitten Surrey. “Oh, hey, what are you?” she says, and Ben near jumps out of his seat—then plops back down again as Megan scratches her head and says, “Wait … I’m doing it again, aren’t I?”

Next up I plan on ... chilling out, having a nice dinner, and joining my writing group for the evening to review my outstanding projects. First up is probably finishing the edit of STRANDED for my beta readers ... and then finishing Dakota Frost 3, LIQUID FIRE. Or perhaps I'll just chill out and clean up my library for Thanksgiving, and thank God I have it. Good luck in Nano, all! -the Centaur

Why You Need to Turn off the Internet in Nano

Published November 19, 2011 by centaur

HEX CODE has an epigraph, a quote by Cicero. I'm not sure whether it will stay in the final book, but it sums up the theme of the book for me perfectly:

Nature urges Man to wish that human society existed and to wish to enter it. —Marcus Tullius Cicero, first historically verified werewolf.

The quote is my own tweak of a couple of different translations of this quote by Cicero - and of course Cicero wasn't really a werewolf. But I wanted to look up something about him, some damn thing about his tomb or whatever (not knowing at the time he'd been assassinated by the state and probably has no tomb) and made the stupid mistake of checking on Wikipedia. The sorry result, 30 minutes later, is what you see above. I'm turning off the Internet now, and I hope if you're doing Nano you do too. Because I think XKCD put the problem with Wikipedia best:

Wikipedia is a wonderful thing ... but browsing it isn't writing. Get back to work, nanoers! Onward! -the Centaur

Back on Track

Published November 19, 2011 by centaur

So, now that the Galaxy Nexus site with its snazzy 3D viewer has launched, now that I'm on my long lonely but highly productive 9-day Thanksgiving vacation, now ... I'm back on track. I hit 40,068 words in HEX CODE today, 38,524 added this month in Nano. So I've got 11,476 words left to go for HEX CODE. Since it's early in the day and I have two more writing sessions to go, I hope to actually finish that this weekend, or at least by Monday. Then, unless I'm going gangbusters on HEX CODE, I plan to go back to STRANDED to send to my beta readers, and after that try to finish LIQUID FIRE. Doubt all of that will happen in November, but I want to go from juggling 4 novels in my head to having 4 novels with beta readers! Oh, I almost forgot ... a snippet of HEX CODE:

The three will-o-the-wisps comes together, their colors merging as they swirls around each other into one big ball. The sphere brightens, shimmers, intensifies within its formless shield of mist—the light coming together with a ring and a dark spot, which whirls to face me. O.M.G. The three will-o-the-wisps have formed together into a giant eye. “Remember!” the Huntswoman cries. “You can hurt it with your sword, but not enough. It has a shield. You can defend yourself with your shield, but not enough. It has teeth. But it has one more thing, and that is the key. Find that, and you will find your victory.” “Oh, great,” I says, hefting my dumb little wooden plank blade. “Thanks. Even Yoda sent Luke after dreams before Vader.”

Actually make that 40,092 words ... I wrote some more when I went to grab the excerpt. Enjoy. -the Centaur

Life Intervenes

Published November 12, 2011 by centaur

So I was going gangbusters on Nanowrimo ... until life intervened. I work at the Search Engine That Starts With A G. It's a fun but tough job that nonetheless leaves me with a great work life balance. I have time to work, time to write, and time to spend with my wife and cats (friends tend to get short shrift though :-P). But we have a software release coming up, and as usual for software development schedules (but unusual for The G) everything was under-resourced, the project was late, and no time was left for integration. This was a last minute project, a great opportunity for my team that came up at the last minute, so this is a bit understandable. But it's still been a bear. I was still writing though. Half my team's out sick, on trips, whatever, and I'm still writing. I'm doing the lion's share of the integration, the rest of the team doing the lion's share of the coding, and I'm still writing. Then we get down to the wire ... and still have showstopper bugs. At this point this week we were supposed to finish, attend a research symposium, and then join our research colleagues on an offsite. My boss was reluctant to bail on this, but I told him I was planning to skip the symposium and the offsite, to work on Saturday if I have to ... because there just wasn't enough time for me to finish my work otherwise. Not even if I temporarily dropped Nano.

Nano got dropped anyway. My bosses agreed with me, we mostly bailed on the symposium and almost all of us bailed on the offsite. For the time of this last push, my Nano tracking sheet lists zero, though I'm sure I got a couple of hundred words in that day (just didn't track them). We worked long into Friday night ... and nailed all our P0 bugs. But actually I didn't get any words done that day - I'd forgotten to charge my laptop. I do a lot of writing at breakfast, but without the laptop I had to break out my notebook and plan the story. It's become much more elaborate recently, and this gave me a chance to think. We came back and tackled the project again today Saturday, nailing all our P1 bugs and some of the P2s. I packed up my computer for the office move and prepared to leave, when my boss had a brainflash about fixing the first of our customer requests. He asked me for pointers on how to fix it ... but I knew how, my laptop was already open in my lap, and I could do it before I could explain it. So I did. My boss pushed the code to the site ... and lo and behold we'd nailed the first of the customer's requests, transitioning from bugfixes to pre-launch polishing in a 40-minute last-minute push that was faster than everything that came before it. Boo-yah. So when I went to dinner tonight, I gave myself permission to have a great meal, go get some great coffee, to chill out, and not to Nano. I'm ahead, and can get back to it tomorrow, which is completely free thanks to our hard work and my previous time getting ahead at Nano. But I'd forgotten to charge my laptop Friday. I'd written notes; I'd ruminated on them all night. Not even meaning to. And so, when I sat down for coffee ... the words, they just started spilling out. And I easily made today's word count. Double boo-yah. Here's a sample:

“Sinny and Tully, sittin’ in a tree,” Mom says. “K-I-S-S-I-N-G,” I finishes. I turns red as a beet, looking over at Tully and Ben. Tully’s just leaning against the rail, watching Ben fume as he scrubs the floor on his hands and knees. “But while we’re there in the orchard, this fae comes by, offers us some fruit—” “I swear,” Mom says, “I will slap you through this phone if you ate that fruit.” I holds the phone an arms length away again. I don’t know all of Mom’s powers. For a moment I’m scared she can do it.

Never eat the fruit of elfland ... unless you're a smart little spellpunk who specializes in tricky logic problems. So, back to HEX CODE, and here's hoping life continues to stop intervening. Onward! -the Centaur

20,039 Added Words (4,344 of Them Today)

Published November 6, 2011 by centaur

This post should be titled "wheew". I've now just reached the point where I've caught up with my crazy goal of writing at twice the normal rate. I've written just a notch over the required 3,333 words a day, churning out 20,000+ words in HEX CODE (and that's NOT counting the 1500 word seed I started with).

I had hoped to be this caught up last night, but I erred and went to one of my favorite coffee houses and found it closed an hour earlier than I thought, cutting in to my writing time. I could swear these hours are new, but maybe I'm just hallucinating.

And when I got home I had to play with the cats, such as the cute little monster above, a feral, stray or perhaps just terribly surly cat that just might be our orange cat's father (or mother - I didn't get close enough to enquire). Regrettably, since we already have too many cats, they mark, and feral cats have been trying to get into our home, I had to shoo Mister Orange Cat away, gently touching him with my flashlight, which freaked him out as he didn't know what it was - no matter how much he whapped at it, it didn't react. He actually looked OFFENDED as he scrabbled away atop the fence. I'm sad to have to do that, but his possible son below is more than enough trouble - we can't take in any more cats.

The point being, I was exhausted, but by the time I did all my cat triage, I just fricking collapsed into blissful unconsciousness. Today, however, I had no plans. While I overslept for church, as I irritatingly often do, I still got up reasonably early thanks to Daylight Saving's Time. So I had an extra hour to get out, get to a Panera ... and get caught up. I got my day's writing done pretty quickly, got a notch more ahead, and then went home, fed the cats, cleaned the pee left when the rains discouraged one of them from going outside :-P and resumed writing with Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban in the background. A friend called, I hopped in the car while talking with him, and by the time we were done I was standing outside Chipotle with only 250 words to go. Short story, by taking the laptop out first and turning the internet off, I made it to 20039 words.

Now I'm freezing my ass off in a surprisingly chilly Barnes and Noble, sipping on a Frappucino (yeah, I know, cold drinks on a cold day, shut up, there's a reason my Top Gun name is Iceman) and taking a short break. Soon I'm going to dive back to it and try to finish another thousand words or so to give me a comfortable buffer. If all goes well, if I can keep up a bit less than the pace I've done so far, I should be able to coast through the second half of November. Maybe, just maybe, if I get done early enough ... I can go see The Thing again. Onward! -the Centaur

9027 Added Words

Published November 3, 2011 by centaur

Still not making any progress on STRANDED, but HEX CODE is flying along - I'm getting about 3,000 words a day! The Writing Allies group tonight made many great suggestions and I've gotten whole scenes out of it, but the coffeehouse is about to close so time to be done for the day and go home and noogie a cat. Doing my best to keep it up ... excelsior! -the Centaur UPDATE: Make that 10,004 added words. I'm writing at double the normal rate, in the hope I can finish early and have some time off at the end to work on STRANDED ... or, heck, maybe even take some of the vacation days I set aside at the end of the month as VACATION! Whoda thunk it? Onward!

UPDATE UPDATE: Make that 10,350 added words. Had a brainflash while brushing my teeth. Now I really am going to bed - it's 2:18 AM. Excelziiszoorzzzzzzz...

5836 Added Words

Published November 3, 2011 by centaur

So ... HEX CODE is at 7380 words, which is 5836 more than the 1544 word seed I started with. I'm 12 percent done, a little bit ahead. Onward! -the Centaur

Nano Rules That Lead to Progress

Published November 1, 2011 by centaur

Mocha Freeze at Cafe Borrone, With Laptop Reflection

This is my sixth year attempting Nanowrimo and my sixth (and seventh) Nano book, and I've learned to adopt a few rules to help make the thing progress.

Nanowrimo comes first. All existing writing projects should be scheduled for before or after Nano. One of the worst experiences I had was trying to finish 38000 words of Nano in 10 days after having lost almost half of it to editing FROST MOON.
The Internet stays off until 1,667 words are done. There are a dozen reasons to use the Internet - to look something up, to check your email, to blog on Facebook. DON'T. Not even if you're ahead. Get a whole day's writing in before you log on. In particular, NO BLOGGING, Tweeting or Facebooking until you're caught up. Turn your Internet off if you have to - that's what I do, writing on a laptop.
Don't read+eat, then write; write+eat, then read. This one may not apply to you. I have a day job at The Search Engine That Starts With A G, so to get writing done, 3-5 days a week as wife, cats and friends permit, I go to dinner by myself, read something to feed my head, and then go out for coffee and write. But sometimes writing gets the short shrift when you do that, if you're reading something interesting or get lost in email. Normally that's OK; you should read more that you put out in writing. In Nano, I have to upend this and write first, come hell or high water.
Look things up later - use <angle brackets> if you have to. Even if you don't have the Internet, there are ways to look things up when you're writing. Don't. If you don't know Marcus Tullius Cicero's name, just write <cicero's name> in angle brackets and go back later, searching for angle brackets and looking things up. Your writing will thank you.
If you know the plot, write all the beats down, then expand them later. My process involves thinking about stories long before I write them. I think of a dozen, a hundred, a thousand ideas for every one I write down. I've been thinking about HEX CODE, for example, for a few years, and my head's full of ideas. So sometimes, even when your writing juice is gone, you can quickly bang down the beats of the plot - "Cinnamon leaves for the Rogue. She gets paranoid by the park. She thinks she sees somebody. Then Tully surprises her and gives her grief." There's 500 words tomorrow, all planned out today.
Use the Nano community. There's a South Bay Nanowrimo community and while I haven't had time to go to their events this year I did have time to learn from their wisdom. In particular, they had a suggestion to get a head start by going to a Denny's on Halloween and starting writing at midnight to get an entire day's writing in before the first day had really started. I was too wiped to do that, but ...
Get a head start. ... but I was not too wiped to set my alarm for thirty minutes past midnight and to get up and write at home. I stayed up from about 12:45 to 3AM, alternating between writing and puttering with the cats. I got a lot written - 1129 words. Then I took my laptop to lunch and finished out my day. Then I took my laptop to dinner and started work on the next day. Then I took my laptop to Cafe Borrone's and finished out the SECOND day. The result? I wrote 3500 words today. If I can keep up 1667 words a day, then I'll finish a day early. Woot!
Track your progress. I use a spreadsheet which I'm going to detail in a later post, but the long and the short of it is that you need to do 1667 words a day to finish 50,000 words by the end of November. Track your progress and hold your feet to the fire.
Write, write, WRITE! Enough said? No. There's a lot of planning you may need to do to finish Nano. WRITE FIRST. Get yourself a day or two ahead. THEN PLAN. Some of your best work will come from winging it.

Finally, one more word of wisdom. Don't start work on your second Nano book until you've finished your daily quota for the first. It's better to finish one book than it is to have two half finished books in the month. Remember, it's better to be done! In fact, I'll go further and say you should take a little break between the two of them, to say, for example, blog your Nano writing rules, just so you'll tackle the second book fresh. This advice only applies to insane people trying to do 2 novels in Nano. So, the result of me following these rules? 3500 words done today on HEX CODE:

And seriously, I'm only 96 extra words into STRANDED. Instead of trying to complete two Nano books, I'm going to try to make progress on completing my beta reader draft of STRANDED during my Nano downtime, as long as I'm making ahead-of-schedule progress on HEX CODE. And if I finish that ... THEN I can think of tackling STRANDED as a second Nano. -the Centaur

Nanowrimo 2011 Begins

Published November 1, 2011 by centaur

So it's another year, another National Novel Writing Month. This year, what was supposed to be my first YA (young adult) novel, HEX CODE. Actually, I've already started one called STRANDED, which makes me feel even better about tacking this new genre. A sneak preview of the first young adult novel featuring the mathemagical weretiger Cinnamon Frost, adopted daughter of the magical tattoo artist Dakota Frost:

It sucks trying to do your homework when you’ve turned into a tiger. It’s not that your body turns two sizes too big for your chair, that your balance goes so you can’t stand, or even that your claws are so sharp that you could punch straight through a keyboard. It’s the little things. Big cats are nearsighted, so you need big old dorky “tiger” glasses you can barely get on once your hands have gone to claws. And we’re predators, reflexes tied to movement, so I has to fight smashing the screen every time my mouse pointer moves. And turning into a tiger hurts like getting pummeled with a thousand bars of soap in socks, so the only thing I really want to do after the Change is gnaw on someone, regardless of whether I have three papers all due tomorrow morning.

The material above is actually from the 1500 words of "seed" material I started prior to National Novel Writing Month. I always start with a seed, be it 500 words or 10,000, but commit to fulfilling the Nano challenge by doing 50,000 additional words. This year my final target, counting the seed, is 51544 words. Time to climb that mountain!

Already 1129 words into the challenge (not counting the seed). Go Team Centaur! -the Centaur

Rebel Magicians of the Urban Jungle

Published October 21, 2011 by centaur

I've a guest post up at Reader's Entertainment News blog: Rebel Magicians of the Urban Jungle.

When I wrote FROST MOON, I had fun exploring all the different kinds of tattoo magic … but already, I had started to wonder: what other kinds of magic live in this alternate Atlanta where werewolves run in the night and vampires rule like gangsters? In the sequel, BLOOD ROCK, I explored one new magical practice: magic graffiti. The basic premise of the Dakota Frost universe is that if magic is real, then magic is real ...

To read more, click through the link. Y'all come back alive, hear? -the Centaur Crossposted at the Dakota Frost blog.

The Centaur at Write to the End

Published October 19, 2011 by centaur

Over at the Write to the End site, I've written a brief trip report of my Georgia Tech talk on the Dakota Frost, Skindancer series . It was a lot of fun and I had a great time. It also includes a reading of the first twenty minutes or so of FROST MOON. Enjoy! -the Centaur

Who Am I?

Published September 7, 2011 by centaur

me in front of the bell bridge books promotional material for BLOOD ROCK

Who are you? Good question. I'm Anthony Francis, and I write stuff and make computers jump through hoops for a living. What have you done? I'm most notable for the EPIC award winning urban fantasy novel FROST MOON and its sequel, BLOOD ROCK, which are about magical tattoo artist Dakota Frost and are therefore hopefully both more interesting than my ~700 page PhD thesis on context-sensitive computer memory. Also on the computer side, I've done some exploration of robot emotions. What are you doing next? Forthcoming in the Dakota Frost series is the third book, LIQUID FIRE, and this November for National Novel Writing Month I plan to work on HEX CODE, the first in a spin-off series featuring Dakota's adopted daughter Cinnamon Frost. Are you working on anything other than Dakota Frost? I've also recently completed a rough draft of the first book in a new series, JEREMIAH WILLSTONE AND THE CLOCKWORK TIME MACHINE. A short story set in this universe, "Steampunk Fairy Chick", will be included in the forthcoming anthology UnCONventional. What are you working on currently? I'm also currently working on a fourth new series with the working title STRANDED, a young adult science fiction novel set a thousand years in the future, featuring a spoiled young centauress who must rescue a shipload of children who have crashlanded upon a world she wanted to claim as her own. This story's set in the "Library of Dresan" universe from which this blog takes its name and which was setting of my very first unpublished novel "homo centauris", which I am now happily milking for its 57 billion year backstory. Anything else? I have a flash fiction story called "The Secret of the T-Rex's Arms" to appear on the Smashed Cat Magazine. I've also published one short story, "Sibling Rivalry" in the Leading Edge Magazine. I have a webcomic, f@nu fiku, on hiatus. And I'm actively involved with helping people succeed at 24 Hour Comics through tutorials that I and my friend Nathan Vargas have put together at Blitz Comics. Is that enough questions for now? Yes, it is. Please enjoy. -the Centaur

IT’S HERE.

Published August 16, 2011 by centaur

IT'S HERE. BLOOD ROCK has arrived at my home. Order the latest installment in the tale of Dakota Frost at one of these fine booksellers:

and of course, on Kindle. Crossposted on the Dakota Frost blog. -the Centaur

Back at Comic-Con

Published July 23, 2011 by centaur

I'm back at San Diego Comic-Con again ... my con home away from con home (my con home being Dragon*Con). Comic-Con is also where I get to visit with 125,000 of my closest friends.

Like Dragon*Con, San-Diego Comic-Con has grown far beyond its original roots. The con is about far more than just comics: it's now a full bore genre media event.

They've got sexy space girls ...

... sexy space guys ...

... and everything in between.

And lest there be any doubt about what I meant, here's what I took the closeup of in that last tableau ... I am a roboticist after all:

While I'm here, I'll not just be renewing my creative juices ... I'll be working on the final proofs for BLOOD ROCK, which is due the day after I get back.

If only I had a way to get more time...wait, maybe I do!

Wish me luck! -the Centaur

Future Books

Published July 18, 2011 by centaur

piles of notes between caffeine fuel and computational engine

An exchange from Facebook:

Anthony: Just finished a rough draft of JEREMIAH WILLSTONE AND THE CLOCKWORK TIME MACHINE ... my fourth completed novel! Wallace: Anthony it is great that you have 4 what are they? We know Frost Moon, blood Rock, what was the 3rd? Barbara enjoyed putting them on audio. Anthony ‎#1 is one you haven't heard of ... HOMO CENTAURIS is my first completed novel written in the early 90's. The next two were FROST MOON and BLOOD ROCK ... the third one in that series, LIQUID FIRE, is about 75% done. THE CLOCKWORK TIME MACHINE is the first in a new series. P.S. The working titles of the next three Dakota Frosts (4,5,and 6) are SPECTRAL IRON, PHANTOM SILVER and SPIRITUAL GOLD. The working titles of the next next three (7,8, and 9) are something like SPIRAL NEEDLE, HELICAL LANCE, and CIRCULAR KNIFE. And the working titles of ... I'll stop there. I can keep going, but I won't ... don't want to spoil the surprise. I've already mentioned some of the later ones online. :-)

Assuming I get that far ... no, I'm planning to get that far, and farther, God willing. -the Centaur Pictured: piles of notes between caffeine fuel and my computational engine.

Rough Draft of The Clockwork Time Machine

Published July 13, 2011 by centaur

I just completed a rough draft of my fourth novel! My first steampunk work, JEREMIAH WILLSTONE AND THE CLOCKWORK TIME MACHINE, clocks in at 90,000 words of completed story! [caption id="attachment_1128" align="alignnone" width="580" caption="The Title Page and Draft History of THE CLOCKWORK TIME MACHINE"]

[/caption] Here's another excerpt for those who like a tease ...

With Patrick’s blunderblast slung over her shoulder, Jeremiah whizzed through the streets on her autocycle, discharging its cylinder flat out, its teakettle scream and clanking frame adding another layer of mist and noise to the steam and bustle of Boston. Her legs were tensed, her knees bent against the pedals, half to jump the cycle over curbs, and half to keep the juddering vibration from the cobblestones of Beacon Hill from rattling her tailbone clean off. She squealed to a stop before the Moffat’s, pulled the cylinder and tossed it to a street urchin. “Top me off?” she asked, hopping off onto the sidewalk with a whirl and pulling her bag out of its basket in one smooth motion. “Yes, ma’am,” the boy said, taking the cycle. His eyes lighted on her vest, her denims—and on the big brass buttons on her lapels, a steering wheel, sword and airsail overlaid with a stylized V. “Are you an Expeditionary?” Jeremiah smiled. “Yes,” she said, ruffing his cap so that tufts of blond hair showed. “Maybe one day you’ll become one too. Polish the brasslite a bit and there’s a second shilling in it for you. Quick now; I won’t be long.”

I've got some cleaning to do and a whole 'nother draft before the beta readers can see it, but still ... on to LIQUID FIRE! -the Centaur

BLOOD ROCK Radio: Preparing the Reading

Published July 5, 2011 by centaur

I thought it might be useful to see the script a bit closer to completion. The script-style "SPEAKER: Dialogue goes here" style is my idea, and the color coding is an idea suggested by my wife (I'd been thinking of it but it was her suggestion that prompted me to actually do it). I also time it, and put time notes in the script when producing the sound bed - the list of music tracks that goes with the dialogue. Previously the time notes were scribbled notes on a printout, but I've got a little more time now so I'm doing it right. Oh, and I've eliminated the Seven Dirty Words - trickier than it sounds as you can't easily do a search and replace. I prefer to practice at least three times - once to get timing, once with the soundbed, and once for polish. If time permits, I do these on the three evenings prior to appearing on Ann Arbor's show just before going to bed, as there's some evidence that sleep improves memory consolidation (e.g., here, here and here). But having a nice relaxed holiday afternoon to practice counts too. See you all tomorrow at 7:20AM on Ann Arbor's Unbedtime Stories. -the Centaur Pictured: a screenshot of the reading script. Crossposted from the Dakota Frost blog.