Posts tagged as “Dragon Writers”

Blogging is like a job. One I’m bad at.

Published February 17, 2013 by centaur

One of the things I've always felt about myself is that I'm slow. I have ideas for fiction, but before I ever develop them, I see them brought to completion by someone else. When I was a child, I had a wonderful story involving spacecraft made to look like sailing ships, only to turn on my television to find that it had been done in Doctor Who.

Next I read Drexler's Engines of Creation shortly after it came out and planned a series of nanotech stories, before I'd ever read another science fiction author dealing with the theme. I was in college, still trying to finish my first novel, which I'd updated to include nanotechnology, when Michael Flynn published The Nanotech Chronicles.

Now in the blogoverse, things have gotten worse.

It's bad enough that my evil twin Warren Ellis, a man only one year older than me, has propelled himself to the pinnacle of the writing profession using only whisky and a cane while still blogging more than anyone could believe. Warren Ellis has his own ideas and I don't feel like we're competing in the same headspace.

No, my it's my nemesis John Scalzi, who has not only beaten me to the punch on the serialized novel The Human Division - I'm pretty sure my own designed-for-serialization novel THE CLOCKWORK TIME MACHINE predates it, but my novel is still in beta draft while his is like, you know, released to accolades and stuff - but also somehow seems to have plugged into my brain by beating my blog to the punch on his Hobbit at 48 Frames Per Second impressions and his attempts to tame a feral cat - I mean, come on! Everyone saw The Hobbit but even if Scalzi has a direct pipeline to my brain, how does one arrange to have a feral cat fortuitously run by one's door so one can tame it right when someone else does? Is there a service for such things? Synchronicity Unlimited?

Now dark mental wizard Caitlin Kiernan has beaten me to the punch by blogging about the correct pronunciation of kudzu.

Sigh.

Alright, thanks, Caitlin, for breaking the ice on one of my pet peeves. For the record: if you are recording an audiobook and have a Southern character speaking or thinking, they will pronounce the Borg-like pest vine kudzu "CUD-zoo." A character who lives in another part of the country can call it "kood-zoo" all they want, but in my 38 years in The South I never heard it pronounced that, nor, after nine months of research, have I been able to find anyone from The South who calls it anything other than "CUD-zoo," nor have any of those people ever heard anyone from anywhere call it anything other than "CUD-zoo". (And Wikipedia backs me - it claims the pronunciation is /ˈkʊdzuː/, with the first u pronounced as the u in full and the second pronounced as the oo in food).

It wasn't so hard to say that, was it? Why didn't I say that earlier, nine months ago, when I first heard it in an audiobook (I think in The Magnolia League, but it might have been Fallen)? I know I've been busy, but how hard was it? But, according to the timestamp on the image I downloaded of Loki at the start of this blogpost, I've been at this "little" blogpost for about an hour.

What I'm saying is, blogging is like a job. You find things, reflect on them, and post about them; it takes time to do it right. But I already work two jobs: I've got a slightly-more-than-full-time job at The Search Engine That Starts With A G, and I'm also a slightly-less-than-full-time writer. So this, my third job, has to come behind hanging out with my wife, friends and cats. I'm taking time out from editing an anthology to write this, and that's taking out time from Dakota Frost #3 and THE CLOCKWORK TIME MACHINE.

So: yes, I know. Lots to say, lots to do. Gun control. The Hobbit. Meteors falling from the sky and a drill making its way to a creepy buried lake in Antarctica. I'm working on it, I'm working on it - but two editors have claim on my writing first, and the provider of the paycheck that pays for this laptop has first claim on my time before that.

So if the freshness date on these blogposts is not always the greatest, well, sorry, but I'm typing as fast as I can.

-the Centaur

Pictured: Loki, our non-feral outdoor cat, who has grown very fat and but not very sassy given lots of love and can food.

The Dark Labyrinths of Lovecraft and Borges

Published January 30, 2013 by centaur

The Dark Labyrinths of Lovecraft and Borges

In many ways, Howard Philips Lovecraft and Jorge Luis Borges are different. Howard Philips Lovecraft wrote dark, atmospheric American horror at the dawn of the twentieth century. Jorge Luis Borges, born ten years later, wrote learned, ethnic Argentinian magic realism.

Lovecraft toiled in obscurity, writing for pulps; Borges was crowned with every prize the literary world has to offer short of the Nobel. Lovecraft was a high school dropout; Borges was a renowned professor of literature.

But in many ways, Howard Philips Lovecraft and Jorge Luis Borges are similar.

There’s the obvious: both the dropout and the professor were masters of erudition, capable of bring a vast number of literary techniques to their stories. Both focused largely on stories that were deeply regional, steeped in the lore of the cultures that they loved. And both were obsessed with odd details: for Borges, the labyrinth, the knife, and the tango; for Lovecraft, tangled streets, dark forests, and fishy odors.

But the important similarities between Lovecraft and Borges run far deeper.

Borges plays games with the infinite, constructing labyrinths of time and symbols that dig at the foundations of our concepts of thought and identity. His most famous story, “The Library of Babel,” imagines an infinite library filled with useless books, whose meaning might only be discerned by the allseeing eye of a god—a story that plays with ideas of faith in a random universe.

Lovecraft plays games with the cosmos, constructing vistas of time and space that threaten the foundations of our concepts of safety and knowledge. His most famous story, “The Call of Cthulhu,” imagines an undersea city inhabited by an enormous monster, whose existence threatens the sanity of humanity—a story that plays with ideas of fear and cosmic insignificance.

Borges and Lovecraft are similar, but not identical.

In Borges, the supernatural rarely breaks into the natural world openly, and when it does, it happens in dreams and visions or subtle events. The supernatural is subtle, but the meaning is not: Borges often tells us his aim directly in his stories, frequently writing them like essays that explore their own morals, or examining their meaning in conversations with himself. Borges plumbs the depths of human thought through stories that show us the vast scale of conceptual space. Throughout his work is a taste of nihilism: humans seeking meaning in a meaningless cosmos.

In Lovecraft, the supernatural manifests in dreams and vision and subtle events, but it always breaks into to the natural world openly. The supernatural is not subtle, but the meaning is: Lovecraft rarely tells us his aim directly in his stories, instead writing essays that explain their morals, or examining their meaning in letters to friends. He explores the cosmic through metaphor. Lovecraft plumbs the depths of human insignificance through stories that show us the vast scale of physical space. Throughout his work is a taste of nihilism: humans seeking sanity in an inhuman cosmos.

Lovecraft and Borges are two sides of the same coin.

They write about the same terrors. In Borges, the monsters swim beneath the surface, their shapes only dimly suggested by the churning existential confusion left in their wakes. In Lovecraft, the monsters break the surface, turn their dripping, shaggy visages towards the horrified faces of his protagonists, and show us that if we could truly see what Borges only hints at, we would surely go mad.

-the Centaur

Credits: public domain images of Lovecraft and Borges both from Wikimedia Commons; composition by me.

Going Gonzo

Published January 26, 2013 by centaur

It would be hard to adequately describe the story I'm working on now in between gaps of finishing up the anthology Doorways to Extra Time, but from the reading list I have above, you can fairly assume it's going to be gonzo.

Of course, everything that has Jeremiah Willstone in it is a bit gonzo.

-the Centaur

My New Year’s Gift To You: A Mulligan

Published December 31, 2012 by centaur

If you're not one of those people who gives yourself too much to do, this post may not be for you.

For the rest of us, with goals and dreams and drive, do you ever feel like you've got too much to do? I'm not talking about wanting more hours in the day, which we all do, but simply having too many things to do ... period. That sense that, even if you had a magic genie willing to give you endless hours, you'd never get everything you wanted to do done.

To keep track of stuff, I use a Hipster PDA, enterprise edition - 8.5x11 sheets of paper, folded on their long axis, with TODO items written on them and bills and such carried within the folder. Each todo has a little box next to it that I can check off, and periodically I copy items from a half-filled sheet to a new sheet, reprioritizing as I go.

But I'm a pack rat, so I keep a lot of my old TODO lists, organized in a file. Sometimes the TODO sheets get saved for other reasons - for example, the sheets are good headers for stacks of papers and notes related to a project. As projects get completed, I come across these old sheets, and have the opportunity to review what I once thought I had to do.

And you know what? Most of the things that you think you need to do are completely worthless. They're ideas that have relevance at the time, that may seem pressing at the time, but are really cover-your-ass responses to possibilities that never came to pass. The situation loomed, came, and then passed you by ... and should take your TODOs with it.

I'm not saying you shouldn't have things on your TODO list. I'm planning my 2013 right now. And I'm not saying you should give yourself a pass on obligations you've incurred to others. But I am saying you don't need to maintain every commitments you've ever made to yourself, especially those that came in the form of a TODO list item or a personal challenge.

As an example, a thing I do is take pictures of food and post it to my Google+ stream. Originally I was doing this as preparation for doing restaurant reviews, but I found I actually like the images of food more than I wanted to spend time writing reviews, especially since I have so much more writing to do. But when I get busy, I'll take more pictures than I post. I get a backlog.

So how much effort should I take going back to post the pictures? None is one good answer, but that begs the question to be asked: why are you taking the pictures in the first place? Periodically is another good answer, but it's actually difficult to figure out what I've posted and what I haven't. So hunting through my image feeds can become its own form of archaeology.

But you know what? The world won't come to an end if I don't post every picture I've ever taken of one of my favorite dishes at my favorite restaurants. If you're not obsessive-compulsive, you may not understand this, but the thought of something you said you were going to do that isn't getting done is an awful torment to those of us who are.

That's where a mulligan comes in. In the competitive collectible card game Magic: The Gathering, players compose decks of cards which they use in duels with other players - but no matter how well a player has prepared his or her deck of cards, success in depends a good initial hand of cards. The best deck in the world can be useless if you draw seven "lands" - or none.

So the game allows you to "mulligan" - to discard that initial hand and re-draw with one less card. That's a slight disadvantage, but a hand with no "lands" is useless - you can't do anything on the first round, and your opponent will clean your clock. Better to have a balanced hand of six cards than seven you can't do anything with at all. Better to have at least a chance to win.

So that's my gift to you all this New Year's Eve: declare yourself a mulligan. Maybe the turn of the seasons are just a notch on the clock, but use this passage as a point of inspiration. It's a new year, a new day, the starting point of a new path. Remind yourself of your real goals, and throw away any out of date TODOs and collected personal obligations that are holding you back.

Hug your wife, pay your bills, feed your cats. Write the software that pays the bills, and the books that you plan to do.

But don't let yourself get held back something you wrote a year ago on a piece of paper.

Not for one minute.

If you let yourself, the sky is your limit.

-the Centaur

On John Scalzi On Writing for Free

Published December 9, 2012 by centaur

John Scalzi recently complained about people asking him to write for free. His article's funny and reveals a lot about the writing industry many people who aren't in the industry don't know. Then I realized:

If someone asks you to write for free, that means they think writing is worth nothing.

(Well, maybe they're broke, or ignorant, or something similar. But generally that's clear from context.)

Today's moment of clarity was brought to you by Whatever.

-the Centaur

Pictured: "Sudden Clarity Clarence," a young man who's just realized he's spawned an internet meme.

Viiiictory Seven Times

Published November 29, 2012 by centaur

For the seventh time, I've won the National Novel Writing Month "contest", completing 50,000 words of a new novel in just 30 days. Actually, it took me just 29 days. Woohoo!

This year's entry, SPECTRAL IRON, is the fourth book in the Dakota Frost series, my urban fantasy series featuring the best magical tattooist in the Southeast (and she's not afraid to tell you that herself). SPECTRAL IRON was a bit of a detour from the work I was doing to edit LIQUID FIRE, the third entry in the series, but I'm glad I did: SPECTRAL IRON taught me a lot about what makes a book coherent and I can use that to edit LIQUID FIRE.

So what is SPECTRAL IRON about? Originally, I was thinking the story was about a villain that murders ghosts, but now it's looking like the villain is a ghost who's a murderer. Maybe. There are some very interesting plot complications developing. Let me see if I can pull out an excerpt that doesn't give much away. Well, maybe it spoils a minor surprise, but it doesn't give away the plot. This is the kind of thing they'd put in a movie trailer. Regardless ... SPOILERS:

Now, all that was left was to walk down a hundred more yards of train tracks in the dark.

The dolly had left us, but the spotlight had not. The mobile klieg operator wheeled it forward, slowly, tracking me, Ron and Sunny as we walked down the pathetic, waterlogged track. The further we went, the more layers of mystery were stripped off, one by one, by the light.

By the end, we no longer stood in a chasm of night. We merely stood in a dilapidated warehouse loading bay, a long, low brick-walled chamber, weathered with graffiti, with chained-up wooden doors atop its loading dock and beer bottles in the puddles between its train tracks.

“Nothing here,” the Lady Nyissa said. “Nothing obvious, at any rate.”

I stopped before the back wall of the loading dock. It stretched up before us, a mottled wall of brick thirty feet wide and fifty feet high, with a notch cut out of its bottom right by the platform and another cut out the top by a door. Rusted zig-zag metal stairs led up to it.

“Well,” I said, putting my foot on the train-brake at the end of the tracks, staring down at the pathetic mud puddle rippling before us between the end of the tracks and the wall. “It looks like The Exposers have found another Al Capone’s vault.”

Oh, me and my dumb mouth.

From the water erupted a foul spray of black—topped by a bone white mask.

So, there's a few thousand more words of brain dump to go, and then it's back to editing LIQUID FIRE, revising THE CLOCKWORK TIME MACHINE, and working on the DOORWAYS TO EXTRA TIME anthology, oh, and revising my own story for the anthology, "The Doorway to Extra Time" ... aaaa! But at least I have this year's Nano victory to console me:

Regardless, now that Nanowrimo and 24 Hour Comics Day and the Google Holiday Toy Collection are all behind me, I'm looking forward to getting back to my other projects, including all my writing, the Dakota Frost blog, and, heck, I dunno, my wife, friends and cats. Onward and upwards!

-the Centaur

Alllmost there…

Published November 28, 2012 by centaur

48735 words written ... 1265 words to go. Almost there.

Onwards...

-the Centaur

One Day Ahead, Four Days To Go

Published November 26, 2012 by centaur

I've completed another 2237 words today. By my count, this puts me one whole day ahead of the game. You can see that a bit above, but even more clearly below, where the darker blue "cumulative progress" bar is just a notch higher than the level for a day's progress. If I was right on target, 100%, daily progress would be at this point, but cumulative progress would be at 0.

Well, again I don't think I have a good spoiler free excerpt, so I'll just close with ... onward!

-the Centaur

Back on Track, Redux

Published November 26, 2012 by centaur

Back from vacation, back at work, but got a chunk of writing done this lunchtime. Back on track:

If my calculations are correct, I am roughly one day ahead at this point (that is, I'm essentially starting today where I want to finish today). So my mountain of words is still over the top of the line:

No time for an excerpt; back to work. But tonight, here's shooting for one more day ahead!

-the Centaur

Back on Track, Redux

Published November 26, 2012 by centaur

Back from vacation, back at work, but got a chunk of writing done this lunchtime. Back on track:

No time for an excerpt; back to work. But tonight, here's shooting for one more day ahead!

-the Centaur

Friendstop

Published November 25, 2012 by centaur

Saturday: day off in the City, seeing the Golden Gate, Tiburon and Union Square with good friends. Totally worth it.

Today: back to it, +800 words and counting.

-the Centaur

Me and my dumb mouth

Published November 24, 2012 by centaur

Axually, it's Dakota's dumb mouth at issue here, and while I'd love to include an extract ... ssh, SPOLIERS! But the point being, the day after Thanksgiving, I'm back on track for National Novel Writing Month. And this includes an evening hanging out with my friends at the wonderful Nola restaurant I'm so fond of. No pictures of that (phone battery gave out) but I do have a followup picture from my solo excursion to Cocola Cafe in Santana Row, where I finished out today's Nano:

I've done Nano enough times that I probably could have skipped today and even tomorrow if I wanted, just to hang out with my friends who are in town (staying at another friend's house). But this "vacation" isn't really a vacation for me: it's a writecation. Writing really is like a second job now: if I want to be a writer, certain things have to get done. In this case, it's Nano, and sending off acceptances and rejections for DOORWAYS TO EXTRA TIME:

You'll note a little asymmetry there: my coeditor, who's done this before, is way ahead of me contacting people about their stories. And those are just the acceptances. Argh. And then I've got to respond to Trish's comments on my own story, which, while I was proud of it before, now looks like it will need a lot of work. Sigh. This is why I like working with editors, I tell myself, they make my stories better. Sob. At least Nano is on track:

Of course, the second half of the story is a complete salsa, and I don't know where it's going, but there's a building, and it's on fire, and it's a spectral fire, that only starts once a year, and there's William Blake's spirit guide riding a tiger, and oh yeah Cinnamon wears a Santa hat, then threatens to punch him in the gut if she meets him in a dark alley. So yeah, I'm having fun, even if I briefly hit a little plateau there while recuperating from all that turkey.

Now, more mountain to climb! Onward!

-the Centaur

Thanksgiving: Mission Accomplished

Published November 23, 2012 by centaur

Once again, I have successfully written NOTHING on Thanksgiving Day, spending it instead with friends!

Mission accomplished. What am I thankful for? My great friends that I've known for a quarter century.

The wonderful food we all prepared (mostly) by hand on a holiday that's not yet commercialized.

Preparing my first nearly perfect pound cake in a few years (more on that later). Not to mention living in a land where we can all not just eat, but have dessert! Most of all, being far enough ahead in Nano to just hang out and spend time with friends without worrying about keeping myself caught up.

As Fonzie would say, "Ayyy, little buddy."

I don't know how much more time I'll have this weekend to hang out with my friends; if it wasn't for Nano I'd be spending all my time sending out acceptances and rejections on DOORWAYS TO EXTRA TIME. But I do have to eat, so I'll be having at least one and possibly two more nice meals with my friends. And I hope several long phone calls with my wife (away on business).

More things to give thanks for. The gifts, they don't stop coming.

So, thanks, God, for everything.

-the Centaur

God’s Marines Wield Strange Weapons

Published November 18, 2012 by centaur

At last, back on track for National Novel Writer's Month. I like the graph: I like seeing how the week of a software release has taken a neat chunk out of my progress, and how a few days on vacation gets things back on track again. This reminds me to continue taking of the week of Thanksgiving every year if I want to get new novels done.

The title comes from a scene I've just written, in which Dakota Frost is baited into a battle with a wand-wielding priest. Soon Dakota realizes they were set up --- and figures out how to de-escalate:

The priest cried out, striking me with the back of his free hand.

I winced … then turned the other cheek.

The priest stared, drawing back his hand again. I reached up and put my thumbs through the straps of my backpack. Then I turned my head even further, exposing the cheek, eyes glaring at him sidelong in silent accusation. The priest frowned, then lowered his hand.

“Dakota Frost,” I said, extending mine. “Best magical tattooist in the Southeast.”

The priest stared at my hand dumbly, then realized he had a free one.

“Father Aidan Cosgrave, SJ.”

“A Jesuit,” I said. “Interesting to find a Jesuit wielding a wand.”

“God’s Marines,” Cosgrave said, “often find themselves wielding strange weapons.”

I'm over the halfway point of Nano now, with 6 or so free days on vacation to try to really get a head. Onward!

-the Centaur

rejection

Published November 16, 2012 by centaur

I have sent my first rejection letter to another author.

Not quite sure how to feel about that.

-the Centaur

Now that’s what I’m talking about…

Published November 10, 2012 by centaur

Yesterday was nearly a wash - worn out after three long consecutive work days pushing software in preparation for a release, and then out late on date night with my wife - dinner at Aqui's (yum) and movie Tron 3 (AKA Wreck it Ralph, you're not fooling me, Disney). Totally. Worth. It., of course, but still ... less than 300 words done for the day.

But today? Up early to take my wife to the airport, had breakfast at Crepevine, and got almost triple that before even 9:30AM!

And now, I'm in for my second writing session, before even 10AM. This is what makes Nano work.

Excelsior!

-the Centaur

Pictured: Crepevine as seen from the upper window of Cafe Romanza, my wife at Aqui's, and progress.

UPDATE: Writing Session 2 done, I am now officially caught up for the day:

And, despite the last week's slippages, I'm still ahead overall for Nano:

Plus there are at least one and maybe two or three more writing sessions today.

Hyperion!

Back on Track

Published November 9, 2012 by centaur

I don't see catfood on your todo list there, mister.

No, but I am back on track for National Novel Writing Month, even though today was consumed almost completely by a software release that just ... wouldn't ... die. I'm actually planning a postmortem on a tiny little patch that ended up becoming a complete new release of our software that exposed interactions everywhere from our unit test framework to software we're launching next year. That made me late for the monthly Writing Allies meeting - normally I chunk out a piece of time to write over dinner before I get there, even if we all are having too much fun talking about writing to actually write. But when I got home, even after a lot of cat wrangling, I did manage to sit down with the laptop (or, from time to time, follow cats around with the laptop):

Back on track for the day: 18179 words, or 16219 added. Still a day ahead. Woohoo! An excerpt:

Doug stared with interest at the footage from Ron and Sunny’s cameras, then at the pictures I’d taken of the graffiti with my cell phone. He asked if we had more, and I was embarrassed to admit that we’d hightailed it before fully finishing our location scouting.

“S’alright,” he said, reviewing the tape one more time. “Most interesting.”

“Well,” Sunny demanded. “What is it?”

“Definitely magic,” Doug said. “But I’m guessing you knew that.”

“Well—” Sunny began.

“C’mon,” Ron said. “There’s a demonstration of magic on the tape—”

“I was there,” Sunny reminded him. “And I do believe in magic. It’s just—”

“A projectia,” I said suddenly. “A caster’s will magically projected as a form.”

“Precisely,” Jinx said. “Like your tattoos, but free-floating. They can be as insubstantial and transparent as, well, ghosts, or as solid and opaque as physical objects. Your old boss, Christopher Valentine, used them to create his famous doppelganger illusion.”

Congratulations, Nano writer! Now back to work.

-the Centaur

Why do we get ahead in Nano, Master Bruce?

Published November 8, 2012 by centaur

Because we know we'll fall behind again.

What' s the cause? Launch crunch, exhaustion, and spending time with my wife before her upcoming trip.

And you know what, writing friends? All that's more important than Nano.

Totally. Worth. It.

I'm taking a whole week off at Thanksgiving just to write, so its Ohe. Kay. if I fall behind from time to time, as long as I don't let myself slip down the slope altogether.

According to my calculations, I'm fine. I could slip one whole day and still be fine.

Not that I plan to. Tonight is writing night!

-the Centaur

Getting off on the right foot

Published November 3, 2012 by centaur

Alright! I set aside time for two long writing sessions today, so I finally got ahead, writing 3473 words today. If I can push it just a bit further, another 1600 words, I think I'll hit my target for tomorrow. If only I had a doorway to extra time ... oh wait: tonight, I do.

Set your clocks back, everyone. As for me, who knows if I'll get there, but it's back to climbing that hill:

-the Centaur

UPDATE: 1:40AM (after Daylight Savings Time) and 4292 words added today, totaling 9828 words. Night!

National Novel Writing Month – Spectral Iron

Published November 3, 2012 by centaur

"Everyone's favorite skeptical witch is back for her fourth foray in SPECTRAL IRON!"

Sheesh. I do find it hard to write marketing copy. I just had to stop, right there.

SO ANYWAY, National Novel Writing Month, 2012. My one, two, three, four, five, six ... seventh, SEVENTH time writing 50,000 words of a new novel in the month of November. It's quite the challenge, but it's the second best thing I've ever done for my writing other than join the Write to the End group - more writing comes out of Nano than (almost) anything else.

How much writing, you ask? (Or maybe you don't, but hey, it's my blog post). Nano itself six times would be only three hundred thousand words, but it was the seed for seven hundred thousand words of text and four completed novels. The Nano's I've done so far were:

DELIVERANCE - 2002 - 150K words - IN PROGRESS
Seven hundred years after the Fall of Humanity, a rag-tag crew of a human spacecraft at the Frontier of space encounters a distress call from a ship owned by the aliens that took the Earth - and encounters one of the humans they left behind, who doesn't seem to think Humanity fell after all ... even though she barely looks human.
Didn't finish this one, even though I eventually got 150,000 words into it. Hope to get back to it someday. My story "Stranded" in the anthology of the same name is set in the same universe, with a YA version of the same setup - the protagonist of "Stranded" is actually the granddaughter of one of the protagonists of DELIVERANCE.
FROST MOON - 2007 - 100K words - DONE
Dakota Frost, a magical tattoo artist who can bring her tattoos to life, is asked by the police to track a serial killer preying on the magically tattooed around the time of the full moon - and then she encounters a werewolf who wants a tattoo done before the full moon to control his impulses. Has she found the killer ... or the next victim?
Finished this one in 2009, published in 2010.
BLOOD ROCK - 2008 - 150K words - DONE
Magical tattoo artist Dakota Frost returns, now fighting a plague of killer graffiti that is attacking vampires, werewolves and humans alike. As Dakota struggles with this new plague, she finds that fighting it threatens her relationship with her friends, custody over her new daughter---and ultimately, her life.
Finished this one in 2010, published in 2011.
LIQUID FIRE - 2009 - 120K words - DONE
Magical tattoo artist Dakota Frost returns, now struggling to keep her head above water in a magical world which threatens to consume her. A chance meeting on a plane leads her to befriend the beautiful fireweaver Jewel Graceling - but as Jewel increasingly comes under attack, can even Dakota save her?
Finished this one in 2012, hope it to come out in 2013.
JEREMIAH WILLSTONE AND THE CLOCKWORK TIME MACHINE - 2010 - 100K words - DONE
There's no better defender of the Liberated Territories of Victoriana than Jeremiah Willstone, and she'll tell you that herself! But when her rich and powerful uncle calls down a monster from another world and escapes with it in a time machine, is even the stoutest defender of Liberation up to the challenge?
Finished this one in 2012, hope it to come out in 2013.
HEX CODE - 2011 - 55K words - IN PROGRESS
Cinnamon Frost is a street cat turned domestic - where by cat, we mean weretiger, and by domestic, we mean adopted. But can someone who grew up running the streets really learn to settle down in class? Even if they have her favorite thing in the world, math, there's always English class - and if that's not enough, someone may be trying to kill her.
Still working on this one. Hope to finish it in 2013, have it come out in 2014.

Now it's on to SPECTRAL IRON, book 4 in the Dakota Frost series. Pictured above are some of the books I'm reading to "feed my head" for the plot of the book, which involves magical tattoos, piercing, the fae, ghosts, three kinds of zombies, television, and the appropriate relationship of science to skepticism. From the site, here's my blurb:

Dakota Frost is the best magical tattooist in the Southeast - but she's not in the South anymore. Her new role on the Magical Security Council has taken her to the underbelly of San Francisco, and she's got a camera crew dogging her every step as she's trying to map the magical Edgeworld. But when she runs foul of the fae, and is forced to do them a favor, even one of the world's most skilled skindancer may be in trouble.

Because if you don't know how to kill a ghost, how can you track down his murderer?

You need to write 1666 words a day to succeed at Nano, and so far, so good. Halfway through my day, and more than halfway through today's progress. I should easily catch up to where I should be (missed ~300 words yesterday because me and my wife decided to take a long walk and then crash after that, rather than me getting my late night writing run in).

But most of the day is ahead of me. Alright, enough procrastinating. Back to work!

-the Centaur