• Tag Archives fiction

  • Long, Long, Long Overdue Update

    This place isn’t dead. On the contrary, I have often thought over the past couple years that I have let it go too long without putting anything here. The same goes for the newsletter, but that is another matter entirely. Since it has been nearly two whole years, there is a lot of ground to cover. I’m going to keep this brief for now though.

    Continue reading → Post ID 1201

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  • A Simple Mission

    Posted on by Skye Comment

    “Just a simple mission,” they’d said, like what they wanted wasn’t at all unusual.

    Another chance to serve my country by removing an obstacle to social progress. Despite the euphemisms, I knew exactly what they really wanted. They called it an execution. Told me it had been approved by the courts after a proper trial and everything.

    But what court doesn’t even tell someone they’re on trial? What execution involves slithering into someone’s house while they sleep?

    I shouldn’t have listened. Should have known better. About the guilt. About how from then on I would always see the blood on my hands no matter how often I washed them. If that was it, perhaps I could have gotten over it. Found a way to live with myself.

    Only it wasn’t.

    Now, barely a day goes by without that familiar prickle running down my spine when I least expect it. Sometimes its in the mirror. Sometimes out of the corner of my eye. Once, even at my daughter’s school.

    I’ll be minding my own business only to look over, and there he’ll be. Standing there. Watching. Smiling at me like he doesn’t mind the bullet hole in the middle of his forehead.


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  • Reading List, January to April

    This year I am trying to be more aware of how I read. It isn’t really a resolution so much as a desire to break a very bad habit I know I have. The problem is that I really enjoy reading to the point where I tend to binge read if I find a book I like. To really understand the problem, you need to realize that when I say binge read I mean that I tend to read to the exclusion of everything. Work, eating, sleeping. It isn’t unusual for me to start a book and read it straight through over the course of a day or two (depending on the length) while taking minimal breaks. Honestly, I don’t know anyone else who behaves the same way.

    I think I developed the habit in high school, but while this was fine in the past it can be a huge problem when I am in the middle of a project something. This is especially true if the book happens to be part of a series. Often, I will immediately dive into the sequel if I enjoyed a book, possibly leading to multiple days of inactivity. Really counterproductive when I’m busy with a project. Continue reading → Post ID 1201

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  • 1st Draft Done, Revisions Begin

    Today I finished the 1st Draft of my book and have started on the major revisions I decided needed to be done in service to the story.

    If you look at my progress graph you’ll see that I am already 32% done, however this is misleading as I was casually working on this already and I track my progress by how many chapters are “done.” In this case the work is not evenly distributed between chapters (a few scenes and even chapters need something approaching a total rewrite, while others need significant work but nothing so serious that I cannot rework what is already there).

    By my estimation, most of the “heavy” work is contained to five or six chapters. No deadline yet because I want to attempt tackling at least one of these to see how long it takes before I make any estimations.

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  • Honor’s Path (Book 2) Officially Written!

    Only a few days late, but just north of 8,000 words longer than I expected. I will not jump immediately into editing, but this should put me on target for publishing it sometime next year (again, I am going to shoot for November or December). Don’t have time for a longer post now, but there should be one the Monday following Christmas. I ought to have a lot to talk about then.

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  • Final Stretch

    The rough draft for Book 2 of the Honor’s Path series is now 93% written (or there about) and I am now applying myself fully to get it finished. Still on schedule for being done by December 15th, if not a little before that. That is lucky because as thing work out that is right before I go to visit family for Christmas.

    Really looking forward to getting this project written. It will free me up to do a few little side things I’ve been eager to attempt. There’s that Novella I want to do as a psudo-NaNoWriMo project, a short story, and of course I want to start looking at laying out the plot for Book 3.

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  • Only One Week Left

    So, there is now just 1 week left until Furry Book Month is finished! Time is running out.

    Once everything is said and done I’ll probably make a post laying out my thoughts about the process of running Furry Book Month, and how I think it could be improved in the future. For now, though, I am actually quite pleased. I’ve really enjoyed watching twitter to see all the people promoting the event.

    I ended up buying 4 books that were being promoted (Legacy, Off Leash, Flower’s Fang, and The Dragon Tax). Also ended up giving a review for Huntress, which I had read before and forgotten to give a review to. One of the books (Legacy by Hugo Jackson) I’ve already finished reading in fact. I’ll be writing a review of it in a day or two after I finish processing my thoughts on it, but might as well share some immediate impressions.

    One thing that is always an experience for me when reading is that I always inevitably compare my skill to the person I’m reading, most noticeably when I see them doing things better than I do. This is an embarrassingly common occurrence, but I do my best to take note of what the author is doing when it happens.

    In this case, I noticed that Hugo Jackson spent far more time describing his primary protagonist than I tend to do. Generally I try to keep character descriptions on the light side other than a few pertinent details. I like my characters to be identified by how they behave and act, and trust the reader to come up with an image that they like using the key physical descriptors I give.

    Hugo Jackson, by contrast, managed to go into a fair amount of dept about what the protagonist was wearing, something I would avoid for fear of interrupting the story flow for something like an info dump. He made it work, however, and I was impressed by how effectively he managed to portray a fairly intricate outfit. It has made me think that perhaps I need to do some exercises where I focus on describing characters without becoming boring.

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  • Furry Book Month: October

    Posted on by Skye 6 Comments

    furry-book-month

    October 1st has arrived, and with it the very first Furry Book Month! To anyone interested in what this is, my post this Wednesday includes a helpful FAQ that should answer the most common questions.

    Until the end of the month, authors and publishers of anthropomorphic fiction will have special offers on books for you to take advantage of! If that interests you, then read on! Unless otherwise indicated, these offers last until the end of October. I have attempted to link* to the relevant store pages where possible to make it easy to take advantage of these offers.

    Continue reading → Post ID 1201


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