In mid-October I headed to the Las Vegas suburb of Henderson for the inaugural Son of Silvercon, to which Kevin the Chief Wombat kindly invited me as Guest of Honor. I was one of three guests, the other two being author Sarah Hoyt and her husband Dan; and Baen author and editor DJ Butler, neither of whom I’ve met in person. But I was attending the con to meet in person many people who...
2023-10-31 17:23:15 +0000 UTC View PostWe launch tomorrow! This one runs a little longer than most of mine at two weeks, and it's intended to attract new readers as well as delight my existing ones... so if you wanted to get a friend on board, this will be a good project to hand them.
I'm looking forward to our stretch goals this time around, especially if we go over 10K and I can work on the redraw of the old painting....
Here's the link: 2023-10-09 13:54:42 +0000 UTC View Post
VELLEITY (n.) 1. Volition in its weakest form 2. A mere wish, unaccompanied by an effort to obtain it.
“The Forest in Autumn” (1841) by Gustave Courbet
I can’t believe I’m leaving for the con next week! I haven’t been to a con in… I can...
2023-10-05 14:16:55 +0000 UTC View Post
...and I'm working on mine! Here's the sketch I'm contemplating for the holiday collection cover.😁
2023-10-02 16:50:22 +0000 UTC View PostIt was my plan to run a campaign to pay for the final Princes' Gam audiobooks, but since I have to wait on that one for the narrator's availability, I decided to use KS to pay for and get moving on the refresh of Her Instruments, with the updated covers, typo corrections, improved backmatter, etc.
Here's the preview link, so you can watch me build (and suggest things you want! Let me know!): 2023-09-25 17:01:57 +0000 UTC View Post
Whichever you prefer (whether it's catching typos and finding continuity errors, or leaving random comments), you are welcome to do now on Araelis and Lesandurel's courtship story!
Of course, if you prefer to wait for the final version (or just to be surprised!), it'll be in the holiday collection in a few months. But if you can't wait, here's the link: ht...
2023-09-21 20:14:29 +0000 UTC View PostCERULESCENT (adj.) gradually turning sky-blue in colour
"The Quiet Hour," by English painter Albert Chevallier Tayler (1913).
Kind of crazy getting back into the swing of the school year, but I’ve noted that I need to have the holiday book uploaded so...
2023-09-11 13:04:30 +0000 UTC View Post
I planned this one as a t-shirt design... when it's available, I'll link to it. Alas, the sparkly paint won't come through on the scan! The person who buys the original will enjoy it, though. :)
Many thanks to the fans on Discord, who made many helpful suggestions! Here's the latest test. I still have a lot to do (mostly involving cleaning up the scanned painting's edges and errors), but I feel like this is closer.
I'm going to try mocking up a few more covers this way to see how they look as a group.
2023-09-01 13:29:37 +0000 UTC View Post
It's been an exciting few days! But we're drying off, so it's back to work. One of my long term backburner quests is to recover my books so they more accurately signal their science-fictionness, so I took a stab at it with Dragons' Fealty. Do you think this cover reflects the genre/story type better?
2023-08-31 13:26:58 +0000 UTC View Post
I ran into this page on the wiki which I'd forgotten about, and thought... hey, this is kind of fun!
So based on this table, which Pelted species are you?
https://peltedverse.org/wiki/index.php/Peltedverse_Virtues
2023-08-21 21:53:06 +0000 UTC View Post
Continuing to try to clean up my hard drive, I'm running into a lot of old black and white work... I like this one because of the transparency effect on the skirt. I did fancy stuff with ink back then! (Looks like the date on this one is 1997).
2023-08-14 15:27:27 +0000 UTC View PostI want to write at least one bonus "cut scene" for Exile 1, so I'm collecting votes... which do you want? Besides 'all of them'..!😉
2023-08-07 12:00:06 +0000 UTC View Post
Someone (eyes offscreen) sent me a lightbox so I have been experimenting with using it to transfer paintings. This was my first try, of a mangrove unicorn scene! I see some promise in using this instead of the printer to do transfers.
It's nice to paint again! I haven't in a while!
2023-08-04 12:00:06 +0000 UTC View PostThis is the last bit I have written of the gamelit novel (it's even got a placeholder name thrown in it, lol), so now you can tell me if you're enjoying it!
***
How about Naturalist?
Nick grunted as he scaled the hummock, digging his cloven hooves into the soft sod. “Doesn’t that sound more like a character class?”
Does it?
“It does to me, anyway. Some kind of summoner-druid? Maybe with a bonus to herbalism?”
Your suggestion ...
2023-07-31 11:42:48 +0000 UTC View Post“You’d like me to what?”
The centaur boomed, “Bring me ten lizardhens. We hunger!”
Amanda peered at the resulting message, now hanging in front of the centaur on a translucent blue rectangle:
FEED THE HUNGRY
Kavon the Cook needs meat to feed his camp. Bring him ten lizardhen parts.
Requirements: 10 edible lizardhen parts
Reward: Some a...
2023-07-28 12:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostIn ebook, paperback, and hardcover editions, at all retailers! Go get your copy if you already haven't:
https://books2read.com/shieldmatron1
Discord discussion is in the #readalong channel (and there might be spoilers so if you don't want them, visit only when you're done! Otherwise, show up and chat as you read!)
2023-07-25 11:57:09 +0000 UTC View PostWELCOME TO OMEN GALAXICA
BETA GROUP
ARE YOU READY FOR ADVENTURE?
Amanda wrinkled her nose. She did not at all feel ready for adventure, but she supposed this was as good as it was going to get. She thought ‘Yes’ and as promised, the cursor selected the right prompt.
AUTHORIZE WIRESET FULL IMMERSION?
This was for Nick, she reminded herself. And it would pass the time better than napping. Maybe...
2023-07-24 13:41:58 +0000 UTC View PostCHAPTER 3
Character… Discovery
Nick had promised his mother he wouldn’t use the wireset until Monday morning, though the beta started at midnight. Ordinarily it would have been useless to try sneaking an attempt past her, too, because while his father would have slept through a hurricane, his mother could somehow hear him breathing too loudly through three walls. Her new habit of falling asleep on the couch made it do-able, though, so he donned the new hardware ten minutes bef...
2023-07-21 12:00:05 +0000 UTC View Post
Just to keep you all up to date:
SURELA: Exile is out next week! You can preorder the ebook at any retailer, and paperbacks and hardcovers are already available for order at Amazon. I’ve submitted a paperback to other retailers but I don’t know how long it’ll take for that to become available… and hardcovers for now are Amazon-only. If you’d like to buy directly from me, though, let me know, we’ll work something out. 2023-07-17 12:48:32 +0000 UTC View Post
Nick crouched on the rock outside the Star-Touched Chalet, playing with one of his knives while waiting for the rest of his friends to arrive. They’d run the Chalet so many times that he thought of this rock as his rock. Because inevitably he got here before any of his friends. They were all bound to big capital cities, which was great if you wanted access to capital city things. But he preferred wandering the countryside, and had his soulgem bound to the human starting zone, and t...
2023-07-14 11:59:01 +0000 UTC View PostWe continue, since you all requested!
***
CHAPTER 2
Ghost in the Machine
…but they almost didn’t.
She wasn’t supposed to be watching. Jonah had been firm about her not hijacking cameras and microphones to surveil internal company meetings, while not coding her to prevent it the way he did other things, like her ability to initiate searches without external requests, or her ability to copy herself outside the company VPN. And because he’d been firm, but no...
2023-07-10 11:53:51 +0000 UTC View PostThe last bit got cut off, so here's the rest!
***
“That’s my hero. Nick, the provider. Talk to you in a bit, this part’s gonna suck.”
With no one to talk to, Nick tried to concentrate on what he was doing… and failed. Usually farming windalos was hypnotizing, what he imagined meditation felt like. Today he couldn’t keep his head in the game. Literally. Bringing up the guild frame let him track the location of his friends, and he flipped from one mini-m...
2023-07-07 13:49:55 +0000 UTC View PostI have this partial started about a family that grows together through gaming, if people are interested I'll run with it! This is most of chapter 1.
***
Chapter 1
Pre-reqs
She was still holding the headset when her husband came home… though admittedly, not so much because she’d been stunned by her son’s invitation, but because she’d fallen asleep with it in the crook of her wrist. As usual, she hadn’t planned the nap, and didn’t realiz...
2023-07-04 12:11:47 +0000 UTC View PostEnough of you have asked me if there’s some way you can help that I thought I should write a quick note about it, so… here it is! First of all: if you have bought my books, my artwork, picked up something from Etsy or Zazzle, or (most particularly) are a subscriber on Patreon or Locals, you are already helping! In particular, the patron platforms give my family income we can count on monthly. For now, that and my royalties are the only incoming checks, so… thank you!
For those of ...
2023-06-30 11:46:12 +0000 UTC View Post...then I am streaming my priest's bumbling adventures through one of World of Warcraft's older expansions. The narration is heavy on story, and story vs game mechanics, and my musings on how you structure games and what my character's thinking. If you're into that (or just like my voice because I'm quiet and silly), I'm doing an hour in the evenings (EST) on twitch, and then a day later those episodes get ported to youtube. Links here:
I found this old color pencil piece, which I did in response to my first "real" corporate job and my experience of various kinds of managers. I showed it to my favorite boss, and he asked for a copy, and wanted the explanation on paper... so I wrote it for him. I'd forgotten all about it until I started reorganizing my hard drive! Here it is in full, along with the art (obviously). It's still one of my favorite color pencil pieces.
***
THE SUPPLICANT 2023-06-26 13:16:27 +0000 UTC View Post
