After over a year...

...I redid my webpage again! I gave away copies of my ebook for free to celebrate. Did you miss it? I may do it again...if I have enough response.

New site!

My website was just redone to reflect my selling ecopies of "Sons of Sin" on Smashwords.com! I'm really excited about the new look. Make sure to check it out and get the coupon code for $1.10 off the list price of the book in honour of my upcoming birthday!

http://derelict-dahlia.com

Cirkus Prinsessan

Hey, everyone! A friend of mine has a daughter who is a phenomenal skater, and she is competing in a Scandinavian contest to be a "Cirkus Princess", so I would really appreciate it if you could help her out by voting for her at this site. Thanks to everyone who does!

http://cirkusprinsessan2009.se/contest/detail/14/

Creating everything

So, I like to step out of reality for awhile, but I find the worlds made by other people to be a little stale. I prefer my own, but how does one go about building their own world? I mean, honestly, how pretentious is it to say "your world's not good enough for me, I need to make my own"? And then, do you make a whole new world or bastardize someone else's or even the real world?

That's the difference between 'high fantasy' and 'contemporary fantasy' in a large respect to me. Either you create everything, including names and titles and words in addition to playing god by creating the universe, or you create some of the things and plop them into what's already familiar to the reader.

That's why I  write 'urban fantasy,' supernatural goings-on in a mostly real world setting. I don't have to build a world for you to relate to, because you live in it. However, it's still different. I've created a race that lives in our world only in my mind, and I have to sell you on the realism that they've been there since ancient times, evolving with us yet apart from us. Their world is completely different from the one you know, so I have to start out 85% high fantasy-thinking and blend it with 15% contemporary because they are technology freaks but stuck in the mindset of an ancient culture that saw no reason to change what worked for them thousands of years ago.

Really, in a way, it reminds me of some Final Fantasy games. There're magic and monsters, pixies and nymphs, satyrs and winged people, but there is also the overwhelming presence of technology in cars, hovercrafts, guns, holograms and automated living quarters.

So the task of the author (that's me) is to persuade the reader (that's you) to believe in my blend of opposites and keep reading. I think it's easier with a medium like a game, because you can see it and seeing is believing. As a novel writer, I'm asking you to believe in something wholly intangible, something only I can see in my mind.

If I do it right, you come with me for a jaunt through my merry land of misfits and rogues; if not, you toss my book and tell people not waste their money.

Here's hoping we make tracks together.

Stepping up

Now on Kindle for $3.96 (they did a 'you save $0.99!' on me).

Kindle

You know, for giving SO many options on how to upload your content for conversion to the dtp format, they sure have a crappy turnout when it's done. The pdf looked horrible, totally unreadable by the average person. The text file wouldn't even convert, kept giving an "uknown" buffer error. I don't have a pc/Windows and yet the Pages export of a doc file turned out to be my winning bet.

If you're only going to work to make a legible document with an MS word document, JUST SAY SO!

*mumblemumbleantiapplemumblemumble*

Oh right, before I go: purchase your copy of Sons of Sin today on Amazon.com, also available in Kindle format (usable on iTouch and iPhone as well) within the next 12-72 hours.

/end shameless self-promotion

Just...ew

There is something inherently wrong with needing to plunge a bathtub drain. And it's just wrong when paper or flakes that resemble paper come out of the drain and stick to your bathtub but the draining of the bathtub does not improve.

And I gotta shower in this. Goddamnit.