the-bard-writes

[the-bard-writes]

“but EVERYTHING is chemicals!!”

that’s not what it means and you fucking know it. stop putting weird shit in food.

[the-bard-writes]

The lovely @the-bard-writes did some fanart for this still unnamed book I'm working on. The plague bird, nickname for the Sodalists (a group of plague doctor sorts) is from their serial The Young Owl. The fire rat is for the colloquial name of the fire fighters/disease control group the Smokebarrow men in my setting.

The quotes are from two main characters sharing an almost kiss, represented by their respective holy symbols.

Check out The Young Owl! It features mutant plague doctors, an immediately likeabley audacious protagonist and an interesting enemy.

[the-bard-writes]

The lovely @the-bard-writes did sime fanart for this still unnamed book I'm working on. The plague bird, nickname for the Sodalists (a group of plague doctor sorts) is from there series The Young Owl. The fire rat is for the colloquial name of the fire fighters/disease control group the Smokebarrow men in my setting.

The quotes are from two main characters sharing an almost kiss, represented by their respective holy symbols.

Check out The Young Owl! It features mutant plague doctors, an immediately likeabley audacious protagonist and an interesting enemy.

[the-bard-writes]

Plague doctor week pt. 2 [day 4/7]

[the-bard-writes]

I guess I’m writing a short story about a colonist on Mars being haunted by the ghost of his ancestor now?

[the-bard-writes]

Whatever feels right, honestly. I’ve been listening to Messengers by Jared & The Mill a lot lately because the bridge really plucks my heart strings, and that’s what kicked the whole game off.

Does anyone wanna send asks telling me about what you're working on atm? I want to know

[the-bard-writes]

Recently joined the SCA so I'm trying to shake the rust off my sonnet skills and make some period poetry. Playing a fun game with it by taking choruses and other lyrics from modern songs that strike a chord in me and rewriting them as sonnets.

Does anyone wanna send asks telling me about what you're working on atm? I want to know

[the-bard-writes]

My understanding based on my research is that not having it totally finished, drafted, edited, etc. is OK, but you do have to 1) Know where you’re going with everything and not be making it up as you go and 2) Have a solid manuscript to sell when contacting them, i.e. the first book DOES need to be ready for queries.

For some agents and publishers it can actually be a bonus for an author to have a manuscript that can launch a series, because it means you could be a new long-term partner and a consistent source of material. That’s only if they’re LOOKING for something like that, though; some are content with just taking manuscripts as they come and don’t need long-term business relationships.

Again, that’s based on my research and I’m not well-integrated into the industry, so take this all as you will

Wait if you're publishing a series is it ideal to have the entire series 100% completed when you try to find a publisher? I feel like that has to be ideal, right?

[the-bard-writes]

Tag: Find the word!

I was tagged by @zmlorenz (thank!) and my words are time, tear, teeth, type, and tower

Time shows up in the last chapter of Transmutation, the newest thrilling and titillating tale in my In the Court of the Nameless Queen series.  The wizard experiences a pivotal moment in his her life.

“I feel … That was … Fuck.” He rolled onto his back and folded his arms behind his head as his faculties returned.  “This is a strange word to apply to a night’s revelry, but that was … Edifying.  Elucidating.”

“I can imagine.  In my life, I’ve discovered that sometimes we may be faced with a difficult choice, and we may know in our hearts what the correct course of action is, but things become easier when we can feel like someone we trust has given us their permission.”

The wizard rolled her eyes.  “I deal in the realms of the hidden and unseen, and yet I’m such an open book.”

I got Tear and Teeth early in in Brood, the story that introduces that same series:

The fight on the walls was a desperate bloodletting; the black-clad soldiers coming up the ladders laughed as they died, laughed as they advanced over the broken bodies of their comrades, and the defenders of Caer Haern fought with the ferocity of men who knew that death would be a mercy compared to surrender or defeat.  Behind the walls, the city burned.   Great pillars of black smoke turned the storm-darkened sky into midnight and showed off the blazing fires that ravaged the streets below, with vast throngs of people fleeing the fires and the screaming hordes and streaming towards the great stone keep and the cathedral at the city center.  Even as she stormed the walls, running far ahead of the troops she was supposed to be leading, laying waste to her foes in blasts of flame and lightning and pestilence, Freydis could hear from far away the infernal clamor of the siegebeasts hurling themselves against the city’s gate.  The gate would soon fall, and when it did, the siegebeats—mountains of muscle the size of houses, all horns and tusks and scales and teeth—would tear through the city streets, chasing the scent of blood towards the cathedral, and the battle would be as good as over.  Knowing that, she found that she desired nothing more than to have her boots touch the city streets before that happened. 

I got Type in the middle of Good Whiskey in Bad Wounds, my Diablo fanfic:

“Leave these with the Rogues’ armorer and pick up a spare set from one of the merchants.  I’m sure they’ll have something; you have painfully average proportions.”  She studied the boot a moment longer, sighed, and said, “I must say, I do feel some type of a way about the fact that my feet are so much bigger than yours.”

“You are a woman of mighty stature, Alexa.  Everything about you is larger than life; feet, biceps, arse, tits …”

She snorted.  “Xul, your best quality is at once your worst quality.  The way you just … say things.”

“Oh, I have much worse qualities than that.  Though I do speak only the truth.”

“I look forward to showing you what else about me is larger than life.”

“I should be so lucky.”

And we managed to dredge up Tower from chapter 2 of The Apostate, second story in the In the Court of the Nameless Queen series:

It was just after lunch when the knarr came hard by to the island of Ynys Farwolaeth, a craggy hillock shrouded in forest and fog rising out of the Sea of Souls with the high black tower of Caer Farwolaeth looming over all.  Freydis perked up at the sight of it, at the black ships docked along the rocky shore and the haphazard jumble of stone and thatch cottages that led up the hill to the castle and the high feasting hall.  She grinned like a fool and muttered, “Oh, it’s just as I remember it.”

Kalina smirked.  “Do my eyes deceive me, Freydis, or do you remember a gods-forsaken rock in the middle of the ocean?”

“It’s not that bad.”

“The word ‘benighted’ comes to mind.”

“Exactly.  It’s perfect.”

***

Let’s see, I’m gonna tag uhhhhh @uphillsky​ @red-the-dragon-writes @the-bard-writes @any59 and anybody who wants to play and your words are uhhhhhh Smoke, Seamless, Unwavering, and Exterior

[the-bard-writes]

Places To Post Original Fiction

1.)  Commaful – a friendly and supportive writing community, smaller but denser than Wattpad, and far more active and engaging.

2.)  FictionPress – original fiction’s answer to FanFiction.net.  If you’re familiar with that format, you’ll be familiar with this.  

3.)  Smashwords – an ebook publishing platform that also welcomes short stories, and collections thereof.

4.)  WritersCafe – old-school but solid, with an active community and plenty of contests/challenges to get the creative juices pumping.

5.)  Medium – a place where you can post, essentially, anything and everything.  Articles and non-fiction are its biggest market, but fiction is welcome as well.

6.)  Booksie – less community-based, with fewer interactions and comments.  However, it still attracts great talent, and can be great for authors who are shy and don’t want to get bombarded with interaction.

7.)  RoyalRoad – a rich community, with a strong emphasis on mutual support between authors.  Focuses on web novels, fanfiction, and original stories.

8.)  FanStory – an oldie but a goody.  Don’t be fooled by the name – it seems to be predominantly original fiction, and offers contests with cash prizes. 

9.)  Young Writers Society – as the name suggests, oriented towards writers in their teens and twenties, but is by no means exclusive to authors of this age bracket. 

10.)  Wattpad – Wattpad provides users with the opportunity to post original fiction and gain a loyal following.  It’s not for everyone, but some people swear by it.  

On that note, you can also post original fiction to AO3 and FanFiction, but as they are predominantly for fan works, I decided not to include them on this list.  What’s your favorite way to post original fiction?

Happy writing, everybody!

[the-bard-writes]

I’ve been rather inactive for the past while, so on my attempt to return to writeblr, let’s refresh my dash!

I’m a lover of all things fantasy and sci-fi, particularly original works that are YA or younger, but I’m always open to new things! Of course, there are a few things that often equal an immediate follow:

Diverse and LGBTQ+ cast

Not necessarily horror, but eerie/ominous vibes

Merfolk or pirates or honestly just ocean themes

Plants! Gemstones! Astronomy! Honestly just cool themes like that.

Complex worldbuilding (especially with magic/special abilities!)

Begrudging team-mates to found family

And any combination thereof!

Honestly though, I’m not picky at all. I would love if you could A) reblog this post if you’re a writeblr that posts/reblogs original content so I can follow you (if I’m not already) and/or B) reblog this post and link me to a few favourite original content posts of your own or of other writeblrs and I’ll check them out!

Thank you so much! I hope you have a wonderful day~ 💖

[the-bard-writes]

Hey, I had a fun idea.  Post a cover collage of other works that have had the biggest influence on something you’ve written or your current WiP.  Tag ur friends if u want.

These are the 6 pieces of media that probably did the most to infect my brain with space fungus and force me to write The Last Girl Scout against my will.

[the-bard-writes]

Suburbia

A poem

It is so very beautiful.

Trees sway gentle

and cast merciful shade

onto the lanes we walk.

Rolling pastures of green

soft and cool

like a lake of life.

We hide our selves away

in the houses

where our sins

will not blemish our eden

The grass is a lie.

It chokes out what was here before.

The trees are prisoners

like our souls.

It is so very beautiful.

Nobody should live here.

[the-bard-writes]

I think there’s something that doesn’t get talked about enough regarding success as an independent author -- not even strictly self-published, just a smaller author that doesn’t have the backing and resources of a multi-million dollar publishing house. Frankly, it applies to any independent artist.

We talk a lot about marketing. Marketing your book, your art, your podcast, whatever it is you make, there’s a lot of talk about marketing it. Getting it out there, advertising it, promoting it, making it visible. Ideally, visible to the people that will spend money on it.

But here’s the thing. Let’s say I do a marketing campaign for my book. Let’s say I get 10,000 people to see that my book exists. 10,000 people that are in my book’s target demographic, the people it’s written for, that will (theoretically) enjoy it.

Let’s say 1,000 people actually buy the book. From there let’s say 100 actually read it within a year or two of buying the book. Maybe 10 of them post a review. One of them loves it so much they tell all their friends. Maybe they even post fanfiction or fanart of it.

That one person is the most important out of all them.

1,000 sales are good. 10 reviews isn’t something to sneeze at. But that one person has developed such passion for the work that they shared it with others that will also develop that passion and share it as well. They’ll write meta about the work, they’ll write fanfic, they’ll discuss it on social media, they’ll make fanart, even if all they do is acknowledge its existence in a positive and passionate way in front of others, that’s crucial.

Because what that is, is something bigger than marketing, bigger than sales, bigger than any promo: it’s community.

Community is what drives a work to success. There’s plenty of examples out there. To name a few anecdotes, The Locked Tomb, The Magnus Archies, and Fallen London are all works that attracted me not because of any advertisements or promotions by the creators, but by the community that formed around them. I’ve never seen an ad or promotion for The Locked Tomb but it’s on the top of my wishlist; I never heard any spots for TMA but it’s my favorite podcast; the only time I heard a Fallen London ad was on a TMA episode that aired three years before I was listening, and I was already playing it anyway. Because I saw fanart, fanfic, meta, references, stuff that made me go “Oh, this looks cool”

The trick, of course, is that community isn’t something we as creators have much power over. We can’t just pay a few dollars a day to build a community like we can to buy ads. But I think there’s something to be said about engagement and involvement, about kindling a community and attracting one, and the understanding that our work doesn’t HAVE to be advertised, promoted, and marketed to hell and back -- it just has to find the right people. How to do that is up to fate and chance, but it’s worth being mentioned.

[the-bard-writes]

It’s a little difficult to come up with stuff people “associate” with the supernatural in Anua, because the world is so entwined with magic by the nature of how it was created that a lot of natural phenomena HAS a supernatural element to it

I suppose one example along these lines would be the moons. Anua has two moons, the Gray Moon and Pale Moon, that wax and wane in turns with each other. Tradition holds that the Gray Moon is an omen of peace, stability, sanctity, while the Pale Moon is an omen of chaos, horror, and the profane.

However, all scholarship so far agrees that the moons have no supernatural influence over the world! The STARS definitely do, as they are living celestial beings with agendas and plans; but the moons were created from the broken body of an angel and so are neither alive nor intelligent.

Happy Worldbuilding Wednesday! Today I want to talk about fairy rings. You know, those little circles of mushrooms that pop up after a rain? What are some natural phenomena your world associates with the supernatural? Are they right, or is it simply old wives tales?

This is an open ask, for anyone to answer! For more open asks, be sure to check out @worldbuildingwedasks

[the-bard-writes]

A Sodality Short Story

“Dark days,” the woman bemoaned, chewing on her tobacco-pipe. “Dark days.”

“I don’t think it’s all so bad,” the young man laughed, hauling a crate onto his wagon.”

“Folks forming a new Guild…” the woman sighed.

“You can’t tell me you’re against our Caravan, good woman,” the man smiled politely, dusting his hands off. “Moving goods more freely never hurt anybody.”

“Goods moved freely enough,” the woman jabbed her pipe at him. “Every village has its farmlands and mills.”

“But not every village has woodland for lumber,” the young man argued, “or moths for silk, or mines for ore.”

“Then they go out and find some,” the woman spat. “Or they wait for someone from the Reach to come.”

“Well, I don’t know about you, good woman, but I’ve spent too much of my life waiting on folks to come nearly a year away from the Reach to come with goods that I could find just a week away in the Neck,” the young man stated.

“And do you think the the Reachfolk will take kindly to your little conspiracy?” The woman grumbled. “They’re not so kindly as we in the North.”

“If ever we travel south, we’ll deal with their disdain,” he said. “But if they want to make a fuss that Northerners are trading among Northerners, they’ll find few people joining their cause against us.”

“Youths,” the woman spat, “always self-assured, always certain they’re in the right.”

“We’ve got folks your own age among our number,” the man said, placing the last crate onto his wagon. “Now, are you coming with me, or will you remain here moping about by your hut while I go visit half the Worldsneck?”

The woman chewed on her pipe, then stood. “Fine. You’ll want me if you want to make it halfway to Saras, and you’ll need me if you want to make it halfway back.”

“The compassion of your guild burns bright in you,” the man smirked. “The Caravan believes in cooperation among our guilds, and I’m sure the Society feels the same.”

The woman spat. “The Society of the Dove believes in peace and leaving each other well enough alone if it can be helped. If your band of traveling hawkers can convince people around the Neck to beat swords to plowshares, I’ll give thanks. But as far as I’m concerned, you’re all bandit-bait.”

“If you thought that,” the man said, sitting at the driving bench of the wagon, “you’d leave me to it and spare yourself.”

The woman sat next to him. “Socialites don’t spare themselves,” she grumbled irritably. “Now get moving. The sooner we’re off, the sooner I can find a Freeman to keep us safe.”

[the-bard-writes]

The Young Owl, Volume 1, available in paperback and ebook on Amazon!

In a world where plague is spread by living miasma, illness is caused by  imbalanced humor, and common folk struggle to live whilst the  city-states bicker, the plague-doctors of the Sodality ply their  trade.

One among them, a young member of the Owls - the scholars and  researchers of the Sodality - has set out on a quest to secure ancient  knowledge from the ruins of the High Era. When she finally succeeds in  securing a sensitive and esoteric collection of lore from an  antediluvian and condemned academy, she finds much more than she  bargained for… and must find a way to bring it someplace safe.

As she travels across the Greater Worldsneck for the northern city of Saras,  she will be forced to confront the price of her curiosity, the demands  of her vows, the horrors of heresy… and have her own integrity tested  again and again.

Join the Young Owl in the beginning of her northward  journey, in this, the first fully collected anthology of the Sodality  Serials, complete with supplemental materials in addition to the  complete first and second episode of The Young Owl.