My new book is out!

My new book is now available on Amazon! The eBook version is available now, and the print version will be coming soon.

Feeling unappreciated at home, Gwyn embarks on a routine errand which quickly becomes anything but, as war brews and she is drawn into the middle of it. Gwyn finds that her survival suddenly relies on her abilities – which may also prove key to saving the life of a young prince, and the entire realm.

This is yet another self-published book. I sent out only one query on the manuscript. It's still out and I don't know if I'll hear back anytime soon. I sent it to a new press and they were overwhelmed with submissions. They focus on strong female characters and this book in particular I thought might be a good fit. I decided to go ahead and publish it myself after waiting for quite a while for a response. I wish the press well and am excited that they are out there. I hope to see some good titles come out from them in the future.

So, in the meantime, here is my book. It's a quiet little story about a young woman who has a bit of an adventure while running an errand for the queen. I hope there are a few people out there who will like it - I enjoyed writing it.

And while eBooks don't generally have back covers, here is a peek at the back cover that will be on the print version:

You can click on either image to see a larger version. I'll let you know when the print version is released!

Map fiddling

In the last post, I said that I'd fiddle around and see what kind of a map I could come up with for my newest manuscript. Well, an investment in a new drawing pad and several YouTube tutorials later, this is what I've come up with (click on it to see it larger):

The inspiration for this fantasy world sprang from the park right next to my house. It started with walks in the park. Just about everything on the map has a corresponding place in the park and it's nearby environs. As you enter the park from where my house and yard are, (Cider Spring on the map), you can see in the distance the top of a barn and silo from the farm that used to be located where the park is now. The top of the barn and silo look very much like a castle to someone with an over-active imagination. The barn and silo became the castle in the city of Landerin. The character that I dreamed up needed to get from Cider Spring to the city of Landerin, and so the story began...

I turned to YouTube for help in turning what I had created in my head and made several rough sketches of, into a real map. There is a really good and rather straight forward set of fantasy map-making tutorials by author Jessica Khoury that I found really helpful. Here is a link to the first of her five tutorials: Fantasy Map Tutorial.

It's kind of fun to play around with map-making, but also a little nerve-wracking when you need to try to keep distances correct, etc. This is my first attempt, but I think it's not too bad. At least it conveys all of the important information that the reader needs to follow for where things are happening in the story.

Working on a cover design for the new novel

My newest novel is finished. I have exactly one query out. It's taking a long time to hear back. Several years ago, before the self-publishing boom took off and when email queries were starting to become the preferred way to reach an agent, wait times to hear back really fell off. Sometimes you would hear back within a couple of days. It started to become a rare thing to wait as long as six weeks to hear back from a query. I guess you can get spoiled and when it takes a while to get a response nowadays, you get antsy.

I've been working on a cover design for the new novel because I have a feeling that I'll probably be going the self-publishing route with this book. Anyhoo, this is what I've come up with so far:

There will need to be a map, too. I'm no good at maps, but I'll fiddle around and see what happens.

World Building

I've been working on a new novel, it's a YA fantasy set in a land of my own creation. The inspiration for the setting is literally right next door. I live right up against a 60 acre park that has ball fields, soccer fields, walking paths and a pond. It was once a farm and the early 1800's farmhouse, barn and silo are still there. Upon entering the park from where my house is, you can see the silo off in the distance, and the top of the barn. When you have a vivid imagination, this becomes a far-off castle. The location of my house becomes a town, the apple tree in the front corner of my yard becomes an orchard, the walking paths in the park become roads of the realm, and various other sites in the park become important locations in a story.

Below, you can see the park slowly turning into a realm or two:

And now below you can see a roughly-drawn map which shows the realms of Korthis (central), Dolgoland (upper right) and Rhodheim (lower left):

So, over the past year or so  on my walks in the park next door I slowly created a world which became the setting of a novel. I recently finished writing that novel and it is in the hands of a couple of readers. I'm awaiting feedback so that I can put some polish on it.

Here is the preliminary elevator pitch:

A young woman feeling unappreciated at home is drawn into a brewing war and learns that the things she feels unappreciated for may prove key to saving the life of a young prince, and the entire realm.

I'm willing to admit that the pitch also needs some polishing : )

Anyway, the point of this post is, sometimes everyday surroundings can be an inspiration if you let them.