To mark the holiday season, I’ve priced Greatest Gift of All, down to 99 cents! If you’re looking for an atypical holiday story, check it out. Also, stay safe and warm out there.
Wraith is a spell slinger, able to manipulate reality itself. But she’s been on the streets since losing her parents and life hasn’t been easy. Through all the darkness, she’s tried to help the other children living on the fringes of society; the dejected, the ignored, and the forgotten. Now, the Fae Court needs her help in finding a Solstice Child. Unfortunately, some monsters want to make the kid into one of them. Only hope can save the day, but how can Wraith bring hope to the hopeless when she’s never had much herself?
A fun (or not so fun) fact of the publishing industry is that books can sometimes become classified as “Out of Print.” What this means, typically, is that for various reasons (though usually based on sales) the publisher has stopped making that book available for purchase. The specifics of how a book qualifies varies from contract to contract, so I won’t go into that. Some months ago, The Forgotten got flagged as out of print by Harper, which meant the paperback would no longer be available. However, because we live in the digital age, the ebook did remain available.
Now, a brief digression. Since my American Faerie Tale series was published by HarperCollins, one of my chief regrets was the lack of audiobooks. This is partly why I’m so excited about Two-Gun Witch getting one. In short, this was because part of my contract with Harper included the audio rights, but they never did anything with them.
Back on topic. When a book goes out of print, that typically means the author can request their rights back from the publisher. I initially held off on doing this for two reasons. First, The Forgotten is book 2 of the series. Understandably, not many publishers are interested in picking up just one book in the middle of a series. The second reason I held off was, frankly, ego. HarperCollins is one of the big five, and having a book with a major publishing house was, for me at least, a sort of badge of honor. I wasn’t sure how I’d feel no longer being a Harper Author. Also, it felt a bit like admitting defeat and becoming a failed author.
I’ve since grown past those concerns, and because of the terms of my contract, I thought the other books would also qualify, I formally requested reversion of rights on all my books. They agreed to The Forgotten and Three Promises, and we’re in discussion about The Stolen. I’m hopeful the steps I’ve taken will get that one back as well, but we’ll see. The Returned is still selling well enough to not qualify, so I do also get to remain a Harper Author for now.
What does this mean to you, the reader? Well, if you go looking for The Forgotten or Three Promises, you’ll find it unavailable. The Stolen (hopefully) will likewise become unavailable before long. It’s possible that if you bought the ebook through Amazon, they could vanish from your library. This is because with Amazon (and some other retailers), you didn’t actually buy the book, just the right to read it, and they could pull it at any time. Yeah, I’m not a fan of that either.
HOWEVER! Falstaff Books, the small press that published Two-Gun Witch, has said they want to pick up the American Faerie Tale series, in whatever pieces I have to offer. I’m hopeful, and optimistic, it will be The Stolen, The Forgotten, and Three Promises. How long it will be before they’re available, I don’t know, but it will happen. They will all also get new covers (Harper owns the originals) and, most exciting, AUDIOBOOKS! Those will take a bit longer to come about, so I ask for patience in that.
In the short term, the books will be unavailable, and for that I apologize, but they will be rereleased, so hang in there. The publishing world, even for small presses, doesn’t move at lightning speed, but if I had to guess (and don’t hold me to this) I’d say sometime early next year. If I go quiet for a while, it will be because John Hartness of Falstaff read that and had me beaten into unconsciousness.
Thanks for your patience. More to come. Watch this space!
I’m genuinely sorry this blog isn’t more active. From its inception, I decided to only post when I have something worth saying. Unlike many of my fellow men, this isn’t quite as often as you’d think. For the most part, it comes down to either adding something of value to a conversation, or sharing something I learned or experienced that might prove useful to others. Today’s post is the latter.
Two-Gun Witch is doing well. The reviews have been overwhelming positive (thank you!) and it’s helped me in making some progress on the sequel (about 30k words so far). Which, as it turns out, is going to be a pantster novel because it’s continuing to evolve as I write. That’s not why I’m writing this post though.
I know, get on with it, O’Connell!
I haven’t made much progress over the last couple weeks and, as the title suggests, it’s a fear of failure that’s holding me back. This isn’t a new feeling for me, and I’ve experienced it with basically everything I’ve ever written. As I’ve said before, TGW wasn’t easy to write, but the fear was (and usually is) more exhilarating. That rush you get when facing a challenge, one that requires you to push yourself. You know you might fail, but in the end it will be worth it. That’s not the case this time. And it isn’t plot, character, or the like that has me wrapped around the axle. I’m genuinely afraid of failing the story, and this time, my failure would have serious consequences.
TGW didn’t have any cameos of famous historical figures, which was intentional, despite some suggestions that I should do so. Names were mentioned, but no one appeared. This time, the story requires it. I know in my bones this is the best path for the story to take, so there’s no going back and rewriting around it. Not without short changing the story, and I won’t do that.
What about creating a character from whole cloth to fill the role? I certainly could. More than that, I seriously doubt most readers would realize that any such evasion had been done. But once again, it would be taking the easy way out, and the story would be less for it. Besides, I’d know, and it would eat at me every time I looked at the book.
So, who is this character than I’m so concerned about doing justice to?
Harriet Tubman.
Yes, THAT Harriet Tubman.
It isn’t just that I’m a white man writing about a historically significant woman of color (understatement of the millennia), though that’s absolutely a part of it. It’s also the fact that much of what’s known about her is as much folklore as genuine, accurate historical fact. How do I go about parsing the folklore from the history? Yes, mine will be a fictional version of her, in a world of magic, elves, and dwarves, but that doesn’t let me off the hook. If I get this one wrong, I’ll disrespecting a figure of MASSIVE cultural and historical significance. Not to mention someone I admire and respect (which is the least important factor here).
So, what do I do? Well clearly, I need to do research. Careful research. Written by people of color, preferably women, so I can avoid as much bias (unconscious or otherwise) as possible.
It goes without saying that nothing will be from her point of view. I mean, I have a healthy ego, but holyshitareyoufuckingkiddingme (it’s a word!) not anywhere near the Galactus size ego such a feat would require.
Yeah, even The Devourer of Worlds is nopeing out of that idea.
Once I’ve learned as much as I can, all I can do is write the scenes, with as much respect as I can, never for a moment forgetting that I’m treading on sacred ground, and comporting myself as such.
And, lastly, as always, if I do fuck it up, then own my fuck up, do my best to make amends, and do better next time. But really, isn’t that just the human condition? In life we’re all going to screw up, and sometimes those screw ups may have massive repercussions. Avoiding situations that could go badly isn’t any way to live, nor is it a way to write.
One week ago today, Two-Gun Witch was released, as you know. On that day, John Scalzi was kind enough to give me a Big Idea spot on his blog. The Big Idea was the inspiration for A Story is Born on this blog. It’s essentially a spot for authors to talk about a book’s premise. Why didn’t I post that here at the time, you ask? Well, for two reasons. First, his blog gets roughly 23 trillion times the traffic mine does, so it felt a little unnecessary because it’s not like I’d drive a lot of traffic his way. As I’d hoped, this gave the book a nice boost in sales, but as I thought about it, it occurred to me that some people may not know Scalzi or follow his blog. If that’s you, first I highly recommend both. There’s a reason he’s such a successful writer. Second, I apologize.
As ever, please buy the book. If you have already, many thanks, and now please buy a copy for a friend. If you’ve done that, many more thanks, and now please ask your friend to buy a copy for another friend.
#SFWAPRO Today is the day I’ve been waiting for, for a long while. You can now own your very own copy of Two-Gun Witch! You’ll find links to all the usual places to buy the book at the end of this post, but I also wanted to share something special. Music is very important to me and my writing process. As I noted in an earlier blog post, one of the great ironies of life is that the sound of typing keys drives me crazy. Seriously, it’s like fingernails on a chalkboard for me. As such, music is vital to maintain my sanity while writing (or working for that matter). Add to that, I tend to visualize my stories and music does an important providing a soundtrack for my mental movie. That’s why one of the first things I do when I start a new book is I create a new playlist for it. The songs provide a nice emotional punch to keep me in the right headspace. With that in mind, I’ve decided to recreate the playlist I made for Two-Gun Witch on Spotify and share it with you. There’s some songs in there you’ve probably heard, and perhaps more than a few you haven’t. Either way, I hope you enjoy it! If you’d prefer, here’s the direct link. If you prefer to find the songs yourself, I’ll paste the names in the text below, with YouTube links.
Ed, my friend since seventh grade, is a history teacher in Northern California. He also co-hosts a podcast called A Geek History of Time with Damian Harmony, a fellow teacher. They were kind enough to invite me on to talk about my writing journey, and my American Faerie Tale books. I’m a fan of the podcast and if you enjoy history and/or geekery, I highly recommend it, even the episodes I don’t appear in. The episode on Squirrel Girl is on of my favorites. Beware, if you dread puns, stretch your eyes before listening because Damian will have them rolling continually. And good news, the podcast is available everywhere I know of that you can get podcasts!
#SFWAPRO Those of you who’ve been following me for a while know that I’ve been excited to get Two-Gun Witch out into the world. I think it’s the best work I’ve done, which it should be as my latest work. Well, after literal years of working and waiting and working some more, we have a release date! Come May 31st, you can finally read the story I’m sure you’ve been chomping at the bit to read! That’s right, not even two months! It’s been great working with the folks at Falstaff books, and I’m excited to officially join the misfit clan. For those of you who don’t know, it’s been a long and winding path to get this story to publication. It got shopped around at most of the big houses and several smaller presses, but they all passed. Which was surprising because with two exceptions, all the editors who read it, really liked it. They said they loved the world building, the characters, and that the writing was strong. One was so sure his house would pick it up that he actually started editing it. The problem came from the marketing people. Weird\Fantasy Western isn’t a genre that tends to do very well. Which is one reason I push Two-Gun Witch as historical fantasy, but don’t tell anyone. All this to say, I’m glad Falstaff had the courage to take the risk with the book, and it would be really helpful not just for me, but for other authors of niche and stranger stories if you picked up a copy. Okay, right now it would be mostly for me, but it will also help Falstaff find other cool stories.
That done, here is the official cover reveal for Two-Gun Witch! I know, you already saw a thumbnail in the post or email, just play along!
Covers are always nerve-wracking. As an author, you typically get very little, if any, input. Which I’m mostly okay with because I’m a writer, not an artist/graphic designer. But you always worry you won’t like it and even if you can provide feedback, you feel guilty or like a prima donna. At least I do. That said, I couldn’t be happier with this cover! I love the tone and feel, the small details, and, well, everything! I think Falstaff knocked it out of the park and special kudos to the artists, Susan Roddey!
But wait, there’s more! I hired Kirbi Fagan (an excellent artist) to do the first art work of Talen, and as you can see, she crushed it.
Well, I also had her do the four main characters in the story, which I’ll have available as postcards at events.
However, she also did an image of all four of them together! If you order the book from The Fountain Bookstore (they ship worldwide and details will be coming shortly) I’ll include an 11X17 print of the entire cast image. Keep in mind, the post cards can’t be lined up to create the full image, so this is the only way to get all four characters in one image! But, Bishop, I hear you ask. Why would I care about characters I know nothing about? I’m glad you asked! Because you’re a cool and culturally interesting person who enjoys art across various media! And I’ll even cover any additional shipping costs!
Also, you’ll be supporting an indie bookstore that does great things in the community and is staffed by awesome people! It’s a win-win-win! That’s three wins! Twice as many wins as the next leading competitor! (excluding Brandon Sanderson)
At this point, you’re probably close to being overstimulated, because even super cool people can only take so much awesome. So, I’ll let you look over the artwork and tell you to stay tuned for more posts about the new book!
Sarah Sover is a publishing sibling and the author of Fairy Godmurder, a noir fantasy. Even if we weren’t with the same publisher (Falstaff Books) though, I’d be all in for this kind of story, even if she did misspell faerie.
Some ideas stem from a wayward conversation, some from a turn of phrase, some from a life experience, etc. Fairy Godmurder originated from a single scene that popped into my head fully formed like some kind of silent film.
You know how there’s a kind of magic you can feel in certain places? I always felt that way about cobblestone streets. It’s as if magic oozes out from between the stones, well-worn from the feet and wheels and hooves that have travelled over them. I’ve heard that a house resonates with the energy of those who occupied it, and I think the same goes for roads and paths.
The scene that played in my head was of rainwater gathering in those crevices between cobblestones before a pair of combat boots breaks the spell by stomping through the puddles. The woman wearing the boots is in a suit, a pencil skirt and button-up blouse, and she’s got a wide-brimmed hat keeping the rain from her eyes. She’s young. And angry.
She splashes through the puddles to where a bunch of important-looking men are milling around. She takes over, ordering them to step aside. Then she stoops over a body splayed out on the cobblestone street, blood mixing with the rainwater reflecting the streetlights above.
That’s it.
From that scene lasting only a few frames came the idea for a noir fantasy centered around a pissed off fairy godmother hunting the killer of her first princess. The body became a brownie, and the woman became Gwen, a fairy with empathic magic and motivated by a need for vengeance. She’s a magical creature, but the horrors in her life and the decisions she’s made stunt her magic, which is ironic since her magic is the key to cracking the case. The boots breaking the spell of rainwater on cobblestone are, in a way, symbolic of Gwen’s struggle to forgive herself and move forward.
But Fairy Godmurder isn’t all angst. It’s also got touches of my trademark off-kilter humor strewn throughout. I adore playing with tropes, subverting expectations, and combining and contrasting unlikely elements when I tell stories. I think it’s something about the way my ADHD brain works, connecting things in strange ways. And, like all my books, it’s got a cast of characters I’d love to grab a beer with.
Fairy Godmurder the first in my Fractured Fae series, with Faed to Black releasing next year, and I’m having a blast digging deeper into some of the dark forces at work in Fairy Godmurder while adding in some truly self-indulgent elements along the way. After all, what’s the point of writing a book if it doesn’t satisfy some part of you? The Fractured Fae series is my unapologetic take on the magical noir genre, and it all started with that single scene. It’s not so silent now.
You can find Sarah at her website, which also tells you how to find her on all the usual places. I’d also recommend her YouTube channel here, where she competed with another author for pre-order sales and shows why faeries beat pirates.
The title is rhetorical. If you’re getting this, you’ll (hopefully) remember me. Been a while, hasn’t it? How are you? How’s your mom and them? Me? Well, like—I imagine—many of you, I’m still wandering through the pandemic weary world where every day seems to blur into the next. All while lasting roughly 150 years. I’m getting some words down, but never as many as I’d like and mostly just focused on getting from one day to the next.
Now, some announcements:
First, I now have a roommate. Well, it’s a kitten, so probably closer to a landlord.
This is Guinness, and yes, he is as adorable in person.
He is entertaining, a total goofball, and has fondness for human flesh. Specifically, mine.
I’ve had him a few months now and he’s been good for me. It’s my first time owning a cat and I assume it’s his first time owning a human, so we’re both figuring it out as we go.
Okay, now that I’ve hooked you with cat pictures, here is some other less adorable news.
Two-Gun Witch is being editing and should be released early next year. Those of you with good memories might recall me saying something similar about the released date last year. Well, Covid is a thing and it’s caused delays as do the normal, and not so normal, problems that existed before the plague hit. In short, expect to hear more from me as the release date approaches about special pre-order offers and teasers.
And lastly but not least(ly?), there is a new(ish) American Faerie Tale story available! Yes, you heard that right! The Greatest Gift was part of a novella collection a few years ago. Since then, it’s been re-edited, given a spiffy cover (see below), and made available on its own! If you want to know how Wraith spends her holidays, check it out! It makes an excellent gift for family, friends, strangers, the barista at Starbucks who always gives you a little extra whipped cream, or even your cat or dog.
Yes, I know they can’t read! That’s what they have you for.
Fair warning, it’s a Wraith story, which means it isn’t candy canes and hot chocolate, but it has heart. If you liked the rest of the series, I’m confident you’ll like this story too.
So, there it is, short and sweet. I hope you’re all faring well through this, well, this. Hang in there and keeping hanging on. Despite some people (waaaay too many) seemingly determined to drag this out for as long as possible and learn the entire Greek alphabet, we can and will get through it.
And just because it’s that time of year, here’s a short film staring Guinness titled “My Fucking Mouse”.
#SFWAPRO I was invited to stop by Four Foxes One Hound to answer some questions about writing and my American Faerie Tale books. You can find it here, and while you’re there, check out their other posts!
A Quiet Pint 