FAERIE BLOOD LIVES

Those of you who have been with me since 2003 may remember that the first time I tackled NaNoWriMo, I whipped out a little thing called Faerie Blood. I threw everything I know and love into it: Seattle, computer geekery, biking, cats, elves, music, magic, Elvis, and even a touch of Russell Crowe and Great Big Sea if you know where to look. Several of you have done me the huge, huge help of beta reading, sometimes more than once. Many others of you have offered encouragement great and small.

Now, after five years of off-again, on-again revisions and queries, I can announce that my Plucky Little Urban Fantasy That Could has found a home at Drollerie Press.

How thrilled am I feeling about this? Pretty damned thrilled!

Drollerie may be tiny, they may be new, and they may be an e-and-POD press--but they come highly recommended by the redoubtable dr_pretentious. More importantly, with their emphasis on the mythic in the titles they put out, I feel strongly that they'll be a good place for my book to live. You won't find a lot of the current popular trends in my book; there's not a single vampire or werewolf, no graphic violence, no graphic sex. But you will find a girl whose ordinary life is turned on its ear by her rising faerie heritage, while a city transforms before her eyes. You'll find an old woman equally at home with magic and a shotgun. You'll find a young wanderer who has to choose between running from his past and embracing it.

And, because I'm sure janne will demand it, you'll find one other thing too. Three little words: Unseelie Elvis impersonator. ;)

Kudos go to mizkit for making me do Nano for the first time to begin with, to dr_pretentious for pointing me at Drollerie, and serasempre for her warm and enthusiastic reception of my submission. And I will be doing a whole separate post in gratitude to my beta readers.

serasempre informs me that we're looking at possible formal editing to begin in mid-to-late November, with an eye towards e-release in December or possibly early January. Watch this space for further details, folks.

And listen for the music. It's coming.

Shoutout Post I

Some version of this is going to wind up as an Acknowledgments page in the official version of Faerie Blood. However, it's getting posted here too, on general principles.

This book would not exist without mizkit. She made me do NaNoWriMo in 2003, which got me 50,501 words by the end of November, a complete first draft by the end of January 2004, and the writing habits that have let me finish two more novels since. Plus, she and shadowhwk convinced me to attend Writer's Weekend in 2004, where I started learning firsthand from the pros how to go about submitting a book for publication.

Thanks, Kit and Sara. You gals rock. Willowholt writers FTW!

Many thanks also are owed my beta readers, who helped me pound multiple drafts of this book into shape:

In the Seattle area, wrog, lyricae, and sksouth;

From the Writer's Weekend crowd, shadowhwk again for help with the synopsis, seimaisin, and dr_pretentious for pointing me at Drollerie Press;

Another former Willowholter (and avowed Elessir fan), janne, and fellow Murkwork-er and Willowholter lyonesse, who tickled me pink by comparing me to Esther Friesner;

From the Lexington Fantasy Assocation, starfallz;

From the Gruntland.com forum, Jen McKinney;

From Livejournal, peregrine_ek and LJ user kriski;

And last but not least, to the fine folk of the OKP: gerimaple, Michaelene Greathouse, OntarioGurl, and everyone else on the board who may not have done actual beta reading, but who urged me on nonetheless with kind words and encouragement. There's no bass like an Outer Cove bass, and there's no fandom like Great Big Sea fandom.

Shoutout Post II

Writer's Weekend deserves a whole separate shoutout post for contributing to the care and feeding of Faerie Blood. Here now is that post.

More than anything short of actually sitting my ass down and writing, the Writer's Weekend conference in the years that I attended it (2004 through 2007) helped give me what I needed to get a novel not only finished but also ready to send to editors and agents. Attending a conference where I could see actual industry professionals face to face, hear them speak, and even pitch my projects to them made the entire process of submitting a book for publication way less scary and way more real.

Folks, I cannot stress enough the value of going to a writer's conference if you're lucky enough to have one near you and can spare the necessary money to attend. Even aside from the chance to put faces to industry names and to learn from them, even aside from getting to hear and in some cases meet favorite authors, the opportunity to network with fellow writers is amazingly invigorating. I still very fondly remember spending most of the 2004 conference plowing at top speed through editing Faerie Blood, even as I pitched it to Evan Fogelman and Nadia Cornier. It's not like I had to edit the book right then; it's just that I was so inspired by being surrounded by a crowd of people who were trying to do the exact same thing I wanted to that I couldn't help it.

So many kudos and thanks go out to karenjunker for all the work she put into running that conference, and dr_pretentious as well for being one of her main assistants. Shoutouts as well to those who I've met through it, and who are listening in here still. Love you all. <3