the essential kit

fed up.

I am fed up with social media. Yes, I know, a blog is social media, but let us refer to it as old school, or static, social media: it does not roll over completely every few seconds-to-minutes, nor is it expected to. I love the ease of interaction and accessibility to my readers that Facebook offers. Facebook, however, seems to be deliberately and actively trying to make the public pages unusable for the person running it–ie, me. At the moment, between the enormous size of the cover photo (which, once…

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Crow Brings Daylight

Kitsnaps: Crow Brings Daylight

A long time ago, it was always night. Only Crow, who flew far south and north again, knew of daylight, and he told many stories of the brightness and shadow to the Inuit people. In time, they began to ask for daylight themselves, but No, said Crow, I am too old to drag daylight so far north for your hunters to see by. Please, said the people, and finally Crow agreed to spread his old wings once more and fly beyond the horizon to find daylight for them. He flew…

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the essential kit

Magic & Manners: Chapter Two

With further apologies to Jane Austen, I present to you the second chapter of MAGIC & MANNERS, which is what happens when I get it into my head to wonder what PRIDE & PREJUDICE would be like if it was not a lack of wealth that beleaguered the Bennet sisters, but rather an excess of magic… Chapter One is here or here, if you want to read it on LJ. Chapter Two commences behind the cut. :)

the essential kit

EPIIIIIIIIIIC

I just finished reading Carol Berg’s THE DAEMON PRISM (which, like nearly everything Carol writes, is on my list of Favorite Books), and it got me to thinking about what makes epic work and what makes it work on a huge, international bestseller level. Carol’s epic fantasy usually focuses on a handful of people, rather than a cast of thousands, like (for example) GRRM. They’re very different storytelling styles and obviously bring different things to the table, both of which I find appealing in different ways. I wonder if one…

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Let It Bleed - Jeri-Smith-Ready

Recent Reads: LET IT BLEED

LET IT BLEED is book 3.5 of the WVMP RADIO urban fantasy series by my friend Jeri Smith-Ready, and is what happens when the publisher decides they want four books instead of five and the author turns the salient events of book four into a novella to offer her readers for free so she can wrap up the series in a way she feels is satisfying. This is in every way awesome. And the novella is, in and of itself, fine. My problem is with a decision Jeri’s made for…

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