Happy book birthday to sci-fi adventure epic Steel City, Veiled Kingdom, published this day in 2020.
Some would say you’re in your terrible twos, but I think you’re terrific.
Happy book birthday to sci-fi adventure epic Steel City, Veiled Kingdom, published this day in 2020.
Some would say you’re in your terrible twos, but I think you’re terrific.
The Pixelvania Publishing Proclamation o’ Progress is a semiannual post detailing what’s going on around here, and what might show up in the future. It also includes reviews of shows, books, games, products, etc. you may also like. It’s only posted twice a year so as not to clog up your valuable, beautiful brain space.
Cute kitty photo at the end.
Here’s what’s been published since the last post:
Woohoo! It’s been over a year since the ebook releases, but the paperback volumes of Steel City, Veiled Kingdom are finally available for your reading pleasure! Click the banner below to grab your copies.
Buttloads of thanks go to Colleen over at Ampersand Book Interiors, who made the pages look absolutely stunning! I couldn’t be happier with these paperbacks!
The Pixelvania Proclamation o’ Progress is a semiannual post detailing what’s going on around here, and what might show up in the future. It also includes reviews of shows, books, games, products, etc. you may also like. It’s only posted twice a year so as not to clog up your valuable, beautiful brain space.
Cute kitty photo at the end.
Here’s what’s been published since the last post:
Nothing! Whoa! But I do have one thing to show off: thanks to artist Christian Bunyan, THE BUREAUCRAT’s got a new cover that ups the creep factor by ten! Here’s the before and after, in case you missed it:
Today’s the Queen’s birthday (costar of my science fantasy STEEL CITY, VEILED KINGDOM), so I thought I’d post some of my drawings of her to celebrate.
She’s been around a LOOOONG while so I have a lot of art of her. Here’s two newer sketches of her, a detailed charcoal portrait I did of her back in The Day, and an equally ancient 8-bit? 16-bit? pixel sprite (not animated).
Of course, this is just the way *I* imagine her…your mileage may vary, and that’s A-OK by me!
(Click images to embiggen.)
Elegant sketch of the Queen from STEEL CITY, VEILED KINGDOM
Her nervous grin-that-isn't-a-grin
Charcoal on newsprint, 2006
Pixel art sprite
The Pixelvania Proclamation o’ Progress is a semiannual post detailing what’s going on around here, and what might show up in the future. It also includes reviews of shows, books, games, products, etc. you may also like. It’s only posted twice a year so as not to clog up your valuable, beautiful brain space.
Cute kitty photo at the end.
Here’s what’s been published since the last post:
Hello, Wizard, in ebook and paperback (new release)
The Capramancer Next Door, in ebook and paperback (new release)
Midwinter Magic, now available in paperback
It was fun working on Midwinter Magic and Girlfriend back-to-back, because those stories are POLAR OPPOSITES in terms of tone, one being a mythic fairy tale and the other a gruff guy’s modern horror nightmare.
I also added most my books to Book Cave’s content ratings site, in case you’re trying to decide if a book’s content (violence, swears, etc.) is appropriate for yourself or a youngster.
I was already an author working from home when the pandemic struck. Routine is priceless in a work-from-home life, and I was fortunate that I’d been building one since the past year. So on the one hand, my day-to-day life didn’t change much. Writing and writing-related projects got done.
On the other hand, I’ve definitely been absorbing the extra stress around me…and the malaise weighing down the air was something I’ve also had to do battle with (as I’m sure you did/are doing!). So…sometimes not a lot of writing got done. But some did happen!
Still in production! They’ve been revised twice now (basically spellchecks) and are set for another round of look-overs. They’re gonna be beautiful.
Just getting spun up on this project; right now I’m planning the illustrations. Doing a chapter book with spot illustrations isn’t something I’ve done before, but I think the resulting product will be a really fun Christmas book for families to read together.
This midlength horror story is still making the rounds at the magazines. Let’s hope it finds a nice home out there!
A Worlds of Everlush novel/novel sequence. This SCVK spinoff is currently on hiatus for reasons you’ll see below. I’m thinking it’ll get split into three books with awesome titles, which I’m very excited about…If that’s the case, The Horror of Hriana will probably be dropped as a series title, so that it’s a little more obvious the stories are about a vampire. Lately I’ve been itching to get back to this one.
A Worlds of Everlush story (already at short novel length), a low-key sequel to Steel City, Veiled Kingdom. Just felt like it was time to start it.
Writing it, I feel like this:
Currently titleless. Wrote it as a quick break from The Bad Host; need to type it and start sending it to magazines.
This will complete my backlist titles that need to be in paperback. But I wanna do it right, so I’m not gonna start it until Purrfect is in paperback. I also have to rethink the cover so it not only fits this novel, but the second book in the series, AKA…
I’ve got a few chapters written, but it’s been on hiatus for some time now. I think getting Love Potion Commotion! off my plate will revitalize this one.
Still wanna write these!
This was actually the first novel I started writing after finishing SCVK back in 2016. I dropped it because someone said I really ought to do a sequel to SCVK (that impulse turned into Nosferatu Novel)…Anyway, I’m starting to miss it, it was a real weird one, hee!
…including a post-apocalyptic banjo fantasy, a cybernetic take on Sleeping Beauty, and I can’t even remember what else.
This will be a Worlds of Everlush novel, spun off from SCVK. Wanna clear the deck summore (and finish my course on writing thrillers) before I take a crack at this nut!
Thinking it’d be fun to put some of my book covers on shirts. And maybe some cat jokes! Could be fun!
Kingfisher (AKA writer-artist-comic superstar Ursula Vernon) writes in a lot of different genres, but this book is her first horror novel—folk horror, if you force me to get specific. A woman discovers a dark secret cleaning out her deceased hoarder grandmother’s house out in the sticks. You’ll love the main character’s down-to-earth voice and there’s some deliciously creepy stuff in the middle (the HILL man, the HILL!!). I was considerably less enamored of the ending, but the first parts are so strong, I still want people to read it.
3.5/5 Pixel Snackies
This is a live-action TV show from Japan about a samurai learning life lessons from an adorable white kitty that he was originally supposed to assassinate. 5/5 Pixel Snackies.
Oh, you need more info before you watch? Well, it’s formatted weird on Amazon (with big gaps of dead air in the first season, as though the commercials had been cut out, but the time for those commercials left in), they’re missing the movies that go in-between each season, and none of the show’s translators can seem to agree if the kitty is a girl or a boy (my vote is girl).
Despite these goofs, Samurai Cat is ENTIRELY worth watching, 110%. It’s heartwarming, it’s hilarious, it’s family-friendly, and it proves there’s nothing unmanly about being a cat guy. (If you’ve ever searched for cat-themed gifts for a man, you understand my pain.)
I saw it on Amazon Prime Video. If you’re having trouble finding out extra info about it online, search for Neko Zamurai. 5/5 Pixel Snackies.
One of the YouTube comments for this reads: “…if Hitchcock had written an opera.” So naturally I had to click. I LOVED IT. It’s suspenseful, only an hour long, and, if you’re so inclined, very fun to yell comments at (“She discovered his model train room!”). And this Bluebeard smolders.
Béla Bartók’s music is mostly eerie…but in some parts it shimmers like the best parts of Strauss’ Der Rosenkavalier. Wonderful. I saw it here on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9Aq2WWds8k
When you realize it is awesome you can buy it here: https://www.amazon.com/Bartok-Bluebeards-Castle-Robert-Lloyd/dp/B002NY7YVY/
5/5 Pixel Snackies.
This little-known gem deserves to be right up there with legendary environmental puzzle games Braid and Portal. You start the game with two moves: a stomp and a whistle. With these two moves, you can reach anywhere on the map, as soon as the game starts! The catch: to do this, you have to first know how those two moves interact with the other little critters in your environment…
No tutorials. It’s Inductive Reasoning: the game. I discovered it from this GMTK video. Definitely worth the buy—I spent 32 hours total runnin’ my little chicken around, and it was grade-A jumbo puzzle platforming at its best. Check out the little explanation of the map first, that’s helpful.
5/5 Pixel Snackies.
A friend gifted me this. It is SO relaxing, so charming, and so much fun to move around in. I wish I could climb and glide like this in real life. Alack!! I can only do it in this game—but I’m grateful I can.
This game will take your blues away.
5/5 Relaxing Pixel Snackies
Come winter, my scalp always goes flaky—dry air + indoor heating = the itchies. Last year, I told my hairstylist and she recommended this shampoo. “You don’t use it every time. In fact, it’ll probably live under your sink,” she told me.
Now, because this is life, there’s an upside and a downside to nearly everything. The upside of this shampoo is that IT WORKS. I used it once every 2-3 weeks during the cold months and my flakes disappeared. Wonderful.
The downside of this shampoo is that it leaves your head smelling like the smoker’s lounge of a museum basement from the 1970s.
Is it pure, unfiltered tobacco gel I’m rubbing into my scalp these days? I’m not sure. Is smelling like an ashtray worth a flakeless ‘do? I think it is.
4/5 Pixel Snackies.
We moved “our” camping chairs to our patio earlier in the year.
Now they’re not our camping chairs anymore.
The State of the Pixelvania Pixelvania Proclamation o’ Progress is a semiannual post detailing what’s going on around here, and what might show up in the future. It’s only posted twice a year so as not to clog up your valuable, beautiful brain space.
Since the last post, I’m happy to announce the publishing of:
(As you know, that last one’s been a long, long time coming!)
Additionally, I upgraded Pixelvania Publishing’s site theme and tinkered with the organization some. Hopefully, it’s easier to find any story to match the mood you’re in. If there’s an organizational category you’d like to see added, please drop me a line.
Funny story—up ‘til December 2019, both me and my lovely print formatter, Colleen, thought we’d be publishing this behemoth as a one-volume paperback. One book. But after she received the final manuscript, she realized this CHONK of a novel was too big for Amazon’s Print-on-Demand to handle. She notified me of the hiccup and advised me to do the paperback in five separate chunks, to go with the five different sections of the story.
I agreed.
I spent all of December scrambling to get 6 ebooks—each of which needed slightly different cover designs to differentiate between parts—out by January 11th.
But none of the ebook OR print work could go forward until I created five new book descriptions, one for each of the now-separate parts. Keep in mind the original book description (currently in use for the Complete Edition) took me over a year to develop. Read More …