state of the union

Jan 14 2017

“When’s That Book Coming?” Winter 2017 Edition

What’s Upcoming

Only firm release at the moment is next month’s return to the world of Livi Talbot with Odin’s Spear:

ALL’S FAIR IN SIBLING RIVALRY AND WAR.

After nearly losing her family and her life, Olivia Talbot is trying to leave the world of artifact hunting behind. But an adrenaline junkie unsuited for a 9 to 5 job can’t hide herself forever, especially when deadly operative Dale West comes knocking with off-book work for his covert organization.

It’ll be “easy”, West says—just a trip to the museum. But a deranged former soldier is seeking to reunite the pieces of Gungnir—spear of the Norse god Odin—which is capable of starting war, and this job is much bigger than anyone has let on.

Followed by the dogged son of a tabloid mogul, competing with her archaeologist older brother, and still struggling to trust West against her better judgement, Livi will venture into an ancient underwater city in the Mediterranean to stop the dawn of a new war. But the spear of a god has plans for them all, and power not even she might be able to withstand.

More Livi! More Pru & Em! MORE WEST! Coming February 7!

The paperback is now available on Amazon as well, if that’s your thing (and you want to read it early). ARCs and snippets have gone out to Patrons of Snark. And now I wait and hope it’s received as well as the first was. There’s some heavy stuff in this one and should probably have a trigger warning, so…trigger warning!

This is the only firm date I have at the moment, but we’re just into 2017 now–more coming next update.

What I’m Working On

Um, not a whole lot, I’m afraid. For the last several months, volunteer commitments have taken up so much of my time and energy, writing has dropped to a trickle. It’s not something I can keep up, so I’m trying to re-prioritize writing, because while I make about as much as I do volunteering, at least it somewhat saves my sanity instead of destroys it.

I have a little bit of Livi #3 done and some of it worked out, and I’m kind of itching to write something standalone to share with my Patrons of Snark. Rewriting Wolfe is still on my plate for this year as well, although I haven’t formally scheduled time for it yet.

What I’m Reading

I thought this might be a nice new addition to my quarterly state of the union.

I just finished Josh Malerman’s A House at the Bottom of a Lake. I loved his debut Bird Box, and was eager to read this new novella. It had an almost Lynchian creepiness to many of the scenes, which I enjoyed. Probably not for everyone but I found it intriguing.

I’m trying to read The Graveyard Apartment by Mariko Koike at the moment but, translated from Japanese, the dialogue doesn’t read as natural and there are niggly craft things that pull me out (which, again, is probably chalked up to translation). I’ll keep picking at it but I have so little pleasure reading time given all the editing I do, I’m not sure how far I’ll get. As a result, I decided to pull out Christopher Fowler’s Nyctophobia to re-read.

As you can tell, I’m in the mood for horror–preferably haunted house related. Have any good recommendations? I think I might end up writing one.

If you haven’t read Solomon’s Seal, catch up before the second book drops! Available in print and ebook wherever books are sold.

Jul 05 2016

The “When’s That Book Coming?” Summer 2016 Update

Let’s get right to it, shall we?

What’s Upcoming

First up we have Oblivion, the fifth and (unfortunately?) final Demons of Oblivion novel on August 9.

Earthquakes. Plagues. Rivers of blood. The ever-so-popular rain of toads. When end of the world fare is on the rise, it’s well past business as usual in a city where the veil between dimensions is thin.

Quarter-demon Persephone Takata isn’t so keen on killing herself anymore. This time when death approaches, she’s ready to take a stand and fight to protect the woman she loves, along with everyone around them as the apocalypse swings into full force.

Meanwhile, trapped in her home dimension where her antichrist father’s rule is weakening, Mishka Thiering’s hopes for revenge on the living are put on hold when she stumbles across the truth the Court has kept hidden for centuries. Her death was the last piece of the puzzle, leading to a change in the dimensional landscape, affecting humans and demons alike.

Despite its fractured numbers, the shadowy organization who has kept tabs on Peri and Mishka for years is still very much in the game, ready to set into motion their final plan. For there is something much, much worse waiting in the wings—something old, something powerful, and something far more terrifying than Oblivion or any of the creatures it’s spawned.

Alliances, betrayals, casualties.

This is war. And only one sister can win.

This is what the others have all been leading to, and it absolutely is NOT standalone. You need to read books one through four (Bloodlines, Hunter, Lineage, Exhumed) as each book contains the pieces that come to a head in this one.

It is a very good idea to have read some of the extras, like Damaged: A Zara Lain Novella and 9 Crimes (a Nate collection), particularly the latter because Mishka refers to the events in it a lot. There’s also mention of the events from Prey, so Patrons of Snark will be familiar with some things.

There is a catch up series sale if you’ve missed any of the stories, 50% off from my online store.

So the Oblivion ebook is definitely available on August 9, but the print will be out a little bit later as I have to get it formatted and put together, hopefully about mid-month.

Just six weeks after that we have Solomon’s Seal, the start of a new series, on September 20.

The Livi Talbot novels combine urban fantasy and adventure, and I’m really excited readers will finally get to check them out.

EX-DEBUTANTE. SINGLE MOTHER. TREASURE HUNTER.

Disowned and left penniless for getting pregnant at seventeen, former celebutante Olivia Talbot was willing to do whatever it took to provide for her daughter…including become a treasure hunter. Since the Pulse hit, activating relics of legend, there are plenty of artifacts to be had—not to mention wealthy clients willing to pay top dollar for them.

Just as her daughter’s private school tuition cheque bounces, Livi gets an offer that could be the break she needs to return to some semblance of her former life. A potential new client wants her to travel to Ethiopia and retrieve the Seal of Solomon—a mythical ring said to control demons and djinn—and this bounty comes with one hell of a financial pay off.

The deadline: a week. The team: unreliable. The competition: her world-renowned archaeologist older brother. Nothing Livi can’t handle… Except the danger goes beyond a few subterranean serpent-dragons she might encounter or tangling with her employer’s deadly second-in-command. This client isn’t all he seems, and handing him the ring might be worse than what he’ll do to her—and her daughter—if she doesn’t.

Paperback will likely be available a bit before the ebook.

Here’s what really smart people with excellent taste in literature have to say:

“Whip-smart, gritty, and fascinating. Olivia Talbot is a badass, and a mother, I’d want on my side if the world went to hell. Skyla Dawn Cameron’s deft characterization, complex plotting, and brutal action leaves the reader gasping for more.”

–Lilith Saintcrow, New York Times Bestselling Author

“It’s well written with a balanced blend of humor and adventure you can’t deny is spellbinding.”

–My World…in words and pages

Pre-order now: Kindle | Kobo | Nook | iTunes

The Livi Talbot series is ten books. I’ve written the first few, and I’m committed to publishing three. After that, it’ll depend on my stress level. If they’re not selling, I’ll leave it at three. If they’re heavily pirated, I’ll leave it at three. If it makes me unhappy to publish them, I’ll leave it at three. The fourth book ends with a cliffhanger, and I don’t want to reach that point and then leave readers hanging, so three seems safe for now.

That’s it for 2016, unless I write a short story or novella or something.

What I’m Working On

The second Livi Talbot book, Odin’s Spear, is complete. I need to do another pass on it to smooth things out. I’m tentatively looking at February for it to release. The third book is in progress. If I have a draft done by the end of the year, I should be able to release it mid-2017. The covers are done for both, the blurb is done for OS, but I’ll reveal that stuff later.

Also on my plate is Wolfe, which still has to be rewritten (I know, I know, I just…y’all, I HATE that book).

Nothing else to report right now, I’m in the midst of a very busy summer.

Apr 23 2016

“When’s That Book Coming?” Spring 2016 Edition

State of the Union time, boys and ghouls.

What I’m Working On

I squirreled away my pennies so I could take April off to focus on Oblivion. Of course that’s gone about as well as expected, but I anticipate finishing a very bare bones zero draft by the end of next week. It’s going to need a lot of fleshing out (like, I’m 70% through it and I’ve skipped about 10K worth of scenes), which I hope to do throughout May, and I’ll need to schedule time with my beta and copyeditor, but I’m looking to release it late this summer.

When it’s done, I have to finish a for-pay project, but then I’ll likely be working on Zheng’s Tomb, which I’m about 13K words into. I’m also playing with a fun comedic crime novel called Trix Moody that I’ll tell you about sometime if it ever actually goes anywhere.

What’s Upcoming

Oblivion

Obv. More below.

New Series

As I’ve been hinting for a few months now (and previously told Patrons of Snark), September 20 will see the release of the first in a new series: Solomon’s Seal.

For the Livi Talbot books, think Tomb Raider meets Gilmore Girls in a mix of urban fantasy and adventure. SS will be up for pre-order in June. The cover is done but I’m awaiting the review quote for the front before previewing it along with rewriting the jacket copy, so look for that stuff later this summer when I have time to poke at it.

I’ll go into more detail about the series later, as right now I want to keep the focus gearing up for Oblivion, but atm I’ll say the Livi Talbot series is nine to ten books. At this point, I’m going to commit to publishing the first three. Other than something brief in the first one, there are no cliffhangers, so I won’t leave anyone hanging if my stress level gets too high and I decide to stop publishing them. (If sales are poor and piracy is high, I don’t want to quit with a cliffhanger and leave readers frustrated.) So three books to see how they do, each book with a resolution and nothing hanging. Beyond that, we’ll see. The goal is to release them three to six months apart–I have a workable third draft of Odin’s Spear done as a follow up to Solomon’s Seal that just needs a bit more smoothing out.

Wolfe

For Wolfe, it’s moved to next year. It was either work on those rewrites or work on Oblivion, and so I put it off. Thank you for your patience and understanding.

Haunted

The novella Haunted is also backburnered. I just have too much on my plate with my books, for-pay writing projects, and re-releasing Aunt Judy’s books. I’ll see if I have time to rewrite it next year.

Heaven’s Choice

I also wanted to finish Heaven’s Choice, the prequel novella, before Oblivion but I’ve had to backburner it too. It was getting really long–Heaven’s quite a talker, probably as punishment for killing her–and I might save it for later when I feel like revisiting the series. If that changes, I’ll let everyone know.

Now for the questions…

Everything You Wanted to Know About Oblivion (But Were Afraid to Ask)

Release date? August 2016 (tentatively)

Pre-order? May or June

Availability? Everywhere ebooks are sold: Kindle, Kobo, Nook, iBooks, GooglePlay, ARe/Omnit Lit, direct, Smashwords, etc. Paperback on Amazon.

Length? About 90K words when all is said and done (around the length of Bloodlines).

Narrators? Peri and Mishka primarily. There are brief one-shots between Peri and Mishka’s sections featuring the other characters so most fan favourites get some “screen” time.

Is this the last book? Yes. No, it wasn’t supposed to be, but I’m done; my heart can’t take having another Zara book pirated given how much she means to me. I am actually looking forward to writing the next arc of books just for me. I might put them out in paperback eventually, I don’t know–the cost of stock and editing might be more than I can invest. For all intents and purposes, though, this is it.

Happily ever after? Oh AHAHAHA, sweetheart. I am not the writer for you if HEAs are requisite for your reading material. There’s closure to the arc, however it’s a painful book on a lot of levels and I expect it to get some hate.

But Zara and Nate— No, just don’t even with me. I’m not a romance writer. They are not the focus of the plot.

Additional short story at the end? Nope. I always used those to set up future books in the series. That would just be cruel this time.

Deleted scenes? I had to rewrite so much early on, yes, there’ll likely be some. I’ll post them at www.zaralain.com when the book releases. There were a few Peri scenes cut from the beginning that I loved but couldn’t use anymore.

Can I have a review copy? No. I am not touring or offering books for review or anything else, the stress is not good for me. People who took previous books didn’t bother with the fourth one and hated the third, so I’m certainly not handing out the fifth. It’ll be $4.99 in ebook or $11.49 in print, like the others. Some Patrons of Snark get ARCs. If you read it and enjoy it, and want to leave a review, I thank you. But I don’t have the spoons for pursuing reviews.

Will you have signed copies in your online shop? Yep!

Who dies? Everyone!*

Can I catch previews or excerpts? I’ve posted some for Patrons of Snark (and owe them another this month) and members of Alchemy Red on Facebook can sometimes catch others.

Does it have a soundtrack? Yep! I’ll be resuming Soundtrack Sunday with both Oblivion and Solomon’s Seal later. For now, here are my top four Oblivion tunes on repeat:

So that’s it for now. Hopefully some pre-order links next month–I’ll post when it’s all settled. Back to writing this damn book now.

*Not everyone. Probably.

Jan 05 2016

The “When’s That Book Coming?” Winter 2016 Edition

It’s book State of the Union time! I guess. I just realized it was January and that I should update my Upcoming page and, fuck, I guess it’s quarterly update time. (Also, ask me how many times I had to double check the year in subject line.)

kitten2 First, what’s new in my neck of the woods… Well, website drama is fixed, at least temporarily. There are still kinks and still strange spikes in usage (that traffic on Cloudflare doesn’t reference) but it should give me a few months to figure out another solution. Some links don’t work here as I had to disable a few things, but I’m hoping next week to revisit my online shop and see if it’ll behave (I think it will, but won’t know until I try). For now, all my books are available direct on Payhip, which still takes a small fee but not as much as third party sellers.

Posts have also not been streaming to Facebook and I never remember to link to them; if you’re on FB, either like my fan page or just subscribe to my blog here (link on the right) and that’ll keep you updated.

Christmas was nice. The Doombuggy destroyed the tree damn near daily, which is quite a feat for a cat coming up on five and no longer six months old. I still have not sent out my holiday cards (or Dina’s birthday gift from December, so EVERYONE JUST GET IN LINE) but they’re all made out and sitting by the front door. I’ll give it another week and if I still don’t get to the post off I’ll mail them next year, maybe. I also spent five days with my brothers over the holidays and DRANK A LOT OF LIQUOR ate ungodly amounts of food (and if you will ever be in the Kitchener-Waterloo area, I can recommend several lovely places to eat). Now I suppose it’s time to get back to running; I had to wait for my broken toe to completely heal (although it still has an unpleasant crunching feeling–you’re welcome for that information). Tomorrow I get an ultrasound on my shoulder to find out how bad this six month rotator cuff tear is. I can at least feel like I’m exercising by playing Tomb Raider on a GIANT FUCKING TV my eldest brother got me (bring beer and nachos and you can play with me).

It was incredibly difficult not being able to call Aunt Judy, not just over the holidays but to update her on everything happening. That isn’t to say I don’t talk to her–I do, and I can hear her voice and know exactly what she would say–but that loss of light continues to be staggering, likely to all who were fortunate enough to know her.

New Year’s Eve we lost my eldest cat, Oliver. I was completely certain it was a bony tumor and there was nothing to be done (despite double checking it wasn’t an abscess) and those fuckers grow fast, though I hadn’t been quite prepared for how fast. It was not the ideal way to ring in the New Year, but my vet would’ve been closed until the fourth and I wasn’t going to make the poor soul wait that long. RIP Ollie.

So anyway. Let’s talk books.

What’s New

Spells&Spirits3D-lg The Spells and Spirits boxset is out. This has a whole bunch of urban fantasy books, including ones by people way more well-known and amazing than me, and Bloodlines is among them. For 99c you can get all those books. It’s moved a few thousand units and new reader eyes are landing on Zara and the gang, with new sales trickling in for the other books–yay!

Other than that, um…

The last State of the Union in the summer, I had no particular news about anything, although this fall I was working on Oblivion at last.

Oblivion…still isn’t done. I hit another block, had my beta look over the first quarter, and talked it out with her. I’m going to scrap several thousand words and see if I can’t get the story moving again. I know in detail how it ends, what the back half of the book looks like, but going from point A to point D, well…

This means I am most definitely missing my initial goal of having it out by April. It’s a hefty book with a lot of pieces to it, and I’ll need to give my beta and editor ample time with it.

Wolfe_2014-sm Also on my plate is Wolfe, which…also isn’t done. I’ve not even touched the rewrites on it. I think the trouble is that I strongly dislike large chunks of the book, and I’m not sure if it’s me or if it’s really not good and needs tremendous revision.

Both Oblivion and Wolfe will be released this year even if it kills me, because I want both of those series over and done with. I just suspect they will be written plucked from my brain word by word, which is as uncomfortable as it sounds.

Finally…there is a SEKRIT PROJECT that will release toward the end of the year. No, I will not tell you what is coming, although Patrons of Snark have already been told. This is why they are the cool kids.

kaGh5_patreon_name_and_message Speaking of, Patreon now reflects actual money earned after fees and declined payments instead of pledges, which would be a. why that number has dropped significantly, and b. why Amends hasn’t had a new chapter in some months. Aunt Judy was my first patron and bumped that up quite a bit; at present, it’s still incredibly helpful but no longer covering the cost of my monthly medication (and I’m supposed to go on additional stuff that is another $120/month…AHAHAHA). I’m going to update/revamp things later this month. If you want sneak peeks, free books, and to lower my stress level considerably so I can afford drugs (and less stress = more writing), there you go. (No pressure, I still think you’re sexy.)

Next update coming in April, hopefully with actual pre-order links and stuff (I know, I know, I say that every time).

Jul 08 2015

ICYMI…

Hello, doves; this will serve as the book SOTU summer update.

blanketdog So the last few months have been very stressful, and not in the wow-look-at-all-my-money-and-good-fortune-how-do-I-handle-all-this? way. About every two to three weeks something terrible seems to befall me or someone around me, from deaths in the family (including four-legged ones) to my own distressing health issues, and now on the heels of a pet emergency, my mother has had an injury and I’m the sole caregiver while she’s unable to walk.

So here’s what I’m working on:

getting up at the ungodly hour of 8:30 every morning
not throwing myself in the canal
remembering to eat something maybe
oh good, I still have Ativan
wait now I have to walk across town because I forgot something
dogs…so many dogs…and they all have to be taken out
someone needs to bring me pizza
now there’s a bunny here
seriously why can’t dogs just walk themselves, how are they man’s best friend
hey maybe I can edit for an hour… *passes out*

Not included there are any book things because I just can’t with the book things right now. I’m writing a Heaven Thiering short story for patrons, at least theoretically, if I can remember how to make words in a few weeks, no promises. Everything else is *mumble mumble*. I will also likely be taking a summer hiatus from the ELEW, and normally I’d say “Please see Dina James for all your eviltry needs” but she’s busy too so basically you’re fucked if you need eviltry right now so you are going to have to wreak havoc on your own.

Clients can hire me still but I can only take on new smaller projects this month (covers, formatting, layout), I won’t be able to start new stuff for a few weeks, and there will be a delay in correspondence. Readers can still buy books because that only requires me to click a button that verifies an order, and I’m pretty sure I’m still capable of that much.

Sorry, that’s it for now, but lots of stuff came out already this year, so go read that stuff.

exhausted

“When’s That Book Coming?” Winter 2017 Edition

What’s Upcoming

What I’m Working On

What I’m Reading

The “When’s That Book Coming?” Summer 2016 Update

What’s Upcoming

What I’m Working On

“When’s That Book Coming?” Spring 2016 Edition

What I’m Working On

What’s Upcoming

Oblivion

New Series

Wolfe

Haunted

Heaven’s Choice

Everything You Wanted to Know About Oblivion (But Were Afraid to Ask)

The “When’s That Book Coming?” Winter 2016 Edition

What’s New

ICYMI…

MEET SKYLA DAWN

What I’m Working On:

What’s Upcoming

What I’m Working On

What I’m Reading

What’s Upcoming

What I’m Working On

What I’m Working On

What’s Upcoming

Oblivion

New Series

Wolfe

Haunted

Heaven’s Choice

Everything You Wanted to Know About Oblivion (But Were Afraid to Ask)

What’s New

MEET SKYLA DAWN

Socials

What I’m Working On: