But It's a Dry Heat

Archive for the ‘The Music of Chaos’ Category

Horse Sketches and Fictional Workplace Hijinks

I start off with a plan. “I will practice drawing people today. Because I still can’t draw people. I will not draw horses. Because horses are easy to draw. Seriously, no horses!”

Five minutes later, and I’ve got this. Four quick horse sketches. Because I can’t stop myself. I’ve been drawing horses since I could hold a pencil. People are hard to draw, with their weird round heads and walking on two legs.

Anyway, I’m making this a sketchbook dump Friday and excerpt Friday. Technically, the sequel to The Music of Chaos is about 90-percent done. First draft, anyway. I got stuck on a scene at the end, and then wandered off to two other projects. The problem is, I got two author voices–Hello, Sybil!–the snarky, first person, Mary Sue-ish voice of The Music of Chaos and the third person voice that I use elsewhere. The second voice has been in control lately.

In this bit of dialogue from Chapter One, Hallowbone Holiday (working title), Regan O’Connell leaves work, the day job, early…. (more…)

Fun with Fire

And I didn’t set myself on fire once.

Not even my shoelaces.

Not-so-spontaneous combustion being an occupational hazard of being an artist who works in metal. Welder, plasma torch, grinders, all spiting sparks and fiery bits of metal. Combine that with my spectacular propensity for stupidity, and you’ve got a recipe for flaming artist. And not in a homosexual way, not that there’s anything wrong with that. We at Casa de Kirby being supporters of marriage equality and all that.

 

 

This weekend is the first Art in the Park. Corrales, NM at the lovely La Entrada Park. It runs from 10 am to 4 pm. Entrance is free and there will be activities for the kids, food, music and loads of great artists. Please stop by if you are in the Albuquerque area. I’ll have a few copies of The Music of Chaos on hand as well.

See ya there!

Bet Your eBook Can’t Do This!

I’m utterly obsessed with my current WIP. Writing anything else when these damn pushy characters keep demanding time is about impossible. They did let me take a break and do some sketching….

I was thinking about my earlier post regarding my new Kindle and how much I like reading on it. (I do. In fact, I think I would have bailed on the book I’m currently reading–‘nother Twilight clone–if it were in print.) It’s just easier to skim slog through a really bad book on my Kindle.

But then I started thinking about the many uses of print books. Several immediately came to mind, but given my limited drawing skills, I went with four. It’s getting easier to draw people, but it still took at least 30-minutes to draw the ‘toons with people, vs. two-minutes to draw the greyhound.

Middle panel features Regan O’Connell smacking Breas Montrose (The Music of Chaos). I assure you, he deserved it.

Click the image for a full-sized view!

Friday Schmaltz

The sun is shining.

Yeah, I know. This is New Mexico. It does that. Except the weather geeks have been making much a hue and cry over the impending storm. Fortunately, in my little corner of the desert, the wind didn’t blow as predicted and it was a balmy 29-degrees this morning when I took the greyhound for his morning stroll. The weather geeks were going on about how frigid it was. Really? Because it was 19-degrees last week. My maths aren’t so great, but I’m certain 19 is less than 29.

Friday. My mother is visiting this weekend and the house has never been filthier. My only options are hiring a team of maids or moving.

So I said, “Screw it,” and did some sketching. This one is inspired by a quotation I saw in a catalog. (Oh, there’s another thing–we’re drowning in catalogs. Tis the season.) It’s full of errors, but I find I like my raw sketches better than my finished work. This is Regan (from The Music of Chaos) and Talis (also The Music of Chaos, with a bit part in The Canvas Thief.) Both are well over 100, but … semantics. As always, click image for a larger version.

Greyhound Racing, Still Full of The Suck

Thanksgiving, about a month away at this point, is coming at the speed of … a greyhound.  The Corrales Society of Artists’ Holiday show will take place over the three days after Thanksgiving. After a whole season of doing next to nothing, “artz-wise,” I’ve got to get my ass in gear and make some inventory.

I was also working on edits for my upcoming release, The Canvas Thief. I think, maybe, that’s out of the way for a while. (Editor sent the final version onto where ever final versions go.) And I’m doing a book signing–The Music of Chaos–in Corrales the same weekend as the Holiday Art Show.

In the interest of appearing to have an online pulse, I give you mo’ anti-greyhound racing propaganda. Greyhound racing is a sleezy and cruel business, which, like the carton of curdled milk in the back of your fridge, has long since passed its expiration date.

The accompanying graphic is a preliminary sketch that hasn’t gone anywhere. It has problems with perspective and the race car looks like a Beetle. Does anyone race Beetles? But I got nothin’ else, so I went ahead and inked it in Photoshop.

For information on how you can help end the cruel greyhound racing industry, go to Grey2K USA.

Half-Baked Leftovers and a Freebie

Free story. Free!

The problem with being a newbie writer, or even an old-bie writer, isn’t the absence of advice and information. For example, wanna know how to writer better dialogue? There’s a book for that. Or an “app.” Likely several. As well as numerous blog postings and articles available online and free.

Some of the advice out there is good; some possibly cooked up while shooting heroin.  But a bigger problem–for me anyway–was sorting out which of the good advice actually applied to me.

When I started writing my first novel, I was told that in order to break in, find an agent, etc., I had to first publish some short stories. In a rare fit of obedience, I dutifully cranked out a few short stories.

No writing is truly a waste of time. How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, practice, practice. But writing short fiction, when short fiction isn’t your thing, is sort of like practicing the mambo when you really would rather dance ballet. It adds to your repertoire and builds skills. But it may ultimately be a distraction from what you should be doing.

So I wrote short stories. Most of them set in the world of The Improbable Child, aka, Regan O’Connell, aka, the milleue of The Music of Chaos. Most are fun, flawed, and not publishable. (I.e., no editor is going to pay me for my efforts.)

“Keep Away from Naked Flame” is in my humble opinion, one of my best stories. In fact, if I just kept waiting, and submitting, it would probably find the right market. But, instead, I’m going to pop it first rights cherry here and post it. It’s a funny story of yet another of Regan’s misadventures in diplomacy, accompanied by her best pal, Talis the dark elf.

Also under the new Extras section on this blog, I posted a couple of outtakes/cut scenes from The Music of Chaos. Both were deleted because they didn’t add much to the story. Think of them as the stuff, back when films were actually on “film,” the bits that ended up on the cutting room floor.

Win a Free Copy of The Music of Chaos!

Win a free copy of my quirky urban fantasy, The Music of Chaos.  In addition to a free book, the winner of the contest will also get free “arts” by me (Small Kokopelli or angel wall art).

It’s easy. Just click this link to go my contest page over on Romance Junkies. There, you’ll see the following question:

“What is the name of … ‘the brave soul who had dared the displeasure of my company’?”

The answer can easily be found in Chapter One of The Music of Chaos. (Seriously, you can just skim through the text. He is the only other person in the scene.)

The contest runs through August 31, 2011, so you have time to enter multiple times. While you’re there, check out some of the other authors/books that are participating in this contest.

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“Blind dates are always a train wreck.”
By day, Regan O’Connell is a highly respected project manager. By night, she’s a Wolfe, a paranormal agent working for a vampire syndicate.

Her two worlds collide when a co-worker sets her up with tall, dark and sexy Jason Lake. Jason is a Holder, a member of an ancient, all-human organization dedicated to policing the activities of things that go bump in the night. Things like half-vampire Regan.

Falling for the wrong guy is the least of Regan’s problems. There’s a murderer on the loose, and his favorite weapon is chaotic magic, an erratic force with the power to rip holes in the fabric of the universe. And the best way to catch the killer is to get close to Jason, the man who is not only her enemy, but her prime suspect.

Buy My Book, So I Can Afford Pest Control

A study in lunacy, Kirby-style.

Saturday morning and I’m staring at dirty dishes from breakfast and inventing excuses for not washing them– “It’s against my religion; dish soap causes cancer; dishes come cleaner if food is allowed to set.”

I hear a startled yelp from the bathroom and my husband emerges from our bedroom, toothbrush in hand.

“What wrong?” I ask.

“I was bending over to spit out the toothpaste; I spit, and a centipede came out of the drain.”

This, of course, would have been the end of the story for people in full possession of their sanity. At Casa de Kirby, however, we don’t kill beneficial insects.  Centipedes, who snack on house-destroying termites, fit the definition of “beneficial.”

I hand him a plastic food container. “This should be big enough.”  I scoop an envelope off the table and follow him. Operation Centipede Rescue is on.

In our bathroom, my husband is leaning over the sink. He positions the container, trying to get the centipede to climb in and be relocated.

The centipede putters around the sink, antennae tapping, like a blind, bewildered old man.  (Centipedes don’t have much in the way of eyes; more like a little cluster of nerves that sense light.) Despite being blind, it manages to avoid the container. I try to nudge it into the container with the envelope. Success! Its front end  heads in the right direction.

Now, halfway in the container, the centipede inspects the smooth plastic surface, and then turns around and heads back down the drain.

This is where saner people would have squished it.

Instead I get the long-handle brush that I use to clean the fish aquarium.  Justin and I poke at the obstinate bug and it marches farther down the drain.

This is where saner people would have turned on the water full blast and washed it down the drain.

Instead, Justin sighs and heads out to the workshop.  He returns with a wrench.  “Get me something to catch water,” he says. A minute later and he’s removed the drain trap. (I married McGuyver.)

The fucking centipede is still in the drain, its antennae wiggling inquisitively, but not budging, not even when pushed with the brush.  This goes on for a while until Justin finally gives the drain pipe a hard whack and the obstinate bug tumbles into the plastic bucket below. Soon after, the creepy-crawly is outside (and probably none-too-happy, as it hasn’t rained in six months and centipedes like moisture).

Why bother with all this? Especially for a creature, that by my own admission, is “skin crawling up and down my back” creepy?

Well, there’s plain old karma and mercy.  Then there’s the fact that a six-inch-centipede in a drain, may have originated from said drain, and so flushing it doesn’t exactly keep it from marching right back up the drain. I’d rather not revisit its creepy face when I’m brushing my teeth.

And this was a really big centipede, at least seven inches.  With our luck, it would have clogged the drain.

Besides, squashing big bugs is nasty business.  First there’s the chitinous crack, followed by a spray of gooey ichor.  Next, there’s the splattered bug parts, legs (ugh, hate bug’s legs) and other crunchy bits to remove.

Mercy is just a lot less messy.

Why I Don’t Auto Follow on Twitter

Alternate title, “Stop Selling Me Stuff!”

I confess, a big part of Twitter’s allure is following, not being followed.  See “being followed” implies a kind of “leading,” and as any employer that I’ve ever worked for will attest, I’m no leader.  I’m also not a follower. (The specific language on my yearly evaluations was, “Is not a team player.”)  I don’t follow,  per say, but rather lurk in the periphery. If you’re interesting, I stick around, but only if you’re interesting.

My time spent on Twitter or any particular website is about an hour, tops (See attention span, below). I drop in, look for funny, rude, or informative stuff and then move on. Because it’s all about me. Me. Me. Me. Entertain me.

One reason I don’t auto follow is (more…)

The Music of Chaos, Now in Print!

Buy a book or the cute greyhound will have to go back to a miserable life of racing, stuck in a tiny crate all day, fed horrible food, abused.  You wouldn’t want that to happen, would you?

Then buy a book, save a puppy dog.

Shorter sales pitch: The dead tree version of The Music of Chaos is now available!

There they are. Some of my author copies of The Music of Chaos, my debut novel.  I tried to enlist the Wonder Horse‘s help in selling, but his version of marketing involved chomping his big, yellow teeth on the books. (Everybody’s a critic.)

My author’s copies arrived yesterday.  Prompting the immediate response of, “Oh, crap. Now I’ve got to sell my book in two formats!”

I love the idea of an ebook. But there’s something about holding your book in your hands, the smell of ink and glue, that makes any writer all … giggly.  Like a schoolgirl. Titter.

Here’s the short version of the book blurb:

“Blind dates are always a train wreck.”

By day, Regan O’Connell is a highly respected project manager.  By night, she’s a Wolfe, a paranormal agent working for a vampire syndicate.

Her two worlds collide when a co-worker sets her up with tall, dark and sexy Jason Lake.  Jason is a Holder, a member of an ancient, all-human organization dedicated to policing the activities of things that go bump in the night. Things like half-vampire Regan.

Falling for the wrong guy is the least of Regan’s problems. There’s a murderer on the loose, and his favorite weapon is chaotic magic, an erratic force with the power to rip holes in the fabric of the universe. And the best way to catch the killer is to get close to Jason, the man who is not only her enemy, but her prime suspect.

Buy it now (please) at Decadent Publishing or Amazon.

For those who want instant gratification, you can download the ebook version: Decadent Publishing, Amazon/Kindle, and B&N/Nook.

Or you can sample a chapter–FREE.