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Posts published in “Fiction”

Things I make up for a living.

Frost Moon Really Moving…

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Cover of Frost MoonMore Frost Moon news ... the Amazon $0.99 promotion (in turn, caused by the iPad $0.99 promotion) is having good effects:
http://ireaderreview.com/2010/07/01/some-interesting-friday-kindle-book-deals/ There are lots of good kindle book deals doing well on the charts today ... 7.Frost Moon by Anthony Francis has made its way into the Top 100. It’s rated 4.5 stars on 30 reviews and is just $1.
In an alternate Atlanta where magic is practiced openly, where witches sip coffee at local cafes, shapeshifters party at urban clubs, vampires rule the southern night like gangsters, and mysterious creatures command dark caverns beneath the city, Dakota Frost’s talents are coveted by all. She’s the best magical tattooist in the southeast, a Skindancer, able to bring her amazing tats to life. When a serial killer begins stalking Atlanta’s tattooed elite, the police and the Feds seek Dakota’s help. Can she find the killer on the dark fringe of the city’s Edgeworld?
Quite a collection of deals.
It's almost like my hard working publisher's efforts to promote my book are, uh, working. Yaay Bell Bridge Books! -the Centaur

It’s finally happened…

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... in one of those instances which exposes really how shallow you are, I find myself gratified that it, indeed, has finally happened. What is it?

Professional recognition.

Since I was a child I always wanted to be a "real science fiction writer". For some reason, I got it in my head that this meant membership in the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. Not sure how that happened, but it did: the external approval of that group of strangers somehow came to matter to me. So I tried to join.

First I wrote a science fiction short story that got published in 1995 in The Leading Edge magazine, but when I checked I found that the Leading Edge was not eligible for SFWA.

Then I wrote an urban fantasy novel that got published in 2010 by Bell Bridge Books, but when I checked I found that Bell Bridge was not eligible for SFWA.

Then, I missed the deadline to register for Comic-Con this year, and decided, what the heck, I'll try to register as a professional. After all, I've written an urban fantasy novel, drawn its frontispiece, and even created a webcomic. And for years I've felt that comics are my future as a creator. So, what the heck, why not?

Ding:

Dear Comic-Con Creative Creative Professional Attendee,

Thank you for registering for Comic-Con International 2010: San Diego

Please take a few moments to review your registration information...

Well. Allrighty then.

Yes, it's shallow of me to base some part of my evaluation of my personal self worth on the approval of others. Yes, this shows a deep-seated insecurity that needs to be addressed by a deep increase in maturity. Yes, yes, yes, I'll work on that. But still ...

... it's finally happened.
Well, enough basking. Back to work on Blood Rock. But wait - it is indeed working.

Boo-yah.
-the Centaur

Book Trailer for Frost Moon

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Amazing to see some of the concepts in the story brought to life ...
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cR5emfakFWE]
... and many of the "filler" images are actually going to create scenes in future books. :-)

-the Centaur
Crossposted on my Dakota Frost blog.

Dakota Frost Reloaded

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revised version of dakotas composited

Dakota Frost in the ink, if not the flesh. Changes include a new face, facial tattoos fixed, left hand enlarged.

-the Centaur
P.S. And have I mentioned I really love my little "imagelink" program that automatically formats HTML inserts for images just the way I like them? Latest tweak is to copy it to ~/bin/ so I can run it anywhere I'm working at the command prompt.

This … this is WORKING …

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revised version of dakotas face

Oh ... oh my goodness. I'm working on a revised version of Dakota's face for the frontispiece of Frost Moon and ... and ... "working" is not just a metaphor. This is actual work. I'm sketching, and soon after that I will be writing again on Liquid Fire or Jeremiah Willstone. As part of real work, and not just some crazy hobby anymore.

Too cool.

-the Centaur
Pictured: the revised face of Dakota Frost for the frontispiece, pre-cleanup and compositing into the original drawing.

Frost Moon in the Publisher’s Marketplace…

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... thanks to Bell Bridge Books:
Last but not least, our new fantasy series, SKIN DANCER, by debut author Anthony Francis, is careening through production and drawing absolute, total RAVES from early insider reads. Filled with adventure, humor, edgy characters and an incredible alternate reality, this story of a "magical tattoo artist" in modern Atlanta is going to rock the fantasy readers' world. Book one, FROST MOON, introduces the coolest heroine evah: tattoo specialist and "skin dancer" Dakota Frost, a tall, gorgeous, bi-sexual twenty-something whose tats are admiringly known as "Frost bites."

Ahem. I'm very flattered. I hope Frost Moon lives up to that description!
-the Centaur

Crossposted to the Dakota Frost blog...

Viiiiictory … Episode III

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Nanowrimo 2009 WinnerOnce again, I have completed National Novel Writing Month! This year's entry is the third in the Dakota Frost series, Liquid Fire. I'll have more to say about this later this week, especially the mad scramble to write 38,000 words in 10 days (oy). But until then, let me leave you with the synopsis of Liquid Fire: "Dakota Frost, a magical tattoo artist who can bring tattoos to life, is caught in a war between rival fire magicians over liquid fire - dragon's blood. An ancient order of pyromancers needs it to survive; modern fireweavers need it to perform their magic --- and Dakota Frost is the only person to have summoned a dragon in two hundred years."


Oh, heck, I'll throw in a repost of the first chapter too ... as edited:
“What is life? No scientist can tell you. Oh, the pocket-protector variety will say that living things move, eat and grow, wrapped up in ten-dollar words like ‘locomotion’ and ‘intake’ and ‘self-organization’. But these by themselves are not life: a waterfall moves more vibrantly than any animal, a fire eats more efficiently, a crystal is more organized.

“A worldly scientist, aware of the dance of the sexes, will mention the heat of metabolism, the fire of reproduction. But a fire eats to live just like we do, but faster: and where we breed in a slow dance of desire, a fire lives in a hot orgy of giving, casting off its own substance, flying sparks, glowing seeds, drifting through the air to start the cycle again. If metabolizing and reproducing were all there were to life, would not fire be alive?

“But life is not any one of these things: life is all of them together. It is the combination of moving and eating and organizing, of metabolism and reproduction, of a thousand things more. Put them all together, and you get more than you started with: a holistic—holy—combination that is more than the sum of its parts. Life is magic.

“Or more precisely, magic is life,” I said. Nowhere was this more clear than with my traveling companions, werekin and vampires whose very biology was woven with magic; but since they would not approve of outed just so I could make a point, I instead picked on myself. “I know this, because I’m a skindancer. I ink magic tattoos that only work because their magical lines are laid on a living canvas that powers them. Each tattoo is like a circuit, that captures the intent of the wearer and projects it out it into the world. But it is the flow of the blood beneath the flex of the skin that powers them: without that life, they’d be useless.”

I don’t know what got me on that dissertation, but when I was done, the airline stranger in the seat to my left—a cute granola girl, curvy almost to the point of chubby, with a refreshing patchouli scent and dirty blond hair so curly it looked like coils of copper wire, I mean, really, just my type, down to the nose ring—put her magazine down and looked at me quizzically.

“Lady, are you for real?” she asked.

+4100 words …

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... now officially up to a rate which would see me to the finish line, though I still am almost as many words behind (17981) as I have written (18685). And this is with me still being sick. Bleah.

However, the good news is that I fell in love with the book last night. This is something every author needs to do with their novel, at some point, or they're never going to do it the justice it deserves, if they finish it at all. Well, I fell in love with Liquid Fire on the streets of Oakland last night ... at least the streets of Oakland as seen through the eyes of Dakota Frost.

-the Centaur

National Novel Writing Month 2009 Entry: Liquid Fire

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Well, it is that time of year again: November, and National Novel Writing Month. This year I'm working on Book 3 of the Dakota Frost series, Liquid Fire, which features Dakota, firespinning, and dragons:
What is life? No scientist can tell you. Oh, the pocket-protector variety will say that living things move, eat and grow, wrapped up in ten-dollar words like ‘locomotion’ and ‘intake’ and ‘self-organization’. But these by themselves are not life: a waterfall moves more vibrantly than any animal, a fire eats more efficiently, a crystal is more organized.

A worldly scientist, aware of the dance of the sexes, will mention the heat of metabolism, the fire of reproduction. But a fire eats to live just like we do, but faster: and where we breed in a slow dance of desire, a fire lives in a hot orgy of giving, casting off its own substance, flying sparks, glowing seeds, drifting through the air to start the cycle again. If metabolizing and reproducing were all there were to life, would not fire be alive?

But life is not any one of these things: life is all of them together. It is the combination of moving and eating and organizing, of metabolism and reproduction, of a thousand things more. Put them all together, and you get more than you started with: a holistic — holy — combination that is more than the sum of its parts. Life is magic.

Or more precisely, magic is life.
As usual, I have a theme, plot, and know almost exactly how it will end. But more than the previous two books in the series, I feel like I'm stepping off into a great void, even though the magic of this book - firespinning - is an art I myself perform, unlike the tattoos featured in Frost Moon (of which I have none) and the graffiti featured in Blood Rock (of which I have done none). All I have to go on this one are love, fire ... and the nightmares from the Hadean.

Wish me luck.
-the Centaur

Frost Moon Back In the Hands of the Editor

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frost moon

Frost Moon, the first novel I wrote that ever got serious interest from a publisher, is now back in the hands of the editor. Things are looking good, we're on the same page for the first twelve chapters ... though, sadly, their 2009 schedule has filled and there's no way the book is going to come out before the beginning of 2010.

Now it's the race to finish the edits of Blood Rock by the end of October, so I can send it to my beta readers and start work on "Liquid Fire" for National Novel Writing Month...

Wish me luck!
-the Centaur