And the Bunny Takes a Nibble

So while my Hungarian hunters are busily staking vampires in my WiP, I figured I might as well take advantage of this faint smudge of free time to share a new bit o' shiny. It's really weird how one thing -- pretty innocuous and even gorgeous -- can give a darker idea a nudge. Again and again. Then a massive kick in the 'nads for good measure when things not only gel, but actually make a hell of a lot of sense. 

Anyway, while re-centering myself with some favorite music on YT (mostly classical since it always calms me down), I realized I haven't listened to Karl Jenkins' Palladio in a dog's age. It's one of my favorite modern compositions, and it occasionally cuddles ye olde plotbunny and feeds it some much-needed noms though I really hadn't been inspired by it completely.

Until now.

The piece itself (this is actually just one movement but is the most famous one*) was written in honor of Andrea Palladio, an Italian architect from the Renaissance who championed an architectural style that was all about symmetry and balance. Jenkins' piece perfectly encapsulates Palladian architecture, but one can also argue that it can stir up some darkly twisted stuff given the right time and environment.

*points at brain*

Dat be my brain, y'all, all of yesterday. I'll be able to rescue a languishing plotbunny that was originally intended for The Twilight Lover, which underwent a bit of surgery and came out of it a wholly different story, and I ended up ditching the original idea yet again (it'd been resurrected, killed off, resurrected, killed off, etc. for quite a few years now). 

And this time it'll work -- thanks to the idea of symmetry and balance, which can be turned into something quite creepy and unsettling. So I now have one more solid story to add to my running to-do list, and Doppelgänger will follow The Bells of St. Mark's Eve. We'll be back to my favorite genre of Victorian ghost fiction in this case, so I'm stoked. 

* this performance actually drops a very short section of the piece, but it doesn't detract from the final effect; it's also (so far) my favorite interpretation because it's snappier and more emphatic than others, which usually take on a slightly slower and more graceful approach

'The Dubious Commode' Gallery Now Up

Finally! The gallery page for The Dubious Commode is finally up and running, and you can go here for some bits o' stuff behind the book as well as the entire Ghosts and Tea series. The final version of the manuscript has also been uploaded to Draft2Digital for e-book and print publishing, and it'll be out on July 1. Farewell, Hoary Plimpton! It's been a blast through and through. 

In other news, I'm roughly halfway through Voices in the Briars and will need to get going on the brainstorming front for The Perfect Rochester. And even though I'm always sorely tempted to look far, far into the future with possible story ideas, I'm fighting the urge and will keep to what I have currently set up all the way to The Bells of St. Mark's Eve. 

At this rate, I'll probably find myself getting way ahead on the writing front until I'll be more than 6 months out for my WiP's publishing calendar. But yeah -- I know I tend to go back on my resolution whenever the wave of energy and motivation hits me, so I'll have to remember (or remind myself) that three books released per year are my maximum. And so far that's what's set for this year and next. The Bells of St. Mark's Eve will kick off 2026, and it's a blank after that for the time being. 

Well, at the very least, I'd like to keep writing through the end of 2028, which will mark 20 years of me writing and publishing. I'm not going to jinx myself, though. I'll keep writing until I run out of things to say, and then I'll bow out gracefully. I don't see that happening anytime soon, but I'm growing more and more aware of my limitations as I get older. 

You know how it is. In this instance, reducing my output will be to my benefit, and with any luck, I won't be turning back on that again once I decide on it. But, hell, who knows?

Booyah, New Month (and Happy Pride!)

Wow, I lasted almost two weeks not posting anything here. Real life / day job crumminess got in the way, as it always does, and my way of coping was to fling myself onto the bed and pass out. I did finish my rewatch of Dead Boy Detectives, though, and fell in dorky love all over again plus I'm done with the final touch ups for The Dubious Commode, and I'm looking to submitting the final version to Draft2Digital this weekend. 

And a few more words about this book...

It's easily the least dramatic of the entire series with the angst levels dialed down. I wanted it to be an unapologetically upbeat farewell to Prue and the gang, and any conflict comes from a distant source. The book blurb will give you an idea exactly where, and because of that distance, the humor isn't as tempered by sadder stuff such as what the previous books have explored in their own way. 

Alas for me, it's proving to be a challenge putting together a gallery page for the book. I've already gone over a pretty succinct (at least I hope so) account of how I picture some of the main characters, and now I've decided I'll be diving even deeper and going over the roots of my love of epistolary fiction. More on that once the gallery page is up and running, of course.

Oh, and Happy Pride Month to my LGBTQ+ friends out there! Enjoy this amazing moment of Catholic insanity courtesy of Claire (yep, she came out as lesbian in the series, and the moment is posted here [word of advice: wait for a short but awesome comment from Da Gerry at the end]) and the gang. 

I'm itching to rewatch this series as well. Stumbling across random snippets on Youtube is really stoking the embers of my love for Derry Girls.

All Hail Long Weekends

Right. I'm off work today, and that means finishing up what's left of edits for The Dubious Commode, which is then followed by the manuscript's upload to Draft2Digital for store listing. Woot! I've also started on the print file and am on the last step, but I'll be holding off on that in case I spot random errors I missed and will need to re-upload the manuscript. If I jump right in and publish the print book, I'll need to pay to update it if I don't want to wait 90 days for that free change feature to kick in. 

Anyhoo, here's the blurb:

Another wave of suspicious calm follows Freddy and Jonathan's successful solving of the singing skull mystery, which means Fate isn't quite done with the lot of them. Prue carries on with her beloved priory upgrades, stocks up on Felicity's products (arcane and otherwise), and endures the trials of being still of the living world. Freddy and Jonathan are madly in love with each other as ever, their bond growing stronger by the day.

Things appear to go swimmingly for a time, indeed, with Jonathan's workaholic publisher paying Hoary Plimpton a visit for health reasons and Mr. Headley entering the picture with a dragon's hoard of romantic smut for aunt and nephew alike.

But Brody's artistic gift comes under unexpected scrutiny, threatening a horrible shakeup in the priory and a permanent upending of everyone's lives. Then Mr. Headley decides he'd dearly love to be haunted and acquires a few oddities with ghosts attached to them.

Family isn't immune from drama, naturally, as Linford's increasingly panicked letters suggest. Lucinda's trapped in her spiritualist retreat where ladies' pocketbooks are gradually draining their contents, and Antigonous involves his committee in the mystery of the haunted antique commode. It's a haunting that baffles everyone, forcing them to resort to a few foolish and drastic measures to get to the bottom of things—even reconsider old prejudices against the very people who hold the key to ghostly mysteries.

Prue and Freddy's madcap ghostly adventures conclude in this final installment of the Ghosts and Tea series.

As always, the digital book is priced at 99 cents, and the print book at $9.00. I come cheap, what can I say? Once the online bookstore links are live, I'll be posting them here. In the meantime, I need to get going on the gallery page for the book.

In other writing news, I'm roughly 1/3 done with Voices in the Briars, and more story ideas are coming hard at fast at me with regard to future books I already have in the pipeline. One of them was worked into the plot of The Twilight Lover, which changes its setting a little but certainly for the better since the original idea was a bit tired and overdone (at least in terms of what I've already written). Time for an upgrade, and I'm sure this'll work much better. 

Of course, that might also mean a possible change in cover art, but we'll cross that bridge when we get there. Otherwise, my publishing calendar remains steady, and no shuffling around is in the future as far as I can see. 

EDIT: Ayup, here we go! The book page over at Books2Read is up, and the list of stores will be added to the closer we get to the release date.  

Y Tho? (Or: When Fandom Takes a Whack at My Kneecaps)

And just when I thought the coast was clear, someone decides to slap me hard with a fan made video splicing together scenes from Dead Boy Detectives with Vincent Lima's "Orpheus". Because OF COURSE THEY WOULD, AND THEY DID. And for those who've seen the entire first season of the series, you'll know exactly what I mean when I shake my fist at the cosmos and wail, "Motherfucker, that's a low blow!" Goes straight for the jugular, I'm telling you.

Because it's Saturday, it's a gorgeous day to kick back and relax, but since the Orpheus reference is a valuable detail in the show, I'm now drenched in tears and snot instead. 

All joking melodrama aside, it's a spectacular edit though it only uses about 3/4 of the song (you can tell it cuts off too soon), but that said, the point isn't just made, it's hammered home with a rusty spike and a mallet into my heart. I absolutely love it. This is a very short blog post that's just here for fans of the series, of which I count myself one (out and proud about it, I am). BTW, I've also started my re-watch, and the fun hasn't abated.

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Okay, okay, okay. Since I'm on a DBD kick and hit you all with a tearjerker of a video, I figure I might as well balance things out with a crack one. Really, I'm pretty impressed with how fans edit videos to come up with some amazing results. I've seen a few crack videos in the past, and the results are understandably hit or miss. That said, this one for DBD really had me howling, and that was unexpected but definitely appreciated.

This is what happens when I've got way too much extra time after breakfast and before I leave for the bus stop for another week of day job drudgery.