Nightmare Assassins Threaten Danger in a Dreamy Landscape

Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman gives the reader a familiar storyline--assassins chasing a fair maiden through a dangerous world, helped by a good-hearted man. In this Gaiman's writing stars a creative, alternative London [London below]. The quests of the two characters--one to find out who killed her family and the other on how to return to the real world--keeps the two main characters apart for a good share of the story. Gaiman creates a dreamy world where nothing works quite as expected, but just right enough to keep the reader anchored.

Actually, no one tilts and teeters as much as Richard Mayhew, the well-meaning, spineless hero. The poor man is first caught up in our time-driven, wealth-chasing modern world.  A chance meeting with a bleeding girl on the streets of London throws him into an alternative world of London below where he tries to save her from nightmarish assassins. Fate has given him a alternative to a mapped out social rut stifling his soul. But Mayhew wants nothing more than to return to the real world.

The black-suited, kitten-maiming assassins are the run-from highlight of the book. Believe it or not, they even provide the comic relief. Unfortunately, it's the background that stars in this book rather than the progtagonist who remains rather blah in spite off his battle to return to London above. None of the human characters are as sharply drawn as the minor ones named for physical location in London above. Still, a wonderful, creative read.

Take a look at the sample and other reviews--all 2,000+ of them, mostly 5-star--ones

Amazon          Barnes & Noble         Rakuten-kobo

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Other Interesting Reading

Ever wonder what writers think of their writing. I happened to click this blog on Twitter. You might be interested since it gave me a chuckle. Like, "Oh, so true." Read about Nighttime Blabbing.

The Bookmuse always writes interesting, useful blogs for writers. Anyway, I find they always jerk my chain when I read them. It seems I always forget more than I know. Becca Puglisi recently wrote on on Character As Mirrors. Lots of her comments put life's little tragedies in perspective.

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My Writing Rut

Got my editorial comments back for On the Run, complete with cuts, additions, and new chapter suggestions. Every time I think I'm done and ready for copyediting, someone throws ice cubes over my head. Grumble. Grumble. Yeah, like most writers, I think editing and revising are never done.

Also got a new cover for the book. What do you think?

First Cover

Second Cover

It's been an arty week akround here. I've also been getting new ad banners for There Be Demons made. Here's an example.

You can read a sample and the reviews on Amazon and Rakuten-kobo.

What Keeps You Reading???

Here a Book, There a Book

Am wondering ... about the books I started pile. Not the to-read pile, which is growing, but the books I started and put down to read again ... whenever. At last count, there're eight of them in various stages of completion. 

The one I finished last? Neil Gaiman's Stardust, the story of a feckless lad who grows up during a quest to bring his lady love a fallen star. I picked it up last weekend and finished it in three days. Written in the classic fairy tale style, I enjoyed the sly humor of the piece as well as Gaiman's inventiveness in using the standard motifs. Well worth reading. But you probably already know that. It's been around for a while as the various covers tell you.

You can take a look on Amazon and Nook.

So, I finished Stardust midweek. Did I pick up one of my already started books? No. I'm reading Darynda Jones' The Curse of the Tenth Grave. 

Am wondering if you hop, skip, and jump through your reading pile. 

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On my writing front,  the content editor has On the Run. Yeah, I finally got all the critique and beta edits collated into the draft. 

Other progress, finished Pissing at the Green Onion, a short story meant to be a freebie sometime or other. Also, got a couple pages into a post-disaster Andor story set during the times the Kingscourt established its rule over the western lands. Yeah, both There Be Demons and On the Run happen on Andor's west coast. After all, I'm a California valley girl -- Central Valley, that is. For sure.

May seem silly to have a cover so early [My critique group isn't going to be looking at it until January.], but some people seem to think it helps with the writing to have a working cover.

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Writerly Things

Colorado Writers have a wonderful marketing tool in the Ultimate Pitchfest. If you're a writer having problems with your queries, they offer digital lessons on how to create a perfect pitch. Again, having a pitch while you're editing, can help to keep you focused on your story line even if you don't have a manuscript ready to shop.

On the Run won't be ready in time to shop there. [They do Skype pitches to good agents.] But I'm going to be doing the digital learn to pitch workshop soon.

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Oh, Happy Holidays All

Hope you celebrate several during the holiday season.

Do Cliches Matter if You Got Imagination? -- Review Neal Gaiman's The Ocean at the End of the Lane

    Don't know what took me so long to read Neil Gaiman's heroic childhood fantasy The Ocean at the End of the Lane. Maybe I was afraid of having my mind blown by what Gaiman does with the cliche of the loner, bookish kid not liking the caregiver his working parents dump on him.

   Of course, Gaiman wrapped the plot in magic, including three powerful immortals who pretend to be human on the farm at the end of the land.  The heroic battle comes after the narrator becomes the means used by a malignant entity to invade our dimension.

   This is supposedly an adult novel, narrated by an adult who had just given an eulogy at a funeral and decides to kill some time between events by visiting some of his childhood haunts. In matter of fact prose, the unnamed main character tells his dark tale of heroic sacrifice. Yet, the whole story takes place during the narrator's childhood, when he was seven-eight years old.

   The beauty in the reading comes in Gaiman's writing. Yeah. The Gaiman gives the reader the realistic whimsey at the core of all his books. It continually amazed me with how he manages to get such preternatural suspense from such a mundane, suburban setting. Even so, the action doesn't seem to have had much effect on the character. You might even say the story lacks character development. The kid seemed much the same to me at the end as the two ladies who livied at the end of the lane.

   I felt the tale skimmed along the surface of some great thoughts. The story did become a lyrical poem to the wonders of childhood with all its mysteries and what ifs. The bottom line, I think, is that Neil Gaiman has written another modern fairytale in his spare style with depths buried in the action rather than the description.

   Writers can take lessons from how Gaiman creates his images without noticeable adjectives. His descriptions widen the possibilities in the reader's imagination. Most writers narrow down the possibilities within their story lines.

A delightful coming of age story, beautifully written, which will stick into the back of your mind and resurface at unexpected times. Gaiman's amazing imagination and story-telling make this a must read for fantasy readers. You can read more reviews and samples on

Amazon     &     B&N Nook

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A Writer's Tool Kit & Interesting Links

   Came across a blog: Write Small: 5 Ways to Make Your Readers Care on Writer's Write by Mia Botha. One thing struck me was that people react to social crises much the same. They pick one cause or the problem of one person to work on. It's the details that matter.

   This pipsqueak writer is far too small to worry about Hugos or Nebulas, but it seems to me everyone should be aware of the current nomination process at the Hugos, a popularity contest which has always ignored some of the most enduring writers in the fantasy/science fiction genres. The Passive Guy, my favorite writing guru, posted this blog: Some Sad Puppy Data Analysis.

   Don't know how many of you read historical mysteries, but Jeri Westerson recently wrote a blog about how she came to write medieval mysteries: Writing Was My Secret. It made me wonder how many readers are secret writers. It's no secret that writers are readers.

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    Did enjoy my sister-in-law and daughter's visit. She says she enjoyed it too--in spite of the cottonwoods doing their spring-thing. Barely managed to keep my emails cleaned. The break did energize my #writing. While my brain forgot about the plot of On the Run, the back stories and socio-magical-political structure fell into place. The action and time lines in the whole Andor series have become more coherent in my brain. Like Doom for a Sold Soul happens before the Celestial Wars. Surprising since I write by the seat of my pants. Maybe there's some scientific basis for automatic writing.

   Didn't get anything done on my website...though people seem to be visiting it before I get all the SEO done. Since I haven't gotten anything corrected for the public. Here's the first paragraph of the current version of On the Run, which happens after the Celestial Wars.

   The waitress chewed a wad of gum so large her white-coated tongue appeared each time her jaw moved. Pillar Beccon lowered her eyes at the sight. “I’d like extra cheese.”

   It does get a little more exciting when she and her friends encounter a stalker at the bus station.

Wrapping It Up

Trivia:  The week's ending -- and I haven't accomplished anything.  Until I look at Emma, that is.  A chapter and a half to go.  Even figured out a way for mortal kid Emma to best a magical spriggen.  Better yet, I've foreshadowed it all along through the manuscript so I don't have to go back and seed info.

Guess, I can treat myself to Red Lobster and shrimp as a reward.  The old man doesn't like shrimp so I've stopped cooking it at home.  Too much trouble juggling portions.

Reading Lessons:  Haven't been reading much either.  Did read Berk Breathed's Flawed Dogs.  A sort of Westminster dog show meets Gaiman's graveyard.  Laughed out loud many times which may have made it worth it.  Still, it left me down.  Wishing for Opus?  Not really.  I don't think I'm really into "dark".

Also, have given up on Phaedra Weldon's Wraith.  Really loved the premise of someone who could travel outside her body and solve crimes (specifically murders).  The secondary characters were promising too.  But the voice.  I'd be sinking into the plot, suspending belief, and then, the character would grate me molars by her observations.  

In short, Zoe Martinique isn't someone who I'd go out of my way to have coffee with.  -- A disturbing thought.  Since it probably is an indication of my chances for getting published.  Not very many people would go out of their way to have coffee with me a second time.  (Think of Ms. Snark in a bad mood.)


So, what have I been doing.  I finished up my unviewed episodes of The Omega Factor and The Dresden files.  Omega is a 70s supernatural show with low-budget, low-tech effects, but scary as all get out.  Since it  was written for a different marketing set I won't mention more.  

But, Jim Butcher's The Dresden Files.  I'm going to be spending part of my week-end studying the pacing of the things.  Something made easy by what I think were commercial breaks.  Just like a chapter should, TV shows leave a dangling hook just before the break.  (Gotta bring the viewers back after they've channeled-surfed the commercials.)


Progress:  Tangled critiques.  Getting good pertinent comments.  Since my critiquers are showing me why things remain "trunk or under- the- bed novels", I'll continue chopping because I'm learning so much from the exercise.   Critiquers telling me where I come up short is a bonus.  More important, the lacks in the characterization/plot has made it difficult (impossible) to write a decent query.  -- I think that gives me a clue for further revision if I get around to it.



Emma.  Am finally feeling good about it.  I'm going to write a new novel this year after all.  Of course, I doctored the board.  Turned it into MG which only needs some 35,000 words.


Maren.  Got the short story prequel drafted except for the fight scene.  Over the Christmas slow down, I'll have to think more coherently about the book for 2010.


I keep my pace of about 500 words plus backtracking (aka revising/editing) ... I could never do NaNo.