Poodle Moth? More like Angora Moth!

I love science and nature. Ever since I caught my first National Geographic documentary as a kid I've been glued to the set surfing for any and all shows on nature. I am so lucky, at least as far as entertainment goes, that now we have whole channels dedicated to National Geographic, science, and animals. Sir Richard Attenborough's documentaries, by the way, I cannot recommend enough. You've probably heard of Planet Earth and Life, but his Life in the Undergrowth and Life in Cold Blood are excellent as well. Since they are so focused on insects and reptiles and amphibians, you get much more time with those critters than in the general documentaries Planet Earth and Life.

Why am I going into all this? Well, as I mentioned before, when I write I often look to the real world for inspiration and these strange little creatures certainly inspire me. You'll come to see as I post more glossary entries that nature has heavily influence my fantasy writing. I also find it fertile territory for my forays into science fiction, which I'm hoping you'll see some of in the near future. They say that truth is stranger than fiction. I've found there is nothing stranger than some of the stuff you can find in nature.

This little moth with the big attitude (pictured above) showed up recently. They've nicknamed it the poodle moth, but I think it's more of an angora moth. It's like a little angry angora rabbit morphed with a moth. Is it scary or adorable? I'm on the fence. This particular shot does look as if this tough guy is about to launch itself into your face. It's a moth with a grudge.

Okay, well enough of fuzzy things, though saying that seems all kinds of wrong. My books sales for the month have been promising. I'm very happy with my progress, modest though it is. Thanks again to everyone who picked up a copy of either of my books. Sometime next week I'll post another entry from the glossary for anyone who comes by here to enjoy. Until then, I'll try to believe this fuzzy moth wants me to pet it and not to chase me out of its territory.

A SINK FULL OF KITTENS! and some other stuff

First off, thanks to all who downloaded Whom the Gods Love during the two day promotion. That was awesome, and led to a wonderful new review for Amazon. I've now included Amazon reviews in a widget on the blog there on the right. A good friend worked that up for me. She deserves a sink full of kittens as much as all those who downloaded the book. So enjoy those kittens. I originally saw this image on imgur.

Second, I thought I'd shed a little light on how I get some of my ideas for my mythological creatures and characters. Many of the creatures are inspired by established mythologies and folk stories. Some you might readily recognize, like griffins or harpies. Others, like the aswang for instance, might seem a bit more obscure to some readers. The aswang in my book are loosely based on the real myth of a Filipino version of a vampire. They are quite horrific in any description I've seen. My version is no where near as terrifying as theirs. I try to take a few aspects from the established myth to keep some of the familiarity for readers, but since I am writing them into my own world, I also have enjoyed playing with the beasts from these stories and fleshing them out into something more fitted to my stories and atmosphere.

Some creatures, like the crawlers I posted about before, I just make up completely. I use a little of what I've seen from nature docs, which I love, and exaggerate them like crazy. I love playing with how real biology would work if you made if really frightening or strange.

As for the gods, they are just made up from whole cloth. I am not using any established myths for them. They all have their own back stories and myths, some of which will come into play in this trilogy, and some of which won't. I can't really say whether or not I'll revisit Tanavia after I've completed this trilogy. I have so many other ideas I'd like to explore in writing, but who knows. Maybe I'll feel compelled to write about some of the other warriors or people of these lands.

Again, thanks to those who downloaded my book, and a special thanks to the person who reviewed it. Reviews are always helpful to me, even negative ones, but the positive ones truly make my day. :)

Whom the Gods Love Free Today!

Whom the Gods Love is free until midnight tonight! So far the book has managed to get into the top 20 for Epic Fantasy. Which is awesome! I've gotten lots of downloads for the book, which means more exposure. More exposure is a good thing. Unless we're talking about to the cold. Then it's bad.

In other news, if you haven't seen the cat that sings the Game of Thrones intro music, you really should. It's funny even if you aren't a cat lover. I have verified that by forcing various cat non-lovers to watch it. I know, how did I find so many cat non-lovers? It was a long and arduous process, but only the best for anyone who stumbles across this blog and decides to read it. So check out the video. It's been vetted.

Glossary Entry: Crawlers

If you've read Whom the Gods Love, you may have noticed my interest in mythology and folklore. As long as I can remember, being interested in writing and reading, mythology and folklore have always held my intense interest. The idea of being able to create my own myths and legends for a world was exciting and fun.

As I began writing Whom the Gods Love, I started up a glossary for the series. It seemed the easiest way to keep track of all the people, places and things I continually referenced throughout the work. After I finished the first book, looking back at the glossary I realized that it often held far more detail about some of the entries than the book ever went in to.

I thought including some glossary entries would be a fun way to reveal parts of the world of Tanavia without spoiling too much of the story, particularly if I picked entries that I knew weren't integral to the main plot of the story. So here's the first entry I've chosen. I hope you enjoy it!

·        Crawlers - Crawlers are huge worms (adults ranging in size from 40 to 80 feet in length) that travel deep underground and eat early in the morning. There is a saying on Tanavia, “Only the early worm catches the bird.” This saying comes from the fact that crawlers enjoy feasting on the nests of rocs. Baby rocs are their favorite prey. Crawlers can sense heat even from deep within the earth. In the early morning hours, when the parents of the young rocs have gone off to look for food, the babies will sometimes fall out of the nest in anticipation of their meal. If they do not make it back up to the safety of the rocky crevices where their nests are, they are likely going to become the meal of a crawler. Crawlers will also make a quick meal of a traveling party if the group has not taken care to sleep atop hard ground when in crawler territory. Around the same time as the dew begins to settle in the morning, men will disappear from a camp, bedding and all, into the mouth of a crawler. Crawlers have mouths capable of opening wide enough to easily swallow a man whole. Unfortunately for the victims of a crawler attack, they have no teeth. Instead, they have a very tough leathery interior to their mouths that is extremely slick with saliva. The tough, slimy orifice makes it difficult for the prey to claw or cut their way out. The walls of the throat and digestive track of a crawler are also very muscular. Yet they do not constrict the life out of their prey. The final unhappy factor in being eaten by a crawler; they eat their prey feet first. This is particularly gruesome for the victim because the airway and the digestive track of a crawler is the same common passageway right down to the fork where air is funneled into the lungs and food is funneled into the stomach. Due to the unique qualities of the crawler’s digestive system, it can take the crawler days to fully pass a meal into its stomach. In order for the crawler to breathe while it eats these large meals, it must lodge food tightly into the passageway to the stomach until it had fully passed beyond the common duct. The prey, awash with oxygen, can still live while its lower extremities are being digested.  Some men say they can tell when they are near a colony of crawlers by the faint, muffled screams coming from beneath the ground. Crawlers have no known predators, but adult roc pairs have been known to take one down in defense of their nestlings.

Goodreads Page coming soon!

I've signed up to get an author page on Goodreads. Soon that will be all set up. Already have a lovely review over there, so half the job of getting my author page has already been done for me! My promotional period for The Arbiter did fairly well. I'm quite happy with how many downloads there were. I plan to keep on building my book portfolio, so keep an eye on my author page for new books.

I know these posts have mostly been news, but next time I promise to post something related to my writing. Until next time!

P.S. Almost forgot! Take a look at the first chapter of Whom the Gods Love. I always make sure to use the Look Inside This Book feature, so you should get a good sample of the writing style of that story. Hope you like it.

Big Time! (I'm an optimist, yes I am)

Woo! The Arbiter is number 34 in Kindle Fantasy! Thanks to everyone who downloaded it yesterday! Maybe we can get a little higher on that list? If you like it, tell your friends. :) The Arbiter is still free today until midnight, so now is your chance to pick it up.

Don't forget, if you like it, give Whom the Gods Love a try. I'll soon be blogging some excerpts from the sequel I'm currently working on. Whom the Gods Love is the same price as one of those new McDonald's dipped cones, but I can guarantee it won't melt all over your hand in this heat, so that's a bonus.

The Arbiter, free today and tomorrow!

I’m putting The Arbiter up for free for a couple days to help promote the release of my new book, Whom the Gods Love. Go over and grab yourself a copy. If you enjoy my writing style, I hope you’ll come back and give Whom the Gods Love a try.

Whom the Gods Love is a little more light-hearted than The Arbiter. As far as tone goes, think somewhere between Peter S. Beagle and Terry Pratchett.

I’m already hard at work on the next novel in the Tanavian Chronicles. I just put chapter 4 to bed last week, and with luck, I’ll be publishing the next book within the next 6 months.

Enjoy!