For me Lightbulb moments always leads to more work.  Most of the time, I like lightbulb moments though, since they makes the story better.  Not this week though. Why? Because I realised that the story I was writing for the Shattered Ward was the wrong story.   Yeah.  It is most likely my own fault, though since I was writing it without an outline.  I should have known by now that never works for me. sigh.

The lightbulb also stems from the fact that I don’t want to write Historical Fantasy set in England.  Since there are a lot of them already. No, I want this series to be set in Sweden.  In the 1700s-1800s. Lots of change and tension during that period.  Part of the reason is that I am not english. I am Swedish and I want to write stories about Swedish history.  And Swedish Mythology.

And yes. This has impact on other books, that will also be shelved for the foreseeable future. ( Thought not The Wild Hunt + sequels and The Queen of Sind + the other books in that setting.)

Don’t worry, though. The Shattered Ward will return sometime in the future, but in another setting with other characters.

This is a cut piece from The Shattered Ward. It is unedited, since it didnt fit the scene. I might do something with it later. Maybe not.

A tentiative knock on the door made her shook off the longing.

” Come in!”

The door opened and her youngest daughter ran inside. Fiona sighed when she saw the tear stains on her daughter’s cheeks.
” Oh honey,” she mumbled.

Her daughter buried her head agaist her shoulder and cried. Fiona hugged her and murmured soothing words.

It killed her inside that her daughter, who was wise and clever, was bullied because she was 12 years old and her gift hadn’t emerged yet. What worse was, there was nothing she could do since her daughter refused to tell her who the bullies were. When she asked the teachers, they claimed they didn’t know.

Fiona wasn’t certain how long her daughter cried. When the tears eased, her daughter wiped her chin.

” I got your dress wet.”

” I have more dresses. I am more worried about you.”
Her daughter gave her a wobbly smile.
” I know. I appreciate that you haven’t tried to find out who it was. Even if you could.”

Fiona opened her mouth, but a knock interrupted her.

She glanced toward the door and saw that Julian was standing in the door. She swallowed a sigh.

” I need to speak with Julian. Why don’t you go and do your homework?”

Her daughter nodded and hurried off. Once the girl was out of the room, Julian closed the door behind her.

” Bullies again?”

Fiona nodded.

” If you want to I can remind the teachers that many of the powerful witches are latebloomers.”

She gave him a startled look.
” That is a good idea. I will remind the dean.”

Fiona looked at him.

” I doubt that was why you wanted to see me though.”

I had a crappy week, mainly because a lot of uncertainty about my day job.  But yesterday I was told my contract will be renewed. Yay! I also got other good news.

1. I got feedback on the Cauldron Bound from Kari. She liked it. Yay! She had some good feedback, though, even if there was one moment of ” He was what?!” when I read it .  But the next round should be relatively easy. Then it is off to the eminent Laura Anne. And her edits will probably be less easy. Which is how it should be. But The Cauldron Bound is slowly moving towards a summer release. Not there yet, though. 🙂

2. There are really fun things being planned for 2016. It is still very vague, but the query arrived at the right time, and it was very nice to get asked.

3.  I  sold more copies of Exile on Ibooks. So now I have earned a whopping 15 dollar. Still waiting on the other sales, though.

4. I found some e-books by Frances and Joseph Gies on sale at Amazon for 0.99-1.99. Yeah. I snapped them up. They have a good reputation, plus they are normally 10 dollar +.  ( I prefer my non-fic in print, but some of them were out of print. Plus I like bargains 🙂 .)

 

This is from Angel among Demons, a book I wrote awhile ago. A comment by Paul Weimer on twitter reminded me of this scene. So, this one is for you, Paul.  It is unedited, so it is a bit rough. 

The being that stood there looked like a winged lizard walking on two legs. A scar slashed across his left cheek. His scaly skin were the same color as the cliffs of Grand canyon. A large earthen pot were in his hands. ” Hello! My name is Jaf. I thought I would welcome you to the neighborhood.” His chatter washed over her, and Kate just stared dumbly.

” Here. I brought you some food!” he added and handed her the pot.

Kate eyed the pot, but accepted it. She lifted the lid, and stared at the stew. It looked like it was a tomato stew with bits of meat.” Uh. Thank you.”

Jaf turned around, and began to walk down the stairs.

” What kind of meat is it?” she asked him.

He paused and turned around.

” Oh. Nothing special we eat it all the time,” Jaf said, avoiding her question. Alarm bells ripped through her when she heard his vague tone.

” No, I am curious,” she insisted.

The silence stretched, and for a moment Kate thought he would refuse to answer.

” It’s a mixture of snake and wyvern meat,” Jaf said.

Kate choked down the nausea bubbling in her stomach

.” It tastes nice. Like what do you humans call them? Chickens?”

Kate smiled wanly at him. Thank you for the food. I hope I will see you again,” Kate choked out.

Jaf flashed her a toothy smile, and continued down the stairs.Kate curled one arm around the pot, and tugged the door closed with the other.

 

 

I originally wrote this last year, but decided to repost it since it felt fitting considering parts of the US is colder that Mars right now.

This is a little something that I began writing a couple of weeks ago.  I decided that since it had snowed in so many odd places, it might be fun to make it snow in Hell.  This is only the beginning, since the rest of the scene turned into spoiler territory and started to feel like the beginning of book 3. But I hope you enjoy it!

#

Razael lifted his head when he heard shocked shouts from outside.  Since there were no sounds of battle, not that anyone would dare to attack the household of a Fallen One, he yawned and closed his eyes. Unless the other attacker was another Fallen One. The thought had him wide awake. With a curse, Razael pushed away the blanket and walked over to the window.

He frowned.

Hell had an arid climate and Ignisa were in the warmer portions unlike Nifel who was in the colder portions. He could count of his claws how many times it had rained.

“ This looks like no rain I’ve seen,” he muttered.

“ Is it raining?” Kate mumbled  from the bed.

He shook his head.
“ No.  This is something else. You have to see it.”

He stared out the window. The odd rain was covering the ground in a thin white layer.  Not that whatever it  was would stay white for long.  Nothing in Hell remained untainted for long.

A couple of minutes later, Kate joined him at the window.  She glanced outside and squealed.

“ It is snowing!”

He blinked. Was this odd rain common enough on Earth to have a special word?

She beamed at him.

“ Maybe there will be enough snow for us to make snow angels!”

He winced.

She had mostly dropped her habit of mentioning Angels and He above, but sometimes she forgot.

A roar filled the air.

Razael stared at the big Dragon that was decending to the household. Shaitan who had probably been out on a morning flight, before he started the days.  How would he react to this… snow?

Razael had been responsible for Shaitan’s security for long enough that he knew that Fallen Ones could be fickle.  Either he will be curious or insulted.

When the Dragon rose higher, Razael frowned.   He relaxed when the Dragon started to dance through the air.  He is playing.

“ Come on. Let’s find some cloaks and go outside.”

He gave her a horrified look. Get outside into that?! He opened his mouth, but he closed it.  He knew that when she looked like that, she wouldn’t listen to him. He shrugged.  He had learned to pick his battles.  This wasn’t worth fighting over.

They walked out from the room, and hurried down the stairs.

So Exile has been out for 4 months now, roughly. I have no idea of how much it has sold in numbers since I am still waiting for the numbers to be loaded to Publit ( I am annoyed, but I am more annoyed at Kobo and Overdrive than Publit), but I have noticed a trend. Exile began at 3700s ( or at least that is the first ranking I saw it at) and climbed fast until it reached 3600.  Then it stayed there for a couple of months, roughly, until it shoot up to 3500.  Then it stayed there for 3-4 weeks.  Until it shoot up *again* a couple of days ago. Right now it is at 2900s.  I have no idea if it will stay there, or if it will drop back to 3700s again after the price goes back up again.  But these plateaus makes me happy.  Really happy, since it means people are buying it. And more than just my friends. I mean, otherwise it wouldn’t have been gradually climbing.   It also means that the cover is working since the blurb is good, but not that good.  The new blurb is much better. 🙂 This is also making me wonder if it is such a good idea to raise the price.  I guess I will find out soon!

Oh.  And the sales at Ibooks are still flat. Pff. But I am wondering if maybe the updates is simply lagging due to the holidays.