Exile has been on sale at Amazon and iBooks for this month. Well. At least at Amazon since there was an metadata bug or something at Publit, but it is finally discounted to 0.99 at iBooks too.

Anyway. There are one week left on the sale.  I hope you take the chance and buy a copy.  To tease you, I have an short, exclusive snippet from Exile.

 

“The moment I reached the manor that I had grown up in, a knot formed in my stomach. If I disliked the temple, I hated the manor. Even if the Priestesses reported any missteps to Mother, she was  too busy to keep a close eye on me.  In the Manor, Mother unleashed her frustrations over said missteps. I would not have to endure her temper for much longer, I told myself.
I opened the gates and stepped inside the garden. The garden was bare and dormant, but soon the leaves would begin to bud. My boots crunched against the graveled path as I walked past neatly kept flower beds toward the door. As I walked up the stair, the door opened. A lump formed in my stomach when I saw the seneschal’s disapproving look.
“Mistress Gwyneth, your Mother wants to speak with you.”
Oh crap. I had hoped to get a chance to change clothes before meeting Mother. I knew better than to keep her waiting, though. I nodded, and walked inside. Once inside, I turned left instead of going upstairs to my chamber.”

Excerpt From: Mikaela Lind. “Exile.” iBooks.

A lot of promoting services follows me at Twitter, don’t ask me why. Most of the times I click their profiles, skim their last 5 tweets and then I ignore them. When iAuthor followed me today, I did the same but there was something about them that made me curious enough to check out their webpage.

I wasn’t still convinced, since it felt like it was too good to be true, but I googled and found an interview with the founder, which explained some of my qualms.  In the end, iAuthor is free, it is semi large and it has a straightforward TOS. So I am giving it a try.

Does it work?  Yes. I downloaded two samples and 1 free kindle copy.  But there were also a lot of cringing over covers and typos.  My covers are master pieces compared to some covers. The sad part was that it was often the text that made them look amateurish.

Anyway, my profile at iAuthor is here.

During the last year, or so, there have been a lot of discussion about diversity in fantasy. I have mostly been quiet and listened to all the energy and interesting discussions.

However, one thing has been nagging at me for awhile is that elves always are fair skinned. Why is that the case?

Oh, I know there are drows but they are always evil ( with the exception of Drizzt.). Humanity is so diverse, so why isn’t elves? The only book I can think of with non-white elves is Katherine Addison’s the Goblin Emperor.

I know that part of the reason is that elves is part of Irish mythology and because of that people assume that they are fair skinned. Another reason is that in most fantasy novels, elves tend to be a minority race, while humans are the majority. Why not turn it around, and make elves the majority, with humans the minority?

There are a lot of other cultures and countries to be base your fantasy novel on.

How about writing elves in an civilization based on Mesopotamia, vying for power with the help of the gods? Or Ancient Iran? Or India?

Or Eastern Asia. I can totally see buddhist elves, or confusian elves, or both in an kingdom based on Ancient China. The Confucian cadets of duty and family feels like it fits elves. I can also see Japan with elves, using shinto to defend themselves.

But lets look beyond the Asian continent, even if it is big enough to host a plethora of intriguing elvin cultures.

There are Africa. Egypt is the most well known culture, and while it might be fun to write about Egyptian elves, Egypt has been done so many times. So lets look outside Egypt. What about Yoruba? They had some interesting views about magic and what royalty ensured. Or elves in the Sahara, trading with other oases.

In the Americas, you have all the ancient civilizations, with their struggles and differences to be inspired by. I can see an version of the inca, maya and aztec empires but with elves.

Oh, and when I mention all these different cultures, I also mean that the elves should look like they come from that kingdom. So, non-white.

This is just on the top of my head, I am sure there are plenty of other civilizations that I am not thinking about right now.

I know that it might sound like a hypocrite, since I have several books with fair skinned elves, but I was younger when I created those worlds, and more importantly they are built on Celtic/ Northern European foundations. I did think about retrofitting the Dhurians into being more diverse, but… that would create other stereotypes that I want to avoid more than having the elves and the Dhurians there being non-white.

I am having ideas, though, about writing non traditional elves. Arawaki, which is very loosely based on Japan, would fit. I’ll also admit that part of me is thinking that I shouldn’t be writing this story, that someone from Asia should write it. But, the idea is mine, and I think it is worth writing. So I will write. Hopefully, will this post make someone go “ Hm..” and write an fantasy based on say, Vietnam with elves. Or even better, their local equivalent. Because I bet there are one.

I, however, don’t feel comfortable writing a book about the Vietnamese equivalent of elves, since they pull on culture aspects that I am unaware of. But I do think that plucking elves from their normal European based settings and putting them down in a diverse one is a start.

I write novellas, and I think I am the only one in the war room that does that regularly. I know Catie and Laura Anne does it occasionally, and some of the others writes short stories.   Mainly, though the others in the war room write novels, of the 100 000-150 000  words version ( or longer if you are Michelle). Sometimes, I feel awed just thinking about it, that they manage to write that much.  Sometimes, I feel so small since I write so short.  Whenever that happens, though, I remember what Robin D Owens told me once: ” Writing short is a skill in itself.”

I also think she said she was fascinated by the fact that I could write so short. Or maybe that was Michelle 🙂 So I guess my friends feels the same way about my novellas that I do about their novels.  And my novellas are good, but then I have spent the last 12 years writing novellas.

 

Yesterday I found out how Chrysoula created her Kickstarter movies, and as a result I spent today creating one. In the end, I went with Gimp and iMovie to make a book trailer. It was fun, actually. 🙂 Here is the resulting trailer for The Cauldron Bound.

 

So, on Thursday I was decked by a migraine ( it was the first time it was that bad) and unable to go to work or get any writing done, since the meds worked as long as I didn’t look at a screen. Oh joy.  On Friday, I wrote 2000 words.  Which was nice, even if I hadn’t planned it.  I also had dinner at mum’s, something I don’t do often enough.

 

Today? I cursed the drafts.  I also wrote another 2000 words.  Also unexcepted.  But really nice.

Tomorrow? I have no idea how much I will write, but I can say that since the draft is at 8900 words I will do my best to get it over 10 000 words tomorrow.

Yes. 10 000 words in a week. My mind is boggling.  And this is with one day lost to writing.  And the day job.

I’ll admit that part of me is wondering how much I would be able to write if I didn’t have the day job. But I do have it, and since I don’t sell enough books to make a living I will hang onto it. ( I would need to sell for 3 000 dollar per month, preferably.)

Since I missed to post a snippet on Wednesday, you are getting a sneak peek at the currently untitled WIP.  This is rough and riddled with typos, but I hope you enjoy it!

 

I looked up when the doorbell chimed.  The greeting on the tip of my tongue died when I saw the man standing in the doorway.  Cian. What in the name of the ancestors was he doing here?  I blushed when I remembered the hot fling we had before the mess with Tony happened.

“ Cian? What are you doing here?”

“ I was about to ask you the same question. When I came to visit you the next day, you were gone.”

I winced.

“I had an argument with my brother and decided to leave town for a while.”

It was the truth, yet it was simplifying things a lot.  I was a Portal Justicar,  albeit a relatively new one.  My brother was a high-ranking member of the Rookery, the biggest criminal organisation in this realm, if not all the seven realms.  So it wasn’t surprising that when he found out that I worked for the Portal Justicars he was furious.  In fact, he had been so angry that my boss had decided that  it was best to hide somewhere far away.  And this village in the northwestern corner of Kanida was as far away as you could travel.  The fact that a group of dwarves had just relocated here was just a co-incidence.

To celebrate that it is March and that Exile finally is available at Amazon, I have discounted the price to 0.99 at Amazon and Apple.  Note that the price at Apple hasn’t dropped yet. It will drop tomorrow or later today. ( I am tired off having to nudge Kobo when I change prices , so they aren’t part of the sale this time.)

Why? Because Amazon put Exile in an Shorter reads category and most of the books in there are 0.99.   So I want to see how dropping the price to 0.99 affects my sales.

For how long?  Hm.. The rest of the month, probably.

 

I have read about authors say that having a detailed synopsis makes them write faster, but I was a bit skeptical. Well. They were right. My synopsis for Portal Justicar 2 is 2000 words long. Which I worried was too detailed for a 30 000-35 000 words novella and maybe it is but I don’t care.

I began to write the draft last night, and I wrote 500 words in 40 minutes. This morning, I wrote 1000 words in 90 minutes. Normally I write 150-300 words per 30 minutes. So far I have written 300-500 words per 30 minutes. Yeah. Which is making me a bit stunned, to be honest. That said, I think it isn’t just the synopsis. I think part of it is that I am itching to finish something. I need to know that I can still finish a draft. I also think it might have to with the fact that I gave myself a deadline. A very reasonable one, to be fair, since I am pretty certain I will finish this draft before mid May. But I want the extra time in case something happens.

I am also realistic enough to know that this will not be going on during the whole draft. There will be days when I struggle to write 500 words. But I really appreciate the days when everything just flows.

That said, now I am going to eat a cookie or something at a local cafe.