May Updates and Cover Girls

Two years ago in May, Marie and I said 'let's do this' and launched a whirlwind four months of writing. Most weeks, we put down 10k words or more, and by the time October rolled around, we had a 225k word book draft for what would eventually become The Mask of Mirrors. Last year in…

Six Month Art Progress Check-in

Back in mid-August 2020, I decided I wanted to learn to draw. I got myself a Wacom pad and a subscription to Clip Studio Paint, downloaded a few courses on Udemy and watched a bunch of youtube tutorials, and just... started to draw. I've learned a lot. Mostly I've learned how much I don't know,…

Book Week Launch Events

We have two exciting events coming up for next week's publication of The Mask of Mirrors. First, Mysterious Galaxy is hosting a virtual book launch on Tuesday, Jan. 19 at 7pm PT. It's a joint event with Christopher Paolini, author of To Sleep in a Sea of Stars, where we'll chat about our books and…

The Clothes Make the Con Artist

The Mask of Mirrors is a book shot through with textile metaphors, from slang terms like ‘knots’ for the gangs and ‘cuffs’ for the nobility; to the pattern deck and its suits of the spinning, woven, and cut threads; to the interweaving of multiple PoVs to create a dense cloak of intrigue. We didn’t consciously…

Yuletide Treasures

The lack of job and annual Christmas trip with my mom meant that I had a LOT of spare time this year to dive into Yuletide. That ended up with me writing my assignment, two pinch-hits, and a treat. For one of my pinch hits, I decided to illustrate it, so there was also art.…

Fabr-ARC Giveaway for The Mask of Mirrors

We're one month out on the drop date for THE MASK OF MIRRORS, so I decided it would be a good time to do a giveaway of my last few ARCs. The protagonist of our book is Ren, aka Arenza Lenskaya, aka Alta Renata Viraudax, a half-Vraszenian con artist who uses her wits and her…

Arting Progress Report

I've been doing a bit of writing -- finishing my Moshang Week story, dragging out Chiaroscuro and dusting it off so I can finally get it out the door, things like that. But the main thing that has been helping me keep calm and carry on is the daily drawing practice. Lots of funnels, ellipses,…

MoShang Week Recap

Last week was rough for a lot of reasons, but Moshang saved me from the worst of it. Moshang, for those who haven't fallen into the Endless Abyss of MXTX fandom, is the ship name for two secondary characters from Mo Xiang Tong Xiu's Scum Villain Self Saving System. SVSSS is a story about a…

Old Dog; New Tricks

Because I can only write for so many hours of the day (and because my mobility is still in the 'can only stand/walk for about ten minutes before it starts to hurt' range of things), I decided about a month ago that darn it, I was going to learn to draw! Other than a semester…

The Origins of a Scar

Yesterday I finally had the surgery for my hyperparathyroidism, which was diagnosed back in October, but then an ankle injury derailed me for the entire winter (and then, y'know... there was this pandemic thing that cropped up). One of the nice things about this particular surgery is that you know almost immediately if it was…

The Bread and Butter of Writing

Recently (as in, like, this morning while I was making toast), I’ve been thinking about descriptions at the sentence level, especially as it relates to character, character voice, PoV, and worldbuilding. The opening chapter of Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson is a masterclass in this (and, not incidentally, my favorite book opening of all time).…