Sink Your Teeth Right Through My Bones, Baby

[Poll #1910872]

(The novel involves magic-users and kingdoms and blood sacrifice. In case it wasn't obvious.)

Thanks, Flisties! Your help is much appreciated. Sometimes I hate having to name novels even more than writing summaries.

I've got another published story coming out! And it has a cat in it!

It's Gordon's Cat in the anthology Don't Try This At Home from Dreamspinner Press. I'm writing as Aundrea Singer.

Gordon's Cat is my third story published by Dreamspinner. The others are Skunk, Bryan, Spoon (and a Badger) in Necking, and A Fairy in his Bed (which I wrote with my sister squeakyoflight) in Myths and Magic: Legends of Love.

Don't Try This At Home is a collection of lighthearted stories about all the little things that can go wrong in relationships, especially the sex part of relationships. My story was inspired by the 'angry cat' in the anthology description, and the cat in the story is very loosely based on my mom's first cat, Pusscat.

Pusscat was a big, ornery black-and-white tom who adopted my mom one night by climbing through her New York apartment window. He was one of those stubborn, opinionated and truly awesome cats that only come along a few times in an owner's lifetime. My mom wrote a song about him:

Meow, meow, meow, Pusscat!
Meow, meow, meow, Pusscat!
Meow, meow, meow, Pusscat!
Meow, meow, meow!

Well, it wasn't a good song, but it was fun to sing when I was three. I also enjoyed chasing Pusscat down the hallway, which wasn't very nice. But he almost clawed one of my eyes out in retaliation, so I'd say we're even.

As you can probably guess, when my mom brought my dad home the first time, Pusscat wasn't happy about it. Pusscat would delight in jumping on my dad's back, claws first, when he and my mom were...talking, and Pusscat would only sharpen his nails on my dad's very expensive leather furniture. In revenge, my dad would sneak up on Pusscat while he was mid-scratch, and whack him in the butt with a rolled-up newspaper. Apparently all the adrenaline cured Pusscat of his kidney stones.

Pusscat went to his greater reward while I was still a child, but he's forever immortalized in silly songs and embarrassing anecdotes, so it was a natural for me to base Chelsea, Gordon's cat, on him.

I'll post my usual free-ebook contest next week when the book is released on October 8. In the meantime, here's an excerpt of the upcoming story:

( Gordon's Cat, by Aundrea Singer )

I just had someone die horribly in the novel I'm writing. On page six. Of a fantasy novel. At least it wasn't a main character. And I'm probably going to kill someone else by page ten.

I thought I'd share because I'm a little shocked that my attempt at having something exciting after a history!yay! prologue ended up with death and mayhem about three pages into chapter one.

Yay?

I put my original fic, Seeds up on AO3. If you'd like to read it, you can find it here.

And yes, I would love it if you read it. But no one is obliged. :)

Look at me! I wrote something!

Back in March I posted the first 500 or so words of an original story I'd started years before and never gotten around to continuing. And now, because of my hc_bingo card, I realized it would fit one of the prompts perfectly and give me a reason to finish it.

And now it's finished. :D

Title: Seeds
Length: 2704 words
Rating: R (for violence)
Warnings: May squick
HC_Bingo Square: Archaic Medicine (Bingo card is here.)

Summary: No one can outrun the wind.

( She twisted her foot in the earth and a flat piece of bone came up, dug out of the soil. )

Thank you very much for reading. :) Only four more squares to go!

Don't miss your chance to win a book with one of my stories in it! You have until Friday, Dec. 17. Just leave me a comment telling me a strange story!

While I'm here shilling my anthology stories, I also wanted to mention that both anthologies have already been given favourable reviews. I was really happy to see that the review of the Myths and Magic anthology mentioned the story I wrote with Corinna Silver (squeakyoflight). I won't lie--I would've enjoyed a brief summary as some of the other stories in the anthology got, but considering how many stories there are in Myths and Magic, the reviewer specifically adding, "I could go on about more stories like the one about the fairy..." (which Corinna and I wrote) was pretty darn cool. The complete review for the anthology is here.

I also want to tell you about two really excellent promotions going on at Dreamspinner Press right now. Not only can you get 20% off all purchases between now and the end of the year by using the code HolidayDreams at checkout, but they also have a wonderful contest going on:

This year let Dreamspinner make your eBook dreams come true. Each day from Dec. 26- Dec. 31, we will draw one name from the customers that purchased during the month of December to win every eBook on their wish list.

You'll need to register to make a wish list, but it's easy to register and making a wish list is fun. :D

The review for Tesseracts 14 didn't say more than, 'recommended', but for a first review anywhere that's pretty darn cool too, I'd say. :) My story in this anthology is "The Pickup". The review, which includes a nice plot summary for each of the stories in the anthology, can be found here.

Come over and enter the contest! Time's running out!

[Poll #1531149]

(The icon's picture has nothing to do with the story. I'm using it because my name for it is 'this will end badly', which is surprisingly appropriate.)

The theme this week was "Happiness in a Bottle". I went with the very mordant comedy sketch, which you can see here. I admire how Bill Cosby can be so gentle about something while still portraying it in all its pathos and horror.

This story is a sequel to Only the Skin. It's a little over 2000 words. I hope you enjoy it. :)

(Another brigits_flame link, which I mostly put in for easy access.)

( The wolves were howling again. )