web novels and illustrations
Jon slept fitfully through the day, curled up beside Tam, where he could hear and feel reassuring breaths whenever he woke. Tam was breathing normally now, and seemed ordinarily asleep, except for the bandaging across his pale pink chest, in stark contrast to the new red-brown of his face and his arms below the elbow.
Trimela was a smelly, loud, exciting mess of shanties, stilt houses, and graceful white hotels all tumbled together with tents, nets, drying racks, and tar boiling pits. Like most cities Kara had wandered through, there was a broad mix of well-to-do and poor, clean-scrubbed and filthy. It was a trade city, certainly. All sorts of people milled about, with different types of skin, hair, and eyes. The sailors almost as dark as boat tar were familiar enough, but the ivory-colored men with topknots and moon-shaped eyes, in their bright short robes, were unlike anyone she’d seen in Sarvarthi, or even Merigvon. Market stall goods were stacked in small piles instead of high ones, and merchants watched carefully over them, glaring at anyone who clearly had no money. Up over the crowds, people all in white with eerily pale faces, untouched by sun, peered from high hotel windows. Below, golden-colored people with tattoos exchanged haughty looks with darker wiry-haired people who looked more like Aruke.
I have a tumblr account. I think that’s meant always to be in little letters, not in caps. Perhaps even tiny letters, like whispering on the internet. Anyway, I have a tumblr now, as a place to spout off random thoughts, news and piffles without disturbing the flow of the narrative. Ta-dah. I may even post there. I’ve done it twice now, just tonight. An embarrassment of tumblings. I’ll stop now.
Writing is so much easier than drawing. There I said it. Maybe it’s not that way for everyone, I don’t know. But it’s much harder for me to translate what I see in my mind to the page in a visual rather than a verbal format. Especially when I’m working with tools I haven’t mastered yet.
In related news, did you know that one can’t teach oneself to digitally paint in a day? Funny thing. On deviantart, one is always seeing these vivid and amazing digital paintings with captions like “Did this cus I wuz bored” of “Done in two hours. Dunno.” These unhelpful captions prove deceptive, I tell you. These artists, undermining themselves woefully with their words, have some amazing artistic or at the least technical skills that I am without.
And this explains what happened to the illustration that was supposed to appear last week. I had a good composition, and drew it out in pencils, well and good, before noticing that I’d made Corin and Hellin the same height. D’oh. Unable to let that go, and with a friend’s reassurance that I could rearrange it in Photoshop and print it on Bristol to paint on top of, I drew the illo up on three separate sheets, scanned and merged them properly and then learned that my printer hates Bristol and suffers from serious heavy paper indigestion. Fine, I thought. I shall paint this in Photoshop!
Ha! Ha ha ha HA!
No.
Maybe.
If I throw another 6 hours at it, maybe it will begin to be passable. Or not. I could have redrawn and painted it already in this time.
(Flips table.)
A picture may say more than a thousand words, but I can write well over a thousand words in the time it takes to paint a picture.
Frickin pictures.
Thank you, rant over. Your scheduled chapter half will be on time. As for an illustration, that remains to be seen. Its fate now lies between me, my tablet and my God.
Morning surprised Jon, coming as sudden as night had, flooding his tent with amazing light that transformed everything it touched into something alive and miraculous. Also, it was hot. The tree cover had sheltered their tents from afternoon sun, but not from dawn.
Ahem.
Know what’s embarassing? Mis-naming a chapter. I am changing the name of Chapter 7, Landfall, as Landfall does not occur until Chapter 8.
Oops.
So the Chapter formerly known as Landfall is now Chapter 7—The Queen’s Freaks, and Chapter 8, . . . may or may not be named “Landfall.” Incidentally “The Queen’s Freaks” was the original Chapter 7 title, which now I clearly should have kept.
You may suspect at this point that I may be working without a buffer any longer. Ha! I say to you. HAhHAHAHahahahAHAhAHHahahAAaaaaaa. Yeah. You’re right. You’re totally right.
But we both want to know what happens next, so I’ll be writing as fast and as well as I can so that there aren’t any awful cliff hanging delays to the story.
Woo!
I had a little vinyl LP storybook set of Peter Pan when I was very small that contained the line “It’s not terrible, it’s a great adventure!” I am afraid that Djaren and I live by something very like that credo. But fear not, if I fall behind, Kara will break my shins. Also, Jon will look sad. This must not happen.
This weeks installment will arrive on time and will most likely have a lovely color illustration. Which I should probably go start drawing right now. Hah!
I should probably mention too that there will be new pages here soon, including a gallery of fan art and trades and commisions. If you happen to have drawn anyone from the stories, feel free to send in pictures and I’ll add them to the gallery as soon as its ready.
Something to do with flying back from Aki-Con and getting in after midnight. 🙂 There will be a new Shandor snippet and illustration later today, never fear!
In other news, Small business The Five Wits: 5000 points! Ruth’s Nanowrimo word count: FAIL!
Hi all! We had van trouble coming back from Youmacon, and didn’t get in last night until early today. 🙂 The update is coming, but will probably have to wait until this evening. So yes, there will be more nifty stuff this week, but not for some hours yet.
We’ve spent several weeks working on this site update, which has all the stories and characters you’ve come to know and love, and room for more. It should be easier to navigate, friendlier for comments, and just all-around better.
Look around and you’ll find a few empty spots just waiting for things to fill them. Don’t worry, we have plenty of ideas, and stuff waiting in the wings.
You’ll also note that Jessica is now a part of this site, as well she ought to be. Those of you who’ve met us in person will undoubtedly have noticed that we’re inseparable. Although Ruth has been the primary author of the Blackfeather Chronicles, Jessica has diligently edited every chapter and also drafted a lot of Anna’s point of view. We always work as a team, so you’ll be seeing more of Jessica around the place.
