Writing

Questions to Consider When Writing A Series at WritingForums.com!

Today at WritingForums.com, I shared questions that writers should consider when writing a series.

These are questions I had to wrestle with while writing Wings Unfurled, and they may be slightly different questions than writers who intend from the get-go to write a series might consider. That’s because Wings Unseen was writtten as a standalone novel, so the writing process for a second book in the same world was a different one. But many of the questions are likely useful either way.

WritingForums.Com is quite a useful forum, too, and I was excited when they joined the Wings Unfurled blog tour. They often come up when I’m searching for information on the industry or craft advice. I’m looking forward to finally starting an account with them and poking around. They do also organize manuscript critiques, which I point out because folks are ALWAYS asking for where to find critique.

I hope you pick up some tips from the post! Don’t forget to also visit the Meerkat Press Wings Unfurled Blog Tour masterpost to enter our $50 giftcard prize drawing! And now for today’s contextless quote from Wings Unfurled.

And now, for today’s context-free quote from the book:

“Listen to your father,” the specter said, billowing like a sheet of pressed metal in decay.

Wings Unfurled Book Review at Monty’s Book Reviews!

Today’s Blog Tour review of Wings Unfurled is glowing! Thanks to Monty’s Book Reviews for sharing their thoughts. Here’s a snippet:
“An enthralling story told from three separate viewpoints which are skillfully woven into a free flowing narrative that keeps the reader’s interest throughout. The characters are both interesting and flawed which endears them to you as the story progresses and ensures that a vested interest in their future is maintained. “
Read the full review at https://montysbookreviews.blogspot.com/…/wings-unfurled… and find an excerpt from Chapter 3, the silver moon’s first POV chapter! Have you entered the Meerkat Press Wings Unfurled prize drawing yet? Only four days left to enter….
Cover art for Wings Unfurled, featuring a silver stag with blue tones and two moons in the background.
And here’s today’s contextless quote from Wings Unfurled:
He wilted, a vine in the sun. Alive, but with too much taken from him.

Worst Writing Advice I’ve Ever Received

Today, on the Wings Unfurled Blog Tour, you can visit Ali Lucia Sky’s blog, where I answer “What’s The Worst Writing Advice You’ve Ever Received?” It’s a claim I’ve heard many times, from many writers, but one that lacks the nuance that newer writers need to hear, in my humble opinion.

You’ll also find an excerpt of Chapter 1 in the book! This comes from Serra’s point-of-view, and she’s at Castle Callyn for the first time in quite a while….and for reasons she needs to report to King Dever right away.

Don’t forget to also visit the Meerkat Press masterpost to enter our $50 giftcard prize drawing! And now for today’s contextless quote from Wings Unfurled.

“I heard the Green Lady was building a new glass house, so I came with my hammer and thought to help.”

Psychoanalyze This! Please? is our next Wings Unfurled Blog Tour Stop!

Today’s Wings Unfurled Book Tour Blog Stop is at TKentWrites.com! I’d like to think them for hosting my short post on “Psychoanalyze This! Please?” in which I talk about my dislike of the idea that all authors’ work are autobiographical in some form . . . while also wondering if maybe some of the symbols and images that fascinate me do have deeper meaning for my life and I just don’t know it! Read it here:

http://www.tkentwrites.com/psychoanalyze-this-please-by-rebecca-gomez-farrell/

Also be sure to swing by Meerkat Press’s Wings Unfurled Blog Tour masterpost to enter their $50 giftcard prize drawing! There are not quite 100 entries yet, so now’s a great time to get your name in there. Good luck!

Cover art for Wings Unfurled, featuring a silver stag with blue tones and two moons in the background.

As promised, here is a line from Wings Unfurled, with no context. I’m sharing one each day we have a new blog tour post to feature.

“I wasn’t sure I wanted to come help you folks, but that was a jolly good time.”

See you for tomorrow’s blog post feature!

Wings Unfurled Blog Tour & Prize!

Along with a new book publication comes a new blog book tour!

Promo graphic featuring the book covers of Wings Unseen and Wings Unfurled

I invite you to take a tour of a number of different book-based blogs over the next two works for interviews with me, excerpts from Wings Unfurled, posts on various writerly topics, and book reviews! A new blog will post a new piece each day from now until December 16! And what’s more….

Meerkat Press is giving away a $50 gift card at the end of the tour! At any of the featured blog posts or at Meerkat’s master schedule of the blog tour, you can find the giveaway form to complete. So far, we only have 26 entries, so your chances are high!

Today’s book tour blog post features more book recommendations from me!

Book covers in a collage that are recommended in the article

Check out “Five Book Series Where Women Wield the Power” at BigIndieBooks.com for recommendations of more recent book series I’ve read that explore the power of women in the narrative, just like I do in the Wings Rising series. And….enter that $50 gift card raffle while you’re there!

I’m going to share a teaser quote from the book with each new post on my own blog these next two weeks. Here’s today’s:

Once before in her life, Vesperi had felt this thoroughly at sea, when she’d held her father’s corpse, drained of all life and matter.

When I wake tomorrow, I will be the author of two published books! Life goals achieved! I hope you enjoy following Vesperi, Serra, and Janto as they pursue they own in this next stage of our Lansera adventure.

Reading at the Story Hour on 12/7!

Join me on Wednesday, when I’ll be appearing at Story Hour, for the third time! Story Hour is a weekly speculative fiction reading hosted by authors Daniel Marcus and Laura Blackwell. I’ll be reading with Barbara A. Barnett.

Story Hour focuses on the short form, preferring that stories be read in full during each author’s half of the show. This means that I will not be reading from my new book, Wings Unfurled. But I will be sharing a humorous science fiction tale, “Garbage,” that was published a few years back. This story’s about a pair of immature teenagers playing a prank on the neighbor, but it’s also about opinions on immigration and assimilation.

I hope to see you Wednesday, 12/7/2022, at 7pm PT! You can join Story Hour either through Zoom or through Facebook Live. Links to both are here at their website.

Shepherd Book List: The Best Speculative Fiction Books with Lyrical Prose

Over at Shepherd, which is a newish website to help shepherd readers toward their next favorite books, I compiled a list of books that impress me with their sometimes poetic, sometimes beautifully figurative, prose: The Best Speculative Fiction Books with Lyrical Prose.

My choices:

Book covers of the 5 books in the list

This list is heavily informed by my love of African American literature (this was my Modern Literature focus in college) and my willingness to follow gorgeous imagery anywhere, anytime. Feel free to ask me more about any of my choices; I’m happy to gush.

I also mention in the article that I’m preceded by THREE GENERATIONS(!) of poets on my mother’s side. Thanks to my mom, my grandfather William Parker, and my great-grandfather William Lee Popham for that legacy!

Wishing you some great new lyrical prose favorites! If you like my work, you may also want to check out the Shepherd list of Ominously Atmospheric Stories for Winter’s Night for suggestons, as Wings Unfurled does have a good share of its own haunting. Also take a gander at their new Magicians (Fantasy) shelf on their bookshelves.

“Fresh Catch of the Day” now available in A Quiet Afternoon 2!

I’m quite proud of “Fresh Catch of the Day.” This fantasy story appears in A Quiet Afternoon 2, the second volume of an anthology series of low-fi speculative fiction from Grace&Victory Publications.

a quiet afternoon 2, low fi speculative fiction, rebecca gomez farrell, fresh catch of the day

Low-fi spec fic aims “for a peaceful break from a stressful world.” Volume 1 contained my “An Inconvenient Quest,” and I’m delighted that the G&V team thought “Fresh Catch of the Day” would make a great addition to Volume 2.

Often, when I’m writing a new short story, I’m doing it with a challenge in mind. For “Fresh Catch of the Day,” that challenge was writing a short story with a solid plot contained within 1,000 words. Oh, I’ve written plenty stories of that length before! But those have all tended more toward the poetic prose side of my writing, generating atmosphere and character more vividly than the plot.

Enter Jiàn, an older woman with a middling magical gift compared to everyone else in her world. Hearing about a special seafood catch at the local market leads her to make a perhaps hasty decision to pursue it with a single-minded focus.

You’ll have to order A Quiet Afternoon 2 to see if she pulls it off! I ultimately pulled off the story at just over 1,100 words. Like Jiàn, I know sometimes you have to push yourself past your limits to get the job done. 😉

A Quiet Afternoon 2 contains 27 low-fi tales. It’s available in ebook formats from Grace&Victory directly at Payhip. The anthology is $9 CAD, so a little over $8 in USD.

I do hope you enjoy it! Here are the first few lines of “A Fresh Catch of the Day” to whet your appetite.

Jiàn, seventy-one but as spry as sixty-three, pondered which vendor she’d like to barter with to use her water-spouting skills for lunch. A spark of light about as bright and fast-fizzling as a firecracker caught her eye. Ah, the light-weavers are at work.

And a photograph to set the mood:

oysters, hog island, the gourmez, nz wine

An oyster chef at work.

I hope you enjoy “Fresh Catch of the Day!”

“She Could Be Me” Reappears at Bards And Sages Quarterly!

“She Could Be Me” was one of my very first short stories published, back in 2010. Sadly, its original publisher, the e-zine Flashes in the Dark, no longer exists. But I’m delighted to announce that Bards And Sages Quarterly has rescued “She Could Be Me” from obscurity!

bards sages quarterly, she could be me, rebecca gomez farrell, april 2021

This issue of the magazine came out in April 2021 — yes, I’m behind in sharing publication news, AGAIN. You can pick up the e-book for $3 or the print version for $9 from Amazon here. I quite like Editor Julie Ann Dawson’s short description of my story, in this collection of eight short stories in all:

A peculiar phone call from her husband is only the first in a strange series of events that upends a woman’s well-manicured life in “She Could Be Me.”

I hope you’ll pick up a copy of the April 2021 Bards And Sages Quarterly and give it a read! Our new kitty, Bemo, did. 😉

bards sages quarterly, bemo cat, bemo, kitten, magazine, rebecca gomez farrell, she could be me, cat reading

Listen to “Submission Caws” at the Centropic Oracle!

In the madness of moving, I haven’t had time to share this news: “Submission Caws” received an audio production by the Centropic Oracle!

centropic oracle, thlush a lum, rebecca gomez farrell

The recording was released on January 29, which was the day we were originally scheduled for escrow to close. The release of “Submission Caws” stayed on schedule, though our escrow took a few days longer…

…but that’s another story! This story is a fictional rant about the process of submitting manuscripts out for publication. It is funny and silly, particularly if you are also a writer undertaking this process on a regular basis. It’s a fantasy take on the concept, with recipes for magic spells subbed in for manuscripts themselves. It ends with a dare that the editors at the Centropic Oracle took, just like Defenestration did before them when the story was first published in 2019.

Jill Raymond performed the audio version, and I quite enjoy her take on the story — the character of Betty, a bubbly and annoyingly successful composer of magical recipes, comes through loud and clear. To listen to or read “Submission Caws,” head to the Centropic Oracle’s website here.

Or of course, you can read “Submission Caws” at its original home at Defenestration, right here.

The first few lines to entice you onward:

A black crow swoops onto the open window ledge, and yearning gushes from deep within me. I tamp down the emotion swifter than the crow can deliver its charge: a rolled parchment that bangs against the bookshelves as it flips toward the floor. The crow musses its feathers and launches into the air, off to retrieve its next assignment. Soon, someone else will receive fresh misery. I retrieve the parchment, find it quaint that the Gate Keepers use it for correspondence when they could just place a call by sandspelling. The parchment’s seal displays a sentinel guarding a mountain of scrolls piled behind an ornate, locked gate.

And some photographic inspiration: