Archive | March 2016

Rainy Day, warm and pleasant.

Mar10

Wyste has been journalling, and it’s got me thinking about gardening and home improvement.

If the weather holds – and weather.com says it will – I could see if I can turn over the beds this weekend. Might still be too frozen.

It’s probably too early to plant carrots – they say “3 weeks before the last expected frost” which is more like mid- to late-April – but I could risk a single batch. Peas, on the other hand, say “as soon as you can work the soil,” so if I can get the bed with the trellis turned over, I could do that this weekend.

We started burning brush, too. Kind of nice sitting out there with a laptop, writing while the fire crackles. Now all I need is a wifi repeater.

How are your plans for the spring shaping up?

And has anyone tried any hydroponic gardening?

Or in pots? I’ve been looking up stuff for next winter, including salad radishes.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1074827.html. You can comment here or there.

Facets of Dusk Landing Page

Mar9

The Doors were a rumor, a whisper, something the magi murmured about beyond closed doors. They had never found one – until it turned out that it wasn’t the Doors they hadn’t been able to find, but the openers.

Now Alexa, the only Opener known in her home reality, works with a team of scientists, explorers, magi, and soldiers to discover where these Doors can take them. And it will be quite a ride!

Best places to start
In the Storm  (Cole, intro)
Intro (Alexa, Intro)
Into the Doorway, an introduction Continue reading →

The Serial Family – a Profile

Mar9

I’m trying something new with the upcoming serial – essentially asking the prompter-level donors to fill in parts of the serial description (you can see it in my reward-tier profile).

clare_dragonfly filled in the first blank, so I have:

Once, there was a [person or group of people(Family of Hikers)]…

Here they are:

https://www.patreon.com/posts/serial-family-4800301

Soft Target, a drabble of Cloverleaf

Mar9

When the boss told him Cloverleaf was a soft target, Coty should’ve known better.

When the boss said the walls would come down easy with this new earth-caster, Cody really should’ve known better.

When the boss said that the guards at Cloverleaf were glorified paper-checkers and errand-runners and there was no military to speak of, Coty should’ve walked away, whatever the contract said.

When the boss screamed onward instead of retreat, Coty should’ve grabbed the boss and ran.

When the woman asked Coty if he wanted a ten-year jail sentence or a five-year collar…

Maybe he should’ve picked jail time.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1074251.html. You can comment here or there.

Patreon Reward Tier Profile!

Mar9

I am holding a Patreon Pledge Drive in hopes of filling a slight income hole with my chosen income-garnering path, more apocalypses!

Err, I mean “more speculative fiction writing.”

Probably with some apocalypses.

So if I’m going to ask you to patronize me, I ought to tell you what you’re getting, oughtn’t I?

By now, everyone probably knows that a $1 pledge gives you access to all the patron-only stories.

But what about the higher rewards? What else can you get from me?

Pledge $5/month, and you get to tell me what to write, broadly:

Each month, I hold a theme poll here on DreamWidth, open to everyone. That determines the monthly theme, out of ten options.

Then I open a prompt call to my $5+ patrons! From those prompts, I write the month’s flash fictions and microfictions! Sometimes I’ll combine ’em, sometimes I’ll go off in a strange direction, but I’ll always use those prompts first.

In addition, when taking a new direction on a serial, starting a new serial, or making up a character for a serial, I will poll the $5+ patrons for feedback.

For instance:

Fill in the blanks:

Once, there was a [person or group of people(Family of Hikers)] who lived in a [setting descriptor] [place].

[Pronoun] discovered that [ITEM] was [adjective], and that it was up to them to fix it!

But first, [Proper Noun] had to [verb] [GROUP or ITEM].

And, if I reach the $245 milestone – “Spreading the Love Around” – I’ll ask the $5+ patrons’ input as I commission a crowdfunded artist to create a portrait of one character/month.

All that for just $5/month!

Check it out here.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1073948.html. You can comment here or there.

Origin of the Planties

Mar9

I have been thinking about plant origins and variations.

Spurred by this article and lovely infographic, and the fact that when you plant 5 or 6 different Brassicae in one long garden plot, it becomes really really obvious they’re the same plant (esp. Kale and Brussels sprouts! They make nearly identical plants!) and by this cute video showing plants then-and-now, it makes me wonder both about what’s in our garden (right now? Dirt and last year’s carrots and leeks, and one barely-surviving kale plant) and about worldbuilding plants.

And then I think about growing purple potatoes, and I think about this, Ursula Vernon’s informative rant on the Potato Apocalypse, and I think about varieties.

We have such bounty, and such breadth and depth available. It’s pretty awesome.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1073819.html. You can comment here or there.

Happy Inter-Universal Women’s (Week): Eva and the Tarot

Mar9

to [personal profile] kelkyag‘s prompt here:Eva and the opinionated tarot deck.

It was a quiet night.

“Too quiet,” Eva muttered to herself, making her voice ominous and over-dramatic. It was silly… and it was begging trouble. She did it anyway.

Her nieces and nephews were all off doing whatever it was they did. Her aunts and great-aunts and assorted other older relatives were all off doing whatever it was they did. Her sisters and cousins were all probably taking a breath, just as she was.

Except she exhaled carefully over her most difficult deck and drew a single card.

The queen of pentacles looked at her upside-down. Eva glared at the card, and it glared back at her.

“This is my job,” she informed the deck, but a guilty pang in her chest told her otherwise.

The Aunt was not usually employed, but Eva was not trying to be a normal, usual Aunt.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1073515.html. You can comment here or there.

Landing Page: Things Unspoken

Mar9

…And seriously creepy. Did I mention the creepy? – kelkyag

It is best to keep your head about you in this world, because if you do not, someone else may keep it for you.

The shadows whisper, the Empire reaches, and all around, progress marches slowly on, heedless of the Old Things lurking in its way.

The world is a continent-spanning empire, and other places that are not the empire and thus less important but no less interesting. The era is that of steam engines and ridiculous fashion, of public shows of manners and private displays of lewdness.

The empire consists of many nations. Every one of them has their own secrets, their own governments. Each nation is semi-autonomous – but only semi. For the Empire rules over everything.

And if strange things creep in the shadows? Well, in the end, those things too are ruled by the Empire.

 

The Stories

Unspoken Worldbuilding

Landing Page: Tír na Cali

Mar9

“Redheaded magic ladies who kidnap sex slaves and also there are catgirls.”
– inventrix

Slavery, abduction, and magic, high fantasy and erotica, all in an alternate-history version of the American West Coast, where Washington State, Oregon, California, and Baja California are all part of a hierarchical, matriarchal monarchy called Tír na Cali. The nation is ruled by a large extended family who call themselves, privately, the Tuatha de Danaan, and who purportedly worship pleasure and sex.

While the two worlds diverged long, long ago – when the Tuatha de Danaan first recognized their own power, centuries past – the most visible split from modern history occurred during the 1800’s, when the West Coast seceded from the United States in the midst of the Civil War, a move set in place almost a century before by the Tuatha.

In this world, the US never lost its puritanical sheen, in direct response to the licentious nature of their enemy to the West, the Californians. And the Californians, who hold power in part due to the royal family’s psychic powers, continue to steal young adults from the US to serve as their slaves.

Stories to start with:
Fish Story(LJ link)
Tea with HER and following stories (see below)
Second Pressing

Continue reading →

Landing Page: Reiassan

Mar9

The two largest (and only surviving) nations on the continent of Reiassan have been at war, on and off, for centuries, gobbling up all smaller nations in their wake. Now, in the 20th year of Emperor Alessely, the Northern nation of Callenia has conquered the Southern nation of Bithrain.

In the aftermath of the war, one healer in the Emperor’s Army, a woman named Rin, has taken as a captive a Bitrani soldier. Although she calls him Girey of Tugia, and has convinced him to do the same, her prisoner is the surviving heir of the deposed-and-soon-to-be-executed King of Bithrain. Now she is bringing him home, across the long mountainous countryside to the far northern Callanthe capital city of Lannamer.

Reiassan is a fantasy story with romantic elements. The still-very–new Steam!Reiassan is set quite some time in the future in the same country, and is a steampunk setting.

NB: The setting is constantly evolving. While the stories are in the process of being edited for the book, the versions here on livejournal/dreamwidth/wordpress will have some setting inconsistencies – horses v. goats, etc.

Places to start
Abduction For the Rin/Girey story
Coming Soon, a trailer for the Rin/Girey story
Sword  – sets the tone of an earlier era
Discovery  – for the Steam/Edally era
Edally Academy

Continue reading →