elizabeth_oswald

Zoey/Rouge I

Zoey was a flower girl, and it was surreal. She’d been in her mom’s second wedding when she was five, and she’d deliberately thrown handfuls of flower petals in the guest’s faces as she walked down the aisle. This time, of course, she was actually happy about the marriage, but it was still strange to traipse down the aisle in her fluffy, ice-blue dress, dropping colorful rice-paper squares on the grass as she walked. The music swelled as she went to stand beside her dad and grandma. H...

Vexxx Part 2

Ajax ripped the headset away from his face, nearly fumbling it as his thick gloves got in the way. “Damn it!” He glared at the headset as though it was responsible for what had just happened.

Beside him, a door creaked, and his mother peered into his bedroom. Her mouth was open, probably about to ask what was wrong, but it clicked closed and her eyes narrowed as she saw what he was holding.

“I should have sent that thing right back to Marcus,” she muttered. “Even if it w...

Vexxx

Note: Yay, I actually get to write instead of angsting about things! Today and tomorrow we'll have Vexxx's story, which leads into the long-awaited Rouge novella starting Monday!

(===||:::::::::::::::>

Vexxx leaned back on the glass floor, his feet propped up on the first step of the crystalline staircase that wound up to a platform that somehow managed to be both above and beneath him. “When is she going to get here?” he complained, laying hi...

Cuckoo's Aria!

Aria is done! We had one last SNAFU with it yesterday, so we spent an hour or so chasing that down, and then I went through and made the cover and uploaded it, so  it's actually live! I did put the ebook on the 'zon, and took all the others down from Google Play and B&N. Tomorrow, they'll all go up on Kindle Unlimited. There may be tears. Don't judge me.

But today, you get Aria, and its cover, and I get to write. WOOHOO!

2023-06-14 14:04:22 +0000 UTC View Post

Principles and Practicality

I really, really hate KU's exclusivity rule, especially since you 'enroll' for a three month period, so if they screw you over (like they did me) the rest of your books are stuck for up to three months before you can change to another service. I guess the 'good' news is that if I somehow violate their rules again (though I didn't the first time 😡) they said they'd just cancel my whole account. No account means no books locked down, right?

Sigh.

Unfortunately, the difference bet...

Grimalkin's Test

Test is done! (At last! 🎶) I'm going to spend today uploading it and making the print cover. Fun fact: I can't design that cover until I have the print pdf, because the spine changes width depending on number of pages [obviously] and I have yet to find a single calculator online that tells me how wide it'll actually be, so until I upload it, I have no clue. It's a little frustrating, because I like to have everything done before I start the upload process.

I do not ...

Aria is in!

I just sent Aria off to the formatter. (A third, since the first is still working on Grimalkin, and the second is on vacation until the 14th. Goodness.) I should have an epub for you on Monday, and then I'll start working on a few more short stories, and/or Rouge's novella on Tuesday.

Also, sometimes my brain needs a break, and it's fun to play with the art-bot, so here are some Moocubes for you.

2023-06-09 19:35:50 +0000 UTC View Post

'Another night'

I've been having fun creating enough of a relationship between Ava and Veronica that it would be realistic for Veronica to tell Ava about the rumor that Amy wasn't actually Amy. It also allowed me to add in a bit more about what, exactly, Amythyst does or doesn't feel for Ava. Since I'm this close to getting the book to the formatter, I'm not going to post those scenes (chapters, really) here. They'll make a lot more sense in the book, rather than throwing chunks of text at you.

I just ...

ConQuesT 54 is on the books!

Here's my current setup! I added some book-related enamel pins, as well as stickers and buttons of Khor, Nuisance, Silus, and the infamous buns. My daughter and I had fun making dragon eggs, and, of course, there are Books. I should get print copies of Lament before I head to Norman, Oklahoma for Soonercon at the end of the month. Fingers crossed I also get the extendable vertical banner tha...

Off to the con!

I'm pausing editing while I head to ConQuest 54. I'll be doing that all weekend, and I'll send you a photo of my setup once I get it, y'know, set up!

Social media freaks me out

I mean, I know it's something we have to do, but still...

If anyone wants to help me out, I'd love it if you would share my announcement post!

And now, back to editing...

Cuckoo's Lament!

I got Lament back! I'll leave this post up for a few weeks, so everyone can snag their copy. Today, I'm going to get the print book uploaded to Amazon and B&N, and the ebook on B&N and Google Play. I'm also debating adding IngramSpark to the list, so we'll see how ambitious I feel.

You won't find a lot of large edits in Lament. I mostly gave Amythyst another reason to pick Ava besides "she's nice, and since she's desperate, she'll help" Hopefully, it helps tip ...

How's next Tuesday for you?

I'm switching formatters for Cuckoo (Wish me luck!) Hopefully, this formatter will be able to get Lament back to me by next Tuesday, and I'll send you guys a copy as thanks for supporting me!

This schedule will allow me to put the books up for sale before I go to the conventions on July 1 and July 15, which is a Big Deal. I may even be able to have print copies of Lament by July 1, and both books by July 15! Fingers crossed this goes well 💖🤞

(Meanw...

That's a wrap!

Cuckoo's Lament is now complete, and I'm sending it off to the formatter. (Who is still running behind. Sigh) I'm moving on to Aria, but I thought I'd send you guys the art I'm using as chapter headers in Lament, first.

Have a great weekend, everybody!

Changes!

Most of the changes I'm making are pretty subtle, though I added a bit to the scene when Ava asks Amythyst why she picked Ava, rather than hiring someone, or picking someone else.

The biggest change is going to revolve around the idea that most people at Landon House believe Amy is a random woman their 'eccentric' employer took on and altered to look like his daughter after the real Amy died. Amy won't be called 'Ms. Landon' or be directly acknowledged as Carl's daughter.

I'm goin...

Goals!

I'm going to finish edits on Lament this week, do some minor updates to the cover, and get it all to the formatter. I probably won't have anything for you until that's done, but I'm working!

Just over here editing...

And I still hate it 😂 My kiddo is sick at home, so I only got five chapters done, too. Sigh. But I at least have some bits and pieces for you, left over from my cover-creation efforts! I had two cover ideas in mind, but when I put them both together, I ended up with a clear winner. Still, here are some pictures of Ava and Amythyst (at the end of Aria), and some kind of cool photos I got when I messed up my AI image prompts.

Aria cover

I know, I know, I said I was going to work on the cover for Aria after edits, but then I did the pictures for Grimalkin, and realized that sometimes my images require minor text/story changes, so it might be better to swap the order.

Plus, I hate editing, and I like making covers. So there's that.

Anyway, here's the cover for Aria!

Grimalkin images

It took me until about ten last night, but I got these bad boys finished, placed in the book, and book text updated to match the images. I mean, usually you make the images look like the book, but when you're not an artist and you can't afford to hire one (seriously, this is a career goal for me), you do what you must.

The book will go to the formatter as soon as she says she's ready for it, and hopefully I'll have an ebook ready for you next week!

I've decided that since Amazon i...

Today...

I've created some images to go in Grimalkin. Once those are edited and in the book, it'll be ready to go to the formatter, and fingers crossed, ready to publish by this weekend. Yay! I'll upload those images here once they're done, and  then head into editing Cuckoo.

Now, when I was editing LF, the best I could do each day was about ten chapters before my brain just literally refused to do it any more. I'm going to assume that won't have somehow magically improved...

CA Epilogue

Aria grinned down at the little girl clinging to her leg. “You’re going to have to get off, kiddo. Time to log out.”

“Don’ wanna,” the little moppet said, lower lip protruding. “Ther’py hurts. I wanna stay here with you an’ Brandon.”

Brandon, an older and far more mature boy at the ripe old age of nine, sighed a world-weary sigh. “I’ll be here when you get back. Not like I’m going anywhere,” he muttered.

Aria gave him an understanding smile. He wa...

CA Chapter Forty-three

It’s dark.

Dark, and nothing hurts. Is this what death feels like? Surely she didn’t survive. Is she being reincarnated? Ava floats, and she wouldn’t have been surprised to see an umbilical cord, extending out from her center, into the darkness.

If she could see anything.

“I want to see you again,” she murmurs, and she’s shocked to hear her own voice, sounding just like it always did.

“See who?” a voice asks, and she thinks she turns her head, looking f...

CA Chapter Forty-two

Heat, smoke, and crackling fire surrounded her. There was no way out through the door. No escape the way she’d come in. She’d have to go after Veralt.

Sudden urgency flooded through her, driven by the rapidly rising heat and the way the oxygen was burning out of the room, leaving it filled with nothing but death. Rolling, she got one arm under her body, then the other, pushing herself up on trembling limbs. She crawled toward the door. At least Veralt had helped a little. He had mov...

CA Chapter Forty-one

None of the security stations were manned, but they really didn’t need to be, since the doors they were guarding couldn’t be opened anyway. Instead, all of the people who would have been watching the doors were instead wandering the halls. Ava had noticed that there were a ridiculous number of security personnel in Carl Landon’s personal palace, but she hadn’t realized just how true that observation was. When she zoomed her map out, she counted thirty red dots strewn across the map, a...

CA Chapter Forty

A piercing siren woke her from a restless sleep, filled with nightmares where she chased after a green-gowned figure she could never seem to catch. When she sat bolt upright in bed, her hands stretched out in front of her, clawing at the darkness of her bedroom. The only light came from her screen, where it lay face down on the bedside table. The glow of the screen backlit its rectangular shape, and when she picked it up, she saw that the screen was turned up to maximum brilliance.

“U...

Aria is complete!

I got into the final arc, and settled into a groove, and just finished up the book. I wrote four chapters, 12000 words, which is 21 pages in Google Docs. I usually write 2-3k per day, so this is... rough. I'm happy with it, but I'll be editing it more thoroughly than usual before I hand it off to you guys, so I think I'm going to stick with a chapter a day release. That does mean, though, that the last chapter will be out next Friday, and then I'm going to think about taking a 'break'. That i...

CA Chapter Thirty-nine

Taking a shower alone went surprisingly well. She set the temperature as low as she could stand, and the cold blast brought her to herself better than any amount of caffeine. It was difficult to get the bodysuit open with only one hand, but once she got it started, the force of the water practically made it slide right off, and she didn’t bother with soap, just sluiced away the lingering remains of the biogel and stepped out, leaving the suit puddled on the floor.

She was embarrassed ...

CA Chapter Thirty-eight

A gentle but urgent hand shook her awake. “Alpha,” Myles said. “Wake up.”

Groaning, she tried to push him away, burrowing back into the pile of furs that someone had put around her when she finally fell asleep after crying herself out. “Leave me alone,” she muttered, rolling over.

“I wish I could,” Myles said, tugging the fuzzy blankets away from her. “But Veralt himself just told Aspen that they’re logging you and Amy out in ten minutes, and he only gave Aspen...

CA Chapter Thirty-seven

They were six thousand seven hundred and forty-two wrong turns - according to Vexxx, anyway - into the next level when Tess sat down and clutched at her head. “I just can’t do it,” she groaned. “This place makes my head hurt, and I’ve been nauseated for days. I really, really hate this level.”

Alpha looked up at the half-dwarf, who was seated on a glass staircase directly over her head. Tess was upside-down, from Alpha’s perspective, but that was normal for this p...

CA Chapter Thirty-six

“I can’t believe this is the only thing we got from that stupid farmer,” Vexxx complained, holding up a brass key with a shank as long as his hand. The head of the key was, not surprisingly, a cube, and the teeth were long and blocky.

Tess and Vexxx had brought back a half dozen good-sized fish, which they had skewered on sticks and promptly burned because neither of them had the [Cooking] skill, so Myles had produced an herb-roasted chicken from his inventory after everyone else ...