mcahogarth

Freebie Short Story: Songs From a Conch Shell Whistle

Slowly tidying up my old short fiction for the completionists who want to have EVERY SINGLE THING I've written! "Songs from a Conch Shell Whistle" is one of the only two stories about the Tsipia-seekers/aliens, and was almost an Asimov's story. ("Almost a story" meaning "the editor asked me for rewrites, but didn't like my rewrites." Which has happened to me more than once.)

Anyway, here's the piece, and I hope you enjoy Yet Another Story About Aliens Without Humans. Includes some art, to help...

Link to All the Freebies!

Lots of you are new since I posted these, and even those of you who aren't new have mentioned missing them the first time, or being unable to find them again. So! Here are the links to the freebies I've posted so far, starting with those available to everyone and followed up by those available only to $5+ patrons. Grab 'em!

FREE FOR ALL PATRONS

$1+ Short Fiction

• Dark Lighthouse (a Peltedverse short about Taylitha Basil of the ...
  2017-09-21 20:10:11 +0000 UTC View Post

Over the Rainbow Bridge

I usually draw out my experiences, particularly milestone ones--good and bad--as a way of working through them. Since this was the first time (and last!) I had a gallbladder removed, and the first time I've ever gone under general anesthesia, I drew myself a complex piece that...I decided was a little too intense to just throw into people's inboxes unannounced.

So I did this one instead, based on my observation over the weekend that after 15 years of slowly failing, my gallbladder was rea...

Hurricane Doodle

From before the evacuation.

And Then the Emergency Surgery

So after being discharged from the ER on Thursday night with the gallstone diagnosis, the pain got serious enough that I returned Friday night and they looked at me and said, "We're admitting you!" It took them a day to run the remaining diagnostic tests to make sure they had all the info going into the operation but by Sunday morning I was under the knife. An hour later I was done...but they kept me overnight just in case.

I am finally home now and feeling better, aside from the whole "I...

Frying Pans and Fires

So the good news is that the ER in Texas cleared me to fly home yesterday, and the not so good news is the ER in Florida did the follow-up and discovered my gallbladder needs to come out soonest. Yay for diagnosis! Or something. It may be a while before I get your orders out. Thank you for your patience.

(The house had some external damage but nothing structural, so it can wait for me to take care of my internal damage. Also the cat is perfectly fine. We were lucky!)

Now I Percocet...

Trapped Jaguar

The Tampa airport isn't opening back up until late Wednesday, so it looks like the earliest I can get back to Florida will be Thursday. Some of you have bought art to help me with unexpected expenses...thank you! ❤️ As soon as I get home I'll pack those orders up and get them out. Thank you also to people leaving reviews and buying or recommending books...it helps a lot to realize that my business is still earning while I'm stuck here unable to work at either art/writing or Day Hobby. Your s...

Jaguar Outage

So as most of you probably already know, I have fled Hurricane Irma with my family. We are currently in San Antonio, TX! Because that's the flight we could get on before the airport closed.

I will post some photos of my impromptu vacation if I take any good ones, but I don't expect to be online predictably. We hope to be able to go home by Wednesday or Thursday, but I guess we'll see.

If you are familiar with San Antonio, tell me what to see/eat! We are in the Riverwalk area.

Candle Friday🕯️

And such a Candle Friday it is. :,

All right. This is 'pray for one another day' and for once, I'm in line to ask, for obvious reasons. If you have a need for yourself or others, mention it (in as much detail as you want to share).

Folks on candle duty (helping by praying or holding others in your thoughts), raise your hands! And thank you for volunteering. A lot of people are going to need it this weekend.

*deep breath*

All right, let's do this.

Even the Cat

...has access to an afghan, in my house. Because everyone has an afghan.

(Note this was not my idea. Daughter swaddled him and he has been sleeping that way contentedly for at least twenty minutes. I guess if I needed proof that he belongs with us, 'likes to cuddle in one of my mom's afghans' is probably as good as it gets.)

The Princes' Game Summary Project (Download)

All right, y'all, here it is. Nab it if you're inclined! Please note, these are big files... they have lots of art! (In a lot of cases, more than was in the original books, I think.)

Audience for this download is:

• People who haven't read the Princes' Game books and aren't planning to, but still want to find out what happens so they can make sense of future stories.
• People who haven't read the books but feel more comfortable reading difficult stories if they know w...
  2017-09-07 19:04:41 +0000 UTC View Post

Hurricane Watch

Shook this one out again for those of you who haven't seen it.

Time maybe for me to do a new one.

Straight Into The Ugly Stage

It's a good sign if that happens quickly.

I think. >.>

August Book Sales and Analysis

Sometimes, things surprise you. Like August.

See, August is back-to-school month, and sales tend to slump once we hit autumn (before peaking again during the holiday buying season). I was expecting August to be a complete disappointment... but instead, things kept trucking quietly along.

I had only one promotion scheduled, at the head of the month:  an E-Reader News ad on the 6th for Earthrise. That was all I managed, because I was way too overbooked with my own back-to-sch...

Custom Wordpress Themes?

Is this a thing, does anyone know? And do any of you do them? *pokes website*

Writing Progress! August Round-Up

As usual, with the beginning of the new month, we look back at writing progress and sales for the previous month. Today is the writing progress!  If you jump back to last month's, you'll see I was mostly done with the PG Synopsis and I was 2% into PG6.

I think you can tell what I spent most of the month doing. -_-

The PG Synopsis is as done as it's going to get at this point; I'll be rele...

Summertime and Living is Easy

No lunch bag today--Daughter is recovering from a virus--so instead, here is Ron Weasley, living the high life. I thought cats were supposed to be dignified creatures. I suppose if I was limber enough to fall asleep in this position, I wouldn't care what people thought of me either. Lol.

Painting Silk is For the Birds

And painting painted silk is even worse. >.>

Anyway, progress continues.

Smol Cat Update

Since lots of you like animals... here is Ron Weasley, who is filling out quickly on a proper diet of kitten food after presumably surviving on lizards and insects for the first four months of his life. We have successfully conquered his fleas, heartworms, and hookworms, only to discover he has a tapeworm (specifically, the kind you get from eating lizards, and harder to kill than the flea variety). So he has endured three days of disgusting (and expensive) pills to address that issue. We're hop...

Progress!

The wallpaper is slowly developing. I was working on it in the new coffee shop I found and the proprietor came by and asked me if I wanted to paint food for her to hang on the wall. "You never know," she told me, gaily, "you might become famous!"

I admit, after she left I giggled. To myself, to be polite. Cynthia reminds me that no prophet is honored in his own town... in this case, no prophet is known in her own town either. *grin*

Anyway, I am working on this painting...

Painting Is the Best Therapy

For Jaguars at least. Working on the Kickstarter wallpaper.

Afternoon Sketching

Still a bit crazy with back to school but I got half an hour to draw today.

Planning Celebraaaation

I am 9 people away from 500 folks on my mailing list! And only $47 away from $1000 a month here on Patreon! I like any excuse for a party, so I have decided reaching these milestones should trigger some! But parties imply fun events/activities/giveaways/etc, and while I have some ideas for things, I'm only one person. It is time to consult you all, because you all rock.

What should I do for my newsletter and/or Patreon milestones? What would you like to see, find exciting to do? Is there somet...

Jaguar at Work, Pre-Eclipse

It was only 81% down here so it was mostly all about the odd shadows on the ground. But they were some very curious shadows, I tell you.

Anyway, working on the Twin Kingdoms wallpaper image. I think it's cleaned up enough for me to transfer it to proper paper now.

Kickstarter Preview!

All right, y'all. I have done dithering and mid-to-end of September I am launching the Twin Kingdoms paperback Kickstarter. This'll be a short campaign, initially with only three sets of rewards: ebooks, wallpapers, and the paperbacks. If we hit some stretch goals, I'll think about adding swag like jewelry, bookmarks, postcard prints, etc.

The link should take you to t...

Administrivia (with Queen)

First, some stuff going on with the communal wall:

• Elizabeth is looking to hire a graphic designer. Check out her request here! 
• Copperwolf from Livejournal has found us again! And has some questions about using Patreon that maybe y'all can offer advice on.
• Finally, Cynthia is starting up an Alliance cookbook p...
  2017-08-18 20:04:45 +0000 UTC View Post

Dark Lighthouse Re-Issue

Someone couldn't find the Stardancer short "Dark Lighthouse" on Amazon and asked me about it, and I said, 'oh, yes, I took all my short fiction down so I could give it away to Patreon patrons' and... I don't think I did that with this one. So I brushed it up, added the one piece of art I did for it, and here it is! For the completionists who want to read all the Alysha stuff, and couldn't find this.

If you have the original version, you should replace it with this one, because it is prettier. ...

Inside of an E-Book

As expected, back to school week is kicking my tail. I will be more present next week!

Here's the inside of the PG Synopsis e-book, which is at the "let's decide what artwork to add" stage. (This takes thought, which means I haven't done it. My schedule this week has been "do frenzied school prep, collapse at 8 PM and sleep"). But we're still on schedule to finish this for next month's freebie.

More when I am done with the crazy.

Words To Live By

Because if you can't trust an ancient dude with a sword who can you trust?

The Cut Direct

Seagull what did I do to you to deserve your censurrrrre