Read My Story “The Greatest Victory” in Tales of the Sunrise Lands

Aug14

It is said that the greatest of soldiers stands backed by every soldier in the army, and every soldier who came before.

It is said that the greatest of politicians stands backed by their entire district and their entire nation.

General Tsukushi Tada, it is said, held off an entire army with the strength of his voice alone.  But there is more to the story than that.

Tales of the Sunrise Lands is available now from Guardbridge Books.  Read my short story, “The Greatest Victory,” and seventeen others “inspired by the culture and literary traditions of Japan. From steadfast samurai and contemplative monks, to transforming animals, horrifying spirits and everyday objects come to life, these tales transport you to the magical world of the Sunrise Lands.”

Patreon Posts!

Aug14

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This week on our 1870’s farmhouse, we’re demolishing the ceiling(s) of the bathroom!

The first thing to do was pull out all the old insulation – and junk – from the attic side.  After our homeowners (us) pulled out eight or nine garbage bags of old cellulose insulation…

Take a Peek!

Originally posted April 15, 2013.  

α

It all began with the first of us, called, as was appropriate and due, the Alpha.

I never knew what other name the Alpha might have held, before this place, before Everything Else. But sometimes we called her Anna, or Angie, when we were being informal.

Read On!

Speaking of Magical dates…here is the Day of Magic in Fae Apoc!

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In the world of the Faerie Apocalypse – Addergoole, Doomsday, etc. – there is something that is colloquially called The Blindness of the Gods, and something called a Mask.

Read On!

Hallowe’en in Fae Apoc – a Meta Post for Patreon

Aug11
Speaking of Magical dates…here is the Day of Magic in Fae Apoc!

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In the world of the Faerie Apocalypse – Addergoole, Doomsday, etc. – there is something that is colloquially called The Blindness of the Gods, and something called a Mask.

Actually, I have to back up a step.

There are, in Fae Apoc, three groups of human(oid)s:

* Those who are fae, who have Changed and have magic: Fae, ellehemaei

* Those who are 100% human, or near enough as to make no difference: Humans

* Those who have fae blood but are not fae, have not Changed, and often can only access a little bit of magic, if any: Faded Continue reading →

A New World: Kael-Room

Aug8

First: A New World

The Kael-room. That was an interesting turn of phrase. Kael knew this tower like the back of her hand; she had been living her for nearly a century before – before she lived here for quite longer in some sort of suspended animation, she supposed. A hundred years. The tower came with a grant. Now that was interesting. Who had provided such a thing? How had the tower’s presence been explained? She was fairly certain much more than a hundred years had passed. Buildings she could see from the windows looked far beyond the current – the current-when-she-slept abilities of normal humans, and there hadn’t been enough wizards in the world to raise so many towers. And yet many of these buildings appeared to be well over a century old, if the aging signs had not changed utterly.

She paused to look out a window. The world around her tower was so much more crowded, and the people in so much more of a hurry, than anything she remembered from before. All those people. Were they heroes? Were they adventurers? Who would come to a seat of the muses that would need to see a Kael – a Kael, not the Kael, and even Kael could recognize the phrase Back Stage. Continue reading →

Imaginary – Bonus Story for Patreon

Aug7
Aug 7, 2017 at 1:59pm

 So the kids down the road are always playing on their bikes in the driveway when I drive by.  And there’s always one bike just… flopped down at the end of the driveway, empty.  And the theme for the month is Magical Dates…

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Eddie had always known there was something different about Claude.

Other kids told him about their friends, sure, but their friends were make-believe.  They were pretend.

Claude was something different.

The grown-ups thought it was the same, and Eddie didn’t care to change their minds.  Lots of kids had imaginary friends, and as long as you “outgrew” them when you ten or eleven or something, the adults didn’t think much about it.

But Claude – Claude actually moved things.  He’d move the bike because he was riding with Eddie  – and, sometimes, in later days, with Eddie’s friends and his kid brother Donnie. He’d move the ball because they were playing soccer.  Eddie had a lot of fun with him, especially those early years when his parents were doting on Baby Donnie and then Baby Eloise.

The thing was, the minute an adult was anywhere in line of sight, Claude vanished.  He wasn’t just invisible to the adults, he was gone.  The bike fell down, the ball went straight through where he’d been to the goal, the Captain’s hat dropped to the ground.  Every time.  They learned to play in the backyard after the third time Eddie got yelled at for the bike at the end of the driveway.

Claude was a lot of fun, even if he did get Eddie in trouble.  He left stuff lying around, he vanished and left Eddie to get yelled at for things he’d done, he sometimes pulled pranks on Donnie or Eloise, which of course Eddie was blamed for. Continue reading →

The Door Opened – Bonus Story for Patreon

Aug6
Aug 6, 2017 at 3:00pm
So, Hob prompted me this prompt from Reddit for his birthday, and… some time later, I actually finished it.  I thought it was going to be Dragons Next Door, but I’m not sure it is. 

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[WP] It’s a normal day, but something feels just a little off kilter. That’s when you notice the doors. Tiny doors, in the strangest places.

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It wasn’t as if Cary  didn’t know that there were strange things in the world.

You saw it on the news sometimes, of course, dragons in the sky or someone really small turning bank thief.

But for the most part, that was an East Coast sort of thing.  It didn’t happen out here.  It definitely didn’t happen in Cary’s city. Continue reading →

The Hidden Mall Part XI: The Narnia Thing

Jul31

Part I
Part II
Part III
Part IV
Part V
Part VI
Part VII
Part VIII
Part IX
Part X
🏬🛍️

Well, what were they going to do? She took Rick by the arm and steered him with them, leading him towards their escape. “If this is a trick…” she muttered. She didn’t finish the sentence, because she wasn’t quite sure what she’d do if it was a trick. She had one hand on Liv, one on plastic-Rick, and they were in a mall full of plastic people.

They walked as stiffly as they could towards a back door, Rick getting stiffer and stiffer the closer they got. By the time Liv pulled the door open, Liv being the one with a free hand, Abigail practically had to drag Rick into the behind-hallway.

Here it was bright and shiny, no grey, no bare wiring, nothing. It was as if the mall continued into the behind-space, which made Abigail more than a little concerned. “Sit down,” she told Rick. He sat, stiffly, the way her dolls had sat, their legs sticking out. She looked at the back of his neck.

There it was, just inside his hairline, a tiny little thing that looked plastic. Abigail dug in her purse until she found her tweezers.
She didn’t need to tell Rick to hold still; he wasn’t moving at all. Still, she was careful as she pulled out the little thing.
Rick twitched, shuddered, and fell over, his whole body shaking with spasms.
He was making such a scene Abigail almost missed Liv trying to sneak off. She grabbed her friend by the arm. “So. Do we try to rescue other people here?”

Liv twitched. “I want to see the beavers!”

“Liv, first things first, okay? First. There are people here who are stuck with these things in their necks. Do we try to take them out, do we find the source of the problem, or do we go for a doorway and not worry about them?”

“This place ins’t real anyway!” Liv tried to pull away. “I want to go back to the nice place, with the bookstore!”

“I want to go back, too, Liv.” Abigail tried to sound patient. She wasn’t feeling very patient. “But, first. This place. Plastic people. Do we help them?”

That seemed, finally, to get through. Liv looked at Rick, who had stopped twitching and was trying to sit up. “What if he was, uh, special? Too stubborn or something?’
“Thanks,” Rick snarled, and then paused, staring at them. “Wait. I saw you. You were like the rest of us. And then you went off…”
“I don’t want to know,” Abigail put in quickly. “I really don’t. That wasn’t us, or, at least, it was a different us. There’s passageways, uh, behind the mall, and we’re just trying to get back home. It’s a long story. Anyway, CAN we help people? Do you think?”
“I think I have to try,” he mumbled. “It was my girlfriend who got us into this. Well, I thought she was my girlfriend. I guess she was as plastic as all the rest of them.” He made a face. “So I can help, yeah. Come on, I know where the controller station is. And you have those tweezers.”
“What about going home?” Liv complained. “What about the Beavers?”
“We’ll get there, Liv. But – this is the Narnia thing to do, right?”
Rick laughed. “Nerds,” he laughed, and then, more gently, and a little surprised. “Hunh. That’s why you helped me. Nerds.” This time he said it with affection.

“Nerds,” Abigail agreed, not so much tired as resigned. “That’s us, Rick. Come on, let’s find the White Witch and destroy her.”

Live considered that, looked over at Rick, made a face, and nodded. “It’s the nerd thing to do. Rick, if you shove me into a fountain again, I’m feeding you to the evil clowns.”

“Evil clowns?” He actually looked worried. “I thought the plastic people was bad enough. There’s evil clowns, too?”

“Different mall,” Abigail explained. “Come on. We still have to get back home before Liv’s mother picks us up, and that’s a long way away by any measure.”

“You nerds are weird,” Rick complained. “Come on, this way. I’ll get you in.”
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