Terribly hectic year, but in a good way ... Wonder if that makes sense? This has been my year for writing *short*, particularly in the romance department. I've been writing novella after novella, plus editing and submitting my backlist. I've been really lucky with contracts, but each has its own demands, and the last few weeks I've just been putzing along on a historical short.

Fictionwise is going to be releasing ErRatic fairly soon as an ebook, and Emerald City will be appearing sometime in the next several weeks at Red Rose. I've signed Sqweams and Elementals: Fractal with Cyberwizard Productions, but they won't be out until mid-2009. Gray Beginnings is scheduled for a February, 2009 release, with BloodWorks appearing a few months later. I also have Crystal Dreams with The Lotus Circle, and am supposed to get the first round of edits this month.

I have a number of novellas with Red Rose, from interracial anthology entries to werewolf stories.

I'm thinking about writing a fantasy novel next month for Nanowrimo. Since I've been working so hard on romance novellas, I've neglected my mainstream SF/Fantasy readers. Sorry! I'll have something finished soon. I promise ...

I'll leave you with a slough of excerpts from various books. Enjoy!

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From Elf:
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            The icy wind in the cabin was nothing now to the chilling slough that was filling Zander’s chest. He was choking again—drowning in the cold; in the ice that ate at his insides and filled his head. Only this time, he didn’t fight it. He needed it.

            Behind him, the men were yelling and trying to grab at his pants leg, but Zander ignored them. The beast, however, didn’t. Their wriggling and grabbing were drawing those golden eyes. The head drew back as it prepared to strike...

            Shuddering with the cold, Zander pushed himself to his knees and deliberately lifted his hand. If Ben’s slow movements had been baiting the beast before, this taunt was irresistible torture.

            And it was all the bait the dragon needed.

            Zander opened his mouth, at the same moment the dragon opened his. The shrill banshee wail filled the space, rising higher and higher.

            The dragon writhed in pain, jerking its head and snapping its jaws. Its long neck snaked in and rammed against Zander’s chest—the rough scales catching at his shirt. It was like being bumped by the toothlike surface of a Great White. Zander fought to hold the note, but that last contact had broken his song. As the glimmer of his blood started trickling through his torn shirt, Zander grasped the dragon’s horn and held on.

            In the next moment, Zander and the dragon were gone.

            There was only the gaping hole, the wind, and the plane that was dropping out of the sky.

From Gilded Folly:
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            It was no longer dark, but Dacey was beginning to wish it were. A subsonic hum vibrated her eardrums and her teeth, the resonance rising into audible range, where it shook her body.....

            Like a microwave. The cooked scenario entered her head, but she wouldn’t let herself think it. It was enough of a prod, though, to get her moving. Her unseen adversaries weren’t entirely stationary. She would like to believe that was more mechanical action, too, like the hum, but the sounds were far too restless—like a multitude of boots grinding and crunching on gravel. ....

            Alive. No inanimate pistons or gears. Claws and teeth, restlessly gnawing away at rock.......

            Stop it! Dacey swore right then that no matter what, she wouldn’t give up without a fight. ....

            She ran for the steps—for where she hoped they’d be. You fell down them—landed on your knees. ....

            Get it right, Girl...last chance.......

            The light was so startling she tripped over her feet and went sprawling. It wasn’t coming from the walls or the ceiling. It was coming from her skin.....

            Her own body was brightening the room, like a white shirt under black light.....

            The sight was so shocking Dacey froze. All kinds of thoughts were running through her head. She was so caught up in confusion, that she almost missed the movement.....

            The walls were losing integrity, as man-size pieces detached and dropped limply to the stone floor. Rustle-thud, rustle-thunk. Now, the pieces shivered and shook, then arose, finding their whole within the fallen tangle of limbs. Skeletally thin beings, with a near-human cast.......

            ...arising out of rock. ....

            Dacey backed away, and headed once more for the steps—only to find they’d beat her there.....

            They’ve been in the dark so long.......

            It was almost as though she could read their thoughts. Her light was a lure, to draw them in. They wanted light...and heat.....

            ...but mostly, they wanted food.....

            Dacey opened her mouth and began to scream.....

From GlassWorks: (under my pseudonym, Melody Knight)

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            Cate picked up the slab of glass from its tilted resting spot. It had dropped nearly intact. Her fingers shook as the first tracings of shimmery silica began to move beneath the surface. All those crystalline lattices somehow rearranging themselves…....

            She froze, her breath frosting the glass from the sudden chill. Gooseflesh rose on her skin as the air around her grew cold.....

            It had never happened this way before.....

            The man was lying there, in the glass, his body sprawled with the indignity of all things dead and unburied. Cate's breath caught in her throat, the unspent fog almost choking her. Oh, God! ....

            It wasn't here—hadn't happened here—but it was happening now. ....

            There was an argument lingering, on the air. She couldn't see the moment of confrontation, or the altercation, but it had been about the mutilated body on the ground. About how to deal with it, to cast off blame with as much ease as they'd cast away his life.....

            Only, they didn't realize he could hear them still. Hear them and hate them.....

            Because it had always been about his looks. His looks, and justifying what he was. The grave they were giving him, the twisted notoriety they were planning, would leave him neither looks nor justice.....

            Cate's eyes focused on his face. What they'd done, what they were doing to the rest of him didn't bear watching.....

            But, apparently, she did. Bear watching, that is.....

            The corpse's eyes opened, to stare straight at her.....

            Cate flinched, twitched, recoiled, but she couldn't let go. Some part of her was screaming, but she was no longer sure whether it was her...or him. ....

            She clung to the pane, trapped. When, a forever it seemed, later, she freed her fingers enough to fling it, she remained there rigid, staring, as the moonglow image shattered in a hundred spiky shards. ....

            Some part of her was still recoiling, as if in reflex to a striking snake.  ....

            God help me! ....

            In those instants of metaphysical contact, she felt as though one shriveled digit had touched her. Spanned the gap between life and death—....

            I'm not a medium!....

            She'd never been a medium—never even come close. It had been the one blessing, in an otherwise twisted gift, that however conversant she might have become with a dead person's past, she was never conversant with the dead!....

            Until now, it seemed. Cate backed away, panted white puffs coiling and twisting in the otherwise still air. ....

            I'm not alone.....

            It should have been comforting, that there was a taxi driver waiting just outside, but somehow, it came out differently. That "I'm not alone" was filled with horror. The taxi driver might be outside, but something else moved within. In a dreadful moment, she knew she'd brought this on herself—that by coming here she'd been willing, demanding almost, a contact with his person—had wanted so badly to save him, that she'd drawn in a soul barely severed from its body. ....

            Cate backed, tripped, twisted, and ran. She tore the length of the room as though the Devil were at her heels, and slammed open the end door with a loud squawking thunk. Using two hands, Cate wrenched the door closed again, locking evil within. She stumbled back, the small door pane fixing her into its framed panel.....

            He wasn't within. Behind her, his hatred ever so much more pronounced in proximity,  was the mutilated visage of the recently deceased.....

From In Trysts: (under my pseudonym, Melody Knight)

..............

Peri closed her eyes, held her breath this time, and moved closer to that gaping hole. It was black, and bleak, like some giant maw.......

Stop it! This wasn’t her first disinterment. She was an amateur archaeologist, for God’s sake!....

And you’ve stolen from the dead before. Was it really so much better to a dead woman if the grave goods you stole ended up in a museum? So her personal belongings were exposed to the world?....

Peri shuddered, then stiffened her spine. Her muscles were rigid, her flesh crawling. Was it the smell? Obscenely fresh—almost nauseatingly pungent.....

She angled her light so it played across the loose cloth. ....

That was wrong. It shouldn’t be loose. “C-Cerecloth,” she choked out. Her hands were trembling. ....

Sophie crept closer. “Who?”....

“It’s cerecloth.” Peri’s voice was hushed. Sophie’s, “Huh”, prompted her to add, “Waxed cloth, made from wax and oil.” As she spoke, Peri was taking a closer look at the wrapped face. The waxed landscape of facial features was ill-fitting, like an empty mask.......

...almost as though Hannah had shifted. Buried alive?

From ErRatic:
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Harley didn’t stop to think about it. He tore up the path, and barreled into the door, shoulder first. ....

It held, and inside the house Emma’s screams were peaking. In a frenzy, Harley hit the panel again, then slammed the latch with his boot. The frame gave, and the door crashed back. He was through, into the frozen hallway. It was so damn cold in there he half expected icicles to be dripping from the ceiling. ....

He heard the door—impossibly—slam shut behind him.....

She was in the living room. Harley ran that way, relieved by the very human sound of his own pounding feet. He halted, but only for an instant, at the grisly sight before him. ....

Emma was cowering back in her chair, Forsby’s fingers clenching her throat. Even now, her scream was dying; trapped by those ghastly digits.....

Harley grabbed a lamp and swung it at Forsby, but it merely passed through, as though through a shadow. ....

If you can’t handle a problem one way, you do it another.....

Harley dove at Emma, tipping the chair over backwards, and sending them both rolling. He jumped to his feet, lifted her up by one arm, and shoved her behind him. Then, he stood staunchly, to face down her demon. He wondered if it was a mistake, even as he mouthed the words. “Get the hell out!”....

It was. The smaller chair, and then the couch, snapped over onto their sides. In the windows the blinds rattled and the curtains danced in a frenzied jangle on their rods. Ornaments—vases and statues and candleholders—flopped and flew, while the carpet ripped in weird furrows.

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