Linen Butterfly Update

I finished two chapters tonight.  Getting into the part of the book that's much more smoothly written so work will begin speeding up.

The parts I'm working on now are basically less than a year old because I completely rewrote this bit.  In the original "Goldenlea," Sylvia lived in a camp in the woods like a Hollywood medieval outlaw.  Now she's a titled lady who lives in a decaying manor in a rotten borough in a remote province, like a real medieval outlaw.  This, of course, changes the dynamics of the story quite a lot.

The characters and subplots that were written out completely have also changed the dynamics.  This is where the story diverges sharply from the original.  The story is more focused and delivers its punches more directly.

I really think those who liked "The Goldenlea" will appreciate what I've made of it. And those who didn't like "The Goldenlea" may still like "The Linen butterfly."  I'm very proud of how it's shaping up so far.

I hope this isn't my magnum opus though.  It'd suck to be played out so soon; I'm only just getting good.  It will be the absolute best novel I can write for now but that's a temporary thing. If I can't write better in a year, then I'm slacking.

"The Linen Butterfly" Progress!

I hit a crucial benchmark with "The Linen Butterfly" tonight. I finished the first half of the story arc- rewritten from scratch from the original "Goldenlea"- and pasted in the second half.

The second half needs to be reworked for length, style, and content and then the whole book needs a good once over, but the current word count is 126k words so my goal of 110k words is absolutely on target once all of the redundant, obsolete, and unnecessary material is removed from the second half.

This includes several passages that I copied and pasted from the second half and moved into the first half to make the story flow better. Those will be removed from the second half and new material will only be added if it makes the narrative flow better.

My goal is still to have a draft ready for proofreading in one month, and to have a draft ready to submit by the end of the summer. Knock on wood, I'll have "The Linen Butterfly" out by January.

"The Vimana Incident" Now Available From Fusselschwarm!

My readers in the EU will be happy to know that "The Vimana Incident" is now available from Fusselschwarm!

I missed the announcement, as it has apparently been available for a little while now, but I thought I'd go ahead and mention it.

You can purchase your copy here:

http://www.maennerschwarm.de/Laden/htdocs/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=67&Itemid=121#Novels

Or you can stop by the Fusselschwarm table at any of the conventions or book fairs they attend.  Also, be sure to check out @fusselschwarm on Twitter.

Where I Am As An Author

As you probably know if you've read the posts in this blog so far, I am a small press author and I don't make a whole lot off my writing.  It started out as something of a hobby, writing from within the furry community where making a living off of any sort of work is unlikely; it's a small, mostly Interned-based community that enjoys stories, art, and other media involving anthropomorphic animal stories and although sexual material is definitely out there, non-sexual stories and art still sell decently well.

The first book I published (also the first manuscript of any sort I actually sold copies of) was a dieselpunk action romance called "Basecraft Cirrostratus," and yes, it did play somewhat to the sexual aspect of things.  I've been told by a few non-furry readers, though, that aside from the sex it's actually a decent early attempt at a story, kind of in the vein of "The Rocketeer" and "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow" in a dystopian setting inspired by the neoliberal crony capitalism and dominionist politics of the 2000s.  As such, it was hardly "porn" so much as an adventure story with erotic scenes.

It got decent reviews, and was greeted enthusiastically enough that I began to think that maybe I would eventually have what it took to support myself as an author.  I was called out on being too brief and breezy in my pacing, sort of the opposite of what you hear about amateur authors most of the time.  There were also minor issues with forced dialog and a plot just a little too fraught with convenient coincidences (though I did lampshade it somewhat in the sequel by having all the loose ends from the first book come back to haunt the protagonists).  But after a while, sales slowed and I decided to put something else out.

"The Vimana Incident" E-Book Now Available!

I got a number of requests from friends who wanted to be notified when this book was out as an e-book, and now I'm pleased to announce that it has been released from Bad Dog Books!

http://baddogbooks.com/?product=the-vimana-incident

Review of "The Vimana Incident"

A review of "The Vimana Incident" has been posted, and it's quite a glowing review!

Has LaCroix succeeded in her ambition for the novel? From a reader’s point of view, she has created a satisfying and intriguing story. I looked forward to the next chapter while I was reading it, and I’ll certainly be reading it again. Whether she has produced a work of the quality she herself wanted, well, only the author can say, but I’m reminded of that annoyingly ubiquitous quote about shooting for the moon and missing to land among the stars. The sphere of furry writing can only benefit from this breed of originality and its lofty aims.

Read the full review here!

http://clawandquill.net/2015/03/the-vimana-incident/

Also, "The Vimana Incident" has been named the Furry Writers' Guild Book of the Month for March!

http://furrywritersguild.com/2015/03/05/book-of-the-month-the-vimana-incident-by-rose-lacroix/

"The Vimana Incident" Available Now!

It's finally here! "The Vimana Incident" is available online!  Just click the title and you'll find the online order page in a new window.

For those who have just stumbled upon this blog, I should probably explain what's so special about this story.

For a long time, I wrote "safe" stories that were reasonably well-conceived, but hedged my bets.  The first novel I wrote, "The Goldenlea," was a medieval low-fantasy story that was OK for a first attempt, but the style was extremely naive.  

My second novel was a little more adventurous.  "Basecraft Cirrostratus" was my first foray into the fringes of science fiction.  It was a dieselpunk action romance about gay characters in a dystopian world based loosely on 1930s Europe.

My third novel was a still-unpublished biographical fiction story called "One Could Do Better," inspired by my time in London in the early 2000s.  It was almost picked up by a small press but a dispute arose and it was dropped.  

My fourth novel was a sequel to Basecraft Cirrostratus called "Escape from St. Arned."  That one goes kind of sci-fi at the end too, but more as a device to prove a point about the characters and their relationship.  

My fifth novel, "The Linen Butterfly," was finished early last year but is currently pending for a major rewrite.  It's a sequel to "The Goldenlea" that expands on the sci-fi themes of the first book.

Then we come to number six, "The Vimana Incident."  For this one, I decided to throw caution to the wind and do an honest-to-God Philip K. Dick tribute.  I had previously spoken to Phil's last wife, Tessa Dick, and to Johnathan Lethem (one of the editors of the Exegesis) on another matter but their insights proved valuable when I set out to write this novel last spring.  "The Vimana Incident" draws heavily on "Ubik," "The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch," and "A Maze of Death" thematically, but stylistically it is entirely my own.

The story begins in England in an alternate 1939 in which the Second World War has been averted by a space race.  It transports the reader to an off-world colony around the year 2606, Laon France in 1153, Post-WW2 England in 1946, and finally to Humboldt County, CA in 2039, with the US coping with the effects of climate change and civil war.  A strong theme of reincarnation runs through the story, but this is ain't Cloud Atlas!  Psychedelics, neurochemistry, the Bardo Thodol, the Egyptian Book of the Dead, and a dominant thread of Gnosticism make this book the sort of thing very few writers are doing any more.  The addition of anthropomorphic animal characters also turns the book into something of a postmodern Reynard story.

This is more adventurous than anything I've ever done by leaps and bounds.  I sincerely hope it wins the hearts of readers.

Sent

I sent my final draft just a few moments ago.

Unless there are any more issues, "The Vimana Incident" should be go for launch next weekend. My publisher, Furplanet, will make an announcement if it will be ready and I will link to the preorder page.

This might be the fastest I have ever taken a book from the first page of the first draft to publication. A year ago, this book existed only as a few random plot sketches going back to 2012 but no draft had ever been produced.

Hello Everyone!

Just a short hello to say that this will be my first blog focusing primarily on promoting and sharing my writing!

I've decided to use Blogger as my platform because it seems there are still a lot of users on it.  I had considered Wordpress but decided to use that platform for posts of a more personal nature (that account will not be linked here, sorry).

I've been writing since I was about six or seven and I first got serious about it back in my teen years.  I have lived all over the place, including Myrtle Beach, Madrid, London, and Las Vegas, but I have settled in Northwest Oregon and I do believe I'm happy putting down roots here.  The places I have lived and people I have met are a major inspiration for my writing.

I'm also a mystic, a self-described Gnostic Syncretist with a strong attraction to esoteric Christianity, western mysticism, and Buddhism.  I consider my name, Rose LaCroix, to be a wonderful synchronicity with my interests as the Rose Cross is a symbol that very much describes my spiritual outlook.  I won't go too much into my specific beliefs or experiences here but I've had my brush with the ineffable, and it often serves to put a fire under my muse when it gets lazy.

My first novel, "The Goldenlea," took five years to complete and five more years to publish.  During that time I was able to complete and publish a second novel, "Basecraft Cirrostratus," which was nominated for a Rainbow Award for LGBT fiction and for an Ursa Major Award for anthropomorphic fiction.  Last summer, I published my third novel, "Escape from St. Arned," which was a sequel to "Basecraft Cirrostratus."

My upcoming novel is part of the reason I've decided to make myself more visible on social media.  It's a hybrid of a 1930s space opera, a Phildickian science fiction story with Gnostic and psychedelic themes, and historic fiction with medieval settings.  The addition of anthropomorphic animal characters gives it almost the feel of a postmodern Reynard story.  If that sounds awesome, stick around.