As I progress through the planning stages of the story, I'll keep detailed notes and examples over at the private Zero2Novel forums about what I did and why. Hopefully that will serve as a good example of what you can do, or spark more ideas for your own stories. Of course, I'm asking for your opinions on the posts as well! That's what we're here for - to help each other out.

I've come up with a story idea and sent it his way, so we'll see what his opinions are, and whether the idea fits within his world as good as I think it does. There are one or two points that I need clarification on from him (and one is a huge one that could break the idea if it doesn't work).

If you're a member of the Zero2Novel course, then I hope this will help you in your own writing journey. If you're not, and you've always wanted to write a novel, then what are you waiting for? Learn how to write your novel today.

Hope you enjoy them:

The Sea

Tierra del Fuego

That describes my life right now.

All has been calm on the website front, but that doesn't mean that nothing is going on. I do apologize for the lack of updates on Raising The Sun over the last couple of weeks. That will pick up again next week, and I hope to have it completed within the next 2 weeks.

What's been holding me up? Yup. I heard you asking that. Glad you did, though. Two things: Work, and Play.

Work

We've been forging headlong, making great progress on two different websites that will start to bring in some residual income, as well as getting a third into the planning stages. That third website is going to be fantastic, and of interest to any of you that like to write. I'll be sure to keep you posted on that one when I can release more information. Needless to say, with the economy like it is, and slow-paying clients, we've been keeping our heads down and working hard on projects that we believe in and feel have a great chance of success for us and for the people that use them.

Play

A couple of weeks ago I was asked to join a band with some friends. After a lot of thought and talking with the family, I said yes. It's been a hectic few weeks getting up to speed on the songs and ready for this upcoming weekend.

The band is Captain Black's Sea Dogges, a pirate band that does traditional sea songs and plenty of originals. I'm thrilled to be a part of this, and rehearsals are bringing the songs together very nicely.

A lot of great things look to be happening with the band in the near future, but the most immediate thing is that we've been asked to perform at Pyrate Con in New Orleans this weekend. It's a fantastic opportunity, with lots of great exposure, including being recorded and interviewed by the Travel Channel!

That's it for this month. Until next time - keep chasing your dreams!
Lonnie 

As most of you know, I've been unemployed for the last couple of months. That brings with it the usual tightening of the wallet. On Friday I received a little note with some extra money. There was no name attached, no sender on the envelope. The note simply read:

Do what you will with the money, but we really hope you'll have fun with it.

To whomever you are: thank you! We did have some fun with it, and were practical with it also. You have no idea how you made our day.

It started when I installed an app on my iPhone to track the Amazon sales rank of the book. Let's face it, the sales aren't generally great. I haven't put nearly enough time into marketing it to make it happen, so I thought for sure that something was off on the app when I opened it this morning and saw that my sales had dropped from 1.2 million to around 163,000. That means that, somehow, I had quite a few sales yesterday, and I'm not sure where they came from. That's the whole reason that I signed up for a free account over at RankForest anyway, was to try to figure out correlations between marketing I did do, and sales.

The only idea thing I've done in the last few days was to post a review on one of Rick Riordan's books, The Lightning Thief (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Book 1) , on Amazon. Surely, it couldn't have made that much of a difference, could it have?

Doesn't really matter, though. I'll take it!

When I first started writing Daughter of the Sun I never expected to be part of a textbook! I never went to college for creative writing. Heck, I am not even sure I can explain what a dangling participle is!

And yet, I was contacted by a teacher in the UK writing a textbook for the English language, aimed at teenagers aged 16-18. He is needing excerpts from various genres and asked if he could include a few chapters from my novel in the textbook.

I was so flattered that the only obvious answer could have been YES!

The arguments of the Council washed over Betzalel, unheard. He did not want to be here. He should not be here. His parents were dead, died during an expedition to confirm whether or not the Breath was failing.

“Nonsense,” he said, startled to realize that he had said it out loud.

“Betzalel?” The King’s voice.

“The Breath is not failing.”

The Council exploded, but one Zadikim stood and raised his voice above the rest. “Open your eyes, young man! There have been reports from all around Zera’im of disasters when a Chiy’el has Breathed.”

“The Breath is life. It is energy.” Betzalel could not hide the irritation from his voice. He stood to confront the idiot.

Acteon leaned over and placed a hand on his arm, cautioning him, but he shook it off.

“We have all been taught the same—life energy does not die. Not ever! It only changes form. Father’s beard, it’s how the Breath works!”

Several other Zadikim stood and started yelling at him, but the King rapped his gavel on the arm of the throne and the men quieted.

Acteon stood as well, pushing gently on Betzalel’s shoulder until he relented and sat. “Please pardon my friend. He is new to the Council and just learned of his parents deaths. He means no disrespect.”

“Betzalel,” the King said, “We understand your grief has hold of your tongue, but we do have rules that must be followed here to maintain order.”

Betzalel nodded. There was nothing else that he could do. If these fools could not see what was in front of them… He grabbed the amulet’s box and tucked it under his arm, preparing to leave. Acteon glared at him, shaking his head slightly. Betzalel sighed. He was right. That would be against customs.

“Zadikim Heber, you may proceed,” the King said.

“What our young Zadikim does not seem to understand is that we have come to believe that our teachings have been wrong.”

Acteon gripped Betzalel’s forearm, pressing it firmly against the chair. He leaned in and whispered, “You must not rise to the bait. Don’t prove them right.”

Betzalel held his gaze for a breath, before slumping back into his seat.

“While it is true,” Heber continued, “that the energy cannot be destroyed, there is nothing to stop it from leaving this realm and crossing over into Olhaba.”

Betzalel sat up, his attention pricked by the memory of his water clock, and the shimmering magic that had turned to gray.

He stood, shaking off Acteon’s grip. “May I speak?”

The King glanced at Heber, who shrugged and sat once more, and the nodded.

“If the Breath is crossing over, then what is holding the land together?”

The Council quieted, watching him with curious gazes.

Betzalel scanned the room, meeting gazes of one Zadikim to the next. “If we use the Breath of the land, and then it dissipates into Olhaba, does it not stand that the land itself is crumbling? It is not the Breath that we must be worried about, but our very lives.”

“How do you come to this conclusion,” Heber asked.

“Just this morning—”

The floor shook around them. The wall behind the King split, the crack appearing in a breath. The Temple itself groaned around them, wailing in pain.

A statue fell outside the Inner Temple gates, shattering and throwing sharp marble shards into the feet and legs of the guards posted there. They roared in pain and tried to run, but the wounds were too grave.

All around him, the Zadikim panicked. They Breathed, forming shields of life to repel the collapsing ceiling. He could not see their Breath, but he could feel it crackling all around him.

“Don’t Breathe!” he shouted. “You’ll only make it worse!”

But they did not listen to him.

Again, the walls groaned in pain, more cracks forming spiderwebs along the walls.

He grabbed his box and saw it again.

Across the Temple, the ceiling gave way, dropping carriage-sized boulders onto the Zadikim. Heber reacted first. He Breathed deeply, spreading his shield over as many men as he could. That was their downfall.

Inside the gold, shimmering bubble the men disappeared. The world inside the shield turned from bloodied reality, to the gray, lifeless land of the dead. Olhaba.

It was happening.

He turned, saw Acteon drawing a Breath, and shoved him, shattering his concentration.

“What in the name of the Father,” roared Acteon.

“Breathing now will kill you. Don’t you see?” Betzalel pointed to where Heber had once stood, where the land of the dead had replaced the land of the living.

Acteon gasped, his face drawn in horror.

Tucking the box tighter under one arm, he grabbed Acteon with the other. As they passed other Zadikim, he urged them to stop, but could not take the time to make them see past their terror.

They raced to the gates, dodging the rain of boulders from the collapsing ceiling. He glanced behind him, and what he saw made him run faster. The walls and ceiling were collapsing like a rug dropping to the ground. From the wall behind where the King had sat, the ceiling gave way, shattering on the ground—and the Zadikim under it. It came closer and closer to them, chasing them to the gates.

“Run!”

He let go of Acteon, knowing he had seen it, also.

As they plunged through the gates, shoving it open with their shoulders, the other statue fell, slamming against the iron gate. It buckled, but did not come off of its hinges. Instead, it slammed shut, as if blown by a hurricane’s gale, crashing into Acteon’s foot.

The crack of bone was audible, even over the roar of destruction behind them.

A scream sounded ahead of them. Betzalel looked up and saw Ruth frozen in fear as an outer wall came crashing toward her.

It was instinct that saved her.

Betzalel Breathed, grabbing her with a rope of energy and yanking her back. He released it as soon as he could, unwilling to risk the side-effects any more than necessary. But he had to save her.

She was shaken, but she managed to get to her feet as Betzalel lifted Acteon to his feet. Ruth’s eyes widened as she saw the blood on Acteon’s feet, and rushed to his other side. Together, they supported him, hobbling as fast as they could through the Outer Temple and down into the relative safety of the grass below. ]]> Thu, 19 Feb 2009 14:07:08 -0800 http://lonnieezell.com/blog/raising-the-sun/raising-the-sun-ii Lonnie Ezell - Fantasy Thriller Author http://lonnieezell.com/blog/raising-the-sun/raising-the-sun-i Betzalel leaned closer to the clock, watching with wide eyes as the drop of water slid down the gold coil. When it reached the bottom, it paused, getting heavy until, at last, it stretched and then let loose of the coil. It dropped a hands-width and splashed into the bowl. That was the last drop.

The water rippled as the bowl dropped onto the lever. A small click, and the bowl hummed as energy coursed through it, evaporating the water into four jets of steam that spun and danced up to the top of the glass dome. While the steam condensed, quartz hammers released, tapping the golden bells. The sound was the purest one he had built yet.

“It works!” He jumped out of the chair, spinning and dancing, until the clanging and ringing from the other thirty clocks in his shop stopped him.

“Father’s beard,” he groaned, “I am going to be late.”

He drew a deep Breath, pulling the life-force from an amber rock the size of his fist that was laying on the work table. The beetle inside glowed as he filled himself with its energy, and funneled it back into the lab itself.

As he exhaled, plans that were sprawled along his desk slid together into a perfect stack, then rolled themselves into a tidy tube of blueprints. A leather string slid around it, tying itself into a square knot.

He threw on his cloak to ward himself against the chill air outside and grabbed the roll of plans. As he rushed to the door, he heard the first crack.

Turning, he saw the glass casing of his newly finished clock expand, spidering up and around the clock. That wasn’t what drew his breath, though.

Inside, the pool of water thrummed to the beat of some unseen magic. Across the surface tiny sparks of light shimmered. The colors were hypnotic, bright reds and oranges. It was when they turned to shades of grey and reflected a world that was not here that he paled.

He drummed his fingertips on the roll of plans, their nervous tapping seeming to race his speeding heart. The carriage slowed to a stop in front of the temple, but he was out the door and striding past the guards before the horses could stop and whinny in relief. He took the steps in twos, and waiting the three breaths it took for the doorman to open the gates wide enough for him to enter, his feet tapping on the oakfield stone entryway.

“You shouldn’t keep father waiting,” Ruth said. Her words were stern, but her voice purred. Her smile was every bit as brilliant as he remembered it. Her eyes lit with some internal purity. How he loved this woman, no matter that he could not have her. His breeding was not pure enough to marry the King’s daughter.

“Ruth,” he greeted her. “How is he today?”

“Oh, I am well,” she said, turning to match his hectic pace, sliding a little too close for his comfort within her father’s walls. “You should slow down. Enjoy our time together.” Her fingers intermingled with his. “You do not come around often enough, anymore.”
He turned to her and slowed. “Your father made his wishes apparent last month.” He tried to untangle his fingers, but she tightened her grip and smirked.

“And yet, it is not my father’s wishes that keep you coming back. We both know that.”

He sighed. He could never lie to her. “You know that, were it possible, I would…”

“Betzalel, old man!” Even though he was only two years younger than Betzalel, Acteon’s voice still had the rough edge that he normally associated with too many years of smoking the pipe.

Betzalel pulled his hand free of Ruth’s grasp and felt the knots in his shoulder tighten at her quiet giggle.

“Acteon.” He nodded to the noble. “I thought you were away.”

Acteon’s smile faded. “I just returned.”

Betzalel’s steps faltered. “Did they return with you?”

“Come, old friend,” he said, his smile returning, though not quite as genuine as before. “The King is waiting.”

Betzalel knew Acteon well enough to know he would say no more. He was much to proper for that, despite his other failings. Holding tight onto the various emotions that their return brought back, he shifted the blueprints under his arm and strode forward. Realizing that Acteon was not following, he turned in time to see Ruth kiss him on the cheek, then leave, her hand lingering on his arm.

The inner temple buzzed with vibrant discussions among the priests gathered. They formed groups of three, sometimes five, leaning into hear each other among the noise. Betzalel could not make out the words, catching only a phrase here or a word there. None of it made any sense.

He scanned the room, searching the crowd for their faces, but could not find them.

“Ah, Betzalel,” the King intoned from his simple throne at the end of the temple. “I see you bring plans. Good.” He waved his hand, signaling for Betzalel to come closer. The murmurs turned to whispers, and then to silence, as the gathered priests turned to watch him.

Betzalel stopped in front of the dais, dropping to a knee and bowing. His heart pounded, surely loud enough for all gathered to hear.

“Yes, yes, we know you serve. Stand up.”

Slowly, he stood, the muscles in his arms and legs quivering from the tension. He swallowed his fear, and forced a smile as he looked at his King.

He sat on the throne, more haggard than the last time Betzalel had been here. The quiet confidence he had always projected had twisted into exhaustion. He wanted to ask after his health, but that would not be proper in this gathering, like it would have been at one of the meals their families used to frequently share. Instead, he gritted his teeth to keep the questions back.
A lessor priest strode to the King, handing him a lacquered teak box.

The breath caught in Betzalel’s throat. He looked away, searching the faces of the men to the left and right of him, but was still unable to find the faces he had known would be there. Something was wrong. New questions formed in his mind, and these he was unable to restrain.

“The expedition? What did they find?”

The King stood and walked to the base of the dais, stopping in front of him. It was not the space that a King would keep with his subjects, but the intimate space two friends might share. He held the simple box in front of him.

“I am truly sorry.”

He took the box with quaking hands, grief welling inside of him. Biting a lip to keep himself steady, he grasped the round box with one hand, pausing, before he slowly lifted the lid.

The red crushed velvet that lined the interior of the box was worn with the ravages of weather and time. This box had always travelled with them, just as every other council member kept theirs close at all times. The amulet fit perfectly inside, held gently by velvet. The gold chain that extended from the palm-sized amulet and lay in a perfect circle around the edge of the box. The amulet itself was a ring of burnished bronze, carved with intricate patterns that never stopped—perhaps clouds on fire—that held a single piece of smooth amber in its center.

It was not the amber, nor the ever-shifting shapes that traced its edge, that gave the amulet its power. It was the symbol behind it, and the energy that generations of his family had funneled through it. This amulet was his family’s only claim to the Council. Seeing it here, handed to him by his King, could only mean one thing.

“Your father and mother were among the best of us. I wish I did not have to give this to you, but you will make your parents even prouder of you as you take your turn on the Council.”

There has been a ton of great news lately that should have any do-it-yourself author excited. Here's a sampling of the recent things that have me excited. I'll discuss an upcoming option below.

• Podcasting Your Novel: Publishing's Next Wave?

• Books Gone Wild: The Digital Age Reshapes Literature

In a recent interview, Scott Sigler said that

My vision is that you have a flagship product, say my novel THE ROOKIE. You make that flagship available in all possible formats, both paid (such as hardcovers) and free (such as podcasts). From there, you offer side stories, back stories, character sketches, meta-fiction, anime, machinima, all kinds of work that is not necessary for enjoying the main product. The main product stands alone, you never hold that hostage. This extra content is what you sell, for a very low price. So it follows the old razor model — you give the razor away for free, you sell the blades. If people really like THE ROOKIE’s main story, they will be happy to pay 99 cents for short fiction, $5.00 for a digital sourcebook with timelines and indexes, maybe $9.99 for a novel- length work of a secondary character, etc. You give the customer the main story, then they choose if its worth their money to read associated content.

And I totally agree with him on this. This is one of the things that spurred me on to start writing serialized fiction on the site. Though, to be honest, I first heard about this on Mike Stackpole's The Secrets podcast.

It seems that every week something new and exciting for us makes the headlines. The latest story, and that one that prompted me to write this post, was about Google and Kindle making their content available for mobile phones. In other words, the 230,000 books that are available on the Kindle will soon be available to so many more people! While it hasn't happened yet, it will soon, and it vastly expands the reach of the DIY author.

I, for one, am thrilled to be a part of this. If you're not, yet, then write your novel and get started in this wonderful time for authors.

I came back to work from ringing in the New Year only to find that I had been laid off. Clients were behind on payments. Work had slowed down. Basically the economy had finally started to take its toll on the midwest Civil Engineering field.

And that just might have been the best thing to have happened to me, professionally, in a very long time.

I've never had a problem with coming up with new ideas for great projects. It's always been the time. Now that I have the time, I'm working on a couple of exciting projects (the first of which you can read about below!).

Besides Zero2Novel, an online novel writing course, I am working on an iPhone application that will be a huge aid to anyone wanting to make their dreams and goals a reality in the fastest way possible. This one is taking a little longer to get out, since I have to actually learn how to program the crazy thing. :) I've done enough programming in the past, though, that it's coming along.

New Fiction

What about Book 2? That's a question I've been hearing quite a bit over the last few months, and I wish I had a better answer, but I do have a plan.

Raising The Sun

Raising The Sun is a new "short story" that will be released in serialized form both through my website and my Facebook page.

It will tell the story of Betzalel and the Overlord and how they created the Temple of the Sun nearly 1000 years before Daughter of the Sun takes place, and why these two friends became bitter enemies.

Starting next week a new scene/chapter will be released as I get them done, at least once a week. You can read it online for free until it's finished. A week or two after it's completed, I'll take it off of the sites and put it up for sale for a small fee, probably $2.

Putting the outline together and seeing how people change has been such a blast. I'm looking forward to letting you see it.

Heir of Fire

This is the Book 2 that everyone asks about. While I have several chapters already written, it's nowhere close to where I had hoped it would be by this point.

I am considering releasing this in a similar format to Raising The Sun, but have not decided for sure on that. If I do, I'll have to flesh out the outline a little more to make sure I'm comfortable with where everything is going before starting that project. If I do go this route, it will start up shortly after Raising The Sun closes.

A New Look For The Website

A couple of months ago I finally managed to get a brand new look for my website up and running. It's built on a brand new foundation that is so flexible that I'll be able to do anything I can think of on it. I've gotten quite a few compliments on the new look, and I hope you like it, too, and find it easy to use.

Another thing in the works is an interactive world atlas. This is about 70% done on my computer and I hope to get it live before too long (though I have a few bugs to work through and a couple things to figure out how to do!). Keep checking the site for it, because I think it's going to be great!

Two New Formats For Daughter of the Sun

Over the last couple of months, I have also managed to give you more options to read my fantasy thriller Daughter of the Sun. I am very happy with the way that both of these are working out. They're both easy to use.

If you have an Amazon Kindle or Apple iPhone/iPod Touch and want to take some page-turning fantasy fiction with you, be sure to grab your copy.

• iPhone Version
• Kindle Version

NOTE: If you haven't read the book yet, you can read it for free online.

or get your own paperback version at Amazon:

Zero2Novel - My New Course for Novel Writing

I am thrilled to announce the release of something completely different from me, and I hope it will help you get that dream of writing a novel out of your daydreams and onto paper!

The course pulls together all of the tips and techniques from my years of studying the craft of writing, along with some brand new ideas that I've just found on the best ways to use the mind to help you out, including:

• How to get in touch with your Muse Mind for almost instant story ideas
• What the least information you need to get the best characters for your story
• The fastest way to plot your novel
• Speed techniques to help you write faster
• and more!

If you have ever finished a book and thought "I could write a better novel than that!" or had an idea for a story flitting around inside your head thinking that you would get to it someday, but someday never seems to get here, than I hope you will check out my new course. I firmly believe that everyone has a story in them. Isn't it time to take your dream of a story and turn it into a publishable novel?

Don't put your dreams on hold any longer. Visit Zero2Novel.com and get started today.

"Company X is laying off another 50-kagillion people"

"Stocks are sinking through the toilet."

"Another Publishing company just closed their doors."

But I'm here to say Don't listen to them! Anyone who has been to my old bog before knows that I am a believer in the Law of Attraction. The more I learn about the way the world works--through Quantum Physics to the research of different belief systems--confirms my belief that it lies at the base of every religion and nearly every magic system mankind has ever devised. The more that we, as a country, focus on how bad things are, the worse things are going to get.

I think that's one of the things that I like most about President Obama. If nothing else happens during his presidency, I think that the hope that he has brought back into the American people alone will be worth it.

Wow. I'm a little scattered this morning! :)

As manh of you know, I've been unemployed for about a month now. And it's the best thing that could have ever happened to me. Projects that I have had gestating in my mind for months but never done anything with are now coming to reality. I have both time and the need to make things happen. Sure, I could have wallowed in stress and self-pity (and, to be honest, there were a few of those days) but I kept thinking back to the Law of Attraction and asking myself "What am I creating with this focus?" And the answer was never what I wanted to be creating.

In the next few days, you'll get to see the result of years of studying the art and craft of writing, combined with my interest in the potential of the human mind, come to life. This project has been in my mind for at least 9 months, possibly longer. Time, and lack of a pressing need, kept it from happening. I am thrilled to be able to share with everyone my thoughts on writing (and life, to some extent) in an online course for novel writing. I'll let you know when it happens.

After this, I've got a project for the iPhone I will be working on that will hopefully help thousands of people realize their own dreams.

Times are hard, sure, and we have to be realistic about it, but we don't have to focus on it. What our life becomes is within our hands. It's time to cheer up and have fun and make the life of our dreams. Perhaps the economy is here to spur on thousands of more people into bringing their own stagnant dreams into reality.

Always keep chasing your dreams.

For some reason, though, the book description is not showing up, and it's not linking to the physical edition of the book. Hopefully, those issues can get resolved shortly, though I have not had the best of luck getting a couple of other issues resolved with Amazon's marketing department.

One of the things that I've been struggling with is how to market a fiction book effectively on the web. Traditional online marketing will tell you to find the keywords that apply to your product, and write copy that is targeted to that so that people can find you via the search engines. That's step one, but that's also the difficult one for a fantasy novel. I mean, think about it.... how do you find new fantasy novels to try? For me... it's almost exclusively at the recomendation of a friend, though I will occasionally stumble on one that looks good in the store, or online. Giving away the audio version for free was the first step a couple of years ago. Since then, I really haven't done much marketing until recently, when I decided it was time to get serious about this whole thing, while I was ramping up for the next book. I mean, if I ever want to make a living at this, people have to know I exist, right? 

After a little while stumbling through keyword research sites I realized that enough people were searching for "free online novels" that I might be able to do something with that. I jumped over to Google to see what the competition would be like, and found, to my great pleasure, several sites already listing free online novels. So I submitted my novels to several of the sites and, within a few days (it was the holidays, after all) my book was listed on them. For anyone else looking to market their fiction online, here's the sites that have listed it, and how the traffic has worked out for me over the last week. (Keep in mine that while all of these have been listed for close to the full week, the top result is actually a day or two shy of it, I believe.)

• www.free-online-novels.com/  This site is maintained by Jennifer L. Armstrong and does advertise her books first. (Good for her!)  32 referrals
• online-novels.blogspot.com/2008/09/fantasy-novels-m-15.html 7 referrals
• webfictionguide.com/listings/daughter-of-the-sun/ 2 referrals

I obviously cannot say that that these results will be typical or even that the sites will remain in the same order of results. They may work better or worse for you, but at least it's another way to help people learn about you.

And to the maintainers of those sites... thank you very much for all the hard work!

Matt has always been a huge proponent of the DIY movement, and his latest activities are very cool. On January 25 he will be doing a "live concert" out of his home, broadcast to wherever you happen to be watching from. For anyone that donates $20 or more, you even got high-quality mp3's of all of the original songs. What an awesome idea!

Wishing you the best of luck with this, Matthew, and you can be sure that I'll be there!

I've made a resolution. By the April 1, 2009 I will have the first draft of my second book, Heir of Fire, wrapped up and ready for editing.(And, no, this isn't an April Fools joke. That'll come later.)

Don't get me wrong, I do have a ton of stuff going on, but I need to set this as a priority. You deserve it. Heck, I deserve it. And I could use all of the encouragement you can hand out. That's a lot of words to get wrapped up in three months time.

I stared at her, the words refusing to come. Why had I spent so many hours at this? How could I answer this in way that would get her away from here, on to buying more shoes or tricking more lost children into the wood stoves? Then I realized…

“This site is for you, the readers, who want and deserve more than a simple blog or splash page with the ISBN and links to buy. Readers are savvy, smart, and will run from some cheesy website that looks your cousin Vinny made it in an afternoon.”

She glared at me. “Vinny ain’t so bad.”

“No, no. Vinnie’s a great guy, concrete boots and smoking guns included.” As the coals in her eyes lit to match the red of her nails, I knew I wasn’t helping my case.

I raised both hands, hoping to placate her as I continued. “I have completely redone the site with some software powerful enough that I’m not trapped by it. I’m not limited to what the CMS guys thought I should be doing. That means that I can provide fantastic content for the my readers and fellow writers that I could never have done with the old software. At least, not easily.”

Her fire subsided a bit, though embers still glowed within her sockets. “So. What’s that mean for me?”

“You like the book, right?”

She nodded, slowly.

“Soon, you’ll be able to explore the world of Zera’im in a wonderful, interactive atlas of the world. You’ll be able to get info on the lands that hasn’t even been released in the books, yet. And find out about the leaders of the countries, who they’re related to, and all of the other showbiz gossip you love so much.”

Her frown didn’t quite turn to a smile, but at least it wasn’t pointed down any longer. “What about when I feel like writing?”

I laughed. “You? Write?”

One look from her and I choked the laughter back. “Hey, I’ve already got a great novel template you can use while planning and writing your novel. Soon, I’ll have some other templates and forms you can use to keep track of characters, locations, and more. I’m also going to be giving out free articles with my thoughts and advice on writing fantasy fiction. Does that help?”

She smiled, now, though it did little to warm my heart. “Yes, dear, it sure does.” She ran a sharpened nail along my cheek, not quite drawing blood.

Damn, my muse can be such a demanding little wench.