Centernia: Building a Castle

Music Feature I write Centernia to an incredibly eclectic mix of music.  Sometimes it's the melody that gets me, the lyrics of the song, or simply the voice of the singer. Today's feature from my playlist: Heart: Alone Album: Bad Animals 1987 I think I prefer the Kim Sozzi candlelight version, but it's not presently available on YouTube. However, this video features Heart in is 80s hair-band glory.  The video is great, the costuming, the mysterious setting, and the fact they throw a white horse in there for fun.

Saving old drafts is an important part of the writing process, as is accepting the fact that sometimes life can take you down the wrong editing path.  I had to learn this hard lesson in the past few months when I hit a few unexpected challenges. My daughter was born in September.  The Centernia sequel, The Crimson Mage was completed in the weeks prior to her arrival.  I was pleased that I was on track to release the book by the end of the year.  I figured I had plenty of time finish editing it, run it by my trusted circle of proofreaders, and then send it to the copyeditor.  It seemed that the book would be out by December. People had cautioned that the baby would send a wrench into my plans, but I generally try to ignore naysayers and steam (or stumble) through life.  In my mind I had a perfect plan to keep working once my girl arrived:  While she napped, I would edit and write.  If sleep deprivation became awful, I would switch to formula an...

September 2nd holds significance to Centernia as it's the day Muse died and the same day first printed proof arrived in the mail.  It truly marks the beginning of Return to the Castle. This has been a whirlwind, and I have learned so much and am so grateful.  We did a pre-order at RocCon in Rochester, NY in mid-September, and followed it with a full launch at New York Comic Con in October.  After which, the book was whisked to Detroit for Youmacon, Genericon in Troy, Anime Boston, Tora Con, Sci-Fi Valley Con. I learned some rough lessons too.  The first edition was edited, but errors still snuck through and I put out an updated edition in February. The hardest lesson I've learned is that writing a sequel is not as easy as I had anticipated.  My husband chides me, reminding me that the core story of Return to the Castle was the story I had written and re-written over a half dozen times before I froze it into its final printed form.  It's natural that t...

Where does the curse blood'ura come from? Writing the curses of Centernia was as enjoyable as creating the creatures and places. Blood'ura is an abbreviation for Blood of Aurora, very similar insult to the Shakespearian zounds, meaning Christ's Wounds. There is a joy in creating insults that are really close to the english in cadence and consonant sounds. I have growing library file where I collect these bad-sounding yet technically completely innocuous words. My favorites? Maggot suckin', bloody shunt, rock sucker, goat screw, tick and jackhole. In the next book, will we learn more about the fallout between Jessica's parents? Yes. There is definitely a lot more story to unearth from the past. The scars run deep. Why did you decide to write Return to the Castle? Where do you get your ideas? I get asked this question a lot. I wrote Return to the Castle because I had to. The characters have a comfortable residence in my mind, and they tell me their stori...

How do you pronounce the names and places of Centernia?  Here is a very straightforward guide to all names and places unusual! Castlefolk Nicoveren Aristo Verdian: "Neek-o-varen Ah-risto Vare-de-an" Teren Wynter:   "Tare-en Winter" Artemisa Wynter: "Art-a-mee-sa Winter" Kaity Cosette: "Kate-e Co-zette" Corwin Evansi: "Core-win Ev-an-see" Jared Evansi: "Ja-red Ev-an-see" Alba: "All-ba" Savina: "Sah-vee-nah" Wadjette:  "Wa-jet" Jiberty: "Jib-er-ty" Abrianna: "Ah-bree-ana" Aden: "Aye-den" Otto Onyxgrove: "Ot-oh On-ex-grove" Elina: "Ell-eena" Circusfolk Amberynn:  "Amber-rin" Malachi: "Male-uhk-eye" Cobalt: "Co-ballt" Places Centernia:  "Sent-urn-e-uh" Aurumice:  "Or-uh-mice" or "Aura-mice" Trabalis: "Trah-ball-is" Briken: "Bry-ken"

I generally don't share personal issues with readers, but my online hiatus has been so long it's been noticeable.  The good news is, as of this posting, I am back to my usual online schedule of one blog post a week, and more Centernia art. As some of you know from meeting me at conventions, I'm expecting a baby in September. :-)  In order to avoid a studio/nursery combo room, we bought a house.  We packed and moved in late June. The month of July, I direct Kids on Campus, the largest and oldest art tech summer camp program hosted at RIT.  This is a hugely time intensive camp that took almost all of my energy. Normally, I de-stress by writing and drawing, but the universe has a terrible sense of humor.  Since April I've been plagued by an unusual pregnancy symptom.  The nerves in my spine were compressed and gave me crippling pain when sitting.  Yes, sitting.  I could lie down, walk a mile, pull weeds on my hands and knees.....but I couldn't s...

A revised edition of Return to the Castle was released in February 2015. This edition catches many of the editing errors that snuck through in the first release.   The most notable difference is the chapter numbers. Though the books have the same content and the same scenes, they were split differently so that the new edition has one less chapter. You can figure out which version of the book you have by looking at the back cover. A little bird has been added on the newer edition for easy identification. :-)