Photo courtesy of Wayne Rambo. As this final week of the year has ground past, I’ve been spending time drawing up my plans for next year, some of which involve this blog and website. I figured I’d clue you in on some of the upcoming posts.
As part of the website revamp, I’ll be posting some stories and nonfiction stuff on this blog. My aim is to consolidate it all in one site, so there will be a wide variety – including my first published poem! At the same time, look for more regular posts, including posts building an overall 1000 Recommended Fantasy Books Reading List, writing advice, publication news, give-aways, and sundry cat pictures as I take advantage of WP’s capability for scheduling posts. I’ll be introducing new pages as I arrange them on this site, such as this Zalanthas page.
I’ll be working on including more images, but expect more podcasts and video entries as well as I convert more of the collection stories to audio as well as doing some podcasting for other sites.
Want access to a lively community of writers and readers, free writing classes, co-working sessions, special speakers, weekly writing games, random pictures and MORE for as little as $2? Check out Cat’s Patreon campaign.
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"(On the writing F&SF workshop) Wanted to crow and say thanks: the first story I wrote after taking your class was my very first sale. Coincidence? nah….thanks so much."
~K. Richardson
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Snippet from Hearts of Tabat
What did it mean? Because surely it must, happening three days in a row. It couldn't just be that she'd had the same dream randomly dropped into her head three times. She'd mulled it over, standing in her office staring out over the street steaming in the warm spring rain that pattered on the patterned paper umbrellas, printed with political slogans, that everyone carried.I’m working on the sequel to recently-finished Beasts of Tabat, whose working title is Hearts of Tabat. Here’s a snippet I wrote this morning.
Adelina did something she’d mocked other people for doing. She consulted a Dream Reader.
Everyone sensible knew that Dream Readers were frauds, making up stories to suit the needs they could read in their clients. Everyone’s dreams were as individual as their minds, everyone had their own internal cartography leading to entirely different parts of their brains.
But the dream had come three mornings in a row. Three mornings when she woke up with a start, fear clamping its fingers, slender as reeds, strong as iron, around her throat, her hands clenched so hard that her nails bit into the heels of her hands.
She was walking along a bridge, which narrowed further and further, so much only a single person could walk across it, then crumbled away in the middle, leaving a two foot gap. She knew a wide enough step would take her across it, but when she looked down, she saw the water, seething with toothy eels, their lanterned eyes staring up at her, waiting for her to fall.
She saw Bella far, far away, down the long road on the other side, back turned as she walked away, too far to hear Adelina calling after her. Snowflakes were falling around her, as though a cloud echoed her progress overhead, and moonlight glinted on the snow, tinting it purple and red.
Finally she gathered her wits and went back a few steps. She crouched, then pushed herself forward and ran to jump and land on the other side. Far below, the eels ground their teeth, a sound that crawled up her spine and along her shoulders.
A headshake, like a dog cleaning itself of rain, chased the sensation away.
Bella had vanished over the horizon. Parks lay to either side, and she knew they were Tabatian parks, but ones she’d never discovered before. The notion delighted her: she’d investigate their histories, incorporate that into her long-time project, a complete history of the city.
But which one to enter first? She hesitated.
The left-hand one held a fabulous menagerie surrounded by a high, green-painted fence. She could hear the creatures roaring and whinnying, baying and moaning and a calliope’s wheedle. Fireworks arced and popped above it.
On the right was a more sedate water-park. But it held nooks and crannies as enticing as any brightly-colored booth: serene statues had placards waiting to be deciphered, and a massive fountain in the center roiled with carp colored white and purple and red.
It came to her that the righthand side would cost her no coins, but that the menagerie would require the price of admission, so she fumbled at her belt, thinking she’d let the lack or not determine which way she went. But the coins in her pouch were unfamiliar and she was uncertain whether or not the ticket seller would accept them.
She hesitated, torn between choices.
Something was coming padding down the road towards her. A Sphinx and a Manticore, unchained, unrestrained. They walked without hurry, placid and implacable and deadly. Their mouths moved as though they were talking to each other, but they were too far to hear.
Where had Bella gone?
She looked from side to side, but something in the way they walked told her they would follow, no matter where she went.
They came so close she could smell the stink of the Manticore, hear the sound of their steps on the road. They were silent now as they came towards her”¦
Then she’d wake.
What did it mean? Because surely it must, happening three days in a row. It couldn’t just be that she’d had the same dream randomly dropped into her head three times. She’d mulled it over, standing in her office staring out over the street steaming in the warm spring rain that pattered on the patterned paper umbrellas, printed with political slogans, that everyone carried.
***
Love the world of Tabat and want to spend longer in it? Check out Hearts of Tabat, the latest Tabat novel! Or get sneak peeks, behind the scenes looks, snippets of work in progres, and more via Cat’s Patreon.
Exploring Near + Far's Interior Art: Row 1 (Giveaway Day One)
Row 1
This week sees the book getting officially launched on Wednesday. This week I’ll be doing a series of five posts about the interior art. Comment on a post to be entered to win one of three pieces of Near + Far jewelry; comment on all five posts and you’ll be entered five times.
So left to right above are five of the interior illustrations from the book. One of the things Mom said to me last night was how much she was enjoying the afternotes, so I’m trying not to repeat those too much, but to add a touch more to them.
Leftmost is a star like pattern, which accompanies far future story “Timesnip,” in which 18th century Victoria Woodhull copes with life in the future as a traveling saleswoman dealing in time travel. It’s actually a version of one of the other illustrations, arranged in a star cluster, which mark didn’t point out to me till later. That seems very fitting, given the circularity of the story.
The second pattern is one that accompanies the story “Amid the Words of War.” Its cramped interior echoed the desperation on Six’s part that I wanted to convey over the course of the story. The story is about war and conflict and the distrust they force on each other. The pieces in the book are black and white and here Mark’s chosen to create a white “eye” for a number of the illustrations which (to me) just adds to the coolness and makes each one become a creature presenting itself sideways to the camera.
The third design accompanies the story “Kallakak’s Cousins”. Again, there’s that eye looking out, and sometimes it’s a creature and sometimes a face, sometimes a helmet built of butterflies and submarines.
The fourth accompanies a flash piece, “Futures.” It resembles a submarine, or perhaps a rocket ship, although once more there’s an eye, set dead center in this case.
The fifth is used with the slipstream afterlife story, “Bus Ride to Mars.” It’s one of Mark’s older pieces, a sideways slash of a piece that appears differently in here than in the book itself.
Near + Far jewelry, based on interior art by Mark W. Tripp.
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