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https://animoto.com/play/R1H1ozxJBgy3wxHP40k4Dw

I LOVE making book trailers. I’m a photographer as well as a writer, and I could pretty much open my own stock photo store if I wanted to. So I always use my own photos for these trailers.

When I make these, I write the script first. Then I go into my photo library and start pulling photos that I think will work. I always pull way more than I end up using. And sometimes I find a perfect photo, and then tweak the script so I can use it. Then I take photos that I need that are specific to the trailer I’m making. Most of the photos in this one are taken with my iPhone 7 camera, especially the ones around water, because I have a waterproof case. The rest are taken with my trusty Nikon SLR.

One of the challenges for the Flights of Dragons trailer was that I’d already made trailers for several of the original stories. I ended up stealing some photos from the old videos, which was kinda cool. And writing this script for seven stories, as opposed to one novel, was quite a challenge. After I’d come up with an entire video and sent it to my editor, she came back with the dreaded words, “I think this script is not working.” Sigh. After more work, we came up with something that works better.

For Flights of Dragons, most of the photos are ones I took at our camp on Lake Champlain. The ones that are right at water level, I took from my kayak. A notable exception is the very first shot, which is actually from the top of Cadillac Mountain, in Bar Harbor, Maine. My characters never actually go there, but it’s a magical sunset, and one of the major ideas in the book is that the dragons learn how to fly in daylight and not be seen by humans (“A Sky Full of Wings.”)

You’ll notice that the waterline in the third photo, the one with the unusual cloud over the mouth of the bay, is not level. This is done intentionally to simulate being on dragonback. (Okay, so this is a photo I stole from one of the older videos, taken before I had an easy way to straighten horizons. And I’ve kinda gotten used to it the way it is. Sometimes perfect isn’t better.)

The shot of the wine glasses is also one I stole from an older video, and they symbolize Josh and Varian’s wedding. (“A Sky Full of Wings.”) The bright blue background behind the glasses is actually a swimming pool. The glasses are sitting the edge and I was really worried about knocking them in, breaking them, and getting glass in the pool. The glasses were my mother’s. Another good reason not to break them.

The prism is one I bought at our local fair several years ago. I love bright, sparkly things, and it makes rainbows all over my bedroom in the morning sun. The fingernail polish I wish I could claim is my daughters’, but it’s actually mine. Like Josh, I like sparkly toes in particular. In flip-flops, of course. The palm tree really is in Florida (“The Dragon and the Palm Tree”). I describe my adventure flying to Florida in the story, minus all the passing out. The cloud shots are from the plane window.

The sword belongs to a friend of mine who collects them. It’s always handy to have a friend with swords.

The cave shots are near my camp. (“Night of Ceremony.”) The cliffs are riddled with them, and several are large enough to paddle my kayak into. I dream of hiding in one and never coming out sometimes.

I actually crocheted the rainbow afghan myself for my oldest daughter. It is the only one I ever finished. (“Dragon Awakening.”) Jenny always seems to be wrapped up in rainbow blankets and afghans, thanks to Josh. The church spire is in Burlington, Vermont. It’s been there since way before I was born, and it looks nice and old. (“Origin.”)

The ocean shot is somewhere in Maine. And the fire shot, which I used in the Notice trailer as well, is from a neighborhood party. I’m the kind of person who has more fun photographing the fire than sitting around it. (Did I ever mention that I’m shy?)

The rainbow is from our front yard of our winter home. Yes, I know how lucky I am to live in two such beautiful places.

The music: I LOVE this piece , Bright Star, by Ashley Collins and Emmanuel North. It’s one that came free with program I use to make the videos, and I don’t really know anything more about it than that. I use a program called Animoto, which I started using with students at school. It’s a great way for kids who struggle with writing to express themselves, using photos and music and limited text. One of my students chose this piece for a video he made, and I made note of it. Usually when I choose music for a trailer, I listen to a bunch and just “know” when I find the right one. This time, I went straight to this piece. It just really seemed to fit.

So those are my behind the scenes notes on the book trailer. I hope you enjoyed it. (And that it makes you want to buy the book, of course, if you haven’t already.) Thanks so much!

And here is an excerpt from the brand new story in Flights of Dragons. This book contains all the out of print shorter works in the Notice universe, as well.

This story is called “Dragon Awakening,” and it’s a glimpse into how Varian and Josh are doing some six months or so after they adopted baby Jenny, the unwanted daughter of a dragon and a human. While Varian and Josh have adored her from the beginning, raising an infant with dragon blood in the human world has some unique challenges. This excerpt doesn’t have Josh in it, because to pull anything later would have spoilers, but you’ll get to meet the two teenage dragons in Varian’s history class. This is in Varian’s point of view.

Chapter 1

“Mr. Kendall, think we’ll get out early?”

“Only if our superintendent wills it,” I answered, glancing out the window. Rather, I glanced at a pane of glass that looked as if it had been treated with a privacy coating. The blowing snow made a white wall outside. This squall had not been forecast, and it concerned me because my husband Josh and our daughter Jenny were out in it. With luck, they were safely at the mall already. I knew I would sense if anything happened through the mental link Josh and I shared—but it wouldn’t hurt him to send me a little reassurance on my phone.

Trying not to worry, I refocused on my class of twenty high school freshmen and sophomores. “In the meantime, I am feeling most ill.” I staggered and dropped my Smart Board pen. “I am feverish, vomiting blood, and—oh no! Black blotches all over my body! Thank goodness I have a room full of medieval doctors with me. What is my disease?”

“The Black Death!”

“Shout out some treatments. Quickly, I may only have a few hours left among you.” I collapsed dramatically to the floor and lay motionless.

“Let his blood!”

“Cover him with flowers!”

“Give him a urine bath!”

“I’m getting buboes in my armpits,” I said without opening my eyes.

“Ew! TMI, Mr. Kendall.”

“And in my groin.” I’d always believed a teacher’s most important job was to embarrass students.

“Oh, yuck!”

“Lance them,” someone else suggested. “And rub feces in them.”

Someone made barfing noises. “That’s disgusting.”

“No, really, they did that,” another kid said.

I was getting comfortable. It actually felt pretty good to teach from the floor with my eyes shut. Jenny had been fussy last night and I had been up since one. Josh had tried to spare me, but Jenny knew she could claim him all day, so I belonged to her at night.

Then it hit me how I would feel if Josh and Jenny began throwing up blood, bursting into buboes, and dying within hours or days of the first symptom. That had actually happened to half the population of Europe—up to 200 million people, according to some sources. Nobody knew for sure. Children, lovers, spouses. It was unimaginable.

“Throw him over a cliff,” someone suggested.

“Or at your enemies,” someone else said. Humans could be so barbaric. Times like these, I was glad I wasn’t one of them.

“Like throwing Mr. Kendall over a cliff would make a difference.”

Okay, time to get up before that went any further. I recognized Taylor’s voice. He and his brother Pembroke—tall, light-haired, and brown-eyed freshmen—were the bane of my school year. Identical twins, and the first dragons I had taught since my own brother had shown up in my class.

“And I am healed!” I cried, leaping to my feet. “Thank you all, young physicians.” I gave them a bow and everyone laughed.

Then I sobered. “I know most of these treatments sound ruthless and primitive today and probably contributed to the death count, but remember how often scientific discoveries come from trial and error, or from pure accident. Also remember,” I paused and dusted off my hands, “that people were frightened, grieving, and desperate to save themselves and their families any way they could think of. And people kept dying by the millions.”

I let the idea sink home. “Imagine that tomorrow, a meteor crashes into the earth, bringing a hitherto unknown disease. Our trusted antibiotics are worthless. No known surgery helps. People begin dying within hours of being infected, and no one even knows how the disease spreads. It rips through our population. How long would it be before our social systems break down—government, health care, schools, banks, the internet? How long would it be before people were trying urine baths and wearing flowers in their buttonholes? Are we any different from people living back then?”

“We’re much smarter,” a girl in front said.

“Okay, so consider that phone in your hand,” I said, smiling as it disappeared into her pocket quickly. “Could you make a new one? Or even repair it? How about the vehicle that brought you to school today? I don’t have a clue what goes on under the hood. I’m lost without a calculator. Without electricity, few of us could heat our homes, especially once we ran out of matches.”

I avoided looking at Taylor or Pembroke, who were sitting in the front row. The three of us could keep warm fine without a fire, and we could live by hunting. But back when the field had been more level before, humans had done a good job killing us off before we’d gone into hiding. We were a long, long way from living openly among humans.

Baby steps, I told myself. At least I was out of the closet as a gay man now. Dragon acceptance would follow. In another thousand years, maybe.

You can get it here:

As promised, here’s an excerpt from Notice. I decided not to go with the opening because anyone can see that with the “look inside” feature on Amazon, so I’m taking a scene from the middle of the book. It’s one of my favorites–the scene not where Varian and Josh first meet, but the scene where they realize there is more between them than college suite-mates. At this point, Varian is very much in the closet and Josh is very much openly gay. Varian has been resisting the feeling that has been slowly creeping over him that he likes Josh in ways that go against his decision to focus on his dragon-lord responsibilities and not get involved with anyone, especially a human. This scene is a flashback, coming at a time when they’re about to face danger, and are thinking back to the beginning of their relationship. It’s from Varian’s point of view.

Here tis:

Things changed in the spring of that year. One Sunday night, I came back to school with a sprained ankle after spending the weekend at home. I’d gotten injured while helping to rescue a young dragon who’d managed to impale herself on a dead pine tree, ripping a hole right through her wing. She was safely underground and mending when I headed back to campus. I was tired and cold. I hadn’t realized how badly I’d hurt myself when I’d fallen out of the tree in human form until I took off my boot and my ankle started to swell.

At two in the morning, I lay on the couch in the suite’s common room with my foot up on pillows. I was trying to do some neglected homework where my light wouldn’t bother my roommate, and wishing I had some ice for my ankle and something to drink. But I didn’t have the energy to face the pain of getting up.

When I heard the suite door open, I admit I was disappointed that Josh came in and not one of my friends. I wasn’t in the mood for his foolishness.

He looked down at me over the back of the couch. “What did you do to yourself, silly boy?” he asked, bending to fluff my pillows like a mother would.

“Oh, I fell hiking today,” I said. “It’s just sprained. Leave it alone.”

“It needs ice,” he said, going over to the refrigerator we all shared and groping around in the freezer section. “Is the pain bad? Have you taken anything?”

“No,” I said as he came back and put a plastic bag filled with ice cubes over my throbbing joint. “Ah, that feels good,” I added, lying back. “Thanks.”

“I can give you something that’ll make you forget you have an ankle,” he said, looking down at me again.

“Ah, no,” I said. “If you’d grab me a soda, I’d really appreciate it.”

He brought me a cola and then unlocked his door and disappeared. When he came back, he had two reddish pills in his hand.

“Yeah, no thanks,” I said.

“Ibuprofen. Honest.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Fine. Swell up all night if you’d like.”

I took the pills out of his hand. They looked like ibuprofen, but I was no expert. My ankle was really throbbing. I sighed and downed them with a swallow of soda. “Thanks, Josh.”

“You’re welcome.” To my surprise, he settled down on the end of the couch next to my foot.

“You don’t have to sit with me,” I said, gesturing to my book on Queen Elizabeth I that I was supposed to have gotten through over the weekend.

He grinned. “Are you kidding? I want to see the great history major get high.”

“Josh, what did you give me?”

He just grinned wider.

“Damn you, if—”

“Relax. I told you—ibuprofen.”

“Then why are you grinning like that?”

“No idea.”

Suspecting I was doomed, I made to kick him with my good foot, which got him laughing. Within five minutes, a deliciously warm and pleasant feeling began creeping over me, dulling the aching throb. Queen Elizabeth I couldn’t possibly compete, and I let her slide to the floor. Josh laughed again.

“God damn you,” I said, yawned, turned my face into the pillow, and slipped into a deep, peaceful, and very floaty sleep.

I didn’t wake until the suite came to life the next morning. To my surprise, I found Josh waking up at my feet. I took a lot of ribbing from the other guys about that, but it was in fun, and I was kind of glad Josh hadn’t drugged me and left me alone all night. It became a joke between us—he insisting it was really ibuprofen, me insisting it had been Rohypnol or something, and neither giving in.

It wasn’t until now that I began to suspect he was right, and my sudden peace and easing of pain had been because my body recognized the presence of the one whose soul was bound to mine, even if our minds and bodies didn’t know it yet.

You can get it here: https://www.amazon.com/Notice-M-Raiya-ebook/dp/B07GSHKDLQ/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1549571518&sr=8-2&keywords=M.+raiya+NOtice

There they are, the two covers. Varian and Josh. All the stories published again. And in print, at last!

It occurred to me that those of you who haven’t been following me since my Torquere days might not have any idea what Notice is all about or why it’s so important to me. Here is the tale, in brief.

I began publishing m/m fiction in 2010, when my first novella, The Glass Man, was published by Torquere Press. Before that, I had published some “literary” fiction in journals and magazines, so I was incredibly excited to have a story accepted by a press that actually paid money. I published another novella with them called Ice, and then I had a short story taken for an anthology, and by then I knew I’d found my niche and was ready to go for a novel. I dug out a short story about dragons from my backlog and exploded it into a novel, and Torquere accepted it, and suddenly I had fulfilled a lifetime dream and Notice was born at the same time.

Those were wonderful days. I had suddenly gone from years of mostly writing only for members of my writing group and sending out endless queries to publishers and agents and being rejected, to being an author. I worked with wonderful editors (one of whom I refused to let go of and still work with today) and got to know other friendly authors. I began to get reviews, and fans. I started a blog and dove into social media. This was not easy, considering when I’d learned to type in high school, it was on a manual typewriter. The scariest thing I had to do was host Torquere Press’s LiveJournal account whenever I had a new release. For twenty-four hours, the account was mine, and I had to come up with interesting posts and chat with people who left me comments. I was petrified the whole time. Learning new technology does not come easily to me, and I’m shy and easily embarrassed. Conversing live with people all over the world about a book I’d written was something I never dreamed I’d do. But it was the most wonderful thing I’d ever done. (Well, if you ask my husband and my editor who had to put up with me the first day I hosted LJ, they might tell you differently.)

Notice was a hit, and readers took to my characters, especially Josh, who is very flamboyant, kind, wise, and dared to fall in love with a dragon-shifter. In rapid succession, I wrote six novellas and short stories continuing the romance between Josh and the shifter Varian, merging their story line with that of another dragon and human couple, Justin and Wells.

The title, Notice, came from the beginning of the first book, where a knight gives Varian notice that he is going to kill him, or attempt to do so. Varian is a teacher, and the knight was one of his students, and the notice is given during a high school class Varian is teaching. From that moment on, Varian’s three lives–his secret dragon identity, his teaching career, and his homosexuality, collide with each other, and his relationship with Josh goes to a whole new level.

But then real world problems happened to Notice, which many readers are probably aware of. Some publishers of m/m fiction began to fail and then go out of business, some of them rather spectacularly, and many authors got caught in the middle. Suffice it to say that Notice and its sequels lost their home.

I have published other books in other places and have had a wonderful time doing it, but it wasn’t until last year that I was in a place to take on the daunting task of self-publishing. Bringing back Notice was the first thing on my list, and I managed it last fall. Now I have collected all six of the other stories and written a new one to go along with them, and published them under the title Flights of Dragons. It’s been scary and frustrating and expensive, but overwhelmingly great to know that they are out there again. And at last, I’m free to write more in the series.

So here are the blurbs for both books, and purchase links. I’ll put out some excerpts in a later post.

Thank so much for reading, and for those of you who are still around from the beginning, I LOVE YOU!

Notice Blurb:
Consider this your official notice …
Teaching a high school history class is hard enough, never mind the secrets Varian has to hide to keep his job. It’s not like the school board would look kindly on a fire-breathing gay man. And that’s no euphemism. 
Varian is the light-anointed leader of a dragon shifter clan, one of a handful of dragon communities still thriving after centuries of persecution by the secret society of knights. When he’s challenged by formal notice from an unknown knight, he can no longer pretend that he’s got it all under control. There are life-or-death choices to be made—including whether to admit his sternly controlled feelings for the man to whom he’s never told the truth.
This is the revised second edition of a novel originally published in 2011 by Torquere Press.

Notice buy link: https://www.amazon.com/Notice-M-Raiya-ebook/dp/B07GSHKDLQ/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1549412259&sr=8-2&keywords=M.+Raiya+Notice

Flights of Dragons Blurb:

Modern dragons can only dream of flying free in the daylit sky.
Sun on their wings would mean discovery and likely death at the hands of humans. Fear has ruled their lives for centuries. Some of them have hidden, struggling to keep their kind alive. Others have blended with humans, risking the loss of their true selves.
Varian Kendall is one of a handful of shifters who believe they can challenge the old ways. Will they realize the dream of a world no longer balanced on the sword blade of disaster? Their own questions may be the biggest challenge they face in learning what it means to be a dragon—or to love one.
This is a compilation of six Notice universe stories originally published by Torquere Press, plus a seventh all-new story!

Flights of Dragons buy link: https://www.amazon.com/Flights-Dragons-Notice-Book-2-ebook/dp/B07N31NHM7/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1549412259&sr=8-1&keywords=M.+Raiya+Notice

Here it is! Woot!

Does this not look like Josh? Another amazing cover by Brooke Albrecht.

The eBook is available now, and the print version will be out in a few weeks.

I’m so excited to have this book put together at last. It contains the first new Varian and Josh story in five years, called Dragon Awakening, which is all all about Jenny, Varian and Josh’s adopted baby daughter. And it’s got Varian in front of a class again, and Josh at the helm of his favorite old van, and a snowstorm, and pair of teenage dragon twins with attitude, and…

Also included in the book are all six Notice stories previously published by Torquere Press:

The Dragon and the Mistletoe

A Sky Full of Wings

Night of Ceremony

The Dragon and the Palm Tree

The Dragon and His Knight

Origin

How cool is that, really? All the stories are freshly edited and contain an introduction. The first four are Varian and Josh stories, and the last two are Justin and Wells stories.

These stories are all super important to me, and it feels really good to have them all collected and available again. I’d always wanted to continue the series, and now I can, at last, thanks to the ability to self-publish.

The next work in the series, a novel called Wings Over Water, is with my editor now, and I’m looking forward to publishing it later this year, if all goes as planned. So now’s the time to get all caught up, and enjoy dragons!

And here is a link to the book trailer I made for Flights of Dragons, to help get you into a dragonish mood:

https://animoto.com/play/R1H1ozxJBgy3wxHP40k4Dw

I’ve always loved the solstices. To me, it’s not about the beginning of winter or summer, it’s about where our planet is in space. I’m very tuned to the seasons and the stars, and I’m so glad that I live where I can fully appreciate the changes and their beauty. Today, after a month of cold and snow, the weather is warm and soggy with a storm that promises the chance of flooding and high winds. I brace for them with the thrill of excitement that never gets old. And I think about what’s happened since the last time we were this far from the sun.

This year has had its moments, for sure, but my family is well and grown by one–a new puppy. Years that bring puppies can’t be all bad, no matter the state of the world in general and our country in specific. Now, if she’ll just stop chewing everything I own, including my body…

My writing went well this year. I published two novels. Winter came out with Less Than Three in August, and I self-published my first book later that month. It seems so good to have Notice back out there. What’s next? I’m on the brink of self-publishing Flights of Dragons. Wings Over Water should follow shortly. In the meantime, my next brand new book, Windkind, is up to 37,000 words and moving along nicely. Then, I’m not sure. I’m open to suggestions. Should I get some of my backlist back out for sale? Which ones? Any favorites?

This year has been one with lots of learning. It was my first year not working at my school, my first year when I had to set my own schedule. I spent a lot of time figuring out how the self-publishing thing works. But I love learning (some things more than others, of course. I’m also trying to memorize a couple hundred bird songs to improve my birding skills. Talk about a fun challenge!)

And then there’s the kind of learning that happens when I’m alone in my kayak with the wind and the waves and the sunlight. I can apply it to every aspect of my life and fall back on it when the frustrations and aches and pains seem overwhelming. I hope that everyone can find joy in whatever it is that they tap into for strength as we all travel around the sun again next year.

Thank you so much for reading, and for liking my tweets and Facebook posts, and of course for buying my books. Feel free to send me an email through the contact section of my website and let me know what you think. http://mraiya.com/

Happy Winter Solstice!

 

 

Well, a cold wet fall has turned into a cold, early winter here in Vermont. Never quite ready for it, but all is well. There is beauty in watching it snow, and watching the many birds at my feeders. It’s different than twilight in the summer when all the camp windows are open to the sounds of the waves, but the feeling of peace when one’s mind is quiet is the same.

I cooked my Thanksgiving dinner a few weeks ago when my youngest daughter was home for a visit from  NYC. Add the early snowfall to that, and I am a bit displaced in time, feeling as though I should be turning on Christmas lights as the sky darkens, but it’s still too early. Today I baked two pumpkin pies to bring to our family gathering at my oldest daughter’s home tomorrow. She lives in the house my mother grew up in, and tomorrow it will be filled with the still new-to-the-family relatives of her boyfriend. It’s hard, knowing that not a single one of the people who sat around the farmhouse table when I was a child are here any longer. One of the drawbacks of being an only child and having no cousins on my mother’s side, either. I am responsible for a lot of memories. Maybe that’s why I’m a writer. I don’t know.

Anyway, I am thankful I am still here, at least, and loved, and have ones to love, including the furry one curled at my feet. And I’m thankful for the people who read my books.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

We’re home! And I am exhausted. We packed up camp last Friday (I’m exaggerating–all we packed were clothes, food, books, and that sort of stuff. Camp is fully furnished, thanks to ancestors with foresight.) Oh, and the pets of course (two cats, one puppy complete with a cone of shame on her head since she was spayed recently.) We drove home late Friday night and left everything (except the furry things) in the cars overnight. In the morning, we unloaded and started the long process of getting settled. It was much more major this year than ever before since we had the whole inside of the house repainted and new floors put down in September, which meant we had to virtually pack up and move out. We’ve lived in the house for almost thirty years, so it was high time to both renew and get rid of stuff. But it created a tremendous amount of chaos. After four days of unpacking and organizing, with lots of puppy help, I am pretty frizzled. But now everything is clean and light and airy, and I have my birdfeeders up and the hot tub is full, so life is good again. One of my artistic daughters is going to help hang artwork and deal with curtains this weekend. And one of my nieces and her boyfriend are going to help us close up camp, which is a whole other process I dread (bringing kayaks up from the water, cranking the stairs up above ice level, getting a futon off the porch…) Oh well. I’m not complaining. I soooo love both places where I’m fortune to be able to live.

And I’m soooo looking forward to a winter of writing. (But not writing Winter. I already did that. Hee hee.) First and foremost, get Flights of Dragons out. That should happen soon. The cover is underway, the manuscript is at the proofreader’s. Then I’ll concentrate on Wings over Water. Not sure yet how much time it will take to edit that, but I can’t wait to get going on it so my my kayaking dragon book will join the rest of Notice.

Beyond that… I’ve started a new novel. It’s still in very early stages and I’m not sure where it’ll go yet, but it looks to be fantasy, and it’s got horses in it, and it’s tentatively called Windkind. I’m not sure if I’ll look for a publisher or self-publish, or what. I’m having fun with it during lulls in the publishing process.

I always get more done without the lake completing with the keyboard. But I need time on the water in the summer with my camera to help clear out my head and refresh my soul. Writing and publishing are not easy, for sure.

So here I am, enjoying the end of fall foliage, getting ready for winter’s cozy evenings, and loving the newness of my house and the feeling of keys beneath my fingers again.

 

 

I had a lot of fun making this trailer, trying to capture the essence of the book in photos, without giving away any spoilers.

When I make a trailer, I start by writing the script, keeping in mind both what I want to say and what photos I have that might work with it. In the real world, I’m a photographer as well as a writer, so over the years, I have created a huge stock photo supply for myself. I dig into that and start copying and pasting photos I want into a file. Sometimes, I find a photo that would be so perfect, I tweak the script. Then I create any new photos I need for the project.

Once everything is set, I upload the photos into Animoto, the video making program I use. Once they’re there, I type in the script, and then start tweaking. This is the part that takes the longest. I have to decide where on each slide I want the text to appear, or if I want a slide of just text, and I make sure there is a sense of sentences running throughout it. This is where I lose  track of time and realize I’ve worked through a meal, or whatever. Once I get all the visual work done, I delve into Animoto’s library of music and start listening to samples. Usually one with the mood I’m looking for jumps out at me.  I know some writers who chose the music first, but I tend to go for words to start off. Then I put it all together and I have a book trailer.

So a few notes on this trailer:

The first shot of the tree limbs and starburst is one I took a long time ago on a frosty morning in my front yard while I was out experimenting with my starlight filter. That shot seems magical to me.

The fire shot is one that will show up a lot in my dragon trailers. I took it at a bonfire at a party my neighbors held a long time ago. (Yeah, I’m that person who’s not sitting down with a drink watching the flames. I’m the one with a camera getting too close.)

I had trouble deciding what to use to symbolize modern day Vermont, so I chose some cars with Vermont plates in a parking lot. (The second car back, the dark blue one, was mine. I traded it in a few years ago.) The store front was in downtown Burlington.

The suit is my husband’s. That’s one I took on purpose for the trailer.

Most nature shots are from around my house. I have a very well photographed brook.

The swords belong to a friend who let me spend some time with them. It’s helpful to have a friend with swords as well as a husband with suits.

Yes, that’s my handwriting on the Notice note

The cliffs are from northern Vermont near a pond I like.

The classroom is in the school where I worked with special ed kids for seventeen years. I used to sit in classes and think about Varian as a teacher a lot.

The sunset is from our camp, of course.

The handholding shot is one I cheated on a little. I didn’t actually take it–my daughter did and gave it to me. She was in the right place at the right time, and I wasn’t. I did major editing to it, though.

Once it’s all done, I share it with my editor and whoever I can get to watch it, and everybody has different ideas about how to improve it, and I get frustrated with the whole thing and put it away for a while, and then dig it out and work on it some more until I eventually feel like it’s what I was envisioning.

And that’s the trailer. Thanks for watching!

 

 

 

 

The self-published, second edition. The eBook is available on Amazon now, and the print version will be available there in three to five days.

Important links:

eBook on Amazon HERE

Watch the book trailer HERE

I’m so thrilled to have this book back out there for people to read. The original was published in 2011 by Torquere Press, when Josh and Varian were first introduced to the world. Notice formed the basis for six other stories, some novella length and some shorts. But then things happened in the publishing world, and the stories all became unavailable. Despite that, the Notice universe stayed strong in my head, and I knew I wanted to write more about my dragons. (Okay, Josh really wanted to get back out there. And who can resist Josh?) So I knew I’d have to figure out the self-publishing thing to make it happen. Along about last March, I started work on it.

First, Notice had to be revised. Seven years seems like a short time, but a lot has changed in the world, and I wanted my book to reflect that. Certain things needed to be addressed, from gender to technology. I wanted to make the characters more sensitive to some issues, so that’s where I focused. I opted to pretty much leave the technology in the stories alone and not update everyone’s phone to a smartphone in the early stories. It would messed with the plots, to have people be able to get on the internet instantly. Besides, I kind of liked the images of people studying paper maps and printed schedules. (Just an aside—Varian always has the kind of phone I had at the time of writing. So when he flips or slides or touches a screen, that’s what I was doing.) The bottom line is that technology advances aren’t really important to the plots, anyway.

I tried to fix up the writing a bit (I was much less polished seven years ago. Ha!) without changing the feel of the books overmuch. I owe a lot of thanks to my long-suffering editor Kate De Groot, whom I met back in Torquere days and discovered lives less than an hour from me. This means she has to put up with my puppy when we work together now. (Disclaimer– any errors in the book were created by me after she was finished with it.)

I needed a new cover for the second edition, so I approached the artist Brooke Albrecht, who had designed my Dreamspinner covers. She agreed to do it. Then I had the crazy task of finding Varian and Josh on the stock photo websites. I spent some very interesting hours gazing at photos of men. I enlisted my grown daughters, who got into it, too. Fortunately, they both accepted that I was slightly unusual a long time ago. (Sure, let’s look at photos of hot guys with Mom.) We settled on a Varian and a Josh pretty quickly, but then there were so many awesome poses of the models… It was heaps of fun, though. You’ll have to wait for the next cover to see Josh. Working on that now.

Then I braced myself and took on dreaded formatting process (Jutoh to the rescue) and bumbled my way through it, thanks to YouTube videos. The process wasn’t hard; it was the figuring out how to do it first that was hard. At last, I got the book uploaded to Kindle Direct Publishing for the eBook. Then I moved onto CreateSpace for the print. I had to undo some of the changes I’d made to the document for the eBook format (note to self: make a copy first next time). I had to download a template and paste the book chapter by chapter into it, along with fussing with the front and back matter, which needs to look different in print format. I eventually got it uploaded. Then it failed the review process twice—something about the cover I still don’t understand, and then a few days to figure out how to make the title of the book and my name appear at the top of opposite pages inside the entire book. Believe me, all that stuff doesn’t just happen. Neither do ISBN numbers or copyright stuff, or… Finally, the print version passed the review process the third time around. I ordered a copy, but I hated the way the font I’d chosen looked when I got it, and there was a weird blank page in the middle for some reason… So I made changes, went through review a second time, order a second proof, which got lost in the mail, tweaked a few more things after I finally got it, went through the review a third time, and finally declared I was done. I think it was Faulkner who said that a book is never finished, it is finally abandoned.

But I remind myself now and then that I learned to type on a manual typewriter in the 1970s, and if anyone would have told me I’d be publishing my own books in 2018, I would have laughed.

During the process, I was also editing Winter for Less Than Three Press, editing Flights of Dragons for my next self-publishing experience, writing Wings over Water, making book trailers for three books, doing research on all the publishing possibilities, and reading books that made it sound way easier than it was. And we also had a two-month-old puppy join the household, who chewed and piddled her way through everything I was trying to focus on and is devouring the nice new bed we just bought her as I type this. My first print proof of Notice has teeth marks now. I kid you not.

Anyway, Notice is done and out there for new readers to discover and old readers to re-enjoy in print if they wish. Soon you’ll be able to order your own print copy, without teeth marks. Now that I know the ropes, Flights of Dragons should follow shortly, and soon after that, Wings over Water. It’s been an adventure, but one I’m very proud to have accomplished. Thanks so much to everyone who has been so encouraging.