On the Tenth Day of Launchmas...

... I was monstrously late in posting, because any illusions I had of doing this whole thing in an orderly, professional fashion have long since been set on a fence-post and shot for target practice.

But you know what?  Apparently that's okay, because apparently, some fresh new folks on the Internet have been reading my posts and thinking that I and/or my book sound kind of fun.  I can't even tell you what a relief that is.  I'm still nervous, because not very many people have had a chance to actually sit down and read the book yet (and who knows if it'll live up to the hype?)  But this whole "putting yourself out there" thing has way more intense than I ever imagined it would be, and I am so, so happy that my firstborn word-child might actually make some friends at kindergarten.

Anyway, if you're just now joining us from further corners of the Internet, here are the relevant points:

I have a guest post up at The Author Visits today, called Book Launch Bingo: Debut Author Edition.  It's about what it sounds like - a little reflection on the emotional ups and downs of the whole putting-it-out-there process, and what goes into getting people excited about your book.  I even made a bingo card and everything! 

Also, as a reminder: The Author Visits is also hosting a giveaway for a signed copy of One Night in Sixes.  It's only got about a hundred entries so far, so if you would like to read this book for the low, low price of zero dollars, get your name in the fishbowl ASAP!

Otherwise, the map-colors are coming in nicely, and at that red-lit house at the far side of the island, Sil has found himself a high-end card game, with strange company and an irresistible wager...

The fellow produced an antique silver snap-case, such as one might employ to keep one's finer cigars. Sil half expected that to be his principal offering, but all expectation crumbled as the dandy opened the case to present a multicolored array of gleaming, lustrous fine pearls.

The mother Sil had so casually mentioned to Vuchak had lived in a house of eighteen rooms, supervised a staff of sixteen to twenty, and brought to her marriage a three-hundred-acre estate... and yet she owned just one genuine white-pearl necklace. They would have buried her with it, if it hadn't been auctioned to pay the debt.

And here, now, her last-born accident of a son might very well end the night owning more than she ever had. These were jewels of every size and color — large and small, round and irregular, black and pink and blue and cream — and therein lay all the beauty of that rarest saltwater currency. There was no shaving or counterfeiting that kind of money, no tiresome scratchings or weighings needed to assure the purity of that sort of wealth, and no inflation or devaluation when Nature Herself was the master of the mint.
...
Then the dandy seated himself beside Sil with no end of pleasantness in his expression.

"Well-met, Master — Halfwick, is it? An absolute delight — call me Faro, if you like — and if I haven't said so already, it is so rare that we receive guests of both means and manners. Really, it will be a splendid evening, and I am so much looking forward to seeing these fine horses of yours..."

He smelled of pomade and lily-water and something else under all his beauty-regimen, something that had hardly sooner reached Sil's nose than set it savagely itching, prickling down his throat and into his lungs, informing him with his first stifled reach for the handkerchief that he would be gambling on two fronts with this arrangement here...

... but there was no wiggling out of it without forfeiting his place, no begging off without advertising that he was nothing but a childish amateur out of his depth, and no doubt about whether to excuse himself or how.

Indeed, the only question remaining was what it would be worth to go back to Calvert, having turned his miserable fly-biting herd into so many perfect, shining pearls.

On the Ninth Day of Launchmas...

... well, I'll be honest: I almost didn't MAKE it to the ninth day of Launchmas, because yesterday was so incredible and so overwhelming that I was hard-pressed not to collapse to the floor and prostrate myself, Wayne-and-Garth style.  "I suck!  I'm not worthy!"

Fortunately, there are those who disagree!

First of all, my inordinately talented fellow-author, Beth Cato, graciously interviewed me on her blog - and it was a GREAT time.  Contained within: True Grit, ruminations on the anatomy of a great name, all the fun you can have with a dead skunk, and what is the deal with that Stuckey's out on I-40, anyhow?

(BTW, if you're thinking that you've heard of Beth Cato before, it's probably because she's the author of that one book about war-clerics and airship murders and cheese-eating cat-gremlins - you know, the one you can't possibly wait until September to get your hands on?  It's called The Clockwork Dagger, and the first chapter should tell you everything you need to know about what's going on top of your TBR pile!)

I am also positively gibbering with gratitude, because John Scalzi, He of the Red Shirt, has loaned me the soapbox over on "The Big Idea."  Watch as I recount the metamorphosis of my book from Full of Tropey Stereotypes to Hopefully Not That!  Marvel at the concept of "culture magic" and communal X-Men powers!  Thrill as I hide under the bed from the resulting slew of comments!

And from the Department of Something Totally Different:

My gracious hosts over at Loft.org (a.k.a. Hogwarts for Word-Wizards) kindly solicited me for a blog post - something about the craft of writing or writing techniques, that kind of thing.  What just rolled hot off the press today is called Positions of Emphasis: the Funky Rhythm of Killer Prose - or in other words, how to structure your sentences, paragraphs, scenes, and chapters so that your words have maximum impact.  (And if that sounds good, don't forget that my Loft class, "Perfecting Your Prose", is only six weeks away - and positions of emphasis are just the beginning of the great time we're gonna have!)

In the meantime, the inks on the map are just about done - which is appropriate, because while Elim's looking at the same town as Sil, he's seeing something completely different.

It had used to be a fort, once, and it seemed parts of it still were. Here and there, you could still see the sharpened peaks of the wooden stockade that must have originally run the whole way around. There was proof of at least one rightly-made house too – a big white mansion-sized one – and what looked to be a church-steeple tilting to the east, reaching for the civilization that had abandoned it.
The rest was an adobe abomination, rising at least three stories tall in the southeastern corner like a town-sized termite mound. Its clay fingers snaked all around and through even the wooden walls, as if the logs had to be cemented in place to keep from escaping.

But it was what couldn't be seen that choked the last of Elim's dwindling resolve. As he led his string onto the broad dirt path, he looked in vain for any sign of the farms and barns, the fences or road-markers or even the graves of those Brave settlers who had planted their fields and trees and outbuildings here in the time before. It was as if the earth had plain forgotten them, or resented the inquiry of strangers.

That was only proof of what Elim already knew: the outside world was vast, full of wildness and witchery and things that carried off calves in the night, and God promised no safety to anyone who strayed from the good and orderly home He had provided them.

Elim hardly needed the reminder.

On the Eighth Day of Launchmas...

...my little book went out into the world!

Godspeed, little book!  (and for Christ's sake, Elim, don't look behind you!)

And I can't even talk about what that's like just now - really, I'll just get hopelessly verklempt - but here to help mark the occasion are no less than three fabulous things!

Thing 1:  "Evil" Dan Bensen is back, graciously hosting me for Part 2 of our first epic podcast.  Hear enthusiastic rantings about gender-bending characters and philosophically-fraught alien sexcapades!  Enjoy enlightened discussion of skyscrapers, superbuses, and the Ottoman Empire!  See... Bulgarian Zoidberg?

Thing 2: The dauntlessly cheerful Kristin Centorcelli has undertaken to interview me!  This for me was a surprise and a huge delight, not only because she's so much fun to the square inch, but also because MyBookishWays is one of the coolest book blogs I know.  Go for my cute face, but stay for interviews, book reviews, and giveaways that will broaden your horizons and enhance your TBR pile!

Thing 3: Did I mention that we're doing a Twitter contest?  Check out the One Night in Sixes Hashtag Shenanigans Sweepstakes for your chance to win a $50 gift card!

And maybe it's appropriate that today is the day to display the finished map pencils, because today is also the day that our boy Sil gets his first inside glimpse of Sixes - and it's quite something...!

It was a fascinating place, though.

Hot and headachey as he was, even Sil had to appreciate that much.

As the horse's plodding steps brought Sil further inside the city, he couldn't avoid the grand hotel that dominated the northern end of the island. It was a striking, handsome thing, all elegant white columns and black wrought-iron cresting, clean and stark and somehow immaculately preserved.

The ferryman had called it La Saciadería, a strange word assembled from familiar pieces. The best Ardish would probably be 'the Satisfactory', with a mercantile emphasis on 'factory'. Given how many appetites the place apparently serviced, that sounded about right.

La Saciadería had her opposite much farther down the road, in the ingenious native pueblo rooted in the far end of the island. A full four stories tall at its peak, it spread its free-flowing adobe arms in an organic embrace, a living wall for the southern parts of the island.

As the ferryman had said, this was La Soleada, the Sunny Lady, and it wasn't hard to understand the name. She was home and mother to almost half the local population, who had somehow contrived to make that beige clay sparkle like gold in the searing light. The other tiny details that caught Sil's eye – the paintings, the splashes of color, the dark wooden lines of ladders and the exposed ends of ceiling-beams – testified to the perfect expertise of her architects.

Between these two towering great matrons, the rest of Sixes scattered out in a jumbled compromise of clay and wood and sometimes clay-covered wood, as if the owners wanted to show off their houses' exotic bones for envious neighbors.

Who, for their part, seemed to have retreated inside to wait out the heat of the day, leaving just a few dogs and free-roaming birds to keep the peace. Aside from some turkey-gabbling and the distant cries of an infant, the heavy air hung undisturbed. Sil would be pleased to keep it that way.

The #OneNightIn Sixes Hashtag Shenanigans Sweepstakes

All right, y'all: as of this very minute, I am officially a Published Author.  The book's out.  The guest posts are (mostly) in.  And that means it's time to celebrate!  Grab your Solo cup and 140 of your favorite characters, cuz we're fixing to have us a Twitter party.

The One Night in Sixes Hashtag Shenanigans Sweepstakes

The book, of course, is about a couple of clueless cowboys who go to a weird little border town called Sixes, and end up in a whole heap of trouble. We've all been there.  A crazy night at the bar, missing the last train home, waking up in Vegas to find a tiger in your bathroom - it happens!

So from today (book release day!) until Saturday (launch party - you ARE going, aren't you?), you can enter to win a $50 gift card to Barnes & Noble or Amazon (your choice) - just by sharing your wildest "one night in" stories.  Like this:

#onenightin Fort Worth, we partied so hard that I slept in my car, then got changed in a QuikTrip bathroom before work the next morning.

#onenightin EverQuest, I stayed up literally all night trying retrieve my corpse.  Freaking Dalnir.

#onenightin Minneapolis, I ate double-fried chicken so good, my arteries actually *crystallized*.

You see the pattern?  These can be literal or figurative, real-world places or not.  The only rules are:

1.  You must use the "#onenightin" Twitter hashtag for your entry to be valid.

2.  You can write as many as you want, but only your first three entries will be eligible for the contest.

3.  The deadline is midnight CST on Saturday, August 2nd.

4.  The winner will be randomly chosen from all valid entries, and announced on Sunday, August 3rd.  The winner will have one week to claim the prize (I'll need your email address to coordinate the logistics.)  If the winner doesn't respond, I'll do a second random drawing and choose a new winner.

5.  This contest is open to players 18 and older, in any country where it's legal. 

So go!  Do it!  Have wild life-changing experiences, and then tweet about them - because if there's one singularly appropriate way to celebrate this book, it's by chronicling some catastrophically memorable moments...!

#onenightin Sixes makes the hard man humble...

On the Seventh Day of Launchmas...

...I have not one, but two fun things to share with you!

First of all, my terrific good buddy and #SFFpit mastermind Dan Koboldt is hosting me over at his blog today.  It's a post called Finding the Love in One-Star Reviews - in which I confess a nasty little pastime of mine, and talk about the peculiar overlap between the people who over-the-moon LOVE your book, and those who flung it across the room in frustration and disgust.

(And like, go for the post, but stay for Dan - as if his own work as a bona-fide one-alignment-shift-from-supervillainy geneticist isn't enough, he's also hosting other experts to help expose and correct common errors in the technical aspects of sci-fi and fantasy, and I can't recommend it enough.  This week's entry is about horses!)

And then!

And THEN.

And then you absolutely must head back over to The Author Visits, because today the first half of my interview is live!  Not going to lie, you guys: I've really enjoyed this whole string of guest posts and interviews so far, but this one is a special favorite of mine: Veena and I talk about the inspiration behind One Night in Sixes, working with a professional linguist (hi Jason!) to create languages for the different people in the book, and somehow I even managed to work in a mention of twitching butt-muscles.  It's immense!

(And while you're there, don't forget to sign up for the giveaway at the bottom of the page - somebody's going to win a signed copy of the book on Saturday, and it just might be you!)

Meanwhile, our man Elim has made it across the river and into native territory - but not unnoticed.

As the last disturbed eddies finally disappeared, a pale face emerged from the river. Its unblinking black eyes watched as the two-colored man first spoke to the horse, and then let it follow him as calm and surely as if he had ensorcelled it.

On the Sixth Day of Launchmas...

...a wild giveaway appeared!  The Author Visits is generously hosting me for a whole week, AND giving away a signed copy of One Night in Sixes to one lucky winner.  So head on over there and hitch up your britches - the contest is only running until Saturday!

As for me, I'm finally home after an AMAZING weekend at ArmadilloCon, where I made more new friends than I can count (which maybe isn't saying much at the moment, cuz I'm REALLY tired.)  What I CAN count is the number of people who came out to my ludicrous 9:00-on-a-Saturday-night reading (which was about 3% reading), because they humored me for the sake of this fun picture here:

LOOK AT THESE PEOPLE.  LOOK AT THEM.

The short story is that it was a hell of a time, and I am hella tired.  I will leave you with map phase six from the phenomenal Gillis Björk, and take my happy self to bed!

And as for Our Heroes, Elim has steeled his resolve: there's no going home without Sil, and no catching Sil without crossing that river.

It was this thinking that ultimately found Elim and Molly standing up to her fore-cannons in that fetid-smelling water.  Minnows and little silvery pupfish darted about her knobby ankles as he tried mightily hard not to think about what kind of furry trout or fishmen might be living down there.

Because the alternative was to give up and go home, to look Will Halfwick straight in the eye and say Well, he was free, white, and seventeen, and I reckoned he could do what he wanted.

Elim turned in the saddle, squeezing an easy creak from the leather. His freshly-unstrung posse had lost no time planting their noses in thick clumps of bluegrass, leaving their tails to fend off gnats and stoneflies. "You-all wait here," he said, fixing a stare at Two-Pie in particular. "Don't make me come catch you when we get back."

Then there was nothing to do but get on with it. "Well, Miz Boone," Elim said at last, "let's go fancy-dancing."

With that, Elim nudged Molly forward, and the two of them moseyed in to make the water's proper acquaintance.

On the Fifth Day of Launchmas...

... I was a panelist at ArmadilloCon!

Had a great time today with "Space Westerns" and "Perfecting Your Locations."  I've said it before, and I'll say it again: if SDCC is the Caesar's Palace of conventions, then ArmadilloCon is Cheers. It's just really great to shift gears over into the slow lane, hang out with some really fun book-people, and spend the weekend with what feels like 200 of my best friends.  I'm in hog heaven.  (BTW, if anybody from AC is reading this right now, come find me at my reading at 9:00 tonight - I'm thinking less reading and more chatting about fantasy, Westerns, fantasy Westerns, and all the fun you can have writing dialect for fishmen.  It'll be grand!)

And you might enjoy this next bit if you went to that Perfecting Your Locations, panel.  Our man Elim has made it to the border - the Etascado River - with all those yearling horses in tow, looking for Sil.  At the moment, he's as long on foreboding as he is short on clues.

It was a toad-colored thing, slow and withered by drought, and went sidewinding through a streambed as wide and dry as a sloughed-off second skin. Elim approached its crusty banks with full respect as he organized his posse for a drink: this here was the end of home – the end of Eaden itself – and that over there was wild country. Elim couldn't have said how far across its fifty-yard girth his right to live ended, and would not be caught leaving so much as a wet boot-print in the sand.

But the land beyond was so exactly like the land before, both stretches of wild autumn savannah as matched and identical as two halves of a ham sandwich, that Elim could understand perfectly how the first white men here had reckoned they had as much right to the one as the other, and helped themselves right to it.  It wasn't until much later, long after they'd made a whole blood tributary out of this tired old water here, that anyone had started talking about borders.

Unfortunately, their most devil-minded descendant seemed to have inherited their slippery ambition. There was no sign of Sil anywhere.

On the Fourth Day of Launchmas....

...my true love gave to me: primo-quality picspam!

The fabulous Erin M. Hartshorn has allowed me to decorate her blog with a photo essay I call The Freshwater Fishmen of Tucumcari, New Mexico.  And y'all, seriously - if you need an editor or just some damn fine fiction, go smell what Erin's cooking over there.  I promise you haven't seen it before!

In the meantime, Sil has made a break for the border, leaving his stunned partner and a dozen horses in his wake.

Elim tightened his hold on Molly's rope, realization dawning brighter with every non-starter that occurred to him. Couldn't leave the herd to go tearing after him: there was no guaranteeing they'd still be here when he got back. Couldn't go tearing after him with the herd; it was as good as inviting a wreck. Couldn't just whip out his rifle and nail the little runt at fifty yards, tempting as that was.

Couldn't show up home again without him.

"Well, shit." Elim's grip slackened along with his outrage. Sil no doubt figured it was a clever plan, and Elim would be the first to admit as much – just as soon as Sil felt he'd made his point well enough to come back and settle down to business.

But Elim and Molly watched in vain as Sil dwindled to a black spot in the distance, and then disappeared. 
...
Elim sighed. "Well, Miz Boone, I expect we'll have to fetch him before he mislays himself."

Molly mouthed her bit, and raised no objections.

So Elim obligingly collected the purse and the papers, assembled his troops, and then set himself astride his big bay mistress to start her out at a sensible jog.

It was an orderly, sustainable gait to use for leading their little posse out of town, a natural choice for any reasoning fellow.

Now, what you'd use to catch up a snotty, arrogant, spoiled son-of-a-bitch, clock him clean off his horse, turn him over your knee, and then heat his frail hide one lick for every mile he'd ridden you out along his damn fool way - that would be a whole different gait.

And Elim felt mightily keen on trying it out before Sil made it to the river.

On the Third Day of Launchmas...

...my true love gave to me: a great excuse to spam you with cover art!

My good buddy J.K. Cheney is having me on for today's edition of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the NYT Bestseller List.   If you've ever wondered why there seem to be three versions of my cover running around on the Internet, here is your chance to unravel the mystery!

In the meantime, the map-work continues apace:

And as the town begins to take shape, so too does Elim's understanding of Sil's intentions...

Sil looked up at Elim. A sleepless night had deepened the shadows under his eyes. "Well, I was just thinking," he said. "I'm sorry I couldn't sell the rest of the horses for you-all, but really it isn't reasonable to take them across the border."

Well, thank God he'd cured himself of that notion. Elim led Molly out behind him. "Right..."

"So," Sil paused to slip the toe of his left boot through the stirrup, "I think the best thing will be to take them back to Boss Calvert and let him decide how to handle it." He hefted himself up and over the saddle. "And as for me personally – I don't think I've had my fill of traveling quite yet. In fact, I rather think a change of climate might do me good."

Elim stared up at Sil. "What."

Sil gave Actor a quarter turn, the reins light and loose in his hand. "I'm going on west."

Elim stiffened. "The hell you are."

But today the warning in his eyes and voice had no effect. Sil leaned forward over the saddle horn, so exactly-despicably like himself. "Well, Elim, the thing is... you can't stop me."

Oh no he didn't!  Tune in tomorrow for the next exciting episode of The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Two Idiot Cowboys.

On the Second Day of Launchmas...

...my true love gave to me: an interview at the Qwillery!

(He also voted for Sixes' cover at The Qwillery's July 2014 Debut Author Challenge Cover Wars - and if you were inclined to do likewise, I'd be much obliged!)

In the meantime, here is phase two of the Map of Ages - in which our heroic cartographer, Gillis, has begun transforming my pitiful scribbles into something with order and shape.

And as the town begins to take shape, so too do Sil's intentions...

Sil turned over, closing his eyes to stave off a claustrophobia that had nothing to do with the cramped quarters, and listened to the deep, regular rhythm of Elim's breathing below.

Easy enough for him to snuff the light and pass out. Easy enough for the whole lot of them to spend their lives picking paddocks and pulling weeds and pounding fence-posts, hoarding their pennies and steeping their offspring in bootless piety and backbreaking labor in anticipation of the day when they themselves would be planted with the turnips.

That was all these rustics wanted – that was everything they understood – and any free-thinking soul who lived too long amidst their squalid contentment was going to drown in it like a fish in stagnant water.

Not Sil. Not like this. He belonged back east, back home, where beef came in a tin and fish didn't, where y'all was unheard-of and your grace wasn't, where people bleached their hair and powdered their faces and only hid their talents to avoid embarrassing those poor low-bred souls who hadn't any of their own. It had been twelve long years, but if Sil pressed one ear to the musty pillow and covered the other, just so, he could almost make Elim's faint snoring into the sound of cold salt waves crashing against vast stone walls, and hear sea-birds in the rasping of the crickets.

That world had a place ready and waiting for him – all he had to do was get there.

For that he needed money, enough to pay Calvert's stupid asking-prices and buy a one-way stage ticket with the remainder.

And at the end of the day, it didn't really matter where he got it.