Tag: Fantasy

Another Good Step For A Friend

Dubiousbyhabit of Sartorially Smart Heroines (who I will be adding to my link page as soon as I create it) has commissioned another character study of characters from his upcoming novel First Empress.  This time, it’s Pella and Zahnia, two young girls who escape from the setting’s equivalent of mad scientists to join Queen Viarraluca in shaping history.

(I should warn you: as much as I’ve enjoyed the excerpts of First Empress that I’ve been privileged to read, it approaches A Song of Ice and Fire in terms of brutality.  Unlike ASOIAF, the most “moral” character is also the most competent, but even she comes right up to the edge of “Villain Protagonist” territory sometimes.)

(Also, I must say that I’m considering following Dubiousbyhabit’s advice and contacting MJ for some artwork myself.)

Coming This Week

Hey, all.

I know it’s been a while since I delivered any new fiction.  That’s not because I haven’t been working on any.  Quite the opposite!  This week, you get to see what I’ve been working on all this time.

So join me on Thursday for the first chapter of Dreams of the Boardwalk, a fantasy set in the strange and glittering wonderland that is Coney Island.

And yes, when this story is completed, it will be part of Shining Towers, Shadowed Tunnels.

A Good Step For A Friend

Dubiousbyhabit of Sartorially Smart Heroines (which I will be linking here soon, for all that it’s currently on hiatus) is writing a novel called First Empress, a fantasy set in an iron age world.  I’ve been reading and reviewing parts of it, and I highly recommend getting yourself a copy  when it comes out.  I’ll keep you posted on the progress.

In the meantime, Dubious has commissioned a picture of two of the main characters: Queen Viarraluca and her handmaiden and lover, Elissa.

Head on over to Sartorially Smart Heroines and check it out…and while you’re there, keep in mind that Queen Viarra is actually more awesome than she looks in that picture.

Found Stories: The Meat Loaf Album Covers

This story was originally published on my old blog on February 19, 2013.  I include it here partly because I think it’s an interesting meditation on creativity, inspiration and the process of writing…and partly because I really like it and want to share it with a new audience.

As I say on my About page, I’ve always loved the Stories. But here’s the thing about the Stories: they don’t stop. Call it a blessing, call it a curse – I can look at the most unlikely thing and build a story out of it. For example, I’ve built an entire mythos out of Meat Loaf album covers. It’s true. Let me show you what I mean:

meatloaf_bat_out_of_hell
Continue reading “Found Stories: The Meat Loaf Album Covers”

For the Fans

I wasn’t originally planning to post tomorrow’s next story.  It was the last of the “Guardian Cats” stories to be completed, and I’m still not sure that it’s up to the same standard of quality as the others.

But I’ve received such a strong positive reaction to the Guardian Cats series – plus some straightforward requests – that I’ve decided to go ahead and publish that final story (though who knows?  If I keep getting a reaction like the one I’m getting, maybe it won’t be the final Guardian Cats story).  It’s a sad tale, but it honors a cat I knew personally.

Come back tomorrow for Kodama’s Courage.

About the Upcoming Stories

The next three stories are also set in New York, and will almost certainly be included in the Shining Towers, Shadowed Tunnels compilation.  I’m not quite as certain if they’ll be included in my broader New York City mythos, along with the Washington Heights Witches and other NYC supernaturals that I intend to introduce over the course of coming stories.

You see, the Guardian Cats of New York City series was originally inspired by this cartoon from the webcomic Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal:

 

Guardian Cat Source

What if, I wondered, there really was some kind of ancient pact between cats and humanity?  What if they defended us from Dangers Of The Night that might otherwise slip beneath our radar?  Human magic-users and monster hunters might be good at staking vampires and banishing demons, but we won’t notice the rat king in the sewers until the entire town is consumed with pestilence.  We’re good a blocking the punch to the face, but we’d never even notice the bite from the plague-bearing flea until it was far too late.  Thus, the Old Compact with the cats.

I got three good stories out of the idea, but then started to run out of gas.  Cats secretly defending humans from occult threats is an inherently cute idea; I wanted to treat it seriously, but it was resisting.  As for incorporating the Guardian Cats into my NYC mythos with the Rivera family and other characters I have planned, there’s no technical reason why not, I suppose, but it raises difficult questions: are all of the cats in my setting Guardian Cats, or does it take a special breed of cat, like a witch’s familiar or Sailor Moon’s companions?  What about rats (cats’ eternal enemies) or dogs (their reluctantly-accepted comrades in the defense of the two-legs)?  How sapient are they?  Does all of this fit into a world of gritty street-level magic?

Those are questions I need to work on as I compile Shining Towers, Shadowed Tunnels.  Any suggestions are welcome.

In the meantime, tomorrow’s story is the first story in the Guardian Cats series, and the one that establishes the rules.  Come back tomorrow and enjoy Shin-Nephura’s Neighborhood.

Stories From Friends

Hey, all.

As you might suspect, I don’t spend all of my time online here at matthewkeville.com.  One of my favorite places to spend time is at Slacktivist, which I’ll be writing about in more detail soon.

I’m not the only writer or blogger at Slacktivist, so I just thought I’d share a few of the hidden gems I’ve found there.

The first is from a commenter who goes by the handle of “Von Krieger”, and the idea is one I’ve seen before, but never quite this way:

Writing Prompt: Demons are not born, they are made from humans surviving in hell long enough

Warning: possible blasphemy.

The next is The Comforts of Winter by a commenter called AlyceInJeans, which is a spicy, erotic fantasy romance.  If you like it, Alyce tells me that there’s a sequel in the works.

BTW, readers, do any of you know anything about Inkitt?  Should I be trying to post any of my own work there?

And special thanks to the friend from Slacktivist who is the first (that I know of) to put Matthewkeville.com on their blogroll:

Tools of the Trade

 

New Story Up Tomorrow!

Bodega

Coming up tomorrow is Neighborhood Witch, a tale of everyday magic in the Washington Heights neighborhood of New York City.  Like Looking The Other Way, Neighborhood Witch will be part of the upcoming Shining Towers, Shadowed Tunnels short story connection.

Neighborhood Witch, like Looking The Other Way, is based on my own experiences – people I’ve met, places I’ve seen.  They needed a lot less alteration than you might expect to create an urban fantasy story.  There’s magic, both dark and bright, in those streets.

Excerpt:

The witch came out of the corner store with her carton of smokes and her two-liter bottle of Pepsi in a plain black plastic bag.

“Hola, Mami,” one of the old men playing dominos in front of the store greeted her.

“Hola, hola,” she replied.  At seventy-one, he had a good six years on her, but “mami” was a title that honored more than just age.  In fact, she’d earned it through sheer pushiness by the time she was three.

She turned the corner onto 180th street and waved at the local drug dealers before mounting the front steps to her apartment building.  They waved back and shouted their greetings – “Hola, Señora Rivera!” “ ‘Ey, Doña Celia!” – before turning back to the people they were speaking with.

Such nice boys.  Why, she remembered when her elder daughter and her husband had needed to move in with her for a few weeks as part of their move to New York (move back to New York in Aracelli’s case).  Brian – also a nice boy, but ay, such a country mouse!  More than once she’d had to rescue him from con artists or chatty street people – had been a bit intimidated by all of the people sitting on the stoop while he tried to parallel park, but the dealers had coached him through it and then watched the luggage so it didn’t walk away while Brian and Aracelli were moving it from the curb to the apartment.

They weren’t the kind of boys who went shooting at everyone who wore the wrong colors.  They didn’t want trouble.  They just wanted to sell their pot and ecstasy to Columbia students and at all the new clubs opening up in Inwood.  Living in New York meant making such accommodations.

Besides, anyone who was more trouble than that didn’t get to stay in Celia Rivera’s neighborhood very long.