Lucky Seven!

So Elizabeth Noble tagged me for this on facebook so I figured, why not? Take chances.

1. Go to page 77 (or 7th) of your current ms
2. Go to line 7
3. Copy down the next 7 lines-sentences or paragraphs- and post them as they’re written. No cheating.
4. Tag 7 other authors. No cheating.
****
So here are seven sentences from the work in progress Bloody Aria, which is my air pirate story.

What was truly eye catching were the golden wings arching gracefully from his back. Antoine had seen other elves before being brought aboard the Bloody Aria, but only at a distance. They had always appeared to him as silent looking dolls in the company different nobles and wealthy merchants at the gatherings he had been forced to attend with his father. Never had he been so close to one.

“You… are not Shandor.” An annoyed look crossed the elf’s face and he let out a huff, crossing his arms. “Are you just going to stand there and gawk?

Good Times

That’s my story so far. Last weekend I attended Kawakon her in the Gateway City and had an absolute blast. Good friends and good events abounded.  Mostly it was me, Little Bits and D going around, though I spent a nice portion by myself as well as they had cosplay things to do. There were lots of steampunk panels and events which was great fun and I got to meet cool people. Like the crew of the Airship Lufsturm who were a blast and super friendly. I also got to hear a great new band called the Aeronauts who were also tons of fun. I was the first person up dancing and didn’t stop until the end. Another reason to love them, the drummer walked around all Saturday wearing a hippy skirt and a purse and gave no fucks.

I even managed to do some promo! In that I left postcards by registration, and then gave the last away at the yaoi panel on Saturday. Where my abilities to be sarcastic and occasionally witty won me prizes! Was also nicely inebriated for most of the panel, and before that so it probably helped me get over my innate shyness. Also met some other local people to try and keep up with. I’m in general terrible about keeping in touch with people, but I am trying to make more of an effort.

On top of all of this,  I met my bare minimum quota of 500 words both Friday and Saturday! I know it doesn’t seem like much, but when you’re at any kind of convention, it can be hard to find spare moments to write. Especially if the free wifi is intermittent and the convention is trying to get you to pay for the other stuff. So between panels, waiting for panels or when I got bored, I had the laptop out typing away. No writing on Sunday, by that time I was wiped and gave myself a day of rest. It did leave me energized and inspired to move forward and get my darn work-in-progress finished.

Release Day!

So Mechanical Magic is out today! I really should have done this post earlier in the day but… well there’s no real good excuse for it. Its a mixture of laziness on my part and just trying to focus and getting some new writing done. Getting back on track with everything and getting my daily writing quota reestablished. I have to have a daily quota that I’m supposed to meet or I won’t get anywhere with writing.

Moving on though! Mechanical Magic is now available and can be purchased here. The first, and hopefully, not the last thing I have published.  I thought I was going to be more anxious about this than I have been, but its been a surprisingly easy time of it so far. Of course I haven’t gotten any reviews yet, which might be the part that was worrying. I’m sure my rejection issues will flare their head when those actually roll in. For now though I think I’ll just bask in the feeling of finally being published.

I’ve been working on a couple of different stories, but I think I finally got the muse to settle down and let me focus on just one. Let the other’s percolate in the back of my brain. Hopefully all the better for the added time to grow.

Release Date for Mechanical Magic

  I got my release date for my novella Mechanical Magic today. It will be available for purchase on February 8th, complete with the absolutely gorgeous cover by Anne Cain. I adore this cover to pieces, in fact its the background on several things now. I love how she made Aster look, and the hand is perfect. The background is complex and subtle in relation to the story.

It comes out a week before my birthday, which I think that might be one of my best birthday presents to date. I’m excited beyond words about this, and also incredibly anxious as well.  Suddenly its all here and there’s things to do and not enough hours in the day, or enough people to scrape me off the ceiling. However my best friend has promised rum and cookies to celebrate the release, which sounds great and like the start of a fine tradition. I will also have a Meet the Author even on the Dreamspinner Press Facebook page on February 11th, which I am also excited and nervous about.

Coffee at midnight

Its far too late, I’m knackered but I’m drinking an over priced yuppy cuppy cafe mocha when I should be sleeping. In my defense against the over priced coffee, I had a gift card from the holidays and a very lovely someone returned my keys to the people there and so I am grateful. Except that is not the reason for my late night battles against my current perpetual exhaustion.

I got the cover art for my novella today and I just about died, it was so absolutely gorgeous. It was more than I would have ever expected and had me dancing in my kitchen for five minutes instead of chopping onions. Not that I had a lot of expectations, but knowing Dreamspinner I knew it would be something good because I rarely ever saw a bad cover there. However this level of awesomeness I did not expect. I’m not an extremely visual person in general, so I didn’t have a clear or solid idea of what I’d like for the cover. What I got was beautiful and complex with an absolutely drop dead handsome man on it.

Also seeing my name and the title of the book on it is just a whole different thrill. Yet more legit-ness that just makes it real all over again. Perfect inspiration to write more. And since I have a cat on my back and he seems to have gotten comfy there, I suppose I’ll do just that.

So how does one start a blog?

So, I’ve been wrestling with how to start this thing for a long time. I’m bad under pressure like this, I can never think of anything at the time. My name is Lorraine Ulrich, I have a novella coming out with Dreamspinner Press sometime in the February most likely. Its a steampunk romance titled Mechanical Magic, which I’m still excited about. For the full bio you can go here which is newly added to the DSP website. I feel all kinds of legitimate now. :)

I have a love of cat and a fetish for angel wings. Serious fetish, there is just something about them that I can’t get enough of. I’ll probably expound on that later at some point. Trying to keep something in reserve for when I have to come up with other posts. I suppose I’m going to end here for the moment, because if I try to belabor this post I’ll never get it done.