So it’s been almost two weeks since BLADE SONG came out.  For the most part, it seems like people enjoy it.  It’s gotten quite a few reviews on Goodreads & Amazon, more than some of my stuff that’s been out for ages, so that’s cool.

I’ve been asked some questions/received comments via email, twitter, facebook…since they are generally the same Qs and comments, wanted to just address them all in one place.

FYI…everything after this first question might have spoilers, so if you haven’t read it, be warned, read with caution, etc, etc.

Q. I want to read this, but I don’t read ebooks.

I’m working on getting it in print…I’m going over the galley now and once that’s finished, we’ll get it out for print.  Remember, after this, you might find spoilers, although I tried to stay super vague.

Q. When is the next book coming out?

I haven’t been able to give a hard date because, to be honest, I had to make sure I could do it.  Selfpublishing anything is a gamble…you’re investing a lot of time and money upfront and I had to make sure it was going to be worth it.  But Blade Song is going pretty well, from what I can tell, so I’m going forward with plans on book 2. However, I need to see how long it’s going to take get the edits done, etc.

Once I have an answer on that, I can get to work on figuring out when.  I can probably guestimate sometime in early 2013.

Q. Damn, woman.  There were some errors in this. Didn’t you have it edited?

Yes.  I did.  I had an editor and line editor go over the book and I probably read the thing thirty times myself.  But my brain is hard-wired to see what I meant to say. The errors are completely and totally my fault, as it’s my name on the book. It’s actually easier to find things now as I get it ready for print and I’m finding things now that I didn’t see during those thirty times…I think not reading it for a while makes it easier.  I’ve checked and I will be able to get a corrected version loaded to the various platforms, Kindle, Nook or Apple.  Hopefully I’ll be able to get it done soon.

I apologize completely and I’m going see about hiring a third line editor for future books.

Q. I’m disappointed.  I read this thinking Kit was something like Kate Daniels and she’s not…she’s a wuss.

I’ve gotten this comment several times and I debated long and hard about whether to address it, so…well.  Here we go.

I never said Kit was anything like Kate.  Comparisons were made, yes, but not by me.  I actually almost flinch when I see them, because Kate would break Kit over her knee.  Kit would go down fighting, but she would still go down.

I’m sorry if people feel like they were cheated but I didn’t want to write a heroine that was like Kate.  Nobody can write a heroine like Kate except those who created her. (And I’m damn grateful to those who created her..the Ilona Andrews writing team?  My favorite UF authors.  I’m addicted to their books and own them in multiple formats.)

I want Kit to be her own person, and hopefully she can be enjoyed (or even hated) for just that.

Q. Is there a story before this?  It seems like there were references to one/I’ve seen this character before/etc

Yes.  There was a story before this.  It’s called a A Stroke of Dumb Luck (under Shiloh Walker) and you can read it for free up on Tor.com or you can buy it from Kindle/Nook.  FYI, this is a very short story, so before you buy it, I’d recommend checking it out Tor.com first.

Q. I hate Damon/I love Damon/Why did you put her with an abusive asshole?/Why did you XXXXX like that?/Why is he such a jerk?/Why did he XXXXX her in the beginning?  Why did XXXX happen? I didn’t buy the ending with them…

Okay, this is going to be long.

Damon is who he is.   Kit likes him just as he is.  Maybe people don’t buy it, but Kit jumps into things, sometimes stupidly, because it feels right and he felt right to her. She hasn’t ever had anybody who felt like hers before…that’s part of why she was fine with rushing into things.  She’s…well…needy, in that aspect, to put it mildly.  Did she rush it?  Maybe.  But that’s the way the story needed to go. But they aren’t set for a smooth course of true love or anything…not at all.

As to Damon’s character…well,  like I said…he is who he is. And I kid you not, if I hadn’t had an epiphany over Damon’s character, this book never would have gotten finished.  It was about fifteen pages long for more than a year, probably close to two?  Longer?  I lost track.

Anyway…and Damon was going to be a dingo, and I planned on killing him in book 2. No, he’s not dying in book 2…I don’t plan on killing him at all…I don’t think… 😉

But he was going to be this…

*Image via Morgue Files

And then he was going to be dead.  Yes. I really planned on killing him and all sorts of other stuff.  Eventually Kit was going to have a new love interest, blah, blah, blah…and the book just…wasn’t moving.  The world I’d thought I’d needed to make wasn’t working.

Then I was on twitter, followed a link and found myself looking at this…

Image via Dwayne Johnson’s Facebook page

A different step away from the man I’d originally had in mind for Damon, but that wasn’t a bad thing, because once I started researching some stuff behind the tattoos, I had an image come into mind…a different sort of character for Damon.  Once I had that in mind, everything clicked.

The story attacked my brain and I couldn’t stop writing until it was done, and it wasn’t just the one book…entire plot arcs came together for me in a way that’s never happened, threads that are going to weave together for a bigger picture.  (There are some Easter eggs in book 1…dunno if anybody has found them, but at least one more shows up in book 2 and other things start becoming more clear in later books).

The story was stuck because Damon was all wrong.  Yeah, some people hate him and think he’s an abusive sort of asshole, but he is who he is and the book finally started moving because I changed up the story where he was concerned.

I have a different outlook on the abuse thing…Damon didn’t realize that Kit was that close to human.  He smelled the magic on her, figured she was a witch and hiding it somehow, especially since she told him she’d been bitten but hadn’t been changed.  That’s not typical, so it made sense in his mind that somehow she was hiding how strong she was.   He’s also worried about her temper-he’s already seen evidence of it, and he’s worried that if she decides to go slice and dice, he’ll have to kill his own people to protect her.  If he has to scare her into doing what he wants, he’s fine with that.  if he’d realized how close to human she was, he would taken a different route.

(Yes, I’d really planned on killing him in the earliest versions of the story.  Those plans have changed.  Yes, he was really going to be a dingo…I’d wanted a were that wasn’t used all that much, but in the end, I needed a predator that native to the area where Damon was born, so the dingo wouldn’t work out.  Nor did I want to make him something all cute and cuddly looking like a civet…)

Q. Do we learn more about Kit’s abilities/her family?

Kit’s still learning her abilities herself.  She ran away from home when she was young and keep in mind, her grandmother was more interested in abusing her than anything else. If she’d been around another five or ten years (had she lived), she would have learned a lot more about her kind and what they can do, but she wasn’t and everything other than her ability with weapons, she’d learned on her own, including her ability to fade out and how she can call her weapons.  Those are things her family should have taught her, but they didn’t.

Yes, we will learn more of her abilities, but Kit’s not going to be a super-hero sort of heroine.  Her main skills lie in the areas of subterfuge (when she can keep her mouth shut) and cunning.

As to her family…we’ll see. 🙂

Q. I kept thinking this was a young adult book!

Ummmm…I’ve gotten this comment several times over and I’m really confused by it, so I’m just putting it out here…I don’t do YA.  This isn’t YA.  I’ll probably let bratlet (my oldest) read it when she’s fifteen or sixteen.  Parents need to make their own choices, but this definitely isn’t a YA book.  It involves swearing, violence and sex.

Okay… I think that covers it.  If there are other Qs or comments I can address, please feel free to leave them below. 🙂