Selkie Wife and Swan Maiden and future plans.

My apologies for being so quiet, but there was a family birthday party and much holiday madness. However, I did managed to get out a free story for everyone to enjoy as they wanted.

It started with this Tumblr post talking about the animal wife fairy tale. Everyone knows the one, mostly because of the selkie wife. Man sees beautiful animal suddenly become beautiful woman by shedding her animal skin. He grabs the skin and demands that she's his wife now, and she is until she manages to get her skin back and escape.

Which is perfectly fine in a fairy tale. In real life, though, swans aren't the shy, graceful beings that are timid and more likely to run than set out for a direct confrontation. Which is what that Tumblr post brought up, pointing out what would truly happen just based off of a real swan's attitude.

So, since I love playing and twisting fairy tales anyway, I had to take the idea and run with it, resulting in this little story. It's a freebie posted out at Archive of Our Own so everyone can enjoy it, and I also linked my Amazon page there for any who might be curious about more stories like it.

Now onto future plans!

I have started two more fairy tales, one longer one (Beauty and the Beast) and a shorter one (Bluebeard's Wife), and I'll see what I can do about keeping everyone informed on how they're going. I have finished a short story (Wild Swans), but it needs a longer story to be partnered with before I publish it. It also needs editing, but it's about the size of "Diplomatic Incident", and I can't justify a 99 cent price tag on that.

So keep an eye out and who knows. Might be another book out before the end of January.

Special Edition Trilogy

My co-author and good friend, Valerie Bruce, and I have been very busy working on getting the next three Death and the Priest stories out, and we are happy to say that we managed to before falling into food comas due to over eating on Thanksgiving.

So here is the Special Edition Trilogy that includes the stories Bittersweet Murder, The Case of the Sorrowful Satyr,  and The Colorado Caper. 

The first story falls about a year after the events of The Case of the Deceased Daimyo and has Leia St. Croix, Kanada Osamu, and Saionji Kusonoki where they are finishing a world tour in Bali at the request of Roi Charmand. Only soon after they step off the boat, they're dragged into a murder where the victim lost his head. Literally. Soon, they're in a race against a serial killer who may be targeting them next.

The second, The Case of the Sorrowful Satyr, takes our trio to Greece where a satyr is asking for them to prove either his guilt or innocence. With no memory of the night before and waking up to the slaughtered body of his lover next to him, it would seem to be a clear case of his guilt, but he's unsure. Will the trio be able to help the satyr or will justice give way to vengeance?

And the third has the trio going to a politican's holiday party in Denver, Colorado when both murder and a snowstorm lock them in the Brown Hotel. With the only clue to the murders being fang marks in the victim's necks, can they solve The Colorado Caper?

This trilogy is a holiday special and once the New Year arrives, this will be taken down and the stories themselves put up for sale separately. So for those who enjoy a bit of murder and romance, I hope you enjoy these stories as well.

Crimson or Gold

It didn't take as long as I thought it would to edit my latest short story. Of course, I hurried through getting it up and made a mistake in the title which I corrected as soon as it was live. It will take a bit for it to be corrected on the actual page, but for now "Crimson or Gold" is live and ready for reading.

Been rather busy

Been a few weeks since my last post, but in my defense, I've been a bit busy. The Little Princess was out of school for a week so I was pretty exhausted in the evenings, wanting nothing more than to just kick back and play World of Warcraft. However, I have managed to complete another short story, one that I started long before "A Night Off". It's another Cinderella sort of story but slightly darker and with an unusual twist.

If everything goes right with editing, it should go up on Amazon by this weekend.

The cover came about with the help of a friend who snapped the picture as I was holding the props. *laughs* Then the details actually came about in a sort of serendipitous event because I was just playing with sliders on my photoshop program until BAM!! There was the perfect cover with a darker background and the props just exploding out of the darkness. I just love it when a cover comes together so perfectly when I wasn't expecting it.

So next on the list is probably back to my Sassy Princesses as I have one more story almost finished and two more on the docket to actually write up. Of course, I have some Urban Werewolves short stories that are begging to be written which I figure I'll just release as a collection of stories since I din't have that many at this time. I also have several novellas and novels I'm working on, and I just found a story that I had forgotten about, so I'm going to be very busy.

Who knows, I may have something soon after the new year if I can get everything working right.

A Weekend Away

Just got back from a fantastic weekend at a delightful bed and breakfast called Ravenwood Castle that is located in the south eastern part of the state among lovely hills. It's a wonderful place to just get away from it all because the cell phone reception is lousy and the internet is nonexistent. Sometimes, it's just nice to unplug yourself fro the busy society that we're a part of and just get back to the basics.

Such as sitting in a very comfortable chair, chatting with family as the little princess runs around playing with the grandparents from both sides of the family. Both sets were delighted to play with her in between huge gossip sessions where we got caught up on life in general and our lives in particular.

I did take a notebook with me to scribble a bit in, but I admit that not much writing got done this weekend. A new idea for a story, yes, but not much writing *laughs*. I never leave the house without a notebook and a pen for just such ideas either for scenes or for ideas because the one time I didn't write down what seemed like a neat story idea, I completely lost it. Even now, I couldn't tell you what it was.

But I am now refreshed, revitalized, and rested and very ready to start writing again. Or at least I'll start writing tomorrow in the afternoon while the little princess is at preschool.

Writing Ramblings and Technique

I have to confess, that I was completely blown away by how many people actually bought my book the first weekend it was published. Compared to many, I made pennies, but I sold double digits worth of my story.

That's just flat out amazing to someone who hasn't really sold anything before. Of course, I haven't been resting on my bottom, waiting for the money to come rolling in. I've been busy working on the next few short stories while also pounding away at a novel that I hope people like.

Which is what surprises me the most about those sales. It means people like my little story enough to buy it.

I confess that I write things that I enjoy reading and not worrying too much about the "popular" market. I've got a couple of stories that are pure self indulgence while others make me giggle and grin as I write them, knowing that they're cotton candy fluff and I may never publish them because of that. Yes, I work on a lot of different stories at once because that's the easiest way for me to keep writing. I get stuck on a serious plot point of Story A, and I move to Novella B until I can figure it out enough to fix it or rewrite the plot to get rid of that point. Most of the time, I admit I scribble out various scenes and then string them together like pearls on a necklace, but often a story might suddenly take a left turn and render those later scenes useless. I've even rewritten scenes three or four times until they fit the current mood of the story. Then I just hope they continue to fit the story as I slide them into place.

So far, many of them seem to be working, and I enjoy stringing my little pearls together to make a story that I enjoy. I publish what I write in the hopes that others will enjoy it as well.

Hear Ye! Hear Ye! It has begun!

Greetings and Salutations! Allow me to briefly introduce myself. My name is Tazura Seiple, and I'm a beginning author as I have just published my first solo book, A Night Off and A New Dress. I'll get back to that in a minute. I enjoy writing a great deal and reading even more so with my preferred genres being fantasy, sci-fi, mystery, and classics. I have other hobbies and responsibilities as I'm a wife and a mother, and I confess that I do get distracted by rather shiny new plots that cross my mind.  My parents inspired my love of reading at an early age, and I fear I did more extracurricular reading during school than paying attention to the lessons there.

Of course to be honest, calculus and algebra were never really an interest to me.

My parents also taught me that I can do and be anything I wanted to, I simply had to put my mind to it. I could be the princess and the knight who befriended the dragon if I wanted. I never had to wait for someone to come and rescue me. Occasionally pull me back down to earth when I started drifting off in a flight of fancy perhaps, but never rescue.

Which brings me to my story. It's a different take on Cinderella. Her family isn't Disney mean, and she certainly doesn't need a prince on a white horse to come and sweep her off her feet. It's my first solo work as I said, and I'm rather excited that it's published. I am also proud of the cover as I took the picture myself using an old shoe, a blanket, and the tiara I wore for my wedding.

Not bad for a camera phone and a bit of editing.

So, check my stories out, and if you want to follow me, I'll do my best to post once a week on just random things that cross my mind. Might drop a bit of a story I'm working on here for your reading enjoyment, might ramble about a story I've going developing, might grouse about a character that's being troublesome, or I might just shoot the breeze a bit. Who knows.

I hope to see you around the Kingdom...