Excerpt from Chapter 1 of Warder Soul!

For a writer, there are few things more frustrating than making about 20,000 words into a manuscript, only to realize that it's not working. This has recently happened to me, as I work on Warder Soul, book 3 of my Free Court of Seattle urban fantasy series.

The bright side of this, at least, is that I was only about 20,000 words in versus, oh, say, 90,000. And also, I was able to nail down pretty well why what I was writing wasn't working for me, because it was a problem that had come up while I was working on Victory of the Hawk. Namely, that after releasing five novels, three of which had me working extensively with a good editor, I'd developed a tendency to write too superficially in the name of trying to write more quickly.

Because of this, I just wasn't feeling suitably, truly engaged with what I'd put down for the story so far. And if the writer isn't engaged, the reader can't be!

So even though it was irritating to have to go back and rewrite the beginning, I did it anyway. I now have a new opening scene for Chapter 1, and I'm feeling a lot better about it. So I'd like to share it with you all now!

The scene is long, about 2,000 words, so I'm only going to include a small taste of it in this post:

Amount of time it took to get my hair ready for Jake and Carson’s wedding: three hours.

Amount of time it took a flock of fairies to have at it: five minutes.

The little knuckleheads divebombed me the minute Jude and I got out of her truck at the Golden Gardens bathhouse. One minute I was closing the passenger door behind me, taking care not to crinkle my skirt as I got out, because honestly, how often was I going to wear a dress in public? I’d been twitchy the whole morning about tearing it, or spilling coffee on it, or any number of potential disasters. The next minute, my field of vision filled with a disaster I hadn’t counted on: the glittering, swooping bodies of seven fairies, all of whom seemed more pleased to see me than I’d ever seen fairies be about anything. And that counted the time I’d bribed half a dozen of them to find my phone. With red velvet cupcakes. They’d brought me three other phones before I’d finally convinced them that no, really, my own phone was enough.

“Queen!” one of them caroled as it whirled around my head, so quickly that I got barely a glimpse of flashing wings and tiny flailing hands. “Queen is here!”

Want to read the whole scene? I've got it available as a PDF on my site!

The moral of this story: listen to your muse, if it's telling you you need to fix something in the story.

The other moral of this story: cake is awesome.

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Angela writes the Free Court of Seattle urban fantasy series as Angela Korra'ti, and the Rebels of Adalonia epic fantasy trilogy as Angela Highland. Come tell her all about your favorite kinds of cake at angelahighland.com, or follow her on Facebook or Twitter!

The Blood of the Land: A Warder universe ghost story

As urban fantasy goes, my Free Court of Seattle series isn’t particularly gritty—although Bone Walker has some darker themes than Faerie Blood does, and I’ve got some long-term plot plans that will go in darker directions. But by and large, the series skews to brighter and more upbeat action, much like the sorts of books I like to read. There are reasons, after all, that I tell people that the Free Court of Seattle series is my “music, magic, and computer geekery” series. Those are the things I like to emphasize.

But that said, there are darker themes and darker questions to explore in the Warder universe. And my short story “The Blood of the Land” gets into one of those questions, namely: if a Warder is magically constrained to remain on his or her land, what happens when the magical connection to the land is tainted?

 “The Blood of the Land” was originally published by Drollerie Press, in the Civil War anthology Defiance. It picks up in media res with the escaping slaves Dorcas and Caleb, as they’re fleeing northward through Kentucky with the help of the Underground Railroad. They’re in search of a particular barn that’s supposed to be their next stop, only to discover that the men hunting them have beaten them there. And they’ve shot the couple who owns that farm, Elias and Jenny Sutherland.

All of which is a pretty dark setup for a story. But as this is the Warder universe, there’s more going on. Elias and Jenny are in fact Warders. And Dorcas herself has power—she’s a powerful healer, a gift that makes the son of her master determined to get her back at any cost.

If you’re thinking this sounds similar to the setup for my character Faanshi in Valor of the Healer, you’re not wrong. But hey, I like writing powerful healer characters. And I wanted to introduce another source of power into the Warder universe as well—namely, Yoruba mythology. Dorcas is a follower of Inle, one of the orisha in the Yoruba religion, and from him she derives her healing power. You can read more about Inle here and here.

What happens to Dorcas and Caleb—not to mention Elias and Jenny—well. If you want to find that out, come read the story! Its official page is here on my site. And of particular note, I have the story available for “reader sets price” on Smashwords—including free! Everywhere else, including Amazon, it’s available for 99 cents. So check it out. This is the first ghost story I’ve ever written, and the first historical story I’ve written for the Warder universe. I’m very happy to make it finally available again.

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As Angela Highland, Angela writes the Rebels of Adalonia epic fantasy series for Carina Press. And as Angela Korra'ti, she writes the Free Court of Series urban fantasy series. Come say hi to her at angelahighland.com, or follow her on Facebook or Twitter.

Confrontation: A Warder Universe March Melange Flash Fiction Scene

“You—you—you poikilothermic snollygoster!”

He had to admit, it was the most unusual epithet a mortal had ever hurled at him—and at any other time, in any other place, he might even have found the thick Southern drawl that delivered it endearing. The mortal herself was the very opposite of intimidating. She was small of stature and primly clad, with most of her figure swathed beneath the folds of a work apron. A nurse’s cap crowned her dark curls, but could not quite contain them; one or two escaped from beneath it, and along with the dusting of freckles across her cheeks, gave her an entirely earthy, prosaic air. But anger flashed in the brown eyes behind her spectacles, and with a stony bravery most mortals couldn’t bring to bear against him, she held a pistol aimed straight at his heart.

“My dear Miss Hathaway,” he said blandly, holding out his hands to either side, “you wound me to the quick.”

“Not as much as I’m gonna wound you if you raise even the slightest scrap o’ magic. You told me you were a doctor.”

“Healer,” he corrected, only to swallow hard as she drew back the trigger of her gun. Cold iron. She wouldn’t have to strike a fatal hit at this range. Even if she got in a glancing shot, the iron in the bullet would cause him worlds of pain.

“You told me you were human.”

Which was, of course, the entire question.

He’d been ready to have his fun when all his instincts, with near omnipotent precision, had led him to her. Warder’s blood, but not yet committed to the city—and a young and untried mortal like her should have been an easy and delectable morsel. But that had been before he’d tracked her to the hospital where she spent her nights. Before he’d seen the stricken children that were her charges, each one of them fighting against the cancers that threatened to devour them from within.

In four hundred years of life, Merekir had seen much. Yet he wasn’t sure what frightened him more, now—the death in the flesh and bones and blood of the mortal children, or the blaze of determined compassion in Lillian Hathaway’s eyes as she made war upon that death.

Did she know how radiant she was, like the evening star in the gloaming of oncoming night?

Did she know how fierce she looked even now?

Merekir blew out a breath of resignation. It was the height of folly to reveal his true nature to a woman of the Warder lineage, but she’d already fathomed it. More importantly, he found that he couldn’t abide how she glared at him. It was the same glare she turned upon the signs of sickness she fought in her charges. To be equated with cancer in her eyes—as if he were alien, anathema, foul—made something painful constrict within his heart of hearts.

And so he dropped his glamour, letting her see his true face.

“I’m not human, Miss Hathaway,” he said. “But I am a healer. And I want to help.”

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And, an addendum from the author:

Victory is mine! I used all of my words, though it took a bit to figure out how to use poikilothermic and snollygoster. Those two words together gave me a bit of an idea about the character Lillian Hathaway, as well as the probable time frame in which this fragment is set. Given that snollygoster is an archaic word, this scene is probably somewhere in the 1800s, or early 1900s at the very latest. And Lillian is very bookish and very dedicated to her profession. I’d call her a bluestocking, except that I’m pretty sure I can’t quite throw that term at a young woman from the South.

Merekir is the barest sketch of a character idea here, although I know he’s Unseelie, and a healer, and rather more principled than the average Unseelie mage. He’s probably a very rare bird in the Unseelie Court—if not outright rogue. Luciriel would not, after all, be very pleased to have a healer outside her control. HA. I may need to do something further with this concept. But if I do, Internets, you can say you saw it here in this post first!

And oh yes: the rest of my words were fun, alien, omnipresent, and gloaming. Also, poikilothermic means “cold-blooded”, and a snollygoster is someone who’s deceptive. I figured these would be the sorts of words that the extremely bookish Lillian would actually use as insults.

Hope you liked my scene!

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Angela writes the urban fantasy series The Free Court of Seattle under the name Angela Korra’ti. Book 2 of that series, Bone Walker, is available now! As Angela Highland, she writes the Rebels of Adalonia fantasy trilogy for Carina Press. Book 3 of the trilogy, Victory of the Hawk, releases on April 6th. Come say hi to Angela at angelahighland.com, or follow her on Facebook or Twitter!

If I could be a Warder, what city would I choose?

Hi, Here Be Magic readers! My turn to post again today. And I've talked some about Valor of the Healer, my book via Carina Press--but with this post, I'm going to put a spotlight on Faerie Blood, my other work.

For those of you unfamiliar with my Warder universe, I've got two primary groups of magic-users in play in that storyline. There are the Sidhe, represented (like ya do) by the Seelie and Unseelie Courts. And there are the Warders, human magic-users who function as guardians for specific cities--but at the cost of being magically, physically constrained to never be able to leave that city. Ever.

(Think the Genie in Disney's Aladdin. PHENOMENAL! COSMIC! POWER! Itty bitty living space.)

For example! Christopher, the male lead of Faerie Blood, is one of the two main Warder characters as he becomes the second Warder of Seattle--the first one being Millicent, a feisty old lady who's pretty much my Gandalf figure (and who's played in my brain by K Callan, the excellent actress who played Ma Kent in the 90's TV series Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman).

One of the things Christopher has to deal with is whether he's ready to tie himself to a specific city, and as I progress through writing more of that series, I'll be exploring more of what it means for members of the Warder lineage to commit themselves to a city. They've developed customs around it, encouraging their younger people to travel a lot all over the world, to see as much as they can before they finally bind themselves to one city for the rest of their lives. Modern-day Warders, too, take a lot of advantage of the Internet to keep in touch--boy howdy, was it ever hard in times past for Warders in different cities to alert each other to potential traveling threats.

A story I have planned for the future, involving Christopher's young cousin Caitlin who's on the verge of becoming the next Warder of St. John's, Newfoundland, is that she's going to fall in love with a Warder boy from Quebec who is in fact doing that very thing that the Warders encourage their young people to do: traveling. They're going to face the challenge of what city they'll finally wind up in. It's going to be awesome.

Today, on Facebook, I was asked this very excellent question:

If you could be a Warder of any city in the world, which would it be?

This is a damn good question, and right now I'd be hard pressed to choose between several excellent cities I've either visited or lived in.

Seattle's got its appeal, because I've been here for half my life and I know the place.

Vancouver and Toronto are two of my favorite cities in Canada, and would have the advantage of having several known friends within visiting range.

Honolulu has the advantage of being in Hawai'i, which pretty much speaks for itself.

Glasgow would be nifty, because I've been there and there's enough of a fannish contingent there that they've held Worldcons. (Glasgow holds a hell of a Worldcon, I'm here to tell you.) Plus, if we're assuming I'm a Warder and therefore in the Warder universe, Glasgow would have the added bonus of having the most number of Warders in any Warded city in the world--since Scotland is where the Warder magic started. They've got a full council of Warders in Glasgow. It'd be nice to know I'm not defending the city by myself!

Montréal would be highly tempting, due to my recently exploded love of Quebecois traditional music, and that would at least let me see a lot of awesome concerts. And of all the cities in Quebec, that's the one where I could get away with my French being still kinda sucky. Working on that!

St. John's, also highly, highly tempting now that I've actually been there--and of course, it's the city Christopher is from, so being on his home ground would be lovely. Plus, it puts me in range of reliable Great Big Sea concerts. Highly important! The Warders are a highly musical people. St. John's is a highly musical city. There are reasons Christopher is from St. John's!

Lexington, Kentucky would also have to be under consideration, given that I spent my adolescence there and it would put me in reasonable range of my family members. Though I'd be hard pressed to decide between Lexington and Louisville, the two cities in Kentucky most likely to have a Warder presence.

What about you, Internets? If you could have a shot at the ability to magically protect a city, but with the catch that you'd have to stay in that city for the rest of your life, what city would it be? Talk to me in the comments!

Find out more about Faerie Blood on its official page, and come say hi to Angela on her official site or on her official Facebook page! Follow her on Twitter at @annathepiper.