The Blue Night Blog

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A few years ago I posted this excerpt of a rewritten fantasy short story, ‘Red Amber’, a M/M erotic romance about creativity, grief, pride, and lost love. Here’s the current mood board for it. While I’m waiting on edit letters for THE PURIST, I’m settling back into this story. I have 12K of it written, so…

Read More ‘Red Amber’ update
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Proof that the universe has a questionable sense of humor, or GOP marketers are harvesting emails without researching them, or Weebly sold me out (or all three): Trump’s campaign folks have been sending me begging emails *on the email account I use only for things related to fanfiction*. Often very dark and or seriously raunchy…

Read More Trump Asks Me For Money
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This book (two books, actually) holds a wistful joy for me. The two stories woven within are pure McKillip at her best: lyrical, mystical, with down-to-earth protagonists and a way of bringing the eldritch in for tea. I encountered the first book in 1992 at a World Fantasy Convention, and the second in the summer…

Read More Cygnet, by Patricia McKillip
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  Many of my book art sculptures are represented in the US and internationally by the wonderful folks at Vamp & Tramp Booksellers. http://www.vampandtramp.com/finepress/c/cranedesigns.html A large catalog of works can be seen by scrolling down the pages on the right side of this blog. Look for Book Arts & Text Based Art, for pieces from…

Read More Crane Designs Book Art
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Since I’ve a nice uptick in sales lately on this M/M space opera romance, here’s a mood board of my original art inspired by the story, cover background from Natasha Snow, and images from Alphonse Mucha, The Nature Conservancy, and Pinterest. I don’t know any other way to respond to the anniversary of 9-11, or…

Read More Moro’s Price mood board
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Oh god, this is so funny it’s painful. To go along with Lani Sarem and GeekNation’s previous misadventures involving Handbook For Mortals, YA author and blogger Claribel Ortega takes on the soul-stunting task of reading and live-tweeting this book. To be super efficient, Claribel has Storified two separate reads in these handy threads. So if…

Read More Claribel Ortega tweets Handbook
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I may go on a rant later about the twin dangers of deregulation and ignoring manmade climate change, and how millions of people in south and central Texas will be paying for those governmental, industrial, and institutional mistakes. But right now, let’s consider the sheer power behind this ‘historic’ storm, made immeasurably worse by warm…

Read More Hurricane Harvey
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So much news to absorb in the last week or so: Charlottesville’s aftermath, Trump’s Phoenix speech, the solar eclipse, religious riots in India, North Korea, Hurricane Harvey… I might touch on all those later, but let’s look at two hilarious gaffes in recent social media. Both of them embody privilege, legal-but-morally-suspect corruption, and astounding condescension…

Read More Big Fails: Lani Sarem and Louise Linton
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Or: the state of LGBTQIA SFF and Romance publishing in 2017. Tl:dr…diverse authors may be courted by large publishers not so much for the value of their stories, but for the cachet of representing them as proof of diversity in publishing. Unagented authors and agents need to be wary of this possible trend, and plan…

Read More Diversity Bingo
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I’ve talked before about a wonderful fanfic-writer-turned-agented-commercial-author, Alis Franklin. Time for a bittersweet update. LIESMITH has a great sequel, STORMBRINGER, which you can read. And what looks to be a couple of brilliant follow-ups, which you can’t (not yet anyway). You can find out more about her writing here. Out of respect for Alis and…

Read More Alis Franklin: Books of the Wyrd
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These lovelies arrived today from AZ Art Supply: Richeson 10″ Female Right and Left Manikin Hands. 2/3 articulated, posing hands in blond wood (probably box, lyptus, or poplar, I’ll have to check.) Meant as an artist’s drawing aide, I find they make amazing jewelry models. I’m resisting the urge to woodburn henna designs on them,…

Read More Show of Hands
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Golden Acrylics makes some wonderful ‘open’ paints with built-in drying retardants. They don’t stay mixable anywhere as long as oil paints do, but they don’t dry instantly on canvas (like regular acrylics might, especially in Arizona summers.) This makes the Open Series really fun as plein air tools, along with a pack of canvas paper…

Read More Horizon: acrylic sketch
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One of the best side-effects of online novel-pitch contests: the community around them. Whether or not a writer makes the cut (agent request, mentorship, etc), most writers can find new friendships and even collaborations within the larger pool of the hopeful and hopeless. Mark J. Engels and I met during a pitch contest in 2016…

Read More Mark Engels: ALWAYS GRAY IN WINTER
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As of 8/4-2017, these are the companies advertising on Fox during Sean Hannity’s show. You know, the Sean Hannity of ‘Sandy Hook never happened’ (it did), ‘Hillary killed Seth Rich’ (she didn’t), and ‘Why sure, I’ll allow myself to be waterboarded to prove it isn’t torture!’ (he never did, not even for charity). So if…

Read More Sean Hannity’s Advertisers
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Or in other words, the Twitter phenomenon that is #ThinkBIGSundayWithMarsha, begun and hosted by media entrepreneur Marsha Wright. Okay, many of us roll our eyes at those inspirational quotes slapped on lovely or heartwarming posters, and presented in slim metal frames. You know, the ones your boss and mine put up on our office walls?…

Read More Unrelenting Optimism
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Trying another sales portal, this time on Etsy: https://www.etsy.com/shop/CraneHanaDesigns I’m conflicted about Etsy. They’re the best game in town for many crafters. They’ve made some colossal blunders in the past, and I feel terrible for them that the only way they can save the company now is at the cost of their allegedly benevolent company ethos.…

Read More CraneHanaDesigns now on Etsy