"A Conspiracy of Ravens" is officially finished!

I finished it! Yay! There's always that Christmas morning feeling about finishing a book. I'm elated but also a little let down. I know there is still a lot of work to do, because of the nature of the beast. Endless editing...my nightmare! But the story is on paper and completed and that feels good. I always worry my books are too short, and I guess they might be, but surprisingly I'm just not as wordy as I suspected. I'm sure there will be room for more, the book is just shy of 50,000 words but I feel like the story makes up for the lack of volume. That's just me.


What will I do now? Well, I might take a little break, a week or so, before I obsess on the next thing. I don't think the voices in my head will let me but that's ok too. I've been missing my circus lately so I think that's Hailey trying to tell me to get it back in gear, that she's ready to keep going. I'm about halfway done with the sequel to Sideshow (called Straw Houses) and plan to have it finished by mid-summer for a publication date in the fall, October. Maybe a Halloween release date, wouldn't that be cool!?


I have several other things going too. Molly Goldfinch wants to find out what really happened to her father. Beethoven is insisting that he was not a monster to his nephew (sure Ludwig, whatever you say). And my dear friends over at the Hearts Compendium are dying to get on with it already. The suspense is killing them. So, you know, lots of writing in my future. Full steam ahead!


How is everyone else spending their Spring Break?

A Conspiracy of Ravens-Excerpt

This new book is going well. Here's an excerpt:

0-The Fool

IT WAS a brightly sunlit day when Catherine Meara, the "Raven Witch Killer," passed through the front doors of the Pennsylvania State Penitentiary. For a few moments, she was able to tilt her head towards its warmth and revel in its light upon her prison-paled skin. I watched her bask in its glory, her stride slow, her arms swinging at her sides. He hair gleamed like living fire, no longer dulled to the color of old blood under the harsh fluorescent lights of captivity.
            The ravens waited for her, seventeen in all, perched atop the old fashioned gates that separated the land of freedom from the realm of the depraved. They watched her approach, obsidian eyes flat in spite of the brightness of the day.
            She saw them, a guard said later. She saw them there, waiting, and smiled.
            One of them cawed, a harsh sound unsuited to sunlight, more closely attuned with shadows and gloom. As if it were a signal--and perhaps it was--the others raised up on clawed feet, beating their wings against the air. The terrible sound of all their feathers straining against the air caused both gate guards to clasp their hands to their ears. I could see them from my post just inside the entrance, though the thick glass protected me from their funeral noise.
            We lost eleven minutes of our lives that day. Time we cannot reclaim, though in light of what we were witness to, in light of what was lost, eleven minutes seems a paltry sum.
            Officially, prisoner number 0116152 died of natural causes, on the day of her release. A tragic but perhaps justified turn of events, one might say.
            I was there from the beginning to the end, from the moment Catherine entered our sphere of knowledge until the time her physical body left us behind. There was nothing natural about the Raven Witch Killer's death, or her life for that matter. We never told anyone the whole story, those of us who bore witness to her tale, those who remain, until now that is.
            They're back, you see. The ravens.

            I can be silent no longer.