The Evil Queen’s Lament
June, 2015. Inspired by the film ‘Snow White And The Huntsman’.
The day that we met I will always remember:
The sunshine it glittered like jet in your hair.
The day that we met I will always remember:
You weren’t my reflection, yet you were so fair.
The starlight had set all its beams in your eyes;
Your spirit it sparkled like gold in the sun.
And your face was their gossip, just as mine had been;
I felt my heart quiver, and knew I was done.
Cruel is the morning that wakes us to aging!
Bitter indeed is the taste of our years.
Unyielding, intemperate, siphoning beauty,
Stripping our youth from us, tripling our tears.
What is the point when I’m so far below you?
Your beauty — it so far surpasses my own.
I was the fairest, I was the brightest,
Most glorious sun the world had ever known.
What riches I wielded! What power was mine!
My beauty was legend! My spirit was fire!
I sacrificed — struggled — persisted — achievèd;
I fought for my greatness, and gained my desire.
But you, little miss, were born to your station.
Sweet nothing did you to attain your estate.
Bless’d with all goodness, all sweetness, all beauty,
You waltzed through your life as though worshipped by fate!
And oh, how they sang of your burgeoning beauty!
— Where once those were my praises crossing their lips.
Death was deservèd — I sought hard to kill you —
But poison and knife-edge fell from all grips.
What goodness preserves you? What angels are yours?
Were you born only to shatter my crown?
Impossible beauty — foul perfection — I curse thee —
And curs’d be all waters that did not thee drown!
The world has no need of two suns, two sunrises;
Dawn is redundant when twice it arrives.
Power is nothing when shared; greatness cannot
Unfurl to its fullest in two separate lives.
So I’ll drift far away in my silver-shelled coracle;
The world has no need of me now that you’re grown.
Crowns are all fleeting, hearts are for breaking,
Sorrow returns and we all die alone.
And my only emollient, as I drift, weeping,
Is the knowledge that you too will die in your turn.
Savour your moment, pitiful blossom;
All beauty fades; ice, too, can burn.
Friday, 31 January 2020
Tuesday, 31 December 2019
My ninth book: Raymond's Secret
Raymond's Secret is now released!
You can read a short blurb at my blog post here, or go straight to the book's page at Smashwords here. You can also find it at Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and iBooks.
In a couple of days, the price of the book will be raised to US$2.99, but if you have pre-ordered the book or if you purchase it before the price rise you'll get it for US$0.99.
Thank you to those who pre-ordered the book, and thank you to everyone who buys and reads it.
For the past three years, at the end of December, I have published a Raymond book. I have really enjoyed this tradition, and I hope my readers have too. However, Raymond's Secret is the last Raymond book for the time being – at this point I have no idea if there will be a fourth in the series.
2019 was a bumpy year for this author, with a handful of joys and triumphs and a handful of heartbreaks and miseries. Whatever it was like for you, I wish you a happy transition to the new year, and, in 2020, more joys and triumphs than heartbreaks and miseries.
Peace to you.
Cover by the splendid DrRiptide.
You can read a short blurb at my blog post here, or go straight to the book's page at Smashwords here. You can also find it at Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and iBooks.
In a couple of days, the price of the book will be raised to US$2.99, but if you have pre-ordered the book or if you purchase it before the price rise you'll get it for US$0.99.
Thank you to those who pre-ordered the book, and thank you to everyone who buys and reads it.
For the past three years, at the end of December, I have published a Raymond book. I have really enjoyed this tradition, and I hope my readers have too. However, Raymond's Secret is the last Raymond book for the time being – at this point I have no idea if there will be a fourth in the series.
2019 was a bumpy year for this author, with a handful of joys and triumphs and a handful of heartbreaks and miseries. Whatever it was like for you, I wish you a happy transition to the new year, and, in 2020, more joys and triumphs than heartbreaks and miseries.
Peace to you.
Saturday, 30 November 2019
The cover for Raymond's Secret
Behold: the cover for Raymond's Secret.
I continue to be in awe of the beauty of the covers that DrRiptide makes for me.
Raymond's Secret will be released on 31 December 2018 – though if you live in the Northern Hemisphere, that will be the 30th for you, and websites that are based in the Northern Hemisphere will show the release date as the 30th.
Pre-orders for Raymond's Secret are now open at Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and iBooks. You can also view the book's page at Smashwords, though pre-orders won't be available there (but you will be able to buy the book there when it is released). The pre-order price is US$0.99, which is about $1.57 in New Zealand dollars as I type this. However, a couple of days after the book is released the price will go up to US$2.99, so it's worth pre-ordering!
Cover by the splendid DrRiptide.
I continue to be in awe of the beauty of the covers that DrRiptide makes for me.
Raymond's Secret will be released on 31 December 2018 – though if you live in the Northern Hemisphere, that will be the 30th for you, and websites that are based in the Northern Hemisphere will show the release date as the 30th.
Pre-orders for Raymond's Secret are now open at Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and iBooks. You can also view the book's page at Smashwords, though pre-orders won't be available there (but you will be able to buy the book there when it is released). The pre-order price is US$0.99, which is about $1.57 in New Zealand dollars as I type this. However, a couple of days after the book is released the price will go up to US$2.99, so it's worth pre-ordering!
Tuesday, 29 October 2019
Some Raymond trivia
The third book in the Raymond series, Raymond's Secret, is scheduled for release at the end of December. If you have been following the series, you might be interested in some trivia pertaining to it. These are details that have not been mentioned in any of the books so far, plus some 'behind the scenes' minutiae.
- Raymond signs himself 'R.D.V.S.': 'Raymond Dimitry Van Stelte'.
- Raymond speaks three languages: Romanian is his first language, English his second, and he also speaks Italian.
- Wilson has mentioned that he doesn't know why people call him 'Wilson' instead of 'Toby'. You may notice that the adults in his life — his parents, Sandra, teachers — call him 'Toby', but his peers, enemies, classmates and friends all call him 'Wilson'. The extradiegetic or 'out of universe' reason — also called, fittingly, the Doylist reason! — for this is that I chose the name 'Wilson' for its similarity to 'Watson': Toby Wilson is to Raymond Van Stelte what John Watson is to Sherlock Holmes. As for the intradiegetic, or Watsonian, reason, it is as much a mystery to me as it is to Wilson!
- The first Raymond book was inspired by a wikiHow article titled something like 'How To Act Like A Modern-Day Vampire'. The article itself no longer seems to exist in the form it had when I read it, but this article is close to it. I stumbled across the article late one night, was intrigued that someone would write such an article and that people might be interested in its content; and then started wondering how such a pretence would play out in real life, and why someone would choose to engage in it long-term. Within days, I was writing Raymond. Raymond cites this article as the inspiration for his game; Doylistically, it is the inspiration for Raymond's existence.
- In Raymond, Wilson thinks to himself that vampires are based on the historical figure of Vlad the Impaler (Vlad III of Wallachia) — "that gross guy in Transylvania". This is, in fact, a fallacy: we now know that Bram Stoker, the writer of the seminal novel Dracula, knew very little about Vlad the Impaler: he borrowed his appellation, 'Dracula', which meant 'son of the dragon', and that is quite possibly the only genuine link between Vlad the Impaler and Dracula the vampire. I don't generally like to include misinformation in my stories, but it is a very widespread misconception and I believe that Wilson, not having personally done any research into vampires, would believe it.
- In all the Raymond books, many of the details of school years and classes have been glossed over, for the sake of not bogging down the story or burdening the poor beleaguered author with yet more research into nitty-gritty worldbuilding. I nearly put a disclaimer at the front of the books: something like, The author frankly admits that while some research has been done into certain details contained in this story, very little research into school terms, classes, et cetera, has been done for the purposes of this book, the author deeming it simply too complicated and largely irrelevant for a short novella such as this. The author begs the reader’s indulgence and understanding.
- As recounted in this blog post, Raymond was written at lightning speed by my usual standards: twenty-one pages in three days. It also preferred to be written in darkness: when I tried to write in daylight, the words would not come.
- I did not intend to write a sequel to Raymond; I thought it would be a single story. However, less than two weeks after finishing it, I found myself writing Raymond's Nemesis. It took a few weeks to complete, and after it was finished, I was sure that there would be no further Raymond stories ... but, a few months later, I was writing Raymond's Secret. The latter is the longest and most complex of the Raymond stories thus far, and it took two years to finish.
Monday, 30 September 2019
Pre-order for Raymond's Secret
Raymond's Secret, the third book in the Raymond series, is now available for pre-order!
Here is a blurb.
Toby Wilson’s best friends from school, Callum and George, are starting to become more and more worried about Wilson’s other friend and fellow student: the polite, mysterious Raymond. Is Raymond just foreign and a bit weird, or is he genuinely dangerous? If he is genuinely dangerous, would knowing the reason why be more dangerous than not knowing it? Wilson struggles to allay his friends’ fears without lying to them or betraying Raymond; and then another problem appears: Raymond has a stalker. And she even knows the contents of his lunchbox. Wilson finds that he needs to learn to emulate Raymond’s poise and acting ability very quickly – preferably without going mad, hurting any of his friends, or getting into huge amounts of trouble that would be extremely difficult to explain to adults.
Raymond’s secret threatens to explode in his face – and take Wilson, Callum, and George with it – in this story, the third in the ‘Raymond’ series, about the ‘sort-of vampire’ and his long-suffering friend Wilson.
For the past two years I have published a Raymond book at the end of December, as an end-of-year treat for my readers. Raymond's Secret is scheduled for publication on the same date this year: 31 December 2019 – though if you live in the Northern Hemisphere, that will be the 30th for you, and websites that are based in the Northern Hemisphere will show the release date as the 30th.
I invite you to pre-order Raymond's Secret so that you can get it the moment it is released, and at a special pre-order price.
If you're not familiar with pre-orders, they are quite simple: you can order the book in advance, but you will not be charged until the day the book is released.
Pre-orders are open now at Barnes & Noble and Kobo, and should soon be available at iBooks. You can also view the book's page at Smashwords, though pre-orders won't be available there (but you will be able to buy the book there when it is released). The pre-order price is US$0.99, which is about $1.57 in New Zealand dollars as I type this. However, a couple of days after the book is released the price will go up to US$2.99, so it's worth pre-ordering!
The cover is to be revealed in November.
Here is a blurb.
–––––
Toby Wilson’s best friends from school, Callum and George, are starting to become more and more worried about Wilson’s other friend and fellow student: the polite, mysterious Raymond. Is Raymond just foreign and a bit weird, or is he genuinely dangerous? If he is genuinely dangerous, would knowing the reason why be more dangerous than not knowing it? Wilson struggles to allay his friends’ fears without lying to them or betraying Raymond; and then another problem appears: Raymond has a stalker. And she even knows the contents of his lunchbox. Wilson finds that he needs to learn to emulate Raymond’s poise and acting ability very quickly – preferably without going mad, hurting any of his friends, or getting into huge amounts of trouble that would be extremely difficult to explain to adults.
Raymond’s secret threatens to explode in his face – and take Wilson, Callum, and George with it – in this story, the third in the ‘Raymond’ series, about the ‘sort-of vampire’ and his long-suffering friend Wilson.
–––––
For the past two years I have published a Raymond book at the end of December, as an end-of-year treat for my readers. Raymond's Secret is scheduled for publication on the same date this year: 31 December 2019 – though if you live in the Northern Hemisphere, that will be the 30th for you, and websites that are based in the Northern Hemisphere will show the release date as the 30th.
I invite you to pre-order Raymond's Secret so that you can get it the moment it is released, and at a special pre-order price.
If you're not familiar with pre-orders, they are quite simple: you can order the book in advance, but you will not be charged until the day the book is released.
Pre-orders are open now at Barnes & Noble and Kobo, and should soon be available at iBooks. You can also view the book's page at Smashwords, though pre-orders won't be available there (but you will be able to buy the book there when it is released). The pre-order price is US$0.99, which is about $1.57 in New Zealand dollars as I type this. However, a couple of days after the book is released the price will go up to US$2.99, so it's worth pre-ordering!
The cover is to be revealed in November.
Saturday, 31 August 2019
In which G. Wulfing experiences a Winter
As I have said before, I
would dearly love to pretend that I do not have a life outside of my
writing; but even my most eager attempts at self-delusion fail in the face of bitter and annoying reality.
And reality is currently exceptionally bitter and annoying: globally speaking, every month seems to bring a fresh wave of wickedness and disaster. It is hard to write when the world is on fire and the apocalypse looks disturbingly near. Personally speaking, for the past three years, and this year especially, I have been dealing with some foes that had lain hidden, dormant, or quietly grumbling, for many years, and which finally woke and required open confrontation and vanquishment; in addition, some massive changes and losses, including a few heartbreaks; and the effort of fighting all of these battles and coping with all of these tectonic shifts has left me emotionally exhausted.
Combined, all these things have pummelled my ability to write. — Or, at least, to write anything publishable. I am in a 'Winter of my creativity'.
It is not pleasant. Writers do not like to not be writing.
I had been hoping to publish two books this year. Instead, I have ended up doing a post-publication edit (yes, really!) of The Enemy Soulmate. Nonetheless, I will soon be preparing Raymond's Secret, the third book in the Raymond series, for publication in December; so I should manage to publish one book, and one is better than none. Writing The Enemy Soulmate proved that I cannot write to a deadline (and the fact that I am editing that book again, after publishing it, is simply further proof); so pushing myself to finish another book this year as planned would simply result in stress and a total lack of productivity. I must accept the Winter. I will not beat myself up for not publishing two books; I will not worry about it. I will simply focus on doing what I need to do in the other aspects of my life, so that when my creativity resurfaces I will have everything else under control and thus can make full use of it.
The world goes through phases, as do individuals. If this is a bad phase in world history, it will pass and we will all do our best to survive it. If the end of the world really is nigh, we will not survive it anyway, so panicking is pointless.
In the so-very-apt words of others: keep breathing. Keep calm, and carry on. Don't panic.
And reality is currently exceptionally bitter and annoying: globally speaking, every month seems to bring a fresh wave of wickedness and disaster. It is hard to write when the world is on fire and the apocalypse looks disturbingly near. Personally speaking, for the past three years, and this year especially, I have been dealing with some foes that had lain hidden, dormant, or quietly grumbling, for many years, and which finally woke and required open confrontation and vanquishment; in addition, some massive changes and losses, including a few heartbreaks; and the effort of fighting all of these battles and coping with all of these tectonic shifts has left me emotionally exhausted.
Combined, all these things have pummelled my ability to write. — Or, at least, to write anything publishable. I am in a 'Winter of my creativity'.
It is not pleasant. Writers do not like to not be writing.
I had been hoping to publish two books this year. Instead, I have ended up doing a post-publication edit (yes, really!) of The Enemy Soulmate. Nonetheless, I will soon be preparing Raymond's Secret, the third book in the Raymond series, for publication in December; so I should manage to publish one book, and one is better than none. Writing The Enemy Soulmate proved that I cannot write to a deadline (and the fact that I am editing that book again, after publishing it, is simply further proof); so pushing myself to finish another book this year as planned would simply result in stress and a total lack of productivity. I must accept the Winter. I will not beat myself up for not publishing two books; I will not worry about it. I will simply focus on doing what I need to do in the other aspects of my life, so that when my creativity resurfaces I will have everything else under control and thus can make full use of it.
The world goes through phases, as do individuals. If this is a bad phase in world history, it will pass and we will all do our best to survive it. If the end of the world really is nigh, we will not survive it anyway, so panicking is pointless.
In the so-very-apt words of others: keep breathing. Keep calm, and carry on. Don't panic.
Tuesday, 30 July 2019
Poem: O Cat!
O Cat!
17 March, 2011.
O Cat!
Thou purring portion of magnificence!
How sleekly, softly perfect thy fur;
How divinely, deeply beautiful thine eyes,
Those pools of the universe in which God Himself
Put something of His majesty.
Thou the savage, death-dealing hunter;
Thou the serene, beauteous demi-god.
Surely, of all creatures, good and evil is mixed most strangely
And most purely in thee.
Thou art at once
God's perfect creation
And His curse.
And here, purring in my lap,
Thou art
My adored pet
And my ruler.
17 March, 2011.
O Cat!
Thou purring portion of magnificence!
How sleekly, softly perfect thy fur;
How divinely, deeply beautiful thine eyes,
Those pools of the universe in which God Himself
Put something of His majesty.
Thou the savage, death-dealing hunter;
Thou the serene, beauteous demi-god.
Surely, of all creatures, good and evil is mixed most strangely
And most purely in thee.
Thou art at once
God's perfect creation
And His curse.
And here, purring in my lap,
Thou art
My adored pet
And my ruler.
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