KACEY VANDERKARR AND REFLECTION POND: A REPORT FROM A FUGITIVE.

You've had the excerpt. The horses were shielded from the shocking glimpse of ankle. Time for the legs and associated body.

Reflection Pond by Kacey Vanderkarr. Released at the start of April by Urban Fey Press.

*

Sometimes you find home, sometimes it comes looking for you. Callie knows a lot more about pain than she does about family. She’s never belonged, at least, not until she falls through a portal into her true home.

   The beautiful faerie city of Eirensae doesn’t come free. Callie must find her amulet and bind herself to the city, and most importantly, avoid the Fallen fae who seek her life. Seems like a small price to pay for the family she’s always wanted.

   Then she meets cynical and gorgeous Rowan, who reads the darkness of her past in her eyes. He becomes Callie’s part-time protector and full-time pain in the ass. He has secrets of his own for Callie to unravel.

   What they don’t know is that the future of Eirensae lies with them, and the once peaceful city is about to become a battleground for power.

*

Other people will plug this on their blogs. They'll reprint the bio. You'll find that on Kacey's author page over on the mighty Amazon.

   I'll give you a different author bio. What she'd call the inside skinny. Kacey Vanderkarr can tap-dance. Her favourite colour is elephantine chartreuse.

   If she can't get hold of quintuple chocolate ice cream, she'll eat pink champagne on ice. (Drinking it is so passé, dahling.)

   Kacey is a founder member of the Yoghurtines. Most of the members died in a massive chocolanche at the Vlad Dracula Memorial Choco-Yoghurt Factory and Health-Spa in Outer Transylvania.

   If you must mention this in polite conversation, give her a moment to compose herself. She'll pretend she has to blow her nose, and reach for a pastel-shaded handkerchief. A passing train may blot out the sound of sobbing.

   Kacey is the author of Antithesis, which I told her to publish. (Or I'd chop her head off.) She does the Young Adult style of fictionalising. There aren't enough hours in night or day to tell you that she crams a lot into her nights and days.

I've just been interrupted by a knock at the digital door. My cue to leave. HERE'S A BOOK TRAILER.

  

PUNCHING KACEY VANDERKARR.

Here’s major writing advice from an author who was almost hit by a van in the quest to publish. I was on the quest to publish – I can’t speak for the van.

Write your stories as though you are about to be hit by a bus.

I am having some difficulty spelling the word PUBLISHING. In the big out-thereness of the world, someone decided PUBLISHING Kacey Vanderkarr was worth a shot. I wouldn’t go PUNCHING Kacey Vanderkarr – she’s far taller than I am and has a greater reach than I could muster.¹

Not advocating violence – merely advocating imagery.

At heart, Kacey will always be an old-fashioned youngster. In this, the Digital Age, Kacey hankered for a physical copy of the book she wrote. A mere dream, woven from moonbeams and dainty sugar-strands of nothingness.

Bizarrely, that antique dream came true.

Sitting in her oak-panelled study, checking her gold pocket-watch, Kacey swooned melodramatically as the hour of import approached. Swivelling in her curlicued chair, she risked snagging her velvet cape in the seat’s old-fashioned mechanism.

Her butler – husband – delete as applicable approached with the tome upon a silver salver.

“That will be all, my good fellow. See to the stable, for the colt wants reassurance. Alas, I have not the time in which to provide the balm. For I must hold my latest publication in my over-perspiring hands. Rapture!”

At which point, Kacey returns to this century and emits a very long “Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!”

I’m an electronic self-publisher with an archaic preference for reading hardback tomes. My gold pocket-watch lies dusty and defunct in a drawer. I have no desire to hold a copy of one of my own books in my hands.

Kacey should be an electronic author too, but she’ll never get over the alliterative joy of purring the pages of a paperback. She’d be delighted to sign a copy for you. Her work is, in short, as ready as it’ll ever be. Oh, ’twas not always thus…

For once upon a once upon a, Kacey fell prey to the fear that she’d never be ready to publish. She’d never send a manuscript to a publisher – let alone embark upon the thorny path of self-publishing. Sigh! She swept her unsung stories around the house and into dusty corners where she hoped no one would notice them.

Kacey wailed into the darkness and the darkness responded. Out of the gloom, a Scottish voice emerged.

“Fear not, Kacey-rella. You shall go to the ball.”

And, with a wave of a magic club, I started punching the crap out of Kacey Vanderkarr. She had to ditch the fear. BAM! The only person holding her back was an idiot named Kacey. BAM! She was no idiot, so what was really holding her back? BAM! Fear. BAM! She could write. BAM!

How inspirational was she to the people around her? BAM! Very. I gave harsh advice. BAM! Write your stories as though you are about to be hit by a bus. No, not with clenched buttocks and a wild surprised look on your face. Though if that posture helps, hey, go for it.

Result? After punching Kacey Vanderkarr, which I likened to bludgeoning a baby seal on the ice, I sat back and waited for her volcanic eruption. Instead, she chased a publishing deal. And this blog post celebrates her publication.

Authors. They grow up so fast – and turn to hard liquor.

I waded through her blog – a marshland of self-defeating fear. And I found a piece of fiction, on which she’d be judged. That extract became the book Antithesis. Yes, this is a plug. On reading her novel’s opening, about a one-armed ginger character, I saw that Kacey could write. I marched onto the ice and bludgeoned her with the news.

Those bloodstains are still out there.

Kacey chased a deal with INKSpell publishing. That, too, is a plug.

Her 2011 blog trotted out excuses about being afraid to finish writing a manuscript. I fell over her blog post when I read that. The manuscript under fear-filled discussion featured a one-armed ginger character. That story is now a book Kacey can hold in her over-perspiring fingers.

This blog isn’t about us. (I only nudged her. Kacey received sustained help from the late, lamented, Missy Biozarre.²) No. I’m writing this for the scribblers who want to be published and who are scared to go ahead.

Ditch the fear. Write your stories as though you are about to be hit by a bus. No, not in the middle of the road. Kacey had written four books, and felt she might nearly almost be ready to think about maybe considering the option of possibly – tentatively – perhapsing her way to contemplating the notion of writing to a publisher. Kinda-sorta on the 12^th of Never, if that didn’t clash with a Leap Year and the Transit of Venus.

Write your stories as though you are about to be hit by a bus.

This is the Digital Age. You can publish your own work. True, you may wish to seek a paper deal. Or involve yourself in a hybrid operation that’s paper/digital. Doesn’t matter. The best tale written and stored in a digital drawer is a dim prospect. It is trounced, trumped, and trepanned by lesser tales of a published nature.

In Hollywoodland there’s a pointless list of the greatest movies never made. Pardon my yawning.³

What are you scared of? Reviews? Spam in your in-box? Disapproving looks from people who know you are a writer? Be scared of sudden unavoidable death leaving your work unpublished for eternity – because that’s a long fucking time.

Write your stories as though you are about to be hit by a bus.

Don’t care about what people may think of your unpublished work. Stop stopping yourself from publishing. You shouldn’t care what people think of your published work, come to that. Stop stopping yourself from writing more.

Start starting.

Write. Edit. Publish. Write more. There must be something in writing, alone, unpublished, unknown, that makes you feel good about the writing process itself. Go with that. Let it carry you through to publication.

Begin.

Write your stories as though you are about to be hit by a bus.

You might feel you need help. Well, I just gave it ye. PUBLISH. Drain the interconnected network of information you’ll need to put a book out there. And do it. What will you require? A thimbleful of courage. No more.

When I bludgeoned that baby seal on the ice, and told her to publish, I was no guru. I’d published. That alone served as the bullet in my gun.

OBI-WAN OLD FOGEY: You must learn the ways of Formatting if you’re to come with me to Amazon.

YOUNG VANDERKARR: Amazon? I’m not going to Amazon. No. I have to coach Winterguard, run a shift at the hospital, put in an appearance for my family, and sob over my manuscripts.

OBI-WAN OLD FOGEY: That’s your fear talking.

My having published, though, was enough for those words of non-wisdom to get through to her. Kacey is published because she wanted to be a writer. She’s published because she was helped by Missy Biozarre – genuine scribblers are never rivals. Kacey is published because I bludgeoned her out on the ice and told her to publish…

Write your stories as though you are about to be hit by a bus.

She’s published because she accelerated plans from the 12^th of Never to THIS DAY. Kacey is published because her husband (butler, delete as applicable) held her hand and boosted her confidence when she launched a query to an actual publishing company.⁴

Write your stories as though you are about to be hit by a bus.

Kacey is published because that publishing company said yes. She is published because she then said yes to the contract on offer. Kacey is published because she can write. She’s published for many reasons. Kacey is published because she ditched the fear. She’s published because a tale stored in a digital drawer gathers electronic dust and not readers. Kacey is published.

Is that enough? Of course not. Write more, Kacey. Scribble. Type. Make notes. Read. Write your stories as though you are about to be hit by a bus. Repetition is a great, I say great, weapon in a writer’s armoury.

Mind that bus. Clear out the digital drawer. Dust down that unsung manuscript. Burn the fear. There are worse things to be scared of. Being published? That’s not even on the scale that sits just beneath the scale marked below the scale.

This celebration of Kacey’s publishing achievement has nothing to do with anyone’s liking for or hatred of her work. Just as this celebration has nothing to do with anyone’s liking for or hatred of her singing-voice.

I published. Kacey Vanderkarr published. Why don’t you publish? Start now.

¹ Mrs Vanderkarr is eight feet tall.

² Tragically eaten by genetically-engineered zombies of her own devising.

³ Great movies that aren’t made aren’t movies.

⁴ INKSpell. This note is a gratuitous plug for Antithesis, by Kacey Vanderkarr.

NEXT EVENT: REPORT FROM A FUGITIVE (VOLUME 4) IS PUBLISHED.

EMERGENCY BLOG POST NUMBER TWO. DIVE, DIVE, DIVE!

Once again, I’m forced to submerge my blog and ply the deep in an attempt to avoid collision with an incoming vessel. Why, it’s the USS Vanderkarr. She’s a long way from home, principally operating out of the Michiganian Sea.

All hands below decks. Scunge the lungeons, ye piratical swabs!

I am assured that’s how people talk aboard submerged vessels, whether those vessels be submarines or not. Whether they be, I should refrain from too much nautical gabbing. Overfishing leads to privateering talk.

“Where be we, Cap’n?”

“Arrr! If I were here on this chart, me hearties, I’d be deep in the Sea o’ the Subjunctive! Were we pirates worthy of the name, we’d be rich and fanciful to boot.”

In the depths, sonar tells me the USS Vanderkarr is picking up speed. She’s making all haste, heading back to port for the launch of a new vessel. Antithesis. Reaching for my naval codebook, I see this word is the opposite of something.

If that something be a person, that person be the opposite of another person. Arrr! Just roll with the nautical clichés, shipmates. All submariners be pirates in their hearts.

What is this saucy launch of which I speak? Why, it be a book launch. More of that anon. In the meantime, I must warn of the optical dangers of a visual medium. Genteel readers, prepare to face the cosh. I am plugging a book. Some of you may have suspected this – do not trouble to label yourselves genteel.

In plugging Antithesis by drawing attention to the release of the book’s cover, I feel it incumbent upon myself to use the phrase I feel it incumbent upon myself. One seldom has the chance to deploy the statement – even more rarely, twice in one sentence.

I feel it incumbent upon myself to warn of the dangers of judging a book by its cover. Yes, I’m plugging Kacey’s work here. Still, there are perilous rocks out there and it’s a crime to steer for them.

Here be sea-monsters.

I’ve never once enjoyed a book because it had a great cover. Never. Just to confirm. NEVER. The notion of the greatness of a cover, or the lack of greatness, is irrelevant. In days of a Jurassic nature, I did my reading out of public libraries stacked with hardbacks. Abaft the lungeons, shrimpmates.

Often, as the library had a captive audience, those timber editions carried no illustrations. You considered yourself lucky to be able to name the author and book title. The covers were functional – just this side of the legal definition.

That regime didn’t spoil my enjoyment of storytelling.

I’ve read first-rate second-handers reduced to a lack of cover by the travails of time and banditry. The sorry physical state of a book will only spoil your reading of it if the last page is missing. And maybe, not even then.

Never judge a book by its cover. Always judge a book by its cover. Sometimes judge a book by its cover. The hell with all that. Read the bloody thing. Judge for yourself, based on the fiction.

Arrr. The point also applies to non-fiction, and you may lay to that, shipmates.

When I first sighted the USS Vanderkarr on the horizon she was awash with doubt, listing to port, tempest-wracked, barnacle-bedraggled, and close to mutiny. It took but a hearty ahoy to set her aright, and she soon made for port and a refit.

Sails were trimmed true, barnacles scoured, and a revitalised crew roamed the decks with sea-legs running under more tattoos than we need mention.

Book covers. I think of the works in my collection. Very few are without a cover. Many have ghastly covers. The illustrations are not great. Worse, certain illustrations show the wrong character performing the relevant action. As though artist and text never met. Colour-scheme isn’t one. The title glares in an appalling font. A combination of things mentioned above adds to the dreariness.

Photographed film tie-ins should, by law, carry the statement NOW A MINOR MOVIE.

It’s true that I possess appallingly-written books in covers so glossy and slick with wonder your eyes should slide right off them to better tomes. Look at this wonderful cover! Buy the book! The splendiferous artwork is but a half-step from eradicating malaria!

And the Nobel Prize for Book Covers goes to…

There isn’t one this year. Or any year.

What to say of novels with rear-cover blurb revealing plot-twists…

I daren’t name any of them, for fear of giving away plot-twists. If you read the blurb, that’s your affair. There’s one thriller in my collection which reveals the MAIN part of the crime puzzle in the rear blurb. A secret bit of plotting. Just handed out there. On the back. Oh dear. That’s the trouble with physical books. They sometimes have appalling BACK covers too.

(Fuckers! They gave away the plot! Fuckers! No, I daren’t name names.)

You’d rather read a great book in a bad cover than a bad book in a great one. I say that knowing I’m introducing Kacey’s book cover sight unseen and book unread. She’s having difficulty shipping cargo to my island fortress.

(For those fresh to this saga, to clarify, on reading an early extract of Antithesis, I was the evil swine who contacted Kacey and told her to publish or I’d chop her head off.)

Why plug her work having not seen the cover? My opinion of the cover is irrelevant. I won’t like Kacey’s book any better or hate it any more viciously when going by the cover. In truth, I’m not required to like or hate Kacey’s work at all. Maybe I’ll carry an impression of the setting or character with me as I read, based on the cover. If I read. For I am not required to read Kacey’s work at all.

Does this make for a strange non-plug? Judge for yourself. Enough of what’s not required. This is what I will do. I will treat Kacey as a colleague and not as a rival.

As a colleague, I can’t very well serve anyone’s interest by gushing over her prose. You see a book, read the blurb, and have a think. Someone plugs her tome. Readers decide for themselves. Price is a factor. Genre. Hell, sometimes the weather comes into play. Moodiness.

Plugging Kacey’s work here means announcing the release of the cover image to a semi-suspecting world. This is a big thing for a writer sailing to her first publication. It’s also no big thing. When I publish, I press a button.

The first time I published, I celebrated by eating an overly-luxurious cream bun. Then it was back to editing the next book. Kacey mumbled that her first book’s release should be a massive event, but. She’s been left numbed by it.

I know what she means. The fun comes in writing the story. Set sail for Maracaibo! If we fail to reach that destination, we’ll end up somewhere. Pressing a button never quite matches the unfurling of sails.

This is an emergency blog post. There flies the flare, a-signalling and signifying. Regular blogging was interrupted by the arrival of Kacey’s cover. There’s no real rival in arrival, and I don’t mind nodding in the direction of another author’s material.

In writing this I looked ahead and back, in that time travel mode of mine, to the blog post I wrote for the actual publication of Antithesis. There, in the post scheduled for mid-late July 2013, I don’t celebrate the launch of a book – but I do applaud the arrival of a writer. That’s as things should be, shipmates.

Do judge Kacey’s work on the basis of her book’s cover – if that’s how you operate. And don’t judge her work, or anyone’s writing, on the basis of the cover – if that’s how you operate. Am I dreading the arrival of this symbol? No, I fear no unfurled piratical flag. Authors are privateers, all. And, though it be a cutthroat business, few necks are truly severed. For we are all in the same boat.

Glaring at my shelves, I wonder at the worst cover in my collection. A matter of taste? No. I nominate the crime book with its appalling blunder on the REAR cover. As for the best cover? That must be a matter of taste.

Alas, shipmates, when I went to open that keg of pure sweet water, it seems the rats chewed in. There be little left to see. I selected a wonderful book, full of character and incident – non-fiction, it be – and I attempted to render a scan of the gorgeous cover.

The intricate detail melted in the scanning process. So. The worst cover in my collection is on the rear of a book with a decent front cover. And the best cover on my shelves must remain a mystery. The foil on the front foiled the scanner. One of the top reads on my shelves has a decidedly plain cover, with reason.

But I see we’re fast-approaching the fifth bell o’ the second dogwatch, and I must away to thwart the mutineers.

   

   

My name is Gavyn.

Liam doesn’t care that I only have one arm. He actually likes my red hair and freckles. I might forgive him for kidnapping me.

My name is Gavyn.

I lost my Liam. I’ve lost them all. And now it’s my job to make sure they don’t show up again.

My name is Gavyn.

I had a life with Liam, but he couldn’t give me what I need. Then I killed his father. I don’t expect he’ll forgive me for that.

My name is Gavyn.

  

    

Kacey Vanderkarr is a young adult author. She dabbles in fantasy, romance, and sci-fi, complete with faeries, alternate realities, and the occasional plasma gun. She’s known to be annoyingly optimistic and listen to music at the highest decibel.

When she’s not writing she works as a sonographer, and coaches Winterguard – dance combined with flag-waving. Kacey lives in Michigan with her husband, son, crazy cats, and two bearded dragons. Visit www.kaceyvanderkarr.com for more information.

Twitter: @kacimari

Blog: www.kaceyvanderkarr.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Kacey-Vanderkarr-Young-Adult-Author/128956043852072