short story
Teaser for “Tenacious: A Short Story from The Monstrum Chronicles”
TENACIOUS: A Short Story from The Monstrum Chronicles
EXCERPT
Surprise, surprise! Here’s a sneak peek at a short story from the Monstrum Chronicles starring a minor character from “Memento Mori”!
Acquolina is now available!
Good morning everyone!
My first short story in The Monstrum Chronicles, Acquolina, is now available for download on Kindle here. At 99 cents, this 46 page story chronicles the tale of Sibyl, a year old fledgling of the Kume bloodline. The Kume are the water-dwelling bloodline of lilitu (vampires) from The Monstrum Chronicles. They have mutated from so many years spent in the water. They have blue tinged skin, black eyes, and scales, occasionally. These creatures are also extremely artistic. The bloodline was created during the Italian Renaissance in the 1400’s. The novel takes place in the late 1800’s in the Kume city of Vitoria, which exists in the Erebus, the dark shadow realm where the lilitu hold territories. Vitoria is the capitol and the home of the Artigianti di Alta. They are the group of highly skilled artisans who protect a collection of the most highly valued artwork pieces created by their kind.
As the novel opens, we find Sibyl preparing for the annual Festival Della Costola, a celebration where one Kume is picked to join the Artigianti di Alta and the various Houses (clans) celebrate their creativity. However, there are also civil tensions rising between various houses which are building toward a terrible possible outcome: war. As Sibyl finds herself chosen as the new inductee to the Artigianti di Alta, she will be pulled in opposite directions by two men: a mysterious outsider who might be her only escape from the rising unrest, and The Ghost, another outsider, who has a vested interest in saving Vitoria by using any means necessary. But do they have their own agendas as well?
Here is the cover:
Acquolina is written for those who want a taste of what’s to come in Aequitas: Book 2 of The Monstrum Chronicles. It gives the background story for two characters who play large roles in the series. The short story also gives further clarification to an event that is referenced in Book 2. Later this evening, I’ll have a soundtrack list up for the short story on my website, so stay tuned for that!
Also, (and I feel pretty bad about this) sorry I wasn’t able to get Inspiration Through Music up on Monday. It was a busy day, I was getting my new car (Izze 3!) and then the new car had a dead battery so I got home rather late. Yesterday, I was rushing to get the short story published and then spent the entire night reformatting it because I hadn’t done it properly. I’m hoping to write the blog this morning. If I’m not able to, I’ll have it up for you later tonight.
Right then! Stay tuned for new stuff! 🙂
~KSilva
Weekly Update…N’Stuff
Good morning, readers!
It’s been a while since I’ve given you all an update so I figured it was about time!
First off, the July photo cover contest for Book 3 ends in less than a week! If you are harboring a photo of a rowboat, please send it in! There are some pretty fun prizes and your photo will be used on the cover of Memento Mori: Book 3 of The Monstrum Chronicles! Details are in the link here: http://voxthebook.com/Photo_Contest.html
Next: I’ve finished writing Acquolina, which is my first short story in the promotion of Aequitas: Book 2 of The Monstrum Chronicles. I’ll be releasing two short stories that pertain to the events of the novel ahead of time so that readers can have some fun background information of certain characters! Acquolina tells the story of a naive young lilitu (vampire) being torn in two different avenues of freedom from her oppressive future, neither one better than the other, but the lure of both too intoxicating to resist. I’ll be editing this during the next few weeks and hopefully will have it up for August 14th!
The second short story, Tulip, will be released in September, although I’m not sure if I’ll make the September 10th release date that I’d set on that.
In addition to all of this fun craziness, I’m still editing and doing lay-out for Aequitas. I just recently got a new laptop and my, oh, my… I love this thing. I’ve been using Microsoft Word 7 for the last five years and have just updated to 10. This is the best word processing program I’ve ever used!!! (And yes, it is deserving of three exclamation points.) I’ve been able to do the lay-out for this so much easier than I would have with my old program. I’m hoping to have all of the editing done in the next couple weeks, finish up the lay-out in mid-August, and get the back cover, synopsis, and other kagatha done in September in time for the October 4th release date!
I’ve also may have a potential book signing with the Rockport Public Library, whom I’ve talked with briefly about it.
And speaking of libraries, I’m also hard at work on organizing a Halloween Reading event with both Camden Public and Rockland Public Libraries for late October. I’ve already contacted both representatives and have locked in the dates. I have about 4 people each night, so I’m pretty satisfied. This is my first time organizing an event so I’m hoping I don’t stumble over myself trying to get everything prepared.
Hmmm… what else? I’ve been working on a couple of other projects here and there (the thromance novel, Night Time, Dotted Line, Memento Mori…etc.) and I’ve got a brand spanking new idea for an apocalyptic novel from watching Jumanji. (Go figure.)
In real life? Well, I’m working a lot. A LOT. I’ve been having some car issues with poor Izze (my red Kia) and have also been dealing with neck and shoulder issues. Crazy stuff. But then again, it’s been kind of a crazy summer. I actually can’t wait until fall when things calm down a bit work wise and things will start getting busier with my writing. Plus, I love the season!
Well, I’d best start getting ready for work. Stay tuned for my Cooking Adventures blog tomorrow where I’ll be sharing with you my weird attempt at Karvara.
~KSilva
June Updatey-ness
Good evening, folks.
After a week of content writing before and after my day job, I’ve finished one of my short stories, my western short story, “Landed.” I had some pretty ridiculous goals for last week which, had I not had other obligations, I probably could have finished. But truth is, I just don’t have as much time now. But I am proud to get that one project done. It needs some editing as well as a cover design which I’ll begin looking at this week. Also this week, I’m looking to give some love to either is my short story, “Acquolina” which ties in with some of the events in Aequitas or one of my novella projects (one of which is a thromance (thriller/romance). Hopefully this week, I’ll get one of those finished up.
Inspiration Through Music: Johnny Cash
I have to admit, though my music preferences extend into nearly every genre, country music is one that I still am very, very particular about. I have a few choice favorites and at the very top of the list is Johnny Cash. There is just something about his deep voice that moves me whenever he sings. And over the years, several of his songs have been the inspiration behind scenes in stories I’ve written. And the best thing is that his songs fit in many of my stories, no matter if its a futuristic sci-fi, a good ole western, an indie romance, or an action adventure.
Last week, when I committed myself to trying to finish up a handful of stories, I chose to focus solely on one; a western short story I started last fall. I had the entire plot all written out, I just lacked the time to properly finish writing it. Being a western, a slew of Johnny Cash’s music fit into writing scenes very well. The idea of characters living a tough and gritty life in the late 1800’s was easy to imagine while listening to Cash’s ballads. Today I’ll be sharing 9 songs with you that helped to inspire this short story as well as others that I’ve written.
Goodbye 2011! Hello 2012!
Good morning, readers!
Today marks the end of 2011. And though this year was a year of wonderful opportunities and many crazy happenstances, I can happily say that I’m ready to see it go.
2011 was a year of many firsts for me. First book signing, first time having a book on Kindle, first book-reading… etc. All of these experiences have opened my eyes to how truly great the world of self-publishing really is. It’s the latest and greatest thing. A few years ago, I never would have dreamed of being an author or having the opportunity to get my book out there, not only in paperback form but digitally as well. I couldn’t have done this though, without help from my friends, family, and fans of the series!
In the last two weeks, The Monstrum Chronicles has grown by leaps and bounds. On December 14th, when I posted the infamous I Need a Christmas Miracle post, I had 108 fans on Facebook. I had 26 Twitter followers. 1 review on Amazon and no likes. ‘Vox was in 672,oooth place on the Kindle best-sellers market. ‘And I had 2 subscribers on the blog.
Since then, here are the stats: On the facebook page, there are 115 fans. I have 70 followers on Twitter. There are 5 reviews for the Kindle version of “Vox” and 2 for the paperback. There are 4 likes for the book (and two for me!) “Vox” is now at 234,194th place on the Kindle best-sellers market. (At one point, it was at 97,000!) I have 5 subscribers (but several other readers) on my blog. I’m absolutely ecstatic! Thank you all so much for everything you’ve done in the last couple of weeks! You truly are some awesome people!
In 2012, I’d like to take it up a notch! (Sorry, Emeril, not trying to take your catch phrase or anything.)
My New Years Resolutions for 2012!
- Better management of time: There aren’t enough hours in one day, to be true. So I need to learn how to organize all of my activities better so that I can do more without stressing. (Such as blog before work!)
- Money management: In order to really market “Vox” and its upcoming sequel, “Aequitas”, I’m going to need to crack down on the way that I spend money and lay out a budget for buying ads and such.
- Read more!: I don’t read enough. In the last couple months, I’ve gotten back into it and would love to get to a point where I can fly through research books while gleaning valuable information from them as well as enjoying genre and literary fiction without taking 6 months to get through a book.
- Write more!: It’s true. I say I write in all of my spare time but more often than not, I’m so tired that I just sleep! Or slip into a vegetative state on my couch, while staring out my window. This fits in with my “time management” resolution as well. I hope to write more short stories and upload them to Kindle next year in addition to finally finishing “Aequitas” and uploading that, too!
- Exercise program: This is about energy! I collapse when I get home from work every night. In the mornings, I never want to get up. At night, I’m so restless I can’t sleep. My solution? Exercise. It will tire me out before bed, invigorate me in the morning, and keep my muscles from feeling like goo.
- Don’t be afraid to try new things!: Yes. I am a homebody. I don’t go out much and yes, I am hesitant when approaching things I’ve never done before. I’d like to try and come out of my shell more this year and do things I’ve never done before! (okay, a bit dramatic, I apologize.)
- Try cooking different recipes!: Here’s a secret: I practically cook the same stuff every week. Its easy and it’s usually cheaper. But its also boring. I’d like to do a new recipe once every two weeks, if I can. And definitely try some international dishes. Any endeavors I take in that area, I’ll post here. And if it’s not too much trouble, I’d love to learn how to bake. Oh yes, some of you know how I excel in crumbling cakes, creating “grunge cakes” (the long-lost, black sheep cousin of the cupcake) and burning cookies. I’ll be working on this.
- Lastly, I’d like to put away some of my resentments, turn the burner down on my anger, and attempt to leave the past in the past. Everyone holds onto unnecessary bad mojo. It’s time I said “Au revior!” to mine.
And I need to figure out how to tame the wild, demon that I live with; Lemon Jelly.
He may look all cute and fuzzy... but...
He’s actually mellowed out quite a bit over the last year. However, he’s still capable of douchey things. Last night, one happened to be leaping across my laptop, while I was holding a mug of tea and making me spill it on the keyboard. He did the same thing with a cupcake I was holding at the beginning of the month when I was having a particularly bad day.
And my time is up for the morning. To one and all, have a Happy New Years!
~KSilva
Inspiration for “Home”
Good morning, folks!
Hoping everyone had a wonderful and safe Christmas! It actually snowed here… quite a bit. I ended up staying at my parent’s house and was without my computer for a full 24 hours… (which almost never happens!) Still, it was a pleasant day unwrapping gifts and spending time with my family. Among many fantastic gifts, I received some new video editing software for my laptop. Hopefully now, I’ll be able to experiment more with making some more professional looking book trailers! I’ll take a look at everything this Thursday when I have more time!
Since I am once again pressed for time this morning, I would just quickly like to thank those people who read “Home” and enjoyed it. The idea for the story had been trapped in my head for several days and that morning I literally dumped it from my noggin onto the blog. I wrote it in an hour, so any mistakes I made I apologize for. I was trying to get ready for work, too!
If any of you wondered what my inspiration was behind this story, I’ll say right now that it was a combination of a couple things. One is a unique book trailer that someone posted for the novel, “Going West” by Maurice Gee. The trailer is a stop-motion animated piece which runs for about one and a half to two minutes. The narrator brings life to Gee’s stunning imagery through the course of the video. You can find that video here.
The second inspiration is a new song released by Puscifer this year (fueling my James Maynard Keenan obsession), which is called “Tumbleweed.” I listened to that song while I wrote “Home”. You can find that song here.
This week, I’ll be posting some interesting factoids about “Vox” and “Aequitas”, specifically where I get my inspiration from while writing those books. I’ll also be posting more writing tips in general!
Til then, enjoy the day!
KSilva
Home, a short story
By metro, the man found himself soaring over the dark city he’d inhabited for nearly a year. The train rumbled as it passed by the silhouettes of abandoned railway cars and the shadows of drunken individuals too far gone to see where they were stumbling to. In the late hours of the night, the only light came from neon yellow streetlamps which lit the streets in strange splotches, highlighting a rubbish bin here and a beat-up stop sign there.
As the metro traveled deeper into the tangles of the city, the man reflected on the night. He reflected on things he wished he could forget. There were images of women varied and yet still hazy, their faces never quite clear enough to his minds eye. There were scenes of bars and brothels, the glasses lining the high varnished counters like posts on a fence and a red glow bathing the room around him. Cards in his hand, but never good ones. Then came that sick crack of self-realization. It had tumbled down on him like bricks and he’d stumbled out of the places where he’d wasted most of his nights away in.
The metro glided high up over the city. The gloomy tenements that housed the city’s poorer families and the darkened doorways, which always housed one or two lonelier individuals. It curved down toward the suburban squalor, a place where the houses stretched on in perfect unison. The front lawns were a blanket of green, even in the night. The communities seemed to vanish like smoke in the air as the metro plunged back down between several high-rises.
Then the city rose up, buildings like children’s building blocks, wielded by men who wished them higher and higher. The man could smell money on these streets, like the ever-present stench of garbage. It reeked here. The people who clumsily made their way through the alleys and backstreets were much like he’d been. Too lost in their own minds to see what was truly around him. Oh, he’d seen the error in his ways eventually. But it had left him hollow. How he’d even been able to board that metro, he wasn’t sure. But he knew it would take him somewhere far from this corruption, if even only for a day. Escape was necessary.
As the city slipped back into the blackness, the forests sprung from the earth. A mixture of conifers and bare limbed trees congregated with a harmony he’d not seen in that city. Beneath the twinkling stars, the woods roamed the hills, a fur coat over the cold terrain that did hardly a thing to keep it warm.
He rode in silence. The other passengers on the car were escaping the city, too. They didn’t want to speak about the terrors they’d left behind. Neither did he.
It wasn’t long until the night began to give way to the day. Pink light burst out from below the distant trees and clawed its way across the sky. Then he saw the snow. It was hard to say when it had first started, but now it was impossible to ignore. It fell across the forest and the ground in sheets. The longer he looked at it, the more the man felt his memories of the city pass away. He was moving somewhere innocent. Somewhere that didn’t need to know about all he’d seen. Somewhere where he could forget about all of the mistakes.
The metro stopped in a tiny station, nearly a quarter of the size of the one he’d been in when he’d boarded. The man summoned a taxi with a quick wave of his hand, the only taxi in the village in fact, and it took him away. They drove by a quiet stretch of streets; the houses donned with lights of every color. In the front yards, snowmen sat contentedly with scarves around their icy shoulders and carrot noses poking into the early morning light. Even the air smelled sweet and spicy and he could imagine a mug of hot buttered rum in his cold fingers before the sun was fully up.
He got off at a little house half way down 4th street. It was much plainer than the ones around him. Candles glowed in the windows and a wreath shook on the door, the wind trying to pull it away. Slinging his bag over his shoulders, the man approached the front door and timidly knocked.
Commotion inside. A dog barked somewhere in the house. Chairs scraped against the old wooden floors and after a moment, the door opened a crack. Then wider.
An older woman, her dimpled cheeks growing red within moments, her blue eyes giving way to a kind of intense delight that he hadn’t seen in over a year. She reached over the threshold and wrapped her tiny arms around his shoulders. She smelled like warm apple pie. Her touch felt so welcome against the cold.
“Welcome home, dear.” she whispered in his ear.
He pulled away to look into her eyes once again. “Mom.”
__________________________________
Merry Christmas, everyone! I won’t be posting a blog post for the next couple days! Everyone have a safe and happy holiday! And thank you so much for supporting me this holiday season once again!
~KSilva
“Home” is copyrighted to Katherine Silva.
VACATION!
Good evening all,
Yes, you read that title correctly. On Wednesday this week, my vacation begins. I’ll be heading out to Upstate New York to spend Thanksgiving with my family and plan to do some serious relaxing while I’m there. But I also plan on working on some new material for the four short stories I’m now working on. What? Am I crazy? Did I just say four? Yes. I did.
All four short stories are completely different from one another so I should be able to at least work on one no matter what kind of mood I’m in! I’ve mentioned a couple of them in earlier blogs so I won’t go back over them. And I want to keep them a surprise!
The only thing that I’m a bit sad about is that my wonderful bud, Lemon Jelly, won’t be able to come with me out there.
Let's face it. There's trouble written all over this face.
No worries, though. He’s in the care of one of my good friends. I know she’ll take very good care of him. Still, it is the longest that I’ve ever been away from him. I worry about him stressing out and potentially doing something like this to my apartment.
Hopefully it won’t look like this…
When I return, I will make sure to blog about my adventures out there as well as update you on the status of ‘Aequitas’ and the short stories.
Until next time…
Happy Thanksgiving and happy writing!
~KSilva
The Kat At Night 