So last week I finished working on the sewing project I was doing for my friend Yoon Ha Lee, and this week I was supposed to be working on Lioness, a story set in the same world as Cantata and Pavane, but on the other side of the continent, (and with a more adventurous plot — also, a heroine who weaves and makes lace: and it is very challenging to weave and make lace while simultaneously being the protagonist of an adventure story, let me tell you!) I started it five years ago, but it got sidelined by Across a Jade Sea.
Anyway, I haven’t managed to get Lioness going again yet. What happened instead, was that I made twelve new sprites for that video game that’s based on my world. (Okay, so it’s a user-made-content expansion to an open-source computer game. Close enough.) My programmer is ecstatic. He’s been being very patient over this business with me publishing books and therefore needing covers for them, and how that was absorbing all my artistic oomph. But, we had almost finished replacing all the placeholder art, and now it looks like we’ll finally get there! (If I counted correctly, only 9 sprites left to go.)
So, here are some (very tiny) “Westlanders” (mentioned very, very briefly in Cantata and Pavane):
Another thing I did this week was make an ebook version of my pulp sf “romp” Eyes of Infistar, for my publisher to look over and decide if that’s going to be our next release. It’s got strange planets, a mysterious alien artifact, primitive temples, space pirates, plus an empath, an intelligent blue ape, and a political/economic entity that calls itself a galactic empire. And lots of action scenes. I even have a sequel written, although not edited. (Editing the sequel was another project that got pushed aside when Across a Jade Sea attacked me.)
But I have said very decidedly that I am NOT doing any more covers right now, so if he wants to release it this year, he’ll need to find a different cover artist.