Blog - Page 2 of 82 - Memoirs of an Imp of the Perverse

Mar

2025

Busy! Busy, Busy!

Time is supposed to keep everything from happening at once, right? If that’s the case, it is HORRIBLE at its job! Today I am busy, busy, busy!!! And a lot of it is fiddly annoying bits that will only have to be done once, but until they’re done, it sucks.

For example? I’ve already finished the quick tasks — sent the taxes off to our accountant, backed up the laptop, and printed things off for the Lord Ruthven Assembly annual meeting on the 21st. I’ve updated the website to reflect the fact that I’ve set up an Itch.io store! Now you will be able to buy ebooks directly from ME!

The store is currently a work in progress — there’s one book available, and that’s because I wanted to have the shop online before I updated the website. I’ll be adding more for the rest of the day, which is the fiddly part — I have to upload each book individually. And I need to edit the covers to fit the size parameters allowed on Itch.io.

Now, there will only be ebooks of the books that I have full control over — the Heir to the Firstborn series, The Chronicles of John Zebedee, Chains of Light, and all of my short stories. Anything that comes through a publisher is something you’ll still have to purchase through one of the big retailers.

I don’t expect to get any words on the page today. But I’m okay with that!

Now Available!

Kidnapped from his home and sold as a slave in Rome, Raven-Prince Lorcan must survive in a world where entertainment is murder, diplomacy is betrayal, and love is a commodity. And where a raven who is only supposed to ever have one mate will somehow find two…

Work in Progress

Tales from the Arena: King of Swords
(Tales from the Arena, book 4)

18184 / 90000 (20.20%)

The Coral Throne
(The Sea Prince, book 2)

19467 / 90000 (21.63%)

Promotions

Smashwords Read an Ebook week started yesterday! My entire catalog is 25% off. And, because of reasons I don’t fully understand, I still have two links. Half the catalog is here, and the other half is here.

(And if you look at my traditionally published books? I have three more pages! Here, here and here. No, I do NOT know why!)

Appearances

This weekend, you can find me in my Morrigan-best attire at the Oviedo Mall Renaissance Festival! And there is a *chance* I will have copies of Raven’s Fall on the table! (It all depends on if the copies come in by Friday.)

Enchanted Knights: Myths and Legends
March 8th, 2025
Oviedo Mall
Oviedo, FL

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ICFA
March 19 – 22nd, 2025
Orlando, FL

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3rd Annual Spring is in the Air
April 13th, 2025
Venetian Center,
Leesburg, FL

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6th Annual Mother’s Day Bazaar
May 10th, 2025
Ormond Beach Elks Lodge
Ormond Beach, FL

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Enchanted Knights: Summer Solstice
June 21st, 2025
Oviedo Mall
Oviedo, FL

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3rd Annual Summer Artisan Market
June 29th, 2025
Brannon Center
New Smyrna Beach, FL

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Smut Lovers: The Conference
September 17th – 21st, 2025
Orlando, FL

Necronomicon
September 26th – 28th, 2025
Tampa, FL

Feb

2025

Blursday

Usually, when I say it’s blursday, I mean that the days are all running together and I don’t know what day it is. Today, though, I know exactly what day it is. It’s the day I get my eyes dilated enough that I see all timelines at once. It’s not a fun experience — my appointment was at 8:15 this morning, and here it is 3:20 in the afternoon and I still can’t see clearly. But things look fine — everything is status quo, so we’re good for another year.

(Why do I do this? Because I am so VERY nearsighted that it’s possible for my retinas to self-destruct with no warning.)

Thankfully, I don’t have much on my plate today. I finished my revision pass on The Sea Prince last night and sent it back to the sensitivity reader, which brings it one step closer to publication. Once I get the all clear from the sensitivity reader, I’ll get the layout done and the cover ordered. I’m looking at a summer release, so that I don’t dilute Raven’s Fall.

The first reviews are starting to come in for Raven’s Fall, and I’ll be honest — I am reading them. I know that it’s not recommended for writers to read their own reviews, but I want to see what people think! And I’m loving that every review so far has called out the accuracy of my research. That makes EVERY bit of web crawling and cross-referencing and finding obscure references worth it! And to my reviewers? You are going to LOVE Raven’s Flight for just that reason! There’s a reference list of healing herbs used in one scene, with the proper names in Latin and Gaelic, cross-referenced from Dioscorides’ De Materia Medica (c. 64CE) and John Cameron’s Gaelic Names of Plants (1883).

Do I overdo it on my research? Possibly. Do I need to go and spend three hours to find a reference on trains from Aachen to Salzburg in February of 1899. in order to find out of there was a direct train, or if they would need to change trains? Possibly not, especially when those three hours of research translated to three lines of text. But my readers are the ones who will know exactly what trains I’m talking about, and will know that I’ve gotten it right. So I owe it to them to get it right from the start. And yes, someone did know the train I was talking about, and did appreciate that the research was correct!

In the case of Raven’s Fall? The areas of research I spent the most time on were on types of gladiators, on Roman weddings, and on Roman baths. Now, no one has yet mentioned the baths in a review, but that was, I think, the largest research topic for me — in what order were the rooms experienced, how were things heated, and what rooms were included. Part of the research was a surprise — actually experiencing a caldarium! (Really, who expects to find a reasonably accurate Roman bath experience on a Disney cruise???) For the record, the baths Lorcan experiences are a combination of the Old Baths at Pompeii and the Baths of Caracalla (with a slight hint of flavor from the caldarium in the Rainforest Room on the Disney Fantasy.)

I am history geek, see me over-research!