Just a quick note – I’ve opened a store for sales of the book in both PDF and epub formats on itch.io.
You can find it at taelianabooks.itch.io/the-ballad-of-the-grey-swan.
Category Archives: Writing
Writing updates: new version, new book!
It’s been a while, but I’ve been doing some writing in the background. Let’s get down to business!
Click to continue reading.
The Ballad of the Grey Swan: Updates
Hi there! It’s been a bit.
Firstly, I have a new link page at Books 2 Go, that links to the book in all the stores it’s sold in one easy-to-click page. You can look there if you want to know where it can be found.
The Ballad of the Grey Swan Merch!
I decided to make some merch with a pair of images inspired by The Ballad of the Grey Swan and a good old-fashioned LGBTQIA+ slogan!
All are available through RedBubble.
The announcement: I have published a novel!
Yes! That’s the big announcement for today, the thing that’s been being counted down to in the margin and in my other posts. I have published a novel! My first novel. And I’m excited.
It’s called The Ballad of the Grey Swan. It’s a swashbuckling fantasy novel inspired by things like:
- my love of Dungeons and Dragons and fantasy
- the works of Alexandre Dumas like The Count of Monte Cristo and The Three Musketeers,
- books like War for the Oaks which involve people rising up to be the equal of magical powers
- swashbuckler movies
- my desire to have a fantasy novel that reflects trans people and gay people as just people living their lives (well, as normal as you get in a fantasy world, but you get the idea) until things get weird
- and an image I got in my head and had to get out one way or another.
Character Inspirations: Eiko
This is going to sound funny, but back in the days when I thought I was a straight cis man, my inspiration for Eiko was… clothing.
What Worth – a Juliette d’Aubigniy tale
“D’AUBIGNIY!”
Juliette d’Aubigniy sighed. She had been enjoying a glass of good wine and the attention of a young lady that promised to lead to a very lively evening (especially since the gentleman with the lady was coming around to the idea that he might enjoy giving and receiving the attentions of the two ladies) and then this. Click to continue reading.
The Final Run – A Shadowrun Universe Story
Gregory Darwin – Grondanar – was my first Shadowrun character. Strong and huge, we joked that if they made a prebuilt archetype for him it would be “Troll Bunker”. He carried a huge backpack so that when the team mage inevitably passed out from spellcasting, we could just put him into the rucksack and keep going until he woke up. He also got some bioware to increase his intelligence, took some correspondence courses, got a license for real estate, laundered a lot of his gains as Grondanar to the accounts of Gregory Darwin, and ended up getting into construction.
By current game year of 2080, though, he’s pretty elderly for a troll, and I thought it would be nice to start a campaign by making one of his fondest wishes come true.
Making It Work – a story of The Night
And finally, she rested.
Wrong Turn – an Eiko story
The moment she woke up, Eiko Takashima knew things were weird.
She was lying on something that was hard, warm, and slightly angled. In fact, her feet were hanging off into space. Her face was warm, her eyelids had light shining through them, and her hands felt oddly heavy. She then remembered that she was wearing the BREAQER gauntlets, and then the memory came flooding back.