December 2020 Dispatch
Kyell Gold
November Recap
2020 just keeps on giving, doesn’t it? As ridiculous as November has been, there’s always the faint whiff of “but what if some of this does work to overturn the election?” despite everyone reasonable assuring us that it won’t. I’ll tell you, when the election was finally decided on Saturday, it was really heartwarming to see so many people out cheering and celebrating in the streets (masked, of course). I know that the election didn’t solve all our problems—as one person put it, we’ve put out the fire, but the house is badly damaged and might not be structurally sound anymore, so there’s still work to be done.
I finished the mystery! I’m hoping to get a read-through done soon and then get it off to writing groups so people can tell me how to make it better, and then…we’ll see. Maybe send out some queries to agents again, since I haven’t done that frustrating exercise in several years.
I also got the art for Dude, Where’s My Pack? and I love it. You guys are going to love it too, I’m sure. That book got finished up and sent to FurPlanet and, paws crossed, will be available before Christmas this year.
That and the marketing push for the fourth Calatians book (coming out January 15th!) kind of set me back in my writing. I worked on Price of Thorns a little and came up with a new scene to push things forward to the next place I know it lands, but haven’t had the chance to write much more than that.
Meanwhile, Return From Divalia (over on my Patreon) is wrapping up, probably in the next 2-3 months. I started a poll there to determine what story I’ll write next, and it’s open to the public. So even if you’re not a member, head over to the Patreon and check it out.
My fanfiction writing streams have gone pretty well! I’ve been doing them Tuesdays around noon PDT for 60-90 minutes, and intend to continue them into September. Keep an eye on my Twitter or follow me on picarto.tv (https://picarto.tv/KyellGold) to be notified next time I stream. I’m now working on a Pokemon fanfic with sex in it and I’m having a lot of fun.
Streaming shows: I know a lot of people didn’t love this season of the Great British Baking Show, but I liked it a lot. We’ve started to go back and watch earlier seasons, so I’ll get to see Mel and Sue and Mary Berry for the first time, which I’m pretty excited about.
Two of us are watching the new She-Ra, and while it started out a little slow, it’s really grown on me. We’re in the third season now and liking it a bunch. The characters are working well and the worldbuilding is gaining a lot of steam.
We had watched the first seasons of Ramy and What We Do In The Shadows and enjoyed them both, and are now in the second seasons and enjoying them even more. I think both shows got stronger. Ramy reminds me a lot of Atlanta, with serious themes given levity with ridiculous situations; Shadows is maybe the purest comedy we’re watching at the moment. You could almost call it a traditional sitcom if it weren’t so perfectly atmospheric in its setting and its vampire characters.
Release dates
Love Match (2013-2015) is out! This series has been a ton of fun to work on and I’m really proud of how it came out. E-book is on baddogbooks.com in both ePub and Kindle formats and will be on other retail outlets very soon.
Dude, Where’s My Pack? is currently available for pre-order from FurPlanet, shipping December 15 (just in time for the holidays!). Usual timeline with the e-book as well (on baddogbooks.com first).
The fourth and final Calatians book, The Revolution and the Fox, will come out January 15, 2021 so that we can try to get some reviews up for it. E-books will be available everywhere AND you can pre-order them RIGHT NOW if you want to. It’s currently being serialized on my OTHER Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/timsusman).
Audiobooks: If you don’t have an Audible account yet, check out my new Soundcloud page (https://soundcloud.com/user-710305036-429996600), which has samples and links to all my audiobooks. Those links help me get extra money especially if you use them to sign up for a new account. Savrin has been slowed by the pandemic (having everyone home always leaves less time for recording), but once Love Match 1 is up, we hope to get Titles and Ty Game out as well! The DWMF audiobook has been sent to ACX and should be up soon!
My FREE book of writing advice called Do You Need Help? is on baddogbooks.com right here: https://baddogbooks.com/product/do-you-need-help/
Appearances in 2020
My full list of upcoming appearances is at http://www.kyellgold.com/contact.html, recently updated (or soon to be updated).
Megaplex has been postponed, but I have been told that they would like to keep the same GOH slate into 2021. I don’t have any other plans to attend furry conventions in person until then.
Spotlight: Dude, Where’s My Pack?
Dude, Where’s My Fox? was a neat little one-off story that nonetheless introduced a fun cast and used a setting I’d visited many times in short stories. I didn’t plan for there to be a sequel (if I’d planned this, it would’ve happened sooner than six years later). The idea that Lonnie became part of a poly relationship never left my mind (probably because I’m in one and wanted to write about them more), and so when a few story ideas floated around in my head, I poked at them to see if they’d fit around Lonnie, and lo and behold, they did.
This book comes in at just under 42,000 words, so a little shorter than the first one, and it is a little more slice-of-lifey. I’m writing a lot of other things with urgent plots at the moment (see: Calatians, also Return From Divalia on Patreon) and the more time I spent with this story, the more I wanted it to be a little more cozy than that. These are friends, after all, and I hope that reading the next chapter in Lonnie’s story feels like sitting down with a friend and catching up on their life. Not that there isn’t anything urgent here—there very much is—but it’s less directed than the first one, which was singularly focused on finding a mysterious fox and also on getting over an old boyfriend. DWMP is more about becoming part of a community, and about the way things happen at around the same time and resonate even if you didn’t think they were connected at all.
Excerpt: Been writing a lot of endings lately, which I can’t post here because SPOILERS, so have a little bit from The Price of Thorns about what happens when you turn people into animals.
* * *
Nivvy sat on the bedroll, basically a sack filled with straw, and leaned back against the wall, running a hand over the rough fabric of his robes. “My uncle told me that the only chains on our spirit are the ones we put there ourselves.”
“That doesn’t sound right,” Zein said. “I didn’t ask to be turned into a hawk.”
“No, I know. I don’t think it’s right all the time. People can chain your spirit in the way they treat you, especially if a lot of ‘em do it. But I think what he sort of meant was that somewhere at the core of it, under all the things the world an’ the gods pile onto you, there’s a piece that’s just you, and you need to keep hold of it. Don’t put chains on it. I dunno, I’m still workin’ it out myself.”
“So what are you? Under it all?”
Nivvy shot the hawk a look. “Usually I wait ’til I’ve known someone a whole day before I answer questions about my deep inner spirit.”
“All right, well, I’ll tell you mine, then. I’m an explorer. I explored this whole city and that’s why I know it so well. I love finding new places and learning things. I always have. When I was little I wandered away from my mother so many times she gave up looking for me after a while, because she knew I’d always come back. Until I didn’t, one day.”
“Wait,” Nivvy said. “How old are you?”
“I was fourteen when I got turned into a hawk, and that was five years ago, I guess. I lost track, but I’m pretty sure I’ve been to five Peony Festivals as a hawk. Even as a hawk it’s beautiful. If you’re still here you really should see it. So many flowers all over, and it’s harvest time so there’s food for everyone!”
“All right, all right, I don’t plan to be back this way again, but if I am I’ll keep it in mind. So if you’re an explorer, why not come with us? Not that I’m saying I want you to, mind, but I don’t object if Bella wants it.”
“That’s not a very nice thing to say,” Zein said. “But I told you. If I were human still, then yes, of course, but I’m a talking hawk. I don’t know what the world is like out there for former-humans.”
“Former-humans?”
“That’s what we call ourselves. There’s a dozen of us in Spire and we have meetings sometimes. Usually in Terria’s stable because it’s harder for her to get places. But then sometimes we meet at the river pools because Shanti can’t leave the water, of course, so the meetings have to have one or the other but never both. It’s sad, really. People don’t understand how limiting it is.”
“Okay.” Nivvy leaned back. “I understand.”
“So,” Zein said. “What are you?”
“I’m a thief. Even if nobody but me says I’m allowed to be.”
“I don’t see why you’d ever need anyone’s permission to be a thief.” Zein glanced at the window, where the sky had darkened from mauve to purple and the stars were out. “But I guess the guild makes it easier.”
“They also work with the guard to take care of thieves what don’t register with ‘em. That’s part of the game they play: you want to be a thief anywhere it’s worthwhile being a thief, you got to pay their dues and do the jobs they say.”
“It doesn’t sound very free.”
“Free ain’t the point.” Nivvy thought back to the guild in Copper Port. “And anyway, easy enough to turn down jobs you don’t want. Like I never wanted to steal from people what couldn’t afford it. And I wouldn’t steal for rich people neither.”
“I can’t imagine who other than rich people would pay for stealing,” Zein mused. “Most of the thieves I know stole things for merchants from other merchants, or stole things from nobles, stuff like that. If they worked for the guild, I mean. I knew thieves who just stole for themselves or their family, too. I don’t think any of them got in trouble with the guild but I haven’t talked to most of them in a while, so maybe they did, or maybe they joined up.”
“Well, ay, that’s true.” Nivvy stretched his legs out. “S’pose I should say I wouldn’t steal from someone rich to give to someone richer. I liked working with merchants, people what made their own way, not the spoiled sons of sultans and caliphs. Especially when it was stealin’ from those spoiled sons. They didn’t even miss what I stole some of the time. Though the Emperor’s daughter’s brooch, she missed that for sure.”
“Emperor’s daughter!” Zein turned their full attention on Nivvy. “That sounds like a story.”
“Oh, it is,” he said. He wanted to ask Zein how they’d come to be turned into a hawk, but the talkative hawk hadn’t yet volunteered the information, and Nivvy’s nerves were still raw from the near-exchange of secrets with Bella that afternoon, so he happily launched into the tale of his second job ever.
He told the hawk about being transported to the Tarisch Empire’s Imperial Palace by the Guild Wizard, but had only gotten as far as living there for a week to learn the routines and habits of the palace before the door opened and Bella walked back in.
She looked better, even in the same old clothes, and although it was hard to make out her expression in the dim candlelight, Nivvy thought she actually had a smile on her face. “Well,” she said. “We haven’t much coin left, but that was worth it, I should say.”
“Good.” Nivvy smiled up, whether or not Bella was smiling.
“What were you discussing?” She sat on the opposite bedroll.
“Nivvy was telling me the story of a famous brooch he stole,” Zein said before Nivvy could even open his mouth. “But we hadn’t even gotten to the brooch part yet.”
“Don’t let me interrupt.” Bella lay back on her bedroll, squirming to get comfortable.
“No worry,” Nivvy said. “I’ll tell it another time, innit?”
“Sure.” Zein hopped up to the window. “You’re here all day tomorrow?”
“I think we’ll leave in the morning,” Bella said. “Are you going to guide us to the fire mountain?”
“Ooo, I don’t know. There’s…nothing really there except a Bouli temple. They do like hawks, but not as much as the Apo priests. You don’t really need a guide to get there, either. Just go out the west gate and follow the road for a day and then you’ll see the mountain. I wouldn’t really be worth bringing along.”
“Fine,” Bella said.
“But maybe on your way back you can look for me? I’ll keep an eye out for you at the west gate. Will it take long, what you’re doing there?”
“Shouldn’t,” Nivvy said. “Day at most. But I don’t know as we’ll be coming back this way, will we? Or will we head directly north?”
He glanced to Bella for confirmation and was surprised to see the glower on her face. She half-sat and said, “That reminds me, Zein, I picked up something extra for you if you’ll just come over here.”
Nivvy tracked her hand as it reached for her purse, surprised at the sudden generosity, and then he saw the small blade in her hand and leapt for her, arriving at the same time as the hawk and startling Zein enough that they circled the room and perched on the edge of the bedroll, watching curiously as Nivvy kept Bella’s hand behind her back and pulled a copper coin out of her purse. “Here,” he said, tossing the coin to Zein. “For doing such an excellent job guiding us.”
The hawk caught the coin deftly in their beak and bobbed their head. “Many thanks,” they said.
“Now go on with you.” He held fast, aided by Bella’s reluctance to visibly struggle in front of the hawk. “If we’re not back by the west gate within five days, then it was a great pleasure meeting you and Apo grant our paths will cross again.”
“Apo grant it.” Zein fluffed their feathers, flew to the window, and then took off.
Nivvy released Bella’s hand and sat back on the floor with a huff. The queen turned on him with a glare that would’ve frozen his blood inside him if she’d had the least amount of magic in her. “How dare you?”
“How dare—you were going to kill our guide!”
“Her purpose was served, and I would not have tried to kill her if you hadn’t stupidly told her our plans.”
“Told them—what?” He racked his brain for what he might have said.
“You told her we were heading north.”
Up until this point, Bella had seemed merely eccentric to Nivvy, but this pushed her a little further toward “possibly dangerous.” He shook his head. “Aye, that I did. You know, presumably, how big the land is and how much is north, eh? Might as well have told them nothing at all.”
“I can’t risk anyone having any inkling of my plans. If the rulers are put on alert, my only chance will fail.”
He waved an arm. “So buy their silence! That’s how we do it now. Where do you come from that you can just kill people to keep secrets?” Not that this practice was entirely unknown to Nivvy, but it felt like more the province of stories: the Emperor of Catharni had commissioned a private palace riddled with secret passages and then killed all the architects so only he would know how to navigate them, the story went (and then he got lost in the passages and starved to death because although his people could hear his cries, nobody could find him, that’s how it ended).
“She wasn’t a person. She was an animal.”
“They were an animal that used to be a person,” Nivvy said.
Bella made a “pff” noise. “What’s the point of turning someone into an animal, then? The point is you can kill them if you want to and nobody will care.”
“I don’t know as I want to go to this northern kingdom if that’s how they view former-humans,” Nivvy said, and then remembered the promised two hundred crowns, and it occurred to him that someone who killed with impunity might very well be a queen. “I mean, I don’t think they do that anymore so maybe you should think about that before you go stabbing hawks who only been nice to us.”
She put the knife away, which was a relief because for a moment Nivvy worried she might try to use it on him. “One of my ministers once acted inappropriately toward my daughter. I turned him into a horse and made him work in the fields for a month, and when he was too broken down to work any longer, I had his head cut off and mounted in the third east corridor.”
“Ah...” Nivvy tried to think of what to say to that.
“Of course, then he talked to people and helped that one prince, but I didn’t find out about that until later.”
“Right,” he said. “Well. We don’t do that no more. If an animal talks they’re to be treated as you would treat a person. Poor blighters, I mean, they get a hard enough time without being murdered for no reason.”
“It wasn’t ‘no reason.’” She glared at him again.
“I’ll keep my counsel better from now on,” he promised. Better she be angry at him than at Zein, even though it wasn’t likely they’d see the hawk again.
As they prepared to sleep, Bella said, “If she earns enough money, can she be turned back into a human?”
“No,” Nivvy said, stretched out on his own bedroll.
“Why not?”
“Ah, there’s a whole story there, so I’ll save it for tomorrow’s ride,” he said.
Questions From YOU
If you’ve got a question about my books or my writing—or anything else you want me to talk about—shoot me an email and I’ll answer it here.
@PhilipRibbs on Twitter asks: “How did the serialization of your books through Patreon affect your writing?”
That’s an interesting question! Serialization is definitely a different way to approach writing, so I’ll start with why I thought it would work and how I tried it out with Patreon, and then to the two different models I use now.
When I was still employed at Day Job, I had written a few novels, but they were very much “write when you can,” big chunks some evenings and on weekends and stretches of maybe not writing much in between those. I read, as many of you have, multiple pieces of writing advice saying that it was good to write every day, and so I decided to try writing Shadow of the Father by writing 1,000 words every day. That felt like a manageable goal and, I reasoned, should give me a novel draft in three months.
It also helped that I intended Shadow to be more of an adventure story. One of the things writing in short chunks can do, if you focus your writing in that direction, is keep the story moving along. I resolved that I would end each day excited to write the next day’s text, which would hopefully translate into readers being excited to read it when it finally hit book form. With Volle, and to a lesser extent Pendant of Fortune, I had the problem that I would faff about, letting my characters and readers explore the world without really worrying about driving the story forward too urgently. I hoped that limiting myself to short chunks at a time would help me focus on story.
To an extent, it did. Shadow still has lulls, but I think they’re better paced with the story, and I’m still proud of it as one of the better-plotted stories I’ve written.
The next story I tried to serialize was Camouflage, which was the first time I posted a serialization as I was writing it. I forget whether I tried to keep it to a regular schedule, but I posted each part on FA more or less as I was writing it. And it worked! I got through the book, I liked the book, and a while later it came out in print form, which I wasn’t sure I would want to do with it when I started the project.
So when Patreon rolled around, I felt comfortable promising that I’d serialize a story with weekly installments. I keep the weekly installments between 1500 and 2000 words, which means that in a pinch I can write one in a day (I’ve only had to do that once or twice). At first, with Love Match, I tried to write a month ahead so that I’d always have a buffer, but then a year or two into it, I exhausted the buffer and found that a week ahead was probably enough, and that’s what I’m keeping now. Fridays are “Patreon days,” so every Friday I write the part I’m going to post the week after the next week.
That’s the first way I serialize. The second is to take a book I’ve already written and just post it in chunks—that’s what I’m doing on the other Patreon with the Calatians book, and what I will probably be doing with the next book on that Patreon.
Obviously, that method doesn’t affect the writing very much. But the first method does. Because I’m trying to write weekly, I put hooks at the end of each part wherever I can. With Love Match, this resulted in a few odd constructions in the middle of chapters where I would have a cliffhanger sort of moment immediately followed by its resolution. That doesn’t work as well when there isn’t a week of space between them, so where I caught those, I rewrote to smooth them out. I’ll be doing that with Unfinished Business and Return From Divalia too, as they come up.
The challenge of writing serially like I did with Love Match is keeping the story in your head from week to week while also spending the other days of the week working on other projects. The benefit of it is that when I’m only working on it once a week, I have a whole week in between writing to think about the story and get excited about what’s going to come next, so by the time Friday rolls around I’m ready to dive back in and push the story a little further.
Also, serializing means that a new novel materializes over the course of about a year to a year and a half rather than a few months, but because I’m not thinking about it as a novel project, it’s usually a little surprise when I remember “Oh yeah, I have to edit that one and get art for it and stuff” (see: Unfinished Business).
So I really enjoy having serial stories to work on and will probably continue to do it for the foreseeable future!
Stay safe and wear a mask, y’all.