elizabeth_oswald

TBK Chapter Fifteen

Kaz froze. How could she possibly know? “I don’t-” he tried. “Why would you-?”

Lianhua leaned forward, amethyst eyes intense. “In many ways,” she said, “I’m nothing special. I come from a respected clan, but we don’t seek power. I’m attractive, but there are many who are far more beautiful. I’m i...

TBK Chapter Fourteen

Once they were past the janjio cavern, it was only a short distance to the next passage down. As Kaz had told the humans, it passed through four levels. It was rare for anyone to use it to reach this level, thanks to the monsters, and the lack of any nearby resources, but the next three were all occupied, and all by ...

TBK Chapter Thirteen

His tail impacted rock, and Kaz yelped again. His eyes snapped open, and he looked around, his hands already going to his injured appendage. Raff stood over him, a bemused expression on his face.

“I told you we were down, Blue. You all right?”

Kaz awkwardly climbed to his feet, his fingers brushing through the...

TBK Chapter Twelve

It took the Broken Knife tribe ten long years to go from the Deep to their final home, near the very top of the mountain. At first, their ascent was slow, and sometimes they spent months in one place, before Oda grew dissatisfied and challenged a deeper tribe. Inevitably, they lost, and were forced to flee to a higher level. ...

The Broken Knife (TBK) Chapter Eleven

When he opened his eyes again, the dragon was staring at him. Its eyes were intent on his face, and there was something different about them. They still spun, but they didn’t draw him in the way they had before, and the expression in them was more thoughtful, somehow.

Kaz groaned, lifting his hand to rub at his eyes, ...

The website is live!

I haven't made a website in *coughmumblecough* years, so I kept this bad boy SIMPLE. What am I missing? Where did I go wrong? I have no idea!

I'm not going to shout the site out for now, but I'd love any feedback you have to offer. Even if it's just "Y'know, enchanting is the wrong adjective for Cuckoo's Dream." (I know...

The Broken Knife - Chapter Ten

Most of the torches were out when Kaz groggily opened his eyes. At first, he wasn’t sure what, exactly, had disturbed him. Then he felt something move against his chest, and he was suddenly wide awake.

A soft, inquisitive chirping sound was followed by a faint crack, exactly like an eggshell breaking. Kaz sat bolt upr...

The Broken Knife - Chapter Nine

There were only fourteen members of the Broken Knife tribe left, including Kaz and Katri. Only three were females, and of those, Katri was clearly the strongest. Bik was next, but since she hadn’t undergone her own spirit hunt yet, she gratefully yielded control of the group to Kam, a female of about the same age as Oda and...

The Broken Knife?

I've been pondering titles, and this one seems good. It should fit this book well, though I don't know what the series should be called yet. The only problem is that this has been used.

1) It's the title of a mystery written in 1941, seems very poorly known and not popular

2) By a 2022 short novel from India with ...

The Broken Knife Chapter Eight

Fuergar feeding tunnels were rough. The rodents didn’t care about even floors and walls, and they would leave thin spots that their small bodies easily scampered over, while heavier creatures, like humans and kobolds, broke right through. There was also no predicting how large the tunnel might be; it just depended ...

The Broken Knife Chapter Seven

The first thing he saw was his mother’s body, lying on a bed of jejing moss, just inside the entrance to the den. She wore her favorite loincloth, the only one left from the time they lived in the Deep, and her fur was neatly groomed. With her eyes closed, and her hands resting at her sides, she could have been sle...

Broken Knife Chapter Six

Kaz smelled them first, and he had to force himself to continue standing tall, proud and confident. Raff’s random chatter actually helped with this, since it distracted Kaz from the scent of three - no, four - strange kobolds. By the time the red glow of the flames illuminated the Palefur males, Kaz had settled his fur and ...

Kaz Chapter Five

Katri’s yip of surprise ended in a grunt, and Kaz ran to the opening in the stone, staring down after her. To his relief, he met his sister’s silver eyes immediately, since she lay, face up, in Raff’s arms. The male quickly dropped her, however, shaking his hands with an expression of distaste. She landed with a yelp, a...

Taking a sick day 🤒

Sorry, folks, I'm sick today. I mean, I've been sick, but I kicked up a fever to go with the rest of the nastiness, and I'm flat out of spoons. Anything I write today won't be good, so please be patient, and I'll make it up as soon as I get well.

Kaz Chapter Four

The Longtooth tribe lived almost directly beneath the Broken Knives, so once they reached the right level - which was strangely devoid of janjio - they then had to return, once again skirting the territory of other kobold tribes. Though the tribes in the depths could span large parts of several levels, their territor...

Kaz Chapter Three

The Longtooth tribe lived two levels deeper in the mountain than the Broken Knife tribe, and the Broken Knives lived what would have been five or six levels below the dragon’s den. Fortunately, at the very top of the mountain, only one or two of the weakest tribes remained, and they didn’t have enough members to guard the...

Kobold Chapter Two

The siblings spun, and Kaz pulled his stone knife from its sheath, stepping in front of his sister. Behind him, he could sense Katri summoning her power, and a glow of flickering light from that direction told him that she was readying an attack. Unfortunately, the light held in Katri’s hand was dwarfed by the one that hove...

The Broken Knife Chapter One

A cold, dry wind swept around the mountain peak, tugging at the sparse leaves of a small, stunted tree stubbornly clinging to a deep but narrow crevice. The tree almost seemed to shiver in response, curling its limbs protectively around the three golden fruits that hung there. Another gust blew, but the tree hung on, as it ha...

The Timeline

I had to (figure out how to) add an Author's note, Other books by, and fix a few images (Joanna's collar was funky, and Sumi needed her whole background removed) so I just finished the Timeline. I'll get you guys a copy of the epub as soon as I'm ready to publish!

I am ready to start writing again, which is alw...

Format schmornat!

I spent all day today figuring out how to use a book formatting app called Atticus. I tried Kindle Create and was... less than impressed. While Atticus wasn't cheap, it'll pay for itself in two or three books, and will be 100% worth it when I realize I accidentally 'corrected' Tess' to 'Test's' in half my book. (Yeah, I'm loo...

Quick note

I have all the short stories edited, though I realized I need to make a timeline so people can see where they each fall. There should be enough context clues in each to figure it out, but timelines make people happy. As do maps. So, I'm going to make maps for the next series, like I should have done for LF. Look! I c...

Biodiversity?

Covers are still hard! There's a lot that goes into getting each piece ready, and I really, really wish I was a proper artist. What do you think?

Lisette, Vexxx, and Zoey

I'm going to have Rouge on the cover, which is what I'll be working on tomorrow. This version of Zoey will be at the beginning of the 'novella'. 

Millie, Ned, Sumi, Wep, and William

I know you've seen William and Nekthadt before, and I may yet go in and try to do something more with them, but really, I'm pretty happy with the way they look. I did touch them both up a little. Everybody else got a whole new image. I think their images will be the headers for their stories, so eventually, they'll all have t...

Surprise!

My plan for the novella is to include images of each of my narrators. (Including Zoey!) I now have the stories in chronological order, and the 'oldest' one is Joanna's, so here she is! This is, of course, how she is at the time of the short story, and how Aspen saw her the first time he opened her book.

2023-08-14 18:14:44 +0000 UTC View Post

Next week

I'll be working on editing and cover creation, as well as a little extra surprise next week. I'll try to post at least a little something every day, though. This book ended up at 102k words, which is a solid novel length, so it'll take a week or so just to edit. Add in cover and formatting, and there's even more time, so it m...

Lisette (end)

Lisette had never been the ‘outdoorsy’ type. She had read books on herbology, botany, agriculture, horticulture, mycology, and a thousand others that referenced how to tell one growing thing from another. In general, however, on those rare occasions when she herself needed a plant for cooking or alchemy, she bought them f...

I need a title!

What should I call the book of short stories/novel? Since it's directly related to LF, I tried to find farming words that went with the others in the series.

• Organic farming
• Biodiversity
• Biodynamics
• Yield
• ???

Other suggestions? I admit, I'm inclined toward <...

Lisette Part 2

They emerged to the sound of screams. Five humans and a dwarf fought two Preying Mantis the size of horses. The mantis blocked attacks with their armored forelimbs while powerful jaws snapped incoming weapons in half, causing a warrior to swear in frustration even as another weapon appeared in his hand.

Lisette nodded. ...

Lisette (Atheneum Dungeon receptionist) Part 1

Lisette slid the borrowing card back into its sleeve in the front of The Alderman’s Guide to Bacon and smiled at Linseed, who was shifting nervously from foot to foot in front of her desk. “Is there anything you’d like to tell me?” she asked, gently.

The gnomeling bit his lip. “Eh, no?”

Liftin...