15 Minute Fics: Cracking The Creative Whip

In essence, 15 Minute Fics is prompt-based, timed, spontaneous writing. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, I post a prompt - a word, an image, a quote, some lyrics - and as soon as you or anyone who wants to play along sees the prompt, you start writing. You only get fifteen minutes to put words down. The prompt will be posted on the forum and on Twitter. From there, you can do whatever you want. I suggest posting your ficlet in a reply to the original prompt on the forum and/or share it wherever you live on the internet - Twitter (hashtag: #15minfic), Facebook, your blog, etc. I want to help both of us write more often and more freely, and this is my favorite method of doing it.

My Fiction: Short Stories + Free In-Progress Serial

• Sci-fantasy is the name of the game here: a strange mixture of plausible technology, be it steampunk or futuristic, and magic governed by sensible rules and physics--usually. On occasion, you might find hard scifi or high fantasy, but even those aren't taken to such extremes as to be detached from the other end of the believability spectrum. Even my spacers have spirits, and even my magicians create gadgets. Because I can't not share, you're welcome to check out my Short, Random Fiction - all the juicy short stories and excerpts that I've posted publicly. I'm always adding new stuff, so check back frequently.
• I'm also serializing the second draft of my first novel, which falls under the Young Adult category largely because I was my target audience when I wrote it in high school. If you're interested in free science-fantasy fiction with a decidedly epic twist (and a lack of teenage romance), take a gander at The Dark Wars.

Oh, And A Query, Too

Fiendish - 40,000 words of military sci-fantasy, in-progress

On Ryarna, the native rarra have used their only abundant resource - magic generated by the world itself - to build their civilization. The pillar of their success: animetals, beast-shaped machines powered by the strong-willed ghosts of alien creatures. Frontier nations like Kyaro and Yorri rely on animetals as transportation, protection, and co-soldiers in their endless border skirmishes.

Cirri is a jobless dreamer in Kyaro, just north of the contested border; she's got a geek's encyclopedic knowledge of animetal history and a pilot's license, but no animetal of her own. When she discovers fresh tracks outside of town, she leaps at the opportunity to find and tame an unclaimed animetal.

But when Cirri encounters a prototype gone feral, she has only seconds to coax her way into the cockpit before Yorran soldiers strike to reclaim their escaped experiment. Cirri flees towards the capitol with more Yorrans right behind her, now bearing orders to kill to keep their secret out of enemy hands.

While the rival armies mobilize to deal with unidentified raiders attacking towns on both sides of the border, every mile trespassed by Yorran soldiers brings the frontier nations closer to the first full-fledged war in half a century. Now Cirri must prevent international conflict without relinquishing an animetal that could prove key to stymying Yorri's plans to invade her homeland.