Marla's Back!

A few of you may know that I'm a big Marla Mason fan and I'm very pleased to say that the next in this series of novels by T. A. Pratt featuring the badass sorcerer is going ahead. I came across the first Marla Mason novel Blood Engines, through a legitimate free copy on SCRIBD sponsored by the publisher, and haven't been able to get enough since. The artwork for the covers is awesome and I really love the way Pratt develops his characters. Since having the series dropped by Random House after the Spell Games cliffhanger, Pratt continued the series through reader donations and prize incentives. The next in the series is Grim Tides and will be the third novel Pratt has funded this way. If you're interested you can even try before you buy with a bunch of free stories, including the Grim Tides prequel 'Shark's Teeth'.This series is well worth a read, especially if you like your fantasy urban, and your witches to kick ass. I will be donating this time again (as soon as I get paid) and you can do that here. Pratt gives away prizes of signed books and other delights as well, and you can see my stash from Broken Mirrors here.

 
For more sartorial witt from the wonderfully sarcastic Marla, check out her twitter and keep an eye on http://www.timpratt.org/ for more upates.

I did it!

Source

So I handed my first chapter in for review to the Progress Panel at Uni. I didn't really think about it at the time, but it's a pretty big achievement after a year that's felt like an up-hill hike pretty much from the beginning.


I doesn't matter who you speak to about the PhD process, whatever stage they are at is the hardest. Most of my fellow students are in their second or final year, so I've have had a fair bit of 'but you're only in your first year, you've got it easy' kind of comments. The truth is, this is a tough thing we've all decided to do. We often have contradictory guidance, and sometimes we don't have any.

Sometimes though we get that break through: we made a deadline, we get results, we have that 'eureka' moment when it all falls into place or we find that someone else has written something which supports what we do. Those break throughs, no matter how little, are why we do it and what makes it worth it.