Everyone subscribed to my newsletter will receive the password at month’s end to unlock the mini poster created from the cover of my novella Blood Silver. The poster features gorgeous art by Frank Dicksee, so don’t miss out!
If you are seeing this post after August 28, 2022, you can still get the password.
Just sign up for my newsletter here, and then email me. I’ll reply with the password. (You’ll also receive a free short story: Crossing the Naiad.)
Happy reading, as always!
I had so much fun creating a boxed set in December that I’ve created another. 😀
Caught in Amber, Blood Silver, and Fate’s Door are now available in a Mythic Tales boxed set. The set costs $4 less than buying the books separately, so it’s a good deal, too.
Fantasy mixed with history—bright, ancient, and vivid. Three novels.
When young Fae awakens in a locked and deserted castle, she remembers nothing. Who she is, where she comes from, none of it.
A mythic tale of family and betrayal told with all the twists and moments of sheer joy that J.M. Ney-Grimm brings to epic fantasy.
In a mythical Ireland that never was, mortal villages perch all unknowing beside enchanted knolls. Beneath them dwell the cruel and capricious faie folk.
Tahaern, a faie warrior by birth but not in spirit, eschews his vicious origins. Loving the bright world, he serves a mortal village as healer.
But when the faie declare war upon their neighbors, Tahaern must again take up his sword…
Secrets, like troubles, come in threes. Nerine, a sea nymph of the ancient world, knows too much about both.
When the dawns visions in the Well of Destiny show Nerine’s lover—shipwrecked and drowning—all her renounced yearning for him rises anew.
Somehow—this day, this morning, this time—Nerine must subvert destiny or lose the companion of her heart forever.
Love and coming of age in a mythic Mediterranean where the gods and goddesses of old shape history.
Some days after I gathered bundle covers for review en masse, it occurred to me that I’d ignored an entire category of recent work: the covers for my own books!
In 2017, I gave new covers to nine of my backlist. I released Blood Silver in 2018, and Journey into Grief this summer—for both of which I designed covers. And now, as I prepare to release my first boxed set, I have another freshly created cover.
If we want to be complete regarding cover creation, there’s another bulletin board’s worth. 😀
Clearly I’ve been having too much fun with Photoshop!
For the other two bulletin boards of covers, see:
Covers, and More Covers
A Boatload of Covers
I’m so excited about this!
Somehow the pre-publication tasks for this book felt a little more complex than usual, no doubt because I’ve been trying a few new things. But they are all done now! (Or most of them.)
One of the new things has been the use of an advance review service. I chose Hidden Gems. (Love it that my book is one of the hidden gems they showcase.)
The way the process works is:
1 • Upload the book’s file to the Hidden Gems website—in three different formats: epub, mobi, and pdf—along with some information about the book
2 • Await results as they solicit interest from their reviewers from amongst those who enjoy the book’s genre
3 • Pay the Hidden Gems fee
4 • Following the date when Hidden Gems distributes the book to its reviewers, watch in wonder while reviews accumulate on the book’s Amazon page 😀
The idea is that these reviews give prospective buyers more information on which to judge whether or not the book is something said buyer might like.
As I write this post, Blood Silver has 23 reviews! It’s been a bit of a thrill to watch them appear. And it’s been lovely to read so much praise for one of my books!
Of course, not every Hidden Gems reviewer loved Blood Silver. But a lot of them did. Here’s a sampling from a handful of the reviews:
“…a nice quick little read. Great characters, interesting story line, good pacing, and well written.” —JMD
“…I couldn’t put it down. It reminded me of Le Morte d’Arthur and Mists of Avalon even though it has nothing to do with the King Arthur legend. This author just brought back those feelings…” —Tricia Schiro
“…simple and thought-provoking in a beautiful way. …smart and wise. It’s peaceful and otherworldly. I felt like a new fairy tale had been written and that gave me a lot of joy.” —Ambrose Crotts
“The characters felt real, like they could step out of the pages…” —Stephanie Wachter
“It felt familiar like an old fairy tale, but was also very fresh and new.” —Erin K.
So what’s Blood Silver about?
Faie knight Tahaern loves the bright world of mortals, but the darkness of the faie realm under the knowe relinquishes its denizens but rarely.
To learn more, check out the book’s webpage on Amazon, B&N, iTunes, Kobo, or Books2Read.
Blood Silver currently has the low price of 99 cents especially for its release. After the weekend, this will go up to its normal list price of $3.99.
I hope you’ll take advantage of the deal and immerse yourself in a story of knightly chivalry, faie trickery, and the beguiling beauty of the bright world.
Note: The promotion with its sale price is over now, but many, many of you snapped up a copy for 99 cents. May the story bring you delight! 😀
I have a confession to make about me and research.
Very little of what I delve for ever makes it directly onto the pages of my stories.
Blood Silver is a perfect case in point.
This is my 12th post about Blood Silver. Of those 12 posts, 8 concern swords, armor, and fighting techniques. Given the proportion of posts devoted to the paraphernalia of battle versus those on other topics, you might easily assume that Blood Silver is a war story, with scene after scene transpiring on the field of battle.
But it’s not.
It takes place during a time of war, yes. And the war plays a central role in the challenges my protagonist faces. But out of the 39,300 words that comprise the novella, 3,900 narrate the battle scenes. Roughly 10 percent.
So why do I do all this research? (And why do I write so many blog posts on it?!)
This is why. I become my character while I write his or her story. And I couldn’t thoroughly become Tahaern, a knight, unless I had an equally thorough understanding of the conditions of his life.
Sometimes the research I do for one novel will prove useful for another one that I write later. For example, I did a bunch of research into medicinal herbs when I wrote Troll-magic. And I remembered enough of it that I didn’t need to research it all over again in order to handle Tahaern’s healing skills.
But for his knightly skills, I didn’t know enough. Thus, research!
Now, as to why I blogged about all my research?
Well, I research because I need the knowledge, but I also enjoy learning about new-to-me topics. I generally find the lore I discover to be fascinating, and that was exactly the case with the knightly gear and the knightly fighting skills. Of course I wanted to share all that cool stuff with you!
So, what about plate armor?
I’d found re-enactors, living history buffs, and experimental archeologists to be such great sources for swords and sword fighting that I turned to them again regarding plate armor.
The first video I found prompted more questions than it answered. But having the right questions is very helpful, indeed. Plus the knight portrayed has such cool armor (and the music accompanying his arming video is so dramatic and majestic).
I’m going to share that video with you as an excellent (and short) intro.
Couldn’t you just imagine living in that castle yourself? Don’t you wish you had armor like that? I do, almost.
One of the things the video makes clear is just how many straps plate armor possesses. Each piece is firmly fastened to the appropriate body part, and thus the weight is distributed over the whole body. It does not all hang from the shoulders or rest upon the feet. That’s why those knights had good mobility, even when encased in all that steel.
Which raises the question: how exactly is each piece fastened to the knight’s body? It looked like there was more to it than just buckles.
Historian Mark Griffin reveals the mysteries of “points” or laces.
I loved his arming jacket with its multitude of laces. And I found his remarks about the English knights riding to battle and then dismounting to fight to be most curious. I’m longing to know why the continental knights, who fought from horseback, had such a different style from their English counterparts.
The fact that the knights wore a different style of visor for jousting tournaments than for battle makes so much sense. That’s exactly the sort of thing I love discovering in my research.
Matthew Fields, a member of the Plantagenet Medieval Society, spoke most enlighteningly near the end of the video about his experiences in tournaments. He says that when’s he’s in combat, he does not notice the weight of the armor at all.
Mark Griffn and Matthew Fields answered many of the questions I’d developed, but they also prompted yet more questions. How exactly did all those separate pieces of armor fit together? In what order did a knight put them on?
Fortunately I found a presentation by The Metropolitan Museum of Art that featured a gentleman who is both a re-enactor and an armorer. Now I was really getting down to it. This video delivered the full scoop!
Wasn’t it cool how Jeffrey Wasson had full mobility in his arms? And could scramble up from the prone position? It was helpful hearing all the clanking and rattling produced as he threw mock punches at the air and stepped quickly. So that is what Tahaern and his squires sounded like!
But I still had one more important question.
Both Jeffrey Wasson and Mark Griffin said that a knight donned his armor starting with the feet. But every single example I’d seen showed the knight in question starting with the greave that protected the shin and calf. And they did not put on the sabaton that covered the foot at all. What did that mean?
I understood that the sabaton was often not worn for foot combat. It was really needed when the knight was ahorse, making his feet especially vulnerable to infantry.
But when a knight did put on his sabatons, did he put them on before he put on his greaves? Or after?
Knyght Errant showed me the answer when he decided to time himself getting armed. Just how long does it take a knight to get his plate armor on properly?
And there we have it: another myth dispelled and my question answered!
For more about Blood Silver, see:
Cross Strike, Squinting Strike, and Scalp Strike
The Book Title
The Crooked Strike
The Joust
Which Cover to Choose?
The Strike of Wrath
Rope Climbing and a Cliff
What If the Sword is Wrong?
A Song of Peace
Wielding a Long Sword
Origin of the Story (The State of This Writer)
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Learning martial skills from the past is popular these days.
Re-enactors enjoy it as a hobby. Living history enthusiasts include it as essential to understanding the daily lives of the people of the past, from the times of the ancients through the medieval period and on to the more recent past.
Experimental archeologists understand that there is nothing like re-creating the technologies of the past and using the implements produced by them to generate a thorough understanding of history and the cultures of history.
So there are a lot of people studying the European martial arts (among other things).
The foundations of such study are manuals from the time, such as Flos Duellatorum in Armis by Fiore dei Liberi (an Italian manual) and Fechtbuch by Hans Talhoffer (a German manual).
Naturally the Italian manuals use Italian terms for the various guards and strikes, while the German manuals use German.
Neither language is appropriate for the fantasy world of Blood Silver, so I created my own French-influenced names.
In Blood Silver, the five ‘master’ sword strikes are:
• Coup de Colere (Strike of Wrath or Zornhau)
• Coup Tordu (Crooked Strike or Krumphau)
• Coup Croisé (Cross Strike or Zwerchau)
• Coup Étroit (Squinting Strike or Schielhau)
• Coup de Couronne (Scalp Strike or Scheitelhau)
I’ve described the coup de colere and the coup tordu in earlier posts. In this post, I’ll zip through the remaining three: the coup croisé, the coup étroit, and the coup de couronne.
The cross strike is a horizontal blow, often aimed at one’s opponent’s head. It offsets an incoming strike from your foe at the same time as delivering a strike of your own.
The video immediately below from Laurel City Historical Fencing is short and sweet (just over a minute) and shows it perfectly.
I liked how the instructor started slow and sped up closer to fighting speed. The strike itself moves from an ox guard to another ox guard on the other side, and it can be chained together in a series of cross strikes just as this swordsman demonstrates.
The squinting strike collects an incoming strike from your enemy, sets it aside, and then strikes your foe. It is similar to the cross strike, but vertical rather than horizontal.
Here’s another short, sweet video (from Dreynschlag) showing the strike.
And now I know the correct pronunciation for the German term for the plow guard. Pflug. 😀
For the scalp strike, one raises the sword hilt high while levering the point downward to threaten one’s opponent’s face. In the video below, Aaron Harmon demonstrates succinctly that the strike avoids over committing.
The sound is a little uneven at the very start of the video (another short one), but evens out rapidly.
While I was seeking out videos for each of the three strikes presented here, I stumbled across a sword duel acted out with great panache by the Akademia Szermierzy. I bet they had fun making it.
It includes vignettes from an Italian manual with the Italian terms. (Only fair to give the Italian some air time after all the German.) 😉
The fighting is dramatic and the music is wonderful, so I’ll share it as the close of my sequence of long sword fighting posts.
For more about Blood Silver, see:
Plate Armor, How It Works
The Book Title
The Crooked Strike
The Joust
Which Cover to Choose?
The Strike of Wrath
Rope Climbing and a Cliff
What If the Sword is Wrong?
A Song of Peace
Wielding a Long Sword
Origin of the Story (The State of This Writer)
I loved hearing what everyone had to say about the prospective cover for my novella Blood Silver.
You all helped me see some details that needed adjusting, as well as confirming the choice of the Sunburst version as the right art to use.
Thank you!
In the course of all our discussion, an important question was raised.
Is the title right? The mood of the words does not quite match the light, bright mood of the art. Should it?
I didn’t even begin to know how to answer that question correctly. As I’ve said before, I am no expert on marketing. I’m learning. As an indie, I must learn about marketing, if I want my audience to find my books. But there is far more that I don’t know than there is that I do.
But a lovely bit of good luck came my way.
One of the people weighing on the cover for Blood Silver just happens to be an indie whose marketing knowledge I respect a great deal. So I asked her about my title. And she was most generous in sharing her thoughts with me.
The first thing she explained is that a book cover possesses three “channels.”
1 • The art
2 • The typography (what font is chosen and how the type is placed)
3 • The title (the meaning the words convey)
You could convey the same message with each channel, but if you do you severely limit what you communicate about the book. Generally it’s best to use each channel to communicate different elements of your story.
My kind adviser then proceeded to analyze the message communicated by the Sunburst cover for Blood Silver.
First we have the art, which is a bright fantasy illustration showing a knight and a lady. The subject matter tells us that the story focuses on two people. The bright, glowing treatment of the surrounding leaves indicates that magic is likely involved.
The image is appropriate for either urban fantasy, straight-up fantasy, or fairy-inflected fantasy.
So far, so good. Blood Silver involves the faie and follows the fortunes of a knight and a mortal woman.
Next we have the choice of font and how the title is placed.
The font is Trajan, which indicates epic fantasy. Apparently Trajan is the font to use, if you’re making an epic fantasy film. I did not know this. (See, I told you I was not a marketing expert!) But it’s also the right choice when kingdoms or other big things lie at stake in a book.
Since the events in Blood Silver turn on the conflict between battling kingdoms, Trajan is definitely a good choice.
Regarding placement…this happens to be something that I actually do know something about.
Most thrillers have the author’s name in big—no huge—letters at the top of the cover and the title in slightly smaller letters at the bottom.
Fantasy is usually the reverse: the title sits at the top, while the author byline rests at the bottom.
If the story is urban fantasy or horror, the title may be slanted or vertical or have some other unusual orientation. But for epic fantasy, it will be sedately positioned on the horizontal, centered.
(YA fantasy might have a small title or a flush left or flush right alignment, especially if it needs to convey edginess.)
Now that we have art and typography together, we need to consider not only what they convey separately, but what they communicate together.
In this case, we might guess that the story involves two lovers caught up in a conflict between kingdoms. Blood Silver is not going to be a quiet tale. Quite right.
When I chose Blood Silver as my title, I was thinking of the phrase “blood red,” because there is definitely blood involved in my story.
That’s a fine reference point, but my astute advisor pointed out that it’s also a play on the words “blood money.” And “blood money” makes us think of treachery, cunning, and deception. Which is perfect, because Blood Silver is all about trickery and treachery.
When you put all three channels together, you have the story of two people caught between the violent forces of large events, featuring trickery and great deeds.
If that’s what Blood Silver is about—and it is!—then I’ve got the right art, the right typography, and the right title.
The result?
Blood Silver will keep its title, Blood Silver. 😀
For more about Blood Silver, see:
Plate Armor, How It Works
Cross Strike, Squinting Strike, and Scalp Strike
The Crooked Strike
The Joust
Which Cover to Choose?
The Strike of Wrath
Rope Climbing and a Cliff
What If the Sword is Wrong?
A Song of Peace
Wielding a Long Sword
Origin of the Story (The State of This Writer)
As I mentioned while describing the strike of wrath, I researched long sword fencing in order to have some idea of what my protagonist Tahaern would be doing on the battlefield in my novella Blood Silver,
Just to refresh our memories, here’s a list of the “master strikes” that every longswordsman would have learned and practiced:
• Strike of Wrath (Zornhau)
• Crooked Strike (Krumphau)
• Cross Strike (Zwerchau)
• Squinting Strike (Schielhau)
• Scalp Strike (Scheitelhau)
I’ve created diagrams of the strikes to include in the appendices of my book when it releases, so that readers of the story who want to know more can easily learn a little about the strikes.
But two-dimensional representations of motions that occur in three dimensions are very limited in how well they can convey the reality.
The crooked strike seems particularly complex to render, since the version that starts from an upper guard, like the roof guard, comes down initially, but then arcs around sideways.
It makes a lot more sense in video, so I turn once again to Meyer Class Hammaborg for an excellent demonstration of the strike. The video includes many variations on how the crooked strike can be used, both defensively and on the attack, as well as starting from different guards.
There must be a playground or a park near the grounds of the school for swordsmanship, since I could hear kids calling happily in the background. It made for an interesting contrast to the deadly techniques being shown!
I created French-influenced names for the sword strikes as they are used in my story. Thus the crooked strike becomes the coup tordu in Blood Silver.
For more about Blood Silver, see:
Plate Armor, How It Works
Cross Strike, Squinting Strike, and Scalp Strike
The Book Title
The Joust
Which Cover to Choose?
The Strike of Wrath
Rope Climbing and a Cliff
What If the Sword is Wrong?
A Song of Peace
Wielding a Long Sword
Origin of the Story (The State of This Writer)
Tahaern, the protagonist of Blood Silver, is skilled in combat, both on foot and ahorse.
A number of the battles in my novella transpire on foot, because the terrain is so pocked with holes and knotty tree roots that a horse would fair poorly. In one battle, Tahaern is unhorsed!
I researched long sword fencing (which I found fascinating), but I also needed to know how a knight fought when on horseback.
The first video I found was a great deal of fun. It features Sir Henry Sewell, and wow, does he have an attitude! The re-enactor must have an amusing time roleplaying the pride and arrogance of his character.
I’m not sure how much I learned about the niceties of wielding a lance while charging one’s enemies, but I did gain a better understanding of just how important were the spirit and skill of one’s mount. The horses were indeed beautiful, and the jousting was spectacular.
For those reasons alone I’m gong to share the video from English Heritage with you.
So, did his “theater of the joust” take your breath away? I must confess I watched the video several times over just for the enjoyment of it. 😉
Then I went seeking more information about how one actually fights on horseback. And I found a much more specific video by Schola Gladiatoria. It, too, is entertaining (combining the gruesome with the scholarly), but gave me a lot more of what I needed to know.
Matt Easton demonstrates the techniques with a cavalry sword, but also explains exactly how they apply to lances and why.
Did his description of “the extraction” give you a gruesome shiver? It did to me!
But the information was precisely what I needed in order to understand how Tahaern and his fellow knights would have managed on horseback in battle.
For more about Blood Silver, see:
Plate Armor, How It Works
Cross Strike, Squinting Strike, and Scalp Strike
The Book Title
The Crooked Strike
Which Cover to Choose?
The Strike of Wrath
Rope Climbing and a Cliff
What If the Sword is Wrong?
A Song of Peace
Wielding a Long Sword
Origin of the Story (The State of This Writer)
