Is that not AMAZING? That's what Char did for Book 1's cover. The colored version will be underway eventually - first she's getting the inks for all three covers done. You can watch her draw these things live - check out the Livestream tab up there in the right corner sort of under the Twitter link!

Zoom into this thing and check out the detail. It has a pretty bird butt and another pretty bird butt.

We'll be posting story chapters twice a week for Between Tides and Echoes, so we won't be having Teaser Tuesday or WIP Wednesday for the duration of the schedule change. (Doesn't seem to be much point since there's two updates and all.)

Above this post is the first drawing I ever did of Lotus, back before I even knew his real name was Lyric. I don't have a date for it, but I know I drew it before November 26th, 2004. That's because I know I drew it before the first attempt I made at writing The Peacock King, and I still have that first attempt as a tiny text file, and I just told you the date of its creation (and last modification).

That's right, 2004. Pretty crazy. That's six years ago, isn't it?

Man, I almost feel like I should explain its lateness. ...So I will. I'm going to warn you that this gets to be a long post, since it's how the dang Trilogy started and how it came to be ended. I'll talk about the individual books in later posts.

Dammit Elete why is it the closer to death you are the sexier you are?

Bonus story coming up Friday.

I don't talk about readership a lot in the PK blogs - I like to just let what happens happen. But I'm really happy with what I've been seeing in the last month, with lots of new readers coming in from several places we advertised on... and some coming in from entirely different ways! Friday's Book 3 Chapter 55 hit 250 reads by Monday (today) and I've never seen reads escalate that fast before. The other chapter numbers are comparable, so even if the hit count's a little inflated, it's still impressive. I'm very excited about the new readers and the old readers and all the people who flock around the Peacock King website and make this thing worth doing.

Is that what Peacock King is?

That's what Peacock King is.

I can only imagine what CHAR would have associated with this chapter.

This week for WIP Wednesday: another sneak peek of the PK Prequel, and a preview of this week's upcoming chapter of Book 3.

First, a bit of the Prequel in which Char shows us the Judge's little-known larval stage.

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Arik
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She looks back at me as we walk through the doors of the High Court, almost as if she's seeking permission from me to enter. I don't want her in here. She doesn't belong here, with her smiles and laughter and constant flinging of the Law into the winds. I want Rhia back, not this strange new creature--

My stomach lurches again, and my vision wavers.

"Arik... theoni?" At least she's remembered to properly address me this time. I wave a hand at her, warding off any possible attempts to touch me.

It's Wednesday again, and both Char and I have some awesome excerpts to show you!

First off, Char's writing something that'll interest those of you who've been wondering what this Chethar place is that 'Sy and Luciprochoros keep talking about, and who this guy Emperor Theos is, and why 'Sy especially is so awkward about what happened in his past. Also, there's a lot of odd names that get used for certain individuals in certain very official circumstances - you get to learn the origin of those. Char's giving you answers about all of that, because Char's awesome like that. The whole story will go up after the finale of PK Book 3, but until then we'll feed you some excerpts on Wednesdays. Awesome? Awesome.

(Seriously, I squee about this story every time she writes more of it.)

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Arik
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It's Wednesday again, and so here's some more work in progress.

First up, Perfect Sleep, my novel draft in progress. You can see the first two parts in earlier blog installments - just check the tags at the bottom of the post. This is probably the last time I'll post up a sizeable consecutive chunk of Perfect Sleep, since I will be submitting it to publishers when it's all finished and edited. If you want to read more, you can always ask to be a beta reader for the manuscript. Hit me up in the comments!

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