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          The Crystal Lattice
     
     

          by Courtney M. Privett
     

     

         
            Giveaway ends April 19, 2015.
         
         
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The Crystal Lattice

After twelve years, countless editing rounds, two complete rewrites, and a file corruption that ate half of one of my rewrites, The Crystal Lattice has finally flown the nest!

You can find the ebook on Amazon and the paperback on Amazon or Createspace. The paperback will be available through other vendors soon, but I'm going to leave the ebook exclusively on Amazon for a couple months while I swear at the ugly formatting.

This book scares me a little. I was a lot younger when I wrote it so the tone is quite different from my later books. It has its dark moments, but over all it's lighter. The Crystal Lattice is a fantasy adventure and a coming-of-age story about a young man with an elemental soul and the heart of a bard.

So, now I can return to something heavier. I'm casually editing the dark and somewhat-claustrophobic Sand into Glass while writing the first draft of Arrow of Entropy. These two encompass the events on either side of the history of The Crystal Lattice. Sand takes place before Lattice and it's Arden Masiona's rather troublesome backstory. Arrow of Entropy takes place after Lattice, and so far in my head it's a both story of the redemption of at least one previous antagonist and also a love story for the end of the universe. If you ever were curious about Oblivion, you're finally going to meet the Element the rest of the Web fears. All I need to do is write it.

Limbo

I'm in love. I fixed some formatting issues and uploaded the final version, so now it's sitting in publishing limbo.

Drifting and Drafting

I'm drifting on the wave of post-book bliss. I finished the first draft of Sand into Glass this afternoon. It took me two years longer to complete it than I expected, but it turned out I needed to trudge through my own personal abyss to figure out how to drag Arden through his.

This book is unusual and I'm not sure how to categorize it. It's a courtroom drama from the defendant's point of view, but it's also an epic fantasy and a dive into the underground caves of mental illness. I went into this book prepared to dig into my own psyche and toss it out naked for the world to see, and I think that is exactly what I am doing.

Now I wait and let the bats settle for a short time while my mind clears. I need to do some rewrites and flesh out the bonier parts, but the story is there and it is finally out of my head. In the meantime, I have some other projects to attend to.

I'm currently waiting to receive my proof copy of The Crystal Lattice. I decided to switch things up and make Lattice first in the Emergence trilogy even though it is chronologically second. I wanted to start out the trilogy with the lighter book and then dig into the dark. I have some additional copyedits to fix on the proof and I need to make sure the formatting is correct, then hopefully I can hit those little "Publish" buttons and release my oldest and most reclusive baby into the world sometime this month.

I'm also starting to take notes for the final book of the trilogy, which is also the final book in the Malora series. This story has been in my head for a couple years but I needed to write everything else first. I'm going to have fun with this one, and I hope you eventually will, too. You'll finally get to meet the elusive Oblivion. Also, several characters who have been fixtures throughout the series finally get what they deserve, especially Rassa. At least, they get what I think they deserve. Arrow of Entropy is going to be a wild ride and it will mark a very definitive ending for my stories of this world.

Emergence is a loose trilogy and not a continuous storyline. Each of the books is told by a different narrator in three different generations of an interconnected family. Tesji is a fiery bard with a knack for embellishment, a love of alliteration, and a hunger for adventure. Arden is the troubled son of an immortal who finally finds himself in a situation he can't escape from. Zella is a light mage with such severe social anxiety that she prefers to remain in the shadows and observe the world from a distance... which directly leads her to a kindred spirit in the form of an ancient Emergent with a lot to atone for.

I hope you enjoy reading this series as much as I've enjoyed writing it. It won't be long now. The Emergents are nearly ready to come out and play.

Tutorial: Book Planters

I saw these magnetic book boxes at Michael's and knew they had to be turned into bookend planters. The English ivy planter above was the first one I made and it got such an overwhelmingly positive response when I posted it in a craft group that I knew I had to make a couple more so I could photograph the process for a tutorial.

This project is very simple and doesn't take much time. I made both the London and the butterfly book planters while sitting outside waiting for the school bus. 

These are the materials you will need:

• cardboard book-shaped box with a magnetic edge (I found these at Michael's)
• potting soil
• gravel
• small plants
• two storage bags (I used quart freezer bags for the larger box and sandwich bags for the smaller. If you're using a larger box you may need gallon freezer bags)
• clear packing tape
• scissors
• box knife
• small shovel

Pick a small plant or two that will be happy growing in a small container. I put English Ivy in the first planter, which I think will look amazing once it grows in. For this tutorial I chose succulents. These are Blue Elf Sedeveria, Hummel's Sunset Jade, and Firestorm Sedum. Book plants, meet world. World, meet book plants. 

This is one of my book boxes. It has a magnetic strip along one edge to keep it closed. Now we get to transform it from a confusing object of unknown purpose into something pretty and useful.

Take your box knife and carefully score around the top edge of the box.

Cut along your score and removed the panel, leaving a small width on both of the narrow ends.

Cut the zipper edge off the storage bags.

Place one of the bags inside the other, lining up the top edges. The double layer will reinforce the planter pocket and hopefully keep water from leaking through if one of the bag seals fails. 

Tape the bags together around the edges, then nestle the bags into the book. Tape around the top edge, overhanging the tape on the outside of the book to make the top edge water resistant. At this point, you'll probably want to close the book and tape along the top edge of the magnetic side but I left mine open for now to illustrate the next step.

Pour a 1-2 inch layer of gravel into the planter for drainage. Fill the planter most of the rest of the way with potting soil.

Add your plant or plants and fill in around it with potting soil within about 1/4" of the top of the planter.

Fill the last 1/4" of the planter with gravel. In addition to being decorative, this will help with moisture retention and keep gnats from moving in.

All done! Brush off any stray dirt and bring your new little friends inside.

Give them a little water (make sure to water slowly so it doesn't overflow the planter) and set them up on a sunny shelf so they can enjoy the view.

Author's Note - The Crystal Lattice

I never thought this book would meet the eyes of readers, but it turned out my eldest baby has a mind of his own and is determined to use it. The first draft of The Crystal Lattice was written when I was a twenty-one year old college student with too much time on her hands during summer break. It was written on scraps of paper while solo camping in the Ozarks, on napkins during midnight Steak n Shake runs, and eventually on my bulky old desktop PC. It was a disaster. My narrator aimlessly wandered about the wilderness for something like 150 pages before figuring out what he should be doing, and then I couldn't figure out the ending so I gave up and filed it away.

A few years after college I was working a temp job in Kansas and was struck by an epiphany about how to finish the book, which I hadn't thought about in years. I pitched my thoughts to a coworker, who was almost as excited as I was. He ended up being my first reader and the person I tossed ideas at to help solidify them in my head. A few weeks later, the second draft was complete. It was horrible, but we both saw potential in it. I filed it away for a while since I was inspired to write Echoes of Oblivion, then Mayfly Requiem, then Shadows of Absolution.

Twelve years after walking away from the abomination of a first draft, here I am completing it again. It has been completely rewritten twice, edited, reedited, filed away and found again, names have been changed, characters have been dropped, and the heart of the story has been discovered and embraced. A lot has happened in those twelve years - college graduation, jobs, several out-of-state moves, a marriage and three children, diagnoses and illnesses and injuries - but I wanted to preserve Tesji's young voice, a challenge as my thirty-something voice often tried to take over and delete some of immaturity essential to the character.

Those who have already read my other books may be interested to find that The Crystal Lattice is where the Aulors and Web lore originated. The first five Malora books were written well-after this one. Someone told me that my little fable about the fall of Ganebra would make a good story on its own, and that one, simple, possibly drunken comment sparked five books. I still blame this all on you, Jason. To everyone else, thank you for joining me on this millennia-long journey. There are still two books after this one (one on each side chronologically), so I hope I can keep you entertained for just a little bit longer before I bounce on to another world.

Courtney

Good Morning

Good morning, lady.
You'd glare if I called you that.
You're no lady,
Just a woman, a mother, a wife.
Other labels have peeled away
to leave you feeling somewhat hollow.
You let the shower warm up
while you brush your teeth.
Mist settles on your collection
of rusty pink razors
and empty shampoo bottles.
The baby coos at you from her bouncy seat.
Her brother wakes in search of the remote,
and cartoon theme songs echo off the tiles.
Your pajamas come off
and you cringe at your reflection.
All you see is a pile of flaws,
but you shouldn't.
Your thighs do not thunder.
They are the concentrated strength
that lets you run, bike, play.
They are the soft lap
your children seek when they need comfort.
You scratch at your stretch marks.
They are warrior tattoos,
symbols of the trials you survived.
Your stomach is not dough,
it is a patterned pillow
where your children rest their heads.
It was their first home,
and where you first fell in love with them.
Your breasts are not ugly, not ruined.
They nourished your children,
were the remedy to their discomfort,
were why they smiled as they dreamed.
I know you feel lost,
like your old self is gone forever,
but it isn't.
You just need a little time
so be patient, you'll get there,
you'll find your way back to yourself.
You don't need to smile yet,
just breathe.
Your weary face is beautiful.
The baby giggles at you,
her favorite thing in the world,
her entire world.
Lady, magnificent mama,
step into that shower,
and wash your self-loathing away.