Samhain Publishing Ltd Weblog

Heart of the Sea

I’m thrilled (thrilled, I tell you!) to be part of the Love & Lore anthology — my first print release with Samhain!

Here’s a little “behind the scenes” look at how Love & Lore came into being:

Back in January, Samhain sent out a call for submission to their anniversary anthology with a Celtic theme.

I didn’t pay much attention to it at first. I had another project in the works and didn’t think I had any ideas that would fit. Well, the other project foundered and I was frustrated, looking for a new story to work with. I found the anniversary project call again and trolled through my idea file. I had about two pages of an intro that featured Selkies, but it had never really gone anywhere.

Bang. I was off and running. In a month, I finished the 16K word short story — only a thousand words over the required word count. I thought I was pushing it a little, but I knew if it was accepted, I had plenty of room to move during edits.

Carolan, Gia and I were the only ones who submitted! But we all submitted shorts, as per the original word count requirement. Angela James, the editor of this anthology, gave us a choice. We could either leave the stories as they were and release them as e-books only, or we could lengthen them all to make the required word count for a print release.

Guess which option we chose?

We all jumped at the chance and soon we had our novellas ready to join the Love & Lore anthology. And now here we are!

One more tidbit before I go.

One thing I love doing is playing games in my stories. Little word games, semi-obscure references. If you get them, it makes the story a little brighter, but if you don’t, you never really notice.

In Heart of the Sea, I paid tribute to two of the funniest forces of our time: Monty Python and Calvin & Hobbes.

Here’s the snippet with the Monty Python homage. It helps to lighten a pretty dark time in Ronan’s memory.

Seven years ago everything had been beautiful. He’d had wealth, a thriving shipping company and an unsullied reputation. Now, his family was gone and his friends had abandoned him. Even the ones who believed in his innocence no longer came by.

He felt dirty just thinking about it, so he stripped down the rest of the way and turned on the shower. Ronan stood under the hot stream without moving for a long time before he finally reached for the shampoo.

After the girl died, it was like the Spanish Inquisition showed up. Totally unexpected. Between the police, the IRS, and the paparazzi that disguised themselves as legitimate media, the Burbank name became modern slang for “murdering loser”. His company started hemorrhaging money until he had to sell it off, piece by piece, while it was still worth something.

As for the nod to Calvin & Hobbes, you’ll have to read the story to find it. And if you do, e-mail me at selacarsen@gmail.com. I love to find fellow afficionados!