Fiction and Art by Patty Jansen

Surveys have been sent!
over 1 year ago – Wed, Oct 19, 2022 at 10:31:51 AM

I've just sent out all the surveys for Dragon Soup via Backerkit so have a look in your inbox if you haven't seen yours. If you ordered physical books, I'll need your address. If you ordered digital items, I'll use the email address attached to your pledge unless you tell me otherwise.

If there are any issues at all, please let me know. I can fix everything!

I'll start sending out stuff, including the stretch goals, very soon.

Thanks so much for supporting this project.

Thanks everyone
over 1 year ago – Sun, Oct 09, 2022 at 05:44:24 AM

Thank you all for supporting Dragon Soup. I'm waiting for Kickstarter to process the pledges and have the survey ready to be sent out when they're done.

The books will be sent at the end of the month.

Surveys will be sent through Backerkit.

In case you're reading this and are not a backer, you can still get the book here

The final stretch!
over 1 year ago – Thu, Sep 29, 2022 at 10:23:07 PM

We're in the final hours of the Dragon Soup campaign.

And of course I've been adding stuff in the add-on section. I found a box in my store room (don't ask) with a bunch of books I used to take to cons pre-pandemic and there were a bunch of copies of the Icefire Trilogy in paperback in it. If you're in Australia, I'll sign them for you.

I've also added the paperback for other people, as well as the hardcover. This is a major big brick of a book.

And I've added the Green Dragon as phone case.

We're as yet a bit out from the stretch goal where I get to go on camera to play the flute, not as much as last night when I wrote this, so if you want to see me embarrass myself (ha, I'm not a natural) on camera, ask your friends to join up, or get some extra goodies. I have a pretty unique wooden headjoint for my flute, and I will show it and talk about it on the video.

Here is the phone case:

(available for most models except the Samsung Ultra models, which have too many eyes on the back that would cover the image). If you're wondering about the quality, I got my daughter this design and model for Christmas in 2019 and the case will probably outlast the phone. It still looks good.

 And just because I can and because you might enjoy it, here is a greyhound playing a guitar from Midjourney, with some quick fixes by me. I posted this on Instagram and the greyhound people liked it. I have a few more of these. I might do something with them.

Another series: Dragonspeaker Chronicles
over 1 year ago – Tue, Sep 27, 2022 at 08:33:08 PM

We're in the last days of the campaign!

 I'm getting everything together to start sending out the stretch goals and books.

In the previous update, I told you about the Ghostspeaker Chronicles.

In 2018, I wrote a follow-up series, the Dragonspeaker Chronicles.

After the happy ending of the Ghostspeaker Chronicles, the kingdom again slides into trouble. A single terrible magic accident kills all those at the court, leaving the kingdom in the hands of an inept Regent.

Magic is strictly forbidden (yet it is everywhere), the people are scared, they can't feed their families during a harsh winter, and evil forces conspire to keep it that way.

Nellie was Queen Johanna's maid, but she now works in the palace kitchen, catering to the ridiculous Regent's whims, and keeping her mouth shut so that she won't join the kingdom's army of poor.

But then she finds a magical box that contains a real live dragon. She remembers the box: it used to belong to the young prince whose body was never found.

Nellie might prefer to keep quiet about the discovery. A 50yo maid is not your first choice of hero material. But, having tasted freedom, the dragon has different ideas.

I recently created a volume that contains all three books. The print version is not available in any of the bookstores.

 My next Kickstarter project won't launch until 2023. It will be a big one: the start of the Starfire Trilogy. Until then, you can keep up with my fiction and art via my mailing list or Patreon. I'll be posting preliminary chapters of book 1 on Patreon and you can follow along as I write. I'll also be sending out interesting Kickstarter projects by other writers in my Ebookaroo newsletter. This newsletter does just as the name suggests. It's full of ebooks by independent publishers like myself. There are free books, discounted books, themed book sales, audio books and more, including Kickstarters. You can find out more here.

About the Ghostspeaker Chronicles
over 1 year ago – Thu, Sep 22, 2022 at 07:00:13 PM

Dragon Soup is a lighthearted fantasy, but if you don't mind darker fantasy, I'm going to tell you about another series that has recently become available in two handy collections: the Ghostspeaker Chronicles. There are six books and each collection holds three volumes. These are not small books.

You can get them in the higher tiers of the Kickstarter and as add-ons.

It is the story of Johanna Brouwer, a merchant's daughter. She helps run her father's spice trading business and sees her future as continuing that business.

But the tiny kingdom is in deep trouble. The king's oldest son is unsuited to the throne because he's "not right in the head" and the king's daughter, who was to take over as crown princess, has suddenly died. The king has secretly engaged a necromancer to resurrect her, but after having sunk his fortunes into a church that couldn't help him, the king has no more money. 

He holds a ball to find a wife for his weird, rude, behaviourally challenged son.

Johanna has no interest in the prince, but a chance encounter with the necromancer forces the two to flee the city together, in the company of a maid and a farm girl possessed by demons.

Seeking help from the neighbouring countries was never going to  be easy, but once Johanna understands who the necromancer is, her desperate plight is to escape his clutches.

The kingdom is going to need strong magic to defeat him.

The series is fantasy, but the setting is based on the landscape of northern mainland Europe: the beech forests with little burbling creeks, the sandy highlands with pine trees, birch and heather, which, when overgrazed, turns into sandy deserts. Also, the castles that dotted this landscape, often with extensive gardens.

Here are some photos from that area. All these photos are by me.

Few people would know that this is the area where I grew up, and where we used to roam as kids. The beautiful pond below is where we caught tadpoles. The tadpoles went into the pond in our back yard, where they grew into a large and healthy frog population, much to the annoyance of the neighbours.

A tunnel made of trees. In the book, this is a deeply magical place.

Duke Lothar lives in a castle like this (minus the car LOL).

This is incredibly poor and harsh country, where keeping too many sheep on the heather results in sandy deserts.

It's also full of beautiful clear ponds (most of which are not natural).

And large beech trees.

There are more photos for the series on my website, including my inspiration for Johanna's house. You can find those in the gallery on this page