Thursday, March 27, 2008

Gone dark...

I know I've gone dark on you guys - so sorry. I'm working my ass off (literally) both at work with multiple business trips, as well as on the manuscript for the urban fantasy, which at the moment has the working title Rowantree. I know, it needs work, so please don't mail me with comments about how "it sux0rz", mmmkay?

It continues to amaze me just how amazingly hard it can be to maintain one's work responsibilities while simultaneously being attentive to one's family and manage to keep enough of the ol' sub-conscious free for creative endeavors. I swear, if I could do nothing but write, my output would be nothing short of amazing, I'm quite sure (knock on wood).

The good news is that I'm practically done with the first 25 chapters (what I'd tentatively slated as book 1 of the final trilogy) and will be sending it out to... ah... the "interested editor" shortly. Wish me luck!

I still have to see how much re-tooling book 2 will require, as I cut into the story VERY deeply three years ago, back when I was trying to shoehorn the entire MS into a single book. I fear that I went way beyond "trimming the fat" and was grating on bone at some point, so a wee bit o' re-writing is certainly required. No worries - I've come up with lots of new ideas since then, both for situations that I want to expand upon as well as things I never imagined when I started the first draft (thank you, Kirin!).

In any case, it should give the editor something to look at and (hopefully) whet his appetite for the rest. A trilogy deal with a NY house would be, in a word, superawesomereallyreallyeffingcool.

Thanks again for your patience while I dig myself out of the creative avalanche I called down upon my own head - I appreciate it.

Back to work!

Monday, March 10, 2008

Book 2 is DONE!

Well... the draft of the manuscript is, anyway. It's now in Juno's hands under the merciless red pen of my editor. Pray she's as gentle with me as with Book 1 - only time will tell.

With that done, I've waded right into the manuscript for my urban fantasy novel. For those that don't know the story, I wrote a huge novel before Blood Magic, which I took a break from to write the Kirin stories. Now that I'm done with Book 2's manuscript, I'm working hard to finish the draft - I have some tentative interest in the story from an editor at another publishing house (not Juno - the book does not have a female protagonist and so does not meet their submissions criteria) and I want to get something into his hands by April or May at the latest. Cross your fingers for me!

As for Kirin's future... who can say? I've set up Book 2's ending to be "sequel friendly" because, let's face it, there are still Kirin stories I'd like to tell. If you agree, and want to read more of them, put Blood Magic into as many hands as you can and let people know the sequel will be out later this year (Sept. is still the target date as far as I know). The main thing (maybe even the only thing) that will motivate Juno to take a chance on a third (or fourth... or more...) volume is good sales. Brutal, I know, but that's "binnis".

Tuesday, March 4, 2008

RIP Gary Gygax

I just heard that today Gary Gygax, one of the co-creators of Dungeons and Dragons, died today after a long period of illness.

Like many fans of fantasy and sci-fi, D&D formed the core of my gamer-geek identity in high school, and is responsible in no small part for my decision to start writing. Whatever storytelling skills I possess were given their genesis via D&D, and the many interactive stories I made up for my gaming group's amusement.

This is a loss for an entire generation of gamers, and my thoughts and deepest sympathies go out to Gary's family during this most difficult time.

Blood Magic Available in E-Book Format!

I just heard from Paula Guran at Juno that they've added Blood Magic as an e-book offering - details can be found HERE. Hopfully this will come as welcome news for the people that seemed to post comments on every single online review I read that said something to the effect that "I'd read it if were out in e-book". If you do, I hope you'll review it and let me know the URL of your article!

Juno has several other titles listed there as well, many (possibly all) of which have preview chapters available on Juno's site. Hopefully, something there will tickle your ffancy.

Nights of Sin: Manuscript DONE!

Well, it's done. Another manuscript in the can. I just have to remove several hundred redundant/inappropriate "that"s, and I can ship this sucker out to Paula. Man alive, do I need a drink...