Dec 20, 2010

Yule Wish I'd Skipped This Pun

Sorry, yes, couldn't help myself. I'd blame the nog, but I've been nog-free for years and haven't fallen off the sleigh yet.

It's not just nearly the Christmas season, I notice, but it's very nearly almost no longer the Christmas season. Solstice is nipping at my nose, in point of fact. How do these seasons get away from my notice so quickly? Oh, yes, I've been busy, that's right.

Work on book 3 has been coming slowly. Have my new and shiny office mostly set up now, which if nothing else serves as a new and shiny reminder that I should be working on book 3. There is much, in fact, to be done at the moment, and only my day job seems now determined to get in the way - though I note in retrospect, if this were in fact the case, how exactly would I manage to be writing this? (Good question, but kindly do be quiet, inner monologue)

For example, my good friend H. L. Reasby has finished her re-write of her second book, Peret, and I need to sit down and give it a good reading. Matt Delman, managing editor of Flying Pen Press' steampunk imprint, is putting together a Steampunk-inspired Shakespearean anthology (or is that a Shakespeare-inspired Steampunk anthology? The mind reels.) and I have some material to create for it, as well. And if you're a writer and have wanted to write for a Shakespearean/Steampunk anthology, you should, too. Really.

Another anthology is in the works, too, and I need to finish a short story for that one - a prologue to The Morrow Stone. The Morrow Stone, speaking of which, is going through a bit of redevelopment as we get her ready for a second edition printing and re-design. Since Morrow Stone was nominated for Steampunk.com's 2010 Steampunk book of the year and is going to be published by FPP in 2011 - along with Reaper's Flight - there's a lot of little things to be done to get her all dolled up and ready for the ball.

And by the way, please, if you get a moment, swing by Steampunk.com and check out the other nominees, or even take a moment to vote, if you thus fancy a chance to support your local (or not local as the case may be) author. I still can't believe the amazing company I'm with, there. Truly amazing writers. In fact, if you haven't read much steampunk in the past, you really can't go wrong with them.

Cherie Priest in particular is rather awesome. I'm reading Boneshaker very nearly at this precise moment - come on, people. Airships and zombies, all taking place in Victorian Seattle. If it gets any better than this, it's obviously been declared illegal or at least regulated. Which is not to say Scott Westerfeld or Nick Valentino aren't also fantastic, because they are. I actually got to meet Nick briefly at Steamcon 2 this past month - great guy!

And, to top it all off, I'm expecting an entirely new project as well, involving sci fi and curious things I can't even talk about yet. God help us all when that starts up. I've already been doing a great deal of research and prep work on that one, but I'll let you know what it's all about when I can officially announce it. And believe me, you're likely to be pretty dazzled by this one, folks.

That being said, it is as mentioned previously the holiday season, and there's much yet to do before I can feel content to put this year into the archives. Thank you for reading, for your support, and for just being a part of the wondrous internet mosaic. May the new year find you well and prosperous, and may it be filled with bliss and satisfaction.

Much love, all.

Dec 15, 2010

Steampunk Book of the Year

Steampunk.com has announced its nominees for the 2010 Steampunk Book of the Year, and "The Morrow Stone" is in the final five! Very exciting news!

The only real downside is that I feel like there are plenty of other fantastic authors who could just as easily have found their books on this list, and the other 3 authors (Cherie Priest had both her SP books nominated) are just amazing wordsmiths. But, really, it makes me feel quite fine to be counted among them. That whole "everyone's a winner" thing? Oh, yes, indeed.

Feel free to check out the other nominees here - - voting will be going on from now until December 21st: I don't want you to feel obligated to vote (not even for me), but I promise I will sing a song of gratitude for every vote I get. They may be short songs, however. Depends on my allergies.

Today is a little strange. Did something happen? Is this a new weather front passing over us?

It sure feels different.

Cool.

Dec 8, 2010

Tis The Season

Christmas is coming, and word has it that the turkey has put on additional weight from all the autumnal lack of activity. Poor creature, but please don't mention it. Apparently, turkeys can become quite self-conscious about their figures.

Wow. Yes, I'm a bit of an odd duck (second bird reference in as many paragraphs. Hmm.) today, but I can safely say that cold medication might just have everything to do with it. Yesterday found me utterly laid to waste by a combination of cold + remedy. Brutal. All in all, I'm just happy November did not completely destroy me. Still not sure it hasn't.

November was nice in terms of getting stuff done. Domestic tasks were mostly completed, and I even managed to crank out 50,000 + words on Book 3, and have even gone back in and done some rough edits as well. The downside? That only puts me solidly into chapter 10. Of a 25 chapter book.

It's not easy to push through the third book of a trilogy, I'm finding. In books one and two, so many sub plots were left as tantalizing hints of narrative rewards yet to come: "I'll be addressing that in book 2 or book 3," I would say, fully meaning to do so.

I can't do that now, however. If a character is slated to die, they will die - and if their death is to be merely an obscured one, then I still have to resolve it IN THIS BOOK. There's a lot to revisit in this one, plots I've set in motion in the first two volumes. Such as, who is Cousins and why is he here? Why was the wall built and why do prophecies indicate that Rom will bring it down? Where did the Machines go, and why did they leave in the first place? Who are the Sheharid Is'iin? Who is Artifice and why is she killing the other Reapers?

Those are just a few of these, all just laid out from Book 1 and going forward. There were more questions dropped - as many as I believe I answered - in book 2. And yet, as I wade through book 3, I realize that there are some questions that I simply do not yet wish to resolve.

These first three books are most specifically a tale of the central character, the white-haired Rom, and closely outline her and her struggles along the paths of self-discovery and the question of pre-destination: a couple of my own favorite subjects. But no one travels a path alone, and Rom is no exception; she is shadowed in part by Kari the steamsmith and Cousins, the streetwise young lad with aspirations exceeding the norm for the rundown streets of Oldtown.

So even while I follow their individual story arcs as well as Rom's, Rom gets the focus, and they're left to secondaries. They come to small conclusions, but they're never given the same sense of priority as Rom is during these books.

And then there's Favo. He and Mulligan have fast become the fan favorites, which is no surprise as they're my favorites too. I'm already planning on having Favo get his own series of books (whether as prequels or parallel novels I'm not yet telling), and even Cousins is going to have a short story written as a prequel to The Morrow Stone. But there are so many bits and pieces to this world that I love...but I can't yet write about it all.

Some of the tertiary characters - like Force, Memory and Inertia, as well as Marcos and Jontal - are also really interesting to me. The Sheharid's lives all play into the history of Aerthos, so many of them will be tied into the plot and associated revelations in book 3, but I'm finding that they just reveal more of the culture and history that I want to later explore.

These books are starting to envelop me, but I don't yet know that it's a bad thing. Though at this point, maybe it's a bit of a moot issue, since I haven't really gone all full court press on the marketing of it. It's possible that the association with Flying Pen Press will change things - though at the same time, I expect to be fairly busy working with them on their own projects.

I really picked a bad month to get a cold. It's not easy to sit out and wait for health to return.

Talk to you later!