Category Archives: Writing

Elizabeth Gilbert on Artists & the nature of “Genius”

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This is an interesting TED talk by Elizabeth Gilbert on how society views artists, and how there might be a better way. Not so much a solution as food for thought, but the more I do this writing thing, the more what she says here resonates. I especially like the classical view of “genius” that she cites.

The approach to art and inspiration she discusses at the end is something I hope to achieve at some point. Not there yet, but a worthy goal (and a sanity inducing one, I think).

I may have more thoughts to add when it isn’t on the wrong side of 12 AM; but in the meantime, enjoy.

Ten authors walk into a blog….

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There’s something I should have told you all about a while back….

Over at Staffer’s Book Review, Justin Landon has been hosting something he terms “Debut Authorpalooza.” It’s a series of blog posts by ten debut fantasy/sf authors about what it was like to write their second book. There’ve also been excerpts, and Jason has a great giveaway going on.

Why do I mention it now? Well, because I’m one of the authors contributing over there. In fact, I’m the tenth author. And my post went live today.

But wait, you say. If they’ve been doing this for two week, and you’re the last author, then shouldn’t you have…?

Yeah, I should have. I should have posted about it here when it started, and been posting updates all along. But I haven’t. I’ve had my head down, working & dealing with…stuff. And while that’s all well and good for me, I haven’t been much of a team player.

So, definite bad on me, and apologies to Justin and my fellow authors for not picking up my part of the load on this one.

My own short-comings aside, though, I have been reading the posts, and let me tell you–great stuff. If you have any interest in the process behind the story writing curtain, you can do a lot worse than setting aside some time for this series of posts (and they’re all pretty short, so it’s not even that much time). And they’re not all the same: no choruses of, “OMG, it was so haaaaardddd” or “Oh, but I learned to trust myself, so it’s all shiny!” Yes it was/is hard, and yes, we learned stuff; but you’ll get no canned answers from this crew. It’s all meat, right down to the bone.

So do yourself a favor and wander over to Staffer’s–not because I posted there, but because nine other authors posted and helped me learn a lot about this craft and myself.

So What the @)(%^! is up with “Sworn in Steel”?

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As many (most?) of you have realized by now, “Sworn In Steel”, Book 2 in the TotK series, didn’t come out on June 5, 2012 as advertised on Amazon (or B&N, or…). Still other sites are listing the release date as being in September 2012, or even as far away as December 2025 (this last one seems to be mainly for ebooks, which either hints at one hell of a delay, or one sloooooow download).

So what’s the story?

In a nut shell, I was late handing the book into my publisher. Way late. So late that they took it off the publishing schedule and are only now figuring out where it will fit in. Any date you see on the web is going to be wrong. Furthermore, at this point, I don’t want to even hazard a guess as to the release date, since I don’t want to write a check I can’t cash.

What I CAN tell you is that book is done, and that I am currently engaged in the first round of revisions. This is going to involve cutting huge swaths of words from the book in hopes of making the final product a leaner, meaner read. (What can I say? I went a little nuts… :) I can’t say whether there will be a second round of revisions–neither I nor my editor will know about that until I get the current version beaten into shape. Rest assured, though, that work is being done, and I am making good progress.

All that aside, though, what I really want to do is apologize to all of you. You folks have been more than patient in waiting for word that I’ve been slow in getting out; and what’s more, when some of you have contacted me to ask about the book, you’ve been unfailingly polite and supportive. That means a lot to me, and it hasn’t gone unnoticed, especially in this age of instant gratification. It would have been easy to froth from the other side of a screen, but you all were better than that. You plain rock.

So thank you. And my sincere apologies for the delay, both in terms of Sworn In Steel and in letting you all know what was going on.

And lastly, as you can see I’ve tweaked the site a bit, and even added a more prominent blog. I’m hoping to post more regularly (okay, let’s be honest, I’m hoping to post *at all*) as I work through my revisions. I’m also wanting to do a more serious overhaul of this joint, but that may be a bit further down the line. My time in summer is limited, but I plan to check in at least a couple times a week (and even get the other pages updated at some point…)

Once again, thanks for you patience and your support.

Library Thing give-away and SFX news piece on AT

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Because 30 ARCs GoodReads is clearly not enough, you can also sign up to win one of 30 ARCs of Among Thieves on LibraryThing as well.

You need to scroll down a bit, and, yes, you need to be a member–or sign up as a member–of LibraryThing to have chance of getting and early review copy. The closing date for entry is February 28, which means is you procrastinate on the GoodReads drawing (closes Feb. 21), you’ll still have time over at LT. But you’re not the kind to put things off like that, are you? (Additional note: this drawing is for U.S residents only as well.)

In other news, for those in the U.K., there’s a brief news piece on Among Thieves (and me) in the April 2011 issue of SFX Magazine, page 21. They also plan to do a review of the book in their next issue, hitting news stands in early March. Sorry, nothing on-line yet, but I’ll post links if/when any of it makes the web.