News 2003

February 3rd, 2003

Lots of good news. First, friends of mine in the know have sent me Romantic Times short list of the nominees for best epic fantasy novel of 2002 -- and Dragon Bones was on it! Cool. Second, my trilogy is now a duology. My editor at Ace read my synopsis for the three books and said -- this sounds like two books. I looked at it, and by gosh she was right. So I revised the proposal (yet again) and rewrote the plot into two books. This time it worked! Ace bought them both -- but the first book is going to be bigger by half a book (and so is the second) so I probably won't get it done until late April or May -- that means my next book won't come out until the second half of 2004. I liked the title Ravensheart -- but since they are going to be bigger books, my editor wants a bigger title, too. She's suggested some I like, but I'm going to get further with the book before I make any firm decisions.

March 23rd, 2003

Not much news -- except that I have something over a month to complete the first manuscript of the new book and I've got the feeling it's going to be a close run race.

June 6th, 2003

Finished with the book at last -- though it still doesn't have a title. It'll be a while before you folks get to see it. This book is the longest yet about 550 manuscript pages. In comparison, Dragon Blood was 450. A bit of trivia for you: although Dragon Blood is a shorter book than Dragon Bones, it is actually a longer story by about 10,000 words. The publisher used a smaller font for Dragon Blood -- part of the magic of print.

The new book is a fantasy set in a world I haven't written about before. One of the reasons that it took me so long to write (almost a year and a half), was that I really was designing a much bigger story. Hopefully the second won't take as long to write. As usual for me, I decided to try something different again. This time I centered the story on a whole family -- although there are really just two central characters. Seraph is a Mage, born one of the mysterious Travelers whose fate it is to wander the world in search of evil to fight. Tier is her husband. Outwardly a farmer who spent his youth as a soldier, Tier is also a Bard and inexplicably holds a type of magic that only Seraph's people should have. Terrible things happen to them, of course. Who would read a book where terrible things didn't happen? I had a lot of fun writing this one -- it's the first book since Masques that I actually had to get up in the middle of the night and write a whole scene so I wouldn't lose it. I hope you enjoy it as much as I am.

This Memorial Day weekend my family accompanied me to Miscon, the only SF convention in Montana (Missoula). It was at a new hotel this year and it was really lovely. The creek that flowed just outside the hotel was really beautiful. I don't know how many people were there this year -- although I'd be surprised if there were more than 200. The writer guests of honor were Samuel R. Delaney and David Gerrold. How did such a small con get those two? Just lucky, I guess. Wow. I think that one of the real perks of being an author is that I get to meet so many other authors. Some of our usual crowd was there: John Dalmas and Jim Glass, both with new books out. The high point of the con for me was a panel that Chip(Delaney) and David did on world building. They talked about Wagner(the musician, not the actor) and changes that Freud made in our understanding of ourselves. I felt like I was back in a college seminar -- it was really fun. I learned a lot, enjoyed myself, and, as usual had a family reunion. My sisters Jeannie and Ginny (say that ten times fast) came up with most of their children. Miscon is one of my favorite conventions, I always have a great time there.

September 17th, 2003

When Demons Walk and Steal the Dragon are available as ebooks from a variety of sources including Amazon. I'm really happy to have them available for people again.

I've officially committed myself to going to InCon (Spokane)in October, OryCon (Portland)in November, and RustyCon (near Seattle) in January. Maybe I just ought to officially have myself committed....

My work on Raven's Shadow is done for a while. The rewrites are in and approved. It only took my editor six days -- which is virtually unheard of in the world of publishing. But, Anne Sowards is a remarkable editor in many ways. I really like the way this book came out. I celebrated my freedom by reading. I reread about a dozen romances including Georgette Heyer's These Old Shades, which is among my favorite books of all time. I also read L. E. Modesitt's Legacies the first book in his new fantasy series -- a very good book.