Posts Tagged "The Tainted City"

• Closing Time

  The Year Ahead

  2011 is coming to a close, and it’s time for me and the other excellent Night Bazaar denizens to shuffle (or bounce) out the exit and leave the stage to a new chorus of voices.  It’s been a wild, wonderful, crazy year, and as I said in last week’s post, I’m eternally grateful to the gang here at the Bazaar for making my experience of first publication that much more fun (and helping to keep me sane).

  So what’s ahead for me in 2012?  First off, there’s the biggie: finishing The Tainted City.  Right now the novel is scheduled for publication in October, which means my deadline is Real Soon Now (pant, pant, augh!).  Some days I think my brain will explode (especially if my son outgrows the need for a nap, which oh god, I pray he does not do until this book is done…).  But for all the stress involved in balancing parenthood, writing, and day job,  I remain ridiculously excited about the story.  I hope those of you who enjoyed Whitefire will enjoy Tainted City just as much!  (Click here to read a descriptive blurb – though only if you’ve already read Whitefire, since the blurb is slightly spoilerific for Whitefire otherwise.)

  What’s next after The Tainted City?  Before I type another word I’m gonna dive headfirst into my TBR pile.  So many good books I’m dying to read, and haven’t yet!  I remember after I finished my big revision of Whitefire, I read something like 2o books in two weeks – and wow, I felt so wonderfully recharged and itching to get back to work on my own story afterward.  (Other non-writing goals for 2012: climb at least one new peak over 14,000 feet, take my son to hike a nice easy Utah slot canyon like Little Wild Horse, ski the fall line of the infamous Spiral Stairs mogul run at Telluride without stopping or falling, and return to competition in figure skating.) (more…)

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• Member News: December 3, 2011

  Member News

  Courtney Schafer has an interview over at the Chimeras blog, in which she talks about engineering vs. writing and gives a sneak peek of The Whitefire Crossing‘s sequel, The Tainted City.  Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist also has a free exclusive excerpt from The Whitefire Crossing, as part of Night Shade Books’ holiday countdown/advent calendar extravaganza.

  Brad Beaulieu‘s book The Winds of Khalakovo has had a busy week. It got two great reviews, one from A Fantasy Reader, and the other from A Staffer’s Musings. Brad’s also going to have an interview posted with Justin Landon at A Staffer’s Musings as a follow-up to that review, so keep an eye out for it.

  Also, Brad and Greg Wilson, over at Speculate, interviewed Maurice Broaddus. They spoke to Maurice about writing balancing life, writing, and editing, how faith intersects with speculative fiction, and pimping airships.

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• Time is the Fire in Which We Burn

  Writing the Second Novel

  Congratulations to Teresa Frohock on the official release of her debut novel Miserere: An Autumn Tale! I was lucky enough to get my hands on an ARC of Miserere, and thoroughly enjoyed the read. Teresa does a wonderful job with her characters – her protagonist Lucian’s struggle to earn redemption for his past mistakes is both poignant and compelling, as are his relationships with the twin sister he’s trying to escape and the lover he betrayed. If you like dark fantasy, you’ve got to read this book – so make sure to comment and tell me the name of a sequel or second novel you enjoyed, for your chance to win a signed copy in this week’s giveaway!

  This week we’re talking about what it’s like to write the second novel – in particular, the one after you’ve got a book deal in hand. In my case, you’d think the second novel should come easy. After all, The Tainted City is a direct sequel to The Whitefire Crossing; the two books essentially form one story. So I’m working with an established world and characters – and what’s more, I had about 100K of Tainted City’s first draft (~3/4 of the story) written before the books sold. (I wrote the draft way back in the summer of 2008, while I was first querying Whitefire.) Mind you, my first drafts are pretty rough, but thanks to that draft, I know the major signposts of Tainted City’s plot, and how the book ends. Piece of cake to whip out the finished product, right? (more…)

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• My Top Three Storykillers

  Pet Peeves in Writing

  My biggest pet peeve in writing? Right now it’s this one chapter of The Tainted City (sequel to The Whitefire Crossing) that I’ve written about five different ways and I’m still not happy with it. But! That’s not the point of this topic, so I shall move on – much as I am with The Tainted City. (Always better to come back later to the offending chapter with fresh eyes, rather than get sucked into a morass of perfectionism and stall out.)

  Much as I love writing, I have to admit it’s got one downside: the more I write, the more picky I get over the books I read for fun. Things that once might’ve inspired a brief annoyed sigh while reading now jar me right out of the story, sometimes irrevocably. A shame, because a forgiving reader is a happier reader, with a much wider pool of potential books to enjoy.

  Pet peeves are funny things: what drives me crazy as a reader might not ping your radar at all. Thank goodness for that – it’s such a relief as an author to know how idiosyncratic questions of taste and style really are. Just because one reader (or agent or editor) doesn’t like your work, it doesn’t mean the next will feel the same.

  And story is king over all: even now I’ve gotten over-sensitive to craft/style, I’ll keep reading past every single one of my pet peeves if the author is a good enough storyteller. (It’s just that the bar for “good enough storyteller” keeps getting higher for me every year, darn it.)

  So what bugs the heck out of me these days when I read books? For what it’s worth, here are the top three things that throw me out of a story: (more…)

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