Posts Tagged "The Whitefire Crossing"

• 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 24, 2011

  Member News

  Courtney Schafer‘s novel The Whitefire Crossing got three great reviews this week (nothing like reading a book with snow on the cover right before Christmas! ).  First, Bastard of Bastard Books reviewed Whitefire on Only the Best Scifi, calling it a “very promising debut which I highly recommend.”  Seak of Only the Best Scifi reviewed the novel on Bastard Books, saying “I really enjoyed myself with this one.”  The third review is from Chris Hawks of SMZb, who says, “This is a really good book.”

  Courtney was interviewed by Greg Wilson and Brad Beaulieu on Speculate! The Podcast for Readers, Writers, and Fans – click here to listen .

  Katy Stauber‘s novel Revolution World is #6 on B&N Book Club’s Best SciFi Releases of 2011 – congrats, Katy!

  Stina Leicht‘s forthcoming novel And Blue Skies From Pain was featured over on A Dribble of Ink – go check out the gorgeous cover!

  Martha Wells‘s new novel The Serpent Sea is now shipping from Amazon, and has started showing up in bookstores – run go get your copy!

  Only one more week left of the Night Bazaar in its current form!  But fear not, the blog’s not going anywhere – coming in 2012, a new slate of Night Shade authors will be taking the stage.

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• Ride That Rollercoaster

  The Year in Review

  Oh you guys, what a year. Way back in January when the Night Bazaar first started up, the August publication date of The Whitefire Crossing felt so far away. Heck, I hadn’t even officially signed the contract (my agent & Night Shade were still hammering out details), I hadn’t yet gotten an edit letter…I kept thinking I’d wake up and find out the whole book deal thing was all a dream, or maybe one of those Candid Camera-style jokes.

  And now here we are, end of December. The book’s been on shelves for months, and I have honest-to-gosh reviews and emails from readers and pictures and everything to prove to myself that yes, I am a published author.

  Yet sometimes it still feels unreal. I’ve had a lot of people ask how publication has made a difference to my writing, and my life. I think they’re hoping that I’ll say that now every day is rainbows and sunshine, that I attack the blank page full of unshakeable confidence in my own prose. (more…)

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• Member News: December 17, 2011

  Member News

  Martha Wells‘s novel The Cloud Roads is FREE on the Kindle right now!  Hurry on over and get your copy before the promotion ends!  And go read N.K. Jemisin’s post on the Book Smugglers for a rousing recommendation of both The Cloud Roads and sequel The Serpent Sea (out Jan 3, so not much longer to wait!).

  Thomas Roche was interviewed about ebooks, the future of reading, and The Panama Laugh at the blog Beyond Black Friday. His interview also appears as part of the Kindle subscription blog Me and My Kindle.

  Brad Beaulieu’s novel The Winds of Khalakovo got a great review from Pat of Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist, and made Pat’s top ten SFF novels of the year – congrats, Brad!

  Courtney Schafer participated in an SF Signal Mind Meld, discussing her favorite SFF books and TV shows of the year.

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• The Black Art of Debut Novel Promotion

  Lessons Learned

  So it’s December and my debut novel The Whitefire Crossing has been out for about 6 months now. Long enough to make me an expert ready to dole out sage advice on the ins and outs of debut authorhood, right? ….Right? HAHAHAHA. Sheesh, if a writing career is like climbing Everest, I haven’t even made it yet through the Khumbu Icefall to Camp I.

  But that said, I know how eager I’ve been to read other authors’ experiences, especially their travels through the foggy no-man’s-land of marketing and promotion. Especially posts like David Louis Edelman’s How I Promoted My Book.  Specific accounts that discuss what they did to promote, how they felt it worked, and what they’d do differently next time.

  In my case, I’ll also discuss the time factor. Because marketing doesn’t have to cost you money, but it does cost you time. Serious time. I’d heard people say as much, and I thought I’d factored that in when I decided what I’d do and what I wouldn’t…but, yeah. Turns out I underestimated the time I’d need to write guest posts, interviews, etc by a good order of magnitude. Honestly, my biggest suggestion to a future debut author is this: if you have a day job and/or other demands on your time besides writing, then don’t plan to do any writing other than marketing/promo stuff for the 3 months surrounding your book’s release. (The month before, the month of, and the month after.) You’ll be much happier and saner if you don’t have to stress over the trade-off between writing your next book and promotional efforts for the current one.   (Yes, yes, I know, what a pipe dream.  But hey, some people can probably plan well enough to pull that off.)

  Okay, on to the list.  Note that here I’m just talking things I did myself, not things Night Shade did for me. (more…)

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• Member News: December 10, 2011

  Member News

  Huge congratulations to Katy Stauber, who sold her second novel Spin the Sky to Night Shade, for publication in fall of 2012!  Spin the Sky is a science fiction reinterpretation of the Odyssey, set in near-Earth orbital colonies.

  Martha Wells has a guest post on the Book Smugglers blog for their Smugglivus Fest, sharing the books she loved in 2011 and the novels she’s looking forward to in 2012.  She also has signed copies of The Cloud Roads and The Serpent Sea entered in the Magick4Terri fundraiser auction.

  Brad Beaulieu had an interview with Justin Landon over at A Staffer’s Musings, where Justin grills Brad about Russian literature and themes and stuff (it’s a long but very interesting interview!).

  Brad, Courtney Schafer, and John Hornor Jacobs also contributed signed novels (and one ARC, in Brad’s case) to Patrick Rothfuss’s Worldbuilders charity fundraiser – see here for details.

  Only three weeks left of the Night Bazaar in its current incarnation!  During our final weeks we’ll be discussing our lessons learned as debut authors and looking back at the year we’ve just had from both professional and personal perspectives.  And tune in tomorrow for a guest post from Howard Andrew Jones, author of The Desert of Souls and editor of Black Gate magazine.

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• Watch Out For What Comes Easy

  Strengths and Weaknesses

  Years ago in a skating lesson when I was struggling with my single loop jump, my coach told me, “The jump you find the hardest to learn will end up as your best and most consistent.” I thought she was on crack. Obviously my best jump would be the flip jump, the one I landed after only a few practice sessions and thought felt most natural. But damn if she didn’t prove to be right: not only did my single loop end up being higher and more powerful than my other single jumps, but the double loop was the first double jump I landed.

  Of course, the reason for it is simple: I spent more time practicing that loop jump than I did all my other jumps combined. It’s easy to get lazy with things that come naturally. You think, hey, I’m doing this just fine, no need to work on making it better. Later, that often comes back to bite you in the ass. (In skating, the ass-biting comes in when you learn your doubles. You can muscle your way through all kinds of poor technique in your single jumps and still land them. Not so, with doubles. The timing and precision required is an order of magnitude higher; in the end, you’ve got to go back and fix every little sloppiness and flaw in the single, and do the jump a million times to reset your muscle memory. I STILL haven’t yet landed my double flip.)

  I suspect writing’s not far different. I remember when I put the initial draft of The Whitefire Crossing through my critique group, there was a constant refrain of “Where is the tension? It’s a smooth read, but nothing is happening.” At first I rationalized to myself that they just didn’t see I was doing a slow build, setting the scene, all that stuff. But after about the fourth chapter or so, I started to realize they were right. And oh boy, were they right. (I cringe when I think of that initial draft now.) After a few false starts, I buckled down, and I ended up working my ass off to improve pace and tension throughout the novel. (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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• Appeal Is Ageless

  YA Fiction

  As a kid, I never cared about age-related book categories. I only wanted to know one thing: is it SF/F? If yes, I read it. I haunted the children’s section and adult SF&F shelves with equal frequency. Honestly, that hasn’t changed now I’m adult. I’ve always felt that if a book is truly good, it’s ageless in appeal. I still read middle-grade and YA fiction just as eagerly as I do adult fiction.

  Sure, the novels might be shorter and/or use simpler language, but it doesn’t mean they can’t touch you just as deeply. It doesn’t even mean they’re not as complex. (I defy anyone to read a book like Alan Garner’s Red Shift and call it simple. I’m still not sure I caught all the layers of meaning, and I know the Tam Lin legend inside and out.) I’ve already talked over at SF Signal about some of the YA SF books that meant the world to me as a kid, and I still enjoy re-reading today; and goodness knows that all-too-short list is only the barest sampling of my favorites.

  Diana Wynne Jones wrote a fascinating essay talking about the hidden assumptions in writing for adults as opposed to writing for children, and how these assumptions can act to shackle the writer’s imagination when writing an adult novel. It reminded me of a quote from Madeleine L’Engle: “You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children.” (more…)

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• Worth More Than Gold

  Giving Thanks

  I was terrified when writing the acknowledgements section for The Whitefire Crossing that I would accidentally leave someone out.  So many people were so generous with support, critique, and advice, and I’m terribly grateful for each and every one of them.  But there are two people in particular I can’t thank enough, because without them, I guarantee you I would not be sitting here now as a published author with The Whitefire Crossing in readers’ hands.

  The first is my good friend Jeanne.  I’ve mentioned before that while I always liked writing, I spent years futzing around with little bits of scenes, never moving beyond a couple pages.  Aside from my issues with perfectionism, I was just too damn scared to try writing an entire book.  (Or maybe too damn lazy.)  I was content to tell myself I’d try it someday.  You know, one of these years.  Maybe after my knees gave out from double jumps and pounding down moguls.

  Jeanne is far braver than I am.  (And she doesn’t even know what the word “lazy” means.  She gets more done in a day than I can manage in a month.)  When she wanted to get better at writing, she asked around among her friends, discovered which of us harbored interest in writing, organized us into a little writing group, and convinced us all to try NaNoWriMo together.  During NaNo, she invited us over to write-ins and provided both cheerful encouragement and the occasional kick in the ass; as result, all of us managed to finish 50K worth of words in that month.

  In my case, NaNo lit a fire inside me that hasn’t gone out to this day.  I discovered I LOVED writing a novel.  Yeah, it’s hard work, but *satisfying* hard work, just like climbing a precipitous peak or hiking a long distance trail.  Without Jeanne, I might never have had the guts to discover that joy. (more…)

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